Joaquin Phoenix
Amy Adams
Jake Gyllenhaal
Michelle Williams
Steve Carell
Did I miss anyone out? Let me know in the comments section below!
The 90th Academy Awards is just a few months away - and you can tell. The industry has stepped up its game by firing out its best and brightest titles in the hopes of bagging gold - but who’ll come out on top? While Oscar predictions can often be hit and miss, some stars wear their intentions very much on their sleeve when it comes to Academy approval. People like... Joaquin PhoenixWhen actors pick roles the old saying goes: one for them, one for you. Unless you’re Joaquin Phoenix. The Gladiator star seems to have dedicated his entire career to fully immersing himself in characters most likely to land him on the Best Actor shortlist. While he may have only been nominated thrice (Gladiator in 2001, Walk The Line in 2006 and The Master in 2013), you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s happened more, having starred in look-at-me awards fodder Her, Inherent Vice and Irrational Man all in the last decade alone. This year’s no different, with Phoenix doubling-down on his personal quest by playing none other than the Son of God in Mary Magdalene. Thems some big sandals to fill. Jesus Christ, somebody give this guy an Oscar. Amy AdamsSome stars have been around long enough to vary their output to suit all audiences whilst still managing to juggle their dedication to earning an industry nod. Amy Adams has dabbled in almost every genre going - from big budget kids films like Enchanted to questionable tent-pole epics like Man of Steel - and yet at the same time she’s proven time and time again that there’s much more going on beneath the surface. 2005’s Junebug flagged this aspect of her character early on and it’s continued with powerful performances in 2008’s Doubt, 2010’s The Fighter and most recently 2016’s quiet sci-fi Arrival. Adams may be following up her appearance in Tom Ford’s artfully shot Nocturnal Animals with a return to popcorn cinema in Justice League and Disney sequel Disenchanted but it feels like it’s only a matter of time until she bags gold. Jake Gyllenhaal Jake Gyllenhaal burst onto the scene in 2001’s Donnie Darko, a film that was possibly a little too bizarre for major industry recognition at the time but one that perfectly showcased the burgeoning actor’s talent and potential. He may have been unable to resist the occasional big studio paycheque (Prince of Persia, we’re looking at you) but Gyllenhaal has consistently returned to roles with depth, pathos and the ability to appear on the radars of Academy voters. In 2006, he came tantalisingly close with Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain and has tried restlessly to return to that spot in the years since, with smart choices like 2013’s Prisoners, 2014’s Nightcrawler and 2016’s Nocturnal Animals. With his new one Stronger pulling on heart strings by telling a real-life Boston bombing tale, perhaps 2017 could finally be his year. Michelle WilliamsIt takes some serious acting chops to receive four Best Actress nominations, especially when you consider the time and effort it takes to fully embody a character worthy of receiving that accolade. Then there’s all the additional press and promotional work that so often comes hand-in-hand with pushing for Academy recognition, all when you could very easily be making a decent living with big payday roles in summer blockbusters. And yet one look at Michelle Williams’ IMDB page showcases her dedication to constantly churning out high-brow content. Whether it’s showcasing all colours of a long-term relationship in Blue Valentine, taking centre stage in My Week With Marilyn or playing opposite grief in Manchester By The Sea - Williams’ end-goal is clear. Your move, Academy. Steve CarellHe made his name by making us laugh in Bruce Almighty, Anchorman and of course, America’s superb adaptation of The Office but Steve Carell clearly has higher aspirations than tickling a few funny bones. His serious slant was teased relatively early on when he played a suicidal teacher in the ace Little Miss Sunshine but it was his transformative portrayal of the troubled John du Pont in 2014’s dark drama Foxcatcher that made his intentions of Oscar glory crystal clear. While his goal may be set, making the transition from token funnyman to the owner of a gold bloke is no easy task (Robin Williams did it but not many others have) but by continuing to surprise audiences with roles like the one he files in this year’s Battle of the Sexes, Carell could very well be in with a chance.
Did I miss anyone out? Let me know in the comments section below!
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“We made a movie about the worst movie and it might be our best movie,” Tweeted Seth Rogan earlier this week. He was referring to The Disaster Artist, a James Franco-Directed retelling of how one of the best-worst-movies ever came to be and the pair’s latest project. Franco’s film chronicles the creation of Tommy Wiseau’s bizarre passion project The Room, a now-infamous cult-favourite that has been celebrated in cult circles since its 2003 release. Never heard of it? You’re missing out - but in the meantime, here’s a whistle-stop guide.
Following years of failed auditions, mysterious struggling actor Tommy Wiseau pens a script and enlists the help of his friend and fellow budding thesp Greg Sestero alongside a cast, crew and seemingly never-ending back account to bring his dream to life and show Hollywood what they’re missing. The end result was The Room - a truly awful yet awfully hilarious guide on how not to make a movie. Audiences loved it, just not for the reasons Wiseau intended and almost fifteen years later, the film still manages to draw eager crowds. It’s an impressive feat but one that makes you wonder - what elements does a so-bad-it’s-good movie need to elevate it above being just another bad film? Word of mouth is a base ingredient. Much like fellow terrible tale Troll 2, chatter amongst movie fans helps raise a bad film’s status and that doesn’t come without some genuinely laugh-out-loud moments. Troll 2 hit the mark and eventually got its day in the sun via Director Michael Paul Stephen’s ace documentary Best Worst Movie. Both are proof that a movie can be terrible for many reasons and if its a real turkey, it evaporates out of a viewer’s brain almost instantly. In the case of The Room and Troll 2 the opposite was true, with fans barely able to contain themselves during viewings without blurting out one of the movie’s many awkwardly delivered lines. However with The Room, the key element that helped it avoid an eternity in obscurity was having a creator who was full of real-life intrigue. To this day nobody quite knows where the clandestine Wiseau is actually from, what his actual age is or where he got the (reportedly) $6 million he needed to finance, promote and self-distribute the movie. In the years since, Wiseau has appeared at numerous screenings all over the world to interact with fans and famous friends in his own bizarre way, proving that despite his oddball persona he’s more than grateful for the appreciation of his work. Ironically, this key saving grace of The Room is also the most successful aspect of The Disaster Artist. Franco’s rendition of Wiseau is weird and wonderful in spades but also accessible and empathetic at the same time. In both cases it’s hard not to think that without this alluring figure at their core, both films would hardly be worthy of comment, regardless of whether they were good or bad. What do you think makes bad movies good? Let me know in the comments section below! We hear about the shortcomings of films all too often these days. It feels like sometimes a movie’s fate can be sealed even before the lights have started to dim in the cinema. Like it or loath it, the Internet has given everyone a voice and it seems that everyone has chosen to use that voice to bad mouth movies as soon as they hear absolutely anything about them. On the flip side of the coin, praise for good movies can be all too rare. Riding a wave of word-of-mouth buzz can literally make a decent film transform regular old film frames into statuette gold come awards season but what happens when a film becomes too successful for its own good?
The immensely successful Harry Potter franchise is a perfect case in point. Under the careful guidance of Producer David Heyman, a handful of talented and distinctly different directors and most importantly of all, series author J.K Rowling, the team pulled off a near impossible feat in fully realising a totally immersive Wizarding world. For eight movies, we lost ourselves on the big screen in a richly populated universe full of colourful characters and the money rolled in faster than a Snitch on a mission. And then it came to an end. With the story told, Rowling’s Potter anthology wrapped up naturally, leaving a nice neat package for us to enjoy and fondly revisit for decades to come. At least that was the plan. Despite raking it in at the box office, spawning a bespoke studio tour, multiple merchandise offshoots and its very own theme park, franchise owners seem reluctant to let it retire that easily. What followed was Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, a spin-off tale set in the same universe that, while still canon, left our original hero’s story untouched. Successful, a sequel was soon announced and as we get our first looks at Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindlewald, it’s hard not to think that it’s the beginning of the end for yet another beloved franchise. It seems like whenever a film does marginally well, a sequel (or trilogy) is all but inevitable. For some these seem warranted - Back To The Future kept the fun going for three movies (for the most part) and cemented itself into cinematic lore. The Godfather undeniably improved itself in part two, even if it did get a little shaky in its lackluster third feature. However more often than not it feels like studios act too quickly, dooming a successful film to a fate of watered down future instalments, making you forget why you even tuned in in the first place. Bear in mind that while we may have only just met Newt Scamander and his magic briefcase, Warner Bros has already planned five (yep) sequels for the character. Proof, if you ever needed it, that can be a double edged sword. Newt’s certainly not the boy who lived but seen has he’s not going anywhere in a hurry, we better hope he’s the bloke who survives. Do you think sequels can improve films? Let me know in the comments section below! It’s official. No one alive today will ever live to see the Star Wars franchise ride off into the golden Bespin sunset. Seriously. All this drama with the Skywalker family may very well wrap up once JJ Abrams releases Episode IX onto audiences but today’s die-hard Star Wars fans will likely never get to see their beloved franchise come to a natural and official conclusion. News came this week that Disney and Lucasfilm are so happy with Director Rian Johnson’s middle-trilogy-movie The Last Jedi that they’ve offered him his very own galaxy to play by spearheading his own separate bespoke trilogy. Impressive - but does that also mean we’re destined to see the chronic watering down of a series we all seem to hold so dear?
The transition has already begun. Beyond the realms of the canon Skywalker arc we’ve also seen ‘Star Wars Stories’ within the same universe with Rogue One and next year we’ll have a young Han Solo to deal with while we wait for the conclusion of the trilogy kicked off by The Force Awakens. Then there’s 2020’s as-yet-untitled anthology film (cough cough… Boba Fett) that slipped through the grasp of Director Josh Trank, a rumoured Obi Wan Kenobi stand-alone feature and even a Jabba The Hutt spin-off being considered by the powers that be. Throw Johnson’s brand new trilogy into the mix and our visits to a galaxy far, far away are going to rapidly increase over the next couple of decades. That’s a long time time to hope to hold onto people’s attention, especially when the original heroes that got us hooked in the first place are thin on the ground. At this rate, the only hope for the future of the franchise could be to adopt a revolving-door cast approach, similar to the one used in AMC’s sometimes-good-sometimes-bad zombie show The Walking Dead. You know the score - it’s where you suddenly find yourself caring about background players who then conveniently step up to the plate whenever a main star takes a bow, carrying the show forward in the process, with you along for the ride. This focus-shift technique has helped keep audience attention even on a show where heroes become food quicker than you can swing a bat. Odds are, we’ll start to see new faces slowly becoming main features as the likes of Luke, Vader and Obi Wan drift off into the distance. If we truly are going to be spending the better part of our collective future in a brand new galaxy populated with any number of brand new faces, we better get use to this type of narrative tool taking place. Or not - it probably doesn't matter much. While all the intergalactic credits continue to roll in the series will power on regardless and with so many ideas in the pipeline, you’ll likely never see the final end credits roll anyway. Like the force itself, Star Wars has officially become omnipresent. Are you looking forward to living with Star Wars for the rest of your life? Let me know in the comments below! Xenomorphs weren’t the only extraterrestrial terror hunting humans throughout the eighties. Not long after James Cameron pulled the trigger on his testosterone-charged sequel Aliens, Director John McTiernan introduced us to a new intergalactic hunter with Predator in 1987. Two war movies, two alien franchises, two very different legacies. However as Predator closes in on its thirtieth birthday, it’s hard not to think the series somehow failed to capitalise on its full potential. With Shane Black’s upcoming retooling The Predator all that could change - but what went wrong during those intervening years that set the Predator so off course?
Maybe it can all be traced back to one single event: the mishandling of the film’s original sequel. The late eighties were good for John McTiernan. Having unleashed Predator onto audiences he doubled-down on the machismo theme with Die Hard a year later. However when the time came to follow up his alien movie with a sequel in 1990 his asking salary had doubled, pricing him out of Predator 2’s scant budget. To make matters worse, star Arnold Schwarzenegger dropped out too, due to either a salary dispute, clashing schedules or an unsatisfactory script. The exact reasons are still up for debate but one thing remains concrete: audiences were denied the continuation of Dutch’s story. Had the pair signed on for another round, their combined presence may have given the Predator franchise a lease of life worthy of challenging Sigourney Weaver’s still-developing Alien anthology. Salvage attempts were reignited throughout the 90s with ideas for a proposed third movie entitled Predator 3: Deadlier of the Species reintroducing us to Dutch in a blizzard-ravaged New York City for another space-invader scuffle. Then there was The Zoo, an amalgamation threequel that bundled Dutch with Danny Glover’s Predator 2 hero Harrigan and shipped them both off for a stint in the wilds of the Predator's home planet. Both intriguing concepts that unfortunately never saw the light of day. Instead, the Predator found itself relegated to bargain-bin adventures. There was ‘meh’ crossover cash-in Alien Vs Predator in 2004 and its equally tedious 2007 sequel AVP: Requiem. Then Robert Rodriguez took a stab in 2010’s Predators, a stand-alone sequel that felt more like a Friday night popcorn movie than a worthy continuation. While new directors certainly don’t spell doom for a franchise, stripping Predator of both its original helmer and star so early on seems to have inflicted wounds that are difficult to heal. Perhaps the key to Alien’s continued success is down to the lynchpin figure of Ripley, tying things together either in person or in spirit. With the Predator currently lacking a concrete foe to face, it could be some time before it emerges from the wilderness and into a worthy battle arena. Where do you think the Predator franchise went wrong? Let me know in the comments section below! Halloween - That time of year where we celebrate our love of cult horror movies in place of whatever actual significance this spooky holiday originally held. Odds are most fancy dress parties this year will be populated by cobbled together outfits of genre icons. While it’s reassuring to see the films that terrified us all growing up get the attention they so deserve, the future of would-be-cult-classics could be in peril. It’s not an output issue - dodgy horror films are being made faster than ever these days but the way they reach us has changed dramatically.
Think back. The majority of movie-fans will no doubt have fond memories of spending countless hours perusing the shelves of pokey, family run video rental stores. Sure, they were filled with cigarette smoke and pretty much always out of copies of the video you came in to rent but they provided great exposure to titles you wouldn’t get a chance to see otherwise. Movies had a harder time grabbing your attention back then too. There was no internet on which to drip-feed promo clips of your low budget indie horror. Filmmakers had to pump all their efforts into crafting artwork worthy of catching your eye. Today, audiences don’t seem to have the same patience or sense of discovery. For every Stranger Things-sized hit released on Netflix, there’s probably another ten or so just as inventive indie horrors dwelling in its dark streaming depths. Despite being faced with a seemingly neverending abundance of choice, it feels as though viewers are actually watching less these days. It’s a strange counterintuitive turn, perhaps brought on by people wanting to use the little free time they have wisely and in turn choosing a show everyone’s talking about instead of taking a chance on something new. Nothing wrong with that on the surface, however with your desired content delivered straight to your eyeballs with minimal fuss the shows that go ignored, stay ignored. Chance encounters, just like those you experienced back in Blockbusters a decade or more ago, may now be a thing of the past. Remember when you picked up that cool looking VHS on the bottom row after an hour of searching and it became one of your so-bad-it’s-great all time faves? Savour it. It’s unlikely to happen again. This blog is now on Nerdly.co.uk, take a look here! Do you miss the days of video rental stores? Let me know in the comments below! 2017 is a weird place to live. Pretty, pretty weird. Just look at what it’s done to ace telly show Curb Your Enthusiasm. Back when it debuted in October 2000, us fresh-faced nice folk were completely different people. Larry David’s fictionalised version of Larry David was a breath of fresh air. Here was a guy who was unafraid to say everything we wanted to say but were just a little too polite and bounded by social graces to actually blurt it out. His awkwardly accurate encounters in coffee shops, waiting rooms and carparks became a weird form of therapy. Larry David was a vent through which all of us could exhale a nice big chorus of ‘Fucking yes, right?!’.
Cut to today and things are very different. Larry’s back on our screens for a so-far stellar ninth season and is as abrasive as ever but his shrewd attitude and brutal honesty seem to have lost some of their shock impact. It’s not his fault though. As the ad campaign for this new slew of episodes rightly points out, Larry’s not changed at all since we last saw him. It’s us. We’re the ones that have changed - or more accurately have been changed over time by social media. It seems we no longer need that loud mouth advocate for saying whatever the hell you want regardless of the consequences because we all carry around with us the power to do just that every day in our pockets. Notice something you don’t agree with but has nothing at all to do with you? Send a tweet. Catch someone out in an online lie? Those 140 characters are just waiting to be filled. Fancy getting into a heated debate with a complete stranger that’ll quickly turn into a vicious shouting match? Easy, just whip out your phone! You really don’t have to look far to see the shift of power. Social media, most notably Twitter, has turned us all into angry little Larry Davids, all eager to fire our opinions at others regardless of whether or not we were ever asked for them in the first place. Sadly, our Larry-ness ends there. If you’re looking for some Curb-like humour or morals to tie up these ugly online excursions into a nice neat bow you’re going to be scrolling for a long time. Like some Black Mirror B-Side episode, in reality we don’t come across a fraction as endearing as the real Larry David and as for making it to nine seasons? Forget about it. Perhaps we’d be better returning this power to its rightful owner because it’s a bad situation to be in. Pretty, pretty bad. This blog is now on Nerdly.co.uk, take a look here! Do you think social media has made us better or worse? Let me know in the comments below! With Thor: Ragnarok, Marvel has once again flipped the tempo of their long-running superhero saga by recruiting someone not known for world-saving action epics. It’s yet-another smart move from the studio giant, especially if all those glowing early reactions are anything to go by. Asgard’s family drama may have reached Jeremy Kyle-like proportions but through the lens of Kiwi filmmaker Taika Waititi and his kitchen-sink adlib comedic style, the whole thing feels fresher than ever. It’s a small tweak to the formula and undeniably a bit of a gamble but looking back at the ups and downs of the superhero movie perhaps it’s a sign of something far more important. Could comedy be the secret ingredient behind the longevity of the entire genre?
It’s far from an unbelievable thought. Laughs certainly have had their place within the world of capes and tights, providing a much-needed escape from the more-often-than-not dark and gritty route these films can take. When used properly, comedy has even helped the superhero genre transcend to new heights and break new ground. Just look at Tim Miller’s surprise smash Deadpool - a movie once deemed too much of a risk to realise that went on to prove what we all already knew - that audiences want a hero that can drop F-bombs just as easily as they drop maniacal baddies bent on global destruction. Miller’s ‘Merc with a Mouth’ movie may have officially set the bar but switching things up with the help of a few belly laughs - and the filmmakers that specialise in them - has clearly been the key to Marvel’s continued success. It helped them hit the ground running with Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr as they kept things loose with billionaire Tony Stark, it made us care about a ragtag group of largely unknown heroes in James Gunn’s addictive Guardians of the Galaxy and it let their rendition of Spidey come out swinging with a web-load of laughs. Compare this track record to the rocky output of studio rival DC and the importance of humour becomes all the more apparent. Sure, in the right hands a little deft and dark storytelling can make for an unforgettable superhero experience (The Dark Knight, we’re looking at you) but there’s only so many pensive looks, slow-motion action shots and movies helmed by the same Zack Snyder-shaped director an audience can take. Comic book movies seem to work far better when they prioritise laughter over layers, both onscreen and off. Forget God-like Kryptonians, rogue mutants or magical hammers, the real hero here of this genre is humour. This blog is now on Nerdly.co.uk, take a look here! Are Infinity Stones more important than humour to superheroes? Let me know what you think in the comments section below! The jury’s in. The debate’s over. In fact, there was no debate, just a whole load of common sense. If you’re in a cinema, you can’t really justify being on your mobile phone. That’s that. It’s time to face facts when it comes to those who choose a dark room in which to check their empty inbox or send cat memes to their mates. If you’ve made the decision to leave the comfort of your own home in favor of a multiplex or indie screening room, then you’ve temporarily lost the ability to constantly check that mini-torch you keep in your pocket. Sorry about that.
Actually, is sorry the right word? Surely it’s not that much to ask. Two hours of your undivided attention in exchange for something you’ve voluntarily paid money to see in a venue that comes with a few specific social rules? You wouldn’t visit a library to try out your new fog horn yet when it comes to mobile phones and cinemas, people seem to think they’re the exception to the rule. Maybe it’s a generational thing. Maybe it’s a terrifying sign of how knackered our attention spans have become. Either way, it’s an irritating trait that shows no sign of going anywhere. Cinemas do little to battle it. While multiplexes go all infrared black-ops policing would-be picture pirates, they seem considerably less bothered about doing anything about this regular experience-ruiner. Some have even gone so for as to question whether or not it’s even a bad thing, with AMC head-honcho Adam Aron suggesting the chain launch ‘texting friendly’ screenings - a desperate attempt to keep paying punters on seats that instead sounds like a worrying lack of understanding of their own core audience. Thankfully, some venues lead by example. Like die-hard film hub The Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas. These guys have a pretty no-bullshit approach when it comes to mid-film distractions. “If you are a person who likes to talk, text or use your cell phone during a movie, we are not the place for you!” explains their website, shortly before stating that all offenders will be unceremoniously booted. It’s hard to have much sympathy for distraction-addicts who break every cinephile's cardinal rule but it’s still worth asking why this even happens in the first place. Perhaps it’s an unexpected side-effect from a generation born into a world of readily available content, maybe movie marketers are contributing to the issue, selling introspective head-scratchers to audiences expecting mile-a-minute romps or it could be that we’re all a little more addicted than we’d like to admit? Whatever the reason, if a phoneless, chatter-free couple of hours is too much for you to stomach, perhaps the cinema isn't for you. This blog is now on Nerdly.co.uk, take a look here! Yes, I did have an unfortunate experience with someone using a phone in a cinema recently, have you? Let me know in the comments below! Game of Thrones will soon be dead. Proper dead. Deader than one of its beardy warriors or scantily clad ladies or grubby looking extras that met the fiery end of a pissed off dragon and its obliviously incestuous Queen. Winter has come and will soon be gone, leaving a massive hole in our telly social lives that not even an ice giant can fill. In short: we’ll all soon be in need a new TV show to watch.
This isn’t the first time this has happened though. Remember how we all scrabbled around when Breaking Bad took a bow in 2013? Or what about when Mad Men smoked its last cigarette a couple of years back? The shows that become everyone’s new favourite shows never start off that way. They need precious time to attract the attention of a few telly-hipsters and build up a word-of-mouth rep. Considering that, it’s a very real possibility that the show you’ll soon be trying your hardest to avoid spoilers from is probably already on the air. How can you spot it? Well there are a few things to look out for…. First off, the shows everyone ends up obsessing over need a devilishly taboo hook. Whether it’s a high school teacher shooting people in the face to ensure the survival of his meth empire or a mystical realm full of dragons and tits, every hit TV show needs a rebellious streak. Then there’s the unnecessary obsession with sex, the more depraved the better. You know what we mean: You’re watching what on the surface is a perfectly harmless dialogue scene - but both parties are completely naked for some reason and an extra in the background is wanking into a flannel. Sex sells - even if it has absolutely nothing to do with plot, character development or taste. Thirdly, any show worth its weight in sofa snacks needs someone for us to all hate. Some absolute shit-prick that allows us to all do what we do best: come together on Twitter and direct the entirety of our united venom at the poor actor that had to play that role. There’s a reason why Jack Gleeson said he probably wouldn’t act again after playing royal bell-end Joffrey in Game of Thrones. We armchair aficionados live vicariously through characters on screen and the need to drain ourselves from the pure hatred we feel on a weekly basis must be serviced. Watching someone with someone detestable in it? Hot dog! You may be onto a winner. And finally, the next big show needs incredibly long waits between series. If you’re watching something right now that seems to know where it’s going, ditch it. All the best shows have absolutely zero direction or plans currently in the bag. This makes us cherish each new episode when it finally arrives and ensures we’re just as surprised as the writers are when watching its plot unfold. Because if there’s one thing a show lives or dies on, it’s that panicked feeling of realising it’s a sleeper success. Have you found everyone's new favourite show? Let me know in the comments below! |
Author: Simon Bland
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