Still blazing after all these years: Mel Brooks at 100

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The director of The Producers hits his century as a uniquely beloved entertainer who embodies his conviction that ‘comedy is the opposite of death’ Mel Brooks’ story is that of the US and Jews and American Jewish comedy. He was born on the kitchen table of a tenement in Brooklyn a century ago in the same month Marilyn Monroe made her own entrance on the opposite coast. The son of European immigrants, Brooks was brought up by his mother after his father died when Melvin was just two years old. He was a small, sickly child and the youngest of four brothers, perhaps an explanation for an almost pathological desire for attention. In the words of his colleague Larry Gelbart : “Mel thought when he got slapped in the ass by the doctor who delivered him that was applause, and he has not stopped performing since.” In his youth, Brooks’ preferred method of making a noise was playing the drums and he was actually taught the instrument by Buddy Rich. Neither could possibly have known at the time t...
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Nightmare review – atmospheric property horror treads line between dreams and reality

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A young woman is tormented in her sleep in this crepuscular debut feature from Norwegian writer-director Kjersti Helen Rasmussen

If there is one place you would have thought a sleep-deprived person might be able to stop herself dropping off, it’s in a lecture about sleep. But that’s what this atmospheric but somewhat heavy-handed debut feature from Norway has its protagonist Mona (Eili Harboe) do as she is introduced by dishevelled academic Aksel (Dennis Storhøi) to the possibility that she has become the victim of the mythical incubus Mare. This may explain a recent run of freakish dreams in which she’s tormented by a vampiric doppelganger of her caring boyfriend Robby (Herman Tømmeraas).

Nightmare also belongs to the school of property horror already occupied by The Tenant and Mother! Left alone by Robby, a high-flyer preoccupied with some kind of algorithmic investment venture, Mona is charged with renovating their sprawling new apartment which they acquired on the cheap after its previous occupant, who was pregnant, died in a mysterious accident. Their neighbours, who have a newborn baby and are prone to staring eerily across the courtyard, seem to have issues, too. But none of this rings any alarm bells until Mona – vaguely thinking about having kids with Robby – begins sleepwalking.

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