Cast:
Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Ambyr Childers, Jesse Plemons, Rami Malek, Laura Dern, Madisen Beaty, Lena Endre, Kevin J. O'Connor, Amy Ferguson, Joshua Close, Patty McCormack, Fiona Dourif, David Warshofsky, Steven Wiig and W. Earl Brown
Director:
Paul Thomas Anderson
Arbitrage (2012)
Cast:
Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, Tim Roth, Brit Marling, Laetitia Casta, Nate Parker, Stuart Margolin, Chris Eigeman, Graydon Carter and Bruce Altman
Director:
Nicholas Jarecki
Cast:
Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Walton Goggins, Don Johnson, Laura Cayouette, Dennis Christopher, James Russo, James Remar, Tom Wopat, Misty Upham, Rex Linn, Cooper Huckabee, Doc Duhame, M. C. Gainey, Bruce Dern, Ned Bellamy, Franco Nero, Jonah Hill, Zoe Bell, Robert Carradine, James Parks, Tom Savini, Michael Parks, John Jarratt and Quentin Tarantino.
Director:
Quentin Tarantino
I haven't been quite active on my blog this year unfortunately and i missed doing Cannes 2013 coverage which is very important to me. I regret it but still trying my best to come back to my regular maddening and obsessive routine. To start things off, the winners were just announced for the main prizes at Cannes. I have been following every review, tweet, news etc because Cannes is a royalty and they always get great movies to screen, so many stars are there and its definitely the biggest celebration for World Cinema that we get to see. This year's jury was a stunner! Led by Steven Spielberg and included Daniel Auteuil, Vidya Balan, Naomi Kawase, Ang Lee, Nicole Kidman, Cristian Mungiu, Lynne Ramsay and Christoph Waltz. The prestigious Palme d'Or was awarded to the French movie "Blue is the Warmest Colour", its always awarded to the director of course but a different move was taken this time and both the stars of the movie were awarded an honorary Palm as well. This is a French epic length drama that features its lead Adele Exarchopoulos and Lea Seydoux as two girls exploring there sexuality. In other words, its a Lesbian drama. After the impressive response it got from critics there, many hailing it as a masterpiece and the best movie in competition, i was quite sure it will win the main prize. But its jury who decides in the end not critics so i had my doubts still. The movie was the talk of the town thanks to its lengthy explicit sex scenes, glad that jury/critics saw much greatness beyond all that. I am now really looking forward to watch it.
The Grand Prix which is like 2nd best film went to my 2nd most anticipated film of the year, "Inside Llewyn Davis" by Coen Brothers. While the Jury Prize or the 3rd best film went to "Like Father, Like Son" which was considered by many to be in Spielberg's territory so a Palm upset was expected. Screenplay and Directing prizes went to "A Touch of Sin" and "Heli", the latter one is shocking for me while the former one is surprising. I was hoping that both these prizes might go to Soderbergh, Coens, Farhadi, Sorrentino etc but alas! This is the second year when the directing award went to the booed/notorious/bold movie, last year being "Post Tenebras Lux". I guess the most daring and experimental directing achievement will be winning from now on. Talking about the two acting prizes, Berenice Bejo and Bruce Dern won for "The Past" and "Nebraska" respectively. Bejo got superb praise and was a shoe-in until Adele Exarchopoulos started getting praise as well but it went to Bejo afterall. I am happy for Bruce Dern deep down but the reviews i read didn't really praised his performance as something great. I was hoping Michael Douglas would win for "Behind the Candelabra" but that didn't happen. The movie itself along with few other buzzed films like "La Grande Bellezza" and "Borgman" didn't win anything.
Cast:
Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver, Chris Tucker, Julia Stiles, Anupam Kher, Brea Bee, Shea Whigham, John Ortiz, Paul Herman and Dash Mihok.
Director:
David O. Russell.
Cast:
Ben Affleck, Olga Kurylenko, Rachel McAdams, Javier Bardem, Charles Baker and Romina Mondello.
Director:
Terrence Malick.
Cast:
Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Berenice Lim Marlohe, Albert Finney, Ben Whishaw, Rory Kinnear, Ola Rapace and Helen McCrory.
Director:
Sam Mendes.
Cast:
Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Redmayne, Helena Bonham Carter, Sacha Baron Cohen, Samantha Barks, Aaron Tveit, George Blagden, Killian Donnelly, Fra Fee, Alistair Brammer, Gabriel Vick, Iwan Lewis and Stuart Neal.
Director:
Tom Hooper.
I am back finally after a long pause. This is my list for the most anticipated movies of this year. From now on, I'll be trying to catch up on my reviews of the 2012 movies which is going to be a hectic job.
You can see my full 2013 watchlist on IMDB though.
1. Gravity
Directed by Alfonso Cuaron (Children of Men, Prisoner of Azkaban), this has been my most anticipated movie ever since i heard about its existence. It was pushed back to this year which further increased my passion to see what this potential game changer is going to be like. Starring George Clooney and Sandra Bullock, the story revolves around astronauts attempting to return back to Earth when their spaceship is hit by debris. Expect lots of cool effects, one take scenes, silent takes, visceral experience.... Gravity is my most anticipated movie of the year.
So I watched the Oscars last night, which I was unable to watch live. At first, sure i was a bit taken away by everything but now i realize that this ceremony was one of the most mediocre ones they have done recently. First and foremost, Seth MacFarlane did a good job hosting the Oscars. Performance of the host is the first thing that people really talk about so yes he was actually good. I personally am very cool with the crass and inappropriate jokes when they are not targeted towards someone or something but are a representatives of inside jokes, perceptions and are self-deprecating. Seth does this for a living with his TV shows so he knows how to deliver them so easily and casually and once again, he was a good host alright. I don't think the ceremony itself was rightly directed or executed though. During the many jokes, we weren't able to see the audience reactions i mean that is important isn't it? If a joke is directed towards George Clooney or Amy Adams etc, isn't that as equally important to show their reactions because it helps you laugh at even the dullest of jokes during these things. But the worst thing about this year's Oscar was the abundance of musical performances (which were great) but they ended up increasing the running time and were just oddly timed in general. I appreciate that this year they mostly relied on the live acts but still, there should have been a particular limit. Plus in most of the categories, they didn't presented the nominees in the creative fashion that they do most of the times. Just showing a picture won't do, presenting a particular category through scenes from the movie is always good.
So below, I am going to take a look at the many good, fine and bad things that happened overall.
