L.A. Film Critics in Love with "Amour"

The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA) is a professional organization of Los Angeles-based, professional film critics working in the Los Angeles print and electronic media. Since 1975, LAFCA members vote on the year's Achievement Awards each December, honoring screen excellence on both sides of the camera.

38th Annual (2012) Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards:

BEST PICTURE: "Amour"
Runner-up: "The Master"

BEST DIRECTOR: Paul Thomas Anderson, "The Master"
Runner-up: Kathryn Bigelow ("Zero Dark Thirty")

BEST ACTOR: Joaquin Phoenix, "The Master"
Runner-up: Denis Lavant ("Holy Motors")

BEST ACTRESS: (tie)
Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook and Emmanuelle Riva, “Amour”

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Dwight Henry, "Beasts of the Southern Wild"
Runner-up: Christoph Waltz ("Django Unchained")

Best Supporting Actress: Amy Adams, "The Master"
Runner-up: Anne Hathaway ("The Dark Knight Rises" and "Les Miserables")

Best Screenplay: Chris Terrio, “Argo"
Runner-up: David O. Russell ("Silver Linings Playbook")

Best Cinematography: Roger Deakins, "Skyfall"
Runner-up: Mihai Malaimare Jr ("The Master")

Best Production Design: Jack Fisk and David Crank, "The Master"
Runner-up: Adam Stockhausen ("Moonrise Kingdom")

Best Editing: Dylan Tichenor and William Goldenberg, "Zero Dark Thirty"
Runner-up: William Goldenberg ("Argo")

Best Music Score: "Beasts of the Southern wild" by Dan Romer and Benh Zeitlin
Runner-up: Jonny Greenwood ("The Master")

Best Foreign-Language Film: "Holy Motors" (from France) - Directed by Leos Carax
Runner-up: "footnote" (from Israel) directed by Joseph Cedar

Best Documentary/Non-Fiction Film: "The Gatekeepers" - directed by Dror Moreh
Runner-up: "Searching for Sugar Man" by Malik Bendjelloul

Best Animation: "Frankenweenie" – directed by Tim Burton
Runner-up: "It's Such a Beautiful Day" directed by Don Hertzfeldt

New Generation: Benh Zeitlin, "Beasts of the Southern Wild"

Career Achievement: Frederick Wiseman

The Douglas Edwards Experimental/Independent Film/Video Award: "Leviathan"

http://www.lafca.net/

Detroit Film Critics Society Announce 2012 Nominations

The Detroit Film Critics Society was founded in Spring 2007 and currently consists of a group of 22 Michigan film critics who write or broadcast in the Detroit area as well as other major cities within a 150-mile radius of the city including Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Lansing, and Flint, Michigan.

The critics have stated that they will announce their winners Friday, December 14, 2012.  The other announcement was that there was one major film they were unable to see, Michael Haneke’s acclaimed French drama, Amour.

THE DFCS NOMINEES FOR 2012 (in alphabetical order)

BEST PICTURE
•ARGO
•THE IMPOSSIBLE
•SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK
•TAKE THIS WALTZ
•ZERO DARK THIRTY

BEST DIRECTOR
•BEN AFFLECK – ARGO
•JUAN ANTONIO BAYONA – THE IMPOSSIBLE
•KATHERINE BIGELOW – ZERO DARK THIRTY
•SARAH POLLEY – TAKE THIS WALTZ
•DAVID O. RUSSELL – SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK

BEST ACTOR
•BRADLEY COOPER – SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK
•JOHN HAWKES – THE SESSIONS
•DANIEL DAY-LEWIS – LINCOLN
•BILL MURRAY – HYDE PARK ON HUDSON
•JOAQUIN PHOENIX – THE MASTER

BEST ACTRESS
•JESSICA CHASTAIN – ZERO DARK THIRTY
•GRETA GERWIG – DAMSELS IN DISTRESS
•JENNIFER LAWRENCE – SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK
•NAOMI WATTS – THE IMPOSSIBLE
•MICHELLE WILLIAMS – TAKE THIS WALTZ

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
•ROBERT DENIRO – SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK
•PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN – THE MASTER
•TOMMY LEE JONES – LINCOLN
•MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY – MAGIC MIKE
•EWAN MCGREGOR – THE IMPOSSIBLE
•EZRA MILLER – THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
•AMY ADAMS – THE MASTER
•ANN DOWD – COMPLIANCE
•SALLY FIELD – LINCOLN
•ANNE HATHAWAY – LES MISÉRABLES
•HELEN HUNT – THE SESSIONS

BEST ENSEMBLE
•ARGO
•MARVEL’S THE AVENGERS
•LINCOLN
•MOONRISE KINGDOM
•SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK

BREAKTHROUGH
•STEPHEN CHBOSKY – THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER
•ZOE KAZAN – RUBY SPARKS
•REBEL WILSON – PITCH PERFECT
•BENH ZEITLIN – BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD
•CRAIG ZOBEL – COMPLIANCE

BEST SCREENPLAY
•STEPHEN CHBOSKY – THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER
•DREW GODDARD & JOSS WHEDON – THE CABIN IN THE WOODS
•TONY KUSHNER – LINCOLN
•SARAH POLLEY – TAKE THIS WALTZ
•DAVID O. RUSSELL – SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK

BEST DOCUMENTARY
•THE HOUSE I LIVE IN
•THE IMPOSTER
•JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI
•THE QUEEN OF VERSAILLES
•SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN

http://detroitfilmcritics.com/

"Big Top Scooby-Doo!" a Circus of Action

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 97 (of 2012) by Leroy Douresseaux


Big Top Scooby-Doo! (2012) – Video
Running time: 80 minutes (1 hour, 20 minutes)
DIRECTOR: Ben Jones
WRITER: Douglas Langdale
PRODUCERS: Spike Brandt and Tom Cervone
EDITOR: Kyle Stafford
COMPOSER: Robert J. Kral
ANIMATION STUDIO: Digital Emation Inc.

ANIMATION/ACTION/COMEDY/MYSTERY/FAMILY

Starring: (voices) Frank Welker, Matthew Lillard, Grey DeLisle, Mindy Cohn, Greg Ellis, Maurice LaMarche, Peter Stormare, Jeff Dunham, Carlos Ferro, Jess Harnell, Jim Meskimen, Candi Milo, Hynden Walch, and Craig Ferguson

Big Top Scooby-Doo! is the 18th movie in the Scooby-Doo direct-to-video series from Warner Bros. Animation. This series began in 1998 with Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island. This new film has Scooby-Doo and company working in a circus to solve a mystery involving jewel heists and werewolves.

Big Top Scooby-Doo! finds Mystery Inc.: Shaggy Rogers (Matthew Lillard), Fred Jones (Frank Welker), Daphne Blake (Grey DeLisle), Velma Dinkley (Mindy Cohn), and, of course, Scooby-Doo (Frank Welker) arriving in Atlantic City. They’re hoping to find some monster-free fun, when they discover that the circus is in town. Not long after arriving at the camp site of the Brancusi Circus, they are attacked by a werewolf.

After rescuing them, Marius Brancusi (Greg Ellis), owner of the circus, tells the gang that the werewolf has been terrorizing his performers. The werewolf has also apparently committed a jewelry store robbery in each town in which the circus has recently performed. Desperate for help, Marius hires Mystery Inc. to catch the werewolf, but the gang will have to work incognito as circus performers. Jealous acrobats, cranky clowns, and the other eccentric denizens of the Brancusi Circus complicate the case as Mystery Inc. learns to perform circus stunts and try to unravel a werewolf mystery.

Big Top Scooby-Doo! is good, but not great and is not one of the standouts of this series. The best moments in this movie, by far, are the scenes in which Mystery Inc. performs in the circus, run from werewolves, or both. There is also an exciting chase scene finale. The action is what carries this movie, and carries it quite well.

Other than that, Big Top Scooby-Doo! is a little listless, although much of the dialogue is spry. There is also a subplot involving a heavy metal musical act called Wulfsmoon that is pointless. One of the surprises is a nicely executed feud between Scooby and Shaggy that perks up the movie every time it is brought up.

Big Top Scooby-Doo! is for the diehard Scooby-Doo fans and for youngsters satisfied with watching any kind of cartoon. However, people who have watched Scooby-Doo cartoons in the past might like some of this.

6 of 10
B

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Review: Tom and Jerry: Robin Hood and His Merry Mouse

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 96 (of 2012) by Leroy Douresseaux


Tom and Jerry: Robin Hood and His Merry Mouse (2012) – straight-to-video
Running time: 58 minutes
PRODUCERS/DIRECTORS: Spike Brandt and Tony Cervone
WRITERS: Earl Kress and Michael F. Ryan; from a story by Earl Kress
EDITOR: Kyle Stafford
COMPOSER: Michael Tavera
SONGS: Michael Tavera, Scott Bradley, Spike Brandt, Alan Burnett, and Michael F. Ryan
ANIMATION STUDIO: Yearim Productions Co. Ltd.

ANIMATION/FANTASY/COMEDY/FAMILY/MUSICAL

Starring: (voices) Jamie Bamber, Charles Shaughnessy, John Michael Higgins, Grey DeLisle, Joe Alaskey, John DiMaggio, Clive Revill, Phil LaMarr, Richard McGonagle, Greg Ellis, and Jess Harnell

Tom and Jerry: Robin Hood and His Merry Mouse is a 2012 animated direct-to-video film starring the famous cartoon cat and mouse duo, Tom and Jerry. Produced by Warner Bros. Animation, this film basically takes Tom and Jerry and places them in a cartoon version of the 1938 Warner Bros. film, The Adventures of Robin Hood, which starred Errol Flynn as Robin Hood. The cartoon Robin Hood in Tom and Jerry: Robin Hood and His Merry Mouse is essentially a caricature of Flynn’s Robin Hood.

Tom and Jerry: Robin Hood and His Merry Mouse is set in a time similar to the High Middle Ages. Prince John (John Michael Higgins) rules England while his brother, King Richard the Lionheart (Clive Revill), is out of the country fighting in the Crusades. Living in Sherwood Forest, Robin Hood (Jamie Bamber) and his Merry Men rob the rich of their coin and treasure and give that loot to the poor.

The Sheriff of Nottingham (Charles Shaughnessy) is determined to capture Robin Hood and tells his boss, Prince John, that he believes that Robin has a spy in the castle. The Sheriff sends his cat-at-arms, Thomas Cat, to capture the spy. Tom catches Jerry Mouse attempting to contact Maid Marian (Grey DeLisle), who is secretly romancing Robin. Thus, cat and mouse begin their small, private war. When the scope of Prince John’s schemes are revealed, however, enemies may have to become friends in order to save both the throne and England.

I didn’t expect much of Tom and Jerry: Robin Hood and His Merry Mouse, but it turned out to be rather entertaining. The art direction for the animation is just a little on the high side of the work that appears in direct-to-DVD productions from Warner Bros. Animation. A faux-musical, the movie’s songs are good. Actually, the songs are surprisingly good, a little better than I would expect of a straight-to-video cartoon.

By the time, Tom and Jerry: Robin Hood and His Merry Mouse ended, I would have enjoyed a little more, so I’ll recommend it to those who have seen other Tom and Jerry DVD movies.

6 of 10
B

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

San Diego Film Critics Choose "Argo" as 2012 Best Film

The San Diego Film Critics Society (SDFCS) announced their top films list.  So far, Kathryn Bigelow and her film, Zero Dark Thirty, has been dominating critics' awards.  San Diego Critics, however, have gone with Argo, naming it tops in four categories, including the "Best Film" and "Best Director" awards.

San Diego Film Critics Society Top Films of 2012 Winners:

BEST FILM –
ARGO

BEST DIRECTOR –
Ben Affleck, ARGO

BEST ACTRESS –
Michelle Williams, TAKE THIS WALTZ

BEST ACTOR –
Daniel Day-Lewis, LINCOLN

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS –
Emma Watson, THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR –
Christoph Waltz, DJANGO UNCHAINED

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY –
Paul Thomas Anderson, THE MASTER

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY –
Chris Terrio, ARGO

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM –
THE KID WITH A BIKE (from Belgium)

BEST DOCUMENTARY –
THE INVISIBLE WAR

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY –
Claudio Miranda, LIFE OF PI

BEST ANIMATED FILM –
PARANORMAN

BEST EDITING –
William Goldenberg, ARGO

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN –
Hugh Bateup and Uli Hanisch, CLOUD ATLAS

BEST SCORE –
Jonny Greenwood, THE MASTER

BEST ENSEMBLE PERFORMANCE–
THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER

BODY OF WORK FOR 2012–
Greig Fraser (cinematographer: ZERO DARK THIRTY, KILLING THEM SOFTLY, SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN)

KYLE COUNTS AWARD–
Dan Bennett, Member Emeritus SDFCS, North County Times Film Critic, International Children’s Film Festival

http://www.sdfcs.org/

Happy Birthday, Darby

Happy Birthday, dear friend.  I won't say your age, but as The Police song goes, you were born in the 50s.

San Diego Film Critics Announce 2012 Winners Today - Nominees List

The members of the San Diego Film Critics Society (SDFCS) write and/or broadcast for a San Diego County-based outlet.  Sunday (December 9, 2012), the group announced its nominees for Best Achievements in Film for 2012. The final vote will take place Tuesday, Dec. 11th and results will appear on its site (http://www.sdfcs.org/) after they have been determined.

BEST FILM –
ARGO
DJANGO UNCHAINED
SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK
THE MASTER
ZERO DARK THIRTY

BEST DIRECTOR –
Ang Lee, LIFE OF PI
Ben Affleck, ARGO
David O. Russell, SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK
Kathryn Bigelow, ZERO DARK THIRTY
Paul Thomas Anderson, THE MASTER

BEST ACTRESS –
Helen Hunt, THE SESSIONS
Jennifer Lawrence, SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK
Jessica Chastain, ZERO DARK THIRTY
Michelle Williams, TAKE THIS WALTZ
Naomi Watts, THE IMPOSSIBLE

BEST ACTOR –
Bradley Cooper, SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK
Daniel Day-Lewis, LINCOLN
Hugh Jackman, LES MISERABLES
Joaquin Phoenix, THE MASTER
John Hawkes, THE SESSIONS

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS –
Amy Adams, THE MASTER
Anne Hathaway, LES MISERABLES
Emma Watson, THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER
Rebel Wilson, PITCH PERFECT
Samantha Barks, LES MISERABLES

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR –
Alan Arkin, ARGO
Christoph Waltz, DJANGO UNCHAINED
Christopher Walken, SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS
Matthew McConaughey, KILLER JOE
Philip Seymour Hoffman, THE MASTER

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY –
Quentin Tarantino, DJANGO UNCHAINED
Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola, MOONRISE KINGDOM
Sarah Polley, TAKE THIS WALTZ
Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon, THE CABIN IN THE WOODS
Paul Thomas Anderson, THE MASTER

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY –
Chris Terrio, ARGO
David Magee, LIFE OF PI
Tony Kushner, LINCOLN
David O. Russell, SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK
Stephen Chbosky, THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM –
AMOUR
HEADHUNTERS
HOLY MOTORS
THE INTOUCHABLES
THE KID WITH A BIKE

BEST DOCUMENTARY –
BULLY
JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI
QUEEN OF VERSAILLES
SAMSARA
THE INVISIBLE WAR

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY –
Ben Richardson, BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD
Robert Richardson, DJANGO UNCHAINED
Danny Cohen, LES MISERABLES
Claudio Miranda, LIFE OF PI
Mihai Malaimare Jr., THE MASTER

BEST ANIMATED FILM –
BRAVE
FRANKIEWEENIE
PARANORMAN
RISE OF THE GUARDIANS
WRECK-IT RALPH

BEST EDITING –
William Goldenberg, ARGO
Brian A. Kates and John Paul Horstmann, KILLING THEM SOFTLY
Tim Squyres, LIFE OF PI
Leslie Jones and Peter McNulty, THE MASTER
William Goldenberg and Dylan Tichenor, ZERO DARK THIRTY

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN –
Sarah Greenwood, ANNA KARENINA
Sharon Seymour, ARGO
Hugh Bateup and Uli Hanisch, CLOUD ATLAS
Eve Stewart, LES MISERABLES
Adam Stockhausen, MOONRISE KINGDOM

BEST SCORE –
Alexandre Desplat, ARGO
Benh Zeitlin and Dan Romer, BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD
Mychael Danna, LIFE OF PI
Alexandre Desplat, MOONRISE KINGDOM
Jonny Greenwood, THE MASTER

BEST ENSEMBLE PERFORMANCE–
ARGO
DJANGO UNCHAINED
LES MISERABLES
SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS
THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER

BODY OF WORK FOR 2012–
Winner to be determined on day of vote.

KYLE COUNTS AWARD–
Winner to be determined on day of vote.