Box Office - Top Dozen Movies

David Dale in The Sydney Morning Herald recently listed the top grossing movies of all time in Australia, the US and the rest of the world (excluding US).

Australia:
1. Titanic
2. Shrek 2
3. Return of the King
4. Crocodile Dundee
5. Fellowship of the Ring
6. Two Towers
7. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
8. Star Wars 1: The Phantom Menace
9. Pirates of the Caribbean 2
10. Finding Nemo
11. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
12. Babe

US:
1. Titanic
2. The original Star Wars
3. Shrek 2
4. ET
5. Star Wars 1: The Phantom Menace
6. Pirates of the Caribbean 2
7. Spiderman
8. Star Wars 3: Revenge of the Sith
9. Return of the King
10. Spiderman 2
11. Passion of the Christ
12. Jurassic Park

World (excluding US):
1. Titanic
2. Return of the King
3. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
4. Pirates of the Caribbean 3
5. Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix
6. Pirates of the Caribbean 2
7. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
8. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
9. The Two Towers
10. Jurassic Park
11. Spiderman 3
12. Fellowship of the Ring

My conclusions: We all like our escapism and the fantasy realm. The US doesn't agree with the rest of the world's addiction to Harry Potter and they only came to the party on the Lord of the Rings with the final instalment.

I have seen all the top 12 movies in Australia, but haven't seen Passion of the Christ, Spiderman 3 or Pirates of the Caribbean 3.... but there's still plenty of time. No doubt these favourites will be around for a long time yet! How has your viewing compared?

2008 Producers Guild Awards

Pic: Ali Larter in hair-swinging mode at the Producers Guild Awards.

Wooopsie. This one passed without me realising it. Announced on 2 February:

The Danny Thomas Producer of the Year Award in Episodic Television - Comedy
30 Rock (winner)
The Office
Entourage
Ugly Betty
Extras

The Norman Felton Producer of the Year Award in Episodic Television - Drama THE Sopranos (winner)
Heroes
Lost
House
Grey's Anatomy
Dexter

The Producer of the Year Award in Non Fiction Television
Planet Earth (winner)
60 Minutes
Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D List
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
Deadliest Catch

The Producer of the Year Award in Live Entertainment/Competition Television
The Colbert Report (winner)
The Amazing Race
Project Runway
American Idol
Real Time with Bill Maher

The Darryl F Zanuck Producer of the Year Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men (winner)
There Will Be Blood

The Producer of the Year Award in Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures
Bee Movie
Ratatouille (winner)
The Simpsons Movie

The Producer of the Year Award in Documentary Theatrical Motion Pictures
Body Of War
Hear And Now
Pete Seeger: The Power Of Song
Sicko (winner)
White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction Of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The David L Wolper Producer of the Year Award in Long-Form Television
Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee (winner)
The Bronx Is Burning
High School Musical 2
Jane Eyre
The Starter Wife


2008 PGA honorary awards and recipients:

Milestone Award
Alan Horn

David O. Selznick Achievement Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures
Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall

Norman Lear Achievement Award in Television
Dick Wolf

Visionary Award
Simon Fuller

Vanguard Award
YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen

The Stanley Kramer Award
The Great Debaters

Miss Marple – Nemesis 2007

A little light hearted TV watching in my home with the return of Miss Marple to ABC TV.

As usual, there seems to be a core of actors that repeatedly appear in British TV/film (and I KNOW there are more than these few in existence)! This show is no exception.

Miss Marple (Geraldine McEwan) is sent on a mystery bus tour on the dying wish of a good friend, to right an injustice and perhaps find the perpetrator of a crime. She is accompanied by her writer-nephew Raymond, (Richard E Grant) and finds that all the other people on the bus are connected in some tenuous way, which is slowly revealed to us. Naturally there are a couple of murders on the journey to add to the suspense and allow identification of the guilty party.

It wasn’t hard to work out roughly who had done what, but it was done so well that it was enjoyable and I still required the deductive capacities of Miss Marple for final identification of the murderer.

Well acted, as expected. Richard E. Grant got to have a number of funny moments in a very British way, which I really enjoyed. Geraldine McEwan fitted the role of Miss Marple beautifully. Ruth Wilson (recently of Jane Eyre fame) played a small part, that of Georgina the tour guide/bus driver. Once I got over thinking of her only in 19th century garb and as a governess, I was able to enjoy it. She managed to put her own stamp on the part and I hope to see her in more TV and films in the future. Lee Ingleby was DC Colin Hards and had some great interaction, particularly with Richard E. Grant, as a hopeful writer.

Also starring Anne Reid, Laura Kelly, Dan Stephens, Graeme Garden, Johnny Briggs, George Cole, Ronni Ancona, Adrian Rawlings, Emily Woof, Will Mellor, Amanda Burton.

Hercules

I bought this for my son (age 10) before I realized it was had a rating of MA15+ and so thought I needed to watch it before he did and see if was suitable for his viewing. (Its not!)

The story is of course based on Hercules, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, a priestess of Hera. It starts with a bit of a warm up into the ‘time of the gods’ before seeing how Alcemene became pregnant with twins – one of which was Hercules. Alcemene hated Zeus and so hates his probable offspring, Hercules, therefore he is never shown any love or affection by her, but rather by his ‘father’ Amphitryon.

He leaves the his home in semi-exile after he thought he had killed a poet, Linus, and after many years becomes stronger - though little wiser. He has an interlude with Megara, who he has had a crush on for many years and she delivers triplet boys. After a daring fight with a monster and saving the king, he is allowed to marry Megara which he does. Megara, however is also a priestess of Hera and under Alcmene’s guidance drugs Hercules who in his drugged stupor believes he is being attacked by demons and kills his sons.

Although he tries to kill himself, Zeus does not allow it and instead Hercules serves Alcemene and her new husband, by completing six tasks set by them. Naturally they are not small tasks, but of course he succeeds and gains much wisdom in their completion. In the meantime he is surprised but pleased to learn that his friend, the nymph Deianeira, loves him and they already have a son.

Basically there is much fighting, quite a bit of maiming and killing and some broad hints in the “mature themes” department.

Quite a few of the characters are quite disagreeable eg. Alcmene (Elizabeth Perkins), King Eurystheus (Kristian Schmid) and Iphicles (Luke Ford), but they are balanced by the nicer ones eg. Linus (Sean Astin), Deianeira (Leelee Sobieski) and Amphitryon (Timothy Dalton). Balance is a theme running through this movie – male/female Zeus/Hera good/bad, belief/reality and so on.

Overall, the acting is pretty average. Timothy Dalton gives quite a good performance and is believable (in as much as you can believe a myth!). The adult Hercules (Paul Telfer) is suitably built for the part and whilst not brilliant, carries off his part well enough. By the end he seems to have embraced his part and is showing more feeling. Elizabeth Perkins seems to enjoy her role and Sean Astin plays his part agreeably. Leelee Sobieski was a little stitled, but seeing as she was a nymph and covered in bronze makeup, I'll give her the benefit of the doubt! I think a number of the actors may have been limited by the script/direction as I believe they are capable of more.

It would probably be accurate to say that I won’t watch it again – it’s mindless watching for those days when you’re unwell and lying on the couch, brain in a fog and unable to think.

100 books times two

I went into my local library last week to see if I could borrow Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte. Would you believe there wasn’t ONE Bronte book on the shelf? Not even Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre! Now either that means they are all out being read or they just aren’t very popular so not kept. I enquired at the desk and they happily agreed to get Tenant in from another library, so it, at least, wasn’t “out”. I also looked in the local bookshop a few weeks ago and the only Bronte I could find there was Jane Eyre (which I already have). I would have thought all Bronte were “classics” and always on hand.

This led me to wonder, what exactly are people reading? After coming across the ‘100 books that all children should read’ list recently I thought there are bound to be some lists of books that people think are ‘the best’. After searching these lists and discarding those with limitations (eg. written in the 20th century or written by authors of the same nationality, etc.), I came across two lists of 100 books that were 4 years apart. They are from the same country (UK) and yet they vary quite a bit. I surmise that people’s views are to some extent affected by what they are currently reading (recent releases) and even watching (films based on the books). Are many of these your favourites?

BBC 2003 list of Top 100 books:

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkein
2. Pride & Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pulman
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter and the Philospher’s Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkein
26. Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
33. The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count of Monte Chriso, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far from the Maddening Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Kerenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows and Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts and Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCullough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchet
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord of the Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Suskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jaqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. COld Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Fiest
90. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan of the Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane and Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
98. Girls in Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie

The Daily Telegraph (UK) 2007 list of 100 books you can’t live without:

1. Pride & Prejudice, Jane Austen
2. Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkein
3. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series, JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four, George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
11. Little Women, Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22, Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
16. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkein
17. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch, George Eliot
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Graeme
31. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia, CS Lewis
34. Emma, Jane Austen
35. Persuasion, Jane Austen
36. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
41. Animal Farm, Goerge Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney, John Irving
45. The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins
46. Ann of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
47. Far from the Maddening Crowd, Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies, William Golding
50. Atonement, Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi, Yann Martel
52. Dune, Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night time, Mark Haddon
60. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
62. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
66. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding
69. Midgnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
72. Dracula, Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes from a Small Island, Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses, James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons, Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal, Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession, A S Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary, Gustave Flabert
86. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web, EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven, Mitch Alborn
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection, Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness , Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
94. Watership Down, Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet, William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo.

Ever After: A Cinderella Story

A really beautiful rendition of Cinderella that is suitable for all ages (even though it is rated PG).

The movie starts with a royal female meeting the Brothers Grimm and relaying the true story of Cinderella.

Cinderella’s real name was Danielle de Barbarac (played by the wonderful Drew Barrymore) who was lovingly raised by her father, Auguste (Jeroen Krabbe). Her father marries the Baroness Rodmilla de Ghent (Angelica Houston) who arrives with her two daughters Marguerite (Megan Dodds) and Jacqueline (Melanie Lynskey). Danielle is excited at the prospect of a new mother and sisters but her luck changes when her father dies shortly after.

Grown up Danielle, who is trying to maintain her father’s estate in the best way she can, is treated as a servant by her stepmother and stepsisters (although one sister, Jacqueline feels more affinity for Danielle than her mother and sister do). Prince Henry of France (Dougray Scott), in the meantime is determined not to marry “Spain” for an alliance, and keeps trying to escape the palace and his duty. During one of his escapes he is chased by Danielle for stealing her father’s horse, but she hides her face and he doesn’t see her.

Shortly after she meets the Prince again whilst in the guise of a courtier and attracted by her passion for what is right, the romance begins. Of course, obstacles are thrown in Danielle’s path, including her real identity and status, her stepsister and stepmother’s aspirations and the desire of a local wealthy landowner. The servants of course are all on Danielle’s side.

Danielle has a heart of gold, is intelligent and beautiful so how can the Crown Prince possibly resist? A nice touch is the addition of Leonardo DaVinci (Patrick Godfrey) to the story who plays a pivotal part in ultimately uniting the two lovers.

A strong supportive cast including Timothy West (the King) and Judy Parfitt (the Queen) help make this a nice little film that you can easily watch with the children.

Possession

A soft and romantic film about a great love between two poets in the mid 1800s, Christobel LaMotte (Jennifer Ehle) and Randolph Ash (Jeremy Northam), which is rediscovered through a chance find of some unsent correspondence by modern day researcher, Roland Mitchell (Aaron Eckhart). In his search for more information he visits Dr. Maud Bailey (Gwyneth Paltrow) who is distantly related to Christobel. She gets as excited by the finds they make as he does, and their relationship mirrors that of Christobel and Ash as they discover more of the poets’ story.

To add a little anxiety into the mix there are complications in both centuries – in Christobel’s with her companion Blanche (Lena Headey) and in Maud’s with past partner and fellow teacher Fergus (Toby Stephens).

Jennifer Ehle plays a haunting Christobel, Jeremy Northam an equally besotted Ash and they have a suitable on-screen chemistry. Aaron Eckhart is keen and Gwyneth is cool (even when excited) and although well acted, the screen hardly sizzles. Lena Headey was convincing as Blanche and Toby Stephens played a quite disagreeable character very well!

The story is sweet and touching and will satisfy those with romantic leanings – although don’t expect to heave lots of longing sighs, just expect a warm feeling.