By Ray Bennett
LONDON – Spanish director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s “28 Weeks Later”, a sequel to Danny Boyle’s admired zombie chiller “28 Days Later”, is a ferociously entertaining thriller with sympathetic characters, stunning set pieces and pulsating excitement. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
LONDON — The fanciful style that H.G. Wells employed for his 1910 comic novel “The History of Mr. Polly” is difficult to transfer to the screen but ITV has done a good job with its new version thanks to some gorgeous settings and the extraordinarily expressive talents of Lee Evans. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
LONDON — Christophe Honore’s “Inside Paris,” which opened in the United Kingdom May 4, is a pretentious, talkative and mercifully short discourse on self-absorption.
An attempt at a throwback to the New Wave, the film follows two brothers as they deal with the women in their lives in very different ways.
It begins with one of them, Jonathan (Louis Garrel), speaking directly to the camera and he acknowledges the “intolerably embarrassing odor” of doing so. But saying it does not change it, and Honore’s self-conscious script continues to sound pleased with itself throughout.
A pleasing cast and an appealing jazz score will not be enough to raise the film, which screened at last year’s Cannes sidebar Directors’ Fortnight, beyond the festival circuit.
My full review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter
By Ray Bennett
David Suchet (left), who is very good in the title role of the drama “Maxwell” tonight on BBC2 , says that he researched the life of Robert Maxwell for other characters he’s played.
He used the flamboyant businessman as the basis for playing Augustus Melmotte in Trollope’s “The Way We Live Now” in 2002. He told the BBC: “It was almost a carbon copy of Maxwell’s background, although obviously he was a different person.”
He said he used him for Gregor Antonescu in the West End production of Terence Rattigan’s play “Man and Boy.” He was a business man from Eastern Europe who also had a financial meltdown: “He had the same sort of background and he had the same sort of bullish attitude and ways.
The actor says there’s no doubt that Maxwell was smart and tough but his colorful ways were missed when he was gone: “I think what’s great about the script, and why I was drawn to it, is that it doesn’t just present him as the big bully and evil thieving man that he’s probably made out to be now because he stole the pension funds for himself and such like. This drama doesn’t do that. That’s there and one judges it according to how you feel about that, but then his other life is there as well. I think there’s a very good mix of sensitivity and bullishness and what was later found out to be criminal activity.”
Here’s how my review begins in The Hollywood Reporter:
LONDON — Conrad Black, now on trial in Chicago, was not the first newspaper mogul to run afoul of the law. Robert Maxwell, owner of the big-selling U.K. tabloid the Daily Mirror, siphoned off £350 million from his company’s pension fund in 1991.
Thousands of employees lost their life savings. He was never tried because he fell off his yacht and drowned in mysterious circumstances aged 68 shortly afterwards.
Writer Craig Warner’s BBC film “Maxwell” tells of those last days although a line at the beginning points out that some characters are changed, dates are shifted and some scenes are informed fiction. Still, producer and director Colin Barr has delivered a penetrating drama observing the power-hungry CEO scheme and connive to keep the reins on his debt-ridden empire.
David Suchet (“Poirot”) creates a vivid impression of the uncouth and ruthless tycoon who got out of Czechoslovakia in World War II and fought bravely enough for the British to win the Military Cross.
His family perished at Auschwitz and he was penniless when he landed in Britain but he had a shrewd eye for business. At his peak, despite his nickname the Bouncing Czech, he competed with Rupert Murdoch as the most rapacious and successful media baron in the U.K.
By Ray Bennett
LONDON — Thoughts of “On the Town” are influenced by recollections of the 1949 film version starring Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra, which landed at No. 19 on the American Film Institute’s list of all-time great film musicals. Approaching a stage version, that is not altogether a good thing.
Even though Leonard Bernstein composed the show’s music with lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolf Green (“Singin’ in the Rain”), the film’s directors Kelly and Stanley Donen threw out a lot of the original songs in favor of numbers by in-house MGM songsmith Roger Edens.
The English National Opera’s revival of the 1944 stage production suggests that Donen and Kelly were right. It was Bernstein’s first attempt at a major musical at age 25, and while the rousing “New York, New York” has endured, the songlist lacks the richness he would achieve later in “West Side Story.”
That ebullient song, with richly evocative words by Comden and Green, almost sustains the show but while all the songs boast clever lyrics, the remainder of the music is heavy going. The cast’s accomplished performances and sheer energy, however, make a crowd-pleasing impression.
Simon Lee conducts the full ENO orchestra with great flair and while designer Robert Jones opts for sparsely effective sets, Stephen Mear’s choreography ensures the pace never flags. This is in spite of a 90-minute first act that seems quite a bit longer. Director Jude Kelly evidently wishes to strike a topical note about fighting men missing home and uses World War Two images to make her point when a trio of sailors, Gabey (Joshua Dallas), Chip (Sean Palmer) and Ozzie (Ryan Molloy) land in Manhattan on a 24-hour leave.
Bowled over by his first view of the Big Apple, Gabey immediately falls in love with subway poster girl Ivy Smith (Helen Anker) and sets off to find her. His two shipmates determine to help him and get help from resourceful cabbie Hildy Eserhazy (Caroline O’Connor) and randy museum curator Claire de Loone (Lucy Schaufer). Complicating their daylong romantic plans are Ivy’s boozy singing teacher Madame Maude P. Dilly (British TV star June Whitfield) and Claire’s wealthy fiance Judge Pitkin W. Bridgework (Andrew Shore).
They all meet cute and find ways to become entangled with do-gooders and the police before love finds its way. Dallas is a fine leading man and O’Connor and Schauffer make convincing New Yawk broads. Whitfield gets plenty of laughs with her expert clowning.
Opera purists object to the ENO putting on such popular fare but when they can pump such class and energy into a fairly dated show, it’s hard to complain.
Venue: London Coliseum, English National Opera, runs through May 25; Cast: Joshua Dallas, Sean Palmer, Ryan Molloy, Helen Anker, Caroline O’Connor, Lucy Schaufer, June Whitfield, Andrew Shore, Janine Duvitsky; Music: Leonard Bernstein; Book and lyrics: Betty Comden and Adolph Green, based on an idea by Jerome Robbins; Director: Jude Kelly; Choreographer: Stephen Mear; Designer: Robert Jones; Lighting designer: Mark Henderson; Sound designer: Nick Lidster; Conductor: Simon Lee.
This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.
By Ray Bennett
Anthony Quayle created onstage the role that Laurence Olivier took in the film version of the mystery drama “Sleuth” and when I asked him if it was any consolation that the great knight of English drama had displaced him, Quayle said: “No, it was my fucking role!”
So it’s excellent news from Hollywood that Universal has seen the light and signed Frank Langella to star with Michael Sheen (pictured above) in Ron Howard’s film version of Peter Morgan’s terrific play “Frost/Nixon,” which he does in the Donmar Warehouse production currently on Broadway. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
There’s a scene in an early episode of “Dallas” in which Linda Gray as Sue Ellen Ewing in a long gown bumps downstairs on her backside. She wore jeans beneath the gown and in her back pocket was a picture of me!
My mugshot accompanied a review of “Dallas” that I’d written for TV Guide Canada, where I worked at the time. Someone at Lorimar Television, the company that made the show on what was then the MGM lot in Culver City, had shown Gray my review and she told me later that she folded it up and put it in her ass pocket when the director called action.
My review prompted Gray to write me a note:
Dear Ray, I wanted to thank you for the beautiful Valentine’s Day card you sent! Confused? I’ll explain. Last Wednesday (Valentine’s Day) our production secretary for “Dallas” came on the set with Xerox copies of your review of our show. Finally someone really understands what we are trying to do. We are working hard and having fun at the same time. I have become your number one fan and I hope we have an opportunity to meet sometime. Much love and thanks for a special Valentine – the lady you love to hate … Linda Gray
British TV network UK Gold will televise “Dallas,” the biggest American hit from the 1980s, in its entirety starting Monday with “Diggers Daughter,” which debuted on CBS on Sunday April 2, 1978.
I shall look out for Episode 28 of the show’s first full season, titled “John Ewing III, Part 1,” which should air around May 10.
John Curran’s absorbing film of Somerset Maugham’s “The Painted Veil” starring Edward Norton and Naomi Watts, which opens today in the U.K., is worth seeing for several reasons but not least for French film composer Alexandre Desplat’s excellent score.
Desplat (pictured), who has been very busy writing film music over the last 20 years, won the Golden Globe for “The Painted Veil” even though everyone thought he would be honored for his music for “The Queen.” He was nominated for an Academy Award for the Curran film too but lost that prize to Gustavo Santaolalla’s plaintive “Babel” score.
Desplat won the 2006 Cesar Award along with almost everyone else who worked on Jacques Audiard’s “The Beat that My Heart Skipped.” The Berlinale also gave him a Silver Bear for that one.
Another fine score that won him plaudits was to Peter Webber’s 2003 “The Girl with a Pearl Earring.” He also will score Chris Weitz’s film version of Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” due in December.
The National Theater’s stage version of “His Dark Materials” a couple of years ago was spectacularly good and despite his track record with “American Pie,” Weitz did a fine job on “About a Boy” so there’s reason for optimism. Pretty good cast, too: Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig and Eva Green.
But with Desplat on board, the music is sure to be top notch.
By Ray Bennett
Michelle Rodriguez (pictured), whose treacherous ex-police officer was one of the more memorable feature roles on TV’s “Lost,” first attracted attention in “Fast and the Furious” in 2001.
She’s in Stuart Townsend’s political drama “Battle in Seattle” starring Charlize Theron and Woody Harrelson due in December. Meanwhile, there’s a potboiler thriller, “The Breed,” released in U.K. theatres Friday and on DVD in the United States on May 22.
She’s pretty good in what is a throwaway thriller. Here’s how my Hollywood Reporter review begins:
LONDON — There are lots of dogs in “The Breed.” They snarl, jump, bark, bite and rip people to pieces. But they sure can’t run.
When five very mature American college students arrive on a deserted island for a party weekend only to land in canine hell, they’re outnumbered and outsmarted by rabid four-legged beasts but any time they have to run for cover, by golly they make it.
“The Breed” is a bog standard date thriller with run-of-the-mill thrills created by jump cuts usually involving the sudden appearance of a highly excited hound seeking human flesh to chow down on.
The result is predictable but efficient with mundane dialog required to fill in the blanks and whenever possible make mention of other famous dogs including Lassie, Old Yeller and Cujo.
Time for national treasure Kate Moss to help the workers
By Ray Bennett
When Kate Moss was pilloried by the tabloids and began to lose contracts because of alleged drug use, CNN asked me on to talk about what she should do about it.
There was a guy from People Magazine on, too, and CNN clearly wanted me to agree with him that the supermodel should rush to confess her sins on TV or in one of the celebrity magazines or red tops. My advice was the opposite.
I said she should disappear, say nothing and keep working; things would come around. She did just that, and today she is back on top as she opens a new clothing line at Topshop. I say good luck to her.
Kate Moss doesn’t make awful pop records, shabby television shows or lousy movies. She doesn’t rabbit on to radio or TV interviewers. She just does her job, which is to look dazzlingly beautiful in advertisements, and she does it exceedingly well.
To spot her versatile and eye-catching features on posters and in commercials when traveling abroad is a sweet reminder of home. She is a national treasure.
Which is all the more reason she should follow the advice of Mary Riddell in the Observer Sunday and help improve the lives of the people who work so hard to make the clothes she hawks.
To add 10p to the cost of each item of clothing could double a ragtrade worker’s income, Riddell cries: “Come on Kate, lead the way.”
International Workers’ Day tomorrow, would be a fine time to do it. Come on, Kate!