Why Criticism Is Dying – Episode 9478: NYFCC Devolves Into NBR

To push your vote to before NBR… an utterly illegitimate awards organization? To push before the first week of December, in which two or three of the December movies have traditionally waited to be shown? To try to strip the Gotham Awards of their tenuous media slot by announcing on the same day as their show? To make the object of a once-legitimate critics group to be “kicking off the annual end-of-year discussion?”

Wilmington on DVDs. Pick of the Week: New. The Tree of Life

The Tree of Life (Also Three Disc Blu-ray/DVD/Digital Combo) (Four Stars) U.S.: Terrence Malick, 2011 (20th Century Fox) I. The Tree In The Tree of Life, Terrence Malick, an artist/perfectionist who never rushes a movie, dares the cinematic heavens again and, as far as I’m concerned, he wins the bet. The movie, still best American film…

Harry Potter and the Elusive Naked Golden Man

Consider: We’re talking a decade of massive work making eight films, in which both lead and supporting actors had to follow character arcs across a series written for adolescents, but beloved across age demographics. And if you think that’s easy enough to do, may I direct your attention to the Narnia adaptations, The Golden Compass and the feeble attempt to adapt Lemony Snicket as my evidence that more often than not, adaptations of children’s literature are not that easy to pull off.

DRIVE Lawsuit 2: A Critic & A Lawyer Walk Into A Bar…

Yesterday, Michigan attorney Martin H. Leaf, who is representing Sarah Deming in her lawsuit against Film District and the movie Drive, turned up on the blog to further argue his case. (I’ve contacted Mr Leaf and confirmed his identity.) Here is the actual filing (pdf) and the part of the Michigan Consumer Protection Act that…

DP/30: Martha Marcy May Marlene, actors Elizabeth Olsen, John Hawkes, Sarah Paulson, and writer/director Sean Durkin

The cast and writer/director of the Sundance sensation, about to arrive via Fox Searchlight.

And here’s the same crew (add Hugh Dancy) at Sundance 10 months ago…

DVD Geek: It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

Kramer’s film, which is full of delays and anxiety gags, can seem tiresome to those who are not enthusiastically embracing the free-for-all humor, but it is a veritable encyclopedia of comedy in the early Sixties, seeming to feature every major comedian except Lenny Bruce. It is the mix of the cast that gives the film a historical resonance and creates the foundation for its comical anarchy.

Wilmington on Movies. The Rolling Stones: Some Girls Live in Texas

  The Rolling Stones: Some Girls Live in Texas (Three and a Half Stars) U.S.-U.K.: 1978-2011          It was 1964, the summer after my senior year in high school, and the song blasting out of the juke box at the Arctic Circle, a frozen custard drive-in and major high school hang-out in Williams Bay,…

The Weekend Report

Real Steel nosed ahead of a couple of newcomers to take top spot at the weekend box office with an estimated $16.1 million. Dusted off but hardly gleaming were new versions of Footloose and The Thing that followed with respective grosses of $15.8 million and $8.7 million. The third new release was the birder comedy The Big Year that laid an egg with a $3.3 million launch.

Wilmington on The Chicago International Film Festival 2011: The Prize-Winners

Here’s my announcement story for the awards of the 47th annual Chicago International Film Festival — brainchild and passion of festival founder and longtime artistic director Michael Kutza, who started the show back in 1965 and has headed it up ever since. This year’s, many thought, was one of the best, and there were lots of…

Friday Estimates: October 15, 2011

27 years ago, Footloose opened and went on to do almost 10x its opening weekend. This weekend, the Footloose remake will open to about twice what the original did. 29 years ago John Carpenter’s The Thing opened to about the same amount in 3 days as the new remake opened to do on Friday. And Steve Martin’s hair is still white.

DP/30: The Ides of March, actor Evan Rachel Wood

Evan Rachel Wood plays the pivotal role in George Clooney’s new film, in which she shares most of her screen time with Ryan Gosling. Is this role a career changer? The now-24-year-old actress thinks so. She explains why and looks back over her long career.

Wilmington on DVDs. Co-Pick of the Week: New. The Princess of Montpensier

The Princess of Montpensier (Four Stars) France: Bertrand Tavernier, 2010  (MPI Home Video) The Princess of Montpensier is a splendid French historical drama, a movie in the tradition of  sumptuous, intelligent epic-makers like Jean Renoir, Luchino Visconti, or Jean-Paul Rappeneau — and of course, in the best tradition of the filmmaker who made it, the usually good,…

DP/30: The Skin I Live In, actors Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya

Almodóvar’s latest epic of passion and surprise – his kinkiest in years – stars Antonio Banderas in his sixth film with the legendary filmmaker and Elena Anaya in her second, and first lead role. The conversation is filled with insights about working with Pedro… and SPOILERS. And this is a film you don’t want spoiled. So beware of watching too soon.

The DVD Wrapup: Tree of Life, Green Lantern, Zookeeper, Mr. Nice, Four Feathers, Horrible Bosses, The Trip, Beautiful Boy, Submarino, Red State, Maniac Cop …

The Tree of Life: Blu-ray If all one knows about Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” is that it was awarded the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, watching it at home could either be a tremendously exhilarating or hugely bewildering experience. A highly personal project, the movie has been gestating in his…

RIP Dennis Ritchie, 70, Author Of “C,” Co-Author Of UNIX OS (2’19”)

He was the designer and original developer of the C programming language, and a central figure in the development of Unix. He spent much of his career at Bell Labs. He was awarded the Turing Award in 1983, and the National Medal of Technology in 1999.

“Ritchie’s influence rivals Jobs’s; it’s just less visible,” James Grimmelman observed on Twitter. “His pointer has been cast to void *; his process has terminated with exit code 0.”

Wilmington on DVDs: Green Lantern; Horrible Bosses; Zookeeper; Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer

Green Lantern (Two Stars) U.S.: Martin Campbell, 2011 (Warner Bros.) Maybe I’m just getting really, really tired of Superhero movies —  but I had trouble sitting through Green Lantern. A half an hour or so into the show, I started checking my watch, and soon I was checking it every few minutes or so– even though…

DP/30: Tree of Life, Senior Visual Effects Supervisor Dan Glass

In honor of the release of the Blu-ray/DVD of The Tree of Life, here is a new interview about the film.

You can also find TOL interviews with two of the producers and the lovely & talent Jessica Chastain.

The Flailure of Netflix

Reed Hastings has gone from The Best Owner In Sports to the guy trying to explain why there might be a strike because the billionaires and the millionaires can’t agree how to split this year’s giant pile of money.

Truth is, he’s not the villain in all of this. He’s a victim, in my eyes, of believing – for a split second – that he had more control of the market than he ever did.

It still comes down to the first Big Lie… that consumers could have it all for virtually nothing.

The Weekend Report: October 9, 2011

Real Steel provided the TKO to ascend to the top of weekend movie going charts with an estimated $26.8 million debut. The sessions other national freshman, the political thriller The Ides of March, was a distant second with $10.4 million launch. The lull pre-Thanksgiving also saw another Telugu movie out-pacing the traditionally stronger Hindi newcomer…

Wilmington on Movies: Dream House

  Dream House (Two Stars) U.S.: Jim Sheridan, 2011  In Dream House, an almost mystifying misfire of a would-be classy, smart horror movie, Daniel Craig plays Will Atenton, a New York City publishing house editor who quits his job and moves out of the city — with his angelic wife Libby (Rachel Weisz) and their two…