5 h. ago Holland review – twisty Nicole Kidman thriller is a disappointing mess

SXSW film festival: Fresh director Mimi Cave delivers an underwhelming follow-up that can’t make the most of its hard-working leading starNicole Kidman is, in general, providing a public service with her seemingly inexhaustible energy. She’s been working consistently with female directors – 19 in the last eight years – while also attempting to rescue the tight domestic thrillers of yore and consistently probing the gap between women’s placid public facades and private turmoil. The quality of Kidman’s performances – and she is almost always delivering something a little weird, a little off and very magnetic – does not indicate the quality of the project, which can range from the provocative (if underwhelming) Babygirl to her personal beach-read cinematic universe of mediocre TV roles.Holland, Kidman’s latest film as a star and producer (under her Blossom Films banner), finds Kidman in a familiar groove: a suburban housewife with secrets and suspicions, beset by paranoia and straining...

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27 h. ago Another Simple Favor director addresses rumors Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively were feuding at their movie premiere

The movie director and two actors attended the SXSW Film & TV Festival on Friday

Politics

61 h. ago Streaming: Steven Soderbergh’s Presence and the best haunted house films

The director’s witty supernatural thriller joins Psycho, Hereditary, The Brutalist and more – films in which buildings are characters in their own rightThe first more-or-less horror movie in the lengthy, genre-skimming career of director Steven Soderbergh, Presence is a film about grief, trauma, familial dysfunction and abusive masculinity. But it’s also, to a significant and compelling extent, about property. Beginning with a family’s first viewing of a handsome Victorian home in an unidentified stretch of suburbia, the film never ventures outside its walls for the next 85 minutes, as the ensuing chills make us consider the merits of that purchase. Wittily and unnervingly shot from the perspective of the restless spirit roaming its halls, it’s a haunted house film in which much of the tension feels determined by the shape and flow and light and shade of the house itself. It’s a while since I’ve seen a film where I could quite so exactly draw the floor plan of its primary location, ...

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3 d. ago Netflix now streaming three 'masterpieces' by the director of 'one of the best films of the year'

There are three incredible films waiting for you to watch after catching the latest science-fiction blockbuster in cinemas

Politics

3 d. ago Anora is nothing new – Hollywood has always been obsessed with sex workers

Mikey Madison is the latest in a line of actors dating back to Louise Brooks to win Oscars depicting the sex trade. Why this is, and whether it lessens the stigma of such work, is an open questionAnora emerged triumphant from last week’s Academy Awards presentation, winning five Oscars including best actress for Mikey Madison for her performance as Ani, a sex worker who elopes with the feckless son of a Russian oligarch, only to find herself at odds with his powerful family and their henchmen. As in his previous films, writer-director Sean Baker shows generosity and affection for the marginalised characters, and especially for its heroine. Even when she gets roughed up, it’s played for laughs and you’re confident she won’t meet one of the sad fates of screen sex workers of yore, such as Louise Brooks as Lulu, stabbed to death in Pandora’s Box, or Vivien Leigh as Myra, who throws herself under a lorry in Waterloo Road.Madison said in her acceptance speech, “I also just want to again ...

Politics

3 d. ago Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt’s Netflix epic The Electric State is completely incoherent

The writer-director duo behind ‘Avengers: Endgame’ have made an eerily dystopian action film that worships nakedly at the altar of consumerism

Science

4 d. ago James Bond: Longlegs director swears off directing 007 film after Amazon deal

Filmmaker let his feelings known in blunt response

Economics

4 d. ago Maximum points: what is the most influential video game ever?

As Bafta launches a survey asking the public to nominate the most influential game of all time, we asked people from across games and culture for their picksAhead of the 21st Bafta games awards this April, the institution is running a public survey asking people to nominate the most influential video game of all time. As the survey points out, this is an open-ended question: early, groundbreaking titles such as Space Invaders and Pong regularly crop up as answers because they helped write the rules of the form, but on a personal level, the right game at the right time can be exceptionally influential, too. For players, it’s often the games that made us feel differently about what games could do that feel the most influential. For a game designer, a film director, a writer or a musician, one particular game might inspire a whole creative era.Inspired by Bafta’s survey, we asked people from across games and culture for their most influential game – and not one name cropped up twice. C...

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5 d. ago Movie director swears off directing Bond film after Amazon deal

Filmmaker let his feelings known in blunt response

Economics

6 d. ago Nepo baby with VERY famous family lands new romcom with Bridgerton's Simone Ashley

He has big shoes to fill as he is both the son of film director parents and the nephew of acclaimed actors. Can YOU guess who his famous connections are?

Politics

7 d. ago Keith Richards' model daughter Alexandra makes the Rolling Stones legend, 81, a grandfather for EIGHTH time as she welcomes son and names the tot in tribute to her famous father

The Vogue model, 38, who already shares four-year-old daughter Arlowe with the film director, took to Instagram to share the happy news.

Politics

7 d. ago Why did the Oscars spend more time mourning 007 than David Lynch, one of the greatest artists to ever live?

In a ceremony that championed independent film and individual creativity, the visionary director behind ‘Blue Velvet’ received only an obligatory nod. Meanwhile, James Bond was treated to a mind-boggling 10-minute tribute. What’s up with that? asks Clarisse Loughrey

Politics

7 d. ago Isabella Rossellini paid a subtle tribute to David Lynch at the Oscars

Oscar-nominated actor starred in acclaimed director’s 1986 film ‘Blue Velvet’

Politics

1 week ago On Falling: Edinburgh director Laura Carreira cast real workers in powerful debut film about Scottish warehouse

Scottish filmmaker Laura Carreira cast real workers in her debut feature film, which explores what life is like for pickers in a huge Edinburgh distribution centre.

Events

1 week ago James Bond producers turned down Christopher Nolan over director’s demand

The Oscar-winning director wanted to make a 007 film as his follow-up to ‘Tenet’

Politics

1 week ago Oscars 2025: best director nominees – reviews, interviews and chances for victory

All you need to know about the five directors in the running for the Academy’s prestigious film-making prize, along with reviews of their nominated films, interviews and the awards they’ve earned so far• Full list of Oscar nominationsTrack record: Baker came out of the US’s microbudget/indie subculture; his first feature, Four Letter Words, was released way back in 2000. But it took a decade and a half for Baker to make a serious breakthrough; Tangerine, shot on iPhones, was the story of a trans sex worker (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez), and won Baker some high-profile awards. His follow-up, The Florida Project, another account of marginalised Americans became a fixture on the awards circuit, bagging co-star Willem Dafoe an Oscar nom for best supporting actor. His next film, Red Rocket, premiered in competition at Cannes. Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago The Brutalist is about a great architect. Columbus is a heartfelt tribute to great architecture

This critically acclaimed drama about how spaces can haunt and heal us is the finest work of John Cho, Haley Lu Richardson and director Kogonada’s careersGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailBrady Corbet’s Oscar hopeful The Brutalist offers a somewhat skewed depiction of architectural intent, one where public demonstrations of genius and private catharses have an outsized impact on a building’s design. Grand gestures and hidden intentions make for good drama, but physical space in The Brutalist is rendered secondary to psychological space — it’s a film about a great architect, not great architecture. For the latter, one must watch Korean-American director Kogonada’s film Columbus.Early on in this gentle drama, Jin (John Cho) speaks of renowned architect James Polshek’s belief in architecture as a “healing art” while looking at one of Polshek’s own designs: the glass walkway of the Columbus Regional Mental Health Center. While Jin admires its faintly dilapidated beauty, it is u...

Events

2 w. ago Nikt Nie Woła (Nobody’s Calling) review – hypnotic passions in postwar Poland

A mysterious stranger arrives in a small town in western Poland soon after the second world war, and embarks on a string of messy, equally enigmatic affairsThis cult 1960 Polish film is a political absurdist nightmare from director Kazimierz Kutz, written for the screen by Józef Hen and featuring a clamorous, disturbing orchestral score by composer Wojciech Kilar (later to win awards for his music for Coppola’s Dracula and Polanski’s The Pianist). It feels like a European new wave picture by Antonioni or Resnais, but has something of the romantic travails of Franz Kafka, and even appears to anticipate the coming vogue for paranoia thrillers.Like Andrzej Wajda’s Ashes and Diamonds from 1958, but weirder in tone, this is about a man who is part of the Polish anti-communist underground insurgency, who refuses to carry out an order to kill a communist. It was therefore a subject congenial in 1960 to Polish and Soviet authorities, but also a subject that speaks to a very complex part of ...

Events

2 w. ago Deadwood and Karate Kid star dies as director John Carpenter pays tribute

Deadwood actor Peter Jason has died at the age of 80. He starred in a number of films and TV shows during his successful career, and director John Carpenter has paid tribute to him

Events

2 w. ago James Bond fans to wait THREE years for film's next installment amid legal issues as ex director shares updates

It still isn't confirmed who will be stepping into Daniel Craig's shoes to play the next James Bond. 

Politics