I can’t believe Alice in Wonderland wore more Oscars than Black Swan…that alone shows you how ridiculous this annual spectacle is. Last night were the 83rd annual Oscars and even though it featured some amazing films, it was one of the most boring award shows in years…nothing really happened so if you didn’t get to watch, you didn’t miss much…here’s your recap.
The big winner of the night was The King’s Speech taking home 4 Oscars. It was tied with Inception, but King’s Speech took home the big boys including Actor in a Leading Role, Directing, Best Original Screenplay, and the coveted Best Picture. I can not believe it won all of those…I thought it was nab some, but not all. The biggest upset has got to be Directing…I feel that Darren Aronofsky should have got it for Black Swan and even thought the academy would give it to David Fincher for The Social Network. It’s absurd that Christopher Nolan wasn’t even nominated for Inception. He was nominated for his Original Screenplay which I thought you was a shoe in for, but no…King’s Speech took that one too. I thought The Kids Are All Right also had a chance there but they went home without anything last night…a great overlooked film.
Back to Black Swan. It only won ONE award and that was the most deserved Oscar to Natalie Portman for Actress in a Leading Role…she’s winning Oscars for two now you know 
. You know who won more Oscars than the great Black Swan?? Alice in Wonderland!? What the hell Academy! I understand the argument that they were for Art Direction and Costume Design and when you’re in Tim Burton’s mind…those things are superb but Alice in Wonderland was NOT an academy level film which is the excuse most people give when talking about how TRON: Legacy wasn’t nominated for more. You’re telling me Alice in Wonderland, Hereafter, and Iron Man 2 can be nominated for Visual Effects but not TRON? You’re telling me TRON’s soundtrack by Daft Punk wasn’t award worthy for Original Score? Blasphemy.
Anyway, back to the actual winners. Inception did win a nice amount which it deserve. It took away statues for the twin categories of Sound Editing and Sound Mixing (yes, they’re different but…most people don’t care), Visual Effects, and Cinematography. All three, I mean four, were well deserved. Remember that “dun” sound and flying around in the hotel room? There you go, Oscars. The Fighter picked up 2 statues both in the supporting roles categories. Christian Bale and co-supporting star Melissa Leo both deserved their wins and I’m proud The Fighter got recognized…still a little mad that Mark Whalberg didn’t get recognized for his lead role in the film however but that was a heavily contested category this year as we actress. Know who else won an Oscar? The Wolfman. lol.
Colin Firth won best Actor in a Leading Role and gave a poignant speech but I have to say the best speech of the night was Luke Matheny for his Short Live Action Film, God of Love. You might remember him as the guy with all that hair. The Social Network brought home 3 new friends last night including best Adapted Screenplay, Film Editing, and Original Score. Can’t really complain about those…it was amazing film, I’m just still amazed it didn’t win Best Film or Directing…again King’s Speech took it all away.
Toy Story 3 did well winning 2 Oscars in the continued Pixar animation domination. Not only did it win in award season, but it was the big winner in the box office making more money than any other nominated film. Randy Newman of course won yet again and his speech was great. Did you ever realize how cool of a guy he was while making that shitty music? All I could think of was Family Guy lol. My biggest upset of the night was for Best Documentary. I really wanted Banksy to win for Exit Through The Gift Shop. Not only was it my favorite documentary of the year, it was one of my top 10 of 2010. If you haven’t seen it yet, you really need to check it out. To be honest though, I haven’t got to see Inside Job yet…or Winter’s Bone which are now on my must see list. What are on yours?
So what did you think of this year’s Oscars? I loved Anne Hathaway and her “personal moment” but thought James Franco forgot to show up or was just fed up with the whole Oscar process. Being nominated for an award and a host must have been an excruciating week. He did offer a few good zingers though, like, “Look it up…on the internet” and “alright, congratulations nerds.” No, congratulations to you Mr. Franco. The Oscars tried to target a younger market with these hosts but still cowardly picked the old money movies as big winners. In the end, Sandra Bullock and Steven Spielberg brought the elegance of the Academy Awards back and Kirk Douglas won the night. Oh, and Oprah proves she can still do whatever she wants.
Posts Tagged ‘Christopher Nolan’
REVIEW: Inception
Tuesday, July 13th, 2010
Amazing. Great. Cutting-Edge. Ground Breaking. Wow. That should validate the movie and convince you to go. If you’re like me, you’ll stop reading this review and any other post about Inception, turn off the TV every time you see an ad for it, and go check out the film for yourself knowing as little of the story as you can. I knew the gist of the movie by seeing some early footage that Christopher Nolan presented during WonderCon a few months before but other than that, I went in to the movie with an open mind and loved almost every part of it. I promise this review will not have any spoilers so let’s dive in.
Amazing. Great. Cutting-Edge. Ground Breaking. Wow. I just had to say it again. Let’s start with the premise that you would get from the synopsis and/or trailers and ads. Inception is about dreams and a very special group of people who can manipulate these dreams. You quickly learn that the dream is less about the visuals and more about the feel. You feel this movie. Along with the amazing imagery and visuals, you feel this movie through Christopher Nolan’s directing as he takes your emotions and has his way with them. The movie focuses on one character’s dream and sets it up as a mission so our lead character played by Leonardo DiCaprio has to assemble his dream team (sorry for the pun).
L to R: Dileep Rao, Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page, and Ken Watanabe
It’s interesting…the names of the characters aren’t too important in this film. I’m not sure if they knew that the star power would outweigh the characters, but that’s what happened for me. It doesn’t matter though, because this whole world is created for you and the characters are each very well played and they truly draw you in with their performances. So, throughout the review, I’ll refer to the actors’ names and not the characters’ names. Leonardo DiCaprio enlists his long-time partner, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, teams up with a known acquaintance Tom Hardy, and teaches a newcomer to the game of dreams, Ellen Page. Ellen Page is our audience surrogate who helps the audience through this extremely different premise. Basically, she helps explain the dream world and all of the terminology that comes along with it in laden terms.
Ellen Page discovering dreams
This is probably my only gripe of the movie. Both the fact that the movie may be too smart for the general audience and that they try to explain too many things too fast in the beginning of the film. You should pay close attention to the first 20 minutes or so of the movie or you’ll be telling yourself that you have to watch the movie again to understand what just happened (this was overheard by a number of people leaving the screenings in various cities). In the middle of the movie, I thought it was too much but in fact it lays the foundation for the rest of the film. You just have to try and keep up. The other side of my argument is that Ellen Page’s character was too explanatory. She literally was there to explain every little piece of the movie and ask all the questions the audience was asking themselves. But when you put both sides of this argument together, you realize it had to be done to an extent to reach a wider audience especially to explain everything in the time frame of a single movie.
Ken Watanabe, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt discussing dreams
Christopher Nolan and his crew shot this movie beautifully. They go in an out of scenes as if you were dreaming. They used the dreams to get around a lot of the movie magic people complain about. You know in the end of a movie where it seems like the bomb which has 30 seconds left lasts 30 minutes? Well, in the dream world, time lasts longer so that problem is solved! I’m sure some movie magic was still used, but we’ll have to wait till those die hard fans time each scene and see if everything matches up with real time. The story itself, which Christopher Nolan wrote, is unique in the premise as well as the way it is told. They turn storytelling on it’s head and give a twisted approach to delivering the movie’s message. In no moment of the film was I bored or not thinking about what was going on in the screen. There wasn’t a second to turn away and after experiencing it all, you realize certain elements of typical film-making weren’t there but they were replaced with something much more…you’ll be talking about Inception for days if not weeks after.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt battling a projection in a dream
When you boil it down, this is an action film. There is plenty of action to satisfy any gun happy fan. You will jump out of your seat, you will squirm and turn with the actors, and you will constantly wonder what will happen next and how they will outdo themselves. You get everything with this movie…even some comedy. You’re reminded that physical humor still works as well as quick quips to get a quick audience laugh. Inception is the smartest student in a class of action films. This movie is expansive…they filmed in seven different countries and the scenery is epic. I want to go research every place they filmed because it backdrops looked breathtaking. Many times you will think…”How did they film that!?” but we’ll just have to wait for the behind the scenes footage from the DVD. This will surely go down in film history and be a must by for any movie collection.
WonderCon: The Warner Brothers Panel (The Losers, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Splice, and Inception)
Tuesday, April 6th, 2010Warner Bros didn’t tell anybody who or what they were talking about at WonderCon until their panel started. They let us know that we’d get to hear about The Losers, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and a little known movie called Splice. For the first 2 films, many of the cast showed up to answer questions and for Splice and a surprise at the end, Inception, the directors came out to talk about the projects. Warner Brothers also gave everybody in the audience a swag bag which contained a Losers bag, Nightmare on Elm Street shirt and key chain, Splice t-shirt, and Inception t shirt and top. Let’s get on to what I saw….
The Losers
You may not know a lot about The Losers yet, but you will. The footage that they showed looked great and for me, Zoe Saldana sells the movie on her own. I guess for women, they have Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Chris Evans. They showed us a fight scene between Aisha and Clay, Zoe and Jeffrey’s characters which have a love/hate, intimate/cautious relationship. The director, Sylvain White said that he believed it was a new benchmark in boy girl fight scenes and I agree with him. Not only was it action packed, it was hot and steamy. There are very funny scenes and great visuals to accompany them: think big guns and bad asses carrying them. Jeffrey Dean Morgan commented that it’s like a throwback to the Die Hards and Lethal Weapons…good comedic action.
I hope the back and forth dialogue during the panel gives a glimpse of what to expect from the movie because it was awesome. The group of actors they pooled together seemed to have great chemistry. Jeffrey Dean Morgan was the leader, taking charge. Zoe was the badass hot chick and commented He (Jeffrey) wears a suit; I don’t wear much of anything. When asked how she felt about being the only female in the main cast she said that she feels very comfortable around men. Chris Evans is the Hacker/IT Guy with a high IQ and he’s surely solidifying his spot in the comic book era of movies. Columbus is the heart of the group and kept referring to his character as the black MacGyver. Oscar is cougar who is the silent quit guy who is just like him in real life. Columbus said his new nickname was Juanny Depp. Sylvain said they were a crazy group of kids and fun to film and it really looks like it – from the panel and the footage they showed.
The Losers attack on April 23, 2010.
A Nightmare on Elm StreetA Nightmare on Elm Street may be the first actually scary movie in quite some time. It’s obviously a remake of the classic horror film which sequels have fallen to the wayside. However, the remake is said to be more dark and serious like the first film. The biggest story in this film is that Jackie Earle Haley is replacing Robert England as the iconic Freddy Krueger. Jackie said that he tried not to incorporate the last Freddy but tried to find a way to play the character where there’s still something familiar for the fans but where he was also able to call it his own. He tried to get into the mind of Freddy Krueger by studying serial killers and realized he was beginning to watch slasher films. He had to stop because Freddy isn’t a serial killer he’s a boogie man…so that’s what you’re going to see in the film. Thomas Dekker, who plays Jesse in the movie, said that remakes and reboots are a tricky subject but Jackie replied that with the visual effects and technology of today, they can show us things that we haven’t seen yet.
A Nightmare on Elm Street dreams come true on April 30 2010.
SpliceYou probably haven’t heard of this film but if you’re into sci-fi…especially genetics, you will. Splice is about two scientists who decide to take genetics a step further and mix together human DNA with animal DNA to create a new organism. It’s a creature film with social commentary which will go into touchy subjects we haven’t been exposed to yet. The scientists get too attached to the science and once the creature becomes its own…things begin go terribly terribly wrong. It stars Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley as the scientists and the story begins with them in the lab. They escape with the create to a home where they take it as their own child acting as parental figures until the creature, dren (nerd backwards), escapes. The film was made completely independent and took about twelve years. Vincenzo Natali, the writer and director, started writing the film back when Dolly was cloned and then began filming with they made the embryo in the UK so science has been catching up and evolving with the films vision which is kind of scary.
Splice busts out the lab on June 4, 2010.
InceptionTo everybody’s surprise, Christopher Nolan showed up to present his next film: Inception. Not a lot is known about this film but he presented us with an extended trailer which gave us more hints to the plot. From what we saw and what Nolan said, Inception is a heist film where a group of individuals who can construct dreams access the subconscious and extract documents and sensitive information from people. It looks like an amazing and epic film…it’s sure to be this summer’s biggest blockbuster in my opinion. Even though the film was described to be more personal, it was filmed in seven countries and takes us on a journey both physical and mental. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio and it looks like he will be training Ellen Page to join the company which infiltrates your dream. Look out for this film!
Inception comes out on July 16, 2010.
WonderCon is one of the country’s best comics conventions featuring guests and events for comics, movies, video games, and other popular media. This year, WonderCon had presentations by such Hollywood studios as Disney, Warner Bros., Sony, and Lionsgate.Visit WonderCon’s Official Website
