Four of today’s most popular British actors are playing important supporting roles in Universal Pictures’ critically acclaimed and $100-million grossing war epic 1917. They are Benedict Cumberbatch (Doctor Strange), Richard Madden (Game of Thrones), Mark Strong (Shazam!) and Andrew Scott (Spectre).
Nominated for ten Oscar Awards including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay, 1917 tells the story of two young British soldiers Schofield (George MacKay) and Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) as they are given a seemingly impossible task. In a race against time, they must cross enemy territory to deliver a message that could potentially save 1,600 of their fellow soldiers—Blake’s own brother among them. In this immersive cinematic experience, director Sam Mendes thrusts the audience into the immediate peril and vast scale of World War I, witnessing the conflict in an urgent and propulsive way.
With probably the longest title for a commercial film for 2020, Birds of Prey And The Fantabulous Emancipation Of One Harley Quinn, or simply the first three letters wants to be that superhero action flick with women headlining the lead characters.
Though women leads in superhero cinematic universe is not new, Birds of Prey showcases women in groups can also do hardcore action while still keeping their feminine charm in the film. They did got some star power with the inclusion of Harley Quinn, played by Margot Robbie, to boost hype as she is favored by fans in the DC Comics franchise.
Publicly listed Filipino oil and energy company Phoenix Petroleum has been hailed as the Marketing Company of the Year at the 40th Agora Awards on January 20 at Okada Manila in Parañaque City.
Organized by the Philippine Marketing Association, the Agora Awards is considered the most prestigious marketing distinction in the Philippines, which aims to give recognition to Filipino marketing excellence "with an emphasis on ingenuity, versatility, and innovation."
In the Universal Pictures’ war epic 1917, Lance Corporals Schofield and Blake, of the 8th Battalion, have a comradeship and friendship, which in a short space of time is tested far beyond the point of what either could have imagined.
Nominated for ten Oscar Awards including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, 1917 tells the story of two young British soldiers Schofield and Blake as they are given a seemingly impossible task. In a race against time, they must cross enemy territory to deliver a message that could potentially save 1,600 of their fellow soldiers—Blake’s own brother among them. In this immersive cinematic experience, director Sam Mendes thrusts the audience into the immediate peril and vast scale of World War I, witnessing the conflict in an urgent and propulsive way.
When Mendes was choosing the actors to portray these young soldiers, it was crucial to him that audiences experience the story with relative newcomers. George MacKay, supporting player of Captain Fantastic, was cast as Lance Corporal Schofield, and Game of Thrones’ Dean-Charles Chapman became Lance Corporal Blake.
“The movie is based around the journey of two young and—at first glance—unremarkable soldiers, and ideally I wanted an audience to have no prior relationship with them,” Mendes says. “It was a real luxury, with the unstinting support of the studio, to make a movie on this scale with two actors in the central roles who really are, relatively speaking, new to the game.”
George MacKay
“There’s something about George that’s slightly old-fashioned, in that he embodies some virtues—honor, dignity, heroism—that are almost of another time. He feels ageless,” Mendes says.
“Schofield is a quiet man,” MacKay says. “He’s someone who deals with what he’s going through and what happens to him by kind of burying it. He’s got a family back home whom he loves very, very much, but because they’re not here and because he can’t be with them he sort of keeps them completely to himself. He tries to navigate the extremes of what he’s living through by keeping himself very levelled, which I found really fascinating to play.”
“When Schofield receives the news about the mission he’s wary at first,” MacKay continues. “Schofield is the more experienced solider of the two of them. He’s been doing this about a year longer than Blake has. That doesn’t make him a super solider or anything, but he’s more practiced at all of it. He’s a moral man and he understands what has to be done, but he’s trying to do it as safely as possible because he’s experienced. It’s alluded to that he survived the Battle of Thiepval, where soldiers were acting on information that they realized wasn’t correct and suffered terrible, terrible losses. He’s lost people, he’s almost died himself, and he doesn’t want to do that again.”
Dean-Charles Chapman
As Schofield’s comrade, Blake, the director aimed to cast a young man that could channel the character’s innocence and simplicity. “I hadn’t seen Dean-Charles at all until he came in and read for the part,” Mendes says. “He has a wonderful vulnerability and a sweetness; he’s a really good, natural, instinctive actor.”
Only 19, Blake is quite good with maps and eager to volunteer for any assignment that would take him back up the line—or even get him more food. “The first time I read the script I just absolutely fell in love with Blake,” Dean-Charles Chapman says. “He’s this country boy who loves his mom, loves his dog, loves his brother. He’s such a lovely, sweet kid that it’s pretty much impossible to not fall in love with him.”
But when he is selected to pick a fellow member of 8th Battalion and give a vital message to the 2nd Devons, he has no concept of what he is signing them both up for. “He hasn't had much experience with war, at all,” Chapman says. “He's only recently just been deployed there. Throughout their mission, Blake is constantly reminded about his family and his brother and missing home, and his desperation keeps him fighting on, no matter what.”
In Philippine cinemas February 5th, Sam Mendes’ 1917 is distributed in the Philippines by United International Pictures through Columbia Pictures. Follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/uipmoviesph/ ; Twitter at https://twitter.com/uipmoviesph and Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/uipmoviesph/. Connect with hashtag #1917Movie and tag uipmoviesph.
World-class leather accessories brand McJim Classic Leather brings back Get Reel Film Festival 2020, a bigger and more challenging edition of last year’s successful Get Reel Mobile Shorts Film Festival.
This time around, the competition is accepting entries that touch on the theme, “Filipino Values Beyond Generations.”
The 2020 Get Reel Film Festival is upping the ante with two brand-new categories: the Main Competition for professional and amateur filmmakers using digital cameras and the Brand Digital Ads category for innovative ads for McJim Classic Leather. These will complement the Mobile Shorts Competition for users of mobile phone cameras.
Aside from using its platform as channel for monetary donations, GCash has also led an internal donation drive to further help the affected communities in Taal with its employees stepping up to help those in need.
Over the past few days, GCash encouraged its employees to donate in kind for the people that were hit by the eruption of the Taal volcano. Through the generosity and inner kindness of the GCash workforce, GCash was able to fill as much as 200 bags of donations filled with daily necessities for the people of Taal.
“One good deed creates a whole new ripple of various acts of kindness, and we at GCash are proud of our employees who willingly donated. This is a true embodiment of our vision of continuously transforming our app to a socially-significant and responsible platform,” GCash President Anthony Thomas said.
Daniel goes behind the camera as producer and director
Emerging Filipino band Jose Carlito shakes up the OPM band scene with the upcoming release of the music video to "Big White Wall"-the band's newest record-this February.
Produced and directed by Daniel Padilla or a.k.a. Johnny Moonlight, the "Big White Wall" music video is the Kapamilya actor's first venture into producing, directing, as well as being a part of a production's creative team.
Four of today’s most popular British actors are playing important supporting roles in Universal Pictures’ critically acclaimed and $100-million grossing war epic 1917. They are Benedict Cumberbatch (Doctor Strange), Richard Madden (Game of Thrones), Mark Strong (Shazam!) and Andrew Scott (Spectre).
