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Subscription streaming platform HighballTV has acquired North American streaming rights to a package of 15 US, British and Irish titles from Tribeca Films, the distribution label of the Tribeca Institute and Giant Pictures.

The deal, signed following this month’s Tribeca Film Festival, covers 13 narrative features and two documentary features that premiered at festivals including Sundance, Toronto, Berlin and the BFI London Film Festival. Titles will be curated as a Tribeca Films collection.

Launched in 2018 and based in Canada, HighballTV offers curated collections and festival films to a worldwide audience. It also has a production arm.

Among the narrative films included...

“After the Party” star Peter Mullan tells it like it is.

“The thing with acting is that it’s fun when you are playing. A footballer can relive the moment of scoring the goal, but it’s not as much fun as scoring the goal. Kevin Spacey would watch himself all day long. He never fucking stops. The man is an asshole,” he told the crowd at Series Mania.

They worked together on “Ordinary Decent Criminal.”

“We would barely finish and he would run to the monitor to check if it worked. If the cheat worked, because he was so fake. I didn’t like him at all. Horrible human being, but fascinating to watch, because he was so mannered. It was like working with Bette Davis.”

Spacey wasn’t the only one who got a drubbing during expletive-filled masterclass, with Mullan’s very own nose in “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power...

Peter Mullan plays golfer Tom Morris Photo: Courtesy of Edinburgh Film Festival

Peter Mullan, long considered to be one of the most important figures in the Scottish film industry, was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences this week, it has been announced. The star of films like The Vanishing and Tyrannosaur, and director of Neds, is one of the latest crop of stars to join the Oscar-voting body, alongside younger Scot Jack O'Connell, who burst onto screens in 2013 with Starred Up.

Other actors invited to join the Academy this year include Lady Gaga, who took home this year's Best Original Song Oscar and was praised for her performance in A Star Is Born, Elizabeth Moss of The Handmaid's Tale, Rocketman's Jamie Bell, veteran actor Kenneth Cranham and young Spider-Man: Homecoming star Tom Holland.

The directors' category saw invitations for Out Of Blue's Carol Morley and Stan & Ollie's.

Marianna Palka has endured a bumpy decade: The filmmaker and actress was a Sundance breakout whose career was nearly derailed by the prospects of a life-threatening disease. She makes challenging movies that don’t face easy commercial prospects. And yet, over the past year, she has entered a whole new chapter of her career — premiering her daring new movie “Bitch” in Sundance’s Midnight section, acting on a popular new Netflix series, and heading straight into the biggest production of her directing life.

The actor-director is getting used to a busier routine. In the last half of 2016, she not only completed her fourth feature; she also found the time to appear in several episodes the Netflix hit “Glow,” as female wrestler Reggie Walsh. She called it “the best year, yeah, of my entire work life, it’s like the best year ever, it’s just beautiful.” That sentiment is especially...

The Scottish actor is best known for playing abusive drunks in Tyrannosaur, Neds and, most recently, Sunset Song. In his new film, Hector, we see a softer side. He reveals how sleeping rough in his youth was ideal preparation for the role – and why he campaigned for independence

Peter Mullan is known for playing pushers and punishers; men who drink and destroy. There are buckets of booze and abuse in his back catalogue, the cocktail strongest in Tyrannosaur, Paddy Considine’s bleak redemption tale, which opens with Mullan’s character, a raging drunk, kicking his dog to death.

In Sunset Song, Terence Davies’s lush but brutal Lewis Grassic Gibbon adaptation, Mullan plays the patriarch of a Scottish farming family, the Guthrie clan. Gruff, resentful and controlling, he’s at his lowest after a stroke leaves him bedridden and in the care of his teenage daughter (Agyness Deyn). He rings a bell.

From performances in Trainspotting, Top of the Lake, Tyrannosaur, Red Riding, War Horse, Boy A, Children of Men, and more to directorial work like Neds and The Magdalene Sisters, Peter Mullan has crafted out a distinct career with a distinct voice. As a fitting birthday present for the actor (who turns 56 today), we have the first trailer for his next feature, Hector.

The directorial debut of Jake Gavin, it follows Mullan’s character as a homeless man who embarks on a journey from Scotland to London and reconnects to those in his storied life along the way. While there’s no U.S. distribution set yet, it’ll arrive next month in the U.K. and looks to have another great performance from Mullan.

Check out the the trailer below (with a hat tip to Screen Relish) for the film also starring Sarah Solemani, Keith Allen, Stephen Tompkinson, Natalie Gavin and Sharon Rooney.

Best Documentary Short Films Oscar 2015: Illness and death are top subjects (photo: 'White Earth' by J. Christian Jensen) Eight films — most of them featuring illness and/or death as their focus — remain in the running for the 2015 Best Documentary Short Subject Oscar, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced. Of those eight semi-finalists, three to five titles will be shortlisted for the 87th Academy Awards. (Scroll down to vote in our Best Documentary Short Subject Oscar 2015 poll.) The remaining eight Oscar 2015 contenders are listed below in alphabetical order by title, with their directors and, in parentheses, their production companies: Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1, directed by Ellen Goosenberg Kent (Perry Films) Joanna, directed by Aneta Kopacz (Wajda Studio). Kehinde Wiley: An Economy of Grace, directed by Jeff Dupre (Show of Force) The Lion's Mouth Opens, directed by Lucy Walker (Tree Tree Tree) One Child,...

Odd List Ryan Lambie Simon Brew 27 Feb 2014 - 05:54

Our series of lists devoted to underappreciated films brings us to the year 2010, and another 25 overlooked gems...

By 2010, Hollywood’s obsession with 3D movies was in full swing. James Cameron’s Avatar may have given audiences a taste of what the cutting edge of stereoscope could look like, but it has to be said that the movies ushered into cinemas in its wake were a decidedly mixed bunch. Toy Story 3's 3D was extraordinarily effective, yet Clash Of The Titans looked like a blurry mess. How To Train Your Dragon came to life in its flying sequences, but the less said about the horribly murky Last Airbender, the better.

Unless we’re mistaken, none of the movies on this list were shot or released in 3D, and few of them did particularly stellar business. A few got a certain amount of critical acclaim,...

Ahead of the British Academy Scotland Awards next month, BAFTA Scotland has once more joined forces with Cineworld to launch this year’s Audience Award category.

The award category is designed to promote emerging home-grown talent, bringing a set of eight films this year back to the big screen later this month, and the nominations have now been announced.

Blackbird The Devil’s Plantation Fire In The Night The Happy Lands I Am Breathing Sawney: Flesh Of Man We Are Northern Lights The Wee Man

Cineworld cinemas in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and Dundee will be screening the films again from Sunday 20th October to Tuesday 29th October, and from that Sunday 20th, audiences can vote for their favourite of the octet by going to www.cineworld.co.uk/baftascotland.

Carter Ferguson’s Fast Romance won the award two years back, with David Mackenzie’s Perfect Sense, Mackenzie’s You, Instead,...

Stars: Scarlett Johansson, Paul Brannigan, Jessica Mance, Joe Szula, Lynsey Taylor Mackay | Written by Walter Campbell | Directed by Jonathan Glazer

Review by Scott Clark of The People’s Movies

Directed by Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beast) and filmed entirely on location across Scotland Under the Skin is a film flaunting incredible cinematography strung together by a predominantly performance-orientated narrative. Based on the Novel by Michael Faber, Under the Skin follows Laura (Scarlett Johansson), an alien from another world, as she travels across Scotland kidnapping young men.

Glazer’s latest is a sci-fi film akin to 2001: A Space Odyssey in that one of the film’s main components is its striking tone and total control over the presented image. Daniel Landin’s exquisite palette of subdued tones creates a grim atmospheric back-drop for the film’s often macabre visual style. The same gorgeous control over image translates the Scottish landscape into a strange muggy alien territory,...

Brace yourself for Peter Mullan as you've never heard him before in Dexter Fletcher's rousing musical romance set in Edinburgh

Only whales can hear Peter Mullan sing. Or, at least, truly appreciate it. To be sitting in front of the Scot as he rasps out 'Oh Jean' to his conveniently-named missus on their 25th wedding anniversary, is to feel your bones shake, the cinema quiver and your eardrums desperately scramble to adjust. Mullan makes a noise almost off the register, a rich, sonic product of years of grizzly living and fearless acting that'd make Johnny Cash feel a little reedy.

In fact, knowing Peter Mullan was in this had thrown me off track. Not being a Proclaimers nut, I'd assumed that title of Dexter Fletcher's second film should be read with grim irony, probably superimposed over a shot of a bloated corpse surfacing downstream at day-break. Mullan is...

Paradise

Actor-turned-filmmaker Peter Mullan ("Neds") is set to helm "Paradise" which Peter Broughan will produce.

The story deals with the foundation of legendary football club Celtic by an Irish priest in Glasgow in 1887. [Source: THR]

War Book

UK director Tom Harper ("The Woman in Black: Angel of Death") and scribe Jack Thorne ("How I Live Now," "A Long Way Down") are teaming for the London-set thriller "War Book" for Sixteen Films and Archer's Mark.

The story deals with the aftermath of an international nuclear attack, played out in the political backrooms of London. Lauren Dark is producing, and shooting kicks off on location in London in mid-July. [Source: Screen Daily]

The Girl With A Clock For A Heart

James Marsh ("Man On Wire," "Red Riding") will reunite with his "Shadow Dancer" producers on "The Girl With A Clock For A Heart."

An adaptation of the upcoming novel by Peter Swanson, the story follows a...

Each week we ask readers to tell us about their favourite picture houses. Today, it's a mobile cinema currently screening films in the village halls of Rusland Valley

Location

Oxen Park cinema is currently a mobile cinema that shows films roughly once a month in the picturesque Rusland Valley, nestled between Windermere and Coniston Water. The aim, possibly soon to be realised, is to have a permanent home in the village of Oxen Park itself – called the Carthouse. The cinema is run by a committee of hardworking volunteers who give an awful lot of their time to this cultural cause.

The building

Films are shown in a variety of village halls in the valley, but most often in the Rusland Reading Rooms, where there are excellent kitchen facilities for the regular Saturday Supper Special. The audience are invited to bring a cushion as the village hall seating can vary. One...

The gangster film is one of the genres we tend to do better than anyone else here in the UK, and The Wee Man is shaping up to be a very promising entry into that genre.

Hitting UK cinemas in just over a month’s time, the film sees Martin Compston (The Disappearance of Alice Creed) star in the lead, based on the true story of reformed Glaswegian gangster, Paul Ferris. And with just a few weeks left to wait, we’ve had an impressive new trailer and poster sent our way to share with you.

“The story begins in the sixties. At the age of just eleven, Paul has already learned that life on the street is tough. Everybody knows his place. Poverty breeds corruption, crime, violence and bullying. Blackhill was the most notorious area of all.

The film charts the way in which Paul was bullied as a child,...

Once infamous for its deprivation and crime, Castlemilk in Glasgow has its rough edges. It also has a new reputation, for producing actors and film stars honed in schools where drama is now seen as 'hardcore'

Ask an outsider what they think of Castlemilk and they'll probably say alcoholism, poverty and poor housing. The estate, on Glasgow's southern edge, has been ranked among Scotland's most deprived places.

But in recent years the area has gained a reputation for something altogether more glamorous: film stars.

Directors Ken Loach and Peter Mullan have cast residents in critically-acclaimed films including Sweet Sixteen, The Angels' Share and Neds, and local talent regularly appears in television productions such as Rab C. Nesbitt, Taggart and soap opera River City.

Castlemilk stars like Stephen McCole, William Ruane and binman-turned-actor Gary Maitland have appeared in major productions and caught the attention of industry figures in Hollywood and Cannes.

Glasgow's Southside Film Festival kicks off today and is set to pack a lot into its four day run. Artists' film work can be seen at Southside Studios today and there'll be a quiz tonight before the formal launch tomorrow with a screening of Peter Mullan's critically acclaimed Neds.

The festival, which focuses on Scottish work, includes features, documentaries, short films and special screenings for kids. There's a special event hosted by Underwire, which aims to help women advance in the industry, and you can boost your own skills in workshops omn animation or funding. Tickets costs are low and many films and events are free, though attendees are requested to donate what they can.

One of the interesting things about this festival is that it makes use of a number of unusual venues specially kitted out for the screenings. From celebrated art galleries to pubs and even swimming baths,...

The Talking City and Wolf’s Clothing

A little over two years ago, I was fortunate enough to attend a convention in Glasgow entitled Scottish Students on Screen, an event based around giving young film scholars a better familiarity with the workings of the British Film Industry and general movie making as well as a presentation of their own work. The highlight of this excursion, a series of talks and exhibits inter-cut liberally with group visits to a Wetherspoons chain drinking hole across the street, was the champagne event: an interview and Q&A with Peter Mullan.

To those unfamiliar with Mullan, he is a highly renowned actor and director best known to UK and international film goers as the face of various memorable movie psychos and extreme, flawed anti-heroes. A native of said city, Mullan is regarded as one of the finest acting exports Scotland has ever produced, and...

Each week within this column we strive to pair the latest in theatrical releases to worthwhile titles currently streaming on Netflix Instant Watch. This week we offer alternatives to Wanderlust, Gone and The Forgiveness of Blood.

Coming to theaters tomorrow, a big-eyed blonde will face down the man who once tried to kill her, while a pack of hippies welcome two uptight New Yorkers and a teen boy is forced to face the claustrophobic consequences of a old-school blood feud. But if these features won’t satisfy your cravings for havoc, slapstick and drama, we’ve got you covered with the best of titles Now Streaming.

A Manhattan couple leaves the rat race begin when they embrace the life of a commune in this wacky comedy from The State’s David Wain and Ken Marino.

Looking for more from Marino and Wain?

Wet Hot American Summer (2001) This cult classic not...

Unfortunately, after attending the Evening Standard Film Awards ceremony last year, I wasn't able to repeat this year -- a disappointment for me, since it's probably the chattiest and most unbuttoned stop on the UK precursor awards circuit. I have happy memories of last year's event at London's tucked-away Cinema Museum, where Peter Mullan's sobering (and largely unawarded) youth drama "Neds" won top honors and I had a nice talk with director Asif Kapadia, who had a baby strapped to his stomach and was rather excited about a little film he had just premiered in Sundance called "Senna." One year later,...

From the grimness of Tyrannosaur and Neds to Mel Gibson with his hand up a beaver - the year on the silver screen

Downer: The UK On The Big Screen

Tyrannosaur

Come to Leeds! If you're lucky, you'll escape with a kicking! Paddy Considine's ludicrously grim movie heaped abuse after abuse on its poor cast. No one got off lightly, not even the innocent little boy across the road. Or the dog that chewed his face off.

Sket/The Veteran/Junkhearts/Attack The Block/Anuvahood

When they're not busy rioting, Londoners are often to be found selling drugs, wearing hoodies, taking drugs, obtaining firearms and chasing each other through one of about three photogenically claustrophobic council estates – all to a blaring grime soundtrack.

Neds

Come to Glasgow, if you think you're hard enough. Everyone there is either a violent yob who'll end up in prison, or a good kid...

Filmmaker‘s annual holiday subscription sale is in its last three days. From now through Christmas you can gift a one or two-year subscription to Filmmaker to a friend, family member or yourself for 40% off our normal rates. A one-year subscription is only $10 for our print edition and $6 for our digital. And as we do each year, we’ve reached out to our friends in the community for bonus prizes that will be given to randomly selected new and returning subscribers. It’s a fantastic list, and I’d like to list each item and thank the distributors and publishers who supported Filmmaker by gifting them to our readers.

Subscribe to Filmmaker by Christmas night and be eligible to receive:

* Oscilloscope’s Circle of Trust — A subscription of 10 new DVD releases from this excellent indie distributor.

* Oscilloscope T-shirt.

* From Kimstim and Zeitgeist Films, a DVD of Josh and Benny Safdie...

Norwegian film Oslo August 31 by Danish-born director Joachim Trier has received the top honor, the Bronze Horse for best film. Paddy Considine‘s Tyrannosaur took the award for best directorial debut showing its assured direction and standout performances from stars Peter Mullan (Neds) and Olivia Colman (Peep Show). Jury at the 22nd Stockholm International Film [...]

Continue reading Oslo August 31 Won the Top Film Prize at Stockholm Fest on FilmoFilia.

Related posts:Cannes 2011: Oslo, August 31st by Joachim Trier, Un Certain Regard Russian Film “Mukha” Takes Grand Prize of Shanghai Film Festival Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar to Open AFI Fest...

Harry Potter star Robbie Coltrane was the toast of the Scottish BAFTA Awards on Sunday as he was acknowledged for his longrunning career.

The actor was honoured for his "outstanding contribution to film" at the British Academy Scotland Awards ceremony in Glasgow.

Donkeys was named the Best Feature Film, while actor/director Peter Mullan picked up Best Director and Best Writer for his 2010 drama Neds, about 1970s Scotland.

BAFTA Scotland director Jude MacLaverty says, "We're thrilled to see the British Academy Scotland Awards return for such a fantastic night.

"The strength of nominations in the categories demonstrates the wealth of talent we have within our country. The British Academy Scotland Awards has produced some truly deserving winners and my congratulations go out to them and all the nominees."...

Kirsten Dunst, Melancholia Lars von Trier's Melancholia is the clear favorite at the 2011 European Film Awards. Nazi joke or no, Cannes Film Festival ban or no, the von Trier-directed apocalyptic drama received eight nominations in seven categories, among them Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay (also von Trier), and Best Actress (Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg). Melancholia failed to be shortlisted only for Best Actor and Best Composer. [European Film Awards 2011 Nominations.] Five films tied in second place, with four nominations apiece: Aki Kaurismäki's Le Havre, Finland's submission for the 2012 Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award; Susanne Bier's In a Better World, this year's Best Foreign Language Film winner; Tom Hooper's The King's Speech, this year's Best Picture Oscar winner; Michel Hazanavicius' The Artist, which is already considered one of the top contenders for the 2012 Best Picture Oscar; and Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne's The Kid with a Bike,...

Neds and Donkeys lead the field.

The shortlist of productions and talent in the running for this year's Scottish BAFTAs was announced tonight by Chewin' The Fat star Karen Dunbar. Peter Mullan's highly acclaimed drama Neds received nominations for best Feature Film, Best Director and Best Writer, while its star Conor McCarron was listed in the Best Actor Category. Perfect Sense and Donkeys were also nominated in the Best Film and Best Director categories. Both Brian Petifer and James Cosmo received...

It's been a little over a year since Peter Mullan, that marvelously granitic Scottish actor and filmmaker, hit the festival circuit with "Neds," a vivid, punishing and sadly underseen semi-memoir of working-class adolescence arrested, in which he plays a version of his own brutal, alcoholic father. It's a film containing what for most artists would count as several years' worth of channelled psychic pain, so it's rather distressing to contemplate the brevity of the breather Mullan must have taken between that project and his role in "Tyrannosaur," a moving, comfort-free study of personal abuse in its manifold forms. Certain actors' faces...

To celebrate the cinema release of Paddy Considine’s Tyrannosaur on Friday, we’re giving you the chance to win one three goodie bags, containing a Shane Meadows DVD boxet of This Is England, A Room for Romeo Brass, Dead Man’s Shoes and Twenty Four Seven, plus a Tyrannosaur poster signed by writer/director Considine!

The highly-anticipated directorial debut from Paddy Considine, Tyrannosaur has been winning universal acclaim for its assured direction and standout performances from stars Peter Mullan (Neds) and Olivia Colman (Peep Show), including a World Cinema Prize for directing and two World Cinema Special Jury Prizes for dramatic acting at Sundance Film Festival this year.

A moving story of finding redemption and love in the most unlikely places, Tyrannosaur follows the story of two damaged people brought together by circumstance: Joseph (Mullan), an unemployed widower, crippled by his own volatile temperament; and Hannah (Colman), a respectable charity shop worker,...

The Film:

From Scotland–the land of shortbread, kilts, golf, and the Loch Ness Monster–comes a magnificent Killer Film in Neds from acclaimed actor (My Name is Joe) and director (The Magdalene Sister) Peter Mullan. In this Coming-of-Age story, criticism falls squarely upon the 1970′s style of UK secondary education in general, showing not much had changed since the kitchen-sink realism of “Look Back in Anger” two decades before. In classrooms, student regularly forward their hands for swats from their teachers; dons who exalt in learning also relish in their own whims and mean-spirited behavior; and persistent school-boy bullying occasions an adolescent Survival-of-the-Fittest, as John McGill (Conor McCarron) de-evolves from a brilliant student into a brutish punk. Director Mullan plays a drunken McGill père who at the dining room table asks this son to become the Angel of Death and “finish” him off.

An admission: Though in English, the...

Having recently doubled up as Philadelphia for a Brad Pitt zombie movie, the city is about to transform into San Francisco

Glasgow in the chill air of autumn may not be your idea of a dead ringer for northern California. But the makers of Cloud Atlas, the film adaptation of David Mitchell's 2004 novel, disagree.

This weekend film crews begin shooting San Francisco-set scenes in the city with Oscar-winner Halle Berry; the film also stars Tom Hanks, Susan Sarandon and Ben Whishaw, and is co-directed by the Matrix trilogy's Wachowski brothers and German filmmaker Tom Tykwer.

It is only weeks since Glasgow was the location for another high-profile shoot, as scenes from World War Z, a zombie film starring Brad Pitt, were shot around the city's grandiose George Square, doubling as Philadelphia. Unlikely as it may seem, Glasgow appears to have become the latest favourite location for Hollywood producers.

Just...

Just weeks after the filming of a Brad Pitt movie brought Hollywood glamour to Glasgow, the shooting of Cloud Atlas starring Halle Berry is getting under way in the city today.

The film, out next year, is based on British author David Mitchell's best-selling 2004 novel, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and features interlinking narratives that chart the story of one soul across the centuries.

It also features Hugo Weaving, Tom Hanks, Susan Sarandon and British actors Jim Broadbent, Jim Sturgess and The Hour's Ben Whishaw.

Weaving and Berry are pictured above with Tom Tykwer, who is co-directing the film with the Wachowskis. The pictures are courtesy of Just Jared.

Most of the filming is taking place in Germany but producers say they are coming to Glasgow because of the "support and encouragement" offered by the city, as well as its Victorian-era grid street system and architecture.

Reviewer: James van Maanen

Rating (out of five): ***

Peter Mullan is a wonderful actor (The Red Riding Trilogy, Boy A, Children of Men) and a good writer/director (Orphans, The Magdalene Sisters and now, Neds -- which stands for Non-Educated Delinquents.

Although his latest film -- which deals, and very well, with the smarter, younger son of a dysfunctional family who gets slowly sucked into "gang" life -- was part of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival line-up, it did not get much, if any, of a theatrical release. It is, however, certainly worth seeing, which makes its recent DVD debut appreciated, despite a major flaw in the film.

Not just another miserablist kitchen-sink drama, writer-director-actor Peter Mullan’s third feature film, Neds, is both a vivid portrait of a specific time and place—early ’70s, working-class Glasgow—and a study of a fairly universal coming-of-age crisis. “Neds” are “non-educated delinquents,” which the protagonist is bound and determined not to become at the start of the film. After graduating primary school at the top of his class, John McGill (played as a pre-teen by Gregg Forrest) enters a secondary school ruled by violent gangs and by teachers quick with a belt. Meanwhile, at home, his father (played by Mullan ...

Halle Berry and Tom Hanks are the latest Hollywood stars set to film in Glasgow.

The pair have been lined up for the big-screen adaptation of David Mitchell's novel Cloud Atlas. It will be co-directed by Tom Tykwer with Andy and Lana Wachowski.

Some of the film will be shot in Scotland's biggest city later this month.

Cloud Atlas, in which Susan Sarandon and Jim Broadbent will also star, tells six interconnected stories each set in its own place and time from the 19th century Pacific Ocean to a post-apocalyptic Hawaii of the distant future.

Most of the filming is in Germany but producers say they are coming to Glasgow because of the "support and encouragement" offered by the city, as well as its Victorian-era grid street system and architecture.

Filming in Glasgow takes place on September 16, 17, 18 and 26.

David Brown, Scottish line producer, said: "We are very pleased to...

Here at HeyUGuys we like to live our lives a quarter mile at a time, so we jumped at the opportunity to attend a Fast & Furious 5-themed, day-long event at the Santa Pod Raceway in Northamptonshire.

Europe’s first permanent drag racing venue, Santa Pod hosts both the first and last round of the European Drag Racing Championship, along with the British championships.

Am

An action-packed day, the typically dour British weather put paid to a potentially thrilling Drag Strip race during the first part of the morning, but a stunt fighting school was still on the agenda, to which our group of excitable bloggers were more than happy to participate in.

The class room session was delivered by two of the UK’s best-known stuntmen, Paul Heasman and Jason Hunjan. Smart gave us a brief guide and lesson in how to choreograph a fight scene, whilst Hunjan showed the...

After some lackluster weeks in the DVD department today sees a pretty solid selection of titles. Even better for viewers is the fact that some of this week’s best releases are movies you probably missed in theaters… if they even hit theaters. Our pick of the week for example never had a theatrical run in the States, but it’s an absolutely brilliant film from actor/director Peter Mullan. The two other titles with Buy recommendations saw a limited release and deserve better than the small number of viewers they received. As always, if you see something you like, click on the image to buy it. Neds (Non Educated Delinquents) Peter Mullan directs this drama about growing up in the rough and tumble world of 1970s Glasgow Scotland. We first meet young John McGill around the age of thirteen, and while he’s the head of his class in smarts every other aspect of his life...

Year: 2010

Director: Peter Mullan

Writer: Peter Mullan

Amazon: link

IMDb: link

Trailer: link

Review by: Marina Antunes

Rating: 7 out of 10

Peter Mullan has always struck me as a smart, gentle man though for the most part, his roles over the years have been far from that. He often plays the failed father figure, a role he seems comfortable in, and his constant appearance in films about youth on the fringes certainly suggests he has some personal interest in youth on the verge of self destruction.

Eight years since the release of the critically acclaimed The Magdalene Sisters, Mullan steps behind the camera for Neds. Sharing some of the same themes, Mullan's new film stars newcomer Conor McCarron as John, a successful young man with a passion for learning who has kept his nose clean despite his younger brother's fall into gang culture. He's a bit of a geek but when he encounters trouble,...

Some say the magic number of years to wait before making a film about a youth culture is 13. Others say you just need a good script. Jane Graham asks the people who've made them

No British youth subculture worth its drugs has gone unnoticed by film-makers, but the 90s rave culture has proved notoriously difficult to pin down with any degree of artistic or box-office success. There was much to enjoy in 1999's Human Traffic, Justin Kerrigan's portrayal of a bunch of clubbers going through the highs and comedowns of an E-enhanced night out in early-90s Cardiff. Yet Kerrigan's vision, though it noted the melancholy in the air, offered little in the way of thoughtful analysis of the scene and its legacy.

It seemed likely that might be down to the haste with which Kerrigan tackled his subject; released during the same decade it was evoking, there simply...

Craig Armstrong is currently scoring the sci-fi thriller In Time. The film is written and directed by Andrew Niccol (Gattaca, Lord of War) and stars Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Olivia Wilde, Cillian Murphy and Alex Pettyfer. The movie is set in a retro-future when the aging gene has been switched off and people must pay to stay alive. The thriller revolves on a young man who is accused of murder when he inherits a fortune of time from a dead upper class man. Niccol is producing with Marc Abraham and Eric Newman (Children of Men, Dawn of the Dead, The Last Exorcism). Roger Deakins is the Director of Photography on the film. Niccol’s previous movies were scored by Michael Nyman, Carter Burwell and Antonio Pinto. Armstrong most recently wrote the music for Peter Mullan’s indie drama Neds and last year’s Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps directed by Oliver Stone.

Paddy Considine is an absolute favourite of mine. In my opinion Dead Man’s Shoes is one of the best films ever made and I’m pleased to see that the awesome actor is now turning his hand to directing. His debut film is Tyrannosaur and stars Peter Mullan, Eddie Marsan, Olivia Colman and played the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.

Below are some new images from the movie which have popped up on the Toronto Film festival’s website as it is due to play there before its UK release on October the 7th.

Tyrannosaur is a powerful and affecting drama from feature writer / director Paddy Considine. It follows the story of two lonely, damaged people brought together by circumstance. Joseph (Peter Mullan, War Horse, Neds) is an unemployed widower, drinker, and a man crippled by his own volatile temperament and furious anger. Hannah (Olivia Colman, Hot Fuzz,...

In this month's edition, we continue to showcase regional and international film festivals, with an emphasis on when and where you can see movies that might not be coming to your local multiplex. Now Playing Several festivals kicked off over the weekend. The Indianapolis International Film Festival began last Thursday with the local premiere of the indie drama Another Earth and runs through next Sunday, July 24. Now in its eighth year, the festival spotlights independent and international productions. Highlights include Peter Mullan's Neds (tonight at 7:00 pm and Thursday at 9:00 pm), a bracing drama set in the gritty world of 1970s Glasgow, and Kyle Smith's Turkey Bowl (screening on Sunday at 9:15 pm), in which friendship is tested in the savage world of...

Read More...

In this month's edition, we continue to showcase regional and international film festivals, with an emphasis on when and where you can see movies that might not be coming to your local multiplex. Now Playing Several festivals kicked off over the weekend. The Indianapolis International Film Festival began last Thursday with the local premiere of the indie drama Another Earth and runs through next Sunday, July 24. Now in its eighth year, the festival spotlights independent and international productions. Highlights include Peter Mullan's Neds (tonight at 7:00 pm and Thursday at 9:00 pm), a bracing drama set in the gritty world of 1970s Glasgow, and Kyle Smith's Turkey Bowl (screening on Sunday at 9:15 pm), in which friendship is tested in the savage world of...

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[1] Ruth Wilson will be breaking into the boys' club as the female lead of Gore Verbinski's The Lone Ranger, starring Armie Hammer as the Texas ranger and Johnny Depp as his sidekick Tonto. Although Wilson's name may be unfamiliar to most Americans, she's known in the UK for her work on the BBC's Luther and the Masterpiece Theatre miniseries Jane Eyre. Wilson was selected over Jessica Chastain and Abbie Cornish, who were also being considered for the part, and is currently in negotiations. Very few details have been revealed about her character, named Rebecca. Unlike the earlier versions of the property, Verbinski's Lone Ranger will be told from Tonto's perspective -- "Don Quixote told from Sancho Panza’s point of view," as Verbinski has described [2] it. The film will hit theaters December 21 [3]. [Deadline [4]] After the jump, B.J. Novak joins The Dictator opposite Sacha Baron Cohen a.k.a. Borat, and...

Each year, The Melbourne International Film Festival (Miff) features a roster of highly contentious films from acclaimed/controversial filmmakers.   This year is no exception, with films by the likes of Lars Von Trier (Melancholia), Werner Herzog (The Cave of Forgotten Dreams), Fred Schepisi (The Eye of the Storm), Peter Mullan (Neds), Errol Morris (Tabloid) and Ken Loach (Route Irish) all making an appearance. (Loach is a particularly interesting presence, given that he submitted - then withdrew - Looking for Eric in 2009 because of the festival's links with Israel).   The festival will begin on the 21st of July, but - until then - Filmink will present a series of previews, beginning with new films by James Marsh (Man on Wire) and Schepisi (The Devil's Playground).

American TV made stars of Hugh Laurie and Dominic West, bypassing the traditional stage to screen route. Now two schemes hope to exploit this new path for emerging talent

A talented British actor may have to toil for a long time in the Us before hitting paydirt. But when that sought-after role in a primetime drama series comes along, it can fund a year of acting on the English stage, boost an established performer's profile and perhaps even provide a stepping stone to Hollywood.

It has worked for many British stars, from Dominic West, who starred in The Wire and is now wowing audiences in Simon Gray's Butley, to the comedian Hugh Laurie, whose role in House has made him an international celebrity. Ian McShane's delayed Us success in the western series Deadwood, meanwhile, has now seen him join an A-list cast in the summer blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

Despite the fact that Helena Bonham Carter is currently in England filming Tim Burton's reimagining of the '60s TV series "Dark Shadows," she's sending her best to America. And she isn't alone. As the digital distributor Emerging Pictures did last fall for a selection of Australian hits that wouldn't have made it to U.S. theaters otherwise, the company is teaming up with the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the UK Film Council to bring a group of six acclaimed British films Stateside, kicking off with "Toast," a '60s set coming-of-age story based on food writer Nigel Slater's memoir with Freddie Highmore as his teen surrogate who must compete for the attention of his gruff father against a cleaning woman (Bonham Carter) whose heavenly lemon meringue pie masks the tartness she demonstrates upon becoming the boy's stepmother.

However, that's nearly the only thing about the...

Neds; Route Irish; Tangled; Barney's Version; Morning Glory; Get Low

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Peter Mullan's Neds (2010, Entertainment One, 18), a hard-hitting tale of "non-educated delinquents" street-fighting in 70s Glasgow, is just how stylishly cinematic it manages to be. Mullan may have earned his acting spurs working with Ken Loach on the gritty Cannes prize-winner My Name is Joe, but his directorial style here owes more to the colourful choreography of Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange and Boyle's Trainspotting than to any grim social-realist tradition. He is greatly aided by the presence of screen newcomer Conor McCarron who excels as the super-bright schoolkid led astray by a classist slight which turns him against authority and education. It's that crushing sense of wasted youth married with a fearsomely kinetic portrayal of adolescent anarchy which powers the film's infernal combustion engine. Having wrestled with the Catholic church in The Magdalene Sisters,...

Neds

DVD & Blu-ray, Entertainment One

As seen in movies such as Attack The Block and Anuvahood, British cinema's current obsession with painting our youths as less than saintly continues with director Peter Mullan's latest.

Unlike the above titles, this one is set in early-70s Glasgow and attempts to tackle the causes of such wayward behaviour. In confining events mostly to a housing estate and neighbouring school, the consequences of violence are always there, up close, to remind the perpetrators of their actions. Starting off as an impossibly apple-cheeked class swot, John McGill (played as an older boy by Connor McCarron) seems to be the kid with the most potential. We quickly learn he's been plagued with huge negative influences, such as an abusive, alcoholic father (played by Mullan), a big brother who is a legendary local hard man, and the endless turf wars the neighbourhood teens ruck over.

Entertainment One UK have given us this new exclusive clip from their movie, Neds, which is released on both DVD and Blu-ray this Monday, 23rd May. In the scene, we get to see John McGill walking through a park. Wee T then tries to mug him before realising who his brother is is backtracking rather swiftly!

Neds is written and directed by Peter Mullan and stars Marianna Palka, Steven Robertson, David McKay, Douglas Russell, Linda Cuthbert, Martin Bell. If you missed it, check out our interview with Peter Mullan & Conor McCarron for Neds that we conducted for the theatrical release.

Synopsis: Peter Mullan’s third feature as a writer and director, after Orphans and The Magdalene Sisters, returns him to the 1970s Glasgow of his youth, although the Trainspotting and My Name is Joe actor stresses that Neds (which stands for ‘Non-Educated Delinquents’) is ‘personal but not autobiographical’.

We meet confident,...

“From Britain with Love” – a curated program of six independent UK films will screen across ten Us cities from June 11 – July 9, 2011, as part of a partnership between Film Society of Lincoln Center, UK Film Council and Emerging Pictures.

The showcase’s premiere constitutes a component of the Film Society’s celebration of its new Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, and the screenings will run contemporaneously to online webcast conversations with the film’s key talent.

A similar program, named “From Blighty with Love” was run across India in 2010.

Featured in the program are the following films, three of which will be making their Us premieres:

· A Boy Called Dad (80min)

Director: Brian Percival

The debut feature from BAFTA short film winner Brian Percival follows the story of a boy thrust into early adulthood when he becomes a father at the age of 14. Newcomer, Kyle Ward, delivers an impressive performance as...

“From Britain with Love” – a curated program of six independent UK films will screen across ten Us cities from June 11 – July 9, 2011, as part of a partnership between Film Society of Lincoln Center, UK Film Council and Emerging Pictures.

The showcase’s premiere constitutes a component of the Film Society’s celebration of its new Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, and the screenings will run contemporaneously to online webcast conversations with the film’s key talent.

A similar program, named “From Blighty with Love” was run across India in 2010.

Featured in the program are the following films, three of which will be making their Us premieres:

· A Boy Called Dad (80min)

Director: Brian Percival

The debut feature from BAFTA short film winner Brian Percival follows the story of a boy thrust into early adulthood when he becomes a father at the age of 14. Newcomer, Kyle Ward, delivers an impressive performance as...