The American Film Institute is at it again with the best-of lists.  This time the list is the top 10 American films from 10 genres.
 
Having already run through 100 Laughs, 100 Thrills and 100 Passions at annual intervals for a decade, the countdown-happy AFI folks have decided to give us not one, but 10 lists in 2008-ticking off their picks for in the realms of animation, fantasy, sci-fi, gangster, sports, western, romantic comedy, courtroom drama, mystery and epic.
 
The AFI send out ballots with 500 nominated movies-50 for each genre-to over 1,500 filmmakers, actors, screenwriters, editors, cinematographers, critics and historians who will then judge which ones made AFI’s 10 Top 10.
 
AFI’s 10 Top 10, the list of lists, actually, was revealed in a CBS special Tuesday. The three-hour program was the least-watched show of the night on the big four networks, averaging an estimated 5.5 million viewers, per Nielsen Media Research.

But, still it’s an interesting, mostly, to filmmaker or film lovers.
 
Below are two lists from the categories “Sports” and “Courtroom drama.”  I find that Jerry Maguire on the “Sports” list.  I never really thought of the movie as a sports movie but more of a comedy/drama.  The Hustler is also on the list.  Go figure.

The “Courtroom Drama” list has In Cold Blood, but I never thought of it as a courtroom drama like A Few Good Men or 12 Angry Men.

For the complete list, visit E! Online and AFI’s 10 of 10.

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Jaime Pressly has nabbed a lead role in “I Love You, Man,” the DreamWorks comedy starring Paul Rudd and Jason Segel.“I Love You” centers on a guy (Rudd) about to be married whose fiancée (Rashida Jones) is calling all her friends to be in the wedding. Coming to terms that he has no friends, he starts to go on man-dates to find a best man; he finds one in Segel.   Pressly is best friends with the fiancée.

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Take a look at this new release coming February 26^th. It’s filled with awesome talent — both behind the camera and in front of the camera.

Hong Kong’s 2006 Academy Award entry for Best Foreign Language Film, “Legend of the Black Scorpion” stage is set in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period of 10^th Century China, featuring elaborate period costumes and sets. Starring stunning Golden Globe nominee Zhang Ziyi (“Memoirs Of A Geisha,” “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”) and directed by Feng Xiaogang (“A Sign,”” A World Without Thieves”), “Legend of the Black Scorpion” features intricate fight scenes from Jingwu Ma (“Seven Swords”) and Yuen Woo-Ping (fight choreographer, “Matrix” and “Kill Bill” films).  Dealing with themes of revenge and fate, the beautiful yet morose musical score of “Legend of the Black Scorpion” by Oscar winner Tan Dun (Best Music, Original Score, 2000, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”) enhances the tone of the film by combining Western classical with Chinese classical music 

The story: Scheming royals and other officials seek to conquer empires and consolidate power to form a single omnipotent dynasty.  Against this backdrop, a legendary empress (Zhang) with fighting skills unparalleled by any man, harbors forbidden desires for her stepson. 

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Because WGA plans on picking the Golden Globe Awards, none of the 70 actors nominated will attend the Jan. 13 ceremonies.

Apparently, Globes production company, Dick Clark Productions, offered to settle with WGA in the same fashion Letterman’s company. However, WGA balked at the same terms and said it will picket the Globes instead.

SAG even asked actors to only appear on Letterman shows (”Late Show with David Letterman” and “Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson”) and avoid the other latenighters singling out “The Tonight Show.”

Variety coverage of this episode depicts the “He saids and they saids” drama quite well.

I just wish they could all resolve the issue for the greatest good.

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The animation race for an Oscar may have some hard knocks. “Alvin and the Chipmunks” didn’t make the grade. Yet, “Beowulf” did. How come?

According Variety.com, the Academy’s animated feature screening committee (half are animation professionals and half non-professionals) decided that the “Alvin” isn’t eligible for a best animated feature nomination because it doesn’t fulfill the rule that “animation must figure in no less than 75% of the picture’s running time.”

As some may feel the old double standard applies with “Beowulf,” a film where a living breathing person portrays characters, qualifies for an animation nomination.

According to Variety.com, the committee concluded that helmer Robert Zemeckis’ motion-capture process did have, in the words of Acad exec director Bruce Davis, “enough individual frame manipulation after the motion capture process.”

Listed on Variety.com are the qualifications to get the nod for a potential Oscar.

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New Line faced a disaster last weekend at the box office, with The Golden Compass only making about 25million on the US box office. As a comparison, The first Chronicles of Narnia film opened to 65mil two years ago, The Fellowship of the Ring opened to 47mil, and even last month’s Bee Movie opened with 38mil. For a movie that cost about 180mil to make (and that excludes the 50 or so it took to market and distribute), 25million suddenly feels rather pathetic, especially when New Line and independent speculators were expecting almost double that. So what went wrong? Below is a few possibilities.

Those Damn(ing) Christians
It’s no secret that a certain Catholic League went out of their way to stop people from watching the film. For those unaware of the film’s plot, the antagonists are known as the Magisterium, who control the world that the film is set in, and are hatching a dastardly scheme to not just control everyone in their world, but also everyone in every other dimension too. There are similarities between the Magisterium and the Catholic Church around the time of the counter-reformation. And while the movie does not draw any direct links between our Catholic Church, the Catholic League feels that the film will prompt kids to read the books, which are more overtly anti-religious. To be honest, it’s a pretty laughable line of reasoning. Surely a true Catholic would not feel the need to have to bully people into not watching a fantasy movie, using negativity to spread their word. It’s ironic that they are using a dogmatic approach to counter a portrayal of religion as dogmatic.

Nevertheless, the Catholic League’s endeavours seemed to have been mildly successful. While their protests may have actually generated more interest for an adult film, when it comes to kids flicks, Catholic parents seemed to have erred on the side of caution. Movie forums are littered with tales of kids and teens who were banned from watching the film by their parents. It’s a scary notion that such a group can have such an affect on the public, and this success will certainly give the Catholic League the confidence to denounce plenty of other films too in an aim to keep their flock from straying.

Genre Exhaustion
In America, the fantasy film was never truly bankable. There are a few exceptions, such as the Lord of the Rings films, or the Narnia film, but they were based on highly popular books. Variety claim that the Golden Compass book wasn’t that popular in the US in the first place. Last year saw Eragon fail to impress the box office (opening with a similar figure to The Golden Compass), and earlier this year Stardust, despite its impressive cast, only managed to make 38 million in total, in the US. The Seeker was another non-starter, opening to 3million. It seems as if the fantasy movie has been exhausted, and people are getting tired of the same old adventure (not a good omen for the forthcoming The Spiderwick Chronicles). Variety have said that fantasy usually fares better outside of the US, so perhaps The Golden Compass may not be a global disaster. Read on »

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George Clooney appeared at the showing of his political film “Michael Clayton” for the Dubai Film Festival. He was immediately interviewed by the press who asked him political questions.

Due to the Middle East flavor of the location. In Variety.com it was reported that Darfur, U.S. foreign policy and Hollywood’s depiction of Arabs all came up repeatedly in an energetic hour-long Q&A session.

“We panic at times in our country but what we’re very good at is fixing those panics. We are now in the process of righting some of the mistakes that our country has made over the last few years,” said Clooney. “I am not going to come to Dubai and call the president of the United States a terrorist. That’s not my goal in life.”

Good job George!!

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Used to be, singers only had two options when it came to fame:

• Work hard, sell millions of records, develop a crippling drug addiction and die on the can; or
• Sell millions of records, act in a poorly conceived remake of A Star is Born, get ghastly plastic surgery and pretend to be half your age, and sooner or later find yourself on a nostalgia tour with Kool and half of the original Gang.

Fortunately, movies like Ray and Walk the Line have opened up a whole new career phase for performers: the reverential biopic. This serves to remind audiences of why they liked the artist in the first place, selling a few million copies of the greatest hits album and even a few thousand of that awful duets album they just released.

Still, I just don’t know how well the formula is going to play out on this generation of performers. You can wring a lot of drama out of a rural youth filled with tragedy, but growing up in the suburbs and being plucked out of the Mouseketeers by some Svengali? Not so much. Look at it this way: Janis Joplin led a short, colorful life cut short by alcoholism. Joss Stone, her supposed heir, stars in Gap commercials. Sooner or later, we’re going to run out of worthy subjects for these kind of movies.

Of course, inevitably, a few similar movies make some cash (or win some awards), and the world rushes to cash in on the “trend,” leading to a series of poorly executed knock-offs, at which point the trend crawls off to a disused video store shelf to die. Right now, we’ve got biopics in the works for Keith Moon, Dusty Springfield, Janis Joplin, and even Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliot, who’s not even dead!

Is it just me, or should we nip this thing in the bud before we have to endure The Greatest Love of All: The Whitney & Bobby Story?

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We’re going to start up a new, hopefully regular, feature on Screenhead called The Debate, where we argue both sides of an argument. Today, it’s possible Best Picture winner Little Miss Sunshine.

Definitely a departure from heavy heavy Best Picture winners like Million Dollar Baby (2004) and Crash (2005) and definitely an amusing little film. But is it Oscar worthy?

Read on »

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