Well they’ve climbed perhaps the biggest mountain and are now hurtling towards the finish line. Catching Fire is the lynchpin in the books written by Suzanne Collins where the subject matter gets even more mature and luckily for audiences the film version, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, is a solid enough flick to get us to the real craziness. I was on record as not really digging the first Hunger Games film so I’m happy to report those who might have been scared away should give this film a chance.
Philomena is a film in the vein of most of the Weinstein Company films: a solid movie that doesn’t do too much or too little, rests on some good performances and snappy dialogue. The movie, which is out this week, was runner up for the Audience Award at the Toronto International Film Festival and comes out with a certain pedigree. Thankfully this small flick manages to be enjoyable, if a little bit too well meaning, on its way to a pretty good conclusion.
My my my has the Oscar landscape shifted in the two weeks since I last updated my Oscar predictions. The race is really starting to take shape and it looks like it will be an exciting few months as films vying for the crown. Let’s dig into the predictions then, shall we?
Have you all managed to let your eyes take in the trailer for Darren Aronofsky’s new film Noah? It certainly is a dazzling piece of work and like it’ll be can’t miss filmmaking when it arrives in theaters. By the end of the trailer though, my thoughts were less on the film but more on how it would be received and the nature of adaptations. Take a gander at the trailer and see my reasoning.
Man the past week and change has certainly been a blur. Covering AFI Fest has been both a blessing and a curse but I am glad to have had the chance to see movies I would have otherwise missed. Now that the festival is over, I can reclaim a bit of my life. Before I do that wholesale, I figured I’d do a wrap up post with links to my reviews as well as my awards for the fest. Check it out!
Two years ago Ashgar Farhadi gifted the world with a dazzling movie titled A Separation. Winning every award in sight, it announced the filmmaker to an audience he didn’t previously have, like myself. So when it was announced that the director would have his follow up film The Past at AFI I rushed out to have the opportunity to see the flick. While the movie doesn’t reach the operatic heights of his prior film, The Past is still a solid movie.