TOP 100 ACTOR SITES
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| This week's DVD and Blu-ray releases SuspiriaDVD & Blu-ray, NouveauxFilm is a visual medium. That fact should have you slapping your forehead saying "Well, duh!" but it's nevertheless something that many film-makers forget as they churn out flat visuals and deliver something more akin to a stage play caught on CCTV than anything truly cinematic. Dario Argento's 1977 classic horror Suspiria takes things to such extremes visually, it often pushes away such trifles as dialogue and logic to blow the mind and assault the eyes and ears. Before this film, Argento had made stylish "Giallo" murder mysteries that, while often dealing with dreams and fractured memories, were based in the real world. For Suspiria he freed himself completely from such shackles to deliver a truly nightmarish tale of witchcraft. Using an outmoded Technicolor film printing process, and inspired by such moody and atmospheric non-horror films as Disney's Snow White and Powell and Pressburger's The Red Shoes, Argento let the pictures do the talking. Actually, it's more like they're screaming. If you've only encountered this film on the previous shoddy DVD release or, lord help us, YouTube, you'd be justified in wondering what all the fuss is about. The story isn't much more than the one-line summary: American dancer travels to study at a German ballet academy where students are spectacularly and brutally murdered by forces unknown. But it's soaked in colour and atmosphere, with a remarkable score by Italian prog-rockers Goblin. It's a film to experience rather than simply observe. Now, thanks to this finessed remastering, you can.(500) Days Of SummerDVD & Blu-ray, FoxIt's pretty bold for a romantic comedy to open with the claim that it's "not your typical love story" but this lives up to it by quickly delivering the news that the couple here don't end up together. Despite that earth-shaker it's still more romantic and comedic than you'd expect, and way more realistic. Greeting card designer Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) falls head over heels for kooky, charming office temp Summer (Zooey Deschanel, playing every kooky, charming card she's ever been dealt), and we join their relationship on day 500 when it is all finally over. How it got there is unravelled by a narrative that flips seemingly at random through their romance, comparing and contrasting different stages: Tom's jokes are well received by Summer at first, for example, but then become grating to her. It's incredibly well put-together. Ex-music video director Marc Webb stuffs the film with all the smart-aleck visual flourishes you'd expect from someone with his background, but he uses them in ways that service the plot, not just as dressing. It's a film with a brain as well as a heart.ALSO OUT THIS WEEKThe Hide Tense, clever low-budget two-hander set in a birdwatching hide, starring The Thick Of It's Alex Macqueen.DVD, ICAChevolution Rigorous documentary on the uses and abuses of Korda's iconic Guevara photo.DVD, ICAThe Last Action Hero Schwarzenegger steps out of the screen in this flashy 1990s action comedy.DVD & Blu-ray, SonyPainted Boats, Nine Men, Night Boat To Dublin Ealing oldies, on DVD for the first time.DVD, OptimumThe Taking Of Pelham 123 John Travolta gets evil in a remake of the 1970s subway hijack thriller.DVD & Blu-ray, SonyDVD and video reviewsPhelim O'Neillguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Danni Minogue's first bub is on the way Dannii Minogue is 12 weeks pregnant with her first child, her spokesman has confirmed. news.com.au |
Stars gather for Golden Globes Far-out fantasy and ripped-from-the-headlines reality are in the running at tonight’s Golden Globes – Hollywood’s first major film honours that will help sort out the Academy Awards picture. breakingnews.ie |
Mirren could play the Queen for Tarantino OSCAR-winner approached by Hollywood director to play a foul-mouthed medieval monarch. news.com.au |
Martin Campbell: Living on the edge He is one of the world's most revered action directors, twice rescuing the Bond franchise. Now Martin Campbell has returned to Edge of Darkness, the 1980s TV drama that made his name. He talks to John PattersonHe has directed a string of global box-office smashes and honed Âaction film-making down to a fine art, but Martin Campbell doesn't scream and shout about it. Or himself. A relentlessly self-effacing man, he is keen, in his plainspoken New ÂZealander way, not to get "too up Âmyself". In person, he looks quite tough, combining a lean physique with a convict's buzz-cut, but he is instantly friendly, if maddeningly modest about his achievements. As he discusses his career – which has taken him from New Zealand to Britain to Los Angeles, and from TV drama to blockbusters – one theme keeps recurring: that film-Âmaking is a team event, "not an ego trip".Yet Campbell is one of the world's top action movie Âdirectors, having twice rebooted the Bond franchise when it needed it most, bringing in first Pierce Brosnan (GoldenEye) and then Daniel Craig. Critical Âconsensus holds that Casino Royale, which Âintroduced Craig and sailed much closer to the spirit of Ian Fleming's books, was one of the highlights of the entire Âfranchise. "To be honest, I get too much credit for that," he says. "Timing was more important on both movies. With GoldenEye, the franchise got locked into this legal fight. They couldn't make new Bond movies for about seven years. It was my first huge production. I figured if I did at least a yeoman-like job, it would be greeted as a complete revival of the series." He did, it was – and 10 years later, he Âreturned to launch Craig."The producers felt it had gone off the rails a bit after Die Another Day [the last Brosnan outing], with Âinvisible cars and all that. I told them, we have to go back to the books. We even discussed doing it as a period piece." He laughs. "We settled on a more fucked-up character with a dark streak in him, Âdrinking too much, dodgy liver – all that's in the book. In Casino, he also had a real Ârelationship with a woman. He doesn't just have a dozen for king and country."Between Bonds, Campbell has knocked out more high-octane movies, from the vertiginous climbing thriller Vertical Limit to two swashbuckling Zorro films. But with his new movie, Edge of Darkness, which boasts Mel Gibson's first on-screen appearance in eight years, Campbell is coming full-circle: back to the TV project that made his name 25 years ago. Edge of ÂDarkness was a revered 1985 metaphysical thriller that plugged into the heaviest political issues of its time; but the Âseries also had a mystical aspect, with the main character, a police detective (Bob Peck), investigating dark goings-on in the nuclear power industry, assisted by the ghost of his murdered daughter (Joanne Whalley). Campbell's feature-length remake is a more streamlined revenger's tragedy, relocating the Âaction to Boston, and starring Gibson, Ray Winstone and Danny Huston.The main problem," says Campbell, "was how do you knock six hours down to two? Six hours was a luxury. There was breathing space for the ghost thing to work. Not only that, nowadays the political situation has completely changed. None of that mid-80s stuff is scary any more. It's like everyone has plutonium in their back garden now. And shooting it during the miners' strike gave all the political Âaspects more power. Terrible days – but, boy, they were interesting."Campbell was initially lukewarm about revisiting the series when someone first suggested it in 2000. But then a writer gave him a script and the British producer Graham King – who worked with Scorsese on the multi-ÂOscar-winning The Departed – Âpromised to finance it, simply because he had loved the TV series.The original, written by Troy Kennedy Martin, establishes itself as something dark and complex right from the start, when Peck goes through his daughter's bedside drawer shortly after her murder. He finds a vibrator, looks at it quizzically, then kisses it tenderly. "It's very interesting, that dildo. When you see it on the page you think, this is just ridiculous, but Troy was very clever, and Bob Peck did it so beautifully. It's so simple, such a lovely gesture. But you can imagine what would have happened if we'd tried that in the remake – especially with Mel! It would have lit all sorts of fuses. So we backed away."What was Gibson like to direct? "Well, it's a different Mel now, isn't it? All lean and hard as granite. He looks like a real don't-fuck-with-me sort of guy. In the Lethal Weapon movies, his face is always working away, but here I thought we'd say a great deal with less. I pulled it all out of him, all his tics. I wouldn't let him even twitch. And he looks magnificent."Campbell was born in Hastings, on New Zealand's North Island, in 1940, but looks 20 years younger than his 69 years. "I tried to get a job as a TV cameraman and they basically told me, 'You're mad, everyone wants these jobs – and if you go to England, you're doubly mad.' But I worked in abattoirs for 10 months to earn my money, then left for London. I didn't even know what a director did."Arriving in Britain in 1965, he Âfinagled his way into the BBC as a trainee cameraman. By the time he finally felt ready to direct, all the US money that had bankrolled Britain's 1960s film renaissance had gone back home. Among the refuse left behind was the bawdy sex-comedy genre, typified by movies like Confessions of a Window Cleaner. "I did two sex films. Well, I say 'sex' films – they only showed a few bare breasts. The first was The Sex Thief." This 1973 oddity centred on a suave cat burglar who sleeps with posh women and then steals their Âjewels. The other, Three for All, starred Diana Dors, Hattie Jacques, Robert Lindsay and Richard Beckinsale. "They were all in that!" says Campbell, with a laugh. "Of course, the only time any of those movies was ever on the telly was right in the middle of Edge of Darkness, so I got fingered."A crate of ale under the deskSomehow, he made it from there into the BBC's plays Âdepartment, a period in his career that culminated in Edge of Darkness. "To be Âabsolutely Âhonest, I miss it a lot. I know there's more money and Âbigger budgets now, but they were Âbetter times. You don't get those Âlightning-in-a-bottle Âdirectors you used to stumble across: Ken Loach, Alan Clarke. And writers who understood texture and grit, like Peter McDougall [A Sense of Freedom, Just Another ÂSaturday]: fantastic writer, kept a crate of brown ale under his desk. We stretched every penny. That's how I learned to handle these big epic Âmovies. We made great stuff back then. All the time."Campbell is currently Âworking on The Green Lantern, starring ÂCanadian heart-throb Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively, better known as Serena van der Woodsen in ÂGossip Girl. "It's more Iron Man than ÂBatman ÂBegins," says ÂCampbell of the project, which is a return to the gigantic project-Âmanagement style of Âdirection. "I've been offered a Âsuperhero before, but I turned them all down. This had Âsomething Âextra I liked. Whereas ÂSuperman only has to defeat ÂKryptonite, this guy's Âsuperpower is willpower: he can will up a Âgiant hand – or anything he can dream up or will into being – and then slap you with it. But if he has a hangÂover, or he's half-dead or something, the hand'll be all blurry and soft and Âuseless. So I'm Âhaving fun already."ThrillerMel GibsonAction and adventureJames BondTelevisionJohn Pattersonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |