Without a doubt my favorite Thanksgiving movie, this one needs little explanation. Steve Martin is trying to get home to Chicago, and gets paired up with shower ring salesman John Candy, who makes his life a living hell. Hilarious, heartwarming and sentimental (but not too much so) this is a well known classic by now and gets better all the time. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Trailer:
A lesser known Thanksgiving movie that looks at the holiday celebrations of four ethnically diverse families living in Los Angeles.. This comedy from 2000 boasts a huge ensemble cast as it veers back and forth between the different families as their problems and conflicts begin to escalate and eventually intersect in surprising ways. Whenever there's a movie like this you'll ultimately prefer one family's story to another- my personal favorite is Alfre Woodard and Dennis Haysbert's Thanksgiving that goes awry, but Mercedes Ruehl is really good too as the divorced matriarch of a Hispanic family whose ex-husband crashes the dinner. Check this movie out if you can- another plus is how incredibly good all the food looks.
Trailer:
It's time to round up the final acting category this week, and like so many other categories this year, the race is pretty wide open. In fact, there are no real locks here, but the race isn't quite as crowded as some others, so we should be able to make some pretty good guesses.
First, it's Lupita Nyong'o from 12 Years a Slave, as the tortured Patsy. Ever since the first screenings, critics and audiences have walked away shattered by her performance and her character. Nyong'o is a newcomer, having just gotten out of film school, and if not for the fact that she's completely unknown, she could be the frontrunner to win here. She might pull it off anyway, along with co-star Ejiofor as the frontrunner himself in Lead Actor.
Then we have Oprah Winfrey, who I suppose is the closest thing to a lock, as she got very good notices for her performance in The Butler, as Forest Whitaker's long-suffering wife Gloria. It is a good performance, and she gets to ham it up just a tiny bit as Gloria gets scenes of drunken complaining, but nothing too over the top. If you ask me, giving Oprah an Oscar for this performance is excessive celebrity worship, because there are many other contenders who are just as good if not better, but because she's Oprah, you can't count her out.
American Hustle recently screened for the press in New York and L.A., and though the film seems to be getting pretty positive reaction overall, the undeniable uniform response from coast to coast is that Jennifer Lawrence steals the show out from under the other actors. Hard as it to believe, it looks like she's going to be a surefire nominee and if she hadn't won Best Actress just last year, would be in the running to win for this. Although I guess you can't count out that remote possibility, because she really is the Girl on Fire at the moment, and who knows what could happen. When the nomination comes through she'll be the youngest actor ever to bag three Oscar nominations.
June Squibb is in fourth place I think, as her performance in Nebraska has garnered standout reviews and she's the feisty old, truth-telling wisecracker that everyone loves (that character always gets nominated). She was also just helped yesterday by an Indie Spirit nom, and the movie itself is going to go over big with the Academy, being right in their wheelhouse and appealing to the demographic of the average voter (old, in other words).
Then we have several people scrambling for a place in fifth. Octavia Spencer is campaigning hard for Fruitvale Station, but missed out on an Indie Spirit nod, and Sally Hawkins has gotten some attention for Blue Jasmine, which is still hanging in there, having just had its screeners sent out. Julia Roberts looks like the best bet to me for August: Osage County, which has earned her some of the best notices of her career, and reports are that it's really a co-lead performance with Meryl Streep, which always helps (Christoph Waltz won last year for what was essentially a leading performance in Django Unchained). Her co-star, character actress Margo Martindale is also hovering around the fringes along with longshot Jennifer Garner in Dallas Buyers Club.
Here's where I'm at right now:
Lupita Nyong'o
Oprah Winfrey
Jennifer Lawrence
June Squibb
Julia Roberts
I think I'm pretty solid on these predictions at the moment, actually. The category being less crowded does help to narrow down the contenders, although the win in that group is honestly anybody's guess. My own would be that it comes down to either Nyong'o or June Squibb, but like I said, Oprah and even Jennifer Lawrence have a real shot as well. It's a crapshoot right now. Next week is the final roundup where I take a look at all the possible Best Picture contenders, right before the critics awards start piling on, which will narrow down a lot of categories considerably. In fact, since the critics awards will kick off next Tuesday with the New York Critics Circle, followed by the National Board of Review on Wednesday, I'll be doing the Best Picture roundup this Monday instead. Until then!
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:
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
Director
Male Lead
Female Lead
Supporting Male
Supporting Female
Screenplay
Cinematography
Editing
Documentary
International Film
First Feature
First Screenplay
John Cassavetes Award (given to best feature made for under $500,000)
Robert Altman Award (given to one film's director, casting director and ensemble cast)
20th Someone to Watch Award
19th Stella Artois Truer Than Fiction Award
Piaget Producers Award
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.
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.
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:
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.
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
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!
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.
Two new posters for The Wolf of Wall Street are out today. Looks like a good time to be had:
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:
The Movie Seasons
Use this site for movie and television recommendations throughout the year- we have picks for the changing seasons, holidays, and moods, along with new releases and recaps of the best shows on TV
