Michael Dwyeron film
Oscar campaigns, like Christmas cash-ins, seem to begin earlier every year. Promotional pop-ups are already appearing on trade-paper websites, emblazoned with the traditional "For your consideration", even though Oscar night is not until February 22nd, and some hotly fancied end-of-year US releases have yet to be screened for voters.
They include Baz Luhrmann's epic Australia, starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman; the 1950s-set Revolutionary Road, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, directed by her husband Sam Mendes; David Fincher's F Scott Fitzgerald adaptation, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, in which Brad Pitt ages backwards from his 80s; and Gus Van Sant's Milk, with Sean Penn as murdered gay San Francisco official Harvey Milk, James Franco as his lover, and Josh Brolin as his killer.
After four years in which the best picture Oscar went to movies from outside the studio system ( Million Dollar Baby, Crash, The Departed, No Country for Old Men), Hollywood is fighting back. Warner Bros is backing The Dark Knightin multiple categories. Paramount is promoting Robert Downey jnr for best actor in Iron Manand best supporting actor in Tropic Thunder. And although just one animated feature ( Beauty and the Beast) has ever been nominated for best picture, Disney is pushing for Wall-E.
No Irish in strong Oscar line-up
This year, Kingsbecame the first Irish entry for the best foreign-language film Oscar, but there isn't any Irish picture among the record 67 productions competing for that prize next year. In a particularly strong year for this category, the front-runners include Gomorrah(Italy), The Baader Meinhof Complex(Germany), Everlasting Moments(Sweden), Waltz with Bashir(Israel), Three Monkeys(Turkey) Eldorado(Belgium), Under the Bombs(Lebanon), O' Horten(Norway), Lion's Den(Argentina), Tulpan(Kazahstan), and the Palme d'Or-winning The Class(France).
Green tinge to British awards
Three Irishmen are among the five nominees for best actor at next month's British Independent Film Awards. Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson are both shortlisted for In Bruges, as is Michael Fassbender for Hunger.
Occupying the two other slots are Riz Ahmed ( Shifty) and 16-year-old Thomas Thurgoose ( Somers Town). Other Irish nominees include Liam Cunningham as best supporting actor and Enda Walsh for best screenplay, both for Hunger.
The most-nominated films are Hungerand In Bruges, with seven each. The nominees for best foreign film include two animated features, Persepolisand Waltz with Bashir, along with Gomorrah, The Diving Bell and the Butterflyand I've Loved You So Long. The annual Richard Harris Award for outstanding contribution to British film will be presented to David Thewlis. www.bifa.org.uk
Indiana Jones visits Waterford
Waterford Film Festival opens next Wednesday night with Brian Lally's 8.5 Hours, which is described as "an intense, challenging drama" following a day in the lives of four people employed at a small Dublin software company. The festival closes on November 9th with the Irish premiere of Charles Ferguson's Oscar-nominated Iraq war documentary, No End in Sight. Presentations will include Outlanders, in which a young Polish man seeks out his brother in London; Japanese horror movie Twilight Phantom; Jessie Kirby's Irish horror film, The Hidden; and Irish director Gabriel Murray's documentary, The Lost World of the Crystal Skull, billed as "the story of Mitchell Hedges, the real Indiana Jones". www.Waterfordfilmfestival.com
Two Parker pics picked up
Two Alan Parker movies are set for Hollywood remakes. Fame(1980), which spawned a TV series and a stage musical and won two Oscars, is to be updated by MGM, while retaining New York's High School for the Performing Arts as its setting. Producer Michael De Luca, whose credits include 21and Ghost Rider, and Jim Sheridan's imminent Brothers, has acquired the rights to Parker's stylish supernatural thriller Angel Heart(1987), which starred Robert De Niro and Mickey Rourke.
Songs, dance and gore pull them in
Providing ample proof that counter-programming works, the US box office soared last weekend with High School Musical 3earning $42m (€32m) and Saw Vtaking $30m (€23m). The two movies successfully targeted entirely different demographics, and it's likely that few people would have seen both. "You'd never know we are supposed to be in a recession when you see two openings like this," said Steve Rothenberg of Lionsgate, which distributes Saw V. High School Musical 3rules the roost at the Irish box office, where it set a new record for the best opening of a musical, surpassing even the opening weekend figures for Mamma Mia!, which currently ranks as the second biggest hit of all-time at Irish cinemas.
