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Why Dheepan's take on immigration isn't helpful
2 hours ago
Jacques Audiard’s depiction of Sri Lankans faking family ties to escape war is powerful, but highly selective in both the challenges the outcasts meet and its toxic depiction of France’s multiracial suburbs
There’s a touching scene in Jacques Audiard’s film Dheepan in which Yalini tells her husband Dheepan that the reason he doesn’t find French jokes funny isn’t because French jokes aren’t funny or that he doesn’t understand the language, but because he has no sense of humour in any language. The scene is terrific because it marks a moment of understanding between the two characters, briskly paints the differences between them, and riffs on the theme of language, which sets them so at odds with their surroundings. Yalini isn’t really Dheepan’s wife: they pretended to be married in order to escape Sri Lanka for the Parisian suburb they now find themselves in, »
- Caspar Salmon
Tina Fey working on Mean Girls musical adaption of hit teen comedy
4 hours ago
The 30 Rock creator also weighs in on the dark tone of this year’s election and who makes her laugh during a Tribeca film festival storytellers event
Tina Fey said she’s hard at work on a musical adaptation of her hit 2004 teen comedy Mean Girls, on Tuesday night at the Tribeca film festival.
The 30 Rock creator had previously previewed the show in March on Bravo’s late night program Watch What Happens Live. But during a talk as part of the festival’s storytellers lineup, moderated by TV Guide writer Damian Holbrook, Fey revealed that the summer gap, in between shooting seasons of her Netflix show Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, has given her time to complete the musical with her husband, composer Jeff Richmond, and lyricist Nell Benjamin.
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- Nigel M Smith
Teen Wolf director Rod Daniel dies at 73
5 hours ago
Film-maker once told a journalist he had ‘no illusions’ about the quality of his work and wouldn’t buy a ticket to any of them
Rod Daniel, the Teen Wolf director best known for delivering mainstream Hollywood comedies in the 1980s and early 1990s, has died at the age of 73.
Daniel made his directing debut on the 1985 supernatural comedy, which starred Michael J Fox as a high school student who discovers a family tendency towards lycanthropy. The low-budget film, which cost just $1.2m to make, failed to repeat the enormous box office success of Fox’s other comedy of that year, Back to the Future. But it was nevertheless enormously profitable for studio Atlantic Releasing Corporation, pulling in worldwide receipts of $80m, and has retained something of a minor cult status ever since. A TV remake, also titled Teen Wolf, was recently renewed for a sixth season.
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- Ben Child
The Magnificent Seven: trailer for the remake of the classic western – video
8 hours ago
In director Antoine Fuqua’s remake of classic 1960s western The Magnificent Seven, the sleepy town of Rose Creek is controlled by an industrialist played by Peter Sarsgaard. The desperate townspeople employ protection from seven outlaws – lead by Sam Chisolm (Denzel Washington). As they prepare the town for the violent showdown that they know is coming, these seven mercenaries find themselves fighting for more than money
The film is scheduled for release in September Continue reading »
- Guardian Staff
Blunt trauma in Girl on the Train and Friend Request reviewed – the Dailies film podcast
8 hours ago
The Guardian film team’s round-up of Wednesday’s movie news
Your daily update of the latest news and reviews from the Guardian film team. Now showing: the trailer for the much-anticipated adaptation of hit thriller The Girl on the Train has landed but will it be this year’s Gone Girl? Plus a review of social media horror Friend Request.
Follow us on Twitter (GuardianFilm, Henry, Ben, Catherine, Andrew and producer Rowan) and check out our Facebook page. Comment on the show below.
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- Presented by Catherine Shoard with Benjamin Lee and produced by Rowan Slaney
Nina review: problems more than skin-deep in cliche-ridden Nina Simone biopic
8 hours ago
A ‘blackfaced’ Zoe Saldana is commanding in her portrayal of the High Priestess of Soul, but the movie relies too heavily on cheap shots
The chorus from the most famous Nina Simone song never heard in the Nina Simone biopic is the one that rattles around in your head most as you watch it: “Goddam!” Cynthia Mort’s long-in-development Nina has been the focus of considerable casting controversy, but the light-skinned Zoe Saldana wearing dark makeup and face-altering prosthetics is only the film’s surface problem. At its core it is an inept, cliche-ridden story edited together in a treacly and cheap manner. Set 20 years ago, Nina feels like a made-for-television movie of the era, the type which, thankfully, we rarely see any more.
Related: Nina Simone's estate tells biopic star Zoe Saldana: 'Take Nina’s name out your mouth'
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- Jordan Hoffman
UK fans annoyed by absence of extras from Star Wars: The Force Awakens DVD
8 hours ago
Only Blu-ray versions of Jj Abrams’s space blockbuster reboot feature much-publicised documentary and deleted scenes
UK-based Star Wars fans are furious that the new DVD release of The Force Awakens fails to include much-publicised deleted scenes or a download link to watch the movie online.
Jj Abrams’s blockbuster space opera reboot debuted on home-video formats on Monday after zooming past $2bn (£1.39bn) at the global box office in February. A £9.99 DVD is available, but only the more expensive £15 Blu-ray release and a special edition £24.99 Blu-ray feature extra content such as the documentary Secrets of the Force Awakens: A Cinematic Journey and deleted scenes featuring Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren and Carrie Fisher’s Leia Organa. Purchasers of the DVD are unable to watch the film digitally because no download link has been included.
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- Ben Child
Emily Blunt is tracking a murder in first trailer for The Girl on the Train
9 hours ago
A first look at the adaptation of Paula Hawkins’ best-selling mystery suggests a Gone Girl-sized hit
The first trailer for mystery thriller The Girl on the Train has arrived, and with it a heavy cargo of expectation, given the record-breaking sales of its source novel.
Emily Blunt takes the lead role as Rachel, a heavy-drinker who develops an obsession with a couple she regularly sees while on her commute to work. After the woman disappears, Rachel becomes entangled in the investigation.
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- Benjamin Lee
Emir Kusturica: Cannes rejected my film because I support Putin
10 hours ago
Serbian director and winner of the Palme d’Or blames political bias against Russia for On the Milky Road failing to make the official selection
The Serbian film-maker Emir Kusturica has claimed his latest movie was turned down by the Cannes film festival over his support for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
Kusturica, twice a winner of the festival’s top Palme d’Or prize, said he blamed political bias for the failure of his new film On the Milky Road to make the 2016 official selection.
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- Ben Child
Anthony Lapaglia on American politics and ageism in Hollywood
13 hours ago
La-based Australian actor says Hollywood decision makers are mostly business graduates that ‘crunch numbers’ rather than make sound artistic choices
Book now for Guardian Australia’s screening of A Month of Sundays, on 27 April
In Anthony Lapaglia’s new film A Month of Sundays, the latest work from Noise and Felony director Matthew Saville, the 57-year-old actor plays a grumpy Eeyore-like housing broker who walks around in a permanent funk. His character, Frank Mollard, is dour and reserved; a man of few words.
This is in stark contrast to the person who plays him; when we speak, he is at a Bondi hotel having landed just a few hours ago on a flight from La. Lapaglia is loquacious and engaging, rattling through topics with the kind of straight-shooting, borderline brazen sincerity often associated with beer-infused pub banter (it’s mid-afternoon and we’re drinking coffee).
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- Luke Buckmaster
A Hologram for a King review – Tom Hanks presides over meandering mess
19 hours ago
Hanks is stellar playing an exasperated businessman waiting in Saudi Arabia to meet with the region’s king in hectic adaptation of Dave Eggers’s novel
Tom Hanks is an inherently likable actor. Hell, he was voted “the most trusted person in America” in a 2013 poll. It’s next to impossible not to fall prey to his everyman charms, and it’s solely thanks to these that his latest film, A Hologram for a King, is watchable.
Based on Dave Eggers’s best-seller about an exasperated American businessman who ventures to Saudi Arabia for a pitch-meeting with the region’s monarch, Tom Tykwer’s adaptation is a meandering mess of half-baked storylines that amount to little. Hanks’s affable presence keeps it all afloat.
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- Nigel M Smith
Captain America: Civil War review – an aspartame rush
20 hours ago
Entertaining mayhem ensues when some of the Avengers reject government oversight following a botched operation
Should the Avengers be nationalised? This is the explosively controversial idea that ignites a “civil war” among their ranks in this exciting superhero extravaganza. It’s crazily surreal, engaging and funny in the best Marvel tradition, building to a whiplash-twist reveal that sports with the ever-present idea of duplicity and betrayal within the Avengers’ ranks themselves.
The innumerable civilian deaths and collateral damage that always follow the Avengers’ spectacular city-pulverising showdowns have become impossible to ignore – and now the Avengers are faced with having to submit to Un political oversight and control.
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- Peter Bradshaw
Endo What? trailer: 'I went 18 years thinking this pain was normal' – video
20 hours ago
Endo What? starts with a simple fact: one in 10 women suffer from a disease that most people have never heard of. This documentary by Shannon Cohn brings together leading Us experts on endometriosis to put a spotlight on the disease and on the limits in treating it. Endo What? is screening in Australia and Canada in April. It is also available online
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- Guardian Staff
The Banksy Job review – old street art spat makes tedious viewing
21 hours ago
The theft and return of the celebrated street artist’s sculpture is treated like a major art heist in a film that riffs on Banksy’s Exit Through the Gift Shop
This film dredges up an unsurprisingly long-forgotten news story and stretches it out mercilessly to 90 minutes. In March 2004, Banksy’s first sculpture – a version of Rodin’s The Thinker with a traffic cone on his head and retitled The Drinker – was taken from the central London plinth where the street artist had left it and “kidnapped”. In December, more than a decade later, it was returned to the same spot, only now the statue was seated on a toilet and retitled The Stinker.
Sophisticated stuff, barely registering on the scale of art heists given that the work was a) totally unguarded and b) pretty much worthless, both financially and artistically. (Even Banksy himself only offered £2 for its return.) Yet »
- Alex Needham
Prince William and Prince Harry's lightsaber fight during Star Wars set visit – video
19 April 2016 8:35 AM, PDT
The Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry visit the Star Wars set at Pinewood Studios on Tuesday, engaging in a light saber battle as they meet the cast and crew. William and Harry were given a guided tour of Pinewood by Daisy Ridley, who plays Rey in The Force Awakens, the latest episode of the sci-fi series to be released.
Force is with William and Harry as they take a tour round Star Wars set
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- Guardian Staff
British Empire strikes back as Princes William and Harry visit Star Wars set – in pictures
19 April 2016 8:32 AM, PDT
Princes William and Harry took a tour of the Star Wars set at Pinewood studios, meeting stars John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Mark Hamill – and Chewbacca. Star Wars Episode VIII, which is directed by Gareth Edwards, began shooting in February and is due for release in 2017, a year after Gareth Edwards’ Star Wars extended universe saga Rogue One opens in cinemas
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- Guardian Staff
Andrea Arnold: I find my adaptation of Wuthering Heights 'hard to look at'
19 April 2016 8:25 AM, PDT
American Honey director tells Tribeca film festival that she was in ‘a dark place’ during production of her 2011 take on Emily Brontë’s classic romance
Oscar-winning British director Andrea Arnold has said that she finds her acclaimed 2011 adaptation of Wuthering Heights a difficult film to enjoy.
The film-maker, who won the Academy award for best live-action short in 2005 for Wasp, spoke about Wuthering Heights during a discussion at this year’s Tribeca film festival.
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- Benjamin Lee
South Korean film-makers to boycott Busan film festival over 'freedom of expression'
19 April 2016 7:50 AM, PDT
Impasse began after city council ordered organisers to cancel 2014 screening of a controversial Sewol ferry disaster documentary
South Korea’s best-known film festival could be left struggling to fill its 2016 programme, after a group representing many of the country’s most high-profile film-makers agreed to mount a boycott over municipal interference.
The Busan international film festival’s (Biff) 21st edition is due to take place in the southern port city from 6 to 15 October 2016. But an association of nine of the country’s top film bodies announced on Monday that it would ask its members to stay away, according to the Korea Times.
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- Ben Child
Israeli actor and director Ronit Elkabetz dies aged 51
19 April 2016 7:19 AM, PDT
Country’s film industry and former president Shimon Peres react with dismay at news that the multi-award-winner has died from cancer
Multi-award-winning Israeli actor-director Ronit Elkabetz has died aged 51 from cancer, it has been announced. The daughter of Moroccan immigrants, Elkabetz’s most successful film was also her most recent: Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem, in which she starred as an orthodox Jewish woman attempting to obtain a religious divorce; she also co-directed and wrote it with her brother Shlomi. The film won numerous awards, and was nominated for the best foreign language film Golden Globe in 2015.
News of Elkabetz’s death was greeted with dismay across the Israeli film industry, with fellow director Amos Gitai saying: “It’s no wonder she captivated the world’s attention, she was loved by everyone ... she was simply spectacular.” Former president Shimon Peres said in a statement that Elkabetz was “an »
- Andrew Pulver
Laura Poitras's Julian Assange documentary to premiere at Cannes
19 April 2016 6:24 AM, PDT
Look at Assange post-WikiLeaks by director of Citizenfour is part of Directors’ Fortnight sidebar which also includes work by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Pablo Larraín, while Chloë Sevigny short showing in Critics’ Week
Although he is still confined in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, Julian Assange will make an appearance at the Cannes film festival – via Laura Poitras’s documentary Risk, which has been selected for the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar.
Poitras, who profiled another celebrated data warrior, Edward Snowden, in Citizenfour, filmed with Assange in 2010 (although the pair are reportedly not now on good terms). Her film – originally entitled Asylum – is said to cover the period when the WikiLeaks data dumps were triggering international outrage.
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- Andrew Pulver
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