Movie Talk

Hollywood studios are feeling the recession as much as any other business and want to move away from accepting the pay demands made by A-list stars on the grounds that the past year has seen small films with unknown actors become box office hits (Twilight, The Hangover, District 9) while several big-budget star vehicles (Duplicity, [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "News Hound sniffs around the back alleys of the internet to bring you the latest showbiz news - so you don’t have to get your paws dirty…", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/11/20/news-hound-sniffs-around-the-back-alleys-of-the-internet-to-bring-you-the-latest-showbiz-news-so-you-don%e2%80%99t-have-to-get-your-paws-dirty%e2%80%a6/" });

Wan teen Bella Swan and her vampire love Edward Cullen are back for their second screen outing, but if you’re not already a fully paid up fan of Stephenie Meyer’s phenomenally successful supernatural romance series, and you’ve been wondering what all the fuss is about, then a viewing of The Twilight Saga: New Moon will [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "At the Cinema | The Twilight Saga: New Moon - Bella & Edward are back, but their love is put on hold in lifeless vampire sequel", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/11/19/at-the-cinema-the-twilight-saga-new-moon-bella-edward-are-back-but-their-love-is-put-on-hold-in-lifeless-vampire-sequel/" });

Star Trek
Lost in space… Director J.J. Abrams reboot of the classic sci-fi franchise is set in an alternate reality and features space ships, black holes, phasers and pointy ears.




Night at the Museum 2
Lively display… History comes to life in this adventure-comedy sequel, as museum security guard [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Small Screen – this week’s top ten DVDs…", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/11/19/small-screen-%e2%80%93-this-weeks-top-ten-dvds%e2%80%a6-30/" });

If you haven’t yet seen Mamma Mia! then where have you been? It was the biggest film sensation of 2008! And now, it’s back in 2009 for a two disc ultimate party edition packed with loads of fabulous new extras.
This feel-good musical love story sees Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) about to [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Win the Two Disc Special Edition of Mamma Mia!", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/11/19/win-the-two-disc-special-edition-of-mamma-mia/" });

 
 
Flesh for Frankenstein in 3D, Channel 4, 12.40am
What’s better than sex, gore, rubber bat attacks and Joe Dallesandro? Well, all the above in glorious 3D. As part of Channel 4’s week-long experiment bringing 3D to our TV screens, there’s a chance to catch Andy Warhol’s Flesh for [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Andy Warhol’s Flesh for Frankenstein in 3D | Tonight on Channel 4", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/11/17/andy-warhols-flesh-for-frankenstein-in-3d-tonight-on-channel-4/" });

What do you get when you cross a 1963 children’s picture book about a boisterous boy who encounters monsters with Spike Jonze, the visionary director of Being John Malkovich? You get Where the Wild Things Are. Here’s the trailer…



To activate the sound in the trailer: hold your cursor over the screen to reveal the control [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Trailer Trash – Where the Wild Things Are", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/11/17/trailer-trash-%e2%80%93-where-the-wild-things-are/" });

Couch Potato Pickings

As most people know, this film about a shy northern girl with a gift for singing is based on the play written by Jim Cartwright. It was written specifically for actress Jane Horrocks because of her uncanny ability to impersonate the great divas of the 20th century.
I recall a huge deal being made [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Little Voice belts out some big songs on TV tonight", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/11/15/little-voice/" });

Anyone planning on seeing the new apocalyptic adventure 2012 should catch director Val Guest’s excellent 1961 end of the world drama, The Day the Earth Caught Fire, to see how far we have come since the advent of CGI.
Set in a frantic London newsroom (actually the real-life Daily Express), the film has a group of [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Pete’s Peek | 2012 updates The Day the Earth Caught Fire", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/11/13/petes-peek-2012-updates-the-day-the-earth-caught-fire/" });

Couch Potato Pickings

1. A group of teenagers get picked off by a killer at a lake where a young boy, Jason Voorhees, drowned years earlier. This 1980 slasher movie is one of the key horror movies of its era.
2. This film spawned 12 further slasher movies.
3.  Apparently the original filmmakers didn’t plan for the [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "13 reasons to watch Friday the 13th", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/11/13/13-reasons-to-watch-friday-the-13th/" });

Austrian director Michael Haneke has a knack of getting under the viewer’s skin - as anyone still in therapy after a viewing of Funny Games or Hidden will attest. His new movie, a period drama filmed in austere black and white, isn’t as overtly disturbing as those earlier [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "At the Cinema | The White Ribbon - Michael Haneke’s film gets under the viewer’s skin", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/11/12/at-the-cinema-the-white-ribbon-michael-hanekes-film-gets-under-the-viewers-skin/" });

A surreal storyline: check. A famous actor playing himself: check. Playful existential comedy Cold Souls certainly ticks some of the same boxes as Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman’s Being John Malkovich, yet first-time writer-director Sophie Barthes’s assured feature film debut has a deadpan wit and gentle pathos all [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "At the Cinema | Cold Souls - Paul Giamatti loses his soul in surreal comedy", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/11/12/at-the-cinema-cold-souls-paul-giamatti-loses-his-soul-in-surreal-comedy/" });

You wait for one Academy Award winner to come along, and then six come along at once – in the same film. Typical!
It’s taken a musical extravaganza starring no less than Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotillard, Penélope Cruz and Sophia Loren, plus Golden Globe Award winner Kate Hudson and Grammy Award [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Trailer Trash – Nine", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/11/11/trailer-trash-%e2%80%93-nine/" });

Released 23 November on DVD and Blu-Ray
Comic star Will Ferrell finds himself chased by a cheesed-off T-Rex called Grumpy and stalked by alien reptiles in the slapstick spoof adventure Land of the Lost.
Ferrell plays Dr Rick Marshall, a wayward scientist who finds himself in a crazy alternate prehistoric universe after being sucked into a space-time [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Win Land of the Lost on DVD", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/11/09/win-land-of-the-lost-on-dvd/" });

Couch Potato Pickings
This movie tells the entertaining tale of an unemployed governess who plunges into the dizzying world of 1939 London high society after bluffing her way into a job as social secretary to a giddy American singer and actress. I have some wonderful memories of this film. But its screwball comedy storyline isn’t [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day - if you could too, what day would you choose to live in?", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/11/07/miss-pettigrew-lives-for-a-day-if-you-could-too-what-day-would-you-choose-to-live-in/" });

2012
Impending doom… A series of cataclysmic events plunge the world into chaos and threaten to destroy life on Earth in Roland Emmerich’s apocalyptic epic.





A Christmas Carol
Christmas spirits… Jim Carrey voices Ebenezer Scrooge, and several other characters, in this animated adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic morality tale about [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Big Screen – this week’s top ten at the cinema…", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/11/18/big-screen-%e2%80%93-this-weeks-top-ten-at-the-cinema%e2%80%a6-31/" });

Diablo Cody announced herself as one of Hollywood’s smartest, sassiest new voices with her Oscar-winning script for Juno, but horror comedy Jennifer’s Body, her follow-up to that dazzling debut, fails to strike the same sparks.
The new film again has a teenage girl as its protagonist, yet where Ellen [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "At the Cinema | Jennifer’s Body - Megan Fox’s bitchy teen queen gets really nasty in high-school horror comedy", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/11/05/at-the-cinema-jennifers-body-megan-foxs-bitchy-teen-queen-gets-really-nasty-in-high-school-horror-comedy/" });

X Men Origins: Wolverine


Killer instinct… The troubled mutant clashes with his fearsome half-brother in this spin-off prequel, giving Hugh Jackman ample opportunity to flex his muscles and growl.


Drag Me to Hell
Going down… A loan officer refuses [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Small Screen – this week’s top ten DVDs…", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/11/02/small-screen-%e2%80%93-this-weeks-top-ten-dvds%e2%80%a6-28/" });

For true connoisseurs of the cinema comes The Masters of Cinema’s latest fantastic find, Phantom, from director FW Murnau (the man behind Nosferatu and The Last Laugh). Long thought lost, this surreal silent epic from 1922 is a [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Pete’s pick of the Halloween horrors on DVD", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/10/31/petes-pick-of-the-halloween-horrors-on-dvd/" });

Who better to make your Halloween weekend than the one-and-only Vincent Price. Get a triple dose of terror from the Master of the Macabre tonight on Sky.

Scream and Scream Again, Sky Classics, 10.40pm (Sky 308, Virgin 408)
Over the years this sci-fi horror political thriller mish-mash has aged [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Triple Distilled Terror: Vincent Price is Mr Halloween", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/10/31/triple-distilled-terror-vincent-price-is-mr-halloween/" });

Devastation and despair! Haven’t you heard? Hugh Jackman has turned down hosting the 2010 Academy Awards. ‘Whyyy,’ you howl? ‘But, he was such a brilliant host,’ I wail.
Tragically, it is because he wants plenty of time to prepare for his next movie, Real Steel.  Why such an accomplished song and dance man would want to [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "News Muse - Heading towards a New Moon and feeling darn fangtastic!", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/10/30/news-muse-heading-towards-a-new-moon-and-feeling-darn-fangtastic/" });