Nominations, Baby!

Oscar Nominations were announced yesterday - yay! No major surprises, unless you look deep enough.

This year the Best Film category was expanded to include ten nominations, which I think is an excellent idea. The aim is not to ignore an intelligent summer film, as the Academy sadly did last year with The Dark Knight (2008), which should have been nominated and only had a couple of effects Oscars & Best Supporting Actor for Heath Ledger. The biggest surprise here is District 9 (2009), along with the rather wonderful news that, for only the second time in Oscar history, an animated film is nominated for Best Film, Up (2009) which is a shoe-in anyway for Best Animated Feature. The likely winner will be Avatar (2009), though this will also win all the effects Oscars this year - interestingly, no actor nominations for it or script nominations.

Best Motion Picture of the Year Nominees:

Avatar (2009)
The Blind Side (2009)
District 9 (2009)
An Education (2009)
The Hurt Locker (2008)
Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (2009)
A Serious Man (2009)
Up (2009)
Up in the Air (2009)

The Actor and Actress categories are less surprising, in my opinion. It's wonderful to see Colin Firth up for Best Actor, though the trend seems to be at the moment to give Jeff Bridges his long-overdue award - a "Scorsese moment" as it shall now be known. However, you shouldn't count your chickens too soon. Let's remember what happened last year, when Mickey Rourke was winning all the awards for The Wrestler (2008), only for Sean Penn to clinch the Oscar for Milk (2008). British wise, Carey Mulligan and Helen Mirren are up for Best Actress - isn't it amazing for Mulligan, who's probably pinching herself. If she doesn't win, which she's unlikely to as the money's on Sandra Bullock, this nomination will really boost her chances at getting more meaty roles, particularly in Hollywood.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role Nominees:

Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart (2009)
George Clooney for Up in the Air (2009)
Colin Firth for A Single Man (2009)
Morgan Freeman for Invictus (2009)
Jeremy Renner for The Hurt Locker (2008)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role Nominees:

Sandra Bullock for The Blind Side (2009)
Helen Mirren for The Last Station (2009)
Carey Mulligan for An Education (2009)
Gabourey Sidibe for Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (2009)
Meryl Streep for Julie & Julia (2009)

Supporting nods have gone to a nice mix of actors and actresses. One would argue that the fight for Supporting Actor will be between Matt Damon for Invictus (2009) and Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds (2009). In the Supporting Actress category Penelope Cruz, last year's winner here, gets one of only a few nods for Nine (2009), but everyone is talking about Mo'Nique for Precious (2009), which will probably be one of the few Oscar wins that actually deserves it.

It would be a shame if The Hurt Locker (2009) didn't win anything. At the very least, it should win Kathryn Bigelow Best Director, as she won the Director's Guild equivalent recently, but chances are her ex, James Cameron, will win instead. If he does, I don't mind saying that it will annoy me a lot. Cameron is NOT a film maker, he's an event maker. If Avatar wins Best Film that's fine, but if you want proper suspense and real life drama, then The Hurt Locker is your cup of tea.

The last few surprises for me are as follows:

1. Five nominations for Best Animated Film, with Coraline (2009) and Fantastic Mr Fox (2009) standing up for Stop Motion; also The Princess And The Frog (2009) has brought traditional hand-drawn animation back in a big way.
2. No nominations for Let The Right One In (2009) in Best Foreign Feature, which is a real shame. Money is now on either A Prophet (2009), a winner at Cannes, or The White Ribbon (2009), Michael Haneke's latest.
3. Absolutely no nominations for The Road (2009).
4. No Screenplay nomination for The Hangover (2009). Now, admittedly, this wasn't the greatest film in the world last yer BUT if the Academy were trying to be more inclusive for a year's worth of features rather than a few months then they've completely overlooked the top grossing comedy for last year, unlike BAFTA who have nominated this film in this category.

Finally, it's good to see Nick Park nominated again for Best Animated Short for his latest Wallace & Gromit film, A Matter Of Loaf & Death (2008), though it wasn't as good as some of their previous outings and the brilliant The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit (2005).

Some interesting choices, then, and some rather more obvious choices too. But, like I said, we should never take Oscar for granted; he always has some tricks up his golden sleeve.

Laters.

Score

There seems to be nothing - absolutely nothing - that the tabloids love more than a good old fashioned sex scandal. Over the last week I've become aware of two rather interesting cases: one over here in Blighty, the other over the waters in the US of A.

First, to the home grown territory. John Terry, captain of the English football team and also captain of Chelsea FC, has been scoring away from home (not my pun, sadly) with the ex of one of his England team mates, Wayne Bridge. The girl in question is a French underwear model. But then, she would be, wouldn't she?

My comments to this, I must say, are no way connected to the fact that I am an Arsenal FC supporter and Terry plays for Chelsea: He's an idiot. First of all, have you seen his wife? Seriously, she's stunning. Why the hell would anyone want to cheat on the likes of her? It's about as likely as a porn script winning Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars, but it happens all the time. Footballers' Wives, the rather hit-and-miss soapy gloss that ended here a few years ago, was all fun and naughty make believe but this is serious stuff. Terry has kids, and they're bound to be affected by the excrement that's due to hit the fan.

Terry was booed by Burnley supporters on Saturday night when Chelsea played away at Burnley, and he scored the last winning goal for his team (again, scoring away from home, and again, not my joke) - this conduct towards him is going to continue at every away game for the next few months. Should he be sacked as England captain? That's for the manager, Fabio Cappello, to decide. However, ideally the decision should be made on whether this revelation is going to affect Terry on the pitch. If it does, then maybe a break wouldn't be such a bad idea. Give someone else a go for the World Cup campaign, maybe.

Over in the States, it's a politician in the docks (the other most famous kind of tabloid scandal usually involves politicians). John Edwards, a one time presidential hopeful, is involved right now in a damning sex case where his former mistress, a Rielle Hunter, has won the right to claim back a sex tape that the couple made, as well as some interesting photographs. His former aide, Andrew Young, has just published memoirs which claim these exist, and further proving the point that he was asked to claim Hunter's daughter as his own and not that of Edwards, which she so obviously is.

Edwards' wife is leaving him, his political career is in tatters, and now every dirty old man and interested student is going to be surfing the world wide web for a One Night In Paris scenario featuring Edwards and Hunter.

Peter Griffin says in an episode of Family Guy: "Oh, it's fun to watch rich people be naughty". And it is, in a way. Affairs happen 24/7; there's probably one going on right now as I type. It's tragic, stupid and immoral (unless you happen to be in an open relationship, in which case, if that's what makes you happy, go with it). But when rich and famous people get caught, we feel like it's some kind of vindication. Yes, if we get caught then there's bad news on the horizon for us. But at least we won't get the media attention that Terry and Edwards are now having to face. At least we won't get booed by thousands of people at football games and political rallies.

Celebrities need to take more care in their lives - it's incredibly difficult, I'm sure, as we're such a celebrity hungry culture that we just eat this stuff up for breakfast. But what kind of a message does it give people? Mind you, the fact that it's been treated in such a negative way may arguably seen as a good thing. After all, if people see how much rubbish is thrown at you if you are guilty, maybe then people will think twice before cheating.

Laters.

The Book Of Eli Review

Warning! Spoilers!

In the growing popularity of post-Armageddon films to come from Hollywood, there has to be a gimmick, a twist to the tale to make another version seem more original. In the case of The Book Of Eli, this gimmick is certainly a clever, if slightly predictable one. Sadly the rest of the film, save for one or two moments of potential brilliance, does not live up to the expectations that you may have after watching the trailer or seeing the cast list.

Eli (Denzel Washington) walks the land of ruined America, armed only with a very large machete and a backpack containing, among other things, the only surviving copy of the King James Bible. He is heading west; a voice has told him he will find the place for the book there. Along the dangerous path, he walks through a town ruled by Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a cruel dictator type who, like Eli, knows of the power of the words in his book and wants then for himself...

There's no denying the anticipation one feels about a film starring Washington and Oldman, two heavyweight actors - sadly, it feels for a lot of the time that they're sleepwalking the parts, that this is just another day job for them. Substantially better is Mila Kunis in the role of Solara, the young girl who joins Eli on his journey. Having only heard Kunis in Family Guy as the put-upon Meg, and seen her in That 70s Show, it is probably going a little too far to describe her performance as a revelation (no pun intended), but it is still more impressive than the two leading men. The film is also enlightened by brief but hilariously strange cameos from Michael Gambon and Frances de la Tour as two deranged survivors living on a farmhouse packed to the brim with automatic weapons.

When the action happens it is fast but far between. The scenes are played out well, with plenty of gunfire and explosions and even in a couple of cases decapitations to keep an action buff happy. But the scenes are sandwiched in to a script that relies heavily on deep, meaningful, and often somewhat preachy dialogue about the nature of the Bible and words. Though there are a couple of rather excellent twists towards the end, it is marred by a rather strange final ending which seems to want to evoke the final scenes of the excellent Aronofsky film The Fountain (2006), but fail sadly.

There will probably be many people who go to see this film and are surprised at just how religious it actually is. Perhaps that was not the true intention of the film's directors, the Hughes brothers, whose last film was (ironically) the adaptation of the graphic novel From Hell (2001); perhaps what they are trying to do is to look at what we look to for hope when there seems to be absolutely none left, and how powerful inspirational words can be. Unfortuatley, their reliance on the Bible squashes these intentions, and I think a lot of people will leave the film very disappointed.

6/10

Love Your Inner Loser!

Thank the good Lord for Glee.

I'm always excited about new years and new seasons on television - we've got a lot to look forward to over here in Blighty. Next week sees the return of some of my favourite dramas, Shameless and Skins; a brand new season of Doctor Who is on it's way; and there are some excellent one-off dramas on the horizon too. I'm always looking forward to the shows that come over from the States too. The Big Bang Theory has started again over here, and I'm interested in the first episode of The Good Wife, to be shown here on Saturday. Nurse Jackie has been another glorious find too.

But the pick of the crop so far has been Glee. I gotta be honest, I was never expecting to like it as much as I do. It looked a little too twee for my taste, a little too High School Musical. How wrong I was. This show has been described as the anti-High School Musical, and rightly so - somehow I doubt any of the HSM franchise would feature a line as darkly funny as "You think this is hard? Try living with hepatitis, that's hard!" screeched through a megaphone to a pack of cheerleaders.

Glee is about the losers, the dreamers, and the always hopefuls. For pursuing what you love the most. In this case, a glee club: singing in a harmonised fashion with some simple dance steps thrown in for good measure. They are the sub-basement of school life, lower than even the kids playing 'Dungeons & Dragons'. For now, at least.

Okay, so some of the elements of the show are a little predictable. You've got the star quarterback who has a wicked voice, and you have the very likely romantic relationship between him and the club's loser star female; but then it throws it right back in your face with the quarterback having major issues in...shall we say, holding back his excitement?

What really sells Glee, though, is the music. Taking classic songs, both contemporary pop/rock and old musical favourites and presenting them in an infectious glee club style has already sent many songs into the Billboard top 100, and does wonders for the original versions too. Case in point: the Glee version of "Don't Stop Believing" is currently at Number 5 in the UK charts and heading further up, breaking into the top 3 at the mo. Journey's version, albeit already helped by its use in last year's (shudder) The X Factor, was Number 6! Versions of Rhianna's "Take A Bow" and even, I'm predicting, Kanye West's "Gold Digger", will only serve to do exactly the same to the already great originals.

I've only seen two episodes and I'm already addicted. Glee is funny, warm-hearted and very loud, with an ability to seem fresh despite it being based on a formula we've seen a lot of over the last twenty five years or so. It's just what our television screens need in this rather bleak time - it's bright and colourful and absolutely rocks! It also won the Golden Globe for Best Television Programme - Musical or Comedy at this year's awards. So there you go - Hollywood Foreign Press loves it, so thats gotta mean something.

Laters.

The Assasination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford Review

Warning! Spoliers Alert!

There are perhaps few films in which the basic synopsis of the script can be summed up in the title. One thinks of lesser fare than this, certainly (Zack And Miri Make A Porno, for example) or rather interesting Spanish translations of titles (classic Family Guy joke here, top prize for whoever gets the reference first). With this film, the title does just that - it is about the assassination of the notorious Western criminal by one of his associates, Robert Ford, who ends up being defamed in the history books as a coward, and the time line leading up to the aforementioned event. Simple.

But not quite, for, as with most great films, there is always something more, another message that the film is trying to say. And this is a great film. A really great film.

Visually, it's stunning. The bleak Western landscape perfectly captures the mood of the story, with slight out of focus shots beautifully helping to add to the unhinged portrayal of the anti-hero James by Brad Pitt. This is one of those films where you suddenly remember that Pitt, the second half of 'Brangelina', can act occasionally. It's a fantastic performance, showing James as an out of control beast, but also with some very quiet melancholic foreboding, as if he knows he's living on borrowed time.

It's matched, and perhaps even bettered, by a superb performance by Casey Affleck as Ford; Affleck is a dreamer, a man refusing to grow up, whose fantasies of riding with the James gang and being the criminal's best buddy seem to have corrupted his naive innocence. When the cold-blooded reality sinks in of the true nature of Jesse's work and Jesse's character, it becomes unbearable. There are other terrific performances in the film, not least from Sam Rockwell as Ford's older brother, whose own gullibility is soon swallowed up by fear, and a short but mesmerising turn from Garret Dillahunt as Ed Miller, whose paranoia costs him his life and lights the fuse for James' own fragile sense of trust to be shattered.

The script is well paced, exploring the story like a history documentary with Hugh Ross' calm narration. There's no point in hiding the ending - the title's given it away already. Instead, the script is full of explanations, showing why Ford did what he did, and leaving it up to us to determine whether or not it was a good thing and whether or not he really was a 'coward', as suggested in the ballad sung by one of the film's co-composers, Nick Cave. He and Warren Ellis do a fine job with the score, leaving it subtle and calm, and adding to the quiet life out in the wilderness.

Overall, the film is about fame and the hunger for fame. James is famous for his notoriety, a man who, like the characters played by Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis in Natural Born Killers, becomes famous for all the wrong reasons. Ford wants the same kind of fame, but when he gets it in the aftermath of his role in James' death, he finds it stifling and unsatisfying, and over far too quickly; the fame of a coward does not last as long as the fame of a 'hero'. And so the film speaks volumes for us today, in this age where we've lived through the last decade as the Decade of 15 Minutes, the decade where anyone and everyone can be famous for as long as Ford was, and can still find it as he does.

A fantastic film.

8/10

Apocalypse Now?

There's definitely something pessimistic in the atmosphere in Hollywood. Though big-budget, large-scale disaster movies have never really disappeared (instead returning as forms of aliens attacking, be they serious or non-serious), recently the focus seems to be more and more on the end of the world as we know it. 2012, The Road, The Book Of Eli (out this Friday and one of my Top Ten Of 2010) - and more are on their way.

What gives? Why all of a sudden are we so obsessed with Armageddon? 2012 makes a little bit of sense - it's timely, with now just two years to go until the Mayan predicted catastrophe. The Road makes sense too in a way; filmmakers jumping on the Cormac McCarthy bandwagon after the massive awards success of No Country For Old Men.

But The Book Of Eli and co...now there's a bandwagon jumper, right? It just seems that, having done every and any kind of disaster imaginable, both fictional and non-fictional (one could easily argue that the gripping United 93 is a disaster movie), we've run out of them and now have to look to the Big Daddy of them all. The end of everything. Well, that's jolly, isn't it.

Still within these kinds of films, there is at least one certainty. People wouldn't dare make them without at least some kind of hope, some survival. And at the end of the day, in theory, that's what Armageddon will ultimately bring - survivors, a heck of a lot of them too, mark my words. Some we'll know why they survived, others we'll have no bloody clue - just like any good disaster movie.

Sit back and enjoy the ride. But ask yourself this: will I be a survivor? And if not, how can I become one? I'm going to say that you can take these questions anyway you want - I don't expect a lot of people to take them religiously, but that's fine, that's your interpretation. That's what makes us all unique and brilliant. And, in the end, that's what will ultimately mark us out as survivors.

Laters.

Michael Clayton Review

WARNING! SPOILERS!

If you're looking for an intelligent, sharp, edgy thriller about big corporations, law firms and the little people, then this is the film for you. If that's not your cup of tea...well, then, obviously...yeah.

George Clooney is the title character, a "fixer" or "janitor", hired to clean up the mess when one of the most infamous lawyers around (Tom Wilkinson) goes off his medication and puts an important law suit into jeopardy. At first Clayton thinks the same as anyone else: that his friend and mentor is just feeling the after-effects of his condition. But when the man later turns up dead in slightly suspicious circumstances, Clayton realises there's a lot more to the case then meets the eye...

At first the plot moved a little too quick for me. You've got to give the film your entire concentration, otherwise you'll be lost very easily in all the fast-talking dialogue. However, I soon got back on track and thoroughly enjoyed the remainder of the film. Clooney is in his usual fine form, a perfect straight man to the wonderful wild acting of Wilkinson and the nervous twitching of Tilda Swinton's character, who is more involved in everything then she would like to be. However, one cannot help feeling that we do not see enough of her character. And there is a very good hangdog performance by the late great Sydney Pollock, who was also one of the producers on the film.

The script is tight as the plot thickens throughout, throwing a mini-twist that, though perhaps slightly predictable, does not make it any less satisfying. Overall, a perfectly fine intelligent picture, though you do need to give it your full attention to give it credit.

7/10

Laters