What's new in Odeon's this week : Thursday 9th March 2017.

Much has been written about last weeks Best Film Award presentation fiasco at the recent Academy Awards ceremony, when 'La La Land' was initially announced and awarded the golden statue for the coveted prize, only to have the gong thrust from the Producers hands mid way through their acceptance speeches, in favour of the real winner, 'Moonlight'. Can you imagine the horror back stage, as Hollywood's night of nights comes to a confusing disastrous halt right at the end of the proceedings and during the biggest film award presentation of the year? For the first time in 83 years of overseeing the accounting and auditing procedures of the voting process and the distribution of the closely guarded and top secret winners envelops on Awards night, did notable Accounting Firm PricewaterhouseCoopers manage to get it so wrong! Human error on the part of trusted PwC representatives Brian Cullinan and his business associate Martha Ruiz, is what this boils down to.

Cullinan got so distracted and carried away by the glitz and glamour back stage like a kid in a candy store, busying himself with Tweeting photographs of Best Actress Winner Emma Stone immediately before the (wrong) envelope was passed to Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. In doing so, he handed over the second envelope for Best Actress in a Leading Role which read 'Emma Stone, La La Land', which explains why Beatty fumbled and looked quizzically at the camera and the audience, and why he handed the opened envelope to Dunaway who saw 'La La Land' and announced it as the winner! A simple mistake by our two presenters who should not be held to task over the faux pas witnessed by a gob smacked audience gathered in the Dolby Theatre, and a viewing audience running into hundreds of millions around the world. Embarrassing for the Academy, yes; embarrassing for PwC who have admitted full liability for the mix up, for sure; embarrassing for Beatty and Dunaway on the spot and who called it out; definitely but they have been cleansed of any blame; embarrassing for the Producers of 'La La Land', I guess so having been well into their speeches but then handled so graciously once the reality of the situation emerged; embarrassing for the Producers of 'Moonlight', probably not as they emerged the real winners & grinners even if some of their limelight was stolen!

So, what are the learnings from this? You can't legislate for the actions of mere mortals, we are but human, and as such we make mistakes, even if this monumental error was the first of its kind in the Academy's 89 year history. There is a first time for everything! And secondly, maybe its time for the Academy and PwC to review their procedures and opt for a more reliable technology alternative that removes the human element, or at least backs it up as a failsafe mechanism. And thirdly, it will be interesting to see what differences are made to protocols at next years 90th Academy Awards ceremony to avoid any such repetitions ever occurring again.

And so turning to this week, there are four new films to entice you out to your local multiplex sometime during this first week of the Southern Hemisphere Autumn. We kick off with another epic big screen adaptation of the giant hairy monster kind that saw its first cinematic outing over eighty years ago, and still knows how to pull a crowd delivered with a strong cast and cutting edge CGI. This is followed up by a sequel to an earlier film from 2011 that is an Aussie outback misadventure featuring three men and a corpse . . . dead serious! We then move to a recent Academy Award Winner for Best Foreign Language Film, with an offering from Iran from a previously acclaimed Director, before wrapping up with every cinephiles must see documentary of a legendary much loved and highly regarded Australian Film Critic extraordinaire.

When you have sat in a darkened enclosed space with a bunch of complete strangers for two hours all gazing in the same direction at a big screen, feel free to share your movie going thoughts, observations and opinions with us all here at Odeon Online in a constructive, pertinent and relevant manner. Simply leave your views in the Comments section below this or any other Post - as usual your input is welcomed and we'd love to hear from you. Meanwhile, enjoy your film.

'KONG : SKULL ISLAND' (Rated M) - in 84 years of film making history, King Kong has featured countless times in live action and animated forms, in dramatic thrillers and cheesy send ups, on his own or battling some other equally menacing foe. 'King Kong' first mesmerised audiences back in 1933 by the remarkable stop-motion effects of Willis O'Brien, and a story that began on Skull Island, somewhere near Indonesia where as well as Kong, dinosaurs and giant insects also roamed the wild undiscovered landscape. In this origin story Kong is tracked down by filmmaker Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) and falls for Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) culminating in the classic closing sequence atop the Empire State Building from which Kong eventually falls to his death. On the strength of this film, 'Son of Kong' was immediately put into production and released later on in 1933. 'Mighty Joe Young' followed in 1949 also featuring Robert Armstrong, and remade in 1998 starring Bill Paxton and Charlize Theron. Then courtesy of Japanese cinema, came 'King Kong vs. Godzilla' in 1962 and 'King Kong Escapes' in 1967. 1976 saw the Dino De Laurentiis produced remake 'King Kong' and that same year the Brits released the send up of all King Kong movies with 'Queen Kong'. 'King Kong Lives' was released in 1986 and Directed by John Guillermin who also Directed the 1976 film. Peter Jackson delivered us 'King Kong' in 2005 with all the modern day cutting edge technical wizardry he could throw at his three time Oscar winning film that brought in US$550M at the global Box Office. And so in 2017 we have another King Kong offering Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts, made on a budget of US$190M and starring an ensemble cast and featuring a raft load of special effects and filmed in northern Vietnam, Hawaii and on Australia's Gold Coast.

Set in the early '70's a secret organisation locate an island that is shrouded in mystery and is said to contain several new species. Enter Bill Randa (John Goodman) who works for that secret organisation who sets up the expedition to go boldly where no man has gone before. He hires James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston) a former British Air Services Captain who saw time in Vietnam and who has a particular set of skills. Also hired is Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson) who leads the Sky Devils helicopter squadron who have to chopper in the expedition team. And then there's Mason Weaver (Brie Larson) a photojournalist who has an affinity with nature and the environment. Pretty soon the expedition come face to face with a giant ape known as Kong who over time has had his kind wiped out by alpha predators known as 'Skull Crawlers'. What ensues is a battle for survival against the Skull Crawlers and other unsavoury insects, animals and monsters inhibiting this far away land, and a realisation that Kong might just be the good guy here and worth saving. Also starring John C. Reilly as Hank Marlow a WWII soldier stranded on the island for the past three decades, Toby Kebbel, John Ortiz, Jing Tian and Terry Notary as King Kong through MoCap.

'A FEW LESS MAN' (Rated MA15+) - in 2011 'A Few Best Men' was released as an Aussie Brit comedy Directed by Stephan Elliott about an Australian groom heading off to the Blue Mountains west of Sydney with three of his best men for his wedding. The film received a lacklustre critical response and just about recovered its production budget of AU$14M. Why would they make a follow up I hear you cry? Somebody clearly thought it a good idea and a sound investment! This time Directed by Mark Lamprell, following the joys of a destination wedding gone horribly wrong, our best buddies David (Xavier Samuel), Graham (Kevin Bishop) and Tom (Kris Marshall) suddenly find themselves dealing with a new challenge as their friend, Luke is very dead having been crushed by a falling boulder. After agreeing to deliver Luke's body to his aunt in Perth, David's father-in-law manages to organise a private plane to fly them there. When a forced unexpected landing in the middle of nowhere finds them stranded, the likely lads must negotiate a crocodile infested swamp, transporting their friend through the treacherous bush, facing all manner of challenges and opportunities! All the while, these trials & tribulations threaten the heartfelt friendships of our three besties, who are gutted over the loss of their long term mate. Driven by a sense of duty they are determined to get through the ordeal and deliver the body to Perth and will consequently end up being the stronger for it . . . provided they all survive to tell the tale with their sanity and their wits in one piece. Also staring Deborah Mailman, Shane Jacobsen and Ryan Corr.

'THE SALESMAN' (Rated M) - this Iranian drama film is Directed, Written and Co-Produced by Asghar Farhadi and it won the Best Foreign Language Film Award at last weeks Academy Awards Ceremony as well as Best Actor and Best Screenplay Awards at last years Cannes Film Festival. All up it has won eight awards and been nominated for another seventeen, and has received widespread acclaim. Telling the story of husband and wife stage actors Emad and Rana Etesami (Shahab Hosseini and Taraneh Alidoosti respectively) appearing as the leads in a production of Arthur Millers 'Death of a Salesman' who are forced to leave their collapsing house. An actor friend of theirs suggests a  rental apartment which they take, unaware of the fact that the previous tenant was a prostitute and she 'entertained' some unsavoury types there. By a fateful twist, one night while Rana is home alone taking a bath, she is visited by one such unsavoury customer of the former tenant, the aftermath of which leaves this peaceful loving couple with their lives turned upside down and inside out.

'DAVID STRATTON : A CINEMATIC LIFE' (Rated M) - anyone who's anyone in the movie business in Australia at the very least will have heard of the legendary film critic, author, writer and television presenter David Stratton who arrived in Australia in 1963 aged 24 from his native England. He quickly assimilated himself into film society circles, acted on the juries at the Cannes, Venice and Berlin International Film Festivals, was Director for the Sydney Film Festival from 1966 until 1983, and from 1980 though until 2014 was the expert Co-Host of the SBS Television show 'The Movie Show' and then the ABC's 'At The Movies' both with Margaret Pomeranz. He is a highly regarded expert of international cinema, particularly French cinema, and in his time he has seen over 25,000 films. Even if you watched one movie every day of the week and two on Sundays, that would fill up 60 years! Directed and Written by Sally Aitken this compelling personal journey documents the fascinating development of our cinematic history. David Stratton takes us from his boyhood cinema experience of Australia in England, where he saw the first images of this far away exotic landscape via the medium of film, to his move to Australia and onto his current day musings on the iconic themes that run through our film making history. At the heart of the film is the story of an industry whose growing pains Stratton has witnessed over a lifetime. Alongside Stratton, the protagonists of this history are the giants of Australian cinema – both behind the camera and in front of it and include the likes of Jackie Weaver, Bryan Brown, Russell Crowe, Judy Davis, Geoffrey Rush, George Miller, Sam Neill, Hugo Weaving, Fred Schepisi and plenty more in sometimes intimate and revealing interviews. A must see for cinephiles, movie lovers and film goers everywhere.

Four films this week crossing epic big screen action, an outback comedy, an acclaimed Foreign Language offering, and an insightful doco featuring a much loved cinephile. You really don't need any excuses to get out to your local theatre in the week ahead to catch a movie of choice, and then to share your views with us here. In the meantime, I'll see you sometime, somewhere in the week ahead at your local Odeon.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-