Forget Kathryn Bigelow and The Hurt Locker, the big winners over the weekend were Johnny Depp and Tim Burton. Alice in Wonderland, the tandem’s seventh collaboration, crushed the competition with a ridiculous $116.3 million opening. For reference, that was roughly $50 million more than the other nine movies in the top-ten grossed combined. As we Read More
Well, so that happened! Was it just us or were these just the most tediously boring Oscars in ages? And who should we blame? Maybe we should start with the very strange stage design, which we’re guessing was intended to be a nod to old Hollywood glamour, but felt more like an early-’70s Read More
In this morning’s Observer, Richard Siklos writes about the Academy Awards’ new voting system, and the lengthy politicking process that has everyone hopeful of bringing down the front-runners. “[T]he extra time has also allowed awards campaigners to reach deep into their bag of tricks,” he writes.
A little too deep apparently. The L.A. Times Read More
The Academy Awards may belong to Los Angeles, but that doesn’t mean that The Observer and fellow New Yorkers can’t boldly declare what Ought To Be. We give you Oscar picks by coastal sensibilities–and who’s got the edge in the end.
With the calendar turned over to December and the Carpetbagger blogging once again (now with a new Bagger!), awards season has officially started. And to that we say: finally. In an effort to get a jump on the equally irrelevant Golden Globes, Film Independent announced the nominees for the 25th annual Spirit Awards Read More
Normally you have to be some kind of big shot—or perhaps familiar in the art of bit torrent downloading, which we are not—to get an Academy Awards screener. But today, everyone has the opportunity to go to their local Best Buy or Blockbuster (these places still exist!) and pick up a copy of not one, Read More
Reason No. 68 why the disconnect between film critics and moviegoers is bigger than ever: The elitism of the old guard. Over the course of the past week, well known and nominally intelligent film critics Roger Ebert and A.O. Scott both wrote that the decline of the film industry is in Read More
If you trek to the theaters this weekend, we hope you’re prepared to encounter hordes of killer robots (and teenage boys). Four movies hit the multiplex today, but all anyone will really care about come Monday morning is Transformers. As we do every Friday, here’s a handy guide to the new releases.
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Break out the SPF 50! The summer movie season starts in earnest this weekend with the openings of X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past and, frankly, we could not be more excited. Bank on the next four months being filled up by superheroes, stunted man-children, teenage wizards and an unusual amount of killer Read More
