I've finally recovered from the visually spectacular Avatar screening last week, only to behold yet another incredible sight this morning! I got to the Museum at about 7 to do my daily run, and I timed it just right to see the sunrise over the Boston skyline as I ran along Memorial Drive. It was spectacular. The sun gleaming off the Hancock Tower and the Prudential, the snow covered Charles River - amazing. I wish I had had my camera to take a couple of pictures, but alas, I like to run carrying as little as possible. Maybe I'll do it again next week, and this time bring my camera.
I'll get my quick movie news out of the way - saw Up in the Air and Invictus last week, and both were good.
Ryan Bingham (George Clooney), is a corporate hatchet man who loves his life on the road but is forced to fight for his job when his company downsizes its travel budget. He is required to spend more time at home, just as he is on the cusp of a goal he's worked toward for years—reaching ten million frequent flyer miles—and just after he's met the frequent-traveler woman of his dreams (Vera Farmiga).
There is tremendous buzz around this film, especially for the performances of George Clooney and Anna Kendrick. Jason Reitman is quickly becoming one of my favorite directors (even though I didn't particularly care for his last effort, Juno, I adored Thank You for Smoking), he has a knack for writing intelligent, realistic dialogue and characters that audiences can identify with. This was an extremely well made and put together film. I think that it has particular resonance now because of it's subject matter (people losing their jobs) and how people cope with the loss.
As for the performances, Clooney was as good as all the reviews have said, but I personally felt that he was just George Clooney being George Clooney, a wryly charming playboy who has women eating out of the palm of his hand. The real breakout in the film though is Anna Kendrick as Natalie, the young executive that Clooney takes under his wing. She's a relative newcomer to Hollywood (I hear she's in those Twilight films) and she announces herself as a force to be reckoned with. Her performance is remarkable, especially as she starts to show vulnerability and that she really may not be as tough as she thinks she is. Vera Farmiga completes the trifecta, although she is the least developed of the three leads in what turns out to be, IMHO, a mostly thankless role.
This movie is probably like porn for travel agents, with American Airlines and Hilton Hotels, and their respective loyalty programs being advertised like whoa. There is a great scene in the beginning of the movie where Ryan and Alex compare their elite traveler status within various airlines and hotel chains. I expect this movie to do quite well at the Oscars, easily scoring nominations for Picture, Director, Actor, Supporting Actress (could be x2), Screenplay and Editing. Grade: A
Also saw Invictus last weekend. Don't really have the energy or inclination to write a lot about it. It was good, and if I had to describe it in one sentence: Rugby cured all of South Africa's racial tensions in the mid 90's. Ok, so it's a little more complicated than that, but that's pretty much what I walked away thinking. Morgan Freeman is in the role he was born to play as Mandella, and Matt Damon gives a fantastic performance as rugby team captain. Can someone PLEASE give him an Oscar already? Clint has the uncanny ability to make films meander when they don't really need to, but I think that it works for him here. The last 25 minutes or so is the climactic ruby match, which is expertly shot and, even though we know (or can probably guess) the outcome, it's still pretty thrilling. Grade: B+
I spent 5 days at the beginning of the month with the Marching Spartans at Walt Disney World in Orlando. It was a really great time (even though it rained the first 2 days we were there) but it was nice to be on vacation for a little while. The kids performed really well, and they had a great performance in the Magic Kingdom before the afternoon parade. I love seeing the parks all decorated for Christmas - here's what the train station looks like right when you enter the Magic Kingdom:
Pretty nice, huh? And the holiday edition of Illuminations was also pretty great: Disney sure does know how to put on a show! I had this great idea of trying to post pictures of myself at all of the countries in Epcot, and it worked for about half, then it got dark. Beth was grateful, because she was getting pretty annoyed at playing photographer.
And for a Christmas treat, my roommate sent me this video this morning, it's pretty outrageous.
So I know that I have been MIA for about 2 weeks, and I promise, I'll be back tomorrow with a full update, but I need to blog about this tonight before I go to bed. Tonight, I saw one of the most anticipated movies of the year (if not the decade), James Cameron's follow-up to his ubersmash Titanic (almost 12 years to the day), Avatar. I was skeptical about it, being all CGI and sci-fi, two things I'm not a huge fan of, but I bought my tickets to an opening day screening in Imax.
Avatar take us to a spectacular world beyond imagination, where a reluctant hero embarks on a journey of redemption and discovery as he leads an epic battle to save a civilization. The story's hero is Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a former Marine confined to a wheelchair. Bitter and disillusioned, he's still a warrior at heart. All Jake ever wanted was something worth fighting for, and he finds it in the place he least expected: on a distant world. Jake has been recruited to join an expedition to the moon Pandora, which corporate interests are strip-mining for a mineral worth $20 million per kilogram on Earth. To facilitate their work, the humans use a link system that projects a person's consciousness into a hybrid of humans and Pandora's indigenous humanoids, the Na'vi. This human-Na'vi hybrid—a fully living, breathing body that resembles the Na'vi but possesses the individual humans thoughts, feelings and personality—is known as an "avatar." In his new avatar form, Jake can once again walk. His mission is to interact with and infiltrate the Na'vi with the hope of enlisting their help—or at least their acquiescence—in mining the ore. Complications arise when Jake falls in love with a beautiful Na'vi female (Zoe Saldana) who saves his life, leading to an epic conflict that will decide nothing less than the fate of an entire world.
It was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen. Visually stunning doesn't even begin to describe this film. And let's get this out of the way first, a nomination for Best Original Screenplay was not among Titanic's record 15 Oscar nominations, and Avatar is not different, the script and dialogue is atrocious. But let's be honest, this isn't supposed to be about the writing. It's about the visual spectacle, and on that level, Avatar is astounding. The actual story is fascinating; humans having avatars to infiltrate an alien culture to learn and interact with them, so if some of the plot points are a little ludicrous, you can look beyond it because Cameron keeps you occupied with sumptuous visuals. The world that he created is visual eye-candy, with almost every color in the spectrum represented, in locales that range from mountain tops to rain forests to the desert. And it's inhabitants are equally as exciting. The Na'vi are incredibly lifelike (albeit a little cat people-esque), and when they interact with the humans, the lines between live action and CGI become extremely blurred - what's created and what's real?
There was more than one scene that legitimately left me breathless; the creativity of this film and Cameron and his associates is astounding. No wonder it took him almost 15 years to make this, the attention to detail is incredible. I had a few minor quibbles in addition to the horrendous script, but overall, this is one of the most enjoyable and satisfying films I've ever seen. It has gotten across the board rave reviews, and is doing fairly well early in the awards season. In a year that will have 10 Best Picture nominees, this will easily make the cut (I'd guess it'd even make it if there were only 5 slots), and Cameron is almost assured a nod for direction and a truckload of visual nominations.
I've never seen anything like this, such a life like and seamless melding of live-action and CGI. For months, this has been billed as a game changer in the world of film, and if this is the future of the American cinema, I can't wait to see what comes next. See this, and see it in Imax. Avatar is why films are shown in Imax. Grade: A It would have received an A+ if the script was better.
Since I'm at Logan waiting to leave, might as well update you on the happenings with the NBR Best Film: Up in the Air Best Director: Clint Eastwood, Invictus Best Actor: Morgan Freeman, Invctus and George Clooney, Up in the Air Best Actress: Carey Mulligan, An Education Supporting Actor: Woody Harrelson, The Messenger Supporting Actress: Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air Foreign Film:A Prophet Doc:The Cove Animated: Up Ensemble:It’s Complicated
Best Ten Pics: An Education 500 Days of Summer The Hurt Locker Inglourious Basterds Invictus The Messenger A Serious Man Star Trek Up Where the Wild Things Are
Breakthrough Performance by an Actor: Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker
Breakthrough Performance by an Actress: Gabourey Sidibe, Precious
So what'd I miss? The last three. I didn't count on Up, and had actually written off WTWTA, but an PUMPEDfor Star Trek, could this mean that it could find its way to the Oscars? Maybe, and I hope so, the Academy needs a fun, well reviewed blockbuster since they instituted this 10 best picture nominees nonsense. I'd also venture to guess the acting winners could very well become Oscar winners, with Morgan Freeman just barely eeking out Clooney.
Surprises? Minimal love for Precious and zero for Nine...ouch.
Check out IndieWire for a complete list of nominees.
Today is going to be a long day (well, long morning anyways), I'm leaving at 2pm for the airport because - I'm going to Disney World! Seriously! I am! Oakmont is going down to participate in the Magic Music Days program, and since they need staff members to go, I naturally volunteered. I'm excited to go, and relax in some sun and heat. I'm ready to get away from work for a few days, dealing with the stuff here, the craziness of Harry Potter, the Marathon headaches. And of course, seeing Mickey Mouse is always kind of cool too.
Keen readers will notice I mentioned the Marathon above. I'm of course talking about the 2010 Boston Marathon, of which the Museum has 15 charity numbers and, hold onto your butts readers, I'll be running. Yes, you read that right, I'm running the 2010 Boston Marathon. 26.2 miles from Hopkinton to Copley Square. With the encouragement and support from family, friends, and co-workers, I've decided to take on the biggest challenge of my life so far. I've run 2 half marathons successfully, and I think those are the building blocks for Boston. I know that a half marathon is completely different than a whole, but I feel that I have the strong base, and Coach Rick has put together an incredible training program that will prepare our entire team to run and successfully finish Boston. Here's where you come in--since I'm running for a chairty, I have a fundraising goal.
In the first year the Museum of Science has charity numbers, all of our funds raised will go towards Traveling Programs, a unique part of Museum outreach. For over 15 Years, Traveling Programs has helped bring science programs to more than 81,000 students annually in schools, community centers, and libraries. These programs provide a special learning opportunity for schools that simply do not have the resources, financial or otherwise, for a field trip to the Museum. Our team fundraising goal for 2010 is $80,000. Monies raised will go towards purchasing a new van and designing new programs to take to schools across New England. It's a lofty goal no doubt, but I'm sure that we can acheive it.
In addition to reading about my progress here on ...this is home..., you can also donate to to the team and help me reach my individual goal of $7,000 by visiting the 2010 Museum of Science team website and clicking on my name to sponsor me. All sponsors will get a shout out here on the blog, as well as a hand written thank you note - hooray! Thanks to my first few donors, my boss Pam, Uncle Paul and Sloanfish!
Also be on the look out for fundraisers during the Winter in the 'burg, Boston and mayhaps Amherst. I'd also like to welcome all the new readers to ...this is home... who are here to track my progress. Mark your calendars, April 19, 2010. Be there.
It sucks to be Tiger Woods these days - it always amazes me when celebs get into trouble like this...do they really think that no one is going to find out? Dennis and Callahan (who I normally disagree with on almost everything) posed an interesting question on the radio this morning, it was something like if you could have an affair that may or may not be discovered for a billion dollars, would you do it? I don't think I would.
Awards season shifts into high gear today - the NBR (that's National Board of Review for those of you not in the know) announces their picks sometime today. They name a Best Picture and then a top 10. Here's how I think it will shake out:
Best Picture The Hurt Locker
Top 10 (500) Days of Summer
An Education
Inglorious Basterds
Invictus
The Lovely Bones
The Messenger
Nine
Precious
A Single Man
Up in the Air
I think a real wild-card could be The Hangover, they normally nominate a box-office success, and it has a real shot here, I also suspect that it will pop up again in a couple weeks during the Golden Globe noms. Other potentials for their list; Avatar, The Blind Side, District 9, It's Complicated, A Single Man, and Where the Wild Things Are. I'll post their choices later this afternoon.
And finally, the Nine website has the entire soundtrack online. Check out #3, Penelope Cruz sining "A Call from the Vatican"...I almost wet myself. I think I might actually have to go to the movies on Christmas to see this. I don't think I can wait.
My upcoming screening schedule constists of: December 9 - Brothers, December 11 - Up in the Air, December 17 - midnight showing of Avatar and December 25 - Nine and Sherlock Holmes. I need to fit Invictus, The Lovely Bones and maybe It's Complicated (although I hated Nancy Meyers previous effort, Something's Gotta Give) somewhere in there too. And 2 foreign films, Broken Embraces and The White Ribbon will open in Boston sometime in January.
You know, I really do need to move to New York. I go there enough, I love it, and there is always something to do. People have always said "why don't you just move there", and I've always given the "oh, I don't know...it's so expensive" when I really think that the reason I haven't moved there is that I don't want to "ruin" what New York, in my mind, is. I think that it's kinda like how I felt about Southwest when I was at UMass...a nice place to visit, but I'd think long and hard about living there. Plus, it's ridiculously expensive. Anyways, as you may have surmised, I did spend the weekend in said city. Checked out an exhibit at AMNH on Friday afternoon and then saw the revival of Ragtime that night.
The original production opened in 1998 and ran for about two years. It was a massive physical production, that cost somewhere around $750,000 (yes, 3/4 of a million) to run each week. It was nominated for 12 Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Another show opened that year, The Lion King, maybe you've heard of it. Anyways, there was always debate about which was better (Ragtime won book, score and orchestrations (the musical award) and Lion King won all the technical awards) and that Ragtime was robbed of Best Musical, blahblahblah. I didn't see the original production, but read the book in high school and listened to the cd quite a bit. This production played the Kennedy Center last spring and significantly paired down the production design. A unit 3 level Gothic-looking set replaced the opulent (and no doubt expensive) original set pieces, and the focus was shifted to the music and characters. Overall, it worked really well for me, but I kept having this nagging in the back of my mind "wow, that must have looked incredible in the original production". The cast was uniformly excellent, but (and this is a major but) the two weakest characters were two of the most important ones, Coalhouse Walker and Sarah. While the both had decent voices, their overall performance was just kinda meh, and they're pretty essential to the story. The major highlights? the opening number, "New Music", the guy who played Mother's Younger Brother, and "Back to Before". I would definitely recommend this, the music is excellent, as are most of the performances. Try and get tickets on discount though, and sit in the first few rows of the center mezzanine. sidenote: I HATE the logo for the show. Gross.
Saturday afternoon we saw Hamlet with Jude Law, and it was exhilarating. I feel like it's the one Shakespeare play that everyone reads in high school, has the most quoted lines ("something is rotten in the state of Denmark", "Get thee to a nunnery"), and everyone is familiar with. The Lion King is even loosely based on it! I'll be honest though, after the first 15 minutes, I didn't think that I was going to like it. Shakespeare can be difficult to follow, and it takes some time to get into his rhythm. However, once I became accustom to it, the production was thrilling. Law was nothing short of sensational, and when ever he wasn't on stage, you wanted him to come back. Two things (besides Law's performance) stuck out to me; the incredible design elements (phenomenal lighting, the massive unit set, and the interesting costume choices) and two actors who played Rosencranz and Guildenstern, Hamlet's bffs. Another thing I enjoyed? Tickets were $25. This particular production came over from the Donmar Warehouse in London, and they're big on accessibility. For every performance of the 12 week run, every seat in the last 3 rows of the mezzanine is $25. I got our tickets the day they went on sale in July, and a week or so later, every $25 seat was sold out. And they were actually pretty good seats, right in the center, and had a really good view of the stage. Two things I didn't care for, Ophelia (she was beyond awful) and the guy who played the ghost of Hamlet's father and doubled as another character later on. He made no difference between the two. I hope that this is remembered come Tony award time, I could easily see this scoring Best Revival of Play, Best Actor and design nominations. Hamlet was some of the quickest 3.5 hours of my life.
I was able to score seats on TDF (Theater Development Fund) for $33 to on Saturday night. TDF is a non-profit that you pay a yearly membership fee ($30) to, and you're able to buy EXTREMELY discounted tickets to shows. The catch? You pay $33-$37 per ticket, but you don't know where they are. They could be great, or they could be awful. Our tickets to Finian's Rainbow turned out to be excellent. They were in the 3rd or 4th row of the mezzanine, right on the aisle. Unfortunately, that was pretty much the only good thing about the show. I can't really give you a rundown of what it was about, because there were about 6 different storylines, only 2 of which actually got resolved. The book was beyond hokey, but the score was pretty good, so that made up for it. The cast also did the best that they could with the weak material that they were given, so that's also a plus. We were definitely the youngest in our section, and it was probably only half-full. I can't really see this show surviving much beyond the New Year, is there really an audience for it? I don't really think so, and especially not at $120 a pop for tickets. The geriatric crew that was around us seemed to love it, so maybe they knew something about it we didn't...
Also caught two movies this past week, Precious and The Men Who Stare at Goats. I had heard a lot about both, and was anxious to see them both, Precious more so than Goats as it's being touted as a major awards contender and has tremendous buzz.
Precious, based on the novel Push by the poet Sapphire, is is a vibrant, honest and resoundingly hopeful film about the human capacity to grow and overcome. Set in 1987 Harlem, Claireece "Precious" Jones (Gabourey Sidibe) is a 16-year-old African-American girl born into a life no one would want. She's pregnant for the second time by her absent father; at home, she must wait hand and foot on her mother (Mo'Nique), a poisonously angry woman who abuses her emotionally and physically. School is a place of chaos, and Precious has reached the ninth grade with good marks and an awful secret: she can neither read nor write. Precious may sometimes be down, but she is never out. Beneath her impassive expression is a watchful, curious young woman with an inchoate but unshakeable sense that other possibilities exist for her. Threatened with expulsion, Precious is offered the chance to transfer to an alternative school, Each One/Teach One. In the literacy workshop taught by the patient yet firm Ms. Rain (Paula Patton), Precious begins a journey that will lead her from darkness, pain and powerlessness to light, love and self-determination. Yeah, tough stuff. There were more than a few times during the film that I felt like I had been punched in the gut, but, as difficult as it was to sit through at times, it was an extremely powerful and satisfying film. Sibide is sensational as Precious - you cannot take your eyes off her whenever she's on screen. And that's really difficult to do, considering the absolutely jaw dropping performance Mo'Nique turns in as her horrible mother. The buzz around her performance was insane, and I'll admit I wasn't 100% ready to believe it. Believe it. She really is that good. She comes in from the streets and brings the grit and grime with her. Her scenes with Sibide are incredible and heartbreaking, both of them deserve acting nominations. The supporting players are excellent too, notably a severely de-glammed Mariah Carey as a social worker - who'd of thought that the girl had it in her after the beating she took for her performance in Glitter. I will be anxious to see how this film plays outside of major cities, even though it ultimately is an uplifting story, it's a long, graphic road to get there. Even more heartbreaking? Knowing that this really isn't that much of a work of fiction... GRADE: A
The Men Who Stare at Goats on the on the other hand, completely different type of, um, animal. ha. A somewhat hard-to-believe-this-is-really-based-on-actual-events story, Reporter Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) is in search of his next big story when he encounters Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), a shadowy figure who claims to be part of an experimental U.S. military unit. According to Cassady, the New Earth Army is changing the way wars are fought. A legion of "Warrior Monks" with unparalleled psychic powers can read the enemy's thoughts, pass through solid walls, and even kill a goat simply by staring at it. Now, the program's founder, Bill Django (Jeff Bridges), has gone missing and Cassady's mission is to find him. Intrigued by his new acquaintance's far-fetched stories, Bob impulsively decides to accompany him on the search. When the pair tracks Django to a clandestine training camp run by renegade psychic Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey), the reporter is trapped in the middle of a grudge match between the forces of Django's New Earth Army and Hooper's personal militia of super soldiers. Confusing and convoluted? Yes. Entertaining? You bet. I was a little surprised at how terrible some of the reviews were (Entertainment Weekly gave it an F), I think it was meant nothing more than to be a fun, nice piece of fluff film. Clooney and McGregor were excellent, they had a really great on-screen chemistry, and I thought most of the dialog was pretty sharp. It came and left from theaters pretty quickly, but definitely worth a spot in your NextFlix queue. Grade: B
The other recent exciting news, which I posted briefly about last week, is that I'm going to Las Vegas for New Years! It was a little weird the way it happened, I had already made plans to go to Philly/NYC to visit one Rachel Weiner, and before I knew it, I was on the phone with Southwest changing my flight from Philly to Manchester to Philly to Vegas. I'm really excited to go, and it should be a really good time. Making a list of things that I want to do; debating about taking one of those bus day trips to the Grand Canyon (readers who have been, care to comment?), a Cirque du Soleil show, maybe see the Vegas production of Phantom (yes, it's no longer The Phantom of the Opera, it's been shortened for Vegas in both time (95 minutes) and title) and see some topless show because, I mean, what trip to Sin City would be complete without boobies? Also might stay a night in a hotel, either Bellagio or Palazzo. I got a guidebook (I know, I'm a loser) from lonely planet that I started reading last night, and I'm super excited.
Finally, after seeing Precious, the two movies left in 2009 I'm really looking forward to released some really cool stuff this week. First, the French theatrical poster for Avatar (yeah, I know, it's in French, but I'll bet the US poster will look identical)
and, the new trailer for Nine. I'm pretty sure that I might explode when I see this...
Ryan Bingham (George Clooney), is a corporate hatchet man who loves his life on the road but is forced to fight for his job when his company downsizes its travel budget. He is required to spend more time at home, just as he is on the cusp of a goal he's worked toward for years—reaching ten million frequent flyer miles—and just after he's met the frequent-traveler woman of his dreams (Vera Farmiga).
