If you're making a list of the greatest film acting debuts of all time, Kate Winslet's unnervingly ecstatic portrayal of Juliet Hulme in Peter Jackson's "Heavenly Creatures" better be at or near the top of the list -- and you should absolutely tether it to co-star Melanie Lynskey's startling debut as Pauline Parker in the same fantastic movie. You can't set the bar any higher than this, and all the two actors have done over the last 30 years is meet or surpass our expectations.
While Lynskey ultimately found her groove as a versatile and rousingly effective character actor, Winslet's career skyrocketed to superstardom in 1997 when she landed the role of Rose in James Cameron's disaster epic "Titanic." Her red-hot romance with Leonardo Di Caprio's dashing Jack granted her cinematic immortality, at which point she was faced with the daunting challenge of living up to mainstream moviegoers' expectations.
While Lynskey ultimately found her groove as a versatile and rousingly effective character actor, Winslet's career skyrocketed to superstardom in 1997 when she landed the role of Rose in James Cameron's disaster epic "Titanic." Her red-hot romance with Leonardo Di Caprio's dashing Jack granted her cinematic immortality, at which point she was faced with the daunting challenge of living up to mainstream moviegoers' expectations.
- 3/5/2024
- by Jeremy Smith
- Slash Film
Clockwise from top left: Thelma And Louise (MGM), Chicago (Miramax), The Handmaiden (Cj Entertainment), and Ocean’s 8 (Warner Bros.)Graphic: The A.V. Club
The trailers for the upcoming films Drive-Away Dolls (opening February 23) and Love Lies Bleeding (opening March 8) have us thinking about all the badass women who have...
The trailers for the upcoming films Drive-Away Dolls (opening February 23) and Love Lies Bleeding (opening March 8) have us thinking about all the badass women who have...
- 2/23/2024
- by Cindy White
- avclub.com
Jim Parker, a four-time BAFTA-winning composer whose credits included the original House of Cards and Midsomer Murders, has died aged 88 after a long illness.
Parker’s daughter Claire Parker issued a statement earlier today confirming the news and paying tribute.
“He wore his talent lightly and had a quiet passion and great sense of humour,” she said. “His ambition was, first and foremost, for audiences to enjoy his music. He was both well-respected and well-liked within the music and television industry, writing so many memorable theme tunes, and always giving 100% commitment.”
Born in Hartlepool in 1934, Parker started his career in a Britsh army band. He subsequently composed the music for Banana Blush, an album he made in 1974 with the poet John Betjeman, before turning to TV.
Parker composed the likes of the original UK version of House of Cards and Midsomer Murders. He won four Baftas, one for the second...
Parker’s daughter Claire Parker issued a statement earlier today confirming the news and paying tribute.
“He wore his talent lightly and had a quiet passion and great sense of humour,” she said. “His ambition was, first and foremost, for audiences to enjoy his music. He was both well-respected and well-liked within the music and television industry, writing so many memorable theme tunes, and always giving 100% commitment.”
Born in Hartlepool in 1934, Parker started his career in a Britsh army band. He subsequently composed the music for Banana Blush, an album he made in 1974 with the poet John Betjeman, before turning to TV.
Parker composed the likes of the original UK version of House of Cards and Midsomer Murders. He won four Baftas, one for the second...
- 7/31/2023
- by Max Goldbart
- Deadline Film + TV
Narrowing down the best movies in any genre is tough, but for lesbian films you have to begin with a reductive question: What is a lesbian film? What, in fact, is a lesbian?.
Must the film focus primarily on a gay storyline, or can it feature strong lesbian characters doing something entirely different than just being lesbians? Is subtext enough, or must the sapphic be explicit? How much cinephile wrath will rain down on us for the absence of a certain recent Oscar winner?
Compared to the stand-outs of queer television, the best lesbian movies have relatively little time to convey their perspective on the vast, varied, (sometimes) vaginal lesbian experience. And yet, ultimately, the best lesbian films honor not just their own perspectives, but also the glory and traditions of all of queer cinema. Strong women, high entertainment value, and bold visuals reign supreme.
The following tales of mini...
Must the film focus primarily on a gay storyline, or can it feature strong lesbian characters doing something entirely different than just being lesbians? Is subtext enough, or must the sapphic be explicit? How much cinephile wrath will rain down on us for the absence of a certain recent Oscar winner?
Compared to the stand-outs of queer television, the best lesbian movies have relatively little time to convey their perspective on the vast, varied, (sometimes) vaginal lesbian experience. And yet, ultimately, the best lesbian films honor not just their own perspectives, but also the glory and traditions of all of queer cinema. Strong women, high entertainment value, and bold visuals reign supreme.
The following tales of mini...
- 6/21/2023
- by Jude Dry and Alison Foreman
- Indiewire
Melanie Lynskey is opening up about drifting apart from her once-close friend and Heavenly Creatures co-star Kate Winslet.
While speaking with Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast Thursday about the nature of the industry and how people “move on” following projects, the Yellowjackets actress explained that “When I lost touch with Kate, it was more heartbreaking than some breakups that I’ve had.
“It was so painful because it wasn’t like anything happened, it’s just she became a gigantic international movie star and she didn’t have a lot of time,” she added. “I wouldn’t hear from her, you know, and it just sort of like gradually happened, and it happens in relationships. People kind of drift apart, but it was so painful for me.”
But before their bond even existed and before she had the role of Pauline Parker in the Oscar-nominated film, Lynskey...
While speaking with Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast Thursday about the nature of the industry and how people “move on” following projects, the Yellowjackets actress explained that “When I lost touch with Kate, it was more heartbreaking than some breakups that I’ve had.
“It was so painful because it wasn’t like anything happened, it’s just she became a gigantic international movie star and she didn’t have a lot of time,” she added. “I wouldn’t hear from her, you know, and it just sort of like gradually happened, and it happens in relationships. People kind of drift apart, but it was so painful for me.”
But before their bond even existed and before she had the role of Pauline Parker in the Oscar-nominated film, Lynskey...
- 4/21/2023
- by Carly Thomas
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Anne Perry, the prolific crime novelist, died at a Los Angeles hospital on Monday, her literary agent Meg Davis confirmed to the New York Times. Perry was 84.
Perry, who was born as Juliet Marion Hulme, served five years in prison after being convicted of murdering her best friend Pauline Parker’s mother Honorah Rieper alongside Parker when they were just teenagers in 1954. Perry was just 15 years old and Parker was 16 at the time.
In 1994, Perry’s past came to light when director Peter Jackson based his film “Heavenly Creatures” on Perry’s story. Perry was played by Kate Winslet, who was making her onscreen acting debut in the film. Melanie Lynskey starred as Parker. “Heavenly Creatures” would end up being nominated for Best Original Screenplay.
Kate Winslet, left, and Melanie Lynskey in “Heavenly Creatures.” (Miramax)
Perry’s first novel “The Cater Street Hangman,” was published in 1979. The crime novel is...
Perry, who was born as Juliet Marion Hulme, served five years in prison after being convicted of murdering her best friend Pauline Parker’s mother Honorah Rieper alongside Parker when they were just teenagers in 1954. Perry was just 15 years old and Parker was 16 at the time.
In 1994, Perry’s past came to light when director Peter Jackson based his film “Heavenly Creatures” on Perry’s story. Perry was played by Kate Winslet, who was making her onscreen acting debut in the film. Melanie Lynskey starred as Parker. “Heavenly Creatures” would end up being nominated for Best Original Screenplay.
Kate Winslet, left, and Melanie Lynskey in “Heavenly Creatures.” (Miramax)
Perry’s first novel “The Cater Street Hangman,” was published in 1979. The crime novel is...
- 4/14/2023
- by Umberto Gonzalez
- The Wrap
Peter Jackson's 1994 drama "Heavenly Creatures" was based on the real-life Parker-Hulme murder case which took place in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1954. The story goes that the convicted killers, Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme, became friends as adolescents and began to obsess over each other. They lived a very vivid fantasy life, and even invented their own religion, to which they were the only adherents. When Parker's mother, Honorah, threatened to separate the girls, they plotted to murder her, a crime they committed in Victoria Park. They spent five years in prison and were spared the death penalty, as Pauline was 16 and Juliet was 15. Jackson's film maintained that the two young women could be released from prison under the condition that they never see each other again, but this, however, was not true.
"Heavenly Creatures" was widely lauded at the time and was nominated for Best Screenplay at that...
"Heavenly Creatures" was widely lauded at the time and was nominated for Best Screenplay at that...
- 4/9/2023
- by Witney Seibold
- Slash Film
Melanie Lynskey often plays complex female roles that defy societal norms, most recently her dark turns in "Yellowjackets" and "The Last of Us." But before Lynskey played a quietly fierce plane survivor or ruthless leader in a zombie apocalypse, she gave a bone-chilling performance in Peter Jackson's "Heavenly Creatures," her screen debut alongside the equally talented Kate Winslet.
Lynskey was chosen from 500 New Zealand schoolgirls for the role of Pauline Parker, a glum outcast who engages in an obsessive friendship with an intelligent English rose named Juliet Hulme. The imaginative teen girls share eventually conspire to kill Pauline's mother with a brick.
"We were looking for an actor who could capture the quiet intensity of Pauline Parker — who was by all accounts, a fiercely passionate introvert," says the "Heavenly Creatures" screenwriter Fran Walsh. "We knew immediately that she was right for the role. Mel was a natural in front of the camera,...
Lynskey was chosen from 500 New Zealand schoolgirls for the role of Pauline Parker, a glum outcast who engages in an obsessive friendship with an intelligent English rose named Juliet Hulme. The imaginative teen girls share eventually conspire to kill Pauline's mother with a brick.
"We were looking for an actor who could capture the quiet intensity of Pauline Parker — who was by all accounts, a fiercely passionate introvert," says the "Heavenly Creatures" screenwriter Fran Walsh. "We knew immediately that she was right for the role. Mel was a natural in front of the camera,...
- 3/5/2023
- by Caroline Madden
- Slash Film
Agnieszka Smoczyńska directs this well-acted, disturbing drama about June and Jennifer Gibbons, whose shared isolation ended in criminal acts
Here is a really heartfelt, absorbing new film telling the true story of June and Jennifer Gibbons: the “silent twins”, young women of colour who grew up in Haverfordwest in Wales communicating with no one but each other. They were effectively abandoned by the school and care systems but wrote reams of intensely imaginative poems and stories, with June even self-publishing a novel. It gained them a reputation as authentic outsider artists when, in 1981, the twins were committed to Broadmoor hospital for arson and theft. Their case was taken by investigative journalist and mental health campaigner Marjorie Wallace.
Their story has had a number of stage and screen treatments, and now screenwriter Andrea Seigel has adapted Wallace’s book about the case and Polish film-maker Agnieszka Smoczyńska directs in this UK-Polish co-production.
Here is a really heartfelt, absorbing new film telling the true story of June and Jennifer Gibbons: the “silent twins”, young women of colour who grew up in Haverfordwest in Wales communicating with no one but each other. They were effectively abandoned by the school and care systems but wrote reams of intensely imaginative poems and stories, with June even self-publishing a novel. It gained them a reputation as authentic outsider artists when, in 1981, the twins were committed to Broadmoor hospital for arson and theft. Their case was taken by investigative journalist and mental health campaigner Marjorie Wallace.
Their story has had a number of stage and screen treatments, and now screenwriter Andrea Seigel has adapted Wallace’s book about the case and Polish film-maker Agnieszka Smoczyńska directs in this UK-Polish co-production.
- 5/25/2022
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Agnieszka Smoczyńska directs this well-acted, disturbing drama about June and Jennifer Gibbons, whose shared isolation ended in criminal acts
Here is a really heartfelt, absorbing new film telling the true story of June and Jennifer Gibbons: the “silent twins”, young women of colour who grew up in Haverfordwest in Wales communicating with no one but each other. They were effectively abandoned by the school and care systems but wrote reams of intensely imaginative poems and stories, with June even self-publishing a novel. It gained them a reputation as authentic outsider artists when, in 1981, the twins were committed to Broadmoor hospital for arson and theft. Their case was taken by investigative journalist and mental health campaigner Marjorie Wallace.
Their story has had a number of stage and screen treatments, and now screenwriter Andrea Seigel has adapted Wallace’s book about the case and Polish film-maker Agnieszka Smoczyńska directs in this UK-Polish co-production.
Here is a really heartfelt, absorbing new film telling the true story of June and Jennifer Gibbons: the “silent twins”, young women of colour who grew up in Haverfordwest in Wales communicating with no one but each other. They were effectively abandoned by the school and care systems but wrote reams of intensely imaginative poems and stories, with June even self-publishing a novel. It gained them a reputation as authentic outsider artists when, in 1981, the twins were committed to Broadmoor hospital for arson and theft. Their case was taken by investigative journalist and mental health campaigner Marjorie Wallace.
Their story has had a number of stage and screen treatments, and now screenwriter Andrea Seigel has adapted Wallace’s book about the case and Polish film-maker Agnieszka Smoczyńska directs in this UK-Polish co-production.
- 5/25/2022
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
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