High Praise for "Captain Phillips"

We'll hear more from this one when it premieres at the New York Film Festival later this month, but it's already been screened for critics, and the consensus seems to be that this is another surefire Oscar contender in multiple categories (what a year this is turning out to be, huh?) This is an intense docudrama that re-tells the story of the pirate kidnapping of an American cargo ship in 2009. Because it's Paul Greengrass of course, the action is first rate and suspenseful from start to finish, but there's also been strong praise for the acting from Tom Hanks (likely to get his first Oscar nom in 13 years, and sixth overall) and first timer Barkhad Abdi as the Somali pirate leader. From the sound of it, it will probably contend in all the major categories, but more reviews will come in later this month to confirm or deny the strong early word.

"The film rips right along and never relinquishes its grip. The format of the last minute heroics goes back to the earliest Westerns and could well be accused of patness or being cliched- other than for the fact that it's what happened. Craftsmanship and technical contributions are first rate all the way." (Hollywood Reporter) 

 "At every step Hanks excels at showing what's really going on in the character's mind while maintaining his facade of almost folksy calm. It isn't one of the actor's rangiest roles, but it culminates in an eruption of emotional fireworks." (Variety)

"'Captain Phillips' will no doubt draw comparisons to 'Zero Dark Thirty' for its ripped-from-the-headlines storytelling, but this is a case in which the writer and director are as interested in the human element as they are in the true events they're recounting." (The Wrap) 

Happy Birthday Peter Sellers

The great Peter Sellers would have been 88 today- he died too young of a heart attack in 1980 at age 54. But he was an amazing comedian and actor, known for such classic roles in Lolita, Dr. Strangelove, The Pink Panther and Being There (my personal favorite), with the ability to transform himself in any way you could imagine.  

Here's one of my favorite scenes in Dr. Strangelove, where the President is trying oh so politely to break the bad news to the Soviet Prime Minister of missiles accidentally headed toward their country:

And here's his classic scene on The Muppet Show in 1977: 

TIFF Round-Up #1: Reaction to 'Fifth Estate,' 'Dallas Buyers Club,' and Other Stories

So, Bill Condon's The Fifth Estate turned into kind of a dud, earning descriptions as sort of a low rent Social Network wannabe, albeit with some praise for Cumberbatch's performance as Julian Assange. Still, with middling reviews, this one doesn't look to be going anywhere near Oscars:

"For a film that reminds us over and over that this is a whole new world, this movie feels awfully familiar." (Film.com) 

"Benedict Cumberbatch's Julian Assange is the highlight of a sometimes ordinary-feeling film." (Hollywood Reporter) 

"An uneven, intermittently thoughtful but largely preachy overview of WikiLeaks' rising influence." (Indiewire) 

Dallas Buyers Club fared a lot better, drawing overall strong reviews and high praise for Matthew McConaughey and especially Jared Leto, who some say walks away with the film as a drag queen with AIDS. There may be bigger movies this year in the hunt for Best Picture, so this one seems all about the acting- you can expect a for sure Best Supporting Actor nod for Leto, and probably one for McConaughey as well, although he's facing a much more crowded field of contenders. It will help that he's never been nominated and has been turning in one strong performance after another in small films for the last couple of years without being recognized, a huge career resurgence for him.

"A mesmerizing performance from Matthew McConaughey, as a rowdy, red-neck electrician and rodeo cowboy who leads a lifestyle of booze, drugs, and uninhibited sex in the mid-1980s, and who is shocked to find himself diagnosed with AIDS, is the vibrant core of the absorbing 'Dallas Buyers Club', a film likely to feature strongly in the awards run-up, with McConaughey a shoo-in for a Best Actor nomination." (Screendaily) 

 "The role calls for nothing short of full immersion and the star comes off as almost unrecognizable, apart from his charisma." (Variety)

The big surprise of Toronto has turned out to be John Carney's Can a Song Save Your Life?, from the director who made Once (one of my favorite movies of the last decade), and who many say has knocked it out of the park again in this movie, about a producer and songwriter who come together in New York, trying to make it big. The movie started a bidding war between studios all vying for it (The Weinstein Co. finally got it), and has been tapped by extremely enthusiastic reviews as a possible awards contender and crowdpleaser, if it's released this year. Starring Mark Ruffalo and Keira Knightley (who does her own singing!) I'm truly excited for this and you can mark it down for sure on my must see list.

"But there are times when the thing you want most is not a big, important movie but a simple, beautiful story told with sensitivity, warmth, humor and a big heart. Times when you don't need a movie to save your life, you just need a movie to make you feel good." (The Wrap) 

"To circle back to that line between loving someone and falling in love with someone, Ruffalo and Knightley (and Carney's script) do a tremendous job at showcasing two people whose need for each other is so overwhelming that you can't help but remain engaged in their slow waltz along that line. It's beautiful, and it's real." (Movies.com) 

As for other films in Toronto, 12 Years a Slave and Gravity continue to receive wowed reactions every where they go, and these two are definitely the ones to beat so far. 12 Years a Slave is even drawing comparisons to Schindler's List at this point, while people remain stunned by the effects and awe-inspiring vision of Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity. And Ron Howard's Rush continued to receive glowing notices as the director's best movie in years (still 100% on Rotten Tomatoes) and praise for Daniel Bruhl as a another likely Supporting Actor nominee for playing the Formula One driver Niki Lauda.

BOX OFFICE: 9/6-9/8: "Riddick" Tops a Slow Weekend

Vin Diesel's passion project Riddick topped this weekend, with $18.7 million, a decline from the $23 million opening of the last film, The Chronicles of Riddick, back in 2004, and nothing compared to the $39 million opening of Pitch Black in 2000. It also received a "B" Cinemascore, which is pretty unremarkable, so the legs on this one won't be strong, but it's something of an improvement compared to the last movie, which cost over $100 million to produce and bombed harder, while Diesel raised the $38 million for this one himself over the last several years, so it earned back half its budget at least in one weekend.

The Butler took second place with $8.9 million, amassing a total of $91 million and set to cross $100 by next week. It's a decent sized hit, even if it didn't play as well as The Help did a couple of years ago. Last week's surprise hit Instructions Not Included, expanded wider and made $8 million, which gives the film a total of $20 million after only ten days and puts it on track to become the biggest Spanish-language hit of all time in the U.S., likely surpassing Pan's Labyrinth's $37 million total. 

1. Riddick- $18.7 million
2. Lee Daniels' The Butler- $8.9 million
3. Instructions Not Included- $8.1 million
4. We're the Millers- $7.9 million
5. Planes- $4.3 million

You might notice the top 5 has been pretty stable for the last few weeks, with a lot of the same movies showing up over and over again, which usually happens as summer season winds down. It's to the benefit of movies like Planes and We're the Millers (which continues its success story, totaling $123 million so far). Last week's winner, One Direction: This is Us, fell off a cliff this, earning just $4.9 million and proving how frontloaded and limited in appeal those tween concert movies are. Next up it's the new action-comedy The Family, with Robert DeNiro and Michelle Pfeiffer versus Insidious 2, the horror sequel (which I'm gonna guess right now will be the winner in that battle).

25 Best Movie Soundtracks of All Time

Rolling Stone has given their list of the top 25 movie soundtracks ever, and it's pretty good, even if it's missing some classics: 

1. Help! (1965) 
2. Purple Rain (1984)- (*oh come on, this is better than Help)
3. The Harder They Come (1972) 
4. A Hard Day's Night (1964)- (*also better than Help)
   
5. Saturday Night Fever (1977) 
6. Superfly (1972) 
7. Pulp Fiction (1994)- (*unimpeachable)
8. Rushmore (1999) 
9. This is Spinal Tap (1984) (*lol, do people really listen to them for fun?)
10. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2001)
11. Pretty in Pink (1986)- (*great one, the best of the John Hughes soundtracks)
12. Wild Style (1983) 
13. Trainspotting (1996) 
14. Easy Rider (1969)
15. Goodfellas (1990) 
16. The Graduate (1968) 
17. American Graffiti (1973) 
18. Boogie Nights (1997)- (*too easy, way better compilations of 70s hits)
19. Magical Mystery Tour (1967)
20. Singles (1992)- (*yes! grunge at its finest)
21. 24 Hour Party People (2002) 
22. Lost in Translation (2003) 
23. Juice (1992) 
24. Rock and Roll High School (1979) 
25. Head (1968) 

Given that it's Rolling Stone of course, rock from the 60's and 70's and/or The Beatles is bound to take precedence, so here are some other great ones they missed: Garden State, Grease, High Fidelity, Dirty Dancing, The Big Lebowski, Mean Streets, Drive, The Last Waltz, About a Boy, The Royal Tenenbaums, Django Unchained, Empire Records, The Blues Brothers and 8 Mile.

'Diana' Gets Trashed by Critics

Yikes. Looks like we have our first real turkey of the fall season. After its world premiere in London last night, you can cross Diana off the Oscar list, along with any hope for its star, Naomi Watts. I thought it looked Lifetime, but these reviews are pretty savage.

"Poor Princess Diana. I hesitate to use the term 'car crash cinema.' But the awful truth is that, 16 years after that terrible day in 1997, she has died another awful death." (The Guardian) 

"The major problem, predictably, comes with the dialogue, which involves characters telling each other things they already know. 'I am a heart surgeon!' declares heart surgeon Khan. On another occasion: 'You're the most famous woman in the world.' Yes, we get it." (The Telegraph)

"Despite a peroxide hair-job, she looks, sounds, and acts nothing like the Princess of Wales. Wesley Snipes in a blonde wig would be more convincing." (The Mirror)

"Led by a pair of flat performances and featuring some of the corniest dialogue you'll hear all year, 'Diana' is too incompetent even to qualify as hagiography, devoid of insight and- unforgivably- curiosity about its subject." (Digital Spy) 

"There are a number of lines you never, ever want to hear Diana, Princess of Wales say, and they include: 'I love feeling your hand there,' and 'Yes, I've been a mad bitch.' Even when these lines are delivered by the fragrant Naomi Watts, doing her level best with a squirmingly embarrassing script, this film is still atrocious and intrusive." (The Times)

Here's the trailer again, in case you want to remind yourself how bad it looked. One thing I have to agree on- even with a prosthetic nose, this was horrible casting. Naomi Watts looks nothing like Princess Diana.

10 Movies For Back to School Month

Well, it's a new month and it's time for new movie picks to go with it. The theme for September is "Back to School," and we pick ten great school movies to catch up with all this month as the school year begins. Head over to the Movie of the Month page for the description and then check out the list for September (including the recent classic and a personal fave of mine, Juno). Happy Movie Watching! 

TRAILER: "RoboCop"

Hmm. Don't know about this one. Set to come out next year, but I'm very skeptical that it could ever live up to the original 1987 RoboCop, which was a great sci-fi movie that really needed no updating. The only thing I can say is that its cast makes it look just slightly better than last year's remake of another one of my favorite Paul Verhoeven movies, Total Recall. But that's a pretty low bar to set. Here's hoping.

Toronto Starts Today

With Venice and Telluride now over, it's time for Toronto to step up, and with most of the heavy Oscar favorites having already been seen in one of the other festivals (or waiting until the New York and AFI Fests later this month and next), that leaves Toronto pretty much left out in the cold this year, with not a lot to premiere. They have three buzzed about movies set to open for the first time- The Fifth Estate (the Julian Assange movie with Benedict Cumberbatch), August: Osage County (the Meryl Streep/Julia Roberts drama) and Dallas Buyers Club, with Matthew McConaughey as an AIDS victim. I'll be posting the reaction to all of them, along with any new responses from other critics on movies that didn't quite hit with the other festivals (such as Labor Day and The Wind Rises). Still to come later on, the Paul Greengrass action drama Captain Phillips and Ben Stiller's The Secret Life of Walter Mitty at the New York film festival, and Disney's Saving Mr. Banks is set to open the AFI Fest on November 7th.

TRAILER: "Kill Your Darlings"

Daniel Radcliffe stars as Allen Ginsberg in this film about the beatnik poets of the 1950's, including William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac. It got great buzz out of Sundance and has a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score so far, set to come out Oct. 16th in limited release.

Angelina Jolie and Steve Martin get Honorary Oscars

Today the Motion Picture Academy announced the recipients of several honorary Oscars they bestow at the annual Governor's Awards. In a surprising choice, Angelina Jolie will be receiving the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, while Steve Martin, Angela Lansbury and costume designer Piero Tosi will all receive honorary Oscars. They used to give out these awards on the actual Oscar ceremony of course (they're usually lifetime achievement honors), but a few years back they moved these categories out of the televised ceremony to its own separate show, called the Governor's Awards, which is neither televised nor webcast (as of yet). If you ask me, it's way too early to be giving Angelina Jolie an award that's been mostly intended for lifetime achievement, even if it is the Humanitarian prize, but the others are all good choices.

FINAL TRAILER: "Gravity"

Finally! The first full trailer for Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity, and it looks crazy intense. I can't wait. Out Oct. 4th