IMDb & Indiewire Top Films Mash-Up

MEETS

I was curious to see what would happen if I took the top films on the Indiewire poll of critics from 2012 and melded it with the (now "settled") top rated films from users on IMDb.  It was a pretty interesting list! (I looked at IMDb's 2011 list as well for foreign films that might have been released a year earlier in their country of origin. Didn't apply this year.) Here's the top ten (alphabetically listed):

TOP TEN 2012

Amour

Argo

Django Unchained

Life of Pi

Lincoln

Looper

Moonrise Kingdom

Silver Linings Playbook

Skyfall

Zero Dark Thirty

Putting the lists together eliminates both IMDb's top film (The Dark Knight Rises) and Indiewire's top film (Holy Motors).  It seems to "work" to eliminate the top "popular" acclaimed movie and the top "critically" acclaimed movie. Both of their #2s made the list: IMDb (Django Unchained), Indiewire (Zero Dark Thirty).

In the olden (pre-internet) days, The National Board of Review's top ten (plus foreign film list) was a pretty reliable list.  Melded with the New York Times top ten for any given year and compared against IMDb's users ratings, you get a similar more "accurate" list of the ten-best of any given year [again, shifting release dates as necessary].

Here's two years, to illustrate:

1937
Captains Courageous
The Good Earth
Grand Illusion
The Life of Emile Zola
Lost Horizon
Make Way for Tomorrow
Night Must Fall
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Stage Door
A Star Is Born

1973
Amarcord
American Graffiti
Day For Night
The Last Detail
The Long Goodbye
Mean Streets
O Lucky Man!
Paper Moon
Serpico
The Sting

It's not perfect since some movies were not acknowledged as great films in their day, most famously Touch of Evil and Vertigo in 1958, but in these cases it's pretty obvious when such films are missing, such as The Exorcist from 1973, above.  Does always seem to result in a pretty primo top ten, and a nice place to start for budding cinephiles.

None of this matters, but it's always fun to make a movie list!

85th Annual Academy Awards: A Review

This year's Oscars was a throwback to the garish Academy Awards of yesteryear.  It was so crazy that, for my money it "worked." Seth McFarlane, in going the extra mile to just do whatever the hell he wanted proved to be a more capable host than anyone could have expected.  As much as I enjoyed the old Billy Crystal schtick of last year, this one-- overlong, overproduced, unnecessarily bloated-- turned out to be an entertaining bit of Hollywood hokum.

Things started off really crazy and off-kilter with a quite elderly looking William Shatner in a bit better suited for the Emmys in which Capt. Kirk shows McFarlane his future "bad" reviews as Oscar host.  This included a totally unfunny and uncomfortable song number about movies in which the actresses' showed their "boobs." One laugh amidst the melee: the number of times Kate Winslet has been nude in a movie.

To me, the best thing about this particular show was the fact that they got out the old-timers.  That's what I ALWAYS liked about the Oscars of old-- it was a meeting of movie elite old and new.  This years' show saw: Jane Fonda, Dustin Hoffman, Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, Barbra Streisand [replete with as one reviewer wrote, a "cheesy" ad-lib when she sang "The Way We Were"], etc. appearing onstage.  It was nice to see them all, and they all looked good.  Well, except for maybe Jack, who, in an extremely ill-fitting tux, resembled Groucho Marx.

My favorite of all of Seth's semi-disastrous bits was a parody of The Sound of Music's climax as an intro to Christopher Plummer.  I thought it was hilarious.  And it also helped that Plummer himself was the absolute perfect presenter. As last year's Best Supporting Actor he was on hand to give the award for Best Supporting Actress and he was as regal as Captain von Trapp himself.

Best-dressed and fountain-of-youth-gorgeous was (a slightly nervous) Halle Berry.  She introduced an unfortunately weak James Bond 50th tribute.  Sean Connery-- how lame are you! Maybe Brosnan was a holdout too, but Brosnan would have showed if Connery had.  We did have Shirley Bassey.  Unfortunately when she started it was really bad; however, she nailed it in the end and got herself a deserved standing ovation.  Adele's singing of "Skyfall" I thought went well, but afterward people were making excuses for her because she was a bit "off."

I was so pleased that Skyfall won 2 Oscars (one in a VERY rare tie in the technical categories when it shared Best Sound Editing with Zero Dark Thirty). [Presenter Mark Wahlberg was funny: "It's a tie, no BS!"] The most any Bond film has every won is a single Oscar (Goldfinger, Thunderball)-- so even without a Best Picture nomination, Skyfall brought the Bond films back into the Oscar arena in a big way: with 5 nominations the most of any Bond (The Spy Who Loved Me got 3 nominations), and with 2, the most wins.

The "theme" of the show was musicals-- for no other reason than just because.  It made the cruel playing off of accepters to the strands of the Jaws theme that much more abusive-- the old "why-can't-they-cut-one-musical-number-and-let-them-speak" argument.  It was particularly bad the first time it was used when Life of Pi won for visual effects and the winner was attempting to comment on the fact that the f/x house who did the work, Rhythm & Hues, is in Chapter 11.

Odds and ends section:

• It seemed to everyone that Meryl Streep announced Daniel Day-Lewis' win without even looking at the envelope!

• Seth had a few too many, on purpose, groan inducing inappropriate jokes: the Rihanna/Chris Brown [ancient] joke, the Booth "too soon" Lincoln gag, etc.

• The risky Flight sock-puppet bit should have been bumped up in Seth's grab bag of never-ending opening bits: funny.

• What was up with all the sound drop outs? Again sound problems at the Oscars! Embarrassing.

• Michelle Obama's co-presenting of the Best Picture award added nothing.

• Never has anyone turned around falling on the stairs with such aplomb as Jennifer Lawrence.  Receiving a standing ovation she immediately pointed out it more had to do with her stumble.  Kudos too to Jean Dujardin for coming to her rescue.

• Some of my favorite speeches included a funny Daniel Day-Lewis, a grateful Ben Affleck, and a short and sweet speech by the costume design winner that said to me: see "technical category" people it IS possible to WRITE a speech and MEMORIZE it, instead of mumbling incoherently because, after all, you're not a "performer."

• Although widely predicted, Argo's win for Best Picture was a rare moment of not a full fait accompli for a Best Picture win; and, more significantly, I don't recall ever a category as equally matched as Best Supporting Actor this year-- which literally could have gone to ANY of the five nominees.

• With three wins, Argo ties Crash (2005) with least number of wins by a Best Picture winner in recent history.

For all the bad reviews this year's Oscars got, lets face it, here's our choices: (a.) a pleasant, "safe" Billy Crystal evening (b.) a train wreck of lameness with Anne Hathaway & James Franco (c.) this crazy mess.  I pick (c.)

Oscar Nominations 2012: My Thoughts

Wow! This was a surprising morning. I would have guessed the "same old, same old" and it turned out to be one of the most interesting. The nominations went much more along the lines of my own personal preferences for the year as well, so I'm happy about that.

First off: the most shocking was Best Director.  Kathryn Bigelow's snub wins the award for the one-I-would-have-staked-my-life-on nomination (not unlike Albert Brooks in Drive last year). It has, of course, killed Zero Dark Thirty's chances at Best Picture. Lincoln has essentially won Best Picture and Best Director as of a few minutes ago...! I ALSO would have staked my life on a Best Director nomination for Ben Affleck (although I'm the only one who wasn't in love with Argo).  Affleck must be in a coma right now! When the DGA nominations came out, I said I would love to see David O. Russell get in and one of the others bumped... which looks like what happened to Tom Hooper. And I must say I DIDN'T like the way Les Miserables was directed.

I've been making bets all morning that Emmanuelle Riva will win Best Actress over Jessica Chastain.  My thinking is Amour and Zero Dark Thirty BOTH got 5 nominations, however this translates to: Amour's stock just hit the roof and Zero Dark Thirty's stock just PLUMMETED. And even though I didn't love Amour (pun!), I acknowledge that Emmauelle Riva did a helluva job.

Beasts of the Southern Wild's nominations elude me, especially quite frankly screenplay. I mean, c'mon! It will have to be happy with its nominations: no wins seem likely.

Jees, Leonardo DiCaprio can't get arrested at the Oscars!

I would have liked to see more nominations for Moonrise Kingdom, but at least it got screenplay.

First Oscar nomination for Robert DeNiro since Cape Fear (1991)!

Skyfall didn't get the "big" nominations (acting/picture, etc.) but with 5 nominations it is the most nominated James Bond film of all-time (The Spy Who Loved Me [1977] got 3 nominations).

I haven't done the research, but I believe that Silver Linings Playbook is the first film to be nominated in all 6 of the top categories since Reds (1981). I'll get back to you on that! [UPDATE: Yup, I was right... Silver Linings is indeed the first film since Reds to be nominated in ALL six major categories].

I was right that Lincoln would get the most nominations (12) [per my predix yesterday] but did not see Life of Pi's 11 nominations as #2 most nominated....

I thought the Seth/Emma patter during the nominations was ugh, by the way. I didn't like Seth's bitchy gag about directing, but must admit I laughed at his comment that adapted screenplay involved copy-and-pasting from MS Word to Final Draft...!

What Film Will Get the Most Oscar Nominations?

Tomorrow morning at 5:30ish AM PST (the official site says 5:30 but it's traditionally been 5:38), the Oscar nominations will be announced.  It's time for the annual parlor game: What is your guess for the film that will get the most nominations? Last year it was HUGO (with 11 nominations), besting eventual Best Picture winner THE ARTIST (that got 10 nominations).

This year is unusual because it appears that it's only a two pony race and neither is (arguably) Best Picture frontrunner ZERO DARK THIRTY:

It seems it's either LINCOLN or LES MISERABLES.  LES MIZ has a one-nod bump with a possible Best Song nominations but only has two acting nominations likely to LINCOLN's likely three.   It seems like LINCOLN has this.  I really want to buck the obvious and go LES MIZ but I will give it to LINCOLN for my predix this year.

Maybe the "game" this year should instead be what will be #3? Here we have a long list: ARGO, DJANGO UNCHAINED, ZERO DARK THIRTY, SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK, LIFE OF PI (which will have that F/X nomination to make up for no acting nominations), SKYFALL (which could theoretically nab nominations for Bardem and Judi Dench-- how I would LOVE to see Dench get in there... go SKYFALL!!!).  My guess here would be: ZERO DARK THIRTY... guess it has to be, with ARGO a close #4.

What is the #1 acting nomination I'd like to see tomorrow morning?: Bradley Cooper Best Actor for SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK (and unfortunately it's not a sure thing at all). As for "crafts" noms: SKYFALL for Best Cinematography and THE SESSIONS for Editing (longshot, for sure).

Can't wait for the nominations! Go Bond!

Jodie Foster to Receive Cecil B. DeMille Award

Another "tradition" gone wrong.  The impending announcement of the Cecil B. DeMille Award allowed for a favorite parlor game for me in trying to predict who'd get it. The announcement's date had some consistency until late, as I noted in last year's blog entry. But it was never as early as November 1. So imagine my surprise when I see it announced today, robbing me of my annual "guess."  I suppose now the DeMille Award goes the way of so many other things, where I just give up and don't care.  Folks, people like tradition.  That's why the Oscars remain the #1 award as these things go.  I'm never blindsided by when the Oscar nominations will be announced. I don't have to search high and low to find out the date, or check daily. The date for the nominations is January 10. Now, this is a very different date than usual, but we got plenty of warning. I have no idea when the HFPA noted that the DeMille would be announced on Nov. 1.  I'm just not in the mood to check dates in October for the DeMille Award announcement now, because it's just too soon to think about Awards Season. So in future I'll just see it when I see it and forget the predix on that one.

The National Board of Review has set their date for their awards: Wednesday, December 5. Last year the New York Film Critics decided THEY needed to be "first" and announced before the NBR. Their date, as far as I can tell, hasn't been set yet this year. I'll worry about these critics group's dates later, but, again, the Oscars are the only ones year after year that get this right. I think I'm going to deal with these critics groups as an after-the-fact thing instead of my usual hunting for their dates craziness.  I'll check in daily with Indiewire.com to see who wins, then maybe Dec. 20 I'll comment on the lot.