| Stars gather for MacColl tribute concert Showbiz friends and fans of singer Kirsty MacColl will perform tonight to mark the 10th anniversary of her death in a freak speedboat accident and raise money for one of her favourite causes. feeds.breakingnews.ie |
Hardy set to join 'Batman' cast Tom Hardy is set to star in the new 'Batman' movie. feeds.breakingnews.ie |
The greatest films of all time: Action In some ways, it should be the quintessential cinema genre. After all, what does the director shout at the beginning of a take? Action – at times a euphemism for violence and machismo – evolved into a recognisable genre in the 80s when the war movie, whose enduring strength fed the appetite for action pictures, had stirring British examples such as In Which We Serve. Later, Vietnam gave us Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket and Platoon. Gunplay and athleticism resurfaced in a sweatier and more explicitly violent form with action movies such as Sylvester Stallone's Rambo. The hardware was all-important, and the metallic sheen of the guns was something to be savoured alongside the musculature of the heroes. The genre spawned the action hero. These were not pretty-boys there to melt female hearts: they were there to get a roar of approval from the guys. The ultimate action star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is now governor of California. Who knows if there will be a constitutional change to get an action star into the White House?Action and adventurePeter Bradshawguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Tim Roth and Gary Oldman, the perfect shooting match Praise is due to two superb actors who went from a Mike Leigh TV movie to Hollywood, pacing each other every step of the wayOne of the nicer aspects of a veteran director returning to action is the chance it gives you to reacquaint yourself with their early films. So it is with Mike Leigh, whose Another Year is fast approaching release. I have to be honest here and admit that in recent years my relationship with Leigh's film-making has become a little frayed, and yet I'll always be grateful to him for showing me that great movies could take place in a recognisable Britain.One of the first films to bring the glamour home, for me, was 1983's Meantime, a made-for-TV story of an unemployment-wrecked family in Dalston that brought together fresh faced talents Tim Roth and Gary Oldman. Watching it again, I felt the film was still filled with the deadpan naturalism that became Leigh's signature. But what's most remarkable about it is the showcase it provided for its two new stars, each beginning his career at what was another time of crisis for British cinema. Now, working with his informal repertory company of Jim Broadbent and Leslie Manville, Another Year finds Leigh knee-deep in the business of ageing. Then, Meantime was dominated by scabby oiks in parkas. Roth played the hapless Colin and debutant Oldman his oddball skinhead mate, Coxy.Truth be told, memorable though Meantime is, it doesn't feature the best early performance of either actor. Those both came in films by the late Alan Clarke, Oldman's in The Firm and Roth's in the ferocious Made in Britain. And I'll admit here to a personal investment in all this. These days our collective memory of the 80s is in the process of turning into a sanitised mulch of Rubik's Cubes and pork-pie hats, but at the time it really was terrible, at least on my bit of the south coast, inundated with crusties and glowering casuals. The example of Roth in particular was an inspiration to my awkwardly pubescent, fractionally Jewish self (only years later did I find out he was even less Jewish than me). Equal parts gifted and chippy, he and Oldman were easy figures to latch on to.Until everyone grew up and moved on. After reuniting onscreen one more time for Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, each of them headed for Hollywood. There, throughout the 90s, their careers continued to criss-cross. For Roth, the indie gigs he started out with in the US included a tiny low-budget movie called Reservoir Dogs. For Oldman, following a plum role as Lee Harvey Oswald in Oliver Stone's JFK came the Tarantino-scripted True Romance, just one in a series of big-league studio projects in which he brilliantly chewed up the scenery as a creepy villain: Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula, the much-loved Léon, prison yarn Murder in the First. Roth, inevitably, was soon in on the act, garnering an Oscar nomination after playing a rapist in Highland saga Rob Roy.They exchanged messages to one another on magazine covers, a habit as odd as the thought that the pair of them once matched Tom Cruise and Johnny Depp for celebrity. Back at home, times were changing: a new generation of British actors was in vogue (personally I didn't like this lot nearly as much). Even then, the mirroring continued. As the decade wound to a close, both Roth and Oldman returned to Britain to make their only films as directors, each dealing with the subject of domestic abuse and each with Ray Winstone in the lead. Roth's The War Zone was decent but flawed; Oldman's Nil By Mouth a masterpiece.Now we're all knocking on together. I'm still holding an increasingly forlorn hope that Oldman will get back behind the camera but he shows no sign of wanting to, choosing instead to see out his middle years doing Harry Potter and staying away from the press. My childhood hero Roth has landed (as is now de rigeur for exiled British actors) a starring role in a middle-ranking American cable series, Lie To Me, and has even become a retro reference point on the cover of the latest Manic Street Preachers album. I have no idea if Oldman and Roth are still in touch, swapping messages via email rather than on their skin in film mags, but I hope that for each of them the thought of their humble beginnings raises a smile.Danny Leighguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
The Hobbit will stay in New Zealand Prime minister confirms Peter Jackson will shoot two-part Hobbit adaptation in homeland after long-running uncertainty sparked by union boycottIn The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien's much-loved fantasy tale, a group of adventurers sets out to retrieve a long-lost treasure trove from a cunning dragon. Earlier today, the New Zealand film industry was celebrating the restoration of its own financial fortunes after it was confirmed that the forthcoming big-screen adaptations will be shot in the country after all.Prime Minister John Key emerged from two days of talks with executives from Hollywood studio Warner Bros – who had flown all the way to Wellington to reassure themselves that a row over pay and conditions with a local union was not a sign that New Zealand was becoming an "unstable" location – to confirm that The Hobbit film would be brought to life in the same location as The Lord of the Rings."I am delighted we have achieved this result," Key said. "Making the movies here will not only safeguard work for thousands of New Zealanders, but will also allow us to follow the success of The Lord of the Rings."The successful talks followed street protests across New Zealand on Monday by thousands concerned the country could lose out on a production whose predecessors made it seem a viable location for big-budget films. There was no indication of whether ministers had been forced to offer financial incentives to assuage Hollywood fears, though Key had earlier indicated this was unlikely to occur. He did, however, raise the possibility of changing union laws to ensure the row between film-maker Peter Jackson and the New Zealand Actors' Equity union, which almost caused the country to lose the films, was unlikely to be repeated.Economists had said the loss of the production could cost the country's film industry as much as $1.5bn and damage it in the long term, though many felt a move to a new site was unlikely given that sets for key locations such as Hobbiton remained in New Zealand. The union boycott – backed by bodies across the globe – was resolved last week, but producers were talking up the possibility of moving the production to the UK, Australia, Canada or eastern Europe as late as Thursday.Jackson will return to direct the new films, with The Office star Martin Freeman set to portray the title character, Bilbo Baggins – a homely Hobbit who in Tolkien's tale is bamboozled into joining a thrilling adventure by a wizard named Gandalf. Richard Armitage, of BBC TV series Spooks, will play the role of Thorin Oakenshield, the leader of the dwarves.Filming on the two-part adaptation is due to start in February, with releases pencilled in for December 2012 and December 2013.Lord of the RingsPeter JacksonAction and adventureScience fiction and fantasyBen Childguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |