Cannes film festival
Seven world leaders – including Charles Dance’s dozy US president – are trapped in a forest in this amusing but bizarre apocalyptic comedy
Cate Blanchett has supplied the strangest moment of this year’s Cannes film festival; for Brits of a certain age, anyway. Her character reverently invokes the name of the late Roy Jenkins, Labour grandee and former chancellor of both the exchequer and Oxford University. Blanchett plays a fictional German chancellor called Hilda Ortmann who mentions Jenkins as the first president of the European Commission allowed to attend a G7 summit Perhaps in her next film Blanchett can do a big speech about Peter Shore.
Rumours is an amusing drawing-room absurdist comedy, co-written and directed by Canadian film-maker Guy Maddin with his longtime collaborators, the brothers Evan and Galen Johnson. The title is inspired by the 1977 Fleetwood Mac album, because of the emotional crises that are...
Seven world leaders – including Charles Dance’s dozy US president – are trapped in a forest in this amusing but bizarre apocalyptic comedy
Cate Blanchett has supplied the strangest moment of this year’s Cannes film festival; for Brits of a certain age, anyway. Her character reverently invokes the name of the late Roy Jenkins, Labour grandee and former chancellor of both the exchequer and Oxford University. Blanchett plays a fictional German chancellor called Hilda Ortmann who mentions Jenkins as the first president of the European Commission allowed to attend a G7 summit Perhaps in her next film Blanchett can do a big speech about Peter Shore.
Rumours is an amusing drawing-room absurdist comedy, co-written and directed by Canadian film-maker Guy Maddin with his longtime collaborators, the brothers Evan and Galen Johnson. The title is inspired by the 1977 Fleetwood Mac album, because of the emotional crises that are...
- 5/21/2024
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Chris Kattan joined old “SNL” buddy Jimmy Fallon on Thursday’s “Tonight Show,” where the “Corky Romano” star shared origin stories for some of his most famous “Saturday Night Live” characters.
“Mr. Peepers was based on a bad improvisation at The Groundlings, where I was asked to enter stage and … I just ran out and jumped on this guy Roy Jenkins, and hung upside-down on him,” Kattan said. “And that’s how it was born.”
That’s about as deep as that monkey character goes.
Also Read: Jimmy Fallon and His Old 'SNL' Pals Just Re-Did Their 'I Wish It Was Christmas Today' Skit (Video)
“Mango was based on two things, one of them was a girlfriend,” Kattan said. “She was from Russia, and when she was mad she would say, ‘Kattan, I kill you.'”
You kind of have to hear him say it though.
“It was very endearing,...
“Mr. Peepers was based on a bad improvisation at The Groundlings, where I was asked to enter stage and … I just ran out and jumped on this guy Roy Jenkins, and hung upside-down on him,” Kattan said. “And that’s how it was born.”
That’s about as deep as that monkey character goes.
Also Read: Jimmy Fallon and His Old 'SNL' Pals Just Re-Did Their 'I Wish It Was Christmas Today' Skit (Video)
“Mango was based on two things, one of them was a girlfriend,” Kattan said. “She was from Russia, and when she was mad she would say, ‘Kattan, I kill you.'”
You kind of have to hear him say it though.
“It was very endearing,...
- 5/10/2019
- by Tony Maglio
- The Wrap
The 49-year-old screenwriter and director on politics, comedy characters and why he refuses to work weekends
There's probably no other comedy character who has lasted as long as Alan Partridge. Though he's not always been on screen in his 22 years, when Steve Coogan and I meet up we'll always fill in the gaps and speculate about what he's been up to. His life runs simultaneous to ours.
I grew up in the Glasgow Hillhead constituency which, for a political geek, was like going to Glastonbury. We had Roy Jenkins in a by-election in 1982, Edward Heath speaking, Tony Benn. Then you'd bump into Shirley Williams.
Anger has to be in my comedy. Blair and the Iraq war was the first demo I had been on since I was a student – a lot of that went into The Thick of It.
I refuse to work evenings or weekends. If a script sees my character meeting for dinner,...
There's probably no other comedy character who has lasted as long as Alan Partridge. Though he's not always been on screen in his 22 years, when Steve Coogan and I meet up we'll always fill in the gaps and speculate about what he's been up to. His life runs simultaneous to ours.
I grew up in the Glasgow Hillhead constituency which, for a political geek, was like going to Glastonbury. We had Roy Jenkins in a by-election in 1982, Edward Heath speaking, Tony Benn. Then you'd bump into Shirley Williams.
Anger has to be in my comedy. Blair and the Iraq war was the first demo I had been on since I was a student – a lot of that went into The Thick of It.
I refuse to work evenings or weekends. If a script sees my character meeting for dinner,...
- 7/28/2013
- by Tim Adams, Armando Iannucci
- The Guardian - Film News
The 49-year-old screenwriter and director on politics, comedy characters and why he refuses to work weekends
There's probably no other comedy character who has lasted as long as Alan Partridge. Though he's not always been on screen in his 22 years, when Steve Coogan and I meet up we'll always fill in the gaps and speculate about what he's been up to. His life runs simultaneous to ours.
I grew up in the Glasgow Hillhead constituency which, for a political geek, was like going to Glastonbury. We had Roy Jenkins in a by-election in 1982, Edward Heath speaking, Tony Benn. Then you'd bump into Shirley Williams.
Anger has to be in my comedy. Blair and the Iraq war was the first demo I had been on since I was a student – a lot of that went into The Thick of It.
I refuse to work evenings or weekends. If a script sees my character meeting for dinner,...
There's probably no other comedy character who has lasted as long as Alan Partridge. Though he's not always been on screen in his 22 years, when Steve Coogan and I meet up we'll always fill in the gaps and speculate about what he's been up to. His life runs simultaneous to ours.
I grew up in the Glasgow Hillhead constituency which, for a political geek, was like going to Glastonbury. We had Roy Jenkins in a by-election in 1982, Edward Heath speaking, Tony Benn. Then you'd bump into Shirley Williams.
Anger has to be in my comedy. Blair and the Iraq war was the first demo I had been on since I was a student – a lot of that went into The Thick of It.
I refuse to work evenings or weekends. If a script sees my character meeting for dinner,...
- 7/28/2013
- by Tim Adams, Armando Iannucci
- The Guardian - Film News
Local councils are cowed by cuts and the opposition too cautious: only bold action can salvage investment for growth
Councils have been remarkably silent about the savagery of the cuts they have sustained. At last, the supine Sir Merrick Cockell, Conservative leader of the Local Government Association, is speaking out as a Guardian survey reveals the extent of the damage inflicted. Councils are losing one-third of their funding and, he says, so far this is only "the calm before the storm" – a storm sweeping away more Tory councils each May.
Visiting several Labour city council leaders, I found them politically conflicted: should they blast the government or boast of how well they are managing in hard times? This is odd, as the government rains down the heaviest cuts on the poorest (Labour) areas: Liverpool is the worst affected while Oliver Letwin's Dorset is the least. I was surprised by...
Councils have been remarkably silent about the savagery of the cuts they have sustained. At last, the supine Sir Merrick Cockell, Conservative leader of the Local Government Association, is speaking out as a Guardian survey reveals the extent of the damage inflicted. Councils are losing one-third of their funding and, he says, so far this is only "the calm before the storm" – a storm sweeping away more Tory councils each May.
Visiting several Labour city council leaders, I found them politically conflicted: should they blast the government or boast of how well they are managing in hard times? This is odd, as the government rains down the heaviest cuts on the poorest (Labour) areas: Liverpool is the worst affected while Oliver Letwin's Dorset is the least. I was surprised by...
- 3/26/2013
- by Polly Toynbee
- The Guardian - Film News
At Guildford's Yvonne Arnaud theatre, playwright David Seidler has much more room to explore the story's historical background than the cinema version allowed
Watching David Seidler's play induces a strong sense of deja vu. That's not simply because it was the source of a hugely successful, Oscar-winning film. It is also because Seidler's perfectly enjoyable play taps into our recollections of other, more resonant works.
Until I saw it on stage, I had not realised how much Seidler's piece owed to Alan Bennett's The Madness of George III. In both we see an embattled royal subjected to all kinds of curative humiliations by a rogue outsider: in Bennett's play it was a bluff Lincolnshire parson whereas in Seidler's it is a tough Aussie speech specialist in the shape of Lionel Logue. I was also reminded of Tom Murphy's outstanding 1983 play, The Gigli Concert, in which a charlatan...
Watching David Seidler's play induces a strong sense of deja vu. That's not simply because it was the source of a hugely successful, Oscar-winning film. It is also because Seidler's perfectly enjoyable play taps into our recollections of other, more resonant works.
Until I saw it on stage, I had not realised how much Seidler's piece owed to Alan Bennett's The Madness of George III. In both we see an embattled royal subjected to all kinds of curative humiliations by a rogue outsider: in Bennett's play it was a bluff Lincolnshire parson whereas in Seidler's it is a tough Aussie speech specialist in the shape of Lionel Logue. I was also reminded of Tom Murphy's outstanding 1983 play, The Gigli Concert, in which a charlatan...
- 2/11/2012
- by Michael Billington
- The Guardian - Film News
Biopic starring Meryl Streep has been criticised by John Campbell, who wrote the book on which the film is based
It has already been dismissed by Norman Tebbit, despite Meryl Streep being discussed as a shoo-in for an Oscar for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher. Now The Iron Lady, Phyllida Lloyd's much-discussed biopic of Britain's first female prime minister, has been criticised for inaccuracy by Thatcher biographer John Campbell.
The accusation holds some weight because Campbell's book, also titled The Iron Lady, was used as the basis for Lloyd's film. The author is concerned that screenwriters chose to enhance the prime minister's role in important affairs of the 1980s at the expense of other key figures, such as her foreign secretary Geoffrey Howe.
"Like any film of that sort, it simplifies and it dramatises her as a great individual, fighting against all these things as if it was just her on her own,...
It has already been dismissed by Norman Tebbit, despite Meryl Streep being discussed as a shoo-in for an Oscar for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher. Now The Iron Lady, Phyllida Lloyd's much-discussed biopic of Britain's first female prime minister, has been criticised for inaccuracy by Thatcher biographer John Campbell.
The accusation holds some weight because Campbell's book, also titled The Iron Lady, was used as the basis for Lloyd's film. The author is concerned that screenwriters chose to enhance the prime minister's role in important affairs of the 1980s at the expense of other key figures, such as her foreign secretary Geoffrey Howe.
"Like any film of that sort, it simplifies and it dramatises her as a great individual, fighting against all these things as if it was just her on her own,...
- 12/16/2011
- by Ben Child
- The Guardian - Film News
Tom Hooper's drama transcends its historical setting to present a compelling portrait of quiet heroism
Wh Auden wrote his poem "September 1, 1939" while sitting in a New York bar: "Uncertain and afraid/ As the clever hopes expire/ Of a low dishonest decade." The King's Speech takes a rather different view of Britain and the 1930s, though it's not entirely inconsistent with Auden's judgment and isn't in any sense what is sneeringly called heritage cinema. It is the work of a highly talented group of artists who might be regarded as British realists – Tom Hooper directed the soccer epic The Damned United; Eve Stewart was production designer on Mike Leigh's Topsy-Turvy and Vera Drake; Jenny Beavan was responsible for the costumes worn in Gosford Park and The Remains of the Day; the cinematographer Danny Cohen lit Shane Meadows's This is England and Dead Man's Shoes; Tariq Anwar's editing...
Wh Auden wrote his poem "September 1, 1939" while sitting in a New York bar: "Uncertain and afraid/ As the clever hopes expire/ Of a low dishonest decade." The King's Speech takes a rather different view of Britain and the 1930s, though it's not entirely inconsistent with Auden's judgment and isn't in any sense what is sneeringly called heritage cinema. It is the work of a highly talented group of artists who might be regarded as British realists – Tom Hooper directed the soccer epic The Damned United; Eve Stewart was production designer on Mike Leigh's Topsy-Turvy and Vera Drake; Jenny Beavan was responsible for the costumes worn in Gosford Park and The Remains of the Day; the cinematographer Danny Cohen lit Shane Meadows's This is England and Dead Man's Shoes; Tariq Anwar's editing...
- 1/9/2011
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Like his characters, Robert Harris has often found himself close to news in the making. As his 'Tony Blair' novel hits the cinema, he reveals why his friendship with Roman Polanski has lasted, but his affair with New Labour has not
Tony Blair is not on record as having read Robert Harris's 2007 novel The Ghost, a rip-snorting thriller about an ostentatiously groovy ex-prime minister accused of war crimes after secretly approving the transfer of British al-Qaida suspects to Guantánamo Bay, and the ghostwriter hired to write his memoirs. Perhaps Blair got the book out on John Prescott's library card, or happened upon a copy in Silvio Berlusconi's downstairs loo. All that really matters is that he knows of the novel's existence. It was in regard to The Ghost, after all, that he described its author as "a cheeky fuck". The 53-year-old Harris chuckles so warmly...
Tony Blair is not on record as having read Robert Harris's 2007 novel The Ghost, a rip-snorting thriller about an ostentatiously groovy ex-prime minister accused of war crimes after secretly approving the transfer of British al-Qaida suspects to Guantánamo Bay, and the ghostwriter hired to write his memoirs. Perhaps Blair got the book out on John Prescott's library card, or happened upon a copy in Silvio Berlusconi's downstairs loo. All that really matters is that he knows of the novel's existence. It was in regard to The Ghost, after all, that he described its author as "a cheeky fuck". The 53-year-old Harris chuckles so warmly...
- 4/4/2010
- by Ryan Gilbey
- The Guardian - Film News
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