News

For their eyes only: Inside the world of the film censor

Wednesday, 8 June 2011

Adam Sherwin asks what was so bad about Human Centipede II – and who chooses what we can and can't watch?

Disney to cut jobs as DVD sales fall

Wednesday, 8 June 2011

Walt Disney is expected to cut about 200 positions at its movie studio unit, as it reduces its focus on home entertainment distribution of DVDs.

Blockbusters of cinema's arthouse

Monday, 6 June 2011

Rob Hastings: A property developer has amassed the world's biggest film poster collection. Now it's up for sale.

Britain gets a taste for the drive-in movie

Sunday, 5 June 2011

Film lovers are discovering the delights of outdoor showings. At £25 per car, Kate Youde finds a growing band of devotees

Sport on Film: Pitch battle that rightly gives Windies their place in history

Sunday, 5 June 2011

There's a scene towards the end of Fire in Babylon when Bunny Wailer (of Bob Marley's band) stops berating his dogs and says of Viv Richards: "If he had not gone into cricket, he would surely have been a dreadlock rasta man. Real deal." It's a delightful moment that had the audience cracking up. But you couldn't help thinking how different things might have been if the Master Blaster had just sat around all day smoking big spliffs rather than flaying England's bowlers to all parts.

Violent film trailer banned by watchdog

Wednesday, 1 June 2011

A violent film trailer featuring a man's head exploding which was broadcast during an episode of cult teen dance show Glee has been banned by the advertising watchdog.

Rare Chaplin film comes up for sale

Wednesday, 1 June 2011

The only known surviving copy of a Charlie Chaplin film which features some of the earliest known animation is about to go on sale.

Click to watch video

Studio has last laugh as 'Hangover' sequel puts critics in their place

Tuesday, 31 May 2011

Amid the critical scorn marking the release of The Hangover Part II last Thursday, one American writer suggested that the movie was the apogee of a new "mutant sub-genre" of film: the jokeless comedy. Fast forward to Monday morning though, and such reviews could hardly have looked any more irrelevant, at least as far as the bosses and bean counters at Warner Bros studios were concerned.

Click to watch video

'Kung Fu Panda' film hits China – respectfully

Tuesday, 31 May 2011

Hollywood is taking no chances of being accused of disrespecting Chinese culture as it launches Kung Fu Panda 2, featuring the bumbling animated character Po, in the spiritual home of the endangered bear.

David Lister: Work Experience: The Movie: the start of something big

Saturday, 28 May 2011

The Week in Arts

Julian Fellowes looks at film policy

Wednesday, 25 May 2011

Julian Fellowes, the Oscar-winning creator of Downton Abbey, will sit on an expert panel reviewing government film policy.

Sex worker film festival to be held in London

Monday, 23 May 2011

The first sex worker film festival in London will be held next month, featuring documentaries and short films about the fight for human and labour rights.

Red faces on the red carpet at director's Palme d'Or no-show

Monday, 23 May 2011

The Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or is a trophy any self-respecting director would want to see alongside an Academy Award on the mantlepiece.

The men who gave Aids to rural China

Monday, 23 May 2011

The scandal that saw 'blood merchants' infect thousands of people with HIV has always been a taboo subject. But a new film hopes to change that

Once upon a time in Cannes...

Sunday, 22 May 2011

A rambling Turkish philosophical thriller led the field, says Jonathan Romney.

Muriel's Wedding actor Bill Hunter dies

Sunday, 22 May 2011

Bill Hunter, the archetypal working class Australian of a multitude of movies including the quirky trio Muriel's Wedding, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Strictly Ballroom has died of cancer.

Click to watch video

And... cut! Nazi outburst earns Von Trier a ban from Cannes

Friday, 20 May 2011

The Cannes Film Festival, long-heralded for its libertarian attitude to the work and lives of its many auteurs, has finally drawn a line in the sun-scorched sand.

Click to watch video

Von Trier stirs up controversy with Nazi claim

Thursday, 19 May 2011

Rob Sharp: The Danish director Lars Von Trier, whose films have seen characters mock the handicapped and mutilate each other, has surpassed his own strong record for controversy by jokingly claiming to be a Nazi and expressing his desire to direct hard-core pornography.

Von Trier apologises for Nazi comments

Wednesday, 18 May 2011

Director Lars von Trier has apologised after today's press conference at the Cannes Film Festival, where he told reporters he was 'a Nazi' and said he could 'understand Hitler'.

Cannes Diary: How Jodie got her man

Wednesday, 18 May 2011

Jodie Foster said yesterday it was "natural" for her to ask Mel Gibson to star in The Beaver. She said: "I've been friends with Mel for over 15 years and we've had many, many long discussions about life and so it was a natural place to go."

Click to watch video

Jodie Foster defends absent Mel Gibson

Tuesday, 17 May 2011

Mel Gibson's absence from the press conference supporting his new film did not stop him dominating proceedings.

Cannes Diary: BBC plans 'Geordie' version of To Kill A Mocking Bird

Tuesday, 17 May 2011

BBC Films, the Corporation's film-making arm, is to make a movie inspired by Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, starring Cillian Murphy. It will transfer the story's setting from the 1930s American Deep South to contemporary England's industrial northeast.

China's leading lady Tang Wei deemed too racy to star in Mao movie

Monday, 16 May 2011

Clifford Coonan: The brief rehabilitation of Chinese actress Tang Wei, who was purged for her steamy role in Ang Lee's erotic thriller Lust, Caution, seems to be over, after Chairman Mao's grandson intervened to have her cut out of the propaganda epic The Founding of a Party.

Cannes confidential: A critic's-eye view of the festival news

Sunday, 15 May 2011

Jonathan Romney: Scandal, glamour, satires on the Pope and Sarkozy, lost masterpieces and the usual suspects: it's all go on La Croisette.

Swinton: 'It's a horror film, a love story, a war film, not social comment'

Sunday, 15 May 2011

Jonathan Romney: A best-selling novel unnervingly brought to life by the British film-maker Lynne Ramsay has so far been the competition highlight of the Cannes Film Festival.