Sizing Up: Best Actor
We come now to part three of the Sizing Up series, various articles that deal with how to rank the chances of the various categories of Oscar contenders in a given year. This one is as close to an...
View Article‘American Hustle’ Moves Up a Week and ‘Monuments Men’ Gets February 2014 Release
The final pieces of the puzzle are beginning to fall into place for two Sony flicks. In the aftermath of George Clooney‘s film The Monuments Men being surprisingly bumped to next year, the decision has...
View ArticleBlood Brother (★★★)
The winner of the 2013 Sundance Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award, not to mention countless other awards internationally and in America, ‘Blood Brother‘ is a film about a young man named Robin James...
View ArticleMartin Scorsese Officially bringing ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ to theaters...
The odds had been increasing progressively for about a week or two now that Martin Scorsese would in fact have his new movie The Wolf of Wall Street ready for a holiday 2013 release, but now it’s been...
View ArticleFree Birds (★★★)
Pretty consistently throughout Free Birds, there’s a sense of almost old school Bugs Bunny mania. The manic nature is infectious and keeps the animated flick moving at a rapid clip, but it’s the almost...
View ArticleEnder’s Game (★★★)
While I’ve never read the cult favorite book that it’s based on (and likely won’t ever due to author Orson Scott Card‘s rather unfortunate and vocal opinions on certain social issues), Ender’s Game...
View ArticleThe Past (★★★½)
Academy Award nominated screenwriter Asghar Farhadi has proven to be a very skillful storyteller once again with his new film distributed by Sony Pictures Classics called The Past (Le passé), Iran’s...
View ArticleSecond Trailer for Jason Reitman’s ‘Labor Day’ Drops
After Jason Reitman unvieled his special online only cut Trailer of his new film Labor Day to the world, it was just a matter of time until a more standard one hit for the movie. Well, we have it for...
View ArticleThe Motel Life (★★★)
I’ve long been a fan of Emile Hirsch, so pretty much anything he’s involved in I want to take a look at. His latest film The Motel Life is just one more example of a small project made even more...
View ArticleThe Book Thief (★★½)
Pretty much all of the ingredients needed for a big Oscar contender are contained within The Book Thief…there’s just something else missing that ties it all in together and makes it work. If that...
View ArticleWeinstein Company To Host a Star-Studded Live Fan Event for ‘August: Osage...
Tonight brings an interesting event out in Los Angeles for fans of the upcoming Oscar contender August: Osage County. Basically, there’s going to be a Q and A with just about everyone involved in the...
View ArticleWill Forte Talks about Working with Bruce Dern and Alexander Payne
Last week, I was given the opportunity to sit down with many of the folks involved in Alexander Payne‘s new film Nebraska. I spoke to a number of cast members as well as scribe Bob Nelson, and I’ll be...
View ArticleFrozen (★★★½)
The most purely enjoyable Disney film I’ve seen in years, Frozen is a welcome throwback to some of their classic Princess films of yore. I literally left my screening last month humming a number of the...
View ArticleThe Hunger Games: Catching Fire (★★★)
An almost all around improvement on the already solid film that The Hunger Games was, Catching Fire (or officially The Hunger Games: Catching Fire) is a very well made and enjoyable flick that only has...
View ArticleDelivery Man (★★★)
Though almost completely the same as its original incarnation Starbuck, the comedy Delivery Man manages to actually be a slight improvement on the formula. Part of that has to do with a brisker feeling...
View ArticleTalking Animation with the Directors of ‘Frozen’
Late last month, I was invited to partake in a number of activities related to the new Disney film Frozen (my rave review of which can be found right here). One of those activities actually included...
View ArticleFirst Clip from Martin Scorsese’s ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’
The first clip of Martin Scorsese‘s The Wolf of Wall Street has emerged. The film will have its first guild screenings this coming Sunday in Los Angeles and Monday in New York. The movie stars Academy...
View ArticleOldboy (★½)
I’m not too big a fan of the original Oldboy, but in comparison to Spike Lee‘s new remake, the version from Chan-wook Park is basically a masterpiece. This one is all but terrible on nearly all levels,...
View Article‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ avoids NC-17, One Minute Shy of Three Hour Running...
Folks like Clayton and myself are very close to finally seeing Martin Scorsese‘s The Wolf of Wall Street, but even though the film is locked in and getting set to screen, new details are still...
View ArticleWatch ‘Please Mr. Kennedy’ from Inside Llewyn Davis
Personally, I’m not really that huge on watching little clips of films before they hit theaters/I sit down to a press screening. Most of the time, a trailer is more than enough for me. That being said,...
View ArticleInside Llewyn Davis (Multiple Reviews)
By: Joey Magidson (★★★★) Going into my initial screening of Inside Llewyn Davis back at the New York Film Festival a few months ago, I had no reason to expect that I’d even like it. As many of you...
View ArticleOut of the Furnace (★★½)
There are great things to admire about filmmaker Scott Cooper, who made an admirable breakthrough in 2009 when directed Jeff Bridges to an Oscar win for Crazy Heart. Adapting the film from the novel by...
View ArticleSecond Trailer for Spike Jonze’s ‘Her’ Premieres
Easily the best film I’ve seen this year, and frankly the best thing I’ve seen in many years, Spike Jonze‘s Her is an absolute treasure. With the release coming in a matter of weeks, a new Trailer has...
View ArticleThe Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (★★½)
If there’s one thing that seems to bother folks most about my taste in film, it’s the fact that I just don’t care for any movies set in Middle Earth. None of the three Lord of the Rings films did...
View ArticleSome Velvet Morning (★★★)
Ladies and gentlemen, Neil LaBute is back. Some Velvet Morning is a dark, grim, chamber piece melodrama with some black comedy elements that has almost all of the hallmarks of the work that LaBute made...
View ArticleAmerican Hustle (★★★½)
Amplified expectations rarely ever end up being a good thing in the film world, especially in terms of Oscars. Except in terms of the attention paid to your movie, flying under the radar is the way to...
View ArticleTalking ‘Some Velvet Morning’ with Neil LaBute
Last month I was given the chance to sit down and talk with filmmaker/playwright Neil LaBute. As you might imagine given his work, that sounded pretty intense to me. Luckily though, it turned out that...
View Article47 Ronin (★★)
Anyone hoping for a “so bad it’s good” experience with 47 Ronin is bound to be disappointed. Actually, pretty much anyone seeing 47 Ronin is bound to be disappointed by this bland and muddled would be...
View ArticleLone Survivor (★★★½)
For most of the two-hour plus running time of Peter Berg‘s true life war tale Lone Survivor, the film is content to simply be a very good action flick with a slightly deeper emotional underpinning...
View ArticleLong List for the 34th Golden Raspberry Awards – See what made the Worst List
While most of the awards given out during this season surrounds the best that cinema has to offer, there’s also the Golden Raspberry awards, which goes in the exact opposite direction. They of course...
View ArticleThe Wolf of Wall Street (★★★★)
I remember the very first time I saw the initial trailer for Martin Scorsese‘s The Wolf of Wall Street. To be honest, I didn’t really care for it. It seemed like something perhaps even beneath the...
View Article‘August: Osage County’ wins Four Awards at Italy’s Capri, Hollywood Fest
John Wells‘ Oscar hopeful August: Osage County hasn’t quite done as well as hoped on the precursor circuit so far (with the same being said for all of the films under The Weinstein Company shingle, to...
View ArticleHer (★★★★)
I’ve been dropping hints about how much I love Spike Jonze‘s new film Her since I saw it at the New York Film Festival. Now, I can really and truly get into it…Her is not only the best film I’ve seen...
View ArticleRyan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan talk ‘Fruitvale Station’
Back at the beginning of December (which technically is last year…crazy), I was invited to participate in a roundtable interview with Fruitvale Station writer/director Ryan Coogler as well as star...
View ArticleBest Original Song eligibility of ‘Alone Yet Not Alone’ being challenged?
This is a bit of recent Academy Awards controversy that slipped past my attention over the past week or so, but I wanted to catch up with it now and share it with you all. Apparently, the out of...
View ArticleTim’s Vermeer (★★★½)
I’m hardly an art connoisseur (at least in terms of paintings…if we’re talking film, that’s obviously a different story), but man did this movie ever capture my attention. Yes, Tim’s Vermeer completely...
View ArticleLabor Day (★★★)
Ever since it began screening at film festivals during the fall of 2013, Jason Reitman‘s latest movie Labor Day has gotten a pretty bad wrap. To be fair, it’s the worst film of Reitman’s impressive...
View ArticleOmar (★★★)
Back when I saw the foreign drama Omar at the most recent New York Film Festival, it was nothing more than Palestine’s submission for Best Foreign Language Feature, and a long shot at that. A few...
View ArticleRichard Linklater’s ‘Boyhood’ Tops Sight & Sound’s 2014 Best Films list
I know a fair amount of you look forward to the release of the Sight & Sound list each year, so I’m glad to be of service in that regard here on Black Friday. For those of you who aren’t familiar...
View ArticleINTERVIEW: Ethan Hawke talks ‘Boyhood’ and ‘Predestination’
There’s really no other way to put it…Ethan Hawke is on one hell of a ride right now. He’s been pretty consistent his whole career, rarely appearing in anything that really made you wonder about his...
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