http://www.nypress.com/blogs-1-1-1-2.html The drummer John Densmore, of The Doors fame, speaks of a prophecy that someday, one man will be able to create any type of music using one machine. The documentary RE:GENERATION shows us not one, but six such men in Mark Ronson, Skrillex, duo The Crystal Method, DJ Premier and Pretty Lights. In the film, these six electro-based producers are faced with the challenge of working with genres outside their comfort zone, in the hopes of producing]]> In a small town, dark secrets sure do have a way of getting out, don’t they? Such is the case in Secrets of Eden, premiering on the Lifetime network tomorrow night. --- Based on the Chris Bohjalian best-seller, Eden stars Uncle Jesse—er, John Stamos, as Reverend Stephen Drew, a beloved Vermont minister whose world is rocked by the shocking murder-suicide of locals Alice and George Hayward (Sonya Salomaa and Graham Abbey). Though t]]> While most prognosticators are sharpening their knives in anticipation of this year’s upcoming Oscars, some of the darker, more indie prospects for next year’s awards have already emerged, courtesy of the Sundance Film Festival. --- Jurors in the documentary categories were Fenton Bailey, Heather Croall, Charles Ferguson, Tia Lessin and Kim Roberts. Eugene Jarecki’s The House I Live In, about the war on drugs, took t]]> With just under a month to go until the Oscars, the 18th annual Screen Actors Guild awards presentation solidified the conventional wisdom as to who the front-runners are in this year’s Best Picture and four acting categories – or at least, in three of ‘em. --- Christopher Plummer and Octavia Spencer continued to dominate the supporting actor categories for their work in Beginners and The Help, respectively. Meanwhil]]> George Lucas’ sales tactics for Red Tails, his $93 million production about the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African-American pilots in the armed forces, make a bigger bang than the film itself. On the publicity rounds, Lucas has talked about the dearth of movies with African-American heroes, promising that Red Tails will give black teens the kinds of on-screen heroes and patriotic good feeling they’ve been denied. Apparently, Lu]]> As anyone with a Twitter account is likely well aware of, the 2012 Oscar Nominations were announced this past Tuesday morning. New York Press Film and Television writer Doug Strassler and Managing Editor Amy Michelle Smith, both die-hard awards season junkies, discuss their picks for the winners and losers of the 84th Annual Academy Awards. --- Best Picture:Amy’s Take: When it comes down to personal preference, the lists of films selec]]> Kiefer Sutherland returns to FOX in another heavy show “I’m 4,161 days old,” says Jake the young protagonist of the new FOX series Touch, which just screened the series pilot prior to a proper March 19 premiere. Jake (David Mazouz) is obsessed with numbers, and uses them to find ways to bring people together. A numismatist like this suggests that Jake is autistic, although the show doesn’t necessary classify him as such]]> For the past 10 years, directors Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Torro and Alejando González Iñárritu have been at the forefront of a remarkable renaissance in Spanish-language filmmaking—and now, with Miss Bala, Gerardo Naranjo has joined them. --- What a wide-eyed girl his protagonist starts off as. The film opens in the bedroom of Laura Guerrero (Stephanie Sigman), where magazine cutouts, pinups and glam]]> @font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }@font-face { font-family: "Calibri"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } “There’s nothin’ worse than the projects,” laments a former resident of St. Louis projects Pruitt-Igoe. “I couldn’t imagine…maybe Bagdad or something.” T]]> “There are only three great Shakespeare movies,” Harvey Weinstein said last night at the Paris Theater. “Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet, Laurence Olivier’s Henry V, and Coriolanus.” How convenient, then, that Weinstein was introducing the U.S. premiere of Coriolanus, the directorial debut of actor Ralph Fiennes. --- Weinstein may have been his typically hyperbolic self, but he was not inaccurate. Fiennes&rsqu]]> Movie watching can never be the same after the doubleheader of Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin, his first animated film, and his live-action War Horse. Each film upgrades the way our imaginations construct the world, the way we see ourselves in the digital age. All art devotees should recognize the history being made. --- Tintin, the intrepid boy reporter from Belgian author Hergé’s cartoon storybooks, and Joey, t]]> Todd Graff’s Joyful Noise tells the story of a Pacashau, Ga., church choir entering a gospel music competition against better-financed groups. It’s an underdog fable that neatly parallels Graff’s own career since directing his 2003 debut film Camp, the underappreciated—yet secretly influential—pop music celebration set at a training school for young musical theater aspirants. --- This time, Graff gets to reclaim th]]> They came, they saw, they drank. And oh yeah, some of them even won awards. Such were the 69th annual Golden Globe Awards, decided upon by the semi-venerable Hollywood Foreign Press Association and shown on NBC. It was a night of few surprises and seemingly even less preparation on the part of those involved in front of and behind the cameras. --- Some of the expected wins (my predictions batted nearly a thousand last week!) were still a ]]> As a movie awards guy, right now is perhaps the most exciting time of the year. Though the lists of potential nominees and possible winners have pretty much all revealed themselves, most races have yet to anoint any official frontrunners. This twilight of the gold won’t last much longer, however, once the Golden Globes are handed out this Sunday (and tonight’s Critics’ Choice Awards, a B-level awards show, will also play a r]]> For most, the early winter weeks are a time for hibernation and relaxation. In sunny Hollywood however, it marks the season when the stars come out to honor each other for the past year’s work. The first big stop on that train is the Golden Globe Awards, being held this Sunday in Los Angeles. For the 69th year, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association – an organization of journalists covering American film and television for internat]]> January marks the beginning of a new film festival season—and what better way to kick it off than with the 21st annual New York Jewish Film Festival, Jan. 11–26? Presented in partnership with The Jewish Museum and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the festival promises to provide a diverse global perspective on the Jewish experience with 35 features and shorts from 11 countries, many of which will be followed by post-screening ]]> Armond White looks back at the best movies that surpass and defy the year’s worst We’ve reached the point where movies are less popular than other forms of pop culture yet remain compelling—as much for what they recall about the humanities as the inhumanity they routinely deliver. Thus 2011′s year-end mania for the specious cultural tributes of The Artist and Hugo, even though both films, while app]]> Guy Ritchie’s calculations in his sequel Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows are so low-down they’re almost diabolical. He has retooled the famous fictional detective character with no respect for either Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s literary creation or the ticket-buying audience. Against tradition (previous incarnations of Holmes that emphasized mystery and deduction), Ritche panders to current, degraded taste for blatancy and viole]]> Every December, I vow not to make another Top 10 Movies of the Year list. It’s an arbitrary number, there are too many releases, pitting indies against blockbusters isn’t fair, excuses ad infinitum. But once again, I find myself incapable of sticking to that resolve. --- Not only is the temptation to pick favorites and champion underdogs too great to pass up, but it’s also an opportunity to reflect upon the diversity of films ]]> Let’s be honest: the past year saw a lot of versatile takes on interesting subjects in film form. There was plenty of talent on display in a number of movies that were good enough to justify spending the ever-rising price of tickets. But that’s all that the year in film was: good enough, rife with some very good movies, if no outright masterpiece was in sight. Below, in ascending order, are the most effective and affecting works I saw]]>