Jake Gittes

I loved Nebraska. Incredibly touching movie. Still think Election is Payne's best, but if we're talking his comic dramas, Nebraska is definitely on the level of About Schmidt and Sideways (I still haven't seen The Descendants), in some ways it's even better due to B&W cinematography and no Hollywood charisma (which Nicholson couldn't entirely hide no matter how hard he tried) - it feels more lived-in and intimate. Just a wonderful old-fashioned drama/comedy that has a lot to say about old age, mortality and missed opportunities without explicitly stating it.

Contains spoilers, just in case. It's a pretty cool feeling to be sitting in the cinema and watching an $80 million* October release with two actors blow away pretty much all summer and holiday blockbusters of the past couple of years. Gravity is the kind of film where it's especially important not to judge it for something it's not trying to be in the first place. Cuaron doesn't aim to moralize, or to go philosophical, or to embark on a modern space odyssey. What he does here is a masterful survival thriller, in which the characters are ironically trapped in the most open of all spaces. In terms of character development and storytelling it stands out as a refreshingly economical film; enough so that some people (and there will be more, I'm sure) have already dismissed it as nothing more than a theme park ride. It's true that Cuaron doesn't saddle the movie with flashbacks, cheesy monologues or a romantic subplot between Bullock and Clooney (how awful would that be?) - but him and Bullock still achieve all emotional connection that's needed with just a few scenes. The potentially drama-heavy dialogue, like Bullock talking about her dead daughter, or her talking to detached Clooney, both knowing he'll be dead soon, is instead short, quiet and restrained, which is precisely why it ends up being very affecting. When Bullock is in tears and on the edge of losing it, she doesn't deliver a big devastating speech, she does something a lot more primal, real - she tries to imitate a dog's bark, in the process giving the film perhaps its most touching and powerful scene. In an age when so many films, both big- and small-budgeted, suffer from bloatedness and their creators' inability to say "enough" before it's too late, Gravity is truly a breath of fresh air, a film that works as well as it does precisely because Cuaron never stretches out any moment for more than is needed. He takes the few essential elements of his premise - three astronauts, a shuttle, some debris, the ISS, the Chinese station - and gradually gets rid of each one, until all that's left is Bullock on a beach, slowly rising and walking as if taking her first ever steps. Indeed, considering what she's just gone through, you might as well say she is reborn. Cuaron doesn't linger for too long on her triumph, either - allowing the audience to experience and share just enough of it, he cuts to black at the earliest affordable opportunity. Doing that, he cements his own triumph. *of course, considering the movie had two years of pre-production and two years of post-production, we'll probably never know how much it really cost to make. It's still damn impressive, though.

If anyone is going to take it from Blanchett, it'll be Dench, not Bullock.

I expected a strong movie after all the praise, but I still didn't expect Allen to be so uncompromising, ruthless and cutting. In a way it reminded me of Killer Joe, of all films - there's no fried chicken blowjobs in Blue Jasmine, but both films are sharply bleak, unsentimental looks at the modern world made by directors who are already in their late seventies. For the first time in what seems like a while, Allen doesn't have his own surrogate walking around his movie, nor does he try to appeal to the viewer with nostalgia and beautiful European scenery. There's just a first-rate drama with some dark humor underneath, one powerfully written and acted scene laid on top of another, with hardly any weak parts. Like more than a few people already said, it doubles as a fantastic modern riff on A Streetcar Named Desire, and Blanchett is just about as riveting as Leigh is in that film. A performance that belongs with the greats.

Just came back from Blue Jasmine. Give Blanchett all the Oscars.

Also, I loved Moore getting meta (but not in an overly distracting way) in at least two scenes - first, where she claims, almost winking at the audience, that porn actors are actually, well, acting, and second, when she admits that she just tends to cry for no real reason (of course, we learn the reason, but not until much later). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4uv0eD5Ufg

I'm gonna guess that the C- Cinemascore was due to people being unpleasantly surprised (and probably weirded out) by the ending and the whole third act, and that was actually the main reason I ended up liking the movie so much. Throughout the movie I admittedly kept assuming that JGL and Johannson would end up together no matter what, and I would accept that, but it felt so refreshing and so much better when JGL didn't suddenly get over his issues, but he just got somewhat better and decided that, actually, in these particular circumstances a widowed, pot-smoking, no-nonsense, probably-at-least-20-years-older-than-him Julianne Moore would be a better match for him than Johannson who, on the surface, seems much closer to being a perfect girlfriend, but in reality has some serious issues of her own which she even refuses to acknowledge. I mean, I still never forgot that these were movie stars that I was watching on screen, but it felt much more real(-istic) and fresh than any studio romcom, and I respect the hell out of JGL for developing the story in that way and having the characters behave like recognizable human beings instead of stock romcom stereotypes that Tatum and Hathaway did so perfectly in that movie-within-the-movie.

The last movie I saw in 3D was The Hobbit, and the last time I actually enjoyed the 3D experience was when I saw Dredd - so exactly a year ago - but Gravity is one of those rare cases where it doesn't make sense to me not to see the movie in 3D.

firedeep, you sly dog.

The Incredibles is the best superhero film of them all, and it's not even based on a comic book. (even though it works on a whole new level for those who read Watchmen).

Edward G. Robinson owned it in Double Indemnity. I don't think I've seen any other movies with him, though.

I think it'll almost certainly do like 120/300

One of those rare films where I couldn't care less about plot holes (and I'm usually pretty nitpicky about those). A great riff on a classic fairy tale done as a spy action movie. Beautifully shot and scored, with great performances. I also liked it a lot more than any of Wright's literary adaptations.

Or Vivien Leigh

I can't see it having worse legs than HT.

He's right. Having seen Nebraska, there's no fucking way he isn't the lead character.

If Cloudy 2 follows Hotel Transylvania's weekend and overall multipilier, it's gonna do 36/125.

Second-to-last, actually. His last is gonna be Animal Rescue: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1600196/reference I wouldn't say that lessens his chances this year, though.

I could definitely see that happening.

At that rate Prisoners won't get to $70m, maybe not even $65m if Gravity and Captain Phillips hit it hard. Still a nice success, though.

Dead Ringers and The Draughtsman's Contract are my favorite additions. None of last year's movies they added really deserved to make the cut (Les Mis? Skyfall? really?), I'm pretty sure almost all of them will disappear in the next couple of years, except maybe Amour and Lincoln.

Aaaand it's deleted already.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDCP9uaqs_s Goddamn, Carell looks seriously good. Even in those few shots where he just stands still and stares, he looks positively chilling. And the way the teaser is put together makes the film look less like a conventional drama (something you'd expect from Miller after his first two movies) and more like an eerie, tense, disturbing thriller.

Having just seen Nebraska, I think June Squibb has a very nice shot at a nomination. Hers is the most easily likable character in the movie, hilarious, endearing and very no-nonsense, sometimes in a pretty attention-grabbing way (in one scene, ), and she owns all of her scenes without stealing the movie from Dern and Forte. In a year like this, it's probably too quiet a film to earn Picture, Actor (or Supporting Actor) and Screenplay nominations - although it's a really good film - but Squibb could easily take advantage of her category being little more than a wasteland at this point.

It's very very true. I recall reading or hearing somewhere that, since Williams was hired very late, Lucas at one point put together an edit of the movie with no music and screened it, and it was disastrous. Watching the film today (and I still love it), I can believe that story.