Negromancer 2013

Happy New Year!  Welcome to Negromancer, a ComicBookBin blog (www.comicbookbin.com). This is rebirth of the former movie review website as a movie review and movie news website and blog.

We just finished our second full calender year, and this month will mark our third reincarnation birthday.  We also want to take a moment to remember all the film, television, and comic book people we lost last year, including the recent passings of Jack Klugman, Gerry Anderson, and Charles Durning.

All images and text appearing on this blog are © copyright and/or trademark their respective owners.

Review: "Red Hook Summer" Late with Its Hook

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 101 (of 2012) by Leroy Douresseaux


Red Hook Summer (2012)
Running time: 121 minutes (2 hours, 1 minute)
MPAA – R for brief violence, language and a disturbing situation
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR: Spike Lee
WRITERS: James McBride and Spike Lee
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Kerwin DeVonish
EDITOR: Hye Mee Na
COMPOSERS: Bruce Hornsby with Judith Hill and Jonathan Batiste

DRAMA

Starring: Jules Brown, Clarke Peters, Toni Lysaith, Heather Simms, Thomas Jefferson Byrd, Nate Parker, Kimberly Hebert Gregory, De’Adre Aziza, Jonathan Batiste, Sincere Peters, Coleman Domingo, and Isiah Whitlock, Jr.

Red Hook Summer is a 2012 drama from director Spike Lee. The film follows a middle-class boy from Atlanta, spending the summer with his grandfather in Red Hook, a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn.

Thirteen-year-old Silas “Flik” Royale (Jules Brown) finds himself in Red Hook, Brooklyn. His mother, Colleen Royale (De’Adre Aziza), has sent him there to spend the summer with Flik’s grandfather (and her father), Da Good Bishop Enoch Rouse (Clarke Peters). The Bishop heads Lil’ Peace of Heaven Church, a small congregation struggling with financial worries and shrinking membership.

Flik hates staying in the Red Hook housing projects, where he runs afoul of a local drug dealer named Box (Nate Parker). Still, he makes a friend in sassy teen girl, Chazz Morningstar (Toni Lysaith), and the youngsters spend their days and nights arguing about life and spiritual matters. This Red Hook summer is not free of troubles, as dark secrets suddenly come forth. Who are Bishop Richard Benjamin Broadnax and Blessing Rowe?

First, some trivia: Red Hook Summer is the first time Spike Lee has acted in one of his films since 1999’s Summer of Sam. Lee also reprises the role of Mookie, the lead character in Lee’s 1989 film, Do The Right Thing, for this movie.

Red Hook Summer is a quality film, but suffers from being uneven and rough. Spike Lee’s films are at their best when the director is being confrontational and when he can pluck nerves and tweak prevailing attitudes, conventions, and traditions, as he did in Do The Right Thing. For most of its runtime, Red Hook Summer wears its low-budget, indie production values on its sleeves, and it is less confrontational and more quarrelsome. It’s not that this film looks cheap; it just looks like every other indie drama set off the beaten path in some average, lower working class or impoverished burg/neighborhood.

Except for a few moments, some snippets of dialogue, and a soliloquy here and there, Red Hook Summer does not offer sustained fire, passion, and conflict (or obstacles). There is an explosive change with forty minutes left in the movie. Even at that point, Lee allows the film’s real drama and conflict to go unresolved or even conferred upon. Essentially, the best of Red Hook Summer does not happen until the movie’s last act. WTF, indeed! The drama is just getting started as the movie is just starting to end.

The film is rather inelegant about its most confrontational and didactic aspects and elements. The acting is often stiff, the dialogue only a little less so. Still, Red Hook Summer has something many other movies lack, a sense verisimilitude.

Watching it, the movie felt real to me. It has weight, substance, and depth, in spite of its deficiencies. Spike Lee does what he does best – get on the streets and turn those streets into burly, fleshy drama. In a landscape of big, loud, expensive movies made all the more unreal by various computer and technological enhancements, Red Hook Summer keeps it real. It is impossible to ignore, and that’s a good thing.

6 of 10
B

Monday, December 31, 2012

Oklahoma Film Critics Name "Argo" Best Film of 2012

The Oklahoma Film Critics Circle (OFCC) is the statewide group of professional film critics. OFCC members are Oklahoma-based movie critics who write for print, broadcast and online outlets that publish or post reviews of current film releases.

OFCC 2012 Film Awards:

Top 10 Films
1. “Argo.”

2. “Zero Dark Thirty.”

3. “Moonrise Kingdom.”

4. “Django Unchained.”

5. “Silver Linings Playbook.”

6. “Beasts of the Southern Wild.”

7. “The Master.”

8. “Lincoln.”

9. “Looper.”

10. “Les Miserables.”


Best Film: “Argo.”

Best Director: Ben Affleck, “Argo.”

Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, “Lincoln.”

Best Actress: Jessica Chastain, “Zero Dark Thirty.”

Best Supporting Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman, “The Master.”

Best Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway, “Les Miserables.”

Best Original Screenplay: Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola, “Moonrise Kingdom.”

Best Adapted Screenplay: Chris Terrio, “Argo.”

Best Animated Film: “Wreck-It Ralph.”

Best Body of Work: Joseph Gordon-Levitt (“Looper,” “The Dark Knight Rises,” “Lincoln”)

Best Documentary: “Searching for Sugar Man.”

Best First Feature: “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” Benh Zeitlin.

Best Foreign Language Film: “Amour.” (from Austria)

Best Guilty Pleasure: “21 Jump Street.”

Not-So-Obviously Worst Movie: “Prometheus.”

Obviously Worst Movie: “That’s My Boy.”

Down to 9 for 5 Foreign Language Oscar Nominations

9 Foreign Language Films Vie For Oscar®

Nine films will advance to the next round of voting in the Foreign Language Film category for the 85th Academy Awards®. Seventy-one films had originally qualified in the category.

The films, listed in alphabetical order by country, are:

Austria, "Amour," Michael Haneke, director;

Canada, "War Witch," Kim Nguyen, director;

Chile, "No," Pablo Larraín, director;

Denmark, "A Royal Affair," Nikolaj Arcel, director;

France, "The Intouchables," Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano, directors;

Iceland, "The Deep," Baltasar Kormákur, director;

Norway, "Kon-Tiki," Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg, directors;

Romania, "Beyond the Hills," Cristian Mungiu, director;

Switzerland, "Sister," Ursula Meier, director.

Foreign Language Film nominations for 2012 are again being determined in two phases.

The Phase I committee, consisting of several hundred Los Angeles-based members, screened the 71 eligible films between mid-October and December 17. The group's top six choices, augmented by three additional selections voted by the Academy's Foreign Language Film Award Executive Committee, constitute the shortlist.

The shortlist will be winnowed down to the five nominees by specially invited committees in New York and Los Angeles. They will spend Friday, January 4, through Sunday, January 6, viewing three films each day and then casting their ballots.

The 85th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Thursday, January 10, 2013, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2012 will be presented on Sunday, February 24, 2013, at the Dolby Theatre™ at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live on the ABC Television Network. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 225 countries worldwide.

7 Films Compete for 3 "Best Makeup" Oscar Nominations

7 Features Advance in Race for Makeup and Hairstyling Oscar®

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that seven films remain in competition in the Makeup and Hairstyling category for the 85th Academy Awards®.

The films are listed below in alphabetical order:

“Hitchcock”

“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”

“Les Misérables”

“Lincoln”

“Looper”

“Men in Black 3”

“Snow White and the Huntsman”

On Saturday, January 5, all members of the Academy’s Makeup Artists and Hairstylists Branch will be invited to view 10-minute excerpts from each of the seven shortlisted films. Following the screenings, members will vote to nominate three films for final Oscar consideration.

The 85th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Thursday, January 10, 2013, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2012 will be presented on Sunday, February 24, 2013, at the Dolby Theatre™ at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live on the ABC Television Network. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 225 countries worldwide.

Nevada Film Critics Choose "Argo" as 2012's Best Film

The Nevada Film Critics Society (NFCS) is apparently a society of film critics who reside in Nevada and produce film reviews for print, broadcast, radio, and online.

The Nevada Film Critics Society's 2012 Awards for Achievement in Film:

Best Film - Argo

Best Actor - John Hawkes (The Sessions)

Best Actress - TIE - Helen Hunt (The Sessions) and Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook)

Best Supporting Actor - Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln)

Best Supporting Actress - Sally Field (Lincoln)

Best Youth Performance - Tom Holland (The Impossible)

Best Director - TIE - Ben Affleck (Argo) and Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty)

Best Ensemble Cast - Lincoln

Best Animated Movie - Frankenweenie

Best Production Design - Les Miserables

Best Cinematography - Life Of Pi

Best Visual Effects - Life Of Pi

http://nevadafilmcriticssociety.org/

Utah Film Critics Say "Zero Dark Thirty" the Best 2012

2012 Utah Film Critics Association winners:

Best Picture • "Zero Dark Thirty"
(runner-up: "Looper")

Directing • Wes Anderson, "Moonrise Kingdom"
(runner-up: Kathryn Bigelow, "Zero Dark Thirty")

Lead Actor • Joaquin Phoenix, "The Master"
(runners-up: Daniel Day-Lewis, "Lincoln," and John Hawkes, "The Sessions")

Lead actress TIE • Jennifer Lawrence, "Silver Linings Playbook," and Jessica Chastain, "Zero Dark Thirty"

Supporting Actor • Dwight Henry, "Beasts of the Southern Wild"
(runner-up: Philip Seymour Hoffman, "The Master")

Supporting Actress • Anne Hathaway, "Les Misérables"
(runner-up: Ann Dowd, "Compliance")

Original Screenplay • Rian Johnson, "Looper"
(runner-up: Joss Whedon & Drew Goddard, "The Cabin in the Woods")

Adapted Screenplay • Stephen Chbosky, "The Perks of Being a Wallflower"
(runner-up: David O. Russell, "Silver Linings Playbook")

Cinematography • Roger Deakins, "Skyfall"
(runner-up: Claudio Miranda, "Life of Pi")

Documentary Feature • "Indie Game: The Movie"
(runner-up: "The Invisible War")

Non-English Language Feature • "Headhunters" (from Norway)
(runner-up: "Amour" from France)

Animated Feature • "ParaNorman"
(runners-up: "Frankenweenie" and "Wreck-It Ralph")