devil wears prada Tagged Articles at Cinematical

For me the most entertaining part of the annual Oscar schpiel is not seeing which films get awards and what actors earn the most respect; it's scratching my head through the boneheaded decisions that seem to come a) out of nowhere and b) from a bunch of people who really ought to know a little better. Here are my picks for the seven biggest pieces of silliness regarding this year's Oscar nominations:

7. Borat for best adapted screenplay? Whaaaaat? Did we see the same movie? Don't get me wrong: I absolutely LOVED this movie -- I called it "one of the funniest movies ever made" and I stand by that opinion today -- but didn't most of the funniest bits come from moments best described as "off the cuff," "reaction-driven" and "semi-improvised"? I understand that more of the flick was scripted than one might expect, but c'mon. Unless all of Borat's interview subjects were given lines to read, I really don't see how this nomination makes any sense. I love seeing the movie get some respect, but what a silly way to do it.

6. Click gets nominated for best makeup ... but Pirates of the Caribbean 2 does not? What the hell? Did any of the Academy members see this movie? Yeah, I know that most of the more dazzling FX were full-bore CGI, but heck; the makeup used on Naomie Harris was more impressive than anything in freakin' Click! Fat suits and really lame "old man" makeup is all it takes to get an Oscar nom these days? Sheesh. Plus I just don't like living in a world that calls Click an Oscar nominee.

5. Nominating The Devil Wears Prada for Best Costume Design is like nominating Talladega Nights for Best Product Placement. Welcome to the world of Home Shopping Cinema.

I'm all for these guild awards, with their specific categories and distinct recognitions, but I'm not sure I understand the Costume Designer Guild's honor for "Distinguished Actor." If the reasoning is that the recipient of this award is someone who looks good in costumes, or makes costume designers look good, then Helen Mirren makes sense as this year's winner. But this reason doesn't explain why the guild is also giving Sandra Bullock an award. Suddenly, the logic falls apart -- especially for anyone who has seen Miss Congeniality 2.

The costume designers don't need to give actors any more praise. And Mirren certainly doesn't need any more trophies this year. To me, the guild's recognition of the different genres of costume design is interesting and appealing enough without some unnecessary star-kissing.

The categories for the Costume Designer Guild Awards separately acknowledge achievements for modern costume, period costume and fantasy costume. The lumping of these genres together into the Best Costume Design Oscar doesn't give credit to the differences between them, and it often ignores the difficulty of modern costuming, which many people assume is as easy as the everyday act of getting dressed in the morning.

Barnyard: The Original Party Animals -- Only worth renting if your kids have already seen The Ant Bully, Flushed Away, Happy Feet, Ice Age 2, Open Season, Over the Hedge and The Wild. (At least three times apiece.) Plot: A bunch of cows do silly things in a barnyard. Extras include filmmaker commentary, four featurettes, seven deleted scenes, two music videos, etc.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe -- You know how New Line released those really nifty "extended edition" DVDs for The Lord of the Rings? Yeah, well Disney liked that idea so here comes the mega-huge Narnia release, complete with seven additional minutes of in-movie footage, three lengthy audio commentaries, and two full discs over-stuffed with lions and witches and wardrobes, oh my.

The Devil Wears Prada -- The chick-flick version of Hostel. Anne Hathaway plays a "fat girl" who allows herself to be abused by the evil boss Meryl Streep just long enough to earn an oh-so-important life lesson. Extras include a filmmaker commentary, four featurettes, a bunch of deleted scenes and other random trinkets.

Material Girls -- One of the worst studio releases of the past 15 years. Stunningly bad. Highly recommended, however, if you happen to be a member of the Duff family. Anyone who can make it more than 15 minutes into Martha Coolidge's audio commentary has the fortitude of an Egyptian pyramid-builder. Featurettes and music videos are also included.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby -- Will Ferrell brings his patented brand of stream-of-consciousness goofiness to the easy-target world of NASCAR, and the result is a movie just as funny as we expected it to be. OK, so it's not Anchorman, but it's still packed with laughs. (Plus John C.Reilly, Sacha Baron Cohen and Amy Adams are actually allowed to steal a few scenes, with makes me think even more of Ferrell as a comedian.) Snag the unrated edition for extra footage and a truckload of commentaries, featurettes, deleted scenes, bloopers, promos and more assorted silliness.

World Trade Center -- The year's second 9/11 movie takes a decidedly different approach than its predecessor (United 93) and turns out to be one of Oliver Stone's more accessible projects. The horrible date is re-captured in chillingly realistic fashion, the performances are pretty great across the board, and the extra features (in the 2-disc commemorative edition) are as informative as they are entertaining. Fans of the film can pick through two separate audio commentaries and a second disc filled with mini-documentaries on the film, the survivors and the event itself.

Now that Meryl Streep's three big movies have dropped to the 400 screens-or-less mark -- The Devil Wears Prada (228 screens), The Ant Bully (78 screens) and A Prairie Home Companion (44 screens) -- I'd like to take a moment to celebrate her remarkable career. Sure, you're saying... hasn't she been celebrated enough? Not really. Few have noticed how Hollywood has chewed up and swallowed Streep, and yet she has come out the other side better than ever.

Born in New Jersey in 1949, Streep originally dreamed of the opera. She attended Vassar and Yale, performed regularly on stage and barely had to struggle before landing her first plumb movie role in Julia (1977). The following year she received an Oscar nomination for The Deer Hunter and a year later, won for Kramer vs. Kramer. She has received a total of 13 nominations, which ties her with Katharine Hepburn (one more, which could come this year, and she'll be the record holder).

Perhaps buoyed by the success of the Vogue-skewering The Devil Wears Prada, Number 9 Films is getting serious about its screen version of How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, a bestselling memoir about journalist Toby Young's "disastrous stint as a contributing editor for Vanity Fair." In his book, Young is hard on both himself (specifically his pathetic attempts to "ingratiate himself with celebrities and impress supermodels") and Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, as well as "the self-importance of the entire Vanity Fair machine."

Though the part of Carter (called Clayton Harding in the screenplay; Vanity Fair is called Sharps magazine -- fewer lawsuits that way) is yet to be cast, Young will be played by Simon Pegg, which probably means the movie is going to be good. Written by Peter Straughan, the film version of Young's story will mark the big-screen directorial debut of Curb Your Enthusiasm director Robert B. Weide; production is expected to begin next spring.

So, let's start with the good news for Warner Bros.: Superman Returns topped the box office this weekend! Yay! The film made just over $52 million from 4065 screens, easily out-earning The Devil Wears Prada, which took in $27 million on about 1200 fewer screens. The bad news, however, is that, big-picture, the movie tanked. Its $81.2 million over the first five days of release is good enough for ... 30th place on the all-time, five-day list. Add to that the facts that a)27 of the films that earned more opened on fewer screens, and b)WB is rumored to have spent about $300 million total (including promotional costs) on the movie, and those box office numbers spell a very, very, VERY worried studio. Look for the WB spin to kick into high gear on Monday, featuring sound bytes like "It outdid our expectations among female senior citizens" and "When the World Cup is over, just watch the box office explode!"

Meanwhile, Click and Nacho Libre both dropped about 50%, with Click's $19.4 million placing it in the third spot, and Nacho Libre's $6.2 good enough for fifth, right behind a still-solid Cars. In other news, The Break-Up is still in the top 10. This weekend's earnings of $2.8 million ran the movie's total domestic takes to about $110 million and pushed it even further into the black. The full top 10 is after the jump.

Okay, I admit it. Now that I've seen the trailer for The Devil Wears Prada, I actually kinda want to see it. Meryl Streep, with short, smartly styled silver hair, delivers her lines in the trailer with an icy-cold softness that says, "I'll rip you to shreds with my manicured nails and eat you raw for lunch if you piss me off." And casting sweet-and-innocent-looking Anne Hathaway (The Princess Diaries) opposite Streep as the recent college grad from the Midwest who goes to work for the biggest bitch in the fashion biz, could end up being genius. The trailer looks smart, sharp and funny (of course, it's always possible that the rest of the movie doesn't live up to it, but a girl can hope), and now I'm actually interested to see the film. I mean, it's Meryl Streep! That gives it some potential, right?

Streep, who had slowed down a little over the past couple years, is suddenly churning out work like a woman on a mission. She has no fewer than eight projects in the works at the moment, from voicing the Queen Ant in the upcoming animated flick The Ant Bully, to the beleagured Jodie Foster-helmed circus-freak flick, Flora Plum (currently listed on IMDb as costarring Ewan McGregor), to Conquistadora, with dream cast William H. Macy, Patricia Clarkson, and Chris Cooper, to First Man, in which she will play a presidential candidate whose businessman husband (Robert DeNiro) quits his job to run his wife's campaign. That's a whole lotta Streep coming up. I hope this signals the start of a revival for her, because she is one of my fave actresses, and I will see just about anything she's in.

(Editor's note: As reader Seth so politely pointed out, "smartly styled" does not require a hyphen because 'smartly' is an adverb. I corrected my error, so now my own J-school grammar-police professor can stop spinning in his grave.)