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There are no two words that seem to encapsulate Colin Firth's long career as an actor better than love and politics. From Firth's more popular roles in projects like Mamma Mia!and the 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudiceto his equally classic turns in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and The King's Speech, Firth's best performances tend to revolve around the conflict between personal desire and social obligation. And while the actor clearly has no shortage of hits to keep longtime fans enthralled, viewers searching for a deeper glimpse into the actor's narrative accomplishments need look no further than one of Firth's earliest projects. Another Country, the 1984 romantic drama directed by filmmaker Marek Kanievska, explores a poignant love story that tests the tolerance of Great Britain's rigid society with such fervor that it still deserves to be considered one of Firth's most important projects to date.

Rupert Everett landed in Turin, Italy, on Thursday to collect the Star of the Mole, the special award given by the National Cinema Museum to personalities who have left an indelible mark on the world of cinema and society. The award — a pink star — is presented during the Lovers Film Festival, Europe’s oldest gay festival (this is its 39th edition), directed by Vladimir Luxuria, who says that “Rupert Everett was one of the first international stars to come out and fight for civil rights.”

In accepting the honor, Everett joins a list of previous honorees that includes the likes of Oliver Stone, Tim Burton, Malcolm McDowell, Monica Bellucci and many others.

The British actor, who turns 65 on May 29, came out publicly in 1989, five years after he made an indelible impression as a double agent in Marek Kanievska’s drama Another Country. The film was an adaptation of Julien Mitchell...

The heart of London, small-town Wales, or beautiful Florence— the world is your oyster with BritBox! The best-of-British media streamer has announced its August 2023 slate with plenty of diverse titles to choose from— from the classic satirical comedy series “Rumpole of the Bailey,” the critically acclaimed Welsh drama “The Museum,” the beloved 1980s romantic drama “A Room with a View,” and more.

Here are the top five titles coming to the platform we are most excited about at The Streamable!

7-Day Free Trial $7.99 / month via Amazon Prime Video What Are the Best Shows and Movies Coming to BritBox in August 2023? “A Room with a View” | Aug. 17

New to BritBox this month, the beloved British drama “A Room with a View” stars Helena Bonham-Carter as Lucy Honeychurch, a young Englishwoman touring Italy with her older cousin (Maggie Smith). While at a hotel in Florence, Lucy meets the charming, free-spirited George Emerson...

Camerimage Film Festival, which is devoted to the art of cinematography, is to pay tribute to Peter Biziou. The British cinematographer, who won an Oscar for “Mississippi Burning,” and was BAFTA nominated for “The Truman Show,” will receive the festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Biziou, the son of cinematographer-animator Leon Bijou, started his career at an animation company in London. In the mid-sixties, he started to light film sets for commercials and shorts, which helped foster “his innate intuition and his courage to implement innovation,” the festival said. He worked with the likes of Len Fulford, Bob Brooks, Terence Donovan, John Swannell and Frank Budgen.

His work with fashion photographer Robert Freeman brought an invitation for Biziou to be in charge of the visuals on Freeman’s fiction film debut, 1969’s “Secret World,” starring Jacqueline Bisset, which was well-received.

He then worked on Alan Parker’s “Bugsy Malone” (1976), Terry Jones...

Cinematographer Peter Biziou — who earned an Oscar and BAFTA for Alan Parker-directed 1988 film Mississippi Burning — will receive the lifetime achievement award at the 31st EnergaCamerimage international festival of cinematography, which returns to Turun, Poland, in November.

Biziou’s credits include Peter Weir’s The Truman Show, for which he earned an additional BAFTA nom, and several films with Parker, including Bugsy Malone (shared with Dp Michael Seresin) and Pink Floyd: The Wall.

His other notable credits also include Monty Python’s Life of Brian, helmed by Terry Jones; Time Bandits, directed by Terry Gilliam; Another Country, by Merek Kanievska; and In the Name of the Father, by Jim Sheridan.

Born in Wales in 1944, Biziou’s family was evacuated during WWII. His father, Leon Bijou, was a cinematographer, special effects, animation pro and an assistant director who worked with Richard Thorpe on 1952’s Ivanhoe.

Following his return to post-war London,...

When I was a kid, I had the feeling I was undercover as a boy. I was on a little league baseball team called the Chesapeake Bagel Bakery Bagels, which means I was a Bagel, though I never felt like I deserved the name. I was certain that the other boys on the team were going to look at me and see that I was somehow different, that I was attracted to them and wanted to tear their circular-bread-emblazoned uniforms off, that I was a Danish in a Bagel uniform. I was terrible at being in the closet. When we played Truth or Dare, I would dare my friends to kiss me, and then intentionally laugh loudly to emphasize how hilarious and not at all sexy I found that idea.

I was big, and awkward, and I used to have a recurring dream that I was an animated character in a world of live-action people,...

The British Film Institute (BFI) will hand out $8m (£6.48m) in cash awards to 17 organizations as part of the first run of its new National Lottery Audience Projects Fund.

The cash awards include a combination of long-term funding pacts spread across three years to support for short-term projects, all centered around growing and increasing the diversity of film audiences across the UK.

Thirteen awards are for multi-year projects running until March 2026. The fund will support six venues and four festivals, alongside three audience development organizations over three years and four awards for short-term activity.

The BFI has said the 17 projects aim to generate 4.67m admissions UK-wide and represent support for 203,846 screenings, of which 91,357 the BFI said will be accessible screenings (45%). Of the 17 awards, 11 have been handed to organizations based outside London and South East England, although all awarded projects will have activity outside the region.

The list of awardees:

Multi-Year...

Billy Porter (Pose) and frequent collaborator Dan McCabe (Fruits of Thy Labor) have been tapped to script a James Baldwin biopic for Byron Allen‘s Allen Media Group Motion Pictures, with the former also to realize his longtime dream of portraying the cultural icon.

The film will be based on the 1994 book James Baldwin: A Biography by David Leeming, an emeritus professor of English at the University of Connecticut who was a friend of Baldwin’s for 25 years, as well as his assistant.

A gay, African American writer and civil rights activist born in Harlem who wrote critically acclaimed and influential essays, novels, plays and poems, Baldwin’s best-known works include Go Tell It on the Mountain, Notes of a Native Son, Another Country, The Fire Next Time, Giovanni’s Room and If Beale Street Could Talk. Lemming’s biography of Baldwin creates an intimate portrait of a complex, troubled,...

Pose star Billy Porter is set to play James Baldwin in a feature based on the life of the legendary novelist, essayist and activist for Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group Motion Pictures.

Porter and Dan McCabe will pen the script for the theatrical feature based on David Leeming’s 1994 book James Baldwin: A Biography. Broadway-trained Porter is a longtime devotee of Baldwin, having quoted from the legendary author and civil rights campaigner during his 2019 Emmy-winning acceptance speech.

The deep dive into Baldwin’s life and struggles represents the culmination of a long-held creative ambition for the Emmy-, Tony- and Grammy Award-winning performer, who is one Oscar short of an Egot. “As a Black queer man on this planet with relative consciousness, I find myself, like James Baldwin said, ‘in a rage all the time.’ I am because James was. I stand on James Baldwin’s shoulders, and I intend...

The voice of Prince Charming in Shrek 2 is provided by one of Britain’s most acclaimed actors. Released in 2004, Shrek 2 was one of the best-received sequels ever made, with universal critical acclaim to match its predecessor and even more success at the box office. The Shrek sequel also continued to subvert the expectations of fairy tale traditions: after Prince Charming embarked on a daring quest to free the princess from the tower, he was shocked to learn she’d already been rescued by and married her savior – an ogre. Whereas Prince Charming is typically depicted as a hero, he's one of the villains of the Shrek franchise.

The Shrek movies have one of the most star-studded voice casts of any animated franchise. It’s headlined by a trio of A-list icons – Mike Myers as Shrek, Eddie Murphy as Donkey, and Cameron Diaz as Fiona – with just as much...

February ushers in a new slate of movies and TV shows making their way to HBO and HBO Max, from a slew of James Bond movies to the recently released Olivia Colman-led “Empire of Light” to, yes, the Puppy Bowl.

“The Terminator,” “Catch Me If You Can,” “Footloose,” “Taxi Driver” and “The Silence of the Lambs” all mark notable library offerings this month, in addition to “Superbad,” “Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)” and “Eighth Grade.”

Despite HBO Max pulling a number of originals from its roster over the past several months, HBO Max originals premiering on the platform this month include a Dionne Warwick documentary, an adult European animated series titled “Poor Devil” and “Harley Quinn: A Very Problematic Valentine’s Day Special” based on the popular animated series.

HBO Max is also beefing up its sports offerings by streaming soccer matches featuring the U.S. national teams,...

Valentine’s Day is fast approaching and HBO Max got the memo. With its list of new releases for February 2023, the HBO streamer is bringing a very special Valentine’s Day episode into the fold.

Harley Quinn: A Very Problematic Valentine’s Day Special premieres on Feb. 9 and finds Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy celebrating their first Valentine’s Day together. Consider this a fun little aperitif for the fast approaching Harley Quinn season 3 – which will feature none other than freshly-installed DC czar James Gunn. Other HBO Max original series this month include another C.B. Strike special on Feb. 6 and Spanish-language animated comedy Poor Devil a.k.a. Pobre Diablo on Feb. 17.

February also looks to be a jam-packed month for movies on HBO Max. February 1 sees the arrival of many appealing library titles like Birdman, Casino Royale, The Silence of the Lambs, and The Terminator. Later on HBO Max...

The selection of titles for HBO Max in February 2023 will include the continuation of hit TV shows, premieres of holiday specials, and Oscar nominees. HBO Max’s January 2023 additions kicked off the new year with the premieres of TV shows like The Last of Us, which broke HBO records for having the highest jump in viewership for its second episode, and the original series Velma. The month also brought The Menu (2022) and the John Wick franchise to the platform’s library, with plenty more classic films and new releases set to drop on HBO Max in February.

In February 2023, HBO Max will host the streaming premieres of two 2023 Oscar nominees: Sam Mendes’ drama Empire of Light (February 7), which earned Roger Deakins a Best Cinematography nod, and HBO documentary All That Breathes (February 7), which is up for Best Documentary Feature. Also coming to HBO Max in 2023 are the premieres of Harley Quinn: A Very Problematic Valentine’s Day Special...

Actors to be feted at in-person awards gala on September 11.

The cast of upcoming TIFF world premiere My Policeman – Harry Styles, Emma Corrin, Gina McKee, Linus Roache, David Dawson, and Rupert Everett – are the first film ensemble to receive the festival’s TIFF Tribute Award for Performance.

Now in its fourth year, the award will return to an in-person gala fundraiser during the 47th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11 at Fairmont Royal York Hotel.

Michael Grandage directed for Prime Video from Ron Nyswaner’s adapted screenplay based on Bethan Roberts’ novel of the same name. The...

Rupert Everett is speaking out about a role he feels should’ve been his — specifically, George Falconer in “A Single Man,” who was played by Colin Firth.

Speaking on “Piers Morgan Uncensored” (via The Independent), Everett touched on the topic of straight actors playing gay roles, and while he doesn’t think all gay roles should be played by gay actors, he seemed annoyed that the straight-identifying Firth played a gay role in Tom Ford’s 2009 film.

“It’s quite frustrating. I was frustrated, I remember going to see Colin Firth in the film by Tom Ford [‘A Single Man’]. I thought, ‘Well, thanks, Colin. That’s the end of my career. Because you know, that role really should have been mine,” he said. “So you know, there’s a frustration about that, of course.”

In the film — which is directed by a gay man from a novel by the beloved gay writer...

David Gulpilil, the revered Indigenous Australian actor and dancer, known for his performances in films such as Rabbit-Proof Fence, Crocodile Dundee, The Tracker and Walkabout, has died aged 68 following a battle with cancer.

Gulpilil’s death was confirmed Monday in a statement by South Australian Premier Steven Marshall. “It is with deep sadness that I share with the people of South Australia the passing of an iconic, once-in-a-generation artist who shaped the history of Australian film and Aboriginal representation on screen – David Gulpilil Ridjimiraril Dalaithngu (Am),” he posted on social media.

Gulpilil received mainstream recognition for his performances in blockbuster comedy Crocodile Dundee (1986) and Phillip Noyce’s drama Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002), which garnered the actor his first best actor prize from the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards.

He was also well known for 2002 feature The Tracker, in which he played the title character, and further collaborations with director...

Actor and filmmaker Rupert Everett will direct “Lost and Found in Paris,” based on his own true-life experiences.

Kit Clarke (“Get Even”) will play Everett’s younger self – an unruly teenager sent by his exasperated parents to live with a Parisian socialite family to learn French and grow up.

The cast also includes John Malkovich, Kristin Scott Thomas as well as Everett himself in a supporting role.

Written by Everett, this will be his second film as writer/director after “The Happy Prince.”

The film is produced by Jeremy Thomas at Recorded Picture Company (“Pinocchio”), and will go into production in Spring 2022. HanWay Films is handling worldwide sales and distribution and will commence sales at the American Film Market.

Presentation of the film at the AFM is supported with funds awarded by the U.K. Global Screen Fund – a Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport fund administered by the BFI.

Kit Clarke has been set to play Rupert Everett’s younger self in the autobiographical tale Lost and Found in Paris, which Everett will direct from his own screenplay.

John Malkovich and Kristin Scott Thomas are also in the cast, with Everett in a supporting role. The story follows an unruly teenager sent by his exasperated parents to live with a Parisian socialite family to learn French and grow up.

Jeremy Thomas at Recorded Picture Company is producing, with production set to get underway in spring 2022.

HanWay Films is handling worldwide sales and distribution and will launch the title at the American Film Market.

Rupert Everett said: “Lost and Found in Paris is a film about the rollercoaster of life, the exuberance and glamour of youth, seen through the lens of a life well lived. I went to Paris on an exchange trip in 1977. I was supposed to learn French.

Alan Cumming was almost cast as Gilderoy Lockhart in the first “Harry Potter” sequel. That is, until he told the producers to “f— off.”

“I didn’t turn it down,” Cumming said in an interview with The Telegraph. “I told them to f— off!”

According to Cumming, he and “Another Country” star Rupert Everett were both up for the part of the vain and bumbling professor in 2002’s “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.” Cumming said he dropped out of the running after negotiations over pay fell through.

“They wanted me and Rupert Everett to do a screen test, and they said they couldn’t pay me more than a certain sum, they just didn’t have any more money in the budget,” he said.

Everett and Cumming shared the same agent, so Cumming said he knew Everett was being offered more money. “Blatantly lying, stupidly lying, as well,...

From Walkabout, Storm Boy, Crocodile Dundee and Rabbit Proof Fence, to Australia, The Proposition and Charlie’s Country, the work of David Gulpilil forms a throughline in modern Australian cinema.

Knowing that his career has touched Australians far and wide and across generations, distributor Abcg Films wanted to ensure documentary My Name Is Gulpilil was accessible and could reach audiences across the country.

Directed by Molly Reynolds, the film sees the legendary Indigenous actor, who has terminal lung cancer, tell his story in his own words – there are no talking heads from anyone else.

The film was originally intended to exist as a posthumous tribute, though Gulpilil has defied the odds. Indeed, despite his illness, he was even able to be there in person for the film’s premiere at the Adelaide Festival in March.

Abcg Film, led by Alicia Brescianini and Cathy Gallagher, has a long history of working with...

Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci have both long been friends of the LGBTQ community, as evidenced by their choices in acting roles over their wide-ranging careers. Firth came by his ally-ship very early on, starring opposite Rupert Everett in early queer classic “Another Country” in 1984, when it was still considered risky for actors to take on gay roles. He would later star in Tom Ford’s debut film “A Single Man,” for which he nabbed his first Oscar nomination. Tucci is very well known for his queer role as Nigel, indefatigable right hand man to Meryl Streep’s character in “The Devil Wears Prada.” Now, both actors will play gay yet again in “Supernova,” a tearjerker relationship drama centered around one man’s early onset dementia.

Here’s the official synopsis: “It is deep Autumn and Sam and Tusker, partners of 20 years, are on holiday. They are traveling across England...

On the surface, “Funny Boy” has very little to do with the Barbra Streisand musical its title is riffing on. The story of a fey Sri Lankan Tamil boy growing up in 1970s Colombo is a far cry from Fanny Brice’s ascent from the Lower East Side to the heights of show business. The title comes from the Sri Lankan-Canadian novelist Shyam Selvadurai’s 1994 novel, which is read and taught widely in Sri Lanka today. Though Arjie (Brandon Ingram), the film’s wide-eyed central figure, is more of a David Bowie fan, the title’s slight homage to the beloved diva seems apt. Especially when young Arjie steels himself from bullying by declaring, “don’t mess with the grand diva,” the faintest hint of Streisand rising from behind his red feather boa.

set amidst a vicious ethnic conflict that is regionally specific, but tragically universal. It is the latest...

Rupert Everett, Derek Jacobi and Tom Felton have joined the ensemble cast of “Lead Heads,” described as a “drama about greed and the repercussions it has on the soul.” Also in the cast are Luke Newberry, Mark Williams and Olatunji Ayofe. Giles Borg directs. Principal photography begins in March in London.

The film centers on “a group of men, strangers to one another but all corrupted by greed, who, in their desperation, are drawn together for one night to play a game that may cost them both their souls and lives,” according to a statement from the producers, Lawrence Steven Meyers, Randy Dannenberg and John Evangelides.

Alexa Waugh is onboard to line produce. The script was written by Patrick Makin.

Borg has worked in film and television for more than 20 years, directing commercials, music videos, TV series and feature films. He made his feature debut with “1234” in 2008, a quirky music-themed drama,...

Rupert Everett will take over for the previously announced Eddie Izzard as George in director Joe Mantello’s upcoming Broadway staging of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? co-starring Laurie Metcalf as Martha.

The announcement was made today by producers Scott Rudin/Barry Diller/David Geffen, who said Izzard is leaving the production due to scheduling conflicts.

The revival will also feature Russell Tovey and Patsy Ferran, and begins its limited engagement Monday, March 2, 2020, with an official opening night set for Thursday, April 2 at a Shubert Theatre to be announced.

Everett’s casting marks the actor’s return to Broadway after a 10-year absence.

Everett’s stage career began in London’s West End in 1981 with Another Country (he later starred in the film version). Since then he’s appeared on the London stage...

by Murtada Elfadl

If Beale Street Could Talk starts with Fonny (Stephan James) asking his girlfriend Tish (Kiki Layne) “Are you ready for this?” I have been ready for a James Baldwin film adaptation for many years. Since I read "Giovanni’s Room" as a young teen and my mind was opened to queer stories. Since I was given "The Fire Next Time" to read as I made the decision to immigrate to the United States, so that I know what I was getting myself into. "Another Country" remains my favorite novel of all time. I am biased for Baldwin, for his writing, for his ideas, for his power, so I was excited for this film. I was also afraid. Will Barry Jenkins be able to interpret Baldwin’s howls of anger and despair as loud as I heard them reading Baldwin’s prose? I needn’t have worried.

Set in early-1970s Harlem,...

For “The Happy Prince” star Rupert Everett, “Oscar Wilde seemed like a perfect portrait to try and paint because I find him a very fascinating, inspiring patron-saint kind of figure, almost a Christ figure.” In addition to playing the sharp-witted author in his tragic final years, Everett made his screenwriting and directing debut with this passion project, which took 10 years to make its way to the screen. Watch our exclusive video interview with him above.

See Oscars 2019: Sony Pictures Classics contenders include six-time nominee Glenn Close in ‘The Wife’

The actor has a long history with Wilde: he portrayed him in a 2002 revival of David Hare‘s play “The Judas Kiss” and appeared in screen adaptations of “An Ideal Husband” (1999) and “The Importance of Being Earnest” (2002). Everett considers him a “genius” and “the last great vagabond of the 19th century.” In focusing his film on the last few years of his life,...

Simon Pegg and Michael Sheen star in a watchable jape that has plenty of charm but not enough scares

Elite boarding schools have been a favourite microcosm for film-makers to explore over the years: as the crucible of revolution in If…., the breeding ground of spies in Another Country, and the vessel of intellectual liberation in Dead Poets Society. Despite one or two nods and winks (including a picture of If….’s Malcolm McDowell getting plugged in the face with an airgun pellet), this watchable if basically undemanding jape opts to take a very different tack: a teen comedy-horror with little aspiration to make any bigger points other than to chase its group of shrieking and bellowing schoolkids around an educational establishment’s venerable passageways and adjacent woodland.

Strangely enough, the coincidence of the real-world news cycle has given Slaughterhouse Rulez an unlikely topicality: a giant fracking drill in the...

Rupert Everett turns his fascination with Oscar Wilde, the 19th-century Irish poet and playwright who was persecuted and jailed for “gross indecency with men” (the word homosexual was never uttered), into a film of righteous anger, touching gravity and wicked Wildean wit. Having played the literary lion on stage in David Hare’s The Judas Kiss and characters in film versions of An Ideal Husband (1999) and The Importance of Being Earnest (2002), Everett shows a kinship with the role that goes beyond an openly gay actor playing a gay icon. Any...

Dramatizations of the life of playwright Oscar Wilde usually dwell on his sentence to prison with hard labor for homosexuality. The films “Oscar Wilde” and “The Trials of Oscar Wilde,” both of which came out in 1960, put the emphasis on his downfall, as did the biopic “Wilde” from 1997 and numerous theatrical productions, such as “Gross Indecency.”

Rupert Everett played Wilde in a revival of David Hare’s play “The Judas Kiss” in 2012 in London, and now he returns to the role in “The Happy Prince,” which he also wrote and directed. Everett shows little sense of how to structure his material, or how to shoot it, or even sometimes how to act it, but he does have one key element that sees him through: keen insight into Wilde’s world and character. And this insight gets him pretty far here.

“The Happy Prince” begins with title cards explaining who Wilde...

Rod Stewart knew exactly what he didn’t want to do when he began penning songs for his new album Blood Red Roses, which landed in stores on September 28th. “I didn’t want to write songs like ‘Stay With Me,’ ‘Hot Legs,’ and ‘Tonight’s the Night,'” he says. “I wanted to attempt to do something a little bit more age-appropriate, and hopefully I’ve succeeded.”

The album is part of a creative renaissance for the 73-year-old that began with his 2013 LP Time and continued in 2015 with Another Country.

Trevor Nunn is not the first director to accrue both a glorious stage résumé and a paltry, pedestrian screen one. Still, given the talent involved, it’s disappointing that “Red Joan” does so little to change that — his first theatrical feature since a decent “Twelfth Night” adaptation 22 years ago is a would-be sweeping epic that instead turns out tweedy, dreary, and unconvincing.

Something was surely lost along the way as the real-life story of one Melita Norwood — a British civil servant of scant note until her pro-ussr espionage was revealed when she was an elderly retiree — turned into a 2014 novel by Jessica Rooney, then into this tepid film incarnation. Beyond all other intrigue, our heroine here proves an under-radar key player in shaping the power dynamics of the Cold War. So it’s dismaying that so little drama is wrung out of the tale, and that what we get too...

Barry Jenkins shared the first teaser for his upcoming film “If Beale Street Could Talk” on author James Baldwin’s birthday.

The film is based on a 1974 Baldwin novel about a young Harlem woman who is in a race against time to prove her lover’s innocence while pregnant with their first child.

“When I was growing up, I was trying to make a connection between the life I saw, and the life I lived,” says the voiceover in the teaser.

Also Read: Barry Jenkins to Direct James Baldwin's 'If Beale Street Could Talk' as 'Moonlight' Follow-Up Feature

Jenkins wrote the screenplay in the summer of 2013, the same time when he came up with what became “Moonlight,” which took home the Best Picture trophy the 2017 Academy Awards.

The director, who has wanted to adapt “If Beale Street Could Talk” for many years, worked to gain the trust of...

It’s a match made in heaven, even for the most sophisticated of thirsty anglophiles — the smoldering wit of Rupert Everett and the genteel humility of Colin Firth. After making their film debuts together in the 1984 gay classic “Another Country,” these two esteemed actors have reunited for the Oscar Wilde biopic “The Happy Prince.” Everett makes his directorial debut with a bittersweet melodrama about the beloved playwright and satirist’s final days, which he spent in exile in Paris after serving a two-year prison sentence for “indecency.”

In his C+ review of the film out of Sundance, IndieWire’s Eric Kohn wrote: “Anyone expecting Wildean banter will be sorely disappointed — think more of an autobiographical spin on ‘The Portrait of Dorian Gray’ than ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ — but it’s Everett’s formidable investment in the role that rescues the movie from being a total letdown. Nevertheless, “The Happy Prince...

Colin Firth returned to movie screens this summer with the sequel “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again,” reuniting the original all-star cast of Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan, Dominic Cooper, Stellan Skarsgård, Christine Baranski and Julie Walters) plus adding Cher to the cast (surprisingly as the mother of Streep).

Firth began his career on the British stage which led to roles in film and television. It wouldn’t be until 10 years into his career that Firth would become a household name in the United Kingdom when he starred in the highly successful BBC production of “Pride and Prejudice.” His role as Mr. Darcy in the film made him one of the top sex symbols in his native country. He would later lampoon his position as one of the countries most desired men when he played the role of Mark Darcy in “Bridget Jones’ Diary.” Bridget longs for her own...

Rod Stewart unveiled an original song, “Didn’t I,” as the first offering from his new solo album, Blood Red Roses, out September 28th via Republic Records.

“Didn’t I” is a rousing pop-rock tune packed with country flourishes. It finds Stewart singing about the damage drugs can do from a parents’ perspective.

On the track, the rocker gives off a wizened edge as he sings lines like, “Didn’t I try to tell you, that stuffs gonna kill ya?/ Oh didn’t I/ But you thought it was cool,...

Oscar Wilde drama gets European premiere in Berlin on Saturday.

Sony Pictures Classics (Spc) has acquired all North American and Latin American rights to Rupert Everett’s The Happy Prince ahead of Saturday’s European premiere in Berlin as a Special Gala.

Everett’s feature directorial debut premiered in Sundance last month and the multi-hyphenate garnered strong reviews for his portrayal of the 19th century Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde.

The Happy Prince focuses on the literary giant’s final three years from 1897-1900.

Sequestered to a French seaside resort with the company of two loyal friends played by Edwin Thomas and Colin Firth, a restless Wilde travels across Europe under assumed names, unsure whether to reunite with his wife (Emily Watson), or his former lover Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas (Colin Morgan).

“I am absolutely thrilled, particularly because Michael [Barker] and Tom [Bernard] distributed my first film Another Country,” Everett said.

Sébastien Delloye, Philipp Kreuzer and [link...

The star of new comedy Quacks had his big break in 1981, but spent the period in ‘sheer panic’ watching friends die. He talks about fear, flops and coming back from the wilderness years

In one way, Quacks is a natural place to find Rupert Everett. The keenly British comedy has “something of the Carry On, Stanley Baxter era” about it, he says – a sharp, playful script; a generous, gracious ensemble cast also featuring Rory Kinnear and Mathew Baynton; very accurate historical detail, such as Everett’s thunderous physician trying to cure what sounds like cystitis with the topical application of a baked potato. Really, what could be more fitting? Who else would you cast?

Yet the legacy of his first, dazzling appearance into British culture, the stage and then film version of Another Country, means that if you were alive and at all conscious in the early 1980s, you can...

Hong Sang-soo’s first film starring Isabelle Huppert, In Another Country, counts as one of the more lightweight entries in the Korean auteur’s oeuvre. Compare it to Claire’s Camera, their second collaboration, and it suddenly looks like Inland Empire. That’s not to say Claire’s Camera is bad or unenjoyable. It has plenty of the charm characteristic of Hong’s cinema, and there are far worse ways to spend 69 minutes than in the company of his characters as they amble through sunny Cannes idly chatting about love and life, disappointment and fulfillment. At the same time, knowing the director is capable of achieving so much more with even less – one of his greatest films, Hill of Freedom, is similarly scaled and two minutes shorter – it’s difficult not to end up frustrated by what feels like a rushed and ultimately undercooked work.

That’s no doubt due...

There's a running joke—at least, I think it's a joke—that if you shoot part of your film in the French city of Cannes, you will automatically be selected by its film festival. Sneaky Hong Sang-soo, then, who quietly and quickly shot the short feature Claire’s Camera last year with Kim Min-hee, who was at the festival for The Handmaiden, and Isabelle Huppert, who was there with Elle. And now, this year in Cannes, here is the film. A nimble and thrifty filmmaker often directly inspired by the places he goes and the people he meets, Hong's wry and plaintive short story satirizes the film industry—raging unseen and unheard offscreen—while ennobling the magic of happenstance meetings and chance’s circuitous ironies.The film begins in a space possibly never seen in cinema: a temporary office in Cannes rented by a sales company to promote the film's they represent.

Given the importance and recurrence of repetitions in South-Korean director Hong Sang-soo’s work, it almost feels appropriate he has two films in Cannes instead of just one. Out-of-competition title Claire’s Camera was shot in color and in Cannes and stars his In Another Country lead, Isabelle Huppert, alongside the filmmaker’s new muse, Kim Min-hee. For his competition entry The Day After (Geu-hu), Hong returned to Korea and reunited with Kim and Huppert's In Another Country co-star Kwon Hae-hyo, who play a newly arrived employee and her lovesick boss, respectively.

In many ways, The Day After is a quintessential Hong joint....

Love him or hate him, Hong Sangsoo has been remarkably consistent with his films, which both offer viewers a familiar framework and new variations on his favorite themes. His 20th work Claire's Camera debuts this weekend as a Special Screening in the Cannes Film Festival, after shooting at the festival last year. The brief (68 minutes) film reunites him with his In Another Country (2012) star Isabelle Huppert and muse Kim Min-hee for the third time (with a fourth collaboration, The Day After, also premiering at Cannes in a few days in competition). Kim Min-hee plays an employee of a Korean film sales agent who is suddenly fired by her boss for unclear reasons during the market at the Cannes Film Festival. Meanwhile Huppert plays...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

For ardent Hong Sang-soo fans, 2017 couldn’t be a more rewarding year. Not just because the South Korean filmmaker has three new films ready — the first, “On The Beach At Night Alone,” launched in Berlin — or even because two of those features are on offer at the Cannes Film Festival, “Claire’s Camera” and “The Day After.” No, it’s because a fascinating new frontier has been opened up for this prolific filmmaker: international locations in “On the Beach” and, even more prominently, “Claire’s Camera.” Oh, and Isabelle Huppert is back in Hong’s orbit for the first time since 2012’s “In Another Country” (also the director’s last Cannes Competition entry).

Continue reading Hong Sang-soo Pays Homage To Cannes With The Rewarding ‘Claire’s Camera’ [Cannes Review] at The Playlist.

Last year, Isabelle Huppert was the toast of the Croisette thanks to her steely turn in “Elle,” and this year she’s back with “Claire’s Camera.” The film marks her second with director Hong Sang-Soo following “In Another Country,” and for the director, it’ll be his second film this year at Cannes, with “The Day After” screening in Competition.

Continue reading New Trailer & 3 Clips From Hong Sang-Soo’s ‘Claire’s Camera’ Starring Isabelle Huppert at The Playlist.

Cannes 2017 is already a notable edition thanks to the festival’s inclusion of auteur helmed television entries, and (to the chagrin of some traditional minds) the appearance of Netflix properties in the main competition. But beyond these unavoidable progressions, the same kinds of regular maneuvering continues. While some auteurs locked out of the comp in 2015 have been invited back to the fold (Desplechin, Kawase) of Fremaux’s loving arms, the usual trend of displacement has crafted an unusually exciting crop of titles in the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar, as well as miscellaneous groupings of designated Special Screenings and Out of Competition slots specifically designed for auteurs who will remain part of the official program but away from the glaring inspection of competition pressures.

Edouard Waintrop scored a formidable coup with his opening film this year, Claire Denis‘ Let the Sunshine In (previously known as “Dark Sunglasses”). Denis, one of France’s finest auteurs, has been consistently overlooked by Fremaux and usually appears in competition at Venice. Alongside Denis, Waintrop snagged some Sundance titles (Bushwick, Patti Cake$) and a number of new projects from noted auteurs, like Abel Ferrara, Philippe Garrel, Sharunas Bartas, and Amos Gitai. The lineup also features a number of anticipated titles from new directors, including the sophomore film from Jonas Carpignano (A Ciambra), and some eclectic art-house genre titles (like the delicious sounding Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts from Indonesia’s Mouly Surya). Here’s our top three most anticipated from the Quinzaine:

Top 3 Quinzaine:

3. Jeannette – Dir. Bruno Dumont

Bruno Dumont, who was in the main comp last year with cannibal slapstick comedy Slack Bay, returns with an electro-pop musical on Joan of Arc set during the young girl’s developmental years, as based in part on a work by Charles Peguy.

2. The Florida Project – Sean Baker

Sean Baker returns to 35mm after 2015’s phenomenal Tangerine (famously shot on an iPhone). The American auteur’s latest stars Willem Dafoe alongside a group of newcomers in a film focusing on a six-year-old girl and her group of friends one Floridian summer as they embark on adventures while the adults contend with hard times.

1. Let the Sunshine In – Claire Denis

Inexplicably, Denis unites Juliette Binoche and Gerard Depardieu in this adaptation of Roland Barthes’ A Lover’s Discourse. And this is a comedy. Sacré bleu!

Bonus:

For this year’s select out-of-competition titles, Fremaux amassed some glittery new titles from renowned auteurs.

Top 3 Ooc:

3. Ismael’s Ghosts – Dir. Arnaud Desplechin

Desplechin is back, this time opening up the festival with Ismael’s Ghosts, starring his regular muse Mathieu Amalric as a man caught between his current wife (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and the ghost of his former lover (Marion Cotillard, who previously had a small role in 1996’s My Sex Life…).

2. Based on a True Story – Dir. Roman Polanski

Polanski returns with this intriguing sounding film written by Olivier Assayas and starring Eva Green and Emmanuelle Seigner, which details a writer who gets all wrapped up with an obsessive fan.

1. How to Talk to Girls at Parties – Dir. John Cameron Mitchell

The long awaited sci-fi film from John Cameron Mitchell stars Elle Fanning and Nicole Kidman (in one of four new projects at the festival) as aliens infiltrating London, based on a story by Neil Gaiman.

Special Events and Special Screenings:

Some of the auteurs standing out in the Special Events and Special Screenings are Abbas Kiarostami, Jane Campion, and a Virtual Reality project from Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Flesh and Sand), making these mini-sidebars some of the most formidable programming of the fest in years.

3. Golden Years – Andre Techine

Techine was last in Cannes with an out-of-competition screening with 2014’s In the Name of My Daughter. This year he gets a Special Screening with Golden Years, scripted alongside Cedric Anger and starring Pierre Deladonchamps (Stranger by the Lake) as a Wwi deserter who goes into hiding by posing as a woman…but after the war ends, he can’t bring himself to revert to his former identity.

2. Claire’s Camera – Dir. Hong Sangsoo

Cannes 2017 will deliver a double dose of Hong Sangsoo, who returns to the competition with The Day After, who then gets to debut Claire’s Camera as a Special Screening, which reunites him with Isabelle Huppert (who headlined his 2012 In Another Country). Sangsoo filmed this project at Cannes while the festival transpired in 2016.

1. Twin Peaks – David Lynch

And then, there’s the return of the master. David Lynch will be premiering the first two episodes of Twin Peaks, the hotly anticipated reunion of the iconic television show twenty-five years after the end of Season 2. Along with Campion’s unveiling of her second season of Top of the Lake, this will be a rare opportunity to see (at least partially) these new works in the cinema.

The post The Conversation: Top 3 Most Anticipated Directors’ Fortnight Picks: Denis, Baker & Dumont appeared first on Ioncinema.com.

For such a highly anticipated event, the Cannes Film Festival tends to contain a fairly predictable lineup: The Official Selection focuses on established auteurs whose work lands a coveted slot at the flashy gathering on autopilot. That was certainly the case last year, when the 2016 edition opened with a Woody Allen movie and featured new work from the likes of Pedro Almodovar, Nicolas Winding Refn, the Dardennes brothers and Olivier Assayas.

But we live in unpredictable times, and judging by today’s announcement of the Official Selection for Cannes 2017, even the world’s most powerful festival isn’t impervious to change. This year’s Cannes is filled with surprises: television and virtual reality, some intriguing non-fiction selections, and a whole lot of unknown quantities that push the festival in fresh directions.

That’s not to say that there aren’t a few familiar names that stand out. Todd Haynes is...

In order to make accurate predictions about the potential Cannes Film Festival lineup, it’s first important to explore which films definitely won’t make the cut. The glamorous French gathering is notorious for waiting until the last minute before locking in every slot for its Official Selection. That includes competition titles, out of competition titles, a small midnight section and the Un Certain Regard sidebar. Cannes announces the bulk of its selections in Paris on April 13, but until then, there are plenty of ways to make educated guesses. Much of the reporting surrounding the upcoming festival selection is simply lists of films expected to come out this year. However, certain movies are definitely not going to the festival for various reasons.

That’s why our own list of potentials doesn’t include “Image Et Parole,” Jean-Luc Godard’s followup to “Goodbye to Language,” which sales agent Wild Bunch now anticipates as a 2018 title.

To the cadre of fans who have followed South Korean director Hong Sang-soo’s work over the years, he’s best-known for repeating different versions of the same formula: Portraits of chatty, neurotic creative types, usually filmmakers and actors, all of whom usually wind up drinking a lot of Soju and arguing through their problems with alternately funny and insightful results.

More recently, Hong has also been known as one half of a marriage scandal that dominated Korean tabloids more than any of his movies. While the media speculated, the peripatetic filmmaker quietly stuck to his one-film-a-year pace while remaining silent on the topic. Now, he has provided a response in the best terms at his disposal — with a movie. “On the Beach at Night Alone” is a fascinating sublimation of autobiography into Hong’s precise creative terms, a bittersweet character study as poignant, witty and deceptively slight as much...

As usual, the five nominees in the fiercely competitive Best Documentary Oscar category are comprised of high-profile hits and festival award-winners with the right combination of accessibility, artful filmmaking, and gravitas. However, this year’s race was marked by outside factors that included #OscarsSoWhite and the election of President Donald Trump. (Of note: Filmmakers of color directed four of the five nominated feature documentaries.)

Here’s how the documentary race shakes out:

“O.J.: Made in America” (Ezra Edelman, Espn, May 20)

Scoring great reviews at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival was Ezra Edelman’s five-part movie “O.J.: Made in America,” an exhaustive, eye-opening examination of O.J. Simpson and race relations in Los Angeles from the ’60s through the Trial of the Century and beyond.

The movie swept through awards groups: it won three Cinema Eye Honors awards, took home the Ida for Best Feature, the Gotham, the National Board of Review, National Society of Film Critics,...

As usual, the five nominees in the fiercely competitive Best Documentary Oscar category are comprised of high-profile hits and festival award-winners with the right combination of accessibility, artful filmmaking, and gravitas. However, this year’s race was marked by outside factors that included #OscarsSoWhite and the election of President Donald Trump. (Of note: Filmmakers of color directed four of the five nominated feature documentaries.)

Here’s how the documentary race shakes out:

“O.J.: Made in America” (Ezra Edelman, Espn, May 20)

Scoring great reviews at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival was Ezra Edelman’s five-part movie “O.J.: Made in America,” an exhaustive, eye-opening examination of O.J. Simpson and race relations in Los Angeles from the ’60s through the Trial of the Century and beyond.

The movie swept through awards groups: it won three Cinema Eye Honors awards, took home the Ida for Best Feature, the Gotham, the National Board of Review, National Society of Film Critics,...

Isabelle Huppert on Elle: "I never worked with a trained cat before." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Guillaume Nicloux's Valley Of Love, Mia Hansen-Løve's Things To Come (L’Avenir), and Paul Verhoeven's Elle have one thing in common - Isabelle Huppert. Metrograph in New York honoured Huppert by programming Catherine Breillat's Abuse Of Weakness (Abus De faiblesse); Claire Denis' White Material; Ursula Meier's Home; Hal Hartley's Amateur; Michael Haneke's The Piano Teacher and Hong Sang-soo's In Another Country.

Isabelle Huppert with Metrograph's Aliza Ma Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Isabelle spoke with Aliza Ma at Metrograph, following the screening of In Another Country about what two of her latest films have in common:

Isabelle Huppert: In both films there is a cat. In Things To Come it's a very, very big cat. Very heavy like an elephant. In Elle [France's Foreign Language Oscar submission] is a very different cat.