‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ dazzles in home entertainment

Posted on March 26, 2007 by admin

Heart of Summer

By Ray Bennett

Triple Academy Award-winner “Pan’s Labyrinth,” Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro’s engrossing fantasy picture that combines mesmerizing visual effects with harsh drama, has become Optimum Releasing’s fastest-selling foreign-language DVD in the U.K.

Optimum said the 2-disc edition, which features many extras including storyboards and interviews, sold 95,000 copies to rank fourth in all-time first-week U.K. sales behind swordplay flicks “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” “Hero” and “The House of Flying Daggers.”

The film won Oscars and BAFTA film awards for costume design and makeup. It was BAFTA’s best foreign-language film of the year and DP Guillermo Navarro won the Oscar for cinematography. The DVD is released in the United States via New Line Home Video on May 15.

I reviewed “Pan’s Labyrinth” for The Hollywood Reporter at the Festival de Cannes last year; here’s how it begins:

CANNES — The bizarre beasts in a young girl’s phantasmagorical imagination are nothing compared to the ruthless brutes that populate her day-to-day reality so it’s no wonder she wishes to escape in Guillermo del Toro’s engrossing fable “Pan’s Labyrinth.”

The story is set in Spain in 1944 as Franco’s victorious fascist forces bear down with punishing weight on any who resist. The film’s extraordinary fantasy sequences, in which the girl, played by Ivana Baquero, must complete three arduous tasks, offer a semblance of hope and salvation compared to the short life expectancy in a merciless military state.

Definitely not for children and in fact more of a horror film, “Pan’s Labyrinth” will thrive on the festival circuit and should find appreciative audiences in art houses everywhere.

 

 

Posted in Film, Reviews | Comments Off on ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ dazzles in home entertainment

Delivering ‘Northanger’ romance at Lismore Castle

Posted on March 25, 2007 by admin

Northanger Abbey 1 x650

By Ray Bennett

The daunting edifice in “Northanger Abbey,” ITV’s new version of the Jane Austen novel that aired tonight starring Felicity Jones and JJ Feild (pictured), is actually Lismore Castle in County Waterford, Ireland.

Andrew Davies, who wrote the screenplay, says that the physical place was important because it is spoken of throughout the first half of the story: “It can’t be a disappointment. Lismore Castle is a wonderful, splendid, rather scary building. It delivers all the promise of creaking ghosts in the corridors and strange things hidden in the dungeons. All the things you expect with a romantic castle.”

So romantic, in fact, that you can get married there with 80 guests, 24 of them staying over, if you have £27,000 to spare. It’s owned by the Duke of Devonshire, who has another rather fancy country pile in England’s Derbyshire called Chatsworth. Both of them are for hire, at a price.

Chatsworth (below) has been seen in a great many movies and TV shows including the 2005 film “Pride and Prejudice” starring Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen in which it portrayed Mr. D’Arcy’s Pemberley.

Chatsworth Pride and Prejudice x650Lismore is known for its gardens (below) and a well-regarded art gallery. It also has a lot of history involving characters ranging from King John to Sir Walter Raleigh to Fred Astaire’s sister Estelle, who lived there in the 1930s.

I reviewed the programme for The Hollywood Reporter but the review is no longer on the publication’s website. Here’s what it says on Wikipedia:

The Hollywood Reporter‘s Ray Bennett praised ‘Northanger Abbey’, calling it “a wonderfully evocative version”, which was “written with flair and imagination by Andrew Davies”.

He proclaimed: “Capturing vividly the flush and wonder of adolescence, the film mines Austen’s first-written but last-published novel to find purest nuggets of wit, romance and social satire. The story’s 18th-century heroine, Catherine Morland, has a fevered imagination and Davies draws on Austen’s droll illustrations of it to create scenes of gothic adventure.”

Bennett added “the film is shot beautifully by Ciarán Tanham while composer Charlie Mole’s score adds to the quickening pace of Catherine’s fantasies.”

Posted in Notes, Places, Television | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Delivering ‘Northanger’ romance at Lismore Castle

Elton John at 60 recalling happy days

Posted on March 25, 2007 by admin

EltonJohn x650

By Ray Bennett

I can recall when none of my friends wanted to see Elton John, who turns 60 today. It was 1971 and the only Elton John record anyone had heard was the ballad “Your Song.”

I was working for The Windsor Star in Canada across the river from Detroit, where rock ‘n’ roll was king. We’d seen Elvis in Detroit, and the Doors, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Bob Seger, not to mention Motown. No one wanted to see Elton John.

But I bought his album “11-17-70,” recorded live on that date at A&R Recording Studios in New York. No strings, just Elton on piano and vocals, Dee Murray on bass and Nigel Olsson on drums. It featured “Bad Side of the Moon,” “Take Me to the Pilot,” “Honky Tonk Women” and a 20-minute version of “Burn Down the Mission” that included bits of “My Baby Left Me” and “Get Back.” It was raw. It was rock ‘n’ roll.

On April 16, 1971, Elton played the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and I managed to persuade a handful of mates to join me for the show. The auditorium was packed and within minutes it was bedlam, with everybody standing as the man who sang “Your Song” blew the roof off. The few I had persuaded to go still thank me.

eltonjohn 2 x650

Almost 30 years later, I was able to thank Elton John. As European Bureau Chief for The Hollywood Reporter in 1999, I was invited to a party at his home in Nice during the Cannes film festival. There were lots of stars there and Elton seemed almost shy.

There was a marquee by the pool where dinner was served but guests were free to roam the grounds and the ground floor of the house. I found him inside standing alone and for some reason he looked a bit sad, perhaps at having to entertain a Cannes crowd in his elegant home. I thanked him for the invitation and told him that I’d seen his show in Ann Arbor. His face lit up. “Ah, happy days, happy days,” he said, but then he retreated within himself once more.

Today, John will celebrate in typically high style with a record 60th concert at New York’s Madison Square Garden. The show will be telecast in the U.K. on ITV1 at 9 p.m. Thursday March 29 and in the U.S. on MyNetworkTV, a mini-network of Fox stations on April 5. Also, John’s back catalogue of more than 30 albums will be released by Universal for digital download via iTunes on Monday and other services April 30.

 

 

 

Posted in Memory Lane, Music, Notes | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

TV REVIEW: Jonathan Pryce is right as Sherlock Holmes

Posted on March 24, 2007 by admin

SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE BAKER STREET IRREGULARS

By Ray Bennett

LONDON — Putting together the correct elements for a cracking good Sherlock Holmes yarn is not as elementary as it might seem but the BBC appears to have the mix right in “Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars”.

The two-parter, starting Sunday, is aimed at children but viewers of all ages will respond to the notion of Jonathan Pryce as the original one-man CSI unit squaring off against a former love named Irene Adler who happens to be a criminal genius. The added ingredient is that the Victorian sleuth not only has Dr. Watson to help him but also a crew of street urchins he calls his Baker Street Irregulars.

Julian Kemp directs a smart teleplay by Richard Kurti and Bev Doyle that manages to combine the traditional view of Holmes as an eccentric mastermind while reveling in the idea of a bunch of savvy ragamuffins putting their larcenous skills to work not for some Fagin but for the long arm of the law.

Shooting in Ireland, cinematographer Ciaran Tanham captures Grant Hicks accomplished production design that creates a convincing London of riverside alleyways, Chinatown streets and fancy homes.

It starts the way good mysteries should with a thief, a gun and a chase but when pickpocket Jack (Benjamin Smith) finds himself trapped, he opts for the river and is presumed drowned. His sister Sadie (Mia Fernandez) refuses to believe he’s dead, however, and wants Holmes to investigate.

But the crimefighter is busy with a bigger case as police inspectors are being poisoned all over the place with suggestions that there’s a Chinese curse at work. When Inspector Stirling (Michael Maloney) finds planted evidence suggesting that in fact Holmes is the villain, murdering police officers who get the credit for crimes he has solved, then the case becomes a larger problem.

Holmes is placed under house arrest and must clear his name without leaving his home. It’s a locked-door mystery with a twist. Sadie and the Irregulars — Finch (Aaron Johnson, Sticks (Dean Gibbons), Jasmine (Megan Jones) and the Chinese Tealeaf (Alice Hewkin) — put their streetwise tricks to work on Holmes’ behalf while the always dependable Dr. Watson (Bill Paterson) follows more established means of finding evidence.

Soon, Sherlock deduces that the woman he loved has returned to take revenge but her plan to vilify him is merely a diversion while she plans a greater crime — to break into the London mint.

The youngsters are all likeably scruffy and Paterson makes a certifiably Scottish Watson. Chancellor dresses like Mary Poppins but has nasty plans for the kids if they don’t behave.

Pryce is one of those actors born to play Holmes and he uses his doleful eyes and expressive voice to good purpose with some delightful lines. When Watson says he deserves more acclaim for his work, the sleuth scornfully says the reading public is far more interested in the private lives of music hall performers than in the work of amateur detectives.

“Celebrity,” he declares, “is the last refuge of the idiot.”

Airs: May 25 BBC1; Cast: Jonathan Pryce, Bill Paterson, Michael Maloney, Anna Chancellor, Aaron Johnson, Mia Fernandez, Dean Gibbons, Megan Jones, Alice Hewkin, Benjamin Smith, Brendan Patrick; Director: Julian Kemp; Writers: Richard Kurti & Bev Doyle; Director of photography: Ciaran Tanham; Production designer: Grant Hicks; Editor: Ray Roantree; Composer: Debbie Wiseman; Producer: Andy Rowley; Executive producers: Elaine Sperber, Andrew Lowe, Josephine Ward; Production: ITV, RDF Television.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

Posted in Reviews, Television | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

TV REVIEW: Felicity Jones in ‘Northanger Abbey’

Posted on March 24, 2007 by admin

Northanger Abbey 1 x650

By Ray Bennett

Lust and adventure figure in Andrew Davies’s imaginative and entertaining adaptation of “Northanger Abbey” starring Felicity Jones and JJ Feild (pictured), the second in ITV’s Jane Austen season airing Sunday at 9 p.m. on ITV1.

Here’s how my review begins in The Hollywood Reporter:

LONDON — ITV’s season of new Jane Austen films hits full stride with a wonderfully evocative version of “Northanger Abbey” written with flair and imagination by Andrew Davies, adding to his list of fine credits including “Bleak House,” “Tipping the Velvet” and “Bridget Jones’s Diary.”

Capturing vividly the flush and wonder of adolescence, the film mines Austen’s first-written but last-published novel to find purest nuggets of wit, romance and social satire. The story’s 18th-century heroine, Catherine Morland, has a fevered imagination and Davies draws on Austen’s droll illustrations of it to create scenes of gothic adventure.

This is Austen for those who imagine wrongly that her novels are dry and dainty. There’s lust and hunger in these characters and Davies, along with director Jon Jones (“A Very Social Secretary,” “Archangel”), gives them full rein while never betraying the social straightjackets of the time.

 

Posted in Reviews, Television | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on TV REVIEW: Felicity Jones in ‘Northanger Abbey’

Channeling Edith Piaf in ‘La Vie en Rose’

Posted on March 21, 2007 by admin

la-vie-en-rose- Cotillard x650

By Ray Bennett

EMI Music sent over their soundtrack CD for the film “La Vie en Rose,” a biography of French singer Edith Piaf, and I’ve been playing it ever since (alternating with Ry Cooder’s exceptional “My Name is Buddy”)

The English-language package of the CD features 27 tracks including 11 Piaf classics such as the title song, “Milord” and “Non, Je ne regrette rien.” There are Edith-Piaf-La-Vie-En-Rose album x325nine cues from composer Christopher Gunning’s original score and seven additional songs, some featuring Jill Aigrot, who sounds so much like Piaf it’s impossible to tell them apart. The recordings are rich and evocative.

The film, which is titled “La Môme” in France, made $32.3 million in its first month of release in director Olivier Dahan’s homeland thanks largely to Marion Cotillard’s much praised star turn as the Little Sparrow (pictured top).

The Hollywood Reporter’s Kirk Honeycutt called the performance by Cotillard (“A Good Year,” “A Very Long Engagement”) “extraordinarily brave” and wrote that “every gesture and singing performance channels not only Piaf but perhaps a bit of Judy Garland.”

Picturehouse Entertainment will release “La Vie en Rose” in key cities in the United States on June 8 and Icon Film Distribution has announced it will release the picture in the United Kingdom on June 22.

Posted in Film, Music, Notes | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Channeling Edith Piaf in ‘La Vie en Rose’

THEATRE REVIEW: Robert Lindsay in ‘The Entertainer’

Posted on March 20, 2007 by admin

Robert Lindsay The Entertainer

By Ray Bennett

LONDON – The shadow of Laurence Olivier’s performance as Archie Rice looms so large over John Osborne’s 1956 play “The Entertainer” that it’s almost surprising to rediscover what a sturdy piece of work it is.

Robert Lindsay, a big name in British film and theater, takes the role in the Old Vic’s revival of the play, but director Sean Holmes makes him much more a part of the ensemble than occupant of his own spotlight. The result pares down the scabrous nature of Archie’s camp personality but makes the character considerably more human.

Olivier’s choice of the role of the uncouth, untalented and downright obnoxious music-hall entertainer gave a turbo charge to the great man’s fading career and also helped fuel the change in British theatre and film from depictions of staid middle-class drawing rooms to vulgar, not to say squalid, working-class kitchens.

Set at a time when Britain was making one of its periodic and catastrophic military forays into the Middle East, the play sees the country itself as a decaying music hall, filled with old delusions of grandeur, rampant prejudice and disdain for the poor and foreign.

Lacking the talent of his forebears, including his father Billy (John Normington), who was a gifted performer, Archie delivers rancid jokes, off-key ditties and clumsy soft-shoe numbers to bored seaside audiences who are only in the theater to see the statuesque but motionless naked women. The play alternates between scenes of Rice’s performances onstage and his equally pathetic lies and affectations in the company of his unhappy family.

Having not paid income tax for 20 years, Archie fears every knock on the door but still imagines that his latest 20-year-old flame will be waiting for him if he dumps Phoebe. His wife frets over the fate of their son Mick, who is serving in the army that has just invaded Suez, while Jean has called off her engagement because her young man didn’t like her joining a Trafalgar Square protest demonstration.

There are slight problems with this production. Designer Anthony Lamble’s set is unconvincing with a backdrop of three giant nudes for Archie’s set-pieces, and Lindsay is just too good a song-and-dance man (see Carl Reiner’s 1989 “Bert Rigby, You’re a Fool”) to be convincing as someone with no talent at all.

But Lindsay makes a shrewd choice in not emulating the way Olivier went for the jugular with Archie’s merciless sarcasm. Ferris plays the neglected and not very bright wife with great compassion, and Normington is a delight as the doddering and nostalgic old music-hall player.

All the elements in the play are eerily topical, and while the British Empire is long gone, the current fears over incompetent political leaders and crumbling institutions make “The Entertainer” thoroughly pertinent.

Vnue: The Old Vic; Cast: Robert Lindsay; Pam Ferris; Emma Cunniffe; John Normington; David Dawson; Lindsey Lennon; Jim Creighton; Brother Bill: Andrew McDonald; Playwright: John Osborne; Director: Sean Holmes; Designer: Anthony Lamble; Lighting designer: Peter Mumford; Music: John Addison; Choreography: Paul Harris; Sound designer: Fergus O’Hare.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter and Reuters.

 

Posted in Reviews, Theatre | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on THEATRE REVIEW: Robert Lindsay in ‘The Entertainer’

Clive Owen: Man among ‘Children’

Posted on March 19, 2007 by admin

Film Title: Children of Men

By Ray Bennett

For some reason, Metacritic read my review of “Children of Men” from the Venice International Film Festival last fall and concluded I gave it an 80% rating. In fact, I ranked Alfonso Cuaron’s extraordinary film along with Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Babel” and Guillermo del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth” (El Laberinto del fauno) as the Top 3 movies of 2006.

Emmanuel Lubezki richly deserved his prizes for best cinematography from BAFTA and the American Society of Cinematographers, and likewise Geoffrey Kirkland, Jim Clay, Jennifer Williams for their BAFTA award for best production design. But the film warranted far more accolades than that.

Today, Universal releases a two-disc special edition DVD of “Children of Men”, which stars Clive Owen and Julianne Moore (pictured) and Michael Caine, with bonus features that include Cuaron’s documentary “The Possibility of Hope” expanding on themes from the film.

My friend Glenn Abel reports on his terrific DVD Spin Doctor site (see Play it, Sam at right) that Universal will release the DVD in the United States on March 27. He also says that the “Pan’s Labyrinth” DVD is due in the U.S. from New Line on May 15.

While all the technical achievements of “Children of Men” are top class, Owen’s intelligent and nuanced performance as the reluctant hero should not be overlooked. Owen has turned in some excellent performances since Mike Hodges’s memorable 1998 picture “Croupier” helped break him into the big-time, and this is one of his best.

It will be long remembered while a good number of much-praised films from last year, such as Martin Scorsese’s rank “The Departed,” are forgotten. I continue to campaign for Hodges’ marvelously evocative crime film “I’ll Sleep When I”m Dead,” in which Owen also stars. It remains one of the great undiscovered gangster films.

Read my review on this site of “Children of Men”

 

Posted in Film, News | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Clive Owen: Man among ‘Children’

The fine eye of Joni Mitchell

Posted on March 19, 2007 by admin

joni-mitchell

By Ray Bennett

When I lived in Los Angeles, Joni Mitchell was a regular at my watering hole of choice, Dan Tana’s restaurant on Santa Monica Boulevard.

Tana’s is famously relaxed about the big names that dine there, but given Mitchell’s iconic stature and perceived reputation as a prickly artist, it was a delight to find how easygoing and gregarious she is.

Which is not to say that the Canadian singer shrinks from speaking her mind as my friend and colleague, music writer Paul Sexton, reports in a great piece in today’s Guardian.

Paul has produced a radio documentary titled “Come in From the Cold: The Return of Joni Mitchell,” based on conversations between Mitchell and British songwriter Amanda Ghost, who is a close friend of hers.

The two-part show, which airs on BBC Radio 2 March 20 and 27 at 8:30 p.m. GMT, features songs from “Shine”, Mitchell’s first album of new material in a decade that includes her setting to music Kipling’s poem “If”. It is due out in the fall.

Mitchell talks about people and things past and present including her recent involvement in “The Fiddle and the Drum”, a ballet based on her songs and art produced by Canada’s Alberta Ballet Company in Canada.

Sexton confirms that Mitchell retains her personal warmth and fine distanced eye for bullshit: “Privately, she does a mean impersonation of Bob Dylan, too, delivered as a hazy drone. ‘I’m not considered a poet’, she says. ‘Dylan is, Jim Morrison is. In a way, that’s a good thing, because I don’t like poetry, for the most part. I’m with Nietzsche, ‘They muddy their waters that they might appear deep’.”

Read Sexton’s article here. This is Mitchell’s home site.

Posted in Music, News, Notes | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Hayley Atwell one to watch in ‘Mansfield Park’

Posted on March 18, 2007 by admin

Mansfield Park Hayley Atwell Joseph Beattie x650

By Ray Bennett

Hayley Atwell steals the show as Mary Crawford, the intruder who almost ruins the hopes of poor Fanny Price (Billie Piper), in ITV’s new adaptation of “Mansfield Park”, which airs tonight.

Atwell’s sly sensuality and deftly suggestive way with words help Piper enliven what is a fairly dull film. My review is below. The two of them worked together previously in “The Ruby in the Smoke,” which aired on the BBC last year and PBS in February, and Atwell played Cat Fedden in the BBC’s “The Line of Beauty”.

Definitely worth keeping an eye on, Atwell has the lead in an upcoming comedy feature film titled “How About You,” directed by Anthony Byrne. She plays a young woman working at a residential home who is left in charge of an unruly group of pensioners over the holidays. Vanessa Redgrave, Joss Ackland and Brenda Flicker costar.

Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell are her leading men in Woody Allen’s upcoming drama “Cassandra’s Dream.” Best of all, she will play Julia Flyte opposite Ben Wishaw and Matthew Goode in Julian Jarrold’s feature film version of Evelyn Waugh’s “Brideshead Revisited” for Ecosse Films and Hanway Films.

By the way, ITV plans to release “Mansfield Park” on DVD in the spring while Granada International is selling the TV show around the world. That won’t do any harm at all to tourism at the glorious Newby Hall, at Ripon in North Yorkshire, the Adams House used in the film for the Bertram family home.

 

Posted in Notes, Places, Television | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Hayley Atwell one to watch in ‘Mansfield Park’