2010 BAFTA Award Winners!

Aight the BAFTA's just happened and it was quite surprising actually. The results were nearly the opposite from the winners at the Golden Globes last month. James Cameron's Avatar only took home one win for Production Design while his ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow and her film The Hurt Locker swept the awards like crazy.

In the acting categories, the Europeans dominated with Carey Mulligan winning Best Actress, Colin Firth for Best Actor and Christoph Waltz for Best Supporting Actor. But Mo'Nique continues her winning streak picking up the Best Supporting Actress award.

The unexpected winners in here is really making predictions for the Oscars incredibly tough. So like.. is it going to be Avatar or Hurt Locker now? You know what I say? Screw them both and give the damn Best Picture to District 9!

So anyways, here's the full list of winners!

BEST FILM
•The Hurt Locker
•Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
•Up In The Air
•Avatar
•An Education

OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM
• Fish Tank
• In The Loop
• Moon
• Nowhere Boy
• An Education

OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER
•Duncan Jones– Moon
•Sam Taylor-Wood– Nowhere Boy
•Lucy Bailey, Andrew Thompson, Elizabeth Morgan Hemlock, David Pearson- Mugabe and the White African
•Eran Creevy– Shifty
•Stuart Hazeldine– Exam

BEST DIRECTOR
•Kathryn Bigelow- The Hurt Locker
•Quentin Tarantino- Inglourious Basterds
•James Cameron- Avatar
•Neill Blomkamp- District 9
•Lone Scherfig- An Education

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
•Mark Boal- The Hurt Locker
•Quentin Tarantino- Inglourious Basterds
•Joel Coen and Ethan Coen- A Serious Man
•Bob Peterson and Pete Docter- Up
•Jon Lucas and Scott Moore- The Hangover

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
•Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner- Up In The Air
•Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell- District 9
•Nick Hornby- An Education
•Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci and Tony Roche- In The Loop
•Geoffrey Fletcher- Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire

BEST FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
•A Prophet
•The White Ribbon
•Broken Embraces
•Coco Before Chanel
•Let The Right One In

BEST ANIMATED FILM
•Up
•Coraline
•Fantastic Mr. Fox

BEST LEADING ACTOR
•Colin Firth- A Single Man
•Jeremy Renner- The Hurt Locker
•Andy Serkis- Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll
•Jeff Bridges- Crazy Heart
•George Clooney- Up in the Air

BEST LEADING ACTRESS
•Carey Mulligan- An Education
•Saoirse Ronan- The Lovely Bones
•Gabourey Sidibe- Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
•Meryl Streep- Julie and Julia
•Audrey Tautou- Coco Before Chanel

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
•Christoph Waltz- Inglourious Basterds
•Alec Baldwin- It’s Complicated
•Christian McKay- Me and Orson Welles
•Alfred Molina- An Education
•Stanley Tucci- The Lovely Bones

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
•Mo’Nique- Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
•Kristin Scott Thomas- Nowhere Boy
•Anne-Marie Duff- Nowhere Boy
•Vera Farmiga- Up in the Air
•Anna Kendrick- Up in the Air

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
•The Hurt Locker
•Inglourious Basterds
•The Road
•Avatar
•District 9

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
•Avatar
•District 9
•Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
•The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
•Inglourious Basterds

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
•The Young Victoria
•Bright Star
•Coco Before Chanel
•An Education
•A Single Man

BEST FILM EDITING
•The Hurt Locker
•Inglourious Basterds
•Up in the Air
•Avatar
•District 9

BEST MAKE UP AND HAIR
•The Young Victoria
•Coco Before Chanel
•An Education
•The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
•Nine

BEST MUSIC
•Up
•Avatar
•Crazy Heart
•Fantastic Mr. Fox
•Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll

BEST SOUND
•The Hurt Locker
•Star Trek
•Up
•Avatar
•District 9

BEST SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS
•Avatar
•District 9
•Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
•The Hurt Locker
•Star Trek

RISING STAR AWARD
•Kristen Stewart
•Jesse Eisenberg
•Nicholas Hoult
•Carey Mulligan
•Tahar Rahim

BEST SHORT FILM
•I Do Air
•Jade
•Mixtape
•Off Season
•14

BEST ANIMATED SHORT
•Mother of Many
•The Gruffalo
•The Happy Duckling

With all the major awards over and done, the countdown to the Academy Awards begins! 13 more days people!

Logorama: Review

So before I start.. What ya'll think about the new blog name? I kinda like it.

Aight so I've officially run out of Oscar nominated movies to review. And I keep trying to watch Valentine's Day but no girl wants to be seen with me in public, so I thought it would be cool if I start reviewing short films as well. I'll even embed the short films at the end for you're viewing pleasure. Thanks guys! Ya'll are awesome and I really appreciate you're readership.

Logo...Rama! Holy shit was this movie the fuckin kick ass God of all damn Creation!

Logorama is about a day in the life of crime and crazy in Los Angeles. It's about these bunch of random characters who's  lives all collide when a psycho gunmen in the form of Ronald muthafuckin McDonald is on the loose and the streets of Los Angeles becomes the playground of one heck of a police chase.

Logorama is a lot like Pulp Fiction but as told using advertisement images. Everything in Logorama, the characters, the buildings even the sky are made up of ell known brand logos, corporate mascots and advertising images. And there are thousands of them appearing in this. Watching Logorama was like being bombarded with a whole lot of product placement, which I think is the big joke of the film.

Logorama takes a huge stab at the ridiculous amounts of product placements in films and how most movies would intentionally stop the plot of the movie to flash some screen time for their advertisers (i.e Percy Jackson) Logorama takes product placement to the extreme here, every second you're eyes are going to catch a familiar image or character but it's blended in so well with the story you would have to rewind it back just so you can see it again.

It also has a lot to do with how much media advertising and corporate images have become embedded in our subconscious and culture. I bet any 4 year old any where in the world can identify Ronald McDonald or Mr. Potato or the Michelin Tyre Guy over the Pope. It's kinda scary really if you think about it that the media can control the things we know and are familiar with. But then again it's good for me since I'm going to take over Rupert Murdoch soon muahahhhaa.

And did I mention how kick ass the action in this movie is? The pacing of the movie is just one hell ride after another I can't barely catch my breath will all the gore and car crashes and deaths of many many familiar advertising characters. This is not a kids cartoon. It's really violent, really bloody, has lotso f words and has a psycho clown.

The highlight of Logorama was Ronald McDonald who is this crazy gunmen who's just going around Los Angeles killing anyone he sees. Trust me, after watching this, you don't even wanna sit next to the guy on those McD benches anymore. This guy was like The Joker.... but scarier.

So I'm embedding the show at the end of the review, please please please watch this people. It's going to be the greatest 15 minutes you will ever witness in your goddamn life!

RATING: 9/10

First Alice In Wonderland Preview Clip Released!

So check it out, the first preview clip of Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland is up on YouTube! And damn does Mia Wasikowska look hot in it. The movie is opening in Malaysia on March 4th 2010! Can't wait!

Invictus: Review

The man! The legend! Clint Eastwood returns to make a Nelson Mandela movie with Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon! This has gotta be a great film guaranteed... Well not so much.

 

Invictus is about the first term of Nelson Mandela who initiates a unique venture to unite the apartheid-torn South Africa by enlisting the help of Francois Pienaar and the national rugby team on a mission to win the 1995 Rugby World Cup.

Really, the more I think about it.. I get the feeling that Clint Eastwood is only good at directing movies where there's lotso guns in it. With the exception of Million Dollar Baby, all his other "peace and love" films are just okay. But the films that are really great are those where there's characters carrying big ass guns like Gran Torino, Letters From Iwo Jima, Mystic River and Unforgiven. Just a thought is all.

 

And how amazing was Morgan Freeman in this playing Nelson Mandela? Every time I watch this man, one thing kept popping in my head- Ben Kingsley from Gandhi. Morgan Freeman's performance was right up there with Ben Kingsley's Gandhi. And yeah, Ben Kingsley did nail his character much better but Morgan Freeman was still equally spectacular.

 

But I really don't see much of a point of having the character Nelson Mandela in this movie, because Invictus was not a biographical film. Invictus was a sports film. The movie is more centred around Matt Damon and the rugby team winning the World Cup and every now and then we just get Nelson Mandela coming in and being a cheerleader for them. I found myself more drawn to the story of the rugby team and less interested in Mandela cause he's really not doing that much besides shaking peoples' hands and saying, "Good luck."

Eastwood should have made it very clear what the main focus of the film was. And with the material he had in Invictus, he could have made two great companion pieces like he did with Letters From Iwo Jima and Flags of Our Fathers. He could have done one film that is a biographical movie of Nelson Mandela and knock it out of the park like the Gandhi movie. And then have another movie where it's about Matt Damon and the rugby team being inspired by Mandela to win the World Cup.

Putting these two stories just cluttered up the film too much and made it one hella long movie that goes back and forth between Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman. But I gotta admit, the film did balance itself really well and I wasn't bored at all throughout the whole movie.

 

Oh and by the way, that Matt Damon guy looks like a freaking tank in this film. I mean the dude was fucking huge. And not The Informant! kind of huge, I mean like Jason Bourne on steroids huge. There's one scene where he's going jogging and he comes towards the screen and I thought Matt Damon was going to bulldoze me. But wow was he great in this to. I'm not familiar with South African accents but I thought his speech pattern was pretty darn good and he never breaks character throughout the film.

The score of the film is really magnificent. It reminded me so much of the Broadway soundtrack of The Lion King where it just celebrates the beauty of African music and haunting tribal chants. And a nice surprise was when I found out the guy who did the score is actually Clint Eastwood's son. Damn a father son tag team in a Mandela movie.. Awesome!

 

Really there's so much I like about Invictus but at the same time the only thing holding this movie back from being an 8/10 is the damn plot. It was way too convulated and jumps back and forth between a biography movie and a sports underdog film.

RATING: 6/10

Nine: Review

I was so psyched when I heard the man who made Chicago was gonna make Nine, cause I loved Chicago and I love everything Broadway. But this movie was mediocre at best.

Okay so Nine is an adaptation of a Broadway musical about a filmmaker named Guido Contini and the story of his struggles to find harmony in his professional and personal lives, as he engages in dramatic relationships with his wife, his mistress, his muse, his agent, and his mother.

This is still a pretty decent film but I expected so much more coming out of Chicago where every single song was memorable and was executed brilliantly. I haven't seen Chicago in 2 years and I can still talk about the Cell Block Tango or the tap dance scene or the courthouse puppet scene as if I saw them yesterday. But in Nine, there's nothing for me to latch on to. There was no theatricality, there was no life, there was no purpose to the songs. And it makes it worse when most of the songs in Nine are barely memorable or catchy.

The only song that I loved was Be Italian which was sang by Fergie from The Black Eyed Peas. And she totally nailed that song. I wished they did more with her character cause she only came in for that song and then she completely disappears.

And another thing that really made Nine flop was because there wasn't any reasons for any of the songs to be happening. The big rule of adapting a stage musical to the screen is that they must find a way for the musical numbers to work and still serve a purpose in the movie. That is why Chicago worked, that is why Hairspray worked, that is why Glee works. There was barely any connection between the plot of the movie and the songs. Don't think you can make a good musical just by putting in lots of celebrities and sexy girls dancing.

And when I say sexy girls, I mean... lotso half naked hot young girls dressed in fishnets and bustiers doing flips and splits and belly dances. The sexiness in Nine was so hot that it almost made me feel uncomfortable watching it. It was like I was watching Showgirls more than a musical.

 

And what can I say man, Daniel Day Lewis is fucking phenomenal in this film. This guy is like the Hayley's Comet of actors whereby he only does a movie once in a while but every time he does, he knocks it out of the park. Everything about him looked, felt and sounded 100% authentic Italian. He's majorly fantastic but it's too bad his character in the film is a fucking retard.

I had absolutely no compassion for Guido Contini at all. Matter of fact I really hated that bastard. Here we have this guy, who's rich and get's to bang the hottest women alive and all he does is break their hearts and mops about how he is the unluckiest guy i the world. It's almost as if Rob Marshall wanted me to pity this guy. Humph! Fuck you! You screwed Penelope Cruz and had the balls to dump her? Go to hell Contini!

 

I wasn't too happy when Penelope Cruz won the Oscar last year for Vicky Christina Barcelona, but if she won an Oscar for her acting in Nine, I'd totally support that. She plays Guido's mistress who starts out just being in the relationship for the sex and glam but falls in love with him in the end. I felt heartbroken with her when that asshole actually chooses Marion Cotillard over her hot ass. She gives the third best performance in this movie.

And her musical number was amazing beyond words. I tell you, there's nothing better than watching Penelope Cruz dressed in a tight bustier and thong sliding down silk on her vagina. That was the most titillating 3 minutes of the entire movie and that's saying a lot since 99% of the film has half naked ladies in it.

 

 

And did I mention how great Judi Dench was in this movie? It is a known fact that she cannot sing and she's always more of an actor. But when it came to her musical number, Judi Dench totally mops the floor with it. And the best part was she barely even sang, all she did was say the lyrics in key like what Rex Harrison did in My Fair Lady. But she strutted up and down that stage like she was goddess of the universe. I wasn't even looking at the sexy dancers in the back, I was worshiping Judi Dench the whole way through.

 

  

Overall, good artistry, great performance by Daniel Day Lewis, Penelope Cruz and Judi Dench, great art direction, really poor execution.

RATING: 5/10