Jake Gittes

Magnolia, for me, is easily his weakest. It doesn't lack for ambition, which is great, but its characters and their stories are very uneven in terms of how interesting and compelling they are, and it often crosses the line from an actors' showcase into LOOK AT US, WE'RE ACTING HERE! The script and direction also suffer from that, often being showy without earning it (personally, I had to keep myself from rolling my eyes during both the sing-along bit and the frogs bit). To me it feels less like an organic film and more like a collection of various things that Anderson had to get out of his system, just throwing everything that was on his mind into a single movie. Well, I'm glad he did get it out of his system because he followed it up with two original masterpieces in which everything is in its place and everything works perfectly.

Damon is pretty damn charismatic as Bourne, especially in Greengrass' films. Not in Elysium or Green Zone, though. But yeah, I haven't yet seen AH but I would think if you saw The Hurt Locker and The Town you'd know Renner is a damn good actor.

There Will Be Blood > Punch-Drunk Love >>>> Boogie Nights > Hard Eight > The Master > Magnolia

Yeah I thought it was quite good, but Pitt's appearance was almost embarrassing (not the character himself - if he'd been played by an unknown actor, also with less of a Jesus look, I wouldn't have minded at all) and as people in this thread have already noted, the dialogue is frequently distracting. When slaves in a Quentin Tarantino joint talk more realistically than in a serious historical drama you know something's wrong. I also have to admit I didn't find Ejiofor's performance particularly special, although that may be due to the odd nature of the character (who's both inside and outside the system, a slave who wasn't born into slavery, a horrified observer as much as a victim, one of countless others as well as a protagonist) which actually doesn't give him a ton of room to act. He did have some great subtle moments, but... I don't know. I just didn't feel it on any deeper level than that, I guess. And I found it flat-out unbelievable that he'd have basically the same appearance after 12 years in captivity - I would expect him to look thinner and visibly older, like someone who had literally gone to hell and come back, but in the final scene he looked exactly the same to me as in the early scenes. I didn't think that much of Nyong'o and then the soap scene happened and she knocked my socks off. That was by far the most powerful moment in the whole thing (as well as the whipping that followed), and that moment when Solomon gets taken away in the end and Patsey runs after him and helplessly watches is when you realize she's really the heart of the film - one of the hundreds of thousands of those who had no choice but to stay. It's a tiny moment but it's quietly devastating. Zimmer receiving awards and nominations for this score (can you even call it that?) is pretty laughable. Finally, I'll be impressed if Paul Dano ever plays a character who's even more slimy, nasty, despicable and completely loathsome than the one he plays here. Kudos, from a certain point a view it's the most perfect casting in this movie and he delivered it all.

Masterpiece.

One of the most truly original - as well as completely fucked-up - movies I've ever seen. Korine's approach here to structure the film in brief, startling, barely connected, always unexpected and hugely memorable small fragments lends itself perfectly to capturing a small town that's like no other place on Earth. If Spring Breakers made you interested at all in his previous work, this is the first film you need to see. Warning: you will never be able to look at a plate of spaghetti the same way again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9siMXbuc5o

First time I saw Boogie Nights was on TV, and I didn't think anything was wrong with the moment when it cut to black. Then I went online and... was surprised to read about the actual final shot

BOM fucked up and gave it the same weekend as gross as Bad Grandpa's (they are both Paramount releases). No other explanation

$125m looks like the floor for Anchorman, and will also make it Ferrell's highest grossing movie since Talladega Nights (if you don't count Megamind). $150m isn't out of the question either, and if it hits that I think it's an unqualified success, even with the increase in ticket sales not being nearly as big as in the case of Meet the Fockers and Austin Powers 2.

Nothing shitty about them since Sunday drops will be very small. This weekend last year nothing in the top 20 fell more than 22% on Sunday; AUJ only dropped 10% and Life of Pi nearly stayed flat.

Aliens > T2 > T1 > True Lies > Titanic > Avatar Haven't seen The Abyss in like a decade. Remember almost nothing about it

It'll make more if it gets a Best Picture nom (and with all the acclaim it's already received, that's pretty likely).

Yeah I wasn't convinced about $300m for Frozen since it only had slightly better holds than Tangled in its second and third weekend, and if it continued to do so, it'd still top out at about 275m. But this number seriously changes things. Even if it loses a lot of theaters next weekend, 300m is now definitely in play. (350m is crazy talk, though).

HTTYD2 is already in a better position than KFP2 because: 1) it's not gonna come out against a $85m opener 2) from the new trailer it looks like a continuation of the story and not more of the same 3) it's gonna be the first major animated movie in two months 4) HTTYD was arguably better received than KFP

That's an 80% PTA drop for Inside Llewyn Davis. High-profile platform releases are becoming their own kind of summer blockbusters, nearly destroying each other's legs when released closely. This is the first time ever with live-action $100k PTA earners getting released two weekends in a row

After seeing 12YAS, the last awards it deserves to win are Screenplay and Score. Very good film, but it's really the direction that drives it, not the writing, and Zimmer winning for his half-assed two tracks here would be just embarrassing.

For me it's between the Everytime scene in Spring Breakers, the car conversation and the hotel room argument in Before Midnight, and the opening scene and the re-entry scene in Gravity.

That's a shitload of talent. Although Hillcoat had even more great actors in Lawless and the movie wasn't anything special (apart from Guy Pearce's beautiful overacting). Here's hoping this is closer to The Proposition or at least The Road in terms of overall quality. Plot doesn't sound like much more than a minor crime thriller, but let's see what they do with it.

A few bits aside, that looks glorious. It's like they aren't giving a fuck about anything anymore, and it's beautiful.

I guess there are 6 real contenders in Adapted - 12YAS, Captain Phillips, Philomena, August, Wolf of Wall Street and Before Midnight. So one of those will get left out, but I think it'll be Wolf, August or Phillips before it's BM.

Not for me, because as much as I loved Frances Ha, all I could think during the Modern Love bit was that it was so much more awesome when done by Denis Lavant circa 1986: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt2KlkBUgXA Gerwig ain't anywhere near that.

Those that haven't been named yet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qo8kRQs7708 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DUzIV2pqBY Trance - Chanson d'amour The Place Beyond the Pines - Please Stay You're Next - Looking For The Magic Frances Ha - Every 1's The Winner

Joaquin Phoenix you could say was snubbed as well, provided SAG has seen Her.

I guess Mad Men doesn't even exist anymore for these guys.