“So this one’s called the ‘glass-bottom boat’…”

Howdy friends! The big DVD this week is Argo, but we’ve got plenty to discuss beyond Ben Affleck and his striking resemblance to that guy from Die Hard.  There’s also flicks starring Keira Knightley, Ethan Hawke, John Cusack and Val Kilmer. We’ve got movies about serial killers, struggling rock musicians, capitalists, and criminals.  We’ve got small apartments and special forces.  There’s a junior high spy, a sushi girl, and even a talking cat!

The DVDs:
Argo
Anna Karenina
Sinister
Fun Size
The Factory
For Ellen
Riddle
The Package
Atlas Shrugged, Part II: The Strike
Small Apartments
Special Forces
Undefeated
Sushi Girl
Junior High Spy
A Talking Cat!?!
Snow Shark

Streaming: Check out your choices here.

One of these films went undefeated at last year’s Oscars.  If you want to know which movie it is, continue reading on the next page.  Two of these flicks co-star Dolph Lundgren.  Continue reading to find out which ones.  If you’ve given up physical media for Lent, click the link above and skip right to the streaming suggestions, but if you do you’ll never know which Oscar-nominated actor gives voice to that talking cat. Read the rest of this entry »

With our America-centric media industrial complex, it’s easy to forget that in addition to all the regular movie awards – the Oscars, the Golden Globes, the SAGs, the People’s Choice (the Rolls Royce of movie awards) – our cousins across the pond also hold their own little awards show, called the BAFTAs. The Bartleby Applewick Foxhunt of Thropwichshire Aristocrats, so named for a family of 15th century English lords who would honor the peasant with the finest turnips by naming him “fox” for the day and hunting him. These days, the BAFTAs choose a “barristre of ceremonies,” – past BCs have included Benedict Cumberbatch, Colin Firth, and Peter Postlethwaite – who then dons the ceremonial wig and does an elaborate drag number before presenting the best films and actors of that year with a yorkshire pudding. It’s all very traditional.

This year’s nominees include:

BEST FILM
ARGO Grant Heslov, Ben Affleck, George Clooney
LES MISÉRABLES Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Debra Hayward, Cameron Mackintosh
LIFE OF PI Gil Netter, Ang Lee, David Womark
LINCOLN Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy
ZERO DARK THIRTY Mark Boal, Kathryn Bigelow, Megan Ellison

OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM
ANNA KARENINA Joe Wright, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Paul Webster, Tom Stoppard
THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL John Madden, Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, Ol Parker
LES MISÉRABLES Tom Hooper, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Debra Hayward, Cameron Mackintosh, William Nicholson, Alain Boublil, Claude-Michel Schönberg, Herbert Kretzmer
SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS Martin McDonagh, Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin
SKYFALL Sam Mendes, Michael G. Wilson, Barbara Broccoli, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, John Logan

OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER
BART LAYTON (Director), DIMITRI DOGANIS (Producer) The Imposter
DAVID MORRIS (Director), JACQUI MORRIS (Director/Producer) McCullin
DEXTER FLETCHER (Director/Writer), DANNY KING (Writer) Wild Bill
JAMES BOBIN (Director) The Muppets
TINA GHARAVI (Director/Writer) I Am Nasrine

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“Now hug your mom before she has sex with the director.”

Opening Everywhere: The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Pt. 2, Lincoln, Anna Karenina, Silver Linings Playbook

FilmDrunk Suggests: Vince and I saw the new film Hitler’s Children last night, and none of them grew up to be hot bisexual girls, so definitely don’t see that. As for everything else, yeesh. Nothing jumping off the monitor at me this weekend, so I’ll probably go see Skyfall again because it was awesome.

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Laremy rolls through Toronto in his fly sports car!

I was sitting around the other day, licking my Taco Bell loco taco fingers while thumbing through the “missed connections” portion of the paper when a call came through on the land line. It was Vince, the guy who runs the jam you’re currently reading.

“LEGEL!” he grumbled, his voice still throaty from the scotch and cigar party he’d hosted the night prior.

“Yes, sir?” I said, trying to put my pants back on (for optimal professionalism).

“You were just in Toronto, weren’t cha, kid?”

It was true. I’d hitchhiked to the airport, stowed away in first class, and tipped and sipped my way through the skies. Because I’m a big-time “cream of the crop” critic I was met at the airport by half a dozen ladies, only two of whom were desperately unattractive. After a limo ride into downtown, I was asked to throw out the first pitch for the Orioles-Jays game. Perfect strike. Get drunk, high hat. Then I went to 15 movies in four days, crushing ‘dem reviews like an OG. Then I came home, then I answered the phone, then I used a highly questionable* intro technique to a “Best and Worst of The Toronto Film Festival” column.

*Still, you should be grateful, because the column originally started like this: “The Toronto International Film Festival is a veritable proving ground for potential Best Picture nominees.” Yeeps. That’s terrible.

So here you go, 12 semi-cogent thoughts on TIFF 2012, all for you!

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Well, folks, it’s a month before October, and you know what that means: horror season! Expect lots of boring horror movie posters this week – you know, creepy kids, blood spatter, haunted houses. But that’s not all. Of course we’ve got new Hobbit stuff, Peter Jackson probably keeps a journal about the color and texture of dump he took that morning. Partly because he’s just that self-indulgent these days, partly because New Zealand is just that boring.

I like to think that in this shot (of the Elven King/cult prophet Elrond Hubbard) Hugo Weaving is looking down at his script thinking, “Fuuuuuu…. I signed on for two more years of this sh*t? Christ, man, I’m not an elf that lives for 500 years, I’ve got some other stuff I’d like to do before I die.”

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