Movie of the Day: "Lincoln" (2012)

A special one for President's Day. My favorite movie of 2012 was Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, a fascinating look at 19th century politics and the story of how our 16th president fought to secure the passage of the 13th amendment abolishing slavery in the United States forever. It's anchored by an incredible performance from Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln, who transforms himself so completely that you forget you're not watching the real thing. You may have to be a history buff like me to appreciate this movie, as I know there are a lot of people who found the long debates and political conversations boring, but if you are interested in history and/or politics, the deeply literary script crafted by Pulitzer Prize winner Tony Kushner (from Doris Kearns Goodwin's biography Team of Rivals) is gripping stuff indeed.

Trailer:

Makeup and Sound Guild Awards to Gravity, Captain Phillips, Dallas Buyers Club

The second to last round of guild awards were presented last night, as the Motion Picture Sound Editors gave out their two feature film awards to Gravity for Sound Effects and Captain Phillips for Sound in dialogue. Those two awards combine into one Oscar category for Sound Editing, where both films are nominated- so the always hard to call sound awards are anybody's guess at this point. Mine would be Gravity, but they may split the two Sound categories (the other is Sound Mixing) with Captain Phillips, so that it can win something too.

Meanwhile, the Hair & Makeup Guild gave out its prizes as well:

Contemporary Hair Styling: The Butler
Contemporary Makeup: Prisoners
Period and/or Character Hair Styling: American Hustle
Period and/or Character Makeup: Dallas Buyers Club
Special Makeup Effects: Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa

This is a slam dunk Oscar for Dallas Buyers Club, where it's only up against The Lone Ranger and Bad Grandpa. There's no way the Academy allows a Jackass movie to win one of their coveted statues. This coming weekend should bring the last of the industry guild awards, with the Costume Designers weighing in, along with the Cinema Audio Society.

PREVIEW: "Unbroken"

Angelina Jolie's new directorial effort, Unbroken, got a special preview trailer during the Olympics last night, narrated by Tom Brokaw and everything. The movie has a script by the Coen Brothers and is set to come out at Christmas this year:

BOX OFFICE 2/14-2/16: 'Lego Movie' Tops Again; 'About Last Night' a Strong Second

Over Valentine's Day weekend, About Last Night gave The Lego Movie some competition, but only on the holiday itself, as the two were neck and neck as of Friday night. Over the rest of the weekend though, The Lego Movie easily sailed into first place with $48 million, a tiny drop from its $69 million opening last week. It now has $129 million total after just two weeks in release. About Last Night is the second big hit in a row for Kevin Hart, as it came in strong with $27 million and a solid "A-" from audiences. It was the week of 80's remakes all around, as RoboCop pulled in $26 million for third place and Endless Love amassed $13 million in fifth.

The Monuments Men continued to perform solidly, with another $15 million, so crowds are warm to it despite the tepid reviews, and Frozen finally fell out of the top five, but now has $376 million total, and I seriously wonder if it can get to $400. Finally, the horribly received romance fantasy Winter's Tale, with Russell Crowe and Colin Farrell bombed with just $7 million.

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Top 5:

The Lego Movie- $48.8 million
About Last Night- $27 million
RoboCop- $21.5 million
The Monuments Men- $15 million
Endless Love- $13.4 million

Next week it's the volcano movie Pompeii and the Kevin Costner thriller 3 Days to Kill, but I'm going to make another call that neither of them takes down The Lego Movie for #1 in its third weekend? What do you think?

12 Years a Slave wins BAFTA Best Picture, Gravity Takes Director

The British Academy Awards awards split the big prizes today, with 12 Years a Slave winning just Best Picture and Best Actor, while Gravity won Best Director, Best British Film, and 4 others for a total of 6 trophies:

British Film: Gravity
Short Film: Room 8
Animated Short: Sleeping With the Fishes
Production Design: The Great Gatsby
Sound: Gravity
Editing: Rush
Documentary: The Act of Killing
Makeup & Hair: American Hustle
Costume Design: The Great Gatsby
Music: Gravity
Animated Film: Frozen
British Debut: Keiran Evans, Kelly + Victor
Supporting Actor: Barkhad Abdi, Captain Phillips
Cinematography: Gravity
Supporting Actress: Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle
Original Screenplay: American Hustle
Adapted Screenplay: Philomena
Rising Star Award: Will Poulter
Visual Effects: Gravity
Foreign-Language Film: The Great Beauty
Actor: Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave
Director: Alfonso Cuaron, Gravity
Actress: Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine
Picture: 12 Years a Slave

This was the last major precursor before the Oscars and it basically tells us nothing, except that Alfonso Cuaron is a lock for Best Director. 12 Years has won the top prize at the Golden Globes, Critics Choice, PGA (with Gravity) and now the BAFTA, but it has not been picking up many other awards to go with it. Even here, where it was favored to sweep, it didn't even win Supporting Actress or Screenplay as it was expected to. Voters in every group seem to want to reward Gravity and 12 Years a Slave at the same time, and have been splitting that up by giving Cuaron director and 12 Years Picture. This still means the Oscar race is wide open, because with the kind of ballot the Academy uses, you cannot control a split vote like you can in these other awards groups. We'll see what happens in two weeks, but I think the Best Picture prize is a 50/50 tossup between 12 Years a Slave and Gravity.

Ellen Page Comes Out

Juno star Ellen Page came out as gay last night at a Human Rights Campaign event before an audience working on behalf of LGBT youth. Here's her brave and emotional speech:

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: