Well played, Honest Trailer people. Sam Mendes makes the first James Bond movie that I've ever genuinely cared about, Skyfall, and, with a single four-and-a-half minute trailer you smartly deconstruct the movie in a way that makes me simultaneously laugh out loud and question my sanity. more »
Also in Monday morning's round-up of news briefs, Michael Douglas' And So It Goes proves popular with buyers; Argo heads to Doha Tribeca Film Festival; and Cafe de Flore shines at the Specialty Box Office.
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Retirement can be so lucrative, it is worth a re-do. The surprise box office smash The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel will likely get another whirl. Raking in $130 million worldwide with a budget of only $10 million - those are golden box office numbers. The John Madden-directed film starred Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson, Maggie Smith and Billy Nighy as English retirees in India.
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Perhaps all of the hoopla surrounding the upcoming James Bond installment Skyfall has created a bubble for all things 007, or this little piece of pop culture is really worth the thousands it recently fetched from its lucky buyer. The swimming trunks Daniel Craig wore as Bond in his first stint as the sexy agent in Casino Royale sold at auction for almost $72,000 at a charity auction in London. Judi Dench's comments on the cleanliness of the shorts may have also triggered a jump in the price.
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Russell Crowe and Darren Aronofsky are busy with Noah. Will Smith is apparently tackling the Biblical brother rivals Cain in Abel in his directorial debut. Paul Verhoeven is taking on the big man himself in Jesus of Nazareth and now his earthly mother will be getting a big screen focus. Mary Mother of Christ will show Jesus' life up until about adolescence and the recently retired Peter O' Toole is apparently coming out of retirement to join the project, which is being billed as a prequel to The Passion of the Christ.
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Two very different posters emerged for November's release of the 23rd James Bond installment, Skyfall. In one, current Bond incarnation Daniel Craig looks the upright perfectly dressed 007. Sure he has a gun, but he holds it more like a martini as he stands in perfect posture with the Union Jack and what appears to be the City of London in the background. The second one ditches the British flag for a more casual James Bond hitting the dirt in action (with blazer), with a side view of Craig pointing his pistol at an unseen assailant with large 007 emblazoned in the background.
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James Bond added another leading lady under his belt after he teamed up with none other than Queen Elizabeth II in a sketch for the opening night of the Olympics in London (with what looked like Her Majesty jumping out of a plane with the eternal superstar agent). Most certainly not quite how it happened, but nevertheless a significant royal boost for 007 ahead of his next adventure. The new international trailer of Skyfall promises more action and intrigue - and of course he's once again ready for the fight, tux in tow.
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*: As determined by Movieline's Institute For the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics after crunching 23 weeks of data from the awards cognoscenti and beyond. Thank you for reading; our work here is done.
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You know that when two of the most respected pundits in all of Oscardom argue (within days of each other!) for curtailing both the epic Academy Awards season race and the ceremony in which it culminates, patience for all this crap is wearing thin. With that in mind — and also considering that the "race" for most of these categories ended weeks or months ago — who's up for an Oscar Index lightning round? (The entire staff at Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics raises its hands.) OK, then — to the Index!
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"Let's have a moment of silence for the suffering Oscar bloggers as they enter the most trying and mortifying weeks of their labors." Such was Glenn Kenny's tweeted lament earlier this week -- one eerily anticipating today's latest, sanity-thrashing edition of Oscar Index. And that's just its effect on readers! You really don't want to see the catatonic pall saturating Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics. On the other hand, we're gonna make a fortune recycling this mounting pile of wine bottles. To the Index!
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It's a little difficult for the specialists at Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics to come into work these days, what with the pall of predictability settling in over the awards landscape and the painstaking studies into backlash physics yielding less and less of practical substance. What's a frustrated kudologist to do? Besides drink for the next four weeks straight, I mean. Let's look for ideas and encouragement for all in this week's Oscar Index.
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What, ya didn't know rapper/personality Ed Lover was a closet cinephile-slash-Oscar pundit? To borrow from the man himself: "C'mon, son!" In a searing video rant over at NextMovie, he reacts to this year's batch of Oscar nominees and glaring snubs (what, no Drive, Harry Potter, or "Dame Julie Dench?") and pretty much takes the words out of my mouth. "They had the Academy Award nominations the other day at like 7 o'clock in the damn morning... C'mon, son!"
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There's good news and bad news to begin this post-nomination, next-to-next-to-next-to-next-to-last installment of Oscar Index. The good news? It's kind of almost over! The bad news? Oy. Please don't make me repeat it.
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Smack in the middle of a two-week frame yielding two awards shows and a pair of nomination announcements that will culminate in this year's Oscar nods, the researchers at Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics have gained minimal insight into where the Academy may take the 2011-12 awards race in next Tuesday's final nominations. Or maybe they're all just sleeping. It's been that kind of year. Let's check their work in this week's Oscar Index.
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What a week at Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics, where the pundits' hustle harmonized with the guilds' bustle to create a heavy-duty wake-up call for some otherwise dormant awards-season underdogs. They also telegraphed danger for a few juggernauts once thought unassailable. What does it all mean as we head into the Critics Choice and Golden Globe Awards weekend? To the Index!
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