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Following its buzzy world premiere at SXSW earlier this year, Gerard Johnson’s latest feature Odyssey is set to bring its neon-soaked grit to UK audiences, with premieres at the Edinburgh International Film Festival on 15 August and FrightFest London on 25 August, before opening nationwide on 7 November.

The film stars Polly Maberly as Natasha Flynn, a sharp-witted, high-powered real estate agent whose lavish lifestyle is built on debt and deception. When her loan sharks demand repayment, she is pulled into a dangerous criminal scheme that forces her to reconnect with a volatile figure from her past. As colleagues close in, and the criminal underworld tightens its grip, Natasha’s calculated world unravels into a frantic descent through London’s underbelly.

Maberly’s performance has been singled out by early viewers for its balance of icy ambition and raw vulnerability, anchoring a cast that includes Swedish star Mikael Persbrandt, Guy Burnet (Oppenheimer...

The official trailer and poster for ‘Odyssey,’ the highly anticipated new film from acclaimed British writer-director Gerard Johnson, has arrived — and it’s every bit as stylish, gritty, and darkly hilarious as fans of his previous work might expect.

Led by a ferocious, career-defining performance from Muscle’s Polly Maberly, the film made its explosive World Premiere earlier this year at SXSW, and is gearing up for its UK debut at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and a high-profile London premiere at FrightFest later this month, ahead of a nationwide theatrical release.

Maberly stars as Natasha Flynn, a coke-fuelled London estate agent whose high-end façade is crumbling under the weight of addiction, debt, and desperation. When a pair of shady loan sharks offer her quick cash to stash a kidnapped rival agent, Natasha dives headfirst into a nightmare journey through the capital’s seediest corners — one laced with menace, mayhem,...

This post contains spoilers from MobLand season 1 episode 4, “Rat Trap.”

The deeper we get into MobLand, the more I feel for Harry (Tom Hardy). He has the weight of the world on his shoulders and is the only thing preventing the fury between two powerful, ready-for-war crime families from unleashing, as both use him to their full advantage.

While episode 3 saw Harry working overtime to keep the warring waters smooth as police received an anonymous tip about where to find Archie’s (Alex Jennings) body, episode 4 sees him go from being a fixer to a suspected rat.

Additionally, Richie (Geoff Bell) makes a decision about Valjon (Peter Ferdinando), a new (suspicious) character claiming to be an old friend of Harry’s shows up, and we're inundated with a bounty of shocking revelations that expose both traumatic secrets and massive secrets, including the full truth behind Tommy’s (Felix Edwards) death.

This post contains spoilers from MobLand season 1 episode 3, “Plan B.”

Now that Tommy (Felix Edwards) has been found, the real challenge begins for our fixer: preventing a bloody war. Harry (Tom Hardy) promised Richie (Geoff Bell) that he’d find his son, and he did… just not in one piece. Richie makes a brazen move in the opening of episode 3 and sends the Harrigans a message that he’s done waiting and is coming for them.

Additionally, Harry continues to juggle problems that need fixing, like his crumbling marriage, his housekeeper’s mother’s financial issues, and something secretive with Kevin’s (Paddy Considine) wife Bella (Lara Pulver), who has gone to great lengths to set her father up and record him bribing a foreign official, only to find herself the subject of extortion by a French spy.

What the purpose and endgame are here we do not yet know.

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Subservience is a sci-fi thriller film with a tinge of eroticism directed by S.K. Dale from a screenplay co-written by Will Honley and April Maguire. The Megan Fox film follows the story of Nick, a struggling father who buys a lifelike AI android named Alice to help with the housework after his wife gets sick but he soon begins to realize Alice is becoming self-aware and a danger for his family. Subservience also 365 Days famed actor Michele Morrone and Californication‘s Madeline Zima in the lead roles with Matilda Firth, Jude Allen Greenstein, and Andrew Whipp starring in supporting roles. So, if you loved the sci-fi thrillers, compelling characters, and Black Mirror themes in Subservience here are some similar movies you should check out next.

Wifelike (Paramount+ & Rent on Prime Video) Credit – Paramount Pictures

Wifelike is a...

“Sexy Beast” is the new crime thriller prequel TV series, spinning-off from director Jonathan Glazer’s 2000 feature, now streaming on Paramount+:

“…’Sexy Beast’ traces the origins of best friends ‘Gal Dove’ (James McArdle) and ‘Don Logan’ (Emun Elliott), two thieves navigating London’s criminal underworld during the 1990’s.

“The duo will cross paths with ‘DeeDee Harrison’ (Sarah Greene), an adult star who begins a love affair with Gal, and ‘Teddy Bass’ (Stephen Moyer), a crime boss who recruits Gal and Don to work for his empire…”

Additional cast members include Tamsin Greig, Eliza Bennett, Ralph Brown, John Dagleish, Peter Ferdinando, Nitin Ganatra, Robbie Gee, Alice Bailey Johnson, Paul Kaye, David Kennedy, Cally Lawrence, Clea Martin, Nicholas Nunn, Julian Rhind-Tutt, and Lex Shrapnel.

Click the images to enlarge…...

“Sexy Beast” is the new prequel TV series,, from director Jonathan Glazer’s 2000 crime thriller, streaming January 25, 2024 on Paramount+:

“…’Sexy Beast’ traces the origins of best friends ‘Gal Dove’ (James McArdle) and ‘Don Logan’ (Emun Elliott), two thieves navigating London’s criminal underworld during the 1990’s.

“The duo will cross paths with ‘DeeDee Harrison’ (Sarah Greene), an adult star who begins a love affair with Gal, and ‘Teddy Bass’ (Stephen Moyer), a crime boss who recruits Gal and Don to work for his empire…”

Additional cast members include Tamsin Greig, Eliza Bennett, Ralph Brown, John Dagleish, Peter Ferdinando, Nitin Ganatra, Robbie Gee, Alice Bailey Johnson, Paul Kaye, David Kennedy, Cally Lawrence, Clea Martin, Nicholas Nunn, Julian Rhind-Tutt, and Lex Shrapnel.

Click the images to enlarge…...

Sexy Beast is coming to Paramount+ later this month, and the streaming service has now released a trailer and poster teasing the new series inspired by the 2000 film of the same name.

Starring James McArdle, Emun Elliott, Tamsin Greig, Stephen Moyer, and Sarah Greene, the series is a prequel to the film set in the 1990s and shows the origins of the relationship between Gal and Don (McArdle and Elliot). Eliza Bennett, Clea Martin, Nicholas Nunn, Peter Ferdinando, John Dagleish, Robbie Gee, Paul Kaye, Lex Shrapnel, Cally Lawrence, David Kennedy, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Ralph Brown, Nitin Ganatra, and Alice Bailey Johnson also appear in the series.

Read More…...

A prequel television series to classic crime drama Sexy Beast will stream on Paramount+. Here’s the trailer…

Writer and director Jonathan Glazer is currently enjoying a plaudits for his Holocaust drama The Zone Of Interest. Based on the 2014 novel by Martin Amis, it follows Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hess and his wife as they try to build a life living next door to the concentration camp.

Chosen as the British entry for Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards, the film is due to be released in UK cinemas on the 2nd February.

Astonishingly, Glazer has only made four feature films in his career thus far – Sexy Beast in 2000, Birth in 2004, Under The Skin in 2013 and Zone Of Interest. Sexy Beast continues to have notable impact too, staying in the cultural conversation long after it was released. The film followed Ray Winstone as Gary ‘Gal’ Dove, a criminal...

"People have been killed over this. This is bigger than we think!" Paramount has revealed an official trailer for a crime comedy series called Sexy Beast, a rehash prequel based on the film of the same name. Filmed in/around London, this will be debuting on Paramount+ in the US exclusively at the end of January. It's a prequel to Jonathan Glazer's 2000 film Sexy Beast (with Ben Kingsley & Ray Winstone), telling the origin story of the Gal Dove, Don Logan and Teddy Bass characters. Starring James McArdle, Emun Elliott, Tamsin Greig, Stephen Moyer, and Sarah Greene, with Eliza Bennett, Clea Martin, Nicholas Nunn, Peter Ferdinando. "I feel very fortunate to be a part of this world," states James McArdle. "The original story leaves so much space for us all to wonder what happened within Gal and Don’s friendship in the years prior. I’m looking forward to everyone...

“Sexy Beast” is the new prequel TV series to director Jonathan Glazer’s crime thriller feature , streaming January 25, 2024 on Paramount+:

“…’Sexy Beast’ traces the origins of best friends ‘Gal Dove’ (James McArdle) and ‘Don Logan’ (Emun Elliott), two thieves navigating London’s criminal underworld during the 1990’s.

“The duo will cross paths with ‘DeeDee Harrison’ (Sarah Greene), an adult star who begins a love affair with Gal, and ‘Teddy Bass’ (Stephen Moyer), a crime boss who recruits Gal and Don to work for his empire…”

Additional cast members include Tamsin Greig, Eliza Bennett, Ralph Brown, John Dagleish, Peter Ferdinando, Nitin Ganatra, Robbie Gee, Alice Bailey Johnson, Paul Kaye, David Kennedy, Cally Lawrence, Clea Martin, Nicholas Nunn, Julian Rhind-Tutt, and Lex Shrapnel.

Click the images to enlarge…...

Paramount+ has set January 25 for the premiere of Sexy Beast, the drama series prequel to the 2000 cult British gangster movie, starring James McArdle, Emun Elliott, Tamsin Greig, Stephen Moyer and Sarah Greene. The series will premiere exclusively on the service in the U.S. and international territories where available. You can check out some first-look photos below.

Produced by AC Chapter One and Anonymous Content, in association with Paramount Television International Studios, the prequel series explores the origins of Gal (McArdle) and Don’s (Elliott) complicated relationship as they find themselves descending into the seductive madness of the London criminal world during the vibrant and volatile 1990s, while Gal’s budding relationship with Deedee (Greene) threatens everything in their world.

“I feel very fortunate to be a part of this world,” said series star McArdle. “The original story leaves so much space for us all to wonder what happened within...

Emun Elliot as Don Logan and James McArdle as Gal Dove in ‘Sexy Beast’ episode 1 season 1 (Photo Credit: Matt Towers/Paramount+)

Paramount+ has set a January 25, 2024 premiere date for the drama Sexy Beast, a prequel to the 2000 feature film starring Sir Ben Kingsley and directed by Jonathan Glazer. The prequel series focuses on the backstories of Gal and Don, played by Ray Winstone and Kingsley in the Oscar-nominated feature film.

James McArdle (Mare of Easttown) stars as Gal Dove and Emun Elliott (The Rig) plays Don Logan. The eight-episode season also features Tamsin Greig (Episodes) as Cecilia, Stephen Moyer (who played an actual sexy beast in True Blood) as Teddy Bass, and Sarah Greene (Bad Sisters) as Deedee Harrison. Additional cast of season one includes Eliza Bennett (Dynasty), Clea Martin (Hanna), Nicholas Nunn (The Victim), Peter Ferdinando (The Letter for the King), John Dagleish (The Third Day), Robbie Gee (Motherland...

Warning! This article contains Spoilers for Operation Fortune.As Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre gradually unravels the tapestry around Mike's real identity and plan, it becomes evident that there is more to his characterization than meets the eye. Unfolding as a typical Guy Ritchie movie, Operation Fortune has an ensemble cast, features high-intensity action scenes, and reveals its quick-paced narrative in the backdrop of some picturesque locations. While its overarching storyline is fairly linear almost throughout its runtime, the movie has some well-timed, unforeseeable twists that effectively raise the stakes of its high-octane action and drama.

After Jason Statham's spy character, Orson Fortune, gets hired by the government to track down a stolen package called "The Handle" in Operation Fortune's opening arc, his mission comes off as a simple game of snatch-and-run, where he must track down the thieves and steal the package from them. Other than a...

Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre is an action thriller movie directed by Guy Ritchie, starring Jason Statham, Aubrey Plaza and Hugh Grant.

Guy Ritchie and Jason Statham became famous worldwide with a movie and years later they are back with another story. This time around, it’s not at all like the one about half-baked gangsters as in the first, but it does have the same spirit that brought them success: quality action cinema, creating excellently directed pure entertainment, with pace, irony and an elaborate sense of rhythm and editing.

An action movie of quality.

Movie Review

A film with quality, it’s nostalgic, it has an unbalanced sense of balance, it’s somewhat over-the-top action in a spy thriller full of puns that knows at all times how to tease the viewer through the pace, with what is expected of Statham as an undisputed action cinema icon, and with...

The following contains spoilers for Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre.Guy Ritchie's latest spy comedy, Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, sends super spy Orson Fortune (Jason Statham) on a risky mission to retrieve a mysterious object called 'the Handle,' the definition of which is a secret throughout the film. Orson is recruited by British government official Nathan Jasmine (Cary Elwes) to lead the ultimate undercover spy team, including hacker Sarah Fidel (Aubrey Plaza), movie star Danny Francesco (Josh Hartnett), and J.J. Davies (Bugzy Malone). In competition with Orson's rival Mike (Peter Ferdinando), the team races to get their hands on 'the Handle' before it can be sold for $10 million by eccentric billionaire Greg Simmonds (Hugh Grant).

The quest to retrieve 'the Handle' in this newest Guy Ritchie and Jason Statham movie is challenging because of the many players involved. A gang of Ukrainian mobsters originally steals the object...

Operation Fortune: Ruse de guerre Review — Operation Fortune: Ruse de guerre (2023) Film Review, a movie directed by Guy Ritchie, written by Ivan Atkinson, Marn Davies and Guy Ritchie and starring Jason Statham, Hugh Grant, Aubrey Plaza, Josh Hartnett, Cary Elwes, Bugzy Malone, Eddie Marsan, Peter Ferdinando, Lourdes Faberes, Sam Douglas, Tom Rosenthal, Oliver [...]

Continue reading: Film Review: Operation Fortune: Ruse De Guerre (2023): Guy Ritchie is Back with an Original and Intriguing Caper Film...

Quick question: Have you seen The Man From U.N.C.L.E.?

We don’t mean the popular TV show of the 1960s, in which Robert Vaughn and David McCallum surfed the era’s espionage-a-go-go wave and brought big Bond-style adventure to the little screen every week. We’re talking about the 2015 movie that wanted to replicate the series’ vintage spy-vs.-spy mojo, pairing Henry “Dude Cocks His Arms Like Shotguns!” Cavill and another gent whose name currently escapes us as a next-gen Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin, respectively.

So, all savvy filmgoers know that the season for big, noisy action blockbusters is the Summertime (when the livin’ is easy), but with Spring break looming, well, why wait for some popcorn escapism? After all, we’re right in the middle of two big superhero franchise entries (from the competing studios), and a few days away from a thriller in a horror series, not to mention a sports sequel that opens on the same day. It may just be the perfect time for a spy spectacular since Bond is in flux, Bourne is in limbo, and Mr. Cruise is about to trade in his flight suit for a tux full of nifty gadgets. I’m sure this new movie hopes to begin a “tentpole”, as it mixes in some satire and some “caper” elements. Plus there’s a fan-favorite director behind Operation Fortune: Ruse De Guerre.

The opening sequence throws...

When a movie gets tangled up in all kinds of financial problems, delayed for over a year, played out internationally, sent straight to streaming in Canada, and then finally getting the green light to open in the U.S. via a new distributor and thrown into theaters with virtually no notice or time to mount a marketing campaign, you have to think there must be something very wrong here.

Well surprise, surprise. The awkwardly titled Operation Fortune: Ruse De Guerre is loads of fun, an entertaining spy thriller that is faithful to the genre, very well cast, and a hoot to watch. Caught up in the STX mess and then handled by Miramax and a distribution service deal for Lionsgate, the film has been played out in much of the world but is finally being released stateside in a theatrical run that has been so rushed it sadly may not...

When it comes to the genre playgrounds he loves so much, is Guy Ritchie better off being himself or playing along? His brash, bad-lad calling cards were never terribly original, but their style-to-burn derivativeness had spirit. His Hollywood larks never felt honest but the occasional glimpse of a bruiser’s cockiness made for colorful upgrades in the IP machinery.

After Ritchie’s return to leaner (but never in the dialogue) roots with the comically shaggy, seedy gangster wingding “The Gentlemen,” and reteaming with his best contribution to cinema — Jason Statham — for the brackish vengeance puddle “Wrath of Man,” the British filmmaker is once again aiming for sleek and starry heights with the spy-driven action comedy “Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre.”

Statham is the “Fortune” of the title, first name Orson, an elite for-hire operative with clever ideas and expensive tastes, hired by intelligence agency rep Nathan (Cary Elwes) to determine...

To mark the release of Archive, out now, we’ve been given 3 copies to give away on Blu-ray.

A roboticist, George Almore, is on the verge of a breakthrough. Stationed at a remote, secret facility, he has been working on a model that is a true, human equivalent android. His latest prototype, J3, is almost complete.

Development of J3 has been achieved through two earlier prototypes, J1 and J2. Each prototype is an increasingly advanced version of his wife, Jules, who died in a brutal car crash. Driven by love for Jules, George has secretly skewed the focus of his work: developing the robots towards the goal of creating a simulacra of Jules.

As his work approaches its final and riskiest stages, external forces threaten to discover and shutdown his facility while the introduction of the highly advanced J3 collapses the delicate ‘family’ balance inside the facility.

Written and directed by Gavin Rothery,...

In a future near enough to be recognisable and far enough away to be believable, scientist George Almore (Theo James) works alone at an aging remote outpost hidden in the snowy forests of Japan. His goal is to create a new artificial intelligence for the Arm Corporation which funds his work. But secretly he has his own agenda: create a realistic robot capable of taking on the persona of his deceased wife Jules (Stacy Martin) who died in a horrific car crash that George survived.

Luckily George has Jules’ memories backed up in an Archive – a storage device created by the Archive Corporation that enables a loved one up to 200 hours interaction with the deceased as a means to come to terms with the loss and say a final goodbye. But George has good reason to invalidate the warranty by tinkering with the imposing black monolith (imagine if Stanley Kubrick...

In his latest interview/podcast, host and screenwriter Stuart Wright interviews writer/director Gerard Johnson about his latest feature film, the neo – ‘Newcastle’ – noir thriller Muscle.

Simon is a young man who has been working in an ordinary office for a long time. He leads a measured lifestyle, in which every day he repeats the previous one. Routine tightens deeper and deeper, and it seems that he will never get out of it. But one day a personal trainer named Terry bursts into his everyday life. From that moment on, everything changes in the most dramatic way.

Muscle, which Craig Fairbrass, Cavan Clerkin, Peter Ferdinando, Polly Maberly, Sinead Matthews and Mark Stobbart, is in selected UK cinemas and available across most on demand platforms including BFI Player and Curzon Player now.

Archive Trailer 2 — Vertical Entertainment has released the second movie trailer for Archive (2020). You can view here the first Archive Film Trailer. Cast and crew Gavin Rothery‘s Archive stars Theo James, Stacy Martin, Toby Jones, Rhona Mitra, Peter Ferdinando, Jeremy Wheeler, and Hans Peterson. Rothery wrote the screenplay [...]

Continue reading: Archive (2020) Movie Trailer 2: Theo James’ Cybernetics Employer Discovers His Dead-wife-resurrection Secret...

In the latest in his series of Rewind reviews looking back at the career of writer/director Ben Wheatley, Chris takes a look at his 2015 film, High Rise.

Stars: Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons, Sienna Miller, Luke Evans, Elisabeth Moss, James Purefoy, Keeley Hawes, Peter Ferdinando, Sienna Guillory, Reece Shearsmith | Written by Amy Jump | Directed by Bean Wheatley

Ben Wheatley films are rather good, so I have been re-watching them. The latest is High Rise, which is based on the 1975 novel by J.G Ballard. I was a big fan of the novel, and this is an excellent telling of a wonderfully chilling story. Dr Lang (Tom Hiddleston) is newly arrived at a new high-rise development (Canary Wharf… before Canary Wharf was a thing). Lang can put on whatever mask is required to fit into his circumstances. As he moves in, he is introduced to a love interest, Charlotte Melville (Sienna...

It’s always extra frustrating when a biopic falls short, especially if its subject is as compelling as the relationship between two brilliant iconoclasts like Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West.

It’s a shame, too, that many in the audience will get their introduction to Sackville-West via “Vita and Virginia.” In reality, she was an extraordinarily complicated, trailblazing bisexual writer who lived on her own terms regardless of the price to herself or others in her orbit. Here, she comes across as a spoiled and superficial narcissist who is merely, as one character intones amid the film’s plethora of plummy accents, “rahthah hard work.”

As played by Gemma Arterton (also an executive producer), Vita is pure seductress: gorgeous and tempestuous and shockingly modern even by the most decadent standards of 1927. She’s irresistible, in other words, for the contemplative, always-questing Virginia. But Virginia’s Bloomsbury set isn’t as easily swayed.

So few women are allowed to be cads onscreen that spotting one is as an exotic and unexpected a sight as a flamingo on the underground. Gemma Arterton’s Vita Sackville-West is one such creature – carnal and careless – Caitlin Moran’s lady sex pirate made flesh. In short…a cad. And it is a joy to behold.

As, in fact, is Vita & Virginia in its entirety. Together director Chanya Button and her (fabulous) co-writer Eileen Atkins (who penned the original play in 1992) have crafted a singular love letter to the relationship between Virginia Woolf and the delightful cad who inspired Orlando and remained her lifelong friend.

Predictably Virginia (Elizabeth Debicki) is less accessible than the irrepressible Vita, about whom we have learned scandalous intimacies within moments. They meet at a party – a gathering of the outrageous Bloomsbury set – Vita has inveigled an invitation solely to meet Virginia. Virginia remains emotionally detached from the crowd,...

"Does she make you want to write or live?" "Both." Thunderbird Releasing has debuted an official UK trailer for a film titled Vita & Virginia, a romantic drama inspired by the letters written between Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West. "A daring celebration of an unconventional bond, and a vivid exploration of gender, sexuality, creativity and passion, Vita & Virginia details the love story of two women - two writers - who smashed through social barriers to find solace in their forbidden connection." The film stars Gemma Arterton as Vita, and Elizabeth Debicki as Virginia, and is set in the 1920s in London. Despite the odds, the magnetic Vita and the beguiling Virginia forge an unconventional affair, set against the backdrop of their own strikingly contemporary marriages - which inspired one of Woolf’s most iconic novels, "Orlando". The cast includes Isabella Rossellini, Rupert Penry-Jones, Peter Ferdinando, Emerald Fennell, Gethin Anthony,...

The 2011 film “Hanna” was a delicious surprise. Directed by prestige moviemaker Joe Wright, “Hanna” played like an artist’s frantic attempt to cram in all the wild impulses he wasn’t allowed elsewhere, while retaining a certain fundamental elegance. Saoirse Ronan played a teen trained from childhood to be a killing machine for reasons that never quite become clear. Engaged in cat-and-mouse warfare with Cate Blanchett’s compulsive CIA officer, Ronan’s Hanna sprinted through dazzlingly constructed frames as a propulsive techno score (composed by the Chemical Brothers) blared — and the movie never lost its balance or its control.

That filmic achievement, the ability to remain upright in the midst of mania, is what makes Amazon’s new series adaptation of “Hanna” so disappointing. The new show lacks the glimmering creativity of its source material, and, perversely enough, it manages to feel overstuffed despite its relative lack of inventive flourishes.

Independent handling sales on title at Efm.

Screen can reveal the first look at Theo James in sci-fi Archive, the feature directing debut of Moon concept designer Gavin Rothery.

James stars opposite Stacy Martin in the film about a man working in a remote secret facility developing true, human-like artificial intelligence. His latest prototype is almost complete, but he has an ulterior motive that must be hidden at all costs: to be reunited with his dead wife. Toby Jones, Rhona Mitra and Peter Ferdinando round out the cast.

Both James and Martin are previous Screen Stars of Tomorrow, in 2009 and 2013 respectively.

Biopic “Vita & Virginia” has been set as the opening night film for this year’s edition of the BFI Flare Festival, Britain’s largest and longest running Lgbtq+ film festival. Chanya Button’s film, which stars Elizabeth Debicki as iconic author Virginia Woolf and Gemma Arterton as her lover and muse Vita Sackville-West, will see its U.K. premiere at the head of the festival’s 33rd edition on March 21.

“I’m beyond thrilled that ‘Vita & Virginia’ will be opening BFI Flare,” said Button. “I’m so grateful that this film that celebrates love and creativity in all its forms will have a platform at such a vivid and forward thinking festival.”

Based on a stage play by Eileen Atkins and adapted by Button, the film tells the true story of the long-running and passionate relationship between Woolf and Sackville-West and the birth of Woolf’s novel “Orlando,” which their encounters inspired.

Stars: Neil Maskell, Sura Dohnke, Marvin Maskell, Nicole Nettleingham, Doon Mackichan, Bill Paterson, Hayley Squires, Mark Monero, Richard Glover, Sudha Bhuchar, Vincent Ebrahim, Sinead Matthews, Sarah Baxendale, Charles Dance, Joe Cole, Peter Ferdinando | Written and Directed by Ben Wheatley

Happy New Year, Colin Burstead follows in the stead of Ben Wheatley’s previous directing efforts, in particular his 2013 black and white acid trip exploit A Field in England, in the case of releasing his picture simultaneously on both demand and a limited cinematic release. However this may alos just be his unsung masterpiece in a filmography that continues to evoke a grand sense of evolution with each entry and distinctive palette, which reinforces Wheatley’s stunning artistic ability with every and any angle.

Wheatley’s latest is a somewhat ironic variation of his first cinematic feature in Down Terrace and his breakout action hit of 2016, Free Fire - with the...

Amir Wilson (The Secret Garden), Ruby Serkis and Nathanael Saleh, who plays John Banks in Mary Poppins Returns, lead the young cast of The Letter for the King, the coming-of-age drama series based on Tonke Dragt’s bestselling medieval adventure novel. The English-language series, the streaming service’s first Dutch book adaptation, just wrapped shooting in New Zealand and will be moving to Prague in early 2019. UK-based FilmWave acquired the international television rights in a deal with Amsterdam-based publishing house Leopold. Netflix will release globally.

The Letter for the King is set in a world full of adventure and intrigue, where no one wants to be a knight more than Tiuri (Wilson) who is tasked with delivering a top-secret letter on which the fate of the entire kingdom depends. On their journey, he and his young friends will discover just how much it takes to become a true knight, and...

“Reboot” is a word bandied about so much in the film industry these days that its meaning has become entirely elastic, referring to anything from a sequel to a remake to a mildly delayed franchise chapter. A lo-fi, high-volume original character piece from Ben Wheatley, “Happy New Year, Colin Burstead” is none of these things — and yet, in the sense that a reboot describes a freshly started system following technical complications, it feels like one for this genre-roaming writer-director. After mixed returns for the dizzy formal chaos of his J.G. Ballard adaptation “High-Rise” and the vapid shoot-’em-up varnish of “Free Fire,” Wheatley’s restless study of a dysfunctional family reunited for a prickly New Year’s Eve party is a back-to-basics affair that rewardingly sets him back in the seasick domestic space of his debut “Down Terrace,” albeit with words as its only weapons this time.

Working without his usual writing partner Amy Jump,...

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...

Under-the-radar feature to be broadcast by the BBC over Christmas.

Free Fire director Ben Wheatley’s mysterious seventh feature, Happy New Year, Colin Burstead, which was shot under-the-radar in the UK at the beginning of the year, has secured an international sales deal and UK distribution.

The film will be released in partnership with BBC Films, BBC Comedy and BBC Two. Following its world premiere in Competition at the BFI London Film Festival in October, it will screen around the UK in a limited run of Q&A sessions with Wheatley and the cast before being broadcast on BBC Two over the Christmas holiday.

Ben Wheatley’s (Free Fire) seventh feature, Happy New Year, Colin Burstead, will air in the UK on BBC Two over Christmas after its London Film Festival (Oct 10-21) world premiere.

Following Lff, the comedy-drama will screen around the UK in a limited run of Q&A sessions and will forego a theatrical run in favour of a holiday broadcast after being jointly picked up by BBC Films, BBC Comedy and BBC Two.

The UK pic, which is being sold internationally by Goalpost Film in Toronto, focuses on Colin Burstead (Neil Maskell) who hires a lavish country manor for his extended family to celebrate New Year. But his position of power in the family comes under threat from the arrival of his estranged brother David.

Also among cast are Richard Glover, Peter Ferdinando, Mark Monero, Sam Riley, Asim Chaudhry, Joe Cole, Charles Dance, Alexandra Maria Lara, Doon Mackichan, Sinead Matthews,...

Gemma Arterton and Rupert Penry-Jones discuss marriage and gender politics in this first clip of period drama Vita & Virginia, based on the love letters of Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West.

The film tells the true story of socialite Sackville-West (Arterton) and literary icon Woolf, played by The Night Manager’s Elizabeth Debicki in 1920s London. When their paths cross, the magnetic Vita decides the beguiling, stubborn and gifted Virginia will be her next conquest, no matter the cost. Vita and Virginia forge an unconventional affair and neither will ever be the same without the other.

Shot in Ireland, it is the sophomore feature from Chanya Button. Button co-wrote with Eileen Atkins. Isabella Rossellini and Peter Ferdinando also star.

Protagonist Pictures is handling worldwide rights. Producers are Evangelo Kioussis for Mirror Productions and Katie Holly for Blinder Films. Executive producers are Simon Baxter, Christopher Figg, Nicolas Sampson, Norman Merry,...

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...

Sam Rockwell and Ben Schwartz have teamed up for a new action crime comedy called Blue Iguana and today we have a trailer for you to check out. The two actors star as a couple of small-time crooks on parole and while working at a New York diner an English lawyer walks into their lives and offers them a "simple" job to steal a rare jewel in London. They see this as a way to change their lives but as you'd expect they find themselves in way over their head.

I'll watch anything that Sam Rockwell is in, and while this doesn't look like his best work, there's still a chance that maybe it could end up being a fun film. The movie was directed by British director Hadi Hajaig and this is the synopsis:

Small time New York crooks Eddie (Sam Rockwell) and Paul (Ben Schwartz) are in over...

"Steal it back, collect the reward." Screen Media Films has debuted the official trailer for a crime comedy titled Blue Iguana, the latest film from British director Hadi Hajaig. Blue Iguana stars Ben Schwartz and Sam Rockwell as small-time crooks on parole and working in a New York diner. Their dead-end lives are soon turned upside down when an English lawyer walks into the diner with an offer they can't refuse: a "simple" job to steal a rare jewel in London. Hijinks and chaos ensue, of course. The cast includes Phoebe Fox, Simon Callow, Amanda Donohoe, Peter Ferdinando, and Anton Saunders. This looks like a really bad, wannabe Snatch that will probably be a waste of time to sit through. Watch out. Here's the official trailer (+ poster) for Hadi Hajaig's Blue Iguana, direct from YouTube: Small time New York crooks Eddie (Sam Rockwell) and Paul (Ben Schwartz) are in...

Colin You Anus shot for 11-days on the Isle of Portland in south-weat England.

Charles Dance, Hayley Squires, Sam Riley, Neil Maskell and Joe Cole are among the cast of Ben Wheatley’s latest project, purportedly titled Colin You Anus, which wrapped an 11-day shoot on Sunday (Jan 11).

Source: Kerry Brown

Ben Wheatley

Maskell is playing the titular Colin while Dance, Squires, Riley and Cole are also joined by Richard Glover (Into The Woods), Mark Monero (Free Fire), Asim Chaudry (People Just Do Nothing), Doon Mackichan (Plebs) and Peter Ferdinando (Ghost In The Shell) in the cast.

The film is being made through Wheatley’s company Rook Films with his producing collaborator Andy Starke. Following wrap, the project has moved straight into the editing suite.

The team are keeping plot details under wraps while they process the material following the rapid shoot.

A source close to the project confirmed to Screen that the film has been entirely...

Elizabeth Debicki and Isabella Rossellini have joined Gemma Arterton in period drama Vita & Virginia based on the love letters of Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West. Shooting starts in September in Ireland on the sophomore feature from Chanya Button (Burn, Burn, Burn). Button co-wrote with Eileen Atkins. Rupert Penry-Jones and Peter Ferdinando also star in the true story of socialite Sackville-West (Arterton) and literary icon Woolf (Debicki) in 1920s London. When…...

Guardians of the Galaxy and The Night Manager actress Elizabeth Debicki will play the writer Virginia Woolf in Vita & Virginia, the upcoming period drama based on the love letters between Woolf and 1920s socialite Vita Sackville-West.

Gemma Arterton is attached to play Vita in the drama, the sophomore feature from British director Chanya Button (Burn, Burn, Burn).

Italian actress Isabella Rossellini has also joined the cast of the film, which is set to begin principle photography in Ireland in September. Rupert Penry-Jones and Peter Ferdinando co-star.

The film is an adaptation of the award-winning play by actress and writer...

I’ve never been one for golf — playing or watching. I know many who feel the same and many of those who found themselves becoming fans during Tiger Woods’ heyday anyway. You can’t blame them for it either. Celebrity, national pride, and the excitement surrounding both are tough to combat. The draw therefore became peoples’ desire to see what Tiger did: which tournaments he won, who he beat, and by what margin. Golf became secondary to this hero’s allure like many other sports before it throughout history. But this wasn’t the first (or surely the last) time this specific sport found that sense of enthusiasm beyond staunch practitioners. In nineteenth century Scotland “Young” Tom Morris did the same. Beyond increasing golf’s popularity, though, he also literally changed the game.

Now that’s actually something I can get behind. It’s a simplification, but discovering that golf...

Rupert Sanders’ Ghost In The Shell live-actioner dawns with universal promise. Rainbow-colored building exteriors erect a neon-laced megacity (once again New Port City). Scarlett Johansson bursts through plate-glass and bullet-times the shit out of some mecha-Geishas. We haven’t yet endured a barrage of slaps to foreign culture and racial appropriation. Yes, Sanders lives in better times for the first few minutes of his synthetic-assassin tranquilizer – then it’s like an aesthetic “Abort” button is smashed. Dark nights negate any 3D usefulness, drowning skyscraper-tall advertisement holograms and eye-catching beautification. Life fleets, pacing tumbles and the whole thing begins to feel like a legless cyborg crawling out of futility.

Oh, and to those who cried whitewashing? Oh man. You guys are gonna be Sooooo pissed. Especially after all the marketing attempts to assure otherwise. Anywho…

Johansson transplants herself into the cybernetic shell of Major, a government operative whose human brain sits in an engineered super-body.

Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 cyberpunk opus, “Ghost in the Shell,” was one of the first Japanese anime titles to cross over to Western audiences, and it’s been reissued and repackaged so often since the millennium that it’s scant surprise studio execs seized upon it as reproducible property. Possibly it was a matter of waiting: for digital effects houses to get up to spec, the right deals to be struck, and any accusations of cultural appropriation to blow over. Paramount’s all-new live-action “Ghost,” powered by hefty reserves of American and Asian money, emerges as a dazzling logistical display with a missing file where the human interest might once have been stored.

Fans need not blubber unduly. As overseen by “Snow White and the Huntsman” director Rupert Sanders, this transliteration would seem faithful enough to satiate those who just want to see favorite scenes and characters redrawn on the biggest screen imaginable.