Blu-Ray Pick of the Week: "The Long Goodbye" (1973)

This week's pick is a classic from the 70's, an adaptation of Philip Marlowe's novel but in Robert Altman's style, which as any Altman fan can tell you is a pretty inimitable, unique vision (although many have tried to imitate it over the years). This is a moody, atmospheric noir that takes place in the present day rather than Marlowe's world of the 1950's, and that pretty much changes everything- this isn't Humphrey Bogart's Marlowe from The Big Sleep. No, it's Elliot Gould, who's infinitely cooler and more relaxed as the private eye who practically stumbles on to the case, making his way through the Los Angeles hippie crime scene of the early 70's. Personally, it's my favorite adaptation of a Marlowe story by far, topping even the classic 40's and 50's noirs. There's nothing else like it.

Original 1973 Trailer:

'Birdman,' 'Boyhood,' and 'Selma' Lead the 2014 Independent Spirit Awards

So, the Indie Spirits were announced this morning! This year, their big favorites were Birdman, Boyhood and Selma, with the latter in particular picking up a significant boost from this group, since it's such a late release, not coming out until Christmas. This awards body doesn't necessarily mean a lot for the Oscars, since there are always weird rules about what is and isn't eligible, what does and doesn't count as "independent," etc. But there is some overlap most of the time, and the three that led the pack are probably the most likely to cross over with the Academy down the line as well.

BEST FEATURE

Birdman
Boyhood
Love is Strange
Selma
Whiplash

DIRECTOR

Damien Chazelle, Whiplash
Ava Duvernay, Selma
Alejandro G. Inarritu, Birdman
Richard Linklater, Boyhood
David Zellner, Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter

SCREENPLAY

Big Eyes
A Most Violent Year
Nightcrawler
Only Lovers Left Alive
Love is Strange

BEST FIRST FEATURE

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
Dear White People
Nightcrawler
Obvious Child
She's Lost Control

FIRST SCREENPLAY

Appropriate Behavior
Little Accidents
The One I Love
She's Lost Control
Dear White People

JOHN CASSAVETES AWARD (Given to best feature made for under $500,000)

Blue Ruin
It Felt Like Love
Land Ho!
Man From Reno
Test

FEMALE LEAD

Marion Cotillard, The Immigrant
Rinko Kikuchi, Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter
Julianne Moore, Still Alice
Jenny Slate, Obvious Child
Tilda Swinton, Only Lovers Left Alive

MALE LEAD

Andre Benjamin, Jimi: All is By My Side
Jake Gyllenhaal, Nightcrawler
Michael Keaton, Birdman
John Lithgow, Love is Strange
David Oyelowo, Selma

SUPPORTING FEMALE

Patricia Arquette, Boyhood
Jessica Chastain, A Most Violent Year
Carmen Ejogo, Selma
Andre Suarez Paz, Stand Clear of the Closing Doors
Emma Stone, Birdman

SUPPORTING MALE

Riz Ahmed, Nightcrawler
Ethan Hawke, Boyhood
Alfred Molina, Love is Strange
Edward Norton, Birdman
J.K. Simmons, Whiplash

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

The Immigrant
Birdman
It Felt Like Love
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
Selma

BEST EDITING

Boyhood
Whiplash
Nightcrawler
A Most Violent Year
The Guest

DOCUMENTARY

20,000 Days on Earth
CitizenFour
Stray Dog
The Salt of the Earth
Virunga

INTERNATIONAL FILM

Force Majeure
Ida
Leviathan
Mommy
Norte, the End of History
Under the Skin

ROBERT ALTMAN AWARD (Given to ensemble): Inherent Vice

SPECIAL DISTINCTION AWARD: Foxcatcher

Glancing over these nominations, it's interesting to not that both the Gothams and the Indie Spirits essentially snubbed Foxcatcher. That film may have a hard time of it going forward, with no acting nods for either Steve Carell or Mark Ruffalo widely rumored to be in consideration for Oscars. Honestly it looks to me like the Spirits wanted to go really indie this year- the last few years have seen their reputation take a hit from nominating too many "big" Oscar movies, like The Artist and Silver Linings Playbook, so perhaps they were trying to restore some integrity this time with more outside the box choices. But mostly, this is a boost for those three films mentioned above, and may not mean much for anything else in the long run. My favorite noms here are Jenny Slate and Tilda Swinton for two of my favorite movies of the year that are unlikely to get any more attention than from this group, so good for them. As for the wins here, I honestly don't know. My gut says Boyhood, but Selma sure is coming on strong at the last minute and could be a real threat, not just here but at the Oscars as well. I guess we'll see.

Movie of the Day: "Alice's Restaurant" (1969)

So, our Movie of the Day series is back for Thanksgiving week with a handful of movies about the holiday (or it's at least part of a significant scene in the film), and this one is a counterculture classic from the late 60's that joins a bunch of genuine hippies in their communal Thanksgiving celebration. It stars Arlo Guthrie (son of Woody) as himself, a wannabe folk singer looking to escape the draft who hitches his way across the country and joins his pals for a New England Turkey Day. There's very little plot to speak of, we just kind of drift along with Arlo as he wanders from place to place, checking out various scenes of late 1960's dropout culture. But it's kind of cool just for that, since it was such a singular and relatively short-lived time in American history that you don't see a whole lot of in movies that were actually made at the time (most looks at hippiedom come from nostalgic re-creations, which often tend to glorify or exaggerate the period). But this one, along with a few others, like Easy Rider and Woodstock, are probably the most accurate and true to life examinations of the culture you're ever likely to see.

Original 1969 Trailer:

TRAILER: "Far From the Madding Crowd"

I can be a pretty big pushover for period romance costume dramas, so you can count me in for this one, which is another version of the classic Thomas Hardy novel (it was filmed before in 1967 with Julie Christie). It's also from Danish director Thomas Vinterberg, who made The Hunt, which was a really good movie with Mads Mikkelson just a couple of years ago, so I think this looks pretty good. It's coming out in May of next year.

BOX OFFICE 11/21-11/23: 'Hunger Games' Lands Biggest Opening of the Year

As expected, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay- Part 1 opened big this weekend, pulling in $123 million since the Thursday midnight shows, but this actually is a fairly significant drop from Catching Fire, which opened to $150 million last year. It's also well below the "Part 1" installments of the Twilight and Harry Potter franchises as well. What does that mean? Hopefully that people have caught on to this incredibly lame, purely financially motivated tactic of splitting the last part of a trilogy into two unnecessary pieces. Mockingjay's reviews suffered for that too, which may have lessened the must-see factor for a series that until this point had shown some crossover appeal to non-book fans than those previous franchises did. But it doesn't really matter, because it's still a huge hit, still opened massively overseas (bigger than the last one even), and will still be at least the second highest grossing movie of the year, behind Guardians of the Galaxy.

In second place was Big Hero 6, which fell just 20% and is holding strong, adding $20 million for a $135 million total, well on its way to grossing $200 million, while Interstellar also held fairly well, for a new total of $120 million. Unfortunately, perception of Interstellar is being based on the performance of Christopher Nolan's other films, so it's being seen as a relatively soft success compared to Inception and The Dark Knight. Meanwhile, Dumb and Dumber To fell hard, dropping 62% for fourth place, but Thanksgiving weekend is likely to give every movie a boost this coming week, as one of the busier moviegoing holiday breaks of the year.

Top 5:

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay- Part 1- $123 million
Big Hero 6- $20 million
Interstellar- $15 million
Dumb and Dumber To- $13.8 million
Gone Girl- $2.8 million

Things are heating up in limited release as well, with several Oscar season movies set to open or expand in the coming weeks. The Theory of Everything and Birdman seem to be doing fairly well as they platform out (Birdman is coming up on $15 million total), while Foxcatcher maintained its high PTA in its second weekend. A bigger success is The Weinstein Co.'s St. Vincent, which has done extremely well, amassing $36 million so far to become the second biggest indie hit of the year, behind Grand Budapest Hotel. Next weekend is the kid friendly Penguins of Madagascar and the limited bow of The Imitation Game on two screens, while everything else tries to boost its earnings over Thanksgiving weekend. See you next Sunday, where we find out how they did, and have a happy Turkey Day everyone!

TRAILER: "Pitch Perfect 2"

I have to confess that I'm really out of the loop on this whole Pitch Perfect thing. I vaguely remembered that this was a movie that came out a couple of years ago, but I had to look it up to remind myself what it was even about. But I guess it was kind of a hit and people liked it? Enough to get a sequel made anyway. I guess I should probably check out the first one now, huh?

TRAILER: "Danny Collins"

Al Pacino stars in this movie about an aging singer who tries to redeem himself, reconnect with his grown son before it's too late, etc. Clearly this is not a movie that hasn't been made a million times before, but watching the trailer it doesn't actually look that bad to me. Maybe this is a case of it having been done well, or maybe it's just a misleading trailer. It'd be kinda nice to see Pacino do something decent again. It's coming out on March 20th of next year.

TRAILER: "The Age of Adaline"

I don't know who exactly was clamoring to see Blake Lively starring in a movie, but here she is in a film about a woman who doesn't age after some kind of magical accident makes her immortal or something. Looks a bit cheesy to me.

Mike Nichols 1931-2014

A big loss for the industry today, as director Mike Nichols passed away at age 83. One of the Hollywood directing giants who came into his own in the 1960's, whose filmography included Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf?, The Graduate (for which he won the directing Oscar), Catch-22, Carnal Knowledge, Silkwood, Working Girl, The Birdcage, Primary Colors, Closer, and Charlie Wilson's War, as well as the famed HBO miniseries Angels in America. He was a veteran of the theater, where he mounted the original productions of Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park and The Odd Couple, and before that was one half of the legendary comedy duo Nichols & May, with longtime collaborator Elaine May. Nichols is one of the select group of people to be called an EGOT winner, having won the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards. He also received the Kennedy Center Honors in 2003 and the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2010. He's survived by his wife of 26 years, ABC World News anchor Diane Sawyer.

Winning Best Director for The Graduate in 1968:

A classic Nichols & May sketch "At the Watercooler" from 1958:

TRAILER: "Cinderella"

Oh boy. The new trailer for Kenneth Branagh's Cinderella, which is apparently a straight remake of the 1950 animated feature, brings back shades of Maleficent for me, which means I had a hard time keeping my lunch down as I watched this. Sorry, but that's an experience I'm still not quite over yet. This looks absolutely awful, and Disney seems intent on tarnishing the reputation of their beloved classics in every way possible. CG mice? Costumes that look borrowed from the Disney World employees? I fear for the tastes of this generation's children if they're growing up on this crap. I can promise you right now that a better live action version of the Cinderella story is Drew Barrymore's Ever After, from 1998. Make your kids watch that. Seriously, compared to this, that movie now looks like the Citizen Kane of fairy tale re-imaginings.

Blu-Ray Pick of the Week: "It Happened One Night" (1934)

An essential blu-ray pick this week is Frank Capra's classic screwball romantic comedy, and it just so happens to be one of my favorite movies of all time. Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert take to the road, she's a runaway heiress and he's a newspaper reporter chasing a big story- hijinks ensure of course, along with romance and one of the great "jilted at the altar" wedding scenes. This movie kind of invented the blueprint for romantic comedy and the best and most amazing part about it is that it all holds up 80 years later. Trust me, you won't find such a perfect blend of sophistication and romantic chemistry in a single movie made today, which makes this film feel shockingly fresh and completely satisfying- it's a true gem.

Original 1934 Trailer:

TRAILER #2: "Inherent Vice"

Paul Thomas Anderson himself cut this new UK trailer for Inherent Vice, and I still can't wait to see it, despite the fact that it was ruled out as an Oscar contender practically the minute it was seen at the NYFF. Too weird and zany for the Academy, proclaimed pretty much everyone. It still looks hilarious though, and I'll take wacky and weird P.T. Anderson any day compared to just about everything else that comes out on a regular basis. We don't get enough of that stuff: