Continuing my retrospective Top 10 lists. Keep in mind, this list is from awards season 2010… and I don’t necessarily stand behind every one of these choices anymore…
Okay, so this was the year the Oscars got on my nerves for announcing ten Best Picture nominees. (And judging by what was included in those ten, I think we can all agree that I was right to be irked, which is some vindication, at least.)
Friends With Kids co-stars Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Chris O’Dowd, and Jon Hamm, all of whom you will recognize from last year’s biggest (and best) studio comedy. Is this Bridemaids 2?
Almost.
It’s the Golden Globes! And because I currently have nothing better to do, I am watching and blogging about them. (Nominees here, FYI.)
I’ll be doing some sort of live-blogging/recap as we go on, so… enjoy!
(Movies discussed in this post: War Horse, Attack The Block, X-Men: First Class, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Paul, Super 8, The Adventures Of Tintin.)
From The Artist to Midnight In Paris to Hugo and a number of others, 2011 is a big year for nostalgia for all sorts of mainly things — but mainly, for old movies. Hugo and The Artist display it most blatantly, but it’s everywhere — take the romanticized look at growing up in the 50′s (not to mention nostalgia for the creation of Earth) in The Tree Of Life, or the paranoid Towering-Inferno-meets-21st-century-paranoia star-killer Contagion, or the retro heroics of Captain America: The First Avenger, or the 80′s kitschiness evoked by Drive, or the surprising success of a prequel to a campy 60′s movie, Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes. Even the latest Mission: Impossible embraced a silliness that felt borrowed from old spy TV series rather than John Woo-style theatrics.
And because of it, you can hear audiences breathing a collective sigh of relief: “Oh, thank God. We’re allowed to have fun at the movies again.”
Well, folks. The WGA nominees have been announced, and on the whole, I can’t say that I love ‘em.
But read below, if you must.
(Films discussed in this post: Young Adult, Bad Teacher, Tabloid, The Roommate, The Help, Bridesmaids.)
It’d be nice to think that we’re in a day and age where women headlining a film doesn’t matter. But it does. Unless the film is geared specifically toward a female audience, you won’t often see a Thelma & Louise-type story driven by and centered on women in your multiplex. Your local arthouse theater, maybe. (If you’re lucky enough to even have one.) Usually, any movie with a female protagonist tends to be all about her romantic strife, pining after a guy when she’s not pratfalling. (Or, more likely, pining and pratfalling simultaneously.) The Devil Wears Prada, Mean Girls, Romy And Michele’s High School Reunion… the list of female-centric comedies that don’t revolve around the womens’ love lives (and are actually funny) is pretty slim.
Ah, The Golden Globes. What can I say about The Golden Globes that hasn’t been said before?
