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Last night I found myself in a very odd position, I was being forced to defend Bill Nighy as an actor and all round amazing human being. And this is after his star turn in Page Eight. At short notice it is hard to articulate why you find a particular actor’s performances so appealing, but with time and a trawl of YouTube I have compiled my defence.

Meerkat Manor

Bill Nighy lends his vocal talents to the narration of the best TV series following a group of meerkats ever. Without Nighy the story of these furry creatures would lack much of the drama and emotion that won it critical acclaim. (Let’s ignore the fact that it was re-dubbed by Sean Astin for the US broadcast).

Rango

Roughly 2 minutes into this video you can watch Bill Nighy play an evil snake opposite Johnny Depp’s cowardly chameleon. With basic sets and no costume the acting shines on through. In the finished film you can barely tell Nighy is playing the snake, how’s that for versatility?

Love Actually

By all accounts Love Actually is not a good film, but it does have its moments. Amongst the schmaltz is the heartbreaking story between Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman, the sweet romance of Martin Freeman and Joanna Page and of course Bill Nighy as the washed up rock star.

Shaun of the Dead/Hot Fuzz

Bill Nighy was arguably the first big name to get behind the Wright/Pegg partnership and his small roles in the two films are amongst the many, many highlights to be enjoyed.

Gideon’s Daughter

Finally we have one of Nighy’s best roles, as the Gideon in question who is at risk of losing contact with his daughter. The whole TV movie is on YouTube so there’s no excuse not to give it a watch.

If you aren’t convinced of Bill Nighy’s talents by now then I give up.

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Back in July we looked at the Pirates of the Caribbean and Transformers franchises as examples of when the filmmakers have apologised for the quality of previous instalments before the release of the latest film in the series. We wanted to see if the apologies affected the reception of the new films, both in critical acclaim and at the box office.

Because Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides was still in cinemas at the time we could only look at opening weekend gross to gauge the success of the films (taken from Box Office Mojo). This figure was plotted alongside the “freshness” (aggregated critic score) for each film from Rotten Tomatoes to see whether the quality of the film had improved as promised by the film-maker. The original conclusion was that opening weekend box-office continues to decline after the apology with the critics score either continuing to decline or increasing, but not to the heights of the original series.

It looked like saying sorry and admitting your film was bad didn’t work, but things have changed…

Pirates of the Caribbean
The second and third films in the Pirates series were dubbed as confusing by viewers and cast alike, Johnny Depp then promised the fourth film would be more fun and much less confusing. Did they follow through and make a better film, and did this make for a better box office? This time we’ve included Worldwide Lifetime Gross and the Audience Freshness from Rotten Tomatoes, determined by user (rather than critic) ratings.

The first thing to notice is that the general public are a lot more friendly when it comes to rating the films, with none of the original trilogy slipping below 70% fresh. More importantly, despite the quality of the films continuing to decline (as agreed by critics and fans) the total box office went back up after Depp had promised them a better film. We can’t prove causality, but we can wildly speculate!

Transformers
After the second Transformers film came out the critics were falling over each other to pan the sequel and were soon followed by both its lead actor Shia LaBeouf and director Michael Bay. Megan Fox also had plenty to say but was then swiftly removed from the franchise. LaBeouf and Bay did not leave the series, instead they both promised that the third film would be better than its two predecessors and that they had learnt from their mistakes.

While the general audience may have felt that the quality of the films fell after the apologies, the critics were much more forgiving. If critics are to be believed the third Transformers film was much better than the second; not only had Bay and LaBeouf promised a better film, they had delivered. The promise of a better film combined with a film that was indeed an improvement led to a huge increase in total box office gross.

In Conclusion
Using that ability to wildly speculate, we can say that confessing to a lacklustre film and pledging to make a superior follow-up feature will give audiences confidence in your franchise and help you out at the box office. What really seems to help however, is following through on your promise. Both franchises suffered a drop in their opening weekend takings but by actually making a better Transformers film, Michael Bay was able to give the total box office a big increase.

The moral of the story kids; say sorry and keep your promises.

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Paddy Considine is not content to be a successful writer and actor but has directed his first feature film. Rather than take the easy route and direct a simple, lighter film Considine has gone right in the deep end with a dark drama about an unlikely relationship between a violent widower (Peter Mullan) and a troubled charity shop worker (Olivia Colman). You can see the first trailer below, just don’t go expecting any dinosaurs.

While we’ve seen the film we won’t be doing a full review for a while as the film isn’t out until 7th October. After attending the press screening we were asked to provide a brief reaction so that’s what you’ll get for now:

“Powerful, brutal and honest. An attention grabbing and emotionally raw feature debut from Paddy Considine. Olivia Colman broke my heart and Peter Mullan terrified me.”

Plenty of material for a poster quote there. In fact below are three alternatives they’d be mad to not go with…

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Often the term “TV movie” means something of much lower quality than either regular TV or any film in the cinema, but this is different. This is the BBC and this is David Hare, a man with two Oscar nominations under his belt. Page Eight is a spy thriller about an MI5 officer (Bill Nighy) who sets out to find the truth after his friend and colleague dies suddenly.

Did you see what name I slipped in back there? That’s right, Bill Nighy is the star of this film. Bill Francis Nighy. And he’s not the only name to get excited about; Michael Gambon, Rachel Weisz, Ralph Fiennes and Felicity Jones round out the cast. It’s no surprise this “TV movie” has been doing the festival circuit with actors like that on board.

Page Eight is on BBC One tonight at 9pm, and is followed by David Hare’s The Hours. What can I say? I’m excited.

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In a rare twist we have seen all the films on general release today, both were good and the smaller films on limited release are completely uninteresting. The two big films are both pretty grim, but well worth seeing.

Final Destination 5
Irresistibly fun and surprising new instalment in this franchise. It could easily have become a stale format by now but somehow the elaborate deaths never get old. Click here for extra gush.

The Skin I Live In
After many sleepless nights we are happy to recommend Pedro Almodóvar’s latest, though that recommendation comes with a lot of hesitation. This is not the easiest film to watch and won’t leave you feeling warm and/or fuzzy afterwards. Click here for extra adjectives.

Powder (limited release)
“A dark comedy about an emerging band’s experiences in the UK music scene.” I dare you to find more information about the plot.

As Blood Runs Deep (limited release)
A boy is killed during a burglary and the town rallies together to help find the killers. I bet the killers are people you don’t necessarily expect at first. That’s where the plot comes in. I’ve seen films before, trust me.

R: Hit First, Hit Hardest (limited release)
Danish prison drama about two people whose names begin with “R”. The original title is R – Slå först, slå hårdast which is much more fun.

Children of the Revolution (limited release)
Documentary following two separate women who led the Baader Meinhof Group and the Japanese Red Army after the student revolutions of 1968.

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