Monthly Archives: December 2012

For Your Queue

For Your Queue: Leave It to Gordon-Levitt

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By Hope and George

 

Available today on demand and in your queue is Looper, the kind of movie that nourishes any underfed love of Science Fiction.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Joe, a young hood in a dystopian future. When the mob wants someone wacked, they send him in a time machine back to Joe – no body, no messy investigation. Then one day they send even-more-future Joe (Bruce Willis, in his second great performance this year) back for Joe to wack, and all hell breaks loose. The result is the best action film, best SciFi film, and among the best films period of 2012. It’s a heady, confident, fascinating adventure that should not be missed.

If you enjoy it, you’ll definitely want to give writer/director Rian Johnson’s feature debut Brick a chance. A hardboiled film noir given a David Lynch feel and set in an LA high school, the film works a magic spell. Gordon-Levitt again stars, this time as a high school outsider turned flatfoot trying to piece together a dame’s murder. For all its familiarities, Brick is wildly unusual and absoltuely fascinating viewing.

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Outtakes: Central Ohio Film Critics 2012 nominees

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www.cofca.org

Nominees for the 11th annual Central Ohio Film Critics Association awards

(Columbus, December 29, 2012) The Central Ohio Film Critics Association is pleased to announce the nominees for its 11th annual awards.  Winners will be announced on the evening of January 3rd, 2013.

Notes on the nominees:

-Ties in the nomination round produced eleven nominees in the Best Film category and six nominees in the Best Director category.

-Although eleven films are nominated for Best Film, voting will finalize a Top 10 list.

The 2012 Central Ohio Film Critics Association awards nominees are:

Founded in 2002, the Central Ohio Film Critics Association is comprised of film critics based in Columbus, Ohio and the surrounding areas. Its membership consists of more than 20 print, radio, television, and internet critics. COFCA’s official website at www.cofca.org contains links to member reviews and past award winners.

The 2012 Central Ohio Film Critics Association awards nominees are:

Best Film

–Argo

–Beasts of the Southern Wild

–The Cabin in the Woods

–Django Unchained

–Les Misérables

–Lincoln

–Looper

–The Master

–Moonrise Kingdom

–Silver Linings Playbook

–Zero Dark Thirty

Best Director

-Ben Affleck, Argo

-Paul Thomas Anderson, The Master

-Wes Anderson, Moonrise Kingdom

-Kathryn Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty

-Tom Hooper, Les Misérables

-Steven Spielberg, Lincoln

 

Best Actor

-Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook

-Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln

-John Hawkes, The Sessions

-Hugh Jackman, Les Misérables

-Denis Lavant, Holy Motors

-Joaquin Phoenix, The Master

Best Actress

-Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty

-Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook

-Helen Mirren, Hitchcock

-Quvenzhané Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild

-Naomi Watts, The Impossible

Best Supporting Actor

-Alan Arkin, Argo

-Leonardo DiCaprio, Django Unchained

-Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master

-Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln

-Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained

Best Supporting Actress

-Amy Adams, The Master

-Ann Dowd, Compliance

-Sally Field, Lincoln

-Anne Hathaway, Les Misérables

-Helen Hunt, The Sessions

Best Ensemble

–Argo

–Les Misérables

–Lincoln

–Moonrise Kingdom

–Silver Linings Playbook

Actor of the Year (for an exemplary body of work)

-Joseph Gordon-Levitt (The Dark Knight Rises, Lincoln, Looper, and Premium Rush)

-Anne Hathaway (The Dark Knight Rises and Les Misérables)

-Jennifer Lawrence (House at the End of the Street, The Hunger Games, and Silver Linings Playbook)

-Matthew McConaughey (Bernie, Killer Joe, Magic Mike, and The Paperboy)

-Channing Tatum (21 Jump Street, Haywire, Magic Mike, and The Vow)

Breakthrough Film Artist

-Tom Holland, The Impossible – (for acting)

-Bart Layton, The Imposter – (for directing)

-Quvenzhané Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild – (for acting)

-Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild – (for composing, directing, and screenwriting)

 

Best Cinematography

-Danny Cohen, Les Misérables

-Roger Deakins, Skyfall

-Mihai Malaimare Jr., The Master

-Claudio Miranda, Life of Pi

-Robert Yeoman, Moonrise Kingdom

Best Adapted Screenplay

-Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

-Tony Kushner, Lincoln

-David Magee, Life of Pi

-David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook

-Chris Terrio, Argo

Best Original Screenplay

-Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola, Moonrise Kingdom

-Mark Boal, Zero Dark Thirty

-Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon, The Cabin in the Woods

-Rian Johnson, Looper

-Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained

Best Score

-Alexandre Desplat, Argo

-Alexandre Desplat, Moonrise Kingdom

-Reinhold Heil, Johnny Klimek, and Tom Tykwer, Cloud Atlas

-Howard Shore, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

-Hans Zimmer, The Dark Knight Rises

 

Best Documentary

–How to Survive a Plague

–The Imposter

–The Queen of Versailles

–Samsara

–Searching for Sugar Man

 

Best Foreign Language Film

–Headhunters (Hodejegerne)

–Hipsters (Stilyagi)

–Holy Motors

–The Kid with a Bike (Le gamin au vélo)

–Let the Bullets Fly (Rang zidan fei)

Best Animated Film

–Brave

–Frankenweenie

–Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted

–ParaNorman

–Wreck-It Ralph

 

Best Overlooked Film

–Bernie

–Goon

–Killer Joe

–Safety Not Guaranteed

–Seven Psychopaths

 

 

COFCA offers its congratulations to the nominees.

Previous Best Film winners:

2002:  Punch-Drunk Love

2003:   Lost in Translation

2004:   Million Dollar Baby

2005:   A History of Violence

2006:   Children of Men

2007:  No Country for Old Men

2008:  WALL·E

2009:  Up in the Air

2010:  Inception

2011:  Drive

For more information about the Central Ohio Film Critics Association, please visit www.cofca.org or e-mail info@cofca.org.

The complete list of members and their affiliations:

Richard Ades (The Other Paper); Kevin Carr (www.7mpictures.com, FilmSchoolRejects.com); Bill Clark (www.fromthebalcony.com); John DeSando (90.5 WCBE); Chad Dull (The Other Paper); Frank Gabrenya (The Columbus Dispatch); James Hansen (Out 1 Film Journal); Nicholas Herum (Columbus Underground; Movies Hate You Too); Brad Keefe (Columbus Alive); Kaizaad Kotwal (C Magazine, Gay Peoples Chronicle); Kristin Dreyer Kramer (NightsAndWeekends.com, 90.5 WCBE); Joyce Long (WOSU Public Media); Rico Long (WOSU Public Media); Hope Madden (The Other Paper); Paul Markoff (WOCC-TV3; Otterbein.TV); David Medsker (Bullz-Eye.com); Lori Pearson (Kids-in-Mind.com, critics.com); Mark Pfeiffer (Reel Times: Reflections on Cinema; WOCC-TV3; Otterbein.TV); Melissa Starker (Columbus Alive, The Columbus Dispatch); George Wolf (The Other Paper); Jason Zingale (Bullz-Eye.com); Nathan Zoebl (PictureShowPundits.com).

For Your Queue

For Your Queue: Freaky Fine Friedkin!

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By Hope and George

 

They snuck a whole additional DVD release date in this week, did you notice that? Sneaky bastards!

Well, the good news is that they are unleashing one of the year’s best and weirdest with their secret-second Christmas release. Today, film fans, today director William F. Friedkin offers something bold and nasty: Killer Joe. Matthew McConaughey plays the titular killer, a predator in a cowboy hat making deals with some Texas white trash. The deal goes haywire, and some crazy, mean, vividly depicted shit befalls those unthinking trailer folk.

Subdued, charming, merciless, weird, and oh-so-Southern, Joe scares the living hell out of any thinking person. Unfortunately, that doesn’t really describe the Smiths – an exquisitely cast Emile Hirsch, Juno Temple, Thomas Hayden Church and a flawless Gina Gershon. This is an ugly and unsettlingly funny film about compromises, bad ideas and bruised women. And it is the best thing Friedkin has done since The Exorcist.

If you enjoy it, try Friedkin’s 2006 White Trash Weirdness, Bug. Working for the first time with Tracy Letts, the playwright/scripter who also penned Killer Joe, Friedkin invites you into a world of paranoia, poverty, regret and tinfoil. Ashley Judd has never been better, playing a desperate waitress with a tragic past living in a cheap motel. She befriends a seriously damaged drifter – the creepy and wonderful Michael Shannon – and a nightmare unspools. Bug lacks the wrong-headed humor of Killer Joe, but it is an absorbing, bizarre, and beautifully executed ride.

So that happened...

So That Happened….Santa Happens!

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By Hope Madden

 

Christmas approaches, and George proves once again that he makes a fine Santa.

He played the part first at 15. A pubescent redhead weighing in at about a buck and a half – very authentic. Well played, Cambridge, Ohio Sears.

He donned the beard and boots again more recently. Perhaps you saw a bunch of Santas at various Columbus intersections dancing around with signs urging you to “Honk for Santa and Sunny 95!” George was one of those, and he had a lot of fun, even though he did get a one-finger Christmas salute from a guy who apparently saw right through a moonwalking Santa and his war on traditional holiday dance.

In between these stints, I would sometimes lend George out over the phone for nieces, nephews and friends’ kids. He has that nice, full baritone, does a great ho ho ho, and has literally no choice as I promise his services without checking.

He retired a few years back. A couple of 4-year-olds wore him down. My niece Ruby and our little friend Eva were to receive calls from ”Santa” on Christmas Eve. First he called Eva, who’d recently turned 4. She answered the phone with a shy, “Hello.”

“Hello. Is this Eva? This is Santa.”

Thud.

Eva dropped the phone and hid under a nearby table.

I should point out that George has been known to frighten children to tears. Usually the children sit in their itty bitty  jerseys or cheerleading onesies and George startles them from across a restaurant with a burst of fan passion. George is loud.

The children sometimes cry.

Of course, being a Browns fan, sometimes George cries, too.

Eva’s mom Heather picked up the phone, coaxing some conversation from her wee one, still safely tucked beneath the kitchen table.

“Eva, Santa says hi.”

“Hi.”

“Santa, Eva says hi.”

And so on.

George was a bit wearied by the time he got off the phone, but he needed to gumption up because Ruby was waiting.

“Ruby? This is Santa.”

“Oh, hello Santa.”

“Well hello, Ruby!”

“Santa, what is your favorite color?”

“Well…”

“What snack do you like best? How do you see when we’re good and when we’re bad? What do you dream about?”

At that point, Santa was dreaming of a gracious way out, but Ruby was having none of it.

“Are you sometimes invisible? Do you like to dance?”

How did she know about the moonwalk?

George has been on Santa vacation since then, but I was just thinking of a fun new plan, what with that fetching suit and all.

Skype!

So that happened...

So That Happened…Meet the Chirpers!

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By Hope Madden

 

I edit college textbooks for a living, with all the associated hoopla, madness and zaniness you might expect to go along with that job. Exactly that much zaniness. My wing of the building is routinely referred to by our sales reps as The Mausoleum.

Yes, we’re quiet, we’re boring, we’re nerdy. We’re also under attack, forever harassed by the encroachment of the sales force. When I first started working here, our sales group’s wing ended about ten feet to the left of my office door.

But they constantly hire more sales people, and so began the cubical creep.

First, new cubicles lined the short wall across from my office.

Then they mushroomed in what was once the free space just beyond that wall.

Now they sit butt-up against the editorial assistants’ cubes.

If you look out my door, sales cubes are to my left, directly across from me, and to my right. I am surrounded.

With the sales force comes a different vibe than the one you find in editorial. There are a lot of happy hours, a lot of games, decorations and confetti and sometimes costumes. But mainly, with those cubicles comes sales people.

Like that one pod of cubes very near my door, and the new neighbors who work there: a revolving set of eager, young, shiny, chatty women. Very chatty. Chirpy, even.

And try as I might to ignore their constant chirping, sometimes it seeps through.

Like yesterday:

Chirper #1: Selena Gomez and the Bieb are back together

Chirper #2: Nuh-uh

Chirper #1: How do you spell ‘combination’

Chirper #2: C-O-M-B

Chirper #1: Is it C-O-M-B-O?

Chirper #2: No.

 

Aaah, Chripers. The adventure begins.

 

For Your Queue

For Your Queue: Bayous and Ozarks

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By Hope and George

 

The award-bedecked indie masterpiece Beasts of the Southern Wild is finally available on DVD today. Get it. Do it right now.

The brilliant tale spins quite a yarn, following 6-year-old Hushpuppy through tumultuous times in an area of the Louisiana Delta called The Bathtub. The wee heroine, played by Quvenzhane Wallis (a force of nature to match the hurricane that’s coming) puzzles through the upsetting events of her father’s failing health and the suddenly ferocious weather with the poetic logic of a child – gloriously nonsensical yet frighteningly reasonable. Wallis joins her director Benh Zeitlin in astonishing debuts, as does the equally fierce and amazing Dwight Henry, playing Hushpuppy’s father Wink. Full of folklore and enchantment, their collaboration amounts to one wonderfully original vision of freedom, self-determination and loss.

For another, more chilling, tale of subculture survival, try Winter’s Bone. In her breakout role, Jennifer Lawrence is riveting as Ree, a young Ozark Mountain girl in danger of crossing the wrong people as she searches for her father and uncovers some dark family secrets. John Hawkes leads a stupendous supporting cast and, along with the unflinching writing and gritty direction of Debra Granik, joins Lawerence to make Winter’s Bone a must.