Hilary Mantel, Jonathan Franzen, Mohsin Hamid, Ruth Rendell, Tom Stoppard, Malcolm Gladwell, Eleanor Catton and many more recommend the books that impressed them this year
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw (Fourth Estate) is a brilliant, sprawling, layered and unsentimental portrayal of contemporary China. It made me think and laugh. I also love Dave Eggers' The Circle (Hamish Hamilton), which is a sharp-eyed and funny satire about the obsession with "sharing" our lives through technology. It's convincing and a little creepy.
William Boyd
By strange coincidence two of the most intriguing art books I read this year had the word "Breakfast" in their titles. They were Breakfast with Lucian by Geordie Greig (Jonathan Cape) and Breakfast at Sotheby's by Philip Hook (Particular). Greig's fascinating, intimate biography of Lucian Freud was a revelation. Every question I had about Freud – from the aesthetic to the intrusively gossipy – was...
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw (Fourth Estate) is a brilliant, sprawling, layered and unsentimental portrayal of contemporary China. It made me think and laugh. I also love Dave Eggers' The Circle (Hamish Hamilton), which is a sharp-eyed and funny satire about the obsession with "sharing" our lives through technology. It's convincing and a little creepy.
William Boyd
By strange coincidence two of the most intriguing art books I read this year had the word "Breakfast" in their titles. They were Breakfast with Lucian by Geordie Greig (Jonathan Cape) and Breakfast at Sotheby's by Philip Hook (Particular). Greig's fascinating, intimate biography of Lucian Freud was a revelation. Every question I had about Freud – from the aesthetic to the intrusively gossipy – was...
- 11/23/2013
- by Hilary Mantel, Jonathan Franzen, Mohsin Hamid, Tom Stoppard, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, William Boyd, Bill Bryson, Shami Chakrabarti, Sarah Churchwell, Antonia Fraser, Mark Haddon, Robert Harris, Max Hastings, Philip Hensher, Simon Hoggart, AM Homes, John Lanchester, Mark Lawson, Robert Macfarlane, Andrew Motion, Ian Rankin, Lionel Shriver, Helen Simpson, Colm Tóibín, Richard Ford, John Gray, David Kynaston, Penelope Lively, Pankaj Mishra, Blake Morrison, Susie Orbach
- The Guardian - Film News
The Observer's critics pick the season's highlights, from the Misanthrope to Johnny Marr, Lulu to Lichtenstein, H7steria to Hitchcock. What are you most looking forward to? Add your comments below and download a pdf of the calendar here
December | January | FebruaryDecember
1 Film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (3D)
Well, not so very unexpected. Every move has been tracked by fanboys, from the casting of Martin Freeman as Bilbo and Benedict Cumberbatch as the dragon Smaug to the return of the king, Peter Jackson, to take over directing from Guillermo del Toro. But Middle-earth (or, as it's sometimes known, New Zealand) is back for the next three Christmases.
3 Pop Scott Walker
The avant-garde Walker Brother returns with his first album since 2006's The Drift. Not for the faint-hearted, Bish Bosch finds the former romantic hero deep in dystopian territory, at once sonorous and rigorous.
3 Classical H7steria
World premiere of...
December | January | FebruaryDecember
1 Film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (3D)
Well, not so very unexpected. Every move has been tracked by fanboys, from the casting of Martin Freeman as Bilbo and Benedict Cumberbatch as the dragon Smaug to the return of the king, Peter Jackson, to take over directing from Guillermo del Toro. But Middle-earth (or, as it's sometimes known, New Zealand) is back for the next three Christmases.
3 Pop Scott Walker
The avant-garde Walker Brother returns with his first album since 2006's The Drift. Not for the faint-hearted, Bish Bosch finds the former romantic hero deep in dystopian territory, at once sonorous and rigorous.
3 Classical H7steria
World premiere of...
- 12/2/2012
- The Guardian - Film News
One of the great European literary figures of the past half century was the German writer W.G. “Max” Sebald (1944-2001), a late bloomer who fused essay, history, memoir, and meditative fiction into an unclassifiable weld of eloquently bewitching prose in four major works (Vertigo, The Emigrants, The Rings of Saturn, Austerlitz), all written over the last decade of his too-abbreviated life. Sebald’s solitary narrators, given lightly autobiographical shadings, wander landscapes as far-flung as the Suffolk coast or the Slovakian countryside like melancholic revenants dwelling on the fate of individuals lost to war or time, the operation of memory, and other seemingly arbitrary recollections triggered by the encounter with a physical environment. Although the surfeit of stories and micro histories in his work often return us in unanticipated ways to his principal preoccupations — the Holocaust and the Allied bombing raids that decimated Germany during World War II — Sebald’s...
- 5/9/2012
- by Damon Smith
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
This modest, immensely enjoyable documentary is about one of my favourite books, The Rings of Saturn by the German poet and critic Wg Sebald, who was born in 1944, taught for much of his adult life in this country, mainly at the University of East Anglia, and was killed in a motor accident in 2001. It was first published in German in 1995, translated into English three years later and is an account of a walking tour of Suffolk, the people he meets, the places he visits, and the historical and literary reflections prompted by what he sees and senses, taking his mind around the world. Suffolk becomes a sort of palimpsest for his eloquent, precise, lugubrious, often drily witty meditations about war, death, destruction and decay, about memories and continuities and the feeling that nothing entirely disappears.
The film is largely shot in grainy grey-and-white, which matches the photographs, etchings and documents that illustrate the author's text,...
The film is largely shot in grainy grey-and-white, which matches the photographs, etchings and documents that illustrate the author's text,...
- 1/29/2012
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Grant Gee's likably loquacious documentary elegantly re-traces Wg Sebald's steps through the Suffolk countryside
In the summer of 1992, the author Wg Sebald, "irradiated by melancholy", set off on a physical and philosophical wander through the Suffolk countryside – a route that he later re-traced in his landmark book The Rings of Saturn. Grant Gee's likably loquacious, digressive documentary re-traces that re-tracing, complete with handy page references ("pg 41: Lowestoft") and erudite talking heads (Andrew Motion, Adam Phillips, Tacita Dean) to guide us through the psycho-geography.
The way ahead touches on everything from the nature of walking to the tenor of depression; from silkworms to bombing raids. In keeping with the spirit of Sebald's writing, Gee's film is teasing, elegant and perhaps inevitably unresolved: an invitation as opposed to a destination. The answers, presumably, are out there somewhere; lying low in the flat, monochrome landscape, or hunched at a table at a Lowestoft pub.
In the summer of 1992, the author Wg Sebald, "irradiated by melancholy", set off on a physical and philosophical wander through the Suffolk countryside – a route that he later re-traced in his landmark book The Rings of Saturn. Grant Gee's likably loquacious, digressive documentary re-traces that re-tracing, complete with handy page references ("pg 41: Lowestoft") and erudite talking heads (Andrew Motion, Adam Phillips, Tacita Dean) to guide us through the psycho-geography.
The way ahead touches on everything from the nature of walking to the tenor of depression; from silkworms to bombing raids. In keeping with the spirit of Sebald's writing, Gee's film is teasing, elegant and perhaps inevitably unresolved: an invitation as opposed to a destination. The answers, presumably, are out there somewhere; lying low in the flat, monochrome landscape, or hunched at a table at a Lowestoft pub.
- 1/27/2012
- by Xan Brooks
- The Guardian - Film News
More Dickens and even more Shakespeare, but also new novels from Toni Morrison, Hilary Mantel, Zadie Smith, plus exciting new voices – 2012's literary highlights
January
10 Charles Dickens's The Mystery of Edwin Drood, starring Matthew Rhys and Tamzin Merchant, begins – and, unlike the book, ends – on BBC2.
13 Michael Morpurgo's much-loved children's novel War Horse, a long-running favourite at the National and on Broadway, gets the Hollywood treatment. A tearjerking saga about a young soldier and his horse – it was only a matter of time before it was Spielberged.
16 Ts Eliot prize. Despite withdrawals from the shortlist over objections to a hedge fund's sponsorship of the prize, the Eliot remains the UK's premier poetry award, and its eve-of-event reading is always a treat. This year's shortlist includes Daljit Nagra, Carol Ann Duffy and John Burnside.
20 Release of film of Coriolanus, an Orson Wellesian effort directed by and starring Ralph Fiennes,...
January
10 Charles Dickens's The Mystery of Edwin Drood, starring Matthew Rhys and Tamzin Merchant, begins – and, unlike the book, ends – on BBC2.
13 Michael Morpurgo's much-loved children's novel War Horse, a long-running favourite at the National and on Broadway, gets the Hollywood treatment. A tearjerking saga about a young soldier and his horse – it was only a matter of time before it was Spielberged.
16 Ts Eliot prize. Despite withdrawals from the shortlist over objections to a hedge fund's sponsorship of the prize, the Eliot remains the UK's premier poetry award, and its eve-of-event reading is always a treat. This year's shortlist includes Daljit Nagra, Carol Ann Duffy and John Burnside.
20 Release of film of Coriolanus, an Orson Wellesian effort directed by and starring Ralph Fiennes,...
- 1/6/2012
- The Guardian - Film News
Paul Andrew Williams's new film Song for Marion finishes location shooting, Jeanette Winterson tweets the Bible and Andrew Lloyd Webber lets schools take on Cats and Phantom
Film boom up north
Location filming has just finished on a British movie that, on paper, has all the signs of success.
Song for Marion was written and directed by Paul Andrew Williams (who made London to Brighton) and has a cast that includes Vanessa Redgrave, Terence Stamp, Christopher Eccleston and Gemma Arterton. It's a very British story about an unconventional amateur choir, a kind of choral Brassed Off.
It was filmed in the north-east, not because it is set there, but because film-makers are waking up to the area's potential.
Producer Ken Marshall told the Diary: "There are so many advantages being here as opposed to London. It's easier logistically, and it's more film-friendly. It is unbelievable how much support we've...
Film boom up north
Location filming has just finished on a British movie that, on paper, has all the signs of success.
Song for Marion was written and directed by Paul Andrew Williams (who made London to Brighton) and has a cast that includes Vanessa Redgrave, Terence Stamp, Christopher Eccleston and Gemma Arterton. It's a very British story about an unconventional amateur choir, a kind of choral Brassed Off.
It was filmed in the north-east, not because it is set there, but because film-makers are waking up to the area's potential.
Producer Ken Marshall told the Diary: "There are so many advantages being here as opposed to London. It's easier logistically, and it's more film-friendly. It is unbelievable how much support we've...
- 9/13/2011
- by Mark Brown
- The Guardian - Film News
His school project only proved that most of the pupils didn't deserve the attention they got
Thank the Lord, Jamie's Dream School has finished. That programme was bad for the blood pressure. Can it have been the dodgiest, most dangerous TV series ever broadcast?
I know: we've had Ibiza Uncovered, The James Whale Show and that one where Rebecca Loos whacked off a pig. But at least those programmes never pretended to be anything but awful. This one claimed to be useful and well-meaning. It was a mugger dressed like a man from the gas board.
Here is the evil genius of Jamie's Dream School. It was perfectly devised to attract sappy, middle-class liberals like me. It was a Channel 4 documentary about education. It had Andrew Motion and Robert Winston in it. It had a biosphere and a scene at the Globe. It promised to help unlucky, underprivileged teenagers...
Thank the Lord, Jamie's Dream School has finished. That programme was bad for the blood pressure. Can it have been the dodgiest, most dangerous TV series ever broadcast?
I know: we've had Ibiza Uncovered, The James Whale Show and that one where Rebecca Loos whacked off a pig. But at least those programmes never pretended to be anything but awful. This one claimed to be useful and well-meaning. It was a mugger dressed like a man from the gas board.
Here is the evil genius of Jamie's Dream School. It was perfectly devised to attract sappy, middle-class liberals like me. It was a Channel 4 documentary about education. It had Andrew Motion and Robert Winston in it. It had a biosphere and a scene at the Globe. It promised to help unlucky, underprivileged teenagers...
- 4/16/2011
- by Victoria Coren
- The Guardian - Film News
Jonathan Franzen's family epic, a new collection from Seamus Heaney, Philip Larkin's love letters, a memoir centred on tiny Japanese sculptures ... which books most excited our writers this year?
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
In Red Dust Road (Picador) Jackie Kay writes lucidly and honestly about being the adopted black daughter of white parents, about searching for her white birth mother and Nigerian birth father, and about the many layers of identity. She has a rare ability to portray sentiment with absolutely no sentimentality. Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns (Random House) is a fresh and wonderful history of African-American migration. Chang-rae Lee's The Surrendered (Little, Brown) is a grave, beautiful novel about people who experienced the Korean war and the war's legacy. And David Remnick's The Bridge (Picador) is a thorough and well-written biography of Barack Obama. The many Americans who believe invented biographical details about Obama would do well to read it.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
In Red Dust Road (Picador) Jackie Kay writes lucidly and honestly about being the adopted black daughter of white parents, about searching for her white birth mother and Nigerian birth father, and about the many layers of identity. She has a rare ability to portray sentiment with absolutely no sentimentality. Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns (Random House) is a fresh and wonderful history of African-American migration. Chang-rae Lee's The Surrendered (Little, Brown) is a grave, beautiful novel about people who experienced the Korean war and the war's legacy. And David Remnick's The Bridge (Picador) is a thorough and well-written biography of Barack Obama. The many Americans who believe invented biographical details about Obama would do well to read it.
- 11/27/2010
- The Guardian - Film News
London, Oct 13 – Author and columnist Howard Jacobson has been honoured with Man Booker Prize for his comic novel ‘The Finkler Question’.
Jacobson, who beat contenders including double winner Peter Carey, received the 50,000 pounds prize at London’s Guildhall.
Chair of judges, Sir Andrew Motion, described the 68-year-old author’s book as “very funny, of course, but also very clever, very sad and very subtle”.
It explores Jewishness through the lives of three friends – two of them Jewish and one who wishes he was.
Accepting the award, Jacobson joked he had been writing.
Jacobson, who beat contenders including double winner Peter Carey, received the 50,000 pounds prize at London’s Guildhall.
Chair of judges, Sir Andrew Motion, described the 68-year-old author’s book as “very funny, of course, but also very clever, very sad and very subtle”.
It explores Jewishness through the lives of three friends – two of them Jewish and one who wishes he was.
Accepting the award, Jacobson joked he had been writing.
- 10/13/2010
- by realbollywood
- RealBollywood.com
UK Film Council one of highest-profile quangos to be cut
Mla also abolished in cull by culture secretary Jeremy Hunt
The UK Film Council became one of the highest profile quangos to be axed by the coalition government after culture secretary Jeremy Hunt unexpectedly announced its abolition.
In a raft of mergings, streamlinings and closures, Hunt also axed the Museums, Libraries and Archives council (Mla).
John Woodward, chief executive of the UK Film Council, briefed an unprepared staff about the decision at the council's central London headquarters this morning. No one had seen it coming. He said the decision had been taken with "no notice and no consultation".
In a statement Woodward called the proposal "short-sighted and potentially very damaging, especially as there is at present no roadmap setting out where the UK Film Council's responsibilities and funding will be placed in the future".
Film producer Tim Bevan, who chairs the council,...
Mla also abolished in cull by culture secretary Jeremy Hunt
The UK Film Council became one of the highest profile quangos to be axed by the coalition government after culture secretary Jeremy Hunt unexpectedly announced its abolition.
In a raft of mergings, streamlinings and closures, Hunt also axed the Museums, Libraries and Archives council (Mla).
John Woodward, chief executive of the UK Film Council, briefed an unprepared staff about the decision at the council's central London headquarters this morning. No one had seen it coming. He said the decision had been taken with "no notice and no consultation".
In a statement Woodward called the proposal "short-sighted and potentially very damaging, especially as there is at present no roadmap setting out where the UK Film Council's responsibilities and funding will be placed in the future".
Film producer Tim Bevan, who chairs the council,...
- 7/26/2010
- by Maev Kennedy, Mark Brown
- The Guardian - Film News
The apologists for the film director, like those for Raoul Moat, are guilty of putting loyalty before humanity
Time to move on. Roman Polanski is free and his detractors are duly convicted, as the French writer Agnès Poirier ruled, of hysteria, prurience and "rampant moral McCarthyism". As if that were not enough encouragement to conclude almost a year's discussion of his fate, the vacancy for a controversial criminal was promptly filled by the late sociopath, Raoul Moat.
It enlivened the argument, in Moat's case, that many of his supporters are, themselves, so wildly unappealing. It would have been hard to disagree with the prime minister's rebuke to Facebook fans, had not his own contribution – "full stop, end of story" – so closely echoed the style of the "Moat you legend!" page. What next, one wonders, from the great orator – "simples"? Perhaps Cameron's very intervention explains why "Moaty" was soon being commemorated...
Time to move on. Roman Polanski is free and his detractors are duly convicted, as the French writer Agnès Poirier ruled, of hysteria, prurience and "rampant moral McCarthyism". As if that were not enough encouragement to conclude almost a year's discussion of his fate, the vacancy for a controversial criminal was promptly filled by the late sociopath, Raoul Moat.
It enlivened the argument, in Moat's case, that many of his supporters are, themselves, so wildly unappealing. It would have been hard to disagree with the prime minister's rebuke to Facebook fans, had not his own contribution – "full stop, end of story" – so closely echoed the style of the "Moat you legend!" page. What next, one wonders, from the great orator – "simples"? Perhaps Cameron's very intervention explains why "Moaty" was soon being commemorated...
- 7/19/2010
- by Catherine Bennett
- The Guardian - Film News
"Great LezBritian" is a fortnightly stroll through the very best of British lesbo-centric entertainment and culture. Plus there will be some jolly good interviews with the top ladies who are waving the flag for gay UK.
A couple of columns ago we wrote about the British women we wish were gay, which gave rise to much debate and informed us that our readers lust after and loathe Cheryl Cole in equal amounts. We decided that in this column we’d like to celebrate the British ladies we’re glad actually are gay or bisexual, which has been an unexpectedly tricky task.
Once again we sent out a Tweet asking you to suggest your favourite Britbians, and as the land that proffered Skins, Tipping the Velvet and Bad Girls, we were certain that Britain would have so many options that we’d be tossing second tier choices out of the list...
A couple of columns ago we wrote about the British women we wish were gay, which gave rise to much debate and informed us that our readers lust after and loathe Cheryl Cole in equal amounts. We decided that in this column we’d like to celebrate the British ladies we’re glad actually are gay or bisexual, which has been an unexpectedly tricky task.
Once again we sent out a Tweet asking you to suggest your favourite Britbians, and as the land that proffered Skins, Tipping the Velvet and Bad Girls, we were certain that Britain would have so many options that we’d be tossing second tier choices out of the list...
- 6/7/2010
- by Sarah and Lee
- AfterEllen.com
From Deadline|London editor Tim Adler: Andrew Motion, who was until recently the Queen’s poet (Her Majesty has her own bard) is writing a sequel to Treasure Island. Random House U.S. will bring out Return to Treasure Island with UK publisher Jonathan Cape over here in spring 2012. It’ll be interesting to see who goes for the movie rights. Disney has its own pirate franchise – and I guess it won’t be making a sequel to Treasure Planet anytime soon. Simon Trewin of United Agents sold the proposal by Motion, regarded as Britain’s greatest living poet. His book is bound to be better than the [...]...
- 4/1/2010
- by TIM ADLER
- Deadline Hollywood
The noms are in folks (see full list below) and apart from the love that The Blind Side has received (the backlash has officially began around 9 eastern this morning), there are very little surprises -- which only means status quo on films and people that officially received the cold shoulder months ago. - The noms are in folks (see full list below) and apart from the love that The Blind Side has received (the backlash has officially began around 9 eastern this morning), there are very little surprises -- which only means status quo on films and people that officially received the cold shoulder months ago. I'm compelled to underline those that failed to be distinguished for their work today, but before I crack out that a list of worthy mentions that didn't receive an early morning phone call, I'd like to mention that I'm down with the Foreign Oscar noms...
- 2/3/2010
- IONCINEMA.com
A few days ago, something slipped through my RSS Feed that must be discussed here at Cinematical. On Monday, The Wrap wrote a piece about the Academy's choices for Original and Adapted Screenplay and revealed that Bright Star was deemed an Adapted Screenplay, not an Original one. If there is any problem with the Academy, with the Oscars, and with giving this struggling institution new life, I think the first step would be learning the meaning of the awards it's giving out. I'm brow-furrowed and flabbergasted.
Let's back up. Bright Star is Jane Campion's account about the love affair between John Keats and Fanny Brawne. She was inspired to write the film after reading a biography of the poet (written by Andrew Motion) as well as Keats' own poetry. However, the film is told from Brawne's point of view, and there isn't a whole lot written about her. In...
Let's back up. Bright Star is Jane Campion's account about the love affair between John Keats and Fanny Brawne. She was inspired to write the film after reading a biography of the poet (written by Andrew Motion) as well as Keats' own poetry. However, the film is told from Brawne's point of view, and there isn't a whole lot written about her. In...
- 1/8/2010
- by Monika Bartyzel
- Cinematical
Steve Pond over at The Wrap has once again broke Oscar news with his story on another ruling made by those wacky kids over at The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, better known as AMPAS. The Writers Branch, of said group, has erroneously decided that Jane Campion’s script for Bright Star is an adapted screenplay and has thus taken it out of the original screenplay category. For Shame! I truly loved Campion’s film and this seems to be the final nail in any hopes for an Oscar.
Pond correctly writes:
Jane Campion’s “Bright Star” has no chance of winning an Oscar nomination in the original-screenplay category. Apparition was reportedly informed of the decision after the company had already taken out ads promoting the film in the original-screenplay category.
Campion was inspired to write the film both by Keats’ poetry and by a biography of the poet by Andrew Motion.
Pond correctly writes:
Jane Campion’s “Bright Star” has no chance of winning an Oscar nomination in the original-screenplay category. Apparition was reportedly informed of the decision after the company had already taken out ads promoting the film in the original-screenplay category.
Campion was inspired to write the film both by Keats’ poetry and by a biography of the poet by Andrew Motion.
- 1/5/2010
- by Michelle
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Bright Star is a visually poetic film from Jane Campion, based on the final years of one of the most celebrated Romantic poets, John Keats, and his relationship with Fanny Brawne. Ben Wishaw follows his leading performance in Perfume as the poet and Australian actress Abbie Cornish as Keats’ muse. Based on Andrew Motion’s biography of Keats it is a tour de force of tragic love with a serious and affecting intelligence and Campion wisely chooses to let the poetry come, like leaves to a tree, from the inspiration Keats finds with his muse, Fanny Brawne.
It is a sad film filled with bright, shining moments. Keats is portrayed as a man failing in health and prospects, surrounded by friends who love him though unable to sustain him. Sharing a room with his bullish close friend Brown (Paul Schneider) and a house with the Brawne family Keats’ magisterial poetic...
It is a sad film filled with bright, shining moments. Keats is portrayed as a man failing in health and prospects, surrounded by friends who love him though unable to sustain him. Sharing a room with his bullish close friend Brown (Paul Schneider) and a house with the Brawne family Keats’ magisterial poetic...
- 10/19/2009
- by Jon Lyus
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
From .The Piano. to .In the Cut,. writer-director Jane Campion always puts strong women characters at the center. Whether she.s a mute woman like Holly Hunter.s Oscar-winning role in .The Piano. or Meg Ryan.s writing professor in .In the Cut,. Campion.s heroines are mostly disempowered women living outside mainstream society.
In .Bright Star,. Campion.s heroine is Fanny Brawne (the breathtaking Abbie Cornish), a smart, young dressmaker who will do anything if someone tries to break her relationship with the man she loves, the great romantic poet, John Keats (Ben Whishaw).
Inspired by the acclaimed biography of Keats written by Andrew Motion, Campion focuses on the love story between Brawne and Keats. Told through the eyes of the poet.s love and inspiration, their romance inspired some of the most beautiful love letters ever written. Their correspondence would later scandalize Victorian society.
Told during the last...
In .Bright Star,. Campion.s heroine is Fanny Brawne (the breathtaking Abbie Cornish), a smart, young dressmaker who will do anything if someone tries to break her relationship with the man she loves, the great romantic poet, John Keats (Ben Whishaw).
Inspired by the acclaimed biography of Keats written by Andrew Motion, Campion focuses on the love story between Brawne and Keats. Told through the eyes of the poet.s love and inspiration, their romance inspired some of the most beautiful love letters ever written. Their correspondence would later scandalize Victorian society.
Told during the last...
- 9/23/2009
- by Manny
- Manny the Movie Guy
Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish in Bright Star
Photo: Apparition Why do Fanny Brawne and John Keats love each other? They don't know and don't worry, Bright Star writer/director Jane Campion isn't interested in exploring the whys of their relationship as much as she is concerned with boring you stiff with a lifeless melodrama adapted from the private writings of Keats, his poems and Andrew Motion's biography on the poet. This is a love story beholden to exaggeration and so sappy you can't get out from underneath it. Of course, being a hit at the Cannes Film Festival and finding fans around the world already, I seem to be relatively alone in this opinion, but it's my opinion nonetheless. The film starts off perfectly fine by introducing us to Brawne, played by Abbie Cornish just as I would suspect Charlize Theron would have played the role at that age.
Photo: Apparition Why do Fanny Brawne and John Keats love each other? They don't know and don't worry, Bright Star writer/director Jane Campion isn't interested in exploring the whys of their relationship as much as she is concerned with boring you stiff with a lifeless melodrama adapted from the private writings of Keats, his poems and Andrew Motion's biography on the poet. This is a love story beholden to exaggeration and so sappy you can't get out from underneath it. Of course, being a hit at the Cannes Film Festival and finding fans around the world already, I seem to be relatively alone in this opinion, but it's my opinion nonetheless. The film starts off perfectly fine by introducing us to Brawne, played by Abbie Cornish just as I would suspect Charlize Theron would have played the role at that age.
- 9/18/2009
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
A very confusing, wet and rainy day at Cannes. Here are my initial impressions of three more films that screened today. And don't miss my exclusive video on how clever Mariah Carey can be! Bright Star ** -- The title of John Keats' final poem is also the title of director Jane Campion's best film since The Piano. (Low bar, that.) The story of the doomed love between Romantic Poet Keats and Fanny Brawne, it is well directed, well-acted, beautifully shot...and has almost no emotional pull. Even if you know nothing about Keats -- and I've been reading the acclaimed biography by Andrew Motion to prepare for the film -- it's hard to imagine anything here will surprise. Handsome young poet meets fiery, clever young woman. They like each other almost immediately while she can't stand his boorish best friend, Brown....
- 5/15/2009
- by Michael Giltz
- Huffington Post
Britain's Poet Laureate wishes he didn't write a rap to celebrate Prince William's 21st birthday. Andrew Motion - who steps down as royal writer on Thursday (30.04.09) - is not happy with all of the rhymes he wrote while in office. He said: "Overall, I think of them as left-handed poems written by a right-handed poet. Some of them don't work at all well. I tried to write something for Prince William's 21st birthday in the style of a rap, because I thought 'he's a young person and I'll do it in a kind of humorous way'. "I wish I hadn't done it really, I wish I'd stayed on the higher ground. I'm pleased with the poems I wrote for...
- 4/28/2009
- Monsters and Critics
Britain's Poet Laureate wishes he didn't write a rap to celebrate Prince William's 21st birthday. Andrew Motion - who steps down as royal writer on Thursday - is not happy with all of the rhymes he wrote while in office.
He said: "Overall, I think of them as left-handed poems written by a right-handed poet. Some of them don't work at all well. I tried to write something for Prince William's 21st birthday in the style of a rap, because I thought 'he's a young person and I'll do it in a kind of humorous way.'"
"I wish I hadn't done it really, I wish I'd stayed on the higher ground. I'm pleased with the poems I wrote for the Queen Mother's 100th birthday and her death and the poem for Charles and Camilla when they got married."
"I see that one really as a partner poem...
He said: "Overall, I think of them as left-handed poems written by a right-handed poet. Some of them don't work at all well. I tried to write something for Prince William's 21st birthday in the style of a rap, because I thought 'he's a young person and I'll do it in a kind of humorous way.'"
"I wish I hadn't done it really, I wish I'd stayed on the higher ground. I'm pleased with the poems I wrote for the Queen Mother's 100th birthday and her death and the poem for Charles and Camilla when they got married."
"I see that one really as a partner poem...
- 4/28/2009
- icelebz.com
Britain's Queen Elizabeth is under pressure to appoint the first female poet laureate. Yorkshire man Simon Armitage is believed to be the favourite to succeed current royal wordsmith Andrew Motion but palace officials are reportedly hoping to appoint a woman. Carol Ann Duffy - widely regarded as the most accessible living poet - is another popular choice, despite the 55-year-old's alleged reservations about performing royal duties. A spokesperson for bookmakers William Hill said: "As far as the betting is concerned, we cannot split these two - but they are well clear of the rest of the runners as far as our poetic punters are concerned. "Duffy would become the first female to hold the role while Armitage is reportedly the...
- 3/24/2009
- Monsters and Critics
Pet Shop Boys, Grace Jones, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds will headline this year's Latitude Festival. Editors, Bat For Lashes and Doves are also set to play the event which takes place at Southwold in Suffolk.
The line-up for the Latitude festival was revealed last night. This summer's event will have the performers play on the Henham estate between Beccles and Southwold.
The fest takes place between July 16 and 19 with a full range of performance stages devoted to the likes of theatre, comedy and poetry.
Also joining the line-up is radio DJ, television presenter and critic Stuart Maconie. Poet laureate Andrew Motion has been confirmed and will be reading from The Cinder Path and a collection of essays, Ways of Life: On Places, Painters and Poets.
The line-up for the Latitude festival was revealed last night. This summer's event will have the performers play on the Henham estate between Beccles and Southwold.
The fest takes place between July 16 and 19 with a full range of performance stages devoted to the likes of theatre, comedy and poetry.
Also joining the line-up is radio DJ, television presenter and critic Stuart Maconie. Poet laureate Andrew Motion has been confirmed and will be reading from The Cinder Path and a collection of essays, Ways of Life: On Places, Painters and Poets.
- 3/24/2009
- icelebz.com
Britain's Poet Laureate hopes he doesn't have to write about Prince William's engagement. Andrew Motion - who departs his post as official poet of the monarch in March - says he panics over frequent reports the prince and Kate Middleton are to marry, as he would have to pen a verse in tribute.
Speaking about life after the role he took on in June 1999, Andrew said: "My heart won't stop every time the newspapers say William and Kate are getting married. They'd better not get engaged in the next two months."
During his tenure as Poet Laureate, Andrew has written prose to mark significant occasions including the death of the Queen Mother in 2002 and Prince Charles' 2005 low-key wedding to Camilla Parker Bowles.
But Andrew feels the role needs to be redefined and extended to include the entire country, including those not in support of the monarchy.
Speaking about life after the role he took on in June 1999, Andrew said: "My heart won't stop every time the newspapers say William and Kate are getting married. They'd better not get engaged in the next two months."
During his tenure as Poet Laureate, Andrew has written prose to mark significant occasions including the death of the Queen Mother in 2002 and Prince Charles' 2005 low-key wedding to Camilla Parker Bowles.
But Andrew feels the role needs to be redefined and extended to include the entire country, including those not in support of the monarchy.
- 1/27/2009
- icelebz.com
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.