Category Archives: Features

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The 34th Annual Razzie Award Nominations

A Golden Raspberry Award
Kristen Bell and Justin Long sat at a table

Image via: blackfilm.com

The Golden Raspberry Awards, or the Razzies, is an award ceremony that recognises the hilariously bad in film. The ceremony is typically held the day before the Academy Awards, and basically tries to be a tacky version. Funnily enough, the “winners” don’t attend most of the time.

The nominations for the 34th Annual Razzie Awards were released on January 15th this year, and are as follows:

Worst Picture Nominations 2013

After Earth

Grown-Ups 2

The Lone Ranger

A Madea Christmas

Movie 43

Worst Actress Nominations 2013

Halle Berry (The Call and Movie 43)

Selena Gomez (The Getaway)

Lindsey Lohan (The Canyons)

Tyler Perry (A Madea Christmas)

Naomi Watts (Diana and Movie 43)

Worst Actor Nominations 2013

Johnny Depp (The Lone Ranger)

Ashton Kutcher (Jobs)

Adam Sandler (Grown-Ups 2)

Jaden Smith (After Earth)

Sylvester Stallone (Bullet to the Head, Grudge Match and Escape Plan)

Worst Supporting Actress Nominations 2013

Lady Gaga (Machette Kills)

Salma Hayek (Grown-Ups 2)

Katherine Heigl (The Big Wedding)

Kim Kardashian (Temptation)

Lindsey Lohan (InAPPropriate Comedy and Scary Movie 5)

Worst Supporting Actor Nominations 2013

Chris Brown (Battle of the Year)

Larry the Cable Guy (A Madea Christmas)

Taylor Lautner (Grown-Ups 2)

Will Smith (After Earth)

Nick Swardson (A Haunted House and Grown-Ups 2)

Worst Screen Combo Nominations 2013

The entire cast of Grown-Ups 2

The entire cast of Movie 43

Lindsey Lohan and Charlie Sheen (Scary Movie 5)

Tyler Perry and either Larry the Cable Guy or That Worn-Out Wig and Dress

Will and Jaden Smith on Planet Nepotism (After Earth)

Worst Director Nominations 2013

The 13 people who directed Movie 43

Dennis Dugan (Grown-Ups 2)

Tyler Perry (A Madea Christmas and Temptation)

M. Night Shyamalan (After Earth)

Gore Verbinski (The Lone Ranger)

Worst Screenplay Nominations 2013

After Earth (Screenplay by Gary Whitta and M. Night Shyamalan,
Story by Will Smith)

Grown-Ups 2 (Written by Fred Wolfe & Adam Sandler & Tim Herlihy)

The Lone Ranger (Screen Story & Screenplay by Ted Elliott,
Justin Haythe & Terry Rosso)

A Madea Christmas (Written by Tyler Perry)

Movie 43 (written by 19 “screenwriters”)

Worst Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel 2013

Grown-Ups 2

The Hangover III

The Lone Ranger

Scary Movie 5

The Smurfs 2

Stay here on Inside Film to see who wins! Or loses, however you say it.

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How far will an actor go to achieve perfection?

Image shows actor Christian Bale in a scene for the film The Machinist.
Image shows actor Christian Bale in a scene for the film The Machinist.

Image via: IGN.com

For many actors, the role is more than just learning the lines. Actors are often required to push their bodies to the limits as well as prepare themselves mentally. The transformations that ensue are often quite staggering.

Christian Bale is a notable actor for transforming his body for a role. For several roles he has lost weight, built muscle and even gained weight. This constant fluctuation is certainly no easy feat. For his role in insomniac thriller, The Machinist, Christian Bale reportedly lost 28.5kg. To lose this weight, Christian relied on a strict diet of a single serving of fish and 1 piece of fruit a day. Currently, Christian holds the record for the most amount of weight lost for any role, and it certainly shows. His biggest achievement however, was for his next role.

After production was finished for The Machinist, Christian Bale was cast as Batman in Christopher Nolan’s reboot. Bale was tasked with reaching a typical Batman like physique something that wasn’t evident in The Machinist. A high carb diet and intensive muscle workouts results in Christian Bale gaining 44.9 KG over the course of production.

Recently, Christian had to get fatter for his role in American Hustle, eating an abundant amount of fast food. He certainly has quite the belly in the film.

In terms of mental preparation, the late Heath Ledger certainly wins the award for his commitment to the role of the Joker in The Dark Knight. Heath threw himself at the role of the main antagonist, locking himself in a room for weeks on end, with only himself for company. During this time, Heath Ledger wrote a diary and practiced his speech, really getting into character. One of his diary entries read that, “I ended up landing more in the realm of a psychopath – someone with very little to no conscience towards his acts.”

As his performance shows, Heath Ledger certainly grasped the character of the Joker including subtleties such as mannerisms and facial expression. I’m you’ll agree, the voice he used, is chilling and memorable to say the least. Speaking of which Heath Ledger is believed to have taken inspiration from an interview conducted with singer Tom Waits in 1979. You can certainly see the similarities in the interview below.

Acting isn’t just about saying the right lines for many actors. The lengths actors go to in order to achieve the perfect role is clearly extraordinary.

 

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The Ultimate Avengers: Will it happen?

Phase one, phase two, phase three. All these “phases” Marvel keep telling us they are going through is getting pretty confusing. It all began with Iron Man, back in 2008. Captain America, Thor, The Incredible Hulk and a second Iron Man all followed before culminating in Joss Whedons’ £220 million dollar blockbuster The Avengers hitting the screens in 2012.

Whedons outstandingly successful film marked the end of phase one, and the beginning of phase

image via www.thegeektwins.com

image via www.thegeektwins.com

two for Marvel, which has now already seen a third Iron man and sequels for both Thor and Captain America. With Avengers two expected to round off Marvels latest efforts under one big umbrella, how long will it be until we expect more of a favourite superhero’s joining the Avengers roster?

Well, they may not have the answers, but online bloggers Maurice and Nigel, better known as “The Geek Twins”, have provided a visual representation of the current Marvel landscape. Their charming guide illustrates Marvels movie rights for each individual and/or group of superheroes.

During the 1990’s, Marvel began selling their character rights to different movie studios, including Universal and Sony.  This allowed 20th Century Fox to begin producing their X-men films; whilst Sony began work on a new Spiderman franchise.  The success of these franchises, alongside other superhero films such the Fantastic Four and Daredevil, led Marvel to begin making their own films independently and thus, Marvel Studios was born.

Marvel managed to re-obtain rights for Iron Man, Thor and Captain America from Artisan, who had not used the rights in anyway. They also re-claimed the rights for the Incredible Hulk and Namor the Submariner, who has yet to be used, from Universal.

However, Sony refused to give up their rights for Spiderman, as they were planning yet another reboot, albeit this time for the Amazing Spiderman. Fox also decided against selling their rights for X-men, with their films, and stand-alone Wolverine films, continuing to provide moderate success.

It became the comic book world’s worst kept secret in late 2013 that Sony and Marvel failed to reach a deal on some form of crossover movie, but Andrew Garfield has said that he would like to appear in the Avengers universe, stating “I would love that, the fans would love that. Obviously, big business and lawyers and rights issues are an obstacle. In my naiveté I’m all ‘let’s put all that aside and just do it!’.”

As it stands, we are still far away from a truly complete Avengers movie. Although not an original member, Spiderman would be expected to join up with the Avengers somewhere during the second or third instalment, yet with Marc Webb already confirming the completion of the Amazing Spiderman trilogy in 2016, Marvel may yet struggle to fulfil their fans desires despite recent rumours. Marvel themselves appear more focused on adding more strings to their bow, with Guardians of the Galaxy on the way and plans to also reintroduce Ant Man to a younger audience.

However, X-men producer Lauren Shuler Donner has given cause for hope, telling Crave Online that “I would love it. I would love it…to take our characters and mingle them in the way that they were written, yeah, absolutely.” Joss Whedon was also the author of twenty five issues of the critically acclaimed Astonishing X-men and also lent a hand in the writing of The Ultimate’s, the ultimate avenger’s team. So for comic book fans, there may still yet be reason for hope, but for us and the Geek twins, we’ll just have to wait and see.

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Things you didn’t know about Lord of the Rings

Three posters for the Lord of the Rings trilogy side by side featuring profiles of the cast.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy is a series that could be considered one of the most ambitious film projects made. The production of these three films was huge with an overall budget of $280 million. All three films were shot simultaneously in New Zealand and the project took eight years to complete. The extended editions of the three films total 682 minutes (6hrs 22m), the longest being Return of the Kings with is over three hours.

A moving image of Peter Jackson in in a small rainy village at night-time, walking across screen taking a bite from a carrot =.

Peter Jackson in The Desolation of Smaug. Image via Metro.co.uk

If you’re a big Lord of the Rings fan then you may have noticed director Peter Jackson’s cameos in the films. In The Fellowship of the Ring Jackson appears in Bree, he was originally supposed to be smoking a pipe but it made him feel sick so he holds a carrot. In The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug Jackson again appears in Bree talking across screen taking a bite from a carrot, a nice reference to his cameo over a decade earlier.

In The Two Towers Jackson defends Helms Deep as a Rohan soldier. During the battle he can be seen throwing a spear at an Uruk-hai. Jackson actually has two cameos in the extended edition of The Return of the King Jackson plays one of the Corsairs of Umbar who is killed when Legolas fires a warning shot. Jackson also appears as Sam’s hands when he faces Shelob. Sean Astin was temporarily absent and Jackson stepped in so that filming wouldn’t slow down.

Jacksons son and daughter, Billy and Katie Jackson, also make appearances in the trilogy several times. Firstly as young hobbits in The Fellowship of the Ring, Billy was actually the only ‘hobbit’ not to wear a wig as he had ‘perfect hobbit hair’. The children also appear as refugee children in the caves of Helms Deep in The Two Towers, and children at Minas Tirith in The Return of the King. 

Fanghorn forest, the forest beneath the Misty Mountains where Merry and Pippin meet Treebeard and Aragorn Gimli and Legolas encounter a white wizard. In The Two Towers, Fangorn is entirely artificial, made up of miniature, CGI and a studio set. It was decided that Fangorn would not be shot on location as director Peter Jackson could not find anything suitable in New Zealand.

As part of creating the studio set, Dan Hennah (art director) and Brian Massey (greens department) would visit local botanical gardens and ask to collect their leaves, “We’d fill up all these great big woolsacks full of leaves and take them and cart them away and stash them very carefully”. Driftwood collected from beaches nearby was used as roots for the trees. Treebeard was a 14 foot tall puppet, operated by five people.

Many of the Lord of the Rings sets were actually miniatures. The Numenorian ruins in The Fellowship of the Ring, Amon Henwhich is seen at the end of the Fellowship are recycled polystyrene structures from Weathertop. Several of these ‘miniature’ sets were, although small in terms of scale, so large they became known as ‘bigatures. This name was inspired bur Barad-Dur miniature, which was 15ft tall. The bigature of Orthanc actually filled a whole car park.

 

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Quentin Tarantino sues for $2million over script leak.

An image of Quentin Tarantino holding an award.
An image of Quentin Tarantino holding an award.

Quentin Tarantino.
Source: Wikipedia

Oscar winning director and screenwriter, Quentin Tarantino is seeking at least $2million in damages down to the leak of his script for his movie The Hateful Eight.

Tarantino is suing the gossip website Gawker for contributory copyright infringement after it posted a link to the leaked screenplay.

Last Monday (20th January), the first draft of Tarantino’s ensemble Western was published to the world after the director trusted it into the hands of only six people.

The lawsuit, filed by Tarantino’s lawyers today, seeks damaged of $1million (£603,000) against Gawker and $1million against the anonymous file-sharing website where the leaked script was hosted.

The director, who last year won an Oscar for Best Screenplay for Django Unchained, has since decided to shelve the product which he had previously planned to film in the winter of 2015.

Instead, he said that he will probably publish the script as a book instead, a practice that in the past has seen him rack up some impressive royalties and advances.

With the release of Django Unchained in 2012 and Inglorious Basterds in 2009, the director is certainly not struggling for funds as they were both box-office smashes, accumulating over $740million worldwide.

As well as an impressive box office, the two films achieved 12 nominations and 3 wins at The Academy Awards.

As for what Quentin Tarantino has planned next, he said “I’ve got 10 more where that came from.”