Why War Horse Chose Steven Spielberg

My feature article on War Horse, in conversation with director Steven Spielberg.
Published Friday 13th January 2012.

What do you make next if you are Steven Spielberg, director of so many esteemed and diverse films from the last 40 years...

Oscar noms – nostalgia and a bit with a dog

You sit there in the cinema waiting for dialogue. For what seems like an eternity, sure he’s expressive you think so WHY ISN’T HE TALKING? But enough about George Smiley in Tinker, Taylor, Soldier Spy, this year everyone loves The Artist.

The Artist is lovely. Lovingly crafted, lovingly scored, lovingly acted and the reason it will win everything from the Regional Critics Film Awards (yes, I got to vote) to the Oscars is because it is a paean to classic Hollywood (1930s in particular). It’s not just nostalgia though, it is a beautifully told story that fits its silent format perfectly. And it is as light as a silk cummerbund; it's not trying to bash you over the head with themes, or multiple Oscar nominees gurning about their disabilities. I’m not jaded.

Released on Friday in the UK, The Descendants is another big hitter with a best picture nomination. Again, it is a contrast film. It seems to move at its own stately pace, picking up observations and little moments as it winds its way around Hawaii. It’s another gem from Alexander Payne, whose catalogue is redoubtable after Election, About Schmidt and of course Sideways. George Clooney? We know he is a movie star, recently we’ve see more and more of his acting chops. In Descendants, he reins himself in, it is a small performance without pyrotechnics but he shows you sadness, he shows you regret, whilst also giving flashes of charm. His character Matt King is very ordinary in many ways. A Jimmy Stewart sort of guy, muddling through and trying to do the best he can.

For best actor it will be a race between Clooney and French comedian Jean Dujardin. The feeling would be that Clooney’s popularity in the American film business will win through for him, though both are equally good. It is great to see Gary Oldman get his dues as well. He took on Smiley and made the role his own, even though Sir Alec's TV version was sublime.

Feeling all nice and warm? Okay then: M-A-R-G-A-R-E-T T-H-A-T-C-H-E-R. There won't be a consensus on The Iron Lady - a rather hagiographic light-weight take on Maggie - so it's missed out on best picture but has landed Meryl Streep a 17th acting nomination. She is Hollywood's go-to gal nearly every year it seems although her losing streak stretches back since her last win for Sophie's Choice in 1983.

I think she will win because The Iron Lady is all about Meryl as Maggie - and Hollywood loves a biopic and Thatcher won't be the divisive figure over there by the pool in Los Angeles.

For best supporting actor, Christopher Plummer is great and 82, so a win for Beginners seems set - a film which also has the benefit of right-on politics. Max Sydow is also 82 but hasn't been a factor up till now for his film.

Best director? A heavy-weight list indeed: Alexander Payne, Scorsese, Woody Allen and Terence Malick. None of them made The Artist though so my tip here is one they cannot pronounce (yet!) Michel Hazanavicius.

The really terribly dull surprise of how many flicks would make best picture yielded this list:

The Descendants - Second favourite.
The Artist - Everyone's favourite.
Warhorse - Nope.
Moneyball - Nope
The Tree of Life - Left field.
Midnight in Paris - Good to see.
The Help - Filler.
Hugo - Interesting.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - as yet unseen it has Tom Hanks and a 9/11 theme.

Nine films but only two have any chance of winning and nine films but no room for Tinker, Taylor or Senna; well we have to be upset about something don't we?

Prometheus trailer

It's been a week of massive trailers. First up was The Dark Knight Rises second trailer, then The Hobbit, a full year before release - both well received by excited fans. It looks like Ridley Scott may have trumped both of those with a first full trailer for his new space epic, Prometheus. Now Scott is probably one of the best visual stylists in mainstream cinema, so a return to sci-fi, and to the same universe of Alien and Aliens is quite a prospect, even in a year as jam-packed with genuine blockbusters as 2012.



How about that for editing? Who says the art of trailer cutting is dead. Love the reappearance of the Space Jockey, the mysterious giant statues of humanoid faces, and the deadly gas attack on a space suited victim. Just love the look of this movie, apart from Michael Fassbender's blonde rinse.

And what can we guess of the plot from Greek mythology? Well apparently Prometheus was a champion of mankind who stole fire from Zeus. And in revenge he was tied to a rock and condemned to have a giant eagle eat his liver every day. Nice. The key part I believe is Promy was meant to have played a 'pivotal role' in the early history of mankind. Some sort of DNA seeding, mixed with a terrible biological weapon?

Sign us up Ridley, we'll be there.

Prometheus is released 1st June 2012 in the UK.

Poe update: The Raven (2012)

It seems Hollywood is now inspired by theatrical events in Stoke Newington.
Gird yourselves for John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe himself in a new version of The Raven coming in March 2012. The trailer seems to suggest this is Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes, meets The Three Muscateers meets a moustache-twirling Seven. It is actually directed by James McTiegue, of the nearly good V for Vendetta.

Behold: CGI Ravens! Behold: Poe gets hot blonde action! Behold: scarily bewigged Cusack runs, rides horses and shoots; all the while denying he's a serial killer reenacting his own short stories. He's just a writer! But he runs, shoots and charges around like Robert Downey Junior.

If you are a Poe fan (Poface?) you can still get down to the excellent Poe: Macabre Resurrections until Sunday night in Stokey. Meanwhile:

Poe: Macabre Resurrections

Prepare to be chilled to the marrow. Poe: Macabre Resurrections is a theatrical piece currently being performed at St Mary's Old Church in Stoke Newington, North London. Fans of the macabre and the dark soul of Edgar Allan Poe need to get themselves to this before December 4th - it is so damn good: a) it warrants a non-film entry b) I'm going to use the wanky term coup de theatre for it.

Local group Second Skin theatre has mounted six adaptations of Poe short stories and quite brilliantly matched them to the Old Church setting. As the audience, you are seated in Victorian box pews, in the gothic gloom as if waiting for a sermon. Which is exactly how proceedings begin, with the ministrations of The Preacher. Played with wit and and dark charm by Stephen Gonnery Brown, his character is your compere for the evening; a sort of Vincent Price of the pulpit who literally leads the audience through the various locations of the scenes. I don't want to ruin any surprises but the shadowy recesses of this quite ancient Church are used to full effect, starting with the twisted two-hander The Cask of Amontillado which felt almost like audience participation, so close were we to the seductress with evil intent, nicely played by Sarah Scott.

Two monologues were chillingly delivered in near darkness. An audacious adaptation of The Pit and the Pendulum referenced contemporary anxieties of torture during the war on terror. Prijank Morjaria sustains a magnetic presence for a full twenty-five minutes across four different characters. The Black Cat is introduced with a flourish on the organ. Adapted by Mike Carter with poetry and poise, Mia Zara plays the widow in this feline tale of murder and despair. It's a performance of physicality and fine cadence - really moving.

Elsewhere I don't want to reveal the setting of Premature Burial until people have had a chance to see it, inspired as it was. And the closing fun with The Masque of the Red Death, reminded me of a certain Stanley Kubrick film and had me grinning from ear to ear. I'll say more after the run is over.

Before then, Londoners please try and get to see this, it is something really special. For £12-£14 it is one of most unique theatrical experiences I've been to in recent years.

You can purchase tickets for Poe: Macabre Resurrections here

Check out Christopher Lee reading Poe's The Raven

In Time review

Justin Timberlake stars in this sci-fi actioner where everyone is permanently frozen at 25 years old, like living with Hugh Hefner.

We’re transported into this high-concept world by writer-director Andrew Niccol, who brought us the dystopias of Gattaca and The Truman Show. This is one of his lesser works but the premise is still juicy. In a genetically engineered future, humans are programmed for that quarter century, after which you only have one year to live, indicated by a fluorescent count-down timer embedded in your arm. Now you can pay for extra living time, hence a satirical vision of society where the rich accumulate thousands of years and are immortally frozen as they looked at 25. And the poor…die. A sudden jolt in your chest where your timer runs down, you ‘time out’.

The Timberlake is Will Salas, a grafter in the ghetto permanently living hand-to-mouth with never more than a day of life on the clock. His mother is played by Olivia Wilde, which is a good gag as the actress is 27 and Justin is himself 30 now. Life in the ghetto is squalid, with people dying in the street when their time comes; a junkland of pawn shops and gangsters that is ruled over by time keepers, led by Cillian Murphy’s Raymond.

Yes just like in Gattaca everyone is fab looking.

Talking of which, the story really kicks off where Salas busts out of the ghetto after a man with a hundred years to spare (and on the clock) mysteriously decides he wants to die and transfers his time to Salas. Arriving in New Greenwich (time gag!) where the rich live in ivory towers, Will bumps into beautiful heiress Sylvia, played by Amanda Seyfried of those huge saucer-like eyes.

He takes her hostage and her Daddy is an evil industrialist with millions of years stored in his vault. Played with blue-blooded superciliousness by Mad Men’s Vincent Kartheiser, it’s a nice bit of casting; the baby faced actor portraying a man with over a hundred years experience.

And that’s pretty much it. There is lots of running and shooting and chasing around in vintage cars. Do you think Sylvia will get a bit saucy with Will even though she hates him at the start? What happens with In time is the interesting set-up becomes repetitive and what you get a sort of grungy science-fiction Bonnie and Clyde, with lashings of Robin Hood.

It is entertaining stuff, particularly at the start when you have lots of time gags, like 99 Second stores and people moaning about the price of living: “4 mins for a cup of coffee!” Hey, time is money. It also feels like a film that could have been made on a huge budget but hasn’t been, which in a way is no bad thing. The only real special effects are the embedded time clocks, giving rise to an especially decisive version of arm wrestling, where you can literally squeeze your opponent’s life away - nice.

In the end though, ironically for a script about time, it starts to drag in the middle and you glance at your own watch, not pondering life-minutes eking away (that would be overstating it) but glancing nonetheless.

In time is released on November 1st 2011 (1.11.11)

LFF 2011: The Ides of March review

George Clooney’s political thriller boasts a great cast and snappy dialogue. However an under-powered script suggests people are getting carried away with praise, pre Oscar season.

Any fan of The West Wing will tell you that campaign politics are all about backroom deals and handsome strategy wonks ping-ponging dialogue over 20 hour working days. George Clooney’s adaptation of Beau Willimon’s play Faragut North spins the theme into a satisfying politico-thriller that doesn’t quite have the depth its Champions League cast deserves.

Ryan Gosling plays Stephen Myers, a campaign operative on the rise, with a brilliant line on manipulating the media and spinning the polls in favour of his paymaster. In this case, he’s trying to get Democrat hopeful Governor Mike Morris (Clooney) the nomination on a ticket of vaguely Obama-style progressive politics. Also on Team Morris is Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s Paul Zara, a more senior spin-meister who has seen it all before. As it’s Hoffman, you watch him quietly sizing people up in his opening scenes and wait for him to explode with invective when his buttons get pressed.

There are no Republicans here, we're all about the Primaries and the Democrat scramble for the nomination. On the competing side of the drama is Paul Giamatti's slightly darker, ever more manipulative huckster, with a candidate of his own and an eye on recruiting the wonderboy Myers.



You can also throw in Marisa Tomei, as a journalist with the inside track and actors of the caliber of Jeffrey Wright and Gregory Itzin (he was the Nixon-style bad president in 24).

The trouble is, with all that talent, and with Clooney's proven eye for the material after Good Night and Good Luck, the story is down-shifted by a sexual peccadillo involving a pretty intern on the campaign (Evan Rachel Wood as seen in Mildred Pierce). The reversals in fortune that drive the movie are mundane and don't leave enough room for some of the depth or fireworks you might expect.

Don't get me wrong, it is still a classy drama with passages to enjoy in it. Clooney himself gives an onscreen performance that is two parts charm and one part menace, when the serious business has to be done. Ryan Gosling makes his character play by hinting at intelligence and steel even when the script doesn't necessarily give him the ammunition to back this up. With three films in the multiplex right now, he seems to have a mystique around him. Whether he plays hit-man, lothario or political grifter, he's giving off some Steve Macqueen, crossed with some Edward Norton - a potent combination.

In the end, The Ides of March pales compared to series six and seven of The West Wing, which cover the same ground in far more depth, so if you haven't seen those episodes you might get more out it. Either way, it is still an engaging thriller with efficient melodrama at its heart.

The Ides of March - is out now and was screened at the London Film Festival 2011

LFF 2011: Shame

One of the only images from Shame we can show without age verification.

Michael Fassbender continues his unstoppable rise in Shame, an art film that is both hypnotic and brave even when it seems to dare you to look away. You'll come out wanting to scrub yourself with hand-gel but not in a Contagion way.

In director Steve McQueen’s second feature, Fassbender plays Brandon a young executive in New York. He is sharply dressed, handsome and seemingly successful at work; clinching deals in boardrooms with backslaps and shit-eating grins. He is also a sex addict.

If we smirked at celebrities who have claimed this addiction in the past, Shame shows you what that really means, day to day. For Brandon, it’s all chat rooms, fuck-cams, and anonymous shags in back alleys. He cannot get through the working day without digitally relieving himself in a toilet cubicle and his office computer is crammed full of porn (he somehow gets away with that one).

We quickly understand the sex is the outward expression of a terrible loneliness and sense of alienation he feels. The arrival of his sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) brings this into sharp relief. She’s a session singer whose life is a mess. She needs her brother and the last thing he can do is relate to her and offer a shoulder to cry on. When she rocks up at his apartment, she invades his space and fuels his self-loathing. How can he continue his ordered life of porn, masturbation and microwave dinners with his sister just feet away from him? Between the siblings there is a hint of – well, incest is too strong a word – fraught intimacy.

It seems that Sissy being young and sexually active, and also wanting to hug her brother becomes an exquisite torture for him. It brings out violent tendencies and sends him into the streets of New York. In an memorable scene Sissy takes Brandon’s boss back to the apartment for sex and her brother is spewed out into Manhattan; as the camera follows his long-stride jogging for what seems like an extraordinarily long tracking shot through several NY blocks. Steve McQueen’s fluid camera move captures the moment beautifully, with the eye of an artist who work has included experimental films and sculpture.

Both actors are extraordinary. Fassbender delivers a performance that is alarmingly raw. He strips his character literally bare as Brandon gazes for what seems like an eternity into Steve McQueen’s cameras, in various stages of sexual release – and sadness. You cannot imagine a non-European actor, like contemporary rising star Ryan Gosling, taking on this role. Carey Mulligan also has that skill of revealing emotion on film and making it appear effortless. Both actors’ commitment to their craft includes frank nudity but these instances are true to the material and not glamourised in any sense. I mentioned this was an art film. By that I mean it felt true to life and hard to watch as opposed to reassuring. It is certainly not erotic and, for me anyway, seemed more revealing of its characters inner emotions than Michael Winterbottom's blow-jobs and concerts film, 9 Songs.

Shame seems to scratch away at some darkness in contemporary times, of people locked away in apartments in front of laptops, webcams and mobile phones, grinding away in despair. However, Steve MacQueen’s film has a formal beauty that demands to be seen, like Taxi Driver but in a different palette, different era.

Shame opens 13 January 2012

Can we learn from Steve Jobs?

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life,”

Jobs said. “Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Steve Jobs RIP, who died 5 October 2011.

As the co-founder of Pixar, the film world has a huge debt to him as well.

Captain America review

Captain America: The First Avenger is Marvel studios' last curtain raiser before The Avengers in 2012. I reviewed the 3D version for
The-void.co.uk, the extra 'D' was not required but the movie was fun, fast moving and light-hearted.

Just as the US trade deficit threatens to recast the country as a global weakling, along comes Captain America. Proud, decisive and muscular, he’s here to kick Nazi butt and set up Marvel Studios for their über-franchise event of next summer, The Avengers.

His own feature is solidly entertaining, unpretentious fun. With its blue-eyed hero, boo-hiss villain and constant pyrotechnics, the Captain succeeds as the slightly squarer, vanilla companion to his Avenger buddy Thor.

Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is peevish, a word culled from Wuthering Heights to describe the kind of Brooklyn guy who gets beaten up in every alleyway in town and has a list of ailments longer than his arm preventing his enrolment in the WWII US war effort. He’s a decent chap desperate to get enlisted like his friend Bucky (Sebastian Stan) and not just so he can get laid. Luckily for him, his unstoppable Scrappy-doo attitude is spotted and he’s pitched into a top secret program to create the ultimate super soldier.

A word on the special effects here, as it appears CGI is used to create the Clark Kent version of Steve Rogers; with Chris Evans’ face appearing on a wee Jimmy Krankie-like body. Whereas, after he’s popped into an iron lung contraption and pumped full of ‘vita-rays’ to create Captain America – there is no special effect, it looks like good old fashioned gym work from Chris Evans that turned him into Lou Ferigno, in a good way. He does look the part and Hayley Atwell’s yummy English love-interest Peggy can’t resist touching one of those domed pecs of American imperialism.

So Tommy Lee Jones is the grouchy drill instructor who reluctantly accepts Steve as part of his unit and the scientific boffin behind the super soldier tech is Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper) – who we know goes on to father one Tony ‘Iron Man’ Stark.
And what of the villains? Unlike Thor, whose antagonists were all a bit Hamlet for my liking, and Green Lantern, with its amorphous clouds of crap, Captain America has a fantastic bad guy: Johann Schmidt.

Schmidt (Hugo Weaving) is a sadistic Nazi who believes in the occult powers, even more than Hitler. When a source of otherworldly destruction comes into his hands, in the form of a tesseract cube, he sets out his stall for world domination; demanding allegiance not to the Führer but to his own Hydra science division.

Weaving gives great villain. I can’t place his German accent regionally (although he does sound like Werner Herzog) but he has great fun enunciating every vowel and s-l-o-w-i-n-g his delivery down to make his evil points. Visually, when Schmidt is revealed at Red Skull, he’s effective too. Red Skull is Hellboy red, hairless, skeletal and all kitted out in a Nazi fetish gear, like his gas-mask wearing troops.

The action scenes are brisk and well-choreographed as both hero and villain attempt to single-handedly win the war across the battle-fields of Europe. In keeping with this Marvel universe, it’s a resolutely bloodless affair, without the serious tone of Chris Nolan’s Batman series but that’s fine; it is just a different flavour of superhero movie.

Chris Evans does a great job of reinterpreting the square-jawed hero. He’s funny and vulnerable when he needs to be, especially when first trying out those goofy Captain America outfits.

The bottom line on this week’s comic book outing (the fourth of the summer) is that Captain America: First Avenger is fun to watch. Unlike other heroes, he doesn’t have a tortured back-story, nothing nuanced, just some fast-moving rotoscope-looking action in unnecessary 3D. In the end, you will know how the Captain fits into the bigger picture for The Avengers and those of you who have been paying attention will stay to the end of the credits to see….something that (quite rightly) has not been shown to the press. Enjoy.

[Written for The-Void.co.uk]

Iron Man review
Iron Man 2 review

The complete Mildred Pierce mini-series

Kate Winslet stars in HBOs lavish mini-series Mildred Pierce. Based on James M Cain's novel, it was last filmed in 1945 starring Joan Crawford and Jack Carson. Director Todd Haynes, who brought a modern sensibility to 1950s scenes in Far from Heaven again brings his eye for frank sexuality and strong women to bear in this five-parter which has just aired on Sky Atlantic in the UK.

I reviewed all five installments for TV Pixie, the recommendation engine for TV fans:

The preview I wrote (without Spoilers)

[Warning: all reviews contain plot spoilers, nudity and raunchy sex]

Mildred Pierce: part one
Mildred Pierce: part two
Mildred Pierce: part three
Mildred Pierce: part four
Mildred Pierce: part five

Green Lantern review

If you’re over 30 and you don’t want to play superhero Top Trumps at the multiplex, tough titties. It is now all about who has the best pixels, the most righteous pecs and the cutest back-story. You will also need to know whose villains are best at hiding their British or Commonwealth accents and dishing out the ham. On nearly all counts it won’t be the yawnsome Green Lantern.

Read more of my Green Lantern review over at The-Void.co.uk

Source Code and Sucker Punch - your April fools releases

It's Friday April 1st and having dismissed the news (Mel Gibson in Ten Commandments remake! etc) you want to go to the movies. So which big, glossy Hollywood movie should you see?

Check out my Source Code review for a science fiction action film starring Jake Gyllenhaal and directed by Duncan Jones (Moon).

Dip into my non-review of Sucker Punch - extreme circumstances meant I was unable to complete my critical duties on this film, I still have plenty to say about it mind.

Enjoy.

Oscar night preview 2011

Tonight at the Oscars all of Hollywood is united in one thought. Thank hell Ricky Gervais isn’t here.

Sure it is all a massive PR back-slap-athon designed to sell more product but hey; it can also be a fun way to spend five hours of your life while overdosing on pringles and tequila.

I’m not an old fart yet but I hark back to the days of Billy Crystal’s assured handling of the Telecast. He would schmooze the crowd but he would also take the P, usually out of Jack Nicholson. Tonight the producers are going for yoof. Anne Hathaway (28) and James Franco (32) will gently tease each other and will mostly be very attractive in front of a ‘stunning virtual reality backdrop’. Okay. Both are likeable and talented though not comedians by trade. So we’ll see.

Will we see Banksy though?

Let’s hope a deal has been done to let him verify his identity, with a passport and birthmark combo perhaps, so he can collect his Oscar wearing a monkey mask, or even better: as Mel Gibson.

***

Watching The King’s Speech a second time last night I was quickly reminded how the award season gives way so brutally to the summer fare, seeing back to back trailers for Transformers 3 and Cowboys & Aliens. I don’t think the Lady in her 80s behind me who said “Oh that was marvellous” will be queuing up. In front of us an eleven year old confirmed the wide appeal of TKS which will win it Best Picture tonight, so what else is going to happen?

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Who will win?
Hailee Steinfeld for True Grit. She is in 90% of the movie so she’s only in this category and not Best Actress for tactical reasons.

Who should win?
Melissa Leo for The Fighter. The character is white trash perfection, the anti-Helena Bonham Carter.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Who will win? Geoffrey Rush for TKS. A subtle performance to support his King, the actor is well liked too.

Who should win? Geoffrey Rush for TKS.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Who will win? David Seidler for The King's Speech. He’s a veteran and it is a lovely screenplay, balancing character, plot and little reversals.

Who should win? If we are saying ‘original’, surely Christopher Nolan’s Inception is truer to the word, and it is not like he’s going to win big elsewhere.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Who will win? Aaron Sorkin for The Social Network. His script is in-your-face brilliant; making the facebook story fly with smart dialogue and a clever structure, which will be familiar to West Wing fans.

Who should win? Sorkin.

BEST ACTRESS
Who will win? Natalie Portman for Black Swan. It is her time and this film takes her into new, darker territory. She is blooming pregnant so we will await the tears.

Who should win?
Jennifer Lawrence for Winter's Bone. A breakthrough performance of great intelligence and power in a more understated film than Black Swan.

BEST ACTOR
Who will win? Colin Firth, of course.

Who should win? Colin Firth. James Franco can do everything though, can't he?

BEST FILM
What a varied year. From Black Swan, to Toy Story 3, TKS and The Fighter. Inception and Winter's Bone are great too, in their own widely different ways. But it is TKS which has stolen a march on earlier favorite The Social Network.

BEST DIRECTOR
Who will will?
Here's where I think the TKS gravy train will derail, with David Fincher getting the nod for his handling of The Social Network, and a great career.

Who should win? Fincher, though kudos to Tom Hooper.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Trent Reznor for The Social Network, as it propelled the movie forward, but Hans Zimmer's Inception should run it close.

Finally all eyes will be on BEST DOCUMENTARY......Banksy to pip Restrepo and then what happens...

My daring Oscar plan for Banksy

For the true artiste award ceremonies are bunkum. Blah blah blah.

Yeah we know.

But imagine an artist who has made his name by being anonymous. Now put him in a room with people so famous they have to be replaced by cardboard cut-outs when they go to the toilet. Yay, Banksy at the Oscars.
I love it that an Academy executive (imagine a ponytail) has said:

”The fun but disquieting scenario is that if the film wins and five guys in monkey masks come to the stage all saying, "I'm Banksy," who the hell do we give it [award] to?"

Jeez Louise, what’s not to love? I mean, many in the auditorium won't have the same faces they were born with anyway. But no, Oscar killjoys are apparently kyboshing the artist's request to show up in disguise because copycats might gate-crash the party (TICKETS anyone!?) I say there is an easy way round this:

1) Banksy gets in without doing any press (no-one knows what he looks like, right?)
2) Banksy mingles, everyone assumes he is an accountant with Price Water House Cooper or worse, a writer.
3) *When the nomination shot happens, BANG, all nominees have latex masks of Tom Cruise on.
4) Banksy wins, “Thank you, this is for Bristol, Yarp”

Be better than Mission Impossible 4 that.

Baftas 2011

Tiaras, tantrums and tit-tape. But enough about Jonathan Ross.
This is the Baftas 2011. We all know Colin Firth is going to both win and deliver a humble, pithy speech. We also know The King's Speech is going to be announced best film. So where's the fun at tonight?

Outstanding debut by a British writer, director or producer
Clio Bernard, a film lecturer in Whitstable is nominated for The Abor, and is vying with Banksy for Exit Through The Gift Shop. Either would be worthy winners, especially if the guerilla street artist turns up in a monkey mask.

Best original screenplay
I very much liked The Kid's Are Alright and Black Swan but surely this is where Chris Nolan's Inception can get some award love. It aint heavy or serious but it delivers great entertainment - with a brain.

Rising Star Award
I think the lovely Gemma Arterton is going to win. She's down to earth and really ace in The Disappearance of Alice Creed and fun in Tamara Drewe. Tom Hardy, Andrew Garfield and Aaron Johnson are also top British talents to watch - none of them need to win this, they'll be just dandy.

Best Supporting Actor
Christian Bale, if he wins, should give a fruity speech. And Russell Crowe-style-at-the-Baftas, it would be no surprise if a journalist says something to upset him and the intense one launches a verbal assault.

Sir Christopher Lee!
He gets the Bafta fellowship tonight. Yes, he is still alive. He is Scaramanger. He is evil.

Salute the Lee.

Why Colin Firth is in the perfect storm for Oscar

Let's get the obvious part out of the way: The King's Speech is a lovely film and perfectly accomplished in every department. From set dressers, to sound editors, to director Tom Hooper and his actors - I mean c'mon, they even have Derek Jacobi and Michael Gambon in supporting roles.

...but the main story will be Colin Firth, who even your grandma who hasn't been to the pictures since Gone with the Wind knows will win his shiny statue at the The Academy Awards next month. How do we know?

1. The voters heart British royalty, unconsciously yearning for all that history and all them clipped vowels, see: The Madness of King George, The Queen, Elizabeth etc
2. The voters love a good disability, but even better the triumph of 'the human spirit' over it, see Forest Gump, My Left Foot, Scent of a Woman etc
3. The voters love to reward you when it's your time, last year's nailed on, shoe-in was Jeff Bridges, for an amazing career, making friends in Hollywood everywhere, in a role he dominated - his popularity meant he beat one...Colin Firth, who this year, for an amazing career...etc
4. Men loving voters love him for less than artistic reasons, see...pictures of Colin Firth.
5. He will make a splendid speech (oh the irony!) with self-deprecation and witty asides and he will not cry or do anything Gwyneth Paltrow-like when the moment arrives.
6. Almost forgot, he's absolutely brilliant in The King's Speech (which won't win best film).

Catfish: the review

The other 2010 release that is not really ‘about facebook’ is a compelling conundrum that will slot into many people’s top ten lists for the year.

While superlatives should be attached to Catfish for filmmaking style, originality and for the journey it takes the audience on, it presents a problem for the reviewer. The less you know about it - going in - the better. And once you have seen it, you’ll immediately want to discuss this documentary in a whole different light, starting with asking: how exactly was this put together, from start to finish.

So 'Catfish' needs to be seen, and then talked about afterwards.

And here are the bare bone facts. Yaniv 'Nev' Shulman is a 20-something photographer and filmmaker who is drawn into starring in a documentary by his brother Ariel and his filmmaking partner Henry Joost. The jumping off point is a random connection he makes in his New York office; with a young girl who takes some of the photographs he puts online and turns them into impressionistic paintings. Straight-forward and mundane enough you might think, however they become friends on facebook and ‘events’ kick off from there and take you to situations you will not expect.

Immediately coming out of Catfish I had a peculiar feeling that the events were too strange for the filmmakers to have made up, or that the depicted scenes are part of a semi-staged wheeze that is brilliantly concealed in truthful moments. Perhaps the truth is somewhere in between, as every documentary is a constructed reality, on some level.

What isn’t disputed is the technique of the film, using straight-to-camera confessionals and visuals from every device going, from iPhones to Satnav to the social media sites, to create a momentum that is thriller-like and utterly gripping.

There is also something deeply disturbing about 'Catfish', something truthful about the way we use sites like facebook to represent ourselves. And there is also humour, and real poignancy. The storytelling, which uses technology in a clever way, also shows great skill in editing and pacing. In its own, very different way 'Catfish' is every bit as essential as the slick Hollywood product 'The Social Network', and every bit as contemporary and plugged in to who we are today and what’s going on.

After a terrific 87 minutes what you are left with will be questions. About the relationship between documentary maker and subject, about exploitation and what it means for a documentary to be set-up, or in some way for information to be withheld. In short: a conundrum. A brilliant one though.


FOUR STARS

As published in MovieVortex: my catfish review in movie vortex

Is Catfish a Shaggy Dog Story?

I have to admit the movie Catfish has left me stumped tonight. For starters its going to be a bugger to review. Yes it slots straight into my top ten of 2010, as the other great movie that's not really 'about' facebook, but the less you know about it the better. I'll go further, you may almost need to know nothing about it to appreciate it. The more I want to rave about this movie, the more I want to shout: DON'T GO RUNNING TO Imdb.

So what can we say? Well first off, it doesn't contain either of the two fellas above carrying the fish, especially the one who looks like a Winklevoss brother. What it does is follow a guy called Yaniv who's starring in a documentary he seems reluctant to take part in, following up a random connection he makes that's either too peculiar for the filmmakers to have invented, or part of an elaborate screenwriting wheeze that's so brilliantly hidden in truths - you can't tell the difference.

There's something deeply disturbing about Catfish, something truthful about the way we use social networks, there is also humour, pathos, and storytelling which uses technology in a very clever way, with terrific editing and pacing. It also escapes the usual hollywood, pitch-it-on- a-post-it note pidgeonholing, it's not really something meets anything.

It is an original and I can't stop thinking about it.

At the back of my mind though I'm thinking about Orson Welles' F for Fake and
that a shaggy dog story told on digital cams, with iPhones, facebook and SatNavs
............is still a shaggy dog story.

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