Posts Tagged ‘Sacha Baron Cohen’

Took Place on Sunday the 28th February 2021 in Los Angeles and New York and hosted virtually by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association – Here are the 2021 Golden Globe Winners in the Film Categories:

Best Film Drama: Nomadland

Best Film, M/C: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

Best Director: Chloe Zhao – Nomadland

Best Actor Drama: Chadwick Boseman – Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Best Actress Drama: Andra Day – The United States vs Billie Holiday

Best Actor, M/C: Sasha Baron Cohen – Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

Best Actress, M/C: Rosamund Pike – I Care a Lot

Best Supporting Actor: Daniel Kaluuya – Judas and the Black Messiah

Best Supporting Actress: Jodie Foster – The Mauritanian

Best Foreign Language Film: Minari – Korea

Best Original Screenplay – Aaron Sorkin – The Trial of the Chicago 7

Best Animated Feature: Soul

The Trial of the Chicago 7

Director: Aaron Sorkin

Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jeremy Strong, Frank Langella, Mark Rylance, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Michael Keaton, Ben Shenkman, Alex Sharp, John Carroll Lynch

Pacifists, Hippies and Black Panthers converge on Chicago in the summer of 1968 during the Democratic National Convention and are confronted by the police and naturally riots break out. Are the police to blame? Are the protesters to blame? It is the summer of love, anti-Vietnam protests and significant social upheaval worldwide.

This is the premise of West Wing and The Social Network Oscar winning screenwriter Aaron Sorkin’s new film in which he directed and wrote. The Trail of the Chicago 7 was originally set for a theatrical release in October 2020 but due to the coronavirus pandemic, Paramount sold the rights to the streaming giant Netflix for a cool $56 million dollars. Which explains the reason why this great film can only be found on Netflix when in fact it was best suited to a proper cinematic release.

Especially with Sorkin’s witty dialogue and his fantastic cast that he managed to assemble for The Trial of the Chicago 7.

The cast includes Oscar winners Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything) as liberal pacifist and anti-war activist Tom Hayden, Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies) as defence attorney William Kunstler, Oscar nominee Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon) as the non-nonsense but bigoted judge Julius Hoffman, Emmy winner Jeremy Strong (Succession) as hippie Jerry Rubin and a stand out performance by comedian Sacha Baron Cohen as the fast talking defiant hippie leader Abbie Hoffman.

Also in the cast are John Carroll Lynch as David Dellinger, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Black Panther leader Bobby Seale who also got charged along with the original seven for incitement to start a riot and public disturbance.

While the first half of Aaron Sorkin’s film is confusing and needs to be anchored, the second half is brilliant as he clearly shows you what actually happens even if as a screenwriter he does get historically creative with the real facts.

Speaking of the real facts, as a viewer it is best to look up the actual story of the Trial of the Chicago 7 and the context in which the riot occurred. As Sacha Baron Cohen’s character Abbie Hofmann so eloquently says, “Everyone was in the Haymarket Tavern at the Chicago Hilton like the Sixties never happened until it came crashing through the window. “

The Trial of the Chicago 7 is a great film, very dialogue heavy but it stands together through some superb ensemble acting especially from Mark Rylance, Eddie Redmayne and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the prosecuting attorney Richard Schultz and a fine performance by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Bobby Seale who actually lands up getting bound and gagged in an American courtroom.

Nominated for 5 Golden Globes in 2021 including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Song, Best Supporting Actor for Sacha Baron Cohen and Best Screenplay, Catch The Trial of the Chicago 7 now on Netflix. This courtroom drama gets a film rating of 7.5 out of 10.

Madagascar

Directed by Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath

Starring: Chris Rock, Ben Stiller, David Schwimmer, Jada Pinkett-Smith & Sasha Baron Cohen

In the tradition of Shrek and Shark Tale, Madagascar is a fun filled animated romp about city pampered zoo animals who land up being shipped to the wild. The penguins that are the cause of practically every commotion in the film hatch a plan to leave the New York Central Park zoo in search of Antarctica. Marty, the zebra, with a superb voiceover by Chris Rock, sees the penguins escape route and soon entertains his own ideas of exploring the world outside, namely, the bright lights of Manhattan.

Despite protests from his friends: Alex the furry but confused lion (Ben Stiller), Gloria, the no-nonsense Hippo (Jada Pinkett-Smith) and Melmon the Hypochondriac giraffe (David Schwimmer), Marty escapes and is soon pounding the New York pavements.

As the film caption states, soon there’s a zoo loose, as Marty’s friends leave the zoo to go looking for him. The game is up when all the escaped animals, including the mischievous penguins are caught in a hilarious scene at Grand Central Station. Thinking that they will be restored to their places at the zoo, there is shock when the animals awake in separate containers, sailing on a ship bound for Africa.

The meddling psychotic penguins, in a military style operation, soon take charge of the ship, causing major disruptions as they change direction for Antarctica. The penguins’ no excuses, but results takeover attempt soon lands the furry foursome overboard. They are washed ashore on the Island paradise of Madagascar.

Like most of us, city slickers, the thought of being left in a wild, untamed environment, with no modern luxuries is truly terrifying. So these animals are out of their depth, when they have to start fending for themselves. Their salvation comes, when they meet the Lemurs, the party loving, tree-hugging rodents headed by the outrageously camp King Lemur, voiced by Sasha Baron Cohen, alias Ali G. What ensues is an hilarious story of how Marty and his friends adapt to their exotic environment, while befriending the Lemurs, and dealing with Alex’s emerging inner self as a carnivorous lion, who soon sees Lemurs and company turning into juicy steaks.

The film’s great moments came from the penguins, whose covert actions propel the story line forward at every turn, from the great zoo escape to hijacking the ship to Antarctica. I think we should take a leaf out of their book – for when all else fails, the penguin philosophy is simply to smile and wave boys, smile and wave!

Madagascar is a highly recommended as a thoroughly entertaining animated film, whose humour and sophisticated story line will appeal to the young, the old and the emerging millennials.

64th Golden Globe Awards

Took place on Sunday 15th January 2007 hosted by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association

Golden Globe Winners in The Film Categories:

Best Film Drama – Babel

Best Director: Martin Scorsese – The Departed

Best Film Musical or Comedy: Dreamgirls

Best Actor Drama: Forest Whitaker – The Last King of Scotland

Best Actress Drama: Helen Mirren – The Queen

Best Actor Musical or Comedy: Sacha Baron Cohen – Borat

Best Actress Musical or Comedy: Meryl Streep – The Devil Wears Prada

Best Supporting Actor: Eddie Murphy – Dreamgirls

Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Hudson – Dreamgirls

Best Foreign Language Film: Letters from Iwo Jima (Japan/USA)

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64th_Golden_Globe_Awards

Les Miserables

Watching Tom Hooper’s sumptuous film version of Les Miserables, I felt like I was back in a Theatre in London’s West End witnessing the spectacular musical which has been a hit in both the West End and Broadway for decades. Director Hooper’s insistence that all the actors sing every song and not do any lip-syncing pays off making Les Miserables a magnificent emotionally charged film never straying far from the theatrical version. See Les Miserables on the biggest cinema screen available and with all the brilliant Dolby surround sound and viewers will experience the true beauty of such  ambitious musical theatricality.

From the Oscar-winning director of the King’s Speech, this film version of Les Miserables was in brilliant hands and he has chosen a superb cast to star in the musical adaptation of Victor Hugo’s early 19^th century novel about the perils and poverty brought on in France as a result of the Napoleonic Wars.  Not since Rob Marshall’s stunning cinematic version of Chicago, have I enjoyed a film version of a West End musical so much.

Valjean

Hugh Jackman who is no stranger to Broadway is perfectly cast as the embittered reformed thief Jean Valjean and Anne Hathaway is superb as the tragic Fantine, a seamstress who turns to prostitution to survive and protect her daughter Cosette from impoverishment. Both Hathaway and  Jackman have deservedly won 2013 Golden Globe Awards for Best Supporting Actress and Actor in a musical or comedy. Hooper shoots all the great songs of Les Miserables close up capturing the raw emotion of the actors turned singers as they perform I Dreamed a Dream, Master of the House and Suddenly.

Fantine

Les Miserables is big on emotion, epic in scale especially the production design and the faithful early 19^th century costumes and director Hooper has skilfully managed to create the perfect blend of romance, sorrow, heroism and injustice, painting a distinctly French cinematic canvas enough to make Victor Hugo proud. Rising British star Eddie Redmayne last seen opposite Michelle Williams in My Week with Marilyn and Amanda Seyfried are gorgeous as the young lovers:  the revolutionary Marius and the demure yet mature Cosette.

Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen provide some comic relief amidst all this sumptuous misery as the scheming tavern owners out to deceive Valjean. Oscar Winner Russell Crowe plays Javert the treacherous constable out to finally catch up with the ever illusive Valjean.

Javert

With a brilliant score by Claude-Michel Schonberg and expert direction by Tom Hooper, Les Miserables is a must see for any musical lover and is breathtaking in its scope, brutality and visual imagery especially the rousing depiction of the 1832 Paris uprisings. All the cast are perfect and it’s no wonder that the film has received such critical acclaim so far.

For those that are unsure of seeing a two and a half hour film of Les Miserables, I never looked at my watch once, being completely enthralled in this gorgeous, emotional and spectacular cinematic masterpiece, successfully bringing the theatricality of a West End musical to the Big Screen. Highly Recommended!