This is England 90 Update from star Vicky McClure

What is the status with Shane Meadow's long awaited TV sequel and final entry in the This is England saga? This is England 90 is still going ahead and should start swinging into action soon now that Shane Meadows has completed and released his documentary on the reunion of The Stone Roses, Made of Stone.

This is England 88 offered the best bit of British TV for years in 2011 with Woody, Lol, Shaun, Milky and the rest of the gang returning for the first time since the harrowing This Is England 86 aired in 2010. Following on from the events of Shane Meadow's 2006 film This is England, fans of the film have been treated to a heartbreaking and depressing series about the trials and tribulations of the Midlands youths as they have grown up in Thatcher's Britain.

Dealing with racism and the rise of the National Front, sexual abuse and incest, depression, motherhood and growing up facing the prospects of unemployment and misery, it has never been an easy watch from the film to the most recent This is England 88. But the strength of the characters and the performances has been nothing short of astounding and fans would happily welcome back the gang to our TV screens.

The question is, when will we see This is England 90 and what will it tackle?

BAFTA winning Vicky McClure has said about her character “Lol is definitely the role of a lifetime”. She will no doubt jump at the chance of returning to the series, saying “I know how lucky I am to work with Shane, play Lol, have that sort of part. As an actress, if I was to watch that show and that character, I’d be desperate for that kind of work.”Her role has grown and grown since the film with Lol taking centre stage in This is England 88 and McClure giving the performance of her career. She recognises the importance of the character to her whole career adding, “Lol is what created me, I suppose. I worked on that character in very different ways to how I’ve worked on other characters. It is Method on This is England, it is. But it can’t be Method on every job because it just doesn’t work for everything.”

This is England 90 is set to emerge next year with shooting no doubt beginning sometime in the near future. Set (obviously) in 1990, the rave scene and prominence of recreational drugs are likely to be significant with perhaps the now grown up Shaun falling prey to addiction and despair. Whatever happens, Meadows is unlikely to make it easy for fans so brace yourself for what This is England has in store. I will be keeping an eye out for more news of the progress of this one so stay tuned!

Get ready for Pacific Rim!

Everything you need to know about Guillermo del Toro's latest, Pacific Rim:

The auteur has not directed a film since comic book sequel Hellboy II in 2008.

His version of The Hobbit failed to emerge due to scheduling conflicts and then his long-awaited passion project At the Mountains of Madness was refused a green light by a nervous studio.

He has completed his trilogy of vampire horror novels The Strain with Chuck Hogan which will now be turned into a series of TV movies.

Synopsis

When a portal beneath the sea opens unleashing mega-monsters (known as Kaiju) from other dimensions, the human race must fight back by building 250 foot tall mecha-titans, known as Jaegers. Two human pilots control these giant robots as they get strapped into circuitry suits, each controlling a hemisphere (left or right) of the mechanical beasts.

Set in the not too distant future, the Kaiju that have emerged from the portal have devastated earth leading to masses of destruction and millions dead and the fight back has dwindled human resources leading to a sense of desperation. Charlie Hunnam’s former pilot is forced to team up with an untested trainee to ‘cancel the apocalypse’ in the words of Idris Elba’s commanding officer.

Inception

Travis Beacham, writer of The Clash of the Titans remake wrote a 25 page script treatment back in 2010 which was immediately purchased by Legendary Pictures. Del Toro then came on board developing the screenplay with Beacham for two years before principal photography began on the 103 day Toronto shoot in November 2011.

Inspired by the Fransisco Goya painting The Colossus that also inspired video game Shadow of the Colossus, the initial idea of Pacific Rim was to go back to the earliest tales of monsters that mankind would tell around campfires.  

Casting

Taking a risk, del Toro managed to secure the cast he wanted without any of the huge star names that usually hold up a tent pole movie of this size. Legendary Pictures backed his decision, arguing it is the creation of the world and the concept that will be the main attraction to audiences.

Idris Elba is the commanding officer Sensi who will go head to head with the Kaiju. It was a role originally developed for Tom Cruise who had reportedly shown an interest. Charlie Hunnam from TV’s Sons of Anarchy takes the washed up Jaeger pilot role as hero Raleigh.

Monsters

Steering away from the archetypal monsters of mythology, anime and previous Kaiju movies, the completely original designs have been at the forefront of del Toro’s mind since the beginning. 

3D?

Del Toro resisted the pressure to shoot in 3D because he felt that the 3D effects would miniaturize the robots and monsters and audiences would not get the full sense of the scale and awe he intended.

Then came the shocking news that del Toro had agreed to a dreaded 3D post-conversion. Del Toro supervised the process, taking 40 weeks to do the conversion where it normally only takes a few weeks to complete on previous movies.

The latest trailer

Could this trailer be any bigger?

 The teaser

The poster

Excited yet?

Fast and Furious 7 news and rumours

I'm writing fast and furiously for Yahoo Movies on the big, loud, little bit dumb franchise at the moment. My latest articles cover what is actually known about Fast and Furious 7 so far, including Rihanna joining the cast and also details about the cars featured in Fast and Furious 6, out tomorrow!

I hope it's not obvious from the second article that I know very little about cars and actually have very little interest in them. Hopefully this article will appeal to the hard core fan base of Fast and Furious fans who really love the smell of petrol, burning rubber and the sound of squealing tyres and crunching metal.

I have to say I'm really looking forward to Fast and Furious 6 despite not really being a fan of any of the films since the first one. For a film that ripped off Point Break from the start, it has morphed into something more spectacular and silly than anyone could have ever imagined. Getting the cast of the franchise back together for Fast Five was a master stroke and turning it into a globe trotting crime film that goes way beyond its street racing roots was also a smooth move.

Fast and Furious 7 will have to pull something pretty spectacular out of the bag to beat this latest instalment by the sounds of things and with the incredibly short schedule for shooting and all the rest before the July 2014 release, sounds like new director James Wan will have his work cut out.

Here is a review of Fast and Furious 6 from Chris Haydon at Filmoria that got me pretty excited for the movie.

Trio of Trailers: The World's End, Captain Phillips, The Great Gatsby

Three trailers have caught my attention today and I thought I would share them just in case you haven't seen any of them. They are The World's End, Captain Phillips and The Great Gatsby.

The World's End

The hugely anticipated trailer to the Cornetto trilogy closer is finally here. The World's End has possibly one of my favourite casts ever and almost certainly the best British cast in a very long time. Joining Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are Paddy Considine, Eddie Marsan and Martin Freeman making up the group of mates on an epic pub crawl that just might also be the end of the world. I also noticed a very brief moment of Mark Heap (who was excellent in Pegg, Wright and Frost's TV show Spaced and also appeared with Pegg in the brilliant sketch show Big Train) who is a legend and will no doubt be hilarious. This is the first time I've seen all the shiny eyed people and so the trailer has got me more excited than ever for this.



Captain Phillips

Ever since I heard Paul Greengrass was making another based on real life drama, I was excited. I thought his United 93 was one of the most gripping, terrifying, realistic, horrifying and emotional films I have ever seen. His record with real life events is impeccable with his movies being more like documentary reconstructions than fiction films. Check out Bloody Sunday if you haven't. The story of a real life hijacking of a ship by pirates, Tom Hanks stars as the titular Captain Phillips. I hadn't heard of this story until I read about the film but it sounds like a perfect narrative for a blockbuster and I couldn't think of anyone better than Greengrass to bring it to the screen. Check out the trailer:



The Great Gatsby

Finally I bring you the trailer for Baz Luhrmann's adaptation of The Great Gatsby. Not because this is a new trailer but because I believe it is opening the Cannes Film Festival tonight and also I'm seeing it in Leicester Square tonight. I don't really know what to think about this. I love Leo and I loved Romeo and Juliet but other than that, I'm not a big Luhrmann fan. I know nothing about the book or the older adaptations so am going into this with only the little knowledge I have from the trailer. It certainly looks and sounds pretty!

David Goyer rumoured to write and direct Justice League movie

Forget Zack Snyder, it might be the Man of Steel writer David Goyer who will take on the super hero super team.

AMC Movie Talk host John Campea tweeted that ‘a little bird’ told him that ‘Warner Bros is moving on Justice League with Goyer possibly directing. All those waiting to see the DC super team that would feature both Batman and the Man of Steel in the same film will have to pause for breath before accepting this as gospel.

A little bird is never a rock solid source but Campea then quickly followed that tweet with another. "Re Justice League two industry guys emailed in last 5 mins. One heard same from same source, one says Goyer is on but writing only” he tweeted.

Previous reports

Previous reports had Will Beall attached to write the screenplay and even George Miller to direct way back in 2007 before he moved on to his Mad Max reboot. Warner Bros are likely holding back until after Man of Steel opens and will guage the viability of a superhero ensemble on the back of the success of that film. Superman has the weight of DC’s future on his shoulders it would appear.

Following Man of Steel

The producer of Man of Steel has teased in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that the film will be ‘setting the tone for what the movies are going to be like going forward’. He also promised that ‘what Zack [Snyder] and Chris [Nolan] have done with it is allow you to really introduce other characters into the same world’.

This definitely sounds like the promise of a potential team up and all Warner Bros will have to do now is find a fitting replacement for Christian Bale to don the Bat suit, somehow make disappointed fans forget the Green Lantern movie and then find suitable candidates to take on the roles of Wonder Woman and The Flash among others.

David Goyer

David Goyer’s only directing dip in the world of comics came with Blade: Trinity but his credits as a writer include the Dark Knight trilogy and Man of Steel. If he is to take on both duties, it will be a bold move for Warner Bros and Goyer will likely have to relinquish much of his control over television series Da Vinci’s Demons.

Nevertheless if Goyer does take on even just scripting duties on the Justice League movie, the future of DC’s characters will be in very safe hands.

Or will they just go with Zack Snyder if Man of Steel is a big enough success? Have you got any preference on who should direct a Justice League movie? 

Legal Obligations and the BBFC and Ofcom

The film and TV industries are regulated by Ofcom and the BBFC. In my media classes we already covered contractual issues, employment legislation, ethical obligations and legal obligations. 

Ofcom are a body who are responsible for regulating the TV and radio industries. They operate under the Communications Act 2003 and their main legal duties are to ensure that TV provides high quality and diverse programming from a range of different organisations. People should be protected from watching harmful and offensive material and people in programmes should have their privacy respected and be treated fairly. Ofcom deal with complaints from the public, whether it be that they are unhappy with the way they have been treated by programme makers or offended by the content of a particular programme. For example there was a recent case of a man in a Panorama episode who was promised anonymity but was recognised by his friends.

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) is a regulatory body that is responsible with the viewing and classification of films before they are released to the public. They used to be called the board of film censors and their role was more about cutting and banning inappropriate content from films. As times changed their role became more about guidance. Every film must be given a classification and passed by the BBFC by law. An example of a very disturbing film that had to be cut before its release is A Serbian Film due to its ‘scenes of sexual and sexualised violence and scenes juxtaposing images of sex and sexual violence with images of children’. The BBFC demanded over four minutes of cuts and as a result there has been no public commercial screening of the uncut version of the film in the UK.

TV and film companies have to abide by many laws and consider the views of the public in many of their day to day decisions. They have to act lawfully when it comes to treatment of their employees and arranging their contracts, as well as in the organisation of the business and ownership of subsidiaries. Media organisations such as TV channels and film companies will also be aware of their ethical obligations and will be more or less committed to promoting certain ethical practices depending on the importance they place on being progressive and responsible. At the end of the day, media companies wish to entertain their audiences but they must also act within the law and consider the implications of what they produce on the wider society.

Legal obligations in the TV and Film Industries

Legal obligations are set in place by the government and must be abided by in order for TV and film companies to stay on the right side of the law. There are a number of acts and regulatory bodies that are relevant to the TV and film industries. In my media classes we already covered contractual issues, employment legislation and ethical obligations. In this post I cover important acts that have affected the media industry and in another post, I will look at Ofcom and the BBFC that regulate the TV and film industries.

The Race Relations Act of 1976 and later amendments to the act were put in place to ensure that racial discrimination would not be tolerated and respect and tolerance should be promoted between racial groups. Most recently the Act was amended to ensure public bodies promote racial equality and in terms of broadcasting, it ensured that racial discrimination or hatred was not allowed to be practised. ‘Under the Race Relations Act 1976, organisations can offer training to specific groups that are under-represented in their workforce, but it remains illegal to offer a job to one person over someone equally qualified on the basis of their skin colour’.  The BBC was nevertheless attacked by some for recruiting many ethnic minorities to one of its trainee schemes. There is a desire to employ more people from diverse backgrounds at the BBC but they have to be very careful that they do not discriminate against anyone for the colour of their skin.

Another Act that affects the TV and film industries is the Broadcasting Act of 1990 and the later amendments. A big part of this was to ensure that no one media company gained too great a monopoly over the industry. For example the Act states that ‘National newspaper owners prevented from holding more than a 20% stake in TV companies, with similar restrictions on cross-ownership between commercial TV, satellite TV and national radio stations’. Channel 5 was set up and Channel 4 lost its link with ITV to spread ownership of the major TV channels and offer the public greater choice but a loophole also meant that Rupert Murdoch got around this as Sky was defined as a non-UK service. Many have criticized the monopoly that News International who own Sky and many newspapers have over the industry.

The Obscene Publications Act of 1959 and later amendments is an incredibly difficult and subjective law to enforce. The intention of the Act is to stop material that could deprave or corrupt people from being published or broadcast. Extreme images of torture, bestiality or necrophilia would most likely be classed as obscene and it would therefore be illegal to broadcast them. Channel 4 states that there are ‘stricter tests relating to harm and offence under the Communications Act 2003 and the Ofcom Broadcasting Code’ and so material like this would not be broadcast for fear of breaking specific laws, but also on grounds of taste.

Next, I'll look at Ofcom and the BBFC in more depth.

Blair Witch Book Just Got Really Real

For the past four and a half months, I've been hard at work on writing my first book to be published by Auteur in their Devil's Advocate series on classic horror films. My entry in this series will be on The Blair Witch Project and though I've been writing it for four and half months and already long ago signed a contract saying when I should be delivering the manuscript, it suddenly just got very real to me the other day.

For Christmas I asked for the Devil's Advocate book on Saw by Benjamin Poole so I could get a better sense of the writing style of this series of books and the kinds of things they cover. Not only was it an excellent book but it also filled me with new respect for the film and a renewed determination to do The Blair Witch Project justice with my own book. Also my old Film Studies teacher Ian Cooper from Amersham and Wycombe College and the guy who made me think being a teacher might be fun and even more so, made me fall in love with the subject has also written a book in this series on Witchfinder General.

Anyway after reading and loving the Saw one, I thought I'd buy James Rose's Devil's Advocate book on The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. James Rose is a writer who is constantly in Media Magazine, another publication I write for and his articles always interest me as I suspect we have similar taste in movies and interests. So I opened up my copy of the Texas Chain Saw book and what did I see as soon as I flipped over the first page? You'll have to excuse the crappy photo from my phone but yes that is my name under the heading Forthcoming. I got very excited. This makes it just that extra bit real.

Now I just have to finish writing the damn thing, then redraft it until its properly ready and then wait for it to be put together and published in a beautiful way. I can't wait to see what image gets used for the cover. Hopefully then it obviously sells millions and millions of copies, becomes a phenomenon like the film itself and makes me hugely rich so I can retire to a private island and just write about films for the rest of my life!

The Book of Mormon Review

From the creators of South Park and Team America comes their first theatre musical, The Book of Mormon. Matt Stone and Trey Parker are the incredibly talented pair behind some of the rudest and best TV and one of my favourite comedy films of the last twenty years. Can you believe South Park is nearly 20 years old?

Anyway, the pair have been making musicals since their first days in film production and the songs written for the likes of the South Park movie and Team America are absolute genius. The Book or Mormon continues this tradition with some very funny musical numbers but nothing quite as exceptional as the songs written for Team America.

The Book of Mormon is about a couple of Mormon missionaries who are sent to spread the word of their nutty religion to the poor and desperate people of Uganda. The Ugandans they meet are under threat from AIDS and a warlord who is keen to circumcise women of the village. There are the usual sick jokes from the creators of South Park and nothing is too sacred for them to make a crack about: rape of babies, execution... you name it.

The Book of Mormon pulls no punches when it comes to targets for jokes, particularly when it comes to the people of Africa and the way they are represented. Mormons actually get off relatively easily. Yes there are references to their racist and homophobic views but its all a bit tamer than I would have expected from Stone and Parker.

As a theatre musical, it is pretty spectacular. The singing, dancing and sets are superb but as a production from the geniuses behind Team America, it isn't as smart or clever as that film. It's bound to shock the shit out of some viewers, particularly the crowds of people who just go along expecting something mildly controversial. The Book of Mormon is filthier, more foul-mouthed and controversial than any musical I've ever heard of or seen. I guess Avenue Q which was apparently an influence would have prepared theatre-goers for something a little more extreme than the typical musical but The Book of Mormon will still offend many.

It's interesting to see that the Mormons are actually advertising in the souvenir programmes for the show so I wonder if they also think they were let off easily. It really does mock the ridiculous elements of the religion mercilessly but it also seems to suggest that making stuff up to make people feel better about themselves isn't the end of the world.

The Book of Mormon is certainly funny and has some great songs but overall, it wasn't as hysterical as I'd hoped. Mocking the Mormons is easy but Stone and Parker didn't quite go as ruthlessly for the jugular as I would have expected. Nevertheless as a big musical production, The Book of Mormon is a brilliant achievement.

Ruby Sparks Review

Zoe Kazan is one seriously talented lady. Not only does she star as the lovely Ruby Sparks, this is also her debut screenplay. It is a fantastic script that showcases her wonderful acting and hilarious comic performance alongside Paul Dano who makes a potentially hideous character mostly bearable.

Ruby Sparks is about a nebbish novelist struggling with writer's block, as well as failing at finding any love in his life. He has a dream about a mysterious beautiful girl and begins to write about the character of Ruby Sparks. Fantasy becomes reality and soon novelist Calvin finds that Ruby has become reality, a living, breathing entity living with him and in love. Things take a turn for the sinister when Calvin realises he can control Ruby by writing anything about her. If he wants her to speak French, he writes it. If he wants her to be miserable, he writes it.

Ruby Sparks is a genius script from an incredibly talented writer. Not only is it smart and funny but it also deals with the male desire to control women in a brilliant and increasingly disturbing way. Calvin is not a likeable character. Early in the film, his scenes with his therapist (Elliott Gould) are almost unbearable. Even Paul Dano fails to make his whiny, self-absorbed Calvin a pleasure to watch. It is only when he starts creating Ruby that he becomes interesting and slightly more relateable.

Ruby starts off as the perfect girl. When he begins writing her, she is like the girl you fall in love with. There are no faults. Ruby is completely loveable and you want to spend every moment with her. Calvin's reaction to the presence of his dream girl in his mundane reality makes for some hilarious scenes as he struggles to come to terms with the magic of what has happened. Calvin becomes more bearable as he falls in love and becomes happier.

Then reality invades the fantasy of the dream girl. Like with all relationships, Calvin starts to find faults. She is not the dream girl he hoped. She is lonely and bored and wants to have a life outside of her time with Calvin. When Calvin writes what he now wants Ruby to be, it is the most scary and sinister part of the film but also, thanks to Zoe Kazan's perfect performance, sadly hilarious. His desire to be in control and to keep Ruby perfect is utterly believable but everything he writes about her has its flaws.

Ruby Sparks has so much to say about love, relationships, men and women and it does it in a completely entertaining and often very funny way. It unravels slightly in the final scenes but Kazan's witty and postmodern script is still extremely fresh and funny right to the end. Ruby Sparks is a dream come true of a movie; incredibly smart and funny just like its star and writer.

Watch the trailer: