Film

Watch the first trailer and check out a poster for the Sundance hit Ain't Them Bodies Saints starring Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck.

Entertainment One has picked up domestic distribution rights to Oliver Hirschbiegel's Diana starring Naomi Watts as the Princess of Wales.

Tom Cruise has dropped out of starring in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. for director Guy Ritchie to put all of his focus on Mission: Impossible 5.

What's the most important film never made? Is it Kubrick's Napoleon? How about Gilliam's take on Don Quijote? In his excellent sophomore feature documentary of the same name, director Frank Pavich would have you believe the answer is Jodorowsky's Dune. And let me tell you this ... the man makes a hell of a case. The film follows a relatively straightforward format of archival clips and interviews with many of the filmmakers involved in the film-that-never-was, all of whom seem quite excited to recount their memories of the process. This goes double for Jodorowsky himself, who makes up about half the interview time. A completely likeable character, Jodorowsky is lively and exuberant while telling his stories. Jodorowsky's entire filmography leading up to Dune is... [Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]

Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston make a sexy, pallid double act in Jim Jarmusch's languorous new vampire comedy, writes Robbie Collin.

US 80m, Colour Director: Paul Bartel; Cast: David Carradine, Simone Griffeth, Sylvester Stallone, Sandy McCallum, Louisa Moritz, Don Steele Death Race 2000 is a adult-themed dystopian black comedy about a transcontinental car race that has become the nation’s most popular sporting event. Awarded points for the numbers of people they can run down during the race, the film’s star, known as Frankenstein is also the nation’s most celebrated driver whose crashes and mutilated body have become legendary. As with more recent films such as The Running Man (1987), Battle Royale (2000) and The Hunger Games (2012), the government uses a sporting event to control the masses. A low-budget, campy production, Death Race 2000 has become a cult film that was remade in 2008 by Paul W.S. Anderson as a more serious dramatic action film (Klaus Ming May 2013).

As critics praise a new film about the flamboyant pianist, Michael Thornton recalls a charming friend

James Gray's dreary drama is the biggest disappointment of the festival, writes Robbie Collin

It’s tough being a teenage girl. Especially when enduring and hopefully, when you can, enjoying, that breakthrough age of 15. A lot happens when you’re 15. Though some girls float through adolescence with a winsome (or conceited) confidence — soaking in and gaining assurance from their protected status as daddy’s little princesses; or benefiting from strong, supportive mothers, those not blessed with such luxuries — and having two parents like that is a luxury; it shouldn’t be, but it is — find themselves stomping and scraping and screaming through youth with a special kind of Napoleon complex that only female teens and Joe Pesci possess. Teenage girls, from intelligent young lasses rolling their eyes through AP English to those rampaging their way through baby burlesque episodes of Maury Povich, are constantly enduring life’s “Get your shine-box” indignities — even if they can’t properly articulate what those indignities are. They just know they don’t like them. As in, they don’t like how you’re eye-balling them. They don’t like your passive-aggressive insulting missives. They don’t like your aggressive-aggressive insulting missives. And they especially don’t like your fucking tone. “You don’t know me! You don’t know me!” they proclaim, pugnaciously echoing the query: “Am I here to amuse you?” Such is the case with 15-year-old Mia (Katie Jarvis) in Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank (2009) — a rough, yet sensitive kitchen sink drama that finds our young heroine stuck in the British projects, clomping through its ugliness with a touching mixture of righteous indignation and moist-eyed vulnerability. She’s 15, so playing tough girl is still a form of playing. She and her little sister exchange pleasantries like “fuck face” and “cunt bucket” (which made me laugh out loud from its easy honesty), and yet she’s not playing: Mia’s surroundings are making her grow up, harder and faster and with an enormous chip on her shoulder. She has little power in the world save for her youth and vigor and spunk and, as is often the case with teenage girls, her blossoming sexuality — a beautiful thing and yet something that will cause confusion and pain. When a group of guys roughhouse Mia, grabbing and holding her with the intent of possible violation, she kicks and screams and valiantly runs away. It’s a wonderful scene watching Mia refuse to be victimized, but then the shot of her fleeing so quickly and breathing so hard reveals her fear — and that’s both sad and supremely touching. She’s still a kid. And again, it’s damn hard for a teenage girl. A lone wolf, Mia is clearly intelligent, but probably doesn’t know just how smart she is. When watching a small group of scantily clad teen girls engaging in an overtly sexual dance routine, she looks at their attempts to emulate the Beyoncé, Britney, Christina, Pussycat Doll ideal with bemused disgust. To Mia, this isn’t dancing and she informs the belly-pierced clan flat-out: they suck. It’s a telling moment that Mia, who loves to dance, would not only hold some standards regarding their rehearsal, but be both threatened and maybe even repulsed by the girl’s sexual movements. This kind of overt sexuality is going to serve an important, thrilling, but frequently annoying role in her life, and especially with her dreams of dancing (as a later scene in a strip club will show). You get the sense that this is all washing over her as she observes the girls, and so after they charge back at her with that patent and tired insult between girls (she’s ugly), Mia pulls out the Pesci and head-butts one of them. In another movie, this moment might inspire an “Oh, hell yes!” with the audience. But Arnold isn’t that simplistic. It’s a funny and scary moment, but also a little tragic — especially when we see where some of this aggression and abuse has come from — her angry-sad-eyed but ultimately sympathetic mother. That’s blonde, weathered sexpot Joanne (Kierston Wareing), a young mother w

MIKE'S JOURNAL, MAY 20: AFTERNOONThere's a lot of talk going around about a zombie outbreak happening here at the French Riviera. It's pathetic really; just how badly every nerd and hipster in the world is so desperate to face an apocalypse brought on by the undead. It seems that whenever tragedy strikes today, whenever there's any type of viral or bacterial outbreak, the alarmists immediately jump to zombies. Oh, just how cynical have we really become? And just what is the cause to this zombie virus that people are theorizing about? Dog shit. That's right. You've got the fine journalists over at the ever reputable Huffington Post claiming that the French Riviera's dog shit problem has lead to a rash of extreme public suicides. How?Well,... [Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]