Somnopolis

So we finally have a full trailer to the sequel to Lisberger’s pioneering 1982 cult flick.

Problem is, as I have said before, not many people went to see the original picture. And to be honest, with this sequel focusing on Hedlund’s youthful Flynn jnr, one of the main attractions of Tron is absent for the most part, namely Jeff Bridges himself.

For all its dated effects, the main appeal of Tron to me as a child was the character of Flynn. A mischievous computer whizz who is transported into a virtual universe of lightcycles, dayglo storm troopers and a giant head called the MCP. Bridges’ performance underlined the absurdity of the story, but also made the experience far more enjoyable.

When I watched this film for the first time (and then insisted on bringing the video tape round to my neighbours’ houses to force the other kids on my estate to do the same) I felt confused that the supposed hero, Tron himself, is barely in the film. Boxleitner, bless him, plays the role as it is written. A square-jawed hero who fights for justice.

But Flynn is the protagonist, a ‘User’, transported into this gameworld and viewed by the inhabitants as something like a god. This is also a fine joke – Jeff Bridges as the Almighty? He exhibits his divine abilities accidentally for the most part, or with a rueful grin. Tron as such not only anticipates the advances in cinematic CGI, but also the insular mindset of gaming culture. Flynn’s skills with arcade games, as well as his programmer abilities, stand him in good stead in the Tronverse.

Basically this film was the ultimate fantasy of 80’s gamer nerds. Now like all things nostalgic, it has returned with a sequel for us thirty-something fans. The nerds have taken over the asylum, or more accurately Disney. Lisberger is on board as producer, with Bridges and Boxleitner in tow to ensure fanboy goodwill.

But wait, what’s this? Garrett Hedlund (think James Franco, but with more muscle mass) plays Sam Flynn, who discovers the same device that transported his father into the Tronverse and then is himself digitized. Seems Flynn returned 25 years ago (although time passes much faster for the virtual inhabitants, which explains the line in the trailer) and soon Sam is off on a quest to find his father. Ho and hum. Sidelining Bridges loses half the appeal for me right away. Although the first teaser hinted that our erstwhile hero has become a more sinister figure, which could prove interesting. The film is also being released in 3D to capitalize on the success of Avatar.

While I don’t want to pretend the original cult flick was a masterpiece, it was a smart B-movie that made in-roads into CGI effects and introduced audiences to the concept of virtual reality. It was a damn sight better than The Lawnmower Man. The sequel looks to be a cash-in on the cult appeal of the original, a mixture of nostalgia and a by-the-numbers plot. I would love to be proved wrong, but I doubt Hedlund has the picaresque charm of a young (or indeed current) Jeff Bridges.

I recently watched the Nostalgia Critic’s Top 11 Villains songs piece and found it disappointing. I think in the main it’s because I agree with his statement that the villain generally gets the best tunes. To me though they should be show-stoppers, or slyly humourous, letting audiences in on the secret that sometimes it’s good to be bad.

Disney has come up with some classic villains and I note that the Nostalgic Critic has focused on them. I have chosen more life-action examples. Also I have stuck to songs from films, which rules out The Mighty Boosh’s Hitcher and Dr Horrible’s Singalong Blog.  So while any of these lists are subjective, the songs below are in my opinion some of the more enjoyable examples of vilainous ditties.

Why did I choose only nine? Because I just couldn’t be bothered

The Return of Captain Invincible is a superhero film with a difference. Starring Alan Arkin as an alcoholic superman and Christopher Lee as the villain (of course), this is also a musical in the vein of Rocky Horror. In this scene Lee sings Choose Your Poison, breaking the morale of the vulnerable hero at the climax of the film.

Gremlins 2 is Joe Dante’s lovesong to Warner Brothers cartoons,  a life-action pastiche of Chuck Jones inspired mayhem. The director was given carte blanche to reinvent his own original movie, as the studio in question were unable to produce a suitable sequel. And he returned to them a script that featured this little number.

Baz Luhrman’s Moulin Rouge is more than a musical. It’s a camp pop medley that segues from one ballad to another from moment to moment. What makes it for me is the evident commitment from the performers on screen. Who knew Jim Broadbent could look so good wrapped in a shawl pouting at the camera? Ok…maybe not, but it was a surprise! This take on Madonna’s Like A Virgin moves from Broadbent wildly improvising to mollify the Duke, to a full-blown song and dance number that ends with the villain morphing into Bela Lugosi right before our eyes. Great fun.

Disney’s Beauty and the Beast owes a lot to Jean Cocteau’s original film. Yet the surrealist classic doesn’t feature crowd pleasing songs. Here the villain Gaston, loosely modelled on Jean Marais, whips up a mob with fear of the Beast.

Could this be the best David Bowie music video? Well it’s better than Absolute Beginners anyway. Also a neat tribute to M. C. Escher.

Now as I’m avoiding the Nostalgia Critic’s choices, it seems odd to choose the same film. But honestly while Steve Martin gets the laughs as the dentist, Audrey II’s cry of ‘Feed Me Seymour’ beats it hands down. The Little Shop of Horrors – It’s just as much fun as you remember.

Matt Stone and Trey Parker have joked that their inspiration for this song from Team America was the hope that it would get an Oscar nomination and maybe inspire reclusive dictator and film fanatic Kim Jong Il to sing it himself at the ceremony. Not bloody likely.

The Southpark boys once more. Doing what Milton couldn’t do for people who were unable to finish Paradise Lost…make Satan sympathetic.

Ron Moody’s Fagin in the 1968 film production of Oliver! also gives us a sympathetic villain. A man who uses child pick-pockets and lives off the proceeds of their crimes. And yet you still like him somehow.

Director and writer Michael J. Bassett’s film of Solomon Kane has been seen and enjoyed. Part Hammer pastiche (in the model of Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter), part sincere update of Robert E. Howard’s pulp creation for modern audiences. It’s all lovingly presented on screen. Even the grime feels authentic and the actors wade through the purple prose as if their lives depended on it. There is a welcome lack of cynicism in this genre film, something unfortunately of a rarity these days. With an admirable level of detail (there are nods to the Puritanical movement and their escape to America; the English navy rules the waves, but the poor at home are impoverished and have dental hygiene issues; lonely corpses hanging from tree branches) this thankfully is not Van Helsing 2.

The Guardian review criticised the film for sticking to the over familiar ‘origins’ form. Personally I disagree. Given the lack of familiarity with Howard’s character, I think Bassett was correct to establish just where this Devonshire Puritan who is handy with a blade came from. FilmBuffOnline has a summation of the character’s journey from pulp novel to screen, which I am much indebted to.

Bassett happily does not condescend Howard’s hero by introducing sceptical notes as to his religious faith. Beginning in ‘darkest Africa’, evil is immediately shown to be a positive force in this story. The devil exists and immortal souls can be traded as currency. Encountering a creature known as The Devil’s Reaper during a ransack of a Moorish fortress, Kane just manages to escape physically and spiritually intact. The reason for his later fierce repentance is made clear in these early scenes. He is shown to delight in violence and death, smiling maliciously as he cuts down the defenders of the fortress.  When the demon tells him his soul is damned, Kane instantly responds that God will protect him. In this universe religion is not a matter of faith. Demons, vampires, sorcerers and witches are quite real. Belief in God is a talisman that the weak in body depend on.

Traumatized by the knowledge that the Devil is pursuing him, Kane tattoos himself with holy symbols and hides in a monastery. The monks eventually kick him out of the order, as his presence is like a giant cthonic neon sign that reads ‘DINNER!’ Offering cold comfort the head of the monastery advises him to ‘find his destiny’.  Bassett then allows Kane to discover another method of being a ‘man of god’. One that thankfully allows him to sever limbs.

After he meets the kindly Crowthorn family, fellow Puritans fleeing bigotry in England for America, Kane contemplates the settled life. Pete Postlethwaite and Alice Krige do fine work here as Mom and Pop Crowthorn, with daughter Meredith played by Wendy Darling from P.J. Hogan’s excellent Peter Pan (Rachel Hurd Wood). The Crowthorns offer Kane some small hope of a normal life and he sets about trying to protect them from the sudden rise in raiders abroad in the countryside. Little does he realize these marauding thugs are actually an organized army of demonically possessed warriors and following an encounter with a shape shifting witch, Meredith Crowthorn is marked by the evil sorceror Malachi (Jason Flemyng).

This draws the attention of the Masked Rider who leads the army sweeping the countryside. The Crowthorns are attacked and Meredith kidnapped. Kane is promised redemption if he succeeds in rescuing the girl from Malachi. This new purpose dislodges our hero’s funk and allows him to make use of those fighting skills (presumably learned by actor James Purefoy for his ill-fated casting in V for Vendetta).

Mention should be made of Purefoy’s efforts in the lead role. There was a danger, given his slight resemblance to Hugh Jackman, that audiences would once again think they are watching a prequel to Van Helsing. Purefoy’s efforts thankfully dispel any such notions. He gives the character a welcome injection of stoic humour, something of a relief after the legions of grim-faced vigilantes swamping the multiplexes of late (I’m looking at you Batman/Rorschach etc.). He also ably shares the screen with Postlethwaite and Max von Sydow, complimenting their performances. As I have said above, what I find most interesting about this film is the sincerity in its acting and writing, which combine to draw the audience into a story of devilry and swordplay. While there is a hint of the pantomime in Jason Flemyng’s Malachi – at one point he pounces on an innocent maiden with the relish of a moustache twirling villain – he never mugs for the camera in the style to which audiences have become accustomed. When the de rigueur CGI monster enters the fray it feels like a let-down. The flesh and blood actors have already done such a fine job of engaging the plot, that the Painkiller boss-fight is out of place in this surprisingly character-driven fantasy picture.

So a heart-felt genre picture that rescues Robert E. Howard’s canon from the steroidal musculature of the Governator. Bravo.

Sounds very promising. Firstly I hope the period setting restrains the more excitable instincts of contemporary film-makers where the supernatural is concerned. You’re stuck on a boat with an undead Transylvanian lord who looks decripid and ancient. Shoot the film accordingly.

Secondly, well, I hope at the very least it’s better than that Angel episode set on a sub.

Rather than repeatedly remake the same Dracula film over and over, I prefer this approach. Pick the sequences from the novel that happened ‘off-page’, as it were. I wonder if the film was inspired by the play Curse of the Demeter?

With thanks to Ragnarfan

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

“The Last Voyage of the Demeter” may set sail with director Stefan Ruzowitzky, who helmed the Oscar-winning foreign film “The Counterfeiters.” Ruzowitzky is in negotiations with Phoenix Pictures, and would work from a script by Bragi Schut, the writer of the upcoming Nicolas Cage horror movie “Season of the Witch.” The ship Russian ship Demeter appeared in Bram Stoker’s classic 1897 tale “Dracula.” In that novel, the Demeter washes up on the shore of Whitby, England, during a fierce storm after transporting Dracula from Transylvania. Only one crew member survives, but he collapses into insanity. The ship’s voyage will take center stage in the film, with the crew locked in a desperate struggle to survive as their mysterious passenger hunts them. Mike Medavoy, Arnold Messer and Bradley Fischer of “Shutter Island” fame will produce.

Last week I was asked by a friend to give my opinion on a rough cut of a documentary on the Burmese military dictatorship. I hasten to add this was just to make a note of my emotional response, not due to the value of any views I may hold. As such I only watched the very beginning of the rough cut. I would like to discuss what my impressions of that experience were.

It begins with hidden footage of the day-to-day horrors of life in Burma. We as the intended audience are only seeing this due to activists and native Burmese smuggling the shots out of the country at great personal risk. Immediately the footage establishes just how everyday, in the most awful sense of the word in this context, death and misery are to these people. The police and military target their own citizenry, forcing them to live in terror, exhausting their will to resist and depriving them of even the most basic dignity. A woman is shown standing beside an open graveside dug in the dirt, sobbing as a body wrapped in black cloth is lowered into the hole. We see citizens forced to their knees in the street and beaten with truncheons by uniformed thugs. The visual shorthand that typically signifies a secretive, brutal regime – the police man reaching out to cover the camera lens that bears witness – is also employed.

What strikes me most forcibly about these scenes is that they are unsurprising. I am aware of the extent of the regime’s brutality to its people. I doubt there are many who aren’t. The smuggled footage itself only serves to confirm that knowledge, perhaps confront us as viewers with our own indolence and apathy, but nothing more than that.

The documentary then introduces us to its subject, a man who lived through the Burmese regime and has escaped. When we meet him he is watching a dvd of the Sylvester Stallone film John Rambo. Following the title screen, our hero’s name in thick red font on a black background, the film locates the action in Burma with a scene of soldiers massacring innocent Burmese. There is a quick cut to a child being shot in the chest. We see several people running from the soldiers, only for them to be executed in slow motion.

The man is shown breaking down in tears after watching the scene. He says it is just like his memory of life in Burma.

I am troubled by this scene in the documentary. It acts as a contrast to the reality of the footage at the beginning of the film. Here is horror courtesy of camera techniques, blood squibs and paid actors, packaged for our entertainment. This is a fiction that apes the brutality of the real. It also presents a solution to the crimes committed against the Burmese in the form of Stallone’s monosyllabic Vietnam veteran. Rescuing Western peace activists from captivity, his violent dispatching of the villainous soldiers is cathartic for cinema audiences. Here at least is a form of intervention we can all agree on.

There is a scene featured in the trailer for John Rambo when Darla from Buffy the Vampire Slayer is rescued from being raped at the last possible second. The  soldier unbuckles his belt, grinning at his victim. The moment is stretched out, with Julie Benz’s pitiful cries for help. Then our hero appears and garrottes the soldier.

This was how the film-maker’s advertised their picture. There are bad people in Burma doing bad things. In this movie, Rambo kills them dead, in a variety of interesting ways, and rescues a white chick from being raped (but not soon enough that you won’t be denied some small vicarious thrill).

Why set  John Rambo in Burma? The franchise needs a villain, just as its fans need their Two Minutes Hate. Commies are gone and the majahideen are something of an embarrassment for Stallone, given that his character previously aided and abetted them against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. For the next outing of the series, it is rumoured Rambo will be fighting werewolves.

And so the suffering of the Burmese people becomes a cartoon for our amusement. Watching that man cry as he watched the beginning of Stallone’s film made me angry and sad all at once. He recognized in the slow-motion captured fakery the real. Cinema-goers though were afforded a fictional catharsis that allowed them to ignore it.

Addendum – since writing this blog, I have been told the finished film will not include the scene discussed above. All the same I felt I should publish this piece, as it affected me quite strongly.

Guardian LTD

….feckin’ Avatards….

Original photos here.

It’s Complicated was sold to audiences as a fun sex comedy, with a resurgent Alec Baldwin on top of his game having discovered his comedic chops with 30 Rock; and Meryl Streep, whom I am obliged to describe as ‘radiant’ (read still physically attractive despite her age – it’s a euphemism that makes my stomach feel queasy).

Turns out though it’s a movie about divorced baby boomers, perplexed by the thought that their lives haven’t amounted to much. What’s most troubling about the scenario is that these characters enjoy lives of such privilege it is hard to sympathise with their outpourings of remorse. This is par for the course for writer/director Nancy Meyers, who seems to specialise in stories about neurotic rich people enduring mild discomfort (The Holiday, Something’s Gotta Give, Father of the Bride). So the picture is not sexy or funny. Instead it’s overlong, dull in parts and disturbingly insulated from reality. Fifty-something characters act and speak like teenagers. The dialogue often feels forced and when Baldwin is off-screen the oxygen is sucked out of the film. This is not the fault of Steve Martin and Meryl Streep, both fine performers, but the material they are forced to work with.

Strangely I found the main storyline, whether Meryl Streep’s divorced patissier will choose ex-huband Alec Baldwin over nice guy architect Steve Martin, is a front. The distressing heart of the film is a needy empty-nester refusing to allow her children to grow up and live their own lives. Streep and Baldwin’s parents have three children who are each introduced to us as moving on to better things, much to their mother’s discomfort. The eldest daughter is getting married to that guy from The Office, the middle child spends more time chatting to virtual friends online than anyone in her immediate vicinity and the youngest son has graduated from university. The resolution to the movie is not Streep’s character Jane making a decision which lover she wants, but the complete infantilization of her children, left blubbering in a bed when the affair is revealed, all traces of independent living expunged from their characters. It’s a horrible moment and I really don’t know what Meyer is trying to say about the effect of divorce on the family unit with this film.

My other concern is that Baldwin, so winningly manic on 30 Rock has been reduced to this by-the-numbers staid fare, the pater familias of Stepfords engaged in an illicit affair that isn’t all that illicit. Having largely abandoned his film career for television, it’s sad that the capital he has gained as the hilarious Jack Donaghy does not translate to similarly well-written roles on film.

I’m worried that Tina Fey might have the same problem with upcoming film Date Night. Blurg!

Immediately after finishing Jeff Noon’s Falling Out Of Cars, I started on this novel by the brothers Strugatsky. You may have heard their names mentioned in relation to Avatar lately, as some wags have suggested James Cameron ripped off a sequence of novels titled the Noon Universe by the two Soviet era sf authors.

Leaving aside the surname of the previous book’s other making for a neat piece of synchronicity with the Strugatsky’s work, I was also struck that both books are not so much post-apocalypse as much as transapocalyptic – the catastrophes at the centre of both novels are ongoing and humankind has adapted.

Roadside Picnic introduces us to a group of characters who live and work in the town of Harmont, the site of an inexplicable alien ‘Visitation’. The location itself is subject to many strange phenomena, including possible changes to the laws of physics, freak gravitational pressures and the rumoured existence of mutants. Called by locals and the professionals scientists alike The Zone, it is only one of several such places dotting the surface of the Earth. It is theorised that the various Zones resemble the scaring left by bullets striking the edge of a revolving globe.

‘Red’ Schuhart is a Stalker, an illegal smuggler of people and artifacts to and from the Zone. The novel drops in on him at various points of his life detailing his career as one of a dwindling number of old hands willing to risk their lives entering the strange site of the Visitation. Dogged by regrets as to the risks he has run, the danger he has placed clients who have entrusted their lives to him and the potential effects of exposure to any future offspring, Schuhart is a guilt-wracked figure. He is pushed onwards by the need to make a living from his work as a Stalker despite the risks, and also excited by his undeniable talent at surviving the excesses of the Zone.

A rival Stalker known as Buzzard (named for his habit of exiting the Zone alone, with his companions dead or lost) is rumoured to possess an alien artifact known as the Golden Sphere. This eventual McGuffin serves as the object that takes Schuhart on ‘one last job’, in the finest tradition of novels based around criminal activities. The sphere itself is rumoured to grant the wishes of whomever possesses it, which could easily have led to a cop-out ending (”I wish none of this ever happened…”), but thankfully does not. The Strugatskys are aware of the balance that needs to be maintained between the vagueness required for describing the unknowable (the Zone itself being mundane in appearance, but filled with hidden dangers) and an emotional connection to the lives of those affected by these events.

Falling Out Of Cars had its magick mirror and Roadside Picnic its alien artifact that grants wishes. Both serve to motivate the protagonists to keep moving, despite their world becoming too strange to comprehend.  The central mystery of the Visitation remains unclear to the very end, but the Strugatskys hint at a possible cause in the title of the story.

For, as one scientist at the Harmont Research Institute suggests, what if the Zone itself is meaningless? Not the site for an invasion of Earth, or even a staging area for negotiations with a benevolent race that seeks to make humans accustomed to their existence. What if the aliens were merely passing through, like a family on a daytrip on their way to the countryside, who stopped at the side of the road for a picnic and then left plastic wrappers, tin cans, oil leakage and gum in their wake to the confusion of the native animals that eventually came to investigate?

What if life itself is equally unknowable, without meaning or purpose and human civilization has no grand destiny awaiting in the stars, but instead needs to simply look after itself, raise families and strong communities that can withstand the quotidien tragedies and difficulties that make up living?

The Strugatskys’ novel was of course most famously adapted for the screen by Andrei Tarkovsky as Stalker, profoundly moving much like his other sf picture Solaris. Tarkovsky largely abandons the text of Roadside Picnic, focusing instead on the nature of the Zone and the relationship of the Stalker to it. He guides two men, each with a hidden agenda, to the heart of the Zone where there is said to be a room that can grant a man’s most deeply held wish. Stripping out most of the novel’s content allows Tarkovsky to concentrate on what he feels is most striking about the novel, using long, unbroken takes to suggest the strangeness of the landscape in the Zone. The three men are unnamed, the Stalker addressing them by their professional roles. They joke, confide and argue just to remind each other why they are risking their lives, or even to hide from what their life to date has amounted to. It’s a strangely beautiful and striking film, that teases with hints of the paranormal, achieving a sense of wonder in a slow, creeping shot of  a pool stagnant water.

No motion-captured, CGI blue people required.

You all know him of course. He usually plays lawyers, or doctors, a figure of middling authority. Perhaps he is so easy to cast in these roles because his bald head and spectacles suggest he is one of life’s middle managers.

Despite his vague appearance, Tobolowsky is something of an earworm, instantly familiar having appeared in over a hundred films and television shows since the early 80’s. Have a gander – Thelma and Louise; Basic Instinct; Seinfeld; CSI – Miami; Boston Legal; Freddy Got Fingered; Malcolm in the Middle; Garfield; Curb Your Enthusiasm; Deadwood; Heroes; Perry Mason; LA Law…

The list continues to grow, with a starring role in 1976’s Keep My Grave Open setting his career in motion.

Yet it was for his memorable scenes with Bill Murray in Groundhog Day that he is most remembered. Ned Ryerson, the insufferably annoying insurance salesman.

Ned… Ryerson. “Needlenose Ned”? “Ned the Head”? C’mon, buddy. Case Western High. Ned Ryerson: I did the whistling belly-button trick at the high school talent show? Bing! Ned Ryerson: got the shingles real bad senior year, almost didn’t graduate? Bing, again. Ned Ryerson: I dated your sister Mary Pat a couple times until you told me not to anymore? Well?

What strikes me most about Tobolowsky is the genuine pride he feels for his career of walk-on bit-parts. He takes the time to fashion something memorable out of a cameo, without having the advantage of celebrity or a striking face. His scenes in Memento as Sammy – a key figure in helping us understand the dilemma of the protagonist, despite his story occuring in flashback – are heartbreaking and touching all at once. Then there’s Stephen Tobolowsky’s Birthday Party a documentary that focuses on the actor himself. He obviously enjoys a reputation as being a safe pair of hands, one who won’t steal the spotlight from the glitzy celebs, but at the same time will make a scene work and add that something extra.

Bringing us bang up to date is his performance as the music teacher cum registered sex offender Sandy Ryerson in Glee. Is Sandy a cousin of Ned’s? Or perhaps a long-lost brother who fled a dreary life in Punxsutawney for a glamorous existence treading the boards….as a music teacher in William McKinley High School in Lima, Ohio. His delivery of the line ‘Kill yourself!’ has had me chuckling for days.

Actor in a Leading Role – Jeff Bridges

Actor in a Supporting Role – Christopher Plummer/ Christoph Waltz(It’s the Battle of the Christophers!)

Actress in a Leading Role – Sandra Bullock

Actress in a Supporting Role – Mo’Nique (in the bag – see Robert Downey’s speech from Tropic Thunder)

Animated Feature Film – Up

Art Direction/ Cinematography/ Sound Editing/ Sound Mixing/ Visual Effects – Avatar (sfx extravaganzas sweep the techies)

Costume Design – Coco Before Chanel (It’s Chanel!!)

Directing – Kathryn Bigelow (Cameron’s too much of an ego, Reitman’s too callow, Tarantino’s too much….no one knows who Lee Daniels was and we don’t wanna go give a social realist director a big head. That’s not what the Oscars are about)

Documentary (Feature) – The Cove (those poor widdle dolphins! Plus it replaces the need for liberal America to actually *do* something about Japanese animal cruelty that could lead to an international incident)

Film Editing – Inglourious Basterds

  Foreign Language Film - “The White Ribbon” – Germany (Hollywood pretends it ‘gets’ Haneke)

Makeup - “Star Trek” (see Avatar and ‘techie’, principle)

Music (Original Score)  “Fantastic Mr. Fox” (Which I want to win – but it won’t)

Music (Original Song) - “The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)” from “Crazy Heart” Music and Lyric by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett

Best Picture  “The Hurt Locker”/“Up in the Air” Daniel Dubiecki, Ivan Reitman and Jason Reitman, Producers (too close for me to call)

Short Film (Animated)  “A Matter of Loaf and Death” Nick Park (darker than previous entries, but still excellent)

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)  “In the Loop” Screenplay by Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche (Iannucci is the voicepiece for Liberal British guilt vis a vis the war atm)

Writing (Original Screenplay) - “The Hurt Locker” Written by Mark Boal (it comes as a shock to everyone that films are ‘written’!)

Throwing aside everything I’ve said…the Oscars are not about merit, or what are the ‘best’ films. They’re about promoting cinema. No film this year has done more to promote the idea of visiting the cinema than Avatar. It’ll make a killing, there can be no doubt.

Marissa Tomei won an Oscar. ‘cough’.