Flashy "Immortals" Mortally Flawed

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 27 (of 2012) by Leroy Douresseaux


Immortals (2011)
Running time: 110 minutes (1 hour, 50 minutes)
MPAA – R for sequences of strong bloody violence, and a scene of sexuality
DIRECTOR: Tarsem Singh Dhandwar
WRITERS: Charles Parlapanides and Vlas Parlapanides
PRODUCERS: Mark Canton, Ryan Kavanaugh, and Gianni Nunnari
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Brendan Galvin (D.o.P.)
EDITORS: Wyatt Jones, Stuart Levy, and David Rosenbloom
COMPOSER: Trevor Morris

FANTASY/DRAMA/WAR

Starring: Henry Cavill, Mickey Rourke, Stephen Dorff, Freida Pinto, Luke Evans, John Hurt, Joseph Morgan, Alan Van Sprang, Isabel Lucas, and Kellan Lutz

The subject of this movie review is Immortals, a 2011 3D fantasy film (which I saw in traditional D). The film, which is loosely based on various Greek myths, follows the quest of a man seeking vengeance against the ruthless king who killed his mother.

In the year 1228 B.C., Hyperion (Mickey Rourke), the mortal Heraklion king, seeks the Epirus Bow, a weapon of immense power that can be used to slay immortals and gods. Hyperion will use the bow to free the enemies of the gods, the Titans, so that they can destroy Zeus (Luke Evans) and the other gods. His search for the bow takes Hyperion and his army to the village of Koplos.

During their rampage through the village, Hyperion kills the mother of Theseus (Henry Cavill), a highly skilled warrior. Theseus is shunned by his fellow villagers because he was born a bastard child, but the gods favor him. During his mission of vengeance, Theseus meets Phaedra (Freida Pinto), an Oracle priestess. Phaedra’s visions tell her that Theseus will play an integral part in Hyperion’s quest to free the Titans, but whose side Theseus will choose remains a mystery.

Director Tarsem Singh likely first made a big impression on pop culture because he directed the music video for the R.E.M. song, “Losing My Religion,” which won “Best Video of the Year” at the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards. I found the video to be as pretentious and as ridiculous as the song (although I like R.E.M.). He next gained attention for directing the Jennifer Lopez movie, the visually striking, but pretentious and dumb, The Cell.

Immortals is less pretentious and less dumb than the R.E.M. music video and The Cell, but still pretentious. Immortals is certainly visually striking; there were moments during the film when certain costumes, sets, and backdrops gave me pause and made me press the rewind button on the remote. Sadly, the movie seems like little more than a fairy tale that someone could tell in less than half an hour stretched past the breaking point in order to become a nearly two-hour long movie.

Immortals can be described as 300 and Troy retrofitted with elements of Lord of the Rings. So there are epic battles, clashes of supernatural beings, and big pre-battle speeches, but there is not much of a narrative.

I must say that Mickey Rourke gives a stellar performance as the brutal King Hyperion, but Rourke’s performance fashions a character that is better than the movie in which he plays the central villain. Henry Cavill’s performance is a mixed bag. Sometimes, Theseus is rousing; other times, the character doesn’t come across as the kind of great hero that an epic action fantasy film needs. Hopefully, Cavill does better next year when he debuts as the lead in the Superman film franchise reboot, The Man of Steel.

Immortals is not bad, but it isn’t particularly good. It is a movie with potential and lots of good elements that don’t quite come together. Thus, Immortals will likely be relegated to that great pile of mediocre movies that exists between the really good and highly entertaining stuff and the stand-out bad stuff.

5 of 10
C+

Thursday, April 05, 2012

Brian Grazer and Craig Brewer Guide Katy Perry Doc to Big Screen

“KATY PERRY: PART OF ME” FROM PRODUCERS KATY PERRY, DIRECT MANAGEMENT, IMAGINE ENTERTAINMENT, AEG AND EMI WILL BE RELEASED ON JULY 5, 2012

THE 3D FEATURE FILM FROM PARAMOUNT INSURGE WILL REVEAL KATY’S LIFE ON-AND OFF-STAGE

Academy Award®-Winner Brian Grazer of Imagine Entertainment Will Produce the Film, Along With Katy and Her Team at Direct Management Group

Boarding the Project as an Executive Producer is “Hustle & Flow” Director Craig Brewer

Paramount’s Insurge Pictures today announced they have partnered with Katy Perry, Direct Management, Imagine Entertainment, AEG and co-financing partner EMI on a 3D feature film starring Katy. To be released on July 5, 2012, KATY PERRY: PART OF ME will be a first-ever big-screen look at the international superstar’s life both on- and off-stage.

Said Katy, "I am so excited to paint the silver screen in 3D color with help from our friends at Paramount and Imagine. For the last year and a half, I have intimately documented my life both on and off the stage of The California Dreams Tour. I want to take you behind the cotton candy clouds and reveal the highs and lows and nuts of bolts of this extraordinary ride. I promise you, after seeing this film, you will truly know me."

President of Paramount Film Group, Adam Goodman, said, “Katy’s one-of-a-kind story, and our unique ability at Insurge to create equally unique movie going experiences, was a natural fit. We’re beyond excited to offer her fans, who inspired this movie, and moviegoers everywhere, this once-in-a-lifetime look into her world and capture a moment in time.”

"This has been a milestone year for Katy. She is emblematic of the culturally forward thinking artists that we endeavor to highlight at Insurge, so when the opportunity came about to work with her on this film, Adam and I immediately jumped at the chance," said Amy Powell, President, Paramount Insurge.

Katy began documenting her California Dreams Tour, consisting of 124 performances, over a year ago. Her management team, Direct Management, soon after brought AEG into the project to film the artist's two shows at Staples Center in LA in 3D. A partnership with Imagine Entertainment followed.

Directed by the Magical Elves team of Jane Lipsitz and Dan Cutforth (JUSTIN BIEBER: NEVER SAY NEVER), KATY PERRY: PART OF ME is produced by Katy, along with Martin Kirkup, Bradford Cobb, and Steven Jensen of Direct Management; and Academy Award®-winner Brian Grazer (8 MILE, A BEAUTIFUL MIND) of Imagine Entertainment. The film’s executive producers include Craig Brewer (FOOTLOOSE, HUSTLE & FLOW), Randy Phillips of AEG, Erica Huggins and Michael Rosenberg of Imagine Entertainment; and Ed Lovelace and James Hall of Pulse Films. Lukasz “Dr. Luke” Gottwald and Max Martin, who co-wrote the title song with Perry, will serve as co-producers, along with Nanette Bernstein (AMERICAN TEEN), Thomas Benski and Dan Bowen of Pulse Films, Anna Culp of Imagine Entertainment, and Archie Gips of Magical Elves.

Katy's new single, "Part Of Me" debuted in the #1 spot on Billboard's Hot 100 on February 22nd, making it the first in a year, and only the 20th in 53 years, to debut at #1. Since the 2008 release of “One of the Boys,” Perry has topped the charts in more than 25 countries and has sold more than 50 million digital tracks and mobile products, as well as 10 million albums worldwide. Her hits include “I Kissed a Girl,” “Hot N Cold,” “Thinking Of You,” “Waking Up in Vegas,” as well as "California Gurls," "Teenage Dream," "Firework," "E.T.," "Last Friday Night," and "The One That Got Away," all from the "Teenage Dream" album. A special edition of Katy’s double platinum album “Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection," was released on March 26th.

An EMI artist, Katy is represented by managers Bradford Cobb, Martin Kirkup, Steven Jensen and Ngoc Hoang of Direct Management Group, Inc.

For more information, go to KatyPerryPartOfMe.com or follow Katy Perry on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/KatyPerry. #KP3D


About Paramount Pictures Corporation
Paramount Pictures Corporation (PPC), a global producer and distributor of filmed entertainment, is a unit of Viacom (NASDAQ: VIA, VIAB), a leading content company with prominent and respected film, television and digital entertainment brands. Paramount controls a collection of some of the most powerful brands in filmed entertainment, including Paramount Pictures, Paramount Animation, Paramount Vantage, Paramount Classics, Insurge Pictures, MTV Films, and Nickelodeon Movies. PPC operations also include Paramount Famous Productions, Paramount Home Media Distribution, Paramount Pictures International, Paramount Licensing Inc., and Paramount Studio Group.

Review: "All About Eve" is an Eternal Film Classic (Happy B'day, Bette Davis)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 41 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux

All About Eve (1950) – Black & White
Running time: 138 minutes (2 hour, 18 minutes)
DIRECTOR: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
WRITER: Joseph L. Mankiewicz (based upon the short story, “The Wisdom of Eve” by Mary Orr)
PRODUCER: Daryl F. Zanuck
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Milton R. Krasner
EDITOR: Barbara McLean
Academy Award winner

DRAMA

Starring: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Celeste Holm, Gary Merrill, Hugh Marlowe, Gregory Ratoff, Barbara Bates, Marilyn Monroe, and Thelma Ritter

The subject of this movie review is the 1950 American drama, All About Eve. This Oscar-winning “Best Picture” was produced by Daryl F. Zanuck and was based upon Mary Orr’s 1946 short story, “The Wisdom of Eve.”

Considered the great “backstage” movie of all time, Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s All About Eve was recently released in one of those shiny DVD retrospective packages, deservedly so. Filled with an all star cast that is more than up to the challenge of turning on the thespian heat, the film is as mesmerizing, catty, and blunt as it probably was over half a century ago.

Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter), an aspiring actress, insinuates herself into a circle of theatre friends, the most famous of them being the established but aging stage actress Margo Channing (Bette Davis). Eve wants so badly to be an actress that she will manipulate, grovel, connive, lie, cheat, and do whatever it takes to make it as a star of the theatre, including hiding her real name and creating a fictitious past. Before long she is Margo’s unofficial assistant and soon fashions a close relationship with Margo’s best friend, Karen Richard (Celeste Holm), but she has her eyes of Karen’s husband Lloyd (Hugh Marlowe), a popular and critically respected playwright. Margo, in a sense, is Lloyd’s muse, and she has starred in most of Lloyd’s plays; however, Margo is fortyish and beyond the age of some of Lloyd’s youthful fictional female leads. Here is where Eve believes she can step in and capture the essence of a Lloyd character, and with the help of Addison DeWitt (George Sanders), a theatre critic (and the film’s dominant narrator), she makes it to the top of the theatrical world over the bodies of her friends.

All About Eve is a study of where ambition can get you, but it is also an examination of how cut throat a person feels she has to be to get to the top. Ms. Baxter languishes in the early part of her character as the tepid friend who just wants to serve Margo, but the actress bears her fangs and claws when Eve finally gets the proverbial foot in the door. It’s a radical and shocking transformation.

What can I add about the incomparable Bette Davis? Believe me, she shines like a nova, and she chews up her part. Margo is a force of nature and a supernatural force, throwing her weight around the story. The movie is ostensibly about Eve; she is the catalyst for the proceedings, but much of the film deals with Margo’s travails. Ms. Davis’s performance is the work of an actress dominating the screen in the chosen style of the time. Movie lovers, films buffs, and critics – none of them should ever miss this on the strength of Ms. Davis’s performance alone.

It’s a bonus to get star performances by Sanders (who won an Academy Award for his supporting role as DeWitt), drool and witty by turns and slightly menacing and all knowing most of the time. Hugh Marlowe hams it up as the playwright Lloyd Richards, but it’s the only way he can keep up with Ms. Davis.

As the film approaches the end, it really delves into the process of how stars of the stage are born, but it really lays bare the potential for ugliness in a dog eat dog world. By the end of the film, you can’t help but watch Eve’s ascendancy and realize that you have been watching what could be a story similar to Margo’s as a young, struggling actress. All About Eve is about Eve becoming Margo as the latter’s career winds to the end and the former becomes the new star of Broadway and theatre. And as another ingénue walks into the picture as the story closes, we realize that the stage is a vicious circle. Eve is about to experience what she did to Eve and her friends.

There’s only one Margo, and there’s usually only place for one at the top. In the world of performance, one has to climb over everyone else who is also trying to reach the pinnacle. After you’ve reached the top, you can sulk over the bitter feelings and ruthless process. You can wish things hadn’t been so nasty, but at least you get to sulk from the top of the heap.

9 of 10
A+

NOTES:
1951 Academy Awards: 6 wins: “Best Director” (Joseph L. Mankiewicz), “Best Picture” (20th Century Fox), “Best Actor in a Supporting Role” (George Sanders), “Best Costume Design, Black-and-White” (Edith Head and Charles Le Maire), “Best Sound, Recording” ((20th Century-Fox Sound Dept.), and “Best Writing, Screenplay” (Joseph L. Mankiewicz); 8 nominations: “Best Actress in a Leading Role” (Anne Baxter), “Best Actress in a Leading Role” (Bette Davis), “Best Actress in a Supporting Role” (Celeste Holm), “Best Actress in a Supporting Role” (Thelma Ritter), “Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White” (Lyle R. Wheeler, George W. Davis, Thomas Little, and Walter M. Scott), “Best Cinematography, Black-and-White” (Milton R. Krasner), “Best Film Editing” (Barbara McLean), “Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture” (Alfred Newman)

1951 BAFTA Awards: 1 win: “Best Film from any Source” (USA)

1951 Golden Globes: 1 win: “Best Screenplay” (Joseph L. Mankiewicz); 5 nominations: “Best Motion Picture – Drama,” “Best Motion Picture Actress – Drama” (Bette Davis), “Best Motion Picture Director” (Joseph L. Mankiewicz), “Best Supporting Actor” (George Sanders), and “Best Supporting Actress” (Thelma Ritter)

1990 National Film Preservation Board: National Film Registry

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Sci-Fi Anime "Zetman" Now on Hulu and VIZ Anime Websites

VIZ MEDIA ANNOUNCES THE SIMULCAST PREMIERE OF THE INTENSE DARK ACTION SERIES ZETMAN, THE SAME DAY AS IT DEBUTS IN JAPAN

Seinen Sci-Fi Anime Adventure Launches Today On VIZAnime.com And Hulu And Is Based On A Manga Series By Acclaimed Creator Masakazu Katsura

VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), the largest distributor and licensor of anime and manga in North America, is proud to announce today’s online simulcast debut of the gritty new sci-fi anime action series – ZETMAN –on VIZAnime.com, the company’s own website for free anime, as well as on the free, ad-supported Hulu service and the Hulu Plus subscription service (http://www.hulu.com/).

ZETMAN is rated ‘TV-MA’ for Mature Audiences, and is based on a popular seinen manga (graphic novel) series by Masakazu Katsura, who also created VIDEO GIRL AI and I”S (both published in North America by VIZ Media) and was the character designer for the hit anime TIGER & BUNNY (also available on VIZAnime.com). The anime series, presented in Japanese with English subtitles, launches in U.S. the same day as it debuts in Japan; a new episode will be available each Monday.

“ZET,” the one who is entrusted with the future of mankind. “ALPHAS,” the one who is searching for the meaning of true justice. They will be the ones who will change the world. Is it coincidence or fate that brings these two heroes together? Soon, the two will learn what fate has in mind for them…

“What is justice? What is hope? What does it mean to be strong? What does it mean to be human? ZETMAN ponders these questions and offers some surprising action-packed answers,” says Brian Ige, Vice President, Animation at VIZ Media. “Don’t miss the exciting simulcast debut, streaming exclusively on VIZAnime.com and Hulu, and tune in each week for a brand new episode to follow the remarkable changes that ensue after Jin Kanzaki meets a super-powered bloodthirsty killer!”

VIZAnime.com is a free-to-use web destination that is now the permanent home to some of the company’s best-loved animated series. Over 1,800 episodes are currently available, and new content is added on a weekly basis. Series currently simulcast on VIZAnime.com include LAGRANGE – THE FLOWER OF RIN-NE and NARUTO SHIPPUDEN. Other fan-favorite series available include BLEACH, BLUE EXORCIST, CROSS GAME, DEATH NOTE, FULL MOON, INUYASHA: THE FINAL ACT, KEKKAISHI, NAOKI URASAWA’S MONSTER, NURA: RISE OF THE YOKAI CLAN, ONE PIECE, TIGER & BUNNY, VAMPIRE KNIGHT, and more!

For more information on ZETMAN and other animated titles from VIZ Media please visit http://www.vizanime.com/.

Review: "On the Waterfront" is Still an American Classic (Happy B'day, Marlon Brando)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 75 (of 2005) by Leroy Douresseaux

On the Waterfront (1954) – Black & White
Running time: 108 minutes (1 hour, 48 minutes)
DIRECTOR: Elia Kazan
WRITER: Budd Schulberg; from a story by Budd Schulberg (suggest by the series of articles “Crime on the Waterfront” for the New York Sun newspaper by Malcolm Johnson)
PRODUCER: Sam Spiegel
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Boris Kaufman
EDITOR: Gene Milford
Academy Award winner

DRAMA/CRIME/ROMANCE

Starring: Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, Eva Marie Saint, Pat Henning, Leif Erickson, James Westerfield, John Hamilton, Marty Balsam, Fred Gwynne, and Pat Hingle

The 1954 “Best Picture” winner, On the Waterfront, remains one of the all-time greats of American cinema. A landmark “issue” film, its screenplay is based upon Malcolm Johnson’s series of articles for the New York Sun, “Crime on the Waterfront;” the Pulitzer Prize-winning series focused on organized crime’s control of the longshoreman’s union, specifically in New York City. However, On the Waterfront is more than just an important film or some kind of docu-drama, it is film art as truth, taking real life and wringing the drama out of it into a story that is compelling because it portrays true crime and also because it beautifully depicts the struggle of real lives.

Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando in an Oscar-winning role) was a prizefighter who threw fights for his corrupt boxing manager and for his brother Charley “the Gent” Malloy (Rod Steiger), who was in tight with organized crime. Now, Terry feeds his pigeons and runs errands for Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb), the corrupt boss of the longshoreman’s (or dock workers’) union, but one of those errands leads to the death of an acquaintance, Joey Doyle, at the hands of Friendly’s thugs. Now, the Waterfront Crime Commission is about to hold hearings on the underworld’s infiltration of unions, specifically the longshoremen.

Terry feels pangs of guilt, especially after he meets and falls for Joey Doyle’s sister, Edie (Eva Marie Saint, who won an Oscar for supporting actress for the role). Spurred on by Edie (who sees more in Terry than he sees in himself) and Father Barry (Karl Malden), a local priest who wants to stop the corrupt union from preying on desperate workers, the washed up boxer contemplates taking on the corrupt union boss, Friendly, much to the chagrin of Friendly and Friendly’s right hand man, Terry’s brother Charley.

Marlon Brando gives one of the great screen performances as Terry Malloy, and the cab ride with Terry and Charley having a man-to-man chat in the backseat is one of the most famous scenes in cinematic history. Brando embodies a man who is soured on life and made cynical by his bad decisions, the cruel injustices, and minor (and major) disappointments in life. We can watch Brando struggle to better himself against the part of him that really believes in nothing more than getting by each day, a man who believes that you live longer if you don’t have ambitions. This performance is a work of art that established Brando in many minds as the greatest screen actor of all time.

Don’t let Brando’s performance take away from the rest of the cast. There are some really great supporting performances here. Eva Marie Saint is fetching as a young woman who can be both relentless in her quest for justice and coy in her play at getting a man. Karl Malden’s Father Barry also has a great scene at the dock when he delivers a powerful “eulogy” about standing up like Christ to injustice and accepting that Christ is in each and every man, making each man your brother – powerful stuff.

On the Waterfront is superbly directed; it’s as if Elia Kazan couldn’t help but make the right choice every time. He was blessed with Budd Schulberg’s screenplay, which mastered the perfect balance of gritty realism and potent drama. Combine excellent cinematography with the real locations in NYC, and you have must-see cinema.

10 of 10

NOTES:
1955 Academy Awards: 8 wins: “Best Picture” (Sam Spiegel), “Best Director” (Elia Kazan), “Best Actor in a Leading Role” (Marlon Brando), “Best Actress in a Supporting Role” (Eva Marie Saint), “Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White” (Richard Day), “Best Cinematography, Black-and-White” (Boris Kaufman), “Best Film Editing” (Gene Milford), and “Best Writing, Story and Screenplay” (Budd Schulberg); 4 nominations: “Best Actor in a Supporting Role” (Lee J. Cobb), “Best Actor in a Supporting Role” (Karl Malden), “Best Actor in a Supporting Role” (Rod Steiger), and “Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture” (Leonard Bernstein)

1955 BAFTA Awards: 1 win: “Best Foreign Actor” (Marlon Brando, USA); 2 nominations: “Best Film from any Source” (USA) and “Most Promising Newcomer to Film” (Eva Marie Saint)

1955 Golden Globes: 4 wins: “Best Motion Picture – Drama,” “Best Cinematography - Black and White” (Boris Kaufman), “Best Director” (Elia Kazan), and “Best Motion Picture Actor – Drama” (Marlon Brando)

1989 National Film Preservation Board: National Film Registry

Saturday, May 21, 2005

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Review: "Schindler's List" is Fine Art

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 19 (of 2005) by Leroy Douresseaux

Schindler’s List (1993) – B&W with color segments
Running time: 194 minutes (3 hour, 14 minutes)
MPAA – R for language, some sexuality and actuality violence
DIRECTOR: Steven Spielberg
WRITER: Steven Zaillian (from the novel by Thomas Keneally)
PRODUCERS: Gerald R. Molen, Branko Lustig, and Spielberg
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Janusz Kaminski
EDITOR: Michael Kahn, A.C.E.
Academy Award winner

DRAMA/WAR with elements of thriller

Starring: Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes, Caroline Goodall, Jonathan Sagalle, and Embeth Davidtz

When Steven Spielberg finally won his Oscar for “Best Director,” he also picked up an additional statue as a producer when Schindler’s List won the “Best Picture” of 1993. Schindler’s List is without a doubt one of the greatest films of the last quarter of the 20th century, and it is also truly film as art.

The film’s title character is the real life Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), a member of the Nazi Party and a war profiteer. The Czech-born, German businessman made his fortune exploiting cheap Jewish labor in German-occupied Poland. As World War II progresses, Schindler grows more horrified as the Nazi’s step up the process of exterminating Jews, especially after he witnesses the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto in 1943. He convinces a barbaric German commander, Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes), to let him have the 1100 Polish Jews he has on a list he created with his longtime partner and Jewish prisoner, Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley). This group of Jews are scheduled to be gassed at Auschwitz, but he is allowed to use them to operate a munitions factory at Brinnlitz. The second half of the film follows Schindler as he lavishly spends his fortune on bribes, parties, and gifts on important German officials who will tolerate him using Jewish workers. Schindler’s Jews and their benefactor struggle to stay alive as Germany steadily loses the war because it is at this point that Germany begins to try to hide evidence of the Holocaust.

Although many have criticized the film for being overly-sentimental, propagandistic, and historically inaccurate (Oskar Schindler may have been less charitable and more opportunistic in his quest to save the Jews, and Jewish prisoners may have had to pay their way onto the list, according to some), Schindler’s List is nevertheless a very powerful film. It resonates more than just emotionally and is also a very well made film. In fact, Spielberg’s mixture of classic Hollywood style, black and white photography, and a documentary-like directing technique make for a inimitable and distinctive film. Whenever the film narrative turns to Liam Neeson’s Schindler, Spielberg frames the character as if Schindler were in an archetypal 1940’s Hollywood film noir. When chronicling the Germans’ brutality against the Jews, Spielberg creates a raw, visceral, and immediate art splashed on the wide canvas of a world simultaneously real and dreamlike.

It’s a bravura effort from one of the great film helmsmen. Spielberg makes a compelling film that you can’t help but watch even as he brazenly displays the monstrous cruelty of Germans. Still, that is the way Spielberg emphasizes that the Germans considered their Jewish slaves and prisoners to have no future, that they were merely the tattered remains of a history already forgotten.

It’s a shame Neeson did not win the “Best Actor in a Leading Role” Oscar that year, losing to Tom Hanks. In many ways, Neeson is as important to the film as Spielberg. Schindler is both the foundation upon which this story is built and the axis upon which it turns. Neeson recognizes the faults of the man and subtly pushes Schindler’s less than savory attributes to the surface. He makes him more human than hero. Neeson conveys the sense that there is always something else going on in Schindler’s mind, something quite different from what he tells his friends and adversaries. An actor giving a character that much verisimilitude is rare. That Neeson can make the sly, sneaky, and recklessly flawed Schindler so engaging and intriguing is itself a work of art.

10 of 10

NOTES:
1994 Academy Awards: 7 wins: “Best Picture” (Steven Spielberg, Gerald R. Molen, and Branko Lustig), “Best Director” (Steven Spielberg), “Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published” (Steven Zaillian), “Best Art Direction-Set Decoration” (Allan Starski and Ewa Braun), “Best Cinematography” (Janusz Kaminski), and “Best Film Editing” (Michael Kahn), “Best Music, Original Score” (John Williams); 5 nominations: “Best Actor in a Leading Role” (Liam Neeson), “Best Actor in a Supporting Role” (Ralph Fiennes), “Best Costume Design” (Anna B. Sheppard), “Best Makeup” (Christina Smith, Matthew W. Mungle, and Judith A. Cory), “Best Sound” (Andy Nelson, Steve Pederson, Scott Millan, and Ron Judkins)

1994 BAFTA Awards: 7 wins: Best Actor in a Supporting Role” (Ralph Fiennes), “Best Cinematography” (Janusz Kaminski), “Best Editing” (Michael Kahn), “Best Film” (Steven Spielberg, Gerald R. Molen, and Branko Lustig), “Best Score” (John Williams), “Best Screenplay – Adapted” (Steven Zaillian), and “David Lean Award for Direction” (Steven Spielberg); 6 nominations: “Best Actor” (Liam Neeson), “Best Actor in a Supporting Role” (Ben Kingsley), “Best Costume Design” (Anna B. Sheppard), “Best Make Up Artist” (Christina Smith, Matthew W. Mungle, Waldemar Pokromski, and Pauline Heys), “Best Production Design” (Allan Starski), and “Best Sound” (Charles L. Campbell, Louis L. Edemann, Robert Jackson, Ron Judkins, Andy Nelson, Steve Pederson, and Scott Millan)

1994 Golden Globes: 3 wins: Best Director - Motion Picture (Steven Spielberg), “Best Motion Picture – Drama,” and “Best Screenplay - Motion Picture” (Steven Zaillian); 3 nominations: “Best Original Score - Motion Picture” (John Williams), “Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama” (Liam Neeson), and “Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture” (Ralph Fiennes)

2004 National Film Preservation Board: National Film Registry

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Adam Sandler and "Jack & Jill" Dominate 2012 Razzie Awards

The Golden Raspberry Award or, as it is best known, the Razzie Award, is basically the opposite of the Academy Awards (the Oscars). This award honors the worst achievements in film in a calendar year, as determined by the paid membership of the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation.

The 32nd Annual Razzie Awards were announced Sunday, April 1, 2012, which was, of course, April Fools’ Day.  For the first time in the 32 years of the Razzie Awards, one movie won every category.  One actor's work took home every tropy.  That movie is Jack & Jill.  That actor is Adam Sandler.  There is nothing else to say.

The 32nd Annual Razzie Awards winners (for 2011):

WORST PICTURE
Jack & Jill

WORST ACTOR
Adam Sandler – Jack & Jill and Just Go with It

WORST ACTRESS
Adam Sandler (As “Jill”) – Jack & Jill

WORST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Al Pacino (As “Al Pacino”) – Jack & Jill

WORST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
David Spade (As “Monica”) – Jack & Jill

WORST SCREEN ENSEMBLE
The Entire Cast of Jack & Jill

WORST DIRECTOR
Dennis Dugan – Jack & Jill and Just Go with It

WORST PREQUEL, REMAKE, RIP-OFF OR SEQUEL
Jack & Jill (Remake/Rip-Off of Ed Woods’ Glen or Glenda)

WORST SCREEN COUPLE
Adam Sandler and EITHER Katie Holmes, Al Pacino OR Adam Sandler / Jack & Jill

WORST SCREENPLAY
Jack & Jill – Screenplay by Steve Koren & Adam Sandler, Story by Ben Zook