How much cute can you handle?

Usually, with me, it's just about zero, but I'll make an exception this time because these clips are pretty much all very funny, too.

Here, courtesy of Moviefone, are kids acting out four of the Best Picture nominees for this year's Oscars, in order, "The Social Network", "127 Hours", "The King's Speech" and "The Fighter." The kids taking on Aaron Sorkin's rapid-fire dialogue is pretty priceless, but I think best of all might be the poor kid who takes time to pick a winner during the clip of "The Fighter."

What would made these even better? Perhaps if they had tried to do "Winter's Bone" or "The Kids Are Alright," though I suppose we don't really want to go there ... Enjoy!

Review: Danny Boyle's exhilarating "127 Hours"

As hokey as it sounds, "127 Hours" is the kind of movie that makes you (or at least me) think about what constitutes a "perfect day," and for me the day I saw Danny Boyle's fairly amazing new flick was one of them.

For a brief replay, here goes: A rare Friday off beginning with a mile swim (about as close as I'll ever get to the kind of extreme sports Aron Ralston likes), a trip to Atlanta to see "127 Hours" and eat at the Original Pancake House (a Texas crepe - excellent), then home again to watch "Winter's Bone" on the Blue Ray, which on second viewing still stands up as the best movie of 2010.

I tell you all that to tell you this: One of the many charms of Boyle's movie is that we are dropped right into the middle of what we can tell is at least at the beginning Ralston's perfect day, and Boyle dives into it with every trick in his bag (and a few too many, but I'll get into that later.) It's the energy that flows throughout the flick, before, during and after the nightmare we all know is coming, that makes this not just watchable but often a real joy to behold, even when it's only James Franco on screen alone for long stretches.

It's both Franco and Boyle that give this flick, right from the start, the trademark of Boyle's best movies, unvarnished - yet always unsentimental - optimism. Filmed (rather amazingly, given its cohesive feel) by two directors of photography, Enrique Chediak and Anthony Dod Mantle, the Utah landscape Ralston gleefully rides into comes to vibrant and beautiful life, and Franco embraces it with all the goofy energy he can muster.

And just when you're thinking Ralston's ideal day couldn't get any better, he runs into two beautiful young women, played by Amber Tamblyn and Kate Mara, who just happen to be lost (yes, if this weren't certainly a true story, it does often seem completely unbelievable), leading to one of the movie's best - and most prescient - scenes: When the three of them do a several hundred foot freefall between two rock walls into a clear blue pool of water. This moment just perfectly captures the mix of fear and exhilaration that drives "127 Hours."

But as sunny and fun as all this is, we know it's all just a 30-minute-or-so setup for what we know is coming (I'm going to have to assume anyone reading already knows), the moment when Ralston, having left his new friends behind, falls into a very narrow valley and gets his arm pinned under a boulder for the titular "127 Hours." Now, I've never seen "Castaway," because I just couldn't bring myself to watch Tom Hanks on screen alone for nearly two hours, so I can't make any comparison, but I can tell you that for several reasons, "127 Hours" doesn't become any less engaging once it's Franco all alone for a very long stretch.

First up is the work of Boyle's two cinematographers, who take us right into the hole with Franco, and with acute use of camera angles, make it feel just as uncomfortable for us as it was for Ralston. And Boyle himself makes a wise choice in not using anything approaching standard flashbacks as Ralston's mind inevitably starts to wander when left to its own devices. Instead, we get several arresting flights of fancy, including a vision of Ralston's future and, best of all, a feel-good montage of soda pop commercials that take his mind away for a little while.

Inevitably I suppose, Boyle does occasionally get bored with this scenario, and lets his hunger for camera tricks get the better of him on a few occasions, particularly with the use of water. Yes, we get it, when water flows it can look really cool on screen, but by the fourth or fifth (or yes, maybe as many as 10th) time, it just gets extremely old.

But what really holds this all together as a cohesive work is Franco himself, and after watching him and thinking about it, I really couldn't think of anyone else who could have pulled this off. I saw an interview with him in which he said Boyle almost didn't hire him because the director thought he was high. That's funny in itself, but it also perfectly captures the mood Ralston is in when this adventure begins.

Once its just him on screen, Franco lets his performance naturally turn more introspective, always leavened with enough humor to make this all go down so well, especially when he interviews himself and lays out exactly why the trip was so ill-fated to begin with. He makes it a coming-of-age tale that's at times very poignant, and unless Colin Firth manages to swipe it away from him, will most likely have co-host Franco (with Anne Hathaway - enough pretty for you?) celebrating on Oscar night.

And, of course, there's one more thing to deal with, and if you don't know what happened to Ralston, please DON'T READ THIS PARAGRAPH. Knowing what Ralston had to do to get out of that hole, I had my sweater in my hands, ready to cover my eyes (and it did at several points - yes, I'm just a big wuss.) Though Boyle certainly could have made it more bloody, he nonetheless makes it very hard to watch as Ralston methodically saws off his own arm with the smallest of pocket knives. Grueling to watch, for sure, but the payoff when Ralston finally works his way out and back to the light of day is more than worth the squirming in your seat.

The bottom line: This isn't Danny Boyle's best movie (for me those are still "Trainspotting' and "Shallow Grave"), but it's one brimming with energy and great storytelling. Highly recommended for a perfect movie day. Peace out.

DVD review: "The Extra Man"

Be warned: Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini's "The Extra Man" is indeed a "character study," but thankfully it's a genuinely odd and often endearing one.

Based on the Jonathan Ames novel of the same name, it stars Kevin Kline as the titular "Extra Man," a bizarre, sexless gigolo of sorts for rich old ladies, and Paul Dano as his protege. Much like Ames' "Bored to Death" on HBO, it's also an ode to the kind of New York eccentrics that are being buried by the city's continued Disneyfication.

Berman and Pulcini, who wrote and directed the fabulous "American Splendor," about the late Harvey Pekar, are at their best when they shine the light on American oddity, which is certainly the case with "The Extra Man."

Fans of "Bored to Death," of which you can certainly count me as one, should be warned, however: The humor is much less broad than with that NYC stoner romp starring Jason Schwartzman, Zach Galifianakis and Ted Danson. That doesn't mean, however, that the laughs aren't here, there just more delicate and sometimes hard to watch.

Ames always writes a lot of himself into one of his characters, and in this case you have to wonder how many of the issues he shares with Dano's Louis Ives. As the movie opens, he's being fired as a professor at Princeton because his boss discovers him trying on a co-worker's bra in the teacher's lounge.

From there, he sets his sights on New York City, and ends up matched up with Kline after answering an ad seeking a roommate who's a "gentleman." From there on out, the movie is mostly about the relationship of that odd couple and their various adventures squiring old women around town (yes, it often really is as crazy as it sounds.)

Having read on the DVD box that this was "Kevin Kline's best performance since "A Fish Called Wanda'," I was bracing for an over-the-top mess, but for the most part he dives into the part of Henry Harrison and delivers a portrait of a genuine New York eccentric. Dano, for his part, slowly learns to give as good as he gets with Henry's odd life advice, and they play off each other very well.

Ames' tale constantly straddles the line between genuine oddity and contrived quirk, and at least a few times dashes right across it. On the good side is Lewis' visit to a "recession spankologist," something that would be right at home on "Bored to Death" and funny enough that I won't tell you any more about it here.

On the down side, however, is the usually reliable John C. Reilly, who plays Harrison's neighbor with a high-pitched squeal that will grate on you almost as much as his overall performance. And, because of course any movie like this needs a potential love interest for our hero, Katie Holmes makes an appearance too, but never for long enough to be too annoying.

Watching "The Extra Man," I was reminded of two directors: Woody Allen (who turned 75 this week - bully) and Wes Anderson. Allen for the extremely strong sense of place that marks the best of his old New York movies ("Manhattan" being my all-time favorite) and Anderson, of course, for the oddity, at its very best and worst.

The bottom line: "The Extra Man" certainly isn't for everyone (it got a measly 41 percent positive at Rotten Tomatoes), but if you want to spend a little time with some genuine characters in a New York City that's rapidly fading away, you could do a whole lot worse than this mostly fun little flick.

And, of course, I always like to wrap things up with a couple of fun clips.

First up comes a clip from Julie Taymor's "The Tempest," which isn't likely to be on anyone's best of 2010, but along with "The Extra Man," it's sure to be among the craziest of the year, and that's always OK in my book. As you'll see below, this stars Dame Helen Mirren and Djimon Honsou, and also somehow Russell Brand, Alfred Molina, Chris Cooper and Alan Cumming. Keep an eye out for this in at least some corners of the world Dec. 10, and enjoy the clip.



Next comes the trailer for Steven Soderbergh's tribute to his friend, the late great monologist Spalding Gray, "And Everything Is Going Fine." It pains me that in the many times I've been to New York City, I never got to see Gray live before he dived off the Staten Island Ferry, but hopefully this IFC documentary will be playing somewhere when I return there in early January. Enjoy.



And with that, I'm off on this rare Friday off to go see Danny Boyle's "127 Hours" in Atlanta, and really looking forward to it. Peace out.

The best movie of 2010 getting all kinds of kudos

Though Pixar's "Toy Story 3" comes in a close second, I haven't seen a better movie this year than Debra Granik's "Winter's Bone," and now that it's awards season, that great flick is starting to garner some very well-deserved recognition.

First this week, it really came up big at the Gothams, winning the awards for Best Feature and, perhaps even better, Best Ensemble Performance, because Jennifer Lawrence and John Hawkes also delivered the best two performances I've seen on screen this year.,

In the Best Feature category, it prevailed over some heavy hitters in "Black Swan," "The Kids Are All Right" "Blue Valentine" and "Let Me In." (I don't want to be hateful about it, but I thought "The Kids Are All Right" was severely overrated - at best a TV movie with exceptional acting from Annette Bening. And as for "Let Me In" even being on this list, that's a disgrace.)

On a personal side note, I was disappointed to see that "Summer Pasture," a truly odd but endearing documentary about Tibetan nomads that I saw at the Rehoboth Beach Independent Film Festival, didn't win in the category of Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You, which went to something called "Littlerock."

And now on top of that, "Winter's Bone" has also notched the most Independent Spirit Award nominations with seven, and in all the major categories (including for Lawrence and Hawkes.)

In case anyone's curious, here are the nominees in the major categories:

Best Film
* 127 Hours
* Black Swan
* Greenberg
* The Kids Are All Right
* Winter’s Bone

Best Director
* Darren Aronofsky – Black Swan
* Danny Boyle – 127 Hours
* Lisa Cholodenko – The Kids Are All Right
* Debra Granik – Winter’s Bone
* John Cameron Mitchell – Rabbit Hole

Best Actor
* Ronald Bronstein – Daddly Longlegs
* Aaron Eckhart – Rabbit Hole
* James Franco – 127 Hours
* John C. Reilly – Cyrus
* Ben Stiller – Greenberg

Best Actress
* Nicole Kidman – Rabbit Hole
* Annette Bening – The Kids Are All Right
* Greta Gerwig – Greenberg
* Jennifer Lawrence – Winter’s Bone
* Natalie Portman – Black Swan
* Michelle Williams – Blue Valentine

Best Supporting Actor
* John Hawkes – Winter’s Bone
* Samuel L. Jackson – Mother and Child
* Bill Murray – Get Low
* John Ortiz – Jack Goes Boating
* Mark Ruffalo – The Kids Are All Right

Best Supporting Actress
* Ashley Bell – The Last Exorcism
* Dale Dickey – Winter’s Bone
* Allison Janney – Life During Wartime
* Daphne Rubin-Vega – Jack Goes Boating
* Naomi Watts – Mother and Child

Best Foreign Film
* The King’s Speech
* Kisses
* Mademoiselle Chambon
* Of Gods and Men
* Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

Best Documentary
* Exit Through the Gift Shop
* Marwencol
* Restrepo
* Sweetgrass
* Thunder Soul

Best Screenplay
* Lisa Cholodenko, Stuart Blumberg – The Kids Are All Right
* Debra Granik, Anne Rosellini – Winter’s Bone
* Nicole Holofcener – Please Give
* David Lindsay-Abaire – Rabbit Hole
* Todd Solondz – Life During Wartime

And if you haven't seen "Winter's Bone," I really can't recommend a rental any higher. I think it's sitting on my local redbox right now, so I plan to watch it again this weekend.

Granik's film, which takes place in the Ozarks, drops you deep into a side of America that I have to assume just about anyone who happens to read this has never seen.

As it starts, Rhee Dolly (Lawrence) gets a knock on the door of the home she shares with her two younger siblings, and a sheriff's deputy says her deadbeat father, who is due in court in a few days, has put up their house as a guarantor of his appearance.

From there, it's part film noir, part coming-of-age very fast in extremely tough circumstances and all very entertaining. Just watch it already.

And all I have after that today is something that's pretty old by now, but it's so cool that I just have to finish with it. I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that I'll never be able to stop paying for HBO. "Boardwalk Empire" has just gotten better and better this fall, and shortly after wraps up will come something even better, "Game of Thrones." I still have no idea when exactly this will hit the air, but it will be in winter or spring of 2011, and you can be sure I'll be eagerly tuned in for every episode of this series based on the books by George R. R. Martin. Enjoy the trailer below, and have a perfectly passable Wednesday. Peace out.

The single movie I'm most looking forward to for the rest of this year

First off, happy Thanksgiving to all, and how better to start the day than with a collection of turkeys?

Fandango surveyed its visitors to get the fans' picks for the 10 worst movies of 2010 so far,and I guess I should at least be thankful that I've only taken the time to watch one of these. First the list, and then my bone to pick with one of the picks.

1. VAMPIRES SUCK
2. CATS & DOGS: THE REVENGE OF KITTY GALORE
3. THE LAST AIRBENDER
4. MARMADUKE
5. THE SORCERER'S APPRENTICE
6. THE BACK-UP PLAN
7. SKYLINE
8. FURRY VENGEANCE
9. JONAH HEX
10. PRINCE OF PERSIA

So, which one doesn't belong there? I have to admit that I kind of liked M. Night Shyamalan's "The Last Airbender." Now, it certainly had almost nothing at all to with the source material from which it sprang, but as a standalone work, it's actually pretty entertaining.

For a remake that took a much bigger crap on the original work from which it sprang, I'd certainly substitute Matt Reeves' "Let Me In" on this list. Just sayin'.

But enough of that. It's a holiday, right, and easily one of the best ones of the year (even if I have to work ... nards), so let's keep it positive from here on out.

This being fall and all, there will surely be some fascinating flicks to wrap up the year. "127 Hours" and "Black Swan" are certainly two mind trips I'm ready to take, and I've only heard sensational things so far about Marky Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale in David O. Russell's "The Fighter."

The single movie I'm most looking to for the rest of the year, however, has to be the Coen brothers' take on "True Grit" (which is also a great and very funny novel by Charles Portis.)

A remake? Sure, but I still have extremely high hopes. One of the very best things about the Coens' flicks is their extremely strong sense of place, and especially in their last visit to the American West with "No Country for Old Men."

And besides, The Dude as Rooster Cogburn, hunting down Josh Brolin? This should be nothing but extremely cool, so keep an eye out for it Dec. 22, and for now enjoy these three fairly similar but still all worth watching TV spots for the flick, and of course, have a happy, happy Thanksgiving! Peace out.

What's that I smell?

There are so many jokes about stink colliding in my head that I'm just gonna have to let them go and play this one straight and let you imagine the consequences:Yes, Mike Myers really is going to play a live-action Pepe le Pew.

Let it sink in for a few seconds just how amazingly bad that is going to be, and then I'll move on to a couple of bits of actual good news in a very short report because I stayed up way too late last night watching the Braves get shut out by a 13-year-old girl (and man can she pitch.)

First up is that someone named Tom Vaughan (who I had never heard of) is going to be directing a movie based on one of my favorite satirical novels, "Boomsday." The book is by Christopher Buckley, the same wiseacre who penned "Thank You for Smoking," and the wickedly sharp story is about a Washington D.C. publicist/blogger who gets in over her head when a politician uses her suggestion that all Baby Boomers commit suicide in order to save Social Security as a campaign selling point.

If you're not laughing at that, then this clearly won't be a movie for you, but trust me, the book is a real smart hoot. And a quick look at Mr. Vaughan's resume shows he directed the thoroughly charming little British romantic comedy "Starter for 10," starring James McAvoy and Reel Fanatic fave Rebecca Hall, so this is now definitely something to keep your eyes on (and trust me, if you can find it, "Starter for 10" is well worth a rental.)

After that today, there's just a bit of great TV news before a couple of clips. "Sons of Anarchy," which has inevitably centered on the search for Jax's son Abel this season, has just been reviewed for a fourth 13-episode run next year by FX. Great news there, because the show has only improved on last year's doozy of cliffhanger, and while it's not quite on the level of a "Mad Men," the motorcycle gang show is still one of the best dramas on TV right now.

OK, like I said, I'm already running behind (no way to start a day), so I'll leave you with a couple of trailers I found this morning. First up comes the second (I think) trailer for the third "Narnia" movie, "The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader," set to come out (unfortunately in 3D) on Dec. 10. Though they haven't caught on on the big screen as well as "Harry Potter" or the "Lord of the Rings" movies, I just have a soft spot for the innocence and wonder of the "Narnia" tales, and this one should be fantastic. Enjoy.



And finally today comes the second full trailer I know of for Danny Boyle's "127 Hours," which for me is the next absolute must-see movie coming up on the calendar (now that Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck's "It's Kind of a Funny Story has, rather inexplicably, not opened wide enough to reach my little corner of the world - at least yet.) As you'll see from the trailer, though the movie is about a climber (played by James Franco) who gets his arm trapped under a boulder for the titular amount of time, it still seems to be brimming with energy and optimism. Enjoy the trailer, and have a great weekend. Peace out.

For Wednesday, a small cache of clips

Danny Boyle's "127 Hours," coming Nov. 5, is certain to be one of the more difficult films to watch this fall, but I'm betting on one of the best too.

The story of climber Aron Ralston, to be played by Freak James Franco, will certainly be a claustrophobic one once he gets trapped. If you're unfamiliar with the story, it's the true saga of mountain climber Ralston, who got trapped for the titular "127 Hours" in a Utah canyon and, well, had to go to extreme measures to get out.

What's great about this first teaser trailer is it starts with all the style and optimism of Boyle's best flicks and then just smacks you with what it's really about at the very end (and it looks great full screen.) Enjoy.



OK, it's TV from here on out today, and I probably should have started with this one, because it's just going to be an awesome epic dose of awesomeness, to exaggerate just a little.

Once you watch this clip, and if you like zombie movies (and who in the world doesn't?), however, I think you'll agree it's not exaggerating by much at all. AMC announced yesterday that Frank Darabont's "The Walking Dead," based on the comic by Robert Kirkman, will make its debut appropriately enough on Halloween and have, initially at least, a six episode run.

You know, of course, from the title alone what this is all about, and the trailer certainly doesn't disappoint. It lures you in with a slow beginning before the mayhem really begins just up the road from me in Atlanta, where the zombie apocalypse will certainly begin when it really does happen. Enjoy.



And finally today, anyone who's been here before knows I'm a rather avid fan of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, especially when they're simply out to be extremely funny. If you've ever watched HBO's "The Ricky Gervais Show" or listened to any of their podcasts, you know there's a third wheel when they're at their best, one Karl Pilkington. Though presented (and mocked and bullied) by Gervais as an idiot, Pilkington is also, in his own way, a bit of a comic genius, and now he's gotten his own series.

To be broadcast on the UK's Sky1, it's called "An Idiot Abroad," and springs from Pilkington's observation on a podcast that, if I remember this right, the Seven Wonders of the World are "a bit crap" (though he himself has never left England to actually find out.) Well, Gervais and Merchant of course jump all over that and send Pilkington around the globe, and as you'll see from the trailer below, the results are predictably silly. Enjoy the trailer, keep an eye out for this and let me know when it appears on this side of the pond, and have a perfectly passable Wednesday. Peace out.