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All articles by Allan Hunter – Page 52
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News
Cannes Buzz: Directors' Fortnight
Each year, when the lights go down after every film at the Noga Hilton (now known as the Palais Stephanie), a history of Directors' Fortnight unfolds before your eyes.An inspirational montage of still photos and brief scenes skim through 40 years of talent discovery and championing of world-class film-makers.Key images ...
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Reviews
Deception
Dir: Marcel Langenegger. US. 2008. 107 mins.The spirit of Joe Eszterhas and Adrian Lyne is revived to disappointing results in Deception, a slick, cat-and-mouse thriller that unfolds with sharply-diminishing plausibility. Polished production values and star names will have a limited effect in trying to counteract the old-hat nature of the ...
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News
Scottish Screen to invest $1.5m in specialist exhibition
Scottish Screen has announced that it will invest $1.5m (£750,000) in the specialist exhibition sector in Scotland. The funds are part of along-term strategy to promote the development and provision ofcultural cinema programming throughout the country. Among the fundingrecipients are the Glasgow Film Theatre, Dundee Contemporary Arts andthe Edinburgh International ...
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News
Scottish Screen sets up Slate Fund for development
Scottish Screen has created a new $792,900 (£400,000) Slate Fund to provide financial backing for companies to develop marketable, high value projects over a two-year period.Up to four companies will benefit from investment awards designed to support the development of a range of projects including film, television and interactive digital ...
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News
UK Film Council backs Edinburgh Film Fest with $3.8m over 3 years
The Edinburgh International Film Festival has become the first beneficiary of the UK Film Council's Film Festival Strategy to support UK Festivals of national and international significance. Edinburgh will receive $3.8m (£1.88m) of funding over a three-year period until 2010.The announcement is a major boost for a Festival that is ...
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Reviews
The Cottage (2007)
Dir: Paul Andrew Williams. UK . 2008. 92 mins.London To Brighton (2006) was one of the most admired British debut features in recent years, with writer/director Paul Andrew Williams being widely hailed as the next great hope of British filmmaking. How fortunate that The Cottage wasn't his first feature. A ...
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Features
Feeling Bullish
Nigel Thomas has a disarmingly straightforward explanation of Matador Pictures' guiding philosophy. "The core of the business is making quality feature films that we want to see ourselves," he claims. "If we wouldn't go see that film, we won't make it."It is a philosophy that has proved highly effective so ...
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News
Advance Party trilogy continues with McKinnon's Donkeys shoot
Sigma Films and Zentropa have begun principal photography on Rounding Up Donkeys.After Andrea Arnold's Red Road, this film is the second project in the Advance Party trilogy. Originally entitled Old Dogs, Rounding Up Donkeys marks the feature debut of television and short film director Morag McKinnon and is written by ...
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Reviews
The Accidental Husband
Dir: Griffin Dunne. US. 2008. 90minsUma Thurman's recent track record with romantic comedy is not auspicious - neither Prime (2005) nor My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006) turned out to be major box-office contenders. The Accidental Husband, however, should improve her standing in this genre. There is nothing unpredictable about this glossy, ...
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Reviews
The Bank Job
Dir: Roger Donaldson. US/UK/Australia. 2008. 111 mins.The juicy combination of a Royal sex scandal, high-level corruption and the perfect crime provides The Bank Job with too many options for its own good. An entertaining recreation of true events from the 1970s, it veers between larkish, old-fashioned Italian Job-style caper, Scandal-like ...
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News
Flashback: BAFTA 2008
Everyone thought they knew who would win this year’s Bafta film awards. Atonement was supposed to sweep the board. Julie Christie was the best actress favourite for Away From Her and Control was considered a certainty to nab the Alexander Korda award for best British film.
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Reviews
Jumper
Dir: Doug Liman. US. 2008. 88mins.A cool, high concept science-fiction premise is executed with breezy, facile insouciance in Jumper. Director Doug Liman's first feature project since Mr And Mrs Smith (2005), is a globe-trotting, action packed thriller where the spectacle and special-effects easily overwhelm the broad brushstrokes storytelling.Comparisons with The ...
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Reviews
Definitely, Maybe
Director/Scr: Adam Brooks US/UK. 2008. 111 minsAn unusually soulful and appealing romantic comedy, Definitely, Maybe is the perfect antidote to the raucous lowbrow vulgarity that has come to define the genre in the 21st century. There is none of the wild profanity or bad taste humour of the Farrelly brothers ...
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Features
Awards Countdown - BAFTA nominations - BAFTAs strike a serious tone
The blizzard of nominations for Atonement, There Will Be Blood and No Country For Old Men suggests a year in which the Orange British Academy Film Awards were devoid of surprises.Atonement for one always seemed destined for BAFTA glory. It has the literary pedigree that BAFTA voters like in a ...
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Features
In focus - Bafta nominations - Big year for UK talent
The organisers of the Orange British Academy Film Awards, Bafta, are confident the February 10 event will not be caught up in the WGA strike turmoil."Neither Bafta nor our broadcaster (the BBC) is in dispute with the Writers Guild of America; while we hope for the sake of the whole ...
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News
BAFTA Analysis: Atonement's glory expected, but where's Sweeney Todd'
Atonement has always seemed destined for BAFTA glory (it leads with 14 nominations). It has the kind of literary pedigree that BAFTA voters have responded to in Best Picture winners like The English Patient, ThePianist and The Lord Of The Rings.
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Reviews
St Trinian's
Dirs: Oliver Parker & Barnaby Thompson UK. 2007. 101 minsA modern make-over may have worked wonders for James Bond but it fails to rejuvenate another great British institution in the lacklustre return of Ronald Searle's unruly schoolgirls. The St Trinian's films were a commercially viable franchise for twenty-five years until ...
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Features
European Film Awards - The Glories of Europe
Generalising about European cinema is a fool's errand. Countless films never cross national borders. Many films only have a theatrical life on the festival circuit. Some of the continent's biggest box-office hits (Les Bronzes 3, Natale A New York, and (T)Raumschiff Surprise - Periode 1 for example) barely register on ...
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News
Awards Count Down BAFTA - A night at the opera
Bafta has become a master of reinvention. In just a few years, it has elevated the UK's prime awards show into a global attraction. Anyone looking for evidence of its importance as a bellwether for the Oscars should note that eight of this year's major winners went on to repeat ...
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News
Hallam Foe tops BAFTA Scotland nominations
Hallam Foe leads the nominations for the 2007 BAFTA Scotland Awards which will be presented in Glasgow on November 18. David Mackenzie's tale of a disturbed teenager coming to terms with the death of his mother has been nominated for Best Film, Best Screenplay, Best Actor for Jamie Bell and ...