Pete Postlethwaite - saluting the legend

Steven Spielberg once called him the best actor in the world.

Pete Postlethwaite passed away on Sunday January 2, at the age of 64, from cancer.

While many film fans may not have heard of him, his emotional performances have been enjoyed by many. He started out in theatre after working as a teacher for two years. Soon, he moved onto films, winning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for In The Name of The Father (1993). He starred as Patrick "Guiseppe" Conlon. Conlon, a member of the Maguire Seven, was in 1976 sentenced to 12 years in prison for having nitroglycerine that was used for Irish Republican Army bombs. Conlon passed away in prison four years later but his conviction was eventually overturned. Before this, he starred in Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988), which he said was his big break. Some people have said it represents his ability to play a loving man and that of playing a violent man.

He also appeared in the play within the play of Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet (1990)and in Alien 3 (1992). He was a British captain in The Last of the Mohicans (1992), also starring Day-Lewis. He was the very weird, soft but clearly evil, Kobayashi, in Bryan Singer's masterpiece, The Usual Suspects (1995).


Alistar Anderson

Did a film decide who won Time Magazine's Person of the Year?

I know a few people took punts with betting agencies on who would win Time Magazine's Person of the Year. Most of them were expecting Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to win the, I guess esteemed, prize. This may be because, after threatening to leak the world's secrets and air its dirty laundry for months but not that loudly, he did it, but only late this year. So, people react to recent news and forget older news, it seems. Still, the Chilean Miners saga was not forgotten and they were also in the running for Time's prize, with bookmakers.

But why was Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg being punted? What did he achieve this year that he did not last year or the year before. Facebook has been exploding for a while. Does it really matter if he had increased Facebook's members by about 100-million accounts this year?

I know Time will argue it can make a case for him winning but I believe it is because the founding of his company was documented in the book The Facebook Effect, published this year. Another book, the Accidental Billionaires, was published not to long before it but the film based upon it surely brought the multi-billion dollar company into prominence.

David Fincher-directed The Social Network has garnered commercial and critical praise especially for its creation of the Zuckerberg character, played by Jesse Eisenberg, someone the audience is made to admire but maybe hate.

It is quickly becoming a favourite with awarders so expect it to get more awards than its subject, Mr Zuckerberg.

Alistair Anderson

Special News

Wow

Filmmakers seem to be doing a bit of a Julian Assange- that is getting arrested.

The BBC has reported that Iranian film-maker Jafar Panahi has been sentenced to six years in prison, according to his lawyer.

Farideh Gheirat said Mr Panahi had been convicted of working against the Iranian system, Isna news agency said.

He had also been banned from making films, writing scripts and traveling overseas.

Meanwhile Iranian film-maker, Mohammad Rasulov, also received a six-year sentence on similar charges.

The BBC wrote:

"

Mr Panahi has been sentenced to six years in jail on a charge of (participating) in a gathering and carrying out propaganda against the system," said Ms Gheirat.

"He has also been banned from making films, writing any kind of scripts, travelling abroad and talking to local and foreign media for 20 years."

She described the sentence as "heavy" and said her client would be appealing.

According to a statement released in Italy in November, Mr Panahi had gone on trial in Iran accused of making a film without permission and inciting opposition protests after the disputed 2009 presidential election that led to months of political turmoil.

In his statement to the court, Mr Panahi said he was a victim of injustice and called one of the charges against him "a joke", Reuters news agency reported.

Alistair Anderson

See the original article at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12045248

News/Opinion - Golden Globes Special

So the Golden Globe nominations have been made. These awards are probably the second biggest awards, at least according to the movie world's viewing public. I am actually very happy to see some of my favourite actors and their work on it. But it does have some problems - the new Coen brothers film, True Grit was trumped by The Tourist, a film many people are calling a dud.

Here is the complete list of the Movie nominees with select commentary from myself

Best Motion Picture, Drama

Black Swan -

I've been raving with excitement about this film for months. Darren Aronofsky who made a film about Mathematics and paranoia (Pi), a film about timeless love (The Fountain) and one about family love (The Wrestler). In fact, all his films have strong character relationships and Black Swan, which is about ballet dancers, should be no different. It has Vincent Cassel too - who I feel is underused.

The Fighter -

Mark Wahlberg starts hitting people again - I cannot complain. Also, having Christian Bale as a trainer, instead of the fighter, is refreshing. We know he's chiselled and can act but let's see him in a supporting role.


Inception -

A beautiful film with very clever scenes. It is also great news that a science fiction film is up for the Best Picture award. Would The Matrix have won best film when it came out in 1999?


The King's Speech -

The Brits know how to document their history, well most of it.

The Social Network -

Slick. This is a really slick film about one of the most dynamic platforms for communication in the 21st century.

Best Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical

Alice in Wonderland -

I found this weak. It is a film that is easy on the eye but its plot is disappointing.

Burlesque -

Just an excuse to see Cher again?

The Kids Are All Right


Red -

It's an above average action movie.

The Tourist -

Early reviews have been bad. Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie have little chemistry. It is released in January next year.

Best Director - Motion Picture

Darren Aronofsky - Black Swan
David Fincher - The Social Network
Tom Hooper - The King's Speech
Christopher Nolan - Inception
David O. Russell - The Fighter

This category may be the tightest. Christopher Nolan should probably win for his originality, however.

Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama

Jesse Eisenberg - The Social Network
Colin Firth - The King's Speech
James Franco - 127 Hours
Ryan Gosling - Blue Valentine
Mark Wahlberg - The Fighter

James Franco may be the favourite but Ryan Gosling is great in an understated role. What is really interesting is that many of these actors are quite young.

Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama

Halle Berry - Frankie and Alice
Nicole Kidman - Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence - Winter's Bone
Natalie Portman - Black Swan
Michelle Williams - Blue Valentine

Halle Berry may have been in her first decent film since 2003's Monster's Ball, for which she won an Academy Award.

Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Comedy

Johnny Depp - Alice in Wonderland
Johnny Depp - The Tourist
Paul Giamatti - Barney's Version
Jake Gyllenhaal - Love and Other Drugs
Kevin Spacey - Casino Jack

This is an odd bunch of actors' performances. Will Johnny Depp win for his shoddy work just because he didn't win for his great films before the above-mentioned two?

Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Comedy

Anne Hathaway - Love and Other Drugs
Julianne Moore - The Kids Are All Right
Annette Bening - The Kids Are All Right
Emma Stone - Easy A
Angelina Jolie - The Tourist

It smells like Hathaway to me.

Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture

Christian Bale - The Fighter
Michael Douglas - Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
Andrew Garfield - The Social Network
Jeremy Renner - The Town
Geoffrey Rush - The King's Speech

Maybe Renner will take the gong after missing out on prizes for The Hurt Locker last year.

Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture

Amy Adams - The Fighter
Helena Bonham Carter - The King's Speech
Mila Kunis - Black Swan
Melissa Leo - The Fighter
Jacki Weaver - Animal Kingdom

Amy Adams' time to shine?

Best Screenplay - Motion Picture

127 Hours
The Kids Are All Right
The King's Speech
The Social Network
Inception

The Social Network is sharply written.

Best Animated Feature Film

Despicable Me
How to Train Your Dragon
The Illusionist
Toy Story 3
Tangled

It would be criminal not to award it to Toy Story 3.

Best Foreign Language Film

Biutiful
The Concert
The Edge
I Am Love
In a Better World

Best Original Song - Motion Picture

Bound to You - Burlesque
Coming Home - Country Strong
I See the Light - Tangled
There's a Place for Us - Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
You Haven't Seen the Last of Me - Burlesque

Best Original Score - Motion Picture

Alexandre Desplot - The King's Speech
Danny Elfman - Alice in Wonderland
A.R. Rahmin - 127 Hours
Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross - The Social Network
Hans Zimmer - Inception

Alistair Anderson

Morning News Bulletin

Good morning all.

The Morning News Bulletin is a daily roundup of film news that happened over the last couple of hours while we were fast asleep here in SA.

It's a bumper edition today.

Terminator I and II, Aliens and Avatar director James Cameron is working on a film with the dance art group Cirque du Soleil, according to ABC News. They want to create "an art form beyond the imagination." I guess that is what Avatar was and what Cameron wants to achieve whenever he does some work.

Interestingly, this would not be the first time that the innovative circus-performing troupe had been presented on the big screen.

Apparently, a cousin to the famous Canadian performing act, Le Reve, a show that is produced on the Las Vegas stage at the Wynn Hotel and Casino, was in Killer's singer, Brandon Flowers' music video for “Only the Young" this past year.

Obviously, Cameron's film will be in 3D.


It has happened. You can now watch films at home on the same day that they are released at cinemas. In the US, you can now pay $500 to see films like Little Fockers, the sequel to Meet the Fockers.

Of course, there is always the additional one-time fee of $20 000 that Prima Cinema, the California-based company that has announced this new, obscenely expensive super-premium on-demand home video service is demanding to set up the viewing channel for you.

Website PopWatch said Hollywood has been waiting for a decade to create a platform where movies could be released simultaneously at cinemas and on DVD.

Time Warner Cable charges about $7 to see indie flicks like I’m Still Here while they’re still playing at local art house theatres.

Still, $20 000 is a tad insane.

Thor has a poster!

Total Film has reported that Marvel has just a released a poster for the film about the thunder god. The film is based on one of Marvel's oldest comic book series.
I like the fact that it looks a bit darker than the first Superman and reboot, for example.

Total Film writes:

Thor follows the titular God, an arrogant warlord who’s tried his father Odin’s (Anthony Hopkins) patience too many times. Banished to Earth, Thor must learn how to live among humans – which isn’t as bad as all that after he meets gorgeous scientist Jane Foster (Natalie Portman).

This poster is courtesy of Total Film.



Encore Magazine has reported that the New Zealand comedy Two Little Boys, starring Hamish Blake and Flight of the Conchords‘ Bret McKenzie, will begin in Southland in January.

I am a huge Conchords fan and hope that any film with Bret McKenzie in it will make it to SA.

The film called Two Little Boys will be directed by Robert Sarkies and Vicky Pope with Tim White as producers. It is based on a novel by Duncan Sarkies and is about Nige (McKenzie) and his best mate Deano (Blake) who struggle with their imploding long-term friendship. It has been placed under strain by an incident involving a hot meat pie, a ginger cat and the untimely death of a Scandinavian soccer star.

Alistair Anderson

New Trailer: Transformers: Dark Of The Moon

Who are the most evil Christmas movie characters?

Oogie Boogie picture courtesy of unprofessionalfoul.com

Christmas movies tend to be very poor. There only is one It's A Wonderful Life, it seems, and many, Christmas With The Kranks. Still, one thing that runs through many of these holiday movies is the nasty "I don't like goodwill" villain.

It's difficult to rank levels of evil, let alone grumpiness so here's a rogues' gallery in no particular order.

Scrooged - Frank Cross

This modern Dickensian bad boy is Bill Murray at his meanest. Frank Cross is a selfish network TV executive who bah humbugs his way through Christmas Eve, cancelling everyone's bonus and firing a low-level employee. He even gives his fmaily bad gifts.

Here's a noticeably nasty quote: "Grace, what in the hell is this? (Oh, it's a painting, one of my kids did. See, there's Santa Claus and there's Mrs Claus.) Honey, how many fingers does Mrs Santa Claus have here? (Eleven.) Eleven. Right. It's crap. Lose it. I don't want it on the wall."

Home Alone 1 and 2 - Harry

Joe Pesci played this burglar and even though we are supposed to laugh at his mishaps, I found him rather creepy. Also, he has a habit of disturbing McCallister, played by Macaulay Culkin, at Christmas time. The McCallister character returned
in the straight to video Home Alone 4 but Joe Pesci was smart enough not to embarrass his career in that pointless film. It was set at Christmas and it did star Third Rock From The Sun's French Stewart, who I actually liked.

Gremlins - Stripe

He's a really disgusting creature and really flipping mean - the cackling, oh the cackling!

Woodland Critters - Woodland Critter Christmas South Park episode (TV)

I know they aren't from a film but they are pure evil. They look cute but they murder animals and then rape their bodies.

The Nightmare Before Christmas - Oogie Boogie

He's ugly. He's picking on a skeleton. He's a big mass of an excuse for a living being. I command you to spit at him incessantly.

Alistair Anderson

Film Review: Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 1

Director: David Yates. Screenplay: Steve Kloves. Producers: David Heyman, David Barron and J.K. Rowling. Cinematographer: Eduardo Serra. Editor: Mark Day. Studio: Warner Bros. Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint. Running Time: 146 Minutes.



First and foremost let me be clear: I have not read any of the Harry Potter novels. As far as books go, fantasy, wizardry and anything to do with magic is not exactly my cup of tea and so the chances of me reading a Harry Potter novel are slimmer than Hermione's waistline. With that said, I have more often than not enjoyed the films and so I was expecting more of the same entertaining but not quite mentally stimulating fun from this film. Sadly that was not to be.

This second last instalment in the Potter film series follows Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley as they set out on a dangerous quest to find the rest of the Horcruxes they need to defeat the Dark Lord Voldemort before he becomes too powerful to be stopped. With the help of some of their friends, old and new, they embark on a journey that tests their courage and the strength of their friendship in extraordinary circumstances. What ensues is an epic adventure in the same heroes-on-a-journey style as The Lord Of The Rings although on a less grand scale with our heroes traversing the length and breadth of their fantasy world to save it from the clutches of Voldemort's evil empire. As with every other Harry Potter film, this one is beautifully shot and has it's moments of cinematic magic that will leave you in awe, be it the top-notch visual effects or the chemistry between the leading actors who have now been together for over a decade. There is indeed one particular scene between Harry and Hermione which is not in the novels but was added to the movie by the screenwriter Steve Kloves and is now my favourite scene in the entire series. Although it is a fairly brief scene, it adds just that extra bit of emotional weight to the film that pulls you in even more to care about the characters and what they are going through than you initially did. It's a bit like poetry in motion picture. On the negative side, the overwhelming problem I had was that the movie drags on much longer than it should and there is more than one moment in the film where I was sitting waiting for something (anything!) to happen. Naturally this is bound to be the case when the final Harry Potter book is split into two movies just to squeeze another billion dollars or so in extra box office takings. The end result is what could've been a great movie ends up being an ok film thanks to some bean counter at Warner Brothers studios. 

Summary: A sometimes entertaining if long-winded curtain raiser of a film that will please Harry Potter fans but leave most muggles wondering what the fuss is about. At least we can rest assured that part 2 can only be better.
Rating: 54/100

District 9 Follow-Up!

Word is that SA director Neill Blomkamp who wowed the world with District 9, which was nominated for Academy Awards last year, has started work on his next film.

Audiences will get to see if he can make another enjoyable sci-fi film it seems.

A source close to his project told Entertainment Weekly that District 9 star Sharlto Copley, who was Murdoch in last summer’s A-Team, would join the ensemble cast of Elysium.

The film would be another political, socially-conscious sci-fi movie, Entertainment Weekly said.
It also said the film would be set on Earth, like District 9 was, and not on another planet.

Read the original EW article at http://insidemovies.ew.com/2010/12/06/neill-blomkamp-sharlto-copley-elysium/




Picture taken from www.scifiscoop.com - http://www.scifiscoop.com/news/district-9s-agent-wikus-shows-us-his-bfg/

Alistair Anderson

Morning News Bulletin

Good morning all.

The Morning News Bulletin is a daily roundup of film news that happened over the last couple of hours while we were fast asleep here in SA. Check the news headlines after the jump.

New Trailer - Red Riding Hood

Something about a film about a fairytale told in an adult way makes me feel rather uneasy...



Even if it was directed by Twilight's director, this may just be really exhilarating.

Alistair Anderson

Film Review: Open Season 3

Director: Cody Cameron
Producer:Kirk Bodyfelt
Screenplay: David I. Stern
Starring Matthew J. Munn, Matthew W. Taylor, Melissa Sturm
Studio: Sony Pictures Animation
Score: Jeff Cardoni



It's rather unusual that an American film is released in South Africa before it is released in the US, especially if the US release is straight to DVD.

Either way, they should have stopped the series after Open Season 2. I wonder why this franchise had to be milked like this. I suppose the producers did not think that children would be able to tell they were watching an enjoyable original film be ruined.

The film just feels boring and unfunny. The story is predictable and the whole experience appears to be devoid of creativity or originality; the very thing that sequels need.

And I don't believe that I was wrong to expect more form it. Aladdin was a groundbreaking Disney Classic that was followed up by decent sequels. But Open Season was a decent animated film that has been followed up by a pointless waste of resources.

So, if you didn't even notice that this film was made, I apologise for bringing its evil into your life. I suggest you avoid this movie.

43/100

Alistair Anderson

Stormy trailer this way comes

I wish this film came out when I was studying the play during high school. I read the play but it would have been nice to see it realised visually.

The Tempest is one of Shakespeare most interesting plays because of its freakish characters like Prospero the sorcerer and Caliban the deranged hermit.



Alistair Anderson

Morning News Bulletin

Good morning all.

The Morning News Bulletin is a daily roundup of film news that happened over the last couple of hours while we were fast asleep here in SA. Check the news headlines after the jump.

Congrats Russia (2)

Here's another Russian treat -

Brestskaya Krepost is sitting at number 11 in Russian box office takings.

From imdb, slightly edited:

The film shows the heroic defence of the Brest Fortress, which was taken over by Nazis on June 22 1941. The film describes the events of the first days of the defence. Story describes the events of the first days of defense. It features three main resistance zones, headed by the regiment commander, Pyotr Mikhailovich Gavrilov, the commissar Efim Moiseevich Fomin and the head of the 9th frontier outpost, Andrey Mitrofanovich Kizhevatov.

Many years later the veteran Alexander Akimov again and again recalls the memories of the time, when he, then a 15 year old Sasha Akimov (Sasha is a shortening of Alexander) was deeply in love with a beautiful girl called Anya and suddenly found himself in the middle of the bloody events of war.

Do svidaniya!

Alistair Anderson