Alien Covenant Full Trailer Unleashed
Having teased fans with a deliberately slow paced prologue clip 20th Century Fox unveiled a frantic and action packed first full trailer for the increasingly eagerly anticipated Alien Covenant. The new trailer below reveals the triumphant return of everyone’s favourite terrifying xenomorph….
Oscar Winners List 2017
Here is the full list of winners from the 89th Academy Awards below. As expected La La Land nominated in 14 categories dominated the night picking up Best Actress, Best Director, Best Score and Best Song. Casey Affleck and Kenneth Lonnergan picked up Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay awards for Manchester By The Sea. Zootopia took Best Animated Film while The Salesman won Best Foreign Language Film. But in a truly sensational climax having announced La La Land as best picture winner it was revealed that in fact Moonlight had actually won after Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway apparently got handed the wrong envelope.
Full Details below:
Best picture
Moonlight
Best cinematography
La La Land
Best supporting actor
Mahershala Ali (Moonlight)
Best documentary
OJ Made In America
Best foreign language film
The Salesman
Best actor
Casey Affleck (Manchester By the Sea)
Best costume design
Fantastic beasts
Best score
La La Land
Best song
City of Stars (La La Land)
Best sound editing
Arrival
Best sound mixing
Hacksaw Ridge
Best documentary short
The White Helemets
Best production design
La La Land
Best original screenplay
Manchester By the Sea
Best adapted screenplay
Moonlight
Best animated feature
Zootopia
Best animated short
Piper
Best supporting actress
Viola Davis (Fences)
Best film editing
Hacksaw Ridge
Best live-action short
Sing
Best actress
Emma Stone (La La Land)
Best director
Damien Chazelle (La La Land)
Best visual effects
The Jungle Book
Best makeup and hairstyling
Suicide squad
Oscar Predictions 2017
As the 2017 Academy Awards gets ready to begin here’s our Red Carpet News TV predictions for who will be taking home the top prizes in all 24 categories at this year’s ceremony.
Best picture
La La Land
Best cinematography
La La Land
Best supporting actor
Mahershala Ali (Moonlight)
Best documentary
OJ Made In America
Best foreign language film
Toni Erdmann
Best actor
Casey Affleck (Manchester By the Sea)
Best costume design
Jackie
Best score
La La Land
Best song
City of Stars (La La Land)
Best sound editing
Hacksaw Ridge
Best sound mixing
La La Land
Best documentary short
Joe’s Violin
Best production design
La La Land
Best original screenplay
Manchester By the Sea
Best adapted screenplay
Moonlight
Best animated feature
Zootopia
Best animated short
Piper
Best supporting actress
Viola Davis (Fences)
Best film editing
La La Land
Best live-action short
Ennemis Interieurs
Best actress
Emma Stone (La La Land)
Best director
Damien Chazelle (La La Land)
Best visual effects
The Jungle Book
Best makeup and hairstyling
Star Trek Beyond
Bitter Harvest Review
The Plot
Set in 1930s Ukraine, as Stalin ruthlessly advances the ambitions of the communist party in Russia, young artist Yuri battles to save his village from the Holodomor, the systematic Soviet program of engineering a famine with genocidal consequences for the people of Ukraine.
The Good
Bitter Harvest deals with one of the most significant and yet largely unspoken crimes of the 20th Century and human history. Having been shamefully shrouded in soviet era secrecy for so long it is the smallest possible act of consolation to have a true account of the genocide that claimed the lives of many millions of people brought to life on screen.
Regardless of any of the individual qualities of the film its mere existence is an important step in shining some light on a forgotten tragedy. Even those well versed in the Historical horrors of the second wold war will likely be deeply shocked to discover the true extent of atrocities that took place before it even began.
It wasn’t until the ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union that true extent of this national tragedy was revealed to the rest of the world. Having waited so many decades for recognition it’s important that these events are not now quickly lost to the fog of history and ever shortening modern memories.
Writer director George Mendeluk battled for at least four years to make his vision a reality and it’s clear from the film’s production and performances that it was certainly made with the most sincere intentions.
The Bad
The fundamental problem with making a film about almost incomprehensibly terrible historic atrocities is that often audiences natural instinct is to remind themselves they’re merely watching a film. It’s an act of emotional self-preservation and a natural defence mechanism in the face of such relentlessly grim subject matter. As a result for these kinds of films it is vitally important to maintain a completely credible and immersive experience at all time. You simply cannot afford audiences the opportunity to detach themselves from what they’re watching.
Unfortunately for Bitter Harvest there are frequent lapses in the quality of individual performances, production value and above all the script which frustrate the films laudable efforts.
Max Irons and Samantha Barks are attractive young stars but frankly poorly cast as a pair of Ukrainian lovers facing up to one of the great evils in history. Their performances are earnest but their appearance is simply too obviously clean cut and well fed. Unfortunately shooting out of sequence by production necessity meant that method acting and self-starvation wasn’t possible for the cast. Leaving a little too much strained credibility on makeup and a bit of dirt to effect any kind of transformation.
Danny Dyer’s regular straight to DVD accomplice Tamer Hassan battles valiantly to stay out of pantomime villain territory as a cruel soviet Commissar. Unfortunately a heavy handed script makes this exceedingly difficult at times.
Despite Bitter Harvest’s best intentions sadly the script is the most frequently disappointing feature of a film which never quite manages to be as emotionally compelling at it clearly hopes to be. Otherwise sincere work is mostly ruined by dialogue marred with awkward exposition and cringe worthy lamentations. It makes it regrettably difficult to take the film seriously during some of its most crucial moments.
The Ugly Truth
Bitter Harvest ambitiously seeks to shine the light of modern awareness onto a largely forgotten act of historical evil. Even if at times the film falters in its efforts to capture the painful reality of such epic scale horrors, it deserves some credit for at least trying.
Review By Russell Nelson
What’s On Stage Awards Winners 2017
The winners of the 17th Annual WhatsOnStage Awards have been announced. In a ceremony at the Prince of Wales Theatre, hosts Vikki Stone and Simon Lipkin announced the winners of the only major theatre awards voted for by the audience.
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was the big winner of the evening, taking home eight awards, a record number of WhatsOnStage Awards won for a play. The eighth story in the Harry Potter series took home awards for Best Actor in a Play for Jamie Parker, Best Supporting Actress in a Play for Noma Dumezweni, Best Supporting Actor in a Play for Anthony Boyle, Best New Play, Best Set Design, Best Lighting Design, Best Video Design and Best Director for John Tiffany.
In the musical categories, Half a Sixpence took home the most awards with three, including Best Actor in a Musical for Charlie Stemp, Best Supporting Actress in a Musical for Emma Williams and Best Choreography.
In the Best Play Revival category, No Man’s Land, which starred Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, won, beating The Boys in the Band, The Deep Blue Sea and Travesties.
Billie Piper took home her second WhatsOnStage Award in three years, winning Best Actress in a Play for the Young Vic production of Yerma. Amber Riley was named as Best Actress in a Musical for her turn as Effie White in Dreamgirls.
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s new show School of Rock won Best New Musical, while Funny Girl won Best Musical Revival.
Gary Barlow’s musical The Girls – soon to officially open in the West End – took home Best Regional Production, while The Last Five Years took Best Off-West End Production. Disney’s Aladdin took home two awards, Trevor Dion Nicholas won Best Supporting Actor and Gregg Barnes won Best Costume Design.
The winners were announced in a ceremony in the West End which featured performances from a host of shows in London. Tyrone Huntley sang “Heaven on their Minds”, Ria Jones sang “As If We Never Said Goodbye”, while Gary Trainor and the company of School of Rock performed “Teacher’s Pet”. Barlow also performed the song “Scarborough” from The Girls alongside Joanna Riding. Riley also performed alongside Dreamgirls co-star Liisi LaFontaine, and the cast of Half A Sixpence sung “Flash, Bang, Wallop”. Trevor Dion Nicholas also appeared alongside Dean John-Wilson in a performance of “Somebody’s Got Your Back” from Aladdin.
Marking 50 years in theatre, Cameron Mackintosh was honoured with a special award, the Equity Award for Lifetime Achievement (So Far).
Video interviews with this years winners and VIP guests below: