Posts Tagged ‘Wall E’

Best surprise: With song/dance man Hugh Jackman as host, surprise presenters, and funny gag bits, the Oscar’s was one of the most entertaining it’s been in a long time. (Ratings were even up 6 percent from last year’s telecast.)

Worst surprise: Chances are you won your office pool because just about no surprise winners threw off our ballots. “Slumdog Millionaire” cleaned up winning 8 nominations including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay as predicted, and Kate Winslet, Heath Ledger, and Penélope Cruz won as expected. The biggest upset was Sean Penn winning Best Actor over Mickey Rourke, but really we all knew it was between the two anyway.

Worst use of presenting the Best Pictures:  Up until the last ten minutes of the show, you wouldn’t even know which films were nominated for Best Picture, and isn’t this what the night was really all about? Instead of showcasing clips throughout the night like usual, the clips were only shown right before the award was handed out. Even worse, they were intermingled with previous films that have similar themes making the clips confusing and taking attention away from the nominees.

Best presentation of movies: The montages of film genres recapping the best of 2008 were done so in great pop culture fashion. Coldplay’s “Lovers in Japan” played to the great romance flicks, Wall-E the adorable robot found a tape of the best animation movies, and the hilarious James Franco and Seth Rogen reprised their “Pineapple Express” roles as they watched DVDs of the funniest comedies.

Worst use of presenting the Best Songs: The song nominees, which are usually played in their entirety throughout the night, also weren’t given their full due. The two “Slumdog Millionaire” songs and “Wall-E” song were shortened and played one after the other. We all knew “Jai Ho” was going to win, but “Wall-E” should have been given it’s own set piece rather than making John Legend sing with “Slumdog’s” Indian back-up dancers and drummers.

Best use of presenting awards: Rather than randomly presenting awards, the telecast walked the audience through the making of a movie starting with the screenwriting process to art direction to editing. Stars associated with the category was also a nice touch like action hero Will Smith presenting Best Visual Effects and Sound Mixing and “Religious” filmmaker Bill Maher presenting Best Documentary.

Best presenters: Steve Martin and Tina Fey presented the screenplay awards humorously (“Don’t fall in love with me” Martin stoically told a googly eyed Fey) and controversially (poking fun at Hollywood-favorite Scientology). And don’t forget about Ben Stiller who delivered a dead-on impression of Joaquin Phoenix’s bizarre appearance on the “Late Show with David Letterman” while presenting with Natalie Portman. It would have been even funnier though if it wasn’t just parodied at the previous night’s Independent Spirit Awards.

Best use of presenters: Keeping most of the identities of the presenters top-secret beforehand made for a more exciting show because you never knew who was going to come out next. Hello Will Smith, hello Reese Witherspoon!

Worst use of presenters: While it was fun seeing past winners like Nicole Kidman, Robert De Niro, and Christopher Walken, presenting the nominees, it came off too self-congratulatory. Instead of comments like “You really nailed it” and Marion Cotillard clasping her hands together cooing “Thank you” to Winslet, let’s see some clips instead. Most viewers at home haven’t seen all the movies, so it’d be more interesting to see the performances for which they’re nominated. 

Best acceptance speech: Instead of the director or co-stars accepting on his behalf, the acceptance of Heath Ledger’s Oscar by his family was much more touching. “Tonight we are choosing to be happy and celebrate what he has achieved,” his mother, Sally Bell, said.

Funniest acceptance speeches: Where to begin? First there’s Phillipe Petit, the subject of the documentary, “Man on Wire,” who not only balanced the Oscar on his chin, he also made a coin disappear.  Then the Japanese director of the Best Animated Short, “Kunio Kato thanked Mr. Roboto.” Finally, Best Director, Danny Boyle, bounced up and down in homage of Tigger for his children.  

Worst camera shots: Awkward alert… Not only did Jennifer Aniston have to present an award mere feet away from Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, the camera cut away to Brangelina twice! At least Jolie and Pitt made nice and weren’t giving dirty looks.

Best use of teeny boppers: While baby faced stars like Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Robert Pattinson, and Amanda Seyfried presented and performed on stage to most likely draw in the younger audience, their presence was downplayed and didn’t make the Oscars feel like the Teen Choice Awards.

Best secret talent: Anne Hathaway showed off her really good voice in her pretend-impromptu song and dance number with Jackman. Look out Beyoncé. Maybe you won’t be needed next year.

Here are the winners of the major categories:

Best Picture: “Slumdog Millionaire”

Best Actor: Sean Penn, “Milk”

Best Actress: Kate Winslet, “The Reader”

Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, “The Dark Knight”

Best Supporting Actress: Penélope Cruz, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”

Best Director: Danny Boyle, “Slumdog Millionaire”

Labor Day is the official end to the summer movie season. With so many memorable movies sailing away with box office records – it was a full season. Total earnings equaled about $4.2 billion, according to Media by Numbers, which is a slight increase from summer 2007. The top 5 sizzling films are The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Hancock, and Wall E.

What an interesting selection of movies! Both Knight and Iron Man busted box office numbers, which places them at the #1 and #2 spots on the ’top grossing films of 2008 so far’ list.   Also, the highly anticipated Indiana Jones sequel scored big with summer theatergoers.

Taking a closer look at the top 10 summer movies, four were comic book based (2007’s top 10 summer movies only had three). Also, there were three comedies this year – 2007 had four. Two animated movies contributed to this year’s top 10 list in comparison to three animated pictures in 2007. And rounding out the eclectic mix this summer were three family friendly films (those rated PG or G).

So, who in Hollywood ended up with an extra umbrella in their drink? As far as studios go, Paramount came out on top.  Paramount produced/distributed three, yes THREE, of the summer’s top 10: Iron Man, Kung Fu Panda and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

There were two actors who pulled double duty and entertained us by appearing in two films each.  

Robert Downey Jr., Tony Stark himself, appeared in both Iron Man and Tropic Thunder (because it’s been out for only three weeks it’s not technically a top grossing summer movie, still, it’s hard to argue that it wasn’t a summer hit). Morgan Freeman, however, really earned his keep by appearing in Dark Knight and Wanted (both of which are part of the top 10 grossing summer films)!

Some of the movies that got sunburned this summer – The Love Guru, Speed Racer, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, The Happening, The X Files, and The Clone Wars. Ouch!

And now, after such an energizing summer of super fun movies and with the fall and holiday film season upon us, it’s time to get serious. It will be entertaining alone to see how the holiday flicks do up against Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne.

Before the leaves start to fall and the Oscar bait movies start to roll in, here’s a wrap-up of the movies that exploded, charmed and humored their ways onto my list of the summer’s best movies.

The Dark Knight The second highest grossing film behind Titanic stands out from the rest of the superhero flicks with its genre-bending qualities. Rather than pure action and no substance, this film is more of a noir with its brooding cinematography and deep questions of morality; yet, it still has heart-stopping, realistic action sequences. And of course there’s Heath Ledger’s astounding performance as the anarchy-loving Joker whose negative outlook on the human condition is the perfect foil against the Dark Knight himself.  

Wall∙E Can Pixar do no wrong? It’d be easy to dismiss a lonely mute robot and insist instead on re-watching the more conventionally desirable Toy Story or Finding Nemo, but Wall∙E proved to be an emotionally charged film with a touching love story between two robots and a timely ecological message.

Iron Man This superhero movie’s most endearing quality is its rich character development. We see Tony Stark go from selfish billionaire creator of military weapons who, after an Afghan kidnapping and injury, uses his own machinery to become Iron Man in order to fight against the evil he helped induce. Not only is it about the redemption of Tony Stark, it was also the ignition of Robert Downey, Jr.’s happily received A-List comeback.

Tropic Thunder Sure it was crude and it offended lots of people, but this outrageous satire still managed to be one of the best comedies of the year with its unflinching ability to skewer self-important and ridiculous actors, its abundantly talented cast and its hilarious use of cameos by famous actors.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull It wasn’t as well-received as expected, but it was great to see Indy again. The extraterrestrial-related plot skewed from typical Indy plots, but at its heart Indiana Jones is about the fun, never-ending series of cliffhangers. The addition of Shia LaBeouf and Cate Blanchett made for interesting story lines and good performances, and the return of Karen Allen’s Marion was a lovely déjà vu.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona Declared as one of Woody Allen’s better films of recent times, this film boasts beautiful scenery, good performances and – like all Allen’s films- intelligent ponderings on love.

American Teen It’s the nonfiction version of The Breakfast Club with its portrayals of teen angst seen through the perspectives of real life teen archetypes. What makes this film different than all John Hughes’ films, however, is that these characters are actually real people which give it more resonance and intimacy.

Is the not-so-hot economy affecting Hollywood? Let’s investigate.

According to a press release on the Disney (including Miramax) official site, profits decreased by 2% for the months of April, May and June compared to January, February and March with total profits of $1,433 million. They are also down 2% from the same quarter last year. Biggest Box Office Hit for April, May & June, “Wall E.”

In an article on the Examiner.com it states that Paramount/Viacom’s (including DreamWorks) profits are up 35% for April, May and June in comparison to a year ago. By this three months’ end their profits equal $1,771 million. They are up 55% from the previous quarter. Biggest Box Office Hit for April, May & June, “Iron Man.”

A Time Warner press release showed a 14% increase for April, May and June over last year (“The Dark Knight” was not in theaters yet). Profits for filmed entertainment totaled $2,564 million, which is a 9% decrease from January, February and March’s totals. Biggest Box Office Hit for April, May & June, “Sex and the City.”

NBC Universal (GE) profits are up 7% from April, May and June of 2007 and up 8% from January, February and March as stated in a GE release. Biggest Box Office Hit for April, May & June, “Wanted.”

News Corp’s earnings release for 20th Century Fox for April, May, and June quarter showed their total profits equaled $220 million a 16% decrease from January, February and March. Their profits only equaled $106 million during April, May, and June 2007. Biggest Box Office Hit for April, May & June, “What Happens in Vegas.”

In the end, we have 4 areas of decreasing profits, showing the economy may be affecting things. But there are also 5 areas with increasing profits, possibly a sign that movie goers haven’t given up their popcorn addictions just yet. With an incredible summer of blockbusters and A List ensemble casts, it seems that although Wall Street is a buzz with red down arrows, Hollywood is still a buzz with millions of green, maybe just not as many as last year.