Reverend’s Reactions: The 2010 Oscar Nominations

The sun is just starting to show itself here in Hollywood, but celebrations are already underway in the wake of the Academy Awards nominations announcement at 5:38 AM PST today. The film industry's equivalent of Christmas morning has inevitably left some kiddies disappointed while many others are gleeful today.

In general, I'm pleased with this year's contenders. I was very happy about the unexpectedly strong showing made by Winter's Bone in addition to The Social Network, The King's Speech (the leader with 12 nominations) and Inception, all of which were among my top 10 of 2010. I was also pleasantly surprised by Nicole Kidman's well-deserved Best Actress nomination for the affecting Rabbit Hole as well as the inclusion of Javier Bardem, who has been largely shut out of other awards this year, in the Best Actor category for his raw, haunting performance in Biutiful, which was also nominated as Best Foreign Language Film.

The Kids Are All Right, 2010's big GLBT-themed release, garnered a number of nominations and cemented its status in my mind as last year's most overrated movie. Annette Bening and Mark Ruffalo were deservedly honored, but the nods it received for Best Original Screenplay and Best Picture are excessive. More strained domestic drama than ballyhooed comedy, The Kids Are All Right fell way short for me despite its excellent cast.

Also highly overrated in my opinion is True Grit. While technically proficient, very well-acted (the amazing, 14-year old Hailee Steinfeld received a deserved nomination for Best Supporting Actress), and a definite improvement on the original movie version, it's also a fairly routine achievement for Joel and Ethan Coen. The brothers' latest nomination for Best Director is unjust, especially when one realizes Christopher Nolan was left out of the category for his extraordinarily creative work on Inception!

But my disappointment with the high praise heaped upon these two films is tempered by some nominations in "lesser" categories: the song "I See The Light" from Tangled as Best Song (although "You Haven't See the Last of Me" from Burlesque was somewhat surprisingly omitted, so we won't have the prospective thrill of seeing and hearing Cher sing it live during the awards ceremony); composer John Powell's Best Music Score nomination for How to Train Your Dragon; the Best Costume Design nod for the sumptuous I Am Love, our Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association pick as Best Film of the Year; and the inclusion of the hand-drawn, Jacques Tati homage The Illusionist among the Best Animated Feature contenders (alongside Dragon and Toy Story 3).

We'll have to tune in to the 83rd Academy Awards presentation on February 27 to see how everything plays out, but I'm expecting Bening and Colin Firth (Best Actor nominee for The King's Speech) at least to have continued reason to celebrate after that night.

See the comments section below for a quick look at all of this year's Oscar nominations.

By Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Blade California.

MD Poll: Bloody Good Costumes

When it comes to Halloween costumes for 2010, MD Poll-takers prefer theirs' with a little teeth... and a lot of blood... True Blood, that is. Of course, well all know that the vampires, werewolves, et al from that hit show spend most of their time in their birthday suits... which should make for some fun trick or treating this year.

Johnny Depp's take on the Mad Hatter came in a close second, while Glee's Sue Sylvester rounded on the top three Halloween costume ideas. See the comments section below for the complete stats.

MD Poll: Trick or Treat, 2010 Style

Halloween is just around the corner, which brings up the annual question, "What am I going to wear?" Well, we here at Movie Dearest have you covered with ten of the hottest pop culture inspired costume ideas for 2010 ... and not one of them is Lady Gaga.

Take your pick for your favorite 2010 Halloween costume idea in the MD Poll located in the right hand sidebar, and tune back Saturday October 30 (Halloween Eve) for the final results.

UPDATE: This poll is now closed; click here for the results, and click here to vote in the latest MD Poll.

Reverend's Reviews: Heavier Metal

I wasn't all that impressed with 2008's first big-screen adventure of the classic Marvel Comics character Iron Man, but was looking forward somewhat to its just-released sequel due to the cast additions of Mickey Rourke and Scarlett Johansson (Don Cheadle is also new, replacing the reportedly too expensive Terrence Howard).

I was pleased to find Iron Man 2 an improvement in almost every way, most notably in a better screenplay (by Justin Theroux) that takes things more seriously and not as jokingly as I felt the first movie did to its detriment. While Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man is still able to slip in plenty of one-liners and double entendres, his character also has to confront his through-the-roof narcissism, worsening dependence on alcohol, and the increasingly short life expectancy of his super-powered heart.

Cue Rourke as the villainous Ivan Vanko, the vengeful son of a Russian physicist who was discredited and died in squalor thanks to Tony's late father, Howard. The elder Stark is shown in Super 8 flashbacks as a Disney-esque designer planning a "City of the Future" not unlike Epcot (to drive home the allegory, one half of Uncle Walt's songwriting Sherman Brothers wrote the project's theme song, which is played in full over the movie's end credits). With the aid of energized whips that can slice through anything, Vanko first crashes a Monaco auto race in which Tony is driving and later, with the assistance of smarmy weapons manufacturer Justin Hammer (a gleeful Sam Rockwell) and an army of destructive drones, the massive Stark Expo that Tony has built largely as a tribute to his dad.

It's a nice, recovery-oriented touch that Vanko wears a helmet that reads "Intervention" as he makes mincemeat of Tony's car during the race. He indeed serves as a rude wake-up call to Tony to start getting his life together. There is some largely unnecessary, heavy-handed dialogue between the two about fathers and legacies scattered throughout the screenplay; these powerful nemeses have enough internal demons to contend with after all.

Rourke is great and seems to be having fun in his big-budget bad guy turn. Also fine is Johansson (who is knockout gorgeous to boot as a personal assistant/secret agent keeping tabs on Stark) as well as his former assistant — and new Stark Industries CEO — Pepper Potts. Gwyneth Paltrow returns as Pepper, and was presumably happy to find her character better developed this time around and her interactions with Tony more intelligent. Paltrow is also more beautiful here than she's ever been.

The larger-scale special effects also seem an improvement over the first Iron Man and, while there is no shortage of explosions and mayhem during the sequel's climax, our hero comes across here as less violent and more truly devoted to peace.

While fanboys and kids may be disappointed by the more complex, somewhat cerebral goings-on in Iron Man 2, I have only words of appreciation for the filmmakers. They've achieved what ought to be the hallmark of all sequels: a deepening of the characters and their relationships rather than an audience-pleasing "more of the same."

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade.

Quick Thoughts on Iron Man 2

The summer movie season has officially begun now that the much anticipated sequel Iron Man 2 is out. I wasn't expecting a lot from the movie because I wasn't expecting a lot from the first film…so why go in with any other kind of expectations? I've never read a single panel of the Iron Man franchise, but two years ago when I watched the original Iron Man I was stunned at how witty and fun the film was with its classic action film aesthetic. I was shocked at how much I liked Iron Man, and even though I rarely see these big summer movies in the theater anymore, last night I decided to check out the sequel without any pre-conceived notions or expectations…and perhaps that's why I thought that the sequel was more successful than most:

• Jon Favreau returns to direct the sequel and his improvisational tendencies are all over the film. The screenplay, by Tropic Thunder writer Justin Thoreaux, has enough humor sprinkled throughout that it made me forgive the film's horribly soggy middle where characters essentially just sit around and wait for plot points to gain momentum so they can pay them off at the end.

• The film follows the traditional story arc for comic book sequel (the tone of the film felt like it was a beat-for-beat remake of Spider-Man 2) which only becomes mildly annoying in its predictability.

• Robert Downey Jr. doesn't get the same material to play with, but as the narcissistic Tony Stark he still hits a homerun as this is so obviously the character he was born to play (can you imagine if the years-ago-rumor of Tom Crusie playing Stark came to fruition?) employing the same wit and snarky attitude that made the original so entertaining to watch despite the fact that things aren't blowing up all the time. 

• Oh, about the action: Iron Man 2 may be the tamest summer sequel ever made. There may be about 20-30 minutes of action in a two hour film. Now, that's both a good thing and a bad thing. The good: the filmmakers understand that people didn't love Iron Man because of the Rock-em-Sock-em Robot-type action (they Transformers for that kind of action film) which is pretty cheesy and boring to watch…they loved the first film because of the attitude of its characters, specifically Downey's performance, and the way the film felt like more than just another draining, dour 150 minute summer blockbuster (pay attention Michael Bay and Christopher Nolan) – it was a witty, crisp and breezy action film that felt classic in its execution compared to the modern output of summer action films – and because of this attitude and understanding the sequel doesn't try to amp up the action in any way. It's essentially the same film. The bad, however, exists because of this understanding from the filmmakers that the fans liked the original Iron Man so much because of Tony Stark and his snarky attitude. So, in the sequel we get an overdose of the kind of His Girl Friday whiplash dialogue between Stark and his assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow who steals every scene she's in) and it becomes just as tiresome as the constant pounding of one's senses in a film like Transformers. It becomes grating only because it is so obvious that in the majority of the dialogue nothing sprang organically (except for the initial introduction of Potts), and it all felt like a screenwriter who was so pleased with how clever he was, instead of letting the actors embody their characters like they did so well in the first film. 
 
• About the characters: Everything is an upgrade – acting wise – in the sequel. I wish there would have been more of Mickey Rourke's character Ivan Vanko (one of the more interesting villains in recently memory who gets absolutely nothing to do during the duration of the film) and his dealing with Stark-wannabe Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell who does all of his usually great Rockwell-isms…playing smarmy in a way that only he can); and I wish there would have been more story between Tony (and just why does he sit around a lot in the middle of the movie? It's as if the filmmakers just expected us to except that plot thread) and Pepper (it would have made those final moments between the two better). I also loved the addition of Gary Shandling as a senator who hates Stark as much as any of his arch enemies do. Whew. There's more…and they're not good: Samuel L. Jackson was good, but unnecessary, and I'll do this as succinctly as possible because it's not worth thinking to much about…but boy Scarlet Johansson seems to be another movie altogether. Her, um, "action" scene at the end is one of the most laughable things I've seen in a while. It's not enough that she can't act, but now we have to watch her try and kick people's ass…yeesh.

• The film was breezy and fun, despite its problems, much in the way the first installment was. Despite the film's need to feel like they needed to set things up for subsequent films – ignoring what was important in this film – I really enjoyed what I saw. Sam Rockwell, Mickey Rourke, and of course, Robert Downey Jr. are worth the price of admission. The action is satisfying as it happens – if altogether forgettable by the end of the night – and the interactions between the characters is exactly what I expected to get going into the film.

• Sure Iron Man 2 isn't as satisfying as the original – it's more of an appetizer it seems for a bigger third entry – and I've already forgotten a lot about the film, but as a Friday night entertainment I think the film delivers in spades. It's exactly what I expected it to be, because like my attitude going into the original, I had no expectations at all, and just let the charm of the actors wash over me and usher me through the problematic script that does its best to disinterest its viewers after the film's extremely entertaining opening 40 minutes.

Reverend’s Preview: Forecast: A Hot Summer at the Movies

The month of May might be best known in local GLBT circles as the celebratory start to a summer full of Pride celebrations, but it is also the annual beginning of Hollywood’s biggest season. While many of the studios’ offerings will be loud, overblown spectacles geared to kids and teens out of school, there are more than a few more adult-oriented offerings with appeal to GLBT moviegoers.

Based on advance word and my personal survey of several studio and independent films’ public relations reps, the following are films we should consider lining up for between now and the end of August. They are listed in order of their scheduled release dates, but please note these dates are subject to change.

Iron Man 2 (May 7): Robert Downey Jr.’s tongue-in-cheek performance powered the Marvel superhero’s first big-screen adventure to record grosses two years ago. Downey and Gwyneth Paltrow return and face off against Russian baddies played by the lovely Scarlett Johansson and a resurgent Mickey Rourke. While Rourke doesn’t fulfill every gay man’s ideal of physical beauty, the film’s trailer reveals The Wrestler Oscar-nominee sporting nothing more than tighty-whities in one scene.

OSS 117: Lost in Rio (May 7): I’m just going to quote from the press release to describe this one: “France’s top secret agent, a cross between James Bond and Austin Powers, teams up with a beautiful Mosad colonel whose mini skirt and kinky boots disguise dangerously forward-thinking views on women’s lib and world politics.” Mexican wrestlers, a man-eating alligator and risqué sexual humor also figure into the plot. What’s not to like?

Robin Hood (May 14): Although star Russell Crowe is on the record saying neither himself nor his male co-stars wear tights in this new take on the classic hero, Crowe is always worth watching and Cate Blanchett co-stars as Maid Marion. Maybe Crowe will at least have a skinny-dipping scene like Kevin Costner (or, rather, Costner’s butt double) did in 1991’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves!

Sex and the City 2 (May 27): In what may be the summer’s campiest movie, Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) and her BFFs Samantha (Kim Cattrall), Miranda (out actress Cynthia Nixon) and Charlotte (Kristin Davis) return for a globetrotting adventure but don’t lack for high fashion or cocktails! Mario Cantone and Willie Garson are also back as the quartet’s gay pals, with no less than Penélope Cruz, Liza Minnelli and Miley Cyrus (?) making cameos.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (May 28): Jake Gyllenhaal of Brokeback Mountain fame sports long hair, a leather codpiece and buffed-up biceps in this video game-inspired fantasy from mega producer Jerry Bruckheimer (Pirates of the Caribbean). Again, I ask: What’s not to like?

Stonewall Uprising (June 18): A documentary that uses archival film footage to trace events and cultural attitudes that culminated in the infamous police raid on New York’s Stonewall Inn in June 1969. The patrons’ counter-attack marked the birth of the GLBT movement; billed as “the first non-fiction film to tell the story of the Stonewall riots by the participants.”

Toy Story 3 (June 18): Action figures Woody the Cowboy and Buzz Lightyear (again voiced by Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, respectively) resume their CG “bromance,” this time in 3-D. The series’ regulars are joined by Barbie’s boy toy Ken (Michael Keaton), as well as a new character with the unfortunate name “Mr. Pricklepants” (former James Bond, Timothy Dalton).

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (June 30): While teenaged girls are this successful book and film chronicle’s main fans, I know a few gay men smitten by its lovelorn vampire, Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), and/or heroine Bella’s werewolf friend, Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner). Dakota Fanning also returns as the mind-controlling Jane, and Bryce Dallas Howard (director Ron Howard’s daughter) assumes the role of Edward’s jilted former lover, the vicious Victoria.

Love Ranch (June 30): A fictional account of Nevada’s brothel industry, starring Oscar-winners Helen Mirren (The Queen) and Joe Pesci (GoodFellas) as the purveyors of one of the state’s first such legal establishments. Problems arise when a South American boxer played by hottie Sergio Peris-Mencheta comes between them. Expect plenty of skin, both female and male.

The Kids Are All Right (July 7): This dramedy focusing on two adult children raised by a lesbian couple (Oscar nominees Julianne Moore and Annette Bening) who decide to seek out their sperm-donor father (Mark Ruffalo) was well received at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Written and directed by lesbian filmmaker Lisa Cholodenko (High Art, Laurel Canyon).

Inception (July 16): From Christopher Nolan, the writer-director of Memento and the last two, super-successful Batman movies, comes a mind-bending science fiction saga about a corporate raider who steals the dreams of business tycoons, played by Leonardo DiCaprio. The film’s great supporting cast includes Joseph Gordon-Levitt (of the gay-themed Latter Days and Mysterious Skin) and Juno star/emerging lesbian favorite Ellen Page.

Dinner for Schmucks (July 23): Cuties Steve Carell and Paul Rudd, so funny together in The 40 Year Old Virgin, co-star as an unsuspecting dork (Carell) recruited by a callous executive (Rudd) as a pawn in a mean-spirited contest. Things don’t quite go as planned, and the two end up as friends rather than adversaries. From director Jay Roach of the Meet the Parents and Austin Powers film series.

Beastly (July 30): A contemporary spin on the classic tale of Beauty and the Beast, starring Vanessa Hudgens of High School Musical fame as Beauty to Alex Pettyfer’s disfigured teenager looking for true love. Out actor and awards show host Neil Patrick Harris is also featured in the cast.

Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore (July 30): Bette Midler gives voice to the villainous feline of the subtitle, who is bent on world domination. This sequel to 2001’s Cats & Dogs (which featured the voice of the recently out Sean Hayes) is likely kids’ stuff, but GLBT pet owners may find it somewhat true-to-life.

The Girl Who Played With Fire (July): The second of Stieg Larsson’s international bestsellers involving bisexual computer-hacker Lisbeth Salander (strong and sexy Noomi Rapace) comes to the big screen quickly on the heels of the hit The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. This time around, Salander and journalist Mikael Blomkvist go after the highly-placed leaders of a sex-trafficking ring.

The Extra Man (July): Described as “charming” and “howlingly funny,” this film centers on a young, aspiring writer (Paul Dano of Little Miss Sunshine and There Will Be Blood) who moves to New York City, where he befriends a failed playwright-turned-escort played by Kevin Kline. Think of it as The Great Gatsby crossed with Midnight Cowboy.

Also watch for several GLBT-themed movies that don’t have definite release dates yet: Spring Fever, Hideaway/Le Refuge and Out Late. And if these offerings aren’t enough for you, there will be GLBT movies galore screened as part of both the 9th Annual Dance Camera West and Los Angeles Film Festivals in June and, of course, the 28th annual Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, a.k.a. Outfest.

Preview by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade.

MD Polls: Next Stop, Wonderland

When it comes to picking your "must see" movie of 2010, Movie Dearest readers proved their mad about the hatter:

Tim Burton's sure-to-be-trippy take on the Lewis Carroll classic Alice in Wonderland (starring his muse, Johnny Depp, as the hatter in question) came out on top in the latest MD Poll. In doing so, it soundly defeated another blockbuster-to-be based on a popular British book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows: Part 1, which placed second.  The catch-all "other" rounded out the top 3.

See the comments section below for the complete stats, and stay tuned for our epic Oscar polls, to be posted later today.

MD Poll: For What Movie Do You Yen in 2010?

It's a new year (and a new decade), with plenty of new and exciting films just around the bend. But which one is your absolute must see for 2010?

Is it the latest adventures of Harry Potter, Buzz and Woody, Iron Man, Carrie Bradshaw or the Twilight gang? How about new versions of such old favorites as Alice in Wonderland, Clash of the Titans or Robin Hood? Or do you just want to see more of Jake looking like this?

Make your choice and place your vote in the MD Poll located in the right hand sidebar. The ultimate "must see" movie of '10 will be revealed Saturday February 6.

UPDATE: This poll is now closed; click here for the results, and click here to vote in the next MD Poll.