Top 10s abound, but what the hell, its New Year’s Eve and there are mere hours left (in the Western Hemisphere at least) to look back on the year while it’s still here – Happy New Year Australia, N.Z., Japan and much of Asia.
[Related: Mash-Ups, 'Moonrise,' And 'Miami' Connections: Jen Yamato's Top 10 Movie Moments of 2012 and Amy Nicholson's / Top 10 of 2012 / Written In Haiku]
For those trolling the internet Monday and stumble on this list, I hope it’ll spawn more Top 10s. Either in your own mind or better yet – in the comments below. Or even just give your Top 5 or hell… Just your one favorite. Or even your least favorite. Just go for it, don’t be shy.
Below is my ten favorites for 2012. I admit, mine may be loaded with some of the “cold and corny prestige pics and all those ‘respectable’ ‘films’ headed for Oscar gold” as my fab colleague Jen Yamato describes – but there it is…
My favorite, Amour, was also the toughest to watch, but it just stayed with me through the rest of the year after having the privilege to see it for the first time in Cannes last May. I saw it again in December and it stayed with me as my favorite even if I was rather numb walking out of the theater. It is one helluva tough one, but so good. Disagree? Go for it and say why in the comments.
My top 10 follows with an ever so brief comment and a trailer (admittedly, there are still a couple of ‘key’ movies I still need to see). And what were your faves of 2012?
1. Amour – The toughest movie I,…
Full Story »Earlier this week, Funny or Die tried to answer the question I hoped would never get asked this Oscar season: Who had it worse, slaves or poor, single mothers driven into prostitution?
In a clever four-minute video, Samuel L. Jackson (Team Slaves) and Anne Hathaway (Team PSMDIP) campaigned for their respective sides in a “sad-off.” It’s a brilliant bit of movie promotion, with the actors selling their sad, sad movies (Les Misérables and Django Unchained, respectively) through comedy. “My movie is literally called ‘The Miserable,’” throws down Hathaway.
“Women get beaten in my movie,” boasts Jackson.
“Same thing happens in mine,” Hathaway counters.
“Guy gets his head blown off.”
“Same.”
“There’s a man ripped apart by dogs in my movie.” When Hathaway stays quiet, Jackson cackles in triumph.
The two Oscar nominees eventually get into the yuletide spirit by cheerfully agreeing, “Nothing says Christmas like slaves and whores.” That’s cute and all, but it also smartly points out the paradox of the holiday movie season, that magical time of the year when, between maxing out our credit cards and stuffing our faces like it’s the Mayan apocalypse, we dutifully assign ourselves to watch “serious movies” about “important issues.”
There seem to be way more of those this year, from the slavery-themed Django, the plebe-supporting Les Miz, the torture-approving Zero Dark Thirty, the dementia-sympathizing Amour, the insanity-forgiving Silver Linings Playbook, the FEMA-condemning Beasts of the Southern Wild, and the disability-sex-championing The Sessions. Looking at this group of politically weighty films, Salon film critic Andrew O’Hehir stated last week that he’s looking forward to a “meaty” 2013 Oscars because of the “ideological…
Full Story »She’s been a bride with a torn wedding dress in Bachelorette, a voice in animation in Ice Age: Continental Drift and a pitch perfect Fat Amy in, well… Pitch Perfect. And for her next act, Rebel Wilson wants her MTV.
Wilson follows in the footsteps of 2012 host Russell Brand who followed Jason Sudeikis and other past notables like Andy Samberg (2009), Mike Myers (2008), Sarah Silverman (2007) and even Lindsay Lohan (2004).
The Australian-born actress with a name that’s too cool for school has been tapped as the host of the 2013 MTV Movie Awards. The network announced the news during the season finale of Jersey Shore &mdash’ natch! &mdash for the big event taking place Sunday, April 14th.
Get your golden popcorn on! And who will win Best Kiss? Not those vampires again?!?
She gives good candy in this promo:
“Cheater Kristen Wrecking Another Marriage?” was the hilarious question on InTouch Weekly’s cover a month ago when Ben Affleck signed on to star opposite Kristen Stewart in a movie that required them to bump genital guards under bright lights in front of a film crew. InTouch basically said that Jennifer Garner should use a neti pot every day to keep her nostrils clean, because she’s going to need to sniff his dick for the scent of weed-infused saliva when he comes home from the set. But Jennifer Garner doesn’t need to do that anymore, because Ben Affleck dropped out.
Focus was written by the same writers who wrote Crazy Stupid Love and it’s about a con man who falls in love with a con woman and doesn’t know if he should choose her or the con. BLAH. It was supposed to star Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, but right after they quit that bitch, Ben Affleck jumped on. Shortly after Ben Affleck signed on, a thousand “this is like Ben and Blake Lively all over again” jokes came up when Kristen Stewart signed on for the con chick role. Variety says that Ben really wanted to do the movie, but he’s not looking to make Gigli 2 too busy with other projects.
…
Full Story »James Franco said he is unlikely to return to Dawn of the Planet of the Apes following the exit of the sequel’s director Rupert Wyatt.
“I was going to be a small part of the next one,” he told MTV. “There was a moment when Rupert Wyatt was going to direct the second one. A lot of the human characters that were in the first movie were dead in the sequel that Rupert was going to direct…”
Franco said there was an opening for his character to make a return to Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, but changes at the Fox studio made it unlikely he’ll reprise his role.
“There was one scene, between Caesar and my character, maybe even just like on a video that was left behind,” said Franco, adding, “but then a lot of things happened, like [former Fox co-chairman] Tom Rothman who was a big part of the first movie, left. Now Rupert’s not a part of it so I don’t know. My guess is I won’t be in it. Nobody’s talked to me since Rupert left.”
Not that James Franco is in need of things to do. At the upcoming Sundance Film Festival, two of his co-directorial efforts, kink, a documentary about fetish website kink.com and Interior. Leather Bar, described as the “lost 40 minutes from ‘Cruising’ as a starting point to a broader exploration of sexual and creative freedom,” will debut. He is also starring in Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman’s Lovelace at the festival (this will be quite a racy Sundance for Franco apparently). And a quick look at his IMDb page lists about a dozen projects in various stages of completion.
And just to keep things interesting,…
Full Story »Fans stormed London’s Leicester Square to join the revolution on Wednesday night: the world premiere of Les Misérables. The barricades were up, not to hold back National Guardsmen but to restrain fans who who turned up to salute the movie’s lead Hugh Jackman, Londoner (and the movie’s Marius), Eddie Redmayne and the rest of the main cast.
Lovely Ladies Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried and Samantha Barks,who has played Eponine both on stage and, now, on screen, were all smiles as they stalked the red carpet, the dark days of their Parisian revolt a distant dream.
Master of the House, director Tom Hooper, accompanied comrade and legendary theater producer Sir Cameron MacKintoshto the premiere, as well as Russell Crowe, who portrays the saga’s relentless Inspector Javert.
The cast confirmed that the movie’s multi-camera, live-recorded singing made filming more laborious than usual, at times resulting in dozens of takes.
Some malfunctioning mechanical butterflies didn’t help either. Redmayne said that while he and Amanda Seyfried were filming their “A Heart Full of Love” duet, “Tom became obsessed with the stunt butterflies. There were moments where Amanda and I would do these incredibly intense takes of newfound love, and Tom would say, ‘Yeah, it was great, but the butterflies…’”
Barks recalled enduring many sodden takes of singing “On My Own” in the rain. “There was a big rain machine which followed me around for a lot of the film. Sometimes I’d arrive on set and they’d have to hose me down,” she recalled. “After the rain, you get so cold, your teeth start to chatter and they say, ‘We’re picking up on a weird sound, what’s that?’ So…
Full Story »Fans stormed London’s Leicester Square to join the revolution on Wednesday night: the world premiere of Les Misérables. The barricades were up, not to hold back National Guardsmen but to restrain fans who who turned up to salute the movie’s lead Hugh Jackman, Londoner (and the movie’s Marius), Eddie Redmayne and the rest of the main cast.
Lovely Ladies Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried and Samantha Barks,who has played Eponine both on stage and, now, on screen, were all smiles as they stalked the red carpet, the dark days of their Parisian revolt a distant dream.
Master of the House, director Tom Hooper, accompanied comrade and legendary theater producer Sir Cameron MacKintoshto the premiere, as well as Russell Crowe, who portrays the saga’s relentless Inspector Javert.
The cast confirmed that the movie’s multi-camera, live-recorded singing made filming more laborious than usual, at times resulting in dozens of takes.
Some malfunctioning mechanical butterflies didn’t help either. Redmayne said that while he and Amanda Seyfried were filming their “A Heart Full of Love” duet, “Tom became obsessed with the stunt butterflies. There were moments where Amanda and I would do these incredibly intense takes of newfound love, and Tom would say, ‘Yeah, it was great, but the butterflies…’”
Barks recalled enduring many sodden takes of singing “On My Own” in the rain. “There was a big rain machine which followed me around for a lot of the film. Sometimes I’d arrive on set and they’d have to hose me down,” she recalled. “After the rain, you get so cold, your teeth start to chatter and they say, ‘We’re picking up on a weird sound, what’s that?’ So…
Full Story »James Rolfe is the Angry Video Game Nerd, a man who knows how to define a niche. His eponymous online videos have featured on YouTube, ScrewAttack, GameTrailers, Opie & Anthony and Cinemassacre, and for eight years anyone who ever wanted to watch a man get extremely angry while screaming about old video games knew exactly where to go.
And a lot of people did. The series is the textbook — no, the wiki entry — for online viral success. Initially made as a laugh for a few friends, the early videos became YouTube sensations and spawned over a hundred episodes, millions of hits, multiple DVDs, and now the the impossible dream of most online video makers: a full feature film.
It’s another victory for crowd funding. Rolfe asked his fans for $75,000 and quickly quadrupled that goal, then earned some more. And while the movie isn’t expected until 2013, the trailer is out already.
A video game fan who makes movies making a video game fan movie? If this movie was any more perfect for The Player, I’d be filming it. Here are my initial thoughts:
1. Excellent Twist
Early announcements said the plot would feature Atari’s infamous 1982 E.T. release, a game so unpopular that the company is generally believed to have buried millions of the unsold cartridges in the New Mexico desert — not far from Area 51 it turns out — and covered them over in concrete. This made me wince at first because it’s the single most overused “Did you know?” fact recycled by every single gamer who’s just discovered the Internet. But I’m not wincing anymore because that’s the Angry Video Game Nerd’s reaction too! The plot of the movie is that he’s annoyed by all the…
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