Category Archives: Film

The Mole Agent: the story of the most unusual documentary of the year

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An 83-year-old goes undercover in a Chilean nursing home in a warm-hearted and surprising look at age and intimacy

With The Mole Agent, Maite Alberdi set out to make a film noir documentary about a spy in a nursing home. She did not expect it to transform into an aching meditation on isolation and loneliness.

The Chilean film-maker told the Guardian she was initially toying with genre and form. In early scenes, she makes you question whether you’re even watching a documentary because of the heightened noir aesthetic – venetian blinds and high contrast lighting.

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‘Our superhero’: black British figures praise Chadwick Boseman

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Tributes to groundbreaking star come from spheres of film, TV, sport and politics

Chadwick Boseman has been widely praised for breaking down cultural boundaries and inspiring a generation of young black people, following news of his untimely death.

The Black Panther star died at his home in the Los Angeles area aged 43, four years after being diagnosed with colon cancer. He was best known for his role as the regal T’Challa in the Marvel cinematic universe, the franchise’s first high-profile black superhero.

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Anbessa review – heart-rending tale of a boy living on the edge

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An irresistibly charismatic farm boy, displaced by a housing development on the outskirts of Ethiopia’s capital, is the star of this affecting documentary

The American director Mo Scarpelli makes a miraculous discovery in her new documentary – a 10-year-old Ethiopian farm boy who has been displaced from his home by urbanisation. Scarpelli has said that when she spotted Asalif Tewold on the street in Addis Ababa, she knew instantly that she wanted to make a film about him. You can see why. A charismatic kid with energy and imagination, he’s at that perfect stage of boyhood with an appetite for adventure and make-believe. That said, Scarpelli’s observational film-making style, slow and lingering, is a challenge and likely to be off-putting to all but hardcore lovers of arthouse.

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Face masks, time travel and James Bond auditions: discuss Tenet with spoilers

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Christopher Nolan’s latest blockbuster creates a palindromic origami of bizarre physics inside an 007-style thriller. If you’ve seen it, what did you think?

Charged with the twin missions of kickstarting cinemagoing post-lockdown (outside the US, at least) and out-Nolanning every previous Christopher Nolan movie, Tenet carries a lot on its shoulders. The fact that it made it into cinemas is an achievement, but does it deliver? The critical consensus has been a qualified, often confused, “yes”, although opinions have differed widely, even among Guardian and Observer critics. One thing all will agree: as well as a fresh jolt of spectacle to revive the flatlining movie business, Tenet provides plenty to talk about and plenty to think about. Too much? Let’s talk about that.

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Tenet review – supremely ambitious race against time makes for superb cinema

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Go with it, and Christopher Nolan’s high-concept action romp will leave you ripping off your face mask for air, even as you wonder what it was all about

Who shall save cinema? Not James Bond apparently. There’s been a brand-new Daniel Craig spectacular ready to go since Easter, arguably just the thing to get punters’ actual bums back on actual seats. But Team 007 is wimping out, unwilling to splurge their product irreversibly into some potential new ruinous lockdown – and Disney has suffered a comparable bottle-loss, dumping its live-action version of the Mulan legend on to streaming services.

So it’s up to the mighty Christopher Nolan to take the heroic, morale-boosting gamble and open his big new film in cinemas. Tenet is a gigantically confusing, gigantically entertaining and gigantically gigantic metaphysical action thriller in which a protagonist called The Protagonist battles cosmic incursions from the future while time flows backwards and forwards at the same time. There’s a 747 plane that crashes into a warehouse and then uncrashes back out of it, for reasons that are not immediately obvious.

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How Julia Louis-Dreyfus roasted Donald Trump in DNC finale – video

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Actor Julia Louis-Dreyfus brought a great deal of levity while hosting the final night of the Democratic national convention. The comedian and star of Veep roasted Donald Trump and urged Americans to vote this November, joking that not even 'Facebook, Fox News and Vladimir Putin' can stop the democratic process

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Filmmakers told to ditch sex scenes to protect actors from coronavirus

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Updated guidance suggests directors take inspiration from classic films made when sex on screen was prohibited

British film and TV directors are being encouraged to seek inspiration from classic romances such as Casablanca and ditch depictions of sex altogether when planning intimate scenes under new guidelines for directing during the Covid-19 crisis.

Directors UK, the professional association for screen directors in Britain, suggested some creative alternatives to avoid sex scenes with physical interaction while social distancing is required, in an update to its Directing Nudity and Simulated Sex guidelines, which are focused on safe working during the pandemic.

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An oral history of Fame: ‘We were dancing on cars in the epicentre of porn and filth!’

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It was the late director Alan Parker’s most enduring hit, capturing what it was to be young and ambitious in the hot, gritty New York of 1980. The cast and crew reflect on the acting, fighting, flirting and fallout

• ‘The most important experience of my youth’: Fame star Barry Miller on Alan Parker

Forty years ago, Alan Parker’s musical about a group of teenagers at the New York High School for the Performing Arts was released.

Originally titled Hot Lunch after one of the composer Christopher Hope’s key numbers, the film is a crowd-pleaser with a heart of ice. For all the fun and legwarmers, this isn’t some starry-eyed fantasy. Rather, its edge and pessimism make it a remarkably responsible piece of film-making, with a conclusion about the wisdom of pursuing a career in the arts that is ambivalent at best.

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‘I always knew I was wired differently’: why David Arquette went from Hollywood to wrestling

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He was the star of the Scream films, became a heavyweight world champion – and, with the deaths of his sister Alexis and best friend Luke Perry, still has demons to grapple with

I always had a soft spot for David Arquette. From the first time I spotted him, in a bit part in Beverly Hills 90210, and ever after, whether he was playing the dorky policeman in the Scream films, carrying offbeat indie films such as Dream with the Fishes, or playing a Jewish rebel in the Holocaust film The Grey Zone, he radiated a sweet likeability you just can’t fake. It was cheering to spot his goofily handsome face onscreen, like finding your brother’s funny friend hanging out in your kitchen when you got home from school.

The baby brother of acclaimed actors Rosanna, Patricia and Alexis, his talent was obvious; he was on the cover of Vanity Fair’s 1996 Hollywood issue alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, Will Smith and Benicio del Toro. He was so watchable that, even though his character was supposed to die in the first Scream, Wes Craven rejigged the script so that he became the backbone of the franchise.

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Letters reveal British objections to plot of Bridge on the River Kwai

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War Office feared war movie would ‘not go down well with British public’

The adventure war film The Bridge on the River Kwai may have swept the board of awards and attracted acclaim as one best films of the 20th century, but the War Office was very nervous “it would not go down well with the British public”, documents reveal.

Letters between the Hollywood producer Sam Spiegel and the UK War Office, from whom he was seeking permission for RAF cooperation in making the 1957 film, show tensions over how its plot depicted the conduct of British officers.

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Antonio Banderas reveals he has coronavirus on 60th birthday

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The actor has said he is celebrating in quarantine and otherwise relatively unaffected, other than being ‘a little bit more tired than usual’

The actor Antonio Banderas has confirmed on Twitter that he is suffering from coronavirus. In a message posted on 10 August, his 60th birthday, the actor said he was forced to celebrate in quarantine but reassured followers that his health was largely unaffected.

Quiero contaros lo siguiente... pic.twitter.com/u579iBVLM0

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Geena Davis: ‘As soon as I hit 40, I fell off the cliff. I really did’

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The Thelma & Louise and A League of Their Own star wanted to be an actor from the age of three. She discusses sexual harassment, improving representation, and why she’s so glad she had kids in her 40s

“Are you in your bed like I am?” Geena Davis asks. It is late at night and I am talking to Davis by Zoom, me in my bed in London, her in hers in Los Angeles. I tell her that I only just resisted getting into my pyjamas for this call.

“Ha ha! I changed into a sweatsuit!” she says, and she is, indeed, in an all-white sweatsuit. Yet even in athleisure, she still looks like a golden-era Hollywood beauty. Davis made her movie debut in Tootsie in 1982, in which she first appeared in just her bra and knickers, to Dustin Hoffman’s memorable confusion. But it was always easy to picture her in a film from the 1940s, wearing a long satin dress, holding a martini glass and making a snappy comeback to Cary Grant.

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The Matrix director: I’m glad film recognised as trans metaphor

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Lilly Wachowski expresses pleasure that the film’s ‘original intention’ has become commonplace understanding among fans

Lilly Wachowski, who co-directed the Matrix films with her sister, Lana, has confirmed that they should be read as allegories for the transgender narrative. Subsequent to the films’ release, both sisters came out as trans – Lana in 2012 and Lilly in 2016 – and some fans have since identified apparent resonances for the experience in the movies.

“I’m glad that it has gotten out that that was the original intention,” Lilly told Netflix Film Club on 4 August. “The world wasn’t quite ready for it. The corporate world wasn’t ready for it.”

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Disney opts for digital-first release of Mulan, shocking cinema owners

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Mulan is first blockbuster to go straight to streaming in response to Covid-19 shuttering cinemas

Disney’s decision to bypass cinemas and offer its latest big budget film Mulan directly to streaming subscribers for $29.99 could signal the beginning of the end for the traditional movie-going experience – and forever change the long-established business model underpinning the Hollywood blockbuster.

The surprise move has stunned cinema owners, who had been banking on the film, along with Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi thriller Tenet, to jump-start box office takings as theatre chains struggle to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

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Dan Aykroyd and John Landis: how we made The Blues Brothers

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‘For some of the crew working nights on the film, cocaine was almost like coffee. I never liked it myself but I wasn’t going to police others’ behaviour’

My original script was called The Return of the Blues Brothers and had two movies in it. John Landis turned it into a manageable 150 pages. He was the keystone of the project – he pulled it all together.

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Alan Parker, director of Midnight Express and Bugsy Malone, dies aged 76

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Director who first made his mark in the 1970s and had later hits including Fame and The Commitments, became the chair of the UK Film Council

•Peter Bradshaw on Alan Parker: a maker of glorious films with a gift for connecting with audiences
•A life in pictures

Alan Parker, the British director behind a string of hits including Midnight Express, Bugsy Malone, and The Commitments, has died aged 76.

The news was announced by a representative, who said he had died on Friday “after a lengthy illness”.

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Chateau Marmont in Hollywood to become members-only hotel

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Celebrity hangout will allow select group to own shares in ‘world’s best real estate’

The Chateau Marmont, a Hollywood hotspot and hangout for nearly a century, will be converted into a members-only hotel over the next year.

The owner, André Balazs, confirmed his plans to turn the 91-year-old building into a hotel at which a select group of members could buy into “a piece of a portfolio of the best real estate in the world”, the Los Angeles Times reported.

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Seth Rogen: ‘I was fed a huge amount of lies about Israel’

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Actor says when he was younger he wasn’t told Palestinians lived on land that became the Jewish state

Seth Rogen has said he was “fed a huge amount of lies about Israel” as a young Jewish person, stoking controversy around the country’s sometimes fraught relationship with many North American Jews.

The Canadian-US actor, who attended Jewish camp and whose parents met on a kibbutz in Israel, said the fact that the Jewish state was created on land where Palestinians were living had always been omitted.

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Again Once Again review – elegant meditation on the pains of motherhood

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This engaging, philosophical film unpicks the challenges faced by a young mother trying to reconnect with the life she had before her son’s birth

A woman leaves her boyfriend to visit her mum in Buenos Aires, taking their three-year-old son with her – not sure yet if it’s a holiday or a breakup. She hasn’t worked since her son was born and is having an emotional and intellectual crisis. She feels almost non-existent. “I don’t see myself. Who am I?”

This is an elegant, elusive debut from the Argentinian playwright Romina Paula, who picks away at the fantasy that motherhood leads to instant fulfilment. Her film is like an arthouse version of the sitcoms Motherland and Catastrophe, with fewer laughs and more philosophical introspection. It has the feel of a feminist essay that has been semi-dramatised for screen – with Paula starring as a fictional version of herself and her real-life mum and son Ramón playing themselves.

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Olivia de Havilland: Hollywood’s queen of radiant calm | Peter Bradshaw

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The Gone With the Wind star, known for her lifelong feud with her sister as much as the bewitching brilliance of her acting, and the last link to Hollywood’s golden age

Olivia de Havilland established herself for ever in the film world’s collective memory at the age of 22, as the wise, gentle and beautiful Melanie Hamilton in the colossal epic Gone With the Wind. The film appeared in 1939 as war was breaking out in Europe: the mighty theme of old orders being swept away was especially potent. De Havilland was an exemplar of radiant womanly calmness, a polar opposite to the capricious sexiness of Vivien Leigh’s bewitching belle Scarlett O’Hara. The role probably encumbered her with something stately and reserved, which she never entirely lost – though with a hint of mystery and suppressed emotional tumult, on screen and off. Because, however sedate her image, De Havilland was the subject of two of the juiciest scandals of Hollywood’s golden age: her relationship with longtime co-star Errol Flynn, and her lifelong feud with her sister and rival Joan Fontaine.

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