Directed by Martin McDonagh, In Bruges stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson as Ray and Ken, two Irish hitmen sent to Belgium to carry out an assignment for their boss Harry, played by Ralph Fiennes. When a previous botched mission leads Harry to give Ken unexpected orders regarding Ray, the two find themselves at odds with each other and must decide how to proc

I really believe that director Deborah Kampmeier was earnestly trying to bring attention to the subject of sexual abuse of children, but I don't think showing a 12 year old girl acting seductively and peppering the film with scenes of her in her underwear was the way to go about

The Academy Awards telecast, seen by most as Hollywood's biggest night, has been enjoying slight upticks in the ratings over the past couple of years. Whether that is due to the producers' choices of popular hosts (Seth MacFarlane and Ellen DeGeneres) or the nominated films posting very healthy box office numbers is up for debate. What matters to the Academy is that people were tuning in to their s

Deadline is reporting that viewership for the awards ceremony was down by 17 percent in the coveted 18-49 demographic, and 18 percent overall when compared to last year. That's the lowest they've been since 2009 - a huge reason for concern considering that last year's telecast was the most-watched since 2000. Whatever the reason may be, the Oscars couldn't keep the interest of viewers this time aro

When she gets back home to the run-down shack where she and her father live, he is hanging all over Robin Wright Penn (whose character name I don't recall) and is apparently a new girlfriend. Lewellan is a huge Elvis fan and she loves to sing his hit song "Hounddog" in particular. What is unsettling about that is that when she sings and really gets into the song she tries to gyrate like Elvis in a very provacative manner, sometimes moving like a dancer from a strip club. Seeing an undeveloped 12 year old moving like that is just plain cre

And, honestly, it's difficult to say what exactly can be done to fix this. The obvious answer is "nominate films people have seen," but that is a little disingenuous to the acclaimed movies that did get nominated. Whiplash , Boyhood , Birdman , and The Grand Budapest Hotel may not have become mainstream hits, but they all have their passionate supporters among cinephiles and received a boost in awareness thanks to the Oscar label. Maybe if studios made these awards contenders more readily available , they'd attract a wider audie

Jakes Gyllenhaal said it best this evening, pointing out that it would be the shorts that make or break our Oscar Pools. I am usually able to get half of them right by watching them and picking favorites but this year I got them all wrong. Amongst the big categories there were few surprises though, outside of Tom Hooper ( The King's Speech ) beating out David Fincher ( The Social Network ) for achievement in directing. But hey, Chris Nolan wasn't even nominated for Inception so without further

The film festival games reviews|https://moviefestivalhub.com/ shifts gears drastically when we are at home with the Olmsteads watching them as they watch the broadcast of a 60 Minutes piece which they thought was going to be supportive of Marla's work. Instead its purpose was to raise serious doubts about the authenticity of Marla's paintings. Was she coached by her father? Did she paint them herself? Her father is an amateur artist who paints, which is how Marla came to be interested in doing it herself. Immediately afterwards their world begins to cave in on them as people in town now look at them as frauds and the possibility of lawsuits from previous buyers l

If you missed our live-chat for the 83rd Annual Academy Awards this evening, don’t fret, we have the winners and a brief recap of the ceremony for you. In short, Inception took home the technical categories, The Social Network took a few, notably for its score and The King's Speech was the big winner, coming in with 12 nominations and walking out with four big wins, including best pict

The documentary has an interview with a New York Times art critic who discusses modern (or abstract) art and the reasons behind the sometimes apparently insane valuations for what looks like some paint splashed on a canvas. Part of his explanation is that the story behind the artwork contributes to the value. What has the artist gone through, for example? In Marlas's case part of the value is due to the fact of her young age and the apparent sophistication of the w

The likeliest culprits most people will point to are the Best Picture nominees themselves. Ever since expanding their top category to include a maximum of 10 films back in 2009, the Academy has done a solid job at ensuring that commercially successful works are recognized. Over the past couple of years, big box office hits like Avatar , Inception , Django Unchained , and Gravity were putting together Oscar campaigns in addition to drawing in large cro