11 h. ago Was Alfred Hitchcock inspired by Ed Gein for classic film Psycho?

Netflix's Monster tells the story of Ed Gein and his link to iconic movies

Events

13 h. ago Kevin McKay now: Meet the real bus driver who inspired Apple TV+'s The Lost Bus

Thrilling new film The Lost Bus is based on the inspiring story of bus driver Kevin McKay, but what has he been doing since his heroic rescue in 2018?

Transport

16 h. ago Three iconic horror films inspired by Netflix Ed Gein story and where to stream them

The killer's crimes have served as inspiration for memorable on screen villains

Events

18 h. ago Monster: The Ed Gein Story – The bleak truth behind the killer who inspired Hollywood horror classics

As Ryan Murphy’s ‘Monsters: The Ed Gein Story’ arrives on Netflix, Tom Murray speaks to acclaimed true-crime author Harold Schechter about the mother-obsessed murderer who inspired film villains such as Norman Bates, Leatherface and Buffalo Bill

Events

39 h. ago The Shadow’s Edge review – Jackie Chan as watchable as ever as fisticuff

This bloated cops-and-robbers thriller is overlong and unnecessarily complex but thankfully Chan is never more than 10 minutes from a fight or a shootoutHong Kong action-movie legend Jackie Chan was an international superstar back in the late 1990s-early 2000s with crossover fare like the Rush Hour flicks, but sightings in western-made movies have been much sparser of late, apart from a supporting role in Karate Kid: Legends and the occasional bit of voicework in the never-ending Kung Fu Panda franchise. But in Asia, the 71-year-old works all the time, still doing his own stunts, as well as working as a producer and fight choreographer.This Macau-set cops-and-robbers thriller even has a little fun by introducing him as a “retired” cop turned dog walker called Wong, surrounded by a motley pack of pooches that he marshals expertly through the streets. Once the best surveillance man on the force, Wong’s observational skills have not faded a jot, as he proves by recounting exactly which...

Politics

40 h. ago The harrowing inspiration for Steve film starring Cillian Murphy

The film stars Cillian Murphy as the title character

Culture

59 h. ago 'One of the best movies of the 1990s' that somehow has 15% on Rotten Tomatoes now on Netflix

The teen black comedy film drew inspiration from Heathers and Carrie.

Politics

4 d. ago Amanda Holden opens up about huge new Traitors inspired show filmed in Scotland

AMANDA Holden planned to channel the formidable Anne Robinson for her new quiz show, but it turns out she is just too nice. The telly fave has travelled to Glasgow to film the BBC’s The Inner Circle, a teatime show which has been billed as The Traitors in quiz format. Anne, above, is famed for...

Culture

5 d. ago 'What we did was a cornerstone for developing women’s football as it has become today'

Three years in the making, a film inspired by an M.E.N. article pays tribute to a Mancunian team of pioneers

Politics

6 d. ago My cultural awakening: The Parent Trap made me reconnect with my estranged father

Growing up with a stepfather made me wonder about my real dad – until the Lindsay Lohan film inspired me to seek him outIn 1998, the year The Parent Trap was released, I was six. My mum and I had recently moved out of a one-bedroom council flat into a Victorian terrace house in London; my half-sister had just been born, and I was training myself to call my stepdad “Dad”.My life felt as if it had been torn in half, right down the middle – like the photograph of their parents that Hallie and Annie piece together in the film. The 11-year-old identical twins (both played by Lindsay Lohan) reunite at summer camp after being separated at birth, and switch places in their plan to reunite their family. My own biological dad had left for good on my second birthday, moving back to Hungary. Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago 'Insanely heartwarming' Netflix period drama hailed an 'absolute must watch'

The film is based on inspiring real-life events

Events

1 week ago My cultural awakening: Faith by George Michael gave me permission to go to my first sex party

Listening to the album was like waking from a bad dream and liberated me from the shame I’d felt about my sexualityAs a young man, shame was a constant companion to my consideration of my sexuality. It made me question my sexual orientation: was I attracted to men, as I suspected, or did I simply have a desire for gratification?When I tip-toed around the topic of queerness in conversations with past girlfriends, more than once it was made clear to me that bisexuality was an unattractive trait for a man to have. The shame heaped up. And yet my secret fantasies continued. It wasn’t just men I fantasised about, it was the possibility of different power dynamics, of multiple bodies, of feeling seen. Continue reading...

Events

1 week ago Mel Gibson hints at return to film in Scotland as Braveheart turns 30

The Hollywood icon reacted positively to the news that his iconic Braveheart film has inspired the building of the Stirling Studio complex on the 30th anniversary of the blockbuster film.

Politics

2 w. ago Is Swiped based on a true story? Inside the inspiration for empowering Lily James movie

Here’s everything we know about the inspiring new Disney+ film exploring the business side of online dating starring Lily James

Politics

2 w. ago Oklahoma prosecutor: No charges after report of explicit images on education chief's TV

An Oklahoma County prosecutor has declined to file criminal charges after two board members said they saw images of naked women on a television in the office of state School Superintendent Ryan Walters

Events

2 w. ago ‘He should be known as a film music revolutionary’: revitalising the legacy of Czech composer Zdeněk Liška

The electroacoustic pioneer scored dozens of pictures – and communist propaganda. Too successful to be persecuted by the politburo but largely forgotten when he died, his music is being revived by a new archival seriesZdeněk Liška became one of the eastern bloc’s pioneers of electroacoustic music by accident. After breaking through making music for ads and animations, the revolutionary film-makers of the 1960s Czechoslovak new wave asked him to soundtrack their movies, which he took as his greatest inspirations. With the help of radio engineering enthusiasts at Czechoslovakia’s film powerhouse, Barrandov Studios, he could imitate the whoosh of a spaceship or birds chirping. He composed underwater electroacoustic symphonies and music to be played on typewriters. Despite his innovations, he famously proclaimed: “I only write music under the pictures.”Liška was as productive as he was innovative: from the late 1950s to the late 1970s, he would score eight feature films a year, as well ...

Culture

2 w. ago Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: How Robert Redford and Paul Newman captured Hollywood’s greatest outlaws

The 1969 movie wasn’t an immediate success with critics, yet it charmed the public. As Robert Redford dies aged 89, Martin Chilton tells the tale of one of Hollywood’s best buddy films and the two outlaws who inspired it

Culture

2 w. ago 'Shrekking' dating trend, where people pick 'ugly' partners because they're 'kinder', is growing in popularity

A new dating trend called Shrekking, inspired by the popular ogre film franchise, is becoming popular on the courting scene - but some have called it 'toxic'

Politics

2 w. ago My cultural awakening: a Bastille show helped me get over my crippling Covid

I was afraid to be near people for two-and-a-half years, but then I got a chance to meet the band I loved – and the experience changed everythingI have always had a degree of health anxiety, but when Covid hit, it really spiked. At home with the family, I made sure we washed all our food and even then I didn’t feel safe eating it. I would bring in the post and then be worried about touching the front door. I’d shower for ages, trying to wash the virus away.I’m a journalist, so before the anxiety set in I was a pretty outgoing and adaptable person. But from the start of lockdown until September 2022, I didn’t go anywhere indoors other than home or the hospital. I didn’t even walk down a street for a year and a half, for fear of passing too close to someone. Continue reading...

Culture

3 w. ago Pépé le Moko review – mysterious and passionately despairing French noir with a luminous Jean Gabin

Powerful French film that inspired Casablanca stars Gabin as a holed-up gangster in Algiers lured to his doom by infatuationJulien Duvivier’s mysterious and passionately despairing 1937 movie is rereleased, with its luminous lead performance from Jean Gabin as a charismatic Parisian criminal hiding out in the labyrinthine Casbah of Algiers; he is protected there by the dense polyglot population of Indigenous locals that the French colonial authorities consider it imprudent to provoke. He is effectively given sanctuary, but also imprisoned in the unpoliceable, unknowable quarter that, like Polanski’s Chinatown, is a place that baffles and thwarts the imperial powers-that-be.It was a film remade by Hollywood in 1938 as Algiers, which was the debut of Hedy Lamarr and made a huge star of its French lead Charles Boyer, who is much sleeker and more conventionally photogenic than Gabin (but forever stuck with the misquoted line: “Come with me to the Casbah !” always being purred by nightcl...

Politics