4 h. ago ‘Spirited and sumptuous’: why Big Night is my feelgood movie

The latest in our series of writers recommending comfort watches is a tribute to 1996’s charming restaurant-set comedy drama“Life is meals,” observed the novelist James Salter. Big Night, Stanley Tucci’s spirited and sumptuous indie from 1996, is a film about one big meal that asks a few big questions about life, including: What is the cost of the American dream? What does food allow us to say to each other that words can’t? And what right does Marc Anthony, of all people, have to deliver one of the most charming non-speaking performances in any movie since the silent era?Big Night follows two Italian immigrants who run a failing restaurant in 1950s New Jersey. Ambitious, high-strung Secondo (Tucci, practically hirsute) is the manager, while his brother Primo (Tony Shalhoub) is the madman in the kitchen, a purist who derides the local clientele as philistines and has begun to doubt the wisdom of coming to the US in the first place. Continue reading...

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7 d. ago ‘I’m rooting for them’: why American Movie is my feelgood movie

The next in our series of writers drawing attention to their favourite comfort films looks back to a funny and touching documentary from 1999“I was a failure and I get very sad and depressed about it. I really feel like I betrayed myself. Big time. When I was growing up, I had all the potential in the world. Now I’m back to being Mark with a beer in his hand who is thinking about the great American script and the great American movie. This time I cannot fail. I will not fail.”As far as opening monologues go, you couldn’t have scripted a more perfect introduction to a film that captures one of the purest pursuits of the American Dream ever set to film. But these were not written for a character, but instead straight from the heart of Mark Borchardt in a 1999 documentary. It’s rare that documentaries are associated with feelgood movies, which is odd because they are remarkable vehicles for generating warmth, empathy and humor from spending time in the company of real life people who y...

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9 d. ago I was sexually assaulted by a celebrity after starring in a cult film at 19. My quest for justice changed the course of my life

Not long after Jenny Evans was brutally attacked by a high-profile figure, all the details appeared in the press. Her mission to find out what happened would reveal tabloid spying, phone hacking, police misconduct – and lead to a dramatic change of careerJenny Evans had just starred in her first film when everything came crashing down. Twin Town was a riot of drugs, fast cars and bad behaviour labelled the “Welsh Trainspotting”. She had a wonderful time making the movie, which was released in 1997. There was a feelgood atmosphere on set, and she got on brilliantly with her fellow actors (Twin Town launched the careers of Rhys Ifans and Dougray Scott). “Friends of the cast and crew were coming down from London to Swansea because the vibe was so good,” she says. “It was a great group of people doing something fun. It was a blast.” Twin Town became a cult success, and the 19-year-old from Abergavenny found herself hanging out with celebrities and looking forward to a career in the movi...

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1 week ago Michael Madsen’s brooding charisma needed Tarantino to unlock it | Peter Bradshaw

The Reservoir Dogs and Donnie Brasco actor had a rare, sometimes scary power, as well as a winning self-awareness and levityMichael Madsen, star of Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill and Donnie Brasco, dies aged 67Michael Madsen– a life in picturesUntil 1992, when people heard Stuck in the Middle With You by Stealers Wheel on the radio, they might smile and nod and sing along to its catchy soft-rock tune and goofy Dylan-esque lyrics. But after 1992, with the release of Quentin Tarantino’s sensationally tense and violent crime movie Reservoir Dogs, the feelgood mood around that song forever darkened. That was down to an unforgettably scary performance by Michael Madsen, who has died at the age of 67.Stuck in the Middle, with its lyrics about being “so scared in case I fall off my chair”, was to be always associated with the image of Madsen, whom Tarantino made an icon of indie American movies, with his boxy black suit, sinister, ruined handsomeness and powerful physique running to fat, playin...

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2 w. ago ‘Joyous and uplifting’: why Chungking Express is my feelgood movie

The next in our series of writers on their go-to comfort watches looks back at Wong Kar-Wai’s unusual and profound romantic comedyChinese auteur Wong Kar-Wai is not a director you’d immediately seek out for a cosy feelgood experience. His films delve into loneliness, yearning and doomed love affairs, carried along by a melancholy undercurrent. Chungking Express, the story of two Hong Kong cops reeling from being dumped by their respective partners, doesn’t deviate from these obsessions of his but the quirky romantic comedy also manages to be his most joyous and uplifting offering.The film has a playful energy and is brimming with offbeat humour. Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Takeshi Kaneshiro play the heartbroken policemen, both deep in denial over the end of their relationships. We watch them cope in very different ways with their heartache. Kaneshiro’s Cop 223 pines outside his ex’s flat, buys cans of pineapple because they were her favorite food and goes on jogs so his body has no wate...

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3 w. ago ‘Full of delightful surprises’: why Spy is my feelgood movie

The latest in our series of writers recommending their go-to comfort watches is an ode to Paul Feig’s 2015 comedy starring a never-better Melissa McCarthyIt has a plot and a cast that seem cooked up during a hallucinatory fever dream. It shouldn’t work, but it does – and so splendidly, too. In Paul Feig’s comedy Spy, Melissa McCarthy plays Susan Cooper, a timid CIA desk agent who gets sent out into the field by her fearsome boss (Alison Janney) after the death of her slick Bond-like colleague, Bradley Fine (Jude Law, in a rare comedic turn). The cast is full of delightful surprises. Rose Bryne is a stiletto-clad Oxford-educated villainess with quips so brutal that she makes Regina George look like Barney. Peter Serafinowicz does a game turn as an – admittedly very pre-#MeToo – cringey Italian pervert figure named Aldo (“like the shoe store found in American malls”).And in the film’s most magnificent twist, Jason Statham parodies the hard-as-nails action leads he’s played over the ye...

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4 w. ago ‘Always something I can watch’: why Spotlight is my feelgood movie

The latest in our series of writers drawing attention to their mood-lifting favourites is a robustly made Oscar winner from 2015Halfway through Spotlight, Tom McCarthy’s understated retelling of the Boston Globe’s investigation into child abuse in the Catholic church in Boston, is a moment that, even 30-plus rewatches later, still chills me. Spotlight editor Walter “Robby” Robinson (Michael Keaton) travels to Providence to interview a fellow Boston College high school alumnus, where he and the victim, Kevin (Anthony Paolucci), make pleasant small talk about bygone school days. When the subject turns to the school’s hockey coach, Father James Talbot, however, the tone abruptly shifts. Kevin’s face hollows, his eyes deaden, and we see his soul drain from his body. “How’d you find out?” he says in a level, diminished tone that rings with years of trauma.It is a measure of how polished every aspect Spotlight is that, in a cast boasting Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, world’s second-best S...

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