Crazy Heart is in limited release so I’ve been forbidden to post my review yet, but I will say this – it is definitely one of the year’s best films. It’s like a kinder, gentler, blue-sky version of last year’s The Wrestler. One of the film’s strengths is the soundtrack, especially the song “The Weary Kind.” Jeff Bridges, Robert Duvall and Collin Farrell all sing on the soundtrack, due out on January 19th, 2010. Ryan Bingham co-wrote the song with …
Month: December 2009
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 …
After months of build-up and expectation, James Cameron’s Avatar has arrived. Playing against its hype, Avatar isn’t going to change your world, but for 2+ darkened hours, it’s sure as hell going to rock it. James Cameron has delivered a visually resplendent, excellently paced and fully engrossing movie experience with his ode to 10 foot blue people and the humans who want to be them… or at least rape their planet. Avatar is a film built on the chassis of …
Five minutes into James Cameron’s new sci-fi epic, Avatar, I thought I had been transported to the George Lucas Prequel Tram Tour of Computer Generated Hullabaloo. As the lush forests full of giant trees and crazy critters passed before my 3-D glasses covered eyes, as floating mountains and towering waterfalls rushed into view, I sighed thinking this supposed breakthrough in filmmaking was another soulless love affair with CGI from an egotistical and nonsensical director. But I was wrong. Dead wrong. …
While everyone was arguing about tired ol’ Halo around these parts, the new Iron Man 2 trailer premiered. I bet Iron Man could beat Master Chief in a fight AND in a contest to get the most girls phone numbers. Those fools who say otherwise are just kidding themselves.
So I watched the trailer for Bungie and Microsoft Game Studios’ new first-person shooter, Halo: Reach, during the Spike Video Game Awards last Saturday. All I have to say is one word: Meh. Color me not impressed. All I saw was the same old same old. Was I supposed to have jizzed in my pants because a Spartan has a skull painted on the visor of his helmet? Honestly, unless there is a multitude of surprises – both in story …
A Single Man is one film, along with a few others, I’m sad I won’t see before the Utah Film Critics Association votes on the best of 2009 this Thursday evening. The film stars Colin Firth (Mama Mia!) and Julianne Moore (Blindness) and is directed by fashion magnate turned filmmaker, Tom Ford. If you can’t put a face to the name, there was a Vanity Fair cover a few years ago where Ford posed clothed with a fully nude Scarlett …
It’s that special time of the year. The year foreign press send out their nominations for the best of all things filmic in the hopes of rubbing shoulders with the stars they write about. Best actress for Julia Roberts in Duplicity*? Best actor for Robert Downey Jr. in Sherlock Holmes. Really? Crackpot nominations for the sake of ass-kissing aside, The Golden Globes have more legitimacy than not and have become a marquee ceremony– a christening of Awards Season and a …