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Christine review – real-life tragedy is impeccably acted and deeply unsettling
5 hours ago
Rebecca Hall is magnetic as a Florida news anchor who killed herself on air in this haunting tale of depression, loneliness and misogyny that offers no easy get-outs
Rebecca Hall gives a career-best performance in this deeply strange real-life story, written for the screen by Craig Shilowich and directed by Antonio Campos. (It is also the subject of an offbeat drama-doc, Kate Plays Christine.) This can be read as a woman’s career-crisis and humiliation created by casual misogynists, or a modern tragedy of bipolar disorder, or a chaotic, unedifying personal tale of narcissism and self-harm from which nothing can be learned. It is a measure of Hall’s intelligence and sensitivity that her performance gives you access to all of these interpretations.
Hall plays Christine Chubbuck, a Florida TV news journalist who in 1974 took her own life with a gunshot, live on air; she was apparently unhappy in her love life, »
- Peter Bradshaw
Unforgotten series two, episode four recap – what a handbrake turn!
6 hours ago
Bombshells detonate all over the place as David Walker goes from victim to predator, Cassie gets assaulted and Sara goes viral
The plot takes a jarring handbrake turn this week as David Walker is revealed as a serial abuser. It’s a shock big enough to cause a bust-up between the usually harmonious Cassie and Sunny. Things are no less tense for the suspects as the past bleeds into the present, threatening everything they hold dear.
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- James Donaghy
Music television: the five greatest all-singing episodes ever
11 hours ago
The trend for packing special episodes of shows with songs continues to gain steam with The Flash and Supergirl – but there have only been a few good ones
Technically speaking, there is no right or wrong way to react to the sentence “Upcoming two-part The Flash/Supergirl musical crossover episode”. However, if your reaction doesn’t involve screaming yourself hoarse with terror inside a cupboard that you’ve deliberately bricked yourself into, there’s probably something wrong with you. Musical episodes of non-musical TV shows are the devil’s anus, and the statistical likelihood is that March’s The Flash/Supergirl episodes will further reinforce this notion.
Related: Reboot regrets: the TV revivals that should never have happened
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- Stuart Heritage
Star Wars and Trainspotting sequels help UK film production break records
11 hours ago
Some 200 movie shoots spent £1.6bn in Britain in 2016, a rise of 13% on the previous year, reveal new BFI statistics
The Brits may not be coming at this year’s Oscars, as Tuesday’s nominations saw the country score its lowest number in a decade, but the film industry is increasingly coming to Britain.
New statistics released by the British Film Institute on 26 January show that 200 feature films started shooting in the UK last year, contributing to a total spend of £1.6 billion. This is a 13% rise from the previous year’s figures – and the highest number since the record started in 1994. Of the 200 films, 48 were funded outside the UK, and these account for 85% of the total investment.
Related: Credit rating: why George Osborne has got his name on Star Wars: The Force Awakens
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- Catherine Shoard
SAG predictions: who will win – and who should win
15 hours ago
The acting guild rewards the best performances in TV and film and this year suggests big wins for Viola Davis, Sarah Paulson, Casey Affleck and Emma Stone
There’s always something admirably matter-of-fact about the Screen Actors Guild awards. Without a host and with only a lifetime achievement award to break from the formula, it’s a speedy watch, perfect for those who find the Oscars a grueling marathon of back-slapping and montages.
Related: Screen Actors Guild showers nominations on Manchester by the Sea
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- Benjamin Lee
Studio Ghibli's first TV show is a wondrous world of peril and magic
16 hours ago
Full of bandits and harpies, Ronia the Robber’s Daughter is a classic from the masterful Japanese animation house. But can old-fashioned tales appeal to children any more – especially if there’s no merch line?
The other week I was talking to some children about underwater disaster recovery. This is the trade of the Octonauts, a gang of animals and a half-animal half-vegetable, who specialise in marshalling Blobfish or reuniting lost starfish with their families. Comprised of a polar bear, a cat with an eye patch and the afore-mentioned vegimal, Tunip, each of the Octonauts are purchasable as action figurines, as are their various sub-aquatic vehicles. This, my correspondents agreed, made the Octonauts a compelling team and their TV show a must-watch.
I wonder what these Octo-nuts would make of Ronia the Robber’s Daughter. Coming to Amazon this week, it’s a 26-part animation from Japanese animation house Studio Ghibli »
- Paul MacInnes
Women Who Kill review – every murder, no matter how typical, is unique
21 hours ago
Women kill a lot less often and usually know their victims, but this documentary was careful not to jump to conclusions. Plus a witness protection comedy that jars
Two things are known for certain about Josh Hilberling’s death: he fell from the window of his 25th-floor apartment in Tulsa, and his wife Amber is serving 25 years for his murder.
The other elements of Amber Hilberling’s story – the central narrative of Women Who Kill (Channel 4) – were more friable. Her relationship with Josh was tempestuous, and mutually violent. “It was a toxic love, it was a dangerous love, but it was love,” said a friend. Josh had recently been kicked out of the air force for drugs, and had since returned to dealing. Amber was pregnant. It’s pretty clear that Amber pushed him during an argument, but it seems unlikely that death by defenestration was her intention.
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- Tim Dowling
Thursday’s best TV: The Cult Next Door; Unforgotten; Fortitude
22 hours ago
The shocking tale of a Maoist cult in south London. Plus: we edge closer to the truth in ITV’s whodunnit, and icy secrets abound in the return of the star-studded Arctic drama
In 2013, news broke of the discovery of a tiny Maoist sect holed up in an otherwise unassuming street in Brixton, south London, and of the captive women who had been subject to decades of brainwashing and abuse. Vanessa Engle’s film details the case and meets the brave and remarkably forgiving survivors (“You’re still in prison if you hold on to your hatred,” one reflects) in a profoundly disturbing and incredibly poignant documentary. Ali Catterall
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- Ben Arnold, Ali Catterall, Phil Harrison, Paul Howlett, Andrew Mueller, Gwilym Mumford, Graeme Virtue, Jonathan Wright
Television actor Mary Tyler Moore dies aged 80 – video obituary
25 January 2017 4:42 PM, PST
The award-winning actor and star of two of America’s most-loved sitcoms, died Wednesday at the age of 80. Her most well-known role was on the Mary Tyler Moore Show, in which she portrayed an independent young woman working in a newsroom as the 1970s women’s movement was under way
Mary Tyler Moore obituaryA true cultural icon who changed the face of television Continue reading »
- Guardian Staff
Mary Tyler Moore: a true cultural icon who changed the face of television
25 January 2017 3:39 PM, PST
Moore ripped up the TV rulebook by bringing feminism to the small screen and with her own company went on to produce some of the best shows ever seen
There’s an eerie and tragic symmetry to the death of Mary Tyler Moore coming just four days after the most exhilarating display of feminist power and consciousness the world has ever seen. Chances are, if you insta-polled the women marching on Saturday, a huge number would have told you just how important Mary Tyler Moore and her fictional other selves – Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show, but particularly Mary Richards on The Mary Tyler Moore Show – were to their lives as girls and women. Mary Richards was the smiling, friendly side of 1970s feminism in the women’s liberation era: she got by on charm, brains, wit, talent and hard work.
Related: Mary Tyler Moore obituary
Moore showed »
- John Patterson
Mary Tyler Moore obituary
25 January 2017 2:30 PM, PST
Actor who used TV sitcom for her portrayal of an independent modern woman
The actor Mary Tyler Moore, who has died aged 80, spent decades as “America’s sweetheart”, her time in that role reflecting changes in American society and the turmoil of her own private life. Her outwardly bubbly personality and trademark broad, toothy smile disguised an inner fragility that appealed to an audience facing the new trials of modern-day existence. She grew into the role on television; her parts tracked changing opportunities for women, but were always channelled through her own character. “I am not an actress who can create a character,” she said. “I play me.”
Moore came to notice in 1959 in the TV series Richard Diamond, Private Detective, as the private eye’s message service operator Sam. Seen only as a disembodied, deep-voiced pair of legs at a switchboard, she was literally objectified. She became a star »
- Michael Carlson
The Great British Bake Off to return to TV screens in 2017
25 January 2017 2:26 PM, PST
BBC waives right to prevent C4 relaunching show until at least 2018, saying a dispute would be undignified
The Great British Bake Off will return to television screens this year, it has been confirmed, after the BBC agreed to waive its right to force Channel 4 to hold off until 2018 at the earliest.
The BBC, which lost the rights to the programme last September after its rival broadcaster bid a reported £25m per year, said it wished the show well.
Related: Nadiya Hussain: ‘Mum never used the oven – she stored pans in it’
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- Kevin Rawlinson
Mary Tyler Moore, groundbreaking television actor, dies aged 80
25 January 2017 12:04 PM, PST
Star won seven Emmy awards for her work on her eponymous sitcom and The Dick Van Dyke Show
Mary Tyler Moore, the award-winning actor and star of two of America’s best-loved sitcoms, died on Wednesday at age 80.
Related: Mary Tyler Moore obituary
Mary(Mtm) was a gem. She was iconic, my boss, cast mate and a friend and I will miss her
She turned the world on with her smile. Rip, Mary Tyler Moore. You were a role model in so many ways.
Mary Tyler Moore changed the world for all women. I send my love to her family.
#marytylermoore my heart goes out to you and your family. Know that I love you and believe in your strength.
#MaryTylerMoore was a dear friend and a truly great person. A fighter. Rest in peace, Mtm.
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- Nicole Puglise and agencies
My Super Sweet 16 is back – and it's a perfect grotesque for the Trump age
25 January 2017 9:01 AM, PST
A gaudy parade of humanity’s worst instincts, the MTV show died in 2008 just before Obama rose to power. Now it’s being revived, in all its monstrousness
Of all the nasty, nefarious, no-good ways to erase Barack Obama from history, this is perhaps the most sinister. Forget mass-pipeline initiation or repealing the Affordable Care Act; MTV is bringing back My Super Sweet 16.
Stick with me here. My Super Sweet 16 ran for three and a half years from January 2005, and managed to perfectly encapsulate the then-prevalent notion of the Ugly American. The series was a gaudy parade of humanity’s worst instincts, of entitlement and pettiness and blind consumerism at all costs. It was a grotesque bearpit of a show, an all-time gold standard blueprint for horrible parenting. With every episode, with every room-shredding tantrum brought about by an infinitesimally off detail in a whirlwind of tacky excess, »
- Stuart Heritage
The National Television Awards: who will win – and who actually should
25 January 2017 8:43 AM, PST
The people’s Baftas are here! But will Bake Off or I’m A Celebrity emerge victorious? And will Gary Lineker in his pants knock Ant & Dec off their perch?
Democracy! Everyone loves a bit of that at the moment, don’t they? If people have voted for something, it must be the best. Perfect timing, then, for the National Television Awards – the only TV gongs decided purely by the discerning public – to roll around for its 22nd year. So who’s likely to pick up an award? And for us snowflakes who insist on defying the will of the people, who ought to get one instead?
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- Jack Seale
10 years of Skins: the show that revealed the explicit truth about teenage life
25 January 2017 3:22 AM, PST
Skins is now a period drama about a long-lost breed of hedonistic teens. But a decade on, it’s still funny, still outrageous – and it propelled its stars to greatness, from Game of Thrones to the Oscars
In the early 00s, most TV shows about teenagers, particularly the American ones, were glossy affairs propped up by a cast of actors at least 10 years older than their fictional age. Dawson’s Creek, The Oc and Gossip Girl showed slick fantasy lives that revolved around money and movie-star looks. They offered a traditional portrait of what they thought their viewers might aspire to. Bizarrely, with hindsight, this involved ostentatious houses and cars and torrid romantic affairs that took on the language of middle-aged married couples.
Skins changed all that. It first aired 10 years ago today, and it took the radical step of considering what young viewers might want and aspire to by »
- Rebecca Nicholson
Further Back in Time for Dinner review – top middle-class TV time travel with Giles Coren and a cow’s brain
24 January 2017 11:43 PM, PST
The Robshaws are catapulted to a world of suet pudding and worry about your standing in the neighbourhood. Plus: all you favourite Icelandic actors in Case
Time-sadist Giles Coren is at it again: drop-kicking people – mostly the Robshaw family – into the past and watching them clamber slowly and uncomfortably back again. They make it back to the 21st century, get back to some Snapchat and sushi, then Giles boots them back to the past. Now, with Further Back in Time for Dinner (BBC 2), he’s firing the Robshaws all the way to 1900.
It’s not all bad in 1900. They’re middle class, with aspirations. Brandon Robshaw has a clerical job. The kitchen of their house in Tooting, south London, is lovely, with a lot of wood and iron about the place and a flagstone floor; I think people would spend a lot of money getting that kind of look today. »
- Sam Wollaston
Wednesday’s best TV: The National Television Awards, Who Do You Think You Are?
24 January 2017 10:09 PM, PST
The Night Manager and Happy Valley vie for votes. Plus: Ian McKellen discovers another thespian in the family
Dermot O’Leary again hosts the directly democratic gong show, from London’s O2 Arena. The programmes vying for votes include plenty of classy crowd-pleasers such as The Night Manager and Happy Valley, as well as the odd surprise (Orange is the New Black is up for best comedy). Meanwhile, can Gary Lineker’s online humanitarianism help the Match of the Day host prise the TV presenter award from the generally invincible Ant and Dec? Jack Seale
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- Jack Seale, David Stubbs, Ali Catterall, Hannah Verdier, John Robinson, Phil Harrison, Mark Gibbings-Jones, Paul Howlett
Christina Ricci: 'I thought I'd do better as I got older'
24 January 2017 10:57 AM, PST
The once child star has struggled to land grown-up roles, so now she has created her own. She talks about her angry teens, Hollywood creeps – and bringing Zelda, the hard-partying wife of F Scott Fitzgerald, to the screen
Some time ago, Christina Ricci read Therese Anne Fowler’s book about Zelda Fitzgerald, called her agent and asked who owned the rights for it so she could audition. It turned out nobody was making it, so Ricci decided to do it herself. And she did. The TV series she produces and stars in, Z: The Beginning of Everything, starts this week, its title coming from a remark made by her husband, the writer F Scott Fitzgerald: “I love her and that’s the beginning and end of everything.”
Perched neatly on a huge sofa that emphasises her tiny frame, Ricci seems both childlike and worldly. The eyes, cartoonishly big, seem »
- Emine Saner
Vicky McClure webchat – post your questions now
24 January 2017 7:18 AM, PST
The This is England and Line of Duty actor is joining us to answer your questions at 1pm GMT on Friday 27 January – post them in the comments below
3.18pm GMT
Vicky McClure has played a series of tough but vulnerable figures in some of TV’s biggest drama successes: This is England, Line of Duty, Broadchurch and more.
She got her break in Shane Meadows’ film A Room for Romeo Brass, which led to nine years playing Lol in his kitchen-sink saga This is England, winning a Bafta for her performance in the ‘86 instalment. She recently reunited with co-star Stephen Graham for an adaptation of The Secret Agent alongside Toby Jones, and was picked out by Madonna to act in her directing debut, Filth and Wisdom.
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- Guardian Staff
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