JOSH LONG is an actor and filmmaker from central North Carolina, currently living in Los Angeles. He studied theatre at Bryan College in Dayton, Tennessee, and attended the Los Angeles Film Studies Center in 2004. A true culture junkie, he invests most of his time in movies, music and literature. In the few spare moments, he enjoys Ultimate Frisbee and good Italian food. He also does not like to speak of myself in the third person, so there's that.
JOSH'S BLOG ENTRIES:
Look Out, World! It's Scott Pilgrim!
This weekend, a wild fantasy film born of underground rock and Super Mario Brothers hits the scene. It’s quirky, it’s funny, and it knocks your socks off at ninety miles per hour. It is Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and it is here to make you think about death and get sad and stuff.
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The Best of Pictures: Titanic (1997)
James Cameron’s Titanic is a film almost as storied as the ill-fated ocean liner itself. It tied the record for most Academy Awards, it launched the careers of Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, and until Avatar, it was the highest-grossing movie of all time. In my own personal studies of film, I made it a point to see every film to win Best Picture, and by 2005 I had – every one but Titanic. Even into my twenties I was still holding the grudge of a fifteen-year old, furious that any movie would have the audacity to beat Star Wars at the box office. Recently, I finally caved so that I could bring my clearly invaluable opinions to you, the reader. So these are my thoughts on Titanic after seeing it for the first time, thirteen years after its theatrical release.
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A Neurotic Misstep
I should start out by saying that I am a great admirer of the films of Noah Baumbach. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed much of his work, and I consider him to be an important figure on the artistic cinema front – I even enjoyed Mr. Jealousy, the film which caused blow-hard New York critic Armond White to wish abortion on the filmmaker. It's no masterpiece, but it certainly doesn’t deserve such harsh criticism. But White isn’t alone in his disdain for Baumbach. His recent Margot at the Wedding received harsh reviews almost across the board, despite his 2005 success with The Squid and the Whale. In going to see his newest film, Greenberg, I expected to be defending him from the critics once again. But that isn’t what happened.
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The Best of Pictures: Shakespeare in Love (1998)
For many people, the name “Shakespeare” conjures up memories of dry high school classrooms, research papers, and dull three-hour theatre experiences. Many Americans are introduced to Shakespeare too early in life to appreciate his genius, and perpetually associate him with boring homework. 1998’s Shakespeare in Love was a film that attempted to take that stodgy English sonneteer and show him as a vibrant, lovelorn poet, embroiled in an exciting world of sixteenth century entertainment.
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The Best of Pictures: The Hurt Locker (2009)
So for those who don’t know, I’ve been writing a series on the films that have gained American film’s highest honor: the Academy Award for Best Picture. Since the Oscars themselves have caught up with me, I think it’s time to step away from the retrospectives and take a look at 2009’s winner, The Hurt Locker.
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The Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts
This week I had the privilege of being able to attend the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ screening of Oscar-nominated shorts. If you’re ever able to make it there, you should. Held at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills with a posh reception beforehand, it’s an opportunity to see some of the Oscar-nominated work that gets overlooked by the general public. These are great films, coming from all over the world, and most people don’t ever get to see them. At the AMPAS Shorts presentation, you get the chance to see each one of the animated and live action shorts, followed by a Q & A with the filmmakers. Here’s a rundown on this years animated shorts, in case you don’t get the chance to see them yourself.
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The Best of Pictures: American Beauty (1999)
1999 was a pretty heavy-hitting year for American movies. Several instant classics came out that year: The Sixth Sense, The Insider, The Matrix, Magnolia – and then there was American Beauty. A clear front-runner leading up to the ceremony, American Beauty was quite an off-beat choice for the Academy. Sure, there were a lot of great performers in it, and it was a character heavy drama, which usually got Oscar’s attention. But the storyline was anything but normal Best Picture fare.
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Hell on Earth
Boy, oh boy.
Just when you thought you knew everything about Christianity, here comes Legion! You thought angels were bulletproof? WRONG! You thought only demons possessed people? WRONG! You thought Dennis Quaid still had a respectable career? WRONG and WRONG!
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Clash of the Blockbusters
Avatar – we’ve been hearing about it for ages, and now it’s finally here. We were skeptical, but the response is amazing. Critics are praising writer/director James Cameron’s new epic to a fault. Now it’s being compared to what many consider the greatest science fiction film ever, Star Wars. Ebert equates the two in the first sentence of his celebratory review. The comparison may be a little contrived, since Cameron was pushing it before any of us had a chance to decide for ourselves. But it’s an interesting comparison, and the commonalities between the two hulking sci-fi wonders give it credence. Is Cameron raising the bar in bringing us a new galaxy far, far, away?
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The Best of Pictures: Gladiator (2000)
Ancient Rome is a subject that has captured the imagination of the cinema for years. The pomp and circumstance, the epic war stories, the myths and legends of the Caesars have given us many of cinema’s great films. While they remained popular into the 70s, American movies tended to shy away from Rome for much of the 80s and 90s. But Ridley Scott brought us back to the Coliseum with 2000’s Best Picture winner Gladiator.
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Wes Anderson and the World of Mr. Fox
I think “delightful” is a good word to describe Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. In a time where the animation world is dominated by CG, it’s fun to see a divergence from the norm. In taking on a well-loved classic, Anderson and his team give it a pleasant, whimsical re-imagining.
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A Certain Tendency in American Cinema
No, Roland Emmerich, you may not have 250 million dollars.
This November’s offering of disaster-movie-maker Roland Emmerich’s most recent disaster movie cost $250 million. This, my friends, is ridiculous. That’s $100 million an hour. To break it down further, every second of 2012 cost about $280,000. Can this possibly be worth it? Is there any way that this movie can justify spending so much money?
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Jedi Mind Tricks
The Men Who Stare at Goats is a comedy about people who have (or think they have) Jedi powers. It has an all-star cast, an interesting concept partially based on reality, and potential to be very funny. All the pieces are there, but are the filmmakers able to put them together?
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Ten Years of Shaky, Handheld Horror
Has it been ten years? It really doesn’t seem that long since this horror classic popped up out of nowhere. It was an unheard of concept; a theatrically-released movie where half of the footage looked like it came off a Sony Hi-8 camcorder. I know we all remember thinking at the time, “how did this one make it past the powers that be?” And now, ten years later, here comes Paranormal Activity. Same approach, similar concept, and blowing the box office out of the water. Who says the little guy can’t win?
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The Best of Pictures: A Beautiful Mind (2001)
Ron Howard’s A Beautiful Mind has everything you might expect from a movie directed by Opie Taylor. It has lush settings, a comfortable 60s tone, and a family that overcomes odds to stick together. The film stars Russell Crowe as John Nash, a brilliant mathematician and economist who suffers from mental abnormalities. It’s about how he and his wife (played by Jennifer Connelly) can overcome the difficulties brought on by his situation.
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The Best of Pictures: Chicago (2002)
The American musical is an institution. Truth be told, the genre of musical theatre sort of started in the United States; many consider Showboat the first true “musical” from way back in 1927. Since then the genre has seen many major changes and shifts, and has seen film adaptations ever since the beginning. And Chicago certainly has a feeling of Americana, even harking back to that era when musicals first appeared on the scene.
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The Best of Pictures: Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Entering into any discussion of The Lord of the Rings makes me feel a little like the way I feel in preparing to watch The Lord of the Rings. It’s good, but there’s SO MUCH of it. You get tired before you even start. I can’t touch on everything, so I’ll try to hit a few of the major points about this movie in relation to the Oscars and its cultural significance.
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The Best of Pictures: Million Dollar Baby (2004)
Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby is a movie that joins the ranks of boxing films that aren’t really about boxing. Raging Bull deals with a man whose physical and emotional violence take control of him, Rocky is about the hope that lies in the American dream of rising from “zero to hero.” Million Dollar Baby is about what it means to be family.
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The Best of Pictures: Crash (2005)
Every once in a while there comes a movie that brings racial issues to the table and deals with them in a moving, challenging way. In recent years, that movie was Spike Lee’s 1989 Do the Right Thing. Eighteen years later, Paul Haggis wrote and directed a sappier, over-the-top version of the same movie. He called it Crash, and somehow won three Oscars, including Best Picture.
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The Best of Pictures: The Departed (2006)
So I should probably start out by saying that I am a big fan of Martin Scorsese. I think he is a brilliant filmmaker and has made some of the most important American films of all time. That being said, I felt like The Departed was one of his more disappointing offerings, and not really the Best Picture for 2006.
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The Best of Pictures: No Country for Old Men (2007)
The west Texas landscape is harsh, rough, and unforgiving. This makes it the perfect setting for a world gone wrong. A world that may have once been vibrant and beautiful, but is now cold and dangerous. It’s a world fallen from what it was meant to be.
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The Best of Pictures: Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
So this Spring, Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire won 8 Academy Awards, making it one of the 15 biggest winning Oscar contenders of all time. Pretty impressive, especially for a film set in India , seeing as most Americans only know India as a place where they worship cows, where you can see the Taj Mahal, and where they probably have pretty good Chicken Masala.
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