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Showing posts with the label Film | The Guardian

Mark Kermode on… Kathryn Bigelow, a stylish ruffler of feathers

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From vampire noir to Bin Laden, Point Break to Detroit, the first woman to win an Oscar for best director has never pulled her punches Watching new Jeff Nichols release The Bikeriders , starring Austin Butler and Tom Hardy as 60s Chicago greasers, I was reminded of two other movies: László Benedek’s 1953 Marlon Brando vehicle The Wild One , explicitly cited as an inspiration, and The Loveless , the 1981 feature debut of Kathryn Bigelow , the American film-maker (b.1951) who would go on to become the first woman to win a best director Oscar with her 2008 war drama The Hurt Locker . A symphony of leather-clad posing (with just a touch of Kenneth Anger ), The Loveless was a staple of the late-night circuit in the 80s, often on a double bill with David Lynch’s Eraserhead . Sharing directing credits with Monty Montgomery, Bigelow playfully deconstructed masculinity and machismo in a manner that was one part wry to two parts relish. I remember seeing The Loveless at the Phoenix in East
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A dog in the dock and another doing red carpet interviews: why has Cannes gone canine crazy?

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Once a celebration of arthouse raunch, the film festival has had to change in the #MeToo era. Is that why, on screen and off, pooches are everywhere this year? Our writer goes walkies on the Côte d’Azur One of the most eagerly anticipated talents about to grace the red carpet at Cannes this week is tall, blond, leggy and has a seductively husky voice. Par for the course, you might think, at the glitzy, notoriously libidinous film festival on the sun-kissed Côte d’Azur – were it not for that lolling tongue and the fact that the bag in the hands of the entourage is more likely to be a doggy-doo than a Birkin or Chanel. Fawn-maned griffon cross Kodi is the star of French-Swiss actor Laetitia Dosch’s directorial debut Dog on Trial, a film that feels precision-engineered for Cannes’ 77th edition in more ways than one. Dosch tells me the following origin story about her first feature. Three years ago, while the script was taking shape inside her head, she bumped into the director Justine T
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‘Explosive’ secret list of abusers set to upstage women’s big week at Cannes film festival

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Crisis management team reported to be in place as Meryl Streep heads roster of female stars and directors collecting accolades For good and bad reasons, on and off the red carpet, the spotlight is trained on women in the run-up to the Cannes film festival this week. As the cream of female film talent, including Hollywood’s Meryl Streep and Britain’s Andrea Arnold, prepare to receive significant career awards, a dark cloud is threatening. It is expected that new allegations of the abuse of women in the European entertainment industry will be made public, which may overshadow the sparkle of a feminist Croisette. Streep’s screen achievements will be celebrated with an honorary Palme d’Or at the opening ceremony, while a day later Arnold, the acclaimed British film director, will receive the prestigious Carosse d’Or from the French director’s guild. And on Sunday another influential British film personality will be saluted when diversity champion Dame Donna Langley, the chairman and chi
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Kristen Stewart says Hollywood’s self-congratulation over gender equality ‘feels phony’

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The actor said that making movies by a small number of female film-makers was not cause for celebration. ‘You’re like, OK, cool. You’ve chosen four’ Kristen Stewart has chastised Hollywood’s efforts at gender equality, saying that the industry clapping itself on the back for an embrace of female film-makers “feels phony”. Speaking to Porter magazine for the release of Love Lies Bleeding , a violent romance set in the world of female bodybuilding, Stewart said much of the high-profile greenlighting of female stories was lip service. Continue reading... from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/kYyfPjw via IFTTT
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‘I want to make movies for my people’: Jane Schoenbrun on making a soon-to-be cult classic

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The writer-director’s film I Saw the TV Glow brings together themes of fandom, pop culture obsession and trans identity For the writer-director Jane Schoenbrun, making their highly anticipated follow-up to the breakout indie horror We’re All Going to the World’s Fair was a starkly different process. While their debut cost about $100,000 to make and felt like the result of 10 people running wild in the woods somewhere, far off the grid, I Saw the TV Glow was something else entirely: a budget larger than anything they had worked with before, a giant machine where everything had to move in careful synchronization. “It was so different that it was almost like working in a different medium,” Schoenbrun said. “I really tried to take advantage of that with this film. I tried to make something that could be like almost painted. So many images in this film were so labored over.” Continue reading... from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/ayVw5QJ via IFTTT
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Streaming: Monkey Man and the best revenge movies

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Dev Patel’s seething directorial debut joins a thriving genre, from the bloody violence of Tarantino and John Wick to the comic rage of The First Wives Club In real life, most of us don’t get that many opportunities to exact revenge on someone. A passive-aggressive comeback maybe, but that’s not quite the same. In the movies, however, as in Greek mythology, vengeance is one of the driving forces of storytelling: revenge films, both aggressively bloody and more benign, provide cathartic wish-fulfilment for our own petty grievances and unsettled scores. In Dev Patel’s seething directorial debut Monkey Man , the quest is familiar – as his streetwise hero seeks retribution for his mother’s murder – but the sheer gusto of his vengeance is invigorating, down to driving a dagger into a villain’s throat with his teeth. The modern revenge movie is largely characterised by such kinetic action and extreme violence, best exemplified by the John Wick franchise (directly namechecked in Monkey Man
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Cannes film festival faces strike disruption over seasonal workers’ rights

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Group will protest against government’s treatment of freelance workers at festivals across France The Cannes film festival is facing strike action as it opens next week and could see protests by projectionists, floor managers and press agents who are demanding changes to the French government’s treatment of seasonal film festival staff. The festival on France’s Côte d’Azur has faced major strike action only once before, during the student protests and workers’ strikes that began in May 1968. Continue reading... from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/Ruf7FzE via IFTTT
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‘I love erotic thrillers, but this so isn’t one’: Damian Hurley on directing his mother, Elizabeth, in a ‘sensual mystery’

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At 22, Damian Hurley has made his first feature film, in which his very famous mum is snogged and fondled by her female co-star. He talks about being a nepo baby, finally getting to vote, and coping with the deaths of his father and stepfather Orson Welles was 25 when he directed Citizen Kane . What took him so long? He should have pulled his finger out like Damian Hurley, son of the model and actor Elizabeth Hurley, who was just 20 when he called “Action!” on his own debut, Strictly Confidential. It was filmed on Saint Kitts and Nevis, and could double as a tourist-board commercial for those Caribbean islands were it not for the murder and skulduggery, or lines such as: “You’ve been fucking your dead sister’s boyfriend!” In his journey to the director’s chair, Hurley, who has a lucrative modelling career, has faced few obstacles. He was given a camcorder at the age of eight. His early shorts starred his mother and her ex, Hugh Grant, who happens also to be one of his godfathers. (El
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Peter Weir to receive Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at Venice film festival

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Australian director of Gallipoli and Dead Poets Society praised by festival for his impact in Hollywood ‘while keeping his distance from the American movie industry’ Peter Weir, the Australian director and screenwriter behind The Truman Show, Dead Poets Society and Gallipoli, will receive a prestigious Golden Lion award for lifetime achievement at this year’s Venice film festival. “With a total of only 13 movies directed over the course of 40 years, Peter Weir has secured a place in the firmament of great directors of modern cinema,” said the festival’s artistic director, Alberto Barbera, on Thursday. Continue reading... from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/5gpaAN6 via IFTTT
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Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof sentenced to eight years in prison and flogging

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Rasoulof is one of Iran’s leading directors and his film The Seed of the Sacred Fig is due to premiere at Cannes film festival The Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof has been sentenced to eight years in prison, flogging, a fine and the confiscation of property, his lawyer has confirmed. Writing on X , Babak Paknia, a human rights lawyer representing Rasoulof, said that the judgment was confirmed in a court of appeal and the case had now been sent for enforcement. Continue reading... from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/PZmzype via IFTTT
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From mythic creatures to innovative documentaries:: 10 films to see at Sydney film festival 2024

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The 5-16 June program includes Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest Kinds of Kindness, and a hairy family in Sasquatch Sunset Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email This year’s Sydney film festival program has just been announced and, as usual, it is bulging with treats from around the world. The event kicks off on 5 June with a screening of Paul Clarke’s documentary Midnight Oil: The Hardest Line, and runs until 16 June at various venues across the city. Here are 10 films you might want to check out – in addition to three others on the program that I’ve written about previously : The Moogai, Every Little Thing and Mozart’s Sister. Continue reading... from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/NtdHloh via IFTTT
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The End of Wonderland review – trans porn star deals with eviction and a hoarding crisis

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Laurence Turcotte-Fraser’s wistful documentary follows resourceful porn star Tara Emory’s ‘entropic’ problem with clutter This documentary about a transgender porn star turns out to be a portrait of a divided self, but not quite how you’d expect. Two personalities vie inside Massachusetts-based adult performer Tara Emory: zeppelin-bosomed sci-fi sex kitten, and grease monkey/compulsive hoarder. Director Laurence Turcotte-Fraser’s intimate and ever-so-wistful study thankfully bypasses current trans-related bloodletting and even to a large degree questions of gender definition; instead this film concentrates on a purely individual problem: Emory’s battle with the “entropic” clutter threatening to overwhelm her life. The lithe, rangy Emory is a mid-40s veteran of DIY internet porn, crafting bespoke photoshoots and making personal appearances in Victoriana, Barbarella and other shades of kitsch. But supporting her fantasy existence is real-world scaffolding: a trove of bric-a-brac and fl
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Mambar Pierrette review – subtle and big-hearted parable of women’s resilience in Cameroon

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Pierrette is beset with troubles, from a robbery to a house flood and more, but the neorealist drama comes with solidarity and surprising humour The simple image of pushing a seam through a sewing machine becomes a profound life statement in Rosine Mbakam’s debut feature, which is focused on talented clothier Pierrette (played by the director’s cousin Pierrette Aboheu Njeuthat) in the Cameroonian city Douala. It’s emblematic of the need to keep moving forward in daily life – and to come out the other side smiling, with stoicism and resilience. As one customer puts it: “I’m getting by. That’s life. When you fall down, you get up again.” Pierrette is having, it has to be said, an especially rough day. A single mother also caring for an elderly parent (Marguerite Mbakop), she is already scraping for cash. Regularly bartered into submission by her clientele, she always holds her gaze bashfully downwards – either out of anger, or embarrassment at having to assert herself. When she takes a
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‘I get a little stir-crazy’: Jennifer Connelly on David Bowie, working with family and going back to college

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Growing up on set put Oscar-winning actor Jennifer Connelly on the fast track to Hollywood fame. But despite her success, one of her lasting regrets was not finishing college – and, she says, it’s still on her to-do list… Jennifer Connelly is on a Zoom call from her home in Brooklyn, jetlagged after attending Louis Vuitton’s pre-fall 2024 show in Shanghai, which does not bode well: she is known to have been reticent in past interviews, and sometimes while working. When she made A Beautiful Mind , the 2001 movie for which she won an Oscar for playing the wife of schizophrenic mathematician John Nash, the co-producer Brian Grazer was unnerved by her reserve. “It was hard for me to get to know her on the set because I’m so emotional,” he told a writer in 2001. “She’s very serious. She’s not silly. She doesn’t have that buoyancy.” It is a relief, then, to find Connelly to be thoughtful and lovely and erudite, happy enough to discuss her life and career. I ask if Grazer’s description is o
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Mark Kermode on… Danny Boyle, a director who defines British pop culture

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As his dazzling debut, Shallow Grave, gets a 30th anniversary rerelease, here’s to an extraordinary career that ranges from Trainspotting to Slumdog Millionaire and that unforgettable London 2012 Olympic opening ceremony Lancashire-born film-maker Danny Boyle holds a special place in the nation’s heart, having been responsible for not one but three defining moments in our recent pop-culture history. In 1996, his daringly inventive adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting changed the face of young British cinema, with star-making performances from the likes of Ewan McGregor, Kelly Macdonald and Robert Carlyle, and a magpie soundtrack (everything from Lou Reed and Iggy Pop to Pulp, Blur and Underworld) that out-hipped Pulp Fiction . I was co-hosting Radio 1’s film programme when Trainspotting hit UK cinemas, and Mary Anne Hobbs and I immediately ditched our opening station jingles in favour of the thumping drum intro to Lust for Life , which remained the show’s theme tune in perpetu
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Unfrosted review – Jerry Seinfeld delivers a surreal toast to Pop-Tarts

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The history of how the all-American breakfast snack was created is served up with lashings of goofiness in this comedy caper Standup veteran Jerry Seinfeld makes his directing debut with this decent family comedy that puts a surreal twist on the history of Pop-Tarts, one of the US’s most beloved snacks: the sheer goofiness and disposable pointlessness are entertaining. Seinfeld created the film with co-writers Spike Feresten, Andy Robin and Barry Marder, the same writing team that worked on Bee Movie , the animation that Seinfeld starred in, produced and co-wrote in 2007. Unfrosted doesn’t quite have the flair of Bee Movie, but there’s a steady stream of excellent gags, creating a rising crescendo of silliness similar in effect to Seinfeld’s own distinctive falsetto-hysterical declamation at the moment of ultimate joke-awareness. There are also nice supporting roles and cameos, including an extraordinary dual walk-on from Jon Hamm and John Slattery, recreating their ad exec Mad Men p
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Red Herring review – document of family soul-searching after terminal diagnosis

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The disarmingly candid film follows Vincent and his loved ones as they try to find ways to deal with a devastating prognosis When he was 24, film-maker Kit Vincent was diagnosed with a brain tumour; doctors said that he could expect to live four to eight years. This emotional, raw and quietly powerful documentary started out as a study of how his dad Lawrence came to terms with his son getting ill. The title is a giveaway that the finished article is not that film. At times, it feels like family therapy. Vincent hangs out with his parents, who divorced when he was a teenager. Time is running out, and the camera is switched on – two facts that force everyone into the kind of deep, soul searching conversations that most of us spend a lifetime avoiding having with family. Lawrence (tense and distant-looking in old family photos, mellowed with age) was in the hospital room when Vincent got his diagnosis and promptly had a heart attack. The guilt is still with him: “Just when you needed m
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The Idea of You review – Anne Hathaway lives out fanfic fantasy in solid romance

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The star makes for a charming lead playing a mother falling for a younger pop star in a passable adaptation of Robinne Lee’s bestselling pulp There are lithe, low-level pleasures to be had in the glossy pop romance The Idea of You, Amazon’s latest attempt to turn a fanfic fave into a broadly alluring date movie. It follows last year’s Red, White and Royal Blue , a smartphone screen adaptation of Casey McQuiston’s what-if gay romp. In that film, it was the fantasy of a president’s son and an English prince. Here it’s a 40-year-old mum and a Harry Styles-level pop star, a blogpost daydream of love and lust, played out with both jostling for space. It’s a far sleeker and far more satisfying package than the former, illuminated by the genuine movie star power of Anne Hathaway and made with a higher level of craft, from the sturdy studio-level direction of Michael Showalter to a mostly smooth-going script. The romcom genre has allegedly been “back” for a while now but that’s mostly trans
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Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry review – a gentle gem about late-life love and loneliness

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Elene Naveriani’s film tells the story of a middle-aged single woman in a remote Georgian village whose life is changed for ever after a near-death experience Here is a marvellously tender story of loneliness and love which starts with a bigger bang than most thrillers. Etero, played by Eka Chavleishvili, is a middle-aged single woman in a remote Georgian village who is out walking near a steep ravine, collecting blackberries for the cakes she likes to bake. She looks up, transfixed by the beauty of a blackbird – having been, we are perhaps invited to assume, only waiting for this moment to arrive – when she loses her footing and disappears from the frame; film-maker Elene Naveriani switches the viewpoint to something terrifying and vertiginous: straight down to a near death experience. Etero sees her own corpse in a parallel universe of her own stricken imagining, but this heartstopping near-miss, together with the unwelcome new symptoms of what appear to be menopause, coincide with
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The Animal Kingdom review – Romain Duris leads post-Covid fantasy of virus-triggered mutants

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Duris stars as a father protecting his son, who may or may not be mutating, in Thomas Cailley’s well-crafted thriller Thomas Cailley’s sci-fi fantasy has too much sensitivity and good taste to be the proper horror-thriller or creature feature that it almost resembles. It’s a drama of emotions and ideas about post-Covid society – which is welcome enough – but with a dash of prosthetics and CGI and some scares. I felt something very similar about Bong Joon-ho’s monster film The Host back in 2006: the worthiness operates against the excitement and I found myself wanting something more gleefully crass and shocking, something more ironic or thrillingly callous. The Animal Kingdom seems squeamish about going for the jugular in the way a proper genre movie would – or a Marvel movie. The scene is a France of the near future in which there has been an outbreak of some disease which has caused humans to mutate into animals. The government is just about on top of the situation, having establis
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‘Ideal’ movie running time is 92 minutes, poll claims

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Survey of 2,000 Americans conflicts with the box-office records being broken for film running well over two hours A market research poll claims to have established that 92 minutes is the “ideal” movie length for American audiences. According to Talker Research (formerly OnePoll US) , an online survey conducted in April with 2,000 Americans concluded that respondents opted for 92 minutes as their preferred running time. Fifteen per cent said that films over 120 minutes (two hours) were acceptable, while only 2% were happy with a movie longer than 150 minutes (2.5 hours). Continue reading... from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/Ww9gHhM via IFTTT
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