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Celebrating Lara Dutta on her birthday as Subhash K Jha shines a special spotlight on her career. We hear from the actress about being an actress in Bollywood, plus Suneel Darsha, director of her debut film, gives some behind-the-scenes scoop from the set.

She was named Lara after the heroine in her mother’s favourite film Dr Zhivago. In an industry of hyper-hypocrisy, she was honest. No false smiles, no sucking up to directors and heroes. No compromises: Priyanka Chopra and Lara Dutta started off together in my friend Suneel Darshan’s Andaaz. Between the two, I thought Lara was going to be the big star. She had the better role in Andaaz, and she went on to give some good performances in films like Dilli Chalo, Billu, and David. But her career never took off in the way it should have.

Lara was seen as Priyanka’s competition at the start,...

Julie Christie is an Oscar-winning actress who has been largely absent from movie screens this century, enjoying a semi-retirement that finds her returning for the odd performance here and there. Yet she's always finding new fans as younger generations discover her cinematic classics. Let's take a look at 20 of her greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born on April 14, 1940, Christie rose to prominence for her work in London, starting with a breakthrough performance in John Schlesinger's "Billy Liar" (1963). She won the Oscar as Best Actress just two years later for Schlesinger's "Darling" (1965), playing a fashion model who sleeps her way to the top. That same year, she shot to stardom thanks to David Lean's romantic epic "Doctor Zhivago" (1965), which casts her as a political activist's wife who falls in love with a physician (Omar Sharif) during the Russian Revolution.

She earned a second Best Actress nomination for Robert Altman...

“All Of You” is a slim, modest, 100-minute love story starring Brett Goldstein and Imogen Poots. But in its decade-spanning structure and proclamations of “one true love” and “true soul mate,” it very much wants to be “Doctor Zhivago” or another such sweeping romance. Only it obviously isn’t and leaves you with a feeling of much ado about nothing. William Bridges makes his feature directorial debut from a script he co-wrote with Goldstein, based on the short “For Life” they had made years earlier.

Continue reading ‘All Of You’ Review: Brett Goldstein & Imogen Poots Heat Up Decade Spanning Sci-Fi Romance [TIFF] at The Playlist.

BBC Studios has announced the titles coming to BritBox in May 2024, which include everything from new BritBox Originals to classic British fare. BritBox is a digital video subscription service offering the largest collection of British TV in the U.S. and Canada.

The May lineup includes the Sophie Rundle-led original After the Flood and the 2024 BAFTA Television Awards with P&o Cruises, streaming exclusively on BritBox in North America. Several notable BritBox series have been nominated for BAFTA TV Awards this year, including The Sixth Commandment, Time, Three Little Birds, Would I Lie to You, and Make It at Market, which will be returning for a second season on May 14.

BritBox is a digital subscription video-on-demand service offering the largest and most comprehensive, unmissable collection of British entertainment available all in one place.

BritBox delivers the UK’s favorite programs, ranging from brand new commissions to gems, across a variety of genres,...

Flamethrowers, judo chops, Anjelica Huston, a Keanu Reeves cameo and ballet dancing are just some of the things you’ll see when Lionsgate drops the first trailer for Ballerina. Exhibitors got to see it first Wednesday at CinemaCon.

“You’re childhood was taken from you,” Huston’s matriarch-type tells Ana de Armas’ assassin, who is as fierce offstage as she is on.

The movie directed by Len Wiseman and produced by Chad Stahelski raises the stakes and sets itself apart from the John Wick canon with all the beloved characters starring — including the late Lance Reddick’s Charon at the Continental and Ian McShane’s Winston.

“What a pleasure to see you again!” beams Winston as Ballerina steps out of the elevator.

Related: ‘Barbie’ Producer LuckyChap Rolls Dice On ‘Monopoly’ With Lionsgate & Hasbro – CinemaCon

John Wick himself shows up to offer the Ballerina calming, nurturing advice. He does know the...

Despite a shining performance by Eslam Al Kawarit, this love story is hampered by wooden dialogue and iffy acting

In this sort-of spin on Cyrano de Bergerac, the poor letter-writing schmuck with not a hope in hell’s chance of getting the girl is a teenager called Khalifa; he’s more boy than man, a few hairs sprouting experimentally from his top lip. It’s Dubai in 1965, and Khalifa is one of life’s romantics: after watching Dr Zhivago he rushes out to buy a wool trench coat and furry hat, never mind the scorching heat. He might remind you of a character from Wes Anderson, bright and restless, and he’s nicely played by Eslam Al Kawarit with a performance that really shines compared with some of the weirdly lifeless acting elsewhere in this film – which was made in 2018 and is now finally getting a release on streaming.

The...

The Promised Land is a Danish film that feels more epic than most Hollywood blockbusters, with its vast landscapes, romantic subplots, and swaggering hero. The film explores 18th century Denmark during the transition from feudalism to capitalism, focusing on a retired soldier's attempt to cultivate uninhabitable land using the potato. Mads Mikkelsen delivers a superb performance as the stubborn and ambitious Captain Kahlen, while Simon Bennebjerg shines as the villainous magistrate who opposes him.

Hollywood blockbusters may be getting longer (or perhaps bloated), but that doesn't mean there have been many great epics in recent years. Just because a Marvel or Mission: Impossible film is 150 minutes long, it isn't necessarily an epic. The Promised Land, a new Danish film by filmmaker Nikolaj Arcel, is only 127 minutes, but feels more epic in scope than most big studio pictures today. With its stubborn hero, vast landscapes, large supporting cast, dreamily romantic subplots,...

“Until this project, I didn’t even know that Anne Frank had a sister,” admits Ashley Brooke, who portrays Anne’s older sibling Margot Frank in the Holocaust-themed eight-part limited series “A Small Light” that premiered with a pair of episodes on May 1 on Nat Geo and repeated May 2 on Disney+ and Hulu. “I’ve had Anne’s diary in my room since I was a little girl, and was told the story at a young age. But I must have forgotten a lot because I really had to start at ground zero when I started researching Margot. I fell in love with her little quirks. She’s really the opposite of Anne in terms of personality, more quiet and reserved. She likes to follow the rules.” Watch the exclusive video interview above.

Unfortunately, this was a time where the rules didn’t matter, particularly for the Jews of Europe.

Exclusive: Oscar winner Juliette Binoche (The English Patient), Oscar nominee and BAFTA winner Tom Courtenay (Doctor Zhivago), Emmy winner Anna Calder-Marshall (Wuthering Heights) and Bridgerton breakout Florence Hunt are currently filming under-the-radar feature drama Queen At Sea in the UK.

Plot is largely being kept under wraps but we understand Binoche will play a woman who moves back to London with her teenage daughter (Hunt) amid concern for her ageing mother (Calder-Marshall).

The film will mark the second feature for writer-director Lance Hammer who 15 years ago made his debut with well-received Sundance drama Ballast, which won two awards in Park City, and played a host of festivals before winning the filmmaker a Gotham award for breakthrough director and garnering six Indie Sprit nominations.

Hammer, now in his 50s, went quiet after his debut 15 years ago so there will be intrigue around his second feature. Prior to Ballast the filmmaker was...

FX announced today (Charles Dickens’ birthday) that it has set a premiere date of March 26 for “Peaky Blinders” creator Steven Knight’s hotly anticipated six-part adaptation of the classic Dickens novel “Great Expectations” starring Fionn Whitehead as Pip, Shalom Brune-Franklin as Estella and Oscar and Emmy winner Olivia Colman as Miss Havisham, with the first pair of episodes showing back to back at launch. The series will stream exclusively on Hulu in the United States and over BBC One in the UK.

Produced by FX Productions in association with the BBC, the production is expected to be an Emmy dynamo in the limited series category later this year, poised for likely nominations in series, lead actor (Whitehead), lead actress (Brune-Franklin) and supporting actress (Colman) as well as for its writing and direction. Knight, the prolific British-born writer-director and an original screenplay Academy Award nominee in 2004 for “Dirty Pretty Things,” serves...

Omar Sharif Jr. got early career advice from his celebrated grandfather, the legendary Hollywood actor Omar Sharif best known for his Golden Globe-winning performances in 1962’s “Lawrence of Arabia” and the title role in 1965’s “Dr. Zhivago”: Acting is not enough.

“My grandfather used to always say there’s nothing more boring than being an actor,” the 38-year-old Sharif told TheWrap with a chuckle. “Later on in his life, he used to take roles just literally to pay off gambling debts. It wasn’t for anything else. It was to cover costs at the racetrack.”

Despite his grandfather’s words, Omar Sharif Jr. did become an actor — and he recently joined the cast of the long-running Israeli rom-com series “Beauty and the Baker.” But being a performer is indeed not enough for the younger Sharif, who has been an outspoken LGBTQ activist since famously coming out as gay in...

Among the 100 top-grossing domestic movie releases, there have been three occasions when two of those films opened on the same weekend.

“Dr. Zhivago” and “Thunderball” shared Christmas 1965; “The Exorcist” and “The Sting” were Christmas 1973. And on Memorial Day Weekend 1977 there was “Smokey and the Bandit”… and “Star Wars.”

George Lucas’ film, of course, is second only to “Gone With the Wind” in tickets sold. But “Smokey” is #79 all-time, grossing $520 million (all figures here adjusted to 2022 values).

And for that first weekend, “Smokey” was actually #1. All-time, it’s a bigger hit than any “Harry Potter” film, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “West Side Story,” “Lawrence of Arabia,” all the “Hunger Games” films, and “Rocky.”

In May 1977, I was in my second year as a film buyer for a local Chicago exhibition chain. At that point, wide releases were not the rule and while Memorial Day was a desirable date, it wasn’t considered summer.

Longtime film distribution executive Melvin “Duffy” Stanley Maron died Jan. 13 in Atlanta. He was 90.

Maron brought martial arts and cult movies to theater, drive-in and TV audiences throughout the 1970s including Edie Sedgwick starring “Ciao Manhattan,” “Godzilla’s Revenge,” the double bill of “War of the Gargantuas” and “Monster Zero” and “The Cult,” about the Tate-LoBianco killings.

He acquired numerous dubbed martial arts movies to capitalize on the Bruce Lee craze, including “Bruce Lee: The Man — The Myth,” “Fists of Bruce Lee,” “Fists of Vengeance,” “Kung Fu Gold” and “The Killing Machine.”

“Even though he had a short career with only a few films, Bruce Lee opened everyone’s eyes,” Maron told DVDDriveIn. “When I saw kids going to these karate and kung fu schools that were springing up everywhere, I felt there was a natural tie-in between the martial arts and America.”

His later distribution company World Northal was oriented to the arthouse market,...

“Dune” has started rolling out overseas, collecting a strong $36.8 million in its international debut over the weekend. While the first movie in Denis Villeneuve’s planned two-part saga doesn’t arrive in the U.S. until late October, his crafts team has started making the rounds in support of what is surely one of the year’s big below-the-line Oscar contenders. Costume designers Jacqueline West and Bob Morgan recently spoke to Variety, which reports the duo created “1,000 or so looks” to bring the film’s different planetary worlds to life.

As reported by Variety: “Jacqueline West and Bob Morgan teamed up to create the 1,000 or so looks needed for the three main worlds of the movie: Arrakis, Caladan, and Giedi Prime. ‘For research, I looked at David Lean films — “Dr. Zhivago,” “Lawrence of Arabia” — [as well as] “Fahrenheit 451,”‘ says West. She says she also referenced Greek and Roman mythology because she thought...

Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s old-fashioned drama delivers big performances and intriguing plot twists

Kiyoshi Kurosawa has probably long since got used to seeing the words “no relation” after his name; and this Japanese film-maker has in any case established his own distinctive, valuable presence in Asian cinema. Just two years ago, he released his complex drama To the Ends of the Earth, and now, working with Ryû Hamaguchi as co-writer, he has created this excellent wartime mystery thriller, which won the Silver Lion at last year’s Venice film festival: an old-fashioned drama replete with big performances and plot twists, double-cross and triple-cross. It’s like a three-quarter scale version of a Lean epic, a mid-level Zhivago or English Patient, but all the more intriguing for being relatively modest in scope.

Yû Aoi is outstanding as Satoko, a movie actor in 1940 Kobe in Japan, married to Yûsaku (Issey Takahashi), a prosperous...

Stanley Kubrick’s Napoleon biopic has long been considered the greatest film the director never made, but now cinephiles can add “Doctor Zhivago” to that list thanks to a recently discovered letter from six decades ago in which Kubrick wrote to “Zhivago” author Boris Pasternak asking for rights to the epic novel. The discovery was made by British film historian James Fenwick (via The Guardian) during his research for two upcoming books, “Stanley Kubrick Produces” and “Shadow Cinema: The Historical and Production Contexts of Unmade Films.”

According to Fenwick’s research, Kubrick and producer James B. Harris were interested in acquiring the rights to “Doctor Zhivago” as early as December 1958. The two men were in discussions with Kirk Douglas’ production company Bryna Productions to mount the “Zhivago” adaptation as a Hollywood production, years before David Lean started work on his famous adaptation in the U.K. The plan was for...

Like so many of my fellow fantastical fans, I’m at a point where I’m just looking for something to help forget the horrors of the real world, even for 90 minutes; a film where plot is jettisoned in favor of mass destruction, and character development merrily skips alongside the other forgotten tenets of basic storytelling. I’m happy to say I found my fella; Gorgo (1961) is a British film that extensively rips off Godzilla and King Kong in a successful quest to grease my eyeballs with goofy goodness. And it does it in 78 minutes, to boot.

And this is coming from someone who has yet to glom onto Godzilla’s oversized charms and Japanese destruction in any kind of constructive way; I understand the legacy and even the appeal of the series, but can’t pry myself inside. But after viewing Gorgo, I have a greater appreciation for why people find Godzilla effective.

Veteran filmmaker John Woo is the helmer of such iconic movies as 1989’s The Killer, 1992’s Hard Boiled and later Face/Off (have John Travolta or Nicolas Cage ever been better?), Mission: Impossible 2 and the Red Cliff movies. He’s about to see the second part of his passion project, The Crossing, released in China later this month. Billed in local media as the “Chinese Titanic,” the two-part period epic is set during the Chinese Civil War and revolves around three couples from different backgrounds whose lives are affected by the sinking of the steamer Taiping, which led to the deaths of over 1,500 passengers and crew. Ziyi Zhang stars. Woo oversaw an emotional and packed 2014 Cannes press conference to talk up the film whose first part released during the Christmas holiday corridor last year. Middle Kingdom box office under-performed at about $33M while reviews were mixed for the 3D drama.

"Ichabod is the hardest part I've played," Tom Mison, star of the freshman fantasy-drama "Sleepy Hollow," airing Mondays on Fox, tells Zap2it. "There's so much that we need to balance with him. To slightly veer in any one direction a little too much, and it will collapse."

"Sleepy Hollow" can be described as a combination of author Washington Irving (in particular, his stories "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle"), the film "National Treasure" and the biblical book of Revelation.

Mison's Ichabod Crane was a spy for Gen. George Washington during the Revolutionary War, when he beheaded the Hessian Horseman and apparently perished. But, he survived and slumbered underground for over two centuries, only to emerge in present-day Sleepy Hollow, N.Y.

Stalked by the now-Headless Horseman and facing a variety of deadly supernatural forces, Ichabod has partnered with local police Lt. Abby Mills (Nicole Beharie...

Hungary has a new slasher horror in the works going by the title Bloody Night, and from what we’ve seen so far, it might well be worth a punt if it heads to your neck of the woods on the festival circuits. We’re intrigued to see the promised (soon be released) full teaser trailer, then we can all make a call if it lives up to the title. In the mean time, its press release... time.... “Budapest, Hungary - Bloody Night is a slasher film that has recently completed principal photography. This disturbing title has been shooting in Budapest, Hungary since January of 2013. And now, director Hakan Yildiz has released several photos from the shoot. Award nominee and writer Pau Masó is shown as one of several friends stalked by a mysterious killer. European based actor Anna Rust also appear in these stills. Rust is a relative up...

You may have missed this amid all the Breaking Dawn noise, but there is another beautiful book adaptation hitting theaters this weekend that we’re very excited about — maybe you can make it a double feature? Anna Karenina marks the third collaboration between Keira Knightley and director Joe Wright, after their acclaimed work together in Atonement and Pride and Prejudice. It’s also about the thousandth time a director has chosen to cast Keira in a movie set in another time/far-off place, usually in the past, with the exception of Star Wars: Episode I. Early in her career, she appeared in TV adaptations of Oliver Twist and Doctor Zhivago. More recently, she’s worn all sorts of corsets and headpieces for the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, A Dangerous Method and The Duchess. After looking through this collection of work, we turned to Wright to explain what it...

Director Joe Wright’s take on Tolstoy’s tragic love story, Anna Karenina, is bound to divide opinion, particularly after watching the initially distracting theatrical element of a film set within theatre set changes. Those who favour classic Russian epics, like the days of Doctor Zhivago, may well have envisaged this in grander, more realistic settings. Admittedly, it does take a moment to settle at the very beginning and to accept the hustle and bustle going on in almost ‘claustrophobic’ and tweet surroundings. However, this merely further establishes the growing psychological effect on its lead character.

Adapted by Academy Award winner Tom Stoppard, Tolstoy’s story is an exploration of the power of love and how it affects a supposedly happily married woman, Anna (Keira Knightley), when she encounters the full effects of raw lust then emotion on her happiness and her marriage, rocking her world in late-19th-century Russian high society.

After unveiling a rather sumptuous trailer last month, the slowly building marketing campaign for Joe Wright's promisingly dazzling "Anna Karenina" continues, now with a new poster for the movie that puts Keira Knightley in the path of an oncoming train. Anyone who's read the book will know what that means. Well, it's a far less cluttered one sheet than the first one, revealing a bit more of the showy stage around which the narrative pivots, with Jude Law and Aaron Johnson thrown to the side. Anyway, Joe Wright is definitely going for something far beyond what we might come to expect in a period-based adaptation of a literary masterwork, yet the tone of the trailer is evocative of some of the great, classic pieces of cinema of yore (think "Doctor Zhivago"). Frankly, we're getting a Baz Luhrmann vibe but with a more restrained hand, and without the Jay-z tossed in for the kids.

There have been rumors for months that James Franco is on his way to Broadway, and the Oscar host said last week that he hopes the upcoming Nicole Kidman-led revival of Tennessee Williams’ Sweet Bird of Youth will be his next project. (When contacted by EW, the show’s rep could only confirm that Franco might be headed to the Great White Way this fall). Am I shocked and excited? If anything James Franco decides to do still surprises you, you must also get a little rush when the sun rises or your toilet flushes, yet I trust him...

Steven Moffat has revealed the titles of the first few stories of Matt Smith's era as the Eleventh Doctor.

The series begins with The Eleventh Hour written by Moffat himself and is believed to follow directly on from the regeneration in The End of Time. Episode Two is The Beast Below also by Moffat with Episode Three seeing the return of the Doctor's greatest foe in Victory of the Daleks by Mark Gatiss.

Speaking to Doctor Who Magazine, Moffat also confirmed a number of guest stars for the new series coming to the UK in the Spring.

Arthur Darvill will join the cast of Episode One as Rory. Darvill was previously seen in Little Dorrit, playing Tip Dorrit in the 2008 series.

Sophie Okonedo stars in Episode Two. She recently seen playing Winnie Mandela in the film Mrs Mandela and has previously starred in series such as Criminal Justice, Father and Son and Clocking Off.

When it was announced that Keira Knightley would be starring in the new film The Duchess, complete with all kinds of period dresses, folds, furbelows, corsets, bodices, hoops, ringlets, hats, big hair and heaven knows what else, the general response was: "what, again?" We can only guess whether Keira herself said the same thing, or if she simply took to the new costume like a beautiful, slender swan to water. Here's a rundown of Keira's other period, costume epics, ranging from worst to best:

7. Silk (2007)

Keira's most snore-inducing movie, though it's a close call. She plays Hélène Joncour, who has virtually nothing to do while her hubby is off having adventures in exotic lands. Her costumes are merely plain, with the occasional straw hat. If I remember correctly, she sometimes wears gardening gloves. Yawn.

6. Doctor Zhivago (2002)

Playing the bourgeois-born Lara, Keira got to wear ultra-romantic big fur hats and headscarves in this TV movie.

Young British star Keira Knightley is poised to sign for a role that will see her soar into the Hollywood 'superleague'. The Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl actress is wanted by superstar director Steven Spielberg to take a leading role in the fourth Jurassic Park blockbuster. Keira, 18, gushes, "It was so amazing because I've been a big fan of the original film for years. Steven said he liked my work in Bend It Like Beckham and wanted to meet me. I think Sam Neill really pushed for me as well, because we had worked together before on Doctor Zhivago. There were actually two roles in Jurassic Park IV that Steven thought I might fit. First there was the granddaughter part. The other was substantially larger but I won't go into any details in case I make Steven angry." In-demand Keira has also signed up with Spielberg's Dreamworks production company for a role opposite Jude Law in book adaptation Tulip Fever.

LONDON -- Nearly half a century after the novel was first smuggled out of Russia to be published, Boris Pasternak's epic love story Dr. Zhivago is heading back to its native home -- this time as a lavish television series. In one of its first major sales deals with the territory, Granada International has sold its 3x75 telefilm to Russia's biggest television network, Channel One, formerly state broadcaster ORT. The deal is a unique licensing arrangement that needed the backing of the author's five surviving relatives, says Granada International managing director Nadine Nohr, who also believes the deal suggests an uplift in access to the Russian market.