First Article

Here's a link to my first article for At the Movies, the online blog of the Daily Trojan.

http://dailytrojanbeta.com/2011/08/30/it-takes-two-festivals-to-kick-off-oscar-season/

Hiatus

Good news and bad news (and more good news). Good news: I just got a staff writing job for the school newspaper - The Daily Trojan - and will be writing for two of their online blogs: At the Movies and Trojan Review. Bad news: this means I will not be able to post new things on this site (I just don't have time). But there's more good news too: this also means that you can still read things that I've written, it's just that it will be on a different website. You can go to dailytrojan.com and click on the Blogs tab to find my work, and I will also be posting links to my Daily Trojan articles on the FilmSchooled site. Keep following me on either FilmSchooled or Daily Trojan to read all about the latest movie news as well as weekly reviews of films and TV shows. Thanks!

Top Ten Tuesday: Disaster Movies

In honor of the freak-earthquake felt all along the Eastern seaboard this afternoon, I give you the ten best disaster movies of all time:

10. Outbreak
9. San Francisco
8. The Day After Tomorrow
7. The Poseidon Adventure
6. Twister
5. The Perfect Storm
4. World Trade Center
3. The Towering Inferno
2. Titanic
1. United 93

"Carnage" Trailer

Roman Polanski's adaptation of the hit Broadway play "God of Carnage" stars Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz, Jodie Foster, and John C. Reilly. This was included in my most anticipated of the year, and with good reason. It boasts an impressive cast and this is somewhat of a passion project for Polanski. The trailer makes the film look a little stagey but hopefully Polanski and the cast will be able to make it more cinematic.

Most Anticipated of 2011

As summer comes to a close and awards season takes off, I give you my 10 most anticipated movies of the fall/winter. In no particular order:

J. Edgar (Leo DiCaprio, dir. Clint Eastwood)
We Bought a Zoo (Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson, dir. Cameron Crowe)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Daniel Craig, dir. David Fincher)
50/50 (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, dir. Jonathan Levine)
Moneyball (Brad Pitt, dir. Bennett Miller)
The Ides of March (Ryan Gosling, George Clooney, dir. George Clooney)
Carnage (Kate Winslet, John C. Reilly, dir. Roman Polanski)
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (Gary Oldman, dir. Tomas Alfredson)
War Horse (Jeremy Irvine, dir. Steven Spielberg)
The Descendants (George Clooney, dir. Alexander Payne)

Apologies

Sorry for the hiatus. I've been swamped (and without a computer) the past few days moving into my new apartment at school. I'll post something today and will continue trying to post every day. Thanks.

Emmy Predictions

Since it's way way too early for Oscar predictions, I've decided to give you my winner predictions and thoughts for the upcoming Emmy awards, airing on September 18 at 8:00 pm on FOX. For a list of all the nominees, check out this article at the Huffington Post.

DRAMA


Best Drama Series
Boardwalk Empire

It's a close race between this and Friday Night Lights, the fan-favorite and recently-canceled series that has gone overlooked for years now. Emmy loves it some Terence Winter though, so I'm going with the HBO critical darling for now.

Best Actress, Drama
Julianna Margulies, The Good Wife

I've honestly never seen this show nor do I have any interest in it, but I've heard good things about Margulies and she won the Golden Globe for her performance two years ago.

Best Supporting Actress, Drama
Kelly McDonald, Boardwalk Empire

Right now I'm banking on Emmy's love for Boardwalk Empire to spill into the acting categories. This category is always a toss-up so it's always smart to go with prestigious HBO dramas when in doubt.

Best Actor, Drama
Steve Buscemi, Boardwalk Empire

Buscemi won the Golden Globe for this last year, and I'm expecting him to claim the Emmy also since this is the show's first year of qualifying for the awards. Friday Night Light's Kyle Chandler and Justified's Timothy Olyphant are dark horses that could possibly upset Buscemi, so watch out.

Best Supporting Actor, Drama
Peter Dinklage, Game of Thrones

I'm torn between Dinklage (my favorite supporting TV performance of the year) and the perennial nominee John Slattery in Mad Men. Voters might consider him overdue, but right now I'm going with the wildcard pick of Dinklage because he is so much fun to watch on screen.

COMEDY


Best Comedy Series
Modern Family

The show won the top prize last year and is easily the funniest show on television right now. Better yet, it received 6 acting nominations and 3 directing nominations, so clearly Emmy loves the show too.

Best Actress, Comedy
Amy Poehler, Parks and Recreation

This one usually goes to either Tina Fey or an HBO-show actress, but I'm feeling pretty ballsy with my predictions today so I'm picking the fan-favorite for the win.

Best Supporting Actress, Comedy
Jane Lynch, Glee

I hate to admit it, but I've seen all of Glee Season 2. And trust me, I will not be watching it next year, for reasons that I will probably explain in a future Random Rant post. Lynch's Sue Sylvester character was a lot of fun to watch in the show's first season, but come season 2 it felt like the writers had no more storylines or fun scenes to give her. She's still the favorite to win, however, because Emmy loves their Glee. In a perfect, Glee-free world, Julie Bowen would win this in a cakewalk.

Best Actor, Comedy
Steve Carell, The Office

Normally Jim Parsons from The Big Bang Theory would win this, but Emmy won't be able to resist giving the award to the grossly overdue Carell in his final season as one of the most iconic characters in TV history.

Best Supporting Actor, Comedy
Ty Burrell, Modern Family

Statistically speaking, one of the Modern Family nominees is highly likely to win since 4 out of the 6 nominees hail from the ABC sitcom. Last year it was Eric Stonestreet, but this time I around I'm going with Burrell because I think Emmy will want to spread the Modern Family love around.

Review: "Apes" Rises

Rupert Wyatt's Rise of the Planet of the Apes is hands-down the best movie of the summer, and could quite possibly go down as one of the best of the entire year. Not only is it a pulse-pounding action movie (which doesn't come into play until the third act) but also a thought-provoking and incredibly heartfelt science-fiction drama.

The story revolves around Will Rodman (James Franco), a scientist at GEN-SYS who has dedicated his life to finding a cure for his Alzheimer's-afflicted father (played beautifully by John Lithgow) by testing a retrovirus on chimpanzees. The virus affects the chimps' neurological systems, giving them an advanced, humanlike level of intelligence. When one of the super-intelligent chimps is killed, Will is charged with taking care of its child, Caesar (Andy Serkis), who has inherited his mother's intellect and strength but remains a loyal pet to Will and his father. Soon, however, Will is unable to control Caesar, who spearheads a spectacular escape from a holding facility and leads his fellow apes on a rampage through the streets of San Francisco.

This film is so much more than an action movie with monkeys. In fact, the climactic ape invasion doesn't even happen until the third act, as the first two thirds of the film set up the human characters and their relationship with the apes. Wyatt adds a great amount of emotional depth to the story and does the most important thing one can do in a movie: make us actually care about the characters, both human and primate. We care about Will's undying determination to cure his dying father. We care about Caesar wanting to break free from domestication in order to realize his full potential. And most of all, we care about the scientist and his primate friend's special bond and, ultimately, their inevitable separation.

During most of the movie, you find yourself actually rooting for the apes to escape their confines and wreak havoc across the human population, which is no small feat considering the eventual human enslavement that takes place in the original Planet of the Apes film. At the end of the story, as the apes find refuge in a national redwood forest and the seeds are planted for human devastation, we feel a haunting sense of defeat as the humans realize that they are no match for the hyper-intelligent apes. Man has foolishly tried to control nature, and nature has won.

Rupert Wyatt's direction is top-notch. The film goes by fast enough that it isn't a bore but slowly enough that we have time to get a feel for the characters and understand the ethical implications of what is happening. Even more impressive, however, is the film's special effects. Using motion-capture technology, the CGI apes look incredibly realistic. Every tick and facial expression is perfectly captured, adding to the film's sense of disturbing realism. The performances range from bland to one-note to absolutely extraordinary. Freida Pinto plays the totally useless and unnecessary role of Will's love interest, but tries her best to keep us interested nonetheless. Franco does his best "Frankenstein's monster" impression, playing Will as a well-intended but totally misguided idealist who, in the end, comes to realize the devastation he has unwittingly unleashed. John Lithgow's portrayal of Will's Alzheimer's-suffering father is one of the better performances in the film, as Lithgow is able to portray the disease in a beautifully subtle way rather than going the showy, over-the-top route.

But the top prize goes to Andy Serkis. Known best as the motion-capture specialist who played Gollum in the Lord of the Rings series as well as King Kong in the Peter Jackson film, Serkis performs a modern miracle in portraying Caesar. Never have I felt such a strong emotional connection to an animal, and it's to Serkis' credit that Caesar is easily the most engaging and interesting character in the entire film. In a perfect world, Serkis would snag at least an Oscar nomination for depicting a primate with such precision, but sadly it seems that the Academy (as well as fellow actors) has yet to embrace motion-capture performances.

Part action blockbuster, part thought-provoking sci-fi parable, Rise of the Planet of the Apes takes the crown as the best movie of the summer thanks to its spectacular action sequences, profound emotional depth, and an incredible physical performance by Andy Serkis.

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog ladies and gents! I created Film Schooled in order to share my passion for film (and occasionally, television) with fellow film lovers. I hope you find this site entertaining enough to continue viewing on a daily basis - I promise you won't be disappointed! You'll laugh, you'll cry, you might even learn something along the way (like how not to start a blog?). I will be posting daily (or at least semi-daily) about the goings-on in the entertainment world, featuring reviews, articles, random thoughts, and top-ten lists every week! If you like what you see, click "follow" on the sidebar so I can keep this site going. If you look at my picture and like what you see, my phone number is 123-456-7890. Just kidding (or not?).