The New Year!

First, let's get this out of the way:

The 10 Best Movies I Saw In 2012

10. Dredd

Karl Urban's Chin for Best Supporting Actor

I will defend this movie until the end of time.  It was concise, exciting, well-edited, excellently visualized, very well acted, and some of the most fun I had at the movies all year.  It managed yet another post-apocalyptic wasteland story without being boring or tired, by staying focused on the minutia of the story...while ALSO not overburdening the viewer with unnecessary (to the story) details.  Plus, HELLA REWATCH VALUE.  See my full review here.

9. The Words

Bradley Cooper for Best Smarming Author

This movie is a lot of things I don't usually care for - generally unhappy, lacking a satisfying ending, and featuring some really unhappy, unlikable characters.  But I appreciate The Words for daring to be unsatisfying in a world that is too full of pandering, safe choices when it comes to film.  It's compelling and bold in its refusal to play to your expectations.  See my full review here.

8. ParaNorman

Laika Studios for Most Exciting Animation Studio

While I still think the ending could have been composed better, ParaNorman wins major points from me for daring to be different - especially when you stack it next to the stale, rehashed Frankenweenie (same genre, similar subjects, but Frankenweenie reeks of Tim Burton's overused storytelling).  ParaNorman works with a lot of the same material - the undead, an outcast main character, etc.) but does so in a way that feels fresh, vibrant, and, occasionally, legitimately scary.  If Laika Studios could keep making macabre children's stories, that would be fantastic.  See my full review here.

7. Skyfall

Best Use of Assassination Glass.  Also that giant lizard for Best Deus Ex Lizard, but I couldn't find a screencap of that.

Daniel Craig seems to be my Bond of choice - I was never invested in them until he donned the perfectly tailored suit and started kicking faces in.  Skyfall manages to feel like a classic Bond film while still retaining that signature Craig style that I've come to be so fond of, and is dotted with class-act performances by the indomitable Dame Judy Dench, the oily Javier Bardem, and the clever Ben Whishaw and Naomie Harris.  It's also extremely beautiful to watch, and very well orchestrated.  See my full review here.

6. Looper

Joseph Gordon-Levitt for Best Healer of Paradoxes

I haven't done a full review of Looper, because I only watched it a couple weeks ago - but I'm including it here because it was a 2012 movie and because it was such a fabulous science fiction film that is ALSO a great example of how to do time travel effectively.  What lacked for me in the performances (Joseph Gordon-Levitt is intentionally detached, which works for the movie but made it hard for me to connect with him and, by extension, Bruce Willis as older-him, but Emily Blunt, and the kid who plays her son, were fantastic) was more than made up for in the vision, scope and cohesiveness of the film.  It is really easy for time travel movies to lose track of what they're doing, or to get lost in their own mechanics, but Looper maintains a consistent set of rules for time travel which, while they aren't my personal views on the subject, were internally consistent and ultimately easy to follow.  I'm hoping the positive reception that Looper had means we're going to get more original science fiction - if it's all as good as this, we'll be in excellent shape.

5. Wreck-It Ralph

Vanellope and Ralph for Cutest BFFs

For the first time I can remember, Disney and Pixar released movies in the same year...and Disney's was better.  Like, by a LOT.  Brave fell so flat for me, and Wreck-It Ralph was emotional, and engaging, and fun, and can I be Vanellope when I grow up?  (Or an Nintendo make Sugar Rush a real game for the Wii?  Because seriously.)  This was also so clearly a labor of love - the attention to the little details, like the way an eight-bit character moves compared to a character from a modern Halo clone, show the respect the filmmakers have for their source material.  The whole film honors the video game medium in a really touching way.  I had a serious case of warm fuzzies when the credits rolled.

Also, Wreck-It Ralph gets major points for making me feel like I knew where the ending was going, but then surprising me with a finale that was both foreshadowed but unexpected. 

4. Cabin in the Woods

Best Use of Zombie Redneck Torture Family

I thought I knew what was coming, and then I REALLY, REALLY DIDN'T.  By now, you know that Cabin in the Woods is not your typical horror movie - how could it be, when it's a Whedon project? - but if you haven't seen it, I'm betting you don't realize how THOROUGHLY not typical it really is.  While I don't make a habit out of watching horror film, I like reading horror lit and reading about horror film, so I'm pretty familiar with most of the common tropes and what's been done to death.  Cabin in the Woods looks those tropes in the eyes, laughs dismissively, and then frolics gaily all over them.  It doesn't just rip them to pieces, it revels in tearing them apart.  The ending is pretty whackjob nuts, but so is the rest of the film; right after viewing, I wasn't sure how I felt about it, but on contemplation I don't think it could have ended any other way and retained that sense of insanity.  Plus, there are so many little details and touches that make this a fun experience to watch, it invites rewatches just so you can see what you may have missed the first time around.

3. The Avengers

Best Smartasses

If The Dark Knight is the platonic ideal of a superhero movie, then The Avengers is the platonic ideal of a superhero ensemble movie (good luck, Justice League.  You're gonna need it).  I've watched this one several times since its release on DVD, and let me tell you, that final battle sequence never feels overly long or stale.  The Hulk beating the shit out of Loki never gets less funny, Mark Ruffalo always breaks my heart, and my need for a Black Widow/Hawkeye prequel grows ever stronger.  See my full review here.

2. Argo

Best Deployment of an Expletive: "Argo Fuck Yourself."

I had a rough time deciding which of these last two movies got to be number one on my list, and honestly, it changes depending on how I feel.  While they're both historicals and period pieces, Argo is tight, exciting, and provides a fascinating look into the machinations of an area of government that gets maligned quite a bit. It's a spy movie about real spies, and Affleck skillfully works tension into the story even though we all knew (sort of) how it ended.  

See my full review here.

1. Lincoln

Best Use of Daniel Day Lewis. Don't lie, you think so too.

Lincoln, on the other hand, is thoughtful, a story with no less importance but minus some of the urgency thanks to Daniel Day Lewis' performance.  Lewis is playing an old, worn down, brilliant man in his twilight days, and it's evident in every line on his face and every angle of his body.  His Lincoln is both a powerful, commanding leader and a compassionate storyteller, and Lewis mediates between them effortlessly.  The film is also refreshing in that it shows a pretty complete portrait of what was going on during Lincoln's attempts to bring the Civil War to a close.  There's a lot of political wheeling and dealing that isn't flattering to the President (or anyone), but it feels honest.

So what's coming up for the blog this year?  My New Year's Resolution for Boycott BluRay is to see at least  two movies a month in the theater, trying for more - I always reach the end of the year wishing I'd gotten to see more movies, so in 2013 I'm going to commit to doing just that.  I'm also resolving to post reviews within 48 hours of seeing a film, to keep things current (to me, anyway).

I'm going to feature more different kinds of articles as well, like more Trailer Talk (which is super fun to write) and more ruminations about things movie-related that are not necessarily about new releases.  So on the first day of the month, in addition to whatever reviews I've posted, I'll be writing to you about...well, something movie adjacent.  Stay tuned!

Movies Coming Out In 2013 That I'm Excited About

Gangster Squad

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

Warm Bodies

Now You See Me

Oblivion

Iron Man 3

The Great Gatsby

Star Trek Into Darkness

Man of Steel

Monsters University

Pacific Rim

The Wolverine

Elysium

Carrie

Ender's Game

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

How Les Miserables Hit Me Right In The Feels

I think the best part about Les Miserables is how deeply unforgiving Tom Hooper is towards his actors.  There's no breathing space in the film, not in the tempo and not in the cinematography; he forces the camera into the faces of people playing deeply unhappy, desperate, broken people and forces the audience to take it all, every drop of that bitterness and death.  When Anne Hathaway sings "I Dreamed A Dream," you have to look at her while she breaks down and weeps through the number.  It is haunting, and uncomfortable, and awkward, and the only way I'm going to picture that song from now until I die.

Hooper has harnessed the power of misery in his adaptation, contrasting the narrow vision of the musical when it focuses on the circumstances of individuals with the scope of the historic event it frames.  The solo numbers are framed tightly, as I mentioned above, and the group numbers are big and swelling and stirring.  Almost every actor is perfection (I would have swapped Eddie Redmayne with Aaron Tveit, who plays Enjolras), even the ones I had trepidation about - while I was confident that Russell Crowe would capture the martial nature of Javert, I didn't know if he could sing.  He's not as vocally strong as Hathaway or Hugh Jackman, but his rough tenor works, especially in "The Confrontation" and "Stars."

Hooper's singers are strong, but they're not perfect (well, except Samantha Barks, who plays Eponine and is completely flawless in every way), and this works for the film.  No one is ever clean, and someone is usually crying.  It's gritty and real without losing musicality (something that Tim Burton forgot while filming Sweeney Todd).  While Redmayne wasn't my favorite, he still broke my heart singing "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables."  It's an extraordinarily well composed film.  Jackman started strong and finished strong, but I was a little disappointed with his midshow performance, especially during "Bring Him Home;" for someone with actual Broadway experience, I wish he would have kept the song in a register he could realistically manage.

It's not all horror, though, and Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter are pitch perfect as the Thenardiers.  They are funny without detracting from the seriousness of the material, and absurd without being out of place.  Even their costuming, garish and clownlike, meshes well with the muted color palette.

My biggest issue with the film is that even at 2 hours and 40 minutes, it feels rushed.  Hooper leaves no time in between each song to let the scenes breathe; even within some of the larger numbers, he leaps from person to person in a matter of seconds, often before they've finished singing a measure.  I very, very rarely say this, but here Hooper could have committed to a full three hours - or committed to shaving off a number or two, and improving the ones he kept.

Some of the camerawork was not good.  Crowe in particular got the brunt of this; Hooper seemed obligated to include the same upward sweep of him almost every time Crowe was in the scene.  Hooper also utilizes handheld shaky cam a few times, not enough to make it a Thing for the film but just often enough to be distracting.  The weather also seemed a little out of control; it rains when Hooper needs it to rain, and stops when he needs it to stop (such as "On My Own," a small oasis of rain before the grand "One Day More" begins).

Overall, it's a gut-wrenching film, which it should be.  I felt emotionally wrung out at the end, a little overwhelmed and a little exhausted.  While it has flaws, I feel like they're pretty nitpicky; in general, Hooper has done a solid job of adapting this musical to film, and of making it feel cinematic.

The Hobbit: An Addendum

So, as you might have been able to tell from my first post about The Hobbit, the movie gave me a lot of feels.  Most of which came from the fact that I wanted to like it a lot more than I did - not that I didn't like it, I did quite a bit, but I was still kind of disappointed in the final product.  Which led pretty directly to me writing a "review" which didn't actually say anything useful at all, but whined a lot and threw in some stuff about dwarves.  This addendum is my attempt to say something substantive about the movie itself.

I did not see The Hobbit in 48fps, or even in IMAX.  Because of this I didn't have the hyper-realism issue that many people have been complaining about; however (and I don't know if this is BECAUSE I saw it in standard form, or if everyone had this problem), there were several panoramic scenes that ended up blurry and headache-y for me.  This was especially problematic because they were scenes I wanted to see - the opening scene of Erebor, the dwarven city, for example, and the goblin underground compound.  New Zealand is used to great effect, and Jackson definitely remembers how to use great sweeping panoramas to good effect, but the film is a little heavy on the scenery porn, which matters more because of how padded the movie already feels.

The scale of the movie is pretty grand - Jackson proved he was great at doing epics with LOTR, and he brings that same sense of grandeur to The Hobbit.  It works to mediate some of the tonal dissonance that the film has, since there's not as much of that weighty feeling to the book; The Hobbit adapted scenes are very true to the spirit of the book - lighter, with some levity, while the material from the ROTK appendices (most particularly a meeting between Gandalf, Galadriel, Sarumon and Elrond) is more serious, more ponderous.  While individually, every scene is pretty great, they don't transition very well..  The opening sequence, where we learn the history of the dwarves and their homeland, gives gravity to the story; as I'm thinking about it right now, part of the problem I may be having is that we got the big sweeping epic FIRST and are only now going back to the prequel story, which puts more expectation on The Hobbit to be similar to LOTR in terms of tone and feeling.  Jackson does a good job of incorporating his extra material, showing that the story he's trying to tell is bigger than just The Hobbit text, but staying true to all his sources hurts him in terms of meshing the elements together.

All in all, The Hobbit was an enjoyable, but flawed, experience.  I think we were all expecting something more, which is why it's getting so slammed in reviews right now - it's a pretty good movie, and we were expecting something great.  I hope parts two and three deliver a little bit more.

The Hobbit

The Hobbit is not Lord of the Rings.

I expressed concern when the first trailer hit, because it looked way too much like LOTR rescrambled with a different hobbit, and having read The Hobbit I wanted a movie that let the merits of that story shine without being overshadowed by the darker, more serious events of LOTR.

Well...yes and no.  The story Peter Jackson is telling here is much larger than what's contained in The Hobbit, which is why I'm finally comfortable with the fact that we're getting three movies (for a great rundown of what Jackson's doing with Tolkein's extended mythology, read this explanation by Dresden Codak author and artist, Aaron Diaz.  His whole tumblr right now is full of awesome LOTR, Hobbit, and Silmarillion facts).  But...

But.

There are two things that weaken this movie tremendously, and one of them is the constant insistence that this movie IS related to LOTR and IS a prequel and dammit, how many parallels can we fit into this film?  It's detrimental; Thorin Oakenshield is a badass with an awesome backstory, he doesn't need to be constantly and bluntly compared to Aragorn.  There's even one instance of a deus ex machina from Fellowship being directly reused, in a scene that was changed from the Hobbit text (not that I'm objecting to the fact that the book was changed - I'm objecting to the fact that Jackson reuses a terrible plot device that didn't work that well in the first place).

Radagast is pretty magnificent and I basically won't hear a word against him.

The other thing that hurts the movie is length; even with the added material, this didn't need to be a three hour movie.  I would go so far as to say it could have fit just as much story, and just as much scenery, comfortably into two hours and been a stronger film for it.  There are two scenes in particular, a chase scene and a battle, that are long to the point of being ridiculous and tiresome.  Edit more better, Jackson!  I know you can do it.

Some good stuff!  The dwarves are excellent.  Even though, for all its length, some of them are confined to caricatures and cut-outs (Bombur's most memorable characteristics are "fat" and "donut beard"), they still end up being memorable, and fun to spend screen time with.  They are also fierce; unlike the hobbits, who will always look a little funny with swords in their hands (intentionally, I think), the dwarves are true warriors.  They are also the best channel for the book's levity to come through; the scene where you meet them at Bilbo's house was one of my favorites in the whole film.

If my beard was this majestic, I'd want to be remembered for it too.

I don't really know how to talk about Riddles in the Dark, except by saying that it's the centerpiece of the movie, and could stand alone as its own short film.  It's amazing, and Martin Freeman (fabulous, amazing, I-don't-think-they-could-have-made-this-without-him Martin Freeman) sells the hell out of it.  It's kind of like Jackson conceived of this scene, and built the rest of the movie to support it (which is entirely possible, it's the cornerstone moment of the film, after all).  It's also a great way of starting the descent into darkness from the bright tones of the opening acts, and it's a great lead-in to part two.

Shall I talk some about Martin Freemen?  He's flawless, really.  He hits such the perfect tone, unassuming and pretty self-deprecating, that when his moments of bravery come he looks just as surprised as everyone else.  He makes those moments believable, as well - it's not like his cleverness in the face of danger comes out of nowhere.  He's always been a smart hobbit, and now he has the chance to be a hero, even if someone else will probably have to tell him when it happens.

Skyfall

I wasn't really a Bond fan until Daniel Craig remastered the superspy into a gritty, punchy daredevil, and I'm pleased to say that Skyfall represents a brilliant comeback from the plodding, dusty Quantum of Solace.  It's exciting, cohesive, and a more streamlined story, which gives some truly excellent character acting its chance to shine.  Reviewers are raving about Judi Dench and Javier Bardem for good reason - Bardem's peroxide blonde villain is slick and slippery, outwardly polished and maniacally twisted.  He is a polished psychopath; Entertainment Weekly compares him, aptly, to Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter.  He's chilling.  And if the Academy can nominate Johnny Depp for Pirates of the Caribbean, surely they can find it in their hearts to recognize Bardem.

What I deeply appreciated about Skyfall is that it's a serious action film that isn't afraid to be cheeky.  Casino Royale was an introduction to a new kind of Bond - not afraid to get dirty, more inclined to feats of parkour than gadgetry, it showed us the dark side of espionage (while still managing to include the obligatory martini and tailored suit).  Skyfall melds that with the more classic Bond feel, bringing back Q (Ben Whishaw, completely charming in the role) and some of the gadgets, as well as giving nods to some Bond staples (like the indomitable Aston Martin).  While there is never any danger of Skyfall veering into camp territory, it seamlessly brings back more elements of a previous Bond era.  Adele's theme song works into this as well; it has a very smoky, kind of scratchy 60's feel and I LOVE it.

(A side note about Q: I appreciated that Bond and I had the same thought about him at the same time.  Namely: "Dude, you're like TEN.")

I would also like to point out, without spoiling anything, that Skyfall has the best use of Chekov's Gun I have ever seen.  It is MASTERFUL, and it is batshit crazy, and I didn't think it would happen but then Christmas came early and I got the ludicrous death I so deeply deserved.  I won't tell you what it is, but I guarantee you'll know it when you see it.

I had planned to address the "Bardem as possibly gay" question, but...it doesn't really matter.  There's a scene between Bardem and Craig that might be flirting, might be gay chicken, might be a lot of things - the only thing about it that actually matters is that Bardem makes your skin crawl.  My personal interpretation is that Craig's Bond is simply trying to unseat Bardem's villain in the only way he currently can; I can't imagine that someone as savvy as Bond has never used sex as a weapon before.

(Also, if you're honestly getting your panties in a twist about Bond drinking a Heineken, he was on a BEACH in a SHACK.  Dude has to make due with what he has!)

More Scary Movies I Secretly Like Watching

Happy Halloween, my lovely haunted readers!  Tonight is Halloween, and in the spirit of the holiday I would like to both direct you to my Top Ten Horror Films I Secretly Kind Of Like, a list I made last year, and to also provide an addendum list (because, let's face it, I can talk all I want to about not liking horror movies - the truth is I am fascinated by them).

28 Days Later

That early scene, when Cillian Murphy stumbles out of the hospital and into the empty streets of London, is one of the eeriest things to be committed to film.  One of the brilliant things this movie does, that not many have tried to replicate, is change our expectations of the zombies: not only are they brutal, vicious, and hungry, but they're fast.  Zombies went from shambling horrors to rabid predators, more likely to dispense with the moaning and just rip into you with guttural shrieking.  Shivers.

(The use of red in the color palette of 28 Days Later is also interesting to note, for people who notice that kind of thing.  It borders on abrasive and gives me a headache, which was probably the point.)

Drag Me To Hell

Campy, over-the-top, and with a simplistic message (do unto others, and all that), Drag Me To Hell still manages some of the best jump scares in recent film.  Allison Lohman plays the loathsome Christine, a loan officer eager for a pay raise who declines to extend a loan to an old gypsy woman.  Christine apparently missed the memo on why it's a terrible idea to cross old gypsy women, because she finds herself the owner of a particularly nasty curse.  Thinking about the ending still makes me jump a little.  

Halloween

There are two classics on here, included because sometimes the originals are just better.  Halloween is scary because not only are there no ghosts, monsters or zombies, but because Michael Meyers doesn't have anything obviously wrong with him.  He's no Damien, no disciple of the devil, no possessed little boy - he's just a psychopath, enraged by young women who remind him of his slutty sister.  The blank white mask, which removes any trace of humanity, feels more like his face than any real one could.

Night Watch

I highly recommend watching this one with subtitles, because the cinematography actually incorporates them into the fabric of the film.  Watching a vampire lure a human through psychic calling is much creepier when the subtitles are red, and fade away like blood dissipating in water.  This movie, which is also the reason I get nervous around large flocks of crows, is about the supernatural forces that guard against each other and keep the world in balance...and what happens when a force too powerful to contain is released in Moscow.  It's beautiful and exciting, horror with a touch of class.  If you liked Let The Right One In you'll probably dig Night Watch.

Nightmare on Elm Street

The other classic I felt it was necessary to include.  A lot of horror deals with the invasion of so-called "safe" spaces, but none are as effective as the ghoul that can literally kill you in your dreams.  There's no hiding under the blankets here, and to know Freddy is to be killed by him.  Have fun trying to sleep tonight...

The Others

A shoestring budget and almost zero special effects give this one a lovely classic feel.  While not filmed in black and white, it may as well have been - the single location of the film is inside a great big house with all the windows boarded up to protect Nicole Kidman's children from their allergy to sunlight.  Shadows, light and darkness make up the special effects and create a mood so profoundly eerie that you'll find yourself jumping at nothing.  Very reminiscent of the original House on Haunted Hill.

[REC]

Another fun zombie movie that mixes them in with the found footage trope.  [REC] is kissing cousins with 28 Days Later, dealing with a virus and fast zombies, but adding an element of claustrophobia with the locked down building that the whole film takes place in.  In general, I think the found footage thing is a little played out, but this story of an apartment building dealing with a quarantine and horrifying monsters is exciting enough to get a pass.  

Red Dragon

Edward Norton makes almost as good of a foil for Anthony Hopkins as Jodie Foster.  Ralph Fiennes as the mumbling, wounded Francis Dolarhyde is a softer, though no less dangerous, villain than Buffalo Bill, which gives the whole film a different flavor when it could very easily have ended up being a rehash of Silence of the Lambs.  Also, as an English major, I can't resist the literary influence that Blake has on the film.  

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil

Making fun of every slasher film you've ever loved.  This wonderfully composed satire isn't light on the jump scares or the gore, and it's tempting to cover your eyes even while you're still laughing.  Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine play rednecks up for some fishing in the woods who have the unfortunate luck to stumble across a group of college co-eds, who become convinced that the two hapless hillbillies are actually serial killers.  This is only reinforced when the kids start dying in hilariously accidental ways (a woodchipper may be involved).

The Wolfman

I refer here to the 2010 version, starring Benicio del Toro and Anthony Hopkins, which doesn't get enough credit as far as I'm concerned.  As a werewolf film it does some things quite well: it tells the story of the inner struggle between man and beast, and wonders if that struggle is universal and some are just better at suppressing it than others.  As any good monster film should, it has philosophical ideals framed in terms of literal monstrousness...but doesn't romanticize the monsters.  These werewolves are not your friends, and they will definitely eat you if given half the chance.

OscarWatch 2012: It Begins!

September is well over and we are deep into OscarWatch - something that was made QUITE clear to me on Sunday, when I went to see Argo.

Argo is a stunning film.  It is tense and claustrophobic, exciting and unbelievable - made even more so by the fact that it IS A TRUE STORY.  I repeat: the CIA inventing a fake Star Wars ripoff, press release and terrible poster included, in order to rescue six people from being publicly beheaded in Iran, ACTUALLY HAPPENED.  As with any film adaptation of historical events, I imagine things may have been spiced up a bit for the screen...although the way Ben Affleck presents it on screen feels very true to life, down to the terrible 70s mustaches and slightly grainy film quality.  It's harrowing, watching the six Americans get more and more convinced that they're going to die in the Canadian Embassy, and thrilling to watch the admittedly half-assed plan take shape.  At one point, Bryan Cranston as the CIA Chief refers to Plan: Argo as "The best, worst idea we've got."  That hopelessness, that desperation, drips off the film - which makes the payoff even more worth it.  Everything about this movie is brilliant and you should go see it, posthaste.

AwardWatch: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay (there's a book!  I wanna read it.).  Possibly a Best Actor nom for Affleck.  Best Visual Effects.  In my fantasies, John Goodman or Alan Arkin pulls a Best Supporting Actor nomination, but I don't think it's too likely.

Let's take a look at the other hardcore Oscar Bait movies I saw trailers for, and make some predictions over what awards these films will pull:

Life of Pi

Stunning, stunning trailer.  I haven't read the book yet (I KNOW), but if one was going to make a film adaptation about a boy in a boat with a tiger, I would want it to look like this.  And Ang Lee has serious philosophical chops (which worked for Brokeback Mountain, not so much for Hulk), so I think we can expect cerebral and gorgeous things from this one.  Plus, the word from the early release at the New York Film Festival has been largely positive.

AwardWatch: Best Cinematography for sure.  Best Adapted Screenplay is also a pretty safe bet.  Best Director and Best Picture, MAYBE, but it depends on how the Academy feels about another 3D feature by someone with less pull than James Cameron.

Cloud Atlas

This feels like the illegitimate lovechild of The Fountain and Tree of Life to me, which gives me conflicted feelings.  I want it to be more Fountain and less bullshit - but it looks potentially overwrought, over-complicated, and unintelligible.  I won't mind the skips around in time and place if the story stays streamlined, and I don't have a lot of hope for that.  Looks pretty beautiful, though.

(On a related note, a Google Image search of "Cloud Atlas" brings up what looks like pictures from seventeen different movies.  This is my concern: that it will not only be overly complicated, but disconnected and incomprehensible.)

AwardWatch: After last year's Tree of Life event, I don't think this one has a lot of hope for Best Picture.  Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography and Visual Effects and probably Art Direction, Best Costumes and Best Makeup nominations are assured, and it'll probably pull some other technical awards - I can see Best Film Editing and Sound Mixing, and Sound Track if the Cloud Atlas sonata score was written for the movie.

Lincoln

It is deeply ironic that this film is being released in the same year as Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.  Ironic and a little sad, because AL:VH might have had more pull as a summer action flick if it hadn't drawn the inevitable comparisons to Spielberg's historical beauty.  Ah well.  

AwardWatch: Possibly everything.  Best Actor for Daniel Day Lewis for sure, Best Picture, Best Director.  Best Original Screenplay?  Probably.  Best Costumes and Makeup, because duh, it's a historical.  Best Art Direction, Cinematography, probably a Best Supporting Actor nominee in there (my bet is on Tommy Lee Jones), and Best Supporting Actress for Sally Field.