BTV Film of the Week: Midnight Express

Midnight Express (1978) Midnight tonight on Sky Movies Select (2 wins from 6 noms)

Greasy, sweaty and scuzzy, Alan Parker’s Midnight Express is a brilliantly atmospheric telling of Billy Hayes’s real(ish) event – 5 years spent at the hands of the Turkish penal system in the early 1970s after attempting to smuggle out two kilos of hashish.

Although we know Hayes to be guilty of his crime, Oliver Stone’s Oscar-winning (and sometimes jarringly anti-Capitalistic) screenplay sympathises with his struggles to maintain a sane mind amidst the claustrophobia of Istanbul incarceration.  A stench redolent of the dank cells and darker corruption is palpable as Hayes and his fellow inmates strive to catch the ‘midnight express’; prisonese for escape.

Newcomer Brad Davis takes the lead role, and while a more accomplished star may have given a more rounded, subtle portrayal, Davis’s anonymity suits the character perfectly.  He is an everyman, an average Joe.  This trait risked being forgotten had a bonafide big-ticket name of the late 70s (e.g. Pacino, Beatty, Nicholson) been cast and Parker’s decision to avoid this temptation is well-rewarded.

But that isn’t to say that Davis gives a disappointing performance.  In a scene where Hayes discusses his offence with his father, he regresses into an infantile state, clutching on to his dad’s lapels like a toddler, wanting to be coddled and cradled to safety.  A key scene at the end of the second act, where we see the protagonist finally snap, worn down by ‘the system’, is also a feather in Davis’s cap; one can practically see the transformation behind his eyes.  That said, the success of this pivotal juncture owes mainly to Parker’s expertise and a remarkable shot – the camera zooms fully in to Hayes’s bloodstained, yelling face while the viewer hears only Islamic chanting.  Quite sublime.

Parker’s wisdom to cast unknown players pays further dividends in John Hurt’s gnarled, drug-addicted prisoner, Max.  As cracked-up and feckless as the battered round rim spectacles that he wears, Hurt looks something resembling a Sergeant Pepper era Beatle, but one who has indulged in even more mind bending substances than the Fab-Four themselves – put together.  An outstanding supporting performance, Hurt won the Golden Globe and earned the first of his two Oscar nominations, losing out to Christopher Walken’s iconic, Russian Rouletting work in The Deer Hunter.

Giorgio Moroder, the German electronica pioneer and Daft Punk luvvie, picked up an Oscar for his strangely-gelling synth filled Original Score, and perhaps Parker would have taken home the big one but for striking similarities to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest which swept the board two years earlier. Another indictment of cruel and brutal institutionalisation. Midnight Express shares a similarly trapped McMurphyish anti-hero and the haunting screams of inmates as they’re dragged away to some unthinkable, unwarranted basement-based punishment.

But such comparisons should not detract from the grimy excellence of Parker’s Midnight Express; a predictably diverse and evocative addition to the 2013 Bafta Fellow’s phenomenal filmography.

Midnight Express; 1978; Dir: Alan Parker; Stars: Brad Davis, John Hurt, Randy Quaid; 120 mins; 8/10; 2 wins (Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score); 4 further nominations (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, Best Editing)

85th Academy Awards Best Picture Nominees: Argo

Courtesy of Natasha Searston – http://www.natashasearston.com – @natashasearston

Ben Affleck, eh?  Who woulda thought?  From generally chided half of Hollywood coupledom, to one of the most well regarded directors around.  And all in the space of a high profile breakup and two excellent films.  It’s like the plot of a dreadfully dull biopic (and if anybody now makes a dreadfully dull Ben Affleck biopic I really think you should give me a split of the meagre box office takings).

Gone Baby Gone was an excellent and suspenseful thriller, while The Town was a surprisingly trite heist-and-honeyz action.  Argo – the gripping based-on-true-events drama – may well be Affleck’s opus.

CIA agent Tony Mendez (Affleck), is called upon to exfiltrate half a dozen Americans secretly stranded in Iran after the embassy is overrun by rebels in 1979.  A hopeless situation requires a harebrained scheme, and Affleck’s stroke of genius does indeed smell decidedly like one from the cranium of a rabbit-like creature; to fabricate a fake movie and pretend that the 6 patrons are part of the crew, only in the Middle East to recee for locations.  Mendez must overcome the cutthroat world of movie production, the scrutiny of the Iranian authorities and the scepticism of his subjects, before attempting an audacious exodus.

Despite the blogger backlash (“bloglash”?) that Affleck is now yawningly being flagellated with following his shelves of awards, it is difficult to pick fault with Argo.  The opening few minutes smartly give the right level of background to the Iranian crisis to allow the viewer in on the action (an asset that, for example, Les Mis lacks) without sounding like a history lesson.  The pacing is swift, but never feels rushed.  Affleck is a likeable, fallible lead ably supported by an experienced cast featuring Alan Arkin, John Goodman and Bryan Cranston, as well as Clea DuVall and Scoot McNairy.  And the Arabian baddies aren’t the usual caricatured, yelling Allah-worshipers.

But best of all, Argo is genuinely, nail-bitingly tense.  From the harrowing opening siege scene to the ultimate great escape, it is hard to remember too many times in recent Oscar history when one of the Academy’s chosen ones have caused pulses to race as fast as this (‘cept when Winselt gets her kit off in Titanic, obvs).  Of course, it benefits from a source that is little known on these shores, but Affleck’s skill in handling cerebral subject matter alongside grave peril puts him somewhere between the Scott brothers, Ridley and Tony respectively.

But, despite, all that, Argo still somehow doesn’t feel like a Best Picture winner. Perhaps its admirable lack of grandstanding is the ironic cause, but I suspect that the Academy will continue to tell Affleck to Argofuckhimself in favour of the more Oscar-primed Lincoln.

Argo; 2012; Dir: Ben Affleck; Stars: Ben Affleck, Alan Arkin, Scoot McNairy; 120 mins; 8/10; 5 nominations (Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Musical Score, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing)

Bloscars’ Best Picture chart

1. Beasts of the Southern Wild

2.  Argo

3.  Les Misérables

4.  Amour

5.  Zero Dark Thirty

6.

7.

8.

9.

BTV: Halloween Special – Poltergeist; The Omen; The Addams Family

Halloween.  Boring innit.  Dressing up as the most recently deceased/shamed celebrity.  Lots o’ Jimmy Saviles this year no doubt.  Jangle jangle pedo jewellery.

The pumpkins are good though.  Not so much the carving, as the eating.  Soups.  Ravioli.  Pies, if you’re that way inclined (i.e. American) too.

Also it means that the tele man throws on a bunch of horror films.

That said, for an Oscar fan, there isn’t much fodder.  They say that The Silence of the Lambs (1991, 5 wins, 7 noms) was a horror film, though I would venture that despite the blood, moidering, what-ever-verb-means-that-thing-that-Hannibal-Lecter-does-with-his-teeth-and-lips, unpleasantness and general horror, it isn’t a horror film.

The Sixth Sense (1999, 0 wins, 6 noms) picked up a few nominations too, including for Best Picture.  And a year later, Nosferatu-inspired Shadow of the Vampire (2000, 0 wins, 2 noms) earned Willem Defoe a Best Supporting Actor nod.  But since, there’s been less success than for a Trick-or-Treater dressed as a werewolf who’s had a back, sack and crack.

But there was a time when the Academy didn’t spend the running time of ghoulish films cowering behind their La-Z-Boys.  In those days, they invited the folks behind them for a trip down the famous blood-red carpet.

Poltergeist (1982) 23.05 TCM (0 wins from 3 noms)

Potentially, poltergeists could be as dull as Halloween itself.  An invisible specter moving household items from – and this is the good bit – one side of the room………….to the other.

But Poltergeist is a splendidly enjoyable film.

Steven Spielberg’s presence among the production and writing credits is tangible.  The first twenty minutes of the film is a simple portrait of a regular family.  The parents fool around (and also smoke pot which, for some reason in this wonderfully liberal decade of ours, came as rather a shock), the kids are a charming and annoying in equal measure and they all live as harmoniously as a regular nuclear family do in their classic American home.

But like all classic American homes, this one was built on an old cemetery.  Ah-oh.

Cue lightning storms, paranormal activity and more skeletons than you can shake a decomposing fibular at.

The effects – both visual and audible – make the film, and that is where two of its Academy Award nominations were garnered.  The visual side is particularly striking.  Although it is a trope used by many cinefiles these days, it is true to say that expertly crafted effects, as opposed to plagues of CGI, are a far more effective way of creating terrifying set-pieces.  Watching domestic fixtures and fittings genuinely flying across a room, seemingly on their own accord, is truly impressive.

Unexpectedly, Poltergeist also benefits from a script that is not laden with horror cliche.  In particular, I refer to the ‘ghostbusters’ who visit the home to find an explanation of the peculiar goings on.  Rather than a gang of fearless crackpots who talk in esoteric jargon, the trio are written as a group of interested amateurs who’s extra-curricular interests may be of some use to the terrified family.  Beatrice Straight (who  had been Oscar nominated six years earlier for her supporting role in Network), is particular convincing as a parapsychologist who is just as frightened by poltergeist as those people she has been brought in to help.

And, like all great horror films (as the aficionados will tell you), there appears to be at least one moral message at the centre of the film.  I spotted a treatise on the dangers of television and metaphor on the fears of motherhood too.

Also, at one point (rather than at 25 points as suggested) this happens…

The Omen (1976) 20.00 Sky Movies Sci-Fi & Horror (1 wins from 2 noms)

The Omen, on the other hand, is on the eerier end of the horror spectrum.  Played strictly to creep the viewer out, the only laughs to be had here are inadvertent (a spinning decapitated head being the sole example).

Unlike Poltergeist, it doesn’t embrace visual effects for striking visceral scares.  It is far more cerebral, relying substantially on Jerry Goldsmith’s nominated score (he was, by the way, also nominated in the same category for Poltergeist) and the horrifying notion that one could raise as their own an ostensibly harmless – and, let’s face it, charisma-less – five-year-old boy who then develops into something altogether otherly (in this case, and we’ve all been there, be the spawn of the devil).

Some of the techniques used by Richard Donner are truly disturbing.  The first death scene, for example, is particularly affecting.  The dialogue used, specifically by members of the church, is highly stylised – a pyschological tool to unnerve the viewer who would naturally look to the clergy to comfort rather than confuse further.  And Jerry Goldsmith’s Best Original Song winner, Ave Satani (see below). with it’s brooding tempo, foreboding death knolls and sinister choral chanting is the perfect accompaniment to a picture that is so sacred that it will never be subject to the danger of being shoddily remade for a cheap cash in on the 6th June 2006.

Oh.

The Addams Family (1991) 19.05 Film 4 (0 wins from 1 nom)

The Addams Family.  Ok, not strictly a horror, but a rather wonderful family film to enjoy during the season.  And yes, it is as good as you remember it being (I’ve taken rather a large leap of faith there and assumed you liked it.  A safe gamble though, I reckon).  The jokes and visual gags come thick and fast.

The cast is excellent.  Whoever cast Raul Julia as Gomez is a true genius (I’ll requisition a copy of Barry Sonnenfeld’s MENSA membership card later).  He revels in a role that, now, it is difficult to picture anybody else in.  The same goes for Anjelica Huston as Morticia, and their chemistry is extraodinary.  That said, how long before we see Depp and Bonham Carter reprising the roles in a Tim Burton remake.  Surely only a matter of time.

Christopher Lloyd is also stand-out in full glorious gurning, nutty mode as Uncle Fester (and I really don’t want to hear any “Spoiler” cries for that one).  It leaves one wondering whether Jim Carrey should pay close attention to Lloyd’s work from the 80s onwards.  Carrey could be a natural successor as the go-to guy for offbeat avuncular roles that result in perpetual scene-stealing.  A notion worth considering for Carrey’s fast approaching twilight.

The Oscar nomination came for Ruth Myers‘s’s’s Best Costume Design, but was beaten by gangster-flick Bugsy (2 wins, 10 noms) (strong category that year, also including Hook and Barton Fink) and, in a year where Silence of the Lambs, Hopkins and Foster swept the board, it would have been ace to see their antithesis, Julia and Huston, nominated too.

BTV: Sense and Sensibility; Sideways; The Tree of Life

I’ve already been quite clear about what you should avoid doing with a barely earned Bank Holiday Monday.  Now just watch these films…

Sense and Sensibility (1995) Monday 13.20 Channel 4 (1 win from 7 noms)

I don’t think that there is any doubt that “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” is one of the all time great opening lines to a novel, and one that is worthy of this romantic tale of the Bennet sisters and the dashing Mr Darcy.  Although the television series is still thought of more fondly (complete with Colin Firth’s iconic wet t-shirt antics), the cinematic adaptation is…

Hold on, I’ve gotten that wrong, haven’t I?  Darn that Jane Austen and her perplexing predilection for entitling her novels with alliteration and ampersands (thinking about it ‘Alliteration and Ampersands’ could easily be the name of Austen’s great lost novel).

Sense and Sensibility has many of the traits & tropes of the costume drama: delicate young women fainting; pussyfoot prancing at a high society ball; gallant gents; impressive & imposing country abodes; horseback japes; and grandiloquent speeches about love and honour.

But the film is is buoyed & benefits from an amiable & accessible script from the pen of Emma Thompson (for which she won her second Oscar) and a surprising lightness of touch from its director Ang Lee (you won’t like him when he’s angry), who would go on to win the Best Director Oscar for Brokeback Mountain 10 years later.

The who’s who cast also keeps the interest piqued.  Among & amongst them: Emma Thompson herself (nominated for her leading performance here too, but lost out to Susan Sarandon, having won the prize three years before), Kate Winslet (the first of her six nominations), Alan Rickman, Hugh Grant (in classic stammering & stumbling form), Imelda Staunton, Hugh Laurie (delightfully lugubrious & louche and cranked up to full House mode), Tom Wilkinson (for about 30 seconds), the witch from Simon and the Witch, and Hugo from The Vicar of Dibley.

Also, it includes one of my very favourite & frequently used chat up lines, as the sleazy & scoundrelous Willoughby goes to touch up Winslet’s leg: “May I have your permission to…ascertain if there are any breaks?”. What a lad.

The Tree of Life (2011) Monday 15.25 Sky Indie (3 noms)

One of the most divisive films of recent years, I think that Terrence Malick’s experiment is itself a game of two halves.

While I agree with most that the nonsense about the origins of the earth, the dino action and any frame with Sean Penn’s gurning grill is overblown and uninteresting, the story about the typical 1950’s southern U.S. family is excellent.

Brad Pitt is the domineering patriarch.  He plays the severe father and oppressive husband, with quiet frustrated anger.  An inventor whose patent applications are a perennial failure, he would rather chase and preach the unreachable ‘American Dream’ than provide a genuinely loving upbringing for his three children.

Jessica Chastain proves once again that she is one of the strongest screen presences in Hollywood at the moment.  A sympathetic mother and mentally abused wife, she is never morose or cloying.

Although neither won nominations for The Tree of Life their brilliant performances can not have done any harm in supporting their nominations for other films (Pitt in Moneyball and Chastain in the god-awful The Help).

After winning the Palm d’Or at Cannes, it was pleasing to see a film like The Tree of Life gain some Oscar recognition too, and it is this kind of film that benefits from the Academy’s expansion of the number of Best Picture nominees as it would probably not have had a look-in in the old five-film system.  Malick was also nominated, as was Emmanuel Lubezki for his striking cinematography.

Sideways (2004) Monday 19.50  Sky Indie (1 win from 5 noms)

For me, Sideways is one of the best comedies made in the last 10 years.  Alexander Payne picked up the Oscar for his sensitive and hilarious screenplay (a feat he would repeat earlier this year for the less-impressive The Descendants).

The real star of the show (and you can tell this because his is the first name on the cast list; Hollywood producers are clever like that) is Paul Giamatti in the lead role as Miles.  Introverted (except when drunk), socially awkward (especially when drunk), he is a sub-par wannabe novelist and wine obsessive.  Giamatti was once again scandalously overlooked for a nomination.

Polar opposites, he and his prurient best friend Jack, a c-list actor looking for his last kicks as a single man (puckishly played by Thomas Haden Church in Oscar nominated form), embark on a stag weekend visiting the lush vineyards of California.  While Jack seeks the affections of any and every woman in sight (including Sandra Oh’s Stephanie), Miles’s obsession for his ex-wife (who, unlike him, has long moved on) is suspended only when he reacquaints himself with the charming Maya (played by Virginia Madsen, and also Oscar nominated), a local waitress and fellow lonely soul and wine enthusiast.

Sideways is perpetually funny, intelligent and touching, and will put you off drinking Merlot for life.

Enjoy

Bloscars

BTV: Life is a Cabaret, old chum

It has come to my astonished realisation that the reason Sky Movies can continue to constantly saturate its myriad of channels is because they repeat the same films week in and, indeed, week out.  8 Mile, Double Indemnity, The Silence of the Lambs, The Messenger and The Last Picture Show are all available to watch again this week (and you really should).

This has a genuine and detrimental effect on BTV.  It means that there is but slim pickings to choose from.  So, today, I have chosen just one, old chum…

Cabaret (1972) Tonight 22.35 BBC2 (8 wins from 10 noms)

Like Liza Minnelli herself, Cabaret is a curious old beast and I have decided to resort to my good buddies, bullet points, to explain why:

1. Musicals were the toast of the Oscars in the 50s and 60s.  Among the dozens, probably hundreds, of nominations, 30% of all Best Picture winners over the course of the two decades went to musicals (namely An American in Paris in 1951, Gigi, West Side Story, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music and Oliver! in 1968.  Despite winning 8 statues, Cabaret didn’t quite manage to pick up the big one and no musical would until Chicago inexplicably managed to overcome The Pianist in 2002.
2. Although The Godfather won Best Picture, Cabaret dominated the other awards.  It seems difficult to believe that Bob Fosse was able to pip Francis Ford Coppola to the Best Director award.  But to be fair to Fosse, Cabaret shows a true master of his craft at work.  Fosse’s grasp of how to make song and dance work on screen is palpable and to compare this film to the aforementioned winners would be like comparing the Cha-cha-cha to the Pasodoble (perhaps).  Although a musical, Cabaret doesn’t witness its protagonists bursting into song in the middle of every day life – instead the songs are set in a smoky basement cabaret bar called the Kit Kat Klub where the performers sing numbers that ingeniously elucidate the plot.
3. Joel Grey beat off The Godfather’s James Caan, Robert Duvall and Al Pacino (possibly literally) for Best Supporting Actor.  The latter two actors would go on to win Oscars for Tender Mercies and Scent of a Woman (HOO-HA) respectively, while the former would appear in Mickey Blue Eyes.  But was well deserved – Grey’s ‘Emcee’ is strange and creepy and a great foil to the beautiful Minnelli.

Enjoy

Bloscars

BTV: Bank Holiday special

Why watch every episode of your Mad Men season 2 box set, tolerate a chilly swim at the lido, bore yourself silly at a National Trust stately home, wave enthusiastically at pensionable boaters on the canal, eat cod and chips twice on a pebbly beach while wrapped head to toe in acrylic ‘knit’, wear false smiles while pitching a tent in a drizzly campsite, see to your ailing daisies in the back yard, pay remarkable prices to bowl a dangerously overweight orbs at 10 erect pins, update your 50 inch LCD, listen to your gran drone on about how she spent Mayday fifty odd hundred years ago, browse wallpaper that you’ll never end up eventually buying in B&Q, spend dozens of pounds on a butcher counter full of meat for the BBQ that you’ve optimistically invited everybody over for, when you could spend the bank holiday watching old films that you probably won’t like…

The Last Picture Show (1971) 14.10 Sky Movies Indie (2 wins from 8 noms)

Peter Bogdanovich’s black-and-white masterpiece is a nostalgic picture of 1950s small town America.  Its blurred focus is pointed towards a quintessential group of high school graduates; macho jocks overflowing with posturing testosterone; a beautiful prom queen with a privileged but damaging family home; awkward baby-faced teenagers encountering sex, responsibility and the unexpected shackles of adulthood; and a spectrum of ‘grown ups’, as confused and bewildered by life as the youngsters who look to them for guidance.

Or, as my dad described it, “the one where the backward young, lad gets a prostitute in the movie drive-in”.

Either way it is highly recommended, with the crumbling picture-house symbolising the inevitable loss of innocence and a post-war America changing beyond all recognition.

Jeff Bridges earned his first nomination of six (eventually culminating in a lifetime achievement style victory for Crazy Heart), but lost out to Ben Johnson as cinema owner Sam the Lion, a relic in a town that has moved on.

The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) 17.35 Sky Movies Showcase (5 noms)

Matt Damon is a master of mimicry in this cool drama from 1999.  As an anonymous nobody, Tom Ripley creates his own past and present, hoping that it will give him a future bristling with success, money and Gwyneth Paltrow.

The story is muddled at times and the narrative occasionally can’t decide whether Ripley’s motivations are sympathetic or underhanded, but it is an intriguing and diverting drama boasting splendid performances.  Two years after being nominated for his performance in Good Will Hunting, Damon continues to show why he is one of Hollywood’s safest pairs of hands.  Jude Law clearly revels as charismatic posh sod Dickie, who’s performance isn’t as good as the unsettlingly creepy Philip Seymour Hoffman or as Michael Caine who beat him for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar in The Cider House Rules.

Hugo (2011) 21.00 Sky Box Office 2 (5 wins from 11 noms)

In my opinion, this was the pick of last year’s Best Picture nominees.  Marty’s first soiree into the divisive world of 3D, it is the story of a young boy living in a Paris train station.  Fascinated by cogs and automata and the suffering the kind of social difficulties that would probably eventually result in him to getting a prostitute in a movie drive-in, a young girl (Chloë Moretz with an English Accent that Anne Hathaway would do well to observe) takes him under her wing on a quest to find the key (literally) to his past.

Eventually beaten by the SBAWF mastodonte The Artist, Hugo is a charming celebration of the art of cinema and an indulgent opportunity for Scorsese to demonstrate his passion for its history.  Its 5 wins were mainly technical and the biggest omission was the surprising failure to recognise perennial Oscar-favourite Sir Ben Kingsley’s masterclass as an old man who is as intimidating as he is heart breaking.

Enjoy

Bloscars

BTV (week from 28th April): Your guide to Oscar favourites on the box

A retired cowboy, an animated magician and a resplendent kung-fu fighter walk into an Oscars orientated blog…

Unforgiven (1992) Tonight 21.00 ITV4 (4 wins from 9 noms)

Until 1992, Clint Eastwood hadn’t been too much of a bother to the Academy.  Clearly not favouring his mexican standoffs, line of questioning to punks or his antics with apes, his trophy cabinet was probably adorned only with a Little League runners-up pendant from 1942 and a replica .44 Magnum (you know, the most powerful handgun in the world, which would blow your head clean off).

On clearly familiar turf and dusty sidewalks, his perennial Western Unforgiven changed all that and pistolled him into the realms of Hollywood’s most loved filmmakers.

It is fairly nuts and bolts stuff.  Retired gunslinger persuaded out of retirement for one last mission.  A corrupt sherif.  Six-shooters. Stetsons. Saloons with swinging slatted doors.  The whole caboodle.  However, it is Unforgiven’s heart, as well as its redhot performances (Morgan Freeman, Gene Hackman winning his second Oscar, Saul Rubinek and a delightfully hammy Richard Harris are all particularly pleasing) that make it standout as one of the all-time great cowboy flicks.

Eastwood picked up the big two prizes, Best Picture and Best Director, a feat he would repeat in 2004 for superior boxing melodrama Million Dollar Baby.  He was nominated in both years for his lead performances too, losing out to Al Pacino for Scent of a Woman (HOO HA) and Jamie Foxx for Ray respectively.

The Illusionist (2010) Saturday 14.40 Thursday 08.00 & 18.30 Sky Indie (1 nom)

Clearly, it is a great time for silent black and white French films (or SBAWFs as they are rapidly becoming known).  As I read recently in one of my favourite obnoxious blogs, silence is officially cool.

Not to be confused with the previousOscarfavouriteohfortheloveofGodwhycan’thebegoodagain Ed Norton vehicle The Illusionist (2006), The Illusionist was a year before its time.  Nominated for Best Animation (and predictably beaten by Toy Story 3), it is the charming story of a charming but lonely magician.

Unlike the film itself though, the eponymous conjurer is truly behind the times.  The rabbit-in-a-hat merchant can’t keep up with modern showmen and the progressive tastes of his core audience.  He travels from Paris, to the highlands of Scotland, down to Edinburgh and on to London, to resurrect his waning star, with his trusty bunny and forming an unlikley relationship with a precocious young traveller.

Visually, The Illusionist is incredible.  Each cityscape is meticulously detailed and familiar.  Interiors and set-pieces carry forward all of the attention to detail of Belleville Rendezvous but, this time, with a coherent and touching story to match.

Sunday Afternoon Special

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) 13.30  Dave (4 wins from 10 noms)

Every few awards seasons, a foreign language film comes along and gives Hollywood a shaking of Louise Woodward magnitude (surely not still too soon?).  These movies transcend their own category (conveniently, pigeon holing some of the world’s best cinema into an easy to manage 5 nominees), and manage to melt the icy hearts of the Academy members to win recognition for their other achievements.

Bergman and Fellini both managed it a couple of times.  Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful (also on tonight on Sky Indie), much maligned for being over sentimental mush (and so right up Oscar’s strada), scored 3 wins including a memorably celebrated Best Actor win for its director.  Guillermo Del Toro’s remarkably effect-laden Pan’s Labyrinth also won 3 in 2007.  And this year’s Best Foreign Language winner A Separation from Iran, a deeply effecting and gritty portrayal of family difficulties and the domestic legal system, was nominated for Best Original Screenplay too.

But it is Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon that has made the biggest impact of any foreign language film, with 10 nominations.  Although it lost out to Gladiator for Best Picture and Ang Lee would have to wait a further five years before picking up a Best Director statue for Brokeback Mountain, CT,HD’s (ABBREVIATION ALERT) arresting visuals and  music (making up, frankly, for the bizarre story line) put no doubt in voters’ heads as to where the Best Art Direction-Set Direction, Cinematography and Original Score awards would be heading.

Enjoy

Bloscars

BTV: Your guide to Oscar favourites on the box (week from 21st April)

As a precursor for this week’s choices, I just wanted to raise a pet peeve of mine.  Plagiarism.

The practice of taking existing words and reusing them for one’s own ends is unimaginitive, lazy and should not be tolerated.

Understood?

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) Tonight 21.55 BBC2 (5 wins from 9 noms)

This adaptation of a great American novel isn’t only recommended this week because it is probably one of finest films ever made, but also because it allows me to ask one of my favourite Oscar trivia questions:

This is one of only three films in the history of the Academy Awards that has been able to win all of the ‘Big 5’ awards (i.e. Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Adapted/Original Screenplay.  Can you name the other two?

The Silence of the Lambs (1991) Thursday 21.00 TCM (5 wins from 7 noms)

This adaptation of a great American novel isn’t only recommended this week because it is probably one of finest films ever made, but also because it allows me to ask one of my favourite Oscar trivia questions:

This is one of only three films in the history of the Academy Awards that has been able to win all of the ‘Big 5’ awards (i.e. Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Adapted/Original Screenplay.  Can you name the other two?

Sunday Afternoon Special

The Messenger (2009) Noon Sky Movies Premiere (2 nom

This isn’t my usual Sunday arvo easy watch that you can slam on while keeping an eye on whether Van Persie has scored another rasper or perusing Amy Childs’ sweat patches in the copy of Heat that you ‘ironically’ picked up.

The Messenger follows Ben Foster’s recently demobbed soldier, returning to the States from the front line in the Middle East (notice the clever way I avoided specifying Iraq or Afghanistan for fear of making an elementary error).

His latest mission in the States would be his most difficult – morbidly visiting door-to-door to personally deliver the devastating news to loved ones of soldiers killed in action.

Reactions vary from solemn acceptance, to infinite grief, to violent denial. Foster sensitively portrays the youthful harbinger of doom struggling to cope with his own post-warfare troubles while simulatneously trying to help stricken strangers deal with theirs.

Samantha Morton, as ever, is a fascinating screen presence as Foster’s ill-advised love conquest, troubled widow of a killed serviceman. While Woody Harrelson, in Oscar nominated form, is Foster’s mentor setting the ground rules (no touching, comforting or hugging) while trying to overcome his own demons.

Oren Moverman and also earned a nomination for their screenplay which is by degrees touching, devastating and acerbic.

Enjoy

Bloscars

BTV: Your guide to Oscar favourites on the box (week from 14th April)

Buoyed by the booming success of last week’s inaugural BTV (in excess of 3 views), I have decided to make it a regular fixture of your Saturday morning lie-in.  Huzzah.

DO NOT follow me on Twitter (@bloscars if you’re that way inclined) or head to the homepage and sign up to receive automatic updates by e-mail.

Wait a minute.  Strike that.  Reverse it.  DO NOT FORGET TO follow me on Twitter (@bloscars if you’re that way inclined) or head to the homepage and sign up to receive automatic updates by e-mail.

Whether you choose to follow me or not, Bloscars Television AdVice (a joke  repeated here for the sole reason that I really, really like the joke) will continue to provide recommendations for three Academy appreciated films that ‘coincidentally’ happen to be on your television screens this week.

8 Mile (2002) Tonight 21.00 Sky Movies Indie (1 win from 1 nom)

You’ll have to forgive me this little indulgence (or you could refuse to forgive me of course, both work equally as well).  But 8 Mile is the kind of film that ‘people’ describe as a guilty pleasure.  Poppycock, says I.

It’s a film of genuine quality with all the hallmarks of a classic underdog story: a down on his luck guy failing at his chosen pursuit; life lessons learnt; some enemies become friends, some friends become enemies; Kim Basinger naked; Slim Shady hecking the heck out of Brittany hecking Murphy; and then the phenomenal climax (I’m referring to the final rap battle of course, not the Eminem/Murphy heckfest).

Also, it means that I can spit some of my favourite quotes.  Ahem…

“Why you fuckin’ with the gay guy G, when really you’re one that’s got the HIV”

“This guy keeps screaming; he’s paranoid.  Quick, someone get his ass another steroid”

“So, I’m a German, eh? That’s ok, you look like a fucking worm with braids”

***BLOSCARS FREESTYLING ALERT***

Oh dear, I think these quotes have gotten boring.  In fact, I think I can hear my hundreds of readers snoring.

***BLOSCARS FREESTYLING ALERT OVER***

Want a taster?  Here’s a taster, fool…

Double Indemnity (1944) Thursday 1.00am Sky Movies Classics (7 noms)

While a year before, Five Graves to Cairo garnered three Oscar nominations, Billy Wilder’s 1944 classic Double Indemnity set him along a path of immaculate filmmaking that culminated in six personal awards (and countless others for an ouvre that includes Sunset Boulevard, Stalag 17 (my personal favourite), Sabrina, Some Like It Hot and The Apartment).

Double Indemnity’s Film Noir credentials are beyond reproach…

Dark, tall and handsome lead protagonist giving a running voice-over. Check.

Enigmatic, beautiful femme-fatale who may not be all that she seems. Check.

Screenplay by Raymond Chandler. Check.

Beautifully shot luscious black and white cinematography. Check.

Guns. Check.

Homaged by Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid. Check.

But it is the razor-sharp dialogue shared by Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck – positively bubbling with irrepressible sexual frisson – that lifts Double Indemnity from one in a long line of Film Noir back-catalogue, to one of the all time great movies.

Sunday Afternoon Special

Toy Story 2 (1999) 16.00 Channel 5 (1 nom)

Toy Story 2, my favourite of the trilogy, was criminally robbed of any Oscars whatsoever (and only mustering one nomination for Randy Newman’s in the Best Original Song Category – an award he has since bagged twice for Monsters Inc. and Toy Story 3).  Alas, its release predated the introduction of the Best Animated Feature award.

This was a wrong somewhat righted last year when the last of the films picked up 5 nominations (including Best Picture) and 2 wins.

Jokes, characters and a storyline that will entertain the entire family make this perfect Sunday afternoon fare.

Enjoy

Bloscars

BTV: Your guide to Oscar favourites on the box (week from 7th April)

Are you one of those pathetically submissive individuals who is constantly bullied, downtrodden and dictated to?

Armed with nominal free will and the meekest of countenance, you’re barely able to muster up a decision on what sock to put on first in the morning without the inexplicably imperative guidance of another.

You go from submissive minute to submissive minute, cowering and trembling under an oppressive umbrella of indecision and filibustering, yearning to step under the rain cloud of choice and be saturated in the precipitation of independence. But you will never venture from under the canopy of helplessness; settling for an eternity of arid door-mattery.

You’re an automaton. A rag doll to be manipulated by your peers – the puppet masters of your listless destiny of inconclusivitude.

If that sounds like you, then I demand that you unequivocally read our new weekly update where we will arrogantly inform you what the best films are the best films to watch out of this week’s televised films.

BTV (which stands for Bloscars Television adVice, obviously) is your guide to three Academy Award nominated movies to look out for and, if fortune desires it, enjoy over the course of the next seven days.

Juno (2007) Tonight 22.05 More4 (1 win from 4 noms)

Juno, together with Little Miss Sunshine, is the perfect example of Oscar’s recent propensity to recognise smaller movies.

While some commentators view this with inverted snobbery – art-house ‘cineastes’ preferring that the low-budget works are seen by a couple of dozen of patrons, in a protentious frenzy of nose-cutting and face-spiting – most see it as a welcome antidote with brash multi-million dollar blockbusters.

Taking its cue from the grandmother of the indie-spirit, Harold and Maude, Juno charmingly ticks off all of the stock ingredients: sharp, witty script (an Oscar winning one from former stripper Diablo Cody); break out performances from young trendy actors (the delightful Ellen Page as a pregnant teenager and Michael Cera as, you guessed it, a clueless but amiable chump); supporting cameos from reliable old hands (J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney as the young mum-to-be’s refreshingly supine father and stepmother); and an acebutalmostjustalmostcrossingintothemantrapoftwee soundtrack jam-packed with folk-pop.

The film’s power lies in the eponymous bloater’s demise from smart-mouthed teen with confidence beyond her years, to clueless little girl who just wants a cuddle from her dad and to reclaim her rightful existence as a teenager unburdened by responsibility.

Crocodile Dundee (1986) Monday 17.00 Film4 (1 nom)

…and that is all I want to say about that. Worth the Best Original Screenplay nomination alone.

Sunday Afternoon Special

Big (1988) 16.40 Film4 (2 noms)

Big was the very first and, for a while, only video that my eldest brother owned. As such, it got played to death in our house. Which is no bad thing, considering its surprising quality.

The plot is perfect in its simplicity. A boy beseeches a scary looking coin-op gypsy to make him big. And then, the very next morning, he rolls out of bed fully pubic and looking very much like the Tom Hanks.

In a lesser actor’s hands, this would never have made it beyond a weak curiosity. But Hanks is perfect as the juvenile in an adult’s body. Literally living the dream of so many children; he thinks like a child, moves like a child and behaves like a child. Working for a toy company, filling his home space hoppers and basketball nets and getting up to japes like this…

Hanks picked up the first nomination of his current five (he would go on to pick up to in two years for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump but was soundly and rightfully beaten by Dustin Hoffman’s idiot savant in Rain Man.

It would be interesting* to get your thoughts on this week’s films. Have you seen them before? Do you like them or loathe them? Any favourite quotes or scenes? Please feel free to leave spamless inoffensive comments at your will…if you have any.

Enjoy

Bloscars

(* = Bloscars cannot guarantee that your thoughts will be interesting)