Film
Filming Woodstock: Fact, Fiction, FantasySaturday, 07 November 2009
The most famous rock festival in history celebrated its 40th anniversary this summer in an orgy of nostalgia. Michael Wadleigh's Academy Award-winning 1970 documentary Woodstock was re-released, the media were flooded with reminiscences and analyses... Read more... |
Henri-Georges Clouzot's InfernoTuesday, 03 November 2009
When a film shoot is in trouble, with actors dying on set, the heavens opening and other acts of God putting a spanner in the works, it’s usually a gigantic directorial ego which hauls the troubled production over the line. You think of Michael... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Cheltenham: Screenwriters gatherSunday, 01 November 2009
The Victorian Gothic (with 1970s additions) maze of Cheltenham Ladies’ College is a far cry from the sun-blasted soundstages of Los Angeles, particularly at this time of year when it’s surrounded by deep piles of swirling autumn leaves. Nevertheless... Read more... |
An EducationMonday, 26 October 2009
London, 1961. Duffle coats are the ne plus ultra in hipster cool, everybody smokes like fury and black people are known as negroes in enlightened society (and even enlightened society wouldn't want them moving in next door). In the congenial, shiny-... Read more... |
Jennifer's BodyMonday, 26 October 2009Blame it on the bloody menarche. The combination of schoolgirls and horror is so intoxicating it's a wonder there haven't been more films like Carrie, Suspiria or Ginger Snaps to exploit that tricky adolescent surge of oestrogen. So I'm sorry to... Read more... |
ColinWednesday, 21 October 2009
There has been robust debate on the internet over whether Colin could, in fact, have been made for such a small sum - it makes the forthcoming chiller Paranormal Activity, made for $10,000 and now a huge box-office hit in the US thanks to a vigorous... Read more... |
Film: Johnny Mad DogMonday, 19 October 2009The raucous young lads swaggering down the streets of a charred, deserted town could be the Lost Boys in an African production of Peter Pan. Some are in their late teens, others are no older than 10 or 11, but most are decked out in fancy-dress garb... Read more... |
The Men Who Stare at Goats, London Film FestivalSunday, 18 October 2009
A rubicund major-general leaps up from his desk, scrunches up his face in concentration, breaks into a run and belts towards the office wall, intending to race through it. Sadly, in this opening sequence of The Men Who Stare at Goats, he falls flat... Read more... |
Fantastic Mr Fox, London Film FestivalThursday, 15 October 2009It would be an understatement to say that the auguries weren't good for Wes Anderson's first animated movie, the world premiere of which opened the London Film Festival last night. The distributor - Twentieth Century Fox, by a neat coincidence - was... Read more... |
The Imaginarium of Doctor ParnassusTuesday, 13 October 2009
Terry Gilliam set toupees a-flutter with a feisty piece in the Sunday Times about the pandemonium surrounding the release of his new film, firing off broadsides at Tracey Emin and gossips who spread malicious rumours about the late Heath Ledger, and... Read more... |
Werner Herzog: Huie's Sermon and God's Angry ManTuesday, 13 October 2009A familiar Herzogian weirdness was on display at last night's Herzog documentary double bill. And not all of it was cinematic. The organisers of the Herzog retrospective had matched up out-of-the-way venues to specific Herzog movies, and these... Read more... |
Actress Carey Mulligan, Emotionally SpeakingTuesday, 13 October 2009
“You’ve no idea how boring everything was before I met you.” As written by Nick Hornby and spoken by Carey Mulligan in An Education, these words of gratitude come after a moment of stillness in which Jenny, Mulligan’s character, reflects on her... Read more... |
