Hey Film fans,
Yes, I got a chance to go head on one on one with Ryan Gosling for an interview and all my hard hitting pulitzer prize-winning questions and funny quirky ribs ( to match his self-deprecating and dead-pan humour) all went out of the window! Sigh…

I wasn’t sure why I was so incredibly nervous about talking to Ryan Gosling. As a professional, I knew I had to refrain from certain things during the interview. Things like touching him, crying, stuttering and passing out … you know, that sort of thing.

I was determined to be professional. Plus, I needed to be awake to tell him I enjoyed his latest role as real-life cop Jerry Wooster in the stylish mobster movie Gangster Squad, the Ruben Fleischer-directed flick about real-life mob kingpin Mickey Cohen, who terrorised Los Angeles in 1949.

Now, it’s not like it was our first time meeting. I had a chance to bump into the 32-year-old actor in the elevator on the morning of our interview at the Beverly Hilton, where he and his fellow A-list cast like Josh Brolin gathered to promote the movie.

“Hello there! How are you doing this morning?” he politely said to a jaw-dropped me when I held open the elevator door without realising it was for the man himself and his minder. We met the second time when he passed me by with a smile and nod while I was waiting for my turn to interview his co-star, Emma Stone.

See, we’re practically best friends now, so why were the butterflies in my tummy training for the Olympics?

Perhaps it’s because the handsome, polite, and all-round fantastic Oscar nominated actor is pretty much every hot-blooded female’s embodiment of the new sexy. You know the type: Brains, brawn and talent included. Willing to intervene and break up a real New York Street fight when necessary. Scorn at my gushing if you must, but we dare you to find someone who will say “no” to a tall blond glass of Gosling. Girls want him, guys want to be him. And why not?

The former Mouseketeer managed to transform himself from being Young Hercules and that swoony hero every girl wanted as a husband in the syrupy tear-jerker, The Notebook, into an indie movie darling and Hollywood’s hottest property with a cinematic winning streak. All by making refreshingly uneasy choices with his career. Whether it’s nailing the part as a sensitive loner with a blow-up doll girlfriend in Lars And The Real Girl; showing off both his bod and comedic side in Crazy Stupid Love; being unflappably cool and necessarily brutal in Drive; or getting that deserved Oscar nomination for Half Nelson. The Goz, as his smorgasbord resume proves, is all that and more.

It’s true all my good intentions went out the window when he greeted me with a smile (“we meet again!”) as I walked into our interview. But thanks to his patience, dead-pan humour, all round loveliness, and enquiries about Singapore and my long flight, I managed to just about pull through to ask a few questions about Gangster Squad. But only just about.

Sigh … Looks like The Gosling Effect is spreading. Even Oscar Nominated Actress Anna Kendrick is not immune. It seems the actor’s latest performance got her so hot and bothered, she took to Twitter to share her lust with more than 600,000 followers with a very racy tweet.
It has since gone viral – spreading across the Twitter world in lightning fashion. Wanna know what she said ? Check out @AnnaKendrick47.

So go watch GANGSTER SQUAD, film fans! It’s well worth it … showing in Singapore cinemas now!

XOXO
Your Flick Chick
G

It’s 550 am Thursday 10th Jan 2013 here in Los Angeles and yes, Flick Chick is actually awake ( thanks to jetlag!) to bring you… FILM FANS, the full list of noms! EXCITEMENT!

Best film
Amour
Argo
Beasts Of The Southern Wild
Django Unchained
Les Miserables
Lincoln
Life Of Pi
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty

Flick Chick is SUPER HAPPY with this list.. except for Les Miz (go read my review!)
ESPECIALLY delighted that they recognised Amour, Silver Linings and Beasts of the Southern Wild ( which I got to watch on my Singapore Airlines flight from Singapore to L.A. and cried my eyes out! It’s soooooo good!)

Snubs: No Skyfall??? No Dark Knight Rises??? Where’s the love for Christopher Nolan?

Best supporting actor
Alan Arkin – Argo
Robert De Niro – Silver Linings Playbook
Tommy Lee Jones – Lincoln
Christoph Waltz – Django Unchained
Philip Seymour Hoffman – The Master

Flick Chick thinks they got this category perfectly right! PERFECT LIST!

Best supporting actress
Amy Adams – The Master
Sally Field – Lincoln
Anne Hathaway – Les Miserables
Helen Hunt – The Sessions
Jacki Weaver – Silver Linings Playbook

Flick Chick thinks this one is for Anne Hathaway to lose! She is possibly THE ONLY THING I LIKED in Les Miz. She was excellent. Though many agree that Helen Hunt was fantastic in The Sessions

Best actress
Jessica Chastain – Zero Dark Thirty
Jennifer Lawrence – Silver Linings Playbook
Emmanuelle Riva – Amour
Quvenzhane Wallis – Beasts of the Southern Wild
Naomi Watts – The Impossible

Flick Chick loves how Emmanuelle Riva is the oldest Best Actress nominee in Oscar history at 85 years old and Quvenzhane Wallis is the youngest at 9 years. Both made me cry buckets.. and are BEYOND excellent! Jennifer Lawrence is no slouch either…love her!

Best actor
Daniel Day Lewis – Lincoln
Bradley Cooper – Silver Linings Playbook
Hugh Jackman – Les Miserables
Joaquin Phoenix – The Master
Denzel Washington – Flight

Jackman?? Really? Seriously? Flick Chick says, “DANIEL DAY LEWIS FOR THE WIN!!” Like Hathaway.. it’s his to lose.

Best director
Michael Haneke – Amour
Ang Lee – Life of Pi
David O Russell – Silver Linings Playbook
Steven Spielberg – Lincoln
Benh Zeitlin – Beasts of the Southern Wild

This is another ALMOST perfect list! WELL DONE ACADEMY! You got it right.. except maybe you should have included BEN AFFLECK? Or CHRISTOPHER NOLAN? Snub alert!

But can I just say? I’m soooooo glad that Tom Hooper didn’t get nominated! Didn’t deserve the win for The King’s Speech… and totally killed Les Miz for me.

The nominations are selected by a ballot of 6,000 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Nominations for this year’s awards are being announced two weeks earlier than usual.The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said the move would “provide members and the public a longer period of time to see the nominated films”.

The OSCARS will take place at the Dolby Theatre on 24 February 2013!

Can you wait, film fans? I can’t!

Let me hear your thoughts on the nominees!!!

XOXO
Your Flick Chick
G

The cast and crew of Taxi gathered at the Grand Corpthorne Waterfront Hotel to speak to TODAY about the trials and tribulations of making this movie.

Roundtable interviews:

Press Conference:

Directed by first-time Singapore director Kelvin Sng, Taxi! Taxi! sees the comedy powerhouse pairing of Mark Lee and Gurmit Singh in a social comedy told through the encounters of two taxi drivers steering and stumbling their way through life. Also starring Malaysian female radio presenter Gan Mei Yan from MY FM, familiar face Jazreel Low, veteran Malaysian actress Aunty Lai Meng and new comer Royston Ong, the jewel in the already full crown has to be Dr. Jia Jia, the winner of Singapore Blog Awards “Best V-log” .

The seven year old YouTube sensation whose real name is Chua Jin Sen, plays Mark Lee’s precociously adorable and chatty son. ( Check out his already famous twitter and facebook pages!)

Taxi! Taxi! is a co-production between SIMF Management, Malaysia’s RAM Entertainment and PMP Entertainment, Singapore’s Galaxy Entertainment, sglanded.net and Scorpio East Pictures.

Taxi! Taxi! is currently showing in cinemas now.

Director, producer, co- writer and star Jackie Chan, alongside bombshell cast members Zhang Lanxin and Yao Xingtong, answer questions on their latest film CZ12.

Ian McKellen reprises his role as Gandalf in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Photo courtesy of Warner Bros.

How was it like to jump back into New Zealand for the shoot?

Well, it was a bit like going home, really. And also like going on a holiday because New Zealand is such a beautiful place to live and to film? You can live very close to your work – a 20 minute walk, which is very unusual. Beautiful scenery of course, and lovely people. Nothing wrong with it really, except that it’s miles from where I actually live.(Director) Peter (Jackson) organised it so I could leave and do a play in England in-between—Eduardo De Filippo’s The Syndicate. Then I also had time, when I got back to New Zealand, to do a solo show onstage to raise money for Christchurch, the city that was absolutely destroyed by the earthquake.

Can you share a bit about your experiences on The Hobbit? A lot of green screen moments again for Gandalf?

There’s a lot less green screen than you’d think. If you see Gandalf on top of a mountain, I was there.

There was an absolutely dreadful day—and it was my first day back—when I had a little rehearsal with the 13 dwarves and the hobbit. But because I had to look bigger, I couldn’t be photographed with them. I had my own little set so Peter can put those two pictures together.

I was with a robot camera! I really just met these dwarves and seen their faces for the first time. Then they’d put these posts with photographs of the actors on them—not of the dwarves! I didn’t know who the hell these people were! All I knew was that whoever’s (head was) flashing was speaking and I can hear what he’s saying through an earpiece.

At the end of that day, I got a bit weepy and heard myself saying “This isn’t why I became an actor.” But unfortunately, the microphone was on. (laughs)

Yikes.

That night, I thought, well if this is gonna be it for the next 18 months I’m not sure I’m up for it. I emailed Peter and he emailed back and said we’d try to do it differently in the future.

The next day, the little tent where I changed was decorated with bits of old Rivendell scenery, carpets, lamps hanging, fresh fruits—absolutely beautiful.

That lasted until the flowers faded and I was expected to get on with being a grown-up actor.

But I didn’t have any other days like that. (Although) it does mean that if I was in a scene with Martin Freeman (who plays Bilbo Baggins), who has to be smaller than me, I’m put closer to the camera. And he has to act to the top of my hat and I had to act to his belt. So although we’re together, he’s talking to my hat and I’m talking to his belt.

How did you approach coming back to this role?

Well, once I put it all on and they stuck the beard and the wig, it all came suddenly back. And as in everything you do on this films, Peter will let you know. I remember him saying one day, “I can’t quite see Gandalf today.” (laughs) He’s always there to correct you. You don’t feel on your own.

What’s next for Ian McKellen?

I’m going to do a sitcom possibly called Vicious Old Queens, just six episodes. And then the next X-Men movie, I’m told. Bryan Singer tweeted it that he’s going to direct me and Patrick Stewart in this movie.

How does Gandalf The Movie sound to you?

(Perks up) That’s an idea isn’t it? I was joking the other day about doing a sequel called Gandalf The Gay. I’d be very well cast for it.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is in cinemas on Thursday.