Film Features
Interview: Whit Stillman, Metropolitan FilmmakerWednesday, 25 April 2012
Unlike the New Seekers, Whit Stillman does not want to teach the world to sing. He does, however, want to teach it to dance, specifically to dance the Sambola (or, to give it its full name, Sambola! The New International Dance Craze). Instructions and a demonstration accompany the final credits of his new film, Damsels in Distress. Read more...
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Opinion: Why film stars should never play film starsWednesday, 11 April 2012
News that Nicole Kidman is to play Grace Kelly in a movie called Grace of Monaco convinces me that it is foredoomed. This time Kidman won’t have any prosthetics to help her resemble Grace Kelly, such as the long nose she wore as Virginia Woolf in The Hours (2002). Nor would it be possible, as attractive and talented as Kidman is, to replicate Kelly’s ineffable quality and patrician beauty. Read more... |
Vincente Minnelli: Celebrating Mr HollywoodMonday, 02 April 2012
For most film buffs, the name of director Vincente Minnelli immediately recalls the quintessence of the MGM musical of the 1940s and 1950s - a world of fantasy, brilliant colours, stylish décor and costumes in which Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron dance and sing. The name also evokes steamy dramas and civilised comedies such as Some Came Running and Father of the Bride. Read more... |
BFI Southbank Preview: Made in BritainSaturday, 31 March 2012
If you’re game for a galling statistic, here’s one that’s guaranteed to stun: at present, only 14 per cent of British films released in the UK are directed by women. If that seems oddly as well as infuriatingly low, it’s probably because so many of the brightest and boldest British film-makers of recent years, from Lynne Ramsay to Lucy Walker, are women – women who it seems are exceptions as well as being exceptional. Read more... |
The Devils: A Masterpiece ResurrectedSaturday, 17 March 2012
“The film is a series of very curious, strange and macabre unbelievable incidents,” said director Ken Russell of The Devils in 1971. "The point of the film really is the sinner who becomes a saint." The tribulations surrounding its release, still fresh in Russell's mind, could easily have been described as curious and strange too. The long-overdue arrival on DVD of his career landmark is important. The Devils is one of the most astonishing and powerful British films. Read more... |
Opinion: Comedy should be taken more seriouslyMonday, 05 March 2012
The first ever work of literary theory was Aristotle's Poetics, which was written on two separate papyruses - one on tragedy and the other on comedy. However, at some point the second was lost and along with it our most ancient understanding of the comedy genre. Read more... |
Peter Cook Season, British Film InstituteSunday, 04 March 2012
The death of Peter Cook on 9 January 1995 was my JFK moment. I'll never forget what I was doing when I heard the news. I was driving from London to Granada Studios in Manchester to interview comedian Caroline Aherne. At the time she was married to the New Order bass guitarist Peter Hook, so when the radio announced that Peter Cook was dead my ears did a double take. Read more... |
Oscars 2012: Meryl wins election in a landslide for the silent ageMonday, 27 February 2012
Maybe it was host Billy Crystal at far from peak form. Or a surfeit of cringe-making shtick by too many presenters, including the distaff principals of Bridesmaids. Or the desperation that clung to the multiple on-air tributes to an art form whose very being was celebrated in the evening’s two major winners, Hugo and The Artist. Read more... |
Oscars 2012: Who Will, Who Should, Who Won'tSunday, 26 February 2012
Every year before the Academy Awards speeches are tacitly composed, flowing gowns and priceless necklaces booked and no doubt small blameless animals slaughtered in the Roman style for good luck. Read more... |
Oscars 2012: Meryl and Woody - Gongs and NomsSaturday, 25 February 2012
They have been racking up the Oscar nominations since 1978, and this year they were back. Read more... |
theASHtray: Homeland, Kings of Leon, and we need to talk about AïdaSaturday, 25 February 2012
So Homeland is here, and mid-ranking-CIA-operative Claire Danes is chasing Marine-Sergeant-and-possible-al-Qaeda-double-agent Damian Lewis all over the shop (but really only in their heads, so far), and neither of them is getting anywhere fast, so Claire goes home for a kip and sticks on some relaxing music, and would you Adam ‘n’ Eve it? – another bloody jazz nerd! Read more... |
theartsdesk in Berlin: The 62nd BerlinaleSunday, 19 February 2012
In a major festival upset last night, the Taviani brothers Paolo and Vittorio won the 2012 Berlinale’s best-film award, the Golden Bear. Their film, Cesare deve morire (Caesar Must Die), defies categories. Set in Rome’s Rebibbia maximum security jail, this extraordinary hour and a quarter charts the making by inmates of a production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Read more... |
theASHtray: Whitney, bin men, and the NPG's 'incautious' acquisitionsSaturday, 18 February 2012
Right, out with it: who else had their Valentine’s dinner-out ruined by 36 consecutive requests for Whitney Houston? Not even the entire back-catalogue, either: just “(And I-ee-I-ee-) I…”, over and over. Read more... |
Interview: Director Pawel PawlikowskiFriday, 17 February 2012
Pawel Pawlikowski was named BAFTA’s Most Promising Newcomer for his feature debut Last Resort (2000), then the follow-up, 2004’s My Summer of Love, won Outstanding British Film of the Year. But neither felt obviously British, reflecting border-zone existences in a sometimes beautiful, sometimes horrific country. Read more... |
theartsdesk in Papa Westray: Art at the End of the WorldSunday, 12 February 2012
In the same way that some chase the thrills of extreme sport, extreme art fans can now take the challenge of visiting this small art festival, which is uncompromising in terms of location, climate and content. Orkney as a whole has natural beauty, a rich history and a thriving cultural life, with a disproportionate number of artists compared to the size of the population. Read more... |
theASHtray: Janáček, Carnage, and Seth MacFarlane v George ClooneySaturday, 11 February 2012
Mea culpa. I take it all back. Christoph Waltz can act, and like a dream. You know, that dream you have where Tarantino's favourite pantomime Nazi demonstrates his apparently incurable fixation on apple-based desserts, and then Kate Winslet yakks all over his shoes. Read more... |
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