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!

Yes, That's Right... Halo 3 is the Reason Your Movie Stunk

Ad Age and Portfolio.com are reporting that the success of Halo 3 is being blamed for The Heartbreak Kid flopping at the box office, among other things:

"Word is that Universal Studios Home entertainment topper Craig Kornblau sent out an internal memo citing the video game as the reason sales figures for the Knocked Up DVD were less than hoped, and even the TV ratings took a few unexplained hits that were ascribed to the addictive sweep of Halo 3."

Nice.  It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that no one really wanted to see The Heartbreak Kid, could it?  I love how people are comparing it to the weekend box office total from the previous year, where a little film called The Departed came out.  It had some box office stars that you might have heard of, and I think it might have won some awards, like the Oscar for Best Picture... can't be sure... don't quote me on that.

Anyway, I'm sure that there are some people who didn't watch TV or go to a movie that weekend because of Halo 3, but there's no way it had as much of an impact as crappy marketing and (less so) terrible reviews.  I love how studio execs love to find excuses and blame everything else other than their own organization's work.

Oscar Predictions - 2007

I guess I should throw my hat in the ring.  I feel bad about it though - this is the first year in (I don't know how long) that I haven't seen all the Best Picture contenders.  In fact, I still haven't seen The Queen, Letters from Iwo Jima, or Babel... Now that I look at the nominees again, I haven't seen any of the Best Actor films, none of the Best Actress films, and only one of the Best Director films (The Departed).

I suck.  I need more babysitters.  I shouldn't even call myself a film blogger.  Wait, I don't call myself that.  But still... this is embarrassing.

I do follow the industry closely though, watching trends, paying attention to who everyone else is picking, and I gotta say... this is going to be an interesting race because for the first time since 1995 (Braveheart) or maybe 1991 (The Silence of the Lambs), there is no obvious favorite for Best Picture.  Sure, there have been upsets (Crash over Brokeback Mountain, Shakespeare in Love over Saving Private Ryan), but leading up to the big night, there was always one film that seemed to have it in the bag.  This year, that is absolutely not the case.  As William Goldman says, "no one knows anything."

Having admitted that I now know as much (or as little) as everyone else, here are my picks for the big categories.  Note that this is who I think will win, not who I necessarily want to win:

• Best Picture: Babel, but I absolutely think The Departed, Letters from Iwo Jima, and Little Miss Sunshine all have a legitimate shot at the title.  For the first time I can remember, I can honestly say I have no idea what's going to happen here.  As far as I can tell, Dreamgirls or United 93 might still have a shot.  ;)
• Best Director: Martin Scorsese, finally... and this won't be close.
• Best Actor: Forrest Whitaker, but Peter O'Toole could easily, easily take this.  It's dead even.
• Best Actress: Helen Mirren, in a blowout.
• Best Supporting Actor: Eddie Murphy, but Alan Arkin is a huge Academy favorite, while Murphy isn't personally well-liked, and Jeff Wells has been running a campaign against him.  Also, it's arguable that Mark Wahlberg had the most memorable role of all the supporting actors.
• Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Hudson is still the favorite, so I'll go with her.  The Babel women will split their votes, Cate Blanchett just won this two years ago, but don't be suprised to see something wacky happen in this category with Abigail Breslin (a la, Anna Paquin, Marisa Tomei, Whoopi Goldberg, Mira Sorvino, etc.).  I mean, can an American Idol contestant really win an Oscar?  They've won Grammies...

One note that just came to me... If Peter O'Toole beats Forrest Whitaker, and Alan Arkin beats Eddie Murphy, and Abigail Breslin beats Jennifer Hudson, will there be racism cries throughout the Academy?  Just putting that out there as food for thought.

Oh, and Best Original Screenplay will be Little Miss Sunshine (wait, maybe The Queen), and Best Adapted Screenplay will be The Departed.

In case you're still looking, here's an Oscar ballot for you to make your picks with.  Have fun at the show!!!

Oscar Surprises in the Telecast?

Nikki Finke's blog, Deadline Hollywood Daily, has some interesting notes about changes to this year's Oscar broadcast.  I guess some might consider these spoilers, but seriously, if someone told you what the opening act was going to be, would that upset you?  It's not like we'll be revealing who's going to win Best Picture, or who will be most inappropriately dressed (fingers crossed for Abigail Breslin...).

Well, if that kind of news would upset you, stop reading now.

For the rest of you, head over to her Eight Spoilers on Oscar Telecast post, but I do have some thoughts on a few of them below.

• She says that the biggest news will be who is presenting the Best Director Oscar this year (Spielberg, Coppola, and Lucas), but my guess is that four hours into the broadcast, and given the collective age of those three men, most of the world is simply going to yawn.  These days Borat would get a bigger response.  Since this is the year when Martin Scorsese is finally going to get his Oscar, I guess they want to do something special.  To me though, if you really want to do something interesting, when they announce his name, he should be presented his Oscar from Clint Eastwood, Roman Polanski, Kevin Costner, Barry Levinson, and Robert Redford, the 5 directors who beat him for each of his previous nominations.  And then Marty gets to go all Mark "Dignam" Wahlberg on them onstage.
• Her favorite update is that each of the three songs nominated from Dreamgirls, will be sung by a Dreamgirl other than the one that sang it in the film.  Wow - another change that three people will notice...
• She also reports that unlike previous years, where the awards for Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress come almost immediately, they are going to save them until the final 1/3 of the show.  Well, that should save some stress for people on the West Coast who struggle with the 5pm broadcast, since now there is absolutely no reason for to watch the first 3 hours of the show.  I mean, while I couldn't be more interested in Best Original Score or Best Art Direction and Best Sound Editing or Best Live Action Short (not!), I'm not sure the rest of the world feels the same way.

Oscar Nominations

When was the last time the leader in nominations (Dreamgirls) couldn't get nominated for Best Picture or Best Director?  Dreamgirls received 8, but 3 were for Best Song, followed by Babel with 7.

When was the last time that 9 of the 10 actor and actress nominees were NOT from one of the Best Pictures?  Let me put that another way... of the 5 Best Pictures, they only spawned 1 Actor or Actress nomination (Helen Mirren, The Queen).

When they said the field was wide open this year, I really had only thought of that in the Best Picture race, but the breadth of the field this year, the distinction between the Best Picture nominations and the rest of the nominees has never been more vast.

Are you telling me that Leo was better in Blood Diamond that he was in The Departed?

Check out the Best Actor nominees - outside of Blood Diamond, none of those movies received any other major nominations, no other actors, not best picture, no screenplay, nothing.  Just bizarre...

Does anyone else realize that Kate Winslet is about to lose her 5th Oscar nomination in 11 years?  Or that Meryl Streep is about to lose for the 12th time?  At least she has two wins... unlike Ms. Winslet.

Here we go...

BEST PICTURE
Babel
The Departed
Letters From Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine
The Queen

BEST DIRECTOR
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Babel
Martin Scorsese, The Departed
Clint Eastwood, Letters From Iwo Jima
Stephen Frears, The Queen
Paul Greengrass, United 93

BEST ACTOR
Leonardo DiCaprio, Blood Diamond
Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson
Peter O'Toole, Venus
Will Smith, The Pursuit of Happyness
Forrest Whitaker, The Last King Of Scotland

BEST ACTRESS
Penelope Cruz, Volver
Judi Dench, Notes on A Scandal
Helen Mirren, The Queen
Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada
Kate Winslet, Little Children

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine
Jackie Earle Haley, Little Children
Djimon Hounsou, Blood Diamond
Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls
Mark Wahlberg, The Departed

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Adriana Barraza, Babel
Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine
Cate Blanchett, Notes on a Scandal
Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls
Rinko Kikuchi, Babel

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Babel
Letters From Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine
Pan's Labyrinth
The Queen

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Borat
Children Of Men
The Departed
Little Children
Notes On A Scandal

X Marks The Departed

Very cool post from the Miami Herald's Rene Rodriguez about the visual homages that Scorsese scattered throughout The Departed, in an effort to honor Howard Hawks' original Scarface.

Funniest Post from Jeff Wells Ever

Enjoy:

"The Central Ohio Film Critics have named Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men the year's best film, but handed the Best Director prize to The Departed's Martin Scorsese. The Northern, Southern, Southeastern, Northwestern and Southwestern Ohio Film Critics have yet to be heard from."

The Departed: The Abridged Script

The whole site is great, but the abridged script for The Departed is fantastic.  I thought it was perfect, until the last line of the whole thing, which made it frakkin' brilliant as well.

I'm just hoping this isn't the start of some sort of backlash over one of the best movies of the year...

The Departed Has Caught Up

Scorsese's crime thriller has tied United 93 for the most Best Picture awards in the Oscar pre-season.  It's becoming obvious that he'll win Best Director this year (I hope), but I'm having a hard time seeing The Departed with the Oscar for Best Picture, regardless of how much I loved it.  I can definitely see the Academy handing its award to United 93 however...

Latest Academy Awards Tracker is here

United 93 Takes the Lead

You know... I could actually see this film winning the big one.  I just hope this is Marty's year (finally).

Latest awards tracker

Current Leaders: United 93, Martin Scorsese, Forest Whitaker, Helen Mirren, Jackie Earle Haley, Jennifer Hudson.

Only the races for Best Picture, Supporting Actor, and Supporting Actress are close right now.

Golden Globe Nominations 2006

My notes on the nominations:

• Bobby?  Really?  Gosh, I wonder if Sharon Stone will finally show up at the Golden Globes this year...
• Leo vs. Leo in Best Actor and Clint vs. Clint in Best Director.  I guess that means Ryan Gosling doesn't get to bring Rachel McAdams to the party, and Bill Condon doesn't get a nomination for Dreamgirls.  Neither does Paul Greengrass for United 93.
• Look at the films nominated for Best Actress (Drama): Volver, Notes on a Scandal, Sherrybaby, The Queen, and Little Children.  Wow - are any of those playing anywhere in this country other than the coasts?  The combined box office take of those films is: $29.3 million, and $24.7 of that comes from The Queen.
• United 93 seems to have lost some momentum here, but the Hollywood Foreign Press likes to nominate stars... and the film had none - unlike Bobby.
• The real surprises to me are Babel racking up the most (7) nods, Mark Wahlberg and Thank You For Smoking getting noticed (deservedly), Notes on a Scandal getting 3, and going back to the Jack Sparrow well for a second time.
• Oh, and on the TV side, Alec Baldwin got nominated for his work on 30 Rock (perfect) but Studio 60 got zippo.  That's gotta hurt NBC, since they air the Golden Globes.  And I did not see a nomination for Dexter's Michael C. Hall coming...
• Best line from David Poland: "Harvey got his meaningless Bobby nomination. Thank God Roger Friedman will have somewhere to sit at the awards."

Best Picture (Drama)

• Babel
• Bobby
• The Departed
• Little Children
• The Queen

Best Actor (Drama)

• Leonardo DiCaprio - Blood Diamond
• Leonardo DiCaprio - The Departed
• Peter O'Toole - Venus
• Will Smith - The Pursuit of Happyness
• Forest Whitaker - The Last King of Scotland

Best Actress (Drama)

• Penelope Cruz - Volver
• Judi Dench - Notes on a Scandal
• Maggie Gyllenhall - Sherrybaby
• Helen Mirren - The Queen
• Kate Winslet - Little Children

Best Picture (Musical or Comedy)

• Borat
• The Devil Wears Prada
• Dreamgirls
• Little Miss Sunshine
• Thank You For Smoking

Best Actress (Musical or Comedy)

• Annette Bening - Running with Scissors
• Toni Collette - Little Miss Sunshine
• Beyonce Knowles - Dreamgirls
• Meryl Streep - The Devil Wears Prada
• Rene Zellweger - Miss Potter

Best Actor (Musical or Comedy)

• Sasha Baron Cohen - Borat
• Johnny Depp - Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
• Aaron Eckhart - Thank You for Smoking
• Chiwetel Ejiofor - Kinky Boots
• Will Ferrell - Stranger Than Fiction

Best Supporting Actor

• Ben Affleck - Hollywoodland
• Eddie Murphy - Dreamgirls
• Jack Nicholson - The Departed
• Brad Pitt - Babel
• Mark Wahlberg - The Departed

Best Supporting Actress

• Adriana Barraza - Babel
• Kate Blanchett - Notes on a Scandal
• Emily Blunt - The Devil Wears Prada
• Jennifer Hudson - Dreamgirls
• Rinko Kikuchi - Babel

Best Director

• Clint Eastwood - Flags of Our Fathers
• Clint Eastwood - Letters from Iwo Jima
• Stephen Frears - The Queen
• Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu - Babel
• Martin Scorsese - The Departed

Best Screenplay

• Babel
• Little Children
• Notes on a Scandal
• The Departed
• The Queen

The 2006 Academy Awards Tracker

I've finally gotten off my patootie, and I've compiled my annual Academy Awards tracker. 

Clearly the momentum is behind Forest Whitaker, Helen Mirren, and Martin Scorsese right now, but as always, while this is interesting, it doesn't always predict Oscar success.  If it did, we'd be heralding Brokeback Mountain or Sideways as Best Picture winners.  (Crash only won one pre-Oscar Best Picture.)  Note that the so-called favorite for Best Picture, Dreamgirls, has no Best Picture wins, but Jennifer Hudson is leading in the Supporting Actress category.

I love the fact that the only other Best Actor winner other than Forest Whitaker so far has been Borat.

The scoreboard currently looks like this:

Best Picture:

• Letters from Iwo Jima - 2 wins
• United 93 - 2 wins
• The Departed - 1
• Little Children - 1
• The Queen - 1

Best Director:

• Martin Scorsese, The Departed - 4 wins
• Paul Greengrass, United 93 - 2
• Stephen Frears, The Queen - 1

Best Actor

• Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland - 6 wins
• Sacha Baron Cohen, Borat - 2

Best Actress

• Helen Mirren, The Queen - 7 wins

Best Supporting Actor

• Jackie Earle Haley, Little Children - 2 wins
• Djimon Hounsou, Blood Diamond - 2 wins
• Michael Sheen, The Queen - 2 wins
• Mark Wahlberg, The Departed - 1

Best Supporting Actress

• Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls - 3 wins
• Catherine O'Hara, For Your Consideration - 2
• Adriana Barraza, Babel - 1
• Shareeka Epps, Half Nelson - 1
• Luminita Gheorghiu, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu - 1

Academy Awards: One Man's Odds for Best Picture

Yesterday's Los Angeles Times printed Patrick Goldstein's latest odds on the Best Picture candidates, as there are 7 weeks to go before the nominations are announced..  Check out the full article for all the detail, but in summary:

The Favorites:

• Dreamgirls: 4-1
• The Queen: 6-1
• The Departed: 9-1
• Little Miss Sunshine: 10-1

Contenders:

• Flags of our Fathers: 12-1
• Letters from Iwo Jima: 12-1
• The Good Shepherd: 14-1
• Babel: 15-1
• United 93: 16-1
• World Trade Center: 16-1
• Volver: 18-1

Longshots:

• Children of Men: 20-1
• The Pursuit of Happyness: 22-1
• Little Children: 25-1
• Blood Diamond: 30-1
• Bobby: 40-1
• Apocalypto: 60-1

Meanwhile, back at the Hall of Justice... I mean, Movie City News, The Gurus o' Gold have compiled their latest votes for all the categories.  Here's their top 10 for Best Picture Nominees:

1. Dreamgirls
2. The Departed
3. The Queen
4. Babel
5. Little Miss Sunshine
6. Letters from Iwo Jima
7. Volver
8. Flags of our Fathers
9. Little Children
10. The Pursuit of Happyness

The Departed Quotes

Trading email with a friend today reminded me that I haven't written about The Departed since seeing it...  Simply put, what a great, great movie.  Absolutely a home run in every sense of the word.  Easily my favorite film of the year along with Little Miss Sunshine.

This was Martin Scorsese just having fun, working in his wheelhouse (not yearning for an Oscar a la The Age of Innocence or The Aviator), with just a good old-fashion crime/mob movie wrapped in a rock solid cat-and-mouse puzzle.

On top of that, however, were two key pieces: First, the cast was incredible across the board.  While it's easy to take Nicholson for granted, you have to take pause and appreciate what Leo brought to the table (constantly on the verge of losing it), Damon (watching his world crumbling but manipulating everything and keeping his cool), but even moreso... hats off to Alec Baldwin and specifically Mark Wahlberg, who had the line of the entire movie.  When another cop asks who he is, he responds, "I'm the guy doing my job.  You must be the other guy."

I can't wait to use that one at work.

Which brings me to key ingredient #2: the script is fantastic, and surprisingly, it's incredibly funny.  The film is so intense that it needed the comic relief of the Boston boys breaking each other's balls, and the attacks on each other are so brutal that they're blisteringly funny.

To wit: here are my favorite lines from Wahlberg and Baldwin, and you can find the rest at IMDB.com.  (Warning: Bad Language Ahead):

Mark Wahlberg's character (Dignam):

"I'm the guy doing my job.  You must be the other guy."

"Maybe.  Maybe not.  Maybe fuck yourself."

"You may play a tough guy for your gangster friends, but you don't get nothing past me, you lace-curtain Irish fucking pussy!"

"No, you don't know. Because if someone like you knew what we did, that would make us cunts. Are you calling us cunts?"

Alec Baldwin's character (Ellerby):

"I'm gonna go have a smoke right now. You want a smoke? You don't smoke, do ya, right? What are ya, one of those fitness freaks, huh? Go fuck yourself."

"Yes, those. I don't know what they are.  You don't know what they are. Who gives a fuck?"

"Marriage is an important part of getting ahead. It lets people know you're not a homo. A married guy seems more stable. People see the ring, they think 'at least somebody can stand the son of a bitch.' Ladies see the ring, they know immediately that you must have some cash, and your cock must work."

Together:

"Go fuck yourself."
"I'm tired from fucking your wife."
"How is your mother?"
"Good.  She's tired from fucking my father."

The Good German Trailer

Could Warner Bros. end up with the two best films of the year with The Departed and The Good German?  Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney team up yet again for a Casablanca-esque, The Third Man-ish war thriller.