Nearly a month after its Oscar-qualifying run found it alienating critics in New York and Los Angeles (and almost two months since indelibly, ignominiously entering the zeitgeist as The Daldry), this week finally finds Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close reaching theaters nationwide. And while roughly half of reviewers to date have lauded director Stephen Daldry's adaptation of the Jonathan Safran Foer novel, the other half has issues -- big issues -- with everything from lead actor Thomas Horn to Daldry's handling of the book's central tragedy of 9/11. It's no Jack and Jill, but that's no reason not to throw on a raincoat and go frolic in the bile. Wish you were here, David Denby!
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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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The first Oscar Index entry of 2012 finds Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics a little hungover from the holidays and lot bored from the protracted inertia of awards season. Not even this week's Producers Guild Award nominations could do much to shake up a contest that appears to be both wide open and solidifying into place at the same time. Let's investigate...
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I'm going to assume none of us learned anything from Garry Marshall's New Year's Eve other than, "I was right to avoid New Year's Eve." Fortunately, there are real lessons to be gleaned from the best in New Year's cinema, and we've lined up five movies with tips for your bash this weekend. Whether you're ringing it in alone or spending it with the grimmest Vietnam vet on Earth, you'll learn something valuable here.
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Well, this should go pretty fast: The holiday week has offered a dearth of new narratives to trace and pulses to take, with only one film demonstrating any significant mobility in the studies coming out Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics. Let's get to it!
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In 2005, when Jonathan Safran Foer's novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was published, Walter Kirn, writing in the New York Times Book Review, summed up the book's "grand ambition" this way: "To take on the most explosive subject available while showing no passion, giving no offense, adopting no point of view and venturing no sentiment more hazardous than that history is sad and brutal and wouldn't it be nicer if it weren't." Kirn couldn't, at that point, have seen Stephen Daldry's film adaptation of the book. But with that sentence, he pretty much wrote the review in advance.
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Screw Christmas. Forget Hanukkah. To hell with New Year's. There is only one holiday we celebrate in the dank, windowless labs of Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics, and that is Oscar Night. Thus the latest edition of Oscar Index, offering all the festive year-end joy you can possibly stand. Let's get to it!
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It's week three of the 2011-12 Oscar Index, and the latest measurements, readings and conclusions are in from Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics. And aside from a few startling exceptions, they don't look that different than the ones disseminated here last week. But make no mistake: Like it or not, stuff is happening! Read on for the latest developments.
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With his nice guy looks and demeanor, Colin Hanks has played a lot of, well, nice guys over the years. But in Gil Cates, Jr.'s Lucky, in limited release this week, the 33-year-old actor and neophyte documentarian throws that image for a loop as Ben, a meek Midwesterner who wins a $36 million lottery jackpot, marries his dream girl (Ari Graynor)... and just so happens to be a serial killer.
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This summer's most unlikely super hero may well be Tom Hanks' titular everyman in Larry Crowne, an unsinkable Navy veteran who loses his job and decides to bounce back by going to college. Star Hanks, who co-writes and directs for the first time since 1996's That Thing You Do!, was taken by the idea of a tale about re-invention, loss, and bouncing back, and reminisced with co-star Julia Roberts about the moment in his life when things looked so dire he wasn't sure a Hollywood career was in the cards.
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Director-star Tom Hanks is trying to tell us something in the new poster for his summer star vehicle. Just take a look at the visual messaging within the new poster for Larry Crowne, which follows a Navy veteran (Hanks) who goes back to community college and falls for a professor (Julia Roberts). Powder blue Vespas! Slightly off-center title placement! This is the summer cure for the middle aged blahs!
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