Film Features
theartsdesk in Locarno: All About the Wet BitsSunday, 18 August 2013
Feuchtgebiete has been the talk of Locarno. The word combines “damp” or “moist” with “areas” – yes, you might guess what’s coming. English-born, German-bred Charlotte Roche published in 2008 a novel of the same title, which became Wetlands in English. And as my mother’s reprimand of me and my brothers sniggering at what boys always snigger at went, “Will you please get your heads out of your pants…” Read more... |
Listed: Sitcoms that became moviesSaturday, 10 August 2013
This week sees the release of the eagerly anticipated Alan Partridge film, Alpha Papa. And while there are those of us who simply cannot wait to cringe along with Norwich’s favourite talk radio host, there is a rather vocal minority that are indignant at having their favourite sitcom sullied by the limitations of the movie format. Read more... |
Listed: Female buddy crimebustersSaturday, 27 July 2013
There's good cops and bad cops, hard cops and soft cops, old cops and young cops, funny cops and straight cops, maverick cops and by-the-book cops. The pairings are legion, the permutations endless. The movies teem with buddy cops, unlike paired with unlike to bring down bad guys. They've all pretty much got one thing in common: it's a guy thing. Yes, when it comes to reeling in the guilty parties, not a lot of sisters get to do it for themselves. Read more... |
The Woody Allen story: 'Why do I feel like I got screwed?'Monday, 22 July 2013
Woody Allen once joked that he would prefer to achieve immortality not through his work but through not dying. He is now 77 and the inevitable is a lot nearer than it was when he first realised, aged five, that this doesn’t go on forever. Fear of death has powered the furious productivity that in the early days yielded jokes by the yard, then the films appearing year upon year. Read more... |
Mel Smith, 1952-2013Saturday, 20 July 2013
Mel Smith, who has died at the age of 60, will be principally remembered as one quarter of the satirical sketch show Not the Nine O’Clock News and one half of its blokier spin-off Alas Smith and Jones. A natural and inclusive comedian, it’s less widely recalled that Smith also directed one of the most successful films in British movie history: Bean. As co-founder with Griff Rhys Jones of Talkback, he was also a pioneer in independent television production. Read more... |
Listed: WhistleblowersSaturday, 06 July 2013
Even now, as Edward Snowden floats in the diplomatic neverwhere of Sheremetyevo airport, someone somewhere is plotting the movie. Currently the story of the man who blew the whistle on the National Security Agency looks like it could still play out as farce, but it may yet turn to tragedy. Read more... |
Listed: Actors playing themselvesSaturday, 29 June 2013
Imagine a scenario in which Daniel Day Lewis is cast as himself. To get into character, he adopts his method technique of total immersion. For months he watches all of Daniel Day Lewis’s movies, studying his voice and physical movements to nail those telltale Daniel Day Lewis ticks. He reads all his EPK interviews and pores over his acceptance speeches. Read more... |
James Gandolfini 1961-2013Thursday, 20 June 2013
Mobster roles have helped define many of America's greatest screen actors, from James Cagney to Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. Thanks to his portrayal of Tony Soprano in HBO's TV masterpiece The Sopranos, James Gandolfini has made an unforgettable addition to their ranks. Read more... |
10 Questions for Actress Déborah FrançoisMonday, 27 May 2013
There are many reasons to be thankful for the Dardennes brothers, the Belgians whose sibling genius is rivalled only by the Coens, not least the young actors they have introduced to cinema: Émilie Dequenne in Rosetta, Jérémie Renier in La promesse, Déborah François in The Child, Thomas Doret in The Kid with a Bike. Read more... |
The Leopard: 50 years on from CannesWednesday, 15 May 2013
It took Sicilian aristocrat Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, melancholy last scion of a never very reproductive family, a lifetime to get round to writing one of the 20th century’s greatest novels. Publication of The Leopard (Il Gattopardo), based on the life of the author's great grandfather and the changes of the risorgimento, only took place over a year after Lampedusa’s death in July 1957. Events then moved very fast. Read more... |
Billy Liar at 50Friday, 03 May 2013
John Schlesinger’s 1963 film of Keith Waterhouse’s novel is 50 years old. It’s just been reissued in a pristine print by Studio Canal, and looks stunning in its new incarnation. What began as a claustrophobic three-act play was brilliantly opened out by the film’s director, and the widescreen format feels wholly appropriate. Read more... |
The Eagles at Sundance - History in the MakingSaturday, 27 April 2013
The Eagles recorded their first two albums in London in the early Seventies, though they couldn't have imagined they'd be back 40 years later to present their new documentary, History of the Eagles Part One, at Sundance London. There is, as you may have surmised, also a Part Two, which is available in the DVD and Blu-ray package that goes on sale on Monday 29 April. Read more... |
Opinion: Is acting now just for the privileged?Thursday, 25 April 2013
Knock knock. Who's there? Eamonn. Eamonn who? Eamonn Etonian. There's an Eamonn at No 10, an Eamonn is Mayor of London, an Eamonn is even Archbishop of Canterbury. Oh, and Eamonns are third and - for three more months - fourth in line to the throne. Recently Eton has started to dominate British film, television and theatre. In 2012 one Eamonn won an Emmy, another was given a Bafta and a third played a Shakespearean king on the BBC. Read more... |
Sundance London 2013: PreviewMonday, 22 April 2013
Bringing some much needed sunshine streaming into what has, so far, been a hit and miss spring is this year's Sundance London, which takes place from 25 - 28 April at The O2. Sundance is, of course, a name most associated with Robert Redford, President and Founder of the Sundance Institute which supports fledgling filmmakers and runs the Utah-based festival. Read more... |
theartsdesk in Istanbul: City on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown?Sunday, 21 April 2013
Late on a spring Friday evening, İstiklal Caddesi, the main shopping thoroughfare in Istanbul’s Beyoğlu district, exudes all the delicious traditional Turkish aromas: roasting chestnuts, fierce black coffee, döner grills and simit, İstanbul’s bagel, still selling like hot cakes way after midnight. Most of all, though, milling with the crowd, you are struck by something else, something less familiar these days, in Europe anyway: the smell of money. Read more... |
Canal Dreams: the Panama Film FestivalSunday, 21 April 2013
Cannes, that irresistible feeding frenzy of film, is just around the corner. But 6,000 miles away in Panama City a film festival has just concluded that, for entirely different reasons, is equally significant. Panama isn’t known for its film output – it's made just one fiction feature in more than 60 years – and while America may have relinquished its control of the canal, the grip of its cultural colonialism has proven much more difficult to loosen. Read more... |
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