Christmas Movie Quiz #2

Posted on December 15, 2009 at 3:57 pm

The first Christmas movie quiz was so much fun I’ve got another one — a little harder this time!
1. Which movie based on a classic book stars a one-time Star Trek captain?
2. In which Christmas classic do children surprise a priest when they make an unusual choice for the song they sing to the baby Jesus in their nativity play: Happy Birthday?
3. Barbara Stanwyck stars in two movies that often show up at Christmas. In one she plays a journalist who writes Martha Stewart-style features about home-making but really can’t cook and then has to entertain her boss at Christmas. In the other she plays a thief who has to go home for the holidays with the prosecuting attorney who is trying to put her in jail. What are they?
4. In which of the great Christmas weepies of all time is an estranged couple re-united by a shawl and a painting?
5. Which animated Christmas movie features songs by the Broadway composer/lyricist team who went on to do “Funny Girl?”
6. One of the foremost American playwrights, known for tragedy, wrote just one comedy and it takes place at Christmas. It is about two couples, one newlywed, one married for several years, having marital problems and it stars Jane Fonda. What is the title?
7. A bitter, divorced father finds himself right in the middle of Christmas after an accident at his house has him taking over for a Christmas character in what movie?
8. In which caustic Christmas comedy does one relative, asked to say grace, recite the Pledge of Allegiance?
9. Which movie explains the four major food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corn and syrup?
10. One of the highlights of which all-star British movie is a performance of a Mariah Carey Christmas song by a group of children in a school holiday play that includes a “first lobster” at the nativity?

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Golden Globe Nominations

Posted on December 15, 2009 at 11:18 am

The 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards NOMINATIONS
HOLLYWOOD FOREIGN PRESS ASSOCIATION
2010 GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS
FOR THE YEAR ENDED DECEMBER 31, 2009
NOMINATIONS PRESS RELEASE
1. BEST MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA
a. AVATAR
Lightstorm Entertainment; Twentieth Century Fox
b. THE HURT LOCKER
Voltage Pictures C/O 42West; Summit Entertainment
c. INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
The Weinstein Company; The Weinstein Company
d. PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL PUSH BY SAPPHIRE
A Lee Daniels Entertainment / Smokewood Entertainment Group Production;
Lionsgate
e. UP IN THE AIR
Paramount Pictures; Paramount Pictures
2. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA
a. EMILY BLUNT THE YOUNG VICTORIA
b. SANDRA BULLOCK THE BLIND SIDE
c. HELEN MIRREN THE LAST STATION
d. CAREY MULLIGAN AN EDUCATION
e. GABOUREY SIDIBE PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL
PUSH BY SAPPHIRE
3. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA
a. JEFF BRIDGES CRAZY HEART
b. GEORGE CLOONEY UP IN THE AIR
c. COLIN FIRTH A SINGLE MAN
d. MORGAN FREEMAN INVICTUS
e. TOBEY MAGUIRE BROTHERS
4. BEST MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL
a. (500) DAYS OF SUMMER
Watermark Pictures; Fox Searchlight Pictures
b. THE HANGOVER
Warner Bros. Pictures; Warner Bros. Pictures
c. IT’S COMPLICATED
Relativity Media, Scott Rudin Productions; Universal Pictures
d. JULIE & JULIA
Columbia Pictures; Sony Pictures Releasing
e. NINE
The Weinstein Company; The Weinstein Company
5. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR
MUSICAL
a. SANDRA BULLOCK THE PROPOSAL
b. MARION COTILLARD NINE
c. JULIA ROBERTS DUPLICITY
d. MERYL STREEP IT’S COMPLICATED
e. MERYL STREEP JULIE & JULIA
6. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY
OR MUSICAL
a. MATT DAMON THE INFORMANT!
b. DANIEL DAY-LEWIS NINE
c. ROBERT DOWNEY JR. SHERLOCK HOLMES
d. JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT (500) DAYS OF SUMMER
e. MICHAEL STUHLBARG A SERIOUS MAN
7. BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
a. CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS
Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation; Sony Pictures Releasing
b. CORALINE
Laika, Inc.; Focus Features
c. FANTASTIC MR. FOX
American Empirical Picture; Twentieth Century Fox
d. THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG
Walt Disney Pictures/Walt Disney Animation Studios; Walt Disney Studios
Motion Pictures
e. UP
Walt Disney Pictures/PIXAR Animation Studios; Walt Disney Studios Motion
Pictures
8. BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
a. BAARIA (ITALY)
Medusa Film; Summit Entertainment
b. BROKEN EMBRACES (SPAIN)
El Deseo SA; Sony Pictures Classics
c. THE MAID (CHILE)
(LA NANA)
Forastero; Elephant Eye Films
d. A PROPHET (FRANCE)
Chic Films; Sony Pictures Classics
e. THE WHITE RIBBON (GERMANY)
(DAS WEISSE BAND – EINE DEUTSCHE KINDERGESCHICHTE)
Wega Films; Sony Pictures Classics
9. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A
MOTION PICTURE
a. PENÉLOPE CRUZ NINE
b. VERA FARMIGA UP IN THE AIR
c. ANNA KENDRICK UP IN THE AIR
d. MO’NIQUE PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL
PUSH BY SAPPHIRE
e. JULIANNE MOORE A SINGLE MAN
10. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A
MOTION PICTURE
a. MATT DAMON INVICTUS
b. WOODY HARRELSON THE MESSENGER
c. CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER THE LAST STATION
d. STANLEY TUCCI THE LOVELY BONES
e. CHRISTOPH WALTZ INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
11. BEST DIRECTOR – MOTION PICTURE
a. KATHRYN BIGELOW THE HURT LOCKER
b. JAMES CAMERON AVATAR
c. CLINT EASTWOOD INVICTUS
d. JASON REITMAN UP IN THE AIR
e. QUENTIN TARANTINO INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
12. BEST SCREENPLAY – MOTION PICTURE
a. NEILL BLOMKAMP, DISTRICT 9
TERRI TATCHELL
b. MARK BOAL THE HURT LOCKER
c. NANCY MEYERS IT’S COMPLICATED
d. JASON REITMAN, UP IN THE AIR
SHELDON TURNER
e. QUENTIN TARANTINO INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
13. BEST ORIGINAL SCORE – MOTION PICTURE
a. MICHAEL GIACCHINO UP
b. MARVIN HAMLISCH THE INFORMANT!
c. JAMES HORNER AVATAR
d. ABEL KORZENIOWSKI A SINGLE MAN
e. KAREN O,
CARTER BURWELL WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE
14. BEST ORIGINAL SONG – MOTION PICTURE
a. “CINEMA ITALIANO” — NINE
Music & Lyrics by: Maury Yeston
b. “I WANT TO COME HOME” — EVERYBODY’S FINE
Music & Lyrics by: Paul McCartney
c. “I WILL SEE YOU” — AVATAR
Music by: James Horner, Simon Franglen
Lyrics by: James Horner, Simon Franglen, Kuk Harrell
d. “THE WEARY KIND (THEME FROM CRAZY HEART)” — CRAZY
HEART
Music & Lyrics by: Ryan Bingham, T Bone Burnett
e. “WINTER” — BROTHERS
Music by: U2
Lyrics by: Bono
15. BEST TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA
a. BIG LOVE (HBO)
Anima Sola and Playtone in association with HBO Entertainment
b. DEXTER (SHOWTIME)
Showtime Presents, John Goldwyn Productions, The Colleton Company, Clyde
Phillips Productions
c. HOUSE (FOX)
Universal Media Studios in association with Heel and Toe Films, Shore Z
Productions and Bad Hat Harry
d. MAD MEN (AMC)
AMC
e. TRUE BLOOD (HBO)
Your Face Goes Here Entertainment in association with HBO Entertainment
16. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES –
DRAMA
a. GLENN CLOSE DAMAGES
b. JANUARY JONES MAD MEN
c. JULIANNA MARGULIES THE GOOD WIFE
d. ANNA PAQUIN TRUE BLOOD
e. KYRA SEDGWICK THE CLOSER
17. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA
a. SIMON BAKER THE MENTALIST
b. MICHAEL C. HALL DEXTER
c. JON HAMM MAD MEN
d. HUGH LAURIE HOUSE
e. BILL PAXTON BIG LOVE
18. BEST TELEVISION SERIES – COMEDY OR MUSICAL
a. 30 ROCK (NBC)
Universal Media Studios in association with Broadway Video and Little
Stranger Inc.
b. ENTOURAGE (HBO)
Leverage and Closest to the Hole Productions in association with HBO
Entertainment
c. GLEE (FOX)
Twentieth Century Fox Television
d. MODERN FAMILY (ABC)
Twentieth Century Fox Television
e. THE OFFICE (NBC)
Universal Media Studios, Deedle Dee Productions, Reveille LLC
19. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES –
COMEDY OR MUSICAL
a. TONI COLLETTE UNITED STATES OF TARA
b. COURTENEY COX COUGAR TOWN
c. EDIE FALCO NURSE JACKIE
d. TINA FEY 30 ROCK
e. LEA MICHELE GLEE
20. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES –
COMEDY OR MUSICAL
a. ALEC BALDWIN 30 ROCK
b. STEVE CARELL THE OFFICE
c. DAVID DUCHOVNY CALIFORNICATION
d. THOMAS JANE HUNG
e. MATTHEW MORRISON GLEE
21. BEST MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
a. GEORGIA O’KEEFFE (LIFETIME TELEVISION)
Sony Pictures Television
b. GREY GARDENS (HBO)
Specialty Films and Locomotive in association with HBO Films
c. INTO THE STORM (HBO)
Scott Free and Rainmark Films Production in association with the BBC and HBO
Films
d. LITTLE DORRIT (PBS)
Masterpiece/BBC Co-production
e. TAKING CHANCE (HBO)
Motion Picture Corporation of America and Civil Dawn Pictures in association
with HBO Films
22. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION
PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
a. JOAN ALLEN GEORGIA O’KEEFFE
b. DREW BARRYMORE GREY GARDENS
c. JESSICA LANGE GREY GARDENS
d. ANNA PAQUIN THE COURAGEOUS HEART OF IRENA
SENDLER
e. SIGOURNEY WEAVER PRAYERS FOR BOBBY
23. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION
PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
a. KEVIN BACON TAKING CHANCE
b. KENNETH BRANAGH WALLANDER: ONE STEP BEHIND
c. CHIWETEL EJIOFOR ENDGAME
d. BRENDAN GLEESON INTO THE STORM
e. JEREMY IRONS GEORGIA O’KEEFFE
24. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A
SERIES, MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
a. JANE ADAMS HUNG
b. ROSE BYRNE DAMAGES
c. JANE LYNCH GLEE
d. JANET McTEER INTO THE STORM
e. CHLOË SEVIGNY BIG LOVE
25. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES,
MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
a. MICHAEL EMERSON LOST
b. NEIL PATRICK HARRIS HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER
c. WILLIAM HURT DAMAGES
d. JOHN LITHGOW DEXTER
e. JEREMY PIVEN ENTOURAGE

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Inglourious Basterds

Posted on December 15, 2009 at 8:10 am

There is no question that writer-director Quentin Tarantino is a brilliant film-maker. But there is some question about whether he has yet made a brilliant film. No one takes a more visceral pleasure in movies than he does but there is always a chilly irony and a look-at-me distance. Movies are more Tarantino’s mirror than his window.

This film takes its title from a little-seen Italian movie made in 1978, but starting with the intentional misspelling, it has little in common with the original except for a WWII setting and a Tarantino’s characteristic pulpish sensibility. It shares even less in common with history. About the only thing it gets accurately is that the Nazis spoke German and the Americans spoke English.

Tarantino calls the movie a revenge fantasy. Brad Pitt plays Lieutenant Aldo Raine, who assembles a squadron of Jewish soldiers with one goal, to kill as many Nazis as possible, in as horrifying a manner as possible. “We will be cruel to the Germans and through our cruelty they will know who we are,” he tells them. One of his men is a former German soldier they rescued from prison after he killed his superior officers. Another is nicknamed “The Jew Bear” (played by horror director Eli Roth), and he kills Nazis with a baseball bat.

Meanwhile, a Jewish woman named Shosanna Dreyfus (MÃ©lanie Laurent) owns a movie theater in Paris. She escaped from the Nazis and has a new identity. A handsome German war hero who is interested in getting to know her better arranges for the premiere of the new movie about his triumph in battle to take place at her theater, putting her in danger, but giving her the opportunity to put the Nazi dignitaries who will be attending in danger as well. Tarantino’s almost fetishistic fascination with movies, from the fine points of the auteur theory down to the combustibility of the film stock, gives this section of the film an extra charge.

Tarantino’s opening scene is brilliantly staged, as a German officer (Austrian actor Christoph Waltz) visits a French dairy farmer in search of Jews who may have escaped his predecessor. Waltz, winner of the Cannes prize for acting, instantly joins Hannibal Lecter, Darth Vader, and the Wicked Witch of the West as one of the all-time great movie villains with a mesmerizing performance that shows off his fluency in English, German, French, Italian…and evil. Like Lecter, his venom is even more disturbing because of his urbanity and courtliness. Other scenes are also masterfully shot, especially an extended scene in a bar, when a critical meeting of Allied forces working undercover find themselves among a drunken party of German soldiers celebrating a new baby. Others, like the viscious killing of a group of what Raine calls Nah-sies, suffer from Tarantino’s tendency to go for showmanship over substance.

And that is the problem at the core of the film. If the misspelling of the words in the title was a signal of some kind, like the backwards letter intended as a warning and a small sign of protest in the sign over the gate at Auschwitz, then we could look for meaning in the reworking of historical events and the actions taken by real people. But Tarantino does not care about that. He is still about sensation, not sense. He appropriates the signifiers of WWII because they are easy, and because they are both scary and safe. His Nah-sies are like dinosaurs, unquestionably dangerous and unquestionably vanquished. Tarantino is a film savant. He knows and understands and loves the language of film. He just doesn’t have much to say.

The Hangover

Posted on December 15, 2009 at 8:03 am

When things go wrong for us, it’s tragedy. When they go wrong for someone else, it’s funny. As Alan Dale says, comedy is a man in trouble. This comedy gives us four men in a lot of trouble following a debauched, drug-fueled bachelor party in Las Vegas who wake up with no recollection of what happened and no idea what has happened to one’s missing tooth, another’s missing mattress, and, most significantly, no groom. The one whose wedding is being celebrated, the one whose wedding is taking place the next day, has disappeared.

Meanwhile, there are some items in the trashed hotel room with the still-smoking chair that no one recalls having seen before, including a chicken, a tiger, and an infant. At the beginning of the evening, they toasted “to a night the four of us will never forget.” By the next morning, the three remaining guys cannot remember anything that happened, and the rest of the movie has them racing all over to figure out where they went, what they did, and how the groom managed to disappear without a trace.

In one respect, it’s just a cheerfully outrageous comedy, with much of the humor coming from our discovering along with the hapless trio of boy-men chafing at the bonds of civilization just how appallingly they have violated every possible standard of appropriate behavior and good taste. It’s your basic best of both worlds comedy where we get to see our most childish wishes fulfilled and then get to see the characters on screen suffer the punishment for it. But it is also a whacked-out variation on “The Wizard of Oz,” with characters in need of a heart, a brain, and courage going on a journey to an exotic land and learning that there’s no place like home.

Doug (Justin Bartha) is about to get married and so his two best friends take him to Las Vegas for one last bachelor blow-out. They are Phil (Bradley Cooper), a teacher who is married with a son and says that he hates his life in need of a heart, and Stu (“The Office’s” Ed Helms) an uptight dentist who is about to propose to his controlling, unfaithful shrew of a girlfriend, who needs some nerve. That leaves Alan (comedian Zach Galifianakis) who is lacking brains. He’s along for the ride because he is the bride’s brother. And the gorgeous mint-condition Mercedes convertible is what they are riding in, thanks to what is inevitably going to be shown to be a very foolish gesture on the part of the prospective father-in-law. The wicked witch part, of course, is shared by nearly every woman on screen.

Cooper is a comic actor trapped in the very appealing body of a leading man and Helms (who gamely had his fake tooth removed for authenticity) provides able counterpoint as the conflicted Stu. Galifianakis looks like a cross between a Hobbit and a garden gnome and a little of him goes a long way, but he manages to be less obnoxious than expected. And they run into an engaging variety of characters along the way including an emergency room doctor, a drug dealer (Mike Epps), an effeminate gangster, an earthy wedding chapel manager, and of course an “escort” with a heart of good (a very game and, as ever, alluring and adorable Heather Graham).

The film’s most disappointing element is its casual sexism. Aside from the escort, all of the women come across as shrewish and narcissistic. But other than that, like predecessors “Superbad” and “Pineapple Express,” the movie has an essential sweetness that disinfects its raunchiest moments.

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Comedy

Taking Woodstock

Posted on December 15, 2009 at 7:00 am

This is a movie about what went on in the community near Woodstock while the concert that would forever be known by that name was happening. And a happening. In other words, this is a footnote movie. It tries to make the town a metaphor and counterpoint, a sort of counter-counter-culture, with reactions to and some participation in the sex, drugs, and rock and roll that was going on nearby, but it is impossible to watch it without wanting to ask the characters to move to one side because they are obstructing our view of Jimi Hendrix.

Those who remember the now-iconic moments from the classic documentary may enjoy seeing a few brief in-jokes (the interview with the port-a-potty guy, the nun flashing the peace sign) and some will appreciate the combination of vision and happenstance that led to the festival and its place in public consciousness as a marker for a generational shift. But director Ang Lee (“Brokeback Mountain,” “Sense and Sensibility”) falters when he tries to tie it all to his favorite theme of the internal struggle with repressed desires.

Jonathan Groff is sweetly beatific as concert organizer Michael Lang and Liev Schreiber is nicely matter-of-fact as Vilma, a pistol-packing cross-dressing vet. But the best parts of the movie are the details around the edges. The story of Elliot (a likable Demetri Martin), a Greenwich Village decorator caught up in the struggles of his parents’ failing Catskills motel is not involving or illuminating enough to hold the screen. His New York Jewish parents, despite the best efforts of Brits Imelda Staunton and Henry Goodman, are the usual bickering stereotypes. Emile Hirsch is the usual crazed Vietnam vet stereotype. A troupe of college actors is there only to show Elliot’s interest in the arts and to take their clothes off. An LSD trip sequence is, as LSD trip sequences are, more boring than listening to someone else telling what happened in his dream. And it is difficult to feel any tension when some of the neighbors try to stop the concert because we all know how it turned out.

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Based on a true story Drama