Author: Ambrose Heron

Editor of FILMdetail

Categories
Cinema Reviews

Cinema Releases for Friday 16th March

The two major releases at the cinema this week see Sandra Bullock and Sienna Miller go head to head at the box office.

Premonition (15)
After the cinematic disaster zones that were Miss Congeniality 2 and The Lake House, Sandra Bullock appears in yet another dull waste of her talents and our time. The story here is like some bad TV movie – Bullock plays a woman who wakes up one morning to find out her loving husband (Julian McMahon) is dead. Only she wakes the next day and discovers he isn’t. Cue lots of loud melodramatic nonsense, some predictable plot twists, a ridiculously sappy climax and Miss Bullock has even more reasons to fire her agent.

Factory Girl (15)
This is a biopic about Edie Sedgwick (Sienna Miller) who for a period in the 60s became a muse to Andy Warhol (here played by Guy Pearce), girlfriend to Bob Dylan (Hayden Christensen plays a very thinly veiled Dylan figure) and a style icon before her untimely demise at 28. It explores her early years and her collaboration with the man who predicted everyone in the future would be famous for 15 minutes. Miller and Pearce both give solid performances and the subject matter is interesting (and topical in our current fame obsessed culture) but it never quite sparks to life. Ultimately, although the film deals with an interesting time and an intriguing set of characters, it doesn’t have the resonance it should.

Neither of these films get an enthusiastic thumbs but if you have to go see one, Factory Girl isn’t as bad as Premonition.

> Get showtimes for your local cinema via Google Movies

Categories
Amusing

Bunny Bond Bonanza

Theose clever folks at Angry Alien have done a fantastic job with this superb James Bond cartoon bunny medley.

> More Bunny spoofs at Angry Alien
> Borat in 30 secs with bunnies

Categories
Podcast Reviews

The Movie Cast for Thursday 15th March

On this week’s podcast we take a look the latest cinema and DVD releases, plus we also speak to some of the actors and directors who helped make them.

Premonition is a drama starring Sandra Bullock as a housewife who discovers that her husband (Julian McMahon) has just died. Only he hasn’t. Or has he?

Factory Girl is a biopic about 60s fashion icon Edie Sedgwick (played by Sienna Miller) and her relationship with Andy Warhol (Guy Pearce). We speak to director George Hickenlooper about the film and why he wanted to turn her story into a film.

On DVD we have three releases to recommend:

Casino Royale is the latest Bond film that sees the franchise get a reboot with a new 007. We speak to Daniel Craig about how he prepared to play the world’s most famous spy and the controversy that surrounded his casting.

The History Boys is the film version of Alan Bennett’s stage play about a group of Sheffield sixth formers trying to get into Oxford and Cambridge. Nicholas Hytner directs and we speak to Samuel Anderson (Crowther) and Samuel Barnett (Posner) about their roles on stage and now in the film.

Plus, we also speak to the director of one of the best films of last year. Alfonso Cuaron tells us all about the DVD release of Children of Men, which is now out as a 2-disc special edition. He gives us an in depth interview where he describes his approach to the original novel by P.D. James, the visual design of the film and why he wanted it to be the “anti-Blade Runner”.

Our website of the week is Star Links – a very handy site for finding out if certain actors have worked with each another.

> Download it for free or listen to it at Creation Podcasts
> Subscribe via iTunes
> Subscribe to the RSS feed

Categories
Box Office Useful Links

Chart Watch at Box Office Mojo

Box Office Mojo have introduced a clever new section to their site called Chart Watch.

It tracks films to see if their rank has gone up on the various charts at athr site. You can select two views: Changes by Chart (which lists all the charts each movie moved on) and Changes by Movie (which lists all the movies that moved on each chart). It is handy to see how certain films are doing.

For example, it is interesting (or worrying depending on your viewpoint) to see that Night at the Museum is the 41st highest grossing film of all time at the worldwide box office.

> Chart Watch at Box Office Mojo
> The most successful films of all time at the box office according to Box Office Mojo

Categories
Interesting

Robocop revisited

Anthony Burch at Double Viking has written an informative and amusing piece on the merits of Robocop, the 1987 sci-fi action film from director Paul Verhoeven.

A lot of the satire in it about American TV seemed over the top in the late 80s, but now appears to have become all too real.

As Burch notes:

In addition to its criticisms of corporate greed and societal decline, Robocop also has time to pick on television. In the future, it seems, everybody watches one of two shows: the news, which is more or less identical to FOX News in both style and subject, and some weirdass comedy show starring a middle-aged pervert. The unnamed character, mustachioed and bespectacled, laughs frequently and hysterically as he is surrounded by unrealistically attractive women. His catchphrase?  “I’d buy that for a dollar!”

Although the inferior sequels tarnished it a somewhat the original still remains a suprisingly entertaining and smart look at the future. (Link via Digg)

> Check out the full article over at Double Viking
> Robocop at the IMDb
> The impressviely detail entry for Robocop at Wikipedia

 

Categories
Interesting News

Slate on Bruno

Kim Masters at Slate has an interesting piece on Sacha Baron Cohen and the deal his agents (Endeavor) struck with Universal for Bruno, his next film project.

She reports:

When Fox let slip the opportunity to make Bruno, Sacha Baron Cohen’s follow-up to Borat, some thought the studio let one of the hottest stars in the firmament get away. Others said the deal, which cost more than $40 million, was too rich—especially since it’s an open question whether Cohen can pull off another movie based on people not recognizing him (this time as a gay Austrian fashion maven).

The Bruno deal raises another good question: Has Endeavor, the agency that represents Cohen, invented the perfect crime? Or did it simply come up with a clever way of striking a very favorable deal that infuriates the studios?

It explores the way the deal may have been structured and whether or not it makes sense for Universal.

To read the rest of it just click here.

> Original article at Slate
> Find out more about the Bruno character at Wikipedia
> IMDb entry for Sacha Baron Cohen

Categories
Interesting

Spin on Google Video

Spin is a 1995 documentary directed by Brian Springer. It was compiled from raw satellite feeds during the 1992 US presidential primaries and subsequent election.

It is a fascinating look at politicians (such as George Bush Snr, Bill Clinton and Pat Robertson), talk show hosts (like Larry King) and aides as they helped shape the news agenda that year.

I remember seeing it on Channel 4 back in the mid 90s but it has never been available on DVD. Fortunately it is now been uploaded on to Google Video.

Watch it here:

[googlevideo]-7344181953466797353[/googlevideo]

> IMDb entry for Spin
> The All Movie Guide on Spin
> BBC News article on the “curse of the open mic” which mentions Spin

Categories
Box Office News

300 rakes in $70 million

It is is now official – 300 looks set to be 2007’s first blockbuster as it took $70 million at the US box office this weekend.

David Germain of the AP reports:

The ancient battle of Thermopylae was the stuff of 2007’s first certified blockbuster as the bloody action tale “300” debuted with ticket sales of $70 million over its opening weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday.

That’s about $233,000 for every one of the legendary 300 Spartan soldiers who fought off a much larger Persian force in the epic battle.

“On a Spartan-by-Spartan basis, that’s a lot of money,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers. “Summer came a little early, because this is a summer-style opening.”

The number of movie-goers for the Warner Bros. epic “300” outnumbered crowds for the rest of the top-10 movies combined. If the estimate holds when final numbers are released Monday, “300” would break the record for best March debut ever, topping the $68 million haul for “Ice Age: The Meltdown” last year.

“300” played in 3,103 theaters, about 850 fewer than the “Ice Age” sequel, making its box-office performance even more notable. It averaged $22,567 a theater, a whopping number for a wide release.

There will be high fives all around the offices at Warner Bros. Not only is it a much bigger hit than they dared to hope for but given the relatively low production costs (compared to recent big budget films like Superman Returns and Poseidon) it could turn out to be one of the most profitable films in their history.

I’m seeing it again tonight and I’ll post some thoughts later but if you’ve seen it already then feel free to post what you think of the film in the comments section below.

> Box Office Mojo on 300’s weekend haul
> Cinematical have a breakdown of the weekend’s box office

Categories
Interesting

Zach Synder on 300

A couple of weeks ago I went to a screening of 300 in London (hosted for bloggers no less) and director Zack Snyder gave a Q&A session after the film.

Here is an edited version of it:

[youtube]MaBod-uy_ao[/youtube]

> Check out how secens from the graphic novel compare to the film over at Solace in Cinema
> Official UK site for the film

 

Categories
Cinema News

Neal Ascherson on The Lives of Others

Neal Ascherson was the Berlin correspondent for The Observer during the Cold War and he has written an excellent piece on the new German film The Lives of Others.

Set in East Germany during the 1980s it shows how the Stasi (the secret police of the former communist state) sought to monitor its citizens who may or may not be towing the party line. It won the Oscar for Best Foreign film last month and brilliantly weaves history and politics into a deeply moving tale of life under an oppressive regime where everyone is under suspicion.

But don’t expect cliches of the former East Germany. Indeed, Ascherson wisely notes how the film takes a fresh approach to the era:

… one of the things this film superbly isn’t is a film about the Berlin Wall. The ‘frontier’ and its crossing points do come into the story but only marginally, in a devious plot to test whether a flat is bugged by loudly planning a fictional escape. This absence is impressive. Nobody could accuse von Donnersmarck of underplaying the oppressiveness of the GDR, the only state in history which built a wall to stop its own citizens running away. But he is interested in another, more intimate nastiness.

That is the behaviour of people who are aware they are being spied on and bugged, who realise that people they know – possibly people they know very well – may be informing on them, who have a permanent Stasi invitation to become informers themselves, and who none the less want to live something resembling a normal life.

The rest of the article is highly illuminating and perceptive but I would recommend you see the film before reading it in full as he reveals a couple of key plot points.

** The Lives of Others is currently on limited release in the US and opens in the UK on April 13th. **

> Reviews for The Lives of Others at Metacritic
> IMDb entry for The Lives of Others

Categories
Interesting

The Worst of the Worst at Rotten Tomatoes

When it comes to sites that aggregate reviews I usually prefer Metacritic to Rotten Tomatoes but the latter site has a new feature that I couldn’t resist linking to.

They have decided to create a list of the “worst of the worst” – a ghoulish but strangely captivating compilation of bad films that stunk up your local multiplex.

Jeff Giles of RT explains:

With the trusty Tomatometer as our guide, we’ve plowed through 100 of the rankest, foulest, most misbegotten movies to hit the multiplex in recent memory. But bad films can often be their own reward; whether you’re looking for a howlingly bad time, or just looking for a list of what not to watch, ever, we’re here to help.

We’ve got the worst of some of Hollywood’s best (Robert DeNiro, Forest Whitaker, Halle Berry, and Diane Keaton all make appearances). We’ve got movies that were considered so toxic by studios that they weren’t screened for critics (“Stay Alive,” “Epic Movie”). We’ve got two “Baby Geniuses” and three Uwe Boll flicks. Heck, you know these movies must be bad if “Catwoman” ranks a lofty number 100.

The list starts here.

> More detail on the Rotten Tomatoes list
> The all time low scores at Metacritic

Categories
Box Office News

300 to set new March record?

Nikki Finke of Deadline Hollywood Daily is reporting that 300 could not only have the biggest March opening ever but may end up being one of Warner Bros’ most profitable films:

I’m told Warner Bros.’ much-buzzed 300 about the epic Battle of Thermopylae (even though most of target audience fell asleep in school during that history lesson) looks set to shatter the record for biggest March opening ever.

This “Gladiator Lite” raked in $27.4 million Friday night for what is likely to be a $60+ million weekend in its 3,103 theaters. (I said back on Tuesday that 300 was tracking huge…) The studio mega-marketing this CGI extravaganza organized some sell-out Thursday midnight sneaks, likely $3.5 mil worth.

All 57 IMAX theaters that showed 300 at 12:01 a.m. also sold out. Given that this gory movie from the creator of Sin City was cheap to make and shot in only 60 days and cast with no stars, it could end up one of Warner’s most profitable pics.

Most pundits weren’t quite expecting this but given the buzz about the film and the lack of direct heavyweight competition maybe people shouldn’t be so surprised.

> Nikke Finke’s story in full
> The latest box office reports from Box Office Mojo

Categories
Box Office News Thoughts

300 opens in the US

300 opens today in the US and Reuters are already reporting sell out crowds:

The ultra-bloody warrior film “300,” about a legendary battle between the Spartans and Persians, seemed headed for U.S. box-office glory on Friday with sell-out crowds flocking to early showings.

Imax, the giant-screen movie chain, reported that all 57 of its 12:01 a.m. Friday screenings of the Warner Bros. film had sold out as its advance ticket sales for the weekend hit a new record for the month of March.

“We had the most amazing night,” said Greg Foster, chairman and president of Imax Filmed Entertainment, adding that many Imax theaters arranged 2:30 a.m. shows at the last minute to accommodate fans who failed to get into the midnight showings.

Many of the rest of the nation’s 600 theaters with early morning shows also played to capacity crowds, said Dan Fellman, domestic distribution president for the Time Warner Inc.-owned studio.

“They were flocking everywhere, not just to Imax,” he told Reuters.

While overnight business accounted for a fraction of the more than 3,100 North American theaters where “300” was opening on Friday, the early surge at the multiplex was a strong indicator that the film was poised for a robust first weekend.

Some box-office analysts predicted “300” could finish the weekend in the $50 million range, an impressive achievement for a March opening given the film’s “R” rating and lack of stars.

A friend of mine in New York just sent me an IM saying he is going to see it. I have a feeling it could be in for a massive opening weekend.

> Find out more about 300 at Wikipedia
> Check out the latest trailer

Categories
Cinema Reviews

Cinema Releases for Friday 9th March

It is a busy week at UK cinemas with a decidedly mixed bag of releases that include a silly comedy about a geek, a drama about Jane Austen’s early years, a tacky piece of vigilante nonsense and a stylish war drama that pays homage to the films of the 1940s.

Norbit (12A)
The latest comedy starring Eddie Murphy in multiple roles (after films like Coming to America and The Nutty Professor) is a rather unfunny mess. Norbit (Murphy) is a geek who loves a girl (Thandie Newton) he knew as a child from the orphanage they grew up in. But problems stand in his way: her fiance (Cuba Gooding Jr.) and Norbit’s wife (Murphy again). The film is crude, crass and there a precious few laughs here. The only thing to admire is how Murphy juggles the different roles but that loses its novelty after about 15 minutes. In a nutshell it is unfunny and not very clever either.

Becoming Jane (PG)
Like Shakespeare in Love this is another costume drama dealing with the private life of another English writer. Only in this case Jane Austen gets the biopic treatment as Anne Hathaway portrays the young novelist. It tells the story of her early life and her flirtations with the Irishman Thomas Langlois Lefroy (James McAvoy), based on speculation about their relationship together. The production design and acting are all agreeable but the central conceit (how Austen’s own life would inspire her books) is a little laboured and lacks the charm and invention that could have made it something special.

Outlaw (18)
After The Football Factory (2004) and The Business (2005), writer-director Nick Love inflicts another sloppy crime drama upon us. When a former soldier (Sean Bean) returns from Iraq he decides to form a vigilante mob to deal with a criminal who seems above the law. Coming across as an unlikely combination of Munich and Death Wish it tries to tap in to the disillusionment with the state of modern Britain. Unfortunately, like Love’s previous films it is sloppily put together and comes across as some kind of tacky exploitation film. Beware people who label this kind of film “edgy” or “controversial” – it is just a poorly made crime drama that belongs in the DVD bargain bin.

The Good German (15)
Director Steven Soderbergh re-teams with George Clooney in an audacious attempt to make recreate a 1940s style film. It tells the story of a US war correspondent (Clooney) who returns to Berlin during the Potsdam conference and discovers a web of intrigue involving a former lover (Cate Blanchett) and his driver (Tobey Maguire). The film it is shot in black and white and uses plenty of old school tricks but has a modern day approach to content like sex and violence. The acting is also done in the old fashioned style, but the performances are all very engaging as Clooney, Blanchett and Maguire bring a good deal of nuance to what seem to be one dimensional characters. Although it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea Soderbergh deserves a lot of credit for creating a small but perfectly formed experiment.

FILM OF THE WEEK: The Good German

> Get showtimes for your local cinema via Google Movies

Categories
Podcast Reviews

The Movie Cast for Thursday 8th March

On this week’s podcast we take a look at the big four cinema releases out this week and examine the week’s best DVD releases.Norbit is a comedy about a geek where Eddie Murphy plays several different characters opposite British actress Thandie Newton.

Becoming Jane tells the story of the young Jane Austen (played by Anne Hathaway) and how her early life influenced her later novels. James McAvoy co-stars as her love interest.

Outlaw is a tale about a group of vigilantes in modern Britian led by an ex-soldier (Sean Bean) who has become disgruntled with modern society.

The Good German is director Steven Soderbergh’s homage to the films of the 1940’s starring George Clooney as a reporter drawn into a web of intrigue in Berlin just after World War Two. Tobey Maguire and Cate Blanchett co-star.

Our DVD picks this week are Pan’s Labyrinth and The Queen, plus we speak to Dame Helen Mirren about how she prepared to play Her Majesty.

Our website of the week is Rich Kline’s comprehensive movie review site Shadows on the Wall

> Download it for free from Creation Podcasts
> Subscribe for free via iTunes
> Subscribe to the RSS feed

Categories
News Technology Thoughts

Film critics and the world of blogs

Andrew Pulver has written a piece in The Guardian on a BAFTA debate about film critics and the “blogosphere”.

Last night’s Guardian Film Forum at Bafta in London took as its subject “the role of the film critic in the digital age”. Against a backdrop of internet enthusiasm for all things cinematic (which goes back practically to the inception of the world wide web) and old media’s equally enthusiastic embrace of blogging (what you’re reading now would not exist otherwise) – we ask the question: where does that leave the film critic?

Peter Bradshaw deserves credit for his forward thinking stance:

The Guardian’s film critic Peter Bradshaw, the next panellist along, welcomed the rise of the blogger. “I envy the blogger’s freedom,” he says. But in terms of what he writes, he says, it’s not changed the pressure. “You have to fight your corner. It’s the same as it’s always been.”

There is a longer discussion to be had, but I think some people don’t get how rich the online film experience can be. Not only is there a lot more information available through sites like the IMDb but there is more of a conversation going on. Writers such as Rachel Cooke in The Observer seem to hate this development and pigeonhole “bloggers” as certain type of faceless idiot but then she is highly selective in the websites she quotes from.

This is not to say newspapers and magazines should (or will) die out as sources of information and opinion about film. It is just that they should adapt their current skills to a new medium that has a lot of benefits for people who love the medium.

It always makes me scratch my head when old school sceptics (who sometimes seem offended by the very existence of computers) assume anything written about films on the Internet is a geeky discussion at Aint It Cool.

Londonist make some excellent points on this in their reaction to the event:

It was announced last night that BAFTA would be producing a podcast of the event that will be online in several weeks time. Now while we didn’t see anyone liveblogging the event, we did notice remarks were being Twittered instantaneously from a few mobile phones. So perhaps the easiest thing the old guard can do is spend a little more time online to learn exactly what it is that the kids are up to. You won’t get a level playing field if we’re not playing the same game.

What we found frustrating was that both members of the panel and the audience had an incredibly unsophisticated knowledge of blogging and online journalism. More than once online writing seemed to conjure up an image of lonely spotty teenage fanboys, wanking in bad grammar about the movie they had just seen, in between whining posts about how misunderstood they are.

These kind of discussions can degenerate into a pointless argument about how technology is destroying decent journalism (or vice versa) but it is worth checking out the original article and – just as importantly – the comments section beneath it.

> The Londonist with their take on the subject
> A previous article by me on this whole debate

Categories
Interesting Trailers

Spider-Man 3 Preview Footage

Here is the Spider-Man 3 preview footage that aired on NBC last night.

[youtube]kPU2ibJifmw[/youtube]

Before you check it out, you should note that it is over 7 minutes long and appears to contain one of the key action sequences in the film. So, if you think this may be a spoiler then try and resist the urge to hit play.

Part of me is a little surprised that the filmmakers and studio have released so much footage all in one go, but I guess they want to build anticipation with only 2 months to go before the release date on May 4th.

> Empire dissect the footage
> Cinematical with a lengthy breakdown of the footage (spoiler alert)

Categories
Interesting News

Spider-Man 3 HD footage on NBC

NBC have some exclusive footage of Spider-Man 3 in HD on their website. But get in their quick as it goes offline tonight at 9pm (PT).

That is until someone posts it on YouTube presumably…

> IMDb entry for Spider-Man 3
> Check put the trailer for Spider-Man 3 at Apple trailers

Categories
News

Premiere magazine to close

The US film magazine Premiere is to close. Variety reports:

Hachette Filipacchi pulled the plug on Premiere on Monday, confirming widespread rumors that the embattled movie mag would be shuttered.

Many of the company’s editorial staffers will leave the company, including editor-in-chief Peter Herbst.

The April issue, which features Will Ferrell on the cover for “Blades of Glory,” will be mag’s last. Staffers put the issue to bed about 10 days ago.

Premiere publisher Paul Turcotte could be named to another post within Hachette, though there was no official confirmation of a new role.

Magazine, published 10 times per year, will continue to exist online.

It is sad news but as Advertising Age point out, perhaps inevitable in this day and age:

Premiere’s paid circulation has declined slowly over the years, from an average of 616,089 in 1995 to 492,498 in the second half of last year, according to Harrington Associates and the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

Even more ominous, Premiere sold 24.7% fewer ad pages in 2006 than it did the year before, according to the Publishers Information Bureau. Titles and websites focused on celebrity gossip, meanwhile, have continued to gain circulation, making it difficult for older entertainment brands.

It does beg the question – can a monthly movie magazine like Premiere survive in this day and age?

> Original story in Variety
> Wikipedia on Premiere magazine

Categories
Behind The Scenes Interviews

Behind the Scenes: Peter Carlton of Film4 Productions

For a British TV channel, Channel 4 have had a long and distinguished history of film production.

Since the channel’s creation in 1982, it has produced some of the key British films over the last 25 years. From My Beautiful Launderette in the 1980s, to Trainspotting in the 1990s, and more recent productions like The Last King of Scotland and Venus, it has long been a place where British talent has found an important creative outlet.

Now known as Film4 Productions it remains an important part of the British film industry, not least because of its digital TV channel that launched on Freeview last year. The BAFTA and Oscar recognition for Venus and The Last King of Scotland also demonstrated that it can still spot interesting projects that break into the mainstream.

But how does a film like The Last King of Scotland get made? And what other projects have Film4 got in the pipeline? I asked these and some other questions to Peter Carlton, the Senior Commissioning Executive at Film4.

You can listen to the interview in two parts below.

In Part 1 we discuss: his role at Film4; producing The Last King of Scotland; how long it takes a film to get made; Me and You and Everyone We Know; recovering from the problems in 2002; Touching the Void; how much Film4 productions cost; making The Lovely Bones with Peter Jackson; future plans for different films.

Listen to Part 1:

[audio:https://www.filmdetail.com/audio/peter_carlton_on_film4_part1.mp3]

In Part 2 we talk about: getting the Film4 channel on Freeview; the My Movie Mashup project with MySpace; involving the audience in Film4 films; forthcoming productions such as This is England and Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten.

Listen to Part 2:

[audio:https://www.filmdetail.com/audio/peter_carlton_on_film4_part2.mp3]

> Official Site for Film4
> Find out more about Film4 at Screen Online
> Check out what is on the Film4 channel this week
> Take a look at My Movie Mashup – the Film4 collaboration with MySpace

Categories
Interesting Thoughts

The Times on Wikipedia

There are many good journalists working for The Times (that’s the London Times to US readers) and overall it is a solid and highly respectable newspaper.

However, an interesting piece by Jenny Kleeman on Wikipedia in Friday’s edition was spoiled by a rather stupid comment from Richard Dixon, the “Chief Revise Editor” for the newspaper.

He is quoted as saying:

“My default position is that every article on Wikipedia is rubbish.”

I don’t think he is joking. But if he reads his own paper he might find that rubbish is closer to home. Flicking through yesterday’s Times supplement called The Knowledge (oh, the irony) I noticed a mistake in an interview with Eva Mendes.

It featured a photo of her in Once Upon a Time In Mexico with Johnny Depp (see the image below):

Times Mistake

You’ll see that they wrongly identify the picture as being from The Mexican. That 2001 film didn’t star Eva Mendes or Johnny Depp but was actually a comedy with Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts.

But things get even weirder. If you look at the online version of the interview it doesn’t have the above picture but does appear to contain another mistake as it is dated “February 3rd 2007”. Surely they mean March 3rd?

Wikipedia isn’t perfect but there are numerous articles on there of great value. For people interested in film and TV, the entries for Blade Runner, Casablanca, Lost and Jaws are all excellent introductions to those films.

Whilst vandalism is an ongoing issue for the site, it amazes me that corrections can be made so quickly and overall I’m glad it exists. I don’t believe everything on it is true and I’m not a slavish devotee but on balance it is very useful indeed, especially as a platform for finding out more about a particular subject.

So, before Richard Dixon wants to berate every article on Wikipedia as “rubbish” I think he should check out the mistakes in his own paper. Confusing the films of Eva Mendes with those of Julia Roberts is one thing, but getting the date wrong (by a month) is another.

Perhaps worse is the lack of any clear corrections policy on the front page of their website. Wikipedia has an inbuilt system for correcting inaccuracies but what exactly is the policy of The Times?

> The Times article discussing the merits of Wikipedia
> The entry for Eva Mendes on Wikipedia (you’ll see there is no mention of The Mexican)
> A more intelligent article on Wikipedia by Robbie Hudson in The Sunday Times last year

Categories
Interviews

Edward Norton on The Illusionist

I recently spoke to Edward Norton about his role in The Illusionist which is out at UK cinemas today.

Have a listen to the interview here:

[audio:edward_norton_the_illusionist_interview.mp3]

> IMDb entry for Edward Norton
> Check out the trailer for The Illusionist at Apple Trailers

Categories
Interviews

Nicolas Cage on Ghost Rider

The new Marvel comic book adaptation Ghost Rider is out at UK cinemas today and Nicolas Cage recently spoke to me about his role in the film.

Have a listen to the interview below:

[audio:nicolas_cage_ghostrider_interview.mp3]

> IMDb entry for Nicolas Cage
> Find out more about the Ghost Rider character at Wikipedia
> Get cinema listings for the film via Google Movies

Categories
Cinema News Thoughts

Zodiac opens in the US today

Zodiac opens in the US today.

The latest film from David Fincher (his first since 2002’s Panic Room) tells the story of the serial killer nicknamed the Zodiac who murdered several people in California during the 1970s. It tells the story of the different journalists (Jake Gyllenhall and Robert Downey Jr), detectives (Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Edwards) and victims invloved in the long running case.

As you might expect for a Fincher film it looks fabulous but it is so much more than a conventional serial killer film. It is a beautifully crafted and haunting portrait of a case that took a heavy toll on the lives of the people it touched.

It comes out here in in the UK a couple of months, so I’ll post more about it then but if you are in the States and are a fan of one of the best filmmakers currently working in Hollywood then I would highly recommend you go see it.

> Check out the trailer for Zodiac
> Reviews of Zodiac at Metacritic
> Digital Content Producer on the digital workflow Fincher employed whilst making Zodiac
> Jeff Wells from Hollywood Elsewhere with an in depth review of Zodiac that I largely agree with
> Manhola Dargis of the New York Times also likes it
> Andreas Wacker has blogged about his work on the film

Categories
Cinema Reviews

Cinema Picks for Friday 2nd March

On my birthday, here are the two big releases at UK cinemas today:

The Illusionist (PG)
After last Autumn’s The Prestige we have another film that deals with a magician at the turn of the century. Written and directed by Neil Burgher it tells the story of a magician named Eisenheim (Edward Norton) who falls for a duchess (Jessica Biel) in Vienna. A police inspector (Paul Giamatti) working for the ruling crown prince (Rufus Sewell) tries to find out more about the enigmatic magician and begins to discover that there is more to him than he first thought. The central performances are all good and the plot has some satisfying twists and turns but it is the visuals which really dazzle. Dick Pope’s cinematography not only give the film a lush and romantic period feel but also seems to referencing the early days of cinema, when films themselves seemed to be magic.

Ghost Rider (12A)
The latest Marvel comic book character to hit the screen is Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage) a stunt motorcyclist who has inadvertently made a pact with the Mephistopheles (Peter Fonda) when he is young. In exchange for his soul he becomes the Ghost Rider – a supernatural being with a flaming skull and motorcycle who is forced to battle demons trying to take over the earth. Although this isn’t in the same league as other Marvel adaptations such as the Spider-man and X-Men films, it still something of a guilty pleasure. The effects are fairly convincing and there is a surreal rock and roll aspect to it all even if the main villain (a miscast Wes Bentley) is unconvincing and Eva Mendes is wasted in typical girlfriend role.

FILM OF THE WEEK: The Illusionist

> Get cinema times in your area for both these films at Google Movies

Categories
Podcast Reviews

The Movie Cast for Thursday 1st March

On the podcast this week we take a look at The Illusionist, the new drama starring Edward Norton as the enigmatic Eisenheim – a magician in turn of the century Vienna. We also speak to Norton about his role in the film.We also review Ghost Rider, the latest Marvel comic book adaptation to hit the big screen. We chat to the two stars Nicolas Cage and Eva Mendes, plus writer-director Mark Steven Johnson discusses the challenges of adapting the character to film.

Our DVD pick is Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, the hilarious mock documentary that was one of the funniest films of last year.

We also discuss the winners at the Oscars as Martin Scorcese finally bagged the Best Director Oscar for The Departed.

One of the big winners on the night was Forest Whitaker scooping Best Actor for The Last King of Scotland. That film was co-produced by Film4 and we speak to their Senior Commissioning Executive Peter Carlton about the film and his company’s upcoming projects, which includes the online film making experiment My Movie Mashup

Our website of the week is the official site for the Golden Raspberry Awards

> Download it from Creation Podcasts
> Subscribe for free via iTunes
> Subscribe to the RSS feed

Categories
Awards Season News Technology

YouTube take down Oscar clips

Variety are reporting that YouTube are removing clips from last Sunday’s Oscar telecast:

Web surfers will no longer be reliving the magic moments of the 2007 Oscarcast via YouTube. The vid-viewing site complied with a Tuesday request from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences to remove all unauthorized clips of the kudocast.

Several segments of the show, including host Ellen DeGeneres’ opening monologue and musical numbers featuring Will Ferrell and Beyonce, had been among YouTube’s most-viewed content this week.

Ferrell’s musical lament about how comedies never win Oscars, sung with Jack Black and John C. Reilly, had racked up more than 250,000 views on YouTube before it was replaced with the message “This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences.”

Ric Robertson, exec administrator for the Academy, said the organization had its content pulled “to help manage the value of our telecast and our brand.”

In one sense I can understand the fact that the Academy sell the rights to broadcasters and they are upset that clips posted on YouTube violate their intellectual property.

But given that it is a live show, surely the real value is in the live broadcast? Don’t the clips help the Oscars reach a much wider global audience? In that sense shouldn’t A.M.P.A.S make the clips available on YouTube?

And in any case, even if they get YouTube to pull them down (a very difficult exercise that may only encourage people to upload more) won’t they just pop up on other video sites?

The Variety article also quotes Will Richmond, president of Broadband Directions (a market intelligence firm that focuses on Internet video):

“Media companies and content owners have not been that aggressive about two things: offering lots of clips on their sites and offering interactivity, like the ability to include a clip in a blog or email it to a friend. The absence of both of those elements has created this vacuum into which YouTube and others have jumped.”

I think he has a point. Shouldn’t the Academy be partnering with sites like YouTube in filling that vacuum?

Please feel free to post your thoughts below.

Categories
Awards Season Images

Vanity Fair Oscar photos

Vanity Fair have an excellent collection of photos from their own post-ceremony party over at Little Gold Men – their new Oscar blog.

It is good to see an established magazine do something like this. Obviously they have amazing access (after all it was their party) and a lot of the photos on their blog are far superior to anything I’ve seen in today’s papers.

> Little Gold Men
> More photos from the Vanity Fair Oscar party

Categories
Amusing

Stabbing at Leia’s 22nd Birthday

Joshua Trank and Studio8 have created a rather clever Star Wars spoof set at a party.

It is called Stabbing at Leia’s 22nd Birthday:

[youtube]kqPiIMJLFP8[/youtube]

> Official site for Studio8

Categories
Interesting News

David Denby on film narrative

David Denby has written an interesting piece on film narrative for the New Yorker.

He examines the non-linear structures of recent films like Babel, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Syriana as well others like Pulp Fiction and Memento.

> Denby’s article at The New Yorker
> A lengthy analysis of Memento at Salon.com by Andy Klein

Categories
Awards Season

Ennio Morricone gets Honorary Oscar

This is the moment where legendary film composer Ennio Morricone got the Honorary Oscar last night. He accepts in Italian and then Clint Eastwood translates:

[youtube]LH1QXMj8RUA[/youtube]

> Find out more about Ennio Morricone at the IMDb
> Official site fo the Italian maestro

Categories
Awards Season

Martin Scorcese finally wins an Oscar

This is the moment any true film fan was waiting for last night:

[youtube]BLwS2ch1zxY[/youtube]

Categories
Awards Season Interviews

Oscar Interviews: Helen Mirren & Leonardo DiCaprio

In the last year I was fortunate enough to speak to actors involved in two of the key Oscar films that won tonight.

After her win tonight for Best Actress, have a listen below to my interview from last September with Helen Mirren about playing Elizabeth II in The Queen:

[audio:Helen_Mirren_on_The_Queen.mp3]

Tonight was also the night Martin Scorcese finally won Best Director and back in October I spoke to Leonardo DiCaprio about working with the legendary director in Best Picture, The Departed. Have a listen here:

[audio:Leonardo_Dicaprio_on_The_Departed.mp3]
Categories
Awards Season News

The Oscar Winners

Here is a full list of what won at the Oscars tonight. (Winners are in bold)

BEST PICTURE
Babel
The Departed
Letters From Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine
The Queen

BEST DIRECTOR
Clint Eastwood, Letters From Iwo Jima
Stephen Frears, The Queen
Paul Greengrass, United 93
Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu, Babel
Martin Scorsese, The Departed

BEST ACTOR
Leonardo DiCaprio, Blood Diamond
Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson
Peter O’Toole, Venus
Will Smith, The Pursuit of Happyness
Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland

BEST ACTRESS
Penelope Cruz, Volver
Judi Dench, Notes on a Scandal
Helen Mirren, The Queen
Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada
Kate Winslet, Little Children

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Adriana Barraza, Babel
Cate Blanchett, Notes on a Scandal
Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine
Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls
Rinko Kikuchi, Babel

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine
Jackie Earle Haley, Little Children
Djimon Hounsou, Blood Diamond
Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls
Mark Wahlberg, The Departed

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Efter Brylluppet (aka After the Wedding), Denmark
Indigenes (aka Days of Glory), Algeria
El Laberinto del Fauno (aka Pan’s Labyrinth), Mexico
Das Leben der Anderen (aka The Lives of Others), Germany
Water, Canada

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
Cars
Happy Feet
Monster House

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY 
Borat
Children of Men
The Departed
Little Children
Notes on a Scandal

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Babel
Letters from Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine
The Queen
Pan’s Labyrinth

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Babel
The Good German
Notes on a Scandal
Pan’s Labyrinth
The Queen

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
I Need to Wake Up – An Inconvenient Truth (performed by Melissa Etheridge)
Listen – Dreamgirls (performed by Beyonce Knowles)
Love You I Do – Dreamgirls (performed by Jennifer Hudson)
Our Town – Cars (performed by James Taylor)
Patience – Dreamgirls (performed by Eddie Murphy, Keith Robinson, Anika Noni Rose)

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Deliver Us From Evil
An Inconvenient Truth
Iraq In Fragments
Jesus Camp
My Country, My Country

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
The Blood of Yingzhou District
Recycled Life
Rehearsing A Dream
Two Hands

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
Poseidon
Superman Returns

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
The Black Dahlia
Children of Men
The Illusionist
Pan’s Labyrinth
The Prestige

BEST ART DIRECTION
Dreamgirls
The Good Shepherd
Pan’s Labyrinth
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
The Prestige

BEST ANIMATED SHORT
The Danish Poet
Lifted
The Little Matchgirl
Maestro
No Time for Nuts

BEST ACTION SHORT FILM
Binta and the Great Idea
Eramos Pocos (One Too Many)
Helmer and Son
The Saviour
West Bank Story

BEST COSTUME DESIGN 
Curse of the Golden Flower
The Devil Wears Prada
Dreamgirls
Marie Antoinette
The Queen

BEST MAKEUP
Apocalypto
Click
Pan’s Labyrinth

BEST SOUND MIXING
Apocalypto
Blood Diamond
Dreamgirls
Flags of our Fathers
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

SOUND EDITING 
Apocalypto
Blood Diamond
Letters from Iwo Jima
Flags of our Fathers
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

BEST FILM EDITING 
Babel
Blood Diamond
Children of Men
The Departed
United 93

JEAN HERSHOLT HUMANITARIAN AWARD
Sherry Lansing

HONORARY AWARD 
Ennio Morricone

 

Categories
Awards Season News

The Oscars – Live

If you are not watching the ceremony on TV then you are probably either there, asleep or following it online.

If you are not watching the ceremony on TV then you are probably either there, asleep or following it online. So just to keep you informed here is a live rundown of whats going on.

02.01 GMT
Pan’s Labyrinth has won the first two awards for Best Art Direction and Best Makeup.

02.04 GMT
The Danish Poet has just won Best Animated Short and West Bank Story has scooped Best Live Action Short

02.20 GMT
Two sound awards. Letters from Iwo Jima wins Best Sound Editing and Dreamgirls gets Best Achievement in Sound.

02.24 GMT
Alan Arkin wins for Little Miss Sunshine! As I predicted. So far I’m 100% on my predictions. But I’m sure that won’t last…

02.40 GMT
Leonardo DiCaprio is onstage with Al Gore. It was rumoured that Gore might announce a run for President in 2008 but he denied it. They both make a gag of it but maybe he’ll announce it when he wins for Best Documentary?

02.46 GMT
Happy Feet wins for Best Animated Film. I figured the Pixar factor would get a win for Cars but the dancing penguins were very popular at the box office and the eco-friendly message won voters over.

02.48 GMT
William Monahan wins Best Adapted Screenplay for The Departed.

03.01 GMT
Marie Antoinette wins Best Costume and another of one of my predictions goes down in flames. Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt do a Devil Wears Prada routine with Meryl Streep in the audience.

03.07 GMT
Sherry Lansing wins an honorary Humanitarian Award

03.15 GMT
Pan’s Labyrinth wins Best Cinematography – a big shock for me. Although it looks marvellous I do think Emmanuel Lubezki’s work in Children of Men was truly groundbreaking. A shame but it is good to see Pan’s Labyrinth doing so well.

3.16 GMT
Best Visual Effects goes to Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. Although I wasn’t a huge fan of the film the visual effects – especially for the squid-like face of Davy Jones – were pretty stunning. A deserved win.

3.32 GMT
Best Foreign Language Film goes to The Lives of Others. I felt Pan’s Labyrinth would win (especially given all the technical awards it racked up) but The Lives of Others is an extraordinary film. It comes out in the UK in April and is one to watch out for.

3.36 GMT
George Clooney gives out the award for Best Supporting Actress to Jennifer Hudson for Dreamgirls. One of the dead certs of the night. Plus, tears and thanks to God.

03.42 GMT
Best Documentary Short goes to The Blood Of Yingzhou District

03.47 GMT
An Inconvenient Truth wins Best Documentary. But Al Gore doesn’t announce his run for Presidency in 2008. Which is a shame.

03.50 GMT
Clint Eastwood comes out to present Ennio Morricone with a special Honorary Award and then screws his lines up! But in a funny way. Clint can get away with stuff like that somehow.

I cannot even begin to describe how much I love Morricone’s music. He is one of the greatest composers ever to write for film. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Once Upon a Time in America and The Mission are just three scores that come to mind.

His acceptance speech begins in Italian – which seems to be spooking everyone out. But Clint handily translates! He wants to thank the Academy, has deep gratitude for all the directors he has worked with, his thoughts go out to those artists have never won an Oscar, this award will be a starting point for more scores and finally he dedicates it to his beloved wife Maria.

4.07 GMT
Best Original Score goes to Gustavo Santaolalla for Babel – he joins a select crowd who have won back-to-back Oscars.

04.13 GMT
Best Original Screenplay goes to Michael Arndt for Little Miss Sunshine.

04.29 GMT
Best Original Song is “I Need to Wake Up” by Melissa Etheridge for An Inconvenient Truth. I guess the three Dreamgirls tunes cancelled each other out.

04.38 GMT
A Michael Mann clip reel on America. Interesting choice of clips ranging from Magnolia to 1941 (!). I like the idea, but can anybody tell me what the hell it was all about?

04.42 GMT
Best Editing is won by Thelma Schoonmaker for The Departed. Marty is crying in the audience. This is her third Oscar for a Scorcese film. He has to be gearing up for his big speech…

04.48 GMT
Jodie Foster introduces the In Memoriam segment. Allida Valli, Bruno Kirby, Gordon Parks, Carlo Ponti, Peter Boyle, Jack Palance, Jack Warden and Robert Altman are just some of the actors and film makers who have passed away in the last year.

04.55 GMT
The Oscar for Best Actress goes to Helen Mirren for The Queen. But you knew that already didn’t you? Now watch out for all the “Dame Helen reigns over Hollywood” headlines. Helen gives a polished speech but what was all that about “I give you the Queen” whilst holding up the Oscar? I guess she is just thankful that she got the opportunity to play Her Majesty. But good on her – she does deserve it in a year with a very strong field.

05.02 GMT
Forest Whitaker wins Best Actor for The Last King of Scotland. Expected but richly deserved. It looked like he almost forgot his speech but he eventually whipped it out of his tuxedo.

05.08 GMT
The long wait is finally over! Martin Scorcese wins Best Director for The Departed. It was exceptionally strong field this year but he had to win didn’t he? But even he still can’t believe it as he (half) jokingly says: “Thank you, please! Could you double-check the envelope?”.

05.13 GMT
Jack Nicholson comes out with Diane Keaton to present Best Picture. Well that surely means …The Departed. Producer Graham King is loving it. Not only has he got an Oscar but he’s helped Marty finally break his curse. (He’s a Chelsea fan – so a good day for him all round after the Carling Cup final yesterday afternoon). I thought Little Miss Sunshine would sneak it but I’m glad The Departed has won. It’s the kind of contemporary film that doesn’t usually win awards but its bucked the trend. The last films set in the present to win were American Beauty (1999) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991), so it doesn’t happen.

5.24 GMT
Well, in the end there weren’t that many surprises in the main categories, although there were a few in the technical ones. The big stories of the evening? Well, Martin Scorcese winning at last, Helen Mirren winning for The Queen, Forest Whitaker winning for The Last King of Scotland, Pan’s Labyrinth scooping technical awards (even if it didn’t get Best Foreign Picture) and The Departed winning Best Picture.

My favourite moment of the evening? Well apart from Martin Scorcese winning at last, Ennio Morrricone accepting his honorary Oscar in Italian with Clint Eastwood translating into English was something I won’t forget. Two legends, two languages, one richly deserved Oscar.

5.32 GMT
Well, that’s it for this year. I’m off to bed but if you have any thoughts about the winners and losers then do post them below.

Categories
Awards Season Thoughts

Oscar Predictions

The awards season finally comes to a close tomorrow night with the Oscars.

Whilst there are some certain winners like Helen Mirren and Martin Scorcese, there are also some categories that are much harder to predict. Not least the race for Best Picture, which is the most open in years.

Here are my predictions for the main categories:

BEST PICTURE
This is the hardest one to call. I think The Queen is the only film that definitely won’t win, whilst Letters from Iwo Jima has only an outside shot. So it is a three way race between Babel, The Departed and Little Miss Sunshine. My gut feeling is that Little Miss Sunshine will sneak it. It is an enormously popular film within the industry and although The Departed is better crafted and Babel more worthy, I think Oscar voters have fallen for the charms of the little yellow bus.

Who will win: Little Miss Sunshine
Who should win: The Departed

BEST DIRECTOR
In any other year you could make a strong case for Paul Greengrass (United 93), Clint Eastwood (Letters from Iwo Jima), Stephen Frears (The Queen) or Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Babel). But this is no ordinary year. Because now is the time for Hollywood to finally atone for past sins and give Martin Scorcese the Oscar he richly deserves for The Departed.

Who will win: Martin Scorcese (The Departed)
Who should win: Martin Scorcese (The Departed)

BEST ACTOR
Whilst it looked a while ago that Peter O’Toole (Venus) could be in line for the sentimental vote, Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland) is too strong. His powerhouse portrayal of Idi Amin should deservedly win even though Will Smith (The Pursuit of Happyness), Ryan Gosling (Half Nelson) and Leonardo DiCaprio (Blood Diamond) all offered strong performances.

Who will win: Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland)
Who should win: Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland)

BEST ACTRESS
There is only one winner here – Helen Mirren (The Queen). Like Forest Whitaker she has cut a swathe through the awards season, picking up almost every award she has been nominated for. Despite a strong field featuring Penelope Cruz (Volver), Judi Dench (Notes on a Scandal), Kate Winslet (Little Children) and the Oscar legend that is Meryl Streep (The Devil Wears Prada), this is Dame Helen’s year.

Who will win: Helen Mirren (The Queen)
Who should win: Helen Mirren (The Queen)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
A trickier category this one. Although Eddie Murphy has long been the frontrunner for his excellent work in Dreamgirls I have a feeling it is a more open race. Djimon Honsou (Blood Diamond) and Mark Wahlberg (The Departed) are also strong candidates but I fancy Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine) will get it. My head says Murphy, my gut says Arkin.

Who will win: Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine)
Who should win: Eddie Murphy (Dreamgirls)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Jennifer Hudson (Dreamgirls) is the red hot favourite and I can’t see an upset. She certainly deserves it for her wonderful performance. If there is an upset then maybe it could be Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine) but that isn’t going to happen.

Who will win: Jennifer Hudson (Dreamgirls)
Who should win: Jennifer Hudson (Dreamgirls)

And in the other categories:

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Who will win: Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine)
Who should win: Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth)

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Who will win: William Monahan (The Departed)
Who should win: Todd Field & Tom Perrotta (Little Children)

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Who will win: Pan’s Labyrinth
Who should win: Pan’s Labyrinth (although The Lives of Others is also outstanding)

BEST ANIMATED FILM
Who will win: Cars
Who should win: Monster House

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Who will win: An Inconvenient Truth

FILM EDITING
Who will win: Douglas Crise, Stephen Mirrione (Babel)
Who should win: Clare Douglas, Richard Pearson & Christopher Rouse (United 93)

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Who will win: Emmanuel Lubezki (Children of Men)
Who should win: Emmanuel Lubezki (Children of Men)

ART DIRECTION
Who will win: Eugenio Caballero, Pilar Revuelta (Pan’s Labyrinth)
Who should win: Eugenio Caballero, Pilar Revuelta (Pan’s Labyrinth)

COSTUME DESIGN
Who will win: Sharen Davis (Dreamgirls)
Who should win: Sharen Davis (Dreamgirls)

BEST MAKEUP
Who will win: David MartĂ­, Montse RibĂ© (Pan’s Labyrinth)
Who should win: David MartĂ­, Montse RibĂ© (Pan’s Labyrinth)

MUSIC – SONG
Who will win: “Listen” – Dreamgirls
Who should win: “Love You I Do” – Dreamgirls

MUSICAL SCORE
Who will win: Gustavo Santaolalla (Babel)
Who should win: Javier Navarrete (Pan’s Labyrinth)

SOUND MIXING
Who will win: Michael Minkler, Bob Beemer, Willie D. Burton (Dreamgirls)
Who should win: Michael Minkler, Bob Beemer, Willie D. Burton (Dreamgirls)

SOUND EDITING
Who will win: Alan Robert Murray, Bub Asman (Letters From Iwo Jima)
Who should win: Alan Robert Murray, Bub Asman (Letters From Iwo Jima)

VISUAL EFFECTS
Who will win: John Knoll, Hal T. Hickel, Charles Gibson, Allen Hall (Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest)
Who should win: John Knoll, Hal T. Hickel, Charles Gibson, Allen Hall (Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest)

N.B. I haven’t seen the other candidates for Best Documentary or any of the nominated films for Documentary Short, Short Animated Film or Short Film Live Action, so I’ll have to pass on predictions for them.

If you have any predictions or thoughts then feel free to post them below.

> Full list of nominees at Wikipedia
> A name pronunciation guide to the nominees

Categories
Cinema Reviews

Cinema Releases for Friday 23rd February

Two acting legends – Clint Eastwood and Robert De Niro – have their director’s hat on this week but the honours have to go to Mr Eastwood.  

Letters from Iwo Jima is the ‘companion film’ to Flags of Our Fathers – Clint Eastwood’s other film about the Battle for Iwo Jima. It is a beautifully crafted and moving portrayal of the Japanese soldiers during that conflict. Turning the usual depiction of the Japanese in World War Two on its head, it becomes an affecting mosaic of the different soldiers fighting on the island. Ken Watanabe plays General Kuribayashi – the man charged with defending the island – and he gives a compelling portrait of a man on a doomed mission. Subtle, moving and beautifully shot it is Eastwood’s best work as a director.

The birth of the CIA is the subject of The Good Shepherd – Robert De Niro’s second film as a director. Matt Damon stars as Edward Wilson (loosley based on James Jesus Angleton) a young man recruited by the newly founded Office of Strategic Services. He soon becomes a Cold War warrior and a key member of what becomes the Central Intelligence Agency. Slowly his murky career starts to take over his life, at the expense of his wife (Angelina Jolie) and family as he gets drawn deeper and deeper into the paranoia of the age. Although much of the story is fascinating (and the depiction of US foreign policy is admirably pessimistic) the narrative is too tortured and complex. Shifting between different time periods the core themes of the story get lost amidst a series of unconvincing subplots.  

FILM OF THE WEEK: Letters from Iwo Jima 

> Get cinema times for your area via Google Movies
> Check out other film reviews at Metacritic

Categories
Podcast Reviews

The Movie Cast for Thursday 22nd February

On the podcast this week we discuss Letters from Iwo Jima – Clint Eastwood’s other film about the Battle for Iwo Jima. We also examine The Good Shepherd – Robert De Niro’s second film which explores the birth of the CIA.

Our DVD pick is the guilty 80s pleasure that is Highlander: The Immortal Edition (I kid you not).

We also give our predictions for the Oscars this Sunday and our website of the week is Flixster.

> Download it for free from Creation Podcasts
> Subscribe via iTunes
> Subscribe to the RSS feed

Categories
Box Office News Reviews

Hot Fuzz tops the UK Box office

It is good to see that Hot Fuzz has topped the British box office.

The Guardian reports:

Hot Fuzz, the police-procedural-thriller-action-comedy from the team behind Shaun of the Dead, shot to the top of the British box office at the weekend.

With a lineup featuring the cream of British comedy – Bill Bailey, Bill Nighy and Martin Freeman among others – alongside heavyweight thesps such as Billie Whitelaw and Timothy Dalton having a ball, the story of an overachieving police officer in a sleepy crime-free village laughed all the way to the bank. It raked in an opening haul of ÂŁ5.9m.

Some people I know who’d seen it were a little disappointed – the common refrain seemed to be that it wasn’t as good as Shaun of the Dead. Much as I like that 2004 zombie spoof, I do think the Fuzz is better – more gags, more ambition and a little more verve.

> The Guardian story
> Top films at the UK Box Office

Categories
Amusing Trailers

The latest Simpsons trailer

The latest trailer for The Simpsons Movie has arrived:

[youtube]Gh6MvWM76Tg[/youtube]

It opens everywhere on July 27th.

> Official site for the film
> Check out the Apple trailer (better quality but slower)
> Find out more about the film at Wikipedia