BRITISH ACADEMY GAMES AWARDS NOMINEES ANNOUNCED

JOURNEY LEADS WITH EIGHT NOMINATIONS

THE WALKING DEAD GAINS SEVEN NOMINATIONS

FAR CRY 3 GAINS SIX NOMINATIONS

DEAR ESTHER RECEIVES FIVE NOMINATIONS

HALO 4, BORDERLANDS 2, ASSASSIN'S CREED III AND THE ROOM RECEIVE FOUR NOMINATIONS EACH

London, 12 February 2013: The nominations for the British Academy Games Awards 2013 were announced today. This year a total of 53 games have been recognised across 17 categories, showcasing some of the most popular and groundbreaking games of the last 12 months and highlighting the phenomenal level of creativity from UK and international development teams.

Journey and The Walking Dead are both nominated for Best Game, Game Design, Story and Original Music. Journey also receivesnominations for Artistic Achievement, Audio Achievement, Game Innovation and Online-Multiplayer. The Walking Dead is also up for Mobile & Handheld as well as two nominations for Performer. Far Cry 3 and Dear Esther are both up for Artistic Achievement and Audio Achievement. Far Cry 3 is also nominated for Action, Story, Best Game and Game Design and Dear Esther for British Game, Debut Game and Performer.

Halo 4 is nominated for Action, Artistic Achievement, Audio Achievement and Online-Multiplayer. Borderlands 2 receives nominations for Action, Artistic Achievement, Game Design and Online-Multiplayer. Assassin's Creed III is up for Audio Achievement, Online-Multiplayer, Original Music and Performer. The Room is nominated for Artistic Achievement, British Game, Debut Game and Mobile & Handheld.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, Mass Effect 3, Dishonored, Forza Horizon, The Unfinished Swan and Thomas Was Alone all receive three nominations. Fifa 13, LEGO: The Lord of the Rings, Need for Speed Most Wanted, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, New Star Soccer and Diablo III all have two nominations.

Dear Esther, Forza Horizon, LEGO: The Lord of the Rings, Need for Speed Most Wanted, The Room and Super Hexagon are all nominated in this year's new category, Best British Game.

Names nominated in the Performer category are Adrian Hough (Haytham) - Assassin's Creed III, Danny Wallace (The Narrator) - Thomas Was Alone, Dave Fennoy (Lee Everett) - The Walking Dead, Melissa Hutchinson (Clementine) - The Walking Dead, Nigel Carrington (The Narrator) - Dear Esther and Nolan North (Nathan Drake) - Uncharted: Golden Abyss.

Other nominated games include: Hitman: Absolution, Beat Sneak Bandit, Deadlight, LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes, Minecraft: XBOX 360 Edition, Skylander Giants, Merlin: The Game, Runescape,SongPop, F1 2012, Nike+ Kinect Training, Football Manager 2013, Great Big War Game and Total War Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai.

Showcasing the best in young games development and design talent, the finalists in this year's BAFTA Ones To Watch Award in association with Dare to be Digital are Pixel Story, Project Thanatos and Starcrossed.

The British Academy Games Awards will take place on Tuesday 5th March at the London Hilton on Park Lane, and will be hosted for the fifth consecutive year by comedian and gamer Dara O'Briain. An Awards highlight’s show will be televised on Challenge (Sky: Ch 125, Freeview: Ch 46, Virgin: Ch 139) on Monday 11 March at 10pm and the evening will also be streamed live on Twitch.

For ticket information or any other Awards information, visit BAFTA’s website.

About the judging process:
Games were entered by both developers and publishers into all the categories listed in this release and were initially voted on by BAFTA’s video games members and a carefully selected list of industry experts via a secure website.

The titles receiving the most votes went through to specialist juries who judge the games prior to making their nominations.

Each juror signs confidentiality papers and casts his or her votes on paper. Theresults in each category are not known until the envelope is opened on the night.

21 and Over

Straight-A college student Jeff Chang has always done what’s expected of him. But when his two best friends Casey and Miller surprise him with a visit for his 21st birthday, he decides to do the unexpected for a change, even though his critical medical school interview is early the next morning. What was supposed to be one beer becomes one night of chaos, over indulgence and utter debauchery in this outrageous comedy.

21 and Over releases May 3, 2013 from Momentum Pictures.

From Good Will Hunting to Argo – how Ben Affleck became Hollywood royalty

Ben Affleck has had a unique career since crashing through the metaphorical doors of Hollywood with the screenplay of Good Will Hunting (1997). Most recently he has experienced unprecedented success with Argo, based on the 1980 CIA-Canadian operation in Iran - winning countless awards for his flawless direction and nominated for his second Oscar.

To celebrate the release of BAFTA award-winning Best Film, Argo on November 7th, we take a retrospective look at the movies that have made Ben Affleck a distinctive talent in front and behind the camera.

Good Will Hunting (1997)
Tired of being cast in forgettable supporting roles, Ben Affleck, and friend Matt Damon, decided to write a screenplay for a movie they could star in. Good Will Hunting tells the tale of a remarkable, but troubled young man working as a janitor at MIT who solves a mathematical problem that students have found impossible, invoking interest from the academic minds who had previously ignored him. The film was nominated for 9 Oscars and both Affleck and Damon brought their mothers along to the ceremony to see them win their first Academy Award.

Armageddon (1998)
In Michael Bay space adventure Armageddon, Ben Affleck got the chance to star alongside film legends’ Bruce Willis, Will Patton and Steve Buscemi. The film allowed Affleck to play both romantic lead and action hero as a maverick deep core driller, whose team is recruited by NASA after an asteroid threatens to destroy earth. Ben Affleck admitted that he once questioned director Michael Bay on the plausibility of the plot, particularly on whether it would be easier for NASA to train astronauts how to drill rather than training drillers to be astronauts, Bay apparently told him to shut up.

Pearl Harbor (2001)
Ben Affleck teamed up with Michael Bay once again in Pearl Harbor, based on the events that preceded WWII. The wartime epic is told through the eyes of childhood friends Rafe (Affleck) and Danny (Josh Harnett) who are skilled pilots in the US Air Force but whose loyalties to each other are tested when Hawaii is attacked. Pearl Harbor was Affleck’s first blockbuster in which he played the lead and was a box office hit, despite getting mixed reviews. The action-packed film cost $140,000,000 to make which roughly equals the amount of damage caused in the actual attack.

Gone Baby Gone (2007)
Moving behind the camera for the first time, Ben Affleck chose his favourite novel Gone Baby Gone, a gritty Boston-set crime thriller to hone his creative skills. Casting brother Casey in the leading role, the film follows a private detective as he tries to locate a missing girl by delving deeper into a world of drug dealers and corrupt cops. Affleck made a deliberate choice not to cast professional extras for authenticity so every extra is either a local actor or member of the general Boston public.

The Town (2010)
Ben Affleck’s second stint as director ensured that the success of Gone Baby Gone was not a fluke. The Town tells the story of a set of friends from notorious neighbourhood Charlestown who, after robbing a bank, realise that the bank manager lives in their area of Boston. They contrive to put her off the path by befriending her as she considers helping out the FBI with identifying the criminals. As part of researching the role, Affleck and co-star Blake Lively visited bars in Charlestown to hang around with locals, while Jeremy Renner took this one step further and surrounded himself with actual convicted bank robbers from Charlestown to help portray his role.

Argo (2012)

Branching out from the familiarity of Boston-based dramas, Ben Affleck most recent film Argo is a politically-charged spy thriller. Charting the events of the 1980 CIA-Canadian exfiltration mission in Iran, Affleck manages to intelligently show how a fake movie was used as a cover in an effort to safely remove 6 US nationals from Tehran. Balancing a high level of intensity with clever humour, Affleck has established himself as the most exciting young director of recent years and looks to be returning the director to where his career began and where it should remain, on the Academy stage.

Argo is on Blu-ray and DVD from 4th March

The Perks of Being a Wallflower Blu-ray and DVD Short Review

A funny and touching coming-of-age story based on the beloved best selling novel by Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a modern classic that captures the dizzying heights and crushing lows of growing up. Starring Logan Lerman, Emma Watson and Ezra Miller, The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a moving tale of love, loss, fear and hope - and the unforgettable friends that help us through life.

Read the full review here

and the BAFTA goes to

This year's BAFTA awards have just been presented.  If you missed it then the results are below.

BEST FILM

Winner: Argo

Also nominated:

• Les Miserables
• Life of Pi
• Lincoln
• Zero Dark Thirty

OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM

Winner: Skyfall

Also nominated:

• Anna Karenina
• The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
• Les Miserables
• Seven Psychopaths

LEADING ACTOR

Winner: Daniel Day-Lewis - Lincoln

Also nominated:

• Ben Affleck - Argo
• Bradley Cooper - Silver Linings Playbook
• Hugh Jackman - Les Miserables
• Joaquin Phoenix - The Master

LEADING ACTRESS

Winner: Emmanuelle Riva - Amour

Also nominated:

• Jessica Chastain - Zero Dark Thirty
• Marion Cotillard - Rust and Bone
• Jennifer Lawrence - Silver Linings Playbook
• Dame Helen Mirren - Hitchcock

SUPPORTING ACTOR

Winner: Christoph Waltz - Django Unchained

Also nominated:

• Alan Arkin - Argo
• Javier Bardem - Skyfall
• Philip Seymour Hoffman - The Master
• Tommy Lee Jones - Lincoln

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Winner: Anne Hathaway - Les Miserables

Also nominated:

• Amy Adams - The Master
• Dame Judi Dench - Skyfall
• Sally Field - Lincoln
• Helen Hunt - The Sessions

DIRECTOR

Winner: Argo

Also nominated:

• Kathryn Bigelow - Zero Dark Thirty
• Michael Haneke - Amour
• Ang Lee - Life of Pi
• Quentin Tarantino - Django Unchained

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Winner: Django Unchained - Quentin Tarantino

Also nominated:

• Amour - Michael Haneke
• The Master - Paul Thomas Anderson
• Moonrise Kingdom - Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola
• Zero Dark Thirty - Mark Boal

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Winner: Silver Linings Playbook - David O Russell

Also nominated:

• Argo - Chris Terrio
• Beasts of the Southern Wild - Lucy Alibar, Benh Zeitlin
• Life of Pi - David Magee
• Lincoln - Tony Kushner

OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER

Winner: Bart Layton (director) and Dmitri Doganis (producer) - The Imposter

Also nominated:

• James Bobin (director) - The Muppets
• Dexter Fletcher (director/writer) and Danny King (writer) - Wild Bill
• Tina Gharavi (director/writer) - I Am Nasrine
• David Morris (director) and Jaqui Morris (director/producer) - McCullin

ANIMATED FILM

Winner: Brave

Also nominated:

• Frankenweenie
• Paranorman

DOCUMENTARY

Winner: Searching for Sugarman

Also nominated:

• The Imposter
• Marley
• McCullin
• West of Memphis

FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Winner: Amour

Also nominated:

• Headhunters
• The Hunt
• Rust and Bone
• Untouchable

CINEMATOGRAPHY

Winner: Life of Pi

Also nominated:

• Anna Karenina
• Les Miserables
• Lincoln
• Skyfall

COSTUME DESIGN

Winner: Anna Karenina

Also nominated:

• Great Expectations
• Les Miserables
• Lincoln
• Snow White and the Huntsman

EDITING

Winner: Argo

Also nominated:

• Django Unchained
• Life of Pi
• Skyfall
• Zero Dark Thirty

MAKE UP AND HAIR
Winner: Les Miserables

Also nominated:

• Hitchcock
• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
• Lincoln
• Anna Karenina

ORIGINAL MUSIC

Winner: Skyfall

Also nominated:

• Anna Karenina
• Argo
• Life of Pi
• Lincoln

PRODUCTION DESIGN

Winner: Les Miserables

Also nominated:

• Anna Karenina
• Life of Pi
• Lincoln
• Skyfall

SOUND

Winner: Les Miserables

Also nominated:

• Django Unchained
• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
• Life of Pi
• Skyfall

SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS

Winner: Life of Pi

Also nominated:

• The Dark Knight Rises
• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
• Marvel Avengers Assemble
• Prometheus

SHORT ANIMATION

Winner: The Making of Longbird

Also nominated:

• Here to Fall
• I'm Fine Thanks

SHORT FILM

Winner: Swimmer

Also nominated:

• The Curse
• Good Night
• Tumult
• The Voorman Problem

RISING STAR (public vote)

Winner: Juno Temple

Also nominated:

• Elizabeth Olsen
• Andrea Riseborough
• Suraj Sharma
• Alicia Vikander

One Direction go on tour

I've just been sent over the ground breaking film news that the pop band One Direction will be releasing a film later this year!

All we have, at the moment, is a trailer and an image. No synopsis exists but if you read about this film then that should cover it.

Red Dawn arises again

THE FIGHT BEGINS AT DAWN

7th February 2013 - Koch Media announced today that they have secured the rights to theatrical and home entertainment distribution in the U.K. for RED DAWN from Metro-Goldwyn Mayer Studios Inc. Exploding onto screens 15th March 2013, RED DAWN is an adrenaline-fuelled action thriller with a heavyweight cast of young stars that will have audiences hooked.

A re-boot of the 1984 cult-classic hit film featuring Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen, RED DAWN stars man-of-the- moment Chris Hemsworth (Thor, Snow White And the Huntsman, Avengers) and a host of bright young talent including Josh Hutcherson (The Hunger Games), Josh Peck (The Wackness), Adrianne Palicki (G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Friday Night Lights), Connor Cruise (Seven), Isabel Lucas (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen) and Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Watchmen, The Possession, Grey’s Anatomy).

I managed to find a US trailer for the film. It's not as bad as I though it would be...

In RED DAWN, a city in Washington State awakens to the surreal sight of North Korean paratroopers dropping from the sky – the U.S. has been invaded and their hometown is the initial target. Quickly and without warning, the citizens find themselves prisoners and their town under enemy occupation. Determined to fight back, a group of young patriots seek refuge in the surrounding woods, training and reorganising themselves into a guerilla group of fighters. Taking inspiration from their high school mascot, they call themselves the “Wolverines”, banding together to protect one another, liberate their town from its captors, and take back their freedom.

In UK cinemas March 15, 2013