2015 was a year of meager expectations when it came to the Oscars. While controversy surrounded the nomination process, we generally knew who’d take home the major awards. No one gasped in amazement when Birdman took Best Cinematography, or when Patricia Arquette was named Best Supporting Actress for Boyhood. Yet sometimes there is intrigue to be found […]
Movie Fail Tweets the 2015 Academy Awards
Keep it locked here for the Movie Fail live Twitter coverage of the 87th Academy Awards ceremony! The full list of 2015 Oscar nominees can be found here. The one and only Neil Patrick Harris will be hosting. The festivities begin at 7 pm EST on ABC (or online). Tweets by @MovieFailBlog We want to hear […]
Nate’s Top 10 Films of 2014
So many movies released in the past twelve months felt like advertisements that it was nice when the year periodically decided to come back from commercial break. That doesn’t mean that every non-blockbuster was a masterpiece. For every gem like The Grand Budapest Hotel there were duds like Palo Alto or Transcendence. And don’t get me started on The Giver again. I […]
Birdman with J and Søren
J’s Review Birdman comes close to greatness. Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki’s execution of the long take is so successful it almost makes me forget about everything else in the film. I love how it moves from supposed fantasy to supposed reality without cuts, removing the objectivity that comes with a shot change. Watching fantasy elements shift into reality within a […]
Magic in the Moonlight
Amidst his sardonic ramblings, protagonist Stanley (Colin Firth) proudly exclaims, “When the heart rules the head, disaster follows.” What an apt description of Magic in the Moonlight. Woody Allen’s latest is a study in inauthenticity. Stanley is a white man whose job it is to convince audiences he is an Asian mystic. In his spare time, he travels the […]
The Amazing Spider-Man 2
Time is unstoppable. That much is clear in Marc Webb’s second outing with everyone’s favorite wall-crawler. The director opens this film with a close up on the gears of a watch, focusing on time slipping second by second. His use of foreshadowing is blatant, especially if you know a thing or two about a certain […]
Carrey and Daniels Onboard for Dumb and Dumber To
According to a Reddit AMA thread, director Peter Farrelly has confirmed that Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels are going to “totally redeem themselves” in Dumb and Dumber To: “Yes. Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels are in.” If, like me, Dumb and Dumber shaped your childhood, this news is a dream come true. Farrelly goes on to mention some side […]
The Amazing Spider-Man
It has been a long, long decade since Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man debuted in 2002. The comic book film universe has been on a roller coaster of highs and lows, producing everything from drivel like Ang Lee’s Hulk and Brett Ratner’s X-Men: The Last Stand to blockbuster hits like Jon Favreau’s Iron Man and Christopher Nolan’s […]
