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Showing posts with the label Film | The Guardian

The Mother of All Lies review – pursuing the truth of Morocco’s brutal dictatorship years

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Asmae El Moudir employs a delicate mix of handmade replicas and oral testimony to brilliantly evoke personal and collective trauma Between those who refuse to remember and those who struggle to forget, a tumultuous clash of minds occupies the centre of Asmae El Moudir’s inventive documentary, a prize-winner at last year’s Cannes film festival. Through a constellation of clay figurines and dollhouse-style miniature sets, most of which were constructed by El Moudir’s father, the director recreates her oppressive childhood in the Sebata district of Casablanca. Under the watchful eyes of her domineering grandmother Zahra, all personal photos are banished from the house, save for a picture of King Hassan II. The delicate mix of handmade replicas and oral testimony brilliantly evokes the personal and collective trauma that stem from Morocco’s “Years of Lead” – a period of state brutality under Hassan II’s dictatorial rule. Lingering on the nimble fingers of El Moudir’s father as he puts t
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Inside Out 2 review – Pixar returns to emotional Mission Control for Riley’s teen years

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Anxiety, Joy and Ennui join the crew as Riley navigates high school, a hockey camp and zits – but where’s Lust? The first Inside Out took us into the Mission Control operations centre within the mind of a kid, and showed us the five emotions amusingly piloting her every decision – Joy, Fear, Rage, Disgust and Sadness – as well as all sorts of dizzyingly intricate detail about memory balls and personality islands. Now the sequel-upgrade brings us up to the teen years with a whole bunch of new emotions. There are some laughs, but it sees the teen transition in terms of a moral crisis, of abandoning and then reclaiming the niceness of childhood innocence; it’s a little bit convoluted and repetitive and, in its sanitised, Disneyfied way, this film can’t quite bring itself to mention the most important new teen emotion of all. Have the grownups in charge of this film really forgotten? One of the original film’s smartest implied gags was that the story stopped just before the puberty cris
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Federer: Twelve Final Days review – teary-eyed portrayal of a legend’s last stand

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Asif Kapadia co-directs backstage access to a tennis great’s final games that includes much crying but too few questions The tears of Roger Federer, along with the tears of Rafael Nadal and even the tears of Novak Djokovic, are what finally give some point to what is otherwise a pretty bland, officially sanctioned corporate promo for the Federer brand. This documentary for Amazon Prime – co-directed by Asif Kapadia and video content producer Joe Sabia – has behind-the-scenes access, following the final 12 days in the top-flight tennis career of the legendary champion, from his announcement of retirement in 2022 to his emotional curtain-call appearance at the Laver Cup in London, named after Rod Laver, the starry new Europe-versus-the World team tournament that Federer has done so much to develop. Federer was bowing out with style like the class act he’s always been and as legends such as Björn Borg, John McEnroe, Andy Murray and Rod Laver himself line up to pay tribute, there is a Ni
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Revealed: Otto by Otto review – nuanced portrait of a generational talent

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Gracie Otto’s documentary about her father – the legendary actor Barry Otto – blooms into a melancholy portrait of artistry and its burdens All documentaries celebrating artistic geniuses face the challenge of how to recognise their talent without coming across as pure puffery. The dynamic is different in the rare event that the film-maker is personally related to the subject, as is the case in Revealed: Otto by Otto – a portrait of the great Australian actor Barry Otto directed by his daughter Gracie. She flips a potential downside – being so close to the person documented – into a virtue by crafting an emotionally rich film that truly could not have been made by anybody else. It is filled, like Otto’s performances, with light and shade. Otto by Otto (which premiered at this year’s Sydney film festival and arrives on Stan on 16 June) begins unassumingly, with grainy home videos and footage of the now-retired actor hanging out with his cats in his cluttered Petersham home among books
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I Used to Be Funny review – Rachel Sennott can’t save messy PTSD drama

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The Shiva Baby and Bodies, Bodies, Bodies standout goes serious in an uneven and at times frustrating combination of disparate tones and genre There’s a particular, distinctly online note – dead-eyed, chaotic, teetering between hyper self-consciousness and delusional confidence – that comedian Rachel Sennott can hit so effectively it will temporarily and memorably spark its container: Twitter, where she rose to prominence as a self-aware zillennial comedy It Girl ; Bodies Bodies Bodies , where she provided the bulk of the horror comedy’s actual zingers ; The Idol, where her bit part as a pop star’s assistant was one of the misbegotten HBO series ’ few highlights. As a lead – in Emma Seligman’s claustrophobic feature Shiva Baby and, less successfully, in Seligmans’ follow-up comedy Bottoms – Sennott stretched her shtick but remained most successful in this familiar, self-deprecating zone, though she has hinted at something darker and less irony-pilled. I Used to Be Funny, the featur
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Janis Paige obituary

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Hollywood actor and singer who created the role of ‘Babe’ Williams in the Broadway musical The Pajama Game Janis Paige, who has died aged 101, shone in films and numerous television shows, but her greatest triumph came in the Richard Adler /Jerry Ross Tony award-winning Broadway musical The Pajama Game in 1954. Paige created the role of “Babe” Williams, the spirited leader of the union grievance committee at the Sleep Tite pajama factory, vigorously belting out the numbers I’m Not at All in Love , Small Talk and There Once Was a Man . This resulted in further stage leads for Paige as strong-willed women, to which her singing voice and vibrant personality were perfectly suited. She replaced Angela Lansbury on Broadway in Mame in 1968, and toured in shows including Gypsy, Applause, Annie Get Your Gun and Guys and Dolls. Continue reading... from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/7RSKuE6 via IFTTT
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Heart of an Oak review – 18 spectacular months in the life of an exquisite tree

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This peaceful nature film contemplates the creatures and critters that live in and around a 200-year-old oak, including some Top Gun-esque aerial cinematography Entirely devoid of dialogue (unless a bit of Dean Martin on the soundtrack counts), this pleasant nature film observes the seasons passing for 18 months on, around and even underneath a 210-year-old oak tree in Sologne in central France. Technically, some would argue this is not exactly a documentary because some of the sequences are staged or composed of shots taken at totally different times, but scientific accuracy and cinematic authenticity aren’t really the point; this isn’t didactic film-making in the David Attenborough or even March of the Penguins tradition, crafted to drop a bit of natural history knowledge on the viewer. That said, if you sit through the end credits, you’ll at least learn some of the featured creatures’ Latin and French names, with the English handles in the subtitles. In fact, although the exquisit
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Bad Boys: Ride or Die review – Will Smith bromance goes big on Pointless Action Explosions

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Smith and Martin Lawrence may be in the career wilderness but the serial rule-breakers are back with a winning cop comedy Martin Lawrence, America’s lost hero of broad comedy, has had his movie profile kept on a kind of life-support by the near 30-year-old Bad Boys franchise; but some of us furtive Lawrence fans still sheepishly bond over re-watchings of the great man’s masterpiece, his 2001 merrie England adventure Black Knight alongside Tom Wilkinson. Now Lawrence appears in the fourth Bad Boys film in the remarkable situation of being in better career shape than his Oscar-winning co-star Will Smith, who is still in disgrace for the Slap Heard Around the World and then, just as importantly, the F-Bombs Heard Around the World So Everyone Knew the Slap Was Real. This film’s production having been delayed by The Controversy, Lawrence and Smith are back as rule-breaking cops Marcus Burnett and Mike Lowrey; first seen in 1995, they are now the Bad Late-Middle Aged Men. Our two heroes e
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Mom review – Indigenous Mexican woman contemplates the price of a machismo society

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Director Xun Sero grew up fatherless and resentful. As his mother opens up about her troubled life, he must face his own role In a culture where discussion of family trauma and gender-based abuse are still considered taboo, Xun Sero’s frank, intimate documentary seeks to find a common ground in a community fractured by precariousness and violence. Staying close to the film-maker’s mother, Hilda, Sero’s camera not only observes exteriors but also looks inward; this is a film of dialogue and self-interrogation. Growing up in the Indigenous Tzotzil community in Mexico , from the age of nine Hilda was already promised as a wife to an older man. Her one act of rebellion as a teenager resulted in the birth of Sero, a source of shame for mother and son. During his childhood, Sero’s resentment towards his absent father was often directed at his mother, resulting in bitter accusations. As difficult, previously unasked questions are exchanged, a feeling of emotional exorcism arises, as Sero wr
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Rebel Wilson says idea only gay actors can play gay roles ‘is total nonsense’

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Australian actor tells BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs performers should be able to play any role they want Australian actor Rebel Wilson has said the idea that “only straight actors can play straight roles and gay actors can play gay roles” is “total nonsense”. The Pitch Perfect star, 44, spoke to radio presenter Lauren Laverne on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs and was asked if women can get away with different jokes compared with men. “I’ve definitely said a lot of edgy jokes, and said them sometimes in very public places like the Baftas,” she said. Continue reading... from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/7OrNIZn via IFTTT
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Maya Hawke: I’m OK with having a life I don’t deserve due to nepotism

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Actor, daughter of Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, says she rejected path of ‘changing name and getting nose job’ The Stranger Things star Maya Hawke has said she is “comfortable with not deserving” the kind of life she has. The American actor and singer, the daughter of Hollywood actors Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, said her relationship with them was “positive”, which “supersedes anything anyone can say about it”. Continue reading... from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/ipDIE7q via IFTTT
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TikTok comedian unknowingly stops Baz Luhrmann in Sydney street and talks 'foursomes' – video

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'Are you going to light me well?' director Baz Luhrmann asks when Georgia Godworth, a comedian who interviews strangers on the street, stops him in Sydney's Newtown to ask about his love life. Godworth, seemingly unaware who she is speaking to, begins by asking Luhrmann if he is single 'So are you single?' TikToker interviews Baz Luhrmann apparently without knowing who he is – and they talk group sex Continue reading... from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3ZISnvH via IFTTT
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Sting review – low-budget alien-spider horror offers laughs and out-of-your-skin shocks

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A fun-filled terror yarn featuring a flesh-eating alien secretly reared by a 12-year-old that delights in cutting its teeth on the apartment block’s pets This killer-spider-from-outer-space movie feels like a cross between Alien and TV’s Only Murders in the Building. It’s a mostly fun throwback horror comedy set in a Brooklyn apartment block where 12-year-old Charlotte (Alyla Browne) finds a spider, puts it in a jar and calls it Sting. “Awesome,” she marvels when Sting doubles in size in two hours, hungrily tapping the glass for more cockroaches to chomp on. What Charlotte doesn’t know is that her new pet is a flesh-eater recently hatched out of an asteroid that crash landed on Earth. At the screening I attended, someone a few rows behind couldn’t hack it and walked out after a few minutes. Which is a credit to first-time feature director Kiah Roache-Turner, who pulls off a couple of moments that will make you jump out of your skin using simple shadow tricks and oh-there-it-is! shock
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Robert De Niro calls Donald Trump ‘a clown’ outside hush-money trial – video

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Actor Robert De Niro was present outside the New York courthouse where Donald Trump’s hush-money trial was reaching its closing stages. The 80-year-old Oscar winner is part of Joe Biden’s re-election campaign and called Trump ‘a clown’ as he urged Americans to take the ‘second chance’ to ‘vote him out once and for all’ in the US elections in November ‘A coward’s violence’: Robert De Niro trolls Trump outside hush-money trial Continue reading... from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/SMiLf3u via IFTTT
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Gasoline Rainbow review – a free-ranging coming-of-age ode to the curiosity of youth

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Billed as a gen Z road trip film, the Ross brothers’ first fiction feature offers more than you’d expect from the genre, with a focus on human interaction over plot In the opening seconds of the Ross brothers’ new film, a teenager professes his hope to discover a place “weirdos” like him can call home. The opening raises doubts about the novelty of what might follow: the trope of the high school outsider has been endlessly revisited. Gasoline Rainbow – billed as a gen Z road trip movie – starts off by replaying familiar images. As new high school graduates Makai, Micah, Nathaly, Nichole and Tony hit the road across Oregon for one final adventure together, we see the usual trappings of the genre: sing-alongs, parties by the campfire, and leaning out of car windows to enjoy the breeze and sweet call of freedom. We move into welcome new territory when a mishap leaves their van out of action, and the group are left in the hot desert trying to scrounge a path forward, meeting strangers al
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Tell That to the Winter Sea review – teenagers’ woozy, blushing tale of first love

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Flashbacks reveal an all-consuming bond when two friends reunite at a hen night in a country cottage Filled with luscious shades of pastel pinks, blues and greens, the warm colour palette of Jaclyn Bethany’s latest feature blushes with the heady glow of summer. Like a bruised fruit, however, the sugary imagery belies unexpected notes of bitterness, as the film plumbs the complex depths of female relationship and the everlasting spell of first love. Led by an all-female cast, the mood is beguilingly woozy, even conspiratorial. Friends in their teens as dance students, Scarlet (Amber Anderson) and Jo (Greta Bellamacina) reunite as adults for the latter’s hen night at a countryside cottage. Other guests will soon arrive, but much of the film hinges on the palpable tension and intimacy between the two women. Nearly opposite in temperament – Scarlet is reserved while Jo is more flamboyant – the pair finds their life paths have starkly diverged in terms of love and career. Resentment and h
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Richard Sherman obituary

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Co-writer with his brother of some of the great film musical songs including classics for Mary Poppins and The Jungle Book Richard Sherman, who has died aged 95, often said that he never realised his youthful ambition to write “the great American symphony”. However, with his brother, Robert Sherman , he co-wrote songs that provided the soundtrack for a generation’s childhood – upbeat numbers with a homespun philosophy typified by lines such as “a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down”. Those words were written for the brothers’ greatest triumph, the Oscar-winning Mary Poppins (1964), for which they created a score of staggering brilliance: haunting ballads, lilting lullabies, roistering marches, energetic dance numbers and knockabout vaudeville tunes. Half of the songs instantly became standards – not just the Oscar-winning Chim Chim Cher-ee but also A Spoonful of Sugar, Feed the Birds, Jolly Holiday and Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Continue reading... from Film | Th
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Anora is a vivacious Cannes victor and a fitting end to a radically romantic festival

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Sean Baker’s story of an erotic dancer who marries a Russian oligarch makes a terrific surprise Palme d’Or winner – though more reward for Mohammad Rasoulof might have felt better This was a Cannes that turned out to be about love, and the Palme d’Or went to a love story that knocks down the whole idea of a Cinderella romance, while also, in some mysterious and delicate way, passionately believing in it. Sean Baker’s Anora is superbly acted by its star, Mikey Madison, who plays an erotic dancer and escort in New York called Ani (short for Anora) who finds herself in an exclusive commercial relationship with the wastrel son of a Russian oligarch, called Ivan, played by Mark Eidelstein. Continue reading... from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/ma4XqQS via IFTTT
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Anora, tale of a stripper who marries a Russian oligarch, wins Palme d’Or at Cannes

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Karla Sofía Gascón becomes the first trans woman to share best acting award in the film Emilia Pérez Anora , a tragi-comic modern-day Cinderella story about a stripper who marries a multimillionare, made by the American director Sean Baker, has won the coveted Palme d’Or at the 77 th Cannes Film Festival . Baker, 53, dedicated the award to “all sex workers past and present” as he accepted the honour from the Star Wars creator George Lucas in front of an audience of stars gathered in the Palais des Festivals on the Cote D’Azur. Continue reading... from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/NJvkSgG via IFTTT
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Cut! Building of new UK film and TV studios on hold after pandemic streaming boom

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Economic downturn, changing viewing habits and Hollywood strikes prompt questions about whether bubble has burst The latest series of the Devil’s Hour starring Peter Capaldi and Jessica Raine may be a supernatural thriller but it is being filmed in more prosaic surroundings: not far from the M25 in Surrey. Shepperton studios, part of Pinewood Group, is now the second-largest film studio in the world after a new extension opened earlier this year. Continue reading... from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/PBSyLoC via IFTTT
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Dabney Coleman obituary

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Prolific actor who, in 1980s films such as 9 to 5 and Tootsie, came to define the misogynistic archetype of a generation In the 1980 office comedy hit film 9 to 5 , Jane Fonda, as one of three long-suffering office workers subjected to endless harassment by their male chauvinist boss, played by Dabney Coleman , eventually gets to call him a “sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical, bigot”, albeit in her imagination. These epithets could apply to a majority of the many roles played by Coleman, who has died aged 92. With thinning hair and a fleshy, seemingly friendly face, adorned more often than not with a sly moustache, Coleman made his long career portraying deceptively ordinary, slippery bastards. He played “the man you love to hate” in both dramas and comedies in a similar straight fashion. Continue reading... from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/GHVDN7X via IFTTT
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