We can all agree that 2012 has been an excellent year for the movies, but the more salacious among us will note that it's been an awesome year to perv out at the movies. Although we didn't get another look at the Fassmember and all the conflicting feelings it brought up (Hotness! Confusion! Embarrassment at being psyched to see him naked in Shame when actually it's really f***ing depressing!) there were some rather interesting trends that reared their heads that invite a closer look. Whether studios are getting braver or filmmakers are getting bolder is a debate for another time — and please don't suggest that 50 Shades had too much to do with it. Let's salute all the sexin' that happened onscreen in 2012.
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You can have your Top 10 lists stuffed with cold and corny prestige pics and all those “respectable” “films” headed for Oscar gold, but when I think back on 2012 I remember the movies that wrapped themselves around my heart and brain like a warm blanket made of light and sound and kick-ass jammin' electric guitars and made me feel excited to be alive, dammit!
(I can also pinpoint with a wistful pang the precise moment when Tyler Perry broke my heart. Still love you, TP.)
These are the films, big and small, ambitious and soulful, heart-rending and bone-crunching, about lovers, fighters, time-travelers, masters, closet-dwellers, hermaphrodite basketball players and friends (forever) that made my year at the movies. Join me in celebrating these magical movie moments and let's hope 2013 delivers even more awesomeness.
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After so much Zero Dark Thirty domination from the New York Film Critics Circle, their West Coast counterparts in the Los Angeles Film Critics Association made a splash with more art house-leaning picks, voting Michael Haneke's Amour the best film of 2012 — technically a foreign language entry, though Leos Carax's Holy Motors earned that honor. (I see what you did there, LAFCA — and I like it.) LA critics also showed love for Beasts of the Southern Wild, whose non-professional actor/NOLA-area baker Dwight Henry earned a Best Supporting Actor nod, launching his awards season prospects.
Get the full winners after the jump along with results from today's awards announcements from the Boston Society of Film Critics and the New York Film Critics Online groups, both boosters of Kathryn Bigelow and Zero Dark Thirty...
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James Franco as Freddie Quell? It almost happened, the actor revealed during a panel at the Austin Film Festival, until The Master director, Paul Thomas Anderson, asked Franco one little question: "Do you feel like you can do this?"
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Joaquin Phoenix has a collection of awards nominations and wins that many actors would look upon with envy, but he is calling, "bullshit." The actor won applause at the Toronto International Film Festival for his role in Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master and he even picked up a Best Actor prize at the Venice Film Festival last month (shared with Philip Seymour Hoffman). But the actor said he thinks the whole process is the "stupidest thing in the whole world."
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The Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP) unveiled nominees for the 22nd annual Gotham Independent Film Awards Thursday morning with 26 films named in Best Feature, Best Documentary, Best Ensemble Performance, Breakthrough Director, Best Actor and "Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You" categories. Indie favorites Beasts of the Southern Wild, Bernie, Middle of Nowhere, and Moonrise Kingdom received two nominations each. The Gotham Awards ceremony will be held on Monday, November 26th at Cipriani Wall Street in New York.
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When the credits rolled on The Master, I found myself thinking two things: Joaquin Phoenix is going to be nominated for an Oscar, and damn, I could use a drink! Watching Phoenix as feral Freddie Quell make moonshine from torpedo fuel, paint thinner and what appeared to be darkroom chemicals garnished with a mangy citrus fruit reminded me how inspiring it is to see a good mixologist at work. And that spurred me to find one who could invent a proper high-alcohol homage to Paul Thomas Anderson's movie and Phoenix's character that would not require masterminding a heist on The U.S.S. Curtis Wilbur. more »
Glowing reviews and powerhouse performances from Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams have made Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master a hot ticket among actors and industry operatives — with the exception of Tom Cruise's ex-wife Katie Holmes.
Celebrity spotters tell us that Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, Jason Sudeikis, Susan Sarandon, Steve Martin, Sam Rockwell, and filmmakers Spike Jonze and Quentin Tarantino are among the famous faces who've caught the movie during its limited release in New York and Los Angeles. more »
The overall box office weekend was nothing to brag about, with titles falling in the top 10 having the second worst weekend of the year. The overall top 10 only took in just over $65.36 million of which the top two titles, Resident Evil: Retribution (3-D) and Finding Nemo (3-D) accounted for $38.6 million, meaning the bottom 8 only accounted for about $26.76 million - ouch. Though not in the top ten, but with far fewer theaters compared to their studio brethren, the real story goes to The Master, which set a per-screen average record of over $145K in its roll out. And Arbitrage placed in the top 12 with a $10,506 average in just under 200 theaters.
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Also in Monday morning's round-up of news briefs, a Fox studio co-head prepares to leave, consolidating leadership at the movie giant. Author Salman Rushdie says a controversial book he published in '88 would "never be published today." And remembering film professional/journalist Sandy Mandelberger.
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The Master, the new film from Paul Thomas Anderson, is the story of a spiritual duel — the battle for a soul — though only one of the participants perceives it as such. Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman), the mystic of the title, is the leader of a young movement not unlike what evolved into a certain real life one well entrenched in the entertainment industry. It's 1950, and he finds a stowaway on his ship, a drunk vagabond who claims to be an able-bodied seaman and who asks for work. The man's name is Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix), he fought in the war, and he's not mentally stable, either because of his experiences in battle or because stability was just never meant for him.
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An advance screening of Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master brought out the glitterati to New York's Ziegfeld Theater on Tuesday night. Walking the red carpet before show time were cast member Amy Adams, actors Adrien Brody and Edward Norton, plus a few of our favorites from everyone’s latest HBO obsession, Girls.
During the frenzied step-and-repeat, reporters referenced the film's story — which involves an L. Ron Hubbard-like cult founder — to pose questions about Scientology. This didn't exactly go over well, and a lot of those questions went unanswered. Given the film's title, Movieline decided to let our interview subjects be the, um, masters of their own domains and asked them a single question: if you were going to start a cult, what would be its core idea or principle? more »
There's a scene in the Paul Thomas Anderson's enthralling new film The Master where Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman) — founder and leader of a cult-like movement called The Cause — instructs his "guinea pig and protege," the aptly named Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix) to face another man hurling taunts and insults at him without losing his hair-trigger temper.
I felt like I was being put through a similar test on Tuesday night when, after being invited to a hastily arranged 70-millimeter advance screening of The Master at the wonderful Ziegfeld Theater in Manhattan, I arrived at the will-call table to find a crowd that, had they been carrying torches, would have been at home in the angry villagers scene of Frankenstein. more »
Do Paul Thomas Anderson and The Weinstein Co. need to worry about the Church of Scientology? Following the New York Post's report of "strange calls" and mounting opposition among members of the organization to pseudo-Scientology pic/festival darling The Master, TWC confirmed to Movieline that the studio has increased security for tonight's premiere at New York's Ziegfield Theatre.
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If there is any disappointment or bitterness that The Master was set to receive the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival today, only for the top prize there to be "re-assigned" due to a rule limiting the number of awards one title can receive, then director Paul Thomas Anderson did not show it this afternoon at the Toronto International Film Festival where the film is having its North American premiere. Anderson along with actress Amy Adams and producer JoAnne Sellar spoke with reporters at the festival along with TIFF co-director Cameron Bailey.
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