TRASH IN MY EYE Reviews

Saturday, February 1, 2014

The 2014 NAACP Image Award Nominations - Motion Picture and Documentary Categories

The 2014 NAACP Image Awards will be presented in a 2-hour special that will air live on Saturday, February 22, 2014 on TV One at 9pm ET (tape-delayed for PT – Pacific Time). The ceremony will be preceded by a one-hour pre-show, which will air live from the red carpet at 8pm ET (PT tape-delayed).

Motion Picture and Documentary nominees for the 2014 / 45th NAACP Image Awards:

MOTION PICTURE

Outstanding Motion Picture
• "12 Years A Slave" (River Road/Plan B/New Regency/Fox Searchlight Pictures)
• "Fruitvale Station" (The Weinstein Company/Forest Whitaker's Significant Productions, OG Project)
• "Lee Daniels' The Butler" (The Weinstein Company/Lee Daniels Entertainment, Laura Ziskin Productions, Windy Hill Pictures, Follow Through Productions, Salamander Pictures, Pam Williams Productions)
• "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom" (The Weinstein Company/Distant Horizon, Origin Pictures, Pathé, Videovision Entertainment)
• "The Best Man Holiday" (Universal Pictures)

Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture
• Chadwick Boseman - "42" (Warner Bros. Pictures/Legendary Pictures)
• Chiwetel Ejiofor - "12 Years A Slave" (River Road/Plan B/New Regency/Fox Searchlight Pictures)
• Forest Whitaker - "Lee Daniels' The Butler" (The Weinstein Company/Lee Daniels Entertainment, Laura Ziskin Productions, Windy Hill Pictures, Follow Through Productions, Salamander Pictures, Pam Williams Productions)
• Idris Elba - "Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom" (The Weinstein Company/Distant Horizon, Origin Pictures, Pathé, Videovision Entertainment)
• Michael B. Jordan - "Fruitvale Station" (The Weinstein Company/Forest Whitaker's Significant Productions, OG Project)

Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture
• Angela Bassett - "Black Nativity" (Fox Searchlight Pictures/Mavin Pictures/Wonderful Films)
• Halle Berry - "The Call" (TriStar Pictures)
• Jennifer Hudson - "Winnie Mandela" (Ma-Afrika Films (PTY) LTD and Equinoxe Films Inc.)
• Kerry Washington - "Tyler Perry Presents Peeples" (Lionsgate)
• Nicole Beharie - "42" (Warner Bros. Pictures/Legendary Pictures)

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture
• Cuba Gooding Jr. - "Lee Daniels' The Butler" (The Weinstein Company/Lee Daniels Entertainment, Laura Ziskin Productions, Windy Hill Pictures, Follow Through Productions, Salamander Pictures, Pam Williams Productions)
• David Oyelowo - "Lee Daniels' The Butler" (The Weinstein Company/Lee Daniels Entertainment, Laura Ziskin Productions, Windy Hill Pictures, Follow Through Productions, Salamander Pictures, Pam Williams Productions)
• Morris Chestnut - "The Best Man Holiday" (Universal Pictures)
• Terrence Howard - "Lee Daniels' The Butler" (The Weinstein Company/Lee Daniels Entertainment, Laura Ziskin Productions, Windy Hill Pictures, Follow Through Productions, Salamander Pictures, Pam Williams Productions)
• Terrence Howard - "The Best Man Holiday" (Universal Pictures)

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture
• Alfre Woodard - "12 Years A Slave" (River Road/Plan B/New Regency/Fox Searchlight Pictures)
• Lupita Nyong'o - "12 Years A Slave " (River Road/Plan B/New Regency/Fox Searchlight Pictures)
• Naomie Harris - "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom" (The Weinstein Company/Distant Horizon, Origin Pictures, Pathé, Videovision Entertainment)
• Octavia Spencer - "Fruitvale Station" (The Weinstein Company/Forest Whitaker's Significant Productions, OG Project)
• Oprah Winfrey - "Lee Daniels' The Butler" (The Weinstein Company/Lee Daniels Entertainment, Laura Ziskin Productions, Windy Hill Pictures, Follow Through Productions, Salamander Pictures, Pam Williams Productions)

Outstanding Independent Motion Picture
• "Blue Caprice" (Sundance Selects)
• "Dallas Buyers Club" (Focus Features)
• "Fruitvale Station" (The Weinstein Company/Forest Whitaker's Significant Productions, OG Project)
• "The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete" (Codeblack Films/Lionsgate/iDeal Partners/State Street)
• "The Trials of Muhammad Ali" (Kartemquin Films)

Outstanding International Motion Picture
• "Call Me Kuchu" (Lindy Hop Pictures LLC)
• "High Tech, Low Life" (Argot Pictures)
• "La Playa D.C." (Burning Blue)
• "Lion Ark" (ADI Films)
• "War Witch" (Item 7)

DOCUMENTARY

Outstanding Documentary - (Theatrical)
• "20 Feet from Stardom" (Tremolo & Gil Friesen Productions)
• "Call Me Kuchu" (Lindy Hop Pictures LLC)
• "Free Angela and All Political Prisoners" (Codeblack Films/Lionsgate)
• "Girl Rising" (The Documentary Group)
• "The New Black" (Promised Land Film)

Outstanding Documentary - (Television)
• "Beyoncé: Life Is But a Dream" (HBO)
• "Dark Girls" (OWN)
• "Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic " (Showtime)
• "Venus Vs." (ESPN)
• "Whoopi Goldberg Presents Moms Mabley" (HBO)

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2014 NAACP Image Award Nominations - Writing and Directing Categories

February 2014: Negromancer History Month.

Welcome to Negromancer 2.0. This is the rebirth of Negromancer, the former movie review website as a new movie review and movie news site.

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

The Negromancer item of the month is a book I want really badly:

Friday, January 31, 2014

Paramount Pictures Reveals Official "Noah" Poster

Academy Award® winner Russell Crowe stars as Noah, a man chosen by God for a great task before an apocalyptic flood destroys the world.

In theaters March 28, 2014

#Noah

Official Website: http://www.noahmovie.com/
Official Facebook: Facebook.com/Noah
Official Twitter: Twitter.com/NoahMovie

Happy Birthday, Ed

Have the best day, "old" friend. Well, the good thing about 65 is that you will be exempt from paying state taxes next year... Happy Birthday and many, many, many more.

"The Wizard of Oz" Gets Oscar Celebration of 75th Anniversary

Oscars® To Celebrate The 75th Anniversary Of "The Wizard Of Oz"

BEVERLY HILLS, CA — The Oscars will honor the 75th anniversary of “The Wizard of Oz,” a best picture nominee in 1939, show producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron announced today.

"We are delighted to celebrate the birthday of one of the most beloved movies of all time at this year’s Oscars,” said Zadan and Meron.

“The Wizard of Oz” received six Oscar nominations, winning two for Original Score and Song.

Oscars for outstanding film achievements of 2013 will be presented on Oscar Sunday, March 2, 2014, at the Dolby Theatre® at Hollywood & Highland Center® and televised live on the ABC Television Network. The telecast, produced by Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, also will be televised live in more than 225 countries and territories worldwide.

Thursday, January 30, 2014

Review: "Equilibrium" Borrows from Dystopian Classics (Happy B'day, Christian Bale)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 165 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

Equilibrium (2002)
Running time: 107 minutes (1 hour, 47 minutes)
MPAA – R for violence
WRITER/DIRECTOR: Kurt Wimmer
PRODUCERS: Jan de Bont and Lucas Foster
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Dion Beebe
EDITORS: Tom Rolf and William Yeh
COMPOSER: Klaus Badelt

SCI-FI/ACTION/DRAMA with elements of mystery and thriller

Starring: Christian Bale, Taye Diggs, Emily Watson, Sean Bean, Sean Pertwee, William Fichtner, Angus Macfadyen, Dominic Purcell, Matthew Harbour, and Emily Siewert

The subject of this movie review is Equilibrium, a 2002 dystopian science fiction film and action movie from writer-director Kurt Wimmer. Starring Christian Bale and Taye Diggs, the film is set in a fascist future where all forms of feeling are illegal, and the story focuses on a law enforcement officer who rises to overthrow the system.

In a dystopian future, the totalitarian regime of the city-state, Libria, has eliminated war by suppressing emotions. The rulers believe that ultimately emotions cause humans to kill one another. The cost of ridding the world of violent emotions, however, is the loss of love and kindness. Books, art, music, or any kind of creativity that might arouse the emotions are also strictly forbidden, and such material is contraband to be destroyed on sight. Feeling is a crime, and those who insist on feeling are called sense offenders. Sense offenses are punishable by death, and the government requires its citizens to inject themselves with a drug called prozium, which keeps their emotions in check.

Of course such a government would face rebellion, and it does from the regions outside the city known as the Nethers. To fight sense offenders in the city and in the Nethers, the government created an elite unit made of a special kind of police officer/warrior known as the Grammaton Cleric. Stronger, inhumanely agile, and quicksilver fast, clerics use a form of fighting known as “the Gun-Katas,” which mixes martial arts and firearms handling that makes it possible for one cleric to kill a room full of armed men in the span of several seconds.

The best of these warriors is John Preston (Christian Bale), who destroys sense offenders with ease (and perhaps relish, if he could feel emotions). However, when Preston misses a dose of Prozium, he begins to have feelings again, and he experiences a pang of conscience when he must kill in the Nethers. Suddenly being capable of feeling, he finds himself drawn to a sense offender scheduled for execution, Mary O’Brien (Emily Watson). There is, however, danger in Preston’s feelings. His new partner, Brandt (Taye Diggs, who gives a nice sheen to Brandt’s bold and ruthless ambition), is, like Preston, intuitive – able to sense when someone is have feelings and emotions, and Brandt is determined to make a name for himself – even if it means bringing Preston down.

Some might mistake writer/director Kurt Wimmer’s 2000 film, Equilibrium, for a clone of The Matrix (1999). The fancy, martial arts fighting (Gun-Kata, a style developed by Wimmer and the film’s choreographer, Jim Vickers) certainly encourages that belief, but unlike The Matrix, wire work martial arts (or wire-fu) – using wires to lift the actors high off the ground – wasn’t used here.

Equilibrium actually borrows from or resembles (in part or whole) such classic science fiction novels dealing with dark futures as Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, George Orwell’s 1984, and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, and even a bit of William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson’s Logan’s Run. In the case of Equilibrium, the filmmakers make the right choice of focusing on crime (feeling) and punishment (death) rather than on the practicality of these future laws against emotion and feeling. In that way, the plot is free to unfold as a narrative about the struggle for freedom in a futuristic setting. In terms of entertainment, that’s better than an examination of the hard science of using drugs to suppress emotions or even telling the story from a sociological point of view.

Christian Bale is expert at playing the tightly coiled male or the stoic warrior. However, he’s also quite artful at slowly revealing his emotional side in ways that endear him to the viewer. Watching his government-issued impassive and detached façade crumble to reveal a fully functional human is a joy. Bale may not be the leading man, but he is a leading man. Good performances from Taye Diggs, Emily Watson, and Sean Bean add credibility to Equilibrium’s concept. Still, it would have been nice to see more character in the supporting characters.

7 of 10
B+

Friday, August 4, 2006

Updated: Thursday, January 30, 2014

The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

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