Melania documentary struggles in UK cinemas as Vue admits sales are ‘soft’

Only one ticket sold for premiere of film about US first lady at Vue’s flagship London branch as insiders question launch strategy As film exhibitor strategies go, counter-programming is one of the most reliable. It worked for The Dark Knight and Mamma Mia!, released in the US on the same day in 2008, as well as for Dunkirk and Girls Trip in 2017 . In 2023, Barbie and Oppenheimer leveraged the tactic to the tune of $2.5bn in combined box office takings. This week we could see another example as Amazon releases its authorised documentary about Melania Trump in more than 100 UK cinemas. There it will compete against an already-eclectic slate of releases including the Jason Statham action film Shelter, the ape horror Primate , Bradley Cooper’s comedy-drama Is This Thing On? and Richard Linklater’s Jean-Luc Godard fictionalisation Nouvelle Vague . Continue reading... from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/KZHyf0R via IFTTT

Donald Sutherland was an irreplaceable aristocrat of cinema

The late actor was a commanding and versatile presence on the big screen, perfecting everything from villainy to sensuality in films such as Don’t Look Now and Klute

Donald Sutherland was an utterly unique actor and irreplacable star: possessed of a distinctive leonine handsomeness that the white beard of his latter years only made more majestic: watchful, cerebral, charismatic, with a refinement to his screen acting technique comparable perhaps only to Paul Scofield and his Canadian background (together with his early stage training and experience in England and Scotland) gave his American roles a certain touch of Anglo-international class. Sutherland was commanding and exacting, he gave each of his roles and films something special: he addressed his co-stars and the camera itself from a position of strength.

Even playing a weak or absurd character, as he did starring as the preposterous womaniser in Federico Fellini’s Casanova in 1976, finally reduced to the job of a librarian in a German count’s castle, brooding grotesquely over the phantoms of past lovers, Sutherland was still strong, still mesmeric, his intelligent face still sympathetic as Casanova, even though resembling a non-priapic gargoyle. For Bertolucci in his Italian epic 1900, he played an actual fascist, the gruesomely named Attila, and though certainly very far from sympathetic, he played the role with a sickeningly twinkle-eyed dynamism.

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