Today is Oscar day and the most exciting day for movie fans.  As has become an annual tradition, I’m going to list my Oscar picks below.  I actually make two picks each year, I pick who will win and who should win. I only pick the “major categories” because I can’t really speak authoritatively on the best film editing or sound mixing.

Best Supporting Actor - Who should win: [Update] As was pointed out in comments, Albert Brooks is the clear winner for his performance in Drive.  He wasn’t nominated, but he was fantastic and his lack of a nomination is a black mark on the awards this year.  Who will win: Christopher Plummer for Beginners.

Best Supporting Actress - Who should win: Octavia Spencer for The Help. Who will win: Bérénice Bejo for The Artist.

Best Actor - Who should win: Ryan Gosling for The Ides of March or Drive.  Who will win: Jean Dujardin for The Artist.  (I know that baby goose isn’t even nominated, but he had two outstanding performances this year and should have gotten nominated and won for at least one of them.)

Best Actress - Who should win: Viola Davis for The Help.  Who will win: Viola Davis for The Help. (If Viola Davis doesn’t win, that may end my relationship with The Oscars.  She was far too good not to win.)

Best Original Screenplay - Who should win: Woody Allen for Midnight In Paris.  Who will win: Woody Allen for Midnight In Paris.  (I find it hard to believe that they would give a screenplay award to The Artist which is a silent film.)

Best Adapted Screenplay - Who should win: Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zaillian for Moneyball.  Who will win: Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zaillian for Moneyball.

Best Director - Who should win: Terrence Malick for The Tree of Life.  Who will win: Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist.

Best Picture - Who should win: The Tree of Life.  Who will win: The Artist.

I have a feeling that Harvey Weinstien is going to buy himself another Best Picture award over more deserving competition.  The Tree of Life is a once in a generation type of masterpiece and deserves far more recognition than it has received.  We shall see in a few hours how right I am.

I really need to try to post here more frequently than once a year.  My last post was my 2011 Oscar picks nearly a year ago.

It’s getting to be my prime movie watching season with the Oscars coming up.  I’m trying to watch the films up for the major awards but I took a break tonight to watch a movie I’ve seen on a lot of top ten lists from last year but didn’t really get any nominations.  The movie I chose was Drive and boy did I make a good choice.

I live in the Detroit area and my favorite local theater made the national news last year because a woman sued the theater because Drive was nothing like The Fast and the Furious franchise, even though it was marketed that way.  She couldn’t be more right that the only thing the  F&F movies and Drive have in common is that the actors drive cars during the movie.  I believe she is the only one in the world that sees that as a downside for Drive.

Drive is beautiful, thrilling, stylish, and also disturbing on some levels.  It’s brilliantly acted with outstanding performances from all of the lead actors.  Ryan Gosling is becoming practically automatic in turning in an outstanding performance in each and every film he’s in, and Drive is no exception.  He manages to bring a level of nuance and subtlety to this role that most actors would sell their souls to have.  He manages to be menacing without having to raise his voice, compassionate and loving without being mushy, and bordering on psychotic while remaining completely calm.

The supporting roles filled by Albert Brooks, Bryan Cranston, Carey Mulligan, and Ron Pearlman are engaging and often times surprising.  Albert Brooks especially shines in a role that is far, far different from anything he has done before.  Gone is the crotchety, middle aged, overly analytical type that Brooks normally plays.  In it’s place is a cold-blooded thug and murderer that shows no mercy even to friends.

One of the main areas that jump out immediately is the style of the film.  Drive manages to pay tribute to an 80s style without embracing the inherent “cheesy-ness” that so often comes along with it.  The titles are a hot pink script that would be just as fitting in a film from 1987 as they would in this one from 2011.  The music is all modern, but still heavily influenced by the 80s style.  Gosling’s wardrobe looks like something that Johnny Lawrence would have worn in The Karate Kid.  Drive manages to give us flashes of 80s awesomeness without going too far and ruining it.

The story line begins simply, but then continues to add layer after layer until everything collapses in on itself.  That is not a criticism of the writing, but exactly the opposite.  What begins as a simple story of a guy who is the Michael Jordan of get away drivers turns much, much darker when he tries to help his neighbor and her husband escape the threats of a local tough guy thug.  Eventually “the driver” (his name is never given in the movie) leaves a path of carnage in his wake as he tries to free himself from the trap he fell into.

This is one film that deserves a lot more credit that it was given.  Drive deserved much more than the one Oscar nomination it received for sound editing.  Albert Brooks certainly deserved recognition, and Ryan Gosling would likely have been nominated if the field were not so crowded this year with standout performances.

Drive is definitely worth seeing, and probably seeing several times.  If you rent it, rent it on Blu-ray.  But why rent it when you can buy it?  You won’t be sorry.

As I sit here listening to Tom Waits (who I love as both a singer and actor), I realize that I am a failure at being a regular blogger.  My brother and I had intended to write on this frequently as one of the things we love to do best is talk incessantly about movies.  I could categorize our efforts as an epic fail, but I’m about to change all that.  I’m bringing us back!

Tonight, I will be working on my review of the Oscar nominations as well as reactions to the movies I have seen.  Blurbs, if you will.  I’m a fan of conversation, especially about film, so feel free to ask questions.  If I don’t post in the next few days, bug me and tell me that I will be a failure…that’s always good motivation for me.

“This is it…don’t get scared now.” - Home Alone

Well hello there!  It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted anything here.  I wish I had a good excuse other than laziness and forgetfulness, but those are really the reasons.

Today is Oscar day and the most exciting day for movie fans.  I’m going to list my Oscar picks below.  I actually make two picks each year, I pick who will win and who should win.  Luckily for me, I think that my picks for several of the categories are the same.  I only pick the “major categories” because I can’t really speak authoritatively on the best film editing or sound mixing.  Okay, here we go!

Best Supporting Actor - Who should win: Christian Bale for The Fighter.  Who will win: Christian Bale for The Fighter.

Best Supporting Actress - Who should win: Hailee Steinfeld for True Grit. Who will win: Melissa Leo for The Fighter.

Best Actor - Who should win: Jesse Eisenberg for The Social Network.  Who will win: Colin Firth for The King’s Speech.  (It should be noted that I never had the chance to see The King’s Speech.  I have a soft spot for Jesse Eisenberg’s performance in The Social Network which was subtly brilliant.)

Best Actress - Who should win: Jennifer Lawrence for Winter’s Bone.  Who will win: Natalie Portman for Black Swan.

Best Animated Feature - Who should win: Toy Story 3.  Who will win: Toy Story 3.

Best Documentary Feature - Who should win: Exit Through the Gift Shop.  Who will win: Inside Job.  (I really hope that Exit Through the Gift Shop wins so we can see what Banksy will do to accept the award.  Banksy never shows his face in public.)

Best Original Screenplay - Who should win: Christopher Nolan for Inception.  Who will win: Christopher Nolan for Inception.

Best Adapted Screenplay - Who should win: Aaron Sorkin for The Social Network.  Who will win: Aaron Sorkin for The Social Network.

Best Director - Who should win: David Fincher for The Social Network.  Who will win: David Fincher for The Social Network.

Best Picture - Who should win: The Social Network.  Who will win: The Social Network.

I really have no idea what’s going to happen tonight. After the Golden Globes I thought that The Social Network was a lock to take the major awards.  I’m still hopeful that it will win Best Picture, but it would be no surprise if The King’s Speech wins. Other categories I’m hopeful of is Trent Reznor winning for Best Original Score for The Social Network.  The score of that movie was absolutely brilliant and really enhanced each scene.

If you want to follow along with my Oscar reactions, I’ll be live-tweeting the Oscars at twitter.com/OnlyPhilCares so check that out if you are interested.

It has been entirely too long since I have been to the movies. The last movie I reviewed was Inception because that was the last movie I actually saw in a theater. It’s hard to get away to the movies when you have two small children and a limited pool of available babysitters.  I vaguely remember these things called “dates” from before we had children, but it seems like it’s virtually impossible for us to get away for an evening to watch a movie.

I’ve been saying that I wanted to go see The Social Network for weeks now, but there hasn’t been a time when my wife and I could get away to see it.  We were talking about the upcoming release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows a few days ago and I lamented that I wouldn’t be able to see The Social Network before the latest installment of my favorite movie franchise.  My wife told me I should go see it as long as I didn’t mind going alone.  I did not mind and found myself sitting alone in a theater earlier today waiting to see one of my most anticipated movies of the fall.

For those who haven’t combed the archives of this fine blog, let me preface my review by sharing that I LOVE both David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin.  Fincher is by far my favorite director and Sorkin is my favorite screenwriter (although mostly for his work on television).  When I first heard that they were teaming up to make a movie about the origins of Facebook I believe my reaction involved girlish squealing and a happy dance.  (Admittedly, not my finest hour.)  Then I heard that Trent Reznor was scoring the music and saw the first trailer and my already lofty expectations went to a Return-of-the-King-esque level.  (I was so excited for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King when it came out I saw it three times in 24 hours.)

Not to sound like an obnoxious film school student, but one of the fundamentals of good movie-making is pacing.  Pacing is the speed by which a movie progresses.  If a movie’s pacing is too slow, people will get bored and lose interest regardless of how good a script you have or how beautiful the film work is.  The pacing for The Social Network is the movie equivalent of an Indy car race.  The movie speeds by at 200 miles an hour and you have to really focus to keep up with what is going on.  In the very first scene I was blown away by the speed of the dialog between the characters.  Jesse Eisenberg delivered his lines at a blistering speed that could only be matched by Hank Green of the vlogbrothers or the micro machines guy.

One of the reasons I am a huge fan of David Fincher is the way he smoothly transitions from scene to scene in so many of his movies.  Take the movie Panic Room where he transitions from room to room and floor to floor of the house by having the camera travel through the walls and floors so it appears as if it’s one continual shot.  The Social Network lacks many of these slick transitions because there simply isn’t time.  It’s a two hour and forty five minute movie that is packed into two hours and one minute.  Every scene shifts quickly into the next and the movie never takes a minute to breathe until the credits roll.  They even manage to make writing web code seem exciting, which anyone who has done it will tell you that it’s not.

The interesting thing is that the movie lacks a true protagonist.  There is not a character that you find yourself rooting for and are happy to see them succeed.  There are sympathetic characters, but not one that could be considered the hero of the story.  Somehow, this actually works.  Maybe it’s due to the improbability of people who are quite socially awkward developing the largest combined social experience in the history of the world.  Who knows. 

Much has been written about the accuracy of the storyline and Mark Zuckerberg has been very proactive in rebutting many of the points of the story as told in the movie.  I won’t speculate what is historically accurate, because the people who do know don’t seem inclined to tell the whole truth.  What I will say is that the film is carried on the shoulders of Jesse Eisenberg.  His portrayal of the singularly focused, anti-social, and seemingly friendless Zuckerberg is brilliant even if it is not accurate.  While Eisenberg carries the movie, Andrew Garfield steals the whole show in his portrayal of Zuckerberg’s best friend and business partner Eduardo Saverin.  Together they make the movie one of the best that I have seen in a long time.

The Social Network has had a lot of awards buzz and it is not undeserved.  Nominations for both Eisenberg and Garfield are deserved and the movie should certainly be a contender for Best Picture if not the outright front runner.  Wonderfully written, well directed, and superbly acted.  If you haven’t seen it, get to a theater and watch it, then be sure to share your thoughts about the movie with your Facebook friends.

-Phil-

I always mean to come on here and post amazingly brilliant reviews and insights into the movie industry.  But let’s face it, life is busy and keeps me going all the time.  I haven’t been to the movies in months, and haven’t been keeping up with my netflix queue much either!  I do, however, want to tell you about a fun game my roommates and our friends play.

Jessie, my roommate of many years, brought with her to our home a game called “Bad Movie Bingo”.  We find the most horrible horror movies and we watch them with a big group of our friends.  We have a list of well over 100 cliches for the horror genre.  Each person fills out a bingo card using our list.  As you watch the movie, you play bingo.  It sounds simple and it is, but it is a guaranteed good time!  We always end up laughing like crazy, arguing over whether certain things count or not, or screaming (Jessie mostly) at the things that pop out.  Some of the ones we’ve watched recently are “Bats”, “Black Sheep” (a New Zealand film), “Killer Klowns From Outer Space”, “Candyman”, and most recently “Monkey Shines”.  There are so many out there to choose from, the possibilities are endless.  Just make sure no one in your group has seen it before or they have an unfair advantage.

I’m going to be typing up our list soon, and I’ll post it up here for others to use.  It’s a great time and a great chance to watch some really bad movies.  And let’s face it, you can’t appreciate the goodies without seeing the baddies!

-Angela-

This time of year is one of my favorites.  It’s partly because it is college football season and there are very few things in this world I love more than college football.  But it’s also the time of year when the summer blockbusters are sent to purgatory awaiting their DVD releases and the studios release the movies they think will be in contention for the Golden Globes and the Oscars.  This year there are a few movies that I am eagerly awaiting and I’m going to share them with you.

The first film that I am very excited to see is Black Swan.  Normally a movie about ballet would not draw my attention, but the movie is a mind-bending thriller directed by Darren Aronofsky.  If you have ever seen Requiem for a Dream, you know what Aronofsky is capable of doing to your mind.  The movie stars Natalie Portman as a ballerina who is finally about to get the recognition she has worked so long and hard for.  The spotlight is dimmed by the presence of a rival ballerina played by Mila Kunis and slowly her world, and possibly her mind, begins to unravel.  The trailer is below.

Next up on my list of must see movies is The Social Network.  I don’t care what the subject matter is, if you would tell me that there was a movie written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by David Fincher I would be there waiting in line on the first night.  It just so happens that the movie they have collaborated on is about the founding Facebook, which I am addicted to like internet crack.  As any fan of The American President, SportsNight, The West Wing, or Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip will tell you, Aaron Sorkin has a very unique writing style so we can look forward to lots of snappy dialog and the perfect mix of humor and drama.  When you add the fact that a visionary director like David Fincher is bringing Sorkin’s script to the screen, we are all in for a rare treat.  Just watch the trailer.

Last, and most importantly, is the first installment of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  I am a HUGE Harry Potter fan and I have been waiting for this movie since I read a pre-release copy of the book.  (Yes, I had to read the book before it was available in stores, that’s how big of a fan I am.)  In what is unquestionably the best book of the series (don’t argue or I will stab you with something, and I am not joking) the action and drama is taken to a whole new level.  Harry, Ron, and Hermione are on the run trying to find and destroy the horcruxes that will lead to the downfall of Lord Voldemort.  David Yates returns as the director of the last two movies.  I know that Potter fans are divided on Yates talent, but I think he is brilliant and has done a wonderful job with The Order of the Phoenix and The Half-Blood Prince.  I can never tire of watching the trailer, which may be the best trailer that has ever been cut.  You decide.

These are only a handful of the movies that are worth seeing, but they are the ones I am most excited about.  Some other releases that have me interested include Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, The Tourist, Tron: Legacy, Nowhere Boy, 127 Hours, and the remake of True Grit starring Jeff Bridges.  If there’s one thing you can count on at this time of year, it’s that there are no shortage of good movies to go and see.

-Phil-

I went to see Dinner For Schmucks this past weekend with fairly high hopes.  It has a cast of people I love, including Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, Zach Galifianakis, and Jemaine Clement.  The trailers made me laugh and it looked fairly creative.  After watching it, I can say that it is truly just a middle of the road comedy.  In fact, I felt like the movie was rather uneven.  Parts of it were very funny, and parts of it felt so forced and obvious.

Paul Rudd plays Tim, a businessman trying to move up in his company.  He has an idea he sells to a wealthy Swiss man, which impresses his boss.  The executives invite him up to a nice big office.  Trick is, he has to invite an idiot to dinner where they all make fun of him before he can be promoted.  This upsets Tim (or so he says…I don’t know if I actually believe it), but he promises to do it.  As Tim is driving around town, he ends up hitting Barry, Steve Carell’s dopey character, as he is trying to pick up a dead mouse off the street.  Barry is a taxidermist by hobby.  To me, his taxidermy is the best thing about the movie.  He creates “mousterpieces”, recreating famous works of art or times in history using dead mice.  They are intricate and gross and fascinating.  I would have watched a movie about solely that and been engrossed.  Barry is a world-class idiot and brings destruction, chaos, and cheap laughs with him.  He causes problems for Tim with his girlfriend, his Swiss investor, a stalker, and so much more.  I know Barry is a well-meaning idiot, but I kept thinking, “No one is really this clueless.”  He seems over the top and not very believable as a real person.  And Tim is a jerk to him and he doesn’t seem to notice.  Please.  I do have to say, I enjoyed Jemaine Clement’s performance as a tortured artist obsessed with himself.  Zach Galifianakis plays Barry’s IRS boss and the lover of his ex-wife.  He has moments where he is very funny, but again…it just felt forced in parts.

The dinner is actually funny.  The idiots had no idea what they were truly there for and that part is a bit depressing.  They seem genuinely nice, albeit really strange.  It’s one of those things where you laugh, but then you feel bad for making fun of someone.  Tim comes to his senses and realizes how wrong it is, etc. etc. etc., but for me it was too little too late.

Dinner For Schmucks is entertaining enough, but not one that I would watch over and over.  Now, some people coming out of the theater were saying how much they absolutely loved it, so tastes can differ.  For me, I’d say, watch it once and be done.

-Angela-

On Twitter over the weekend, I promised a review of Inception by sometime Sunday.  It’s now Wednesday night and I’m finally writing my review.  Is it because I’m lazy?  Usually I would say yes, but I honestly needed some time to process everything from the movie and talk through it with other people before I could write a decent review.  If I would have written my review on Sunday it probably would have been something like, “Inception. was. AWESOME!” and then a bunch of random words that made no sense to any sane person.  Hopefully this review will set a slightly higher standard.

Let me preface my review by stating my obvious bias.  I am a HUGE Christopher Nolan fan.  I saw Memento twice in the same day when it was in theaters because I loved it so much.  I have thoroughly enjoyed every movie has made to this point, so I went in to the theater with extremely high expectations.  

I was not disappointed.

Inception is a summer blockbuster, no doubt about it.  There are car chases, explosions, gun fights, fist fights, and all of the other signatures that have made Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer very rich men.  However, Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer have never made a movie anywhere near as good as Inception.  Interwoven with the action scenes is a complex and masterfully thought out storyline that challenges the reader to look past the action and really think about what is going on.  The action is what makes the movie fun, the story is what makes the movie great.  

The basics of the story are pretty simple.  Leonardo DiCaprio plays Cobb, a thief who specializes in extracting information from people through their dreams.  Cobb is joined by his faithful wingman Arthur, played by the always under-appreciated Joseph Gordon-Levitt.  Ellen Page (Ariadne), Ken Watanabe (Saito), and Tom Hardy (Eames) round out the main group of characters in a very strong overall cast.  Saito is a wealthy businessman who hires the group to plant a thought in the mind of his biggest competitor.  This process is called inception and is virtually impossible to do and infinitely more difficult that the extraction that the group is used to performing.

It would take days of writing to explain the world of dreams that is the setting for most of the movie.  I’ve tried to explain it to a couple of people already and failed miserably.  While I can’t explain the dream world, Nolan does a great job of explaining the premise while moving the plotline along in the first half of the movie.  If you are paying attention, you should be able to get a basic understanding of how everything works.  However, multiple viewings will probably be the only way you can figure out all of the details.

The complexity of the story comes from the concept that there are different levels of dreams.  Characters can go to sleep while already in a dream and go to an even deeper level of dreaming.  This is the central concept of the movie.

There is truly something for everyone in this film.  My wife and I have very different tastes in movies, especially for movies that are outside of the mainstream of filmmaking.  We both loved the movie.

I really need to see the movie again, so I can pick up on some of the finer details of the story that I have missed, but rest assured that if you see Inception you should not leave disappointed.  I’ve spoken to 20 different people who have seen Inception and every single one has loved it.

Christopher Nolan is truly a unique and gifted filmmaker.  With so many movies coming out that trot out clichéd stories or franchise sequels and reboots (even though Nolan has done the Batman reboot and sequels), it’s nice to see a truly inventive movie that is challenging, thoughtful, and visually stunning all at once.

As with Memento, Insomnia, The Prestige, and The Dark Knight, Nolan doesn’t let you walk out of the theater with a neatly wrapped package where everything is resolved at the conclusion.  There are always more questions and a lot of thinking that come with watching any of his films.  Inception is no exception to this rule.  (That sounded like something Gene Shalit would say, ugh.)  I didn’t see the movie at an IMAX theater, but I would imagine that it takes an already intense ride up a few notches.

Make the time to see this movie.  Make time to see it a couple of times.  It’s the best movie I’ve seen in a very long time and I think with a few repeat viewings, it could be challenging Fight Club as my favorite movie of all time.

-Phil-