Miranda Richardson Page 2

A Week In Movies: Celebrities Turn Out To Collect Awards In Los Angeles And London, Mortdecai Has Three Premieres And New Trailers For Hopkins And Hawke

By Rich Cline in Movies / TV / Theatre on 25 January 2015

Julianne Moore Angelina Jolie Jessica Chastain Timothy Spall Miranda Richardson Johnny Depp Ryan Gosling Russell Crowe Jesse Eisenberg

Critics' awards in Los Angeles and London bring out local stars, while Johnny Depp's Mortdecai premieres in Berlin, London and L.A. Ryan Gosling, Russell Crowe and Jesse Eisenberg are snapped on their film sets, and new trailers debut for Kidnapping Mr Heineken and Good Kill...

Critics' Choice Movie Awards Julianne Moore

A-list celebrities turned out in Hollywood for the starry Critics' Choice Movie Awards last weekend, including Julianne Moore, Angelina Jolie, Jessica Chastain, Eddie Redmayne, Keira Knightley, Ethan Hawke, Rosamund Pike, Michael Keaton, Reese Witherspoon, Marion Cotillard, David Oyelowo, Felicity Jones, Jennifer Aniston, Amy Adams and Chris Hemsworth. Jared Leto even matched his outfit to the blue carpet.

Photos - 20th Annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards held at the Hollywood Palladium - Part 1

Continue reading: A Week In Movies: Celebrities Turn Out To Collect Awards In Los Angeles And London, Mortdecai Has Three Premieres And New Trailers For Hopkins And Hawke

Maleficent - Teaser Trailer

Maleficent is a merciless sorceress who dubs herself the 'Mistress of All Evil'. But she hasn't always had a heart of stone. As a beautiful young girl she was happy and contented with her life in the forested kingdom, but deep down she held within her a powerful strength; a strength that would surface when she became the guardian of the entire land as a brutal army take siege. However, through all her great feats of bravery, she is faced with a callous deception that transforms her completely. In a fit of rage she places a curse on baby Princess Aurora; the daughter of the usurping King's successor; that would see her prick her finger on a spindle and die on her sixteenth birthday. However, on meeting a much older Aurora, Maleficent starts to wonder if she could actually help to bring happiness back to the land, and to Maleficent herself.

Continue: Maleficent - Teaser Trailer

Belle Trailer

Dido Elizabeth Belle is the mixed race daughter of Royal Navy officer Captain John Lindsay resulting from his affair with an African woman. Desperate for his only child to receive a comfortable upbringing, he takes her back to England and begs his uncle, Lord Mansfield, to take her in and care for her as their own. As much as she is treated well and enjoys the company of her cousin Lady Elizabeth Murray, she finds herself an outcast with no specified social status and disallowed from dining with her family on social occasions all because of her colour. While she is shunned by almost everybody, one man takes an interest in her; John Davinier, the apprentice of Lord Mansfield. However, both her great-uncle and John's parents are averse to the idea of their marriage - though their shocking love story forces Mansfield to re-think his own feelings about race and family.

Continue: Belle Trailer

Nepotism Alert! More Of Angelina Jolie's Brood Cast In Maleficent

By Hayley Avron in Movies / TV / Theatre on 24 October 2012

Angelina Jolie Elle Fanning Juno Temple Miranda Richardson Sam Riley

It looks as though the news that Angelina Jolie’s daughter Vivienne will be appearing in Maleficent may have caused a touch of sibling rivalry in the Pitt-Jolie household. Today (October 23, 2012), US Weekly have revealed that another two members of Angelina’s sprawling brood have signed up for roles in the movie, which focuses on Sleeping Beauty’s evil nemesis.

Back in August, it was reported that four year-old Vivienne Jolie-Pitt had landed the role of the child version of Aurora, the Princess. The grown up Aurora will be played by Elle Fanning. Now, it’s been revealed that Pax – aged eight – and Zahara – aged seven – will also be appearing in the live-action movie, alongside their little sister and their mum. Disney haven’t actually commented on the news but a source told US Weekly that Pax and Zahara have “smaller parts” than Vivienne and apparently won’t have speaking roles. If you’re wondering why Shiloh, Maddox and Knox have been left out of the action, then you should probably know that Shiloh was offered a part as well but “she was bored and not in the mood during the day her part was supposed to happen so she ended up not being in the film.” Kids, eh?

Continue reading: Nepotism Alert! More Of Angelina Jolie's Brood Cast In Maleficent

Turtle: The Incredible Journey Trailer

A loggerhead turtle is born on a beach in Florida and starts on a journey that her ancestors have been taking for 200 million years. Only 1 in 10,000 turtles survive this journey that takes 25 years to complete.

Continue: Turtle: The Incredible Journey Trailer

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 Trailer

Harry Potter and his friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, continue their search for Voldemort's Horcruxes - dark magical objects that help the user gain immortality. Having found and destroyed one Horcrux - a locket belonging to Hogwarts founder Salazar Slytherin - the three friends travel from Ron's older brother Bill Weasley's house by the sea to the wizarding bank, Gringotts and then to Hogwarts to look for the final remaining Horcruxes.

Continue: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 Trailer

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 1) Trailer

The final instalment of the Harry Potter series is almost upon us! Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will bring the much loved set of films to a close.

Continue: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 1) Trailer

Made In Dagenham Trailer

In 1960's England, there wasn't such a thing as womens rights in the workplace, for the most part they were treated as an underclass. Working for less pay was just one of the pitfalls of working as a woman.

Continue: Made In Dagenham Trailer

Fred Claus Trailer

Fred Claus trailer

Continue: Fred Claus Trailer

Provoked: A True Story Review

By David Levine

Weak

The beautiful Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai plays the victim of years of spousal abuse in Provoked: A True Story, based on a monumental U.K. court case that forever changed British laws on domestic violence. Even before watching a frame of the film, we glean that this is an important human story with major moral messages to be told. It's the kind of material that easily wins the hearts of audiences and Oscar voters alike. And yet, for all of its surface significance, the resulting on-screen effort feels largely meaningless and inconsequential.

While studying to become a lawyer, a young, traditionally minded Punjabi woman named Kiranjit (Rai) gets set up in an arranged marriage to Deepak Ahluwalia (Naveen Andrews). Deepak insists Kiranjit abandon her educational efforts so they can relocate to London. Staying true to cultural norms, Kiranjit willingly accommodates her husband's desires. Once in the big metropolis, things quickly change. Kiranjit becomes pregnant and Deepak devolves into a life of drinking, adultery, and spousal abuse.

Continue reading: Provoked: A True Story Review

Get Carter (2000) Review

By Max Messier

Weak

Forget Get Carter. Instead... get me a cup of coffee.

What the hell has happened to all good American action movies? Did I unknowingly miss a meeting somewhere? When did all of the bad-ass, kicking butt and taking names, gun-toting, crazed, vengeful characters of the 1980s -- from such films as Commando, Cobra, Predator, Raw Deal, First Blood -- suddenly turn into innocent, compassionate, sensitive, teary-eyed knuckleheads. The only place to turn these days for an honest action film is towards the East -- and I don't mean New York City.

Continue reading: Get Carter (2000) Review

Empire Of The Sun Review

By Christopher Null

Excellent

1941 notwithstanding (and we're all still trying to forget it), Empire of the Sun was Steven Spielberg's first big trip to World War II. For Spielberg, it was an unlikely way to go about it -- examining the British viewpoint of the Japanese incursion into China.

Christian Bale stars as Jim, a British kid born in Shanghai, the son of upper crust expatriates who feel the rising tide of Japanese-Chinese aggression will never reach there strata. Of course it does, and as the Japanese overtake Shanghai, Jim's family is torn asunder, scattering in the chaos. But eventually, like Ben-Hur, Jim returns home to discover his house in ruins and his loved ones gone, so he does the only thing he can think of -- surrender to the Japanese. Only the Japanese don't even want the worthless kid, until finally, after hooking up with a seedy scam artist named Basie (John Malkovich) and his flunkie (Joe Pantoliano), does he manage to get himself arrested and thrown into an internment camp where at least there is the promise of a daily potato and some gruel.

Continue reading: Empire Of The Sun Review

The Phantom Of The Opera (2004) Review

By Sean O'Connell

Weak

Criticism toward Joel Schumacher's attempted enactment of Andrew Lloyd Webber's cherished stage musical The Phantom of the Opera likely will fall on deaf ears. If you love the source material (I don't), the chances are high you'll thoroughly enjoy the latest film to pay tribute, even though Schumacher is functionally talentless.

Schumacher and his financial backers certainly spare no expense, though the bulk of their budget apparently went to candles. Their Phantom (the not-so-hideously-disfigured Gerard Butler) hides beneath opulent and gaudy-yet-dimly-lit theatrical set pieces that turn the normally regal Opera Populaire into the west wing of the Moulin Rogue. The Phantom's water-logged lair resembles exactly what it is - a poorly constructed, artificial set dropped into the corner of a vast soundstage. Hire the man who put nipples on the Bat suit, and you're going to get what you pay for. The masquerade ball, which occurs late in the story, starts to explore methods of filling the artistic canvas, but by then, it's too little, too late.

Continue reading: The Phantom Of The Opera (2004) Review

Spider Review

By Christopher Null

Good

The strangest thing about David Cronenberg's Spider is how out of sync it is with the director's other works. Slow, laconic, and intermittently fascinating, Spider is a movie in which virtually nothing happens. Placed amidst an oeuvre that includes eye-poppers like The Fly, Shivers, Videodrome, and the recent eXistenZ, the movie stands as his most understated piece since 1988's Dead Ringers.

The pacing of Spider is totally understandable, seeing as it entirely takes place in and around a halfway house for recently-released mental patients -- and, obliquely, within the mind of its central character. "Spider" (Ralph Fiennes) is a muttering mess, a paranoid schizophrenic who wears four shirts atop one another and scribbles illegibly in a little book he carefully hides at the end of each day. Just out of the loony bin, Spider hops a train to London, finds his depressing room at the inn, faces annoyed berating at the hands of stern Mrs. Wilkinson (Lynn Redgrave), and immediately begins shutting himself into a cocoon. "Caterpillar" might be a better nickname -- for the man and for the movie.

Continue reading: Spider Review

Chicken Run Review

By James Brundage

Essential

Since the beginning of time (or at least the domestication of animals), the chicken has been man's feathered enigma. Like so many of its feathered friends, it has fallen into the realm of the metaphor (i.e. "He's a chicken."). Unlike so many of its edible counterparts, it has survived the hassles of religious communities unscathed (no one will persecute you for eating a chicken wing). It has found its way into the realm of ontological questions (which came first: the chicken or the egg), as well as into sanguine curiosity (why does a chicken continue running around after you cut its head off?). It has become the basic standard for all foods (tastes like chicken). It has changed with the times, entering the debate about genetic engineering (see the accusations against KFC using frank-n-roosters). It has even, through its progeny, entered into the world of our children (I do not like green eggs and ham, I do not like them Sam I am). As long as civilization has existed, the chicken has haunted our collective hubris with its often-charming idiocy.

Amongst both edible entrees and feathered friends, the chicken is the idiot God...

Continue reading: Chicken Run Review

Sleepy Hollow Review

By Christopher Null

Good

I'll be the first to admit I don't really remember the details of Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. But what I do remember, well, it didn't go like this.

In typical Tim Burton fashion, a fairy tale gets an update (and the film's color gets drained out in the process). The guts of Legend are still there: In 1799, evil headless horseman marauds a tiny village in upstate New York. Ichabod Crane (Depp) is sent to investigate.

Continue reading: Sleepy Hollow Review

Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom Of The Opera Review

By Rob Blackwelder

Terrible

Andrew Lloyd Webber's musicals are garish, puerile melodramas with all the elegance and sincerity of a Super Bowl halftime show -- and his brash, brassy songs have the depth and nuance of action-movie explosions.

Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom Of The Opera

Director Joel Schumacher was responsible for one of the most tawdry, terribly cliché-riddled action-movie bombs in Hollywood history -- 1997's "Batman and Robin."

When this pair teamed up to bring Webber's "The Phantom of the Opera" to the big screen, it was a match made in hell.

Continue reading: Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom Of The Opera Review

Get Carter Review

By Rob Blackwelder

OK

If the rain-slicked new Sylvester Stallone revenge fantasy flick "Get Carter" seems a little familiar, it's with good reason.

It could be that the picture is a remake of a gnarly 1971 film of the same name (starring Michael Caine, who appears in this one too).

It could be that the bad-guy-going-after-worse-guys plot -- about a Las Vegas mob enforcer determined to find and snuff the people who whacked his estranged brother -- isn't all that different from the story of a hard-as-nails parolee avenging his daughter in last year's "The Limey."

Continue reading: Get Carter Review

The Hours Review

By Rob Blackwelder

Very Good

"The Hours" is an Oscar voter's nightmare. An adaptation of Michael Cunningham's novel about three women in three different time periods whose lives are profoundly affected by Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway," the film features equally magnificent performances of nearly equal screen time from three of the best actresses working in film today.

Meryl Streep submerges herself in the self-sacrificing soul of Clarissa Vaughan, a modern Manhattan book editor whose longtime dear friend -- and volatile ex-lover -- Richard (Ed Harris) likes to ruffle her feathers by comparing her to the heroine of Woolf's book. Both women are externally serene, perfectionist party-throwers hiding deep reservoirs of regret over missed opportunities while living lives as mother-hen caretakers to others.

Julianne Moore plays Laura Brown, a fragile, pregnant 1950s housewife in the midst of reading "Mrs. Dalloway," whose deep depression (like Woolf's) and suicidal musings (like Dalloway's) go all but unnoticed by everyone except her young son (Jack Rovello), who clings to her apron strings with worry.

Continue reading: The Hours Review