Box - Love my box

Here is some new music for my Box

First up we have Justin Nozuka with “After Tonight”. Justin Nozuka was born in New York to a Japanese-born father and American-born mother. His parents divorced at age 3 and at 8 he and his family moved to Toronto, Canada. His debut album Holly was produced by Bill Bell. Canadian artist Damhnait Doyle from a song writing workshop he attended also introduced him to Universal Records. He recorded three tracks through Universal with Bill as producer, and following this, Universal requested to sign Justin to their label, but he decided he wanted to "record an album on my own, with my own freedom"

Second up is the hotly tipped Newton Faulkner with his cover of Massive Attacks “Teardrop”.
Newton has recently been signed by Sony BMG records and on the 30th of July 2007 he released his debut album Hand Built By Robots. He supported James Morrison on his February UK tour and Paolo Nutini on his UK tour in April. In June 2007 Newton's second single "Dream Catch Me" was selected Jo Whiley's 'Pet Sound' on her daily Radio 1 show. This gave the track much exposure and was highly commented on by text and email on Jo's show each day.

Third up we have the little Swedish girl Robyn who has hooked up with Kleerup for “With Every Heartbeat”
It had its physical single release in the UK on 30 July 2007. It was named as both Jo Whiley's and Scott Mills' "Record of the Week" and has been A-Listed on BBC's Radio 1. "With Every Heartbeat" became the biggest hit of Robyn's career in the UK, becoming her first top five hit, second top ten and fourth top forty hit of her career. The song charted inside the top five on downloads alone the day before the song's physical release.

My room does not have a view of an Oscar

Long time since I updated my poll and the results are here from my fourth poll.
I asked who you felt deserved the Best Actress Oscar back in 1986. The results were surprising!! Very surprising!
I was expecting the eventual Oscar winner to be victorious, but hindsight has made people see another in a far more flattering light.
These polls I do really do open up my eyes.
Wouldn’t it be great to have a awards ceremony where movie fans and bloggers were able to correct the Academy’s mistakes?

So in descending order:

5) With 0% of the votes we have Tess Harper - Crimes of the Heart

4) With 0% of the votes we have Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio - The Color of Money

3) With 6% of the votes we have Piper Laurie - Children of a Lesser God

2) With 37% of the votes we have Dianne Wiest - Hannah and Her Sisters

1) With a whopping 57% we have Maggie Smith - A Room with a View.

What more can I say really. It is Maggie Smith.
The actual real reason for my silence is the HORRIBLE fact that I have yet to see this film, and it is not available to rent here in the UK. For shame of me. I was all ready for a Diane Wiest review.

Can anyone out there right a review of this performance to justify it winning my poll??? Be my guest blogger!!
So far you will have to make do with Jose's review here

Well let us move onto Best Actress 1987. Tough year as we have some CLASSIC performances. The ladies you have to choose from are:
Cher in Moonstruck as Loretta Castorini
Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction as Alex Forrest
Holly Hunter in Broadcast News as Jane Craig
Sally Kirkland in Anna as Anna
Meryl Streep in Ironweed as Helen Archer


VOTE AWAY!!!

Lars and the Real Girl trailer

You can file this under wacky movies ideas, but I have the feeling this is going to work as the underlying story is really rather tragic. The film is about a delusional young guy who strikes up an unconventional relationship with a doll he finds on the Internet. This could have gone the blow up doll sex farce route, but thankfully it appears to handle the subject matter with tact and restraint.

It is really nice to see Emily Mortimer and Patricia Clarkson again. I have missed those two dependable gals.
This could actually be a nice little showcase for Mortimer (from the trailer) as she hasn't had much chance to express herself since "Lovely and Amazing".
This will also give ole Ryan Gosling yet another chance to wow us all with his considerable talent. Still not sure about him in "The Lovely Bones" but then again Peter has yet to stear me wrong.

Be Kind Rewind trailer

If just for the "Driving Miss Daisy" part at the end.
I love Michel Gondry and this looks set to be yet another movie that is beloved. Silly premise, but the talent behind it should ensure that this is a nice big hit. I for one cannot wait. I expect this to do well at the box office, and depending on critical responce, this could even see some awards notice....like the Golden Globes. Nice to see Mia back too.

Can I buy your screenplay?

When asked about Disney's adaptation of his and brother Hal's best-selling The Dangerous Book for Boys , Conn Iggulden says that he'd like it to be ''something like Jumanji, if you remember that film with Robin Williams. That would be absolutely brilliant, but I really don't know. My brother and I are going to be consultants on it apparently, I'm still trying to work out what that means. We'll find out.''
What that means my dear, is that the studio with distract you with booze and food while they make an abortion of your book. If you complain they will spin your complaint until you forget, and end up agreeing with them while your bottle of Cristal sits on ice, and a high class prostitute (Jr. Executive) sits on your lap.

Who's That Girl, a second look.

"Madonna is sexy and funny - a very engaging comedian" Vincent Canby - New York Time


So when I was thinking about contributing to Nat’s Action Heroine Blog-a-thon, my initial reaction was to do Madonna in “Who’s That Girl”.
This never saw fruition as I felt it was stretching the subject but also because I did not own the DVD to watch it again.
Now I do.

I tentatively put it into my DVD player and prepared to cringe, thinking my memory was completely made up, fake memories downloaded to make me think Madonna had real comedic gifts.
I did cringe.
The movie is terrible, but it is not Madge’s fault at all. In fact she is the one thing that saves it and in fact, makes the whole thing watchable.
I know every single critic panned it on it’s initial release, and I am not saying this is a revelation of a comedic performance. What it is, is a dedicated one.

She has totally invested herself in the role, getting into the skin, albeit shallow skin, of the thinly written character. She changed her walk, her mannerisms, even her accent to portray Nikki Finn, ex con freshly out of jail for a crime she didn’t commit and looking to clear her name. Upper class executive, Loudon Trott (Griffin Dunne) is assigned (for reasons that become clear later) to be her escort to the bus that will take her home. Of course that doesn’t happen as planned.

The whole film is supposed to be a throw back to the great screwball comedies of the past, and while the film fails by trying to be too out there, and setting up too many hurdles and ‘funny’ set pieces, it has it's best moments when Madonna is on screen.
Honestly it is true.
She is charismatic, cute, and frequently hysterical in this. Nothing ever felt forced, even when she had some of the most dire lines to say, she managed to make them work for the character.
So why did VERY few critics see this at the time?

The film came out in a time when she started to get a lot of harsh critical reaction. Lets face it, when stars rise there comes a point in their career where the media does everything in their power to help them crash and burn while filming and snapping pictures. This is never more true than it is today, but Madonna as basically gone through this her whole career (25 years peeps!)
I am sure every journalist was looking to thrash the sh*t out of her for her performance in “Who’s That Girl”. And boy did they, but it was completely unfair when you look back at it.

Perhaps if the critics had seen the potential that lay in the performance and encouraged it, she would have approached her other roles with the same determination she did this.
Sure "Evita" and "A League of Their Own" were successes, but there is an ease to her performance in this movie, a total lack of vanity. Here her face moves differently, and her whole body language is different as if (SHOCK!! GASP!!) you are watching some one other than Madonna.

I know this will be met with A LOT of laughs, but I urge you to just check out the movie and take a look at her, there was so much potential in her as an actress.
Yes she has mainly failed when it comes to film work, but there are moments like this where she showed that she had true potential. If you don’t believe me check out her stint on “Coffee Talk”. (remember live TV is HARD)
The woman has comedic gifts. Although she was almost upstaged by her eyebrows.

Reservation Road trailer!!

Well here we have another Joaquin Phoenix movie. But this time with a whole pile of new co-stars including Oscar winners (don’t you just love how this title in front of actors names tends to only appear in trailers for movies with a fix on the golden guy) Mira Sorvino and Jennifer Connelly, and Oscar nominee Joaquin Phoenix.
What is most exciting is that this looks like the film that will finally get Mark Ruffalo the awards notice he has deserved for a long time now.

Also Terry George has already found favor with the Academy, so expect this to do well, especially if the critical reaction is as strong as I imagine it will be.

The film is a drama that revolves around two fathers whose families and lives tragically converge with the death of a child. In the aftermath, Ethan and Dwight each react in unexpected ways as their families struggle to cope and an emotional reckoning looms.

Judging by the trailer (never a good thing to judge by) this looks like the type of heart breaking story that the Academy will eat up. Two lost men and two long suffering wives, and the death of a child. What surprised me was the restraint in the trailer.
This looks a lot more like a character study than an emotional awards baiting roller coaster, and that suits me just fine. It will give the talented actors a chance to get under your skin.

Here is hoping this is a return to form for Connelly who has not impressed me since her raw performance in “Requiem for a Dream”. We also get to see if talent runs in the family as Elle Fanning attempts to sh*t all over her sisters legacy ( I love a rivalry, even a made up one)