Declan Cashin

Writing: the art of applying the ass to the seat

Just out from a screening of Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air. Very impressive – in fact, I loved it. It’s timely, smart, funny and achingly, hauntingly sad, with a trio of fantastic performances from The Clooney, Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick, all of whom have been nominated for Golden Globes, and look set for deserved Oscar noms too. At 32 years of age, and only on his third major movie, is there a more interesting and exciting young director at work today than Jason Reitman?

Tee hee hee, just got this by email

20th anniversary updated Simpsons characters poster

Meanwhile Salon has a piece about how the show has long since lost its edge and relevancy

NY Times critic Manohla Dargis dissects the state of women in Hollywood – behind and in front of the camera, followed up a scathing discussion at Jezebel.

The glorious Grace Coddington, who comprehensively stole the show from Anna Wintour in The September Issue, is interviewed in today’s London Times

Nominations just released for the dubiously-credentialed-yet-bizarrely-influential 67th Golden Globe Awards.

Up in the Air leads with six nominations; Avatar with four; Inglourious Basterds with four;The Hurt Locker with three; Precious with three.

See full movie and TV nominations here.

The American Film Institute picks for 2009…

Movies:
Coraline

The Hangover

The Hurt Locker

The Messenger

Precious

A Serious Man

A Single Man

Sugar

Up

Up in the Air

TV Shows:
The Big Bang Theory

Big Love

Friday Night Lights

Glee

Mad Men

Modern Family

The No1 Ladies’ Detective Agency

Nurse Jackie

Party Down

True Blood

1D script, totally meh plot (something about a “life-tree”), by-now-familiar Lord of the Rings-style battle sequences, and truly clunky attempts at political/environmental commentary. But it does look spectacular – dazzlingly so in places. It’s a technical marvel, but the reviews in the US so far have been way, way too enthusiastic. It’s not the game-changer we had been led to believe

Aw, little Joe McElderry wins The X Factor with ‘The Climb’

The reactions to the first screenings are over-overwhelmingly good: five stars from Empire, and a selection of other rave notices here.