Today’s question comes from reader doa766:

Why are Avatar and District 9 getting so much critical and awards recognition now when neither Aliens or Blade Runner got any when they were released?

is it because highbrow, art or oscar bait movies have decreased in quality? is it because of a generational and average age change on critics and awards institutions? or is it because critics/awards people back then were afraid of stand out, in the sense that they did think those movies were among the best of their respective years but it wasn't proper at the time for a respected critic or award show to recognized them as such?

I think is the latter, I mean Avatar is great but Aliens is even better and back then the Academy nominating Weaver as best actress for Aliens was a way of saying "we know you're movie is great but this is the best we can do if we want to be taken seriously". Cameron is clearly one of the most talented director in Hollywood and yet he only received mainstream awards for Titanic. His more conventional (and non Sci-fi) movie.

continue reading "question of the day: Are genre movies getting more respect these days, and if so, why?" »

(Sometimes related to entertainment. Sometimes not. Always stupid.)

Okay, so the Tim Tebow anti-abortion Super Bowl ad -- which had a lot of people raging mad over CBS’s hypocrisy regarding which ads it accepted for the game, and which it didn’t -- has garnered quite a bit of intriguing response. Like these glorious tweets from Erick Erickson, editor in chief of right-wing blog RedState.com:

continue reading "the finest media commentary the right wing has to offer... from 1898, 1962, and an alternate dimension" »

I’d been trying to figure out what there was to say about the recent death of film editor Karen Schmeer, and then I found it (starting at The New York Times):

What began with a report of three men shoplifting over-the-counter drugs from a CVS on the Upper West Side has ended with an arrest for the hit-and-run death of one of the nation’s preeminent documentary editors, whose credits include “The Fog of War.”

The editor, Karen Schmeer, was “one of the greatest editors of her generation,” said Greg Barker, the director of “Sergio,” a documentary for which Ms. Schmeer won an editing award at the Sundance Film Festival in 2009.

continue reading "RIP film editor Karen Schmeer" »

Corporations are people too! The Supreme Court said so.

continue reading "watch it: “Murray Hill Incorporated is Running for Congress”" »

It’s starting too look like a more typical movie week: Five, maybe six flicks? That’s what I’m talkin’ about...

Where was it that I was reading (or maybe it was in a video somewhere?) that the FX guys had a particular challenge on their hands with The Wolfman (opens in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. on February 12)? Apparently Benicio Del Toro is so hairy that it took some extra special effort to make his werewolf flip side distinguishable from his non-werewolf side. I find that rather amusing.

Bong Joon-ho made the awesome monster movie The Host a few years ago, and now he’s back with Mother (opens in the U.S on March 12; no Canadian or U.K. release dates have been announced). This one sounds more grounded, though probably equally horrifying, in its own way: it’s the story of a childlike man who relies totally on his mother who is accused of murder. And Mom goes a bit crazy trying to prove his innocence.

If Frozen was screened for critics in NYC, I never heard about it. But now that it’s playing here (it’s in limited release in the U.S. and Canada; no U.K. release date has been announced), I’m gonna try to pop in on it this week. It looks like it could be fun and/or creepy...

continue reading "my week at the movies: ‘The Wolfman,’ ‘Mother,’ ‘Frozen,’ ‘Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief,’ ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,’ ‘Valentine’s Day’" »

Take a break from work: watch a trailer...

continue reading "trailer break: ‘Repo Men’" »

It’s probably not even true, and you certainly didn’t hear it here, but it’s entirely possible that somewhere over the rainbow, way up high, there exists a script for a Doctor Who episode potentially written by Neil Gaiman. And if you open the box and the cat isn’t dead, that story might be entitled “The House of Nothing.” But definitely not, either.

Speaking from an undisclosed dimension to fans at the SFX Awards, where Gaiman won an award for Best Comic for Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader [Amazon U.S.] [Amazon Canada] [Amazon U.K.], Gaiman said (according to SFX):

Over the years SFX, and its readers and their votes in the polls, have always been very kind to me. I thought I’d return the favour with what used to be called, in journalistic circles when I was a boy, a scoop.

continue reading "somewhere in an alternate uinverse -- maybe -- Neil Gaiman may have written a ‘Doctor Who’ episode" »

Joe Keohane in Slate last week took down Hollywood’s methods for trying to convince us that supernaturally beautifully actresses are actually mere mortals like the rest of us. It begins like this:

Every now and again, Hollywood makes a go at depicting the working class, often around Oscar season and usually to hilarious effect. The story is generally some slow-moving, minor-key piece involving ordinary folks struggling with ordinary problems in ordinary parts of the country. To offset the dreariness of such an errand, the lead character—a waitress, maid, or stripper with kid/husband problems—is usually played by a jaw-droppingly attractive star, who wins positive press for being willing to subvert her beauty in order to portray one of the great unwashed doing whatever it is they do out there in the dull diabetic landmass between Los Angeles and New York City. (Hiring ugly people to play working class is a job best left to the English.)

And then he goes on to break down Hollywood’s tricks into categories: ugly sweaters, bad haircuts, broad accents and profanity, and so on. With video clips, which are pretty funny, even when the movies he’s picking on are actually pretty good.

continue reading "question of the day: What does Hollywood always get wrong when depicting ordinary people?" »

...as long as it happened 70 years ago.

Yup, it’s The Week in Women, my regular column at the Alliance of Women Film Journalists, posting a little late this weekend. Enjoy.

(previous: “Rebirth”)

(lots of spoilers! assumes you’ve seen the episode!)

continue reading "‘Caprica’ blogging: “The Reins of a Waterfall”" »

A second bonus Super Bowl Sunday Web Video of the Day, because the mind, she boggles:

I had forgotten all about this, but Atrios reminded me, the bastard.

Take a look back at an old trailer...

continue reading "retro trailer: ‘Brian’s Song’" »

Every week my browser gets cluttered up with tabs for stuff that I stumble across and figure I might be able to use as a Question of the Day or a WTF Thought for the Day or grist for some other post. And inevitably, I end the week with most of that material unused. But there’s no reason to let this stuff go to waste: I can still share it with you, for your amusement, and start the new week with a clean slate.

Herewith this week’s leftover links, in no particular order:

continue reading "Warren Beatty vs Pauline Kael, MacGruber movie in trouble, more: leftover links" »

A special bonus Super Bowl Sunday Web Video of the Day -- a Planned Parenthood response to the Tim Tebow anti-abortion ad that will be airing during the game:

continue reading "watch it: “Sean James and Al Joyner respond to the Tebow Super Bowl ad”" »

We know how it is: You’d like to go to the movies this weekend, except you’re busy writing long, flowery letters to the love of your life, who’s on the other side of the planet somewhere where there’s no Internet access. But you can have a multiplex-like experience at home with a collection of the right DVDs. And when someone asks you on Monday, “Hey, did you see Dear John this weekend?” you can reply, “No, but do you have a stamp?”

continue reading "February 5: DVD alternatives to this weekend’s multiplex offerings" »

continue reading "watch it: the 2/6/10 weekly address from President Barack Obama" »

I’m always baffled by the images on the TV news of empty supermarket shelves in advance of a big storm such as a hurricane or the huge snowstorm that’s currently hammering the mid Atlantic region. (Looks like we’re going to escape it entirely in the Bronx.) Even if you’re stuck indoors for an entire weekend, how much bread and milk do you need to tough it out? Surely, at this point, everyone knows that the streets will get plowed and life will get back to normal almost immediately, and the bread trucks and the milk trucks will be moving again.

Me, as long as I’ve got some DVDs -- which are always piled up around me regardless of the weather -- and some wine, I’m all set for a snowy weekend. My Chinese place has even delivered in two feet of snow in the past, so I’m set for food.

What -- if anything -- do you do to prepare for a big storm?

(If you have a suggestion for a QOTD/QOTW, feel free to email me. Responses to this QOTW sent by email will be ignored; please post your responses here.)

It’s no longer Friday here, though it is still at certain points to the extreme west -- so this week’s Cat Video Friday temporarily becomes Slow Loris Video Overnight:

continue reading "watch it: “Slow loris loves getting tickled”" »

Love Letters from GWOT

Oh, it’s tragic, all right, what happens when lovers get separated by a war whipped up out of political bullshit. How dumb did Channing Tatum feel when he learned that he gave up a life with Amanda Seyfried -- his perfect love! who’s so perfect and saintly that even when she promises that he’ll see her flaws later on, they’re the flaws of “being too perfect for her own good” and “being too saintly for her good”! -- because George W. Bush and Tony Blair were just waiting for a pretense to invade Iraq?

continue reading "Dear John (review)" »

Ever wanted to tool around town in the Torchwood Range Rover? Here’s your chance:

Captain Jack's Range Rover from the BBC TV series Torchwood is to be sold at auction later this month, along with a huge selection of props and costumes from Doctor Who.

Fans will be able to snap up iconic memorabilia from the shows, such as costumes worn by the 10th Doctor David Tennant and Two Imperial Daleks from Sylvester McCoy's time as Doctor in 1988.

The black Torchwood Range Rover is expected to sell for a minimum of £10,000. It has tinted windows, futuristic body kit and bears the "Torchwood" logo on the side.

continue reading "I’d love to have people say “Bloody Torchwood” as I drive by..." »

Friday fun! Here’s a screen capture from a DVD... and just to make things harder for 2010, this one is from a TV show which may or may not be in my collection (it’s sooo much easier to do screengrabs now that Netflix is streaming to my computer). Guess the TV show -- you don’t need to guess the episode, just the show -- and earn the respect of me and your fellow FlickFilosopher.com readers. One guess per comment -- no fair hogging all the guesses.

A new reality competition show has just debuted in the U.K. It’s called Hotter Than My Daughter. Really:

It used to be sisters who would argue about who looked the most fashionable and alluring to boys. But these embarrassed daughters are at loggerheads with their MOTHERS over their revealing fashion and outrageous behaviour. A new BBC Three show Hotter Than My Daughter, starting on Thursday at 8.30pm, airs the debate. The public are asked whether mother or daughter is in need of an image change and whose fashion sense is best.

(You must see the images that accompany the Sun article quoted above. Must.)

As Sadie at Jezebel so beautifully translates:

continue reading "because every girl’s mother is her frenemy" »

Take a break from work: watch a trailer...

continue reading "trailer break: ‘Universal Dead’" »

J.D. Salinger is dead. Long live J.D. Salinger, the movie? Maybe now someone will produce the definitive work about the legendarily reclusive author?

There’s already a documentary, by filmmaker Shane Salerno, finished last year, according to Mike Fleming at Deadline Hollywood -- he’s even seen it:

I found the film, which doesn't have narration, to be exhaustively researched and arrestingly powerful. Most importantly, it answers a lot of questions I and everyone have had about the author. There is previously unseen footage and photos, and a rich depiction of that unfathomable period in Salinger's career when The New Yorker magazine was able to publish a new "J.D. Salinger" story fairly regularly.

continue reading "question of the day: What will the pitch for the J.D. Salinger movie sound like?" »

Terrifying:

Are you sick of hearing about Avatar yet?

1. Avatar: £4.9 million
2. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel: £1.195 million
3. Edge of Darkness: £1.172 (NEW)
4. Sherlock Holmes: £1.149 million
5. It’s Complicated: £.84 million (4th week; drops 26%)

(actual numbers, not estimates)

continue reading "U.K. box office: some more about ‘Avatar’" »

obsession: Canadian TV (and film) (because I’m hungry for something new and good)

boyfriend: Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes (sexiest Holmes ever)

psyched: The Wolfman (because I adore Benicio Del Toro)

girl crush: Vera Farmiga in Up in the Air (because she’s too cool)

dreading: Cop Out (why, Kevin Smith? why?)

enemy: everyone connected with Tooth Fairy (for totally misunderstanding fantasy)

L’espionnage, Je T’aime

“Tell me we’re not a perfect match,” John Travolta’s outrageously cartoonish Charlie Wax, biker-boy secret agent, guffs to Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ James Reece, prim and wonky James Bond wannabe, at some improbable point in the ludicrously entertaining From Paris with Love. It would have to be an improbable moment, because the movie is build from bricks of ridiculous mortared together with the preposterous and painted over with the hugely unlikely. I honestly, at this very moment, days after I saw the film and days after I’ve been letting it tick over in my head, cannot possibly tell you how it all hangs together, because I’m not sure that it does. But that don’t mean I didn’t have a blast while I was sitting there in the screening room quaffing it.

continue reading "From Paris with Love (review)" »

And I’m one of them, at Women & Hollywood. Enjoy.

Film critic Paul Fischer, a regular contributor to Dark Horizons and Moviehole, has been caught lifting material for his reviews from the Sundance Film Festival directly from the festival guide book, by Chris Parry at the Vancouver Sun:

[A]fter Fischer published a series of reviews from the Sundance Film Festival, indie filmmakers began grumbling about being slammed with negative reviews by a writer using large portions of material that was yanked right out of the festival guide book.

In his review of the film Animal Kingdom, Fischer wrote on Dark Horizons, "When tensions between the family and the police reach a bloody peak, Josh finds himself at the center of a cold-blooded revenge plot that turns the family upside down."

That sounds suspiciously alike the Sundance film guide blurb on the film, provided by the filmmakers: "When tensions between the family and the police reach a bloody peak, 'J' finds himself at the centre of a cold-blooded revenge plot that turns the family upside down."

Perhaps 'suspiciously alike' is a tad understating things. The two passages are word-for-word the same, with the exception of Fischer changing 'J' to Josh.

continue reading "because nobody uses teh Googles" »