Though the Continental Congress severed political connections with Great Britain on July 4, 1776, with the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. has never detached with their obsession with the British Royal Family. Just look at 2021 Emmy nominations.
The fourth season of Netflix’ “The Crown” reaped 24 bids — the show has already won 10 Emmys — including series, for leads Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth II, Emma Corrin as Diana, the Princess of Wales and Josh O’Connor as Prince Charles and for supporting players Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher, Helena Bonham Carter as Princess Margaret and Emerald Fennell as Camilla Parker Bowles. And Oprah Winfrey’s blockbuster interview with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle was nominated for best hosted nonfiction series or special.
There has been a lot of Emmy love over the years for the British monarchs. So make yourself cup of tea, heat up your scone or crumpet — with lemon curd, natch — keep...
The fourth season of Netflix’ “The Crown” reaped 24 bids — the show has already won 10 Emmys — including series, for leads Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth II, Emma Corrin as Diana, the Princess of Wales and Josh O’Connor as Prince Charles and for supporting players Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher, Helena Bonham Carter as Princess Margaret and Emerald Fennell as Camilla Parker Bowles. And Oprah Winfrey’s blockbuster interview with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle was nominated for best hosted nonfiction series or special.
There has been a lot of Emmy love over the years for the British monarchs. So make yourself cup of tea, heat up your scone or crumpet — with lemon curd, natch — keep...
- 7/20/2021
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
As Amazon prepares to launch the fourth and final season of “The Man in the High Castle” on Friday, the show’s exec producer, Stewart Mackinnon, has gone out of the gate with Circle Pictures. The newly minted production outfit will, Mackinnon told Variety, work across TV and film, and will major on drama projects with a purpose.
Mackinnon was co-founder and CEO of Headline Pictures until earlier this year, one of the production companies making Philip K. Dick adaptation “The Man in the High Castle,” and behind shows including ITV’s “Peter & Wendy,” starring Stanley Tucci and which won an International Emmy.
He has also produced films including Dustin Hoffman’s directorial debut “Quartet” under the Headline banner, having co-founded the company with the late Mark Shivas, a former BBC head of drama.
“Whether it’s for a broadcaster or one of the new platforms, my interest is always in...
Mackinnon was co-founder and CEO of Headline Pictures until earlier this year, one of the production companies making Philip K. Dick adaptation “The Man in the High Castle,” and behind shows including ITV’s “Peter & Wendy,” starring Stanley Tucci and which won an International Emmy.
He has also produced films including Dustin Hoffman’s directorial debut “Quartet” under the Headline banner, having co-founded the company with the late Mark Shivas, a former BBC head of drama.
“Whether it’s for a broadcaster or one of the new platforms, my interest is always in...
- 11/14/2019
- by Stewart Clarke
- Variety Film + TV
Roald Dahl’s marvelous horror thriller for children (the ones ready for it) knows exactly what it is and doesn’t soft-pedal the scary stuff. Horrible (but sexy) witches plot the wholesale destruction of Hansels and Gretels everywhere, and the only kid that can stop them has been changed into a mouse. Nicolas Roeg runs wild with Dahl’s imaginative, refreshingly un-pc book; the usual softening touches are skipped in favor of unadulterated scarifying Fun. It couldn’t be better directed; we wish that Roeg had been able to create a dozen such outrageous fantasies. Star Anjelica Huston is an amazing Grand High Witch, with Mai Zetterling, Anne Lambton and Jane Horrocks providing able witchy support. Recommended!
The Witches
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1990 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 92 min. / Street Date August 20, 2019 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Anjelica Huston, Mai Zetterling, Jasen Fisher, Rowan Atkinson, Bill Paterson, Brenda Blethyn, Charlie Potter, Jim Carter,...
The Witches
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1990 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 92 min. / Street Date August 20, 2019 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Anjelica Huston, Mai Zetterling, Jasen Fisher, Rowan Atkinson, Bill Paterson, Brenda Blethyn, Charlie Potter, Jim Carter,...
- 8/24/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Screen canvasses industry opinion on Langan’s tenure and the prospects for one of the UK’s cornerstone funders.
There have been warm tributes to Christine Langan as news broke yesterday of her impending departure from BBC Films to join UK production outfit Baby Cow.
Attention is also now beginning to turn to who is likely to be her successor and what plans the BBC has for its film arm in the long run.
“Christine leaves BBC Films in good shape,” commented producer Stewart Mackinnon of Headline Pictures, who worked with the broadcaster’s film arm on titles including Quartet and The Invisible Woman, among other projects.
Pride producer David Livingstone noted Langan’s “incisiveness.”
“The thing I remember particularly about Christine is her giving very good notes about the final editing of the film (Pride). She was very clear and very precise, and with a light hand on the tiller,” Livingstone said.
“Obviously...
There have been warm tributes to Christine Langan as news broke yesterday of her impending departure from BBC Films to join UK production outfit Baby Cow.
Attention is also now beginning to turn to who is likely to be her successor and what plans the BBC has for its film arm in the long run.
“Christine leaves BBC Films in good shape,” commented producer Stewart Mackinnon of Headline Pictures, who worked with the broadcaster’s film arm on titles including Quartet and The Invisible Woman, among other projects.
Pride producer David Livingstone noted Langan’s “incisiveness.”
“The thing I remember particularly about Christine is her giving very good notes about the final editing of the film (Pride). She was very clear and very precise, and with a light hand on the tiller,” Livingstone said.
“Obviously...
- 7/20/2016
- by geoffrey@macnab.demon.co.uk (Geoffrey Macnab)
- ScreenDaily
As the film of her biography of The Invisible Woman comes to the big screen, Claire Tomalin reveals what it feels like to have your book adapted
Most writers can tell stories of how their books failed to be made into films. I had forgotten until I looked up old notes that I sold the film rights of my first book, a life of Mary Wollstonecraft: there was a lunch, a contract, a small sum of money, then nothing. Much the same happened with Mrs Jordan's Profession: a lot of interest and excitement, then it fizzled out (twice). And again with my life of Pepys. For years The Invisible Woman seemed destined to be yet another unmade film.
Biographies are, in their nature, far more difficult to make into films than novels, because novels come with plots constructed and dialogue written, whereas I don't invent dialogue for my subjects or plot their lives for them.
Most writers can tell stories of how their books failed to be made into films. I had forgotten until I looked up old notes that I sold the film rights of my first book, a life of Mary Wollstonecraft: there was a lunch, a contract, a small sum of money, then nothing. Much the same happened with Mrs Jordan's Profession: a lot of interest and excitement, then it fizzled out (twice). And again with my life of Pepys. For years The Invisible Woman seemed destined to be yet another unmade film.
Biographies are, in their nature, far more difficult to make into films than novels, because novels come with plots constructed and dialogue written, whereas I don't invent dialogue for my subjects or plot their lives for them.
- 2/1/2014
- by Claire Tomalin
- The Guardian - Film News
Philip French speaks to Ridley Scott, Ken Russell, Gurinder Chadha, Shane Meadows and Stephen Frears about their debut pictures and detects the styles of the then-fledgling auteurs
Do artists discover a personal style and develop their themes gradually or are these to be found in embryonic form in their earliest works? There's no easy answer to this dual question. Take, for example, Ken Russell's Amelia and the Angel (1957), Ridley Scott's Boy and Bicycle (1965), Stephen Frears's The Burning (1967), Gurinder Chadha's I'm British But… (1989) and Shane Meadows's Where's the Money, Ronnie? (1995). All were made on shoestring budgets and each lasts less than half an hour.
First, presented with the directors' names and the credits concealed, would you be able to match up film and film-maker? I think most moviegoers could, which suggests there is something in these first movies that we would now recognise as characteristic. Second,...
Do artists discover a personal style and develop their themes gradually or are these to be found in embryonic form in their earliest works? There's no easy answer to this dual question. Take, for example, Ken Russell's Amelia and the Angel (1957), Ridley Scott's Boy and Bicycle (1965), Stephen Frears's The Burning (1967), Gurinder Chadha's I'm British But… (1989) and Shane Meadows's Where's the Money, Ronnie? (1995). All were made on shoestring budgets and each lasts less than half an hour.
First, presented with the directors' names and the credits concealed, would you be able to match up film and film-maker? I think most moviegoers could, which suggests there is something in these first movies that we would now recognise as characteristic. Second,...
- 9/25/2010
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Publisher of Movie magazine and books on cinema and art
Ian Cameron, who has died aged 72 from a virulent form of lung disease, had a long and enterprising career as an independent producer of books, notably on cinema and art, and of an influential film magazine, Movie. Producer is the best word, since he was variously author, editor, photographer, designer and publisher. The flair and commitment that he brought to the last four of these roles came to overshadow his own writing, but in his 20s he was a sharp and articulate film critic, a dominant voice in the debates that were transforming attitudes to cinema in Britain in the 1960s.
His childhood had been unsettled. Born in London, he was only five when his mother died and his Scottish father sent him to live for a year with maiden aunts in Inverness; on returning, he found he now had a stepmother.
Ian Cameron, who has died aged 72 from a virulent form of lung disease, had a long and enterprising career as an independent producer of books, notably on cinema and art, and of an influential film magazine, Movie. Producer is the best word, since he was variously author, editor, photographer, designer and publisher. The flair and commitment that he brought to the last four of these roles came to overshadow his own writing, but in his 20s he was a sharp and articulate film critic, a dominant voice in the debates that were transforming attitudes to cinema in Britain in the 1960s.
His childhood had been unsettled. Born in London, he was only five when his mother died and his Scottish father sent him to live for a year with maiden aunts in Inverness; on returning, he found he now had a stepmother.
- 3/14/2010
- The Guardian - Film News
Alternately powerful and aggravating because of its uncinemat- ic approach, "The Designated Mourner" is a well-intentioned but commercially negligible film record of Wallace Shawn's 1996 play that was successfully staged at London's National Theatre.
The First Look Pictures release opens Friday in New York and next month in Los Angeles.
Comparisons to Shawn's "My Dinner With Andre" and the films of Spalding Gray are appropriate, but "Mourner" as directed by David Hare ("Strapless") is so lean and static that theater fans may come away satisfied, but less-disciplined audiences will be squirming in their seats.
Featuring the cast of the stage version - Miranda Richardson, David de Keyser and Mike Nichols in his first major on-screen performance - "Mourner" is set in an unnamed country in the grips of a repressive regime.
Jack (Nichols), a student with low-brow attitudes about culture, is married to Bohemian blue blood Judy Richardson), and in the opening moments it's clear that he's is resentful of her intellectual father, Howard (de Keyser).
With the actors seated behind a table in an unadorned room and speaking in turns directly to the camera in close shots, a little history and a lot of their personalities are quickly revealed.
There's a tragic, cautionary tale to come, but the power of the work comes from the way the performers recount and interpret events and their feelings through Shawn's superb dialogue.
"Mourner" is about the death of culture and the way the guardians of such higher human aspirations often unwittingly help the process, with Jack emerging as the most vital character.
Howard is a critic of the regime and is eventually imprisoned - along with many others when a reign of terror occurs.
Losing his mental balance, Jack isolates himself and confronts his shortcomings, coming to the conclusion that the "trash" he prefers - TV, pornography - is as legitimate as high culture.
But when Howard and Judy are murdered by the regime, Jack is devastated and Nichols' deeply emotional performance results in his character becoming a "designated mourner" - the last person left who remembers Howard, Judy and their clan.
Verging on the apocalyptic, "Mourner" shifts moods swiftly, and the frequent use of dissolves provides a much-needed structure to the unfolding monologues.
THE DESIGNATED MOURNER
First Look Pictures
A BBC Films presentation
A Greenpoint film
Director David Hare
Writer Wallace Shawn
Producers Donna Grey, David Hare
Executive producers Mark Shivas, Simon Curtis
Director of photography Oliver Stapleton
Production designer Bob Crowley
Music Richard Hartley
Editor George Akers
Color/stereo
Cast:
Jack Mike Nichols
Judy Miranda Richardson
Howard David de Keyser
Running time -- 94 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
The First Look Pictures release opens Friday in New York and next month in Los Angeles.
Comparisons to Shawn's "My Dinner With Andre" and the films of Spalding Gray are appropriate, but "Mourner" as directed by David Hare ("Strapless") is so lean and static that theater fans may come away satisfied, but less-disciplined audiences will be squirming in their seats.
Featuring the cast of the stage version - Miranda Richardson, David de Keyser and Mike Nichols in his first major on-screen performance - "Mourner" is set in an unnamed country in the grips of a repressive regime.
Jack (Nichols), a student with low-brow attitudes about culture, is married to Bohemian blue blood Judy Richardson), and in the opening moments it's clear that he's is resentful of her intellectual father, Howard (de Keyser).
With the actors seated behind a table in an unadorned room and speaking in turns directly to the camera in close shots, a little history and a lot of their personalities are quickly revealed.
There's a tragic, cautionary tale to come, but the power of the work comes from the way the performers recount and interpret events and their feelings through Shawn's superb dialogue.
"Mourner" is about the death of culture and the way the guardians of such higher human aspirations often unwittingly help the process, with Jack emerging as the most vital character.
Howard is a critic of the regime and is eventually imprisoned - along with many others when a reign of terror occurs.
Losing his mental balance, Jack isolates himself and confronts his shortcomings, coming to the conclusion that the "trash" he prefers - TV, pornography - is as legitimate as high culture.
But when Howard and Judy are murdered by the regime, Jack is devastated and Nichols' deeply emotional performance results in his character becoming a "designated mourner" - the last person left who remembers Howard, Judy and their clan.
Verging on the apocalyptic, "Mourner" shifts moods swiftly, and the frequent use of dissolves provides a much-needed structure to the unfolding monologues.
THE DESIGNATED MOURNER
First Look Pictures
A BBC Films presentation
A Greenpoint film
Director David Hare
Writer Wallace Shawn
Producers Donna Grey, David Hare
Executive producers Mark Shivas, Simon Curtis
Director of photography Oliver Stapleton
Production designer Bob Crowley
Music Richard Hartley
Editor George Akers
Color/stereo
Cast:
Jack Mike Nichols
Judy Miranda Richardson
Howard David de Keyser
Running time -- 94 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
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