Movies for the weekend

-
Seeing as it's the Academy Awards this Sunday evening (very early Monday morning, South Africa time), the local distributors are finally starting to unleash the nominees and other critically acclaimed fare on local audiences. Today sees the release of 3 notable films:

Right now it looks like The Wrestler has a very good chance of landing its star Mickey Rourke (Hollywood's big Comeback Kid of the moment!) the coveted Best Actor Oscar. Rourke's only real competition in the category would seem to be Sean Penn in gay rights drama Milk. Anyway, The Wrestler comes from director Darren (Requiem for a Dream) Aronofsky, and focuses on a burnt-out pro-wrestler who puts everything on the line for one last shot at success.


Released early in the Fall Awards Season Changeling, from Clint Eastwood, wasn't quite the Oscar bait it was intended to be. However, Angelina Jolie has been nominated for the Best Actress Oscar for her role here - as a mother who comes up against police and political corruption when her son is kidnapped and a different boy is returned to her. Set in 1920's Prohibition Los Angeles, Changeling is based on a true story.


New fantasy film Inkheart apparently has zero chance of landing an Academy Award nomination in any category. Still with a solid cast that includes Brendan Fraser, Paul Bettany, Jim Broadbent, Helen Mirren and Gollum himself, Andy Serkis, it may be worth checking out - particularly if you're looking for some lighter, kiddie-friendly movie fare. Based on the novel by Cornelia Funke, Inkheart is about a father who can magically pull characters from books into real life.


Of course, the most important movie news of the moment is that it's just 2 weeks until the release of WATCHMEN. I've been doing my damnedest to avoid all the video clips and early reviews on the Net so as not to spoil the film for myself.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is the rebooted Lara Croft gay? Evidence for and against...

-
Image
As some of you know, I’ve been fangirling hard over the new Tomb Raider , the first entry in the video game series since 2008, and ostensibly a reboot for the entire franchise . Taking the form of an origin story, Tomb Raider 2013 depicts the events that transformed a beautiful, if bookish, archaeology graduate into a pistol-packing adventurer with a devil-may-care attitude. We meet Lara Croft as a pretty, fairly ordinary 21 year old, brooding over her work notes, listening to her mp3 player and very much confined to the shadow of her male mentors. By the end of the game, however, she’s taken charge – she’s had to! – and, battered, bruised and bloody, she’s both a survivor and hero, right down to rescuing the princess and carrying her away in her arms. Yeah, this is probably the best point to mention that there will be some Tomb Raider 2013 spoilers in this post, so read ahead with caution. Anyway, I loved the game. Technically it’s near faultless, it looks beautiful, the ov
Read more

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Queer Icon (Part 4)

-
Image
Part 4: The mystery of Lara Croft’s sexuality “Now what’s a man gotta do to get that kind of attention from ya?” – Larson Conway (Tomb Raider, 1996) Despite being an icon for many queer pop culture consumers, Lara Croft’s own sexual orientation remains ambiguous. Outside of the Top Cow comics and live-action films – where Lara is blatantly heterosexual, with a fondness for slightly scruffy bad boys (who keep betraying and hurting her) – the character comes across as primarily asexual. Kurtis Trent is the only male figure who even comes close to being a love interest in the game series. Lara's apparent sexual disinterest is despite the adventurer appearing very sexually attractive herself; a figure of desire with bee-stung lips, voluptuous breasts, toned stomach and impossibly long, athlete’s legs. Yet Lara is never dominated by sexual yearnings or romantic affections. She is very much in control of herself at all times. It’s worth noting, however, that over time th
Read more

Ladies I Love: Part 2 - Rhona Mitra

-
Image
Following on from the first post in this series , you may realise that I have a very definite type. Anyway, today we profile model-turned-actress Rhona Mitra . This 36 year old Briton is of English, Irish and Indian descent. You'll have seen her pop up on the big and small screen multiple over the past decade and a half, although Mitra's claim to fame is that she was the second ever model (some say first if you rule out "unofficial"  Nathalie Cook ) to play iconic video game character Lara Croft . From 1997-1998, Mitra could be found in PR material, as well as at trade shows, events and conventions as a flesh-and-blood embodiment of Tomb Raider 's kick-ass archeologist lead. There have been many official Lara Croft models over the years , but as far as I'm concerned Mitra remains the best. In my mind, of all of them, she most closely resembles the video game character in terms of facial features. Plus she comes from money and had a rebellious boarding
Read more