News for
Local Hero (1983) More at IMDbPro »

3 articles from 2009

5 December 2009 4:10 PM, PST | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »

Bill Forsyth, 1984

Whenever I contemplate the career of Bill Forsyth, I realise I'm getting old. It's more than a quarter of a century since he was considered one of the great new hopes of British cinema, but to me, the sudden flowering of his oblique, wilful talent still seems like one of the more recent miracles of film history.

After the cult success of his Glaswegian caper comedy That Sinking Feeling (just issued on DVD in an insulting format – with a dubbed soundtrack for American audiences), Forsyth hit the big time with his second feature, Gregory's Girl. I watch this film whenever it comes on TV – every two or three years, I suppose – and it never disappoints. The bittersweet experience of adolescent love is expertly captured, but more than that there is an unstoppable flow of comic invention: even the smallest characterisations are quirkily memorable, every scene crackles with good lines. »

24 July 2009 12:11 AM, PDT | GreenCine Daily | See recent GreenCine Daily news »

Peter Capaldi isn't a widely recognizeable name in the U.S. (yet), though the silver-tongued Scottish actor has starred in such beloved films as Local Hero, Dangerous Liaisons and The Lair of the White Worm. He also, much to the confusion of people who identify him as a thespian, won an Oscar for a nifty 1994 short film he wrote and directed (Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life), but it's his insult-tossing, handily scene-stealing performance in In the Loop with which people will soon associate him. From my Sundace '09 festival review, which should be read before you watch this deleted scene and taste Capaldi's witty wrath: A cynical, razor-sharp, truly laugh-out-loud farce about the symbiotic relationship between ineffectual, flip-flopping bureaucrats and the sneaky, petty spin doctors who need them, co-writer/director Armando Iannucci's loosely inspired expansion of his BBC comedy series The Thick of It values and cleverly parodies the power of language (vulgarity, »

23 June 2009 6:30 PM, PDT | WENN | See recent WENN news »

David Puttnam has urged British moviemakers to find ways of making positive films about integrity and life lessons in an effort to thwart growing film propaganda funded by hardline members of the British National Party.

As part of his keynote address at the Edinburgh Film Festival in Scotland on Sunday, the revered film producer, aka Lord Puttnam of Queensgate, Cbe, insisted more arts cash and private funding had to be made available for stirring message-laden films like his acclaimed projects The Killing Fields, The Mission and Chariots of Fire.

He said, "I’m not naive enough to pretend that on its own cinema can cut through, let alone solve significant social or cultural problems; but through illuminating the sometimes very different lives and experiences of others... it can help create that vital context of understanding within which the type of change that sometimes looks impossible begins to look at least possible.

"If we ever cease to believe that we will also cease to make movies. In a tiny way it’s what I was trying to do in the films I produced that dealt with factual or historical events; most obviously in The Killing Fields, The Mission and Cal, but also in their own ways, Chariots of Fire, The Duellists and even Local Hero.

"In every case I tried to produce films that adhered to some definable concept of cultural integrity.

"We desperately need some of our most talented filmmakers to find ways of helping to ensure that the insidious propaganda of (BNP leader) Nick Griffin and his gang of thugs fails in its attempt to capture impressionable young minds in some of our more vulnerable communities.

"If the BNP are allowed to get away with exploiting complex issues to their own God knows what ends, then we have stepped on to a very slippery slope indeed." »

Permalink | Report a problem

3 articles from 2009