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Yahoo! Movies: Five Must-See Movies at the New York Film Festival

October 2, 2012 By Thelma Leave a Comment

(Left) Lee Daniels’ “The Paperboy” with Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron; (Right) Ang Lee’s “Life of Pi” with Suraj Sharma (Photos: Nu Image/20th Century Fox)

The 50th New York Film Festival premieres this Friday with Ang Lee’s “Life of Pi” and closes on Sunday night, October 14, with Robert Zemeckis’s “Flight.” Along the way, it will make a pit stop to honor “The Paperboy” actress Nicole Kidman for refusing to play it safe in her cinema choices, and program director Richard Pena, who is retiring after 25 years. The prestigious festival, held at Manhattan’s Lincoln Center, cherry-picks the best films from  European film festivals like Cannes and Berlin and adds a broad sweep of international films, spiced up with a few star-heavy Oscar hopefuls and unexpected independent finds. Past festivals have led with Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction,” Pedro Almodovar’s “All About My Mother,” and David Fincher’s “The Social Network.”

“Life of Pi”: Oscar-winning director Ang Lee (“Brokeback Mountain”) opens the fest with a daring 3D adaptation of Yann Martel’s magical best-seller about an Indian boy named Pi Patel (newcomer Suraj Sharma) shipwrecked on the Pacific Ocean en route to Canada with a tiger, an orangutan, a hyena, and a zebra. Irrfan Khan (“Slumdog Millionaire”) plays the mature Pi. This is the adventure’s world premiere and it’s rumored that the print will arrive “wet” to the first screening on Friday.

“Frances Ha”: Bedmates Noah Baumbach (“Greenberg”) and Greta Gerwig (“To Rome With Love”) collaborate on a black-and-white comedy that plays like “Annie Hall” as if penned by a woman. Gerwig, who co-wrote the script with Baumbach, stars as Frances, a happy-go-lucky Manhattanite coming to terms with the fact that her dream to be a dancer may fizzle, and that financial instability is only romantic for so long. Gerwig’s writing adds a beneficial lightness that blunts Baumbach’s bitter edge without sacrificing the insight into contemporary Left Coast life. Add in Mickey Sumner (aka the daughter of Sting and Trudie Styler) as Frances’s BFF, and we’ve got a sophisticated “Girls” gone wild without the self-pity.

“The Paperboy”: “Precious” director Lee Daniels goes crazy-town in this much-hyped Southern Gothic about a journalist (Matthew McConaughey), his brother (Zac Efron), a colleague (David Oyelowo), and a felon-lover (Nicole Kidman) trying to free a Florida death-row inmate (John Cusack at his most raggedy). Recalling the scene in “Precious” where Mo’Nique’s vicious mom drops a television on the head of her daughter (Gabourey Sidibe), this overheated thriller is out-there nuts. The scene where Kidman’s older woman urinates on jellyfish-stung swimmer Efron is an instant camp classic.

“Caesar Must Die”: Italy’s pick for this year’s foreign-language Oscar features actual inmates mounting a production of William Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” at Rome’s Rebibbia prison. Concentrated, intense, and largely in black-and-white, this modern look at betrayal, murder, and justice gives life to the text, and meaning to the reality of living life behind bars. From brothers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani (“The Night of the Shooting Stars”), the drama-within-a-drama earned the Golden Berlin Bear at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival.

“Flight”: Director Robert Zemeckis returns to live-action filmmaking for the first time since “Cast Away” in 2000 with a supercharged thriller. Denzel Washington stars as a pilot who makes a daring emergency landing — and then comes under intense scrutiny when it’s revealed he was flying high. The closing-night film makes its world premiere at the New York Film Festival.

Filed Under: Criticism, Movies & TV Tagged With: Caesar Must Die, Denzel Washington, Flight, Frances Ha, Life of Pi, must-see, New York Film Festival, Nicole Kidman, The Paperboy

TIFF Countdown 15 days Movie Trailer “The Paperboy”

August 22, 2012 By Thelma Leave a Comment

I caught a preview of Lee Daniels’ follow-up to “Precious” that’s bound first for Toronto and, now, as part of a gala tribute to Nicole Kidman, a late entry to the New York Film Festival. It’s a stupefying Southern gothic that’s more John Waters (props!) than Tennessee Williams. Zac Efron is so objectified as the title character that Daniels clearly must have been watching “High School Musical” with the sound off. The excellent cast seems to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome: Kidman, Matthew McConaughey, John Cusack, David Oyelowo, Macy Gray. It’s total actor abuse. Either this movie is the sliest intentionally unintentionally funny movie in a long time, or it’s just kitsch. Like passing roadkill on a Southern two-lane highway, you can’t look away:

Filed Under: Movies & TV, Oscar Race Tagged With: Festivals, John Cusack, Lee Daniels, Matthew McConaughey, Nicole Kidman, The Paperboy, TIFF12, Zac Efron

And the Oscar goes to….

February 28, 2011 By Thelma Leave a Comment

2011 Academy Awards,Social Network,King's Speech,True Grit,The Fighter,Black Swan,Melissa Leo

Oscar the Grouch

Here’s the list of winners for the Academy Awards:

Best picture Winner:
“The King’s Speech” (The Weinstein Company), A See-Saw Films and Bedlam Production, Iain Canning, Emile Sherman and Gareth Unwin, Producers

Performance by an actor in a leading role Winner:
Colin Firth in “The King’s Speech” (The Weinstein Company)

Performance by an actor in a supporting role Winner:
Christian Bale in “The Fighter” (Paramount)

Performance by an actress in a leading role Winner:
Natalie Portman in “Black Swan” (Fox Searchlight)

Performance by an actress in a supporting role Winner:
Melissa Leo in “The Fighter” (Paramount)

Best animated feature film of the year Winner:
“Toy Story 3” (Walt Disney), Lee Unkrich [Read more…]

Filed Under: Movies & TV, Oscar Race Tagged With: 127 Hours, Academy Awards, best actor, best actress, best picture, Best Supporting Actor, Best supporting actress, Black Swan, Blue Valentine, Colin Firth, goldderby.com, Inception, James Franco, Melissa Leo, Natalie Portman, Nicole Kidman, Oscars, The Fighter, The Kids Are All Right, The King's Speech, The Social Network, Toy Story 3, True Grit, Winter's Bone

New Racetrack Odds on who’ll win the oscars

February 24, 2011 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Oscar,Predictions,Academy Awards 2011,Winners,Movies

By Gold Derby News Desk

Jan 26 2011 | 18:57 pm

Here are the latest racetrack odds on the top Academy Academy contests based upon the Oscar predictions of our team of experts from leading media. Click HERE to see their forecasts in all 24 categories

BEST PICTURE
“The King’s Speech” – 2/5
“The Social Network” – 4/1
“The Fighter” – 20/1
“True Grit” – 25/1
“Black Swan” – 40/1
“Inception” – 50/1
“Toy Story 3” – 80/1
“The Kids Are All Right” – 85/1
“127 Hours” – 90/1
“Winter’s Bone” – 100/1 [Read more…]

Filed Under: Movies & TV, Oscar Race Tagged With: 127 Hours, best actor, best actress, best picture, Best Supporting Actor, Best supporting actress, Black Swan, Blue Valentine, Colin Firth, goldderby.com, Inception, James Franco, Melissa Leo, Natalie Portman, Nicole Kidman, Oscars, The Fighter, The Kids Are All Right, The King's Speech, The Social Network, The Town, Tom O'Neil, Toy Story 3, True Grit, Winter's Bone

Goldderby.com Oscar predictions from top experts

February 23, 2011 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Oscar,Predictions,Academy Awards 2011,Winners,Movies

Here are the latest Oscar predictions from these top experts: Thelma Adams (Us Weekly, Thelmadams.com), Brooke Anderson (CNN), Tim Appelo (Hollywood Reporter), Erik Davis (Cinematical), Scott Feinberg (ScottFeinberg.com), Pete Hammond (Deadline Hollywood), Tariq Khan (Fox News), Joseph Kapsch (Zap2It), Dave Karger (Entertainment Weekly), Peter Knegt (Indiewire), Kevin Lewin (WENN), Guy Lodge (In Contention), Michael Musto (Village Voice), Tom O’Neil (Gold Derby, The Envelope), Kevin Polowy (NextMovie), Steve Pond (The Odds, The Wrap), Paul Sheehan (Gold Derby), Keith Simanton (IMDB), Sasha Stone (Awards Daily), Kris Tapley (In Contention), Anne Thompson (IndieWire)  Bob Tourtellotte (Reuters), Peter Travers (Rolling Stone), Stu Van Airsdale (Movielie),Chuck Walton (Fandango), Jeffrey Wells (Hollywood-Elsewhere), Susan Wloszczyna (USA Today).

Click HERE to see the racetrack odds based upon these predictions. Click HERE to see how our pundits fared predicting nominations. (Congrats to Steve Pond for leading the way!)

BEST PICTURE
“Black Swan”
“The Fighter”
“Inception” — Simanton
“The Kids Are All Right”
“The King’s Speech” — Adams, Anderson, Appelo, Feinberg, Hammond, Karger, Khan, Knegt, Lewin, Lodge, Musto, O’Neil, Pond, Sheehan, Tapley, Thompson, Tourtellotte, Van Airsdale, Walton, Wloszczyna
“127 Hours”
“The Social Network” — Davis, Kapsch, Polowy, Stone, Travers, Wells
“Toy Story 3”
“True Grit”
“Winter’s Bone”

BEST DIRECTOR
Darren Aronofsky, “Black Swan”
David O. Russell, “The Fighter”
Tom Hooper, “The King’s Speech” — Adams, Anderson, Ebert, Feinberg, Musto, Pond, Tapley, Van Airsdale, Walton, Wloszczyna
David Fincher, “The Social Network” — Appelo, Davis, Hammond, Kapsch, Karger, Khan, Knegt, Lewin, Lodge, O’Neil, Polowy, Simanton, Stone, Thompson, Tourtellotte, Travers, Wells
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, “True Grit” [Read more…]

Filed Under: Movies & TV, Oscar Race Tagged With: 127 Hours, best actor, best actress, best picture, Best Supporting Actor, Best supporting actress, Black Swan, Blue Valentine, Colin Firth, goldderby.com, Inception, James Franco, Natalie Portman, Nicole Kidman, Oscars, The Fighter, The King's Speech, The Social Network, The Town, Tom O'Neil, Toy Story 3, True Grit, Winter's Bone

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