This week I found myself unsure of what theme to take on for my Top Ten list.  I was struggling to find 10 movies that would match a theme for Clash of the Titans due to my cinematic blind spots and I started to brainstorm ideas that would match this weekend.  I actually even considered making a Top Ten April Fools Pranks (either in film or online across the blogosphere that happened yesterday).  Then this morning I was reminded that it’s Good Friday. Read the full story

Films constantly get made that are cruel, ugly, and downright bad. The Informers unfortunately falls right into this infamous category. It is an adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s (American Psycho) novel of the same name, dealing with interweaving stories and cruel people. This isn’t a “it’s so bad it’s good” type of movie, it truly has no redeeming qualities.

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By Jordan Raup

We’ve come a long way since Nanook of the North, the first full-length feature documentary. Flaherty’s 1922 look at Inuk life was a revolutionary staple in cinema, pushing romanticism to the its fullest potential at that time. Almost 90 years later we have Earth, one of the most beautiful cinematic achievements I have witnessed and also the most expensive documentary film ever made with a $47 million budget. The film is based off the popular BBC/Discovery series, Planet Earth. It uses many of the same spectacular scenes from the show, condensed for film.

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By Jordan Raup

Jody Hill’s directorial debut, The Foot-Fist Way, features Danny McBride as a struggling karate instructor trying to work out some serious issues in his life. Hill’s most recent feature, Observe and Report, takes that basic concept, replacing McBride with Rogen and karate with mall copping and manages to take it to a whole other level. That level includes rape, murder, vomit, serious drug addiction, and extended full frontal nudity (not the good kind). For the majority of film-goers this will not be funny and actually be rightfully offensive. The minority, equally surprised this film was ever made by a major studio, will experience a unique moment in cinema.

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With an apparent (and certainly limited) U.S. release of this film finally coming on March 13th, here’s a little diddy about The Edge of Love, directed by John Maybury (The Jacket) and starring Keira Knightley, Sienna Miller, Cillian Murphy and Matthew Rhys.

Here’s a link to the film’s website and a trailer of the film.

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The Academy Awards start tonight at 8pm EST. Here are our predictions. Check out the full list of nominees here.

Best Picture

Will Win: Slumdog Millionaire

Should Win: Slumdog Millionaire

Best Actor

Will Win: Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler

Should Win: Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler

Best Actress

Will Win: Kate Winslet in The Reader

Should Win: Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married

Check out the rest of the predictions >>

Remember that time when you were sitting around talking movies with a few friends, and then suddenly that movie comes into the dialogue? You know, that movie. It’s the movie that the rest of your cohorts begin to laud or defame as either a “cinematic milestone” or “hugely overrated,” while you sit there, clueless, and soak up their opinions because you’re supposed to have seen it. Well no worries, we’ve all got that movie, if not more, and what follows is a dedication to those movie buffs who are a bit too proud to admit that they’re not as up on the coveted classic film canon as most would expect. On the other hand, you could just be one of many average film goers who couldn’t care less what movie snobs said if you hadn’t seen a film, and that’s just peachy too.

In no particular order:

Citizen Kane (1941): First off, I’ll admit that this film’s presence on this list is entirely dependent on the kind of film goer you are. One might not lie about having seen this film if attending (or having attended) film school, or any film class for that matter, simply because there’s an extremely high probability that they’ll wind up seeing it in that environment at some point or another. However, given the film’s legendary status among most other movie buffs, there also exists a rather high probability that anyone who hasn’t seen it wouldn’t like to admit otherwise.

Check out the rest of the list >>

By Dan Mecca

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been watching these clips Warner Bros. have been putting out, and the whole thing’s just not registering with me. Having read the graphic novel (very recently), I am still reeling from the effects caused by what Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons offer the reader throughout the entire narrative, up to and most definitely including the brilliant finale. By book’s end, there is so much to consider and think about; so much to discuss with your friends.

And why? Because the picture the novel paints, literally (and psychologically), is so vivid and real that it forces the reader to take Watchmen seriously.

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(cast at Golden Globes, after they won Best Pic, Director, Screenplay)

Thanks to Awards Daily here are the winners of tonight’s Screen Actor’s Guild awards:

Film
Ensemble Cast: Slumdog Millionaire
Lead Actress: Meryl Streep, Doubt
Lead Actor: Sean Penn, Milk
Supporting Actress: Kate Winslet, The Reader
Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight

Lifetime Achievement Award: James Earl Jones

Television
Lead Actress, Comedy Series: Tina Fey, 30 Rock
Lead Actor, Comedy Series: Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock
Ensemble Cast, Comedy Series: 30 Rock
Lead Acress, Drama Series: Sally Field, Brothers & Sisters
Lead Actor, Drama Series: Hugh Laurie, House
Ensemble Cast, Drama Series: Mad Men
Lead Actress, Miniseries: Laura Linney, John Adams
Lead Actor, Miniseries: Paul Giamatti, John Adams

Here are the results of the Producer Guild Award yesterday:

Film – Slumdog Millionaire
Animated – Wall-E
Documentary – Man on Wire
TV miniseries – John Adams
TV comedy – 30 Rock
TV Drama – Mad Men

Go Slumdog! I wonder if Penn will upset Rourke at the Oscars as well. What do you think of the winner?

AICN’ s Quint [via /Film] is at The Santa Barbara Film Festival where director Andrew Stanton (Wall-E) had some more to say about his upcoming film John Carter of Mars:

• Yes, his John Carter will be a Civil War soldier. No fanbase-rattling updates into the modern day here. Presumably still a Johnny Reb – but that wasn’t confirmed and political sensitivity may just curb this.
• He hasn’t got the same kind of development and pre-production time for this film that he’d be afforded on a Pixar production, but he has been a fan since he was a kid and has therefore had plenty of ideas percolating for decades. I could say the same about a few books myself and, actually, there are definitely a few key scenes from literature that I’ve planned, filmed and edited in my imagination over and over, so I know exactly where he’s coming from.
• Not wanting his film to look or feel like Star Wars or any of it’s derivatives, Stanton is taking on a more naturalistic aesthetic here. He said that the film would be akin to what we’d see should a National Geographic stumble across a long lost civilisation in a cave – not unlike some of what Peter Jackson said about his Lord of the Rings films, in fact. More evidence that Rings is now a key genre paradigm just how Star Wars was for so long.
• The second draft of the script is now complete.
• Stanton doesn’t want to shoot in 3D, though he feels Disney may try to push him in that direction.

The plot of John Carter of Mars follows Civil War vet John Carter who is transplanted to Mars. He discovers a lush, wildly diverse planet whose main inhabitants are 12-foot tall green barbarians. Finding himself a prisoner of these creatures, he escapes, only to encounter Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, who is in desperate need of a savior.

The story sounds great and with Stanton as the director I have no doubts. I just really have no idea what to expect. I can’t wait to get more info.

What do you think of John Carter of Mars?