Film Misery

Brief reviews of ‘Inglourious Basterds,’ ‘Metropolitan,’ ‘The Last Days of Disco,’ ‘Casa de mi Padre,’ ‘Broadway Danny Rose,’ and ‘Drive.’

‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’ is revelatory both in terms of Lean’s career and the war genre.

Read of the Day: Why are there so few female directors? Is that age-old Hollywood trend of the masculine auteur coming to an end? [The Guardian] News of the Day: Matt Damon says that the next Bourne film might be a prequel. It’s still not worth seeing if Paul Greengrass isn’t attached. [Empire] Review of [...]

A month ago, there was a showdown in the Best Actress race. Meryl Streep and Carey Mulligan were fighting it out for the large amount of precursor awards. Streep’s starpower was up against Mulligan’s breakthrough status in a heated Awards battle that was expected to last until Oscar time. However, that race is long gone. [...]

Several hours from now the stars will be seated for one of the biggest Awards ceremonies of the night and Ricky Gervais will be ready to insult them. I’m really hoping that Gervais pulls no punches tonight and remains as hilarious as he’s been in his brief Awards show appearances of the past. The Globes [...]

When it comes to predicting the Oscars for Art Direction, the Art Directors Guild is of little help. They break down their awards into three categories, five nominations each, based on the type of film. This makes it quite difficult to find a crossover between an Art Directors Guild nomination and an Oscar nomination. Traditionally, [...]

Reflecting the opinions of the critics groups as a whole, the Online Film Critics Society has given their awards to Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker and Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds. Each film received 4 awards in complete dominance of the OFCS’s 14 awards. Check out the rest of the winners below: Online Film Critics Society [...]

The Online Film Critics Society has revealed their list of nominees for their Best of 2009 awards. Many seem to be buzzing about the fact that the OFCS snubbed Avatar from their Best Picture lineup. However, even more notable is their head over heels adoration of Inglourious Basterds. Quentin Tarantino’s received a nomination in every [...]

It doesn’t really affect the overall charts, but Inglourious Basterds chalked up another win today. Is there anybody who can beat Christoph Waltz or Mo’Nique at this point? They each have a staggering lead in the precursor charts and they racked up another pair of wins with today’s precursors. Click below for the full charts. [...]

Once again, the predictions weren’t too much of a shocker. Inglourious Basterds, Precious, and Up in the Air lead the pack with three nominations a piece. Check out the nominations and how I did below: Screen Actors Guild Nominees 2009 Best Ensemble Cast An Education The Hurt Locker Inglourious Basterds Nine Precious How I Did: [...]

The Screen Actors Guild Nominations will be announced in a few hours, so it’s time to make some predictions. The SAGs are known to throw some kinks in the acting races and their Best Ensemble Acting category has always been one of the best precursors for the Best Picture Oscar. View my full predictions after [...]

It’s more love for Inglourious Basterds from the San Diego Film Critics Association (SDFCA). Quentin Tarantino’s dominated their awards taking Best Picture, Director, Supporting Actor, Screenplay, Ensemble, and even Production Design. They also give Up a stronger lead in the Best Animated Film precursor race, after it lost some ground to the recent surge of [...]

The Toronto Film Critics Association (TFCA) apparently just can’t make up their minds. They’ve doled out a tie for their Best Picture of the year between the highly favored Inglourious Basterds and new director Steve McQueen’s Hunger. They also give the first best actor award of the year to Nicolas Cage for his curious performance [...]

The Austin Film Critics revealed their awards today as well as their top 10 film of the year and the decade. No 2009 films made it into their top 10 of the decade. Their support this year goes to The Hurt Locker. Austin Film Critics Awards 2009 Best Film The Hurt Locker Best Director Kathryn [...]

The first of the major awards bodies to give out nominations to mainstream films announced an hour ago their nominees for 2009. The Broadcast Film Critics Association favored Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds and Rob Marshall’s Nine, giving each film ten nominations for their upcoming Critics Choice Awards, which are to be aired January 15 on [...]

Read of the Day: Lou Harry directly compares the women of Nine to the women in the same roles in 8 1/2. Advantage? Honestly, I’d have to say Nine. [Variety] News of the Day: Paul Greengrass has dropped out of the fourth Bourne film. The film already is not based on one of Robert Ludlum’s [...]

Read of the Day: Variety has put together another piece that attempts to explain this year’s Oscar rules in the simplest way possible. [Variety] News of the Day: A new Jackass movie is coming out in 2010. And this time you get to see testicles in 3D. [CHUD] Review of the Day: Fantastic Mr. Fox [...]

NOTE: From now on, rather than doing a sweeping update where I make predictions in all categories at once, I will be gradually updating a few categories each week, complete with an article. The brief worries that set in earlier in the week about Precious‘s Oscar chances have quickly faded as the Metacritic reviews have [...]

I guess the usual moviegoers around the country had a similar attitude as me this weekend – it’s the last official weekend of summer, let’s get outside and enjoy it. As a result, nobody was in the theatres. This was one of the slowest weekends at the box office and all of the premiering films [...]

The battle between the end of summer horror movies at the box office has been won by The Final Destination. The film brought in $28 million dollars in its first week, $11 million more than its competition – Rob Zombie’s Halloween II. The Final Destination had the advantage of appearing in 3-D and therefore earning [...]