You know you’re in Hollywood territory when you’re guessing the twist to this movie from the very first minute. Unfortunately, I guessed correctly, as did the majority of the audience. What’s important is that in speculating the twist, it didn’t destroy the enjoyment of the movie. The second twist wasn’t so obvious, but when you know the first twist, they do match.

So what’s it all about?

From Oscar®-winning director Martin Scorsese, “Shutter Island” is the 1954 story of two U.S. marshals, Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), who are summoned to a remote and barren island off the coast of Massachusetts to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a murderess from the island’s fortress-like hospital for the criminally insane.

Many great films pass through the hands of Martin Scorsese and while his direction in this movie is excellent, it doesn’t quite pull punches you’d expect from one of his epic movies. The middle section lacked a little and the cliff climbing could only have been seen through the eyes of the patient it was so ridiculously not possible. This high budget movie is already raking in profits from ticket sales so expectations are high.

There is no doubt that many people will visit the theatre to see the stars of this picture, whatever the quality or content of the movie. Just noting Ben Kinglsey in the list is enough to wet my appetite for classy quality acting, whatever the character and he didn’t disappoint. He was lucky in getting the movie’s best lines and Sir Ben’s desire for fine roles in films shows his craving to continue to move difficult characters from page to screen.

Screenplay writer Laeta Kalogridis makes a fine move to bring Dennis Lehane’s novel to the big screen, with help from Steven Knight. Together they achieve a good flow of dialogue mixing this mystery thriller with many moments of true darkness.

Michelle William’s part was consistent in this movie, but didn’t give her the chance to show off her acting skills. What was good about her role was the consistency she showed in her every appearance.

Unusually, for Hollywood, the ending does leave an open question. Nice to have something to discuss rather than having sugar coated candy shoved down our throats.

So what’s it all about?

Whip It is a 2009 film directed by Drew Barrymore and written by Shauna Cross, based on Cross’s novel Derby Girl. The film is Barrymore’s directorial debut. The film stars Ellen Page as Bliss Cavendar, a small town teenager who joins a roller derby team she discovers in Austin, Texas.

Drew Barrymore’s direction provides the heat of the action in the Derby girl races, it’s just that the races aren’t as explosive or violent as expected. They are quite tame. There is of course the occasional punch thrown and some moderate pushing, but this lacks all the power of the way players treat each other in say, Canadian ice hockey, American football or British rugby.

I’m probably the wrong person to review this movie because I’m not a female teenager. There’s no doubt the screenplay’s directed towards young girls, particularly those looking for an action sport. It’s just that the action is so lacking during the races and the screenplay so average compared to quality movies, but probably exactly right for its target audience.

I did laugh at one line some five minutes before the end of the movie. I quite expected it would be much more amusing, perhaps I just missed the jokes.

Okay yes I admit it, the pull of Ellen Page and Drew Barrymore was enough to get me to see this movie and neither failed. It’s more that the action and the obvious screenwriting was just too lame for my expectations.

I really can’t see where they spent their $50 million unless it was on the director and Ellen Page’s salaries. Half of the movie was set inside an empty hangar, I can only expect the majority of the money went towards promoting the movie.

Some movies I watch time and time again perhaps over the course of time. This is one of them. It’s not a keeper.

It’s easy to see why this two hour+ movie has been insatiable taking in award after award these past few months.

It plays out like a documentary, but it’s a fictionalized account of some real events in Iraq. The attention to detail is incredible showing that quality research is essential in movie making. It keeps your interest rate high throughout, never allowing you to dismiss the high element of fear in the daily lives of these army bomb disposal experts; not a role we’d all take on with relish.

So what’s it all about:

An American war film, shadowing a United States Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team. Staring Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, and Brian Geraghty as members of a U.S. Army EOD unit in Iraq and follows their tour together as they contend with defusing bombs, the threat of insurgency, and the tension that develops among them. The film was shot in Jordan, within miles of the Iraqi border.

The film was directed by Kathryn Bigelow (yes, the ex-Mrs James Cameron). She’s completed an excellent assignment making this feel ‘real’ like a documentary, while also acting as the movie’s producer. She gets to let herself know how the budget is disappearing compared to filming.

The screenplay was written by Mark Boal, a freelance writer who was entrenched as a journalist in 2004 with a US bomb squad in Iraq. It shows; his research is faultless, leaving us all with a feeling of really understanding the problems faced by the troops at the front line.

Not surprising are the nominations for nine Academy Awards and it won six, including Best Picture and Best Director for Bigelow, becoming the first woman to win the award. The film also cleaned up the 2010 BAFTA Awards, winning best film, director, original screenplay, editing, cinematography and sound.

If you want an idea of life is really like for the troops out in Iraq and you wonder what day to day life is like for the locals, this is your movie.

3 stars ***

It’s a rare advantage to be able to see a movie that has been adapted from a fiction novel without having been blinded by reading the book first. Alice Sebold’s novel The Lovely Bones is a perfect example of how a movie can be very good when you haven’t read the book initially because most people that took the book route to begin with don’t find this movie so enjoyable.

So what’s it all about?

The Lovely Bones centers on a young girl who has been murdered and watches over her family – and her killer – from heaven. She must weigh her desire for vengeance against her desire for her family to heal.

It’s unusual for a movie to be written from the view point of the dead person, but at no time did it positively feel unreal.

When you have a director as acclaimed as Peter Jackson you know the special effects and in particular the CGI, is going to be of the highest order and in this movie he certainly doesn’t disappoint. Writing the screenplay himself with Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens proves a successful outing given the high quality (so I’m told) of Alice Sebold’s novel.

Music is often the deciding point between a movie being average or good and Brian Eno’s outstanding contribution brings this movie to life any moment it appears to suffer.

The Beatles would’ve been proud of the long ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ passage half way through this picture, but it did tend to be slightly too long and even provided the feeling of boredom rather than excitement in finding out what the afterlife may actually look like.

Of course the bad guy gets his just desserts at the end of the movie, but not in the way that was expected, particularly as he thought he had just got away with his sixth or seventh murder.
I need to go check out our bookshelves for the manuscript, and though we have it in there somewhere, I just haven’t got around to reading it these past eight years. This movie is quite good, it doesn’t disappoint.

I really should read the book to see what the fuss was all about. Here’s what people at Amazon say.

Apart from a select few, nobody really thought that Avatar was the movie of the year, nevertheless more people have gone to see that movie than any other in history with dollars itching to leave their hands.

It’s difficult to understand why the movie companies need to spend tens of millions promoting the movie just when it comes to the Academy Awards nominations. Surely, if they all sent a DVD copy of their movie to all the people on the panel then they could just leave it to the people to watch the movie and make their own decisions Quite simply those tens of millions could be spent encouraging new talents, particularly screenplay writers, to the industry or even make donations to worthy world courses which are crying out for help. What’s morally right?

Is easy to see that both screenplay winners wrote in a certain style, that of almost a documentary; you feel you may have been watching nonfiction, but you’d be wrong.

So here’s where the awards went, whether you have the same opinion or oppose, these are the people will have their little statues on display for their family to impress friends for years to come.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Winner: Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker)
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Winner: Geoffrey Fletcher (Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire)
BEST PICTURE
Winner: The Hurt Locker
BEST DIRECTOR
Winner: Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker)
BEST ACTOR
Winner: Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart)
ACTRESS
Winner: Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Winner: Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Winner: Mo’Nique (Precious)
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
The winner: El Secreto de Sus Ojos - The Secret in Their Eyes (Argentina)
BEST ANIMATION
Winner: Up
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Winner: Geoffrey Fletcher (Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire)
BEST ART DIRECTION
Winner: Avatar
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Winner: Avatar
BEST SOUND MIXING
The winner: The Hurt Locker
BEST SOUND EDITING
The winner: The Hurt Locker
BEST ORIGINAL SONG
Winner: The Weary Kind (theme from Crazy Heart) from Crazy Heart by Ryan Bingham, T Bone Burnett
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Winner: Up (Michael Giacchino)
BEST COSTUMES
Winner: The Young Victoria
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
The winner: The Cove
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
Winner: Music by Prudence
BEST FILM EDITING
The winner: The Hurt Locker
BEST MAKE-UP
Winner: Star Trek
BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
Winner: Logorama
BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
Winner: The New Tenants
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Winner: Avatar

Forget the critics, the audience’s reaction tells everything. They gasped at the moments the movie’s director planned for; they cried when prompted. This movie pulled all the strings expected while remaining a quality motion picture. The fact that it’s based on a real life story makes it even stronger (yet altered where considered necessary as often happens with book to screen adaptations). It’ll be on ‘Lifetime Movies’ at some stage in the future, but don’t knock it for that.

So what’s it all about?

Brendan Fraser plays John Crowley, a biotechnology executive whose two youngest children were afflicted with Pompe disease or acid maltase deficiency. Along with his wife Aileen (Keri Russell), he raises money for research scientist Robert Stonehill (Harrison Ford), forming a company to develop a drug to save his children’s lives.

I should have read the Geeta Anand (The Cure) book first, although I’ll go and get a copy for the Kindle soon. The screenplay written by Robert Nelson Jacobs has to adapt from a ten hour read to a ninety minute movie, so changes have been made to make the story fit and cut confusion over a shorter time frame. Nevertheless, the overriding factor has to be to maintain the general feel of the manuscript.

Meredith Droeger as nine year old Megan Crowley is superb. We don’t know if her movie character shows any resemblance to her real life spirit, but if it does then she’s a miracle through adversity. I don’t believe I’d be so positive knowing the dreadful outcome to this Pompe disease I knew nothing about until last evening, but I now know is terrible almost beyond words and incredibly the life saving drugs are too expensive for most sufferers to be treated by medical insurance.

If the movie can attract discussion on drug costs, then it has achieved heights beyond entertainment.

The British Academy film awards website http://www.bafta.org/ is a great collection of information and videos. It features a database providing information on all the previous nominees and winners as well as a number of videos available from yesterdays awards ceremony.

It has been announced that HRH Prince William is to succeed Lord Attenborough as the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA)’s fifth President. In his first official act as President, Prince William presented the actor Vanessa Redgrave with a British Academy Fellowship.

2009 WINNERS (presented in 2010)

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY - THE HURT LOCKER Mark Boal

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY- UP IN THE AIR Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner
beating serious competition from:
DISTRICT 9 Neill Blomkamp, Terri Tatchell
AN EDUCATION Nick Hornby
IN THE LOOP Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche
PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL PUSH BY SAPPHIRE Geoffrey Fletcher

ACADEMY FELLOWSHIP - VANESSA REDGRAVE

OUTSTANDING BRITISH CONTRIBUTION TO CINEMA - JOE DUNTON

BEST FILM - THE HURT LOCKER Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, Nicolas Chartier, Greg Shapiro
eclipsing the one you wish to beat, AVATAR James Cameron, Jon Landau and the wonderful AN EDUCATION Finola Dwyer, Amanda Posey, PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL PUSH BY SAPPHIRE Lee Daniels, Sarah Siegel-Magness, Gary Magness and UP IN THE AIR Ivan Reitman, Jason Reitman, Daniel Dubiecki

OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM - FISH TANK Kees Kasander, Nick Laws, Andrea Arnold
incredibly winning against two best British films of the year AN EDUCATION Finola Dwyer, Amanda Posey, Lone Scherfig, Nick Hornby and IN THE LOOP Kevin Loader, Adam Tandy, Armando Iannucci, Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Tony Roche. Neither did the spectacular John Lennon outsider NOWHERE BOY Robert Bernstein, Douglas Rae, Kevin Loader, Sam Taylor-Wood, Matt Greenhalgh

OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER - DUNCAN JONES Director – Moon
SAM TAYLOR-WOOD Director – Nowhere Boy must’ve been a very close second.

DIRECTOR - THE HURT LOCKER Kathryn Bigelow
she’ll be pleased to have beaten her ex-husband and four excellent directed films
AVATAR James Cameron
DISTRICT 9 Neill Blomkamp
AN EDUCATION Lone Scherfig
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS Quentin Tarantino

FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE - A PROPHET Pascal Caucheteux, Marco Cherqui, Alix Raynaud, Jacques Audiard

ANIMATED FILM - UP Pete Docter

LEADING ACTOR - COLIN FIRTH A Single Man

LEADING ACTRESS - CAREY MULLIGAN An Education
Ms Mulligan may have been extremely surprised, but the win was expected despite the serious competition from:
SAOIRSE RONAN The Lovely Bones
GABOUREY SIDIBE Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
MERYL STREEP Julie & Julia
AUDREY TAUTOU Coco Before Chanel

SUPPORTING ACTOR - CHRISTOPH WALTZ Inglourious Basterds

SUPPORTING ACTRESS - MO’NIQUE Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
A predictable win, but all the runners-up must have come very close.
ANNE-MARIE DUFF Nowhere Boy
VERA FARMIGA Up in the Air
ANNA KENDRICK Up in the Air
KRISTIN SCOTT THOMAS Nowhere Boy

MUSIC - UP Michael Giacchino

CINEMATOGRAPHY - THE HURT LOCKER Barry Ackroyd
It’s difficult to know how this winner beats both AVATAR Mauro Fiore and DISTRICT 9 Trent Opaloch

EDITING - THE HURT LOCKER Bob Murawski, Chris Innis

PRODUCTION DESIGN - AVATAR Rick Carter, Robert Stromberg, Kim Sinclair

COSTUME DESIGN - THE YOUNG VICTORIA Sandy Powell

SOUND - THE HURT LOCKER Ray Beckett, Paul N. J. Ottosson
Star Trek must have driven it pretty close

SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS - AVATAR Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham, Andrew R. Jones. No surprises there then.

MAKE UP & HAIR - THE YOUNG VICTORIA Jenny Shircore

SHORT ANIMATION - MOTHER OF MANY Sally Arthur, Emma Lazenby
I expect most children and their parents/guardians would’ve voted for THE GRUFFALO Michael Rose, Martin Pope, Jakob Schuh, Max Lang

SHORT FILM - I DO AIR James Bolton, Martina Amati

THE ORANGE RISING STAR AWARD (voted for by the public) - KRISTEN STEWART
It’s difficult to know why Ms. Stewart won this award when CAREY MULLIGAN was also nominated, but after we’ve all been to see The Runaways movie, Kristen Stewart may be on for a bigger award next year

Many thanks to the BAFTA website for this information.

If you look in television schedules and see what’s written about a movie, a drama or even sport, the few words describing the viewing will be its logline; telling you all you need to know before you decide if you’re going to watch it, or not.

Rather than reinvent the wheel and write exactly the same as all others should, I’ll direct you to the James Burbidge article ‘10 tips for writing loglines’ at Raindance, the people who are great at independent film making, courses and books.

If you’re a cut and paste sort of person, then you’ll need this:
http://www.raindance.org/site/10-tips-for-writing-loglines

What’s it about:

As homicide detective Thomas Craven investigates the death of his activist daughter, he uncovers not only her secret life, but a corporate cover-up and government collusion that attracts an agent tasked with cleaning up the evidence.

It’s been a while since we’ve seen Mel Gibson in such convincing form, not that he’s been in poor movies, he’s just been taking a long rest. Fellow actor Ray Winstone continues to be near perfect in every movie he runs with. Yet again he plays a believable character who turns a full character arc without specifically telling us why, but we are shown why.

This movie uses the ‘show not tell’ method quite a lot. In fact, probably too much, as we painfully have to guess what might have been said in a conversation as the movie moves on quickly and we’re left guessing what happened. It’s only though later actions that we’re able to go back, Agatha Christie style, and find out what the clues might have been.

It almost like the 126 minutes isn’t enough and they really needed another 20 minutes to flesh out the details. Why do that when your audience can just guess what happened and hope they got it right?

This movie, with the screenplay written by William Monahan and Andrew Bovell from Troy Kennedy Martin’s BBC series, makes a really good read as a screenplay because you have the time to fill in the missing parts.

The end of the movie doesn’t agree with standard Hollywood issues. It doesn’t leave you having had all the pieces carefully tidied up so that the main story and the B story are concluded to your satisfaction. In fact, it leaves you wanting to know more but I doubt they’ll be a follow up as that would be an entirely different story and too many main characters won’t be able to present.

The movie isn’t a close run of ‘Taken.’ The stories bear very little resemblance. In reality it’s more like a mixture of Silkwood and any movie where the father takes revenge for his daughter’s death.

Despite everything, it was very enjoyable and most entertaining which is what I want from my ticket purchase and an evening at the cinema.