Utah Film Critics Association Annouces 2009 Award Winners

Up in the Air was recognized with two awards at the annual meeting of the Utah Film Critics Association, including Best Picture of 2009. The film’s director, Jason Reitman, also won for Best Achievement in Directing.

In the Male Lead Performance category, Viggo Mortensen was recognized for his work in The Road as a father leading his young son through a post-apocalyptic America. Carey Mulligan took Female Lead Performance honors as a teenager involved with an older man in An Education.

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The Holiday Nine

The Holidays are here, meaning studios will trot out their best in an effort to garner Oscar attention as close to Oscar time as possible. It also means we’ll be treated to some “family friendly” pap, total misses and the stuff that’s somewhere in between. Here’s our first-impression on the upcoming season’s Must-See, Maybe’s and Must-Misses, all spiffed up and scrubbed by way of our Holiday Nine.

Must – See

Avatar (December 18) -Dan

If you’ve been following AATM or have been to the movies lately, you’ve probably–finally–heard of the otherworldly Dances With Wolves meets robots, monsters and aliens sci-fi fantasy Avatar. Promised to be the cinematic game-changer of the new century, Avatar is James Cameron’s return to the ridiculously budgeted (rumored to cost over $500 million), geeky fun he kicked to the curb after Titanic when he decided to go swimming for a decade. Initially, public perception for Avatar was non-existent outside the geek community, but thanks to some expositionary trailers and a promise of a 3D-immersive world experience, Avatar has morphed into the go-to movie of the season. Cameron’s yet to direct a film most people haven’t enjoyed from start to finish and with Avatar’s promise of xeno-zoology and their perforation exchange with space marines thrown in for good measure,  Avatar gets a full pass on cinematic event spectacle alone.

The Road (November 25) – Andy

The Road is a magnificent novel about a father and son traveling through a ruined and savage post-apocalyptic United States. Written by Cormac McCarthy, the book is one of my all-time favorites and it whipped me through a myriad of emotions – hope, sadness, fear, anger and happiness. It’s more a story of love and hope than it is an end-of-the-world tale. If director John Hillcoat (The Proposition) and writer Joe Penhall can successfully translate McCarthy’s haunting prose to the big screen, then the movie should be equally emotional. It stars Viggo Mortensen (Eastern Promises), Charlize Theron (In the Valley of Elah), Robert Duvall (We Own the Night), Guy Pearce (The Hurt Locker) and Kodi Smit-McPhee (X-Men Origins: Wolverine).

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Finally, The Road Gets a Top Notch Trailer

We’ve been hearing mixed reviews for The Road, based on Cormac McCarthy’s harrowing novel of the same name, since May. Some call it the best film of the year, others think it’s not so stellar. I have been dissapointed with the trailers released for the movie, as I don’t think they have established an identity and an emotional resonance with viewers, particularly me, a huge fan of the book.

Until now.

This new trailer finally hits the bullseye. Check it out below and let me know what you think. The Road opens on November 25th and is one movie I am absolutely looking forward to seeing this holiday season.

New Poster for The Road

As I’ve said many times before, The Road is one of my most beloved novels of all-time and a movie I’m anticipating greatly. The cast – Viggo Mortenson (Eastern Promises), Charlize Theron (In the Valley of Elah), Guy Pearce (The Hurt Locker) and Robert Duvall (We Own the Night) is top notch and the source material (Cormac McCarthy) is pure gold. Still, even with a pre-release 88% on RottenTomatoes, I can’t help but think The Road is going to be overlooked amongst critics and award-givers. The feeling I have is it will be like Black Hawk Down or The Kingdom of Heaven, two fantastic films that didn’t garner the love some expected.

At any rate, I can’t speculate when The Road will wind up in Cache Valley, but you’ll be able to catch it in SLC starting November 25th.  Check out the new poster below and give me your thoughts.

Cannibals on Thanksgiving: The Road gets Moved…Again!

I absolutely loved Cormac McCarthy’s novel, The Road. Yes, it’s haunting, terrifying, disturbing and even a tad bit depressing, but it’s also full of love, care and hope. As a father, the story affected me greatly. Something about the innocence and optimism of youth buoyed in the unconditional love between a father and son and the sacrifices noble parents make to ensure their children are taught well, disciplined, safe and loved.

At any rate, the film adaptation, directed by John Hillcoat (The Proposition) and starring Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce and Robert Duvall, has been on my cinema radar for quite some time. I was more than encouraged when Tom Chirella of Esquire gave the movie a glowing review last May. But the befuddled trailer and the countless release date changes have made me start to wonder if this movie isn’t being mismanaged by Dimension Films (part of The Weinstein Company) or simply moved again to position it closer to awards voting.

That’s the long way of saying The Road won’t be released on October 16, 2009 as we reported last Friday on the For the People Movie Show, but has been moved to November 25, 2009. I don’t know about you, but nothing says family like the warm fires and dreary ashen skies of a post-apocalyptic wasteland. And nothing says happy holidays like bands of desperate cannibals trying to make your scrawny behind into their Thanksgiving meal.

If you haven’t seen the trailer for The Road, follow this link.

See 12.5% of The Road Right Here at AATM

While its trailer is trying to sell a movie that its not, The Road remains one of my more anticipated Fall Movies. Dimension has released heapload of scenes from the film– scenes which try their damndest to relay the bleak tone that dominates the book. While film could never match the poetic images as inscribed in your brain by Cormac McCarthy’s haunting, grim (yet humanist) tale, it may come close.

Below is a disturbing scene that’s also pretty arresting, so have at it. Then have at the rest after the jump.

The Road is scheduled to incite your emergency preparedness paranoia October 16.

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Esquire’s Early Review of The Road

Andy at The Movies.com reader Porthos sent over a link to the first-ever review of the upcoming movie “The Road.” The trailer just hit the web and we’ve posted a link here, but Esquire magazine, famous for their sexy and artsy shots of “women we love” and their annual (since 2004) crowing of the “sexiest woman alive,” has seen “The Road” and is calling the October 16th release “the most important movie of the year.”

Reviewer Tom Chirella can’t say enough good about “The Road,” and it makes me feel more at ease. Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks the trailer isn’t up to snuff.

Here’s a little snippet from the article:

“You have to see it. Really.

You do. Not because it’s grim, not because it’s depressing, or even scary. The Road is all of those things, both acutely and chronically. But there was not a single stupid choice made in turning this book into this movie. No wrongheaded lyric tribute to the novel. No moment engineered simply to make you jump.

The terror of it is in a normal world made vacant. There is a surprising terror in a landscape of farmhouses full of possessions that have no function, a remarkable danger in a pile of old hammers, in the possibility of forgetting what things were once for. It’s a fear worth feeling. And there is something knotty and resilient, eternal and elemental, something worth caring about in all this, in a parent’s love for a child, especially when love is the only thing left in the world that has the least little thread of purpose.”

You can read the whole article at Esquire.com.

The Road Trailer or Ode to Planet Beardatron

Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” is one of the most moving books I’ve ever read, probably because I dread the inevitable end-of-the-world and all the unfathomable violence and horror that would follow such a doomsday event, and also because I am a father and protecting my family is what I am supposed to do and would do by and with any means necessary.

But I’m not so sure about this trailer.

Does it look to be a great movie? Sure, but the way the trailer is structured makes me wonder how many liberties they’ve taken with the story, specifically how the world ends (which McCarthy never really spells out, but we assume nuclear war), Charlize Theron’s ample role despite portraying a character we only read about in the past tense, and how prevalent the “bad guys” are in the trailer. I do like how meaty Viggo’s beard is. He definitely has a place on Planet Beardatron.

Don’t get me wrong, I am looking forward to “The Road,” which hits theaters on October 16th, 2009, but I’m thinking again of how books-to-movies always seem to be more disappointing than fulfilling.

On The Road Again

Cormac McCarthy is one of those rare and celebrated artists who don’t need to die before their recognition as legendary. With a heap of plays and novels under his belt, Cormac McCarthy’s gained even more clout in recent years thanks to the Coen brothers Oscar-winning adaptation of No Country for Old Men and his most recent novel, The Road. Or, as it’s come to be known between Andy and me: The book guaranteed to turn you survivalist.

The Road, a stark, bleak and ultimately touching story about a man and his son as they traverse a post- apocalyptic and savage United States in search of hope and security,  has already been adapted and filmed (starring Viggo “stop calling me Aragorn” Mortensen), having spent its last few months bouncing from a holiday 2008 release to October 2009.

Slash Film drew attention to a heap of recently posted concept art (illustrations created to evoke the look and feel of the movie) from  The Road that have been posted to Flickr. If they’re further indication of images already available, the film adaptation of The Road has absolutely nailed the sparse nihilism I’ve felt while reading the novel. Here’s to hoping the push in release dates isn’t a veiled indication of the the sparse nihilism of the film’s quality.

To check out all the images, click here.