Step back in time with Director Renny Rye as he reminisces about his role in the groundbreaking television series “Karaoke” in the nostalgic special “Renny Rye Remembers… Karaoke.” Airing at 10:00 Pm on Sunday, June 9, 2024, on BBC Four, this program offers a rare glimpse behind the scenes of one of television’s most innovative productions.
“Karaoke” was not just any series; it was a unique collaboration between the BBC and Channel 4, orchestrated by the visionary writing of Dennis Potter. Renny Rye played a pivotal role in bringing Potter’s bold vision to life on screen, and in this special, he shares his insights and memories from the making of this iconic show.
Viewers can expect to be transported back to the 1990s, a time when television was undergoing a creative renaissance, and “Karaoke” stood out as a shining example of bold storytelling and boundary-pushing filmmaking. Through Renny Rye’s reflections,...
“Karaoke” was not just any series; it was a unique collaboration between the BBC and Channel 4, orchestrated by the visionary writing of Dennis Potter. Renny Rye played a pivotal role in bringing Potter’s bold vision to life on screen, and in this special, he shares his insights and memories from the making of this iconic show.
Viewers can expect to be transported back to the 1990s, a time when television was undergoing a creative renaissance, and “Karaoke” stood out as a shining example of bold storytelling and boundary-pushing filmmaking. Through Renny Rye’s reflections,...
- 6/3/2024
- by Posts UK
- TV Everyday
Bernard Hill, the actor whose memorable tones and rugged visage brought to life a variety of fantastic performances, has died. He was 79.
Born in Manchester in 1944, Hill quickly gravitated towards stage work before taking the chance to make the jump to film and TV. Yet his early career was marked by few standout roles, mostly relegated to brief appearances on the likes of I, Claudius and the BBC's Tom Stoppard adaptation Professional Foul.
Still, he found one of the first parts that would define his career in Alan Bleasdale's The Black Stuff, a one-off TV play in 1980 that the writer would expand into classic comedy drama Boys From The Blackstuff. Hill scored a BAFTA nomination for his performance as the tragic, yet dimly self-aware Yosser.
Other TV work included Dennis Potter adaptation Lipstick On Your Collar, a huge swathe of Shakespeare adaptations including Wolf Hall, disability drama Skallagrigg,...
Born in Manchester in 1944, Hill quickly gravitated towards stage work before taking the chance to make the jump to film and TV. Yet his early career was marked by few standout roles, mostly relegated to brief appearances on the likes of I, Claudius and the BBC's Tom Stoppard adaptation Professional Foul.
Still, he found one of the first parts that would define his career in Alan Bleasdale's The Black Stuff, a one-off TV play in 1980 that the writer would expand into classic comedy drama Boys From The Blackstuff. Hill scored a BAFTA nomination for his performance as the tragic, yet dimly self-aware Yosser.
Other TV work included Dennis Potter adaptation Lipstick On Your Collar, a huge swathe of Shakespeare adaptations including Wolf Hall, disability drama Skallagrigg,...
- 5/5/2024
- by James White
- Empire - Movies
For The Ages
Revered Indian actor Waheeda Rehman, who was accorded the Dadasaheb Phalke award, India’s highest film honor, last year, has donated her personal memorabilia to the Film Heritage Foundation (Fhf) for preservation. Rehman, the 86-year-old grande dame of Indian cinema, has worked with most of the legendary filmmakers of her country during her career and the roles she chose were in films that are considered classics in the annals of Indian cinema. She worked with Guru Dutt in “Pyaasa” (1957) and “Kaagaz Ke Phool” (1959), Satyajit Ray in “Abhijaan” (1962), Basu Bhattacharya in “Teesri Kasam” (1966) and Yash Chopra in “Kabhie Kabhie” (1976), among many other memorable roles.
The donated material includes the saree Rehman wore to the “C.I.D.” premiere in 1956, her photo albums and photographs and lobby cards from “Kaagaz Ke Phool,” “Chaudvin Ka Chand” (1960), “Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam” (1962) “C.I.D.,” “Bees Saal Baad” (1962) and “Baat Ek Raat Ki” (1962). The donation was...
Revered Indian actor Waheeda Rehman, who was accorded the Dadasaheb Phalke award, India’s highest film honor, last year, has donated her personal memorabilia to the Film Heritage Foundation (Fhf) for preservation. Rehman, the 86-year-old grande dame of Indian cinema, has worked with most of the legendary filmmakers of her country during her career and the roles she chose were in films that are considered classics in the annals of Indian cinema. She worked with Guru Dutt in “Pyaasa” (1957) and “Kaagaz Ke Phool” (1959), Satyajit Ray in “Abhijaan” (1962), Basu Bhattacharya in “Teesri Kasam” (1966) and Yash Chopra in “Kabhie Kabhie” (1976), among many other memorable roles.
The donated material includes the saree Rehman wore to the “C.I.D.” premiere in 1956, her photo albums and photographs and lobby cards from “Kaagaz Ke Phool,” “Chaudvin Ka Chand” (1960), “Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam” (1962) “C.I.D.,” “Bees Saal Baad” (1962) and “Baat Ek Raat Ki” (1962). The donation was...
- 3/13/2024
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
First of all – is the BBC allowed to air a drama without a detective or a horse-drawn carriage in it? Can somebody check?
Crime and period’s drama dominance isn’t the only modern TV trend bucked by The Way. Actor Michael Sheen’s directorial debut is a wild throwback to the society-falls-apart TV of the past: Threads. The Year of the Sex Olympics. The Guardians. Cold Lazarus… all those wiggy, provocative Nigel Kneale and Dennis Potter stories that aimed for more than just audience share.
Written by Sherwood and Quiz’s James Graham, and co-created with documentary maker Adam Curtis, The Way also aims high – too high for what it’s able to achieve in three episodes, making it much more a curio than a must-see.
The drama imagines a Welsh civil uprising that turns the country into a closed-border police state and its people into persecution-fleeing refugees. It follows the Driscolls,...
Crime and period’s drama dominance isn’t the only modern TV trend bucked by The Way. Actor Michael Sheen’s directorial debut is a wild throwback to the society-falls-apart TV of the past: Threads. The Year of the Sex Olympics. The Guardians. Cold Lazarus… all those wiggy, provocative Nigel Kneale and Dennis Potter stories that aimed for more than just audience share.
Written by Sherwood and Quiz’s James Graham, and co-created with documentary maker Adam Curtis, The Way also aims high – too high for what it’s able to achieve in three episodes, making it much more a curio than a must-see.
The drama imagines a Welsh civil uprising that turns the country into a closed-border police state and its people into persecution-fleeing refugees. It follows the Driscolls,...
- 2/19/2024
- by Louisa Mellor
- Den of Geek
The 1980s enjoys a privileged, some might even argue inflated position in the sci-fi pantheon. In the US, it was the decade that gave us two thirds of the original Star Wars trilogy, Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, Terminator and Tron. In TV land, Star Trek got a brand new Generation, Quantums Leapt, Knights Rode, and of course, Alf.
But on the other side of the pond, British science fiction television was doing things the way we British always have – for less money, and a bit more bleak. But it wasn’t all creepy John Wyndham adaptations and hostile alien invasions, the 1980s also delivered a couple of British space comedy classics, along with the most underrated series in sci-fi history.
The Day of the Triffids (1981)
Stream on: purchase-only on Sky Store, Google Play, Amazon (UK); disc import only (US)
For our money, still the only decent adaptation of John...
But on the other side of the pond, British science fiction television was doing things the way we British always have – for less money, and a bit more bleak. But it wasn’t all creepy John Wyndham adaptations and hostile alien invasions, the 1980s also delivered a couple of British space comedy classics, along with the most underrated series in sci-fi history.
The Day of the Triffids (1981)
Stream on: purchase-only on Sky Store, Google Play, Amazon (UK); disc import only (US)
For our money, still the only decent adaptation of John...
- 2/2/2024
- by Louisa Mellor
- Den of Geek
Christopher Nolan moderated a Q&a with Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie to discuss “The Curse,” the satirical comedy series starring Fielder and Emma Stone from Showtime and Paramount+, following a screening of the first episode. The “Oppenheimer” director said the show is “unlike anything I’ve ever seen on television before.”
“There are so few shows that come along that genuinely have no precedents,” Nolan said. “I mean, you’re going back to things like ‘Twin Peaks’ or ‘The Prisoner’ or Dennis Potter’s ‘Singing Detective’ — things like that. So you’re in an amazing space, and I can’t wait for audiences to catch up with the climax.”
Nolan also praised Fielder’s HBO series “The Rehearsal” and Safdie’s filmography with his brother Josh.
Fielder and Stone portray a married couple with their own HGTV show called “Fliplanthrophy.” Things take a turn when an alleged curse begins...
“There are so few shows that come along that genuinely have no precedents,” Nolan said. “I mean, you’re going back to things like ‘Twin Peaks’ or ‘The Prisoner’ or Dennis Potter’s ‘Singing Detective’ — things like that. So you’re in an amazing space, and I can’t wait for audiences to catch up with the climax.”
Nolan also praised Fielder’s HBO series “The Rehearsal” and Safdie’s filmography with his brother Josh.
Fielder and Stone portray a married couple with their own HGTV show called “Fliplanthrophy.” Things take a turn when an alleged curse begins...
- 1/28/2024
- by Caroline Brew
- Variety Film + TV
Christopher Nolan is one of the biggest theatrical distribution purists you’ll find in Hollywood, but he still knows a good TV show when he sees one.
Nolan recently moderated a Q&a with his “Oppenheimer” star Benny Safdie and Nathan Fielder, co-creators and stars of the acclaimed Showtime series “The Curse.” In a new video of the panel released by Showtime, Nolan praised the dark real estate satire as one of the most exciting television projects in recent memory.
“It’s an incredible show,” Nolan said. “It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen on television before.”
Nolan compared “The Curse” to landmark television events like David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks” for its ability to transcend conventional television boundaries and tell a genre-bending story with its own distinct format.
“There are so few shows that come along that have genuinely no precedence,” he said. “You’re going back to things like ‘Twin Peaks,...
Nolan recently moderated a Q&a with his “Oppenheimer” star Benny Safdie and Nathan Fielder, co-creators and stars of the acclaimed Showtime series “The Curse.” In a new video of the panel released by Showtime, Nolan praised the dark real estate satire as one of the most exciting television projects in recent memory.
“It’s an incredible show,” Nolan said. “It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen on television before.”
Nolan compared “The Curse” to landmark television events like David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks” for its ability to transcend conventional television boundaries and tell a genre-bending story with its own distinct format.
“There are so few shows that come along that have genuinely no precedence,” he said. “You’re going back to things like ‘Twin Peaks,...
- 1/28/2024
- by Christian Zilko
- Indiewire
Michael Gambon, the Irish-born actor knighted for his storied career on the stage and screen and who gained admiration from a new generation of moviegoers with his portrayal of Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore in six of the eight “Harry Potter” films, has died. He was 82.
A statement by his family, issued by his publicist Thursday, said the actor died following “a bout of pneumonia.”
“We are devastated to announce the loss of Sir Michael Gambon. Beloved husband and father, Michael died peacefully in hospital with his wife Anne and son Fergus at his bedside,” his family said.
Read More: Back To Hogwarts! Where To Watch All The ‘Harry Potter’ Movies
While the “Potter” role raised Gambon’s international profile and found him a huge audience, he had long been recognized as one of Britain’s leading actors. His work spanned TV, theatre and radio, and he starred in dozens of...
A statement by his family, issued by his publicist Thursday, said the actor died following “a bout of pneumonia.”
“We are devastated to announce the loss of Sir Michael Gambon. Beloved husband and father, Michael died peacefully in hospital with his wife Anne and son Fergus at his bedside,” his family said.
Read More: Back To Hogwarts! Where To Watch All The ‘Harry Potter’ Movies
While the “Potter” role raised Gambon’s international profile and found him a huge audience, he had long been recognized as one of Britain’s leading actors. His work spanned TV, theatre and radio, and he starred in dozens of...
- 9/28/2023
- by Becca Longmire
- ET Canada
Michael Gambon, a protégé of Laurence Olivier and giant of the British stage who portrayed Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore, apparently with little effort, in the final six Harry Potter movies, has died. He was 82.
“The Great Gambon,” as Ralph Richardson once called him, died “peacefully in hospital with his wife Anne and son Fergus at his bedside, following a bout of pneumonia,” according to a family statement provided Thursday by a publicist.
Among the first group of actors recruited by Olivier for the National Theatre Company in the early 1960s, Gambon, a Dublin native, was nominated 13 times for an Olivier Award, winning in 1986 and ’90 for Alan Ayckbourn’s A Chorus of Disapproval and Man of the Moment, respectively, and in 1988 for Arthur Miller’s A View From the Bridge.
He received another one for his turn as a recently widowed businessman trying to reunite with his former mistress in Skylight,...
“The Great Gambon,” as Ralph Richardson once called him, died “peacefully in hospital with his wife Anne and son Fergus at his bedside, following a bout of pneumonia,” according to a family statement provided Thursday by a publicist.
Among the first group of actors recruited by Olivier for the National Theatre Company in the early 1960s, Gambon, a Dublin native, was nominated 13 times for an Olivier Award, winning in 1986 and ’90 for Alan Ayckbourn’s A Chorus of Disapproval and Man of the Moment, respectively, and in 1988 for Arthur Miller’s A View From the Bridge.
He received another one for his turn as a recently widowed businessman trying to reunite with his former mistress in Skylight,...
- 9/28/2023
- by Alex Ritman
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Louis Theroux, the renowned British documentarian who has been a staple on U.K. TV and radio for more than two decades, is set to deliver the 2023 James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture, the flagship address of the Edinburgh TV Festival.
While he’s arguably best known in the U.S for his 2015 documentary feature My Scientology Feature (in which he’s seen in several comical altercations with church enforcers), Theroux has been a cult figure and beloved interviewer in the U.K. since the late 1990s for his BBC doc series including as Weird Weekends and When Louis Met…, shows that saw him cover off-beat human experiences as well as hard-hitting subject matters. In his trademark style, Theroux has explored the world of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church, plus porn stars, survivalists, swingers and neo-Nazis, and has spent time with several noted individuals (most famously Jimmy Savile, several years before his...
While he’s arguably best known in the U.S for his 2015 documentary feature My Scientology Feature (in which he’s seen in several comical altercations with church enforcers), Theroux has been a cult figure and beloved interviewer in the U.K. since the late 1990s for his BBC doc series including as Weird Weekends and When Louis Met…, shows that saw him cover off-beat human experiences as well as hard-hitting subject matters. In his trademark style, Theroux has explored the world of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church, plus porn stars, survivalists, swingers and neo-Nazis, and has spent time with several noted individuals (most famously Jimmy Savile, several years before his...
- 6/29/2023
- by Alex Ritman
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The actor on working with Dennis Potter, channelling real life in Abigail’s Party and a groundbreaking lesbian snog
You and Myra Frances shared UK TV’s first lesbian kiss in a 1974 BBC drama, Girl. What are your memories of this taboo-breaking event? VerulamiumParkRanger
Well, I remember being very nervous about the whole thing. Then I got over it. Then I was worried about how my parents, who lived in a quiet suburban area of Liverpool, would cope. I thought: “My poor mum! The neighbours will be whispering: ‘Did you see your daughter on television?’” By the time we came to record, this great director [Peter Gill] didn’t make a fuss and said: “So this is the bit where they kiss … All right, quick kiss, let’s carry on.” I was just nervous about people’s reactions. But my mum was great, and the neighbours got over it quickly.
What...
You and Myra Frances shared UK TV’s first lesbian kiss in a 1974 BBC drama, Girl. What are your memories of this taboo-breaking event? VerulamiumParkRanger
Well, I remember being very nervous about the whole thing. Then I got over it. Then I was worried about how my parents, who lived in a quiet suburban area of Liverpool, would cope. I thought: “My poor mum! The neighbours will be whispering: ‘Did you see your daughter on television?’” By the time we came to record, this great director [Peter Gill] didn’t make a fuss and said: “So this is the bit where they kiss … All right, quick kiss, let’s carry on.” I was just nervous about people’s reactions. But my mum was great, and the neighbours got over it quickly.
What...
- 3/30/2023
- by As told to Rich Pelley
- The Guardian - Film News
Since the 70s Haggard also campaigned to secure rights and recognition for directors.
British film, television and theatre director Piers Haggard, who directed Pennies From Heaven and a campaigner for the rights of his fellow directors, has died aged 83.
He began his career in television in the 1960s before directing Dennis Potter adaptation Pennies From Heaven, starring Bob Hoskins, in 1978. It won a Bafta for Most Original Programme and is considered a landmark in British television history.
His film credits included cult classic The Blood On Satan’s Claw (1971); Quatermass (1979) written by Nigel Kneale; Venom (1982) with Oliver Reed and Klaus Kinski; Mrs.
British film, television and theatre director Piers Haggard, who directed Pennies From Heaven and a campaigner for the rights of his fellow directors, has died aged 83.
He began his career in television in the 1960s before directing Dennis Potter adaptation Pennies From Heaven, starring Bob Hoskins, in 1978. It won a Bafta for Most Original Programme and is considered a landmark in British television history.
His film credits included cult classic The Blood On Satan’s Claw (1971); Quatermass (1979) written by Nigel Kneale; Venom (1982) with Oliver Reed and Klaus Kinski; Mrs.
- 1/18/2023
- by Orlando Parfitt
- ScreenDaily
British director Piers Haggard has passed away aged 83.
He died “peacefully on January 11, 2023,” a statement from his agents said.
“He is deeply missed by his family, friends, colleagues, and the industry at large,” the statement continued.
Haggard worked in film, TV, and theater in a career that spanned five decades.
His work included credits on BBC TV shows such as The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes (1971) and Love for Lydia (1977) and films such as Wedding Night and influential folk horror feature The Blood on Satan’s Claw.
His best-known work was the BAFTA-winning 1979 series Pennies from Heaven, which was written by Dennis Potter and starring Bob Hoskins and Cheryl Campbell.
Born in London to parents Morna Gillespie and the actor, poet, and novelist Stephen Haggard, he started his career as an assistant director at the Royal Court in 1960, before moving to television in 1965.
His daughter is Daisy Haggard, the comedy actor...
He died “peacefully on January 11, 2023,” a statement from his agents said.
“He is deeply missed by his family, friends, colleagues, and the industry at large,” the statement continued.
Haggard worked in film, TV, and theater in a career that spanned five decades.
His work included credits on BBC TV shows such as The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes (1971) and Love for Lydia (1977) and films such as Wedding Night and influential folk horror feature The Blood on Satan’s Claw.
His best-known work was the BAFTA-winning 1979 series Pennies from Heaven, which was written by Dennis Potter and starring Bob Hoskins and Cheryl Campbell.
Born in London to parents Morna Gillespie and the actor, poet, and novelist Stephen Haggard, he started his career as an assistant director at the Royal Court in 1960, before moving to television in 1965.
His daughter is Daisy Haggard, the comedy actor...
- 1/17/2023
- by Jesse Whittock and Zac Ntim
- Deadline Film + TV
Nothing has illustrated the current turmoil in British politics quite as starkly as the recent tanking of the pound against the dollar, a puzzle even to the ruling party whose prime minister and chancellor caused it. Richard Eyre’s fitfully funny Allelujah reflects this schism in more ways than one, balancing broad grey-pound comedy and seriously macabre drama with the result that a seemingly gentle satire inexplicably dives into a murky existential abyss in its final act. Even fans of Alan Bennett, the famously folksy playwright and national treasure of the north, will struggle with the juxtaposition of wry bathos and savagery, the latter ramped up from Allelujah’s original incarnation as a Bennett stage play sprinkled with Dennis Potter-style song-and-dance numbers.
The subject is the UK’s National Health Service, once the envy of the world and now the subject of a massive culture war between the sentimental left and the neoliberal right,...
The subject is the UK’s National Health Service, once the envy of the world and now the subject of a massive culture war between the sentimental left and the neoliberal right,...
- 10/1/2022
- by Damon Wise
- Deadline Film + TV
Welcome to My Favorite Moment! In this series, IndieWire speaks to actors behind a few of our favorite television performances about their personal-best onscreen moment and how it came together.
Over the course of the Hulu show “The Dropout,” Naveen Andrews brings the entire emotional spectrum to former Theranos president and COO Sunny Balwani. Through Balwani’s fraught relationship with future tech world fascination Elizabeth Holmes (Amanda Seyfried), Andrews finds a certain combination of charm, menace, paranoia, anger, pity, and bafflement.
All of those are present in the sequence in Episode 5 that takes place at the sunlit Theranos office. Holmes’ impromptu dance to the Lil Wayne song “How to Love” became one of the memeworthy moments of “The Dropout.” But for all the unexpected oddities of that moment, Andrews is an anchor that keeps that scene from being a goofy curveball in the midst of a focused character study.
Not...
Over the course of the Hulu show “The Dropout,” Naveen Andrews brings the entire emotional spectrum to former Theranos president and COO Sunny Balwani. Through Balwani’s fraught relationship with future tech world fascination Elizabeth Holmes (Amanda Seyfried), Andrews finds a certain combination of charm, menace, paranoia, anger, pity, and bafflement.
All of those are present in the sequence in Episode 5 that takes place at the sunlit Theranos office. Holmes’ impromptu dance to the Lil Wayne song “How to Love” became one of the memeworthy moments of “The Dropout.” But for all the unexpected oddities of that moment, Andrews is an anchor that keeps that scene from being a goofy curveball in the midst of a focused character study.
Not...
- 5/26/2022
- by Steve Greene
- Indiewire
Film and television director and leading light of arts journalism in the 1960s and 70s
Gavin Millar, who has died aged 84 from a brain tumour, was a leading light of television arts journalism of the 1960s and 70s before going on to direct work by Alan Bennett, Dennis Potter and Victoria Wood.
His richest film was Dreamchild (1985), written by Potter, in which the elderly Alice Liddell (Coral Browne) reflects on her youthful relationship with Charles Dodgson, Aka Lewis Carroll, who used her as the inspiration for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. As well as shaping complex performances from Browne in her final screen appearance, and Ian Holm as the squirming, tormented Dodgson, Millar negotiated tonal shifts and moral ambiguities that might have foxed a less humane or sensitive film-maker.
Gavin Millar, who has died aged 84 from a brain tumour, was a leading light of television arts journalism of the 1960s and 70s before going on to direct work by Alan Bennett, Dennis Potter and Victoria Wood.
His richest film was Dreamchild (1985), written by Potter, in which the elderly Alice Liddell (Coral Browne) reflects on her youthful relationship with Charles Dodgson, Aka Lewis Carroll, who used her as the inspiration for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. As well as shaping complex performances from Browne in her final screen appearance, and Ian Holm as the squirming, tormented Dodgson, Millar negotiated tonal shifts and moral ambiguities that might have foxed a less humane or sensitive film-maker.
- 4/28/2022
- by Ryan Gilbey
- The Guardian - Film News
By Lee Pfeiffer
With Russia currently warming up to the idea of a new Cold War, I thought it might be relevant to look back on the 1983 crime thriller "Gorky Park". The film was based on Martin Cruz Smith's international bestseller and was unique in its day because it centered on subterfuge within the Soviet law enforcement system and was set primarily in Moscow. Director Michael Apted had hoped to be the first major Hollywood studio production to shoot within the Soviet Union but unsurprisingly he was turned down due to the fact that the story dealt with systemic corruption throughout every layer of the government. Apted settled for the next best thing, shooting in Finland and Sweden, both of which make convincing substitutes for the Ussr. Transforming the lengthy, complex novel to a screenplay could have been no easy task, even for acclaimed screenwriter Dennis Potter ("Pennies from Heaven...
With Russia currently warming up to the idea of a new Cold War, I thought it might be relevant to look back on the 1983 crime thriller "Gorky Park". The film was based on Martin Cruz Smith's international bestseller and was unique in its day because it centered on subterfuge within the Soviet law enforcement system and was set primarily in Moscow. Director Michael Apted had hoped to be the first major Hollywood studio production to shoot within the Soviet Union but unsurprisingly he was turned down due to the fact that the story dealt with systemic corruption throughout every layer of the government. Apted settled for the next best thing, shooting in Finland and Sweden, both of which make convincing substitutes for the Ussr. Transforming the lengthy, complex novel to a screenplay could have been no easy task, even for acclaimed screenwriter Dennis Potter ("Pennies from Heaven...
- 4/15/2022
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Scottish artist Gordon Shaw talks cancer and comic books in this tender study of a man facing an uncertain future
Gordon Shaw is a Scottish artist and comic book creator who was diagnosed with a brain tumour in his early 30s; this documentary shows him coming to terms with his condition by transforming it into graphic art, an open-ended autobiographical project which takes the form of zines, pictures and exhibitions.
Shaw has the inspired idea of taking the notorious buzzing and deafening clangs experienced by people undergoing an Mri scan and converting these sounds into an electronic musical event, which people would experience from within a scanner-style enclosure. He calls his tumour “Rick” and this film shows him fighting the growth with humour and honesty.
Gordon Shaw is a Scottish artist and comic book creator who was diagnosed with a brain tumour in his early 30s; this documentary shows him coming to terms with his condition by transforming it into graphic art, an open-ended autobiographical project which takes the form of zines, pictures and exhibitions.
Shaw has the inspired idea of taking the notorious buzzing and deafening clangs experienced by people undergoing an Mri scan and converting these sounds into an electronic musical event, which people would experience from within a scanner-style enclosure. He calls his tumour “Rick” and this film shows him fighting the growth with humour and honesty.
- 3/14/2022
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
As he stars alongside Olivia Colman in a drama about the Mansfield Murders, the actor talks about his discomfort with Naked, doing night shoots with Julie Walters – and growing old grotesquely
David Thewlis, speaking by Zoom from his home in the Berkshire village of Sunningdale, has set his screen at a jaunty angle. His manner is equable, nerdy, eager to please. Nothing like what you’d expect, in other words – unless you had watched Landscapers, a new four-part TV drama in which Thewlis stars opposite Olivia Colman. Perhaps he’s one of those actors who doesn’t de-role until he’s on to the next character.
Landscapers is true crime, in so far as the protagonists are Susan and Christopher Edwards, the so-called Mansfield Murderers convicted in 2014 of killing Susan’s parents and burying them in the garden 15 years before. Yet it is absolutely nothing like true crime. It jumps through time and genre,...
David Thewlis, speaking by Zoom from his home in the Berkshire village of Sunningdale, has set his screen at a jaunty angle. His manner is equable, nerdy, eager to please. Nothing like what you’d expect, in other words – unless you had watched Landscapers, a new four-part TV drama in which Thewlis stars opposite Olivia Colman. Perhaps he’s one of those actors who doesn’t de-role until he’s on to the next character.
Landscapers is true crime, in so far as the protagonists are Susan and Christopher Edwards, the so-called Mansfield Murderers convicted in 2014 of killing Susan’s parents and burying them in the garden 15 years before. Yet it is absolutely nothing like true crime. It jumps through time and genre,...
- 12/7/2021
- by Zoe Williams
- The Guardian - Film News
With his new film, The Birthday Cake, out next week, we take a look at the best roles of the Scottish actor – and no, Phantom Menace is not on it
Lip-syncing in Dennis Potter’s 1993 musical drama Lipstick on Your Collar was all very well. Crooning for real opposite Nicole Kidman, McGregor looks and sounds strained to say the least. But then his entire floundering performance represents a mere fender bump in Baz Luhrmann’s car crash of a musical. “His idea of conveying high emotion is to let his mouth hang wide open,” noted the critic Anthony Quinn.
Lip-syncing in Dennis Potter’s 1993 musical drama Lipstick on Your Collar was all very well. Crooning for real opposite Nicole Kidman, McGregor looks and sounds strained to say the least. But then his entire floundering performance represents a mere fender bump in Baz Luhrmann’s car crash of a musical. “His idea of conveying high emotion is to let his mouth hang wide open,” noted the critic Anthony Quinn.
- 7/1/2021
- by Ryan Gilbey
- The Guardian - Film News
This Inside No. 9 review contains spoilers.
Beheading, drowning, strangulation, throat-slitting, cannibalism, exsanguination, human sacrifice, dead babies… Practically nothing makes Inside No. 9 flinch. Let’s not forget, its first ever episode was a tale of historical child sexual abuse that ended in mass murder – which might explain why it took Bafta six series to finally award it ‘Best Comedy’.
It’s only the arrival of Inside No. 9’s first overtly political episode that marks out how apolitical the show has been until now. Of all the uncomfortable places it’s ventured, the state of the nation has stayed largely unexplored territory. Now it’s making up for lost time with a tale of Brexit Britain that belatedly takes up the full mantle of its 1970s Play For Today predecessor. In that strand, Barry Hines, Jim Allen, Ken Loach and others regularly put the country on screen alongside more fanciful,...
Beheading, drowning, strangulation, throat-slitting, cannibalism, exsanguination, human sacrifice, dead babies… Practically nothing makes Inside No. 9 flinch. Let’s not forget, its first ever episode was a tale of historical child sexual abuse that ended in mass murder – which might explain why it took Bafta six series to finally award it ‘Best Comedy’.
It’s only the arrival of Inside No. 9’s first overtly political episode that marks out how apolitical the show has been until now. Of all the uncomfortable places it’s ventured, the state of the nation has stayed largely unexplored territory. Now it’s making up for lost time with a tale of Brexit Britain that belatedly takes up the full mantle of its 1970s Play For Today predecessor. In that strand, Barry Hines, Jim Allen, Ken Loach and others regularly put the country on screen alongside more fanciful,...
- 6/15/2021
- by Louisa Mellor
- Den of Geek
British presenter David Olusoga will deliver this year’s MacTaggart Lecture as part of the virtual Edinburgh TV Festival in August.
Olusoga, a popular academic, appears frequently in some of the U.K.’s top factual shows, such as the BBC’s “A House Through Time,” “Black and British: A Forgotten History” and the BAFTA Award-winning “Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners.”
The 20-year TV veteran, who is British-Nigerian, is also one of the U.K.’s foremost historians and ranked among the most influential Black Britons of 2019 and 2020. Olusoga is a professor of public history at Manchester University and the author of “The World’s War,” co-author of “The Kaiser’s Holocaust: Germany’s Forgotten Genocide and The Colonial Roots of Nazism,” and a contributor to The Oxford Companion to Black British History.
Olusoga joins the ranks of prominent industry voices who have given the agenda-setting keynote speech at the Edinburgh TV Festival.
Olusoga, a popular academic, appears frequently in some of the U.K.’s top factual shows, such as the BBC’s “A House Through Time,” “Black and British: A Forgotten History” and the BAFTA Award-winning “Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners.”
The 20-year TV veteran, who is British-Nigerian, is also one of the U.K.’s foremost historians and ranked among the most influential Black Britons of 2019 and 2020. Olusoga is a professor of public history at Manchester University and the author of “The World’s War,” co-author of “The Kaiser’s Holocaust: Germany’s Forgotten Genocide and The Colonial Roots of Nazism,” and a contributor to The Oxford Companion to Black British History.
Olusoga joins the ranks of prominent industry voices who have given the agenda-setting keynote speech at the Edinburgh TV Festival.
- 7/9/2020
- by Manori Ravindran
- Variety Film + TV
Exclusive: British playwright and screenwriter Nina Raine has been tapped to write the limited series adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender Is The Night novel for Hulu. The project, from Colin Callender’s Playground Entertainment, has been in development at Hulu since 2018.
Tender Is The Night, which was published in 1934, was Fitzgerald’s fourth and final completed novel. It tells the story of promising young psychiatrist Dick Diver. He meets 16-year old Nicole Warren, who suffers from schizophrenia, before marrying her and moving to the French Riviera, where they start a glamorous life of partying with friends.
However, Diver’s life soon takes a turn after investing in a clinic in Switzerland, being accused of seducing the 15-year daughter of one of his patients and driving his wife to jealousy (and a car accident). He moves to Berlin, when he finds out his father dies, and on his way back from America,...
Tender Is The Night, which was published in 1934, was Fitzgerald’s fourth and final completed novel. It tells the story of promising young psychiatrist Dick Diver. He meets 16-year old Nicole Warren, who suffers from schizophrenia, before marrying her and moving to the French Riviera, where they start a glamorous life of partying with friends.
However, Diver’s life soon takes a turn after investing in a clinic in Switzerland, being accused of seducing the 15-year daughter of one of his patients and driving his wife to jealousy (and a car accident). He moves to Berlin, when he finds out his father dies, and on his way back from America,...
- 1/24/2020
- by Denise Petski
- Deadline Film + TV
Russell’s adaptation of the Who’s concept album about a blind pinball wizard is a fascinating time capsule featuring Oliver Reed, Elton John, Jack Nicholson, Tina Turner and Eric Clapton
Ken Russell’s bizarre and ineffably seedy and fetishistic rock opera Tommy, based on the Who’s 1969 concept album, is now on rerelease. It is 44 years since it arrived in cinemas, and we were all shocked at that extraordinarily horrible scene with the paedophile babysitter Uncle Ernie, played by Keith Moon. This is a character even Roald Dahl would have flinched from imagining: cracking an egg into his glass of 70s warm beer and then proceeding to “fiddle about” with the blind, deaf, dumb and Christ-like young Tommy, played by Roger Daltrey. (Dennis Potter’s BBC TV play Brimstone and Treacle was banned for something comparable.) Tommy has lost his senses due to a trauma relating to sex and violence as a child,...
Ken Russell’s bizarre and ineffably seedy and fetishistic rock opera Tommy, based on the Who’s 1969 concept album, is now on rerelease. It is 44 years since it arrived in cinemas, and we were all shocked at that extraordinarily horrible scene with the paedophile babysitter Uncle Ernie, played by Keith Moon. This is a character even Roald Dahl would have flinched from imagining: cracking an egg into his glass of 70s warm beer and then proceeding to “fiddle about” with the blind, deaf, dumb and Christ-like young Tommy, played by Roger Daltrey. (Dennis Potter’s BBC TV play Brimstone and Treacle was banned for something comparable.) Tommy has lost his senses due to a trauma relating to sex and violence as a child,...
- 11/22/2019
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Dexter Fletcher’s Elton John biopic is an exuberant, rocket-fuelled film that also added a shiny bit of much-needed glamour to this somewhat subdued Cannes red carpet. Sir Elton and his husband David Furnish were producers on the movie, which risked us seeing a hagiographic version of John’s colourful life. Instead, Fletcher gets beneath the sequins and lays the singer bare, warts and all.
First off, let’s get the Bohemian Rhapsody comparisons out of the way. Despite sharing many similarities – the dodgy producers, the failed marriages and the difficult parental relationships – there is one significant difference: Elton John’s homosexuality is declared early on, both in terms of the film’s narrative arc and in the singer’s life, and there are scenes of him having sex with his long-term partner and manager John Reid (a very dashing and dastardly Richard Madden). This, plus the swearing and drug use,...
First off, let’s get the Bohemian Rhapsody comparisons out of the way. Despite sharing many similarities – the dodgy producers, the failed marriages and the difficult parental relationships – there is one significant difference: Elton John’s homosexuality is declared early on, both in terms of the film’s narrative arc and in the singer’s life, and there are scenes of him having sex with his long-term partner and manager John Reid (a very dashing and dastardly Richard Madden). This, plus the swearing and drug use,...
- 5/19/2019
- by Jo-Ann Titmarsh
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Hulu has landed Tender Is The Night, a limited series adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, sources said. The project, from Colin Callender’s Playground Entertainment, which had optioned the rights earlier this year, is in early stages in development.
Tender Is The Night, which was published in 1934, was Fitzgerald’s fourth and final completed novel. It tells the story of promising young psychiatrist Dick Diver. He meets 16-year old Nicole Warren, who suffers from schizophrenia, before marrying her and moving to the French Riviera, where they start a glamorous life of partying with friends.
However, Diver’s life soon takes a turn after investing in a clinic in Switzerland, being accused of seducing the 15-year daughter of one of his patients and driving his wife to jealousy (and a car accident). He moves to Berlin, when he finds out his father dies, and on his way back from America,...
Tender Is The Night, which was published in 1934, was Fitzgerald’s fourth and final completed novel. It tells the story of promising young psychiatrist Dick Diver. He meets 16-year old Nicole Warren, who suffers from schizophrenia, before marrying her and moving to the French Riviera, where they start a glamorous life of partying with friends.
However, Diver’s life soon takes a turn after investing in a clinic in Switzerland, being accused of seducing the 15-year daughter of one of his patients and driving his wife to jealousy (and a car accident). He moves to Berlin, when he finds out his father dies, and on his way back from America,...
- 11/2/2018
- by Nellie Andreeva and Peter White
- Deadline Film + TV
Exclusive: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender Is The Night is heading to the small screen after Colin Callender’s Playground Entertainment optioned the rights.
The deal is the latest literary adaptation for the Wolf Hall producer, following the launch of Little Women earlier this year, The White Princess on Starz and BBC and Amazon’s King Lear. It also marks the latest Fitzgerald novel to head to the small screen following the launch of The Last Tycoon, based on Fitzgerald’s unfinished novel The Love of the Last Tycoon on Amazon.
I understand that Callender’s firm struck the deal with Don Laventhall at Harold Ober and Associates, who brokered the deal on behalf of Fitzgerald’s estate. Playground will produce a TV series in association with David A. Stern at Sleeping Giant Films. Stern was previously Head of Scripted Programming at Sofia Vergara’s Raze and recently exec produced...
The deal is the latest literary adaptation for the Wolf Hall producer, following the launch of Little Women earlier this year, The White Princess on Starz and BBC and Amazon’s King Lear. It also marks the latest Fitzgerald novel to head to the small screen following the launch of The Last Tycoon, based on Fitzgerald’s unfinished novel The Love of the Last Tycoon on Amazon.
I understand that Callender’s firm struck the deal with Don Laventhall at Harold Ober and Associates, who brokered the deal on behalf of Fitzgerald’s estate. Playground will produce a TV series in association with David A. Stern at Sleeping Giant Films. Stern was previously Head of Scripted Programming at Sofia Vergara’s Raze and recently exec produced...
- 6/15/2018
- by Peter White
- Deadline Film + TV
Ten years after he first donned Iron Man’s suit of armor, Robert Downey Jr. has reprised his role as the billionaire superhero in the Marvel epic “Avengers: Infinity War.” The film finds the universe’s greatest heroes teaming up to stop the deadly Thanos (Josh Brolin) from gathering the infinity stones with the intention of wiping out half of the universe’s population. Downey Jr. first played the role in 2008’s “Iron Man,” and has appeared in eight subsequent Marvel movies. Of course, his career hasn’t been limited to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So in honor of his latest big screen achievement, let’s take a look back on some of his best performances. Tour through our photo gallery above of Downey Jr.’s 20 greatest films, ranked from worst to best.
The son of underground filmmaker Robert Downey Sr. and actress Elsie Downey, Robert Downey Jr. made his...
The son of underground filmmaker Robert Downey Sr. and actress Elsie Downey, Robert Downey Jr. made his...
- 5/2/2018
- by Zach Laws and Chris Beachum
- Gold Derby
Every week, IndieWire asks a select handful of TV critics two questions and publishes the results on Tuesday. (The answer to the second, “What is the best show currently on TV?” can be found at the end of this post.)
This week’s question: What is the best TV show — former or current — that handles mental illness well?
Joyce Eng (@joyceeng61), TVGuide.com
“Bojack Horseman,” especially Season 4, is almost peerless when it comes to a raw, honest portrayal of mental health. His depression and anxiety aren’t deployed as plot devices like we’ve seen plenty of times elsewhere; they’re just part of him and none of it is rubbed in your face. He’s allowed to be, break down, self-destruct, and the show never offers quick fixes or easy answers. “Stupid Piece of Sh*t” is a brutal depiction, even if you don’t suffer from depression or anxiety,...
This week’s question: What is the best TV show — former or current — that handles mental illness well?
Joyce Eng (@joyceeng61), TVGuide.com
“Bojack Horseman,” especially Season 4, is almost peerless when it comes to a raw, honest portrayal of mental health. His depression and anxiety aren’t deployed as plot devices like we’ve seen plenty of times elsewhere; they’re just part of him and none of it is rubbed in your face. He’s allowed to be, break down, self-destruct, and the show never offers quick fixes or easy answers. “Stupid Piece of Sh*t” is a brutal depiction, even if you don’t suffer from depression or anxiety,...
- 11/14/2017
- by Hanh Nguyen
- Indiewire
My friend Clare Douglas, who has died aged 73, was a Bafta award-winning film editor of memorable television programmes.
She worked on the adaptation of John le Carré’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1979), Dennis Potter’s films Blackeyes (1989), Secret Friends (1991), Lipstick on Your Collar (1993), Karaoke (1996) and the four-parter Cold Lazarus (1996), directed by Renny Rye and starring Albert Finney as the writer Daniel Feeld.
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She worked on the adaptation of John le Carré’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1979), Dennis Potter’s films Blackeyes (1989), Secret Friends (1991), Lipstick on Your Collar (1993), Karaoke (1996) and the four-parter Cold Lazarus (1996), directed by Renny Rye and starring Albert Finney as the writer Daniel Feeld.
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- 7/30/2017
- by David Boardman
- The Guardian - Film News
Wearing produced Boys from the Blackstuff, Pride and Prejudice, Edge of Darkness and many more.
Michael Wearing, producer of iconic television dramas including Boys from the Blackstuff and Edge of Darkness, has died aged 78 (reports Broadcast).
Wearing (right), who held a number of senior positions across drama at the BBC, died on Friday 5 May following a stroke. Wearing is survived by his three children, Sadie, Ella and Ben.
After studying anthropology at Newcastle University and a short career in the theatre, Wearing joined the BBC’s English regions drama department as a script editor in 1976.
Reporting to David Rose, who went on to become founder of Film 4, at the BBC’s Pebble Mill base in Birmingham, Wearing worked with writers including Alan Bleasdale and Ron Hutchinson on a number of Play for Today scripts.
He also worked on series including Stephen Davis’ Trouble With Gregory, which aired as part of BBC2’s Playhouse strand, Hutchinson’s six-part...
Michael Wearing, producer of iconic television dramas including Boys from the Blackstuff and Edge of Darkness, has died aged 78 (reports Broadcast).
Wearing (right), who held a number of senior positions across drama at the BBC, died on Friday 5 May following a stroke. Wearing is survived by his three children, Sadie, Ella and Ben.
After studying anthropology at Newcastle University and a short career in the theatre, Wearing joined the BBC’s English regions drama department as a script editor in 1976.
Reporting to David Rose, who went on to become founder of Film 4, at the BBC’s Pebble Mill base in Birmingham, Wearing worked with writers including Alan Bleasdale and Ron Hutchinson on a number of Play for Today scripts.
He also worked on series including Stephen Davis’ Trouble With Gregory, which aired as part of BBC2’s Playhouse strand, Hutchinson’s six-part...
- 5/9/2017
- ScreenDaily
Seth Holt is an odd figure. An editor at first, his career spans classic Ealing comedies (The Lavender Hill Mob, 1951) and gritty kitchen sink drama (Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, 1960), while his overlapping career as producer saw him preside over the classic The Ladykillers (1955). On becoming a director, he worked mainly at Hammer, which made radically different content from Ealing but perhaps shared the same cozy atmosphere.Taste of Fear (a.k.a. Scream of Fear, 1961) is a zestful Diabolique knock-off, while The Nanny (1965) continued Bette Davis' career in horror. It's incredibly strong, beautifully made and quite ruthless: Bette referred to Holt as "a mountain of evil" and found him the most demanding director she'd encountered since William Wyler. During the daft but enjoyably peculiar Blood from the Mummy's Tomb (1971), Holt developed a persistent case of hiccups that turned the screening of rushes into hilarious occasions. Then he dropped dead of a heart attack,...
- 3/16/2017
- MUBI
Every week, IndieWire asks a select handful of TV critics two questions and publishes the results on Tuesday. (The answer to the second, “What is the best show currently on TV?” can be found at the end of this post.)
This week’s question: What is your favorite murder mystery show?
Erik Adams (@ErikMAdams), A.V. Club
It has to be “Twin Peaks,” right? I’m one of those annoying people who insists the show is so much more than “Who killed Laura Palmer?”, but that is our entry point to David Lynch and Mark Frost’s weird little world, and the question that briefly made “Twin Peaks” a pop-culture phenomenon. And the chapters of the series that deal with finding Laura’s murderer are some of the most compelling, from the dream-sequence enhanced “Zen, Or The Skill To Catch A Killer” or the eventual solution to the mystery, a...
This week’s question: What is your favorite murder mystery show?
Erik Adams (@ErikMAdams), A.V. Club
It has to be “Twin Peaks,” right? I’m one of those annoying people who insists the show is so much more than “Who killed Laura Palmer?”, but that is our entry point to David Lynch and Mark Frost’s weird little world, and the question that briefly made “Twin Peaks” a pop-culture phenomenon. And the chapters of the series that deal with finding Laura’s murderer are some of the most compelling, from the dream-sequence enhanced “Zen, Or The Skill To Catch A Killer” or the eventual solution to the mystery, a...
- 2/22/2017
- by Hanh Nguyen
- Indiewire
Author: Jon Lyus
“I feel least qualified to go and do a period drama for the BBC,” says Tom Hardy during our interview sessions early last December for his new eight part drama Taboo.
The show airs its first episode tomorrow night on BBC One and charts the return of James Delaney, described by the actor as a “perverse renaissance man”, to London from his adventures in Africa upon the death of his Father.
He is a man with guilty secrets, and one who gives no quarter to the hostility he encounters from his family and the institutions which seek to hold him to order. As viewers will see tonight the dawn of the Industrial Revolution has been recreated in all its gory, dirty glory. This is a bleak beginning to a story that has an even darker path to tread in future weeks.
We sat down with Hardy and...
“I feel least qualified to go and do a period drama for the BBC,” says Tom Hardy during our interview sessions early last December for his new eight part drama Taboo.
The show airs its first episode tomorrow night on BBC One and charts the return of James Delaney, described by the actor as a “perverse renaissance man”, to London from his adventures in Africa upon the death of his Father.
He is a man with guilty secrets, and one who gives no quarter to the hostility he encounters from his family and the institutions which seek to hold him to order. As viewers will see tonight the dawn of the Industrial Revolution has been recreated in all its gory, dirty glory. This is a bleak beginning to a story that has an even darker path to tread in future weeks.
We sat down with Hardy and...
- 1/6/2017
- by Jon Lyus
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
The second feature animation from the When the Wind Blows author tells the charming story of his parents’ marriage
Raymond Briggs’s graphic-novel tribute to his parents Ethel and Ernest, and their long, happy marriage has been lovingly turned into a feature animation that exactly reproduces the detail and the simplicity of his hand-drawn style. It is gentle and charming, with an unbearably moving ending, though I confess I’m not sure what to think about its essentially placid quality. Brenda Blethyn and Jim Broadbent are the voices: a little old for the characters in their 1920s youth, but perhaps people looked and behaved a bit older in those days.
Ethel was a lady’s maid, Ernest a cheeky milkman who liked the look of the new Labour party. They had just one child, Raymond, having bought a terraced south London house in 1930. (Let’s see a young couple buy the same house today.
Raymond Briggs’s graphic-novel tribute to his parents Ethel and Ernest, and their long, happy marriage has been lovingly turned into a feature animation that exactly reproduces the detail and the simplicity of his hand-drawn style. It is gentle and charming, with an unbearably moving ending, though I confess I’m not sure what to think about its essentially placid quality. Brenda Blethyn and Jim Broadbent are the voices: a little old for the characters in their 1920s youth, but perhaps people looked and behaved a bit older in those days.
Ethel was a lady’s maid, Ernest a cheeky milkman who liked the look of the new Labour party. They had just one child, Raymond, having bought a terraced south London house in 1930. (Let’s see a young couple buy the same house today.
- 10/27/2016
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Gorgeous. Damien Chazelle’s got a lot of eyes on him as he prepares his follow-up to Whiplash for release, and based on today’s first trailer for La La Land, he’s got precious little to worry about. When you cast Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling as young pretty people falling in love, you’re already halfway done with your work, but when you add in the surreal and beautiful take on Los Angeles, a city that is plenty surreal and beautiful on its own, you might end up with something really special. I started laughing today when I saw some dude on Twitter dismiss this because he thought it looked too much like Woody Allen’s Everyone Says I Love You. Hi, random dude. Please see more movies. Musicals have always been one of the most expressionistic forms of mainstream film, with song and dance standing in for...
- 7/13/2016
- by Drew McWeeny
- Hitfix
Ryan Lambie Jul 14, 2016
We take a look at some of the most memorable and freaky floating brains and flying heads in the history of cinema...
Nb: The following contains spoilers for The Brain From The Planet Arous and Prometheus.
For some reason we've yet to discover, cinema has, for decades, been home to all manner of sentient, disembodied heads and floating brains. Note that we’re not talking about decapitations here - though goodness knows that cinema is home to plenty of those, from Japanese samurai epics to modern slasher horrors.
No, we’re talking about movies where heads and brains remain sentient even when they’re stuffed into jars or colossal things made of stone. Sometimes used for comedic effect, at other times for shock value, they’re a surprisingly common phenomenon in the movies. Here, we celebrate a few of our absolute favourites - though you’re sure...
We take a look at some of the most memorable and freaky floating brains and flying heads in the history of cinema...
Nb: The following contains spoilers for The Brain From The Planet Arous and Prometheus.
For some reason we've yet to discover, cinema has, for decades, been home to all manner of sentient, disembodied heads and floating brains. Note that we’re not talking about decapitations here - though goodness knows that cinema is home to plenty of those, from Japanese samurai epics to modern slasher horrors.
No, we’re talking about movies where heads and brains remain sentient even when they’re stuffed into jars or colossal things made of stone. Sometimes used for comedic effect, at other times for shock value, they’re a surprisingly common phenomenon in the movies. Here, we celebrate a few of our absolute favourites - though you’re sure...
- 7/13/2016
- Den of Geek
(John Mackenzie, 1980/Neil Jordan, 1986; Arrow DVD/Blu-ray, 18)
Bob Hoskins became an actor by accident when he accompanied a friend to an audition at London’s leftwing Unity theatre in 1969, and achieved TV stardom as the doomed travelling salesman in Dennis Potter’s Pennies From Heaven. In 1980, he became an international star in Scottish director John Mackenzie’s The Long Good Friday, his first major screen role, as the East End gangster Harold Shand who dreams of transforming his minor criminal empire into a legitimate enterprise by rejuvenating London’s decaying docklands and playing host to the 1988 Olympics. Hoskins’s Shand was compared favourably with Edward G Robinson’s seminal Little Caesar of 1931.
Related: Bob Hoskins: a career in pictures
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Bob Hoskins became an actor by accident when he accompanied a friend to an audition at London’s leftwing Unity theatre in 1969, and achieved TV stardom as the doomed travelling salesman in Dennis Potter’s Pennies From Heaven. In 1980, he became an international star in Scottish director John Mackenzie’s The Long Good Friday, his first major screen role, as the East End gangster Harold Shand who dreams of transforming his minor criminal empire into a legitimate enterprise by rejuvenating London’s decaying docklands and playing host to the 1988 Olympics. Hoskins’s Shand was compared favourably with Edward G Robinson’s seminal Little Caesar of 1931.
Related: Bob Hoskins: a career in pictures
Continue reading...
- 7/26/2015
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Anjelica Huston's autobiography is a beautifully written evocation of time and place, but provides scant personal insight...
Autobiographies are a strange business. I'm never sure whether we, the readers, want to experience exactly what the writer has experienced, or if we're looking for more - a level of extrapolation, of objectivity, hoping that the writer can point out their highs and lows and say, "This is where it all went right, and this is where it didn't." Are we trying to live a little bit of a different person's life, or learn from it?
Or maybe there's a simpler option, and we just like reading about famous people. If that's the case, then Anjelica Huston's memoir, A Story Lately Told, is a very good read. Her father, the film director John Huston, gave her an childhood filled with trips abroad, movie sets, actors and writers and singers that are names we all know,...
Autobiographies are a strange business. I'm never sure whether we, the readers, want to experience exactly what the writer has experienced, or if we're looking for more - a level of extrapolation, of objectivity, hoping that the writer can point out their highs and lows and say, "This is where it all went right, and this is where it didn't." Are we trying to live a little bit of a different person's life, or learn from it?
Or maybe there's a simpler option, and we just like reading about famous people. If that's the case, then Anjelica Huston's memoir, A Story Lately Told, is a very good read. Her father, the film director John Huston, gave her an childhood filled with trips abroad, movie sets, actors and writers and singers that are names we all know,...
- 6/15/2015
- by louisamellor
- Den of Geek
A transcript of television writer Dennis Potter's final interview is Aliya's non-fiction book club choice for this month...
Dennis Potter was a television writer who shaped British TV drama over three decades. His final interview took place in April 1994, only a few weeks before his death. He knew there wasn't long left, and he had things he wanted to say about his life, his writing, and the society he lived in. It was that rarest of moments - a chance to evaluate everything that has gone before without having to worry about what will come after.
It's a moving interview to watch, but I found at the time of viewing it that it was almost too much to take in. As much as you're listening to what he's saying and engaging with it, you're also looking at a very ill person and your thoughts are also taken up with...
Dennis Potter was a television writer who shaped British TV drama over three decades. His final interview took place in April 1994, only a few weeks before his death. He knew there wasn't long left, and he had things he wanted to say about his life, his writing, and the society he lived in. It was that rarest of moments - a chance to evaluate everything that has gone before without having to worry about what will come after.
It's a moving interview to watch, but I found at the time of viewing it that it was almost too much to take in. As much as you're listening to what he's saying and engaging with it, you're also looking at a very ill person and your thoughts are also taken up with...
- 5/18/2015
- by louisamellor
- Den of Geek
Kaci selects a smartly written, charming novel for this month's fiction Book Club choice: Isla Neal and Martin Leicht's Mothership...
I originally picked up a copy of Mothership because, admittedly, it sounded like such a bizarre premise that I had to find out what the authors would do with it. Having now read it, I still think it's a deeply bizarre premise, but it's also smartly written and undeniably charming.
I don't think the book would work as well as it does were Elvie not the kind of person who makes up names for stoic commanders in her head or who refers to her foetus as "Goober." As wild as the premise is, it needs Elvie's voice to make it work. She (and by extension through her, the writers) knows how weird her situation is and she's going to laugh at it even as she tries to survive it.
I originally picked up a copy of Mothership because, admittedly, it sounded like such a bizarre premise that I had to find out what the authors would do with it. Having now read it, I still think it's a deeply bizarre premise, but it's also smartly written and undeniably charming.
I don't think the book would work as well as it does were Elvie not the kind of person who makes up names for stoic commanders in her head or who refers to her foetus as "Goober." As wild as the premise is, it needs Elvie's voice to make it work. She (and by extension through her, the writers) knows how weird her situation is and she's going to laugh at it even as she tries to survive it.
- 5/1/2015
- by louisamellor
- Den of Geek
By Anjelica Oswald
Managing Editor
Into the Woods, Disney’s adaptation of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Broadway musical, could land an Oscar nomination for its screenplay, which was adapted by Lapine. It may be a stretch for Into the Woods to land in the top five, though. Adapted — or even original — musical screenplays may be discounted for the music in the Oscar race, which might be why few musicals are nominated for adapted or original screenplay. Twelve musicals have been nominated for adapted screenplay since 1929, but 2002’s Chicago was the last musical to do so.
Adapted from Bob Fosse and Fred Ebb’s 1975 musical of the same name, Chicago won six of its 13 nominations, including best picture. It was the first musical since 1968’s Oliver! to win best picture, but its screenplay lost to The Pianist.
Carol Reed’s Oliver! was nominated for 11 Oscars and won five. It...
Managing Editor
Into the Woods, Disney’s adaptation of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Broadway musical, could land an Oscar nomination for its screenplay, which was adapted by Lapine. It may be a stretch for Into the Woods to land in the top five, though. Adapted — or even original — musical screenplays may be discounted for the music in the Oscar race, which might be why few musicals are nominated for adapted or original screenplay. Twelve musicals have been nominated for adapted screenplay since 1929, but 2002’s Chicago was the last musical to do so.
Adapted from Bob Fosse and Fred Ebb’s 1975 musical of the same name, Chicago won six of its 13 nominations, including best picture. It was the first musical since 1968’s Oliver! to win best picture, but its screenplay lost to The Pianist.
Carol Reed’s Oliver! was nominated for 11 Oscars and won five. It...
- 12/30/2014
- by Anjelica Oswald
- Scott Feinberg
Harry Potter star David Ryall passed away on Christmas Day (December 25), aged 79.
Sherlock writer and star Mark Gatiss revealed the news by tweeting his sadness at the passing of his colleague.
The great David Ryall left us on Christmas Day. A twinkling, brilliant, wonderful actor I was privileged to call a friend. Rip.
— Mark Gatiss (@Markgatiss) December 27, 2014
"The great David Ryall left us on Christmas Day. A twinkling, brilliant, wonderful actor I was privileged to call a friend. Rip," Gatiss wrote.
The actor had a long and successful career across theatre, film and television.
Ryall appeared in numerous films, including playing the role of Elphias Doge in 2010's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1.
He was featured in the first two series of BBC One comedy Outnumbered as Frank, a grandfather who suffers from dementia.
He also starred in The Village as Britain's oldest man Old Bert, who narrated the series through flashback scenes.
Sherlock writer and star Mark Gatiss revealed the news by tweeting his sadness at the passing of his colleague.
The great David Ryall left us on Christmas Day. A twinkling, brilliant, wonderful actor I was privileged to call a friend. Rip.
— Mark Gatiss (@Markgatiss) December 27, 2014
"The great David Ryall left us on Christmas Day. A twinkling, brilliant, wonderful actor I was privileged to call a friend. Rip," Gatiss wrote.
The actor had a long and successful career across theatre, film and television.
Ryall appeared in numerous films, including playing the role of Elphias Doge in 2010's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1.
He was featured in the first two series of BBC One comedy Outnumbered as Frank, a grandfather who suffers from dementia.
He also starred in The Village as Britain's oldest man Old Bert, who narrated the series through flashback scenes.
- 12/27/2014
- Digital Spy
During a brainstorming session in last week's episode "The Strategy" — perhaps the first time Don Draper has ever addressed Peggy Olson as a true creative equal, he gifted her with a great piece of advice: "I start at the beginning again, see if I end up in the same place." But that strategy doesn't work as well for his life, as the Season 7.1 finale, "Waterloo," shows in spades. Don started over with a second marriage, and it ended just like the first one, except this time it only took Megan...
- 5/26/2014
- Rollingstone.com
A review of the "Mad Men" mid-season finale coming up just as soon as I have to talk to people who just touched the face of God about hamburgers... "Bravo." -Bert Cooper In Peggy's pitch to Burger Chef — easily the best she's ever given, and one that gets much closer to the level of the Carousel pitch than I think we might have ever imagined anyone on this show (including Don himself) reaching again — she talks about how Neil Armstrong's first footsteps on the moon brought the whole world together, all watching the same amazing thing as it happened. It's a masterful blend of current events with the themes she and Don had already decided on — turning the thing that she feared would torpedo the pitch and making it into the element that closes the deal and nearly moves the Burger Chef executives to tears — demonstrating a keen...
- 5/26/2014
- by Alan Sepinwall
- Hitfix
Legendary cinematographer Gordon Willis, the "Prince of Darkness" who was responsible for the look of such era-defining films of the Seventies as the first two Godfather films, All the President's Men, Annie Hall and Manhattan, died Sunday at the age of 82, according to Variety. His cause of death was not listed.
Peter Travers on 'The Godfather' Trilogy
A native of Queens, New York, Willis cultivated an early interest in photography and, while serving in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War, joined the motion-picture unit. After the war,...
Peter Travers on 'The Godfather' Trilogy
A native of Queens, New York, Willis cultivated an early interest in photography and, while serving in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War, joined the motion-picture unit. After the war,...
- 5/19/2014
- Rollingstone.com
Bob Hoskins dead at 71: Hoskins’ best movies included ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit,’ ‘Mona Lisa’ (photo: Bob Hoskins in ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ with Jessica Rabbit, voiced by Kathleen Turner) Bob Hoskins, who died at age 71 in London yesterday, April 29, 2014, from pneumonia (initially reported as “complications of Parkinson’s disease”), was featured in nearly 70 movies over the course of his four-decade film career. Hoskins was never a major box office draw — "I don’t think I’m the sort of material movie stars are made of — I’m five-foot-six-inches and cubic. My own mum wouldn’t call me pretty." Yet, this performer with attributes similar to those of Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney, and Lon Chaney had the lead in one of the biggest hits of the late ’80s. In 1988, Robert Zemeckis’ groundbreaking Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which seamlessly blended animated and live action footage, starred Hoskins as gumshoe Eddie Valiant,...
- 4/30/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
From The Long Good Friday to TwentyFourSeven, we look back at the career of the powerhouse actor who worked with some of the best directors in the business
Bob Hoskins dies aged 71
Xan Brooks: Bob Hoskins - five-foot-six cubic and bursting with brilliance
After getting his first theatre role by accident he only went along to support a friend at an audition Hoskins' screen career got off the ground in 1978 with Dennis Potter's Pennies from Heaven, a six-part series for the BBC; he played sheet-music salesman with a penchant for showtunes and extramarital affairs.
He then moved on to what is still his defining role The Long Good Friday, still the benchmark for Brit gangster thrillers, and one that still towers over the pale imitators of recent vintage. Hoskins' performance as aspirational hoodlum Harold Shand, ambushed by the Ira, was an absolute barnstormer, filled with instantly quotable lines and beautifully detailed performance.
Bob Hoskins dies aged 71
Xan Brooks: Bob Hoskins - five-foot-six cubic and bursting with brilliance
After getting his first theatre role by accident he only went along to support a friend at an audition Hoskins' screen career got off the ground in 1978 with Dennis Potter's Pennies from Heaven, a six-part series for the BBC; he played sheet-music salesman with a penchant for showtunes and extramarital affairs.
He then moved on to what is still his defining role The Long Good Friday, still the benchmark for Brit gangster thrillers, and one that still towers over the pale imitators of recent vintage. Hoskins' performance as aspirational hoodlum Harold Shand, ambushed by the Ira, was an absolute barnstormer, filled with instantly quotable lines and beautifully detailed performance.
- 4/30/2014
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
Bob Hoskins, the British actor who starred in The Long Good Friday, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and many more, has died aged 71
• Helen Mirren, Shane Meadows and Stephen Woolley share their memories of Hoskins
• Bob Hoskins: a career in pictures
• Bob Hoskins: Xan Brooks pays tribute
• Bob Hoskins obituary
• Bob Hoskins: a career in clips
• Patrick Barkham: 'He was unforgettable'
The actor Bob Hoskins has died aged 71. His agent said that he died on Tuesday, surrounded by his family, suffering from pneumonia. He retired in 2012 following a diagnosis with Parkinson's disease in the autumn of 2011.
One of Britain's best-loved actors, Hoskins was known for his gruff bonhomie, and career that spanned more than 30 years. He first found fame on the small screen in Dennis Potter's Pennies from Heaven, and then in cinemas as a London gangster-turned-businessman in The Long Good Friday (1980).
Continue reading...
• Helen Mirren, Shane Meadows and Stephen Woolley share their memories of Hoskins
• Bob Hoskins: a career in pictures
• Bob Hoskins: Xan Brooks pays tribute
• Bob Hoskins obituary
• Bob Hoskins: a career in clips
• Patrick Barkham: 'He was unforgettable'
The actor Bob Hoskins has died aged 71. His agent said that he died on Tuesday, surrounded by his family, suffering from pneumonia. He retired in 2012 following a diagnosis with Parkinson's disease in the autumn of 2011.
One of Britain's best-loved actors, Hoskins was known for his gruff bonhomie, and career that spanned more than 30 years. He first found fame on the small screen in Dennis Potter's Pennies from Heaven, and then in cinemas as a London gangster-turned-businessman in The Long Good Friday (1980).
Continue reading...
- 4/30/2014
- by Catherine Shoard
- The Guardian - Film News
Actor associated with tough guy roles, but capable of playing the poodle as well as the pitbull
Bob Hoskins: Xan Brooks pays tribute
Bob Hoskins: a career in pictures
Plenty of better-looking performers than Bob Hoskins, who has died aged 71, have found themselves consigned to a life of bit parts. Short, bullet-headed, lacking any noticeable neck, but with a mutable face that could switch from snarling to sparkling in the time it took him to drop an aitch, Hoskins was far from conventional leading-man material. In his moments of on-screen rage, he resembled a pink grenade. But he was defined from the outset by a mix of the tough and the tender that served him well throughout his career.
As the beleaguered, optimistic sheet-music salesman in the BBC series Pennies from Heaven (1978), written by Dennis Potter, he was sweetly galumphing and sincere. Playing an ambitious East End gangster...
Bob Hoskins: Xan Brooks pays tribute
Bob Hoskins: a career in pictures
Plenty of better-looking performers than Bob Hoskins, who has died aged 71, have found themselves consigned to a life of bit parts. Short, bullet-headed, lacking any noticeable neck, but with a mutable face that could switch from snarling to sparkling in the time it took him to drop an aitch, Hoskins was far from conventional leading-man material. In his moments of on-screen rage, he resembled a pink grenade. But he was defined from the outset by a mix of the tough and the tender that served him well throughout his career.
As the beleaguered, optimistic sheet-music salesman in the BBC series Pennies from Heaven (1978), written by Dennis Potter, he was sweetly galumphing and sincere. Playing an ambitious East End gangster...
- 4/30/2014
- by Ryan Gilbey
- The Guardian - Film News
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