*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars. The summer movie season doesn’t officially start until next weekend, but Warner Bros. aims to get a jump on things by releasing their high profile horror remake, “A Nightmare on Elm Street” before the storm. By all accounts, it should work, as horror audiences have proven […]

Continue reading »

The obvious question being, can it find the same awards season rhythm as “Seabiscuit?” Diane Lane is front and center:

Continue reading »

Catch up with the idea behind this series here. 1941 is already famous for an Academy oversight with “Citizen Kane” losing the Best Picture race to “How Green Was My Valley.” At least Welles’s masterpiece got a handful of nominations and a screenplay win, unlike all of the films highlighted in this series. Still, to […]

Continue reading »

Quelle surprise. “The Illusionist,” Sylvain Chomet’s long-gestating follow-up to the Oscar-nominated “The Triplets of Belleville,” has found the US distributor we all knew it eventually would. Sony Pictures Classics today announced their acquisition of the film, which they are readying for an end-of-year release — mirroring the strategy they took with “Belleville” back in 2003. […]

Continue reading »

I asked that, sincerely, via Twitter yesterday after seeing Tweet after Tweet packed with sentiments such as: ETERNITY IS NOT A MEASURE OF TIME!IT’S THE DEPTH OF THIS MOMENT!HEAVEN IS HERE,NOW!FIND IT!FEEL IT!BOING BOING, EVERYBODY!BOING BOING!!! ;^) Obviously a number of Carrey’s projects have crashed and burned as of late, most recently the indefinitely stalled […]

Continue reading »

From 60 minutes, last weekend. Somehow part 2 of this thing has been obliterated from cyberspace, but I guess there’s some good stuff in here (though youc an view the interview in its entirety at CBS):

Continue reading »

*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars. No photo finishes and no Monday recounts needed. “How to Train Your Dragon” has definitely topped the chart this weekend, four weeks after debuting there. The last time a film leapt back up to number one after a three week hiatus was “The Passion of the […]

Continue reading »

I wasn’t able to participate in Robert Welkos’s Hollywood News piece on the drama of bloggerdom (which was already covered to some extent by LA Magazine three years ago). Travel and a period of self-imposed distance from this circus kept me off the phone, but even if I had answered a few questions, I don’t […]

Continue reading »

*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars. Jennifer Lopez hasn’t been on screen since “El Cantante” in 2007 and hasn’t toplined a romantic comedy since “Monster-in-Law” in 2005. That’s a long, five year gap and it’s no surprise that J. Lo is returning to the only genre that has brought her success to […]

Continue reading »

Those who were hoping that the promised additions to the Cannes Competition selection announced last week would bring some added name appeal to a lineup shorter than usual on star auteurs — particularly in the English-language realm — will be disappointed by today’s announcement. Cease your prayers for “The Tree of Life” to show up […]

Continue reading »

There’s zero extras! There’s so few extras that you put it in, you push play, and the movie starts. There are no trailers, there’s no bullshit at the beginning that you have to endlessly go through. I have a deal with the studio and it goes like this: Any movie I make that makes over […]

Continue reading »

Catch up with the idea behind this series here. We’ve come to the year that is generally referred to as the greatest in Hollywood history. Why? As far as I can tell, it’s because somebody said it once and nobody has put up much of a fight since. Plus, there was “Gone With the Wind,” […]

Continue reading »

Has any actor in recent years put an Oscar to quite such good use as Tilda Swinton? I admit I wasn’t quite behind her win two years ago for “Michael Clayton,” but I’ve enjoyed watching how, after two decades as a kind of alien fringe goddess, she’s recently morphed into a movie star of sorts […]

Continue reading »

Amid his coverage of the Nashville Film Festival, Nathaniel Rogers at The Film Experience served up a nice little nugget on composer Carter Burwell, the subject of a much-deserved individual tribute at the fest. Naturally, there was much emphasis on his ongoing collaboration with the Brothers Coen, which will continue this year with “True Grit.” […]

Continue reading »

Hey, remember when an unheralded indie called “Get Low” debuted to standing ovations at Toronto last September? And remember the accompanying talk that Robert Duvall’s second Oscar could be in the bag? And remember when all such talk died as soon as the movie was pushed back to 2010? Such is the give-and-take nature of […]

Continue reading »

Well, you were right. But for the true completists among you — we do promise awards coverage “this deep,” after all — here’s a suitably obscure nugget to wrap up the 2009 parade. The Ivor Novello Awards supposedly honor the finest in British music composition, and while they receive a reasonable amount of press in […]

Continue reading »

Is “Iron Man 2” really just 10 days away? This is the buzziest thing I’ve seen about it.

Continue reading »

*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars. Internet nerds once again failed to make their presence known at the multiplex as “Kick Ass” surrendered to the runner-up spot on a relatively weak frame. As significant as online and fanboy buzz can be, time and again it has led to disappointing debuts more than […]

Continue reading »