Category Archives: Genres

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Events, offers and releases 10/2/14

An image of the lego movie characters.
An image of the lego movie characters.

The Lego Movie Courtesy of Warner Bros.

Releases – In Cinemas Friday 14th February

Her– Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams and Scarlett Johansson. Her sees a lonely writer (Phoenix) develop an unlikely relationship with a newly purchased operating system that’s designed to meet his every need. Check out the trailer by clicking here.

Monuments Men – George Clooney stars in, directs, produces and writes this World War II drama that sees an unlikely team given the task to rescue art masterpieces from Nazi thieves and return them to their owners. Based on a true story the movie co-stars Matt Damon, John Goodman and Cate Blanchett. See the platoon get to work in the trailer here.

The Lego Movie –  for the child that lives in all of us, The Lego Movie will add some laughs to your valentines day. An ordinary LEGO minifigure, mistakenly thought to be the extraordinary MasterBuilder, is recruited to join a quest to stop an evil LEGO tyrant from gluing the universe together. Featuring the voices of Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Morgan Freeman and Liam Neeson, this film will entertain everyone, from the youngest to the oldest. See the trailer here.

To book tickets visit the Odeon website.

Offers

See The Book Thief for Free!

Before the general release of the film on Friday 26th February you have the chance to see World War II drama, The Book Thief, before anyone else on Tuesday 11th February.

Narrated by ‘Death’ the story is set in World War II Germany and describes a young girl’s relationship with her foster parents, other residents of her neighbourhood, and a young man who hides in her home during the escalation of World War II. The film is directed by Brian Percival and is an adaptation of the New York Times bestseller written by Markus Zusak and published in 2005.

All you need to do is head over the ShowFilmFirst website and enter this code: 482715. But be quick as these kind of offers don’t last long and once the tickets are gone, they’re gone.

Events

A golden bear statue which is the top prize at the Berlin International Film Festival.

The Golden Bear, the top prize and the Berlin International Film Festival.

 

Berlin International Film Festival – 6th-16th February 2014.

With around 300,000 tickets sold, the Berlin International Film Festival is often seen as the largest publicly attended film festival in the world based on actual attendance rates. Up to 400 films will be shown throughout the event across various venues in the capital.

Films to look out for are Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, Lars Von Trier’s Nymphomaniac and Calvary, a black comedy starring Chris O’Dowd and Brendan Gleeson.

For a full list of screenings and up-to-date news click here to visit the Berlin International Film Festival website.

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Philip Seymour Hoffman, life of the actor.

Philip Seymour Hoffman talking into a microphone
Philip Seymour Hoffman at a press conference holding a microphone

Philip Seymour Hoffman

Update: Post-mortem results released on February 28th have stated that the actor died of an accidental overdose caused by a “mixed drug intoxication” including heroin, cocaine, amphetamines and benzodiazepine. The original story is as follows.

Actor, director, father. Phillip Seymour Hoffman passed away on February 4th 2014 in New York from a suspected drug overdose.

The celebrity was found dead in his New York apartment by friend and playwright David Bar Katz. While there has been no confirmed cause of death, investigators searching the apartment found bags of heroin and prescription medication.

Born in New York in 1967 Hoffman grew up in the New York suburb of Rochester with his mother, father and two sisters, Emily and Jill.

His love of acting came after he was forced to give up wrestling following a neck injury. When he was 17 he was selected to attend the 1984 Theatre School at the New York State Summer School of Arts.

There he met future collaborators, Dan Futterman and Bennet Miller, the screenwriter and director who Hoffman worked with on the 2005 film, Capote. A film for which he is most famous for after going on to win the Academy Award for Best Actor at the 78th Academy Awards.

Since then, Hoffman has enjoyed critical and commercial success following his Oscar nomination for his role in Doubt opposite Meryl Streep, Moneyball and The Master, for the latter he gained another Academy Award nomination.

in 2010, Hoffman had his directorial debut with the film Jack Goes Boating, where a limo driver’s blind date sparks a tale of love, betrayal, friendship, and grace centered around two working-class New York City couples. He also appeared in the film as the main character opposite Amy Ryan.

Most recently Hoffman appeared opposite Jennifer Lawrence in the worldwide blockbuster The Hunger Games: Catching Fire as head gamesmaker Pultarch Heavensbee. A role which he is scheduled to reprise in November 2014 in the sequel The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1.

Hoffman had already completed the filming for Part 1 of the film, but had seven more days of filming left at the time of his death for the second instalment.

Filmmakers, Lionsgate, have announced that there will be no change or delay to the release of the movies and that they will employ the use of CGI technology to replace Hoffman’s final moments in the film.

In recent years it has become public knowledge the Hoffman had suffered from substance abuse.

In 2006 he admitted in an interview that he had suffered from drug and alcohol abuse after graduating from college at the age of 22, for which he went into rehab at the time.

He relapsed more than 20 years later with heroin and addiction to prescription medications. In May 2013 he checked himself into drug rehab for 10 days.

Hoffman is survived by his partner of 15 years Mimi O’Donnell, with whom he had a son and two daughters.

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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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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.”

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IMDb voters move Disaster Movie off the bottom of the pile.

Directors Friedberg and Seltzer image via www.listal.com

Directors Friedberg and Seltzer
image via www.listal.com

On the 31st of August 2008, Disaster Movie was named by IMDb as being the worst movie of all time. With an average rating of just 1.9 out of 10 after over 63,000 votes, Disaster Movie out flops titles such as Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2, Zombie Nightmare and even Birdemic: Shock and Terror, a film in which a two survivors fight off a platoon of eagles and vultures who had partnered up in murdering most of the residents of a small town. Yes, really.

The parody, starring Matt Lanter, Vanessa Minnillo, Carmen Electra and even an acting début from the multi-talented Kim Kardashian, received six nominations at the 29th annual Golden Raspberry Awards for Worst Picture, nominations for both Electra and Kardashian in the Worst Supporting Actress category, Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, and Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel.

The only positive review of the film came from Australian newspaper critic Jim Schembri, who described the film as being “dumb but also undeniably funny in more spots than a right-thinking mature person feels comfortable admitting” giving it a rating of 3 ½ stars out of 5.
Schembri’s was himself subjected to criticism from peers and Rotten Tomato website visitors for the review.

Directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer are used to negative reviews. Disaster Movie and Meet the Spartans were voted the two worst films of 2008 by the Times. Empire released their own list of “the Worst Movies of All Time”, in which all but one of Friedberg and Seltzer’s films made it into the countdown.

Although it did manage to recoup nearly $40million in box-office and DVD sales, Disaster Movie was considered by many as being the worst movie ever made, but not anymore.

With a rating of only 1.3 after over 40,000 votes, Indian action crime thriller movie Gunday has “overtaken” Disaster Movie on IMDb’s list of worst rated films.

Directed by Ali Abbas Zafar, Gunday received mixed reviews with many critics admitting the movie had a credible storyline, but was structurally poor. Whilst reviewing the film, Bollywood critic Saibal Chaterjee said that “It really is difficult to keep a two-and-a-half-hour film from losing its wheels when its engine room is bereft of the propellant of genuine inspiration. Gunday is like the dusty minefields it is set in. Its loud explosions deliver loads of coal, but no trace of any diamonds.”

Although far from being a classic, Gunday is seen by many as a commendable effort, and it’s position on IMDb’s list seems quite frankly, a little harsh.

However, for the directors who have been described as being the “”evildoers, charlatans, symbols of western civilization’s decline” and “a plague on our cinematic landscape, a national shame, a danger to our culture, a typhoon-sized natural disaster disguised as a filmmaking team, a Hollywood monster wreaking havoc on the minds of America’s youth and setting civilization back thousands of years”, Friedberg and Seltzer, for now, are no longer the directors of the worst movie of all time.