'Apes' Tops Visual Effects Society Winners

In kind of a surprise (most thought this would go to Interstellar), Dawn of the Planet of the Apes topped the VES Awards last night, making it the frontrunner for the Oscar in Visual Effects as well. Frankly, this is the deserved winner of the category, at least in my opinion, but I wonder if Interstellar could still win at the Oscar with a lot of non-visual effects people voting as well.

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Live-Action Feature: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Outstanding Animation in an Animated Feature: Big Hero 6
Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Live Action Feature: Birdman

TEASER: "Magic Mike XXL"

Okay, so, believe it or not, if you saw the first Magic Mike you'd know that it was actually kind of a downer, serious story about a male stripper, but that was the part people didn't like, so this new one clearly does away with all that and just goes full on trashy, exploitation mode. Frankly, without Steven Soderbergh or Matthew McConaughey involved, I can't imagine this is going to be any good, but all people really want out of this is Channing Tatum stripping anyway, so at least it's going to give you that. It's coming out in July.

Brits Re-Do Famous Hollywood Movie Scenes

Vanity Fair's annual Hollywood issue included a special on the new "British Invasion" by having British actors re-enact famous scenes from classic movies- but I'd say Keira Knightley kinds steals the show here by recreating Meg Ryan's deli orgasm from When Harry Met Sally, complete with a Judi Dench punchline.

Blu-Ray Pick of the Week: "About Schmidt" (2002)

Any Alexander Payne movie is worth checking out, but what's most impressive to me about this one was that he managed to wrangle a latter day Jack Nicholson performance that wasn't just "Jack being Jack." About Schmidt is the story of a tired old man who embarks on a road trip to his daughter's wedding and faces up to what he has and hasn't done with his life- and there's no hint of the twinkly-eyed, rascally Jack Nicholson here at all. I really believed this guy was an old, washed up every day business man and that's all. It's funny and moving, and Kathy Bates has a scene-stealing role, but this movie is all about Jack and his wonderful, character performance- maybe still the best of his entire career.

Trailer:

REVIEW: "Into the Woods" (2014) Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt. Dir. Rob Marshall

When I saw the stage play Into the Woods, I really couldn't imagine how it could possibly be turned into a film, since the concept is inherently so fantastical that it begs not to be taken seriously for a single second. That's less of a problem on the stage, since watching a play requires a more extended suspension of disbelief from the outset. But, as he did with 2002's Chicago, Rob Marshall manages to put together a pretty faithful adaptation of the play, by pretty much driving it straight down the middle with no embellishments, and letting Stephen Sondheim's songs do most of the work for him.

The setup of Into the Woods involves many familiar fairy tale characters, including Cinderella, Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood and Jack (from Jack and the Beanstalk) all running into each other throughout the dark woods over the course of three nights as they run to and from various parts of their own stories, while two original characters, the Baker and his wife, try to perform the task of gathering items from these people in the service of a witch, who will lift her curse on them if they bow to her will. The pleasure of the story simply involves watching all the characters run past each other in a frenzy (which Rob Marshall tones down, as the play was practically a screwball farce) and sing the long-winded Sondheim dialogue. If anyone's familiar with his music you know there's less hook than verse in his lyrics, and most of the dialogue is sung throughout the entire film. But the actors here are good singers and perform their parts well, while Marshall does not make the mistake Tom Hooper did of trying to out direct the material with suffocating closeups and wacky camerawork.

The pace is straightforward, significantly slowed down from the stage play, and every character gets their moment in the spotlight, especially Emily Blunt as the Baker's Wife and Meryl Streep as the Witch (although neither of them hold a candle to their stage counterparts, Joanna Gleason and Bernadette Peters, who brought humor, energy and pizazz to their roles that couldn't be duplicated in a more serious rendering). The rest of the cast is admirable as well, with James Corden, Anna Kendrick and Chris Pine holding their own in what's truly an ensemble piece. I especially appreciated that every actor was allowed to simply speak in their own voice, whether American or British, an old-school touch from back in the days when Hollywood studios didn't worry about matching accents in musical universes, which everyone understood were mostly fantasy in the first place.

Into the Woods is enjoyable, if slight and a bit forgettable, aside from the music of course. That was something you probably couldn't say about the play, whether you loved or hated it- but by stripping down the high comedy and over the top manic energy, it becomes a competent production with nice costumes and production design, but nothing more than that. I still liked the movie overall, if only because by simply being a successful live action stage adaption, it's ten times the movie Les Miserables was. And since I held my breath going into this because of that film, this was a huge relief in comparison.

* * *

10 Great Romances for Valentine's Day

It's February everybody, and that means with Valentine's Day coming in just two weeks, it's time to direct you towards out February movie page, where you'll find ten of my favorite romances in honor of the holiday. I've got classic screwball romance, lush period romance, romantic comedy, every gooey thing you could want for the occasion- some of my favorites include Pride and Prejudice (above), Trouble in Paradise, The Lady Eve, Bridget Jones's Diary, Sleepless in Seattle...it ought to be more than enough to keep you occupied for the next four weeks. Just head to the Movies For Every Month page to see what defines romance in February, and click here for the full list of ten, trailers or scenes from the films included. Happy Movie Watching!

BOX OFFICE 1/30-2/01: 'American Sniper' Tops Super Bowl Weekend; 'Paddington' Holds on for #2

American Sniper stayed on top for the third straight weekend, taking in $31 million to set a Super Bowl weekend record (the previous high was the Miley Cyrus concert movie back in 2008). Sniper's total now comes to $249 million, seemingly still on track to beat Guardians of the Galaxy and Hunger Games for the highest grossing movie of 2014, and now the biggest war movie ever, beating Saving Private Ryan, which grossed $216 million in 1998. In second place was Paddington with $8.5 million, which has held quite well since it came out, probably because of the lack of family film alternatives in theaters recently.

A close third was the time-traveling movie Project Almanac, which I have to admit I'd never even heard of before today. Whatever this movie was, it suffered from a lack of advertizing and poor reviews (36% on Rotten Tomatoes), while the Kevin Costner drama Black or White came in fourth, with $6.5 million (that also got bad reviews, coming in at just 33%). Rounding out the top five was J-Lo's The Boy Next Door, which earned $6 million for a $24 million total.

Top 5:

American Sniper- $31.9 million
Paddington- $8.5 million
Project Almanac- $8.5 million
Black or White- $6.5 million
The Boy Next Door- $6.1 million

In limited release, the Oscar movies held pretty well, as Birdman sees its total gross come to $33 million, The Theory of Everything hit $30 million, and Boyhood pushed past $25 million. But boy do the producers of next month's Oscars show have to happy about American Sniper's box office success, considering the low totals of most of the nominees this year. Next weekend it's the Wachowski siblings' long delayed Jupiter Ascending, which looks set to be a disaster on an epic level, but it's competing for that title with the Jeff Bridges sorcery movie Seventh Son, so we'll see which one has a leg up with next year's Razzie nominations there. Happy Super Bowl Sunday everybody and go Seahawks!!!

'How to Train Your Dragon 2' Wins 6 Annie Awards; 'Imitation Game' Takes the Scripter

Okay, so we now have some real predictive guild awards for categories besides Best Picture to deal with. First up it's the Annies, where How to Train Your Dragon 2 dominated, taking six statues, which I honestly think gives it a huge leg up in that Animated Feature race at the Oscars. The Annies are normally a pretty good precursor for that, and even though they actually awarded the first HTTYD back in 2010, they went all in for the sequel this year too. I'd bet on that one now for sure.

Animated Effects in Animation: Big Hero 6
Animated Effects in Live-Action: Edge of Tomorrow
Animated Short: Feast
Character Animation in Live-Action: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Character Animation in Animation: How to Train Your Dragon 2
Voice Acting: Ben Kingsley, The Boxtrolls
Storyboarding: How to Train Your Dragon 2
Production Design: The Boxtrolls
Music: How to Train Your Dragon 2
Editing: How to Train Your Dragon 2
Writing: The Lego Movie
Directing: Dean DeBlois, How to Train Your Dragon 2
Best Animated Feature: How to Train Your Dragon 2

Meanwhile, over at the USC Scripter awards, which gives out its prize to the adapted screenplay and the source material it's based on, they chose Graham Moore's script for The Imitation Game and Andrew Hodges' biography of Alan Turing. I expected that, so I'm not surprised, and the scripter is a very good predictor of Adapted Screenplay, although Imitation Game's biggest competition, American Sniper and Whiplash, weren't nominated here, but that's still a boost for it. Finally, the Art Directors Guild announced tonight for production design as well.

Contemporary Film: Birdman
Period Film: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Fantasy: Guardians of the Galaxy

This one is harder to use as an accurate predictor, because they separate into genres, but frankly that production design award is one of the easiest to call- it's going to Grand Budapest Hotel, no question.

'Boyhood' and Grand Budapest Hotel' Take the Eddies

The guild awards continue, as the ACE Eddies were handed out last night. Budapest beat Birdman for Musical/Comedy while Boyhood took the drama award over American Sniper. This is the first showing of industry support for Boyhood, after losing the PGA and SAG last week. That plus the fact that the editors chose not to award Birdman is fairly significant, I think. This could well be the first time in 7 years that the PGA misses in Best Picture. The DGA is still the most important guild to announce, and that's next week, but if Linklater prevails at DGA, I'm sticking with Boyhood to win the Oscar, and predicting that PGA was a fluke this year.

BEST EDITING IN A DRAMA FEATURE: Boyhood
BEST EDITING IN A COMEDY/MUSICAL FEATURE: The Grand Budapest Hotel
BEST EDITING IN AN ANIMATED FEATURE: The Lego Movie
BEST EDITING IN A DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: Citizenfour

REVIEW: "Dear White People" (2014) & "Love is Strange" (2014)

Two more films that came out of last year's Sundance film festival and made something of a splash on the indie circuit in 2014 dealt with social issues in terms that were at once low key and meaningful in their own ways. The first was Dear White People, from first time filmmaker Justin Simien- a very ambitious debut attempting to explore race relations on college campuses, but in a satirical fashion that in this day and age can sometimes makes its points better than other, more serious formats (see Key & Peele, The Daily Show, etc).

Set in the fictional, upscale Winchester University, Dear White People follows several different characters charting the territory of living in white society in the present day (which is a nice change on its own, as most race related movies prefer to dwell in the long ago past). Most interesting are the ideas and issues it brings up in the form of these characters, all of whom are more conflicted than they would like to appear. Tessa Thompson stars as the radio DJ of a show that advocates for radical racial identity politics, but secretly struggles with overcompensating for her mixed race background, her white boyfriend, and feeling that she in particular must choose one side or the other (hence, she's ironically name Samantha White). There's also the gay, Star Trek and Robert Altman loving Lionel (Tyler James Williams), who feels utterly out of place with both the black and white students, the former whom he's not "black enough" for and the latter who like him but casually run their fingers through his afro when in his presence. Other major characters include the son of the dean, who is being pressured by his successful father (Dennis Haysbert) to assimilate with the white establishment for the benefit of his future in politics, and the girl who comes from the South Side of Chicago but wants to escape her "ghetto" past, only embracing it as a political tool to boost her fortunes with the dominant white frat house when necessary.

The movie is mixing up a lot of different issues that tackle racial identity head on, and that's what's interesting about it, but the points it tries to make are scattered at best. As a satire, it's not really funny enough or sharp enough to get one clear message across- although we know from the ending credits and various real life news stories that casual racism on campuses exists, in a troubling manner. What the movie does best is give us occasional insights into the issues of the assimilation of minorities in white society, especially in an environment where education and economic levels of all races are on the same level (for example, these are probably not the same kinds of immediate problems that residents of lower class, urban settings are facing on a day to day basis). The other film that deals with social issues is the wonderful Love is Strange, a quiet, moving, lovely little film about a couple, George and Ben (played by Alfred Molina and John Lithgow respectively), who've been together for 39 years, and decide to finally tie the knot in a low key ceremony in front of close friends and family. George and Ben live in a great apartment in New York City together, but after getting married, face a crisis when George is fired from his teaching job at a Catholic school (the archbishop having now been made aware of his marriage, even though everyone who worked with him knew he was gay), and the two can no longer afford a place to live.

Eventually they must turn to family to help them through this, and Ben is taken in by his nephew and his wife, while George stays with some much younger friends of theirs. The situation takes a page out of Make Way for Tomorrow by forcing a separation of the lifelong couple, but the details are slightly more contrived (it's never really made clear why they can't live together for example). Still, the acting from the two leads is sublime, and the careful interaction between the families so relaxed and natural, that you buy into everything they're selling. Ben and George are a real couple, one more devoted and more loyal to each other than any of a hundred straight couples you'd meet on the street. Ira Sachs, the director, seems to have a real personal connection to this story, which doesn't ever create false drama, even with a moody teenager living in the house of Ben's nephew, and Marisa Tomei shows again what a sympathetic and naturalistic presence she is onscreen as Ben's niece and a mother who has her own troubles within her marriage and family to confront. What you remember most from this film are the two men themselves, and the actors who bring them so much to life, and I was more touched by their complete and relaxed state of a life lived long and happily together than any other love story of the past year. It's all in the details, folks, and this one gets all the small things right, which add up to leave a very big impact.

Dear White People: * * 1/2 / Love is Strange: * * * 1/2

TRAILER: "Ted 2"

Ted 2 is coming! Yay, for everyone who's excited about that. I have to admit, I never actually saw the first Ted, so I'm out of the loop on this one. But it looks just as raunchy, gross and filled with inappropriate humor as any other Seth MacFarlane movie. No sign of Mila Kunis, as the token female seems to be Amanda Seyfried this time.

TRAILER: "She's Funny That Way"

Normally, I wouldn't think anything about this trailer made this movie look any good at all, but I have to keep an open mind because it's writer-director Peter Bogdanovich's first film in 13 years. He of course made Paper Moon, What's up Doc? and The Last Picture Show back in the 70's, and okay, fine it's not like he's made any great movies since then, but he also hasn't really made that many movies at all since that era, and I actually really liked The Cat's Meow from 2001 (which was his last feature film). This looks like an attempt at a genuine screwball/Woody Allen type comedy, so I'm going to at least be on the lookout for it. It comes out May 1st.