Blu-Ray Pick of the Week: "Begin Again" (2014)

The blu-ray choice this week is another selection from this year, and was one of my favorite movies of the summer, the delightful Begin Again, with Keira Knightley and Mark Ruffalo. From John Carney, the writer-director of Once, who crafted a completely feel good movie with a great soundtrack of original songs that managed to make you smile all the way through without ever feeling too saccharine to take in. The performances are charming, New York City never looked better, and it was just a perfect sort of romantic comedy that really doesn't get made anymore by the big studios. You should see it.

Trailer:

Movie of the Day: "Near Dark" (1987)

With Halloween this Friday it's time to celebrate with the five best vampire movies all week long, starting with Kathryn Bigelow's anti-western from the late 80's. This is a totally underrated, criminally underknown little movie with elements of horror, romance, sensuality and lots of blood, combining all the best known myths of vampire lore in a way that the Twilight movies could have only dreamed of. Adrian Pasdar is the young Oklahoma kid who's romanced by a beautiful girl from a very fangy family, and soon he's on the ride of his life as she turns him into one of them and the crew tears their way through the Southwest. Bigelow nails the sensuous, lusty desire of being a vampire and what it means to crave blood- that it comes along with passion for life in all its most extreme forms, from violence to heightened sexuality. It might have a bit of sloppy ending, but the vast majority of this movie works so well that you don't really mind. A classic of the genre.

Original 1987 Trailer:

RED BAND TRAILER: "Nightcrawler"

Here's the red band trailer for the dark thriller Nightcrawler, coming out on Friday. The movie opened in Toronto to some very enthusiastic reaction, although most seemed to agree it's more a cult movie than a mainstream one. Right now it's sitting pretty at 85% on Rotten Tomatoes, so you may want to check this one out- both Jake Gyllenhaal and Rene Russo are said to be great in this:

BOX OFFICE 10/24-10/26: 'Ouija" Tops the Weekend; 'John Wick' Surprises

The cheap horror movie Ouija, yes, inspired by the board game, came in at No. 1 this weekend with $20 million, not a surprise to anyone tracking the box office, seeing as it's only days before Halloween and history shows that teen audiences will show up to literally any horror movie opening at the multiplexes this time of year. Not that they liked it much, slapping it with a "C" Cinemascore to go along with its dismal Rotten Tomatoes rating, but once again, it was a $5 million dollar movie that opened to four times that amount, so it's a win for Universal no matter what.

In second place was the Keanu Reeves actioner John Wick, which got surprisingly good reviews, which in turn probably helped it to the $14 million it made this weekend (not great of course, but twice what experts were predicting, given the total flop of his last epic, 47 Ronin). It may be a boost for Reeves' sagging career at least. The rest of the top five were holdovers, with Fury dropping 45% from last week, Gone Girl just about to overtake Benjamin Button as the highest grosser of David Fincher's career, and the animated Book of Life bringing its domestic total to $29 million.

Top 5:

Ouija- $20 million
John Wick- $14.2 million
Fury- $13 million
Gone Girl- $11.1 million
The Book of Life- $9.8 million

In limited release, St. Vincent expanded to over 2200 screens, earning $8 million and falling just shy of the top ten, while the Edward Snowden documentary Citizenfour opened in five theaters for a strong $125k. Finally, Lynn Shelton's Sundance film Laggies earned $78k, also from five locations. Next Friday, Halloween brings us the Jake Gyllenhaal thriller Nightcrawler and Nicole Kidman's Before I Go to Sleep, as we await the first big blockbuster opening weekend in a while, which will be November 7th with the release of Interstellar and Big Hero 6. See you then!

FEATURETTE: "Into the Woods"

I have to admit, despite my skepticism that Into the Woods could be successfully adapted into a movie, this behind the scenes featurette actually makes me excited to see it. And Meryl Streep getting a showcase song and playing the witch? She might as well get ready for her 18th Oscar nomination right now. We also get a first, quick glimpse of Johnny Depp as the Wolf here too.

2014 Gotham Award Nominations: 'Boyhood' Leads the Way

The Gotham awards are the main precursor for the Independent Spirit Awards, with big studio movies not being eligible here, but today they also serve as the official kickoff to the 2014 awards season, since its the first awards body to bestow any nominations. Here's the full list:

Picture

Boyhood
Birdman
Grand Budapest Hotel
Love is Strange
Under the Skin

Actor

Bill Hader - The Skeleton Twins
Ethan Hawke - Boyhood
Oscar Isaac - A Most Violent Year
Michael Keaton - Birdman
Miles Teller - Whiplash

Actress

Patricia Arquette - Boyhood
Gugu Mbatha Raw - Belle
Julianne Moore - Still Alice
Scarlett Johansson - Under the Skin
Mia Wasikowska - Tracks

Documentary

Actress
Citizenfour
Life Itself
Manakamana
Point and Shoot

Breakthrough Actor

Riz Ahmed - Nightcrawler
Joey King - Wish I Was Here
Jenny Slate - Obvious Child
Tessa Thompson - Dear White People
Ella Coltrane - Boyhood
Macon Blair - Blue Ruin

Jury Award for Ensemble: Foxcatcher

So, if there's anything interesting about these early noms, it tells us that Boyhood is undoubtedly the frontrunner in the indie world, which most people assumed would happen months ago. But some nice surprises are the lasting power of movies like Under the Skin and The Grand Budapest Hotel, which many assumed would be overlooked at the end of the year. And the snub of Foxcatcher, aside from the ensemble prize, may be telling as well, fueling the early rumors that that film might be too cold and offputting for people to embrace. But it's early days yet, and this particular group is mostly influential for the Spirits, like I said earlier. The Gothams are handed out on Monday, Dec 1st.

TEASER: "Avengers: Age of Ultron"

After leaking online earlier this afternoon, Marvel has released the official teaser trailer for next May's Avengers movie, guaranteed to make a billion dollars without breaking a sweat. Looks like they're going for a darker tone in this, as rumor has it the Avengers will disband by the end of the film, leading to the Iron Man/Captain America battle destined to take place in the third Captain America movie. James Spader supposedly did some motion capture work as Ultron here- hopefully this film will mark the first in the MCU to have an actual, memorable villain.

FEATURETTE: "Birdman"

Here's some behind the scenes interviews with the Birdman cast and crew, including Best Actor hopeful Michael Keaton and director Alejandro Inarritu:

REVIEW: "22 Jump Street" (2014) Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum. Dir. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller

After the surprise success of 2012's 21 Jump Street reboot, the sequel had a lot to live up to, and I'm happy to say that's it's a total delight, on par with the first (if not slightly funnier) that exudes a joyous mockery of the very idea of sequels, which kind of allows it to get away with doing just about everything it's poking fun at.

Normally, that would be a lazy screenwriting cliche- being self-aware doesn't automatically mean that the stuff you're doing is funny simply because you're pointing out how aware of it you are. But here, thanks to the directing team behind the first film and this year's The Lego Movie, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller manage to lay out in the first fifteen minutes exactly what's going to happen in this movie and then go ahead and do it anyway. The reason it works is because even though the plot might be close to exactly the same as the first (events sometimes even correspond to when they happened in the original), the jokes are about 90% new, and there's not a bad one in the bunch. The movie breezes by, knows exactly what it's doing, and has fun doing it, and that goes double for the actors, once again Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum as the cop buddies in question.

Schmidt and Jenko are back on the beat, and this time being sent to college in a couple of perfunctory scenes where returning players Nick Offerman and Ice Cube lay out all the tropes and cliches of the "sequel" that everybody hates ("We're back, but this time with more money in the budget," "Everybody knows that sequels suck"). What sells it is Tatum and Hill's pitch perfect chemistry- the movie has no issues telling us that that the two of them are the real relationship in the film, and some of the best stuff in the movie is Schmidt's jealousy when Jenko has a "meet cute" with a jock football player, which in turn leads to Jenko wanting the two to have an "open investigation," followed by the blossoming of his new bromance while Schmidt is left behind, feeling sorry for himself. This has been played out before in many of the Apatow movies of course, and even before that in movies like Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson's Starsky and Hutch remake, but this movie delivers it straight to us in the formula of a rom-com. Apparently, the only kind that can get made anymore is one where the leads are straight men. I won't say it doesn't work though- the two guys' friendship, love and loyalty to each other are the heart of the movie, and even though it could never be mistaken for serious, it makes us laugh and "aww" at the same time when the guys fight, break up and get back together.

But even aside from that, I was impressed with the way all the jokes, references, gags and action scenes flowed so seamlessly. The movie has a brisk pace and not one wasted punchline in a tight script that makes the most of the actors' ability to hit the target. The supporting cast is also good, especially Jillian Bell as a nutty college roommate, who gets in so many zingers about Jonah Hill's old face she could have hosted a roast, and Ice Cube, whose scene-stealing bit part in the first is expanded upon to good use in this one. And frankly, the movie might be worth seeing for the ending credits alone, which make fun of the endless amount of sequels and threequels that could be made in the Jump Street franchise as the guys will undoubtedly wind up in culinary school, flight academy, beauty school, a contract dispute where Hill is replaced by Seth Rogen but then comes back, and on and on, etc. I sometimes tire of self-awareness just for its own sake, but the truth is this movie would have been the funniest movie of the year even without all the referential digs, and that's the reason to see both this and however many more they want to do. Keep 'em coming guys. I'm in.

* * *

TEASER: "The Gambler"

Mark Wahlberg leads a pretty good ensemble cast in The Gambler, premiering at AFI Fest next month and set for a late December release here in the U.S. John Goodman, Jessica Lange, Brie Larsen and Michael K. Williams co-star in this remake of the 1974 film that starred James Caan, and with a screenplay from The Departed's William Monahan and Rise of the Planet of the Apes director Rupert Wyatt at the helm, this might actually have some real potential. If it was no good they would have held it back until next year, so maybe look out for this one.

Blu-Ray Pick of the Week: "Snowpiercer" (2014)

Out on blu-ray this week is one of the best movies of the year, Bong Joon Ho's Snowpiercer, the sci-fi epic about passengers trapped on a revolving train in an apocalyptic future where the earth has nearly been destroyed. Chris Evans steps away from Captain America to lead a revolt of the working class citizens against the tyrannical behavior of the elites who abuse them, and it's an action packed, imaginative, beautifully filmed ode to humanity by the film's end. If you haven't seen it, now's the time to check it out.

Trailer:

POSTER: "Big Eyes"

Here's the new poster for Tim Burton's Big Eyes, which is coming out on Christmas Day but still hasn't been screened for anyone yet (unusual for late releases at this time of year). If a movie hasn't been seen at this stage it likely means that there's not a lot of confidence in it behind the scenes- or for one reason or another, the studio just doesn't think it's going to be good enough for an awards run (they usually take their big awards contenders to a fall film festival to get the buzz going). We'll see though, sooner or later.