If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The annual celebration of all that is kitsch, camp and quirky in European music comes to our screens this Saturday at 8pm BST, from Malmö, Sweden. We've watched both semi-finals and as many rehearsals as we can to give you a taster of what to look out for (and when to take a loo/fag/cuppa break).
The Great Gatsby is stunning, but it's meaningfully, provocatively stunning. This isn't just awesome spectacle for spectacle's sake. Luhrmann uses sensory overload in a similar way to Harmony Korine in Springbreakers - to disorientate the audience and send them reeling into a hallucinogenic whirl.
Given we are in an age where traditional media, entertainment and communications are all being bulldozed by a digital, non-location specific cloud approach, standing there with arms crossed refusing to let this international celebration of film spread its glory globally, looking much like an incorrigibly stubborn little Oscars statue, is surely quite backwards.
We should, I think, cut Hollywood some slack. It is easy to forget that history is all about dramatic license. Who wants to read a boring account of the past? Which historian does not want to spice things up? And even as far as flaws, errors and distortions go - well, bring them on.
Ok... I was waiting for the funny to happen... and it never showed. We're used to it, I suppose... we suffered the unbearable Ricky Gervais as host for far longer than we should have had to. But... wow... wasn't Seth MacFarlane awful?
MacFarlane will never be everyone's cup of tea, but the show's organisers would have known this.
It's a film that all can enjoy and be surprised and amazed by.
This year's Oscars ceremony was unique in many respects. Ang Lee's Namaste only highlighted this uniqueness. Although the function itself was very much American in its outer trappings, the spirit reflected the effect of globalising on one of the most prestigious film awards.
Based on the best-selling novel of the same name, Cloud Atlas is a sprawling epic, historical, science fiction film that covers six distinct time periods from early settlers in the United States to a post-apocalyptic savage land after the 'fall of humanity' and it's quite unlike almost any other film around.
If you are anything like the actors I live with however, you'll just get drunk and play a massive game of Hollywood top trumps!
Bizarre, dream-like, wonderful and truly surreal with cinematic references to Bunuel, Cocteau and Goddard amongst others.
Quite why Renner and Arterton agreed to participate in such a meritless monstrosity, only they could say, but the usually reliable leads are poor. It may not necessarily be their fault; both young actors are talented, but they are not magicians.
There is so much wrong with A Good Day to Die Hard that it is hard to know where to begin, but the majority of the blame rests with Hitman screenwriter Skip Woods.
It appears that the film companies, and the cinemas for that matter have no idea just how extortionate these prices are (or maybe they do.) It feels like they don't realise that most people can't afford the prices they are charging in order to go to the cinema, therefore more and more people are turning to a 'life of crime' in order to obtain films to get some release from the hardships of day to day life.
So, the Pontiff has decided to jack in his papal vestments. What is next for Mr Ratzinger? Clearly, the pull of Hollywood is too much for him to resist. I can see his rugged old features in a maverick cop role.
Reinventing yourself and changing careers has almost become trendy. Think of all of the city folk you read about in magazines who wake up one day and realise they cannot stand the rat-race anymore and retrain as a yoga teache
