Public Enemies - What Did You Think?
Harrison Ford Earned Almost 2.5 Times More Than The Top Earning Actress in 2008
Posted on Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 by Peter Sciretta
Forbes Magazine has released their list of the highest earning actresses, once again proving that Hollywood is sexist. Angelina Jolie tops the list with $27 million, almost two and a half times less than the highest earning male actor (Harrison Ford with $65 million - remember, Crystal Skull was a huge payday). The top 10 actresses earned $183 million, less than half of the $393 million total that makes up the top 10 actors. Check out the top 15 after the jump.
/Film’s Brendon Connelly on the Radio Explaining Those 10 Influential Films…
Posted on Sunday, April 19th, 2009 by Brendon Connelly
After posting my article on what might just be the Ten Most Influential Films of the Last Ten Years, I was invited onto Washington DC’s WJFK radio to talk about it. The show was the BDK Movie Show (it stands for Big Daddy Kev, for those who were wondering - but I just called him Kevin) and it goes out every Friday night from 7pm til 10pm EST.
The segment with me became a podcast that you can download from iTunes, or stream or download from the WJFK site. You can also take a look at the full range of BDK-powered audio downloads which, for example, include the Neveldine and Taylor Crank: High Voltage interview that also featured on Friday night’s show.
Thanks again to WJFK and Kevin McCarthy for featuring /Film on the show, and for giving me a chance to explain quite a bit more about why those particular ten films were on my list. Hopefully this will go someway to answering a number of the questions that came up in the comments section on the original post.
…oh, and yes, I know, I know. I meant four with one more promised, not three, but this was taking place at 1.30am my time.
The Ten Most Influential Films of The Last Ten Years
Posted on Thursday, April 16th, 2009 by Brendon Connelly
Editor’s Note: After Turner Classic Movies released their list of the 15 Most Influential Classic Movies, some people were complaining that no films were included from the last 32 years. I joked on Twitter that I would like to see a list of the ten most influential films of the last ten years, and Brendon jumped at the opportunity to create such a list. The idea is to predict what ten films from this decade would be looked at as influential in 20 years. The task is ridiculous, because its hard to predict the long term effects of the films that were released in the last decade (especially ones released in the last couple years), but Brendon did a pretty good job. It should be noted that Brendon’s list is more skewed towards advances in filmmaking and storytelling which influenced and changed the future of cinema, rather than movies that influenced the culture.
Are these the ten most influential films of the last ten years? I think they might just be. Disappointingly, I really don’t like four of them. I’ve also cheated and only included English language films.
The full list will come after the break, and then after that will come the comments section for your contributions.
To celebrate their 15th anniversary, Turner Movie Classics has released a list of the 15 Most Influential Classic Movies.
“This list of movies signifies films that TCM has deemed influential in the arena of film and the culture that produced them. These are not necessarily the most important films, nor representative of ‘firsts’ in film history—these are the movies that shaped the cinema and the audiences that viewed them.”
I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve only seen 11 out of the 15 films listed. But the remaining four have been added to my must-watch list. How many of the films have you seen? Full list after the jump.
Yahoo has released a list of the 100 Movies To See Before You Die. Fanboys might be angered that The Dark Knight doesn’t make the list, but I’m more angry that Star Wars is listed but not The Empire Strikes Back. Yet they included all three Lord of the Rings films as one entry. Other notable omissions include: David Fincher’s Fight Club or Se7en, Once Upon a Time in the West, North by Northwest, Taxi Driver, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Spirited Away, and Aliens. Like a lot of lists, Yahoo is afraid to praise recent releases. Aside from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, only one movie on the list was released in the last 8 years. Full list, in alphabetical order, after the jump.
Overlooked: The Top 10 Best Performances of 2008 That You May Not Have Heard About
Posted on Sunday, March 1st, 2009 by Steve Mason
The Academy Awards for 2008 have been handed out, and the “popular kids” have Oscars on their mantles, but the dirty little secret about winning awards is that you’ve gotta campaign for them. Thousands of dollars were spent by the distributors and filmmakers behind Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight), Milk (Focus Features), The Reader (Weinstein) and other assorted winners and nominees, but not all performances received that sort of big money backing.
I am an unabashed lover of the acting craft. I see virtually every movie, large and small, that passes through the US marketplace, and, taking nothing away from Sean Penn, Kate Winslet, Penelope Cruz and Heath Ledger, not all of 2008’s best performances have been recognized. I’m not going to be obvious here. Clint Eastwood was snubbed for Gran Torino, but he received lots of acclaim for the role including being named Best Actor by the National Board of Review. My goal is to highlight 10 performances from last year that have received virtually no acclaim in the US. Many of these roles can be found in hardly-seen, under-appreciated movies that came and went without much notice. Each and every one of these movies deserve a spot in your Netflix (or Blockbuster) cue.
My list is by no means definitive. If you have a favorite performance from 2008 that sticks with you, this is a great place to tell the world. There were 20 actors nominated on Oscar night, but there is a lot of great work that hasn’t been recognized with a walk down the red carpet.
Woody Allen and Miyazaki Not Included on EW’s 25 Greatest Active Film Directors List
Posted on Thursday, February 19th, 2009 by Peter Sciretta
Entertainment Weekly just published their list of the 25 Greatest Active Film Directors. It’s one of those really annoying slideshow stories, so we’ve done the legwork and printed the entire shortlist after the jump.
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John Wayne leads list of 10 Best Final Performances in Acting History
Posted on Tuesday, January 13th, 2009 by Steve Mason
I have spent most of my career reporting on and studying sports and entertainment. Athletes and actors have very similar personality traits. In fact, many athletes secretly harbor acting aspirations and plenty of actors wish they could have been pro ballplayers and wind up playing in celebrity all-star games and pro ams.
Some athletes successfully made the transition, like The Dirty Dozen’s Jim Brown, Fred Dryer (TV’s Hunter), My Name Is Earl’s Jason Lee (pro skateboarder) and former Laker Rick Fox (Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns). Others have provided comic relief like Kareem Abdul Jabaar (Airplane!) Julius Irving in 1979’s The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh and, most ridiculous of all, Shaquile O’Neal in Kazaam.
The difficult decision that athletes and actors have in common is when to quit. In baseball, Hall of Famer Willie Mayes lumbered through the outfield for the Mets at Shea Stadium well past his prime, and there was something sad at about watching legendary lefty Steve Carlton as a long reliever for the Minnesota Twins. Boxers like George Foreman and Muhammad Ali are famous for hanging on too long, and we are about to enter another NFL off-season where future Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre will teeter between retirement and one more season.
/Filmcast Ep. 32 - Top 10 Movies of 2008 and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Review
Posted on Wednesday, December 31st, 2008 by David Chen
In this episode of the /Filmcast, Dave, Devindra, and Adam count down their top 10 movies of 2008 and review David Fincher’s beautiful film, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
There will be NO /Filmcast next week, but keep your eye out soon for a special After Dark episode where we chat about the endings of The Wrestler and Doubt. In two weeks (1/12/09), we’ll most likely be reviewing Sam Mendes’ Revolutionary Road, so join us at Slashfilm’s live page when the time rolls around.
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Reader Forum: Why Do You Read End-of-Year Top 10 Lists?
Posted on Thursday, December 25th, 2008 by David Chen
A few weeks ago, I was chatting with a webmaster for a fellow movie website who was voicing his distaste for lists that featured “Top 2008″ movies drastically different from what other critics picked. To him, these types of lists smacked of opportunism and a crass desire to be different for the sake of being different. At the time, I agreed with him. In fact, when I heard Filmspotting give their top 10 movies of 2008 (This is a great episode of an always-great podcast and I highly recommend you give it a download. Full disclosure: I make an appearance in voicemail form to defend Slumdog Millionaire), I was struck by how Michael Phillips from the Chicago Tribune derogatorily explained that 2008 was overall a lackluster year for movies, then proceeded to list 10 movies that most of the moviegoing public hasn’t had a chance to see yet (i.e. some were films he saw in 2007 at festivals like Cannes). On a visceral level, such lists are frustrating because they perpetuate the idea that the critic knows better than the lay filmgoer (if there is such a thing). The choices sound pretentious because they imply access to a whole slate of films that the are inaccessible to the general public. But upon further consideration, I think it’s safe to say that while there are some critics who create these lists purely out of a spirit of contrarianism, more often than not, we’re just demonstrating our idiosyncrasies as film critics/reviewers.
This Monday night, the /Film podcast is going run through our favorite movies of 2008. It’s a fun tradition, and one that actually got us started talking about movies together in the first place. But this year, the tenor of conversation surrounding critics’ lists seems to me more poisonous than in years past. Let’s acknowledge the elephant in the room, of course: Most web readers are essentially evaluating lists based on two criteria: 1) Does it have The Dark Knight on it? and 2) how high is The Dark Knight on the list? If the answer to both these questions is favorable, lavish praise will follow. The absence of Nolan’s film on lists will invite obscene insults of the strongest caliber.
But this led me to wonder: Why exactly do people read these lists anyway?
The Top 10 Lists keep rolling in. First we had Roger Ebert, then Time Magazine, followed by bestselling horror author Stephen King and the American Film Institute.
Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz director Edgar Wright has listed his top 29 films of 2008 on his official blog. Edgar notes that he still hasn’t seen The Wrestler, The Reader, Timecrimes, Funny Games, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Bolt, Valkyrie, Australia, Revolutionary Road and Wendy and Lucy, so the rankings may change in the coming weeks. Check out the list below:
1. Let the Right One In
2. Synecdoche, New York
3. Iron Man
4. Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!
5. Man on Wire
6. Hunger
7. Frost/Nixon
8. The Dark Knight
9. Burn After Reading
10. Wall-E
11. Rachel Getting Married
12. Slumdog Millionaire
13. Happy-Go-Lucky
14. Gran Torino
15. Kung Fu Panda (IMAX)
16. Rec
17. Cloverfield
18. JCVD
19. Son of Rambow
20. Rambo
21. The Ruins
22. Hellboy II: The Golden Army
23. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
24. The Foot Fist Way
25. Tropic Thunder
26. Milk
27. W.
28. Zack and Miri Make a Porno
29. Pineapple Express
Let The Right One In is a great top choice. Synecdoche is a love it or hate it type of film, and obviously Wright loved it. I’m surprised that he ranked Iron Man so much higher than The Dark Knight. I am also surprised to see that he’s listed a lot of the comedy films of the year very low on the list, especially considering his background. But overall its a pretty good list. The only great film (aside from the ones he has listed as unseen) that might be missing aside from the heart-wrenching documentary Dear Zachary. Edgar, if you’re reading this - Please see Dear Zachary!
Update: Wright has since updated his blog with another message saying that he’s now seen Timecrimes and “it was just great”. It seems his Top 29 will be in flux. We might give an update when its final. And reguarding The Dark Knight, Edgar writes: “putting THE DARK KNIGHT at Number 8 does not constitute a backlash. I loved it.”
Discuss: What do you think of Edgar’s list?
via: FirstShowing
Why So Ridiculous? Does The Dark Knight Have The Most Ridiculous Film Plot of 2008?
Posted on Sunday, December 14th, 2008 by Peter Sciretta
The Guardian counts down the eight most ridiculous film plots of 2008, and The Dark Knight places at #1 with this entry:
“Wait, so the Joker really orchestrated that big truck chase just so that he could get caught and go to prison, then he could kidnap that guard and grab his phone to make the call to set off the bomb he’d previously sewn inside the henchman in the next cell? That would kill the guy who stole the mobsters’ money, thus enabling him to … er, what? Heath Ledger’s Joker may have been a psychopath, but he had a nerdish capacity for forward planning.”
And not to mention that Ledger’s character tells Harvey Dent that he’s a guy without a plan, just “a dog chasing cars”. I love the film, but the plot doesn’t exactly hold up to the logic of hindsight.
Discuss: What are your thoughts on the lacking logic of The Dark Knight plot?
