Movie Talk

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/" });

News Muse ponders over the latest movie gossip, giving you her unique take on all the showbiz shenanigans…

Last week I was devastated to hear that Hugh Jackman has turned down hosting the Oscars next year. This week the producers announced that Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin are doing it together instead! Is this a recipe [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Hollywood’s epic love affair with disaster reaches new highs…and lows", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/11/06/hollywoods-epic-love-affair-with-disaster-reaches-new-highsand-lows/" });

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/" });

Movie Talk sniffs around the back alleys of the internet to bring you the latest showbiz news - because there’s nothing like a juicy bone to get you through the day…
Aardman Animations have been asked to produce a film for the Tate Galleries. The project is funded by the charity Legacy Trust UK and [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "News Hound | 28 October 2009", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/10/28/news-hound-28-october-2009/" });

This Is It
King of Pop… This fly-on-the-wall concert film stands as a tribute to the late Michael Jackson, documenting his rehearsals for his planned residency at London’s 02 Arena.





Up
High flyers… A grumpy OAP and a lively eight-year-old become unlikely partners in a sky-high adventure in this uplifting [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Big Screen – this week’s top ten at the cinema…", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/11/05/big-screen-%e2%80%93-this-weeks-top-ten-at-the-cinema%e2%80%a6-29/" });

Two faded movie star sisters live in a decaying mansion, hating each other. This classic movie is famous for the intense performances of its stars Bette Davis and Joan Crawford as the sparring siblings.

Here are some facts and legends about this classic film and its stars:
- Davis and Crawford had been rivals since the 1930s [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Couch Potato Pickings | What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/10/25/couch-potato-pickings-what-ever-happened-to-baby-jane/" });

In Bret Easton Ellis’s modern classic American Psycho, yuppie serial killer Patrick Bateman famously says:
‘I think my mask of sanity is about to slip.’
I say that every morning as I get on my bicycle and try to survive the long commute through the urban jungle while staying composed even though a white van cuts me [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "News Muse - Tom Cruise vs Christian Bale: Who’s the American Psycho?", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/10/23/news-muse-tom-cruise-vs-christian-bale-whos-the-american-psycho/" });

Fusing Fatal Attraction with Cape Fear, this tense little edge-of-your-seat Aussie thriller should have been called Cradle Rock.
With her biological clock ticking away, Jess wants a kid, but her fisherman husband Rob is not so sure. Enter unhinged Irishman Evan who wants Jess to be his and his alone. When Jess and Rob come to [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Pete’s Peek | Aussie chiller Coffin Rock", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/10/23/petes-peek-aussie-chiller-coffin-rock/" });

Reese Witherspoon, Kiefer Sutherland and Hugh Laurie are among the host of big-name stars lending their voices to DreamWorks Animation’s blockbuster hit Monsters VS Aliens, which oozes its way onto DVD and Blu-ray on 26 October.
Kids, young and old, will want to watch over and over, as Witherspoon’s [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Win Monsters VS Aliens DVD", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/10/23/win-monsters-vs-aliens-dvd/" });

Told from the perspective of a zombie, first-time director Marc Price’s homemade horror stars newcomer Alastair Kirton as the eponymous Colin, who literally falls out of his house one day in pursuit of human flesh.
But Kirton’s undead Londoner isn’t the kind to gore, eat and run. The young actor -who looks the spitting image of [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Pete’s Peek | Colin, the £45 zombie flick at the cinema and on DVD", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/10/22/petes-peek-colin-the-45-zombie-flick-at-the-cinema-and-on-dvd/" });

When The Man with the Golden Gun is good, it’s very, very good. But when it’s bad, it’s still not as bad as Die Another Day. Or A View to a Kill. Or Moonraker. Or Licence to Kill. Or Quantum of Solace. Or…
Telling friends that you’re a fan of James Bond is embarrassing.
Telling friends that [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Guilty Pleasures | The Man with the Golden Gun - As embarrassing as a beige BHS cardi?", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/10/22/guilty-pleasures-the-man-with-the-golden-gun-as-embarrassing-as-a-beige-bhs-cardi/" });

Movie Talk sniffs around the back alleys of the internet to bring you the latest showbiz news - because we love to play fetch…
Ridley Scott is in talks with Angelina Jolie for the femme fatale role in his next movie, Gucci, about the famous fashion dynasty.

Paramount wants to make a feature length movie based on [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "News Hound | 21 October 2009", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/10/21/news-hound-21-october-2009/" });

Is this the best song ever from a film musical?

Cabaret is showing on BBC4 tonight at 10.30pm
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Couch Potato Pickings | Cabaret - the best musical song ever?", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/10/20/couch-potato-pickings-cabaret-the-best-musical-song-ever/" });

I confess to a personal interest in Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant, the forthcoming movie adaptation of Darren Shan’s cult teen horror novels, The Saga of Darren Shan. Now on his 14th Darren Shan novel, my 11-year-old son is an addict. Any reading is good reading I’ve convinced myself while eyeing up the alarming [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Freak Out | Sally O’Shaughnessy takes a cousinly interest in Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/10/20/freak-out-sally-oshaughnessy-takes-a-cousinly-interest-in-cirque-du-freak-the-vampire%e2%80%99s-assistant/" });

Ah, the power of cinema.

As Woody Allen illustrates in this clip from Hannah and Her Sisters, cinema is an amazing thing.
Besides giving a suicidal man the will to live (which is pretty impressive in itself), cinema has the power to unite a community, as I witnessed yesterday when I attended a public meeting in Crystal [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Couch Potato Moved by Movie House Campaign", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/10/19/couch-potato-is-moved-by-movie-house-campaign/" });

When Wes Craven released Last House on the Left back in 1972, it was heralded as a new direction in horror with its terrifying realism and brutal cruelty. The same cannot be said for the new remake.
The first half of the movie follows young clean-living, swimming champ Mari Collingwood (Sara Paxton) as she finds herself [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Pete’s Peek | The Last House on the Left is not the last word in horror", url: "http://whatsontv.co.uk/blogs/movietalk/2009/10/19/petes-peek-the-last-house-on-the-left-is-not-the-last-word-in-horror/" });