Movies Dearz

Brittany Murphy, star of such films as Clueless, Drop Dead Gorgeous, Girl, Interrupted, Don't Say a Word and 8 Mile, died this morning. She was 32 years-old.

For our last MD Poll of the year, we turn our attention to the recently announced Golden Globe nominations and ask you to name the movies you think will win in their top two categories, Best Picture - Drama and Best Picture - Musical or Comedy.

This is our third go-round with the Globes, and you correctly predicted victory for Atonement and Sweeney Todd two years ago. Alas, you weren't so lucky last year, when Slumdog Millionaire and Vicky Cristina Barcelona bested your picks The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Mamma Mia! Let's see how you do this year!

Place your votes in the two polls located in the right hand sidebar, and be sure to vote in both of them! Results will be revealed on January 15, two days before the Golden Globe telecast.

UPDATE: This poll is now closed; click here for the results, and click here to vote in the next MD Poll.

When it comes to classic cartoon Christmas specials, Movie Dearest readers prefer a little melancholy in their merriment, as witnessed by the Charles Schultz chestnut A Charlie Brown Christmas being named your all-time favorite of the genre in our latest MD Poll.

Seasonal cynicism continued with the remainder of the top three, Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (watch this for proof of the latter). Of course, there does need to be a little holiday malaise for our toon underdogs to overcome, which is perhaps why these perennial favorites have stood the test of time so well.

See the comments section below for the complete results.

“The evening star is shining bright,
so make a wish and hold on tight.
There’s magic in the air tonight,
and anything can happen …”
This simple lyric is the “once upon a time” that begins Disney’s The Princess and the Frog. More than just the revival of traditional animation or the debut of their first African American princess, this is Disney’s return to magical, musical storytelling as only they can do.

A Southern-flavored take on the classic fairy tale "The Frog Prince", The Princess and the Frog immerses the viewer in a colorful, tune-filled fantasy world where alligators play musical instruments, fireflies speak in Cajun accents and there’s a happily ever after (if you work hard enough) around every bend in the bayou.

Our heroine is the strong-willed Tiana (voiced by Tony Award winner Anika Noni Rose, best known as one of the movies’ Dreamgirls), an independent young woman and master chef who dreams of owning her own restaurant “down on the river” in New Orleans. That dream is sidetracked though when she meets a handsome prince … yet she doesn’t know it at first as he’s been turned into (you guessed it) a frog.

See, the Prince charming-yet-frivolous Naveen (Bruno Campos, of Nip/Tuck 's penisless bisexual serial killer fame) has run afoul of the neighborhood voodoo “shadow man”, Dr. Facilier (voiced by Keith David; a character reminiscent of Sammy Davis Jr.’s Sportin’ Life from Porgy and Bess mixed with Geoffrey Holder’s Baron Samedi from Live and Let Die).

In a devilish plot to get his hands on the riches of the local “Big Daddy”, La Bouff (John Goodman), Facilier facilitates the prince’s amphibian transformation and recruits his put-upon valet Lawrence (Peter Bartlett, best known as the put-upon butler Nigel on the ABC soap One Life to Live) to masquerade as his master. This allows the faux prince a chance to cozy up to La Bouff’s eligible-yet-shallow daughter Charlotte (Broadway babe Jennifer Cody) at her masquerade party.

And this is where the frog-ified Naveen finds Tiana, fatefully attired in a princess costume. Borrowing a page from the fairy tale, Naveen naturally asks the “princess” to kiss him to break the spell … except (as we know) she’s not a princess and the smooch results in Tiana’s own transformation into a frog as well. Talk about “one froggy evening” …

UPDATE:  The Princess and the Frog is now available on DVD and Blu-ray from Amazon.com.

Click here to continue reading my Toon Talk review of The Princess and the Frog on LaughingPlace.com.

Jennifer Jones, the Academy Award winning star of The Song of Bernadette, Duel in the Sun, Love is a Many-Splendored Thing and The Towering Inferno, passed away Thursday at the age of 90.

Nominations for the 16th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards were revealed this morning and, just as they always do at this point in award season, things are starting to look awfully familiar. All the usual suspects (Bridges, Clooney, Streep, Mo’Nique) make their usual appearances, with the only real surprise being a supporting nod for Inglourious Basterds' resident femme fatale Diane Kruger.

Her film joins An Education, The Hurt Locker, Nine and Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire in the Ensemble Cast category, leaving no room for front-runner Up in the Air, which should give Oscar bloggers plenty to obsess about over the holiday lull. (For a quick look at all the film nominees, see the comments section below.)

As for the TV nominations, cast honors went to Glee, Modern Family and True Blood, while both Big and Little Edie (Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore) were recognized for HBO's Grey Gardens. They'll compete against Sigourney Weaver from Prayers for Bobby.

The SAG Awards will be simulcast live on TNT and TBS on January 23. In addition to the annual awards, the Guild will present their Life Achievement Award to our beloved Betty White.

After all the hype, you might feel like you’ve already seen James Cameron’s three hundred million dollar Avatar (in theaters Friday). Guess what? You have! Although it’s undeniably stunning visually, the story is a Frankenstein’s monster of a movie made of bits and pieces of dozens of other better films. To spare you a raging case of déjà vu, I’ve compiled a handy list to clip out and take to the theater with you:

In Avatar, A clueless marine (Sam Worthington, barely concealing his Australian accent) is turned into an alien, but ends up bonding with the reviled creatures and fighting the cruel government’s attempt to eradicate them. Meanwhile, in District 9, a clueless bureaucrat (Sharlto Copley) is turned into an alien, but ends up bonding with the reviled creatures and fighting the cruel government’s attempt to eradicate them.

As a rite of passage, Avatar's Jake Sully (no relation to the heroic US Airways pilot, we think) must tame a flying dragon and become its master. Ditto the hero of Eragon ... and Dragonheart ... and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire ... and The NeverEnding Story ...


And the Avatarian familiarities continue:

• Dances With Wolves: A military man bonds with an indigenous people and ends up fighting the evil and greedy “good guys” bent on taking their land.
• Pocahontas: The wise indigenous people are one with nature and worship a “mother tree” (not, alas, played by Linda Hunt).
• Aliens: Gung-ho Marines, including a hard-ass Hispanic woman, invade a hostile planet, unprepared to fight the native creatures. Cameron also reuses the two-legged loader that Sigourney Weaver manned so heroically.
• Total Recall: The alien planet’s atmosphere is always a danger to the hero, leading to scary scenes of near suffocation.
• More Pocahontas: The hero faces ridicule and the threat of death by the tribe’s leader, but he is saved by his love, the chief’s daughter.
• King Kong: In the alien jungle, the hero is nearly trampled by a group of dinosaurs, then is nearly eaten by a bigger, more ferocious dinosaur.
• 10,000 B.C.: The hero must unite warring peoples to topple the corrupt and evil oppressors. Both movies stink.
• The Alice in Wonderland ride at Disneyland: Garish fluorescent plants and creatures are everywhere, and both are best experienced under the influence of some sort of hallucinogen.

Avatar has some of the worst dialogue ever uttered, and most of it comes out of power-mad Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang). Referring to the film's exotic planet setting in one of the more picturesque examples, he barks, “Pandora will shit you out".

Finally, just when you think you’re safe, Leona Lewis sings “I See You”, the Love Theme from Avatar, over the credits. It’s a derivative retread of "My Heart Will Go On" (minus Celine Dion) and it’s the perfect capper to an overlong sci-fi slog through the jungles of clichéland.

UPDATE: Avatar is now available on DVD and Blu-ray from Amazon.com.

Review by Neil Cohen, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and Phoenix's Echo Magazine.