Jack's Black: Osbourne junior to direct Black Sabbath film

Jack Osbourne is to direct his first feature film, Black Sabbath, according to reports.

Not to be confused with Mario Bava's 1963 Italian portmanteau, from which the band fronted by Jack's father, Ozzy, took their name, Black Sabbath will be an original horror film featuring the group's music.

While this will be Osbourne's first directing job, it is not his first foray into the world of film; he co-produced concert documentary God Bless Ozzy Osbourne, which premiered at the Tribeca film festival last weekend. Osbourne Jr is again joining forces with producer Marc Weingarten, who co-produced the recent documentary. Shooting is to begin by the end of the year.

Plot details have yet to be released but it is thought the film may be the same project that Sabbath's lead guitarist, Tony Iommi, was linked to a few years ago, along with Texas Chainsaw Massacre producer Mike Fleiss, who directed God Bless Ozzy Osbourne. Whether Iommi is involved this time is not clear, though he was to score the original project and was the only member of Black Sabbath to be present throughout all of the band's personnel changes.

View the original article here

Alan Partridge film to shoot next year in Norwich

Steve Coogan has told interviewers that a big-screen version of Alan Partridge is set to shoot next year. Speaking at the Tribeca film festival, where a feature-length version of his BBC series The Trip is screening, Coogan said Borat's Pete Baynham and In the Loop's Armando Iannucci were currently working alongside him on the screenplay.

"We left it behind for a while, but we came back to it because we got a few ideas," Coogan told The Playlist. "We're writing it right now, going to shoot it next year. Don't know who will direct it."

Partridge began life on the BBC Radio 4 comedy programme On the Hour in 1991, graduating to the series' TV iteration The Day Today in 1994. He also had his own show, Knowing Me, Knowing You ... with Alan Partridge on Radio 4 and that series also transferred to TV in 1994.

Iannucci refuted suggestions that the new film might be set – Borat-style – in the US. "We don't see Alan, for example getting Simon Cowell's spot on American Idol and going over there. That's too good for Alan,' he said. "Alan's future is always brighter in his head than it is in the real world."

He later tweeted: "The Partridge news is that we've now agreed a story for the film. It's NOT Alan goes to America."

The Playlist said the film would be set in Norwich, the city where Partridge was working during his last TV outing, I'm Alan Partridge, two series of which screened in 1997 and 2002. The DJ then worked for the fictional Radio Norwich, but may be forced to find new employment this time around: on 29 June 2006, a new radio station for Norwich, owned by the Tindle Radio Group, launched under the name of 99.9 Radio Norwich.

View the original article here

Fast and Furious 5 blazes a trail to the top of the box office

Over the past couple of weeks, distributors and cinema owners have been quick to blame the sunshine for the depressed box office. But this column has always maintained that if there's a film audiences really want to see, they will forego the pleasures of a sunny afternoon or a warm summer evening for a couple of hours.

Fast & Furious 5Production year: 2011Country: USACert (UK): 12ARuntime: 130 minsDirectors: Justin LinCast: Chris Ludacris Bridges, Dwayne Johnson, Jordana Brewster, Paul Walker, Tyrese Gibson, Vin DieselMore on this film

The latest film to storm the box office despite an unseasonally warm Easter is Fast & Furious 5. The latest entry in the popular cars-and-crime franchise took a stonking £5.33m including £1.32m in Thursday previews. Add in Easter Monday takings, and that figure rises to £6.37m over five days.

The figures are in line with the opening of fourth picture, Fast & Furious, over the Easter 2009 weekend. That took £4.93m over the Friday-Sunday period, and £6.01m including Easter Monday. At the time, no previous entry in the F&F franchise had debuted above £3m, the best result being 2 Fast 2 Furious' £2.75m including previews of £321,000, in June 2003. The original The Fast & the Furious was relatively lacklustre in the UK, since it had the misfortune to open in September 2001, three days after 9/11.

Given Russell Brand's popularity at home, the UK might have expected to prove a bright spot for the actor's remake of 1981 hit Arthur. Sadly, for distributor Warner Bros, that has not proved to be the case. A US debut of $12.2m indicated a UK opening around £1.2m, whereas in fact the comedy achieved £764,000 over Friday-Sunday, and just over £1m including Easter Monday takings. The contrasting results of Arthur and Fast & Furious 5 would seem to indicate that, while sunshine may prove a small handicap for a must-see title, sunny skies do deter audiences when their interest is moderate and non-urgent. The danger for Arthur is that its audience will soon face rival temptations: Thor is hardly direct competition, but its arrival on Wednesday may nevertheless push Arthur further down people's Want To See lists. In other words, your opening weekend is your best shot, and it only gets tougher going forward.

Beastly, starring Alex Pettyfer and Vanessa Hudgens, landed in fifth place with a mediocre £553,000, and £655,000 including Easter Monday. On closer examination, it's much worse than that, with a hefty £268,000 coming from previews, meaning that the film in fact earned just £285,000 from the three-day weekend period, ie ninth place. Red Riding Hood, another example of Hollywood's current vogue for fairytale reinvention, debuted with a much stronger £842,000 the previous weekend. The industry is rife with rumours that Pettyfer has already developed major movie-star attitude – a status that, as far as box office is concerned, he has yet to earn.

Two new 3D documentaries both landed in the top 15. Isle of Man motorbike flick TT3D: Closer to the Edge, bravely going up against the scripted testosterone thrills of Fast & Furious, opened with £313,000 from 79 screens, boosted by extensive previews totaling £182,000. Thanks to those previews, it achieved the second highest screen average of any film on release, £3,962, behind Fast & Furious, of course. The third highest site average belonged to fellow 3D documentary Pina, about the Pina Bausch dance troupe, which debuted with £72,000 from 19 screens, including modest previews of £10,000. The films could hardly be more different in subject matter. Following the success of Werner Herzog's cave painting doc, Cave of Forgotten Dreams (£500,000 to date), it's clear that audiences of many different stripes have an appetite for non-fiction in 3D.

TT3D's opening number is the biggest for a documentary since Justin Bieber's Never Say Never in February. Leaving aside concert films, it's ahead of the debuts of strong performers such as Waltz With Bashir (£113,000), Man On Wire (£99,000) and Touching the Void (£115,000), but behind the bar-setting opening of Fahrenheit 9/11 (£1.30m).

Now that the Easter holiday is over, the industry is carrying out a postmortem on the family-film offer. It was, in a word, disappointing. Despite its status as top title, biggest letdown is surely Twentieth Century Fox's Rio, with £8.33m so far (after 18 days), and just £1.23m over the four-day Easter weekend. OK, it's not quite over yet for the picture, but when you compare with the recent Tangled (£20.33m), Despicable Me (£20.04m) and Gnomeo & Juliet (£15.51m), it's a serious under-performance. The result is even more troubling when contrasted with the top performers in the Ice Age franchise, from the same director and animation studio. Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs maxed out at £35m, while second entry The Meltdown managed just shy of £30m. The original Ice Age grossed just over £15m.

Also failing to set tells ringing is Hop, from Universal's Illumination Entertainment, which got off to a flying start with Despicable Me. Hop's £6.12m to date is a big step down from that earlier picture. Hop's mix of animation and live action makes Alvin & the Chipmunks a fairer comparison, but the last one of those exceeded £23m.

Then there's Disney's Winnie the Pooh, with £402,000 so far, and Mars Needs Mums, with £268,000. Regarding the latter calamity, kindest thing to say is: look away, people, look away, nothing to see here.

Every holdover title on our chart fell by at least 40%, but the wooden spoon goes to James Franco medieval stoner-comedy Your Highness, which falls out of the top 10 after just one week, with a drop of 68%. With a screen average of just £504, the picture is likely to lose many of its sites and showtimes from Friday.

Following seven consecutive weekends when box office lagged the 2010 equivalent frames, in many cases by significant amounts, the good news is that, at last, weekend takings are up on 2010. Of course, the equivalent frame in 2010 did not benefit from the boost of Easter traffic, since the holiday that year fell 2-5 April. Exactly a year ago, cinemas were already suffering a post-Easter comedown, with new entrant Date Night leading a weak field. A week later, Iron Man 2 arrived to inject box-office Viagra, and cinemas will be hoping for a similar effect this weekend from Marvel adaptation Thor, which has already picked up a handy sum in Easter Monday previews, and has more preview slots on Wednesday and Thursday. Competing against Thor are horror flick Insidious, which has done well in the US, and indie comedy Cedar Rapids.

1. Fast & Furious 5: £5,332,096 from 437 sites (New)

2. Rio, £886,669 from 519 sites. Total: £8,017,662

3. Arthur, £764,468 from 434 sites (New)

4. Scream 4, £730,963 from 415 sites. Total: £4,046,069

5. Beastly, £553,069 from 250 sites (New)

6. Hop, £466,676 from 492 sites. Total: £5,940,142

7. Red Riding Hood, £345,421 from 404 sites. Total: £1,901,603

8. Source Code, £331,988 from 346 sites. Total: £5,276,549

9. TT3D, £312,998 from 79 sites (New)

10. Limitless, £282,879 from 309 sites. Total: £7,685,395

Dum Maaro Dum, 67 screens, £91,711

Pina, 19 screens, £71,809

Adèle Blanc-Sec, 28 screens, £29,869 + £10,546 previews

Ko, 15 screens, £27,103

Dharti, 8 screens, £13,420

How I Ended This Summer, 10 screens, £8,005 + £3,635 previews

Island, 1 screen, £2,253

Taxi zum Klo, 7 screens, £1,743

Sweetgrass, £263 + £765 previews

View the original article here

Pinewood backs Peel takeover bid

Pinewood Shepperton, the studios where films including the latest Harry Potter movie and the James Bond franchise were shot, has given its backing to an improved takeover offer from Peel Holdings following rival interest from former Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed.

Peel, the commercial property group which leased part of Salford's MediaCityUK site to the BBC, upped its original bid by around £8m, valuing the business at £96.1m. It already owns 29.8% of Pinewood.

The board of Pinewood, led by former ITV executive chairman Michael Grade, said Peel had been a supportive shareholder and the takeover proposal provided the business with the "long-term stability it needs to build on the success of the past few years".

"In the context of increasing illiquidity in the trading of Pinewood shares, the Pinewood independent directors believe that this stable time in a volatile industry offers shareholders an opportune moment to realise value," Grade said.

"Peel has been a most supportive shareholder, committed to our strategy and vision for the group. The board is satisfied that the long-term future of these assets, which make such a contribution to the growth of the UK's creative industries, will pass into safe hands."

Peel will pay 200p in cash per Pinewood share, up from an offer of 190p per share on 7 April. Al Fayed confirmed last week that he was considering making a bid for Pinewood.

Pinewood shares, which have gained more than quarter in value since Peel's initial offer, were down 1.4% at 210p at 8.25am on Wednesday.

The 75-year-old business is planning an ambitious £20m Project Pinewood expansion at its studios in Buckinghamshire that will see it build new facilities and sets on a par with Hollywood.

Its television studios have shot Dancing on Ice, Dragons' Den, My Family, Piers Morgan's Life Stories and Ant & Dec's Push The Button.

Peel said it expected Pinewood to operate independently of its own media assets, which include the new home for the BBC, ITV, Coronation Street and the University of Salford at the MediaCityUK development at Salford Quays.

The group invests in infrastructure, transport and real estate in the UK and has nearly £6bn of assets. It recently sold the Trafford Centre to Capital Shopping Centres for £1.6bn and is chaired by billionaire investor John Whittaker.

"Peel is a long-term investor in Pinewood and the wider media sector through its MediaCityUK investment and looks forward to supporting the Pinewood management in growing its operational business and developing its unique Project Pinewood proposal," Whittaker said.

"Peel represents a long-term strategic partner for Pinewood in continuing to grow and develop the business."

Grade added: "For 75 years the names Pinewood and Shepperton have been iconic in the global screen industries.

"The current management has advanced the business, investing to re-establish it as a world-class centre for all creative industries and expanding internationally with Pinewood representation now in five key regions around the world.

"We have developed a digital infrastructure to support our UK studios and Pinewood is planning for the next 75 years with innovative schemes such as Project Pinewood."

'I'll be back': Arnold Schwarzenegger to reprise Terminator role

A bidding war is expected among studios for the rights to a film that would mark the 63 year-old's return as an action hero. A script has yet to be written but Justin Lin, who is best known for his work on The Fast and the Furious franchise, has been lined up to direct. Schwarzenegger hinted last month that he was ready to step back into a role he first played in 1984 and which coined his catchphrase: "I'll be back."

"I can step very comfortably into the entertainment world and do an action movie with the same violence that I've always done," he said.

View the original article here

Abel, DVD review

Cert 15, 82 mins, Network Releasing

There's a streak of bravado at the core of Abel. Rather than play it safe in his debut feature film as director, Diego Luna – best known as the actor who played one of the testosterone-teens in Y Tu Mama Tambien – chooses to use not just child actors, but picked-from-the-wilderness amateur child actors.

It's a snort of derision in the face of the adage 'never work with children', and it turns out to be wholly justified. Luna shows himself an eminently capable director in this slim and elegiac film, and he unearths a genuine talent in 10-year-old first-time actor Christopher Ruiz-Esparza.

Ruiz-Esparza plays Abel, a young boy who returns home from a mental health institute to a family without a father figure. For a matter of days Abel surveys the scene with intense muteness. He sees his brother and sister quietly run amok while his mother strains under the economic pressure of bringing up a family.

And then Abel bursts into action. He fixes the toilet, hangs pictures in the hallway, castigates his sister, interrogates her boyfriend, and gets into his mother's bed. In other words, he becomes the patriarch.

Problem is, he also thinks he's the patriarch. Abel believes he's the father of his siblings and the husband of his mother, and any challenge to this new world order immediately sends him into a fit (presumably the type that first put him in the hospital – we are never definitively told).

Madness swarms at the edges of this film, much like the Buñuelian symbol ants pouring from a hole that Luna borrows early on. But the tension between Abel's reality and that of his surroundings is often played for laughs, especially when Abel's father returns to the house and turns out to be far more childish than young Abel, who is actually quite a successful parent.

The joke does wear a little thin – not least for Abel's mother, who has to suffer the inevitable bedroom scene – but there's an intriguing air to Abel and a well-paced finale that prove Luna's direction is mature beyond his years.

View the original article here

The Tourist, DVD review

This confused thriller-romance serves as a reminder that expensive ingredients do not necessarily make for a satisfying dish. Johnny Depp phones in his performance as Frank, a bemused American tourist unwittingly caught up in the schemes of mysterious action-woman Elise (Jolie, floundering as so often when asked to do more than look sexy). In his infamous Golden Globes speech, comedian Ricky Gervais said that in 2010 "it seemed like everything was in 3-D. Except the characters in The Tourist." He was being kind.

After much wistful sighing and preposterous plot twists, it emerges that Elise is a British spy on the trail of a renegade financier. He is wanted by Interpol (led by a wasted Paul Bettany) for robbing the British taxpayer, and also by an unscrupulous gangster (Steven Berkoff) whom he defrauded. As the handsome stars leap around various pieces of lavish scenery, the plot draws towards a conclusion that is at once nonsensical, predictable and unsatisfying. A couple of comic thrills and sumptuous cinematography from Oscar-winner John Seale do not make up for inconsistent tone, an unsatisfactory ending and a remarkable lack of chemistry between the leads.

View the original article here

Are the Saw creators returning to their low-budget roots with Insidious?

Even outside the horror circuit, you wouldn't read an article about the four Scream movies that didn't mention director Wes Craven or scriptwriter Kevin Williamson. You wouldn't read an article about the Halloween movies – one groundbreaking original and nine more, including sequels and remakes – that didn't mention John Carpenter. But it's quite possible that you've read about the Saw movies, all seven, with their increasingly outré, gory set-pieces, without having heard a single word about their creators: director James Wan and scriptwriter-actor Leigh Whannell.

InsidiousProduction year: 2010Country: USACert (UK): 15Runtime: 102 minsDirectors: James WanCast: Andrew Astor, Angus Sampson, Barbara Hershey, Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Ty SimpkinsMore on this film

"It's nuts!" laughs Whannell. Both 34, he and Wan are the last unsung impresarios of horror, no mean feat in a genre which claims Rob Zombie as an auteur. But these two didn't set out to take that world by storm. Though without them, Saw has become a multimillion-dollar byword for trashy, amoral, multiplex fodder, their first instalment – a far cry from the six that followed – is really a neat indie horror thriller. They certainly don't bristle at it, but then Wan and Whannell are now cheerfully inured to the phrase "torture porn".

"People who've seen the original Saw don't usually use that term," notes Wan. "They'd maybe use it to describe the sequels and the imitators. I was approached to do the sequel, but I felt that I'd already told the story I wanted to tell and I didn't want to repeat myself."

With their third film together – after the little-seen puppet chiller Dead Silence – the hip, funny Melbourne-based duo are trying to reclaim some of the ground that's been denied them. Produced by the backers of the Paranormal Activity franchise, Insidious sees Wan and Whannell returning to their low-budget roots with a tale of a suburban couple (Rose Byrne and Patrick Wilson) who are blighted by ghosts when their little boy falls into a coma. Says Wan: "I took some time off, and I knew that I wanted to come back with a movie that Leigh and I had complete creative control over. So I said to him, 'Look, we've always loved ghost stories. Let's write a really small, contained film … but one that is fucking scary.'

"We didn't want to make just another haunted house film," he continues. "In the same way Saw was a serial killer movie with a twist, what Leigh and I wanted to do was take a well-known subgenre in the world of horror films and turn that on its head."

Made for just $1m, Insidious doesn't reinvent the wheel but it does deliver clever and effective shocks, with a spooky twist that Wan expressly asks to be withheld. Like the original Saw, which most people forget debuted at the Sundance film festival in 2004, it's both an exercise in limitation (a single location), and a testament to their fertile imaginations. Asked about that franchise-spawning milestone, though, even now the pair still can't seem to believe it.

"Well," says Whannell, "I guess the end result exceeded our goal. Don't you think?"

"Our goal?!" laughs Wan. "What goal?"

"If I remember correctly," says Whannell, "it was just to shoot it and have a good-looking demo reel. We never went around saying, 'Hey, won't this be cool when it gets released on 2,000 screens in the States?' Our goal was very modest. We were like the guy whose dream in life is just to be an understudy on a Broadway show and then he suddenly lands a lead role. That was us."

"So what Leigh is saying is that we're lucky fuckers," says Wan.

For those that don't know, the first Saw film introduced the world to Jigsaw (Tobin Bell), a crazed inventor who puts not-so-innocent citizens in extreme life-or-death situations. And, as was the case with the Nightmare On Elm Street movies, the ensuing franchise turned a shady sadist into a glib antihero.

"A lot of people talk to us thinking that we came up with Jigsaw first and worked back from there," says Whannell. "But the first idea we had was of two people trapped in a room. And a great twist at the end. That's all we had. So when I went off to write the script I suddenly thought, 'All right, now I've got to figure out how they ended up there.' So I was racking my brain, thinking, 'Who would possibly do this?' And I hit upon the idea of somebody with terminal cancer who had lost their mind and was subjecting people to a literal version of the short time limit that he had on his life. But we never called him a serial killer. He was a psychopath, obviously …"

"… But he never punished people for their sins," adds Wan. "He's not one of those killers. He goes after people who don't appreciate their lives. I think some of that was lost along the way. But we can't really bitch about it, because we did step away from it."

So the question must be asked: will Insidious start another franchise, this time with its creators' names very much to the fore? "Leigh and I don't talk about sequels," laughs Wan. "I know that sounds weird coming from the guys who created the Saw franchise. But we never intended the first Saw film to have a sequel – capitalism dictated that! Which is cool with us, by the way, because now there are dolls and toys and even a rollercoaster, which, as film fans, we love."

As for recognition, though, they won't say no. "I want people to be able to recognise a Wan-Whannell film," beams Whannell. "I want people to get to the point – like a Tim Burton movie or a John Woo movie – where they can just tell."

"And we've started to get there," says Wan. "I think."

View the original article here

Jeremy Renner cast in Bourne Legacy

Jeremy Renner has been offered the lead role in The Bourne Legacy, the latest instalment of the spy saga which made Matt Damon a worldwide superstar, reports Deadline.

The Bourne UltimatumProduction year: 2007Country: USACert (UK): 12ARuntime: 115 minsDirectors: Paul GreengrassCast: David Strathairn, Joan Allen, Julia Stiles, Matt Damon, Paddy ConsidineMore on this film

Renner – if he chooses to accept his mission – arrives at a funny old time for the Bourne series. With Damon leaving the franchise and his character reaching the end of a story arc in The Bourne Ultimatum, the Hurt Locker actor will play a new role. Reports suggest it will be another brainwashed operative on the run from those who trained him. There will be a new covert government programme to replace Treadstone, Bourne having brought that organisation to its knees at the denouement of the last film.

Another important change for the new movie is that Tony Gilroy, who wrote the first three films, is stepping up to the director's role this time around. Paul Greengrass, the British director who took charge for the two most recent films, decided not to return in November 2009. Damon soon made it clear that he would not return without the film-maker's involvement.

Renner's name had been high on the list of rumoured candidates for the lead role in The Bourne Legacy, and appears to have just edged out the Australian actor Joel Edgerton, who starred in grubby Melbourne-set gangster thriller Animal Kingdom. According to Deadline the twice Oscar-nominated actor won the part after eight weeks of screen testing by producers. Other contenders were An Education's Dominic Cooper, Tron: Legacy's Garrett Hedlund, Luke Evans, Taylor Kitsch and Renner's Hurt Locker co-star Anthony Mackie. The film is due out in cinemas on 3 August 2012.

View the original article here

Tom Cruise Set for Dan Fogelman Pitch at Warner Bros.

 Tom Cruise is attached to star in Dan Fogelmans' nextWarner Bros. has picked up the untitled Dan Fogelman pitch which has Tom Cruise attached to star.

Written by the Crazy Stupid Love scribe, the pitch has Tom Cruise attached to play a politician who gets caught in an affair. With his reputation in tatters, the politician retreats to his hometown to lick his wounds, repair relationships and confront his past.

No production date has been set.

View the original article here

This Arthur remake is one too many

No one has been asking for a remake of Arthur. The 1981 screwball comedy that starred Dudley Moore as a drunken English heir falling for a working-class New Yorker is fondly remembered – and is worth delaying going to bed for when it shows up on late-night television – but it's hardly a comedy classic that demands revision or reinterpretation. Still! Russell Brand needs a vehicle to break America!

Directed by Jason Winer and written by Peter Baynham, this Arthur begins with the perpetually piddled playboy revving through the streets of Manhattan in a Batmobile. It's an image that grabs for your eyeballs – Batmobiles look great; who wouldn't want to get in one – but it's gimmicky, trying too hard. Would someone like Arthur, no matter how blotto or posh he was, be so stupid?

The film's premise – an English toff has to marry the stiff, terribly proper woman his parents desire or have his inheritance cut off – seemed dated 30 years ago: would an aristocratic family really behave like that? In 2011, it seems positively absurd. Wouldn't Arthur just parlay his errant, blue-blooded ways into a money-spinning turn on a transatlantic version of The F---ing Fulfords?

The new version does ring some changes. Gone is the Jeeves and Wooster-style relationship that John Gielgud and Moore double-acted so endearingly. Now Arthur's being looked after by his nanny (Helen Mirren); the women he beds aren't sweet-hearted hookers, but cold-hearted party girls who steal the contents of his uptown apartment; the pressure for him to marry comes not from his father, but his mother Vivienne (Geraldine James); his would-be wife Susan (Jennifer Garner) is an eyes-on-the-prize social climber: Arthur's problem is women at least as much as it is alcohol.

In Steve Gordon's original, Arthur was an unrepentant lush. He may have got the girl, but that didn't mean he had to give up the bottle. New York in 1981 was barely stumbling out of recession, with whole blocks and neighbourhoods resembling war zones: the film could have played like a despicable ode to lofty living and conspicuous consumption, a sister fantasia to that seen in Woody Allen's Manhattan (1979), had it not been for the charming grace notes that Moore brought to the role.

This time round, in a nod to Puritanism, Brand's Arthur winds up in an AA clinic. He mouths pieties about the latest recession, and in one of many mirthless set-pieces, withdraws a stack of dollars from a cash machine which he throws towards a crowd of hangers-on. This stab at soft moralism is not just all of a piece with modern-day Hollywood's obsession with personal redemption, but it's also mushy and insincere.

Of course Brand has his own history of debauchery, one whose eloquent, witty retelling fed into his role as a washed-up rock star in Get Him To The Greek. He'd appear to be made for Arthur. He tries hard. He even sheds all his clothes save his Y-fronts towards the end.

But that trying is itself trying. He preens and yammers away like a spivvier Jim Carrey, smart-talking with phrases closer to those he delivers in his stand-up show or to his prose style than to the kind of character Arthur is meant to be. A typical line – "Hello Vivienne. I remember you from when I used to live in your womb" – may possibly be funny, but it's not at all charming.

Without charm, Arthur is just a spoilt baby, a narcissistic kidult who deserves a slap. It's hard to believe that Mirren's Hobson wouldn't smack him around the chops; instead, she gets kinder and sweeter to him, especially in those scenes where, ailing in bed, she's given a sentimental back story about the men she's loved and the reason she's so fond of her charge.

It's even harder to believe that he has a future with local girl Naomi (Greta Gerwig). Not so much because he's loaded and she's eking out a living as an unlicensed tourist guide at Grand Central, but because of the different ways in which they move and talk. Gerwig is a mistress of minor chords and idiosyncratic rhythms; Brand prefers thespy whoops and hysterics. That she would fall for an idiot like him makes her an idiot, too.

There are many things to lament about this film – its excessive length, a fine comic actress like Garner reduced to playing a one-dimensional monster, Luis Guzman being given a half-cooked role as the chauffeur – but the biggest sin is that Arthur, who was such a soulful, delightful, oddly life-affirming character when played by Dudley Moore, is here merely a boring drunk. Where's the fun in that?

On its first release, Taxi Zum Klo (1980) was seized by US Customs. The film (its title translates as "Taxi to the Toilet") was written and directed by Frank Ripploh, who also takes the lead role of a schoolteacher who likes sex. He marks student essays while sitting on cottage toilets, picks up garage attendants, tells his homebody boyfriend that he's going to clubs to pick up strangers.

These adventures, intercut with scenes of vintage porn, are shot naturalistically with (literally) warts-and-all candour and a good deal of droll humour. The film, far from being degenerate filth, is a loving document of pre-Aids Berlin, and a touching comedy about the human desire for and struggle to achieve intimacy.

Sweetgrass – "recorded" rather than directed by Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Ilisa Barbash – is a tenaciously observed and a quietly absorbing ethnography about a pair of shepherds leading some 3,000 sheep on a 150-mile journey up into Montana's Absaroka-Beartooth Mountains for summer pasture.

There's no narration and for long sections no sounds except for the surprisingly melodious bleating of the sheep. Some of the shots last a good while, giving you time to soak in the beautiful landscapes and ponder on the kinds of experience and graft that underpin this seasonal migration. It's a powerful testimonial to a fading way of life.

T Rating: * * Arthur

T Rating: * * * Taxi Zum Klo

T Rating: * * * Sweetgrass

View the original article here

Terry Gilliam - five must see films

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

The second film spin-off from the popular Monty Python BBC television series, The Holy Grail completed Gilliam's progression within the rambunctious troupe – from animator, to sketch actor, to co-director (alongside Terry Jones). Parodying the legend of King Arthur with entirely fresh material, to which Gilliam also contributed, the film still routinely ranks highly on "All-time Greatest Comedy Films" lists.

Gilliam's first notable solo directorial success was a fantastical affair following 11-year-old Kevin's (Craig Warnock) twilight adventures in a medieval parallel reality. Produced on a budget of just $5 million, it went on to gross over eight times that amount at the box office. Co-written by fellow Monty Python alumnus Michael Palin, who appeared among a raft of stars – Shelley Duvall, John Cleese, Sean Connery – who had minor roles in the film.

The Fisher King (1991)

Jeff Bridges starred as the arrogant shock-jock who suffers a crisis of confidence after his comments prompt a depressed caller to commit multiple murders in a Manhattan bar. He achieves redemption by seeking out the "Grail" – a simple trophy – for homeless man Parry (Robin Williams), in a sideways nod to Gilliam's work on Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Gilliam's redemption for a moderate box office return came in the form of the film's five Oscar nominations, with Mercedes Ruehl winning Best Supporting Actress.

Twelve Monkeys (1995)

Inspired by Frenchman Chris Marker's 1962 film La jetée, Gilliam's second foray into science fiction (after 1985's Brazil) cast Bruce Willis as a convicted criminal living in a virus-ravaged post-apocalyptic world who is sent to the past to confront the terrorist organisation behind the virus. The thinking-man's action epic became Gilliam's most successful film, grossing $168 million, and earned supporting star Brad Pitt a Golden Globe for his performance.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

Gilliam's adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's classic autobiographical novel of the same name saw him return to the fantasy-comedy ground which has been a staple of his career. Johnny Depp took the plaudits for his portrayal of hedonistic (and permanently intoxicated) anti-hero Raoul Duke, although the film was initially a critical and commercial disaster. Gilliam remained unperturbed – "I want it to be seen as one of the great movies of all time, and one of the most hated movies of all time", he said – and Depp and Benicio Del Toro's psychedelic road-tripping has since achieved cult status.

View the original article here

Terry Gilliam timeline

Terry Gilliam's life and works

1940 – Born in Medicine Lake, Minnesota.

1963 – Meets John Cleese in New York while the latter is on tour with a Cambridge Footlights revue show entitled Cambridge Circus.

1967 – Works with future Pythons Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin creating animations for TV series Do Not Adjust Your Set.

1969 – Monty Python's Flying Circus hits TV screens, with Gilliam’s animations used to link sketches. His unique style of blending surreal drawings with Victorian cut-outs defined the look of the show and made it completely original. Gilliam also took some minor roles in the show, including the Knight in armour who occasionally closes a sketch by hitting a fellow Python over the head with a rubber chicken.

1973 – Marries Maggie Weston.

1975 – Co-directs Monty Python and the Holy Grail with Terry Jones, Gilliam also played Patsy in the film. This became the inspiration for the musical Spamalot.

1977 – Directs his first solo feature film Jabberwocky, a medieval, slapstick adventure starring Michael Palin. The film was not a commercial success.

1981 – Directs Time Bandits, an inter-dimensional, comic fantasy which he co-wrote with Michael Palin. It starred Sean Connery, Ian Holm and Jim Broadbent and made over $40 million at the US box office.

1985 – Co-writes and directs Brazil with Charles McKeown and Tom Stoppard. The film is a dystopian satire set in a totalitarian future. It was influenced by Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times and George Orwell’s 1984 and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay

1988 – Directs The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, a fantasy epic based on an 18th Century, German fairytale. The film is rumoured to have cost more than $45 million to make but only took $8 million at the box office, despite star turns from Sting, Oliver Reed and Uma Thurman.

1991 – Directs The Fisher King, the first film on which he did not also write the screenplay. It follows a radio shock-jock who tries to find redemption by helping a homeless man. Gilliam reportedly wanted to direct it because he was tired of working on big-budget epics. The film was warmly received by critics.

1995 – Directs 12 Monkeys, a science fiction thriller starring Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt. The film was a critical and commercial success grossing $168.4 million worldwide.

1998 – Directs Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, an adaptation of the Hunter S Thompson novel of the same name. The film was a box office flop but became a cult hit following its DVD release.

1999 – Begins an abortive attempt to film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote starring Johnny Depp and Jean Rochefort. It was budgeted at $32.1 million but during the first week of filming Rochefort suffered a herniated disk and the set was severely damaged by a flood causing the film to be cancelled. Discussions about a revival of this production continue.

2005 – Directs The Brothers Grimm and Tideland, both are met with a mixed response from critics.

2009 – Reunites with Charles McKeown to co-write and direct the Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus, a fantasy which follows a theatre troupe whose leader has made a pact with the devil. The lead, Heath Ledger, died during filming and was recast with Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell playing different incarnations of the character. It was nominated for two Academy Awards.

View the original article here

Junebug, DVD review

Phil Morrison’s Junebug is a film that gradually gets under your skin. After the swift opening – shrewd Chicago art dealer Madeleine falls for perfect Southern beau George and goes to stay with his suburban family – not a great deal happens. But like a Raymond Carver story, the power lies in the detail and deep emotional truth.

Late-30 something Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz, Schindler’s List) specialises in outsider art. When she needs to clinch a deal with an eccentric North Carolina artist, her new husband George (Alessandro Nivola, Goal!) takes her to stay with his family – the Johnstens, who live in the same neighbourhood. A product of privilege and an affected art scene, Madeleine has faith in her own charm. But her touchy-feely banter and habitual "sweethearts" fall flat in George’s Southern Baptist family –despite her excruciatingly sincere attempts to win their approval.

George's brittle mother Peg takes an immediate dislike to her: "She's too pretty. And she's too smart and that's a deadly combination." Taciturn dad Eugene withdraws to his workshop basement where he makes wooden birds. And the inarticulate brother Johnnie (Benjamin McKenzie of The O.C.) grunts with simmering rage whenever his ingratiating sister-in-law approaches him. Beset by bitterness at his golden-boy brother, Johnnie is a kidult who retreats to his den to watch videos of meerkats, rather than confront the difficulties in his own relationship.

His heftily pregnant wife Ashley stands out from the other Johnstens in her warm acceptance of Madeleine (Junebug is the name of her unborn child). Nominated for an Oscar for supporting actress, Amy Adams is enchanting as Ashley, who welcomes her “new sister” with openness and a childlike lack of self-regard. Junebug is also the name of a nocturnal beetle; and like a firefly, Ashley flitters about the urbane art dealer (who she sees as an embodiment of womanhood), playing with her hair, painting her nails her favourite colour -Cinnamon Fizz.

Junebug is about outsiders and the intersection of two dissonant worlds, but it doesn't ram home these themes; they evolve from the wholly convincing characterisations. Brought up in North Carolina, Phil Morrison and scriptwriter Angus MacLachlan are attuned to a Southern pace, but the film never slips into the solemn or patronising. Lingering shots of suburbia catch a quiet rather than a static life and avoid the self-conscious stylisation of Sam Mendes’s infinitely less authentic Revolutionary Road. But what makes this independent film cherishable is its generosity of spirit; we quietly root for all of the characters, including the earnest Madeleine. Accompanying the Johnstens through the everyday, we gradually get under their skins, so that when tragedy besets the family it is surprisingly painful, but not maudlin, coloured, as it is, by Ashley’s precious optimism.

View the original article here

Five clasic motor racing movies

It has all the ingredients of a classic Bruckheimer film: Tom Cruise as a young, rebellious ingénue, the wise older man who comes out of retirement to train said ingénue (preferably via a montage) in whatever death defying stunts the film requires, the enemy who later becomes a friend, the real enemy and a sophisticated love interest. Days of Thunder was made in 1990 and centres around the Nascar Winston Cup Series, think Top Gun on wheels.

This time it’s Jeff Bridges’ turn to play a naive stock car driver who gets in over his head. It tells the true story of Junior Johnson, one of the early stars of Nascar racing. He developed his driving skills while running moonshine and is credited with inventing the “bootleg turn” in which a driver escapes a pursuer by doing a 180 degree turn in a speeding car on the highway.

A 1968 comedy in which a Volkswagen Beetle with a mind of its own triumphs over lots of bigger, faster cars. Dean Jones plays a down-at-heel racing driver who has been reduced to competing in Demolition Derby. His fortunes change when he buys Herbie, the adorable, anthropomorphic car. The film spawned a raft of sequels including the dire Herbie Fully Loaded starring Lindsay Lohan.

Driven

It seems the producers of this 2001 offering blew the entire budget on special effects leaving nothing to spend on the actual plot. Once again a talented, rookie driver benefits from the advice of a wise, former racing star, this time played by Sylvester Stallone (who also wrote and produced the film, which explains a lot).

Le Mans

This film centres on a 24 hour race on the world’s hardest endurance course: Le Mans in France. Steve McQueen plays Michael Delaney who returns to the race having caused a horrific accident the previous year. There’s very little dialogue but lots of iconic cars doing lots of racing.

View the original article here

Robert Zemeckis Directing Flight

Robert Zemeckis is heading back to live-action projects, and is in talks to direct Flight, a Paramount drama in which Denzel Washington is loosely attached to star.

Written by John Gatins, the story centers on a alcoholic and drug-addicted pilot. When his plane's engine malfunctions, the pilot manages to rescue the aircraft and its passengers, becoming a hero in the process. When the FAA investigates and finds evidence of drug abuse, it tries to sweep it to the side to help preserve the image of the captain, who is trying to change the course of his life.

No production date has been set.

View the original article here

Pirates of the Caribbean 4 to Release in China May 20

Walt Disney Co. will release Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides in China on May 20, which is the same day-and-date as U.S. and most of the world, playing in all formats, including 3D and IMAX-3D.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides will be one of the 20 imported titles allowed to recoup between 13-17 percent of its box office gross in China each year, where the state-run duopoly of the China Film Group and Huaxia Film Distribution control Hollywood imports and distribution despite a World Trade Organization ruling that says the practice is illegal.

China's box office jumped 64 percent in 2010 to $1.5 billion and Hollywood studios are ever more keen to get their biggest titles into the market that, with an explosion the sale of premium 3D and IMAX tickets, saw Avatar gross more than $200 million in China alone.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides comes to theaters May 20th, 2011 and stars Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Penélope Cruz, Ian McShane, Richard Griffiths, Judi Dench, Stephen Graham, Gemma Ward. The film is directed by Rob Marshall.

View the original article here

James Bond film studio Pinewood Shepperton gets fresh takeover approach

The identity of the new bidder has not been disclosed, but shares in Pinewood Shepperton have risen 16pc since the approach from Peel Holdings a fortnight ago. They were trading at 190.9p at the close on Tuesday.

Peel's bid was at 190p per share, which would value the film studios at about £88m.

Peel, which has a 29.78pc holding in Pinewood, increased its holding in its target last month after buying 1.4m shares in the group, worth an estimated £2.1m.

The second largest shareholder is activist investor Crystal Amber, led by Richard Bernstein, which has a 28.29pc stake.

The company's management has been under pressure from Crystal Amber in recent months as it has called for the removal of Pinewood's chairman, Lord Grade. Peel, which has also amassed a stake in UK Coal, has supported the board.

The property magnate’s approach interest comes as the group is a pushing for Project Pinewood, a 100-acre, £200m complex with sets including a Venetian canal and a typical New York street.

A public inquiry into its expansion plans has begun, as permission for the ambitious project was refused by the local council.

In recent years, the group, chaired by former ITV chief executive Lord Grade, has expanded its brand globally through a series of joint venture partnerships. It has created Pinewood Toronto Studios and Pinewood Studio Berlin Film Services, while Pinewood Iskandar Malaysia Studios is under construction. Pinewood Indomina Studios was its most recent announcement. The group will open a 35-acre studio complex in the Dominican Republic to serve South America.

Pinewood saw pre-tax profits rise 31pc to £5.8m last year.

View the original article here

Lip Service Gets Christian Serratos

Christian Serratos, who will next be seen in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1, has landed the lead role in the upcoming music-themed romantic comedy Lip Service.

The actress will star as a talented young singer named Roxie who is convinced by a record company executive to lend her voice to a new song by a famous celebrity named Sienna Monetz, who plans on lip-syncing from Roxie's voice. Ross Thomas (Soul Surfer) will play the record executive, although casting hasn't been announced yet for the Sienna Monetz role. Rachele Brooke Smith and Eric Roberts also star, although it isn't known what roles they will play.

Carlos Portugal will direct from his own original screenplay, with George Caceres executive producing. Production is expected to begin in the near future.

View the original article here

Lay the Favorite Adds Joshua Jackson

Joshua Jackson has joined the cast of Lay the Favorite, for director Stephen Frears.

Bruce Willis, Rebecca Hall, Justin Timberlake, and Catherine Zeta-Jones have already joined the cast for this gambling drama, which is based on the memoir written by Beth Raymer. Rebecca Hall will star as Beth Raymer, a Las Vegas cocktail waitress who became one of the best sports gamblers in the world, although she questions her career choices after falling in love.

Bruce Willis will play Raymer's mentor, Dink Heimowitz, Justin Timberlake is set to portray a Long Island bookie who Raymer used to work for, and Catherine Zeta-Jones will play Heimowitz's wife. It isn't known what role Joshua Jackson will have.

Stephen Frears is directing Lay the Favorite from an adapted screenplay by D.V. DeVincentis. It isn't known when production will start on Lay the Favorite.

Lay the Favorite comes to theaters in 2012 and stars Bruce Willis, Justin Timberlake, Rebecca Hall, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Joshua Jackson. The film is directed by Stephen Frears.

View the original article here

The Expendables 2 Will Not Be Directed by Sylvester Stallone

Sylvester Stallone will not be helming The Expendables 2, despite a recent report claiming he will return as the sequel's director. Sylvester Stallone is, though, currently compiling a list of names that he'd like to see take control of this action sequel.

Back in March, a report surfaced that Sylvester Stallone would be stepping down as director of The Expendables 2. Then, earlier this month, a new story revealed that he would actually come back to direct, since his new acting project Headshot had lost director Wayne Kramer. It was believed that Sylvester Stallone was returning to direct The Expendables 2 because Headshot was going into limbo. However, Walter Hill is now directing Headshot, and the project is once again moving forward with Sylvester Stallone and Thomas Jane attached to star.

David Agosto and Ken Kaufman wrote the screenplay for The Expendables 2, and Bruce Willis will have an expanded role as a "super villain."

The Expendables 2 is in development and stars Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis. The film is directed by Sylvester Stallone.

View the original article here

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies Confirms Director Craig Gillespie

Fright Night director Craig Gillespie is officially set to direct Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, finalizing a deal we first reported on a few weeks ago.

David O. Russell was originally set to direct Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and Mike White also signed on as director before leaving the project earlier this year. There was also talk last month that Seth Grahame-Smith, who wrote the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies novel and adapted the screenplay, was being considered to direct. Here's what Alli Shearmur, Lionsgate's president of production, had to say about Craig Gillespie joining the project.

"We are so excited to have Craig Gillespie on board this film. His sensibility spans from genre bending horror to elegant character driven comedy, which is perfect for this movie."

The story is set in the same world as the classic Jane Austen novel, although the main characters Elizabeth Bennett and James Darcy are fighting off a zombie infestation.

It isn't clear when production will begin on Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, although with a director finally locked in, it seems they are ramping up to start filming soon.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies comes to theaters in 2011. The film is directed by Craig Gillespie.

View the original article here

The Avengers Begins Production a Week from Monday

The Avengers will start shooting a week from MondayDirector Joss Whedon revealed that production on The Avengers will start one week from today. Here's what he had to say about this superhero ensemble below. "We're just a hardscrabble bunch. Guerilla filmmaking. I start production a week from Monday. I'm going to get started on the script now. Apparently that's a thing. I don't get it. Improv stunts are always way more exciting-looking."

We reported last week that The Avengers will hire 2,000 extras for their shoot in Cleveland, Ohio. That portion of filming won't commence until August. It isn't clear where The Avengers will first start shooting next week.

for the full interview with Joss Whedon.

The Avengers comes to theaters May 4th, 2012 and stars Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Samuel L. Jackson, Don Cheadle, Clark Gregg, Tom Hiddleston. The film is directed by Joss Whedon.

View the original article here

Kenneth Branagh: from Shakespeare to comics

Although not a name associated with big budgets and 3D special effects, Branagh said that he is relishing the release of the Hollywood blockbuster.

"This amount of interest in your film ahead of time, that's rare, that's thrilling," he said.

"Are you expecting it to please everyone? No. Are you expecting it to entertain everyone? Yes. And maybe they'll argue about everything they argue about anyway."

Australian actor Chris Hemsworth, who plays Thor, gave a ringing endorsement to his director's contribution to the film.

"I think what is so special about Ken taking on a film like this is you know the story and the character is taken care of," he said.

"Marvel is such a machine and the budget, the special effects and everything are going to be there.

"But he was also incredibly involved in that and his ideas of how to shoot through things and make the 3D work was hugely impressive."

Also starring Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman and Stellan Skarsgård, Thor opens in UK cinemas on April 29.

View the original article here

Meet the Parents: Little Fockers, review

Meet the Parents, from 2000, had quite a lot going for it. Its central theme - the pitfalls of meeting a fiance's dreadful in-laws - was broadly appealing, and this was lifted by some strong performances. Ben Stiller, as perplexed husband to be Greg Focker, offered just the right mixture of charm and slapstick haplessness, while Robert De Niro as Jack, the ex-CIA agent father of the bride, showed that his comic timing in Analyse This was not just a one-off. The tone was a mix of bad-taste puerility and real warmth, and was surprisingly likeable.

This sort of family comedy - slightly risqué without being even slightly risky - is one Hollywood finds difficult, so it was no surprise that a sequel popped up soon after. No surprise, but still a bit sad. Meet the Fockers, in 2004, in which Stiller's parents were thrown into the mix, offered little new in the way of subject or tone, but did at least introduce Barbara Streisand and Dustin Hoffman as his hippyish, liberal ma and pa, with diverting if not quite hilarious consequences.

This third in the series, however, does not so much scrape the barrel as lick its underside. Greg and wife Pam (Teri Polo), having overcome both sets of awkward parents, are now happily married with five-year old twins. Worn down by the stress of his other daughter Debbie divorcing her husband Bob (Thomas McCarthy), Jack decides that Greg should take the family reins for a while. Focker must sort out the family's finances, build a new house and manage his wayward colleague Andi Garcia (pretty but completely vacant Jessica Alba), while keeping an eye on his children. Moderate disruption ensues, with few laughs. Greg finally proves himself by saving Jack's life when the latter suffers a heart attack. One can't help but wonder if De Niro would have preferred his character - and this increasingly sorry series - to have been allowed to fall quietly off the twig.

View the original article here

The Tiger of Eschnapur & The Indian Tomb: Two Films by Fritz Lang, DVD review

The Tiger of Eschnapur & The Indian Tomb: Two Films by Fritz Lang

PG, Eureka Masters of Cinema, DVD £22.99

One of the cinema’s most marvellous oddities (or two for the price of one), Der Tiger von Eschnapur and Das Indische Grabmal (both 1959) are films so luridly intense you think you may just be dreaming them.

I saw them on TV as a teenager, and have never forgotten them: both the exotic world they conjure up – part grand, dazzling sun-soaked Indian locations (palaces, forts, temples, lakes), part astonishing studio fantasy of glittering costumes and interiors, vast underground temples and labyrinthine cave-systems; and Lang’s lush colour evocation of extravagant ceremony and fermenting passions and cruelty – with the aid of jodhpurs, scimitars, crocodiles, lepers, tigers (of course) and, most memorably of all, some astonishingly erotic dancing by Hollywood star Debra Paget as Seetha the temple dancer.

They have much more visionary magic than Spielberg’s comparable but rather flat and nasty Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom – and indeed were very successful on their release. They’ve lost none of their spell.

In the 1920s, Fritz Lang made several films in pairs: Die Spinnen (1919 & 1920), Dr Mabuse: the Gambler (1922), the Niebelungen films, Siegfried and Kriemhild’s Revenge (1924). But when he originally co-wrote these Indian films with his then-wife Thea Von Harbou (later his co-writer on Metropolis), he was considered too junior to direct them, and in 1921 the powerful producer-director Joe May had taken the helm, with the great Conrad Veidt as the insanely jealous Maharajah whose passion for a woman drives the plot. So the 1959 project – nursed into being by a remarkable German producer called Arthur Brauner – is the realisation and vindication of a long-nurtured project, and with its extraordinary atmosphere and visual impact, and ferocious unconcern for psychological nuance in its pursuit of primal, archetypal patterns of emotional significance, it recaptures the panache and melodramatic strangeness of Lang’s silent masterpieces. Which is not to say that it lacks control: the enchantment of Lang’s composition of these garish adventures lies in the sense that underneath the sensational, often gasp-making surface the director of M (1931), The Testament of Dr Mabuse (1933), Fury (1936), You Only Live Once (1937), Scarlet Street (1945) and The Big Heat (1954) has lost none of his sense of seething passions, human perversity, and the grim inexorability of fate.

Doubtless some will find these works uncomfortably ‘Orientalist’ – they’re undeniably filled with the clichés of the romantic India of the 1920s (exotic dancers, sinister priests, sexual passion, torture, dungeons, lepers, gurus, elephants aplenty etc.). But the comic-book blatancy of the genre trappings makes one want to postpone feeling any qualms, and mostly we’re closer here to the delirious India of Powell and Pressburger’s gloriously stylised, studio-shot Black Narcissus (1947) than to the more observed, actual subcontinent of Jean Renoir’s superbly poetic, documentary-feeling, location-shot The River (1950). The trancelike pleasure of the storytelling, in fact, is quite majestic – and these unique films could even be felt to resemble late Shakespearean romance – The Tempest, Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale – in their shrugging off of worries about realistic plausibility and Lang’s profound reversion to the roots of creativity.

View the original article here

Mia Wasikowska's rise continues

British film producer Trudie Styler is planning a remake of The Harder They Come, the Jamaican thriller which made a star of Jimmy Cliff. She is producing with Justine Henzell, daughter of Perry Henzell, who directed the original film.

It wouldn’t surprise me if Styler corralled the talent to improve on The Harder They Come, which is now 40 years old. Cliff starred as a young singer struggling to make it in Kingston’s music industry, but it was a creaky, rudimentary movie.

Her greatest challenge will be emulating the film’s music; its soundtrack remains one of the greatest ever. One imagines she’ll be seeking out younger artists – but talent like Cliff, Desmond Dekker and Toots and the Maytals doesn’t come along every day.

Mia Wasikowska is only 21 and had a great year in 2010 with the title role in Alice in Wonderland and a nice turn in The Kids Are All Right. Yet her rise continues.

I’ve seen her in Cary Fukunaga’s forthcoming Jane Eyre, and she makes a splendid Jane.

But there’s more: she stars as a terminally ill teenager in Gus van Sant’s new film Restless, which will premiere in Cannes next month. She’ll also reunite with director Rodrigo García, who began her career in the TV series In Treatment, and will join Vera Farmiga and Sam Neill in the film adaptation of Arthur Miller’s A View From the Bridge. There’s no stopping her.

Two names I never thought I’d write in the same sentence: Sienna Miller and Algerian director Rachid Bouchareb. Yet they’ll soon join forces on his first American film, Just Like a Woman; she plays (get this) a Chicago housewife who runs off to Las Vegas to compete in a belly dancing competition.

Bouchareb made his name with Days of Glory, a searing account of the discrimination suffered by four north African soldiers serving in the French army during the Second World War. His excellent and controversial new film Outside the Law, about three brothers involved in the Algerian resistance movement, opens in Britain May 6.

View the original article here

Closer to the Edge: the sweat, the dirt, the danger

The worst cinematic sporting sequence I have ever seen comes from the 1952 British movie The Card. It features a centreforward who runs the length of the field, riding what appears to be 15 tackles, before coolly – and ridiculously – beating the goalkeeper to score.

But there is plenty of competition for this title. The difficulty in crafting a decent sports movie is that athletes spend many years perfecting skills that an actor is expected to master in six weeks. In the age of saturation television coverage, with every shot, serve or kick replayed in super slow motion, it is embarrassingly simple to spot the difference between Roger Federer’s forehand and that of Paul Bettany in Wimbledon.

These issues may explain the growth market in sporting parodies over the last decade, most of them starring Will Ferrell (Semi-Pro, Blades of Glory). This year, though, has turned up a more interesting phenomenon. We are seeing the renaissance of the sporting documentary.

Over the next two months, four new “jock docs” will be released in our cinemas. Two of them concern cricket: From the Ashes (about Ian Botham’s great Aussie-bashing series of 1981) and Fire In Babylon (which puts the great West Indian side of that same era into a political context).

The other two are set in the world of motorsport: Senna – a biography of Formula One’s most gifted driver – and TT3D: Closer to the Edge, which will be the first of the quartet to go on general release when it opens on Friday.

TT3D presented perhaps the greatest technical challenge, as it was filmed at a live event last summer, whereas the others retell stories from the last century. The cameras followed a group of absurdly fearless motorcyclists, led by Wolverine lookalike Guy Martin, as they negotiated what many petrol heads believe to be the greatest racetrack on Earth: the Snaefell Mountain Circuit on the Isle of Man.

“It is very difficult to make a decent sports movie,” says TT3D’s producer Steve Christian. “I had a go with a biopic of George Best a few years ago but it was a long way from the real thing. Because I’m a producer from the Isle of Man, I get six to eight scripts for the TT race every year but I’ve never yet seen one that would do justice to it. So rather than fake it, we decided just to cover it as an event, because something spectacular always happens.”

There are few dramas that match TT3D when it comes to thrills and sickening spills. The on-board helmet-cams and the helicopter shots bring home just how narrow the margins are, especially around the 170mph Ballagarey corner. Make a mistake, and the safety barriers won’t help out, because there aren’t any – just stone walls, trees and fields.

Although the project was always conceived to run in 3D, Christian says he was keen not to overdo the effects. “I didn’t want bikes jumping out of the screen, because that would have been gimmicky,” he says, “and I didn’t want too much on-board footage because people would have been sick in their seats.

“The idea was to use the 3D as an invitation to the trackside, in all its gritty glory. Most motorsport films look like corporate videos, full of gleaming bodywork and 'brolly dollies’, but we wanted ours to be more authentic.”

Despite covering events that took place two decades ago, Senna achieves a similar sense of immediacy through images drawn entirely from contemporary footage. The director, Asif Kapadia, did not shoot a single reel, although he did record some interviews to lay over the visuals.

“I didn’t use talking heads because that gives you a feeling of hindsight,” he says. “I wanted the viewers to feel that they were watching events unfold in front of them, because uncertainty is the essence of sport. That’s why I loved all the glitches in the footage and the dirt on the camera: they make it real.

“Something happens to sport when you dramatise it,” Kapadia believes. “You could show Liverpool coming back to win the 2005 Champions League final from a 3-0 deficit and suddenly no one would believe it.”

This exact problem afflicted last year’s boxing saga The Fighter. Mark Wahlberg (playing the real-life welterweight Micky Ward) went out and won his fights in such an unlikely manner that many viewers came out scoffing at what they thought was typical Hollywood exaggeration.

But when I went back over the original footage, I realised that the actors had mirrored every punch and movement with impressive accuracy. What had seemed risible in the cinema was compelling in its original state.

The Fighter, which won Oscars for best supporting actor (Christian Bale) and actress (Melissa Leo) was actually highly watchable for the most part, confirming that the close-quarters sport of boxing is far easier to bring to life than team games like football and rugby.

But a hack director can twist any sport into the same familiar formula: a talented slacker twigs that hard work can turn him into a champion, hires a craggy, gum-chewing coach and goes through a montage training sequence before lifting the trophy in the final reel.

The desire to escape such clichés may explain why directors like Kapadia (who normally works in drama) is turning to real life for his inspiration. As Senna proves, the best tales from sport are not just stranger than fiction; they are richer too.

TT3D: Closer to the Edge is out on Fri, followed by From the Ashes on May 10, Fire in Babylon on May 20 and Senna on June 3

View the original article here

Odd Thomas Adds Gugu Mbatha-Raw

on director Stephen Sommers's upcoming adaptation of the Dean R. Koontz novel series Odd Thomas continues to roll along. Today, Gugu Mbatha-Raw has joined a line-up that also includes Anton Yelchin, Willem Dafoe, Patton Oswalt, and Addison Timlin.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw will play Viola, best friend to Thomas' (Anton Yelchin) girlfriend (Addison Timlin). Thomas is a short order cook who can see the dead. He becomes mixed up with a mysterious man linked to the dark forces, as well as helps Viola, a waitress who is raising two young girls after their junkie mother dies.

Odd Thomas will begin shooting next month in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Odd Thomas comes to theaters in 2012 and stars Anton Yelchin, Addison Timlin, Willem Dafoe, Nico Tortorella, Patton Oswalt. The film is directed by Stephen Sommers.

View the original article here

Lone Ranger Eyes Ryan Gosling

Walt Disney Pictures is currently in talks with Ryan Gosling to co-star in their upcoming reboot Lone Ranger. The actor will appear opposite Johnny Depp, whose Tonto will actually be the lead, if he decides to take the part.

Ryan Gosling has already signed onto appear in Logan's Run, which may keep him from accepting the role of John Reid, aka the Lone Ranger. Logan's Run is scheduled to shoot in the fall, but it isn't quite clear when Lone Ranger will begin production. Johnny Depp is first shooting Dark Shadows, which is ramping up at this very moment.

Walt Disney's Lone Ranger will be told through the point-of-view of Tonto, while the masked man himself will become more of a sidekick. Timothy Olyphant and George Clooney have also been mentioned for this role.

Lone Ranger is in development and stars Johnny Depp. The film is directed by Gore Verbinski.

View the original article here

The Dark Knight Rises Brings Back Nestor Carbonell

Carbonell is confirmed to be reprising his role as Mayor of Gotham City in The Dark Knight Rises. He first took on the part in 2009's The Dark Knight.

It isn't known what role Nestor Carbonell's Mayor will play in the storyline of The Dark Knight Rises, as the script is being kpt under lock and key at this time.

Christopher Nolan will shoot The Dark Knight Rises this summer from a script that he penned with his brother Jonathan Nolan.

The Dark Knight Rises comes to theaters July 20th, 2012 and stars Christian Bale, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The film is directed by Christopher Nolan.

View the original article here

George Clooney Wants to Direct The $700 Billion Man

Clooney and Grant Heslov's production company is set to produce a Wall Street bailout film based on the 2009 Washington Post article The $700 Billion Man, with George Clooney having an eye to direct.

The film is based on Laura Blumenfeld's article about TARP mastermind Neel Kashkari, a top official under then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, who helped develop the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, which bailed out the big banks following the economic collapse in 2008. Neel Kashkari subsequently left Washington and moved to an isolated cabin in Northern California.

Zach Helm has been tapped to write the pic.

No production date has been set.

View the original article here

Robert Zemeckis to Adapt How to Survive a Garden Gnome Attack

Pictures Animation and Robert Zemeckis have picked up rights for the humor book How to Survive a Garden Gnome Attack.

Robert Zemeckis is not committed to direct the film, which is being developed as an R-rated live-action/CG-hybrid budgeted in the $20 million-$30 million range. No screenwriter is attached.

Written by Chuck Sambuchino, "How to Survive a Garden Gnome Attack: Defend Yourself When the Lawn Warriors Strike (and They Will)," is a tongue-in-cheek survival guide to help garden gnome-owners prepare for and ward off an imminent invasion from the menacing lawn statues.

View the original article here

Your Highness, review

In the trailers Your Highness looked great. After all, it’s usually fun, and maybe even a tiny bit flattering to us, when Americans decide they want to spoof English movies. It’s especially happy-making to see Americans take such delight in adopting hoity-toity English accents as they hoof around pseudo-medieval forests cack-handedly trying to wield their mighty swords.

There’s an intriguing cast – Pineapple Express co-stars James Franco and Danny McBride: the former so cute, the latter so cutting; plus Natalie Portman, hot on the heels of Black Swan, in a larkier, less anguished role than she usually plays. There are enough rude jokes and stoner gags to satisfy the inner Seth Rogen in all of us.

And looking after the whole gleefully tawdry shebang is David Gordon Green, whose early films George Washington and All the Real Girls made him the poster-boy of neo-poetic realism, but whose strange, zig-zagging career ended up with him helming the wildly silly, stupidly funny Pineapple Express. Really, there was no way Your Highness could disappoint.

Wrong! It’s bad. It makes Mel Brooks’s Robin Hood: Men in Tights look like a masterpiece. Plodding where it should gallop, crude more than lewd, provoking shrugs rather than thigh-slaps, it should be called Your Lowness.

The plot? Oh, OK then. So there’s this big, leering chump of a prince called Thadeous (McBride) who likes making out with dwarves’ wives and has never performed an act of gallantry in his life. His handsome and obviously homosexual brother Prince Fabious (Franco) is about to get married to Belladonna (Zooey Deschanel), but she is stolen by an evil warlock (Justin Theroux) who wishes, you know, to sire a dragon with her.

The time has come: Thadeous has to man up. Act like aristocracy. Redeem himself. Off he embarks on a big ol’ quest alongside Fabious and valet Courtney (Rasmus Hardiker), who plays Baldrick to his Blackadder. En route they team up with fearsome warrior Isabel (Portman). All that stands in their way is a paedophilic warlord, bare-breasted forest-dwellers acting as honeytraps, monsters galore, and the fact that Thadeous is a dope-smoking scaredy-pants.

What really stands in their way is that McBride, who co-wrote the script and who can be brilliant as a scene-stealer in films such as Tropic Thunder, is so cold and wooden. He delivers half-funny lines so contemptuously that they become zero-funny. He also seems to think that ending every other line with a bit of swearing is hilarious.

Perhaps everyone on set had a good time. Perhaps they were stoned. That would explain why the story is so lazy and full of holes, why key characters like Belladonna go missing for long stretches, why the action sequences are so half-cooked, why Franco appears to have modelled his Fabious on Joey from Friends. Really, how hilarious can a film be when its best comic performance comes from Natalie Portman?

View the original article here

Zeta Jones spoke of being enveloped by a 'dark cloud'

The Welsh actress hinted at her illness in August, the month that her husband, Michael Douglas, was diagnosed with throat cancer.

Asked about her family life, she said: "I'm lucky, but that's not to say I don't get down on myself. I try and stay positive.

"I don't just bring myself down, I bring everyone around me down. It's like a dark cloud, 'Uh oh, here we go', and I have to snap out of it."

A month later, as Douglas was undergoing chemotherapy, she gave another emotional interview. "I can't bear even to watch him being treated.

"I know maybe I should be stronger but emotionally I just don't want to see the man I love hooked to a chemo IV or lying motionless on a radiation table under a positioning mask," she said.

Her fragility was evident during an appearance at the Ryder Cup golf tournament in south Wales in September, when she gave a tearful speech about her husband's recovery.

Zeta Jones, 41, was admitted to the Silver Hill Hospital in Connecticut for five days earlier this month to be treated for Bipolar II disorder. The clinic specialises in treating psychiatric illnesses and substance abuse.

Her spokesman said the actress was now "in top form" and ready to begin work on her new film, Playing The Field. Her parents, Pat and Dai, were reported to have flown to the United States to help care for the couple's two children, Dylan, 10, and Carys, eight.

Douglas, 66, announced in January that his tumour had gone. However, the couple are also contending with the strain of a legal battle involving Douglas's former wife, Diandra, who is making a claim on his earnings.

Experts praised Zeta Jones for speaking about her diagnosis. Sue Baker, director of Time to Change, which combats the stigma surrounding mental illness, said: "By being so frank about her diagnosis and treatment, Catherine will have helped to lift some of the burden of stigma which causes so much damage to so many lives."

Prof Nick Craddock, the professor of psychiatry at Cardiff University School of Medicine, said: "It is very helpful in breaking down stigma when celebrities talk about their illness."

View the original article here

Tron: Legacy, DVD review

Even on the small screen, Tron: Legacy is a dazzling spectacle. The computer world of “The Grid” – somehow dark and bright simultaneously – is beautifully realised with a technical audacity that constantly tests the limits of what’s visually possible.

First-time director Joe Kosinski had been determined to get his hands on the very latest equipment and shot Tron Legacy on cameras more advanced even than those used by James Cameron on his groundbreaking Avatar, released only 12 months earlier.

But, curiously, what spoilt Cameron’s film also spoils Kosinski’s: neither has an engaging narrative.

In the same way that no one came out of Avatar wiping away tears of emotion, so the underwhelming plot of Tron:Legacy never grabs at the heart – even though the potential is there, as the twentysomething hero is reunited with the father he hasn’t seen for decades.

Jeff Bridges reprises his role as Flynn, the computer whiz sucked physically into the digital metropolis of The Grid, with its super-fast lightcycles and gladiatorial bouts fought with what look like neon-glowing Frisbees. Twenty years on, Flynn’s son Sam (Garrett Hedlund) unexpectedly finds himself in The Grid, where he encounters not only his old dad but also an evil – and much younger looking – clone of Flynn.

The visual effects are spectacular, but it’s hard to care what happens to anyone.

View the original article here