Tonight is the one time of year when cinephiles all around the globe are glued to the tube. The 85th annual Academy Awards are being handed out, and every year, the producers of the show promise it will be better. Every year, the audience hopes it will be better. And maybe one of these days, it will be better. Will tonight be that night? We won’t know until it’s over. In the never-ending search for the perfect host, the academy is hoping that Seth McFarlane, creator of TV’s Family Guy, and writer / director of last year’s surprise hit movie Ted, will step up to the plate and hit a home run.
Well, I guess everything comes to an end. I think we’re beginning to see the end of the constant parade of shoot-em-up cop movies that captured our hearts and minds in the 1980s and are still being made today. For now.
Sometimes it’s nice to go to a movie and spend a couple of hours with the old pros, especially when the film seems like it’s going to be one thing on the surface, and turns out rather different. The film is Stand Up Guys, and it came into town last week with little, if any, fanfare. It’s not playing everywhere, just a few select locations. Even film sites such as the Internet Movie Data Base and Google tag it as a “comedy.” Sure, there’s humor and a couple of laughs, but it’s definitely not The Sunshine Boys as Goodfellas.
Now that the holidays are past, it’s time for the folks at Cincinnati World Cinema to get back to work doing what they do best: presenting interesting film programs unlike those seen in the commercial venues. In the next several days, they have two different programs, which should be of interest to film buffs of every stripe.
Writer-director David O. Russell has a great touch when it comes to working with words and actors. He is best known for Three Kings, the Persian Gulf War film starring George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg, and The Fighter, also starring Wahlberg, in which Russell directed virtual unknown Melissa Leo to an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
