http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/?service=Rss http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/the-etruscan-roots-of-the-twilight-saga-1824664.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/the-etruscan-roots-of-the-twilight-saga-1824664.html ]]> <p> Were there vampires in Volterra? Probably not, but the Etruscans had their own brigade of gods and demons representing night, death and resurrection. </p> Features Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:08:29 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/indy-choice-best-of-the-new-films-1824515.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/indy-choice-best-of-the-new-films-1824515.html ]]> <p> Whether you want to take a trip to the cinema or save those pennies and stay at home with a DVD, here's a selection of the best films for you to watch this weekend. </p> Features Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:24:00 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/interviews/poliakoff-original-work-takes-arrogance-1823814.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/interviews/poliakoff-original-work-takes-arrogance-1823814.html ]]> <p>Take a country house, some beautiful English landscapes, a family secret, some fabulously stirring music, and a rich sense of history, and what do you get? A Stephen Poliakoff, of course. It's a combination that has worked to brilliant effect in much of his work, and one that has won him a reputation as one of our best writers and directors of film and TV drama, and carte blanche (and massive budgets) at the BBC. Pretty much no one else, these days, gets carte blanche, or massive budgets, at the BBC.</p> Interviews Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:28 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/ashley-jensen-ricky-and-extras-changed-my-life-1823709.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/ashley-jensen-ricky-and-extras-changed-my-life-1823709.html ]]> <p>I find myself thinking, 'how did I get here?'", says Ashley Jensen, shaking her head in disbelief. "When I'm walking up the red carpet at the Golden Globes. Or they're announcing my name next to Dame Eileen Atkins in the Emmy nominations, I just think, 'this is mental'."</p> Features Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/a-sideways-look-from-east-to-west-1823717.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/a-sideways-look-from-east-to-west-1823717.html <p>Picture the scene: two bachelors decide to take a road trip round Californian vineyards to celebrate an impending marriage. One is a down-and-out writer, unlucky in love and a tad self-conscious; the other is a swaggering lothario, ignorant about wine but great with the ladies. The first wants to bond over Merlot; his affianced friend wants to hit Las Vegas.</p> Features Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/party-of-the-week-lily-cole-breaks-the-ice-at--somerset-house-1823809.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/party-of-the-week-lily-cole-breaks-the-ice-at--somerset-house-1823809.html <p> The actress and supermodel Lily Cole, wearing a white Chanel coat, whizzed around Somerset House's ice rink for its VIP opening party in London on Monday night. </p> Features Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/story-of-the-scene-poltergeist-1982-1823723.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/story-of-the-scene-poltergeist-1982-1823723.html ]]> <p>The final and cataclysmic destruction of the haunted house in Poltergeist was one of the last great model-inspired special effects before CGI became the norm. It cost well over $25,000 to make.</p> Features Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/bollywood-podcast-kareena-kapoor-aka-bebo-1823759.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/bollywood-podcast-kareena-kapoor-aka-bebo-1823759.html ]]> <p> Plenty to get our teeth into around Indian cinema recently, so just to recap... Tum Mile ("I Met You", Vishesh Films) is a romantic drama set against the backdrop of the Mumbai floods in the summer of 2005. </p> Features Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:53:19 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/exclusive-preview-of-new-eva-green-film-lsquocracksrsquo-1823644.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/exclusive-preview-of-new-eva-green-film-lsquocracksrsquo-1823644.html ]]> Features Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:16:43 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/the-best-films-never-made-1821716.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/the-best-films-never-made-1821716.html ]]> <p>Can you imagine if The Godfather had never been made? If Star Wars, E.T. and Pulp Fiction had never graced our cinema screens and become classic movies of their time? It's hard to think of cinema history without films like these and yet it could all have been so different. For every film that's made it to the silver screen over the years, there are plenty that could have been equally as good, equally as successful if only they'd got off the ground. It's not often that those "if-only" films are given any thought, especially at a film festival – until now. This Thursday, for the first time, the annual Cine City Brighton Film Festival is introducing a "never-mades" strand – a dummy film programme that reveals the British films that won't be playing at the cinema.</p> Features Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/son-of-a-lion-shooting-with-the-enemy-1821744.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/son-of-a-lion-shooting-with-the-enemy-1821744.html ]]> <p>As any Hollywood director will tell you, finding the perfect match to play the protagonist in your film can be a notoriously time-consuming and frustrating procedure. First you have to hold auditions, separating the few grains of wheat from an often wide field of chaff. Then once you've found a star, you have to deal with their money-hungry agents and the non-stop demands of Hollywood's elite.</p> Features Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/features/on-the-agenda-were-off-to-the-shops-at-st-martins-lane-hotel-then-on-to-a-wainwright-christmas-1818795.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/features/on-the-agenda-were-off-to-the-shops-at-st-martins-lane-hotel-then-on-to-a-wainwright-christmas-1818795.html ]]> Features Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/olivia-williams-i-just-do-what-im-told-1818815.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/olivia-williams-i-just-do-what-im-told-1818815.html ]]> <p> Do actors ever feel truly secure in their chosen profession? In the past year, Olivia Williams has spent six months filming the Joss Whedon sci-fi TV series Dollhouse, shot a movie in Berlin with Roman Polanski, played Ian Dury's wife in the upcoming biopic Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll and taken a supporting role in Nick Hornby's adaptation of Lynn Barber's memoir, An Education – as tasty and varied a body of work as any actor could ask for. Yet, this very morning, the 41-year-old actress tells me, she considered once again whether she shouldn't have followed in her parents' and older sister's footsteps and become a barrister.</p> Features Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/indy-choice-best-of-the-new-films-1688946.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/indy-choice-best-of-the-new-films-1688946.html ]]> <p> Whether you want to take a trip to the cinema or save those pennies and stay at home with a DVD, here's a selection of the best films for you to watch this weekend. </p> Features Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:42 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/michael-sheen-i-am-officially-the-king-of-hollywood-1819392.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/michael-sheen-i-am-officially-the-king-of-hollywood-1819392.html ]]> <p> If life begins at 40, Michael Sheen has certainly begun a very different one since hitting the landmark in February. </p> Features Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:15 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/real-life-stories-from-the-film-front-line-1819399.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/real-life-stories-from-the-film-front-line-1819399.html ]]> <p> It is a slow Saturday afternoon in the Loews beachfront hotel in Santa Monica, California, midway through the American Film Market (AFM). These are tough times in the independent film world. </p> Features Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:08 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/the-diary-shantaram-film--lumiere-festival-tom-atkinson-hans-holbein-harold-evans-1819450.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/the-diary-shantaram-film--lumiere-festival-tom-atkinson-hans-holbein-harold-evans-1819450.html ]]> Features Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/150-hours-and-counting-the-worlds-longest-film-goes-on-1817274.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/150-hours-and-counting-the-worlds-longest-film-goes-on-1817274.html ]]> <p>Three decades is a long time to spend making a film, but when your project runs to more than 150 hours, it is perhaps understandable that it takes a little while to put together. Indeed, Gerard Courant's Cinématon is the world's longest. And yet it may also be one of the simplest: this epic movie consists of nothing more than a succession of thousands of people – artists, philosophers, journalists, babies – on camera for three and a half minutes, doing exactly as they please.</p> Features Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/on-the-agenda-harry-brown-radley-manchesters-royal-exchange-theatre-masterchef-ctrlaltshift-1814730.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/on-the-agenda-harry-brown-radley-manchesters-royal-exchange-theatre-masterchef-ctrlaltshift-1814730.html ]]> Features Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/michael-haneke-bleak-house-1816596.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/michael-haneke-bleak-house-1816596.html ]]> <p>For a film director who demands quite so much of his audience, and even more uncompromisingly of himself, it has taken the Austrian director Michael Haneke a long time (20 years to be precise) to gain the Palme d'Or at Cannes, that quintessential approbation of the art-house auteur. But then maybe, like Martin Scorsese's long wait for an Oscar, it isn't so surprising. Haneke is a director who challenges but he does not satisfy; his ever so precisely organised films grip you with their remorseless catalogue of pain only to leave you unrelieved at the end either by resolution or even explanation.</p> Profiles Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/exclusive-trailer-award-winning-japanese-film-lsquodeparturesrsquo-1816167.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/exclusive-trailer-award-winning-japanese-film-lsquodeparturesrsquo-1816167.html ]]> <p> The latest film from acclaimed Japanese director Yojiro Takita beat off stiff competition earlier this year to take the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. </p> Features Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:43:55 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/the-diary-paul-auster-jerry-moffat-punch-magazine-penny-woolcock-1815308.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/the-diary-paul-auster-jerry-moffat-punch-magazine-penny-woolcock-1815308.html ]]> Features Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/carey-mulligans-in-a-class-of-her-own-1815518.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/carey-mulligans-in-a-class-of-her-own-1815518.html ]]> <p>Just under a year ago, Carey Mulligan was sleeping quite soundly at night. Then she found out An Education was going to play at the Sundance Film Festival. The weight of shouldering her first lead suddenly hit her. "I started freaking out that if everybody hated it, it would be all my fault," she explains. "I had these anxiety dreams – very basic anxiety dreams – where Geoff Gilmore, the [former] director of Sundance put me in a car and made me leave for being disappointing. In Park City, in the main high street, he gets this black car and he's like, 'Get in. You've got to go. Everyone thought it was going to be really good!'"</p> Features Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/the-diy-movie-boom-1815521.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/the-diy-movie-boom-1815521.html ]]> <p>Amid all the backslapping and self-important speeches, awards ceremonies are always a good place to take stock. In little under a month, the British Independent Film Awards (the Bifas) will take place in London. Last year, Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire was announced as the Best British Independent Film there, prefacing its clean sweep at the Golden Globes, Baftas and Oscars. If that was a first for the Bifas – none of the other winners in its 11-year history had ever claimed a Best Picture Oscar before – it certainly showed one thing: that British independent film has the ability to compete with Hollywood. </p> Features Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/doha-tribeca-film-festival--full-of-eastern-promise-1815508.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/doha-tribeca-film-festival--full-of-eastern-promise-1815508.html ]]> <p>Sir Ben Kingsley is sitting on the terrace of the Al Mourjan Restaurant, looking out over the Arabian Gulf. He goes almost unnoticed at the launch of the inaugural Doha Tribeca Film Festival, as attendees take in the panoramic views of the IM Pei-designed Museum of Islamic Art and skyscrapers sitting atop 15 billion barrels of oil. Under the sweltering blue sky, Mira Nair, whose movie Amelia has been chosen to show first among the 31 films scheduled over the next four days, introduces Martin Scorsese, who is in town to support the World Cinema Foundation restoration of Shadi Abdel Salam's 1969 classic The Mummy. </p> Features Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/bollywood-podcast-salman-khan-amp-asin-1815431.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/bollywood-podcast-salman-khan-amp-asin-1815431.html ]]> <p> After two decades of loving him on screen and most recently, wondering how on Earth his pecs managed to grow so big, it was lovely to finally meet Salman Khan in the flesh! He stars with last week's podcast star, Ajay Devgan in London Dreams (Studio 18) which is out now. </p> Features Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:26:33 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/how-precious-became-hollywoods-next-big-thing-1814201.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/how-precious-became-hollywoods-next-big-thing-1814201.html ]]> <p>Its heroine is a black teenage girl made pregnant by her own father and repeatedly beaten up by her mother. She is illiterate, penniless, HIV-positive, and weighs 350 pounds. Its setting is a tough district of Harlem, and the plot is relentlessly bleak. It barely even manages a happy ending. </p> Features Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/watch-extracts-from-michael-caines-new-film-harry-brown-1813927.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/watch-extracts-from-michael-caines-new-film-harry-brown-1813927.html ]]> <p> Set in modern-day Britain, Harry Brown follows one man’s (played by Sir Michael Caine) journey through a chaotic world where drugs are the currency of the day and guns run the streets. </p> Features Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:28:03 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/scrooge-in-3d-1813577.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/scrooge-in-3d-1813577.html ]]> <p>There are two words Ebenezer Scrooge throws into conversation at the start of every Christmas Carol. The first is "Bah!" The second: "humbug!" Dickens used them, complete with exclamation points, on the first page of his original novella. The film-maker Robert Zemeckis makes us wait no more than a couple of minutes before inserting them into Disney's latest, hi-tech rendering of the classic seasonal parable.</p> Features Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/all-about-steve-trailer-now-available-1813482.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/all-about-steve-trailer-now-available-1813482.html ]]> <p> "The Proposal's" Sandra Bullock, Oscar nominee Thomas Haden Church, and "The Hangover's" Bradley Cooper star in a hilarious tale of a woman who, after falling hard for a guy, thinks they're an item; unfortunately, he thinks she's stalking him! </p> Features Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:51:07 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/holmes-sweet-holmes-literatures-greatest-sleuth-1813057.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/holmes-sweet-holmes-literatures-greatest-sleuth-1813057.html ]]> <p>Along with Santa Claus and Mickey Mouse, he is one of the three best-known personalities on the planet. Orson Welles called him "the world's most famous man who never was", though to millions across the globe he was as real as their family doctor. To a surprising number, he still is. </p> Features Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:33 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/on-the-agenda-were-going-back-in-time-for-a-dalliance-with-dialup-and-an-aled-jonesthemed-christmas-1811024.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/on-the-agenda-were-going-back-in-time-for-a-dalliance-with-dialup-and-an-aled-jonesthemed-christmas-1811024.html ]]> Features Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/women-on-the-verge-why-2009-is-the-year-of-the-female-film-director-1811029.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/women-on-the-verge-why-2009-is-the-year-of-the-female-film-director-1811029.html ]]> <p> Here's a shocking fact: in the 80-year history of the Oscars, only three women have been nominated in the Best Director category. Back in 1977, Lina Wertmüller was the first to be given the nod, for Seven Beauties; then, in 1994, Jane Campion was nominated for The Piano; and in this decade, Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation. None took home the Academy Award. For the Danish film-maker Lone Scherfig, that lack of success is a question of numbers: "Doesn't that just reflect how many films are directed by men?" she asks. "Statistically, it means there's only a small chance that a woman can win an Oscar."</p> Features Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/scare-tactics-the-hammer-horror-film-posters-with-real-bite-1810983.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/scare-tactics-the-hammer-horror-film-posters-with-real-bite-1810983.html ]]> <p>"Tit and fang" is how the poet Philip Larkin summed up Hammer Films' output and, give or take the odd ill-fated deviation from the formula, he wasn't wrong. Cobwebs, coffins, crucifixes, bats, bubbling test tubes, buckets of blood, crumbling castles, barely restrained cleavages: these were the emblems of Hammer horror and, against the odds, they scared the bejesus out of movie-goers in the late Fifties and Sixties.</p> Features Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/ten-halloween-flicks-to-watch-this-weekend-1812033.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/ten-halloween-flicks-to-watch-this-weekend-1812033.html ]]> <p> Fancy watching something a bit spooky to get you in the mood for Halloween? Here's our pick of ten recently released or revamped horror flicks to whiten those knuckles. </p> <p> <a target="_self" href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/ten-halloween-flicks-to-watch-this-weekend-1812033.html?action=Popup"><b>Click here or on the image to launch</b></a><b> </b> </p> Features Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:07:49 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/party-of-the-week-glorious-wartime-spirit-hits-soho-1811342.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/party-of-the-week-glorious-wartime-spirit-hits-soho-1811342.html ]]> <p>The Glorious 39 director Stephen Poliakoff and the film's star Romola Garai headed to an intimate private drinks reception at Kettner's in Soho, to celebrate the film's British premiere at the London Film Festival. </p> Features Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/ang-lee--beyond-the-mild-side-1811465.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/ang-lee--beyond-the-mild-side-1811465.html ]]> <p>Rather like Bruce Banner, the Marvel Comics character he once wrestled with in Hulk, there lurks an untamed beast inside Ang Lee. But this is no green-skinned creature with anger management problems but an anti-establishment auteur who dabbles in the dark side. You can see flashes of it in some of his films: the partner-swapping scene in Watergate-era drama The Ice Storm, for example, or the so-explicit-surely-its-hardcore sex in Lust, Caution. And now the LSD sequence in Taking Woodstock, Lee's flower-power comedy about the generation-defining festival. </p> Features Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/goblins-a-dentist-and-the-worst-movie-ever-1811355.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/goblins-a-dentist-and-the-worst-movie-ever-1811355.html ]]> <p>On the streets of Alexander City, Alabama, you won't find a single person with a bad word to say about Dr George W Hardy. "He is just the most authentic, alive person", rhapsodises one friend. "He's always smiling and he likes people", adds another. Even his ex-wife struggles to find a flaw in his character. "I can't think of one person who doesn't like George Hardy", she says, a little pensively. "It would be pretty hard not to like George."</p> Features Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/an-exclusive-clip-from-the-keats-biopic-bright-star-1810901.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/an-exclusive-clip-from-the-keats-biopic-bright-star-1810901.html ]]> Features Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:14:44 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/exclusive-footage-from-the-making-of-where-the-wild-things-are-1810291.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/exclusive-footage-from-the-making-of-where-the-wild-things-are-1810291.html ]]> <p> “In terms of musical genre we tried to avoid everything,” explains Carter Burwell the composer responsible for the thudding, crunching, whirring and wonderful score that features in the recent box office smash Where The Wild Things Are. </p> Features Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:01:22 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/bollywood-podcast-akshay-kumar-amp-ajay-devgan-1809732.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/bollywood-podcast-akshay-kumar-amp-ajay-devgan-1809732.html ]]> <p> Hello again - don't worry, I haven't disappeared off the face of the Earth or anything, everyone's allowed to take a couple of days off to celebrate the misery of getting a year older aren't they? </p> Features Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:19:55 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/the-liman-indiscretion-the-director-who-loves-gossip-1809342.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/the-liman-indiscretion-the-director-who-loves-gossip-1809342.html ]]> <p>When two major Hollywood studios decided, last week, to stifle their creative staff's love of tweeting and blabbing, did anyone tell Doug Liman? </p> Features Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:00:26 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/on-the-agenda-hammer-time-no-not-parachute-pants-but-a-series-of-scary-movies-for-halloween-1807380.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/on-the-agenda-hammer-time-no-not-parachute-pants-but-a-series-of-scary-movies-for-halloween-1807380.html ]]> Features Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/feel-the-force-inside-skywalker-ranch-1808435.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/feel-the-force-inside-skywalker-ranch-1808435.html ]]> <p>It is not every day that you are greeted at the front door by Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Princess Leia, Yoda, RD2 and a platoon of Stormtroopers. But there again, it is not every day that you visit the Skywalker Ranch.</p> Features Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/story-of-the-scene-bullitt-1968-1807209.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/story-of-the-scene-bullitt-1968-1807209.html ]]> <p>Steve McQueen is in his 1968 GT Ford Mustang. The hit men are in their black 1968 Dodge Charger 440 R/T. What follows, through the streets of San Francisco, is the greatest car chase ever filmed.</p> Features Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/stalker-movies--the-genre-that-just-wont-go-away-1807222.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/stalker-movies--the-genre-that-just-wont-go-away-1807222.html ]]> <p>This paltry thing – our lives – he wanted it," the middle-aged heroine (Stockard Channing) observes of the young confidence-trickster (Will Smith) who inveigles his way into her home in the film Six Degrees of Separation (1993). She's a sophisticated New Yorker with a big Manhattan apartment. He is a street hustler who pretends he is movie star Sidney Poitier's son so that he can gatecrash her world. It is the classic set-up in what has become its own mini-genre: the "stalker" movie. </p> Features Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/hilary-swank--theres-something-in-the-air-1807223.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/hilary-swank--theres-something-in-the-air-1807223.html ]]> <p>While I'm waiting in the holding room – PR terminology for the hotel suite where journalists are left to sweat it before an audience with a star – Hilary Swank walks past the open door. Dressed in black jeans, Chanel-branded heels and a red cardigan with navy trim, she beams a smile that would out-dazzle Tom Cruise and waves to nobody in particular, like a politician in election year. "I would say that this is really where my work lies," she later tells me. "Travelling around and talking about the movie and doing press. It's actually harder to do than what I love to do, which is making the film."</p> Features Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/london-film-festival-2009-our-pick-of-the-highlights-1807147.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/london-film-festival-2009-our-pick-of-the-highlights-1807147.html ]]> Features Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:57:23 +0100