2012 Academy Awards Live Blog!
Tonight’s the big night! Yes, that time of year when Hollywood gives itself a giant hand (not saying what that hand is doing, mind) and celebrates all that the totally in-touch Academy feels is the finest in film over the past year. I’ll be live blogging the event as it unfolds, so stay up and buckle in for what in all honesty will be a smooth predictable ride, but hey, you never know when there will be a gigantic pothole awaiting. Just ask Marisa Tomei.
I’ll also be tweeting and looking for the best lines from film Twits to include here, with all due credit of course, so everyone play along!
Who do you think will be taking home the shiny bald statues tonight? I’m thinking The Artist will make a clean sweep. So much so that in the night’s only shocking development, it will manage to take home awards it’s not even nominated or eligible for. So, best animated short? That’s right, my money is on The Artist.
Be sure to check in between 11pm and midnight tonight, when I’ll be kicking the online festivities off (dependent upon when my full-body bronzing is dry).
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Review: The Woman in Black
Horror masters Hammer Films are bringing The Woman in Black from the boards of the West End to cinemas world-wide this month, with former Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe in the lead role of struggling young solicitor Arthur Kipps, who comes face-to-face with the feared spectre herself. The gothic ghost tale packs a few surprises and some great scares, despite feeling too predictable or foolish at times.
The Woman in Black haunts UK cinemas from 10 February
Adapted for the screen by Jane Goldman (X-Men: First Class, The Debt), The Woman in Black opens with a chilling sequence that sees three young girls, in trance-like states, calmly stepping out from an attic window to their deaths below. Afterwards, the widower Kipps is introduced as he prepares to leave London and his young son (yes, little Harry Potter plays a father of a 4-year-old here) behind for Eel Marsh House, located in a remote part of England, in order to sort out the legal affairs of its recently deceased owner. Upon arrival, he receives an icy reception from all the locals with the exception of the wealthy Sam Daily (Ciarán Hinds), who becomes a valuable friend and ally, as despite initial frights at the house and against repeated warnings from increasingly angry locals Kipps forges on. As Kipps continues to ignore further visions and tragic incidents, the situation becomes ever graver, placing the local children at risk from the Woman in Black.
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Review: The Muppets
The Muppets make a smashing return in their first feature film since 1999’s underwhelming Muppets in Space with the eponymously titled The Muppets. The whole gang; Kermit, Miss Piggy, Gonzo, Fozzie, et al are back, thanks, in no small part, to producer, co-writer and co-star Jason Segel, who has breathed new life into Jim Henson’s felt-based creations. The Muppets, full of celebrity cameos, self-deprecation, delightfully clever sight gags and a whole lot of winking at the camera, provides a tremendously joyous cinematic experience that’s bound to leave the audience captivated and humming the tunes all the way home.
The Muppets FINALLY arrives in the UK on 10 February. See it!
Nothing is ever taken too seriously in The Muppets, which is part of the charm. However, it’s also what leaves it feeling slightly unfocused, as the story initially is centred upon Gary (Segel) and his brother Walter (a new Muppet). Opening with home videos of the brothers over the years as they grow up (or not, in Walter’s case), we learn how Walter fell in love with The Muppets and became their biggest fan. Gary invites Walter to join him and his girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams), on an anniversary trip to Los Angeles, so Walter can experience The Muppets studios tour in person. An early song and dance number sets the tone for the film with the residents of Smalltown, USA chipping in as Gary dances his way to meet with Mary. Once in LA, the visit to The Muppets studios is disheartening, as the theatre is derelict and condemned while the tour offers little more than a glimpse of Kermit’s office. It’s then that the main plot-line is set up when Walter, having snuck into Kermit’s office, overhears the plans of Chris Cooper’s tycoon Tex Richman (subtlety need not apply) to buy the studios in order to access the oil reserves that lie beneath. Only if The Muppets can come up with $10 million can they retain their studio and trademarks. Walter, Gary and Mary take it upon themselves to track down and re-unite The Muppets in a bid to save the theatre. Once the real Muppets are in the picture, attention shifts away from Walter’s inner conflict and it truly becomes The Muppets’ show.
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Review: The Debt
The Debt, director John Madden’s remake of 2007’s Israeli thriller Hahov hits UK cinemas this Friday, featuring another superb performance from Jessica Chastain as she continues to take 2011 by storm. Set in 1997, The Debt focuses primarily on events taking place in 1966 when three Mossad agents set out to bring Nazi war criminal, Dieter Vogel aka the surgeon of Birkenau (a character based on the infamous Josef Mengele), to justice in Israel.
Sam Worthington and Jessica Chastain in The Debt
The film begins quietly enough in 1997 as now-retired Mossad agent Rachel (here played by Helen Mirren) attends a booking reading of her author daughter who has penned Rachel’s life story. A mysterious road-side death later, the action moves to East Berlin in 1966 where Chastain (as the younger Rachel), along with Sam Worthington (David) and Marton Csokas (Stephan) take over the reins of the narrative. What follows is a suspenseful operation to capture the man they believe to be Vogel. It is once their enemy has been detained that The Debt truly excels. Jesper Christensen provides fantastic support as the smarmy, manipulative Vogel. As good as Chastain, Worthington and Csokas are it is Christensen’s performance that provides the foundation.
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Review: Perfect Sense
Art house does end of the world in David Mackenzie’s Perfect Sense. Ewan McGregor and Eva Green chain-smoke their way through the plot as the tortured-soul leads, Michael and Susan. The film’s beginning is promising, as the Glasgow-based narrative cuts away to shots from around the world of people simply living life, while emphasising food, work and disease amongst other themes. Chef Michael has intimacy issues and epidemiologist Susan is unlucky in love. It’s not long after the initial outbreak of “severe olfactory syndrome” (which would struggle to sound any more meaningless) that the two cross paths and fulfill the prerequisite new-love-in-uncertain-times quota.
Perfect Sense: slightly better than this photo might lead you to believe
Perfect Sense is paced well enough to give due time to the failing senses and the emotions that might accompany them. With a tinge of sci-fi, the mysterious disease that becomes a pandemic is left totally unexplained beyond shots of dictators and extremists whilst narration explains how different groups believe it to be caused by different ideologies. This would be acceptable where the actual delivery of the symptoms not so patently absurd. Having staggered the onset for loss of smell across his fictitious world, Mackenzie brings on loss of taste, seemingly all at once for everyone, to laughable results. He does make pause for some gratuitous nudity and sex scenes that feel like an attempt at tasteful titillation for the sheer sake of it.
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Review: Page One: Inside The New York Times
Andrew Rossi’s latest documentary, Page One: Inside The New York Times examines the struggle print media faces for survival by embedding the filmmaker within the Times newsroom for an entire year, from 2009 into 2010. Focus centres on the media desk of the NYT, which reports on changes in the media, both print and online, including the NYT itself. The star of the show here is charismatic New York Times journalist David Carr, a sharp-tongued, reformed drug addict and convict whose wit makes this an enjoyable, rather than dry, affair.
The New York Times' David Carr discusses the survival of the Gray lady at the Soho Curzon
A montage of news clips highlighting newspapers closures and bankruptcy opens the film by providing the context of the difficult period print media, specifically in the US, is currently facing. The point of how any person or group can self-publish monumental news scoops thanks to the internet is illustrated by juxtaposing WikiLeaks first significant exposure of the US military strategy in Iraq (video footage of US attacks on civilians) with the Pentagon Papers scandal in 1971, where the only method of bringing attention to the information contained was by feeding it to a huge national paper, such as the New York Times.
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Review: Drive
Drive is a perfectly crafted thriller that blows away just about any film released so far this year. From the incredibly terse opening scene, Drive grabs the viewer and refuses to let go until the end credits hit the screen. Director Nicholas Winding Refn brings together a cast that hits every note spot-on. The suspense is laid on thick, often in the most subtle of fashions, and hangs in the air throughout the film.
Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan in Drive, where a look says it all.
As the nameless driver, Ryan Gosling is a man of few words. Instead his body language speaks volumes and when he does act, he does so decisively and without hesitation. Part-time Hollywood stunt driver, full-time grease monkey at Shan’s (a terrifically rough Bryan Cranston) garage, “the kid” also takes jobs as a hired wheel-man. Sticking to his five-minute rule, he has getaway driving down to a science and puts his survival above all else. The opening chase scene beautifully establishes Gosling’s character as anything but an average criminal and Drive as a crime thriller with a unique approach.
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Review: Soul Surfer
While the events of surfing champion Bethany Hamilton’s young life would almost surely make for a touching and inspirational documentary, the dramatised Hollywood portrayal of her life, Soul Surfer, is marred by clichés and Christian propaganda. It also features perhaps the most anti-climactic shark attacked ever committed to film. With Hawaii as the locale, what Soul Surferdoes accomplish is highlighting how lovely and carefree life on the Hawaiian islands must be. In fact, it certainly appears worth braving a shark bite to two for. Using the ever-popular family life montage to set the stage, it’s not long before the audience sees Bethany (AnnaSophia Robb) best her chief rival, Malina Birch (Sonya Balmores, kitted out in black to really drive the point home) in a regional competition and secure a sponsorship deal alongside her best-friend and fellow amateur surfer, Alana.
Soul Surfer, brought to you by God.
With two-loving, surfer parents (Helen Hunt and Dennis Quaid), a pair of good-natured older brothers, a lifelong best-friend and her pop-video styled church, Bethany’s life appears perfect. Now sponsored and needing to focus on training, Bethany forgoes a church trip to Mexico to work with needy children. Having been made to feel sufficiently guilty about her priorities, tragedy soon strikes in the dullest of fashions and Bethany is rushed off to hospital. As poor-writing would have it, said hospital is the same one where her father is about the go under the knife, in a needlessly shoehorned plot thread that is forgotten about immediately after it attempts to artificially inject an amount of tension into the scene.
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Review: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
After much anticipation, Tomas Alfredson’s take on Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy hits UK cinemas this Friday. Touting an all-star cast of British talent, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is a slow-burn drama brimming with masterfully understated performances. Alfredson’s film is beautifully atmospheric while presenting a pitch-perfect interpretation of early 70s Cold War life in London.
Tom Alfredson & Peter Straughan discuss Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy at the May Fair Hotel
Getting off to a quick, dramatic start, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy soon settles into a methodical pace as MI6 (“the Circus”) head Control (John Hurt) is forced out of the intelligence agency following a bungled operation in Budapest. Control’s departure also leads his right-hand man George Smiley (Gary Oldman) into early retirement. However, it’s not long before Smiley’s services are being called upon in order to seek out the truth behind the rumoured Russian mole at the top of the Circus.
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Review: I Don’t Know How She Does It
I Don’t Know How She Does It declares the title of Sarah Jessica Parker’s latest foray into cinemas. Oft repeated by various characters throughout the film, there are a few clear answers, such as; in the dullest way possible or with the aid of a nanny and a very patient, understanding husband. If I Don’t Know How She Does It was anything that it tries so desperately to be, this may have been entertaining enough. However, when Olivia Munn manages to get the only few real laughs (twice!) in 90 minutes time, there are serious problems afoot.
Sarah Jessica Parker in I Don't Know How She Does It having the same effect on Kelsey Grammer as the film will on audiences
The premise is simple: a professionally successful couple are confronted by the failings of their family life, as both Kate (Parker) and Richard (Greg Kinnear) are on the verge of big breaks in their respective careers. The focus is on Kate and her myriad of duties as mother of two and investment banker. The results are unfunny at best and tedious at worst. Beginning, for no explained reason, as a flashback to several months prior and introduced by a underutilised Christina Hendricks the film feels dreadfully familiar as the viewer is treated by a voiceover from Carrie, err Kate. That tactic is soon discarded, however, instead opting for cutaway between scenes to testimonials from the supporting characters, eerily similar to early “Sex and the City” episodes. These totally fall flat and, in the case of one “Momster” (Busy Philipps), are irritating to the point of frustration.
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