Movie of the Day: "Shakespeare in Love" (1998)

For Valentine's Day, I direct you over to the ten films selected for the month of February, but here's a late bonus entry in the Movie of the Day series. Shakespeare in Love, the Best Picture Oscar winner from 1998, is a gloriously funny, romantic, heartwarming pick for the holiday, and it's every bit as delightful today as it was on first release. Joseph Fiennes is a young Will Shakespeare, and in a charmingly clever and witty script by Tom Stoppard, we get to see how, while experiencing a bout of writer's block, he came up with the idea for his most famous play, Romeo and Juliet (coincidentally, one of the February movie choices). Gwyneth Paltrow is his muse, the lovely lady Viola, and the backstage shenanigans that surround the first ever staging of the show have a truly magical feel about them (who wouldn't want to be present at the birth of an iconic work of art?) Sit back and enjoy this wonderfully romantic movie, and have a happy Valentine's Day everybody!

Original Trailer:

12 Years a Slave Sweeps the Black Reel Awards

12 Years dominated the Black Reel Awards last night, winning 8:

Picture: 12 Years a Slave
Actor: Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave
Actress: Danai Gurira, Mother of George
Supporting Actor: Barkhad Abdi, Captain Phillips
Supporting Actress: Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years a Slave
Director: Steve McQueen, 12 Years a Slave
Screenplay: 12 Years a Slave
Documentary: 20 Feet From Stardom
Ensemble: 12 Years a Slave
Foreign Film: War Witch
Score: 12 Years a Slave
Original Song: "Desperation," 20 Feet From Stardom
Breakthrough Performance, Male: Barkhad Abdi, Captain Phillips
Breakthrough Performance, Female: Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years a Slave
Voice Performance: Samuel L. Jackson, Turbo
Independent Feature: Blue Caprice
Independent Documentary: The New Black
Independent Short: Black Girl in Paris

'Gravity' and 'Frozen' Win at the VES Awards

In the least surprising guild news this season, Gravity dominated the Visual Effects Society Awards last night, winning six. Visual Effects, as you can imagine, is the category with the least amount of suspense on Oscar night:

Outstanding Visual Effects: Gravity
Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects: The Lone Ranger
Outstanding Animation: Frozen
Outstanding Animated Character: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - "Smaug"
Outstanding Created Environment (Live Action): Gravity - "Exterior"
Outstanding Created Environment (Animated): Frozen - "Elsa's Ice Palace"
Outstanding Virtual Cinematography: Gravity
Outstanding Models: Gravity - "ISS Exterior"
Outstanding FX and Simulation Animation (Live Action): Gravity - "Parachute and ISS Destruction"
Outstanding FX and Simulation Animation (Animated): Frozen - "Elsa's Blizzard"
Outstanding Compositing: Gravity

TRAILER: "Transcendence"

Trailer for the new sci-fi thriller starring Johnny Depp, from first-time director Wally Pfister, the cinematographer of Inception. Coming out April 18th:

Idina Menzel to Perform at the Oscars

Queen Elsa herself, Broadway star Idina Menzel has been slated to sing "Let it Go," the nominated song from Frozen, at the Academy Awards on March 2nd, according to The Hollywood Reporter. This alleviates the worries of Frozen fans who feared Demi Lovato (who recorded the single version in much less impressive fashion) would be asked to perform at the ceremony instead. The Tony-award winner is set to join U2 and Pharell Williams as they perform the other nominees, "Ordinary Love," from Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, and "Happy" from Despicable Me 2. The only person who hasn't been asked to appear yet is Karen O. to sing "The Moon Song," from Her, but since it would be awfully rude to ask just 3 out of the 4 nominees to the show, I assume she'll be invited shortly.

Here's the showstopping sequence from Frozen that spawned the gigantic hit (an amazing 86,000,000 views logged for this video already):

Blu-Ray Pick of the Week: "The Jungle Book" (1967)

After all these years, Disney's The Jungle Book is finally out on blu-ray. A beloved fan favorite in the Disney canon, this is one of the funniest and funnest movies the studio ever produced (and the very last one to bear Walt's name in the making of). Some of the best songs came out of this one ("I Wanna Be Like You" is an all time classic) and the whole movie has an obvious swingin' 60's influence that makes it a great time capsule of the era (Baloo is clearly a free-thinking hippie and don't those mop-top vultures seem familiar?). Still, being set in the jungle prevents it from feeling dated in the slightest. One of the best.

Original 1967 Trailer:

TRAILER: "Under the Skin"

Finally, after all the teasers, a full-length trailer for the new Scarlett Johansson sci-fi surrealist thriller Under the Skin, is here. The movie's coming out April 4th:

Shirley Temple 1928-2014

The biggest Hollywood child star of all time, Shirley Temple Black, passed away last night at the age of 85. She was the top box office draw in the country at the height of the Great Depression, from 1935-38, at just 7-10 years old. Her best known hits were Little Miss Marker (1934), Curly Top (1935), Wee Willie Winkie (1937), Heidi (1938) and The Little Princess (1939). She left the movie business in her teens and as an adult served as the one-time U.S. ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia. She also received the Kennedy Center Honors, a SAG lifetime achievement award, and is named by the American Film Institute at #18 as one of the greatest female screen legends of all time.

If you want to watch one of her movies, I think Heidi is the one that holds up the best today, but here's the famous stair dance with the legendary Bill "Bojangles" Robinson from The Little Colonel (1935):

And this is from the movie that made her a star at age 6, singing "On the Good Ship Lollipop," from Bright Eyes (1934):

REVIEW: "Ernest & Celestine" (2013) Dir. Stephane Aubier, Vincent Patar and Benjamin Renner

A lot of animated films in the U.S. tend to have a similar feel about them- you can always count on the tongue-in-cheek tone, the topical references, lately the ironic, self-aware dialogue that sounds as if it's attempting to mimic the way people speak in real life. It gets kind of annoying when you see enough to notice a similar sheen that's spread throughout all of them, no matter what other great qualities the specific movie might have. Homogenization of taste has become more of an issue with the release of these movies in the last decade, so when you see one from overseas, in this case France, it's such a welcome breath of fresh air that all you can do is simply marvel at the uniqueness of style, tone, and character. It's an utter delight to experience.

Ernest & Celestine tells the story of a little girl mouse who lives in a universe only populated by mice and bears, who are mortal enemies of each other. The big bears run the city above ground, while the mice inhabit the world below the sewers, which is another separate universe within the one created in this movie. Celestine is an orphan whose job in the society she's a part of requires stealing teeth from the bear world, so that the mice can prolong their survival by the constant replacement of incisors. Needless to say, she's not very good at this task and her trouble gets her involved with a bear called Ernest, a homeless bum who, like her, doesn't feel an automatic hatred of the other species that each are supposed to feel, and so an odd couple friendship is born that they can both use to their advantage. The friendship between this childlike yet grown-up bear and the mature beyond her years, yet actual child mouse is adorably sweet and loving, and believe it or not, reminiscent of a kind of older man-young girl relationship in other notable French films (specifically, Leon: The Professional and City of Lost Children).

It's an exceedingly simple story based on a series of children's books, yet told in the most visually exquisite way imaginable. This is the now rare hand-drawn animated feature that has not been given up by European and Asian artists, and this movie shows again how 2D can still produce gorgeous images that may open more avenues for creativity and uniqueness of style than even CG at times. The movie seems as if it sprung to life directly from the pages of the pencil drawn books, and the details of both the underground mouse world and above level bear city seem to be brimming with life and vibrant colors in every frame. Accompanied are flights of fancy in the film that includes songs (and a wonderful score), daydreams, and nightmares from the minds of Ernest and Celestine that lead to the artist's drawing shapes that correspond to whatever pictures they likely had in their mind at the time.

I do wish that more American studios would take risks with the kinds of animated films they produce (I really don't understand why 2D has been entirely abandoned, for example), and that you wouldn't have to go to other countries to find the most creative works in animation being done elsewhere. As it is, this an absolutely perfect film for children that will likely never be seen in the U.S. by 99% of them (and if it is seen it will not be with the original voices, which must be dubbed into English, an unfortunate side effect of foreign-language animated films). But it's a lovely, precious gem that should be sought out by kids and adults alike, even if you are relegated to the dubbed version only.

* * * 1/2

Site Update: Review Archive

A heads up for everybody: I've now added a Movie Review Archive page to the site, where you can find quick links to all film reviews that have been published. Click here to check it out- hopefully that will make past reviews easier to find. Thanks everyone!

BOX OFFICE 2/07-2/09: 'Lego Movie' Dominates; 'Monuments Men' Solid

The Lego Movie demolished the competition this weekend, earning $69 million to blow past expectations and become the second best February debut ever (behind just Passion of the Christ). The movie was helped by spectacular reviews and received an excellent "A" Cinemascore from audiences, which were 60% over the age of 18. This will continue to play strongly for a while, as finally a true alternative to Frozen is on the market for families. In second place, George Clooney's The Monuments Men also came in above expectations, with a solid $22 million and a "B+" rating from the audience. It puts it in the adult drama category of movies like Argo and Captain Phillips, with 75% of this crowd over age 35, but with no awards buzz it will probably not earn as much as those two in the end. Still, it's Clooney's biggest opening for a movie he directed.

Ride Along came in third, with $9 million and a $105 million total, good for the Kevin Hart vehicle, which is set to launch him as a potentially major box office attraction for the several other movies he has coming out later this year. In fourth place was Frozen, which pulled in nearly $7 million and has finally passed Despicable Me 2's total of $368 million to become the biggest animated film of 2013 (worldwide, it's sitting at $900 million and set to cross $1 billion before it finishes its run). Finally, That Awkward Moment came in fifth place for a $16 million total.

Top 5:

The Lego Movie- $69.11 million
The Monuments Men- $22.7 million
Ride Along- $9.4 million
Frozen- $6.91 million
That Awkward Moment- $5.54 million

Vampire Academy, the other new release this weekend, completely bombed with just $4.1 million, so it looks like that potential franchise is a total non-starter. Next week there are several new debuts for Valentine's Day looking to capitalize on the date night holiday, including Kevin Hart's new movie About Last Night and the drama Endless Love, plus the strange fantasy film A Winter's Tale and the remake of RoboCop. Come back next week, where we'll see if any of those can take down The Lego Movie (I'm betting not).

'12 Years a Slave' wins the Scripter Award

The prestigious USC Scripter award, presented to a screenplay along with its original source material, was given to 12 Years a Slave screenwriter John Ridley and the memoir of the same name, written by Solomon Northup in the 1800's. It was expected to win this, as the historical nature of the source material tends to outweigh other works, such as literary adaptations. The other nominees were Captain Phillips, The Spectacular Now, What Maisie Knew, and Philomena. This is not a guild award, so it has no bearing on the Oscars, but 12 Years is expected to win the Adapted Screenplay Oscar, and this honor continues to support that expectation.

Meanwhile, the Art Directors Guild gave out its awards for production design last night as well:

Period Film: The Great Gatsby
Fantasy Film: Gravity
Contemporary Film: Her

All three of those movies are Oscar nominees, but the ADG is not a great predictor of the Oscar for Production Design, so the winner there is anybody's guess. It tends to go to the movie with the most overall nominations, so even though Gatsby's sets are the most elaborate, right now I'm leaning toward Gravity or 12 Years a Slave in that category.