Tuesday’s Top Trailer: Date Night

Welcome to a new weekly feature here at Movies with Abe, Tuesday's Top Trailer. One of my favorite parts about going to see movies is the series of trailers that airs beforehand and, more often than not, the trailer is far better than the actual film. Each week, I'll be sharing a trailer I've recently seen. Please chime in with comments on what you think of the trailer and how you think the movie is going to be.

Date Night – Opening April 9, 2010



There’s enough reason to be excited for this movie before even seeing a trailer: it brings together the two people who really brought back NBC’s Must-See TV Thursday night. Steve Carrell is the undisputed star of “The Office,” and I’ve always considered Tina Fey to be the true lead of “30 Rock.” Before Alec Baldwin had two Emmys and three Golden Globes spouting “Best Actor in a Leading Role,” I had always considered him a supporting actor. More importantly, though, Fey works behind-the-scenes as a writer of the show. Unfortunately, Fey didn’t pen this film (her last and only film screenwriting credit was “Mean Girls”), but she should have a grand chance to show off the acting comedy chops she has demonstrated time and again on the four seasons of her hit TV show. Carrell should have no problem either, and he also proved his action-comedy abilities as the strongest part of “Get Smart,” but the question is: which one is the straight man? Fey usually plays that part, but it’s hard to decide which one of them is more of an oddball. But on to the movie! I was very surprised when I saw the trailer after hearing about this movie that it wasn’t a straight comedy a la “Knocked Up.” Instead, it’s an action comedy flick that, while still certainly emphasizing the latter, features killers and dangers aplently. In a sense that’s a relief because its something wildly original that doesn’t just depend, or worse, fall back on, the likeability and popularity of its two stars. They both do look like they’re having a blast though, playing low-key, fairly bland spouses who gradually let their inner crazy out as they’re on the run from hitmen who think they’re a different couple. The fact that the real couple is played by Mila Kunis and James Franco, as revealed ever-so-briefly in the trailer, is great considering their successful work in recent Judd Apatow troupe films, “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “Pineapple Express,” respectively. Simply put, even if the script isn’t sharp, the thespian talent involved should make it more than compelling, and I’ll definitely be thrilled to see it. Are you looking forward to it?

Movie with Abe: Toe to Toe

Toe to Toe
Directed by Emily Abt
Released February 26, 2010

After the same core story is told over and over in assorted variations and iterations, it begins to lose some of its impact. A revealing look at two teenagers with nothing in common who come together as a result of an unexpected share passion can only reveal so much before the trail has already been adequately covered. Treading the same ground with only slighted altered versions of the same archetype doesn’t automatically make the new take interesting or worthwhile. Those that imitate but don’t go above and beyond what came before risk fading into oblivion in the realm of the hundreds of film released each year.

“Toe to Toe” is the tale of two girls from different sides of the track who are united by their talent for playing lacrosse. Jesse is a rich white girl who has essentially been raised by her nanny due to her traveling workaholic mother’s busy schedule. Tosha is a black girl who comes from a bad neighborhood but has the drive to succeed so that she can get a scholarship to Princeton and leave the memories of her destitute world behind. They are brought together by lacrosse, but like last year’s “The Blind Side,” this is a sports movie that fails to adequately play up the love for the sport itself and therefore remains painfully ordinary.

It’s not a terribly original story, but that doesn’t mean it can’t still resonate and have some meaning, even if it’s diminished considerably. These are two characters who, despite fitting very broadly and loosely defined caricatures that hardly make them unique, are living their own individual lives. The intersection of their stories creates an interesting dynamic that, above all, showcases the strong performances of young actresses Louisa Krause and Sonequa Martin, both of who have a limited professional resume and deliver admirably. They should not be penalized if the characters written for them are not as three-dimensional as their portrayals.

There’s little more to say about “Toe to Toe” than to emphasize the fact that this is a familiar story which could have been more meaningful and effective if it had made use of more creative filmic and storytelling devices. There’s nothing to distinguish this particular tale and these specific characters from any such personages in a similar film. It isn’t a bad film, but it’s certainly not a terribly good one either. Expect more from these young and talented actresses in the future, but don’t spend too much time on this movie.

C+

Oscar Winner Reactions

Well, the annual awards season has officially come to a close. After the Oscars aired last night, we now have four first-time acting winners, the first woman ever to win best director, an underdog that defeated a film that earned over thirty times as much money at the box office for the top prize, and a few surprises along the way. None of the surprises are too exciting, since “Precious” did not deserve to beat “Up in the Air” for Best Adapted Screenplay and I, like pretty much every person who isn’t an Oscar voter who voted in the Best Foreign Film category, haven’t seen “The Secret in their Eyes,” which doesn’t open in U.S. theatres until April 16, so I can’t say whether or not it deserves it. I’m happy to report that the two most deserving short films (live action and animated) did in fact win, with the amazing “Logorama” defeating the equally entertaining but not quite as creative Wallace & Gromit entry “A Matter of Loaf and Death” and the incomparable “The New Tenants” winning the other award.

Predictions-wise, I did alright but not excellently. I missed seven categories in total – both screenplays, sound, makeup, foreign language film, documentary short, and animated short. For those keeping track, 17/24 (71%) is one more category up from last year, when I predicted 16/24, and five up from two years ago, when I got 12/24. More importantly, I got the top six categories right this time around, which wasn’t necessarily an easy feat considering many didn’t have faith in “The Hurt Locker.” Anyway, it’s been a fun season.

Ceremony-wise, I don’t have much to say because there wasn’t anything too exciting about it. Neil Patrick Harris’ appearance was fun, but Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin didn’t really have a chance to do too much funny stuff. Ben Stiller’s Avatar appearance was entertaining, and the mix of presenters worked pretty well. Some at my Oscar-watching party took issue with having Barbra Streisand present Best Director and endorse two candidates before handing out the award, not unjustly. I prefer a subtler choice which honors all directors, like when Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg presented because everyone thought that Martin Scorsese was going to win and it still would have been meaningful if someone else had taken home the trophy. Streisand is also a strange choice because she is not one of the other three women who was nominated for Best Director, despite having helmed a Best Picture nominee.

What were your favorite moments from the Oscars and what did you think of the winners? Post a comment and below and share your thoughts!

Your Guide to the Oscars

Movies with Abe presents your guide to tonight's Oscars. Click on each category heading for detailed analysis, reference the asterisk for the predicted winner, and click on each movie title for a full review of the film in question. Post your own predictions in the comments, and enjoy the ceremony! I'm hosting a party so I won't be live-blogging, but good luck on your own pools and enjoy the show.


Best Motion Picture Of The Year
Avatar
The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
*The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
A Serious Man
Up
Up In The Air

Best Performance By An Actor In A Leading Role
*Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart)
George Clooney (Up in the Air)
Colin Firth (A Single Man)
Morgan Freeman (Invictus)
Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker)

Best Performance By An Actress In A Leading Role
*Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side)
Helen Mirren (The Last Station)
Carey Mulligan (An Education)
Gabourey Sidibe (Precious)
Meryl Streep (Julie & Julia)

Best Performance By An Actor In A Supporting Role
Matt Damon (Invictus)
Woody Harrelson (The Messenger)
Christopher Plummer (The Last Station)
Stanley Tucci (The Lovely Bones)
*Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds)

Best Performance By An Actress In A Supporting Role
Penelope Cruz (Nine)
Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air)
Maggie Gyllenhaal (Crazy Heart)
Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air)
*Mo'Nique (Precious)

Best Achievement In Directing
*Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker)
James Cameron (Avatar)
Lee Daniels (Precious)
Jason Reitman (Up in the Air)
Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds)

Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly For The Screen
The Hurt Locker
*Inglourious Basterds
The Messenger
A Serious Man
Up

Best Writing, Screenplay Based On Material Previously Produced Or Published
District 9
An Education
In the Loop
Precious
*Up In The Air

Best Achievement In Cinematography
*Avatar
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
The White Ribbon

Best Achievement In Art Direction
*Avatar
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Nine
Sherlock Holmes
The Young Victoria

Best Achievement In Costume Design
Bright Star
Coco Before Chanel
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Nine
*The Young Victoria

Best Achievement In Editing
Avatar
District 9
*The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious

Best Achievement In Music Written For Motion Pictures, Original Score
Avatar
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Hurt Locker
Sherlock Holmes
*Up

Best Achievement In Music Written For Motion Pictures, Original Song
*“The Weary Kind” (Crazy Heart)
“Take It All” (Nine)
“Loin de Paname” (Paris 36)
“Almost There” (The Princess and the Frog)
“Down in New Orleans” (The Princess and the Frog)

Best Achievement In Sound
*Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Best Achievement In Sound Editing
Avatar
*The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek
Up

Best Achievement In Makeup
Il Divo
Star Trek
*The Young Victoria

Best Achievement In Visual Effects
*Avatar
District 9
Star Trek

Best Documentary, Features
Burma VJ
*The Cove
Food, Inc.
The Most Dangerous Man in America
Which Way Home

Best Foreign Language Film Of The Year
Ajami
The Milk of Sorrow
A Prophet
The Secret of Her Eyes
*The White Ribbon

Best Animated Feature Film of The Year
Coraline
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Princess and the Frog
The Secret of Kells
*Up

Best Documentary Short Film
China’s Unnatural Disaster
The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner
*The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant
Music by Prudence
Rabbit à la Berlin

Best Animated Short Film
French Roast
Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty
The Lady and the Reaper
Logorama
*A Matter of Loaf and Death

Best Live Action Short Film
The Door
Instead of Abracadabra
Kavi
Miracle Fish
*The New Tenants

Oscar-Nominated Documentaries: Burma VJ & The Cove

Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
Directed by Anders Ostergaard
Released May 20, 2009

The Cove
Directed by Louie Psihoyos
Released July 31, 2009

Two of the films nominated for this weekend’s Oscar for Best Documentary are no longer in theatres. While “The Cove” has been out on DVD since December, “Burma VJ,” which enjoyed an extremely brief theatrical run last May, won’t be available on DVD until around June. Luckily, the IFC Center in New York City brought the latter film back for one night as part of the Stranger than Fiction series last week. These two films actually have quite a bit in common, and it’s very interesting to look at these two posited beside each other.

With any hard-hitting documentary, exposing the facts requires a certain determination on the part of the researchers and often forces them to put their lives in serious danger. In the case of “Burma VJ,” the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) faces life imprisonment by the military government and the destruction of all of the video material its members have worked to assemble. In “The Cove,” former Flipper trainer Richard O’Barry and his team of dolphin rescuers also risk the daily possibility of being apprehended and held without anyone back home to come and save them. The stories of people being beaten and shot versus dolphins being murdered might not exactly carry the same weight, but through these two films, each presents an extraordinarily compelling tale.

In both “The Cove” and “Burma VJ,” a brave few try to expose some truth about which the rest of the world seems hopelessly unaware. In the effort to save the dolphins, the small crew seeks to film as much as they can so that they can use it to inspire others back in the United States and other countries to take part in the cause. In Burma, however, the most significant part of the work done by the DVB is the transmission of the footage taken to the rest of the world and even back into the closed country of Burma. Spreading information is paramount, and if a small number of people can inspire hundreds, thousands, or millions, then maybe the world can be changed one step at a time.

The two films take different tones in spotlighting their respective injustices. “Burma VJ” is an ultra-serious instance of true groundbreaking reporting from a closed country, as the subtitle suggests, and it operates under the premise that everyone is watching and therefore it’s simply unbelievable that nothing is changing. “The Cove” starts with the opening line “we tried to do this legally” while operating as a thriller of sorts, but there’s a fair amount of humor in the film, including O’Barry deliberately lying to police in interviews and answering the question “how many times have you been arrested” with “this year?” O’Barry also utters a distinctly trademark line that no other person in thee world could call their own: “if there’s a dolphin in trouble anywhere in the world, my phone rings.” The DVB similarly attempts to prevent any government misconduct in the country of Burma. These watchdogs are doing incredible work, and these films do their stories justice.

Burma VJ: B+
The Cove: B+

Movie with Abe: The Secret of Kells

The Secret of Kells
Directed by Tomm Moore & Nora Twomey
Released March 5, 2010

This year’s surprise nominee for Best Animated Feature is finally here, and it’s quite an interesting experience. It’s one of the most astonishing uses of traditional two-dimensional animation to tell a story about the writing of the Book of Kells amid an impending invasion of Kells by the murderous Vikings. There’s something inherently fascinating and intoxicating about the film, but there seems to be something missing in the impact and overall effectiveness of the film in seeming like a finished project and a complete story.

In a sense, “The Secret of Kells” is like a film adaptation of a children’s book. While it tells a dark history often wrought with gruesome violence (though it isn’t rated by the MPAA, it would likely earn a PG-13), the way it presents it is through the eyes of the impressionable young Brendan, the nephew of the Abbot who has never left the confines of the abbey. Brendan’s curiosity always gets the best of him, and the arrival of the legendary Brother Aidan of Iona, illustrator of the Book of Kells, propels him into a whirlwind adventure that pits him both against the wrath of his overprotective uncle and much more gravely dangerous forces in his path.

Brendan’s real journey begins when he runs deep into a mysterious forest which he has been forbidden to enter by his uncle. The way he so quickly becomes simultaneously lost and awed by his fantastical surroundings is reminiscent of “Pan’s Labyrinth,” where magic often aids the main character and things are never quite as they seem. The energy with which the excitable young protagonist runs headfirst into danger and the dominance of fascination over fear by what he finds is also similar in a wonderful way. The presence of Brendan’s fairy friend Aisling is probably the most amazing part of the film, and a haunting song that she sings to help spirit Brendan to safety is simply mesmerizing.

The two-dimensional animation is particularly impressive considering the current predominance of computer animation today. The active workings of Brendan’s imagination are spectacularly illustrated and represented by the startling and incredible designs that play out on screen. Aesthetically and technically speaking, it’s a marvelous achievement that serves as a strong argument for the continued use of hand-drawn animation, and its resemblance to a children’s story book only helps make it all the more compelling. As a narrative film, however, it falls somewhat short because its 75-minute runtime doesn’t allow it the time to fully develop, and more crucially, finish telling, its intriguing tale.

B

Movie with Abe: Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland
Directed by Tim Burton
Released March 5, 2010

Everyone knows the story of Alice in Wonderland. Even if the details are a bit foggy, the general gist of the fairy tale and the main players in the story should be known to most moviegoers. There are so many different versions out there, beginning with the original book by Lewis Caroll in 1865 and even as recently envisioned as this past fall with a SyFy miniseries. After countless variations on the same tale, why not be late for this very important date? Fortunately, the wild imagination of one Tim Burton and a slew of smartly cast actors make this Wonderland worth visiting.

As usual, Alice’s trip to Wonderland begins after she finds herself hopelessly out of place in her own life. In this version, she continually insists that the world she has stumbled into is all a dream, and that she will survive whatever may cross her path because none of it is real. Familiar faces such as the White Rabbit and the Mad Hatter pop up and continue to tell her that she must fulfill her destiny, and it’s truly enjoyable and fun to identity those characters and know all along that Alice isn’t in fact dreaming and must eventually face the reality of this different world.

Through its reinterpretation by Burton, Wonderland is a colorful place with dazzling scenery and astonishing representations of token concepts such as the Red Queen and her kingdom. It’s an entirely magical world brimming with wonder, and even if Alice isn’t ready to accept it as truly existing, audiences can watch with amazement at the stunning visuals and visualization of this classic locale. Nothing is spared in the creation of this universe, and the three-dimensional animation helps to maximize the majesty of this place and instill a sense of enchantment in everything that occurs within its bounds.

Mia Wasikowska, who broke out as a temperamental gymnast patient on HBO’s “In Treatment,” is a wonderful Alice who is more than able to hold her own against the likes of Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter. She is strong and hard-headed, but not overly so thanks to a carefully demonstrated compassionate and caring side. Helena Bonham Carter is hilarious as the bigheaded Red Queen, and the way she cries out “off with her head” is absolutely terrific. Supporting performances by Crispin Glover, Alan Rickman, and countless others create a wondrous ensemble that truly personifies and defines this particular Wonderland.

This new Alice isn’t entirely fresh, but there is a certain delight that comes with seeing the familiar done in a clever new way. The mix of performances, effects, energetic music, and directorial vision creates a wild and working mix. Lines like “I imagine six impossible things before breakfast” and “all the best people are” to ease the minds of those categorized as crazy are uttered magnificently, and though the execution of the story presumes some prior knowledge of this story on the part of the moviegoer, it’s still a great rendition full of life.

B+

Oscar Winner Predictions: Best Picture

The competition: Avatar, The Blind Side, District 9, An Education, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Precious, A Serious Man, Up, Up in the Air

Previous winners: Slumdog Millionaire, No Country for Old Men, The Departed, Crash, Million Dollar Baby
Who should win: Inglourious Basterds
Who will win: We’re now at the final stretch. For a while, it seemed like “Avatar” was a juggernaut and “The Hurt Locker” might be able to squeeze by with a surprising underdog win. Now the situation is reversed, and “The Hurt Locker” is the healthy frontrunner. Interestingly enough, a recent AwardsDaily.com poll puts “Avatar” in the #3 slot, with “Inglourious Basterds” edging it out at #2. What that signals to me is that “Avatar” doesn’t have nearly as good a chance as many think, and therefore the chance of “Inglourious Basterds,” or even “Up in the Air” or “Precious,” upsetting isn’t strong. The recent controversy about a producer sending angry e-mails to sway voters probably won’t factor in too much, and I still contend that “The Hurt Locker” is the most universally likeable film that I don’t see having many detractors. The reality is that any of those five films could win. The Hurt Locker is my pick, but don’t be surprised to hear “Avatar” announced as the year’s Best Picture.