Category Archives: Film

Luca Guadagnino to direct new take on Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho

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Call Me by Your Name and Challengers film-maker to bring new interpretation to hit novel to the screen

Luca Guadagnino, the Italian film-maker, will bring a new interpretation of Bret Easton Ellis’s novel American Psycho to the screen.

According to Deadline, the acclaimed director of Call Me by Your Name and Challengers will work with screenwriter Scott Z Burns to find an updated way into the material. Burns is known for his many collaborations with Steven Soderbergh including Contagion, Side Effects and The Informant.

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Netflix to double profits after adding millions of subscribers in three months

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After cracking down on password sharing, expanding into ads and investing billions in live TV, group declares success

Netflix expects to double its profits this quarter after the world’s largest streaming service added more than 5 million new subscribers this summer.

After cracking down on password sharing, introducing adverts to its service and investing billions in live TV, the group declared it had “delivered” on plans to shore up its business.

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Chinese film star Fan Bingbing to make comeback after five-year purgatory

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Fan, who disappeared after tax scandal, stars in thriller – but experts say she is unlikely to regain previous fame in increasingly authoritarian nation

Fan Bingbing, once one of China’s most famous film stars, is returning to the screen after a more than five-year hiatus following her alleged involvement in a massive tax evasion scandal.

Fan stars in Green Night, a Hong Kong-produced neo-noir thriller set in South Korea, which is released on US streaming services on 18 October. The film has been billed as Fan’s comeback from professional purgatory since she disappeared from public view for nearly a year in 2018. During her year of silence, she was hit with a bill of more than 880m yuan (£99m) by the Chinese tax authorities.

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Enrico Berlinguer: the 1970s communist hero inspiring Italy’s youth – and the far right

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Italian PM Giorgia Meloni among those admiring Berlinguer as new film and exhibitions celebrate his role as a unifier

Enrico Berlinguer was a giant of the Italian left in the 1970s and 80s, coming close to leading the Communist party into government through a “historic compromise” with the country’s Christian Democrats, and championing “Eurocommunism”, a liberal, anti-Stalinist version of Marxism that briefly swept the continent.

But his death 40 years ago, and the collapse of Europe’s communist parties in the late 1980s, eclipsed Berlinguer’s legacy, and Italy has since moved across the political spectrum, electing the far-right Giorgia Meloni as prime minister in 2022.

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New images show remarkable state of preservation of Ernest Shackleton’s ship

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Composite images of Endurance compiled from 25,000 digital scans mapped by underwater robots

More than a century after it sank below the icy Weddell Sea in Antarctica, forcing its crew to embark on one of the most celebrated survival quests in history, new images have revealed the remarkable state of preservation of Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance.

The famed vessel, which sank in 1915 after becoming stuck in pack ice, was discovered in 2022 resting at a depth of 3km below what Shackleton called “the worst portion of the worst sea in the world”.

Endurance will be at London film festival on 12 October, in UK cinemas on 14 October and on Disney+ later this year.

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‘I hope God gives me the strength to make more movies’: Scorsese addresses retirement rumours

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Director tells press conference he has ‘more films to make’ after long-planned Frank Sinatra biopic and adaptation of Shūsaku Endō’s A Life of Jesus both get delayed

Martin Scorsese has denied he is planning to retire, telling a press conference in Italy that he has “more films to make” after reports surfaced in September that two long-planned projects had been postponed.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Scorsese, 81, was speaking before an award ceremony in Turin and countered rumours he was no longer making films. “I’m not saying goodbye to cinema at all … I still have more films to make, and I hope God gives me the strength to make them.”

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Rust armorer pleads guilty to gun charge in separate case

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Hannah Gutierrez-Reed changed her plea in exchange for a reduced sentence for carrying a gun into a bar

The weapons supervisor in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer by Alec Baldwin on the set of the Western film Rust pleaded guilty Monday to a separate criminal charge of carrying a gun into a licensed liquor establishment.

Movie armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed agreed to change her plea to guilty on the charge in exchange for a reduced sentence of 18 months supervised probation.

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Qantas apologises after R-rated movie played to passengers on Sydney to Tokyo flight

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Technical issues meant the film, starring Dakota Johnson, was played on all screens before it was swapped for a family-friendly movie

Qantas has apologised to passengers on a flight from Sydney to Japan after an R-rated film was played to the entire plane.

Passengers on the flight to Haneda were shown the start of Daddio, a 2023 R-rated film starring Dakota Johnson.

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Al Pacino reveals he almost died of Covid – and delivers his verdict on the afterlife

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The 84-year-old actor speaks about contracting the virus in 2020, saying he ‘didn’t have a pulse’ and came to with six paramedics in his house

Al Pacino has revealed he almost died from Covid-19 in 2020, saying he “didn’t have a pulse” for several minutes.

In interviews with the New York Times and People magazine published on the weekend, the 84-year-old Godfather and Scarface actor detailed his experience with the virus, which he contracted in 2020 before a vaccine was available.

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Donald Glover cancels Childish Gambino tour dates because of ‘ailment’

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American musician and actor will not play his UK and Ireland dates as he recovers from scheduled surgery

Donald Glover has cancelled the remaining dates on his Childish Gambino tour after scheduling surgery for an “ailment”.

The American actor, rapper and singer was due to head to the UK in November and early December to perform in Manchester, Glasgow, London and Birmingham, as well as Dublin in Ireland. Glover had already postponed the remainder of his North American tour to focus on his “physical health”.

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John Boyega to play Otis Redding in new biopic alongside Danielle Deadwyler

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Star Wars actor will lead Otis & Zelma, which will celebrate the ‘eternal love story’ between the singer and his wife

John Boyega is set to play Otis Redding in a new film telling the story of the soul singer’s decade-long relationship.

Otis & Zelma will see the Star Wars and Attack the Block actor play the tragic star with the Till breakout Danielle Deadwyler playing his wife, Zelma.

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Daniel Day-Lewis ends retirement from acting after seven years

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Three-time Oscar winner to star in his son Ronan’s directorial debut, Anemone, which he also co-wrote

Three-time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis is ending his retirement from acting to star in his son’s directorial debut.

The 67-year-old British actor quit acting after starring in Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2017 film Phantom Thread, and has largely stayed out of public life since.

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Cinema in mafia boss’s Sicily hometown refuses to show film of his life

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Venue owner says Sicilian Letters, about the Cosa Nostra leader Matteo Messina Denaro, ‘doesn’t interest me’

The owner of the only cinema in Castelvetrano, the Sicilian hometown of the notorious Cosa Nostra mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, has refused to screen a film based on his life.

Denaro died of cancer in September last year, nine months after he was arrested following 30 years on the run.

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Lady Gaga announces 13-song Joker companion album Harlequin

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The singer and actor has revealed the upcoming release of a companion album to her role in Joker: Folie à Deux

Lady Gaga has announced an accompanying 13-song album to her new film Joker: Folie à Deux.

The singer and actor had been teasing the news on social media and has now shared that the album, Harlequin, will be released on 27 September.

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‘Trailblazing’ TV, film and stage actor Cleo Sylvestre dies aged 79

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Performer was first black actor to land leading role at National Theatre and to be cast in regular role on UK soap opera

The “trailblazing” actor Cleo Sylvestre has died aged 79, her agent has confirmed.

Sylvestre, also known as Cleopatra Palmer, had been a feature of film, stage, television and music since the 1960s, and played Melanie Harper, Meg Richardson’s adopted daughter, in ITV’s Crossroads – making her the first black actor to have a regular leading role in a UK soap opera. She was also the first black actor to land a leading role at the National Theatre.

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Women ‘disheartened’ by UK decision to halt Harvey Weinstein charges

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Film producer’s former assistant says decision calls into question CPS’s ability to deal with rape and sexual assault cases

Women who were key to exposing the disgraced Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein have told of their frustration at the decision by UK prosecutors to discontinue two indecent assault charges against him.

Zelda Perkins, a former personal assistant to Weinstein who broke a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) to help expose him as a rapist, said the decision called into question the justice system’s attitude towards sexual assault and rape.

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Documentary producers release new ethical AI guidelines for film-makers

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Controversies over AI-generated material spurred release of guidelines addressing transparency and historical accuracy

Over a year after the dual Hollywood strikes put a spotlight on the industry’s adoption of AI, film-makers have often found themselves at a crossroads – how to use generative AI ethically, if at all? Where to draw the line on synthetic material? Documentary film-makers, in particular, have faced mounting concerns over “fake archival” materials such as AI-generated voices, photos or video.

As Hollywood continues to adopt artificial intelligence in production, a group of documentary producers have published a groundbreaking set of ethical guidelines to help producers, film-makers, studios, broadcasters and streamers address questions over use of the technology.

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‘The UK is invited’: Bradford reveals 2025 City of Culture lineup

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West Yorkshire city to host magic, music, film and theatre performances celebrating local talent, plus Turner prize

A city centre magic show, the Brontës as you’ve never seen them before, and a bassline house symphony are all part of Bradford’s City of Culture lineup, which its organisers call a celebration of everything that makes the West Yorkshire city great.

Shanaz Gulzar, the creative director of Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture, said the whole of the country was invited to come next year to a place she billed as young, diverse, creative and “the heart of the UK”.

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Will Jennings, Oscar-winning lyricist of My Heart Will Go On, dies aged 80

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Songwriter wrote No 1 hits for Whitney Houston and Barry Manilow, as well as iconic ballads such as Up Where We Belong and Tears in Heaven

Will Jennings, the Oscar-winning US lyricist behind hit songs such as My Heart Will Go On, Tears in Heaven and Up Where We Belong, has died aged 80. His agent said Jennings died at home in Tyler, Texas, and did not give a cause of death.

Born Wilbur Jennings in 1944, he was raised in Tyler and initially went into academia, teaching at the University of Wisconsin. But in 1971 he headed to Nashville and became a lyricist in the city’s country music scene, earning his first country No 1 in 1975 with Feelins’ by Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn.

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Russian documentary accused of falsely showing invading soldiers as victims

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Anastasia Trofimova’s film Russians at War criticised for ‘distorted picture of reality’ in Ukraine after Venice premiere

A new documentary portraying the lives of Russian soldiers near the Ukrainian frontlines has faced fierce criticism for attempting to whitewash Moscow’s war crimes.

Russians at War, directed by the Russian-Canadian film-maker Anastasia Trofimova, chronicles seven months spent embedded with a Russian army battalion in eastern Ukraine, presenting itself as a unique window into the daily lives of Russian soldiers.

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