Dilettante: True Tales of Excess, Triumph, and Disaster tells the story of Graydon Carter’s protégé Dana Brown and how he navigated his way around the New York media world in the 1990s.
The book is now being adapted for television and is in the works at Berlanti Productions and Warner Bros. Television.
Brown, who started working hospitality before becoming Vanity Fair editor Carter’s assistant and later deputy editor of the Condé Nast title, revealed that a scripted series based on his memoir is “close” to be taken out to broadcasters and streamers.
Brown revealed that Berlanti and Warner Bros. TV had optioned his book in an interview on the How Long Gone podcast.
“I’m very focused on trying to get my book to TV screens,” he said, “My book is under option at Warner Bros. with Berlanti, which is the best company in TV to be at...
The book is now being adapted for television and is in the works at Berlanti Productions and Warner Bros. Television.
Brown, who started working hospitality before becoming Vanity Fair editor Carter’s assistant and later deputy editor of the Condé Nast title, revealed that a scripted series based on his memoir is “close” to be taken out to broadcasters and streamers.
Brown revealed that Berlanti and Warner Bros. TV had optioned his book in an interview on the How Long Gone podcast.
“I’m very focused on trying to get my book to TV screens,” he said, “My book is under option at Warner Bros. with Berlanti, which is the best company in TV to be at...
- 12/18/2023
- by Peter White
- Deadline Film + TV
An adaptation of the novel has premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.
UK writer Martin Amis, the author of novels including The Zone Of Interest and London Fields, has died aged 73.
His wife, the writer Isabel Fonseca, confirmed to the New York Times that he died on Friday (May 19) at his home in Lake Worth, Florida, with the cause given as oesophageal cancer.
It was the same day that also saw Jonathan Glazer’s adaptation of Nazi drama The Zone Of Interest premiere to “remarkable” reviews at the Cannes Film Festival, where it plays in Competition for the Palme d’Or.
UK writer Martin Amis, the author of novels including The Zone Of Interest and London Fields, has died aged 73.
His wife, the writer Isabel Fonseca, confirmed to the New York Times that he died on Friday (May 19) at his home in Lake Worth, Florida, with the cause given as oesophageal cancer.
It was the same day that also saw Jonathan Glazer’s adaptation of Nazi drama The Zone Of Interest premiere to “remarkable” reviews at the Cannes Film Festival, where it plays in Competition for the Palme d’Or.
- 5/20/2023
- by Michael Rosser
- ScreenDaily
Martin Amis, the British author known for novels including Money, London Fields and The Information, has died. He was 73.
His wife, writer Isabel Fonseca, told The New York Times that Amis died Friday at his home in Lake Worth, Florida, following a battle with esophageal cancer.
The news comes as Jonathan Glazer’s film The Zone of Interest, which loosely adapts Amis’ 2014 novel of the same name, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday to enthusiastic response.
Other film adaptations of his work include the 2018 feature London Fields that starred Billy Bob Thornton, Amber Heard, Jim Sturgess, Theo James, Jason Isaacs and Cara Delevingne. Amis co-wrote the film’s screenplay that was based on his 1989 mystery novel.
Born in Oxford, England, on August 25, 1949, Amis attended Exeter College at the University of Oxford. His first novel, The Rachel Papers (1973), won the Somerset Maugham Award.
His best known works are Money...
His wife, writer Isabel Fonseca, told The New York Times that Amis died Friday at his home in Lake Worth, Florida, following a battle with esophageal cancer.
The news comes as Jonathan Glazer’s film The Zone of Interest, which loosely adapts Amis’ 2014 novel of the same name, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday to enthusiastic response.
Other film adaptations of his work include the 2018 feature London Fields that starred Billy Bob Thornton, Amber Heard, Jim Sturgess, Theo James, Jason Isaacs and Cara Delevingne. Amis co-wrote the film’s screenplay that was based on his 1989 mystery novel.
Born in Oxford, England, on August 25, 1949, Amis attended Exeter College at the University of Oxford. His first novel, The Rachel Papers (1973), won the Somerset Maugham Award.
His best known works are Money...
- 5/20/2023
- by Ryan Gajewski
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Martin Amis, whose 15 novels were must-read books for British fiction lovers, died Friday at home in Lake Worth, Florida of esophageal cancer, his wife confirmed. He was 73.
Amis’s best-known work is a trilogy of novels: Money: A Suicide Note (1985), London Fields (1990) and The Information (1995). He also had a memoir, Experience, (2000).
A film adaptation of his Zone of Interest, a Holocaust drama, is screening at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, and is considered one of the front-runners for the event’s Palme d’Or, its highest honor. The film is written and directed by Jonathan Glazer.
Amis’s father was author Kingsley Amis, part of the group of writers known as the Angry Young Men in the 1950s. He was best known for Lucky Jim. (1954).
The two had a rivalry, riven by political differences. Yet Martin Amis acknowledged that his father’s prominence played a role in his own success.
Amis’s best-known work is a trilogy of novels: Money: A Suicide Note (1985), London Fields (1990) and The Information (1995). He also had a memoir, Experience, (2000).
A film adaptation of his Zone of Interest, a Holocaust drama, is screening at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, and is considered one of the front-runners for the event’s Palme d’Or, its highest honor. The film is written and directed by Jonathan Glazer.
Amis’s father was author Kingsley Amis, part of the group of writers known as the Angry Young Men in the 1950s. He was best known for Lucky Jim. (1954).
The two had a rivalry, riven by political differences. Yet Martin Amis acknowledged that his father’s prominence played a role in his own success.
- 5/20/2023
- by Bruce Haring
- Deadline Film + TV
Matthew Perry has branded conservative broadcaster Peter Hitchens a “complete tool” after the pair debated drug reform on Newsnight in 2013.
The Friends star discusses the topic in his memoir Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, in which he writes frankly about his struggles with drug addiction over the years.
Perry used his platform to advocate for the introduction of drug courts, which aim to decriminalise non-violent addicts and offer them treatment instead of a prison sentence.
In 2013, Perry was asked to debate the topic on the BBC programme Newsnight, which he recalled being moderated by “a cranky guy called Jeremy Paxman who was famous for being rude to guests”.
The other panellists were Baroness Meacher, an advocate for drug policy reform, and “a complete tool called Peter Hitchens”.
“I can’t imagine what it’s like to have a sibling whom everyone adores when you’re the idiot brother everyone loathes,...
The Friends star discusses the topic in his memoir Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, in which he writes frankly about his struggles with drug addiction over the years.
Perry used his platform to advocate for the introduction of drug courts, which aim to decriminalise non-violent addicts and offer them treatment instead of a prison sentence.
In 2013, Perry was asked to debate the topic on the BBC programme Newsnight, which he recalled being moderated by “a cranky guy called Jeremy Paxman who was famous for being rude to guests”.
The other panellists were Baroness Meacher, an advocate for drug policy reform, and “a complete tool called Peter Hitchens”.
“I can’t imagine what it’s like to have a sibling whom everyone adores when you’re the idiot brother everyone loathes,...
- 11/1/2022
- by Isobel Lewis
- The Independent - TV
A new report released by the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative investigates the portrayal of Muslim characters in TV, revealing that not only are Muslims nearly absent from episodic content, but they are still stereotyped in negative ways.
The report, titled “Erased or Extremists: The Stereotypical View of Muslims in Popular Episodic Series” comes from Dr. Stacy L. Smith and the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, with support from Academy Award winner Riz Ahmed and his production company Left Handed Films, the Ford Foundation and Pillars Fund.
The 2022 study explores quantitative and qualitative aspects of Muslim representation in 200 top-rated television shows from 2018 and 2019 aired in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and New Zealand, ultimately highlighting a disheartening reality. The full report is available here.
In 2021, Variety exclusively unveiled the coalition’s plans to address this issue head on with the creation of The Blueprint for Muslim Inclusion, which outlines recommendations to the...
The report, titled “Erased or Extremists: The Stereotypical View of Muslims in Popular Episodic Series” comes from Dr. Stacy L. Smith and the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, with support from Academy Award winner Riz Ahmed and his production company Left Handed Films, the Ford Foundation and Pillars Fund.
The 2022 study explores quantitative and qualitative aspects of Muslim representation in 200 top-rated television shows from 2018 and 2019 aired in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and New Zealand, ultimately highlighting a disheartening reality. The full report is available here.
In 2021, Variety exclusively unveiled the coalition’s plans to address this issue head on with the creation of The Blueprint for Muslim Inclusion, which outlines recommendations to the...
- 9/7/2022
- by Al-Baab Khan, Dr. Stacy L. Smith and Dr. Katherine Pieper
- Variety Film + TV
This documentary about Sean Penn’s response to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti may be self-congratulatory, but the actor has had an undeniable impact
Actor, director, screenwriter and now novelist Sean Penn has had some mixed notices for his non-showbiz activities and his dramatic interventions in various international situations – including his defiant declaration of faith in the late Hugo Chávez and his successor as Venezuelan president, the now-notorious Nicolás Maduro. And the naysayers and the eye-rollers may not be entirely mollified by this documentary about Sean Penn’s charity work in Haiti, which does come across in some ways as a 93-minute self-administered high-five.
It begins with a carefully curated montage of TV news footage tacitly admitting what a paparazzo-punching brat he once was – but there is no clip of his puppet appearance in Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s comedy Team America: World Police as an archetypal whiny liberal. Well,...
Actor, director, screenwriter and now novelist Sean Penn has had some mixed notices for his non-showbiz activities and his dramatic interventions in various international situations – including his defiant declaration of faith in the late Hugo Chávez and his successor as Venezuelan president, the now-notorious Nicolás Maduro. And the naysayers and the eye-rollers may not be entirely mollified by this documentary about Sean Penn’s charity work in Haiti, which does come across in some ways as a 93-minute self-administered high-five.
It begins with a carefully curated montage of TV news footage tacitly admitting what a paparazzo-punching brat he once was – but there is no clip of his puppet appearance in Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s comedy Team America: World Police as an archetypal whiny liberal. Well,...
- 5/6/2021
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Variety's apology to Carey Mulligan shows that the critic's ivory tower is toppling | Peter Bradshaw
It may be timid and half-baked, but the magazine’s mea culpa is evidence of shifting dynamics in a post-#MeToo film industry
Until relatively recently, an apology in the arts review columns of any publication was vanishingly rare, if not non-existent. If crow had to be eaten, it would be the end result of some unprecedented legal action in which defendant and plaintiff had grimly established – through a poker-game exchange of solicitor’s letters – what the likely outcome would be in court.
In the immortal words of Christopher Hitchens: 'Apologies are a bore. What we want is an explanation'...
Until relatively recently, an apology in the arts review columns of any publication was vanishingly rare, if not non-existent. If crow had to be eaten, it would be the end result of some unprecedented legal action in which defendant and plaintiff had grimly established – through a poker-game exchange of solicitor’s letters – what the likely outcome would be in court.
In the immortal words of Christopher Hitchens: 'Apologies are a bore. What we want is an explanation'...
- 1/28/2021
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Bess Kalb didn’t mean to end 2020 by making Christopher Hitchens’ “Why Women Aren’t Funny” go viral. The 2007 Vanity Fair essay is — like so much of its late author’s work — self-indulgent, poorly written and lacking any well-defined quality beside its ability to irritate people.
One of those irritated people, more than a decade ago, was a young Kalb. In a Twitter thread posted Tuesday, the veteran late-night writer recalled the moment when, as an unsuspecting college sophomore, she picked up a copy of Vanity Fair in Penn Station, then read Hitchens’ essay.
She then drew a narrative line from that moment, which inspired her to pursue a career in comedy, to the creation of “Yearly Departed,” the new Amazon special created by Kalb and featuring a cast made up mostly of women and an all-woman writing staff.
In answer to Hitchens, Kalb closed her thread — retweeted more than...
One of those irritated people, more than a decade ago, was a young Kalb. In a Twitter thread posted Tuesday, the veteran late-night writer recalled the moment when, as an unsuspecting college sophomore, she picked up a copy of Vanity Fair in Penn Station, then read Hitchens’ essay.
She then drew a narrative line from that moment, which inspired her to pursue a career in comedy, to the creation of “Yearly Departed,” the new Amazon special created by Kalb and featuring a cast made up mostly of women and an all-woman writing staff.
In answer to Hitchens, Kalb closed her thread — retweeted more than...
- 1/1/2021
- by Daniel Holloway
- Variety Film + TV
Christian extremist brothers Tim and Vic (Harry Melling and Tom Brooke) are on a mission. Sent to Ilkley in the Yorkshire dales, they have been charged with assassinating atheist writer John Huxley (Roger Allam), but a botched initial attempt which left another man dead has put a hard-nosed cop (Anna Maxwell Martin) on their trail.
There are promising ideas and a few good jokes at the beginning of this satirical black comedy. The cold open with Tim sharing a jam sandwich with the man he and his brother are about to kill is gently funny because we know that something is coming and the incongruous appearance of a male voice choir among the rolling hills, singing the score over the opening title is a funny fourth wall break. The first act continues to work fairly well after this, with Anna Maxwell Martin clearly having fun slightly overplaying the tough cop...
There are promising ideas and a few good jokes at the beginning of this satirical black comedy. The cold open with Tim sharing a jam sandwich with the man he and his brother are about to kill is gently funny because we know that something is coming and the incongruous appearance of a male voice choir among the rolling hills, singing the score over the opening title is a funny fourth wall break. The first act continues to work fairly well after this, with Anna Maxwell Martin clearly having fun slightly overplaying the tough cop...
- 9/30/2020
- by Sam Inglis
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Warner Bros and Christopher Nolan are getting down to the wire to decide if Tenet will kick off the theatrical summer movie season or if the mysterious tentpole, currently set for July 17, will be delayed to the fall or beyond. While marketing hasn’t exactly kicked fully into gear, we are getting a few bits and pieces revealing more about the action blockbuster.
In a stellar new GQ profile, one of the film’s stars, Robert Pattinson, cleared up a point regarding a much-discussed theory both about his character (who he describes a Christopher Hitchens type) and the plot: “He’s not a time traveler. There’s actually no time traveling. [laughs] That’s, like, the one thing I’m approved to say.”
He also discussed a bit more about the globe-trotting scope and the scale of the action, saying, “This thing, it’s so insane,” he says, noting the crew...
In a stellar new GQ profile, one of the film’s stars, Robert Pattinson, cleared up a point regarding a much-discussed theory both about his character (who he describes a Christopher Hitchens type) and the plot: “He’s not a time traveler. There’s actually no time traveling. [laughs] That’s, like, the one thing I’m approved to say.”
He also discussed a bit more about the globe-trotting scope and the scale of the action, saying, “This thing, it’s so insane,” he says, noting the crew...
- 5/12/2020
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” remains dated for July 17, but don’t expect many pre-release teases from star Robert Pattinson. What role is he playing? What’s the film about? Pattinson offers up no answers in a new profile published by GQ magazine, but that might be because “Tenet” has such huge themes that the actor hasn’t even been able to grasp what everything in the film means just yet. As Pattinson told GQ, “Even if I had seen it, I genuinely don’t know if I’d be able to…I was just thinking, I just called up my assistant 20 minutes ago: ‘What the fuck do I say [about it]? I have no idea…Oh God, no. I can’t even bullshit my way through this.’ ”
What Pattinson did reveal is that “Tenet” had a crew of around 500 people and “250 of them would all fly together, just hopping planes to different countries.
What Pattinson did reveal is that “Tenet” had a crew of around 500 people and “250 of them would all fly together, just hopping planes to different countries.
- 5/12/2020
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
Laura Ingraham brought a new swirl of controversy around her Fox News Channel program Thursday night after a graphic on her show, “The Ingraham Angle,” highlighted a range of controversial figures she described as “prominent voices censored on social media.”
Among the people featured in the graphic were digital provocateur Alex Jones; actor and Republican supporter James Woods; right-wing protester Laura Loomer; and Paul Nehelen, a former candidate for Congress in Wisconsin whose views have been described as supporting white supremacy and antisemitism.
“It is obscene to suggest that Laura Ingraham was defending Paul Nehlen’s despicable actions especially when some of the names on the graphic were pulled from an Associated Press report on best known political extremists banned from Facebook,” Fox News said in a statement. “Anyone who watches Laura’s show knows that she is a fierce protector of freedom of speech and the intent of the...
Among the people featured in the graphic were digital provocateur Alex Jones; actor and Republican supporter James Woods; right-wing protester Laura Loomer; and Paul Nehelen, a former candidate for Congress in Wisconsin whose views have been described as supporting white supremacy and antisemitism.
“It is obscene to suggest that Laura Ingraham was defending Paul Nehlen’s despicable actions especially when some of the names on the graphic were pulled from an Associated Press report on best known political extremists banned from Facebook,” Fox News said in a statement. “Anyone who watches Laura’s show knows that she is a fierce protector of freedom of speech and the intent of the...
- 5/31/2019
- by Brian Steinberg
- Variety Film + TV
Kevin Sorbo’s Godsploitation flick features a cynical atheist finding religion with help from Sean Hannity. Is it as bad as it sounds? We speak to its creators
Imagine a film in which Christopher Hitchens has been born again as The Simpsons’ Ned Flanders. And that he gets endorsement from Donald Trump’s preferred blowhard, Fox News’s Sean Hannity, for a Christian phone app to be deployed against the forces of darkness. You would watch that, right?
Let There Be Light is that movie. Released in the Us in 2017, but only now getting a UK release, it stars Kevin Sorbo as Sol Harkens, the self-styled “world’s biggest atheist”, who undergoes a cinematic conversion that for sheer verve rivals Michael Caine’s in The Muppets Christmas Carol.
Imagine a film in which Christopher Hitchens has been born again as The Simpsons’ Ned Flanders. And that he gets endorsement from Donald Trump’s preferred blowhard, Fox News’s Sean Hannity, for a Christian phone app to be deployed against the forces of darkness. You would watch that, right?
Let There Be Light is that movie. Released in the Us in 2017, but only now getting a UK release, it stars Kevin Sorbo as Sol Harkens, the self-styled “world’s biggest atheist”, who undergoes a cinematic conversion that for sheer verve rivals Michael Caine’s in The Muppets Christmas Carol.
- 4/19/2019
- by Stuart Jeffries
- The Guardian - Film News
As the complicated dynamic between the Trump administration and Saudi Arabia continues to dominate the news, Alex Gibney and Lawrence Wright (The Looming Tower) have teamed to produce House of Saud (working title), a documentary feature that will explore the relationship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, for Showtime Documentary Films.
Beginning with the October murder of Washington Post journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi, the feature will explore the history between the two nations in the decades leading up to today’s troubling interactions between the Trump administration and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Gibney will produce under his Jigsaw Productions banner in collaboration with Wright.
The film marks the third collaboration for Gibney and Wright, who previously teamed on Emmy-nominated series The Looming Tower and the three-time Emmy-winning documentary Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, based on...
Beginning with the October murder of Washington Post journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi, the feature will explore the history between the two nations in the decades leading up to today’s troubling interactions between the Trump administration and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Gibney will produce under his Jigsaw Productions banner in collaboration with Wright.
The film marks the third collaboration for Gibney and Wright, who previously teamed on Emmy-nominated series The Looming Tower and the three-time Emmy-winning documentary Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, based on...
- 1/7/2019
- by Denise Petski
- Deadline Film + TV
Alex Gibney couldn't give away his first documentary feature. The Trials of Henry Kissinger, a brutal indictment of the former secretary of state culled from Christopher Hitchens' controversial tome (directed by Eugene Jarecki with a screenplay by Gibney), had no distributor in the U.S. But after a buzzy run at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in 2002 ("People were hawking tickets," recalls Gibney), a small distributor took it. "It played at [New York's] Film Forum four or five months. It made me realize, wow, if you can make something entertaining enough, then it can be seen by a lot of people."
...
...
- 5/10/2018
- by Marisa Guthrie
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Alex Gibney couldn't give away his first documentary feature. <em>The Trials of Henry Kissinger</em>, a brutal indictment of the former secretary of state culled from Christopher Hitchens' controversial tome (directed by Eugene Jarecki with a screenplay by Gibney), had no distributor in the U.S. But after a buzzy run at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in 2002 ("People were hawking tickets," recalls Gibney), a small distributor took it. "It played at [New York's] Film Forum four or five months. It made me realize, wow, if you can make something entertaining enough, then it ...
- 5/10/2018
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
The Hippopotamus screens as part of the 26th Annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival on Sunday, November 5 at 1 Pm at Landmark’s Tivoli Theatre. Click Here for ticket information. It also screens there on Sunday, November 12 at 9:15 Pm. Click Here for ticket information for that day.
From across the pond comes a pitch black comedy set amongst the veddy, veddy upper classes. Proving that Larry David doesn’t have a monopoly in the Us as an ill-tempered cranky curmudgeon, celebrated actor/ writer Stephen Fry gives us a most unlikely screen hero, middle-aged failed poet, reviled theatre critic, and “boozehound” Ted Wallace. He’s played with swaggering bravado by Roger Allam, an actor known for his deep baritone, who has amassed a long list of supporting roles (The Queen, The Book Thief) and now proves that he’s more than ready for a leading role. After being canned from...
From across the pond comes a pitch black comedy set amongst the veddy, veddy upper classes. Proving that Larry David doesn’t have a monopoly in the Us as an ill-tempered cranky curmudgeon, celebrated actor/ writer Stephen Fry gives us a most unlikely screen hero, middle-aged failed poet, reviled theatre critic, and “boozehound” Ted Wallace. He’s played with swaggering bravado by Roger Allam, an actor known for his deep baritone, who has amassed a long list of supporting roles (The Queen, The Book Thief) and now proves that he’s more than ready for a leading role. After being canned from...
- 11/4/2017
- by Jim Batts
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
This intimate documentary on Ashin Wirathu, the Buddhist fanatic whose ideas have brought down Aung Sun Suu Kyi, is a bleak study of sectarianism by Barbet Schroeder
Barbet Schroeder’s overpoweringly bleak documentary about the Buddhist monk stirring up ethnic hate against Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims is the third in what has now emerged as his “trilogy of evil” – a trio of disquieting documentaries of which the first two were General Idi Amin Dada in 1974 and Terror’s Advocate in 2007 about the genial, cigar-smoking Jacques Vergès, lawyer for Klaus Barbie.
The Venerable W delivers a nauseous, almost black-comic jab at any liberal who fondly believed that Buddhism and Buddhists somehow float ethereally free of the sectarianism and bigotry that infect any other religion. And it also emerges as a devastating indictment of someone who is not its subject and appears only briefly: Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader who is...
Barbet Schroeder’s overpoweringly bleak documentary about the Buddhist monk stirring up ethnic hate against Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims is the third in what has now emerged as his “trilogy of evil” – a trio of disquieting documentaries of which the first two were General Idi Amin Dada in 1974 and Terror’s Advocate in 2007 about the genial, cigar-smoking Jacques Vergès, lawyer for Klaus Barbie.
The Venerable W delivers a nauseous, almost black-comic jab at any liberal who fondly believed that Buddhism and Buddhists somehow float ethereally free of the sectarianism and bigotry that infect any other religion. And it also emerges as a devastating indictment of someone who is not its subject and appears only briefly: Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader who is...
- 10/10/2017
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Cox’s wartime leader is haunted by fears about the Normandy landings in Jonathan Teplitzky’s watchable biopic
Winston Churchill has had a couple of movie cameos recently, and John Lithgow put in a spirited impersonation for the Netflix TV series The Crown. But the last substantial big-screen appearance was by Timothy Spall in The King’s Speech (2010), famously earning a counterblast from Christopher Hitchens for implying that Winston was on the side of poor Bertie during the abdication crisis when in fact he was more infatuated with the dashing soon-to-be Duke of Windsor.
Continue reading...
Winston Churchill has had a couple of movie cameos recently, and John Lithgow put in a spirited impersonation for the Netflix TV series The Crown. But the last substantial big-screen appearance was by Timothy Spall in The King’s Speech (2010), famously earning a counterblast from Christopher Hitchens for implying that Winston was on the side of poor Bertie during the abdication crisis when in fact he was more infatuated with the dashing soon-to-be Duke of Windsor.
Continue reading...
- 6/14/2017
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
“What an asshole!” Natalie Morales, who hosted Universal’s presentation, said of Christopher Hitchens, who once infamously wrote about “Why Women Aren't Funny.”
During Wednesday's presentation at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, she pointed out that Universal has had plenty of talented comedic women star in its films, and introduced a sizzle reel that included clips from the studio’s hits Bridesmaids, Trainwreck and Sisters.
After, the cast of the studio’s latest comedy starring women, Girls Trip, took the stage to introduce footage from the comedy directed by Malcolm D. Lee.
Regina Hall, Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett Smith and Tiffany Haddish star in...
During Wednesday's presentation at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, she pointed out that Universal has had plenty of talented comedic women star in its films, and introduced a sizzle reel that included clips from the studio’s hits Bridesmaids, Trainwreck and Sisters.
After, the cast of the studio’s latest comedy starring women, Girls Trip, took the stage to introduce footage from the comedy directed by Malcolm D. Lee.
Regina Hall, Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett Smith and Tiffany Haddish star in...
- 3/29/2017
- by Rebecca Ford
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Aside from the controversy of booked guest Jeremy Scahill refusing to come on Real Time with Bill Maher last night, the appearance of Breitbart’s British enfant terrible Milo Yiannopoulos netted little red meat — and overall was a disappointment. So much so that Maher jokingly said to his guest, decked out in numerous strands of pearls, that the left had little to worry about over “a little British f***” who he later said reminded him of the late Christopher Hitchens. Maher opened the interview by saying: “I think you’re colossally wrong on a number of things. But if I banned...read more...
- 2/18/2017
- by April Neale
- Monsters and Critics
Should a Christopher Hitchens biopic ever arise, Roger Allam would be the perfect actor to play him. Ted Wallace, the lapsed poet he portrays in The Hippopotamus, has never occupied the same literary heights as Hitchens, and his tumble down the writerly food chain finds him turning “whiskey into journalism” as a theater critic. But Ted’s crackling observations — the fuel that drives the movie — have the fluency and rapier wit of a diligent, erudite mind. The role is a welcome lead turn for Allam, who’s more than up for the plummy putdowns, as well as the dashes...
- 1/9/2017
- by Sheri Linden
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
When The New Yorker's critic Pauline Kael was reviewing the screen adaptation of D.H. Lawrence's The Fox, she insisted: "If you are going to see a movie based on a book you think is worth reading, read the book first. You can never read the book with the same imaginative responsiveness to the author once you have seen the movie."
This is tripplely true with any offering from Steven Spielberg. In fact, whether it's a tale for children or a Holocaust saga or a Martian invasion, once you've viewed a Spielbergian take, your memory cells are colored forever by his palette of colors.
This will probably be the same with The Bfg, an extremely faithful and visually majestic rendering of Roald Dahl's bestseller that has sold tens of millions since its release in 1982. The book was banned, by the way, in 1987 in Amana, Iowa, for its gleeful take on cannibalism,...
This is tripplely true with any offering from Steven Spielberg. In fact, whether it's a tale for children or a Holocaust saga or a Martian invasion, once you've viewed a Spielbergian take, your memory cells are colored forever by his palette of colors.
This will probably be the same with The Bfg, an extremely faithful and visually majestic rendering of Roald Dahl's bestseller that has sold tens of millions since its release in 1982. The book was banned, by the way, in 1987 in Amana, Iowa, for its gleeful take on cannibalism,...
- 7/2/2016
- by Brandon Judell
- www.culturecatch.com
Will maggot fat oust coconut oil as a foodie favorite? Is PepsiCo replacing the corn flour in its Fritos with ground cricket corpses? And, hey! Who doesn't want to bite into some chicken with garlic and saffron sauce topped with crumbled buffalo worms?
Answers: Possibly. Not yet. Less people than you might think.
Andreas Johnsen's Bugs, just one of the many enlightening documentaries featured at last week's Tribeca Film Festival, focuses on a team from the Copenhagen-based Nordic Food Lab, "a nonprofit organization investigating food diversity and deliciousness." The lead duo chaperoning us in this doc, Ben Reade and Josh Evans, are part of a three-year research project on edible insects. They travelled to Kenya, Japan, Mexico, Italy, and several other insect-infested destinations to unearth the culture and cooking techniques of a few of the two billion individuals who are already noshing on the creepy-crawlers that many of us buy Raid to exterminate.
Answers: Possibly. Not yet. Less people than you might think.
Andreas Johnsen's Bugs, just one of the many enlightening documentaries featured at last week's Tribeca Film Festival, focuses on a team from the Copenhagen-based Nordic Food Lab, "a nonprofit organization investigating food diversity and deliciousness." The lead duo chaperoning us in this doc, Ben Reade and Josh Evans, are part of a three-year research project on edible insects. They travelled to Kenya, Japan, Mexico, Italy, and several other insect-infested destinations to unearth the culture and cooking techniques of a few of the two billion individuals who are already noshing on the creepy-crawlers that many of us buy Raid to exterminate.
- 4/27/2016
- by Brandon Judell
- www.culturecatch.com
By Cate Marquis
Once upon a time, there was a news media covered that politics in a calm, pointedly-neutrally way. Then the televised debate between conservative William F. Buckley Jr. and liberal Gore Vidal happened. Nielsen numbers went through the roof and TV political coverage was never the same. Television news discovered political coverage as blood sport and traded dispassionate reporting for the entertaining fireworks of shouted confrontation and punditry.
In the highly entertaining, engrossing documentary Best Of Enemies, directors Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon make a credible case for the Buckley-Vidal debates, a political face-off between, intellectual giants with opposing views, as a turning point in how the American media covers politics. The film takes us back to 1968 and the TV broadcasts of the Republican and Democratic political conventions, when these two prominent cultural and intellectual figures debated the direction of the nation.
In 1968, before cable and the internet,...
Once upon a time, there was a news media covered that politics in a calm, pointedly-neutrally way. Then the televised debate between conservative William F. Buckley Jr. and liberal Gore Vidal happened. Nielsen numbers went through the roof and TV political coverage was never the same. Television news discovered political coverage as blood sport and traded dispassionate reporting for the entertaining fireworks of shouted confrontation and punditry.
In the highly entertaining, engrossing documentary Best Of Enemies, directors Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon make a credible case for the Buckley-Vidal debates, a political face-off between, intellectual giants with opposing views, as a turning point in how the American media covers politics. The film takes us back to 1968 and the TV broadcasts of the Republican and Democratic political conventions, when these two prominent cultural and intellectual figures debated the direction of the nation.
In 1968, before cable and the internet,...
- 8/20/2015
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Directors Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon's "Best of Enemies," a 2015 Sundance premiere, offers a charming portrait of the legendary 1968 television debates between the liberal Gore Vidal and his more conservative nemesis William F. Buckley, Jr. These live, unscripted debates brought ABC out of a ratings slump. We see Vidal, a very-leftist novelist, polemicist and cousin to Jackie Onassis, go head-to-head with Buckley and his right-wing ideologies. Plenty of name-calling, vitriol-spewing and policy and personal insults spark in this examination of America at a crossroads. With insight from talking heads including their friends and contemporaries including Christopher Hitchens, Noam Chomsky, Dick Cavett, Kelsey Grammer and John Lithgow, "Best of Enemies" has played the festival circuit far and wide since contending for Sundance's Documentary prize. Expect more awards kudos for this film down the line. Read More: Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley Jr. Face...
- 6/10/2015
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Thompson on Hollywood
William F. Buckley Jr. and Gore Vidal in Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville's Best of Enemies: "They got into each other's craw. It's like a hook that sunk into the other person."
Two determined men all set to do battle, William F. Buckley Jr., the conservative trailblazer, and Gore Vidal, renowned author and iconoclast of the left, clash in Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon's high-spirited and illuminating Best Of Enemies. "One must have a mind of winter", to take the cue from Wallace Stevens' poem, The Snow Man, to not be irresistibly drawn in by their bigger-than-life personalities. Dick Cavett, Noam Chomsky, Christopher Hitchens, Matt Tyrnauer, Brooke Gladstone, Ginia Bellafante, Reid Buckley and Sam Tanenhaus give their take on this polarised pair in Best Of Enemies.
At Le Cirque in New York following a dinner honoring the filmmakers, I spoke with Robert Gordon, who is also...
Two determined men all set to do battle, William F. Buckley Jr., the conservative trailblazer, and Gore Vidal, renowned author and iconoclast of the left, clash in Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon's high-spirited and illuminating Best Of Enemies. "One must have a mind of winter", to take the cue from Wallace Stevens' poem, The Snow Man, to not be irresistibly drawn in by their bigger-than-life personalities. Dick Cavett, Noam Chomsky, Christopher Hitchens, Matt Tyrnauer, Brooke Gladstone, Ginia Bellafante, Reid Buckley and Sam Tanenhaus give their take on this polarised pair in Best Of Enemies.
At Le Cirque in New York following a dinner honoring the filmmakers, I spoke with Robert Gordon, who is also...
- 4/9/2015
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Best Of Enemies dinner at Le Cirque celebrating directors Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
An invited screening of Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon's Best Of Enemies on William F. Buckley Jr. and Gore Vidal, hosted by Participant Media and Magnolia Pictures was followed by a dinner organised beautifully by Peggy Siegal at Le Cirque. I caught up with the Oscar winning director of 20 Feet From Stardom over wild mushroom risotto for a conversation on his latest documentary, Christopher Hitchens, Myra Breckinridge, Caligula, waltzes, and fact checking. Best Of Enemies features the off-camera voices of John Lithgow as Vidal and Kelsey Grammer as Buckley, with interviews of Dick Cavett, Noam Chomsky, Matt Tyrnauer, Brooke Gladstone, Sam Tanenhaus and Ginia Bellafante.
Morgan, when he heard the news on Albert Maysles, sent a tribute from the True/False Documentary Film Festival where he was presenting Best Of Enemies last month.
An invited screening of Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon's Best Of Enemies on William F. Buckley Jr. and Gore Vidal, hosted by Participant Media and Magnolia Pictures was followed by a dinner organised beautifully by Peggy Siegal at Le Cirque. I caught up with the Oscar winning director of 20 Feet From Stardom over wild mushroom risotto for a conversation on his latest documentary, Christopher Hitchens, Myra Breckinridge, Caligula, waltzes, and fact checking. Best Of Enemies features the off-camera voices of John Lithgow as Vidal and Kelsey Grammer as Buckley, with interviews of Dick Cavett, Noam Chomsky, Matt Tyrnauer, Brooke Gladstone, Sam Tanenhaus and Ginia Bellafante.
Morgan, when he heard the news on Albert Maysles, sent a tribute from the True/False Documentary Film Festival where he was presenting Best Of Enemies last month.
- 4/3/2015
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Mad Men is ending, and while the show's opening credits are inseparable from RJD2's haunting theme, there was a time when that beat was known only as "A Beautiful Mine," by RJD2 and rapper Aceyalone.
Matthew Weiner originally wanted a Beck song to play as the show's opening theme, but the singer turned down every offer from the show's producers. Weiner was driving and listening to NPR one day when he heard "A Beautiful Mine" played as segue music between two stories and was immediately struck by it, though the version that ultimately was used was so different from...
Matthew Weiner originally wanted a Beck song to play as the show's opening theme, but the singer turned down every offer from the show's producers. Weiner was driving and listening to NPR one day when he heard "A Beautiful Mine" played as segue music between two stories and was immediately struck by it, though the version that ultimately was used was so different from...
- 4/1/2015
- by Alex Heigl, @alex_heigl
- People.com - TV Watch
The film, starring Melissa McCarthy as a backroom operative who catapults herself into the field as a full-fledged CIA agent, is smart, endearing and hilarious
Celebrated for Bridesmaids and with his all-female Ghostbusters in production, Paul Feig’s directorial career seems like a constant rebuke to the late Christopher Hitchens’ notorious claim that women aren’t funny. His forthcoming film Spy, which was screened at SXSW on Sunday night in advance of its release in May, was an even more convincing argument, making the audience howl so loudly that it was hard to hear some of the lines.
(Biggest laugh? Perhaps the extreme gross-out of star Melissa McCarthy sending a henchman backwards off a balcony and impaling him on a railing below, then vomiting in horror over his corpse. Ok, no one said this film would be subtle.)
Continue reading...
Celebrated for Bridesmaids and with his all-female Ghostbusters in production, Paul Feig’s directorial career seems like a constant rebuke to the late Christopher Hitchens’ notorious claim that women aren’t funny. His forthcoming film Spy, which was screened at SXSW on Sunday night in advance of its release in May, was an even more convincing argument, making the audience howl so loudly that it was hard to hear some of the lines.
(Biggest laugh? Perhaps the extreme gross-out of star Melissa McCarthy sending a henchman backwards off a balcony and impaling him on a railing below, then vomiting in horror over his corpse. Ok, no one said this film would be subtle.)
Continue reading...
- 3/16/2015
- by Alex Needham in Austin
- The Guardian - Film News
Ready For Their Close-Up: Six TV Characters Worthy of a Spin-Off
Television history is littered with the bodies of ill-advised spin-offs. Their corpses, copies of reviews and overnights crumpled in their clawed little hands, defile the memories of the successful shows that spawned them and serve as cautionary tales for every writer tempted to go to the same well twice… read the full article.
Why You Should Be Watching: You’re the Worst
When it debuted in early 2014 on FX, You’re the Worst unfortunately got lumped together with all the other shows about people in relationships that were in production or released around that time. You’re the Worst was a lower-key choice for the network: a small-scale character comedy that had none of the splashy, dramatic flare of other flagship shows. This tonal difference between the network and You’re the Worst was maybe why it was...
Television history is littered with the bodies of ill-advised spin-offs. Their corpses, copies of reviews and overnights crumpled in their clawed little hands, defile the memories of the successful shows that spawned them and serve as cautionary tales for every writer tempted to go to the same well twice… read the full article.
Why You Should Be Watching: You’re the Worst
When it debuted in early 2014 on FX, You’re the Worst unfortunately got lumped together with all the other shows about people in relationships that were in production or released around that time. You’re the Worst was a lower-key choice for the network: a small-scale character comedy that had none of the splashy, dramatic flare of other flagship shows. This tonal difference between the network and You’re the Worst was maybe why it was...
- 3/14/2015
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
In an infamous 2007 Vanity Fair article, Christopher Hitchens claimed that women, for the most part, aren’t funny. He argued that men need to make women laugh in order to impress them and women, being inherently attractive to men, don’t have the same impulse. Accordingly, he wrote, they haven’t developed their comedy skills to the same extent, with the exception of women he deemed to be less attractive than the unfunny ones. As evidence of his point, he cited the heavily male-skewed comedy world: there are more male comics, he said, so clearly men are the funnier gender.
While there are many flaws with his argument, his evidence very well may be the biggest one. Aside from the barriers preventing women from achieving in show business which have nothing to do with their abilities, the preponderance of men in comedy has led to many male comic tropes becoming passé.
While there are many flaws with his argument, his evidence very well may be the biggest one. Aside from the barriers preventing women from achieving in show business which have nothing to do with their abilities, the preponderance of men in comedy has led to many male comic tropes becoming passé.
- 3/10/2015
- by Max Joseph
- SoundOnSight
You know it’s Oscar season when the historical-accuracy hit squads show up. Over the past several weeks, it seems that almost every major awards contender has had some kind of high-profile accusation flung at it over its misappropriation of the truth. It happens every year, of course (remember the late Christopher Hitchens laying into The King’s Speech back in 2011?), but this time, it’s reached comically epidemic levels — in part because so many of the Oscar contenders are either biopics or otherwise historical in nature. Recently, some have taken issue with the depiction of Lyndon B. Johnson in Selma (despite the fact that Lbj actually comes off reasonably well in the film). Last week, Foxcatcher got a body blow from its own main subject, Olympic wrestler Mark Schultz, who started screaming at director Bennett Miller over social media about the liberties the film took with his life. Before that,...
- 1/7/2015
- by Bilge Ebiri
- Vulture
In today's roundup of news and views: Chris Marker's photographs taken in North Korea, David Lynch's depiction of Los Angeles, a discussion of the work of Claire Denis, a Martin Scorsese symposium, revisiting Michael Powell's The Tales of Hoffmann, Jonathan Rosenbaum on Jean-Luc Godard's Notre musique, a collection of writing by George Kuchar, an interview with Abdellah Taïa, Christopher Hitchens on John Wayne, reviews of David Cronenberg's first novel, Tom Tykwer's plans for a television series set in Berlin in the 1920s, Joe Sarno Day at DC's and more. » - David Hudson...
- 10/8/2014
- Fandor: Keyframe
In today's roundup of news and views: Chris Marker's photographs taken in North Korea, David Lynch's depiction of Los Angeles, a discussion of the work of Claire Denis, a Martin Scorsese symposium, revisiting Michael Powell's The Tales of Hoffmann, Jonathan Rosenbaum on Jean-Luc Godard's Notre musique, a collection of writing by George Kuchar, an interview with Abdellah Taïa, Christopher Hitchens on John Wayne, reviews of David Cronenberg's first novel, Tom Tykwer's plans for a television series set in Berlin in the 1920s, Joe Sarno Day at DC's and more. » - David Hudson...
- 10/8/2014
- Keyframe
If George Bernard Shaw had conceived Stanley Kowalski, you would have Theresa Rebeck‘s character Ian, who is at the center of her new play, “Poor Behavior,” which opened Sunday at The Duke on 42nd Street. Or, to look at this Irish cad Ian in another way, imagine Kowalski crossed with the late Christopher Hitchens. Ian, as portrayed in a brilliant performance by Brian Avers, is irritating, provocative, bombastic and absolutely riveting to watch, even if you'd never want to be in the same room with him. A few rows away in a theater are close enough. Ian is a lot.
- 8/17/2014
- by Robert Hofler
- The Wrap
By Mark Cerulli
Writer/Director Nicholas Wrathall turned an introduction to Vidal by his nephew into a rare filmmaking opportunity. The result is Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia, a new, in-depth look at the writer’s long and singular life.
“It took seven years to make,” Wrathall told CinemaRetro, “five years of interviewing him and I benefitted from the time frame because I got to know him.”
The author wrote a number of historical novels including Burr, Lincoln and 1876 along with screenplays, essays and teleplays; but was best known for speaking out, totally unconcerned about the feathers he ruffled along the way. In addition to Wrathall’s interviews, the film makes use of decades of Vidal’s televised appearances – arguing about sexuality in the 1950s, arguing against the Vietnam War and social inequality in the 1960s, stirring the intellectual pot whenever possible. Archive footage shows Vidal’s incredible...
Writer/Director Nicholas Wrathall turned an introduction to Vidal by his nephew into a rare filmmaking opportunity. The result is Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia, a new, in-depth look at the writer’s long and singular life.
“It took seven years to make,” Wrathall told CinemaRetro, “five years of interviewing him and I benefitted from the time frame because I got to know him.”
The author wrote a number of historical novels including Burr, Lincoln and 1876 along with screenplays, essays and teleplays; but was best known for speaking out, totally unconcerned about the feathers he ruffled along the way. In addition to Wrathall’s interviews, the film makes use of decades of Vidal’s televised appearances – arguing about sexuality in the 1950s, arguing against the Vietnam War and social inequality in the 1960s, stirring the intellectual pot whenever possible. Archive footage shows Vidal’s incredible...
- 6/6/2014
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
In his last years, Gore Vidal flawlessly played the role of elder statesman-as-curmudgeon; director Nicholas Wrathall's documentary captures him in fighting form — witty, incisive, and coolly dismissive of his foes and lessers. His elegantly low-key dis of the late Christopher Hitchens at a book signing is masterful bitchiness. Immensely enjoyable from its wistful opening (Vidal leaning on a cane, standing over the burial plot he planned to share with longtime partner Howard Austen, who died in 2003), the film's strength is the way it uses Vidal's life (illustrated in vintage photos, newsreels, home movies, and title cards stamped with his epigrammatic sayings) to catalog 20th-century America's sweeping political, cultural, and social changes. Interviewed in the sprawling, nearly...
- 5/21/2014
- Village Voice
Look past the skimpy budget, kitschy death scenes and cheap visuals. Its fictional account of the Civil War's bloodiest battle still brings a catch to the throat
• More from My guilty pleasure
In 1998, five years after the release of my guiltiest cinematic pleasure, Christopher Hitchens attended a 135th anniversary re-enactment at Gettysburg. He subsequently considered our endless fascination with such great battles: "Either you can feel a thrill and a catch in the throat at the mention of Thermopylae and Agincourt, Culloden and Gallipoli, Jarama and El Alamein, or you cannot."
It really is that simple. At the mention of Gettysburg, battle or movie, I feel a thrill and a catch in my throat. I suppose, that I am compelled to suggest why this should be so, as well as why it shouldn't.
The battle of Gettysburg was fought in rural Pennsylvania between 1 and 3 July 1863. Fifty-thousand men died, the Union...
• More from My guilty pleasure
In 1998, five years after the release of my guiltiest cinematic pleasure, Christopher Hitchens attended a 135th anniversary re-enactment at Gettysburg. He subsequently considered our endless fascination with such great battles: "Either you can feel a thrill and a catch in the throat at the mention of Thermopylae and Agincourt, Culloden and Gallipoli, Jarama and El Alamein, or you cannot."
It really is that simple. At the mention of Gettysburg, battle or movie, I feel a thrill and a catch in my throat. I suppose, that I am compelled to suggest why this should be so, as well as why it shouldn't.
The battle of Gettysburg was fought in rural Pennsylvania between 1 and 3 July 1863. Fifty-thousand men died, the Union...
- 3/21/2014
- by Martin Pengelly
- The Guardian - Film News
I'm mystified as to why Alfonso Cuarón won the best director prize, but at least Gravity, and fellow winners 12 Years a Slave and Dallas Buyers Club, should stand the test of time
• How the night unfolded
• Gravity pulls all night
• Full list of winners
• 10 things we learned
This year's Academy Awards was a very good year, pretty well a vintage year in fact, with excellent films of very different genres being recognised. For a critic it is gratifying to see them rewarded, though baffling in other ways to watch the spectacle of so many others being ignored. Well, that is what happens in this quasi-Superbowl. As ever, the Oscars revealed themselves to be purely enjoyable only for the observers, the journalists and the big winners with the majority of the actual participants undergoing what I suspect is a terrible ordeal and the majority going away under a cloud of disappointment.
• How the night unfolded
• Gravity pulls all night
• Full list of winners
• 10 things we learned
This year's Academy Awards was a very good year, pretty well a vintage year in fact, with excellent films of very different genres being recognised. For a critic it is gratifying to see them rewarded, though baffling in other ways to watch the spectacle of so many others being ignored. Well, that is what happens in this quasi-Superbowl. As ever, the Oscars revealed themselves to be purely enjoyable only for the observers, the journalists and the big winners with the majority of the actual participants undergoing what I suspect is a terrible ordeal and the majority going away under a cloud of disappointment.
- 3/3/2014
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
The only way this film could be made worse would be to be eaten by a badger while watching it
In this modern-day fairytale romance, Colin Farrell has two facial expressions. Number one is roguish lock of hair falling over face. Number two is roguish lock of hair swept back from face.
He plays Peter, a roguish handsome guy in late 19th-century New York, with a wayward lock of hair – and an Irish accent. His character has never been to Ireland. As a baby, Peter had been sent to Manhattan, swaddled up in a model boat, like Moses, by desperate would-be immigrant parents who had been turned back at Ellis Island because of their TB.
As a grownup thief and adorable ne'er-do-well he falls in love with a beautiful young heiress who is dying – of TB! So maybe Peter actually killed her! The selfish bastard.
Anyway, with Downton-typecasting, the ailing...
In this modern-day fairytale romance, Colin Farrell has two facial expressions. Number one is roguish lock of hair falling over face. Number two is roguish lock of hair swept back from face.
He plays Peter, a roguish handsome guy in late 19th-century New York, with a wayward lock of hair – and an Irish accent. His character has never been to Ireland. As a baby, Peter had been sent to Manhattan, swaddled up in a model boat, like Moses, by desperate would-be immigrant parents who had been turned back at Ellis Island because of their TB.
As a grownup thief and adorable ne'er-do-well he falls in love with a beautiful young heiress who is dying – of TB! So maybe Peter actually killed her! The selfish bastard.
Anyway, with Downton-typecasting, the ailing...
- 2/21/2014
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
‘The Unbelievers’ Review: It’s a Choice Between Fact and Fiction and the Whole World Has Gone Astray
There’s an argument to be made that atheists are one of the last groups of people (along with vegetarians and gingers) that you can still verbally discriminate against without fear of reprisal from society’s yappy watchdogs. “Hate” speech against Christians, African Americans, midgets, or the obese will be quickly and publicly chastised, if not charged with legal action, but atheists can be derided with little to no backlash. A 2011 North American study found that non-believers are considered less trustworthy than just about every other option, from Muslims and Jews to feminists and homosexuals. The only other group (in the study) to come close to that same level of mistrust? Rapists. Not so coincidentally, recent years have seen a surge in high profile and very vocal opponents to religion, faith, and the concept of creation. Christopher Hitchens found a late-career boon from the topic, Bill Maher welcomes every opportunity to crack wise against the faithful, and...
- 11/25/2013
- by Rob Hunter
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
If comedy has a Dorothy Parker, it’s Caroline Hirsch. The nightclub that bears her name on Broadway at the north end of Times Square is her salon, and for more than 30 years now, Carolines has been hosting the funniest and most famous stand-up comedians. From Jerry Seinfeld to Dave Chappelle to Louis Ck and Tracy Morgan, Carolines has been more than a prime showcase for the most hilarious people alive — it’s a room every comic has to conquer in order make his or her bones in the business.
Hirsch will be the first to admit that she herself isn’t funny.
Hirsch will be the first to admit that she herself isn’t funny.
- 11/4/2013
- by Jeff Labrecque
- EW.com - PopWatch
He had a worldwide smash with Bridesmaids, bringing female comedic talent to the fore. Now, back with new movie The Heat, he talks career v family, female James Bonds and the C word
In a pre-Bridesmaids world, the name Paul Feig would have meant little, save to a loyal hardcore of 90s coming-of-age TV fans who saw him as the eminence grise behind Judd Apatow's comic empire. Later, those people would lament (as Feig did himself) his temporary eradication from cult TV history as the co-creator of influential series Freaks And Geeks.
"It was a very … interesting time," he says amiably, with the benefit of 14 years' reflection. "Judd and I were – and still are – very good friends, but the hardest part for me was that we did it together. Freaks And Geeks was my thing, based on my experiences. It was very personal, and we couldn't have done it without each other.
In a pre-Bridesmaids world, the name Paul Feig would have meant little, save to a loyal hardcore of 90s coming-of-age TV fans who saw him as the eminence grise behind Judd Apatow's comic empire. Later, those people would lament (as Feig did himself) his temporary eradication from cult TV history as the co-creator of influential series Freaks And Geeks.
"It was a very … interesting time," he says amiably, with the benefit of 14 years' reflection. "Judd and I were – and still are – very good friends, but the hardest part for me was that we did it together. Freaks And Geeks was my thing, based on my experiences. It was very personal, and we couldn't have done it without each other.
- 7/20/2013
- by Andrea Hubert
- The Guardian - Film News
Mixing big-name celebrities, fun games and witty commentary (and booze) is a classic TV recipe, but "Hollywood Game Night" (premieres Thurs., July 11 at 10 p.m. on NBC) makes it new again.
The show, which is hosted by "Glee" funny lady Jane Lynch, is exactly what it sounds like: a star-studded game night, filmed and put on TV.
"Sean Hayes, the creator of the series, has these notorious game nights that are so much fun, that a variety of people go to because he has a lot of interesting people in his life," Lynch told The Huffington Post. "And he said 'Let's put it on TV,' and NBC said, 'Ok!' Before I knew it, I was hosting it, and we rented this mansion that is, ostensibly, mine, and we put couches in there and we got everybody tanked up on booze and we played these games."
So what kind of games will we see?...
The show, which is hosted by "Glee" funny lady Jane Lynch, is exactly what it sounds like: a star-studded game night, filmed and put on TV.
"Sean Hayes, the creator of the series, has these notorious game nights that are so much fun, that a variety of people go to because he has a lot of interesting people in his life," Lynch told The Huffington Post. "And he said 'Let's put it on TV,' and NBC said, 'Ok!' Before I knew it, I was hosting it, and we rented this mansion that is, ostensibly, mine, and we put couches in there and we got everybody tanked up on booze and we played these games."
So what kind of games will we see?...
- 7/11/2013
- by Maggie Furlong
- Huffington Post
In a video that many may find difficult to watch, actor and rapper Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def) attempts to undergo a force-feeding procedure that has been used on hunger strike participants at the Guantanamo Bay prison. The demonstration, which Bey abruptly stops due to apparent discomfort, is part of a campaign protesting the force-feedings.
Bey, 39, agreed to the procedure as part of the Stand for Justice campaign, timed to coincide with the beginning of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, which begins Monday. The footage was released to The Guardian by British human rights group Reprieve.
Warning: Graphic Video Below
At more than 4 minutes long, the clip shows the "Italian Job" star -- dressed in a bright orange jumpsuit -- being restrained in a chair as anonymous medical personnel in scrubs attempt to force a plastic tube into his nostril. Bey is brought to tears during the procedure,...
Bey, 39, agreed to the procedure as part of the Stand for Justice campaign, timed to coincide with the beginning of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, which begins Monday. The footage was released to The Guardian by British human rights group Reprieve.
Warning: Graphic Video Below
At more than 4 minutes long, the clip shows the "Italian Job" star -- dressed in a bright orange jumpsuit -- being restrained in a chair as anonymous medical personnel in scrubs attempt to force a plastic tube into his nostril. Bey is brought to tears during the procedure,...
- 7/8/2013
- by The Huffington Post
- Huffington Post
Gore Vidal is fascinating. Whether you agree with his politics or you enjoy is witty brand of snark or neither, he led an incredible and prolific life – one that could encompass multiple documentaries. This ultimately becomes the pitfall of “Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia” as it tries to make a singular documentary of such a multi-faceted figure. Director Nicholas Wranthall has a resume ranging from music videos to PBS documentaries and therefore should be able to convey both the serious and pop aspects of Vidal’s career, but unfortunately, the film appears to be a jumbling together of some really great footage – from interviews with the man himself throughout his final years to a near-heartbreaking discussion with the late Christopher Hitchens (the real or self-acclaimed Vidal heir, depends on who you believe) to vintage footage of famous Vidal moments, including the infamous Buckley vs. Vidal debates and the Norman Mailer.
- 5/3/2013
- by Diana Drumm
- The Playlist
Gore Vidal would have hated “Adult World,” the Emma Roberts vehicle that premiered at Tribeca Wednesday night. “He had a great **** detector,” notes the veteran journalist Robert Sheer, in Nicholas Wrathall’s doc “Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia,” which premiered the same night at Tribeca, which clearly intends to provide something for everyone. More about Vidal’s powers of detection in a moment. First, it should be said that Wrathall’s film, which includes extensive and very sad footage of its subject during the last enfeebled months before his death last July, does exactly what it should: It makes you miss Gore Vidal. To paraphrase one of the doc’s many learned witnesses, he spent his life being a thorn in the side of the very establishment to which he was born. The grandson of a U.S. senator, a relative by marriage to Jackie Kennedy, a distant...
- 4/19/2013
- by John Anderson
- Thompson on Hollywood
The first words of Joan Didion’s ‘Blue Nights’ are its dedication: “This book is for Quintana”, typed in italics, for emphasis. I approached the reading of this thin work with the previously acquired knowledge that Quintana was the author’s daughter, who died shortly after the publication of ‘The Year of Magical Thinking’, Didion’s memoir about the loss of her husband, the author John Gregory Dunne.
I also approached this book having never read any of Didion’s past work. What struck me most, aside from her brazen honesty is her prose, which very nearly acted as a red herring, drawing me from the words themselves into how they are written. She is a quintessential writer, one of our most gifted essayists, alongside the now deceased Gore Vidal and Christopher Hitchens. She hammers home her points with single sentences, which are not written side by side but instead line by line.
I also approached this book having never read any of Didion’s past work. What struck me most, aside from her brazen honesty is her prose, which very nearly acted as a red herring, drawing me from the words themselves into how they are written. She is a quintessential writer, one of our most gifted essayists, alongside the now deceased Gore Vidal and Christopher Hitchens. She hammers home her points with single sentences, which are not written side by side but instead line by line.
- 4/2/2013
- by Quinn Steers
- Obsessed with Film
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