Tag: Christopher Nolan

  • ‘Oppenheimer’ leads SAG nominations as Gala moves to Netflix

    ‘Oppenheimer’ leads SAG nominations as Gala moves to Netflix

    Fresh from its wins at the Golden Globes, Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” on Wednesday topped the nominations for the influential Screen Actors Guild Awards, which are key to Oscars success.

    The SAG Awards, voted on by Hollywood actors, are likely to enjoy a profile boost of their own this year as they are broadcast globally on Netflix -an awards show first for the world’s biggest streamer.

    “Oppenheimer,” which tells the story of the inventor of the atomic bomb, earned nods for Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr., and Emily Blunt, as well as “outstanding performance by a cast” – the SAG Awards’ top prize.

    Nolan’s three-hour epic, which earned nearly $1 billion and received rave reviews from critics, is rapidly becoming the clear favorite for the Academy Awards in March.

    “Barbie” -the other half of last summer’s “Barbenheimer” box office phenomenon, and the year’s highest-grossing film -picked up nominations for Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, and the overall cast.

    The surreal comedy based on the wildly popular doll also picked up a nomination for its stunt performers.

    The other films with three acting nominations were the historical epic “Killers of the Flower Moon” -despite its leading man Leonardo DiCaprio missing out — and the scathing satire “American Fiction,” starring Jeffrey Wright.

    Both movies are nominated for best cast, with the musical remake “The Color Purple” rounding out that category.

    This year’s SAG Awards gala, held on February 24, will be streamed on Netflix, as the platform slowly moves into hosting live events.

    The Screen Actors Guild will bestow a lifetime achievement award on Barbra Streisand.

    In a statement, SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher praised the EGOT -Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony – winner as “a colossal icon with a relentless work ethic, evolving with each stage of her remarkable journey.”

    Speeches at next month’s gala are certain to feature multiple references to last year’s Hollywood strikes, which saw the industry shut down as SAG-AFTRA – along with the writers’ guild -went head-to-head with studios.

    A deal was finally reached to end the actors’ strike in November.

    While Netflix will host the gala, none of its films were nominated for the night’s biggest prize.

    But the streamer did land five movie nominations, including Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan for Leonard Bernstein biopic “Maestro,” and Jodie Foster and Annette Bening for “Nyad.”

    Elsewhere, Globes winners Paul Giamatti and Da’Vine Joy Randolph picked up nods for “The Holdovers,” as did Emma Stone and her co-star Willem Dafoe for “Poor Things.”

    All four films missed out on nominations for Outstanding Cast.

    The winner of that prize has gone on to win the best picture at the Oscars in three of the past four years (“Parasite,” “CODA” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once”).

    Actors represent the biggest branch of the membership of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which votes for the Oscars.

    The SAG Awards also honor television, with “Succession” on top with five nods, followed by “The Bear,” “The Last of Us” and “Ted Lasso,” all on four.

    Hollywood’s Directors’ Guild also announced its own nominations Wednesday.

    Both Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” and Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” again made the shortlist of five nominees for the Directors Guild of America’s best film.

    They were joined by Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon, “Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers,” and “Poor Things” from Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos.

    The DGA Awards will take place on February 10.

  • Oppenheimer tops Golden Globes on bittersweet night for Barbie

    Oppenheimer tops Golden Globes on bittersweet night for Barbie

    Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s drama about the inventor of the atomic bomb, topped the Golden Globes on January 7 – but its fellow summer smash hit Barbie missed out on best comedy film honours to Poor Things.

    Oppenheimer took five prizes, including best drama, best director for Nolan, best score, as well as acting wins for Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey Jr.

    Emma Thomas, the film’s producer and Nolan’s wife, said her husband’s three-hour epic about “one of the darkest developments in our history” is “unlike anything anyone else is doing”.

    Murphy, who plays brilliant scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer, hailed his “visionary director”, while Downey Jr, portraying the protagonist’s bitter rival, praised the movie as a “masterpiece.”

    In winning best director, Nolan fended off Greta Gerwig, who helmed Barbie – the other half of the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon that grossed a combined US$2.4 billion (S$3.2 billion) last year at the box office.

    Turning nostalgia for the beloved doll into a sharp satire about misogyny and female empowerment, Barbie was the leading film heading into the night with nine nominations, but ended the gala with just two prizes.

    It won the award for best song, for a tune written by Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas. And as the year’s highest grossing movie, it claimed a newly created trophy for box office achievement.

    “We would like to dedicate this to every single person on the planet who dressed up and went to the greatest place on Earth, the movie theatres,” said Margot Robbie, the film’s star and producer.

    “Thank you to all the Barbies and Kens in front of and behind the screen,” added Gerwig.

    But Barbie surprisingly lost out on best comedy to Poor Things – a surreal, sexy bildungsroman which also earned Emma Stone best actress for her no-holds-barred turn as Bella Baxter.

    “Bella falls in love with life itself, rather than a person. She accepts the good and the bad in equal measure, and that really made me look at life differently,” said Stone.

    After an annus horribilis in which the industry was crippled by strikes, A-listers turned out in force to celebrate Sunday.

    Stars who were unable to promote their movies during the months-long Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) walkout used the occasion to make up for lost time on the Oscars campaign trail.

    Along with movie stars like Leonardo DiCaprio, attendees included big names from the world of music such as Bruce Springsteen and Dua Lipa – both nominated for best song – and Taylor Swift representing her recent concert movie.

    “The big difference between the Golden Globes and the NFL – on the Golden Globes, fewer camera shots of Taylor Swift,” joked host Jo Koy.

    The ongoing hype surrounding “Barbenheimer”, even months after the films’ releases, is a welcome boon to the new owners of the high-profile but consistently scandal-dogged Golden Globes.

    Private investors including US billionaire Todd Boehly purchased the awards after years of controversy and declining audiences, and have invested heavily in resetting a night once billed as “Hollywood’s biggest party”.

    The Globes were boycotted by the industry after allegations of corruption and racism rose to the surface in 2021, and the show was taken off air entirely a year later.

    Since then, the controversial group of Los Angeles-based foreign journalists that created the Globes 80 years ago has been disbanded, and a wider net of overseas critics was brought in to choose this year’s winners.

    “Golden Globes journalists, thanks for changing your game,” said Downey Jr as he collected his prize.

    The Globes provide a timely boost for the Oscars. Nominations voting for the Academy Awards begins Thursday, with the Oscars taking place this year on March 10.

    Indigenous actor Lily Gladstone won best actress in a drama for her role in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, delivering some of her emotional speech in the native language of the Blackfeet Nation.

    “This is an historic win, it doesn’t belong to just me,” she said.

    “This is for every little res kid.”

    Paul Giamatti and Da’Vine Joy Randolph bolstered their Oscars campaigns with wins for The Holdovers, in which they starred as a curmudgeonly history teacher and cook of a 1970s prep school, respectively.

    Best screenplay and best non-English language film went to French courtroom drama “Anatomy of a Fall.”

    That film’s director and co-writer Justine Triet said she had assumed that “nobody is going to see this movie” about “a couple fighting, suicide, a dog vomiting… I mean, come on!”

    “This movie is about the truth, the impossibility of catching it,” she added.

    Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy And The Heron won best animated film.

    The Globes also honour television.

    Succession (2018 to 2023) dominated, claiming best drama series, and acting wins for stars Kieran Culkin, Sarah Snook and Matthew Macfadyen.

    The Bear swept the comedy categories, while road-rage saga Beef did the same in limited series.

    Past Globes host Ricky Gervais, who did not attend, won best stand-up comedy performance, a new category. AFP

    List of winners at the 80th Golden Globes

    Film

    Best Drama: Oppenheimer

    Best Musical or Comedy: Poor Things

    Best Actor, Drama: Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer

    Best Actress, Drama: Lily Gladstone, Killers Of The Flower Moon

    Best Actor, Musical or Comedy: Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers

    Best Actress, Musical or Comedy: Emma Stone, Poor Things

    Best Supporting Actor: Robert Downey Jr, Oppenheimer

    Best Supporting Actress: Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers

    Best Director: Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer

    Best Screenplay: Justine Triet and Arthur Harari, Anatomy Of A Fall

    Best Non-English Language Film: Anatomy Of A Fall

    Best Cinematic and Box Office Achievement: Barbie

    Best Animated Feature: The Boy And The Heron

    Best Original Score: Ludwig Goransson, Oppenheimer

    Best Original Song: What Was I Made For? from Barbie, music and lyrics by Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell

    Television

    Best Drama Series: Succession

    Best Actor, Drama Series: Kieran Culkin, Succession

    Best Actress, Drama Series: Sarah Snook, Succession

    Best Musical or Comedy Series: The Bear

    Best Actor, Musical or Comedy Series: Jeremy Allen White, The Bear

    Best Actress, Musical or Comedy Series: Ayo Edebiri, The Bear

    Best Limited Series or TV Movie: Beef

    Best Actor, Limited Series or TV Movie: Steven Yeun, Beef

    Best Actress, Limited Series or TV Movie: Ali Wong, Beef

    Best Supporting Actress: Elizabeth Debicki, The Crown

    Best Supporting Actor: Matthew Macfadyen, Succession

    Best Performance in Stand-up Comedy on Television: Ricky Gervais, Armageddon

  • If Batman was set in Karachi: Pakistani artist’s rendition is wow

    If Batman was set in Karachi: Pakistani artist’s rendition is wow

    We’ve seen how creative Pakistani artists can get. Every few weeks some art form or the other goes viral. Recently, a viral Tiktok trend re-imagined how Wes Anderson films would look if they’re set in Pakistan, enamoring thousands of people. Now, a Pakistani artist who goes by the name Booray on Instagram, imagined how Batman would shape out if he was in Karachi instead of Gotham.

    The results are astounding.

    Christian Bale? Nah, Fawad Khan would play Bruce Wayne to a T.

    And for his seductive lover/enemy Cat Woman, Mahira Khan would indeed put in a show-stopping performance.

    Since the artwork went viral on Twitter, thousands are already hoping that after the success of Maula Jatt, the powerful duo are cast in the film, if it ever gets made.

  • Oppenheimer slammed for including sacred Bhagavad Gita text during sex scene

    Oppenheimer slammed for including sacred Bhagavad Gita text during sex scene

    Warning: Spoilers

    Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer’ opened in theatres across the world this weekend, with Cillian Murphy putting in a critically acclaimed performance as the American scientist J Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb.

    One of the most pivotal moments about the film was Oppenheimer’s deep respect and admiration of the Hindu text ‘Bhagavad Gita’ which is part of the ‘Mahabharata’. The epic contains a dialogue between Prince Arjun and the divine Krishna as the former struggles with a moral dilemna. Oppenheimer famously quoted the lines ‘Now I am become death. Destroyer of the worlds’ after the first detonation of the atomic bomb on July 16, 1945.

    Murphy said in an interview that he consulted the text while preparing to perform in the film, and described it as “beautiful and inspiring”.

    However, a controversy arose from a sex scene between Jean Tatlock (played by Florence Pugh) and Oppenheimer, when she searches his book shelf, finds the Bhagavad Gita and holds it to her bare chest and asks Oppenheimer to recite the text while continuing intercourse.

    Hindus on Twitter have slammed the scene as insulting and insensitive towards their religion, with many calling for the government to ban ‘Oppenheimer’ in the country.

  • ‘His brain couldn’t take it all’: co-star’s reveal Oppenheimer’s Cillian Murphy was under immense pressure

    ‘His brain couldn’t take it all’: co-star’s reveal Oppenheimer’s Cillian Murphy was under immense pressure

    As July 21 draws closer and closer to the Barbie vs Oppenheimer showdown, press interviews from the cast and crew members of both films have given some interesting insights into how the gruelling the process of making a cinematic masterpiece, especially for Cillian Murphy.

    Female lead Emily Blunt revealed to People Magazine that Murphy sat out most of the cast dinners because of the immense pressure the role had placed on him.

    “We were all in the same hotel in the middle of the New Mexican desert. We only had each other. Me and Matt [Damon] were roommates and we were like, ‘Let’s go to have dinner.’”

    “Murphy did not attend because the sheer volume of what he had to take on and shoulder is so monumental,” Blunt said.

    Matt Damon added that the pressure to carry the film was placed entirely on Murphy’s shoulders

    “Of course he didn’t want to come and have dinner with us. He couldn’t. His brain was just too full. You know that when you have those big roles, that responsibility, you feel it’s kind of overwhelming,” he told People.

    Oppenheimer is a true story based around the life of J Robert Oppenheimer and his efforts to make the first atomic bomb. Murphy stars in his first leading role on the big screen with the writer/ director, after working with him previously on the Batman Trilogy and Inception.

    Murphy revealed that Christopher Nolan gave him the opportunity to be the lead in the film through a cold-call offer:

    “He’s so understated and self-deprecating and, in his very English manner, just said, ‘Listen, I’ve written this script, it’s about Oppenheimer. I’d like you to be my Oppenheimer,’” Murphy said while speaking to The Associared Press. “It was a great day… We have this long-standing understanding and trust and shorthand and respect. It felt like the right time to take on a bigger responsibility. And it just so happened that it was a huge one.”

  • Summer blockbusters we are excited about

    Who said this is going to be a boring summer?

    With super stars like Jennifer Lawrence and Margot Robbie and powerhouse directors like Greta Gerwig and Christopher Nolan bringing their art to cinemas, this summer is going to be anything but boring.

    We have Pakistan’s first ever crime thriller, based on a serial killer no one has depicted on film, a gorgeous Disney adaptation of the beloved story ‘The Little Mermaid’ and yes, the woman ,the myth, the legend herself, Greta Gerwig, bringing the world to its knees with Barbie.

    Here is our list of summer blockbusters that have us already booking our tickets with glee.

    1 Kukri

    Abu Aleeha thrilled audiences with ‘Daadal’ starring the powerhouse Sonya Hussein, depicting a boxer from Lyari who turns to the sport to avenge her sister’s honor. Now, he is bringing to screens the story of child serial killer Javed Iqbal. Starring Ayesha Omar and Yasir Hussain, the trailer has us excited because this is the first time such a story is being released in cinemas.

    2 Barbie

    Icon and savior Greta Gerwig made history when she released the trailer for the upcoming comedy film ‘Barbie’, impacting the film industry in a way never seen before. In this adaptation, Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling take on the roles of Barbie and Ken, taking us on a hilarious journey as Barbie steps out in to the new world in order to get to know who she is.

    3 The Little Mermaid (2023)

    If you’re looking for a good film to watch with family, this is the perfect one. Halle Bailey set our 90’s heart soaring when it was announced that she would be taking on the role of Ariel for ‘The Little Mermaid’. Featuring a star-studded cast with the likes of Jonah Hauer-King, Melissa McCarthy, Simone Ashley and Daved Diggs, the gorgeous special effects and the positive reviews have already gotten us excited.

    4 Oppenheimer

    If this list wasn’t up to your taste then wait for Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer’. Featuring Cillian Murphy, the film is about Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who is working with a team of scientists during the Manhattan Project, developing the atomic bomb.