Italian writer-director Emma Dante’s “Misericordia” has won the top prize at the Black Nights Film Festival in Tallinn, Estonia. Adapted from her own play, her third feature tells the story of a young man (Simone Zambelli) with learning difficulties, cared for by a group of sex workers on an island, protecting him from the cruelty of his abusive father. It’s a raw portrait of a marginalized group of people, mixing natural beauty of the locations with the grime of everyday existence.
Zambelli also took the award for best actor, for his role as the man-child at the center of the drama. The best actress prize was shared by Lubna Azabal, who plays a teacher in Jawad Rhalib’s “Amal,” and Kim Higelin, who stars in the controversial French drama “Consent,” directed by Vanessa Filho, as a teenager having an affair with a manipulative and exploitative 50-year-old writer.
The...
Zambelli also took the award for best actor, for his role as the man-child at the center of the drama. The best actress prize was shared by Lubna Azabal, who plays a teacher in Jawad Rhalib’s “Amal,” and Kim Higelin, who stars in the controversial French drama “Consent,” directed by Vanessa Filho, as a teenager having an affair with a manipulative and exploitative 50-year-old writer.
The...
- 11/18/2023
- by John Bleasdale
- Variety Film + TV
She’s been nominated for seven BAFTAs (winning one), seven Golden Globes (winning two), a couple of Oscars and an Emmy. She’s worked with armfuls of top directors including Steven Spielberg, Tim Burton and David Cronenberg. And 40 years ago, she created one of sitcom’s best-loved characters as the capricious Queen Elizabeth (Queenie to her pals) in Blackadder.
And now Miranda Richardson has proven herself so good she’s been cast not once but twice in Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens, first playing Madame Tracy in series one, and now taking on the tailor-made role of Shax, who becomes Hell’s representative on Earth after Crowley (David Tennant) gets fired.
What better time to revisit some of Miranda Richardson’s most memorable performances, from her impressive film debut in Dance With a Stranger to her more recent appearances in Harry Potter and Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None?...
And now Miranda Richardson has proven herself so good she’s been cast not once but twice in Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens, first playing Madame Tracy in series one, and now taking on the tailor-made role of Shax, who becomes Hell’s representative on Earth after Crowley (David Tennant) gets fired.
What better time to revisit some of Miranda Richardson’s most memorable performances, from her impressive film debut in Dance With a Stranger to her more recent appearances in Harry Potter and Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None?...
- 7/28/2023
- by Jbindeck2015
- Den of Geek
Ian Holm as Ash in Alien
Sir Ian Holm has passed away from complications of Parkinson's disease, his agent revealed today. The much loved actor was known for his work in films as varied as Chariots Of Fire, Alien, Robin And Marian, The Fifth Element, Dance With A Stranger and the Lord Of The Rings and Hobbit films, in which he played the older Bilbo Baggins. He worked with Terry Gilliam on Time Bandits and Brazil, and with David Cronenberg on Naked Lunch and eXistenZ.
A member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, he was celebrated for his stage work and his contributions to bringing Shakespeare to the screen, with performances in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet and Kenneth Branagh's Henry V. He received six BAFTA nominations over the course of his career.
Paying tribute, Edgar Wright described Holm as "a genius actor who brought considerable presence to parts funny,...
Sir Ian Holm has passed away from complications of Parkinson's disease, his agent revealed today. The much loved actor was known for his work in films as varied as Chariots Of Fire, Alien, Robin And Marian, The Fifth Element, Dance With A Stranger and the Lord Of The Rings and Hobbit films, in which he played the older Bilbo Baggins. He worked with Terry Gilliam on Time Bandits and Brazil, and with David Cronenberg on Naked Lunch and eXistenZ.
A member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, he was celebrated for his stage work and his contributions to bringing Shakespeare to the screen, with performances in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet and Kenneth Branagh's Henry V. He received six BAFTA nominations over the course of his career.
Paying tribute, Edgar Wright described Holm as "a genius actor who brought considerable presence to parts funny,...
- 6/19/2020
- by Jennie Kermode
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Ian Holm, the classically trained Shakespearean actor best known to film audiences for his performances in films including the “Lord of the Rings” and “Hobbit” movies, “Chariots of Fire” and “Alien,” has died. He was 88.
A rep for the actor has said Holm died in hospital on Friday morning. The actor had been battling Parkinson’s Disease for a number of years. However, as recently as January, Holm appeared in person to collect the Newport Beach Film Festival’s Icon Award in London.
Holm, who was celebrated for interpretations of most of the Shakespeare canon, including a towering “King Lear,” also excelled onstage in the original production of Harold Pinter’s “The Homecoming,” which he also brought to Broadway. He began working in films only midway through his career, debuting with an adaptation of his stage performance in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in 1968.
In later years, however, he worked increasingly...
A rep for the actor has said Holm died in hospital on Friday morning. The actor had been battling Parkinson’s Disease for a number of years. However, as recently as January, Holm appeared in person to collect the Newport Beach Film Festival’s Icon Award in London.
Holm, who was celebrated for interpretations of most of the Shakespeare canon, including a towering “King Lear,” also excelled onstage in the original production of Harold Pinter’s “The Homecoming,” which he also brought to Broadway. He began working in films only midway through his career, debuting with an adaptation of his stage performance in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in 1968.
In later years, however, he worked increasingly...
- 6/19/2020
- by Carmel Dagan
- Variety Film + TV
Veteran British actor Ian Holm, star of Lord Of The Rings and Alien, has died aged 88.
In a message to the Guardian, Holm’s agent said: “It is with great sadness that the actor Sir Ian Holm Cbe passed away this morning at the age of 88. He died peacefully in hospital, with his family and carer…Charming, kind and ferociously talented, we will miss him hugely.”” He said that Holm’s illness was Parkinson’s related.
Holm was an instantly recognizable face in the industry, considered equally adept on stage and screen. He won a BAFTA and was Oscar-nominated for his role in the 1981 hit Chariots Of Fire and played Bilbo Baggins with aplomb in the epic Lord Of The Rings trilogy and Hobbit films.
One of his most iconic performances was as malfunctioning android Ash in Ridley Scott’s Alien.
Born in 1931 in Essex, UK, Holm excelled on stage...
In a message to the Guardian, Holm’s agent said: “It is with great sadness that the actor Sir Ian Holm Cbe passed away this morning at the age of 88. He died peacefully in hospital, with his family and carer…Charming, kind and ferociously talented, we will miss him hugely.”” He said that Holm’s illness was Parkinson’s related.
Holm was an instantly recognizable face in the industry, considered equally adept on stage and screen. He won a BAFTA and was Oscar-nominated for his role in the 1981 hit Chariots Of Fire and played Bilbo Baggins with aplomb in the epic Lord Of The Rings trilogy and Hobbit films.
One of his most iconic performances was as malfunctioning android Ash in Ridley Scott’s Alien.
Born in 1931 in Essex, UK, Holm excelled on stage...
- 6/19/2020
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
Hugh Grant and Andy MacDowell in Four Weddings And A Funeral. Mike Newell: 'They were all so gorgeous when they were young' Photo: © 1994 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved
One of those directors who never watches a film he made after he’s made it, Mike Newell once upon a time breathed new life into British cinema with his box-office-breaking and award-winning romantic comedy Four Weddings And A Funeral, now 25 years old. After this now-cult film, he moved on from the formulas of feel-good movies to Hollywood blockbusters of the likes of Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire (2005), one more film that has reached cult status according to pop culture standards and yet another that has marked an entire generation of youngsters.
A Cambridge graduate, Newell began directing at 22 and worked on various plays for TV. His springboard to international success was the TV film, The Man In The Iron Mask...
One of those directors who never watches a film he made after he’s made it, Mike Newell once upon a time breathed new life into British cinema with his box-office-breaking and award-winning romantic comedy Four Weddings And A Funeral, now 25 years old. After this now-cult film, he moved on from the formulas of feel-good movies to Hollywood blockbusters of the likes of Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire (2005), one more film that has reached cult status according to pop culture standards and yet another that has marked an entire generation of youngsters.
A Cambridge graduate, Newell began directing at 22 and worked on various plays for TV. His springboard to international success was the TV film, The Man In The Iron Mask...
- 12/13/2019
- by Tara Karajica
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Dramatizations of the life of playwright Oscar Wilde usually dwell on his sentence to prison with hard labor for homosexuality. The films “Oscar Wilde” and “The Trials of Oscar Wilde,” both of which came out in 1960, put the emphasis on his downfall, as did the biopic “Wilde” from 1997 and numerous theatrical productions, such as “Gross Indecency.”
Rupert Everett played Wilde in a revival of David Hare’s play “The Judas Kiss” in 2012 in London, and now he returns to the role in “The Happy Prince,” which he also wrote and directed. Everett shows little sense of how to structure his material, or how to shoot it, or even sometimes how to act it, but he does have one key element that sees him through: keen insight into Wilde’s world and character. And this insight gets him pretty far here.
“The Happy Prince” begins with title cards explaining who Wilde...
Rupert Everett played Wilde in a revival of David Hare’s play “The Judas Kiss” in 2012 in London, and now he returns to the role in “The Happy Prince,” which he also wrote and directed. Everett shows little sense of how to structure his material, or how to shoot it, or even sometimes how to act it, but he does have one key element that sees him through: keen insight into Wilde’s world and character. And this insight gets him pretty far here.
“The Happy Prince” begins with title cards explaining who Wilde...
- 10/8/2018
- by Dan Callahan
- The Wrap
Julie Walters is such a legendary actress - who's been in all sorts of beloved films and TV Shows - that it's no surprise she was awarded a BAFTA Fellowship earlier this year. And now, her career will be examined in a new TV show airing tonight (Christmas Eve).
We caught up with Julie recently to chat about her varied career, so read on to find out why she wishes she'd kept something from the Harry Potter set, why slippers with bobbles bring back bad memories, and why she wants to be a Bond villain...
Was getting the Fellowship a nice chance to look back at the highs and lows of your career?
"Yes. Well, you don't really look at the lows. To be perfectly honest, when you get it, I don't look back at anything really. There were clips, weren't there? Yes, of course there were, on the night.
We caught up with Julie recently to chat about her varied career, so read on to find out why she wishes she'd kept something from the Harry Potter set, why slippers with bobbles bring back bad memories, and why she wants to be a Bond villain...
Was getting the Fellowship a nice chance to look back at the highs and lows of your career?
"Yes. Well, you don't really look at the lows. To be perfectly honest, when you get it, I don't look back at anything really. There were clips, weren't there? Yes, of course there were, on the night.
- 12/24/2014
- Digital Spy
With last week's news about a federal judge in California declaring the state's death penalty "cruel and unusual punishment" and therefore unconstitutional along with this week's horror story about a bungled execution in Arizona, Brian Trenchard-Smith's recent trio of capital punishment-themed films proved particularly prescient.
With that, we'd like to re-introduce Brian's commentaries, ripped, as they say, from today's headlines.
Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5siEehBQPjM
Let Him Have It
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKC4X5CEAic
Dance With a Stranger
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQCEpTPciOw
The post Revisiting a Cruel and Unusual Punishment appeared first on Trailers From Hell.
With that, we'd like to re-introduce Brian's commentaries, ripped, as they say, from today's headlines.
Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5siEehBQPjM
Let Him Have It
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKC4X5CEAic
Dance With a Stranger
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQCEpTPciOw
The post Revisiting a Cruel and Unusual Punishment appeared first on Trailers From Hell.
- 7/25/2014
- by TFH Team
- Trailers from Hell
Erudite Tfh guru Brian Trenchard-Smith takes a look at yet another artful true crime drama, the 1985 doomed romance "Dance with a Stranger" starring Miranda Richardson in a star-making role. Though the seemingly ubiquitous Albert Pierrepoint doesn’t appear in Mike Newell’s 1985 film about the notorious Ruth Ellis, he’s there in spirit, responsible as he was for Ellis’ execution, the last woman in England to be hanged for murder. Miranda Richardson stars as the star-crossed Ellis and Rupert Everett plays her two-timing lover and eventual victim, David Blakely.
- 7/11/2014
- by Trailers From Hell
- Thompson on Hollywood
Though the seemingly ubiquitous Albert Pierrepoint doesn't appear in Mike Newell's 1985 film about the notorious Ruth Ellis, he's there in spirit, responsible as he was for Ellis' execution, the last woman in England to be hanged for murder. Miranda Richardson stars as the star-crossed Ellis and Rupert Everett plays her two-timing lover and eventual victim, David Blakely.
The post Dance with a Stranger appeared first on Trailers From Hell.
The post Dance with a Stranger appeared first on Trailers From Hell.
- 7/11/2014
- by TFH Team
- Trailers from Hell
April Showers each night!
Have you ever seen Cemetery Man (1994), a schlocky Italian horror flick from 1994 starring Rupert Everett as the titular character? He fends off pesky zombies including his lover (the busty Anna Falchi) with some regularity.
Despite my long dormant Everett fandom (I was there right at the beginning with Another Country / Dance With a Stranger), I've still never seen this one all the way through. I was just thinking about this because I was in Nashville and some years ago when I juried there with Nick Davis, who loves the movie, he showed me pieces of it.
Everett's character Francesco Dellamorte apparently takes a lot of showers and apparently he's used to getting attacked by zombies -- just part of the job. more... But on this particular night in the movie they come earlier than expected. The lights go out in the shower, he sees one approaching...
Have you ever seen Cemetery Man (1994), a schlocky Italian horror flick from 1994 starring Rupert Everett as the titular character? He fends off pesky zombies including his lover (the busty Anna Falchi) with some regularity.
Despite my long dormant Everett fandom (I was there right at the beginning with Another Country / Dance With a Stranger), I've still never seen this one all the way through. I was just thinking about this because I was in Nashville and some years ago when I juried there with Nick Davis, who loves the movie, he showed me pieces of it.
Everett's character Francesco Dellamorte apparently takes a lot of showers and apparently he's used to getting attacked by zombies -- just part of the job. more... But on this particular night in the movie they come earlier than expected. The lights go out in the shower, he sees one approaching...
- 4/24/2013
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
The Sheffield revival of A Taste of Honey should help us better remember an unfairly neglected playwright – but here's plenty of footage to be going on with
As a major of revival of Shelagh Delaney's A Taste of Honey opens in Sheffield, it's time to remember the debt owed to the playwright, who died last year, by many writers – even the songwriter Morrissey.
Reading this on mobile? Watch the video here
A major dictionary of theatre on my bookcase, dating from the mid-1990s, doesn't even mention the Salford-born Delaney, who can seen here in Ken Russell's 1960 Monitor film on the writer and her town.
The lack of recognition from the theatre world is probably partly because, after 1960, she largely turned her attention to screenplays, eventually writing the 1985 film Dance with a Stranger, in which Miranda Richardson played Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged for murder in England.
As a major of revival of Shelagh Delaney's A Taste of Honey opens in Sheffield, it's time to remember the debt owed to the playwright, who died last year, by many writers – even the songwriter Morrissey.
Reading this on mobile? Watch the video here
A major dictionary of theatre on my bookcase, dating from the mid-1990s, doesn't even mention the Salford-born Delaney, who can seen here in Ken Russell's 1960 Monitor film on the writer and her town.
The lack of recognition from the theatre world is probably partly because, after 1960, she largely turned her attention to screenplays, eventually writing the 1985 film Dance with a Stranger, in which Miranda Richardson played Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged for murder in England.
- 10/24/2012
- by Lyn Gardner
- The Guardian - Film News
Rupert Everett's new memoir has landed him in hot water. Again. But he thinks we just need to lighten up
Poor old Rupert Everett thought he'd taken every care to say nothing in his first memoir that could upset his friend Madonna. Then the book came out, she threw a strop and stopped talking to him. His new memoir is less scandalously gossipy, so further fallings-out had looked unlikely – but before its release this week, he was already in hot water again. Everett can't understand it. "What's happened to humour? We're becoming American. Everyone gets so angry over everything."
But I'm not sure how much he really cares, and to my mind you'd have to be even more humourless than Madonna to hold anything against him. After reading Vanished Years, I didn't just want to buy the book but kidnap its author and gallivant about town with him for ever.
Poor old Rupert Everett thought he'd taken every care to say nothing in his first memoir that could upset his friend Madonna. Then the book came out, she threw a strop and stopped talking to him. His new memoir is less scandalously gossipy, so further fallings-out had looked unlikely – but before its release this week, he was already in hot water again. Everett can't understand it. "What's happened to humour? We're becoming American. Everyone gets so angry over everything."
But I'm not sure how much he really cares, and to my mind you'd have to be even more humourless than Madonna to hold anything against him. After reading Vanished Years, I didn't just want to buy the book but kidnap its author and gallivant about town with him for ever.
- 9/28/2012
- by Decca Aitkenhead
- The Guardian - Film News
Plenty of gay actors have convinced the world otherwise, so why not let one play Fifty Shades of Grey's Christian Grey?
I have two words for Bret Easton Ellis, who yesterday claimed that a gay actor shouldn't play the part of lady-spanker Christian Grey in the adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey: Rock Hudson.
Hudson was a man so gay he had a mini, monogrammed man-bag to house his amyl nitrate (I know this because his former lover Armistead Maupin told me). And yet, on-screen, Hudson glistened with heterosexuality. He defined the mid-20th-century romantic lead. In pictures such as Giant and Magnificent Obsession, he made a generation of postwar women swoon and fantasise; they were convinced of his rock solid straightness. When he died of Aids in 1985, many were more shocked that he was gay than he was dead.
But Ellis described the casting of gay TV...
I have two words for Bret Easton Ellis, who yesterday claimed that a gay actor shouldn't play the part of lady-spanker Christian Grey in the adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey: Rock Hudson.
Hudson was a man so gay he had a mini, monogrammed man-bag to house his amyl nitrate (I know this because his former lover Armistead Maupin told me). And yet, on-screen, Hudson glistened with heterosexuality. He defined the mid-20th-century romantic lead. In pictures such as Giant and Magnificent Obsession, he made a generation of postwar women swoon and fantasise; they were convinced of his rock solid straightness. When he died of Aids in 1985, many were more shocked that he was gay than he was dead.
But Ellis described the casting of gay TV...
- 8/8/2012
- by Patrick Strudwick
- The Guardian - Film News
More long hidden horrors are now available as part of Warner's made-to-order Archive Collection. Oh, the classic terrors that await you, dearest reader! Dig it!
Head on over to the Warner Archives and order yours today!
The Awakening
Director: Mike Newell
Cast: Charlton Heston, Susannah York, Jill Townsend, Stephanie Zimbalist
Synopsis
Mention Bram Stoker’s name, and literature and movie buffs will conjure up Count Dracula. But there was more blood in Stoker’s pen. He also wrote The Jewel of the Seven Stars, later filmed with chilling effect as The Awakening, grippingly directed by Mike Newell (Dance with a Stranger, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) and sensuously shot on Egyptian locations by veteran cinematographer Jack Cardiff. Charlton Heston stars as an Egyptologist with a passion that will trigger several mysterious deaths. He’s obsessed with a sorceress whose return has been prophesied – and whose tomb he opened...
Head on over to the Warner Archives and order yours today!
The Awakening
Director: Mike Newell
Cast: Charlton Heston, Susannah York, Jill Townsend, Stephanie Zimbalist
Synopsis
Mention Bram Stoker’s name, and literature and movie buffs will conjure up Count Dracula. But there was more blood in Stoker’s pen. He also wrote The Jewel of the Seven Stars, later filmed with chilling effect as The Awakening, grippingly directed by Mike Newell (Dance with a Stranger, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) and sensuously shot on Egyptian locations by veteran cinematographer Jack Cardiff. Charlton Heston stars as an Egyptologist with a passion that will trigger several mysterious deaths. He’s obsessed with a sorceress whose return has been prophesied – and whose tomb he opened...
- 5/15/2012
- by Uncle Creepy
- DreadCentral.com
The Tribeca Film Festival kicks off for the eleventh time starting Wednesday when "The Five-Year Engagement" premieres, and festival organizers have just announced the star-studded jury for this year's edition.
Thirty-nine celebrities -- of various levels of fame and awards kudos -- make up the six juries, with producer Irwin Winkler ("Goodfellas") serving a jury president.
Among those selected by Tribeca this year: Patricia Clarkson, Hugh Dancy, Rosario Dawson, Dakota Fanning, Kellan Lutz, Michael Moore and Olivia Wilde. Also on the list: Brett Ratner. The controversial big-budget director will serve on the Documentary and Student Short Film Competition jury along with Justin Bieber's manager Scooter Braun, Susan Sarandon and Shailene Woodley, among others.
“We are honored to have this accomplished group dedicate the time and care it takes to view and discuss the films in competition this year,” Tribeca Film Festival co-founder Jane Rosenthal said in a statement.
For...
Thirty-nine celebrities -- of various levels of fame and awards kudos -- make up the six juries, with producer Irwin Winkler ("Goodfellas") serving a jury president.
Among those selected by Tribeca this year: Patricia Clarkson, Hugh Dancy, Rosario Dawson, Dakota Fanning, Kellan Lutz, Michael Moore and Olivia Wilde. Also on the list: Brett Ratner. The controversial big-budget director will serve on the Documentary and Student Short Film Competition jury along with Justin Bieber's manager Scooter Braun, Susan Sarandon and Shailene Woodley, among others.
“We are honored to have this accomplished group dedicate the time and care it takes to view and discuss the films in competition this year,” Tribeca Film Festival co-founder Jane Rosenthal said in a statement.
For...
- 4/16/2012
- by The Huffington Post
- Huffington Post
It’s a star-studded list that includes some interesting, and surprising, names, which is just what you’d expect from the Tribeca Film Festival. The juries have been announced, and you could hardly got a more varied mix.
Juries Announced For 2012 Tribeca Film Festival And Tribeca Film Institute Programs
Academy Award-Winning Producer/Director Irwin Winkler To Serve as Jury President
Patricia Clarkson, Hugh Dancy, Rosario Dawson, Dakota Fanning, Whoopi Goldberg, Susannah Grant, Kellan Lutz, Michael Moore, Mike Newell, Brett Ratner, Susan Sarandon, Olivia Wilde, and Shailene Woodley are among the Jurors
The Tribeca Film Festival (Tff), presented by founding partner American Express, today announced its jurors – a diverse group of 39 individuals, including award-winning filmmakers, writers and producers, acclaimed actors, respected critics and global business leaders. Irwin Winkler has been named President of the Jury. The Jury will be divided among the six competitive Festival categories and will announce the winning films,...
Juries Announced For 2012 Tribeca Film Festival And Tribeca Film Institute Programs
Academy Award-Winning Producer/Director Irwin Winkler To Serve as Jury President
Patricia Clarkson, Hugh Dancy, Rosario Dawson, Dakota Fanning, Whoopi Goldberg, Susannah Grant, Kellan Lutz, Michael Moore, Mike Newell, Brett Ratner, Susan Sarandon, Olivia Wilde, and Shailene Woodley are among the Jurors
The Tribeca Film Festival (Tff), presented by founding partner American Express, today announced its jurors – a diverse group of 39 individuals, including award-winning filmmakers, writers and producers, acclaimed actors, respected critics and global business leaders. Irwin Winkler has been named President of the Jury. The Jury will be divided among the six competitive Festival categories and will announce the winning films,...
- 4/16/2012
- by Marc Eastman
- AreYouScreening.com
Feisty playwright best known for her ground-breaking debut, A Taste of Honey
Shelagh Delaney was 18 when she wrote A Taste of Honey, one of the defining plays of the 1950s working-class and feminist cultural movements. The play's group of dysfunctional characters, utterly alien to the prevailing middle-class "anyone for tennis?" school of theatre, each explored their chances of attaining a glimpse of happiness. The central character, a young girl named Jo, lives in a decrepit flat in Salford with her mother, who is apt to wander off in pursuit of men with money. Jo becomes pregnant by a black sailor and is cared for by Geoffrey, a young gay friend, until her mother ousts him in what could be a burst of suppressed maternal love or a display of jealous control-freakery.
Delaney, who has died of cancer aged 71, had to endure harsh criticism for her attack on the orthodoxies of the period.
Shelagh Delaney was 18 when she wrote A Taste of Honey, one of the defining plays of the 1950s working-class and feminist cultural movements. The play's group of dysfunctional characters, utterly alien to the prevailing middle-class "anyone for tennis?" school of theatre, each explored their chances of attaining a glimpse of happiness. The central character, a young girl named Jo, lives in a decrepit flat in Salford with her mother, who is apt to wander off in pursuit of men with money. Jo becomes pregnant by a black sailor and is cared for by Geoffrey, a young gay friend, until her mother ousts him in what could be a burst of suppressed maternal love or a display of jealous control-freakery.
Delaney, who has died of cancer aged 71, had to endure harsh criticism for her attack on the orthodoxies of the period.
- 11/22/2011
- by Dennis Barker
- The Guardian - Film News
"Playwright Shelagh Delaney, best known for her 1958 play A Taste of Honey, has died of cancer," reports Robert Barr for the AP. "The writer was just 19 when A Taste of Honey premiered. The downbeat tale of a young woman's pregnancy following a one-night stand with a black sailor, and her supportive relationship with a gay artist, verged on scandalous at the time, but the play had successful runs in London and New York…. Delaney's immediate inspiration was her dislike of Terence Rattigan's play, Variations on a Theme. Believing she could do better, she wrote A Taste of Honey in two weeks, reworking material from a novel she was writing. Delaney and the film's director, Tony Richardson, shared BAFTA and Writer's Guild awards for best screenplay for the 1961 film adaptation, which starred Rita Tushingham."
"Delaney's play sits in between John Osborne's Look Back in Anger (1956) and Joe Orton's...
"Delaney's play sits in between John Osborne's Look Back in Anger (1956) and Joe Orton's...
- 11/21/2011
- MUBI
A remake of Straw Dogs reminds us that 1971, which also spawned A Clockwork Orange and 10 Rillington Place, was a wonderful annus horribilis of shock cinema in Britain
Recently, in honour of this week's release of the Straw Dogs remake, an interviewer from Film 2011 listened to me indulgently while I rambled on the subject of 1971 And All That.
1971 was the year of highly controversial and violent movies like Sam Peckinpah's original Straw Dogs and Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. It was also the year of Dirty Harry, and I have myself blogged about William Friedkin's 1971 film The French Connection, a pretty brutal film positively drenched in 1971-ness. What was it that made the year 1971 the annus mirabilis (or horribilis) of shock cinema in Britain? It could have been something to do with the fact that this was the year of John Trevelyan's retirement as a markedly liberal director of...
Recently, in honour of this week's release of the Straw Dogs remake, an interviewer from Film 2011 listened to me indulgently while I rambled on the subject of 1971 And All That.
1971 was the year of highly controversial and violent movies like Sam Peckinpah's original Straw Dogs and Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. It was also the year of Dirty Harry, and I have myself blogged about William Friedkin's 1971 film The French Connection, a pretty brutal film positively drenched in 1971-ness. What was it that made the year 1971 the annus mirabilis (or horribilis) of shock cinema in Britain? It could have been something to do with the fact that this was the year of John Trevelyan's retirement as a markedly liberal director of...
- 10/31/2011
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
I've Seen Films, together with its founder Rutger Hauer, announced its International Jury panel, once again at the highest level: Miranda Richardson (Dance With A Stranger, Empire Of The Sun, The Crying Game, Damage, Sleepy Hollow, The Phantom Of The Opera, Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire, The Young Victoria, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows) Ridley Scott (Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma & Louise, Gladiator, American Gangster...
- 3/11/2011
- Bollywood Trade
Craig here with the next Take Three.
This week: Miranda Richardson
Take One: Collateral marriage damage
If you want nearly two hours of Jeremy Irons and Juliette Binoche miserably humping each other in dull, anonymous locations (all frightfully well lit of course) then Damage is good to go. Louis Malle's, and scriptwriter David Hare's, adaptation of Josephine Hart's novel, about a member of Parliament's affair with his son's girlfriend, is rather too inert and tasteful for its own good, and was only partially praised but largely ignored perhaps for those reasons. Many liked it, but many more had issues with it (or so I've read). I had a hard time remembering much about the film, save for the sullen, cheerless sex scenes mentioned above... and one other aspect: Miranda Richardson, playing Irons' character's dutiful wife. Gosh, I love me some Binoche, but good grief Richardson owned this one.
This week: Miranda Richardson
Take One: Collateral marriage damage
If you want nearly two hours of Jeremy Irons and Juliette Binoche miserably humping each other in dull, anonymous locations (all frightfully well lit of course) then Damage is good to go. Louis Malle's, and scriptwriter David Hare's, adaptation of Josephine Hart's novel, about a member of Parliament's affair with his son's girlfriend, is rather too inert and tasteful for its own good, and was only partially praised but largely ignored perhaps for those reasons. Many liked it, but many more had issues with it (or so I've read). I had a hard time remembering much about the film, save for the sullen, cheerless sex scenes mentioned above... and one other aspect: Miranda Richardson, playing Irons' character's dutiful wife. Gosh, I love me some Binoche, but good grief Richardson owned this one.
- 6/20/2010
- by Craig Bloomfield
- FilmExperience
Rebecca Hall is full of promise at 28 – but can she find the burning sense of need or danger required to take over an entire movie?
It's tricky being an actress. Think of it this way: any young actress would like to be in the movie Frost/Nixon. But she can see that most of the chewy parts are for men. However, that very clever writer Peter Morgan has written in a scene in which David Frost, on his way to America, meets an attractive young woman on the plane (let's call her Caroline Cushing), and thereafter carries her along with him as eye-catching back-up and ego masseuse in the whole Nixon enterprise. She goes out for food when he's doing research; she wears a series of moderately revealing summer clothes; and she evidently provides the opportunity for what Nixon regards gloomily and enviously as "fornicating".
It happens that the role...
It's tricky being an actress. Think of it this way: any young actress would like to be in the movie Frost/Nixon. But she can see that most of the chewy parts are for men. However, that very clever writer Peter Morgan has written in a scene in which David Frost, on his way to America, meets an attractive young woman on the plane (let's call her Caroline Cushing), and thereafter carries her along with him as eye-catching back-up and ego masseuse in the whole Nixon enterprise. She goes out for food when he's doing research; she wears a series of moderately revealing summer clothes; and she evidently provides the opportunity for what Nixon regards gloomily and enviously as "fornicating".
It happens that the role...
- 6/10/2010
- by David Thomson
- The Guardian - Film News
Catch a new first-look clip from Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures' "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time." The film opens on Memorial Day Weekend, 2010 and stars Director Mike Newell’s credits include “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” “Donnie Brasco," “Pushing Tin,” the original “Four Weddings and a Funeral” and “Dance With A Stranger.” This clip is called "Sand Trap" - Enjoy! Set in the mystical lands of Persia, "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" is an epic action-adventure about a rogue prince (Jake Gyllenhaal) and a mysterious princess (Gemma Arterton) who race against dark forces to safeguard an ancient dagger capable of releasing the Sands of Time—a gift from the gods that can reverse time and allow its possessor to rule the world...
- 5/6/2010
- Upcoming-Movies.com
He had Hollywood at his feet at the age of 25. So why has Rupert Everett never lived up to that early promise? Here, the outspoken actor talks about homophobia, deranged A-listers and why Madonna isn't speaking to him
Can anyone look more world weary than Rupert Everett? At certain points in the interview, he gives the impression of having been in the acting game since at least the dawn of time, if not before. These are eyes that have seen it all – glittering success, abject failure, critical acclaim, the best reviews on earth, the worst. But then, at times, his career trajectory has resembled the cardiogram of a 60-a-day, overweight smoker: up, down, up, critical, dead, alive again! He was a star at 22, a has-been at 30, a Hollywood ingenue at 40, and here he is again, aged 50, still handsome, still game, gadding around in the new St Trinian's film in a...
Can anyone look more world weary than Rupert Everett? At certain points in the interview, he gives the impression of having been in the acting game since at least the dawn of time, if not before. These are eyes that have seen it all – glittering success, abject failure, critical acclaim, the best reviews on earth, the worst. But then, at times, his career trajectory has resembled the cardiogram of a 60-a-day, overweight smoker: up, down, up, critical, dead, alive again! He was a star at 22, a has-been at 30, a Hollywood ingenue at 40, and here he is again, aged 50, still handsome, still game, gadding around in the new St Trinian's film in a...
- 11/29/2009
- by Carole Cadwalladr
- The Guardian - Film News
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