The 71st Golden Globes took place last night and in a year with so many great films, it’s fitting that just almost all the good ones won something. 12 Years A Slave won Best Motion Picture - Drama and American Hustle won Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, but Alfonso Cuaron picked up the Best Director - Motion Picture award for Gravity. The acting awards went to Matthew McConaughey (Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama) and Jared Leto (Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture) for Dallas Buyers Club, Leonardo DiCaprio (Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy) for The Wolf of Wall Street, Cate Blanchett (Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama) for Blue Jasmine and Amy Adams (Best Actress In A Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy) and Jennifer Lawrence (Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture) for American Hustle. Spike Jonze won the Best Screenplay - Motion Picture award for Her, which meant Nebraska, Captain Phillips and Philomena were the only major contenders to go home empty handed.
The full list of Golden Globes 2014 winners and nominations is as follows: Read more
The all-star American Hustle topped the box office this weekend, with help from previews that kept it ahead of both The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and Frozen. American Hustle gave director David O. Russell his biggest ever opening in the UK with £3.5m, including £1.1m from previews. That’s well ahead of Silver Linings Playbook’s £1.3m debut in 2012 and that film, directed by O. Russell, featured Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro, who all appear in American Hustle.
Second spot was taken by The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug with £3.2m, narrowly missing out on being the first film since Les Misérables to top the box office for four consecutive weeks. Peter Jackson’s fantasy epic has now grossed an impressive £37.3m and should comfortably pass the £40m mark. Read more
Tom Linay, Film Specialist, DCM, gives The Huffington Post his top 12 film picks for 2014.
The past twelve months have seen a stellar slate of films released in cinemas, a selection that ranks alongside any in the last twenty years. Gravity showed that the cinema is still unrivalled in providing jaw-dropping spectacle, Blue Is The Warmest Colour put unforgettable, raw emotion in tight close-up on the big screen with heartbreaking results and Alan Partridge proved that television characters can make the transition to the big screen, retaining their personality and humour. 2014 also promises to be a great year for the big screen, proving once again, that there’s never a bad year for cinema. The UK is a nation of cinema fans, with one in five people over the age of 15 visiting the cinema at least once a month. If you’re one of them you may want to start planning your visits now, so I’ve highlighted 12 upcoming films, one for each month, that make 2014 such an exciting year. Read more
Ian Burrell, Media Editor at The Independent, takes a look at second screen in the cinema and in particular, cinime. The order to "switch off your mobile phones" has become almost as much a part of the film-going ritual as buying hot dogs and popcorn.
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Early this morning, the British Academy of Film and TV Arts (BAFTA), played host to the announcement of the nominees for the upcoming EE British Academy Film Awards 2014. The nominee list reads like a who's who of the film world, including new and established talents in the field, such as Tom Hanks, Dame Judy Dench, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Léa Seydoux. The EE British Academy Film Awards are the second of the high profile awards that take place in Q1, preceded by the Golden Globes and followed by the Oscars.
Gravity receives 11 nominations. 12 Years a Slave and American Hustle are each nominated in ten categories. Captain Phillips has nine nominations. Behind the Candelabra and Saving Mr. Banks are each nominated five times. Read more
Happy New Year!
I trust you had a pleasant and joyous festive period. Most of mine was spent at the cinema, although not as much as yours I imagine. Read more
Early this morning, the British Academy of Film and TV Arts (BAFTA), played host to the announcement of the nominees for the upcoming EE British Academy Film Awards 2014. Tom Linay, Film Specialist at DCM, gives us his thoughts on this mornings announcements.
Alfonso Cuaron’s sci-fi spectacular, Gravity leads the way at this year’s BAFTAs with 11 nominations. 12 Years A Slave and American Hustle are just behind with 10 each and Captain Phillips with nine. The nominations were announced by Helen McCrory and Luke Evans at BAFTA HQ this morning. Read more
Last week, we took a peek at some of the biggest action and romance movies due out in Q1 2014, now Thoughtful Dramas and Family Friendly Fare are in the spotlight.
First up, Thoughtful Dramas, perfect for targeting a more mature and therefore settled audience, in the 45+ plus age range. Typically, they’re smart, tech-savvy, comfortably-off and free to live-it-up in any way they choose. These are no pipe and slipper senior citizens. They’re active, engaged and raring to go, and you’ll find them at the cinema. Read more
DCM's resident Film Specialist extraordinaire, Tom Linay, gives us his take on the latest instalment of the epic Hobbit Trilogy via The Huffington Post.
I didn't care much for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Accusations that Peter Jackson was stretching out a straightforward story to three films and eight hours, purely for financial reasons seemed entirely substantiated from the opening scene. The scene took place at Bilbo's house and seemed to drag on for an age, featuring rude and obnoxious dwarves being constantly unpleasant to the timid, Bilbo while a smug Gandalf found the whole thing highly amusing. It was blockbuster bullying that we were supposed to find engaging and it immediately got the trilogy off to a bad start. And then they started singing. Read more
Once upon a time, in a land long ago, there were Digital agencies whose technical skills were unsurpassed, but whose communication skills often left something to be desired.
And so it was also, that in a land not too far from them, there were Advertising agencies whose communication skills were finely honed, often to a level of pure art. But these agencies did not speak the language of the Digital folk and they were wary of them, so that both eyed each other with great suspicion. Read more
I want to start with a thank you. Thank you to everyone who has made my first five months within this industry so welcoming.
My primary role as Head of Exhibition has been to engage with our Exhibitors, get to know and understand your business in order to create a clear commercial strategy for growth. With your help I’ve been able to do exactly that. Since August, anyone who has met me, David Prosser or Rebecca Rau, will have heard about how our strategy is built around protecting and growing revenue, repositioning cinema and future proofing the business. The DCM Cinematic TMS rollout is a massive part of this. Read more
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug dwarfed the competition this past weekend grossing over half of the top 15’s total box office. A £9.3m debut is the fifth highest of the year and is only fractionally less than The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’s Friday to Sunday total of £9.5m. That film went on to reach the dizzying heights of £52.3m by the end of its run and although second instalments often aren’t as successful, it bodes well for The Desolation of Smaug. A healthy 56.4% of the box office was from 3D presentations.
On its second week, Frozen had a sensational hold falling a meagre 11% to £4.2m. The Disney animation now has a cume of £10.3m, which is already half way to overtaking Tangled's £20.5m final total and with the school holidays still to start, I’d put money on Frozen coming out on top. Read more
