As Cannes passes its halfway mark, already a number of deals and release dates have been set, with Asghar Farhadi’s “The Past” being just the latest. But away from the Croisette, a number of smaller pictures are nearing release, and a diverse slate at that: a UK cop thriller with a stellar ensemble,...
Read More »The specter of "Downton Abbey" has been present in the run up to the broadcast of BBC and HBO's new period drama "Parade's End." Both are lavish period tales set before, during and after World War I. But in fact, the comparisons are a little overblown. 'Downton' and "Parade's End" (an adaptation of ...
Read More »In Part 3 of HBO’s lyrical, nuanced, romantic and tough-minded World War I era series, Parade’s End, the aloof Sylvia Tietjens says of her aristocratic husband, “Christopher is the last decent man in England. How dare they put their knives into him – he’s mine.&rdq...
Read More »The history of the British police movie is not a glorious one. Perhaps it's because (for the most part) UK coppers aren't allowed to carry firearms, which somewhat reduces the capacity for squib-happy action sequences. Or maybe it's the lack of glamorous locations for said shootouts, which can hardl...
Read More »In retrospect, perhaps we’ve been too generous about the slow pace of “Boardwalk Empire” season three. After all, even one of our comrades at IndieWIRE, Anne Thompson, said she was dismayed at HBO’s decision to renew the show for a fourth season considering the molasses like rhythm of season three s...
Read More »“Parade’s End” has already proven divisive. It’s been widely praised by the punditry, but many viewers have expressed frustration with its wilfully muddled structure (apparently a hangover from the even more chronologically confusing books), in which events separated by years and sometimes countries...
Read More »The specter of "Downton Abbey" has been present in the run up to the broadcast of BBC and HBO's new period drama "Parade's End," which aired its first episode in the UK last night (it'll come to the US cable network in the near future, though no exact date has been confirmed yet). Both are lavish pe...
Read More »After a long, somewhat troubled casting process, which involved cycling through most of the possible leading men in Hollywood before landing on "Thor" star Chris Hemsworth, filming on Universal's "Snow White and the Huntsman" is finally underway. And a good thing too -- thanks to a race with Relativity's "The Brothers Grimm: Snow White," the film was moved up six months to a release date next June. And despite some early misgivings (and perhaps because the rival film by Tarsem looks so garish), we're beginning to be intrigued by the project, which marks the directorial debut of commercials helmer Rupert Sanders, and stars Hemsworth, Kristen S...
Read More »Gary Oldman Says Sequel Could Be A Composite Of 'The Honourable Schoolboy' And 'Smiley's People'It's hard to say that the spy genre doesn't love a franchise. The longest running franchise in cinema history is, of course, the James Bond series, Jason Bourne is Universal's biggest tentpole, and from H...
Read More »Screen Daily reports that Paul Bettany, Brian Cox and Stephen Graham will lead a big screen adaptation of an acclaimed 2004 BBC mini-series originally called “Conviction,” now simply retitled “Blood,” set to shoot this January. Screenwriter Bill Gallagher will pen an adaptation of his own material, which centered on two policemen in the Criminal Investigation Department or CID being thrown into chaos by the murder of a twelve year-old girl and exploring, rather loftily, "the notion that everyone has the ability to kill and what it is that can trigger that reaction in any of us." By anyone’s standards the announced cast is a very decent line-u...
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