The 16th Film London Production Finance Market opened Tuesday morning with a keynote talk featuring BFI CEO Ben Roberts who spoke at length about his 10-year funding plan for British cinema and the financial issues hitting the industry, including the recent shuttering of the Edinburgh Film Festival.
“Edinburgh is being seen as something of a canary in the coal mine in terms of the amount of rising costs and what impact that is having on the exhibition sector,” Roberts said when prompted about the situation.
Roberts was speaking on the day it emerged that the Scottish government was warned by Creative Scotland in September about Edinburgh’s financial difficulties but a bail-out using public money was ruled out.
Later during the keynote, Roberts continued to say that the BFI remains in contact with its exhibition partners. But he was firm in his conclusion that the BFI did not have the...
“Edinburgh is being seen as something of a canary in the coal mine in terms of the amount of rising costs and what impact that is having on the exhibition sector,” Roberts said when prompted about the situation.
Roberts was speaking on the day it emerged that the Scottish government was warned by Creative Scotland in September about Edinburgh’s financial difficulties but a bail-out using public money was ruled out.
Later during the keynote, Roberts continued to say that the BFI remains in contact with its exhibition partners. But he was firm in his conclusion that the BFI did not have the...
- 10/11/2022
- by Zac Ntim
- Deadline Film + TV
French president Emmanuel Macron has led the tributes to Jean-Luc Godard, after the revered filmmaker died at the age of 91.
News of Godard’s death was first reported by the French newspaper Liberation. It has since been confirmed by his lawyer that the director ended his life by assisted death.
Patrick Jeanneret told Afp that due to being “stricken with ‘multiple incapacitating illnesses’”, Godard “had recourse to legal assistance in Switzerland for a voluntary departure”.
Godard was known for directing a run of radical, medium-changing films throughout the 1960s, including his feature debut Breathless and Alphaville.
Along with contemporaries such as Éric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette, and François Truffaut, the Paris-born Godard was a central figure in the Nouvelle Vague, an experimental film movement that emerged in France in the late 1950s.
Several of his films are frequently cited among the best movies ever made.
Alongside a black and white photograph of the “iconoclastic” Godard,...
News of Godard’s death was first reported by the French newspaper Liberation. It has since been confirmed by his lawyer that the director ended his life by assisted death.
Patrick Jeanneret told Afp that due to being “stricken with ‘multiple incapacitating illnesses’”, Godard “had recourse to legal assistance in Switzerland for a voluntary departure”.
Godard was known for directing a run of radical, medium-changing films throughout the 1960s, including his feature debut Breathless and Alphaville.
Along with contemporaries such as Éric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette, and François Truffaut, the Paris-born Godard was a central figure in the Nouvelle Vague, an experimental film movement that emerged in France in the late 1950s.
Several of his films are frequently cited among the best movies ever made.
Alongside a black and white photograph of the “iconoclastic” Godard,...
- 9/13/2022
- by Maanya Sachdeva and Inga Parkel
- The Independent - Film
French president Emmanuel Macron has led the tributes to Jean-Luc Godard, after the revered filmmaker died at the age of 91.
News of Godard’s death was first reported by the French newspaper Liberation.
Godard was known for directing a run of radical, medium-changing films throughout the 1960s, including his feature debut Breathless and Alphaville.
Along with contemporaries such as Éric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette, and François Truffaut, the Paris-born Godard was a central figure in the Nouvelle Vague, an experimental film movement that emerged in France in the late 1950s.
Several of his films are frequently cited among the best movies ever made.
Alongside a black and white photograph of the “iconoclastic” Godard, Macron’s tribute read: “It was like an apparition in French cinema. Then he became a master.
“Jean-Luc Godard, the most iconoclastic of New Wave filmmakers, had invented a resolutely modern, intensely free art. We have lost a national treasure,...
News of Godard’s death was first reported by the French newspaper Liberation.
Godard was known for directing a run of radical, medium-changing films throughout the 1960s, including his feature debut Breathless and Alphaville.
Along with contemporaries such as Éric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette, and François Truffaut, the Paris-born Godard was a central figure in the Nouvelle Vague, an experimental film movement that emerged in France in the late 1950s.
Several of his films are frequently cited among the best movies ever made.
Alongside a black and white photograph of the “iconoclastic” Godard, Macron’s tribute read: “It was like an apparition in French cinema. Then he became a master.
“Jean-Luc Godard, the most iconoclastic of New Wave filmmakers, had invented a resolutely modern, intensely free art. We have lost a national treasure,...
- 9/13/2022
- by Maanya Sachdeva and Inga Parkel
- The Independent - Film
Disney’s executive chairman and former CEO Bob Iger will forgo salary and his successor as chief executive Bob Chapek will take a 50% pay cut as companies address the economic upheaval and corporate and public pain and PR of the coronavirus.
In a memo to Disney employees, Chapek said that effective April 5, VPs will see a 20% salary reduction. SVPs and EVPs and above will see, respectively, a 25% and a 30% cut.
More from DeadlineDisney Extends Closures For Disneyland, Walt Disney World Parks; Will Pay Workers Through Mid-AprilHollywood Helps L.A. Healthcare Workers, Seniors & "Worst Off" In Coronavirus Fight; Bob Iger, Steven Spielberg & Jeffrey Katzenberg Donate $500K Each To City FundViacomCBS, Following Disney, Comcast, Announces $2.5 Billion Debt Sale
“As we navigate through these uncharted waters, we’re asking much of you and, as always, you are rising to the challenge and we appreciate your support,” Chapek said in his email (read it...
In a memo to Disney employees, Chapek said that effective April 5, VPs will see a 20% salary reduction. SVPs and EVPs and above will see, respectively, a 25% and a 30% cut.
More from DeadlineDisney Extends Closures For Disneyland, Walt Disney World Parks; Will Pay Workers Through Mid-AprilHollywood Helps L.A. Healthcare Workers, Seniors & "Worst Off" In Coronavirus Fight; Bob Iger, Steven Spielberg & Jeffrey Katzenberg Donate $500K Each To City FundViacomCBS, Following Disney, Comcast, Announces $2.5 Billion Debt Sale
“As we navigate through these uncharted waters, we’re asking much of you and, as always, you are rising to the challenge and we appreciate your support,” Chapek said in his email (read it...
- 3/30/2020
- by Jill Goldsmith
- Deadline Film + TV
Beyond The Mountains And Hills, One Week And A Day take home top prizes after 15 days of programming.
The 20th edition of UK International Jewish Film Festival selected its award winners after fifteen days of programming. The festival showcased over 80 world, European and UK premieres of features and shorts from November 5-20.
The Israel-Germany-Belgium co-production Beyond The Mountains And Hills [pictured], directed by Eran Kolirin, took home the award for best feature film. It’s star Mili Eshet collected the prize at the ceremony.
Head of jury Jason Solomons said, “It was felt that Kolirin’s film was a bold step up from his popular debut The Band’s Visit, and we admired his willingness to examine the complexities of modern Israeli life with unflinching views that will challenge some audiences. We were struck and provoked, to varying degrees, by the idea of a family representing a nation in mid-life crisis and representing its fears.
“The film maker...
The 20th edition of UK International Jewish Film Festival selected its award winners after fifteen days of programming. The festival showcased over 80 world, European and UK premieres of features and shorts from November 5-20.
The Israel-Germany-Belgium co-production Beyond The Mountains And Hills [pictured], directed by Eran Kolirin, took home the award for best feature film. It’s star Mili Eshet collected the prize at the ceremony.
Head of jury Jason Solomons said, “It was felt that Kolirin’s film was a bold step up from his popular debut The Band’s Visit, and we admired his willingness to examine the complexities of modern Israeli life with unflinching views that will challenge some audiences. We were struck and provoked, to varying degrees, by the idea of a family representing a nation in mid-life crisis and representing its fears.
“The film maker...
- 11/21/2016
- ScreenDaily
Everyone from Tilda Swinton and her family to the British tabloids has speculated about who should play the next James Bond, as Daniel Craig is nearing the end of his run. Now, as Craig's friend and fellow actor Mark Strong tells ShortList, the hunky Englishman's stint as the moody MI6 agent may have reached its conclusion, one film before Craig's contract is up. "He has been [wonderful] and he’s loved it," Strong said while promoting his spy spoof with Sacha Baron Cohen, "Grimsby." "But I think he feels like he’s mined it. He’s done what he wants with it. That point has come." Sam Mendes' second crack at the franchise, "Spectre," marked Craig's fourth turn as 007, and the actor betrayed his Bond fatigue to Time Out London's Dave Calhoun. As for his potential replacement, Britain’s largest bookmakers have shifted from former favorites Idris Elba and Damian Lewis to Hollywood's hottest hand,...
- 2/23/2016
- by Anne Thompson
- Thompson on Hollywood
Ioncinema.com’s Top 3 Critics’ Picks offers a curated approach to the movie-going theatre dilemma: what would you recommend I see in theaters this month? This month we’ve got a diverse group: a Taiwanese, a Chilean, and a Winnipegger. Solid options….
The Forbidden Room – Guy Maddin/Evan Johnson
October 7th – NYC Release
Distributor: Kino Lorber
Awards & Fests: With world preems at prestige fests such as Sundance, Berlin, Tiff and Nyff.
What the critic’s are saying?: Slant Magazine’s Carson Lund found plenty to admire and points to “one of the principal joys of The Forbidden Room, too easily left unexplored when thinking about its labyrinthine structure, is admiring the utter lunacy of its storytelling idiosyncrasies—the way, for instance, every new character’s entrance is promptly trailed by a lovingly designed title card stating their name, the actor playing them, and often a succinctly worded personality trait.
The Forbidden Room – Guy Maddin/Evan Johnson
October 7th – NYC Release
Distributor: Kino Lorber
Awards & Fests: With world preems at prestige fests such as Sundance, Berlin, Tiff and Nyff.
What the critic’s are saying?: Slant Magazine’s Carson Lund found plenty to admire and points to “one of the principal joys of The Forbidden Room, too easily left unexplored when thinking about its labyrinthine structure, is admiring the utter lunacy of its storytelling idiosyncrasies—the way, for instance, every new character’s entrance is promptly trailed by a lovingly designed title card stating their name, the actor playing them, and often a succinctly worded personality trait.
- 10/1/2015
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
Amos Gitai's "deeply absorbing, intelligent" Rabin: The Last Day, examining the assassination of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and the subsequent investigation conducted by the Shamgar Commission, is "bold and declarative," writes Jessica Kiang at the Playlist. Time Out's Dave Calhoun notes: "Current Israeli Pm Benjamin Netanyahu is an increasing presence as the film progresses, both in archive footage as he strongly denounces Rabin in the 1990s and in posters for the recent March 2015 election, at which he was re-elected. If there's a villain here, it's him." We're collecting more reviews and we've got the trailer and a clip. » - David Hudson...
- 9/12/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
Amos Gitai's "deeply absorbing, intelligent" Rabin: The Last Day, examining the assassination of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and the subsequent investigation conducted by the Shamgar Commission, is "bold and declarative," writes Jessica Kiang at the Playlist. Time Out's Dave Calhoun notes: "Current Israeli Pm Benjamin Netanyahu is an increasing presence as the film progresses, both in archive footage as he strongly denounces Rabin in the 1990s and in posters for the recent March 2015 election, at which he was re-elected. If there's a villain here, it's him." We're collecting more reviews and we've got the trailer and a clip. » - David Hudson...
- 9/12/2015
- Keyframe
For some, Labor Day signals a Monday off from school and work, the final hurrah of the summer and college football games galore.
But for Oscar watchers, the three day break heralds the beginning of the Awards Season with film festivals being held at Venice (Sept. 2 – 12) and Telluride (Sept. 4 – 7).
Getting a shot in the arm from the weekend festivals were Spotlight, Steve Jobs, Black Mass and The Danish Girl. Below is a sampling of the films in play this awards season that screened over the busy holiday weekend.
The Danish Girl (Nov. 27)
Synopsis:
Based on the book by David Ebershoff, The Danish Girl is the remarkable love story inspired by the lives of Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener (portrayed by Academy Award winner Eddie Redmayne [The Theory of Everything] and Alicia Vikander [Ex Machina]), and directed by Academy Award winner Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech, Les Misérables). Lili and Gerda’s marriage and work evolve...
But for Oscar watchers, the three day break heralds the beginning of the Awards Season with film festivals being held at Venice (Sept. 2 – 12) and Telluride (Sept. 4 – 7).
Getting a shot in the arm from the weekend festivals were Spotlight, Steve Jobs, Black Mass and The Danish Girl. Below is a sampling of the films in play this awards season that screened over the busy holiday weekend.
The Danish Girl (Nov. 27)
Synopsis:
Based on the book by David Ebershoff, The Danish Girl is the remarkable love story inspired by the lives of Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener (portrayed by Academy Award winner Eddie Redmayne [The Theory of Everything] and Alicia Vikander [Ex Machina]), and directed by Academy Award winner Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech, Les Misérables). Lili and Gerda’s marriage and work evolve...
- 9/7/2015
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Final grades were officially tallied up after the repeat screenings on Sunday, and while the 1-2-3-4 positions haven’t changed, Todd Haynes’ Carol further cemented it’s status as the best from the 2015 In Comp class with a final 3.9 grade.
We’d like to once again thank our group of sixteen: Nicholas Bell, Blake Williams and Yama Rahimi from Ioncinema.com were joined by Christophe Beney, Dave Calhoun, Per Juul Carlsen, Paola Casella, Mike D’Angelo, Jean-Philippe Guerand, Carlos F. Heredero, Aaron Hillis, Fabien Lemercier, Marc-André Lussier, Liu Min, Isabelle Regnier and Cédric Succivalli. We already look forward to next year with Haneke, Pedro, Dolan and the Dardennes in the mix. Click on the grid below for a larger version.
We’d like to once again thank our group of sixteen: Nicholas Bell, Blake Williams and Yama Rahimi from Ioncinema.com were joined by Christophe Beney, Dave Calhoun, Per Juul Carlsen, Paola Casella, Mike D’Angelo, Jean-Philippe Guerand, Carlos F. Heredero, Aaron Hillis, Fabien Lemercier, Marc-André Lussier, Liu Min, Isabelle Regnier and Cédric Succivalli. We already look forward to next year with Haneke, Pedro, Dolan and the Dardennes in the mix. Click on the grid below for a larger version.
- 5/26/2015
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
With his first feature, the Holocaust thriller "Son of Saul," Hungarian director László Nemes—a protégé of acclaimed countryman Bela Tarr—has emerged as the first sensation of Cannes 2015, with Time Out's global film editor Dave Calhoun calling it an early contender for the Palme d'Or. Set in Poland's Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, the film, which premiered in competition today, has already drawn high praise for its harrowing, tightly focused portrait of Saul (Geza Rohrig), a Jewish prisoner—responsible for clearing the victims' bodies from the gas chambers—who claims to discover his own son's corpse in this unthinkable human wreckage. Dispensing with familiar images of the Nazis' war crimes in favor of immersive, visceral action and multifaceted sound design, "Son of Saul" holds close to its protagonist over the course of a single 24-hour period in 1944. Devastating without being overstated, unflinching yet unwilling to engage...
- 5/14/2015
- by Matt Brennan
- Thompson on Hollywood
The first round of reviews are now in for Christopher Nolan’s apocalyptic space and time-travel epic Interstellar, and they are decidedly mixed. Here’s what everyone (most major non-trade magazines and newspapers have yet to weigh in) is saying so far:“Christopher Nolan’s overwhelming, immersive and time-bending space epic ‘Interstellar’ makes Alfonso Cuarón’s ‘Gravity’ feel like a palate cleanser for the big meal to come. Where ‘Gravity’ was brief, contained and left the further bounds of the universe to our imagination, ‘Interstellar’ is long, grand, strange and demanding – not least because it allows time to slip away from under our feet while running brain-aching ideas before our eyes. It’s a bold, beautiful cosmic adventure story with a touch of the surreal and the dreamlike, and yet it always feels grounded in its own deadly serious reality.” —Dave Calhoun, Time Out “Already by this point — and we...
- 10/27/2014
- by Marcus Jones
- Vulture
Christopher Nolan's highly anticipated sci-fi film Interstellar was recently screened for members of the press, and the reviews are mostly positive. Many of the reviews praise the incredible looking visuals of the film and technical direction, but it seems like the emotional core of the story didn't hit with everyone. I try to stay away from reviews for movies like this until after I see it, but I couldn't help myself this time around. I had to read them! The movie is set to be released in theaters a week from tomorrow, and I already have my tickets to watch it in 70mm IMAX.
I included several excerpts from certain interviews below for you to read. You can click on the links to read the full interviews for each one. Look them over if you want and let us know if they sway your excitement for the movie in any way.
I included several excerpts from certain interviews below for you to read. You can click on the links to read the full interviews for each one. Look them over if you want and let us know if they sway your excitement for the movie in any way.
- 10/27/2014
- by Joey Paur
- GeekTyrant
Even the most dashing men can't please everyone. Ryan Gosling celebrated his directing debut at the 67th Annual Cannes Film Festival this week, but critics weren't impressed.
After the premiere of Gosling's "Lost River" on Tuesday (May 20), the audience reportedly booed the film instead of applauding, per Entertainment Weekly.
In addition, several film critics took to social media to bash the film, which is based in Detroit, and said that Ryan appeared to be imitating director David Lynch - who is best known for his work on films including "Mulholland Drive" and "Blue Velvet."
"If a $200 haircut and $900 shades were given lots of money to defecate on Detroit, the result would be Ryan Gosling's directing debut," Grantland writer Wesley Morris tweeted.
Ryan just can't seem to catch a break at Cannes. In 2013, his film "Only God Forgives" was also booed. "Anyone who loved Only God Forgives should love Ryan Gosling's Lost River.
After the premiere of Gosling's "Lost River" on Tuesday (May 20), the audience reportedly booed the film instead of applauding, per Entertainment Weekly.
In addition, several film critics took to social media to bash the film, which is based in Detroit, and said that Ryan appeared to be imitating director David Lynch - who is best known for his work on films including "Mulholland Drive" and "Blue Velvet."
"If a $200 haircut and $900 shades were given lots of money to defecate on Detroit, the result would be Ryan Gosling's directing debut," Grantland writer Wesley Morris tweeted.
Ryan just can't seem to catch a break at Cannes. In 2013, his film "Only God Forgives" was also booed. "Anyone who loved Only God Forgives should love Ryan Gosling's Lost River.
- 5/22/2014
- GossipCenter
The Cannes Film Festival is somewhat unique in that its audiences feel entitled — obliged, actually — to boo the crap out of films that don’t live up to their collective expectations, whatever those might be. On Tuesday, Ryan Gosling unveiled his directorial debut, Lost River, “a modern day fairytale against the surreal dreamscape of a vanishing city,” and the immediate response was harsh. Boos reportedly drowned out the applause, and some unimpressed critics and journalists quickly took to Twitter to express their antipathy in a contest of colorful language. Grantland’s Wesley Morris is currently the clubhouse leader on denigrating the film,...
- 5/20/2014
- by Jeff Labrecque
- EW - Inside Movies
Jeez. Time sure does fly by. It’s hard to fathom that we’re now in year number four with our world film critic on the La Croisette gallop poll, which we conveniently refer to simply as: our Cannes Critics’ Panel. I’m proud to say that a good dozen of us have remained a tight bunch. Back in 2011, our critics decided to “vote for Pedro” and La piel que habito over Von Trier, Kaurismäki, Dardennes and Palme d’Or winner Terrence Malick. In 2012, Haneke’s golden Amour won by a nose over 2nd place vote getter Holy Motors while last year’s Blue is the Warmest Color (aka La Vie d’Adèle – Chapitres 1 et 2) was the unanimous pick (and tallied the highest score ever) not only by the Spielberg jury, but our own collective. How will the stars align for the eighteen Palme hopefuls? Where will our set of...
- 5/14/2014
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
Well, it appears that the wait is finally over. After suffering through a barrage of promotional material for Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac over the last couple of months, the film has now screened for critics and the first reviews are starting to emerge. Of course, those of us who live in North America won’t get a chance to check out the director’s sex epic until the Spring but overseas in Denmark, the film is about to release into theatres and several reviewers have revealed their thoughts on the incredibly controversial film.
The Film Stage has been kind enough to compile excerpts from all of the reviews, which you can check out below. It seems that for the most part, reactions are fairly positive. In fact, some are calling it the director’s best work yet. Of course, Nymphomaniac won’t be for everyone. It won’t even be for most people.
The Film Stage has been kind enough to compile excerpts from all of the reviews, which you can check out below. It seems that for the most part, reactions are fairly positive. In fact, some are calling it the director’s best work yet. Of course, Nymphomaniac won’t be for everyone. It won’t even be for most people.
- 12/17/2013
- by Matt Joseph
- We Got This Covered
At a time of year usually dominated by family titles, James Wan's horror film temporarily left the Smurfs feeling blue last weekend
The magnificent seven
Throughout early summer, we tend to see one or two big blockbusters dominate the market each weekend, with the rest of the films on release competing for scraps. As we move into August, the field typically becomes more even, with several mid-size pictures jostling for position. That was certainly the case last weekend, when no fewer than seven films achieved grosses in excess of £1m – the first time this has happened since February 2011, when Paul, Gnomeo and Juliet, The King's Speech, True Grit, Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son, Yogi Bear and Tangled all delivered seven-figure sums in the same frame.
The winner #1
Topping the official Rentrak chart with £3.22m, The Smurfs 2 leads a crowded field of family titles including a still-potent Monsters University and Despicable Me 2.
The magnificent seven
Throughout early summer, we tend to see one or two big blockbusters dominate the market each weekend, with the rest of the films on release competing for scraps. As we move into August, the field typically becomes more even, with several mid-size pictures jostling for position. That was certainly the case last weekend, when no fewer than seven films achieved grosses in excess of £1m – the first time this has happened since February 2011, when Paul, Gnomeo and Juliet, The King's Speech, True Grit, Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son, Yogi Bear and Tangled all delivered seven-figure sums in the same frame.
The winner #1
Topping the official Rentrak chart with £3.22m, The Smurfs 2 leads a crowded field of family titles including a still-potent Monsters University and Despicable Me 2.
- 8/7/2013
- by Charles Gant
- The Guardian - Film News
Often when you sit down to indulge in a biopic about somebody you find exceedingly fascinating, as soon as the picture has finished all you want to do is go and meet the subject themselves and ask countless questions about their life and the film at hand. Well, we had the great pleasure of doing just that – at a special London screening of Good Vibrations to mark its DVD release, where a certain Terri Hooley made a somewhat unforgettable appearance.
Taking place at the Vinyl Factory in Soho, the Lisa Barros D’Sa and Glenn Leyburn production was screened to a room full of exuberant fans, who watched on as we see the life of Hooley presented to us on the big screen. With actor Richard Dormer in the lead role, Good Vibrations takes place in Belfast, Northern Ireland in the 1970s amidst The Troubles. Hooley – who took neither side in the religious conflict,...
Taking place at the Vinyl Factory in Soho, the Lisa Barros D’Sa and Glenn Leyburn production was screened to a room full of exuberant fans, who watched on as we see the life of Hooley presented to us on the big screen. With actor Richard Dormer in the lead role, Good Vibrations takes place in Belfast, Northern Ireland in the 1970s amidst The Troubles. Hooley – who took neither side in the religious conflict,...
- 7/31/2013
- by Stefan Pape
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Julie Maroh, as author of its source novel, has unique credentials to comment, but for what it's worth I felt the film's descent into agony and tears took it clear of titillation
When Abdellatif Kechiche's film Blue Is the Warmest Colour screened at Cannes last week, its explicit sex scenes certainly made some waves. The story of a passionate love affair between two young women seemed to me to be acted and directed with absolute candour and integrity, though I couldn't help predicting that, as with all sexually explicit movies, some worldly pundit was bound to declare the sex scenes to be "boring". My friend Dave Calhoun of Time Out pointed to one such response.
What I didn't predict was a fascinatingly dissentient argument from Julie Maroh, the author of the 2010 graphic novel Le Bleu Est Une Couleur Chaude on which the film is based. She wrote in a...
When Abdellatif Kechiche's film Blue Is the Warmest Colour screened at Cannes last week, its explicit sex scenes certainly made some waves. The story of a passionate love affair between two young women seemed to me to be acted and directed with absolute candour and integrity, though I couldn't help predicting that, as with all sexually explicit movies, some worldly pundit was bound to declare the sex scenes to be "boring". My friend Dave Calhoun of Time Out pointed to one such response.
What I didn't predict was a fascinatingly dissentient argument from Julie Maroh, the author of the 2010 graphic novel Le Bleu Est Une Couleur Chaude on which the film is based. She wrote in a...
- 5/30/2013
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Richard Gere, Judd Apatow and other luminaries including Miss Piggy have joined industry experts to help compile Time Out magazine's list of the best most romantic films ever.
101 industry experts in total have contributed to the list, which seeks to combine quality with knock-em-dead sentimentality.
Dave Calhoun, Time Out London’s film editor comments, "What makes the Time Out list so exciting and unusual is that it's not just the opinion of three sun-starved film critics sitting in a darkened room and writing a list. Instead, we got off our sofas and asked 101 real experts in movies and romance for their personal take on the matter -and our top 100 romantic films reflects their very personal choices."
Click here for the full story and complete list and, in the meantime, see if you can guess what made the top 3... it's probably not what you think!
101 industry experts in total have contributed to the list, which seeks to combine quality with knock-em-dead sentimentality.
Dave Calhoun, Time Out London’s film editor comments, "What makes the Time Out list so exciting and unusual is that it's not just the opinion of three sun-starved film critics sitting in a darkened room and writing a list. Instead, we got off our sofas and asked 101 real experts in movies and romance for their personal take on the matter -and our top 100 romantic films reflects their very personal choices."
Click here for the full story and complete list and, in the meantime, see if you can guess what made the top 3... it's probably not what you think!
- 4/24/2013
- by The Huffington Post UK
- Huffington Post
Brief Encounter has beaten Casablanca to the title of 'Best Romantic Film' in a new list for Time Out London.
The list was compiled with input from 101 industry experts, including actor Richard Gere, directors Judd Apatow and Edgar Wright, and Miss Piggy of The Muppets.
> Read the full top 100 on the 'Time Out' website
Time Out London's film editor Dave Calhoun said: "What makes the Time Out list so exciting and unusual is that it's not just the opinion of three sun-starved film critics sitting in a darkened room and writing a list.
"Instead, we got off our sofas and asked 101 real experts in movies and romance for their personal take on the matter - and our top 100 romantic films reflects their very personal choices."
Topping the list was David Lean's 1946 drama Brief Encounter, written by Noël Coward and starring Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway and Joyce Carey.
The list was compiled with input from 101 industry experts, including actor Richard Gere, directors Judd Apatow and Edgar Wright, and Miss Piggy of The Muppets.
> Read the full top 100 on the 'Time Out' website
Time Out London's film editor Dave Calhoun said: "What makes the Time Out list so exciting and unusual is that it's not just the opinion of three sun-starved film critics sitting in a darkened room and writing a list.
"Instead, we got off our sofas and asked 101 real experts in movies and romance for their personal take on the matter - and our top 100 romantic films reflects their very personal choices."
Topping the list was David Lean's 1946 drama Brief Encounter, written by Noël Coward and starring Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway and Joyce Carey.
- 4/24/2013
- Digital Spy
"There have been lots of books that tell the history of the movies, but so far almost no films," Mark Cousins told indieWIRE's Peter Knegt last September. We should qualify that statement, of course. As Nick Pinkerton notes in the Voice, there have been documentaries on the history of cinema, though some might filter that history "through the director's particular prejudices or national heritage (Godard's Histoire(s) du Cinéma, finally released on DVD last December; Oshima's 100 Years of Japanese Cinema; A Personal Journey With Martin Scorsese Through American Movies). Or it might mean sticking to one facet of the timeline, as in historian Kevin Brownlow's extraordinary work on the medium's adolescence, Hollywood."
That point made, back to Cousins: "You can sit in a room to write a book about movies, but to tell the story of how a flickering Victorian novelty became a global art form on film, you have to travel the world,...
That point made, back to Cousins: "You can sit in a room to write a book about movies, but to tell the story of how a flickering Victorian novelty became a global art form on film, you have to travel the world,...
- 2/1/2012
- MUBI
"Woody Allen: A Documentary is likely to surface in Britain next year," notes Geoffrey Macnab, so he fills in readers of the Independent on what they can expect to see. The paper's a media partner with the BFI, which is presenting Wise Cracks: The Comedies of Woody Allen, a series opening today and running through February 8. Macnab:
The paradox of Allen is that he wants to struggle with the metaphysical monstrosity of existence but has never been quite able to. He talks in [Robert] Weide's doc of why he puts a higher value on the tragic muse than on the comic muse. What is painfully evident is that he has never really been open to this tragic muse. The ferocious work ethic that made him so successful so early meant that he was invariably so busy with the next project that he had no time to dwell on the last one.
The paradox of Allen is that he wants to struggle with the metaphysical monstrosity of existence but has never been quite able to. He talks in [Robert] Weide's doc of why he puts a higher value on the tragic muse than on the comic muse. What is painfully evident is that he has never really been open to this tragic muse. The ferocious work ethic that made him so successful so early meant that he was invariably so busy with the next project that he had no time to dwell on the last one.
- 1/1/2012
- MUBI
"In the late 1950s Terence Rattigan fell victim to time and trend," begins Nigel Andrews in the Financial Times. "You could look up 'unfashionability' in an illustrated dictionary and there was the playwright's mug shot: the Winslow Boy/Browning Version/Deep Blue Sea man looking out glumly into a condemned future. Today, with the Angry Young Playwright generation, his usurpers, looking more like the condemned ones, the cry 'Anyone for Terence?' is heard throughout theatreland. Now it invades cinema. Terence Davies's The Deep Blue Sea is one Terry's tribute to another: a Rattigan play about tortured love in postwar England adapted by the filmmaker who gave us his tortured love paean — love of family, of childhood, of the tender nightmares of growing up in 1950s Liverpool — in Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988). Davis hasn't made a feature since 2000, his film of Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth. His style doesn't spread easily.
- 11/27/2011
- MUBI
"In 1976," notes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times, "the year that Marilyn Monroe would have turned 50, Larry McMurtry wrote that she 'is right in there with our major ghosts: Hemingway, the Kennedy brothers — people who finished with American life before America had time to finish with them.' Almost a half-century after her death, the world, or at least its necrophiliac fantasists, still haven't finished with Monroe and try to resurrect her again and again in movies, books, songs and glamour layouts featuring dewy and ruined ingénues. Maybe it's because it's so difficult to imagine her as Old Marilyn that she has become a Ghost of Hollywood Past, a phantom that periodically materializes to show us things that have been. The latest attempt at resurrection occurs in My Week With Marilyn, with Michelle Williams as the Ghost."
"The 'my' is Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne), a wet-eared assistant director on...
"The 'my' is Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne), a wet-eared assistant director on...
- 11/26/2011
- MUBI
"After a period in which versions of Austen hogged our screens, the Brontës have fought back," writes Boyd Tonkin in a piece for the Independent that begins, by the way, with a brief but rousing history of Charlotte's detestation of Jane Austen. "Released today, Andrea Arnold's savagely uncompromising Wuthering Heights joins a line of adaptations of Emily's only surviving novel that began in 1920 (a lost work by Av Bramble) and went on to include renderings from directors as varied as William Wyler — with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon still the ranking Heathcliff and Cathy Earnshaw to many fans — and Yoshishige Yoshida, Luis Buñuel and Jacques Rivette. Earlier this year, Cary Fukunaga's Jane Eyre, with Mia Wasikowska as the uncowed governess and Michael Fassbender the sulphurous Mr Rochester, offered a rather smoother ride through another much-adapted book, albeit one that shares with Arnold — and the Brontës — a rapt attention...
- 11/13/2011
- MUBI
"Roland Emmerich's Anonymous is a well-polished cowpat that will confuse and bore those who know nothing about Shakespeare and incense those who know almost anything," declares David Edelstein in New York. The film begins with Derek Jacobi announcing on a contemporary Broadway stage that the plays we attribute to Shakespeare are, in fact, the work of "Edward de Vere, seventeenth Earl of Oxford, who could not, by virtue of his rank, have anything to do with the theater and so handed over his masterworks — many of which were not performed until well after his death — to a boobish actor named Will Shakespeare, who incidentally was the one who stabbed Christopher Marlowe in the eye. Less improbably, De Vere screwed Queen Elizabeth, as well as (accidentally) his own mum…. Apart from its ineptitude, Anonymous is peculiarly beside the point. Shakespeare's succession of masterpieces, near masterpieces, and thrilling misses is a...
- 10/27/2011
- MUBI
Nearly every weekend since its premiere in Cannes, Lars von Trier's Melancholia has opened in theaters in this or that country around the world, and today it hits the UK. It's also screened at a good number of festivals, including Toronto, and sees its first date in the States at the New York Film Festival on Monday. The following Friday, it'll be available on demand from Magnolia before finally opening in Us theaters in November.
When and wherever you catch it, you may, like Farran Nehme, find the experience "unexpectedly marvelous. Divided like Gaul into three parts: a magnificently surreal flash-forward to the apocalypse that is about to hit in the form of a planet colliding with our own; a midsection showing the slow-motion cataclysm that is the wedding of Justine (Kirsten Dunst) to Michael (Alexander Skarsgård); and a finale focusing on Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), Justine's sister, as the...
When and wherever you catch it, you may, like Farran Nehme, find the experience "unexpectedly marvelous. Divided like Gaul into three parts: a magnificently surreal flash-forward to the apocalypse that is about to hit in the form of a planet colliding with our own; a midsection showing the slow-motion cataclysm that is the wedding of Justine (Kirsten Dunst) to Michael (Alexander Skarsgård); and a finale focusing on Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), Justine's sister, as the...
- 10/1/2011
- MUBI
"Full credit to director Andrea Arnold for taking such a bold and distinctive approach to Emily Brontë's account of sweeping passion on the Yorkshire moors," writes the Guardian's Xan Brooks. "Her line in creative vandalism rips off the layers of fluffy chiffon that have adhered to the tale through the course of numerous stage and screen adaptations. It pushes the story all the way back to its original 1847 incarnation and then beyond, up-river, into primordial sludge. What comes back is a beautiful rough beast of a movie, a costume drama like no other. This might not be warm, or even approachable, but it is never less than bullishly impressive."
"You call tell almost immediately that this Wuthering Heights is a film by Andrea Arnold, the writer-director of Red Road and Fish Tank," writes Time Out London's Dave Calhoun. "This might be the British filmmaker's first literary adaptation, but all her trademarks are there,...
"You call tell almost immediately that this Wuthering Heights is a film by Andrea Arnold, the writer-director of Red Road and Fish Tank," writes Time Out London's Dave Calhoun. "This might be the British filmmaker's first literary adaptation, but all her trademarks are there,...
- 9/7/2011
- MUBI
"Right here, right now, it's the film to beat at this year's festival," announces the Guardian's Xan Brooks. "Nimbly navigating the labyrinthine source novel by John Le Carré, [Tomas] Alfredson eases us through a run-down 70s London, all the way to a municipal MI6 bunker, out by the train yards. This, it transpires, is 'the Circus,' a warren of narrow corridors and smoke-filled offices, patrolled by jumpy, ulcerous men with loose flesh and thinning hair, peering into the shadows in search of a spy. There's a mole at the top of the Circus, a 'deep-penetration agent' leaking secrets to the Soviets. Control (John Hurt) has narrowed the hunt to five likely suspects. Now all that remains is for diffident George Smiley (Gary Oldman), working off the books and under the radar, to steal in and identify the culprit."
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy "is the kind of spy film where the...
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy "is the kind of spy film where the...
- 9/6/2011
- MUBI
"Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan give dynamite performances in Shame, a terrific second feature from the British artist Steve McQueen," begins the Guardian's Xan Brooks. "Fassbender is Brandon, a sex-addicted corporate drone, directing a radioactive stare at random women across the aisle on the New York subway. Mulligan plays Sissy, his sister, who sings for her supper, self-harms for kicks and is surely pointed towards disaster. 'We're not bad people,' Sissy assures her sibling. 'We just come from a bad place.'"
"If Hunger, artist-turned-filmmaker Steve McQueen's remarkable debut feature, was a study of a body strenuously denied its fundamental needs, his satisfyingly rigorous, explicit follow-up, Shame, traces the very different damage done by a body over-gifted with wants." Guy Lodge at In Contention: "Hunger was a film that dismantled known history and re-presented it in highly sensual, imagistic terms. The new film might be a foray into...
"If Hunger, artist-turned-filmmaker Steve McQueen's remarkable debut feature, was a study of a body strenuously denied its fundamental needs, his satisfyingly rigorous, explicit follow-up, Shame, traces the very different damage done by a body over-gifted with wants." Guy Lodge at In Contention: "Hunger was a film that dismantled known history and re-presented it in highly sensual, imagistic terms. The new film might be a foray into...
- 9/6/2011
- MUBI
Michael Fassbender, Shame Steve McQueen-Michael Fassbender's Shame: Sex Addiction at the Movies Directed by Steve McQueen (no relation to the star of Bullitt and The Getaway), and written by McQueen and playwright Abi Morgan, Shame was screened at the Venice and Telluride film festivals. Its next stop is the Toronto Film Festival later this month. McQueen's drama revolves around the dangers of sex addiction and troubled family relationships in our Internet-connected world where easy sex is always at everyone's fingertips (if you're really, really, but really lucky). Shame stars Michael Fassbender (McQueen's leading man in Hunger, Rochester in the latest Jane Eyre), Best Actress Academy Award nominee Carey Mulligan (An Education), James Badge Dale, Nicole Beharie, Hannah Ware, and Amy Hargreaves. "Driven by a brilliant, ferocious performance by Michael Fassbender, Shame is a real walk on the wild side, a scorching look at a case of...
- 9/5/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
"Right here, right now, it's the film to beat at this year's festival." Xan Brooks of the Guardian has spoken, and we're inclined to nod violently in agreement. "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" is the British thriller directed by Tomas Alfredson that has been resting in back of our minds for months. Originally a novel by John Le Carre, the film smartly places Gary Oldman as its protagonist working to identify a mole at the top of the Circus -- the highest level of the Secret Intelligent Service -- leaking secrets to the Soviets in 1970s London. Along for the ride are a strong stable of British actors including Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hardy.
At the Venice Film Festival, the critics confirm what we had all dared to assume without having seen it -- this film is a superbly well-acted, visually stylish thriller that is standing at the head...
At the Venice Film Festival, the critics confirm what we had all dared to assume without having seen it -- this film is a superbly well-acted, visually stylish thriller that is standing at the head...
- 9/5/2011
- by The Huffington Post
- Huffington Post
Let's begin with last week's backgrounder in the New York Times, wherein Dennis Lim notes that Contagion "revisits a conundrum that has bedeviled many filmmakers over the years: how do you make a movie about a virus, a villain that isn't even visible? Epidemic movies have sidestepped the problem by focusing on the aftermath of a deadly plague, as with The Omega Man (1971) and 12 Monkeys (1995), both set in postapocalyptic wastelands. Another option is to invent a disease with outlandish symptoms, as in The Crazies (1973), in which the infected turn homicidally insane, or 28 Days Later (2002), in which they become zombies." Contagion, though, "resists the sheen of science fiction or fantasy and instead stresses the chilling plausibility of its nightmare situation." And he quotes Steven Soderbergh: "It's an ultrarealistic film about a pandemic, and that's the key phrase. We were looking for something that was unsettling because of the banality of the transmission.
- 9/5/2011
- MUBI
David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method "seeks to rehabilitate the 'talking cure' as a radical, even potentially incendiary, concept," argues Richard Porton in Cinema Scope. "Inspired by John Kerr's A Most Dangerous Method, a study of the complex relationship between Carl Jung, his patient (and mistress) Sabina Spielrein, and Jung's mentor, and eventual adversary, Sigmund Freud — and more directly based on screenwriter Christopher Hampton's play The Talking Cure — Cronenberg tackles one of his favorite themes: the toll exacted by sexual repression and the danger, as well as frisson, of shedding the weight of such repression. Just as these themes were delineated with the aid of generic horror tropes in Shivers (1975), A Dangerous Method reveals the emotional violence that bubbles below the surface of Hampton's witty repartee."
"Precise, lucid and thrillingly disciplined, this story of boundary-testing in the early days of psychoanalysis is brought to vivid life by the...
"Precise, lucid and thrillingly disciplined, this story of boundary-testing in the early days of psychoanalysis is brought to vivid life by the...
- 9/4/2011
- MUBI
"Whatever the crimes committed by Wallis Simpson — marrying a king, sparking a constitutional crisis, fraternising with Nazis — it's doubtful that she deserves the treatment meted out to her in W.E., Madonna's jaw-dropping take on 'the 20th-century's greatest royal love story.' The woman is defiled, humiliated, made to look like a joke. The fact that W.E. comes couched in the guise of a fawning, servile snow-job only makes the punishment feel all the more cruel." For the Guardian's Xan Brooks, W.E. is "a primped and simpering folly, the turkey that dreamed it was a peacock." 1 out of 5 stars.
"The follow-up to her debut feature Filth & Wisdom, which premiered in Berlin, tells two parallel stories," explains Boyd van Hoeij at Cineuropa. "The first involves the historical figure Wallis Simpson (Andrea Riseborough), the twice-married American woman for whom the British King Edward VIII (James D'Arcy) abdicated. The second involves a 1998 New Yorker,...
"The follow-up to her debut feature Filth & Wisdom, which premiered in Berlin, tells two parallel stories," explains Boyd van Hoeij at Cineuropa. "The first involves the historical figure Wallis Simpson (Andrea Riseborough), the twice-married American woman for whom the British King Edward VIII (James D'Arcy) abdicated. The second involves a 1998 New Yorker,...
- 9/2/2011
- MUBI
"A smart, confident kick start to what looks like being a notably strong Venice film festival, The Ides of March showcases George Clooney, its director, co/writer and joint lead actor, back in the politically committed mood that spawned Syriana and Good Night, and Good Luck." The Telegraph's David Gritten: "A political thriller exploring themes of loyalty, ambition and the gap between public ideals and private fallibility, it engages the brain within the context of a solid entertainment." 4 out of 5 stars.
At the Playlist, Oliver Lyttelton sets it up: "Stephen Myers (Ryan Gosling) is something of a wunderkind. Still in his 20s, he’s a senior adviser to the campaign of Democratic primary candidate Governor Mike Morris (Clooney). Morris seems to be the real deal, a once-in-a-lifetime kind of candidate, and Myers had never been more fired up, particularly with mentor Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman) at the helm, and...
At the Playlist, Oliver Lyttelton sets it up: "Stephen Myers (Ryan Gosling) is something of a wunderkind. Still in his 20s, he’s a senior adviser to the campaign of Democratic primary candidate Governor Mike Morris (Clooney). Morris seems to be the real deal, a once-in-a-lifetime kind of candidate, and Myers had never been more fired up, particularly with mentor Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman) at the helm, and...
- 9/1/2011
- MUBI
"If there's one thing on which we can constantly rely from Pedro Almodóvar, it's sumptuous home furnishings," suggests the Telegraph's Tim Robey. "Other things would include narrative switchbacks, tragic mothers, surprise sex and wigs. The Skin I Live In, Almodóvar's clinically bizarre new thriller, doesn't disappoint on any of these counts, but it's also the first of his films that you could define as a horror movie, in a smirking sort of way. It's constructed to induce kinky shudders, delivering them with the ghoulish technical flair of a purring master. He's pleased with his new game — perhaps a little too pleased…. I’ve heard the movie described as barking, but it’s like a very sophisticated wind-up toy, barking on command."
"The last time [Antonio] Banderas worked with Almodóvar was for Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! in 1990," notes Dave Calhoun, who also interviews the director for Time Out London. "21 years later,...
"The last time [Antonio] Banderas worked with Almodóvar was for Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! in 1990," notes Dave Calhoun, who also interviews the director for Time Out London. "21 years later,...
- 8/30/2011
- MUBI
Vera Farmiga's Higher Ground "admirably tries, on a minuscule budget, to evoke the spirit of American cinema from 35 years ago: the age of Sissy Spacek and Shelley Duvall, an era much more hospitable to serious roles for women than the current one." Melissa Anderson in the Voice: "As reported in a New York Times Magazine cover story on the actress in 2006 (three years before her Oscar-nominated performance in Up in the Air), Farmiga has expressed her disgust with the roles offered her by setting scripts on fire: 'I stack up all those crass female characters, all those utterly ordinary women, all those hundreds and hundreds of parts that have no substance or meaning and turn them into a blazing pyre.' It's a shame, then, that Higher Ground never really ignites."
Farmiga plays "Corinne, a Midwest rural woman who embraces a hippie-inflected but paternalistic evangelical community with her high...
Farmiga plays "Corinne, a Midwest rural woman who embraces a hippie-inflected but paternalistic evangelical community with her high...
- 8/26/2011
- MUBI
It's a good weekend for moviegoing in the UK, starting with the pleasantly surprising revival of Ivan Passer's Cutter's Way (1981). "Much as womanizing slacker Richard Bone (Jeff Bridges) finds himself late one evening in a rainy Santa Barbara alleyway at the same time as a silhouetted figure dumps a young woman's body there, Cutter's Way suffered the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time," begins Anton Bitel in Little White Lies:
Adapted from Newton Thorburg's 1976 novel Cutter and Bone, Ivan Passer's film was released under the same title, only to receive a critical drubbing, be withdrawn from screens a week later, and then renamed and repackaged for United Artists' arthouse division, and ultimately for VHS (where its reputation really grew). This was the early Eighties, when American cinema, ruled over by Spielberg and Lucas, had become all about action, spectacle and escapism,...
Adapted from Newton Thorburg's 1976 novel Cutter and Bone, Ivan Passer's film was released under the same title, only to receive a critical drubbing, be withdrawn from screens a week later, and then renamed and repackaged for United Artists' arthouse division, and ultimately for VHS (where its reputation really grew). This was the early Eighties, when American cinema, ruled over by Spielberg and Lucas, had become all about action, spectacle and escapism,...
- 6/24/2011
- MUBI
First, a quick reminder that entries on several films playing here or there have been updated through today: Film Socialisme, Agrarian Utopia, Road to Nowhere and The Tree of Life. Alright, on with the weekend...
"Jj Abrams imitates to flatter with Super 8, an homage to the seminal science fiction films of Steven Spielberg that succumbs to empty nostalgic pandering," argues Nick Schager in Slant. "As with his Star Trek, Abrams's latest puts a modern spin on classical material, though here reinvention isn't the goal so much as slavish duplication embellished with muscular CG effects. It's akin to returning to a cinematic womb of Spielbergian father-son issues, suburban households under extraterrestrial strain, and teen romance, friendship, and maturation via out-of-this-world circumstances. The effect of such a modus operandi is initial coziness quickly giving way to disheartening familiarity, with Abrams's own preoccupations (if he had any to begin with) becoming subsumed beneath the root themes,...
"Jj Abrams imitates to flatter with Super 8, an homage to the seminal science fiction films of Steven Spielberg that succumbs to empty nostalgic pandering," argues Nick Schager in Slant. "As with his Star Trek, Abrams's latest puts a modern spin on classical material, though here reinvention isn't the goal so much as slavish duplication embellished with muscular CG effects. It's akin to returning to a cinematic womb of Spielbergian father-son issues, suburban households under extraterrestrial strain, and teen romance, friendship, and maturation via out-of-this-world circumstances. The effect of such a modus operandi is initial coziness quickly giving way to disheartening familiarity, with Abrams's own preoccupations (if he had any to begin with) becoming subsumed beneath the root themes,...
- 6/12/2011
- MUBI
Updated through 5/23.
Paolo Sorrentino's This Must Be the Place "stars Sean Penn — an amalgam of Dorothy Michaels from Tootsie, the Cure's Robert Smith, and the titular mentally challenged man the actor played in I Am Sam — as Cheyenne, a fey, retired goth rock star who leaves his home in Ireland to return to the Us to track down the man who tormented his estranged father in Auschwitz. Unbearably sentimental — one colleague likened it to this year's Life Is Beautiful — and consistently ridiculous, Sorrentino's movie was inexplicably met with warm applause (and, as far as I could tell, no boos). There's no arguing taste (or cultural differences or festival exhaustion), but figuring out the appeal of a film that includes a Holocaust slide show, Penn's aggressive scenery chewing ('Not having kids has really, really screwed me over!' he weeps at one point), and every lazy American stereotype (fatties, guns,...
Paolo Sorrentino's This Must Be the Place "stars Sean Penn — an amalgam of Dorothy Michaels from Tootsie, the Cure's Robert Smith, and the titular mentally challenged man the actor played in I Am Sam — as Cheyenne, a fey, retired goth rock star who leaves his home in Ireland to return to the Us to track down the man who tormented his estranged father in Auschwitz. Unbearably sentimental — one colleague likened it to this year's Life Is Beautiful — and consistently ridiculous, Sorrentino's movie was inexplicably met with warm applause (and, as far as I could tell, no boos). There's no arguing taste (or cultural differences or festival exhaustion), but figuring out the appeal of a film that includes a Holocaust slide show, Penn's aggressive scenery chewing ('Not having kids has really, really screwed me over!' he weeps at one point), and every lazy American stereotype (fatties, guns,...
- 5/23/2011
- MUBI
Updated through 5/23.
"The magnificent and dramatic presence of Nature dwarfs human protagonists wallowing in a banal ménage a trois in Naomi Kawase's visually rhapsodic but overbearingly metaphorical and emotionally wan Hanezu," writes Maggie Lee in the Hollywood Reporter. "Again evoking her favorite motifs of pregnancy, death, and heartbreak within the rural environs of Nara (Kawase's hometown and location for all her works), the Japanese director sees no need in varying or transcending her personal blend of documentary and poetic-animist style."
"Amid gorgeous images of the Asuka region of Japan, the nation's birthplace, poetic voiceovers by a man and woman begin the film by recounting the ancient myth of two mountains competing for one another's love," writes Variety's Rob Nelson. "Bringing this tale into present-day, human form is a young couple living together in picturesque Nara prefecture and expecting a child. Pregnant Kayoko (Hako Oshima) dyes scarves red using safflower,...
"The magnificent and dramatic presence of Nature dwarfs human protagonists wallowing in a banal ménage a trois in Naomi Kawase's visually rhapsodic but overbearingly metaphorical and emotionally wan Hanezu," writes Maggie Lee in the Hollywood Reporter. "Again evoking her favorite motifs of pregnancy, death, and heartbreak within the rural environs of Nara (Kawase's hometown and location for all her works), the Japanese director sees no need in varying or transcending her personal blend of documentary and poetic-animist style."
"Amid gorgeous images of the Asuka region of Japan, the nation's birthplace, poetic voiceovers by a man and woman begin the film by recounting the ancient myth of two mountains competing for one another's love," writes Variety's Rob Nelson. "Bringing this tale into present-day, human form is a young couple living together in picturesque Nara prefecture and expecting a child. Pregnant Kayoko (Hako Oshima) dyes scarves red using safflower,...
- 5/23/2011
- MUBI
Updated through 5/21.
"It is almost a given that detractors of the newest from Pedro Almodóvar will blurt out the film's baroque twists in their contortions to craft the glibbest dismissal possible; at the same time, a reluctance to spill those strange story points shouldn't be taken as an unequivocal endorsement. Of all the great modern European filmmakers, Almodóvar has recently felt like the one in most peril of turning his groove — sumptuous surfaces, a tone between the operatic and the soap-operatic, each frame glossy with the delight of cinema like a lipstick smear from an ardent lover — into a rut. With The Skin I Live In, he's clearly jolted and wrested himself out of any potential rut; the concern is now, rather, what to make of the new territory he, and we, are in." The grade James Rocchi settles on at the Playlist: B-.
Antonio Banderas plays Dr Robert Ledgard,...
"It is almost a given that detractors of the newest from Pedro Almodóvar will blurt out the film's baroque twists in their contortions to craft the glibbest dismissal possible; at the same time, a reluctance to spill those strange story points shouldn't be taken as an unequivocal endorsement. Of all the great modern European filmmakers, Almodóvar has recently felt like the one in most peril of turning his groove — sumptuous surfaces, a tone between the operatic and the soap-operatic, each frame glossy with the delight of cinema like a lipstick smear from an ardent lover — into a rut. With The Skin I Live In, he's clearly jolted and wrested himself out of any potential rut; the concern is now, rather, what to make of the new territory he, and we, are in." The grade James Rocchi settles on at the Playlist: B-.
Antonio Banderas plays Dr Robert Ledgard,...
- 5/21/2011
- MUBI
Updated through 5/20.
"Partly because of his devotion to a meticulous, artisanal approach to filmmaking, and partly because of the sheer secrecy in which his projects are enshrouded, a Malick film is more than an event — it has the religious quality of an ecstatic unveiling." That's Tim Robey in the Telegraph back in early April: "By Malick's standards, the period that has elapsed since his last film, 2005's underseen Pocahontas epic The New World, is little longer than the blink of an eye — his 20-year absence between Days of Heaven (1978) and The Thin Red Line (1998) is the stuff an entire legend is built on. Still, when you bear in mind that shooting for The Tree of Life began in early 2008, and the film was first tipped for release during in 2009, the delay has been torture enough."
The wait's over, Twitter's a-flutter with mixed instant takes and the first reviews are just coming in.
"Partly because of his devotion to a meticulous, artisanal approach to filmmaking, and partly because of the sheer secrecy in which his projects are enshrouded, a Malick film is more than an event — it has the religious quality of an ecstatic unveiling." That's Tim Robey in the Telegraph back in early April: "By Malick's standards, the period that has elapsed since his last film, 2005's underseen Pocahontas epic The New World, is little longer than the blink of an eye — his 20-year absence between Days of Heaven (1978) and The Thin Red Line (1998) is the stuff an entire legend is built on. Still, when you bear in mind that shooting for The Tree of Life began in early 2008, and the film was first tipped for release during in 2009, the delay has been torture enough."
The wait's over, Twitter's a-flutter with mixed instant takes and the first reviews are just coming in.
- 5/20/2011
- MUBI
Melancholia director banned from French festival for Nazi comments but film apparently remains in running for top prize
Cannes film festival organisers have banned Lars von Trier from their event after he caused a furore by joking about being a Nazi at a press conference to promote his new film, Melancholia.
The Cannes board of directors declared the Danish director, formerly a festival favourite as much for his outspoken persona as his taboo-breaking films, "persona non grata, with effect immediately" following a bizarre performance in front of the media on Wednesday when he declared he had sympathy for Adolf Hitler.
"Cannes provides artists with an exceptional forum to present their works and defend freedom of expression and creation," the board said in a statement. "We profoundly regret[s] that this forum has been used by Lars von Trier to express comments that are unacceptable, intolerable, and contrary to the ideals of...
Cannes film festival organisers have banned Lars von Trier from their event after he caused a furore by joking about being a Nazi at a press conference to promote his new film, Melancholia.
The Cannes board of directors declared the Danish director, formerly a festival favourite as much for his outspoken persona as his taboo-breaking films, "persona non grata, with effect immediately" following a bizarre performance in front of the media on Wednesday when he declared he had sympathy for Adolf Hitler.
"Cannes provides artists with an exceptional forum to present their works and defend freedom of expression and creation," the board said in a statement. "We profoundly regret[s] that this forum has been used by Lars von Trier to express comments that are unacceptable, intolerable, and contrary to the ideals of...
- 5/19/2011
- by Catherine Shoard, Ian J Griffiths
- The Guardian - Film News
All the news, reviews, comment and buzz from the Cannes film festival, as it happened
7.07pm: Sorry for long absence. Not a long lunch I promise. Let's finish on a flourish: here's the best of the day's pics so far; and here's what Pedro and Antonio had to say after their screening. Back for more fun tomorrow. Hope you'll join me then.
3.14pm: Peter Bradshaw has heard that the ban applies to Von Trier personally and not to his film, so if Melancholia wins the prize, Von Trier can't pick it up. I think he's probably cancelled the tux anyway.
2.43pm: Lars in Copenhagen tells me that Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet is running this quote from Von Trier:
I'm proud to have been declared persona non grata. This is maybe the first time in film history that has happened. I think one of the reasons is that the French themselves...
7.07pm: Sorry for long absence. Not a long lunch I promise. Let's finish on a flourish: here's the best of the day's pics so far; and here's what Pedro and Antonio had to say after their screening. Back for more fun tomorrow. Hope you'll join me then.
3.14pm: Peter Bradshaw has heard that the ban applies to Von Trier personally and not to his film, so if Melancholia wins the prize, Von Trier can't pick it up. I think he's probably cancelled the tux anyway.
2.43pm: Lars in Copenhagen tells me that Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet is running this quote from Von Trier:
I'm proud to have been declared persona non grata. This is maybe the first time in film history that has happened. I think one of the reasons is that the French themselves...
- 5/19/2011
- by Ian J Griffiths
- The Guardian - Film News
All the latest news, reviews, comment and buzz from Cannes 2011, as it happens
7.12pm: A gallery of today's pictures for you, and I'm off. Catherine's premonition appears not to have been totally without merit, but no interplanetary collision as yet. Can I unchain the black cats now? Thanks for reading. It's been emotional.
6.59pm: It's almost time to go, with Xan declaring in his diary that he can feel the festival hastening towards its end.
Just time for everyone's favourite French media pundit Agnès Poirier to cross our path again with a disappointed review of La Conquête, the Nicolas Sarkozy film. "La Conquête is not a film, it is a best of," she says. Might it might make us like Sarkozy more?
6.14pm: On this "I used to be a Jew" business: Von Trier has said before that after his Jewish father died, he was told that this was not his biological father.
7.12pm: A gallery of today's pictures for you, and I'm off. Catherine's premonition appears not to have been totally without merit, but no interplanetary collision as yet. Can I unchain the black cats now? Thanks for reading. It's been emotional.
6.59pm: It's almost time to go, with Xan declaring in his diary that he can feel the festival hastening towards its end.
Just time for everyone's favourite French media pundit Agnès Poirier to cross our path again with a disappointed review of La Conquête, the Nicolas Sarkozy film. "La Conquête is not a film, it is a best of," she says. Might it might make us like Sarkozy more?
6.14pm: On this "I used to be a Jew" business: Von Trier has said before that after his Jewish father died, he was told that this was not his biological father.
- 5/18/2011
- by Ian J Griffiths
- The Guardian - Film News
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