Film Category
Includes cinema reviews and trailers for upcoming films. A digest of the best and worst interviews on movies and cinema.
65th Edinburgh International Film Festival Delivers The Most Pretentious Press Release Of The Year
THE 65th Edinburgh International Film Festival is going to be just great. You should enjoy it if you like films and don’t let the god-awful press release put you off:
The blueprint for the 2011 Festival is here. Want to know more…?
On Monday 7 February, the 65th Edinburgh International Film Festival’s Artistic Advisors Mark Cousins and Lynda Myles delivered ‘EIFF65: Our Suggestions’: the first fruits of their rethink of the Festival. It has been an exciting few days here at Filmhouse, HQ of the Festival.
The Blueprint came in the form of note from Mark and Lynda to ‘Dear EIFF Colleagues and Friends’. It outlines a radical evolution of the form and content of the Festival, and reinvigorates the Festival as a primary cultural destination and territory for audiences in Edinburgh, Scotland, the UK and internationally. The Blueprint names the first tranche of Guest Curators, invited to dream what the Festival will and can be, to use film and the fabric of one of the world’s most beautiful and potent cities as a canvas, or screen.
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Posted: 15th, February 2011 | In: Film | Comment (1)
Baftas 2011: Winners And Helena Bonham-Carter’s Rain In Photos
BAFTAS 2011: Helena Bonham-Carter takes the metal face for the Best Supporting Actress, received for The King’s Speech. Outside London’s Royal Opera House, it’s raining. Will the mask make a decent umbrella? Or will it have stopped raining by the time Bonham-Carter ends her acceptance speech?
Others also have faces…
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London Critics’ Circle Film Awards 2011: Photos
THE 31st annual London Film Critics’ Circle Awards in photos: To the BFI Southbank with Colin Firth (The King’s Speech), Helena Bonham Carter, Aaron Sorkin, Rosamund Pike, Sam Taylor-Wood, Will Poulter, Olivia Williams, Kristin Scott Thomas, Mike Leigh, Thomas Turgoose, Peter Wight and Will Poulter.
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The Baftas 2011: Emma Watson’s Head On A Stick
Orange BAFTA staff member Aimee Hall lays out heads on sticks marking the seating plan at the Royal Opera House, in Covent Garden, London, ahead of the Orange British Academy Film Awards, which takes place on Sunday February 13, 2011.
Chalet Girl: The Premiere Photos Are Snow Joke
TO the Premiere of Chalet Girl – “A fantastic snow-mantic comedy” – with Bill Bailey, Tamsin Egerton, Bill Nighy and Ed Westwick. The story is that the poor, pretty, talented girl heads to the snotty ski resort to mix with the snots and win hearts, minds, and the heart of a photogenic reformed snot who – as luck would have it – has loadsa money…
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Amanda Knox Dry Heaves Watching Hayden Pantierre In Film Trailer
HAYDEN Panettiere is the woman starring in a made-for-TV film as Amanda Knox, the convicted killer who protests her innocent in the murder of Meredith Kercher. Knox is blonde, white and appealing in Perugia, a picturesque part of Italy. The film is called Amanda Knox: Murder On Trial In Italy, a title that suggests that Italy is as much to blame as Knox.
Here’s Pantierre, whose reading of a script gives her a valuable insight into the murder of an innocent British woman:
“I believe in the person that she deep down was. And I think that no matter, regardless of innocent or guilty, I believe she was a… she has a spirit. You know she’s a real person. She was a young girl who had dreams and aspirations and was going to Italy to go to school and to broaden her horizons and have experiences and meet new people. And I don’t think that guilty or innocent takes away from that.”
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Posted: 8th, February 2011 | In: Film | Comments (2)
Andrew Garfield Spiderman Photos: Evening Standard Film Awards Winner Skins Up
THE Evening Standard film awards get in early before the Baftas and the Oscars. The entertainment season of AGMs come thick and fast – and not all of them are lucky enough to have Ricky Gervais to make the do appear anything other than an industry dinner.
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Posted: 8th, February 2011 | In: Film, Key Posts | Comment (1)
RIP Maria Schneider: A ‘Little Raped’ By Marlon Brando’s Butter Balls
RIP Maria Schneider, the actor best known for her performance in Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1972 drama Last Tango in Paris. The role defined her career. She was 19 when she starred in it. (Not every actor is lucky enough to have a footnote, let alone a definition.)
Anyone who’s ever seen the film will be familiar with the butter scene. It was unrehearsed and not in the script. Said Maria Schneider:
“I should have called my agent or had my lawyer come to the set because you can’t force someone to do something that isn’t in the script, but at the time, I didn’t know that. Marlon said to me: ‘Maria, don’t worry, it’s just a movie,’ but during the scene, even though what Marlon was doing wasn’t real, I was crying real tears. I felt humiliated and to be honest, I felt a little raped, both by Marlon and by Bertolucci. After the scene, Marlon didn’t console me or apologise. Thankfully, there was just one take.”
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James Franco Will Teach Class About James Franco: Trueman Show Made Real
JAMES Franco is to teach us in the ways of James Franco at Columbia College Hollywood. The module is called Master Class: Editing James Franco… with James Franco.
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Elton John Show Off Zachary At Gnomeo Premiere: Photos
TO the premiere of Gnomeo and Julie (it is as it sounds – gnome meets lover; gnome losers lover; gnome impales himself on fishing rod barb). The film is produced by news dads Elton John and David Furnish, they of the censored sperm shake. This might well be the future for Elton.
New celebrity mums and dads are fond of turning their soft hands to the creative arts and bringing us ranges of clothing and books so that we plebs can dress our sprogs like better looking and more talented babies. We can read our kidzzz the same stories, perhaps while impersonating the famous writer and thus increase the chance, however miniscule, that our child will not grow up to resent our inability to get them record deal and a modelling contract with Chanel.
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Posted: 31st, January 2011 | In: Film, Key Posts | Comment (1)
Endhiran Is The Most Expensive Cheap Film Ever
ENDHIRAN (The Robot) is the ultimate Indian film of all time. It’s the most expensive film in the history of in Indian cinema. And yet they producers and talent has made it look so very cheap.
It is mind boggling:
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Posted: 28th, January 2011 | In: Film | Comments (5)
The Oscars 2011: The Nominations (Including Jessica Alba And Twilight)
THE 2011 Academy Award nominees are not Jennifer Aniston (nominated for the Razzie for Worst Actress for her role in The Bounty Hunter) The Last Airbender (nine Razzie noms – we saw it; it is deserving), Twilight stars Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner and Kristen Stewart, and Jessica Alba, who has four nominations for Worst Supporting Actress.
Best Film:
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
The King’s Speech
127 Hours
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter’s Bone
Best Supporting Actor
Christian Bale, The Fighter
John Hawkes, Winter’s Bone
Jeremy Renner, The Town
Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right
Geoffery Rush, The King’s Speech
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Kevin Smith Buys Red State: Stoned Masturbating Demographic Waits For Download
KEVIN Smith bought his film Red State for $20. He is now in control of the marketing – see stories about his buying own film for $20.
Says Smith:
I never wanted to know jack shit about business. I’m a fat, masturbating stoner. That’s why I got into the movie business. I thought that was where fat, masturbating stoners went. And if somebody had told me at the beginning of my career, you’re going to have to learn so much about business, finance, amortization, all that shit, monetization, I would have been like, ‘Fuck it. I’m just going to stay home and masturbate. That’s too much work, man.’ It took seven years for Clerks, a movie that cost $27,575, to go into profit.
He makes a point well. The film industry so so laughably earnest. The televised AGMs are moribund and cheesy; the film industry gongs are given out with a gravitas and sense of worthiness the Three Wise Men would have found ” a bit much”.
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The Golden Globes: All You Need To Know
THE Golden Globes 2011: The best video, gifs and action. and Ricky Gervais sounding just like Russell Brand. There’s is the new British accent in LA:
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Quentin Tarantino’s First Movie: Watch My Best Friend’s Birthday
THIS is Quentin Tarantino’s first movie. The title is My Best Friend’s Birthday. He made it in 1987. It cost $5000 in 1987. Here’s what left of it…
Spotter: Kottke
Glenn Close Is The Feminine Mr Nobbs: Exclusive Photos
THAT man in the bowler hat is Glenn Close. She’s playing the eponymous hero in the film Albert Nobbs, And who is Mr Nobbs? Why, he’s the Englishwoman disguised as a man in order to work as a butler in 19th-century Ireland. It’s a tale of Nobbs, knobs and hob-knobs. Here’s Glenn
Strongman Is Stanless Steel: A Film Hit For 2011
HERE’S the trailer for Strongman – a film documentary about Stanless Steel – “The Strongest Man in the World at Bending Steel and Metal”.
He’s the first man since the Cyclops in the 1890’s to legitimately bend coins in his fingers.
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Peter Postlethwaite Picked A Good Day To Die
DID Peter Postlethwaite pick a good day to die? The actor Stephen Spielberg called “the best actor in the world” is front-page news. But in life he was never so lauded. Aldous Huxley and CS Lewis died on the same day as President John Kennedy. Only one of them hogged the headlines.
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Posted: 4th, January 2011 | In: Film | Comments (2)
Blaxploitation Films: A Gallery Of Film History
BLAXPLOITATION films of the 1970s showed black people on the big screen as the stars of the show. The working class characters were larger than life. The films were cheap to make, and with their lurid colours, confused plots, clownish costumes, absurd lines and jarring scene changes they looked it. Jim Brown, Richard Roundtree, Vonetta McGee and Pam Grier (NSFW) were big names in the movies. The women were gorgeous, feisty and sexy. The men were muscular and tough.
You might wonder why the word “exploitation” was used to describe such films as Black Dynamite, Blacular and Shaft. The films starred a black cast. But were they exploitative? No. They gave black stars a chance to perform and entertain. Blacks got to see people who looked like them being something more than a wise maid or a magical fool.
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Posted: 3rd, January 2011 | In: Film | Comment (1)
Daniel Craig And Rachel Weisz’s Real Life Dream House Romance: Photos
ARE Daniel Craig and actress Rachel Weisz at it? The NoTW says the actors are embroiled in “secret romance”. So secret is it that the stars of the big screen are in Dorset (sources suggest The Pavilion in Milborne Wick).
where they have “strolled to a country pub where they snuggled together in front of the fire for a Christmas Eve drink”.
Even more secretively, you might have read bout it on December 1?
And get this:
Warmly wrapped in thick coats, scarves and wellies – and with their faces almost hidden under sunglasses and woolly hats – they held hands and occasionally clung on to each other as they gingerly manoeuvred their way down icy lanes.
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Posted: 26th, December 2010 | In: Film | Comments (3)
Hollywood Stars First Films: A Great Gallery
FOR every Johnny Depp, who made his firm film appearance in A Nightmare on Elm Street (movie), 1984, there are thousands of actors who never went on to make it big. In this gallery who will see when some of Hollywoods legends made their debut. Would a young Tom Hanks survive He Knows You’re Alone? Sylvester Stallone’s first big acting job was The Party at Kitty and Stud’s, a 1970 soft porn flick. Who knew..?
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Star Wars: Darth Vader And C-3PO Started Out As German And French Firefighters
DID George Lucas get inspiration for Star Wars heavy breather and stuff shirt Darth Vader and C-3PO, respectively, from Vajen-Bader–style helmets for German (menacing black one) and French (flashy golden one) firefighters?
The masks are from between the mid-1800s and World War I.
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Mel Gibson’s The Beaver Is Film Gold: Trailer
MEL Gibson is back as the star of The Beaver. Jodie Foster directs Mel as a man with puppet on his hand. It’s a beaver and Mel treats it as if it were real. His character name is Walter Black (*note a gang-banging black – just a white man with a rodent on his hand).
The script for this gem was top of the 2008 Black List of the best unproduced screenplays in Hollywood. And if you don’t want to see the odious Mel running about the place talking to a beaver glove, you have no love of culture. The film sounds fantastic.
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Posted: 6th, December 2010 | In: Film | Comment (1)
Amanda Knox Film Reduces Meredith Kercher To An Extra At Her Own Funeral
AMANDA Knox is not only a murderess appealing against her conviction for her part in the brutal killing for Meredith Kercher, she is a muse, inspiring a TV film called the The Amanda Knox Story. It’s a title that reduces Kercher to an extra in the made-for-TV film of her death.
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Posted: 6th, December 2010 | In: Film | Comments (4)
One Direction Dazzled By Victoria Swarovski At Chronicles Of Narnia Premiere: Photos
TO The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Voyage Of The Dawn Trader premiere in London’s snowy and gritty Leicester Square. Laura Brent, Georgie Henley, Liam Neeson and Anna Popplewell preened and posed. Downturn Abbey writer Julian Fellowes posed with someone called Emma Kitchener-Fellowes, who looked like the reincarnation of Falco, the Austrian singer who sang Amadeus.
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