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| Lee Daniels is first African-American DGA nominee The Precious film-maker joins the likes of Quentin Tarantino and James Cameron on the Directors Guild of America's shortlist, seen as a key indicator for Oscar successLee Daniels became the first African-American to be nominated for a Directors Guild of America award when he was shortlisted last night alongside the likes of James Cameron and Quentin Tarantino. Daniels, 50, is nominated for his work on the acclaimed drama Precious, about the experiences of an illiterate teenager in 1980s New York.The nominees for this year's awards were each notified by a phone call by DGA president Taylor Hackford. "I started crying and embarrassed myself in front of Taylor," Daniels confessed to Variety. "It was a surreal, humbling, out-of-body experience."Voted for by fellow film-makers, the DGA award honours excellence in directing and has proved a reliable pointer to the best director Oscar, with Danny Boyle winning last year's DGA honour for Slumdog Millionaire. "This is the one you want to get, because it's decided by the people who know what it's about," said Tarantino yesterday.Tarantino is nominated for Inglourious Basterds and Cameron for his record-breaking Avatar. Joining them on the shortlist are Jason Reitman (for Up in the Air) and Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker). But a host of other hotly-tipped contenders, including Jane Campion, Peter Jackson and the Coen brothers, failed to make the cut.While the directors of America were arranging their shortlist, the producers were deciding theirs. This week also saw the announcement of the 10 nominees for this year's Producers Guild of America awards. Battling it out to take home the prize are Avatar, District 9, Star Trek, The Hurt Locker, An Education, Up, Inglourious Basterds, Precious, Up in the Air and Invictus.The PGA awards take place on 24 January. The DGA awards are announced on 30 January.OscarsJames CameronQuentin TarantinoJason ReitmanKathryn BigelowXan Brooksguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Portrait of the artist: Tony Marchant, screenwriter and playwright 'I quit boxing after my first play. Getting punched in the face turned out to be good preparation for being a writer'What got you started?The DIY ethic of the Jam and the Clash. When I was 18, I sent some poems to Paul Weller's publishing imprint, Riot Stories, and they published them.What was your big breakthrough?Getting my play Remember Me? on at Stratford East theatre in London when I was 19. I'd sent the play to about 20 theatres; Stratford East was the only one that wanted to do it. I realised later this was like winning the lottery.What have you sacrificed for your art?A career in boxing. I thought I'd end up being a heavyweight professional, but I packed it in as soon as I got my first play staged. Getting punched in the face turned out to be very good pÂreparation for being a writer.Stage or screen?Stage, for the kick of having a live Âaudience. If you write something for the telly, you can have 6 million people watching it, but you'll get just one or two phone calls – and one of those will be from your mum and dad.Do you suffer for your art?The only thing that's painful is the Âpolitics of working in television. The writing is the easiest bit. Then you have to deal with the agendas of directors of programmes, who are worrying about their channel's identity, or money, or their own self-aggrandisement.What work of art would you like to own?Hans Holbein's The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb. It's haunting, brutal and compelling.What advice would you give a young writer?You'll get lots of notes from script Âeditors and producers. You need to work out which will help you write a better draft, and which are there to control and muzzle you.Has TV dumbed down?Yes. Commissioning has lost its nerve: everybody's scared of not taking part in this meritocratic craze for I'm a ÂCelebrity and X Factor, and it's percolated into drama. There are only two narratives now: crime, or biopics of dead celebs. Authorship – being able to hear a writer's voice, the way you used to hear Jimmy McGovern's in Brookside – has become like fancy chocolate.What's the best advice anyone ever gave you?I used to write stage directions in which I kept misspelling "discomfited" as "discomforted". The producer David Snodin taught me to spell it correctly – I wasn't making a very good impression.CVBorn: London, 1959Career: Stage plays include Remember Me? (1978) and Raspberry (1982). TV work includes Holding On and Garrow's Law, now out on DVD.High point: "Holding On. The last out-and-out British masterpiece on TV."Low point: "Trying to rework the musical Blitz! with Lionel Bart. He'd realised he just couldn't do it, which was depressing."TheatreLaura Barnettguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
This week's new cinema reviews Up In The Air (15) (Jason Reitman, 2009, US) George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick. 109 minsThis movie seems to have struck a chord with credit-crunched America (and awards panels), dealing as it does with a roving corporate executioner (Clooney) who ruins the lives of others as a substitute for having one of his own. But the timing is more down to luck than design. Those looking for empathy with the freshly unemployed will be disappointed; those looking for Clooney being suave and questioning his hollow, frequent-flier lifestyle will be more satisfied. It's a smooth, witty semi-comedy that doesn't go quite where you expect, but doesn't exactly frighten the horses either.44 Inch Chest (18) (Malcolm Venville, 2009, UK) Ray Winstone, Ian McShane, John Hurt, Joanne Whalley. 95 minsThe writers of Sexy Beast attempt to repeat the formula, assembling a rogues' gallery of hard men for another study of geezer masculinity. They're out to avenge their cuckolded mate Winstone by nabbing his wife's lover and doing bad things to him, but despite some great character turns, this is just beastly, and far from sexy.Still Walking (U) (Hirokazu Koreeda, 2008, Japan) Hiroshi Abe, Yui Natsukawa. 114 minsComparisons to Ozu's Tokyo Story are justified here, for once. This is up there with the master when it comes to observant, empathetic domestic drama. It revolves around a day-long family reunion that's overshadowed by the deceased eldest son. Issues and regrets rise to the surface, but the naturalism is beautifully sustained.The Book Of Eli (15) (Albert & Allen Hughes, 2010, US) Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman, Mila Kunis. 118 minsAnother trudge through post-apocalyptic America, but unlike last week's The Road, this one has ass-kicking action and product placement to liven things up. It's more of a western, with Washington's tooled-up loner-on-a-mission crossing frontier baddie Oldman.All About Steve (12A) (Phil Traill, 2009, US) Sandra Bullock, Bradley Cooper. 99 minsA Sandra Bullock movie too far, even for Sandra Bullock fans. She's a chatty, borderline-psychiatric-disorder crossword compiler who meets her dream guy – news cameraman Cooper – and basically stalks him into submission. Who says romance is dead?Crude (NC) (Joe Berlinger, 2009, US) 105 minsAnother issue to make your blood boil: Ecuadorians taking on the devastation of their environment by oil giants Texaco, with the corrupt local legal system and corporate denial machine stacked against them, but a few celebrities on their side. It's thorough and passionate.OSS 117: Lost In Rio (15) (Michel Hazanavicius, 2009, Fra) Jean Dujardin. 101 minsMore delightfully cheesy retro spy nonsense, as the politically incorrect French agent travels to 1960s Brazil to take on Nazis, hippies, the Chinese, the CIA, the Israelis, even Mexican wrestlers.OUT FROM FRIDAYThe Boys Are BackClive Owen finds a novel way to cope with single fatherhood.Blur: No Distance Left To RunThe band document their reunion and comeback.Out on TuesdayBurlesque Undressed Documentary on the art of disrobing.Out on ThursdayA Prophet Jacques Audiard's acclaimed French prison epic, charting a young Muslim's steady rise.Brothers Jake Gyllenhaal cosies up to the wife (Natalie Portman) of his fallen soldier brother.Armored Tense heist thriller led by Matt Dillon and Laurence Fishburne.Ninja Assassin Dismemberment-happy sword-swinging Asian action – Hollywood-style.Toy Story 2 3D Pixar's winning animated sequel gets the 3D treatment.Veer Shahrukh Khan leads an anti-colonial Indian epic.COMING SOONIn two weeks … Bleak Harlem teen pregnancy drama Precious … Disney goes to New Orleans for old school animation The Princess And The Frog …In three weeks … Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman in South African rugby drama Invictus … Julien Temple's Dr Feelgood doc Oil City Confidential …In a month … Colin Firth in Tom Ford's A Single Man … Benicio Del Toro howls for The Wolfman …Steve Roseguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
HR expert Wayne Clarke on Up in the Air Up in the Air is really about the caring old guard in human resources versus the callous new guardFiring people is always going to be an emotional business. So one way to take the pain away is for a corporation to outsource redundancies to someone like Ryan Bingham, the main character in this film, played by George Clooney. Bingham is a "corporate downsizer", a hired gun who flies around the US making people redundant. It's not something we really do in the UK, but it does happen in America, where employment law is much more in favour of the employer.Bingham is very good at what he does. He never says "you're fired"; instead he does his homework, reading up on the employee's background, and then giving them a motivational speech about what a good opportunity this redundancy is. I haven't used that technique on anyone myself, but it is a good lesson in the importance of preparation.When a hotshot young graduate, Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick), joins Bingham's company, she sees redundancies in far less emotional terms: for her, employees are just widgets or production units. She advocates using video-conferencing to fire people, which is just horrific and inhumane. And you can't always know how someone's going to take it: one woman Keener fires later throws herself off a bridge. I haven't heard of that happening in the UK, but there was a spate of employee suicides when France Telecom was downsizing.The film is really about the old guard in human resources versus the new guard. The older generation is usually more caring in the workplace: they understand how difficult it can be for someone to be made redundant after 30 years' service. But young graduates don't always understand that. They just think: "Fine, sack 'em, it's a cut-throat world." I really hope that's not the shape of things to come.Wayne Clarke is managing partner of Best Companies Partnership; www.bestcompanies.co.uk. Up in the Air is on general release. George ClooneyJason ReitmanDramaComedyLaura Barnettguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Video: Scarlett Johansson and Liev Schrieber on Broadway Hollywood stars Scarlett Johansson and Liev Schrieber star in a new version of Arthur Miller's A View From The Bridge in one of the most hyped Broadway openings in years guardian.co.uk |