A big budget piece of ship

The latest instalment in the six billion dollar Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise makes you want to walk the plank. Four years after the last swashbuckling adventure, Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush arrrr back in Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. We first catch up with Depp's iconic character Captain Jack Sparrow in London, where the crown try to employ him to go on a voyage to find The Fountain Of Youth before their Spanish rivals do. After a daring escape, Sparrow runs into his father (Keith Richards) and a former flame Angelica (Penelope Cruz) at a nearby pirate bar before waking up onboard Queen Anne's Revenge, the ship captained by “the pirate all pirates fear'' - Blackbeard (Ian McShane).

Turns out Angelica is Blackbeard's daughter and the duo need Sparrow to navigate their way to the Fountain Of Youth so the notorious pirate can cheat a death prophecy. As well as racing against the Spanish, Captain Barbossa (Rush) is hot on their sail and looking to reunite with Sparrow so they can get revenge on the murderous Blackbeard who also has zombie minions. And his beard lights up when he smokes. And there's man-eating mermaids. Savvy?

Yep, the On Stranger Tides plot makes about as much sense as Cruz's role in the film, which is to say, none. Although there have been holes in the other films in Disney's flagship franchise, Depp's Oscar-nominated performance and the turns from a supporting cast including Rush, Kiera Knightley and Orlando Bloom has been enough to keep the films afloat. This time around that's not the case. Knightley and Bloom clearly recognise a sinking ship when they see one and have jumped over board, with acclaimed actors Cruz and McShane added to the cast in their wake.They add little life to the film, flopping around aimlessly, and even Depp looks as if he doesn't want to be there. For the first time in the series, which relies heavily on the shoulders of Depp's performance as Sparrow, the actor doesn't seem to be enjoying himself. It's only in the final 10 minutes the cheeky charm, flamboyance and liveliness that we associate with Sparrow seems to return. By then it's too late and Rush has been left to do all the work. But it's nice to see they took the minimalist approach to costume design with Sparrow. Not.

Everything about Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is over the top; from the endless locations to the very premise itself. With the director of the past three films opting out, Rob Marshall (Chicago, Nine) has stepped in and become the studio's lapdog, replacing sense and creativity with the Michael Bay's take on filmmaking; stunts + fire + nearly topless women = success. With a big budget and big running time, Pirates is small on any lasting enjoyment and will leave your mind plank.

P.S. Keep an eye out for Australian supermodel Gemma Ward in a cameo as an ethereal yet evil mermaid.

Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides opens Thursday, May 19.

Read more...

Penelope Cruz Sexy Celebrity Photos

Penelope Cruz Sexy Posters

Penelope Cruz Hot Wallpapers

Penelope Cruz Imges

Penelope Cruz Sexy Pose

Penelope Cruz Photos

Penelope Cruz Beautiful Hair Celebrity

Penelope Cruz Sexy Pictures

Read more...

And all that jazz

Faster than Fellini but not as quick as Chicago, director Rob Marshall's big screen adaptation of Broadway musical Nine will leave you divided.

On one hand, it's a visual feast with crisp, clear camera work and a dynamic cast. On the other, the time between musical numbers drags and the storyline is linked together clumsily. The audience were equally as undecided about whether to hate it or love it. While one couple walked out of the film after 15 minutes, another group were cheering and clapping right up to the end credits.

Nine follows Italian film director Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) and his relationship with the women in his life when he gets writer's block in the lead up to the filming of his new `masterpiece' Italiano. Marshall has assembled what will undoubtedly be the best cast of the year, with Day-Lewis supported by Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Judi Dench, Kate Hudson, Sophia Loren and Fergie (from Black Eyed Peas fame).

The women are the stars of this film and they keep it afloat, with Fergie's ferocious performance of the song Be Italian the standout number. She belts the hook line with such emphasis you are sure her vocals will bring the set down around her. A real surprise is Hudson, who makes an impressive transition from comedienne to musical star as the sexually charged reporter. There's nothing wrong with the performances as a whole; Dench punches, Cruz purrs and Cotillard is poised but the vein in Day-Lewis' forehead has more personality than Kidman's character.

While 2007's reimagining of Hairspray gained fans from the most unlikely of places, Nine will do little to convert if you are not already a fan of the cinematic musical. For every Cinema Italiano there's a lacklustre musical number like My Husband Makes Movies and sure, the costumes are exquisite but a sparkly corset doesn't make up for the dull scenes linking the musical numbers.

It lacks the pop of Marshall's Oscar-winning version of Chicago and those expecting the same vivacity will be disappointed.

Read more...

That's a wrap people!

The quote the 1969 song by The Dells, oh what a night. Once I got over my bitter disappointment at The Dark Knight being shunned in both the best picture and best director categories, I made a list of all my dream Oscar winners (see post titled `Looking in to my crystal ball’). Well, pretty much my entire dream list came true and I couldn’t be happier. Despite Gus Van Sant missing out for best director, everything else turned out peachy. Particularly Penelope Cruz’s win and beautiful speech, Sean Penn’s well deserved win, Dustin Lance Black’s amazingly memorable speech and of course, Heath’s posthumous victory. I thought Hugh did a great job of hosting but the best moment of the night (by far) was when James Franco and Seth Rogen presented the award for Best Live Action Short. When Franco read out the winner's name he couldn't say it properly and totally made up the pronunciation of Spielzeugland while Rogen's baboonish laugh could be heard in the background. Comedy gold, you can't script that shiz.
Here’s a complete list of the winners:

Best Motion Picture
WINNER: "Slumdog Millionaire"
Performance By An Actor In A Leading Role
WINNER: Sean Penn in "Milk"
Performance By An Actress In A Leading Role
WINNER: Kate Winslet in "The Reader"
Performance By An Actor In A Supporting Role
WINNER: Heath Ledger in "The Dark Knight"
Performance By An Actress In A Supporting Role
WINNER: Penélope Cruz in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"
Achievement In Directing
WINNER: Danny Boyle for "Slumdog Millionaire
Adapted Screenplay
WINNER: "Slumdog Millionaire," by Simon Beaufoy
Original Screenplay
WINNER: "Milk," by Dustin Lance Black
Achievement In Music Written For Motion Pictures (Original Song)
WINNER: "Jai Ho" from "Slumdog Millionaire" Music by A.R. Rahman, Lyric by Gulzar
Achievement In Music Written For Motion Pictures (Original Score)
WINNER: "Slumdog Millionaire," A.R. Rahman
Achievement In Cinematography
WINNER: "Slumdog Millionaire"
Achievement In Film Editing
WINNER: "Slumdog Millionaire," Chris Dickens
Achievement In Costume Design
WINNER: "The Duchess"
Achievement In Art Direction
WINNER: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
Best Animated Feature Film
WINNER: "WALL-E"
Best Animated Short Film
WINNER: "La Maison en Petits Cubes"
Best Live Action Short Film
WINNER: "Spielzeugland (Toyland)"
Best Documentary Feature
WINNER: "Man on Wire"
Best Documentary Short Subject
WINNER: "Smile Pinki"
Best Foreign Language Film
WINNER: "Departures" - Japan
Achievement In Visual Effects
WINNER: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
Achievement In Makeup
WINNER: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," Greg Cannom
Achievement In Sound Editing
WINNER: "The Dark Knight"
Achievement In Sound Mixing
WINNER: "Slumdog Millionaire"

Also, if you get a chance check out this fabuloush piece put together by the team at Empire Magazine on the biggest Oscar snubs. A worthy read.

Read more...

My musings on the Oscar nods

First of all, why the hell was The Dark Knight not nominated for best motion picture? WHY? Seriously, you can not argue that a) the dialogue is TDK is not as good, nay, better than Frost/Nixon b) the special effects and acting is not 1000 times better and more concise than all of the other nominees put together and c) TDK  in story, direction, production, editing and execution is not a more worthy nominee than Frost/Nixon, The Reader and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I understand the Academy has a tendency to neglect the obvious brilliance of films in the action adventure category but how can they honestly justify not including TDK (as a nominee at the very least)? It is a masterpiece, pure and simple. The worlds most respected and experienced film critics have all agreed on this point so why the mongoloids at the Academy couldn't take their dick out of their hands and acknowledge the same fact is beyond me. For imagery purposes only, if there was a movie heavyweight title The Curious Case of Benjamin Button would be Woody Allen and TDK would be Muhammad Ali and, naturally, it would beat that bitch into a coma. Sigh. Moving on from my original frustration, I'm quite content with the rest of the nominees in the other categories. Particularly Heath Ledger and Robert Downey Jr for best supporting actor because obviously they were both amazing. I'm also particularly happy about Penelope Cruz's nomination for best supporting actress for Vicky Cristina Barcelona as her performance was UNREAL and award worthy. 

Above: Aussie lass Catherine Martin has been nominated for the best costume design Oscar for her work on Australia

I'm also happy Australia wasn't over looked like it was at the Golden Globes and got the nomination it deserved. TDK and In Bruges are some of my other favourite nominees. However, the real surprise and underdog has to be British rapper M.I.A's Oscar nomination with A.R Raham for best song written for a motion picture for `O Saya' which they wrote and produced for Slumdog Millionaire. Wow, its been a big year for M.I.A (pictured below) whose song `Paper Planes' got an awesome boost of publicity when it was used as the theme song for Pineapple Express which in turn helped put the song at #5 on the Billboard charts even though it was released six months earlier. `Paper Planes' was nominated for a Grammy for single of the year, M.I.A had a baby with her long time boyfriend and now she has been nominated for an Oscar. Wow. I certainly hope they take it out especially because rap songs (an alternative rap song at that) rarely get nominated, let alone win in this category. 

Read more...

G Whiz

What were they thinking? Sometimes I seriously wonder what is happening to the world. Israelis are spilling in to the Gaza strip, the economy is disintegrating faster than Michael Jacksons face and Disney prepares to release a feature film about talking Guinea Pigs. Sorry Disney, I guess that’s looking at the film in a nutshell when really it’s much more complex than that. The film, titled G-Force, is about talking Guinea Pigs who have been trained by the FBI to help dispatch a diabolical billionaire from taking over the world. Well get out my red pen and calendar because I’ve got a new release date to mark baby!
No. I’m being sarcastic. And if the day ever comes when I’m marking the release day of a film about talking Guniea Pigs in my calendar then I’ll be handing my best friend an AK47 and asking her to take me behind the shed and do me like she did Ol Yeller when he got arthritis in his back legs.
The film, which is obviously targeted at children, is so ludacris I don’t think even the kiddies are going to find it funny. In fact, I have a feeling that after sitting through two hours of this rubbish all children under 10 might have an inclination to buy and skin every Guinea Pig they can get their hands on. Of course, we (and by we I mean I) at Movie Mazzupial don’t condone animal violence especially against creatures distantly related to marsupials. However, you seriously have to wonder in times of impending economic doom (or even economic super-awesome party fun time) how could Disney execs green light such a movie? More importantly how could actors of Nicholas Cage, Penelope Cruz, Steve Buscemi and Bill Nighy’s caliber sign on to voice the characters? How? Why? How? Two very important questions, which I think need answering. And the name! G-Force!
I imagine the conversation on naming the film would have gone something like this:

Disney Exec 1: So what do you think we should name this talking Guinea Pig movie?

Disney Exec 2: Is this the one where they’re agents for the FBI?

DE 1: Yep.

DE 2: The one where we copied the same plot from Cats and Dogs but swapped the animals for Guinea Pigs?

DE 1: Yep.

DE 2: Hmmm I don’t know . . . .

DE 1: What about FGI?

DE 2: That’s fucking stupid.

DE 1: The whole film is fucking stupid.

DE 2: Seriously how did we go from making Toy Story to working on this shit?

- -(two hours later) - -

DE 1: What about C-G-I? It’s like a play on the G in Guniea Pigs and the technology used to create the characters.

DE 2: Stuff it. I say we just call it something related to a female orgasm and hopefully they’ll bin the whole film.

DE 1: G-Force?

DE 2: Ha! I love it! It’s like G-spot but kinky with the Guinea Pigs.

The rest is history my friends and for those of you who want to die a slow and painful death, G-Force is out in cinemas July this year. Hoyt Yeatman is the director of said disaster and if his name sounds familiar that’s because he had some street cred before he signed on to this. Yeatman was the visual effects supervisor for such genre classics as The Fly, The Blob and a handful of The Nightmare on Elm Street Films. WTF happened Yeatmizter? How did you stoop to this? FYI Santa called and next Christmas you’re getting a bag of coal and a pant suit. With gold buttons.

Read more...