The Oscar Nominations are in. Let the indignation commence!

So every year around this time, I get kind of excited about the Academy Award-nominations. And for the life of me, I really can’t explain why. Maybe it’s the annual disappointment I get from watching (or fast-forwarding through) that glitzy sham called The Golden Globes, maybe it’s some kind of masochistic trepidation on my part, eagerly anticipating the onslaught of unjust nominations and the omission of films and talent that should have been nominated in my humble opinion.

Anyway, the nominations for the 84th Academy Awards are in. And like every year, there will be a healthy dose of indignation about some of the nominations. My biggest gripe after quickly sifting through the list? Not seeing last year’s best film DRIVE getting a significant nomination anywhere. No Best Picture nom, no Best Actor nom for Gosling, no Best Supporting Actor nom for Albert Brooks (which I really thought would be a shoe-in), nothing, zilch, nada… The one nomination it did get? Best Sound Editing. I mean, seriously?

Ah well, that’s the Oscars for ya. Taking these award shows with any kind of seriousness possibly poses a health hazard, I guess. Then again, this geek will up late february 26th (that’s what you get for living on this side of the Atlantic) watching the show. If only to see Billy Crystal verbally destroy Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.

Yay for Homeland!

That’s what you get for spending the weekend in Disneyland. I totally forgot the Golden Globe Awards ceremony was on last night. Not that I would’ve stayed up for that snoozefest, but still… I’m glad to see Homeland deservedly won a number of awards, including Best Television Drama and Best Actress Drama for Claire Danes. That’s what I call awarding quality. Homeland is just an awesome show and deserving of all the praise it gets. Can’t wait for the second season.

The 10 best films of 2011

Well, 2011 flew by like an anorexic hooker in a hurricane. Filmwise, I thought it was a pretty mixed bag, with some unexpected pleasant surprises and too many prequels / sequels that didn’t quite live up to expectations. Let’s just hope 2012 delivers a healthy dose of awesomeness to make up for the somewhat lackluster past twelve months. But anyway, without any further ado and in case you give a rat’s behind about my personal tastes, I hereby present you my favorite films of 2011.

10. X-MEN: FIRST CLASS
Director Matthew Vaughn follows up the ridiculously funny KICK-ASS with what might be the best film in the X-Men franchise (well, next to X2).

09. SUPER 8
Yeah, I grew up in the eighties watching Amblin-magic on the big screen. So there. This film just hit all the right notes for me, despite its flaws.

08. A BETTER LIFE
This one came out of the blue for me and I’m surprised it didn’t end up on more ‘best of’-lists. It’s painfully honest, confronting and heart-wrenching.

07. CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE
I’m a sucker for a good romantic yarn. So sue me. I thoroughly enjoyed this film, even though it kind of derailed at the end. And damn you, Ryan Gosling, for making the rest of us men look so misshapen.

06. MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL
If you’re going to make an action movie, this is the way to do it. Easily the best entry in the Mission: Impossible-franchise, Ghost Protocol delivers action set-piece after action set-piece. And it’s not in 3D, hooray!

05. INSIDIOUS
A haunted house-film that actually delivers on scares and atmosphere, Insidious successfully harkens back to chillers like Poltergeist and The Changeling. Especially enjoyable in a packed theater.

04. I SAW THE DEVIL (AKMAREUL BOATDA)
Korean director Jee-woon Kim, who made the terrific Tale of Two Sisters, has created one of the best serial killer-films I’ve seen in ages. Dark, harrowing and absolutely compelling, this is as good as thrillers get.

03. WARRIOR
I loved last year’s The Fighter, but I think Gavin O’Connor’s Warrior is a far better film. The fights are brutal, the cast – Nolte and Hardy especially – are in top form and the film has something to say about real people in today’s USA.

02. 50/50
Sure, Joseph Gordon-Levitt deserves an award for his performance in this film. Sure, director Jonathan Levine did a bang-up job proving that you actually can make a successful comedy about cancer. But you know what, 50/50 is first and foremost a writer’s film, if only because the whole thing’s based on Will Reiser’s real-life experiences. Anna Kendrick lovingly placing her hand on Levitt after his surgery (following awkward previous attempts) is one of the cinematic stand-out moments of 2011 (and hooray for them not kissing in the final scene!).

01. ZOOKEEPER… Just, kidding: DRIVE
Well what can I say about this little gem that hasn’t been said already? Nicolas Winding Refn presents a modern-day fairy tale that’s slick, sensual, endearing and extremely violent at the same time. Oh, and Los Angeles hasn’t looked that pretty in ages. Miss this at your own risk. And damn you, Ryan Gosling, for making the rest of us men look so misshapen.

The 10 worst films of 2011

I pretty much hate doing a ‘Worst of’-list, if only because I know how much time and effort (and money, let’s not forget that) go into making a feature film. Even a bad one. It’s easy for a critic to call out a director on his or her ‘apparent’ ineptitude, but I honestly don’t believe that ANY filmmaker – not even Uwe Boll or Paul W. Anderson – wakes up in the morning thinking “You know what, I’m going to make the shittiest turd ever today”. You do what you do. Sometimes that works out. Sometimes it doesn’t. And in the case of the films on this list, it just really really didn’t.

10. TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON
Colossal and indiscernable hunks of metal pummel each other to smithereens. Again. Shit blows up. Again. Shia LaBeouf yells ‘Optimus!’ 2000 times. Again. Is this thing over already?

09. SEASON OF THE WITCH
Look, I like me some Nic Cage just like the rest of you (case in point: here he is punching a woman in the face wearing a bear-suit). But this was just a mess even Ron Perlman couldn’t save.

08. I AM NUMBER FOUR
This film took a huge number two. On my head. Repeatedly. I’m a big fan of D.J. Caruso’s work, but this just really didn’t work for me. At all.

07. DYLAN DOG: DEAD OF NIGHT
This film should have been dedicated to Brandon Routh’s career, which passed away about halfway through this amazingly incoherent pile of nonsense. 

06. FRIGHT NIGHT 3D
How do you make a dull horror-film with a terrific cast, an insanely talented director and great source material? Watch this thing for the answer. Or even better, don’t.

05. SHARK NIGHT 3D
“You know what would be a great idea? If we made a PG13-rated shark-attack film! In 3D!” The result: a horror-film that was dead in the water (zzzzing). 

04. THE THING (2011)
Good Lord, I so desperately wanted this film to be great. Alas, this thing just falls apart around the 15-minute mark. Some bad films are simply annoying, this one really hurt.

03. YOUR HIGHNESS
Ugh. Just, ugh.

02. CONAN THE BARBARIAN 3D
When this thing bombed at the box-office, industry analysts feverishly tried to come up with reasons as to why it failed. They obviously didn’t see the film.

and the absolute worst film of 2011 was without a doubt:

01. PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES
This should have never happened. Period. Overlong, tedious, devoid of any real conflict or sense of adventure, this is what you get when people merely show up on set to collect their paycheques. Nobody seemed to care one bit about the film they were making, or the millions of people around the world that had to shell out premium dollars for the worst 3D-experience in a year full of dismal 3D-experiences. Depp, Marshall, Cruz, McShane, Rush… Disney, you’re so much better than this. And the worst thing is: you all know it.

Marketing Mishaps: movie trailers

(This is a repost of an article I wrote in august 2009)

Selling a film is a craft not to be taken lightly. Each year Hollywood spends hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising, in an attempt to convince those fickle moviegoers to spend their hard earned cash at the box office. In some cases, the cost of marketing can equal – or even exceed – a film’s production budget. Crazy, huh? Well, this industry isn’t called showBUSINESS for nothing. If you want to sell tickets, you’ve got to get out there and let the people know your film has the biggest bang, the brightest star, the scariest monster or the most adorable puppies.

Make no mistake, marketing can make or brake any film. THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT would be nothing more than an obscure little student-film on Youtube had it not been for the brilliant marketing campaign that made it seem like a good idea to spend 8 dollars to watch shaky video-footage of three kids running around in a forest for 90 minutes. At the other end of the spectrum you’ll find films like the recent OUTLANDER – deserving of a far better marketing-treatment than what the distributor felt was adequate at the time. Too bad, because more often than not these films actually have the potential to become box office-hits, instead of just hapless straight-to-dvd dumps.

Which brings me to the centerpiece of any movie marketing-campaign: the trailer. That carefully crafted montage of shots from a particular film, set to enticing music and usually accompanied by a deep resounding voice-over. Most people in the industry don’t like to refer to it as a commercial, but of course, it’s exactly that. And like any commercial for any product, it can either succeed in its goal to move the target audience, or it can fail.

Harrison McCann once famously said that advertising is ‘truth well told’. A great adage if ever there was one – and one that I think particularly applies to film-marketing. After all, we’re in the business of storytelling. And telling stories is all about telling the truth. Right? Well unfortunately, most movie trailers aren’t cut by the people responsible for the final film (ie the director). Marketing is handled by the studio / distributor, so unless your name is Steven Spielberg or Ridley Scott, they get the final say over your film’s trailers.

The result of this practice? Trailers that give you the completely wrong idea about a film’s concept or story. Case in point: the first trailer for Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of Alice Sebold’s novel THE LOVELY BONES. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love the imagery presented to me in this trailer, but after a promising start, we suddenly turn the corner and the story’s about ‘a dead girl’s attempts to hunt her killer from beyond the grave’. Which, as anyone who has read the novel can tell you, is definitely NOT what THE LOVELY BONES is about.

This is an understated story about family dynamics in the wake of a tragedy. More akin to Redford’s ORDINARY PEOPLE or Todd Field’s IN THE BEDROOM than it is to, say, Jerry Zucker’s GHOST. And for the life of me, I don’t understand why you would try to sell this film as a supernatural thriller with fantasy-elements thrown in (been there, done that), when you should be selling it on PJ’s pedigree, the stellar Academy Award-winning cast and the fact that it’s based on a novel read by millions of people around the world. Truth people, truth. Ultimately, that will sell best.