With the nauseatingly inevitable damp squib that was The Golden Globes boring us all to tears over the weekend, the awards season is most definitely now in full swing.
This week though marks the turn of the Brits to have their say, or to at least announce their nomination shortlists as both BAFTA and the Evening Standard did yesterday.
Everywhere grime in America / Organised crime in America / Terrible time in America
And so first the good news, Avatar 2 has been delayed until 2016. The bad news is that it hasn’t been cancelled altogether.
The inevitable follow up to James Cameron’s unfathomably successful 2009 picture, which by all accounts accrued $2.8 billion at the box office, was originally mooted for 2014, with a third instalment due in 2015.
Did you know a young boy drowned here? He was my son. And today, is his birthday.
The New Year brings with it a comprehensive push from the studios of those films deemed likely contenders during awards season. Front runner The Artist snuck in just before Janus said goodbye to 2011 and hello to 2012, but the first two weeks of the year will reward cinema goers with Meryl Streep’s uncanny Maggie Thatcher, Steve McQueen’s uncompromising tale of sex addiction and Spielberg’s equine adventure. All are expected to perform admirably.
Having forged such an effective working relationship on Hunger, Shame reunites McQueen with the megalithic Michael Fassbender for his second directorial feature. Fassbender, who so elegantly portrayed Bobby Sands in McQueen’s debut Hunger, plays Brandon, a bored New York yuppie who indulges in his burgeoning sex addiction at any given opportunity.
Brandon lives a repetitive, unfulfilling life, the tedium of his corporate desk job only interrupted by visits to prostitutes and continual masturbation. He’s a haunted soul, utterly consumed by his craving for sexual satisfaction, with Harry Escott’s haunting score testament to his internal conflict and strife.
I am a star. I’m a star, I’m a star, I’m a star. I am a big, bright, shining star.
Actually, scrap that. That should read: Fuck you film fans.
The level of contempt that the current crop of corporate big wig studio execs have for cinema goers has reached new heights as exemplified by New Line Cinema, who have just greenlit a remake of Police Academy.
Scott Zabielski, best known for co-exec producing and directing tv show Tosh.O (nope me neither), has been handed directorial duties and is tasked with reigniting the seven film franchise that began in 1984 and ended, or so we thought, a decade later with the downright awful Police Academy:Mission to Moscow. Continue reading
crash/burn 