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Actor and director whose movies notched up more than 20 Oscar nominations between them Stars flocked to work with the director Mark Rydell, who has died aged 97, and no wonder: he had trained as a performer alongside James Dean and Steve McQueen , later becoming west coast artistic co-director of the prestigious Actors Studio, while his movies notched up more than 20 Academy Award nominations…
Social media footage this weekend revealed the cast of Sam Mendes’ four-film band biopic on the zebra crossing near the studio, posing for the famous image The production team behind the forthcoming four-film Beatles biopic, directed by Sam Mendes, has been spotted filming outside Abbey Road studios in London; this included a recreation of the celebrated Abbey Road album cover, for which the band…
The actor, who previously said he would not play Captain Jack Sparrow again for ‘$300m and a million alpacas’, is being lined up for sixth film in the series according to producer Jerry Bruckheimer Johnny Depp is in talks to return as Captain Jack Sparrow in a sixth Pirates of the Caribbean film, according to the producer of the series, Jerry Bruckheimer. Bruckheimer told Deadline : “We’re talking…
Director Finlay Pretsell captures Gordon setting things alight with a miniature blowtorch, smearing himself with silver paint and throwing shapes with a bullwhip Here is a brave and not entirely orthodox artist documentary; not so much a dates-and-shows-and-talking-heads profile, but resembling something of an act of art in itself. The subject is Douglas Gordon, the Scottish film and video-maker,…
The director’s cut includes a host more body parts but no more insight into the villains’ personalities. What could be a gothic masterstroke is turned into a dreary procedural in the snow Warning: this article contains spoilers Everyone loves a director’s cut. But unlike some, The X-Files: I Want to Believe – Vrach Frankenshteyn, which debuted on Friday on Disney+, is not the kind of director’s…
American Doctor follows three volunteer doctors as they try to save lives on the frontline and then return to the US to become advocates in congress When she wanted to confront Americans about the consequences of their actions – or inactions – in Gaza, Poh Si Teng reached for a genre with mass popular appeal: the medical drama. “Whether it’s The Pitt, Grey’s Anatomy, House, ER, even a comedy like…
This mockumentary from low-budget horror veteran Richard Mansfield isn’t the most subtle take on the artist-critic relationship but it has a certain sprightliness Where Quentin Dupieux’s 2023 theatre hostage-taking comedy Yannick pointed out that inside every punter is a critic, this no-frills British mockumentary suggests that if artists aren’t literally haunted by their reviews, then their inner…
The British actor delivers his strongest performance to date in indie film Union County as a person struggling with substance abuse trying to turn his life around Every week, Annette Deao, a drug dependency counselor, sits in the county jail and offers incarcerated people in rural Ohio a chance at recovery. One bright day she meets Cody, a young man who shuffles towards the lectern and quietly…
Actor, 59, reflects on high-profile marriages in Vogue interview, saying she felt ‘deeply vulnerable’ after split from Urban Nicole Kidman has opened up about her divorce from Keith Urban and reflected on her marriage to Tom Cruise, saying she was warned being his wife would overshadow her career. In a new interview with Vogue , the 59-year-old actor spoke about going through two divorces under…
This year’s festival is superpowered by a strong year for Scottish cinema, showing it can thrive under the ‘four dimensional perpetual catch-22’ of global ambitions • Borges, ballet and BDSM: Peter Bradshaw’s 10 must-see movies at Edinburgh international film festival Now that its disastrous collapse and speedy rebirth is a trauma slowly receding in the rear-view mirror, the Edinburgh…
The star of Girls and The Book of Mormon talks about coming out, turning a showmance into a romance, and going toe to toe with the West Wing’s Allison Janney in new film Miss You Love You Imagine a cute, young, gay Jim Carrey with a withering line in put-downs: that is Andrew Rannells. Or rather, it was, back when he starred in Lena Dunham’s HBO series Girls as Elijah, the formerly closeted ex of…
The actor answers your questions on working with her dog, becoming a dame, Harry Potter, and making televisual history in The Singing Detective You and Bill Nighy were comrades in Pride , but play estranged spouses in & Sons. Was it more fun marching alongside him or giving him a piece of your mind? MrSOBaldrick It’s fun doing anything with Bill Nighy! I once saw you at RHS Garden Wisley . Are you…
As his new film & Sons hits the screen, the actor turned podcast agony uncle relives his ‘cliched’ ambitions, deplores working lunches – and yearns to do the splits like Prince A dying patriarch summons his brood for a dramatic announcement. It may not be the most original starting point for a movie, but & Sons adds an eccentric twist – one that it would be unfair to reveal here but which nudges…
Power cable linking UK and Ireland now passes near Bronze Age human burial remains instead of fictional grave on Welsh beach Harry Potter fans have forced a new multimillion-pound power cable between the UK and Ireland to be relocated after complaining it would desecrate the “grave” of Dobby, a fictional elf. The character was laid to rest on Freshwater West beach in Pembrokeshire, Wales, in the…
The film-maker’s take on Homer’s epic has beaten his previous record holder The Dark Knight Rises The Odyssey has become the highest grossing film of Christopher Nolan’s career, having made more than US$1bn at the global box office less than a month after its release. The blockbuster, which was released on 17 July, is an adaptation of Homer’s ancient Greek epic and follows Matt Damon as Odysseus,…
The director has yet again hinted that he may step away – but if he does actually relinquish control, it would likely benefit the franchise After directing the highest-grossing film trilogy of all time, and having spent more than two decades bending technology, studio executives and several hundred million dollars’ worth of underwater motion capture to his will, James Cameron this week signalled…
The return of the country’s most incompetent police force fails to bring enough laughs or any real justification for its existence Super Troopers occupies a sacred corner of the millennial DVD shelf, a goofy rebuttal to the endless procession of just-the-facts-ma’am TV cops that reimagined America’s most mythologized authority figures as incompetent brats. The original is a testament to Y2K…
‘What if The Purge was for premarital sex?’ is the odd, gimmicky elevator pitch for this slickly made yet ungainly oddity that can’t quite get past the grimness of its conceit Going into a romcom, there are always the same questions. Will there be genuine chemistry? Will the rom and the com be equal in parts? And, for the last decade and change, will this be the one that finally resurrects a genre…
The Hostel and Thanksgiving director takes a massive stumble with a rushed retro horror made on the cheap A few years ago, Eli Roth realized his long-held ambition to make a movie out of Thanksgiving , the horror-movie trailer he made as a gag for the Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez anthology feature Grindhouse, back in 2007. Though he didn’t actually go so far as to make the scratched-up…
After coveting the role for years, Gosling has been announced as the new Ghost Rider – a superhero stunt rider with powers bestowed by Satan. Is this a smart move all round or has he sold his soul to the devil? Steven Spielberg once said: “If a person can tell me the idea in 25 words or less, it’s going to make a pretty good movie.” And Marvel’s most popular big-screen superheroes can be described…
Dominic Sessa stars as a conceited yet vulnerable young chef alongside Antonio Banderas – but the feelgood factor is compromised by what we know of the author For all the drugs and punch-ups, this is an unexpectedly sentimental coming-of-age story – or maybe origin myth – about the formative youthful kitchen experiences of legendary badass chef Anthony Bourdain. It is taken from the opening…
A group of holidaying friends get trapped in a cave system with a bull shark in a solidly entertaining B-movie lifted by a toxic central friendship We’ve officially reached maximum shark movie this year , with about six released so far and even more on the way and so the drop of yet another one, in the middle of Shark Week, raises a number of questions: is it in any way essential? Will anyone ever…
Now 30, Holland is back as the vexed webslinger in a sometimes shocking, occasionally sluggish new instalment opposite his Odyssey castmate Just a few weeks ago, Tom Holland was telling us that his role as Telemachus in Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey was his “last chance to play a boy”. Well, Holland is back as the supposedly scrappy, gawky, arachnid young superhero Spider-Man. Not Spider-Boy…
‘It’s good to be back,’ says the actor in a new trailer for the forthcoming Ebenezer. Has everyone forgotten about the ghosts of his past? It is fair to say that, professionally speaking, Johnny Depp has had a quiet few years. Since he and Amber Heard sued each other amid a whirlwind of genuinely ugly accusations in 2019, and went to trial in 2022, Depp has struggled to reclaim his position in…
The overexposed actor falls flat in another disappointing vehicle that fails to make the most of its neat bachelor-party-with-a-twist concept 72 Hours is Kevin Hart’s midlife crisis comedy. He stars as Joe, a 40-year-old New York marketing executive whose once-reliable Midas touch has worn off. He’s no longer the office’s go-to translator of youth culture, yet he remains on the verge of a…
Ludwig Göransson’s meticulous score uses instruments of the era to create an earthy, raw and bleak soundscape, but it merely supports the portrayal of an uncomplicated hero A few weeks ago I came across a video of Professor Armand D’Angour, associate professor of classics at Oxford university. He explained how, through groundbreaking research involving fragments of melody and rhythms found on…
A feature-length continuation of the much-loved animated series provides enough for fans as well as the uninitiated Avatar just can’t catch a break at the movies. Not the blue-cat-people franchise that makes at least a billion dollars each time, mind you – though that mega-successful series is part of what vexes big-screen versions of Avatar: The Last Airbender, a Nickelodeon animated series that…
Cannes film festival: Young indie film-maker Kris tracks down Anderson’s Final Girl for a remake of a beloved horror, to find fantasy and reality collapsed Jane Schoenbrun unveils a very enjoyable display of transformative ecstasy and submissive rapture, treating us to a bizarre pop-cultural black mass of fiercely believed-in trash and kink. As before with Schoenbrun’s films, I found myself…
Sundance film festival: As a provocative artist using sex to wield power, the actor is electric but the writer-director’s return to his campy, dayglo roots is largely underwhelming While Sundance is traditionally focused on the importance of looking to the future of American film, a lineup filled with more first-timers than any other major festival, this year has been all about looking back. There…
