Release: February 3, 2012 Director: Josh Trank Writer: Max Landis, Josh Trank Cast: Dane DeHaan, Michael B. Jordan, Alex Russell, Michael Kelly
Synopsis: Three high school students make an incredible discovery, leading to them developing uncanny powers beyond their understanding. As they learn to control their abilities, and use them to their advantage, their lives start to spin out of control, and their darker sides begin to take over.
Director: Tim Story Writer: Keith Merryman, David A. Newman Cast: Michael Ealy, Jerry Ferrara, Meagan Good, Regina Hall, Kevin Hart, Taraji P. Henson, Terrance J, Romany Malco, Gary Owen, Gabrielle Union, Lala Vazquez, Arielle Kebbel
Four friends conspire to turn the tables on their women when they discover the ladies have been using Steve Harvey's relationship advice against them.
Director: James McTeigue Writer: Ben Livingston, Hannah Shakespeare Cast: John Cusack, Luke Evans, Alice Eve, Brendan Gleeson, Oliver Jackson-Cohen
Synopsis: In this gritty thriller, Edgar Allan Poe (John Cusack) joins forces with a young Baltimore detective (Luke Evans) to hunt down a mad serial killer who's using Poe's own works as the basis in a string of brutal murders. Directed by James McTeigue, the film also stars Alice Eve, Brendan Gleeson and Oliver Jackson-Cohen. When a mother and daughter are found brutally murdered in 19th century Baltimore, Detective Emmett Fields (Luke Evans) makes a startling discovery: the crime resembles a fictional murder described in gory detail in the local newspaper--part of a collection of stories penned by struggling writer and social pariah Edgar Allan Poe. But even as Poe is questioned by police, another grisly murder occurs, also inspired by a popular Poe story. Realizing a serial killer is on the loose using Poe's writings as the backdrop for his bloody rampage, Fields enlists the author's help in stopping the attacks. But when it appears someone close to Poe may become the murderer's next victim, the stakes become even higher and the inventor of the detective story calls on his own powers of deduction to try to solve the case before it's too late.
Director: Tony Kaye Writer: Carl Lund Cast: Adrien Brody, Bryan Cranston, Christina Hendricks, Lucy Liu, James Caan, Marcia Gay Harden, Blythe Danner, William Petersen, Tim Blake Nelson, Betty Kaye, Sami Gayle
Synopsis: Detachment is a chronicle of three weeks in the lives of several high school teachers, administrators and students through the eyes of a substitute teacher named Henry Barthes. Henry roams from school to school, imparting modes of knowledge, but never staying long enough to form any semblance of sentient attachment. A perfect profession for one seeking to hide out in the open. One day Henry arrives at his next assignment. Upon his entry into this particular school, a secret world of emotion is awakened within him by three women. A girl named Meredith in his first period. A fellow teacher Ms. Madison, and a street hooker named Erica, whom Henry has personally granted brief shelter from the streets. Each one of these women, like Henry, are in a life and death struggle to find beauty in a seemingly vicious and loveless world.
It's time for my annual tradition going back all the way to when I first stared developing my online presence oh so many years ago. Oscar nominations were announced today, so that means it's time to roll out my Oscar picks!
I'm feeling kind of guilty looking forward to this year's Oscars when I still have to catch up on last year's Oscar winners. I've been saying for a whole year now that I'm going to kill a Sunday afternoon by heading down to the video store and renting The King's Speech and Black Swan. I've still got time...hopefully before this year's ceremony.
Now, for those who might be new here, I've always done my Oscar picks a little bit different. Best Director? Best Actor? Best Screenplay? Pfft! You're going to be flooded with those predictions in the media between now and when the big show is on TV on February 26. Instead, I tend to focus on some of the smaller awards that I tend to geek out over. And those two awards: Best Visual Effects and Best Original Song.
My Thoughts: Hugo has been getting lots of love for it's imaginative use of 3D effects. Real Steel has ass-kicking giant robots. But the one that everyone is raving about is Rise of the Planets of the Apes, where virtually all of the apes were done with performance capture animation.
My Predictions: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Best Original Song
Hey! Thanks to YouTube, I can post the nominations! The nominees are:
My Thoughts: Wow. Only 2 nominations in this category this year? I have no idea how this category works. Help me Wikipedia...OK. Apparently, eligible songs are ranked on a scale from 6 to 10, and to get a nomination, you have to get higher than 8.5. And these are the only songs that scored higher than 8.5 this year. Bit of a surprise with The Muppets...everyone knew it would score at least one nomination, but everyone thought that one nomination would be the film's opener "Life's a Happy Song." Either way, everybody loved the songs in The Muppets...this is their category to lose.
My Prediction: Man or Muppet
Best Animated Film
Threw this one into the mix when the category was created 10 years ago because I do so love animated films. As I've blogged before, there was a time in my life when I'd run out to the theatre and see every animated film that came out, but I stopped doing that when every animated film became talking animals making pop culture references. Which talking animals will be honour this year? The nominees are:
My Thoughts: For the first time since this category's inception, Pixar doesn't get a nomination. That's what you get for making Cars 2! Oh, well. Pixar still gets some love, though, as their short film La Lunagot nominated for Best Animated Short Film. (La Luna made the rounds on the film festival circuit last year...it's going to be in front of Brave this summer.) As always, there's a couple of art house picks that have people scratching their heads. A Cat in Paris is a French animated film, about a little girl and her cat solving a mystery on a warm Paris evening, and Chico and Rita is a Spanish/UK co-production about two gifted musicians in the 1940s and 50s as they bounce around from Havana, New York, Vegas, and Paris as they try to achieve their dreams. There's some controversy that The Adventures of Tintindidn't get nominated, once again sparking debate as to whether performance capture counts as true animation. And Rango made the list as expected. I know Rango got a lot of love, both commercially and critically, but when I finally saw it I found it fairly typical and didn't see what all the fuss was about. But because of all that love, it's the frontrunner.
My Prediction: Rango
Best Picture
Well, enough of my hipster Oscar predictions, I guess I should do at least one mainstream one, so why not the biggest one of them all? I really have no idea how this category works anymore. It used to be just 5 nominations. Then, a couple years ago, they expanded it to 10 to try to include more mainstream films and less art house picks that no one had heard of. This year, they're trying a new system where a film has to get a certain number of points to qualify, and there'll be as many nominations as there needs to be. 9 nominees this year, and they are....
My Thoughts: Well, the whole point of doing this was to allow more mainstream films, and we can see that here. The Help was getting a lot of Oscar buzz when it became the sleeper hit of the end of summer. However, with the Golden Globes and all the various critics awards across the USA that tend to be the indicator, it seems to be coming down to Hugo and The Artist. And many are pointing out that The Artist was brought to North American shores by the Weinstein Company, who are using many of the same successful Oscar campaigning techniques that they used last year for The King's Speech.
Director: Josh Trank Writer: Max Landis, Josh Trank Cast: Dane DeHaan, Michael B. Jordan, Alex Russell, Michael Kelly
Synopsis: Three high school students make an incredible discovery, leading to them developing uncanny powers beyond their understanding. As they learn to control their abilities, and use them to their advantage, their lives start to spin out of control, and their darker sides begin to take over.
