HITCHCOCK Review

It is with a bit of a playful attitude that Anthony Hopkins, arguably one of our greatest living actors today, takes on the role of one of our greatest directors of all time. Sometimes the fantasy is better left a lie and that is the main fear I had in walking into a film about Alfred Hitchcock, especially during the making of his most famous of films. As a person who not only enjoys watching films, but someone who always aspired to make films Hitchcock is of course a name that is immediately regarded as the best of the best and his films, whether you have seen them or not, are classics no matter what. To my shame, I have not watched all of Hitchcock's catalogue but I guess the only one that matters in speaking on this film is Psycho, and I have seen Psycho. What I have not yet seen is the other film that came out late last year about the famous director. The HBO film The Girl is about what comes after this chapter of Hitch's life yet seems to be more worthy of the Oscar talk that Hitchcock is receiving for Helen Mirren's work. That film stars Toby Jones (he has a knack for making autobiographical films at the same time as others, see Infamous) and focuses on the making of The Birds and Marnie, both of which starred Tippie Hedren and The Girl centers around the directors relationship with her and his need to impress and connect with his leading ladies. This trait is naturally a large part of Hitchcock as well and forms the backbone of the script that deals with Hitchcock's relationship with his wife, Alma (Mirren). Though Hitchcock is not the overly serious, Oscar contender many likely expected it to be it is still a fun watch with great actors and an easily engaging and interesting story for any fan of film.

THE IMPOSSIBLE Review

There is a certain type of drag you feel surrounding a movie like The Impossible. Not because you expect it to be bad, you really have no right to believe it could be anything but good. Still, there is this worry that you've seen it all before. A heart wrenching love story complete against the backdrop of a historically true, but very tragic event. It would be hard to buy into this film if that story of love and overcoming obstacles wasn't actually true as well. Different from something like Titanic, the world is not yet distanced from the lives lost and devastation caused by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and Tsunami. To impose such a positive story over these events would naturally feel disrespectful, but because the story is an accurate account of Alarez Belon's experience in the middle of such mass destruction their is no false motive detected but instead one that seems to imply that even in the darkest corners we might find hope. It is a harrowing experience to watch the film, and one that I was afraid would be ruined by the trailer that seemed to give far too much away. It did, but not to the extent I was concerned and that I felt I'd already experienced the entire film. It was somewhat of a strange sensation walking out of the movie, coming to terms with the frailty of life and that despite the countless horrible, horrible stories that came out of events like this their is still the possibility of the slightest bit of empathy from whomever fate decides to touch. The Impossible is not a bombastic tale of survival but is instead a very personal film, one that feels very close to the heart and allows the audience the horror of true loss rather than the desperation for false redemption.

2013 Oscar Predictions

The 2013 Academy Award nominations are just under a week away from being announced. I still have a few films to see that will likely be in the running for many of the top categories yet it seems fairly easy to predict which will resonate most with Academy voters. I have always had a sense about the Oscars that it was more about what you should like rather than what most actually do like. Still, I found 2012 to be an extremely satisfying year in terms of the coherence between genuine crowd pleasers and standard awards bait. Whether it be the seeming accessibility of something like Silver Linings Playbook or the mass appeal of Les Miserables laced with a prestigious director. While certain films like The Dark Knight Rises or even Bernie will be overlooked either because of their more commercial success or comedic elements, which the Academy always seem to overlook, this is not your typical year where everything that wins will be something almost no one has seen. The following are predictions for the main categories in which the majority of audiences tune into to see. I won't dive into such topics as sound mixing, editing, or visual effects here, but if you have predictions for those categories be sure to share them in the comments section as well as what movies you hope to see announced next Thursday.

The 85th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Thursday, January 10, 2013, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

Movies I Wanna See Most: 2013

It is, in many ways, ridiculous to try and boil down an entire years worth of movie releases into ten slots, especially at the outset of the year when not everything is known about what might be coming in the latter part of the year. This is especially tough for someone like me who likes to go the theaters at least once a week (I was able to see 165 films in theaters or newly released on DVD & Blu-Ray in 2012) but for the majority of the general public, those who actually go out to the movies, this is not an low amount for them to see in a theater every year. That is how I like to think of this list; if I were only going to see ten films this year and could recommend films to go see without having myself seen them these would probably be them. Granted, I am a pretty big fanboy of comic book flicks and sci-fi movies as well as comedy so be warned when I say that my list won't include a ton of smaller, indie flicks that I hope for you to discover as the year goes by because I will likely be doing the same thing. No, these are the ones I know will be hitting theaters and I know exactly when they will be hitting theaters because I can't wait to see them. Your opinion may vary but even so, I hope you take a look into each of these and maybe find something you might find to be intriguing. It was extremely difficult to narrow this down to ten and so I have included an alternate list of ten as well, but for the main list we have five sequels, three big budget comedies (one of which is not a sequel), two summer tentpoles hoping to launch new franchises, one original sci-fi film and one new Martin Scorcese movie. Click the jump to see the full list.

On DVD & Blu-Ray: January 1, 2013