50+ filmgoers fill the multiplex

By Sarah Sluis

This week, The New York Times pointed out that older moviegoers, who have long underrepresented themselves at the box office, are returning. During the last fifteen years, there's been a 67% increase in the number of 50+ moviegoers who report attending a movie in the past six months. Of all the reasons cited for this shift, the most important is content. Summer is seen as the season for "kid" movies, and many older viewers have more conservative standards and resent the "filth" they see on screen. The production code may not be coming back to keep sex, drugs, and violence in check, but this year's Oscar nominees and winners, in particular, highlight the kind of content that has strong appeal to older viewers.

The King's Speech, recently crowned Best Picture, was a film I knew immediately would appeal to those turned off by racy content in the theatres (in fact, it's being recut to a PG-13 by bleeping out its uses of the F-word). The movie has already crossed the $100 million mark, in large part thanks to those "once a year" moviegoers who will turn out doubly in light of the movie's Oscar win. The other nine movies nominated for an Academy Award all have appeal in the over-fifty range, even among the outliers: Inception was remarkably cerebral (unless that's code for confusing?) for a blockbuster, and Toy Story 3 drew plenty of adult audiences who know about Pixar's reputation for quality. Movies like True Grit and The Fighter, however, were the core, commercially successful and well-reviewed movies that drew in 50+ filmgoers.

The Times also draws attention to the atmosphere of a theatre--dirty cinemas with hordes of unruly teens can turn away older customers in a heartbeat. For an upcoming feature, I spoke with Skip Huston, owner of the Avon Theatre in Decatur, Illinois. His small theatre showed many of this year's Oscar films, including True Grit and Black Swan, to an older-skewing, more discerning audience. He has a staff that keeps the theatre spotless, popcorn that draws raves, and a historic "destination" cinema. Places like these show that older people will come to the theatre, if it has the right environment and a well-curated selection of films. If older filmgoers mean more adult movies and fewer dumb action films and comedies, please, fire away, but I suspect this means we're also going to be in for many more iterations of The Bucket List.

83rd Academy Awards recap: The Oscars court the next generation

By Sarah Sluis

The best way to watch any awards show is with a DVR. But it's worth noting that for this year's Oscar broadcast, I mainly used my fast forward button for the commercials, not the show. I was most impressed with Anne Hathaway as a host--she has amazing confidence, sparkles, and possesses that chipper attitude that helps move things along. I suspect James Franco was supposed to be her laid-back, wryly humorous counterpart, but it didn't seem to work out that way. He wasn't a straight man, he was a dead fish. She hosted the show herself, and I enjoyed it. Mark me as one of those "next-generation people" the Oscars successfully won over, I'm guilty as charged.

The broadcast itself held few surprises. Most of the categories were a lock. The King's Speech was supposed to win Best Picture (along with Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor for Colin Firth), and it did. In fact, Tom Hooper even won Best Director over The Social Network's David Fincher, who has a greater body of work to support his talent. I now suspect Fincher will join the ranks of the groundbreaking directors whose work is rewarded on much, much later films: Alfred Hitchcock, who only won an honorary award, or Martin Scorsese, who was nominated six times before he won on his seventh nomination.

When The King's Speech finally won Best Picture, it seemed anticlimactic. As the producers thanked Harvey Weinstein, they cut to a shot of him with the biggest, grimacing sourpuss expression I've ever seen from someone whose movie just won something. Not even a chuckle, a smile? This year, the battle between The King's Speech and The Social Network served as a symbol of the Academy's conservative voting methods. Oscar prognosticators suspected that the Anglophile, feel-good story of a king would beat a movie about the motormouth underdog who founded Facebook, and they were right. Maybe if they make a movie in 2070 about the founding of Facebook, it will win.

Though most winners managed to throw in something clever, there were few tears or breakdowns this year. The award for best speech (watch it here) goes to Luke Matheny, a recent NYU grad who won for Best Live Action Short Film. In his acceptance speech, his filmmaking experience sounded like the reminiscences of an old, successful director. His mom did craft services! He forgot to get a haircut! His girlfriend composed the music! Turns out Matheny's film was rejected by Sundance and Slamdance, but now he's got the last laugh--and an Oscar.

The losing actresses didn't give convincing "happy" performances. Even though Natalie Portman was considered the strongest contender for Best Actress, Annette Bening looked disappointed when she lost. She deserves an Oscar! In the supporting actress category, Amy Adams looked sad when fellow actress Melissa Leo claimed the statuette, and her eyes betrayed a hint of moisture when she presented the short film awards later in the evening. Don't worry, Amy! You'll get your chance. As for Bening--quick, line up another awards film. Maybe the fifth nomination will be the charm?

Social shout-outs. I did in fact "two-screen" the Oscars, but only to IMDB Lena Horne and read her obituary (after Halle Berry mentioned the trailblazing actress). And play spider solitaire during slow moments. Turns out James Franco was tweeting the whole time (maybe that's why he was so stone-faced--distraction?). Besides extra content offered online at ABC, a million other websites liveblogged the Oscars.

The broadcast itself drew heavily from YouTube. The Auto-tune the News people turned Harry Potter and Twilight dialogue into ballads, and the P.S. 22 choir, a product of YouTube viral fame, sang "Over the Rainbow." A note for next year: continue to replace montages with zeitgeisty moments like these.

For those that are now in withdrawal, rest assured. Some sites are already predicting the Oscar nominees for the broadcast in 2012.

Breaking down the Producers Guild nominees

By Sarah Sluis

Last year, the Producers Guild of America crowned The Hurt Locker as the top film of 2009. The PGA has correctly predicted the majority of Oscar Best Picture winners, making its nominee list a much-regarded crystal ball for the eventual Academy nominees and winners. The PGA nominates ten films, just like the Oscars, but at least a couple of movies seem unlikely to receive nods from both the PGA and the Academy.

The best film nominees:
127 Hours
Black Swan
Inception
The Fighter
The Kids Are All Right
The King's Speech
The Social Network
The Town
Toy Story 3
True Grit

Possible Omission #1: The Town. For me, this movie wasn't anything special. Spike Lee's 2006 movie Inside Man was a much more surprising, fun bank robbery movie, and it didn't get any love in awards season. The Town had some thrilling bank robbery scenes, but its Boston atmosphere didn't totally draw me and the romance felt like star-director Ben Affleck grabbing at air.

Possible Omission #2: Toy Story 3. Though this film has showed up on one top ten list after another, it's most likely that the movie will end up with a nomination in the animated category, where I hope it has tough competition from the DreamWorks Animation stunner How to Train Your Dragon.

Possible Omission #3: 127 Hours. Within the blogosphere, this movie's been taking the biggest beating, with many ruling it out because it failed to catch fire at the box office. Also, some Academy viewers were reportedly "afraid" to see the amputation scene, leading James Franco to film a video with his grandma, who wore a sweatshirt reading "I Kept My Eyes Open for 127 Hours."

What films could fill possibly end up in the Academy top ten? My votes are going to Winter's Bone and Blue Valentine. Winter's Bone is more likely to receive an acting nomination than a Best Picture one, but the movie is so affecting, I can't imagine Oscar voters not responding. Blue Valentine is much tougher to watch (and that's taking Winter's Bone's gory closing scene into account), and features a much younger, blue-collar couple--the opposite of a typical Academy voter. The seven remaining films seem highly probable nominees to me: Inception's the blockbuster everyone can get behind, The Kids Are All Right is the small indie that could, and most of the other specialty film nominees have risen into the top ten: True Grit, Black Swan, The King's Speech, and The Fighter are all earning millions of dollars a week, a pretty big change from last year, when only Up in the Air was achieving that mixture of critical and commercial success at the end-of-the-year box office. The Academy Award nominations are only three weeks away, on Jan. 25, and these nominations from the PGA have solidified the majors. Now it's up to the Academy to make some last minute substitutions in the game.

Top Ten Movies of 2010

By Sarah Sluis

This year has been an odd one at the box office. Last year it was all about Avatar, the big, Hollywood crowd-pleaser that everyone could get behind. It was the kind of film all blockbusters should aspire to. In 2010, commercial fare has been much more disappointing. Even films angling for Oscars often didn't meet my expectations. Unlike others, I wasn't wowed by The Fighter and The Social Network didn't live up to my (perhaps unfairly high) expectations. What follows, in no particular order, are the films that got me excited this year. These are the films that didn't just do something well, they did it differently, and often with an uncommon eye for realism.

1. How to Train Your Dragon. Pixar may be the king of CG animation, but this DreamWorks Animation movie had the entire package: striking cinematography, a lovable male hero, and a unique world for audiences to explore. The dark, shadowy look of the film was very adult, but the movie's appeal was universal.

2. Tabloid. I saw this movie at the Doc NYC Fest, and it's yet to find a distributor. I may be jumping the gun, but I predict this documentary will be showing up on "Best Of" lists in 2011. Errol Morris' comedic turn tops even his early work on Gates of Heaven. The story of a beauty queen and her kidnapping of her Mormon ex-lover is so crazy, it could only be true. The third act twist that will leave your mouth agape.

3. The King's Speech. This feel-good awards movie is one I really can get behind. Directed by Tom Hooper ("John Adams"), this fact-based tale actually breathes, with quiet moments that delicately lead us through the lightly comedic story. At the end, I was rooting for King George's speech like it was a sports match (I hope I don't denigrate the film by comparing it to the stirring end of The Mighty Ducks). This may be a "traditional" Oscar film, but it's done so impeccably, it's hard not to like. Added bonus: It's gentle and inoffensive enough to bring the whole family to without embarrassment.

4. Tiny Furniture. Actress/director/writer Lena Dunham is one to watch. I may be biased: She's a just-out-of-college Oberlin grad, I'm a few-years-out-of-college Wesleyan grad, making us of the same ilk. In this semi-autobiographical film, the whole post-graduate experience becomes an opportunity to make fun of her character in an extremely naturalistic, painfully funny way. She has no fear, and not only makes herself look unflattering in front of the camera, she stages some truly cringe-worthy scenes--and did I mention she cast her mother and sister as her mother and sister?

5. Winter's Bone. In television, there's that "sitcom" living room and kitchen, which never seem to change no matter who the family is supposed to be. Film has the same problem, with the same glossed-over settings used again and again, and production designers that just can't help themselves from designing adorable spaces for supposedly average families. Winter's Bone changes all of that, filming in the Ozarks and using local actors to show outsiders what it's like to live in a rural, meth-infested world. I saw a part of America I'd never seen before.

6. Cyrus. Most romantic comedies are terrible, which is too bad, because I really like hearing funny stories about relationships. Cyrus was filled with moments that registered as funny because they were so close to real life, and didn't overplay its hand when it came to the battle between a woman's boyfriend and her son. Last year's (500) Days of Summer had the "rom-com" spot on my list, and this year it goes to Cyrus.

7. Somewhere. Sofia Coppola has the ability to slip you into this moody state of mind, and it's a pleasure to spend an hour and a half following a movie star with a mildly tragic case of ennui. His daughter (Elle Fanning) is charming, and even an "is-this-it?" ending didn't scratch this one off my top ten list.

8. Restrepo. This was a tough one, as Alex Gibney's Casino Jack and the United States of Money was also one of my favorites. But keeping to my theme, originality and reality won out. Like Winter's Bone, Restrepo presents a world that I never knew existed. The stakes of war feel so different here than on the evening news or in a war drama. I sensed that the filmmakers, Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington, really cared for the soldiers I sensed that the movie's creators, Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington, really cared for the soldiers they filmed in Afghanistan, but they aren't afraid to show moments that raise questions about their actions. The film offers a nuanced look at the impact of these Americans who are both making things worse and making things better. One thing's clear: it's time to bring our troops home.

9. Mother and Child. Weeks after leaving this movie, what I most wanted was to see more of Kerry Washington (she's currently in Night Catches Us), who plays a super-eager type-A wife who desperately wants to adopt a child. But she's just one part of the whole picture, with the cruelly cold Naomi Watts and sad Annette Bening offering three perspectives on mother-child relationships. A kind of modern melodrama, director Rodrigo Garca's sadly overlooked tale left a deep impression.

10. Blue Valentine. This Ryan Gosling/Michelle Williams tale of an imploding romance made it to the list because of its intense realism. Screenwriters Derek Cianfrance, Joey Curtis and Kami Delavigne have this incredible ear for toxic conversations, and it's awe-inducing to hear this couple break each other down without even raising their voices (though there are plenty of screaming matches), through seemingly innocent requests and comments. The sad story has a scientific level of precision, able to capture in detail the seismic activity that precedes a volcanic eruption. For that, it's one of my favorite films this year, and one that I hope will be rewarded at the Oscars.