Review: Someone Likes "Next" (Happy B'day, Nicolas Cage)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 141 (of 2007) by Leroy Douresseaux

Next (2007)
Running time: 96 minutes (1 hour, 36 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for intense sequences of violent action and some language
DIRECTOR: Lee Tamahori
WRITERS: Gary Goldman, Jonathan Hensleigh, and Paul Bernbaum; from a screen story by Gary Goldman (based upon the short story “The Golden Man” by Philip K. Dick)
PRODUCERS: Nicolas Cage, Norm Golightly, Todd Garner, Arne L. Schmidt, and Graham King
CINEMATOGRAPHER: David Tattersall, BSC
EDITOR: Christian Wagner

ACTION/SCI-FI/THRILLER

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Julianne Moore, Jessica Biel, Thomas Kretschmann, Tory Kittles, and Peter Falk

Starring Oscar-winner Nicolas Cage (Leaving Las Vegas), Oscar-nominee Julianne Moore (Far From Heaven), and not-hard-on-the-eyes Jessica Biel (The Illusionist), Next is a sci-fi/action flick based upon the 1954 story, “The Golden Man” by the late Philip K. Dick. Dick was the visionary science fiction author whose novels and stories have been adapted into such films as Blade Runner, Minority Report, and Paycheck.

Next focuses on Cris Johnson (Nicolas Cage), a Las Vegas magician with a secret gift that is both a blessing and a curse to him. Cris has the uncanny ability to know what will be the next thing that happens to him because he can see two minutes into the future. Performing under the stage name, Frank Cadillac, Cris uses his extrasensory talent to make a living off cheap stage tricks and off his gambling winnings at the blackjack table. His latest project is to find and meet, Liz (Jessica Biel), a young woman who seems to have a strange effect on his powers.

Other eyes, however, have been taking notice of Cris’ talent and dexterity with the portal of time. Callie Ferris (Julianne Moore), an FBI counter-terror agent is eager to tap Cris’ brain to help thwart a terrorist group’s planned attack on Los Angeles with a nuclear time bomb. Using all her wiles, Callie, with the help of a fellow agent, Cavanaugh (Tory Kittles), pursues Cris trying to convince him to help her. When the terrorists, who are also aware of his powers, kidnap Liz, Cris may be forced to put his reluctance aside to save Liz and stop nuclear destruction in California.

Directed by Lee Tamahori (Once Were Warriors, Die Another Day), Next is an absurd popcorn flick, but easy to watch and enjoy. Of course, it wasn’t really worth a trip to the theatre, as it’s more like a big-budget, prestige “original movie” from the Sci-Fi Channel. Still, it’s occasionally clever, and Tamahori is actually quite good at making action-filled set pieces that somehow manage to catch the attention of an unwary action movie junkie.

Nicolas Cage isn’t very good here, but neither is he very bad. He’s only cheesy bad, as is the rest of the cast. In fact, it’s a good thing that Jessica Biel is easy on the eyes, because her acting talent sure ain’t the thing that is getting her roles. Nicolas Cage is a movie star and there’s something about him on the big screen that is attractive. Put him and Biel together, and that’s not a bad thing, even when it’s not really that good a thing – as in Next.

6 of 10
B

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

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7 Films Fight for 5 "Best Visual Effects" Oscar Nominations

Last month, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced 15 semifinalists in the race to receive best visual effects Oscar nominations.  Yesterday, they announced that they were down to 7 finalists.  This year, 5 films will recieve nominations.  That's good because in many years there are only three nominees.

Which films will be left out?  I'm not sure, but I think Alice in Wonderland and Inception are locks.  Now, here's the press release:

Press release:

7 Features In 2010 VFX Oscar® Race

Beverly Hills, CA (January 5, 2011) – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that seven films remain in the running in the Visual Effects category for the 83rd Academy Awards®.

The films are listed below in alphabetical order:
“Alice in Wonderland”
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1”
“Hereafter”
“Inception”
“Iron Man 2”
“Scott Pilgrim vs the World”
“Tron: Legacy”

All members of the Visual Effects Branch will be invited to view 15-minute excerpts from each of the seven shortlisted films on Thursday, January 20. Following the screenings, the members will vote to nominate five films for final Oscar consideration.

The 83rd Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Tuesday, January 25, 2011, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2010 will be presented on Sunday, February 27, 2011, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live by the ABC Television Network. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 200 countries worldwide.

Mo'Nique and Academy President to Announce Oscar Nominations

Press release:

Mo'Nique To Join Academy President Tom Sherak For Oscar® Nominations

Beverly Hills, CA (January 4, 2011) –Beverly Hills, CA — Nominations for the 83rd Academy Awards® will be announced on Tuesday, January 25, by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Tom Sherak and Oscar-winning actress and Academy member Mo’Nique.

Sherak and Mo’Nique will unveil the nominations in 10 of the 24 categories at a 5:30 a.m. news conference at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, where hundreds of media representatives from around the world will be gathered. Nominations information for all categories will be distributed simultaneously to news media in attendance and via the Internet on the official Academy Awards website, www.oscar.com.

Last year Mo’Nique received her first Oscar nomination and win for her supporting performance in “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire.” She currently hosts her own late-night talk show, "The Mo'Nique Show," on BET.

Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2010 will be presented on Sunday, February 27, 2011, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live on the ABC Television Network. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 200 countries worldwide.

Review: "Cold Mountain" Wants to Be Epic and Literary (Happy B'day, Anthony Minghella)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 4 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux

Cold Mountain (2003)
Running time: 154 minutes (2 hours, 34 minutes)
MPAA – R for violence and sexuality
DIRECTOR: Anthony Minghella
WRITER: Anthony Minghella (based upon the novel by Charles Frazier)
PRODUCERS: Albert Berger, William Horberg, Sydney Pollack, and Ron Yerxa
CINEMATOGRAPHER: John Seale (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: Walter Murch
Academy Award winner

DRAMA/HISTORICAL/ROMANCE/WAR

Starring: Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Renée Zellweger, Donald Sutherland, Ray Winstone, Brendan Gleeson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Natalie Portman, Kathy Baker, James Gammon, and Giovanni Ribisi

Inman (Jude Law) fell in love with Reverend Monroe’s (Donald Sutherland) daughter, Ada (Nicole Kidman), without really knowing her, but there was something about her and there were no words to describe the strength of this new love. Then, Inman has to go off to fight for the Confederacy in the War Between States.

In the waning years of the war, Inman, after surviving a grave wound, deserts the Southern army and embarks on a perilous journey back home to Cold Mountain, North Carolina, realizing that he’s tired of killing and as a broken man, he could find comfort in Ada’s arms. Meanwhile, Ada is struggling on the home front until she’s meets a feisty young mountain girl, Ruby Thewes (Renée Zellweger), who helps Ada get her father’s farm back in order. Together the survive depredations, the home guard, and cruel local lawman looking for Ada’s love.

Director Anthony Minghella won an Academy Award for directing the powerful, tragic romance, The English Patient, and after following that with The Talented Mr. Ripley and now Cold Mountain, Minghella seems intent on making love stories that move inextricable to a tragic end. Minghella is a really good filmmaker; his movies play out as if directed by a thoughtful storyteller who combines the disciplined acting of stage drama with the visual punch of epic filmmaking.

Cold Mountain is beautifully photographed, and the war scenes, despite their brevity, are as emotionally charged as anything since Braveheart, and the scenes have that kind of old school charm that recalls the golden age Hollywood classic, Gone with the Wind. Cold Mountain is a film where all the skilled and technical crafts were put on film with bravado and intelligence and with an eye on beauty, as if the filmmakers knew that Cold Mountain was indeed a war film, but a war film with an eye on the love lives of the soldiers behind the lines.

The acting is earnest and good, but seems a bit strained at times. It’s too sweet, as if the actors know that they were in an important film, a film leaning more toward art than entertainment – we’re actors, and this time we’re acting in an important film, not starring in a blockbuster. In fact, the acting is reminiscent of the exaggerated, faux stage acting style of 1930 and 40’s Hollywood romance films. Combine this forced formalism with the fact that Cold Mountain is slightly miscast, and the film is suddenly kind of twitchy.

Cold Mountain is a very good film, and it is indeed a poignant romance with epic war as the backdrop. You weep for the character’s hardships, but you yearn as they long for love. If the ending had been at all agreeable, this would have been a perfect film, but what pleasures it offers are indeed gratifying, so I recommend it.

7 of 10
B+

NOTES:
2004 Academy Awards: 1 win: “Best Actress in a Supporting Role” (Renée Zellweger); 6 nominations: “Best Actor in a Leading Role” (Jude Law), “Best Cinematography” (John Seale), “Best Editing” (Walter Murch), “Best Music, Original Score” (Gabriel Yared), “Best Music, Original Song” (T-Bone Burnett and Elvis Costello for the song "Scarlet Tide") and “Best Music, Original Song” (Sting for the song "You Will Be My Ain True Love")

2004 BAFTA Awards: 2 wins: “Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music” (Gabriel Yared and T-Bone Burnett) and “Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role” (Renée Zellweger); 11 nominations: “Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film” (Sydney Pollack, William Horberg, Albert Berger, Ron Yerxa, and Anthony Minghella), “Best Cinematography” (John Seale) “Best Costume Design” (Ann Roth and Carlo Poggioli), “Best Editing” (Walter Murch), “Best Film” (Sydney Pollack, William Horberg, Albert Berger, and Ron Yerxa), “Best Make Up/Hair” (Paul Engelen and Ivana Primorac), “Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role” (Jude Law), “Best Production Design” (Dante Ferretti), “Best Screenplay – Adapted” (Anthony Minghella), “Best Sound” (Eddy Joseph, Ivan Sharrock, Walter Murch, Mike Prestwood Smith, and Matthew Gough) and “David Lean Award for Direction” (Anthony Minghella)

2004 Golden Globes: 1 win “Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture” (Renée Zellweger); 7 nominations: “Best Motion Picture – Drama,” “Best Director - Motion Picture” (Anthony Minghella), “Best Original Score - Motion Picture” (Gabriel Yared), “Best Original Song - Motion Picture” (Sting for the song "You Will Be My Ain True Love"), “Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama” (Jude Law), “Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama” (Nicole Kidman) and “Best Screenplay - Motion Picture” (Anthony Minghella)

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Happy Birthday, Hayao Miyazaki

The master filmmaker, animator, manga artist, and Oscar-winner is 71-years-old today.

Review: "Open Range" a Welcomed Western (Happy B'day, Robert Duvall)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 139 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux

Open Range (2003)
Running time: 139 minutes (2 hours, 19 minutes)
MPAA – R for violence
DIRECTOR: Kevin Costner
WRITER: Craig Storper (based upon the novel, The Open Range Men by Lauran Paine)
PRODUCERS: Kevin Costner, Jake Eberts, and David Valdes
CINEMATOGRAPHER: James Muro (D.o.P.)
EDITORS: Michael J. Duthie and Miklos Wright
COMPOSER: Michael Kamen

WESTERN

Starring: Robert Duvall, Kevin Costner, Annette Bening, Michael Gambon, Michael Jeter, Diego Luna, James Russo, Abraham Benrubi, Dean McDermott, and Kim Coates

Much has been made of Kevin Costner’s ode to classic Western movies, the surprise hit Open Range, but I think this film is very good on its own, even if I ignore the respect it pays to older Westerns (so much so that it shows its influences). Open Range is Costner’s third credited effort as a film director (he finished Waterworld although Kevin Reynolds received director’s credit), and it shows that Costner shines when he’s making Westerns.

In the film, Costner is Charlie Waite, the protégé of Boss Spearman (Robert Duvall), a grizzled free graze cattleman. Unlike ranchers, freegrazers herded their cattle across the unowned land of the West. This was fine prior to the War Between the States, but after the conflict, big ranchers began to buy up all that open range, and they considered any land near that property to also be their territory. Consequently, the resented freegrazers’ cattle roaming across the west, so conflict ensued. When Spearman, Waite, and their men tend their herd on a patch of unspoiled terrain near the makeshift town of Harmonville, they encounter the wrath of vicious Irish brute named Denton Baxter (Michael Gambon). Baxter, a heartless rancher, owns the local sheriff (James Russo) and lords his power over the scared town folks. Baxter and his goons beat up one of Spearman’s men (Abraham Benrubi), and when Spearman and Waite fight back, the violence escalates from there.

Costner patterns Open Range on a number of sources, both old and new. In spirit, the film’s tone resembles Clint Eastwood’s epic film Unforgiven, and the immediacy of the violence in Open Range is similar to the portrayal of violence in Tombstone. Other than that, the film is pretty much its own thing. It lacks the snap and crack of older westerns, but Costner does fool the audience. The film’s laconic pace and somber mood in the beginning belies the coming storm of righteous violence coming in the end. The funny thing is that you can really identify with both Boss Spearman and Charlie Waite’s fierce sense of independence, and you can easily digest their need to bring hell down on those who go out of their way to deny Spearman and Waite their rights to a livelihood. Both characters strike me as men with a low tolerance threshold; they won’t warn you off too many times about screwing with them before they bring the pain.

Open Range is a gorgeous film with beautiful vistas of the wide, open spaces – an untamed country of beautiful green prairies and hills and of a lovely but dangerous sky. Even the filthy little town has a pretty quality to it despite all the dirty earth tones that define it.

This film is also one of those times that Kevin Costner’s monotone delivery of his dialogue works; usually that’s just a sign of poor acting. His Waite is quite man hiding a dark past; he’s slow to anger, and even when he explodes, he really doesn’t come apart at the seams so much as he remains a steady assault of death dealing. What more does one need to say about the consummate talent of the brilliant character actor that is Robert Duvall? He’s always a pleasure to watch and with his talent, he finds a way to make it seem as if he and Costner are old partners, both in the film and in reality. There is so much good chemistry between the two one might think this is just the latest in many film projects together. Many of the other parts are a bit hokey, character types familiar to almost every old horse opera, but the actors redeem them with the quiet and serious intensity of actors who treat every role as if it’s a career defining moment. Even Annette Bening gives her role as the saintly spinster Sue Barlow some zing as she makes goo goo eyes at Costner’s Waite.

I loved this film, and I heartily recommend it to people who love westerns, especially the old-fashioned kind in which bad guys (with their figurative black hats force) loose-spirited men to do something they’d rather not – pick up a gun and take a human life to save their own. I can see this as a stable on such cable channels as Turner Classic Movies or American Movie Classics, and Open Range has Saturday matinee written all over it. At times it is too dry and slow, but the grit and determination of the characters and the filmmakers will hold your attention. Beside, it’s also one of the few recent movies where all the male actors act like real grown men and not overgrown teenage boys.

7 of 10
B+

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18 and Counting: "The Social Network" Wins with Online Film Critics

Founded in 1997, the Online Film Critics Society describes itself as “the largest, most respected organization for critics whose work appears primarily on the Internet.”  Last week these critics announced their nominees for their end of the year movie awards.  Sunday night, they announced the winners.  I'm not counting, but Entertainment Weekly says that with this "Best Picture" award, The Social Network has won 18 best picture awards.

2010 Online Film Critics Society Award Winners:

Best Picture: The Social Network

Best Director: David Fincher, The Social Network

Best Lead Actor: Colin Firth, The King's Speech

Best Lead Actress: Natalie Portman, Black Swan

Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, The Fighter

Best Supporting Actress: Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit

Best Original Screenplay: Christopher Nolan, Inception

Best Adapted Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network

Best Cinematography: Roger Deakins, True Grit

Best Editing: Lee Smith, Inception

Best Animated Feature: Toy Story 3

Best Foreign Language Film: Mother

Best Documentary: Exit Through The Gift Shop

http://www.ofcs.org/