question of the day: Is the shutdown of the UK Film Council good or bad for British film?
This week the British government announced the shutdown the UK Film Council. Is the decision tragically naive, or is there reason not to despair?
Guardian
calling bullshit on: ‘Toy Story 3’s miraculous seven-day U.K. “opening weekend”
Jesus could make a couple of loaves of bread and a few fish feed a crowd. But only Hollywood can make a weekend last seven days. Recently I wrote a piece for Film.com about Wednesday openings for films, what the purpose of them is, and if they make sense. The context was: Why move Knight … more…
omg: a modern Sherlock Holmes from Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss? I’m so there
Guardian, you had me at your headline: Sherlock Holmes is back… sending texts and using nicotine patches I had a similar idea years ago — I wanted to put Sherlock Holmes in New York’s East Village in the early 1990s, with bike messengers as the Baker Street Irregulars and faxes instead of telegrams — and … more…
‘Doctor Who’ thing of the day: the ‘Guardian’ geekishly catalogues every villain and monster
I’m still trying to get my head around the geeky awesomeness that is the compilation of villainry and monsterness that the Guardian’s Data Blog has assembled for our fannish pleasure: This image doesn’t even begin to do it justice: the actual thingie is interactive, and I urge you to check it out if you’re simply … more…
more hope for a better Hollywood (from the U.K. box office)
The numbers are in for Inception’s debut in the U.K. and the Republic of Ireland: a smidge under £6 million, exactly on par with the $62.8 million it earned in North America last weekend. (That North American number is actually up from the Sunday estimates, by almost $2.5 million. That speaks to very strong word … more…
what he said: ‘Guardian’ film critic Peter Bradshaw…
…on one of the supreme pleasures of being a film critic: Some people hate watching films in the daytime, and some love it for the bunking-off-school feeling of naughtiness. I am in the second category. And there’s an extra-special thrill for the film reviewer: going to see a film in the morning. At 10.30, or … more…
question of the day: Are the artists at Pixar collectively today’s Leonardo da Vinci?
With Toy Story 3 about to land at British cinemas — it opens on July 23 (it has already earned more than $250 million in North America, which it did at a near-record-breaking pace) — art and design writer Jonathan Jones in the Guardian decrees that digital animation, especially as exemplified by the works of … more…
where have all the witty movies gone?
The British box office numbers for last weekend are in, and perhaps it would have been better if they’d remained unknown: the weekend was absolutely abysmal, down 66 percent from the same weekend last year. Get Him to the Greek was the top film, and the only new movie in the top 5 (in the … more…
omg: Ray Harryhausen feted at BFI on his 90th birthday; is he available to work?
I’ve just come from enduring some truly cold and deeply unmoving CGI FX in The Last Airbender. Sterile, inorganic, lifeless… I haven’t seen anything so lackluster since Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. And Jonah Hex. And Clash of the Titans. And Alice in Wonderland. And — oh yeah — last night, when I … more…
watch it: “The World’s First Bionic Cat”
Oscar from Jersey lost his rear paws in a terrible accident, but he’s walking around again: And more video of Oscar: I love how the cat, in this second video, is all like, “What? I’m walkin’ here! Lemme alone!” (*sigh* He looks like my Andie, who died many years ago, and without bionic feet.) More … more…
