Dual roles blogathon: Paul Dano in THERE WILL BE BLOOD (2007)

Slight spoilers for TWBB ahead, so, I would recommend you don’t read this piece if you haven’t seen the movie!

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Paul Thomas Anderson's modern masterpiece, There Will Be Blood, is a fascinating tale of Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis)'s journey as an oil tycoon, and the strategic moves he make during his ascent to the top. His rise to power is both facilitated and impeded by two characters, both played by Paul Dano: twins Paul and Eli Sunday.

The decision to cast Dano as both the Sunday brothers (and ergo, making them twins) wasn't originally in director P.T. Anderson's plans. Kel O'Neill was initially pencilled in to play the mild-mannered brother Paul. But the actor was too intimidated by the director, and pulled out at the last minute, causing some creative problem-solving in the form of casting Dano as both the characters, and making them twins.

Dano's role as Paul Sunday consists of a brief appearance, but is crucial to the plot. At the start of the film, he seeks out Plainview to alert him about a lucrative area to drill for oil in. Dano plays Paul Sunday with a meek, child-like quality. It helps that Paul Dano has one of those ageless faces. He is 32 but could pass for a teenager, a helpful trait to have in the ageist world of Hollywood casting, but one Dano capitalises on only to embark on projects that fulfil him, rather than chase the next money train, which he could easily do.

(Incidentally, for the movie nerds out there, Dano playing a character called Paul in this film means that both Daniel Day-Lewis and Dano play characters with the same Christian names as themselves). #Symmetry

With Paul Sunday's tip, Daniel Plainview makes his way to Little Boston, California to scout out this piece of land. It requires buying acres from the Sunday family, where Eli Sunday, an ambitious preacher, drives a hard bargain for his father's land. He wants whatever Daniel’s offering, and $5,000 for Eli's church. 

Plainview takes an instant dislike to Eli Sunday and his sanctimonious ways, finding the way Eli constantly badgers him about his debt to the church infuriating. Eli's compelling sermons also draw workers away from working on Plainview's ranch and towards his church.

But the thing about Eli that Daniel Plainview loathes the most is that he can read Eli like a magazine, and he sees himself in him. Both men are con artists, who will do and say whatever the audience wants to hear to get what they want. They just go about it in different ways. Plainview sees Eli as a low-rent version of himself, and Eli knows that. Eli isn’t buying what Plainview is selling, and vice versa.

There Will Be Blood undoubtedly belongs to Daniel Day-Lewis, who won a well-deserved Best Actor Oscar for his mesmeric, unforgettable performance. It truly is a spectacular, charismatic piece of acting, and what impressed me most about it is that DDL, like other actors who I admire (Saoirse Ronan, Rooney Mara), does 95% of his emoting with his pupils.

But it his scenes with Dano which linger the memory the most, the way the men interact and play off each other, being spurred on by their mutual dislike, makes the power struggle between them in There Will Be Blood so gripping. The fact that the Dano was pretty much ignored come Awards Season 2008, with only BAFTA acknowledging his excellence in TWBB with a nomination, makes me sad.

The baptism scene, where Eli makes a spectacle of exorcising the past from Daniel, humiliating him, shouting at and even slapping at Plainview to exorcise the bad spirits from him. It's a hypnotic and darkly comic scene, and I definitely noticed a rise in Dano's character's spirits, like he was mirroring the mannerisms of the man he was preaching at. The way he goads Plainview about his Achilles Heel - his son - illustrated that, in that scene at least, Eli had the control over him, and he was going to make the most of it.

Because Dano plays both the Sunday brothers, some film-goers have wondered if they were supposed to be the same character pretending to be two people, particularly as you never see both of them on screen at the same time. But I read Paul and Eli Sunday as unambiguously, two different people. Eli's rant at his father about his 'stupid son Paul', as well as the final scene, where Daniel lauds over Eli how he paid Paul off and how is brother is a winner, and he, a loser, pretty much put that to bed.

Nonetheless, having the same actor play two different roles does have an inherent element of confusion and trickery. The kind of odd cinematic game you wouldn’t put past Paul Thomas Anderson, who’s offbeat Punch-Drunk Love teased out a fine serious turn from Adam Sandler, of all people. If anyone can turn the tables and pull the rug from underneath you, it’s P.T. Anderson.

I've got a lot of time for Paul Dano, who constantly surprises me with his off-kilter acting choices. I squeed with delight when I spotted him playing the fictional embodiment of the Tolstoy in the BBC’s War and Peace this year (my brother was watching).

The fact that he's not a conventional Hollywood heartthrob yet has still done very well for himself in a predominantly superficial industry is a testament to his talent (incidentally, this is precisely the reason why I idolise Jonah Hill, even if the two men’s acting styles are quite different), and I like how Dano pursues film roles for the art, rather than the money. I also dig that he doesn’t thirst for awards like some (tho, seriously. Just because he doesn't strive for recognition doesn't excuse him being passed over by the Award bodies for his work in this movie).

There Will Be Blood ranks as one of his finest performances, and certainly the best film he's appeared in. Of Dano’s upcoming projects, I'm most psyched for his writing & directorial debut, where he will direct his Prisoners co-star Jake Gyllenhaal in a tale of a relationship falling apart. I will be first in the queue to see it at the cinemas.

Godspeed, Mr. Dano. Cinema needs more auteurs like you.

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This post is my entry in Christina Wehner's blogathon about Dual Roles in movies. Head on over to read other fabulous articles from bloggers on actors who have played more than one role in a film!

Book Review: Murder Most Fab (Julian Clary)

Having just suffered his first love and heartbreak, Johnny Debonair is uprooted from his farmhouse in Kent to the big city, where his grandmother enrols him in drama school, believing the change will do him good. However, his classes are filled with self-absorbed people, who think too highly of themselves, and he soon becomes disillusioned with acting, long realising that he won’t be going anywhere with his pipe dream.

An alternative route would be to follow the footsteps of his flatmate Catherine, a brassy nurse who supplements her meagre NHS salary with occasional dalliances into high-end prostitution. Soon, both get kicked off their day jobs and become full-time hookers, and uproot from scummy Lewisham to a classier joint in north London, along with an expensive cocaine addiction to match. In his travails as a gigolo, Johnny happens to screw the right people that lead him to become a popular television presenter, but it doesn’t come cost-free, the cost being a few casual murders.

I’m unfamiliar with Julian Clary’s stand-up comedy, but having read this book, I’m definitely going to browse some of his acts on YouTube. The novel is bawdy, morally ambiguous to the extreme and sixty different kinds of hilarious. Johnny’s experiences of being a rent-boy to a range of clientele vary from the amusing to the downright gritty and disturbing, but all the way through the author maintains a jaunty, upbeat tone, however degrading the stuff Johnny has to do. Similarly, it’s clear Catherine isn’t satisfied with her lot as a prostitute, complaining in one chapter “My fanny’s like a cake mix”, but hey-ho, that’s the hand life’s dealt with her, so she might as well enjoy all the Gucci handbags she can along the way.

As you’d expect in a novel about murder, there are a few twists and turns embedded throughout the story, and, whilst you have to suspend disbelief for some of them, it all adds deliciously to the bubbling witch’s brew of a plot. Blending a crime novel with such a jovial comedic tone isn’t easy, but Clary carries it off with considerable ease, even managing to get us to root for Johnny, a dark, twisted kind of way.

Each of the characters, whilst first appearing like caricatures, still feature astute observations, from those of the snobby British class system, to the trite-but-true fact that money doesn’t make you happy. Perhaps the character that Clary paints in the most fashionable light throughout the novel is Johnny’s mother, a hippie, free-loving nature lover. She is one of the few unpretentious people in the book, and she is happier for it; by shaking off the social norms that shackle her, she finds herself and the happiness that her son never truly attains.

Smut splashes off every single page, but at the centre of Murder Most Fab is a huge heart. This sounds paradoxical, considering the main character bumps several people off in it, but Clary manages it, all the more impressive considering this was his debut novel.

Despite Johnny’s oh-so-glamorous celebrity lifestyle, his life story is ultimately tinged with an  undeniable undercurrent of malaise, malaise at having lost his one true love, met up with him again, but then been relegated to being a mere sideline in his life. It is Johnny’s longing for this person that motivates his actions throughout his life, and whilst he does things that we as the reader wouldn’t be caught in a million year’s doing, reading about his adventures in doing so sure is an riotous, witty, and unbelievably funny ride.

Grade: A

You’re very unsatisfactory, scram.

Only saw six movies in two weeks. Poor.

Dorian Gray (Oliver Parker, 2009)
Curious little adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s world-known novel. The acting from Ben Barnes was ok, Colin Firth was amazing as ever and I was absolutely beguiled by Ben Ben Chaplin’s depiction of Basil Hallward, but Rachel Hurd-Wood was turdtacular. Dorian Gray’s downfall was interesting and bizarre at the same time, and the way the painting of him deteriorated over time was genuinely creepy. The rest of the film itself was pretty unspectacular.

Bright Star (Jane Campion, 2009)
I expected to loathe this film, as Luke and I saw the trailer to it many, many times, and lol’d each time. However, I ended up loving it. I just adored how unashamedly old-fashioned and uncool the film was, as well as the sheer love and depth of emotion on display. Ben Wishaw and Abbie Cornish made a terrific couple and their interactions were beautiful. The entire film built up to one, solitary kiss (aye, there are no bunging scenes at all in this love story), and the kissing, when they came, were so moving and powerful. The ending, as you’ll know, was heartbreak, but I got a bizarre sort of relief from the sadness and woe. Gorgeous movie, inside and out.

Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009)

LOVE THIS FILM

Hairspray (Adam Shankman, 2007)

Aww! One of the sweetest, loveliest, most enjoyable films I’ve seen in my life. Nikki Blonksy is terrific fun in the lead, and I loved so many of the songs: The Legend of Baltimore Crabs, I Can Hear the Bells, Good Morning Baltimore, Mama I’m a Big Girl Now, and more. The supporting cast were all wonderfully charming: Amanda Bynes, adorably dappy, Queen Latifah oozed wisdom, Michelle Pfieffer made a delicious bitch and John Travolta was loltacular. Also, I feel so dirty saying this considering the amount I’ve slagged him off in the past, but, I’m starting to accept my crush on Zac Efron. He can be rather awesome sometimes, and in Hairspray, he was. Anyway, so much fun, and I loved all the messages it promoted: equality, the power of friendship, and it’s what on the inside that counts.

The Last Seduction (John Dahl, 1994)
Famous for that scene against a fence, Linda Fiorentino is half-fierce, half completely psychotic as Bridget, a modern day femme fatale. The background music was so Sex and the City-esque, which gave mixed messages about the genre about the movie, but, not putting it into boxes, I totally enjoyed it .The plotting was intelligent and appropriately cruel and there were plenty of moments of black comedy.

The Major and the Minor (Billy Wilder, 1942)

Terrific fun! Ginger Rogers ditches the all-singing, all-dancing schtick she usually does (though she does get to display her happy feet, albeit briefly) plays a woman who masquerades as a 12-year-old girl to avoid paying the full train fare. In doing so, she meets Ray Milland’s army major, a nice, charming, but slightly guileless guy who believs her when she lies about her age. He takes to becoming her uncle and introduces her into his world (including a less-than-keen fiancé), but, rather predictably, both parties end up falling for each other. A wonderful prelude to the gender-swapping in Some Like it Hot, The Major and the Minor instead deals with age-lying, with Ginger Rogers giving a brilliantly double-edged turn; sweet and sour, she’s 12 and 21 at the same time. There are some sequences when the young army trainees who date Rogers try to shag her which border on paedophilic, but on the whole, it’s a wickedly funny comedy of errors. The title is also a work of genius =)

A smorgasbord of shitty movies.

The past few movies that I've watched have all been shockingly awful. In fact, if I didn't love films so damn much, these past couple of films and their sheer awfulness would put me off watching movies for life.

Expired (Cecilia Miniucchi, 2007)
Samantha Morton plays a shy traffic warden who embarks on a tentative and completely disjointed relationship with unstable workmate Jason Patric in this lame dark comedy. Not much actually happens in the film, and it trawls through the events at its own, very slow pace. Jason Patric does the best he can do with an extremely unlikeable character but Morton's contribution cosists of nothing apart from sporting a fugly perm. There are the odd moments of sweetness amongst the many sour ones, but overall, it proved an extremely pointless watch.

Towelhead (Alan Ball, 2007)
Alan Ball abandons his fascination with the dead for Towelhead with his directorial debut, which focuses on the living. In particular, one thing which is very alive is the sexual awakening of 13-year-old Jasira Maroun, who leaves her mother to go live with her racist, crazy father. Summer Bishil looks appropriately gormless throughout, but the things that are done to her in the movie (not least by Aaron Eckhart's fingers, ewwww) made me sick. Toni Collette offers modest redemption as just about the only decent person in a cesspool of human crap, but overall, this film left me feeling very, very repulosed. The fact that Ball retained the racist title of the novel in order to summon controversy in an attempt to get bums on seats for this piece of turd says it all.
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (Lee Daniels, 2009)
Now, I was really looking forward to Precious. The book, grim as it was, packed a real emotional punch. But the film... sheesh. There was poverty porn overdrive with the many shots of greasy food and the dialogue varied between corny after-school special to embarrassing blaxploitation. Gabby Sidoube was amazing, I'll give her that, the mastery of her performance even more impressive given that Precious was her cinematic debut. Mo'Nique was appropriately evil and terifying as Precious' Mommy Dearest. But, really. Any film that thinks juxtaposing a rape scene with frying an egg? As Precious might say, "that's jus' NASTY".

The Collector (Marcus Dunstan, 2009)
Um, yeah. This film was not good. It's about a guy who decides to steal a precious jewel from an affluent family in order to make child support payments, only to find that some guy, "The Collector", has rigged the house with traps. The traps aren't just mouse traps or anything either; they're real sadistic, saw type traps. Agh. Anyway, the only positive thing I can say about this piece of crap was that the little girl in it survived.

AntiChrist (Lars von Trier, 2009)
Yuck. Where to start, really. This was one of the ponciest, sickening, poorly acted and pointless films of all time. Following the death of their son (which occured when the parents were banging to the pretentious tones of Lascia ch'io pianga in a crappily staged sechs scene), the mother, "She", is so overcome with grief that her husband drags her out to the middle of nowhere, a supposed "Eden". Charlotte Gainsbourg walks around with her minge hanging out most of the time, the director of photography really could have done with bunging his camera on a tripod rather than purseposely shaking it and don't get me started on the rancid genital mutilation. It's not bad news all around, though - The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus? You're not the shittest film of 2009 anymore!

Only three this week.

Last Tango in Paris (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1972)

Grief-ridden at his wife's unexpected suicide, Marlon Brando's Paul embarks on an extremely physical and ultimately destructive affair with Maria Schneider's Jeanne, a confused and neglected girlfriend of Jean-Pierre Léaud's self-absored filmmaker. 

I desperately wanted to like this film as I am both a massive fan of 1970s Bertolucci as well as Marlon Brando (well, he is my favourite actor, after all), but it was all I could do from laughing at this. The "human interaction" was embarrassing - the dialogue was extemely poor, the direction was still and self-obsessed and the sex scenes were mechanical and loveless. 

As ever, Brando puts his heart and soul into it - his monologue to the corpse of his wife is as affecting as I've been told to find it - but this was far from his best performance of all time, and Maria Schneider's constant bland line-reading hindered the quality of the acting further. 

Sloppy and depressing, only watch if you enjoy seeing people using butter as lubricant (which hopefully you don't. So basically don't watch it.)

Knocked Up (Judd Apatow, 2007)

Highly dissatisfying and uninteresting "comedy" about how schlubby bum Seth Rogen gets Katherine Heigl's high-flying career girl pregnant after being too lazy to bag up, and the ensuing bonding/whining/supposedly hilarity that arises from her being pregnant. 

The film wasn't totally awful; I really liked Forgetting Sarah Marshall's Jason Segel's turn in it, and I've been told that a drunken Emma physically resembles Charlyne Yi, so I guess I like her too. 

Plus there were moments when Rogen's loser of a character did exude a kind of charm, in a so-much-of-an-excuse-for-a-human-being-that-you-have-to-pity-him kind of way. But the two leads have zero chemistry and the premise is so derivative.

Lie to Me (John Stewart Muller, 2008)

Concluding the trilogy of rubbish films, Lie to Me is about a couple in an open relationship who find their bond tested when they find themselves falling for other people. 

Um... that's about it really, badly acted, written, directed, and a bit of an all-round fail.

Not the best selection of films last week, I'm afraid. Hopefully next week will hold better viewing options.

Top 5 of 2007 Vs. Top 5 of 2006.

In the blue corner, we have The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Atonement, Persepolis, No Country for Old Men and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

In the red corner, we have Pan’s Labyrinth, The History Boys, Offside, Volver, and Red Road.

Now, for me, Diving Bell < Pan’s
Atonement = History Boys
Persepolis < Offside
No Country for Old Men < Volver
and
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford > Red Road

With three wins and a draw, 2006 takes it.

A random thought I had about Wall-E…

For assorted reasons, it reminds me of last year’s Western of sorts, There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men.

It reminds me of There Will Be Blood in how it shows the evils of consumerism and corporate control, as well as the scene with Eve blowing up the spaceship reminding me of the burning derrick scene in There Will Be Blood. Also, the opening 16 minutes of Wall-E was wordless, as was the opening sequence to those two films, when no dialogue was spoken. And lastly, the “look” of Wall-E just resembled the look of NCFOM at parts. (Although I’m probably imaging things seeing as I know that Roger Deakins was a consultant on Wall-E)

OK, so that’s not an awful lot to go by. But I just wanted to say.

How cute was Eve, by the way? Her giggle was just adorable:

Some of you have seen this already....

But it was so gorgeous that I just feel the need to share it with the world:

Done by my wonderfully talented mate Hannah.

Aww.

A Look Ahead to Best Visual Effects

Again, continuing with my "analysis" (read: subjective comments) about each of the Oscar-nominated categories, and again, due to my not having seen a whole lot of 'em, I'm restricted in which categories I can analyse.

Here are the nominees:
- The Golden Compass- Michael L. Fink; Bill Westenhofer; Ben Morris; Trevor Wood
- Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End - John Knoll; Hal T. Hickel; Charlie Gibson; John Frazier
- Transformers - Scott Farrar; Scott Benza; Russell Earl; John Frazier

How I did: 0% (again, forgot to predict it.)

01. Transformers
The visual effects in Transformers were really, really, amazing. The robot fights scenes took my breath away. Furthermore, the transformations from car-to-robot are amazing, without a hint of invisible wires or anything like that. If I didn’t know better, I would have actually believed it could happen. 99% of it was all done on computer with individual CGI artists working on individual transformations based on robots created from the doors, fenders, wings, headlights, and engine parts of familiar vehicles. Phew. The effects are big, bombastic, and required an underrated amount of input from the visual effects designers. Terrific VFX all around, that almost atoned for Megan Fox’s acting skills. A.

02. Pirates of the Caribbean III
After overusage of that crappy Kraken in the second film, POTC III returns to not making such a spectacle of its visual effects (in POTC II I almost felt like Verbinski was shouting “Ta da!” when he presented us with the Kraken for the first time), and it fits in with the cinematography better. I particularly liked the usage of blue screen in the final battle. B+.

03. The Golden Compass
The daemons in The Golden Compass were done really well, especially Mrs. Coulter’s malicious monkey, which filled me with dread. The daemons changing their form was also a delight to watch, though as the film went it became old news. The different worlds are intricately created, from an Arctic landscape to a large picturesque town. Sadly, though, I wasn’t that convinced by the bears, which felt a touch… pixelized. B.

Who will win: Transformers
Who should win: Transformers
Who deserved to get nominated: Harry Potter

Naughty teenagers, flying nurses and desperate housewives...

It can only be my 2007 TV Review!

Shows I loved this year:
Desperate Housewives
Season three of Desperate Housewives was just what we all needed to beat those Lost-recession blues. For, as J.J Abrams’ island mystery got more and more out of its depth, adding more characters, more flashbacks, more layers, to a point where the audience were past caring, Desperate Housewives succeeded in what it did best: show the lives of 5 sassy women. The main mystery of season three revolves around Bree's new husband, Orson Hodge (played with a swarmy quality by Kyle McLachlan that quite a few of my friends found a turn on), and whether or not he murdered his ex-wife. Meanwhile, Mike Delfino is still comatose after being hit by Orson, and Susan, in tending to him, meets the handsome Ian Hainsworth (Dougray Scott, the British accent is gorgeous), and the two begin dating, just as Mike begins to awake from his coma. Gabrielle, meanwhile, having divorced Carlos, embarks on a some (hilariously) dreadful dating choices, ending with her marriage to Victor Lang, a politician who only married her to secure the minority vote. Edie uses her son to get Carlos, and Lynette has her marriage tested to the limits as her husband opens a pizzeria and a long-lost love child of his enters the scene.

The acting in season three is top notch, the plot, though ridiculous, is wildly entertaining and nothing makes a show more watchable than the combined eye candy of Dougray Scott, Jamie Denton, and various other hotties. Bring on season four!

Skins
The adverts for this 9-part drama following a group of Bristolian teens featured clips of rampant and illicit drug-taking, boozing, partying, shagging and basically, anything but studying for their AS levels. Nicholas Hoult, once so adorable in About a Boy, takes centre stage here as the hugely unlovable Tony, the gangleader, who bullies his best friend Sid about being a virgin and cheats on his delusional girlfriend Michelle with an array of girls (and boys). Other characters include Maxxie, a boy struggling with his sexuality, Chris, who’s struggling with his crush on his psychology teacher, and best of all, Cassie, an anorexic ditz.

Despite the amoral advertisements and insufferably smug pilot episode, I grew to really enjoy Skins. Jamie Brittain and Brian Elsey cleverly weaved the fundamental human element into the show, so that no matter how annoying we find the teenagers, it’s hard to loathe them completely, as we remember that they are, after all, just teenagers. And the finale, showing how Sid and Cassie do eventually find true love, is particularly endearing. Nice guys don’t always finish last.

Ugly Betty
Here’s a show that I’ve only started getting back into recently. I saw the first few episodes of season 1, and now I’m just bunging in into season 2. What I love about this show is its insightfully scathing look into the fashion world, America Ferrera’s natural charm, and that camp man. I’m still playing catch-up with the plot, but as far as I can tell… Alexis used to be a guy, right?

Heroes
Without a doubt, one of the best shows ever to grace BBC 2, Tim Kring’s creation is a superb amalgam of all the superheroes and superhero powers an overzealous kid could imagine, bunged into a melting pot, and with the age-old good/bad divide. Unlike with Lost, every single character in Heores has something interesting about them, whether it be superpowerless-but-inquisitive Mohinder, Hiro Nakamura, a computer programmer who can stop time, Peter Petrelli, an idealistic nurse who can fly, Claire Bennet, a cheerleader who can never die, or, most terrifyingly, Gabriel “Sylar”, one of the baddies who goes round killing all the other heroes and then accumulating their powers. As the season goes along, the heroes of the show discover that they can use their powers to good, and in doing so, often have to take part in thrilling, life-threatening showdowns with other heroes. The interweaved plots give the story a lot of cohesion and the performances from the entire cast are so convincing that we as the audience grow to care about them as more than just people with superhuman strength. It’s edge of your seat stuff with important messages of the importance of friendship, family, and how being different is never a bad thing. (gah, I sounded like I was quoting High School Music there.)

Hollyoaks
Not the classiest of choices, but Hollyoaks is compulsive shadenfreude TV. Gilly and John-Paul aside, there isn’t a single person on this show that I don’t hate, and that’s what makes it so fun to watch. Take Amy Barnes, for example. Obtuse to the point of farce, she’d gotten knocked up at 14, had the baby in the middle of a car crash, given the child to her parents because she was so ashamed, then, in the middle of the summer holidays, her maternal instinct kicks in and she walks out on her parents to live in a council estate with the lad that abandoned her in the car crash, a revolting boy by the name of “Ste”. Other storylines include Nancy and Jake, a college student and her brother in law, whom she’s recently gotten engaged to; Craig, a boy who was engaged to a Sarah whilst carrying on behind her back with a John Paul; Warren, a bartender with a gambling addiction; Steph, an awful actress who thinks she’s star quality…

I mean, honestly. You can see why if I’m in a bad mood at school, half an hour of Hollyoaks can cheer me up.

Mock the Week
Simply put, it’s the most entertaining way to catch up on current affairs. Russell Howard is a comedy legend.

Without a Trace
It’s all about Anthony LaPaglia’s brooding coolness, the slick execution and the human element to finding missing people.

Drop Dead Gorgeous
Pure trash-TV, it’s a rags-to-riches story of two Evertonian twin sisters, one of which is an outgoing and chatty, the other mild and self-deprecating. The latter gets selected to become a model, and jealousy, bitchiness and scheming follow. The performances by the two playing the sisters are convincing, and there’s something rewardingly domestic about the show.

Fanny Hill
Based on the bawdy novel by John Cleland, this drama tells the story of a girl who was almost going into prostitution before meeting her true love Charlie. He’s then cruelly taken from her, and she’s forced to sell herself to make ends meet, but unusually, Fanny enjoys her sexual escapades, and the fact that she’s resourceful, witty, yet not self-pitying, makes her a very likeable protagonist. The ending of this drama was a little hurried but overall, it was very funny, pretty sexy and hugely entertaining.

Would I Lie to You?
This is basically a game show where celebrities claim to have done something, and the opposing teams have to work out whether or not they are lying. A pretty simple concept, but David Mitchell’s rants are hilarious, and hey, you get to learn some unexpected facts about C-list celebs.

Gossip Girl
Ugh. I'm running out of time so I'll just give you this.

And of course I've been catching up with all the repeats Channel4 shows of my favourite TV programme, but I don't have Sky so I haven't seen any new material from The Simpsons. Except, of course, the movie, which I really enjoyed.

No Oscar predictions until now? And I call this a film blog?

Anyway, here are my current predictions for the nominations of the major categories:

BEST PICTURE
Atonement
Charlie Wilson’s War
The Kite Runner
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

BEST DIRECTOR
Joe Wright - Atonement
Ridley Scott - American Gangster
Joel and Ethan Coen - No Country for Old Men
Paul Thomas Anderson – There Will Be Blood
Mike Nichols - Charlie Wilson's War

BEST LEAD ACTOR
Daniel Day-Lewis - There Will Be Blood
James McAvoy - Atonement
Johnny Depp – Sweeney Todd
Emile Hirsch - Into the Wild
Ryan Gosling - Lars and the Real Girl

BEST LEAD ACTRESS
Marion Cotillard - La Vie en Rose
Ellen Page - Juno
Laura Linney - The Savages
Julie Christie - Away From Her
Nicole Kidman - Margot at the Wedding

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Javier Bardem - No Country for Old Men
Russell Crowe - American Gangster
Casey Affleck - The Assasination of Jesse James
Hal Holbrook - Into the Wild
Philip Seymour Hoffman - Charlie Wilson's War

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Saoirse Ronan - Atonement (wishful thinking)
Cate Blanchett - I'm Not There
Jennifer Jason Leigh - Margot at the Wedding
Ruby Dee - American Gangster
Amy Adams - Charlie Wilson's War

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Diablo Cody - Juno
Brad Bird - Ratatouille
Tamara Jenkins - The Savages
Steven Knight - Eastern Promises
Todd Haynes & Oren Moverman – I’m not There

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Christopher Hampton - Atonement
Joel and Ethan Coen - No Country for Old Men
Steven Zaillian - American Gangster
Paul Thomas Anderson - There Will Be Blood
Aaron Sorkin - Charlie Wilson's War

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Ratatouille
The Simpsons Movie
Persepolis

Film review: ATONEMENT (Joe Wright, 2007)

Britain’s bestselling author Ian McEwan is a wonderfully rich and articulate writer, but he has often struck me (and I know I'm probably alone here) as a man of too many words. Enduring Love, despite its unique and gripping plot, was overly descriptive, and even his recent novella, On Chesil Beach, could have done with being 50 pages shorter. I felt exactly the same way about Atonement when I first started reading it, there were too many “rhymes”, too many adjectives, to a point where it almost seem to obsess with the minutiae and try to hold the story back.

Then I realised that this time, it was intentional. Bringing the surprising turn of events that served the book so well onto the big screen was a huge challenge, but Joe Wright, who’s 2005 effort Pride & Prejudice ranked amongst one of the loveliest films of that year, was more than apt a man to do it: talented, engaging with his actors, focused and precise, he has given Atonement the big-screen fare, and more.

Emma Blogger and the Teary Goodbyes.

As I am writing this, I have 5 songs on a “Goodbye” playlist that I prepared specially for writing this. I feel they’re particularly apt for this moment in time, where I am saying goodbye to a series that I have grown up with, that has started when I was 7, and finished when I’m 17.

The songs are:
- Goodbye (Spice Girls)
- Cry (Rihanna)
- Big Yellow Taxi (Joni Mitchell)
- Last Goobye (Jeff Buckley)
- Goodbye Blue Sky (Pink Floyd).

And they’re accompanying, of course, my finishing reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final novel in JK Rowling’s multi-million selling books.

Initial thoughts?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I couldn’t have asked for a better finale.

(I could have asked for a better epilogue, mind!!!! Bloody thing.)

Ok, spoilers ensue…

The Good
- Ron and Hermione finally kiss. To be honest, this was all I was waiting for. Ron is by far my favourite character of the books and films, and Hermione is also one of my favourites in the books (though not the films), and I’ve just been rooting for them to get together from the beginning. And they snog, in the middle of such adversity!! Which just goes to show, all you need is love.
- Voldemort dies. Also what I was waiting for. I wasn’t sure how it’d all go about, though I did have a niggling suspicion that the general population (and me) would be bloody pissed if JK Rowling killed off Harry. So that meant Voldemort must die. And he did, in, the book’s own words, a rather “mundane” fashion. But I was pleased with that, as, at the end of the day, we’re looking at a man who is pure evil, so he hasn’t done any good deeds. A person who’s done no good doesn’t deserve a spectacular ending. He was nothing but a bully, and died weakly, like he deserved.
- Badarse Neville Longbottom. Words cannot describe how proud I was to hear how he so bravely suffered the Cruciatus curses over and over again in the name of defending what was right. It truly would have been poetic justice if it had been he who had slain Bellatrix, but his killing of Nagini was good enough. Go Neville!
- The swearing. Long gone are the days when people can just disregard Harry Potter as a children’s book, the language in Half-Blood Prince and this alone show that it is anything but. I loved Ron’s two usages of the word “bastard”, but even better, Molly Weasley’s outcry of “NOT MY DAUGHTER YOU BITCH!!!”
- Harry doing some of the Unforgivable Curses. He’s been playing around with Expelliarmus for far too long, in my opinion.
- The moments of comic relief, such as Lee Jordan’s Potterwatch.
- Harry’s conversation with Dumbledore’s portrait at the end. Poignant, sad, beautiful, and it would have been the perfect way to end the series, yet JK Rowling chose to go with…

The Bad
- That bloody, Hollywood, tacked on, clichéd, lol-inducing as frick ending!!! It just made me angry!!! Who in the name of Borgin & Burkes would name their child Albus Severus? And er, did Ginny get no call at all in choosing the names of her children? Lily and James were Harry’s parents, you’d think he’d have a bit more originality!! Good to see Ron and Hermione getting married, but the interchange between them was unconvincing and stilted. And Harry finally learning that Slytherin wasn’t “all bad”? Bah, how dull!
- The whole Deathly Hallows and the wand, stone and invisibility cloak thing. I was just thinking “meh” throughout. I wanted Harry to get the Horcruxes!
- The body count. As happy as I was to see Voldie and Bella die (yay!), I cried when Dobby died. It was so, so, heartbreaking. Also, Fred, Tonks’ and Lupin’s deaths were sad too.
- JK Rowling overdid it with her usages of the word “Mudblood”, I thought. The moment when Hermione referred to herself as one made me go “oh dear.”…
- Some of the writing and conversations felt slightly stilted, like JK Rowling wanted to insert salacious lines and four-letter words, but had to sacrifice artistic style for book sales.

The Ambivilant
- Finding out that Snape was in fact, good, and that he had been in love with Lily all along. I felt such sympathy for him, as well as slight resentment at James Potter. Should I???

Overall, I feel OK. No, I feel better than OK, I feel as good as I think I can feel about the ending of a series of books that I have grown up with, poured mountains of time and money into the franchise, and loved the characters of. As I said, the ending angered me the most, but there is certainly redemption to be found elsewhere. It’s probably my second or third favourite of the series, and very exciting, thrilling, and dark. In fact, considering how I've grown up with Harry, Ron, and Hermione, shared their trials and tribulations, I’m surprised at how composed I am at writing all of this, I expected a mountain of tears.

Oh, wait…



Tags: harry potter and the deathly hallows, harry potter, jk rowling, goobye.