Zoe Saldaña

Elio

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Elio on his own

In a developed world of plunging birth rates, here’s Elio, a Pixar animation for sad only children. An ET-flavoured tale flipped on its head and with Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in the mix, it also doffs its hat to the era of Big Science, when the likes of Professor Carl Sagan were still being listened to rather than shouted out of the room. “Are we alone,” the disembodied voice of Sagan intones several times throughout the film, meaning is Earth the only planet in the universe harbouring sentient life? “Alone,” taken literally in the case of Elio, an orphaned kid being brought up by his aunt, Olga, who has given … Read more

Emilia Pérez

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Zoe Saldaña as lawyer Rita

First feted then hated, Emilia Pérez got a standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Jury Prize. By the time the Oscars came around the tide had started running the other way, with its 13 nominations resulting in only two wins – Best Supporting Actress for Zoe Saldaña, plus Best Song (El Mal). What had happened in the interim is a textbook case of a social media pile-on, some of it justifiable some of it not, which resulted in all sorts of apologies being given to the faceless blob for crimes against trans people, misrepresentation, the lack of actual Mexicans in the key roles in a film largely set … Read more

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

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The Guardians ready for actions

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 wraps up the grungey offshoot of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with grace and style, as well as big bangs and some good jokes. There’s a touch of cinematic pathos in there too, as if GOTG3 is also to some extent saying goodbye to the big superhero movie as a cultural meme. The MCU, after all, is running out of puff. It’s the film that nearly didn’t get made in its current form. Writer/director James Gunn, very much the presiding mind in all the GOTG movies, got fired early on in the production process – some old Tweets came back to bite him – but ended up being … Read more

Avatar: The Way of Water

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Sam Worthington as Jake

Discounting the documentaries about voyages to the bottom of the sea, James Cameron’s last two movies were 1997’s Titanic and 2009’s Avatar. Titanic was the biggest grossing movie of all time, until Avatar replaced it at the top. Success breeds sequels but with the best will in the world it’s hard to imagine what a Titanic follow-up would be about (Titanic II – “it’s still at the bottom of the Atlantic”). The same cannot be said about Avatar, and so it came as no surprise when Cameron announced in 2010 that a sequel was in the works. It took 12 years to get it onto the screens, in large part because Cameron decided … Read more

Star Trek

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Chris Pine and Zoe Saldana in Star Trek

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 28 December Birth of Nichelle Nichols, 1932 On this day in 1932, Grace Dell (aka Nichelle) Nichols was born, in Robbins, Illinois, USA. Having studied in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles, she first arrived in showbiz as a singer in a 1961 musical called Kicks and Co, then went on to have roles in Carmen Jones and Porgy and Bess, before touring as a singer with Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton’s bands. In 1964 she appeared in an episode of a TV series called The Lieutenant, produced by Gene Roddenberry. Roddenberry cast her again in his next TV series, Star … Read more