Categories
Awards

The race toward Oscar continues!!

Social Network named top film by online critics
The Social Network earned further kudos on Monday, with the Online Film Critics Society naming the Facebook tale the best picture of 2010.
Starring Jesse Eisenberg as Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, the movie is among several frontrunners that have been winning wide acclaim during the awards season leading up to this year’s Oscars gala in February.
The drama, based on Ben Mezrich’s book exploring the founding of the ubiquitous social media site, also earned best director and best adapted screenplay honours for David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin, respectively.
For its acting categories, the OFCS recognized some of the favoured performances of the season, including Colin Firth’s turn as a stuttering King George VI in The King’s Speech (best actor) and Natalie Portman’s deterioriating ballerina in Black Swan (best actress).
Supporting kudos went to Christian Bale for The Fighter, and newcomer Hailee Steinfield for True Grit. The Coen Brothers’ remake of the John Wayne western also earned the society’s cinematography honour for Rogers Deakins.
Mind-bending thriller Inception scored a pair of awards: best original screenplay for filmmaker Christopher Nolan and best editing for Lee Smith.
Other winners included:
Best documentary: Exit Through the Gift Shop
Best animated feature: Toy Story 3
Best foreign language film: Mother (South Korea)
Founded in 1997, the OFCS is an internet-based group of more than 100 professional, international writers who publish film journalism and criticism.

Categories
Music

Cooooool!!!

Previously-unreleased Johnny Cash songs coming on new compilation
A new Johnny Cash compilation featuring previously-unreleased demos and outtakes from his early career is set to be released next month.
‘Bootlegs 2: From Memphis to Hollywood’ is a two-CD set and will feature 11 demos and seven outtakes from the late singer’s time at Sun records, reports Vintagevinylnews.com. Also included will be non-album singles, b-sides and outtakes from his time at Columbia Records from 1958 to 1969.
The full tracklisting has not been released yet, but the compilation has a US release date of February 22.

Categories
Jodie Foster

Woo hoo!!!

Jodie Foster Joins Matt Damon And Sharlto Copley In Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium
When Neill Blomkamp made District 9, his star was Sharlto Copley, a man who had never done any acting outside of Alive in Joburg, the short film that inspired the sci-fi feature. For Blomkamp’s follow-up, Elysium, however, he’s going a different route. In addition to Copley, Matt Damon has been attached to the project, and now Blomkamp has signed Jodie Foster.
Deadline reports that Foster has cast in the film, despite the fact that the project hasn’t even been sold to studios yet. Because no details about the movie’s plot have been released, it is unknown what kind of character that the actress will be playing, though it is known that Elysium will qualify as science-fiction. Foster’s next film, The Beaver, which she both starred in and directed, will be released in April of this year.
As a fan of Jodie Foster’s work, it’s really great to see her come back. Thanks to all of the Mel Gibson issues, we haven’t seen her in a film since 2008’s Nim’s Island, which is just far too long. She’s also set up to co-star alongside John C. Reilly, Christoph Waltz, and Kate Winslet in Roman Polanski’s God of Carnage, so it looks like this could be a very authentic comeback and we here at anythingbut.com welcome it.

Categories
People

14001 – May she rest in peace!!

‘Forbidden Planet’ star Anne Francis dies at 80
LOS ANGELES ñ Actress Anne Francis, who was the love interest in the 1950s science-fiction classic “Forbidden Planet” and later was a sexy private eye in “Honey West” on TV, has died at age 80.
Francis died Sunday at a Santa Barbara nursing home, said Bill Guntle, a funeral director at McDermott-Crockett & Associates Mortuary in Santa Barbara.
Francis, who had surgery and chemotherapy after being diagnosed with lung cancer in 2007, died of complications of pancreatic cancer, her daughter, Jane Uemura, told the Los Angeles Times.
Francis, a stunningly beautiful blonde with a prominent beauty mark, appeared opposite such stars as Spencer Tracy, Paul Newman, Robert Taylor and Glenn Ford in some of the most popular films of the 1950s. But “Forbidden Planet” and “Honey West” made her reputation.
“Forbidden Planet” was hailed in Leonard Maltin’s “2006 Movie Guide” as “one of the most ambitious and intelligent films of its genre.”
A science-fiction retelling of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” the 1956 film had Leslie Nielsen and other space travelers visiting a planet where expatriate scientist Walter Pidgeon, his daughter (Francis) and their helper, Robby the Robot, built a settlement.
Before filming began, the actors held a meeting and agreed “to be as serious about this film as we could be,” Francis said in a 1999 interview.
“We could have hammed it up, but we wanted to be as sincere as we could,” she said.
In “Honey West,” which aired from 1965 to 1966, Francis’ private detective character ó who kept a pet ocelot, a wildcat ó was a female James Bond: sexy, stylish and as good with martial arts as she was with a gun.
She was nominated for an Emmy for the role, which lasted 30 episodes.
“A lot of people speak to me about Honey West,” Francis recalled. “The character made young women think there was more they could reach for. It encouraged a lot of people.”
After a childhood career in New York radio and television and on the Broadway stage, Francis arrived in Hollywood when she landed a movie contract at MGM. She later went to 20th Century-Fox, then returned to MGM, and the two big studios afforded her the chance to act opposite the biggest male stars of the day.
In “Blackboard Jungle,” the landmark 1955 film about an idealistic teacher (Ford) in a violent city school, Francis played his pregnant wife who is targeted for harassment by one of his students.
Among her other films: “Bad Day at Black Rock” with Tracy and Robert Ryan, “Rogue Cop” with Taylor, “The Rack” with Newman, “A Lion Is in the Streets” with James Cagney, and “Hook, Line and Sinker” opposite Jerry Lewis.
When her movie career declined, Francis became active in television, appearing in dozens of series, including “Mission Impossible,” “The Virginian,” “My Three Sons,” “Ironside,” “Gunsmoke,” “The Twilight Zone,” “Charlie’s Angels,” “The Golden Girls,” “Home Improvement” and “Nash Bridges.”
Her name was Ann Marvak when she was born Sept. 16, 1930, in Ossining, N.Y.
By age 5 she was working as a model, and by 11 she was appearing on daytime radio serials, winning the nickname the Little Queen of Soap Operas. She also had some small roles on Broadway.
After her first MGM contract, during which she attended studio school with Elizabeth Taylor, Jane Powell and Natalie Wood, she returned to New York. There, she took part in television’s Golden Age, acting in such acclaimed dramatic series as “Studio One” and “U.S. Steel Hour” before returning to Hollywood.
Francis’ early marriage to actor Bam Price ended in divorce.
In addition to Jane, Francis and her second husband, Robert Abeloff, had another daughter, Maggie, before divorcing. She also is survived by a grandson.

Categories
People

14000 – May he rest in peace!!

Oscar-nominated star Pete Postlethwaite dies at 64
LONDON ñ Oscar-nominated British actor Pete Postlethwaite, described by director Steven Spielberg as “the best actor in the world,” has died at age 64 after a long battle with cancer.
Longtime friend and journalist Andrew Richardson said Monday that Postlethwaite died in a hospital Sunday.
A gritty and powerful actor, Postlethwaite was nominated for an Oscar for his role in the 1993 film “In The Name Of The Father.”
He had recently been seen in the critically acclaimed film “The Town” and had worked with Spielberg on “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” and “Amistad.”
Postlethwaite initially planned to become a priest but was drawn to acting.
He received an OBE in 2004 along with many other honors for his long career in movies, theater, and television.
Postlethwaite lived in the hills of rural Shropshire, in western England. He was a political activist known for his opposition to the recent war in Iraq and his call for policies to fight global warming.
He had recently returned to the stage to star as King Lear.
The actor had been treated at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital. Shortly before his death he publicly thanked the hospital staff in the Shropshire Star newspaper for their “wonderful” treatment and care during his illness.
He is survived by his wife, Jacqui, his son Will and daughter, Lily.