Jonathan Crocker

After Jennifer Lawrence’s first audition, talent agents told her mother it was “the best cold-read by a 14 year old they had ever heard”. Six years later, she was scorching down the red carpet at the Academy Awards in a Calvin Klein dress looking hotter than the sun. Oscar-nominated in indie drama Winter’s Bone, blockbuster babe in X-Men: First Class and now starring in her own killer franchise The Hunger Games… Lawrence is raising the temperature in Hollywood. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 1% [?]

On paper, it really couldn’t look much better. A romantic thriller from The Lives Of Others director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. A script inked by him, Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects) and Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park). A first ever on-screen pairing of Hollywood super-idols Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp. Oscar-winners, every one of them. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 5% [?]

There’s a story that Billy Wilder (legendary Oscar-winning filmmaker) once told Billy Bob Thornton (impoverished LA waiter) that he didn’t look pretty enough to make it as an actor. Thornton didn’t care. Firstly, he didn’t really want to be an actor anyway. Secondly, he looked interesting. And interesting beat pretty any day of the week. The first Billy would live just long enough to watch the second Billy (actor, writer, director) win an Oscar and marry the hottest woman on the planet. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 5% [?]

As he touched the cold trigger of his handgun, Nicolas Cage paused to contemplate what he was about to do. Stood smiling in the middle of his gun sights was a tiny, blonde, button-cute 12-year-old girl. His daughter, in fact. Suddenly, eating a live cockroach didn’t seem so bad. ‘We really have to make it clear there’s a bullet-proof vest underneath there,’ he thought nervously to himself, as he smiled reassuringly back at her. ‘This is a weird day… A very weird day.’ He squeezed the trigger. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 6% [?]

What’s this talk that you wanted Big Daddy to be a paedophile?

This is bollocks, right. Where did this come from? Did Vaughn say this? He actually just doing this to piss me off! I never said that. What I suggested was I wanted Big Daddy to have a twist to it that wasn’t just as simple as him being a cop. One of the things I suggested was that he maybe kidnapped Cindy. But Vaughn has somehow turned that into making him a paedo. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 7% [?]

Kidnap, murder, madness, corruption and another missing child… Changeling‘s true-story of ’20s single-mum Christine Collins is so good/shocking that if it hadn’t actually happened, some smart screenwriter would have dreamed it anyway.

Christine’s ordinary neighbourhood life is shattered when her 10-year-old son Walter (Gattlin Griffith) suddenly vanishes from the house. Gone. Five months pass. The Police inform Christine that they’ve found Walter. The media gather, flash-bulbs popping, and the boy steps off the train to be reunited with his mother. Except: Christine knows that this is not her son. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 3% [?]

Across six decades and 45 movies including 12 Angry Men, Serpico, Network and now Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead, director Sidney Lumet has extracted some of the great performances in US cinema history.

What felt special to you about Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead?

The emotional outpouring that had to take place from the actors – because the movie is pitched so highly. It’s so wonderfully acted. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 3% [?]

A new Bond. A new Bond film. A new beginning. Daniel Craig raises the stakes with Casino Royale. Now do pay attention…

The studio didn’t want him. Too rough, they said. Too cocky. Too old to be Bond. Even the writer wanted someone smoother. Started openly referring to him as “that labourer”. But the Broccoli family, Bond’s all-powerful producers, were certain that this was the actor, this was Fleming’s Bond, “instead of all the mincing poofs we’ve had apply for the job.” Of course, it didn’t help that this guy didn’t seem to give a damn about the role. Hell, he even refused a screentest. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 16% [?]