After more than 6 decades the Oscar is returning to 10 nominees for best motion picture. Nominees are Avatar, The Hurt Locker, The Blind Side, Up, Up In The Air, District 9, An Education, Inglourious Basterds, Precious and A Serious Man.
Fair or just marketing?

Me-time, time alone…a look at movies about the desire to be free from other people, only being responsible for one-self, and the need to have human connections in
life. Featuring Jason Reitman’s Up In The Air, Sean Penn’s Into The Wild and Mike Binder’s Reign Over Me.

Out of the Showloon Lab: Tomas is taking a look at Orson Scott Card’s book ENDER’S GAME since it is in the works to be turned into a feature length movie and simply because it is a terrific read. Watch Tomas plaster a book pitch, Showloon style!

Welcome to 2010!

Tomas is going  smoothly into 2010 with relaxing and great scores from MO BETTER BLUES (Brandford Marsalis), LEGENDS OF THE FALL (James Horner) and NEW MOON (Alexandre Desplat) in this 4th installment of Movies For The Ear.

Mo Better Blues Youtube link

Legends Of The Fall YouTube link

New Moon “The Meadow” YouTube link and Music Sheet

Take out the old and bring in the new: A look at potential contenders for the box office crown in 2010. Featuring trailers of Alice In Wonderland, Iron Man 2, Robin Hood, Shrek 4, Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time, Sex and City 2, Toy Story 3, Inception, Clash Of The Titans and others.

Hope you could use the The Brainstormer from Ep44 to bridge the time to Christmas. Here is a line-up of film guilty pleasures for the holidays. Featuring The Shop Around The Corner, The Bishop’s Wife, It’s A Wonderful Life, Miracle On 34th Street, Scrooged, A Christmas Story, Joyeux Noel, …

To you and your loved ones: Merry holidays!!

Andrew Bosley’s The Brainstormer, is in turns a lot of fun, a source of inspiration, and a great tool for all script writers/screenplay writers or storytellers of any sort.  

We took it for a spin and came up with a couple of stories (referencing films as diverse as Nanook of the North, Citizen Kane, the Da Vinci Code, and There Will be Blood.)  

If you come up with anything great, strange, or even just amusing, do put in the comments below! Or just start writing.

Links Mentioned
 
Iconoclasts: Star Wars
Iconoclasts: Matrix

Andrew Bosley’s ‘The Brainstormer’
Andrew Bosley’s Blog

Second segment of the Armchair Traveller and World Cinema. A look at Iran and movies from Iran. Including Gabbeh, Blackboards, Abbas Kiarostami, Where is the Friend’s Home, Through the Olive Trees, The Wind Will Carry Us, The Taste of Cherry, The Circle and Persepolis. You can check out the first Armchair Traveller: Africa – Episode 37 here. 

Some things in life need a bit of investment of time and patience, and some of the films above are like this. So slow down with these ones. They’re more like a chat over a cup of coffee between two good friends, and have a sense of humour as subtle as a whiff of a cuban cigar from a block away. But after that, as Tomas said in the first episode ever, ‘The ROI is gonna be SUPER HIGH.’

As part of The Iconoclasts series: Matrix Memes: The Matrix and Influences. 

A look into the mind of the Warchowski brothers before they created the Matrix: Anime (Ghost in the Shell), Manga, Hong Kong Action,Kung Fu, Cyberpunk, Cybergoth, William Gibson (Neuromancer), Philip K. Dick  (Ubik), Myth, Religion from  the Greeks to Judeo-Christian Tradition, Music from Minimalist to Atonal, Philosophy  from Plato to Postmodernism…In short  - from John Woo to Philip Glass, from Megazone 23 to Don Davis, this short episode looking Matrix and its influences is action packed.

Second part of Iconoclasts series. The first part Iconoclasts: Films that Influenced Star Wars – Episode 39 is here.

List of Film/Movies/Books featured to follow here.

A look at the top 5 rising stars in Hollywood and some of their new projects in 2010. Featuring the Transformers team Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox and their upcoming movies Wall Street 2 and Jonah Hex. Also in the line-up the Twilight duo Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, and Zooey Deschanel from 500 Days of Summer.