10 h. ago Steve Coogan: ‘Art is what humanises us, and it can’t be measured on a spreadsheet’

Steve Coogan and the cast and crew behind charming new movie The Penguin Lessons share what they learned from being on set with a penguin.

Politics

24 h. ago Primary school teacher who called Muslims 'entitled' and showed blackface film to children is spared classroom ban

Grace Whiley played a video of an old Sinbad film during an English lesson at Bluebell Primary School in Norwich.

Culture

3 d. ago Inside the fight to save California’s dying sea lions from toxic algae: ‘We’re like 911 operators’

The chance of the marine animal’s survival after domoic acid poisoning is 50-50, and this year, the outbreak has sickened hundredsIt was just after 8am on Tuesday, a thick morning fog still clinging to the California coastline, and SeaWorld’s animal rescue team had already made their first save of the day: a hefty, sick-looking sea lion that had been waddling dangerously close to a four-lane highway in downtown San Diego.Now, in a private area of SeaWorld that few of the theme park’s thousands of daily visitors ever get to see, the rescue team was in full “triage” mode. Half a dozen staff members maneuvered the caged sea lion off the bed of a truck, and grabbed IV bags full of fluids and vitamins. Continue reading...

Events

3 d. ago 'Forgotten' Al Pacino classic film is a 'work of art' and 'teaches us to be good people'

Al Pacino won the Best Actor Oscar for his role in the 1992 classic movie Scent of a Woman, which also received a Best Picture nomination at the Academy Awards

Politics

3 d. ago 'Forgotten' Al Pacino classic film 'teaches us all to be better people' on BBC this weekend

Winning Al Pacino an Academy Award for Best Actor, the film will be broadcast on BBC Two on Sunday, April 13.

Politics

7 d. ago The Penguin Lessons is just the latest film that teaches us how animals rescue men from loneliness

The comedy, about a curmudgeon played by Steve Coogan and his waddling new friend, joins a subgenre of movies from King Kong to John Wick – in which men are emotionally and socially rescued by animalsThe penguin at the centre of The Penguin Lessons, a new movie by Peter Cattaneo, is nothing if not hard-working. The film, adapted from the 2015 memoir by Tom Michell, uses the political turmoil of Argentina in 1976 as a backdrop for the personal transformation of an English teacher at a boys’ school. Michell (Steve Coogan) is an idle curmudgeon when he rescues an oil-drenched Magellan penguin from a beach in Uruguay in an attempt to impress an attractive woman. She leaves, but he is stuck with the bird, whom he duly names Juan Salvador, and who thaws him out sufficiently to bond with students and colleagues, process past trauma and rekindle a political idealism.Naturally, there are hurdles for Juan Salvador to clear before the interspecies friendship spreads its wings. Michell tries a ...

Events

7 d. ago The Penguin Lessons is the latest film to teach us animals rescue men from loneliness

The comedy, about a curmudgeon played by Steve Coogan and his waddling new friend, joins a subgenre of movies from King Kong to John Wick – in which men are emotionally and socially rescued by animalsThe penguin at the centre of The Penguin Lessons, a new movie by Peter Cattaneo, is nothing if not hard-working. The film, adapted from the 2015 memoir by Tom Michell, uses the political turmoil of Argentina in 1976 as a backdrop for the personal transformation of an English teacher at a boys’ school. Michell (Steve Coogan) is an idle curmudgeon when he rescues an oil-drenched Magellan penguin from a beach in Uruguay in an attempt to impress an attractive woman. She leaves, but he is stuck with the bird, whom he duly names Juan Salvador, and who thaws him out sufficiently to bond with students and colleagues, process past trauma and rekindle a political idealism.Naturally, there are hurdles for Juan Salvador to clear before the interspecies friendship spreads its wings. Michell tries a ...

Events

9 d. ago I went searching for the grandmother I never met. Under a tree where she once sat with Leonard Cohen, I broke | Gina Chick

When adoption laws changed in Australia, we discovered her name: Charmian Clift. I felt instant recognition. This explained everythingGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailWhen I was young, I had no idea that my mother was such an extraordinary woman. She was just my mother, swirling in and out of the house, singing to her jonquil bulbs, tripping over the animals I rescued, all while reading five books at once. If she was in the kitchen, my sisters and I hid downstairs as she clattered and crashed all the saucepans and swore like a sailor at the latest ruined batch of biscuits.She wept at whatever devastation the nightly news delivered into the lounge room. She loved and was loved in return by my father, Douggie. She birthed four babes, grew the surviving three into formidable women and instilled in us a fierce belief that there was nothing we could not do. Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago Steve Coogan greeted penguins every day of filming for The Penguin Lessons

The film follows the true story of an Englishman who rescues a penguin from an oil-slicked beach in a divided Argentina.

Politics

1 week ago Exotic animal owner claims seven tigers seized from his property were for ‘emotional support’

Karl Mitchell claimed to have rescued the animals from Tiger King star Joe Exotic

Politics

2 w. ago Living Together review – how Austrians teach immigrants to find their place in society

New arrivals sit in drab spaces and are learn how to fit in, in a film that quietly addresses the costs of integration to minority groupsThomas Fürhapter’s documentary sheds light on the challenges of adjusting to a new culture as it follows a series of “integration classes” offered to immigrants in Vienna. The film opens in the nondescript corridors of an administrative building, which lead into sun-filled but impersonal meeting rooms where these sessions take place. As the participants discuss their worries and uncertainties, these colourless spaces transform into sites of passion and community.Conducted in multiple languages, the seminars grapple with culturally specific issues faced by different minority groups. Topics of discussion range from Austrian ways of greeting, to more serious concerns such as racism and domestic abuse. In talking about the present and the future, people also reveal pieces of their past: some moved to Austria for love, others fled the horrors of war. De...

Events

2 w. ago Man arrested after his mother, 92, found living in ‘deplorable’ conditions with 38 cats

The animals were taken in by nearby rescue facilities

Events

3 w. ago Animal sanctuary opens ‘forever home’ for five lions rescued from Ukraine

Cam Whitnall, managing director of The Big Cat Sanctuary, said they are relieved ‘to have these lions safe and settled’ in Kent.

Events

3 w. ago Sadie Frost, 59, on ageing, becoming a grandma and her changing friendship group

EXCLUSIVE: Sadie Frost was once synonymous with the Primrose Hill party set, but her priorities are teaching yoga, film directing, and her new baby granddaughter

Events

3 w. ago Just Another Girl on the IRT review – Leslie Harris takes on race, sex and class in 90s indie gem

Ariyan A Johnson stars as the back-talking, fourth wall-breaking high schooler who falls pregnant in Harris’s rough and ready dramaThere’s an undimmed freshness, warmth and freewheeling energy in this 1992 indie gem, and its director Leslie Harris – whose career since has chiefly involved writing and teaching – deserves a far bigger presence in US film history. Ariyan A Johnson plays Chantel, a young Black American high schooler who lives with her stressed parents and two kid brothers in Brooklyn (in an era before its gentrification) and rides the subway’s IRT Eastern Parkway line.Chantel is getting great grades in school, and plans to be a doctor, but is addicted to talking back to the teachers and won’t restrain herself, even when she’s sent to the principal’s office. Her relationship with her mother and father is just as fraught – and as far as dating goes, Chantel is not going to sell herself short. And when she finally has sex with her boyfriend Tyrone (Kevin Thigpen), dizzied ...

Events