To celebrate the release of a brand-new 4K restoration of director Carol Reed’s A Kid for Two Farthings, on Blu-Ray, DVD and Digital from 26 February, we are giving away Blu-Rays to 2 lucky winners!
Starring Celia Johnson, Diana Dors, David Kossoff and Jonathan Ashmore in his sole acting role, the film is packed with memorable supporting characters including the affectionate Mrs Abramowitz (Irene Handl), blowsy fashionista Lady Ruby (Brenda de Banzie) crooked jewellery salesman Ice Berg (Sid James) and finicky tailor Madam Rita (Sydney Tafler).
In the vibrant Petticoat Lane community of East London, amidst the hustle and bustle of the ancient market, small shops and open-air vendors, Joe (Jonathan Ashmore) lives with his mother, Joanne (Celia Johnson) above the Kandinsky tailor shop, where Joanne also works.
Joe is innocently and earnestly determined to make the lives of his impoverished, hard-working neighbours better. Hearing Mr. Kandinsky (David Kossoff) tell a...
Starring Celia Johnson, Diana Dors, David Kossoff and Jonathan Ashmore in his sole acting role, the film is packed with memorable supporting characters including the affectionate Mrs Abramowitz (Irene Handl), blowsy fashionista Lady Ruby (Brenda de Banzie) crooked jewellery salesman Ice Berg (Sid James) and finicky tailor Madam Rita (Sydney Tafler).
In the vibrant Petticoat Lane community of East London, amidst the hustle and bustle of the ancient market, small shops and open-air vendors, Joe (Jonathan Ashmore) lives with his mother, Joanne (Celia Johnson) above the Kandinsky tailor shop, where Joanne also works.
Joe is innocently and earnestly determined to make the lives of his impoverished, hard-working neighbours better. Hearing Mr. Kandinsky (David Kossoff) tell a...
- 2/26/2024
- by Competitions
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
An array of stars portray warm-hearted Londoners in comedy pivoting around a young boy who is a sunny ancestor to Kes
Carol Reed’s 1955 film is a rich slice of gentle, sentimental comedy, adapted by Wolf Mankowitz from his own novel. It’s a little bit broad and not in the class of The Third Man or The Fallen Idol, but forthright and heartfelt, and boasting a veritable aristocracy of British character acting talent.
In the bustling world of Petticoat Lane in London’s East End, then the traditional home of the Jewish community, a shy little boy called Joe mopes and daydreams around the place; he’s played by Jonathan Ashmore, with the rather non-East-End stage-school child actor voice that was common in those days. (Ashmore left showbusiness after this one screen appearance and grew up to be a distinguished scientist.) His cheerful but careworn mum Joanna (Celia Johnson) is sadly missing her husband,...
Carol Reed’s 1955 film is a rich slice of gentle, sentimental comedy, adapted by Wolf Mankowitz from his own novel. It’s a little bit broad and not in the class of The Third Man or The Fallen Idol, but forthright and heartfelt, and boasting a veritable aristocracy of British character acting talent.
In the bustling world of Petticoat Lane in London’s East End, then the traditional home of the Jewish community, a shy little boy called Joe mopes and daydreams around the place; he’s played by Jonathan Ashmore, with the rather non-East-End stage-school child actor voice that was common in those days. (Ashmore left showbusiness after this one screen appearance and grew up to be a distinguished scientist.) His cheerful but careworn mum Joanna (Celia Johnson) is sadly missing her husband,...
- 2/21/2024
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
It's been over 13 years since 7-month-old baby Gabriel Johnson disappeared, but his family is no closer to getting an answer about what happened than they were in December 2009. Shortly before Christmas of that year, Elizabeth Johnson left Arizona with her infant son and drove to San Antonio, Texas; a few days later, she told Gabriel's father, Logan McQueary, that she had killed Gabriel and left his body in a dumpster. When authorities located her on December 30, 2009, Johnson retracted the confession and claimed that she had given Gabriel up for adoption to an anonymous couple she met in a San Antonio park. To this day, Gabriel has not been found, and his family remains in the dark about whether he was murdered or adopted.
- 6/20/2023
- by Claire Spellberg Lustig
- Primetimer
The chef co-owners of Hollywood hotspot Horses are escalating their battle for control of the restaurant, with Will Aghajanian taking his wife Elizabeth Johnson to court.
Aghajanian alleges in a complaint filed on Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court that Johnson is trying to oust him from their business after she cut him out of a Chinese restaurant they planned to open behind Horses, in part, by lying about animal abuse and assault allegations.
The suit was filed after a Los Angeles Superior Court judge in May extended Johnson’s temporary restraining order against Aghajanian until June. He filed in January to divorce her, denying the allegations and saying he’s the victim of Johnson’s “long-term abuse that has occurred through our relationship.”
In the fall of 2022, around the time Johnson was initially granted a restraining order against Aghajanian, the complaint claims she started to undermine his work and...
Aghajanian alleges in a complaint filed on Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court that Johnson is trying to oust him from their business after she cut him out of a Chinese restaurant they planned to open behind Horses, in part, by lying about animal abuse and assault allegations.
The suit was filed after a Los Angeles Superior Court judge in May extended Johnson’s temporary restraining order against Aghajanian until June. He filed in January to divorce her, denying the allegations and saying he’s the victim of Johnson’s “long-term abuse that has occurred through our relationship.”
In the fall of 2022, around the time Johnson was initially granted a restraining order against Aghajanian, the complaint claims she started to undermine his work and...
- 5/19/2023
- by Winston Cho
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
From an emotional standpoint, romantic movies can have several different functions. On the happier end of the spectrum, they can produce feelings of joy, hope, and gratification. Then there are romances that are best described as tearjerkers, with endings that devastate more than delight. But there are also films that fall somewhere in between these two extremes, movies that feel both melancholic and joyful at the same time.
When picking a romantic film to watch, it's important to know what mood you're in -- or what mood you want to be in. With this list, I've compiled a group of films that fall somewhere on the spectrum between bittersweet and tragic. A few of these films have decidedly sad endings where no one ends up happy (or even alive), while others depict a romance that changed an individual's life for the better, regardless of its outcome. What's great about romance...
When picking a romantic film to watch, it's important to know what mood you're in -- or what mood you want to be in. With this list, I've compiled a group of films that fall somewhere on the spectrum between bittersweet and tragic. A few of these films have decidedly sad endings where no one ends up happy (or even alive), while others depict a romance that changed an individual's life for the better, regardless of its outcome. What's great about romance...
- 2/2/2023
- by Kira Deshler
- Slash Film
Brief Encounter.The Sight & Sound critics' poll of the greatest films of all time has for decades stood as one of the more controversial and arguably the most influential measures of cinematic excellence. Originally published in 1952, the list and its formation has been updated every ten years, with new titles added, others vanishing, and additional modifications along the way. According to an excerpt from the autumn 1952 issue, the ranking was a “sequel” to the Brussels Referendum, which had been featured in a previous edition of the publication. In that poll, 100 directors were asked to vote for their ten best films ever made. As a follow-up, Sight & Sound turned to the critics, 85 of them from ten different countries; 63 responded. Since then, the sample size has obviously increased as more films were released; new contributors took part (846 critics in 2012); and historical, social, and aesthetic perspectives shifted the ultimate evaluation of what merits final inclusion.
- 11/30/2022
- MUBI
After twenty years honing his craft on ever-more precise filmic constructions, David Lean opened up his imagination for a story of loneliness and romance in Venice, Italy. A vacationing American woman searches for — she doesn’t know what. Katharine Hepburn reveals the vulnerable side of her personality, and the woman eventually leaves her fears behind. Lean creates the most compelling ‘relaxed vacation’ ever, yet every shot is as keenly envisioned as in any of his films. It’s an amazing ‘on location’ show that initially ran into trouble with U.S. censors — some thought it was morally incompatible with the Production Code, and shouldn’t be released here at all.
Summertime
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 22
1955 / Color / 1:37 Academy (1:66 widescreen?) / 100 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date July 12, 2022 / 39.95
Starring: Katharine Hepburn, Rossano Brazzi, Darren McGavin, Jane Rose, Mari Aldon, Macdonald Parke, Gaetano Autiero, Jeremy Spenser, Isa Miranda, Virginia Simeon,...
Summertime
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 22
1955 / Color / 1:37 Academy (1:66 widescreen?) / 100 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date July 12, 2022 / 39.95
Starring: Katharine Hepburn, Rossano Brazzi, Darren McGavin, Jane Rose, Mari Aldon, Macdonald Parke, Gaetano Autiero, Jeremy Spenser, Isa Miranda, Virginia Simeon,...
- 7/19/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Anyone who has seen Joe Wright’s musical “Cyrano” will no doubt remember a scene late in the film, in which three anonymous soldiers sing a drum-backed ballad called “Wherever I Fall.” The five-minute sequence, about the message each man would like sent home before he dies, beautifully accentuates the classic story’s theme about the power of language in love.
But according to Wright, the scene required an extra bit of directorial cunning to ensure it wouldn’t be cut from the film.
“Due to circumstances with our filming location in Sicily – we were near Mt. Etna, which had just erupted – we had to reduce our number of shooting days and I had to make some strategic cuts in the script,” the director told TheWrap. “And the studio said, ‘Well, you should cut that song, because it doesn’t star the main cast and it doesn’t matter as much to the central plot.
But according to Wright, the scene required an extra bit of directorial cunning to ensure it wouldn’t be cut from the film.
“Due to circumstances with our filming location in Sicily – we were near Mt. Etna, which had just erupted – we had to reduce our number of shooting days and I had to make some strategic cuts in the script,” the director told TheWrap. “And the studio said, ‘Well, you should cut that song, because it doesn’t star the main cast and it doesn’t matter as much to the central plot.
- 3/2/2022
- by Joe McGovern
- The Wrap
Director Sidney J. Furie discusses his favorite films he’s watched and re-watched during quarantine with hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante.
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
Dr. Blood’s Coffin (1961)
The Ipcress File (1965) – Howard Rodman’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
The Appaloosa (1966)
The Naked Runner (1967)
Lady Sings The Blues (1972)
The Entity (1982) – Luca Gaudagnino’s trailer commentary
The Boys in Company C (1978)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) – John Landis’s trailer commentary, Dennis Cozzalio’s review
Full Metal Jacket (1987)
The Apartment (1960) – Dan Ireland’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review, Randy Fuller’s wine pairing
The Best Years Of Our Lives (1946)
Twelve O’Clock High (1949)
A Place In The Sun (1951) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Out Of Africa (1985)
The Last Picture Show (1971) – Mark Pellington’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairing
Annie Hall (1977)
The Bad And The Beautiful (1952)
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)
The Tender Bar...
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
Dr. Blood’s Coffin (1961)
The Ipcress File (1965) – Howard Rodman’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
The Appaloosa (1966)
The Naked Runner (1967)
Lady Sings The Blues (1972)
The Entity (1982) – Luca Gaudagnino’s trailer commentary
The Boys in Company C (1978)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) – John Landis’s trailer commentary, Dennis Cozzalio’s review
Full Metal Jacket (1987)
The Apartment (1960) – Dan Ireland’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review, Randy Fuller’s wine pairing
The Best Years Of Our Lives (1946)
Twelve O’Clock High (1949)
A Place In The Sun (1951) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Out Of Africa (1985)
The Last Picture Show (1971) – Mark Pellington’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairing
Annie Hall (1977)
The Bad And The Beautiful (1952)
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)
The Tender Bar...
- 2/15/2022
- by Kris Millsap
- Trailers from Hell
Vincente Minnelli took time out from expensive MGM shows like Gigi to knock off this tale about the London debutante season, a light-comedy Cinderella story without satire or social comment. Young Sandra Dee and John Saxon come off well, but the show belongs to stars Rex Harrison and especially Kay Kendall, whose comedy timing and finesse lift the tame, weightless material.
The Reluctant Debutante
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1958 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 96 min. / Street Date May 26, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Rex Harrison, Kay Kendall, John Saxon, Sandra Dee, Angela Lansbury, Peter Myers, Diane Clare, Charles Herbert.
Cinematography: Joseph Ruttenberg
Film Editor: Adrienne Fazan
Written by William Douglas-Home from his play
Produced by Pandro S. Berman
Directed by Vincente Minnelli
Not often mentioned as a highlight of Vincente Minnelli’s career, The Reluctant Debutante is enjoyable now for the comedy playing of Rex Harrison and Kay Kendall. Harrison hadn’t been...
The Reluctant Debutante
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1958 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 96 min. / Street Date May 26, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Rex Harrison, Kay Kendall, John Saxon, Sandra Dee, Angela Lansbury, Peter Myers, Diane Clare, Charles Herbert.
Cinematography: Joseph Ruttenberg
Film Editor: Adrienne Fazan
Written by William Douglas-Home from his play
Produced by Pandro S. Berman
Directed by Vincente Minnelli
Not often mentioned as a highlight of Vincente Minnelli’s career, The Reluctant Debutante is enjoyable now for the comedy playing of Rex Harrison and Kay Kendall. Harrison hadn’t been...
- 6/30/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
David Lean would’ve celebrated his 112th birthday on March 25, 2020. The Oscar-winning director became famous for a series of visual striking, technically ambitious epics, but how many of those titles remain classics? In honor of his birthday, let’s take a look back at all 16 of his films, ranked worst to best.
Born in 1908, Lean cut his teeth as a film editor, cutting a number of prominent movies including “49th Parallel” (1941) and “One of Our Aircraft Is Missing” (1942) for his contemporary, Michael Powell. He transitioned into directing, working alongside acclaimed playwright Noel Coward with “In Which We Serve” (1942). The WWII Naval epic was a joint venture for the two, with Coward (who also wrote and starred) handling the acting scenes and Lean tackling the action sequences.
He earned his first Oscar nominations for writing and directing “Brief Encounter” (1945), a big screen version of Coward’s play about two strangers (Trevor Howard...
Born in 1908, Lean cut his teeth as a film editor, cutting a number of prominent movies including “49th Parallel” (1941) and “One of Our Aircraft Is Missing” (1942) for his contemporary, Michael Powell. He transitioned into directing, working alongside acclaimed playwright Noel Coward with “In Which We Serve” (1942). The WWII Naval epic was a joint venture for the two, with Coward (who also wrote and starred) handling the acting scenes and Lean tackling the action sequences.
He earned his first Oscar nominations for writing and directing “Brief Encounter” (1945), a big screen version of Coward’s play about two strangers (Trevor Howard...
- 3/3/2020
- by Zach Laws and Chris Beachum
- Gold Derby
“Two Pints Of Guinness”
By Raymond Benson
Kino Lorber’s new double-bill Blu-ray release of comedy classics starring the legendary Alec Guinness features the nautical-themed The Captain’s Paradise, and Barnacle Bill. The former is often thought of as one of the Ealing comedies, but it is not so.
Paradise was nominated for the “Story” Academy Award (a category that no longer exists), and it was written by Alec Coppel. It is indeed a well-written and clever vehicle for Guinness, who delivers his usual above-it-all confident demeanor when his character is faced with domestic and professional disaster. He plays Captain Henry St. James, whom his chief officer Ricco (Charles Goldner) constantly calls a “genius” because Henry has found the perfect path to “paradise”—a double life with two women—one in the Spanish town of Kalique (actually Ceuta) in North Africa, next to Morocco, and one in Gibraltar. His ship, The Golden Fleece,...
By Raymond Benson
Kino Lorber’s new double-bill Blu-ray release of comedy classics starring the legendary Alec Guinness features the nautical-themed The Captain’s Paradise, and Barnacle Bill. The former is often thought of as one of the Ealing comedies, but it is not so.
Paradise was nominated for the “Story” Academy Award (a category that no longer exists), and it was written by Alec Coppel. It is indeed a well-written and clever vehicle for Guinness, who delivers his usual above-it-all confident demeanor when his character is faced with domestic and professional disaster. He plays Captain Henry St. James, whom his chief officer Ricco (Charles Goldner) constantly calls a “genius” because Henry has found the perfect path to “paradise”—a double life with two women—one in the Spanish town of Kalique (actually Ceuta) in North Africa, next to Morocco, and one in Gibraltar. His ship, The Golden Fleece,...
- 2/23/2020
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Studiocanal’s Vintage Classics is celebrating Christmas with the release of the British festive treat The Holly And The Ivy, starring acting royalty Ralph Richardson, Celia Johnson, Margaret Leighton, Denholm Elliot and John Gregson.
To celebrate we are giving away a copy of The Holly & The Ivy on Blu-ray along with the recently released Ealing Studios’ 1944 classic The Halfway House and three more much-loved British films from the collection – Went The Day Well, Passport To Pimlico and Dead Of Night.
The Vintage Classics Collection currently features nearly 90 iconic British films, all fully restored and featuring brand new extra content. To find out more, and for news on future releases, follow on Facebook at /Vintageclassicsfilm.
Please note: This competition is open to UK residents only
a Rafflecopter giveaway
The Small Print
Open to UK residents only The competition will close 19th December 2019 at 23.59 GMT The winner will be picked at random...
To celebrate we are giving away a copy of The Holly & The Ivy on Blu-ray along with the recently released Ealing Studios’ 1944 classic The Halfway House and three more much-loved British films from the collection – Went The Day Well, Passport To Pimlico and Dead Of Night.
The Vintage Classics Collection currently features nearly 90 iconic British films, all fully restored and featuring brand new extra content. To find out more, and for news on future releases, follow on Facebook at /Vintageclassicsfilm.
Please note: This competition is open to UK residents only
a Rafflecopter giveaway
The Small Print
Open to UK residents only The competition will close 19th December 2019 at 23.59 GMT The winner will be picked at random...
- 12/8/2019
- by Competitions
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
David Lean would’ve celebrated his 111th birthday on March 25, 2019. The Oscar-winning director became famous for a series of visual striking, technically ambitious epics, but how many of those titles remain classics? In honor of his birthday, let’s take a look back at all 16 of his films, ranked worst to best.
Born in 1908, Lean cut his teeth as a film editor, cutting a number of prominent movies including “49th Parallel” (1941) and “One of Our Aircraft Is Missing” (1942) for his contemporary, Michael Powell. He transitioned into directing, working alongside acclaimed playwright Noel Coward with “In Which We Serve” (1942). The WWII Naval epic was a joint venture for the two, with Coward (who also wrote and starred) handling the acting scenes and Lean tackling the action sequences.
SEEOscar Best Director Gallery: Every Winner In Academy Award History
He earned his first Oscar nominations for writing and directing “Brief Encounter” (1945), a big...
Born in 1908, Lean cut his teeth as a film editor, cutting a number of prominent movies including “49th Parallel” (1941) and “One of Our Aircraft Is Missing” (1942) for his contemporary, Michael Powell. He transitioned into directing, working alongside acclaimed playwright Noel Coward with “In Which We Serve” (1942). The WWII Naval epic was a joint venture for the two, with Coward (who also wrote and starred) handling the acting scenes and Lean tackling the action sequences.
SEEOscar Best Director Gallery: Every Winner In Academy Award History
He earned his first Oscar nominations for writing and directing “Brief Encounter” (1945), a big...
- 3/25/2019
- by Zach Laws and Chris Beachum
- Gold Derby
Some of Hollywood’s best love stories are the ones that never pan out. From Casablanca to Titanic to Brokeback Mountain, we can’t get enough of lovers who are never meant to be together.
In director David Lean’s 1945 masterpiece Brief Encounter it’s placid housewife Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson) and married doctor Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard) who spark up a romance in a dreary train station. Their chemistry is immediate, and we desperately want them to run off together, but their deep-rooted goodness and middle-class British morals hold them back.
Brief Encounter reminds us that love doesn’t always lead to happiness and all we can do is cherish the heartbreak.
Brief Encounter screens as part of Cineplex’s Classic Film Series on June 19th, 22nd and 27th. Go to Cineplex.com/Events for times and locations.
In director David Lean’s 1945 masterpiece Brief Encounter it’s placid housewife Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson) and married doctor Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard) who spark up a romance in a dreary train station. Their chemistry is immediate, and we desperately want them to run off together, but their deep-rooted goodness and middle-class British morals hold them back.
Brief Encounter reminds us that love doesn’t always lead to happiness and all we can do is cherish the heartbreak.
Brief Encounter screens as part of Cineplex’s Classic Film Series on June 19th, 22nd and 27th. Go to Cineplex.com/Events for times and locations.
- 6/13/2016
- by Ingrid Randoja - Cineplex Magazine
- Cineplex
Welcome back to This Week In Discs where we check out tomorrow’s new releases today! Death Becomes Her (Scream Factory) What is it? Madeline (Meryl Streep) and Helen (Goldie Hawn) have been rivals for years, but their biggest face-off comes after a desperate Madeline takes a potion in a bid to look and feel young again. It makes her immortal — right before she falls down the stairs and breaks her neck. She can’t die, but her body can take a beating, and even in her undead state she once again finds herself in competition with Helen. Why buy it? Director Robert Zemeckis is clearly at home with this blackly comic, Tales from the Crypt-like feature that deftly mixes laughs, gruesome deeds, and cutting edge (for 1992) special effects. Streep and Hawn are both terrific, but Bruce Willis more than holds his own (and delivers one of his best performances) as a beleaguered husband with a...
- 4/25/2016
- by Rob Hunter
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
It was a case that has perplexed authorities for more than 6 years. In December 2009, Elizabeth Johnson was embroiled in a bitter custody battle with her ex, Logan McQueary. She fled her Tempe, Arizona home with their 8-month-old son, Gabriel. They were spotted at a San Antonio motel on December 26, 2009. That was the last time Gabriel was seen. When police finally caught up with Johnson in Miami, Baby Gabriel was nowhere to be found. A jury convicted Johnson of unlawful imprisonment, custodial interference and conspiracy to commit custodial interference. She was sentenced to 5 years in prison, but was released early in...
- 4/8/2016
- by Steve Helling, @stevehelling
- PEOPLE.com
It was a case that has perplexed authorities for more than 6 years. In December 2009, Elizabeth Johnson was embroiled in a bitter custody battle with her ex, Logan McQueary. She fled her Tempe, Arizona home with their 8-month-old son, Gabriel. They were spotted at a San Antonio motel on December 26, 2009. That was the last time Gabriel was seen. When police finally caught up with Johnson in Miami, Baby Gabriel was nowhere to be found. A jury convicted Johnson of unlawful imprisonment, custodial interference and conspiracy to commit custodial interference. She was sentenced to 5 years in prison, but was released early in...
- 4/8/2016
- by Steve Helling, @stevehelling
- PEOPLE.com
★★★★☆ Back on the big screen across the UK in conjunction with the BFI's 'Love' season is one of the most well-known cinematic contemplations on the consequences of a simple question; "What if?" Celebrating the seventieth anniversary of its initial release, Brief Encounter (1945) still holds a special allure, some kind of now-nostalgic emotional restraint that continues to draw viewers in. The longing and exhilaration emanating off leads Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard still radiates.
- 11/11/2015
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
'Saint Joan': Constance Cummings as the George Bernard Shaw heroine. Constance Cummings on stage: From sex-change farce and Emma Bovary to Juliet and 'Saint Joan' (See previous post: “Constance Cummings: Frank Capra, Mae West and Columbia Lawsuit.”) In the mid-1930s, Constance Cummings landed the title roles in two of husband Benn W. Levy's stage adaptations: Levy and Hubert Griffith's Young Madame Conti (1936), starring Cummings as a demimondaine who falls in love with a villainous character. She ends up killing him – or does she? Adapted from Bruno Frank's German-language original, Young Madame Conti was presented on both sides of the Atlantic; on Broadway, it had a brief run in spring 1937 at the Music Box Theatre. Based on the Gustave Flaubert novel, the Theatre Guild-produced Madame Bovary (1937) was staged in late fall at Broadway's Broadhurst Theatre. Referring to the London production of Young Madame Conti, The...
- 11/10/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
The classic British romance, written by Noel Coward and directed by David Lean, has long outgrown the condescension it was once treated with. Starring Celia Johnson as the married woman who falls in love with Trevor Howard’s doctor, and who conducts a guilt-ridden illicit relationship with him, Brief Encounter has re-emerged as a story possessing ‘a romantic and tragic grandeur’, says Peter Bradshaw
• Brief Encounter is re-released on 6 November in the UK
Continue reading...
• Brief Encounter is re-released on 6 November in the UK
Continue reading...
- 11/6/2015
- by Peter Bradshaw and Ken Macfarlane
- The Guardian - Film News
David Lean’s class-confronting 1945 classic about a terribly, terribly British (sort of) affair has forced our critic to think again
Related: In the mood for love: is Brief Encounter still the most romantic film ever?
For most of my life I have utterly scorned Brief Encounter. I hated its emotional constipation, its plummily accented, almost-adulterous middle-class lead characters Laura and Alec (Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard), and their exasperating inability to throw caution to the wind, bite the bullet, and just get it on. I giggled through whole sections of it: a line of voiceover such as, “Alec behaved with such politeness. No one would have guessed what he was feeling,” uttered at a moment of complete sexual despair, would have me rolling on the floor. I thought I was terribly clever to treat it as a comedy, not realising that tragedy and comedy both depend on good timing, and that a moment like,...
Related: In the mood for love: is Brief Encounter still the most romantic film ever?
For most of my life I have utterly scorned Brief Encounter. I hated its emotional constipation, its plummily accented, almost-adulterous middle-class lead characters Laura and Alec (Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard), and their exasperating inability to throw caution to the wind, bite the bullet, and just get it on. I giggled through whole sections of it: a line of voiceover such as, “Alec behaved with such politeness. No one would have guessed what he was feeling,” uttered at a moment of complete sexual despair, would have me rolling on the floor. I thought I was terribly clever to treat it as a comedy, not realising that tragedy and comedy both depend on good timing, and that a moment like,...
- 11/2/2015
- by John Patterson
- The Guardian - Film News
Robert Mitchum ca. late 1940s. Robert Mitchum movies 'The Yakuza,' 'Ryan's Daughter' on TCM Today, Aug. 12, '15, Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” series is highlighting the career of Robert Mitchum. Two of the films being shown this evening are The Yakuza and Ryan's Daughter. The former is one of the disappointingly few TCM premieres this month. (See TCM's Robert Mitchum movie schedule further below.) Despite his film noir background, Robert Mitchum was a somewhat unusual choice to star in The Yakuza (1975), a crime thriller set in the Japanese underworld. Ryan's Daughter or no, Mitchum hadn't been a box office draw in quite some time; in the mid-'70s, one would have expected a Warner Bros. release directed by Sydney Pollack – who had recently handled the likes of Jane Fonda, Barbra Streisand, and Robert Redford – to star someone like Jack Nicholson or Al Pacino or Dustin Hoffman.
- 8/13/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Our weekly feature in which a writer answers the question: if you could force your friends at gunpoint to watch one movie or TV show, what would it be? David Lean is best known for directing such big-screen epics as "Bridge on the River Kwai," "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Doctor Zhivago," but he first came to the attention of American audiences with the small-scale 1945 romantic drama "Brief Encounter," which charts the doomed love affair between two restless Brits (Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard) who are both married with children yet feel stifled by their dry middle-class existences. The film is an adaptation of Noel Coward's one-act play "Still Life," which some contemporary critics suggest was a coded representation of the "forbidden love" Coward experienced as a closeted gay man. The play and Lean's film version could certainly could be construed that way, but even taken straight (no pun intended...
- 6/9/2015
- by Chris Eggertsen
- Hitfix
10. Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948)
Directed by: Max Ophuls
To be honest, the relationship at the center of “Letter from an Unknown Woman” barely even exists. It’s more of a longing from one side than the other. But the ways Ophuls structures the film qualifies it for this list. For the run of the story, we hear a voiceover, explaining the moments in these two characters’ lives. Lisa (Joan Fontaine) is a teenager who becomes obsessed with a pianist who lives in her building named Stefan (Louis Jordan). She only meets him once, but maintains her love for him. After her mother announces they will be moving, Lisa runs away, but sees Stefan with another woman. Lisa becomes a respectable woman and is proposed to by a young, family-focused military officer, whom she turns down, still in love with Stefan, a man she has barely met. Years later, she...
Directed by: Max Ophuls
To be honest, the relationship at the center of “Letter from an Unknown Woman” barely even exists. It’s more of a longing from one side than the other. But the ways Ophuls structures the film qualifies it for this list. For the run of the story, we hear a voiceover, explaining the moments in these two characters’ lives. Lisa (Joan Fontaine) is a teenager who becomes obsessed with a pianist who lives in her building named Stefan (Louis Jordan). She only meets him once, but maintains her love for him. After her mother announces they will be moving, Lisa runs away, but sees Stefan with another woman. Lisa becomes a respectable woman and is proposed to by a young, family-focused military officer, whom she turns down, still in love with Stefan, a man she has barely met. Years later, she...
- 12/2/2014
- by Joshua Gaul
- SoundOnSight
'Henry V' Movie Actress Renée Asherson dead at 99: Laurence Olivier leading lady in acclaimed 1944 film (image: Renée Asherson and Laurence Olivier in 'Henry V') Renée Asherson, a British stage actress featured in London productions of A Streetcar Named Desire and Three Sisters, but best known internationally as Laurence Olivier's leading lady in the 1944 film version of Henry V, died on October 30, 2014. Asherson was 99 years old. The exact cause of death hasn't been specified. She was born Dorothy Renée Ascherson (she would drop the "c" some time after becoming an actress) on May 19, 1915, in Kensington, London, to Jewish parents: businessman Charles Ascherson and his second wife, Dorothy Wiseman -- both of whom narrowly escaped spending their honeymoon aboard the Titanic. (Ascherson cancelled the voyage after suffering an attack of appendicitis.) According to Michael Coveney's The Guardian obit for the actress, Renée Asherson was "scantly...
- 11/5/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Best British movies of all time? (Image: a young Michael Caine in 'Get Carter') Ten years ago, Get Carter, starring Michael Caine as a dangerous-looking London gangster (see photo above), was selected as the United Kingdom's very best movie of all time according to 25 British film critics polled by Total Film magazine. To say that Mike Hodges' 1971 thriller was a surprising choice would be an understatement. I mean, not a David Lean epic or an early Alfred Hitchcock thriller? What a difference ten years make. On Total Film's 2014 list, published last May, Get Carter was no. 44 among the magazine's Top 50 best British movies of all time. How could that be? Well, first of all, people would be very naive if they took such lists seriously, whether we're talking Total Film, the British Film Institute, or, to keep things British, Sight & Sound magazine. Second, whereas Total Film's 2004 list was the result of a 25-critic consensus,...
- 10/12/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Honorary Award: Gloria Swanson, Rita Hayworth among dozens of women bypassed by the Academy (photo: Honorary Award non-winner Gloria Swanson in 'Sunset Blvd.') (See previous post: "Honorary Oscars: Doris Day, Danielle Darrieux Snubbed.") Part three of this four-part article about the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Honorary Award bypassing women basically consists of a long, long — and for the most part quite prestigious — list of deceased women who, some way or other, left their mark on the film world. Some of the names found below are still well known; others were huge in their day, but are now all but forgotten. Yet, just because most people (and the media) suffer from long-term — and even medium-term — memory loss, that doesn't mean these women were any less deserving of an Honorary Oscar. So, among the distinguished female film professionals in Hollywood and elsewhere who have passed away without...
- 9/4/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Palais des Festivals at the 2013 Cannes Film FestivalPhoto: RopeofSilicon.com The 2014 Cannes Film Festival begins in just two days and since I won't be able to attend this year I still wanted to do something Cannes-related. I started looking back over the years of the festival, which is celebrating its 67th edition this year. I considered going back and reviewing 15-16 films from a specific year in the past, but I thought of it too late. I then started looking over the history of past winners, and while I realize I haven't seen even half of the Cannes Film Festival winners I thought it would be fun to take a look at a list of the top ten I had seen, assuming readers could add their thoughts in the comments, suggesting some titles I have not yet seen or those you believe belong in the top ten. As we all know,...
- 5/12/2014
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
(1945-53, StudioCanal, PG)
A public school boy from the professional middle-class, the ruggedly handsome Trevor Howard (1913-88) was the first new British star to emerge after the second world war, usually playing middle-class professionals – doctors, lawyers, military men, colonial officials. He was, however, Oscar-nominated as Paul Morel's hard-drinking, working-class father in Sons and Lovers (1960).
His movie career lasted more than 40 years, but his most memorable star parts came early on. Five of these are in this excellent box set, starting with his decent doctor caught up in a chaste but passionate affair with housewife Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter (1945), a classic example of British understatement, and the first of his three films with David Lean. This is followed by his cynical intelligence officer pursuing black marketeer Harry Lime through the sewers of postwar Vienna in the Carol Reed-Graham Greene masterpiece The Third Man (1949).
In the third film,...
A public school boy from the professional middle-class, the ruggedly handsome Trevor Howard (1913-88) was the first new British star to emerge after the second world war, usually playing middle-class professionals – doctors, lawyers, military men, colonial officials. He was, however, Oscar-nominated as Paul Morel's hard-drinking, working-class father in Sons and Lovers (1960).
His movie career lasted more than 40 years, but his most memorable star parts came early on. Five of these are in this excellent box set, starting with his decent doctor caught up in a chaste but passionate affair with housewife Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter (1945), a classic example of British understatement, and the first of his three films with David Lean. This is followed by his cynical intelligence officer pursuing black marketeer Harry Lime through the sewers of postwar Vienna in the Carol Reed-Graham Greene masterpiece The Third Man (1949).
In the third film,...
- 10/5/2013
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Feature Aliya Whiteley 26 Sep 2013 - 07:13
An acting great British of the post-war era, Trevor Howard's the subject of a new movie box set. Aliya looks at its five classic films...
It's difficult to describe Trevor Howard. I could start by saying he was a great leading man of British post-war cinema, but that leaves out his supporting turns in films like The Third Man, and his character performances, such as Captain Bligh in Mutiny On The Bounty (1962), or Sir Henry At Rawlinson End (1980). He could be called an upper-class gentleman, but in Sons And Lovers (1960) he played a Nottinghamshire miner perfectly.
I could talk about how he wasn't traditionally handsome, but the look in his eyes when he falls passionately for Celia Johnson (Brief Encounter) contains a male beauty that continues to define cinematic love today. Or maybe I could mention how perfectly he inhabited the role of...
An acting great British of the post-war era, Trevor Howard's the subject of a new movie box set. Aliya looks at its five classic films...
It's difficult to describe Trevor Howard. I could start by saying he was a great leading man of British post-war cinema, but that leaves out his supporting turns in films like The Third Man, and his character performances, such as Captain Bligh in Mutiny On The Bounty (1962), or Sir Henry At Rawlinson End (1980). He could be called an upper-class gentleman, but in Sons And Lovers (1960) he played a Nottinghamshire miner perfectly.
I could talk about how he wasn't traditionally handsome, but the look in his eyes when he falls passionately for Celia Johnson (Brief Encounter) contains a male beauty that continues to define cinematic love today. Or maybe I could mention how perfectly he inhabited the role of...
- 9/25/2013
- by ryanlambie
- Den of Geek
As Soderbergh's Liberace biopic hits our screens, why is it that homosexual love stories now work so much better than hetero?
I know where I'll be Sunday night. The reviews coming out of Cannes for Steven Soderbergh's Liberace biopic, Behind the Candelabra, which airs on HBO on Sunday night, have turned it into must-see TV.
We might have been able to guess that Soderbergh's take on the kitsch-addicted superstar would turn out to be "mesmeric, riskily incorrect, outrageously watchable and simply outrageous" (The Guardian). Or that Michael Douglas would be "shrewd, rude, wickedly funny" (Indiewire) in the central role. What is interesting is that the film, which was made for HBO because it was "too gay" for mainstream cinematic release, has turned out to be "both hilarious and heartrending" (The Playlist), an "intimate love story" (Thompson on Hollywood) and Soderbergh's "most emotional and touching work" to date (Hollywood Elsewhere...
I know where I'll be Sunday night. The reviews coming out of Cannes for Steven Soderbergh's Liberace biopic, Behind the Candelabra, which airs on HBO on Sunday night, have turned it into must-see TV.
We might have been able to guess that Soderbergh's take on the kitsch-addicted superstar would turn out to be "mesmeric, riskily incorrect, outrageously watchable and simply outrageous" (The Guardian). Or that Michael Douglas would be "shrewd, rude, wickedly funny" (Indiewire) in the central role. What is interesting is that the film, which was made for HBO because it was "too gay" for mainstream cinematic release, has turned out to be "both hilarious and heartrending" (The Playlist), an "intimate love story" (Thompson on Hollywood) and Soderbergh's "most emotional and touching work" to date (Hollywood Elsewhere...
- 5/23/2013
- by Tom Shone
- The Guardian - Film News
Brief Encounter has beaten Casablanca to the title of 'Best Romantic Film' in a new list for Time Out London.
The list was compiled with input from 101 industry experts, including actor Richard Gere, directors Judd Apatow and Edgar Wright, and Miss Piggy of The Muppets.
> Read the full top 100 on the 'Time Out' website
Time Out London's film editor Dave Calhoun said: "What makes the Time Out list so exciting and unusual is that it's not just the opinion of three sun-starved film critics sitting in a darkened room and writing a list.
"Instead, we got off our sofas and asked 101 real experts in movies and romance for their personal take on the matter - and our top 100 romantic films reflects their very personal choices."
Topping the list was David Lean's 1946 drama Brief Encounter, written by Noël Coward and starring Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway and Joyce Carey.
The list was compiled with input from 101 industry experts, including actor Richard Gere, directors Judd Apatow and Edgar Wright, and Miss Piggy of The Muppets.
> Read the full top 100 on the 'Time Out' website
Time Out London's film editor Dave Calhoun said: "What makes the Time Out list so exciting and unusual is that it's not just the opinion of three sun-starved film critics sitting in a darkened room and writing a list.
"Instead, we got off our sofas and asked 101 real experts in movies and romance for their personal take on the matter - and our top 100 romantic films reflects their very personal choices."
Topping the list was David Lean's 1946 drama Brief Encounter, written by Noël Coward and starring Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway and Joyce Carey.
- 4/24/2013
- Digital Spy
Brief Encounter
Directed by David Lean
Starring Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard
UK, 86 min – 1945
“Do you know, I believe we should all behave quite differently if we lived in a warm, sunny climate all the time. We shouldn’t be so withdrawn and shy and difficult.”
****
Huddled in the corner of a tea shop on the train platform, Laura Jesson and Dr. Alec Harvey (Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard) hold hands. At first, they could be husband and wife – the wife going to the station to see off her husband on a long journey. When Laura’s oblivious acquaintance makes herself comfortable at Laura and Alec’s table, it becomes clear that they are not a couple at all. Laura and Alec are two people at the end of an affair.
David Lean’s Brief Encounter is on the surface a tale about unrequited love, much like many other romantic...
Directed by David Lean
Starring Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard
UK, 86 min – 1945
“Do you know, I believe we should all behave quite differently if we lived in a warm, sunny climate all the time. We shouldn’t be so withdrawn and shy and difficult.”
****
Huddled in the corner of a tea shop on the train platform, Laura Jesson and Dr. Alec Harvey (Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard) hold hands. At first, they could be husband and wife – the wife going to the station to see off her husband on a long journey. When Laura’s oblivious acquaintance makes herself comfortable at Laura and Alec’s table, it becomes clear that they are not a couple at all. Laura and Alec are two people at the end of an affair.
David Lean’s Brief Encounter is on the surface a tale about unrequited love, much like many other romantic...
- 3/28/2013
- by Karen Bacellar
- SoundOnSight
Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine – romcoms used to be anything but bland
With this year's Oscar-nominated Silver Linings Playbook, Hollywood is attempting to get down and dirty with real people and real problems. But Us films are notoriously bad at this. I Give It a Year is a British comedy about falling out of love – not a romcom, more of a romp-incomp. But whatever happened to the simple idea of the innocently zany finding love?
Reading this on mobile? Click here
Being abnormal used to be normal. In movies such as The Apartment (1960), it was redemptive. Cc Baxter (Jack Lemmon) and Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine) are outsiders who've missed the boat, careerwise and hopewise. She's wasting her time on a married man, while Baxter is caught in a sexual vortex established by his superiors, who have clandestine trysts in his apartment while "Buddy Boy" gets...
With this year's Oscar-nominated Silver Linings Playbook, Hollywood is attempting to get down and dirty with real people and real problems. But Us films are notoriously bad at this. I Give It a Year is a British comedy about falling out of love – not a romcom, more of a romp-incomp. But whatever happened to the simple idea of the innocently zany finding love?
Reading this on mobile? Click here
Being abnormal used to be normal. In movies such as The Apartment (1960), it was redemptive. Cc Baxter (Jack Lemmon) and Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine) are outsiders who've missed the boat, careerwise and hopewise. She's wasting her time on a married man, while Baxter is caught in a sexual vortex established by his superiors, who have clandestine trysts in his apartment while "Buddy Boy" gets...
- 2/14/2013
- by Lucy Ellmann
- The Guardian - Film News
Sarah Polley's beautifully acted film about a marriage in crisis and an liberating affair is truthful and moving
Five years ago, the actress Sarah Polley made an impressive debut as writer-director with Away From Her, an adaptation of her fellow Canadian Alice Munro's superb New Yorker story The Bear Came Over the Mountain. It's about a professional couple in rural Ontario who, after 44 years of marriage, have to come to terms with the wife developing Alzheimer's disease, and it brought a well-deserved Oscar nomination to Julie Christie. Polley's second film, Take This Waltz, based on her own original screenplay, also involves the confrontation of a crisis in a Canadian marriage but this time featuring a much younger couple. The result is equally remarkable and immensely moving.
The film is seen almost entirely from the point of view of Margot, a 28-year-old freelance journalist, and Michelle Williams, one of...
Five years ago, the actress Sarah Polley made an impressive debut as writer-director with Away From Her, an adaptation of her fellow Canadian Alice Munro's superb New Yorker story The Bear Came Over the Mountain. It's about a professional couple in rural Ontario who, after 44 years of marriage, have to come to terms with the wife developing Alzheimer's disease, and it brought a well-deserved Oscar nomination to Julie Christie. Polley's second film, Take This Waltz, based on her own original screenplay, also involves the confrontation of a crisis in a Canadian marriage but this time featuring a much younger couple. The result is equally remarkable and immensely moving.
The film is seen almost entirely from the point of view of Margot, a 28-year-old freelance journalist, and Michelle Williams, one of...
- 8/18/2012
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
By Harvey Chartrand
Frank Langella played an aging writer in Starting Out in the Evening (2007). Who would have figured this for typecasting?
In his superb memoir, Dropped Names: Famous Men and Women As I Knew Them (HarperCollins), Langella reveals that he is an incomparable memoirist and storyteller, recalling his encounters with scores of luminaries from the world of entertainment in a career spanning half a century. All of these luminaries are deceased and the cast of characters is listed “by order of disappearance”. Just as well, as many of the revelations are quite shocking.
Langella must be the most sociable and congenial actor on the planet, as the busyness of his social and professional lives and the breadth and depth of his friendships, romantic liaisons and acquaintances are very impressive indeed. He met Marilyn Monroe in 1953. She stepped out of a limousine and said “hi” to the adolescent from Bayonne,...
Frank Langella played an aging writer in Starting Out in the Evening (2007). Who would have figured this for typecasting?
In his superb memoir, Dropped Names: Famous Men and Women As I Knew Them (HarperCollins), Langella reveals that he is an incomparable memoirist and storyteller, recalling his encounters with scores of luminaries from the world of entertainment in a career spanning half a century. All of these luminaries are deceased and the cast of characters is listed “by order of disappearance”. Just as well, as many of the revelations are quite shocking.
Langella must be the most sociable and congenial actor on the planet, as the busyness of his social and professional lives and the breadth and depth of his friendships, romantic liaisons and acquaintances are very impressive indeed. He met Marilyn Monroe in 1953. She stepped out of a limousine and said “hi” to the adolescent from Bayonne,...
- 7/13/2012
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Nicholas de Jongh pays tribute to the Brief Encounter star
Celia Johnson died in her prime - at the age of 73. There was no other actress on the English stage whose career reached its zenith, a luminous Indian summer on both stage and television, in middle and old age. She defined to perfection a social type occupying the entrenched territories of middle and upper-middle class gentility, whose crisp, understated manners and stringent lack of sentimentality she conveyed to the manner born.
Yet she did not simply serve as a comprehensive guide-book to or map of a contracting portion of England. She incarnated qualities both of restraint and of passion; she knew everything about high English comedy whose airs of distraction and self-absorbed remoteness she conveyed so sharply in Coward's Hay Fever and Ayckbourn's Relatively Speaking; more surprisingly she was able in old age to act indelibly roles of high tragic velocity and pathos,...
Celia Johnson died in her prime - at the age of 73. There was no other actress on the English stage whose career reached its zenith, a luminous Indian summer on both stage and television, in middle and old age. She defined to perfection a social type occupying the entrenched territories of middle and upper-middle class gentility, whose crisp, understated manners and stringent lack of sentimentality she conveyed to the manner born.
Yet she did not simply serve as a comprehensive guide-book to or map of a contracting portion of England. She incarnated qualities both of restraint and of passion; she knew everything about high English comedy whose airs of distraction and self-absorbed remoteness she conveyed so sharply in Coward's Hay Fever and Ayckbourn's Relatively Speaking; more surprisingly she was able in old age to act indelibly roles of high tragic velocity and pathos,...
- 4/27/2012
- by Nicholas de Jongh
- The Guardian - Film News
DVD Playhouse—April 2012
By Allen Gardner
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (Warner Bros.) An eleven year-old boy (newcomer Thomas Horn, in an incredible debut) discovers a mysterious key amongst the possessions of his late father (Tom Hanks) who perished in 9/11. Determined to find the lock it matches, the boy embarks on a Picaresque odyssey across New York City. Director Stephen Daldry and screenwriter Eric Roth have fashioned a film both grand and intimate, beautifully-adapted from Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel, thought by most who read it to be unfilmable. Fine support from Jeffrey Wright, Sandra Bullock, John Goodman, Viola Davis and the great Max von Sydow. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Featurettes. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS-hd 5.1 surround.
Battle Royale: The Complete Collection (Anchor Bay) Adapted from Koushun Takami’s polarizing novel (compared by champions and detractors alike as a 21st century version of A Clockwork Orange) and set in a futuristic Japan,...
By Allen Gardner
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (Warner Bros.) An eleven year-old boy (newcomer Thomas Horn, in an incredible debut) discovers a mysterious key amongst the possessions of his late father (Tom Hanks) who perished in 9/11. Determined to find the lock it matches, the boy embarks on a Picaresque odyssey across New York City. Director Stephen Daldry and screenwriter Eric Roth have fashioned a film both grand and intimate, beautifully-adapted from Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel, thought by most who read it to be unfilmable. Fine support from Jeffrey Wright, Sandra Bullock, John Goodman, Viola Davis and the great Max von Sydow. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Featurettes. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS-hd 5.1 surround.
Battle Royale: The Complete Collection (Anchor Bay) Adapted from Koushun Takami’s polarizing novel (compared by champions and detractors alike as a 21st century version of A Clockwork Orange) and set in a futuristic Japan,...
- 4/13/2012
- by The Hollywood Interview.com
- The Hollywood Interview
On Blu-ray and DVD
4-Disk Box Set
By Raymond Benson
Any fan of British cinema must celebrate Criterion’s deluxe packaging of David Lean’s first four films as a director. These collaborations with writer, performer, and “personality” Noël Coward are exemplary examples of the fine work made by the Two Cities Unit production house, which was formed during the Second World War. In each case, the films are presented in beautiful new high-definition digital transfers from the 2008 BFI National Archive’s restorations. And, as this is a review for Cinema Retro, the readers of which include many 007 fans, it must be pointed out that there is indeed a connection between the films (three of them, anyway) and Bond. Actress Celia Johnson was Ian Fleming’s sister-in-law (her husband was Ian’s older brother, Peter Fleming), and her daughters Kate Grimond and Lucy Fleming are currently on the Board of...
4-Disk Box Set
By Raymond Benson
Any fan of British cinema must celebrate Criterion’s deluxe packaging of David Lean’s first four films as a director. These collaborations with writer, performer, and “personality” Noël Coward are exemplary examples of the fine work made by the Two Cities Unit production house, which was formed during the Second World War. In each case, the films are presented in beautiful new high-definition digital transfers from the 2008 BFI National Archive’s restorations. And, as this is a review for Cinema Retro, the readers of which include many 007 fans, it must be pointed out that there is indeed a connection between the films (three of them, anyway) and Bond. Actress Celia Johnson was Ian Fleming’s sister-in-law (her husband was Ian’s older brother, Peter Fleming), and her daughters Kate Grimond and Lucy Fleming are currently on the Board of...
- 3/25/2012
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Photo by Liam Daniel.
"I don't want you
But I hate to lose you
You've got me inbetween
The devil and the deep blue sea." —Harold Arlen & Ted Koehler
The idiom "between the devil and the deep blue sea" refers to a dilemma where one must choose between two undesirable situations. In Terence Davies' filmic adaptation of Terence Rattigan's 1952 play of the same name—The Deep Blue Sea (2011) was commissioned by the Sir Terence Rattigan Charitable Trust to commemorate the centenary of the playwright—it might be thought that Davies is playing with the idiom's unconfirmed nautical origins. As a portrait of class structure in post-wwii England, Davies could be said to be borrowing from the reference that "between the devil and the deep blue sea" signifies how English Navy sailors were pressed unwillingly into service and then positioned beneath the upper deck (officer territory). Or, perhaps more accurate to its romantic subtext,...
"I don't want you
But I hate to lose you
You've got me inbetween
The devil and the deep blue sea." —Harold Arlen & Ted Koehler
The idiom "between the devil and the deep blue sea" refers to a dilemma where one must choose between two undesirable situations. In Terence Davies' filmic adaptation of Terence Rattigan's 1952 play of the same name—The Deep Blue Sea (2011) was commissioned by the Sir Terence Rattigan Charitable Trust to commemorate the centenary of the playwright—it might be thought that Davies is playing with the idiom's unconfirmed nautical origins. As a portrait of class structure in post-wwii England, Davies could be said to be borrowing from the reference that "between the devil and the deep blue sea" signifies how English Navy sailors were pressed unwillingly into service and then positioned beneath the upper deck (officer territory). Or, perhaps more accurate to its romantic subtext,...
- 3/21/2012
- MUBI
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: March 27, 2012
Price: DVD $79.95, Blu-ray $99.95
Studio: Criterion
Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson embark on a Brief Encounter.
In the 1940s, playwright Noël Coward (Design for Living) and filmmaker David Lean (Doctor Zhivago) worked together in one of cinema’s greatest writer-director collaborations, celebrated in the four-film Blu-ray and DVD collection David Lean Directs Noël Coward.
Beginning with the 1942 wartime military drama movie In Which We Serve, Coward and Lean embarked on a series of literate, socially engaged and undeniably entertaining movies that ranged from domestic epic (This Happy Breed) to whimsical comedy (Blithe Spirit) to poignant romance (Brief Encounter).
Here’s a brief run-down on each of the classic British films in the David Lean Directs Noël Coward DVD and Blu-ray collection, all of which created a lasting testament to Coward’s legacy and introduced Lean’s talents to the world:
In Which We Serve (1942)
This action...
Price: DVD $79.95, Blu-ray $99.95
Studio: Criterion
Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson embark on a Brief Encounter.
In the 1940s, playwright Noël Coward (Design for Living) and filmmaker David Lean (Doctor Zhivago) worked together in one of cinema’s greatest writer-director collaborations, celebrated in the four-film Blu-ray and DVD collection David Lean Directs Noël Coward.
Beginning with the 1942 wartime military drama movie In Which We Serve, Coward and Lean embarked on a series of literate, socially engaged and undeniably entertaining movies that ranged from domestic epic (This Happy Breed) to whimsical comedy (Blithe Spirit) to poignant romance (Brief Encounter).
Here’s a brief run-down on each of the classic British films in the David Lean Directs Noël Coward DVD and Blu-ray collection, all of which created a lasting testament to Coward’s legacy and introduced Lean’s talents to the world:
In Which We Serve (1942)
This action...
- 12/16/2011
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
Julianne Moore, Far from Heaven For decades, the New York Film Critics Circle Awards have been considered a precursor of the Academy Awards. Movies, performers, directors — and later cinematographers and screenwriters — singled out by the Nyfcc usually have gone on to receive Oscar nominations, oftentimes the golden statuette itself. The New York critics awards also have the reputation of being "snooty" and "artsy." Are they? When it comes to serving as a precursor of the Academy Awards, the answer would have to be a resounding Yes despite a number of Nyfcc winners eventually bypassed by (most of) the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voters. As for the Nyfcc's "artsy" choices … Well, that depends on your idea of "artsy." If choosing John Ford's box-office disappointment The Informer as Best Film of 1935 makes the New York critics artsy, then they were. If selecting a couple of non-Hollywood British actresses (Celia Johnson,...
- 11/30/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Terence Rattigan's romantic drama set in a repressive postwar Britain is brought to the big screen superbly by Terence Davies
If we count his first three short films made on shoestring budgets between 1976 and 1983 as a trilogy, and his next, Distant Voices, Still Lives, as a diptych (they were actually made separately), Terence Davies has directed a mere seven films in 35 years. This puts him in the same exclusive league for low output and high quality as his contemporary, Terrence Malick. Davies's last film, Of Time and the City (2008), was a withering documentary about the sad decline of his hometown, Liverpool, and it followed two feature pictures adapted from American novels set at different times and in different American milieux, John Kennedy Toole's The Neon Bible and Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth.
His outstanding new movie, The Deep Blue Sea, is a version of a play by Terence Rattigan,...
If we count his first three short films made on shoestring budgets between 1976 and 1983 as a trilogy, and his next, Distant Voices, Still Lives, as a diptych (they were actually made separately), Terence Davies has directed a mere seven films in 35 years. This puts him in the same exclusive league for low output and high quality as his contemporary, Terrence Malick. Davies's last film, Of Time and the City (2008), was a withering documentary about the sad decline of his hometown, Liverpool, and it followed two feature pictures adapted from American novels set at different times and in different American milieux, John Kennedy Toole's The Neon Bible and Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth.
His outstanding new movie, The Deep Blue Sea, is a version of a play by Terence Rattigan,...
- 11/27/2011
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Rachel Weisz shines in a melancholy Rattigan adaptation, writes Peter Bradshaw
This misery can't last, says Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter … not even life lasts very long. There is much misery in Terence Davies's new movie, and much of the fear that Cs Lewis said was like grief, and also a kind of vertigo and euphoria at looking directly, as if for the first time, at the mystery of existence: the painful, intractable mystery romantic love will never quite be able to solve or explain away.
It's an impressionistic adaptation of Terence Rattigan's play about the young wife of a kindly, dull High Court judge. In 1950, she falls passionately in love with Freddie, a hard-drinking former Raf pilot whom she finds is more in love with his own heroic past. Rachel Weisz performs with enormous intelligence and restraint as Hester; Tom Hiddleston is the prickly airman, horrified by...
This misery can't last, says Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter … not even life lasts very long. There is much misery in Terence Davies's new movie, and much of the fear that Cs Lewis said was like grief, and also a kind of vertigo and euphoria at looking directly, as if for the first time, at the mystery of existence: the painful, intractable mystery romantic love will never quite be able to solve or explain away.
It's an impressionistic adaptation of Terence Rattigan's play about the young wife of a kindly, dull High Court judge. In 1950, she falls passionately in love with Freddie, a hard-drinking former Raf pilot whom she finds is more in love with his own heroic past. Rachel Weisz performs with enormous intelligence and restraint as Hester; Tom Hiddleston is the prickly airman, horrified by...
- 11/25/2011
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
This intriguing feature-length documentary by 1997 Turner prize artist Gillian Wearing is simple in conception and infinitely complex, both morally and aesthetically, in execution. A newspaper ad invites members of the public to participate in a method-acting experiment that would lead to them discovering their inner selves, which would be realised through scenes dramatising their alter egos. Seven applicants, mostly from the north-west of England, are chosen, all go through classes conducted by the charismatic teacher Sam Rumbelow, and five are channelled into mini-films that range through a troubled daughter playing Cordelia, a professional Lear, a would-be suicide identifying with the last days of Mussolini, and a sad 40-year-old romantic casting herself as a working-class Celia Johnson in a deadly serious reworking of Brief Encounter. This is a glib, exploitative project that toys with vulnerable people. It is perhaps of limited interest to popular audiences, but of value to film and drama students.
- 9/3/2011
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Ok, so we’ve had another – albeit much lower key – royal wedding this weekend, as the Queens granddaughter Zara Phillips wed her Rugby captain boyfriend Mike Tindall…so I’m feeling all patriotic again and want to let you know what I believe are the 10 Greatest British films of all time!
Us Brits produce a diverse range of films these days, covering anything from psychological horror to mushy romantic comedies via gripping wartime thrillers and tense emotional dramas. And by George, we do it blooming well at times! So in honour of celebrating all that is spiffing about this glorious nation of ours, here’s what I consider to be the 10 greatest British films of all time…
10. The Lavender Hill Mob (1951)
Combining hilarious madcap comedy with thrills and suspense aplenty, this Ealing film is exactly what comedy is about. One of the films that helped give the studio a name for itself,...
Us Brits produce a diverse range of films these days, covering anything from psychological horror to mushy romantic comedies via gripping wartime thrillers and tense emotional dramas. And by George, we do it blooming well at times! So in honour of celebrating all that is spiffing about this glorious nation of ours, here’s what I consider to be the 10 greatest British films of all time…
10. The Lavender Hill Mob (1951)
Combining hilarious madcap comedy with thrills and suspense aplenty, this Ealing film is exactly what comedy is about. One of the films that helped give the studio a name for itself,...
- 8/4/2011
- by Stuart Cummins
- Obsessed with Film
Director best known for Georgy Girl, a romantic comedy set in 60s London
The film and TV director Silvio Narizzano, who has died aged 84, handled several genres throughout his career, including black comedies, period pieces, social dramas, action thrillers and horror movies. But one picture, his swinging London romantic comedy Georgy Girl (1966), stands out from the rest of his eclectic filmography.
Georgy Girl was part of the trend in which British cinema shifted the focus from provincial life and back to the metropolis, celebrating new freedoms and social possibilities. Narizzano, influenced by the French New Wave and his chic contemporaries Richard Lester, John Schlesinger and Tony Richardson, explored such "shocking" subjects as abortion, illegitimacy, adultery and sexual promiscuity with a light touch. The film, which took its cue from the jaunty title song by the Seekers, had superb performances from Lynn Redgrave as the virginal and plain Georgina; Charlotte Rampling...
The film and TV director Silvio Narizzano, who has died aged 84, handled several genres throughout his career, including black comedies, period pieces, social dramas, action thrillers and horror movies. But one picture, his swinging London romantic comedy Georgy Girl (1966), stands out from the rest of his eclectic filmography.
Georgy Girl was part of the trend in which British cinema shifted the focus from provincial life and back to the metropolis, celebrating new freedoms and social possibilities. Narizzano, influenced by the French New Wave and his chic contemporaries Richard Lester, John Schlesinger and Tony Richardson, explored such "shocking" subjects as abortion, illegitimacy, adultery and sexual promiscuity with a light touch. The film, which took its cue from the jaunty title song by the Seekers, had superb performances from Lynn Redgrave as the virginal and plain Georgina; Charlotte Rampling...
- 7/29/2011
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
Silvio Narizzano, best known for the 1966 swinging London comedy-drama Georgy Girl, died July 26. Narizzano was 84. Based on Margaret Forster's novel, and starring Lynn Redgrave, Alan Bates, James Mason, and Charlotte Rampling, Georgy Girl was considered daring at the time because its plot included sex (of the non-marital kind), abortion, and adultery. For her performance as the homely, ungainly Georgy, Lynn Redgrave was nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award and for a BAFTA in the Best British Actress category. Additionally, she shared the New York Film Critics Circle's Best Actress Award with (eventual Oscar winner) Elizabeth Taylor (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?). Narizzano, for his part, was nominated by the Directors Guild of America. Born in Montreal (Feb. 8, 1927) to an Italian-American family, Narizzano began his show business career on the Canadian stage and television. He later moved to the United Kingdom, where he worked on British TV. Narizzano's first...
- 7/28/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
The beauty of film is that it permits us licence to experience things we really shouldn't. This week's clips offer a taste of extramarital forbidden fruit
Imagine suddenly no one had any inhibitions. And everyone grew a really thick skin. Film would be in trouble. For part of cinema's appeal is that it grants us licence to live out our wildest fantasies, in airbrushed form, without the repercussions that might result from real-life indulgence.
Small wonder, then, that affairs are so numerous on the big screen. They're replete in everything that people like at the movies: love, sex, drama, heartbreak. But the best ones are not necessarily those which form the backbone of a film – I've intentionally tried to avoid those whose titles give the game away from the off, such as Indecent Proposal and Unfaithful.
1) Still, you've got to make room for Brief Encounter. Here's Celia Johnson: showing...
Imagine suddenly no one had any inhibitions. And everyone grew a really thick skin. Film would be in trouble. For part of cinema's appeal is that it grants us licence to live out our wildest fantasies, in airbrushed form, without the repercussions that might result from real-life indulgence.
Small wonder, then, that affairs are so numerous on the big screen. They're replete in everything that people like at the movies: love, sex, drama, heartbreak. But the best ones are not necessarily those which form the backbone of a film – I've intentionally tried to avoid those whose titles give the game away from the off, such as Indecent Proposal and Unfaithful.
1) Still, you've got to make room for Brief Encounter. Here's Celia Johnson: showing...
- 7/6/2011
- The Guardian - Film News
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