This week's a two part, blast from the past special. I've got two trailers for films that are getting sequels that take place exactly the length of time since their 80s predecessors. Both are iconic of the decade in which they were released, and both will feature the star of the original mentoring a new, younger protagonist. However, despite their serendipitous commonalities, these two films couldn't be more different.
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
I can't ever claim to having been a huge fan of the original Wall Street, but it's hard not recognize the impact of a film that defined the perceptual image of the high stakes, cut-throat stock broker, an image which has continued to dominate through our modern time. I'm sure Oliver Stone is relishing the chance to rub in the fact that his parable on greed was ignored in decades past, and I expect the film to be more than a bit ironic, and more than a bit "I told you so."
Tron Legacy
As for Tron Legacy, despite the distinctly diminished turning radius of the new light cycles, I couldn't be more giddy to see a film this year. The visual style of the film, from the glowing neon on shiny black, to the over exposed, washed out room where Flynn resides, is jaw-droppingly gorgeous. I also have this Jeff Bridges fixation going on at the moment, so anything thing he is in is automatically at the top of my must see list. Also, and forgive the effusive rant, the fact that I'm knee deed in Mass Effect 2 has made me enamored with 80s style synth soundtracks. So this is basically everything I want in movie at the moment. Hopefully that feeling won't fade and hopefully the not-as-good-as-Avatar CG humans won't be too jarring, either.
What better way to start the 2010 season of Weekly Monotony AND celebrate our 1 year anniversary than recapping all the great films of 2009. I put myself to the task and asked my co-hosts to do same. One simple goal: name your top 5 films of the year. Of course after 2 weeks of fretting, watching, re-watching, making lists, crossing them out, and generally stressing out over my top 5, I realized the foolishness of my imposed 5-item constraint. And whatever you feel about ranking films of disparate genres into some arbitrary order, in the end my struggle to yield only five proved to me that despite my initial concerns, 2009 was another great year for films.
You can see, by my collage of photoshoppery, which films ended being finalists, but to find out what we collectively dubbed Daily Montony's Best Film of 2009, you'll have to listen below.
Put down your Academy Awards Ballot, it's Weekly Monotony.
Dustin Anglin | Wednesday, January 27, 2010 at 12:58AM
Avatar officially passes #1 Titanic record for global B.O.
As young lad, I can distinctly remember thinking that there would never be a film that could surpass the audacious success of the 1997 film Titanic. I remember going to theater and being dumb-founded by people who were still lining up early to see a film that was nearly two months old. I mean, who does that? Clearly Titanic was some fluke, some perfect storm of timing and the elusive female demographic. The film's popularity was absurd, and what I was seeing was a once-in-a-lifetime cinematic event.
Well, make that officially twice-in-a-lifetime.
On Tuesday, January 26, as the domestic and foreign box office returns came in, the world found itself with a new king of the world. Weighing in at a hefty 1.858 billion dollars, Avatar is the new official record holder for worldwide box office numbers (not adjusted for inflation).
The ensuing weeks are almost guaranteed to include a flood of "why's" and "but's" with talk of inflation, more expensive 3D ticket prices, actual attendance numbers, and other various reasons why this moment is not as historic as it appears. But in two weeks when Avatar skips past Titanic's domestic box office record, from which it is a mere 45 million away, even the film's biggest critics will have to pause and reflect on the achievement director James Cameron has made. Excuse me, has made TWICE!!
And while the debate ensues and the two sides clash, I for one will be waiting for one thing and one thing only. Starting with director Steven Spielberg, it has been a tradition that when a film passes up another film for top box office honors, that the director commission an ad in the Hollywood trade journals depicting the passing of the crown. This was done from Jaws to Star Wars, from Star Wars to E.T., from E.T. back to Star Wars, and from Star Wars to Titanic. I once believed that the this humorous little inside joke would end at Titanic, since there was no film that could make more money than Titanic.
I know its a little self serving, but bring on the new ad, James!
The nerdy French cousin of the Oscars, the Golden Globes often garners as much ridicule as praise, but it's hard to argue with going first (just see any popular blog's comment page). And while at times it may seem like the Hollywood Foreign Press Association can't tell a hawk from a handsaw, when it comes to narrowing down the pool of Oscar hopefuls, they know which way the wind is blowing.
Daily Variety, from which we subversively stole our name, labeled this year's Golden Globes "populist fare", which is their snoody way of saying "movies that have been seen by actual people." While I'm all but certain the Oscars will rectify the high visibility nature of the award winners, it's good to see someone acknowledging the films that have impressed both critics and crowd alike, even if it is the Golden Globes.
The Big film winner of the night was the rapidly-approaching-Titanic-dollars Avatar, taking home both best dramatic picture and best director awards for returning champJames Cameron. Picking up its first win for best comedy was the delightfully zanny summer surprise The Hangover, and despite a reasonably competitive list for best animated picture, Pixar's Up once again proved the animation studio's invulnerability. Up also grabbed a win for best score for Michael Giacchino's incredibly catchy melodic musings on the F Major 7 chord.
In the thespian category, the dude abided with a win for Jeff Bridges' performance as a down and out country western singer in Crazy Heart. Similarly, the HPFA picked another southern character performance with Sandra Bullock and her role as a concerned mother who takes in a homeless youth in The Blind Side. On the lighter side of the category, Meryl Streep won for her uncanny performance as Julia Child in the hunger inducing Julie & Julia, while Robert Downey, Jr. took a win for best performance in a comedy or musical for his portrayal of the cantankerous master of logic in Sherlock Holmes.
In supporting roles, the HFPA played it safe and picked the two most well deserving candidates, Cristoph Waltz for his hauntingly sinister portrayal of Colonel Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds and actress Mo'Nique for her role as the frighteningly abusive mother in Precious. Curiously, both wins went to the two best villains of the year. A good year to be bad, it seems.
The Globes differ in one major way from the Oscars by pulling double duty with television awards as well as film. Dexter, now in its third season, earned big wins in the acting category, garnering a first time win for lead actor Michael C. Hall in addition to a win for John Lithgow for his supporting role in the series about the serial killer who kills serial killers.
Toni Collette won her first globe for the Diablo Cody penned comedy The United States of Tara, while Julianna Margulies won a dramatic actress award for her work in The Good Wife (which I shamefully can admit to having never heard of). Mad Men took away another win for best Dramatic series, while new comer Glee won for best comedy.
Most noticeably, Oscar hopefuls Up in the Air and The Hurt Locker came away with nothing, a sad, but not all together surprising turnout by the internationally minded voters of the HFPA. While this is a blow for the current Oscar favorites, rest assured both Jason Reitman and Kathryn Bigelow will have a better reception at the Academy, whose list of nominees should be out later in January.
For an entire list of winners, I recommend the /Slashfilm blog post on the subject. Check back this week as I continue the Best of 2009, including, at the end of the week, a new Weekly Monotony podcast with our picks for best films of 2009.
Dustin Anglin | Thursday, January 14, 2010 at 11:53PM
Top 5 Movie Trailers of 2009
A trailer by itself can and should be judged on its own artistic merits. Often enough, these two-minute montages end up being stunning pieces of cinema in their own right, regardless and sometimes contrary to the final film. This Friday, rather than something new, I bring you five trailers that proved to be cinematic gems with my picks for the Top 5 Movie Trailers of 2009.
5. Watchmen (feature trailer)
My first pick is a fairly convention trailer, and being a feature trailer (which tends to be more expository since they come after the first trailer or teaser) is slightly more advertisement than short film. Still, it was this trailer that got me so excited about Watchmen and largely in part to its pitch perfect selection of music. Starting with the haunting Philip Glass Propheciesand Pruit Igoe from Koyaanisqatsi, itslowly builds momentum and motion, and explodes into an ending with the minimalist inspired yet powerfully moving Take a Bow by Muse. The perfect balance of visual, musical, and emotional energy building to a climax still brings a tear to my eye when I watch this trailer, making it easily one of the best of 2009.
4. Terminator Salvation (trailer B)
This was the trailer that sold everybody on the assurances of director McG that he could make a grittier, more realistic Terminator film. Though his work on the film was wildly disappointing, it's not hard to see why we believed him. This trailer is nothing short of stunning.
Many trailers have a music video sensibility to them, and this is a perfect example of choosing to take a single song and make it the thematic and emotional backing for a trailer. Set to the Nine Inch Nails song The Day the World Went Away this brief two minute trailer manages to capture the strife, the horror, the hopelessness, and the anger of film's setting and characters, a feat the film itself could not muster in its entire, two hour run. I'm deeply reminded of the trailer for the original Gears of War game set to Michael Andrews song Mad World, a trailer which in my opinion is one of the best ever made. It's too bad the beats which were hit so right in this trailer couldn't have been carried over into the film proper, but just because Terminator Salvation ultimately sucked, doesn't make this any less my number four favorite trailer of the year.
3. District 9 (teaser)
The goal of a trailer is to inform and generate interest about a film, and the goal of a teaser trailer is to do so and while giving away as little as possible, thus maximizing interest and excitement. To be honest, most teasers do a rotten job at this. They either give away to much about the film or end up being just a slightly shorter version of the more expository theatrical trailer (or feature trailer). I am convinced that the phenomenal teaser for District 9was almost completely responsible for the success of this film. Never in my life as a movie-goer have I ever seen a trailer be so effective with an audience. Each time I saw this in front of a film there would be the usual gaggle of talking going on during the first part of this trailer, and I even overheard some remarks like "not another African poverty drama." But when the "they are not...human" text appeared on the screen followed by the goosebumps inducing shot of the alien ship hovering over Johannesburg, I would literally hear gasps and startled exclamations followed by awestruck silence. Not only is this a text book example of a perfect teaser, but I've never witnessed the desired effect of a trailer like this hit with such precision on every occasion that I saw it in theatres. Bloody brilliant!
2. Up in the Air (teaser)
As mentioned before, some trailers can sit alone as complete, cinematic works of art. The teaser trailer for Jason Reitman's film Up in the Air is one of those. It's not a novel concept to take a monologue from a film, set it to music and to a montage of clips and call it day. But the pure poignancy evoked from the pairing of word, to image, to sound in this trailer is both breathtaking and heartbreaking. Unlike some of the trailers I've mentioned, this teaser has a very steady emotional tone which neither builds nor falls, but with the silkly grumble of George Clooney's voice you instantly click with the intended mood and you float there, effortlessly. There's something soothing about the mixture of somber music (track Genova) with the subversive lyrics of Clooney's speech that troubles you while simultaneously puts you at ease. I'd almost not be joking to say I watch this every night before I shut my eyes, easily making this my second favorite trailer of the year.
The movie's not half bad either ;)
1. Where the Wild Things Are (trailer 1)
I can't watch this trailer without breaking down into a sobbing mess. Even now I'm having trouble finding the adjectives to describe how much I love this trailer. From the perfect way it opens to the music-less sounds of the wild thing plodding through the forest, to the obscenely cute and charming titles of "inside all of us is a...," to the form fitting track Wake Up by Arcade Fire, everything is just, well, perfect. Spike Jonze set out to the capture the essence of childhood and present it back as a reminiscence to the child who's grown up. Presenting this trailer as a moving scrapbook of childhood not only serves to revel in the films gorgeous cinematography, but to drive home the point that even though the studios paid him to make a film for kids, he's made a film for us kids who've grown old, a film to remind us of what is was like.
If you can watch this trailer without feeling that warm glow of childhood and tearing up just a little bit, then you clearly have a cold lump of coal where your soul used to be, and I'll have to beg forgiveness for making this without a single doubt, my favorite trailer of 2009.
Dustin Anglin | 
