It's the last month of the year and time to celebrate Christmas, so here we are with my ten favorite holiday films, complete with the trailers for each one. To read more about the selections, you can head over to the Movie for Every Month page, and then click here for the full list of ten, which includes such perennials as Love Actually, The Shop Around the Corner, Elf, and Home Alone, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everybody- enjoy the season with these classics, some cocoa and a warm fireplace if you can.
New York Film Critics Name 'Carol' as Year's Best
The NYFCC weighed in today and pretty much went all in for Carol, a critics darling if ever there was one- it's an astounding 98 on Metacritic. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure if this will have a heavy influence as far as Oscars go- it's good for drawing attention to the film, but no Todd Haynes movie has ever been nominated, and the last time there was one in the race, with 2002's Far From Heaven, it was also anointed by the New York Critics and then snubbed for everything except Julianne Moore's performance. The biggest impact today's vote will have is in their surprise win for Saoirse Ronan as Best Actress in Brooklyn, a huge boost to her chances to actually win the televised awards for a film that's beloved. She was my favorite female performance of the year, so I'm all for it. Go Saoirse.
- First Film: Son of Saul
- Foreign-Language Film: Timbuktu
- Supporting Actress: Kristen Stewart, Clouds of Sils Maria
- Supporting Actor: Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies
- Cinematography: Carol
- Screenplay: Carol
- Non-Fiction Film: In Jackson Heights
- Animated Film: Inside Out
- Actress: Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn
- Actor: Michael Keaton, Spotlight
- Director: Todd Haynes, Carol
- Picture: Carol
Pixar Leads the Annie Award Nominations with 'Inside Out' and 'The Good Dinosaur'
For the first time, Pixar has two movies competing against itself with Inside Out and The Good Dinosaur, both of which are up against The Peanuts Movie, Shaun the Sheep Movie and the Charlie Kaufman film Anomalisa. They added a new category this year for Independent Animated Feature, and curiously, Anomalisa missed out on a writing nod of all things.
201 ANNIE AWARD NOMINATIONS:
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
- Anomalisa
- Inside Out
- The Good Dinosaur
- Shaun the Sheep Movie
- The Peanuts Movie
BEST INDEPENDENT ANIMATED FEATURE
- Boy and the World
- The Prophet
- The Boy and the Beast
- When Marnie Was There
VOICE ACTING IN AN ANIMATED FEATURE
- Jennifer Jason Leigh, Anomalisa
- Amy Poehler, Inside Out
- Phyllis Smith, Inside Out
- Pierre Coffin, Minions
- Jon Hamm, Minions
- Alex Garfin, The Peanuts Movie
- Hadley Belle Miller, The Peanuts Movie
- Tom Kenny, The SpongeBob Movie- Sponge Out of Water
WRITING IN AN ANIMATED FEATURE
- Inside Out
- Shaun the Sheep Movie
- When Marnie Was There
DIRECTING IN AN ANIMATED FEATURE
- Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnsons, Anomalisa
- Raul Garcia, Extraordinary Tales
- Pete Docter, Inside Out
- Roger Allers, The Prophet
- Mark Burton and Richard Starzak, Shaun the Sheep Movie
- Steve Martino, The Peanuts Movie
- Hiromasa Yonebayashi, When Marnie Was There
NBR Names 'Mad Max: Fury Road' Best Picture of the Year
Well, the National Board of Review took advantage of its position as the first major critics group of the year to announce a shock and a huge boost for George Miller's Mad Max sequel, which is pretty damn awesome, I must say. In fact, they delivered a very populist list of choices this year, including three major wins for The Martian in Screenplay, Actor and Director, Sly Stallone's first big victory in Supporting Actor, and an apparent love for The Hateful Eight, which hasn't been officially screened yet, but was shown to critics groups, so that's a good sign for that film. Their top ten list was interesting for not including such favorites as Brooklyn, The Revenant and Joy, but maybe the forthcoming critics awards will correct that oversight. Or maybe this is the year of populist, big studio movies overtaking the arthouse faves for once, with Creed, Straight Outta Compton and Inside Out all on the top ten of the year. The season is here in full swing now- next up is the New York Film Critics Circle tomorrow.
Best Film: Mad Max: Fury Road
- Best Director: Ridley Scott – The Martian
- Best Actor: Matt Damon – The Martian
- Best Actress: Brie Larson – Room
- Best Supporting Actor: Sylvester Stallone – Creed
- Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Jason Leigh – The Hateful Eight
- Best Original Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino – The Hateful Eight
- Best Adapted Screenplay: Drew Goddard – The Martian
- Best Animated Feature: Inside Out
- Breakthrough Performance: Abraham Attah – Beasts of No Nation & Jacob Tremblay – Room
- Best Directorial Debut: Jonas Carpignano – Mediterranea
- Best Foreign Language Film: Son of Saul
- Best Documentary: Amy
- William K. Everson Film History Award: Cecilia De Mille Presley
- Best Ensemble: The Big Short
- Spotlight Award: Sicario, for Outstanding Collaborative Vision
- NBR Freedom of Expression Award: Beasts of No Nation & Mustang
Top Films
- Bridge of Spies
- Creed
- The Hateful Eight
- Inside Out
- Spotlight
- The Martian
- Room
- Sicario
- Straight Outta Compton
Top 5 Foreign Language Films
- Goodnight Mommy
- Mediterranea
- Phoenix
- The Second Mother
- The Tribe
Top 5 Documentaries
- Best of Enemies
- The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution
- The Diplomat
- Listen to Me Marlon
- The Look of Silence
Top 10 Independent Films
- ’71
- 45 Years
- Cop Car
- Ex Machina
- Grandma
- It Follows
- James White
- Mississippi Grind
- Welcome to Me
- While We’re Young
New 'Batman v Superman' Scene Shows an Angry Supes Unmasking the Dark Knight
I don't know what the hell's going on in this scene that was just released, but I do know that this is NOT my Superman. That's right- I believe Zack Snyder despises this character with every fiber of his being and has decided to demonize him for the masses as much as humanly possible. I'm as likely as anyone else to go see this movie next March, because I'm a masochist I guess, but I can tell you right now that this will never, ever be the correct interpretation of the iconic American hero. Siegel and Shuster must be spinning in their graves.
'Spotlight' wins the first of what will be many Best Picture prizes to come
'Spotlight' Wins Top Honors at Gotham Awards
'Spotlight' wins the first of what will be many Best Picture prizes to come
Awards season has officially kicked off, people. Last year was the first year anyone really paid attention to the Gothams, or as I like to call them, the mini-Indie Spirit awards, and that was because they were first to anoint Birdman, which then went on to win the guild awards and the Oscar. Who knows if they will be just as foreshadowing this year, but they did go big for Spotlight in Best Feature, Screenplay and Ensemble, and many are predicting it to be the critics favorite this year. The critics awards kick off tomorrow with the National Board of Review, and then the New York Film Critics Circle on Wednesday. Stay tuned.
GOTHAM AWARD WINNERS
- Best Feature: Spotlight
- Breakthrough Actor: Mya Taylor, Tangerine
- Best Documentary: The Look of Silence
- Breakthrough Director: Joan Carpignano, Mediterranea
- Best Actress: Bel Powley, The Diary of a Teenage Girl
- Best Actor: Paul Dano, Love & Mercy
- Best Screenplay: Spotlight
- Breakthrough Series, Longform: Mr. Robot
- Audience Award: Tangerine
- Ensemble Performance: Spotlight
The Gothams also made some cool choices with Paul Dano and Bel Powley in Actor and Actress, two people who are unlikely to receive such recognition elsewhere, although Dano has a shot in supporting at the Oscars. I also like the nods for the transgender, iPhone filmed true indie Tangerine, and The Look of Silence, the sequel film to The Act of Killing, looks poised to hit big in the documentary race.
Paul Dano gets a boost with a Best Actor award for playing Brian Wilson
BOX OFFICE 11/27-11/29: 'Hunger Games' Stays On Top; 'Good Dinosaur' and 'Creed' Solid Over the Holiday
The holiday weekend saw the release of three new films, but none could top Mockingjay from its hold on the number one position, as it fell about 50 percent from last week to bring in 51 million over the three day weekend, and 75 million since Wednesday. That's less than its predecessor, but no one's really complaining, as the final Hunger Games movie has already earned 440 million worldwide. Meanwhile, Pixar's The Good Dinosaur came in second with 39 million for the weekend and 55 million over the five day frame, which is actually a bit of a letdown for Pixar, since most of their films earn at least 60 million across the opening three days, and this will be no match for the phenomenal success of Inside Out earlier this year.
Creed, although coming in third, was more of an unabashed success, outperforming expectations to pull in 30 million on the weekend and 42 million since Wednesday, earning an "A" Cinemascore along with excellent reviews and will easily surpass its 30 million dollar production budget. Of course, that's actually the biggest debut ever for a Rocky movie, but those numbers obviously don't account for inflation, since ticket prices were much cheaper thirty years ago. Spectre and The Peanuts Movie rounded out the top five, while the other new release, Victor Frankenstein, had one of the worst debuts ever, bringing in just 3 million.
Top 5:
- The Hunger Games: Mockingjay- Part 2- 75.8 million
- The Good Dinosaur- 55.6 million
- Creed- 42.6 million
- Spectre- 18.2 million
- The Peanuts Movie- 13.6 million
In limited release, The Danish Girl got off to a good start, earning 185k from 4 screens, while Spotlight and Brooklyn continue to do solid business, bringing their respective totals to 12 and 7 million each. Carol also stayed strong in limited release, having not expanded yet, but earning another 203k from 4 locations for a new total of 588k. Next week it's the Christmas horror movie Krampus against a slew of indie releases like Spike Lee's Chi-Raq, Youth and Macbeth, as we wait for Star Wars to roll around on the 18th. See you next time.
Movie of the Day: "Nobody's Fool" (1994)
On this Thanksgiving Day I'm recommending Nobody's Fool, a movie from 1994 that basically existed as one of the latter day starring vehicles for the great Paul Newman, who was entering his 70's at the time. It's a movie about an old man who lived his life selfishly and now kind of has to make up for lost time with his son and his friends during the holidays, but it's all about Old Blue Eyes here, and the pleasure of watching him simply be him. He's just as charming and effortlessly charismatic as ever in his old age- I must admit he's one of the few older men that I could actually buy younger women continuing to throw themselves at no matter how old he got (as often happened in his later films, like Slap Shot, The Color of Money and this one). Spend Thanksgiving with one of the greats.
Trailer:
Black Panther and Winter Soldier Show Up in First Trailer for 'Captain America: Civil War'
The trailer for the next Avengers movie, aka the third Captain America sequel, showcases a lot of different people, including looks at Bucky and Black Panther, although they're keeping Spider-Man under wraps for now. It doesn't look too bad, as the Captain America movies actually are the better of the separate Avengers franchises, and hey, they're probably better than the Avengers movies overall. Also notable- this is Black Widow's fourth distinct hairstyle. What a way to distinguish your character, right?
Movie of the Day: "The Last Waltz" (1978)
We're doing a truncated Movie of the Day series this week for Thanksgiving, once again because I think I've almost exhausted the canon of movies that celebrate the holiday specifically. Next year we're probably going to have to go with "dysfunctional families" to mark the occasion. But for now we have one of the great music docs of all time, directed by Martin Scorsese. It's the farewell concert from The Band, one of the great groups from the 60's, when they decided to hang it all up and threw one last bash on Thanksgiving Day with a bunch of their famous friends. This movie is often seen as representing the end of that era as a whole, and it's hard not to notice why as you watch Robbie Robertson and the rest of these guys interviewed by Scorsese- they're morose, bitter and just plain burned out. In that way you can definitely see this film as the last gasp of the 60's, and it's a strange feeling of melancholy mixed in with absolutely incredible music. One of my favorites of the genre.
Trailer:
Indie Spirit Nominations Go For 'Beasts of No Nation,' 'Carol' and 'Spotlight'
The Independent Spirit Award nominations are here, and to be honest, my favorite thing in these nominees are the three nods for It Follows in cinematography, editing and director. That's pretty awesome. Them embracing Netflix's Beasts of No Nation is nice to see as well- it remains to be seen whether the industry will do the same thing with the Netflix production. Another note is that this is the second organization to reject Rooney Mara's placement in supporting for Carol- she was nominated in Lead with Cate Blanchett, but if the Oscars also reject her placement it probably means she won't get nominated at all, since they haven't nominated two actresses in the lead category since Thelma and Louise.
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Beasts of No Nation
Carol
It Follows
Meadowland
Songs My Brothers Taught Me
BEST DIRECTOR
Charlie Kaufman & Duke Johnson, Anomalisa
Cary Joji Fukunaga, Beasts of No Nation
Todd Haynes, Carol
David Robert Mitchell, It Follows
Tom McCarthy, Spotlight
Sean Baker, Tangerine
BEST DOCUMENTARY
Best of Enemies
Heart of a Dog
The Look of Silence
Meru
The Russian Woodpecker
(T)error
BEST EDITING
Beasts of No Nation
Heaven Knows What
It Follows
Room
Spotlight
BEST FEATURE
Anomalisa
Beasts of No Nation
Carol
Spotlight
Tangerine
BEST FEMALE LEAD
Cate Blanchett, Carol
Rooney Mara, Carol
Bel Powley, The Diary of a Teenage Girl
Brie Larson, Room
Kitana Kiki Rodriguez, Tangerine
BEST FIRST FEATURE
The Diary of a Teenage Girl
James White
Manos Sucas
Mediterranea
Songs My Brothers Taught Me
BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY
The Diary of a Teenage Girl
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
Mediterranea
The Mend
Room
BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM
Embrace of the Serpent
Girlhood
Mustang
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence
Son of Saul
BEST MALE LEAD
Abraham Attah, Beasts of No Nation
Jason Segel, The End of the Tour
Christopher Abbot, James White
Koudous Seihon, Mediterranea
Ben Mendelsohn, Mississippi Grind
BEST SCREENPLAY
Anomalisa
Bone Tomahawk
Carol
The End of the Tour
Spotlight
BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE
Jennifer Jason Leigh, Anomalisa
Marin Ireland, Glass Chin
Robin Bartlett, H.
Cynthia Nixon, James White
Mya Taylor, Tangerine
BEST SUPPORTING MALE
Idris Elba, Beasts of No Nation
Richard Jenkins, Bone Tomahawk
Paul Dano, Love & Mercy
Kevin Corrigan, Results
Michael Shannon, 99 Homes
JOHN CASSAVETES AWARD
Advantageous
Christmas, Again
Heaven Knows What
Krisha
Out of My Hand
ROBERT ALTMAN ENSEMBLE AWARD
Spotlight
They got a little creative with their nominations here, choosing things like Anomalisa, Beasts of No Nation and It Follows, so the Indie Spirits are continuing its turnaround that started last year in trying to go back to their roots in honoring true American independent productions. As always, the ceremony is held the night before the Oscars, February 27th.
'It Follows' lands three Indie Spirit nods
'Amy' and 'The Hunting Ground' Among This Year's PGA Documentary Nominees
The producers guild has announced its five nominees for Documentary Feature of the year, and in doing so becomes the first guild to announce choices for the year. Their narrative features are the ones with significant Oscar influence, but the documentaries usually end up with at least a few corresponding nominees in the Best Documentary category as well.
- The Hunting Ground
- Amy
- The Look of Silence
- Meru
- Something Better to Come
The Amy Winehouse doc Amy was the most successful of the year, but it's still on the bubble for an Oscar nomination, since the documentary branch prides itself on being snobby and somewhat resentful of mainstream success in its category, strangely enough. The Hunting Ground, the doc about the rape crisis on college campuses, just aired on CNN last night in defiance of threats of lawsuits from accused attackers in the film, including an NFL player for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I think that one is pretty much secured a nomination come Oscar time. The PGA awards will be held on Jan 5th, where the documentary award will be given out alongside the rest of the narrative features.
