2012 Golden Globe Winners

Movies

BEST DRAMA - Argo
BEST COMEDY/MUSICAL - Les Miserables
BEST DIRECTOR - Argo
BEST ACTOR DRAMA - Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
BEST ACTRESS DRAMA - Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty
BEST ACTOR MUSICAL - Hugh Jackman, Les Miserables
BEST ACTRESS COMEDY - Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR - Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS - Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables
BEST SCREENPLAY - Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained
BEST SONG - "Skyfall" by Adele, Skyfall
BEST SCORE - Michael Danna, Life of Pi
BEST FOREIGN FILM - Amour
BEST ANIMATED FILM - Brave

Cecil B. DeMille Award - Jodie Foster

Television
BEST DRAMA - Homeland
BEST COMEDY - Girls
BEST ACTOR DRAMA - Damien Lewis, Homeland
BEST ACTRESS DRAMA - Claire Danes, Homeland
BEST ACTOR COMEDY - Don Cheadle, House of Lies
BEST ACTRESS COMEDY - Lena Dunham, Girls
BEST MOVIE or MINISERIES - Game Change
BEST ACTOR MOVIE or MINISERIES - Kevin Costner, Hatfields & McCoys
BEST ACTRESS MOVIE or MINISERIES - Julianne Moore
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR - Ed Harris, Game Change
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS - Maggie Smith, Downton Abbey

- Tina Fey and Amy Poehler were terrific hosts.  They should duke it out with Neil Patrick Harris for all hosting gigs.

- Sorry, Game Change crew, but HBO was the opposite of "Heroic Brave Operation" for cutting out 3/4 of the book to focus only on Sarah Palin.

- I love how Adele sounds like a character from "When the Whistle Blows", the show-within-the-show of Ricky Gervais's Extras.

- Standing O for Bill Clinton. I wonder what would happen if George W. Bush came out.

- Boo to winner Maggie Smith and Ed Harris for not being there!

- Very nice tribute to Sally Field from Anne Hathaway.

- I'm amused how everyone's pretending Salmon Fishing on the Yemen is a good movie.

- Biggest shocker: Brave for Best Animated Film. One of Pixar's worst.

- I love Jodie Foster.

- I saw two episodes of Girls and thought it was awful. I really don't get where all this love is coming from.

- Absolutely thrilled and surprised by Argo's wins. Actually, I really like how the wealth was spread this year. Very happy for Ben Affleck.

Les Miserables - Movie Review

Starring Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Redmayne, Aaron Tveit, Samantha Barks, Daniel Huttlestone, Colm Wilkinson, Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen.  Directed by Tom Hooper.

★★★½

This didn't feel like its own movie. It's an enhancement, part of a package to the Les Miserables experience.  It's another way to live through the material.  Les Miz the play is still the way to see this, but the film allows more acting to move to the fore.

Tom Hooper's decision to do lots of close-ups pays off more often than it doesn't. It also means the actors are singing live for the camera without the benefit of being dubbed in a studio. It means that the acting matters more than the singing.  Russell Crowe, for instance, gives a very good physical performance as Javert, but singing-wise most of his songs are beyond what he's capable of nailing. He'd go in and out of nasal quality and strain for those higher pitches, which is a good two-thirds of Javert's lines.  More than once I felt bad for him.

The majority of the cast comes off quite well.  Hugh Jackman, I thought, was tremendous. Vocally he's there (even if he isn't Alfie Boe), and we really feel the pain behind songs like "Who Am I" and "Bring Him Home."  It'd be a crime if he weren't nominated for this.  Anne Hathaway is as good as you've heard. Her "I Dreamed A Dream" is heartbreaking, and by my eye, done in one take.

Eddie Redmayne (My Week with Marilyn) is also the first time I kind of liked Marius.  It's easy not to like him when he falls in love so easily with Cosette and ignores Eponine, but I credit Redmayne's performance. The first tear the movie got from me was when Marius sings his final note in his "Little Fall of Rain" duet with Eponine. (Eponine is played by Samantha Barks, who also played the role in Les Miserables in Concert 25th Anniversary.)

Faring the worst were the Thenardiers. I expected Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter to be over the top, but all the close-ups for them ruined the humor of "Master of the House." It actually reminded me of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, a hilarious musical that made for a bad movie under Richard Lester's direction in 1966.

This movie is an experience. It's flawed, but it leaves an impact, and it let me see Les Miz in a new light. That must count for something.

The Dark Knight Rises - Movie Review

Starring Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Morgan Freeman, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Matthew Modine, Nestor Carbonell, Ben Mendelsohn, Aiden Gillen, Juno Temple and Tom Conti.
Directed by Christopher Nolan.

★★★½

My wife and I saw this on a Saturday.  The theater's newly-hired security company was prominent and visible.  Signs said they reserved the right to search any bags or purses.  I asked a security a few questions about how many guys they had on site or how many theaters his company had been hired for, but he didn't know.  I appreciated the visibility on the night after the Aurora shooting, but if this is the new normal, I'm going to resent it.

The first four previews (The Watch, Total Recall, The Bourne Legacy, The Expendables 2) had copious amounts of gunfire in each.  Then we got The Campaign, The Hobbit and Man of Steel.

I'll say that Batman Begins / The Dark Knight are the best 1-2 superhero movies ever made (with all due respect to Donner's Superman I & II), and so I had high expectations for this, and at the same time, I tried muting them to not be disappointed.

It's been eight years since the events of The Dark Knight.  Eight years since Harvey Dent died and Batman took the blame.  Batman's retired, and crime is down in Gotham thanks to The Dent Act, which made it easier for cops to catch criminals.  Bruce Wayne himself is becoming more withdrawn and reclusive, to the point where people wonder if he's deformed.

Meanwhile a new evil is on its way to Gotham.  Bane.  He's a mercenary with an unknown past.  He wears a mask that garbles his voice.  It's a cross between Sean Connery and James Mason by way of General Grievous.  I'd heard he was hard to understand so I'd focus whenever he spoke.  I caught 90% of his lines, but it shouldn't be something I have to think about.

Also slinking around is cat burglar Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway), and she was my biggest question mark going in, and I can say she was great.  Michelle Pfeiffer will always be in my heart, but Hathaway has the playful sensuality, the physicality, and the depth needed when Catwoman's trying to figure out just whose side she's on.

But wait, there's more.  We also have Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a young cop who keeps wondering when the Batman might return.  He plays into the film's events as much as anyone else.

It's difficult to get much more into the plot without giving away key twists, but suffice to say it's 160 minutes long, and the time flies.  Every scene cuts to the next, and there's not a line of dialogue wasted.  It's densely plotted, but I was never lost.

It's not as "fun" as TDK.  It doesn't have that energetic villain like Heath Ledger's Joker.  How could it?  Bane was a daring choice.  He matches Batman's mind and strength.  Most villains Batman can just beat up, but he can't do that with Bane.  Really wish the voice had been effortless to listen to.

The movie does feel like the final chapter in a trilogy, and the events of the first two movies culminate here.  It's all one story, all part of Christopher Nolan's vision.  I'm glad I saw it; I loved the experience; I can't say this is one where I'll be watching it over and over.

Anne Hathaway as Fantine, Shia's A Giant, etc.

- Anne Hathaway will play Fantine in the big-screen treatment of the musical Les Miserables. Tom Hooper (The King's Speech) will direct. Hugh Jackman will play Valjean and Russell Crowe will play Javert. According to IMDB.com, Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter are rumored to be up for the Thenardiers. Rush played Javert in the 1998 non-musical movie.

- On the day TMZ released footage of Shia LaBeouf getting beat up outside a Vancouver bar, Universal has announced he'll play a 20-foot giant in Gil Kenan's A Giant.

- Forest Whitaker and Johnny Knoxville has joined the cast of The Last Stand, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Rio - Movie Review

These are done by me holding my iPhone. Someday I should really put more effort into it, but let it never be said I take myself too seriously.