Movies of the Week!

Movies You Should Check Out

Classic Of The Week: The Graduate

Foreign Film Of The Week: Jules and Jim

Unheard Film Of The Week: The Puffy Chair

Movie you should go see in theatres right now: Green Zone

Movie that came out today on DVD to check out: Up In The Air

Iron MAN 2 TRAILER

Yup. this is going to be bad ass.

Iron Man 2

Sullivan-Gooley Awards Announced!

Sometimes one award will do...

Saving its only win for the end, The Hurt Locker upset heavily-nominated Inglourious Basterds and Avatar for Best Picture of 2009 at this year's Sullivan-Gooley Awards. While it may not be as technically brilliant as Avatar, (which took home 5 technical awards and Best Director), or insanely clever as Inglourious Bastards(chosen by you, the readers, as the Viewer's Choice Award for Best Picture of 2009), its tense premise and edge-of-your-seat execution proved worthy of the year's top honor.

The SG Awards, which only agreed on 6 Oscar winners this year, chose to share three of the most prestigous honors with the Academy. Along with picking The Hurt Locker for Best Picture, SG tipped the hat to Jeff Bridges as Best Actor, who delivered the performance of a lifetime in Crazy Heart, and Christof Waltz as Best Supporting Actor for his performance as the Jew-hunting Nazi inInglourious Basterds.

Below is a recap of all nominees, with the winner in italics.

Top 10 Films of the Year
1. The Hurt Locker
2. The White Ribbon
3. Up
4. Inglourious Basterds
5. Up in the Air
6. (500) Days of Summer
7. Avatar
8. The Fantastic Mr. Fox
9. A Single Man
10. Where the Wild Things Are

Actor
Jeff Bridges - Crazy Heart
George Clooney - Up in the Air
Colin Firth - A Single Man
Jeremy Renner - The Hurt Locker
Sam Rockwell - Moon

Actress
Sandra Bullock - The Blind Side
Melanie Lauron - Inglourious Basterds
Helen Mirren - The Last Station
Carrie Mulligan - An Education
Gabriele Sabide - Precious
Meryl Streep - Julie & Julia

Supporting Actor
Woody Harrelson - The Messenger
Jonathan Mackey - The Hurt Locker
Brad Pitt - Inglourious Basterds
Christopher Plummer - The Last Station
Christof Waltz - Inglourious Basterds

Supporting Actress
Vera Farmiga - Up in the Air
Anna Kendrick - Up in the Air
Diane Kruger - Inglourious Basterds
Mo'Nique - Precious
Julianne Moore - A Single Man

Director
Katheryn Bigelow - The Hurt Locker
James Cameron - Avatar
Michael Haneke - The White Ribbon
Spike Jonze - Where the Wild Things Are
Quentin Tarantino - Inglourious Basterds

Original Screenplay
(500) Days of Summer
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
A Serious Man
Up

Adapted Screenplay
Crazy Heart
District 9
The Fantastic Mr. Fox
Up in the Air
Where the Wild Things Are

Animated Feature
Coraline
The Fantastic Mr. Fox
Up

Art Direction
Avatar
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek
Where the Wild Things Are
The White Ribbon

Cinematography
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
A Single Man
The White Ribbon

Costume
Inglourious Basterds
Sherlock Holmes
Star Trek
Where the Wild Things Are
The White Ribbon

Film Editing
(500) Days of Summer
Avatar
District 9
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds

Makeup
Avatar
District 9
The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
Star Trek
Zombieland

Score
Coraline
The Informant
Up
A Single Man
Where the Wild Things Are

Sound Mixing
Avatar
District 9
The Hurt Locker
Up
Star Trek

Sound Effects Editing
Avatar
District 9
Up

Visual Effects
Avatar
District 9
Star Trek

Best Foreign Film
A Prophet

Lebanon

The White Ribbon

Best Documentary

This Is It

The Cove

Not Quite Hollywood

Tyson

It might Get Loud

Every Little Step

Viewers Choice
1. Inglourious Basterds
2. The Hangover
3. The Hurt Locker
4. Up
5. Up in the Air

EARLY REVIEWS: Green Zone and Get Him to The Greek!

Green Zone

Starring: Matt Damon, Amy Ryan, Greg Kinnear, and Brenden Gleeson

Directed By Paul Greengrass

Running Time: 1hr 40 Min

Rated R

Green Zone is a fun, entertaining adult action movie that sometimes gets off balanced with trying to preach a message. I didn't think i was going to enjoy Green Zone mainly because the trailers do an awful job with what this movie is about. This is not a Bourne Film. It's a Paul Greengrass film. The POV camera work and quick editing are still in effect but this is very much in the vain of his first film Bloody Sunday and United 93 (which you could even call a companion film to Green Zone). The film starts with balancing suspenseful action with a interesting story but near the end the film starts to lose it's edge by playing more with the action-super soldier side than keeping up with the realistic setting the movie started with.

The film starts out during the beginning of the Iraqi war with Captain Roy Miller (Matt Damon) dealing with a rapidly deteriorating situation: he's got to search a potential WMD site that is in mid-looting with a sniper somewhere on the site. Frustrated with the Intel, he goes off reservation and starts asking questions, employing the help of a CIA guy (Brendan Gleeson) and journalist (Amy Ryan), who made the case for the war in her articles based on Intel that even she can't ignore anymore. There's a little more story to it than that, but ultimately it comes down to three sides, those who used the false Intel now want to cover their own asses, Damon just wants answers before they are snuffed out, and the former Iraqi military forces who think if things get bad enough they'll get an offer to run/control things (assuming they survive long enough).

Matt Damon is excellent in the film proving that once again he can do action just as well as...well anything else. The supporting cast is well-rounded and the film never gets boring. The main problem with the movie is that it has a hard time with what type of film this is. Is it a war-message movie or is it a mindless-action film. The film tries to be as thrilling as the Bourne films but as intelligent as Syriana and it never finds the perfect balance. That being said, I recommend this fun, entertaining film!

Grade B

Get Him To The Greek

Starring Jonah Hill, Russell Brand and Sean (P. Diddy) Combs

Directed By Nicholas Stoller

This film doesn't come out for another 3 months and still has time to fix some thing but this spin-off of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, needs to fix ALOT of things to make this a good film. The movie has an awesome premise. The movie follows Jonah Hill, playing a different character than in "Sarah Marshall", as a ambitious 23-year-old record company intern (Hill) who is hired to accompany out-of-control British rock star Aldous Snow (Brand) to a concert at L.A.'s Greek Theater. This has all the set-up to be a hilarious, out of control film but the movie never really takes off. The film has some funny parts but it just doesn't ever work. Russell Brand worked so well as a supporting character in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" but as a lead, the act gets old quickly. Jonah Hill is playing Michael Cera and is just miscast. P. Diddy is the funniest person in this film if that goes to say anything.

The trailer was released and half of the trailer wasn't in the film, so maybe the version i saw was a film trying out different scenes. So...maybe and the film does have three months before it is released and the version I saw was supposedly a very early cut of the film but a lot needs to be done to make this an enjoyable film.

P.S. While the film is a spin-off, The film doesn’t follow the timeline of Forgetting Sarah Marshall at all…it takes place at least 7 years after Sarah Marshall but it’s set in 2010.

Also…Jason Segal does not make a cameo.

Grade - C

Cop Out

I saw Cop Out this weekend and was disappointed. The film was bashed by critics but I know this isn't a film made for critics, it's a film that is suppose to be a mindless, fun cop comedy and while it was def. mindless and never awful, the film was never that much fun. It also proved the point Kevin Smith should stick to writing and directing smaller films. The film was sloppy, poorly edited and not focused at all. Also, most of the best parts were in either the regular trailer or the Red Band Trailer. So my recommendation is to watch both of the trailers and then wait for video.