The King's Speech: another huge weekend

The awards momentum is really with The King's Speech now: this weekend it got both the directors' and actors' nods.

The Directors Guild of America named Tom Hooper its director of the year, while the Screen Actors Guild gave Colin Firth its Best Actor gong, while the film's entire cast was given the best cast award.

Natalie Portman for Black Swan (so far unbeaten in any awards), and Christian Bale and Melissa Leo in their supporting roles in The Fighter picked up the other SAG awards.

Crucially, neither The Social Network nor True Grit got anything out of this weekend, while The King's Speech strengthened its position in the run-up the Oscars. And it posted its highest weekend box office take in the US so far: $11m, leading to a total of $72m. It will pass the $100m barrier, and given its performance in the UK so far (somewhere north of £22m) and Australia ($15m after five weeks), a further $100m from the rest of the world should be possible.

Sky's all-time best of British

The Italian Job: best British film of all time, at least according to a Sky survey of British moviegoers. Not at exactly surprising, is it? It topped the survey with 15.1% of the votes, more than double the share of the movie in second place, Life Of Brian with 7.4%.

Half the top ten is filled by massively popular hits released since 1994: The Full Monty; Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince; Bridget Jones’s Diary; Four Weddings And A Funeral; Love Actually; and Trainspotting.

Early 80s serial award-winners Chariots of Fire and Gandhi make their expected appearances too, as does Brief Encounter. It’s pleasing to note The Wicker Man in 10th.

However, where the hell is Lawrence of Arabia?
Get Carter?
Even though I don’t enjoy his films that much, what about the works of Ken Loach? And what about James Bond, who has almost single-handedly propped up the UK production industry for the past 30 years?
Bridge Over The River Kwai?
A Matter Of Life And Death?
The Ealing comedies?
The early Hitchcocks?

The list actors is equally baffling: Anthony Hopkins beats Olivier, ahead of Michael Caine and curiously David Jason (surely best known for his TV work over the past 35 years?). However, on the aged 50 and under list, Colin Firth emerges top, just ahead of Ewan McGregor (sorry, when did he last ‘act’?).

The list of actresses makes a bit more sense: Judi Dench takes an easy victory from Helen Mirren and Maggie Smith. Almost inevitably Keira Knightley tops the aged 50 and under list, beating Kate Beckinsale.

The top 10 British directors is dominated by Brits who are best known for their work in the US: Hitchcock on top, followed by Ridley Scott. Christopher Nolan and Paul Greengrass also make the list. A curious factoid emerges: just one of the top 10 directors, Danny Boyle, has a film in the top 10 list…

The King's Speech: the success story continues

The King's Speech absolutely will not stop until it's an uber-hit at home!

Weekend one: £3.5m from 398 screens.
Weekend two: £4.4m from 428 screens.
Weekend three: £4.2m from 502 screens.

Its total so far in the UK: a staggering £18.3m after 17 days. That means it's already overtaken Little Fockers, Dawn Treader and Gulliver's Travels. A £30m haul is a question of when not if; how far beyond that it can go will be down to BAFTA and Oscar glory.

The weekend of 21-23 January, it beat Black Swan, which brought in a handy £2.7m from 356 screens - Fox taking an equally ballsy move as The King's distributors by opening the lesbian ballerina psycho-chiller wide.

According to Box Office Mojo, The King's Speech stands at $108m worldwide, including $59m already from the US.

Oscars 2011: analysis

Oscar nominations 2011: safe, yet still capable of surprise. That's my simple conclusion.

Almost inevitably The King's Speech leads the field with 12 noms; however, next up is not The Social Network - it's True Grit with 10 nods. The facebook movie finds itself in joint third place, throwing werewolves at Inception. The Fighter and 127 Hours both outscore Black Swan to boot (seven and six nods respectively versus just five): clearly the elderly members of the Academy have not warmed to the lesbian ballerina psycho-chiller.

Surprises? Nolan not nominated for Best Director, nor Danny Boyle for 127 Hours. Ryan Gosling not mentioned for Blue Valentine (probably because his character is so unlikeable), although his co-star Michelle Williams does make the cut. Having been missed by BAFTA, Jennifer Lawrence gets her first nom for Winter's Bone, as does her supporting co-star John Hawkes. Jeremy Renner's turn in The Town gets its just reward.

At this stage, it's hard to see beyond the stammering monarch. The facebook movie is probably too cold for the Academy, while it's not that long ago that the Coens swept the board. So, predictions in detail:
• The King's Speech takes Film, Director and Actor
• Natalie Portman just holds off Annette Bening for Best Actress
• Geoffrey Rush and Christian Bale slugging it out for Best Supporting Actor
• It's been a while since a kid won an Oscar, so step forward Hailee Steinfeld for True Grit

Oscars noms 2011

Best Picture
“Black Swan”
“The Fighter”
“Inception”
“The Kids Are All Right”
“The King's Speech”
“127 Hours”
“The Social Network”
“Toy Story 3”
“True Grit”
“Winter's Bone"

Best Director
“Black Swan” Darren Aronofsky
“The Fighter” David O. Russell
“The King's Speech” Tom Hooper
“The Social Network” David Fincher
“True Grit” Joel Coen and Ethan Coen

Best Actor
Javier Bardem in “Biutiful”
Jeff Bridges in “True Grit”
Jesse Eisenberg in “The Social Network”
Colin Firth in “The King's Speech”
James Franco in “127 Hours”

Best Actress
Annette Bening in “The Kids Are All Right”
Nicole Kidman in “Rabbit Hole”
Jennifer Lawrence in “Winter's Bone”
Natalie Portman in “Black Swan”
Michelle Williams in “Blue Valentine”

Best Supporting Actor
Christian Bale in “The Fighter”
John Hawkes in “Winter's Bone”
Jeremy Renner in “The Town”
Mark Ruffalo in “The Kids Are All Right”
Geoffrey Rush in “The King's Speech”

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams in “The Fighter”
Helena Bonham Carter in “The King's Speech”
Melissa Leo in “The Fighter”
Hailee Steinfeld in “True Grit”
Jacki Weaver in “Animal Kingdom”

Animated Feature Film
“How to Train Your Dragon”
“The Illusionist”
“Toy Story 3”

Writing (Original Screenplay)
“Another Year” Written by Mike Leigh
“The Fighter” Screenplay by Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson; 
Story by Keith Dorrington & Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson
“Inception” Written by Christopher Nolan
“The Kids Are All Right” Written by Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg
“The King's Speech” Screenplay by David Seidler

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
“127 Hours” Screenplay by Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy
“The Social Network” Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin
“Toy Story 3” Screenplay by Michael Arndt; Story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich
“True Grit” Written for the screen by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
“Winter's Bone” Adapted for the screen by Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini

Cinematography
“Black Swan” Matthew Libatique
“Inception” Wally Pfister
“The King's Speech” Danny Cohen
“The Social Network” Jeff Cronenweth
“True Grit” Roger Deakins

Hathaway is Catwoman = genius

Anne Hathaway is Catwoman/Selina Kyle in The Dark Knight Rises. Holy sweet moma! As if there weren't enough reasons to see Bats 3, Chris Nolan pulls off the casting coup of the decade.

The very thought of la Hathaway in that outfit sends me into delirium. A pity I've got to wait until 2012 to see her in the flesh...

While comic book heroines have always had more going on than impossible figures and ridiculous costumes, it is hard to separate the defined character from the physique. You wouldn't cast a skinny actor as Captain America, just as you wouldn't cast Kathy Bates as Wonder Woman.

When fanboys debate comic book movie casting choices, inevitably much of the debate is around looks: does any given actress look like the character they are portraying? However, as with the casting of Heath Ledger as the Joker, we know Nolan casts primarily on talent. With Hathaway, it's a win-win: she's got the talent, and, by golly, she's got the figure.

This year sees Mad Men's January Jones donning Emma Frost's, er, outfit for X-Men: First Class. Again, great casting: she can certainly carry herself with Frost's arrogance and carry off that outfit as her appearance at the Golden Globes clearly proved.

2012 also sees Emma Stone (left) as Gwen Stacey (although with red hair, she should be MJ), Scarlett Johansson as the Black Widow in the Avengers, and two mystery girls: a new Lois Lane for the Superman reboot, and a new Bond girl.

The King's Speech: the producers' favourite

The King’s Speech v The Social Network: game on! Having won at the National Board of Review and at the Golden Globes, the Facebook movie has been generating Oscar momentum, but this weekend the Producers Guild of America stuck their oar in and saluted The King’s Speech instead.

This is the first time the stammering king has beaten the network during awards season. 14 of the previous 21 PGA winners have gone on to grab the Best Film Oscar.

Given The King’s Speech ever-escalating box office ($58m already banked in the US, $100m must be a lock) while The Social Network is already being advertised on DVD, the stammering king appears to be building momentum at just the right time ahead of the Oscar noms being announced.

It almost goes without saying that Toy Story 3 was awarded the Best Animated Film Award by the PGA

The King’s Speech: a bona fide hit

The distributors’ of BAFTA’s favourite film, The King’s Speech, have more confidence than the King that their film portrays.

Weekend one on 398 screens: £3.5m and the number one spot.
Weekend two on 428 screens: £4.4m and the number one spot again, for a £10.8m running total.

According to my records, the last few films to open at number one and then increase the following weekend’s take are: Slumdog Millionaire, The Fellowship of the Rings, er, Antz, Seven and Jumanji.

That’s a ballsy move to open such a high quality, awards-worthy movie, with no box office stars involved in front or behind the camera, on so many screens. It’s simply not been the done thing since Lawrence Of Arabia inadvertently set the release template for awards movies. Even with the outstanding reviews the film had generated at its festival screenings during the autumn and winter of 2010, I would not have had the cojones of the distributors: more power to their elbows, etc.

With a Globe already in the bag for Colin Firth, and surely a BAFTA award and an Oscar still to come for him alone, this very British film (stately paced, gentle humour, elegant wordplay, understated emotions, and a rousing finale) is set to be the breakout hit of 2011.

It should be settling on the £20m mark (ie qualify for the end of year top 10 box office championship) by the end of its fourth weekend, with at least another month still to play. Its clear target is to beat Slumdog Millionaire’s £31.2m haul.

Every now and again a genuinely great film proves popular with the people: and that this film has so chimed with a wide audience restores my faith in the British public.

BAFTA 2011: sense and insensibility

The King’s Speech: 14 BAFTA nominations from 15 longlist noms. The Social Network: 6 noms from 13 longlist noms. As ever, BAFTA goes its own way: in the wake of the Golden Globes, that ceremony’s big winner, the Facebook movie, is not friends with BAFTA.

The King’s Speech enters the BAFTAs as the outstanding favourite for the Best Film and Best Actor, propelled by its status as a genuine box-office hit (already just weekends into its run its overtaken expensive summer action fodder like The A-Team), beloved by the people and the critics alike. And at this stage, Best Supporting Actress is clearly a battle royale between HBC and Lesley Manville in Another Year.

The Facebook movie is headed by Black Swan (12 from 15), Inception (nine from 14), and 127 Hours and True Grit (with eight each, from eight in the latter’s case). More controversial than The Social Network’s relative failure are the following shock lock-outs and surprising omissions:
• The Coens are not nominated for Best Director for True Grit
• Danny Boyle is nominated for Best Director for 127 Hours, but the film is only up for Best British Film
• Never Let Me Go has no noms
• The Fighter – only three noms from 12 and Golden Globe winner Melissa Leo falling at the first handle
• Made In Dagenham – only four from 14
• Jennifer Lawrence – no nom for Winter’s Bone
• Neither Ryan Gosling nor Michelle Williams, the outstanding stars of Blue Valentine, are shortlisted
• Tilda Swinton ignored for I Am Love
• Nicole Kidman ignored for Rabbit Hole
• Jeremy Renner passed by for The Town, but his deceased partner in crime Pete Postlethwaite does pass muster
• The Town – 11 mentions on the longlist, just one on the shortlist

The good surprises are few:
• Gareth Edwards, the writer/director of Monsters, shortlisted for Outstanding Debut
• Noomi Rapace, Best Actress for her Dragon Tattoo
• Miranda Richardson, Best Supporting Actress for Made In Dagenham

The winners will be revealed on 13 February.

The key categories in full are:

BEST FILM

BLACK SWAN
INCEPTION 

THE KING’S SPEECH 

THE SOCIAL NETWORK
TRUE GRIT

OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM

127 HOURS
ANOTHER YEAR
FOUR LIONS
THE KING’S SPEECH
MADE IN DAGENHAM

OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER

THE ARBOR Clio Barnard (Director), Tracy O’Riordan (Producer)

EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP Banksy (Director), Jaimie D’Cruz (Producer)

FOUR LIONS Chris Morris (Director/Writer)

MONSTERS Gareth Edwards (Director/Writer)

SKELETONS Nick Whitfield (Director/Writer)

DIRECTOR

127 HOURS Danny Boyle

BLACK SWAN Darren Aronofsky

INCEPTION Christopher Nolan

THE KING’S SPEECH Tom Hooper

THE SOCIAL NETWORK David Fincher

LEADING ACTOR

JAVIER BARDEM Biutiful

JEFF BRIDGES True Grit

JESSE EISENBERG The Social Network

COLIN FIRTH The King’s Speech

JAMES FRANCO 127 Hours

LEADING ACTRESS

ANNETTE BENING The Kids Are All Right

JULIANNE MOORE The Kids Are All Right

NATALIE PORTMAN Black Swan

NOOMI RAPACE The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

HAILEE STEINFELD True Grit

SUPPORTING ACTOR

CHRISTIAN BALE The Fighter

ANDREW GARFIELD The Social Network

PETE POSTLETHWAITE The Town

MARK RUFFALO The Kids Are All Right

GEOFFREY RUSH The King’s Speech

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

AMY ADAMS The Fighter

HELENA BONHAM CARTER The King’s Speech

BARBARA HERSHEY Black Swan

LESLEY MANVILLE Another Year

MIRANDA RICHARDSON Made in Dagenham

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

BLACK SWAN 

THE FIGHTER 

INCEPTION
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT
THE KING’S SPEECH

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

127 HOURS
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
THE SOCIAL NETWORK
TOY STORY 3 

TRUE GRIT

ANIMATED FILM

DESPICABLE ME
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON
TOY STORY 3

Golden Globes 2011: the winners are

The Golden Globes hearts facebook: The Social Network has won four Globes - Film, Director, Screenplay and Score.

There were very few shocks this year. Colin Firth, Natalie Portman, Paul Giamatti and Annette Benning predictably walked away with the top acting honours, while Christian Bale and Melissa Leo cemented their positions ahead of the Oscars in winning for their performances in The Fighter.

TS3 of course won Best Animated Film.

Best Motion Picture - Drama
The Social Network

Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy
The Kids Are All Right

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama
Colin Firth for The King's Speech

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama
Natalie Portman for Black Swan

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy
Paul Giamatti for Barney's Version

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy
Annette Bening for The Kids Are All Right

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture
Christian Bale for The Fighter

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture
Melissa Leo for The Fighter

Best Director
David Fincher for The Social Network

Best Screenplay
The Social Network

Best Animated Film
Toy Story 3

Best Foreign Language Film
In a Better World (Denmark)

Best Original Score
The Social Network

National Board of Review 2010 Awards

The National Board of Review has set the hares running ahead of the Golden Globes by announcing its winners - and The Social Network has emerged the victor with four major wins.

Going with the grain, Of Gods and Men picked up the foreign film award, while TS3 took the animated trophy. But there are surprises: Lesley Manville winning for her turn in Another Year; Jackie Weaver winning for her turn in Animal Kingdom; and Chris Sparling grabbing the original screenplay trophy for Buried.

Best Film

The Social Network



Best Foreign Language Film

Of Gods and Men

Best Actor

Jesse Eisenberg/The Social Network



Best Actress

Lesley Manville/Another Year



Best Supporting Actor

Christian Bale/The Fighter



Best Supporting Actress

Jacki Weaver/Animal Kingdom



Best Ensemble Cast

The Town



Breakthrough Performance

Jennifer Lawrence/Winter's Bone



Best Director

David Fincher/The Social Network



Best Adapted Screenplay

Aaron Sorkin/The Social Network

Best Original Screenplay

Chris Sparling/Buried



Best Animated Feature

Toy Story 3

Bond will be back

James Bond is back for his 23rd instalment - and this time he's bringing Sam Mendes!

Work on Bond 23 was suspended in April 2010, following MGM's financial woes. But now with Spyglass Entertainment at the helm of MGM, the third film starring Daniel Craig has got the greenlight and will be released on 9 November 2012.

So, who's Spyglass? Well, they brought you quality hits like The Sixth Sense, The Insider and JJ Abrams' Star Trek reboot.
Sam Mendes is, of course, the Oscar-winning director of American Beauty. This is a bold move: he's not known for action (although he handled Road To Perdition more than well enough), and, since his divorce, it's unlikely we'll see Kate Winslet as a Bond girl (although I can dream...). Whether he can handle a fast-paced script is open to question, and no 'arty' director has convinced as a Bond man (Marc Forster and Quantum of Solace anyone?).

And the script remains in the hands of Purvis & Wade and John 'Gladiator' Logan: another cause for concern. And who will perform the theme tune? Please make it Muse!!!!

Bond being back in 2012 means that year is pretty much geek heaven: The Avengers; Star Trek 2; the Spider-Man reboot; Christopher Nolan's Batman finale; the first part of The Hobbit; and the reboot of Superman...

2011: the art film preview

Every year upon reading my film preview for the year ahead, James A bemoans the fact that high quality art films by major directors rarely have clearly set release dates well in advance like blockbusters do.

In an attempt to brighten James’s day, here’s a list of some of the more artistic and intriguing major titles that will no doubt spark debate and potentially feature in awards lists at the end of 2011.

The Skin I Live In: the new Almodovar – and importantly his first with Antonio Banderas since Tie Me Up!

The Grandmasters: Won Kar Wai’s biopic of Ip Man, Bruce Lee’s trainer; Tony Leung is Ip, while Zhang Zhiyi co-stars.

A Dangerous Method: Cronenberg directs Viggo Mortensen as Freud, Michael Fassbender as Jung, and Keira Knightley as the controversial Sabina. The script is adapted from Christopher ‘Dangerous Liaisons’ Hampton’s play. I can’t wait!

Chicken With Plums: following the success of Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi goes live action with this tale of her musician uncle.

The Impossible: a drama focusing on the impact of the 2004 tsunami, starring Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor, directed by Juan Antonio Bayona, who directed The Orphanage.

Coriolanus: Shakespeare adaptation not by Ken Branagh – instead step forward Ralph Fiennes for his directorial debut. Fiennes has taken a contemporary spin on the great warmonger.

Hanna: Joe Wright’s follow-up to The Soloist and Atonement; Saoirse Ronan stars as a teenage assassin; Cate Blanchett and Eric Bana co-star.

Melancholia: the new Lars von Trier; this is a “psychological disaster move which begins with the end of the world”.

The Deep Blue Sea: the new Terence Davies – an adaptation of Terence Rattigan’s play.

One Day: after the huge critical success of An Education, director Lone Scherfig returns with the adaptation of David Nicholls’ romantic/dramatic novel; Jim Sturgess and Anne Hathaway star.

The Iron Lady: the team that brought you Mamma Mia! on screen, now bring you a biopic of Maggie Thatcher. Meryl Streep is Thatch; Jim Broadbent is Dennis…

Release dates are very sketchy, so keep watching the skies.

Directors name their 2010 favourites

The Directors Guild of America has announced its nominations for Best Director. They are:
Darren Aronofsky/Black Swan
David Fincher/The Social Network
Tom Hooper/The King's Speech
Christopher Nolan/Inception
David O Russell/The Fighter

For Nolan, that's his third nom, while Fincher grabs only his second nom (surely some mistake?!). Understandably, Russell and Hooper are first-time nominees, but so also, unexplicably, is Aronofsky...

The winner will be revealed on 29 January. Only six times since 1948 has the DGA winner not gone on to win the Best Director Oscar. For the record, those six occasions are:
• 1968: Anthony Harvey won the DGA for The Lion in Winter while Carol Reed took home the Oscar for Oliver!
• 1972: Francis Ford Coppola won the DGA for The Godfather while the Oscar went to Bob Fosse for Cabaret.
• 1985: Steven Spielberg received his first DGA for The Color Purple, but the Oscar went to Sydney Pollack for Out of Africa.
• 1995: Ron Howard won the DGA for Apollo 13 while Oscar voters selected Mel Gibson for Braveheart.
• 2000: Ang Lee won the DGA for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, while Steven Soderbergh won the Oscar for Traffic.
• 2002: Rob Marshall won the DGA for Chicago while Roman Polanski received the Oscar for The Pianist.

Review: 127 Hours v The Way Back

Two survival movies based on fact, two directors, two very different approaches: ladies and gentlemen, tonight on Movie Death Match Special, it’s Danny Boyle’s post-Slumdog one-armed special, 127 Hours, up against Peter Weir’s ensemble piece,The Way Back, his first effort since Master & Commander seven years ago.

Boyle went from famine to feast with Slumdog: Sunshine, though generally well received, had flopped and Slumdog went into its first festival screening without a distributor; six months later, the film had garnered eight Oscars and hauled in $362m at the worldwide box office. So, no pressure for Boyle on his follow-up then!

Let’s deal with the positives: James Franco is great, oscillating through every known human emotion (including one I was not expecting him to experience) as he remains trapped on his own in a canyon fissure; his gradual descent into madness and his climb back out again to self-realisation and eventually physical freedom is played out as a series of vignettes.

When the big moment comes and he cuts the arm off, I was as tense as I have ever been watching a film; the bone-breaking sound effects and the chainsaw buzz employed when he makes the final cut had me wanting to rip my own head off – it’s strong stuff. But crucially, I think Boyle has been true to his aim and neither underplayed nor overplayed that scene.

AH Rahman’s score is perfect too.

The negatives? Well, as with Slumdog, Boyle takes a somewhat shallow script and throws every weapon in his considerable directorial arsenal at it – too such an extent that it overpowers the script and almost Franco’s performance to boot. Filmed from perpetually crazy angles (I await the day Boyle shoots on the horizontal for the hell of it) and crazy places (Franco drinks from his water bottle – we view from inside the bottom of the bottle), the visuals and the editing are simply too much. And we fairly hurtle through the story as well.

Boyle’s not about to drop off my radar like Inarritu (Alejandro, you are not a brand!), although this Hitchcock for the MTV generation needs to chill a little and take a more thoughtful approach and serve the script in future.

Peter Weir is the absolute antithesis of Boyle: the script must be served, and any chutzpah of his own is used to sparingly to amplify the story and the characters. The Way Back tells the apparently true story of the 4,000km trek to India by a number of Siberian gulag escapees in WWII.

As with 127 Hours, we know the outcome even as the film starts, so the enjoyment (if that’s the right word) is in the journey. And what a strange journey it is.

Such a long trek through every dangerous terrain you can think of could easily be over-dramatised, every step being a flirtation with fate; instead Weir chooses, almost perversely, to under-dramatise the events, taking a low key approach to his shooting and the characterisation.

In the latter he is aided by an excellent, international ensemble cast, most notably Ed Harris and Jim Sturgess. Harris excels in the film’s key moment, when the motley crew stop for a rest by a stream and the young runaway, who has joined them, without bidding washes Harris’s feet; the stoic Harris’s initial shock at such human kindness collapses into despair and relief as he realises its been so long since he could allow such an act into his life: he tells Sturgess, on his first day in the gulag, that "kindness can kill you". It’s a deeply moving moment, again under-played, but Weir cuts away almost too quickly to the next scene.

The runaway (Saoirse Ronan of Atonement fame) helps to realise the unspoken bond between the escapees, and give it voice – an essential move if they are to survive.

The gang don’t all get along all the time, but their enemy (if there can be said to be one in this film) is nature – she absolutely will not stop, etc.

The film clocks in at 133 minutes, but that’s not enough time to avoid the film becoming episodic: there’s so much story to tell, but so little time to tell it – the scenes aren’t necessarily rushed, but they are necessarily short.

Ultimately, The Way Back has a slowburn effect, and, I suspect, will age better than 127 Hours. So a narrow victory to Weir (aided by the wallop of the film's coda - something 127 Hours lacks), then. In conclusion, I can only wonder how each film would have turned out if the directors had swapped jobs…
127 Hours: 7.5/10
The Way Back: 8/10

BAFTA 2011: longlists revealed

BAFTA has released the longlists for most of its key categories – and Black Swan and The King’s Speech lead the way with 15 nominations each.

On 14 nominations are: Inception and Made In Dagenham. Next up is The Social Network with 13 mentions. And then on 12 noms, there is a slew: Alice In Wonderland; The Fighter; The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo; Shutter Island; and the Coens’ True Grit.

Apart from Dagenham and Dragon Tattoo doing so well, the other surprise is the performance of The Town: 11 noms with Ben Affleck making both the director and leading actor longlists.

Dagenham’s success is in part due to five members of the cast making the list. Black Swan matches that number, while King’s, Fighter and Town have four members of their casts bathed in early glory (including in the latter case the late Pete Postlethwaite).

Leonardo DiCaprio, Gemma Arterton, Rosamund Pike, Andrew Garfield and Rosamund Pike are all longlisted twice. Toy Story 3 is longlisted for both Film and Animated Film.

Surprises? No Werner Herzog and Nic Cage for Bad Lieutenant, no Chloe Grace Moretz for Kick-Ass, no Emma Stone for Easy A, no Gainsbourg, etc. And Shutter Island and Alice garnering so many noms!

There’s no longlist for British Film, and meanwhile the shortlist for Foreign Film has been announced: Biutiful; The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo;
 I Am Love; 
Of Gods And Men; 
and The Secret In Their Eyes.

The winners will be announced on 13 February.

Below are the main categories.

Best Film

127 Hours

Another Year

Black Swan

The Fighter

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Inception

The Kids Are All Right

The King’s Speech

Made In Dagenham

Shutter Island

The Social Network

The Town

Toy Story 3

True Grit

Winter’s Bone

Director

127 Hours 

Alice In Wonderland

Another Year

Black Swan

The Fighter

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Inception 

The Kids Are All Right

The King’s Speech

Made In Dagenham

Shutter Island

The Social Network

The Town

Toy Story 3

True Grit

Leading Actor 

Aaron Eckhart/Rabbit Hole

Ben Affleck/The Town

Colin Firth/The King’s Speech
James Franco/127 Hours
Javier Bardem/Biutiful

Jeff Bridges/True Grit 

Jesse Eisenberg/The Social Network
Jim Broadbent/Another Year

Johnny Depp/Alice In Wonderland

Leonardo DiCaprio/Inception

Leonardo DiCaprio/Shutter Island

Mark Wahlberg/The Fighter

Paul Giamatti/Barney’s Version

Robert Duvall/Get Low

Ryan Gosling/Blue Valentine

Leading Actress

Andrea Riseborough/Brighton Rock

Annette Bening/The Kids Are All Right
Carey Mulligan/Never Let Me Go
Gemma Arterton/The Disappearance Of Alice Creed

Gemma Arterton/Tamara Drewe

Hailee Steinfeld/True Grit

Jennifer Lawrence/Winter’s Bone

Julianne Moore/The Kids Are All Right
Michelle Williams/Blue Valentine
Natalie Portman/Black Swan
Nicole Kidman/Rabbit Hole

Noomi Rapace/The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Rosamund Pike/Barney’s Version

Sally Hawkins/Made In Dagenham

Tilda Swinton/I Am Love

Supporting Actor 

Andrew Garfield/The Social Network
Andrew Garfield/Never Let Me Go

Ben Kingsley/Shutter Island

Bill Murray/Get Low

Bob Hoskins/Made In Dagenham
Christian Bale/The Fighter
Dustin Hoffman/Barney’s Version

Geoffrey Rush/The King’s Speech
Guy Pearce/The King’s Speech

Jeremy Renner/The Town

Justin Timberlake/The Social Network

Mark Ruffalo/The Kids Are All Right 

Matt Damon/True Grit

Pete Postlethwaite/The Town

Vincent Cassel/Black Swan

Supporting Actress 

Amy Adams/The Fighter
Barbara Hershey/Black Swan
Ellen Page/Inception

Geraldine James/Made In Dagenham

Helena Bonham Carter/The King’s Speech

Helena Bonham Carter/Alice In Wonderland

Lesley Manville/Another Year
Marion Cotillard/Inception

Melissa Leo/The Fighter

Mila Kunis/Black Swan

Miranda Richardson/Made In Dagenham
Olivia Williams/The Ghost

Rebecca Hall/The Town

Rosamund Pike/Made In Dagenham

Winona Ryder/Black Swan

Original Screenplay

Another Year

Biutiful

Black Swan

Blue Valentine

The Disappearance Of Alice Creed

The Fighter

Four Lions

Get Low

Hereafter

I Am Love

Inception
The Kids Are All Right

The King’s Speech
Made In Dagenham

Of Gods and Men

Adapted Screenplay

127 Hours
Alice In Wonderland

Barney’s Version

Brighton Rock

Despicable Me

The Ghost

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Never Let Me Go

Rabbit Hole

Shutter Island

The Social Network
The Town

Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter’s Bone

Animated Film
Chico & Rita

Despicable Me
How To Train Your Dragon 

The Illusionist
Toy Story 3

Movie producers/writers name their favourites

The Producers Guild of America and the Writers Guild of America have both announced their favourite films of 2010.

The producers' long list for the Darryl F Zanuck Award looks like this:
• 127 Hours
• Black Swan
• Inception
• The Fighter
• The Kids Are All Right
• The King’s Speech
• The Social Network
• The Town
• Toy Story 3
• True Grit

The producers' shortlist for animated films looks like this:
• Despicable Me
• How To Train You Dragon
• Toy Story 3

Yes, that's right TS3 is nominated in both categories. Notable omissions include Peter Weir's The Way Back, arguably one of the more difficult quality, awards-worthy movies to produce. And it's intriguing that the only directors to be named as producers
are: Danny Boyle, Chris Nolan and the Coens.

Meanwhile, the WGA is courting controversy by only acknowledging productions that are Guild signatories or those that filmed under agreement with an international WGA affiliate, so The King's Speech (demonstrably one of the best scripts of 2010) does not qualify. Here's the WGA's nominees for original screenplay:
• Black Swan
• The Fighter
• Inception
• The Kids Are All Right
• Please Give

The WGA's nominees for adapted screenplay are:
• 127 Hours
• I Love You Phillip Morris
• The Social Network
• The Town
• True Grit

The PGA will announce its winners on 22 January, while the WGA winners will be declared on 5 February.

Review: Love & Other Drugs

A curio by any other name, Love & Other Drugs is something of a departure for writer/director Ed Zwick. His love of the epic spills over into this would-be anti-rom-com come pharma industry critique. The film's structure is determined by rom-com genre rules but then he layers on top anti-capitalist moralising, disease of the week, farce and bromance.

The tonal shifts are frequent - and frequently jarring. And, let's be frank, this is cheese.

And yet the two leads, Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal have a genuinely believable chemistry and a level of realistic casual intimacy that lifts the film beyond the cheese and Zwick's misjudgments (lose the 'emotive' score please - the actors are that good so let them carry the scene!). Fo example, Gyllenhaal's failure to, er, rise to the occasion, their reactions to this shock, and Hathaway's subsequent coaxing of him is a first in a Hollywood film: the scene is comedic, tragic, dramatic and redemptive and flawlessly showcases the characters' psyches. Much has been made of Hathaway's nudity, but don't be misled: this is not Hollywood's princess going hardcore, more a refreshing case of casual nudity that new lovers are comfortable with (there's little of the 'let's shag each other's brains out and then I'll climb out of bed with the duvet covering me' nonsense). Nor do the sex scenes break new ground: we're not talking Brando and the butter here; there's only a hint of anything other than missionary; and while world cinema is increasingly pushing the boundaries of cinematic sex by making it as realistic as possible, Zwick falls back on soft focus/slow motion overly choreographed shame-induced pretence with one or two notable exceptions - the opening moments of the entirely lust-driven first tryst; and her orgasm the first time they 'make love'. Zwick is clearly not comfortable with approaching the levels that David Lynch, David Cronenberg and Julio Medem attain in eroticism and using sex as key part of character development.

The leads' Golden Globe noms are entirely justified: Gyllenhaal is by turns all charm and emotionally constipated; Hathaway, especially after Rachel Getting Married, is the go-to-gal for young women who live for the moment/are consumed by self-loathing. Her performance doesn't rely on Hoffman/de Niro-esque disease of the week tics.

It will be intriguing to see the deleted scenes on the DVD: the much talked about post-orgasmic stretch Hathaway enjoys would have added further understanding of her character's condition.

I don't deny the film had added impact for me because Hathaway's character is reminiscent of so many of my exes in all their glory.

I took a chance on this and it was worth it. If you’re expecting a cheesy rom-com, you’ll be challenged and disappointed. If you're a hardcore Hathaway fan, this is a must. If you’re intrigued by a bunch of mainstream talent misfiring on a would-be counter culture experimental subversion of mainstream norms, it is worth a shot. But I can't help feeling there is a more interesting, more challenging film to be found on the DVD; if there isn't, Zwick is just plain guilty of not trying hard enough. There is something to be said for a committed breakdown of mainstream movie norms, but here Zwick is just not committed enough.
Score: 6.5/10

Box office review 2010

Avatar was, not unexpectedly, the most successful film at the worldwide box office in 2010, raking in nearly $2bn. Its influence was massive: it’s no coincidence that the second and third biggest films, Toy Story 3 and Alice In Wonderland, were the featured 3D trailers screened before Avatar in most cinemas in the world. How else do you explain Alice pulling in $1bn???

In the UK, Avatar’s monstrous success was not enough to hold off TS3 – a whopping £73.4m for the kids film that made men cry. Although Avatar did take another near £30m at the end of 2009, meaning it is the most successful film at the UK box office ever.

Shortly before Xmas, the boy wizard overtook Alice, which may sound good, but it’s clear that Potter fatigue is setting in: HP7 has not yet reached the levels of HP6.
Inception showed tremendous legs, powering ahead of Shrek 4.

The third Twilight movie was 10% than the previous instalment, significantly ahead of the World Cup counter-programming success of the year: SATC 2, which while falling short of the $26m of the original two years before, dragged hordes of women to the cinema while the men watched football. Iron Man 2 and Clash of the Titans round out the UK top 10.

Tony Stark maintained his US focus, coming in fourth at the domestic box office, but crucially didn’t beat the $318m haul of his first instalment. The Twilight saga continued to grow, while Inception showed great legs in the US too. HP 7 disappointed and bodes relative ill for the final final instalment of the franchise.

Despicable Me performed notably well in the US, having been released in the summer holidays rather than the autumn and winter for the rest of the worldwide (although that release strategy was necessary to avoid the TS3 steamroller); it only just missed the UK top 10.

Shrek 4 only just beat How To Train Your Dragon; the latter emerged as the year’s most surprising hit (and most surprisingly well reviewed too).

The international market produced few surprises: Avatar, then Alice and TS3. HP 7 ranked fourth, ahead of Inception. The unwelcome Shrek 4 still crossed the $500m barrier, while Eclipse only just, er, eclipsed New Moon’s take of $391m. Clash of the Titans was one of the big hits to skew heavily towards the international market (ie it didn't perform as well as it should in the US) with 67% of its take coming from the rest of the world. Iron Man 2 was fully 20% more successful than its predecessor. Despicable Me rounded out the top 10.

Overall, the top three films in the world – and many of the other big hits – were powered by the premium ticket prices charged for 3D and/or IMAX screenings. Since Avatar, producers of event movies have been wrestling with the conundrum of 3D, especially those that were already in production while Avatar was on release and realising those big numbers: complete the production in 2D and then transfer to 3D, or continue the 2D production, but shoot some scenes in 3D, or stick with 2D? Chris Nolan, who used IMAX to such dramatic effect in Dark Knight, has already declared that Bats 3 will be 2D IMAX, but not 3D; meanwhile, Thor – shot in 2D – will be presented in 3D…

UK
Toy Story 3 £73.4m
Avatar £66.5m
Harry Potter 7 £48m
Alice In Wonderland £42.2m
Inception £35.2m
Shrek 4 £31.1m
Twilight: Eclipse £29.3m
Sex And The City 2 £21.6m
Iron Man 2 £20.9m
The Clash of the Titans £20.1m

US
Avatar $454.7m
Toy Story 3 $415m
Alice In Wonderland $334.2m
Iron Man 2 $312.1m
Twilight: Eclipse $300.5m
Inception $292.5m
Harry Potter 7 $280.1m
Despicable Me $251.2m
Shrek 4 $238.4m
How To Train Your Dragon $217.6m

International
Avatar $1495.7m
Alice In Wonderland $690.2m
Toy Story 3 $649.2m
Harry Potter 7 $610m
Inception $531m
Shrek 4 $503.5m
Twilight: Eclipse $394m
The Clash of the Titans $330m
Iron Man 2 $311m
Despicable Me $290m

Worldwide
Avatar $1947.4m
Toy Story 3 $1064.2m
Alice In Wonderland $1024.2m
Harry Potter 7 $890.1m
Inception $823.5m
Shrek 4 $741.9m
Twilight: Eclipse $694.5m
Iron Man 2 $623.1m
Despicable Me $540.8m
How To Train Your Dragon $495.1m