TOP 100 ACTOR SITES
| |||
|
| |||
| |||
|
| |||
| Trump set to join 'Celebrity Big Brother' house Ivana Trump will reportedly enter the 'Celebrity Big Brother' house tonight. breakingnews.ie |
The real Mrs Robinson is no Anne Bancroft in The Graduate Few have resisted drawing parallels between Iris Robinson and Anne Bancroft's predatory swinger. They couldn't be more wrongNo headline writer could resist it. Had I been writing headlines, I probably couldn't have resisted it either. Here's to you, Mrs Robinson!This was the jokey phrase almost every paper attached to the bizarre, melancholy and politically murky story from Belfast. Iris Robinson, the wife of DUP leader Peter Robinson, had an affair with one Kirk McCambley two years ago, when their ages were 59 and 19 respectively, and solicited £50,000 from two property developers to help him set up a cafe, keeping £5,000 for herself. These were property developers whose business interests she was incidentally in a position to advance. The affair has ended with Mrs Robinson's attempted suicide, Mr Robinson's anguish and political embarrassment as Northern Ireland's first minister, and the possible destablisation of power-sharing with Sinn Fein.What a grisly, painful story. But the "here's to you" gags keep coming. Now Belfast radio stations are reportedly bombarded with requests to play the toe-tapping Simon and Garfunkel song. This was the soundtrack centrepiece to Mike Nichols's classic 1967 film The Graduate, in which Dustin Hoffman played a shiftless college graduate who tumbles into an affair with Mrs Robinson, the fatale-sexy wife of his dad's business partner, played by Anne Bancroft.For over 40 years, that iconic film has helped reinforce the perception that cradle-snatching sex is pretty hilarious so long as it's an older woman and a younger man. Only this week, in Nancy Meyers's romcom It's Complicated, Meryl Streep's ex-husband Alec Baldwin makes an attempt to play happy families with Meryl and their three grownup children by putting on a video the way he used to in the old days. And the film is … The Graduate, perfect innocent-yet-sophisticated fun.Iris Robinson from real life and Mrs Robinson from the film could not be more different. In Belfast, there were 40 years between the lovers. On film, well – Hoffman's character Benjamin is young, certainly, but the very title emphasises that he has adult status: a college graduate. Hoffman was a young-looking 30-year-old when the movie came out, and Bancroft an adult 36.In the movie, Mrs Robinson is bored, unsatisfied, fond of a drink or three in the American suburban tradition, and obscurely nettled by the plan to pair off her daughter Elaine, played by Katharine Ross, with Ben. Some half-buried competitive instinct could be at work. The affair plays itself out over a long, hot summer, but Ben comes to conceive a more romantically and politically correct love for Elaine. Basically, what is going on in Mrs Robinson's head and heart is not of overwhelming interest: she is just a sexy, vampy older woman, a fascinating narrative phase, and her feelings are not important as such – at least not as important as Elaine's and Ben's.From the real world, the news is darker and stranger. Iris Robinson is no bored housewife but a real political player, a woman in a man's world. She is the "business partner" in this scenario. Her affair and its desolate aftermath appear to have been mixed up messily with romantic feelings, protective and maternal feelings, feelings about money and self-esteem, feelings about the elaborate identity carapace that everyone in the public eye builds up over time. Iris Robinson, though more glam than her husband, had a reputation for being a conservative Christian. Notoriously, she had condemned homosexuality because it is forbidden in the Bible. (So is adultery, of course.) She appears genuinely never to have set out, like Anne Bancroft's comically predatory swinger, to seduce. Her feelings morphed from the maternal into something else. And that shady financial transaction – was its very shadiness Mrs Robinson's way of making the affair more palatable? After all, financial transgressions might well have seemed much less serious to her than having sex with a teenager, and money-related skulduggery might have been a way of proving to herself that she was in control, that she was indulging in some tough old-school politicking, weighing up the score, looking after No 1.Either way, the contrast between this grim and tragic story and the quaint romance of The Graduate couldn't be plainer. Maybe it's time to take Simon and Garfunkel off the turntable.Iris RobinsonPeter RobinsonNorthern Irish politicsPeter Bradshawguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
New James Cameron 3D film in Australia OSCAR-winning director James Cameron is heading to Australia to oversee his next film project after the record-breaking Avatar. news.com.au |
Obama, the Musical: Germany's Stage Love Letter President Barack Obama may be having political difficulties at home, but inEurope, he's still a transformative figure, as a new musical in Germanyillustrates feedproxy.google.com |
UK box office: has A Prophet made a profit? Beneath the mighty blue shadow, Jacques Audiard's crime drama does great foreign-language business, while recent releases all hold up wellThe arthouse hitApart from Bollywood movies, there hasn't been a foreign-language film in the UK box-office top 10 since Pedro Almodóvar's Broken Embraces last August, so it's fair to say that the nation's arthouse cinemas have been eagerly awaiting the release of A Prophet. And the French prison crime saga didn't disappoint, with an opening of £312,000 from 75 screens, including £22,500 in previews. It's a good result for any foreign-language film, but especially one that is two-and-a-half hours long, boasts a cast of relative unknowns, and is violent enough to warrant an 18 certificate. Coco Before Chanel, it ain't.The figure compares with an £87,000 opening from 25 screens for director Jacques Audiard's previous film, The Beat That My Heart Skipped. A Prophet benefited from across-the-board rave reviews, except for Chris Tookey in the Daily Mail (who mainly had moral objections), and earned a 97% Fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes.The record breakerA Prophet's debut figure sneaked it a place at the foot of the top 10. Naturally its gross was dwarfed by the film at the top of the chart, which continues to be, immovably, Avatar. Last week, this column remarked on Avatar's record-breaking gross of £5m-plus on its fifth weekend. Well, it's done it again: it's now clocked up £5m-plus on its sixth weekend. The previous best result for a film in its sixth weekend was Titanic's £3.37m. With £57.44m in takings so far, Avatar is the all-time biggest grosser for a film at the six-week stage of its release, and also the seventh biggest film of all time, just behind The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Avatar is on the verge of overtaking Titanic to become the biggest film ever at the global box office, but still has a way to go to become the top film in the UK (Mamma Mia!, £69.17m). Given that it only dipped 7% this weekend, it is almost certain to do that, and probably within a couple of weeks. Oscar nominations for Avatar on 2 February will help it reach those older viewers who might have so far resisted James Cameron's genre-defining spectacle.The logjamFor the first time in over a year, holdover titles blocked out the top five places in the chart, with the highest new entry landing at number six. Sherlock Holmes held steady at number two in its fifth week of release, and a cumulative total of £21.37m makes it the ninth biggest-grossing film released in 2009. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel and Up in the Air experienced tiny declines of 6% and 7% respectively, while It's Complicated edged down a slim 12%. The Meryl Streep romcom has recovered well after a soft debut two weeks ago: its third-weekend takings are higher than its opening weekend ones, and so far it has achieved five times its opening box-office. The older audience traditionally doesn't rush on opening weekend but, even so, It's Complicated is proving particularly robust. And with the prestige of a Bafta nomination for Alec Baldwin, it no longer even has to count as a lifestyle-porn guilty pleasure.The debuting weaklingsDisney rereleased Toy Story 2 in 3D, and will console itself that at least the Pixar hit pulled its weight as the weekend's highest new entrant. But the rerelease's debut of £909,000 compares unfavorably with a £1.40m opening for Toy Story 3D last October. The reason for the disparity is simple: there's still an insufficient number of 3D screens in the UK, and Avatar is performing very nicely thank you in all of them. Toy Story 2 was able to nab at least some showtimes at 240 of them and did well to achieve that many bookings. There must have been a compelling reason why Disney opted not to postpone the 22 January rerelease when Avatar's lock on the nation's 3D screens became evident, but it has not been disclosed.Mind you, Toy Story 2 was a glorious success compared with the other new releases. Brothers, starring Natalie Portman, Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal, didn't quite win the reviews to perform as a critically driven specialist title, but nor did it have the commercial punch to play successfully in the mainstream – it landed uncomfortably in the middle, with £366,000 from 214 cinemas. Miramax's The Boys Are Back, starring Clive Owen, suffered from similar problems, and earned an even weaker £64,000 from 120 sites. Genre titles Ninja Assassin and Armored similarly failed to earn screen averages of £1,000 (see Other Openers, below). The futureWith 14.5m admissions, boosted by hits including Slumdog Millionaire, January 2009 was well up on the same month in 2008. So the fact that January 2010 box-office has so far proved consistently up on 2009 is an exceptional result – fuelled, admittedly, by those premium 3D ticket prices for Avatar. The four January weekends so far have been +25%, -1%, +10% and +7% on their 2009 equivalents. Whether the hot steak can continue depends on the future strength of the existing films in the market, plus the enduring box-office potency of Mel Gibson. Conspiracy thriller Edge Of Darkness, opening Friday, returns him to the kickass realm of past hits Ransom and Payback, but it's been seven years since audiences have seen Mel Gibson on the screen. Will audiences flock, or shrug?UK top 101. Avatar, £5,155,844 from 428 sites. Total: £57,441,1232. Sherlock Holmes, £1,632,172 from 478 sites. Total: £21,372,4993. Alvin And The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, £1,454,278 from 492 sites. Total: £18,563,2234. Up in the Air, £1,205,881 from 328 sites. Total: £3,282,5125. It's Complicated, £1,140,684 from 431 sites. Total: £5,397,6536. Toy Story 2, £909,093 from 240 sites (new)7. The Book of Eli, £825,508 from 387 sites. Total: £2,636,0788. Daybreakers, £420,199 from 318 sites. Total: £3,521,9589. Brothers, £366,290 from 214 sites (new)10. A Prophet, £312,237 from 75 sites (new)How the other openers didNinja Assassin, 224 screens, £187,285Veer, 46 screens, £148,423Armored, 80 screens, £64,931The Boys Are Back, 120 screens, £64,318Moving to Mars, 1 screen, £1,554Burlesque Undressed, 6 screens, £1,274 + undisclosed special showings and previewsJacques AudiardJames CameronMeryl StreepAlec BaldwinMel GibsonCrimeScience fiction and fantasyPedro AlmodóvarCharles Gantguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |