London Film Festival: the best part 2

So, here’s the second half of my London Film Festival 2012 top 10.

Blood

This Wirral-based policier features a star turn from Paul Bettany and marks an impressive follow-up to The Awakening for director Nick Murphy.

This dark, moodily-lit drama is styled as a fable, musing on masculinity and morality: Murphy’s Joe Fairburn is hard-nosed and hard-drinking detective who wants the big cases; he works with his brother, in the same team that their now Alzheimer’s-ridden father used to run.

Still scarred from failing to catch the child-killer in a previous case, he is very keen to nail the killer this time round and preferably ASAP.

Through a combination of rumours, Chinese whispers, assumptions and his own need to dispense justice and absolve himself of his lingering guilt, he takes matters into his own hands in a moment of anger.

The film then charts his descent as the horror of his mistake comes home to roost.

Support is top notch from Stephen Graham (as Bettany’s brother), Brian Cox (as Bettany’s father), and Mark Strong as the only detective on the team who uses his brain rather his brawn to solve a case.

The film looks fabulous: indeed the clarity of presentation was absolutely stunning. The choice of locations and production design emphasise the story’s fable-like qualities.

Strong stuff and certainly not a happy film, but one I’m happy to endorse. I cant wait for the next Nick Murphy feature.

Score: 8/10

No release set yet.

  

End of Watch

I do not recall the last time a film gripped me as much as End Of Watch. Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena star as two police officers charged with patrolling the meanest streets of LA. We gatecrash their world: the film kicks off with a car chase and shoot-out witnessed by their in-car camera. It is FULL ON!

Director David Ayers (he wrote Training Day) uses a number of different POVs to tell his story, heightening the story’s sensory impact: in-car POV, surveillance cameras, personal cameras, etc. However, he doesn’t follow this through to shoot the entire film from real POVs and does fall back on third person narration positioning shots.

The film moves at an almost breathless pace from case to case, but always makes time for Gyllenhaal’s and Pena’s in-car chats, building the audience’s rapport and empathy with the heroes. The performances are so good that one can only assume that the two are great friends in real life: they are quite possibly the best buddy team since Newman and Redford.

The rapport the two have with each other and the increasing empathy we feel for them only serves to heighten the tension as their derring dos drive them into ever more treacherous waters: you’re never quite sure where the next gunshot will come from.

There are a few time-outs from the action for parties and marriages, but they simply make us more concerned for our heroes as they face the final, visceral shoot-out.

The conclusion is unexpected, as is the formal conclusion.

Stay for the end titles as there is a final clip of the heroes chatting that adds further context to the conclusion.

Score: 9/10

Opens 23 November.

  

Robot And Frank

This was quite possibly the most charming film of the festival. The very great Frank Langella plays a cat burgular in his later years, suffering from memory loss. His son, concerned about his father’s condition but living too far away to offer close and constant care, invests in a healthcare robot to look after him.

Naturally, Langella doesn’t take kindly to the robot being thrust upon him but after a few awkward steps a relationship slowly builds between the two – to such an extent that the robot and Frank become quite the professional pair.

How Susan Sarandon’s librarian and a local developer work into the script is best left to you to find out.

While clearly riffing on The Odd Couple with its gentle comedy of opposites, the film reflects not only on old age and loneliness, but also on the advance of technology and how easy it is to get left behind.

The film’s UK release date suggests that the distributors are hopeful of multiple awards noms for Langella; for what it’s worth, Frank will be in the running for the Golden Stans.

Score: 8.5/10

Opens 8 March 2013.

Room 237

Think you’re a movie geek? Think again! How much do you think you know about Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining? What is it a metaphor for: the massacre of the American Indians or the holocaust or a heavy hint that the moon landing was faked by Kubrick with funding from the US government?

According to The Shining experts in this scintillating documentary, it’s all of the above and more.

Director Rodney Asher visualises their theories by using clips from both The Shining and other films by Kubrick in a witty and inventive way.

Some of the theories are quite bizarre, but Asher does not judge the validity of the theories nor their authors: he simply offers them up to the audience and invites us to judge for ourselves.

The Shining reappears in UK cinemas in time for Halloween in the full US cut never seen before on UK screens. 

Score: 8/10

Opens 26 November.

Song For Marion

This year’s blub-fest, Song For Marion could be 2013’s Exotic Best Marigold Hotel and its key participants are primed for BAFTA noms.

If you’ve read my blog before, you’ll know that I have a deep-seated fear of ill health and mental frailty brought on by old age, so this story of terminally-ill Vanessa Redgrave, her singing classes and her embittered husband Terence Stamp’s opposition to those classes skewered me very early on.

Treading on territory previously essayed by Brassed Off and The Full Monty, Song For Marion’s plot is 99% predictable, but this film is all about how it gets to where it’s going, not the destination itself. The raw sentiment is not as mushy as it could be, the laughs are as good as you could hope for, and the tragedy and the triumph are played out with commendable restraint.

Redgrave and Stamp will be front and centre at the BAFTAs. They bring considerable gravitas to the film, while the key supporting cast of Gemma Arterton (the seemingly unrelentingly positive singing instructor) and Christopher Eccleston (as Redgrave and Stamp’s son) are splendid too.

This is not great art: it is quite simply a traditional crowd pleaser and one of those rare opportunities to bask in the glow of Mr Stamp. Don’t wait for the DVD; see it at the cinema.

Score: 8/10

Opens 8 February 2013.

The first half of my top 10 included Argo, Compliance, Kiss Of The Damned, Seven Psychopaths and Sightseers.

London Film Festival 2012: the best part 1

I saw 26 films at the recent London Film Festival and 10 new films really stood out. For whatever reason, there were fewer big films and more small films: that’s not necessarily a criticism, but certainly an all-too-clear observation.

There follows the first half of my 10 favourite new films that premiered at the festival. The entire top 10 are linked by a strong personal vision from the director about what the film should be and by delicious fusions of genres.

Argo

Cracking entertainment from Ben Affleck: this should finally lay to waste his lost years of Hollywood star vacuous vanity.

This true story of how the CIA got six Americans out of Tehran during the Iranian revolution is dramatic, gripping and funny. As time counts down to the Iranians realising that the six embassy staff escaped before their embassy was seized, the CIA is left with nothing but bad ideas to get the six out. The best bad idea is for CIA agent Tony Mendez (Affleck in full stoic Eastwood mode) to set up a fake sci-fi movie and then land in Tehran on a location scout and while there generate fake movie identities for the six.

The script keeps the fate of the six clearly front and centre even as Affleck’s Mendez strives to set up his space opera with a known producer with hilarious results courtesy of special effects guru John Goodman and producer Alan Arkin (“If I’m going to make a fake movie, it’s going to be a fake hit!”).

The final countdown, as Affleck and the six race to get out of Iran, is utterly gripping, and drew all-too audible reactions from the mesmerized audience.

Everything about Argo is top quality, including top work from cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto and composer Alexandre Desplat.

The question for Argo is: what legacy will it leave? A new generation of geek t-shirts focusing on the fictional space opera? Awards glory for Affleck and his crew? Certainly it reminds us all that Affleck has moved on and is a talent to watch.

Score: 9/10

Opens 7 November.

Compliance

Compelling and shocking, this based-on-a-true-story indie will detonate like a flash bomb among the chattering classes.

Streamlined and lean, Compliance goes for the jugular and absolutely will not let go as the bizarre story escalates into surprises that are ever-more surprising than the last surprise twist.

In brief, we are introduced to Ann Dowd’s fast food joint manager. One Friday evening she receives a call from a man identifying himself as a police officer stating that a member of her counter staff has stolen a customer’s purse; he asks her to take the counter-girl to one side and question her for him… and so the nightmare starts.

Dunkini and I were left dumbstruck and slack-jawed by what ensues: it’s completely unbelievable – but the script is absolutely true.

The unknown leading players are simply superb, all suffering greatly at the hands of the script’s twists and turns.

This is one of those films that you can not have an opinion about unless you see it.

Score: 9/10

No UK release set yet.

Kiss Of The Damned

With echoes of Black Swan as well as modern vampire greats (Anne Rice’s operatic Interview With The Vampire and the sex and gritty reality of Trueblood), this stylish and stylised gothic romantic tragedy surfs the wave of vampire popularity with panache and a ‘harder’ approach.

Boy (Milo Ventimiglia from Heroes) meets beautiful woman in bar (Josephine de la Baume); beautiful woman plays hard to get because she’s a ‘good’ vampire (she doesn’t feed on humans); nevertheless they fall for each other, she turns him and then her wildchild sister (Roxane Mesquida strongly echoing Mila Kunis’s turn in Black Swan) arrives to stir things up.

Chaos, madness and death ensue – but which sister has chosen the right path for eternal living?

Compellingly shot, Kiss does attempt to have its cake and eat it – and for the most part succeeds. Written and directed by Xan Cassavetes (yes, John’s daughter making her feature film directorial debut), the film is notable for its focus on women and its largely successful attempt to envelope the audience within a vampire’s heightened senses.

It’s as hardcore as Trueblood but with a more erotic edge (some reviewer somewhere will describe this as combining Twilight with 50 Shades of Grey, but not me!) and it certainly adds at least one new idea to vampire physiology that goes counter to Anne Rice’s take.

Score: 9/10

No UK release date set

Seven Psychopaths

How do you follow up In Bruges? That was writer-director Martin McDonagh’s task and he offers this ambitious gem in response.

It’s not as funny and shocking as In Bruges, but it stretches him and the audience. Colin Farrell is the alcoholic Hollywood screenwriter suffering writer’s bloc while working on his latest script, Seven Psychopaths, which he wants to be about peace not violence. His best friend is Sam Rockwell, who desperately wants his friend to overcome  his bloc – preferably by getting Rockwell to help him.

Rockwell earns a crust through dogknaping from the rich; his partner in crime is Christopher Walken. When they dogknap the shih tzu belonging to Woody Harrelson’s mob boss, only chaos and widespread murder can ensue. Oh, and this being a McDonagh script, there’s plenty of quality profanity and non-PC gags.

All four actors are well within their comfort zones, but sink their teeth into McDonagh’s dialogue with gusto.

Highly recommended.

Score: 8.5/10

Opens 7 December.

Sightseers

Wickedly and blackly funny, splendidly violent and gory: Sightseers made me laugh like a drain. Fresh from the buzz generated by his previous effort, Kill List, director Ben Wheatley delivers a cult crowd pleaser that could, with the right marketing, cross over into Hot Fuzz levels of success.

Written by its stars, Alice Lowe and Steve Oram, the film focuses on two strange souls Tina and Chris, now three months into their relationship, who go on a caravanning holiday, stopping off at various British tourist spots.

A fatal early encounter with a holiday-maker with less than perfect manners reveals Chris’s inner demons. When Tina realises that her man is a serial killer, she must make the choice: leave the only man who’s ever taken any interest in her or join in his hobby…

This is a cross between Bonnie and Clyde, The Trip and Nuts In May. I heartily recommend it to anyone with a strong stomach!

Score: 9/10

Opens 30 November. 

Prometheus: the review

Marvel’s Avengers, the conclusion of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, Sam Mendes’ apparently not controversial take on Bond: three films heavy with expectation and subject to intense scrutiny.

Trumping all of them is of course Prometheus, Ridley Scott’s return to the film that made his name. Blessed with the best trailer of the year and a level of secrecy that served only to heighten expectations, Prometheus (arguably like The Dark Knight Rises) is surely condemned to fail – it simply cannot be as good as the fans and critics want it to be.

And this fan and would-be-critic had lofty hopes for the film, given the astonishing trailer and Ridley’s own pronouncements on the theme(s) of the film. Of course the film falls short of my imagined benchmark – but that does not make it a bad film.

I must be clear: I’m a huge fan of Alien, every single aspect of the film is exquisite; I love Aliens, quite simply one of James Cameron’s best films and a worthy sequel (by dint of being entirely different to its predecessor); and I enjoyed Alien3 for it contains much to be admired. Clearly Alien 4 adds little to the canon.

Indeed ‘canon’ is the crucial element here and the hook to Prometheus: we all witnessed the so-called Space Jockey skeleton in Alien shortly before John Hurt came to face-to-face with a face-hugger, and if not the biggest cinematic question of the last 33 years, there’s always been that nagging doubt – who or what is the Space Jockey and how and why did it die?

Prometheus’ basic premise hinges on that question and then expands on it to provide a direct link into Alien. The characters in the film ask several different questions, many of which go frustratingly unanswered. A key plot point effectively established in the trailer is confirmed for the viewer in the opening scene – so that’s a big narrative shock that is simply dismissed – but why the antagonist in that scene does what he does is never revealed.

Indeed, the ‘why’ question is the one question to virtually every topic raised in and by the film and yet it goes consistently unanswered. Why did our creators create us and why do they seem intent on destroying us?

Those interested in the alien’s biology and its life-cycle will find themselves confused by Prometheus: yet more questions are raised than answers given.

What Ridley does give the audience is of course a fully realised future – and much more so than James Cameron’s Avatar. There’s nary a shot that’s not sumptuous nor studiously yet effortlessly composed. The design of the Prometheus and its descent through the clouds are pure sci-fi porn. All the tech and hardware is utterly believable, the CGI almost impossible to spot, and the 3D imaging frequently breath-taking. Frankly, it destroys Avatar.

The film’s story being what it is, we know from the start that no character is likely to meet a happy end, nevertheless this is no body horror/frightfest. There are scares – the first appearance of the antecedent of the face-hugger and the removal of the first alien insemination, the latter of which had me squirming out of my seat, for example – but Prometheus has not been created to be the lean, mean machine that Alien was.

One of the elements that raised the original above its B-movie story origins was the time it took to establish its characters and the stunning cast in place to bring them to life. Prometheus fails to reprise this success: Charlize Theron convinces in her ice queen role, but I’m not sure her character is convincing; ditto Noomi Rapace as one of the scientists leading the expedition (her journey from hippy space cadet to lab rat to Ripley-esque jars); and Idris Elba is under-used as Prometheus’ captain. Almost inevitably what acting honours available go to Michael Fassbender as the impossible-to-read android David, who in a nod to his maker’s favourite film, adopts the hairstyle, tone and cut of Peter O’Toole’s TE Lawrence. David is the film’s stand-out character and is an intriguing addition to cinema’s rich robot history.

And to an extent here is one of the film’s weaknesses: the first three Alien films are three-way confrontations between the alien’s pyscho-sexual assault, the men who would seek to control it or kill it, and the one woman who must overcome the latter before she can conquer the former – namely Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley. Without her, an Alien film is inherently weaker.

I will see the film a second time, so the score below may yet change.

Score: 7.5/10

And the 2012 Oscar went to...

So The Artist did it: five Oscars – Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Score and Best Costumes.

But its haul only matched that of Hugo, which cleaned up in the technical categories: Art Direction, Cinematography, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, and Visual Effects.

However Hugo did not secure the Best Editing award: that went to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

Predictably, Woody Allen won Best Original Screenplay for Midnight In Paris, while The Descendants secured its only Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

The Supporting Actor categories went to the unbeatable Christopher Plummer and Octavia Spencer. Rango picked up Best Animated Film.

Shocks? Meryl Streep securing her third Oscar for a performance that many did not rate in The Iron Lady (which also won Best Make-up), and the Academy not going mad (like it usually does) with the Best Foreign Film by rightly placing A Separation at the top of the heap.

The Artist: more wins en route to Oscar

The Artist’s winning run continued at the Cesars and the Independent Spirit Awards, securing another 10 gongs.

In France, The Artist picked up six on Friday at its native Cesars: Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Production Design and Best Score. But Jean Dujardin didn’t win Best Actor!

Then on Saturday at the Spirit Awards, it secured: Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Cinematography.

Were The Artist to beaten at the Oscars would be the biggest awards upset in many years. According to Wikipedia, it’s won 25 Best Film awards

Also faring well at the Spirits: Christopher Plummer (Best Supporting Actor for Beginners); Shailene Woodley (Best Supporting Actress for The Descendants); and Michelle Williams (Best Actress for My Week With Marilyn).

BAFTA 2012: The Artist prevails

There is awards momentum… and then there is a steamroller. The Artist simply and silently steamrollered the opposition at the 2012 BAFTAs, snaring 7 gongs in the process, including Best Film, Director and Actor.

The Artist is the first truly foreign film to win the top BAFTA since Jean de Florette in 1988 (although I concede that Polanski’s The Pianist won in 2003, but that’s shot in English with a mainstream English-speaking lead). Jean Dujardin becomes the first foreign (ie English is not his first language) winner of the Best Actor gong since Roberto Benigni, and the first French winner since Philippe Noiret in 1990 (for Cinema Paradiso).

With £5.3m at the UK box office (already more than Hugo), it’s unclear how much further a black and white, silent French film can go. With two weeks to go until the Oscars, my estimate is that The Artist will cross the £10m barrier, but I can’t see it matching erstwhile BAFTA rival TTSS’s £14.1m.

The British spy story joined Hugo, and The Iron Lady on two gongs apiece. The latter meant Meryl Streep’s first BAFTA since 1981.

Also picking up two awards was Senna: not only did it win Best Documentary but also Best Editing. Given it’s rather skewed look at F1 history, I’m surprised it qualified as a documentary!

Christopher Plummer predictably secured the Best Supporting Actor award for his role in Beginners, taking the number of awards he has won from that film to 14, with two more possible wins to come before awards season ends. It means Plummer has a 100% BAFTA record: he’s only been nominated once, and he’s converted that to the win.

Shock of the night? The Skin I Live In beating A Separation. That's just bizarre.

The Artist: Film, Actor, Director, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Costume, Original Score
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: Adapted Screenplay, British Film
The Iron Lady: Actress, Make-up & Hair
Senna: Documentary, Editing
Hugo: Production Design, Sound
Beginners: Supporting Actor
The Help: Supporting Actress
Rango: Animated Film
The Skin I Live In: Foreign Film
Harry Potter 8: Visual Effects

The Artist and The Help: ready for Oscar

The Artist and The Help gained seemingly unstoppable Oscar momentum at the weekend: The Artist triumphed at the Directors’ Guild of America Awards, while sharing the spotlight with The Help at the Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Artist director Michael Hasanavicius beat Woody Allen, David Fincher, Martin Scorsese and Alexander Payne to win the DGA trophy, cementing his position as favourite to win the Best Director Oscar.

His lead actor, Jean Dujardin won Best Actor at the SAG Awards, beating George Clooney. Only four SAG Best Actors have not secured the Best Actor Oscar, the last being Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote in 2005.

With The Artist already having secured the PGA’s vote, it is now the absolute favourite for the Best Film, Best Director and Best Actor Oscars.

Christopher Plummer continued his unbeaten run, taking the Best Supporting Actor SAG for his role in Beginners. If he fails to win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, I’ll eat someone’s hat.

The Help’s Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer locked out the female SAG honours, as well as being part of the ensemble that secured the SAG best cast award. As pointed out by The Hollywood Reporter, The Help has tied with Chicago and American Beauty for most wins at the SAGs, but while the latter pair swept to Oscar glory, The Help will need to be happy with being favourite for the two female Oscars.

Why? As the Reporter points out, no film that has not been nominated for Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Editing has gone on to win Best Film. But the thing in The Help’s favour is that it is by some distance the most commercially successful of all this year’s ‘proper’ Oscar nominees – ie it’s more likely Academy voters have seen The Help than any other film in contention. Nevertheless, I still don’t think that’s enough.

The next major awards ceremony is the BAFTAs on 12 February with the Oscars another fortnight later.

Review: War Horse

Let's get this straight from the start: the Tintin/War Horse double does not repeat Steven Spielberg's 1993/1994 double whammy of Jurassic Park and Schindler's List (the former enormo box office and the latter Oscar kudos).

Tintin is occasionally inspired yet sometimes leaden; embraced wholeheartedly by the French and the Belgians, the boy detective has met with critical support but the commercial cold shoulder from many territories, proving that even Spielberg's and Peter Jackson's names can't convince audiences to take a punt on a character they've never heard of.

War Horse has not crossed over in the US - undoubtedly the lack of awards nominations and wins has hampered it, especially as it positively screams 'Im an Oscar contender!'

The film has of course performed much better in the UK: straight in at number one two weekends ago with £4m, and then it held on to the top spot last weekend with only a small drop. This performance is clearly aided by the play's success in the UK, although without awards success, it will be intriguing to see if the film can maintain its box office momentum over the next fortnight.

As with elsewhere in the world, UK critical response has been varied: laudatory to mediocre paints the picture well enough. The combination of Spielberg and a well-loved text/play generates high expectations for many, me included.

And I can report that there are moments of rare cinematic brilliance on show, but also some misjudgements the logic behind which are hard to fathom.

Spielberg decides to go for the emotional jugular from the very beginning: this is absolutely intended to be an old-fashioned four-hankie weepie as the titular equine hero bears witness not only to mankind's compassion but also its continued brutality. Fortunately the compassion just about outweighs the brutality - but only just.

Did I need the four hankies? God, yes! Our hero's first triumph brings a huge lump to the throat; the scene in no man's land leaves you grieving for the generation that fell in the fields across Europe (while throwing in one moment of mordant wit that nearly broke me); and the finale competes with The Return Of The King for the most endings pregnant with emotion (even as I write this, there's a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye from just recalling those scenes).

The WWI battle scenes are not in the Private Ryan territory as this is a family film (this is the first time that Spielberg has tackled the Great War), and I’m bound to compare his trench scenes with Kubrick’s Paths Of Glory (and Stanley’s are better).

From a massive European cast, Tom Hiddleston takes my man of the match trophy for his performance as Captain Nicholls. Peter Mullan and Emily Watson also deserve mentions in dispatches.

Cinematographer Janusz Kaminski delivers some incredible images, but is also guilty of over-egging, and at one or two points the lighting is just appalling.

John Williams almost inevitably lays the score on a bit thick in places.

At its best, War Horse soars and is a 10, but elsewhere it’s disappointing, almost as if Spielberg and his team were rushed (and they weren’t), and thus my score must reflect this.
Score: 8/10

Oscar nominations 2012

Oscar has gone crazy! It’s official! The headlines may reveal that Hugo leads The Artist by 11 nominations to 10, but the real story is the omissions and surprise nods.

The highlights among the former are:
• Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy not nominated for Best Film.
• Neither Tilda Swinton (We Need To Talk About Kevin) nor Charlize Theron (Young Adult) for Best Actress.
• Ryan Gosling (The Ides Of March and Drive), Michael Fassbender (the actor of the year, but especially for Shame) and Leonardo diCaprio (for Clint’s J Edgar) not making the Best Actor list.
• None of the cast of Carnage being recognised.
• Neither Vanessa Redgrave (Coriolanus), Carey Mulligan (Shame and Drive), nor Shailene Woodley (The Descendants) making the Supporting Actress shortlist.
• Albert Brooks, widely rewarded for his performance in Drive, not making the Supporting Actor list.
• Neither Cars 2 nor Tintin making the cut for Animated Film.
• Neither Senna nor Scorsese’s George Harrison study making the cut of for the Documentary category.

Among the surprises are:
• The poorly reviewed Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close making the Best Film and Best Supporting Actor (for Max von Sydow) lists.
• The Tree Of Life being recognised for Film, Director and Cinematography.
• Rooney Mara (rightly) getting a nom for Dragon Tattoo.
• Demian Bichir getting on the Best Actor list.
• Nick Nolte making the cut on Supporting Actor for Warrior (this is probably the most leftfield nom this year).
• Both Margin Call and A Separation being nominated for Original Screenplay.
• A Cat In Paris and Chico & Rita getting on the Animated shortlist.

And what of 2011’s most commercially successful films? The Harry Potter finale picked up three craft/tech noms; ditto Transformers 3.

If we assume that the only Oscars that persuade people to see a (English-speaking) film are the major ones (Film, Director, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Original Screenplay, and Adapted Screenplay), then the field looks like this:
• Albert Nobbs: 2
• The Artist: 5
• Beginners: 1
• A Better Life: 1
• Bridesmaids: 2
• The Descendants: 4
• Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close: 2
• The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo: 2
• The Help: 4
• Hugo: 3
• Margin Call: 1
• Midnight In Paris: 3
• Moneyball: 3
• My Week With Marilyn: 2
• A Separation: 1
• Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: 2
• The Tree Of Life: 2
• War Horse: 1
• Warrior: 1
Now that’s more representative the state of play! It’s The Artists versus The Descendants.

OK, money on the table time: of the top 10 categories, who will win each?
Animated Film: Rango

Foreign Film: A Separation

Adapted Screenplay: The Descendants

Original Screenplay: Midnight In Paris

Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer, The Help

Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer, Beginners

Actress: this is a three-way fight between Viola Davis, Meryl Streep and Michelle Williams; each has factors in their favour – Davis’s character suffered in the most commercially successful ‘serious’ Oscar nominee, Streep’s performance is freshest in the mind, and Williams delivered probably the best performance as a Hollywood star; I’m going with Williams.

Actor: this is a showdown between Clooney and Dujardin; the former is an old school star while the latter is someone pretending to be an old school star; the latter leaps off the screen, the former slowburns; the former has a Supporting Actor Oscar at home for Syriana and two Best Actor noms to his name, the latter is a new face; I think Hollywood will reward its own, so step up George.

Director: if it’s The Artist’s night, Hazanavicius will take this, but in bringing ‘art’ to 3D, Scorsese must be considered his most serious rival; the outcome could depend on momentum – something Hugo hasn’t got, so it’s Michael Hazanavicius.

Film: the big one is a battle royale between The Descendants and The Artist; as with the previous category, The Artist is the one with the momentum; I’m so confident of my prediction here that I will buy a drink for all my work colleagues if the following film doesn’t win: The Artist.

The Artist continued its march to seeming Oscar glory this weekend as it walked off with the Producers’ Guild of America’s big award: its producer Thomas Langmann won the Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures.

The Artist beat the following:
Bridemaids
The Descendants
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
The Help
Hugo
The Ides Of March
Midnight In Paris
Moneyball
War Horse

As well as scooping the PGA’s top prize, The Artist’s weekend box office nearly doubled over the previous weekend to $2.4m, giving it a running total of $12.1m. With the Oscar noms due on Tuesday, the film’s momentum is surely set to increase.

While his War Horse failed to convince, Steven Spielberg, with Kathleen Kennedy and Peter Jackson secured the Award for Outstanding Producer of Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures for their other adaptation, Tintin. It has struggled at the US box office (just $72.3m to date and running out of steam; $278.8m banked in the rest of the world) due to Tintin being an unknown property, however awards success may help to keep it on the boil for a few more weeks.

For the record, Tintin beat: Cars 2; Kung Fu Panda 2; Puss In Boots; and Rango.

Review: Shame

Shame: where to start with this one? Let’s start with the obvious: Michael Fassbender in the title role of a sexaholic is simply astonishing. He delivers one of the greatest performances I’ve ever seen: he is completely taken over by the character. Whatever awards he does win – and given the strong nature of the film’s content, he may struggle for wins – he will absolutely deserve. The film hinges entirely upon Fassbender’s intensity – I can’t think of another actor who could carry this role.

The film is unsettling and bleak in its observation of Brandon, a well-off New Yorker who works, eats, sleeps and sates his considerable sexual appetite with shocking regularity. That appetite is never sated with the same woman twice, and as Brandon descends into his own sexual hell, it becomes clear anything goes.

The film’s numerous sex scenes are in no way erotic – and rightly so as we are effectively watching a man drink himself to death through sex. The look on his face at his climax in the tragic threesome trumps Cronenberg’s entire portfolio and is the very definition of sex as self-loathing.

Unfortunately, to discuss Brandon any further is to reveal key plot points. Needless to say, my friend Rod and I discussed the film for a full hour after the lights came back on.

The film is marked out not only by Fassbender’s astonishing performance, but also excellent camera work from Sean Bobbit (who worked with director/co-writer Steve McQueen on Hunger), notably that long single takes are favoured throughout. One of the most uncomfortable scenes of the entire film is the slow performance of New York, New York by Brandon’s lounge bar singer sister Sissy (played perfectly by Carey Mulligan): virtually nothing happens, and yet everything happens.

Brandon’s and Sissy’s behaviour and character traits carry heavy hints of childhood abuse (among other horrors), but almost frustratingly the film never reveals the source of their broken lives.

The film is bookended by scenes on the subway as Brandon stares intently at a young woman, focusing on his prey. At the start, his confidence and unrelenting lasciviousness are startling, but at the close, his confusion hints of either a journey to redemption or a swift descent back into hell – neither he nor we know how he will react.

I’m not sure McQueen succeeds in creating his stated desire: a film that makes us talk about sex addiction because it’s the elephant in the room. I don’t see Brandon as an Everyman – his traits are not mankind’s writ large. Nor does the film debate the sexualisation of civilisation as it is openly focussed on sex addiction only – although clearly there is a causal link between the former and the latter.

Whatever, Shame is a raw, vital work that demands to be seen.
Score: 8/10

Baftas 2012: neither fish nor fowl

The 2012 BAFTA nominations are all over the shop: slaving to convention and going off the beaten track at the same time.

The big news is that BAFTA has backed Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy to the tune of 11 noms, just behind The Artist with 12. And these are the two that will be slugging it out for the big victory on the night.

The ultra-violent Drive has secured an unfathomable four noms.

Other unpleasant shocks: Coriolanus gets just one nom; Midnight In Paris gains one nom only; War Horse has only secured technical recognition; and Arthur Christmas will surely use home advantage over Spielberg's other film, Tintin, in the Animated Film category; Ryan Gosling is not recognised for Ides Of March (nor for Drive), but supporting co-star Philip Seymour Hoffman is.

From his four mentions on the longlist, George Clooney gets ‘only’ two on the shortlist: Best Actor for The Descendants and Best Adapted Screenplay for The Ides Of March.

Others with multiple longlist appearances also fared less well come the shortlist: DoP Phedon Papamichael not recognised for The Descendants nor The Ides Of March; and Alexandre Desplat’s scores for Ides and Harry Potter are ignored.

Back to those that made the cut: of the five nominees for Best Film, only two are on release; and of the five Best British Film nominees, two are already on DVD.

Conversion from longlist to shortlist
My Week With Marilyn: 16 to six
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: 16 to 11
The Iron Lady: 14 to four
The Artist: 13 to 12
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo: 13 to two
Midnight In Paris: 13 to one
War Horse: 13 to five
The Help: 12 to five
Hugo: 12 to nine
Drive: 11 to four
The Ides Of March: 11 to two
Harry Potter Deathly Hallows Part 2: 11 to four

Golden Globes 2012: bang on trend

Surprise, surprise: there were no surprises at the Golden Globes 2012! Well, OK, may be there was one: Meryl Streep securing the Best Actress (Drama) for The Iron Lady. I really thought Viola Davis in The Help was a slam dunk for that award, but there you go.

The Artist emerged the biggest winner with three awards including Best Film and Best Actor in the Comedy or Musical category, plus the Globe for Original Score. It ended Sunday in the US with a running total of $8.8m at the US box office and £1.9m in the UK , and with BAFTA noms on Tuesday and the Oscar noms in a week’s time, the silent, black and white French wonder now has huge earning potential before it.

Next up was The Descendants: Best Film (Drama) and Best Actor (Drama) for George Clooney (his third Globe). This ended Sunday with $47.1m; it should see a small surge for the next few weekends. These wins also arrive just ahead of its UK launch.

No other film secured more than one win.

Along with Streep, several other old-timers did well: Christopher Plummer, Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese to name all three.

The winners
The Artist: Best Film (Comedy or Musical); Best Actor (Comedy or Musical) – Jean Dujardin; and Original Score
The Descendants: Best Film (Drama); and Best Actor (Drama) – George Clooney
The Iron Lady: Best Actress (Drama) – Meryl Streep
Hugo: Best Director – Martin Scorsese
My Week With Marilyn: Best Actress (Comedy or Musical) – Michelle Williams
Beginners: Best Supporting Actor – Christopher Plummer
The Help: Best Supporting Actress – Octavia Spencer
Midnight In Paris: Best Screenplay
A Separation: Best Foreign Film
The Adventures of Tintin: Best Animated Film
W.E: Best Original Song

DGA Awards 2012

Directing movies: it’s an old man’s game! The Directors Guild of America has revealed its shortlist for 2012: and young directors are not welcome!

The line-up looks like this:
• Woody Allen for Midnight In Paris; his fifth DGA nom, and first since 1989. He won for Annie Hall.
• David Fincher for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo; his third DGA nom.
• Michael Hazanavicius for The Artist.
• Alexander Payne for The Descendants; his second DGA nom.
• Martin Scorsese for Hugo; his ninth DGA nom; won for The Departed (pur-lease!); was awarded the DGA’s lifetime achievement award in 2003.

Fincher is something of a surprise here, although given that Spielberg has probably let himself down with the Tintin/War Horse double bill and that Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’s Tomas Alfredson has yet to cross-over with Americans, this may be an example of the Guild realising that the modern American equivalent of Hitchcock remains unrecognised by the body that should be celebrating his work.

I still can’t see Oscar going for Fincher’s anal rape special though!

However, as has been pointed out many times before, the DGA award is a clear an indicator of Oscar success: 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.

Awards season: the crunch

So now we hit the nub of awards season: the National Board Review, followed by the Golden Globes, and then less than 48 hours later the BAFTA noms. Ahead of the Golden Globes, and with a fortnight until the Oscar noms, here’s a look at the box office performance of the leading contenders.

Why does this matter? Well, it’s been many years since some wise soul coined the phrase: “Hollywood loves a winner.” Tree Of Life: great art in many ways, but a snowball’s in hell chance of seeing any action at the Oscars.

So here are the main contenders:

• The Artist: $7.1m… and counting – it’s only playing on 172 screens in the US; still much to play for.
• The Descendants: $43.9m; already waning, but awards would see the distributor add more screens in a flash.
• The Help: $169m; the breakout hit of the year in the US – but dead everywhere else – has long-finished its theatrical run, but both Silence of the Lambs and Hurt Locker proved that a film already on video/DVD can win the Oscar.
• The Ides Of March: $40.9m; liberal critiques of politics don’t sell, but we love them anyway! Substantial re-release likely if it garners Globe wins/Oscar noms.
• Midnight In Paris: $56.4m; by far Woody Allen’s most successful movie in donkey’s years; may be too light too figure much at Oscar, but could yet charm the Globes.
• Moneyball: $75.3m; pretty much spent at the box office, both in the US and the rest of the world – US sports don’t travel well; it will be intriguing to see the impact of a Brad Pitt Best Actor victory at the Globes.
• Hugo: $52.6m – where did it all go wrong? Scorsese’s best film since Goodfellas! 3D as art rather than commerce! Universally loved! With a budget north of $150m, this is a shocker: just $64.5m worldwide. And yet that utter abortion that Scorsese finally won the Oscar for – The Departed – grossed $289.9m. Go effing figure…
• My Week With Marilyn: $10.5m; pretty much spent unless Michelle Williams beings home the Oscar.
• 50/50: $35m; brilliant movie and deserved winner of the best cancer comedy award – if only that was a real award! Still a contender in the Original Screenplay awards: Hollywood loves a cancer survivor!
• Bridesmaids: $169.1m banked and already on DVD. I can’t see Oscar or Globes going for it.
• War Horse: $56.9m; struggling a little with some laudatory reviews and some less than complimentary ones too.
• The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo: $76.9m. What do you know? The Americans do like double anal rape at Christmas! Fincher’s continued flirtation with mainstream success (Benjamin Button and Social Network) continues, but surely this is just a hollow thriller with no awards attraction? Isn’t it?
• Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: $10.1m. This just went wide in the US last weekend, pulling in $5.5m. Lack of Globes attention will affect it, but BAFTAs and Oscars will help. Could yet be the surprise of the awards season… Or the film most wronged!

BAFTA 2012: the long list

My Week With Marilyn and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy lead the BAFTA race at this very early stage with 16 nominations apiece, ahead of The Iron Lady on 14, and The Artist, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Midnight In Paris, and War Horse on 13.

However, as ever, the real news is who and what didn’t make the cut. Potentially the biggest shock is Vanessa Redgrave not being recognised for her role in Coriolanus: she’s already won the Golden Stan for Best Supporting Actress, but now there’s no chance of repeating that success at BAFTA.

Similarly, while her lead, Ralph Fiennes, was noted for his acting as the titular warmonger, he was not for his direction (and neither was DoP Barry Ackroyd).

The Tree of Life was noted only for its cinematography, while Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia received no recognition whatsoever.

There was no mention for Rebecca Hall and her outstanding turn in The Awakening, nor for anyone involved in The Deep Blue Sea (one of the best-reviewed films of the year, and in Rachel Weisz an obvious contender for Best Actress). Weisz's Deep Blue co-star Tom Hiddleston received no recognition for any of his performances (Thor, Archipelogo, and War Horse).

The two males in Carnage (John C Reilly and Christoph Waltz) went unmentioned while their female colleagues (Kate Winslet and Jodie Foster) made the cut.

Michael Fassbender was ‘only’ mentioned for his lead role in Shame – his other lead roles were ignored. And it is a similar story for Jessica Chastain: just one mention for The Help.

George Clooney is mentioned four times: Best Actor for The Descendants, and Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor for The Ides Of March.

Clooney’s Ides co-star Ryan Gosling is mentioned for both Ides and Drive. His Drive co-star Carey Mulligan is recognised for Drive and Shame.

Martin Scorsese has two films in contention for honours: Hugo (12 mentions) and his George Harrison biography is up for Best Documentary. Same story for Steven Spielberg: he’s got War Horse and Tintin (in the running for Best Animated Film).

Another two-timer is Phedon Papamichael: his cinematography is recognised on both The Descendants and The Ides Of March. Alexandre Desplat’s scores in Ides and Harry Potter are also mentioned.

The best-performing films
My Week With Marilyn - 16
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - 16
The Iron Lady – 14
The Artist - 13
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - 13
Midnight In Paris - 13
War Horse – 13
The Help - 12
Hugo – 12
Drive – 11
The Ides Of March – 11
Harry Potter Deathly Hallows – Part 2 – 11

The main categories
The Artist

The Descendants

Drive

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Help

Hugo

The Ides of March

The Iron Lady

Midnight in Paris

Moneyball

My Week with Marilyn

Senna

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

War Horse

We Need to Talk About Kevin

Best Actor
Antonio Banderas - The Skin I Live In

Brad Pitt – Moneyball
Brendan Gleeson - The Guard

Daniel Craig - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Eddie Redmayne - My Week with Marilyn

Gary Oldman - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
George Clooney - The Descendants

Jean Dujardin - The Artist

Leonardo DiCaprio - J. Edgar

Michael Fassbender - Shame

Owen Wilson - Midnight in Paris

Peter Mullan - Tyrannosaur

Ralph Fiennes - Coriolanus

Ryan Gosling - Drive

Ryan Gosling - The Ides of March

Best Actress
Bérénice Bejo - The Artist

Carey Mulligan - Shame

Charlize Theron - Young Adult

Emma Stone - The Help

Helen Mirren - The Debt

Jodie Foster - Carnage

Kate Winslet - Carnage

Kristen Wiig - Bridesmaids

Meryl Streep - The Iron Lady

Mia Wasikowska - Jane Eyre

Michelle Williams - My Week with Marilyn

Olivia Colman - Tyrannosaur

Rooney Mara - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Tilda Swinton - We Need to Talk About Kevin

Viola Davis - The Help

Best Supporting Actor
Alan Rickman - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2

Albert Brooks - Drive

Ben Kingsley - Hugo

Benedict Cumberbatch - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Christopher Plummer – Beginners

Colin Firth - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Eddie Marsan - Tyrannosaur

Ezra Miller - We Need to Talk About Kevin

George Clooney - The Ides of March

Jim Broadbent - The Iron Lady

John Hurt - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Jonah Hill – Moneyball

Kenneth Branagh - My Week with Marilyn

Paul Giamatti - The Ides of March

Philip Seymour Hoffman - The Ides of March

Best Supporting Actress
Alexandra Roach - The Iron Lady

Bryce Dallas Howard - The Help

Carey Mulligan - Drive

Emily Watson - War Horse

Evan Rachel Wood - The Ides of March

Jessica Chastain - The Help

Judi Dench - My Week with Marilyn

Kathy Bates - Midnight in Paris

Kathy Burke - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Marion Cotillard - Midnight in Paris

Melissa McCarthy - Bridesmaids

Octavia Spencer - The Help

Olivia Colman - The Iron Lady

Shailene Woodley - The Descendants

Zoe Wanamaker - My Week with Marilyn

2012 films preview: part 2

In no particular order, here are some the quality event films that may appear towards the end of 2012 with a view to Oscar glory come early 2013.

Lincoln
Spielberg directs the story of the 16th US president’s victory in the Civil War. The cast includes Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jared Harris, Daniel Day-Lewis, Tommy Lee Jones, and Jackie Earl Haley.

The Great Gatsby
Baz Luhrmann’s version of the F Scott Fitzgerald classic. The two leads? Di Caprio and, my god she looks the part, Carey Mulligan.

Untitled
Kathryn Bigelow follows up her Oscar winner with this tale of the hunt for Osama Bin Laden. The cast includes Rooney Mara, Idris Elba, Tom Hardy and Guy Pearce.

The Silver Linings Playbook
One of a pair of David ‘The Fighter’ O Russell’s films expected in 2012. A former teacher is released from a mental institution and must get his life back on track. Cast includes Bradley Cooper, Julia Stiles, Robert De Niro, and Jennifer Lawrence.

Nailed
The other David O Russell. Jessica Biel is a waitress who gets a nail lodged in her head, causing strange behaviour; Jake Gyllenhaal is the clueless senator who takes up her cause.

The Master
PT Anderson finally follows up There Will Be Blood with this look at evangelism. Philip Seymour Hoffman is the cult leader, Amy Adams is his daughter, and Joaquin Phoenix the drifter who becomes involved with them.

And here are some curios coming from the Brits:

Anna Karenina
Joe ‘Atonement’ Wright does Tolstoy with Knightley, Jude Law, Emily Watson, Kelly Macdonald, and Aaron Johnson. Stoppard did the script.

Byzantium
Gemma Arterton and Saoirse Ronan are a mother and daughter vampire couple, directed by Neil Jordan. Producer Stephen Woolley has described the film as “close to The Company of Wolves”, according to Screen International.

Great Expectations
Mike Newell’s adaptation arrives with HBC as Miss Havisham and Ralph Fiennes as Magwitch. Cue BATFA noms?

Lay The Favourite
Vegas-set comedy-drama in which Rebecca Hall is a waitress-turned-uber gambler. Bruce Willis, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Vince Vaughn also star.

Les Miserables
How do you follow up The King’s Speech? With Les Mis of course! Tom Hooper directs Hugh Jackman, HBC, Anne Hathaway, Russell Crowe and Sacha Baron Cohen.

Seven Psychopaths
Martin ‘In Bruges’ McDonagh brings together Colin Farrell, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, Abbie Cornish and Christopher Walken in a tale of gangster’s stolen dog.

Review: The Artist

The Artist is black and white, French and silent. And filmed in an ancient ratio. And it is utterly, utterly, utterly brilliant. Indeed it is more lovely than Scorsese’s Hugo and richly deserves every single award it will pick up over the next two months.

By now you should know the story, but just in case you don’t, Jean Dujardin plays Hollywood silent movie star George Valentin who falls from grace as the talkies arrive, while his would-be protégé and lover Peppy Miller (played by Berenice Bejo) becomes the new out-loud star.

The story’s universal elements (pride before the fall, the fall itself, and the slow path to redemption and renewal via newfound, true love) certainly help the modern ear and eye to cope with the loss of dialogue and foley sound. For most of the film, the only sound is the score – and thank god it’s perfectly pitched, supporting mood and enhancing emotion without over-dramatising or being intrusive and pointless. When foley sound and dialogue comes (very cleverly in plot terms), it almost jars.

The photography is sumptuous, basking in almost bleached-out whites in the Californian sun-dappled studio lots. The scene in which Valentin discovers the truth about Miller’s obsession is a lesson in camera angles and editing – not only should it be enough to secure the Best Film Editing Oscar, but it should also be taught in film school.

Indeed, many critics have already noted that the film is a lesson in film-making and film production, not just to the in-the-know viewer, but also the film industry itself.

The film’s representation of old-school film stars, and indeed the very performances of Dujardin and Bejo, are a reminder of how few real movie stars there are these days: actors who can light up the screen and command your attention. And The Artist’s two stars do just that: their respective first appearances blew my new year cobwebs away.

Director Michael Hazanavicius has complete command of his screenplay, and really plays to the strengths both of his regular principal cast and his Hollywood imports John Goodman, James Cromwell and Penelope Ann Miller.

I have completely fallen in love with The Artist. For the final 20 minutes, I was in tears of joy, but was so engrossed I didn’t reach for my hankie. I really can’t recommend this highly enough. Put aside any fears of the lack of sound: this silence is golden.

Score: 9.5/10 (a 10 is pending a second viewing…)

2011 box office review

Harry Potter, the Transformers and the Pirates may have continued their domination of the worldwide box office in 2011, raking in $1bn or more each, but in the UK surprise home-grown hits were the real story. Clearly, I am referring to The King’s Speech, The Inbetweeners Movie and Arthur Christmas.

The multiple BAFTA and Oscar winner spent three weeks at Number One in January and remained on the chart for most of the first half of the year, pulling in an astonishing £45.3m. It displayed Avatar-esque legs: in weekends two, three and four, its grosses were higher than its wide opening weekend.

To put The King’s Speech’s success into context, it’s worth noting that the penultimate instalment of Harry Potter pulled in £52.5m, while Inception took £35.2m (both in 2010): so the stammering Colin Firth was in stellar company. Ultimately the film went on to take $275m internationally and $138.8m in the US. Its success clearly soaked over into the marketing campaign for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (like King’s Speech, the key demographic is older): the spy thriller reeled in £14.1m in the UK, thanks in no small part to the presence of the Oscar-winning Firth.

The second British surprise was The Inbetweeners at £45m. It spent four weeks at Number One, having generated the third highest opening weekend of the year (behind Harry Potter and Breaking Dawn Part 1, and ahead of Pirates and the Transformers). Comedy doesn’t travel well, so while it matched The King’s Speech in the UK, it won’t get anywhere near the latter’s numbers elsewhere.

The third British surprise was Aardman’s Arthur Christmas, which led a charmed existence throughout the winter in counterpoint to its predecessor Flushed Away, which pulled in ‘just’ £11.2m in the winter of 2006/07. Initially, things didn’t look good: it opened to excellent reviews but found itself pulling in just £2.1m on its opening weekend, but then that most precious of commodities – good worth of mouth – kicked in. Weekend two was higher, weekend three higher still; finally on weekend four it got to the top, and then began what looked to be gradual decline through weekends five and six, before jumping back up to secure the top spot over the two-day Christmas weekend. As 2011 ended, Arthur had delivered £20.5m for Aardman, thereby defeating other Christmas kid pics Puss In Boots and Alvin and the Chipmunks 3, and all but matching the other Brit comedy hit of the year, Johnny English Reborn, which pulled in £20.6m.

The rest of the UK
Of course, Harry Potter finished on top with a magic £73m (although still not as good as Toy Story 3, 2010’s chart-topper on £73.4m). The fourth Pirates instalment was big, but performed below par. It was ahead of the Hangover sequel, which pulled in 50% more than the original.

Confirming the series’ position as the fourth biggest franchise in the world right now, Breaking Dawn just beat its predecessor; ditto Transformers 3. Aside from the British surprises, the big shock in the top 10 was Bridesmaids – another cross-over success, raking in £22.3m. The chart is rounded out by the classy Planet of the Apes sequel.

In the first half of the year, 3D films accounted for 18% (£90m) of the total UK box office, according to the BFI. Once the data is available, I suspect the second half will show a much greater share for 3D, thanks to the summer’s event films.

Turning to the international market, we find more surprises as a number of films appear that either didn’t perform as well as expected in the UK and the US or were simply squeezed out by intense local competition in the UK. Falling into either of those categories are the following: Kung Fu Panda 2; The Smurfs; Fast Five; Cars 2; and Rio.

International
Jack Black’s Panda sequel under-performed in both the UK and the US (especially in comparison with the original), but it took in $80m more than its predecessor in the rest of the world, and $30m more worldwide.

The Smurfs performed well enough in the UK and the US, but didn’t catch fire. However, internationally, they delivered nearly $420m – more than enough to propel the little blue people onto the top 10 worldwide list.

Fast Five out-performed all its predecessors, taking in $200m-plus in the US, and $400m-plus internationally. Presumably Fast Six has been given the green light…

In not crossing the $200m barrier in the US, Pixar’s Cars 2 failed to match its originator’s performance. However, internationally the story was different, as the sequel hit top gear and pulled in 60% more than the original.

Rio also under-performed in the US and the UK, but nevertheless drew in $300m-plus internationally, winging its way to nearly $500m and just beating the Apes prequel to 10th place worldwide.

In the US, the Hangover sequel failed to match the original’s take, but improved its international take by nearly 70% to $327m. Thor was not only the best-reviewed super hero movie of 2011, but also the most successful ($181m in the US, plus $266m internationally). Captain America trailed in second in that competition, its $176.6m US haul matching the Apes prequel.

Biggest unexpected flop of the year? Happy Feet Two, which has so far generated just $120m worldwide. It had a budget of circa $130m, according to IMDb. Its predecessor hauled in $384m four years ago (without the additional income of premium pricing for 3D performances). Ooops…

Late arrivals
Some end of year films came too late to make an impression on these lists, notably Mission: Impossible 4 ($386.9m worldwide, having only opened on 21 December; could end up north of $500m) and Sherlock Holmes 2 (£242.9m worldwide, having opened on 16 December; should come close to $400m). Some films opened in the final quarter that struggled against expectations: Puss In Boots – $430.7m worldwide is probably a little disappointing for Dreamworks; and Tintin – huge in France and Belgium ($40m-plus and $9.1m respectively), surprisingly dismissed in the UK with ‘just’ £16.1m and expectedly ignored in the US whereby Spielberg stablemate War Horse will give the boy detective a bloody nose, culminating in ‘just’ $311.9m worldwide from $130m budget).

UK box office
Harry Potter 8 £73m
The King’s Speech £45.3m
The Inbetweeners Movie £45m
Pirates 4 £32.9m
The Hangover Part II £32.7m
Breaking Dawn 1 £30.4m
Transformers 3 £27.8m
Bridesmaids £22.3m
The Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes £21m
Johnny English Reborn £20.6m
Arthur Christmas £20.5m

International box office
HP8 $947.1m
Pirates 4 $800.9m
Transformers 3 $765m
Kung Fu Panda 2 $496.5m
The Smurfs $419.9m
Fast Five $416.3m
Breaking Dawn 1 $410m
Cars 2 $362.5m
Rio $342.5m
The Hangover Part II £327m

US box office
HP8 $381m
Transformers 3 $352.4m
Breaking Dawn 1 $276.1m
The Hangover Part II $254.5m
Pirates 4 $241m
Fast Five $209.8m
Cars 2 $191.5m
Thor $181m
The Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes $176.7m
Captain America $176.7m

Worldwide box office
HP8 $1.3bn
Transformers 3 $1.1bn
Pirates 4 $1bn
Breaking Dawn 1 $686.1m
Kung Fu Panda 2 $661.7m
Fast Five $628.1m
The Hangover Part II £581.5m
The Smurfs $555.3m
Cars 2 $553.9m
Rio $486.1m

Sources: Screendaily.com; Box Office Guru; UK Film Council; and Box Office Mojo