This week's releases

Need for Speed: Hot on the heels of the popular video game and the huge success of the Fast & Furious franchise, Need for Speed arrives to deliver more high speed action as a street racer fresh from prison seeks revenge after being framed by a wealthy associate. So he drives cross the country in a race to dispense his revenge. Stars Aaron Paul and Dominic Cooper.

The Zero Theorem: The latest film from Terry Gilliam takes place in very familiar territory for his fans. Qohen Leth (Christoph Waltz) is an eccentric and reclusive computer genius who lives in an Orwellian corporate world and suffers from existential angst. He waits for a phone call explaining the meaning of life. Under the instruction of a shadowy figure known only as "Management", Qohen works to solve the "Zero Theorem", a mathematical formula derived from Big Crunch theory

Veronica Mars: The TV series is now moving to the big screen. Years after walking away from her past as a teenage private eye, Veronica Mars (Kristen Bell) gets pulled back to her hometown - just in time for her high school reunion - in order to help her old flame Logan Echolls, who's embroiled in a murder mystery.

Film Review: Wall-E

Director: Andrew Stanton

A 2008 science fiction comedy that actually features very little real dialogue through the first half of the film, the action was mostly CGI created by the popular animation studio Pixar. The film deals with the issues of the destruction of our planet, the impact  that the laziness of the human race has on the planet and consumerism as well as the ability of the main characters as robots to break their programming and develop emotions. It won the Best Animated Feature Award at both the Golden Globes and the Oscars in 2009.

Wall-E is a robot whose job is to collect up trash and compact it into small cubes to help tidy planet Earth. The planet is deserted due to the huge swathes of rubbish produced by mass consumerism facilitated by the mega-corporation Buy 'n' Large, once it becomes apparent that the task is too large the corporation shutdown all these trash compactors except one whilst they escape in large spaceships to live in space. Wall-E seems to have broken his programming and is capable of independent thought but after 700 years alone he finally has a visitor.

Wall-E and Eve

Despite being an animated film that appeals to children, it certainly deals with some much more complex topics like the ones stated above. Stanton stated that he named Eve after the biblical character because Wall-E's loneliness reminded him of Adam, Stanton is a practicing Christian. The film manages to cover and properly dissect all the points without them being distracting, we are always first and foremost rooting for the lovable Wall-E. Whilst his moments with love interest Eve produces some funny and touching moments it does leave a slightly predictable ending for the pair but the film develops excellently from the halfway point. Wall-E does capture the essence of the silent movie era, with very little actual dialogue in the first half so much is expressed by the eyes and body language of the robots themselves.

3.5/4 Sweet but clever satire of how we treat our planet

The Rolling Picture Previous Award Winners

With this years nominations released last week its time to take a look back at the previous winners of the most prestigious film awards that doesn't have its own ceremony.

Best Picture: 
2013: Untouchable
2012: Margin Call

Best Actor: 
2013: Omar Sy (Untouchable)
2012: Jean Dujardin (The Artist)

Best Actress: 
2013: Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook)
2012: Rooney Mara (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo)

Best Supporting Actor: 
2013: Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained)
2012: Christoph Waltz (Carnage)

Best Supporting Actress: 
2013: Helen Hunt (The Sessions)
2012: Jessica Chastain (The Help)

Best Director: 
2013: Andrew Dominik (Killing Them Softly)
2012: J.C. Chandor (Margin Call)

Best Documentary
2013: Undefeated
2012: No Award

Best Soundtrack/Score: 
2013: Les Miserablés
2012: Drive

The Chris Rock Award (Best Cameo): 
2013: Chris Tucker (Silver Linings Playbook)
2012: Jeremy Irons (Margin Call)

Worst Film of the Year: 
2013: Cosmopolis
2012: Jack & Jill

The Rolling Picture Award Nominations

Best Picture: 
Gravity
Fruitvale Station
American Hustle
Captain Phillips
Before Midnight
Her
Dallas Buyers Club
Prisoners
12 Years a Slave

Best Actor:
Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club)
Joaquin Phoenix (Her)
Tom Hanks (Captain Phillips)
Michael B. Jordan (Fruitvale Station)
Robert Redford (All is Lost)

Best Actress: 
Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine)
Sandra Bullock (Gravity)
Amy Adams (American Hustle)
Scarlett Johansson (Her)
Lupita Nyong'o (12 Years a Slave)

Best Supporting Actor: 
Vithaya Pansringarm (Only God Forgives)
Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club)
Bradley Cooper (American Hustle)
Jake Gyllenhaal (Prisoners)
Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave)

Best Supporting Actress:
Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle)
Octavia Spencer (Fruitvale Station)
June Squibb (Nebraska)
Carey Mulligan (Inside Llewyn Davis)
Rooney Mara (Ain't Them Bodies Saints)

Best Director: 
J.C. Chandor (All is Lost)
Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station)
Spike Jonze (Her)
Paul Greengrass (Captain Phillips)
Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity)

The Christ Rock in Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back Award (Best small role/cameo):
John Goodman (Inside Llewyn Davis)
Rob Lowe (Behind the Candelabra)
Ed Harris (Gravity)
Chris Pratt (Her)
Robert De Niro (American Hustle)

Best Soundtrack: 
American Hustle
Inside Llewyn Davis
Her
Dallas Buyers Club
Nebraska

Worst Film: 
Gangster Squad
Anchorman 2
Runner Runner
Prince Avalanche
Man of Steel
Star Trek: Into Darkness

This week's releases

300: Rise of an Empire: The sequel to the surprise hit of 2006 starring Gerard Butler. Greek general Themistokles (Sullivan Stapleton) leads the charge against invading Persian forces led by mortal-turned-god Xerxes and Artemisia, vengeful commander of the Persian navy. Expect some epic battle scenes and plenty of gory deaths.

Escape from Planet Earth: Animated comedy from the artists who helped produce Ice Age: Continental Drift. The story takes place on planet Baab where admired astronaut Scorch Supernova (Brendan Fraser) is a national hero to the blue alien population. But he finds himself caught in a trap when he responds to an SOS call from an alien planet.

The Grand Budapest Hotel: The latest Wes Anderson film stars an ensemble cast of huge proportions with Ralph Fiennes, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe and Edward Norton all appearing to name just four. The film follows the adventures of Gustave H (Fiennes) who is the concierge of the hotel between the World Wars and his most trusted friend Moustafa who is learning the ropes from him as we encounter the strange clients who frequent the rooms.

The Comeback of Matthew McConaughey

For many a year he was never taken that seriously in Hollywood, he was renowned for bad rom-coms that generally were poorly written, had mediocre box office takings and involved him being topless. In the serious acting circles he wasn't even on the radar but suddenly he now has an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Actor for Dallas Buyers Club as well as being in serious contention for an Emmy for his role as Rust Cohle in True Detective. 

To be fair this change didn't come about out of nowhere, McConaughey starred alongside Chris Cooper in the impressive Lone Star. A film set in Texas about the solving of a murder of a policeman played right into his strengths and his roots, McConaughey hails from Uvalde in Texas. He impressed here and then went onto to make a A Time to Kill with Samuel L. Jackson and Sandra Bullock where he plays a defense lawyer for a black man who is alleged to have murdered two people and raped a 10 year old girl. Against the backdrop of a resurgent Ku Klux Klan he's forced to fight for the mans freedom. This showed the promise of what would come about well over a decade later.

McConaughey picking up his Best Actor award at the Oscars

In the years inbetween was a lot of the formerly mentioned rom-coms that he then became renowned for with the likes of How to lose a Guy in 10 days, Failure to Launch and The Wedding Planner all having varying degrees of success and more failure whilst the terribly named Surfer, Dude probably representing the low point just before the resurgence in 2008. But following that he began to turn heads again with films like The Lincoln Lawyer and Killer Joe showing that potential we saw back in the mid-90's, his violent homicidal nature in William Friedkin's Killer Joe was stunning to watch. From there he barely looked back with more impressive performances in Mud and The Paperboy all leading him to the Oscar win for Dallas Buyers Club. 

Now all he needs is to complete the set with an Emmy win for the simply sublime True Detective which has its final episode of the first season next Sunday. His character Rust Cohle is a damaged yet obsessive Police Detective in Louisiana trying to solve a string of ritualistic murders, against the tide of the rest of the police force who believe the case to be over. His portrayal in this crime drama is stunning and one of the most intriguing performances I've watched on the small screen in quite a few years.

So what next for Mr McConaughey? The only known projects are a role in Christoper Nolan's new film Interstellar and a possible sequel of Magic Mike. But it will be interesting to see what the next few years have in store.

My Oscar Predictions Results

With the Oscars now done and the Awards season over (except for the all important Rolling Picture Awards which will see the nominations released this week). There is just time to see how close my predictions for the winners on Sunday night were:

Best Picture: 12 Years a Slave. CORRECT

Best Director: Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity). CORRECT

Best Actor in a Lead Role: Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club). CORRECT

Best Actress in a Lead Role: Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine). CORRECT

Best Supporting Actor: Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club). CORRECT

Best Supporting Actress: Lupita Nyongo (12 Years a Slave). WRONG

Best Original Screenplay: Her. WRONG

Best Adapted Screenplay: 12 Years a Slave. WRONG

Best Documentary: 20 Feet from Stardom. WRONG

In the main categories it was all going so well except for the Best Supporting Actress and after that it was downhill all the way. 5/9 being about average I guess. Cleveland Indians Pitcher John Axford successfully picked the winner of all 18 awards!