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A Space Program review – conceptual artist goes to Mars
2 hours ago
Documenting Tom Sachs’s art project that imagined a journey into space, this is a funny, invigorating and inspirational ode to being the cleverest kid in the room
As Aaron Sorkin, Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Shane Carruth will remind you, Nasa spent millions designing a pen that worked in zero-gravity, while the Russians solved the problem by using a pencil. Unfortunately, the story is apocryphal but it speaks to a broader truth: it pays to be crafty!
Nowhere does the melange of cutting-edge science and grade school homework come together as wonderfully as in A Space Program, Van Neistat’s quasi-documentary of contemporary artist Tom Sachs’s 2012 conceptual piece Space Program 2.0: Mars, held at New York’s Park Avenue Armory. In addition to being a funny, invigorating and inspirational ode to being the cleverest kid in the room, it’s a remarkable testament to the suspension of disbelief. I »
- Jordan Hoffman
In-car entertainment: will driverless cars have movie screens not windscreens?
4 hours ago
A patent application made by Ford for an ‘autonomous vehicle entertainment system’ includes a projector and a drop-down screen
Driverless cars may not be quite ready for the road, but leading car manufacturer Ford is already preparing to give you things to do when you no longer have your hands at the wheel. According to a patent application filed on 1 March, Ford is developing an “autonomous vehicle entertainment system”.
According to the background information section of the application, “instead of concentrating on numerous driving-related responsibilities, the driver may be free to watch movies”, with a “projection screen ... located ... near the windshield”.
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- Andrew Pulver
The Arbalest and Tower take top prizes at 2016 SXSW film festival
4 hours ago
A narrative film about an obsessive toymaker and a documentary that re-creates the University of Texas sniper attacks were the big winners on Tuesday night
The 2016 SXSW film festival awarded its top prizes on Tuesday in Austin, Texas.
The Arbalest, from first-time film-maker Adam Pinney, won the grand jury prize for narrative feature. Past winners of the award include Short Term 12 – the indie film that put Brie Larson on the map before Room won her an Oscar – and last year’s family drama Krisha, which opens this Friday in the Us. Pinney’s film centers on a famed 1970s toy inventor and his lifelong obsession with a woman named Sylvia Frank.
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- Nigel M Smith
Spotlight producers admit dialogue of Boston school worker was 'fictionalised'
5 hours ago
Distributor of Oscar-winning film releases statement acknowledging Boston College spokesman Jack Dunn ‘was not part of the Archdiocesan cover-up’
A Boston media relations manager, portrayed in the Oscar-winning film Spotlight as complicit in covering up the city’s Catholic Church abuse scandal, has had his name cleared after distributors admitted the film used “fictionalised” dialogue.
Jack Dunn, who works for Boston College, said he has experienced “tremendous pain” after Tom McCarthy’s real-life drama showed him reacting to news of sex abuse at the school by downplaying its scale. In the film, the character of Dunn tells Michael Keaton’s journalist: “It’s a big school, Robbie, you know that. And we’re talking about seven alleged victims over, what, eight years?”
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- Ben Child
Indiana Jones and the Tide of Ageism: why such a reaction to the fifth film?
7 hours ago
The announcement of a new Indiana Jones movie, to be released when the lead actor is 77, has revealed an attitude to old age out of sync with society
There are many legitimate reasons to eye-roll at the news that a fifth Indiana Jones movie is in the works. The fourth Indiana Jones movie, for a start (2008’s The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, in which Shia Labeouf was not the worst thing).
General franchise fatigue, for another: do we ever need a fifth instalment of anything? Surely Ford, Steven Spielberg (returning to direct) and Kathleen Kennedy (who’s produced these movies and Star Wars) have enough cash in the bank already?
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- Catherine Shoard
Harrison Ford is back as Indiana Jones and Marguerite reviewed – the Dailies film podcast
8 hours ago
The Guardian film team’s round-up of Wednesday’s movie news and reviews
Your daily update of the latest news and reviews from the Guardian film team. Now showing: is the reaction to Harrison Ford returning as Indiana Jones ageist? And will our critics clap or wail at Marguerite, a loose French take on the tale of Florence Foster Jenkins, the dreadful operetta singer who became a surprise hit?
Follow us on Twitter (GuardianFilm, Henry, Ben, Catherine and producer Rowan) and check out our Facebook page. Comment on the show below
Further reading:
• Harrison Ford back as Indiana Jones for fifth film, directed by Steven Spielberg
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- Presented by Benjamin Lee with Catherine Shoard and produced by Rowan Slaney
Mark Hamill, Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger ... whose Joker was best?
8 hours ago
The Star Wars icon will reprise his role as Batman’s greatest nemesis in The Killing Joke; but does he hold all the aces as the top clown prince ever?
Most people know Mark Hamill as a certain starry-eyed wannabe Jedi with a penchant for hokey religions, ancient weapons and mystical energy fields. And yet for an entire generation of comic book fans, particularly those who grew up watching the 90s classic Batman: The Animated Series and its various feature-length spin-offs, Hamill will always be the cackling, demented voice of The Joker, Batman’s greatest nemesis.
Now, in the wake of his dramatic return to the public eye in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Hamill has signed up to play the clown prince of Gotham once again in a new animated adaptation of the classic Alan Moore graphic novel The Killing Joke, which alongside Frank Millers’ The Dark Knight Returns »
- Ben Child
Taron Egerton, Jack Reynor and Alden Ehrenreich shortlisted to play young Han Solo
9 hours ago
Kingsman, Transformers and Hail, Caesar! actors reportedly shortlisted to star as the younger version of Harrison Ford in Star Wars spinoff movie
Related: Miles Teller, Ansel Elgort and Dave Franco 'shortlisted for young Han Solo'
Disney’s search for the new Han Solo has been whittled down to a shortlist of three actors, Taron Egerton, Alden Ehrenreich and Jack Reynor, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
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- Ben Child
Krisha review – a tension-packed family roast with all the trimmings
9 hours ago
Trey Edward Shults’ SXSW-winning debut introduces a talent able to cook up a story about a family meal gone awry that’s engrossing and perfectly seasoned
From its opening bravura shot to its heartbreaking conclusion of indoor fireworks, Trey Edward Shults’s Krisha is an outstanding portrait of someone roasting (a turkey) under psychological pressures, effortlessly weaving between naturalistic and highly stylized sequences. It is a bravura debut from a young film-maker, proving that one can still make a movie for no money at a family member’s house and come away with a work of art, not just a calling card.
Related: SXSW film: Krisha and Peace Officer take festival prizes
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- Jordan Hoffman
Oscars' apology for 'racist' Asian stereotypes labelled 'patronising'
11 hours ago
Star Trek actor George Takei, one of 24 Academy members who wrote an open letter of complaint after the awards ceremony, has dismissed the ‘bland corporate response’
East Asian Hollywood stars have reacted angrily to a “patronising” apology from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for its “tone-deaf” attitude at this year’s Oscars.
Two dozen Academy members, including the two-time Oscar-winning film-maker Ang Lee, Star Trek actor George Takei and the actor Sandra Oh, published an open letter to organisers on 15 March, complaining about “tasteless and offensive skits” based on racial stereotyping at this year’s ceremony. Now the Academy’s response, from president Cheryl Boone Isaacs, has been dismissed out of hand by Takei, and the industry site Deadline says that it “basically reads like a form letter”.
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- Ben Child
Jeremy Irons says he would turn down knighthood
11 hours ago
Actor says he is not part of establishment and joined profession to be a ‘rogue and vagabond’
Jeremy Irons has said he would turn down a knighthood, adding that he “ain’t” part of the establishment.
Irons, who will return to the stage with the director Richard Eyre for the Bristol Old Vic’s production of Long Day’s Journey Into Night next week, said he had not gone into his profession in order to conform to the status quo.
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- Jessica Elgot
Busby Berkeley, patron saint of movie camp - archive, 16 March 1976
15 hours ago
16 March 1976: Derek Malcolm pays tribute to the film director who had an age named after him
It was once fashionable to call Busby Berkeley, the pioneering Hollywood dance director who has died aged 80, a vulgarian whose garish confections, usually involving women as fruits ripe for plucking, were the epitome of American bad taste.
Now, even in the age of women’s liberation, a nostalgic world takes a gentler view. The girly-merchandising Busby ballets are regarded more as celebratory masterpieces of art deco than as exploitative male fantasies. He even has an era named after him, which is more than you can say for Ingmar Bergman.
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- Derek Malcolm
Oscars sorry for 'tone deaf' portrayal of Asians at Academy Awards
17 hours ago
Organisers of the awards voice regret after complaints from the Asian community that skits were offensive
Oscar organisers have apologised for what a group of actors and filmmakers of Asian descent called the “tone-deaf” portrayal of Asians during this year’s Academy Awards ceremony.
The Academy, which has pledged to double its numbers of women and minority members by 2020, on Tuesday said that it “regrets that any aspect of the Oscar telecast was offensive.
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- Reuters
Watch Jj Abrams' 10 Cloverfield Lane trailer – video
17 hours ago
Film fans were surprised when producer Jj Abrams released this trailer for 10 Cloverfield Lane. Before it premiered with prints of Michael Bay’s 13 Hours, no one knew the film existed – at least not under the Cloverfield banner. Now the Us$15m film, shot mostly in one location by a first-time director and featuring Mary Elizabeth Winstead and John Goodman, has made just less than $25m amid widespread critical acclaim
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- Guardian Staff
Has 10 Cloverfield Lane broken the movie trailer template?
20 hours ago
Jj Abrams reinvented the way blockbusters are rolled out with a deviously vague campaign. But can it really be done again?
Related: 10 Cloverfield Lane review – monster 'sequel' is more Hitchcock than Xbox
The roll-out of a new trailer has become a tiresome exercise. Ten-second teasers precede a 6o-second teaser, which is followed by a two-minute trailer, accompanied by another two-minute international trailer, and perhaps finished off with some TV spots and a final internet-only trailer.
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- Benjamin Lee
Seth Rogen's animated film Sausage Party is provocative food for thought
15 March 2016 1:05 PM, PDT
Rogen presented his unfinished new film – a crude comedy that questions the existence of God – with This is the End co-writer Evan Goldberg at SXSW
Over the years, the SXSW film festival has become known for its work-in-progress screenings, in which a major film that’s allegedly not finished is previewed, months ahead of its actual release date.
Past highlights have included Bridesmaids, Trainwreck and Furious 7 – but though they were billed as incomplete, they were basically finished products, save some color correcting and sound tinkering. But this was not the case for Sony’s R-rated animated comedy Sausage Party, from Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, who co-wrote This is the End.
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- Nigel M Smith in Austin, Texas
Harrison Ford back as Indiana Jones for fifth film, directed by Steven Spielberg
15 March 2016 11:08 AM, PDT
Long-mooted instalment in archeologist’s adventures to reunite star, director and producer George Lucas, and be released in 2019
Related: Indiana Jones and the Tide of Ageism: why such a reaction to the fifth film?
Indiana Jones has not hung up his fedora just yet: Disney have announced the dry-yet-derring archaeologist will be back for a fifth, as yet untitled, instalment. The film will be released on 19 July 2019, 11 years after the ill-received fourth in the series, Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Crystal Skull.
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- Catherine Shoard
Ang Lee slams Oscars over Chris Rock's 'racist' joke about east Asians
15 March 2016 9:26 AM, PDT
Oscar-winning director and other east Asian Hollywood stars have written a letter of protest to the Academy over its ‘tone-deaf approach to its portrayal of Asians’ at this year’s awards ceremony
The two-time Oscar-winning director Ang Lee is among a host of east Asian Hollywood talent who have written a letter to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) protesting at this year’s Oscar ceremony’s “tone-deaf” attitude to their race, according to Variety.
Lee, from Taiwan, joined a number of signees, including actors Sandra Oh (Canadian, of Korean descent) and George Takei (American, of Japanese descent), in criticising AMPAS for including in this year’s Oscar show jokes based on racial stereotyping. In the later stages of the broadcast, host Chris Rock introduced “the accountants” who had tabulated the Oscars results. They were three children of east Asian descent called “Ming Zhu, Bao Ling, and »
- Henry Barnes and agencies
Kung Fu Panda 3 chops Allegiant down to size at UK box office
15 March 2016 8:54 AM, PDT
Latest instalment in The Divergent Series is no match for DreamWorks’ high-kicking franchise, and London Has Fallen defies the critics to come in third
While the February half-term holiday this year saw Disney, Pixar and DreamWorks Animation all sit out the contest – ceding the field to Fox’s Chipmunks franchise – it’s a different story this Easter. Good Friday sees the arrival of Disney Animation’s Zootropolis, and it’s already begun popping up in previews, with more to follow. It’s been preceded by DreamWorks Animation’s Kung Fu Panda 3, which cruised to an easy win at the box office with £3.18m from 583 cinemas, plus £1.59m in previews, for a total of £4.77m. The weekend number is very similar to previous entries in the franchise, although more aggressive previews on the earlier films pushed those totals higher. Kung Fu Panda debuted in July 2008, with £3.11m plus £2.96m for a £6.07m total. »
- Charles Gant
Anomalisa: the ending, the eggs and the sex toy – discuss the movie with spoilers
15 March 2016 7:17 AM, PDT
Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson’s stop-motion drama was the big critics’ choice this weekend – here’s your chance to talk about the film in full
Related: Anomalisa review: a masterpiece about the human condition – with puppets
In the Us, Anomalisa ended up taking $3m off a budget of $8m. In the UK, it’s sneaked into the top 10 on its first week on release, and has already made more than half the total take of Kaufman’s last, Synecdoche, New York.
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- Catherine Shoard
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