UpComing: Angels & Demons

The Da Vinci Code was a weak book-to-screen adaptation, but that's not stopping Tom Hanks from reprising his role as Robert Landon in Angels & Demons. Based on Dan Brown's third novel, Angels & Demons tells the story of Langdon's brush with a shadowy secret society, the Illuminati, and his frantic quest for the world's most powerful energy source, in the company of a beautiful Italian physicist whose father, a brilliant physicist, has been murdered.

Also starring Ewan McGregor (Star Wars Episodes I, II and III) and Ayelet Zurer (Vantage Point, Munich)

Avoid: Underworld: Rise of the Lykans

The first Underworld movie was bearable. I remember laughing out loud when Bill Nighy's head was sliced in half in the last scene. The second was the stupidest thing I'd ever seen. I decided, on a lark, to try out the third. Was smart enough not to pay for this drivel, mind you, but wasted 10 minutes of my life nonetheless. Bill Nighy, you're so much better than this. Are you that hard up for a pay check?!

At the time of this posting, Underworld: Rise of the Lykans is number two at the box office with more than $20 million in ticket sales. In a recession, you'd think folks would be smarter about where they spend their money.

Obama sworn in as the 44th president of the U.S.

Barack Hussein Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States and the nation's first African-American president Tuesday. This is a transcript of his prepared speech.


Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends -- hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism -- these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility -- a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world; duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

This is the source of our confidence -- the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.

This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed -- why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent Mall, and why a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

"Let it be told to the future world ... that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive... that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]."

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested, we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back, nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/20/obama.politics/index.html

Globes belong to Winslet, Rourke and 'Slumdog'

Kate Winslet took away dual honors at tonight's Golden Globe awards for lead and supporting actress, while Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire was named top film.

Winslet won awards for her dramatic work in Revolutionary Road and The Reader. Slumdog also earned the best director award for Boyle and best screenplay award for Simon Beaufoy.

Mickey Rourke's work in The Wrestler earned him the lead actor award. And Heath Ledger was honor posthumously for his role as the Joker in The Dark Knight.

For musical and comedy prizes, the awards went to Vickey Cristina Barcelona (film), Collin Farrell (actor, In Brughes), and Sally Hawkins (actress, Happy Go Lucky).

In the TV categories, Mad Men was named best drama but failed to nab any acting awards. Those went to Gabriel Bryne for In Treatment, Anna Paquin for True Blood.

Anne Hathaway's Norbit-like problem

Anne Hathaway is supposedly really good in Rachel Getting Married. The buzz around Hollywood is she's a shoe-in for an Academy Award nomination. Some observers, like the LA Times' Tom O'Neil and Scott Feinberg, say it's her award to lose.

If history serves correct, she probably will ... lose that is.

Flashback to 2006. That year, everybody was talking about the musical Dreamgirls and the two serious actors it bore. One was a fresh face to Hollywood, the other an old hand reborn. We're talking Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Murphy, of course.

Critics expected both to walk away with Academy Awards for their work. For Murphy, it would mean some legitimacy as an actor's actor after years of playing, well, the buffoon. It didn't hurt that Dreamgirls was a critical and box office success -- it raked in $103 million and scored 77 percent positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. Hudson and Murphy landed Critics Choice, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards for their work. Both landed Academy Award nominations.

On awards night, as expected, Hudson won the Oscar for supporting actress. The supporting actor award, however, went to Allen Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine.

What happened? One word: Norbit.

The Murphy-produced Norbit was released while Academy voters still had ballots in hand. The commercials were everywhere, and everyone with half a brain who saw that mush agreed it was one of the worst of 2007. It's Tomatomeeter score among top critics is an abysmal 4 percent.

The parallel: Hathaway's best-reviewed film thus far is Rachel Getting Married. Her worst: Bride Wars. The latter film, which co-stars an increasingly disappointing Kate Hudson in yet another silly comedy, got an abysmal 0 percent among top critics (no, this is not a typo, zero percent among top critics).

Should it matter?

This is what Newsday says about Bride Wars: "Hathaway and Hudson, both natural charmers, are reduced to female stereotypes in this outdated comedy."

Reviews like that don't win you an Oscar.

Looking Forward: Summer '09

Okay, a quick break from my annual Oscar obsession.

Here's a preview of the top five to look out for in summer '09:

1. Terminator Salvation


2. The Watchmen


3. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince


4. Star Trek


5. X-Men Origins: Wolverine

'Dark Knight' now serious Oscar contender

The Dark Knight became a serious contender for a best picture Oscar today when the Producer's Guild of America named it one of five nominees for its top prize.

Just how accurate has the Producer's Guild been in predicting the best picture Oscar? In the last 10 years, the Producer's Guild predicted Oscar gold six times, and the Producer's Guild winners were always Academy Award nominees.

A Producer's Guild nomination doesn't necessarily mean an Oscar nomination, however. Last year, Michael Clayton, the Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Juno and There Will be Blood competed for the Producer's Guild prize, but Diving Bell didn't get an Oscar nomination. That honor went to Atonement.

So, does the Dark Knight get to compete for the Academy Award? A Producer's Guild win on Jan. 22 will almost guarantee a nomination.

Snapshot of Producer's Guild wins in the last 10 years.

2007: No Country for Old Men (won the Oscar)

2006: Little Miss Sunshine
Lost the Oscar to Departed

2005: Brokeback Mountain
Lost the Oscar to Crash

2004: The Aviator
Lost the Oscar to Million Dollar Baby

2003: Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (won the Oscar)

2002: Chicago (won the Oscar)

2001: Moulin Rouge!
Lost the Oscar to Beautiful Mind

2000: Gladiator (won the Oscar)

1999: American Beauty (won the Oscar)

1998: Saving Private Ryan
Lost the Oscar to Shakespeare in Love

1997: Titanic (won the Oscar)

Must See: Doubt

The best stories aren't those that have the most twists or the most action sequences. They affect because they tap into relatable human concerns, plausible conflict, a tangible stirring to which we are all familiar.

This is the power of John Patrick Shanley's Doubt, a film that follows catholic school principal Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep), who believes the school's first black pupil, Donald (played with quiet urgency by Joseph Foster), has fallen prey to the the parish priest (Phillip Seymour Hoffman). The sister has no proof of this, just her suspicion, made certain by her "experience," as she says, and the minor details of a brief encounter between the boy and the priest that she's culled from the boy's teacher (a magnificent Amy Adams).

We know the priest called the boy to the rectory and that the boy was caught drinking communion wine. But Sister Aloysius believes the boy had been given the wine by the priest. She believes the priest has molested the boy and sets it in her mind to have the priest removed from the parish and its school.

Sister Aloysius' suspicions have less to do with any tangible proof than her dislike for Father Flynn. While she prides herself on being the task-master, he's befriended the community and the children in her charge. His sermons are progressive, he keeps his nails longer than she would think respectable, and he reminds her, even on his first visit to her office, of a church power dynamic of which she is not comfortable.

The urgency of the work isn't in the alleged transgression or the actions Sister Aloysius take to have the priest removed. The urgency -- no, the power -- of the film is in what is not seen. It's in what is implied. Motives of which we can't be certain but of which we have some understanding.

Shanley "invites us to judge, but then carefully lays out reasons why our verdict might be wrong, even tragically so," writes the Toronto Star's Peter Howell. "He wants us to think, something that runs counter to blind devotion."

What we get, is a "mystery tour of human motives and a cautionary tale about the dangers of being sure," says Joe Morgenstern, writing for the Wall Street Journal.

Viola Davis delivers the films strongest performance, a heart-rending portrayal of a mother who wants nothing but success for her son, but who would sacrifice his innocence if his innocence must be sacrificed for the sake of his salvation. Her Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe nominations are well-deserved. We anticipate an Oscar nod -- if not Oscar gold -- for her suburb work. She's already received the National Board of Review's Best Breakthrough Performance-Female award.