My bone is with “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”. Aside from having a name that sounds like it was plucked from a morbid Nancy Drew novella, the first TRAILER was just released to the internet. Watch it.

What’s that music at the beggining? Does it sound familiar? You may have heard it in several other trailers before. Like the one for “Master and Commander”, with Russell Crowe. Or “Cinderella Man”, with, well Russell Crowe. And now it’s in Indiana Jones.

This particular piece of music seems to be one of the hottest tickets for including in a movie trailer, and then of course never having in the actual movie. And that’s a shame, because it’s an amazing soundtrack, written and composed by the supremely talented Brian Tyler. It was created for the Sci-Fi Channel tv mini-series “Children of Dune”, which was also amazing, and I am sick and tired of tiny snippets of it floating around the internet without it getting its real due. The other day I saw it in a video on YouTube of high school football highlights. YouTube high school football highlights. That’s too ridiculous to stand.

 As for the actual trailer: It’s actually pretty awesome. They’re going to give Indiana Jones the complete modern action movie treatment, but you know what? I still think it might turn out okay. Sure, it will be loaded with effects shot after effects shot as a CGI Harrison Ford swings around like Batman with a bullwhip, but by God, it’s Indiana Jones. A shame they don’t get to have Nazi villains though. Evil Russians are an inferior substitute.

 -Jim

The Oscars went on tonight in all the glamorous spectacle the ceremony is known for, thanks to the dissipation of the large storm cloud over Hollywood known as the writers strike. Luckily award season’s biggest night was spared the fate of the Golden Globes, which more or less went the way of Old Yeller.

Tonight all the doubt is behind us and Hollywood is looking back to normal. That’s good news for Joel and Ethan Coen, who took home the award for directing. Their film “No Country for Old Men” earned the top honor, best picture, as well as awards for best adapted screenplay and the no-surprise supporting actor win for Javier Bardem.

Jon Stewart added the humor one would expect from him as host of the show. Stewart joked about the alternate, montage heavy Oscars ceremony that was being planned in case the writers strike was not resolved, introducing montages of binoculars and periscopes and bad dreams in film.

The most heart-warming moments of the night came when the little guys won. Diablo Cody bawled through her acceptance speech for best original screenplay for “Juno.” I was pulling for Ellen Page, who played the title character, to win best actress but the prize went to one of the front-runners, Marion Cotillard (”La Vie en Rose”.)

Another underdog, the song “Falling Slowly” from the film “Once,” the low-low budget film that pretty much spread around by word of mouth, won in the best original song category. Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, the adorable couple from the film, delivered an acceptance speech that captured the idea that a small film, made in a short amount of time with a low budget can make it to Hollywood’s biggest stage.

After Hansard finished speaking Irglova moved up to the microphone but was drowned out by music cueing them offstage, before she even got a word in. Following the commercial break, Irglova was brought back onstage to make her own speech, this time uninterrupted. Even though it pointed out an imperfection in the show, bringing Irglova back onstage and letting her speak earns points for the Academy and the show’s producers in my book.

Sylvester Stallone: So get this. I just read that Sylvester Stallone is going to make another remake. No, not Rocky. No, not Rambo. It’s the character of “Gabe Walker”, who is apparently the guy he played in “Cliffhanger”. Personally, I always just thought of the character as…The Cliffhanger.

Anybody see a pattern forming here? I think we can pick out with some degree of accuracy, Stallone’s next film choices. First, he will star in a remake of “Demolition Man”. Then, he will once again don his legal battle-armor for the “Judge Dredd” remake. Then he’ll start re-making other people’s movies, picking up Jean Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal roles. It will all culminate with “Mr. Stallone Goes to Washington”.

Nobody will notice or care, naturally.

Mike Myers: How long ago did he jump the shark, anyway? All the way back at “Austin Powers”? Check out this poster for his movie “The Love Guru”. And they’re saying Jessica Alba is to co-star. Because when I look at this poster, I can’t help but think, “This is a man who could definitely win the heart of Jessica Alba.”

I haven’t seen all of the movies up for nomination in every category, so I’m not going to pick winners. Instead, I will sound off on my thoughts for each particular category of importance.

Best Picture: I guess I’m sort of surprised to see “Juno” on there. It’s the odd-one out in the crop of sober, serious Best Picture candidates. I don’t see a teen-pregnancy movie winning Best Picture, but hey, at least they threw them a bone, right? It seems half-hearted to me. I don’t think it has any chance, so why nominate it? Just to get a mix of different types of films?

Best Actor: I fully expect Daniel Day Lewis to walk away with this one for “There Will be Blood”. He’s been waiting for it for a while, and the Academy loves to award Oscars for

1. This sort of sprawling historical thing

and

2. To actors who have been deserving Oscars for past roles but haven’t gotten one yet. Morgan Freeman got his the other year, and now it’s Lewis’s turn.

And the less I have to hear about Johnny Depp deserving Best Actor, the better. If he really, really wants one, he should consider doing a more conventional role. Less Tim Burton, more Steven Spielberg. I can just imagine a Johnny Depp acceptance speech. He would stand up there at the podium, not smiling behind dark glasses, and mumble into the microphone something about how he likes living in Paris, his unkempt Oscar-beard filled with crumbs, and then shuffle off while the audience gives a standing ovation.

Best Actress: This is the most interesting category to me because Ellen Paige, or “Juno”, really does have a fighting chance. It would be cool to see a 20-year old win Best Actress for playing a 16-year old. She really doesn’t seem to have much competition in the category. In fact, she is the only actress in the nominees whose film is one of the Best Picture nominees. Hmmm…what does that say about the Hollywood system, I wonder?

Best Director: My money would be on the Coen’s for “No Country for Old Men”. That is, if I were betting money, which I certainly wouldn’t be. For example, if you contacted me, I definitely wouldn’t have a chart of probabilities that I would use to give you very fair odds on the winners. I just wouldn’t do that.

Best Supporting Actor: The crazy-creepy Javier Bardem (”No Country for Old Men”) should have this thing locked up. This guy is seriously creepy. He might be the most violent character ever to win a Best Supporting Actor.

You know who my nomination would be, though? The “Cloverfield” monster. I’m not entirely sure it’s a he, but what the hey. Throw that big guy a bone. “His” movie just broke the all-time January box-office record! You should go see it.

Best Supporting Actress: I have seen precisely zero of the movies these actresses come from. Therefore, I say give it to Tilda Swinton, who is cool and under-appreciated. I see no more important criteria than those.

 Final Oscar Prediction: They will suck. The writer’s strike continues at full speed, and if the Golden Globes were any sort of warning, the Oscars will be a pretty drab affair this year.

 -Jim

This morning the nominations for Hollywood’s most prestigious awards were announced and there are plenty of snubs, surprises and no brainers to talk about. “There Will Be Blood” and “No Country for Old Men” led the field with eight nominations each. “Atonement” and “Michael Clayton” were close behind with seven a piece. “Ratatouille” picked up five (go ahead, count them) nods while “Juno” and “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” grabbed four each.

Let’s start with the surprises. Again, “Ratatouille” was nominated for FIVE Oscars (best animated feature film, original screenplay, sound editing, sound mixing and original score), behind only four other films this year. This is a huge achievement, especially for an animated film.

We all knew “Juno” had a chance to get in the best picture category and Ellen Page had a chance to grab the best actress nomination for that film. Well, they beat out all the other films and actresses who had a chance to get in those categories and snagged a best director nomination for Jason Reitman on top of that.

As always, there were some big snubs this morning, not the least of which was Keira Knightly for her performance in “Atonement.” That film had three acting nominations at the Golden Globes, only one of which translated into an Oscar nomination.

Tim Burton (”Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” ) and Ridley Scott (”American Gangster” ) were shut out of the directing category. While Burton was a sure thing for the Golden Globes, it’s not a huge surprise to see him left out at the Oscars as his dark style might turn some voters away.

“American Gangster” was also shut out of the best picture category, as was “Into the Wild.” Denzel Washington was snubbed in the acting category for his portrayal of Frank Lucas in “American Gangster.”

On the other hand, plenty of nominations were announced just as they should have been. “Atonement’s” nominations for best picture, cinematography and original score were no brainers. The film may not win best picture but it should pick up the latter two. “No Country for Old Men’s” best picture and director (Ethan and Joel Coen) nominations couldn’t have surprised anyone. Likewise for “There Will Be Blood’s” best picture and actor (Daniel Day-Lewis) nods.

It was no shocker to see “Juno” and “Lars and the Real Girl” in the best original screenplay category, just as “Atonement” was no surprise for best adapted screenplay. The musical “Once” picked up a well-deserved nod for best original song for “Falling Slowly.”

Here is a rundown of the big categories, for a full list of nominations head to the Oscar’s official Web site.

Best Picture

“Atonement,” “Michael Clayton,” “No Country for Old Men,” “There Will Be Blood” and “Juno.”

Best Actor (lead)

Daniel Day-Lewis (”There Will Be Blood), George Clooney (”Michael Clayton”), Viggo Mortensen (”Eastern Promises”), Johnny Depp (”Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” ) and Tommy Lee Jones (”In the Valley of Elah”).

Best Actress (lead)

Julie Christie (”Away From Her”), Cate Blanchett (”Elizabeth: The Golden Age”), Laura Linney (”The Savages”), Ellen Page (”Juno” ) and Marion Cotillard (”La Vie En Rose”).

Best Director

Julian Schnabel (”The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”), Ethan and Joel Coen (”No Country for Old Men”), Jason Reitman (”Juno”), Tony Gilroy (”Michael Clayton” ) and Paul Thomas Anderson (”There Will Be Blood”).

Best Supporting Actor

Javier Bardem (”No Country for Old Men”), Casey Affleck (”The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”), Philip Seymour Hoffman (”Charlie Wilson’s War”), Tom Wilkinson (”Michael Clayton” ) and Hal Holbrook (”Into the Wild”).

Best Supporting Actress

Cate Blanchett (”I’m Not There”), Saoirse Ronan (”Atonement”), Amy Ryan (”Gone Baby Gone”), Tilda Swinton (”Michael Clayton” ) and Ruby Dee (”American Gangster”).

Alright, I haven’t posted in forever, so it is time for a big honkin’ movie recap. If I were you and not me, I would probably settle comfortably into my seat and maybe adjust myself, because you will probably be here for a while unless my typing finger becomes weary.

 Let’s start with the most recent first, eh?

Cloverfield: Well, I’m glad that the movie that I have mentioned in every other blog all year round has gotten such a good reception. I think some of my movie cred may have been resting on the performance of this one. The critics liked it well-enough. More importantly, though, people are actually going to see it. It has made–in one weekend, mind you–46 million dollars, which is amazing, considering that films like Grindhouse made half that in their entire theatrical run. The viral marketing campaign for J.J. Abram’s big monster movie really seems to have done the trick. I can’t remember the last time I’ve heard so many people discussing a movie after it’s release.

 I saw it a few nights ago, and it was a lot of fun. A word of warning–you may want to sit further back than you normally do, especially if you have a weak stomach. Nobody puked in my showing, but I have heard about it happening, and the point-of-view camerawork can be sort of disorienting at first. For those who don’t know, Cloverfield is about a group of friends in New York who are filming their friend Rob’s going-away party when the city is attacked by a unique beast from the sea. Along with it are smaller creatures, parasitic lice that drop off and hunt people in the city. The entire movie is shot from the perspective of a man with a handheld camera, obstensibly because he thinks that it will be an important record of what happened.

 I loved the idea, but as long as I have been excited I was also afraid that the movie would end up being fluff in the vein of “The Blair Witch Project”; that we the audience would never actually see the creature, that the movie would be a bunch of smoke and mirrors. To this extent, I was very surprised. The creature is featured heavily, much more than I would have expected. I enjoyed that it was a unique design, nothing to make the casual observer think it was a Godzilla clone. For one group of friends with a camera, you could really argue that they have no right to see the creature as well or as frequently as they end up doing.

It’s a tense movie. Bad things happen to people. There is a ridiculous amount of silly product placement, which I found pretty funny. It’s entertaining. The CGI shows a frightening New York City. Imagery of the 9/11 attacks is inevitably called up. Overall, it offers a different take on the usual style of the “Giant Monster Attacks City” sort of movie, and is genuinely entertaining. Let’s just hope that they let it die here, and we don’t have to sit through a rash of poorly-produced imitations or outright sequels.

 Juno: Another surprising box-office winner, and I am glad for it. When a movie like Juno does well, it gives a better name to the American theater-going populace. Sure there are people flocking to steaming piles of celluloid like “National Treasure: Book of Secrets”, but at least they went to see Juno too, right? To date it has raked in 87 million, which makes it by far the most successful film from Fox Searchlight Pictures, which in the past has produced such indie hits like “Little Miss Sunshine” and “Sideways”.

 I really enjoyed it. It’s a very funny, very cute movie. It is silly, I think, to try and criticize it for being untrue to the real-life issue of teen pregnancy, because it is so far from reality to begin with that it makes no sense. No people in real life are as witty or rife with one-liners as the characters in this movie. In real life, when a girl gets pregnant at 16 and it’s made into a movie, it’s not a comedy. It is anything but. So don’t say that Ellen Paige (who is great) as Juno is unrealistic, because it’s like complaining that you didn’t like Alien on the basis of aliens not being real.

Fox Searchlight Pictures is the “low end” studio of 20th Century Fox, but they’ve really produced a lot of good movies. I was wondering how that is and am figuring it must have to do with the sorts of movies. I mean, how many special effects shots does a movie like Juno require? Zero? Now look at National Treasure, where Nicholas Cage has to fight the re-animated corpses of our founding fathers in zero gravity on the Eiffel Tower, and suddenly you see where that money went, in lieu of other things, like, say, a script.

 Sweeney Todd: It wasn’t bad, but I think the “Best Actor” buzz that people are trying to make for Johnny Depp is kind of silly. I also wonder at what point Depp learned to sing since he was in “Corpse Bride”, where he played the lead of a musical that does not sing in it. Perhaps he took some voice lessons in the interem. Perhaps they just contacted NASA to build a machine to make anyone’s singing voice sound good. Hell, even Alan Rickman belts it out in Sweeney Todd.

 In short: The music is fun, for the most part, and they are not shy about the blood. There is one particularly annoying song that gets repeated several times that I never wanted to hear again, but I’ll leave you to guess which.

January: We must face facts. This is the weakest time of the year for movies. This is when the junk gets dumped and studios quietly hope nobody notices, as we talk about last year’s Oscar candidates. This is why I suggest that if you’re headed to the movies in the next few weeks, you go see one of the above movies that are already out rather than the movies that will be opening, which are the likes of “Meet the Spartans”, “How She Move”, and “Untraceable”. I don’t think I need to say more.

 I will be seeing “There Will be Blood” by the end of the week, which I fully expect to be awesome. Further bulletins as events warrent!

-Jim

Hello everybody. It’s been a little while since my last post, sorry. You know how finals are.

The Golden Compass: It’s a well known fact that I am in fact a pre-teen girl, so naturally, last night I felt compelled to go see “The Golden Compass”. Besides my feminine proclivities towards such movies, what I really wanted to know was just what the fuss in Philip Pullman’s books, and by extension movie, was about.

 I left semi-dissappointed. There were fine things about the movie. It looks really nice. It takes place in a cool parellel universe, and the girl that they found to play the main character is engaging, cute, and interesting enough to carry a franchise. But it has a lot of problems. It’s riddled with movie-cliches, and it has no time to spend on most of the characters–some appear for just one or two scenes and get a line or two. I should mention that I have not read the books, and am judging it as a movie only. Even at 2 hours long, it still couldn’t give nearly adequete time to all it’s characters and subplots. There are so many gaping holes where a question like “Why the heck would they do that?” should fit.

It bothered me then, that Roger Ebert gave the film a perfect 4 out of 4 stars. I like Ebert. Journalism students go to school here in his ample shadow, and you almost can’t help but learn a bit about him. I dig his writing style–I’m reading one of his books right now, and it’s great. But it seems like he turns into a big softie at heart sometimes, and it would appear that he was willing to forgive all the mistakes in this movie—the same mistakes that he absolutely blasts other movies for—and focus only on what it does well. It bothered me so much I decided to write a letter to Ebert, to see what he would think of my own opinion on the matter. I’ve decided to also publish the letter here. If Ebert responds, I will be sure to include his rebuttal as well.

So, without further ado, my letter to Roger Ebert.

Jim’s Letter to Roger Ebert:

Dear Mr. Ebert,Greetings to the Answer Man. My name is Jim. I’m a print journalism student at the University of Illinois, your alma mater. Trust me when I say that they remind us fairly often that you were a student here. Likewise, I have seen you at your Overlooked Film Festival, and am a genuine Roger Ebert fan. I’ve lately been enjoying your book “Your Movie Sucks”, which I got for my last birthday.

—

Here’s hoping he responds! Roger Ebert would be a pretty good guest for the entertainment blog, if I do say so myself.

-Jim

Frustration. This was all I could feel as I walked out of the theater. The movie just … ended.

Perhaps that’s what made me enjoy this movie so much. The ending wasn’t wrapped up in a neat little package like a lot of other movies I have seen. And maybe it’s just because I’m a squeamish girl, but the entire movie kept me on the edge of my seat. The characters were so compelling, especially Mr. Creepstalk himself, Javier Bardem. The man uses an air tank and cattle gun to kill his victims. Creeepy. This has to be the performance of his career. Every time he is on screen I was uncomfortable. Hell, for most of the movie I had by hands on my cheeks, waiting to put them in front of my eyes in case something too scary happened. Not that this movie is a horror fest by any means, it just has a lot of suspense. The movie also loads up on some great scenes. The wide expanse of Texas desert and a heart stopping dog chase through a river is breathtaking. Even if the plot is disturbing, the images are truly beautiful.

Directed by the Coen Brothers and based off the novel by acclaimed American author, Cormac McCarthy, this movie will keep you thinking for weeks. I went with my boyfriend, who had already seen it once, and we were seriously discussing minute details of the film through dinner, in the car, even when we were getting ready for bed. No joke, this movie is that good. I’ve been so immersed in the story that I recently purchased the novel, hoping to discover more clues about the characters. It’s not that the movie’s ending isn’t fulfilling, it just leaves a lot of room for you to come to your own conclusions.

I would highly recommend that everyone see this movie. Then send me a line and tell me what you think it all means.

I’ll just jump right into the haranguing today.

The Mist: I saw this movie a few days ago. It’s another Stephen King adaptation by Frank Darabont, who has previously adapted King’s “Shawshank Redemption” and “The Green Mile” for the big screen.  This film is more outwardly terrifying than those other two movies.

 It takes place in a small town in New England, like pretty much any King story. A nearby military base performs some sort of terrible experimentation and apparently opens some sort of link to an extremely misty parallel dimension that is filled with an extremely large variety of different things that want to kill us. I thought that was kind of an amusing thing about the otherwise bleak film–everything in this entire dimension seems to be some sort of deadly horror. It seems like a decidedly unpleasant place.

 It’s a pretty scary movie, because you just have no idea the whole time what is happening to the poor inhabitants of the town, who hole up in the local grocery store and try to hold off the misty evils. Bunker-state of mind sets in pretty darn quickly, and the greatest atrocities of the movie are committed by the cloistered population as it descends into paranoia and extremism. It is a somewhat anti-Christian film, as King’s sometimes are. The real villain of sorts is a dogmatic Christian woman who preaches that the end times have come and demands blood sacrifices.

It is a very powerfully morose movie. Do not go looking for a happy ending, and sugar-coated fluff. Some reviews have blasted the film for being over-pessimistic and hopeless, but I just thought that made it more interesting. I for one was taken in by the sad ending, expecting things to work out better for the characters. I’d read enough Stephen King to know that he usually likes happy enough endings. It turns out, though, that Darabont created a much bleaker ending than in King’s original story, which probably helped the film. As the pre-eminent King film-maker, I guess Darabont gets to do what he wants.

Hollywood needs more movies like this. This is a horror movie in the vein of what horror movies can and should be, and not what Roger Ebert likes to call “Torture Porn”. We are living in an age of Saw movies, of Hostel movies, of “horror” movies which consist of nothing but women being captured by crazy people who torture them. I for one am tired of it. The last two Stephen King adaptations to hit theaters, “The Mist”, and “1408″ are real horror films.

The Dark Knight: I haven’t talked about it before, but “The Dark Knight” is the title of the next Batman movie.  If you’ve been living under a rock, let me remind you that Heath Ledger, of all people, is playing the Joker in this one. I’m not sure exactly how to feel about it, so I am sticking with “Cautious Optimism”. A full-photo of Ledger in his full Joker getup was just released though, check this out. THE JOKER.

Be Kind Rewind: I had never heard of this movie until a minute ago. I clicked over to the site to watch the trailer, thinking that it looked stupid and that I would be making fun of it. But you know what? It’s really pretty interesting. The site design is especially neat.

The movie has a dumb premise, but bear with me: Jack Black and Mos Def run an old VHS video store. SOMEHOW…Jack Black’s body becomes magnetic, erasing all the tapes. So he and Mos Def refilm all of the films in their library themselves, movies like “Ghostbusters”, “Driving Miss Daisy”, all sorts of stuff. And people really dig the movies. Then Black and Def battle the FBI for violating copying policy. Check out the trailer. It’s more interesting than it sounds.

Walk Hard: They dropped a new trailer for Judd Apatow’s “Walk Hard” movie with John C. Reilly.  Reilly, for those who don’t know him, was Ricky Bobby’s wingman in “Talladega Nights”.  The trailer is rated R, well, because there’s somewhat more people being cut in half in it than most. Watch.

A dark cloud continues to hang over Hollywood, although it may not be there much longer. Earlier today the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers restarted talks as the Writers Guild strike enters its fourth week. Whether this will mean progress is hard to say, but getting them in the same room again is certainly a start.

On a light-hearted note, check out what Writer Boi of the … er … WGA Crew has to say about it.