My Brothers, where art thou?

My Brothers, where art thou?

My Brothers, the debut feature by Paul Fraser, is to open the Galway Film Fleadh on July 6th. Will Collins, the film’s writer, won the Pitching Award at the Fleadh in 2007 and should regard the premiere as a sort of triumphant homecoming. Following three brothers as they travel across Ireland to recover their dying father’s watch, the picture recently played to acclaim at the Tribeca Film Festival.

The 2010 Pitching Award is open to submissions. Applicants are invited to tender four copies of a one-page (500 word) story idea to The Pitching Award, Galway Film Fleadh, 36D Merchants Dock, Merchants Rd, Galway. Applications close on June 18th.

MTV Awards get a load of Bullock’s

Oh Lord, it’s time for the awards ceremony that makes even the Oscars seem like a grown-up celebration of cinematic excellence. Yes, it’s the MTV Movie Awards.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon won more or less everything, including such gongs as best male performance

(Mr R Pattinson), best female performance

(Ms K Stewart) and best kiss (guess who?). The vampires did, however, fail to triumph in the race for the “best WTF moment” award. That went to Ken Jeong for the uproarious The Hangover.

What everyone really cares about, of course, are the antics on stage. Tom Cruise, adopting his bald, fat persona from Tropic Thunder, shook his ass in the direction of Jennifer Lopez. Then something unbelievable happened. Sandra Bullock kissed Scarlett Johansson right on her big fat lips. That’s disgusting! She’s old enough to be your daughter, Sandy.

What would

Karla say?

Look away if you’re not interested,

but here’s something about which Reel News cares really, really deeply. Production Weekly has broken the news that Gary Oldman is to play George Smiley, ascetic spymaster, in Tomas Alfredson’s adaptation of John Le Carré’s imperishable Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Well, Oldman will certainly deliver the lines convincingly, but he could not look less like the tubby, owl-eyed character described in the novel.

Le Carré originally felt Arthur Lowe would be good casting. When Alec Guinness popped up in the TV adaptation, the author was, however, immediately won over. Still, nobody wants to sound like one of those Batman nerds who had apoplexy when Tim Burton cast Michael Keaton. Alfredson, director of Let the Right One In, almost certainly knows what he’s doing.

It’s all the media’s fault

It had to happen. The appalling killings in Cumbria two weeks ago are now being linked to a supposedly shocking Hollywood movie. It has emerged that Derrick Bird, who murdered 12 people before taking his own life, watched Steven Seagal’s On Deadly Ground the night before launching his murderous spree.

It’s hard to see what relevance this has to the case. The violence in the Seagal 1994 film is considerably less appalling than that in an average episode of The Sweeney. Nonetheless, certain newspapers can’t resist blaming every atrocity on today’s depraved entertainment industry.

dclarke@irishtimes.com