London film festival
Julia Jackman’s feature debut about two teenagers with a shared passion for music is entertaining and sympathetic if a bit formulaic
Writer-director Julia Jackman is an award-winner for her short films and now makes her feature debut at the London film festival with this teen romcom, based on an idea co-authored by Josh O’Connor – who shows up in an amusing cameo playing a masked graffiti artist and part-time body piercer with a sub-Banksy reverence for his own anonymous glamour. It’s sweet-natured and engagingly laid-back, if a bit televisual and reliant on that time-honoured staple that dates from Richard Curtis’s Love Actually: the end-of-term school show in which a romantic declaration becomes an unscripted part of the programme.
The year is 2006 and, come to think of it, this is the second Lff movie set in 2006, after Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn; perhaps it will...
Julia Jackman’s feature debut about two teenagers with a shared passion for music is entertaining and sympathetic if a bit formulaic
Writer-director Julia Jackman is an award-winner for her short films and now makes her feature debut at the London film festival with this teen romcom, based on an idea co-authored by Josh O’Connor – who shows up in an amusing cameo playing a masked graffiti artist and part-time body piercer with a sub-Banksy reverence for his own anonymous glamour. It’s sweet-natured and engagingly laid-back, if a bit televisual and reliant on that time-honoured staple that dates from Richard Curtis’s Love Actually: the end-of-term school show in which a romantic declaration becomes an unscripted part of the programme.
The year is 2006 and, come to think of it, this is the second Lff movie set in 2006, after Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn; perhaps it will...
- 10/10/2023
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Selina Scott has claimed that she experienced sexual harassment while working as a presenter on BBC Breakfast in the Eighties.
Scott, who was one of the first co-hosts of BBC Breakfast Time in 1983, explained why she declined to be a guest on the BBC Breakfast show this week as part of its 40th anniversary celebrations.
She said it would be “dishonest” to appear on the show following her experiences on the show, which she claimed included being forced to deal with being kissed by co-presenter Frank Bough.
Scott also spoke about feeling forced to kiss Jimmy Savile when he appeared on the show as a guest, and said she felt women were placed on air for “decoration”.
The presenter told Daily Mail on Friday (20 January) that she was warned about the “snake-pit atmosphere” of the broadcasting house before she began her role.
“Boy, were they right,” she wrote, alleging that...
Scott, who was one of the first co-hosts of BBC Breakfast Time in 1983, explained why she declined to be a guest on the BBC Breakfast show this week as part of its 40th anniversary celebrations.
She said it would be “dishonest” to appear on the show following her experiences on the show, which she claimed included being forced to deal with being kissed by co-presenter Frank Bough.
Scott also spoke about feeling forced to kiss Jimmy Savile when he appeared on the show as a guest, and said she felt women were placed on air for “decoration”.
The presenter told Daily Mail on Friday (20 January) that she was warned about the “snake-pit atmosphere” of the broadcasting house before she began her role.
“Boy, were they right,” she wrote, alleging that...
- 1/20/2023
- by Ellie Muir
- The Independent - TV
Louisa Mellor Jun 19, 2017
ITV’s political thriller Fearless, from the writer of Homeland, has much to recommend it, not least Helen McCrory in the lead…
This review contains spoilers.
See related Broken episode 3 review Broken episode 2 review Broken episode 1 review
Fearless’ gripping first episode introduced us to Emma Banville, a human rights lawyer with a taste for neat vodka, liquorice roll-ups and overturning wrongful convictions. Played redoubtably by the redoubtable Helen McCrory, Banville’s a half-detective/half-lawyer cross bred in a lab especially for television. She’s dogged, principled and, as the title suggests, afraid of nothing. Her accessories include the voice of Sue Lawley, a statement red leather jacket and a statement Volvo the colour of microwaved tea (the statement being ‘I drive a fucking Volvo estate. Problem?’).
Episode one saw Banville take on the case of Kevin Russell, an ex school-caretaker who’s spent the last fourteen years inside for the murder of fifteen-year-old schoolgirl Linda Simms. Banville believes Russell didn’t do it, and is raking up all manner of trouble, and making all manner of enemies, in her attempt to prove it.
In the first hour, Banville did enough to have Russell’s conviction declared unsafe and him released from prison pending a retrial. In the second, she moved him into her home (where she also keeps lovable boyfriend Steve, played by John Bishop, the wife and son of a British-Syrian doctor wanted for suspected links to terrorism, and a fresh bottle of Stoli in the crisper drawer) before discovering that there’s much more to Kevin’s case than meets the eye.
That much was made clear to the audience the moment Michael Gambon showed up. Forty-six minutes in to episode one, and Fearless unveiled its delicious gooey centre. If you weren’t already sold on Banville driving around East Anglia in a beige estate car finding clues and showing scant regard for the 2003 Clean Indoor Air act (I was. It had me at Volvo), then Gambon’s appearance as Sir Alastair McKinnon, a man with links to Us intelligence and reason to want Russell’s conviction intact, should convince you that Fearless is no ordinary ITV crime drama. It’s an Atlantic-crossing political thriller complete with spooks, armed police ops, counter-terrorism surveillance, Michael Gambon, and a Volvo estate.
So far, we’ve seen Banville spend more time coppering than in court. She’s visited crime scenes and interviewed witnesses and spotted tell-tale clues everyone else has missed like your common or garden genius TV detective. As a lawyer building a case, she’s unusually hands-on, which is all the better for us the viewers.
Episode two concluded with a tense counter-terrorist extraction involving a patrol of armed officers storming Banville’s leafy London address. As Miriam Attar (Karima McAdams) was taken into custody for contacting a known Isis telephone number, she passed Banville an illicit Sim card. Not minutes after that, a new lead in the Russell case phoned up out of the blue. Linda’s murder, it seems, was tied with in a photographer taking ‘glamour’ shots of underage girls, and the Us air force stationed at the base at the time of her death.
That explains the arrival of shady Us agent Heather Myles (Deadwood’s Robin Weigert), who’s flown over to discredit Banville and generally get in her way. As the latter says in episode two, “there’s something going on here, there’s a police cover-up or a paedophile ring, or they’re protecting someone on the American base.” All of the above, possibly. I certainly don’t trust Jamie Bamber’s smiley MP with the Linda-lookalike wife as far as I could throw him.
Banville will get to the bottom of it, no doubt. That’s the overriding sense McCrory provides here. She feels as safe a pair of hands as Sofie Grabol in The Killing or Elisabeth Moss in Top Of The Lake, all three of them women with wonky personal lives but determined, and ultimately successful, professional ones.
Fearless has taken the trouble to create Banville a personal life, though so far it’s less compelling than her job. Her father is dying, and she and her boyfriend are trying to adopt. She went off the rails as a student protestor, and it’s hinted she may have given up a baby as a younger woman. All that’s just tangy dressing on the salad of really good stuff though – the political conspiracy, and her professional hostilities with two other powerful characters; counter-terrorism officer Olivia Greenwood (Wunmi Mosaku) and Heather Myles.
Greenwood and Myles also have hostilities of their own, keeping things nicely complicated (three women over the age of thirty driving a primetime thriller? Fearless, where have you been all my life?).
A hook of a central case, tantalising layers and complexities, international intrigue and codenames... put that all together with a performer as strong as McCrory and it adds up to thrilling TV.
Fearless continues next Monday the 26th of June at 9pm on ITV1.
ITV’s political thriller Fearless, from the writer of Homeland, has much to recommend it, not least Helen McCrory in the lead…
This review contains spoilers.
See related Broken episode 3 review Broken episode 2 review Broken episode 1 review
Fearless’ gripping first episode introduced us to Emma Banville, a human rights lawyer with a taste for neat vodka, liquorice roll-ups and overturning wrongful convictions. Played redoubtably by the redoubtable Helen McCrory, Banville’s a half-detective/half-lawyer cross bred in a lab especially for television. She’s dogged, principled and, as the title suggests, afraid of nothing. Her accessories include the voice of Sue Lawley, a statement red leather jacket and a statement Volvo the colour of microwaved tea (the statement being ‘I drive a fucking Volvo estate. Problem?’).
Episode one saw Banville take on the case of Kevin Russell, an ex school-caretaker who’s spent the last fourteen years inside for the murder of fifteen-year-old schoolgirl Linda Simms. Banville believes Russell didn’t do it, and is raking up all manner of trouble, and making all manner of enemies, in her attempt to prove it.
In the first hour, Banville did enough to have Russell’s conviction declared unsafe and him released from prison pending a retrial. In the second, she moved him into her home (where she also keeps lovable boyfriend Steve, played by John Bishop, the wife and son of a British-Syrian doctor wanted for suspected links to terrorism, and a fresh bottle of Stoli in the crisper drawer) before discovering that there’s much more to Kevin’s case than meets the eye.
That much was made clear to the audience the moment Michael Gambon showed up. Forty-six minutes in to episode one, and Fearless unveiled its delicious gooey centre. If you weren’t already sold on Banville driving around East Anglia in a beige estate car finding clues and showing scant regard for the 2003 Clean Indoor Air act (I was. It had me at Volvo), then Gambon’s appearance as Sir Alastair McKinnon, a man with links to Us intelligence and reason to want Russell’s conviction intact, should convince you that Fearless is no ordinary ITV crime drama. It’s an Atlantic-crossing political thriller complete with spooks, armed police ops, counter-terrorism surveillance, Michael Gambon, and a Volvo estate.
So far, we’ve seen Banville spend more time coppering than in court. She’s visited crime scenes and interviewed witnesses and spotted tell-tale clues everyone else has missed like your common or garden genius TV detective. As a lawyer building a case, she’s unusually hands-on, which is all the better for us the viewers.
Episode two concluded with a tense counter-terrorist extraction involving a patrol of armed officers storming Banville’s leafy London address. As Miriam Attar (Karima McAdams) was taken into custody for contacting a known Isis telephone number, she passed Banville an illicit Sim card. Not minutes after that, a new lead in the Russell case phoned up out of the blue. Linda’s murder, it seems, was tied with in a photographer taking ‘glamour’ shots of underage girls, and the Us air force stationed at the base at the time of her death.
That explains the arrival of shady Us agent Heather Myles (Deadwood’s Robin Weigert), who’s flown over to discredit Banville and generally get in her way. As the latter says in episode two, “there’s something going on here, there’s a police cover-up or a paedophile ring, or they’re protecting someone on the American base.” All of the above, possibly. I certainly don’t trust Jamie Bamber’s smiley MP with the Linda-lookalike wife as far as I could throw him.
Banville will get to the bottom of it, no doubt. That’s the overriding sense McCrory provides here. She feels as safe a pair of hands as Sofie Grabol in The Killing or Elisabeth Moss in Top Of The Lake, all three of them women with wonky personal lives but determined, and ultimately successful, professional ones.
Fearless has taken the trouble to create Banville a personal life, though so far it’s less compelling than her job. Her father is dying, and she and her boyfriend are trying to adopt. She went off the rails as a student protestor, and it’s hinted she may have given up a baby as a younger woman. All that’s just tangy dressing on the salad of really good stuff though – the political conspiracy, and her professional hostilities with two other powerful characters; counter-terrorism officer Olivia Greenwood (Wunmi Mosaku) and Heather Myles.
Greenwood and Myles also have hostilities of their own, keeping things nicely complicated (three women over the age of thirty driving a primetime thriller? Fearless, where have you been all my life?).
A hook of a central case, tantalising layers and complexities, international intrigue and codenames... put that all together with a performer as strong as McCrory and it adds up to thrilling TV.
Fearless continues next Monday the 26th of June at 9pm on ITV1.
- 6/19/2017
- Den of Geek
Louisa Mellor Apr 11, 2017
Here's the trailer for 6 Days, a London-set action thriller starring Jamie Bell, Mark Strong and Abbie Cornish...
Based on real events, new film 6 Days captures a slice of UK history. Thirty-seven years ago, a six-man terrorist team calling itself the Democratic Revolutionary Movement for the Liberation of Arabistan captured the Iranian Embassy in Knightsbridge, taking twenty-six hostages and starting a six-day ordeal.
See related DC Comics movies: upcoming UK release dates calendar Batman V Superman: where does it leave the Justice League? Batman V Superman: Michael Shannon fell asleep watching it Zack Snyder interview: Batman V Superman
Director Toa Fraser (Into The Badlands, Penny Dreadful) and writer Glenn Strandring (The Dead Lands, McLaren) are telling the story of that siege in the action thriller, which is due out in the UK this August.
In 6 Days, Jamie Bell plays Sas leader Rusty Firmin, with Mark Strong as negotiator...
Here's the trailer for 6 Days, a London-set action thriller starring Jamie Bell, Mark Strong and Abbie Cornish...
Based on real events, new film 6 Days captures a slice of UK history. Thirty-seven years ago, a six-man terrorist team calling itself the Democratic Revolutionary Movement for the Liberation of Arabistan captured the Iranian Embassy in Knightsbridge, taking twenty-six hostages and starting a six-day ordeal.
See related DC Comics movies: upcoming UK release dates calendar Batman V Superman: where does it leave the Justice League? Batman V Superman: Michael Shannon fell asleep watching it Zack Snyder interview: Batman V Superman
Director Toa Fraser (Into The Badlands, Penny Dreadful) and writer Glenn Strandring (The Dead Lands, McLaren) are telling the story of that siege in the action thriller, which is due out in the UK this August.
In 6 Days, Jamie Bell plays Sas leader Rusty Firmin, with Mark Strong as negotiator...
- 4/11/2017
- Den of Geek
Channel 5 will count down the Most Shocking TV Moments tonight (Monday, December 1) from 10pm.
In the 3-hour special, celebrities will recall Tom Cruise's sofa jump, Charles Ingram's Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? con, Oliver Reed's drunken chat show antics and much more.
Digital Spy can reveal which shock moments have made the top ten, though you'll have to tune in tonight to find out which order they come in, and which has claimed the top spot.
Michael Jackson's performance at the 1996 Brit Awards is interrupted by a stage invasion from Pulp's Jarvis Cocker
Strictly Come Dancing professional Kristina Rihanoff is surprised to be partnered with John Sergeant back in 2008
Diana, Princess of Wales gives a revealing interview on Panorama in November 1995
A Blind Date contestant believed to be a secretary is revealed to be a journalist writing an article for Cosmopolitan magazine
The Bee Gees...
In the 3-hour special, celebrities will recall Tom Cruise's sofa jump, Charles Ingram's Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? con, Oliver Reed's drunken chat show antics and much more.
Digital Spy can reveal which shock moments have made the top ten, though you'll have to tune in tonight to find out which order they come in, and which has claimed the top spot.
Michael Jackson's performance at the 1996 Brit Awards is interrupted by a stage invasion from Pulp's Jarvis Cocker
Strictly Come Dancing professional Kristina Rihanoff is surprised to be partnered with John Sergeant back in 2008
Diana, Princess of Wales gives a revealing interview on Panorama in November 1995
A Blind Date contestant believed to be a secretary is revealed to be a journalist writing an article for Cosmopolitan magazine
The Bee Gees...
- 12/1/2014
- Digital Spy
Directors: Joey Figueroa, Zak Knutson; Starring: John Milius, George Lucas, Harrison Ford, Steven Spielberg, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, George Hamilton, Paul Schrader, Sam Elliott, Francis Ford Coppola, Richard Dreyfuss; Running time: 103 mins; Certificate: 15
"You've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?"
"I love the smell of napalm in the morning..."
With a ferocious demeanor as sharp as the iconic movie lines he wrote, John Milius became an 'enfant terrible' amongst studio executives despite his credits including Apocalypse Now, Dirty Harry, Jaws and Conan The Barbarian. The rise and fall of the legendary scribe and script doctor is a narrative worthy of Hollywood itself, laden with potent twists and superbly conveyed in this fascinating documentary.
Milius unfolds chronologically and fuses classic footage from movies alongside archival and newly-recorded interviews with key players, interspersed with candid behind-the-scenes audio and visual recordings. These all combine...
"You've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?"
"I love the smell of napalm in the morning..."
With a ferocious demeanor as sharp as the iconic movie lines he wrote, John Milius became an 'enfant terrible' amongst studio executives despite his credits including Apocalypse Now, Dirty Harry, Jaws and Conan The Barbarian. The rise and fall of the legendary scribe and script doctor is a narrative worthy of Hollywood itself, laden with potent twists and superbly conveyed in this fascinating documentary.
Milius unfolds chronologically and fuses classic footage from movies alongside archival and newly-recorded interviews with key players, interspersed with candid behind-the-scenes audio and visual recordings. These all combine...
- 10/30/2013
- Digital Spy
Thirty-five years after it vanished, The Black Panther – Ian Merrick's 1977 film about serial killer Donald Neilson – emerges as a gripping and highly responsible true-crime movie
After nearly four decades, Donald Neilson, aka the Black Panther, seems in retrospect like some figment of the phantasmagoric north England of the 1970s, the gothic, occult north of David Peace and the Red Riding trilogy. His crimes – countless burglaries, three murders (of village postmasters), and the kidnapping of teenage heiress Lesley Whittle – took him on meticulously planned nocturnal peregrinations across the north and the Midlands against the unfolding background of the three-day week, the oil crisis, and the Ira's first sustained mainland bombing campaign. (Or, if you prefer, between the decline of glam-rock and the rise of punk.) The dead years, in other words, a leaden age.
Neilson's arrest in December 1975 came just two months after the apprehension of another largely forgotten apparition of the period,...
After nearly four decades, Donald Neilson, aka the Black Panther, seems in retrospect like some figment of the phantasmagoric north England of the 1970s, the gothic, occult north of David Peace and the Red Riding trilogy. His crimes – countless burglaries, three murders (of village postmasters), and the kidnapping of teenage heiress Lesley Whittle – took him on meticulously planned nocturnal peregrinations across the north and the Midlands against the unfolding background of the three-day week, the oil crisis, and the Ira's first sustained mainland bombing campaign. (Or, if you prefer, between the decline of glam-rock and the rise of punk.) The dead years, in other words, a leaden age.
Neilson's arrest in December 1975 came just two months after the apprehension of another largely forgotten apparition of the period,...
- 6/6/2012
- by John Patterson
- The Guardian - Film News
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.