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Something for the weekend: JJ Abrams’ Mystery Box
This week, I posted about TED.com and I posted about Lost. So here’s JJ Abrams, creator of Lost, giving a lecture to TED. (It’s called synergy, folks.)
He talks about why he loves mystery, how much easier it now is to throw someone into an airplane jet engine, and why the best scene in Jaws doesn’t have a shark in it.
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Starstruck Paddies and the hunting of Will Ferrell
Will Ferrell is in the country. Maybe he came to get away from it all. But he couldn’t. Because every time he so much as stopped for directions someone would ring Today FM with the latest on his location. It was like The Running Man, except he’s not running, and his head won’t explode despite the laser-beam stares of starstruck Paddies. (more…)
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Selection Box
- If there can be a Math Rock then there can be Grammar Rock. Here’s Oxford Comma by Vampire Weekend.
- Cloverfield is out in the States, and critics say it’s brilliant/rubbish.
- Complaints about the UK press rose 31 per cent in 2007
- McDonald’s drops plans to advertise on the front of school report cards
- Are you just a brain floating in space?
- RTÉ’s tradition for dodgy comedy goes back a long way. Here’s a 1970 Christmas Special, which packs two stunning punchlines into the first minute. Then skip forward to three minutes to see Dickie Rock’s comedy masterclass.
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IFTA nominations arrive in attempt to derail Choice Music Prize announcement
The IFTAs give us an annual chance to a) award Ireland’s indigenous film and television industry and B) recognise just how bloody small it is.
With that in mind, time to look at the nominees for this year. No word on the TV Presenter nominees yet (who will Channel 6 put forward? Will it finally be Alan Hughes’s year?). And there doesn’t seem to be an Actress in a Lead role category. But here are some notable nominees (full list should be here at some point).
In all, Kings gets 14 nominations in the movie categories, and The Running Mate and The Tudors get eight each in the telly ones.
Best film: Becoming Jane, Closing the Ring, Garage, Kings, Shrooms (hold on, I’ll check that. Yes, Shrooms got a Best Film nomination)
Lead Actor: Gabriel Byrne – Jindabyne, Colm Meaney – Kings, Cillian Murphy – Sunshine, Hugh O’Conor – Speed Dating, Pat Shortt – Garage
Drama Series/Soap: The Clinic, Ros na Rún, Single-Handed, The Tudors
Television script: Marcus Fleming – The Running Mate, Mark O’Halloran – Prosperity, Daniel O’Hara, Paddy C.Courtney – Paddywhackery, Aisling Walsh – Damage
Single Documentary: Arts Lives – The Undertaking, At Home with the Clearys, Bloody Sunday – A Derry Diary, Get Collins, Ireland’s Nazis, Joe Strummer – The Future is Unwritten
Entertainment: Dan & Becs, Killinaskully, Naked Camera, The Podge & Rodge Show
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Journalism class: Day one, lesson one
When you interview John Cusack, don’t confuse him with Kevin Spacey.
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Selection box
The questions that Slate’s ‘Explainer’ didn’t answer this year.
Shock news: some, but not all, people Google themselves, and other people
The Onion cuts to the chase on the whole Harry Potter nonsense.
P Diddy’s perfume is called Unforgivable Woman. Rejected alternatives: “Fallen Woman” and “Harlot”.
Time may be running out. Literally.
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have had enough of the writers’ strike and are going back on air.
Will Smith’s next movie is I Am Legend (read the book, it’s brilliant). Then it’s a “homeless superhero” flick that’s likely to be pretty terrible.
Dublin looks very well today and this makes it look positively funky (I posted it in July, but I can show it now, so up it goes).
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The glitz. The glamour. The grime.
Another thing that occured to me while watching the news last night was just how crappy O’Connell St is as a place to hold a star-studded movie premiere. The buses going by; the red carpet stretching across the chewing gum-filled pavement; the street lit up by the front of Dr Quirkey’s.
I could have sworn that Hilary Swank was trying to kick the Big Mac wrappers away from her legs while she was being interviewed. Although, she loves Ireland and loves Guinness. How refreshing for a foreign star to come here and speak so candidly of us, and with so few clichés too.
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The rise, but not fall, of Steve Martin
Slate’s intro to its review of Steve Martin’s new autobiography Born Standing Up is both factual and cutting: “Steve Martin Explains Why He Used To Be Funny”.
A few weeks ago, the Guardian ran an interview with Martin, in which it somehow failed to deal with the obvious question of What the Hell Went Wrong? He was a great stand-up. His first movie was The Jerk.
Now, like others of that generation – Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase – he ended up sliding towards dodgy remakes and schmaltzy dad roles, despite various attempts at grown up movies. Thank God for Bill Murray, otherwise it might have been a write-off.
While his book is being described as a very good account of how he became funny, what would be really interesting would be one that explains just how he stopped being a comedy genius. Martin made some classic films, played to 20,000 people at a time, was a bona fide megastar in the 80s. So how the hell did he end up making Cheaper By The Dozen 2?
Because Will Ferrell (who owes a lot to Martin) would be advised to learn some lessons before it’s too late.
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Scorsese does Hitchcock
Yes, this is a big ad from start to finish, and I’m selling out by even featuring it, but the short film at the centre of it really is worth watching. So, here’s Scorsese doing Hitchcock. (Film buffs can enjoy spotting the visual references.) And here is Scorsese talking about Scorsese doing Hitchcock.
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Saturday column: Beware the faulty moral compass
Should you be looking for film reviews, you should try MovieGuide.org. It’s a hoot. The Christian website views movies on a scale from “Wholesome” to “Abhorrent”, and summarises plots through their supposed theological standpoints (Beowulf: “light, undeveloped Christian worldview with strong pagan elements”.)
Right now, its chief concern is with The Golden Compass, a movie based on the first book in the His Dark Materials trilogy written by Philip Pullman. Or “an avowed atheist”, as MovieGuide.org clarifies. It concludes that: “A society shaped by the materialist and godless ethic promoted by films like The Golden Compass is a society without hope.”
The site’s founder, Ted Baehr, has explained that when the trilogy ends, “All [ the central character] Lyra wants to do in her life at the end of the trilogy is sexually pleasure herself with her friend”. Readers of the book will recognise that as a statement that proves only that there is nothing filthier than the mind of a religious puritan.
Pullman’s reaction? “Oh, it causes me to shake my head with sorrow that such nitwits could be loose in the world,” he told Newsweek. (more…)
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Shrooms: “harmless”…”unsympathetic”…”ill-prepared”…
On the train this morning a poster for Shrooms, included quotes from The Irish Times: “atmospheric”…”gory”…”amusingly ripe”, we said.
For the hell of it, here’s the piece those quotes come from, a report from the Edinburgh Festival which gives a brief summary of the plot as part of a large piece that features several movies: (more…)
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Will The Golden Compass be wobbly?
The Golden Compass premiered last night, in advance of its release on December 5th, so we’ll finally discover if the film version of the His Dark Materials trilogy is likely to be more Lord of the Rings than Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
[UPDATE: There are reviews here (a "spectacular shambles"), here ("can't be faulted for excitement") and here ("looks wonderful, with epic dash").]
While we wait for the full thing, you can find a daemon-themed featurette here, a short scene here and the trailer here. (more…)
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Tarantino coming to Dublin
As part of the Dublin International Film Festival, Quentin Tarantino will be attending the Irish premiere of Death Proof, on Friday 14 September at the Savoy in Dublin. It will be followed by a Q&A, giving fans a chance to ask those burning questions, such as: Does he think he was unfairly overlooked for an Oscar for his role in Destiny Turns on the Radio?
For those who miss it, it wouldn’t be a surprise if he turns up on the Late Late that night with Mr Grey.
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That’s no moon…
The original prop lightsaber from Star Wars is to be launched into space to mark the 30th anniversary of the “greatest movie event of a generation to have been subsequently sullied by the worst movie event of a generation”. (more…)
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