An impromptu dance masterclass became an instant highlight, but Steven Soderbergh’s directorial shakeup delivered a ceremony with few highs and frequent depressions
In a skewiff ceremony of overlong speeches, quiet applause and a downsized red carpet, one moment effortlessly stole the show: Glenn Close doing the dance to the 1988 funk hit Da Butt.
Continue reading...Lockdowns, the rise of streaming and demands for diversity are forcing change on the 93rd Academy Awards
No full-blown red carpet, no outfit questions, no after-parties – many involved in Sunday’s Oscars are happy to take a break from a four-hour seated ceremony that, some argue, has long put the movie industry’s in-house favourites, the promotion of luxury lifestyles and virtue-signalling ahead of peer-reviewed creative recognition.
The event has been under reconstruction since the #OscarsSoWhite campaign forced an expansion of the voting body’s membership and drafting of inclusivity requirements that will come into effect next year.
Continue reading...Tensions arise between a writer and her coterie aboard an ocean liner in Steven Soderbergh’s sweet, unfocused drama
There’s an awful lot going on in this new movie from Steven Soderbergh. The title is appropriate: it’s garrulous, elegant, bristling with classy performances from an A-list cast, and Deborah Eisenberg’s screenplay has a theatrical intimacy. It’s loosely and waywardly plotted, perhaps as a result of having gone through many drafts, though maybe not enough. It is slightly unfocused and uncertain as to where its emotional centre really lies – though there is a charm and a big dramatic finale.
The story is mostly set (and economically filmed, by Soderbergh himself) on a luxury liner, , the Queen Mary 2, crossing from New York to Southampton. Meryl Streep plays Alice Hughes, a renowned novelist whose reputation and sales rely chiefly on a sensational early book about the collapse of a woman’s marriage. Her agent (Gemma Chan) takes her out for lunch and has to charm her cantankerous client into going to London to accept a prestigious award; she is also nervous about the fact that Alice still hasn’t delivered her latest manuscript but excited at the rumours that it could be a sequel to the sensational early book.
Continue reading...Partners Jurgen Mossack and Ramon Fonseca want US court to stop the film being released on Friday
The partners of the offshore law firm whose confidential files were exposed in the Panama Papers leak, Mossack Fonseca, have launched defamation action against Netflix over a movie about the scandal that is due to be released on Friday.
In a US lawsuit filed on Tuesday, Jurgen Mossack and Ramon Fonseca say The Laundromat, in which they are respectively played by Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas, portrays them as “ruthless uncaring lawyers who are involved in money laundering, tax evasion, bribery and/or other criminal conduct” and ask the court to stop it from being screened.
Continue reading...Celebrated actor who rose to fame in the ‘kitchen sink’ era before evolving into one of the screen greats of the postwar period, has died
• Albert Finney – a life in pictures
Albert Finney, who forged his reputation as one of the leading actors of Britain’s early 60s new wave cinema, has died aged 82 after a short illness, his family have announced. In 2011, he disclosed he had been suffering from kidney cancer.
A publicist told the Guardian that Finney died of a chest infection at the Royal Marsden hospital, which specialises in cancer treatment, just outside London. His wife, Pene, and son, Simon, were by his side.
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