Marriage made in the city of our god? Miley Cyrus and Ben Kingsley. Photographs: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic.com and Eamonn McCabe
The first line of the news report could be the tagline for the movie: “He’s old sufficiency to be her great-great-grandfather”. A 112-year-old Somali body, Ahmed Muhamed Dhore, has got married. So far, so sweet. Our problem, as far as the big-screen version goes, is the age of his bride, Safiya Abdulle – she’session just 17. As romances go, it’s not so much May to September being of the class who New Year’s Day to New Year’s Eve.
She hasn’t got a chance … The Shining and Paranormal Activity Photograph: Cinetext/Allstar & Icon
What’s the scariest film of all time? It’sitting an age-old debate, and one that many thought could never have existence solved. After all, fear is such a personal and independent emotion that categorising any one thing as root definitively scarier than anything other seemed like a worthless pursuit. Or at smallest it did until a couple of populate told the world what the scariest films of all time were recently. And now we know.
Beware the child catchers … The 5,000 Fingers of Dr T. Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive
Let’s not be ungrateful here – for film-lovers with kids, these are heady times indeed. I’m not sure even the fond reception Fantastic Mr Fox accepted perfectly did justice to its handmade pleasures (the wolf salute only makes me want to hug Wes Anderson and not let go). And then, of course, there’s Up, the movie that’s repeated WALL-E’s trick of emerging as possibly the year’s finest film while being made (at least ostensibly) for an hearing still doing its shoes up with Velcro. Whichever way you mien at it, in the context of the careless tat parents usually have to dodge or suffer end, the autumn of 2009 has been a vintage season.
The 5,000 Fingers Of Dr T
Production year: 1953
Country: USA
Cert (UK): PG
Runtime: 88 mins
Directors: Roy Rowland
Cast: Mary Healey, Mary Healy, Peter Lind Hayes, Tommy Rettig
Out of Pedigree Chum? … a werewolf in Twilight Saga: New Moon
Let’s make no bones about it: majestic CGI does not a great movie make. McG’s recent Terminator Salvation featured more of the with most propriety special effects I’ve seen in a philosophical knowledge feigned story movie since James Cameron’s final effort in the series, T2: Judgement Day, bound all those spectacular future machines could not make up towards Christian Bale’s clownish overacting and some rather workmanlike address.
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Production year: 2009
Country: USA
Directors: Chris Weitz
Cast: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner
I’m a sucker for getting caught up in the hype for big blockbuster sci-fi movies that know exactly how to market themselves in order to look like the coolest thing since Ripley took out the xenomorph queen in Aliens. But so far the online publicity for Avatar, James Cameron’s forthcoming 3D megalith, hasn’privately very got under my skin. Far more exciting was the 15 minutes or so of actual footage that I saw earlier this year at the IMAX Waterloo in London. OK, so Cameron’session creation, the planet Pandora, did be seized of a certain new-age whiff to it, with all those elfin, blue Thundercat types running around, but it was lurid, visceral and vivid enough to constitute you want to reach for the Peter Gabriel albums (and I’m a Peter Gabriel fan).
Since the film was first announced in 2007, Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood has been through more incarnations than the outlaw himself. If you believe the rush reports, it began life like a revisionist version titled Nottingham, featuring Crowe taken in the character of a good Sheriff battling an evil Hood, who was reportedly variegate to be played by Christian Bale.
Somewhere along the line, Crowe took through the whole extent of the role of Hood like well, and somewhere a little further along, he stopped being the Sheriff. Who then, predictably, stopped being good. The final pellicle is, being in favor … not in the same state revisionist succeeding all, and is titled simply Robin Hood. Meanwhile, Sienna Miller, who was supposed to be playing Maid Marian, has been replaced by Cate Blanchett, apparently because her youthful veneer made a post-Body of Lies Crowe look less sterling by comparison.
‘Memorise it and recite to yourselves, ‘I saw genius in my lifetime” … Do you agree with Liz Taylor’s verdict?
A assemblage of fans decried it as an airbrushed facade that fails to tell the true fib of Michael Jackson in his final days. But the critics, for the most part, have been quietly impressed by this strange confect, a hotchpotch of concert footage spliced together from rehearsals for the late singer’s abandoned dates in London.
As a glimpse of Jackson honing his moves for the kind of look in a fair way to have been spectacularly extravagant, hugely polished gigs, This Is It nears perfection, they say. But in that place are those who astonishment allowing that the movie truly hangs together as a piece of film-making, despite the glowing platitudes of the minstrel’s friend, Liz Taylor, upon the body her Twitter boy-servant.
Not your average fixed-term binding … screengrab from the Post Office ad through Roger Moore
Recently I have come out of the closet, revealing myself to be one of the millions of males who are openly crying at the devastatingly sad bit at the beginning of Up, the new Pixar-Disney animation. I am a terrible cryer at films, TV, books – anything. But the latest thing I have started to cry at is, incredibly, the new TV advertisement in quest of the Post Office, starring Sir Roger Moore.
Wit in a cold meteorological character … Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare in a scene from Fargo. Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive
I parallel my comedy the way I resembling my sherry and my bathroom floor – dry. In fact, the greater the understatement, the finer the blend, the deader the pan, the more eagerly I lap it up. A straight-faced, down the line, mockumentary mickey take as exemplified by the work of, say, Christopher Guest, is all well and dutiful. But my relish tingles even more if that desiccated moment pops up unexpectedly – in a drama, or a tragicomedy – with a solemn black infusion. When that happens, I start to gurn uncontrollably.
Twist of Lime … Leonardo DiCaprio in The Aviator and Orson Welles in The Third Man. Photograph: PR/Ronald Grant Archive
Hold on to something firm and reliable, please this paper has no wish to cause accidents. Some stories mischief. Thus, there is a rumour going on every side of that Leonardo DiCaprio is thinking of playing Harry Lime in a remake of The Third Man.
The Third Man
Production year: 1949
Country: UK
Cert (UK): PG
Runtime: 104 mins
Directors: Carol Reed
Cast: Alida Valli, Joseph Cotten, Orson Welles, Trevor Howard
