Hollywood
DVD Release: StagecoachTuesday, 15 June 2010
For the second time in four years, John Ford’s Stagecoach - the epochal black-and-white 1939 B-western that made a star of John Wayne and an icon of Monument Valley, and anticipated Ford’s unequalled run of westerns over the next quarter-century and... Read more... |
DVD: Red SunSunday, 13 June 2010
Hollywood westerns and Japanese samurai movies have long been generic companions. Akira Kurosawa borrowed from the films of John Ford for his chambara (a term referring to period drama with swordfighting), while Hollywood borrowed back again by... Read more... |
She's Out of My LeagueWednesday, 02 June 2010
Has modern cinema ever arranged quite so fetishistic an entrance? She’s blonde, she’s beautiful, and needless to say busty - a benign pneumatic deity who, gliding in slo-mo across a crowded screen, induces males of every age and hue to turn and gawp... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Composer Alan MenkenSunday, 16 May 2010
For many years the composer who made his name with Little Shop of Horrors abandoned the theatre to work in Hollywood. He returned to Broadway in 2008 with an enlarged songbook for The Little Mermaid, but it closed within a year. Later came the... Read more... |
DVD: The Kid/ The Great DictatorSaturday, 15 May 2010
There was a celebrated two-word come-on to 1930s movie-goers. “Garbo Laughs!” was a poster strapline calculated to seduce fans of the mournful Swedish star to Ninotchka, in which her character had an unwonted fit of the giggles. Audiences were... Read more... |
Debbie Reynolds - Alive and Fabulous, Apollo TheatreThursday, 29 April 2010
Let me confess immediately: Debbie Reynolds didn't mean a great deal to me beyond Singin' in the Rain, warbling "Tammy" and Being Princess Leia's Mother (and believe me, she gets plenty of comic mileage out of the Carrie Fisher connection... Read more... |
Iron Man 2Wednesday, 28 April 2010
In a stone-faced analysis of the political and historiographical connotations of action hero films, the Guardian’s Film Blog found Iron Man 2 to be “a throwback to a Cold War sensibility,” as well as “the first post-Bush superhero movie.” However, a... Read more... |
La La Land, BBC ThreeTuesday, 27 April 2010
“Marc Wootton is playing characters in real situations with real people” read the message that followed the opening credits of La La Land, as though Wootton were a comedic Archimedes unveiling his Eureka moment, rather than simply the latest “... Read more... |
Johnny Mercer: The Dream's on Me, BBC FourSunday, 04 April 2010
Jazz enthusiast Clint Eastwood, who co-produced this film with the BBC's Arena, clearly harbours a particular regard for songwriter, singer, impresario and record company mogul Johnny Mercer. When Eastwood made his film of John Berendt's book... Read more... |
Clash of the TitansThursday, 01 April 2010
Just don’t say you weren’t warned. "The Legend Begins in 3D," it says outside the Odeon Leicester Square in rather boisterous capitals. This is very much episode one of what the moneybags on Mount Olympus, working out of their Hollywood 91601... Read more... |
DVDs Round-Up 5Saturday, 13 March 2010
Two films with a East European flavour, Katalin Varga and Tales from the Golden Age, are among our March selection, which also includes the lovely, bittersweet Irish drama Kisses. Our US release (available worldwide, of course, by mail-order) is Wim... Read more... |
Shutter IslandThursday, 11 March 2010
The opening scene of Martin Scorsese's new film - a storm-tossed ferry buffeting its way to an isolated island off America's East Coast - bears an unmissable resemblance to that of Roman Polanski's The Ghost. So too does its premise, of a vulnerable... Read more... |
