News

Dick Pope, the legendary two-time Oscar nominated British cinematographer and longtime collaborator of auteur Mike Leigh, has died at the age of 77. News of Pope's passing was confirmed by the British Society of Cinematographers in a statement shared on their website earlier today.

"It is with deepest sadness that we learn of the passing of our friend and colleague Dick Pope Bsc," wrote the organisation in their post, which highlighted Pope's record three Camerimage Golden Frog wins as well as his achievement of the society's prestigious 'Cinematography in a Feature Film' award for his work on Mr. Turner. Continuing, the society also paid homage to their alumni's commitment to his craft and its furtherance, writing, "Dick had a reputation for being a wonderful collaborator and someone who was passionate about the artform of Cinematography. He was keen to embrace new technologies and ideas while also ensuring the skills and crafts...

This month on Let’s Scare Bryan to Death, we’re navigating a harsh world as depicted by eccentric storyteller Philip Ridley. I’m a huge fan of Ridley’s surreal 1995 fable, The Passion of Darkly Noon, but I hadn’t realized that almost 15 years later he released another film, the 2009 urban fairy tale Heartless. So, I’m very grateful to this month’s guest, Bede Jermyn, for bringing it to my attention. Jermyn is a fantastic horror journalist who’s a member of the Australian Film Critics Association, a critic and podcaster for The Super Network, and host of Bede Vs. The Living Dead, a podcast devoted to exploring “remakes, re-edits, unofficial follow-ups, etc. to George A. Romero’s 1968 classic Night of the Living Dead.”

Ridley’s Heartless follows Jamie (Jim Sturgess), a lonely photographer who has a heart-shaped birthmark that covers half of his face that makes him very shy.

From slashers, to zombies, eco horror, and much, much more, MoMA's "Horror: Messaging the Monstrous" is a 10-week film series that includes 110 films, including a 3D screening of George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead! Featuring horror from around the world and taking place from June 23rd through September 5th, we have all the details so you can start planning your visit! Full program details can also be found at: moma.org/horror

Press Release:

The Museum of Modern Art announces Horror: Messaging the Monstrous, a 10-week film series that includes over 110 features and a selection of short films that capture the horror genre’s uncanny ability to express the lurking fears of a society and the anxieties caused by social, cultural, and political change. Presented in the Museum’s Titus Theaters in the Black Family Film Center from June 23 through September 5, 2022, Horror: Messaging the Monstrous is organized weekly...

In the thirty years since he first became a cult favorite with his 1990 debut The Reflecting Skin, multifaceted English artist/director/novelist Philip Ridley has only helmed three features, and only one of those in his native England. Arrow Video resurrects and restores his 1995 sophomore oddity The Passion of Darkly Noon, which resorts to similar religious themes in the American Deep South as a timeless Biblical themed allegory ensconced in the grim fixings of a minimal fairy tale. Despite its pronounced style and impressive production design, Ridley’s second outing is hampered by the stilted performances of its two American lead actors, Ashley Judd and Brendan Fraser, in what otherwise stands as a memorable viewing experience.…...

We have a relatively quiet week of home media releases ahead of us this week, but the titles that are coming out are a rad bunch of films nonetheless. Scream Factory is doing the Dark Lord’s work with both the Collector’s Edition of April Fool’s Day and the HD release of Frankenstein: The True Story. If you missed it in theaters back in January, Nicolas Pesce’s The Grudge (2020) is headed to various platforms this Tuesday, and Arrow Video has put together a stellar Special Edition release of Philip Ridley’s The Passion of Darkly Noon as well.

Other Blu-ray and DVD releases for March 24th include Endless Night, Cabal, Hunter’s Moon, The Zombinator, and The Wizard: Collector’s Edition.

April Fool’s Day: Collector’s Edition

Good friends...with some time to kill. When Muffy St. John invited her college friends up to her parents' secluded...

Film buffs might be interested to know that the 2020 Boston Underground Film Festival (Buff) lineup has been announced! A number of interesting films will have screenings, including Saint Maud and Dinner in America. Also in today's Horror Highlights: release details for Infection and the Steve Wands' new novella Feareater.

Boston Underground Film Festival 2020 Lineup Revealed: "New England cinephiles, rejoice! Spring festival season kicks off in less than three weeks as the 22nd annual Boston Underground Film Festival returns to Harvard Square, bringing with it five days of sublime cinervana to the Brattle Theatre from March 25th through the 29th. This year’s program boasts a pair of world premieres, a whole lot of unholy obsession, objectophilia, Wtf thrillers, genre-spinning slashers, familial dysfunction, queer clairvoyance, and more!

Buff is proud to host the East Coast Premiere of Adam Rehmeier’s Sundance-smash must-see punk-rock rom-com, Dinner in America, which sets the raucous...

The Boston Underground is an institution of genre goodness in The People's Republic of Cambridge. Now in it's twenty second year Buff prepares to bring another lineup brimming with hits and delights. There are a few favorites in the mix this year. Miguel Llansó’s wonderfully odd and stupendously creative Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway will be there. Tetsuya Nakashima’s It Comes promises to be a wild ride. There is also a rep screening of one of those first films that really stretched the laguage of film for me, Philip Ridley's The Passion of Darkly Noon. I would love to see that on the screen again. Other films that have made an impression on our team are Rose Glass' Saint Maud and micro...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Brendan Fraser and Ashley Judd in The Passion Of Darkly Noon will be available on Blu-ray March 24th From Arrow Video

If You Go Down To The Woods Tonight

Described by critic Mark Kermode as an extraordinary filmmaker and one of the UK s most imaginative talents , visionary British director Philip Ridley followed his sensational debut The Reflecting Skin with another surreal incursion into the dark heart of the ‘American dream’ in The Passion of Darkly Noon.

Darkly Noon (Brendan Fraser) is the sole survivor of a military-style attack on an isolated religious community. Stumbling through a forest in a daze, he is rescued by the free-spirited and enigmatic Callie (Ashley Judd). Darkly finds himself feeling strange new desires for Callie as she nurses him back to health only to watch her jump into the arms of her returning mute lover Clay (Viggo Mortensen). Lost in the woods with only...

All five digitally restored classics will play theatrically in 2019, 2020.

Film Movement Classics has acquired North American rights to five renowned or unusual films including Peter Seller’s little-seen directorial debut Mr. Topaze, Luchino Visconti’s final film L’innocente, and Bill Forsyth’s beloved Gregory’s Girl.

The roster includes Bruno Barreto’s erotic comedy Dona Flor And Her Two Husbands, and King Hu’s Raining In The Mountain.

Film Movement president Michael Rosenberg said all five films will get limited theatrical releases starting this year, followed by release on home entertainment and digital platforms.

Mr. Topaze was recently digitally...

All five digitally restored classics will play theatrically in 2019, 2020.

Film Movement Classics has acquired North American rights to five renowned or unusual films including Peter Seller’s little-seen directorial debut Mr. Topaze, Luchino Visconti’s final film L’innocente, and Bill Forsyth’s beloved Gregory’s Girl.

The roster includes Bruno Barreto’s erotic comedy Dona Flor And Her Two Husbands, and King Hu’s Raining In The Mountain.

Film Movement president Michael Rosenberg said all five films will get limited theatrical releases starting this year, followed by release on home entertainment and digital platforms.

Mr. Topaze was recently digitally...

Exclusive: U.S. arthouse buyer Film Movement has picked up North American rights to seven movies for its classics label, including John Woo’s first contemporary action film Heroes Shed No Tears (1984) and Viggo Mortensen starrer The Reflecting Skin (1990) by Philip Ridley (U.S. rights only).

Also new to the label are King Hu’s martial arts film The Fate Of Lee Khan (1973); Stanley Kwan’s Hong Kong New Wave drama Center Stage (1991), starring Maggie Cheung; biopic Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask (1995) about the charismatic and influential anti-colonial writer and theorist; Véra Belmont’s baroque dramedy Marquise (1997), featuring Sophie Marceau in one of her first starring roles; and Gérard Corbiau’s Oscar-nominated lavish costume drama, Farinelli (1994).

Shed No Tears, Center Stage and The Fate Of Lee Khan were licensed from Fortune Star Media. Farinelli and Marquise came from Screenbound Pictures while The Reflecting Skin was picked up from...

Catalog from the Beyond, like many horror movie columns, comes with an implied suggestion to the reader that they should check out the movie that’s being covered. I’ve discussed movies that I’ve loved as well as movies that are deeply flawed, but there’s always an unspoken assertion that if I’ve taken the time to write about a movie, then I think it’s worth your time. Well, this month I say screw all that “unspoken” nonsense. I’m flat out asking—nay, begging—that you watch this month’s movie, The Passion of Darkly Noon. To be fair, I can’t in good conscience make any claim that this 1996 movie from Philip Ridley is any good, but I also can’t stop thinking about it. Therefore, I need someone else to join me in my obsession.

Things began normally enough. I was brainstorming for my...

Mark Harrison Oct 11, 2016

We salute the film work of one of Britain's very best, and most versatile, film actors: Mr Eddie Marsan...

Eddie Marsan isn't just one of the best British actors working today – he's also one of the busiest, appearing in all kinds of supporting roles in major movies, while also appearing on TV a lot, on both sides of the Atlantic. He was fantastic as the latter lead in BBC One's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell last year and he's also a regular on Showtime's Ray Donovan as Ray's brother Terry, an ex-boxer suffering from Parkinson's disease.

On the big screen though, it's Marsan's versatility that really makes him so watchable. He's had attention grabbing turns in minor roles in blockbusters like Hancock, Mission: Impossible III and Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes films, but he's also at home amongst a big ensemble in more serious fare like Spielberg...

★★★☆☆ Shimmering corn fields and the blazing midday sun may not seem like natural environs for spooky supernatural horror, but Jiří Sádek's The Noonday Witch employs them to suitably disconcerting effect. With a tinge of Philip Ridley's The Reflecting Skin, it re-purposes a traditional Slavonic folktale - popularised both as a poem by Karel Erben and a symphonic ballad by Antonin Dvořák - into the conventions of modern horror. The original tale is laden with psychological potential and Sádek and his collaborators, Michal Samir and Matej Chulpacek, have channelled that into a very contemporary film steeped in dread but ultimately concerned with the twisting of grief and maternal anxiety.

An effective horror story about a woman transformed in more ways than one after she undergoes facial surgery

Hats off to Austria for selecting this increasingly alarming chiller from writer/directors Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala (respectively the partner and nephew of film-maker Ulrich Seidl, who produces) as its foreign language entry for the 88th Academy Awards. Opening with an image of Von Trapp family harmony, Goodnight Mommy finds twin boys (Lukas and Elias Schwarz, both brilliant) playing hide-and-seek in the trees and cornfields around a remote modernist house. When their mother (Susanne Wuest) returns from facial surgery, her bandaged visage hides a changed personality. How do they know it’s really her? Suspicion turns to hostility and worse; by the third act, you’ll be hiding your face in wincing terror.

Comparisons with Michael Haneke’s Funny Games and George Franju’s Eyes Without a Face seem inevitable, but...

★★★☆☆ There's a scene around forty minutes into Philip Ridley's cult feature debut in which a boy sees a man fellating a petrol pump before striking a match to his gasoline-covered body. The boy, Seth (Jeremy Cooper), doesn't seem to entirely comprehend what's happening, but he is both deeply unnerved and utterly transfixed. This is fairly analogous to the experience of watching The Reflecting Skin (1990), an uncanny work of overwrought American Gothica which harvests horror from the yellow glow of Midwestern cornfields.

Stars: Jeremy Cooper, Lindsay Duncan, Viggo Mortensen, Sheila Moore, Duncan Fraser, David Longworth, Robert Koons, David Bloom, Evan Hall, Codie Lucas Wilbee, Sherry Bie | Written and Directed by Philip Ridley

The beauty of loving films is that no matter how many you’ve seen, there are so many out there still to be discovered… One of these for me was The Reflecting Skin which is being released this weel on Blu-ray. It’s a true hidden gem that needs to be seen…

The Reflecting Skin is set in the American Mid-west in the 1950s and takes the viewpoint of Seth Dove (Jeremy Cooper) who becomes obsessed with the fact that a widow, Dolphin Blue (Lindsay Duncan) is a vampire. When one of Seth’s friends is found dead, all eyes are on the boy’s father who has a history that puts him under suspicion and the pressure leads him to commit suicide.

Special Mention: Shock Corridor

Written and directed by Samuel Fuller

USA, 1963

Genre: Psychological Thriller

Shock Corridor stars Peter Breck as Johnny Barrett, an ambitious reporter who wants to expose a killer hiding out at the local insane asylum. In order to solve the case, he must pretend to be insane so they have him committed. Once in the asylum, Barrett sets to work, interrogating the other patients and keeping a close eye on the staff. But it’s difficult to remain a sane man living in an insane place, and the closer Barrett gets to the truth, the closer he gets to insanity.

Shock Corridor is best described as an anti-establishment drama that at times is surprisingly quite funny despite the dark material. The film deals with some timely issues of the era, specifically the atom bomb, anti-communism, and racism. It features everything from a raving female love-crazed nympho ward,...

The August bank holiday weekend in London is always cause for celebration for horror fans as the FrightFest horror and genre film festival rolls into the city’s Leicester Square for four days of blood-spattered cinematic mayhem. This year saw the arrival of horror icon and star of Re-Animator and You’re Next, Barbara Crampton, as the Guest of Honour who starred in no less than five of the entries this year including festival favourite We Are Still Here. As always with film festivals it was a real mixed bag, with very few scares but a lot of laughs (some intentional, other not so much) as the filmmakers, many of them horror fans themselves, had a lot of fun playing with the tropes and clichés of the genre while others tried to put fresh new spins on some well-worn material. Here are a few of the highlights:

We Are Still Here...

It’s always good news to see great films getting the Blu-ray treatment and we’re happy announce today that Philip Ridley’s 1990 film The Reflecting Skin is coming to Steelbook Blu-ray, exclusively from Zavvi, on the 30th of November from Soda Pictures. Newly restored in a high-definition transfer from original elements and packed full of new

The post The Reflecting Skin Comes to Limited Edition Steelbook (Blu-Ray) Exclusive to Zavvi appeared first on HeyUGuys.

The Reflecting Skin

Directed by Philip Ridley

Written by Philip Ridley

1990, USA

The Reflecting Skin is not your average vampire movie. I’m not even sure if it is a vampire movie, nor am I sure the movie knows what it wants to be. Although, most people easily label it a psychological horror film, The Reflecting Skin is not a film that is easily pigeonholed. It appears to be a film about the trauma of growing up and more importantly, growing up with a dysfunctional family that is haunted by their past. And it’s all told in a series of twisted events.

This independent feature was the directorial debut of Philip Ridley, a British painter-illustrator-novelist who had supplied the script to Peter Medek’s mesmerizing 1990 gangster film The Krays. The Reflecting Skin was celebrated as one of the unique films of its year and received a good deal of favorable reviews.

Seeing The Reflecting Skin for the first time, the 1990 film by Philip Ridley, starring Viggo Mortensen and Lindsay Duncan, one can't help but wonder how the hell the thing ever got made. I'd previously never even heard of the flick, surely a testament to my lack of knowledge about late century UK/Canadian co-productions. The film would have come out when I was in High School, but it's hard to see that in the year of Home Alone, Dances With Wolves and Total Recall this being the work I'd seek out. Yet with that context the films it most closely echoes are those from only a few years earlier - the sundrenched fields of Days of Heaven providing a more rural backdrop for the...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

The Krays

Written by Philip Ridley

Directed by Peter Medak

UK, 1990

Gangster movies have been entertaining audiences since the inception of cinema. A well-constructed gangster film can attract respectable actors, reap critical praise, and accrue the life-long love of fans in a way that few other genres can. Mean Streets, Infernal Affairs, and Goodfellas are all classic films that continue to resonate with audiences long after their theatrical runs. While most favorite gangster movie conversations include the usual round up of The Godfather, Scarface and The Departed, there is a little known British film that warrants a place in the conversation. Back in 1990, director Peter Medak’s biographical crime/drama film The Krays, flew under the radar of everyone but the most hardcore gangster-flick nerds. With the upcoming film Legend (featuring Tom Hardy in the role of both Kray twins) just on the horizon, it seemed like an appropriate time...

Considered the world’s largest genre film festival and running over three weeks long, Fantasia is celebrating its 19th edition this year and the lineup is pretty incredible. This year’s fest runs July 14 through August 4 and will see over 130 feature films including more than 20 world premieres. Legendary filmmaker Sion Sono is delivering three new movies with Tag, Love & Peace, and Shinjuku Swan, meanwhile Tales of Halloween and A Christmas Horror Story are bringing horror anthologies back to the big screen. In addition, the festival will offer up the Montreal premiere of Marvel’s highly anticipated Ant-Man, the world premiere of Israeli horror flick Jeruzalem, the world premiere of Assassination Classroom and the first Canadian screening of the Canadian/Kiwi festival hit Turbo Kid. The festival is rounded out with screenings of Big Match, Crumbs, Deathgasm, The Demolisher, Experimenter, Cooties, We Are Still Here, The Editor, Cub, He Never Died,...

Montreal’s genre film festival to showcase 135 features and almost 300 shorts across its three-week run from July 14-Aug 4.Scroll down for line-up

Fantasia International Film Festival has unveiled its full line-up for its upcoming 19th edition which kicks off next Tuesday [July 14].

Over its three-week run, the Montreal-based genre film festival will showcase 135 features, including 22 world, 13 international premieres and 21 North American premieres, and almost 300 short films.

Shinji Higuchi’s Attack on Titan will receive its Canadian premiere as the closing film of this year’s edition on Aug 4. The live-action film is based on Hajime Isyama’s steampunk fantasy war opera manga series.

Additional highlights of the final wave of titles include the world premieres of Malik Bader’s thriller Cash Only and Ken Ochiai’s Ninja the Monster, as well as the Canadian premiere of Jonathan Milott & Cary Murnion’s horror comedy Cooties starring Elijah Wood.

A trio of Sion Sono films will also be shown at this...

The Fantasia International Film Festival is announcing the rest of the lineup for this year's festival and we have it all here for you to look over. To say that there is a lot of digest here is a mild understatement. Let us start with the big titles first!The Closing Night film will be Higuchi Shinji's massively-anticipated live-action Attack on Titan. Then there is the Canadian premiere of Cooties starring Elijah Wood as a substitute teacher battling a horde of virus-infected school children. There will be not one, not two, But Three Sono Sion films at the festival: Shinjuku Swan, Love & Peace and Tag. There will also be retro screenings of Fukusaku Kinji's Battles of Honor and Humanity and a 2K restoration of Philip Ridley's The...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

The 19th Annual Fantasia Film Festival is only a week away, beginning July 14 and running through August 4. And as promised for today, they’ve revealed their full line-up of films screening at 2015’s festival in Montreal.

This year’s line-up boasts 22 World Premieres, 13 International Premieres, and 21 North American Premieres. Both Marvel’s Ant-Man and the animated Miss Hokusai were previously announced, but now they’ve added the much anticipated Attack on Titan movie as their closing night film. Other highlights include the Sundance darlings Cooties, starring Elijah Wood and Rainn Wilson, Cop Car, starring Kevin Bacon and directed by the upcoming Spider-man director Jon Watts, and a trio of films from horror auteur Sion Sono.

See the full line-up announcement of films below via Fantasia’s Facebook page, and be sure to check out their website at fantasiafestival.com for additional information.

****

Fantasia 2015:

36 Countries, 135 Features, and Nearly 300 Short Films

- Including 22 World Premieres,...

Philip Ridley’s 1990 horror featured Viggo Mortensen in one of his first starring roles.

Soda Pictures has acquired UK & Irish home video rights to Philip Ridley’s 1990 cult classic The Reflecting Skin, featuring Viggo Mortensen in one of his first starring roles and Scottish actress Lindsay Duncan.

The UK/Canada co-production, which has never been released on DVD or Blu-Ray in the UK before, will be released by the Anglo-Canadian distributor in a special edition later this year.

This release will be the worldwide video premiere of a new, director-approved high-definition transfer. Exclusive bonus material is currently in production, including newly-filmed interviews with Ridley and Mortensen.

Further details, including release dates, will be announced in the lead-up to the restoration’s UK premiere at Film4 Frightfest in August, which was announced yesterday.

The Reflecting Skin played at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival and went on to win 11 international awards.

Set in the Idaho farmlands of the 1950s, the film...

John Maclean’s new film starring Michael Fassbender follows a long line of artful forays into the pathologies of America, from Wim Wenders to Philip Ridley via honorary European Jim Jarmusch

“Everyone’s allowed a past they don’t care to mention,” sings Bill Callahan in his 2011 song America!. For European film-makers however, delving into America’s murky past has created some of the most visionary cinema of recent decades. Wim Wenders and his disciple Jim Jarmusch, Emir Kusturica and the UK’s Philip Ridley – all have explored American identity, divining the pathology of the nation from their European vantage.

This week sees an addition to the genre: Slow West, starring Michael Fassbender and directed by John Maclean, formerly of the the Beta Band, who offers us his own gentle-hearted yet extremely graphic vision of that beguiling nation. Maclean has referred to his film – possibly tongue-in-cheek – as “an existential European...

Vic Bateman, one of the UK’s longest serving international sales agents who handled films including The Deer Hunter and The Elephant Man, has died.

Tributes have been paid to Victor ‘Vic’ Bateman, the co-founder and vice chairman of London-based sales company Av Pictures, has died. He was 72.

Bateman’s career in film spanned more than 40 years. He began in the contract administration department of British Lion in 1961, where he developed detailed knowledge of the commercial, financial and legal terms governing distribution arrangements on a global basis. In the early 1970’s Vic was promoted to the international sales division of what was by then Emi Films.

Over the years, Bateman achieved notable sales successes and established his reputation with film buyers worldwide, handling major films such as The Deer Hunter, The Elephant Man, A Passage to India, All of Me, Highlander, The Hitcher, Death on the Nile, Murder on the Orient Express, The Last Emperor and [link...

Your daily movie bulletin bringing you the lowdown on 30 August

News today

Happy Friday! Let's celebrate the end of the week with the news that Uwe Boll ("the worst director alive", (c) The Village Voice) has taken to Kickstarter for his new film, Postal 2.

The fabulously larger-than-life director - the man behind video game-to-film transplant House of the Dead and the under-rated Blubberella ("An action comedy centered on an overweight woman whose footsteps cause explosions" - IMDb) - has taken to crowd-funding in his typically brash style. Postal 2 will have a bodycount that's "higher as Hiroshima and Dancing with the Stars combined". And where will donors money go? "The money goes all for cocaine for the stars down the nose." Godspeed Uwe! If Spike Lee can do it, why can't you?

Today's other news ...

- James Spader will play the villain in Avengers: Age of Ultron, while Justin Timberlake has...

Philip Ridley's fairytale for the disenfranchised is a gothic masterpiece with a dreamlike quality and a nightmarish narrative

• More from the Why I Love ... series

Why we love … the confident evil of Tony Montana … the first five minutes of Dead or Alive … the supporting cast of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

There are many reasons to love Philip Ridley's stunningly beautiful film The Reflecting Skin, a gothic masterpiece that is often strangely overlooked.

Seen through the eyes of 10-year-old Seth Dove (Jeremy Cooper), the film is populated by the damaged denizens of a small town in rural Idaho. As it opens, Seth's family is on the brink of collapse, his mother slipping into religious insanity, his father deeply depressed by some dark secret. His elder brother, Cameron, played by a young Viggo Mortensen, has returned from military service traumatised and suffering from a mysterious physical affliction. Cameron...

Philip Ridley is a renaissance man: he is an artist, photographer, novelist, children's author, playwright, and a filmmaker. His work, especially in theatre, has caused some controversy and even at times been banned. He's only made three films in 22 years; his first film, The Reflecting Skin, gave Viggo Mortensen one of his first starring roles; The Passion of Darkly Noon featured Brenden Fraser is his creepiest role; and Heartless made a successful festival tour a couple of years ago. Ridley's work is raw, passionate, strange, and at least one of the films features exploding frogs. The first two films are hard to find, which is why it's great news for Londoners that Savage Cinema is screening them and that Ridley himself will be in...

As occasionally popular as it can be ("Chicago" and "Hairspray" being some of the more recent hits), the musical hasn't changed much since its earliest film incarnations. "Moulin Rouge" aside (a film that experimented more with style than with form), films like "Mamma Mia" and the upcoming "Rock of Ages" could essentially have been 1930s musical comedies (apart from their pop soundtracks) and this year's Oscar hopeful "Les Miserables" is a 25-year-old stage show based on a 150-year-old novel.

We're not sure if "God Helps The Girl" will reinvent the wheel, exactly, but the film has the potential to be a breath of fresh air for the movie musical. The project marks the writing and directing debut of Stuart Murdoch, the frontman of seminal Scottish indie band Belle and Sebastian, who's been working on it for nearly a decade. Murdoch released his '60s-girl-group-style concept album of the same name...

A new international trailer has popped up for Juan Diego Solanas' sci-fi-based romantic drama 'Upside Down'. The flick stars Kirsten Dunst ('The Virgin Suicides') and Brit actor Jim Sturgess ('21') and was co-scripted by helmer Solanas along with writing partner Santiago Amigorena. The movie will follow a man who searches an alternate universe for a long-lost love from his youth. Dunst recently gave the performance of her life in Lars von Trier's artsy sci-fi flick 'Melancholia' and will star as Eve alongside Sturgess's Adam character. If you havent' already then why not check out Jim Sturgess in Philip Ridley's excellent fantasy horror 'Heartless'. Check out the new French trailer below which features French text and subtitles but the audio is in English....

Being a Christian in the 21st century is difficult at the best of times. Even without Mel Gibson constantly putting his foot in it, or Westboro Baptist Church spitting venom at the very people they are supposed to be helping, we have to contend with a media backlash whenever a seemingly ‘Christian’ film is released.

The problem seems to be that people don’t mind Christianity per se: if people are Bible-bashing in the streets, they can ignore them or talk back. What they resent, or appear to resent, are films with Christian undertones – allegories or parables which introduce Christian beliefs or ideas in a supposedly secular context. When The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe came out in 2005, The Guardian’s Polly Toynbee accused it of “invad[ing] children’s minds with Christian iconography… heavily laden with guilt, blame, sacrifice and a suffering that is dark with emotional sadism.” Ouch.

Ferociously intelligent actor who reigned supreme in Stoppard and Shakespeare

John Wood, who has died aged 81, was one of the greatest stage actors of the past century, especially associated with his roles in the plays of Tom Stoppard. But a combination of his enigmatic privacy and low profile on film – he cropped up a lot without dominating a movie – meant that he remained largely unknown to the wider public.

As with all great actors, you always knew what he was thinking, all the time. Wood was especially striking in the brain-box department. Tall, forbidding and aquiline-featured, he was as much the perfect Sherlock Holmes on stage as he was the ideal Brutus. He exuded ferocious intelligence, and the twinkle in his eye could be as merciless as it was invariably amused.

As the Royal Shakespeare Company's Brutus in Julius Caesar in 1972, he was undoubtedly the noblest Roman of them all,...

The good fellows over at Empire Magazine and Tiger Beer are currently in the midst of an undiscovered treasures season that sets out to champion films that they feel were unfairly overlooked at the time of release and perhaps deserve another chance. As part of this, WhatCulture! was very kindly invited to London’s Soho Hotel last Thursday night for a screening of the 2009 release Heartless, followed by a Q+A with the films director, Phillip Ridley.

I have to be honest, I am one of the many who gave Heartless a wide berth upon it’s release due to the fact that, to start with, I’m not the biggest horror fan in the world and secondly the marketing just didn’t make it seem appealing enough. Having now seen the film, what we actually have on our hands is a very disturbing blend of Angel Heart and Donnie Darko...

Noel Clarke is a prolific actor and director, probably still best known to British audiences and internationally for a stint on “Doctor Who” and his youth dramas “Kidulthood” and “Adulthood,” though he’s appeared across a diverse array of genres and worked with under-appreciated British directors like Philip Ridley and Neil Marshall in fare like “Heartless” and “Centurion”. While his early directorial efforts might not aspire to the sociological exactitude of say, Andrea Arnold or Shane Meadows or the artistry of work being done by director Ben Wheatley ("Down Terrace") or Eran Creevy’s (“Shifty”), his films attempt to deal with social…...

Isle of Man government recouped just £6.3m of its £34m investment in local film industry, according to Treasury figures

The Isle of Man's attempts to generate a self-sustaining film industry have cost the local government upwards of £27m, according to figures released by the Treasury. Since 2007 the Manx economy has invested nearly £34m into 13 productions based on the island. It has recouped just £6.3m.

The news looks likely to tarnish the Isle of Man's reputation as a destination of choice for independent film-makers. Figures suggest that the government-funded production company CinemaNX ploughed £12m into the 2009 Richard Linklater film Me and Orson Welles for a return of only £2m. It also wrote off £2.2m of its £2.9m investment in the Burt Reynolds comedy A Bunch of Amateurs and £717,000 of its £1.4m investment in Heartless, an arthouse horror film by Philip Ridley.

"Film is an industry which is, by reputation, risky," said treasury minister Anne Craine.

Craig from Dark Eye Socket here with this week's Take Three. Today: Eddie Marsan

Take One: The Disappearance of Alice Creed (2010)

Marsan is elusive and perplexing as ex-con and current kidnapper Vic in J Blakeson’s British thriller The Disappearance of Alice Creed. It may be his best role to date. It’s certainly his most visible in terms of screen time and lasting impressions. Vic and Danny (Martin Compston) kidnap a girl called Alice (Gemma Arterton). We’re not initially certain why or what for, but surprising details emerge. It’s an intriguing, slow-burning three-hander, largely set in two rooms of one house, with a slippery plot that gets drip-fed to us with unsettling incremental unease. There’s a psychological and dramatic weight to Vic that Marsan smartly unearths. He utilises his familiar best attributes to expert effect, but twists them into something else. Vic spends much of the film in a desperate state.

Fourteen years passed between the release of Heartless and writer-director Philip Ridley’s last film, 1995’s The Passion of Darkly Noon. Hardcore fans of the intriguing auteur were overjoyed at his return to the big screen; however, those fans are few and far between, more a cult of professional critics than anything else, due to Ridley’s penchant for macabre subject matter, intensely verbose dialogue, and mind game-driven plots. Ridley is in many ways the British David Lynch, though to dismiss him merely as such would be a disservice to his talent. Yet his films, like Lynch’s, while masterfully crafted, are definitely not for everyone, and Heartless is a prime example of this.

The film stars Jim Sturgess as Jamie Morgan, an introverted young photographer who lives in the slums of East London with his widow mother, Marion (Ruth Sheen). Jamie sports a horrifying birthmark in the rough shape of a heart,...

Reviewer: James van Maanen

Rating (out of 5): ****

Philip Ridley is back to theatrical movie-making after nearly fifteen years. In Heartless, he's come up with something so strange and frightening, marvelous and moving, apocalyptic and chilling -- and perhaps undecipherable (but you probably won't mind) -- that all I can say is: See it. (I’ve just seen it for a second time, and, yes, it’s still undecipherable, though I may be getting closer.) The man who made the cult movie The Reflecting Skin (sadly not on DVD) and who wrote The Krays (also not on DVD) is an artist, and I don't think that it's so much that he won't compromise his vision, as it is that he can't. Just as well, too -- when one’s visions are this original.

A look at what's new on DVD this week:

"A Summer in Genoa"

Directed by Michael Winterbottom

Released by Entertainment One

Of the many films Michael Winterbottom ("A Mighty Heart," "9 Songs") has directed in recent years, you wouldn't guess the one starring recent Oscar winner Colin Firth as a father who must take care of his two daughters in the wake of a car accident involving their mother (Hope Davis) would be the one to have trouble making it to the U.S. But here we are three years after "Genova," as it's known in much of the rest of the world, was shot and it's finally arrived on DVD, a mix of supernatural thriller and human drama that's actually getting reasonably good reviews upon its delayed release. Catherine Keener co-stars.

"Belladonna"

Directed by Annika Glac

Released by Osiris

Glac's debut as a writer/director centers on a man whose...

Some films out on DVD/VOD today that you may want to check out this week…

First, The Inheritance… the story of five ambitious cousins who set out in a winter storm to a reunion at the family estate. They hope to please the elders and secure their inheritance, a fortune that dates back to days of slavery. Their Uncle Melvin welcomes them with open arms, but warns them to respect their family traditions. During the weekend, as each of the cousins mysteriously disappears, they learn the truths about their family legacy, blood ancestor, and the ultimate sacrifice they must make in exchange for their beloved inheritance.

The film was produced by Effie Brown and her Duly Noted production company. For those unfamiliar with either name, some titles Brown has produced in recent years include, Stranger Inside (directed by Cheryl Dunye, 2001); Real Women Have Curves (directed by Patricia Cardosa, 2002); and...

Netflix has revolutionized the home movie experience for fans of film with its instant streaming technology. Netflix Nuggets is my way of spreading the word about independent, classic and foreign films made available by Netflix for instant streaming.

This Week’s New Instant Releases… Title: Black Heaven (2010)

Streaming Available: 04/12/2011

Cast: Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet, Louise Bourgoin, Melvil Poupaud, Pauline Etienne, Pierre Niney, Ali Marhyar, Patrick Descamps, Pierre Vittet, Swann Arlaud, Francesco Merenda

Director: Gilles Marchand

Synopsis: While searching for the owner of a missing mobile phone with his girlfriend, Marion (Pauline Etienne), Gaspard (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet) falls for the mysterious Sam (Louise Bourgoin), who draws him into a dangerous virtual-reality video game, where she provokes unsuspecting victims into killing themselves. Directed by Gilles Marchand, this intense French drama alternates between real-life events and those within the simulated computer world. Title: Heartless (2009)

Streaming Available: 04/12/2011

Cast: Jim Sturgess, Clémence Poésy , Noel Clarke, Luke Treadaway, Justin Salinger,...

DVD Playhouse—April 2011

By

Allen Gardner

Hereafter (Warner Bros.) Clint Eastwood’s spiritual thriller follows a trio of characters whose seemingly disparate paths converge: Matt Damon as a blue collar Joe who tries to fight against his psychic powers that see “the other side,” Cecile de France as a journalist who somehow survives the tsunami that crushed Indonesia, and a London schoolboy (Frankie and George McLaren) who seeks answers after losing his twin brother. Like all of Eastwood’s films, the narrative construction is tight as a drum, with solid work by all involved. That said, “solid” would have to be the operative word to describe the proceedings here, as well as “unremarkable” and “uninvolving” on an emotional level. Perhaps we expect too much when we see Clint’s name on a film these days, but that’s the flip side of being one of the best. Blu-ray/DVD combo pack.

DVD Playhouse—April 2011

By

Allen Gardner

Hereafter (Warner Bros.) Clint Eastwood’s spiritual thriller follows a trio of characters whose seemingly disparate paths converge: Matt Damon as a blue collar Joe who tries to fight against his psychic powers that see “the other side,” Cecile de France as a journalist who somehow survives the tsunami that crushed Indonesia, and a London schoolboy (Frankie and George McLaren) who seeks answers after losing his twin brother. Like all of Eastwood’s films, the narrative construction is tight as a drum, with solid work by all involved. That said, “solid” would have to be the operative word to describe the proceedings here, as well as “unremarkable” and “uninvolving” on an emotional level. Perhaps we expect too much when we see Clint’s name on a film these days, but that’s the flip side of being one of the best. Blu-ray/DVD combo pack.

The Film:

Internal struggle is a difficult beast to tame. Everyday we are forced to watch pretty people prance around on television while acting like spoiled brats. The hottest trends, fashions, diet plans, and energy drinks are sold to the general public with reckless abandon. Philip Ridley’s Heartless offers up a unique perspective on the human condition. It asks the question; how far would you go to fit in?

Jamie Morgan (Jim Sturgess) is a photographer that struggles daily with his appearance. He has a heart shaped birthmark on the left side of his face and another huge one on his right shoulder that trails down his back. If this isn’t enough, a gang wearing demon masks are terrorizing his neighborhood by throwing molotov cocktails at innocent bystanders. On top of all that Jamie wants a woman to love him, but is so uncomfortable with his appearance that...

Jim Sturgess (The Way Back) stars in Philip Ridley’s supernatural chiller movie Heartless, which is coming to DVD from IFC on April 26.

Jim Sturgess darkens the mood in Heartless.

Sturgess, who we really enjoyed in Across the Universe, plays Jamie Morgan, a talented young photographer whose disfiguring heart-shaped birthmark makes him an outsider in his rough East London neighborhood. Developing pictures he has taken in an abandoned lot, Jamie discovers a hooded figure peering from behind a window. Investigating the mysterious image, he stumbles into a horrific world of reptilian monsters posing as street gangs, violence inflicted on the most innocent and a demon (Joseph Mawle, Made in Dagenham) with the power to offer Jamie everything he’s ever dreamed of … at a deadly price.

Critics have described Heartless as a “dark urban fairy tale.”

Written and directed by the interesting if slow-moving British filmmaker Philip Ridley (he helmed his last movie,...