Fifth Estate Flops

Disconcerting news on the movie “The Fifth Estate”.  According to an entertainment website, the movie has belly flopped from the main deck of the Titanic.  It’s a unintentional disaster movie.  ( http://insidemovies.ew.com/2013/10/20/box-office-disaster-benedict-cumberbatch-the-fifth-estate/?hpt=hp_t3 ).

According to the website the movie, which took around US$26 million to make, took only $1.7 million in its opening weekend across 1,769 cinemas.

I feel bad for Benedict Cumberbatch.  He put his heart and soul into “The Fifth Estate”.  I have only seen a trailer for it on The Graham Norton Show, but he has captured Julian Assange perfectly.

There in, I think, lies one of the problems.  Hardly anyone in America either knows or cares who Julian Assange is.

I think Dreamworks made a major error in believing that they could fashion a movie out of Julian Assange’s ‘exploits’, such as they are.  Julian Assange is not the stuff great movies are made of.  Where is the romance?  The thrills?  Not there.  Julian Assange is an ordinary man who did some quite extraordinary things, but not enough to fashion a movie around him.

A point an American friend made too, has a lot of validity in my book.  She pointed out that releasing what is basically a political movie on the back of the government shutdown was an extremely stupid idea.  People are fed up with anything they can even vaguely construe as political.

My main fear is that Dreamworks ineptitude will end up reflecting badly on Benedict Cumberbatch and besmirching his career.  This would be extremely unfair, as from what I have seen, his performance is brilliant. 

Unfortunately, in Hollywood you are only as good as your last movie, and the great American public seems to think “The Fifth Estate” is crap.

 

Benedict Cumberbatch and Harrison Ford on the Graham Norton Show

We got to see this in Australia last night, fast-tracked from the UK.  A note to Channel 10… it would help if you mentioned all the guests in the advertising.  Getting a little tired of your ignoring Benedict Cumberbatch as if he isn’t interesting.  World’s hottest man and you don’t think he’s a draw card?  Fire your promotional people, they suck!

Firstly, I have got to say that this was one of the best Graham Norton shows I have ever watched.  Graham is such a wonderfully funny man.  His wit is quite acidic and absolutely evil.  I loved his description of his guests as “Fresh meat for my sofa”.  I half expect the sofa to swallow Harrison, Benedict and James Whitehall whole!

Harrison Ford seemed a little confused by both Graham and the show, until he realised that he could say what he liked.  No-one would get upset if he swore.  He seemed to settle in and enjoy himself.  Harrison Ford has quite a dry, droll sense of humour, and his delivery is dryer than the Sahara Desert.  When Graham asked him is his kids got school cred for having Han Solo and Indiana Jones as their father, his reply was a dry “Frankly my kid’s could give a shit.”

Benedict was late, due to filming “The Imitation Game” about Alan Turing.  He told his rather embarrassing story about fan boying over Harrison Ford, where what he intended to say came out all wrong. 

It turned into a mutual admiration society when Harrison Ford admitted he was a fan of Benedict’s, particularly Sherlock Holmes.

Graham showed a clip from “The Fifth Estate”.  Now, I had no intention of seeing the movie.  As much as I love Benedict, I wasn’t sure I wanted to watch a movie about Julian Assange, who, to be honest, I don’t have much interest in.  However, the clip blew me away.  The Australian accent is hard to master, and Julian Assange’s accent is not pure Australian.  Like so many Aussies who have lived overseas for extended periods of time, he’s picked up accent overlays.  Benedict nailed it perfectly.  He also nailed Julian’s speech patterns.   

On a slight tangent from the subject of accents and speech patterns, Benedict also does an awesome Chewbacca impression.

Graham provoked much amusement with Benedict Cumberbatch/Otter memes.  It was a pleasure to discover I’m not the only person who buggers up the word ‘memes’.  Neither Graham or Benedict could work out how it was supposed to be pronounced either.

Another amusing part of the show was comedian James Whitehall trying desperately to get Benedict to tell him how Sherlock survived the fall.

Fantastic show with fantastic guests. 

Note to Graham: we really need Benedict on the show once a month, if that is at all possible.  Thanks.

The End is In Sight

Nope, not talking about the apocalypse or Armageddon… I’m talking about the end of the Australian Federal Election campaign.  We go to the polls  on Saturday 7th September.  Just over a week and this bollocks is done with for another three years.

I really dislike politics.  I realise every country needs a system of government and elections are the best way to get a reasonable one.  One thing that I don’t like is having my television viewing constantly interrupted with what is basically childish whining of “Pick Me! Pick Me!”  

This election has had the disturbing trend of commercials bashing the crap out of the opposition.  The Australian Labor Party’s commercials are attempting to paint opposition leader Tony Abbott as the Chief Executive Officer of Monsters Inc.  If Tony gets in, according to the Australian Labor Party, he’ll eat your children, steal your underwear, and a portal to Hell will be opened.  I have news for them… Australia already has a portal to Hell – it’s called Canberra and it’s full of lesser demons known as politicians and press secretaries!

You’ve probably realised by now that I am not a political animal.  On the political animal scale I am an otter.  I prefer to laze in the sun and play with my friends rather than even think about politics.

Right now the only politician, sitting or wannabe,  I have any time for is Julian Assange.  And this is only because there have been NO commercials on television for the Wikileaks Party.   If in the last week of the campaign commercials appear then my opinion will be dramatically revised.

Also, don’t get me started on Palmer’s United Party.  Anyone with half a working braincell should have been able to come up with a party name that didn’t have the initials P.U.P.   Always look at the initials when naming something.  The London Metropolitan Police learned that back in the late 70s when they named their latest mobile units Fast Action Response Transits! 

The other deeply annoying thing is the fact that the news programs have become de facto political commercials.  In a half hour news bulletin, there is about 20 minutes covering where the politicians were today.  Who cares?  I certainly don’t, and I am pretty sure that I am not alone in this.

*sigh*

So, just over a week to go… hope my sanity holds out.