BrucieWeb

Fantastic acceptance speech, best of the night for sure. Wonder how much of it was rehearsed or even true – but who cares.

BBC News – Colin Firth’s Best Actor speech

First-time director Tom Ford has surprised the critics by making one of the year’s best films. Can he take all the credit – or is great cinema always a team effort?

Is great cinema ever the work of A Single Man? | Film | The Guardian.

Mark Kermode talks to fashion designer-turned-film-director Tom Ford about his debut film The Single Man.

http://bbc.co.uk/i/qr603/

George gazes wonderingly out through the bathroom window at the vignette of normal family life being played out on the neighbours’ front lawn. Some kids mess around with a metal detector, find an old button; the dad emerges grumpily to go to work. They take their family relationships and domestic bliss for granted. For lonely George, these people might as well be Martians.

A Single Man | Film review | Film | The Guardian.

Marvel Press Release

Disney Press Release

BBC Article

Saw this great show last night, what a great laugh – very true to the film. Jason Donovan was pretty good – he is good on the stage, saw him in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Might go see it again, everyone I know wants to go see it with me! Am I some Priscilla groupie or something?

I am very happy with the Oscar results this morning. You know, sometimes you wake up (for us in the UK) and are disappointed by the Academy’s choices, this year – spot on!

First off, Benjamin Button should have now way garnered 13 nominations – and I am glad that its wins were in the technical categories, an area that by all means the film did excel- it certainly did not in acting.

Having recently seen Sean Penn in Milk, he is a very just winner – and the message in the film of tolerance is one that is very timely – Milk fought against section 6 – people today are fighting against section 8. Great speech too: “You commie homo-loving sons of guns. I did not expect this, and I want it to be very clear that I do know how hard I make it to appreciate me, often, but I am touched by the appreciation.”.

Well done to Winslet for trumping on her 6th attempt – again a very just win for a fantastic performance – the message in The Reader is also one to remember our times. Cue comparisons with her Extras sketch and Gervais – ‘I told ya Winslet, do a Holocaust film and you’ll win! Fab!

Ledger’s win was a yawn, I really disliked how his family were punting round interviews about how the daughter was going to get it when she was 18 and who was going to go up and collect it – ‘he hasn’t even won yet’ I thought. I’d like to think this was for his performance in Brokeback rather his hamfisted turn in the very over-long Dark Knight.

And now to the evenings biggest win – Slumdog Millionaire – fantastic, just fabulous! The triumph of this little film against the big boys, mirrors its own storyline. A very just winner of it’s 8 awards indeed.

Real, truthful stories won out in the end against pap – however pretty and innovative that pap was – it was still pap – and these days, Truth reigns supreme.

The Guardian’s live blogging is just like being there! I have to see the musical numbers – they sound wonderfully bad!

Oscar.Com
BBC Coverage
Guardian Coverage

Another week, another Best Picture nominee, this time, Gus Van Sant’s ‘Milk‘, the biopic of Harvey Milk. Harvey was a very sweet man, the self appointed Mayor of Castro eventually became the first openly gay man elected to public office in the USA, with ultimately tragic results.

MILK Official Trailer from meghan mccarrick on Vimeo.

I found this very uplifting and inspiring. It makes you want to present yourself to Terrance Higgins and say ‘use me, I’m here to help’.

There was something though, and Mark Simpson hits the nail on the head here – they cut of Harvey’s balls. It was a cleaned up potrail of this mans life, would the real Harvey be seen as less sweet, and more sexual deviant?

Sukhdev Sandhu also picks up on this in his blog article:

Another curious feature of Milk is the relative silence it maintains around sex. This is pretty strange as sex was a big part of Harvey’s life.

A success, nonetheless. Sean Penn and James Franco were excellent. At the end, the real Harvey got some screen time, showing just how well Penn captured the exuberant essence of the man.

I saw this film last night – definitely one that stays with you after it has ended. An excellent depiction of a relationship breaking down – couples beware!

Revolutionary Road from THEM on Vimeo.

They also seem to have avoided the ‘never direct/work with your wife‘ curse – think Guy Ritchie and Tom Cruise as examples.

Dan saw it last night too – spooky.