TOP 100 ACTOR SITES
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| Laura Linney to star in a TV comedy about cancer NEW YORK (AP) -- Showtime says it will be looking for laughs from cancer, of all things, in a new series starring Laura Linney.... hosted.ap.org |
Wahlberg a dad again Mark Wahlberg has become a father for the fourth time. breakingnews.ie |
Up in the Air | Film review George Clooney gives his best performance yet as a hired business gun with lessons to learnOne of the most painfully memorable days of my life was spent in a variety (or lack of variety) of small industrial towns in south Lancashire just after the Âsecond world war. I was 12 and accompanying my father on a delicate assignment for the insurance company he worked for. His task was to obtain the resignations of five employees involved in a minor form of fraud, whom his bosses didn't wish to proceed against in the courts. Each man was persuaded to sign. ÂHaving done so, several of them, their lives Âshattered, their pensions gone, came out of the offices, smiling wanly, to shake my hand as I waited in the car and to see my father on his way.That experience long ago returned vividly this week seeing Jason Reitman's outstanding Up in the Air, a serious Âcomedy for our times. In his best role, and giving his best performance yet, George Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a suave, smartly dressed businessman in his 40s who travels the States from a base in Omaha, Nebraska – a city famous for its insurance companies and Âabattoirs. His job is firing people for bosses ready to pay good money to delegate these cruel, guilt-inducing exercises in downÂsizing. Ryan is also a popular motivational Âlecturer, teaching people how to cut down on unnecessary obligations and possessions and concentrate on the self. "What's in your backpack?" he asks his audiences folksily.This man, who spends 270 days a year travelling first-class, staying at smart hotels, driving rented cars, working towards a record number of air miles, is Arthur Miller's Willy Loman reshaped as a romantic hero for the post-Âindustrial world, burdened not by cases of Âsamples but credit cards. He's introduced to us at the beginning by an entrancing Âmontage of America seen from the air, a Âbeautiful country of magical cities with not a human being in sight, accompanied Âironically by a raucous rock version of Woody Guthrie's socialist anthem "This Land is Your Land". Each city he visits on his journey is prefaced by a similarly gleaming shot.The movie is set in midwinter, which means firing people in snowy, depressed Detroit and in cheerful, sunny Florida, and Ryan encounters two women on his travels. The first is the beguiling, Âmysterious fortysomething Alex (Vera Farmiga), living a similarly fancy-free, constantly airborne life, with whom he has a serial affair slotted into their tight schedules. Their poised exchanges are as wittily innuendo-packed as those between Bogart and Bacall in The Big Sleep or Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint (whom they closely resemble) in North By Northwest. "Think of me as yourself with a vagina," she tells Ryan.The other woman, the 23-year-old Natalie (Anna Kendrick), is more problematic. She's that familiar movie figure, the callow, coldly brilliant efficiency expert brought in to teach new tricks to resentful old dogs. She threatens Ryan and his colleagues when proÂposing they save on hotel bills and air fares by Âstaying in Omaha and firing people impersonally via computer video chat.Ryan's menacingly younger boss, Craig (Jason Bateman), is excited by Natalie's idea. "This is one of the worst times on record for America. This is our moment," he says, with a happy absence of intentional irony. But he sends Ryan for one last trip to show the prim, self-confident Natalie the ropes – nooses Âdisguised as lifelines handed out to Âhapless men and women on the brink of unemployment.Natalie proves an apt if vulnerable pupil, and there's an excellent scene in which she meets and innocently Âpatronises an amused Alex. There is also a vital interlude, which initially seems to belong in another picture, in which Ryan, with Alex posing as his girlfriend, makes a reluctant visit to Milwaukee to attend his sister's wedding. There he develops a brief but disturbing taste for a permanent relationship after reversing his usual motivational spiel in order to counsel his sister's fiance who gets cold feet at the church door.The film stumbles occasionally towards the end as it unnecessarily underlines and italicises points about social responsibility, moral choices and corrosive self-interest that have already been well made. It is also, some might think, in relation to the current economic situation which is its enveloping background, rather like a version of De Sica's Bicycle Thieves seen from the point of view of the cops, the fences and the bike manufacturers rather than the sad bill poster's. But then this is a comedy, a feel-good film for feel-bad times, and one cannot be sure if one is sucking or being suckered by a bitter pill carefully sugared or a sugar pill dipped in angst-duration bitters.Up in the Air represents a steady advance by Reitman after his first two feature films, Thank You for Smoking and Juno, and the script is astonishing, considering that Sheldon Turner (who adapted Walter Kirn's novel) wrote the truly dire remake of The Longest Yard and The Texas Chainsaw ÂMassacre: The ÂBeginning. Clooney gets Âexcellent Âsupport, in a way that defines his own performance, from Farmiga and ÂKendrick, who are wonderfully Âcomplementary and perfectly of today. The casting of the victims of Ryan and Natalie's euphemistic, faux-Âsolicitous attentions is spot-on, their reactions and anguished faces not easily forgotten. Only one of them is familiar: the ubiquitous, and always splendid, JK Simmons, the middle-aged character actor who played the heroine's father in Juno and the CIA chief in the Coens' Burn After Reading. Dana E Glauberman's editing is a rhythmic joy and cinematographer Eric Steelberg's hard, gleaming images give constant pleasure.ComedyJason ReitmanGeorge ClooneyPhilip Frenchguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Film Weekly on Jim Sheridan's Brothers and Blur's No Distance Left to Run This week's podcast goes to the heart of the family, talking to director Jim Sheridan about his Iraq-war sibling drama Brothers, reviewing the Clive Owen Dad-under-pressure movie The Boys Are Back (as well as Jacques Audiard's Cannes-impressing A Prophet), and discovers how a band of musical brothers landed their dream job of documenting Blur's reunion last year. Jim Sheridan, who made his name with the Christy Brown biopic My Left Foot, tells Jason Solomons why he decided to remake Danish director Susanne Bier's critically acclaimed 2004 drama Brødre as a war-torn love triangle with a gold-plated Hollywood cast of Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal and Natalie Portman. Next, Xan Brooks joins in to review the week's key releases: Brothers (which both critics liked), The Boys Are Back (which they're split on) and the hotly anticipated A Prophet, which took the top prize at this year's London film festival and was the talk of Cannes last May (and to which both critics give unequivocal thumbs up).Finally Jason meets two Blur fans who managed to land their dream job: music video directors Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace make their debut as documentary film-makers with No Distance to Run, which captures the band's sometimes thorny history and their triumphant reunion and summer tour of 2009. The directors share what it was like being on stage filming the band's joyous headlining slot at the Glastonbury festival, before a sea of thousands of fans.Jason SolomonsXan BrooksObserver guardian.co.uk |
'Flashy' Westlife breached TV rules A performance by Westlife on hit TV show 'The X Factor' broke broadcasting rules because it could have triggered seizures, the UK's broadcasting standards watchdog said today. breakingnews.ie |