Cinematography retrospectives are the way to go—more than a thorough display of talent, it exposes the vast expanse a Dp will travel, like an education in form and business all the same. Accordingly I’m happy to see the Criterion Channel give a 25-film tribute to James Wong Howe, whose career spanned silent cinema to the ’70s, populated with work by Howard Hawks, Michael Curtz, Samuel Fuller, Alexander Mackendrick, Sydney Pollack, John Frankenheimer, and Raoul Walsh.
Further retrospectives are granted to Romy Schneider (recent repertory sensation La piscine among them), Carlos Saura (finally a chance to see Peppermint frappe!), the British New Wave, and groundbreaking distributor Cinema 5, who brought to U.S. shores everything from The Man Who Fell to Earth and Putney Swope to Pumping Iron and Scenes from a Marriage.
September also yields streaming premieres for the recently restored Bronco Bullfrog, Ang Lee’s Pushing Hands,...
Further retrospectives are granted to Romy Schneider (recent repertory sensation La piscine among them), Carlos Saura (finally a chance to see Peppermint frappe!), the British New Wave, and groundbreaking distributor Cinema 5, who brought to U.S. shores everything from The Man Who Fell to Earth and Putney Swope to Pumping Iron and Scenes from a Marriage.
September also yields streaming premieres for the recently restored Bronco Bullfrog, Ang Lee’s Pushing Hands,...
- 8/22/2022
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
As mumblecore legends Andrew Bujalski and Joe Swanberg release new films, Computer Chess and Drinking Buddies, Ryan Gilbey talks to them about the meandering legacy of a movement that irritated as many as it, um, inspired
Cinema history does not want for new waves. But the batch of lo-fi American movies referred to during the past decade as "mumblecore" may be the first example of a no-wave: a movement without movement, a revolution only in the sense of something going round and round with little discernible progress. All of the artists associated with it have moved on to some extent. Andrew Bujalski, the most skilful of the mumblecore group, has made the playful, experimental Computer Chess, released later this month. The prolific Joe Swanberg, whose loosey-goosey methods on early movies such as Hannah Takes the Stairs extended to living with his cast and crew in one apartment during production, directed...
Cinema history does not want for new waves. But the batch of lo-fi American movies referred to during the past decade as "mumblecore" may be the first example of a no-wave: a movement without movement, a revolution only in the sense of something going round and round with little discernible progress. All of the artists associated with it have moved on to some extent. Andrew Bujalski, the most skilful of the mumblecore group, has made the playful, experimental Computer Chess, released later this month. The prolific Joe Swanberg, whose loosey-goosey methods on early movies such as Hannah Takes the Stairs extended to living with his cast and crew in one apartment during production, directed...
- 11/8/2013
- by Ryan Gilbey
- The Guardian - Film News
My Noir | Urban Wandering: Film And The London Landscape | Cambridge Film Festival | Encounters
My Noir, Manchester
Film noir's hard-boiled loners certainly suit late-night viewing, so what better way to start this celebration of double crosses and femmes fatales than a 24-hour "noirathon". Starting with Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity (paired with an exhibition), the weekend marathon brings classics old and new, from Out Of The Past to Brick, ending somewhat aptly with The Big Sleep, plus special events such as writer Walter Mosley talking about the adaptation of his Devil In A Blue Dress (16 Oct).
Cornerhouse, Sat to 29 Dec
Urban Wandering: Film And The London Landscape, London
Like the capital itself, this promising season is sprawling, eclectic and difficult to get a handle on. It's a survey of the changes the city has experienced postwar, via a myriad of media, but above all, cinema. The guest list is a...
My Noir, Manchester
Film noir's hard-boiled loners certainly suit late-night viewing, so what better way to start this celebration of double crosses and femmes fatales than a 24-hour "noirathon". Starting with Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity (paired with an exhibition), the weekend marathon brings classics old and new, from Out Of The Past to Brick, ending somewhat aptly with The Big Sleep, plus special events such as writer Walter Mosley talking about the adaptation of his Devil In A Blue Dress (16 Oct).
Cornerhouse, Sat to 29 Dec
Urban Wandering: Film And The London Landscape, London
Like the capital itself, this promising season is sprawling, eclectic and difficult to get a handle on. It's a survey of the changes the city has experienced postwar, via a myriad of media, but above all, cinema. The guest list is a...
- 9/14/2013
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
Catch up with the last seven days in the world of film
The big story
The blockbuster juggernaut rolls ever onward: Breaking Dawn Part 2 is so two weeks ago, now it's the turn of those funny little creature, the hobbits. The first chunk of Peter Jackson's long-awaited trilogy, adapted from Jrr Tolkien's admittedly rather slim novel about Bilbo Baggins and his chums, premiered in Jackson's home country of New Zealand, with predictable amounts of fans turning up in costume. Once the red-carpeting was done, the instant reaction, via Twitter, was predictably fulsome.
What was less predictable, perhaps, was the kerfuffle that preceded the event, with anti-animal cruelty activists Peta accusing the production of maltreating its livestock. Studio Warner Bros backed its star director, but the row still hasn't quite gone away.
In the news
Is Matthew Vaughn directing the new Star Wars film?
Will be Joseph Gordon-Levitt be playing Batman in Justice League?...
The big story
The blockbuster juggernaut rolls ever onward: Breaking Dawn Part 2 is so two weeks ago, now it's the turn of those funny little creature, the hobbits. The first chunk of Peter Jackson's long-awaited trilogy, adapted from Jrr Tolkien's admittedly rather slim novel about Bilbo Baggins and his chums, premiered in Jackson's home country of New Zealand, with predictable amounts of fans turning up in costume. Once the red-carpeting was done, the instant reaction, via Twitter, was predictably fulsome.
What was less predictable, perhaps, was the kerfuffle that preceded the event, with anti-animal cruelty activists Peta accusing the production of maltreating its livestock. Studio Warner Bros backed its star director, but the row still hasn't quite gone away.
In the news
Is Matthew Vaughn directing the new Star Wars film?
Will be Joseph Gordon-Levitt be playing Batman in Justice League?...
- 11/29/2012
- The Guardian - Film News
The Guardian's season of British cult classics continues with a double helping of youth pop culture set in London in the 60s and 70s
Reading on mobile? Click here to view
This week is pop culture week in our British cult classics series – well, sort of. Our double bill is a pair of films that turn fresh eyes on two different London youth tribes of the 60s and 70s: the black street soul of Notting Hill is celebrated in Isaac Julien's Young Soul Rebels, while the white working class suedehead world of Stratford is the focus of Barney Platts-Mills's Bronco Bullfrog. The former was a flagship production of the BFI Production Board, costing around £1.7m in 1990; Bronco was a rough-and-ready £18,000 shoot in 1970, taking off from Joan Littlewood's youth theatre workshops. But both show equal affection for their subjects, and from this distance are each a fantastically revealing...
Reading on mobile? Click here to view
This week is pop culture week in our British cult classics series – well, sort of. Our double bill is a pair of films that turn fresh eyes on two different London youth tribes of the 60s and 70s: the black street soul of Notting Hill is celebrated in Isaac Julien's Young Soul Rebels, while the white working class suedehead world of Stratford is the focus of Barney Platts-Mills's Bronco Bullfrog. The former was a flagship production of the BFI Production Board, costing around £1.7m in 1990; Bronco was a rough-and-ready £18,000 shoot in 1970, taking off from Joan Littlewood's youth theatre workshops. But both show equal affection for their subjects, and from this distance are each a fantastically revealing...
- 11/23/2012
- The Guardian - Film News
What did your mouse edge towards on this site this year? Here are the top 10 most viewed articles, galleries, videos, audio streams and interactives. On your own head be it …
Articles
1) Porpoises rescue Dick Van Dyke
Our most-viewed piece of content of any type, by some distance, was this brief news story about the efforts of water mammals in saving the life of an 84-year-old man. It was shared on Facebook no less than 77,000 times.
2) Hitler? A scapegoat. Stalin? I can empathise. Oliver Stone stirs up history
A report from the Us previewing the director's dubious-sounding TV documentary series.
3) The greatest film scenes ever shot
Philip French and assorted directors and producers pick their favourites.
4) The death of Sex and the City
Hadley Freeman dances entertainingly on the grave.
5) Oscars 2010 liveblog: the 82nd Academy Awards as it happens
Five-and-a-half-hours of glamour, gongs and grinding fatigue.
6) Michael Douglas reveals his cancer...
Articles
1) Porpoises rescue Dick Van Dyke
Our most-viewed piece of content of any type, by some distance, was this brief news story about the efforts of water mammals in saving the life of an 84-year-old man. It was shared on Facebook no less than 77,000 times.
2) Hitler? A scapegoat. Stalin? I can empathise. Oliver Stone stirs up history
A report from the Us previewing the director's dubious-sounding TV documentary series.
3) The greatest film scenes ever shot
Philip French and assorted directors and producers pick their favourites.
4) The death of Sex and the City
Hadley Freeman dances entertainingly on the grave.
5) Oscars 2010 liveblog: the 82nd Academy Awards as it happens
Five-and-a-half-hours of glamour, gongs and grinding fatigue.
6) Michael Douglas reveals his cancer...
- 12/23/2010
- The Guardian - Film News
The 25-year-old writer-director Barney Platts-Mills made his promising debut with Bronco Bullfrog in 1969 at a time when British cinema, having abandoned realism for the seductive tinsel of Swinging London, was thrashing around in the doldrums following the withdrawal of American finance. Only Ken Loach with Kes and Platts-Mills with Bronco Bullfrog seemed to be looking at Harold Wilson's Britain and the dead-end lives of its teenagers.
Platts-Mills's low-budget, independent monochrome movie arose out of a project for East End kids at Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop and was semi-improvised by non-professional performers. At the centre is the 17-year-old apprentice welder Del, who disrupts the monotony of life with petty theft and fighting and hero-worships the eponymous borstal fugitive (Sam Shepherd). Just as he plans a railyard robbery with Bronco, he enters into a touching relationship with the 15-year-old Irene, whose father is serving time for armed robbery. Her mother...
Platts-Mills's low-budget, independent monochrome movie arose out of a project for East End kids at Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop and was semi-improvised by non-professional performers. At the centre is the 17-year-old apprentice welder Del, who disrupts the monotony of life with petty theft and fighting and hero-worships the eponymous borstal fugitive (Sam Shepherd). Just as he plans a railyard robbery with Bronco, he enters into a touching relationship with the 15-year-old Irene, whose father is serving time for armed robbery. Her mother...
- 6/12/2010
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Greenberg (15)
(Noah Baumbach, 2010, Us) Ben Stiller, Greta Gerwig, Rhys Ifans, Jennifer Jason Leigh. 107 mins
Usually Ben Stiller is the guy you like in the movie, and the guy you laugh at. Here he's bravely subdued and unsympathetic – a self-absorbed slacker with extreme empathy issues – but you can still laugh at him. After a while, you might even like him. Drifting back to La, he picks at old relationship wounds and opens up fresh ones (with the winningly pathetic Gerwig) in a charming character study with indie values (and soundtrack) that under-achievers of a certain age will relate to.
Brooklyn's Finest (18)
(Antoine Fuqua, 2009, Us) Richard Gere, Don Cheadle, Ethan Hawke. 132 mins
Breaking news: law enforcement in the sketchier areas of New York is sometimes quite difficult. This three-pronged assault hammers the cliches home relentlessly, self-importantly detailing the trials of its compromised lawmen as if it's saying something new. Or something at all.
(Noah Baumbach, 2010, Us) Ben Stiller, Greta Gerwig, Rhys Ifans, Jennifer Jason Leigh. 107 mins
Usually Ben Stiller is the guy you like in the movie, and the guy you laugh at. Here he's bravely subdued and unsympathetic – a self-absorbed slacker with extreme empathy issues – but you can still laugh at him. After a while, you might even like him. Drifting back to La, he picks at old relationship wounds and opens up fresh ones (with the winningly pathetic Gerwig) in a charming character study with indie values (and soundtrack) that under-achievers of a certain age will relate to.
Brooklyn's Finest (18)
(Antoine Fuqua, 2009, Us) Richard Gere, Don Cheadle, Ethan Hawke. 132 mins
Breaking news: law enforcement in the sketchier areas of New York is sometimes quite difficult. This three-pronged assault hammers the cliches home relentlessly, self-importantly detailing the trials of its compromised lawmen as if it's saying something new. Or something at all.
- 6/11/2010
- by The guide
- The Guardian - Film News
A breathtaking time capsule of early 70s London. By Peter Bradshaw
In 1970, Barney Platts-Mills's Bronco Bullfrog brought the improvisational energy of Joan Littlewood's Theatre Royal to the cinema screen in his low-budget east London love story, shot in black-and-white and featuring non-professional teens. Inevitably, there is something a little uncertain about it sometimes, but the principals, Del Walker and Anne Gooding, are winningly real, there is freshness and life and as a historical record it's pure gold. Walker looks a bit like Pete Townshend and Anne Gooding shows heartbreakingly what her teenage character Irene is going to be like at 40 or 50. The movie is a breathtaking time capsule of early 70s London, with The Golden Egg in Leicester Square, glass milk bottles with foil caps and saying "turn it over" instead of switch channels, because telly, like a coin, had but two sides.
Rating: 4/5
RomanceDramaPeter Bradshaw
guardian.co.
In 1970, Barney Platts-Mills's Bronco Bullfrog brought the improvisational energy of Joan Littlewood's Theatre Royal to the cinema screen in his low-budget east London love story, shot in black-and-white and featuring non-professional teens. Inevitably, there is something a little uncertain about it sometimes, but the principals, Del Walker and Anne Gooding, are winningly real, there is freshness and life and as a historical record it's pure gold. Walker looks a bit like Pete Townshend and Anne Gooding shows heartbreakingly what her teenage character Irene is going to be like at 40 or 50. The movie is a breathtaking time capsule of early 70s London, with The Golden Egg in Leicester Square, glass milk bottles with foil caps and saying "turn it over" instead of switch channels, because telly, like a coin, had but two sides.
Rating: 4/5
RomanceDramaPeter Bradshaw
guardian.co.
- 6/10/2010
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
This week Jason Solomons meets British director Chris Smith to discuss his medieval thriller Black Death, which stars Sean Bean as a mercenary knight on the quest to find a village whose inhabitants are said to be mysteriously immune to the bubonic plague wreaking havoc across England.
A lost London classic gets a welcome re-release: 1969's urban romance Bronco Bullfrog. Jason talks to its director, Barney Platts-Mills, about the British new wave and how it feels to see the digitally remastered print back on the big screen.
Plus, Xan Brooks joins Jason to review some of this week's other releases including Ben Stiller in Greenberg, H2Oil, a documentary about the ecological damage caused by the mining of Canada's oil sands region, and Brooklyn's Finest, starring Richard Gere, Don Cheadle and Ethan Hawke as cops gone bad. They also discuss Shed Your Tears and Walk Away, Jez Lewis's harrowing...
A lost London classic gets a welcome re-release: 1969's urban romance Bronco Bullfrog. Jason talks to its director, Barney Platts-Mills, about the British new wave and how it feels to see the digitally remastered print back on the big screen.
Plus, Xan Brooks joins Jason to review some of this week's other releases including Ben Stiller in Greenberg, H2Oil, a documentary about the ecological damage caused by the mining of Canada's oil sands region, and Brooklyn's Finest, starring Richard Gere, Don Cheadle and Ethan Hawke as cops gone bad. They also discuss Shed Your Tears and Walk Away, Jez Lewis's harrowing...
- 6/10/2010
- by Jason Solomons, Xan Brooks
- The Guardian - Film News
Thank you for Xan Brooks's kind mention of Bronco Bullfrog (The film the UK forgot, Film&Music, 4 June). But I obviously have to make an apology. It was heartening to read Sam Shepherd's story of the Princess Royal recognising her own mum in Mrs Shepherd's portrayal of working-class prejudice in the film, reminding one of a slightly better, more open society that we grew up in. I was shocked, however, to read the word I am reported to have used of Peter Hall. Perhaps I have little opinion of anyone working in commercial cinema, but Peter would be among the least of my bete noire, and I have to believe that I must have been quoting Joan Littlewood in using such an unattractive word about him.
Joan notoriously thought we were all aptly described with anatomical misnomers. It is galling though, both for her ghost and for myself, to be caught out like this.
Joan notoriously thought we were all aptly described with anatomical misnomers. It is galling though, both for her ghost and for myself, to be caught out like this.
- 6/7/2010
- The Guardian - Film News
Sir Patrick Stewart heads the jury at Edinburgh this year, with some strong British films in contention. Meanwhile, Madonna is to make a second foray into direction and lost gem Bronco Bullfrog is restored to its full youthful East End glory. By Jason Solomons
Tartan up the juries
Sir Patrick Stewart - we do not yet know if he will insist on using the full, grand title - is to head the Jury at the 64th Edinburgh international film festival. The actor, who can legitimately be called "Mr President" for the duration of the event, will sit in judgment over the prestigious Michael Powell award, given to the best British film at the festival. Competitors include: Paul Andrew Williams's Cherry Tree Lane (his searing debut London to Brighton premiered at the festival in 2006); Nick Moran's The Kid; Huge, the directing debut of comic actor Ben Miller; and Soulboy,...
Tartan up the juries
Sir Patrick Stewart - we do not yet know if he will insist on using the full, grand title - is to head the Jury at the 64th Edinburgh international film festival. The actor, who can legitimately be called "Mr President" for the duration of the event, will sit in judgment over the prestigious Michael Powell award, given to the best British film at the festival. Competitors include: Paul Andrew Williams's Cherry Tree Lane (his searing debut London to Brighton premiered at the festival in 2006); Nick Moran's The Kid; Huge, the directing debut of comic actor Ben Miller; and Soulboy,...
- 6/5/2010
- by Jason Solomons
- The Guardian - Film News
A rude, bracing slice of East End life that dropped off screens for decades, Bronco Bullfrog is finally back. Xan Brooks talks to the survivors of a British classic
One night in November 1970, Princess Anne tripped along to Oxford Circus for the London premiere of Three Sisters, a film starring and directed by Sir Laurence Olivier, who had recently been made a life peer in the birthday honours list. A pleasant evening lay in store – except that there, on the red carpet, the princess found herself face-to-face with the hoi polloi, the great unwashed. Some 200 members of the Beaumont youth club out in Leyton, east London, had shown up to jeer her. Some were reported to have chucked tomatoes at her head. These protesters did not think the princess should be on her way to see some stuffy Chekhov drama by a peer of the realm. They wanted her to...
One night in November 1970, Princess Anne tripped along to Oxford Circus for the London premiere of Three Sisters, a film starring and directed by Sir Laurence Olivier, who had recently been made a life peer in the birthday honours list. A pleasant evening lay in store – except that there, on the red carpet, the princess found herself face-to-face with the hoi polloi, the great unwashed. Some 200 members of the Beaumont youth club out in Leyton, east London, had shown up to jeer her. Some were reported to have chucked tomatoes at her head. These protesters did not think the princess should be on her way to see some stuffy Chekhov drama by a peer of the realm. They wanted her to...
- 6/3/2010
- by Xan Brooks
- The Guardian - Film News
The BFI have been in contact with us to offer a great prize. Not only to go to see the 1969 movie, Bronco Bullfrog and to also attend a Q&A with the director himself. And as if that’s not enough, they’ve also given us a poster for the movie.
A leading cult film and the only record of suedehead culture in British cinema, Barney Platts-Mills’ tale of teenage lovers with no money and nowhere to go is a wonderful time capsule of late 60s London, this is filmmaking with a spontaneity, wit and endearing humanity that still feels strikingly fresh.
There’s special preview screenings of the movie + Q&A with more info here. :
BFI Southbank, Thur 3 June, 20:40
Curzon Soho, Sat 19 June, 16:30
Opens 11 June at BFI Southbank, Genesis Whitechapel & Ifi, Dublin
For more info and to watch the trailer.
We’ve got one pair of...
A leading cult film and the only record of suedehead culture in British cinema, Barney Platts-Mills’ tale of teenage lovers with no money and nowhere to go is a wonderful time capsule of late 60s London, this is filmmaking with a spontaneity, wit and endearing humanity that still feels strikingly fresh.
There’s special preview screenings of the movie + Q&A with more info here. :
BFI Southbank, Thur 3 June, 20:40
Curzon Soho, Sat 19 June, 16:30
Opens 11 June at BFI Southbank, Genesis Whitechapel & Ifi, Dublin
For more info and to watch the trailer.
We’ve got one pair of...
- 5/28/2010
- by David Sztypuljak
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
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