Archive Posts

He's green, miserable, and likes rubbish, or as he calls it, trash. Who are we talking about? It's Oscar the Grouch of course the Muppet from Sesame Street, and he's in town to celebrate something of a coup for local TV. The Sesame Tree was a spin off programme designed specifically for Northern Ireland, but after just one series, it's been promoted to a nationwide series on the BBC. Our Arts correspondent Maggie Taggart went to find out if the Grouch was happy about it!

Back to designing for moving pictures, some sad news this week with the passing of production design great Robert F. Boyle at an impressive 100 years. Oscar nominated for his art direction and production design work on classic films like The Birds, The Thomas Crown Affair (the original), and Fiddler on the Roof, his IMDb listing is nothing short of incredible.

The LA Times files this great obituary looking back on Boyle and his career, and if you've never seen it, we highly recommend watching the short documentary about him, The Man on Lincoln's Nose about his building a realistic set for the iconic conclusion of North by Northwest:

At the post-fight press-conference for the Juan Manuel Marquez vs. Juan Diaz rematch, Golden Boy Promotions boss, Oscar De La Hoya, told the media that Juan Manuel Marquez main priority now that he defeated Juan Diaz for the second time is to try and get a fight with Manny Pacquiao.

Marquez answered the media in Spanish and De La Hoya translated. “He’ll fight Pacquiao between 140-143 pounds. If Juan Manuel Marquez went all the way to 147 to fight Floyd Mayweather… Juan Manuel Marquez going all the way up to challenging the best fighter in the planet, hung in there for 12 rounds, fought with heart like he always does and we feel if he wants to fight Manny Pacquiao, fight him at a catchweight of 140-143 pounds he’ll do it with no problems. He is right here ready and willing.”

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Can Inception safely dream of Oscar glory? That’s one conundrum that will linger long after average moviegoers have stopped debating the ambiguities of Christopher Nolan’s twisty new thrill ride into the subconscious.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences failed to reward Nolan’s most recent movie, mega-grossing The Dark Knight, with a best picture nomination, though it collected eight other nominations.

And though the producers, directors and writers guilds all nominated Nolan for that movie, the Academy didn’t. To date, Nolan has earned only one Oscar nomination, for his original screenplay for Memento.

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 It's a boy for Oscar-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody! "We had our boy early this morning! Marcello Daniel Maurio, 7lbs, 2 oz, lightly mustachioed." the "Juno" scribe Tweeted on Tuesday evening. Diablo  whose real name is Brook Busey  previously announced that.

This marks the first child for the writer and husband Dan Maurio. No further details were available on the couple's new addition to the family. Diablo's "United States of Tara" recently wrapped its second season on Showtime and she is also busy adapting the "Sweet Valley High" book series into a movie.

At 13.5 inches high, and with the heft of a bag of oranges, Oscar can go just about anywhere. For Russell Crowe, that's a chicken coop. Barbra Streisand? A barn. Goldie Hawn meditates with hers. Cate Blanchett's has topped a grand piano, and Tom Hanks's is nestled among soccer trophies. Pixar's John Lasseter keeps his in style: “Barbie clothes actually fit pretty well.” Elizabeth Taylor, Susan Sarandon, and Sean Connery stuck theirs in the loo. (As did Jodie Foster, until hers corroded.) Jack Nicholson used one for a hatstand; Cher, a doorstop. Bob Dylan takes his on tour.

The Brits—Ben Kingsley, Elton John, Julie Andrews, Michael Caine, and Jeremy Irons—tend to favor the library. George Clooney does, too. Others want it out of sight. “The thing freaks me out,” Gwyneth Paltrow has said. Catherine Zeta-Jones retired hers to Bermuda. Angelina Jolie, Jamie Foxx, Tilda Swinton, Julia Roberts, and Jimmy Stewart gave theirs away. Clint Eastwood tucked a couple in a dresser drawer, while Juliette Binoche put hers in a box filled with plates. Before a party, Timothy Hutton stashed his with the beer. It's been in the icebox ever since.

The Sarajevo Film Festival opens on Friday with the world premiere of "Circus Columbia," a romantic saga set in the period that led to the region's 1992-95 war, by Bosnia's Oscar-winning film director Danis Tanovic. The film tells the story of Divko, a Bosnian who returns as a wealthy man to his home town in southern Herzegovina at the end of the 1980s after decades of work abroad.

He comes back with a young wife and seeks revenge in a society where former Communist leaders have taken top positions in the first democratically elected local government. Divko's first victory is managing to throw out his ex-wife and a son from their house. It appears he is winning and that money can buy everything, before his life turns upside down and the war comes to his town.

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Dustin Lance Black, the gay former Mormon who won an Oscar for his screenplay to Milk, about the slain gay politician, has been hired to write the adaptation of the life of Colt Harris-Moore, the 19-year-old thief labeled “the Barefoot Bandit.” Harris-Moore is a kind of recent version of Frank Abagnale, the kid who evaded FBI agents for years while faking his way through a variety of jobs (chronicled in the Leo DiCaprio film Catch Me If You Can). Harris-Moore has been on the run after stealing a variety of odd items, especially aircraft, sometimes (but not, apparently, often) without wearing shoes.

The Barefoot Bandit movie will be directed by David Gordon Green, who graduated from high school in Richardson. Black’s current project is as writer-director of What’s Wrong with Virginia. He’s also in pre-production on Clint Eastwood’s next film, Hoover, about the closeted (and patently evil) FBI director (DiCaprio again).

Days before the genre-defying film opened in the US, internet giant Yahoo already proclaimed “Inception” as the best film of the year to-date. Yahoo wrote in its citation – “From its mind-bending dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream plot to its way cool special effects, the movie stands head-and-shoulders above an otherwise lackluster movie summer.”

Then the glowing reviews started pouring in – from the high-and-mighty Time Magazine and New York Times and Variety to the pop-centric USA Today and Chicago Times to the heady Rolling Stone. All are ecstatic over director Christopher Nolan’s originality, genius, even…balls…to realize such a high-concept film. Inevitably, the word “Oscar” kept coming up.

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New Oscar producers Bruce Cohen and Don Mischer are, as we type, combing through a wide range of candidates to host this year's telecast. But after last night's ESPYs, there is a new high standard to live up to. The ESPYs? High standards? If you're one of the 308.9 million Americans who didn't watch the annual ESPN self-congratulatory highlight reel awards show Wednesday night, you actually missed something funny. Well, at least a few funny things.

Subversive hasn't been a trait one associates with ESPN's ode to sports and itself, but host Seth Meyers came out firing at this year's show, in which the telecast returned to a live format. In his opening monologue, the "Saturday Night Live" personality and chief writer took aim at more than a few sacred cows, mocking one of ESPN's most profitable sports franchises ("give it up for Tiger Woods -- if you haven't already") in a way you rarely see anyone do on the network.

And Meyers ripped off some generally good lines. ("This is where sports and entertainment come together. It's like a Kardashian sister's bedroom," he said even as the camera cut to one of said sisters' exes, Reggie Bush.) And most notably, Meyers took aim at the network for its choice to air  "a super-boring hour of television" with the LeBron James decision special. ("Did it really need to be an hour? Look, somebody time me. Ready? 'Miami.' What was that, a second?")

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