actors
Matt Wolf
I hope someone by now has told Neil Patrick Harris how to pronounce David Oyelowo’s surname, but if anyone wants to see how not to host an Oscars, Harris’s stewardship of the 87th annual Academy Awards can provide that service in spades.Sure, there were a few surprises in the final stretch of this year’s ceremony, including the triumphant 11th-hour trifecta achieved by Birdman, which swept best picture, director, and original screenplay, all at the expense of its closest rival, Boyhood. Indeed, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s extravagant fantasia was stopped in its tracks in the last half-hour Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
There was a brief moment back in the day when Sylvester Stallone thought he ought to be a serious actor (remember Cop Land?), but posterity will surely recall him as the King of the Franchise. As if Rocky and Rambo weren't enough, the 68-year-old Stallone is now enjoying a major string of paydays with The Expendables, and this third instalment will merely whet the global appetite for more.The plot (cooked up by Stallone) is the usual clunkily serviceable farrago of action clichés, designed to travel to its destination via a string of ever-more-catastrophic set pieces. Barney Ross (Sly) and Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
Celia Imrie is admired and loved as a comic actress. Her conversation, just as much as her performances, is full of her trademarks: sudden darting looks, alertness, natural timing, changes of register. They will all be in display in her cabaret show Laughing Matters.Imrie is imprinted on the public consciousness for her TV roles: Miss Babs, the owner of Acorn Antiques (for which she won an Olivier Award when it became a stage musical), Philippa in Dinnerladies; and then there are the films: Una Alconbury in Bridget Jones's Diary, Celia in Calendar Girls (even if the only thing which ever gets Read more ...
Jasper Rees
The late rise of Ruth Jones, who has been made an MBE, is a blessed relief. According to the prevailing rules of ageism and lookism, Jones should still be plugging away in supporting roles, typically as the large gobby sidekick which for years looked like the outer limit of her casting range.But after 20 years in the business and at the ripe age of 41, she won best female comedy newcomer at the British Comedy Awards. The performance that swayed the jury was still a gobby supporting role. But this time Jones – with James Corden (who won the male award) – had written it herself. Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Inevitably, an aura of fin-de-siècle gloom hung heavily over this final Poirot. So daunting was the prospect of terminating his 25-year career-defining stint as Belgium's finest (albeit imaginary) export that David Suchet insisted on shooting the last one before the others in the concluding series.In many respects it was business as usual. An A-list of reliable British thesps (Anne Reid, Phil Glenister, John Standing and a deservedly-promoted Aidan McArdle) found themselves incarcerated amid the spartan, crumbling surroundings of a lonely country house. The rain beat down, and the tall trees Read more ...
David Nice
It has to be partial, because out of the 10 opera productions from the iconoclastic French actor-director, who died yesterday of lung cancer at the age of 68, I’ve seen but two, on screen only – but a big two at that – and only three of his 11 films. Yet they all had a tremendous impact, one way or another.Not in a good way - let's get this over with first - as far as Intimacy is concerned: on a blistering hot summer day in Paris, "film by Patrice Chéreau"’ on the poster outside a small cinema in the Beauborg – a poster, moreover, showing a gathering at a cocktail party, suggestive of Rohmer Read more ...
Jasper Rees
They’ve served BBC Four well, these dramas about the private lives of the stars. From writers to comics, presenters to chefs, the secret traumas of yesteryear’s celebs have entertained and enlightened. And, if we’re honest, embellished. Now that the channel has given up making drama, viewers will have to get their scripted gossip from alternative sources. In Burton and Taylor, the run concluded by peeping through the curtain at two of the most public private lives of all.William Ivory’s script dropped in on the famous romance long after its embers had officially flickered out. This was 1983, Read more ...
Jasper Rees
Imagine a scenario in which Daniel Day Lewis is cast as himself. To get into character, he adopts his method technique of total immersion. For months he watches all of Daniel Day Lewis’s movies, studying his voice and physical movements to nail those telltale Daniel Day Lewis ticks. He reads all his EPK interviews and pores over his acceptance speeches. Only when fully prepped is he ready for the cameras to roll, and on set he goes so far as to stay in character between takes, asking people to address him as “Dan”. Naturally he cleans up in awards season.Actors have always answered the Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Mobster roles have helped define many of America's greatest screen actors, from James Cagney to Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. Thanks to his portrayal of Tony Soprano in HBO's TV masterpiece The Sopranos, James Gandolfini has made an unforgettable addition to their ranks.Though he has died, apparently of a heart attack, at the shockingly early age of 51, Gandolfini's performance across the six seasons of The Sopranos felt more like a piece of American folklore than a mere acting performance. Violent and thuggish yet also confused and conflicted, Tony Soprano was the all-powerful Read more ...
Jasper Rees
Knock knock. Who's there? Eamonn. Eamonn who? Eamonn Etonian. There's an Eamonn at No 10, an Eamonn is Mayor of London, an Eamonn is even Archbishop of Canterbury. Oh, and Eamonns are third and - for three more months - fourth in line to the throne. Recently Eton has started to dominate British film, television and theatre. In 2012 one Eamonn won an Emmy, another was given a Bafta and a third played a Shakespearean king on the BBC. It’s true that a remarkably talented group of actors from Eton have risen like the richest cream to the top in recent years. They are led by Damian Lewis, Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
François Ozon is one of France’s most mercurial directors, his country’s equivalent, in some respects, to our own Michael Winterbottom – prolific, and constantly on the move between genres. He’s made a musical (8 Women), a marital drama (5x2), a murder mystery (Swimming Pool), a period melodrama (Angel), political satire (Potiche) and a poignant drama about a young man coping with his imminent death (Time to Leave), among others. The common denominators are the director’s intelligence, daring, élan and, when called for, a delicious sense of humour.All these traits are on display in his latest Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
It's not an easy trick for an outsized action hero to grow older gracefully or credibly, but Arnold Schwarzenegger has made a shrewd choice of vehicle with which to launch his post-political film career. The way he tells it, being Governor of California was only ever intended to be a temporary time-out from Hollywood. Back in his first leading role since 2003's Terminator 3, he has little difficulty in seizing control of the screen.However, he has carefully scaled down his ambitions. Playing Ray Owens, sheriff of the small town of Sommerton, Arizona, Arnie has adopted a laboured senior Read more ...