Predictions: The 84th Academy Awards

@speedrocketENT
 

Best Picture
Scott: The Artist (Midnight in Paris)
Aaron: The Artist (Midnight in Paris)
Best Actor
Scott: Jean Dujardin (Gary Oldman)
Aaron: George Clooney (Jean Dujardin)
Best Actress
Scott: Glenn Close (Rooney Mara)
Aaron: Meryl Streep (Viola Davis)
Best Supporting Actor
Scott: Nick Nolte (Christopher Plummer)
Aaron: Christopher Plummer (Christopher Plummer)

Best Supporting Actress
Scott: Bérénice Bejo (Melissa McCarthy)
Aaron: Bérénice Bejo (Jessica Chastain)
Best Director
Scott: Martin Scorsese (Woody Allen)
Aaron: Terrence Malick (Woody Allen)
Animated Film
Scott: Rango
Aaron: A Cat in Paris
Art Direction
Scott / Aaron: The Artist

Cinematography
Scott / Aaron: The Tree Of Life
Costume Design
Scott: The Artist
Aaron: Anonymous
Documentary
Scott / Aaron: Hell and Back Again

Short Doc
Scott: The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom
Aaron: Incident in New Baghdad
Film Editing
Scott / Aaron: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Foreign Language Film
Scott: Bullhead
Aaron: In Darkness
Makeup
Scott / Aaron: Albert Nobbs
Music
Scott: War Horse
Aaron: The Artist
Original Song
Scott / Aaron: “Man or a Muppet” The Muppets
Animated Short
Scott: The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
Aaron: La Luna
Live Action Short
Scott: Raju
Aaron: The Shore
Sound Editing
Scott: Drive
Aaron: Transformers
Sound Mixing
Scott / Aaron: Transformers
Visual Effects
Scott / Aaron: Planet of the Apes
Writing (Adapted)
Scott: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Aaron: Hugo
Writing (Original)
Scott: Midnight in Paris
Aaron: A Separation

TAKE AWAY THOUGHT: Watch for our second podcast to see who wins our Oscar showdown as well as the results of our All-Snubbed Oscar poll.

Film Review: The Adventures of Tin Tin (2011)

By Scott Jeffrey

CG graphics have come a long way in feature length animated films since the first Toy Story. We can really see how far we have come with technology in regards to CG when watching Steven Spielberg's, The Adventures of Tin Tin.

The visuals in this film are absolutely staggering. Sometimes when looking at a scene and seeing how perfectly characters vocals are in sync with natural facial movements and how well the textures are done, while still keeping the iconic look of the original Tin Tin art style intact. This direct comparison between the art of the past and present is shown in the first 5 minutes of the film, where the scene opens with Tin Tin getting a caricature sketch done at a local market. The artist then compares the older cartoon Tin Tin with the newly rendered digital Tin Tin of 2012. How far we have come indeed.

The plot begins with Tin Tin (Jamie Bell), a famous reporter, purchasing a model ship at the very same market. From there he is thrust into a whirlwind adventure, where many buyers including a mysterious Mr. Sakharine (Daniel Craig) set out to purchase or steal the model of the ship known as “The Unicorn” out from under the intrepid investigator. This leads Sakharine to the point of kidnapping Tin Tin and taking him on board his tanker steaming towards Morocco to solve the mystery of The Unicorn, a wreck said to house great riches.

Tin Tin escapes from the cargo hold with the help of his dog snowy. Crawling up decks he manages to meet the drunken Captain Haddock (Andy Serkins). Haddock is the owner of the boat and his crew was bribed into mutiny by Sakharine. 

Turns out Haddock is the heir of the captain of The Unicorn and knows the true story of why the ship was scuttled. Tin Tin and Haddock race against Sakharine to capture all the pieces of the puzzle before it is too late. The treasure of The Unicorn cannot fall into the wrong hands. Bumbling Interpol agents, The Thomson Twins (Simon Pegg, Nick Frost) lend a hand when they can.

The story is pretty good. I wouldn’t recommend Tin Tin For young kids. Haddock is a functioning alcoholic and seems to treat it like Popeye treats spinach. The action doesn’t really let up either. There is also a fair amount of gunfire and violence. It does make it very interesting for mom and dad to see an actual plot and action in an animated film, but don’t be fooled by the exterior. I wouldn’t show this to an 8 year old.

Nick Frost and Simon Pegg are excellent as Thomson and Thomson. Watching them bumble around the case brought me right back to the Tin Tin animated series on television. They are frustratingly stupid and its very comical.

I can`t decide if Craig plays a good villain or if his spooky foreign accent makes me cower or giggle. You can tell it is Daniel Craig Voicing Sakharine, but just barely.

The visuals are amazing, and the action scenes would be spectacular on blu ray with a surround sound system. There are plenty of action scenes to speak of this film does not have many dull moments to speak of.

The score was excellent as well. But it was John Williams so what do you expect. I am glad they kept it classical and didn’t try and bring in any popular hit music, it would have really cheapened the film.

Score: 8/10

Acting: 7/10

Effects/Visual: 9/10

Writing: 8/10

Directing: 7/10

Overall: 39/50

Take Away thought: I would recommend seeing this film. It has some memorable action scenes and if you are a fan of the Tin Tin show or comic book you really need to see it just to relive the adventure. 

FILM REVIEW: Chronicle (2012)

By Aaron Jankowski

Chronicle is the perfect bastard son of three of Hollywood’s flavors of the month right now: origin stories, superheroes and found footage style films.

This doesn’t mean it is a bad thing. Heck, I love a good superhero/origin story (See X-Men: First Class). Though, I am not a fan of found footage. Like all styles, it can be used effectively and creatively. However, I find it is mostly used in the exact same way and it lends itself to lazy editing and awkward “real talk” dialogue that sounds so forced in its attempt to be natural it’s painful.

Chronicle, directed by Josh Trank and written by Max Landis, falls prey to the trap of trying to sound real and failing, causing a lot of the interactions to come off as well as those acting troupes that go to high schools and do mandatory attendance plays about saying no to drugs, and not making the sex without a condom.

This not to say that Landis’s story is not a good one, or even that Trank executed it poorly. I loved Chronicle’s story, and though some of the character development was seemingly written paint-by-numbers style, it worked. We believe the characters.

Chronicle jumps right into letting us know everything is not alright with Andrew Detmer (played by Dane DeHaan). His father is an alcoholic and abusive and his mother is very ill. Because of this, Andrew retreats from life and hides behind a camera, vowing to film everything from here on out, because it makes him “safe.”

This is a little weak of a set up, but it gives an excuse for why the revolution that is coming will be televised.

Andrew, camera in hand, goes to a party with his cousin and bona fide cool guy, Matt Garetty (played by Alex Russell). Matt hangs out with Andrew, and tries to involve him in social activities because they are cousins, but he knows Andrew is an outcast and just does not fit in.

At the party, we are introduced to a character that has a vlog, and thus, is filming everything also. She is basically a means of giving us more depth into the characters when Andrew isn’t around.

The party also serves to show us, Andrew does not fit in. He gets picked on, abused and insulted.

As the night grows old, and Andrew as resided himself to hanging out outside and crying, Steve Montgomery (Michael B. Jordan), the all-around loveable high school athlete / class president / popular guys, comes and gets Andrew to join him and Matt in exploring a hole in the ground they discovered.

Long story short, what they find in the hole gives them telekinetic powers. Some may be angry that Landis does not explain what exactly happened, but the who why and hows don’t actually matter in this story. The film is not about how they get the powers, but what these young men do with it when they have it.

At first, the powers bond the three boys, as they become close exploring their powers together. Had this not been a found footage film, we would be treated to a montage of them lifting objects with their minds, throwing baseballs and all sorts of general tomfoolery. But it is found footage. So instead, we sit through each of these things as their own half hearted full length scenes. (I never thought I would be advocating for a montage!)

Chronicle, though it has a good story, holds no surprises. The two already popular boys can handle their powers, but Andrew, the poor loner who has been picked on, beaten and bruised by everyone, takes his new found power with a chip on his shoulder.

The visual effects in Chronicle were excellent. When I saw the trailer which had Andrew crushing a car, I figured that was the big budget effect. Their load was blown. But I was dead wrong. I have never seen a found footage movie with such good effects. Trunk managed to infuse the film with a lot of excellent action scenes.

All in all, Chronicle left me wanting more. Much more. And not only because it is a ridiculously short 84min film, but because the story had so much potential it never reached.

With great power comes great responsibility. If only with a great story came a great movie.

SCORE: 4/10
ACTING: 5/10
EFFECTS/VISUAL: 9/10
WRITING: 6/10
DIRECTING: 7/10
OVERALL: 31/50

TAKE AWAY THOUGHT: I wish Hollywood would use one more of its favorite tricks right now, and do a gritty reboot of this story in the next few years. This story had so much potential, but I think the found footage style acted as a governor for the film, stopping it from hitting full speed.

Scott's Take: Pathetic, cinematic wank. 

Film Review: Haywire (2011)

By Aaron Jankowski

Haywire is the beginning of something beautiful.

Though, it is a very rough, sometimes painful beginning to say the least. Haywire is most definitely the beginning of a promising new action hero career for Gina Carano.

Written by Lem Dobbs and directed by Steven Soderbergh, Haywire is an action movie in the vein of the Jason Bourne franchise. No, there is no memory loss involved (in spite of the audience’s presumable will to forget they paid for this.)

Mallory, played by acting newcomer and MMA fighter Carano, is a top notch mercenary working for a private contractor. I am sure you can guess the rest, but I’ll lay it out for you anyways. 

Mallory has been double crossed by her boss and is hell bound to find out why. We are then sent on a 90 min spree of dodging the police, fighting and not a lot of character development.

The movie opens with Mallory waiting for her boss, Kenneth, played by Ewan McGregor, in a coffee shop. Instead of Kenneth, she is met by another one of Kenneth’s mercenaries, Aaron, played by Channing Tatum.

What we get here is our first look at Carano’s acting, but more importantly, our first look at what we all came to see – her kick some ass.

After getting into a fight with Aaron, Mallory escapes the scene with the help of a bystander and his car. Mallory uses the young man as a sounding board as she tells him what has happened to her leading up to the meeting. When Mallory tells her story to the young man, we get to see what happened, as the films timeline jumps from her mission in Barcelona, where she was to save a hostage, to a mission in Dublin where she runs into another mercenary, played by Michael Fassbender, up until the present.

Haywire plays out much the way you would imagine it would. 

There are government agents trying to cut deals to catch the bigger fish, sexual and romantic motives and lots of killing.

The fights in Haywire are exceptional. They may take a second to get used to because they are not at all as stylized as a lot of fights in films today. Instead, they are very technical and determined. One of the best decisions made in this film was to cut the music during Carano’s bouts. This adds more impact to the sound of flesh on flesh and makes the battles feel rawer and almost uncomfortable, as if the fight had really broken out right in front of you. Her background in MMA is obvious as she brings a lot of grabs and takedowns to the fights. This combination makes Haywire’s bouts like no others I’ve seen in a while.

Though the lack of score helped accent the violence in the movie, the music’s presence throughout the movie is awkward. 

It is very bass driven and all sounds like it is a rock version of classic porn grooves. The constant driving bass gives every scene the same amount of urgency which I do not think was intended.

Haywire wasn’t filmed the way most action movies are either. 

Soderbergh used a lot of odd angles and obscured shots to capture the characters when they were speaking, then sat back at a comfortable distance and just watched as they fought. It was a relief to not have the camera jumping all over the place as you were trying to get engaged in both the dialogue and the violence.

It would appear the idea for Haywire was to surround Carano with great actors (which they did, the cast boasts not only McGregor and Fassbender, but Michael Douglas and Antonio Banderas) in hopes they could help rise the newcomers abilities. However, as the adage goes, you are only as strong as your weakest link, and Carano was the weakest link, as to be expected.

But with a typical action movie script, full of cheese and cliché, no one was going to come out of Haywire with any awards or high praise.

That said, Carano showed she knew what she was doing, and I would not be surprised to see her again, and soon.

SCORE: 4/10
ACTING: 6/10
EFFECTS/VISUAL: 6/10
WRITING:5/10
DIRECTING: 8/10
OVERALL: 29/50

TAKE AWAY THOUGHT: Haywire has a major saving grace in not taking itself too seriously. Because of this, there are a few genuine laughs which come as a major surprise. I recommend seeing this movie on DVD simply so you can say you were there when Gina Carano, Hollywood’s newest action hero, was born.

POLL: The Best of the Rest

@speedrocketENT

Best Picture:

Drive

Shame

The Ides of March

J. Edgar

Bridesmaids

Best Actor:

Ryan Gosling (Drive)

Michael Fassbender (Shame)

Leonardo DiCaprio (J. Edgar)

Clive Owen (Trust)

Mel Gibson (The Beaver)

Best Supporting Actor:

Patton Oswalt (Young Adult)

Phillip Seymour-Hoffman (The Ides of March)

Albert Brooks (Drive)

George Clooney (The Ides of March)

Andy Serkis (Rise of the Planet of the Apes)

Best Actress:

Tilda Swinton (We Need To Talk About Kevin)
Charlize Theron (Young Adult)

Kristen Wiig (Bridesmaids)

Elizabeth Olsen (Martha Marcy May Marlene)

Kirsten Dunst (Melancholia)

Best Supporting Actress:

Carey Mulligan (Shame)

Shailene Woodley (The Descendants)

Emma Stone (The Help)

Elle Fanning (We Bought a Zoo)

Keira Knightley (A Dangerous Method)

Take Away Thought: Vote for who you think should win each category here in the comment section, on our Twitter page, or on Facebook! We will be giving out the results, as well as our own picks the weekend of the Academy Awards (Feb. 26).

Film Review: Midnight In Paris (2011)

By Aaron Jankowski

If you don’t fall in love with Midnight in Paris during it’s beautiful opening montage, then this romantic take on the city of Paris and love may not be for you.

The first four minutes of Midnight in Paris, written and directed by Woody Allen, opens with a montage of scenes of Paris with classic French music playing. These are probably some of the most beautiful moments of this well shot film. What follows are the opening credits on a black screen with just a conversation between Gil (Owen Wilson), a screen play writer turned struggling novelist, and his fiancée, Inez (Rachel McAdams). Gil reveals his love for Paris, especially in the rain, while Inez expresses her lack of interest in the town and its history.

This slight difference in philosophy lays the ground work for the films main conflict. Gil and Inez don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, mainly, their mutual friend Paul (Michael Sheen) who is a know it all and is constantly undermining all of Gil’s opinions. Paul and Inez also have a connection Gil and her seem to be lacking.

Inez calls Gil “a complete romantic,” and admires Paul’s pure intellect. Her interactions with Paul make Gil feel uncomfortable, so after a wine tasting, of which Paul is an expert, when Paul, his wife, and Inez want to go dancing, Gil decides to walk back to the hotel on his own.

It is on his first walk alone though Paris where he gets lost. Finally giving up, he sits down and waits for someone to come by to give him directions.

When the clock strikes midnight, and the bells ring out, an old car comes by Gil, and its passengers insist he joins them.

This is where the movie takes a twist I was not expecting.

Gil is driven to a local bar, though everyone is dressed in classic garb. The music is classic French love songs. Everything just feels a little off.

This is where Gil meets F. Scott Fitzgerald, the American novelist who died in the 40s. Gil thinks these people are playing a joke on him, though, when they go to another bar, and they meet Ernest Hemingway, Gil, like the audience, slowly accepts that somehow he is in the past. Taking advantage, Gil asks if Hemingway will read his novel, and he agrees to give it to Gertrude Stein.

When Gil leaves the bar to get his manuscript, he realizes it is no longer there, he goes back the next night to see if perhaps his evening spent with his literary heroes was fuelled by the wine tasting, or a divine miracle.

When the clock hits midnight, the same cab comes to pick Gil up, and he is once again transported into this wonderful world of old.

From here out, Gil writes during the day, and goes for midnight walks at night “to clear his head,” he tells Inez.

Each time Gil goes back, he is around some of the same people, though the year seems to change. One consistent though is Adriana (Marion Cotillard) with whom Gil is infatuated. Thus begins Gil’s intellectual affair on Inez with a women from the 20s.

Adriana is always with one famous person or another, thus making her unattainable both by status, and the time she lives in.

Allen does not explain why or how Gil and Adriana are jumping through time together. Instead, simply presents it as a fact. This allows the audience to just accept this as fact and enjoy the takes on famous artist such as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and T.S. Eliot.

Midnight in Paris’s score is beautiful classic French music, blended with 20’s love songs, and it guides Gil’s trip though the classic Paris he yearned to live in perfectly.

Wilson is perfect in his role as he deals with being completely star struck, yet trying to hold his own with his heroes. Though, saying Wilson is perfect in the role is not the same as saying he was anything different than we normally get from him. Wilson has the ability to almost be the same everyman in any scenario, which is perfect when placed with the over educated, know it all of Paul, and the historical figures he meets.

Sheen, as always, is excellent. The true mark of this is how annoying he gets, and how annoyed the audience will get with McAdams always agreeing with him.

Midnight in Paris shows a train wreck of a relationship, though it is an incredibly slow acting crash.

Allen’s script is witty and fun, while sadness looms just under the surface.

It is no surprise that Midnight in Paris was nominated for Best Picture, though I would be surprised if it won.

SCORE: 10/10

ACTING: 9/10

EFFECTS/VISUAL: 9/10

WRITING: 9/10

DIRECTING: 8/10

OVERALL: 45/50

TAKE AWAY THOUGHT: My first thought, about half an hour into Midnight in Paris, was “damn you Woody.” I’ve never been a fan of his work, and yet this has become one of my favourite movies, not just of his, but of all-time.

Film Review: The Big Year (2011)

By Scott Jeffrey

Steve Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson all in a film together. With a supporting cast including Rashida Jones and Anjelica Huston. It's like a comedic wet dream. The nightmare comes when you hear the plot summary.

The Big Year is a story about a group of avid birders who set aside their personal lives in order to compete in an annual competition to see the most number of bird species in North America. Kenny Bostik (Wilson) Is the current record holder, going out to try and best his own world record.

Brad Harris (Black) is a perpetual loser stuck in a dead end job with an absolute knack for birding, he can tell any bird species only by the call. He decides to set out and spend most of his life savings on topping Bostiks record for a big year. During his quest he meets another avid birder Ellie (Jones) and falls head over heels in love.

Stu Pressler (Martin) is a business CEO who is finally retiring in order to complete his big year. His job, his family and his new grandson are keeping him from focusing entirely on his task.

The competition runs on the honor system, Bostik is accused of cheating and a bitter rivalry forms between these three birders, with alliances made and broken to further each character’s progress toward the world record.

Sorry to say but it is very difficult for me to get excited about birding in the first place. This is the sort of past time that is believable for Martin, but I would find it quite odd to see the other two characters so passionate about this sort of hobby without being in a science career.

The plot is predictable, a bit zany at times but unfortunately the script does not utilize the comedic talent they have on hand. Black doesn’t dance or "rigga goo goo", or any of his usual shtick. Instead he has to rely on his acting chops which aren’t exactly top notch.

I was excited to see Steve Martin in a film but even he seems to be tethered by the script.

Owen Wilson is the same damn character he always plays.

The one part that was a bit cool was the birds they made for this. They are CG and obvious about it, but it gives you something at least interesting to look at.

The soundtrack was alright but only for using the Eels song “I like Birds”.

Score: 5/10
Acting: 3/10
Effects/Visual: 5/10
Writing: 3/10
Directing: 5/10

Overall: 21/50

Take Away Thought: This one is best enjoyed by the elderly or by avid birders. There is nothing in this film that wouldn't appear on the Wonderful World of Disney. Pick it up at your Local Library if you must. Do not spend a dime on this.