Eddie Izzard - British vs American Movies

Anyway. So, erm... Yes. So, I... We're known in Britain for making the smaller films. Lately we've pulled out of that with Trainspotting but the smaller film, the Room With A View With A Staircase And A Pond type movie. Films with very fine acting but the drama is rather sort of subsued - subsumed? A word like that. Sub-something or another. Just sort of folded in. Everything's people opening doors:

"Oh, I'm... Oh."

"What?"

"Well, I... Oh."

"What is it, Sebastian? I'm arranging matches."

"Well, I thought you..."I'd better go."

"Yes, I think you better had."

And you can't eat popcorn to that. Whereas if the film did any bit of business in America, some decent bit of business, then Hollywood would remake it and up the budget by 50 million and it would be called The Room With A View Of Hell! Staircase Of Satan... Pond Of Death. And have people open the door:

"You're fucking in here all the time, in here with the fucking matches!

"What are you fucking doing with the fucking matches?"

"Don't talk to me that way! You fuck my wife? You fuck my wife? You fuck my wife? "You fuck my wife? You fuck my wife?"

"I am your wife."

"That don't matter. I say again. You fuck my wife?"

"All right, yes. I fucked your wife. I am your wife and I fucked her."

"Daaah, you're gonna... Fucking matches, I can't get... I'm gonna drive round town and put babies on spikes."

Thboom! Hooha-hooha-hoo. Floom! Zi-zi-zi.

"Oh, no! Space monkeys are attacking."

A whole new part of the film.

"Hoo-hoo-hoo! Whaaah!" Poom! Poom! Poom!

"Damn, it's jammed.”

"Janine? I love you, really. Even though you fucked my wife."

"A fucking handbag.With a brick in it. It's the Queen! Don't know who that is. Yeah."

We play bad guys in Hollywood movies because of the Revolutionary War. The French, who were on your side in the Revolutionary War, they play more esoteric characters. Their characters go,

"I am Pierre. I have come from Paris. I have come to have sex with your family."

"Help yourself. Because of the debt of honor to General Lafayette."

You know your own history, yeah? You don't know who he is, do you? The Spanish-American War? The French Banana War? What? Revolutionary War. Hung out with Washington. Lafayette. Street named after him in New York. We play bad guys. Take The Empire Strikes Back from the Star Wars trilogy. The Death Star, just full of British actors opening doors and going,

"Oh, l'm... Oh."

"What is it, Lieutenant Sebastian?"

"It's just the rebels, sir. They're here."

"My God, man. Do they want tea?"

"I think they're after something more than that, sir. I don't know what it is but they've brought a flag."

"Damn, that's dashed cunning of them.

"Ah, Lord Vader."

(Heavy breathing)

(Deep voice) "Hello."

He was only impressive cos he had that James Earl Jones voice.

"I am Vader. The Force is strong with you."

If he had a much more...

(Camp cockney) "Ello".

"Look, I'm Lord Vader and just pay a-bloody-ttention, all right?

"Luke, the Force is strong with you."

"Is it?"

"Yeah."

"Who told you that?"

"Some bloke.

"He said the Force is really rather strong with you."

"How strong?"

"Er, as strong as a small pony."

"That's quite strong, that is."

The film would never have fucking worked, would it? Yeah.

2012 Oscar Nominations: Winners and Losers

Hey guys and thanks for tuning back into Clevver Movies, your number one source for movie news! I'm your host Tatiana Carrier. So today we got the rundown of Oscar nominees...lots of surprises, upsets, and predictable results....so lets see who benefited most from these noms, and who seemed to get the short end of the stick...lets break it down by winners and losers...hate to be harsh, but...let's get started!

WINNERS

The Artist -- the little silent film that could racked up 10 nominees and is just now going wide to theaters. We should see a big jump on the number of screenings and a big jump in ticket sales. I think this film will be the frontrunner.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close -- the Tom Hanks/Sandra Bullock film hit theaters in limited run at the end of the year in order to make the Oscar cut and opened this past weekend to a 4th place finish with $10M. It's been on several Film Critics Awards, but no major award show noms. This was probably the biggest surprise of the day with it getting a Best Picture nod and a nom for Best Supporting Actor for Max Von Sydow. It most likely won't win, but the nominations will help make it a box office winner. We should see a jump this weekend.

The Iron Lady -- Meryl Streep's Oscar nominations should help the box office a bit on this one as it was released January 13th, but it probably won't help that much considering the only other nomination it got was Best Makeup. Had it gotten nominated for best picture, the case could be different.

Moneyball -- tied for the third most nominations (6) with War Horse. Most likely won't win any of them, but it should help give a push to home video sales/rentals.

IN THE MIDDLE/NO DIFFERENCE

Hugo -- despite having the most nominations, I don't think it will have much impact on the movie unless they decide to do a rerelease of the film.

The Help -- could help with video sales/rentals, but it's already a big hit so we wont see much movement here.

LOSERS

Bridesmaids -- it grabbed two nominations, but failed to land a Best Picture nod that many people were anticipating.

Drive -- only was able to get nominated for Sound Editing. No Albert Brook Best Supporting Actor nod as suspected and no Best Picture nod.

J. Edgar -- not a single nomination, including one for Leonardo DiCaprio, which we all thought was a sure thing. It couldn't even land a Best Makeup nomination. Yikes!

And I know my HP pans aren't happy...Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 didn't have much to brag about today -- many fans were hoping the final film would get a Best Picture, but it was only able to garner 3 technical awards -- Art Direction, Makeup & Visual Effects.

Ryan Gosling -- had stellar performances in 3 movies (Drive, Crazy Stupid Love and The Ides of March), but got nada. Was he his OWN biggest competition and ended up splitting his vote?

Warrior -- the film has many fans that were hoping it would get a best picture nod ala The Fighter. It only managed a Best Supporting Actor nom for Nick Nolte.

We Need To Talk About Kevin -- this small movie is opening this weekend and they were most likely holding out for a wide release in anticipation of an Oscar nod for at least Tilda Swinton for Best Actress. It got nothing.

Lastly, there were only 2 nominees for best music..."Man or Muppet" from "The Muppets" and "Real in Rio" from "Rio" ...what happened to Mary J Blige for the help or Madonnas W.E.!?!

So what was your biggest upset, shock, or surprise? Let us know by commenting below and while your at it, make sure you sub to our channel so that you stay in the movie know! thanks for hanging out, I will see you next time!

Javier Bardem in the Jay Leno Show

Javier Bardem talks about Oscar advice from Jack Nicholson and learning English through AC/DC songs, man crush on Brad Pitt and the movie Eat, Pray, Love.

Irish films

Based on Gerry Conlon's autobiography, Jim Sheridan's In the Name of the Father tells the tumultuous and wrenching tale of a man wrongfully imprisoned in 1974 for the bombing of a London pub. Daniel Day-Lewis stars as Conlon, a young Irish petty thief who gets falsely accused.

Danny Flynn is released from prison in Belfast after fourteen years for his part in IRA activities. He determines to avoid the bloodshed that was inherent in his political past and to build a new life in his old home. He starts a gym to train young boxers like himself, with no political or sectarian ties, and renews his relationship with the woman he left behind when imprisoned. But his relationship to the past refuses to let him live a life of peace.

Stephen Frears wonderful adaptation of Roddy Doyle's novel about a working-class Irish family, and the teenage daughter who finds herself pregnant.

In Neil Jordan's psychological thriller, a reluctant agent of the Irish Republican Army discovers that some people just aren't who you expect them to be. Fergus (Stephen Rea) is an IRA "volunteer" who, despite personal misgivings, takes part in the kidnapping of a black British soldier, Jody (Forest Whitaker), stationed in Northern Ireland. After befriending the soldier, Fergus promises to look after his girlfriend Dil (Jaye Davidson).

Circle Of Friends' is set in 1950's Ireland. The movie focuses on Benny Hogan and her best friend, Eve Malone. The story centers around Benny and Eve as they enter student life at University College, Dublin. Here Benny and Eve reunite with their childhood friend, the ice-cool Nan Mahon, the 'college belle'. They also encounter the handsome and charming Jack Foley, whom Benny quickly falls for.

Neil Jordan's depiction of the controversial life and death of Michael Collins, the 'Lion of Ireland', who led the IRA against British rule and founded the Irish Free State (Eire) in 1921.

When word reaches two elderly best friends that someone in their tiny Irish village has won the national lottery, they go to great lengths to find the winner so they can share the wealth. When they discover the "lucky" winner, Ned Devine, they find he has died of shock upon discovering his win. Not wanting the money to go to waste, the village enters a pact to pretend Ned is still alive by having another man pose as him, and then to divide the money between them.

Based on the best selling autobiography by Irish expat Frank McCourt, Angela's Ashes follows the experiences of young Frankie and his family as they try against all odds to escape the poverty endemic in the slums of pre-war Limerick. The film opens with the family in Brooklyn, but following the death of one of Frankie's siblings, they return home, only to find the situation there even worse. Prejudice against Frankie's Northern Irish father makes his search for employment in the Republic difficult despite his having fought for the IRA, and when he does find money, he spends the money on drink.

"Bull" McCabe's family has farmed a field for generations, sacrificing endlessly for the sake of the land. And when the widow who owns the field decides to sell the field in a public auction, McCabe knows that he must own it. But while no one in the village would dare bid against him, an American with deep pockets decides that he needs the field to build a highway. The Bull and his son decide to convince the American to give up bidding on the field, but things go horribly wrong.

In this true story told through flashbacks, Christy Brown is born with crippling cerebral palsy into a poor, working-class Irish family. Able only to control movement in his left foot and to speak in guttural sounds, he is mistakenly believed to be retarded for the first ten years of his life. Later, through the help of his strong-willed mother, a dedicated teacher, and his own courage and determination, Christy not only learns to grapple with life's simple physical tasks and complex psychological pains, but he also develops into a brilliant painter, poet and author.

A variety of losers in Dublin have harrowingly farcical intersecting stories of love, greed and violence.

The Commitments (1987) is a novel by Irish writer Roddy Doyle, and is the first episode in The Barrytown Trilogy. It is a tale about a group of unemployed young people in the north side of Dublin, Ireland, who start a soul band.

Miracle Fish

Oscar nominated short film written and directed by Luke Doolan.

Cast: Karl Beattie, Brendan Donoghue, Tara Morice & Kieran Darcy-Smith.

8-year-old Joe has a birthday he will never forget. After friends bully him, he sneaks off to the sick bay, wishing everyone in the world would go away. He wakes up to find his dream may have become a reality.

WORD OF THE MONTH MARCH 2010: HURT LOCKER

In most military emplacements and ships, everything is stored in its own designated place, and that place is usually called a "locker" (for example, hoses are kept in the hose locker, paint in the paint locker, etc.). Military people often extend a naming theme into other areas (for example, a person's nose might be called a "snot locker", as that's where Joe keeps his snot). The hurt locker is the place where pain is found; either because someone is causing somebody pain ("You and I are going to have us a session in the hurt locker") or because entering into a given situation is sure to bring pain ("Man, that village was a full-on hurt locker"). The latter usage applies to the film.


Journalist and screenwriter Mark Boal, who wrote and produced the film The Hurt Locker, first heard this expression in Baghdad. In 2004, Boal went to Bagdad and embedded with an EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal ) squad to write an article for Playboy, The Man in the Bomb Suit, a story about an Army staff sergeant who had disarmed the most bombs in Iraq.

“I was trying to interview a soldier about a bomb that was there, and I was trying to figure out how much explosive charge the bomb carried, how many pounds and how much damage it could do, and he just sort of said, ‘Put it this way; if it goes off, it will put you in the hurt locker. And I’d never heard that before, and it really sunk in,” partly because Mr. Boal was close enough to be put in the hurt locker himself.


To put someone in a "hurt locker" is to physically mess someone up, badly. It is roughly synonymous with causing someone "a world of pain." According to the movie's official web site, "In Iraq it is soldier vernacular to speak of explosions as sending you to "the hurt locker." The hurt locker is the destination for victims of explosions. For members of the Army's elite Explosive Ordnance Disposal squad, the likelihood of ending up in the hurt locker is a risk they live with daily. As a title, “it appealed to me because it gets to a central theme of the film, which is the cost of war and the brutalizing effects of combat,” Mr. Boal said. “And so more or less, to be really reductive about it, if you’re in Iraq, you’re in the hurt locker.”

Source: The Carpetbagger, the Awards season blog of the NY Times

Best actor nominee Jeremy Renner, who plays Staff Sgt. William James, an army sergeant and bomb-disposal expert in the Iraq War drama, explains what the title means to him:

For me, it was a thousand different things and when I first saw it I thought that’s just a really fucking cool title. Page one, “The Hurt Locker, what is this about?” And then it became a casket, I thought of it as a casket or a hospital bed, not as a place. And after shooting it, it was an emotional and spiritual place of pain and despair and loneliness and loss. This is personal stuff, this is for me, this has nothing to do with the movie, that is what it seemed to represent because we were all in the hurt locker, somehow.

There was an outhouse for 200 people that were all in diarrhea that’s the hurt locker! Get me out of this suit, were all going to the hurt locker, you know what I’m saying. So it was a lot of things for a lot of people. You know it doesn’t matter what I think so much, it’s how one interprets it. That is why I love the movie title, I love the characters because it’s so rich, and they are not one note, and there is room for interpretation. I love that.

Skin: Sandra Laing's story

Skin is based on the true story of Sandra Laing, an Afrikaner child born with dark skin to white parents in the apartheid era.

Sophie Okonedo talks about the movie Skin

Sophie and Sandra together

Another Oscar for Penélope?

Last year's Best Supporting Actress winner Penelope Cruz says she's happy to be nominated for another Academy Award for her role in the film Nine, but doubts she'll win second time round.

Ellen Degeneres jokes that she thinks Penélope should have thanked her for predicting her Oscar in Vicky Cristina Barcelona last year.
Penélope talks about her appearance in a cameo in Sex in the City, where she plays a banker (she pronounces it "bunker") and then goes on to tell Ellen how she discovered she wanted to be an actress when she was a child in her mother's beauty salon, which was her first acting school.
She became very famous when she did the film Jamón, jamón, and soon she discovered contradictions of being famous, when people screamed "I love you" at her and 10 seconds later "Whore!".
She also talks about her role in Broken embraces by Almodóvar and finally she plays a game with Ellen: Guess the lips.

Penélope talks with Oprah about how she prepared her role of a sultry mistress in the film Nine and how scared she was to sing professionally.
She remembers how she started her career: Her acting curiosity began in her mother's beauty salon but it was after seeing Almodóvar's film Tie me up, tie me down at the cinema that she decided to find an agent and become an actress.
Finally she talks about her Oscar for Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

Matt Damon on playing Francois Pienaar in the film Invictus

Matt Damon explains how Clint Eastwood made him look taller and how he had to get beefy and learn to speak with a South African accent for the role.

NB. Matt Damon is 5'10'' (175cm) and Francois Pienaar is 6'4'' (190cm).

Oscar nominations 2010

Clint Eastwood - Invictus

Martin Sheen on The Way

10 Questions for Viggo Mortensen

The Lord of the Rings

Click on the image below to see the script.

Eric Bana interviewed by Craig Ferguson

New Zealand films

Michael Palin, the actor

Michael Palin A Fish Called Wanda as Ken, the stuttering, animal-loving hit man who continually messes up his one big assignment: killing a little old lady (it isn't that he has any qualms about knocking off the old dear; it's just that her pet dogs keep getting in the way).

In Life of Brian, Palin played Pontius Pilate:

Word of the week 23 - 29 March 2009 SLUMDOG

The term slumdog was invented for the Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire, which shows how a poor boy from the Mumbai slums comes to win a TV quiz show. The title of the film has caused some controversy, especially in India, where some people have been offended by the suggestion that people from the slums are no better than dogs. However, screenwriter Simon Beaufoy has explained that the term was intended not as an insult but as a metaphor. He noticed how the dogs and cats of the Mumbai slums just sat there watching everything: ‘I thought it was a fantastic metaphor—of somebody who’s apparently not worth anything, is actually looking, eyeing everything and knowing everything—just like the boy in the game show knows everything.’ Slumdog also suggests the more positive associations of underdog: a person, team or country that is thought to be in a weaker position than others and is not expected to win or be successful.

The title of the film Slumdog Millionaire is an ironic juxtaposition of two extremes, the poor on the one hand (‘the slumdog’) and the rich on the other (‘the millionaire’). It has therefore caused an unlikely collocational patterning for slumdog.

Blockbuster Museum

Historic ‘Blockbuster’ Store Offers Glimpse Of How Movies Were Rented In The Past

Oscars 2009 - The winners

Click here to see the full list of winners at the 81st Academy Awards, in the order they were announced.