All the best possible future gifs from the Academy Awards, before they?ve even happened Jonah Hill doing the ?cut it out? gesture, Nicole Kidman clapping, Timothée Chalamet giggling coyly like a tiny, lithe angel ? for the past five or so years, the Oscars ceremony has gifted us, the wider internet, with dozens of moments of cultural cachet that can be turned into a gif. For some reason, the Academy Awards ? filmed in glorious HD from every conceivable angle ? brings out the relatable microexpression in celebrity faces, and it is, obviously, impossible to predict who?s going to pull a face that will go down in retweeted eternity for this year. Will that stop us though? Oh, absolutely not ? Continue reading...
How to Train Your Dragon sequel flies high as school holidays arrive, but The Kid Who Would Be King fails to reign supremeDespite a strong challenge from Instant Family, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part hung on at the top, with weekend takings of £2.47m. The animated sequel declined by a reasonable 38% from its opening session, and stands at £7.41m after 10 days. Continue reading...
Once the clear frontrunner, Bradley Cooper?s musical romance now seems doomed. A victim of its own shortcomings or the environment it now finds itself in?? The Favourite, Black Panther, Roma and more: read the rest of our best picture Oscar hustingsFor most contenders, the road to an Oscar is strewn with speedbumps and potholes. The graph vacillates wildly, peaking after good reviews or buzzy publicity, troughing as sex scandals come to light or a key tweeter clocks some questionable politics in the plot.The path of A Star is Born has been striking for the consistency of its gradient: downhill all the way. After premiering to swoons at Venice last August, it?s gone from bet-your-granny lock to total no-hoper, without so much of a cameo as underdog. Continue reading...
Release date pushed back to April 2020 following another twist in production of Daniel Craig?s swansong as 007The recently announced two-month delay to the next James Bond movie is due to extensive script changes, it has been reported.According to the Playlist, Bourne Ultimatum writer Scott Z Burns has been hired to rewrite the screenplay for Daniel Craig?s fifth ? and supposedly final ? outing as 007. Burns, with script credits on the Steven Soderbergh films Contagion, Side Effects and The Laundromat, as well as writing and directing CIA torture drama The Report, is reportedly currently at work on the film. The delay was due to his preparing The Report for its premiere at the recently concluded Sundance film festival, where it was purchased by Amazon for $14m in a big-money deal. Continue reading...
Emulating Star Wars combatants will encourage young people to engage in regular exercise, says French Fencing FederationIt?s now easier than ever in France to act out Star Wars fantasies. The country?s fencing federation has officially recognised lightsaber duelling as a competitive sport, granting the weapon from George Lucas?s space saga the same status as the foil, epee and sabre, the traditional blades used at the Olympics.Of course, the LED-lit, rigid polycarbonate replicas can?t slice an opponent in half. But they look and sound remarkably like the blades that Yoda and other characters wield in the blockbuster movies. Continue reading...
In the cult 1999 film about corporate malaise, the story of an everyman rallying against his sedate life found itself a loyal followingMaybe it was Y2K anxiety. Maybe something was in the Hollywood water. Whatever the reason, 1999 yielded a bumper crop of movies about angry, ordinary men throwing off society?s shackles and finding something extraordinary in themselves. Related: Magnolia to The Matrix: was 1999 the greatest year in modern cinema? Continue reading...
Writers Guild of America awards throw spotlight on two surprise winners ? including the black-comedy Oscars contenderThe awards season race took a late final twist as two previously little-fancied films took best screenplay awards from the Writers Guild of America. Teen movie Eighth Grade, written and directed by Bo Burnham, won best original screenplay, while black comedy Can You Ever Forgive Me? won best adapted screenplay.Eighth Grade, which is Burnham?s feature-directing debut, is not even nominated for a best screenplay Oscar, while Can You Ever Forgive Me?, telling the story of literary forger Lee Israel, is well behind Spike Lee?s BlacKkKlansman and Barry Jenkins? If Beale Street Could Talk in the race for the adapted screenplay Oscar. The results appear to underline the lack of consensus for this year?s Academy awards, with all major craft guilds opting to honour different films for the first time ever. Continue reading...
Decision to relegate four awards, including best cinematography and best editing overturned following protests by Martin Scorsese, Brad Pitt and othersBowing to a backlash that had threatened to engulf an already blunder-plagued Academy Awards, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Ampas) reversed its decision to present four awards during the commercial breaks of this year?s Oscar broadcast. Related: Who should win? Critic Peter Bradshaw's Oscars picks Continue reading...
Cinephiles rushed to praise the list and take it to task: here are some responses that stood outLast Sunday, in the Observer special supplement on European cinema, we published a list of 25 films from across the continent that we felt were essential viewing in these tumultuous times.Compiled by Observer critics Mark Kermode, Simran Hans, Wendy Ide, Guy Lodge and Jonathan Romney, and edited down to the final 25 by me, the list ran in chronological order from 1922 (Nosferatu) to 2017 (On Body and Soul), taking in masterpieces from France, Italy, Poland, Romania, Greece and the UK along the way. Continue reading...
Aparicio, the first indigenous woman to be nominated for a best actress Oscar, responds to Sergio Goyri?s ?fucking Indian? remarkThe Oscar-nominated Mexican actor Yalitza Aparicio, who stars in the critically acclaimed film Roma, said on Saturday she was proud of her indigenous roots, after a soap opera star used a racial slur to describe her. Related: Why Roma should win the best picture Oscar Continue reading...
Guests: 9
Hidden: 0
Users: 0
Total Members: 
Summary
Groundhog Day