TOP 100 ACTOR SITES
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| 'Cougar Town' cast stunned by Cox split Courteney Cox-Arquette stunned her co-stars with news of her marital split. feeds.breakingnews.ie |
A Room With a View: No 9 James Ivory, 1985Few collaborations are so distinctive that the names of those involved come to denote a genre, rather than just a credit. A Room With a View, the first of director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant's EM Forster adaptations, was shot before the term Merchant-Ivory had become an insult; watch it today and you'll blush to have ever smirked at the cliche. This is incredibly fresh and arresting film-making: moving and amusing, swooningly romantic and socially ferocious – nothing less than a full-frontal (in every way) assault on your soul.Lucy Honeychurch (Helena Bonham Carter) is on a Baedeker-led tour of Florence with punctilious cousin Charlotte (Maggie Smith) when she encounters, at their pensione, free-thinking Mr Emerson (Denholm Elliott) and his dreamy son, George (Julian Sands). Through a series of bloody physical confrontations and, worse yet, sticky etiquette breaches, Lucy's desire for emotional freedom starts to bubble, coming to the boil when George kisses her in a cornfield. But Charlotte witnessed the snog, so Lucy is whisked back to Surrey, where she gets engaged to the horribly priggish Cecil Vyse (Daniel Day-Lewis), to the polite distaste of her family, and the Rev Beebe (Simon Callow, uncharacteristically subtle). Then the Emersons reappear …What might have been starched and talky in other hands comes out of the wash alive with spring and spirit. The botched embrace between Lucy and Cecil, and the heartbreaking moment when he, after being rejected, puts his boots back on, are once seen, never forgotten. Smith's Charlotte – so funny as a curmudgeonly drag ("The ground will do for me," she says, as cushions are assigned on a picnic, "I haven't had rheumatism for years. And if I do feel a twinge, I shall stand up") – is just tragic alone, as Lucy might well have been, had her story not had such a happy ending. The final scene, a ravishing in a room, with a view, as the bells of Florence chime out, would leave only a stone unmoved.RomanceHelena Bonham CarterCatherine Shoardguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Aguirre, Wrath of God: No 11 Werner Herzog, 1972This is pure Heart of Darkness territory. A band of conquistadors searching for El Dorado in darkest Peru find the horror within themselves. Never has Klaus Kinski been more unhinged than as the leader of this crew – the director's fantasised vision of a supposedly sophisticated European who loses his marbles. At the end, with his followers and daughter dead, a demented Aguirre is adrift on a raft overrun by monkeys. Truly, never has a band of monkey extras heard a better howl of monologue than this: "I, the Wrath of God, will marry my own daughter and with her I will found the purest dynasty the world has ever seen. Together, we shall rule this entire continent!" The marvellous heedlessness for the dreary dictates of cinematic realism, the sight of a man at the end of his rope and psyche – at this point in his career, Werner Herzog was making the kind of films that, had Richard Wagner been born a century later, he would have been compelled to realise.Aguirre has perhaps been supplanted in its vision of colonial madness by Coppola's more bombastic Apocalypse Now, which came four years later and borrows heavily from Herzog. But it is less of a film than Aguirre: while the latter uses minimal story and dialogue to express its potent vision, Coppola's film is all talk and display, wearing its high-art credentials (Brando intoning Eliot, Wagner as napalm's aural backdrop) like badges of honour. Aguirre remains an unremitting and overwhelming vision, not just of the colonial mindset gone insane, but of the madness that – given the opportunity – would bound from every man's breast.DramaWorld cinemaWerner HerzogStuart Jeffriesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Ricci: I hated my body Christina Ricci has confessed she “hated” her body. feeds.breakingnews.ie |
DVD industry in crisis as sales slump On-demand viewing and the digital games revolution take their toll on DVD and Blu-raySpare a thought this Christmas for James Bond, kicking his heels at MI6 and getting under M's feet. Daniel Craig was forced to holster his Walther PPK when Bond 23 was put on hold following the bankruptcy of MGM, under a mountain of debt. The studio's woes were in considerable part the fallout from a phenomenon that threatens not just Hollywood blockbusters but the continuing supply of high-end, home-produced drama and comedy: a sales slump, which may prove terminal, in the once all-conquering DVD home entertainment market.The DVD, the fastest-adopted electronic consumer product at its commercial introduction in 1998, became the film studios' biggest cash generator, funding a screen production boom. The industry generated $14bn (£9bn) by 2004, with more than 250m discs sold each year in the UK. Broadcasters shared in the windfall as living room shelves groaned under the weight of multimillion pound-selling TV box sets of The Sopranos, The Wire and The Office. Your DVD collection revealed as much about your personality as those neglected vinyl LPs, left to moulder in the attic, once did.Digital revolutionNow a combination of the economic downturn and the digital revolution has forced the video industry to face up to the same crisis that still traumatises record companies – how to make up the income lost when your key physical product is in decline and predicted to become obsolete within 20 years. Sales and rentals of DVDs and Blu-ray discs fell by 7% to $10.9bn in the first nine months of this year compared with last year, according to the industry body The Digital Entertainment Group; and the British Video Association says DVD sales fell 5.6% last year. The fall was most severe in new-release titles, which account for 25% of the market, with sales crashing 15% in 2009.The home entertainment experience is being transformed, with content delivered on-demand through web-enabled set-top boxes, games consoles, and now the iPad, which has stolen the DVD's crown as the fastest-adopted consumer device. The recession has driven consumer spending towards cheaper rentals, depriving studios of those juicy box-set profits. The income generated by the arrival of Blu-ray, the ability to download episodes of Doctor Who on iTunes at £2.49 per escapade and stream films on demand, has so far failed to offset the decline in physical sales, a pattern that resulted in a shrinkage of the recorded music industry.DVDs aren't merely a cost-effective means for the likes of Ricky Gervais, who rode the boom with sales of 6m discs, to get even richer. Reduced DVD income at the back end means fewer films and ambitious television projects are green-lit.Viacom, the owner of Paramount Pictures, reported a 43% drop in home-entertainment revenue this year, citing a slump in the number of releases. Time Warner, the owner of Warner Bros, faced an 8% decline while Lions Gate reported a 22% drop.The Motion Picture Association of America said the number of features produced in the US fell from 928 in 2006 to 677 in 2009. Revenues from MGM's 4,000-title library of film classics, the biggest in Hollywood, almost halved over the last year, the final blow in the studio's fight to stave off bankruptcy. Online video on-demand, dominated in the US by Netflix, which has 17 million subscribers and is soon to launch in the UK, sounded the death knell for Blockbuster, the video rental giant, which followed MGM into the bankruptcy courts in September.Even the biggest British brands, with an army of obsessive followers, are struggling to make an impact. In spite of the extensive marketing campaign surrounding all things Doctor Who, the Guardian understands that sales of the current series five DVD and Blu-ray box-set combined stand at just 17,000. Sherlock, this year's breakthrough BBC1 drama hit, has managed 54,000 sales so far, hardly sufficient for a silver disc in the music chart equivalent."There's no doubt that the physical DVD market will be down this year," says Paul Dempsey, the director of BBC Worldwide's Home Entertainment division, which fed £40m in profits back to the BBC last year through its 2entertain video publishing arm. Missed an episode"There'll still be collectors and gifters who want high-quality, beautifully packaged DVDs. What is more challenging for us is those consumers who used to come to DVD in distress because they missed an episode and had to wait for the DVD. Now they are being satisfied by great on-demand services like iPlayer."At BBC Worldwide, the corporation's commercial wing, DVD revenues contribute to funding for expensive productions such as Luther and the new Upstairs, Downstairs. Worldwide determines its investment based on how much profit it expects to make back through DVD and international sales. A decline in DVD income has troubling consequences for new drama."My five-year plan is to see profits around the same levels as they are now," says Dempsey. "But it's going to be tough to maintain margins at the same levels given the challenges we face, so we need to develop new revenue streams around digital. We feel a great responsibility because what we do keeps great UK content on our screens."The deficit-funding model employed by Worldwide, whereby producers secure investment against future sales, including DVD sales, is the only reason that ITV could afford to make the lavish Downton Abbey. NBC Universal, the owner of Carnival Films, contributed around £300,000 per episode, in return for a raft of non-UK rights. Fortunately, its success has catapulted the DVD up the charts, comfortably outselling Fox's 24 box-set in its opening week of release. Universal expect to sell 250,000 units by the end of the year.However even Downton Abbey can't change the economics of the DVD business. Consumers have switched from box-sets, which offered producers a £10 profit margin, to cheaper rentals in the recession and the industry must live with the decline of its greatest cash cow.If the DVD boom years are over, the industry enjoys certain advantages over its music counterpart, which might produce a soft landing. Although bandwith speed is increasing, piracy has not yet destroyed the legal market. And where portability ensured the victory of digital music players, couples are unlikely to crack open a bottle and settle in for a "complete Mad Men" binge on their iPad."Watching a big film on Blu-ray is one way of pulling the family together for a communal experience," says a spokesman for the British Video Association. And in Blu-ray, the home entertainment industry has hit upon an attractive physical product, which has delivered shock therapy to the ailing patient.Difficult startJames Cameron's Avatar sold 6m copies in three weeks, prompting an 86% Blu-ray surge. Richard Cooper, Screen Digest's senior video analyst, says: "This is the first decline the DVD market has seen on a global basis. But even though you wouldn't want to launch a premium product like Blu-ray in a recession, the format is now beginning to compensate for the revenue decline, after a difficult start."Yet even Fox is finding the 3D Avatar spectacular a difficult act to follow on its balance sheet. Despite a strong Christmas release schedule, featuring Inception and Toy Story 3, and the Blu-ray infusion, industry analysts predict that the UK DVD market will still fall by 2% in 2010.Supermarkets are piling up copies of Toy Story 3 but they are using the film as a loss-leader, flogging the discs for a cut-price £8 in Asda and £5 in Morrisons, as part of wider Christmas promotions.And in tough economic times, who needs a £20 Clash of The Titans Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, when you can stream it directly through a PlayStation 3 console and watch it on your TV as part of a £6-a-month subscription from the LoveFilm rental service?With the box-set gradually following the gatefold album sleeve into obsolescence, it is vital that the BBC's commercial wing finds new ways to monetise the on-demand viewing environment. "As the income per physical piece of content is reduced," Dempsey says, "we can unlock more from the BBC archive in the digital world and that makes the economics much more positive."He envisages a "long-tail" future where viewers download long-lost episodes of BBC cult classics through a series of micro-payments. Dempsey is placing his faith in projections which show that digital business could increase the overall size of the paid-for video market.So like James Bond, the home entertainment industry will learn to tighten its belt and survive on smaller pickings. The good news is that an MGM takeover deal means that Bond should return to cinema screens by November 2012. There will be a new film every two years after that, the revitalised MGM says – as long as the Blu-ray sales are sufficient to keep 007 on the MI6 payroll.Top 10 DVD sales1 Mamma Mia! (Universal Pictures UK)2 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Entertainment in Video)3 The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Entertainment in Video)4 Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (Walt Disney)5 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Entertainment in Video)6 Shrek 2 (Paramount)7 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (Walt Disney)8 Casino Royale (Sony Pictures)9 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Warner Bros)10 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Warner Bros)Top 10 Blu-ray sales1 Avatar (20th Century Fox)2 The Dark Knight (Warner Bros)3 Star Trek 11 (Paramount)4 Transformers 2 (Paramount)5 Quantum of Solace (20th Century Fox)6 2012 (Sony Pictures)7 The Hurt Locker (Lionsgate)8 Casino Royale (Sony Pictures)9 Iron Man (Paramount)10 Terminator: Salvation (Sony Pictures)Source: BVA/Official Charts CompanyDigital mediaBlu-rayDigital videoTelevisionTelevision industryBBC WorldwideBBCguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |