Here is the full list of winners for the 82nd Academy Awards, which saw The Hurt Locker win Best Picture, Kathryn Bigelow become the first woman to win Best Director, whilst Jeff Bridges and Sandra Bullock won in the major acting categories.
BEST PICTURE:Â The Hurt Locker
BEST DIRECTOR:Â Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker)
BEST ACTOR:Â Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart)
BEST ACTRESS:Â Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:Â Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:Â Mo’Nique (Precious)
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM:Â El Secreto de Sus Ojos – The Secret of Their Eyes (Argentina)
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker)
BEST ANIMATION:Â Up
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:Â Geoffrey Fletcher (Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire)
BEST ART DIRECTION: Avatar
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY:Â Avatar
BEST SOUND MIXING: The Hurt Locker
BEST SOUND EDITING:Â The Hurt Locker
BEST ORIGINAL SONG:Â The Weary Kind (theme from Crazy Heart) from Crazy Heart by Ryan Bingham, T Bone Burnett
A supernatural thriller centered on three people – a blue-collar American, a French journalist and a London school boy – who are touched by death in different ways.
The Oscar nominations have been announced and Avatar and The Hurt Locker lead the field with 9 nominations each.
Nominations were announced this morning by Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences president Tom Sherak and Anne Hathaway.
The final ballots get mailed out on February 10th and are due back at PricewaterhouseCoopers offices on Tuesday 2nd March (my birthday as it turns out).
The actual awards take place on Sunday 7th March at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles and will be hosted by Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin.
Here is the list in full:
Best Picture
Avatar (James Cameron and Jon Landau, Producers)
The Blind Side (Nominees to be determined)
District 9 (Peter Jackson and Carolynne Cunningham, Producers)
An Education (Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey, Producers)
The Hurt Locker (Nominees to be determined)
Inglourious Basterds (Lawrence Bender, Producer)
Precious: Based on the Novel âPushâ by Sapphire (Lee Daniels, Sarah Siegel-Magness and Gary Magness, Producers)
A Serious Man (Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, Producers)
Up (Jonas Rivera, Producer)
Up in the Air (Daniel Dubiecki, Ivan Reitman and Jason Reitman, Producers)
Best Director
James Cameron, Avatar
Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
Lee Daniels, Precious: Based on the Novel âPushâ by Sapphire
Jason Reitman, Up in the Air
Best Actor
Jeff Bridges in âCrazy Heartâ
George Clooney in âUp in the Airâ
Colin Firth in âA Single Manâ
Morgan Freeman in âInvictusâ
Jeremy Renner in âThe Hurt Lockerâ
Best Actress
Sandra Bullock in âThe Blind Sideâ
Helen Mirren in âThe Last Stationâ
Carey Mulligan in âAn Educationâ
Gabourey Sidibe in âPrecious: Based on the Novel âPushâ by Sapphireâ
The Oscar nominations are announced tomorrow (Tuesday 5.30am PST and 1.30pm GMT) and here are some of the films and people to look out for in the major categories.
BEST PICTURE
The is the most interesting category of all because this year the Academy expanded the number of nominees from 5 to 10 in order to let in films that were more commercially successful.
It was basically a move to pacify ABC executives tired of declining ratings for the telecast and low grossing winners.
Obviously it was a move that goes against everything the Oscars should stand for (like awarding excellence rather than box office) and as it turned out, Avatar would have made it in to the final five anyway.
With that in mind, these films are cast-iron certainties to get in to the final 10:
The Hurt Locker
Avatar
Up in the Air
Precious
Inglourious Basterds
After that, it gets a little trickier but I reckon that Up, Star Trek, District 9, An Education and A Serious Man will fill out the remaining slots. However, Invictus and A Single Man are possibilities.
BEST DIRECTOR
This is going to follow the Best Picture category with the following directors:
James Cameron, Avatar
Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
Lee Daniels, Precious
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
Jason Reitman, Up in the Air
BEST ACTOR
This category is also relatively straightforward, with Jeff Bridges emerging as the frontrunner to win.
Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
George Clooney, Up in the Air
Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker,
Colin Firth, A Single Man
Morgan Freeman, Invictus
BEST ACTRESS
Another straightforward category with Sandra Bullock likely to win. Emily Blunt isn’t a dead cert for the fifth slot, which could go to Helen Mirren for The Last Station.
Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia
Carey Mulligan, An Education
Gabourey Sidibe, Precious
Emily Blunt, The Young Victoria
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
For this category Christophe Waltz is a dead cert to win after scooping virtually every guild and critics award. The fifth slot is a hard one to call but if there is any justice Anthony Mackie should get a nod.
Christophe Waltz, Inglourious Basterds
Woody Harrelson, The Messenger
Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones
Matt Damon, Invictus
Anthony Mackie, The Hurt Locker
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Another category where the winner is almost certain before the nominations are announced. Mo’Mique is the actress equivalent of Waltz in that she has dominated the critic and guild awards and a dead cert to win. This is quite a hard one to call and other possibles could include Diane Kruger (Inglourious Basterds), Penelope Cruz (Nine) and Mariah Carey (Precious).
Mo’Nique, Precious
Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air
Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air
Maggie Gyllenhaal, Crazy Heart
Julianne Moore, A Single Man
Of course, I could have got a few of these wrong but we shall see when Anne Hathaway and Tom Sherak announce them at a news conference at the Academyâs Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills on Tuesday.
Bigelow beat out fellow nominees Lee Daniels (Precious), Jason Reitman (Up in the Air), Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds) and James Cameron (Avatar).
However, The Hurt Locker has been the most acclaimed film of the awards season, winning most of the critics and guild awards that pave the way to the Oscars next month.
Bigelow’s victory is her 15th award for her work on the film which examines the experiences of a bomb disposal unit in the Iraq War.
She is now the frontrunner for the Best Director Oscar, which the DGA has correctly predicted for 56 of its 62-year history.
We should also mention that her directorial team were:
Unit Production Manager: Tony Mark
First Assistant Director: David Ticotin
First Assistant Director (Canadian Unit): Lee Cleary
Disney effectively decided to shut down Miramaxon Thursday as they announced that the New York and Los Angeles offices of the art house movie studio will close.
Although Disney may decide to keep it as a distribution label within their major film division, effectively as a shell of its former self, 80 employees will lose their jobs and the company as we once knew it, is now essentially over.
At the moment there doesn’t appear to be an official line on what will happen but according the the New York Times, around 20 employees will be folded into their major studio operations and the six films awaiting release will come out under the Miramax banner.
Although closure had been on the cards for some time, especially when former president Daniel Battsek left back in the Autumn, the move is still a powerful reminder of harsh times the film business faces with squeezed finances due to the recession.
As to who will be in charge of winding it up, selling it or keeping it as a production label nothing has officially been announced yet.
Nikki Finke is reporting that Summit are interested in buying Miramax, the logic would appear to be that they have a lot of cash from the Twilight franchise and it would be a way for the young studio to acquire projects and a library in one go.
The indie film boom of the 1990s and subsequent creation of dependent divisions such as Fox Searchlight, Vantage, Focus Features and Warner Independent, was in large part due to the success of Miramax who managed to make or acquire lower budget films and market them to awards and box office glory.
Founded in 1979 by Bob and Harvey Weinstein, the company broke into movie distribution with The Secret Policeman’s Other Ball in 1982 and established a knack for acquiring films from international filmmakers and rebranding them for US audiences.
In 1989 they achieved a breakthrough successes with sex, lies, and videotape (1989), which established Steven Soderbergh as a director (he won the Palme D’Or at Cannes that year) and also set the template for the Sundance film festival as a mecca for filmmakers and buyers, where indie movies could be bought and then distributed at a decent profit.
When Disney acquired Miramax in 1993, things went up to another level as the new injection of corporate cash gave the Weinsteins greater power to buy independent films, which they then marketed with an extraordinary focus and panache, controlling the post-production and campaigning them aggressively for Oscar voters.
Pulp Fiction was to the 90s indie scene what Star Wars had been to the Hollywood of the 70s – a film that rewrote the business and artistic rule book by grossing over $100 million at the US box office on a budget of just $8.5 million (and $10 million marketing costs) before going on to make over $200 million worldwide.
The fact that the film (effectively funded by Disney) could feature relentless profanity, male rape and several violent deaths and scoop several Oscar nominations (and win for Best Screenplay) shows how far Miramax had come.
For a decade from the mid-90s onwards their hold on the awards season was incredible. Films like The English Patient (1996) and Shakespeare in Love (1999) won Best Picture and in 2002 they had no less than 3 of the 5 Best Picture nominees: The Hours; Gangs of New York and the eventual winner Chicago.
But they weren’t all about winning awards. Their less glamorous sister division Dimension was very profitable with films like Scream (1996), Spy Kids (2001) and Scary Movie (2000) all launching franchises.
With success though, came behind-the-scenes rancour and conflict, not only with film-makers who felt burnt by their hands on business methods and ‘creative input’, but more significantly with Disney head Michael Eisner.
He famously turned down the Lord of the Rings trilogy when Miramax wanted to film the trilogy of books as a 2-film adaptation (apparently it was ‘too dark’ for the Mouse House) and was also increasingly alarmed at the growing budgets of films like Cold Mountain (2003) as well as the hot potato release of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004).
By 2005 the Weinsteins left to form their own studio (The Weinstein Company), although they have struggled ever since to have the same level of success and many observers think that could struggle to survive in the current financial climate.
However, the Oscars at which No Country For Old Men triumphed in March 2008 would mark the end of an era – budgets were down and the number of releases was way back from what was the norm in the company’s heyday.
By 2009 Disney was rethinking its approach to the specialty market to just three films a year and when Battsek, who had done a remarkable job in many ways, left in October, the writing was on the wall.
When the long time chairman of Disney’s movie division Dick Cook was effectively ousted, a new corporate approach to movies was apparent under the leadership of Bob Iger and it was one in which Miramax didn’t appear to have a place.
“I’m feeling very nostalgic right now. I know the movies made on my and my brother Bob’s watch will live on as well as the fantastic films made under the direction of Daniel Battsek. Miramax has some brilliant people working within the organization and I know they will go on to do great things in the industry.”
Another Miramax alumnus was director Kevin Smith, who got his break when his debut feature Clerks was acquired at Sundance in 1994. Writing for The Wrap he said he was crushed by the closure of the studio:
What Harvey and Bob built from scratch resembled an old studio star-factory; but this time, the stars were the filmmakers.
It was a gang (of New York), and like any good gang, it was dripping with street cred. Just being a part of that gang sent a message: I run with rebels.
But Miramax wasn’t just a bad-boy clubhouse, it was a 20th century Olympus: throw a can of Diet Coke and you hit a modern-day deity. And for one brief, shining moment, it was an age of magic and wonders.
I’m crushed to see it pass into history, because I owe everything I have to Miramax. Without them, I’d still be a New Jersey convenience store register jockey. In practice, not just in my head.
The most recent Miramax film was the Robert De Niro comedy-drama Everybody’s Fine (an ironic title given the company’s current woes) which grossed just $9 million following its December release.
Upcoming releases include The Debt (a thriller directed by John Madden and starring Helen Mirren); The Tempest (by director Julie Taymor, also starring Helen Mirren and Russell Brand); Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (written by director Guillermo del Toro); The Baster (a comedy starring Jennifer Aniston); Gnomeo and Juliet (starring James McAvoy and Emily Blunt) and Last Night (starring Sam Worthington, Eva Mendes and Keira Knightley).
With weekend figures for his latest film adding up to a staggering $1.838 billion worldwide, this weekend’s expected $15 million US earnings allowed it to do what many thought was unthinkable and surpass his 1997 epic, which had a worldwide gross of $1.842 billion.
‘Titanic’ still remains the highest grosser domestically in the US with $600.8 million, but it only seems like a matter of time before Cameron’s latest film catches up after already earning $551.7 million as of Monday.
It is a remarkable achievement, as Titanic seemed a one off that would never be repeated, but the combination of multiple repeat viewings and the higher ticket prices for 3D screenings helped turn it into a tsunami of cash for 20th Century Fox.
Part of the key to its mainstream success lies in the fact that this is the first live action 3D film for a mass mainstream audience. Although 3D has become the norm at cinemas for animated films over the last 18 months, live action films such as The Final Destination were gimmicky and few and far between.
But Avatar was designed from the beginning as a spectacular and immersive 3D experience which would be shown on as many new digital screens as possible.
It was a calculated gamble for Fox and Cameron to push this technology on such a high profile film, which wasn’t an established property or sequel, but it has paid off handsomely.
Another aspect worth noting is how well it has done in markets such as China and Russia, which were harder to tap back in the late 1990s and this certainly helped its global box office numbers.
Why has it hit such a chord with audiences?
The combination of ground breaking visuals and a universal story line that fits neatly into many global cultures would appear to be the primary reasons but we should also bear in mind the Christmas box office, which features less competition than the summer.
Can it break the $2 billion barrier? At this point few would bet against it.
The final BAFTA nominations were announced this morning with An Education, Avatar and The Hurt Locker leading the field with eight nominations each.
District 9 has seven nominations, while Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds and Up in the Air have six nominations each.
Given the opportunity, BAFTA members love to award homegrown talent (Atonment beating out No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood for Best Film in 2008 comes to mind) and it would seem An Education is favourite for Best Film and Best Actress, despite not being one of the Oscar big hitters this year.
The awards takes place at London’s Royal Opera House on Sunday 21st February.
BAFTA NOMINATIONS
Best Film
Avatar
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Precious
Up in the Air
Outstanding British Film
An Education
Fish Tank
In the Loop
Moon
Nowhere Boy
Director
Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
Neill Blomkamp, District 9
James Cameron, Avatar
Lone Scherfig, An Education
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
Actor
Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
George Clooney, Up in the Air
Colin Firth, A Single Man
Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker
Andy Serkis, Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll
Actress
Carey Mulligan, An Education
Saoirse Ronan, The Lovely Bones
Gabourey Sidibe, Precious
Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia
Audrey Tautou, Coco Before Chanel
Supporting Actor
Alec Baldwin, It’s Complicated
Christian McKay, Me and Orson Welles
Alfred Molina, An Education
Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones
Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds
Supporting Actress
Anne-Marie Duff, Nowhere Boy
Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air
Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air
Mo’Nique, Precious
Kristin Scott Thomas, Nowhere Boy
Original Screenplay
The Hangover
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
A Serious Man
Up
Adapted Screenplay
District 9
An Education
In the Loop
Precious
Up in the Air
Film not in the English Language
Broken Embraces
Coco Before Chanel
Let the Right One In
A Prophet
The White Ribbon
Animated Film
Coraline
Fantastic Mr Fox
Up
Cinematography
Avatar
District 9
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
The Road
Costume Design
Bright Star
Coco Before Chanel
An Education
A Single Man
The Young Victoria
Editing
Avatar
District 9
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Up in the Air
Make-Up & Hair
Coco Before Chanel
An Education
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Nine
The Young Victoria
Music
Avatar
Crazy Heart
Fantastic Mr Fox
Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll
Up
Production Design
Avatar
District 9
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Inglourious Basterds
Sound
Avatar
District 9
The Hurt Locker
Star Trek
Up
Visual Effects
Avatar
District 9
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The Hurt Locker
Star Trek
Short Animation
The Gruffalo
The Happy Duckling
Mother of Many
Short Film
14
I Do Air
Jade
Mixtape
Off Season
Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer
Lucy Bailey, Andrew Thompson, Elizabeth Morgan Hemlock, David Pearson (directors/producers, Mugabe and the White African)
Last year there were 173.9m customers, who collectively bought ÂŁ944m worth of tickets with the most successful films being:
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – ÂŁ50.72m
Avatar – ÂŁ41.00m
Ice Age III – ÂŁ35.02m
Up – ÂŁ34.42m
Slumdog Millionaire – ÂŁ31.66m
The Twilight Saga: New Moon – ÂŁ27.08m
Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen – ÂŁ27.06m
The Hangover – ÂŁ22.12m
Star Trek – ÂŁ21.40m
Monsters Vs. Aliens – ÂŁ21.37m  [Source: Nielsen EDI, UK Film Council]
Ticket sales have varied in the past seven years, peaking in 2002 with a total of 175.9m admissions and dipping to 156.6m in 2006.
The World Cup was a factor for both of these years, as televised games in the summer always eat into the summer box office.
But the very early kick off times in the 2002 tournament (when the tournament was in Korea and Japan) didn’t have the same effect as in 2006 when a lot of games in Germany were in the same time zone.
However, the big trend for last year was the surge in ticket sales which was helped in part by three films: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Twilight: New Moon and Avatar.
Potter is the most bankable film franchise in history, New Moon has brought younger female audiences out in droves and Avatar is essentially the new Titanic.
It is also worth looking at how successful family friendly animated films are: Up, Monsters vs Aliens and Ice Age III have all done major business. The international grosses of the latter are truly mind boggling given how relatively cheap it was to make.
I don’t always subscribe to the notion that cinema does well in a recession but if the right mix of films hit the spot for mass audiences across the board then it is cheaper than other leisure activities and an escape from going down the pub and discussing how miserable life is.
It remains doubtful that 2010 will be as successful as 2009 and I imagine Avatar will cast a long shadow over fellow box office rivals.
But summer releases that look set to do serious business include Iron Man 2, Sex and the City 2 (God help us), Robin Hood, Toy Story 3, Twilight: Eclipse and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 in November.
Here are the winners at the Golden Globes, which took place in Beverley Hills earlier today.
FILM
Best Picture (Drama): Avatar Best Picture (Comedy/Musical): The Hangover Best Director: James Cameron, Avatar Best Actress (Drama): Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side Best Actor (Drama): Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart Best Actress (Comedy/Musical): Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia Best Actor (Comedy/Musical): Robert Downey Jr, Sherlock Holmes Best Supporting Actress: MoâNique, Precious Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds Best Foreign Language Film: The White Ribbon Best Animated Feature: Up Best Screenplay: Jason Reitman & Sheldon Turner, Up in the Air Best Original Score: Michael Giacchino, Up Best Original Song: The Weary Kind, Crazy Heart
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TV
Best TV Series (Drama): Mad Men Best TV Series (Comedy): Glee Best TV Miniseries: Grey Gardens Best Actress, TV Miniseries: Drew Barrymore, Grey Gardens Best Actor, TV Miniseries: Kevin Bacon, Taking Chance Best Actress, TV Drama: Julianna Margulies, The Good Wife Best Actor, TV Drama: Michael C. Hall, Dexter Best Actress, TV Comedy: Toni Collette, United States of Tara Best Actor, TV Comedy: Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock Best Supporting Actress, TV: Chloe Sevigny, Big Love Best Supporting Actor, TV: John Lithgow, Dexter
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The Golden Globes should always be taken with a pinch of salt, as they are voted for by a select group of foreign journalists in Los Angeles who basically try to second guess what the Oscar nominations will be.
The win for Robert Downey Jnr in Sherlock Holmes is reflective of the nonsensical, showbiz tastes that are rife amongst the ageing cabal of hacks that make up the HFPA.
With that in mind, the major winners could mirror the Oscars this year with Avatar, James Cameron, Jeff Bridges and Sandra Bullock all looking very strong in their respective categories.
Oscar pundits will tell you that Christoph Waltz and Mo’Nique have been virtual certainties in the supporting categories for quite a while and their wins here were no surprise.
For more information on the campaign and to find out more about the charity just visit their website at www.macmillan.org.uk/cancertalkweek or call 0808 808 00 00
Perhaps the suprising underdog of the pack – given the lack of US awards heat – is Moon which received 10 mentions, including the big categories of Best film, director and actor.
The process involves around 6000 members of BAFTA who vote in three rounds to decide the winners at the Orange British Academy Film Awards on February 21st.
The long list is the result of Round One voting, which whittles down eligible films down to fifteen in each category.
Round Two voting will then reduce these fifteen contenders down to the final five nominees which will be announced on Thursday 21st January at BAFTA HQ in London.
The asterisks below show the top 5Â (or in certain cases 6) voted by each chapter of the Academy in this first round. (Have a listen to my interview with BAFTA’s Amanda Berry from 2008 for further details on how the voting system works).
As ever with BAFTA watch out for delayed releases (Gran Torino is a 2008 film which Warner Bros couldn’t be bothered to screen in time for last year’s deadlines) and the British bias (Carey Mulligan and Colin Firth seem like slam-dunks to win in their respective categories – not that they aren’t deserving, but there is something a little parochial when BAFTA voters go for the ‘home vote’).
Here is the long list in full:
BEST FILM Avatar District 9 An Education Gran Torino The Hurt Locker Inglourious Basterds Invictus Moon Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire The Road A Serious Man A Single Man Star Trek Up Up in the Air
DIRECTOR Avatar * Bright Star District 9 * An Education * Fish Tank Gran Torino The Hurt Locker * Inglourious Basterds Invictus Moon Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire A Prophet * A Serious Man Up Up in the Air
LEADING ACTOR Aaron Johnson (John Lennon) â Nowhere Boy Andy Serkis (Ian Dury) â Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll * Ben Whishaw (John Keats) â Bright Star Brad Pitt (Lt. Aldo Raine) â Inglourious Basterds Clint Eastwood (Walt Kowalski) â Gran Torino Colin Firth (George) â A Single Man * George Clooney (Ryan Bingham) â Up in the Air * Jeff Bridges (Bad Blake) â Crazy Heart Jeremy Renner (SSgt. William James) â The Hurt Locker * Michael Sheen (Brian Clough) â The Damned United Morgan Freeman (Nelson Mandela) â Invictus * Peter Capaldi (Malcolm Tucker) â In the Loop Peter Sarsgaard (David) â An Education Sam Rockwell (Sam Bell) â Moon Viggo Mortensen (Man) â The Road
LEADING ACTRESS Abbie Cornish (Fanny Brawne) â Bright Star * Amy Adams (Julie Powell) â Julie & Julia Audrey Tautou (Gabrielle âCocoâ Chanel) â Coco Before Chanel Carey Mulligan (Jenny) â An Education * Emily Blunt (Queen Victoria) â The Young Victoria Gabourey Sidibe (Precious) â Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire * Helen Mirren (Sofya Tolstoy) â The Last Station Katie Jarvis (Mia) â Fish Tank Maggie Gyllenhaal (Jean Craddock) â Crazy Heart Marion Cotillard (Luisa Contini) â Nine Melanie Laurent (Shosanna Dreyfus) â Inglourious Basterds Meryl Streep (Jane) â Itâs Complicated Meryl Streep (Julia Child) â Julie & Julia * Penelope Cruz (Lena) â Broken Embraces Saoirse Ronan (Susie Salmon) â The Lovely Bones *
SUPPORTING ACTOR Aaron Wolff (Danny Gopnik) â A Serious Man Alan Rickman (Professor Severus Snape) â Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Alec Baldwin (Jake) â Itâs Complicated Alfred Molina (Jack) â An Education * Anthony Mackie (Sgt. JT Sanborn) â The Hurt Locker Brian Geraghty (Specialist Owen Eldridge) â The Hurt Locker Christian McKay (Orson Welles) â Me and Orson Welles * Christoph Waltz (Col. Landa) â Inglourious Basterds * Christopher Plummer (Leo Tolstoy) â The Last Station * Dominic Cooper (Danny) â An Education Matt Damon (Francois Pienaar) â Invictus Stanley Tucci (Mr Harvey) â The Lovely Bones * Stanley Tucci (Paul Child) â Julie & Julia Timothy Spall (Peter Taylor) â The Damned United Zachary Quinto (Spock) â Star Trek
SUPPORTING ACTRESS Anna Kendrick (Natalie Keener) â Up in the Air Anne-Marie Duff (Julia) â Nowhere Boy * Claire Danes (Sonja Jones) â Me and Orson Welles Diane Kruger (Bridget von Hammersmark) â Inglourious Basterds Emma Thompson (Headmistress) â An Education Julianne Moore (Charley) â A Single Man * Kristin Scott Thomas (Mimi) â Nowhere Boy * Mariah Carey (Mrs Weiss) â Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire MoâNique (Mary) â Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire * Olivia Williams (Miss Stubbs) â An Education Penelope Cruz (Carla) â Nine Rachel Weisz (Abigail Salmon) â The Lovely Bones Rosamund Pike (Helen) â An Education * Susan Sarandon (Grandma Lynn) â The Lovely Bones Vera Farmiga (Alex Goran) â Up in the Air
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY Crazy Heart The Damned United District 9 * An Education * Fantastic Mr Fox In the Loop * Invictus Let the Right One In * The Lovely Bones Me and Orson Welles Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire * The Road A Single Man Star Trek Up in the Air *
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY Avatar Bright Star Broken Embraces Fish Tank Gran Torino The Hangover The Hurt Locker * Inglourious Basterds * Itâs Complicated Moon * Nowhere Boy A Prophet A Serious Man * Up * The Young Victoria
MAKE UP & HAIR Avatar Bright Star * Coco Before Chanel * District 9 An Education * Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus * Inglourious Basterds Julie & Julia Me and Orson Welles Nine Nowhere Boy The Road Star Trek The Young Victoria *
SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS 2012 * Avatar * District 9 * Fantastic Mr Fox Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince * The Hurt Locker The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus Inglourious Basterds The Lovely Bones Moon The Road Star Trek * Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Watchmen Where the Wild Things Are
SOUND Avatar * District 9 * An Education Fantastic Mr Fox Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince The Hurt Locker * Inglourious Basterds The Lovely Bones Moon Nine Nowhere Boy The Road Star Trek * Up * Where the Wild Things Are
EDITING Avatar * Bright Star District 9 * An Education The Hurt Locker * Inglourious Basterds * The Lovely Bones Moon Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire The Road A Serious Man A Single Man Star Trek Up Up in the Air *
COSTUME DESIGN Avatar Bright Star * Coco Before Chanel * District 9 An Education * Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus Inglourious Basterds Me and Orson Welles Nine Nowhere Boy Sherlock Holmes A Single Man * Star Trek The Young Victoria *
PRODUCTION DESIGN Avatar Bright Star * Coco Before Chanel District 9 * An Education Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince * The Hurt Locker The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus * Inglourious Basterds The Lovely Bones Moon The Road Sherlock Holmes * A Single Man Star Trek
CINEMATOGRAPHY Avatar * Bright Star * Coco Before Chanel District 9 An Education Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince The Hurt Locker * Inglourious Basterds * The Lovely Bones Moon The Road A Serious Man * A Single Man Star Trek Up in the Air
ANIMATED FILM Coraline * Disneyâs A Christmas Carol Fantastic Mr Fox * Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs Up *
MUSIC Avatar * Bright Star Coraline * Crazy Heart * An Education Fantastic Mr Fox * The Hurt Locker Inglourious Basterds The Lovely Bones Moon * Nine Nowhere Boy Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll Up * Up in the Air
FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE Broken Embraces Coco Before Chanel Let the Right One In A Prophet The White Ribbon
James Cameron’s Avatar premiĂšred in London last night.
There have been some press screenings around the globe (London, LA, New York) with an embargo on reviews – that is, journalists sign a form saying they won’t publish a review until a certain date.
As is often the case, the list can be a little out of sync with US and foreign release dates (Un ProphĂšte doesn’t open in the UK until January 22nd) although that hasn’t affected this year’s selection too much.
Although Murphy has had his fair share of box office misfires across the decade (Meet Dave, Imagine That) it should be noted he still has a decent box office track record (Shrek, Norbit, Dr Dolittle, Daddy Day Care) – even if the films are cack.
I read a trimmed down version of it in Tuesday’s print edition and assumed that the man behind Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and TV’s Spaced had given the go ahead for them to run it.
See also the Times tribute which gives away the end of The Wicker Man in its one-sentence summary of the plot.
Would it really have been that hard for someone at The Times to contact the director and ask for a quote, or even credit his blog without making out that he was a contributor?
Hopefully part of their strategy won’t involve copying other people’s freely available work without credit, misleading readers and then charging them for the privilege.
He’ll be best remembered on film for the lead role in The Wicker Man, as the police officer who ventures to a mysterious Scottish island.
As someone growing up in the 1980s, The Equalizer was a show I’d always sneak down to watch and, in retrospect, there was something pleasingly surreal about an ageing English actor becoming a star on US prime time TV.
The movie is about a young couple haunted by a supernatural presence in their home and it is presented in a documentary style, using footage from the camera set up by the couple to capture what is haunting them.
Despite garning some interest, no distributor picked it up until a copy of the film ended up at DreamWorks, where it was seen by production executive Ashley Brooks.
It went down so well with production chief Adam Goodman, studio head Stacey Snider and a certain Steven Spielberg, to the point where they greenlit a larger budget remake, with the original production to be included on the DVD as an extra.
However, the low budget nature of the original film was part of its allure and after screening it for international buyers in Santa Monica, the reaction was such that international rights were sold to 52 different countries.
With all this buzz Adam Goodman (who had since taken over as Paramount’s main exec) decided to release the original film in limited release during October.
It was during this period that the marketing department felt that they could use internet buzz to their advantage.
Another stroke of good luck was when Paramount decided to postpone the release of Martin Scorsese’s latest film Shutter Island from an October 2009 release to February next year.
Presumably this was because they either felt it wasn’t Oscar-friendly enough, or because their pipeline of films needed some big name action in the first quarter of next year.
In any event, it meant that “Paranormal Activity” had the full attention of Paramount’s marketing folk and especially that of online marketing executive Amy Powell who, along with her team, adopted an innovative online grass roots campaign.
Inverting the way which mainstream films are usually released in thousands of theatres with a heavy TV and outdoor marketing campaign, Powell and her team opted for a very different strategy.
Playing on the idea that the film was ‘really scary’ and something of a cult in the making they asked film fans to demand a screening in their area via sites like eventful.com
The towns who got the most votes would ‘win’ a booking of the film. Furthermore the studio said that if Paranormal Activity got over a million votes, they would release it nationwide.
What’s particularly ingenious about this unconventional approach is how it built an army of dedicated fans and paying customers very cheaply.
Instead of being a big, bad studio making crap like G.I. Joe, Paramount had effectively taken the side of the average movie fan, helping them see this unbelievably scary horror film.
Journalism students and media pundits might like to debate the following quote from the movie website Rope of Silicon:
I have obviously been shilling for Paramount’s Paranormal Activity more than I have for a movie in quite some time, but when you have a great time in the theater with a film you believe should only be experienced in the theater with a rowdy and on the edge of their seat audience you want others to get in on the fun.
I can’t quite see the New York Times of The Guardian openly admit they were ‘shilling’ for a movie but maybe it’s a sign of how the media landscape is changing in that outlets openly admit they’ve been co-opted into the selling of a film. But maybe that’s a debate for another day.
Although the studio felt that the initial buzz was limited to film geeks and fansites, they managed to break out from that particular ghetto, persuading people to use Twitter (“tweet your scream!“) and Facebook (112,653 fans so far) to get a million votes for the national release.
Demand it they certainly did. When they finally cracked the million (after just four days) the studio posted a message to the site saying âYou did it!â. YOu could interpret this as also saying “gee, thanks for doing our marketing work for us – for free!”. User generated marketing anyone?
But of course, the official line was the more uplifting:
âThe first-ever film release decided by you.â
Which in modern Hollywood terms wasn’t actually that far off the mark.
As Powell said recently:
“We have been able to galvanize the community online to actually drive the release strategy and the film has been released as a result of the fans support”
On October 9th it got a limited release in several U.S. cities and had a nationwide opening from last Friday (October 16th).
Notice how the trailer incorporates the marketing campaign:
This weekend the film went head to head with Saw VI (the hugely profitable horror franchise which has dominated the Halloween box office since 2004) and despite playing on a considerably lower number of screens (around a 1000 less in fact) it still managed to beat it – a truly remarkable feat for a film in its 5th week of release.
Saw VI will probably finish the weekend with a $15m gross compared to Paranormal Activity’s $21m. So far the latter has an overall gross (or cume to use industry speak) of $62m.
Again, incredible numbers for a micro-budget project that got promoted to the big league.
But it doesn’t just stop there, as the studio can now surf the buzz of being the number 1 movie and it will expand next week (Halloween weekend, appropriately enough) and some even think that it has a shot at grossing over $100M.
When you think that the film was made independently for $11,000, bought by Paramount for an estimated $300,000 and had around $10M spent on prints and advertising, the numbers add up to one of the most profitable films in recent Hollywood history.
The only comparison I can think of is The Blair Witch Project back in 1999. However, the fact that it took ten years for another low budget film to crash the mainstream suggests that they are rare beasts.
Or does it? Perhaps studios might be a little more keen to try out low budget films and more grass roots marketing via the web.
Of course you have to have the right kind of film, but if a few more releases like Paranormal Activity pop up over the next few years it may not be such a surprise.
Certainly rival studio execs and marketing departments will be looking at how this film became a hit and whether or not the marketing of it represents a future trend.
Paranormal Activity is released in the UK on November 25th
But there will be smiles and relief all around at Burbank this weekend as it seems likely to be a hit even though it was a costly and drawn out production, with the budget rumoured to be around $100 million.
On Friday it opened wide on 3,735 screens and Deadline is reporting a likely $33M weekend, whilst The Wrap thinks it could top $40 million.
I’m guessing that, like the book, it is going to be a perennial children’s favourite for years to come.
David Letterman dropped a bombshell on his audience last night by explaining that he has been the victim of an extortion plot and that he has been having affairs with staffers on his show.
The talk show host said he had been approached by a person who was going to write a screenplay which would reveal Letterman’s sexual affairs.
He went to the Manhattan district attorneyâs office and in the course of the investigation, presumably a sting operation, was asked to write what he called a fake check for $2 million and a suspect was arrested on Thursday.
Letterman said that he had testified before a grand jury and had admitted to the relationships:
âMy response to that is, yes I have. Would it be embarrassing if it were made public? Perhaps it would. I feel like I need to protect these people. I need to certainly protect my family.â
The name of the suspected extortionist has not yet been revealed but CBS have said the suspect was an employee of the CBS news program â48 Hoursâ and was arrested on charges of attempted grand larceny. He has since been suspended.
What’s interesting is how Letterman broke the news. By coming clean on his own show, rather than having the New York Post or National Enquirer break the story, he gets to essentially control the media message in a self-deprecating way.
As the victim of an alleged blackmail plot, commentators will possibly be less critical of him but it will be interesting to see how the story develops.
Aside from the fact that CBS could now stand for ‘Crime, Blackmail and Sex’, I’m sure Letterman is bracing himself for the inevitable kiss-and-tell stories that tabloid outlets will be busily preparing as we speak.
UPDATE 02/10/2009 1641 GMT: The New York Post is reporting that CBS producer Joe Halderman allegedly tried to extort the $2 million from Letterman. They also say that Halderman recently broke up with “Late Night” staffer Stephanie Birkett who admitted to him that she had previously had a fling with Letterman. Got that? Crikey.
Director Roman Polanski has been arrested in Zurich and faces possible extradition to the US for having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977.
The 76 year old was detained on Saturday as he travelled from France to the Zurich Film Festival, where he was to collect a lifetime achievement award.
“There was a valid arrest request and we knew when he was coming. That’s why he was taken into custody.”
Polanski is currently being held under ‘provisional detention for extradition’, but won’t be transferred to U.S. authorities until all the procedural boxes have been ticked and the director can contest his detention and any possible extradition in the Swiss courts.
The original case dates back to the late 1970s when the director was involved in a scandal involving a 13-year old girl named Samantha Gailey, now known as Samantha Geimer.
According to Geimer, Polanski asked her mother if he could take photos of the young girl for French Vogue, which the director had been asked to guest edit and her mother allowed a private photo shoot.
She then agreed to a second session on March 10th, 1977 which took place at the home of Polanski’s friend Jack Nicholson in the Mulholland area of Los Angeles.
Later Geimer testified that at this Polanski performed various sexual acts on her, after giving her a combination of champagne and Quaaludes.
I met Roman Polanski in 1977, when I was 13 years old. I was in ninth grade that year, when he told my mother that he wanted to shoot pictures of me for a French magazine.
That’s what he said, but instead, after shooting pictures of me at Jack Nicholson’s house on Mulholland Drive, he did something quite different. He gave me champagne and a piece of a Quaalude. And then he took advantage of me.
It was not consensual sex by any means. I said no, repeatedly, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. I was alone and I didn’t know what to do. It was scary and, looking back, very creepy.
Those may sound like kindergarten words, but that’s the way it feels to me. It was a very long time ago, and it is hard to remember exactly the way everything happened. But I’ve had to repeat the story so many times, I know it by heart.
The original charges against Polanski when he was arrested in March 1977 were: giving Quaaludes to a minor; child molestation; unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor; rape by use of drugs; oral copulation and sodomy.
Polanski never denied the charges, but in the legal negotiations that followed they were dismissed under the terms of a plea bargain by which he pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with a minor.
After 42 days’ in prison over the winter of 1977-78, Polanski was passed as fit to stand trial and reportedly expected that he would be freed under a deal with the presiding judge, Laurence J. Rittenband.
Geimer also recounted in her 2003 piece that this deal – agreed between the defence, prosecution and judge – was reneged upon at the last minute:
We pressed charges, and he pleaded guilty. A plea bargain was agreed to by his lawyer, my lawyer and the district attorney, and it was approved by the judge. But to our amazement, at the last minute the judge went back on his word and refused to honor the deal.
Worried that he was going to have to spend 50 years in prison — rather than just time already served — Mr. Polanski fled the country. He’s never been back, and I haven’t seen him or spoken to him since.
Looking back, there can be no question that he did something awful. It was a terrible thing to do to a young girl. But it was also 25 years ago — 26 years next month. And, honestly, the publicity surrounding it was so traumatic that what he did to me seemed to pale in comparison.
It was when Polanski got wind that Rittenband was ready to break the agreement â allegedly due to fears of a public backlash – he flew to London in February 1978 and a day later fled to France.
To this day he has never returned to the US for fear of arrest or travelled to certain countries with extradition treaties.
He subsequently moved to France, where he has lived ever since and currently holds citizenship, protected by their limited extradition policies with US.
When he won Best Director for The Pianist at the Oscars in March 2003, Harrison Ford collected the award on his behalf and there was even a standing ovation.
That response is reflective of many in Hollywood, who still revere him as one of the great post-war directors: the Polish refugee who overcame Nazi and Communist oppression to direct such landmark films as Repulsion (1965), Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and Chinatown (1974).
Many there – although they don’t always openly admit it – feel that Polanski was a great artist who had been through the double trauma of having his mother murdered by the Nazis at Auschwitz in 1942 and then his wife Sharon Tatebrutally killed by the Manson gang in 1969.
Given where the 1977 incident happened, I’m sure that some stars and directors of that era who engaged in certain, illicit activities may well think that it could have easily been them in Polanski’s position.
If we go back even further, the history of Hollywood is one riven with dark secrets which would occasionally bubble up to the surface in the cases of Fatty Arbuckle, William Desmond Taylor or, more recently, Robert Blake.
And this doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what was going on in the 1970s when hedonism amongst some members of the showbiz community reached new heights – or lows, depending on your view – of excess.
Polanski’s arrest probably functioned as a sobering wake up call to others in Hollywood, but it remains a polarising case.
Within the industry he is still enormously respected by his peers and colleagues. Two widely read blogs within Hollywood are reflective of opinion within Hollywood: Nikki Finke of Deadline reports that Polanski was ‘double crossed by the Swiss‘, whilst Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere dismisses the case as being about ‘largely discredited, over-and-done-with 1977 charge‘.
However, a quick glance at the comments section on these websites will provide you with angry blasts of outrage at the fact that Polanski committed a crime and evaded justice for many years.
Defenders point out that the 2008 documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, directed by Marina Zenovich, explored the case and highlighted “a pattern of misconduct and improper communications” between the district attorney’s office and Judge Rittenband back in 1977.
Polanski’s US lawyer wanted to use the evidence of judicial misconduct presented in the film in order to get the case dismissed and in a filing they said that the judge (now dead) violated the original plea bargain with communicating about the case with a deputy district attorney who was not involved.
The general picture painted by the film was that Polanski was unlucky to face a judge more interested in his own publicity than the rule of law, although detractors could argue that a bad judge doesn’t absolve Polanski from the crime he comitted.
The Los Angeles Superior Court is aware of a documentary on film director Roman Polanski scheduled to air tonight on HBO.
The documentary makes an assertion that a Los Angeles Superior Court judge attempted to impose a condition on a reported sentencing agreement in 1997 under which Polanski would have had to agree to his sentencing being televised.
This assertion concerning televising of the sentencing hearing is a complete fabrication, entirely without any basis in fact and completely unsupported by the court record.
No such condition was ever suggested or proposed by the judge in question, either in 1997 or at any other time.
The Los Angeles Superior Court has made HBO aware of this egregious error and believes the network intends to rectify this misstatement of fact later today.
Back in January of this year, Polanski’s lawyer filed a further request to have the case dismissed, and to have it moved out of Los Angeles, as the courts there require him to be present there before any sentencing or dismissal.
In February 2009, Polanski’s request was denied by Judge Peter Espinoza, who said that he would rule if Polanski appeared in court before him.
In addition to publicly forgiving him Samantha Geimer has called for the charges against him to be dismissed from court, saying that decades of publicity as well as the prosecutor’s focus on lurid details (which The Smoking Gun published) continues to traumatize her and her family.
âI strongly regret that a new ordeal is being inflicted on someone who has already experienced so many of them.â
Even President Sarkozy called for a ‘rapid solution’ to the situation, which could be seen as a coded way of saying send him back to France as soon as possible.
But why was he arrested now? The LA Times reports that the LA County district attorneyâs office learned last week that Polanski was planning to travel to Zurich and they sent a provisional arrest warrant to the U.S. Justice Department, which then presented it to Swiss authorities.
He is being held under a 2005 international alert issued by the US and although he has been to Switzerland before, this time US authorities apparently knew of his trip in advance.
That gave them time to issue a provisional warrant for his arrest and send it to Swiss authorities.
It is still unsure whether he had had not known about Switzerlandâs extradition treaty with the US, or had assumed that the country’s officials would turn a blind eye when he arrived in Zurich to receive an award for his work.
His agent Jeff Berg told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the arrest was “surprising because Roman for the last 12, 15 years has lived in Switzerland, he has a home, he travels there, he works there”.
Mr Mitterand also told France-Inter radio that he and his Polish counterpart Radek Sikorski have written to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and said there could be a decision as early as Monday if a Swiss court accepts bail.
British novelist Robert Harris, who was set to work with the director on an adaptation of his novel The Ghost, described the arrest as “disgusting treatment” and said the production team were “reeling from the news”.
The organisers of the festival, Nadja Schildknecht and Karl Spoerri, issued a statement saying they were shocked at the arrest of âone of the most extraordinary film-makers of our timesâ.
If extradited Polanski could face a sentence of between 18 months and three years although his lawyer, Georges Kiejman, said he planned to challenge his client’s arrest.
Director Sally Potter‘s new film Rage is getting an interesting release this week.
The film will be having a premiere at the BFI in London this Thursday (September 24th) which will be satellite broadcast to over 35 screens across the UK and Ireland, followed by the release on DVD next Monday.
Using a narrative structure focused on individual performances, it is a series of interviews from a New York fashion show, filmed from the perspective of a schoolboy on his mobile phone.
Audience members can be part of the satellite broadcast of the Q&A after the film, sending questions by Skype and SMS direct to Sally and members of the cast at the BFI.
Although someone at BBC News missed out the ‘Y’ in his name (see above), the AP report:
Patrick Swayze, the hunky actor who danced his way into viewers’ hearts with “Dirty Dancing” and then broke them with “Ghost,” died Monday after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 57.
“Patrick Swayze passed away peacefully today with family at his side after facing the challenges of his illness for the last 20 months,” said a statement released Monday evening by his publicist, Annett Wolf.
No other details were given.
Fans of the actor were saddened to learn in March 2008 that Swayze was suffering from a particularly deadly form of cancer.
He had kept working despite the diagnosis, putting together a memoir with his wife and shooting “The Beast,” an A&E drama series for which he had already made the pilot. It drew a respectable 1.3 million viewers when the 13 episodes ran in 2009, but A&E said it had reluctantly decided not to renew it for a second season.
Swayze said he opted not to use painkilling drugs while making “The Beast” because they would have taken the edge off his performance. He acknowledged that time might be running out given the grim nature of the disease.
Swayze came to prominence in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 adaptation of S.E. Hinton’s novel The Outsiders alongside Rob Lowe, Tom Cruise, Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, Emilio Estevez and Diane Lane. In the mid-80s he also starred in Red Dawn, Grandview U.S.A. and Youngblood.
But he really found worldwide fame in 1987 with his performance as Johnny Castle in Dirty Dancing. As the son of a choreographer with a background in musical theatre, the role was tailor made for him.
The coming-of-age romance also starred Jennifer Grey as a young woman on holiday with her family who falls for Swayze’s dance instructor.
A major crowd pleaser, especially amongst female audiences, it went on to be an enduring cult phenomenon with reissues and stage musicals being performed well into this decade.
Swayze followed that up with the 1989 action film Road House in which he played a bouncer at a rowdy bar alongside Sam Elliott.
He originally had to fight for the role (as director Jerry Zucker originally wanted Kevin Kline) but it went on to become the sleeper hit that summer at the US box office and it led to The Righteous Brothers’ ‘Unchained Melody’ becoming a hit again (and forever being associated with a pottery wheel) as well as an Oscar for Goldberg.
In his career Swayze earned three Golden Globe nominations, for Dirty Dancing, Ghost and 1995’s To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar.
In the ’90s, he starred in Point Break (1991) as a bank robbing surfer, but his career would tail off from the highs he reached in the 1980s, with a period in rehab for alcohol abuse.
In 2001, he appeared in the cult classic Donnie Darko, and in 2003 he returned to musical theatre in New York with Chicago; whilst in 2006 was in the London production of Guys and Dolls.
Swayze was married since 1975 to Niemi, a fellow dancer who took lessons with his mother; they met when he was 19 and she was 15.
According to People magazine Niemi is a licensed pilot who would fly her husband from Los Angeles to Northern California for treatment at Stanford University Medical Center.
The plot is the modern-day story of Gordon Gekko, who has recently been sprung from prison and re-emerges into the current chaos of the financial markets, whilst trying to rebuild a relationship with his estranged daughter (Carey Mulligan).
Meanwhile Shia LaBeouf plays a young trader and Frank Langella stars as his mentor, whilst Josh Brolin has a key supporting role as a hedge fund manager.
Featuring 191 features and 113 shorts from almost 50 countries, it takes place next month from 14th-29th October.
The big news angle is that George Clooney stars in three of the major films, including: the world premiere of Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox (as the voice of the title character); The Men Who Stare at Goats as a self-proclaimed “Jedi warrior” leading paranormal experiments for the U.S. military, and as a management consultant addicted to air travel in Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air.
The festival’s artistic director Sandra Hebron said that Clooney provided the closest thing there is to a theme at the 53rd annual festival.
“There are three George Clooney films and four films with nuns in them. That’s about it”.
On a more serious note she said that if there was a trend to be gleaned from this year’s selection of films, it would be “the return of the auteur”, which was also what some commentators felt about Cannes this year.
Some of the biggest names in world cinema are in a lineup that includes Austrian director Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes; the acclamed prison drama A Prophet from France’s Jacques Audiard; Jane Campion’s John Keats biopic Bright Star; Steven Soderbergh’s whistle-blower saga The Informant; Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock; Joel and Ethan Coen’s A Serious Man; and Lone Scherfig’s An Education the Nick Hornby-scripted adaptation of Lynn Barber’s memoir about coming of age in the 1960s.
Among the stars coming over to attend screenings are the aforementioned Clooney, Meryl Streep, Bill Murray, Julianne Moore and Emma Thompson.
For the first time, the festival will give out a best-picture award and Amanda Nevill, director of festival organizer the BFI, said her goal was “to take the (London) film festival into the top tier.”
British films in the schedule include Lucy Bailey’s documentary Mugabe and the White African; Julien Temple’s documentary Oil City Confidential; and Sam Taylor-Wood’s biopic about the young John Lennon Nowhere Boy, which closes the festival.
Here are the lineups for the two major strands of the festival:
GALA & SPECIAL SCREENINGS
Fantastic Mr Fox (Dir. Wes Anderson): Animated adaptation of Roald Dahl’s popular children’s book.
The Boys are Back (Dir. Scott Hicks): Drama starring Clive Owen about a modern family coping in the aftermath of a tragedy.
Bright Star (Dir. Jane Campion): Biopic exploring the romance between John Keats and Fanny Brawne.
Chloe (Dir. Atom Egoyan): Drama about a woman investigating her husband’s alleged infidelity starring Julianne Moore and Liam Neeson.
An Education (Dir. Lone Scherfig): A coming of age tale adapted from Lynn Barber’s memoir with Carey Mulligan and Peter Sarsgaard.
Father of My Children (Dir. Mia Hansen-LĂžve): French drama inspired by the life of film producer Humbert Balsan.
The Men Who Stare At Goats (Dir. Grant Heslov): Based on Jon Ronson’s book about bizarre US military techniques, it stars Ewan McGregor, George Clooney, Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey.
Nowhere Boy (Dir. Sam Taylor Wood): A biopic about the early years of John Lennon, starring Kristin Scott Thomas, Aaron Johnson, Anne-Marie Duff and David Morrissey.
A Prophet (Dir. Jacques Audiard): Hugely acclaimed French prison drama that many tipped for the Palme d’Or this year.
The Road (Dir. John Hillcoat): Long anticipated adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s bleak best-selling novel with Viggo Mortensen and Charlize Theron.
A Serious Man (Dir. The Coen Brothers): Drama set in 1967 about a Jewish academic living in a Minneapolis suburb.
Toy Story 2 in 3D (Dir. John Lasseter, Ash Brannon): A 3D reissue for Pixar’s 1999 sequel to the ground breaking animated film that established them as the leading animated studio of the modern era.
Underground (Dir. Anthony Asquith): A reissue of this 1920 film about love, treachery and murder on the London Underground.
Up in the Air (Dir. Jason Reitman): Adapted from Walter Kim’s 2001 novel about a US businessman (George Clooney) addicted to air travel, this has already been attracting Oscar buzz.
The White Ribbon (Dir. Michael Haneke): The winner of this year’s Palme d’Or at Cannes is the tale of mysterious events in a German village on the eve of World War I.
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FILM ON THE SQUARE
These are the other notable films from around the world that will be screening in cinemas in Leicester Square during the festival.
44 Inch Chest (Dir. Malcolm Venville)
About Elly (Dir. Asghar Farhadi)
Adrift (Dir. Heitor Dhalia)
Air Doll (Dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda)
Astro Boy (Dir. David Bowers)
Balibo (Dir. Robert Connolly)
Bellamy (Dir. Claude Chabrol)
Bluebeard (Dir. Catherine Breillat)
Bunny and the Bull (Dir. Paul King)
Cold Souls (Dir. Sophie Barthes)
Cracks (Dir. Jordan Scott)
La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet (Dir. Frederick Wiseman)
Eccentricities of a Blonde-Haired Girl (Dir. Manoel de Oliveira)
Apart from Amelie, I would find it hard to leave out any of these as significant films of the past ten years although clearly some are greater than others.
Whilst no-one serious is going to claim that he was one of the greats of his era, he definitely tapped in to the 1980s zeitgeist and his films became cultural touchstones for anyone who grew up in that decade.
Interestingly, after the mammoth success of Home Alone (1990), which he wrote and produced, he retreated from Hollywood with his last film as director being Curley Sue (1991).
Over the last two decade he spent more time with his family and maintained a farm in northern Illinois.
Last week I wrote about the 3D graffiti art installation by Watchmen illustrator Dave Gibbons and CHU on the Southbank in London.
It happened yesterday and here are some images of Dave and the artwork, which is of The Comedian getting defenestrated near the beginning of the story.
Budgeted at a reported $240 million, the 3-D computer-generated epic is probably the most hotly anticipated film of the year.
It has an added aura due to the fact that it is Cameron’s first proper feature film since Titanic (1997) and that so many details have been kept under wraps.
According to Wikipedia, here is the basic premise:
Avatar is set during the 22nd century on a small moon called Pandora, which orbits a gas giant, and is inhabited by the tribal Na’vi, ten foot tall, blue humanoids that are peaceful unless attacked.
Humans cannot breathe Pandoran air, so they genetically engineer human/Na’vi hybrids known as Avatars that can be controlled via a mental link.
A paralyzed Marine named Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) volunteers to exist as an Avatar on Pandora, falling in love with a Na’vi princess and becoming caught up in the conflict between her people and the human military that is consuming their world.
Cameron introduced the footage by asking “Who wants to go to another planet?” before screening a few expositional sequences.
Apparently they showed the main character Jake Sully, played by Sam Worthington, becoming an avatar (a blue-skinned human-alien hybrid) before segueing into a series of jungle battle scenes in which Worthington and co-star Zoe Saldana fight with prehistoric-looking creatures.
…it should come as no surprise to report that this taste of James Cameron’s 3-D action fantasy, set on a foreign planet and involving a primal conflict between militaristic humans and a race of ten-foot-tall aliens called Na’vi, played serious wowser.
As in “Jesus, this is something…oh, wow!…crap, this is new…oh, that’s cool…this is so friggin’ out there and vivid and real…love it all to hell.”
Cameron announced at the end of the presentation that the rest of the world will have a chance to sample Avatar in a similar way on Friday, August 21, which he called “Avatar Day.”
On that day IMAX theatres coast to coast (and, I presume, in various foreign nations) will show about 15 minutes worth of 3-D IMAX footage of Avatar to the public for free.
This is an ingenious way of spreading buzz – almost like drug dealers giving out free samples.
Anyway, Wells goes on:
I guess the footage will be shown at successive shows all day and into the night, and that some kind of ticket reservations system will be set up.
20th Century Fox will open Avatar all over on 12.18.09.
The 3-D photography that I saw this afternoon is clean and needle-sharp and easy on the eyes, and the CG animation looks as realistic and organically genuine as anything anyone might imagine, and which certainly seems to represent the best we’ve seen thus far.
6,000 people watched the show inside the San Diego Convention Center’s great Hall H, and then sat for a brief but informative presentation by Cameron, producer Jon Landau and costars Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver and Stephen Lang with a video apearance by costar Sam Worthington.
He also shot some footage of the presentation with Cameron and the cast:
So, what did Comic-Con attendees see in between the oohs, ahs and applause?
A first look at a movie formerly shrouded in secrecy; a film that builds on Cameronâs impressive cinematic track record (Aliens, Titanic, the first two Terminator movies); and a project that boasts the kind of big-budget, mind-blowing sci-fi with a conscience that a new franchise could be built upon.
In other words, Avatar could be Cameronâs Star Wars.
Avatar is a mind-expanding adventure on a beautiful world filled with plants and creatures both ferocious and whimsical.
Giant, dinosaur-type beasts; jellyfishlike creatures that float through the air; and all manner of other imaginatively bizarre beings that fight and fly through the bioluminescent, black-light forest Cameron and his talented artists have brought to life.
Perhaps the most amazing creatures are the avatars themselves: 10-foot-tall, slender blue beings, genetically engineered to look like the planetâs indigenous people, the Naâvi.
It is hard to say how well this film is going to do, but if Cameron really delivers the eye-popping visual goods some are expecting, then it could be something really special.
It is the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landings today and here are some videos to commemorate the event.
A brief introductory snapshot:
This is NASA footage of the launch on July 16th, 1969:
This is when Neil Armstrong made ‘one giant leap for mankind’:
Buzz Aldrin becomes the 2nd man on the moon:
A montage:
Slate have done a clever job of using contemporary news footage (especially of last year’s US election) to imagine how news media would cover a moon landing today: