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Teen Beach Movie, Snakes on a Plane, Scary Movie: This is an article about generic and humourless film titles

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 19:19:50 +0100

Among the sillier genre films of the 1960s were the beach party movies: they depicted attractive young people in abbreviated swimwear beguiling the summer months with flirty horseplay and otiose bursts of song.

Zombie nation: Our enduring fascination with a world full of death and destruction

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 18:30:00 +0100

When the end of days finally comes, what form will it take? A meteor spinning towards the Earth? Nuclear annihilation? Zombie apocalypse? And what if it turns out not to be the end at all, but the beginning of a new, different world order?

Film review: World War Z - Brad Pitt's zombie action flick is surprisingly infectious

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 17:40:02 +0100

In this Doomsday blockbuster zombies are taking over the world, and they’re not the slow-shuffle kind, either - these flesh-chompers move like lightning in their pursuit of a snack.

Hollywood: Coming soon to save the multiplex - the megaticket

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:05:51 +0100

While immersive cinema spectaculars like The Secret Cinema might be drawing in huge crowds to experience films like Prometheus in completely new ways, the mainstream cinema experience has barely changed for most punters. Beyond the introduction of gourmet popcorn and a slightly leggier seat for an extra fiver that is. But forthcoming zombie spectacular World War Z may change that.

Jennifer Lopez to join Martin Sheen and Antonio Banderas in Chilean miners film The 33

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:45:19 +0100

Jennifer Lopez is to star in a Hollywood film about the real-life rescue of the 33 Chilean miners trapped underground for 69 days in 2010.

Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan accused of illegally determining the sex of his unborn surrogate child

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 10:52:27 +0100

Health officials in Mumbai are investigating reports that Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan and his wife know the sex of a baby they are having through a surrogate mother.

From the Marauder’s Map to The Quibbler: Graphic art from the Harry Potter films goes on show

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 16:46:02 +0100

From the 422nd Quidditch world cup poster to The Marauder’s Map, one hundred graphic art works from the Harry Potter films have gone on show for the first time for muggles to enjoy.

Super weekend for Superman rebooted: Man of Steel takes £125m at the box office in three days

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 14:36:08 +0100

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it is the soaring success of the new Superman franchise, Man of Steel, which proved Clark Kent is still faster than a speeding bullet to take $196.7 million (£125 million) at the box office in less than three days.

First Look: The Wolf of Wall Street trailer - Leonardo DiCaprio stars in Martin Scorcese's stockbroker movie

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 12:49:24 +0100

Leonardo DiCaprio appears to be melding his turn as billionaire Jay Gatsby with that of Frank Abagnale Jr from the 2002 film Catch Me If You Can.

Reeling in the years: The lovers from Before Sunrise return in Before Midnight, how might the passage of time have changed other Nineties couples?

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 11:29:57 +0100

When all is said and done, what will go down as this year’s most shocking cinematic experience? Django Unchained? Nah. Tobey Maguire’s smile in The Great Gatsby?

George Lucas wins first Emmy award for Star Wars: Clone Wars

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 11:22:28 +0100

Star Wars creator George Lucas has won his first ever Emmy award for the animated series Star Wars: Clone Wars.

Film review: Man of Steel - Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's a bit of a fudge

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 08:59:00 +0100

Superman, as we all know, is faster than a speeding bullet and more powerful than a locomotive, but he's not always strong enough to keep a film franchise in the air. The Christopher Reeve series soared for a while in the 1970s and 1980s before nose-diving, and Bryan Singer's 2006 relaunch, Superman Returns, didn't get off the ground.

Max Irons: 'Work with my father? That's worst my nightmare'

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0100

Rafe Spall once told me that he knew that he'd made it as an actor only when interviews ceased referring to him as "the son of Timothy Spall". Max Irons (here we go), son of Jeremy Irons and Sinead Cusack, has a way to go yet – despite already having been dubbed "the new Robert Pattinson" for his role in the Stephenie Meyer vampire movie The Host, and winning the lead male role in BBC1's new history epic The White Queen.

Film review: Paradise: Love - If you want sex on the beach, prepare for the gritty truth

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 19:30:00 +0100

You might well think that Austrian director Ulrich Seidl takes a dim view of human nature. His Dog Days (2001) depicted the Vienna suburbs as hell on earth, while Import/Export (2007) set dim-witted Austrian thugs loose in a decayed Eastern Europe, while a Ukrainian nurse tried to survive in a horrifically inhospitable West. Yet you can detect a wry tenderness in his new trilogy Paradise, although you have to reach the final episode, Hope, for it to blossom into something like fondness for humanity. In the opening chapter Love, Seidl seems to give us human nature at its worst.

DVD review: Underground

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 18:00:00 +0100

Romance! Comedy! Action! Murder! This rip-roaring silent British masterpiece from 1928 has it all.

DVD review: To the Wonder

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 18:00:00 +0100

Terrence Malick's improvised reverie on love and commitment in the 21st century is one long dreamy, sun-burnished montage featuring Ben Affleck, Olga Kurylenko, and a murmured French voice-over in place of dialogue.

North Korean cinema: Kim Jong-il's movie mania

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 19:00:45 +0100

Anna Broinowski, an Australian documentary-maker, was given unprecedented access to some of North Korea's top secrets but, for once, it wasn't to do with politics or nuclear weapons. Instead, she went to uncover the fascinating, if somewhat unusual, world of North Korean cinema, controlled for so many years by the nation's “Creative Commander”, former Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il. The documentary Aim High In Creation, currently in post-production, began as Broinowksi's mission to create a short film following the rules laid out in the former North Korean leader's treatise Manifesto on the Art of the Cinema.

DVD & Blu-ray review: Parks and Recreation: Season 2 (12)

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 19:00:41 +0100

“I think I need to call child services and have Leslie taken away from herself,” quips Ann (Rashida Jones) to camera. Please don't. Amy Poehler's confused, unlucky-in-love Leslie grows to be even more adorable in this excellent US sitcom.

DVD & Blu-ray review: To the Wonder (15)

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 19:00:37 +0100

Terrence Malick's meditation on love and the disintegration of a relationship wafts along to no particular purpose.

DVD & Blu-ray review: Warm Bodies (12)

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 19:00:31 +0100

“I shuffle around occasionally bumping into people,” explains Nicholas Hoult's thoughtful, “outsider” zombie who becomes even more sensitive after eating the brains of Perry, Julie's boyfriend.

DVD & Blu-ray review: Beautiful Creatures (12A)

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 19:00:22 +0100

A supernatural teen romance that's sillier, funnier and more literary than Twilight. Alden Ehrenreich's intellectual teen is bewitched by a new girl, Lena (Alice Englert), at his ultra-conservative South Carolina high school, finally breaking down her sullen facade.

Screen Talk: Ed Helms hails taxi thriller

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 19:00:21 +0100

The Hangover star Ed Helms (pictured) is in talks to co-star opposite Patrick Wilson in Stretch, a thriller directed by Joe Carnahan. Wilson plays a down-on-his -luck limo driver trying to get clean and pay back a debt owed to a bookie when he gets the passenger from hell (Chris Pine). Helms may play a fellow chauffeur.

DVD & Blu-ray review: Hitchcock (12)

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 19:00:19 +0100

Anthony Hopkins plays the British auteur about to embark on his spiciest work, Psycho.

Films of the week: The uncertainty principle gets the Coens' touch

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 19:00:17 +0100

Film choice: A Serious Man

Laurence Phelan revews Man of Steel (12A)

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 19:00:15 +0100

It is a sign of the kind of inflationary bombast that typifies modern Hollywood summer blockbusters in general, and Zach Snyder movies in particular, that in his latest incarnation, Superman – who was already the most monolithic of superheroes, a symbol of American exceptionalism, and a movie icon – becomes no less than a Christ-like figure and the salvation of all mankind. “You will give the people of Earth an ideal to strive towards,” says the ghost of his father, Jor-El (Russell Crowe).

Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, and Michael Shannon on the red carpet at the Man of Steel European premiere

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 15:20:41 +0100

The stars of the rebooted Superman franchise, Man of Steel, were out in force for its European premiere in London's Leicester Square last night. But it was something of a rainy affair.

Must watch: The Hobbit 2 - The Desolation of Smaug trailer

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 14:04:06 +0100

The trailer for The Hobbit The Desolation of Smaug has been released online today.

Can Man of Steel reboot Superman?

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 13:59:44 +0100

Man of Steel, the latest iteration of the Superman series, lands on the big screen today with the hopes that the dark, action-heavy film can revive the classic comic book superhero as a Hollywood franchise.

Steven Spielberg and George Lucas warn of movie industry 'implosion' and $50 tickets: Is this the end of Hollywood as we know it?

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 13:59:29 +0100

It will come as little comfort to young filmmakers that even Steven Spielberg has difficulty getting a movie financed.

I said I'd be back: Arnold Schwarzenegger confirms he will star in Terminator 5

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 13:31:15 +0100

Arnold Schwarzenegger has confirmed he will be back to star in the next Terminator film.

Uri Geller psychic spy? The spoon-bender's secret life as a Mossad and CIA agent revealed

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 13:11:04 +0100

We may know him for spoon bending antics and for his lengthy friendship with pop star Michael Jackson but showbiz psychic Uri Geller has seemingly had a lengthy second career as a secret agent for Mossad and the CIA, albeit one that was more Austin Powers than James Bond.

Film review: Stuck in Love starring Greg Kinnear and Jennifer Connelly

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 09:07:00 +0100

Divorced parents, the fall-out on their kids and the self-absorption of the writer's life can make for fine comic drama: consider The Squid and the Whale a few years back.

Man of Steel review: Henry Cavill plays Superman with a square-jawed introspection

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 08:45:54 +0100

Here’s a superhero who almost dares not speak his name: the “S” inscribed on his chest doesn’t stand for Superman after all, it’s the Krypton symbol for “hope”. That is the messianic burden by which this overlong but not disagreeable reboot defines itself.

Film review: Summer in February - This love triangle featuring Dan Stevens and Dominic Cooper fizzles rather than sizzles

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 08:30:00 +0100

Christopher Menaul's drama is based on a personal tragedy in the life of the artist AJ Munnings, later President of the RA.

Film review: Much Ado about Nothing - The merry wiles of Joss Whedon prove promising

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 08:30:00 +0100

I find the story behind this dress-down, no-budget Shakespeare adaptation incredibly heartening. In the summer of 2011, the writer-director Joss Whedon, having completed principal photography on Marvel's Avengers Assemble, was contractually obliged to take a week off before he began editing.

Film review: Paradise: Love - Ulrich Seidl's unsparing inquiry into sex tourism in Kenya

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 08:30:00 +0100

A middle-aged woman seeks companionship in sunny climes, but Shirley Valentine this isn't.

Film review: Admission - Tina Fey stumbles into a world of unfunny

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 08:30:00 +0100

It can be painful to watch talented performers try to shoehorn themselves into movies out of a need for mainstream acceptance.

Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa - watch the trailer

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 14:26:52 +0100

Ah ha! The full trailer for the hotly anticipated Alan Partridge film has been released.

Birdsong's Eddie Redmayne set to play Stephen Hawking in biopic Theory of Everything

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 14:13:36 +0100

Eddie Redmayne has given it rock all in Les Miserables, smooched Michelle Williams in My Week With Marilyn, and found himself broken-hearted on the frontline in Birdsong. But now the British actor is poised to undertake a challenge of a very different kind, playing Professor Stephen Hawking.

Caprice confirms she is expecting two babies - one by surrogate

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 12:35:56 +0100

Model, actress and television personality Caprice is expecting a baby just a month after a surrogate mother is expected to give birth for her.

First look: Diana starring Naomi Watts - Official trailer

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 12:18:06 +0100

Oscar-nominated actress Naomi Watts stars as Princess Diana at a time in the Princess’s life that was uniquely important in shaping her final years, fulfilling her search for true happiness and sealing her legacy.

The Wolverine: New trailer released showing Logan (Hugh Jackman) surviving an atomic bomb.

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 12:01:24 +0100

Watch the trailer for the long-awaited X-Men spin-off The Wolverine in which Logan (Hugh Jackman) saves a man's life when an atomic bomb is dropped on Japan.

Man of Steel infographic: How Superman became a super source of revenue

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 10:00:52 +0100

Since swooping into the comic book industry and taking America by storm in the 1930s, Superman has been both a superhero in action and a super source of revenue.

From Man of Steel to the Hulk: The ten best film superheroes

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 10:00:37 +0100

Superheroes have a range of exciting, intimidating and otherwise extraordinary powers. But how do they fare commercially? Pretty well judging by the slew of Marvel-inspired and other DC Comic-related cinematic offerings that just keep on storming the box office.

Man of Steel: Reviews round-up - S is for Serious not Superman as Henry Cavill dons the tights

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 10:00:09 +0100

The latest reboot of the Superman film franchise, Man of Steel, opens in cinemas on Friday and promises to be one of the summer’s biggest blockbusters.

Summer Apple blockbuster? Steve Jobs biopic starring Ashton Kutcher set for release in August

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 10:36:28 +0100

The Steve Jobs biopic starring Ashton Kutcher is being rushed out by studios as the iOS interface the Apple founder pioneered changes forever.

Shakespeare was the Joss Whedon of his day, claims Much Ado star Alexis Denisof

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 08:56:31 +0100

Director Joss Whedon revealed tonight how his new film adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing started out as a dinner party game with friends.

From Kim Cattrall to Elizabeth Taylor: Tennessee Williams's ageing heroine is an archetype that can be traced back to Shakespeare's Cleopatra

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 08:38:00 +0100

Fresh from playing Cleopatra in last year's Chichester production of Antony and Cleopatra, Kim Cattrall now takes to the stage as Alexandra Del Lago, the faded Hollywood star in flight from what she imagines (wrongly, it turns out) is a disastrous attempt at a cinematic come-back.

Henry Cavill on Man of Steel: I chose not to act as Superman

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 14:44:55 +0100

British actor Henry Cavill will be making his grand Hollywood entrance as the latest big screen incarnation of the all-American superhero Superman, in director Zack Snyder's dark and gritty Man of Steel, which opens on Friday.

'Boyfriend' of Bollywood actress Jiah Khan held on suspicion of abetting her suicide

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 14:30:34 +0100

A man said to be the boyfriend of a British-educated Bollywood star who apparently committed suicide has been remanded in custody following the reported discovery of a letter apparently written by her in which she accused an un-named person of cheating on her, forcing her to have an abortion and leaving her “broken inside”.

'John Malkovich saved my life': Actor comes to the rescue of elderly man who accidentally slit throat

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 08:55:13 +0100

John Malkovich is not normally cast in heroic roles. But the Hollywood actor, star of Being John Malkovich, has been credited with saving the life of a 77-year-old who accidentally slit his throat in a fall.

Withnail and Me: On-set photographs reveal close camaraderie between Richard E. Grant and Paul McGann while filming the cult classic

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 08:40:43 +0100

A new photographic exhibition offers a glimpse behind-the-scenes of the film that gave us such quotable classics as “I must have some booze, I demand to have some booze!” and “As a youth I used to weep in butchers shops”.

First look: The Hobbit 2: The Desolation of Smaug poster revealed

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 16:35:35 +0100

The poster for the second Hobbit film The Desolation of Smaug has been released online.

Superman is already a $170m brand superhero as Man of Steel tops the product placement charts

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 13:41:00 +0100

His Achilles heel was always the green glow of Kryptonite, but now Superman has found another green symbol he actually enjoys – the dollar.

Super sexist? As the Man of Steel flies back on to a screen near you, we ask: where are all the superheroine films?

Sun, 09 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0100

The clue may be in the name. Superman, Spider-Man, Batman, Iron Man. Be it a bird or a plane or a superhero streaking across the sky, the one certain thing is that it is not a woman.

James Cameron: 'Don't get high on your own supply'

Sun, 09 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0100

Opinions are like assholes – everyone has one." The gruff sentiment is not what you expect from one of the world's most powerful film-makers, well versed in Hollywood etiquette. But then James Cameron is no ordinary director. He is the man behind the two biggest box-office hits in film history – Avatar and Titanic.

Film review: The Iceman - Count yourself lucky, Winona... at least you escaped the wig fest

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 19:15:00 +0100

Anyone for a game of "Who's that Behind the Facial Hair"? The Iceman is a gritty biopic of Richard Kuklinski (Michael Shannon), a Mafia hitman from New Jersey who dispatched 100-odd people from the 1960s to the 1980s, apparently unbeknown to his wife (Winona Ryder) and daughters. And, like all Mafia sagas, it's also an opportunity for the wig department to strut its stuff.

Jonathan Romney on Steven Soderbergh's Behind the Candelabra: All hail, the queen of Hollywood

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 19:15:00 +0100

Steven Soderbergh says the Hollywood studios wouldn't let him make his film about Liberace, Behind the Candelabra, because execs felt it was "too gay". Too gay? Liberace? Who knew? Not the pianist's middle-American fans, apparently, even in the late Seventies. At the start of the film, a young man named Scott (Matt Damon) goes with his friend Bob (Scott Bakula) to a Liberace concert. The star is first spotted as a distant blur of pearly radiance, before we see him up close – played by Michael Douglas, his grin as dazzling as the piano's ivories. Liberace is a mind-boggling turn, whether playing boogie-woogie at 200mph or coyly flirting with an audience of besotted matrons. They're lapping it up – and apparently failing to see the big, be-sequinned, Schiaparelli-pink elephant in the room. "They have no idea that he's gay," Bob marvels.

Heads Up: Ben Wheatley's Civil War movie A Field in England

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 18:30:00 +0100

What are we talking about? A psychedelic English Civil War film. No, we don't really know what that means either. But it will feature magic mushrooms, a treasure hunt, and talking fields.

DVD review: Lincoln

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 18:30:00 +0100

Rather than being a cradle-to-grave biopic, Steven Spielberg's Lincoln is set almost entirely in Washington DC's parlours and debating chambers in the weeks preceding the crucial vote to abolish slavery.

DVD review: Zero Dark Thirty

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 18:30:00 +0100

One of the year's most tedious films, Kathryn Bigelow's frequently incomprehensible follow-up to the Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker caused some controversy by implying that CIA torture led to the finding of Osama Bin Laden.

The Saturday Miscellany: Lars von Trier vs Werner Herzog; Julian Assange; Queen's Club Championships; Dior Couture

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 00:00:44 +0100

Culture clash: Demanding directors

DVD & Blu-ray review: Zero Dark Thirty (15)

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 19:00:46 +0100

"Everybody breaks bro, it's biology," maintains Jason Clarke's pitiless CIA interrogator in a gruelling opening torture scene. It sets the unsentimental and discomforting tone for this look at the decade-long manhunt for Osama bin Laden.

Screen Talk: Bee thriller creates a buzz

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 19:00:43 +0100

The manuscript of thriller Fear of August by Laline Paull (pictured) had Hollywood buzzing with agents battling to sign her. Set entirely in a beehive, the story details a female worker bee who becomes a hunted criminal after discovering she is fertile in a society where only the queen may breed. WME won her signature.

DVD & Blu-ray review: I Give It a Year (15)

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 19:00:36 +0100

Olivia Colman, as an aggressive relationship counsellor, tries valiantly to rescue this contrived, occasionally witty Brit romcom. Rafe Spall's buffoonish novelist and Rose Byrne's humourless PR agent play a couple who marry after dating each other a mere seven months.

DVD & Blu-ray review: A Good Day to Die Hard (15)

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 19:00:32 +0100

Die Hard, possibly the most satisfying of all the Eighties actioners, is granted a fifth outing and it's sloppy. Bruce Willis's hardnut is tasked with retrieving his estranged CIA son (Jai Courtney) from Russian imprisonment.

Disney Pixar: Monsters, Bugs, Toys & Cars, Inc

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 19:00:21 +0100

Sometime in 1994, shortly after completing production on Pixar’s first feature film, Toy Story, four of the new animation studio’s creative heads met for a brainstorming lunch that would soon become legend. In just a couple of hours, Toy Story director John Lasseter and his co-writers Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter and Joe Ranft came up with the concepts for four more Pixar movies: A Bug’s Life; Monsters, Inc; Finding Nemo and Wall-E.

The master faker of pictures preparing for Mike Leigh's film about JMW Turner

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 19:00:20 +0100

Mike Leigh is the latest director to require artist Charlie Cobb's services, for his new film about the great British artist JMW Turner, currently shooting in the UK. Cobb has churned out many fake Turner paintings for the still untitled film, due out in 2014, in which Timothy Spall plays Turner.

DVD & Blu-ray review: Lincoln (12)

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 19:00:18 +0100

Spielberg's reverential, verbose drama (pictured) expertly depicts the horse-trading, threats and charm required to persuade the House of Representatives to pass the contentious 13th Amendment.

DVD & Blu-ray review: I Wish (PG)

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 19:00:08 +0100

Koichi lives in Kagoshima in the shadow of a volcano with his single mum and grandparents. He pines for his family to reunite but that's highly unlikely, so he and his brother go on an adventure.

DVD & Blu-ray review: Veep: The Complete First Season (15)

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 19:00:07 +0100

Armando Iannucci's US version of The Thick of It isn't as droll and caustic (it badly misses Malcolm Tucker) as the Brit version, but Julia Louis-Dreyfus is very good value as potty-mouthed Selina.

Films of the week: Kind heart puts the brakes on a cycle of neglect in The Kid with a Bike

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 19:00:00 +0100

Film choice: The Kid with a Bike

Film of the week: Behind the Candelabra (15)

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 19:00:00 +0100

Based on Scott Thorson's 1988 tell-all memoir of the same name, Steven Soderbergh's account of life behind the closed doors of Liberace's palatial mansion is an opulent, frequently joyous but hermetic film, about an unequal and inevitably doomed love affair.

Hummingbird exclusive preview screening

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 17:12:15 +0100

Hummingbird marks the directorial debut of Oscar® nominated screenwriter Steven Knight (Eastern Promises, Dirty Pretty Things), from his own original screenplay. It stars Jason Statham, with BAFTA award winner Vicky McClure, Agata Buzek and Benedict Wong.

Will Smith take note: Google claims to know which Hollywood films will flop four weeks before their release

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 14:25:32 +0100

As Will Smith has learned this week, predicting the box office performance of big Hollywood releases has never been an exact science.

From Before Sunrise to Before Midnight: Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke continue film's longest love story

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 12:30:48 +0100

June 16,1994, on a train travelling from Budapest, 23-year-old Sorbonne student Celine sits near Jesse, a heartbroken backpacker on his way to Vienna to catch a flight home to America. He’s reading Klaus Kinski’s memoir All I Need Is Love, she’s holding a collection of erotic short stories by French intellectual George Bataille. Conversation flows.

Crood box office manipulation? China pulls The Croods from cinemas two weeks early after homegrown animations flop

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 12:19:12 +0100

DreamWorks animation The Croods, which has generated more than £40 million (391 million Yuan) at the Chinese box office, has reportedly been pulled from the country's cinemas two weeks early.

Esther Williams, former swimmer and film star, dies aged 91 in Los Angeles

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 11:21:56 +0100

Esther Williams, a former champion swimmer and subsequent film star, has died at the age of 91 in Los Angeles.

Keira Knightley may co-star as 'complicated love interest' with Benedict Cumberbatch in Alan Turing biopic The Imitation Game

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 10:40:15 +0100

Keira Knightley looks set to join Benedict Cumberbatch in a film based on the life of ground-breaking mathematician and Enigma code-breaker Alan Turing.

Film review: The Iceman is a case study in schizoid behaviour

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 08:53:00 +0100

Michael Shannon stars in the true story of Richard Kuklinski, who unbeknownst to family and friends was one of the most prolific contract killers of his day.

Film review: The Last Exorcism: Part II is yet another substandard horror

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 08:49:00 +0100

Picking up from where the first, er, Last Exorcism left off, this substandard horror continues to put hapless teenager Nell (Ashley Bell) through the torments of diabolic possession.

Film review: Thérèse Desqueyroux starring Audrey Tatou

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 08:47:00 +0100

Audrey Tautou stars as the title character in Claude Miller's adaptation of Mauriac's classic novel of bourgeois entrapment.

Film review: The Stone Roses: Made of Stone - Shane Meadows presents a fan's eye view with mixed results

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 08:46:00 +0100

"The Second Coming" would have been a better title for this documentary about the return of The Stone Roses, but they'd already used it for an album.

Film review: Behind the Candelabra - Michael Douglas brings star wattage so bright you'll need shades

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 08:45:00 +0100

Here is something pretty remarkable, a showbiz biopic that manages to be incisive without being judgemental, and sexually candid without being prurient. Where Liberace is concerned there would always be a temptation to play it as a chronicle of excess, and the director Steven Soderbergh doesn't stint on the tawdriness, the tackiness, the eye-popping vulgarity and the pill-popping squalor.

Film review: After Earth - Will and Jaden Smith star in yet another silly movie from M Night Shyamalan

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 08:41:00 +0100

The strange and terrible career of M Night Shyamalan continues to thrive, despite his being responsible for some of the silliest movies of the century (Lady in the Water, The Village, The Last Airbender).

Carey Mulligan set to beat American rivals to play Hillary Clinton in Rodham

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 08:38:55 +0100

The British actress Carey Mulligan is set to beat a string of American rivals to play the role of Hillary Clinton in a biopic of the former US Secretary of State.

Film review: Aguirre, Wrath of God (PG)

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 19:00:00 +0100

First released in 1972, Werner Herzog's film is a tale of two trips, one of Spanish conquistadors trekking through the jungle in search of El Dorado, the other into an hallucinatory strangeness of the director's own making.

From Sightseers to Civil War: Ben Wheatley directs his fourth film in three years (in a field in Guildford)

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 10:05:01 +0100

His grisly caravan murder spree Sightseers was the surprise, award-winning hit of last year. Now, with the unfortunate holidaymakers barely cold in their graves, Ben Wheatley is back in cinemas with a psychedelic period drama set during the English Civil War.

Little baby RocknRoll: Kate Winslet announces she is pregnant with her third child

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 15:59:43 +0100

Oscar-winning British actress Kate Winslet has confirmed she is pregnant with her third child.

From Dame to Madame Mallory? Helen Mirren 'in talks to play French chef in The Hundred-Foot Journey

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 15:14:44 +0100

Dame Helen Mirren is in talks to play an eccentric French chef in a film adaptation of best-selling novel The Hundred-Foot Journey, according to reports.

Jiah Khan dead: Bollywood actress 'was depressed about career' says director Ram Gopal Varma after star is found hanging at Mumbai home

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 11:00:49 +0100

A struggling Bollywood actress who was educated and grew up in London has been found dead in her Mumbai home, having apparently taken her own life. Her last film role was three years ago.

After Earth 'is worst movie of 2013': Is Will Smith's reign over the summer box office over?

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 10:33:36 +0100

It used to be that if a summer film starred Will Smith, it was a guaranteed moneymaker: First place at the box office, maybe a franchise in the making.

Michael Douglas denies saying his throat cancer was caused by oral sex and the HPV virus in Guardian interview

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 09:21:56 +0100

Michael Douglas did not say he developed throat cancer because of oral sex, according to his publicist.

After Michael Douglas' claims, the doctors' verdict on oral sex: There's only a 'very small' risk of cancer

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 17:22:44 +0100

Michael Douglas may have been displaying admirable candour when he told a journalist this weekend that his throat cancer had been caused by a virus “which…comes about from cunnilingus” – but he also sparked a minor health scare.

A picture of health: Angelina Jolie and fiancée Brad Pitt make first public appearance since double mastectomy news at World War Z London premiere

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 09:03:05 +0100

Angelina Jolie made her first public appearance last night after revealing in May that she had undergone a preventative double mastectomy.

It's oral sex, not smoking: Michael Douglas says his throat cancer was caused by stress and the human papillomavirus (HPV) - and also says 'cunnilingus is the best cure'

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 07:13:13 +0100

Following Angelina Jolie's double mastectomy news there has never been a more appropriate time for celebrities to come out and talk seriously about cancer. But Hollywood actor and Behind the Candelabra star Michael Douglas might be accused of 'over sharing' after claiming in a recent interview that the cause of his throat cancer was oral sex - and that the cure for the disease was more of same.

Film review: Populaire - You need more than 140 words per minute to write a decent script

Sat, 01 Jun 2013 20:27:00 +0100

The publicity for Populaire is selling it as "Mad Men meets The Artist", and you can see where it's coming from. Brylcreem, sharp suits and cigarettes by the truckload? Check. Feelgood French tribute to the cinema of a bygone era? Check. But it would be just as appropriate to compare Populaire to every film ever made about somebody competing in a contest, from The Karate Kid to Pitch Perfect.

Jonathan Romney on Byzantium: Revenge of the British landlady

Sat, 01 Jun 2013 20:27:00 +0100

Don't say "vampire", whatever you do. Byzantium may be based on a play called A Vampire Story – by Moira Buffini, who has adapted it for the screen – but the term used is "sucrient". And it's not something you add to your coffee.

Audrey Tautou interview: Ingénue, moi?

Sat, 01 Jun 2013 20:27:00 +0100

Last week the Cannes film festival closed as it began, with one of the most famous faces in France acting as maîtresse de cérémonie. Unlike other festivals, which tend to employ pretty (and, often, vacant) TV presenters to helm their opening and awards ceremonies, Cannes characteristically aims higher, at film stars with a bit of class. Jeanne Moreau was the first, setting the bar high; Audrey Tautou seemed a perfect fit.

DVD review: I Give it a Year

Sat, 01 Jun 2013 19:30:00 +0100

A Richard Curtis-ian rom-com with a misanthropic twist, I Give it a Year focuses on a pair of newlyweds, Rafe Spall and Rose Byrne, who aren't sure whether to stay together. The problem is that we aren't sure, either.