Category Archives: Actors

Clock This!

Actors, British Film, Comedy, Directors, New Releases

Richard Curtis has a new film out and it’s very good. Yes, it is. Ron Swanson reports.

"Time present and time past are both perhaps present in time future, and time future contained in time past." Domhnall Gleeson and Bill Nighy wrap their heads around a paradox.
“Time present and time past are both perhaps present in time future, and time future contained in time past.” Domhnall Gleeson and Bill Nighy wrap their heads around a chronological paradox. With hilarious results.

It’s nicely in keeping with Richard Curtis’ films’ apologetically stylised view of England that I’m tempted to start this positive review of his new movie, About Time, with an apology, or more accurately, a justification. It’s tempting to put my emotional reaction to his film down to the fact that I’m a sucker for this kind of thing, or that I was having a bad week, or that the idea of time travel has always made me want to cry. If I knew how to winsomely stutter in print, I would totally give it a go.

As it is, no justification is needed. It may seem like trifling praise indeed, to claim that About Time is Curtis’ best film, but I like Four Weddings, Notting Hill and Love, Actually quite a lot, and this absolutely soars past them. While it may benefit from the lowered expectations caused by the clusterfuck that was The Boat that Rocked and an insipid and oddly charmless trailer, this is a film that makes me hope there’s more to come from Curtis. Continue reading Clock This! →

Violent delights have violent ends

Actors, New Releases

Emma Street is swept along by a crime epic in which nothing really happens

“Doesn’t this remind you just the tiniest bit of Badlands?” Rooney Mara and Casey Afflect share a quiet moment

The poster for Ain’t Them Bodies Saints has a quote on it saying “A Grand, Doomed Love Story” in massive letters. This would be a heck of a spoiler if it wasn’t clear from the start that things were never going to work out well for our two heroes.

Bob Muldoon and Ruth Guthrie (Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara) are two lawbreakers, crazy in love with one another. The film starts with a shoot-out, there’s a prison breakout, some bounty hunters and a pretty high body count. It’s nothing like as action-packed as that makes it sound, though. Director David Lowery seems more interested in what happens in the spaces between the action. People have mumbly conversations, stare out of windows and Ruth plays with her daughter’s hair a lot. Continue reading Violent delights have violent ends →

Sorted for Teens and Wizz

Actors, Comedy, New Releases

by Gareth Negus

There are different kinds of teen movie: the kind aimed at teenagers, and the kind that are about teenagers but aimed at adults. Then there’s the kind that fall somewhere between the two. The Way, Way Back is one of those.

The film stars Liam James as 14-year-old Duncan, reluctantly dragged on holiday for the summer with his mom (Toni Collette), his mom’s hectoring and unlikable new boyfriend Trent (Steve Carell), and Trent’s daughter. After spending some time moping around being miserable, Duncan chances across the Water Wizz amusement park, where the manager Owen (Sam Rockwell) takes him under his wing.

Miserable 14-year-olds are no fun to hang around with (even most miserable 14-year-olds would agree with that, if they ever spoke) and not much fun to watch on screen. So it takes a while to engage with the film’s protagonist, and the situation isn’t helped by the fact that we suspect we could be having more fun watching Collette, or Allison Janney who plays the oft-sozzled divorcee next door.  Instead, we get to watch the adults through Duncan’s eyes, as they drink too much, and lie to themselves and each other – a narrative device also seen recently in What Maisie Knew. Fortunately, the film, like its lead, opens up and becomes somewhat less awkward once it spends more time at the Water Wizz with Rockwell, who naturally provides some helpful life lessons under his happy-go-lucky, man-child style of management. Naturally, this also helps him befriend the pretty girl next door (AnnaSophia Robb). Continue reading Sorted for Teens and Wizz →

Hannibal, Redux

Actors, DVD, Television

by Stephnie JamesHannibal

Part of a series of Hannibal illustrations. Stephnie says: ‘Most of the art I’ve seen in connection with the show depicts young Hannibal in a variety of gruesome acts (eating family pets, etc.) but I thought it might be funnier to show him as a miniature version of the dandy we see on Bryan Fuller’s show.  In this illustration he is somewhat disappointed with the juvenile fare his mother has presented him with, although it has got him to thinking …’

Stay tuned for more Hannibal stuff very shortly. http://www.stephniejames.blogspot.ie

Hannibal Nitrate

Actors, Television

MarvMarsh takes his shades off and admits, like David Caruso, that there may be more to serial killers than he previously admitted. SPOILERS!

'Oh. Hello officer.'
‘Oh. Hello officer.’

A couple of years ago I was allowed on this website to explain that the glory days of serial killers in the cinema were over. I suggested that serial killers had been driven off the big screen and had found shelter on the small one, where they’d taken up residence on cop shows with seasons’ worth of nonsense to shovel into a box set. This scenario lacked dignity (if you were a serial killer) but it paid the rent. Happily for me, Brian Fuller has gone out of his way to prove me right by creating a television series based on the greatest serial killer of them all, Hannibal Lecter. Thanks Brian; I appreciate it.

I also appreciate that he has made an excellent job of it. By the end of the third Hannibal film, the intriguingly named Hannibal, the character had sunk to such grievous, humiliating lows that it was like seeing an ex-heavyweight boxing world champion wrestling a monkey at a carnival. And remember, this is the man once awarded the title of greatest movie villain of all time by the American Film Institute. A title much coveted, as you can imagine. Darth Vader, Norman Bates, The Joker, Dominic Torretto out of The Fast and the Furious: they were all after it, but Hannibal got it. So what happened to Hannibal is sad indeed. Thomas Harris, the character’s creator, had ratcheted up the operatic ludicrousness that was always a feature of the series and – consciously or not – turned the whole thing into an overblown fiesta of grand-scale idiocy. Ridley Scott directed the film version and sadly decided that Harris was right.
Continue reading Hannibal Nitrate →

MostlyFilm’s Best of 2012: Theatre

Actors, Best of 2012, Theatre, , , , , , , , , , , ,

AnneBoleyn

by Lissy Lovett

Looking back over the plays I’ve seen this year, English Touring Theatre’s tour of Shakespeare’s Globe’s Anne Boleyn has been my stand out favourite. It’s just the kind of play I like – funny, well acted, tightly scripted, with moments of sadness and surprise, all woven around an historical story which by the end makes me feel  like I might have learnt something – in this case a tiny bit of the events and philosophising that led England to become a Protestant country instead of a Catholic one. The writer, Howard Brenton, wears his historical research lightly, I’m sure it all must have been more complicated than is presented here on stage, but he gives a good flavour of the issues, illustrated nicely with details – the battle between the Jesuits and Puritans over altar rails is particularly good. The cast, containing some changes from those who performed the play at the Globe itself back in 2011, were superb. Due to my job, I was fortunate to see the play at many venues on its tour, like some kind of Tudor /Stuart groupie, and it was exciting to see them develop their performances more at each venue and respond to the different audience reactions in each place (2012’s best audience award by the way goes to the audience at Hall for Cornwall in Truro – they were amazing.)

Continue reading MostlyFilm’s Best of 2012: Theatre →

Attack of the Killer Brummies: Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers

Actors, British Film, Directors, Future Releases, , , ,
Steve Oram and Alice Lowe in Sightseers

Ben Wheatley’s eagerly anticipated new film, Sightseers, is a black comedy about a couple on a caravanning holiday across England who start a killing spree.  Written by its two stars, Steve Oram and Alice Lowe, the film is receiving regular comparisons to Mike Leigh and Natural Born Killers.  What’s interesting is that, although he did not originate the project, the film is so clearly the work of the man who last directed Kill List.

In September, Mostly Film’s Gareth Negus attended a press conference with Ben Wheatley, Alice Lowe and Steve Oram, who talked about the creation of the film, its production and their choice of eccentric tourist spots.

Continue reading Attack of the Killer Brummies: Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers →

There’s nothing wrong with my face – I got character

Actors

There’s something very special about a great character actor.  I don’t mean the Steve Buscemis or Phillip Seymour Hoffmans of this world, ugly film stars who coast along on mere talent and charisma, I mean the people playing third henchman in a DTV knock-off of Heat starring Andrew McCarthy in a rabbit mask (this is an actual film I once saw on a coach in Indonesia, and the guy who played Mr Pig was pretty good).  I’m talking about Martin Kove, who parlayed appearing in the credits of Cagney and Lacey into an IMDB page listing 175 films including “War Wolves”, “Savage” and “Ballistica” – all in 2009.

So here is MostlyFilm’s tribute to the grunts in the trenches of cinema.

Continue reading There’s nothing wrong with my face – I got character →

Minor Characters, Slight Return

Actors, MF Recommends, , , , ,

About a year ago – give or take – we ran a piece on beloved minor characters – those bit parts that somehow build a film into something more; that give colour, or background, or just plain WTF moments. Well, we’re back for more…

The Cowboy, Mulholland Dr.
by MrMoth

Many, many words have been placed on the internet concerning Mulholland Dr. The meaning, the point, even the story, have been puzzled over to little effect at great length. What’s with the guy who doesn’t like the coffee? What’s in the box? Who’s the guy behind the burger bar? Do they do snacks in Club Silencio, or do you think you have to bring your own? Would sweet wrappers be too noisy, do you think? Well, I’m not here to answer, or even ask, any of those questions. I’m interested, primarily, in The Cowboy.

Continue reading Minor Characters, Slight Return →

Hair Apparent

Actors, Film Making, , , , , , , ,

By Tindara Sidoti-McNary

Christopher Eccleston and Daniel Craig, Our Friends in the North, 1996

Do you remember the acclaimed nineties BBC drama that brought actors Christopher Eccleston and Daniel Craig to popular attention? I recall it fondly as ‘Our Wigs in the North’. You see, friends, I have a problem with hair and make-up. The anachronistic mullet, the dreadful syrup, the misplaced pout; I cannot rest when it doesn’t work in a TV or film drama. Immune to the frustrated protestations of my viewing companions, I just can’t ignore it and be another brick in the fourth wall. The distraction of an obvious scratchy looking wig or time travelling bonce infuriates me deeply, often forcing me to shout obscenities about fringes at the telly.

Continue reading Hair Apparent →