Movies worth seeing for $10:

Atonement (release September 7, 2007; click here for preview) – The Pride & Prejudice dream team reunite with another period piece – this time WWII (okay, maybe that is not a period piece – but it IS historicalish – right?) The movie revolves around one instant when Keira Knightley’s younger sister accuses Keira’s lover, played my Jim McAvoy of a crime he did not commit. To get out of prison McAvoy goes to war, yet promises to return to the woman he loves. Okay, the movie will not be as good as Pride & Prejudice, and it might be a hard to swallow chick flick, but for that genre it seems pretty smart and it DOES have Keira Knightley.

No Country for Old Men (release November 21, 2007; click here for preview) – Cormac McCarthy’s dark novel adapted with a great cast, AND written/directed by the Coen brothers. Never an obsessive fan of theirs, I am a fan of Cormac McCarthy and this movie could be awesome. When dead bodies, a bunch of heroin and millions in cold hard cash are found, a small town changes fast. This is one of the few McCarthy books I have not read but all of his work is solid and the Coen brothers are usually pretty good at adaptations. Throw in some Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Woody Harrelson, and Josh Brolin, and this movie could be a more nuanced 3:10 to Yuma (which I loved).

And last but not least, the movie I am most excited to see but will have to wait the longest to see it – Juno (release January 24, 2008; click here for preview) – Wristcutters and Thumbsucker meets Thank You For Smoking – mark your calendars! Kitty Pride gets serious in a movie with two Bluths (Michael Cera AND Jason Bateman). With the offbeat indie humor of Cutters and Sucker plus the sharp writing and direction of Smoking – this movie could be awesome. Oh. And Mrs. Ben Affleck is in the flick too as Ellen Page’s mom.

TV shows to start watching:

Journeyman (click here for NBC’s Journeyman homepage) is a new show this year that started with lots of buzz that quickly turned into panicked head scratching about why the show cannot hold Heroes’ audience. Still the show is good and getting better – about a journalist who’s migraine headaches start taking him back in time to help someone and change the past. Needless to say it is a wrecking ball for his personal and professional life. But not without perks – he gets to catch up with an old flame played by Moon Bloodgood.

Friday Night Lights (click here for NBC’s Friday Night Lights homepage) is struggling to survive a second season despite being the best show on television (watch the show, you will believe me). With innovative new techniques and high quality shows from week to week, the show, stuck in a Friday night time slot cannot get viewers (not surprising considering)! The show centers around the lives of the people connected to the Dillon Panthers football team. The show’s realism and personality makes the show addicting.

A light touch of nostalgia:

Channel skipping this week helped me find the Power Rangers movie and Free Willy 2 that took me back. The Power Rangers was a show built on pure marketing genius and corny antics that kept me glued to the TV for YEARS. And Free Willy – can you believe Michael Madsen made TWO of these movies? Just a short trip down memory lane…

What the papers say:

Entertainment Weekly featured a list of the top 25 awesome action heroes that was a little off in my mind. The top five were: 1 Bruce Willis (Die Hard), 2 Sigourney Weaver (Aliens), 3 Harrison Ford (Raiders of the Lost Ark), 4 Mel Gibson (The Road Warrior), 5 Keanu Reeves (The Matrix). Seems okay but Sigourney seems a pretty high – and if they wanted to show some gender equality, maybe they should have bumped the Bride from 13 to 2 considering The Bride kicked some serious ass for two straight movies while Sigourney did the same thing over and over.

Maybe more topical, they also have a list of the top 11 vampires (why 11? Who knows???) for Halloween. My question is, why is Kate Beckinsale’s Selene number 11??? Not only did she carry that movie, but she looked GREAT in it. At least they have Gary Oldman’s Dracula taking the last bite at number 1.

Could “Avatar” Win Best Picture?

By Brett Hogan

 

Last week, the trailer for James Cameron’s sci-fi experiment “Avatar” debuted. While initially unimpressed with the teaser, I began to wonder: Could this film win best picture? 

 

Buzz has been generating for this movie for years. Years. The technology to make this movie didn’t exist when Cameron conceived it, so he invented it. When is the last time you heard of a director spearheading the invention of anything? The casting started in 2005. Most movies these days, even epics, are done in half that time. I could go on. 

 

The most important thing to take away from all of this is that people are saying this will be the future of movies. Now, I don’t agree with the idea that CGI will become more prevalent than it already is. But I do believe that this will set the bar miles higher for sci-fi. I mean, that is what Titanic did. And that won some awards if memory serves.

 

I’ll bet you’re asking yourself, how can you even suggest that a film like this will win Best Picture when the initial trailer was nothing better than visual stimulation? Well, there are a couple of reasons. First, the Academy has expanded Best Picture to ten films. This doesn’t guarantee anything other than improved chances for most films on the cusp.

 

Second, after last year’s Oscars debacle, which saw the best film of the year, “The Dark Knight,” not only get shafted in awards but nominations as well, the Academy is pulling out all the stops to appease those with the loudest voices in the film industry, the fanboys. Now, the Academy probably didn’t lose anything because of that other than some viewers of the award show. Perhaps if people are again outraged with the winners or nominees, the heads of the Academy would lose their jobs. So this is all about the Academy protecting itself, which is not so outrageous.  

 

 

Third, there is an economic motive here. I’ve heard this film will cost $190 million, not counting the R&D costs associated with Cameron’s inventions or the cost of getting 3-D cameras into every theater in the country. The Academy will do everything in its power to get people into the seats and make this the next “Titanic” or “The Dark Knight.” But the Academy doesn’t have much power, besides nominating and awarding, so they will slap the “Nominated for Best Picture” moniker onto every commercial and print ad to get the people who didn’t believe the critics to relent and see this movie.

 

Of course, all of this is pure conjecture, and no revolutionary film (Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, etc.) has ever won the Best Picture category because it changed the game. Except maybe Titanic. But still, could this movie actually win? My answer is no but a nomination is certain and who knows what could happen from there. We’ll know more come February 2010.