Alternative Film Guide

Andrew Collins Remembers David Lean in a lengthy piece in the London Observer/Guardian:
"If it’s David Lean, we must start with a bold, widescreen establishing shot that sets out our stall. A vast expanse of grey tarmac, viewed dramatically from above, bordered by asymmetric shadows and a single motorcycle. A blonde figure in grey jacket carefully [...]

Inspired by the "Red Roofs" segment from Dan Verete’s 2002 three-part Israeli drama Yellow Asphalt, which revolves around the lives of Bedouins in the Judean desert, the visually lush Before the Rains, which opens today in New York and Los Angeles, follows the self-destructive path of a British farmer intent on creating a "spice" road [...]

"2001 in 2008: A Cinematic Odyssey" is the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ next event dedicated to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Special effects pioneer Douglas Trumbull (right) and actor Tom Hanks will discuss the making of 2001 at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, May 21, at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly [...]

Julie Ege, Miss Norway 1962 and the leading lady in several B movies of the 1970s, has died. Ege, who had been suffering from cancer, was 64.
Born in the Norwegian town of Sandnes on November 12, 1943, Ege made her screen debut in 1967 in a couple of bit parts. After a brief appearance [...]

The Belles of St. Trinian’s (1954)
Direction: Frank Launder. Screenplay: Frank Launder, Sidney Gilliat, and Val Valentine. Cast: Alastair Sim, Joyce Grenfell, Hermione Baddeley, George Cole, Betty Ann Davies, Renee Houston, Beryl Reid, Irene Handl, Mary Merrall, Joan Sims, Guy Middleton
 
From the first shot of The Belles of St. Trinian’s — which shows the sign of [...]

London’s BFI Southbank has been hosting an homage to Robert Donat, who died fifty years ago (on June 9, 1958) of a chronic asthma attack at the age of 53.
In spite of his best actor Oscar (for Goodbye Mr. Chips in 1939) and his starring in Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (1935), Donat is all [...]

The Story of Esther Costello (1957)
Direction: David Miller. Screenplay: Charles Kaufman; from Nicholas Monsarrat’s novel. Cast: Joan Crawford, Rossano Brazzi, Heather Sears, Lee Patterson, Ron Randell, Fay Compton, John Loder, Denis O’Dea, Sid James, Bessie Love
 
As Margaret Landi, Joan Crawford gets top billing in The Story of Esther Costello, a maudlin tale of a deaf, [...]

Hazel Court, the leading lady of numerous B-horror movies of the 1950s and 1960s, died of a heart attack at her home near Lake Tahoe, California, on April 15. She was 82.
I’m unfamiliar with Hazel Court’s work as an actress, but I’m quite familiar (by way of film stills and clips) with her [...]

Berserk! (1967)
Direction: Jim O’Connolly. Screenplay: Herman Cohen and Aben Kandel. Cast: Joan Crawford, Ty Hardin, Diana Dors, Michael Gough, Judy Geeson, Robert Hardy, Geoffrey Keen
 

 
A delightfully daffy freak show on the surface, underneath Berserk! could play as a 1940s Woman’s Picture: Hard-as-nails female circus owner stops at nothing to get business for her show. [...]

A 40th anniversary screening of Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey, will take place on Friday, April 25, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.
(Photo: Stanley Kubrick and cinematographer John Alcott, who worked on the film as an "additional photographer.")
Tom Hanks, who, as [...]

Benedict Nightingale’s "Paul Scofield: an overlooked acting great" in The [London] Times:
"Why didn’t most theatregoers think of Paul Scofield in the way they thought of Olivier, Gielgud and Richardson? After all, he had pretty well all the qualities, from Olivier’s danger through Gielgud’s grace to Richardson’s soul, that we admired in the 20th century’s most [...]

In the Washington Post, Desson Thomson’s Anthony Minghella appreciation, "Anthony Minghella, Bringing the Art House to the Mainstream":
"Minghella, famously bald, genial and perpetually clad in black, set his professional destiny with 1990’s critically lauded Truly Madly Deeply, a Ghost for the cinephile set, in which a bereaved wife (Juliet Stevenson) finds love after death with [...]

In his The Guardian blog, Andrew Pulver discusses "Making 2001: A Space Odyssey":
"’He’s a recluse, a nut who lives in a tree in India or someplace.’ So said Stanley Kubrick, according to his biographer Vincent LoBrutto, when the suggestion was made to him that Arthur C Clarke should be his collaborator on a science-fiction film. [...]

Anthony Minghella, who won an Oscar for directing The English Patient (above, 1996), died after suffering a brain hemorrhage earlier this morning at Charing Cross Hospital in London, where he had undergone an operation for cancer of the tonsils and neck. He was 54.
"It was a very hard job to get someone to give [...]

Howard Gensler of the Philadelphia Daily News asks Amy Adams a few questions about Bharat Nalluri’s (reportedly screwball) comedy Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, in which Adams co-stars with Frances McDormand.
David Magee (whose previous screenplay was Finding Neverland) and Simon Beaufoy (best known for penning The Full Monty) adapted Winifred Watson’s novel about a [...]

The 28th edition of Cinefest will be held from March 13–16, 2008, in Syracuse, NY. As per the Cinefest website, the mini-festival features "great films to fill the four glorious days from the vaults of the world’s greatest libraries and obscure specialties we are noted for from private collectors!"
The (tentatively) scheduled films all seem fascinating, [...]

Cinematographer David Watkin, best known for his Oscar- and BAFTA-winning work on Sydney Pollack’s Out of Africa (above, Meryl Streep and Robert Redford) and on Hugh Hudson’s Chariots of Fire, died of cancer this past February 19 at his home in Brighton, England. He was 82.
Watkin’s career as a feature-film cinematographer spanned nearly four decades [...]

Paul Greengrass‘ The Bourne Ultimatum, starring Matt Damon, is the "British people’s choice" for the Richard Attenborough Film Award for best British film. The public vote took place via 25 regional media outlets. As per The Guardian, Greengrass’ thriller has been seen by more than 4 million viewers in the United Kingdom.
At the 2008 [...]

Those looking for hints for the upcoming Academy Awards will be disappointed with the results of the pompous-sounding Orange British Academy of Film & Television Arts.
The British-made (with Hollywood financing) romantic melodrama Atonement (top photo), nominated for 14 BAFTAs, was supposed to have swept the awards ceremony, but ended up with only two awards: best [...]

2007 Orange British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Awards
2007 BAFTA award nominations: January 16, 2008. The foreign-language film nominees were announced on January 4, 2008.
2007 BAFTA award winners: February 10, 2008.
BAFTA 2008 Winners
BAFTA 2008: Red Carpet Photos
BAFTA Awards 2008 Longlists
("*" denotes the winner in each category)
 

 
BEST FILM
AMERICAN GANGSTER — Brian Grazer/Ridley Scott
* [...]

Who will win the 2008 Orange British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards — or just plain Baftas 2008 — this evening?
Well, let’s give it a try…
Addendum: I couldn’t have been more off the mark. Well, come to think of it… 10 out of 23. It could have been worse.
Best Film: No Country for [...]

2007 London Film Critics’ Circle Awards
2007 London Film Critics’ Circle Award nominations: December 14, 2007.
2007 London Film Critics’ Circle Award winners: Grosvenor House Hotel on February 8, 2008.
("*" denotes the winner in each category)
 

 
FILM OF THE YEAR
* No Country for Old Men
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
There Will [...]

2007 Evening Standard Awards
2007 Evening Standard (British film/talent) award winners: February 4, 2008.
Note: The Best Comedy category was replaced this year by Best Score, as the jury found that British film music fared better than British film humor in 2007.
("*" denotes the winner in each category)
 

Atonement led the Evening Standard Awards field with 7 nominations. [...]

Kinky voyeurism of yesteryear: A couple learn about it by watching a wild bird-bunny-bee orgy.
 
"The Joy of Sex Education" at the British Film Institute Southbank:
"Running the gamut from syphilitic soldiers in WW1 to puberty pep-talks for girls to the government’s infamous AIDS awareness campaigns, this jaunt through 90 years of sex education films aims to [...]

Liam Lacey on Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges at the Toronto Globe and Mail:
"Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleason appear to draw on the model of the comedy team of Laurel and Hardy, with Farrell as the anxious, not-so-bright apprentice and Gleeson as his composed, epicurean partner, as they await orders from their irascible overseer (Ralph Fiennes). [...]