http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnfAxUjRQAo]

What you may need to know:

1. It’s the Oscars, stupid.

2. The ceremony is back in the Dolby Theater which has hosted the event since 2002. It was originally the Kodak Theater but selfies and smartphones put paid to Eastman Kodak. The venue was purposefully designed with the Oscars in mind and seats 3200 egos.

3. Irish made Song of the Sea (2014) and Bogaloo Graham (2014) in the nominations house.

4. Neil Patrick Harris (top) is hosting. He has carved out bit of a niche for himself in this regard. The 2013 Tony’s was his best turn so far. But who is the Irish guy making the introductions?

5. Up for the top gong is:
American Sniper
Birdman
Boyhood
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Selma
The Theory of Everything
Whiplash

6. We have our half crown on long shot Selma (2014) and shoe-in Julianne Moore.

7. We also expect Alejandro González Iñárritu, J.K Simmons and Patricia Arquette to make speeches.

6. Broadsheet Prognosis: Oscar makes the best weiners.

Release Date: Monday morning 1.30am

What you may need to know:

1. Amy (Jordanne Jones, top left) is a 13-year-old trying to cope with the death of her mother. She experiences the temptation of suicide after witnessing the outpouring of love for a local suicide victim.

2. Writer/director Frank Berry’s follow-up to Ballymun Lullaby (2011) examines the disturbing phenomenon of suicide clusters among teenagers in rural Ireland.

3. I Used to Live Here picked up the Audience Award for Best Feature at last years’ Galway Film Fleadh.

4. It was shot in Killinarden and features a cast of first-timers from the community.

5. If you’re affected by any of these issues, Childline (1800 666666) and the Samaritans (1850 609090) are available 24/7.

6. Broadsheet Prognosis: Neorealism. Tallaght style.

Release Date: April 3

(Mark blogs about film, TV and other stuff at WhyBother.ie)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMVGScC0vDA]

What you may need to know:

1. Adam Sandler stars as a creepy cobbler that discovers a magical sewing machine which allows him to walk in other peoples shoes. Do you see what they did there?

2. Sandler didn’t produce himself in to this one. He actually stars in it on merit.

3. Sandler has not been in a good film since we were 12. Hang on…

4. But we can’t blame him solely for this film. We can also point the finger at Emmy winner Ellen Barkin, two-time Oscar winner Dustin Hoffman, Grammy winner Method Man, Golden Globe winner Steve Buscemi and Bafta winning writer Thomas McCarthy. J’accuse!

5. There is little studio fanfare surrounding the release of this feel good comedy. Do you know what else feels good? Triple-ply toilet paper.

6. Broadsheet Prognosis: Absolute cobblers

Release Date: May 22

What you may need to know:

1. Victoria meets a nice man in a nightclub and they get all flirty. Turns out he’s in a criminal gang and they need a driver. Poor choice Victoria.

2. The film’s director has been treading boards for a long time. Remember The English Patient (1996)? He rocked as Interrogation Room Soldier.

3. Anyway, this film is a two and a bit hours single mobile shot. Birdman (2014) used a bit of trickery and visuals to create the illusion of an extra long shot but this one appears to be the real unbroken deal.

4. That is proper battery life. Stupid iphone.

5. Darren Aronofsky says this movie has “rocked his world”

6. Broadsheet Prognosis: No mandatory tea break?

Release date: TBC

What you may need to know:

1. A young girl named Emily comes in to contact with a distant descendant who has traveled from the future. They discuss technology and how it impacts on humanity.

2. The trailer can’t give away too much. The whole thing is only 17 minutes long.

3. This is not animator Don Hertzfeldt’s first rodeo. He got an Oscar nomination for Rejected (2000) and he was the toast of Cannes for Billy’s Balloon (1998). He even did a Simpsons couch gag.

4. The future is full of lines and colours.

5. We don’t really know if it is any good. Anyone that has seen it appears to have p****d their pants and then written about how it is the most amazing thing they have ever seen.

6. This could just be a front for hypnotoad.

7. Broadsheet Prognosis: Maybe they do live.

Release Date:  March 13 on VOD

What you may need to know:

1. In the aftermath of a family tragedy, young author Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) is dislocated to an eerie house that breathes and bleeds, and soon discovers that her new husband Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) is not who he appears to be.

2. Guillermo del Toro’s back to his creepy best after the giant robot rock ‘em sock ‘em headscratcher, Pacific Rim (2013).

3. This looks very Tim Burton. Good Tim Burton, not bad Tim Burton.

4. Del Toro wrote the script for Crimson Peak after Pan’s Labyrinth in 2006, but Hellboy II (2008) and a fruitless two-year journey to Middle Earth got in the way.

5. Coincidentally, Hiddleston and Charlie Hunnam both auditioned for the role of Thor (2011) before Chris Hemsworth got the part.

6. That funereal PJ Harvey song playing over the trailer is her cover of Nick Cave’s Red Right Hand. This version was recorded for the second series of BBC’s Peaky Blinders. If you’re not up on Peaky Blinders, then you’re missing a treat.

7. Broadsheet Prognosis: Bloody good.

Release Date: October 16.

(Mark blogs about film, TV and other stuff at WhyBother.ie)

What you may need to know:

1. Secret agents Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) and Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer) join forces to stop a mysterious international criminal organization from destabilizing the fragile balance of power and the proliferation of nuclear weapons and technology.

2. The 1960s Robert Vaughn / David McCallum TV show gets the Sherlock Holmes treatment from director Guy Ritchie.

3. Ritchie’s recent good fortune is a massive turnaround from his mid-noughties slump, which included inflicting Revolver (2005) on the world and marrying Madonna.

4. If Cavill and so-hot-right-now (thank you Xposé) Jamie Dornan ever met it would unravel the very fabric of the space-time continuum.

5. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) is the Cavill trailer that everyone’s waiting for. Word is that it will surface around the release of Mad Max: Fury Road in May.

6. This is Hammer’s first role since Disney’s megaflop, The Lone Ranger in 2013. Incidentally, The Lone Ranger wasn’t a bad movie, but bad press from critics willing it to fail snowballed, and it had the reputation of being a failure long before it was released.

7. In case you’re wondering, U.N.C.L.E. is an acronym for “United Network Command for Law and Enforcement.”

8. Broadsheet Prognosis: De-Bourned Bond.

Release Date: August 14

(Mark blogs about film, TV and other stuff at WhyBother.ie)

What you may need to know:

1. Five rebellious young men ignite a cultural war by rapping about their experiences growing up in South Central LA. It’s a NWA biopic.

2. Ice Cube’s son O’Shea Jackson Jr. is to play his dad. They are the spit of each other.

3. Suge Knight can be seen throwing a beat down on to someone at 3.20. He never gave permission for his likeness to be used and a meeting was set up to discuss it. The meeting didn’t go well and Suge allegedly drove his car in to three people, killing his friend Terry Carter.

4. Ice Cube has said it will include everything, from the feuding to Darryl Gates, to HIV to the LA Riots. Will it include Dr. Dre’s assaults on Michel’le and Dee Barnes?

5. Ice Cube and Dre seemed to have put No Vaseline behind them then.

6. Broadsheet Prognosis: Parental Advisory Explicit Content

Release Date: 14 August 2015

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5WtPcWlae4

What you may need to know:

1. Screwball *shudder* farce in which Broadway director Arnold (Owen Wilson) falls for prostitute-turned-actress Izzy (Imogen Poots) and tries to turn her life around. Hilarious hijinks ensue.

2. Peter Bogdanovich’s eagerly awaited follow up to the critical smash, The Cat’s Meow (2001). As part of the American new wave, Bogdanovich came to prominence in the early 1970s alongside such luminaries as William Friedkin, John Schlesinger and Mike Nichols, but his last truly great movie was Paper Moon in 1973.

3. This trailer contains so much plot that it saves you the trouble of watching the full film.

4. Which is just as well, as it looks like Bogdanovich has set out to make a very bad Woody Allen movie.

5. If the jokes seem a tad clunky and dated, that’s because the screenplay is over 15 years old.

6. Bogdanovich’s work as a film historian is second to none, but being a great director takes more than a rampant ego and a cravat. This might account for the frosty reception he got from John Ford in 1971.

7. Broadsheet Prognosis: The Woolworth Farce (ask your Da).

Release Date: June 26

(Mark blogs about film, TV and other stuff at WhyBother.ie)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1XQkWhfL6o

What you may need to know:

1. A young family are terrorised by a malevolent presence in their home.

2. 20th Century Fox continues to stripmine its back catalogue for all it’s worth. A Shane Black-helmed reboot of the reboot of Predator (1987) is coming down the pipe.

3. If it ain’t broke, why not fix it anyway? This trailer has quite a nice old school vibe, and director Gil Keenan seems to have used a lot of practical effects. But really, what’s the point?

4. The usually-dependable Jared Harris appears to have based his character on Alan “Dere’s more to Oireland dan dis” Partridge.

5. The original Poltergeist (1982) has quite a history. Dominique Dunne (Dana) was strangled by her boyfriend in the year of its release, and Heather O’Rourke (Carol Anne) was just 12 years old when she died in 1988.

6. It also killed director Tobe Hooper’s career stone dead. Rumours of heavy-handed interference from producer and co-writer Steven Spielberg and substance abuse issues resulted in Hooper eventually capitalising on Poltergeist’s success with naked space vampire megaflop Lifeforce (1985).

7. Broadsheet Prognosis: “They’re here.” Again.

Release Date: July 31

(Mark blogs about film, TV and other stuff at WhyBother.ie)