Empire States: So What Do These Oscars Mean For Women In Hollywood?
Posted on Thursday March 11, 2010, 16:42 by Helen O'Hara in Empire States
It's been a few days now since the 2010 Academy Awards finally saw a woman (only the fourth nominated) take home the Best Director and Best Picture prizes. Speech of the night, by pretty much anyone's reckoning, also went to a woman - Best Actress winner Sandra Bullock. A few cautiously laudatory articles about women in Hollywood have followed - here and here for example - but they all feel a little forced. Here's the thing: Kathryn Bigelow's win is a great thing for her, a well-deserved acknowledgment of a brilliantly made film that never got its due. And Sandra Bullock's the most likeable actress in Hollywood, a star whose classiness during awards season (even turning up to collect her Razzie) just confirms the impression that she's a lovely person - and she's a very good actress, whether in dramatic turns in the lik... Continue reading... Comment Now (8 comments)
Back To TopEmpire States: Secret Cinema: The Experience
Posted on Wednesday March 3, 2010, 12:08 by Helen O'Hara in Empire States
This weekend, I finally went along to see something I've been hearing about for ages: Secret Cinema, the event where they don't tell you what you're going to see but you go along anyway. And while my verdict's mixed, I do think this has massive potential for film fans, because most of my objections were specific to the event I attended. The deal is this: after ponying up your wodge of cash (and it is a bit of a wodge), you are told where to head about two days before the scheduled screening. In addition to a time and place, we were assigned identity cards, in German and referencing the DDR (immediately prompting me to start speculating about The Lives Of Others, The Baider-Meinhoff Complex and Goodbye Lenin), which we were supposed to bring along. Turning up to Shepherd's Bush on a rainy Sunday afternoon, I found a massive queue of people headed for the venue, which had a big sign outside reading Potsdamer Platz in case anyone was still in doubt (yes, that should maybe have give... Continue reading... Comment Now (3 comments)
Back To TopEmpire States: You don't have to be infected with a virulent, killer disease to work here. But it helps.
Posted on Monday March 1, 2010, 09:27 by Nev Pierce in Empire States
Death is the villain you can't beat. Infection is the villain you can beat, slice, mash and shoot repeatedly in the head. Infection makes for great cinema. OK, infection makes for OK cinema, mostly... with occasional stabs at greatness. But it's spreading. Today, you have a choice in your Disease Of The Week movie. There's Extraordinary Measures, which reviewers tell us is essentially 105 minutes of Harrison Ford and Brendan Fraser trying to out-scowl each other in the quest to cure Pompe disease (something to do with over-spending until your football club is on the verge of bankruptcy). Or you can catch The Crazies, in which an accidentally applied government bio-weapon turns a town of hick Yanks into fury-fuelled simpletons who keep trying to kill each other. Yes, apparently, this is different from usual. The Crazies is a remake of George Romero's '70s shocker. Not only has Romero made - in Night, Dawn & Day Of The Dead - three of the best films ever about death (ea... Continue reading... Comment Now (10 comments)
Back To TopEmpire States: The Trouble With Michael Moore
Posted on Sunday February 21, 2010, 09:00 by Helen O'Hara in Empire States
 On most things that matter, I agree with Michael Moore. I think that mass gun ownership is more likely to produce social harm than social good. I think the provision of universal health care is a moral issue and private health care is just horrific. I think - stop me if I'm too controversial here - Bush was a bad President and some bankers deserve a good slap upside the head. I really, really wish I could sing Moore's praises to the heavens for his films tackling these subjects, but the damn movies make it impossible.
While I’m willing to give most of Bowling for Columbine and sections of Sicko a pass, Fahrenheit 9/11 and Capitalism: A Love Story are two of the biggest missed opportunities in modern cinema history. For the love of Zeus, the former was targeted at George W. Bush; the latter at the fricking banking industry, in 2009! There are no bigger sitting ducks, and yet Moore wandered in, scattered buckshot wildly in all directions and missed the damn d... Continue reading... Comment Now (8 comments)
Back To TopEmpire States: Pretty Women: Why Does Hollywood Hate Redheads?
Posted on Tuesday February 16, 2010, 15:17 by Kat Brown in Empire States
Twenty years after Pretty Woman cemented red hair’s association with prostitution*, I’m looking at a rare breed of screen redheads. When I first saw, and fell in love with, Pretty Woman, I was a gangly ginger kid being picked on at school. “Never mind,” I thought, “by the time you’re an adult there’s sure to be loads of mainstream films with glamorous redheads in them.” Well, I was half-right: there are whole cinematic genres based around gangly kids being picked on in school, but redheads? Not so much. While television has welcomed gingers with open arms thanks to the likes of Desperate Housewives, Mad Men, True Blood and Grey’s Anatomy, the big screen has proven to be a lot slower: the quirky redhead remains an art house or indie staple but has not made it into the mainstream. With just Amy Adams, Isla Fisher and Julianne Moore leading the charge of redheaded A-list leading ladies, and even fewer leading men beyond Damian Lewis and Kevin McKidd, Moore’s joke to fellow ginger Conan O’Brien that they should form a club seems less of a giggle and more depressing.... Continue reading... Comment Now (20 comments)
Back To TopEmpire States: Great Film, Shame About The Poster
Posted on Wednesday February 10, 2010, 15:14 by Helen O'Hara in Empire States
I was lucky enough to see Drew Barrymore's directorial debut Whip It recently, and I'm telling you right now that it both rocks and rolls. Starring Ellen Page, Kristen Wiig, Juliette frickin' Lewis, Marcia Gay Harden and Barrymore herself, it's the story of a girl encouraged to be a beauty queen by her mother, who instead turns to the violent, slightly demented sport of roller derby. It is, in other words, a sports movie for girls, and while it pretty much hits all the beats of that genre, it does so in a really smart and funny way. My feisty, feminist, Doc-Martens-with-roses-on wearing flatmate and myself came out of the film literally bouncing and grinning and wondering why on Earth this didn't do better at the US box office*. But not to worry: the distributors here in the UK have decided to go a different route with the poster - and the result is this:... Continue reading... Comment Now (31 comments)
Back To TopEmpire States: What Did Miramax Ever Do For Us?
Posted on Friday January 29, 2010, 11:54 by Chris Hewitt in Empire States
The scene: The Empire offices, Friday. Chris Hewitt is leading a news meeting (yes, we have news meetings).
Chris: So, Miramax has been closed down by Disney.
Helen O’Hara: We should do something on that. A celebration or something.
Chris: A celebration? Of Miramax? Are you mad? What have they ever given us?
Pause.
Ali Plumb: [meekly] Quentin Tarantino?
Chris: What?
Ali: Quentin Tarantino?
Chris: Oh yeah, Quentin Tarantino. After all, Harvey and Bob Weinstein were the guys who took a chance on him with Reservoir Dogs, and then partnered with him throughout his illustrious career. You could make a case that Miramax is the House That Quentin Built, so yeah, they did give us that.
Phil de Semlyen: And they introduced world cinema to a wider audience.
Helen: Oh yeah, world cinema, Chris. Rememb... Continue reading... Comment Now (5 comments)
Back To TopEmpire States: Happy Birthday, Upside-downland! The greatest inverted moments in movie history
Posted on Tuesday January 26, 2010, 14:17 by Chris Hewitt in Empire States
 Strewth! It’s Australia Day! And so, to celebrate yet another birthday for our cousins Down Under, we’ve come up with, erm, a selection of the greatest upside down moments in movie history. Um, because Australia’s upside down, you see.
Batman
How unhinged is Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne? The answer, as seen in this brief scene where Kim Basinger’s Vicki Vale wakes up to find Master Wayne sleeping upside down like a bat, is “very”. It’s a cute little clue to his identity, an in-joke for audiences who already know that he’s the Batman and a sign to Vale that all may not be kosher with her billionaire boyfriend. Mind you, as a journalist, she should have her Pulitzer instantly revoked for not being able to work out that Batman and Bruce Wayne are one and the same. It’s all there, for pity’s sake!
Men In Black
Throughout the film, Will Smith’s Agent Jay has been told by Tommy Lee Jones... Continue reading... Comment Now (4 comments)
Back To TopEmpire States: What If... The Prestige Really Was Batman Vs Wolverine?
Posted on Monday January 18, 2010, 15:06 by Chris Hewitt in Empire States
Beware all ye who enter here, for spoilers lurk within.
A conversation in the Empire office, a couple of hours ago.
Dan [Empire’s Features Editor, World of Warcraft nut and bargain basement Colin Farrell look-a-like]: Does anyone know anything about that new film, Frozen?
Helen [Empire’s Deputy Online Editor, cupcake fanatic and all-round office encyclopaedia]: Yeah, it’s about two guys trapped on a ski lift.
Me [Empire’s News Editor, Call Of Duty sacrificial lamb and general nitwit]: But one of the guys is Shawn Ashmore, who’s Iceman in the X-Men movies. So why doesn’t he just magic up an ice slide and escape?
Dan: It doesn’t… real life… [sigh]… you’re a cretin.
That’s as maybe… but it still sparked off a furiously geeky conversation, and a world of possibilities: what if actors who played superheroes could carry over their sup... Continue reading... Comment Now (28 comments)
Back To TopEmpire States: Subtext Messages: Hidden Agendas And Why They Matter
Posted on Friday January 15, 2010, 16:37 by Dan Jolin in Empire States
First of all, just to make one thing clear, this blog isn’t about defending my one-star review of Taken, nor is it an excuse to snipe back at those who vehemently disagree with me on our forum. Of course, I’m aware that I’m at one end of the spectrum on this one (Hell, I’m still having arguments with people in the office over it, and my own editor gave Liam Neeson’s rancid rampage of revenge three stars on DVD, as is entirely his prerogative), but I still stand by the review. And I don’t intend on repeating all the same points here. Indeed, I’m glad it’s led to such a debate (frankly, I could live without the personal insults, but, hey, I’ve always thought that if you can’t handle criticism, you shouldn’t be a critic), yet while following the thread one thing did strike me. It would seem that, by commenting on the film’s insidious xenophobia and misogyny I am, to quote poster Appelby “reading way too much” int... Continue reading... Comment Now (8 comments)
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