The Wrestler

Twelve measly days separate us from 2009. Between now and December 31st, a whopping sixteen movies will hit theaters, all of varying pedigree and expectation. Couple those releases with the ever-expanding theater counts for some of the more critically acclaimed films from the last few weeks (Doubt, Gran Torino, Frost/Nixon, etc.), and you've got a logjam. Even if you saw three movies a day, from now until New Year's Eve, you probably still couldn't get them all in before the ball drops. Five new releases hit theaters this weekend, giving an already weary filmgoer not a moment for respite. Want to prepare yourself before heading into the gaping maw of the local cineplex? Here's a handy guide to the new releases.  read more »

Milk

We only needed to see the kick-ass trailer for Milk to slot this Gus Van Sant film straight into Best Picture contention. After all, it has all of those gold statuette elements: a true story—of California’s first openly gay elected official, Harvey Milk, who was murdered alongside San Francisco Mayor George Moscone by Supervisor Dan White (who used the Twinkie Defense in court!)—and a cast that boasts Sean Penn, doing his Sean Penn thing and disappearing completely into his role of Harvey Milk while bringing out yet another side to Josh Brolin, who plays Dan White. Plus, there’s an awful lot of pretty boys—James Franco, Emile Hirsch, Diego Luna—who might not have quite enough to do, but manage to do plenty with what they were given.  read more »

Ever since Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and inspired one of those famed late-night bidding wars in Toronto , everyone has been all aflutter to see the film. It’s due to close the 46th New York Film Festival on October 12th (and released by Fox Searchlight in theaters in December) but those wrinkled press and industry types got to see the film this morning. Mickey Rourke, who is in practically every scene of the film, turned in as good a performance as promised, playing an aged professional wrestler who still likes to suit up for the ring, and listen to 80s hair metal as he drives around New Jersey (holla!). People are already talking about an Oscar for Mr. Rourke, and maybe for Mr. Aronofsky too (which is a far cry from how they responded to his last film, The Fountain).

At the press conference following the film, it seemed clear that Mr. Aronofsky is quite the taskmaster on set. “I won’t say he’s tough because he doesn’t like that,” said Mr. Rourke. “Relentless. Let’s say relentless.”  read more »

Here's a question....how early is too early to start talking about the Oscars? We're guessing, um, now! But after seeing the trailer for Gus Van Sant's Milk and practically hearing the acceptance speeches being written, we were inspired!

So now, with absolutely no evidence or facts or, you know, actually seeing any of these movies, we present our insanely early prediction of which movies will land in the top five for Best Picture next February:

Milk: Gus Van Sant directs Sean Penn—who weirdly somehow got his face to look quite a lot like Harvey Milk, the subject of this film. Plus, look at the star power: Emile Hirsch, James Franco, Josh Brolin, Diego Luna, Victor Garber, Denis O'Hare.  read more »