You’d think that Michael C Hall would have had enough of death. He spent five years at the embalming table as sober, self-doubting undertaker David Fisher in the HBO TV series Six Feet Under, then eight as the anti-hero of Dexter, a forensics expert with a secret life as a serial killer. The 43-year-old North Carolina-born actor has become American TV’s poster boy for death – usually...
Race review – Jesse Owens drama finishes out of the medals – The Guardian
This tale of Owens’ 1936 Berlin Olympics glory is slow around the track, dragging a tedious love plot, a rote coach-runner relationship and tone-deaf comparisons of America with genocidal GermanyLace your shoes tightly and stretch those calves, because Race is an endurance test. At 134 minutes, very few of them taken at a sprint, director Stephen Hopkins’s telling of the Jesse Owens story goes in...
He can't handle the truth! Did Simon Pegg really reveal Tom Cruise's … – The Guardian
Pegg’s casually dropped bombshell and awkward online disclaimer may have given us the most chilling glimpse behind the Cruise curtain we’ve seen in yearsIf you were online at all this weekend, you may very well have noticed an interview that Simon Pegg gave to The Times (£). It didn’t offer much new information when it comes to Pegg (he had an alcohol problem, he wants to be taken seriously, he...
Bond's number is up: black female actor 'is the new 007' – The Guardian
Daniel Craig retains title role but 25th instalment in the franchise reveals codename has been reassigned to British actor Lashana LynchWhile Daniel Craig is set to reprise his role as James Bond in the next film, the franchise is set for a shake-up, with reports claiming that black British actor Lashana Lynch has been cast as 007 – taking over Bond’s secret agent number after his character...
Aubrey Plaza: 'I totally care what people think and I wish that I didn't' – The Guardian
The actor notorious for playing sardonic oddballs on loving Danny DeVito, keeping up with her Parks and Rec co-stars and why she’s nowhere near as kooky in real lifeThe night before Aubrey Plaza and I met up, she went to the premiere of her latest film, Emily the Criminal, at the London film festival, and was surprised to see an old friend in the audience. It was Aziz Ansari, her co-star on the...
Totem Pole and the will to survive: How Paul Pritchard recovered from a deadly accident to get back in the mountains – Art-and-culture News , Firstpost – Firstpost
A hundred and twenty six one-handed pull-ups, a balancing act on ropes that would have a gymnast sit up and take notice, and an indomitable will to return to a climb that is synonymous with him today. It is just a handful of ingredients that put Paul Pritchard atop the Totem Pole in 2016.Back in 1998, an accident on the same climb had left him hemiplegic on the right side of the body. Physical...
The Wild Bunch at 50: the enduring nihilism of Sam Peckinpah's western – The Guardian
In 1969, the film’s violent cynicism came as a shock to the system and now, it seems to have aged disturbingly wellPresent day audiences remember Sam Peckinpah’s off-the-wall western The Wild Bunch for its blood, but no less shocking is the film’s moral carnage. Two orgies of bullets bookend the adventure of an outlaw gang on the Mexican border, setting a new standard for the depiction of...
How the new wave of man-trapped-in cat movies could fight puss prejudice – The Guardian
Both Kevin Spacey and Jeremy Clarkson are linked to films about people trapped in cats. Can they help to turn the tide on Hollywood’s anti-feline propaganda?For years, cats have been the unfair villains of Hollywood or if you’re a dog person, cats have been playing cats in films for a while now. In discriminatory indoctrination such as Cats and Dogs (megalomaniac), Pet Sematary (zombie), Meet the...
Armando Iannucci: 'Everything since 2016 has been a wind-up' – The Guardian
The film and TV writer answers your questions on advising Boris Johnson, dining with Alan Partridge characters and whether he still has OJ’s confessionHow bored are you with people asking how bored you are with people asking if reality has become impossible to satirise? ritasueandbobI’m extremely bored. But I don’t think it has. A lot of people have forgotten that life is real. It’s not something...
A Beautiful Mind hides ugly truths – The Guardian
A Beautiful Mind (2001)Director: Ron HowardEntertainment grade: B–History grade: C–John Forbes Nash Jr won the 1994 Nobel Memorial prize in economics, along with John C Harsanyi and Reinhard Selten, for their work on game theory. Nash has been public about his struggle with schizophrenia.John Nash (Russell Crowe) arrives at Princeton soon after the end of the second world war...
