The 2012 Clara Awards Nominees

THE 2012 CLARA AWARDS Nominees

Mindless dribble from the year 2012 best and worst in watched movies, not those we did not see. Movies are only rated by which those that have been seen by Kal Kat and sometimes Marx Cards also. Categories include fantasy, horror, drama, comedy, etc. Nominees are as follows. Best picture will be the one that gets the most in all categories. No best actor or actress categories.

Best Fantasy/Science Fiction

 “Looper”

“Marvel’s The Avengers”

“The Hobbit An Unexpected Journey”

“Skyfall”

“Life of Pi”

“The Dark Knight Rises”

“Iron Sky”

Best Animated Fantasy

 “The Secret World of Arietty (The Borrowers)”

“Wreck It Ralph”

“Rise of the Guardians”

“Disney’s Brave”

“Pirates Band of Misfits”

Best Horror/Thriller

“Django Unchained”

“Chronicle”

“Seven Psychopaths”

Best Drama

“The Perks of Being a Wallflower”

“Les Miserables” (to be seen)

“Life of Pi”

Best Comedy

“21 Jump Street the Movie”

Worst Fantasy/Science Fiction

“Dredd 2012”

“The Expendables 2”

“I am Number 4”

“The Watch”

“Total Recall 2012”

“The Amazing Spider Man”

“Prometheus”

“The Hunger Games”

“Men in Black 3”

Worst Animated

“Hotel Transylvania”

“ParaNorman”

 “The Lorax”

Worst Horror

“Dark Shadows The Movie”

“The Woman in Black”

Worst Comedy

“The Dictator”

“American Reunion”

“The 3 Stooges Movie”

Worst Drama

“Courageous”

Favorites to win are in red.

Best Fantasy Director

Joss Whedon, Marvel’s The Avengers

Chris Nolan, The Dark Knight Rises

Pater Jackson, The Hobbit An Unexpected Journey

Best Drama Director

Tom Hooper, Les Miserables

Ang Lee, Life of Pi

Best Thriller Director

Quentin Tarantino, Django

Review: "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" is everything and then some

"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" PG 13
Peter Jackson and his workshop return for the follow up series to the Lord of the Rings, a proper prequel called The Hobbit, which unexpectedly will please even the critics. The story is not so mired in the mythology of the previous movies you have to see them, but there is some serttling in to do, as the prologue set just before the first film sets into motion events 60 years earlier with Bilbo Baggins and his adventures to find the dragon Smaug and fight for the dwarfs to retake their Lonely Mountain where the dragon has their gold. Along the ride are characters from the other movie, with some CG to make them look a tad younger, except for Gandalf, who looks older. Jackson is not allowed to use elements from the Sillmarillion so he renames one of the jewels something else cleverly, but it is supposed to be one of them. Also the meeting of Bilbo and Gollum is changed from the original books, but as a movie they needed to do that to get it visually. The camera used shot in 48 framses per minute, twice the frame rate of modern movies, making the edges a bit fuzzy in some places, and the older people really, really looked 10 years older, when they should have been younger, (Gandalf and Sauron). But that's a nitpick. It's still an awesome movie and a welcome reunion of the cast. I look forward to the second half in a few months.(This film was just released).
Review by Adam Browne

Review: "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy

 "The Lord of the Rings" PG 13

Rather than make three pages of reviews for a long standing DVD series from 10 years ago, I thought it would be all right to just group all three together since I really didn't do proper reviews of them in the beginning anyway. 
      The series was impressive from the start, back in the early 2000s, the trilogy of the decade as it came to be called, and it set a new standard proving the this upstart New Zealand company could make something that surpasses Lucasfilm by leaps and bounds. They seemed the heirs to Henson's world, and ironically they had spoofed Henson in Meet the Feebles decades before. The story is based upon Tolkein's work, a much broader and more interesting story than his contemporary, the CS Lewis and his Narnia, of which then Disney wanted to make movies out of after tyhis took off. Even they could not do Narnia justice. Jackson did Tolkien justice on every level.

The Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring - PG-13     

  

Peter Jackson begins this grand trilogy of Tolkein's world with this exciting Middle Earth coming-of-age story, where Frodo Baggins must join forces with a ragged band to save the planet and bring the One Ring to its end.

   Peter Jackson begins this grand trilogy of Tolkein's world with this exciting Middle Earth coming-of-age story, where Frodo Baggins must join forces with a ragged band to save the planet and bring the One Ring to its end. 

     It is a long movie, but all 3 are quite long, and yet as a fantasy adventure one is never bored. The characters and pacing nicely fit in with humor and pitch battles, bright spots and gloom and doom. It's a visually awesome thing. The settings are clearly not Tolkien's obvious Europe, but New Zealand, and yet you get into it and this doesn't bother you in the slightest.

The Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers - PG-13     

 

The middle part in Tolkein's epic saga as told through Peter Jackson's vision. The fellowship struggles to survive hordes of monster orcs while the Ring leads Frodo and Sam to Gollum, the one who took it, and wants his precious back.

   The middle part in Tolkein's epic saga as told through Peter Jackson's vision. The fellowship struggles to survive hordes of monster orcs while the Ring leads Frodo and Sam to Gollum, the one who took it, and wants his precious back. 

     The second is a little pondering but seems to get the story right, and even hints at stories from the books in addition to a few little extras. The story never gets dull and is extremely pretty and the characters well defined, even when speaking weird languages with subtitles. 

The Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King - PG-13     

 

The final installment in Peter Jackson's take on Tolkein pits Forodo Sam and Gollum against the fires of Mt. Doom, and the forces og Gandalf and Gimy and Aragorn against the main forces of villains for control of Middle Earth. Incredible effects. Astounding visuals. 

   The final installment in Peter Jackson's take on Tolkein pits Forodo Sam and Gollum against the fires of Mt. Doom, and the forces og Gandalf and Gimy and Aragorn against the main forces of villains for control of Middle Earth. Incredible effects. Astounding visuals. 
      The epic third act is 3 hours but feels like it should not end, as you are drawn into the quest for the castle and the retaking of the fortress, the final battle of the ring, and the awesome wonder of this epic. Truly a masterpiece.  

From the Flixster files of 2006. 

Review: "Life of Pi" is odd mind trip about a cast away

"Life of Pi" G
Pi is a young man who is the son of a zookeeper in French India a generation ago. When his family has to move with all their animals on a Japanese cargo ship, the ship runs afoul in a storm and is sunk, leaving Pi stranded on a lifeboat with a male tiger, a monkey, and a wounded zebra. Told also as a secondary wrap around set in modern times, Pi tells the story to a novelist who plans to make his story into a best seller. Most of the story is spent on the boat out at sea for over 220 days, crossing the Pacific. The tiger must be tamed or he will surely eat Pi. The zebra and the monkey get killed and presumably eaten. The boy and the tiger learn to cooperate while catching fish to eat. They sail into night and day on the sea and even come across a living island, although the island is likely a metaphor or delusion from being out at sea for so long. The story is somewhat interesting and emotionally charged at times, however there are times the story gets ahead of itself and does weird things just to be different, such as the island thing, and the wrap around story, and the whole back story about the boy's name. These are minor points and not issues or necessarily plot holes. It is a bit long though. Worth a rental. Certainly not Oscar bait but interesting.
Review by Adam Browne

Review: "Rise of the Guardians" brings fairy tale heroes together to fight the night

     The Rise of the Guardians is another Dreamworks movie, 3D in some theaters, and an odd duck of a film. The story stars a strange league of super heroes, Santa Claus with a fake Russian accent, Sandman, a little bald troll,  Tooth Fairy, a hummingbird like nymph, Jack Frost, a nod to toe-headed mischief makers, the Easter Bunny, with a passable Aussie accent, and the villain, Pitch or the Boogeyman.

     The premise centers on a group of heroes from children’s folklore, based upon a book series of recent years, a mash up of classic fairytale figures. Ignore the fact that jolly Santa the fat man comes directly from a commercial icon of the 1930s, not from St. Nicholas, and it might be fine. Timeless almost godlike super fairies save the world? It could be Queen or Abba! No such luck. But that would make an interesting cartoon.

     Not to be confused with the owl movie from a few years ago, also based on a recent book series, Rise is a unique play on the material of childhood fantasies, but somewhat it squanders this for special effects, eye candy, and a lot of things racing really fast through tight places or into the air.

     The audience is actually clued into Jack’s origins from the opening scene, but he isn’t, and he spends much of his narrative trying to figure out what his beginning was. Enlisted by North or Claus to serve in the elite guardians, he becomes the keeper of frosty things and must stop the rising tide of the fear monger, Pitch, who longs to crush the happy dreams of children and destroy the world’s hope. It could be a grand premise for a GI Joe movie, but it’s about these odd fairy tale figures. The Easter Bunny is a smart Alex Wolverine type guy, as the voice actor is a familiar furry X Men actor, and he doesn’t much like Frost for some incident back in ’68. The heroes must protect the children of a strange castle where these little tooth fairy things are hold up, when Pitch captures them. Sandman is apparently killed in battle. Then Frost is later suckered by the Boogeyman when he tries to find his memories. But the avenging fairies manage to right things long enough to get things to right. The books had nothing to do with owls, or the Avengers, or the Incredibles, but it kind of seems like this has been done before. Not a bad movie, just not quite living up to its premise. Also the idea of the Sandman looking like a bald smiling troll hovering over children might actually give them nightmares faster than the villain.

Review by Adan Browne