Tag: British Things (51-60 of 345)

Oct 20 2011 03:40 PM ET

Matt Damon to make the leap from actor to director. Who's next in line?

hereafter

Image Credit: Ken Regan

No one was surprised by yesterday’s news that Matt Damon would finally take his place in the director’s chair. Since co-writing Good Will Hunting and enjoying an amazing apprenticeship with Hollywood’s greatest working directors (like Clint Eastwood), the Oscar-winner actually seemed overdue to join his friend Ben Affleck on the other side of the camera. Maybe it’s his Harvard pedigree or his thoughtful talk-show banter, but Damon always seemed like an actor with vision and ambition who would thrive creatively as the captain of the film production.

As a result, Damon spent the last several years answering the question, “So when are you going to direct?”, and now that’s he’s committed to directing a small-town drama co-written by John Krasinski, we can pose the same question to other actors we’d like to see join the ranks of George Clooney, Sean Penn, Tom Hanks, Robert De Niro, Denzel Washington, and Sarah Polley as actor auteurs.

Below, I’ve listed my top-5 actors who I most want to hear say, “Action!”: READ FULL STORY »

Oct 20 2011 03:15 PM ET

Britain’s National Theatre is coming to your local movie theater tonight: Will you watch?

TheKitchen14

Image Credit: Marc Brenner

It’s a movie. It’s a play. It’s National Theatre Live, the 2-year-old film initiative that brings the best of the British boards from London’s National Theatre to international movie screens. Now, thanks to a partnership with NCM Fathom, they’re adding 200 more U.S. sites, starting with today’s showing of the James Corden-led, rapturously reviewed (and possibly Broadway-bound) One Man, Two Guvnors. Then comes Arnold Wesker’s ’50s-set The Kitchen on Nov. 3, Trainspotting scribe John Hodge’s newest, The Collaborators (about an imagined meeting between Mikhail Bulgakov and Joseph Stalin) on Dec. 1, and comedian Lenny Henry in Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors on Mar. 1. Are you excited? ‘Cause I’m excited. But does it really count as seeing theater? (I’m sorry, theatre.)

In my mind, no — though I’d like to read your opinions below — and not just because the actors on stage can’t hear your cell phone ringing. READ FULL STORY »

Oct 20 2011 11:58 AM ET

'Lord Monckton': Sacha Baron Cohen's latest character?

Especially in this day and age, there are political celebrities who routinely say such outlandish things that you’re uncertain whether to take them seriously. So you can’t really blame Australian TV host Craig Reucassel for implying that Lord Christopher Monckton must be the next brilliant creation of Sacha Baron Cohen. For those of you unfamiliar with Monckton’s CV, he’s an outspoken climate-change skeptic who once worked for prime minister Margaret Thatcher and he has a history of controversial and polarizing statements. Like the time he said the Hitler Youth was a liberal Green organization. Or the time he suggested that all AIDS victims should be quarantined.

Watch as Reucassel marvels at Cohen’s artistic integrity during an interview with “Monckton” for his show, The Hamster Wheel. Cohen doesn’t break character in the slightest, and even pretends to be angered by Reucassel’s line of questioning and orders him to leave. What commitment! READ FULL STORY »

Oct 17 2011 05:51 PM ET

'Titanic' told entirely through Facebook posts! Like!

If you don’t have three hours to get all nostalgic over 1997′s Titanic, FunnyOrDie has decided to outline the entire movie’s plot with Facebook posts. That way you can relive all the drama of James Cameron’s romance/disaster flick in considerably less time — certainly less time than it took to read through the movie’s exhaustive Wikipedia page. READ FULL STORY »

Oct 7 2011 06:58 PM ET

Does 'Skyfall' as a James Bond title scare 'the living daylights' out of you?

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Image Credit: Susie Allnutt

When it comes to the James Bond franchise, titles to the 22 previous cinematic incarnations basically have gone one of two ways. One, short and sweet. Goldfinger, Dr. No, Thunderball. Even License to Kill. Brief and helpfully obvious. The other favorite option has been wordy tediousness, titles that sound more like perfume names than spy thrillers. For Your Eyes Only, Tomorrow Never Dies. And, yes, Quantum of Solace. Though even some of the most flowery Bond names are drawn directly from Ian Fleming’s pen, I lean towards simplicity — perhaps only because those titles seem to better reflect the depictions of Bond as “blunt instrument” that I prefer.

So I have to say I was encouraged to read the recent Internet scuttlebutt that the next Bond film might be called Skyfall. READ FULL STORY »

Sep 15 2011 05:15 PM ET

Henry Winkler officially Most Excellent, receives honorary OBE

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Image Credit: Zanyasan Tanantpapat

Henry Winkler is often called the Nicest Man in Hollywood, but now he’s also known as an Honorary Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE). He was awarded the honor from the Queen (via British Ambassador Nigel Sheinwald, pictured with Winkler) this week in recognition of his services to children with dyslexia and special educational needs. According to the British Embassy in Washington, he’s spent much of the last two years touring the U.K. to educate about dyslexia and other learning difficulties. Winkler, who was diagnosed with dyslexia as an adult, is also the author of 17 children’s books centered on Hank Zipzer, a boy with dyslexia who overcomes his struggles at school and with bullies.

There are two things I love about the press release: READ FULL STORY »

Sep 6 2011 12:13 PM ET

Colin Firth thinks the film industry is underestimating audiences. But is it just giving the people what they want?

Colin-Firth

Image Credit: Elisabetta A. Villa/WireImage.com

H.L. Mencken said, “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” In these globalized times we can now remove that “American” qualifier. This past summer was the highest-grossing season on record for the movie industry, despite the complete lack of originality, surprise, or any big-budget entertainments that deserved any real praise beyond, “Well, anyway, it was better than Green Lantern.” Currently, the halls of Hollywood are filled with cackling corporate fat cats, popping champagne and plotting future villainy: Green Lantern 2, why not? But not everyone is celebrating the film industry’s stupid-is-as-stupid-does gravy train. According to the Guardian, recent Oscar winner and emergent cinema hero Colin Firth used the Venice Film Festival opening of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy to offer his own opinions about the dumbing-down of movies. “I do think there is a tendency to underestimate audiences,” said Firth. “I do think there is an appetite to be stretched.” READ FULL STORY »

Sep 1 2011 04:50 PM ET

From covering Lady Gaga to pimping out dormice: Everything you need to know about on tour British comic Bill Bailey

Bill-Bailey

Bill Bailey is one of the most popular comedians in the U.K. thanks to his appearances on shows such as Black Books, Spaced, and Never Mind the Buzzcocks and his surreal, hilarious, stand-up routines. This month, Bailey is visiting these shores with dates in New York, Chicago and Boston. “There’s something for all tastes,” he says of his current show, Dandelion Mind. “There’s intellectual comedy. There’s observational stuff. Music. Lots of visuals. It’s a multi-media romp!” The tour will also be opportunity for audience members to see why Bailey is routinely mistaken for Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich. “Oh yeah, that’s happened many times,” he admits with a chuckle. “You’re Lars!’ ‘No, I’m not.’ ‘Yes, you are!’ ‘No, I’m not.’ And then eventually you go, ‘Yeah, alright, f— it, I am. I’m Lars!’”

Here are five more things you need to know about Mr Bailey: READ FULL STORY »

Aug 24 2011 08:00 AM ET

Well-juiced Simon Cowell talks 'American Idol' fatigue, 'X Factor,' orgasmic IV regimen

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Image Credit: Fox

In an interview with GQ, Simon Cowell talks about his total disinterest in his last few seasons of American Idol and how a lawsuit citing similarities between Idol and The X Factor forced him to delay plans to bring his show to the U.S. for five years. It’s a great read whether you dig the guy or not, but the thing that will stick with me most is that Simon Cowell has a multi-person team to make sure his “breakfast appears” every day. Breakfast is seven courses, six of them liquid. GQ provides footnoted recipes of his breakfast smoothies, with each fruit serving measured out to the millimeter.

It’s all very scientific. At this point, his entire life is so immaculately curated that Simon Cowell just doesn’t have to deal. With anything. Ever. He wakes up late, watches The Jetsons, absorbs nutrients, and avoids people. He’s my hero. And here’s something very unfortunate for a person who is not a multimillionaire media mogul: Simon Cowell has brainwashed me into believing I should be on an orgasm-inducing IV at all times. (I should, right?) READ FULL STORY »

Aug 23 2011 01:58 PM ET

LIFE names 'The Worst Accents in Movie History.' Rough week, in'nit Anne Hathaway?

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Image Credit: Giles Keyte

One Day could very well turn out to be the most distracting movie of 2011. Either you couldn’t get attached because you’d read the book and knew the shocking, twist ending that was coming or you didn’t know and were so blindsided you had a hard time enjoying the rest of the film. But, there’s been an even bigger diversion that’s kept people for falling for the weepy, big-screen adaptation of David Nicholls’ best-selling novel: Anne Hathaway’s shaky British accent.

The folks over at LIFE would have to agree. In their list of “The Worst Accents in Movie History” they argue that Hathaway’s Emma is supposed to hail from Leeds, but the actress seemed to have picked up a whole bunch of regional dialects and compiled them into one super-distracting allegedly British accent. Of course, she’s hardly the only star to miss the mark completely when it comes to speaking in a foreign tongue. READ FULL STORY »

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