Craig's MovieBlog

Movie of the Decade?

Bill Simmons from ESPN (aka The Sports Guy) has opened up a poll to try and determine the Movie of the Decade.  Here’s his list:

• Almost Famous (2000)
• Brokeback Mountain (2005)
• Cast Away (2000)
• The Dark Knight (2008)
• The Departed (2006)
• Gladiator (2000)
• The Lord of the Rings (2001)
• No Country for Old Men (2007)

Fine movies, all of them, and Almost Famous is a personal favorite, but are any of those really the best movie from the last 10 years? 

My friend over at Yes MSG emailed me about the Sports Guy’s poll, and that set me off.  I spent the next hour on IMDB, researching Oscar nominations, and rummaging through the archives of my old box office and movie review site (you know, from when I used to actually go and see movies).  I sent him my thoughts, and then Yes MSG responded inline, so I’ll try to represent that all below.  His responses are in red. 

Enjoy… and let us know – what movies did we miss? 

====================================================

Well, thanks.  The next hour is shot for me.  You’ve got me going…

Almost Famous (2000) is up there.  It’s pretty fantastic.  The Departed (2006) is in the conversation.  And you know what?  The first Pirates of the Caribbean (2002) movie was pretty freaking great as a mainstream, genre-breaking, fun movie.  The sequels ruined people’s memory of how good the first one was.

I guess it’s been a relatively weak decade.  It’s arguable that the Lord of the Rings Trilogy was the best movie achievement for the decade…  not kidding.  Or maybe it’s a Pixar movie like Finding Nemo (2002) or The Incredibles (2003).

On my list of movies that have to be in the conversation:

• Almost Famous (2000) – will have to see it again; don’t care for Kate Hudson, but will stick it out.  Plus, my first internet business was selling online the www.fugit-about-it shirt.  Didn’t go so well.
• Traffic (2000) – good, but a complete knock off of a German movie so really cannot give it high marks – maybe Best Adapted 2000s movie ;)
• Memento (2001) – My #1.  Forgot about this and loved it. Still don’t know if he ever killed anyone or not.
• Finding Nemo (2002) - yep
• Lost in Translation (2002) – too artsy for me I guess; I never understand these indies, but at least it meant that Sophia stopped acting
• Mystic River (2002) – too painful for me; Tim Robbins taking a knife in the gut – ooh.  No rewatchability for me; more avoidability.  But yes, well done.
• Pirates of the Caribbean (2002) – that was a fun film – made me a Depp fan. Have you seen Public Enemies?
• Sideways (2003) – Yep, entertaining too.
• Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) – Clooney at his best again
• Little Miss Sunshine (2006) – funny cause Rick James never so well represented.
• The Departed (2006) – Too, Marty deserves an Oscar for me, and Jack mailed it in as Jack.  Loved Leo though.  And you can never get enough Vera Farmiga!
• Michael Clayton (2007) – excellent film.  That, my friend, is why you have a blog.  The scene at the end where he gets her to offer $10M was fantastic.  And any movie that gives Danny Noonan another shot is OK with me.
• Juno (2007) – Entertaining, but as the Sports Guy would say, so underrated it became overrated
• The Dark Knight (2008) – What am I missing?  Why don’t I like these?  The first two X-Men were better – sure, not as ‘deep’ – but more entertaining, and I have a huge mancrush on Hugh Jackman

Movies I love that I would not call the “Movie of the Decade”:

• Billy Elliot (2000) – yes, any movie where an Irish kid can dance and is not kneecapped by the IRA is a keeper
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) – All I can say is Hell Yeoh!
• Gosford Park (2001) – saw it, the Murder of the guy with the knife? That was good.
• Moulin Rouge! (2001) – did not see it and usually cannot stand Nicole Kidman; so overrated she is overrated.
• Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002) – did not see it; Gong Show goes CIA?
• Igby Goes Down (2002) – The other Culkin?  Did not see it.
• Narc (2002) – Also did not see this, even though I DRV’d it and had it on my ‘to watch’ list for like two years.
• The Incredibles (2003) - Excellent
• Garden State (2004) – again, a bit indie for me, but Braff and Portman is the best Jew hookup since, well, David and Bathsheba (at least as I imagine Bathsheba)
• The Constant Gardener (2005) – LeCarre always depresses, but very good.
• Syriana (2005) – could have been a bit less convoluted but good too.

It is certainly not Crash (2005) or Million Dollar Baby (2003).  Hated those movies with a passion…  pandering, obvious garbage.  – agree.  Swank taking a header into the stool was silly.  Clint should know better.

If you put a gun to my head, it’s Memento or Michael Clayton for me.  CraigBe and Yes MSG right there on this!

Craigslist

Lots going on out there while I was traveling, so I thought I'd just throw them onto the pile for you:

• The critics awards have begun in a big way, and while MCN has their page, I'll probably find time to pull my annual recap together also. 
• Jim Hill creates an AMAZING list of cameos and cross-references throughout Pixar's film history.  For someone like myself who has been forced to watch Cars several hundred times, these are incredible.  But... he didn't call out the cameo from the Apple car in the first race.  It's just black and white, it wears the number 84, and it's only onscreen for a second or two. 
• David Poland calls Nikki Finke "a piece of shit."  Hee hee... 
• Anne Thompson reminds us that George Clooney is brilliant:  Why were films like Syriana and Good Night and Good Luck embraced by audiences while the more recent rash of political films have not been? "People like ambiguity," Clooney suggested, admitting that he had not seen all the films. "They don't want to be told what they should think."

Viewer Mail

From a reader:

So called Best picture?  Well I don't know but it seems to me that racism is alive and well in the movie industry.  I won't say what race I am but the fact that Dreamgirls had limited openings on Christmas Day with an official opening to all theaters on Jan. 19th 2007 seems a bit strange!  Heaven forbid a Jewish producer; DreamWorks and an all black cast take 1 place in revenue. I personally witnessed packed crowds (mainly white over 50) fighting for tickets and only after the limited seating had sold out did they settle for other features.  Yet despite the opposition and distribution control placed on Dreamgirls by the powers in Hollywood it still managed to do 9 million and take 7th place with both hands tied behind its back!  I wonder what it would have done on a fair playing field?  Well the more things change the more they stay the same. We won't even talk about Borat!

My response:

Lots and lots of movies open on limited screens over the holidays to create demand, and then widen their screencount.  They do this to qualify for the Oscars by releasing in LA and/or NYC during 2006, but then build momentum throughout the months of January and February which are closer to the Oscars, hoping to affect how votes are cast. 

This happens every year, especially for movies that are aiming for Academy Awards.  Go back and look at the release patterns for Chicago, Syriana, Gangs of New York, The Hours, Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Million Dollar Baby, etc.... even films this year like Volver, Children of Men, and Notes on a Scandal are all being released the same way, and none of them have predominantly African-American casts.

Frankly, I think it's exciting from a racial perspective that you claim that there are "white" packed crowds who want to see this film.  That is enough for me to be optimistic.

But seriously... you think people with all the clout of Spielberg, Katzenberg, and Geffen are going to be "controlled" by some sort of master controller somewhere?  C'mon... this is nothing more than a PR team strategically releasing a film for the Oscars.

Happy new year,

Craig

Trade Trailer

Kevin Kline stars in Trade, which looks like Traffic 3 (Syriana was Traffic 2, of course).  Unfortunately, it also looks like it has all the pretention of Crash.

More Academy Awards 2006 Trivia

Today the BBC wrote up the type of piece that statistical/trivia junkies like myself just go cuckoo-for-cocoa-puffs over, as they did the deep dive on this year's Oscars.  For example:

• Brokeback Mountain leads the nominations with eight. It is the most open Oscars race since 2000, the last time a film topped the list with eight nominations (American Beauty). The leading films in subsequent years have received between 11-13 nominations each.
• It is a good year for Oscars newcomers - 14 of the 20 acting nominees have not been nominated before, the highest number for nine years. The remaining six have 13 previous nominations and four awards between them.
• For the first time in 25 years, all five nominees for best picture have also been nominated for best director - only the fourth time in Oscars history that the shortlists have been the same.
• Keira Knightley, 20, who is shortlisted for Pride and Prejudice, would be the youngest best actress winner if she won. The current record is held by Marlee Matlin, who won for Children of a Lesser God in 1987, aged 21.
• If Heath Ledger wins best actor for Brokeback Mountain, the 26-year-old would be the youngest winner of the award. Adrien Brody, who was 29 when he won for The Pianist in 2003, currently holds the record.
• George Clooney is the first person to be nominated for acting in and directing different films in the same year. He is up for best supporting actor for his role in Syriana, plus best director and best original screenplay for Good Night, and Good Luck.

Roger Ebert's Top Ten of 2005

Read Roger's commentary on his website:

10. Millions
9. Yes
8. King Kong
7. Nine Lives
6. Me and You and Everyone We Know
5. Brokeback Mountain
4. Junebug
3. Munich
2. Syriana
1. Crash

So Was It a Good Weekend or a Bad Weekend?

From showbizdata.com:

The latest Harry Potter movie may have dropped 47 percent in its second weekend; five new films couldn't do as well as two new ones a year ago; one of them, Rent, may have opened like a house on fire, but it quickly fizzled out.  Daily Variety may have reported that for the first time in eight years, only one film earned more than $20 million over the Friday-Sunday period.

And yet, despite all that bad news, if estimates hold, the Thanksgiving box office will rank second only to 2000's as the highest ever for the holiday.

Opening in limited release in Los Angeles, New York, and Toronto, the George Clooney-Matt Damon thriller Syrania took in an astounding $553,372 in just five theaters over the five days. Its three-day take of $372,725 ($74,429 per theater) was the best ever for a Thanksgiving weekend, Variety observed.

Hollywood Reporter Posts Reviews for Rent, Syriana, and Memoirs of a Geisha

So sayeth Kirk Honeycutt:

• Rent:  Hugely entertaining and high-spirited adaptation of the hit rock opera.
• Syriana:  Mosaic of Middle East geopolitics is at once too simplistic yet plot-wise too convoluted.
• Memoirs of a Geisha:  A respectable film version of best seller that nevertheless misses the novel's subtleties.

Oscars 2006

It's November 7th, 2005, and it's very possible that we have not seen a single film that will be nominated for Best Picture.  Sure, there's been Capote, Good Night and Good Luck, A History of Violence, Crash, Jarhead, and Cinderella Man, but there's a good chance that none of those will hit their mark, and all five nominees will come from the remaining pool of movies that haven't yet been released (and there are only 8 weekends left in 2005) to qualify.

Frankly, I think this sucks.  We end up with crappy movies all year long, then the studios cram everything into November and December, but if those films don't get the boost of a nomination, they're gone... dead on the vine.  Good luck seeing them in a theater versus Blockbuster.

Anyway, here's a piece in the New York Daily News from Jack Mathews about the movies to come this year.  Also, I'm including Jack's top 10 hopefuls:

1. Munich, directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Eric Bana
2. Brokeback Mountain, directed by Ang Lee, starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal
3. Memoirs of a Geisha, directed by Rob Marshall, starring Ziyi Zhang and Ken Watanabe
4. The New World, directed by Terrence Malick, starring Colin Farrell
5. The Producers, directed by Susan Stroman, starring Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Uma Thurman, and Will Ferrell
6. Mrs. Henderson Presents, directed by Stephen Frears, starring Judi Dench and Bob Hoskins
7. Walk the Line, directed by James Mangold, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon
8. King Kong, directed by Peter Jackson, starring Adrien Brody, Jack Black, and Naomi Watts
9. Syriana, directed by Stephen Gaghan, starring George Clooney and Matt Damon
10. Match Point, directed by Woody Allen, starring Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers

Syriana Trailer

Wow - is just me, or does it seem like George Clooney is the only person making important movies these days?

First there's Good Night, and Good Luck, and now there's Syriana.

It looks like Traffic 2: Oil is Thicker than Water, and with good reason, as it was written and directed by Traffic's writer, Academy Award winner Stephen Gaghan.