I thought this was pretty slight -- thought the acting isn’t bad, in an improvy way. But the rationalizations, soul-searching and evasions of the two, under the writer-directorial hand of Lynn Shelton (who appears briefly as one of the lesbian partiers), while believable, didn’t strike me as that funny.  Humpday also boasts one of the worst  pickup basketball games I‘ve seen. Are these guys basketball virgins as well?

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35 Weeks to Oscar
The Next Oscars Will Be Rated X
by David Poland

It also strikes me, when laying out the season to come, is that the expansion that we all knee-jerked into being such a very big deal seems to be falling into some pretty traditional patterns. Paramount and Warner Bros. have the most pictures in play. Sony Classics has a number of titles, all of which have more muscle in categories other than Best Picture. And everyone else tends towards one-offs.

But as you'll see... even with the contenders being bunched, the resulting nominations could be quite unexpected.

Brüno	38.2	n/a	40	37	-n/a
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs	24	n/a	23	22	n/a
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen	20.5	n/a	19	19	n/a

Voynaristic
The Slippery Slope of Truth in Non-Fiction Films
by Kim Voynar

What's the point of documentary storytelling? Is it merely to frame and tell the story the filmmaker wants to tell, with no claim whatsoever to objectivity? It seems we're seeing a lot of this type of social justice, agitprop documentary of late—films that we're not supposed to criticize and stories we're not supposed to question because their cause is so "worthy"—and I find this troublesome not only from the viewpoint of analyzing and critiquing the films, but for the mixed messages they're sending to their audience.

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MCN DVD Wrap
Push

Set in China, the movie looks pretty cool, and some of the special effects are quite well done. A couple of them are worth the price of admission, alone. (For instance, there’s a gun fight in which the weapons levitate, move and shoot on the orders of good and evil “pushers.”) As if to justify the two-hour length of the movie, the extras include a featurette on ways various government agencies have attempted to exploit the powers of psychics, while also dismissing ESP as a bunch of hooey.

Also ... Knowing, Night Train, Le Jupon Rouge, Garrison Keillor: The Man on the Radio in the Red Shoes, and more!

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Wilmington on DVDs
Knowing, Quo Vadis?, Lonely Are The Brave
by Michael Wilmington

I might be making all this sound a little silly, but I couldn’t possibly make it sound as silly as it really is. For example, at one point, the teacher in charge of the time capsule makes her kids race through their drawings/predictions in the last minute, ripping Lucinda’s numbers out of her hands. Koestler keeps running from disaster to disaster -- the numbers sheet includes latitude and longitude of the locations -- with the cops never listening to his warnings, even after he develops a superb catastrophe track record.

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The Ultimate DVD Geek
Waltz with Bashir
by Doug Pratt

In 2008, however, there was finally a film produced that demonstrates what incredible power and flexibility the genre can have, and it was so unusual that the establishment didn't even acknowledge what it was, nominating it not for a Best Animation or Best Documentary Oscars, but for Best Foreign Film, Waltz with Bashir, now available from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

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Frenzy on the Wall
The Hurt Locker: A War Story for Our Time
by Noah Forrest

In Three Kings, it was about whether or not one should risk potential wealth when faced with a situation where lives could be saved—but perhaps not for very long; in Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, it’s a question of how a person could put himself directly in harm’s war to defuse bombs. Take the “war” aspect out of the films and Three Kings is about how painful and rewarding selflessness can be, and The Hurt Locker is about how damaged one must be in order to be willing to be a hero.

Will Transformers 2 Steal Ice Age 3's Box Office Nut?

Box Office Estimates MCN Critics Roundup Film Reviews Box Office Hell Interviews DVD Reviews Posters du Jour While Michael Mann's take on the legendary outlaw bank robber John Dillinger is largely saved from its flaws by Johnny Depp, it's also lacking the soul and humanity that might have made elevated it to the extraordinary. ...more at MCN Weekend.

Digination
Looking Beyond the Veil: Arab Women in Film
by Gary Dretzka

Nowrasteh’s motivation in making the movie not only was to point out that stoning was a particularly cruel means of execution, but also that it continued to be practiced. Most Americans probably have read about penalties, ranging from unusual to stone-cold barbaric, imposed on westerners who dared flaunt Sharia law in Islamic countries. His movie would force a decidedly more visceral response from audiences.

Wilmington on Movies
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, The Hurt Locker, and The Girl from Monaco
by Michael Wilmington

The creators, especially the writers, don‘t have many fresh ideas, except to pop in  a feisty little swashbuckling weasel named Buck (Simon Pegg voicing) modeled on Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean—and to have John Leguizamo’s spazzy sloth Sid go papa-mama-mad at the parenthood of woolly mammoths Manny (Ray Romano) and Ellie (Queen Latifah) and run paternally amok, eggnapping three T. Rex eggs, with predictably dire-dino results.

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Voynaristic Review
Brüno
by Kim Voynar

As Brüno, Cohen makes no attempt to soften the punches as he stares America's homophobia right in the face and dares it to blink first. While Brüno's completely outrageous and inappropriate in almost every conceivable way, there's nothing superfluous in the way he's refracting cultural mindsets and values back at us. And it's not a pretty sight.

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Voynaristic
The Fame and Misfortune of Michael Jackson
by Kim Voynar

Jackson hadn't been anything even vaguely resembling a normal person, at least publicly, for many years. The plastic surgeries, the bizarre marriages, the fabled Neverland ranch where he sought never to grow up, and worst, the charges of pedophilia, haunted him to his grave. "Wacko Jacko" was fair game for the tabloid press and talk shows, and I have to wonder if any person who ever wrote a tabloid tale about him or wrote a Jackson joke for a late-night talk show host ever paused, even for a moment, to consider that there was a real, hurting person underneath the horror mask celebrity had made of him. I rather think not.

Meet The Squeaky-Clean Movie Teens

Truth In Satirizing?
More On The Stage Management Of The Arkansas Cage Match: Long Waits And Subsidized Brew
And - "I do not care if Brüno is good for the gays. You know what is good for the gays? A nice dinner at a very expensive restaurant with exceptional service and a dessert on the house."
Choire Sicha Flicks Off SBC
And - "To scour the world for little people you can taunt, and then pal with the hip and rich: that is not an advisable path for any comic to pursue, let alone one as sharp and mercurial as Baron Cohen. All his genius, at present, is going into publicity, where he has not put a foot wrong—or, in the case of Eminem, a buttock."
Mr. Lane Takes A Bite Of Brüno
Earlier - "It takes on, with unprecedented purpose and directness, some of the most vexing and enduring bugbears surrounding on-screen homosexuality."
Lim Defends Brüno
And - "Sacha Cohen has got a real good taste for rednecks."
Say The Unwitting Hosts Of Brüno's Arkansas Brawl

Queenan Delves Into Movie Novelizations

Harry Potter And The Half-Adult Junket

The State Of Aussie Aboriginal Filmmaking

It's Sports Night For Sorkin And "Moneyball"

Gannett Blog Collates Commentary From Hundreds And Hundreds Axed Today

NY Times Considering Pay Wall At $5 A Month?

"I got to Staples Center some time after the parade of Ringling Bros. elephants and just before a bikini-clad woman who held aloft a sign that said, 'Go Vegetarian for the Man in the Mirror.' I suppose it goes without saying that not all memorial services draw the same crowd."
Steve Lopez Writes A Lede

NYPost.Com Sez Daily News Fibbing On Their Timestamping

Toronto's Pioneer Indie Bookstore, Pages, To Close The Week Before Toronto International

Humpday's Lynn Shelton Talks Process

Duncan Jones Explains His Names

Writer, Critic And Festival Director Juan Carlos Frugone Was 71

Life After Twilight

Judge Sez Warner Paid Fairly For Superman Rights

Mary Louise Parker Tells Bedtime Tales For Esquire (video)

Trailering District 9

Let The Right One In's Tomas Alfredson To Direct Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy For Working Title

"Harvey Weinstein's a nice guy, David Linde was wonderful to work with. They had worthwhile things to say."
Tarantino On Making Basterds Ever So Slightly Longer And More Musical
And - Is Weinstein Talking To John Malone To Join Overture, Starz And DirecTV As Part Of Liberty Media?

What Would Susan Sontag Have Said About The Ending Of There Will Be Blood?

"He financed Death And Love with the money he made as an executive producer of the Hostel series, and weirdly enough, there’s a direct correlation between the sort of silly entertainment value of those films, to the f---ing harsh reality of this personal journey."

Michael Moore Goes For Capitalism: A Love Story

Would You Vote For Alec Baldwin?

Your Toybox Overlords Have Spoken
Ebert On "Explode Me Elmo"
And - Hw'd And Fine On "Slinky: The Movie"
Plus - Hip-Hop Robots In T:ROFL Not Black
And - "The one formula we have is to find the character story first and know that it is honest and true and emotional and ask ourselves if we removed all the gloss could we still make a $2m indie out of that story."
With The 35-Year-Old Screenwriters Of Star Trek, T:ROFL And The View-Master Movie

Lord David Puttnam Sez Blighty Film Industry Has To Be Bolder Online

Bob Mitchell, 96, Silent-Era Movie Organist From Age Of 12, Wurlitzered For Dodgers As Well

Comic-Con Honors Miyazaki-San

Longtime Variety TV Critic Tony Scott, 85, Under Byline "Tone.," Raved Spielberg's Duel; Friend Of Alice B. Toklas

Joseph Gordon-Levitt Lightens Up

The Stars Who Don't Act Their Age

Dole Sues Swede Bananas!*

Prominent Analyst Sez He Was "Dead Wrong" On Up But Still Down On Disney Stock

Canuck ISPs That "Throttle" Endanger Indie Film, Witnesses Warn

A Moment Of Silence At The Concession Counter
Slim Jim Shortage After Factory Detonates, Killing 3
And - Oscar Mayer, 95, Retired Chairman Of Oscar Meyer

The Ladies Of Julie & Julia On Putting On The Pounds

Excerpts From Brüno Press Notes (spoilers)

The Best In Theater, Coming Soon To A Multiplex Near You

Murdoch UK Papers Pay £1m Over Phone-Hacking Infractions

Raja Gosnell Hired By Sony To Bring Smurfs To The Silver Screen

Pity The Poor Culture Snob In An Age Of Digitization

Is Sri Lanka's Flowers Of The Sky The First Foreign Language 2010 Oscar Nom?
And - The Trailer

Fearing "Free"

Robert Rodriguez Munches On His Predators

Bruno As Fashion Icon
And - Posters du Jour

Emerson Considers Ebert And Poland On The Role Of The Cricket And Those Offended By Their Chirps

Sacha Baron Cohen In Rare Perf As Sacha Baron Cohen On Letterman

Diller Disses Twitter

The First 7:44 Of The Hurt Locker (reg. req'd; US only)
And - Bigelow On Boom With A View

WIRED Considers The Best Trailers Of Summer 2009

Frederic Raphael On Claude Lanzmann

Lick Geoffrey Rush

Errol Morris' McNamara Context

"Mr. Farber Has Been Killed By A Scrunt": The Fate Of Film Crickets On Film

Daniel Radcliffe Goes For Toe Shoes

Mean & Zune's CineMash Celeb Satires To Succeed Ben Kingsley Fronting Minor Threat

Jonny Rosenbaum On Woodstock's Goodness And Greatness

Wallace Shawn On Writing Sex

Searchlight Has A Smart New East Coast Publicity Hire

Canucks Choose 13 Gangster Pics

Hannah Montana Felled By Swine Flu In Buenos Aires

French Film Industry Changes Its Distribution Windows

GQ's Nude Brüno Cover Gets Cover-Up

L.A. Mayor Asks For Tax-Deductible Donations To Cover $3.8 Million Cost Of Protecting Michael Jackson Wake

Trailers du Jour
Big Fan
Harry Potter: I Killed Sirius Black
And - Alien Reproductive Systems

The Basterds Posters One And All

Former InDigEnt Topper Details His Excursion Into DIY Distribution

Jewison Talks Sequel To The Russians Are Coming

Sun Valley Girds For Mogul Meetup At Allen & Co. Conference

Asking 7 Kinds Of Experts: Is Antichrist Some Kind Of Joke?

David Lynch's Fox Bat Strategy

10 Coolest Movie Grandmas

JJ Abrams Geeks Out Over Interviewer's Camera

"Ghostbusters is the best film ever made."

Daniel Radcliffe Sez He's No Heartthrob

NY Times Tells Reporters They Can't Afford To Txt

Basterds To Sponsor Ultimate Fighting

Internet Radio Saved?

Copyright Laws: Threat To "Online Freedom"?

ABC Hulus, Too

Slate Wants B.O. Adjusted For Inflation

Toronto Int'l Extends Red Carpet Further

DreamWorks Drills Deeper Into The Toybox, Planning To Adapt... Fisher-Price's View-master? As A Goonies-Like Movie

Cineplex Odeon-Livent Big Garth Drabinsky Set For Sentencing In Fraud Conviction

A Sarcastic Look At The Chinese Movies That The Chinese Actually Watch

Lisanti Ventriloquizes Mr. Bay

Is This The Man Who Invented H'wd Formulas?

Celebrating 20 Years Of Strand Releasing

Ebert, Responding To Transformers-Hater-Haters, Sez He Is A Proud Brainiac

Sylvester Stallone-Denise Richards-Starring Bollywood Pic Said To Stink

The Real Brüno Is Flattered

AnschutzCo And Jackson Family Find Another Cash Point: Michael Jackson Death Event Likely To Be Shown In More Than 80 Movie Theaters

Robert McNamara, Center Of Fog Of War, Was 93
And - Excerpting His "Lessons" Of War

"The release of Tetro has been a confused and embarrassing disaster even by the standards of Coppola's long string of catastrophic stumbles."
Shawn Levy Notices Tetro Opened In Portland But Nobody Told Nobody Nothin'

Red Band-Trailering Jennifer's Body

"I jumped in joy from a pier about 30 feet high into the murky waters not knowing that just 2, 3 feet under the surface there were gigantic tree trunks stabilizing this whole thing. I didn't see them; I dove down headfirst and brushed it with a shoulder. That could have killed me but it would have been from sheer stupidity, and I would hate to die from stupidity."
Good Morning, Werner

WashPo Admits Fewer Copyeditrs Lead To Moar Misteaks
And - TribCo Sez Still Burning Through Cash
Plus - Trib Sheds Cubs