Irvin Kershner, famed director of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, has passed away aged 87 in Los Angeles after a long battle with lung cancer. Though Kershner’s directing career was modest in numbers, by most accounts he was known for his versatility behind the camera. Originally a lecturer at USC it was here that […]
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Archive | November, 2010
>Head to Head – Ratatouille
November 30, 2010 
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> When it comes to debating Pixar films, the argument often sounds like this: “Was it brilliant, or just really, really excellent?” Brad Bird’s Ratatouille – the tale of a young rat who discovers his true calling in a Parisian restaurant’s kitchen – is as beloved as any Pixar film; nabbing the Best Animated Feature […]
Continue reading(Dark) Aquaman – Megamind review
November 30, 2010 0 Comments
Megamind – Starring Will Ferrell, Tina Fey and Jonah Hill. Directed by Tom McGrath. Rated PG. By Simon Miraudo. Ack! So close! DreamWorks Animation hinted at an evolution beyond their signature style of filmmaking – disposable movies littered with dated pop culture references and gross-out comedy – with this year’s thoughtful How to Train Your […]
Continue readingDeath blow – Killers review
November 30, 2010 3 Comments
Killers – Starring Ashton Kutcher, Katherine Heigl and Tom Selleck. Directed by Robert Luketic. Rated M. Originally published July 28, 2010. By Simon Miraudo. Killers is what I like to call a ‘perspective’ film. Sometimes in this profession, it’s easy to get into the habit of nitpicking truly great films (such as Toy Story 3 […]
Continue reading>James Franco and Anne Hathaway to co-host Oscars
November 30, 2010 0 Comments
>The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has selected the hosts of the 83rd Academy Awards. And believe it or not, it’s an even sexier coupling than the MCs of the 82nd ceremony! Former Oscar nominee Anne Hathaway and (let’s face it) future Oscar nominee James Franco will team up to host the 2011 […]
Continue reading>Australian Box Office: Potter reigns!
November 30, 2010 2 Comments
>Everyone’s favourite boy wizard dominates the Australian box office again for the weekend November 25 – 28. There seems to be no stopping Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 which has now taken in a total of close to $26 million. 1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 [610 screens / […]
Continue readingR.I.P. Leslie Nielsen
November 29, 2010 2 Comments
Leslie Nielsen, the beloved star of Flying High, The Naked Gun and more than 100 other films, has passed away due to complications linked to pneumonia. He was 84 years old. Nielsen’s nephew Doug broke the news to Canadian talk radio station CJOB, stating that the actor/comedian had been in hospital for nearly two weeks. […]
Continue readingLotterywest Festival Films kick off in Perth
November 29, 2010 0 Comments
The Perth International Arts Festival has put together yet another lineup of exciting Lotterywest Festival Films for West Australian audiences to enjoy. And enjoy we shall! Kicking off tonight, November 29th, 2010, and stretching all the way until April 17, 2011, PIAF will screen some of the finest arthouse films from around the world. First […]
Continue readingAnti climax – The Twilight Saga: Eclipse review
November 29, 2010 0 Comments
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse – Starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner. Directed by David Slade. Rated M. Originally published July 5, 2010. By Simon Miraudo. To quote Detective Roger Murtaugh from Lethal Weapon, “I’m getting too old for this ****.” In just eighteen months, the Twilight saga has subjected us to one atrocious […]
Continue reading>Pink Floyd film in the works
November 29, 2010 0 Comments
>A new Pink Floyd film is in the works, and no, it isn’t a remake of The Wall. According to Deadline, Andy Harries – producer of The Queen and The Damned United – will bring to the screen the story of music teacher Alan Renshaw, whose students sang on the classic 1979 tune Another Brick […]
Continue readingNew look at Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe
November 29, 2010 1 Comment
If there was any doubt that Michelle Williams is the perfect Marilyn Monroe then Collider’s newly released picture of the starlet in Simon Curtis’ My Week with Marilyn should put naysayers to rest. The film is based on The Prince, the Showgirl, and Me: Six Months on Set with Marilyn and Olivier, the memoirs of […]
Continue readingDriving me crazy – Due Date review
November 26, 2010 1 Comment
Due Date – Starring Robert Downey Jr., Zach Galifianakis and Michelle Monaghan. Directed by Todd Phillips. Rated MA. By Simon Miraudo. Your ability to enjoy Due Date depends entirely on your patience for wildly unpleasant protagonists. The good news is that director Todd Phillip’s previous film The Hangover should have already weeded out anyone looking […]
Continue reading>Jeremy Renner to take over Mission: Impossible franchise
November 26, 2010 2 Comments
>Jeremy Renner has confirmed what we’ve long expected: he’s being groomed to take over the reins of the Mission: Impossible series. In a conversation with MTV, Renner revealed that his supporting role in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol could eventually lead to him replacing Tom Cruise as the franchise’s figurehead. “It’s a franchise to potentially […]
Continue readingMark Wahlberg to star in Uncharted
November 25, 2010 4 Comments
Mark Wahlberg – continuing his ongoing tour of bristling honesty – has revealed to MTV he will star in David O. Russell‘s upcoming adaptation of the video game Uncharted. Wahlberg told Josh Horowitz that he was definitely involved in the project, presumably as treasure hunter Nathan Drake. He also confirmed the heretofore too-good-to-be-true rumour that […]
Continue readingVerbinski saddling up for The Lone Ranger with Depp
November 25, 2010 0 Comments
Hi-Yo Silver, away! Deadline is reporting that Gore Verbinski will saddle up and direct The Lone Ranger for Disney. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Johnny Depp have also signed on, with Depp set to play the role of Tonto. Wait, Tonto? The Lone Ranger, set in the Old West, is a masked Texas Ranger who rides […]
Continue readingFirst look at Sherlock Holmes 2
November 25, 2010 1 Comment
What do you do when your Sherlock Holmes reboot is a smashing success? It’s elementary my dear Watson – you make a sequel. The first official image for Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes second jaunt, currently untitled, has been released and it’s, well, a bit of a mystery. Reprising their roles as Sherlock Holmes and Dr […]
Continue reading>New Adrien Brody film no longer allowed to show Adrien Brody
November 25, 2010 0 Comments
>Dario Argento’s 2009 giallo thriller, ingeniously titled Giallo, has hit something of a snag in terms of further marketing and oh yeah, distribution. The film, which stars Adrien Brody as Inspector Enzo Avolfi, now faces the monumentally difficult task of finding its audience without the use of any images of Brody – in terms of […]
Continue reading>Kristy Swanson wants in on Buffy reboot
November 25, 2010 0 Comments
>Unless you’ve somehow managed to avoid the Internet for the last couple of days you’ll already know Warner Bros are rebooting Buffy the Vampire Slayer sans Joss Whedon; something a lot of people are very angry and very sad about. But there’s one actress who’s apparently rather jazzed about it and that’d be the all-but-forgotten […]
Continue readingDevilish fun – The Last Exorcism review
November 24, 2010 0 Comments
The Last Exorcism – Starring Patrick Fabian, Iris Bahr and Ashley Bell. Directed by Daniel Stamm. Rated MA. By Simon Miraudo. There will no doubt come a day when audiences tire of mockumentaries, fakeumentaries, docufantasias and perhaps even mockufaketasias. There are surely people in the world who are already sick of them. The author of […]
Continue reading>And they lived happily ever after: Reviewing the ACMI Disney Masterclass
November 24, 2010 2 Comments
> And they lived happily ever after: Reviewing the ACMI Disney Masterclass. By Jess Lomas. And they lived happily ever after … or so they used to. According to the LA Times, after 50 feature animated films Disney Animation has decided to move away from the fairy tales that cemented the studio as royalty in […]
Continue reading>The boy who wouldn’t grow up finds direction
November 24, 2010 1 Comment
>It’s been a good four years since New Line acquired Ben Magid’s screenplay for a darker-in-tone version of J.M. Barrie’s legendary tale Peter Pan. Magid’s adaptation, titled Pan, was originally rumoured to have Guillermo del Toro lined up to direct. According to a new report in Variety, Ben Hibon is now attached to the project […]
Continue readingThe invention of sighing – Cemetery Junction review
November 23, 2010 0 Comments
Cemetery Junction – Starring Christian Cooke, Ralph Fiennes and Ricky Gervais. Directed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. Rated MA. By Simon Miraudo. This is devastating. Cemetery Junction is written and directed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, the brains (and heart) behind the peerless modern sitcoms The Office and Extras. Not only are they […]
Continue readingFight the power, kinda – Fair Game review
November 23, 2010 3 Comments
Fair Game – Starring Naomi Watts, Sean Penn and David Andrews. Directed by Doug Liman. Rated M. By Simon Miraudo. Fair Game is as thrilling and passionate as its title suggests; which is to say, not very. Doug Liman’s latest tells the true story of CIA agent Valerie Plame, whose secret identity was allegedly revealed […]
Continue readingInterview: Patrick Hughes; writer/director of Red Hill.
November 23, 2010 1 Comment
Interview: Patrick Hughes; writer/director of Red Hill. By Simon Miraudo. “If you make a really bad film, and audiences don’t support it, and you do that three times in a row, maybe … just maybe, you shouldn’t be given any more f*****g government funding.” Patrick Hughes has some strong feelings about the film industry, but […]
Continue readingAlba’s gonna hate … first-time directors!
November 23, 2010 1 Comment
Welcome to the second instalment of what we hope to be an enduring feature: Alba’s gonna hate. Every fortnight, we will highlight a new quote from the actress Jessica Alba in which she denigrates her peers in the film industry. Earlier in the month, she mentioned how “good actors … say whatever they want to […]
Continue readingMark Wahlberg admits The Happening is a bad movie
November 23, 2010 1 Comment
Mark Wahlberg has finally admitted that The Happening is a bad movie, in a surprising moment of honesty and clarity (clarity that would have come in handy when reading the script for – and eventually agreeing to star in – The Happening). Collider has the transcript of Wahlberg speaking at a press conference for his […]
Continue readingJoss Whedon responds to news of Buffy reboot
November 23, 2010 2 Comments
It’s been almost eighteen months since we first lamented the possibility of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie being made without much-loved creator Joss Whedon. Well, although that project may be dead in the water, Warner Bros are actively developing their own Buffy reboot … and Whedon is yet again forced to sit on the […]
Continue readingCharacter assassination – Knight and Day review
November 23, 2010 0 Comments
Knight and Day – Starring Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz and Peter Sarsgaard. Directed by James Mangold. Rated M. Originally published July 6, 2010. By Simon Miraudo. Knight and Day feels like the product of a different era. And no, I’m not just talking about the 1990s, when star Tom Cruise was a legitimate box office […]
Continue readingAustralian Box Office: Do you believe in magic?
November 23, 2010 0 Comments
Cue the puns about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part One. For the period November 18-21 Potter and his friends created box office magic. Though we predicted it last week, it wouldn’t take a boy wizard to foresee this record breaking opening weekend. While taking in more than $330 million globally, Part One of […]
Continue readingPretty. Vacant. – The Runaways review
November 23, 2010 0 Comments
The Runaways – Starring Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning and Michael Shannon. Directed by Floria Sigismondi. Rated MA. Originally published July 13, 2010. By Simon Miraudo. The Runaways is exactly what a music biopic should be, mostly. The film’s electrifying first two thirds eschew those tired music-biopic clichés of the artist’s piousness, their tortured genius, the […]
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