If you are planning on seeing Catfish, heed its advertising campaign and DO NOT let anyone tell you what it is. When they say in the trailer that is is like a Hitchcock film, they’re not joking. It may not be the most surprising reveal, but it is pretty powerful stuff. And a somewhat critical look at the ease with which we put our lives on the internet, blah, blah, blah. I cried in earnest. And that Nev Schulman is just so darn cute!

Awwwww.

If you have already seen the movie, read this article from NY Mag about some of the things that got left on the cutting room floor.

My overall verdict on Catfish is that it’s worth watching, whether you watch it in theaters now (watch out for bedbugs!) or later. But don’t look up spoilers!

Never Let Me Go is another movie that has a twist that will make you cry. Or at least it made me cry. A lot. The trailer alludes rather strongly to what is is that’s so weird about the boarding school at the center of the film. The sinister purpose of Hailsham is upsetting in and of itself, but it is by no means the only sad thing about the movie.

I really enjoyed the movie. I found it to be very beautifully shot, and superbly acted. It’s gotten mixed reviews, but a lot of the negative reviews cite the fact that it is somewhat cold and detached, but I think that wintry tone is very much in keeping with the (excellent) book. My recommendation for this movie is the same as with Catfish: see it, either at the theater or at home, and try not to read spoilers about it (although with Never Let Me Go it’s not as big of a deal if you know some spoilers).

So that’s what’s up in the world of Amanda Baker’s tears. But stay tuned, a new Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows trailer is out tonight at 9 PM EST! Expect tears of joy and excitement!

If you have ever even been in the same room as me for more than twelve seconds you probably know that I am obsessed with Harry Potter. So Monday was like Christmas for me because Warner Bros. released the trailer for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I say it was like Christmas because the actual date(s) of release of the film will be like Thanksgiving, which is the best holiday of the year because it is centered around FOOOOOOD (which is probably my second favorite thing, after Harry Potter). Anyway, here it is:

Momentary return to caps: SO. FREAKING. EPIC. It has given me goosebumps every time I’ve watched it. Full disclosure: I almost cried the first time I watched it.

That swelling score, those beautiful vistas, the rush into battle… SWOON.

I really like that the majority of these clips are actually identifiable as scenes from the book (who is that man gesturing threateningly towards the Hogwarts Express?), even if I imagined it differently while reading the book.

I briefly considered that it may be slightly hyperbolic to say that these movies are the “motion picture event of a generation,” but I then realized that I have been a fan of Harry Potter since I was nine years old. I will be twenty-one when the second installment of Deathly Hallows is released, capping off a phenomenon that has thoroughly entertained me for more than half of my life. I will likely cry myself into a near-catatonic state, and any movie that can do that deserves the title of “motion picture event of a generation,” IMHO.

Let's break up all this writing with a picture of this sexy bitch.

You may have gathered that I have extremely high expectations. Even if the movie doesn’t meet them, guarantee that I’ll see it in 3D, IMAX, IMAX 3D, and plain ol’ 2D.

Once again, full disclosure: I saw this trailer on the big screen at the midnight showing of Eclipse (more on that later), and it was undoubtedly the best thing about Eclipse. Oh, hey, here are some links that shit all over Twilight while discussing the merits of Harry Potter, from FilmDrunk and  Time!

Bottom line: these movies are gonna be the shit, see them many times apiece.

Clearly I am a master of Microsoft Paint.

So, on Friday the trailer for Charlie St. Cloud, my husband Zac Efron’s first big dramatic role, was released.

Now, I know that I have a serious bias, but I really want to see it. I know that there is some serious cheese in this movie, but… c’mon. Zac Efron. I’m pretty curious to see what he can do when the role entails more than being charming. And it doesn’t look too terrible! Even the LA Times says so!

Now, it being the first dramatic role of a teen idol, Charlie St. Cloud has drawn some early comparison with another similar vehicle, Robert Pattinson’s movie Remember Me that was released earlier this year. Now, as I said before, I am biased, but I honestly think that it would be hard for Charlie St. Cloud to suck as much as the cinematic turd that was Remember Me.

That movie was freaking intolerable. But what can you really expect from a movie whose trailer includes the following exchange:

“I don’t date sociology majors.”
“Lucky for you I’m undecided.”
“About what?” [side note: you would never ask that question as a follow-up to someone telling you that they haven't picked a major yet, so it's a pretty bad set-up for...]
“EVERYTHING.” [OH GOD]

I went to see it with some friends of mine, and I was so boooooored. It felt interminable. It’s a story about two really irritating people who fall in love. Emilie de Ravin’s character is supposed to be quirky but it’s so forced (like, she always eats desert before dinner because what if she dies while she’s eating dinner and she never gets to eat desert again? Well, she’d be dead, so she probably wouldn’t care). And Robert Pattinson’s character. Don’t even get me started. He was just a whiny asshole. I believe that I was supposed to sympathize with the two of them, but I didn’t at all. Which I guess accounts for my boredom, since I didn’t really care what happened to them either way. And then there was that horrible exploitative ending (read it here; spoilers obviously).

Robert Pattinson is also just not that good of an actor. Looking dazed or constipated does not count as emoting. If Twihards are really going to make this Robert Pattinson thing happen, he should at least take an acting class.

TEAM ZEFRON!

Kathy's favorite picture.

Zac Efron, whose film choices dictate all my life decisions (like that time I fell into a river and emerged 17 years younger/put on an absolutely infeasible high school play/was related to instant alcoholic C. Thomas Howell) is set to play a drug runner in an upcoming remake of the Swedish movie Snabba Cash.

This obviously means that I will become a drug runner. MAYBE THEN HE’LL REALIZE THAT WE’RE MEANT TO BE.

Because, seriously, Vanessa Hudgens? She’s awful.

Please watch that video. You will not regret it… well, maybe a little, but it’s hilarious.

So Oscar/Independent Spirit Awards weekend is upon us! I encourage you all to watch the Spirit Awards on Friday night if you can, because they are way more entertaining than the Oscars. (And JOHNNY WEIR will be there!) The winners are allowed to speak for however long they want, and they aren’t censored. I believe I have posted this before, but it is worth revisiting, if only to convince you that magic can happen at the Spirits:

They’re also worth a watch because sometimes an independent feature gets wide release the following year and garners some mainstream awards attention. One such film? Oscar Best Picture favorite The Hurt Locker. Jeremy Renner and Anthony Mackie were nominated for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, respectively (and lost to Mickey Rourke and James Franco, respectively). But who really knows if this year’s Spirits and next year’s Oscars will have any overlap.

Keep reading if you care to know what I think will win on Sunday, on what I hope will win.

Note: bold = want to win, italics = probable win. In some categories I have no preference, either because I haven’t seen any of the nominated movies (shorts, etc.) or because I have no idea what the category even means (Art Direction???).

Best Picture
Avatar
The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds [because if it can't be The Hurt Locker, it should be this for sure]
Precious Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire [definite winner of most unnecessarily irritating title]
A Serious Man
Up
Up in the Air

Best Actor
Jeff Bridges – Crazy Heart
George Clooney – Up in the Air
Colin Firth - A Single Man
Morgan Freeman – Invictus
Jeremy Renner – The Hurt Locker

Best Supporting Actor
Matt Damon – Invictus
Woody Harrelson – The Messenger
Christopher Plummer – The Last Station
Stanley Tucci – The Lovely Bones
Christoph Waltz - Inglourious Basterds

Best Actress
Sandra Bullock – The Blind Side
Helen Mirren – The Last Station
Carey Mulligan - An Education
Gabourey Sidibe – Precious
Meryl Streep – Julie and Julia

I was really torn on this one. I like Sandra Bullock, but I haven’t seen The Blind Side so I can’t really judge. I did think that both Carey Mulligan and Gabourey Sidibe were really great, but I found Carey Mulligan to be a bit more subtle.

Best Supporting Actress
Penelope Cruz – Nine
Vera Farmiga – Up in the Air
Maggie Gyllenhaal – Crazy Heart
Anna Kendrick – Up in the Air
Mo’Nique – Precious

Animated Feature Film
Coraline [really weird but very cool-looking]
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Princess and the Frog
The Secret of Kells
Up

Art Direction
Avatar
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Nine
Sherlock Holmes
The Young Victoria

Cinematography
Avatar
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince [HARRY 4-EVA!!!]
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
The White Ribbon

Costume Design
Bright Star
Coco Before Chanel
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Nine
The Young Victoria [royalty + period piece = Oscar costume gold]

Directing
James Cameron – Avatar
Kathryn Bigelow – The Hurt Locker
Quentin Tarantino – Inglourious Basterds [because can you imagine how hard it is to direct a movie that good when you've done THAT much coke?]
Lee Daniels – Precious
Jason Reitman – Up in the Air

Documentary Feature
Burma VJ
The Cove
Food Inc.
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
Which Way Home

Documentary Short
China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province
The Last Campaign of Governor Bruce Gardner
The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant
Music by Prudence
Rabbit a la Berlin [I haven't seen it, but it's about a freaking bunny! Awww!]

Film Editing
Avatar
District 9
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious

Foreign Language Film
Ajami (Israel)
The Milk of Sorrow (Peru) [title literally translates "The Frightened Boob"]
A Prophet (France)
The Secret in Their Eyes (Argentina)
The White Ribbon (Germany) [the trailer for this movie is really irritating, because it makes it seem as if the movie is about absolutely nothing]

Makeup
Il Divo
Star Trek
The Young Victoria

Music (Original Score)
Avatar – James Horner [he composed the music for Titanic... LOVE]
Fantastic Mr. Fox – Alexandre Desplat
The Hurt Locker – Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders
Sherlock Holmes – Hans Zimmer
Up – Michael Giacchino

Music (Original Song)
“Almost There” – The Princess and the Frog
“Down in New Orleans” – The Princess and the Frog (Disney’s first black princess gets to reign over a city, not a principality. Diversity fail, Disney.)
“Loin de Paname” – Paris 36 [?]
“Take It All” – Nine
“The Weary Kind (Theme From Crazy Heart)” – Crazy Heart

Animated Short
French Roast
Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty
The Lady and the Reaper
Logorama
A Matter of Loaf and Death

Live Action Short
The Door
Instead of Abracadabra
Kavi
Miracle Fish
The New Tenants

Sound Editing
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek
Up

Sound Mixing
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek
Transformers: Revenge of the Shitty Movie

Visual Effects
Avatar
District 9
Star Trek

Adapted Screenplay
District 9
An Education
In the Loop
Precious
Up in the Air

Original Screenplay
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
The Messenger
A Serious Man
Up

Finally, if you’d like an easy way to make your own ballot and tabulate your accuracy, you can create your own on the New York Times website, and if you log in during the show it tracks how many you get correct. It’s like a game!

Later this week I’ll post my list of ideal winners, and my list of probable winners (which sadly will likely have little overlap). So stay tuned.

What got me thinking about all this was the cover of this week’s New Yorker. Now, I am no great fan of that magazine, but occasionally I really enjoy their cover art. Pardon the poor quality of the picture, which I took on my phone at work:

If you click on it you can view it larger, but it’s characters from the ten nominated films all reaching for an Oscar in the center. It’s kind of funny. Were Oscar races actually to be decided like this, my money would be on Avatar or District 9. Precious ain’t got shit in a fight.

And don’t send anything weird to my job.

Don’t spend your money on this movie. Unless you see it with friends and don’t mind being those people talking in the theater.

I guess the first sign that all was not well with Shutter Island was when it had its release date changed from October (early awards contenders) to February (cinematic graveyard). As I was pretty excited for this movie, I fully bought into the initial story that Paramount didn’t want to spend the dollah bills to market this movie as an awards contender, so they moved it to a time when it would have less competition. And it’s lucky they didn’t, because that would have been REALLY embarrassing considering how terrible this movie is. Believe me, it hurts me to say it about Leo, but Shutter Island was super cheesy, and approached the cheesiness way too seriously. If they had been a bit more self-aware about it, then this movie could have been campy and fun. As is, it just makes me sad for all involved at truly cringeworthy moments (e.g. Leonardo DiCaprio’s character looking into the sky and screaming “NOOOOOOO!“).

However, if you do see it, you will enjoy the film’s unintentional hilarity and extremely quotable lines of absurdity. And three shirtless Leo moments. Me-ow.

Unlike Shutter Island, which has the potential to be a fun movie to watch, if only because you can make fun of it with friends, The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant is an unendurable horror. I had to watch it for a film class I’m in, and which I naively thought would allow me to see a lot of good movies, but has just proven to be a terrible disappointment. This particular movie is a let-down because it is two hours and four minutes, mostly without music, all set in one room. And the action of the film? Just the titular character talking. And she is a thoroughly unpleasant character, so two hours of her talking is REALLY bad. It felt like the longest two hours of my life.

Conclusion: all things I look forward too are terrible =[

Bad news everybody. I thought that the virus of The Twilight Saga would be contained, and that they would adapt the four books of Stephenie Meyer’s breathtakingly retarded series into four films. But, in a move similar to what Warner Bros. has done with the (infinitely better) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the fourth installment, Breaking Dawn will be made into two movies.

Despite my incessant whining about these books, I actually have read them all. Both because even though they are TERRIBLY written, they are really addictive, and because I can now cite specific examples of why the series is so bad. I can hardly imagine Breaking Dawn as one movie, let alone two. Some reasons why (beware, spoilers ahead):

• Bella and Edward FINALLY have sex, and it is the most comically awful sex scene writing I have ever encountered. He literally breaks the headboard. It’s all just… really absurd.
• The only action in the whole book comes in Bella’s gruesome and nauseating childbirth scene, in which the baby not only breaks her spine, but Edward also performs a C-section… with his fucking teeth. HOW DOES ONE SHOW THAT IN A TEEN MOVIE?
• Also, how does one non-creepily portray the fact that a 17 year-old falls in love with a newborn baby?
• The antiquated views of womanhood are ESPECIALLY glaring in this one. Bella spends about… 70% of the book talking about how if she hadn’t been knocked up and turned into a vampire by Edward, she would have had some miserable, unfulfilled existence as a human. Because, ladies, without men, we couldn’t lead a viable existence.
• The big, climactic vampire battle in the end? Which could potentially have been REALLY COOL? They talk it out. Go fuck yourself, Stephenie Meyer.

So… it’s gonna be interesting. I would almost relish the fact that these movies are going to be really bad if there wasn’t such mania surrounding the release of these movies. Now this means that instead of four occasions on which I don’t want to leave my apartment or go on the internet for fear of being bombarded by Twilight shit, I now have to become a recluse five times. Fuck my life.

In other film-related news, AMC is once again doing it’s Best Picture showcase. The Best Picture showcase is a pretty sweet deal. It used to be that for $35, you got a pass that entitled you to watch the 5 nominated movies all in a row, with unlimited popcorn and soda. And because that is a really intense movie-watching schedule, you can also come and go as you please with the pass. This year, with the field expanded to ten, they’re doing things differently. In most cities, the showcase is spread over two weekends, February 27th and March 6th. In New York (and several other cities), it is one 24-hour long day of movies for $45 dollars.

Per the AMC Website (where you can also find more information), here’s the schedule:

Show Schedule:
12:01AM:  AVATAR 3D
3:00AM:  A Serious Man
5:00AM:  Up 3D
7:00AM:  District 9
9:10AM:  Inglourious Basterds
12:00PM:  The Blind Side
2:30PM:  An Education
4:30PM:  Precious
7:00PM:  Up in the Air
9:30PM:  The Hurt Locker

Pros: cool pass, ten movies for $45.
Cons: your sleep schedule will never be the same.

Weigh your options, movie-goers.

You know that I could rattle off the list and deliver a ten minute rant about each category. YOU KNOW I COULD. But in the interest of remaining calm instead of attacking my  computer at work, I will direct you here for the full list of nominees, and remain focused on the positive.

• after winning the PGA and DGA and getting a nomination today, The Hurt Locker is now looking pretty good for Best Picture! And Inglourious Basterds won Best Cast at the SAG, and it is notoriously difficult to win Best Picture without Best Cast! Yay! Screw Avatar! (Hopefully.)
• this means maybe Kathryn Bigelow will win Best Director and we won’t have to look at James Cameron’s smug old lesbian haircut!
• Jeremy Renner nominated for Best Actor. I love him. Look at how happy he is! (No, seriously, click on that link and watch that video. IT IS ADORABLE.)

via fuckyeahryangosling.tumblr.com

Now, I know what you’re thinking: why would anyone ever speak so harshly to dear, dear baby goose?

The answer is that Ryan Gosling was one of the first names that came up when I googled “members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences”.  And I have an ultimatum to deliver.

Ryan Gosling, if the egregious error of naming Avatar Best Picture at the Golden Globes is repeated at the Oscars, you will look like that picture up there. I will personally attend to that.

It’s not that Avatar wasn’t enjoyable, but I believe Roger Ebert said it best: “All hail ‘Avatar,’ yes, but the year’s best picture? Give me a f–king break.“

You know what’s at stake, Gosling. Don’t fuck this up.

Also, really, Sandra Bullock over Carey Mulligan, Gabourey Sidibe, Helen Mirren, and Emily Blunt? Okay, sure, Hollywood Foreign Press. Suuuure.