The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies
The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies |
| 'Zero Dark Thirty' wins best film nod a second time Posted: 07 Dec 2012 12:16 AM PST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Zero Dark Thirty, filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow's action thriller about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, was named best film of 2012 on Wednesday by the National Board of Review - the second accolade for the movie in one week. Bigelow was named best director and Jessica Chastain, who plays the starring role of a young CIA officer pursuing bin Laden, was named best actress by the NBR. Bradley Cooper took home best actor honors for his portrayal of a bipolar, former teacher in the film Silver Linings Playbook. "Zero Dark Thirty is a masterful film," NBR President Annie Schulhof said in a statement. "Kathryn Bigelow takes the viewer inside a definitive moment of our time in a visceral and unique way. It is exciting, provocative and deeply emotional." Wednesday's awards for the Hollywood treatment of the decade-long operation to hunt and kill bin Laden, based on first hand accounts, bo osts the prospects for the movie to win an Oscar in February. The film, not yet publicly released, also took the top award from the New York Film Critics Circle on Monday. Leonardo DiCaprio won best supporting actor from the NBR for his role in Quentin Tarantino's new slavery era drama, Django Unchained, while Ann Dowd took the best supporting actress honors for her role in Compliance, as a fast-food restaurant manager duped by a prank caller scam. The NBR, a 100 year-old U.S.-based group of movie industry watchers and film professionals, gave its original screenplay award to Rian Johnson for Looper, and adapted screenplay to David O. Russell for Silver Linings Playbook. HOBBIT, LIFE OF PI OVERLOOKED Les Miserables, the first big movie adaptation of the popular stage musical featuring Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe and Anne Hathaway was named best ensemble, and the group gave its best animated feature prize to Wreck-It-Ralph. Each year the board also issues a list of top 10 movies, which this year besides Bigelow's film included Ben Affleck's Iran hostage thriller Argo, Django Unchained, Les Miserables, Silver Linings Playbook, and Looper. Lincoln, Steven Spielberg's biopic of President Abraham Lincoln, the mystical indie film Beasts Of The Southern Wild, Gus van Sant's fracking drama Promised Land, and coming of age film The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, rounded out the list. Absent from the list were some films that had been touted for honors ahead of awards season, including Peter Jackson's The Hobbit, Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom, indie film The Sessions starring Helen Hunt, and Ang Lee's Life Of Pi. In other categories, NBR gave its best documentary award to Searching For Sugarman, and chose Austrian director Michael Haneke's Amour, as best foreign language film. Child-actress Quvenzhane Wallis from Beasts Of The Southern Wild, and The Impossible actor Tom Holland each won awards for breakthrough performances. Benh Zeitlin received the award for best debut director for Beasts Of The Southern Wild, while documentary Central Park Five and drama Promised Land were both honored with the Freedom of Expression award. The National Board of Review was formed in New York in 1909 as a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting movies as an art form and entertainment. |
| Peter Jackson's Hobbit: The journey begins Posted: 06 Dec 2012 11:02 PM PST WELLINGTON (Reuters) - Film maker Peter Jackson wants to scare children with his latest movie - and perhaps even a few grown ups. The first of the Hobbit movie trilogy - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - is about to hit theatres, and Jackson says he's tried to hold true to its roots as a children's fantasy story, with scary bits. "If they're scared of the trolls great, if they're scared of the goblins great, they know there are no goblins, they know there are no trolls, it's a safe kind of danger," he says. The film, produced by MGM and Time Warner Inc, is the fourth in the Oscar-winning Jackson's blockbuster Lord Of The Rings film franchise, based on the books of author J.R.R. Tolkien. It follows the journey of hobbit Bilbo Baggins, reluctantly pushed into travelling with 13 dwarves to steal treasure from a dragon and regain their homeland. During his travels, he comes by the ring that he later passes onto kinsman Frodo Baggins, which was at the core of the Rings trilogy. Jackson says he's worked to keep distance between the Hobbit, published in 1937, and the much darker Lord Of The Rings, which came out nearly 20 years later. "The Lord Of The Rings has an apocalyptic sort of heavy themic end-of-the world quality to it, which the Hobbit doesn't, which is one of the delights of it," he said. POMPOUS AND SMALL MINDED The pointy eared, hairy footed hobbit Bilbo is played by British actor Martin Freeman, who says he's tried to make Bilbo his own creation, a character audiences can root for despite his initial pomposity and small mindedness. "You have to be able to follow him for the duration of the film, but I wanted him to be open and changeable and ready to be surprised," Freeman said. A key scene is an encounter in a cave between Bilbo and the creature Gollum, reprised in full computer generated splendour by Andy Serkis with the distinctive throaty whisper. "It was a very rich experience," he said, adding that playing Gollum again was "an absolute thrill". Such is the affection for the creature, who calls the magic ring "Precious", that a 13 metre sculpture of Gollum hangs in the airport terminal at Wellington, which regards itself as the spiritual home of the Tolkien films and terms itself the "Middle of Middle Earth". Returning actors from the Rings trilogy, many of whom have only passing mention in the book, were no less enthusiastic. Ian McKellen returns for a leading role as the wispy-haired, grey bearded wizard, Gandalf, while Cate Blanchett is the elven queen Galadriel and Elijah Wood appears as Frodo Baggins. "You couldn't not come back, you had to come back," says Hugo Weaving, the leader of the elves, Elrond. HOBBIT - A FRAUGHT JOURNEY The Hobbit film journey has not been without its setbacks. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, owners of the film rights to the Tolkien books, had financial woes, prompting original director Guillermo del Toro to pull out and Jackson, already script writer and executive producer, to step in. A major labour dispute prompted threats to move production out of New Zealand, and was solved by changing labour laws, while Jackson suffered a perforated ulcer and underwent surgery, delaying the film still further. Though only two films were planned originally, Jackson has tapped Tolkien's appendices to the Rings to make it into three. Audiences are also getting more visual bangs for their buck, with the movies filmed in 3D and at 48 frames per second (fps), double the industry standard. This delivers clearer pictures, but opinion is divided, with some critics calling it cartoon-like and jarring. Jackson says he wants to drag the iPad generation back into theatres and the romance, excitement and mystery they offer. "It's more realistic, it's more immersive. I almost feel a responsibility as a film maker to try to do my part at encouraging people to come to the movies, to watch the film in a cinema," he said. The second film The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug will be released in December next year, with the third The Hobbit: There And Back Again is due in mid-July 2014. For a chance to watch The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey before it opens in cinemas here on 13 December, click here. |
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