@MovieJay Review of My Week With Marilyn

 

"She was a whirling light to me then, all paradox and enticing mystery, street-tough one moment, then lifted by a lyrical and poetic sensitivity that few retain past early adolescence."

The success of My Week with Marilyn lies in the gifts of Michelle Williams in her skillful evocation of those words written by Marilyn Monroe's third and final husband, Death of a Salesman playwright Arthur Miller.

It must be difficult to be charged with playing a symbolic, cultural icon. Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino did admirable work in Norma Jean & Marilyn (1996), but Williams has now set the bar.

I came along a full generation after her passing, so for those like myself we grew up with the legend of Marilyn Monroe. The white dress blowing above her knees above that grate when the subway barrels by underneath. That unforgettable footage of her singing "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" to JFK.

For those who grew up with her, the nostalgia conjured up by the many faces of Monroe that enticed that generation can be sensed in their voices and particularly in their writing, among the historians and by our more mature film critics who know the feeling first hand. In Roger Ebert's review he writes, "In the early 1950s, my friends and I required only one word to express it: marilynmonroe. It wasn't a name. It was a summation of all we yearned and guessed about some kind of womanly ideal." And Rex Reed from the NY Observer lovingly adds, "you feel like you were there" and "supercolossal charisma and appeal".

You know, that kinda makes me jealous. My generation has Madonna and Britney, J. Lo and Lindsay Lohan, one after the other a copy-of-a-copy, the antithesis of enigmatic, perpetuating themselves on our culture much the same way a corporation does. Suppose we'll gleam the way those guys do that long after those ladies are through?

The film is the recollection of Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne), a 23 yr-old kid who talks himself into a job at Pinewood Studios in England on the set of The Prince and the Showgirl (1956), directed by Laurence Olivier. They're filming an easy-breezy light comedy with Monroe surrounded by a cast of British acting royalty including the aforementioned Olivier (Kenneth Branagh), as well as Sybil Thorndike (Judi Dench). Frustrated with being pigeon-hel d as just another airy blonde, it would be Monroe's second film under the tutelage of acting guru Lee Strasberg's second wife, Paula (Zoe Wanamaker).

Olivier becomes an irascible mess on set as Paula's hold over Monroe with all that new "method acting" stuff gets in the way of him being a director. Olivier eschewed the method and saw acting in more practical terms, as something to be worked at like any other job. Of course he finds Monroe totally irresistible, but she's too much trouble for him. Meanwhile, Thorndike empathizes with the 30 yr-old Monroe, giving her a much-needed thespian mentor on set.

The young Colin is third-assistant director, essentially a glorified gopher. He's fancied by a sweet wardrobe girl named Lucy (Emma Watson), but she's no match for the spell that befalls Colin - indeed, all of the men involved with the pic - when Monroe summons him to keep her company at a cottage the week her husband, Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott) flies back state-side. Before this invitation, they will have interacted only a few times on set with Monroe sizing him up immediately as an innocent who she can trust. Colin's in awe of her and in their first scene together we see that beyond the pills and the booze and the many private and public faces, Monroe is a smart person lacking any kind of confidence with an insatiable need for reassurance. She appreciates Clark's kindness and honesty.

Perhaps he reminds her of her lost innocence.

If Colin and Monroe had sex that week, the movie does a good job of only suggesting it after a very lovely scene of the two skinny-dipping when Colin's been summoned back to the cottage where Monroe has locked herself inside her room and won't come out. There's real sweetness in the loneliness of that night as Colin climbs up and into her room through the window, "like Romeo & Juliet", whispers Monroe. The movie shows Colin holding her that night, while the rest is left to our imagination. And that's just perfect, since the overall appeal we have for Michelle Williams in the role is that we find ourselves yearning to hold her, too.

Marilyn Monroe left something to the imagination in a time when that notion was sexy. That idea and how well it's milked to our great satisfaction is what makes My Week with Marilyn one of the very good biopics. It also serves itself well by focusing on a slice of her life instead of the usual ski-slope treatment where biopics tend to find themselves marking every flag down the slope of a celebrity's life.

The three major supporting performances are all Oscar-worthy. Kenneth Branagh is excellent at showing how Olivier practically goes mad on set and is given a wonderful, revealing scene where he shares with Colin the loneliness of feeling older in comparison to the zesty Monroe. Judi Dench wrings some very wise and knowing laughs from the experiences of an actor who has been on many a set. And Eddie Redmayne, so good in The Yellow Handkerchief and Hick, gives his best performance yet as the helplessly-in-love-and-devoted Colin Clark. The rest of the cast shines as well, not least of which Julia Ormond playing Vivien Leigh, Olivier's husband. She's got Colin making sure to report any funny business between her husband and the icon.

But at the center is that inspired performance by Michelle Williams, who indeed brings Marilyn Monroe to life as we've never seen before, capturing in a very tender way the highs and lows, the free-spiritedness and the wonder, the loneliness and troubles that haunted the disturbed young star. Williams is a lock for an Oscar nomination.

Lovely movie. It really does make you feel like you were there.

 

My Week with Marilyn ***1/2 out of 4

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@MovieJay's Review of The Muppets

It's time to play the music! It's time to light the lights! It's time to get things re-started again with The Muppets, and oh boy, how we missed them so!

Kermit the Frog and the gang are back on the big screen for the first time since Muppets From Space (1999). That one didn't do so well and we weren't sure we were ever going to see them in a big screen movie again. And what with Pixar, 3D, Imax and the age of ironic detachment and foul humor, it appeared that a puppet show was something that would stay forever in the 20th century, never to be seen again.

But here they are.

Wicked, winning, corny, fresh and in a delightfully self-aware musical all set to revitalize their franchise.

singing and dancing down the street in a good old-fashioned number that feels like memories

**Spoiler Alert**

We start in Smalltown, U.S.A. where Gary (Jason Segel) and his best bud Walter grew up and have lived their entire lives. Correction: Walter hasn't grown so much (at all, actually) since he's a muppet, only he doesn't know he's a muppet although he knows he hasn't grown any because he's still not tall enough to ride on the roller coaster at the fair. Gary's girlfriend is Mary (could it be any other name?) and for their 10-year anniversary, Gary has purchased round-trip tickets for all three of them to take a bus ride out to Hollywood so they can tour Muppet studios -- but not before they go singing and dancing down the street in a good old-fashioned number that feels lik e memories. Cameos are staples within the Muppet franchise, and so it's appropriate that Mickey Rooney makes one of the first one in the film's opening sequence.

Mary (Amy Adams) loves Gary (not simply because their names rhyme, that would be shallow) but she wonders about when Gary will finally propose to her and also if they could get some time alone without Walter, who she loves as well, but cheese whiz, he's always around!

Once in Hollywood, the trio discovers that Muppet studios are closed and in another terrific cameo, Alan Arkin plays their tour guide. "That's Kermit's old office", pointing to the dusty old store-front, "you should really come and visit it sometime".

Walter is just too curious at the discovery of the Muppets, who uncannily remind him of himself. He sneaks into Kermit's office, taking in the pictures on the wall through all those cobwebs and dust but quickly hides as a back door opens suddenly with Statler and Waldorf entering the room with millionaire oilman Tex Richman (Chris Cooper). There's oil under Muppet studios, and Tex wants at it. Statler and Waldorf show him the deed to Muppet studios and (wouldn't you know it) unless the Muppets can come up with $10 million smackeroos by like, next week, it'll belong to Tex.

The problem? The Muppets went their separate ways long ago. Fozzie's with a third-rate Muppets tribute act in Reno called the Moopets; Gonzo's the owner of a highly successful plumbing business; Miss Piggy's in Paris running the plus-sized part of Vogue, (of course); Animal's in anger management with Jack Black; and of course, there's Kermit, who Gary, Mary and Walter search for first in order to tell him about Tex Richman's dastardly plans. Hearing this, Kermit decides to round up the old gang and hold a live telethon on TV in order to raise the money they need to save Muppet studios. Kermit, incidentally, still lives in the big old house he once shared with Piggy, and along with Gonzo they could probably kick in the money that's needed since they appear to be the 1%'ers in the bunch, but nevermind, "it would be a short movie then"!

**End Spoiler Alert**

That's the easy peasy plot of it, a clothesline for Muppet hijinks and sweet little musical numbers - new tunes by Bret Mackenzie (Flight of the Conchords) -  like the re-staging of "Rainbow Connection" with Kermit and Piggy that left audience members choking back tears and hugging themselves. Is there a place in today's world for something as corny and delightful as the Muppets?

MAHNA-MAHNA!!!

Of course there is! They're needed now more than ever, and The Muppets succeeds at bridging the divide between old and young, and what a fascinating experience watching this movie was as it introduces itself to a whole new generation while properly tugging at the heart-strings of adult viewers.

Jason Segel and Amy Adams do a great job of being the kind of human characters that fit like a glove in the world of the Muppets. Chris Cooper as Tex chews up the scenery nice and good and I suppose I could complain or make fun of his wild and wacky rap number, but that's small potatoes. Besides, it's a number that young kids will understand and appreciate even if it's as humorously ridiculous as it is.

Amazing, in today's world of CGI and sarcasm how true-to-life our Muppet friends seem to us. They are as we remember them - still hand puppets; still doing wondrous things that make us ask: "How did they do that?" in the same way we remember asking 'how?' when Kermit rode his bicycle in their first movie. Like us, they share the same qualities: they're funny, self-aware, filled with hope, and do their best to rise above, carry on and believe in themselves.

The Muppets is filled with laughter and warmth, some super-sweet cameos that I won't give away here, and now that they're back let's hope they're here to stay.

Filed under  //  Amy Adams   Chris Cooper   Gary   Jason Segel   Kermit   Kermit the Frog   Miss Piggy   Muppet   Walter   film   nerdiness   pop-culture   tumblrize   xavierpop  
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Dreamworks Pictures Invites Canadian Veterans To A Special Screening of Spielberg's 'War Horse'((tag: xavierpop, film, pop-culture, nerdiness, tumblrize,Benedict Cumberbatch,DreamWorks,Michael Morpurgo,Remembrance Day,Royal Canadian Legion,Steven Spielber

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this.

In fact, this is one of the most impressive things I have seen a studio do since I have started this film site.

I've been tracking War Horse for awhile now. Ever since it was announced that the first film that Steven Spielberg was going to direct since that craptastic third Indiana Jones movie was going to be War Horse, all details about it have held a special interest for me. The movie is based on the Julie Taymor directed/Tony Award winning play which is in turn based on the best-selling novel. It is a very interesting and well-told story spanning World War I -- all from the point of view of a horse.

As its opening approaches, we will be posting more and more about this film, however I just wanted to draw your attention to a press release that just came across my inbox.

The good folks at Dreamworks are hosting a special screening for Canadian Veterans of War Horse on November 16th.

I love everything about this.

Given the backdrop being World War I. Given that Remembrance Day is around the corner. This just works.

All of that is great, however, I love anything that draws attention to and celebrates the courage and valour that Veterans who fought and sacrificed their lives so that I could do the mundane things in life - like being able to write about film.

Well done Dreamworks.

Oh Look! A Press Release:

 

DREAMWORKS PICTURES INVITES CANADIAN VETERANS TO A SPECIAL SCREENING OF STEVEN SPIELBERG’S “WAR HORSE”

Screenings Will Take Place on November 16, 2011 in Seven Markets Across Canada

 TORONTO (November 10, 2011) â€" In honour of Remembrance Day, DreamWorks Pictures is proud to extend a special invitation to veterans across Canada to attend with a guest an advance screening of Steven Spielberg's epic adventure "War Horse."  The feature film, which opens in theatres across Canada on December 25th, is a tale of loyalty, hope and tenacity set against a sweeping canvas of rural England and Europe during the First World War.  Based on the best-selling book by Michael Morpurgo and the Tony Award-winning stage play by Nick Sta fford, “War Horse” is one of the great stories of friendship and war, brought to the screen by one of the great directors in film history.

 The screenings will take place on Wednesday, November 16th in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver.  Veterans are invited to contact their local Royal Canadian Legion branch in one of the aforementioned markets for complete details, including information on how to RSVP, as well as screening times and theatre locations. Veterans may also call 1-800-263-2853 ext. 4163398 or visit Facebook.com/WarHorseMovieCanada for more information.

 DreamWorks Pictures’ “War Horse” begins with the remarkable friendship between a horse named Joey and a young man called Albert, who tames and trains him. When they are forcefully parted, the film follows the extraordinary journey of the horse as he moves through the war, changing and inspiring the lives of all those he meetsâ€"British cavalry, German soldiers, and a French farmer and his granddaughterâ€"before the story reaches its emotional climax in the heart of No Man’s Land.  The First World War is experienced through the journey of this horseâ€"an odyssey of joy and sorrow, passionate friendship and high adventure.

 “War Horse” stars Emily Watson, David Thewlis, Peter Mullan, Niels Arestrup, Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irvine, Benedict Cumberbatch and Toby Kebbell.  It is produced by Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, and executive producers are Frank Marshall and Revel Guest.  The screenplay was written by Lee Hall and Richard Curtis and is based on the book by Michael Morpurgo and the international hit stage play by Nick Stafford, originally produced by the National Theatre of Great Britain and directed by Tom Morris and Marianne Elliot.  The Toronto production of “War Horse” will open at the Princess of W ales Theatre in February 2012.

 www.warhorsemovie.com

-30-

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We Know You've Been Waiting!! - The Annual Xavierpop Holiday Season Movie Preview((tag: xavierpop, film, pop-culture, nerdiness, tumblrize,Amy Adams,Brian Selznick,David Cronenberg,Invention of Hugo Cabret,James L. Brooks,James McAvoy,Martin Scorsese,Matt

There is cause for cheer yet in 2011 at the movies because the final weeks of the year are jammed-packed with the most sensational, inspirational, celebrational, muppetational mix of huge holiday season releases and promising Oscar contenders. Not least of which The Muppets are set to make a roaring comeback.

There's enough meat and cheese on the holiday wishlist to please every kind of movie lover. The back end of the year looks ready to erase out of our memories the giant thud that marked the year's opening with the dreadful Nic Cage mess Season of the Witch, a movie with too many seasons to care about and sadly, no witches. Not even Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy flying in on vacuums could have saved that turkey despite all the welcome ham they would have added to the proceedings.

The mess continued from there with the lackluster Green Hornet, the unfunny comedies No Strings Attached and Your Highness, and the dreadful additions to the Pirates of the Caribbean, Transformers, and Twilight series of flicks, although Harry Potter 7 Part 1 hit the mark.

In terms of adaptations, Troy was regrettable, The Smurfs only a smidge better, while Captain America got the job done and Winnie the Pooh won our hearts.

Hollywood has seen better years for movies, but here at Xavierpop, we're flipping cartwheels in anticipation of what the calendar looks like this holiday season; a tsunami of releases that look to change the entire complexion of 2011 as a whole.

Here's the scoop: Martin Scorsese goes 3D, we get a double-dose of Spielberg in December, the Muppets make a comeback, the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo goes Hollywood, Alexander Payne proves once more that he's this generation's James L. Brooks, David Cronenberg and Viggo Mortenson prove that the third time really is the charm, Michelle Williams is Marilyn Monroe, Meryl Streep is Margaret Thatcher, Glenn Close is a man, Twilight is back (did it ever go away?), Angelina Jolie makes her directing debut, Jonah Hill's a babysitter in a movie that harkens back to Adventures in Babysitting, while Matt Damon moves into a zoo.

Here's the naughty and the nice of it, an Xavierpop holiday checklist of movies that are must-sees from here on out in 2011;

The Descendants (Nov.16; limited release) marks another mature dramedy for Alexander Payne (Sideways, About Schmidt), starring George Clooney as an absentee father of two girls whose world turns upside down after mom dies. Like James L. Brooks in the 80's with Terms of Endearment and Broadcast News, Payne delivers another solid effort that has the ability to make audiences smile, laugh and cry all in the same movie. Plus, being very well received at TIFF is always a good thing.

George Miller (Mad Max, Babe: Pig In the City, Happy Feet) brings us a second installment in family fave Happy Feet Two (Nov.18), with the voices of Brad Pitt and Matt Damon joining Elijah Wood and Robin Williams. And yes, apparently the sequel does get a little more serious, like the second Babe outing.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (Nov.18) brings us the fourth pic in that series, this one tracking Bella's marriage to Edward and their uber-troubling and complicated pregnancy.

Fans of hard-hitting dramas will love the festival fave Tyrannosaur (Nov.18; limited), starring Peter Mullan (The Magdalene Sisters) and marking the second directing effort of actor Paddy Considine (In America).

The U.S. Thanksgiving long weekend is top-loaded with potential hits that should satiate every appetite. Check out this selection, hitting theaters on Nov. 23:

First, there's Martin Scorsese, who's set to enjoy the biggest commercial success of his career as he moves into more populist fare with Hugo, the 3-D adaptation of Brian Selznick's best-selling children's book "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" about a boy who lives within the walls of a Paris train station. It has a stellar cast that stars Jude Law, Ben Kingsley, and Sacha Baron Cohen.

Then there's The Muppets, who storm back into theaters with the help of Jason Segal and Amy Adams.

Sony Pictures also gets into the 3-D and animation ring that weekend with Arthur Christmas, a movie that is set to reveal just how Santa gets the job done on Christmas Eve. With the voices of James McAvoy and Jim Broadbent.

And then there are three bonafide Oscar contenders launching that same weekend with festival favorites A Dangerous Method, this time a historical pic that teams David Cronenberg with muse Viggo Mortenson in a drama focusing on Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud; The Artist, that mesmerizing, touching, gorgeously photographed in black & white and almost entirely silent pic that opened with a roaring standing ovation at Toronto's Elgin Theater at TIFF, about a washed-up silent movie star (played by Cannes Best Actor winner Jean Dujardin) whose career stalls with the advent of the talkies; and My Week With Marilyn, the biopic starring Michelle Williams (Wendy & Lucy) as Marilyn Monroe.

December kicks off with deep, dark, and delicious movies, first with Shame (Dec.2), the most talked-about film at the Toronto Film Festival which re-teams director Steve McQueen (Hunger) with the star of that pic, Michael Fassbender, this time as a man tortured by his sex addiction; and then there's the brooding Roman epic Coriolanus, with Ralph Fiennes directing and starring, along with Gerard Butler and Vanessa Redgrave.

Luc Besson (The Professional, Arthur & the Invisibles) tries his hand at a straightforward drama with the biopic The Lady (Dec.2; limited), with Michelle Yeoh starring as Burmese political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi.

Roman Polanski (Chinatown,The Ghost Writer) returns with the interior drama Carnage (Dec.16; limited), starring Jodie Foster.

The serious tone continues the first half of December with three other dramas opening around North America in major cities beginning Dec. 9 with I Melt With You, the sex, drugs and rock 'n roll soundtrack-infused drama starring Rob Lowe and Jeremy Piven; Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy with Gary Oldman and Colin Firth in the feature adaptation to the John Le Carre best-seller about a cold-war era spy-hunt that climbs to the upper echelons of power at the British Secret Intel Service, directed by Tomas Alfredson who made one of 2008's best movies with Let the Right One In; and the disturbing TIFF hit We Need To Talk About Kevin, starring Tilda Swinton as a mother haunted by her son, who appears to be a bad seed, directed by Lynne Ramsay, who indie lovers will remember from her uncompromising and challenging dramas Ratcatcher and Morvern Callar.

Lightening up the pre-Christmas rush are The Sitter (Dec.9), with Jonah Hill as a suspended student stuck babysitting young children; New Year's Eve (Dec.9) from Garry Marshall, that schmaltzy but heartwarming of directors (Beaches, Pretty Woman, Valentine's Day) who returns with another hyperlink movie with heapings of characters and storylines, this time focusing on year's end; and Alvin and the Chipmunks - Chipwrecked (Dec.16), another installment in the hugely popular adaptation of the Saturday morning family fave.

Bringing wall-to-wall action pre-Christmas week is the Steven Spielberg 3D-action-fantasy The Adventures of Tintin (Dec.21), starring Jamie Bell and Daniel Craig; Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, with Robert Downey Jr. back as the famous detective; and Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, with Tom Cruise returning, but this time with Brad Bird behind the camera (The Incredibles, Ratatouille), a most interesting choice.

Perhaps the single biggest event among film geeks everywhere is the anticipation of the Hollywood adaptation of the European indie hit Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Dec.21), with David Fincher (Fight Club, Zodiac) helming from a Steve Zaillian-penned script (Searching For Bobby Fischer, Moneyball).

All of this leads to Christmas week, when a flurry of huge titles hit theaters, starting with the 3-D aliens-attacking-earth flick The Darkest Hour (Dec.25), starring Emile Hirsch; War Horse, the WWI English drama marking the second feature in as many weeks from Steven Spielberg; and Extremely Loud & Up Close (Dec.25), the 9/11 drama starring Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock, directed by Stephen Daldry (The Hours, The Reader).

Within days of each other, Glenn Close and Meryl Streep star in their own movies, and you've read it here first: the Oscar winner will be one of those two ladies, either Close, who disguises as a male waiter in the wondrous 1898 British hotel drama Albert Nobbs (Dec.25), from director Rodrigo Garcia (Nine Lives, Mother & Child), or it'll be Meryl picking up a long-overdue third Oscar with what will surely be her whopping 17th nomination playing Margaret Thatcher this time out in The Iron Lady (Dec.30).

Rounding out the holiday madness is the iron lady of this generation, Angelina Jolie, directing her first feature In the Land of Blood & Honey (Dec.23), set against the backdrop of the war in Bosnia, as well as another first-time directing effort from Madonna called W.E., which goes on a one-week Oscar qualifying run in late December while opening the first week of February. Last year audiences were treated to The King's Speech, while this time around W.E. focuses on two stories, one of which follows the elder brother who abdicated the thrown to marry the American woman he loved.

Posted

We Know You've Been Waiting!! - The Annual Xavierpop Holiday Season Movie Preview((tag: xavierpop, film, pop-culture, nerdiness, tumblrize,Amy Adams,Brian Selznick,David Cronenberg,Invention of Hugo Cabret,James L. Brooks,James McAvoy,Martin Scorsese,Matt

There is cause for cheer yet in 2011 at the movies because the final weeks of the year are jammed-packed with the most sensational, inspirational, celebrational, muppetational mix of huge holiday season releases and promising Oscar contenders. Not least of which The Muppets are set to make a roaring comeback.

There's enough meat and cheese on the holiday wishlist to please every kind of movie lover. The back end of the year looks ready to erase out of our memories the giant thud that marked the year's opening with the dreadful Nic Cage mess Season of the Witch, a movie with too many seasons to care about and sadly, no witches. Not even Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy flying in on vacuums could have saved that turkey despite all the welcome ham they would have added to the proceedings.

The mess continued from there with the lackluster Green Hornet, the unfunny comedies No Strings Attached and Your Highness, and the dreadful additions to the Pirates of the Caribbean, Transformers, and Twilight series of flicks, although Harry Potter 7 Part 1 hit the mark.

In terms of adaptations, Troy was regrettable, The Smurfs only a smidge better, while Captain America got the job done and Winnie the Pooh won our hearts.

Hollywood has seen better years for movies, but here at Xavierpop, we're flipping cartwheels in anticipation of what the calendar looks like this holiday season; a tsunami of releases that look to change the entire complexion of 2011 as a whole.

Here's the scoop: Martin Scorsese goes 3D, we get a double-dose of Spielberg in December, the Muppets make a comeback, the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo goes Hollywood, Alexander Payne proves once more that he's this generation's James L. Brooks, David Cronenberg and Viggo Mortenson prove that the third time really is the charm, Michelle Williams is Marilyn Monroe, Meryl Streep is Margaret Thatcher, Glenn Close is a man, Twilight is back (did it ever go away?), Angelina Jolie makes her directing debut, Jonah Hill's a babysitter in a movie that harkens back to Adventures in Babysitting, while Matt Damon moves into a zoo.

Here's the naughty and the nice of it, an Xavierpop holiday checklist of movies that are must-sees from here on out in 2011;

The Descendants (Nov.16; limited release) marks another mature dramedy for Alexander Payne (Sideways, About Schmidt), starring George Clooney as an absentee father of two girls whose world turns upside down after mom dies. Like James L. Brooks in the 80's with Terms of Endearment and Broadcast News, Payne delivers another solid effort that has the ability to make audiences smile, laugh and cry all in the same movie. Plus, being very well received at TIFF is always a good thing.

George Miller (Mad Max, Babe: Pig In the City, Happy Feet) brings us a second installment in family fave Happy Feet Two (Nov.18), with the voices of Brad Pitt and Matt Damon joining Elijah Wood and Robin Williams. And yes, apparently the sequel does get a little more serious, like the second Babe outing.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (Nov.18) brings us the fourth pic in that series, this one tracking Bella's marriage to Edward and their uber-troubling and complicated pregnancy.

Fans of hard-hitting dramas will love the festival fave Tyrannosaur (Nov.18; limited), starring Peter Mullan (The Magdalene Sisters) and marking the second directing effort of actor Paddy Considine (In America).

The U.S. Thanksgiving long weekend is top-loaded with potential hits that should satiate every appetite. Check out this selection, hitting theaters on Nov. 23:

First, there's Martin Scorsese, who's set to enjoy the biggest commercial success of his career as he moves into more populist fare with Hugo, the 3-D adaptation of Brian Selznick's best-selling children's book "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" about a boy who lives within the walls of a Paris train station. It has a stellar cast that stars Jude Law, Ben Kingsley, and Sacha Baron Cohen.

Then there's The Muppets, who storm back into theaters with the help of Jason Segal and Amy Adams.

Sony Pictures also gets into the 3-D and animation ring that weekend with Arthur Christmas, a movie that is set to reveal just how Santa gets the job done on Christmas Eve. With the voices of James McAvoy and Jim Broadbent.

And then there are three bonafide Oscar contenders launching that same weekend with festival favorites A Dangerous Method, this time a historical pic that teams David Cronenberg with muse Viggo Mortenson in a drama focusing on Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud; The Artist, that mesmerizing, touching, gorgeously photographed in black & white and almost entirely silent pic that opened with a roaring standing ovation at Toronto's Elgin Theater at TIFF, about a washed-up silent movie star (played by Cannes Best Actor winner Jean Dujardin) whose career stalls with the advent of the talkies; and My Week With Marilyn, the biopic starring Michelle Williams (Wendy & Lucy) as Marilyn Monroe.

December kicks off with deep, dark, and delicious movies, first with Shame (Dec.2), the most talked-about film at the Toronto Film Festival which re-teams director Steve McQueen (Hunger) with the star of that pic, Michael Fassbender, this time as a man tortured by his sex addiction; and then there's the brooding Roman epic Coriolanus, with Ralph Fiennes directing and starring, along with Gerard Butler and Vanessa Redgrave.

Luc Besson (The Professional, Arthur & the Invisibles) tries his hand at a straightforward drama with the biopic The Lady (Dec.2; limited), with Michelle Yeoh starring as Burmese political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi.

Roman Polanski (Chinatown,The Ghost Writer) returns with the interior drama Carnage (Dec.16; limited), starring Jodie Foster.

The serious tone continues the first half of December with three other dramas opening around North America in major cities beginning Dec. 9 with I Melt With You, the sex, drugs and rock 'n roll soundtrack-infused drama starring Rob Lowe and Jeremy Piven; Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy with Gary Oldman and Colin Firth in the feature adaptation to the John Le Carre best-seller about a cold-war era spy-hunt that climbs to the upper echelons of power at the British Secret Intel Service, directed by Tomas Alfredson who made one of 2008's best movies with Let the Right One In; and the disturbing TIFF hit We Need To Talk About Kevin, starring Tilda Swinton as a mother haunted by her son, who appears to be a bad seed, directed by Lynne Ramsay, who indie lovers will remember from her uncompromising and challenging dramas Ratcatcher and Morvern Callar.

Lightening up the pre-Christmas rush are The Sitter (Dec.9), with Jonah Hill as a suspended student stuck babysitting young children; New Year's Eve (Dec.9) from Garry Marshall, that schmaltzy but heartwarming of directors (Beaches, Pretty Woman, Valentine's Day) who returns with another hyperlink movie with heapings of characters and storylines, this time focusing on year's end; and Alvin and the Chipmunks - Chipwrecked (Dec.16), another installment in the hugely popular adaptation of the Saturday morning family fave.

Bringing wall-to-wall action pre-Christmas week is the Steven Spielberg 3D-action-fantasy The Adventures of Tintin (Dec.21), starring Jamie Bell and Daniel Craig; Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, with Robert Downey Jr. back as the famous detective; and Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, with Tom Cruise returning, but this time with Brad Bird behind the camera (The Incredibles, Ratatouille), a most interesting choice.

Perhaps the single biggest event among film geeks everywhere is the anticipation of the Hollywood adaptation of the European indie hit Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Dec.21), with David Fincher (Fight Club, Zodiac) helming from a Steve Zaillian-penned script (Searching For Bobby Fischer, Moneyball).

All of this leads to Christmas week, when a flurry of huge titles hit theaters, starting with the 3-D aliens-attacking-earth flick The Darkest Hour (Dec.25), starring Emile Hirsch; War Horse, the WWI English drama marking the second feature in as many weeks from Steven Spielberg; and Extremely Loud & Up Close (Dec.25), the 9/11 drama starring Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock, directed by Stephen Daldry (The Hours, The Reader).

Within days of each other, Glenn Close and Meryl Streep star in their own movies, and you've read it here first: the Oscar winner will be one of those two ladies, either Close, who disguises as a male waiter in the wondrous 1898 British hotel drama Albert Nobbs (Dec.25), from director Rodrigo Garcia (Nine Lives, Mother & Child), or it'll be Meryl picking up a long-overdue third Oscar with what will surely be her whopping 17th nomination playing Margaret Thatcher this time out in The Iron Lady (Dec.30).

Rounding out the holiday madness is the iron lady of this generation, Angelina Jolie, directing her first feature In the Land of Blood & Honey (Dec.23), set against the backdrop of the war in Bosnia, as well as another first-time directing effort from Madonna called W.E., which goes on a one-week Oscar qualifying run in late December while opening the first week of February. Last year audiences were treated to The King's Speech, while this time around W.E. focuses on two stories, one of which follows the elder brother who abdicated the thrown to marry the American woman he loved.

Posted

We Know You've Been Waiting!! - The Annual Xavierpop Holiday Season Movie Preview((tag: xavierpop, film, pop-culture, nerdiness, tumblrize,Amy Adams,Brian Selznick,David Cronenberg,Invention of Hugo Cabret,James L. Brooks,James McAvoy,Martin Scorsese,Matt

There is cause for cheer yet in 2011 at the movies because the final weeks of the year are jammed-packed with the most sensational, inspirational, celebrational, muppetational mix of huge holiday season releases and promising Oscar contenders. Not least of which The Muppets are set to make a roaring comeback.

There's enough meat and cheese on the holiday wishlist to please every kind of movie lover. The back end of the year looks ready to erase out of our memories the giant thud that marked the year's opening with the dreadful Nic Cage mess Season of the Witch, a movie with too many seasons to care about and sadly, no witches. Not even Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy flying in on vacuums could have saved that turkey despite all the welcome ham they would have added to the proceedings.

The mess continued from there with the lackluster Green Hornet, the unfunny comedies No Strings Attached and Your Highness, and the dreadful additions to the Pirates of the Caribbean, Transformers, and Twilight series of flicks, although Harry Potter 7 Part 1 hit the mark.

In terms of adaptations, Troy was regrettable, The Smurfs only a smidge better, while Captain America got the job done and Winnie the Pooh won our hearts.

Hollywood has seen better years for movies, but here at Xavierpop, we're flipping cartwheels in anticipation of what the calendar looks like this holiday season; a tsunami of releases that look to change the entire complexion of 2011 as a whole.

Here's the scoop: Martin Scorsese goes 3D, we get a double-dose of Spielberg in December, the Muppets make a comeback, the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo goes Hollywood, Alexander Payne proves once more that he's this generation's James L. Brooks, David Cronenberg and Viggo Mortenson prove that the third time really is the charm, Michelle Williams is Marilyn Monroe, Meryl Streep is Margaret Thatcher, Glenn Close is a man, Twilight is back (did it ever go away?), Angelina Jolie makes her directing debut, Jonah Hill's a babysitter in a movie that harkens back to Adventures in Babysitting, while Matt Damon moves into a zoo.

Here's the naughty and the nice of it, an Xavierpop holiday checklist of movies that are must-sees from here on out in 2011;

The Descendants (Nov.16; limited release) marks another mature dramedy for Alexander Payne (Sideways, About Schmidt), starring George Clooney as an absentee father of two girls whose world turns upside down after mom dies. Like James L. Brooks in the 80's with Terms of Endearment and Broadcast News, Payne delivers another solid effort that has the ability to make audiences smile, laugh and cry all in the same movie. Plus, being very well received at TIFF is always a good thing.

George Miller (Mad Max, Babe: Pig In the City, Happy Feet) brings us a second installment in family fave Happy Feet Two (Nov.18), with the voices of Brad Pitt and Matt Damon joining Elijah Wood and Robin Williams. And yes, apparently the sequel does get a little more serious, like the second Babe outing.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (Nov.18) brings us the fourth pic in that series, this one tracking Bella's marriage to Edward and their uber-troubling and complicated pregnancy.

Fans of hard-hitting dramas will love the festival fave Tyrannosaur (Nov.18; limited), starring Peter Mullan (The Magdalene Sisters) and marking the second directing effort of actor Paddy Considine (In America).

The U.S. Thanksgiving long weekend is top-loaded with potential hits that should satiate every appetite. Check out this selection, hitting theaters on Nov. 23:

First, there's Martin Scorsese, who's set to enjoy the biggest commercial success of his career as he moves into more populist fare with Hugo, the 3-D adaptation of Brian Selznick's best-selling children's book "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" about a boy who lives within the walls of a Paris train station. It has a stellar cast that stars Jude Law, Ben Kingsley, and Sacha Baron Cohen.

Then there's The Muppets, who storm back into theaters with the help of Jason Segal and Amy Adams.

Sony Pictures also gets into the 3-D and animation ring that weekend with Arthur Christmas, a movie that is set to reveal just how Santa gets the job done on Christmas Eve. With the voices of James McAvoy and Jim Broadbent.

And then there are three bonafide Oscar contenders launching that same weekend with festival favorites A Dangerous Method, this time a historical pic that teams David Cronenberg with muse Viggo Mortenson in a drama focusing on Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud; The Artist, that mesmerizing, touching, gorgeously photographed in black & white and almost entirely silent pic that opened with a roaring standing ovation at Toronto's Elgin Theater at TIFF, about a washed-up silent movie star (played by Cannes Best Actor winner Jean Dujardin) whose career stalls with the advent of the talkies; and My Week With Marilyn, the biopic starring Michelle Williams (Wendy & Lucy) as Marilyn Monroe.

December kicks off with deep, dark, and delicious movies, first with Shame (Dec.2), the most talked-about film at the Toronto Film Festival which re-teams director Steve McQueen (Hunger) with the star of that pic, Michael Fassbender, this time as a man tortured by his sex addiction; and then there's the brooding Roman epic Coriolanus, with Ralph Fiennes directing and starring, along with Gerard Butler and Vanessa Redgrave.

Luc Besson (The Professional, Arthur & the Invisibles) tries his hand at a straightforward drama with the biopic The Lady (Dec.2; limited), with Michelle Yeoh starring as Burmese political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi.

Roman Polanski (Chinatown,The Ghost Writer) returns with the interior drama Carnage (Dec.16; limited), starring Jodie Foster.

The serious tone continues the first half of December with three other dramas opening around North America in major cities beginning Dec. 9 with I Melt With You, the sex, drugs and rock 'n roll soundtrack-infused drama starring Rob Lowe and Jeremy Piven; Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy with Gary Oldman and Colin Firth in the feature adaptation to the John Le Carre best-seller about a cold-war era spy-hunt that climbs to the upper echelons of power at the British Secret Intel Service, directed by Tomas Alfredson who made one of 2008's best movies with Let the Right One In; and the disturbing TIFF hit We Need To Talk About Kevin, starring Tilda Swinton as a mother haunted by her son, who appears to be a bad seed, directed by Lynne Ramsay, who indie lovers will remember from her uncompromising and challenging dramas Ratcatcher and Morvern Callar.

Lightening up the pre-Christmas rush are The Sitter (Dec.9), with Jonah Hill as a suspended student stuck babysitting young children; New Year's Eve (Dec.9) from Garry Marshall, that schmaltzy but heartwarming of directors (Beaches, Pretty Woman, Valentine's Day) who returns with another hyperlink movie with heapings of characters and storylines, this time focusing on year's end; and Alvin and the Chipmunks - Chipwrecked (Dec.16), another installment in the hugely popular adaptation of the Saturday morning family fave.

Bringing wall-to-wall action pre-Christmas week is the Steven Spielberg 3D-action-fantasy The Adventures of Tintin (Dec.21), starring Jamie Bell and Daniel Craig; Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, with Robert Downey Jr. back as the famous detective; and Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, with Tom Cruise returning, but this time with Brad Bird behind the camera (The Incredibles, Ratatouille), a most interesting choice.

Perhaps the single biggest event among film geeks everywhere is the anticipation of the Hollywood adaptation of the European indie hit Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Dec.21), with David Fincher (Fight Club, Zodiac) helming from a Steve Zaillian-penned script (Searching For Bobby Fischer, Moneyball).

All of this leads to Christmas week, when a flurry of huge titles hit theaters, starting with the 3-D aliens-attacking-earth flick The Darkest Hour (Dec.25), starring Emile Hirsch; War Horse, the WWI English drama marking the second feature in as many weeks from Steven Spielberg; and Extremely Loud & Up Close (Dec.25), the 9/11 drama starring Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock, directed by Stephen Daldry (The Hours, The Reader).

Within days of each other, Glenn Close and Meryl Streep star in their own movies, and you've read it here first: the Oscar winner will be one of those two ladies, either Close, who disguises as a male waiter in the wondrous 1898 British hotel drama Albert Nobbs (Dec.25), from director Rodrigo Garcia (Nine Lives, Mother & Child), or it'll be Meryl picking up a long-overdue third Oscar with what will surely be her whopping 17th nomination playing Margaret Thatcher this time out in The Iron Lady (Dec.30).

Rounding out the holiday madness is the iron lady of this generation, Angelina Jolie, directing her first feature In the Land of Blood & Honey (Dec.23), set against the backdrop of the war in Bosnia, as well as another first-time directing effort from Madonna called W.E., which goes on a one-week Oscar qualifying run in late December while opening the first week of February. Last year audiences were treated to The King's Speech, while this time around W.E. focuses on two stories, one of which follows the elder brother who abdicated the thrown to marry the American woman he loved.

Posted

We Know You've Been Waiting!! - The Annual Xavierpop Holiday Season Movie Preview((tag: xavierpop, film, pop-culture, nerdiness, tumblrize,Amy Adams,Brian Selznick,David Cronenberg,Invention of Hugo Cabret,James L. Brooks,James McAvoy,Martin Scorsese,Matt

There is cause for cheer yet in 2011 at the movies because the final weeks of the year are jammed-packed with the most sensational, inspirational, celebrational, muppetational mix of huge holiday season releases and promising Oscar contenders. Not least of which The Muppets are set to make a roaring comeback.

There's enough meat and cheese on the holiday wishlist to please every kind of movie lover. The back end of the year looks ready to erase out of our memories the giant thud that marked the year's opening with the dreadful Nic Cage mess Season of the Witch, a movie with too many seasons to care about and sadly, no witches. Not even Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy flying in on vacuums could have saved that turkey despite all the welcome ham they would have added to the proceedings.

The mess continued from there with the lackluster Green Hornet, the unfunny comedies No Strings Attached and Your Highness, and the dreadful additions to the Pirates of the Caribbean, Transformers, and Twilight series of flicks, although Harry Potter 7 Part 1 hit the mark.

In terms of adaptations, Troy was regrettable, The Smurfs only a smidge better, while Captain America got the job done and Winnie the Pooh won our hearts.

Hollywood has seen better years for movies, but here at Xavierpop, we're flipping cartwheels in anticipation of what the calendar looks like this holiday season; a tsunami of releases that look to change the entire complexion of 2011 as a whole.

Here's the scoop: Martin Scorsese goes 3D, we get a double-dose of Spielberg in December, the Muppets make a comeback, the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo goes Hollywood, Alexander Payne proves once more that he's this generation's James L. Brooks, David Cronenberg and Viggo Mortenson prove that the third time really is the charm, Michelle Williams is Marilyn Monroe, Meryl Streep is Margaret Thatcher, Glenn Close is a man, Twilight is back (did it ever go away?), Angelina Jolie makes her directing debut, Jonah Hill's a babysitter in a movie that harkens back to Adventures in Babysitting, while Matt Damon moves into a zoo.

Here's the naughty and the nice of it, an Xavierpop holiday checklist of movies that are must-sees from here on out in 2011;

The Descendants (Nov.16; limited release) marks another mature dramedy for Alexander Payne (Sideways, About Schmidt), starring George Clooney as an absentee father of two girls whose world turns upside down after mom dies. Like James L. Brooks in the 80's with Terms of Endearment and Broadcast News, Payne delivers another solid effort that has the ability to make audiences smile, laugh and cry all in the same movie. Plus, being very well received at TIFF is always a good thing.

George Miller (Mad Max, Babe: Pig In the City, Happy Feet) brings us a second installment in family fave Happy Feet Two (Nov.18), with the voices of Brad Pitt and Matt Damon joining Elijah Wood and Robin Williams. And yes, apparently the sequel does get a little more serious, like the second Babe outing.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (Nov.18) brings us the fourth pic in that series, this one tracking Bella's marriage to Edward and their uber-troubling and complicated pregnancy.

Fans of hard-hitting dramas will love the festival fave Tyrannosaur (Nov.18; limited), starring Peter Mullan (The Magdalene Sisters) and marking the second directing effort of actor Paddy Considine (In America).

The U.S. Thanksgiving long weekend is top-loaded with potential hits that should satiate every appetite. Check out this selection, hitting theaters on Nov. 23:

First, there's Martin Scorsese, who's set to enjoy the biggest commercial success of his career as he moves into more populist fare with Hugo, the 3-D adaptation of Brian Selznick's best-selling children's book "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" about a boy who lives within the walls of a Paris train station. It has a stellar cast that stars Jude Law, Ben Kingsley, and Sacha Baron Cohen.

Then there's The Muppets, who storm back into theaters with the help of Jason Segal and Amy Adams.

Sony Pictures also gets into the 3-D and animation ring that weekend with Arthur Christmas, a movie that is set to reveal just how Santa gets the job done on Christmas Eve. With the voices of James McAvoy and Jim Broadbent.

And then there are three bonafide Oscar contenders launching that same weekend with festival favorites A Dangerous Method, this time a historical pic that teams David Cronenberg with muse Viggo Mortenson in a drama focusing on Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud; The Artist, that mesmerizing, touching, gorgeously photographed in black & white and almost entirely silent pic that opened with a roaring standing ovation at Toronto's Elgin Theater at TIFF, about a washed-up silent movie star (played by Cannes Best Actor winner Jean Dujardin) whose career stalls with the advent of the talkies; and My Week With Marilyn, the biopic starring Michelle Williams (Wendy & Lucy) as Marilyn Monroe.

December kicks off with deep, dark, and delicious movies, first with Shame (Dec.2), the most talked-about film at the Toronto Film Festival which re-teams director Steve McQueen (Hunger) with the star of that pic, Michael Fassbender, this time as a man tortured by his sex addiction; and then there's the brooding Roman epic Coriolanus, with Ralph Fiennes directing and starring, along with Gerard Butler and Vanessa Redgrave.

Luc Besson (The Professional, Arthur & the Invisibles) tries his hand at a straightforward drama with the biopic The Lady (Dec.2; limited), with Michelle Yeoh starring as Burmese political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi.

Roman Polanski (Chinatown,The Ghost Writer) returns with the interior drama Carnage (Dec.16; limited), starring Jodie Foster.

The serious tone continues the first half of December with three other dramas opening around North America in major cities beginning Dec. 9 with I Melt With You, the sex, drugs and rock 'n roll soundtrack-infused drama starring Rob Lowe and Jeremy Piven; Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy with Gary Oldman and Colin Firth in the feature adaptation to the John Le Carre best-seller about a cold-war era spy-hunt that climbs to the upper echelons of power at the British Secret Intel Service, directed by Tomas Alfredson who made one of 2008's best movies with Let the Right One In; and the disturbing TIFF hit We Need To Talk About Kevin, starring Tilda Swinton as a mother haunted by her son, who appears to be a bad seed, directed by Lynne Ramsay, who indie lovers will remember from her uncompromising and challenging dramas Ratcatcher and Morvern Callar.

Lightening up the pre-Christmas rush are The Sitter (Dec.9), with Jonah Hill as a suspended student stuck babysitting young children; New Year's Eve (Dec.9) from Garry Marshall, that schmaltzy but heartwarming of directors (Beaches, Pretty Woman, Valentine's Day) who returns with another hyperlink movie with heapings of characters and storylines, this time focusing on year's end; and Alvin and the Chipmunks - Chipwrecked (Dec.16), another installment in the hugely popular adaptation of the Saturday morning family fave.

Bringing wall-to-wall action pre-Christmas week is the Steven Spielberg 3D-action-fantasy The Adventures of Tintin (Dec.21), starring Jamie Bell and Daniel Craig; Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, with Robert Downey Jr. back as the famous detective; and Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, with Tom Cruise returning, but this time with Brad Bird behind the camera (The Incredibles, Ratatouille), a most interesting choice.

Perhaps the single biggest event among film geeks everywhere is the anticipation of the Hollywood adaptation of the European indie hit Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Dec.21), with David Fincher (Fight Club, Zodiac) helming from a Steve Zaillian-penned script (Searching For Bobby Fischer, Moneyball).

All of this leads to Christmas week, when a flurry of huge titles hit theaters, starting with the 3-D aliens-attacking-earth flick The Darkest Hour (Dec.25), starring Emile Hirsch; War Horse, the WWI English drama marking the second feature in as many weeks from Steven Spielberg; and Extremely Loud & Up Close (Dec.25), the 9/11 drama starring Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock, directed by Stephen Daldry (The Hours, The Reader).

Within days of each other, Glenn Close and Meryl Streep star in their own movies, and you've read it here first: the Oscar winner will be one of those two ladies, either Close, who disguises as a male waiter in the wondrous 1898 British hotel drama Albert Nobbs (Dec.25), from director Rodrigo Garcia (Nine Lives, Mother & Child), or it'll be Meryl picking up a long-overdue third Oscar with what will surely be her whopping 17th nomination playing Margaret Thatcher this time out in The Iron Lady (Dec.30).

Rounding out the holiday madness is the iron lady of this generation, Angelina Jolie, directing her first feature In the Land of Blood & Honey (Dec.23), set against the backdrop of the war in Bosnia, as well as another first-time directing effort from Madonna called W.E., which goes on a one-week Oscar qualifying run in late December while opening the first week of February. Last year audiences were treated to The King's Speech, while this time around W.E. focuses on two stories, one of which follows the elder brother who abdicated the thrown to marry the American woman he loved.

Posted

@MovieJay reviews J.Edgar

J. Edgar proves that movies can do more than simply amuse; they can be empathy machines that deepen our experience. By the end of the movie we're surprised by how much we've come to feel sympathy for one of the most complicated and secretive public figures of the 20th century.

What do most people know about J. Edgar Hoover?

Probably that he was the head of the FBI for a number of years and was purported to having files containing the skeletons in the closets of the rich and powerful. For viewers who lived during his time, they might add the gossip that he apparently liked to dress up as women.

The film weaves effortlessly through seven decades, concentrating most of its time during the Depression era and the post-WWII period of American prosperity and change in the late 50's/early 60's. Leonardo DiCaprio is from the outset a curious choice to play the petulant-looking Hoover, but he evolves within the role as seamlessly as the picture moves through the years delivering another Oscar-caliber performance.

J. Edgar Hoover headed the Bureau of Investigation (he was responsible for adding Federal to the designation) for an unprecedented 48 years, from 1924 until he died in '72. He appears to have been born a political creature with the good fortune of having been raised in the Eastern Market neighborhood of Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. He interned for a popular conservative Senator whose house was bombed and the film is open about his political ideology when he pins it on the usual communist paranoia of the time.

Within a couple of years after the interning stint, he heads the division of the Bureau dealing with illegal immigrants and shortly thereafter becomes Director of the Bureau at the young age of 29. The film does a terrific job showing Hoover re-inventing and expanding the Bureau by securing arms for his agents, the first ever forensics lab and central finger-printing database, and with unprecedented (and unlawful?) warrantless wiretaps. A stickler for details, he culled an entire department of employees that were hand-picked mostly by the cut of their suits and their loyalty to him.

In his role as FBI Director, Hoover portrays a public persona as an earnest hero-in-the-shadows, placing Godliness and duty above all else. In a scene depicting Hoover giving testimony to a congressional hearing, that very persona is called into question when we learn that he hasn't actually ever arrested a single individual but is all too happy to take the credit, lending his "legend" to comic book writers who fashion him a Dick Tracy-type.

I could go on marking historical facts but it would miss the beauty of J. Edgar, which does all of those things well enough on their own. The fascination at the heart of the movie is that Hoover appears to be a mystery even to himself. A fascinating character study of a most private man, J. Edgar reveals more in the way those closest to him regard him: his mother Annie (Judi Dench), his longtime assistant and companion Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer, who played the twins in The Social Network) and Helen Gandy (an almost unrecognizable Naomi Watts), his lifelong secretary.

All three supporting performances are Oscar-worthy.

Clint Eastwood has the patience and the wisdom to understand that the greatest dramas lurk in the shadows and in the long, dark nights of the soul. It embraces the enigmatic qualities of Hoover and those closest to him rather than pronouncing easy judgment over them.

Consider the way DiCaprio as Hoover meets Ms. Gandy in what has got to be one of the more interesting first-dates we've seen in a long time at the movies. With his access, Hoover takes her to the Library of Congress where it's revealed he overhauled the indexing system in order to make it easier to find books. Hoover comes on strong with her and she rescinds his advances telling him her career will come before anything else. Naomi Watts completely disappears in her role.

All three characters share the same repressed energy, marked from a time when men were supposed to be men (Hoover's mother disapproves of men who are "daffodils" in a revealing scene after Hoover announces for the first time publicly that dancing with women just isn't his thing). Armie Hammer delivers a knockout performance as Tolson, with his all-American alpha-looks, but with a mild-mannered grace and soft tone that offsets the sometimes impish, hardened little man that Hoover can be.

A lesser film would have misplayed the notion of sexuality portrayed throughout, labeling Hoover a homosexual and that's that. But the screenplay is written by Dustin Lance Black (Oscar winner for Milk), and it's more grown-up than that and does a masterful job of showing Hoover, Tolson and Gandy as repressed and lonely individuals who suffer private lives that seem much less satisfying than the public lives they lead. And to the film's credit, when Hoover does reveal that he doesn't like dancing with women it has as much to do with how uncomfortable he is in a social world that turns him off or that he's fearful of.

J. Edgar is slow-moving. It doesn't lead to a big speech before Congress. It doesn't make any easy points about the man. Sure, there are terrific sequences showing Hoover and the FBI on the famous John Dillinger case as well as the kidnapping case of the Lindbergh baby and subsequent arrest and prosecution of Bruno Hauptmann. However, those things aren't played out for the usual movie thrills, they are used to illustrate how Hoover sees himself publicly.

Moreover, J. Edgar is an absolutely fascinating character study of a man and those closest around him who are certain of their public roles but are lost and lonely in private lives that leave them feeling disconnected by their virtue of forever living in look-but-don't-touch land. In many ways the themes here are similar to Brokeback Mountain, not so much in terms of sexual repression (although that's a part of it), but in how we witness characters who repress who they truly are and how they actually feel about life -- lost in the expectations of what they have been brought up to become. The film is shot in dark blues and greys and black shadows covering the faces of its leads. We find ourselves peering in to try to see the whole of them, but that's the rub, isn't it? Their sense of duty to their own causes have made them even enigmas to themselves.

J. Edgar is one of the best and quietly involving movies of the year, another achievement in the most impressive twilight of the career of any director I can think of in the cinema with titles over the past decade that include Million Dollar Baby, Mystic River, the WWII dramas Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima, Changeling, Gran Torino, Invictus, and last year's overlooked masterpiece Hereafter.

Amazing.

Posted

We Know You've Been Waiting!! - The Annual Xavierpop Holiday Season Movie Preview((tag: xavierpop, film, pop-culture, nerdiness, tumblrize,Amy Adams,Brian Selznick,David Cronenberg,Invention of Hugo Cabret,James L. Brooks,James McAvoy,Martin Scorsese,Matt

There is cause for cheer yet in 2011 at the movies because the final weeks of the year are jammed-packed with the most sensational, inspirational, celebrational, muppetational mix of huge holiday season releases and promising Oscar contenders. Not least of which The Muppets are set to make a roaring comeback.

There's enough meat and cheese on the holiday wishlist to please every kind of movie lover. The back end of the year looks ready to erase out of our memories the giant thud that marked the year's opening with the dreadful Nic Cage mess Season of the Witch, a movie with too many seasons to care about and sadly, no witches. Not even Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy flying in on vacuums could have saved that turkey despite all the welcome ham they would have added to the proceedings.

The mess continued from there with the lackluster Green Hornet, the unfunny comedies No Strings Attached and Your Highness, and the dreadful additions to the Pirates of the Caribbean, Transformers, and Twilight series of flicks, although Harry Potter 7 Part 1 hit the mark.

In terms of adaptations, Troy was regrettable, The Smurfs only a smidge better, while Captain America got the job done and Winnie the Pooh won our hearts.

Hollywood has seen better years for movies, but here at Xavierpop, we're flipping cartwheels in anticipation of what the calendar looks like this holiday season; a tsunami of releases that look to change the entire complexion of 2011 as a whole.

Here's the scoop: Martin Scorsese goes 3D, we get a double-dose of Spielberg in December, the Muppets make a comeback, the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo goes Hollywood, Alexander Payne proves once more that he's this generation's James L. Brooks, David Cronenberg and Viggo Mortenson prove that the third time really is the charm, Michelle Williams is Marilyn Monroe, Meryl Streep is Margaret Thatcher, Glenn Close is a man, Twilight is back (did it ever go away?), Angelina Jolie makes her directing debut, Jonah Hill's a babysitter in a movie that harkens back to Adventures in Babysitting, while Matt Damon moves into a zoo.

Here's the naughty and the nice of it, an Xavierpop holiday checklist of movies that are must-sees from here on out in 2011;

The Descendants (Nov.16; limited release) marks another mature dramedy for Alexander Payne (Sideways, About Schmidt), starring George Clooney as an absentee father of two girls whose world turns upside down after mom dies. Like James L. Brooks in the 80's with Terms of Endearment and Broadcast News, Payne delivers another solid effort that has the ability to make audiences smile, laugh and cry all in the same movie. Plus, being very well received at TIFF is always a good thing.

George Miller (Mad Max, Babe: Pig In the City, Happy Feet) brings us a second installment in family fave Happy Feet Two (Nov.18), with the voices of Brad Pitt and Matt Damon joining Elijah Wood and Robin Williams. And yes, apparently the sequel does get a little more serious, like the second Babe outing.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (Nov.18) brings us the fourth pic in that series, this one tracking Bella's marriage to Edward and their uber-troubling and complicated pregnancy.

Fans of hard-hitting dramas will love the festival fave Tyrannosaur (Nov.18; limited), starring Peter Mullan (The Magdalene Sisters) and marking the second directing effort of actor Paddy Considine (In America).

The U.S. Thanksgiving long weekend is top-loaded with potential hits that should satiate every appetite. Check out this selection, hitting theaters on Nov. 23:

First, there's Martin Scorsese, who's set to enjoy the biggest commercial success of his career as he moves into more populist fare with Hugo, the 3-D adaptation of Brian Selznick's best-selling children's book "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" about a boy who lives within the walls of a Paris train station. It has a stellar cast that stars Jude Law, Ben Kingsley, and Sacha Baron Cohen.

Then there's The Muppets, who storm back into theaters with the help of Jason Segal and Amy Adams.

Sony Pictures also gets into the 3-D and animation ring that weekend with Arthur Christmas, a movie that is set to reveal just how Santa gets the job done on Christmas Eve. With the voices of James McAvoy and Jim Broadbent.

And then there are three bonafide Oscar contenders launching that same weekend with festival favorites A Dangerous Method, this time a historical pic that teams David Cronenberg with muse Viggo Mortenson in a drama focusing on Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud; The Artist, that mesmerizing, touching, gorgeously photographed in black & white and almost entirely silent pic that opened with a roaring standing ovation at Toronto's Elgin Theater at TIFF, about a washed-up silent movie star (played by Cannes Best Actor winner Jean Dujardin) whose career stalls with the advent of the talkies; and My Week With Marilyn, the biopic starring Michelle Williams (Wendy & Lucy) as Marilyn Monroe.

December kicks off with deep, dark, and delicious movies, first with Shame (Dec.2), the most talked-about film at the Toronto Film Festival which re-teams director Steve McQueen (Hunger) with the star of that pic, Michael Fassbender, this time as a man tortured by his sex addiction; and then there's the brooding Roman epic Coriolanus, with Ralph Fiennes directing and starring, along with Gerard Butler and Vanessa Redgrave.

Luc Besson (The Professional, Arthur & the Invisibles) tries his hand at a straightforward drama with the biopic The Lady (Dec.2; limited), with Michelle Yeoh starring as Burmese political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi.

Roman Polanski (Chinatown,The Ghost Writer) returns with the interior drama Carnage (Dec.16; limited), starring Jodie Foster.

The serious tone continues the first half of December with three other dramas opening around North America in major cities beginning Dec. 9 with I Melt With You, the sex, drugs and rock 'n roll soundtrack-infused drama starring Rob Lowe and Jeremy Piven; Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy with Gary Oldman and Colin Firth in the feature adaptation to the John Le Carre best-seller about a cold-war era spy-hunt that climbs to the upper echelons of power at the British Secret Intel Service, directed by Tomas Alfredson who made one of 2008's best movies with Let the Right One In; and the disturbing TIFF hit We Need To Talk About Kevin, starring Tilda Swinton as a mother haunted by her son, who appears to be a bad seed, directed by Lynne Ramsay, who indie lovers will remember from her uncompromising and challenging dramas Ratcatcher and Morvern Callar.

Lightening up the pre-Christmas rush are The Sitter (Dec.9), with Jonah Hill as a suspended student stuck babysitting young children; New Year's Eve (Dec.9) from Garry Marshall, that schmaltzy but heartwarming of directors (Beaches, Pretty Woman, Valentine's Day) who returns with another hyperlink movie with heapings of characters and storylines, this time focusing on year's end; and Alvin and the Chipmunks - Chipwrecked (Dec.16), another installment in the hugely popular adaptation of the Saturday morning family fave.

Bringing wall-to-wall action pre-Christmas week is the Steven Spielberg 3D-action-fantasy The Adventures of Tintin (Dec.21), starring Jamie Bell and Daniel Craig; Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, with Robert Downey Jr. back as the famous detective; and Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, with Tom Cruise returning, but this time with Brad Bird behind the camera (The Incredibles, Ratatouille), a most interesting choice.

Perhaps the single biggest event among film geeks everywhere is the anticipation of the Hollywood adaptation of the European indie hit Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Dec.21), with David Fincher (Fight Club, Zodiac) helming from a Steve Zaillian-penned script (Searching For Bobby Fischer, Moneyball).

All of this leads to Christmas week, when a flurry of huge titles hit theaters, starting with the 3-D aliens-attacking-earth flick The Darkest Hour (Dec.25), starring Emile Hirsch; War Horse, the WWI English drama marking the second feature in as many weeks from Steven Spielberg; and Extremely Loud & Up Close (Dec.25), the 9/11 drama starring Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock, directed by Stephen Daldry (The Hours, The Reader).

Within days of each other, Glenn Close and Meryl Streep star in their own movies, and you've read it here first: the Oscar winner will be one of those two ladies, either Close, who disguises as a male waiter in the wondrous 1898 British hotel drama Albert Nobbs (Dec.25), from director Rodrigo Garcia (Nine Lives, Mother & Child), or it'll be Meryl picking up a long-overdue third Oscar with what will surely be her whopping 17th nomination playing Margaret Thatcher this time out in The Iron Lady (Dec.30).

Rounding out the holiday madness is the iron lady of this generation, Angelina Jolie, directing her first feature In the Land of Blood & Honey (Dec.23), set against the backdrop of the war in Bosnia, as well as another first-time directing effort from Madonna called W.E., which goes on a one-week Oscar qualifying run in late December while opening the first week of February. Last year audiences were treated to The King's Speech, while this time around W.E. focuses on two stories, one of which follows the elder brother who abdicated the thrown to marry the American woman he loved.

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We Know You've Been Waiting!! - The Annual Xavierpop Holiday Season Movie Preview((tag: xavierpop, film, pop-culture, nerdiness, tumblrize,Amy Adams,Brian Selznick,David Cronenberg,Invention of Hugo Cabret,James L. Brooks,James McAvoy,Martin Scorsese,Matt

There is cause for cheer yet in 2011 at the movies because the final weeks of the year are jammed-packed with the most sensational, inspirational, celebrational, muppetational mix of huge holiday season releases and promising Oscar contenders. Not least of which The Muppets are set to make a roaring comeback.

There's enough meat and cheese on the holiday wishlist to please every kind of movie lover. The back end of the year looks ready to erase out of our memories the giant thud that marked the year's opening with the dreadful Nic Cage mess Season of the Witch, a movie with too many seasons to care about and sadly, no witches. Not even Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy flying in on vacuums could have saved that turkey despite all the welcome ham they would have added to the proceedings.

The mess continued from there with the lackluster Green Hornet, the unfunny comedies No Strings Attached and Your Highness, and the dreadful additions to the Pirates of the Caribbean, Transformers, and Twilight series of flicks, although Harry Potter 7 Part 1 hit the mark.

In terms of adaptations, Troy was regrettable, The Smurfs only a smidge better, while Captain America got the job done and Winnie the Pooh won our hearts.

Hollywood has seen better years for movies, but here at Xavierpop, we're flipping cartwheels in anticipation of what the calendar looks like this holiday season; a tsunami of releases that look to change the entire complexion of 2011 as a whole.

Here's the scoop: Martin Scorsese goes 3D, we get a double-dose of Spielberg in December, the Muppets make a comeback, the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo goes Hollywood, Alexander Payne proves once more that he's this generation's James L. Brooks, David Cronenberg and Viggo Mortenson prove that the third time really is the charm, Michelle Williams is Marilyn Monroe, Meryl Streep is Margaret Thatcher, Glenn Close is a man, Twilight is back (did it ever go away?), Angelina Jolie makes her directing debut, Jonah Hill's a babysitter in a movie that harkens back to Adventures in Babysitting, while Matt Damon moves into a zoo.

Here's the naughty and the nice of it, an Xavierpop holiday checklist of movies that are must-sees from here on out in 2011;

The Descendants (Nov.16; limited release) marks another mature dramedy for Alexander Payne (Sideways, About Schmidt), starring George Clooney as an absentee father of two girls whose world turns upside down after mom dies. Like James L. Brooks in the 80's with Terms of Endearment and Broadcast News, Payne delivers another solid effort that has the ability to make audiences smile, laugh and cry all in the same movie. Plus, being very well received at TIFF is always a good thing.

George Miller (Mad Max, Babe: Pig In the City, Happy Feet) brings us a second installment in family fave Happy Feet Two (Nov.18), with the voices of Brad Pitt and Matt Damon joining Elijah Wood and Robin Williams. And yes, apparently the sequel does get a little more serious, like the second Babe outing.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (Nov.18) brings us the fourth pic in that series, this one tracking Bella's marriage to Edward and their uber-troubling and complicated pregnancy.

Fans of hard-hitting dramas will love the festival fave Tyrannosaur (Nov.18; limited), starring Peter Mullan (The Magdalene Sisters) and marking the second directing effort of actor Paddy Considine (In America).

The U.S. Thanksgiving long weekend is top-loaded with potential hits that should satiate every appetite. Check out this selection, hitting theaters on Nov. 23:

First, there's Martin Scorsese, who's set to enjoy the biggest commercial success of his career as he moves into more populist fare with Hugo, the 3-D adaptation of Brian Selznick's best-selling children's book "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" about a boy who lives within the walls of a Paris train station. It has a stellar cast that stars Jude Law, Ben Kingsley, and Sacha Baron Cohen.

Then there's The Muppets, who storm back into theaters with the help of Jason Segal and Amy Adams.

Sony Pictures also gets into the 3-D and animation ring that weekend with Arthur Christmas, a movie that is set to reveal just how Santa gets the job done on Christmas Eve. With the voices of James McAvoy and Jim Broadbent.

And then there are three bonafide Oscar contenders launching that same weekend with festival favorites A Dangerous Method, this time a historical pic that teams David Cronenberg with muse Viggo Mortenson in a drama focusing on Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud; The Artist, that mesmerizing, touching, gorgeously photographed in black & white and almost entirely silent pic that opened with a roaring standing ovation at Toronto's Elgin Theater at TIFF, about a washed-up silent movie star (played by Cannes Best Actor winner Jean Dujardin) whose career stalls with the advent of the talkies; and My Week With Marilyn, the biopic starring Michelle Williams (Wendy & Lucy) as Marilyn Monroe.

December kicks off with deep, dark, and delicious movies, first with Shame (Dec.2), the most talked-about film at the Toronto Film Festival which re-teams director Steve McQueen (Hunger) with the star of that pic, Michael Fassbender, this time as a man tortured by his sex addiction; and then there's the brooding Roman epic Coriolanus, with Ralph Fiennes directing and starring, along with Gerard Butler and Vanessa Redgrave.

Luc Besson (The Professional, Arthur & the Invisibles) tries his hand at a straightforward drama with the biopic The Lady (Dec.2; limited), with Michelle Yeoh starring as Burmese political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi.

Roman Polanski (Chinatown,The Ghost Writer) returns with the interior drama Carnage (Dec.16; limited), starring Jodie Foster.

The serious tone continues the first half of December with three other dramas opening around North America in major cities beginning Dec. 9 with I Melt With You, the sex, drugs and rock 'n roll soundtrack-infused drama starring Rob Lowe and Jeremy Piven; Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy with Gary Oldman and Colin Firth in the feature adaptation to the John Le Carre best-seller about a cold-war era spy-hunt that climbs to the upper echelons of power at the British Secret Intel Service, directed by Tomas Alfredson who made one of 2008's best movies with Let the Right One In; and the disturbing TIFF hit We Need To Talk About Kevin, starring Tilda Swinton as a mother haunted by her son, who appears to be a bad seed, directed by Lynne Ramsay, who indie lovers will remember from her uncompromising and challenging dramas Ratcatcher and Morvern Callar.

Lightening up the pre-Christmas rush are The Sitter (Dec.9), with Jonah Hill as a suspended student stuck babysitting young children; New Year's Eve (Dec.9) from Garry Marshall, that schmaltzy but heartwarming of directors (Beaches, Pretty Woman, Valentine's Day) who returns with another hyperlink movie with heapings of characters and storylines, this time focusing on year's end; and Alvin and the Chipmunks - Chipwrecked (Dec.16), another installment in the hugely popular adaptation of the Saturday morning family fave.

Bringing wall-to-wall action pre-Christmas week is the Steven Spielberg 3D-action-fantasy The Adventures of Tintin (Dec.21), starring Jamie Bell and Daniel Craig; Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, with Robert Downey Jr. back as the famous detective; and Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, with Tom Cruise returning, but this time with Brad Bird behind the camera (The Incredibles, Ratatouille), a most interesting choice.

Perhaps the single biggest event among film geeks everywhere is the anticipation of the Hollywood adaptation of the European indie hit Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Dec.21), with David Fincher (Fight Club, Zodiac) helming from a Steve Zaillian-penned script (Searching For Bobby Fischer, Moneyball).

All of this leads to Christmas week, when a flurry of huge titles hit theaters, starting with the 3-D aliens-attacking-earth flick The Darkest Hour (Dec.25), starring Emile Hirsch; War Horse, the WWI English drama marking the second feature in as many weeks from Steven Spielberg; and Extremely Loud & Up Close (Dec.25), the 9/11 drama starring Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock, directed by Stephen Daldry (The Hours, The Reader).

Within days of each other, Glenn Close and Meryl Streep star in their own movies, and you've read it here first: the Oscar winner will be one of those two ladies, either Close, who disguises as a male waiter in the wondrous 1898 British hotel drama Albert Nobbs (Dec.25), from director Rodrigo Garcia (Nine Lives, Mother & Child), or it'll be Meryl picking up a long-overdue third Oscar with what will surely be her whopping 17th nomination playing Margaret Thatcher this time out in The Iron Lady (Dec.30).

Rounding out the holiday madness is the iron lady of this generation, Angelina Jolie, directing her first feature In the Land of Blood & Honey (Dec.23), set against the backdrop of the war in Bosnia, as well as another first-time directing effort from Madonna called W.E., which goes on a one-week Oscar qualifying run in late December while opening the first week of February. Last year audiences were treated to The King's Speech, while this time around W.E. focuses on two stories, one of which follows the elder brother who abdicated the thrown to marry the American woman he loved.

Posted