Film
theartsdesk Q&A: Actor Toby JonesWednesday, 12 January 2011![]() Toby Jones’s cameo in Notting Hill – he was cast as an over-eager fan of Julia Roberts - was deposited on the cutting-room floor. Most actors would have chalked it up as one of life’s bum raps. Jones, who while on set for his short scene was also... Read more... |
The Green HornetWednesday, 12 January 2011![]() The multiplatform franchise might sound like a modern concept - the film that leads parallel lives as video game, TV spin-off, T-shirt and toy. But no, ‘twas ever thus. Entertainment moguls have always known how to squeeze every last dime out of a... Read more... |
Blue ValentineWednesday, 12 January 2011![]() The American indie Blue Valentine was heralded in October by a sexy W magazine cover of its stars - Ryan Gosling smooching Michelle Williams’s temple as she parts her becrimsoned lips and gazes provocatively at us - and the restrictive NC-17... Read more... |
ConvictionTuesday, 11 January 2011![]() The real-life story behind Conviction had a big balloon over its head saying “Hollywood screenplay!!!”, and sure enough here’s director Tony Goldwyn’s big-screen version, with Hilary Swank striding out front carrying the banner for truth, justice... Read more... |
BBC Symphony Orchestra, John Wilson, BarbicanMonday, 10 January 2011![]() Once upon a time, composers ran Hollywood. As conductor John Wilson reminded us last night, 44-time Oscar nominee and movie composer Alfred Newman became so powerful as second in command at MGM that he had two security guards posted at his office... Read more... |
The Next Three DaysWednesday, 05 January 2011![]() For a while back there, Russell Crowe was incapable of a false move. LA Confidential, Gladiator and The Insider all flagged up a thrilling talent for pugnacious individualism. Here was an actor with a bit of dog in him, a street-smart upgrade on Mel... Read more... |
The King's SpeechTuesday, 04 January 2011![]() "Only project!" That's not quite what EM Forster famously wrote, but it serves as the leitmotif of The King's Speech, as ripe a piece of Oscar bait as you are likely to see this year. Neither as visceral as The Fighter nor as resonantly and fully... Read more... |
127 HoursTuesday, 04 January 2011![]() Made with the same furious energy which has characterised so much of Danny Boyle’s output, 127 Hours goes from the macro to the micro. It opens with a pounding split-screen assault of imagery depicting the frenetic, dehumanising nature of modern... Read more... |
Pete Postlethwaite, 1946-2011Monday, 03 January 2011![]() Pete Postlethwaite, who has died from cancer at the age of 64, was an extremely amicable man whom Hollywood had down as a lugubrious baddie. It happened in Aliens 3, in The Usual Suspects, in The Lost World: Jurassic Park.You could see Hollywood'... Read more... |
Love & Other DrugsTuesday, 28 December 2010![]() It’s difficult to know how to categorise Love & Other Drugs; is it a rom-com, a biopic, a melodrama, a satire or a hard-hitting attack on the influence that mega pharmaceutical companies have on America’s healthcare system? The film’s makers,... Read more... |
Year Out/Year In: Films to Remember and ForgetMonday, 27 December 2010![]() Avatar or The Hurt Locker? Although the Academy Awards are by no means the only barometer of cinematic trends, at this year’s Oscars the two centrifugal strains in contemporary movie-making went head to head. For Best Picture and Director, James... Read more... |
2010: A Film OdysseyMonday, 27 December 2010![]() 2010 will go down as the year I fell out of love with Johnny Depp. And not just because of his cringe-making Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland, an over-produced farrago which reduced Lewis Carroll's dark Victorian whimsy to a dull computer gamelike... Read more... |
