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tMF Trailers: Super Bowl Movie Spots

2010-02-08T18:30:21Z

Whether you watch it for the game or the commercials, the Super Bowl is usually the most watched television event of the year. This year’s game became the most watched TV event in history with 106.5 million viewers. Too bad the advertising wasn’t able to capitalize on it. The commercials were pretty bad all the way around this year. Scratch that, I loved the KIA commercial with the toys in Vegas. Other than that, I was unimpressed.

As far as movie trailers go, it was a down year too. There weren’t nearly as many as in previous years and the ones we did get to see were nothing new. No Iron Man 2. No Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. No surprises. Instead we got a handful of spots for movies we have already seen trailers for. At this point I would have even taken a teaser for The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. It isn’t exactly Super Bowl fare, but at least it would have been a surprise.

Click through to see all the movie spots from the big game.

The Last Airbender
Release Date: July 2, 2010
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Robin Hood
Release Date: May 14, 2010
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The Wolfman
Release Date: February 12, 2010
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Shutter Island
Release Date: February 19, 2010
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Alice in Wonderland
Release Date: March 5, 2010
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The Back-Up Plan
Release Date: April 23, 2010
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Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Release Date: May 28, 2010

Source: Trailer Addict

Box Office: The King Is Dead, 'Dear John' takes down 'Avatar'

2010-02-08T16:35:08Z

Another week, another round of Avatar box office news. With a grip on almost every other box office record to date, Avatar ($630.1M) finally did what was once thought impossible as it passed Titanic ($600.8M) to take the top spot on the all-time domestic box office list. But just as quickly as Avatar crushed the last standing major record in its path it was knocked from the top spot by the unlikeliest of movies, Dear John ($32.4M).

I was never under the impression that Avatar would be number one forever, but I expected it to last at least one more week until The Wolfman knocked it off. Now the question for Avatar is how much more money will it make? A good chunk of its box office revenue has come from 3D screens and Alice in Wonderland looks to take the majority of them when the movie comes out March 5. Fox has every box office record that matters so I don’t expect them to push this next month with a host of other 3D releases coming out.

Now that Avatar fever is waning, the box office can look to the rest of the field for excitement. This weekend looks a little packed with The Wolfman, Valentine’s Day, and Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightening Thief. The Wolfman was supposed to come out last February and was pushed back twice so it will be interesting to see how it does. Valentine’s Day took the route of bringing in about two dozen actors and actresses with box office appeal and cramming them into one movie. So the fact that it should suck will have no bearing on its earnings this week. Don’t expect Avatar to roll over either. I wouldn’t be surprised if it gets close to $700 million domestically by the time it is all said and done. Especially if it wins Best Picture at next months Oscar's.

Weekend Box Office: February 5-7, 2010 (estimated)

#	Title	Weekend Gross	Total Gross
1	Dear John	$32,400,000	NEW
2	Avatar	$23,600,000	$630,100,000
3	From Paris with Love	$8,100,000	NEW
4	Edge of Darkness	$7,000,000	$29,100,000
5	The Tooth Fairy	$6,500,000	$34,300,000

Source: Box Office Mojo

Jim Sturgess' new movie Heartless has a trailer!

2010-02-03T16:19:40Z

If you have yet to discover Jim Sturgess and continue to idolize actors with less talent, less charm and less critical acclaim, then you'll be sorry. By this time, we're almost ready for the updated Top 50 Hottest Young Actors list, a new layout and more exciting features - and we'll be celebrating Mr. Sturgess as our first ever Spotlight of the Month feature! Be sure to tune in by the 2nd week of this month...

Now, the good news... The latest movie featuring the awesome actor, is called Heartless. It's a horror movie and critics have been raving about it. A trailer has just been released, so watch it now!

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About the movie: The story follows Jamie, a troubled young man with a birthmark on his face, which has left him feeling isolated and fearful, hiding from the world outside. He lives in the East End of London, an area notorious for its violent hooded gangs. According to news reports, the gangs are now wearing demon masks. But, one night, Jamie discovers the terrifying truth: the gangs are not wearing masks. They are real demons. And when Jamie's mother is killed by them in a brutal attack, he realizes he can no longer hide away. Jamie vows vengeance and turns vigilante. But the world outside is more of a nightmare than he ever imagined. As Jamie himself says: "I open up the window and madness flies in.”

82nd Academy Award Nominations Announced

2010-02-02T14:45:49Z

Earlier today the 82nd Annual Academy Awards nominations were announced. As expected, Avatar and The Hurt Locker lead the pack with 9 nominations each. Maybe not as expected, but certainly deserved, Inglourious Basterds is next in line with 8 nominations. Elsewhere Precious and Up in the Air scored six noms each and Up had five. District 9, Nine, and Star Trek each had four.

Now that the Best Picture category has expanded to ten it was assumed that some smaller films, or at least surprises, would find their way on to the list. Included in that discussion this year were Best Picture nods for District 9 and The Blind Side. District 9 was one of my favorite movies this year so I am excited to see it on the list.

There is plenty of time to dissect and analyze the nominations, (and we will). Until then, click through for the nominations:

Best Picture:
Avatar
The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire
A Serious Man
Up
Up in the Air

Directing:
Kathryn Bigelow - The Hurt Locker
James Cameron - Avatar
Lee Daniels - Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire
Jason Reitman - Up in the Air
Quentin Tarantino - Inglourious Basterds

Actor in a Leading Role:
Jeff Bridges - Crazy Heart
George Clooney - Up in the Air
Colin Firth - A Single Man
Morgan Freeman - Invictus
Jeremy Renner - The Hurt Locker

Actress in a Leading Role:
Sandra Bullock - The Blind Side
Helen Mirren - The Last Station
Carey Mulligan - An Education
Gabourey Sidibe - Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire
Meryl Streep - Julie & Julia

Actor in a Supporting Role:
Matt Damon - Invictus
Woody Harrelson - The Messenger
Christopher Plummer - The Last Station
Stanley Tucci - The Lovely Bones
Christoph Waltz - Inglourious Basterds

Actress in a Supporting Role:
Penelope Cruz - Nine
Vera Farmiga - Up in the Air
Maggie Gyllenhaal - Crazy Heart
Anna Kendrick - Up in the Air
Mo’Nique - Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire

Adapted Screenplay:
Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell - District 9
Nick Hornby - An Education
Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci and Tony Roche - In the Loop
Geoffrey Fletcher - Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire
Jason Reitman - Up in the Air

Original Screenplay:
Mark Boal - The Hurt Locker
Quentin Tarantino - Inglourious Basterds
Oren Moverman and Alessandro Camon - The Messenger
Joel and Ethan Coen - A Serious Man
Pete Docter and Bob Peterson - Up

Foreign Language Film:
Ajami - Israel
El Secreto de sus Ojos - Argentina
The Milk of Sorrow - Peru
Une Prophéte - France
The White Ribbon - Germany

Animated Feature Film:
Coraline
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Princess and the Frog
The Secret of the Kells
Up

For a complete list of the nominations, visit Oscar.com. Watch the 82nd Academy Awards live on Sunday, March 7, 2010 at 8ET/5PT.

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Sound off: What do you think of the nominations?

tMF Featured Trailer: Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

2010-02-01T15:43:57Z

When it was announced that Oliver Stone would direct the sequel to his own 1987 film Wall Street, the unified reaction was, “Why?” for a number of reasons. Wall Street isn’t the first movie that comes to mind when you think of movies that need a sequel and definitley not after 23 years. Not to mention that Stone hasn't made a decent movie in over a decade. His last outing, W., lacked the bite that made the director famous, so every part of this seems unneccesary.

Click through to watch the trailer.

Despite any reservations you may share, this first teaser is pretty good. I would go so far as to say it made me want to see the movie. When the trailer alone does that, it has done its job. The current financial climate is certainly a playground for this type of story and it will be interesting to see how differently Stone handles this story today versus where it was in the mid 1980s. Whether or not the movie will be worth it remains to be seen but for the time being, consider my interest peaked.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps opens April 23, 2010.

Source: YouTube

Box Office: 'Avatar' Tops Box Office For Seventh Week In A Row

2010-02-01T05:13:02Z

Is it really even news anymore? For the seventh week in a row Avatar holds on to the top spot at the box office and is showing no signs of slowing down. It is easy to be bored with this story after almost two months on repeat but to put things into perspective for a minute; Avatar has achieved almost every box office record there is in just 45 days. At $595 million and counting Avatar has made about $13 million per day or just over $1 million every two hours since it was released. And that is only counting domestic receipts. If you count its total gross it has made $45 million per day. Incredible doesn’t begin to describe it.

As amazing as those figures are, there isn’t much drama left to be found in the numbers. Last week Avatar passed Titanic to become the highest grossing film of all time and the first to surpass $2 billion in worldwide grosses. Stateside, with a total of around $595 million, it should pass Titanic again later in the week to take down that record too.

With the crown for domestic, overseas, and worldwide grosses firmly in hand the focus this week will shift to the Academy Awards. The nominations will be announced Tuesday morning and the question becomes, how many awards will Avatar be nominated for? More importantly, how many can it win? The biggest win so far this awards season was at the Golden Globes where it won Best Picture – Drama and James Cameron took Best Director honors. Still, almost every other major award has The Hurt Locker and director Kathryn Bigelow – Cameron’s ex-wife – racking up wins. The Hurt Locker is certainly the better film but it’s hard to argue with the theatre experience and overall mass appeal Avatar brings to the table, so it’ll be interesting nonetheless.

Believe it or not there were other movies playing in theatres this weekend. Mel Gibson returned to a starring role for the first time in years with Edge of Darkness. In a decent role in a forgettable movie, the one-time box office draw had a moderately disappointing outing with a $17.1 million debut. This week’s other new release When in Rome somehow managed $12.0 million.

This week poses little threat to the runaway train with another seasonably weak offering of new releases with the Nicolas Sparks adaptation, Dear John and the latest John Travolta as a bad guy trying to take something from someone in Pierre Morel’s From Paris with Love.

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Weekend Box Office: January 29-31, 2010 (estimated)

#	Title	Weekend Gross	Total Gross
1	Avatar	$30,000,000	$594,472,000
2	Edge of Darkness	$17,120,000	NEW
3	When in Rome	$12,065,000	NEW
4	The Tooth Fairy	$10,000,000	$26,106,000
5	The Book of Eli	$8,770,000	$74,373,000

Source: Box Office Mojo

Blake: Top Ten Movies of 2009

2010-01-31T23:52:02Z

This year was a difficult one for me in film. I felt let down by Hollywood, whose offerings were underwhelming, and pushed back release dates, and last minute changes were more distracting than the films themselves. However, this forced moviegoers to look harder, and in places we're not used to, which actually provided some great film experiences, so I can't find myself complaining too much. Here are my picks for the Top Ten Movies of 2009.

A Single Man

A Single Man weaves its story with a slow, but confident pace. The emphasis is not simply on a plot arc, but is an examination of a tortured man. Using the word ‘tortured’ brings to mind cliches and worn out devices. I promise, this is not the case here. First time director Tom Ford shows a remarkable amount of promise. His well placed instincts are served best by his cast, of whom he gets the most. One of the film’s most remarkable scenes plays out between George and his friend Charly (Julianne Moore). A quiet dinner, between two lonely souls who’ve had too much to drink, allows a brutal honesty to rage before quickly hiding itself again behind tact and manner. It’s a prime example of all the emotions running just below the surface through the length of the movie, just dying to be set free.

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The Hurt Locker

Katheryn Bigelow’s direction style gives The Hurt Locker the feel of a documentary. To some, this will feel inflammatory, and invasive. The point of the film should be clear, some will say. But Bigelow’s film has managed to transcend any sort of classifiable definition. If it feels real to life, it seems to have served its purpose. At the same time, it doesn’t leave the viewer feeling like he was just preached to for two hours, they’ve experienced something real, and authentic, and, perhaps, something a little uncomfortable. At the same time, the entertainment factor never falls by the wayside. It earns its R rating, but isn’t exploitative.

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The White Ribbon

While it's difficult for many to find worth in Michael Haneke's grim storytelling style, the beauty of this masterpiece can not be skipped. The cinematography is poetry on screen. This is a sort of character study on a mass scale that turns this type of genre on its head. Haneke's ability to force his audience into a little introspection is far beyond any director working today, and The White Ribbon is his masterpiece.

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Hunger

Hunger is stylistically perfect. If the first draft of the script looks anything like the shooting copy, it must have seemed extremely risky. The first half of the film is nearly wordless, with any spoken dialogue basically playing the role of white, or background noise. It then takes an extreme change in pace as it focuses on a conversation between Sands (Michael Fassbender) and his priest (Liam Cunningham). This conversation takes up about twenty four minutes, and features a jaw-dropping seventeen and a half minute single shot of non-stop dialogue. I shudder to think of the number of takes that took. After this dialogue-intensive scene, the style of the film reverts to action-based. All the while, the pacing never skips a beat.

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An Education

Cautionary tales warning young women against smoothing talking, handsome men that seem too good to be true are a dime a dozen in literature, film, and almost all other mediums. Lone Scherfig took this cliche and turned it into a stellar film, that seems neither familiar, or worn out. Her remarkable cast helped, no doubt. Especially that by new-comer Carey Mulligan. But it's Scherfig's confident hand that guides this film into one of the most fascinating and entertaining films of the year.

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Inglourious Basterds

Quentin Tarantino really out did himself with Inglourious Basterds. His characters were most certainly some of the most colorful to come out of 2009. His ability to rewrite history with a story so spellbinding, without leaving his audience feeling like they were cheated by a script that took the easy way out, is nothing short of miraculous. Not to mention he had the balls to cast someone like Michael Meyers, and the talent to make it all work. This is the latest in his overwhelming oeuvre that proves why he's still kind of cinema.

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Where the Wild Things Are

The feel of the film is so perfectly and beautifully lachrymose, it’s impossible not to get sucked into Max’s imagination. The script (which Dave Eggers had a monumental task of taking the short children’s story to a feature-length film) wasn’t pretentious or obtrusive, it was charmingly hilarious and, when it needed to be, poignant and touching. Records is a fantastic actor. I can’t imagine any other child actor working today that could have outdone him in this performance. While all the wild things were great, Lauren Ambrose really managed to steal the show with her voice acting.

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The Road

Author Cormac McCarthy claims that you can't be a serious writer without addressing death. This was his intention with The Road, and he succeeded in a blindingly mesmerizing way that John Hillcoat managed to translate onto the big screen. Viggo Mortensen, as the nameless father uses all of his considerable skill to bring this muted post-apocalyptic tale to life, and engage audiences with a solemn gravitas that only appears in cinema every few years.

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Tokyo!

Each of the three short films that make up this piece provides something for the viewer. Some are easier to swallow than the others. Strangely enough, this doesn’t seem to shed any positive light on the city of Tokyo itself. It’s more veiled criticism than it is anything else. If nothing else (and I think it’s much more than this), Tokyo! is thought-provoking and an interesting cinematic experience.

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Two Lovers

The film is seriously stylish. Camera angles, fantastic shooting locales, perfectly paired background music give the story a feel that’s just right. The dialogue isn’t particularly witty, but leaves plenty of room for realism that will haunt you in every relationship you have now, or ever. Gwyneth Paltrow finally makes a good career move, moving away from those quirky girl roles she’s been stuck in like Running With Scissors. Vinessa Shaw plays a minor role, but steals all the attention in the screen time she’s given. It’s nice to see a pleasantly-aged Isabella Rossellini in a role that doesn’t involved her masturbating in front of Dennis Hopper. The star of the show, however, is Joaquin, whose performance is pitch perfect in every aspect.

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Honorable mentions:

The Red Riding Trilogy (Red Riding: 1974, dir. by Julian Jarrold; Red Riding: 1980, dir. by James Marsh; Red Riding: 1983, dir. by Anand Tucker)

The Clone Returns Home (Kurôn wa kokyô wo mezasu), (Directed by Kanji Nakajima)

Fantastic Mr. Fox (Directed by Wes Anderson)

Paranormal Activity (Directed by Oren Peli)

Moon (Directed by Duncan Jones)

(500) Days of Summer (Directed by Marc Webb)

The Hangover (Directed by Todd Phillips)

Watchmen (Directed by Zack Snyder)

Sundance Review: The Man Next Door (El hombre de al lado)

2010-01-31T22:44:51Z

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The Man Next Door is working it’s magic in the World Dramatic Competition and Sundance. It comes from Argentina, and demands that it be noticed. It’s directed by two promising young men, Mariano Cohn, and Gastón Duprat, who co-wrote the script together as well. And are both credited as the film’s cinematography. Narcissistic much?

The film is overwhelming simple in it’s storyline. An extremely successful designer named Leonardo, lives in a home named Casa Curutchet. The only home that Le Corbusier built in the Americas. Apparently it’s a big deal in Argentina. He lives there with his wife and daughter. They’re awakened one morning to the noise of a sledgehammer, he finds that a neighbor has torn a hole in one of the Modernist icon’s perfect white walls, intending to build a window for the house on the other side. The soundscape created is almost as poignant as Australia’s Noise.

The story has this fantastic way of garnering all your sympathies for the designer and his wife, who are just trying to keep their ideal home environment in tact from a classless, and vulgarly blue collar man. In the beginning, The Man Next Door is a comedy of disproportioned manners between neighbors, but quickly evolves into something more tense, as we’re not really sure what either of the two are capable off. Then, as some point, without you even knowing it, you realize you’re rooting for a family of assholes. Victor, the neighbor, it seems, is mostly sincere, a man that is just requesting a bit of sunlight for his home that is so genrously afforded Leonard’s. Even Victor’s attempts to befriend Leo, is mocked behind his back to his self-important intelligentsia friends. How the whole things shifted with out me even realizing it, is remarkable, and so much fun to experience.

The film almost reads as a love story to the home (it reminded me of The International, a love letter to the Guggenheim, or Gattica, with its sprawling hommages to the work of Frank Lloyd Wright). Cohn and Duprat’s cinematography skills provide some really interesting shots that both showcase the anxiety and alienation felt by their characters, as well as the stunning architecture of the home. When it comes to style, these two have it down pat. This film knows exactly how it wants to look, and pulls it off without a hitch. If the heavy-handed statement on class distinction and prejudice is actually sincere, they should receive a stern finger wagging. But as a mostly fun, and tense comedy with a decently shocking ending, then they score high on all marks.

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Starring: Rafael Spregeburd, Daniel Aráoz, Eugenia Alonso
Director: Mariano Cohn, Gastón Duprat
Running Time: 110 min

Sundance Review: The Killer Inside Me

2010-01-31T22:14:21Z

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I had tickets to Killer Inside Me long before all this crazy media attention it’s gotten over the past few days. Truth be told, I didn’t even know what it was about when I made the purchase. I just decided to tag along with my brother-in-law when he announced he was going. Since the premiere, there’s been all sorts of stuff going around about the violence in it. There’s this article from NYDailyNews.com, which clearly insinuates that Jessica Alba herself was so offended by the violence, she walked out during the premiere. Or there’s this recording of an angry audience, specifically an angry woman, during an Q&A, demanding, of director Michael Winterbottom to know ‘who’s responsible for this?’ Geez! You’d think these people have never been to a film festival before. And you know for certain they’ve never seen something like Antichrist, or even one of the Saw movies, or Lust, Caution, or Nurse Betty, or anything David Cronenberg has ever done. I will say now that yes, there’s violence. One specific scene shows Alba being beaten for literally several minutes. But on the grand scale of violent movies that have received an R rating, this is not one of the worst offenders. And without being a communist, I would say that I mildly agree with Han Suyin when she said, ‘moralists have no place in an art gallery.’ Or an arthouse theatre.

The story comes from a pulp fiction novel from the 50s, by author Jim Thompson, and Winterbottom adapted it for the screen. It centers around Lou Ford (Casey Affleck), a young sheriff in west Texas. He’s called to run a prostitute named Joyce (Alba) out of town, but he falls in love with her. Love is probably too strong a word here, since it becomes slowly clear that Lou is a psychopath. He’s also sleeping with his high school sweetheart Amy (Kate Hudson). Sex with the two women is rough and sadistic, and frequently enjoys ritual spanking. There’s a grand, complicated story that explains what his motives are, but he ends up killing Joyce and another man, and framing them for it. He gets deeper and deeper, and he has to keep working harder to keep himself in the clear.

The film is almost entirely character driven, so it’s fortunate that they are written so well (there’s all sorts of fantastic peripheral characters acted by Elias Koteas, Ned Betty, Simon Baker, Bill Pullman, and more). All the acting is great, especially Affleck, and even, surprisingly, Ms. Hudson. Anyone who watches this, and think that this is an endorsement to act violently, is ridiculous, because all of the characters are damaged, unhinged souls with no basic barometer of right and wrong. Winterbottom (and perhaps the source material, I’m not sure), was smart enough not to ask the audience to put their sympathies with Lou. He’s insane, dangerous, and unworthy of any sort of mercy. The full horror of his acts are on display, and it’s hard to stomach. The most disturbing scene of all comes after he’s beaten Amy to a point she’s unable to control her bodily functions (it seems Kate Hudson is frantically trying to get us all to forget Fool’s Gold). The plot is complex, and quickly paced, and if you can handle the violence, it’s entertaining from beginning to end. And, while saying this sometimes makes people dubious, the ending is sufficiently shocking to leave you a little speechless as you leave.

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Starring: Jessica Alba, Casey Affleck, Kate Hudson, Simon Baker
Director: Michael Winterbottom
Running Time: 148 min

Sundance Reviews: Welcome to the Rileys

2010-01-31T22:07:25Z

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Kristin Stewart is continuing on her crusade to try and distance herself from the Twilight series, and establish herself as a serious actress. Last year she did it with Adventureland, and this year, she has a couple films at Sundance. In one, she plays Joan Jett, and in it has a lesbian love scene with Dakota Fanning. In the other, Welcome to the Rileys, she plays a 16 year old, runaway, making ends meet in New Orleans as a part-time exotic dancer, and part-prostitute. Okay, we get it Kristin, you’re a serious actress. Fortunately, she has some great company in Rileys that makes her look pretty good.

This film comes from director Jake Scott. Scott has done some TV stuff, but most notably, he’s directed music videos for Radiohead, Tori Amos, REM, and The Cranberries. The story is written by Ken Hixon, who written anything since the 2002 De Niro film, City by the Sea. When summarized, the story sounds awfully cliched. James Gandolfini plays Doug Riley, a successful business owner who’s married to a literal shut in played by Melissa Leo. She hasn’t left the house since her daughter died in a car wreck four years ago. In an attempt at a normal relationship, Doug starts sleeping with a diner waitress, is dies at the beginning of the movie. During a business trip to New Orleans, Doug comes across Mallory (Stewart), who looks quite a bit like his daughter, and clearly need help. He moves in with her. He takes the energies formerly focused on his affair, and redirects it too her. This prompts the shut in mother to drive down to the Big Easy, where she ends up moving in with the two, and they become a makeshift family, teaching each other to heal…

Yes, it’s about as cliched as you get. Fortunately, there are some fantastic parts of the film. Leo’s performance is outrageously good. Usually stuck in heavy handed crime dramas (Homicide, Frozen River), she was free to showcase her perfect comedic timing. I’m not being over superlative to say that she was the best part of the show. Next comes Stewart, whom I love to hate. I’m not sure why. But this is the first film that I’ve seen her in where I felt like she wasn’t playing herself. She really made an impression and if this is the sort of stuff we can expect out of her, I’ll soon be a fan. Then there was Gandolfini, who can’t do a southern accent to save his live. The script had fun making him a puritanical sort, which made his speech to Mallory about not using the f-word just SO hilarious since we all know him as Tony Soprano. Yes, the irony is that in-your-face. This is certainly standard Sundance fare, especially considering the ending, which is the same ending I’ve seen in three movies so far at the festival. However, after a slow start, it picks up quite niceles. It’s definitely above average, and is both charmingly funny, and will tug at your heartstrings.

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Starring: Kristen Stewart, James Gandolfini, Melissa Leo
Director: Jake Scott