Best Documentary Feature - Spanish Film Goya Award 2011

Not often the subject of full-length films, architecture comes alive in Deyan Sudjic's How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr. Foster? Debuted in Spain in early October, 2010, it was awarded the TCM Audience Award to the Best European Film at the San Sebastian International Film Festival 2010, and has been nominated for the Spanish Film Academy's Goya Award 2011 for Best Documentary Feature, the most prestigious cinema award in Spain.

All of the positive global press yet there is mysteriously little film news surrounding its official UK release on January 28th.

As one might gather from the title, How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr. Foster? is a grand documentary on the life and work of Sir Norman Foster, designer of London's very own Gherkin at 30 St Mary Axe, from his humble childhood through his rise to genius. The film is full of strikingly beautiful large-framed shots that reflect the incredible architecture of Foster in his never ending quest to improve the global quality of life.

With production lasting over two years, the film dives into the mind of an architect to reveal buildings and projects in a way that many have never dreamed imaginable. Some of the most fascinating scenes arise when Foster speaks of his innovative ideas to help ease the inevitable influx of people living in metropolitan cities after leaving the countryside. This is to include plans for a completely carbon neutral city, already under construction in Abu Dhabi, named Masdar, which is to run fully automated driverless cars and is to be completed in 2030. Alongside commentary from Foster and Sudjic, the film also includes interviews with engineers, architects, and notable artists such as US's Bono.

How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr. Foster? is the first in what is to become a series of full length films by the company Art Commissioners, which is dedicated to the world of contemporary art, on some of the 21st century's key figures of art and culture, according to a statement made by CEO Elena Ochoa.

The 75 minute film opens at the Institute of Contemporary Arts on January 26 with a discussion between Sir Norman Foster and architectural theorist Charles Jencks to follow the 7:00 pm screening. It is to continue to run at the ICA through February with the last show on the 20th at 3:30 pm. With the hour of the first UK screening so near, it is only a matter of time before the number of film reviews accurately reflects the vision and beauty of Sir Norton Foster.

Film News: A Close Race for Best Picture Award

Over the last year, we've seen a number of films released that have broken box office records, set new heights for action onscreen and found new ways of captivating the audience. Film makers have broken the boundaries of what was previously not possible and writers have kept the upper hand by creating storylines that truly have been impossible to guess.

Recent months have seen the release of mindbender Inception, the captivating The Kings Speech, and the underdog smash hit that was The Social Network. All three films excelled in their respective genres, with Christopher Nolan intelligently pulling us into a dream within a dream within a dream, Jesse Eisenberg portraying antihero Mark Zuckerberg, which won the praise of critics and audiences and Colin Firth's depiction of the 'reluctant king' George VI overcoming his battle with stammering, which won the hearts of audiences far and wide.

A fierce battle has already begun between these three films for the most prestigious prize this year, the Best Picture award. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts recently released its list of nominees for the forthcoming BAFTA awards next month with all three appearing on their nominations for Best Film. The trio of films have also swept the board across different categories also, with Colin Firth and Jesse Eisenberg both being nominated for Best Actor and Christopher Nolan, Tom Hooper and David Fincher all being nominated for the Best Director Category. It also looks set to be another successful year for British actors, actresses and filmmakers, with many being nominated in the highest categories for their roles in this year's most popular films.

Many have high hopes for Britain to lead the way this year at the BAFTA and Academy Award ceremonies. This won't be the first time Colin Firth has been nominated, but it will definitely bring a boost to his profile should he win an award. The same can be said for Jesse Eisenberg, as a new face to the movie sphere, winning an award for best actor will definitely increase his credibility amongst the casting directors in Hollywood.

It looks set to be a difficult decision for the judging panel to decide who should win these prestigious awards, as all three films have been produced with the highest of quality in mind and film reviewers and audiences alike have definitely noticed this. The Social Network saw a major boost to audience figures due to word of mouth promotion, whilst Inception was billed by film studios as 2010's 'must see film of the year'. The Kings Speech has benefitted from the enormous praise it's received from the various industry figures admiring its style and content and of course, its lead actor. It's hard to say who will be the clear leader this year, as the Golden Globes has already shown.

Film news insiders predict that this could be an indication that this year, the judges will have to make a lot of incredibly tough decisions to make what they believe to be the best movie of 2010 win.

Andrew Joyce lives, eats and breathes film.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andrew_Joyce

Oscar Predictions 2011: Which Movie Will Win the Best Picture Award?

The question of the year in the movie industry: Who will win the Best Picture award? Who will take another Academy Award home as winner and who will just spend the night applauding others? As no one knows for sure yet, let's take a look at the list of the Best Picture Nominees and try to come up with some system to make predictions.

Best Picture Nominees for the 83rd Academy Awards:

Black Swan -- director: Darren Aronofsky; writers: Mark Heyman, Andres Heinz; stars: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis and Vincent Cassel;

The Fighter -- director: David O. Russell; writers: Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy, Stars: Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale and Amy Adams

Inception -- Director: Christopher Nolan; Writer: Christopher Nolan; Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ellen Page

The Kids Are All Right -- director: Lisa Cholodenko; writers: Lisa Cholodenko, Stuart Blumberg; stars: Annette Bening, Julianne Moore vand Mark Ruffalo

The King's Speech -- director: Tom Hooper; writer: David Seidler; stars: Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter

127 Hours -- director: Danny Boyle; writers: Danny Boyle, Simon Beaufoy, stars: James Franco, Amber Tamblyn and Kate Mara

The Social Network -- director: David Fincher; writers: Aaron Sorkin, Ben Mezrich; stars: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield and Justin Timberlake

Toy Story 3 -- director: Lee Unkrich; writers: John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, stars: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen and Joan Cusack

True Grit -- directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen; writers: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen; stars: Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon and Hailee Steinfeld

Winter's Bone -- director: Debra Granik; writers: Debra Granik, Anne Rosellini, stars: Jennifer Lawrence, John Hawkes and Garret Dillahunt

Hm, now that's a list of some pretty good movies, how are these guys in Academy Awards supposed to decide, who is better? Whom they should give the Oscar statue? Oh the tension... Maybe we can help out by comparing them -- how they were created, how they did in theaters and awards? Maybe we can develop some kind of system for determining the most likely winners...

You can see that most of them have really big names in cast and crew. Thought celebrity pressure can come from any of these movies; it's not clear how to evaluate one or another star's influence for popularity of the movie. Also, one should not forget that we all have our favorites, which is not good for making objective predictions. So we have to take some other, measurable and comparable things into account when deciding.

First thing we could look at is a) how much was invested in creating these movies b) how much they earned from them. In short -- were they successful and the effort worth the money?

List no. 1: 'Budget size vs. success'
Black Swan -- budget: 13,000,000; earnings: 83,250,375; ROI: 5.4The Kids Are All Right -- budget: 4,000,000; earnings: 20,803,237; ROI: 4.2The King's Speech -- budget: 15,000,000; earnings: 57,313,881; ROI: 2.8True Grit -- budget: 38,000,000; earnings: 137,963,519; ROI: 2.6Winter's Bone -- budget: 2,000,000; earnings: 6,271,086; ROI: 2.1The Fighter -- budget: 25,000,000; earnings: 72,680,740; ROI: 1.9The Social Network -- budget: 40,000,000; earnings: 95,408,473; ROI: 1.4Toy Story 3 -- budget: 200,000,000; earnings: 415,004,880; ROI: 1.1Inception -- budget: 160,000,000; earnings: 292,568,851; ROI: 0.8127 Hours -- budget: 18,000,000; earnings: 11,296,805; ROI: -0.4

What we get here is a very simple list of the Best Picture nominees according to return on investment [ROI] made in making them. The biggest return taking the first place, when going down to the smallest in the bottom. Basically, it shows how much money oscar nominees made in US from premier till January, divided by their estimated budget ($ numbers from IMDB and boxofficemojo.com). Conclusion - big budget is not everything you need for a blockbuster - "Black Swan" and "The Kids Are All Right" budgets were more than 10 times smaller compared to Inception, but they managed to make around 4 - 5 times more from one dollar invested. The biggest loser so far "127 Hours", which haven't managed to earn enough to cover costs yet. I didn't rank them according to gross earnings, as popular opinion and sales can easily be manipulated by increasing spending on advertising, ROI shows a lot more in this case.

Secondly, we could consider how have these movies done in professional competitions?

List no. 2: 'What do the pros think?"
The Social Network -- nominations: 55; Wins: 49; Oscar nom.:8; Total: 112The King's Speech -- nominations: 73; Wins: 16; Oscar nom.: 12; Total: 101Black Swan -- nominations: 71; Wins: 21; Oscar nom.: 5; Total: 97Inception -- nominations: 57; Wins: 27; Oscar nom.: 8; Total: 92True Grit -- nominations: 55; Wins: 12; Oscar nom.: 10; Total: 77127 Hours -- nominations: 55; Wins: 4; Oscar nom.: 6; Total: 65Winter's Bone -- nominations: 42; Wins: 19; Oscar nom.: 4; Total: 65The Fighter -- nominations: 32; Wins: 23; Oscar nom.: 7; Total: 62The Kids Are All Right -- nominations: 51; Wins: 3; Oscar nom.: 4; Total: 58Toy Story 3 -- nominations: 18; Wins: 18; Oscar nom.: 5; Total: 41

Here I added up all nominations with wins to see which movies were noticed the most in different awards. Here "The Social Network" takes lead, with "The King's Speech" and "Black Swan" still in top three before the big spenders "Inception" and others. Hmm do we see a trend here already?

Thirdly, it's very important to compare how viewers and critics evaluate these movies:

List no. 3: 'A, B, C... or F?'
Toy Story 3 -- IMDB: 8.7; metacritics.com: 92; average: 9.0The Social Network -- IMDB: 8.2; metacritics.com: 95; average: 8.9The King's Speech -- IMDB: 8.5; metacritics.com: 88; average: 8.7Winter's Bone -- IMDB: 7.5; metacritics.com: 90; average: 8.3Black Swan -- IMDB: 8.6; metacritics.com: 79; average: 8.3127 Hours -- IMDB: 8.2; metacritics.com: 82; average: 8.2Inception -- IMDB: 9.0; metacritics.com: 74; average: 8.2True Grit -- IMDB: 8.2; metacritics.com: 80; average: 8.1The Fighter -- IMDB: 8.2; metacritics.com: 79; average: 8.1The Kids Are All Right -- IMDB: 7.4; metacritics.com: 86; average: 8.0

I ranked these movies according to IMDB and metacritic.com rankings average. "Toy story 3" does very well here, by both viewers in IMDB and critics in metacritic.com. Some of the previous leaders spatter across the list giving an interesting perspective for possible Oscar evening winners.

And finally, to get the result we need to sum up all previous scores - from 1 to 10, the smallest score being the best:

List no. 4: 'The Grande Finale'
The King's Speech 8 Black Swan 9 The Social Network 10 Winter's Bone 16 True Grit 17 Toy Story 3 19 Inception 20 The Kids Are All Right 21 127 Hours 22 The Fighter 23

So here you go! Top 3 most possible Oscar winners according to our little calculation are: leader "The King's Speech", followed by "Black Swan" and "The Social Network". I guess this not a big surprise as "The King's Speech" already boast 16 wins in such awards as Golden Globes, British Independent Films and others. Let's not forget 12 Oscar nominations, which is a great accomplishment by itself.