Hollywood
theartsdesk Q&A: Actor Michael FassbenderSaturday, 04 February 2012
The first time I saw Michael Fassbender (b 1977) in the flesh, it was in Venice, in 2011. I was heading home on the last day of the film festival, where Steve McQueen’s Shame – starring the Irishman as a New York sex addict – had enjoyed an... Read more... |
Oscars 2012: Nominees are announced – just don’t try to pronounce their namesTuesday, 24 January 2012
Michael Fassbender (Shame) got blanked (maybe Hollywood was put off by his manhood?), as did We Need to Talk About Kevin’s Tilda Swinton, for my money the year’s best performance by an actress, notwithstanding the marvellous Meryl. Gary Oldman,... Read more... |
Travelling Light, National TheatreThursday, 19 January 2012
An interfering producer, an accountant who keeps trying to cut corners and costs, even a casting couch – making movies was never easy, according to this amiable new play by Nicholas Wright. Set in 1930s Hollywood and, in flashback, in turn-of-the-... Read more... |
War HorseWednesday, 11 January 2012
The thrilling does battle with the banal and just about calls it a draw, which is a synoptic way of describing the effect of Steven Spielberg's film of War Horse, based on the Michael Morpurgo novel that spawned the now unstoppably successful play.... Read more... |
DVDs for Christmas: Film and TVThursday, 15 December 2011
Over the year we have reviewed many a new film and television drama in theartsdesk's Disc of the Day slot. As our series of DVD recommendations comes round to the movies, we have chosen to concentrate not on individual titles but box sets. For... Read more... |
HugoThursday, 01 December 2011
It's tempting to say that Martin Scorsese's first so-called "family film" works like clockwork, except that the movie possesses considerably more soul than that statement suggests. What's more, it would help to be a clan of thoroughgoing cinéastes... Read more... |
50/50Saturday, 26 November 2011
It’s always struck me as an odd sort of desire: to go to see a movie in which you know someone is going to die a long and painful death, while someone else – or maybe a whole gaggle of people – stand and watch, shedding tears and beating breasts. Of... Read more... |
MoneyballWednesday, 23 November 2011
It's a problem many a cash-strapped Premier League football manager is familiar with. The über-teams like Chelsea and Manchester United have loads more money than you, and can simply spend you out of contention. Over in California, this was what was... Read more... |
AnonymousThursday, 27 October 2011
Everyone is working against type, or so it would seem, in Roland Emmerich's deeply bizarre Anonymous, which asks us to accept a celluloid slob (Rhys Ifans) as an aristocrat, a vaunted republican (Vanessa Redgrave) as Elizabeth I and a highly... Read more... |
The Ides of MarchMonday, 24 October 2011
If you were to play a game as to who should play former US President Bill Clinton in a fictionalised account of his life, then George Clooney – liberal, politically active and drop-dead gorgeous – would surely be your number-one choice. So he must... Read more... |
ContagionMonday, 17 October 2011
What goes around, well, goes around in Steven Soderbergh's Contagion, which manages the dual feat of being at once scare-mongering (hypochondriacs should stay well clear) and stultifyingly dull. A variant on the we're-all-essentially-connected... Read more... |
DVD: Green LanternFriday, 14 October 2011
Green Lantern was meant to make Ryan Reynolds a major star, and ignite another superhero franchise. Expectations deflated so quickly on its cinema release that, if this DVD didn’t exist, it would be hard to be certain it came out at all.Warners have... Read more... |
