Oscars again lose touch with what film fans want!
By Kal Kat
Apparently the 84th annual academy awards show is again run by stuffy suits who don't get out much but love slow, drawn out, odes to old movies and easy crowd pleasing art, but not actual good acting, major blockbusters, or films that actually do make you think.
2011 was not a banner year for movies, as summer action blockbusters won the day, and there were very few movies in the drama category to choose from. Oscar night is all about the talky dramas. So Oscar went for the limited releases again, and picked the Artist and Tree of Life and Iron Lady.
Surprisingly they did honor Hugo for technical awards, although really they should have given that one best picture too, if they were going to go there, and snubbing Martin Scorsese should be a major offense.
The only reason Meryl Streep won was because they snubbed her two years ago. Ha, well maybe it was a good movie this time around. I didn't see it.
The Oscars have completely blow off Harry Potter for eight years and it just isn't right. That series at least deserves visual effects and music, if anything, and come on, the acting was great! Supporting actor nods at least.
And Hugo wasn't even nominated for best actress, as in Chloe Grace Moretz. Why not? Oscar gave it to Keisha Castle Hughes of Whale Rider a decade ago, so why not? Three part name again even.
Okay so Captain America was technically a sequel and part of something else, so really it didn't stand a chance, but at least how about costumes or set design? Nothing. It was a period piece.
Pretentious drivel like Incredibly Close and The Descendants, really? Meh.
You old Oscar farts need to get out more and see movies. Good movies. Granted 2011 kind of sucked for movies.
The movie that truly got screwed was The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, a thriller horror movie that should have won for best picture, best actor, best actress possibly, and definitely best adapted screenplay. Director David Finsher too!
You had the nerve to just hand that to Midnight in Paris and some other drivel, didn't you?
This will probably guarantee I will not be an Oscar presenter next year.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Friday, February 17, 2012
Review: "The Secret World of Arrietty" is cute sweet little story
Review: 'The Secret World of Arrietty' G
This adaptation of the children's book, 'The Borrowers' was done by the studio Ghibi that brought 'Howls Moving Castle' and many other Japanese classics. Disney dubbed and distributed it and redid voice-overs, but it seems a faithful version of the Japanese version. (Not reviewed though). The idea of pixie like people living in the walls has been around since Peter Pan, the Smurfs, and more recently, The Littles, and later Stewart Little. In this version, a sickly boy goes to live with his aunts in the country awaiting heart surgery, where he meets a mischievous tiny person living under the floor. Arietty is a little girl borrower who with her father is learning to go on quests to hunt for food when she accidentally is spotted and this forces her parents to seek shelter elsewhere, but one of the aunts (actually the maid) is demented and is out to find their hiding place. The animation and visuals are dazzling as usual, and the faces look like those in Spirited Away a bit, another of the other movies studio Ghibi did. This was a 2010 movie now finally released ion the US. Other characters include a fiesty fat gray spotted cat and an Indian like Borrower named Spiller. The movie was called The Borrower Areitty in Japan.
Review by Adam Browne
This adaptation of the children's book, 'The Borrowers' was done by the studio Ghibi that brought 'Howls Moving Castle' and many other Japanese classics. Disney dubbed and distributed it and redid voice-overs, but it seems a faithful version of the Japanese version. (Not reviewed though). The idea of pixie like people living in the walls has been around since Peter Pan, the Smurfs, and more recently, The Littles, and later Stewart Little. In this version, a sickly boy goes to live with his aunts in the country awaiting heart surgery, where he meets a mischievous tiny person living under the floor. Arietty is a little girl borrower who with her father is learning to go on quests to hunt for food when she accidentally is spotted and this forces her parents to seek shelter elsewhere, but one of the aunts (actually the maid) is demented and is out to find their hiding place. The animation and visuals are dazzling as usual, and the faces look like those in Spirited Away a bit, another of the other movies studio Ghibi did. This was a 2010 movie now finally released ion the US. Other characters include a fiesty fat gray spotted cat and an Indian like Borrower named Spiller. The movie was called The Borrower Areitty in Japan.
Review by Adam Browne
Review: "The Woman in Black" seems to think startling haunts and being gross is scary
Review: "The Woman in Black" PG 13
Director James Watkins has a thing for haunted houses and islands, and psychotic little towns apparently. The film seems to take place in the 1910s or so, somewhere in Europe, where a young lawyer is sent to this mysterious town to sell a creepy old house, only the resident specter of a widow just won't leave. The townsfolk in the somewhat paranoid delusional hamlet are under the bizarre impression that if anyone visits the house, the curse of the black clad lady will come upon them. Sure enough, people start dying, starting with children. It is never fully explained why the ghost or poltergeist like apparition wants to kill the village children, but her sibling is crazy and haunted by her past, and there is an evil bog, where there is likely a body. The haunted crackling mansion is at times campy, with the kind of jump out at you scares you get from a fun house, and at the same times tries to be gross, with oozing muddy bodies, psychotic drinks and oozing things, and zombie like ghoul things. It seems this is loosely based on a novel actually, or ripped off from it. It has not been read. Dan Ratcliffe (Harry Potter) without his glasses, actually doesn't do so bad. It's just that you keep expecting him to burst into dialog from the other films, which would be meta and never happen. What he has to work with is a bare bones idea and a long gloomy visual spectacle. The problem is not even Harry can enchant the story. Granted it has moments of ghoulish gross, but that's really just because there's not much of a story to go with it.
Review by Adam Browne
Director James Watkins has a thing for haunted houses and islands, and psychotic little towns apparently. The film seems to take place in the 1910s or so, somewhere in Europe, where a young lawyer is sent to this mysterious town to sell a creepy old house, only the resident specter of a widow just won't leave. The townsfolk in the somewhat paranoid delusional hamlet are under the bizarre impression that if anyone visits the house, the curse of the black clad lady will come upon them. Sure enough, people start dying, starting with children. It is never fully explained why the ghost or poltergeist like apparition wants to kill the village children, but her sibling is crazy and haunted by her past, and there is an evil bog, where there is likely a body. The haunted crackling mansion is at times campy, with the kind of jump out at you scares you get from a fun house, and at the same times tries to be gross, with oozing muddy bodies, psychotic drinks and oozing things, and zombie like ghoul things. It seems this is loosely based on a novel actually, or ripped off from it. It has not been read. Dan Ratcliffe (Harry Potter) without his glasses, actually doesn't do so bad. It's just that you keep expecting him to burst into dialog from the other films, which would be meta and never happen. What he has to work with is a bare bones idea and a long gloomy visual spectacle. The problem is not even Harry can enchant the story. Granted it has moments of ghoulish gross, but that's really just because there's not much of a story to go with it.
Review by Adam Browne
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Review: "Chronicle" is decent homage to gritty superhero flicks
Chronicle PG-13
A relatively new director, John Trank and a cast of unknowns do a mockumentary superhero movie, set in a Seattle area high school. The protagonist is a young journalism and movie buff who uses a camera to record his messed up life, including his abusive alcoholic father and his dying mother, and also his friends. One night after a lame party, the boys go down into a weird cave and find a glowing crystal thing that turns from white to pink and makes their noses bleed. Then some time later, they have a new camera and they find the cave sealed off. Then they begin to develop hyper kinetic powers which manifest depending on their brain training, and they eventually can move objects, cars and even themselves, and can fly. The three friends though begin to take on unusual angst as they are all teenagers, and the camera boy eventually develops a psychosis and thinks he is an apex predator, or super villain. The film is shot kind of like Cloverfield but less jumpy and it has some amazing flying sequences. Although really they said nothing about having the ability to breathe with little oxygen while flying through the clouds. Also during the epic battles, it seems the flying heroes don't simply freak the tar out of the cops and make them run away. Sort of like that scene in the recent Planet of the Apes prequel. If you have a butt load of monsters chasing you, you don't stand there and try to shoot them. You get out of there. So flying teenagers might not be as scary, either that or the cops are just so mad at the town's many flying teenagers it's like nothing to see therm out there, but the movie never establishes that there are more of them. It's a fun little film that tries to be Kick Ass and Scott Pilgrim but with telekinesis.
Review by Adam Browne
A relatively new director, John Trank and a cast of unknowns do a mockumentary superhero movie, set in a Seattle area high school. The protagonist is a young journalism and movie buff who uses a camera to record his messed up life, including his abusive alcoholic father and his dying mother, and also his friends. One night after a lame party, the boys go down into a weird cave and find a glowing crystal thing that turns from white to pink and makes their noses bleed. Then some time later, they have a new camera and they find the cave sealed off. Then they begin to develop hyper kinetic powers which manifest depending on their brain training, and they eventually can move objects, cars and even themselves, and can fly. The three friends though begin to take on unusual angst as they are all teenagers, and the camera boy eventually develops a psychosis and thinks he is an apex predator, or super villain. The film is shot kind of like Cloverfield but less jumpy and it has some amazing flying sequences. Although really they said nothing about having the ability to breathe with little oxygen while flying through the clouds. Also during the epic battles, it seems the flying heroes don't simply freak the tar out of the cops and make them run away. Sort of like that scene in the recent Planet of the Apes prequel. If you have a butt load of monsters chasing you, you don't stand there and try to shoot them. You get out of there. So flying teenagers might not be as scary, either that or the cops are just so mad at the town's many flying teenagers it's like nothing to see therm out there, but the movie never establishes that there are more of them. It's a fun little film that tries to be Kick Ass and Scott Pilgrim but with telekinesis.
Review by Adam Browne
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