In our first Running Dialogue of 2011, Curt and I talk about The Eagle and since neither of us saw Just Go With It, we use the occasion to suggest Valentine’s Day movies that are actually worth your time.  I also go on a mini-rant about the crappiness of romantic comedies.  We wrap up with recommendations for Atlanta folks that they should see the animated short The Lost Thing and the one-night-only re-release of Memento. Two quick notes:  We had a minor technical difficulty in recording this episode, but I assure you that we did not record this at the bottom of a deep, dark hole.  Secondly, for those who are missing the sultry sounds of Russ Fischer’s voice, fear not: he will return in our next episode.

Click here to listen to the new episode.  Also, you can hit the jump for a list of all the movies we’ve recommended so far. Finally, click here to add Running Dialogue to your RSS feed.

The Sundance Film Festival Juries have selected the winners of the 2011 awards.  The big winner is Like Crazy, which won both the Grand Jury Prize (Dramatic) and a Special Jury Prize for actress Felicity Jones.  Naturally, Like Crazy already has a distribution deal in place with Paramount.  Circumstance, Martha Marcy May Marlene, and Pariah are a few of the other winners in the dramatic competition.Notable documentary winners include How to Die in Oregon, Buck, and Project Nim. 

Click here for all of our coverage of Sundance, including reviews and distribution reports for these films and more.  Hit the jump for the full list of winners and the juries who handed out the awards.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) have announced their nominations for the 2011 BAFTA Awards (the British equivalent of the Oscars).  While The Social Network is busy dominating awards circles on this side of the Atlantic, it looks like (unsurprisingly) The King’s Speech is going to clean up at the BAFTAs.  The film received 14 nominations including Best Picture and Outstanding British Film.  The Social Network still managed to pick up 6 nominations including Best Picture.   Also in the Best Picture race: Black Swan (12 nominations), True Grit (8 nominations), and Inception (9 nominations).  Other great films getting some love from the BAFTAs included Banksy’s Exit Through the Gift Shop (1 nomination) and Chris Morris’ Four Lions (2 nominations).

Hit the jump for a full list of the nominations.  Winners will be announced on February 13th.

While different folks have their own dates for when awards season has officially “begun”, I set it at the date the National Board of Review announces their picks for the year.  In two of the past three years, the NBR’s pick for Best Picture has gone on to win the Oscar.  However, last year’s NBR winner, Up in the Air, went home empty-handed.

This year, the NBR has given the top prize to The Social Network.  The film also picked up the prizes for Best Director (David Fincher), Best Actor (Jesse Eisenberg), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Best Actor).  Other winners included Lesley Manville getting Best Actress for Another Year, Christian Bale winning Best Supporting Actor for The Fighter, and Jacki Weaver receiving Best Supporting Actress for Animal Kingdom.  Hit the jump for the full list of awards, including the National Board of Review’s Top 11 films, Top 10 Independent Films, Top 6 Foreign Films, and Top 6 Documentaries.

The nominations for this year’s British Independent Film Awards have been announced.  Leading the pack with eight nominations is Tom Hooper’s critically acclaimed The King’s Speech.  The film has already won the top prize at the Toronto Film Festival and the Hamptons Film Festival.  The King’s Speech was nominated for Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor (Colin Firth), Best Supporting Actor (Geoffrey Rush), and Best Supporting Actress (Helena Bonham Carter).  With the kind of buzz this film is picking up, don’t be surprised to see these nominations mirrored at the Oscars.  For those who don’t know, the film centers on King George VI’s (Firth) struggles to overcome a speech impediment after his unexpected ascension to the throne in 1936.

The horror film Monsters, Mark Romanek’s touching drama Never Let Me Go, the sharp terrorist satire Four Lions, and Matthew Vaughn’s dark superhero comedy Kick-Ass were also nominated for Best British Independent Film.  While it wasn’t nominated for the top prize, the The Arbor, which is a biopic of playwright Andrea Dunbar, racked up six nominations.  Hit the jump for a list of the nominees.  Winners will be announced on December 5th.

The line-up for the 2010 Telluride Film Festival has been announced and there are some exciting inclusions.  If I were attending Telluride, the two films at the top of my must-see list would be Errol Morris’ new documentary Tabloid which is about former-Miss Wyoming/convicted rapist/dog-cloning advocate Joyce McKinney, and Peter Weir’s war film The Way Back, which is the director’s first film since 2003′s Master and Commander.

The line-up also includes other films that are making the festival rounds including Mark Romanek’s Never Let Me Go, the financial-collapse documentary Inside Job, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Biutiful, Sylvain Chomet’s The Illusionist, Mike Leigh’s Another Year, and Stephen Frears’ Tamara Drewe.  Hit the jump to check out the full line-up.  The Telluride Film Festival runs from September 3 – 6th.

If you’re attending this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, you may want to take some time to seek out Mike Leigh’s Another Year.  It doesn’t have the star-power of films like The Town or Black Swan, but it looks like a sweet little movie.  It also received positive notices when it played at Cannes earlier this year.  The film centers on “A happily married, middle-aged couple who are visited by a number of unhappy and lonely friends who use them as confidantes. When an unmarried friend falls for their young son, they watch as events unfold.”

The film stars Jim Broadbent, Ruth Sheen, and Lesley Manville.  Hit the jump to check out the international trailer and the official description.  The Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 9 – 19th.  Another Year opens in limited release on December 29th.

Every year, the Toronto International Film Festival showcases some of the year’s most exciting and must-see movies, and 2010 isn’t going to be any different.  Fifty films showing at this year’s festival have been announced and I’m (unsurprisingly) bitter-as-hell that I’m not going to be there.  Films making their various premieres (World, North American, etc.) include Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan, Robert Redford’s The Conspirator, Mark Romanek’s Never Let Me Go (image above), and Ben Affleck’s The Town.  While the line-up includes plenty of films that have already premiered at other festivals (including Sylvain Chomet’s The Illusionist, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Biutiful, Julian Schnabel’s Miral, and Stephen Frears’ Tamara Drewe), it will be the first time they’ll be showing up on our quaint little 9.5 million square mile-continent.

Hit the jump for a list of all 50 films.  The 2010 Toronto International Film Festival will run from September 9^th-19^th.

A slew of release dates and release date changes were announced today.  Movies getting their release date changed are the animated films Kung Fu Panda: The Kaboom of Doom (May 27th, 2011 to May 26th) and Rango (March 18th, 2011 to March 4th).

Getting release date announcements are The Company Men (Oct. 22nd), David O. Russell’s The Fighter (Dec. 10th), Sylvain Chomet’s The Illusionist (Dec. 25th), Mike Leigh’s Another Year (Dec. 29th), Made in Dagenham (Nov. 19th), Stephen Frears’ Tamara Drewe (Oct. 8th), and the remake of Fright Night (Oct. 7, 2011).  Hit the jump for details on all of these films.