I know these posts look really bulky, but I’d sure appreciate if you put biglongtextaphobia aside and read these posts. I really did put a lot of hard work into them, and I really do think they hold something great for everyone. Blogging friends, consider this to be my 13-day elaboration on the Origins Project questionnaire I sent out.
As for commenting, I’d be perfectly happy if you just wrote “I read this post.” Just to let me know.
Day 7: “The Law of Diminishing Returns” / “The Law of Double Features”
Thanks to “The Kids Are All Right,” I’m going through a HUGE Julianne Moore phase right now. I’ve been making an effort to see all her major roles, especially the Oscar-nominated ones, since seeing the movie.
And I also had the added motivation of the LAMB Acting School’s spotlight on Moore. As usual, I submitted my reviews on Julianne Moore – three from recent reviews and three from the “F.I.L.M. of the Week” series. If you aren’t done celebrating Moore like I’m not done, then be sure to check out this great event. Hopefully the celebration last until Oscar night … fingers crossed!
On August 13, the women get the first legitimate movie aimed at them since “Sex and the City 2.” Rather than just looking at clothes in the high-profile bomb back in May, they can get some late summer substance from “Eat Pray Love,” the Julia Roberts-headlined adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert’s wildly popular memoir.
Millions of women have read the book and loved it, including my own mother who at the time rarely read but holed herself up to plow through it. Trust me when I say that women adore this book. I’m not sure how much that fan base alone can make it commercially viable, especially because of the pretty stealth marketing campaign. They haven’t gone out of their way to excite anyone outside their target group; very few prominent bloggers have seen it. They really are selling it just on Elizabeth Gilbert’s book and the presence of Julia Roberts.
So what exactly does the star power of Julia Roberts mean for the Oscar hopes of “Eat Pray Love?” Definitely a lot less than this time a decade ago, when Roberts won an Academy Award for “Erin Brockovich,” a movie she carried on her shoulders. As Entertainment Weekly pointed out to me, this is the first time that she’s attempted the feat since. At that same time ten years ago, she was the highest paid star in the business, claiming $20 million paychecks when they were considered exorbitant.
I don’t think a Best Actress nomination is completely out of the question for Roberts. She has enough respect from the Academy since she has won, and after quite some time out of the spotlight while she raised her kids, a nomination would show how happy they are to have her back in full force.
In fact, these “chick lit” movies have had success scoring Best Actress nominations – as long as you are Meryl Streep. The Academy’s forever golden girl received her last two nominations for playing characters adapted from literature, Julia Child in last year’s “Julie & Julia” and Miranda Priestly in 2006’s “The Devil Wears Prada.” Both movies were released fairly late in the summer and boasted great box office legs (the latter finished with the higher total).
And another interesting observation: both of those movies were nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Picture, although they lost to “The Hangover” and “Dreamgirls,” respectively. I’m not sure if “Eat Pray Love” will be pushed as a comedy, but if so, I can easily see a Best Picture nomination coming from that category. But the big question has to be if this is a movie that can push its awards season beyond the Globes.
With ten nominations, there is definitely more of a spot for movies like “Eat Pray Love” that there has ever been. Just look at “The Blind Side,” which was nominated last year after carving out a large audience from middle America. These niche movies, reaching a particular group, may fare really well in the Academy’s current attitude that seems to want to represent all tastes in Best Picture. If “Eat Pray Love” gets good reviews and makes a nice chunk of change in August, some strong marketing muscle in December and January could easily thrust it into the discussion. And if Roberts’ performance is still remembered, then the movie could also ride in on her trail.
In the meantime, I’m looking forward to seeing a nice, quiet movie soon. And watching all that food in Italy.
BEST BETS FOR NOMINATIONS: Best Picture, Best Actress
OTHER POSSIBLE NOMINATIONS: Best Adapted Screenplay
What’s better than seeing a movie in the theater? Easy. Seeing two movies in one day at the theater! The art of the double feature is one that I have acquired over the past two years (although I haven’t been polishing it at all this summer).
And to clarify, I am not talking about the art known as theater-hopping or movie-hopping, which is a form of cheating and stealing. Not to be a prude, but I respect the people who make movies enough not to cheat them out of much deserved profits (providing that the movie doesn’t stink.)
So here’s what I’ve learned from my double features and how to plan the perfect one.
The movies have to be pretty close in quality. If one movie is really good, the other has to be great as well. And if one movie is bad … you need to see a good movie. If they aren’t pretty evenly matched, the day gets pretty lopsided, and you leave with a bitter taste in your mouth from it all.
Plan for the first movie you see to be worse than the second. You want to end the day on a high note.
Pick genres that mix. Action and comedy go well together; drama and comedy sometimes don’t. Think of how you will feel after each movie you want to see and what would be appropriate to follow it up with.
The first time I ever saw two movies in the same day at a theater was July 18, 2008. Recognize that date? It’s the day cinema was changed forever with the release of “The Dark Knight.” Was that one of the two movies that I saw? Of course not. I saw “Wanted,” which was pretty tight, and “Hancock,” which was good at first but then became just plain dumb.
So here are my other double features, in chronological order, and how I either did or didn’t apply my own rules.
November 26, 2008: “Four Christmases” followed by “Changeling.” I really wanted to see both of these, and it’s a really strange combo. Yet it worked because the much heavier “Changeling” came last. I wouldn’t have wanted to see anything afterwards had I seen it first.
April 17, 2009: “I Love You, Man” and “State of Play.” I loved the first movie, man. Not quite as big on the second one. Kind of the same as “Changeling,” I probably wouldn’t have been excited to see something else after “State of Play” because it wasn’t that good. A movie like “I Love You, Man” makes me want to see another movie.
July 21, 2009: “Cheri” and “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.” I saw one movie in the morning and the other at night, so not your traditional double feature. But it was a pretty dismal one because “Cheri” was a snoozefest, and I was seeing “Harry Potter” for the third time that week, which I found out was just too much.
November 14, 2009: “The Men Who Stare at Goats” and “I Am Love.” Honestly, neither movie was good, so no lessons to be learned here. “I Am Love” was a film festival event, and I had no idea what to expect.
November 21, 2009: “Couples Retreat” and “2012.” Comedy followed by action is pretty solid. “2012” is so long that you leave wanting to go home and take a nap, not wanting to see another movie. So it really couldn’t have worked the other way around.
December 18, 2009: “Avatar” and “Up in the Air.” A true exception. Seeing two Best Picture nominees, and deserving ones at that, for the first time in one day is incredible. Having my eyes treated by “Avatar” in the morning and then my brain treated by “Up in the Air” at night was absolutely perfect.
December 27, 2009: “Up in the Air” and “Sherlock Holmes.” The downward slide made this double feature one to forget. I should have known that you can’t top “Up in the Air.”
February 26, 2010: “Shutter Island” and “Crazy Heart.” Both were very, very good, although in very different ways. “Shutter Island” is such a crazy adventure that it definitely makes you want to see something else, whereas “Crazy Heart” leaves you with a more mellow content.
You’re in for a real treat today. “Marshall and the Movies” punctuality at its finest. Seriously.
As always, don’t be afraid to leave a comment. I know it looks long, but trust me when I say that it is full of humor and entertainment. All sarcasm aside, for real!
Day 6: “Disaster/Dinner Party, Dinner Party/Disaster: A Study in Duality” / “Disaster/Movie, No Such Thing As a Movie/Disaster”
I can’t think of many titles that describe their movies so aptly as this one. “Kick-Ass,” the R-rated superhero movie that indirectly spoofs “Watchmen,” hits us with a one-two punch of comedy and action. The punch is pretty much a knockout.
It’s devilish fun when the action is as outrageous as the comedy. The movie follows Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson), a teenaged New York geek who unleashes his inner fanboy in a way that would make everyone at the comic book store pee themselves with envy. He decides to rise above the common crowd and become a superhero, despite having no actual powers and few confrontational skills. Still, he holds onto the hope that a fancy scuba suit and a cool name, Kick-Ass, will scare off his opponents. But at first, as one of his rivals points out, he should be called “Ass-Kicked” because that’s the only thing that really happens to him.
As entertaining as the adventures of Kick-Ass can be, it’s the other heroes who steal the show. They should really call the movie “Hit Girl” because we’re always waiting for that precocious child vigilante with a foul mouth and impressive combat ability to return to the screen. It’s hard to tell where most of her allure comes from: actress Chloe Moretz or the script. Moretz has shown skill playing adult characters written for kids to play in “(500) Days of Summer,” and she really seems to get how to make them read. The sheer absurdity of hearing the words come out of her mouth is a comedic masterstroke.
“Kick-Ass” also marks a semi-comeback for Nicolas Cage, at least in my book, who has been getting a bad rep for all the abysmal action and horror movies he has been doing recently. When you have an Oscar, it’s OK to branch out and try other genres, but Cage has strayed far from the nest. One more flop and he could have been a laughing stock. “Kick-Ass,” however, was an excellent choice for the actor. It’s a crowd-pleaser, sure, but it requires him to act. He took a supporting role as Big Daddy, father and shaper of Hit Girl, and it shows off the crossover appeal Cage has. The part allows him to be funny as well as an action star, and there’s even room for him to deal with little bit of real human drama.
Matthew Vaughn does a great job directing the riot that is “Kick-Ass,” never taking himself or the material too seriously. One can only wonder how he will handle the “X-Men” franchise, which has an entirely different tone and involves people with real powers. Hopefully he can bring the same fun he brought to this movie, just leaving the farcical stuff on the side. He directs a superb movie, but the fact that it devolves into “The Chloe Moretz Show” so easily might raise a tiny red flag in your mind. A flag so tiny, in fact, that you might forget to realize it’s there while you’re laughing so hard. B+ /
One only has to see “(500) Days of Summer” to know that great things can begin in an elevator.
As a kick-off to their “31 Days to Build a Better Blog” series, Anomalous Materialinspired all participants (which include yours truly) to write an elevator pitch for their site. According to a quote on Wikipedia which they so kindly posted, an elevator pitch is “an overview of an idea for a product, service, or project. The name reflects the fact that an elevator pitch can be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride (for example, thirty seconds or 100-150 words).”
They suggest several practical uses for this pitch, but I have an entirely different (and potentially unique) one: it will help me talk about it in college interviews and applications.
You can do either a long pitch or a shorter one. The abridged version is meant to get bluntly to the point of what your blog is about. So here’s my short pitch: “Marshall and the Movies is about me sharing my obsession with movies with everyone who will listen.”
Here’s my longer pitch: “I’ve always been the movie guy, and I’m trying to use all my knowledge for good. Whether it’s alerting people to good movies or steering them clear of bad ones, sharing my moviegoing experiences, or just writing thought-provoking pieces about the Oscars or whatever pops into my mind, Marshall and the Movies is a blog about those two things but written for you.”
Be honest – would you visit my site if I came up to you and told you that in an elevator?
Another reminder (mainly so the “Marshall and Julie” graphic will fit nicely into the post): these posts are not in real time. They were all written at a previous date. So there. Now, enjoy.
Day 5: “…To Make An Omelette” / “…To Maintain a Blog”
Over the past few years, we’ve seen over-the-top comedy after over-the-top comedy, and it’s been a little exhausting. But you don’t need to go into outer space or back to prehistoric times to be funny; there’s humor in the average lives of ordinary people. The Duplass brothers understand that and bring us “Cyrus,” a modest comedy that finds laughter in the awkward and trite moments that make up the days of a new couple trying to coexist with an overbearing son. In a summer filled with giant explosions and comedies so corny you can all but hear the laugh-track, it’s a very welcome change of pace.
It’s like a feature-length sitcom where the writers provide the situation and the actors are left to bring the comedy out of it. There are no ridiculous lines or scenarios to pump easy laughs into the movie; it all comes from the way someone glances at another person or a few too many seconds of silence. John C. Reilly headlines the cast as John, the seven-years divorced loner just beginning to come out of his shell as his ex-wife, played by the always fantastic Catherine Keener, is getting married again.
At a party, he makes a drunken connection with Molly, Marisa Tomei’s spontaneous fireball. But little does John know what lies ahead down the road with her – a 22-year-old son played by Jonah Hill who still lives at home and is uncomfortably close with his mother. It’s a very different role for the young comedic star, who has starred in plenty of the ridiculous comedies I alluded to above (although I generally consider him to have good taste in choosing roles). He exhibits the subtlety necessary to make the passive-aggressive antagonist wholly convincing. Hill masters the death glare, just one of many great idiosyncrasies he brings to the character.
The production values are so simple that I can imagine just one of the movie’s four marquee names cost more than making the movie. The two brothers were extremely lucky to land them all because it does lend a sort of mainstream sensibility to the film that could be a little too indie for some people without them. But the crowning achievement of “Cyrus” is not how digestible the mumblecore movement (a phrase that doesn’t register with most Americans) can be made; it’s how the combination of a well-written script and actors capable enough to understand its nuances can create comedy out of anything. A- /
The new system of getting little-known movies to theaters everywhere requires viewer participation at a new high. They have to go to the site Eventful and literally demand to get the movie played in their town. The only movie worth noting that has been released through this strategy is last fall’s horror surprise “Paranormal Activity.”
But the real question is how much of the success of that campaign was the movie and how much was the strategy. I’m more inclined to think it was the movie, or rather the trailer, which spooked YouTube audiences and became a phenomenon. Before you knew it, everyone was buzzing about the movie, mostly because of the audience reactions shown in the trailer.
Even I myself hailed the strategy as a winner back in October, but it’s getting a real test now. Did you know there’s a “Grease” sing-along that plays only in the towns that demand it? I’m pretty sure that endeavor has been a pretty big misfire. Sure, the last thing someone wants to pay $10 to see nowadays is something they can watch for free on ABC Family, but do the woes of “Grease” spell the doom of demanding?
What do you think? Will there be another “Paranormal Activity” to remind us that the demanding works? Or is the success merely an anomaly and demanding is headed the way of the dinosaur and the VHS?
I’m going to be doing something a little different with the shameless advertisement from now on. Since I use it to kick off every month, I thought it would be a great podium to announce what’s coming up on “Marshall and the Movies” as well.
So with that being said, here’s what the readers want to see in August: “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.” With six votes, it dominated the field, only receiving competition from “Step Up 3” (one vote). Here’s what I wrote about the comic-book adaptation of a different color in my August preview post and the trailer:
And then aiming somewhere in between [men and women] is “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World,” a different kind of comic book movie. The usual hero is someone awesome; here, the hero is pathetic Michael Cera fending off seven evil ex-boyfriends of his new girlfriend. Anna Kendrick makes an appearance in the movie in some aspect, so that’s probably enough to get me to see it. Don’t be surprised if this is an out-of-nowhere smash hit. The style looks pretty irresistible.
As for “Marshall and the Movies,” here’s what you can expect in August:
The launch of my podcast! It’s been a long time coming, and I’ve been looking for the right time to get it up and going. No permanent rhythm (or even temporary rhythm) has been established for the podcast yet, nor has a name been selected either. But I can tell you this: I will be hosting guests from some of my favorite podcasts to debate the Oscar nominees from the 2000s. Look for it in the back half of the month.
The return of the “Save Yourself” series! It always managed to get pushed to the bottom of my “TO WRITE” list, but after three months away, it’s time for “Save Yourself” to make its triumphant return. The first will be … brace yourselves … a MAJOR Oscar nominee. What could it be? Find out … August 8.
Comedy week! Leading up to the last big release of the summer season, the Drew Barrymore/Justin Long comedy “Going the Distance,” I’m going to be doing a big week of reviews covering the comedic releases of 2010 so far, the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. There will be some surprises, as some I have found great and others just miserable. This marathon week of comedy begins August 21.
More Marshall and Julie! The series that really serves as my 13-day response to “The Origins Project” that I created continues into August. It will wrap up on August 9 with an afterword to come at a date to be announced.
More Oscar Moments! With the field getting set for film festivals in Venice, Toronto, and New York, it’s time to get serious about the Oscar season! I’m looking now to sort out the frivolous from the contenders. Is “The Social Network” the real deal? Is “Eat Pray Love” meant to be taken seriously? What’s going on with “The Town?” That and more in this month’s Oscar Moments.
No more “Inception” talk … just kidding! The “Classics Corner” series will take a look at some movies that influenced Christopher Nolan’s tale of the subconscious. Look for that coming up in a week or so.
But we can’t quite leave July behind either! Here are the results of the commenting contest from July. With a whopping 324 comments, it was a banner month for “Marshall and the Movies,” doubling the amount from April when I ran my last contest. So thanks to everyone who helped make July so great!
Rather than make the contest random like April, July’s contest was just based on the numbers. First, second, and third prizes are as followed.
3rd place goes to … Aiden R of “Cut the Crap Movie Reviews” with 18 comments! I didn’t think I would have a third place, but I just won a giant “Salt” poster (or should I say, Angelina Jolie poster) at an advanced screening that I’m looking to dump. And while I’m at it, I’ll throw in another poster from my closet at no additional charge. Of course, if this doesn’t appeal to him, I can gladly call up the fourth place finisher.
2nd place goes to … Red of “Anomalous Material” with 19 comments! He wins a $10 Amazon.com gift card, which I sure hope he enjoys to use on whatever he desires.
1st place goes to … Simon/Ripley of “Four of Them” with 29 comments! A repeat winner … unbelievable. She wins a poster from a Christopher Nolan movie of her choice.
So congratulations to all the winners, thanks to everyone who commented, and have a great August both at the movies and here at “Marshall and the Movies.”
Another reminder (mainly so the “Marshall and Julie” graphic will fit nicely into the post): these posts are not in real time. They were all written at a previous date. So there. Now, enjoy.
Day 4: “Hacking the Marrow Out of Life” / “Hacking the Marrow Out of Movies”
One year ago today, I ran Random Factoid #3. That seems like a long time ago, at least for me. Back then, the factoids were all about me, me, me, and not the movies. Here’s some of what I wrote:
My theater of choice is the Edwards Greenway Grand Palace 24 in Houston, Texas. It opened in 1999, and I frequent it because it is close to my house and it is always clean. The theater is now owned by the Regal Entertainment Group, which thankfully offers a rewards program for frequent guests called the Regal Crown Club. Points are awarded for each dollar spent on tickets and concessions, with occasional bonuses thrown in every once in a while. My family got the card in late 2004, and as of this posting, we have accumulated 2,156 points. And I have only been to the theater a handful of times in the past year.
I figured now would be as good a time as ever to unveil how many points I have now with a year of blogging under my belt.
I have … 2,647 points, a whopping 491 points more than this time last year. That includes some bonus points thrown in there, but that’s at least several hundred dollars spent on the movies. It’s a costly habit we have, isn’t it?
Is it possible to watch a movie about 12 men whose names and backgrounds we don’t know and be completely riveted? In 2010, we’d be inclined to say no. But back in 1957, Sidney Lumet showed that it was possible with his film “12 Angry Men,” and because it is so unconventionally simple, it has become a classic.
Twelve white male jurors are left to decide the fate of a Puerto Rican teenager accused of killing his father with a switchblade. In a hot, stuffy jury room in the heat of summer, the men are interested reaching a verdict quickly and getting out. All but one, Juror #8, as we know him, thinks the boy his guilty. The evidence isn’t totally incriminating, and this juror, played with integrity by Henry Fonda, objects to voting guilty simply because the suspect fits the bill.
And over the course of 90 minutes, which is practically real time, he begins to plant the seed of doubt in the minds of the other jurors. They go step by step through the evidence, showing all the different ways that it could have been misconstrued. One by one, they begin to see things in a different light, although it takes longer for some to challenge their assumptions of guilt and innocence.
I chose “12 Angry Men” to be the first entry into my monthly “Classics Corner” series because of how inspiring it really is. We all like to believe that we are good people, and that when we are thrust into a murky moral situation, we would do the right thing. In short, we all want to think that we can be juror #8. But in reality, the odds of finding someone like him out there is more than one in twelve nowadays. As movies like “Crash” have shown us in recent years, we aren’t as upright as we think we are, and prevailing racial and social assumptions still run rampant in our consciousness. But like Superman without cape, Juror #8 is a true American hero, representing all the values that we hope we have.
As “The Kids Are All Right” rolls into over 800 theaters this weekend, including many that are very much in the mainstream, it seems as good a time as ever to check out the results of the poll I ran along with the Oscar Moment on the movie.
The poll was a little bit different than any other one I’ve run before (at least with an Oscar Moment). Rather than answer a simple “yes/no” question, I asked readers to pick ALL the contenders from Lisa Cholodenko’s film that they expected to wind up nominated at the big dance.
So there might have been some confusion, and I apologize for that. The results seem normal now, but at first, they didn’t seem … well, all right.
There was a clear favorite candidate: Annette Bening. With six votes, readers clearly think she is going to be a major threat in the Best Actress race. (Although I will say, after having seen the movie, I think Bening should be supporting and Moore should be lead.)
Then things got a little more interesting. Four people think that the movie will be nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. That’s a nice number, but it shows that not everyone is convinced this is the real deal. Only one person thinks Lisa Cholodenko will receive a nomination for Best Director, which isn’t too shocking given that the movie isn’t the type where the director gets a lot of credit. But in 2007, Jason Reitman sneaked in for “Juno” when no one expected it, so you never know.
Among other actors, Julianne Moore received the next highest votes of confidence with four. In my review, I singled her out as my favorite, and I sincerely hope she wins. Hopefully no category fraud issues spell her doom.
Surprisingly, Mia Wasikowska wound up with more votes than the elder statesman Mark Ruffalo – two to one, in fact. Many people consider Ruffalo very overdue for a nomination, particularly after being snubbed for 2000’s “You Can Count on Me.” But if the field is weak enough, Wasikowska could sneak in if love for the movie is strong. It wouldn’t be the first time that two actresses from the same movie were nominated in the category; it’s happened the past two years.
Also worth a mention, Josh Hutcherson received a vote, which I sure liked to see. Represent 17-year-olds! (Fun fact: he’s two days older than I am.)
On August 13, the women get the first legitimate movie aimed at them since “Sex and the City 2.” Rather than just looking at clothes in the high-profile bomb back in May, they can get some late summer substance from “Eat Pray Love,” the Julia Roberts-headlined adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert’s wildly popular memoir.
What’s better than seeing a movie in the theater? Easy. Seeing 
One only has to see “(500) Days of Summer” to know that great things can begin in an elevator.
Have you ever demanded it?
One year ago today, I ran 
As “The Kids Are All Right” rolls into over 800 theaters this weekend, including many that are very much in the mainstream, it seems as good a time as ever to check out the results of the poll I ran along with 
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