Oscars - Hugh Jackman's opening number for the show

Cheers to Jinja for passing me this.

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Oscars - What do you think will win Best Picture

I recently posted the ad that had been taken out to promote The Dark Knight for Best Picture at next years Oscars.

That got me thinking about what could possibly win The Best Picture. On my wanders around the World Wide Web there are a few films that seem to be in the running for Best Picture. They are as follows:

Australia - Nicole and Hugh get it on in the outback.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Brad Pitt ages backwards.

The Dark Knight - Bale growls as The Batman, Ledger does a magic trick and there are two Aaron Eckharts but I didn't see any jousting.

Doubt - Meryl Streep and Amy Adams are nuns. Is it a porno? Philip Seymore Hoffman wishes.

Frost/Nixon - The head Lycan dude fron Underworld interviews Dracula.

Gran Torino - Clint Eastwood plays a rascist and has a nice car.

Milk - Sean Penn play a big gay bottle of semi-skimmed or a politician or something.

Nothing But the Truth - Kate Beckinsale outs a CIA agent with hilarious consequences.

Rachel Getting Married - Rachel is getting married and her sister does drugs

The Reader - Kate Winslet is a Nazi who likes to have bedtime stories read to her. Ahh isn't that sweet!

Revolutionary Road - Kate Winslett and Leonardo DiCaprio set sail on the Titanic while living in 1950's Connecticut and argue a lot or something. I could be wrong. Not sure how Kate got the part in the film directed by her husband? Is Billy Zane in it?

Slumdog Millionaire - Indian kid wins Who Wants to be A Millionaire. Danny Boyle still goes on about 28 Days Later wasn't a zombie film.

The Wrestler - Mickey Rourke is a washed up has-been. In this film he plays a wrestler.

WALL-E - CGI Pixar fest with a cute little robot.

Sadly I've only seen a couple of them (Dark Knight, WALL-E) although a fair few of them have yet to be released so it's not that bad a thing. I do want to see Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Gran Torino, Milk and The Wrestler and the others I'm all a bit meh about. I personally think Benjamin Button will win the best picture Oscar purely from all the buzz and reviews I've been reading about it.

Which film do you see winning Best Picture? How many of the above list have you seen and what are you looking forward to seeing? Which ones will you avoid? What films should be on the list? Will Billy Zane win best actor?

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Australia, 2008 - Movie Review

Director: Baz Luhrman
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Brandon Walters, Bryan Brown
Running Time: 165 minutes
Score: 7 / 10

This review by Sandra Hall of the Sydney Morning Herald.

NOTHING succeeds like excess. Oscar Wilde coined the phrase and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Baz Luhrmann has it embroidered on scatter cushions all over the house.

Not that he needs reminding. It is a mantra stamped on everything he does and Australia is the apotheosis. It has become the movie as superhero, charged with the job of rescuing the Australian film industry and giving us a new and shiny view of ourselves. And shiny it certainly is.

It's also much too long at almost three hours, deliriously camp and shamelessly overdone - an outback adventure seen through the eyes of a filmmaker steeped in the theatrical rituals and hectic colours of old-fashioned showbiz. To quote Oklahoma, one of the few Hollywood classics not to lend its influence to Luhrmann's style, or rather medley of styles, the corn is as high as an elephant's eye.

And so strong is his urge to celebrate the exoticism of old Australia that you half-expect to see the elephant, as well, lumbering across one of those majestic stretches of the Kimberley. Yet the film's vigour and yes, its passion - that overused word - do engage you.

As you watch, memories of other movie moments flicker into view. The film's orange skies conjure up Gone With The Wind. Yet Nicole Kidman's transplanted English aristocrat, Lady Sarah Ashley, looks to be claiming kinship with Meryl Streep's Karen Blixen in Out Of Africa.

Then the pitch changes again and she and Hugh Jackman as her rough-and-ready lover, the Drover, are embarking on unreliable imitations of a bickering Hepburn and Bogart in The African Queen.

But underpinning everything here is the ethos of the musical. David Hirschfelder's score is so integral to the action that everybody seems perpetually on the brink of bursting into song. When Sarah, the Drover and their rag-tag band of riders decide to brave the odds to take 1500 cattle across the desert to Darwin, I was reminded of every Hollywood musical in which somebody has leapt up and said brightly: "Let's put on a show and take it on the road."

The film's rapid changes of tone often make for a bumpy ride. Luhrmann has always had a taste for the cartoon and the opening scenes with their quick cuts, screen-filling close-ups and liberal use of slapstick, hark all the way back to Strictly Ballroom.

It is an effect that sits strangely with the lyricism of the film's red and ochre expanses.

It is also tinged with condescension - as if were going to be looking down on the past as a place peopled exclusively by hams and buffoons. But it does make for some brisk passages of exposition.

Having come to the Northern Territory in search of her wayward husband, Lord Ashley, Sarah discovers first that she's a widow. Then she rashly decides to take over her husband's cattle station, Faraway Downs - a move that puts her up against Bryan Brown's ruthless cattle baron, and his accomplice, played by David Wenham, laying on the deadpan menace with a lavish hand.

More important, she also forms a bond with Brandon Walters, doing an endearing job as Nullah, a mixed-blood Aboriginal boy, in danger of being forced into state care.

Anachronisms abound. Kidman and Jackman speak quaintly of doing a drove. There's an action sequence that pushes the concept of the cliffhanger much further than it was ever meant to go, and Sarah's romance with the Drover is rife with Mills & Boon moments.

There is even a role-reversal version of that much-loved romantic convention, the Makeover. This one has the Drover getting in touch with his inner-glamour boy by shaving off his beard and donning a white tuxedo to join his princess at the ball.

After the long, long lead-up, the big set-piece - the bombing of Darwin - seems oddly perfunctory, maybe because so much energy has been expended on the orgasmic task of bringing all plot strands to a simultaneous climax. But the agile camerawork bestows a dizzying sense of scale and distance. And once Kidman stops playing the easily shockable Victorian heroine, she and Jackman do start generating some heat, largely because they evoke a relationship which seems based on genuine affection.

As to whether the film is going to enjoy a success big enough to shed its radiance over the whole industry, who can say? I suspect the hype, and the budget, impose too heavy a load. A big-hearted melodrama, it takes a series of fascinating risks, some of which come off. But it's no super-movie.

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The Random - Saw VI, Luc Besson, Narnia, Australia, Che, The Wolfman. The Goonies, War Monkeys, The Fockers

First photos of Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman on the Austrian set of Season of the Witch.

New photos of the action figure based on Universal's The Wolfman gives us an idea of what Benicio Del Toro will look like in monster form in the film. There's also a look at the replica medallion worn by lead character Lawrence Talbot (Benicio Del Toro).

Steven Soderbergh's "Che" is set to hit the UK in two parts. The first opening January 1st 2009, the second on February 20th 2009. Promo materials indicate the titles 'The Argentine' and 'Guerilla' will not be used in the release - a pattern that may be adopted in other markets.

Baz Luhrmann's 'Australia' clocks in at a final running time of 165 minutes despite some reports pegging it at 155 minutes. The film kicks off its publicity blitz tomorrow with Sydney press interviews and the Australian premieres. Media screenings take place in Oz and the US starting from Wednesday...(full details)

In a press release published on Friday, Walden Media revealed that they have yet to give a green light to begin production on the third installment in "The Chronicles of Narnia" franchise – "Voyage of the Dawn Treader". The film is still scheduled for a May 7th 2010 release at present...(full details)

Luc Besson says that he's beginning work on an epic sci-fi feature next year - big enough that it could be broken up into a trilogy but he hasn't decided yet as it's still too early. He's also completed filming two sequels to "Arthur and the Minimoys" and is working out the 3D elements right now...(full details)

Lionsgate recently announced that they'll continue making "Saw" sequels annually for the foreseeable future thanks to the low-budget franchise's continued profitability despite increasingly dour reviews. "Saw VI" is now set for a October 23rd 2009... (full details)

"Dante's Peak" scribe Les Bohem is penning the futuristic boxing movie "Real Steel" for Dreamworks Pictures. Bohem created and wrote the Spielberg-executive produced Sci Fi Channel show "Taken"..." (full details)

French directors Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo ("inside") have officially left Dimension's planned sequel to Rob Zombie's "Halloween" which they had been writing over the past few months with the intention of directing. No replacements have been mentioned though Zombie will return as a producer. The pairs plan to direct a remake of "Hellraiser" for Dimension Films also fell through earlier this year... (full details)

Kerri Green of The Goonies fame (she played Andy) is to return to the big screen in a film called Complacent, a “gripping drama” that “centers on two close sisters whose already tumultuous lives are rocked by tragedy.”

Ben Stiller is going to make a third movie featuring The Fockers.

Kevin Munro is making a comic based movie called War Monkeys. The story follows two guys who work low-level jobs in an Area 51-like underground research facility that end up getting locked in over Christmas with an army of military-trained research monkeys.
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Baz Luhrmann speaks about the Australia ending - He wrote 6 endings and shot 3

Baz Luhrmann has revealed that despite a week to go before Australia is to première, he hasn't yet finished it and that after speaking at a film benefit he was honoured at, he would be heading back to the mixing desk to get on with it.

What's more he refutes the recent speculation in the media and film sites that Twentieth Century Fox had forced him to change the ending are untrue.

Baz Luhrmann was speaking at the Museum of Modern Art's Film Benefit in New York which was honouring him and revealed that the film was unfinished. The BBC says that he had just a day spare to complete the film. Luhrmann said:

“We're right up against it, I literally have to on Friday night push that button...going back to the mixing desk to finish it in 24 hours.”

Australia leads with Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman and tells the story of an English aristocrat who arrives in Australia to find the cattle ranch that she has inherited. During hard times she has to move her entire cattle heard across Australia in order to keep the ranch alive, and at the same time encounter the beginnings of World War II. She wins over her rugged ranch hand, and on the journey the two fall in love. It promises to be set against stunning Australian backdrops.

However it looks tight to complete the film, and that's not the only pressure he's up against. According to recent reports his original film had an ending that was rather sad and negative. The studio hated this and requested that he change it to something happier, something that was a bit stronger than a request.

Baz Luhrmann won't have any of this though and said on the matter:

“You really think that on my films people tell me what to do? I don't think so - on my films I decide...I wrote six endings and I shot three...”

He also goes on to say that the ending of the film will be a surprise.

Source: Filmstalker

I think the ending will have aliens landing in the outback, Hugh Jackman will pop his claws and go snikty-snikt on the skrull faced monsters, then Nicole Kidman will unleash her botox forehead and head butt them all to kingdom come. Once that's done they'll then be joined by Rolf Harris and end the film with a big musical number of "Two Little Boys". That's a surprise ending.

To be honest the whole plot sounds like a revamped Crocodile Dundee set during World War II with a bit of City Slickers thrown in. What's your take on this?

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Australia - Trailer for Baz Luhrmann's Epic

MSN has released a new trailer for Australia, starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, and written and directed by Baz Luhrmann. The epic opens in theaters November 26.

The story is set in northern Australia prior to World War II and centers on an English aristocrat (Kidman) who inherits a ranch the size of Maryland. When English cattle barons plot to take her land, she reluctantly joins forces with a rough-hewn cattle driver (Jackman) to drive 2000 head of cattle across hundreds of miles of the country's most unforgiving land, only to still face the bombing of Darwin, Australia by the Japanese forces that had attacked Pearl Harbor only months earlier.

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Austraila - Baz Luhrman's latest

"Set in northern Australia before World War II, an English aristocrat who inherits a sprawling ranch reluctantly pacts with a stock-man in order to protect her new property from a takeover plot. As the pair drive 2,000 head of cattle over unforgiving landscape, they experience the bombing of Darwin, Australia, by Japanese forces firsthand."

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