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Ah, the past! As celluloid is first and foremost a method of recording things around us, it’s no surprise that archiving and recreating history, both communal and personal, is so central to the cinematic medium. But the one thing we know about the times is that they are a’changing,...

Fifteen years ago, Carey Mulligan made her first visit to the Berlin Film Festival to support her star-making turn in the dramedy An Education. Lone Scherfig’s film centers on Jenny (Mulligan), a teen in 1960s suburban London who falls for a smooth-talking older man played by Peter Sarsgaard.

Scherfig (Italian for Beginners) shared an agent with writer Nick Hornby, who penned the script based on journalist Lynn Barber’s autobiographical essay.

The movie boasted supporting roles for Emma Thompson, Alfred Molina and Rosamund Pike but had a bumpy path and lost financing prior to production. Mulligan told The Hollywood Reporter at the time that 18 months passed between her initial audition and the project getting the greenlight, leading her to take a job at a pub in the interim.

When An Education premiered at Sundance in January 2009, THR praised it as a “smart, moving but not inaccessible entry in the coming-of-age canon.

Carey Mulligan has had an impressive and varied acting career, as shown throughout her awards resume in films like “Shame,” “Drive,” “Mudbound” and “She Said.” But her two leading Oscar nominations came for “An Education” (2009), her first major starring role, and “Promising Young Woman” (2020), in one of the most uncertain and thrilling Best Actress races in a while. Let’s take a look back at those years as she returns with her next project “Maestro” as Felicia Montealegre, the wife of composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein, set to release November 22 before debuting on Netflix December 20.

After a variety of roles in film, television and theater, Mulligan came to light at the Academy Awards with her first leading feature, the coming-of-age drama “An Education,” directed by Lone Scherfig and adapted by Nick Hornby from the Lynn Barber memoir, about a promising young schoolgirl who falls in love with a much older man...

It’s happened five times in the last 11 years (including three years in a row) that an acting winner has has also carried along the hair/makeup team for triumphs at the Academy Awards, a trend that Brendan Fraser and the makeup/prosthetics team from “The Whale” (headed by Judy Chin) hope to continue this year. To be sure, the transformation of Fraser into a 600-pound man proved a visually stunning on-camera masterwork, and it would surprise few if the actor and the team in charge of his radically altered appearance were both to be honored with Oscar hardware.

Most recently, Jessica Chastain won the lead actress prize for “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” at last year’s Oscars, while the makeup/hairstyling trophy went to that film’s Stephanie Ingram, Linda Dowds and Justin Raleigh for helping transform Chastain into Tammy Faye Bakker.

SEEOscar spotlight: Brendan Fraser should still...

KollywoodReports are that Vijay Sethupathi is playing a drama artiste in the film with Parvathi Nair, Remya Nambeesan and Gayathrie as female leads.Digital NativeDigital NativeVijay Sethupathi’s look in Seethakaathi was released a few days ago to coincide with his birthday and it has gone viral. The star was seen sporting a wrinkled look and gray hair and looked every bit like an aged man. How did this transformation happen? Well, thanks to the Oscar-winning make-up artistes Kevin Haney and Alex Noble. They had worked on the look for Vijay Sethupathi and managed to come up with a perfect makeover. Reports are that the make up artistes took up to four hours to work on Vijay Sethupathi’s look. While fans are raving about the star’s look in the movie, critics point out that Vijay Sethupathi’s look in it resembles that of Sathyajit Ray and Kamal Haasan’s look in Indian. Reports are that Vijay Sethupathi is playing a drama artiste in Seethakaathi with Parvathi Nair, Remya Nambeesan and Gayathrie as the female leads. Popular director J Mahendran will be seen in a crucial role in the movie. Balaji Tharaneetharan, who had wielded the megaphone for the smash hit Vijay Sethupathi starrer Naduvula Konjam Pakkatha Kanom, is directing Seethakaathi. Govind Menon is composing music for this flick with Saraskanth T. K. working on the camera and R Govindraj roped in for editing. Bankrolled by Sudhan Sundaram, Umesh G, Jayaram and Arun Vaidyanathan under the banner Passion Studios, Seethakaathi will be a landmark film in Vijay Sethupathi’s career as it happens to be his 25th film. Kevin Haney won the Oscar award in 1989 for Best Makeup for the film Driving Miss Daisy, which he shared with Lynn Barber and Manlio Rocchetti. Some of the Hollywood movies that he had worked in include Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Iron Man 3 and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

The pleasures of "Brooklyn" are many, and as well-wrought as the film directed by John Crowley are—he helped to break out Irish star Colin Farrell in "Intermission" and Andrew Garfield in "Boy A"—the succulent juices of the story come from novelist Colm Tóibín and author-turned-Hollywood screenwriting pro Nick Hornby, who wrote the books-that-were-turned-into-movies "About a Boy" and "High Fidelity," and the movie adaptations of Cheryl Strayed's "Wild" and Lynn Barber's "An Education," which earned him an Oscar nomination. Another one is in the offing for "Brooklyn" (Fox Searchlight), which was a long slog labor of love for Hornby, surviving various aborted incarnations. By the time the movie was ready to roll, Irish actress Saoirse Ronan had grown up, and as Hornby says, it's hard to imagine anyone else playing her. She's a young woman with limited hopes in her...

Nick Hornby's bittersweet four-hander about four would-be suicides is recalibrated into a genial, lightweight farce, with a perfectly cast Pierce Brosnan

Nick Hornby's 2005 novel about four would-be suicides has become an amiable, undemanding comedy that is unlikely, it is fair to say, to repeat the success of An Education, the last film he found himself involved in. That film, scripted by Hornby but adapted from Lynn Barber's memoir, was bolstered by a career-making performance from Carey Mulligan; A Long Way Down, by contrast, shares the acting duties equally between the four leads.

Pierce Brosnan, adopting a dubious mockney accent, plays disgraced TV presenter Martin Sharp, who has toiled to the top of a rundown tower block to end it all on New Year's Eve. He is interrupted by, in turn, mousy single mother Maureen (Toni Collette), who is overwhelmed by caring for her disabled son; mouthy teenager...

From the enduring popularity of Mad Men to the upcoming fifty-year anniversary of the death of John F. Kennedy, the 1960s remains an era firmly planted in our popular consciousness. A decade of immense social change, it saw the rise of the Civil Rights movement and its fight for racial equality, the coming of the sexual revolution, the growth of the fashion industry and the growth of modern popular music.

As a result, the ‘60s remains an alluring decade for film-makers and directors and in the past five years there has been an influx of 60s-set films, but which are worth seeing? Read on to find out as we highlight the top three recent movies set in the 1960s, chosen due to their ability to be both entertaining and thought-provoking:

3. An Education (2009)

Recently starring as the immoral-yet-alluring Daisy Buchanan in Baz Luhrmann’s ‘The Great Gatsby’, Carey Mulligan’s break-out...

nBaz Luhrman's 1920s extravaganza to open 66th festival and cement Surrey girl Carey Mulligan's arrival in Hollywood A-list

Many people might think The Great Gatsby has already had a premiere with reviews from American screenings widely available. But for its British star, Carey Mulligan, the red carpet Cannes screening of Baz Luhrmann's 3D extravaganza on Wednesday evening will secure her position among the top flight of international talent.

The film will officially open the annual event in the south of France, regarded as the leading festival in the cinema industry's calendar. Mulligan is expected to attend alongside Lurhrman and her co-star, Leonardo DiCaprio, and will be the glamorous focus of the most high-profile function of the fortnight.

The actor from Surrey, who is married to Marcus Mumford of the award-winning band Mumford and Sons, is to have a second moment of glory later in the festival when she...

While most movie-going audiences familiar with author Nick Hornby know him best for seeing his own written works turned into films (like High Fidelity, Fever Pitch, and About a Boy), the writer has recently begun adapting other authors’ books into screenplays. We know, it’s a bit complicated. Hornby notably penned the screenplay for An Education, based on Lynn Barber’s memoir, and recently finished the script for Brooklyn, which is based on a Colm Toibin novel. Next up, Hornby will adapt another memoir for the big screen, turning his talents to Cheryl Strayed‘s “Wild,” a tome that Strayed wrote about her soul-saving 1,100-mile solo hike up the Pacific Crest Trail. Reese Witherspoon‘s production company, Pacific Standard, will produce the project, and Witherspoon is also expected to star. Witherspoon also personally drafted Hornby for the film, telling Deadline that “Nick’s innate blend of humanity and humor are a perfect match for Cheryl’s raw...

Not too long ago I asked the Sound On Sight staff to choose their ten favourite films of all time. The result led to mixed reactions (both by staff and readers), and some angry feedback. But how could any of us select only ten films from the thousands we’ve seen and walk away happy with the results. The fact is, of all the films which received a vote, it was those more widely available who made the cut. In other words, films such as The Godfather and Pulp Fiction stood a greater chance of receiving more ballots than say, obscure foreign gems.

My biggest disappointment with the picks, although only ten films were spotlighted, was the lack of votes for films directed by women. Could it be that none of us here at Sound On Sight valued great directors such as Claire Denis, Agnès Varda, Chantal Akerman or Lina Wertmüller?...

Rooney Mara has mastered the art of being a heavily tattooed waif, so, like any good hipster, she's got Brooklyn in her sights.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" star has signed on as the lead in the film adaptation of Colm Toibin's 2009 novel, "Brooklyn."

The book tells the story of Eilis Lacey, a young Irish woman living in the 1950s, who leaves her homeland for Brooklyn, only to find herself so enamored with her American life that she becomes unsure if she can return to her native country.

Toibin's novel is being adapted for the big screen by Nick Hornby, who last made his way to theaters with his adaptation of Lynn Barber's "An Education," for which Horsnby was nominated for an Oscar.

Mara, who has been in high demand since she dyed her hair black and started posing topless, is taking...

This week on Film Weekly Jason Solomons meets Danish director Lone Scherfig. After her critically acclaimed adaptation of Lynn Barber's memoir An Education, she returns with One Day, another English literary hit, re-worked this time by its author, David Nicholls.

Jason also meets Spanish actor Elena Anaya, via an interview recorded at this year's Cannes. Anaya stars alongside Antonio Banderas in Pedro Almodóvar's The Skin I Live In, which premiered at the festival. Jason discusses her unique connection to the director and asks if she plans to follow Banderas and Penelope Cruz, both Almodóvar protégés, to the bright lights of Hollywood.

Xan Brooks joins Jason to review some of this week's other big releases including Conan The Barbarian, R: Hit First Hit Hardest and Final Destination 5.

• Subscribe for free via iTunes to ensure every episode gets delivered. (Here is the non-iTunes URL feed). Follow the podcast on...

This week's news in the arts

In recent years, exam results have been accompanied by two things – commentators grumbling about declining standards, and countless pictures of pretty girls hugging each other. And while that's plenty for most people, others have found exams to be a rich source of creative inspiration.

O-levels form much of the anxiety that drives the protagonist in Sue Townsend's The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole, along with the constant threat of nuclear war. Having put him through more turmoil than the average student will experience, Jonathan Coe ends The Rotters' Club by allowing Ben Trotter to collect his exam results (spoiler!) relatively unscathed. Then there's Lynn Barber's An Education, in which her affair with a dubious older man can be read as an example of fairly extreme exam procrastination.

While 2007's movie Superbad might be primarily remembered for its bungled adolescent sexualityand the term...

From A Clockwork Orange to Shaun of the Dead, The Guardian Guide's film critic Steve Rose charts some of the capital's finest moments on the silver screen

• As featured in our London guide

The King's Speech, Tom Hooper, 2010

The latest addition to London's locations map, this is the "Harley Street" consulting room where Geoffrey Rush cured Colin Firth's Oscar-winning stammer in The King's Speech. Beneath the mouldering paintwork, it's actually a beautifully preserved Georgian townhouse – with a fine vaulted ceiling, generous leaded windows and distinctive curved skylights. The property was also used for Amy Winehouse's Rehab video, not to mention the occasional gay porn film – though that attracts fewer pilgrims. There's no easy way to get in, but it's often hired for corporate functions, so you've got options.

• 33 Portland Place, 33portlandplace.com

Blowup, Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966

Whatever David Hemmings did or didn't see through his camera in

Antonioni's Swinging London milestone,...

In 2009, Danish director Lone Scherfig transformed the memoir of British journalist Lynn Barber into the Oscar-nominated indie drama An Education. Now with her follow-up, the romance-fueled One Day set to hit theaters this August, Screen Daily has revealed Scherfig’s next move. And just as she stepped from indie stars to A-listers, Scherfig is upping the ante once more with a historical epic titled Music And Silence.

Based on the novel by Rose Tremain, the story is set in the court of 17th-century King Christian IVOf Denmark. Here the King Christian struggles to save his marriage to Kirsten Munk,while love blossoms between two servants on the King’s court. The book, which parallels the two romace-fueled plotlines, was heralded for its lushly developed tale of love, loss and regret that was likewise imbrued with a bawdy sensibility. Notably, these are descriptors that could easily be applied to Scherfig’s breakout Education.

  An Education producers Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey are developing an adaptation of Nick Hornby's 2005 novel, A Long Way Down. There's something of the circle of life about this move, as Hornby previously adapted An Education from Lynn Barber's memoir for Dwyer and Posey. Hornby's novel, which will be adapted by Skins scribe Jack Thorne, follows four individuals who meet on the roof of a tower on New Year's Eve, all of them having gone seperately with the intention of killing themselves. Despite the bleak-sounding premise Dwyer...

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Chicago – Lone Scherfig’s “An Education” should have won two of the Academy Awards for which it was nominated: Best Actress for the star-making work by Carey Mulligan and Best Adapted Screenplay for the fantastic script by Nick Hornby. It easily one of the best films of 2009 (my personal pick for #5 on the year) and a must-see on Blu-ray and DVD.

Blu-Ray Rating: 5.0/5.0

“An Education,” an adaptation of Lynn Barber’s memoir, is about one of those life moments when someone is presented with a life-changing, concrete, well-defined fork in the road. It is a coming-of-age film like no other in a very long time; thematically complex, perfectly designed, and as memorable as any drama released on Blu-ray so far this year.

An Education was released on Blu-ray and DVD on March 30th, 2010.

Photo credit: Sony Pictures Home Video

Jenny (Carey Mulligan) stands at the crossroads of both her own...

The Mad Hatter's Film School, London

As Tim Burton's Alice continues to create box-office overspill, the influence of Lewis Carroll's fantasies is paid due homage by the BFI, with vintage Alice screenings and workshops aimed at Carroll's very inspiration: children. Send your kids down the (safe and legal) rabbit hole of film-making this Easter, where they can learn to design Alice puppets and comics, compose a new soundtrack for one of the oldest celluloid versions of Alice, and dabble in green screen to see how things might appear larger, smaller, and altogether curiouser and curiouser.

BFI Southbank, SE1, Tue to 9 Apr

Andrea Hubert

Quadrophenia Day, Margate

It may be set in Brighton, but this well-worn 1979 mod classic is being given an outing to help fund a heritage theme park and pop culture archive in rival seaside town Margate, which also enjoyed its fair share of mods v rockers rumbles.

DVD Playhouse: March 2010

By

Allen Gardner

Precious: Based On The Novel “Push” By Sapphire (Lionsgate) In-your-face, but undeniably powerful film that follows the plight of an overweight inner-city teen (Gabourey Sidbe, a real find) who must deal with an abusive mother (Mo’Nique, in a career-making turn for which she won a most-deserved Best Supporting Actress Oscar), a baby born of her abusive, and absent, father, and trying to survive day-to-day with few people to offer her help, save for a sympathetic teacher (Paula Patton) in a special ed program. Director/producer Lee Daniels, a former personal manager/producer-turned-filmmaker, brings a kitchen sink authenticity to the proceedings, along with a cast of famous powerhouse performers, who manage to disappear into their roles. Tough stuff, but not to be missed. Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay (Geoffrey Fletcher). Bonuses: Commentary by Daniels; Featurettes; Interviews with Sapphire and Daniels; Deleted scene. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround.

Chicago – It’s a shame that a forgettable action flick forced Lee Daniels’s Oscar-winning drama to change its title from “Push” to “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire.” It’s a terribly ungainly title, brimming with wordy self-importance. What if other films did the same thing? I shudder at the thought of, “An Education: Based on the Memoir by Lynn Barber” or “A Serious Man: Based on an Idea Concocted by Roderick Jaynes.”

However, once you get past the title, there’s no denying the overwhelming power of this picture. It stands as an enduring reminder that one of cinema’s greatest gifts is its ability to transport viewers into the mind and soul of another, thus universalizing their personal struggles and triumphs. How many moviegoers would’ve previously thought that they could relate to an illiterate, obese, pregnant and horrifically abused teenager, other than out of pity?...

Carey Mulligan and Meryl Streep go head to head again, while a troop of sky-diving nuns aren't enough to save Harmony Korine

At last month's Baftas all eyes were on Carey Mulligan, who was up for two awards: Leading Actress, which she won to rapturous applause, and Rising Star, which she lost to the shrug-shouldered Twilight star Kristen Stewart. Yet despite Stewart's victory (which she graciously – and correctly – attributed to the fanatical loyalty of the "Twi-Hards"), Mulligan was the real star of the evening, her presence sparking critical plaudits and paparazzi flashbulbs in equal measure. Right now, she seems set to become the UK's biggest screen export.

An Education (2009, E1, 12), which catapulted Mulligan to such prominence, is an agreeably old-fashioned affair – a coming-of-age tale about a brainy girl being led astray by a slick'n'sleazy older man. The setting, efficiently evoked by Danish director Lone Scherfig, is London in the all-but-swinging 60s.

Gautaman BhaskaranReview: An Education Cast: Peter Sarsgaard, Carey Mulligan, Alfred Molina and Emma Thompson.        Direction: Lone ScherfigRating: **** The British movie, An Education, may appear like a piece of  symphony playing the first love notes of a 16-going-on-17 Carey Mulligan's Jenny, living in a 1961 dowdy London suburb and attending an even duller school in suitably unattractive grey uniform. But scratch the surface of the celluloid to discover that Nick Hornby's screenplay (adapted from the childhood memoirs of a well known U.K. journalist, Lynn Barber) underlines the ...

Kathryn Bigelow's depiction of post-invasion Iraq takes six awards, while Colin Firth wins best actor

• Datablog: Find out who's leading the Oscars race

It came, it saw, but failed to conquer. James Cameron's Avatar, which has taken more money at the box office than any other film in the history of cinema came away tonight with just two Bafta awards in an evening dominated by arthouse films made on a fraction of its budget.

The outright winner at the London ceremony was The Hurt Locker, directed by Cameron's ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow. It won six awards including best film, director, original screenplay, editing, cinematography and sound.

British success came in the acting awards with Carey Mulligan named best actress for An Education and Colin Firth best actor for A Single Man.

The Hurt Locker, a grittily realistic depiction of Us army bomb disposal men in post-invasion Iraq, has been around a long time,...

London, Feb 22 (Dpa) Britain’s up-and-coming star Carey Mulligan won the best actress category at the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs) Sunday in London, where Kathryn Bigelow scooped up the best film and best director awards for her Iraq war drama ‘The Hurt Locker’.

Mulligan, 24, took the prize for her lead role in the British-made film ‘An Education’, based on a novel by Nick Hornby on the adolescent life of journalist Lynn Barber.

In what was a true veteran.

Brit author Nick Hornby discovered the Lynn Barber memoir An Education and showed it to his producer wife, Amanda Posey, as a possible movie. He liked it so much he adapted it for the screen himself, something he has avoided doing with his own novels, three of which--High Fidelity, Fever Pitch, About a Boy--have been turned by other writers into damned good Hollywood movies. He did adapt his first novel Fever Pitch into a British movie starring Colin Firth. But otherwise he has kept some distance from Hollywood adaptations of his novels. Now Hornby's up for an Oscar for adapting someone else. We talked on the patio of Hollywood's new W hotel about his Hollywood connection, writing to music, and his next script: an original animated ...

Carey Mulligan ''went blank'' when she was told she had been nominated for the Best Actress Oscar. The 24-year-old star of 'An Education' - based on an autobiographical memoir of the same title written by British journalist Lynn Barber - admitted she struggled to process the news when she received a call telling her she was up for one of the prestigious accolades. She said: ''I mean, I went blank. My head went blank. And then I screamed and started crying. It took a while to sink in. I'm still sort of processing it.'' The British actress admitted she had tried her best ..

"Up in the Air" author Walter Kirn and Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner, the Oscar-nominated screenwriters behind the big-screen version of the book, won the 22nd Annual USC Libraries Scripter Award for Paramount's "Up in the Air."

The Scripters, which recognize the author and scribes of a produced literary work-to-film adaptation, were held at a gala ceremony Saturday night at USC.

The "Air" team beat out the writers behind "Crazy Heart" (author Thomas Cobb and filmmaker Scott Cooper), "District 9" (writers-filmmakers Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell), "An Education" (author Lynn Barber and writer Nick Hornby) and "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire" (novelist Sapphire and scribe Geoffrey Fletcher).

"How does it feel to stand on the shoulders of a giant?" Kirn quipped when he stepped on stage. He said he was not one of those authors who complained that the movie adaptation ruined his work; he pointed out that his book,...

It's an annual party that is notable this year for being dominated by two directors who used to be husband and wife. The question though is: will that pesky troublemaker Quentin Tarantino spoil the whole evening?

The nominations for the 82nd annual Academy Awards were revealed in Los Angeles at 5.38am local time precisely and were monopolised by two very different films – the insanely over the top sci-fi epic Avatar from James Cameron, and the grittily realistic Iraq drama The Hurt Locker, from his ex-spouse Kathryn Bigelow.

Both gathered nine nominations, but sneaking along behind them was Tarantino's unique take on the second world war, Inglourious Basterds, with eight.

While not a vintage year for the Brits,...

Avatar is tipped for big Oscar nominations success today in a list which could see director James Cameron pitted against his ex-wife.

Last month, the sci-fi spectacle scooped a double victory including best film drama at the Golden Globes, which are seen as an indicator of who is likely to receive Oscar nods.

Avatar recently surpassed Cameron's multiple Oscar-winning Titanic - and saw the director beat his own record when the film became the highest grossing movie ever.

Cameron's former partner Kathryn Bigelow is also tipped for success for her Iraq war drama The Hurt Locker (pictured above and below).

Made for a fraction of the budget of Avatar, the tense movie about an elite bomb disposal team has won widespread critical acclaim and triumphed at the Directors Guild of America awards.

Cameron and Bigelow were both shortlisted for best director in the Golden Globes, with Cameron taking the prize.

Three films get eight nominations each in shortlists for 2010 British Academy Film Awards

They could not be more different films. But the mind-boggling special effects extravaganza Avatar, the low-key British drama An Education and the gritty Iraq movie The Hurt Locker lead the way in the Bafta shortlists released today.

All three films received eight nominations for awards which will be presented in a month's time at the Royal Opera House. After that, the most nominations – seven – went to the South African sci-fi film District 9, with Inglourious Basterds and Up in the Air receiving six each.

The BBC film An Education, Nick Hornby's adaptation of the journalist Lynn Barber's memoir of how, as a teenager, she was seduced by a well-off predatory scoundrel, is nominated in both the best film and best British film categories. Its star, Carey Mulligan, is up for best actress and Alfred Molina,...

Sandra Bullock, 'The Blind Side'For years, Sandra Bullock has charmed audiences with endearing turns in films like "While You Were Sleeping," "Miss Congeniality," and "Two Weeks Notice." While most people associate her with romantic comedies, Bullock has also turned in terrific dramatic performances in films like "Crash" and the underrated "Infamous." She probably didn't have awards aspirations when she signed on to play Leigh Anne Tuohy, the wealthy Memphis matriarch who takes in an African-American teenager named Michael Oher and helps him launch a football career, in "The Blind Side."On the page, the role could smack of condescending schmaltz, with lines like "You threaten my son, you threaten me." Yet when asserted by Bullock, with a perfect Tennessee twang, they work. And she gets off some great ones, such as when she warns one person, "If you so much as set foot downtown, you will be sorry.

More of a fun little bridge in-between announcements rather than a list you can lay action on when crafting your Oscar prediction list, the USC Scripter Nominations came in last night. Established in 1988, the Scripter is an annual honor by the Friends of the USC Libraries "in recognition of the best film adaptation of a book or novella." Unlike the Oscars though, this award for adaptation goes to both the screenwriter and the original author. I wonder who will show up if the award goes to Precious: Based On The Novel Push By Sapphire.

Who knew that was an adaptation, right? The USC nominating committee apparently did in a list not entirely racked in surprises. Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner's version of Walter Kim's Up In The Air has been the most honored adaptation of the year thus far. Nick Hornby's take on Lynn Barber's memoir,...

• Following up on her antics at Tuesday's Palm Spring filmfest -- reported in detail by Pete Hammond -- Mariah Carey should make for must-see TV tonight. As Roger Friedman reports she, "is all set to pick up her People’s Choice Award tonight on CBS. She’s a winner, I’m told, for Best R&B singer. What? Yes, everyone seems to know who’s won those People’s Choice Awards before they arrive at the studio." As Roger writes, "If you watch this show, you’ll know who’s won right away by who’s in the audience waiting to get their award. Since Hugh Jackman, Sandra Bullock, Carrie Underwood, and Taylor Swift are already being promoted by CBS, you can guess they won their categories. Surprise! They’re not hanging around that studio for their health!" Showbiz 411

• Another diva -- Jennifer Lopez -- is none too pleased with...

If you go to the official website for the USC Libraries Scripter Awards you will be met with the following description of the respected award: Established in 1988, the USC Libraries Scripter Award is an honor bestowed annually by the Friends of the USC Libraries in recognition of the best film adaptation of a book or novella, and is given to both the author and screenwriter. Last year Iron Man was nominated as comic books were included in that description, which is understandable, but this year the rule bends a little further as material adapted from a previous script is included allowing Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell's script for District 9 to make the final five. Before District 9 was a feature film it was the short film Alive in Joburg you see to the right.

The nominations as announced in today's press release include: Crazy Heart - Fox Searchlight Pictures Scott Cooper,...

District 9!!! (I apologize to the person whom I said this didn’t qualify – you were right, I was wrong) Crazy Heart – Fox Searchlight Pictures Scott Cooper, screenwriter Thomas Cobb,...

"District 9" has been nominated for a USC Libraries Scripter Award thanks to the evolution of the organization's criteria for the honor.

The Scripters have traditionally honored the author and screenwriter of the best film adaptation of a book or short story. Last year the "Iron Man" screenwriters were nominated when material based on comic books was allowed into the competition.

This year, the eligibility was expanded once again, this time to include scripts based on plays and screenplays. "District 9," written by Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell, is based on a short film by Blomkamp.

Films joining "District 9" in vying for best adapted script are "Crazy Heart," written by Scott Cooper based on a book by Thomas Cobb; "An Education," penned by Nick Hornby and based on a memoir by Lynn Barber; "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire," penned by Geoffrey Fletcher and authored by Sapphire; and "Up in the Air,...

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, or… the craziest for some, but it’s a time of year when many are giving and receiving gifts of some kind. So, the Movie Geeks want to give you something as well… the best movies of the year, surprise! 2009 was an interesting year for movies, producing incredible movies from various genres. We saw many great films ranging from drama to comedy, sci-fi to animation, old school to new technology. There was something for everyone. We’ve tossed and turned and toiled, even lost some sleep to give you the perfect list of movies we feel are the Top Ten Best Movies of 2009.

10. The Hurt Locker

As much as you will hear about Jeremy Renner’s performance, which is a great performance, to me this is a film that really shines the spotlight on the film’s director, Kathryn Bigelow. A...

The drama based on Lynn Barber's memoir of coming of age in swinging London has seven nominations for the 30th annual London Critics' Circle film awards

An Education, Lone Scherfig's coming-of-age tale about a teenager who becomes involved with an older man in 60s London, leads the charge at the London Critics' Circle film awards. The shortlist, announced today, included seven nominations for the drama, among them actress of the year and British actress of the year for star Carey Mulligan.

Another big beast is A Prophet (Un Prophète), Jacques Audiard's gangster thriller about the fortunes of an illiterate teenager in a French prison, which has five nominations, including screenwriter of the year for Thomas Bidegain and Audiard, actor of the year for star Tahar Rahim, director of the year and foreign language film of the year.

A Prophet, which won the Grand Prix at Cannes this year,...

(Peter Sarsgaard in An Education, above.)

by Terry Keefe

(Currently appearing in this month's Venice Magazine.)

Like a seal of approval, it’s always a good sign of a film’s merit to see Peter Sarsgaard in the opening credits, because he chooses his projects well, whether it has been in a leading or supporting role. For a few years now, he has been in a strong enough career position that he could opt only to play leads, even if those were in smaller films, but from his film choices, he has also clearly been more interested in the quality of role, and not necessarily the size of the part, or the paycheck. As Mark, the uniquely resourceful slacker best friend of Zach Braff in Garden State, and as Clyde Martin, the protégé in Kinsey, and in his portrayal of real-life New Republic editor Charles Lane in Shattered Glass, and...

Helen Mirren, Emily Blunt and newcomer Carey Mulligan led a British charge at the Golden Globe nominations today, awards that are traditionally seen as a pointer to the Oscars.

Mulligan gave a memorable portrayal of a young Lynn Barber in the BBC film An Education, a Nick Hornby adaptation of the journalist's memoir, and is regarded as something of a "next big thing". Her starring role won her a Shooting Star award at the Berlin film festival and best actress at the British independent film awards. Yesterday she was one of the five nominees for best actress at the early morning announcement in Los Angeles.

Mulligan, 24, gave an assured and film-grabbing performance as a 16-year-old in early 1960s suburbia seduced by an impossibly glamorous older man. Not that she was unknown before An Education...

The third film from Juno director Jason Reitman leads the race with six nods, with Rob Marshall's Nine, James Cameron's Avatar and Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds snapping at its heels

Golden Globe nominations: the 2010 list in full

Up in the Air, the third film from Juno director Jason Reitman, leads the nominations for the 67th Golden Globe awards, which were announced today.

The movie about a corporate downsizing expert received six nods: best film, best director, best actor for the film's star, George Clooney, best screenplay and two supporting actress nominations, for Anna Kendrick and Vera Farmiga.

The film has generally been considered a comedy, but its inclusion in the drama category could give it more weight as a potential favourite for the Oscars, which traditionally favours more serious fare.

Another film that has yet to open in the UK, Rob Marshall's Nine, inspired by Fellini's 8 ½, came in second place,...

link: http://makingof.com/happening_now/media/an-education/lone-scherfig-awards-season-interview/70/876

The film, "An Education," a coming-of-age tale based on the autobiographical accounts of journalist Lynn Barber, has received both audience and critical acclaim. Now an Awards Season contender, moviegoers and critics have embraced the film and applauded it's story and characters. Director Lone Scherfig recently sat down with MakingOf to talk about her casting choices, the importance of integrity and authenticity when making the movie, and her favorite part of the filmmaking process.

Scherfig reveals that Peter Sarsgaard was signed on to the project first and that they discovered Carey Mulligan from a stack of DVD auditions. Scherberg describes that they knew they would cast someone who wasn't well known yet as Jenny. She calls Mulligan's performance "brilliant, really something else" and praises her for being able to show all the contradictions the character is made of.

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"Carey Mulligan was found by our casting director. We looked at a lot of girls but I had a good idea of who Jenny should be." - Following in the footsteps of fellow Danish filmmakers (the Biers, the Bornedals and the von Triers) who move between English-language film fair and projects in their native tongue, Lone Scherfig has parlayed her experiences in smaller fair meant for a more “localized” audience into a a smashing coming-of-age film set in 1960's London where a teen girl embraces adulthood via the charm of a man twice her age. Since debuting An Education to plenty of praise at Sundance, the best known for Italian for Beginners filmmaker receives a report card that is graded by critics with A and high B's. Lead by Carey Mulligan in one of those star making performances that is being cross referenced with big names from silver screen's vault,...

Peter Sarsgaard has played his fair share of, shall we say, ethically dubious characters. From his brutal killer in "Boys Don't Cry" to more vaguely menacing roles in "Flightplan" and "The Skeleton Key," the actor excels at making audiences question what's under the polite surface. In fairness, Sarsgaard has also played his share of good guys, earning laurels for his portrayal of The New Republic editor Charles Lane in "Shattered Glass." But the actor admits he hasn't made any films that his 3-year-old daughter Ramona (with wife Maggie Gyllenhaal) can watch anytime soon. "I don't have a single movie for her," he says with a laugh. "At least Maggie has 'Monster House' and now 'Nanny McPhee 2.' She can't watch anything of mine."The one exception is Sarsgaard's latest film, "An Education," which he says Ramona will be able to watch when she's a teenager. Written by Nick Hornby and Lynn Barber,...

Moon scoops best film and Jones best debut director at British independent film awards

As a child, he was called Zowie Bowie. These days it's the far more sensible Duncan Jones, and tonight he emerged triumphantly from the very large shadow of his father when he picked up two prizes at the British independent film awards.

Forty years after the first Moon landing and 40 years after his dad, David Bowie, released Space Oddity, Jones's retro sci-fi film Moon was named best picture at a ceremony in central London while Jones himself won best debut director.

His film stars Sam Rockwell as the solitary caretaker of a helium-3 mining plant on the Moon with his only companion, it seems, a talking computer system called Gerty, voiced by Kevin Spacey.

Jones, 38, has always been determined to make a successful career by himself. He went to the London film school and honed his...

Dr Magnati's sex blogger, Belle de Jour, bears no resemblance to the surreal and toxic world inhabited by Catherine Deneuve's character in Buñuel's film of the same name

Just over a week ago, Dr Brooke Magnanti, a post-doctoral researcher in medical science, outed herself as "Belle De Jour" in an interview with the Sunday Times and since then the controversy has rumbled on. Sceptics think that Dr Magnanti's account of herself is evasive and embellished, and that she has dishonestly glamourised prostitution. Last night, an edition of Radio 4's The Moral Maze was devoted to it.

Needing cash to complete her PhD, Dr Magnanti signed on with a high-class escort agency and worked from 2003 to late 2004, seeing "clients" on average two or three times a week, charging £300 per hour, of which the agency took £100. So if she worked for, say, a year and a half, and never saw the same client twice,...

Do actors ever feel truly secure in their chosen profession? In the past year, Olivia Williams has spent six months filming the Joss Whedon sci-fi TV series Dollhouse, shot a movie in Berlin with Roman Polanski, played Ian Dury's wife in the upcoming biopic Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll and taken a supporting role in Nick Hornby's adaptation of Lynn Barber's memoir, An Education – as tasty and varied a body of work as any actor could ask for. Yet, this very morning, the 41-year-old actress tells me, she considered once again whether she shouldn't have followed in her parents' and older sister's footsteps and become a barrister.

I’ve suffered through so many wretched ‘coming of age’ teenage memory movies, especially in recent years, that when a gem like An Education pops up it’s cause for celebration. Superbly written by Nick Hornby, An Education will be best remembered for its ‘Star is Born’ performance by a young actress named Carey Mulligan as Jenny, a promising but naive Oxford-primed schoolgirl in London circa 1961 who carries on an affair with a much older man. Based on the autobiography by British journalist Lynn Barber, An Education is the second English-language film directed by Danish director Lone Scherfig. Despite it’s uncomfortable premise, Scherfig has made an uplifting, funny, and moving film that should draw audiences outside it’s arthouse trappings and will no doubt land Ms Mulligan a well-deserved Oscar nom.

In An Education, Jenny lives with her stuffy parents in the London suburb of Twickenham and attends a strict,...

The premise of An Education sounds icky, quite frankly: an older man dating a high-school girl with the permission of her parents. Even in the Sixties ... creepy. Distasteful. But when the older man is Peter Sarsgaard, the young woman is Carey Mulligan, and the screenwriter is Nick Hornby, the charm factor increases substantially and the ick factor, while still adding a dollop of tension, doesn't prevail.

An Education is based on the memoirs of British journalist Lynn Barber, transformed here into young Jenny. It's early 1960s London, and Jenny (Carey Mulligan) is in her last year of high school (or whatever they call it in England), trying to keep her grades up so she can get into Oxford. Her suburban parents (Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour) are eagerly supporting this ambition -- in fact, they're probably the ones behind it. When an older man helps Jenny get her cello home one day (no,...