It may seem like a bit of stretch that, even before Interstellar, Christopher Nolan has six directing credits in IMDB’s top 110 (The Prestige, you’ll be amused to discover, is apparently the 51st best film ever made). Even though half of those were chalked up by a single bat, a new Nolan simply can’t be ignored – neither by IMDB fanboys or the Academy.
To hear that Interstellar is an epic-lengthed philosophical, inter-deminesional science-fiction flick set, for the most part, in space, is to know that it is an obvious fit into the genre that Nolan seems to have single-handedly invented – the arthouse blockbuster.
In this one – surprisingly only his ninth film – he imagines a not-too-distant-future earth on its last legs. Wheat and other crops are a thing of the past, having been smote by the same dustbowls that also ravage young lungs. A concern on two fronts for Coop (Hollywood’s man of the moment, Matty Mac), a farmer and single father to two teenagers.
He also used to be a hotshot military pilot and so the obvious choice to man a spaceship (I said obvious, alright) as part of a NASA expedition to find a new habitat for mankind. If GCSE astronomy taught us anything, it’s that there are no such planets anywhere near our patch of the galaxy. But luckily, as you’ll recall from GCSE quantum physics, we can always find the nearest wormhole and dive through that to hopefully find a conveniently located human-friendly planet in the neighbouring dimension. Continue reading →
The last few months have been the usual gentle undulation of slight ups and barely detectable lows in the lead up to the 86th Academy Awards.
We saw 12 Years a Slave and Gravity shoot in to an early lead as favourites for the big awards and then…well, then they stayed there and still remain. We’ve had cheers (from me, when Nebraska finished) and tears (thanks in the main to the untimely and shocking deaths of Philip Seymour Hoffman and James Gandolfini).
But today the speculation/droning conjecture ends. Because today is the day when all the winners that we already know are going to win, finally win.
And with that kind of utter confidence, I guess I’d better nail the following predictions for all feature length contenders (because if it ain’t over an hour, I don’t give a fig). What I think will win is in gold, what I think should win is in bold and for both, well, it’s a classic gold and bold combo.
But despite my strong inclinations for a chubby Christian Bale in a bad wig and even stronger inclinations for a sensational Jennifer Lawrence in a flouncy dress, there must be only one winner, Capt…hold on…I mean 12 Years a Slave. It has the historical significance, weight and – without wanting to make the obvious gag – gravity, that the film of the same name just doesn’t have. But plaudits on its worthiness play down the fact that it is a beautifully told and shot drama, and one that is far more interesting than its showy galactic rival. Continue reading →
Finally, the Hollywood plot that the world’s been waiting for. You know, the one about the Aids-riddled homophobic bucking bronco rider. Starring Matthew McConaughey. And Jared Leto. In a dress. Finally.
And yet Jean-Marc Vallée’s biographical-ish account of Texan Ron Woodroof’s affliction avoids most of the traps that you might imagine it leaping straight in to. It lacks the mawkishness, insensitivty and ‘freak’ voyerism that I, for one, had expected to be showered with.
In fact, any preconceptions about this being a weekday afternoon human interest story about a terminally ill man hitting back at the medical industry that’s failing him, are thwarted within the first ten minutes. Woodroof’s seedy world is a suffocatingly nauseating place to be thrust into; unctuously sweating over with unprotected sex, casual drug taking and the odd smatter of fisty cuffs. Continue reading →
And here you were, thinking – and, presumably, hoping – that I’d literally fallen off the face off the earth. The Oscar nominations were announced way back last Thursday and yet not a peep from this ne’er-do-well. Well, when I tell you that I was simply biding my time until a couple of other significant awards were announced (those being the SAGs and PGA) then I’m certain that you’ll understand that there is every chance that what I said is genuinely the case.
But it’s a sincere truthdom that the quantity of excited yelps garnered from this quarter during the last five day period is matched only by those ejaculated when England play Test cricket……except in Australia. I guess what I’m trying to say is that the Oscars race is now finally a go……and that England were a bunch of old toss in the Ashes. Both of which sentiments go utterly without saying.
Prepare to be bowled over by this latest (non-cricket related) news:
Oscar nominations
Last year’s complete nut house of a nominations announcement was always going to be a difficult act to follow; but there were enough surprises on Thursday to prevent one from snoozing off to Chris Hemsworth’s monosyllabic, antipodean tones. You can find the full list (it goes on and on and then on some more) at the bottom of this here post.
Boat-based suspense festival Captain Phillips was at the centre of the most glaring omissions. While it clambered like a gang of grizzled Somali bandits aboard the good-ship ‘Best Picture nomination’, Tom Hanks, Paul Greengrass and Barry Ackroyd all got, for the thinly veiled want of a better expression, mugged off in the respective Director (Alexander Payne and Marty were preferred), Actor (a case of thanks, but no T Hanks. Brilliant) and Cinematography categories. Continue reading →
With Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Judi Dench and Emma Thompson among its nominees, the Screen Actors Guild Awards nominations boasts some of Hollywood’s biggest hitters. But exactly who else is nominated, and how does the list affect next year’s Academy Award nominees.
Here you were thinking that the SAGs was just a hilarious name for your ageing year 10 geography teacher’s drooping mammary satchels. Well you were wrong, because it’s also the name of a movie awards ceremony of deep, deep import. Boasting an 86% accurate prediction rate for the Oscars acting categories (correct as of last year; I can’t be arsed to recalculate the statistics again), you’ll understand why I’m getting my rancid knickers in an excruciating twist.
As well as giving you the full list of film nominees (scroll down, fool), you also get to look at some of my well wise opinions in a run down divided 5 ways. Check THIS…
1. It’s finally Matthew McConaughey’s time
Matthew McConaughey in ‘Dallas Buyers Club’
Hollywood’s true renaissance man, McConaughey’s remarkable career arc has been a blessing for Radio 4 producers everywhere who are struggling for content. From chick flick go-to-gimp, his 40s have seen him utterly transformed into the southern U.S. creepazoid of choice. With acclaimed roles in Mud, Bernie, Killer Joe, The Paperboy and Magic Mike, the Academy has taken a while to catch up with the new hot-thing-who-used-to-be-an-utter-laughing-stock on the block.
But that persistent Texan bastard will keep on turning in great performances won’t he. And this year he gave Oscar two to choose from. Still tipped for a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his lunacy in The Wolf of Wall Street, the Guild has erred on the side of Best Actor for playing, and I quote Wikipedia here, a “homophobic, drug addicted rodeo cowboy Ron Woodroof is diagnosed with AIDS and is given 30 days to live” in Jean-Marc Vallée’s Dallas Buyers Club. Ooooooh, sounds complex.
2. Best Supporting Actor promises a debut winner
Unlike last year’s gold-heavy category, the SAGs suggest that we will see a completely new home for Oscar to curse in March. And what’s really odd is that the prospective nominees aren’t exactly fresh off the boat. An average age of over 38 and stacks of quality big-screen work among them (Michael Fassbender, Daniel Brühl and Jared Leto are the who I refer to here) betrays the lack of erstwhile Oscar love.
3. There’s potential for a second posthumous Oscar winner in 6 years
James Gandolfini with Julia Louis-Dreyfus in ‘Enough Said’
“You wanna know how I got these crazy scars”. You all remember that one. Right? Yep, it was a line that Heath Ledger went and done said when he was in that film The Dark Knight. Yea, you remember. He was the Joker and Batman was also there. And then Heath Ledger died and then he won the Oscar. That’s it. Well done.
And now James Gandolfini might repeat that success in memoriam. Tucking away stacks of awards for utterly being Tony Soprano all those years, it is in death that big-screen prizes may be foisted upon him. And poignantly, if so, it will be for playing against type in the charming romantic comedy Enough Said.
4. Expect Academy royalty among female contingent
Tell me what you think of when you hear the names Dench, Roberts, Streep, Thompson, Blanchett, Bullock and Lawrence.
If you said something of utmost whimsy like, “That’s the seven dwarves, right?” then you can seriously go do one. The correct and rather more sensible answer is that they’re all nominated for SAGs and they’ve all won Oscars in their varying lengths of past. Got it? Good.
5. The Wolf of Wall Street got mugged right off
With a cast list longer than a cast-list-one-name-shorter-than-the-actual-cast-list-of-The-Wolf-of-Wall-Street, The Wolf of Wall Street promised to be a yet another Scorsese Academy love in. With stylised performances from the likes of DiCaprio, McConaughey, Jonah Hill and (snigger) Spoke Jonze, the odds were stacked firmly in favour of a nomination or two.
But alas, those SAG scallywags gone and pulled a fast one and went all snuberific. Not a nomination in sight.
But will the Academy agree with this or, indeed, any of what SAG had to say? The Golden Globe nominations follow tomorrow and we’ll have to wait until 16th January for the Oscar nominations. Wake me up then. No, but seriously, do; I’ve a dentist appointment in the afternoon that I DO NOT want to miss.
The full list of nominees
Best Film Ensemble
12 Years a Slave
American Hustle
August: Osage County
The Butler
Dallas Buyers Club
Best Actor
Bruce Dern for Nebraska
Chiwetel Ejiofor for 12 Years a Slave
Tom Hanks for Captain Phillips
Matthew McConaughey for Dallas Buyers Club
Forest Whitaker for The Butler
Best Actress
Cate Blanchett for Blue Jasmine
Sandra Bullock for Gravity
Judi Dench for Philomena
Meryl Streep for August: Osage County
Emma Thompson for Saving Mr. Banks
Best Supporting Actor
Barkhad Abdi for Captain Phillips
Daniel Bruhl for Rush
Michael Fassbender for 12 Years a Slave
James Gandolfini for Enough Said
Jared Leto for Dallas Buyers Club
Best Supporting Actress
Jennifer Lawrence for American Hustle
Lupita Nyong’o for 12 Years a Slave
Julia Roberts for August: Osage County
June Squibb for Nebraska
Oprah Winfrey for The Butler
I know what you’re thinking. I honestly do. But it’s not only because of the psychic powers that I possess. Of course it isn’t that nonsensical baloney is clearly nonsensical baloney. No, the reason I know precisely what you’re thinking is because of my arch arrogance.
Now you’re thinking something different. Now you’re thinking: “Go on then, prove it, poindexter”.
Firstly, maybe you should join the rest of us in 2012. Nobody’s used the insult ‘poindexter‘ since 1950’s (except if you count films set in the 1950s like Grease).
Secondly, I will prove it then. I will. You were thinking: “What the what? Why the hell is this poindexter bashing on about the Gotham Awards when the winner of the London Film Festival’s Best Film award was announced last night in…you know…London, which is…you know…where he lives? At best it’s perverse. At worst, it’s a prurient indulgence of anti-jingoism gone mad”.
On a side note, you were also thinking about what a devilishly clever pun I came up with in this post’s title, but that’s another compliment for another day.
And now you’re thinking: “Hold tight, I didn’t even know I knew the words ‘prurient’ and ‘jingoism.” But of course you did; it’s within all of us to be so grandiloquent. You just need a poindexter like me me to help you discover that.
The answer to your subconscious query, by the way, is that the LFF still hasn’t shown itself to be a sayer of any seuths with regard to the Oscars (Best Film winners of the last two years being How I Ended This Summer and We Need To Talk About Kevin). Furthermore, this year’s winner, Rust and Bone, is unlikely to crack the canard, being a French language film that has been pipped as France’s Best Foreign language entry by Untouchable.
Bank on me commenting at some point in this post on the irony that The Dark Knight Rises hasn’t been nominated
Conversely, the Gotham Awards have earned a reputation for throwing erstwhile unlikely films straight into the Academy mixer.
Following a big double win at both ceremonies for The Hurt Locker, in 2010Winter’s Bone built on its momentum from Berlin and Sundance to take the top prize. It would go on to be included as one of the Academy’s ten Best Picture nominees. Black Swan and The Kids Are All Right were also among both Gotham’s and Oscar’s top clutch, and Blue Valentine, too nominated in New York, scored Michelle Williams a Best Actress nomination.
>Something amusing about Debra Granik Winter’s Boning the rest of the competition<
Last year, The Tree of Life and Beginners shared Gotham’s top prize; the former being in Oscar’s top nine while the latter allowed Christopher Plummer to become the Academy’s most elderly acting winner. Gotham also favoured Alexandra Payne’s The Descendants, while Margin Call, which featured in one of Gotham’s other categories, was a surprise Best Original Screenplay nominee this February in Los Angeles.
So which of this year’s Gotham nominees will be a joker (gerrit?) in the pack come next year’s ceremony?
Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master for one. A sprawling look at Scientology-but-is-it-really-about-Scientology-yes-it-is-no-it-isn’t, the film made waves at Venice Film Festival and has had critics falling over themselves to hero-worship Mr Anderson as if he were the second coming of Dirk Diggler. Despite the fact that it has already been subject to the inevitable backlash, there is little doubt that The Master will be one of the favourites to take the big prize, especially after the incredible There Will Be Bloodlost out to No Country for Old Men in 2007.
Wes Anderson (no relation to my knowledge but, if I’m wrong, Ander must feel so proud of his boys) will also feel buoyed by Moonrise Kingdom’sinclusion. Of course there will be the mandatory Best Original Screenplay nod to look forward to, but Anderson has never had a film nominated for Best Picture. Although heralded as a return to form after the apparent flops of The Life Aquatic and The Darjeeling Limited, I actually think that Moonrise Kingdom is weaker than the aforementioned duo. Further, its release date (back in May) doesn’t bode well for an Oscars push, but I would welcome Wes Anderson’s name to be bandied around during the awards season.
It’s been nearly 10 years since Richard Linklater has knocked on the Academy’s door, when Before Sunset saw him nominated for his screenplay. Bernieis a black comedy about the murder of a Texan millionaire by her gay employee, which is immediately some way off the ideal Oscar palate. But in a year when Seth MacFarlane is set to host and one of Bernie’s stars, Matthew McConaughey, is the talk of Tinseltown, it will be interesting to see if it will tickle the arthritic funny bones of the Academy high command.
The Loneliest Planet comes from Russian-born director Julia Loktev and has performed well at Toronto, London, Gran Canaria and Istanbul festivals. It stars Gael Garcia Bernal and Hani Furstenberg as betrothed backpackers who embark on a nightmarish trip through a Georgian mountain-range. Loktev has formally enjoyed Cannes buzz with her previous feature Day Night Day Night and there may be a similarities drawn with Winter’s Bone. However, it seems that the film’s theatrical release came in 2011 and so there may be doubt over the film’s eligibility anyway.
Perhaps most unlikely of the nominees is Middle of Nowhere, a story from Ava DuVernay about a wife of an imprisoned man, who drops out of medical school in order to campaign for his release. Precious, Winter’s Bone, True Grit, and The Help are examples of recent Best Picture nominees with determined, heroic women at their centre and to which comparisons could be derived. DuVernay was also honoured with the U.S. Directing award at this year’s Sundance, but that has not formally been benchmark for success at the Oscars.
So the current list of those movies throwing their hat in to the ring for 24th February is emerging nicely:
His name's Adam Marshall and he LOVES talking about himself in the third person. He thinks he's an expert but the truth is that he probably just likes talking about the films and the Oscars and the such.
I hope...that is to say, he hopes...that you like the words that are written down.
To hear that Interstellar is an epic-lengthed philosophical, inter-deminesional science-fiction flick set, for the most part, in space, is to know that it is an obvious fit into the genre that Nolan seems to have single-handedly invented – the arthouse blockbuster.
Bloscars 