Hugo Nominees Or: How To Stop Worrying and Love The Geek

The quickest thing you learn once you become obsessed with awards is that they never end; someone is always handing out prizes for something. And since the eligibility periods are different for everything it takes forever for a single year's entertainment to finally be "old" aka ineligible. Such is the case with 2010 entertainment (mostly the second half of it) which is still eligible for Emmy nods (July 14th), Tony nods (May 3rd)... and The Hugo Awards, which are science fiction based, and newly announced today.

BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION – LONG
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
How to Train Your Dragon
Inception
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Toy Story 3

Inception and Toy Story 3 can breathe a sigh of relief that The King's Speech featured neither threatening alien invaders (Wallis Simpson does not count) nor superpowered heroes (Helena Bonham Carter does not count, her super powers being off screen).

BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION – SHORT
Doctor Who: ‘‘A Christmas Carol''
Doctor Who: ‘‘The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang''
Doctor Who: ‘‘Vincent and the Doctor''
Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury
The Lost Thing

I've embedded this "Ray Bradbury" vid once before on the old blog but it made me LOL so here it is again. With Doctor Who cancelling itself out (one assumes) Will The Lost Thing, the animated short, repeat its Oscar win at the Hugos?

Shaun Tan, the Australian illustrator behind that short, is also up for Best Artist, a category which includes Dan Dos Santos, Bob Eggleston, John Picacao and Stephan Martiniere.

Since there are definitely not enough awards for online entertainment (The Film Experience certainly hasn't won any trophies, y'know *sniffle*), here are some webzines to check out if you're into sci-fi. They're all nominated: (Semi-Pro) Clarkesworld, Interzone, Lightspeed, Locus, Weird Tales, (Fan) Banana Wings, The Challenger, The Drink Tank, File 770, StarShipSofa

Here's a complete list of the nominees should you enjoy sci-fi.

Yes, No, Maybe So: "Melancholia"

yes no maybe so ~ in which we determine how we feel about new movies based on their trailers.

Lars von Trier. Those three syllables used to excite me beyond any others in moviedom. I'm not sure where I lost the thread but ever since the brilliant Golden Heart trilogy (Breaking the Waves, The Idiots, Dancer in the Dark), it's been like the air slowly (very slowly) going out though I still find a lot to enjoy, respect and respond to in the films. So how about the wedding set MELANCHOLIA, von Trier's spin on the Apocalyptic Drama.

Yes. First things first, I have been a major believer in Kirsten Dunst as an actress and have been ever since The Virgin Suicides. I think that if she stays focused on her craft andgets the opportunities, two big "ifs", she will continue to surprise and evolve. I'm also delighted that von Trier cast Stellan Skarsgård and Alexander Skarsgård as father and son because that's always a treat in movies when people fictionalize their own realities.

All that and then then Charlottes? I'm in. Von Trier always gives his cast a lot of thematic and character meat to chew on... and then he makes them gag on it.

Is everyone in your family stark raving mad?

No. I don't get what Keifer Sutherland is doing here exactly and sometimes I suspect that Lars von Trier casts in a similar way to Woody Allen where he only vaguely pays attention to Hollywood and then is like "they're popular right now, right? Let's use them" and sometimes there is a lag in awareness or what not. And I do worry a bit about trying to do a Celebration style family drama AND an apocalyptic drama. Too ambitious?

Maybe So. Then again... this collision of genres might be completely fascinating. Von Trier's gift with indelible images -- and they're totally spoiling us with how many there are in this one trailer -- combined with how far he pushes his actors could make this truly special. And not to get all philosophical as we wrap up but should the apocalypse we always fear come, wouldn't it arrive and be experienced in a terrifyingly intimate way with friends and family and our neurotic interior monologues rather than with CGI explosions, a motley cast of strangers and Hollywood bombast?

This is actually the one thing i really loved about M Night Shyamalan's Signs (2002) though I didn't otherwise care for that movie and I never ever ever ever ever thought I'd cover M Night with Lars von, and I feel perverse doing so now. But watching that movie -- at least for the first hour, I thought 'this is how you'd experience something that was affecting the whole world.' It'd be how it hit you at home and what you saw on the news and what you attempted to piece together and how it affected you and your loved ones.

I am resounding "Yes" all told but I'm trying to keep my expectations down in lieu of Antichrist which I was too excited for, heard too much about before seeing it and was only thrilled by it visually.

Melancholia from Zentropa on Vimeo.

So what about you: YES, NO, or MAYBE SO?
Did Antichrist's wicked idea of a horror movie leave you ready for more or do are you hoping this is more in the harrowing Breaking the Waves human vein?

Take Three: Burgess Meredith

Craig here with Take Three. Today: Burgess Meredith

Take One: The Sentinel (1977)
Watching Michael Winner’s high-pitched horror The Sentinel has two great side effects: one, you get some great ‘70s New York apartment porn (with the bonus of having Ava Gardner as your guide); two, you’re treated to one of Meredith’s most under seen and relishable performances. It came a year after his Supporting Actor Oscar nod for his signature role as Mickey in Rocky. He plays Cristina Raines favourite new neighbour Charles Chazen, a dotty, slightly effete, amiable and – oh yeah – imaginary elderly resident in the suspiciously cheap waterside Brooklyn Brownstone.

He lives happily with his parakeet, Mortimer (also imaginary), his cat Jezebel (the meows sound real), and a blind priest sentry guarding the apartment block from all the demons of hell. So, yes: he leads a simple, gentle life.

The Sentinel sits very much in Rosemary’s Baby’s shadow; it’s the Xmas cracker version of Polanski’s tenant-terror movie but it has charms to recommend it. But dismay occurs halfway in: Meredith disappears from the film for a considerably baffling amount of time.

There are many other notable on-the-way-up and on-the-way-out actors in the movie. Deep breath now: Chris Sarandon, José Ferrer, John Carradine, Ava Gardner, Eli Wallach, Sylvia Miles, Arthur Kennedy, Christopher Walken, Beverly D’Angelo, Jeff Goldblum, Martin Balsam, Jerry Orbach and Tom Berenger. It may well be the best ‘70s cast outside of a Poseidon Adventure or a Towering Inferno. But Meredith is the one you miss when he's gone. His part is slightly more prominent due to the role Chazen plays in the grandly dark scheme of things. He pops up, when we least expect but most want him to, to summon forth a legion of misshapen hotel guests of the dead, and then exits the film in style. Meredith invests The Sentinel, mad as it already is, with just a touch more senior tomfoolery; he also gives it its gaga ambience. Much of the film’s silly brilliance comes from him.

Take Two: Batman (1966)

Out of the four actors who played masked arch foes in the 1966 big screen adaptation of the Batman TV series, Meredith ended up with the longest career after. [The Penguin awaits after the jump]

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April Showers: The Fifth Element

waterworks each weeknight at 11 as we turn on the cinematic shower.

True Story: The house my family lived in from the time I was nine years old until high school graduation had an unusual bathroom. I didn't think it was so terribly unusual because I lived with it but whenever friends would come to visit for the first time they would always demand to see the bathroom. They'd heard, you see. The storied feature in question was a sunken shower. You had to step down into it, as if it were an in-ground swimming pool and it was larger than your traditional shower or bathtub. But there were no rounded smooth edges, just tiles. So it wasn't, unfortunately, a comfortable bathtub unless you find sharp flat corners restive for reclining against, in which case… are you an invertebrate?

 I suddenly flashed to my parent's old house while watching The Fifth Element recently.  In the scene in question, law enforcement of one sort or another (it's hard to keep track in Luc Besson's frenzy-filled futurism) has entered Bruce Willis's building and good ol' Bruce realizes he needs to hide his strange guest, supreme being Leeloo (Milla Jovovich).

Where else? The shower, that most private of places... except maybe in the movies.

read the rest after the jump. (safe for work.)

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Box Office: The Source of that Insidious Hopping

Fact #1: I love Easter, bunnies, Easter bunnies, chocolate bunnies, coloring eggs.
Fact #2: Seeing Hop would ruin the upcoming holiday entirely for me because nothing makes me gag harder than animated CGI characters doing hip anachronistic things like oh, I don't know dreaming of playing in a rock n roll band. Just typing this out gave me salmonella. Mainstream moviegoers felt otherwise throwing their hardearned cash at the British wabbit. It had the best opening weekend since Rango. Where were these crowds when The Rock was doing Tooth Fairy?

01. HOP $37.5 new
02. SOURCE CODE $14.8 new
03. INSIDIOUS $13.2 new
04. DIARY OF A WIMPY KID: RODRICK RULES $10.0 (cumulative: $38.1)
05. LIMITLESS $9.3 (cumulative: $55.5)

Poor Patrick. Things never end well for him at the movies.

Hop's success frightens me and the only possible joy that can come from it is that maybe someone will give James Marsden another plum comic gig like the one in Enchanted.  I would however totally want to see this week's chart topper if it were about Jake Gyllenhaal and the Easter Bunny ibeing thrust back in time repeatedly until they saved Patrick Wilson from demonic possessions in The Source of That Insidious Hopping. Don't you wish you could sometimes watch three movies at once?

Per Screen Average Which movies were you most likely to find crowds at? I've eliminated all the specialty IMAX stuff and everything that's only at one theater because "come on" and here's what'cha got.

01. HOP $10,000ish
02. IN A BETTER WORLD $8,000ish (The Danish Oscar winner is finally on a few screens. Weird to wait an entire month post Oscar win to debut.)
03. WIN WIN $7,000ish (cumulative $1.9 million. Big jump in screen count this past weekend. I almost went today but my friend shifted plans.)
04. JANE EYRE $6,700ish  (cumulative $3.4 million. Still going strong. Yay)
05. INSIDIOUS $5,500ish (and this type of movie is always better with a crowd)

What did you see over the weekend? I was entertaining so I didn't get out. Although we did watch the SXSW winner Weekend which was fairly strong as indies go. It definitely knew what it wanted to be and didn't get distracted at being that and that's always a huge plus.