Top 10 Movies of 2011 by Jessica Delfanti

1. Drive (Nicholas Winding Refn)

With graceful action, powerhouse actors and one of the best soundtracks ever, Drive leaves your spine tingling and your blood pumping. It’s the prettiest adrenaline rush you’ll ever experience.
Read Jessica’s Review of Drive

2. Beginners (Mike Mills)

Ewan McGregor makes another fantastic career choice with this indie gem, a story about love in all its forms. Christopher Plummer delights as McGregor’s father who comes out of the closet at 75 and dives into gay culture with wide eyes and an open mind. Writer/Director Mike Mills, telling a story close to his heart, frames the film with creative, nonlinear and sometimes irrelevant asides that form a package both heartwarming and mournful, but most of all, beautiful.

3. Bridesmaids (Paul Feig)

I don’t know where the concept that women aren’t funny began, but this film disproves it. Thanks to this, the rest of the world is now as addicted to Kristen Wiig as I am.

4. Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen)

Woody Allen’s fiercely witty film, which takes a tour through the history of expats and artists of Paris, is a fantasy in two parts: first, that it bends the rules of reality; second, what creative-minded person doesn’t fantasize about getting to meet greats like Hemingway and Picasso? The real trick of the film, though, is Owen Wilson’s quick charm and the subtle class of its portrayals. What a surprise, Woody Allen’s done it again.

5. Melancholia (Lars Von Trier)

One of the year’s most interesting films, Lars Von Trier brings us depression in the beautiful body of Kirsten Dunst. Thoughtful, subtle and dramatic, and containing some of the best pathetic fallacies I’ve seen on screen, Melancholia is a rich experience from beginning to end. But let’s not skip talking about the beginning, because it’s definitely the best film opening this year, maybe ever. Watch it here.

6. A Dangerous Method (David Cronenberg)

A film so smart it deserves several rewatches, A Dangerous Method is carefully intellectual and full of natural drama. Combine this with two of the best actors out there (Viggo Mortensen and Michael Fassbender) and you’ve got a dream film package. It’s refreshing to watch something that doesn’t treat you like a child, and dares you to join the characters in intellectual treatise, rather than simply observe.
Read Jessica’s Review of A Dangerous Method

7. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (David Fincher)

Perfectly paced through its lengthy runtime, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is everything it should be: exciting, dark, explicit, intriguing, satisfying. Rooney Mara establishes herself as the number one actress to watch with an incredible performance.

8. X-Men: First Class (Matthew Vaughn)

Welcome to the film that saved superhero movies. Emerging from a slew of tired or simply badly made superhero films (cough, Green Lantern), X-Men is stylish, smart, and quick. James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender have serious chemistry as the young Professor and Magneto. The only problem now is waiting impatiently for them to make another one.

9. Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop (Rodman Flender)

Chronicling Conan’s Legally Prohibited to Appear on Television comedy tour, this documentary isn’t just a catalogue of his funny moments, but also a touching insight into the man behind the hair. As it turns out, he’s as hilarious as we all thought; he’s also a human being.

10. Insidious (James Wan)

A bit of a wild card in the horror genre, Insidious plays with horror cliches to make a bizarre package. Stemming from a simple haunted house formula, the movie gets wacky fast, in the good way.

Random Thought On Movies
By Perri Nemiroff (aka Little Miss Critical)
A Jabcat On Movies Column

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN PART 1

It’s about that time; a certain something has reached its peak and if I don’t let it out, I might explode.

I’m no Twilight-hater, but there’s no denying that Breaking Dawn – Part 1 is a bad movie. Poor camera work, terrible acting, an intrusive score, silly dialogue and, worst of all, talking werewolves. As much as I want to hate this franchise for earning far more money than it’s worth, there’s no denying that The Twilight Saga has repeatedly given the box office a much-needed jolt, Breaking Dawn becoming the second highest opener of 2011. Then there’s the fact that so many moviegoers out there genuinely love these films with all their hearts, enough to camp out for days just to get a mere glimpse of the stars at the Comic Con panel or on the red carpet for the film’s premiere. $139.5 million in one weekend for a C-grade movie? On the quality to earnings scale it’s downright preposterous, but when you consider the fact that much of that money comes not from sleek marketing campaigns or promotional tricks, rather from an honest devotion to the franchise, it’s the slightest bit moving and, to a degree, commendable.

Comment below to share your thoughts, random or otherwise.

Until next time . . . may all your random thoughts be brilliant and your movies winners!

Read all of Perri’s Random Thoughts On Movies here.

Perri Nemiroff is a film critic and movie addict. When she’s not writing about movies, she’s making some of her own while pursuing an MFA in film at Columbia University.

THE HUNGER GAMES
Preview and Trailer Review by Lillian DeRitter

The first official trailer for the epic adaptation of The Hunger Games dropped today, bringing anticipation of the film to fever pitch after multiple Entertainment Weekly spreads and behind the scenes features.

The Hunger Games trilogy is often compared to The Lord of the Rings because of its critical acclaim, avid fanbase, and adult approach to genre fiction. (Though the books are written for young adults, the series is notorious for its depictions of violence, corruption, and dystopia.)

Let’s pretend for a moment that I haven’t read the books. What lessons does the new Hunger Games trailer give us about the film and, quite frankly, about life in dystopia (now or in Panem.)

The Apocalypse is Greener Than You Thought
Recent apocalyptic films like The Road and Children of Men have presented an overdeveloped and exhausted environment dominated by dead leaves and gray skies. The trailer opens in Appalachia, the location for the futuristic District 12. Despite the dystopia, Appalachia is still green and gorgeous. As a Pennsylvanian with an awareness of the long term effecting of coal mining on an environment I call BS, but hey, that’s just me.

Avery’s Stay in North Korea Made Her Really Weird
The announcer of the lottery (Effie Trinket) is played by the usually hilarious and adorable Elizabeth Banks (who played Jack Donaghy’s girlfriend Avery on 30 Rock.) In Hunger Games, Banks takes on a strangely musical Standard American dialect and borrows Helen Bonham Carter’s makeup from Alice in Wonderland. The overwhelming implication? Rich people are crazy.

Donald Sutherland Is Willing to Use His Gravitas for Evil
Donald Sutherland’s role in all this isn’t exactly clear in the trailer, though we know he’s playing President Snow, the head honcho of this world gone mad. Yet the very fact that Hawkeye is willing to let this killing of children go on is enough to turn my stomach. Great job casting director. You’re giving me nightmares.

Every Dystopian City Will Look Like Firefly, Blade Runner, or Star Wars
Hunger Games went with Firefly, blending the frontier feel with futuristic screens and blue tinged hospital/beauty salons staffed by Lenny Kravitz. Great, now I’m writing fanfiction where Katniss and River Tam team up.

Reality TV is the Beginning of the End
In our day the only sporting events that earn big screen coverage in town squares are the World Cup and the errant local championship, but in the future, the masses assemble to watch teenagers kill each other. I blame The Amazing Race and the return of Fear Factor. Also America’s Next Top Model because of the waxing moment and Kravitz reminding Katniss that she “needs to make an impression.”

Jennifer Lawrence Will Always Be More Badass Than You
Ever since Winter’s Bone, Jennifer Lawrence has been the stunning beauty with the fortitude of a Navy Seal. It was a joy to watch her Mystique grow into herself in X-Men: First Class, and I was worried for Anton Yelchin’s safety when he contemplated breaking up with her in Like Crazy. Though the trailer offers up none of the violence the book promises, just look at the determination on her face during the countdown. I have complete faith that when Lawrence stiffens her upper lip, heads will roll.

The Hunger Games emerges from the brush, weapons drawn on March 23rd.

21 Jump Street
Preview and Trailer Review by Lillian DeRitter

Early on in the 21 Jump Street trailer, Ron Swanson (errr…Nick Offerman of Parks and Recreation) tells us (and our heroes) that the police are reviving a canceled undercover police program from the 80s. This is not entirely an accurate statement. The 2012 21 Jump Street bears only a conceptual resemblance to the 1987 high school themed police procedural that refused to apologize for its adorable leads. (21 Jump Street was ready to be a WB/CW network series eight years before either network existed.) Channing Tatum and a newly slim Jonah Hill replace the multi-ethnic cast of the original, which included a young Johnny Depp, Holly Robinson (now Holly Robinson Peete), Peter DeLuise, and Dustin Nguyen.

Hill rewrote a script by Michael Bacall (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) to accommodate starring roles for himself and Tatum who shows off a striking ability to play a comedic meathead. (He recounts the Miranda rights as “The right to remain… an attorney.”) Brie Larson is probably Hill’s love interest seeing as she’s the only female lead other than Ellie Kemper (of The Office and Bridesmaids.) It’s great fun to see Kemper get her inner awkward cougar on when hitting on her student who just happens to be the adult beefcake Tatum. Ice Cube takes on the role of 21 Jump Street’s no nonsense commanding officer, Rob Riggle is a clueless athletic coach, and the perp is played by professional high school jerk Dave Franco (who played a similar role in Fright Night and is probably a perfectly nice person.)

This adaptation is very loose, more like a blend between Superbad and the premise of the eighties procedural. The trailer promises the usual antics we’ve come to expect from Hill, but the most exciting surprise here is Tatum’s comedic ability. (I personally demand more of this for the G.I. Joe sequel.) Hill tends to really shine when his partner challenges him, so Tatum’s ability to play dumb and straight bode well for the team-up. 21 Jump Street is directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller who last teamed up on Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and seventeen episodes of How I Met Your Mother as co-executive producers. This is their first large scale live action adventure so we’ll see whether their animation background helps or hurts them. (My bet’s on helping considering how cartoony the action comedy genre tends to be.) Here’s hoping 21 Jump Street lives up to Jonah Hill’s promise of an R-rated, insane, Bad-Boys-meets-John Hughes-type movie. I still hope the rumors are true that Dustin Nguyen will make an appearance along with Depp’s reported cameo. He makes me miss Tiger Beat.

If you want more of a taste for Hill’s R-rated vision, the Red Band trailer is here. 21 Jump Street hits theaters March 16th.

MV Moorhead participated in a quick post-screening roundtable with Sean Durkin, the Director of Martha Marcy May Marlene.

Q: What spurred your interest in cults?

SD: Looking back, I’ve always been interested in why people gravitate to groups. Everybody does that every day, with work, friends, sports, church. It’s a very natural thing. I was interested in how it can go wrong….When I started reading about it, what I found is that it’s much more common than people often think. It’s like one in four people you talk to say, oh yeah, we lost my sister to that. Also, people tend to think of cults in very epic terms. They’re often very small.

Q: Who are your influences?

SD: Altman, Polanski. 3 Women and Rosemary’s Baby were direct influences on this.

Q: How long was your shooting schedule?

SD: 24 days. We shot the farm stuff before Labor Day and the lake stuff after Labor Day. It was easier to get a lake house after Labor Day.

M.V. Moorhead is a frequent Jabcat On Movies contributor whose work has also appeared in publications ranging from the New Times weeklies to USA Today to Weird Tales. His e-novel, “Super Eight Days” (no relation to the film “Super 8″) is available from Amazon Kindle.

By M.V. Moorhead/Less Hat, Moorhead

Shakespeare is my favorite writer. I’m a Shakespeare buff. My experience of his work is, in a small way, as an actor and a director, and in a bigger way as a reader and an audience member. I’m not a Shakespearean scholar, in any literary or historical sense. The difference between me and most of those who question Shakespeare “The Stratford Man” as the true author of the plays attributed to him is that I know it.

Opening today is Anonymous, Roland Emmerich’s film dramatizing the notion, around since at least the 1920s, that Shakespeare was a front, and that his plays were actually written by Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. I wasn’t able to get to the screening earlier this week, and anyway I wouldn’t want to clutter up a movie review with a pedantic and partisan rant on this premise. So I thought I’d put the rant here, and review the movie fairly, as a movie, whenever I can get to it.

Though he seems to have been the “candidate” most in vogue for the last few years, Oxford seems like a particularly improbable alternative, even if you somehow doubt that Shakespeare could truly have written those plays. For one thing, Oxford was actually mentioned in contemporary writings, like the Palladis Tamia of Francis Meres, that also mention Shakespeare as a different person. No matter, say the “Oxfordians.” Oxford must have written Shakespeare’s works since he was, after all, an aristocrat, and good-looking and troubled, and because details of his own dramatic life can be made to line up with characters and situations in Shakespeare’s plays.

The idea is that Oxford must have had to hide the fact that he was a playwright because this would somehow have been an improper occupation for an aristocrat. This despite the fact that he was known to be a playwright—his own comedies, now lost, were reportedly good—and that this doesn’t seem to have been a secret, let alone a scandal. This despite the fact that Oxford died in 1604, roughly a decade before new Shakespeare plays stopped appearing. The Oxfordians have explanations for all this and for the rest of the comparative mountain of other evidence that associates the “Stratford” Shakespeare with the plays attributed to him.

I’ve spent a lot of time (way too much, actually) over the last few years reading articles and websites pro and con about this silly controversy, and I genuinely think it’s bullshit. And even though it doesn’t really matter—whoever wrote those plays, they’re magnificent—it still annoys me, because I think it arises, in part, from a peculiar self-loathing class snobbery.

It also partly stems from a misunderstanding of the history of the period, which leads people to believe that Shakespeare couldn’t have picked up enough knowledge to write about court matters, foreign countries, etc., the way he did. This is not unlike thinking that somebody else must have written Stephen King’s books, because after all a bumpkin from rural Maine could never have picked up a vocabulary like that, and could never have understood enough about, say, virology to have written The Stand.

Many still think of the Renaissance as a period in Merrie Olde England full of Lords and Ladies and Wenches and Squires and Peasants, and nothing very much in between. In truth, even a perfunctory reading of social history about the period shows that this whole system (never as quaint as it’s depicted anyway) was already long in decline. The really dynamic social force in Renaissance Europe was the Middle Class—and therein, I think, lies the heart of the matter.

Maybe the core of the whole authorship controversy, in all its forms, is something I’ve never seen anyone write about: a desire not to let the middle class have Shakespeare. Many people love and admire Shakespeare’s work, but just can’t bring themselves to like Shakespeare. The man who emerges from the existing record is too dull, too disappointingly conservative in his social and political beliefs, too interested in money, too litigious, and just generally too…well, middle class to be responsible for such glories.

If Shakespeare had been born to poverty but worked his way up to reknown, like Bunyan or Dickens, I don’t think it would bug people as much as the idea of a middle class guy from a small town whose Dad was a glovemaker and local politician turning into the greatest writer in English. So you get stuff about how scanty the information about Shakespeare is, but nobody points out how it’s still far less scanty than that of any other playwrights of the time except Ben Jonson and Oxford himself.

You get the line about how there’s no evidence that Shakespeare attended the Grammar School in Stratford, but they don’t point out that no records at all survive for any students there during that time, but that the children of public officials could attend for free, and Shakespeare’s father served as both an alderman and “bailiff” (mayor) in Stratford-on-Avon. Also, the grammar school in Stratford offered a Latin education that would probably have exceeded in rigor that of the average Classical Studies Major at a contemporary American college, and was steeped in the sort of Latin writers (Plutarch, Plautus, Seneca, etc.) that are the clearest influences on Shakespeare’s earlier work.

You get the nonsense about how Shakespeare couldn’t have learned French and Italian when, apart from the fact that knowledge of Latin makes both of those languages less daunting, the same publisher who printed the first editions of Shakespeare’s long poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, a guy named Richard Field, specialized in publishing language manuals, especially for French and Italian (knowledge of these languages in Shakespeare’s time was as commercially valuable for a Brit as knowledge of Japanese is for a modern American). Field was also a Stratford guy of about Shakespeare’s age, and lived a few houses from him in Stratford-on-Avon as a kid; records show their fathers knew each other, and it’s believed that he and Shakespeare were friends. In other words, there are all sorts of connections between Shakespeare the Stratford “bumpkin” and Shakespeare the writer.

But above all, “anti-Stratfordians” are never able to give a satisfactory answer to one simple question: why only Shakespeare? If you insist that detailed evidence about Shakespeare’s life is lacking, you may be right, but if that leads you to conclude that he therefore probably didn’t write the stuff that’s attributed to him, then why not apply the same standard to all the other playwrights, Christopher Marlowe very much included, about whom even less (often much less) is known. The obvious answer—and indeed, on some of the websites they flatly admit this—is that the other playwrights aren’t so dull and provinicial.

It’s true, too—Shakespeare’s politics are ass-kissingly in favor of the aristocracy and the status quo. Playwrights at the time, including some of Shakespeare’s pals, tended to be brawlers and radicals and horndogs—Marlowe died in a barfight, Thomas Kyd was jailed and tortured for “atheism and immorality” (and, ignominiously, informed on Marlowe to get out), Jonson and John Marston both got busted for their play Isle of Dogs, Jonson killed two men in duels in his life.

Shakespeare isn’t known to have done any of that sort of thing, though his wife was about three months pregnant when he married her, and there are a few gossipy stories about his womanizing. He was a careful businessman and very willing to participate in lawsuits, and he also was always careful not to piss off the powerful, all of which has made him utterly unsuitable for glamorous literary status now.

Absurdity certainly doesn’t mean, of course, that Anonymous might not be a highly enjoyable movie, as was the willfully ridiculous trifle Shakespeare In Love a few years ago. That film also hinged on the gag that The Bard must have turned from his own torrid affairs, picked up his pen, and scribbled them into Romeo and Juliet and Twelfth Night. The difference is that Shakespeare In Love treated this idea as a goofy, borderline-campy romantic fiction, while Anonymous, at least in its marketing, treats the idea as an Oliver Stone-style expose.

Shakespeare’s works are so astoundingly good that it’s understandable, in a sense, that one might find it improbable and mysterious that anyone could have written them. But trying to turn the author from a social-climbing Stratfordian into a financially frustrated blueblood does nothing to solve that mystery.

M.V. Moorhead is a frequent Jabcat On Movies contributor whose work has also appeared in publications ranging from the New Times weeklies to USA Today to Weird Tales. His e-novel, “Super Eight Days” (no relation to the film “Super 8″) is available from Amazon Kindle.

By Lillian DeRitter

[*Spoiler Warning for the Chronicle trailer, The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity, The Last Exorcism, and Cloverfield.]

With the first trailer for Josh Trank and Max Landis’ Chronicle dropping to whispers and buzz and Paranormal Activity 3 topping the weekend box office despite its R rating, there seems to be a new Renaissance in found footage films.

After watching this seductive trailer, a strange blend of Blair Witch, Cloverfield, and X-Men, it seems like a good idea to take a look at the other innovative found footage films made by young (relative) unknown up and comers (though Chronicle‘s writer Max Landis is the son of John Landis of Animal House and American Werewolf in London) that were snapped up by large studios (20th Century Fox in this case) in order to see what we can learn about Chronicle. We’ll talk a bit about Cloverfield too since it invoked its more independent found footage predecessors despite being fully financed by a studio (with an f/x budget to match.) With that in mind, let’s look at some rules for found footage genre films.

Rule #1: They Tend to Be Profitable.

The original (or perhaps let’s say most influential) found footage film The Blair Witch Project became the most profitable film ever when it was released in 1999, earning $246.8 million at the box office, compared to its meager $60,000 production budget. Ten years later, the first Paranormal Activity beat that ratio, earning over $193 million worldwide compared to its $15,000 budget.

Chronicle has a reported budget of $15 million, which aligns it more with Cloverfield ($25 million cost). Cloverfield currently holds the opening weekend box office record for January releases. Thanks to the potent combination of low budgets, viral marketing, and a growth of genre fans, there are no notorious found footage flops, but the genre is pretty young. Apollo 18 was critically panned but managed to recoup its losses. Cloverfield invoked a bit of a backlash against the form, with AMC movie theatres and other chains posting signs that warned patrons of possible nausea as a result of the cinematography in the film. Speaking of…

Rule #2: Bring a Barf Bag. This Could Get Bumpy.

Ever since a strange force knocked down Heather at the end of Blair Witch, found footage deaths and threats have often been about what the camera can’t see, rather than what it can. This is is direct contrast to horror films like Halloween, where the camera gives the audience information the characters don’t know, like the fact that Michael Myers is standing right behind you, you BLIND PERSON. In found footage films, someone is usually holding the camera. (Think of Hud in Cloverfield.) When they get scared or run, the camera shakes. This cinematography technique, nicknamed “shaky cam” aims to lend the film a cinéma vérité feel. While Blair Witch‘s cinematography (or lack thereof) lent it an air of urban legend authenticity, we now see found footage films so often that the faux-documentary approach tends to look like a gimmick. Emmy knockout Modern Family uses it for cripes’ sake.

Unless Chronicle has found a way to innovate the form the way Paranormal Activity did, the found footage approach could work against them, especially with a narrative that we’ve seen before (the making of a supervillain.)

Rule #3: There Will Be Some Jerking Around (in addition to the camera.)

The marketing campaign for The Blair Witch Project goes down in history as one of the most powerful viral campaigns ever. People were whispering to each other “Did you see the movie about those kids who disappeared in the woods?” I had friends who were sure it was real. Audiences weren’t the only ones being jerked around. The production process for Blair Witch involved what the directors called “method filmmaking,” depriving the actors of food and sleep, “breaking every SAG rule possible.” Cloverfield employed a similar viral marketing take to Blair Witch, creating a parallel world surrounding the film, advertising “Slusho,” a fictional Japanese drink that had previously appeared in J.J. Abrams’ Alias. 

Cloverfield, much like Abrams’ other creation Lost, doesn’t give you all the answers. Or really any answers at all. By employing cinéma vérité, the filmmakers justify a lack of explanations. In real life, sometimes you don’t know how your keys magically reappeared in the key bowl when you just checked there, how that sock magically returned to the dryer, why that demon is tormenting you, or why that monster woke up and is destroying Manhattan. Stuff just happens and no one provides you with the exposition to make sense of it. Yet in a film, we grow to expect answers. Each Paranormal Activity sequel has provided more information to justify the events of the first film. If we don’t eventually figure out what’s going on, we’re liable to feel jerked around.

Chronicle may escape that by giving us a better idea of what is actually going on in the trailer than Abrams did in the first two seasons of Lost. However, if we don’t find out how those boys get their superpowers (let alone why), this plotmeister’s going off the deep end.

That said…

Rule #4: Enigma is Found Footage’s First, Last, and Middle Name

Have you ever tried to watch The Blair Witch Project at a party with lots of people talking? As your friends laugh and giggle through the shocking ending, you find yourself wondering how you could’ve been left sleepless for weeks by this shoddy film.

Found footage films depend on a certain level of environment and mystery in order to work. They are one of the last true arguments for the need for dark, silent movie theaters. Talking breaks tension and almost all genre found footage films require that taut silence to generate fear at all. You can be mysterious in a found footage film because the normal narrative rules don’t apply. If we accept that “Heather Donahue” the filmmaker might just be a real person, we will be more invested in her journey than the typical scream queen, because we will feel like she actually lived, that she has family who wonder where she is, that her confession means something. The minute that illusion is broken, you get all those snotty nose close to the camera parodies. (South Park‘s “I’m… so… startled.” being the best.)

Chronicle might be an exception here, since it’s telling a more conventional story rather than trying to scare the pants off you. Yet if the point isn’t to invoke cinéma vérité and to make these boys feel real, why use found footage to tell the story?

Rule #5: They Will Be About How People Are Stupid…Just Like the Rest of Us

Blair Witch documents the quick unraveling of a besieged girl’s leadership when the world stops making sense, as well as how idiotic it is to throw away a map when wandering in the woods. Cloverfield focuses on a group of hipster twenty somethings who willingly follow their friend uptown to save his trapped girlfriend, moving through subway tunnels filled with huge insect-like parasites that vaguely invoke Sinspawn from the video game Final Fantasy X towards the mysterious monster that has been destroying New York City. The Last Exorcism shows us a showman preacher who tries to make amends for his showmanship. None of these stories end well, because people are stupid. The common question in found footage films is “Why are you filming?” often yelled or screamed in moments of stress. Why are you filming when the world is crumbling down around our ears?

In George A. Romero’s found footage zombie flick Diary of the Dead, documentary filmmaker Jason says “All that’s left is to record what’s happening for whoever remains when it’s over.” Despite its lack of apocalyptic or horror elements, Chronicle has to be done with found footage. If you were a young man, and you discovered that you had superpowers, wouldn’t you want to make the best Youtube videos ever? To this generation (my generation), “if it’s not on camera, it’s like it never happened.” That impulse to share is what makes filmmakers, journalists, superheroes and supervillains. (Why else would you wear spandex if you didn’t want attention?)

Chronicle could shape up to be the most innovative approach to the genre in a long time if it’s willing to tackle the “oversharing” impulse that generates so many tweets, blogs, videos, and even Academy Awards. ”Why are you filming?” is the eternal question in found footage films, but the answer is both more obvious and more painful than we’re willing to admit. We’re filming because we have to, because we’re afraid of what every hero and villain is afraid of: being forgotten. And we’ll do anything to be remembered.

Random Thought On Movies
By Perri Nemiroff (aka Little Miss Critical)
A Jabcat On Movies Column

NEW YORK COMIC CON

It’s about that time; a certain something has reached its peak and if I don’t let it out, I might explode.

What happened to New York Comic Con? Just two years ago it seemed as though NYCC was creeping closer towards the caliber of the monumental San Diego Comic Con, boasting previews of films like Terminator Salvation, Watchmen, Friday the 13th and more. This year, at NYCC, the main attraction, film-wise, was merely The Avengers. Sure, The Avengers is the ultimate superhero flick, but with just one highly anticipated film hitting the IGN Theater, it meant the location was absolutely mobbed all day, not only keeping out the large majority of fans, but press, too. Fingers crossed for a bigger showing from the film industry next year.

Comment below to share your thoughts, random or otherwise.

Until next time . . . may all your random thoughts be brilliant and your movies winners!

Read all of Perri’s Random Thoughts On Movies here.

Perri Nemiroff is a film critic and movie addict. When she’s not writing about movies, she’s making some of her own while pursuing an MFA in film at Columbia University.

THE AVENGERS
Preview and Trailer Review by Lillian DeRitter

After much fan anticipation, the first trailer for Marvel and Joss Whedon’s The Avengers dropped today.

Those familiar with the Marvel franchise will be pretty excited. If you’re not, you’ll probably be confused out of your mind how this slightly incomprehensible mesh of action cliches will become a full fledged film.

All we know is that that guy with horns from Thor likes to walk down hallways and leer at the camera, and that Captain America (Chris Evans) and Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr. ) really don’t like each other, which is not surprising considering the Cap runs on Greatest Generation style optimism and “fair play,” while Stark runs on good old fashioned American capitalism. Any sense you can glean from this trailer relies on the audience’s ability to recognize the players from other films.

It makes sense that Marvel would focus on brand recognition. They gambled on both Thor and Captain America after the success of Iron Man, and if either film had failed on a Green Lantern level, the Joss Whedon penned and directed The Avengers would have been in serious trouble. Thor performed surprisingly well, building a base of avid fangirls in addition to comics readers, who are usually male. Captain America had more meager proceeds and reviews, but continued to generate excitement for the mega team-up. Judging by the trailer, The Avengers is ready to cash in on all that PR.

A generic threat, initiated by Tom Hiddleston’s slippery and charismatic Loki, threatens the world, and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) brings together our favorite Marvel heroes including a new Hulk, Mark Ruffalo, who Edward Norton morphed into when Marvel opted out of casting him in The Avengers, claiming they wanted someone who “embodie[d] the creativity and collaborative spirit of [The Avengers'] other talented cast members.” Apparently some serious damage has already been done to our world, judging by the scarred urban landscape and Tony’s semi-nonsensical statement that they can’t protect the world but they can avenge it. (The man who believes in a weapon you only have to fire once isn’t a big fan of preventative measures, go figure.)

One-liners abound, as one would expect with Joss Whedon and Robert Downey Jr. in the same space. (Though I want to know where Thor learned the word “philanthropist.” Does Asgard have a charitable giving initiative we don’t know about?) We see fringe Avengers Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) do some damage, and Chris Hemsworth’s Thor is his usual jolly manly self. Yet we get very little information about what actually happens in this movie from the trailer. We know the major players, but we know almost nothing about the conflict of the film, which is often where Marvel films have faltered as of late. (Iron Man 2 should’ve worked considering its cast, but ended up being a tired rehash of the conflicts of the first film. Wolverine made a mess of an inspired cast and series of cameos, and Spider-man 3 had enough conflict for a telenovela but gave us no reason to care.)

Whedon shares writing credit with Marvel’s go-to guy Zak Penn, who’s responsible for both the best and the worst X-Men movies of the franchise (X-2 and X-Men : The Last Stand) as well as Elektra and SyFy’s new series Alphas. Much like Whedon, Penn’s output is either incredibly awesome or unbelievably cringeworthy. At least the explosions look cool.

Unless you’re familiar with the comics, you may not know the full implications of the initially generic looking trailer, so stop reading here if you’re shy of spoilers.

Spoiler haters disassembled? Good, let’s talk about the Skrulls for a second, one of the other serious villains in the Avengers’ history. The Skrulls are a race of aliens who resemble the Green Goblin’s mask. Except that’s their face. All the time. They can shapeshift, which would explain that moment in the trailer where it looks like Thor and Captain America are fighting each other (as if these guys didn’t have enough trust issues already.) We also see what could be the Quinjet, the Avengers’ chosen method of transportation in the comics. It’s on fire though, so it might not be the epic jet.

What clues can you glean when you go frame by frame in HD at Apple Trailers? Fans assemble!

YOUNG ADULT
Preview and Trailer Review by Lillian DeRitter

Well, it was inevitable. Resident wiseguys with heart Jason Reitman (Thank You for Smoking, Up in the Air, Juno) and Diablo Cody (Juno, Jennifer’s Body, the recently canceled United States of Tara) have teamed up once again to offer us a tale about what happens after high school. Or, rather what happens when you wish you could go back to high school. Academy Award Winner Charlize Theron stars as a former (or maybe still) “Psychotic Prom Queen Bitch” Mavis, who returns to Mercury, Minnesota after a messy divorce, hoping to rekindle her relationship with her married high school sweetheart. Professional sympathetic nice guy Patrick Wilson plays the sweetheart and Patton Oswalt tries to be the voice of reason.

Mavis is no john-killing lesbian serial killer, but Theron, Cody, and Reitman have their work cut out for them as far as keeping the main character sympathetic, as evidenced by the final bit of dialogue in the trailer between an incredibly earnest Wilson and a (hopefully adorably) delusional Theron:

“I’m a married man.”
“I know. We can beat this thing together.”

Young Adult begins with a premise that would seem jollier in romantic comedy land (where Wilson’s wife would end up being an awful shrew, making things so much easier). Yet, if Reitman’s honest, sweet, and sharp tongued handling of Cody’s previous work is any indication, there’s a heart and some growing to do for Theron’s sad, spoiled thirtysomething. I’m not sure which I would like better, for her to end up with Oswalt or to head off into the sunset with her little dog. Tell us what you think in the comments!

You can watch the trailer above, or see Theron’s midlife (thirdlife? How old is old in Diablo Cody land?) crisis in glorious HD here at Apple Trailers.