2021 Screen Actors Guild Award Nominations

==FILM==

Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture

“Belfast” (Focus Features)  

“CODA” (Apple Original Films) 

“Don’t Look Up” (Netflix)  

“House of Gucci” (MGM/United Artists Releasing)  

“King Richard” (Warner Bros)  

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role

Javier Bardem (“Being the Ricardos”)  

Benedict Cumberbatch (“The Power of the Dog”) 

Andrew Garfield (“Tick, Tick … Boom!”) 

Will Smith (“King Richard”)  

Denzel Washington (“The Tragedy of Macbeth”) 

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role

Jessica Chastain (“The Eyes of Tammy Faye”)  

Olivia Colman (“The Lost Daughter”)  

Lady Gaga (“House of Gucci”) 

Jennifer Hudson (“Respect”)  

Nicole Kidman (“Being the Ricardos”)  

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role

Ben Affleck (“The Tender Bar”)  

Bradley Cooper (“Licorice Pizza”)  

Troy Kotsur (“CODA”)  

Jared Leto (“House of Gucci”)  

Kodi Smit-McPhee (“The Power of the Dog”)

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role

Caitríona Balfe (“Belfast”)  

Cate Blanchett (“Nightmare Alley”)  

Ariana DeBose (“West Side Story”)

Kirsten Dunst (“The Power of the Dog”)  

Ruth Negga (“Passing) 

Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture

“Black Widow”

“Dune”

“The Matrix Resurrections”

“No Time to Die”

“Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”

==TELEVISION==

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series

“The Handmaid’s Tale” (Hulu) 

“The Morning Show” (Apple TV Plus) 

“Squid Game” (Netflix) 

“Succession” (HBO) 

“Yellowstone” (Paramount Network) 

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series

“The Great” (Hulu)  

“Hacks” (HBO Max)  

“The Kominsky Method” (Netflix)

“Only Murders in the Building” (Hulu)  

“Ted Lasso” (Apple TV Plus) 

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series

Brian Cox (“Succession”) 

Billy Crudup (“The Morning Show”) 

Kieran Culkin (“Succession”)  

Lee Jung-Jae (“Squid Game”)  

Jeremy Strong (“Succession”)  

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series

Jennifer Aniston (“The Morning Show”) 

Jung Ho-yeon (“Squid Game”)

Elizabeth Moss (“The Handmaid’s Tale”)  

Sarah Snook (“Succession”) 

Reese Witherspoon (“The Morning Show”) 

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series

Michael Douglas (“The Kominsky Method”)  

Brett Goldstein (“Ted Lasso”) 

Steve Martin (“Only Murders in the Building”)  

Martin Short (“Only Murders in the Building”)  

Jason Sudeikis (“Ted Lasso”)  

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series

Elle Fanning (“The Great”)

Sandra Oh (“The Chair”)

Jean Smart (“Hacks”

Juno Temple (“Ted Lasso”)

Hannah Waddingham (“Ted Lasso”)

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series

Murray Bartlett (“The White Lotus”)  

Oscar Isaac (“Scenes From a Marriage”)  

Michael Keaton (“Dopesick”) 

Ewan McGregor (“Halston”)  

Evan Peters (“Mare of Easttown”) 

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series

Jennifer Coolidge (“The White Lotus”)  

Cynthia Erivo (“Genius: Aretha”)  

Margaret Qualley (“Maid”)  

Jean Smart (“Mare of Easttown”)  

Kate Winslet (“Mare of Easttown”)  

Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Television Series

“Cobra Kai”

“The Falcon and the Winter Soldier”

“Loki”

“Mare of Easttown”

“Squid Game”

Zack Snyder's Justice League - Movie Review

Starring Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, Henry Cavill, Jason Momoa, Amy Adams, Ezra Miller, Ray Fisher, Connie Nielsen, Jeremy Irons, Willem Dafoe, JK Simmons, Diane Lane, Joe Morton, Ciaran Hinds, Kiersey Clemons, Ryan Zheng, Amber Heard, Jesse Eisenberg, Jared Leto, and Billy Crudup.

Written by Chris Terrio.

Directed by Zack Snyder.

★★★

If it helps, don't think of it as a 4-hour movie. Think of it as a 4-episode limited series.

I thought Man of Steel was a thumbs-sideways and that Batman v. Superman was a let-down, though they both had their qualities. Justice League was a mess and about on par with BvS for me. I thought at the time that Joss Whedon did what he could with the troubled production, but stories have spread since what Whedon's really like to work with, and I felt bad about the personal family tragedy that led Snyder to walk away.

Now he's been granted the ability to tell the story the way he wanted to. Rather than making Justice League I & II, we get a full 4-hour experience. It's not perfect and it still pales in comparison to a similarly-plotted Avengers Infinity War & Endgame, but it's a vast improvement, and I really liked how the movie was able to take its time with these characters. I'd also be curious to go back and watch the 2017 movie again to see how different it was.

Ben Affleck is great as Bruce Wayne, and I was grateful to watch him stretch his legs in the role one last time. He's picking up the pieces after the death of Superman, and he knows he needs more people with special abilities to unite in order to fight what's coming. He has Wonder Woman on his side but he needs more. He tries to recruit Aquaman, Cyborg, Flash, some more successfully than others.

Of all the characters, it's clearest Whedon gave Cyborg the shortest end of the stick. We get full backstory here and a better idea of who the character is, what he can do, etc. Steppenwolf is also a more fully-realized villain here. His design's more impressive, his fighting ability makes more sense, and he has motive beyond Shiny Alien Wants to Conquer Earth. He has wronged his master Darkseid in the past and figures he can get back in his good graces by enslaving Earth for him. We only caught a glimpse of Darkseid in the original but he sure shows up here.

Other actors like Willem Dafoe and Kiersey Clemons, who'd been cut from the original, are able to deliver and expand their parts here, and even ones who weren't in it (like Jared Leto's Joker) pop by.

There are still some Snyderisms I'm not keen on. The sky is always this burnt sienna sheen from the sun in a perpetual state of setting behind some clouds. The slo-mo speed-up slo-mo approach to action scenes can make them seem repetitive. But I for one am happy that after everything he and his family's been through, Zack Snyder was able to return to his baby and fulfill his vision.

Justice League - Movie Review

Starring Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Gal Gadot, Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa, Ray Fisher, Jeremy Irons, JK Simmons, Ciaran Hinds, Diane Lane, Connie Nielsen, Joe Morton, Billy Crudup and Amber Heard.
Written by Chris Tessio & Joss Whedon.
Directed by Zack Snyder.

★★

Justice League was deep into pre-production when Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice opened. Zack Snyder had Dawn of Justice, Justice League, and Justice League 2 mapped out when he dove in. Darkseid was going to be DC's Thanos, the superpowerful villain who takes a few movies before he steps forward as the main villain. After the reviews of BvJ came out, Justice League plowed ahead as planned. After a personal tragedy, Zack Snyder had to bow out in the final weeks of shooting, leading to Joss Whedon stepping in and finishing the job, doing extensive rewrites and reshoots to try to save it. It shows.

The Frankenstein's monster of a movie that emerges is ultimately better than BvJ or Suicide Squad, but not by much. It's weaker than Man of Steel, and seeing Gal Gadot try to make this work after the far superior Wonder Woman dominated the summer is a little embarrassing.

Let me go into what I liked. I thought Flash (Ezra Miller) was hilarious. He was my favorite character, and he should get his own movie. Henry Cavill, who is billed second so you know Superman won't stay dead, has the best scene in the movie during those first few minutes after he's been resurrected. When he shows up, I thought to myself, "Yeah, Superman's been missed." I kinda liked Jason Momoa's Aquaman. The tiny tiny amount of work Jeremy Irons and JK Simmons were given as Alfred and Gordon respectively made me hope Matt Reeves keeps them when he makes his own Batman movie.

Now for what I didn't like. And this will take longer.

1. Steppenwolf. He is the main villain. He's a lesser DC entity, and as soon as he showed up, I was disappointed. You've got the great Ciaran Hinds playing him; why not use more than his voice? Steppenwolf had this generic CGI monster face complete with a double axehead for a helmet. Why not put Hinds in makeup? Or at least try to look like him a little? Plus he has those dragonfly zombie monsters from the dumb dream sequence in Batman v. Superman as his minions. As his CGI creatures that are easily killed by the dozens. Flying orcs, they.

2. The plot. Steppenwolf has three magic boxes, called mother boxes, that he must unite and it'll give him ultimate power. Feels like the same thing in Marvel with Thanos collecting infinity stones, right? Wonder Woman gives this expositional monologue about this space battle that brought Steppenwolf to power, and I remember thinking, "Did the women from Wonder Woman know all about space battles before this movie? Sure, they're goddesses, but they marveled at a WWI plane." They must have, because apparently they've been guarding one of the three mother boxes for thousands of years. Yeah yeah.

3. Cyborg. I don't know if he's the most poorly written character, or if Ray Fisher is just boring playing him. Probably a bit of both. He's definitely the Hawkeye of this bunch, where there's no desire to see him get his own stand-alone movie.

4. The direction. Snyder loves to do the slo-mo freeze frame speed-it-up-again shots in action sequences, and there are a lot of them. Plus once again, most of this movie takes place at night. Or in darkness, or shadow. Or maybe most days are cloudy.  Brighten this world up already. I love Batman in darkness, but Superman? Wonder Woman? Flash? These are DAY characters!

The post-credits teaser is kinda cool, but I just hope the fruits of that teaser are allowed to breathe a little, grow more organically.

As a kid I always thought DC had overall cooler heroes and villains than Marvel. Marvel movies have blown DC out of the water lately, and I'd like DC to get back on track. Wonder Woman showed they can be just as good, now for the people in charge of the other characters to catch up and elevate their games.

Rogue One #1 for Third Week

For the weekend of December 30, 2016 to January 1, 2017, Rogue One stayed #1 for the third week in a row. The holiday weekend saw some rising in interest of other films too.

Sing's huge second weekend means it'll be very difficult for Illumination to say no to "Sing 2."

The real news is how the limited-releases movies are doing and how effective their staggered-release strategy is.

La La Land added a few more screens and wound up with the best per-screen average in the top ten. Fences didn't wait long to open wide, and it held its own in a crowded field. Its low budget means profitability, and it's sure to win something at next week's Golden Globes to help its marketing push.

Lion is slipping and might have waited to long to open wider sooner.

20th Century Women and Paterson had strong openings on 4 screens each. Of the holdovers, Hidden Figures, Patriots Day, and Silence are all performing well. The two that look like they're suffering are Ben Affleck's Live By Night and A Monster Calls.

Opens January 6
UNDERWORLD: BLOOD WARS with Kate Beckinsale, Theo James and Tobias Menzies.
(wide) HIDDEN FIGURES with Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Kevin Costner.
(wide) A MONSTER CALLS with Sigourney Weaver, Felicity Jones and Liam Neeson.

The Accountant - Movie Review

Starring Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, JK Simmons, Jon Bernthal, John Lithgow, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Jeffrey Tambor and Jean Smart.
Written by Bill Dubuque.
Directed by Gavin O'Connor.

★★★

My anticipation for this movie was dampened by its mixed reviews, and so I saw it under ideal circumstances. With low expectations, I wound up liking it.

Ben Affleck plays Christian Wolff, a genius with Aspergers who uses his accounting skills to help some of the most dangerous people in the world. The movie takes its time establishing him and setting up the plot, all of which I was fine with. I enjoyed watching Affleck in this role and had no problem with the pace, until I realized the movie was almost 2 1/2 hours long. Okay, so they could have trimmed a couple minutes here and there.

Eventually we get to a point where Christian is on the run with some assassins on his trail, and Anna Kendrick plays Dana, the woman who "knows too much" and they're trying to kill her too.

Meanwhile the Feds (JK Simmons, Cynthia Addai-Robinson) are trying to find him as well.

I like a movie that gives veteran actors some decent parts (not just Simmons, but Lithgow, Tambor and Smart all get something to do), and once it was all done, I realized I'd be on board for The Accountant 2. I will say a couple of the twists are telegraphed too early.

The Accountant #1, Kevin Hart #2 at box office

For the weekend of October 14-16, 2016, The Accountant was the easy #1. It had an intriguing marketing hook from the beginning, using Radiohead's "Everything in the Right Place" to focus on an OCD accountant who is also deadly. It opened slightly ahead of Argo and The Town, but reviews suggest it won't quite have the legs of those two films.

Kevin Hart's concert film opened about where it was expected.

Of the holdovers, I'm surprised The Birth of a Nation fell 61% in its second week. Maybe between the brutal subject matter and Nate Parker's controversial backstory, audiences weren't ready to go there.

Next week, I would expect Jack Reacher: Never Go Back to take the top spot.

Opens October 21
JACK REACHER: NEVER GO BACK with Tom Cruise, Cobie Smulders and Aldis Hodge.
BOO! A MADEA HALLOWEEN with Tyler Perry, Cassi Davis and Andre Hall.
OUIJA: ORIGIN OF EVIL with Elizabeth Reaser, Doug Jones and Lin Shaye.
KEEPING UP WITH THE JONESES with Zach Galifianakis, Jon Hamm and Isla Fisher.
I'M NOT ASHAMED with Masey McLain, Ben Davies and Cameron McKendry.

Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice - Movie Review

Starring Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Jesse Eisenberg, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Jeremy Irons, Holly Hunter, Gal Gadot, Harry Lennix and Scoot McNairy.
Written by Chris Terrio & David S. Goyer.
Directed by Zack Snyder.

★★

How to explain the most controversial movie of the year? It's not that bad, but it's not that good either.

For my money, the best Zack Snyder movie is Watchmen. Watchmen was a dense graphic novel, and Snyder was as faithful to it as about anyone possibly could be. I liked his artistry with that, and the darkness of the characters lent itself to Snyder's style. I also liked Dawn of the Dead. I also liked 300. I thought his Owls of Ga'Hoole movie was challenging.

But when he had his chance to make something wholly original, he came up with Sucker Punch, which exposed every flaw that better material had managed to hide.

Now I thought Man of Steel was okay the first time I saw it. The second time around, I hated it. The moroseness, the resurrection of Zod rather than going somewhere new, the destructo-porn finale.

Snyder, in ways, is trying to make up for the sins of Man of Steel, but it's as though he learned the wrong lessons. He's trying to bend the beginning of the Justice League into another Watchmen.

BvS has a lot in common with Amazing Spider-Man 2, a movie stuffed with characters and dense with Easter eggs alluding to futher movies, but by being so stuffed with franchise fillers, it forgets to be its own movie.

The movie picks up 18 months after the climactic events of Man of Steel, when thousands of people were killed in the final battle in Metropolis. Bruce Wayne blames Superman for what happened, as one of his buildings was destroyed in that battle, killing some of his employees. From afar, he's trying to find a way to defeat Superman and any other Kryptonians that will inevitably show up.

Superman (Henry Cavill) meanwhile, is trying to remain a good guy while his actions keep resulting in unintended consequences.

Throw into this mix Alexander "Lex" Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg), a chirpy Millennial tech genius who's moving some chess pieces to keep Bats and Supes at odds without their noticing.

Eisenberg's Luthor is a quirky, twitchy guy. It's a different take on the character, and his first scene is one where you have to decide if you're going to go with it or not. My expectations were low coming into this movie, and I chose to go with it. I knew what I was getting into. I actually liked his Luthor.

In fact, most of the cast is pretty good with what they're given. I liked Affleck's Wayne. I continue to be okay with Cavill's Superman. I thought Amy Adams was better this time around as Lois Lane. The jury's still out on Gal Gadot as Diana Prince (I had a hard time understanding some of her dialogue with whatever accent that was), but her arrival as Wonder Woman is the highlight of the movie. Jeremy Irons doesn't get to do anything as Alfred.

The movie feels like it has too boxes to check. The action grinds to a halt so one character can spend two minutes watching security footage of Aquaman, the Flash, and Cyborg. Sure, those characters look like they'll be interesting in future movies, but there's no justification for the scene other than to advertise future movies. Can we focus on the one we're watching now?

It may be too late to pull Snyder from the director's chair of Justice League Part 1, but I would think the reviews will underline to Warner Bros. that they're going in the wrong direction and they should get different eyes on JL2. They already have a great director in the cast in Ben Affleck. I would love him to be able to take over.

Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice - New trailer

Trailer 1
Trailer 2

Even though Man of Steel was not a good movie, and this sequel looks like it's going to make many of the same mistakes, I was still hyped by the second trailer in spite of myself. Hyped for parts of it. Overall, my guess is still that this movie won't be that good. Here's 5 thoughts on the new trailer.

1. I really like Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne; it looks very interesting. We've had Bruce in his 30's with Christian Bale, but now Bruce is in his 40's, and he looks a little more weary and angry. He looks like the Bruce that would be sick of dealing with the Suicide Squad. I like the way he stares through Clark Kent. He knows he can crush anyone physically or with his wealth and power, and he constantly has to stay the good guy. After all the destruction from Man of Steel, he's a Bruce who deeply resents the existence of Superman. This is a Bruce you really hope doesn't develop a drinking problem.

2. I'm not sure what Jesse Eisenberg is doing quite yet as Lex Luthor but I'm willing to go with it. I've never pictured Luthor as a squirrely guy, but Eisenberg seems to be going for evil-geek-genius. He looks like he'll be the main source of humor from the movie, which is fine. Gene Hackman was hilarious as Lex in the first film. There's still a great chance that this Lex is a wild misfire.

3. The film still looks too much like a Zack Snyder film. I've liked some of Zack's films in the past (Watchmen, 300, Dawn of the Dead), but after Man of Steel, I thought it was pretty clear he shouldn't be the one in charge of Superman. Therefore this movie looks like it's going to repeat many of the mistakes MoS made. Way too dark, self-conscious action sequences that go too long, and general black-red sheen that depresses the viewer the longer they're trapped in this world. That sheen's great for dark movies like Watchmen, but for Superman and the Justice League, can't we lightnen up a little?

4. Turning General Zod into Doomsday might have sounded like a good idea on paper to someone somewhere, but he looked like a cave troll from Middle Earth. Doomsday has a brain; he's not some randomly-roaring monster.

5. I'm a little worried about Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. Her acting hasn't jumped out to me in the Fast & Furious movies, and here all we've seen so far is her posing. She looks great in the part, but is there going to be more to it?

Random Movie Stuff - 1/15/14

- Matt Reeves will return for another Planet of the Apes movie. The Dawn of the Planet of the Apes director will now direct third movie in the rebooted franchise as well.  The as-yet-untitled film will open July 29, 2016. Dawn opens on July 11, 2014.

- The upcoming Batman v. Superman film does not have an official title, and even though Batman (Ben Affleck) and Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) are in it, it is a Superman-centric film. It's confirmed that Lex Luthor will be the villain, with Joaquin Phoenix being the rumored frontrunner. Cavill returns as Superman, and Amy Adams (Lois Lane), Diane Lane (Ma Kent) and Laurence Fishburne (Perry White) will also be back. There's also rumor that Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is in talks to play the Green Lantern.

- Michael Douglas will play Hank Pym and Paul Rudd will play Scott Lang in Edgar Wright's upcoming adaptation of Ant-Man. Also, Michael Pena (American Hustle) is in talks to play a villain.

- Quentin Tarantino is writing and directing another Western. Plot details are being kept secret right now, but it's titled The Hateful Eight, and Christoph Waltz is attached.

- Not a movie thing, but Sasheer Zamata is about to become famous. She's been named the latest cast member of Saturday Night Live, and the first black woman in the cast since Maya Rudolph left.

To the Wonder - DVD Review

Starring Olga Kurylenko, Ben Affleck, Javier Bardem, and Rachel McAdams.  Directed by Terrence Malick.

★★

Malick is one of the most frustrating artists for me. I loved Badlands. I found The Thin Red Line to be tremendously overrated.  The New World was okay.  I was disappointed by Tree of Life.

But 21st century Malick is more concerned with images, impressions, moments that linger in the memory, disconnected.  He's not telling a story; he's pre-jumbling your memory of the movie for you.  We have shots or scenes that might stay in the head for a few days, even as most of it vanishes.

His movies are undeniably beautiful, but you can only watch an artist chase butterflies for so long. He films hours and hours of footage, and he doesn't use most of it, and the "most" part tends to include plot elements that would make the whole affair more comprehensible.  Jessica Chastain, Rachel Weisz, Michael Sheen, Barry Pepper and Amanda Peet were all in this movie at one point too, but he cut them entirely out of the picture. (Why as an actor would you want to be in a Malick film when you know how good the odds are your part will be whittled down to nothing, or almost nothing?)

Ben Affleck, I get the feeling, had a character and dialogue, but almost all of his lines are cut. I think he gets six lines of spoken word in the whole movie.  Olga Kurlyenko gets the most screen time.  She narrates her thoughts in French while she twirls in flowing skirts in fields of wheat.  Rachel McAdams shows up as an old flame that Affleck reconnects with, and then there's Javier Bardem as a priest.

About 70% of the words we hear are narrated, most by the wife but some by the priest (in Spanish), and most of those times it doesn't appear connected to what we're seeing on screen. I think this is a reflection on how our heads are often elsewhere from what our bodies are doing.  There are times it's jarring when the camera focusses on a person's face and they actually speak some dialogue. I can almost feel the frustration coming out of Affleck. "Let me speak! Some words!"

So while I love his eye, I wish he'd rewatch Badlands and see how it's okay to have a narrative attached to his images.  We can have both cinematography and a story!

Ben Affleck as Batman

Sooooo.....

That happened.








Warner Bros. has announced that Ben Affleck will play Batman in the untitled Superman vs. Batman movie scheduled to open July 15.  Zack Snyder (Man of Steel) will direct, and Henry Cavill (Supes), Amy Adams (Lois), Laurence Fishburne (Perry White), and Diane Lane (Ma Kent) will all return.

But why did WB ask him? And why did he say yes?

Let's start with why Affleck would say yes.

He's famously declared he's trying to be pickier about his projects.  He did a ton of paycheck movies, including one called Paycheck, but somewhere around the time Man About Town went straight to DVD, the Academy-Award winning writer decided to make his directorial debut with Gone Baby Gone. It was a critical success and garnered Amy Ryan a slew of nominations for her performance as the imperfect mother whose daughter gets kidnapped.  The box-office wasn't great.

His next few acting gigs were decent.  A harmless part of the the ensemble in He's Just Not That Into You, teaming with Russell Crowe in State of Play after Edward Norton dropped out, co-starring with Tommy Lee Jones in The Company Men.  He directed and starred in The Town, and that brought financial as well as critical success (and a slew of nominations for co-star Jeremy Renner).

He then directed and starred in Argo, where he got critical and financial success, and multiple awards for himself as director and producer.  He didn't win the Oscar for Directing for Argo, but he did as one of Argo's producers.

As for his own acting, he did Terrence Malick's To the Wonder and the upcoming Runner Runner for director Brad Furman (The Lincoln Lawyer).  He's also going to direct and star in Live the Night (based on the book by Dennis "Gone Baby Gone" Lehane), and he'll star in David Fincher's Gone Girl.

So why did Affleck say yes to Batman?

My best guess - some give-and-take with Warner Bros.  He'll do Batman, and they will in turn finance his next couple projects which might be riskier than normal.  In addition, he might see it as an acting challenge. He may have been teased about his voice, but Bale did a dang good job as Batman/Bruce Wayne.  So can he step into those boots and not make everyone go "Bale was better. Keaton, too."  He's been unafraid before to take over famous roles. (The new Jack Ryan in Sum of All Fears, for example.)

So why would Warner Bros. ask Affleck?

1. They needed a "name," and Affleck is a name-above-the-title guy.
2. They needed someone old enough to have been Batman for a while, and Affleck just turned 41. Bale was 30 when he was originally cast as Bruce Wayne (making him 39 now).
3. He wasn't their first choice.

I don't think he's going to be terrible.  The slams for the Gigli/Surviving Christmas section of his career don't factor in as much when you look at his last 5-6 years of work.  I think he'll be good at the Bruce Wayne stuff. There's something serendipitous about Affleck, who once played George Reeves, now appearing in a Superman movie, even if it's as Batman.

2012 Academy Award Winners

BEST PICTURE - Argo
BEST DIRECTOR - Ang Lee, Life of Pi
BEST ACTOR - Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
BEST ACTRESS - Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR - Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS - Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY - Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY - Chris Terrio, Argo
BEST FOREIGN FILM - Amour
BEST DOCUMENTARY - Searching for Sugar Man
BEST ANIMATED FILM - Brave
BEST ORIGINAL SONG - "Skyfall" by Adele
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE - Mychael Danna, Life of Pi
BEST MAKEUP - Les Miserables
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY - Life of Pi
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN - Lincoln
BEST FILM EDITING - Argo
BEST COSTUME DESIGN - Anna Karenina
BEST SOUND MIXING - Les Miserables
BEST SOUND EDITING (tie) - Zero Dark Thirty & Skyfall
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS - Life of Pi
BEST ANIMATED SHORT - Paperman
BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT - Curfew
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT - Inocente

The wealth was spread tonight.

4 for Life of Pi
3 for Argo, Les Miserables
2 for Django Unchained, Lincoln, Skyfall

Seth MacFarlane's opening number - I enjoyed seeing Channing Tatum and Charlize Theron dancing, Flight as done by sock puppets, Daniel Radcliffe and Joseph Gordon-Levitt soft-shoeing, the Sally Field bit, but by the time we got to "Be Our Guest", whew.  Just start the show.

Pretty amazed that Waltz won.

The "Jaws" playoff music was pretty funny for the Life of Pi visual effects team.

Shirley Bassey's "Goldfinger" number was a nice surprise.

Wow, John Travolta's hairpiece is looking particularly vampiric.

Brave was at best the fourth-best animated film nominated. Shocked that it won.

I'm happy for Russell Crowe. He sounded better at the Oscars than he did in the movie.

I love In Memoriums, but it bugs me every year when publicists and marketing executives get in, and they snub big names.  How about Andy Griffith?  Ben Gazzara?  Larry Hagman?  Richard Dawson?

I love how Adele sings like a sultry songstress but talks like a cockney housewife.

Awesome speech by Ben Affleck to end the night.

My Top Ten Films of 2012

I have not yet seen Amour, Holy Motors, Anna Karenina, Rust & Bone, and some of these other movies making top ten lists, but of the 99 titles from 2012 I have seen, these were the best.

Best of the Miscellaneous

BEST PERFORMANCE IN A BAD MOVIE - Tom Cruise in Rock of Ages.  Whenever he wasn't on screen, the movie was terrible, but whenever he was, we knew we were basking in the light of one of the coolest guys on the planet.

BEST COMEBACK - Channing Tatum.  We should have seen this coming, since he was the funniest part of The Dilemma.  He was so good in 21 Jump Street that the producers of GI Joe 2 ordered reshoots to not kill his character off in the opening scene.  He managed to star in a movie about male strippers and carry over $100 million domestic, and he kept his chick-flick card in "premium" by starring opposite Rachel McAdams in The Vow.  He'll also co-star in his third Soderbergh collaboration (Side Effects) next year.

SECOND BEST COMEBACK - Matthew McConaughey.  Bernie, Magic Mike, Killer Joe.  Three different characters, save that each wears a cowboy hat at some point.  (Yeah, he was good in The Paperboy too, but the less said about that, the better.)

MOVIES I LIKED BUT WITH SERIOUS PROBLEMS:
The Master - If PTA had just given this movie an ending, showed some progression, then I would have loved this.
Prometheus - I rewatched Alien and Aliens after this movie. (I was surprised how closely their rhythms matched).  But they both gave answers.  Basic. Brief.  That's all we ask.  This movie leaves things too ambiguous.  It also casts Guy Pearce as a 90-year-old man.  Why not get an actually old actor who isn't buried under Pruneface make-up?  And So-and-So's death at the end is one of the dumbest I've ever seen.  Other than that, I look forward to the sequel.

MOVIES I LIKED BUT NOT ENOUGH TO LIST THEM HIGHER THAN THE OTHERS:
The Amazing Spider-Man
Bernie
Dredd
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Hope Springs
Jeff Who Lives at Home
Premium Rush
Rise of the Guardians
Snow White & the Huntsman
The Three Stooges

Honorable Mentions (my 21-26, alphabetically):

5 BROKEN CAMERAS - This documentary is filmed almost solely by a Palestinian farmer who became a world-known activist as he documented Israelis taking over their nearby land, then setting up walls and fences and tear-gassing the residents anytime they came too close. It's definitely one-sided but it's not common that we see the Palestinian point of view.

21 JUMP STREET - This movie is one of those surprises. When the trailer debuted I thought it looked awful, but it was arguably the funniest movie of the year.

THE HUNGER GAMES - I recognize its flaws but I don't mind them. Didn't mind the shaky-cam; didn't mind the fact that these people don't look that hungry; didn't mind that Katniss only kills people in self-defense.  I've seen it three times now and hope the sequel can fix the problems of Book 2.

PITCH PERFECT - This does for a cappella what Bring It On did for cheerleading.

SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN - Strange journey of a documentary that made me think it was going one place and went somewhere else entirely, to the point I checked Wikipedia while watching the DVD to see if this really happened and isn't some Bansky-style hoax doc.  It's mainly about a couple South Africans who are trying to find out how their favorite musician Rodriguez died.  Rodriguez was a musician in the early 1970's who flopped in his native US, but he was as big as Elvis in South Africa.

THE SESSIONS - John Hawkes is one of those actors who elevates any film he's in, and he gives another tremendous performance here as a man left virtually quadriplegic by polio who sets out to lose his virginity. It's filled with humor and heart.

More Honorable Mentions (my 11-20, alphabetically):

ARBITRAGE - Richard Gere's best work since Chicago, this movie accomplishes exactly what Bonfire of the Vanities could not.  Gere's a millionaire hedge-fund manager cheating on his wife, but somehow we still root for him as he tries to keep his house of cards from falling.

THE AVENGERS - About as good a movie as it possibly could have been, finally Iron Man, Captain America, the Hulk and Thor are in the same movie.  Good job by Joss Whedon in keeping the action moving, the dialogue crackling and giving everyone their moment.  Didn't really see why this movie needed Hawkeye, but...

THE CABIN IN THE WOODS - Joss Whedon's puzzle pic is a terrific send-up of pretty much every horror film ever made.

CLOUD ATLAS - This deeply ambitious project may not achieve all its goals, but I found it breathtaking on the big-screen.  It follows six stories across the centuries, with each one loosely - very loosely - connected to the next, and it weaves through each story so that once you get the rhythm, you never get lost.

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES - The conclusion to the best superhero trilogy ever made might not be as good as the first two installments, but it's still pretty darn good.  Anne Hathaway was able to mine sexuality I didn't know she had as Catwoman, and all the regulars (Bale, Caine, Oldman, Freeman) get their moments.

END OF WATCH - Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena have great chemistry, the kind where I actually hope the next MTV Movie Awards mentions them.  Probably would have made my top ten if it didn't have 400 F-words.

LES MISERABLES - I liked it.  It definitely had its problems but it also hit some emotional buttons and had some of the best raw acting captured on film this year.  I view it as a companion piece to the stage play.

LIFE OF PI - Visually arresting, narratively challenging work from Ang Lee.  Just one of the most gorgeous movies of the year.

MAGIC MIKE - Steven Soderbergh has abandoned high-minded fare, but he hasn't slipped in quality. This is like Flashdance for male strippers, but with substance and a story.  Tatum's a charming lead, and McConaughey shows up again in a role that would get him a Best Supporting Actor nod in a weaker year. And hey, Alex Pettyfer has finally been made a credible actor.

SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK - Loved this little gem.  Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence give career-best performances, and Robert DeNiro is the best he's been in a long time.  Casting is the heavy lifting for a film like this, but the chemistry generated afterwards needs to be there, and they have it.

And now...

    ... My Top Ten

10. DJANGO UNCHAINED - Quentin Tarantino is an artist because he makes movies that he would want to see, and he invites audiences to join him on this ride.  Jamie Foxx is fine as Django, a slave seeking to rescue his wife, but it's the supporting cast that chew all the scenery and have all the fun: Christoph Waltz as a good-guy German bounty hunter, Leonardo DiCaprio as a sadistic plantation owner, and especially Samuel L. Jackson as the devious house negro Stephen. QT brings his 1970's exploitation mentality to slavery, but once again, adds more levels than the casual viewer might expect, or might miss due to the cartoonish gore.

9. SKYFALL - It's the best Daniel Craig Bond yet, and easily makes the top five of best Bond films ever.  A large part of that is Javier Bardem as a former agent seeking revenge on M, and it makes it a more personal mission.  We see more of what's behind the aunt-nephew-like relationship of M and 007.  Love the theme song!

8. WRECK-IT-RALPH - Even 8-bit characters can have heart.  This is another home-run for Disney, and it's very Pixarian in the way it weaves together multiple strands to a plot and populates with funny supporting characters and clever throwaway gags.

7. LOOPER - Rian Johnson's futuristic thriller plays with the problems of time travel and keeps twisting the story down paths we don't expect.  Joseph Gordon-Levitt does an amusing impression of young Bruce Willis.

6. LINCOLN - Good ol' Abe finally gets a movie, not counting all the others. One smart decision this movie makes is to not try to tell his life story but focus on one aspect of his presidency and let it illuminate all others.  We see him as president, husband, father, commander-in-chief, cajoler, taskmaster, politician and friend.

5. CHRONICLE - Breathes new life into the found-footage genre, and the superhero genre. Three teens find "something" in the woods and shortly thereafter they develop super powers, one stronger than the others.

4. THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER - The best John Hughes movie since Hughes was making them himself.  The three leads are all great, but Emma Watson announces herself here as a true star.

3. ZERO DARK THIRTY - This straight-forward account goes through the ten years between 9/11 and Usama bin Laden getting killed. We see it through the eyes of Maya (Jessica Chastain), a focussed analyst who makes capturing or killing UBL her life's mission.  We get no backstory on her, and so we're like the characters on screen, knowing only what is presented to us (that, and what we remember from the news the past few years).  Pretty sad Kathryn Bigelow wasn't nominated for this.

2. MOONRISE KINGDOM - The most magical tale of the year, and unjustly ignored by most during this awards season, but awards are about publicity and campaigning, and well, that's fine.  This probably surpasses The Royal Tenenbaums as my favorite Wes Anderson movie. (I'll have to see how I feel in a few years).  While it has famous adults (Edward Norton, Bill Murray, etc.), the film's two young star-crossed puppy-lovers are the central reason it works so well.  And hey, Bruce Willis made it into two movies in my top ten!  Didn't see that coming.

1. ARGO - Despite its historical - shall we call it "playfulness" - for dramatic effect, Ben Affleck has delivered a milestone as his third directorial effort. It's no accident that he won the Golden Globe for Best Director and had he been nominated, I'm confident he would've brought the Oscar home for this too.  He stars too, but he always seems generous with his on-screen co-stars.  Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, John Goodman, Victor Garber, Clea Duvall, Tate Donovan, Chris Messina, etc., etc., all come together for one great whole, with a story that's suspenseful even though we know how it ends.

So there it is. Did you see any of them?

My worst ten of 2012 are here.

UPDATE: I rented The Perks of Being A Wallflower, and it deserves to be in my top ten. Somewhere.

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.

Argo's #1 in slow week

1.  Argo - $12.36 million ($60.78) - 3 wks (WB) -24.9%
 . . . 2855 screens / $4327 per screen
2.  Hotel Transylvania - $9.5 ($130.43) - 5 wks (Sony) -26.9%
 . . . 3276 / $2900
3.  Cloud Atlas - $9.4 - 1 wk (WB)
 . . . 2008 / $4681
4.  Paranormal Activity 4 - $8.68 ($42.63) - 2 wks (Par) -70.1%
 . . . 3412 / $2542
5.  Silent Hill Revelation - $8 - 1 wk (OR)
 . . . 2933 / $2728
6.  Taken 2 - $8 ($117.39) - 4 wks (Fox) -39.7%
 . . . 2995 / $2671
7.  Here Comes the Boom - $5.5 ($30.61) - 3 wks (Sony) -34.6%
 . . . 2491 / $2208
8.  Sinister - $5.07 ($39.52) - 3 wks (Sum) -42.5%
 . . . 2347 / $2160
9.  Alex Cross - $5.05 ($19.37) - 2 wks (Sum) -55.7%
 . . . 2541 / $1987
10. Fun Size - $4.06 - 1 wk (Par)
 . . . 3014 / $1347
11. Pitch Perfect - $3.98 ($51.33) - 5 wks (U) -41.1%
 . . . 1999 / $1990
12. Chasing Mavericks - $2.2 - 1 wk (Fox)
 . . . 2002 / $1099
13. Looper - $2.1 ($61.5) - 5 wks (TriS) -50%
 . . . 1189 / $1766

Cloud Atlas has a $100 million budget, but it's another big bomb for the Wachowskis (The Matrix, Speed Racer).  I think it also does damage to what above-the-title star power Tom Hanks has left.  The other new wide releases (Silent Hill Revelation, Fun Size, Chasing Mavericks) will be quickly forgotten.

Paranormal Activity 4 had a 70% drop in week two.  Shows that word-of-mouth is catching up that this was the weakest of the series.

Argo - Movie Review

Starring Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, John Goodman, Victor Garber, Clea DuVall, Tate Donovan, Kyle Chandler, Rory Cochrane, Chris Messina and Bob Gunton.
Directed by Ben Affleck.

★★★★

At this point, I'd have to say Ben Affleck is a must-see director.  The first three movies of his directing career - Gone Baby Gone, The Town, and now Argo - have all been fantastic.

This is the true story of the rescue of six Americans in 1979 from Iran.  When the US Embassy was overrun and all 50 Americans inside were taken hostage, six employees had escaped and hid in the home of the Canadian ambassador.

Affleck cast himself as Tony Mendez, the CIA operative charged with getting those six out.  He comes up with the idea of pretending he's a Hollywood producer doing a location scout, and pretending that the six are part of his film crew to get them out.

The Iranian parts are as suspenseful and tense as a prison-break movie, the Washington parts flow like a good West Wing episode, and the Hollywood parts are like any good satire.  And there's not one wasted moment.  It moves and crackles.

This movie seems a shoo-in for nominations for Best Picture, Director, Screenplay and a few others, and lest that makes the movie sound like stodgy homework, fear not.  It flies by.

The Town - Movie Review

***1/2

Starring Ben Affleck, Jon Hamm, Jeremy Renner, Rebecca Hall, Blake Lively, Pete Postlethwaite, Chris Cooper and Titus Welliver.
Directed by Ben Affleck.

Is it perfect? No. But it's the best bank-robbing procedural of the year. It pays homage to Heat without ripping it off, and Affleck's quickly establishing himself as one of the most interesting directors in Hollywood. He's doing for Massachusetts what Martin Scorsese did for New York. At least he's on his way.

Affleck plays Doug MacRay, a guy born and raised in Charlestown, a one-mile area in Boston that we're told has produced the highest per-capita amount of bank robbers in the Northeast. His mom disappeared when he was six, and his dad's doing a life sentence. So he was raised with the Coughlins, where we still see his best-friend brother figure Jem (The Hurt Locker's Jeremy Renner) and the sister Krista (Gossip Girl's Blake Lively), whose baby may or may not be Doug's.

The movie starts out with a bank heist, an intense well-choreographed kick-off, with Doug and his crew wearing skull masks. Jem decides to kidnap the assistant bank manager Claire (Vicky Cristina Barcelona's Rebecca Hall) just in case, and they leave her by the river. Turns out Claire just lives a few blocks from them, so Doug sets out to make sure she won't be able to recongize any of them, but especially so Jem won't decide to just "take care of her."

They bump into each other at a laundromat, and Doug takes a liking to Claire. He sees her regularly. This bank robber begins to wonder if he can finally get out of Charlestown and have a real crime-free life somewhere else.

Always circling though is FBI agent Adam Frawley (Mad Men's Jon Hamm). He didn't make me forget Tommy Lee Jones's Marshal Gerard, but he has two good scenes, one where he lets Doug know just how much he's going to enjoy taking him down, and another monologue where he surgically removes Krista's options until the last one is betrayal.

Affleck's a good actor, not great, and this is one of his best performances. (My fave of his is still Changing Lanes.) It's his directing, though, where he shines. I love the overhead shots of Boston, the authenticity of the atmosphere, the scenes where actors can breathe, especially each one Renner is in. He always has that hairtrigger edge to him, like Joe Pesci in Goodfellas. The bank robbery, the second act armored-truck job, and the final heist are all well-done, in staging and suspense. The action here was more satisfying than anything in, say, Iron Man 2.

With ten movies as possibilities, I could see this sneaking in for a Best Picture nod.

P.S. To the guy who kept texting in front of me, you were rude, but thanks for at least finally getting up and leaving to finish the conversation after your third message.