OFFICIAL TRAILER FOR ALLIED

Now here's something into which to sink your teeth! Paramount could hardly have begged for a box office coup like Allied promises to be, what with all the Brangelina divorce drama and the rumours of his affair with Marion Cotillard, albeit quickly quashed by all parties. It gives Robert Zemeckis' wartime thriller the mainstream appeal it might otherwise have lacked; that appeal, however, is supplied to me by this new trailer, far stronger than the teaser, and hinting at the central intrigue to this enticing spy mystery story. Written by Steven Knight, it suddenly seems such an attractive proposition! Released in the US on the 23rd of November and in the UK on the 25th.

2015 BIFA NOMINATIONS - FILM4 BREAKS STUDIO RECORD

In an impressive performance for the British studio, Film4 backed all five of the Best British Independent Film nominees in today's British Independent Film Award nominations - the BIFA's top award. Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos' The Lobster leads among films with seven nominations, followed by Andrew Haigh's 45 Years and Justin Kurzel's Macbeth, both of which earned mentions for their leads in the acting categories. There, BIFA voters righted what is sure to be a slew of wrongs come awards season in December, as they rejected category fraud by recognising Tom Courtenay, Marion Cotillard and Alicia Vikander (for The Danish Girl) in lead. The 2015 BIFAs will be presented at their ceremony on the 6th of December, where Kate Winslet will receive the Variety Award for Global Achievement. All the nominations below:

Best British Independent Film
45 Years
Amy
Ex Machina
The Lobster
Macbeth

Best Director
Alex Garland (Ex Machina)
Andrew Haigh (45 Years)
Asif Kapadia (Amy)
Justin Kurzel (Macbeth)
Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster)

Best Actor
Tom Courtenay (45 Years)
Colin Farrell (The Lobster)
Michael Fassbender (Macbeth)
Tom Hardy (Legend)
Tom Hiddleston (High-Rise)

Best Actress
Marion Cotillard (Macbeth)
Carey Mulligan (Suffragette)
Charlotte Rampling (45 Years)
Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn)
Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl)

Best Supporting Actor
Luke Evans (High-Rise)
Brendan Gleeson (Suffragette)
Domhnall Gleeson (Brooklyn)
Sean Harris (Macbeth)
Ben Whishaw (The Lobster)

Best Supporting Actress
Helena Bonham Carter (Suffragette)
Olivia Colman (The Lobster)
Anne-Marie Duff (Suffragette)
Sienna Miller (High-Rise)
Julie Walters (Brooklyn)

Best Screenplay
Efthymis Filippou and Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster)
Alex Garland (Ex Machina)
Andrew Haigh (45 Years)
Nick Hornby (Brooklyn)
Amy Jump (High-Rise)

Best Achievement in Craft
Adam Arkapaw (Macbeth) - cinematography
Mark Digby (Ex Machina) - production design
Chris King (Amy) - editing
Fiona Weir (Brooklyn) - casting
Andrew Whitehurst (Ex Machina) - visual effects

Best Documentary
Amy
Dark Horse
How to Change the World
Palio
A Syrian Love Story

Best Foreign Independent Film
Carol
Force Majeure
Girlhood
Room
Son of Saul

Douglas Hickox Award for Best Debut Director
Ben Blaine and Chris Blaine (Nina Forever)
Corin Hardy (The Hallow)
Paul Katis (Kajaki: The True Story)
John MacLean (Slow West)
Stephen Fingleton (The Survivalist)

Most Promising Newcomer
Agyness Deyn (Sunset Song)
Mia Goth (The Survivalist)
Abigail Hardingham (Nina Forever)
Milo Parker (Mr. Holmes)
Bel Powley (A Royal Night Out)

Raindance Discovery Award
Aaaaaaaah!
Burn Burn Burn
Orion: The Man Who Would Be King
The Return
Winter

Producer of the Year
Andrew de Lotbiniere and Paul Katis (Kajaki: The True Story)
Cecil Dempsey, Ed Guiney, Yorgos Lanthimos and Lee Magiday (The Lobster)
James Gay-Rees (Amy)
Tristan Goligher (45 Years)
David A. Hughes and David Moores (The Violators)

Variety Award
Kate Winslet

Best Short Film
Balcony
Crack
Edmond
Love Is Blind
Manoman

REVIEW - MACBETH (JUSTIN KURZEL)

A bleakly beautiful slideshow of stunning cinematography, though one wonders if Justin Kurzel's Macbeth might have actually worked better as just that - a slideshow. Fervid imagery with scant narrative nor thematic relevance serves as shallow decoration for a text that needed none, though in this near-unintelligible production you may be glad that Kurzel has provided at least something to grasp onto. William Shakespeare's work doesn't need subtlety in its delivery so much as conviction, but Kurzel reduces his dialogue to whispered whimsy, its depth buried deep beneath cheap bombast and bluster. Kurzel matches the melodrama with a bold, stark mise-en-scene, recreating the theatricality in the screenplay with its equal in the film's visual and sonic design; he avoids all sense of complexity in either, instead stressing hollow intensity in all aspects herein. In insisting that his cast mumbles and fumbles through their lines in monotonous croaks, Kurzel makes his Macbeth almost impossible to understand, though extremely simple to follow, if what you came to Shakespeare to appreciate was a clearly delineated plot. And you surely did not. Despite consistently poor line delivery, the actors are nonetheless impressive, and Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard succeed in recreating these iconic roles in their own interpretations. Would that the film itself had its own interpretation - its lack of nuance suggests a lack of understanding, its reliance on style over substance (a journalistic cliche, but an appropriate one) suggests helplessness and naivety. But it'd make a great screensaver!