Film Fix: Clint tackles injustice in Gran Torino
It’s a film that covers a lot of territory – the changing face of the U.S.A through migration, isolation, aging and racism. It stars Clint Eastwood in his first role since his multi-award winning, Million Dollar Baby (2004) and continues to cement him as the North American director who searches the deepest into questions of morality, responsibility and justice. Kylie Boltin takes a look.
Walt Kowalski (Eastwood) is a man from another era. A member of the First Cavalry 1951 in Korea, a lifetime Ford factory worker recently widowed, with two semi-estranged sons and grandchildren who expect him to die any moment. Walt keeps everyone at a distance, his interactions with select acquaintances and his barber consisting of tough, calculated banter. When his beloved wife, Dorothy dies it is her final wish for their priest to hear Walt’s confession. Walt retaliates with, “I confess that I have no desire to confess to a boy that’s just out of the seminary.”
Winner of the 2008 Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival (the first French film to win in 21 years),The Class is nominated for the Academy Award — Best Foreign language film, 2009. Kylie Boltin goes back to school for a day.
The Class (Laurent Cantet, 2008) is a slow-burning film of extraordinary realism, almost wholly set within a racially diverse middle-school literature class in inner city Paris over the course of a school year.
The Class wins top honours at French Golden Globes
Director Laurent Cantet's Cannes Palme d'Or winner The Class has received the best picture gong at the Lumiere Awards, the French equivalent of the Golden Globes.
The film is on the shortlist for next month's Academy Awards in the best foreign language film category, and is expected to fare well in the prestigious Cesar Awards on February 27.
Walt Disney Studios and SBS are offering you the chance to see Doubt, the Golden Globe-nominated film starring Meryl Streep and Phillip Seymour Hoffman.
John Patrick Shanley brings his play Doubt to the screen, in a story about the quest for truth, the forces of change, and the devastating consequences of blind justice in an age defined by moral conviction.
Religion gets a reality check in Doubt
A fascinating clash of convictions and a whiff of scandal plays out against the backdrop of radical social change. Review by Fiona Williams.
What do you do when you’re not sure? A socially progressive new pastor asks this of his flock in the opening scenes of John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt, in a dramatic device that paves the way for a broad range of responses from individuals plagued by doubt.
Film Fix: All About Cruz and Almodóvar
Kylie Boltin revisits a classic collaboration between Spain's most prolific director and his muse.
Penélope Cruz steals Woody Allen’s latest film, Vicky Christina Barcelona with her sultry and crazed performance as artist and ex-wife of interminably sexy Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem). Cruz and Bardem first worked together in Bigas Luna’s Jamón, jamón, 1992 also shared screen time in Pedro Almodóvar's Live Flesh (1997) and have worked with the director independently, including Cruz’s breakthrough international performance in the Oscar-winning All About My Mother.
Golden Globes coverage: Heath Ledger wins
Heath Ledger has won the Golden Globe for best supporting actor, for his portrayal of The Joker in The Dark Knight, a win that makes a posthumous Oscar all but a foregone conclusion.
Ledger's award was accepted by the film's director Christopher Nolan, to a standing ovation from the ballroom. "All of us who worked with Heath on The Dark Knight accept this with an awful mixture of sadness, but incredible pride."
Anne Gets Awarded in Globes snafu
The Golden Globes are yet to get underway, but is the cat already out of the bag for the best actress gong? Fiona Williams investigates.
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the outfit behind the Golden Globes ceremony) has been on the back foot after an eagle-eyed web surfer in Honduras noticed that the Golden Globes website had identified Anne Hathaway as the best actress winner (with a winner’s star) from as early as last week. He tipped off celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, who went wide with the news.
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