What's new in Odeon's this week : Thursday 15th December 2022.

The 12th annual AACTA Awards (Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts) were presented on the evening of Wednesday 7th December at Sydney's Hordern Pavilion by Hosts's for the evening Amanda Keller and Rove McManus. The awards recognise excellence in the film and television industry, both locally and internationally, including the Producers, Directors, Actors, Writers, and Cinematographers. It is the most prestigious awards ceremony for the Australian film and television industry. They are generally considered to be the Australian counterpart of the US Academy Awards and the UK BAFTA Awards. The awards, previously called the Australian Film Institute Awards or AFI Awards, began in 1958, and involved thirty nominations across six categories. They expanded in 1986 to cover television as well as film. The AACTA Awards were instituted in 2011. 

In the cinema categories, the winners and grinners of an AACTA Award are as given below :-

* Best Film - presented to 'ELVIS', beating out 'Here Out West', 'Sissy', 'The Drovers Wife : The Legend of Molly Johnson', 'The Stranger' and 'Three Thousand Years of Longing'.

* Best Indie Film - awarded to 'A STITCH IN TIME', beating out 'Akoni', 'Darklands', 'Lonesome', 'Pieces' and 'Smoke Between Trees'.

* Best Director - awarded to Baz Luhrmann for 'ELVIS', beating out Hannah Barlow and Kane Senes for 'Sissy', Leah Purcell for 'The Drover's Wife : The Legend of Molly Johnson', Thomas M. Wright for 'The Stranger' and George Miller for 'Three Thousand Years of Longing'.

* Best Screenplay in Film - presented to Thomas M. Wright for 'THE STRANGER'.

* Best Lead Actor - awarded to Austin Butler for 'ELVIS'.

* Best Lead Actress - presented to Leah Purcell for 'THE DROVERS WIFE : THE LEGEND OF MOLLY JOHNSON'.

* Best Supporting Actor - awarded to Sean Harris for 'THE STRANGER'.

* Best Supporting Actress - presented to Olivia DeJong for 'ELVIS'.

* Best Cinematography - awarded to Mandy Walker for 'ELVIS'.

* Best Editing - awarded to Matt Villa and Jonathan Redmond for 'ELVIS'.

* Best Original Music Score - presented to Cezary Skubiszewski for 'FALLING FOR FIGARO'. 

* Best Sound - presented to David Lee, Wayne Pashley, Andy Nelson and Michael Keller for 'ELVIS'.

* Best Production Design - awarded to Catherine Martin, Karen Murphy and Beverley Dunn for 'ELVIS'.

* Best Costume Design - presented to Catherine Martin for 'ELVIS'. 

* Best Hair and Makeup - awarded to Shane Thomas, Louise Coulston, Mark Coulier and Jason Baird for 'ELVIS'.

* Best Visual Effects or Animation - presented to Tom Wood, Fiona Crawford, Julian Hutchens, Joshua Simmonds and Adam Hammond for 'ELVIS'.

* Best Asian Film - awarded to 'DRIVE MY CAR'.

* Audience Choice Award for Best Film - presented to 'ELVIS'.

In addition, the recipient of the Longford Lyell Award was costume, production and set designer Catherine Martin, with the recipient of the Trailblazer Award being Actor Chris Hemsworth.

For the other details of all the nominees plus the TV awards presented at the 12th AACTA Awards this year, you can go to the official website at : https://www.aacta.org/

This week there is just one new movie coming to a big screen Odeon near you, and who can blame any self respecting Box Office conscious film studio for not wanting to go head to head and toe to toe with the sequel to the highest grossing film of all time that has been more than thirteen years in the making and features, once again, an array of groundbreaking special effects. Here then, this follow up film tells the story of the Sully family, the trouble that follows them, the lengths they go to keep each other safe, the battles they fight to survive, and the tragedies they have to endure along the way. 

Whatever your taste in big screen film entertainment is this week - be it the single latest release new film as Previewed below, or those doing the rounds currently on general release or as Reviewed and Previewed in previous Blog Posts here at Odeon Online, you are most welcome to share your movie going thoughts, opinions and observations by leaving your relevant, succinct and appropriate views in the Comments section below this or any other Post. We'd love to hear from you, and in the meantime, enjoy your big screen Odeon outing during the week ahead.

'AVATAR : THE WAY OF WATER' (Rated M) - in case you've been hiding under a rock for the last decade or so, this American epic Sci-Fi film is the eagerly anticipated, long awaited, much hyped sequel to that groundbreaking record busting highest grossing film of all time, 'Avatar' from 2009. This film, as with the first instalment, is Directed, Co-Written, Co-Produced and Co-Edited by one, James Cameron. That first film in what is slated to be a five film series, grossed US$2,923B at the global Box Office off a production budget of US$237M and collected eighty-nine award wins and another 131 nominations from around the awards and festival circuit including three Academy Award wins, two BAFTA wins, ten Saturn Award wins, two Golden Globe wins and six Visual Effects Society Awards, amongst its total haul. 'The Way of Water' was originally muted for a 2014 release, however, the addition of three more sequels (to this one) and the necessity to develop new technology in order to film performance capture scenes underwater, a feat never before achieved, led to significant delays to allow the crew more time to work on the writing, preproduction, and visual effects. The film's theatrical release has been subject to repeated delays, with the latest occurring in mid-July  2020. The film is released worldwide this week, with the following three sequels to be released, respectively, in the Decembers of 2024, 2026 and 2028, though the latter two would depend on the commercial reception of 'The Way of Water' as 'Avatar 3' has already wrapped filming and was shot simultaneously in Wellington, New Zealand. With a production budget somewhere in the vicinity of US$350-400M it is one of the most expensive films of all time, and needs to recoup in the region of US$2B just to break even. No mean feat that! Cameron's back catalogue of feature films include 'The Terminator', 'Aliens', 'The Abyss', 'Terminator 2 : Judgement Day', 'True Lies' and 'Titanic' so if major box office success is anything to go by, then this film should be a shoe-in. Time will tell.

Here then, set ten years after the events of the first film and in the mid-22nd Century, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) lives with his newfound family formed on the planet of Pandora, a lush habitable moon of a gas giant in the Alpha Centauri star system. Once a familiar threat returns to finish what was previously started, Jake must work with Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and the army of the Na'vi race to protect their planet. Also starring Kate Winslet, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Giovanni Ribisi, Jermaine Clement, Edie Falco, Cliff Curtis and Brendan Cowell. This film has a run time of 190 minutes. 

With just one new release movie offering this week to tempt you out to your local Odeon, remember to share your movie going thoughts with your other like minded cinephile friends afterwards here at Odeon Online. In the meantime, I'll see you sometime somewhere at your local Odeon in the coming week.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-