Posts Tagged ‘movies’

Health Ledger’s family say that they are “proud and excited” that the actor has been nominated for a posthumous Oscar.

Ledger died from an accidental overdose exactly one year before being short listed for the best supporting actor role for his part as the joker in the latest Batman movie: The Dark Knight.

Ledger’s portrayal of a maniacal killer/tortured soul won critical acclaim in the media, and is considered to be one of the best played roles in history by the films fans.

Ledgers sister Ashleigh Bell said that he thought playing the Joker was “the most fun he ever had working on a film”.

She said that he said it was “the time of his life!.

“We will take this opportunity today to honour his wonderful life and take comfort in knowing Heath will continue to touch future generations through this amazing art-form,” she added.

The actor who also had starring roles in Brokeback Mountain, First Knight and
The Brothers Grimm is up against Josh Brolin, Robert Downey and previous winner Philip Seymour Hoffman.

If Ledger wins the award it will be the second time that a deseased actor will have won an Oscar, after Robert Finch’s award for Network back in 1977.

Ledger was found dead in his Manhattan apartment with a bottle of prescription sleeping pills nearby. The inquest that followed his death showed that the 28 year old died because he’d taken a mix that included pain killers, sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication.

Ledger’s sister Kate said: “It seems like merely yesterday. We are still all nursing broken heart.”

Meanwhile other Oscar nominees are getting excited about the fact they could walk away with a prestigious award. Danny Boyle, director of Brit-flick-that-isn’t-a-gangster-movie Slumdog Millionaire is over the moon with his films 10 nominations.

He said: “I’m ecstatic! Thank you to the Academy from the cast and crew.

“It feels like you’ve given us a billion nominations!”

Kate Winslet who had a teary/pathetic acceptance speech at the recent Bafta awards is nominated for her role in The Reader, she said: “I’m extremely happy to have been nominated. And very fortunate. Playing Hanna Schmitz will always remain one of the biggest challenges I’ve ever been blessed with.”

Brad Pitt’s new movie, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, is currently leading the Oscar charge with 13 nominations, including Best Actor. He said: “It’s great fun for the movie to see it get acknowledged that way, but it’s not the goal.

“It’s a fickle business, and there to be enjoyed if you’re invited and there to be enjoyed if you’re not.”

The 81st Award show will take place in Los Angeles on 22 February.

Right men, listen up. A new study has been released that will get us out of having to be subjected to the dreaded Rom-Com. The study by Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh has found that these movies promote “unrealistic expectations” when it comes to love and relationships.

The researchers blame films like Four Wedding and a Funeral with the foppish gent Hugh Grant, and Notting Hill with the foppish gent Hugh Grant, essentially anything with Hugh Grant, and a host of other slushy, obvious movies.

The study found that men and women have a serious difference of opinion over Rom-com’s such as Runaway Bride – because its rubbish according to men, and good according to women.

The study by psychologists at the family and personal relationships lab at the University studied 40 soppy box office hits between 1995 and 205, identifying common unrealistic themes in each one.

The movies quite often included Meg Ryan and Jennifer Lopez - Two Rom-com actresses that would look entirely out of place in any other type of movie.

The university’s Dr Bjarne Holmes said: “Marriage counsellors often see couples who believe that sex should always be perfect, and if someone is meant to be with you then they will know what you want without you needing to communicate it.

“We now have some emerging evidence that suggests popular media play a role in perpetuating these ideas in people’s minds.

“The problem is that while most of us know that the idea of a perfect relationship is unrealistic, some of us are still more influenced by media portrayals than we realise.”

One part of the project involved 100 students watching the 2001 Rom-com Serendipity, while another 100 students watched a David Lynch drama. The students who watched/suffered the romantic film were more likely to believe in fate and destiny, and a stronger belief in predestined love.

Kimberly Johnson, who worked on the study, said: “Films do capture the excitement of new relationships but they also wrongly suggest that trust and committed love exist from the moment people meet, whereas these are qualities that normally take years to develop.”

The moral of this story? Avoid anything with Hugh Grant on the poster. It’s a rule I’ve lived by for many years.

Last night I sat to watch a film I’d missed at the cinema, and that a few of my friends had recommended: Juno. As I’m a man of the digital age, I opened my Xbox360s disk drive, and popped the DVD in, I sent that DVD back into the Xbox and jumped to the couch and changed the tv channel to my Xbox’s output.

Then nothing. No picture. But a glimmer of sound, I turned the volume up on the remote and I could hear the start of the movie, I franticly changed cables around to rectify the problem, but nothing would work, I’ve got crystal clear sound coming from my TV, but no blooming picture.

In a near fit of rage by this point – I should probably note that I wasn’t entirely bothered bout the film, more about my broken console – I found myself cursing at my luck. I looked at the heavens and said: “why me?”

Now it maybe sounds a bit dramatic but I’ve already lost one Xbox 360 from the red ring of death, and it was 3 days past the year mark, so I had to do a lot of begging to get it changed, but this time I have no chance. I’m so gutted aswell, because if it is a major problem I can’t afford a new one, and with Gears of War 2, Fifa 09, Fallout 3 and Call of Duty 5 out just in time for some Xmas presents to me, I couldn’t be more annoyed.

I’m hoping it’s just a cable problem, but its annoyingly expensive way to know - £15 after a quick check online – but its better than a whole new console.

It got me thinking about Xmas (again) and how I always seemed to get the broken toy. It’s actually become a bit of a family joke because every year when I was younger, even if I got the same toy as my brother, mines would be broken. It got so bad that my parents used to wrap both presents up then swap them round until they didn’t know which was which before putting our names on them – for me to still receive the broken one anyway.

I used to have this crazy ability to break anything technological. I remember getting yelled at in secondary school for handing a report to my computing teacher on a 3” floppy disk, only for it to be blank. The only explanation I had was that I got a static shock when I picked up the disk (on the metal shutter bit) so must have wiped it – and it happened more than once. Maybe I’m a superhero? Staticman – Zapping bad guys all over the place just don’t come near me with a fork. I’m like a violent Uri Gellar when cutlery is involved.

I’ve become fascinated with blogging. I blog all the time, I write for a bunch of websites everyday at my work, then when I go home, I write some more. Maybe I’ve found my calling in life after all – writing. I love writing about everything from gaming, wrestling and football, to things about technology, gadgets, health, politics and business. Actually, I write so much these days that I’ve found myself considering writing that book I’ve been promising myself for years…

But where to start? How do you even go about writing a book? I’ve never had any formal training in writing, and I received a fail for my higher English (too many parties, not enough study), and take one quick look around any of the major book retailers and you see pages upon pages of words that presumably each author has poured his heart and soul into. How can I possibly compete? The pure, and almost sad, fact of the matter, is that could a semi-decent blogger ever become a published author?

Wouldn’t it to be awesome to be the next JK Rowling, Terry Pratchet or Steven King? The problem is, in my opinion, is that as a reader, I struggle to find anything I’m looking for in book shops. I know the authors I enjoy reading, and find it difficult to accept a new name, and characters I don’t know. I think maybe films are killing books somewhat. The Lord of the Rings movies by Peter Jackson, vastly improved sales of the trio of books the films were based on. Had these films never appeared, the majority of people would still assume it was books for nerds. The same goes for comic-based movies – yes, generally they suck beyond reproach, but they have taken the elite feel from dorky comic book readers, and dragged their beloved ‘secret’ into the limelight.

Maybe the answer is to do a film based on a book, then when enough people know about it, I could write a new version, or a prequel, a la George “the perpetual tamperer” Lucas, and his Star Wars murdering.

Maybe I should dedicate my literary career to an in-depth report into why pigs can’t look up, or I could do a study on the damage that ABBA did to the world, during their heyday. Does anyone have any suggestions? Or have any of you tried to write a book and failed miserably? Would I be wasting my time to start writing something now, i mean i’m just a blogger…