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Drink you milk little kittens, Harris Dickinson has stepped into the Criterion Closet.

Hot off his sexy turn in Halina Reijn’s erotic thriller “Babygirl,” Dickinson still wasn’t able to get co-star Nicole Kidman off his mind as he selected a few Blu-rays to take home. In taking Gus Van Sant’s 1995 satire “To Die For” off the shelf, Dickinson was reminded of a scene that may draw certain parallels to his “Father Figure” moment in “Babygirl.”

“My favorite scene in this is when she’s videoing Joaquin and the other actors, and she’s saying, ‘Move your hips. Now let’s dance. Oh yeah. Come on, guys.’ And she’s trying to get them to move,” Dickinson said of Kidman’s work in the film. “And Joaquin Phoenix’s character is just, like, doing this crazy, like, out-of-time jive. But yeah, Nicole’s incredible in this. I love this film.

Physical media culture is alive and thriving thanks to the home video tastemakers hailing everywhere from The Criterion Collection to Kino Lorber and the Warner Archive Collection. Each month, IndieWire highlights the best recent and upcoming Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K releases for cinephiles to own now — and to bring ballast and permanence to your moviegoing at a time when streaming windows on classic movies close just as soon as they open.

Get started on putting together your very own Criterion Closet with these eight physical media recommendations each month, comprising recent releases as well as what’s coming in the given month. This month, we highlight Criterion restorations Masahiro Shinoda’s classic kabuki tale of horror “Demon Pond” as well as Harmony Korine‘s breakout slice of a broken-down Midwest “Gummo,” plus John Mackenzie’s crime classic “The Long Good Friday,” and a couple of newer soon-to-be-classics worth having in your library.

Marking one of their biggest 4K months yet, Criterion has announced a September lineup led by Gregg Araki’s Teen Apocalypse trilogy of The Doom Generation, Nowhere, and Totally F***ed Up in a rather full set, and all but the last in 4K. One of Criterion’s earliest titles, John Mackenzie’s The Long Good Friday, is receiving a sizable 480-to-2,160 upgrade; a more recent addition, Repo Man, also gets upgraded, hopefully fueling further interest for Alex Cox’s recently announced sequel.

On the new-film front, Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers makes the most-enviable home debut possible. And with regard to films I never thought would be presented in such profound resolution, Todd Solondz’s Happiness is given the 4K treatment, at long last supplying a companion to Life During Wartime.

See artwork below and find more details at Criterion:

The post The Criterion Collection’s September Lineup Includes Gregg Araki,...

Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan reunite after 43 years in 'The Thursday Murder Club.' Mirren and Brosnan previously worked together in 'The Long Good Friday.' 'The Thursday Murder Club' will be their first film where they act opposite each other extensively.

A handful of cast members of a highly-anticipated movie were announced in April 2024, and Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan were among the names on the list, reuniting them after they previously appeared in a film that was released 43 years ago. Mirren starred as Victoria in The Long Good Friday, a British action movie directed by John Mackenzie and written by Barrie Keeffe. Meanwhile, Brosnan's character in the film did not have a name and was just credited as an "Ira man," aka a man who belonged to the Irish Republican Army.

The Long Good Friday is available to stream on Max.

The Long Good Friday...

The British film-maker also wrote the landmark TV play Made in Britain, starring Tim Roth, and won an Emmy award for Band of Brothers

David Leland, the director behind popular 1980s hit Wish You Were Here and writer on a string of acclaimed British films including Made in Britain, Mona Lisa and Personal Services, has died aged 82. His agency Casarotto Ramsay and Associates said in a statement that Leland died on Sunday surrounded by his family. They added: “He is survived by his wife, Sabrina, his four daughters, his son and his six grandchildren … all of whom he loved almost as much as Arsenal football club.”

Born in 1941, Leland initially trained as an actor at the Central School of Speech of Drama, before becoming part of the breakaway that led to the creation of the Drama Centre in 1963. He secured small roles in 1970s films such as John Mackenzie’s directorial debut One Brief Summer,...

Clockwise from left: The Godfather Part II, Bonnie And Clyde, Goodfellas, The Departed (all images courtesy Warner Bros.)Graphic: The A.V. Club

Gangster movies are loaded with inherently alluring qualities: the vicarious thrill of watching an antihero buck the establishment and take what they want with impunity; the glamorous trappings...

Gangsters, mobsters, thugs, and mugs. Organized crime holds the upper tier of the international cinematic commission. “Crime pays,” Edward G. Robinson, who played Rico Bandello in the seminal gangster film Little Caesar (1931), is famous for saying. “But only in the movies.” When a good mob movie is on the table, it is an offer no filmmaker can refuse. There is more intrigue, suspense, violence, mayhem, and madness to be found in the criminal element than any other genre.

“Gone are the days of the gangsters,” audiences heard for years, usually in movies about mobsters. They always rise up, even if they are splattered across the ornate fountains of their gangland mansions in the last frame, like Al Pacino’s Tony Montana in Brian DePalma’s Scarface (1983), or rolling down the steps of a church, dead from a hail of bullets. That’s how James Cagney’s Eddie Bartlett went out in The Roaring Twenties (1939). Now,...

With the festival kicking off tomorrow, Telluride Film Festival has now unveiled its lineup, featuring new films from Jeff Nichols (the first image from which can be seen above), Emerald Fennell, Annie Baker, Andrew Haigh, Yorgos Lanthimos, Justine Triet, Wim Wenders, Kitty Green, Ethan Hawke, and many more.

“Fifty years is a long time to do anything. And while we might be a little biased, we feel the work that Tff does is pretty important,” comments Telluride Film Festival director Julie Huntsinger. “We take the charge of preserving the theatrical experience and promoting film seriously, but with necessary winks here and there. We’re ecstatic to share a program we feel reflects so much of the past fifty years, naturally and organically, films old and new, which stand as a testament to our beloved co-founders Tom Luddy and Bill Pence who are no longer with us.”

• All Of US Strangers...

2023 Festival dedicated to founders Tom Luddy, Bill Pence, Stella Pence, James Card.

Telluride Film Festival has announced its 2023 50th anniversary line-up with Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn, Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winner Anatomy Of A Fall, and Steve McQueen’s Occupied City on the roster.

The selection, which will play in the Colorado Rockies locale from August 31 to September 4, includes Jeff Nichols’ The Bikeriders, Jonathan Glazer’s Cannes sensation The Zone Of Interest, Pablo Larrain’s El Conde, Kitty Green’s The Royal Hotel, George C. Wolfe’s Rustin, Nyad from Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin,...

Are you a Pierce Brosnan fan looking for a list of his best movies? Look no further! We’ve scoured the internet to compile data from trusted sources like IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes audience scores to determine which movies have truly stood the test of time. In this article, we’ve put together the ultimate Pierce Brosnan movies list, ranked based on box office gross and audience ratings.

Pierce Brendan Brosnan — Also known as James Bond 007, has been captivating audiences for decades with his charming looks, suave demeanor, and incredible acting skills. The Irish-born actor has played some of the most iconic roles in Hollywood history, from the British spy James Bond to the suave art thief in “The Thomas Crown Affair.”

So, what makes a Pierce Brosnan movie great? Is it the action-packed scenes, the witty one-liners, or the heart-melting moments of vulnerability? We’ll be using a combination...

Casting movie stars can be a tricky proposition, especially if you're making a big-budget film with unproven talent. In 1987, that's exactly what Kevin Costner was. He'd appeared in three box-office bombs in 1985, and, prior to this, had been cut out of Lawrence Kasdan's Baby Boomer smash "The Big Chill." But after missing out on the more established Don Johnson (who was red hot at the time thanks to "Miami Vice"), Costner wound up being Brian De Palma's Eliot Ness in the hit-hungry director's big-screen rendition of "The Untouchables." And while De Palma had a bit of movie star insurance in Sean Connery as the veteran beat cop Malone, David Mamet's masterful screenplay screamed for a larger-than-life Al Capone.

De Palma only had eyes for Robert De Niro, and he had a history with the actor, having worked with him in the counterculture comedies "Greetings" and "Hi, Mom!

New Delhi, Aug 14 (Ians) With another heatwave hitting Britain this weekend, churches around the country are offering their large, stone buildings as a sanctuary for people seeking refuge from the unbearable temperatures.

In London, Rev John MacKenzie, vicar of St Luke’s Church, West Holloway, is offering respite for those seeking to escape overheating homes.

He said: “Throughout history, churches have been places of sanctuary so it’s fitting that our nice, cool buildings are a source of refuge for people trying to avoid the heat.

“Whether it’s running food banks or offering a night shelter for the homeless, churches are often trying to help the local community so as we have these large, stone buildings it makes sense to open them up for the public to use.

“We’ve been providing iced drinks and free wifi for people that need to escape high rise flats or other places...

Last last year Sam Inglis led a team of HeyUGuys writers to compile a list of the films of 2021 that were cruelly overlooked. As we’re halfway through 2022 the time has come to draw up another list of films, but this time there’s a different criteria at hand.

These are the films that we have discovered, so far, in 2022. These are the films, from any year, that we have watched for the first time, and wanted to share with you. Here there are cinematic classics along with obscure ‘90s action thrillers, character studies and slasher flicks galore – there is no other list quite like it around.

We hope you’ll find new favourites from the list here, and be inspired to look further afield for your own movie discoveries.

Daniel Goodwin Recommends Colossus: The Forbin Project

At a time when Sci-Fi films were evolving from silly flying saucer B-movies into subversive,...

Bucking the trends for ’80s crime films, Neil Jordan’s tale of a low-rung hood attached to a ‘complicated’ call girl becomes a love story about meaningful relationships. Sort of the ‘anti- Travis Bickle,’ Bob Hoskins’ low-class mug discovers emotions and an ability to commit that could even be called Chivalric. Michael Caine chills as an all-too real villain, the boss that doesn’t think Hoskins worthy of a straight answer. Topping it off, cinematographer Roger Pratt makes this possibly the best-looking British crime film in color.

Mona Lisa

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 107

1986 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 104 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date September 14, 2021 / 39.95

Starring: Bob Hoskins, Cathy Tyson, Robbie Coltrane, Michael Caine, Clarke Peters, Sammi Davis, Kate Hardie, Zoe Nathenson.

Cinematography: Roger Pratt

Production Designer: Jamie Leonard

Costume Designer: Louise Frogley

Film Editor: Lesley Walker

Original Music: Michael Kamen

Written by Neil Jordan, David Leland

Produced by Patrick Cassavetti,...

The 70th Berlin International Film Festival will honor Oscar-winner Helen Mirren with an honorary Golden Bear and homage.

The award ceremony on Thursday, February 27, 2020 at the Berlinale Palast will include a screening of Mirren-starrer The Queen.

“Helen Mirren is a strong personality whose powerful portrayals are always impressive. She surprises us time and again with her interpretation of complex characters – whether it’s Chris in Calendar Girls or Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen, her portrayals are a paradigm of strong women, and it is our great pleasure to award her the Honorary Golden Bear for her lifetime achievement,” said Mariette Rissenbeek, Executive Director of the Berlinale.

Among Mirren’s many accolades are the 2007 Academy Award for Best Actress and Golden Globe for her performance in The Queen, while her stage work has garnered prizes including the Olivier Award, Tony Award and Drama Desk Awards.

After working mainly in theater,...

Helen Mirren is to be honored with a Golden Bear for lifetime achievement at next February’s Berlin Film Festival.

The Oscar-winning star of “The Queen” and new HBO-Sky drama series “Catherine the Great” will also be the subject of an homage featuring several of her best-known films, including “The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover,” “The Good Liar,” and “The Last Station.”

“Helen Mirren is a strong personality whose powerful portrayals are always impressive,” said Mariette Rissenbeek, the Berlinale’s new executive director. “She surprises us time and again with her interpretation of complex characters. Whether it’s Chris in ‘Calendar Girls’ or Queen Elizabeth II in ‘The Queen,’ her portrayals are a paradigm of strong women, and it is our great pleasure to award her the Honorary Golden Bear for her lifetime achievement,”

The upcoming Berlinale is the festival’s 70th edition. Mirren will...

Character actor admired for his role in the London gangster film The Long Good Friday

The actor Bryan Marshall, who has died aged 81, was a solid character actor who brought integrity and realism to the parts he played on screen in Britain throughout the 1960s and 70s. Many will remember him best for his pivotal role as the duplicitous Councillor Harris in the classic film The Long Good Friday (1979), which made a massive impact at the box office with its brutal tale of a London gangland boss, Harold Shand, played by Bob Hoskins, seeing his empire being threatened by rivals from the Ira.

The drama, written by Barrie Keeffe and directed by John Mackenzie, brilliantly captures the dreary London of the 70s as it approaches a new decade of aspiration and docklands regeneration. Shand sees the development opportunities and Harris is on his payroll. For much of the film, Marshall is a silent presence,...

Retitled from The Honorary Consul and sold in America with one of Paramount’s sleaziest ad campaigns, John MacKenzie and Christopher Hampton’s adaptation of a Graham Greene novel features a fine Michael Caine performance, but prefers to stress sex scenes between star Richard Gere and Elpidia Carrillo. Just call it ‘Lust in the Argentine Littoral’ — but performed in English.

Beyond the Limit (The Honorary Consul)

Der Honorarkonsul

Blu-ray

1983 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 104 min. / Street Date January 10, 2019 / Available through Amazon.de / Eur 14,99

Starring: Michael Caine, Richard Gere, Bob Hoskins, Elpidia Carrillo, Joaquim de Almeida, A Martinez, Stephanie Cotsirilos, Domingo Ambriz, Geoffrey Palmer, Jorge Russek, Erika Carlsson, George Belanger.

Cinematography: Phil Meheux

Film Editor: Stuart Baird

Original Music: Stanley Myers

Written by Christopher Hampton from the novel by Graham Greene

Produced by Norma Heyman

Directed by John Mackenzie

Director John Mackenzie, fresh off his marvelous gift to the gangster film The Long Good Friday,...

My Top Ten Oscar® Submissions for Best Foreign Language Film includes Darkest Horse: from Slovakia, ‘The Line’You know how, when you finally see a movie you really love, all things seem possible? How a great movie transports you to a new reality? Without that experience, normal life seems drab and dreary unless you use other means of transcendance, like hope, art, music, dancing, religion or drugs.

Have I yet raved about any of the 25 foreign language submissions?

Yes, but it was a long time ago when it won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, that I was so enamoured Hungarian director Ildikó Enyedi’s Of Body and Soul (as I was with her previous film, the 1989 Cannes Film Festival Camera d’or winner, My Twentieth Century, which was seen by about a .02% of the population). But that was way back in February.

I would put my body...

When it premiered in 1989, Peter Greenaway’s “The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover” stunned audiences with its unflinching portraits of abuse and sexuality. It’s as dark as comedy can get, but it remains in the collective film consciousness through the generation of filmmakers that Greenaway influenced.

Read More: Watch: ‘Jackie’ Director Pablo Larraín Discusses ‘Movies That Inspire Me’ in New IndieWire Video Series Presented by FilmStruck

One of them is Matt Ross, director of “Captain Fantastic,” who singled out film’s technical and storytelling mastery. In the latest of our “Movies That Inspire Me” series, presented in partnership with FilmStruck, Ross explains how the film’s single-set construct helps grip the audience from the story’s outset.

Ross also praised Gambon and Mirren’s central performances. Amidst the ugliness, Ross argues that Gambon’s ability to elicit a strange sense of empathy and Mirren’s strength...

By Tim Greaves

Director John Mackenzie's powerful and captivating 1972 kitchen sink drama Made has been given the opportunity to find a new audience via a tasty UK Blu-Ray release from Network Distributing.

Valerie Marshall (Carol White) is a single mother eking out a meagre living as a London telephone exchange operator whilst simultaneously caring for her multiple-sclerosis-stricken mother (Margery Mason). Seemingly destined never to find true happiness and weary of the inapposite attentions of would-be suitors, Valerie agrees to assist priest and family friend Father Dyson (John Castle) in chaperoning a bunch of underprivileged youths on a day trip to the seaside. There she meets folk singer Mike Preston (Roy Harper), whose outwardly relaxed approach to life just might pave her way to salvation.

A slightly ponderous and largely dispiriting snapshot of early 1970s lower class Britain, I'll openly confess that when I first saw Made I was convinced it would leave me cold.

(John Mackenzie, 1980/Neil Jordan, 1986; Arrow DVD/Blu-ray, 18)

Bob Hoskins became an actor by accident when he accompanied a friend to an audition at London’s leftwing Unity theatre in 1969, and achieved TV stardom as the doomed travelling salesman in Dennis Potter’s Pennies From Heaven. In 1980, he became an international star in Scottish director John Mackenzie’s The Long Good Friday, his first major screen role, as the East End gangster Harold Shand who dreams of transforming his minor criminal empire into a legitimate enterprise by rejuvenating London’s decaying docklands and playing host to the 1988 Olympics. Hoskins’s Shand was compared favourably with Edward G Robinson’s seminal Little Caesar of 1931.

Related: Bob Hoskins: a career in pictures

Continue reading...

Throughout the supplements on Arrow’s new (rather impressive) Blu-ray edition of this landmark gangster film, nearly everyone involved speaks of their collective desire to simply make the best film they possibly could, and in many ways, The Long Good Friday is just about the most natural result of that pursuit. Nothing goes unaccounted for, the characters are all richly drawn, the narrative drive is forceful without overwhelming a chance for reflection, and there’s just enough of a mystery to the whole thing to keep the audience hooked. The satisfaction that can come from such a well-rounded, expertly-delivered film can sometimes, however, be diminished by the sheer contentedness of the thing. Life is unwieldy, unpredictable, and sometimes incomprehensible, and films that ignore those qualities in the pursuit of “perfection” can feel closed-off.

Indeed, most of The Long Good Friday follows this tendency – Harold Shand’s (Bob Hoskins) is a...

With Carol Reed's The Third Man (1949) now screening in New York, London and other cities, the Independent has posted Martin Scorsese's thoughts on the classic—and on Reed, "a wonderful film artist." At Hyperallergic, John Yau writes about collages by John Ashbery and Guy Maddin. Curator Ed Halter considers the films of William Klein. Calum Marsh previews the Vittorio De Sica retrospective in Toronto. This week, London's Close-Up will re-open with a series of six films by John Cassavetes. And in the London Review of Books, Michael Wood writes about Bob Hoskins in John Mackenzie's The Long Good Friday. » - David Hudson...

With Carol Reed's The Third Man (1949) now screening in New York, London and other cities, the Independent has posted Martin Scorsese's thoughts on the classic—and on Reed, "a wonderful film artist." At Hyperallergic, John Yau writes about collages by John Ashbery and Guy Maddin. Curator Ed Halter considers the films of William Klein. Calum Marsh previews the Vittorio De Sica retrospective in Toronto. This week, London's Close-Up will re-open with a series of six films by John Cassavetes. And in the London Review of Books, Michael Wood writes about Bob Hoskins in John Mackenzie's The Long Good Friday. » - David Hudson...

A superb script and great turns from Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren are the making of John Mackenzie’s classic London gangland thriller

“What I’m looking for is someone who can contribute to what England has given to the world: culture, sophistication, genius – a little bit more than an ’ot dog, know what I mean?” John Mackenzie’s classic British thriller, from a rip-roaring script by Barrie Keeffe, nearly went straight to TV and only ended up in cinemas thanks to the intervention of George Harrison’s HandMade Films. Today it stands as a prophetic classic, as groundbreaking as Get Carter, as quotable as Withnail & I (“Shut up you long streak of paralysed piss”).

Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren are magnificent as the lord and lady of their underworld manor, attempting to develop London Docklands in a pre-Canary Wharf world, caught between American investors and Ira bombs. Phil Meheux...

The classic thriller predicted the rise of Thatcherism and the transformation of London’s Docklands into an area of unbridled commerce. For the re-release of the film, I revisited the streets where mobsters once ran wild

At the start of The Long Good Friday, Harold Shand flew in on Concorde. Shand was old-school: a London ganglord played by Bob Hoskins, back home after a New York business trip to find his empire being gutted.

Now, to revisit Harold’s world, I’m listening to the driverless hum of the Docklands Light Railway (Dlr), gently jolting through east London above the endless juliet balconies of new-build flats. Neither the Dlr nor the flats were here in June 1979, when Hoskins and director John Mackenzie started work on a modestly scaled British crime thriller that would become one of the most darkly momentous films that Britain ever made. So, on another sunlit early summer day,...

Stars: Bob Hoskins, Helen Mirren, P.H. Moriarty, Kevin McNally, Alan Ford, Dave King, Bryan Marshall, Derek Thompson, Eddie Constantine, Paul Freeman, Leo Dolan, Patti Love, Pierce Brosnan | Written by Barrie Keeffe | Directed by John Mackenzie

The gangster movie is a beast very like the gangs it is based on. Depending on the country of origin the crime organisations tend to have certain looks and style and a certain tradition that they cling to as their laws of how to do business. The modern gangster movies are definitely an example of this, but they also share one thing in common, they lend a lot from The Long Good Friday which gets the Arrow Video treatment with its new release on Blu-ray.

Harold (Bob Hoskins) is a British gangster with an eye to capitalism and being a successful business man. Seeing London as his empire he is taken aback at the incredulous...

"The Mafia? I've shit 'em!"

Brutal. Compelling. Poignant. Prescient. Thrilling. All words synonymous with The Long Good Friday, John Mackenzie's masterpiece that propelled the late, great Bob Hoskins to film stardom in 1980 as the complex gangster Harold Shand. Its power to enthral and shock has not diminished in the intervening years, while its cultural value has soared as it provides a fascinating snapshot of a society in transition.

Charting the demise of Shand's empire as he seeks to turn himself into a legitimate businessman through a property deal with an American client, the film is laden with aesthetic articulations of violence that are horrendous yet gripping. This is epitomised by the gory sequence in which Shand's paranoia compels him to round up potential enemies and hang them upside down on meat hooks in an abattoir, complete with Pov shots from the captives to reinforce the chilling sense of horror.

Bob Hoskins dead at 71: Hoskins’ best movies included ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit,’ ‘Mona Lisa’ (photo: Bob Hoskins in ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ with Jessica Rabbit, voiced by Kathleen Turner) Bob Hoskins, who died at age 71 in London yesterday, April 29, 2014, from pneumonia (initially reported as “complications of Parkinson’s disease”), was featured in nearly 70 movies over the course of his four-decade film career. Hoskins was never a major box office draw — "I don’t think I’m the sort of material movie stars are made of — I’m five-foot-six-inches and cubic. My own mum wouldn’t call me pretty." Yet, this performer with attributes similar to those of Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney, and Lon Chaney had the lead in one of the biggest hits of the late ’80s. In 1988, Robert Zemeckis’ groundbreaking Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which seamlessly blended animated and live action footage, starred Hoskins as gumshoe Eddie Valiant,...

The Long Good Friday is not the most successful film to star Bob Hoskins, who has died at the age of 71. (That would be the 1988 blockbuster Who Framed Roger Rabbit.) It may not even be the British actor’s best gangster movie; a case can be made for Neil Jordan’s superlative Mona Lisa. But as a reminder of Hoskins’ volcanic, yet subtly-applied talents, it is impossible to beat this 1979 thriller from director John Mackenzie.

Hoskins plays Harold Shand, a gangster whose (hugely prescient) plan to become a legitimate businessman — by developing the docklands area of East London — is repeatedly,...

Two years ago, Bob Hoskins made the announcement that due to a diagnosis of Parkinson's Disease, he would be retiring from acting. It gave us a chance to reflect on his 5 Best Performances, and those will certainly be treasured ever more, with Hoskins sadly passing away today at the age of 71, after battling pneumonia. Hoskins was probably not the most obvious face for the stage or screen, but that was also what made him a distinctive and well-regarded actor. Fueled by passion for the profession, he started with small roles in the theatre and on television, and finally got a break in the 1978 mini-series "Pennies From Heaven," kicking open the door to some of his most iconic roles. The 1980s saw Hoskins establish himself as one of the finest of his generation thanks to terrific turns in John Mackenzie's "The Long Good Friday," Neil Jordan's "Mona Lisa" (for...

Helen Mirren

On Sunday February 16, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) will present Dame Helen Mirren with the Academy Fellowship at the Ee British Academy Film Awards ceremony at the Royal Opera House, London.

Awarded annually, the Fellowship is the highest accolade bestowed by the Academy upon an individual in recognition of an outstanding and exceptional contribution to film, television or games.

Fellows previously honoured for their work in film include Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, Sean Connery, Elizabeth Taylor, Stanley Kubrick, Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Olivier, Judi Dench, Vanessa Redgrave, Christopher Lee and Martin Scorsese. Sir Alan Parker received the Fellowship at last year’s Film Awards.

John Willis, Chairman of BAFTA, said: “Dame Helen Mirren receives the Fellowship as one of the most outstanding actresses of her generation. Dame Helen’s incredibly successful career is testament to the determination, dedication and skill she brings to each of her roles.

The Queen actress to receive highest accolade awarded by the British Academy.

BAFTA is to present Dame Helen Mirren with the Fellowship at the Ee British Academy Film Awards ceremony in London on Feb 16.

Awarded annually, the Fellowship is the highest accolade bestowed by the Academy upon an individual in recognition of an outstanding and exceptional contribution to film, television or games.

Fellows previously honoured for their work in film include Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, Sean Connery, Elizabeth Taylor, Stanley Kubrick, Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Olivier, Judi Dench, Vanessa Redgrave, Christopher Lee and Martin Scorsese.

Sir Alan Parker received the Fellowship at last year’s Film Awards.

John Willis, chairman of BAFTA, said: “Dame Helen Mirren receives the Fellowship as one of the most outstanding actresses of her generation. Dame Helen’s incredibly successful career is testament to the determination, dedication and skill she brings to each of her roles.”

Dame Helen commented:...

The Hasty Pudding Theatricals, the oldest theatrical organization in the United States, announces Academy Award-winning actress Dame Helen Mirren as the recipient of its 2014 Woman of the Year Award.

“How very saucy of the Hasty Pudding organisation to offer me their award,” said Dame Helen Mirren. “As someone who adores Pudding in all its manifestations… Suet, Christmas, Treacle, Bread and Butter, Yorkshire, Plum, Figgy, etc., etc., I am so looking forward to the famous Hasty Pudding.”

Helen Mirren has won international recognition for her work on stage, screen and television. For her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in 2006 of “The Queen,” she received an Academy Award®, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award®, and BAFTA Award for Best Actress.

In 2013, she again met critical acclaim for reprising her role of Queen Elizabeth II, this time in Peter Morgan’s play “The Audience.” For her performance, she was awarded the prestigious...

The Margaret Thatcher era left an indelible mark on British cinema – not all of it negative. Here we select some key films that distilled the essence of Thatcher's Britain, for better or worse

My Beautiful Laundrette, 1985. Dir: Stephen Frears

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The spirit of free enterprise underpins the Hanif Kureishi-scripted, Stephen Frears-directed comedy – mordant but forward-looking in its equation of immigrant thrift with modern conservative values. Omar, son of a campaigning journalist-in-exile, turns to launderette-management, drug-stealing and inter-ethnic gay sex to boot. Genuinely groundbreaking in its subtle and empathetic portrait of a British Asian community, My Beautiful Laundrette was a teasing provocation to the mindset of the 70s old left. Daniel Day Lewis, of course, made a massive impact as punk rocker Johnny, a stereotype confounder who deserts his street-fighting confreres for Omar's charms. Kureishi's prescience even ran to the...

This article is dedicated to Andrew Copp: filmmaker, film writer, artist and close friend who passed away on January 19, 2013. You are loved and missed, brother.

****

Looking at the Best Actor Academy Award nominations for the film year 2012, the one miss that clearly cries out for more attention is Liam Neeson’s powerful performance in Joe Carnahan’s excellent survival film The Grey, easily one of the best roles of Neeson’s career.

In Neeson’s case, his lack of a nomination was a case of neglect similar to the Albert Brooks snub in the Best Supporting Actor category for the film year 2011 for Drive(Nicolas Winding Refn, USA).

Along with negligence, other factors commonly prevent outstanding lead acting performances from getting the kind of critical attention they deserve. Sometimes it’s that the performance is in a film not considered “Oscar material” or even worthy of any substantial critical attention.

Forgotten Classics is a recurring feature, a look back and reflection on great motion pictures that often slip under the radar and become under-appreciated, ignored relics of a previous era or simply damned by lack of face time in the spotlight.

The Long Good Friday

Directed by John Mackenzie

Screenplay by Barrie Keeffe

UK, 1980

The urge to remain topical while discussing the past can quite easily be met when it comes to film, such is the sliding wall of time, faces and names that retains connection. But sometimes such links aren’t of the happy variety, such as the case here. Bob Hoskins, renowned actor of burly, diminutive disposition and with occasionally overlooked raw talent and expressive style as a thespian, last month retired from the acting business after it emerged he is suffering from Parkinson’s disease, a degenerative disorder made famous by Michael J Fox’s diagnosis in the 1990’s.

Forgive my usual instinct to compare new films with old, and docs with narratives, but going into Marina Goldovskaya's new documentary, "A Bitter Taste of Freedom," I couldn't help but think of Joel Schumacher's "Veronica Guerin." There have been other female journalists assassinated for their prying, I'm sure, but Guerin and Anna Politkovskaya, the Russian reporter at the center of "Bitter," are probably the most famous. In Schumacher's drama (and no, I haven't seen John Mackenzie's earlier, names-changed version, "When the Sky Falls"), Guerin is portrayed by Cate Blanchett as more pestering than penetrating, an obnoxiously forthcoming investigator who may…...

Film director whose career took him from gritty television plays to Hollywood thrillers

People who talk wistfully of the "golden age of British television drama" are often accused of viewing the past through the rosy lens of nostalgia. But a clear-eyed examination of the era proves that such slots as the BBC's The Wednesday Play (1964-70) and Play for Today (1970-84) were unsurpassed as breeding grounds for talented directors such as John Mackenzie, who has died after a stroke aged 83. Like most of his contemporaries who gained their experience by working in television – Philip Saville, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, Ken Loach, Mike Newell, Michael Apted and Mike Leigh – Mackenzie went on to make feature films, notably his superb London-based gangster picture, The Long Good Friday (1980).

The television background trained Mackenzie to work quickly on taut and realistic narratives, within a tight budget and on schedule. One of his first jobs was as...

"People who talk wistfully of the 'golden age of British television drama' are often accused of viewing the past through the rosy lens of nostalgia," writes Ronald Bergan in the Guardian. "But a clear-eyed examination of the era proves that such slots as the BBC's The Wednesday Play (1964-70) and Play for Today (1970-84) were unsurpassed as breeding grounds for talented directors such as John Mackenzie, who has died after a stroke aged 83. Like most of his contemporaries who gained their experience by working in television — Philip Saville, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, Ken Loach, Mike Newell, Michael Apted and Mike Leigh — Mackenzie went on to make feature films, notably his superb London-based gangster picture, The Long Good Friday (1980)."

Paul Gallagher has posted a documentary on the making of The Long Good Friday at Dangerous Minds, preceded by a deeply appreciative introduction: "It started when producer Barry Hanson asked writer Barrie Keefe, one night,...

Verve has signed John Collee, the Australian writer whose credits include Master & Commander, Happy Feet, Creation and Legend of the Guardians. Collee had been at CAA. He is currently scripting Walk with the Dinosaurs, the animated that that Im Global recently sold to Fox for $65 million at Afm. Collee is also repped by Kaplan Perrone and The Agency Group. Verve also signed Karl Gadjusek, who has written on The Mechanic and the upcoming Unknown and Trespass. He most recently rewrote The Best and the Brightest (Unman) for Paramount and Montecito, a remake of the 1971 John Mackenzie film. Gadjusek continues to be managed by Benderspink.

Whether they were dealing with drownings, poisonings or child abduction, British public information films never held back. Jude Rogers finds out why they're still haunting the imaginations of today's directors

One afternoon in 1973, Terry Sue-Patt got on a bus with some friends from a community theatre and travelled to a river on the outskirts of London. Here, the 10-year-old would unwittingly star in one of the scariest public information films of all time. "We all thought it was a lovely day out," he remembers. "We were just told to jump up and down near the water, play with sticks, mess about. When I saw the finished film, and saw a man in a black cape standing behind us, I had quite a different reaction."

Forty years after their heyday, British public information films continue to haunt the memories of those who saw them – and those who appeared in them. In 90 short seconds of Lonely Water,...

Who lit the fuse that tore Harold’s world apart?

When sitting down to write a review on a new DVD or Blu-ray release, one has to look at the movie and review it accordingly. If the film is an older one and has been well received, then one can reiterate this fact but then delve into the actual home video release of sorts. This has been my problem with the new release of The Long Good Friday from Handmade Films.

The film itself is a favorite in my household when it comes to gangster films, especially the section of British gangster flicks that had a slight resurgence when Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels came through to this side of the ocean. The Long Good Friday is the breakout role of Bob Hoskins, who most people know as Eddie Valiant from Who Framed Roger Rabbit or Mario Mario from...

Brighton On Screen

With the Brighton Rock remake on its way, the Duke Of York's cinema is getting in early with a season of films made in, or with links to, the area. An obvious choice is Quadrophenia, but the more curious should check out odder fare, like The Flesh And Blood Show, directed by former Doy projectionist Peter Walker, the dour thriller Jigsaw and John Mackenzie's Made, a social drama featuring folkie Roy Harper. The centrepiece is Brighton Rock Unseen, a tribute to Graham Greene's original novel and the iconic 1947 movie it spawned.

Duke Of York's, Sun to 29 Aug; picturehouses.co.uk

Chichester Film Festival

Opening with Sylvain Chomet's lovely, Jacques Tati-inspired animation The Illusionist, the 19th Chichester Film Festival is bent on bringing magic of all kinds to the screen. Aside from previews of upcoming Us, European, Asian and British flicks – including...

Two highly-anticipated second feature films from U.S. underground filmmakers will be making their World Premieres all the way over at the 64th annual Edinburgh International Film Festival, which will run for twelve days on June 16-27. The films are Rona Mark’s The Crab and Zach Clark’s Vacation!.

The Crab, which screens on June 21, is the touching story of a verbally abusive man born with two enormous, mutant-like hands; while Vacation!, which screens on June 20, tracks four urban gals let loose in a sunny seaside resort down South.

Both Mark and Clark previously screened their debut features at Eiff. Mark’s Strange Girls screened there in 2008 and Clark’s Modern Love Is Automatic screened in 2009. Both films also ended up as runners-up in Bad Lit’s annual Movie of the Year award, again Strange Girls in 2008 and Modern Love in 2009. Sadly, these two masterpieces are still unavailable on...

Guy Collins has resigned from Hand Made Films International and the sales team has been cut in half. Film projects still remain on its slate including the remake of The Long Good Friday and children’s film Eloise In Paris. Michael Ryan has also left. Former Afm president, Ryan was the M in J&M Entertainment, one of London’s most respected sales outfits in the 1990s the training ground for Summit Entertainment boss Patrick Wachsberger. and acquisition executive Karen Roberts; its dissolution disappointed the entire industry.

Handmade was founded by Beatle George Harrison in that starry moment in 1979 when British films hit America with Stephen Frears' debut film My Beautiful Laundrette (not a Hand Made Film, but the first British import), followed by their great films, John MacKenzie's The Long Good Friday, Terry Jones' Monty Python’s Life of Brian, Neil Jordan's Mona Lisa (1986), Bruce Robinson's Withnail and I,...

The Last House on the Left might have skipped your movie watching radar which is a shame. I thought it was a rather enjoyable horror flick with enough blood, guts and rape to satisfy the sick mind of horror fans everywhere. (Rape in real life is the worst act imaginable. On film though? I don't care if you're raping puppies.)Bloody Disgusting got wind of Last House director Dennis Iliadis' next project:Some pretty interesting news came across my desk this morning that I'm pretty excited to share with you guys. We're being told that Christopher B. Landon - the man behind Disturbia and one of the writers on the now dead Near Dark remake - is currently rewriting The Lesson (a remake of John Mackenzie's 1971 thriller from Austria, Unman, Wittering and Zigo) for DreamWorks/Paramount Pictures. But here's the kicker, apparently The Last House on the Left director...

Some pretty interesting news came across my desk this morning that I'm pretty excited to share with you guys. We're being told that Christopher B. Landon - the man behind Disturbia and one of the writers on the now dead Near Dark remake - is currently rewriting The Lesson (a remake of John Mackenzie's 1971 thriller from Austria, Unman) for DreamWorks/Paramount Pictures. But here's the kicker, apparently The Last House on the Left director Dennis Iliadis is in close talks to direct. The original is set in a prep school where the new teacher of a class of 9th grades begins to suspect that his class murdered his predecessor.

In the opening scenes of the classic British crime thriller The Long Good Friday, London underworld gangster Harold Shand (played to perfection by Bob Hoskins) says to his partner Victoria (played by a lovely 34 year-old Helen Mirren) on their Thames yacht, "It's Good Friday, have a Bloody Mary."

You just know you're off to a good start with a cast like that...speaking dialogue like that.

In this cornerstone of the British gangster genre — a precursor to later films like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Layer Cake — Harold is about to close a lucrative new deal with the New York mob when bombs start showing up and/or detonating in inconvenient places...at inconvenient times. He's trying to close a real estate deal that will finally enable him to become a legitimate businessman and to develop a stretch of London's docklands in time for the 1988 Olympics, in the...