'The Grey' leads the pack at the US box office

Joe Carnahan's man-v-wolf thriller tops US charts as Underworld: Awakening and One for the Money snap at its heels.

An independent movie was always going to top the charts at the weekend given that there were no new offerings from the studios. And so it fell to The Grey, a man-v-world survival thriller with sharp fangs, to assume the mantle. The $20m number one launch in the US led another decent weekend that was ahead of the same session last year and proved once again that when it has breathing room, independent fare can get bums on seats as effectively as studio product.

Joe Carnahan directed The Grey, which follows plane crash survivors in Alaska whose arrival alerts a pack of marauding wolves. It features a typically gritty and physical performance by Liam Neeson, who is enjoying a purple patch in his career and is arguably the indie world's second go-to action star behind the ubiquitous Jason Statham. It's great to see Narc director Carnahan back on form after a couple of shockers like The A-Team and Smokin' Aces.

In One for the Money we are asked to believe in Katherine Heigl as a bounty hunter. This is a stretch even by Hollywood's standards, but what was more incredible is that the movie defied expectations: third place on $11.8m for an independent action comedy is acceptable for something people thought would flop. Lionsgate can be happy with that as they look forward to what should be a lively career on TV and on-demand.

The third indie to breach the top 10 was Man on a Ledge starring the stubbornly unexciting Sam Worthington. It was released through Summit Entertainment, which is now owned by Lionsgate following the merger that went down two weeks ago. It opened in fifth place on $8.3m. Again, nothing to shout about from the rooftops, but no disgrace either.

There didn't seem to be much of an Oscar "bump" over the weekend – the effect whereby a movie gets a nomination and zips up the charts.Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close earned a few nominations last Tuesday and ranks sixth on $21.1m after six weekends through Warner Bros, which is promising when you bear in mind it only played in six theatres in the first four weekends.

Fox Searchlight's The Descendants has been one of the darlings of the awards season ever since its world premiere last autumn at the Toronto International Film Festival. It's been in action for 11 weeks, albeit in a smaller number of theatres. Searchlight bumped it up by 1,441 to 2,001 venues this weekend and it paid off -- $6.6m is a solid weekend gross for this kind of movie and it should stick around and build on that $58.8m running total heading through the Baftas and towards the Academy Awards. It's also going great guns outside North America, where it has grossed around $26m. That coveted $100m worldwide box office is only a week or so away.

North American top 10, 27-29 January 2012

1 The Grey, $20m

2 Underworld: Awakening, $12.5m. Total: $45.1m

3 One for the Money, $11.8m

4 Red Tails, $10.4m. Total: $33.8m

5 Man on a Ledge, $8.3m

6 Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, $7.1m. Total: $21.1m

7 The Descendants, $6.6m. Total: $58.8m

8 Contraband, $6.5m. Total: $56.4m

9 Beauty and the Beast (3D), $5.3m. Total: $41.1m

10 Haywire, $4m. Total: $15.3m

'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' cancelled in India

Oscar-nominated crime thriller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo will not be shown in India after director David Fincher refused to cut scenes depicting rape and sexual intercourse.

India's Central Board of Film Certification had insisted five scenes be excised, including two in which actors Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara make love and another in which Mara's character Lisbeth Salander is raped by her legal guardian, the Wrap reports. Fincher refused to make changes to his film, and Sony Pictures abandoned plans for a 10 February release.

"Sony Pictures will not be releasing The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in India," read a statement from the company's Mumbai office. "The censor board has judged the film unsuitable for public viewing in its unaltered form and, while we are committed to maintaining and protecting the vision of the director, we will, as always, respect the guidelines set by the board."

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the second adaptation of the first book in Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy, has not been an enormous box-office hit but picked up five Oscar nominations last week and is well on its way to a $200m global haul against a budget of $90m. Despite predictions to the contrary, production on the sequel, The Girl Who Played with Fire, is reportedly under way, with Mara and Craig set to return.

guardian.co.uk, 30/1/12

Netflix Arrives In The UK

US film rental giant visits these shores

It's not precisely the sort of news we generally cover, but it's likely to have more impact on the way you watch films than who gets cast in Upcoming Film by Random Director, so we thought we'd share the news that Netflix is, as of today, launching in the UK. Yes, the US film distribution giant is now getting in on the UK act too.

The service here will be based on streaming video through internet-connected devices like Smart TVs, game consoles, Blu-ray players, tablets and mobile phones. The service already boasts 20m streaming users in 47 countries and "tens of thousands of hours" of entertainment, which should keep you busy.

"We are starting 2012 in the best possible way: by giving consumers in the UK and Ireland an amazing entertainment experience," said Reed Hastings, co-founder and chief executive officer of Netflix. "Now, you can enjoy as many great films and TV programmes as you want, when you want, where you want, for one low monthly price with no contracts or commitments.”

The service will obviously be in direct competition with the already-established likes of LoveFilm and iTunes, and the studios' newly-endorsed UltraViolet, which aims to offer a digital locker for your downloaded content. Which will emerge triumphant? Is there room for all of them in this on-demand age? And will our broadband connections be up to the challenge? Only time will tell.

From: empireonline.com

Photo-Storyboard Guidance (5 of 25 shots)

Here is an extract from a photo-storyboard - it should be regarded as a guide to the type of detail you need to produce for your 'Creative Project'. You will need to complete up to 25 frames with similar or more detailed camera/sound/editing techniques depending upon the action and events you wish to portray.

Mark Kermode: The Tracks of Your Tears

Chris Smith's UK Film Report Published

ITV and Sky told to step up

A week on from David Cameron's controversial comments apparently advocating the mainstreamification of the British film industry, Lord Smith's review has now been published, proving less inflammatory than we might have feared. The report champions "as wide a range of films as possible," Smith promised, "from the overtly commercial to the overtly arty and much in between."

The Prime Minister "understands, just as we do, that there is a whole range of movies and types of movie that we are supporting. He is very clear on that," he added. "We are not trying to dictate an artistic vision. We are trying to set in place a range of financial and legislative arrangements which will enable a broad range of movies to be made. We are not making a distinction in the review between something called mainstream and something called... something else."

The report's 56 recommendations include increased film education in schools; a scheme to get projection equipment into communities that don't have a local cinema; stronger investment in training and skills development, with a beady eye on new technologies; increased measures to combat piracy; and the inauguration of an annual celebration, such as a "British Film Week" to "provide audiences across the UK with access to the full spectrum of British film, giving them a greater insight into its breadth, depth and originality."

Outside that British Film Week however, the report doesn't have much to say about the distribution systems which can make independent British films difficult to catch in UK cinemas. So if you're outside London and you're not lucky enough to have a Watershed or a Cornerhouse or your own regional equivalent, you may still struggle to see a fraction of what's produced.

Full article @ empireonline

Baftas 2012 shortlist: 'It reflects the quality of films out this year'

The Guardian's film team, Catherine Shoard, Xan Brooks, Andrew Pulver and Henry Barnes, round up the nominations for the 65th British Academy film awards, which will see The Artist, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and My Week with Marilyn in the running for multiple gongs on 12 February.

Golden Globes 2012: a film-by-film guide

Starting Sunday 15 Jan with the Golden Globes and ending at the 84th Oscars on 26 Feb, Hollywood is about to go red carpet crazy. Read Charlie Lyne's top tips in The Guardian film guide here.

Bryony Dixon: Expert on the rewards of silent film

The film, The Artist, was part of the official selection at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year and it is now being positioned as an Oscar contender.

If it does get a nomination for best picture, it will be the first time since 1928 that a silent film has been in the running for a best picture Academy Award.

Bryony Dixon, a silent film expert from the BFI, told BBC News that because silent films require more concentration, the rewards of watching them are richer than action blockbusters.

Watch the interview here

Will Cameron's speech on funding only be fit for the box-office kings?

David Cameron is set to call for UK lottery funding to go to films with big box-office potential. But what will that mean for small-scale, independent cinema?

The plans to overhaul public funding of British cinema, which David Cameron will announce later today during a visit to Pinewood studios, has so far drawn divided reactions.

According to early reports, Cameron will call for lottery funding to be aimed at big-budget, commercially successful films, and away from small-scale, independent cinema. Citing the box-office and awards success of The King's Speech and Slumdog Millionaire, he said: "Our role should be to support the sector in becoming even more dynamic and entrepreneurial, helping UK producers to make commercially successful pictures that rival … the best international productions."

Iain Smith, the chair of the British Film Commission, an organisation also cited favourably by Cameron for its work in attracting overseas productions to shoot in the UK, said in response: "It is reassuring to hear the government understands the role big-budget, international movies shooting in the UK plays in building a world-class skilled workforce, while boosting the UK economy."

A report on the Today show suggested that the likes of Mike Leigh – a critically successful but far from commercial film-maker – are "finished", but given that Leigh is currently marked with establishment favour by an Olympics commission, that may be a hasty conclusion.

Leigh's contemporary Ken Loach – another critic's favourite but no box-office heavyweight – has suggested that the government's plans include the return of profits to the producers, instead of the funding bodies as is currently the case. If this proves true, it will mark a sharp change from the modus operandi of the UK Film Council, which provided funding from lottery sources as a "loan", and expected repayment from a film's income.

With the much-criticised abolition of the UKFC being their first major act in the film-making sector, the coalition have been under pressure to develop a more coherent, constructive policy toward the sector. The costs associated with transferring the UKFC's functions to the BFI appear to have wiped out any of the financial savings the UKFC's abolition was supposed to achieve. Now it seems that the coalition will be considerably more relaxed about returns to the public purse of money handed out to UK film producers.

What this means for the future of UK film production has yet to be established. A runaway hashtag on Twitter, #fundablefilms, is drawing spoof suggestions for future film titles. It is notoriously difficult to predict commercial success in cinema, and during the lottery era the UK funding agencies have proved vulnerable to the financial machinations of wily film producers – the main reason why the UKFC's safeguards were introduced. The spectacle of profits being creamed off by Hollywood studios, after start-up funding from the UK lottery, is a very real possibility.

Furthermore, commercial film-making carries enormous financial risk; will the British public be happy to see millions go down the drain on inevitable failures? Whenever public funding bodies try to act like studios, they end up getting burned, as the furore around Sex Lives of the Potato Men demonstrated.

Moreover, what would happen to small-scale, high-impact films such as Shame, Wuthering Heights, The Deep Blue Sea and We Need to Talk About Kevin; all low-budget, "difficult" films that required a "cultural" imperative to get off the ground? Let alone the likes of Lindsay Anderson's If…, which Cameron professed to admire only days ago.

The Guardian

Further Comment

Shane Meadows on 'Dead Man's Shoes'

Stuart Maconie interviews Shane Meadows about his film Dead Man's Shoes on the BBC4 show "The DVD Collection"

Ken Loach Interview

Director Ken Loach and producer Rebecca O'Brien from Sixteen Films discuss their admiration for European cinema and the film industry. The European Union's MEDIA Programme has supported many Sixteen Films titles including The Wind that Shakes the Barley and Looking for Eric.

Mark Kermode's Best of 2011

'The Artist' and the rise of retrovision

Suddenly, brand-new vintage pictures are everywhere. But is cinema's great leap backwards more suited to cult concerns such as 'Grindhouse' and 'Darkplace'?

Future historians sifting through the cinematic detritus of the last 100 years might find themselves wondering whether some dozy assistant had mislabelled the reels for the early 21st century. After an orderly progression from silent cinema, through the talkies, Technicolor, right up to the digital era, it suddenly starts to get messy. What's this 1950s melodrama doing in the 2002 pile? Why were a bunch of 1970s horror movies apparently made in the noughties? And which idiot thought that this silent movie belonged to 2011?

Movies set in the past are nothing new, but in recent years we've seen a boom in films made in the style of their particular era. It's a new level of vintage: not just getting the period details right onscreen, but getting the whole mode of presentation correct, too … ideally so you can't tell the difference. Let's call it retrovision. Retrovision is more than just "doing" retro; it's being retro, it's seeing retro. You could think of it as a special effect like 3D, only cheaper and more convincing. Retrovision isn't a new invention; how could it be? But at a time when history is continually repeating itself with every new costume drama, mythological epic or reminiscence of British royalty, retrovision could represent a great cinematic leap, er, backwards.

Somehow, retrovision fits perfectly with "cult" viewing material. Perhaps it's down to film-makers trying to reconnect with something "real", in these cases the golden age of video nasties and their own adolescent horror freakery. But it could also be down to the fact that viewers too are pop culture-literate enough to know what's going on, in the same way that pop fans can easily detect, say, the influence of mid-80s Simple Minds in the Horrors' last album, or the Lynchian retro twang of Chris Isaak in Lana Del Rey.

But the film that's taking retrovision overground and upmarket right now is The Artist, the new French-made "silent movie". For those readers stubbornly living in the 21st century, The Artist is supreme 1920s retrovision: a black-and-white Hollywood melodrama, made in the old-fashioned 1.33:1 screen ratio, with intertitles, a continuous orchestral score, and (almost) no dialogue. The film wasn't made with hand-cranked cameras (in fact they shot it in colour), but the lenses, the lighting, the camera moves – all the technical details – were carefully calibrated to get the look just right. "I watched and re-watched many silent films to try to assimilate the rules of the form," says director Michel Hazanavicius. "What people usually do when they make a period movie is recreate what they are shooting, but they aren't recreating the way they're shooting."

Edited from: The Guardian: 7/1/12

See also: BBC News Feature

Paranormal Activity 4 is haunted by the sequel problem

With the next Paranormal Activity due in October, how can the series shake off the curse of the lame horror franchise?

It won't come as a surprise to you to hear that Paranormal Activity 4 will be released in October. Why should it? Every Halloween, like clockwork, a new Paranormal Activity movie comes along; made for pennies, but raking in millions. Sure, the film needs to be written, performed, edited and released at whipcracker pace – so far, neither a writer or director has even been hired – but it doesn't matter. Paranormal Activity 3 has made over $200m so far, so it'd be silly not to keep churning them out until the wheels fall off.

The problem is, the wheels might fall off at any minute. The Paranormal Activity formula is now so slick that the films pretty much write themselves. There is a family. They set up cameras all around their house. Nothing happens for 45 minutes. Something goes bang. Nothing happens for another 45 minutes. Someone falls over. The end. That's essentially been the gist of all three existing Paranormal Activity films, with just the lightest of tweakings (there was a baby in the second one, the third one was set in the 1980s and filmed on VHS cameras). If the fourth film continues in this vein, there's a real chance that audiences might just turn up for the last ten minutes to see who falls over, and then go home again.

So Paranormal Activity 4 needs to veer off into a new direction if it wants to keep people interested. But how? Let's start off by reassuring you that I'm not suggesting any form of Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 treatment here. Paranormal Activity has its own aesthetic, and it'd be stupid to lose it, especially to a witlessly conventional sequel.

However, the second and third film hinted at potential plots for the fourth. One would be to follow the newly demonic Katie and her abducted nephew Hunter after the events of the first film. However, that idea is let down by the fact that demons aren't especially well-known for going around recording their every move on a Flip camera.

The other would be to explore the origins of the coven glimpsed at in the dying moments of the third film. Again, there's a problem in that the third film was set 23 years ago, and by that time the coven was made up of old women. Unless one of their number happened to be a particularly obsessive kinetoscope enthusiast, their movements would be impossible to record.

But there's hope for the Paranormal Activity series. After all, the films have followed a traditional pattern for a horror franchise – a story, then a near-identical retelling of the story, then a prequel – which means that it merely has to follow the path laid out by its forebears to succeed.

That's why there's a good chance we'll see Paranormal Activity: The Revenge or Paranormal Activity: A New Beginning come October. Or maybe, if we're lucky, Paranormal Activity Takes Manhattan. Don't hold your breath for Paranormal Activity In Space, though – that one's at least three sequels away.

What would you like to see in Paranormal Activity 4? Something new? More interminable static shots of the same hallway? A Paranormal Activity v Saw mash-up?

The Guardian

FM2 Section A: Producers & Audiences

(Hollywood & British Cinema)

This unit revolves around issues upon the film industry and the social practice of cinema going and film consumption. You may refer to studies carried out for FM1 and FM2 (Hollywood productions or British Cinema) whilst also engaging in the issues covered within specifically for Section A.

Your answers will show an understanding and appreciation of the basic knowledge frameworks of :

• Film finance, production, distribution and exhibition in American and British contexts.

• Film consumption in the UK and particularly in the local/regional area.

Critical skills will include:

• Interpretation of information relating to aspects of the cinema business.

• Reflection on personal behaviour as consumer, fan and critic.

This unit centres on the interaction of the cinema industry (as producer/supplier of films) and audience (as purchaser/consumer of films). There will therefore be an emphasis on the profit motive of the industry and the pleasure motive of the audience.

Assessment

The examiners will be looking for your ability to engage with the stimulus material and what is said about it. They will be flexible in their approach and prepared to tolerate diverse approaches to your answer. They will be looking for an engagement with issues arising out of the stimulus material and the way you relate your answer to the basic knowledge frameworks you have learnt. In general you will be marked on what you can do with the material.