Introducing Sarah Snook, Babadook Slayer!

Americans should probably get to know Sarah Snook. If you’re like me then you probably missed her in Julia Leigh’s unsettling Sleeping Beauty, but as recently as 2012 she was hailed as Australia’s Emma Stone (just google "sarah snook australia's emma stone") for her excessively charming performance in the (otherwise terrible) local rom-com Not Suitable for Children and last year impressed in a small role in the apocalyptic rave thriller These Final Hours. Her biggest role yet, however, came in the form of the Spierig Brothers' Predestination and at last night's “Australian Oscars”, the AACTA Awards, she won the coveted Best Lead Actress prize, stealing it from the grip of two mightily formidable contenders.

The big winners + Cate Blanchett without her shoes (!!!) after the jump...

Who me?

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The Babadook, Russell Crowe and Mia Wasikowska Score at "Aussie Oscars"

Glenn here again to look at the AACTA Awards - aka the "Australian Oscars" - which announced their annual nominations last night. Lots of big names spread across the field and some welcome nods to smaller films.

It was an expectedly big day for Russell Crowe's directorial debut, The Winter Diviner. While ol' Rusty may be miffed (justifiable? I'm not sure, I have not seen his film yet) that he missed out on a directing nomination, he surely can't be disappointed for too long since his film is scattered all over the nominations. In fact, with eight, the WWI drama received the second-biggest haul of the day. Somewhat less expected, however, was the film that leads the nomination tally: Predestination. A period-set sci-fi thriller from the Spierig Brothers (Daybreakers) that stars Ethan Hawke as a time-traveller whose life intersects with a mysterious man whose story spans time, space, fate, terrorism, love and even gender. Thankfully that refreshing lack of genre bias extended to six nods for The Babadook and The Rover. Meanwhile, more traditional dramas like Tracks, The Railway Man and Australia's foreign language entry Charlie's Country also fared very well.

Here are the nominations.

Best Film

• THE BABADOOK (haiku review)
• CHARLIE'S COUNTRY (review)
• PREDESTINATION
• THE RAILWAY MAN (TIFF experience)
• TRACKS (review)
• THE WATER DIVINER

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Posterized: His Majesty Colin Firth Makes a LOT of Movies

The King speaks. Often in motion pictures, in point of fact. Colin Firth has been a mainstay in British and Hollywood cinema since his terrific debut opposite Rupert Everett in the boy's school classic Another Country (1984). But it's not all stiff homoerotic upper-class Brit movies (though there's a fair share of that). He seems to have no ego whatsoever working in large ensembles, occasionally headlining, and (we assume) gets along with everyone given how often he returns to the same co-stars and directors (multiple films with Kidman and Everett and Egoyan and more). This year US audiences are getting not one not two but SIX Colin Firth films: Gambit (released a couple of years ago in the UK), Atom Egoyan's Devils Knot, Woody Allen's Magic in the Moonlight, and three (!!!) with Nicole Kidman: Paddington (he's the voice of the bear), the thriller Before I Sleep and the post-war drama The Railway Man which is in theaters now after a quiet festival bow last year.

 In the new film he plays a troubled WWII vet suffering from PTSD before there was a name for it. Jeremy Irvine plays Firth as a young man in his POW days and Nicole Kidman provides tough-love wifely support. Still, this is Firth's show through and through. He's quite good in it though I'll admit that the movie was a little tentative and basic for my tastes.

A temporary projection glitch in the screening at TIFF I attended (strangely the only film I didn't write about that I saw there) stopped the image just as Nicole Kidman entered in one of her only forceful scenes. A flock of gentlemen turned around to look at her and were then paralyzed for several minutes gawking at her. Which is exactly what happens to me whenever Nicole Kidman enters a movie. I haven't seen it acted out so literally since Ewan MacGregor and the patrons of the Moulin Rouge went slack-jawed in unison when she descended from the ceiling singing "Diamonds". 

But I digress.

We're here to talk Colin Firth. So anticlimactic now, right? Apologies to Mr Firth! How many of his movies have you seen? (Please tell me you've seen Another Country)

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Firth and Kidman Chug Along in The Railway Man

Glenn here looking at an upcoming film from my home country. I may live in America now, but I am still very much interested in what Australia is producing (as I and many of my fellow countrymen can attest, it's probably against my better judgement to do so). One title I've been keeping an eye on is Jonathan Teplitzky's The Railway Man. There a was a minor fuss a few years back when The King's Speech producers were denied Australian funding and, thus, when it won Oscars it was unable to be classified as an Australian co-production despite its producers being Australian and its others local ties. Well, the funding bodies learned their lesson and are officially on board with The Railway Man, a British/Australia co-production from the memoir by Eric Lomax.

Nathaniel showed a bit more faith than others in the project by listing it in several of his Oscar categories. Other prognosticators don't seem to even know it exists! I've been skeptical that the film would even see the light of day in 2013 since the Australian media love being able to hail a star vehicle such as this as "ours", and yet there hadn't been a peep in terms of trailers, posters, or a release date. They'd be all over it ("Our Nicole Returns Home!" read headlines during production) if there was anything to actually talk about. Well, it's Australian distributor has finally put it onto the schedule and they chose the biggest day of the year - Boxing Day, 2013. [more]

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Randomness: Wolverine and The Railway Bling Ring

Here's a collection of items that I couldn't be arsed* to talk about separately so I'm grouping them together. Join the conversation in the comments.

What is this?

It's the Pinoy poster for Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring. I hate the font and I have no idea why they've redressed Emma Watson in trashy whore drag (she does not wear this in the movie) but I love the idea of designer labels sharing billing with the stars. That's more than a little clever. Do you like? [Thanks to Ipe for bringing this to my attention]

Here's the latest promotional image from The Wolverine.

Post Man of Steel it is suddenly tremendously weird that Wolverine has less body hair than Superman, though he's still much veinier. Given my love for Hugh Jackman you'd think I'd be looking forward to this movie but it's literally the superhero movie of 2013 that I've thought the least about which I blame fully on the terribleness of X-Men Origins: Wolverine. If this one is only twice as good it will still be bad so they'd better step it way way up. 

Remember that long stretch of time in 2012 when my podcast mates started claiming that I had made up the existence of Quartet with Maggie Smith? That the movie did not, in fact, exist. Well it finally opened proving me right and even though it was quite bad it was a minor hit (Maggie's renewed drawing power) but each year there's a movie like it that feels half imagined. Here's the latest promotional image from the stealth Railway Man which may or may not exist given its lack of distributor or release date and the full calendar of its stars.

I hate that hair on Nicole Kidman but given all the greatness she's delivered lately via ad campaigns, on red carpets, in The Paperboy and on my freaking telephone, we will follow her anywhere... yes, even into frumpy hair and possibly dull "supportive spouse" roles.