Film Buzz
Kinoteka: The Polish Film FestivalThursday, 14 March 2013
Over the last few years the Poles have been pumping money into the arts, partly as a way of branding the country (it works according to their research – many of us are now as likely to think of jazz musicians as plumbers when we think of the country).There was Polska! Read more... |
Oscars 2013Friday, 15 February 2013
Film fans will not need reminding that next weekend knees all over Tinseltown start quivering at the prospect of the Academy Awards. To get you in shape for the big night, theartsdesk is running a week's worth of Oscar-related features starting on Monday. Read more... |
Local Hero's 30th birthdayThursday, 14 February 2013
“I wonder what the poor people are doing tonight.” This weekend is the 30th anniversary of one of the best-loved films in British cinematic history. There are louder movies than Local Hero, comedies with bigger laughs and more telegraphic intentions. But one of the reasons Bill Forsyth’s pocket masterpiece has earned a place in so many hearts is the gentleness of wry wit, the modesty of its wisdom, and underpinning it all a profound humanity. Read more... |
Woodystock and LOCO London Comedy FestivalThursday, 29 November 2012
LOCO London’s "four days of the world’s best funny films" is one of those about-time ideas, because London needs a great comedy film festival. As a warmup, this Saturday 1 December at 6pm, LOCO London and the Hackney Picturehouse are holding Woodystock, celebrating Woody Allen’s birthday with a big screen blow-out of Manhattan – one of Woody’s best. Read more... |
theartsdesk Olympics: Let The Games BeginSunday, 15 July 2012
Even in this year of years, it has to be accepted that not everyone has a soft spot for sport. Anyone answering to that description may well attempt to sprint, jump or pedal away from the coming onslaught, but if you are anywhere near a television, radio or computer, the five-ring circus is going to be hard to avoid for the next few weeks. Read more... |
Diana The Movie: From the Bunker to Buck HouseWednesday, 04 July 2012
Shooting is underway on Diana the movie and, as the producers did with Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady, a snap of the star in full fig and wig has been launched upon the world. Naomi Watts, whose previous love interests have included Laura Harring in Mulholland Drive and a sizeable ape in King Kong, plays the spurned wife of the heir to the throne and lover of the son of the owner of Harrod's in a film to be directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel. Read more... |
Cannes 2012: Heavyweights on La CroisetteWednesday, 16 May 2012
The 65th edition of the Festival de Cannes opens today, with Wes Anderson’s latest slice of leftfield whimsy, Moonrise Kingdom, and continues for almost two weeks of frantic film-going, star-spotting, wheeler-dealing and beach partying. For these days in May a usually somnolent seaside town becomes the cinema city that never sleeps. Read more... |
theASHtray: Walliams on Dahl, Gill vs. Beard, and a new (old) play by Eugene O'NeillSaturday, 28 April 2012
There’s something in the water at the commissioning editors’ local, I think, resulting, of late, in a rash of rather good arts-n-culture biopics. This week, it was the turn of Roald Dahl, the Big Friendly Giant who made an absolute shit-load of cash telling really not-very-bedtime stories to young children. Read more... |
Chariots of Fire is coming!Wednesday, 18 April 2012
There'll be no avoiding Chariots of Fire this summer. The Olympics being shortly upon us, Hampstead Theatre are soon to launch a stage verison of the Oscar-winning 1981 film. Read more... |
BFI celebrates ‘The Genius of Hitchcock’ in a major new retrospectiveWednesday, 18 April 2012
Launched to the press today with an hour-long presentation and Hitchcockian lunch, the British Film Institute proudly unveiled a fittingly hefty programme of screenings, events, exhibitions and publications celebrating the work of Alfred Hitchcock - inarguably Britain’s most iconic and influential film director. Hailing from London’s East End, Hitchcock worked in the British film industry for two decades before signing a deal with David O. Read more... |
Ken Russell ForeverFriday, 09 March 2012
Ken Russell fans within reach of the capital will have a surfeit of goodies from tomorrow as London films clubs in the Scala Forever network open a tribute season devoted to the iconic British film director, who died last November. Read more... |
A Spoonful of Sugar: Robert Sherman, 1925-2012Tuesday, 06 March 2012
Robert Sherman, who has died at the age of 86, was three years older than his brother Richard, and much quieter. Read more... |
FW Murnau's Faust, Royal Festival HallTuesday, 28 February 2012
Silent movies are currently the rage of Tinseltown, so what better moment to brush up on one of the treasures of the pre-talkie era? Top movie-ologists now contend that FW Murnau's 1926 film of Faust is a neglected all-time great ("one of the most beautifully crafted films ever made," according to Theodore Huff in Sight & Sound). Read more... |
Your complete guide to which awards have (some) credibilitySunday, 26 February 2012
First it's Golden Globes, then Oscars, or it's Grammys, then Brits - you can hardly go by a Sunday this time of year without another set of awards. But which ones count? Who are the judges? Read more... |
Max Von Sydow: Extremely Quiet and Incredibly PersonableWednesday, 15 February 2012
He played chess with Death in Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, was crucified as Jesus in George Stevens’s The Greatest Story Ever Told and diced with the devil in William Friedkin’s The Exorcist. There’s something magnicent and elemental about the life and work of Max Von Sydow. Born in 1929, he has looked like a craggy old monument for at least 30 years. Read more... |
Silence is golden as The Artist sweeps film BAFTAsMonday, 13 February 2012
The Artist was showered with awards by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts last night in an elegant occasion at the Royal Opera House, London, hosted by Stephen Fry. Director Michel Hazanavicius won for Best Film, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Music, Cinematography and Costume Design, while Jean Dujardin's extraordinary silent performance was judged Best Actor. Read more... |
Pages
latest in today
Help to give theartsdesk a future!
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
The Producers, Menier Chocolate Factory review - liberating...
There is something deliciously perfect about the timing of The Producers’ arrival at the Menier Chocolate Factory. In these...
La rondine, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - sumptuous orches...
There are no battlement leaps or murderous vows, no pistols or daggers, not so much as a slight cough disturbs the serene plot of La rondine...
A Midsummer Night's Dream, RSC, Barbican review - visua...
Hermia is a headbutting punk with a tartan fetish, Oberon looks like Adam Ant and Lysander appears to have stumbled out of a Madness video. Yet...
L’étoile, RNCM, Manchester review - lavish and cheerful absu...
Emmanuel Chabrier’s L’étoile is not exactly a French farce, but it comes from a post-Offenbach era (1877 saw its premiere) when cheerful...
Black Doves, Netflix review - Keira Knightley and Ben Whisha...
It’s rare to spot Keira Knightley in a TV series, and it’s no doubt a sign of changing times that she’s starring in this six-part spies-and-guns...
Vampire Weekend, OVO Hydro, Glasgow review - a mixture of br...
When Vampire Weekend arrived onstage they numbered only three and were bunched together at the front with a large curtain draped behind them,...
The Commander review - the good Italian
Patriotic Italian films set during the Fascist war effort are...
Ballet Shoes, Olivier Theatre review - reimagined classic wi...
Those with treasured battered copies of Noel Streatfield’s 1936 story of three young adopted sisters in pre-war London may have...