It’s hard to believe that it has been three years since Dave and I threw caution and sense to the wind and set up HeyUGuys.co.uk.

At the time we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into, nor how much fun it would be. We’ve been all over the world, met some heroes and enjoyed (almost) every minute of it.

We’re very grateful to everyone who has read the site over the last three years, to those who have supported us and especially to our team of amazing writers, without whom we wouldn’t be here and neither would you.

So much has changed since the site started and there’s an excellent community of writers and blogs out there now, with the landscape continually evolving and we’re all benefitting from this.

So, this is a thank you to everyone who has been with us thus far. There’s still far to go and much fun to be had and it’s a genuine pleasure to be going there with you all.

We’ll save you all some cake.

Universal Studios have give us this fantastic exclusive featurette to coincide with the Blu-ray release of the greatest dinosaur movie ever made, Jurassic Park. The Blu-ray is released in the UK 24th October. Jurassic Park for me is an all-time classic and I love everything about it. It was ground-breaking on so many levels and I’m so pleased it’s making its way to Blu-ray packed to the rafters with special features (all of which are listed below).

One of those special features is this featurette focusing on the music in Jurassic Park with the title ‘A Whole New Level’. John Williams provides the score for the film and in the featurette, all the sound effects have been stripped to let you see simply the score that plays during a few select scenes. One of those scenes is the raptor kitchen scene which is on the list for one of the most intense scenes ever devised in my opinion! The feature has interviews with John Williams and Joseph Mazzello who both talk about the intensity of the score in the movie. Scroll down and have a watch!

The Jurassic Park Ultimate Trilogy is released on Blu-ray from 24^th October and you can pre-order your copy here.

 Jurassic Park: A multimillionaire (Richard Attenborough) unveils a new theme park where visitors can observe dinosaurs cloned using advanced DNA technology. But when an employee tampers with the security system, the dinosaurs escape, forcing the visitors to fight for their survival. Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum and Laura Dern star in this thrilling, action-packed blockbuster from acclaimed director Steven Spielberg and based on the novel by Michael Crichton.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park: Four years after Jurassic Park’s genetically bred dinosaurs ran amok, multimillionaire John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) shocks chaos theorist Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) by revealing that Hammond has been breeding more beasties at a secret location. Malcolm, his paleontologist ladylove (Julianne Moore) and a wildlife videographer (Vince Vaughn) join an expedition to document the lethal lizards’ natural behavior in this action-packed thriller.

Jurassic Park III: In need of funds for research, Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) accepts a large sum of money to accompany Paul and Amanda Kirby (William H. Macy and Tea Leoni) on an aerial tour of the infamous Isla Sorna. It isn’t long before all hell breaks loose and the stranded wayfarers must fight for survival as a host of new — and even more deadly — dinosaurs try to make snacks of them. Laura Dern, Michael Jeter, Alessandro Nivola and Trevor Morgan co-star.

Special Features:

• New to Blu-ray – ‘Return to Jurassic Park’ – this six-part documentary features all-new interviews with the many of the cast members from all three films, the filmmakers and Steven Spielberg.
• Dawn of a New Era
• Making Pre-history
• The Next Step in Evolution
• Finding The Lost World
• Something Survived
• The Third Adventure

Also:

• The Making of Jurassic Park
• The Making of The Lost World: Jurassic Park
• The Making of Jurassic Park III
• Steven Spielberg Directs Jurassic Park
• Early Pre-Production Meetings
• The World of Jurassic Park
• The Magic of Industrial Light & Magic
• Location Scouting
• Phil Tippett Animatics: Raptors In The Kitchen
• The Jurassic Park Phenomenon: A Discussion with Author Michael Crichton
• Industrial Light & Magic and Jurassic Park: Before and After The Visual Effects
• Industrial Light & Magic and The Lost World: Jurassic Park Before & After
• The Industrial Light & Magic Press Reel
• A Visit to Industrial Light & Magic
• Hurricane in Kauai Featurette
• Dinosaur Turntables
• The Dinosaurs of Jurassic Park III
• Montana: Finding New Dinosaurs
• Animatics: T-Rex Attack
• The Special Effects of Jurassic Park III
• The Sounds of Jurassic Park III
• The Art of Jurassic Park III
• Tour of Stan Winston Studio
• Feature Commentary with Special Effects Team
• Production Archives: Storyboards, Models, Photographs, Design Sketches and Conceptual Drawings
• Deleted Scenes
• Theatrical Trailers

Last night was the first ever HeyUGuys event and it went off with a bang! We teamed together with the amazing people from Who’s Jack Magazine to bring you a Q&A with the cast and filmmakers from brand new British horror / slasher movie, Demons Never Die at the Jameson Apartment in Soho which is in place for the duration of the London Film Festival.

Jon did a fantastic job anchoring the Q&A session which was attended by Director, Arjun Rose, Producer Rhian Williams from Exile and cast members, Jason Maza (who also produced), Shanika Warren-Markland and Andrew Ellis. The film was shot in just 18 days and from the trailer, it looks like a slick, gritty and  we can’t wait to see the finished article when it’s released October 28th.

Arjun spoke about how John Carpenter movies and the Scream franchise affected his writing of Demons Never Die and how the idea came from an idea he had rather than a fully developed script. In the end Arjun wrote 1 page for the movie which the production company Exile loved and asked him to continue developing the script into the completed movie.

The cast also praised Arjun as a first time director for the way in which he put all the cast at ease and has made such a great film. Shanika summed it up nicely saying:

“Arjun was always very chilled and very calm and that helped make the set and the whole environment a very nice place to be.”

Jason Maza talks us through his his experince of working on the movie and with Arjun specifically:

“Arjun was very much a calming influence. For someone who’s a  first time director, he knew exactly how he wanted it to be. He’d come from the school of thought that prepearation is key and he’d done a lot of work. he was completely prepared and never showed that he was struggling to us. The conditions were not always easy with rain, snow in the middle of a scene!

Andrew Ellis tells us what he saw in the script which brought him on board:

“I saw that British twist in the fact that  in other movies, often you don’t get to know the characters until the third sequel but in this, within the 90 minutes, you know those characters and everyone can relate to at least one of them. For me, it was a sensitive subject but the way that was dealt with in the script, it’s the way people find that friendship and a way in which they cope with it.”

Producer Rhian Williams spoke about how the idea first came about and what we can except along with the fact that the way it’s all fallen into place is a little unconventional:

“Arjun started talking about the idea and I started thinking it was great and was the one we wanted to back and I said ‘let’s go for it’. I spoke to the board and they asked for more details and I asked Arjun to write script. He started off giving us one page and the film started off as a micro-budget movie for us and then the concept started to grow. The one page that he gave us was complete genius so we were confident hat the other 91 pages would be absolutely belting which of course they were.

Idris (Elba) came on board, we got a fantastic cast and we got more confident that this film was going to be a huge hit. The soundtrack is fantastic – Universal Music came on board and what we’ve actually managed to package together, sounds very flueky the way it all happened but we got serious about doing this, it all came together very well. It’s been called genre-busting but I think what we’ve ended up with is a hugely commercial British film. TF1 have picked it up internationally, it’s screening at AFM in a couple of weeks and we’ve already got international buyers.”

You could really see the family bond that had formed from this tight knit group of actors and filmmakers at the event and this is just small section of the wide cast which also includes Robert Sheehan, Reggie Yates, Tulisa Contostavlos, Emma Rigby, Femi Oyeniran, Jennie Jacques and Jacob Anderson. We’re very excited to see what heights Demons Never Die is taken to and we were so privileged to have many of the great cast and crew along to our event last night.

Thanks so much to everyone who came down to the event last night, to Jameson for the amazing venue, to the Demons Never Die crew for coming down and being so up for answering questions and to Who’s Jack for all the support with getting the event off the ground.

I’ve placed some photos below from the event for your viewing pleasure which you can click to enlarge. Demons Never Die is released in the UK 28th October and you can see all our coverage of the movie here.

Next Monday, to coincide with the London Film Festival, HeyUGuys are teaming up with our friends at Who’s Jack and Jameson to host a rather special night. On Monday the 17th of October HeyUGuys will be taking over the Jameson Apartment on Greek Street for an evening of drinks and demons with a Q&A for the film Demons Never Die. It’ll be the first ever HeyUGuys event and we have 15 pairs of tickets to give away to our readers for you to join us. The event will take place between 19:00 and 22.30.

Many of the HeyUGuys Team will be at the event and we’d love to see you down there. The evening will consist of (in no particular order), fun, laughter, silliness and drinking. We have also lined up a very special panel and will host a 30 minute Q&A with some of the cast and crew from brand new British movie, Demons Never Die.  We have already confirmed writer/director Arjun Rose​, producer Jo Podmore and star Jason Maza with more guests waiting to confirm so keep your eyes peeled for updates. It’ll be an excellent chance to put your questions to the creative team behind the film and mingle with the cast and crew in the bar afterwards.

To be in with a chance of winning tickets to come to this great event, simply answer the following question using the form below:

Who wrote and directed the movie, Demons Never Die?

Please only enter if you are free to attend the event on Monday 17th October.

COMPETITION NOW CLOSED

The small print:

• Only enter this competition if you’re free to attend the event on Monday 17th October 7pm  – 10.30pm.
• Open to UK residents only
• Only one entry per household will be counted
• The competition will close 14th October at 13.00 GMT
• The winners will be picked at random from entries received

The usual T&Cs can be found here. Good Luck!

It’s been an amazing couple of years for HeyUGuys. We’ve gone from absolutely nothing into one of the biggest UK movie blogs and we’ve loved every second of it. 2011 has started off very well with a nominations from Sky Movies in their Movie Blog Awards nominated in the ‘Best Movie Blog’ Award.

We try not to ask too much of you but in this case we must ask for your help. If you love HeyUGuys then please could you vote for us to win this award. If we win, it will give us more exposure to the movie world which then allows us to bring more to you, our amazing readers.

Thanks so much for supporting us!

Dave & Jon on behalf of all the HeyUGuys Team.

To vote, please click the ‘LIKE’ button below and that’s it! Please also feel free to tell all your friends and family!!

For more information on the Sky Movies blog awards, head over to their site here.

Joining HeyUGuys back in June of this year, I was eager to put my personal popcorn addiction to good use. A Psychology student by day and an usher by night, I had built up an encyclopaedic knowledge of film over three years of part time work, ever broadening my horizons with a determination to watch anything and everything I could. Finally blessed with an outlet for my burgeoning opinions and limitless enthusiasm, HeyUGuys has offered me opportunity after opportunity resulting in an inordinate number of cinematic highlights this 2010.

With Hollywood finally dropping the tiresome “darker is better” mantra to provide two of the very best comic-book adaptations to date – Kick-Ass and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, in case it needed pointing out – and DreamWorks raising the bar with a series of above studio-par animated releases, it has been a year of many memorable moments. Inception was mind-bending, Four Lions was ground-breaking and The Crazies showed that not all horror remakes had to be rubbish. Shrek got good again, Joe Dante finally returned to comedy-horror with The Hole 3D and Ron Weasley got to step up to the plate and destroy a Horcrux. From Monsters to My Name is Khan, Piranha to Paranormal Activity 2 and Buried to Burlesque, this year has been full of stand-out cinema, whatever your tastes.

From home I have reviewed Eat Pray Love (OK), Streetdance 3D (better) and A Town Called Panic (best), I have been equal parts shocked and delighted by movie news, I have revisited Alien vs. Predator for a commemorative Video Vault and have each week found something new to recommend or ridicule as I work to develop my understanding and opinions of the film industry in general.

Not all high points took place onscreen, however, with a sojourn to London this November affording me the opportunity to get behind the scenes and out from behind the counter. Eager to sample the capital’s infectious film culture after months of relative isolation across Aberdeen and Edinburgh, I attended press screenings, visited sets and shared oxygen with actors. I met Noomi Rapace following a screening of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo when she took to the stage for an audience Q&A, I held a scorpion in the foyer of Empire Leicester Square prior to a screening of Disney’s Tangled and had the chance to visit Warner Brothers’ London headquarters to view one of their upcoming releases.

Outside of the auditorium, and London itself for that matter, I had the chance to visit the set of Best Laid Plans, an upcoming feature from David Blair that is attracting somewhat of a buzz in anticipation of its 2011 release. Arriving on set in Nottingham, I interviewed the film’s writer and star in addition to director Blair. Stephen Graham, fresh from shooting Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, spoke at length about his back catalogue, his hopes for the future and the recent student protests – proving almost as otherworldly as he did completely grounded.

However inspiring the above proved, the sentimentalist inside me cannot help but note another occurrence as the true stand-out of the year. Even better than the news that Ridley Scott is planning a return to his Alien franchise, outshining the chance to write news, reviews and features for the web, surpassing the return of Road Runner and Coyote to the big screen and trumping even the final act of How To Train Your Dragon was the opportunity to meet the rest of the HeyUGuys team. For months I had followed them on twitter, read and admired their articles and it was a pleasure to finally meet a collection of the nicest and most enthusiastic like-minded movie-lovers in a small pub in London. Forgive the sentiment, but it really was the highlight of my year.

It really has been a great year for cinema, 2010 teasing the awesome potential for the new decade it has inevitably started. With Scream 4 on the way, the end of the Twilight saga in sight and Marmaduke mercifully behind us, the scene is set for a truly amazing new year.

Yesterday was a rather exciting day as I got to travel to Holland to talk with the guys from all the Nikon European offices about blogging. Although completely out of my comfort zone, I got to go and give a 30 minute presentation talking about HeyUGuys, where we have come from and how we’ve progressed and more specifically, how we work together with brand names, like Nikon.

Nikon is currently looking at their strategy and how to engage more with bloggers across Europe and although HeyUGuys doesn’t focus on photography, there are many cross-overs with how we work and the way in which Nikon will be moving forward with regards to speaking with blogs and creating their own. They currently have a number of blogs including I AM Nikon which is live here.

Living the Dream: Photos I've Taken - Click to enalrge

The journey over the last two years has been rather an amazing one and it was through preparing for my presentation where I got to remember some of the amazing memories and experiences that have come from doing HeyUGuys over that time. I still remember (and will always remember) being invited along to our first premiere and how I nearly fell off my seat when the email came into my inbox. One of the slides I compiled featured quite a few photos (image on the right) that I’d taken of celebrities on red carpets and now, most of whom I’ve also talked to. It just goes top show that if you are passionate about something and have the drive to make it happen, you can do just that!

In the words of Marty (and Jennifer) McFly:

“If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything!”

The journey HeyUGuys has taken has been an amazing and exciting one. I’m so grateful that I get to do what I do now on the site and thanks so much to everyone who has supported us and helped us on this epic journey. Long may it continue! If you have a passion about something, I suggest you start a blog about it too and you never know where it’ll end up taking you!

This past weekend London’s Olympia 2 played host to The Entertainment Media Show and Collectormania, two days of excessive geekery and sci-fi celebrity spotting along with the Sky Movies Ultimate Film Quiz, of which HeyUGuys were a part. Dave Sztypuljak, Em Breen and I entered the arena with our heads buzzing with cinematic knowledge, eager to match wits and enjoy ourselves.

Celebrity team captains were promised and we were soon introduced to the man whose imposing figure faced off against Slyvester Stallone in the Rocky films, and who fought back the original Predator. Carl Weathers stood before us and he seemed to be a perfect fit. ‘Who’s the brains?’ he asked to a slightly befuddled team. It was clear to all involved that he was the brains.

So, we had the man Carl Weathers on our team, and fighting spirit duly instilled we sat alongside the teams from Total Film with team captain Marshall Bell, Empire, who had Borg queen Alice Krige at the helm, and SFX Magazine, led by former Doctor Who Paul McGann. All guest team captains were suitably bemused and charmingly game and so we headed into the fray undaunted.

Sky Movies man Mark Dolan led the charge through the questions which took us on a merry jaunt through Hitchcock cameos, tall tales from the Wizard of Oz and obscure taglines. We got off to a great start and plunged instantly into minus figures when we felt the burn of being buzzer happy. Cementing our position as underdogs we watched the opposing teams stretch out long leads while we eventually emerged into positive figures before falling foul of the almost prescient abilities our our knowledgeable opponents, but we still got a question on Backdraft right – and that made us happy.

In the end it was a tie breaker between the guys from SFX and Empire, with Kim Newman’s heroic leap into the dark to pluck out the name of a film based on a Neil Simon play which won the day. Congratulations go to Empire then, but we had Carl Weathers on our side, and that’s something.

All t-shirts you see were kindly provided by Last Exit to Nowhere who, let’s be honest, are in a class of awesome all on their own. Give them a click here.

Well, it’s been a rather fun and emotional two years and over that time we’ve learnt an awful lot, met many amazing people, spoken with hundreds if not thousands of people on numerous social networking platforms and we’ve loved every minute of it!

HeyUGuys was started with a simple idea based around a simple love of movies and we hoped that some people would come on the journey with us. Little did we know that ‘some people’ would become thousands upon thousands. Now we have some of the most fantastic writers and some fabulous regular readers who are enjoying this journey with us and we simply can’t believe it.

HeyUGuys wouldn’t be what it is without you, our lovely readers, and Jon and I want to thank you all for coming to visit us, engage and chat movies all day and night. We hope that the next two years will be just as fun and engaging and we’ll continue to do our best to bring you all the latest and greatest stuff about movies from all over the world.

On behalf of all the team here at HeyUGuys.co.uk (you can see us all here) thank you, and here’s to another two amazing years and beyond!

Dave & Jon

HeyUGuys.co.uk Founders

Here’s something that we’re rather looking forward to! It’s a fun event that no one will want to lose! HeyUGuys have entered a movie quiz against some of the biggest names in UK Movie Media as we’ll be putting a team up in a movie quiz against the likes of TotalFilm, SFX Magazine and Empire Magazine. That quiz is called ‘Sky Movies Ultimate Film Quiz’.

Today, Sky Movies HD (who are sponsoring the event) have issued a press release announcing the event which will take place at the Entertainment Media Show (formerly Collectormania) on Sunday, November 28th at Earls Court. The EMS will run over that whole weekend from 27th – 28th November). The quiz will be hosted by Mark Dolan, presenter of the Sky Movies movie show, 35mm and on top of that, we’ll be joined by a celebrity captain! If that’s not enough to entice you along, Sky will be offering audience members the chance to win prizes including a Sky + HD box with a years free subscription to the service.

Jon and I will both be attending and it would be great to see as many of you down there as possible to support us! Our friends from Last Exit to Nowhere will also be at the event proving all the apparel so it’ll be a great event! I’ll let you read the press release and if you have any questions, feel free to ask on twitter (@HeyUGuysBlog) or in the comments section below.

The Entertainment Media Show Announce Addition of Sky Movies Ultimate Film Quiz to Event Line-up

London, 4^th November 2010:– On Sunday 28^th November, Sky Movies will separate the film buffs from the bluffs in the ‘Sky Movies Ultimate Film Quiz’, which will see the cream of the UK’s movie media compete against each other at the Entertainment Media Show at Earls Court Olympia 2 in London.

Mainstream movie news outlets Empire, HeyUGuys movie blog, SFX and Total Film will participate in a ‘University Challenge’ style quiz in a bid to be crowned the ‘Sky Movies Ultimate Film Quiz’ champions.

Hosted by Mark Dolan, presenter of Sky Movies movie show 35mm, the event will feature an audio-visual quiz format and will have the four teams compete against each other in buzzer style play. Each team will be led by a celebrity guest captain and, while one team will walk away victorious, audience members can win prizes at the event, including a Sky + HD box set with free one year subscription to Sky TV.

The Entertainment Media Show is an international convention that brings thousands of fans closer to anything and everything that’s on the silver screen or written page. The convention has celebrity guests, autograph sessions, photo shoots, merchandisers, comics, graphic novels, presentations, talks, competitions, and costumes.

All movies featured in the Sky Movies Ultimate Film Quiz are available to view on Sky Movies/HD, which airs over 450 uninterrupted movies a week across the service’s 12 channels.

# # #

Wikio.co.uk looks at different genres of blogs and ranks them according to links from other websites, RSS feeds and various other technical bits and bobs.

Wikio have given us a sneak preview of this month’s results and I’m pleased to report that we’ve made the top spot for this month as the Wikio #1 Culture Blog.

I just wanted to thank all our readers and our writers for continuing to visit the site and writing content. We now have a bunch of different ways you can track our information ranging from Twitter to FaceBook to RSS feeds to the daily newsletter (on the right of this post).

We always want to push this website to the limit of what we can do so if there is anything that you want to see on here that we’re not already doing, please let us know in the comments below and we’ll see what we can do about it.

Check out the list below and keep it HeyUGuys!

Wikio.co.uk – Culture Ranking Preview – September 2010

Ranking made by Wikio

The Edinburgh Film Festival begins this week, running from this Wednesday 16th June until Sunday the 27th.

Now in its 64th year, EIFF is the longest consecutively running film festival in the world and HeyUGuys will be there to bring you news, interviews and reviews.

Our correspondent Nicola Balkind tells us what we’ve got to look forward to.

This year features an electric programme. Artistic director Hannah McGill has continued the trend towards first- and second-time filmmakers and the prominence of British films and premieres.

Leading attractions include the European premieres of Toy Story 3, Mr Nice, the long-awaited World’s Greatest Dad, and The Runaways. The retrospective this year is entitled After the Wave and features the forgotten classics of British cinema from 1967-1979, which features a new print of Powell & Pressburger’s The Boy Who Turned Yellow.

The Rosebud strand is a big part of this year’s festival, featuring first and second films from upcoming directors. The Animation and Shorts strands are also particularly strong this year, injecting some vitality into short-form cinema that is less prevalent in cinema.

The big draw this year is, of course, the opening gala: Slyvain Chomet’s The Illusionist. The script from Jacques Tati is set in 1950s Edinburgh, Chomet’s adopted home.

If, despite the festival’s rebirth as a home for new and upcoming filmmakers, you are still interested in the high-profile guests, there will be an in-person BAFTA Scotland Interview with the newly-knighted Sir Patrick Stewart. Nick Hornby, still fresh off the critical success of An Education, will also be taking an in person Q&A. Slyvain Chomet will also be here to present a panel on The Making of the Illusionist. Other guests include America Ferrera of Ugly Betty fame, Ryhs Ifans, Tilda Swinton, and Mark Cousins.

I will be doing a little reportage from the festival, so keep an eye out for updates and reviews!

What are you excited for at this Edinburgh International Film Festival?

It’s Friday and as you know, that means it’s Friday game time. So, if you’re in the office desperate to go home for this bank holiday weekend, now’s the time to put down the pen, cast aside the post-it notes and start focusing on one thing and one thing only, the HeyUGuys Friday Quiz.

As we always say, nothing is at state here except for your own pride. The Losers hits cinemas today so we thought we’d go with a Comic Book movie theme. Feel free to email this around to as many people are you like and start playing.

If you get stuck, head over to the HeyUGuys forum to disucss what the answers might be but don’t cheat!

Here’s soemthing that we hope may become a regular feature on HeyUGuys, the Friday lunchtime hame. I hoped to get this one up a bit earlier today but better late than never! For some reason, the only topic I could think of was Pinewood movies so that’s what today’s topic is!

All you have to do is enter the film from the image provided. There is no, prize, just maximum respect from us when you get them all right!

Thanks to BuzzClunk for making the game for us.

Since the announcement of this year’s selected films, the Cannes film festival machine has whirred on, with additions to that line-up and confirmation of some of the Out of Competition activities that attendees can look forward to.

One particular highlight is the Cannes Classics programme of films, a selection of restored films and rediscovered lost films, as part of the build up to their re-release in cinemas or on DVD. The programme traditionally includes some massively important films: the 2009 fest offered the mouth-watering triptych of Powell and Pressburger’s The Red Shoes (1948), Leone’s A Fistful of Dynamite (1971) and Francois Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (1959), and this year’s line-up is just as eye-catching.

This year’s Cannes Classic programme lines up as follows (with additional detail of their restoration, and the ceremony attached to the screening):

- LA BATAILLE DU RAIL (The Battle of the Rails) (France, 1946) by René Clément, awarded the Jury Prize in 1946, restored by INA and Full Images.

- BOUDU SAUVE DES EAUX (Boudu Saved from Drowning) by Jean Renoir (France, 1932)

- TRISTANA (Spain/France/Italy, 1970) by Luis Buñuel, selected in Cannes in 1970, will be shown as part of a celebration of Spanish cinema at the initiative of French Minister of Culture Frédéric Mitterrand, who has invited his Spanish counterpart and several contemporary Spanish artists. Copy preserved by the Filmoteca Espagnole. The film will be presented by Pedro Almodovar.

- IL GATTOPARDO (The Leopard) (Italy, 1963) by Luchino Visconti, winner of the Palme d’Or in 1963. Restored in association with Cineteca di Bologna, L’Immagine Ritrovata, The Film Foundation, Pathé, Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé, Twentieth Century Fox and Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia-Cineteca Nazionale. Restoration funding provided by Gucci and The Film Foundation. Digital Picture Restoration, Colorworks. Sound laboratory services, L’Immagine Ritrovata.

- PSYCHO (United States, 109’, 1960) by Alfred Hitchcock. Print restored by Universal Pictures and Audionamix.

- KHANDAHAR (The Ruins) (India, 1983) directed by Mrinal Sen, one of Indian cinema’s greats, who will be attending the screening. Restoration by Reliance MediaWorks with the support of the Indian State and the National Film Archive of India.

- LA CAMPAGNE DE CICERON (France, 1989) by Jacques Davila who sadly passed away in 1991, in the presence of the film crew, who have come back for the occasion. Restoration presented by the Cinematheque of Toulouse with the support of the Groupama Gan Foundation for Cinema. The film will be re-released on DVD by Carlotta.

- LA 317e SECTION (France, 1965), which won Best Screenplay in 1965; copy restored by the Cinematheque Française and StudioCanal with the support of the Franco-American Cultural Fund, in the presence of its director Pierre Schoendoerffer and the President of the Cinémathèque Costa-Gavras.

- LE GRAND AMOUR (The Great Love) (France, 1969), in competition in Cannes in 1969, directed and presented by Pierre Etaix. Film Restored by Studio 37, the Technicolor Foundation for Cinema and the Fondation Groupama Gan for Cinema.

- AU PETIT BONHEUR (Happy Go Lucky) by Marcel L’Herbier (France, 1946). Print restored by the Archives Française du film (CNC) and StudioCanal.

- DIE BLECHTROMEL (The Tin Drum) (Germany, 1979) by Volker Schlöndorff, winner of the Palme d’Or in 1979, re-edited and presented by the director in a ‘Director’s cut’, remastered by Kinowelt.

- AFRICAN QUEEN (United States/United Kingdom,  1951) by John Huston. Print restored by Paramount Pictures and ITV, and sponsored by Angelica Huston.

- KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN (United States/Brazil) by Hector Babenco, (Best actor : Cannes 1985). Print restored by Ascent Media and Prime Focus, in the presence of the film crew for its 25th anniversary. Upcoming French re-release.

- The Cinematheque of Bologna will also be presenting two short films: IL RUSCELLO DI RIPASOTTILE (Italy, 1941) by Roberto Rossellini, and THE ELOQUENT PEASANT by Chadi Abdel Salam (Egypt, 1970)

The obvious highlights are Jean Renoir’s Boudu Saved From Drowning (1932)- a restoration presented by Pathé in a never-before-seen version that includes scenes that were cut in the original, as well as the opportunity to see Paramount and ITV’s restored version of The African Queen (1951) and the Universal/Audionamix restoration of Hitchcock’s classic Psycho (1960). Further excitement will come with the news that Psycho will feature a restored and reconstructed soundtrack, and the prospect of  seeing the iconic film resplendant on a big screen as it was intended is one I will not be able to resist.

Aside from this huge trio, and the various draws of the other films in the main line-up, Cannes Classics offers an unrivalled opportunity to revisit the history of foreign cinema from countries not traditionally afforded the attention that the favourites command. With that in mind, the World Cinema Foundation, established in Cannes by Martin Scorsese in 2007, will be presenting a flavour of the film industries of Hungary, Kazakhstan and India, with Cinematheque of Bologne/L’Immagine Ritrovata restored versions of the following:

- MEST (The Red Flute) by Ermek Shinarbaev (Kazakhstan, 1989)
- KÉT LÁNY AZ UTCÁN (Two Girls in the Street) by André de Toth (Hungary, 1939)
- TITASH EKTI NADIR NAAM (A River Called Titas) by Ritwik Ghatak (India, 1973)

 The programme also features a number of documentaries, which this year includes Craig McCall’s Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff, arguably Britain’s greatest ever cinematographer whose astounding 72 year career included work on projects as diverse as Black Narciccus (1947), The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) and Rambo: First Blood Part II and who sadly died closely following the end of last year’s festival. Cardiff worked alongside Powell and Pressburger, Hitchcock and John Huston and the documentary looks set to be a great one. Alongside McCall’s offering will be Greg MacGillivray’s surf-on-film doc Hollywood Dont Surf, Stig Bjorkman’s …but Film is my Mistress- the second in a series of unseen footage of, and by Ingmar Bergman- and finally a post-humous self-portrait of Daniel Toscan, the French producer of Peter Greenaway’s The Cook the Thief His Wide & Her Lover (1989) who died in 2003.

All in all, the line-up is ridiculously opulent for any cinephile, and schedule permitting, I aim to be at at least a few of the screenings.

Cannes is a cinephile’s dream, and with the line up released today there will be plenty to talk about when the festival runs between the 12th and 23rd of May and HeyUGuys will be there covering as many of the big films as possible.

We’ve very pleased to introduce our Cannes correspondent Simon Gallagher, who covered Cannes last year for Obsessed With Film where he is the Features Editor. Simon will be our man in Cannes, bringing his considerable expertise to bear on the films which will be on show and we asked him to sum up his reaction to the line up and the 2010 festival itself.

Here’s what Simon had to say.

So, the 63rd Cannes film festival is officially upon us, with today’s announcement of the films in and out of competition: I have to say I’m impressed. While my head was turned at the rumours of Toy Story 3 and The Rum Diary, neither really felt like Cannes films in the same way that Fishtank and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus sang their relevance last year. Generally speaking, and in contrast to last year’s selection, today’s announcement feels a lot truer to the festival’s spirit of international filmic celebration.

I have to admit, when it became clear that this year’s jury would be headed by Tim Burton, and would feature Benicio Del Toro and Kate Beckinsale, I was more than a little curious as to what direction the festival was taking. Thankfully, any initial trepidation was replaced with newly invigorated excitement at the prospect of seeing a Mike Leigh, a Hideo Nakata and a Jean-Luc Godard in the same week as the new Woody Allen and one of my most eagerly anticipated films of the last two years- Oliver Stone’s Wall Street sequel.

Particular highlights include the prospect of Doug Liman’s Fair Game, starring potential queen of the festival Naomi Watts (she is also part of the fame-heavy Woody Allen cast for You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger) and Sean Penn, Alejandro Gonzalez’s Biutiful with the peerless Javier Bardem, and Stephen Frears’ adaptation of Posy Simmonds’ graphic novel Tamara Drewe. Last year’s midnight screening of Drag Me to Hell, hit the perfect late-night note, and it looks like Gregg Araki’s sophomore effort Kaboom, about the sexual awakening of a group of college students, will hit different, but equally exciting high-notes in the same midnight slot.

There are a few mild disappointments in the announcement- Robin Hood may be a potential epic in the making, but it doesn’t hold the same personal draw as Pixar’s beautiful Up did in 2009. Don’t get me wrong- that is not to undermine the opportunity to see Ridley Scott’s latest.

The announcement is also a tale of two absences- on an individual level it is deeply regrettable that Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life isn’t yet included, though the festival’s artistic director Thierry Fremaux remains quietly optimistic that it will be completed in time to screen (presumably as a Special Screening). On a more general level, it is a shame that this year’s competition will not feature a female voice- especially in the wake of Kathryn Bigelow‘s still-astounding Oscar success. But then, historically the film choices live and die on merit, and thankfully have no political implications.

All in all, the line-up is a wonderful mix- with the eclectic international feel that continually makes Cannes the premier European film festival event. And I have to say, I couldn’t be happier to be covering it for HeyUGuys.

I don’t want this post to come across like we’re bragging but I love this website so much and feel so proud of where we’ve taken it over the past 18 months. This news is a result of a few fundamental things but one of the most important is you, the reader.

Wikio.co.uk looks at different genre’s of blogs and categories them into the most popular taking into account links from other websites, RSS feeds and various other technical bits and bobs and I’m pleased to report that we’ve not only made the top 10 but have made 2nd on the list!! I’ve placed the list below so you can see the top 20.

I just wanted to thank all our readers and our writers for looking at the site and writing content. We now have a bunch of different ways you can track our information ranging from Twitter to FaceBook to RSS feeds to the daily newsletter (on the right of this post). So tell your friends about all things HeyUGuys and we’ll see if we can hit the number one spot and then try and stay there!

We always want to push this website to the limit of what we can do so if there is anything that you want to see on here that we’re not already doing, please let us know in the comments below and we’ll see what we can do about it.

Check out the list below and keep it HeyUGuys! If you want to add your blog to Wikio, you can do so here.

In a sure sign that the traditional print media is beginning to come around to the notion of blogging as a legitimate form of journalism UK based fashion and entertainment magazine Company turned over the reins of their April issue to people who have made their mark on the internet, and HeyUGuys were chosen to be their film reviewer for the occasion.

Aside from being flattered to be invited we were also able to see the films in question months before the usual round of press screenings which is both great and frustrating as I’ve not been able to tell anyone how brilliant I found Cemetery Junction, the new film from Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, to be.

You can read my reviews in the latest issue on Page 103, and it’s very interesting to see the range of bloggers being consulted for this special issue, and with our involvement with the Guardian’s Observer conversation on the future of 3D cinema the future looks bright for a mutually beneficial symbiosis between traditional print and online journalism.

As part of this special blogger’s issue Company have created a competition for you to vote for your favourite featured blog – for details of what you can win go to the Company website and place your vote for HeyUGuys!

The IMDb250. A list of the top 250 films, as ranked by the users of the biggest movie Internet site on the web. It is based upon the ratings provided by the users of The Internet Movie Database, which number into the millions. As such, it’s a perfect representation of the opinions of the movie masses, and arguably the most comprehensive ranking system on the Internet.

It’s because of this that we at HeyUGuys (and in this case, we, is myself and Gary) have decided to set ourselves a project. To watch and review all 250 movies on the list! We’ve frozen the list as of 1st January this year. It’s not as simple as it sounds, as we’ll be watching them in one year, 125 each.

This is our fifth update, a rundown of my next five movies watched for the project.

(You can find last week’s update here)

The Lady Vanishes (1938) – 7.9 No. 233

Two weeks ago, in my review of Rebecca i said one of the best aspects of this project was watching great movies i otherwise wouldn’t have seen. One of the pitfalls became clear to me this week. When working through a list of films people love, you’re going to come across some that you just don’t get. Once again, Hitchcock was the culprit…
 
The Lady Vanishes begins as almost an Ealing farce, as a hotel fills up with people waiting for a delayed train journey. There is much smutty humour and comic one liners. Once aboard, a young female passenger Iris befriends an elderly English lady named Miss Froy. Now, the preceding comedy may have worked to make what occurs next more of a shock, but the title of the movie gives it away. Iris desperately tries to find Miss Froy, but with the other passengers denying any knowledge of her existence, she is left feeling confused and frustrated. Once she manages to convince fellow passenger Gilbert that she isn’t crazy, they work together to solve the mystery.
 
The chemistry between the two characters works very well, and it’s easy to buy into their blossoming relationship. As the mystery deepens, and the conspiracy unravels, the story becomes more interesting. What is lacking, however, is a real sense of threat. The humour that has come before, and the continuing comic banter make the frankly outlandish plot rather benign.
 
A shootout at the end livens things up, and much of what is good about Hitchcock’s work is clearly in evidence, but for me, the odd mixture of suspense and slapstick doesn’t work. The Lady Vanishes is just one of many Hitchcock films in the 250, and it’ll be interesting to see how it compares to some of the other Hitchcock movies when they come up.

Leon (1994) – 8.6 No. 35

There have been many memorable child performances in cinema. Some have even garnered award nominations. Next to Natalie Portman’s multilayered portrayal of Mathilda in Leon, however, these nominations are almost laughable. Leon is a professional hitman, a ‘cleaner’. He works for Danny Aiello’s Tony, and is the best at what he does. He lives alone in his New York apartment, he has a fondness for Hollywood musicals, and despite killing people for a living, he has a naive, almost childlike nature. Mathilda has seen much too much much too young. She lives in the same run down apartment block as Leon. She has an abusive father who handles drugs for a living. And she has arrived home to find her family has been slaughtered.

Leon takes her in, very reluctantly, and agrees to teach her to become a cleaner. They build a complex, uneasy relationship. Mathilda is in many ways mature beyond her years, and curious about her sexuality. Her seeming lack of compunction unnerves Leon, her infatuation with Leon terrifies him. Mathilda is at once streetwise and naive, jaded and hopeful. She is young, confused, directionless, and somehow Natalie Portman plays it perfectly. Jean Reno himself is no lightweight, and he carries his part well too. Leon is humanised by the presence of Mathilda, and by the end of the movie has discovered a new purpose in life.

As a whole movie, aside from the Leon Mathilda dynamic, there’s a certain indefinable spark missing. Is it the genuinely odd performance by Gary Oldman that’s the problem? Or is it the unfinished feeling, caused by the movie ending when Mathilda’s journey is arguably just beginning? Certainly it’s not from the blistering action scenes and some stunning cinematography. The big question i find myself asking isn’t whether Leon deserves a place in the IMDb250, but whether another of Luc Besson’s great works should be there instead. It’s certainly Besson’s best English language offering, which is probably the main factor behind it’s preferential position.

Up (2009) – 8.4 No. 70

In my first update a month ago, i watched Wall-E, Pixar’s evolutionary family film, which combined slapstick family action comedy with more mature, complex themes. Up was their follow up, a continuation of their new generation of animated movies. Wall-E set a high bar, but Up, at least initially, matches up well. The opening montage of the young Carl and his wife, as they fall in love and grow old together, enduring tragedy along the way, is perfectly constructed and genuinely heart-wrenching. We catch up with a lonely octogenarian Carl, who is fighting to retain all he has left of his past years – the dream home he built for his wife. When a chance altercation looks to have taken this last remnant away, he literally takes off, unknowingly taking a stowaway along for the ride.
 
A hard opening act to follow. The banter between sardonic Carl and chirpy boy scout Russell is classic Pixar humour, and carries the adventure along nicely. But the deep, all too human story at the heart of Up becomes squashed by talking dogs and a mad scientist. You get the feeling they were trying to pull back from the overly downbeat first third in order to hold the interest of the children in the audience, but the switch is too extreme. The kids are already too fidgety, and now the adult audience has been robbed of what was promised. The ending is a good enough mix to please both, but by then it’s too late.
 
Wall-E perfected the balance, but Up just feels too disjointed. I’m not big on animated films, but Wall-E impressed me, and Up showed similar promise. Toy Story is lower placed in the 250 list, and probably deserves to be higher, offering a better mix of adult and child-friendly humour, without the shackles of an attempted ‘worthy’ storyline.  Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot good about Up, it’s just a shame Pixar didn’t have the conviction to carry the story through without the need for infant pleasing histrionics.

Unforgiven (1992) – 8.3 No. 108

Over the last decade, Clint Eastwood has become a darling of the academy. Nominations for every movie directed for ten years, despite a reputation amongst critics as a rather pedestrian, a to b filmmaker. Eastwood’s first real critical success, however, came some 18 years ago. Eastwood is William Munney, former cold blooded killer, now mild mannered farmer and father. He is presented with the chance to make some money, for a just cause, and economic reasoning makes him dust off his firearms.
 
Along with old partner Morgan Freeman, and the green kid that brought him the job, he rides cross country to assassinate a couple of cowboys who cut up a prostitute. Freeman and Eastwood bring humour and gravitas to the roles and the partnership, but story wise are short changed by an ultimately dull and straightforward revenge story.
 
The real interest, and arguably best performances, come from the subplot involving overbearing town sheriff Little Bill and another assassin in town for the job, English Bob. In just a few short scenes, Gene Hackman as the sheriff and Richard Harris as the Duke paint a rich back-story of partnership and betrayal, and create a genuine sense of threat and tension as Little Bill delights in reducing the storied killer to a town joke. Hackman is brilliant. Oozing pure malevolence without resorting to over the top histrionics, he saves Unforgiven from becoming a bland, laboured revenge thriller.
 
Unforgiven was a modernisation of the western genre. It was also called the best western in over 20 years when it was released, and maybe it was. It was, however, starved of competition. An entertaining enough movie, it’s position 73 places above the multi-layered, epic The Wild Bunch is almost laughable. Unforgiven probably didn’t deserve the Academy Award in 1993, although it was a weak year, and it probably doesn’t deserve to be as high as it is in the top 250 movies of all time. But the Clint Eastwood magic is clearly in effect. Ho hum.

Le scaphandre et le papillon (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly 2007) – 8.0 No. 215

Every so often in life, you find yourself sitting down to watch a movie you know nothing about. This is an increasing rarity in today’s information rich age, and particularly when your job is to write about films. Going in to a movie with no preconceptions is probably the best way to watch it, and usually means it’s going to be a very average movie. That tends to be the reason you haven’t heard about it. Occasionally, however, you happen upon a work of brilliance.
 
The Diving Bell And The Butterfly is based upon the book of the same name, which is written by former Elle editor Jean-Dominique Bauby. It tells of the last months of his life. And he wrote it whilst completely paralysed except for his left eye. The Diving Bell opens with Bauby in hospital, and is shot almost completely from the point of view from his good eye. Bauby’s emotions run through anger, despair, sadness, but with a wry sense of humour always underneath. His assigned speech therapist Henriette begins to develop a form of communication for Bauby to use, an arduous technique which requires him to blink out letters one by one.
 
Resistant at first, the writer eventually makes the decision to stop feeling sorry for himself. He spends his days writing his book letter by letter, and exploring the depths of his memories and imagination. Trapped within the prison cell of his body, Jean-Dominique Bauby travels using the power of the human mind. The Diving Bell does have a structure, but feels very freeform as we jump from the realities in Bauby’s hospital room, to his memories of his past life, through his dreams of imagined places and situations. Beautifully shot, well edited and perfectly acted, The Diving Bell manages to be both sad and hopeful at the same time.
 
Bauby is a shining example of overcoming adversity, and carving out a life in the most tragic of circumstances. Part tragic drama, part art film, director Julian Schnabel has done a wonderful job, and whilst i can appreciate why many wouldn’t like the almost freeform nature of the narrative, The Diving Bell And The Butterfly easily deserves it’s place in the IMDb250, and has secured a place in my own personal top movies list.

It’s certainly been an interesting project so far, and of the 15 films i’ve reviewed, i’d only previously seen 7. I’ve discovered some gems, and been underwhelmed by some movies with excellent reputations. That’s the great thing about an art form, we all appreciate different elements. You can find Gary’s next update next Monday, and i’ll see you here in two weeks time.

Don’t forget, you can follow our progress on Twitter at http://twitter.com/baz_mann and http://twitter.com/gary_phillips_.

Bazmann

It’s been a while but the latest episode of MouthOff, the official podcast of HeyUGuys is finally here.

Dave, Gary and I were joined by /Film’s UK correspondent Brendon Connelly to talk over the latest film news and reviews, this week we delved into Disney’s latest hand-drawn animation movie The Princess and the Frog and Clint Eastwood’s Invictus.

Some of the news discussed includes the merits and problems of  3D processing, in the light of news that Clash of the Titans and the final two Harry Potter films are having a third dimension thrust upon them. Also under the MouthOff microscope is the possibility of Watchmen 2, and we pull apart the Oscar nominations announced this week.

Finally we get an update on the HeyUGuys IMDb 250 project from Gary, who discovered some amazing films on the list and looking forward to some he’ll be watching next week.

You can listen in your browser below, or click here to subscribe to the MouthOff feed in iTunes, where you can also find our older episodes.

I hope you enjoy it, do let us know what you want to hear, or if you agree or disagree with us – leave your comments here, or email us on MouthOff@heyuguys.co.uk

See you next week!