TRAILER: "The Amazing Spider-Man 2"

The first trailer for the Spider-Man sequel is here. The movie is coming out May 2, 2014.

CLIP #1: "Veronica Mars"

Good news fellow VM fans! The first clip from the new movie is out, along with a release date and official title, so I can finally stop calling it the Veronica Mars movie. They went with the smart choice, which is to simply call it Veronica Mars- easy to remember. Veronica Mars is coming out on March 14, 2014 and I'm already counting down the days. The first scene is familiar in tone and Kristen Bell seems slide back in to her role with ease- looks like they got it right so far.

December Movies Are Here

It's Christmastime and the new batch of movies for the month of December are here! This time it's ten great choices for Christmas, including one of my favorites, The Muppet Christmas Carol, which is really just as good as some of the earlier versions of the Dickens classic. Visit our Movie of the Month page to check out the description for December and click here for the complete list of ten holiday flicks to kick back and enjoy this Christmas season. Happy Holidays everyone!

NBR Names "Her" the Best Film of 2013

Another surprise result! The National Board of Review announces their winners and has feted Spike Jonze's Her as the best film of the year. The rest of their winners, as you can see below, match nothing of what won the NYCC yesterday. Looks like we have a wide open Oscar race, people:

• Best Film: Her
• Best Director: Spike Jonze (Her)
• Best Actor: Bruce Dern (Nebraska)
• Best Actress: Emma Thompson (Saving Mr. Banks)
• Best Supporting Actor: Will Forte (Nebraska)
• Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer (Fruitvale Station)
• Best Original Screenplay: Inside Llewyn Davis
• Best Adapted Screenplay: The Wolf of Wall Street
• Best Animated Feature: The Wind Rises
• Male Breakthrough Performance: Michael B. Jordan (Fruitvale Station)
• Female Breakthrough Performance: Adele Exarchopoulos (Blue is the Warmest Color)
• Best Directorial Debut: Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station)
• Best Foreign Language Film: The Past
• Best Documentary: Stories We Tell
• William K. Everson Film History Award: George Stevens, Jr.
• Best Ensemble: Prisoners
• Spotlight Award: Career Collaboration of Martin Scorsese and Leonardo Dicaprio
• NBR Freedom of Expression Award: Wadjda
• Creative Innovation in Filmmaking Award: Gravity

NBR also releases a top ten list of the best films of the year. Here they are, in alphabetical order:

• 12 Years a Slave
• Fruitvale Station
• Gravity
• Inside Llewyn Davis
• Lone Survivor
• Nebraska
• Prisoners
• Saving Mr. Banks
• The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
• The Wolf of Wall Street

As you can see, no trace of American Hustle anywhere, and this group seemed to appreciate The Wolf of Wall Street more than the NY critics did. Others snubbed are Captain Phillips, All is Lost, Blue Jasmine and The Butler. Gotta say though, I'm loving how much the critics are coming through for Fruitvale Station so far. Here are the rest of NBR's top film lists, also in alphabetical order:

Top 5 Foreign Language Films:

• Beyond the Hills
• Gloria
• The Grandmaster
• A Hijacking
• The Hunt

Top 5 Documentaries:

• 20 Feet From Stardom
• The Act of Killing
• After Tiller
• Casting By
• The Square

Top 10 Independent Films:

• Ain't Them Bodies Saints
• Dallas Buyers Club
• In a World...
• Mother of George
• Much Ado About Nothing
• Mud
• The Place Beyond the Pines
• Short Term 12
• Sightseers
• The Spectacular Now

Gal Gadot is Wonder Woman

Gal Gadot, the 28-year-old Israeli model and actress best known for appearing in Fast & Furious 6 is set to star as Wonder Woman in the upcoming Zack Snyder-helmed Batman/Superman movie. At long last, Wonder Woman is finally coming to the big screen, although in what capacity is still unknown. She may just be a glorified cameo. I'm on record as hating Man of Steel and expecting this movie to be a complete disaster, so frankly, I'm a little sad that Wonder Woman's first appearance on the big screen isn't going to be in her own movie, but I suppose this is better than nothing. Right? What do you think?

TRAILER #2: "Her"

The second trailer for Spike Jonze's Her is out- the movie is a lonshot contender for Best Picture and is coming out Dec. 18th.

Oscar Documentary Shortlist

The Academy has announced the 15 documentaries shortlisted for Oscar contention. This means that the five nominated films for Best Documentary will come from the following list:

• The Act of Killing
• The Armstrong Lie
• Blackfish
• The Crash Reel
• Cutie and the Boxer
• Dirty Wars
• First Cousin Once Removed
• God Loves Uganda
• Life According to Sam
• Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer
• The Square
• Stories We Tell
• Tim's Vermeer
• 20 Feet From Stardom
• Which Way is the Line From Here? The Life and Times of Tim Hetherington

My wild stab in the dark at the five chosen are The Act of Killing, Blackfish, Stories We Tell, Tim's Vermeer and 20 Feet From Stardom. We'll see how close I am when the nominations come out. In the meantime, here's the trailer for one of the most acclaimed documentaries of the year, 20 Feet From Stardom:

New York Film Critics Circle Winners- "American Hustle" Tops

One of the oldest and most prestigious film critics groups in the country announced their awards today. In a very surprising result, they voted American Hustle the top prize, along with Screenplay and Supporting Actress. This provides a major boost for American Hustle in the Oscar race, and this, along with the Gotham awards shutting out 12 Years a Slave last night, seems to indicate some surprising resistance to the film, despite its amazing reviews, although Steve McQueen was touted as Best Director.

• Best Non-Fiction Film (Documentary): Stories We Tell
• Best First Film: Fruitvale Station
• Best Cinematography: Inside Llewyn Davis
• Special Award: Frederick Wiseman
• Best Screenplay: American Hustle
• Best Animated Film: The Wind Rises
• Best Supporting Actor: Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club)
• Best Foreign Language Film: Blue is the Warmest Color (France)
• Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle)
• Best Director: Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave)
• Best Actress: Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine)
• Best Actor: Robert Redford (All is Lost)
• Best Picture: American Hustle

Gravity was totally shut out by the New York critics (not even cinematography, really?), but it has a chance to rally with other groups, most notably the L.A. film critics (the second most prestigious critics group), who vote this Sunday, and often go out of their way to vote the opposite of New York. Other boons from this are Robert Redford's chances in Best Actor and Jennifer Lawrence in Supporting Actress. But American Hustle is the big story, and a possibility here is that the New York critics just set it up as the lightweight "alternative" to 12 Years a Slave in Best Picture, ala Argo last year. We'll see. Next up it's the National Board of Review, which announces their winners tomorrow.

Blu-Ray Pick of the Week: "Nashville" (1975)

Robert Altman's masterpiece Nashville is on blu-ray today, and you owe it to yourself to check out this film, which is one of the most visceral and immediate representations of America ever made. It follows five days leading up to a country music concert in Nashville, TN and no less than 24 characters are chronicled as their stories interweave themselves in and out of the frame. When it all comes together it achieves greatness in ways you couldn't possibly predict ahead of time. Nominated for 5 Academy Awards and my favorite Altman film.

Original 1975 Trailer (this is another goofy '70s one):

2013 Gotham Award Winners

The Gotham Awards have announced their winners and the results are bit surprising, and a possible boost to Best Actor/Actress hopefuls Matthew McConaughey and Brie Larsen, although the award could still end up with little impact. The most notable result was that 12 Years a Slave was shut out in favor of Fruitvale Station, which finally got some much deserved recognition tonight.

• Best Feature: Inside Llewyn Davis
• Best Actor: Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club)
• Best Actress: Brie Larsen (Short Term 12)
• Best Breakthrough Actor: Michael B. Jordan (Fruitvale Station)
• Best Breakthrough Director: Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station)
• Best Documentary: The Act of Killing

2013 Satellite Awards Nominations

These awards are essentially meaningless, because you might as well ask what didn't get nominated, but here's the rundown anyway. 12 Years a Slave leads with 10 noms, and there seems to be a lot of love for American Hustle in this group as well:

Best Motion Picture

• Inside Llewyn Davis
• 12 Years a Slave
• Philomena
• American Hustle
• Gravity
• Captain Phillips
• The Wolf of Wall Street
• Saving Mr. Banks
• All is Lost
• Blue Jasmine

Director

• Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave)
• Ethan Coen, Joel Coen (Inside Llewyn Davis)
• Ron Howard (Rush)
• Woody Allen (Blue Jasmine)
• Martin Scorsese (The Wolf of Wall Street)
• Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity)
• Paul Greengrass (Captain Phillips)
• David O. Russell (American Hustle)

Actress

• Meryl Streep (August: Osage County)
• Judi Dench (Philomena)
• Sandra Bullock (Gravity)
• Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine)
• Amy Adams (American Hustle)
• Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Enough Said)
• Emma Thompson (Saving Mr. Banks)
• Adele Exarchopoulos (Blue is the Warmest Color)

Actor

• Christian Bale (American Hustle)
• Tom Hanks (Captain Phillips)
• Robert Redford (All is Lost)
• Bruce Dern (Nebraska)
• Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave)
• Forest Whitaker (The Butler)
• Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club)
• Leonardo Dicaprio (The Wolf of Wall Street)

Actress in a Supporting Role

• Julia Roberts (August: Osage County)
• Lea Seydoux (Blue is the Warmest Color)
• Oprah Winfrey (The Butler)
• June Squibb (Nebraska)
• Lupita Nyong'o (12 Years a Slave)
• Sally Hawkins (Blue Jasmine)
• Emily Watson (The Book Thief)
• Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle)

Actor in a Supporting Role

• Jake Gyllenhaal (Prisoners)
• Harrison Ford (42)
• Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club)
• Casey Affleck (Out of the Furnace)
• Bradley Cooper (American Hustle)
• Ryan Gosling (The Place Beyond the Pines)
• Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave)
• Tom Hanks (Saving Mr. Banks)

International Film

• The Hunt (Denmark)
• Blue is the Warmest Color (France)
• Four Corners (South Africa)
• Wadjda (Saudi Arabia)
• Circles (Serbia)
• The Past (Iran)
• The Great Beauty (Italy)
• The Broken Circle Breakdown (Belgium)
• Bethlehem (Israel)

Animated Motion Picture

• Ernest & Celestine
• Turbo
• The Wind Rises
• The Croods
• Frozen
• Epic
• Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2
• Monsters University

Documentary

• 20 Feet From Stardom
• Evocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie
• The Square
• American Promise
• The Act of Killing
• Blackfish
• Stories We Tell
• Tim's Vermeer
• Sound City
• After Tiller

Original Screenplay

• Enough Said
• Inside Llewyn Davis
• Blue Jasmine
• Her
• Saving Mr. Banks
• American Hustle

Adapted Screenplay

• Captain Phillips
• Lone Survivor
• The Wolf of Wall Street
• Philomena
• Before Midnight

Original Score

• Philomena
• 12 Years a Slave
• Her
• The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
• The Book Thief

Original Song

• "Young and Beautiful" (The Great Gatsby)
• "Let it Go" (Frozen)
• "I See Fire" (The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug)
• "So You Know What it's Like" (Short Term 12)
• "Happy" (Despicable Me 2)
• "Please Mr. Kennedy" (Inside Llewyn Davis)

Cinematography

• Prisoners
• Inside Llewyn Davis
• Gravity
• 12 Years a Slave
• The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
• Rush

Visual Effects

• World War Z
• The Croods
• Oz the Great and Powerful
• Rush
• Gravity
• All is Lost

Film Editing

• Prisoners
• American Hustle
• Gravity
• Rush
• 12 Years a Slave

Sound

• Elysium
• Gravity
• All is Lost
• Rush
• Inside Llewyn Davis
• Captain Phillips

Art Direction & Production Design

• The Invisible Woman
• Saving Mr. Banks
• The Butler
• Rush
• The Great Gatsby
• Oz the Great and Powerful

Costume Design

• The Invisible Woman
• Rush
• The Great Gatsby
• Saving Mr. Banks
• 12 Years a Slave
• Oz the Great and Powerful

REVIEW: "12 Years a Slave" (2013) Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender. Dir. Steve McQueen

Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave is a powerful work of art that will pack an undeniable punch for anyone not familiar with the horrors of slavery, and a very visceral one for those who are. It is undoubtedly the most in depth look at the "peculiar institution" that poisoned our country for hundreds of years since the television series Roots captivated the nation thirty years ago, and such reminders of our past are always necessary, so as not to forget the tragic past that we come from.

The story is based on the autobiography of Solomon Northup, who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841, essentially plucked from his comfortable life in Saratoga, NY where he lived as an educated free man with his family. McQueen tosses us into his life as a slave early in the film and then flashes back, where we see how idyllic his situation was (perhaps a little too idyllic- the North was not exactly a bastion of racial equality in the mid-19th century) and how it took a hard left turn when he was tricked by two men into traveling to the the nation's capitol for a musical performance (Solomon is a talented violinist) and then drugged, waking up in chains. His cries for help after being beaten into submission by a slavedriver are not heard, and soon Solomon is renamed Platt and loaded onto a boat headed for the Deep South.

From that point on the film follows an episodic structure as Solomon is sold first to a plantation run by a benevolent slaveowner (Benedict Cumberbatch) and then to that of Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender), an angry, crazy alcoholic who alternately takes pride and misery in controlling all movements of the lives he considers his property. McQueen is a very talented image-maker, and throughout the film his art background is on full display- there are shots of forlorn slaves staring out at their existence that resemble pictures of Southern plantations from history books, and one of several slaves unrolled from a wagon as if they were cattle. Another is a mesmerizing long take where Solomon is hung from a tree for an excruciating length of time as life goes on in the background behind him, where children frolic and the white mistress of the plantation looks on with cruel indifference. The film was shot in Louisiana, and the beautiful landscape is directly contrasted with the horrors that inhabit it, as slaves walk among the trees and unbearable heat with a solemn disposition that makes you feel the pained existence of those who suffered.

However, despite the artistry and craft at work, the movie is not without its drawbacks. The screenplay by John Ridley is riddled with unnaturally fanciful language, almost Shakespearean in its rhythms, which for me took some getting used to, as hearing such artificial dialect so consistently from every character was a bit distracting, threatening at times to take me out of the experience. And Chiwetel Ejiofor gives a masterful performance as Solomon, for which he should be given all the credit in the world, because his character is not the most compelling. You feel for Solomon as a man who's had everything taken from him in an instant and who does nothing but suffer beatings and whippings from that moment onward, but rarely do we get to know him as a person. We know that his life was good before his capture and that he was a literate man who enjoyed playing the violin but not much more is explored about him, and at times he is nothing more than the object of suffering. But again, thanks to Ejiofor's tremendously expressive eyes and face, we are drawn in to his ordeal as much as we can be.

The supporting characters in the film are more colorful and complicated, especially Cumberbatch and Fassbender as two different slaveowners. Cumberbatch is Ford, the so-called "good man," who wants to save Solomon's life and doesn't like to cause suffering, yet under the system of slavery there is no such thing as a good man who participates in its practices. And Fassbender's Epps is the most complicated character in the movie, a man so vile in the way he treats other human beings, yet conflicted in his own mind about his feelings for the slave woman, Patsey (Lupita Nyong'o) and cruel to his wife (Sarah Paulsen), herself driven into anger, hatred and depression over his obsession and preference for Patsey to her. Epps seems to dull his self-loathing with alcohol and is the living proof of an indentured servant's claim that inflicting subhuman torture on other human beings day in and day out does things to a man and shapes his character in twisted ways that can never be undone.

This is very grim subject matter and the film is a tough sit, with constant scenes of beatings and torture inflicted on people over the course of two hours. Even though Solomon's "happy" ending eventually comes through, it's an emotional release that is only a mild relief, as the movie reminds us there were so many left behind who didn't survive the system. I can't say that the film was a pleasant experience or even an enlightening one, which is my biggest problem with it. For those who are familiar with the horrors of slavery, this is a story of survival, yes, but it's also a statement about slavery that for me, offered nothing new on the subject. Its value may be more important in years to come, as the go-to movie about American slavery in order to introduce people to the topic. For that reason, it's an important historical record, but given that Roots is still around and available for viewing, I don't think that this film offers any more insights into slavery than that groundbreaking series did, which was the first to show Americans the realities of slaves sold on the auction blocks, families being forcibly separated, the sexual slavery of women to their masters, and endless whippings and beatings as punishment for misbehavior- all ground that is covered again in this movie.  McQueen can take you in deeper and make you feel the pain in a more graphic and visceral manner, but I'm not sure that brutal violence itself is all that's necessary for emotional identification and sorrow, especially at the expense of further developed characters and relationships between Solomon, Patsey and the other slaves.

Still, 12 Years a Slave is a very admirable achievement and a step further in McQueen's directorial career- and the movie is obviously going to be showered with a lot of awards season love, much of it very deserved, especially for the performances. I'd recommend it highly, as it's worth seeing for the actors in particular.

* * * 1/2