Category Archives: Film

Fiddle-laden fake trailer reignites debate about Hollywood’s Irish stereotypes

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Clip turned out to be a stunt, but strength of reaction speaks to genuine affront at Ireland’s portrayal on big screen

A man in a bar with a flat cap, bloodied knuckles and a dreamy look lays down his whiskey and writes a letter. “Dear Erin,” he begins, and a soundtrack of fiddles swells as he yearns for his lost love in the distant land of America.

The trailer for the upcoming film – tagline: “she was the Irish goodbye he never forgot” – ran in recent weeks in cinemas and online and was accompanied by a poster showing green mountains, shamrocks and a rainbow.

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Toronto film festival: Angelina Jolie, Saoirse Ronan and Keanu Reeves lead lineup

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The 50th edition of the Canadian film festival will also feature world premieres starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Sydney Sweeney and Matthew McConaughey

World premieres starring Angelina Jolie, Saoirse Ronan and Keanu Reeves lead this year’s lineup for the Toronto film festival.

The 50th edition of the festival will again feature a string of films hoping to gain awards traction, taking place after the Venice film festival.

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First tickets to Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey sell out – a year before its 2026 release

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The blockbuster adaptation of Homer’s epic has not finished filming and has no official runtime. But super fans – and scalpers – already have seats

The first tickets to Christopher Nolan’s take on Homer’s Odyssey have gone on sale – before he’s even finished filming it and a year before the film is even out, in what is likely the longest pre-sale in cinematic history.

The Odyssey, which stars Matt Damon as the cunning Odysseus as he fights his way home after the end of the Trojan war, will be released on 17 July 2026. But on Thursday, Imax released tickets to the first screenings at the 26 Imax cinemas around the world that have the staff and equipment required to project in 1570 format.

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Indian film board criticised for cutting ‘overly sensual’ Superman kisses

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Viewers complain that board allows violence and misogyny in Indian films but not a smooch in a Hollywood release

As Indian cinemagoers watched the latest Superman film, many noticed something was amiss. On two occasions as the superhero leaned in for a kiss with Lois Lane, the film suddenly jumped forward, cutting to the aftermath of an embrace.

India’s censor board had deemed the kissing scenes, including a 33-second smooch, to be “overly sensual” for Indian audiences and demanded they be cut from the film before its cinematic release.

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Rosie O’Donnell dismisses Trump’s threat to revoke her US citizenship

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Actor says she is latest in long list of artists, activists and celebrities to be threatened by US president

Rosie O’Donnell has shrugged off a threat from Donald Trump to revoke her US citizenship on the grounds that she is “a threat to humanity”.

The New York-born actor and comedian said on Sunday that she was the latest in a long list of artists, activists and celebrities to be threatened by the US president.

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Michael Madsen, star of Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill and Donnie Brasco, dies aged 67

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The actor, best known for his collaborations with Quentin Tarantino, was found unresponsive in Los Angeles

The actor Michael Madsen has died aged 67 at his home in Malibu, according to authorities and his representatives. No foul play is suspected, the sheriff’s department confirmed, after deputies responded to the Los Angeles county home following a call to the emergency services on Thursday morning.

He was pronounced dead at 8.25am. In an email, Madsen’s manager, Ron Smith, confirmed his client had died from cardiac arrest.

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California legislature acts to keep film and TV production at home

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Legislation will more than double current tax incentives under larger bill slated to be signed by Gavin Newsom

Hollywood’s home state of California will more than double annual tax incentives for film and television production to $750m under a measure passed by the Democratic-led legislature on Friday.

The increase from the current $330m was approved as part of a broader tax bill that is expected to be signed into law by California’s governor, Gavin Newsom.

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Home owned by Brad Pitt broken into in Los Angeles

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LA police say suspects broke in through the front window, ransacked the home and fled with property

Police are investigating a break-in at a home reportedly owned by Brad Pitt, who has been on a globe-spanning promo tour for his new movie, F1, after three people allegedly “ransacked” the property.

The Los Angeles police department confirmed they responded to a break-in Wednesday night at a house on the 2300 block of North Edgemont Street in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles.

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Lalo Schifrin, composer of Mission: Impossible theme and more than 100 film and TV scores, dies aged 93

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The Argentinian composer also wrote the scores for Cool Hand Luke and Dirty Harry, and wrote one of the biggest-selling works in the history of classical music

Lalo Schifrin, the composer who wrote the endlessly catchy theme for Mission: Impossible and more than 100 other arrangements for film and television, has died aged 93.

Schifrin’s sons, William and Ryan, confirmed the composer died on Thursday of complications from pneumonia.

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Al Pacino on how he got his Modigliani film off the ground after 30 years

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Exclusive: Actor talks of difficulties of getting ‘art film’ made about tortured artist, played by Riccardo Scamarcio

He is one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, having made his name in the 1970s gangster classic The Godfather. Yet, despite his fame and Oscars recognition, Al Pacino struggled for 30 years to make a movie about one of the 20th century’s greatest artists because “art films” are “always difficult to get off the ground”.

He refused to give up on a drama about Amedeo Modigliani, a tortured genius who faced repeated rejection before his life was cut short in 1920 by tubercular meningitis, aged 35.

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David Lynch’s belongings fetch $4.25m at auction, including scripts for unfinished film

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Items ranged from video cameras and guitars to taxidermy deer heads, props from Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive – and the director’s personal coffee machine

Personal effects belonging to the film-maker David Lynch, who died in January, have fetched more than $4m at auction in Los Angeles, with the highest bid of $195,000 going to scripts for his unrealised film project Ronnie Rocket.

Wednesday’s auction of almost 450 items included props from Lynch’s films, personal items such as video cameras and music equipment, his director’s chair, two taxidermy deer heads, his 35mm print of his debut feature Eraserhead – and his beloved La Marzocco GS/3 home espresso machine, which fetched $45,500 and presumably produces a damn fine cup of coffee.

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Stormzy takes first acting role as he launches film production company

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After music, publishing, sports and philanthropy, rapper expands into film-making with lead role in Big Man, a short film premiering on YouTube

After conquering the charts, Glastonbury’s Pyramid stage and launching his own publishing imprint, Stormzy is taking his first steps into the world of movies with starring in a short film about the travails of an ex-rapper.

Big Man will be made by the rap star’s own production company Merky Films in association with Apple, and feature Stormzy – in a sizable wig – as the lead character Tenzman, “a former rap star now navigating a restless and uncertain chapter of his life”.

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Nine women accuse Jared Leto of sexual impropriety in new report

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Women recount alleged behavior, including flirting with teenagers, as ‘predatory, terrifying and unacceptable’

Multiple women have accused Jared Leto of impropriety, with some calling the 53-year-old actor and musician’s behavior “predatory, terrifying and unacceptable”.

In a new report by Air Mail on Saturday, nine women have come forward to accuse Leto of engaging in inappropriate behavior over the years, including flirting with teenagers.

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Idris Elba: ‘I want to build the African Odeon’

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Speaking at an SXSW London event, the actor outlined his desire to ignite the cinema experience for a new generation across the continent

Idris Elba has spoken of his ambition to create the “African Odeon” – a chain of cinemas to ignite the cinemagoing experience across the continent.

Elba was speaking at an event at SXSW London in which he spoke to host Clara Amfo in a session called Creativity as Capital for Change. In remarks reported by the Hollywood Reporter and Screen, Elba said: “There’s a crazy number across the entire continent – less than about 3,000 cinemas, actual cinemas that you and I have grown up with. I would love to be able to tackle some of that, because I believe that the cinema experience that we all have gone through should be experienced by a new generation. I don’t think it should all be on a phone.”

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Russell Simmons sues HBO and film-makers over documentary detailing alleged sexual abuse

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Music executive claims defamation in suit seeking $20m from the film-makers and distributors of On the Record

Russell Simmons is suing HBO and the film-makers of a 2020 documentary detailing allegations against the music mogul of sexual abuse, claiming that together they defamed him and ignored his version of events.

On The Record, directed by Amy Ziering and Kirby Dick, expanded on reporting by the New York Times, the Hollywood Reporter, the Los Angeles Times and other publications on numerous allegations against Simmons. It featured the testimony of several women who claim they were sexually assaulted by Simmons in the 1980s and 90s, when he was at the height of his influence as the co-founder of Def Jam Recordings, the hip-hop label behind LL Cool J, Public Enemy, the Beastie Boys and other top acts.

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Back to the Future stars seek help in hunt for missing Marty McFly guitar

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Michael J Fox and Christopher Lloyd make plea to help track down cherry red Gibson, 40 years after film’s release

Marty McFly grabbed a guitar in Back to the Future and rocked out with the band at a 1950s high school dance, helping him narrowly avoid blinking out of existence before time-traveling back to the 1980s.

The guitar, in real life, wasn’t as lucky.

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Austrian newspaper cuts ties with writer over Clint Eastwood ‘exclusive’

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Kurier editor says Q&A that was picked up by other outlets contained old quotes from round-table events

One of Austria’s leading newspapers has severed ties with a Hollywood reporter after admitting she repackaged old comments by Clint Eastwood and presented them as a supposedly exclusive interview.

In an apparent journalistic coup, the Vienna-based daily Kurier published a Q&A with Eastwood last Friday and it was picked up around the world over the weekend due to the Oscar-winning actor’s outspoken criticism of Hollywood’s “era of remakes and franchises”.

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Masked Israeli troops block media visit to West Bank site of Oscar-winning film

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Group of international reporters stopped on way to Masafer Yatta, which features in documentary No Other Land

Masked Israeli soldiers have blocked an international group of reporters from visiting Palestinian villages on the West Bank that have been under sustained attack by Jewish settlers, and which were the subject of an Oscar-winning documentary film.

The Academy Award won by No Other Land has not stopped the attacks on Masafer Yatta, a cluster of villages on the southern edge of the occupied territory, which has been the target of settler violence and house demolitions and forced displacement by the army for many years.

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Walt Disney’s granddaughter denounces animatronic portrayal of animation legend

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Joanna Miller said her grandpa would hate the mechanical replica to be debuted in July, calling it an ‘imposter’

Walt Disney’s granddaughter has condemned the entertainment giant he founded for re-creating the late entrepreneur as a soulless “robotic grampa” for the 70th anniversary celebration of California’s Disneyland theme park in July.

Disney, who died in 1966, will appear as an animatronic figure in a new attraction called Walt Disney – A Magical Life in the park’s Main Street Opera House that commemorates the resort’s 17 July 1955 opening.

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Clint Eastwood calls viral interview a fabrication: ‘Completely phony’

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The actor and director claims that an Austrian newspaper invented a recent interview with him

Clint Eastwood has released a statement to claim a recent interview with him is a fabrication.

Quotes from an alleged interview with the Oscar-winning actor and director had gone viral over the weekend and were picked up by a number of sites. Yet Eastwood has now said that he never spoke to anyone from German-language Austrian newspaper Kurier.

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