This time of year there are way too many awards and top 10 lists for me to cover all of them.  But I’ll cover Roger Ebert’s, because he’s the opposite of Pete Hammond.  I.e., intelligent, credible.  Ebert splits his list into two parts, mainstream movies and indies.  Here are his mainstream 10 (from his Sun-Times blog):

(ordered alphabetically)

1. Bad Lieutenant (See? I told you.)
2. Crazy Heart
3. An Education
4. The Hurt Locker (Recommending The Hurt Locker is the easiest decision a film critic will make)
5. Inglourious Basterds
6. Knowing (Really?  Does this mean I have to see this movie now?  I can’t imagine it not sucking.)
7. Precious (Sad fatty)
8. A Serious Man (Why is this not getting a wide release again?  It’s the f-cking Coen Brothers.  If ever there was a way to bring good films into the mainstream it’s through the Coen Brothers.  God, I hate people sometimes.  A lot.  Usually.)
   
9. Up in the Air
10. The White Ribbon

Jury Prize: Avatar (I agree.  Just because the story kinda sucked doesn’t mean it wasn’t an enjoyable, memorable experience.)

That’s right, Nic Cage stars in two of the top 10 movies according to America’s top film critic.  In related news, my cat just downed a highball of whiskey, smoked a cigarette, and had sex with my dog while it rained lizards.  Singing iguanas, to be precise.

Pulling off a huge upset, Nic Cage’s Knowing easily took number one at the box office, taking in $24.8 million to second-place I Love You, Man‘s $18. Elsewhere, number five Watchmen‘s total climbed to $98.1 million, which is only slightly ahead of number nine Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail (with $87 million total so far).  Yikes.  But perhaps the biggest surprise?  Someone liked Knowing.  And not just Pete Hammond.  Ebert says..

“Knowing” is among the best science-fiction films I’ve seen — frightening, suspenseful, intelligent and, when it needs to be, rather awesome.

…Really?  What does it all mean?  Will I have to go back to living in a world where Nic Cage is a respected actor rather than a guy who wears a bear suit and has ridiculous hair?  Because I won’t do it. WHY ISN’T HE BURNED? WHYISN’THEBURNEDWHYISN’THEBURNED??  …What’s that?  Okay, maybe Ebert’s just smoking dope on this one.  Phew.

(full top ten after jump)

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Opening this weekend (click titles for trailers):

• I Love You, Man: You can see Chodin’s review here.  I agree for the most part.  Rudd and especially Jason Segel are really funny, but god damn the script is formulaic.  And they had to explain every joke twice – I thought it was funny that the dog was named Anwar Sadat.  Not so much 15 minutes later when they had to cut between the dog’s face and a picture of Anwar Sadat to make sure the idiots in the audience were onboard. But nevertheless, funny.
• Duplicity: Julia Roberts and Clive Owen star in a spy comedy that was better when it was called Mr. and Mrs. Smith.  I mean, I guess it was, I haven’t seen either.  Mrs. Smith makes some good cookies though.  Put them in a bowl with some milk and you’ve got what George Lucas calls “cereal.”
• Knowing: Icarus Cage stars in an Alex Proyas film that looks like it was stolen from Roland Emmerich.  This reviewer for the AP calls it “an early contender for worst movie of the year.”  But then, she also says “it literally goes off the rails,” so unless she watched it on a train the AP needs to hire better copy editors.
• Explicit Ills (trailer after the jump): Right now you can only catch this one in New York, Philly, and L.A., but it stars Dookie from The Wire, Rosario Dawson, and the preacher kid from There Will Be Blood.  Plus, the producer emailed me.  See?  The system works.

SITE NEWS: Too much news today, come back tomorrow for Friday Free for All.

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At this point, it’s not like we needed outside confirmation of how much Fox sucks – just watch a clip from Dragonball.  Still, it’s nice to hear it from a prominent director with perspective on the other side of a Fox production.

‘I’ve warned people off,’ from working with the studio, Proyas said.
While making I, Robot, Proyas dealt with lots of interference, but found that while the orders came from Tom Rothman, the studio head wouldn’t bring the message himself. According to Proyas, Rothman sent his ‘evil minions to do his bidding.’ Among other things, the studio head asked the director of Dark City, the man who was adapting a classic Isaac Asimov science fiction story into a film, ‘we needed to inject more jokes in the movie; stupid stuff like that basically.’
Don’t think that Proyas is some idealistic artiste who just can’t work well with the money people. He says that he really gets the dynamic between studio and filmmaker. ‘It’s the constant tension of what we do. Filmmaking is a business, it’s not just an art form as much as we’d like it to be,’ he said. ‘You have to make money back for the investors, otherwise you won’t be allowed to make another movie.’  I had to know: would Proyas ever work with Fox again? ‘Never again,’ he said definitively. [CHUD]

It’d be one thing to get interference from people with a history of box office success, but an exec at a bomb factory like Fox has to realize that he’s less a coach than a retarded kid in the bleachers.  The director might sign your ball after he hits a home run, but he doesn’t need your swing advice.  And speaking of foxes, check out this one.  What an a-hole!

After the jump, I’ve got a new clip from Knowing, starring Nic Cage as a guy who really needs to warn you that you’re in iminent danger, who’s going to make sure you’re safe no matter how crazy he looks.  Nic Cage is really good at that character.  I bet he uses it all the time in real life just to get what he wants. “Why isn’t this latte no foam? …WHY IS THERE FOAM? WHYISTHEREFOAMWHYISTHEREFOAMWHYISTHEREFOAM??!!” 

And then people do what he says, because maybe there’s an ancient mystery involved.
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