The British-led US slave drama 12 Years a Slave has come away from the annual London Film Critics Circle awards as the big winner, being chosen as the Best Film, as well as picking the Best Actor award for Chiwetel Ejiofor and the prize for the Best Supporting Actress, for Lupita Nyong’o. Cate Blanchett was […]
Last year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voters shocked the film industry when they overlooked Ben Affleck in the best director’s category, this year they outdid themselves, snubbing safe potential contenders such as Emma Thompson, Robert Redford and Tom Hanks in the acting categories and Paul Greengrass in the directing category. Other […]
2013 has been another busy year for UK Screen, with more than a hundred theatrical releases reviewed and the usual mix of big celebrity interviews and reports from awards, such as the Oscars and the Golden Globes, and festivals including Cannes, Toronto and the London Film Festival. The best releases of 2013 explored themes of […]
In an exclusive interview for my BBC show Alternative Cinema, Tom Hanks, who openly supported Barack Obama in the 2008 US elections and made donations to many Democratic politicians, denies being a political guy. He is only interested in examining the process. “I admit it! I voted for the president of the United […]
American computer animated comic science fiction film Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 raced to the top making £3,658,618 last weekend in the UK. The film is the sequel to the 2009 film Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs which was loosely based on the book of the same name by Judi and Ron […]
Speeding to the top spot is 3D animated sports film Turbo which made an impressive £3,892,774 in its opening weekend. Produced by DreamWorks Animation, which also made films such as The Shrek franchise and the Madagascar trilogy, Turbo was based on an original idea by David Soren who also directed it. The film follows the […]
The BFI has hailed the success of Clare Stewart’s second London Film Festival at the helm, with last year’s record audience attendance being broken, with the figure passing the 150,000 mark for the first time. Sandwiched between two Tom Hanks films, the piracy drama Captain Phillips at the start and the Mary Poppins story Saving […]
Coming late in the year, the London Film Festival is continuing its modest streak of bringing some of the best films of the year’s other festivals – including Sundance, Cannes, Venice and Toronto – to Britain. Many festivals insist on screening the world premieres for their films, but with a total of 234 features during […]
The BFI has announced the 57th London Film Festival will close with Saving Mr Banks, the story of how Mary Poppins was brought to the big screen. Emma Thompson stars as the author PL Travers with Tom Hanks playing Walt Disney. The film is directed by The Blind Side’s John Lee Hancock and co-stars Colin […]
The director best known for the Bourne Supremacy and the Bourne Ultimatum, Paul Greengrass, will be the first British director to open the London Film Festival since Andrew Macdonald had the honour with The Last King of Scotland in 2006. Greengrass’s Captain Phillips, about the first American cargo ship to be hijacked by pirates in […]