Mubi cancels four-day event in protest as local government blocks screening of Luca Guadagnino-directed movie Queer
Organisers of an Istanbul film festival announced its cancellation on Thursday to protest against a local authority ban on the screening of Queer, a drama starring Daniel Craig.
The arthouse film streaming platform Mubi said it was cancelling the entire four-day festival just hours before it was set to open in Kadikoy, on the Asian side of Istanbul.
Continue reading...With his final turn as James Bond in No Time to Die filling cinemas, the actor takes questions from readers and fellow actors about the role, from being smacked around his nether regions to getting over his fear of heights
Most movie stars look tiny up close. Action lads especially. You can’t stop thinking: Vin Diesel is dinky! Statham’s a titch! Am I actually taller than Fassbender?
Daniel Craig is different. He doesn’t loom, but he is bulky. Stonehenge legs, whacking hands, just right for killing a man or mending a washing machine.
Continue reading...The long-awaited 25th outing for Ian Fleming’s superspy is a weird and self-aware epic with audacious surprises up its sleeve
The standard bearer of British soft power is back, in a film yanked from cinemas back in the time of the toilet roll shortage, based on a literary character conceived when sugar and meat rationing was still in force, and now emerging in cinemas as Britons are fighting for petrol in the forecourts.
Bond, like Norma Desmond, is once again ready for his closeup – and Daniel Craig once again shows us his handsome-Shrek face and the lovable bat ears, flecked with the scars of yesterday’s punch-up, the lips as ever pursed in determination or disgust.
Continue reading...No Time to Die brings a 007 era to a close amid fever-pitch speculation and changed sensibilities
“I always joke, how many Bond fans does it take to change a lightbulb?” said Ajay Chowdhury, spokesperson for the James Bond international fan club, the oldest established 007 fan organisation in the world. “One. But 10 to complain how much better the original was.”
As Daniel Craig’s incarnation of Bond draws to a close with the release of No Time to Die next week, rumours over who will replace him have reached fever pitch.
Continue reading...Daniel Craig’s final outing as 007 hit by coronavirus disruption, along with Ghostbusters sequel and Cinderella
James Bond film No Time To Die has been delayed again as Hollywood grapples with the continued disruption caused by the pandemic.
Daniel Craig’s final outing as 007 will now arrive on 8 October, the official Bond Twitter account announced. It had been set to be released in April following multiple pandemic-enforced delays.
Continue reading...CGI-weary audiences’ demand for complex ‘real’ action is increasing the risk for performers
This week, the British stunt performer Joe Watts suffered a serious head injury on the set of the film Fast & Furious 9, at Warner Bros Studios in Leavesden, Hertfordshire, after he reportedly fell 30ft (9 metres) from a balcony. He was airlifted to hospital and has been put in an induced coma. Production on the film was shut down, and the Health and Safety Executive is investigating.
Stunt professionals are in high demand in the current climate of action-driven blockbuster films and increasing volumes of small-screen productions requiring cinema-standard action. Weary of unconvincing CGI and green-screen action, audiences are starting to want practical, unsimulated effects: humans doing spectacular stunts “for real”. However, as the volume and complexity of stunts has grown, so has the risk factor.
Continue reading...Daniel Craig’s swansong as 007 will see the return of Léa Seydoux, as well as previously-confirmed Rami Malek
Fresh details of plot and cast for the 25th James Bond film have been revealed at an official launch at Ian Fleming’s villa in Jamaica. With the sea in the background, a platter of pears and papaya in front, Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson as well as new director Cary Fukunaga told radio presenter Clara Amfo that the new film opens with Bond relaxing in “his spiritual home”.
“Bond is not on active service,” said Broccoli. “He’s enjoying himself in Jamaica.” The trio confirmed that MI6 regulars Ralph Fiennes (who took over from Judi Dench as M after 2012’s Skyfall), Naomie Harris (as Moneypenny), Jeffrey Wright (Felix Leiter), Rory Kinnear (as Bill Tanner) and Ben Whishaw (as Q) will return, alongside Léa Seydoux, who played psychologist Madeleine Swann in 2015’s Spectre.
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