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Quick Links The Initial 'Brutalist' Controversy and Filmmakers Respond to Claim Voting for Nominations Is Already Done... But the Award Season Is About to Begin AI: Is There a Conversation to Be Had?

The Brutalist has gone from critical darling and potential frontrunner for the Academy Awards to now a widely controversial pick following the revelation that the movie used AI tools to enhance a scene for the actors' voices and possibly used generative AI in the film's final moments. While director Brady Corbet has denied the use of generative AI and explained the specific audio tool, The Brutalist is the latest in a long line of movies in 2024 that were caught using AI, from Late Night with the Devil to Civil War to fellow Oscar contender Emilia Pérez.

With The Brutalist conversation now likely to be dominated by discussion of the use or not use of AI and the ethical implications,...

The Brutalist is making its rounds as one of the best films of 2024, rising to the top of most film critics' end-of-year lists, and winning three categories at the Golden Globes. The film is a serious contender for many awards at the Oscars, including Best Picture. The Brutalist has had an interesting rise to popularity and awards contention. The film runs for three and a half hours, going so long that it needs an intermission. The Brutalist's focus on architecture isn't as attention-grabbing as most other films in theaters, either.

However, The Brutalist has plenty of positives that have made the film such a strong awards contender. The film's stars, Adrien Brody and Guy Pearce, deliver career-defining performances. The Brutalist is also masterfully crafted, with an entirely original story that sheds light on issues that still affect life today, such as the struggles immigrants have and how stories about...

Quick Links Brady Corbet Fought for Years to Make 'The Brutalist' Brady Corbet Made a Well-Deserved Plea to the Studios

Awards season is officially in full swing. Last Sunday kicked off the film industry’s most anticipated time of the year with the Golden Globes, which gave much-needed boosts to contenders like Kieran Culkin, Zoe Saldaña, and Adrien Brody as Oscar nomination voting wraps up. The Brutalist and Emilia Perez won the respective Best Picture awards for Drama and Comedy/Musical, confirming their status as the frontrunners. Demi Moore, in an already iconic speech, brought the house down with her win for Best Actress, fully cementing her comeback. And Nikki Glaser successfully washed out the bad aftertaste of Jo Koy’s disastrous hosting last year.

But maybe no moment hit harder than one of the ceremony’s final moments when The Brutalist won Best Picture. Director Brady Corbet, who’d...

Quick Links ‘The Brutalist’ Explores the Dark Side of the American Dream What Happens to Van Buren in ‘The Brutalist”? What Does the Epilogue to ‘The Brutalist’ Suggest?

Spoiler Alert: Spoilers follow for The BrutalistBrady Corbet’s The Brutalist is one of the buzziest movies of 2024. Against all odds, the film lives up to the hype — The Brutalist is a staggeringly ambitious, enthralling spectacle that feels almost like a classic from the 1970s. It very well might be the best film of the year, period, and it seems a given that it’ll be an Oscar contender.

Clocking in at a runtime of just over three and a half hours (including a fifteen-minute intermission), the film is a massive undertaking, but it somehow feels half its length. The first act in particular includes some of the most exhilarating filmmaking of the last decade, proving a captivating immigrant saga and a...

The ever-talented Felicity Jones continues to prove her on-screen talents following a run of successful leading roles over the years, from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story to The Theory of Everything — the latter earning her an Academy Award nomination. Her latest awards contender, the A24 film The Brutalist, finds Jones alongside Oscar-winner Adrien Brody. They play a Hungarian refugee couple seeking a fruitful life in post-World War II America. Jones plays a sharp-witted but disease-stricken writer named Erzsébet, whose skilled architect of a husband, László (Brody), arrives in America far before she does. They finally reconnect in the U.S. while he's busy bringing to life an epic project thought up by a wealthy American industrialist named Harrison (Guy Pearce).

MovieWeb recently caught up with Jones in-person in Los Angeles to learn more about her groundbreaking new dramatic film (all 215 minutes of it) and the through line of the...

Amazon MGM is getting into the race car business thanks to news that a new drama series centered around the world of Formula 1 is being developed for Prime Video. The best part? Felicity Jones is set to lead the cast of what's being titled One, which is the first-ever sanctioned scripted series by the Fia.

Per Variety, Jones is set to both lead and executive produce One, which is said to "focus on a failing family-owned racing team, led by Jones’ character, as it contends with fierce personalities, ever-changing rivals and multi-million-dollar stakes." It should be made clear that, as of right now, the F1 drama is currently in the developmental stage, and an official series order has yet to be made by Amazon, meaning that there is still a slight chance that things could fall apart. Jones will produce through her Piecrust Pictures label, while Mark Fergus and...

As one of the last major Oscar contenders to release in 2024, finding out where to watch The Brutalist is a significant question for all awards season enthusiasts. Ever since Brady Corbet's movie debuted at the Venice International Film Festival, it has been seen as a contender for the 2025 Oscars season. Starring Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, and others, The Brutalist follows Brody's character, László Toth, as he journeys to America to start fresh and blazes a trail thanks to incredible architectural abilities. It put Adrien Brody firmly in the list of predicted 2025 Oscars Best Actor nominations.

Although buzz for The Brutalist's cast and crew began back at Venice following its September debut, the film was first seen without confirmed distribution plans. A24 acquired the rights to the film afterward, reportedly for around $10 million (per Variety), and elected to give the film a wide theatrical release - far...

The first trailer for Brady Corbet’s epic “The Brutalist,” starring Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones, has been released.

The official logline reads, “When visionary architect László Toth (Brody) and his wife Erzsébet (Jones) flee post-war Europe in 1947 to rebuild their legacy and witness the birth of modern America, their lives are changed forever by a mysterious and wealthy client.”

Additional cast members include Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn, Raffey Cassidy, Stacy Martin, Isaach De Bankolé, Alessandro Nivola, Ariane Labed, Michael Epp, Emma Laird, Jonathan Hyde and Peter Polycarpou.

Following “The Brutalist” premiere at the 81st annual Venice Film Festival, Variety film critic Owen Gleiberman described the sprawling examination of the Hungarian architect as “an echt-American tale of immigration and ambition, and of what it means to be an artist. But it’s also a tale of what it means to be Jewish in a world that approaches Jews with supreme ambivalence.

A24 now confirms the U.S. release date for The Brutalist. Directed by Brady Corbet, the historical epic stars Adrien Brody as Hungarian-born Jewish architect, Lszl Tth, who flees post-war Europe with his wife to begin a new life in America, with a mysterious client then changing the course of their lives forever. The Brutalist reviews were glowing from critics following the film's premiere at the Venice Film Festival, with A24 subsequently securing domestic distrubution rights.

Now, per Deadline, A24 has set The Brutalist's limited U.S. release date for December 20, 2024. An exact number of theaters the film will play in has not yet been released. The release date confirmation arrives as The Brutalist remains at an impressive 98% on Rotten Tomatoes following its 13-minute standing ovation at Venice, at which Corbet won the Golden Lion award for Best Director.

What The Brutalist's Domestic Release Means For The Film Corbet's...

Brady Corbet’s historical drama “The Brutalist,” starring Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones and Guy Pearce, wowed Venice Film Festival on Sunday with a 12-minute standing ovation.

Brody, who stars in the film as a Hungarian Holocaust survivor struggling to revive his career as an architect in the U.S., was overcome with emotion as the clapping raged on, lasting until security ushered everyone out. The actor wiped tears away and held his head in his hands, repeatedly trying to direct the applause toward his director and co-stars, but the spotlight kept falling back on him.

The stunningly shot three-and-a-half hour drama, which included a 15-minute intermission, follows Brody’s character, László Tóth, over nearly four decades as he immigrates to the U.S. and begins working for a rich but hot-headed man who wants to build an ambitious community center. He helps László reunite with his ailing wife (Jones) and...

I'm not someone who naturally gives preference to a film based on the size of its ambition. The filmmaking challenge of marshaling a massive production doesn't guarantee the final product will be any more impactful as a piece of art. But there's nothing quite like a big swing that connects, is there? The Brutalist is a colossal achievement, balancing intimacy and scale at every level of craft. At 3 hours, 35 minutes, it asks a lot from its viewers. Every second is well spent.

The Brutalist

Director Brady CorbetRelease Date October 12, 2024Writers Brady Corbet, Mona FastvoldCast Stephen Saracco, Laura Bta, Daniel Washington, Zephan Hanson Amissah, Robert Jackson, Peter Linka, Rudolf Molnr, Jaymes Butler, Michael Epp, Natalie Shinnick, Peter Polycarpou, Jeremy Wheeler, Matt Devere, Nick Wittman, Emma Laird, Guy Pearce, Felicity Jones, Isaach De Bankole, Joe Alwyn, Stacy Martin, Alessandro Nivola, Raffey Cassidy, Jonathan Hyde, Adrien BrodyGenres Drama

The film follows Lszl Tth...

Brady Corbet, who is premiering his three-and-a-half hour historical drama “The Brutalist” at Venice Film Festival on Sunday, is shrugging off discourse around movie runtimes being too long.

“This film does everything that we are told we are not allowed to do,” the director said during “The Brutalist’s” press conference. “I think it’s quite silly actually to have a conversation about runtime because that’s like criticizing a book for being 700 pages instead of 100 pages.”

He continued that, for him, it’s more about “how much story there is to tell.”

“Maybe the next thing I make will be 45 minutes and I should be allowed to do it. We should all be allowed to do that. The idea we have to fit into a box is quite silly,” he said. “We should be past that, it’s 2024. As Harmony Korine once said, cinema is stuck in the birth canal.

As Adrien Brody‘s post-wwii epic prepares to make its world premiere, the Lido audience is in for quite an onscreen journey.

The Academy Award winner defended the 215-minute runtime of his upcoming movie The Brutalist, premiering Sunday at the Venice Film Festival, as he also prepares to make his London stage debut in The Fear of 13.

“The funny thing, which just occurred to me yesterday, is I’m here in London preparing to do a play with no intermission,” he told Vanity Fair. “And I have a movie that needs an intermission. [Laughs] It’s very strange, but I think it gives time to reflect too.

“It’s hard to tell a lifetime in a film. That’s why we have so much episodic content. I think audiences will like the event aspect of this. It’s very exciting to go see a movie and take a little break in between,...

Focus Features has bought international rights to Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist,” starring Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce and Joe Alwyn, Variety has learned.

Corbet, who sits on the Berlinale jury, penned the film with Mona Fastvold (“The World to Come”), a Norwegian filmmaker who is also his wife. The film charts 30 years in the lives of visionary architect László Toth and his wife, Erzsébet, who flee post-war Europe in 1947 and witness the birth of modern America. László initially endures poverty and indignity, but the architect’s genius soon catches the attention of charming industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren, whose dark influence threatens to destroy everything László and his wife have built.

The cast is completed by Raffey Cassidy (“White Noise”), Isaach De Bankolé (“Casino Royale”), Alessandro Nivola (“The Many Saints of Newark”), Stacy Martin (“Nymphomaniac Vol I”), Emma Laird (“Mayor of Kingstown”), Jonathan Hyde (“Titanic”) and Peter Polycarpou...

Adrien Brody is to lead the cast of 'The Brutalist'.The 49-year-old actor is to star in the new drama movie from director Brady Corbet and will be joined in an all-star cast by Felicity Jones, Joe Alwyn and Guy Pearce.Alessandro Nivola, Raffey Cassidy, Isaach De Bankole, Stacy Martin, Jonathan Hyde and Peter Polycarpou are also set to feature.'The Brutalist' follows architect Laszlo Toth (Brody) and his wife Erzsebet (Jones) as they flee post-war Europe and begin a new life in America. However, a mysteriously wealthy client (Pearce) interrupts their plans.The movie captures 30 years of Laszlo Toth's life and charts an epic saga that takes Laszlo and Erzsebet to monumental heights and devastating lows.Corbet has written the script for the film with his partner Mona Fastvold and principal photography on the project has commenced in Hungary.'The Brutalist' was first announced in 2020 and the original cast included Joel Edgerton,...

We knew there was a cosmetic change in terms of who might be part of the ensemble, but who and how the new lego pieces fit has finally been revealed. Deadline confirms that Brady Corbet’s long-awaited third feature (which is currently being filmed in Hungary) will be comprised of Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn, Isaach De Bankolé, Alessandro Nivola, Jonathan Hyde, Peter Polycarpou, (with a re-teaming with) Raffey Cassidy and Stacy Martin. The Brutalist also sees Crobet reteam with his The Childhood of a Leader and Vox Lux cinematographer Lol Crawley. we imagine that filming will conclude in late April or early May with the team moving to the US for the second half of the shoot.…...

Brady Corbet's The Brutalist, his first feature since 2018's Vox Lux, has assembled an all-star cast. Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, and Joe Alwyn will star in the upcoming decades-spanning drama. In addition to Brody, Jones, Pearce, and Alwyn, the film will also star Raffey Cassidy (White Noise), Isaach De Bankolé (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever), Alessandro Nivola (Face/Off), Stacy Martin (Nymphomaniac), Jonathan Hyde (Titanic), and Peter Polycarpou (Evita).

Brady Corbet has debuted the next star-studded cast for his upcoming feature.

The “Vox Lux” and “Childhood Of a Leader” director helms and co-writes “The Brutalist,” starring Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, and Joe Alwyn. IndieWire can confirm that Alessandro Nivola, Raffey Cassidy, Isaach De Bankolé, Stacy Martin, Jonathan Hyde, and Peter Polycarpou also star.

“The Brutalist” follows architect László Toth (Brody) and his wife Erzsébet (Jones) as they flee post-war Europe and restart their lives in America. Yet a mysteriously wealthy client (Pearce) complicates their plans. The film captures 30 years of László Toth’s life, charting an epic saga and an unconventional love story that take László and Erzsébet to both monumental heights and devastating lows.

Corbet co-wrote the script with partner Mona Fastvold (“The World To Come”). Principal photography has begun in Hungary as of April 2023. Director of photography Lol Crawley (“White Noise”), composer Daniel Blumberg (“The World To Come...

Exclusive: Oscar winner Adrien Brody (The Pianist), Oscar nominee Felicity Jones (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story), Emmy winner Guy Pearce (Mare of Easttown) and Conversations With Friends and The Favourite star Joe Alwyn are among cast confirmed for Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist.

Principal photography began in recent weeks in Hungary with cast also comprising Raffey Cassidy (White Noise), Isaach De Bankolé (Casino Royale), Alessandro Nivola (The Many Saints Of Newark), Stacy Martin (Nymphomaniac Vol I), Jonathan Hyde (Titanic), and Peter Polycarpou (Evita).

Word has been seeping out on social media and on blogs (including our friends at World Of Reel) about some of the rumoured casting but this is the first official confirmation from the production about the new configuration of the project we first revealed three years ago.

Co-written by Vox Lux and Childhood Of A Leader filmmaker Corbet with partner Mona Fastvold (The World To Come...

The top honorees at the 2023 Laurence Olivier Awards were plays that focused on cultures outside of London. “My Neighbour Totoro,” which is based on the beloved Japanese film of the same name from Studio Ghibli, won six trophies, the most of the night, including Best New Comedy, Director, and four craft categories. A revival of the American classic “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams claimed three: Best Play Revival and for lead Paul Mescal and featured player Anjana Vasan. Meanwhile, the British-based “Prima Facie,” which is set to bow on Broadway this month and will thus compete at the Tony Awards, took home two prizes for Best Play and for star Jodie Comer.

The only other productions to win more than one trophy were all musicals. “Standing at the Sky’s Edge” won two of the top prizes: Best Musical and Best Original Score or New Orchestrations. “Tammy Faye,...

Two new works based on existing material dominated the nominations for the 2023 Olivier Awards, the top theatre honor in Britain. “My Neighbour Totoro” and “Standing at the Sky’s Edge” lead the play and musical fields with nine and eight bids apiece. The former is a stage adaptation of the Studio Ghibli film of the same name, brought to life in a visually stunning production featuring impressive puppetry by Basil Twist. “Standing at the Sky’s Edge” uses songs from the Richard Hawley album and new material to tell the story of three families in a Sheffield housing complex.

Revivals had strong showings, too. Director Daniel Fish’s remounting of “Rodger & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!” and the Paul Mescal-led “A Streetcar Named Desire” netted seven and six nominations, respectively. This production of “Oklahoma!” previously played Broadway and received eight Tony Award nominations, including wins for Best Revival and Featured Actress...

To mark the release of The Bezonians, out now, we’ve been given 1 copy to give away on DVD.

Meet big boss man Plato (Andreas Karras), he’s a family man with old fashioned values and questionable beliefs who runs the Bezonians Social Club, where a colourful bunch – from Greek immigrants to a merry mix of lonely locals – have spent much of their lives. Gambling away their savings, drinking away their sorrows deep into the night while putting the world to rights – over the years they have become his second family.

When Plato makes the mistake of playing poker with scheming bombshell Lola (Lois Brabin-Platt) it’s not long before things go terribly wrong… When Lola wins big, Plato is put in a tough bind, made all the worse when her sadistic boyfriend, Willard Greb (Vinnie Jones) gives him just 24-hours to come up the cash, putting everything and everyone he knows at risk.

Two drastically different adult sisters are forced to learn how to live. and support each, together again after their husbands must atone for their crimes on the classic British sitcom, ‘Birds of a Feather.’ The BAFTA Award-nominate show has been critically acclaimed and loved by audiences throughout its entire run, in part because of its […]

The post Pauline Quirke and Linda Robson are Shocked When Peter Polycarpou Gets a Weekend Leave on Birds of a Feather appeared first on Shockya.com.

Stars: Sam Rockwell, Ben Schwartz, Phoebe Fox, Peter Ferdinando, Peter Polycarpou, Simon Callow, Frances Barber, Amanda Donohoe, Al Weaver, Glenn Wrage, Robin Hellier, Pedro Lloyd Gardiner, Andre Flynn, Perry Jaques, Anton Saunders, Vic Waghorn, Paul Chan, Martin Muncaster, Jack Silver, Tom Tunney | Written and Directed by Hadi Hajaig

Opening a crime film, an indie crime film for that matter, in a diner only screams to remind audiences of Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, setting a high bar for the film to come. Which, frankly, means your film better live up to that expectation… Thankfully Blue Iguana does.

Blue Iguana, a British-American crime film, tells the story of ex-jailbirds, Eddie (Sam Rockwell) and Paul (Ben Schwartz), who are on parole, working in a New York diner… Eddie is calm and confident, whereas, Paul is loud-mouthed and impulsive. They’re a team, but their lives are at a dead-end. That is, until...

Everyone remembers the best among the scrappy 1980s films that started American “indie film” in earnest — particularly those over-stylized, wink-wink comedies by Jim Jarmusch, Susan Seidelman, Alexandre Rockwell, and so on that were among the movement’s most influential early successes. Similarly, few could forget how much fun “Reservoir Dogs” and “Pulp Fiction” were, revitalizing the crime-caper genre with wit and outsized directorial personality.

What we’d prefer to forget is just how many labored comedy quirkfests and effortfully wiseass capers the above films “inspired” for years afterward — wannabe movies straining for the same qualities without any original inspiration, failing to find their own voice while deliberately or unconsciously mimicking somebody else’s. The majority of these pale imitations wound up a blip on the Sundance Festival radar — if they were lucky — then were forgotten ever after.

Unfortunately, those happily buried cinematic memories come rolling back with the arrival of “Blue Iguana,...

Sam Rockwell is worth seeing in anything, no matter how dire the circumstances in which the acting dynamo might find himself trapped. But Blue Iguana makes the freshly minted Oscar winner (for his totally worthy performance in Three Billboards) work way too hard to cut through the film’s blatant stupidity and buffet of clichés. Blue Iguana desperately seeks to be one of those artfully disreputable crime thrillers with a B-movie kick that’s hard to resist (think: Jonathan Demme’s Something Wild and George Armitage’s Miami Blues). I think not.

A kooky, disposable caper that’s light on charm and heavy on nonsense, Hadi Hajaig’s “Blue Iguana” was conceived as a throwback to the golden age of VHS crime-comedies — as the kind of freewheeling late-80s’ fare in which anything could happen because everything turned a profit on home video. And maybe, if you squint really hard, you can see the faintest shades of films like “Something Wild” or “Miami Blues” mixed into this manic parade of dumb criminals and even dumber plotting. Alas, anybody who watches Hajaig’s movie that closely will be more transfixed by the enormous gap between what the writer-director was going for and what he ultimately got.

Harkening back to John Lafia’s 1988 “The Blue Iguana” (a forgotten video store treasure starring Dylan McDermott as a bounty hunter) and Michael Radford’s more recent “Dancing at the Blue Iguana” (a Daryl Hannah/Sandra Oh...

Winners of the 42nd annual edition of the Olivier Awards were revealed in ceremony at London’s Royal Albert Hall on April 8 hosted by Catherine Tate. Unlike the Tony Awards, which are showcased live on CBS, the Olivier Awards gets only a clips package on ITV later that evening and a live feed on BBC Radio 2.

“Hamilton” won a record seven Olivier Awards, including Best Musical and for both leading man Giles Terera and supporting player Michael Jibson. “The Ferryman” took home Best Play as well as the combined award for directing (Sam Mendes) and Best Actress (Laura Donnelly).

See Dish the Tony and Olivier Awards with theater insiders in our notorious forum

Musicals

Best Musical

An American In Paris

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie

Girl From The North Country

X – Hamilton

Young Frankenstein

Best Musical Revival

42nd Street

X – Follies

On The Town

Best Actor (Musical)

Ciarán Hinds...

Two years after sweeping the Tony Awards, Lin-Manuel Miranda‘s musical “Hamilton” is poised to do the same at the British equivalent, the Olivier Awards. On March 6, it reaped a record 13 bids for these top theater prizes, shattering the record set by the musical “Hairspray” in 2008 and equalled by the play “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” last year. On the play side, the leading contender is Jez Butterworth‘s “The Ferryman,” a dark drama about the Irish troubles which is set to come to Broadway in the fall.

Winners will be announced in a ceremony at London’s Royal Albert Hall on April 8 hosted by Catherine Tate. Unlike the Tony Awards, which are showcased live on CBS, the Olivier Awards get only a clips package on ITV later that evening and a live feed on BBC Radio 2.

“Hamilton” is clearly the frontrunner for Best Musical. Conor McPherson’s “Girl From The North Country,...

The Lincoln Center Theater's critically acclaimed production of Oslo, is now previewing at the National Theatre with press performances on 15, 16, 18 September. The production then transfers to the Harold Pinter Theatre in London's West End 2 October - 30 December 2017. BroadwayWorld has photos of Toby Stephens in the role of social-scientist Terje Rod-Larsen, Lydia Leonard as his wife, diplomat Mona Juul and Peter Polycarpou as Ahmed Qurie, the former Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority, below...

Betty Buckley, Christine Baranski, Lorna Luft, Charlotte Page, Peter Polycarpou, Amy Ellen Richardson and Jos Slovick complete the cast of Follies in Concert, with The City of London Philharmonic Orchestra, at the prestigious Royal Albert Hall on Tuesday 28th April, alongside ensemble members Sarah Bakker, Cj Field, Jennifer Davison, Emily Warner, Lucy James and Luke Fetherstone. Below, check out a look inside rehearsal, featuring Baranski and more...

Sean Bean plays a British undercover spook forced to go "off reservation" in a desperate bid to thwart an Islamic terrorist cell operating in London. His implacable foe is Ash (Abhin Galeya), a law student turned Moslem avenger steered by Peter Polycarpou's radical cleric. Just one step behind the fanatics, Bean doesn’t know who to trust in this timely debut thriller from writer-director Hadi Hajaig.

The classic (and first) Rodgers & Hammerstein musical Oklahoma! gets a Blu-ray release. This Royal National Theatre production features Hugh Jackman in the lead and director Trevor Nunn at the helm. After finishing their run on the London stage, the cast filmed the musical in a large soundstage made to resemble their staging.

Jackman plays the cowboy Curly who is in love with farm girl Laurey (Josefina Gabrielle), but their immature flirtation leads her to accept an invitation to the big social dance by creepy Jud (Shuler Hensley—who won an Olivier Award for this role). While Laurey's romantic drama plays out, Ado Annie (Vicki Simon) has her own relationship dilemma. She's torn between Persian peddler Ali Hakim (Peter Polycarpou) and her original sweetheart Will (Jimmy Johnston). With the help of Laurey's Aunt Eller (Maureen Lipman), the girls navigate the courtship rituals of frontier life.

Read more...

Cleanskin

Stars: Sean Bean, Abhin Galeya, Charlotte Rampling, Peter Polycarpou, Tuppence Middleton | Written and Directed by Hadi Hajaig

By definition “cleanskin” is the name given to a terrorist that is unknown, does not have a history that shows them to be a threat. If anything this makes them the perfect person to enact an attack. The film Cleanskin is a look at this type of person who is planning an attack, while we also see the viewpoint of the people trying to stop them.

After failing on an undercover mission to stop explosives getting into the wrong hands Ewan a secret service agent finds it his task to discover who stole it and to stop them using it for suicide bombings. In the different perspective we see the manipulation of Ash, a man disillusioned by the life in the United Kingdom where he is branded just for his beliefs and his perceived nationality.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

It’s all in the edit they say, and having taken on the roles of writer, director, and producer, perhaps Hadi Hajaig, the man behind terrorism thriller Cleanskin, should have handed the reins of editor to someone else. Because buried within the somewhat messy cut we’re presented with is a more cohesive, and ultimately clearer film waiting to escape.

There are numerous illogical leaps and sequential mis-steps that create a mood of unreality at the very points that the story is trying to impress us with it’s hard-edged grit, and the inconsistent pacing from gratifyingly effective action to flashbacks that would try the patience of Basil Exposition leave you ultimately either questioning the story-tellers nous, or even more damning, wondering when the story’s going to end.

Hadi Hajaig’s professed intention was to make a commercial action thriller, a piece of populist genre entertainment,...

Special agent Ewan (Sean Bean), encouraged if not exactly licensed to kill by MI5, is in relentless pursuit of London-bred Islamic terrorist Ash (Abhin Galeya). Ewan is an inarticulate patriot, a military veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, whose wife has been killed by a suicide bomber. He's being manipulated by upper-class figures (Charlotte Rampling and James Fox) who exploit the war on terror in the interest of party politics. Ash is an articulate convert, an idealist recruited to terrorism by a wily, silver-tongued Muslim cleric (Peter Polycarpou), preying on discontented, déraciné youngsters. It's a competent, conventional thriller, but there's something suspiciously unbalanced going on here.

ThrillerPhilip French

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John Carter (12A)

(Andrew Stanton, 2012, Us) Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Mark Strong, Dominic West, Samantha Morton, Ciarán Hinds. 132 mins

Despite the technological might of Pixar, this Martian epic still feels closer to retro fare such as Flash Gordon or Dune. It's a cumbersome hero's journey fully of silly names, skimpy costumes and princesses in peril – stuff we've seen recycled so many times since Edgar Rice Burroughs first wrote this, it now feels laughably quaint. Still, it's always fun to see an expensively rendered alien world, even if cheesy myth-making comes with the territory.

Trishna (15)

(Michael Winterbottom, 2011, UK) Freida Pinto, Riz Ahmed, Roshan Seth. 113 mins

Hardy's Tess looks a comfortable fit with modern-day India in this naturalistic drama, which takes liberties with the text but finds new resonances, as Pinto's subdued villager struggles to find happiness with a wealthy young British-Indian.

The Raven (15)

(James McTeigue, 2012, Us) John Cusack, Alice Eve, Luke Evans.

Cleanskin First Five Minutes Clip. Hadi Hajaig‘s Cleanskin (2012) first five (5) minute movie clip stars Sean Bean, Abhin Galeya, Charlotte Rampling, Peter Polycarpou, and Tuppence Middleton. Cleanskin‘s plot synopsis: ” Sean Bean, who plays Ewan, a Secret Service Agent working undercover in the criminal underbelly of London. His mission is to pose as the body guard of a small time arms dealer and discover who he is selling the Semtex to.

However, when they are brazenly ambushed by a masked gunman in a West End hotel lobby, Ewan is shot and wounded and the dealer assassinated. The Semtex is stolen.

Days later, a suicide bomber detonates himself inside a busy London restaurant and the Secret Services worse fears are confirmed — the stolen Semtex was used in the bombing. There is a terrorist cell operating in London, hell bent on bringing death and destruction to the nation’s capital. Briefed by...

Hot on the heels of the clip that we put up last week, Digital Spy have just released the first five minutes if Sean Bean’s new movie, Cleanskin which hits cinemas next Friday 9th March. It seems to be becoming the norm for studios to release large chunks of a movie to reel you into you local multiplex to see more of the movie that you’re hopefully enjoying in small segments. It will of course be a shame if the first five minutes are the best bit. Take Meet Joe Black for example!

Anyway, Cleanskin also stars Charlotte Rampling, Abhin Galeya, Peter Polycarpou and Tuppence Middleton. and is directed by Hadi Hajaig.

Sophisticated British action thriller Cleanskin explodes onto cinema screens in March with an exciting cast lead by Sean Bean, who plays Ewan, a Secret Service Agent working undercover in the criminal underbelly of London. His mission...

Here’s a new and exclusive look at Sean Bean’s new movie Cleanskin which hits UK cinemas on 9th March. Cleanskin is directed by Hadi Hajaig and also stars Abhin Galeya, Charlotte Rampling, Peter Polycarpou, Tuppence Middleton, Tom Burke, Sam Douglas and Michelle Ryan.

Sophisticated British action thriller Cleanskin explodes onto cinema screens in March with an exciting cast lead by Sean Bean, who plays Ewan, a Secret Service Agent working undercover in the criminal underbelly of London. His mission is to pose as the body guard of a small time arms dealer and discover who he is selling the Semtex to. However, when they are brazenly ambushed by a masked gunman in a West End hotel lobby, Ewan is shot and wounded and the dealer assassinated. The Semtex is stolen.

Days later, a suicide bomber detonates himself inside a busy London restaurant and the Secret Services worse fears...

Man, I hope he doesn’t die in this one. When Sean Bean stars in a movie that involves gunplay, swordplay, or any type of play involving sharp/dangerous objects, the chances of Bean’s character dying is, like, multiplied by a few hundred factors. I believe that has been scientifically proven. In “Cleanskin”, Eddard Stark himself plays a badass British Guv’ment agent who must stop a Muslim terrorist cell. Judging by the film’s tagline, I suspect said terrorist will have ties to the Guv’ment, and possibly a conspiracy or two, possibly involving Charlotte Rampling, who looks very suspicious skulking about the screen. The UK gets the film on March 9th, 2012. Stateside fans of the Beanster will probably have to wait for the DVD release, since I don’t see a Bean-fronted movie getting a theatrical release, even a limited one, over here. Which sucks for us,...

Bwwuk understands that the original cast of Les Miserables are currently locked in a dispute with First Night Records about the royalties of their cast recording. Peter Polycarpou originally ensemble, later Grantaire and Thenardier and then John in Miss Saigon tweeted on Friday First Night Records have said that they no longer want to pay us Les Mis royalties after 25 years.