Orphan
Why are 2 of our better actors (Vera Farmiga & Peter Sarsgaard) slumming in the horror genre? Because it has a surplus of character back story and development. They play a couple whose 3rd child was stillborn, then adopt an older child who turns out to be ridiculously evil. There are great shocks and a consistently creepy atmosphere. The cinematography is first-rate and the ending doesn't pull any punches. B
Everybody's Fine
Frank (Robert De Niro), a recent widower, goes on a cross-country trip to visit his 4 children after they are a no-show at Christmas. The film plods along predictably as the reticent Frank tries in vain to connect with the artsy-fartsy kids. Sam Rockwell is excellent (of course - what a natural), but Kate Beckinsale and Drew Barrymore never form full characters. Something quietly snuck up on me toward the end that made the last 10-15 minutes pretty affecting and effective. I probably related to Frank feeling like he was too tough on his kids, but I'm not sure. De Niro mugs for the camera and remains a shadow of his former self, but he almost has a real character here - for the first time in a long time. B-
Whiteout
Carrie Stetko (Kate Beckinsale) is a US Marshal stationed in Antarctica who has just discovered the continent's first murder. She has to solve the case before a huge storm arrives and the planes are grounded for the long 6-month winter. The depiction of the frozen landscapes and wintry storms is inherently visually interesting, but director Dominic Sena can't get the material to rise above its graphic novel origin nor apply any worthwhile themes to the characters. The frost-bitten finger amputation scene is rough and the ending whimpers. C
Law Abiding CItizen
After the wife and daughter of Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) are murdered by 2 home invaders, the assailants turn on each other and one gets plea bargained down to 10 years by DA Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx). Clyde no likey and decides to brutally torture his family's murderer to death and send the video to Rice's address. Clyde then abuses and distorts the legal system to get revenge on everyone involved with the case. OK for awhile as Clyde's intelligence and maneuvering exposes the arbitrary judicial system we live under. Then, the disastrous ending subverts the film's message and drops Clyde's IQ by at least 50 points. C-
It Might Get Loud
Jimmy Page, The Edge, and Jack White get together to talk about their lives and play a little guitar. The tri-generational approach is all over the place at first, but eventually comes together nicely as each shows their love for the guitar and how it became their life. I don't "get" White, but lots of people think he's a great guitarist. He seems a bit of a pretentious egoist and his music is instantly forgettable. Page and The Edge seem much more down to Earth and less full of themselves. I did sort of root for White toward the end since he seemed hopelessly outmatched, unworthy to be in the same room. He did show sufficient respect for the 2 living legends and his musical intentions sound noble, at least.
Inevitably, the best parts are about the music: whether Page is playing "In My Time of Dying" or "Whole Lotta Love" (with the other 2 staring in awe like little kids) or The Edge going over how he formed his unique sound or Page playing Link Wray's "Rumble" on a record player, giddy as a teenager himself. Also, Page describing how John Bonham developed the drum sound on "When the Levee Breaks" is also a huge highlight for any Zeppelin fanatic. The film closes with the 3 playing and singing The Band's "The Weight". Page's admission that his singing voice is terrible is endearing. You could learn a lot from Mr. Page, Mr. White - and I mean a lot. B+
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Snap Judgments - a Quick Review of 5 Movies
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
DVD and Blu-ray Releases 3/9/10
Boondock Saints II - #
Capitalism: A Love Story - #
Hachi: A Dog's Tale - #
Old Dogs - #
Planet 51 - #
Precious - #
The Stoning of Soraya M - #
Up in the Air - #, *
# - also on Blu-ray
* - Doctor approved
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Oscar Winners
The Hurt Locker took home 6 trophies, including Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, and Editing. Avatar took 3 (Visuals sure, but how does a cartoon get Art Direction and Cinematography?). Crazy Heart, Up, and Precious each took 2. Up in the Air was shut out. I haven't seen Precious, but the writing clip they showed had a large black woman stealing a big bucket of fried chicken and running down the street. UITA's screenplay seems a bit more subtle. Hosts Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin were excellent. Ben Stiller was funny, dressed up as Na'vi. The John Hughes tribute was surprisingly touching. The Neil Patrick Harris number was a bad way to start. James Taylor singing over the celebrity deaths was strange. The horror tribute was very good. Full list of winners after the jump.
Best Picture: The Hurt Locker
Best Director: The Hurt Locker - Kathryn Bigelow
Best Actor: Jeff Bridges - Crazy Heart
Best Actress: Sandra Bullock - The Blind Side
Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz - Inglourious Basterds
Best Supporting Actress: Mo’Nique - Precious
Best Original Screenplay: The Hurt Locker - Mark Boal
Best Adapted Screenplay: Precious - Geoffrey Fletcher
Best Foreign Language: The Secret in Their Eyes (El Secreto de Sus Ojos), Argentina
Best Animated Film: Up - Pete Docter
Best Documentary: The Cove
Best Cinematography: Avatar
Best Art Direction: Avatar
Best Costumes: The Young Victoria
Best Editing: The Hurt Locker
Best Score: Up - Michael Giacchino
Best Song: “The Weary Kind” - Crazy Heart
Best Makeup: Star Trek
Best Visual Effects: Avatar
Best Sound Editing: The Hurt Locker
Best Sound Mixing: The Hurt Locker
Best Animated Short: Logorama
Best Live Action Short: The New Tenants
Best Documentary Short: Music by Prudence
Weekend Box Office: 3/5-3/7/10
Avatar lost some 3D screens and lost its first huge share of the marketplace. Shutter Island holds pretty well again. Alice in Wonderland set a March opening weekend record.
Title/Gross/%Change/Total
1. Alice in Wonderland: 116 mil / (-)
2. Brooklyn's Finest: 13.5 mil / (-)
3. Shutter Island: 13.3 mil / -41% / 96 mil
4. Cop Out: 9.1 mil / -50% / 32.3 mil
5. Avatar: 7.7 mil / -44% / 720 mil
6. The Crazies: 7 mil / -56% / 27.4 mil
7. Percy Jackson: 5.1 mil / -47% / 78 mil
8. Valentine's Day: 4.3 mil / -47% / 106 mil
9. Crazy Heart: 3.4 mil / +36% / 29.6 mil
10. Dear John: 2.9 mil / -41% / 77 mil
Saturday Night Live - 3/6/09
There were 2 moments of greatness during Zach Galifianakis's guest stint last night. One was the opening monologue where ZG reached some kind of Andy Kaufmen-esque out-of-left-field bizarre genius. The other was the last sketch where ZG played a beauty pageant-loving, Bayou homosexual. Also on the good side were ZG and Kristen Wiig as a couple obsessed with bidets and a digital short where ZG showed up on many NBC shows. On the bad side was the Obama cold open, Weekend Update, and the retreads Today Show and Kissing Family. What Up With That? keeps doing exactly the same thing, but it continues to work remarkably well. B+ Available skits here. Unfortunately, the beauty pageant skit is absent.
Continue reading this postOscar Ballot and Predictions
Great 1 page printable ballot here.
Superb sum-up essay of this year's Oscars here.
Predictions (should win and will win) below:
Picture: Avatar (will) / Hurt Locker (should)
Director: Kathryn Bigelow (should and will)
Actor: Jeff Bridges (should and will)
Actress: Sandra Bullock (will) / Carey Mulligan (should)
Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz (should and will)
Supporting Actress: Mo'Nique (should and will)
Original Screenplay: Inglourious Basterds (should and will)
Adapted Screenplay: Up in the Air (will) / In the Loop (should)
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Oscars - Nominations and Reviews
Listed below are the nominations for each category linked to all of our related reviews.
Best picture 
"Avatar"
"The Hurt Locker"
"Precious"
"Up in the Air"
"Inglourious Basterds"
"Up"
"The Blind Side"
"District 9"
"An Education"
"A Serious Man"
Actor
George Clooney, "Up in the Air"
Jeff Bridges, "Crazy Heart"
Colin Firth, "A Single Man"
Morgan Freeman, "Invictus"
Jeremy Renner, "The Hurt Locker"
Actress
Meryl Streep, "Julie & Julia"
Sandra Bullock, "The Blind Side"
Gabourey Sidibe, "Precious: Based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire"
Helen Mirren, "The Last Station"
Carey Mulligan, "An Education"
Supporting actor
Matt Damon, "Invictus"
Woody Harrelson, "The Messenger"
Christopher Plummer, "The Last Station"
Stanley Tucci, "The Lovely Bones"
Christoph Waltz, "Inglourious Basterds"
Supporting actress
Vera Farmiga, "Up in the Air"
Mo'Nique, "Precious"
Anna Kendrick, "Up in the Air"
Penelope Cruz, "Nine"
Maggie Gyllenhaal, "Crazy Heart"
Director
Quentin Tarantino, "Inglourious Basterds"
Kathryn Bigelow, "The Hurt Locker"
James Cameron, "Avatar"
Lee Daniels, "Precious: Based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire"
Jason Reitman, "Up in the Air"
Animated feature
"Up"
"Coraline"
"Fantastic Mr. Fox"
"The Princess and the Frog"
"The Secret of Kells"
Original screenplay
"The Hurt Locker"
"Inglourious Basterds"
"The Messenger"
"A Serious Man"
"Up"
Adapted screenplay
"District 9"
"An Education"
"In the Loop"
"Precious"
"Up in the Air"
Best foreign-language film
"Ajami"
"El Secreto de Sus Ojos"
"The Milk of Sorrow"
"Un Prophete"
"The White Ribbon"
Best film editing
"Avatar"
"District 9"
"The Hurt Locker"
"Inglourious Basterds"
"Precious"
Best documentary feature
"Burma VJ"
"The Cove"
"Food, Inc."
"The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers"
"Which Way Home"
Art direction
"Avatar"
"The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus"
"Nine"
"Sherlock Holmes"
"The Young Victoria
Cinematography
"Avatar"
"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince"
"The Hurt Locker"
"Inglourious Basterds"
"The White Ribbon"
Song of the Day - Meeting in the Aisle
By Radiohead
An instrumental song off the mini-album Airbag, this one is guaranteed to put you in a different mood. I've always felt like it should be part of the background music of my daily life.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Oscar Weekend
Here's hoping for a Hurt Locker or Inglourious Basterds heavy affair - anything but Dances with Smurfs.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Movie Releases - 3/5/10
Alice in Wonderland
I would rather have all doctors forcibly unionized by Obama and work for free than sit through this. I would rather have Medicare reimbursements cut by another 21% than watch another Depp-Burton-Elfman collaboration. Enough is enough. It has to stop. You're not going to trick me by adding Anne Hathaway to the cast. Not this time. Never again.
Brooklyn's Finest
Antoine Fuqua's Training Day holds up well as a solid corrupt cop drama with a superb Denzel performance. Brooklyn's Finest re-teams Fuqua with Ethan Hawke and adds Richard Gere, Don Cheadle, and Wesley Snipes (in all his post-tax-evading glory). Great cast, spotty director, so-so reviews.
Song of the Day - In My Time of Dying
By Led Zeppelin
My favorite Zeppelin song for the past few years. The hard rock band rocking out at their hardest. The religious lyrics seem like an afterthought. Watch the version seen in It Might Get Loud (B+) after the jump.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Song of the Day - Just Got Paid
By ZZ Top
Their best song is at its best during a mid-song instrumental interlude.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Song of the Day - Love Game, Lady Gaga
DLP reader "Bear" requested this on Doc's behalf.
Continue reading this postMonday, March 1, 2010
DVD and Blu-ray Releases 3/2/10
2012 - #
Alice - #
The Beaches of Agnes
Gentlemen Broncos - #
My Neighbor Totoro
Ponyo
The Private Lives of Pippa Lee - #
Where the Wild Things Are
Click below for this week's Blu-ray releases
The 36th Chamber of Shaolin
Clash of the Titans
The Kids are Alright
The Neverending Story
# - also on Blu-ray
Woody's picture is Lawyer watching Where the Wild Things Are or Me anticipating Lawyer's upcoming Lady Gaga post.
Song of the Day - Zombie, The Cranberries
A classic Irish political song that marries a great angelic voice with aggressive guitar work.
Continue reading this postSunday, February 28, 2010
Ghost Writer - B++
In theaters. Rated R, 128 minutes. Trailer.
Shortly after his term as Prime Minister, Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan) sells his memoirs to a US publishing house for $10million and begins work with a ghost writer to complete them. Trouble is, the first 'ghost' is found dead after falling from a ferry and washing up on a desolate beach. So then the publisher selects world weary and solitary Ewan McGregor to complete the memoirs. After a long journey from London to Nantucket, he settles into a deceptively simple writing situation. Click below for more on a near-perfectly realized suspenseful political thriller:
McGregor's character is never named, which fits with his character's disaffectation and general intellectual laziness. His major career accomplishment prior to this job was the ghost writing of a famous musician's autobiography. He is immediately spooked by his predecessor's death and the burgeoning investigation into some of Lang's actions related to terrorism and the United States. The women in Lang's life are his assistant/mistress Amelia (a surprisingly good Kim Catrall) and his intelligent and forceful wife (an excellent Olivia Williams) - they both have chemistry with McGregor and are leary of his role in writing Lang's history. Tom Wilkinson also provides a typically great supporting performance as a pivotal plot point. The film has several layered plot points that slowly reveal and a general mystery that I don't want to come close to ruining.
The film is pleasantly tense the whole time, with each new person appearing onscreen grabbing the audience's attention as a potential player in the mystery. Its not overly political, but had enough mixed in to engage that part of my brain. Most of the time it feels like an old-fashioned mystery/thriller.
Polanski's considerable skills are on full display throughout the film. My favorite directorial flourish was the focus changing when McGregor and Williams are getting to know eachother and the focus goes between them in the same shot several times. There are several funny lines and scenes in the film and it is nice to have a film whose dialogue is aimed at college graduates. The setting is a post-modern house on the edge of the ocean - its isolation is almost a character in the film, and Polanski uses the environment and weather to inform the scenes.
Why the dreaded B++? It is really good, but has some flaws (a couple of draggy spots, a lack of substantial meta-elements, a little hokey at times), so it doesn't deserve the A-.
Saturday Night Live - 2/27/09
Jennifer Lopez hosted and sang last night's SNL, an above average episode. See the available videos here. The recurring ESPN sketches with Will Forte and Jason Sudeikis are the best written (and dirtiest) parts of the show this past year and last night's was no different.Other highlights included a takedown of "We are the World 2" and an "Office Romance" skit where Kenan Thompson commented on some flirtations. Seth Myers continues to be a shill for Obama and the whole episode seemed to accentuate Lopez's Hispanic heritage in a borderline racist way, sometimes good (The Telemundo-Olympics skit), but mostly bad. Fred Armisen's Governor Patterson made another triumphant appearance. Hopefully, it's not the last. B
Continue reading this postWeekend Box Office: 2/26-2/28/10
The bleak Shutter Island has a great hold while 2 R-rated genre films have pretty good openings. Avatar and Crazy Heart hold well for the pre-Oscar weekend.
Title/Gross/%Change/Total
1. Shutter Island: 22mil/-46%/75mil
2. Cop Out: 18.6 mil / (-)
3. The Crazies: 16.5 mil / (-)
4. Avatar: 14 mil / -14% / 707 mil
5. Valentine's Day: 9.5 mil / -43% / 100 mil
6. Percy Jackson: 9.8 mil / -36% / 71 mil
7. Dear John: 9.5 mil / -30% / 73 mil
8. The Wolfman: 4.1 mil / -58% / 57 mil
9. Tooth Fairy: 3.5 mil / -21% / 54 mil
10. Crazy Heart: 2.5 mil / -14% / 25 mil
