Awards, Drama, Narrative, News, Oscars

ARGO Solidifies Front-runner Status for Best Picture

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After some high-profile Best Picture wins at the Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards, and AFI, Argo has come ever closer to solidifying its Oscar front-runner status following last night’s Producers Guild of America (PGA) Award win for Best Picture. The PGA Award is often a reliable indicator of the Best Picture winner at the Oscars. The twist here is that the Oscar winner for Best Picture typically also wins for Best Director, but, as has been repeatedly documented, Argo‘s director Ben Affleck was famously snubbed for a nomination. It’s extremely rare for a film to win Best Picture without its director being nominated. The last movie to achieve this was Driving Miss Daisy 23 years ago. It looks like we’re coming closer to repeating this feat in just a few short weeks.

Although Argo is deserving of the Best Picture honors it’s received to date, Affleck’s Oscar snub is perhaps the best thing to happen to the film. It seems that several awards bodies are quick to remind the Academy of its foolish decision to leave Affleck out of the race, and they’re doing it by awarding him and the movie at their own award shows. Had Affleck been nominated, I question whether the film would be receiving this same attention, especially when competing against other deserving films like Lincoln, Zero Dark Thirty, Les Misérables, and Life of Pi.

So the question persists: If Argo wins Best Picture, who will win Best Director?

Continue reading ARGO Solidifies Front-runner Status for Best Picture →

Awards, Comedy, Independent Film, Narrative, Oscars

MOONRISE KINGDOM Interactive Script Released

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An interactive script for Oscar Best Original Screenplay nominee Moonrise Kingdom was recently released. Check it out here. The screenplay was written by Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola.

Moonrise Kingdom, directed by Wes Anderson and written by Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola, is set on an island off the coast of New England in the summer of 1965. It tells the story of two 12-year-olds who fall in love, make a secret pact, and run away together into the wilderness. As various authorities try to hunt them down, a violent storm is brewing off-shore—and the peaceful island community is turned upside down in every which way. Bruce Willis plays the local sheriff, Captain Sharp. Edward Norton is a Khaki Scout troop leader, Scout Master Ward. Bill Murray and Frances McDormand portray the young girl’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Bishop. The cast also includes Tilda Swinton, Jason Schwartzman, and Bob Balaban, and introduces Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward as the boy and girl.
Moonrise Kingdom is now available on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital Download.  It is also available to view On Demand.
Official Site: moonrisekingdom.com
Actors, Awards, Filmmakers, News, Oscars

Analysis: The 85th Annual Oscar Nominations

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This past Thursday, nominations for the 85th annual Academy Awards were announced. In a new twist, the ceremony’s host, Seth MacFarlane, joined Emma Stone on stage at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theatre in LA to read the nominations. It’s rare for the ceremony’s host to present the nominations, as that position is usually filled by the Academy’s President, but clearly, AMPAS had something new and original in mind. It paid off. The comedic banter between the two worked well, as their chemistry felt natural and fresh. It also helped to paint the Academy in a younger, more vibrant light. Could this be a shadow of things to come when the golden statuettes are distributed on February 24?

One thing the Oscars definitely has going for itself this year is that many of 2012’s nominated films are movies that the general public have actually seen. The Oscar telecast is likely to see a bump in ratings after several years in decline. On to my analysis …

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Animation, Comedy, Foreign Film, Narrative, Oscars, Short Film

Short Film: “Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty”

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This animated short film directed by Nicky Phelan and written and performed by Kathleen O’Rourke was nominated at the 2009 Academy Awards for Best Short Film (Animated). In my opinion, it was the best of the five nominated films and should have won for its cleverness and use of multiple animation techniques.

Top Films

My Top 20 Films of 2012

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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0Rt1I9KUCE&feature=youtu.be&a]
Coming Soon, New Release, Preview

2013 Limité Film Guide: Staff Picks

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(Re-posted from LimitéMagazine.com)

The cineplex will be run over this year with quality movies, both big and small. This year, each member of Limité‘s film staff presents his or her top 10 picks. What movies are you most looking forward to? Comment below.

Note: Since many of these films are currently in various stages of production, the release dates are subject to change. All loglines are courtesy of IMDb.com, unless otherwise noted.

 

Dan’s Picks

GRAVITY

by Daniel Quitério

Director: Alfonso Cuarón

Screenwriters: Alfonso Cuarón, Jonás Cuarón, Rodrigo Garcia

Cast: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney

Genres: Sci-fi, Thriller

Distributor: Universal Pictures

Release Date: October 18

It’s been six years since Mexican writer/director Alfonso Cuarón took a seat in the director’s chair. And now, following his heralded 2006 release Children of Men, the filmmaker is primed to launch his much-anticipated sci-fi thriller Gravity. The $80 million space odyssey tale focuses on a pair of astronauts who are stranded beyond Earth after debris smashes into their shuttle during a routine spacewalk. Characters played by Oscar winners Sandra Bullock and George Clooney are tethered together as they spiral into negative space, hoping to find a way home.

The director partnered with his son Jonás Cuarón and filmmaker Rodrigo García (Albert Nobbs, 2011) on the script, which will be realized on screen in 3D and IMAX 3D. Prior to Bullock’s and Clooney’s attachment to the film, the two crucial roles had names like Angelina Jolie and Robert Downey Jr. attached to them. Several other notable Hollywood elites were also considered for the weighty female lead, including Marion Cotillard, Scarlett Johansson, and Natalie Portman, among others. Cuarón proves himself an auteur of the highest caliber with this and other films which he wrote, directed, produced, and edited. His three previous Oscar nominations came in the categories of Best Original Screenplay (Y tu mamá también, 2001), Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Editing (Children of Men, 2006). Gravity will be photographed by past Cuarón collaborator, the 5-time Oscar-nominated cinematographer and fellow Mexico native Emmanuel Lubezki, who likely employs a similar sense of vast space and wonder in this film as he displayed in Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life (2011).

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Uncategorized

2012 in Review

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The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 9,200 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 15 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

Drama, Filmmakers, Foreign Film, Independent Film, Narrative, New Release, Preview

Q&A: Miguel Gomes

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(Re-posted from LimitéMagazine.com)

I recently sat down with Portuguese filmmaker Miguel Gomes in Manhattan’s Film Forum, where his new feature Tabu will be screening as of December 26th. The film’s story begins in Lisbon where we meet Aurora, an elderly woman with a seemingly uninteresting life. Following her death, Aurora’s neighbor and maid join to find an old man with a connection to Aurora’s past. As the man begins to tell his and Aurora’s story, we are transported to a former Portuguese colony in Africa, where we witness their youthful, eccentric lives play out.

Tabu is told in two distinct parts: the first half set in Lisbon in the present day and the second set in Africa decades earlier. Both benefit from the classic mode of filmmaking that Gomes employed. His use of black-and-white imagery and a 4:3 aspect ratio hearken back to a cinema of old, honoring a long-forgotten art while emphasizing the film’s theme of lost youth.

This year, the film has screened at the New York Film Festival, Sydney Film Festival, Las Palmas Film Festival (Spain), and won two awards at the prestigious Berlin International Film Festival.

Continue reading Q&A: Miguel Gomes →

Actors, Awards, Coming Soon, Drama, Independent Film, Narrative, Oscars, Preview

Meet the Characters from PROMISED LAND

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Gus Van Sant’s new film Promised Land has been getting significant Oscar buzz. The Matt Damon-starring drama about the controversial practice known as “fracking” opens in limited release on December 28, with a larger roll-out on January 4. Other cast includes Frances McDormand, John Krasinski, Scoot McNairy, Rosemarie DeWitt, Titus Welliver, and Hal Holbrook. Check out these stills below.

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Awards, Documentary, Independent Film, News, Oscars

CENTRAL PARK FIVE Is Out, PLAGUE Is In: 15 Documentary Features Named to Oscar Shortlist

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How to Survive a Plague

Fifteen documentary features have been shortlisted for the 85th Academy Awards. Of these, five will receive nominations, which will be announced on Thursday, January 10 at 8:30am EST. The shortlisted films are as follows:

Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry
Bully
Chasing Ice
Detropia
Ethel
5 Broken Cameras
The Gatekeepers
The House I Live In
How to Survive a Plague
The Imposter
The Invisible War
Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God
Searching for Sugar Man
This Is Not a Film
The Waiting Room

(Notable snubs include The Central Park Five and Love, Marilyn.)

a film blog by Daniel Quitério