If you read our blog regularly you know I love movie trailers - they’re fun and can get you all pumped up about the movies. With this I’ve decided to implement a new series here on TakePart called “New Trailer Alert” - so those of you that are like me can always keep up to date on the first glimpses we get at awesome new films.

Hot off their Academy Award winning film No Country for Old Men, the Coens are ready with another film called Burn After Reading and while the trailer isn’t up on YouTube (meaning I can’t post it), I recommend you immediately go here :

http://www.apple.com/trailers/focus_features/burnafterreading/

and download the trailer as fast as you possibly can! It looks to me like the Coens are working with Big Lebowski-esque material again..

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Are you one of those that gets a little irked when you order delivery, and they include plastic utensils with your food, even though you’re eating at your own house?  So why isn’t it that you bring your own utensils when you eat out at that same place?  Or, even, everywhere you go?  To-Go Ware thinks that maybe you ought to start doing that.   The company was founded on the thought that if people have reusable coffee cups, why shouldn’t people do the same with forks and knives?

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Hot off of America’s love affair with No Country for Old Men, the Coen’s will premiere their next film in at the Venice Film Festival. Burn After Reading stars George Clooney, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand and Tilda Swinton, and will open the 65th annual festival.

“Burn,” which the Coens wrote and directed, revolves around an ousted CIA official, played by John Malkovich, whose memoir falls into the hands of two Washington, D.C., gym employees, who decide to attempt to exploit their find.

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After seeing Michael Haneke’s shot by shot remake of his 1997 film Funny Games this weekend I started doing a little internet hunting to see what others had to say about the film, it’s take on violence and how it worked as a remake. One of the most interesting pieces I found was in the Chicago Reader On Film Blog by Pat Graham. In his short blog entry he gives us:

Something to puzzle over …

No Country for Old Men: serial murderer, deaf to every human appeal for mercy, goes about his business with implacable dispatch”Academy Awards: best picture, best supporting actor, etc.

Michael Haneke’s Funny Games remake: serial murderers, deaf to every human appeal for mercy, go about their business with implacable dispatch”back of the critical hand, lots of righteous huffing and puffing, etc.

Not much difference between the two, at least in my opinion, yet one movie’s lionized, the other savaged as exploitive swill.

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One thing I’ve always had trouble with is my joint identity as a female and as a cinephile. Many films and directors I like, even love, often treat women in ways that either objectify them or seem to promote the mistreatment of them. But my anger at this is usually brought back down by the little voice inside my head screaming “but it’s such a good movie.”

On that note, yesterday, I noticed that Radar Online posted their take on the “decade’s most misogynistic movies.” Their picks ranged from Mona Lisa Smile and Wedding Crashers to She Hate Me and 13 Going on 30 and while in many cases I agree with their assessment, the list still troubles me. The fact is, despite their misogynistic nature, a lot of folks, women and men alike, went to see these films - and to me then, the questions becomes why? As long as people go to the theater, Hollywood will continue to make these films.

Of course, some might argue that people only see what’s put out there, what they have access to. With that, I present with an opposite list of sorts - “some of the decade’s more feminist movies” if you will - or to be less political about it all, films from this decade that portray real women, dealing with real issues, often showing how awesome, strong, complex and special women can be.

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One more Oscar note before I put the 80th Academy Awards to bed when it comes to blogging. Yesterday everyone was ripping on the Oscars, calling the show boring, flat and complaining that it isn’t a show for real movie lovers. Well duh! It’s a 3+ hour awards show that’s recognizing the best in Hollywood. So of course you get a show that’s long, not too controversial and the movies that win are the best of the best of the mainstream. I’m always surprised when people get angry about this. Of course the films nominated aren’t really the best films of the year (although I thought the Academy did pretty good this year, There Will Be Blood, Michael Clayton and No Country For Old Men, are actually really really good). Of course the host, in this case Jon Stewart, is kind of lame (although I thought he did a really good subtle job myself). What do you expect for a show being broadcast on a major network to tons and tons of people?

So why do I watch and why should you watch the show? Why am I always excited about it? My answers are below:

1. Back in the day really good films were nominated and did win - check out past nominees and winners from the 70’s or the 60’s or the 5o’s etc.. They were amazing films, and I guess each year I watch in hopes that things will again start to shift in American cinema, back to a time where blockbusters and the weekend box office didn’t rule the day. This year saw The Coen brothers winning a lot of awards and you know what Joel and Ethan Coen are really good filmmakers. I would argue that No Country is definitely not their best, but who knows, my guess is that more Americans will be inclined to give Barton Fink and Miller’s Crossing a look now.

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When Spain’s Javier Bardem won the Academy Award for Best Supporting actor for his role in the Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men, he responded by saying

Mamá, esto es para ti. Esto es para tus abuelos, para tus padres, Rafael y Matilde. Esto es para los cómicos de España que han traído la dignidad y el orgullo a nuestro oficio. Esto es para España. Y esto es para todos vosotros

which means

Mom, this is for you. This is for your grandparents, for your parents, Rafael and Matilde. This is for the Comics of Spain who brought so much pride and dignity to our profession. This is for Spain. This is for all of you.

OK. But what does that mean?

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Part of the fun of watching the Oscars every year is listening to the speeches and hoping for words of wisdom, inspiration and of course words that make us laugh from some of most talented folks in the industry.

Below are my Top 5 Oscar Speeches from last night that made the 3+ hour show worth it.

1. Daniel Day-Lewis winning Best Actor for There Will Be Blood : It should be said that I have long been a fan of Daniel Day-Lewis, but that aside, his acceptable speech last night had all the elements - he started off with a simple joke, inspired us with his carefully crafted tribute to the great Paul Thomas Anderson, and then touched our hearts with the thanks he gave his co-stars and his family - all the while keeping calm and not rambling.

And that’s the closest I’ll ever come to getting a knighthood, so thank you.

My deepest thanks to the members of the Academy for whacking me with the handsomest bludgeon in town. I’m looking at this gorgeous thing you’ve given me and I’m thinking back to the first devilish whisper of an idea that came to him and everything since and it seems to me that this sprang like a golden sapling out of the mad, beautiful head of Paul Thomas Anderson.

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The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. Several topics really stood out this week, including the Oscars as social advocacy inspiration, civil rights and Black History Month, and lots of hot news on entertainment going Green. Check out our most popular posts of the week on these subjects, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites.

Katie:

Happy Belated “Freedom to Marry” Week!

Rosa and Raymond Parks: Valiant Valentine #5

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Nicole:

Top 10 Oscar Picks to Inspire Social Action

Cornel West: Black Thoughts On Black History Month

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Giulia:

H&M’s “Fashion Against AIDS”

Ed Begley Jr. Goes Green

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Gina:

Top 10 Best Picture Winners That Inspire

Remixing “Chicago 10″

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Kerry:

How To Set the World On Fire Without Burning Out

Eco-Brokers Cater to Green Homebuyers

The 80th Annual Academy Awards are almost upon us, and I’m sure you all have your favorite films that you’re routing for. We here at TakePart have our fave films too, of course based on their relevance to social action and advocacy. Check out our picks for these top 10 Oscar categories, and how these films have left the world a bit of a better place than before they arrived on the big (or little) screen!

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Actor in a Leading Role: Tommy Lee Jones in In the Valley of Elah

Tommy Lee Jones gives an incredible performance as a war veteran searching for his son, a soldier who recently returned from Iraq, but has now mysteriously disappeared. The shadow of the Iraq war is cast across several films that have been nominated this year, but Jones’ moving performance highlights the emotional and spiritual battles soldiers and their families must face long after they’ve come home from the combat zone.

and find out what you can do to help Veterans for Peace seek justice for veterans and victims of war, and to abolish war as an instrument of national policy.

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