Movie of the Day: "Pieces of April" (2003)

Thanksgiving week continues with this terrific gem from 2003. A post-Dawson's Creek, pre-Tom Cruise Katie Holmes shows off the potential she once held as an actress, playing the black sheep daughter living in New York with her boyfriend (Derek Luke), who's invited her estranged family to dinner at her tiny apartment. She faces various obstacles getting dinner together while her family makes the trip into the city, facing their own problems as the mother (Patricia Clarkson) is dying of breast cancer and in a very unforgiving mood. A black comedy of sorts, it still manages to be a tearjerker, as Patricia Clarkson was so good as the dying mother she got nominated for an Oscar for this tiny little movie. A great treat for Thanksgiving with a colorful supporting cast and an unbearably heartwarming ending.

Trailer:

'12 Years a Slave' Leads the Indie Spirit Awards Nominations

This morning the Independent Spirit Award nominations were announced, and things continue to look good for 12 Years, which leads with 7. Today also held good news for All is Lost, Nebraska and Short Term 12, which all received more attention than expected. Recognition was pretty evenly spread around to different films (although some, like Fruitvale Station, fell short), but the biggest boost in terms of Oscar comes for 12 Years (as if it needed it) and Nebraska. The ceremony will be held on March 1st, as usual the night before the Oscars, and hosted by Patton Oswalt.

2013 INDEPENDENT SPIRIT AWARDS NOMINEES:

Feature

• 12 Years a Slave
• All is Lost
• Frances Ha
• Inside Llewyn Davis
• Nebraska

Director

• Shane Carruth (Upstream Color)
• J.C. Chandor (All is Lost)
• Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave)
• Jeff Nichols (Mud)
• Alexander Payne (Nebraska)

Male Lead

• Bruce Dern (Nebraska)
• Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave)
• Oscar Isaac (Inside Llewyn Davis)
• Michael B. Jordan (Fruitvale Station)
• Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club)
• Robert Redford (All is Lost)

Female Lead

• Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine)
• Julie Delpy (Before Midnight)
• Gaby Hoffmann (Crystal Fairy)
• Brie Larsen (Short Term 12)
• Shailene Woodley (The Spectacular Now)

Supporting Male

• Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave)
• Will Forte (Nebraska)
• James Gandolfini (Enough Said)
• Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club)
• Keith Stanfield (Short Term 12)

Supporting Female

• Melonie Diaz (Fruitvale Station)
• Sally Hawkins (Blue Jasmine)
• Lupita Nyong'o (12 Years a Slave)
• Yolanda Ross (Go For Sisters)
• June Squibb (Nebraska)

Screenplay

• Blue Jasmine
• Before Midnight
• Enough Said
• The Spectacular Now
• 12 Years a Slave

Cinematography

• 12 Years a Slave
• Spring Breakers
• Inside Llewyn Davis
• All is Lost
• Computer Chess

Editing

• Upstream Color
• Museum Hours
• Frances Ha
• Una Noche
• Short Term 12

Documentary

• 20 Feet From Stardom
• After Tiller
• Gideon's Army
• The Act of Killing
• The Square

International Film

• A Touch of Sin (China)
• Blue is the Warmest Color (France)
• Gloria (Chile)
• The Great Beauty (Italy)
• The Hunt (Denmark)

First Feature

• Blue Caprice
• Concussion
• Fruitvale Station
• Una Noche
• Wadjda

First Screenplay

• In a World
• Don Jon
• Nebraska
• Afternoon Delight
• The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete

John Cassavetes Award (given to best feature made for under $500,000)

• Computer Chess
• Crystal Fairy
• Museum Hours
• Pit Stop
• This is Martin Bonner

Robert Altman Award (given to one film's director, casting director and ensemble cast)

• Mud

20th Someone to Watch Award

• My Sister's Quinceanera- Aaron Douglas Johnson, director
• Newlyweds- Shala King, director
• The Foxy Merkins- Madeline Olnek, director

19th Stella Artois Truer Than Fiction Award

• A River Changes Course
• Let the Fire Burn
• Manakamana

Piaget Producers Award

• Tony Halbrooks & James M. Johnson
• Jacob Jaffke
• Andrea Roa
• Frederick Thornton

The only real disappointment for me in these nominations is no Greta Gerwig for Frances Ha, despite the movie getting a Feature nomination. But happy surprises are Julie Delpy and Melonie Diaz getting recognized (even if that last one knocks out Octavia Spencer for some reason). I'm also surprised that the Coens didn't get in for Director or Screenplay despite Llewyn Davis getting a feature nom, and check out that Male Lead category! So crowded, even in the Spirit noms, that they had to add a sixth slot. Too bad the Oscars won't follow suit there. And let's hope Brie Larsen can keep this momentum going as the critics awards roll in next week. It's still a long shot for her, but stranger things have happened.

THR Roundtable: The Actresses

The Hollywood Reporter has another roundtable discussion out, this time with some of the year's actresses in upcoming major films. Among them are Oprah Winfrey, Julia Roberts, Lupita Nyong'o, Amy Adams, Octavia Spencer and Emma Thompson. All are in the running to land Oscar nominations this year, though if tradition holds usually one of the six misses out. If I had to guess who that was this year I'd say it's probably Amy Adams, but who knows what'll happen.

Movie of the Day: "Hannah and Her Sisters" (1986)

Well, Thanksgiving week is upon us and now it's time to look back on the best Thanksgiving movies to celebrate in our Movie of the Day series. Unfortunately there are only a handful of really good ones, and I'm pretty much going to name all of them for this week alone. I'm not sure what the reason for that is, but movies about Thanksgiving are much harder to come by than say, Christmas next month. But we'll start with this one, one of Woody Allen's best, about three sisters in New York (Mia Farrow, Dianne Wiest and Barbara Hershey), who can't seem to get their lives together. The movie starts and ends on Thanksgiving, and ends up being one of Allen's sweetest and most optimistic films. My favorite of the sisters is Dianne Wiest, who won Best Supporting Actress for this, and Michael Caine is hilarious as a philandering husband, who also took home Best Supporting Actor.

Original Trailer:

EW's Entertainer of the Year: Sandra Bullock

Entertainment Weekly has released its annual Entertainer of the Year edition, and this time it's Sandra Bullock, just 4 years after she got the top honors in 2009. I'd say it's pretty deserved, as The Heat was the year's biggest comedy and Gravity became a phenomenon of its own in the fall. The coolest part about it is that she's still got all this popular success at the age of 49, when most women (unless they're Meryl Streep) have fallen off Hollywood's radar. And for the record, the last time she got this cover she won the Oscar for The Blind Side- could it happen again? Also included on the list are Jennifer Lawrence, the cast of Scandal, Tom Hanks, Breaking Bad, and Netflix.

BOX OFFICE 11/22-11/24: 'Catching Fire' Burns Bright

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire opened huge this weekend, with a $161 million dollar debut that makes it good for the fourth best opening weekend of all time, behind The Avengers, Iron Man 3, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. The first film opened with $152 million, which this one handily beat, and it played to a slightly broader audience. Still mostly female of course, but split evenly among age groups over and under 25, and with more men than the first Hunger Games. With very good reviews and word of mouth (an "A" Cinemascore), it should play well for the rest of the holiday season, especially with next weekend being Thanksgiving, and may surpass the original Hunger Games' $408 million total.

In second place was Thor, which fell 61% to $14 million and will now gross just over $200 million total, which isn't that impressive considering the big opening weekend, and in third was The Best Man Holiday, which also fell a steep 58% to $12 million, despite its A+ rating from audiences. The smaller budget film will still be profitable of course, because it cost just $17 million to produce. The poorly reviewed Vince Vaughn comedy Delivery Man opened in fourth to a weak $8 million, continuing his recent string of disappointments at the box office, and rounding out the top five was Free Birds, with $5 million.

Top 5

1. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire- $161.1 million
2. Thor: The Dark World- $14.1 million
3. The Best Man Holiday- $12.5 million
4. Delivery Man- $8.2 million
5. Free Birds- $5.3 million

Next week, the only real competition against Catching Fire will be Disney's Frozen, the latest entry in their Disney Princess canon, which is already earning some good notices for being an actual feminist fairy tale for once. But Catching Fire will be expected to dominate over the long holiday weekend, as other openers are Black Nativity and Homefront. See you then!

TRAILER: "Nymphomaniac"

The nutty new trailer for Lars Von Trier's next movie is here, and with an interesting mix of actors that includes Uma Thurman, Willem Dafoe, Stellan Skarsgaard, Shia LeBeouf and his favorite actress, Charlotte Gainsbourg. This guy has directed some pretty out there movies in the past (Dogville and Antichrist to name a couple) and this looks to be another in that vein. Coming out next summer.

POSTERS: "The Wolf of Wall Street"

Two new posters for The Wolf of Wall Street are out today. Looks like a good time to be had:

Jennifer Lawrence on Letterman

The bubbly, nutty and completely unfiltered Jennifer Lawrence shows why she's become Dave's new favorite guest, as every time she's come on he's had her stay longer and longer. Here she is promoting The Hunger Games last night and ripping through any subject that came up:

'Gravity' Short Film: "Aningaaq"

This is pretty awesome- WB has released a seven minute companion short film that was originally going to show up on the blu-ray for Gravity, which shows the other side of Sandra Bullock's distress call to a man that couldn't understand her. It's written and directed by Jonas Cuaron and is now being submitted for the Oscars as a live-action short. It's probably safe to say this is a definite spoiler, so only for those who've already seen Gravity:

Oscar Roundup: Best Actor

The Best Actor race is insanely crowded this year. So packed that there already seems to be a set list of five nominees, with as many as five more fighting to squeeze their way into a tightly locked space.

To start off, Chiwetel Ejiofor seems set for a nomination and possibly the win for 12 Years a Slave, where he plays Solomon Northup, a free man kidnapped and sold into slavery in the 1840's. He and the film have received amazing reviews and as the star and focus of the likely Best Picture winner, he'll be getting the most attention, as often times the Best Picture has a strong lead in the Actor or Actress category. Ejiofor himself has also been working in films for many years now and has been long overlooked in character parts, so this will be his first nomination. Everything seems to be pointing his way at the moment, the only drawback would be that his part is not as showy as his co-stars Michael Fassbender and Lupita Nyong'o, who are also favored to win.

In second is Robert Redford, who many see as a lock for All is Lost, and another frontrunner for the win, but I'm iffy on this one. I believe that as the legend and icon he is, that Redford will likely be nominated, but I'm not convinced about the win, seeing how the movie has proved polarizing with audiences (although very well-reviewed by critics). The thinking here is the Academy voters (who are mostly old, white men of his age group) will identify with him and want to see him win an acting Oscar (his only nomination was for The Sting back in 1973), but that didn't work out so well for eight time loser Peter O'Toole a few years ago (and if anyone was owed one it was probably him, right?)

In third we have Matthew McConaughey, who got career best reviews for Dallas Buyers Club and seems assured his first ever nom after a critical career comeback going on two years now. Most think he's locked here and it does look set, but I think if anyone could be bumped for an outsider he's the one who's vulnerable, despite the dramatic weight loss he undertook for the role as a man dying of AIDS.

In fourth is Tom Hanks, who was fantastic in Captain Phillips and hasn't been nominated for an Oscar since Cast Away in 2000. Phillips was well reviewed and has already made $100 million at the box office, so to me this is another set in stone nomination, which would be his sixth (and possibly seventh if he scores a double nod for Saving Mr. Banks this year). On the other hand, if voters want to reward him for one movie and don't see the need for a double nomination, is it possible he's vulnerable? It could happen, but I'm doubtful because he's another beloved icon and the performance is so strong (especially the last fifteen minutes) that I think he will sail through.

And the fifth slot I think will be filled by Bruce Dern for Nebraska, another industry vet who's been around in supporting character parts for decades and has now landed the best role of his career at the age of 77. He would seem in slightly shakier territory, but with people like best bud Jack Nicholson personally out there campaigning for him, he may have more support than we think. It's difficult when every performance is so worthy, because the fight for nominations becomes more based on outside factors- campaigning, likability, personal support within the actor's branch, etc. Who do they want to vote for?

And that's where we come to the outsiders looking to break in to that really tough group and Forest Whitaker is the one I'd love to see make it. He's the center of The Butler, and even though his performance is subtle and understated, he conveys more emotion and power through just his eyes and mannerisms than anyone else could. The movie is backed by Oscar whisperer Harvey Weinstein and may be underestimated in a lot of categories (we'll get to that when I do Best Picture), so I think Whitaker is still a threat here. After him it's Joaquin Phoenix in Her, who has to act opposite an OS and has been spectacularly praised, Oscar Isaac in Inside Llewyn Davis, who's a newcomer as a lead but has also gotten stellar reviews, and Leonardo Dicaprio for The Wolf of Wall Street, who's the big question mark, along with Christian Bale for American Hustle. Both are multiple former nominees who could easily get in again if their performances live up to the hype.

For now, here's who I've got:

Chiwetel Ejiofor
Tom Hanks
Robert Redford
Matthew McConaughey
Bruce Dern

I'm not voting for any surprises here, because to me that particular group may very well be locked right now, no matter how great Leo and Christian Bale are in their upcoming movies. The shakiest one of that group in my opinion is either Dern or McConaughey, and I think either of them may be replaced by Forest Whitaker. And we could have a situation where Redford and Dern are fighting it out for the veteran slot, and only one of them makes it. But out of those five, I think Ejiofor's still the one to beat at the moment. Next week I'll take a look at Supporting Actress.

TRAILER: "Muppets Most Wanted"

New trailer for the next Muppets movie, coming out in March of next year: