| LiLo looking to cut probation terms Lindsay Lohan is trying to shorten the terms of her probation. feeds.breakingnews.ie |
Goodfellas: No 10 Martin Scorsese, 1990Has Martin Scorsese made a better film in the last two decades than this visceral insider's view of New York mob existence, drawn from the real-life story of Henry Hill? Whatever you make of its morals, and the charge that it glamourises the mafia, it's hard to deny the sheer explosive power of Goodfellas, still undiminished 20 years after its release. Mafia allure is precisely what the film is about. Ray Liotta's Henry Hill says it loud and clear at the very start: "As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster. To me, being a gangster was better than being president of the United States."To this young, half-Sicilian half-Irish kid growing up in an impoverished Brooklyn, joining the local mob opens up a world where everything exists for the taking. It means sharp suits, flash cars, gold watches, beautiful women. It means being able to ignore the line at the Copacabana and swagger through the kitchens with your girlfriend while a table is being laid for you up front – a scene that Scorsese unfolds in a masterful 184-second tracking shot, one of the most celebrated in cinema. The photography, by Michael Ballhaus, is one of many pleasures here. Thelma Schoonmaker's editing, notable for its use of jump cuts and freeze-frames, gives this two-and-a-half-hour movie its blistering speed. The ensemble cast is magnificent, particularly Robert De Niro as Henry's mentor Jimmy Conway and, in a gleefully nasty turn, Joe Pesci as his partner-in-crime, Tommy DeVito. DeVito shows how instantly the good life can give way to horrific violence. And Henry's trajectory through the film, as he spirals into drug use and paranoia in the late 70s, reveals an altogether more bleak vision of criminality. But the overriding impression we are left with is of the irresistible appeal of being a gangster. It's driven home in the final scene with Henry, in witness protection, bemoaning the awfulness of living as an "average nobody". This, depending on your point of view, is the film's fatal flaw, or its masterstroke.CrimeMartin ScorseseKillian Foxguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
The greatest films of all time: Sci-fi and fantasy Science fiction has produced some of cinema's boldest and most glorious flights – in every sense. Sometimes patronised as kids' stuff, the genre seeks to look beyond the parochialism of most realist drama: to see other worlds and other existences, and therefore to look with a new, radically alienated eye at our own. Maybe something in the limitless possibilities of cinema itself spawned sci-fi.George Meliès's A Trip to the Moon (1902) was one of early cinema's biggest hits. In the middle of the 20th century, sci-fi inhabited the B-picture world of monsters and rockets and intuited a "red scare" anxiety about aliens. At the end of the 60s, Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey broke through into a new level of poetry and wonder. Films like Dark Star and Alien worked a satirical, pessimistic darkness into sci-fi, but George Lucas and Steven Spielberg together expressed its lighter, more hopeful strain. In the 21st century, the Wachowskis' The Matrix and Christopher Nolan's Inception have explored new, interior landscapes: the inner world of the mind may be the genre's new frontier.Science fiction and fantasyPeter Bradshawguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Elton John and Lady Gaga record duet Hello, Hello to feature in animated Disney film about two lovestruck garden gnomesElton John and Lady Gaga have recorded an original duet for a forthcoming animated Disney film. Instead of revisiting a classic hit, such as Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me, or reinventing a contemporary anthem, such as Paparazzi, the pop stars' first ever studio collaboration is instead dedicated to a magical gnome. His name – no kidding – is Gnomeo.The track, Hello, Hello, will appear on the soundtrack to Gnomeo and Juliet, a Disney film due in February 2011. As you may have guessed, this is the tale of two pointy-hatted lovers, both of whom normally reside on garden lawns. If this idea seems absurd, you are made of different stuff than John, who in addition to recording the soundtrack, is one of the film's producers.Gnomeo and Juliet, directed by Shrek 2's Kelly Asbury, will feature CGI gnomes voiced by James McAvoy and Emily Blunt. Michael Caine, Stephen Merchant and Ozzy Osbourne also reportedly lent their voices to the production. The film is a long-time "passion project" for John, according to Animation magazine, which claims the singer has worked on the movie for more than a decade.Sir Elton and Lady Gaga performed together at February's Grammy awards, where they opened the gala with three of their songs. "I'd love to [work with her] in the future," John told Entertainment Weekly at the time. "She's so busy, and I'm so busy, so we can never get together." But sometimes patience is for the best. As Shakespeare wrote, in a play about lovers who don't have long white beards: "Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast."Elton JohnLady GagaPop and rockAnimationSean Michaelsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Travolta calls in lawyers over sex claims JOHN Travolta, whose wife has just given birth, is ready to sue over his alleged secret sex life. news.com.au |