Breaking Smiles and Thrills

Mettel's blogathon has us looking at the movies that make us smile and the movies that give us thrills. I won't waste much time on an introduction, so here's what Mettel has to say about this week's choices and my choices are as follows:

Midnight in Paris - Aw hey, it's the Fitzgeralds.

Midnight in Paris is a movie that makes me smile from start to finish, but nothing has me smiling like an idiot as when Gil meets the Fitzgeralds. Or anyone else from that era, for that matter. It is just so magical. Just imagine if this happened in real life, guys!

My 20 Favourite Movies of 2011.

Okay, here we are. 20 may seem like a big number, but it was the only way I could fit in everything that I wanted to fit in. So let's not spend any time waffling - it is time for me to close out 2011 once and for all...

Honourable mentions: Hesher, Moneyball, Like Crazy, The Ides of March, Incendies, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Captain America: The First Avenger, Sarah's Key, The Adventures of Tintin, Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Limitless, Thor, Young Adult, Hugo, Melancholia, Contagion, The Help, Crazy, Stupid, Love., Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Super 8, X-Men: First Class, Source Code, Jane Eyre, Rango, Another Earth, Perfect Sense.

20. The Skin I Live In - Dir. Pedro Almodovar

A little strange? Definitely. The Skin I Live In, Pedro Almodovar's latest film, explores themes of loneliness, sexual identity, death, and possibly the most unique tale of revenge that I've ever seen. In other hands, this would have been the stuff that fits right into The Human Centipede's generation of horror. Almodóvar creates his macabre, ominous tale with elegance, kitsch and malevolence. The Skin I Live In is almost in a breed of it's own, playing out as a horror that dares you to get under your skin and make you question your own identity. Which is somewhat funny to see these days when horrors are all about scaring you with more blood and guts than are probably possible to be inside one person.

It Takes Guts to Make a Movie Like The Muppets

When was the last time you saw a film and thought: "it takes guts to make a movie like that."

The most recent example I can think of is Shame. I still haven't seen the film, but there seems to be a never-ending chorus of people singing the praises of how gutsy this film is. How it chose to explore sex addiction. How Michael Fassbender had to put everything on the line. It's true, it would take guts to make a movie like that, especially with how it wore it's NC-17 badge out and proud.

We live in a cinematic world where we praise how brave movies can be if they show already extreme things in a more extreme way. We all seem to like the cold hard truth. If things don't appear to be realistic, we instantly start bashing it. If things are too happy, we think they aren't that realistic. Look at this way: the latest teen hyped movie is all about young people killing each other. When we see people getting killed on screen it isn't a big deal. Curse words can make it into a kids movie without a second thought. Hell, kids movies have to be laced with adult humour, violence, even killing of people just to be deemed 'entertaining'.

Apparently, that's what we call 'being gutsy'.

At the beginning of the week, I rewatched The Muppets. Here's a movie where everything is so out and proud. And by that, I don't mean that the puppets all kill each other and one comes out as the felt creation standing.

AAN: Oscar Predictions - Soundies and Design

Welcome to part one of my official Oscar predictions, which is what this series of Annual Awards Nerdism has boiled down to. In the five nights leading up to the Oscars I'll share my predictions with y'all...with some poetry to come in some categories. Tonight, I'll be dealing with the 'soundies' (Best Achievement in Sound Editing, Best Achievement in Sound Mixing, Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures - Original Song, Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures - Original Score) and the 'design' awards (Best Achievement in Art Direction, Best Achievement in Makeup, Best Achievement in Costume Design). 

As per usual, I shall be using Fassy, Loki and Owen for my predictions. Just in case you don't know what they mean in prediction terms:
Happy Fassy - Who I want to win. Doesn't necessarily mean that they will win, though.
Lowkey Loki - Who I think will win. This is my official prediction.
Overwhelmed Owen - The longshot. If this wins, there'll be a bit of an outrage.

Soundies awards.

Best Achievement in Sound Editing

Drive / The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo / Hugo / Transformers: Dark of the Moon / War Horse

Okay, so out of all the categories sound editing is the one I know the least about (apart from the shorts). But surprisingly, I've seen all of these films, so I should have a good idea of how great their sound was edited. A huge part of me wants Drive to win, since this is it's only nomination and it deserves so much more than this. However, I had MAJOR problems with the sound when I was watching this on the plane...which is probably just a by-product of how crap their sound system is. However, out of all of the nominees, I think that Hugo has the best chance of winning, since I think it will sweep most of the technical awards. And that's all I have, since I didn't go into any of these movies with the sole purpose of watching, or, er, listening to their sound editing.

"Life is a happy song."

Film: The Muppets
Year: 2011
Director James Bobin
Written by: Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller
Starring: Jason Segel, Amy Adams, Chris Cooper, Rashida Jones, Steve Whitmire, Eric Jacobson, Dave Goelz, Bill Barretta, David Rudman, Matt Vogel. 
Running time: 103 min.

I feel like sort of an outcast. I didn't really watch the Muppets much when I was a child, in fact, I didn't watch or do much of what any normal child did. For me, I was more content riding and caring for horses than I was with anything that happened on screen. That's what I love about cinema: it is constantly introducing me to all of these things that I have missed, which I'm happy that I've found. You've really got to hand it to Jason Segel and his co-writer Nicholas Stoller, who have dragged the felt favourites up from under what seems like a celluloid rock and brought the Muppets to our world and our times. Still, they remain the same as they ever were, realising that perhaps their world doesn't transfer so well to our world. And that is the beauty of The Muppets.