Author: toddmthatcher

Oscar History: 2001

As far as film history, the year 2001 will most be remembered for the first installments of two billion dollar franchises, The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Other than that, not much will be remembered about the year. It was an exceptionally weak year for movies.

This was reflected in a relatively unimpressive group of Best Picture nominees. Ron Howard’s good but not great A Beautiful Mind would take top prize against Robert Altman’s Gosford Park, Todd Field’s In the Bedroom, and Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge. The other nominee: Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, which began a three-year streak of the franchise’s entry being nominated.

I’ve always felt Fellowship was the best of the trilogy and I certainly would’ve had no problem with it winning over Mind. The Academy decided against some edgier material, such as David Lynch’s critically lauded Mulholland Drive and Chris Nolan’s twisty thriller Memento.

Ron Howard took Best Director over Altman and Jackson. Lynch would be nominated here for Mulholland, as well as Ridley Scott for Black Hawk Down. Field and Luhrmann were the two auteurs whose Picture was nominated left out. Certainly, I would’ve reserved a slot for Nolan for his work in Memento.

Denzel Washington would earn his first Best Actor prize for Training Day (he won Supporting Actor for Glory in 1989). Other nominees: previous year’s winner Russell Crowe for Mind, Sean Penn for I Am Sam, Will Smith as Ali, and Tom Wilkinson for In the Bedroom.

I would have considered Johnny Depp for his performance in Blow or Billy Bob Thornton in Monster’s Ball. Keeping with the Memento kick, how about Guy Pearce for his challenging lead role? And if you’ve read my previous Oscar History posts, you’ll notice I usually advocate for comedic performances, which the Academy typically ignores. So how about a shout-out to Ben Stiller for his hilarious turn as Derek Zoolander?

Oscar history would be made as Halle Berry became the first African-American to win Best Actress for Monster’s Ball. It would also be the first year where both the Actor and Actress prizes went to African-Americans. Other nominees: Judi Dench in Iris, Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge, Sissy Spacek for In the Bedroom, and Renee Zellwegger for Bridget Jones Diary. Other performances worthy of consideration: Naomi Watts in Mulholland Drive and Audrey Tautou in Amelie.

Jim Broadbent was a surprise Supporting Actor winner for Iris, beating out favorites Ben Kingsley in Sexy Beast and Ian McKellen in Lord of the Rings. Other nominees: Ethan Hawke for Training Day and Jon Voight in Ali.

Steve Buscemi in Ghost World and Gene Hackman in The Royal Tenenbaums were worthy nominees. And here’s a totally outside-the-box selection from me: Bruce Davison’s wonderful performance as Kirsten Dunst’s dad in the romantic drama Crazy/Beautiful, a greatly underrated film.

Jennifer Connelly would win Supporting Actress for A Beautiful Mind. Other nominees: Helen Mirren and Maggie Smith (both for Gosford Park), Marisa Tomei for In the Bedroom, and Kate Winslet for Iris.

I probably would have found room for Cameron Diaz’s effective performance as Tom Cruise’s jilted lover in Vanilla Sky.

So, all in all, other than some historical Actor and Actress winners, 2001 was a pretty blah year for the Academy. A Beautiful Mind is a solid flick, but definitely one of the least memorable Best Picture winners of recent years, as I see it.

Trailer Park: Captain Phillips, Gravity, The Butler

This evening I bring you a new feature on the blog called Trailer Park, in which I’ll review the trailers for upcoming movies that have recently debuted. With the summer movie season freshly upon us, we’re likely to see a nice helping of trailers for pictures coming out this fall and even next summer. I’ll try to do a new Trailer Park posting every week, at least. I realize there’s probably oodles of movie bloggers like myself who also call their coming attractions posts Trailer Park, but hey – it’s a catchy name and you don’t always have to be original.

So what’s my criteria for grading a trailer? Simple. Does the trailer make me more or less likely to wanna watch the featured title? That’s pretty much it. Two recent examples: the most recent trailer for June’s Superman epic Man of Steel was a masterpiece. I went from really wanting to see it to dying to see it right away. Seriously, it’s one of the most effective trailers in a loooong time.

On the flip side, there’s R.I.P.D., coming in July. When I first heard about the movie, I thought “Sci-fi action comedy with Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds?” Sure, why not? Then I saw the trailer, in which it looks like a third-rate Men in Black knock-off with terrible special effects. Jeff Bridges has got to be receiving better offers than this!

This inaugural Trailer Park post grade three titles from Oscar-nominated directors. All three pictures are in the early running for awards consideration. How do their trailers measure up?

We begin with Captain Phillips. Paul Greengrass, director of The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum, and United 93 brings us this true life thriller based on the Somali pirate hostage crisis of 2009. The title character is played by Tom Hanks. Judging from the preview, we may just have the actor’s first real awards-worthy role since Cast Away over 12 years ago. Hanks is also sporting his New England Catch Me If You Can accent here. The subject matter coupled with what appears to be the perfect director doing the material bodes well. The trailer for Captain Phillips is terrific. Grade: A

Alfonso Cuaron is the brilliant director behind Y Tu Mama Tambien, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and Children of Men. It’s been seven long years since Children and film lovers have been eager to see what this visual genius comes up with next. The answer is Gravity starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as astronauts whose mission goes horribly wrong. This is definitely more of a teaser than full trailer, but there’s just enough there to let us know this will be a feast for the eyes, as are all of Cuaron’s efforts. I can’t wait to see a full trailer, but the final shot of Bullock barreling helplessly into space earns Gravity a B+ trailer grade.

Lee Daniels receive a Best Director nomination for his unexpected hit Precious and followed it up with last year’s critically panned The Paperboy. His latest feature, The Butler, tells the true life story of an African-American White House butler (Forest Whitaker) who served from the Eisenhower to Reagan administrations. From the Weinstein Company (they know how to get movies noticed by Oscar), The Butler looks tailor-made for Academy consideration. Another selling point: this is Oprah Winfrey’s first major film role in 15 years. I must admit, however, I’m not wild about the trailer. There seems to be almost too much information they’re trying to pack into it. And the brief glimpses of well-known actors playing the First Family – Robin Williams as Ike, John Cusack as Nixon, Liev Schrieber as LBJ, Jane Fonda as Nancy Reagan, and Severus Snape as Ronald Reagan – are somewhat distracting. The Butler may turn out to be a great and inspiring picture, but the trailer is a tad underwhelming and only merits a B- Trailer grade.

So there you have it – my first crack at grading trailers. I’ll be back for more next week!

Star Trek Into Darkness Box Office Prediction

Before JJ Abrams moves onto making another beloved sci-fi franchise that begins with the word “Star”, the director is following up his massively successful restart of another beloved franchise with Star Trek Into Darkness, opening Thursday.

In the summer of 2009, Star Trek reinvigorated a slumping franchise to the tune of a $257 million domestic gross. The film’s reputation has only seemed to grow in the past four years. The sequel sees Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto return as Kirk and Spock and the marketing campaign has been heavy. With Iron Man 3 entering its third weekend, Darkness is poised to make a splashy #1 debut.

Against smaller expectations four years ago, Star Trek debuted to a very impressive $75 million in its first weekend. It would stand to reason that the sequel’s opening gross will be bigger. Plus it opens on Thursday, so the four-day gross alone as opposed to the original’s three should be greater.

The question is: just how much bigger will it open? While audiences certainly liked what they saw in 2009, it’s a legitimate point to wonder just how many new viewers will turn out the first weekend. The Trekkie fan base certainly grew with Abrams taking over the series and it exposed many younger moviegoers to Captain Kirk’s world.

While I believe the Friday to Sunday portion of Darkness‘s take will exceed $75 million, it may not exceed it by a whole lot, especially with the Thursday debut when die-hard Trekkies will rush out to see it.

So – what’s the ceiling here? I’d say $120 million is not unreasonable for the four-day take. Once again, I’m tempted to go there. Yet, ultimately, I believe a Friday to Sunday take in the mid-80s in addition to a high teens to low twenties Thursday gross is more possible.

In just two years, JJ Abrams will direct the breathlessly awaited seventh episode of the Star Wars franchise. He should definitely be coming off a sizable hit with Star Trek Into Darkness as he begins work on that picture in England.

Star Trek Into Darkness opening weekend (including Thursday) prediction: $106.2 million

On Wednesday, I’ll predict the weekend’s Top Five which includes the second frame of The Great Gatsby and Tony Stark’s third weekend.

Movie Perfection: Moneyball and The Crack of the Bat

The 2011 Bennett Miller directed hit Moneyball is one of the better sports flicks of the 21st century and it contains one particular scene that qualifies as Movie Perfection.

Based on a true story, the picture focuses on Billy Beane (Brad Pitt in an Oscar nominated performance), owner of the Oakland A’s baseball franchise. When the team loses its big free agents to richer teams like the Red Sox, Billy buys into the team building ideas of Peter Brand (Jonah Hill, also Oscar nominated). The theory relies not on marquee names, but solely on which players stats lead to wins. This is met with skepticism from manager Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and many others.

After some initial difficulty with the new format, an interesting thing begins to occur: The A’s start winning. And winning. And winning. So much so that they win 19 in a row and are going for a record-breaking 20. Billy is a rather superstitious fellow who doesn’t attend the games. The significance of a potential record-breaking moment draws him to the event after the A’s go up 11-0 and appear assured for history. What happens? The Kansas City Royals make a furious comeback and tie the game 11 all. Billy retreats back to the locker room.

And then – history is made! Scott Hatteberg, a player that no one but Billy wanted, steps up to the plate. We see the pitcher release the ball and then…

Crack!

What follows is a scene that is amazingly directed and edited. What I love most it is that, even to the most casual moviegoer, it brilliantly demonstrates the importance of not just editing, but also sound effects editing.

We hear the sound of the crack followed by the reactions of Billy, Peter, and Art. The music swells. The team celebrates. And Billy has his own moment of unbridled joy – something he doesn’t allow himself to do often. I’m not an Oakland A’s fan. Truthfully, I’m not even much of a baseball fan. However, during this scene, I am an Oakland fan and a baseball fan. I’m a fan because this scene is so well put together and features such well-written characters that you can’t help but be a fan.

I’m a fan of the movie Moneyball. And this scene is total Movie Perfection. I get goosebumps every time I see it.

Mother’s Day Movie Tribute

Today we celebrate all the great mothers out there with our phone calls, Facebook messages, and tweets. And, today on the movie blog, I take a brief trip down film history lane bringing you the best and worst when it comes to mothers…

Or “mamas” with Sally Field’s wonderful performance as mama to Forrest Gump…

There’s the single mom doing her best to better herself and her children’s lives, like Julia Roberts as Erin Brockovich…

There’s the teenage mom who comes to learn the joys of motherhood like Ellen Page as Juno…

And there’s the always supportive mom who, even when she doesn’t agree with her kids actions, still loves them unconditionally, like Frances McDormand in Almost Famous:

This brings to the moms in film history representing the dark side of motherhood. There’s the overprotective mom as shown by Piper Laurie in Carrie:

There’s the mom whose wild ambitions for her children screw them up for life, like Meryl Streep in The Manchurian Candidate:

Of course, there’s also just the completely crazy moms who hate wire hangers, like Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest:

And, finally, well there’s this mom:

So here’s hoping your mama is more like Forrest Gump’s and less like Norman Bates’s! And Happy Mother’s Day to all the Forrest Gump-like mamas in the world, including my wonderful mother!

Box Office Results: May 10-12

Well, when you’re wrong – you’re wrong and I was all kinds of wrong in multiple ways this weekend with my box office predictions. I didn’t give some movies enough credit and for others, I gave them way too much credit.

As expected, Iron Man 3 remained at #1 in its sophomore weekend, but fell further than I predicted. The Tony Stark adventure grossed $72.5 million for a 58% drop. I predicted it’d do $83.9M and experience a smaller decline. Still, IM3 is still poised to be the biggest earner of the summer and possibly the year.

The Great Gatsby outperformed nearly all expectations, including my own. The Leo DiCaprio flick grossed a terrific $51.1 million, well above my $41.3M projection. With a so-so B Cinemascore grade, Gatsby could experience hefty declines in coming weekends, but it’s still the only pic out there marketing towards the female audience.

I was way off with Tyler Perry Presents Peeples. I figured Perry’s name alone would bring in his audience. That did not happen. I predicted a solid opening of $18.5 million. Peeples was a total bomb, earning only $4.9 million for a fourth place showing. Whoops. With a weak B- Cinemascore grade, expect Peeples to be presented to DVD in short order.

Pain and Gain was third in its third weekend with $5 million, above my $3.3M projection. 42 was fifth with $4.7 million, higher than my $3.6M prediction.

Not a great weekend of predictin’ this time around, but I’ll try to do better tomorrow when I make my projection for next weekend’s big opener, Star Trek Into Darkness. My full Top Five predictions come Wednesday on the blog. Stay tuned!

Jack Reacher Movie Review

A list actor Tom Cruise dives into B pulp movie territory with Christopher McQuarrie’s Jack Reacher, a film with style to spare but plenty of flaws to go along with it.

Reacher is based on a series of novels by Lee Child, which I’ve never read. Apparently the character in the novel is 6’5″, which is a bit of a stretch for Tommy boy who is like 4’3″ in real life (give or take). When a group of five random people are gunned down by a sniper in Pittsburgh, the arrested perp instructs defense attorney Helen (Rosemund Pike) to “get Jack Reacher”. Turns out Reacher is an ex-military cop who has a history with the arrested party and doesn’t believe the shooting massacre is as open and shut as the evidence suggests.

The picture follows Cruise along on his investigation to get to the truth. Per usual, no one can be trusted, from the detective heading the case (David Oyelowo) to the district attorney (Richard Jenkins) who happens to be Helen’s dad. There’s also a shadowy character named The Zec (Werner Herzog), a Russian gangster and his band of thugs.

For a good portion of Reacher‘s running time, McQuarrie keeps us intrigued with his polished direction and often effective B movie dialogue. McQuarrie has some credibility in this field as the screenwriter of 1995’s B movie classic The Usual Suspects (he also co-wrote Cruise’s solid 2008 thriller Valkyrie).

However, the plot of Reacher ends up not being terribly engrossing. The character of The Zec is a truly fascinating one who is given virtually no screen time, but famed German director Herzog makes the most of his limited role. None of the other supporting performances are bad but they’re not memorable either. I had to rack my brain trying to remember what else I’d seen Rosemund Pike in. Turns out she was a Bond love interest in the worst 007 flick ever, Die Another Day. She didn’t leave much of an impression there and she doesn’t here either.

By the time Robert Duvall shows up as a grizzled old Ohio gun range owner who helps Jack out, I found myself reaching for my cell phone to check the time. Duvall’s role is ultimately kinda pointless and seems written in simply to reunite the stars of Days of Thunder.

This is Cruise’s show and he acquits himself nicely. While he may not resemble the character in the books, Cruise is first-rate and believable in the role. McQuarrie and Cruise hold our attention for quite a while, but Jack Reacher turns out not worthy of its bloated 130 minute running time. If you’re a Cruise fan, I’d recommend a view just to see something a little different from the star. Be prepared to be a little disappointed though, as I was.

**1/2 (out of four)

2013 Summer Movie Preview: Epic, Turbo, and Planes

There is certainly no shortage of flicks this summer geared towards the family audience, including five animated features competing for dollars.

The top two earning animated pics are likely to be sequels that were already covered in a previous post, Monsters University and Despicable Me 2. There’s also the computer animated Smurfs sequel.

Kiddos will have three other animated features to choose from as well. Epic (May 24) comes from 2oth Century Fox and features the voices of Colin Farrell, Beyonce, Josh Hutcherson, and Christoph Waltz. Animated features set in forests have a checkered history… remember 1992’s Ferngully? No?

Still, Epic has the advantage of being out of the gate first and could do respectable business while nowhere near the numbers of Monsters or Despicable.

Turbo (July 17) comes from Dreamworks in a tale about a snail who wishes to become the fastest snail in the world. Featuring the voices of Ryan Reynolds, Michael Pena, Maya Rudolph, Paul Giamatti, and Snoop Lion (not used to that yet), Turbo will not be the fastest earning feature this summer, but good word-of-mouth could propel it to respectable grosses.

Lastly, Planes (August 9) is from Disney Toons and is a spin-off of the successful Cars franchise. It was originally intended for direct-to-DVD release before the studio changed their mind. Disney will make most of its dough with the Monsters Inc. sequel this summer, but moving Planes to theaters will probably be a profitable venture. The flick features the voices of Dane Cook, Brad Garrett, and Cedric the Entertainer.

The 2012 Summer Movie Preview will continue soon with horror flicks. Stay tuned!

Gangster Squad and Broken City Movie Reviews

January is typically seen as a dumping ground for films that studios have little confidence in. When a picture opens in the first month of the year with big stars, that can usually be seen as a red flag. And so it is with Gangster Squad and Broken City, which both opened in January to disappointing box office results. Audiences got it right here – they’re both forgettable titles that don’t deserve the considerable talent involved.

Gangster Squad is from Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer and takes place in Los Angeles circa 1949 when gangster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) has taken over the city with his particularly deadly Mob tactics. A straight-laced Sergeant (Josh Brolin) is enlisted by the police chief (Nick Nolte) to form a squad to take Mickey out and restore order at any cost. Brolin enlists lots of recognizable actors to help in the cause, from Ryan Gosling to Giovanni Ribisi to Michael Pena to Robert Patrick to Anthony Mackie.

The pic is a highly stylized exercise whose tone is closer to The Untouchables than other genre entries. The difference? The Untouchables was really good and effective. Squad feels unoriginal and derivative. Sure, it looks good, but you won’t remember much about it the morning. Most of the actors try their best, but they have skimpy material to work with.

Among the issues I had: we get a romance between Gosling’s character and Mickey’s girlfriend, played by Emma Stone. As you will recall, Gosling and Stone had major chemistry in 2011’s romantic comedy Crazy Stupid Love. Here, their relationship is underwritten and dull and it left me wishing I was watching their previous movie. Sean Penn, one of the finest actors of his generation, goes way over the top as Mickey. Also, his make-up job is pretty ridiculous. Brolin’s character is a bit of a bore and ultra cliched. He even comes with the pregnant wife whose character is straight outta Screenwriting 101.

Gangster Squad wants to bash us over the head with its excessive violence, but never bothers to give us interesting, well-written characters to get involved with. Director Fleischer showed tremendous promise with the original Zombieland. This movie doesn’t have an original idea or thought in its head.

Gangster Squad: ** (out of four)

Mark Wahlberg and Russell Crowe headline Broken City from director Allen Hughes (who co-directed Menace II Society and From Hell with his brother). The city is New York City, where Wahlberg is an ex-cop turned private eye who’s hired by the corrupt Mayor (Crowe) to find out who his wife is sleeping with days before the Mayoral election. This leads to your usual double crosses and instances where “not all is at it seems!”.

The first hour or so of City is decent if unremarkable. Eventually, the screenplay moves toward twists and turns that rely on BIG and unbelievable conveniences, like Wahlberg finding key pieces of evidence in a dumpster where the rest of the documents are being shredded. Thank goodness they forgot to shred the most important piece of evidence!

Like Squad, the characters are poorly developed. Wahlberg’s story arc is a familiar one – he’s a cop who may or may not have shot an unarmed suspect. He had a drinking problem… wanna take bets on if he relapses? He’s conflicted about doing the right thing, yada, yada, yada…

Crowe adds some decent acting to an otherwise unremarkable character. Catherine Zeta-Jones doesn’t have much to do as his neglected wife, who may or may not be having an affair.

Broken City fails mostly because of a lackluster screenplay. Wahlberg and Crowe deserve better and director Hughes has certainly shown an ability to do far better.

Broken City: ** (out of four)

So the January curse holds true for these pictures. Are they both watchable? Sure, but with lots of end of 2012 titles just reaching home release and the summer season beginning at the multiplex, why waste your time? I just did that for you!

Iron Man 3 Movie Review

Iron Man 3 is essentially competing against two expectations from previous pictures. First, the general feeling (one I agree with) is that Iron Man 2 was a bit of a letdown. Second, the general feeling (which I also adhere to) is that last summer’s The Avengers was pretty frickin’ awesome.

So where does Tony Stark/Iron Man go from here? In Iron Man 3, the character goes into the hands of director/co-writer Shane Black. Jon Favreau directed the first two installments and he reprises his role as Tony’s former bodyguard Happy. But it’s Black who now inherits the franchise. For those who don’t know, Black is best known as the screenwriter of action extravaganzas such as Lethal Weapon and The Last Boy Scout. In 2005, he made his directorial debut with Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, a terrific action/comedy that starred… Robert Downey Jr.!

Shane Black’s contributions give Iron Man 3 a different feel than what we’ve seen previously. It’s darker in tone yet it also has a comedy spirit at times that works well. Black is a great writer and his work here shines. We also delve a bit deeper into Stark as a person. A lot of the action the character is involved in this time around is accomplished without Tony wearing the Iron Man suit. Furthermore, Gwyneth Paltow’s character Pepper is given more to do – she even gets to don the suit!

While Mickey Rourke ended up being a fairly blah villain in the second flick, this time around we have Sir Ben Kingsley as evil terrorist The Mandarin. It’s pretty much impossible to describe Kinglsey’s character without revealing major spoilers. I will say this: Kingsley is fantastic in the role and he will be the character you’ll probably talk about the most. Guy Pearce gives an effective performance as another villain… again, can’t talk too much about him due to spoilers.

I won’t get into the plot details of Iron Man 3 – I mean, you’re gonna see it anyway if you haven’t already. Bottom line: Iron Man 3 is not quite on the level of the first for me, but it’s a definite improvement over #2. Downey is brilliant as always in the title role and I particularly enjoyed his rapport with Harley (Ty Simpkins), a kid who Tony befriends.

The film doesn’t attempt to outdo the grandeur of The Avengers and that’s just fine. It feels like a smaller film – at least small compared to Avengers. It may not rank at the very top of the best superhero movies, but Iron Man 3 is well worth seeing and kicks off summer 2013 in good manner.

Iron Man 3 is solid enough that I certainly hope Downey doesn’t abandon the role. My guess is that he won’t. And I also hope Shane Black returns for a fourth installment. His presence is a welcome addition to the Marvel world.

*** (out of four)