Notizie

Shakespeare's back! 'Will' premieres tonight, July 10, and HollywoodLife.com talked Exclusively with Jamie Campbell Bower, who plays Christopher Marlowe, about what to expect from the Marlowe and Will dynamic and so much more!

TNT is daring to spin a dream, much like the titular character of its new effort, Will, and the network is hoping it can convince you that Shakespeare was a pop star of his era, as opposed to having entered the world as the boring crap High School teachers make you read. Perhaps more importantly, the show would also like you to believe that jolly, old Will was once a young man, and wasn’t born a marble bust with little hair and a fantastic beard.

These are indeed, more or less, true, but Will also wants you to: watch as Will scampers after a guttersnipe who picks his pocket, listen to The Clash, endure “punk rock” Elizabethans, and play along with anti-Catholic, anti-theater mustache-twirlers, and that makes it a little difficult to get your bearings.

Luckily, at its heart, this is a show that is mostly after simply reveling in Shakespeare.

TNT has released the teaser trailer for the drama “Will,” which tells the wild, rowdy story of young William Shakespeare. The 32-second clip first aired during the SAG Awards on Sunday.

Newcomer Laurie Davidson plays the title role in this period drama told in a bold, contemporary style and played to a modern soundtrack that exposes all of Shakespeare’s recklessness, lustful temptations and tortured brilliance. The story follows the young poet as he arrives onto the punk-rock theater scene in 16th-century London, looking to make a name for himself.

Read More: First Look at Brett Morgen’s ‘When the Street Lights Go On’ Pilot – Trailer

He meets and falls in love with Alice Burbage (Olivia DeJonge), the daughter of theater impresario James Burbage, who is forbidden from pursuing a career in acting. The series also stars Jamie Campbell-Bower as Shakespeare’s rival Christopher Marlowe, Mattias Inwood as Alice’s...

The Black Crook Conceived and Directed by Joshua William Gelb Abrons Arts Center, NYC September 17-October 7, 2016

The Black Crook, subtitled An Original, Magical and Spectacular Musical Drama, begins with playwright Charles M. Barras (Steven Rattazzi) stutteringly pitching the play The Black Crook to William Wheatley (Merlin Whitehawk), producing manager of Niblo's Garden, a theater that stood, in several incarnations, on Broadway near Prince Street from 1823-1895. This current production of The Black Crook adapts Barras's 1866 original and weaves throughout the adaptation a frame narrative that tracks the origins and success of what was a hugely influential piece of theater. Wheatley and his business partners combined Barras's melodrama with performances by a Parisian ballet troupe and other spectacular interludes, and the result, because of its single unifying plot, is often credited as the first book musical in American theatrical history (the program notes that the song "I Said to My Love,...

‘Too beautiful’… ‘ex-fashion model’… Will perennially underrated Diane Kruger finally throw off such disparaging tags with her new film, The Infiltrator?

Some reviews stick around and Diane Kruger had the misfortune to receive a memorably withering one when she was starting out as an actress. “Too beautiful to play a role of any substance,” was the offhand dismissal from the New York Times critic, Manohla Dargis, in 2006. The comment was mostly a judgment on Troy, the eye-wateringly expensive Iliad adaptation in which she was cast opposite Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom as a blond, blue-eyed Helen. The film-makers wanted an unknown for the part and Kruger, a German ex-model, beat more than 3,000 women to be the face that, in Christopher Marlowe’s words, “launch’d a thousand ships”.

Ten years – and around 30 films – on, the New York Times line still irks Kruger. “What an ignorant and stupid thing to say!

The latest restoration of a German silent classic is F.W. Murnau's lavishly mounted version of the Goethe tale, starring Emil Jannings as Mephisto. It's an impressive drama but also has a sense of (Teutonic) humor here and there. Most every shot is a fantastic visuals, and the bigger scenes use visual designs worthy of fine art. Faust Blu-ray + DVD Kino Classics 1926 / B&W / 1:33 flat full frame / 106, 116 min / Street Date November 17, 2015 / available through Kino Lorber / 34.96 Starring Gösta Ekman, Emil Jannings, Camilla Horn, Frida Richard, William Dieterle, Yvette Guilbert, Eric Barclay, Hanna Ralph, Werner Fuetterer. Cinematography Carl Hoffman Production Design Robert Herlth, Walter Röhrig Film Editor Elfi Böttrich Written by Gerhart Hauptmann, Hans Kyser from plays by Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Christopher Marlowe Produced by Erich Pommer Directed by F.W. Murnau

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Back in film school, lecturers on cinema art of the 1920s claimed that Germany had an edge over Hollywood.

The leading lights of the TV series romp through a mash-up Shakespeare in Love and Blackadder

The players of TV’s terrific Horrible Histories romp their way through this entertaining mash-up of Shakespeare in Love and Blackadder II. Mathew Baynton is the titular Bill Shakespeare, recently ditched by lute-beat combo Mortal Coil, now off to make his mark as a London playwright. Encounters with Christopher Marlowe and the Earl of Croydon open theatrical doors, although the real behind-the-scenes director is Spain’s King Phillip II (Ben Willbond, co-writing with Laurence Rickard), who’s planning to kill Helen McCrory’s frazzle-toothed Elizabeth. Nicely balancing its historically literate gags with broad knockabout slapstick, Bill is a crowd-pleasing treat that should tickle audiences young and old alike.

Continue reading...

The Horrible Histories team present the early life of the Bard in an entertaining, panto-ish romp

Related: Silly Billy: the Horrible Histories team take Shakespeare to the movies

From the people who brought you the Cbbc TV show Horrible Histories comes the latest iteration of the franchise. This feature is a very funny, if derivative panto-ish romp about the early life of Shakespeare. There are hints of the Carry Ons, Blackadder and especially Python, with one gag that must surely be a specific homage to Holy Grail. Shakespeare is played by Mathew Baynton with a soft-spoken intensity that Ben Whishaw might admire. This Bill originally played lead lute in a Stratford band called Mortal Coil; sacked for his self-indulgent solos, Bill was forced to take up literature. His meeting with Christopher Marlowe is not dissimilar from the way Tom Stoppard imagined it in Shakespeare in Love. Spy chief Sir Francis...

Reviewed by Kevin Scott

MoreHorror.com

Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)

Written by: Jim Jarmusch, Marion Bessay

Directed by: Jim Jarmusch

Cast: Tom Hiddleston (Adam), Tilda Swinton (Eve), Mia Wasikowska (Ava), John Hurt (Christopher Marlowe), Anton Yelchin (Ian), Jeffrey Wright (Dr. Watson)

I’ve written on more than one occasion how many subsets there are of zombie films. In most cases, you know what you are going to get. Straight up purist zombie films, contagion zombie films, zom coms, and even zom rom coms (That’s zombie romantic comedy. I don’t know if it’s fully made it into the horror lexicon yet, so I felt that I needed to elaborate) The vampire film has its own unique evolution, and exactly what any vampire film is about is much more difficult to decipher. It could be anything from gothic period pieces, showdowns between a Van Helsing protagonist and a Dracula antagonist,...

1602: Witch Hunter Angela #1

Written by Marguerite Bennett and Kieron Gillen

Art by Stephanie Hans and Marguerite Sauvage

Published by Marvel Comics

The latest Secret Wars tie-in is set in the Marvel 1602 universe. This universe was created by Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert and transplanted the major Marvel superheroes created in the 1960s to height of the English Renaissance during the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James and just before the settling of Jamestown. Writers Marguerite Bennett and Kieron Gillen and artists Stephanie Hans and Marguerite Sauvage make this universe their own by transposing the angelic bounty hunter (and daughter of Odin) Angela and her friend Sera to the Marvel 1602 world where they hunt mutants or “Witchbreed”.

Witch Hunter Angela #1 is filled to the brim with jokes, Shakespearean-style wordplay, and fun, mainly ironic takes on both Marvel heroes and historical figures. Gillen and Sauvage tell a short lead story...

This was a theater week of major losses for the stage community (Rip Mike Nichols) and some a bit smaller (the soon to be Rip Rock of Ages on Broadway, which announced a Jan. 18 closing), and the last onslaught of opening nights before the holiday season takes shape. And folks are already casting an eye toward the spring with rumors that the long-delayed Broadway arrival of The Visit starring Chita Rivera might succeed Rock of Ages, which leaves behind a highly desired theater (the Helen Hayes is Broadway's smallest with only 597 seats). Meanwhile, there's plenty of fish out there right now for theatergoers; literally,...

15. Stranger by the Lake

Directed by Alain Guiraudie

Written by Alain Guiraudie

France

Though Stranger by the Lake premiered at last year’s Cannes Film Festival (and appeared on Sound On Sight’s best of 2013 list), it finally reached North American audiences in January of this year. Alain Guiraudie’s stunning noir-tinged thriller is set entirely against the backdrop of a secluded lake–known to locals as a popular gay cruising spot. A tale of murder complicated by intense sexual obsession (garnering equal parts praise and criticism for its frank depiction of unsimulated gay sex) it accomplishes the rare feat of subtly guiding the way we pay attention to details as we watch. The film’s deceptively simple geography is mapped out as much aurally (and orally) as visually. By the time of the pulse-pounding climax, Guiraudie has masterfully taken hold of all of our senses in an ever-tightening claustrophobic grip.

I want to live in this movie. I want to crawl inside it and curl up in its lap and stay there forever. I’m “biast” (pro): love Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston

I’m “biast” (con): nothing

(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)

It has been so hard for me to write this review! Normally, when I fall in love with a movie, I want to run right out and tell everyone about it. And, of course, I actually do want everyone to see this movie and buy the soundtrack and preorder the DVD and then go see it again so that the movie Powers That Be get the message that we want more movies like this one, as much as we can say, “This movie that isn’t like any other movie? More movies like this that aren’t like other movies, please.

Director Jim Jarmusch has made a career of examining people and the idiosyncrasies they embrace. Whether it’s the journey of three imprisoned men in Down by Law or the account of cab drivers from different parts of the world in Night on Earth, Jarmusch has the skillful ability of forming fascinating characters that serve the story.

While Jarmusch has explored numerous genres, Only Lovers Left Alive is his first endeavor into the realm of horror and the subgenre of vampire mythology. What Jarmusch accomplishes with this moody piece of cinema is another achievement in his already impressive career.

Taking place in the nighttime desolation of both Detroit and Tangier, Eve (Tilda Swinton) is a wise and sympathetic vampire who has survived longer than most of her kind. She is in an enduring married relationship with Adam (Tom Hiddleston), a cynical musician whose existence amongst a changing humanity has brought despair into his world.

Hipster vampires for the art-house crowd from Jim Jarmusch. Only Lovers Left Alive bears the director’s signature deadpan approach and deliberate pace and his fans will enjoy it, but viewers unfamiliar with the indie-cool Jarmusch style or those expecting bloody vampire conventions may find it a long 123 minutes. It barely has fangs, but Only Lovers Left Alive is worth seeing for stars Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston, irresistible as Adam and Eve, a long-married pair of pale, smart, funny, and sexy creatures of the night. I suspect it will connect with a certain audience and predict significant cult status because of these two great characters, but I wish Jarmusch had given them more to do.

Set against the dilapidated desolation of Detroit, Only Lovers Left Alive is the tale of Adam (Hiddleston), an underground musician distressed by the direction of the human race (he calls the living ‘Zombies’). Adam...

This weekend, don't miss what is arguably the best film of director Jim Jarmusch's storied career, "Only Lovers Left Alive," starring Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston as exquisitely cool, ancient vampires still in love after centuries. That film hits La and NY, along with David Gordon Green's Nicolas Cage starrer "Joe," and "The Railway Man" with Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth. In wide release arrive the horror film "Oculus" and Ivan Reitman's "Draft Day," with Kevin Costner. (Trailers below.)In "Only Lovers Left Alive," vampires Eve (Swinton, icily perfect) and Adam (Hiddleston, dead-sexy) maintain a long-distance relationship. As she roams the streets of Tangiers in between meetings with her blood supplier Christopher Marlowe (John Hurt, who plays, indeed, that Christopher Marlowe), Adam is a mopey, down-and-out musician living in Detroit and disenchanted with the mortal world. Sensing her lover's ennui, Eve heads to his homestead, but the ill-timed arrival of her flighty.

It's no surprise Jim Jarmusch's vampire love story Only Lovers Left Alive isn't a vampire film in the same vein as anything you've seen come out of Hollywood. These vampires don't glitter and they've found more conventional ways to sate their blood lust than risking exposure or worse by draining human beings. There is, however, an overall sense of loneliness and the characters are quite moody as most vampires tend to be. Their disgruntled, "hate the world" nature speaks to the film's larger theme, and while it isn't exactly ground-breaking, in terms of execution, it's quietly entertaining. The story centers on centuries old vampire lovers Adam (Tom Hiddleston) and Eve (Tilda Swinton), the first of many recognizable/metaphorical/playful names used within the narrative. Though, when it comes to these two names Jarmusch credits his inspiration as not from the Bible, but from Mark Twain's "The Diaries of...

If the fashionable bloodsuckers of the "Twilight" movies traded their frantic stares for expressions of ennui, they might have something in common with Adam (Tom Hiddleston) and Eve (Tilda Swinton), the retro cool vampires at the heart of Jim Jarmusch's "Only Lovers Left Alive." But that could never happen. Jarmusch's characters are always too hip for the mainstream, which he reminds viewers by making a welcome return to the realm of deadpan comedies that put his work on the map in the first place. Not that he ever drifted too far from it. A centuries-old couple bored with contemporary society, Adam and Eve spend part of the movie living separately in Detroit and Tangiers before uniting at each location, muttering refrains about modern culture and recalling better times. They have sparse company in their understated despair: An enjoyable John Hurt surfaces in a few scenes to play the stately Christopher Marlowe,...

If the fashionable bloodsuckers of the "Twilight" movies traded their frantic stares for expressions of ennui, they might have something in common with Adam (Tom Hiddleston) and Eve (Tilda Swinton), the retro cool vampires at the heart of Jim Jarmusch's "Only Lovers Left Alive." But that could never happen. Jarmusch's characters are always too hip for the mainstream, which he reminds viewers by making a welcome return to the realm of deadpan comedies that put his work on the map in the first place. Not that he ever drifted too far from it. A centuries-old couple bored with contemporary society, Adam and Eve spend part of the movie living separately in Detroit and Tangiers before uniting at each location, muttering refrains about modern culture and recalling better times. They have sparse company in their understated despair: An enjoyable John Hurt surfaces in a few scenes to play the stately Christopher Marlowe,...

On tap right now is another new clip from Jim Jarmusch's vampire tale Only Lovers Left Alive (review). Check it out, and rest assured that as soon as more comes our way, we'll pass it on to you cats!

For more info on the film, visit the official Only Lovers Left Alive website on Tumblr, and check out Only Lovers Left Alive on Facebook!

Look for it in theaters on April 11th

Only Lovers Left Alive stars Tilda Swinton as Eve and Tom Hiddleston as Adam.

Synopsis:

Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive tells the tale of two fragile and sensitive vampires, Adam (Tom Hiddleston) and Eve (Tilda Swinton), who have been lovers for centuries. Both are cultured intellectuals with an all-embracing passion for music, literature, and science, who have evolved to a level where they no longer kill for sustenance but still retain their innate wildness.

Adam,...

While some may argue the audience will be only barely left alive after sitting through 2-1/2 hours of slow, dreamy, arty, self-indulgent vampire drama Only Lovers Left Alive, no one can accuse its star, Tilda Swinton, of being anything other than mesmerizing.

The actress has worked with writer/director Jim Jarmusch a number of times (my favorite of their collaborations is The Limits of Control), but this project seems to be extra special to her because it's been in the pipeline for so long… an eternity, I guess you could say!

In the film Swinton plays Eve, an ancient, art-appreciating vampire who's in love with a gifted but melancholy musician, Adam (Tom Hiddleston).

With Only Lovers Left Alive (review) arriving (finally!) in theaters on April 11th, she sat down with a group of us at a recent press day in Beverly Hills to talk "all about Eve."

In addition, because...

Excited for Jim Jarmusch's vampire tale Only Lovers Left Alive (review)? You're not the only one, and right now you can feed your inner curiosity online! Read on for details.

For more info on the film, visit the official Only Lovers Left Alive website on Tumblr, and check out Only Lovers Left Alive on Facebook!

Look for it in theaters on April 11th

Only Lovers Left Alive stars Tilda Swinton as Eve and Tom Hiddleston as Adam.

Synopsis:

Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive tells the tale of two fragile and sensitive vampires, Adam (Tom Hiddleston) and Eve (Tilda Swinton), who have been lovers for centuries. Both are cultured intellectuals with an all-embracing passion for music, literature, and science, who have evolved to a level where they no longer kill for sustenance but still retain their innate wildness.

Adam, a reclusive underground musician hiding out in the ruins of contemporary Detroit,...

The official poster for Jim Jarmusch's vampire tale Only Lovers Left Alive (review) has been let out of the coffin, and we have every toothy pixel of it right here for you to chew on. Check it out!

Only Lovers Left Alive stars Tilda Swinton as Eve, a grungy but erudite vampire who's married to a forlorn vampire musician, Adam, played by Tom Hiddleston. Several-hundred-year-old Adam (of Biblical fame) has been living quite happily ever since being expelled from the Garden of Eden--that is, until the 21st century came along with its excesses and greed and pushed him into a full-flung existential crisis.

He cracks and orders a wooden bullet to kill himself.

Adam and Eve are not about blood-sucking and murder but are refined lovers of literature, science, music, and learning in general. When Eve's estranged sister (Mia Wasikowska) "drinks" Ian, a friend, to death, Eve tells her off,...

Only Lovers Left Alive

Directed by Jim Jarmusch

Written by Jim Jarmusch

UK, 2013

Inspired by Mark Twain’s Extracts from Adam’s Diary, Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive beautifully explores love and living after immortality siphoned away any semblance of life. Beautifully shot and wonderfully performed, the film eschews the more bombastic side of vampiric lore for a subtle approach exploring immortality and existence.

After having mingled with the likes of Lord Byron and Christopher Marlowe (John Hurt), Adam (Tom Hiddleston), is a centuries old vampire who has retreated from society to a home in the carcass of Detroit, living among his analogue music equipment. He admonishes humans as zombies and grudgingly hates them for worshipping inauthenticity over true intellect or talent. Adam is bitter and fatigued. Whether it is his Tesla-engineered electricity system or his penchant for 1905 Gibsons, Adam has not lived in the present for the last few centuries.

Yahoo! scored the official U.S. trailer for Jim Jarmusch's vampire tale Only Lovers Left Alive (review), and we have every toothy pixel of it right here for you to chew on. Check it out!

Only Lovers Left Alive stars Tilda Swinton as Eve, a grungy but erudite vampire who's married to a forlorn vampire musician, Adam, played by Tom Hiddleston. Several-hundred-year-old Adam (of Biblical fame) has been living quite happily ever since being expelled from the Garden of Eden--that is, until the 21st century came along with its excesses and greed and pushed him into a full-flung existential crisis.

He cracks and orders a wooden bullet to kill himself.

Adam and Eve are not about blood-sucking and murder but are refined lovers of literature, science, music, and learning in general. When Eve's estranged sister (Mia Wasikowska) "drinks" Ian, a friend, to death, Eve tells her off, saying that...

This retro-chic haute-hippy vampire flick gets its energy from the sulphurous chemistry between Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston

I have warmed up – or maybe rather cooled down – to Jim Jarmusch's beautifully made and exquisitely designed vampire movie since seeing it at Cannes last year. At first, it looked studenty and self-congratulatory. But if it is an exercise in style … well, what style. With its retro-chic connoisseurship and analogue era rock, this is a brilliant haute-hippy homage: a movie that could almost have been conceived at the same time as Performance or Zabriskie Point.

As the undead lovers, Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston hang out together very elegantly, exchanging worldly badinage and wondering what's in the fridge, like Withnail and Withnail, or I and I. Hiddleston is Adam, a reclusive vampire rock star hiding out from his fans in Detroit and savouring the necrophiliac ruin-porn thereabouts. Swinton plays his paramour,...

Written and Directed by Jim Jarmusch

Starring: Tom Hiddleston, Tilda Swinton, Mia Wasikowska, Anton Yelchin, John Hurt,* and Jeffrey Wright

Synopsis: Set against the desolation of the once-vibrant cities of Detroit and Tangier, an underground musician, deeply depressed by the direction the world is going, reunites with his resilient and enigmatic lover. [P.S. They are also vampires. –ed.]

Review:

Only Lovers Left Alive has more story than plot, and more mood than story. Adam (Tom Hiddleston) and Eve (Tilda Swinton) are vampires living in Detroit and Tangier, respectively. At the start of the movie, they move separately but synchronously through their lives. Hiddleston is tired of being alive–or undead. Swinton goes to Detroit, and they spend awhile in blissful domesticity as reunited husband and wife. Then Swinton’s younger sister shows up, and all the plotty things happen in quick succession.

But the parts I liked best weren’t the plotty bits. They were the...

Vampire films have become tired and boring over the years, we must admit. But vampire films written and directed by Jim Jarmusch? Well, that's an entirely different story!

Jamusch's first horror film, Only Lovers Left Alive, premieres this coming May at the Cannes Film Festival, and we invite you to sink those pearly whites of yours into the brand new trailer for the flick!

Only Lovers Left Alive stars Tilda Swinton as Eve, a grungy but erudite vampire who's married to a forlorn vampire musician, Adam, played by Tom Hiddleston. Several-hundred-year-old Adam (of Biblical fame) has been living quite happily ever since being expelled from the Garden of Eden--that is, until the 21st century came along with its excesses and greed and pushed him into a full-flung existential crisis. He cracks and orders a wooden bullet to kill himself.

Adam and Eve are not about blood-sucking and murder but are refined lovers of literature,...

The following is a list of all comic books, graphic novels and specialty items that will be available this week and shipped to comic book stores who have placed orders for them.

Aam Markosia

Christopher Marlowe And The Bards Of Nemeton Gn, $18.99

Accent UK

Missing Have You Seen The Invisible Man (One Shot), $5.00

Action Lab Entertainment

Fracture #1 (Of 4)(Cover A Chad Cicconi), $2.99

Fracture #1 (Of 4)(Cover B Jamal Igle), $2.99

Skyward Volume 1 Into The Woods Tp, $8.99

Adhouse Books

B Plus F Hc, $19.95

Altus Press

Doc Savage The New Adventures Volume 6 The Miracle Menace Sc, $24.95

Amigo Comics

Rogues #6, $3.99

Westwood Witches #4 (Of 4), $3.99

Amryl Entertainment

Cavewoman Labyrinth (One Shot), $3.75

Cavewoman Labyrinth (One Shot)(Devon Massey Special Edition), Ar

Cavewoman Labyrinth (One Shot)(Budd Root Special Edition), Ar

Arcana Studio

Steam Engines Of Oz Volume 2 The Geared Leviathan #2, $3.99

Archie Comics

Afterlife With Archie #3 (Francesco Francavilla Regular Cover), $2.99

Afterlife With Archie #3 (Tim Seeley Variant Cover), $2.99

Archie #651 (Dan...

A brand spanking new clip from Jim Jarmusch’s toothy tale of lust and vampires, Only Lovers Left Alive, is here just in time for the film's premiere at next year's Sundance Film Festival so crank it up and dance along!

Only Lovers Left Alive stars Tilda Swinton as Eve, a grungy but erudite vampire who's married to a forlorn vampire musician, Adam, played by Tom Hiddleston. Several-hundred-year-old Adam (of Biblical fame) has been living quite happily ever since being expelled from the Garden of Eden--that is, until the 21st century came along with its excesses and greed and pushed him into a full-flung existential crisis. He cracks and orders a wooden bullet to kill himself.

Adam and Eve are not about blood-sucking and murder but are refined lovers of literature, science, music, and learning in general. When Eve's estranged sister (Mia Wasikowska) "drinks" Ian, a friend, to death, Eve tells her off,...

A brand spanking new trailer for Jim Jarmusch’s toothy tale of lust and vampires, Only Lovers Left Alive, is here; and we have every blood-sucking second of it right here for you! What are ya waiting for? Put the bite on!

Only Lovers Left Alive stars Tilda Swinton as Eve, a grungy but erudite vampire who's married to a forlorn vampire musician, Adam, played by Tom Hiddleston. Several-hundred-year-old Adam (of Biblical fame) has been living quite happily ever since being expelled from the Garden of Eden--that is, until the 21st century came along with its excesses and greed and pushed him into a full-flung existential crisis. He cracks and orders a wooden bullet to kill himself.

Adam and Eve are not about blood-sucking and murder but are refined lovers of literature, science, music, and learning in general. When Eve's estranged sister (Mia Wasikowska) "drinks" Ian, a friend, to death,...

London, Sep 8: A new book, 'As Right As Rain', has revealed the origins and the true meaning hidden behind some of the popular expressions or "idioms" used in the English language.

According to the book, 'To go berserk' originated from the Berserkers, or wild Norse warriors of great strength and courage, who fought with a frenzied fury known as "the Berserker rage", the Mirror reported.

Next, 'Brownie Points' is a phrase that seems to have originated in the Us where a brownie not only stands for a type of chocolate cake, but also stands for a benevolent elf or pixie.

'A bed of roses' was first used by in Christopher Marlowe's 'The Passionate Shepherd to His Love', where the lover promises to "make a beds of roses/and.

Above: Only Lovers Left Alive.

Caro Danny,

Thank you for setting the stage with your lovely intro, my friend. Film festivals have always struck me as sci-fi experiences, a procession of visions that heighten the traveling cinephile’s dislocation, tossed from one flurry of images to the next with often very little time to process them. “Did I watch that, or dream it?” That’s the question I’ve been asking throughout my first day here at Tiff, as much for the inherently oneiric nature of cinema as for the fact that I’ve made my way through almost half a dozen screenings while running on about three hours of sleep.

Jet-lagged, perplexed, suspended between time zones—the ideal mood, in other words, to watch Only Lovers Left Alive. Jim Jarmusch’s characters dwell in the margins of the world, and the world here is all margins. Or maybe that...

Indie trailblazer Jim Jarmusch’s wry Only Lovers Left Alive is the writer/director’s foray into the realm of the undead, and comes across like Twilight for hip adults. It’s largely uneventful narrative will undoubtedly divide audiences– but if you like Jarmusch, you’re bound to enjoy this.

A brilliant, hypnotically disorientating opening sequence introduces us to vampires Adam (Tom Hiddleston) and Eve (Tilda Swinton) in the throes of blood induced highs in their respective abodes. Adam lives in a shabby mansion in a virtually deserted Detroit neighbourhood, surrounded by musical instruments and electronics. Eve lives in an exotic flat in Tangiers. They go about the routine of scoring blood from their suppliers (reinforcing the blood/drug metaphor), Adam buying from a doctor in a hospital lab and Eve from her friend and fellow vampire Christopher Marlowe (yes, that Christopher Marlowe, alleged author of Shakespeare’s plays). Adam is clearly listless and depressed,...

Director Jim Jarmusch returns with Only Lovers Left Alive, a surreal, humorous and often beautiful look at the vampire subgenre. In a bit of inspired casting, Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston star as Adam and Eve, the sexiest vampire couple this side of Edward and Bella. Adam is a cynical, reclusive, hate the world kind of musician, who’s been living in Detroit for quite some time. His lover Eve, who’s currently living across the world in Tangier with her friend Christopher Marlowe (John Hurt), notices Adam’s ever-growing depression and immediately hops on a flight to Detroit so she can be with him again.

We’re never given a reason for why the sophisticated and refined couple were separated in the first place, but before long they are back together. What plays out next is almost like a small series of episodes, as we watch the two bicker,...

★★★★☆ Director Jim Jarmusch has managed an almost impossible feat with new film Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), in competition at this year's Cannes Film Festival - he's made vampires interesting again. British actors Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton play Adam and Eve, a pair of night-dwelling bloodsuckers. Eve is based in Tangiers where she hangs out with Christopher Marlowe (John Hurt), who himself acquires blood from a French doctor and complains of his former literary glory: "I wished I'd met him before I wrote Hamlet." Adam, meanwhile, is roosting in Detroit where he collects vintage guitars, composes funereal music and shuns the world.

Adam sates his thirst for the red stuff with regular visits to Dr. Watson (Jeffrey Wright) at a local hospital. He's evidently suffering from ennui, and although Eve comes to stay with him, things only get worse when her sister, Ava (Mia Wasikowska), also turns up. "Families are always a bit weird,...

The Cannes Film Festival, arguably the most important showcase for international cinema of the year, just wrapped up on the Riviera with Blue is the Warmest Color winning the coveted Palme D'Or and Bruce Dern (Nebraska) and Berenice Bejo (The Past) winning Best Actor and Best Actress, respectively. Typically heavy on dramatic fare, Cannes is never one of the best festival markets for horror premieres, although a lot of international sales do happen on and off the competition circuit of the fest. It's not like South by Southwest or even Sundance, where one can be assured that horror is going to play a prominent of the buzz coming out of the festival. However, all is not lost for horror fans looking for a sneak peek of what's lurching over the arthouse horizon. From names major (Jim Jarmusch, Takashi Miike) and minor (Ruairi Robinson, Jim Mickle), the 2013 Cannes audience were treated...

It's no surprise Jim Jarmusch's vampire love story Only Lovers Left Alive isn't a vampire film in the same vein as anything you've seen come out of Hollywood. These vampires don't glitter and they've found more conventional ways to sate their blood lust than risking exposure or worse by draining human beings. There is, however, an overall sense of loneliness and the characters are quite moody as most vampires tend to be. Their disgruntled, "hate the world" nature speaks to the film's larger theme, and while it isn't exactly ground-breaking, in terms of execution, it's quietly entertaining. The story centers on centuries old vampire lovers Adam (Tom Hiddleston) and Eve (Tilda Swinton), the first of many recognizable/metaphorical/playful names used within the narrative. Though, when it comes to these two names Jarmusch credits his inspiration as not from the Bible, but from Mark Twain's "The Diaries of...

Cannes, France — Tilda Swinton injects her own brand of otherworldly-cool into Jim Jarmusch's latest movie "Only Lovers Left Alive," an unusual comedy that puts a spin on the age-old vampire genre.

The film, the last English-language entry competing for the Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or, sees Swinton play Eve, a grungy but erudite vampire – who's married to a forlorn vampire musician, Adam, played by Tom Hiddlestone. Several-hundred-year-old Adam – of Biblical fame – has been living quite happily ever since being expelled from the Garden of Eden.

That is, until the 21st century came along with its excesses and greed and pushed him into a full-flung existential crisis. He cracks, and orders a wooden bullet to kill himself.

With such a wacky plot, it's no surprise the film nearly didn't get made. It took seven years to find a backer – which Jarmusch says is because producers won't take creative risks anymore.

The wheeling and dealing at Cannes 2013 is almost over, but one more genre film has landed distro just in the nick of time! Sony Pictures Classics acquired North American rights to Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive just hours before the film's world premiere at the fest.

"Only Lovers Left Alive is one of the great Jarmusch pictures, and American audiences will love it," Sony Pictures Classics said in a statement provided to The Wrap. "We are excited to be back with Jim and our great friends [producer] Jeremy Thomas and Tilda Swinton, whose performance, along with the rest of the cast, is fantastic."

We also got our hands on some spoilery additional info on the film from Yahoo! News, including the fact that it's more an unusual comedy that puts its own spin on the age-old vampire genre than the angsty drama so many vamp-centric flicks tend to be these days.

If the fashionable bloodsuckers of the "Twilight" movies traded their frantic stares for expressions of ennui, they might have something in common with Adam (Tom Hiddleston) and Eve (Tilda Swinton), the retro cool vampires at the heart of Jim Jarmusch's "Only Lovers Left Alive." But that could never happen. Jarmusch's characters are always too hip for the mainstream, which he reminds viewers by making a welcome return to the realm of deadpan comedies that put his work on the map in the first place. Not that he ever drifted too far from it. A centuries-old couple bored with contemporary society, Adam and Eve spend part of the movie living separately in Detroit and Tangiers before uniting at each location, muttering refrains about modern culture and recalling better times. They have sparse company in their understated despair: An enjoyable John Hurt surfaces in a few scenes to play the stately Christopher Marlowe,...

Jim Jarmusch's vampire film puts an original spin on a well-worn genre, but there's something unavoidably studenty about its fascination with muso philosophising and retro cool

At one moment in Jim Jarmusch's new movie, Tilda Swinton's character points to the night sky and says: "There's a diamond up there the size of a planet. It emits the music of a gigantic gong." Jarmusch, on the hand, emits movies as if he has been smoking a gigantic bong. Only Lovers Left Alive is an indulgent, eccentric midnight movie with a great deal of muso musing about vinyl and guitars and cool retro stuff. If there was a prize at Cannes for Most Studenty Film, this would absolutely walk off with it. We flit with bat-like swiftness from Tangier to Detroit and back to Tangier, as the story unfolds: the deadpan-funny tale of beautiful vampire creatures, exquisite aesthetes with fastidious tastes,...

Actor will feature in piece written by Belarus Free Theatre and Laura Wade. Meanwhile, the latest short film in the series, Bed Trick, is released today

Jude Law will team up with the Belarus Free Theatre for the next in the series of short films coproduced by the Guardian and the Young Vic theatre.

Over the course of this year, the two organisations will present a series of four films created by the stars and creatives behind Young Vic productions, supported by Bloomberg.

Law, who played Christopher Marlowe's Dr Faustus at the Young Vic in 2002 and has supported Belarus Free Theatre for a number of years, will appear in a film the company has written in collaboration with Laura Wade, the playwright behind the Royal Court's hit Posh.

It will be followed by new short written and directed by Olivier award-winning actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, who stars in Aimé Césaire...

London — The return of director Sam Mendes and a long-awaited musical by Tori Amos are among highlights announced Wednesday for the 50th anniversary season at Britain's National Theatre.

Mendes, who began his career in theater before moving into film, will direct a production of Shakespeare's "King Lear" starring Simon Russell Beale and opening next January. It was originally slated for 2012, but delayed while Mendes made the James Bond adventure "Skyfall."

The 2013 season will see "The Light Princess," a musical adaptation of a 19th-century fairytale with music and lyrics by Amos. First announced two years ago, it will finally open in October.

Artistic director Nicholas Hytner said Wednesday that "musicals just take a hell of a lot of writing and developing and testing out."

The season also includes a version of Shakespeare's "Othello" starring Adrian Lester, and a production of Christopher Marlowe's "Edward II." Two major American plays also are...

Czech-born actor best known as Inspector Clouseau's crazed boss in the Pink Panther films

Herbert Lom, who has died aged 95, spent more than 50 years in dramatic roles, playing mostly smooth villains, but he was best known for his portrayal of Charles Dreyfus, the hysterically twitching boss of the bumbling Inspector Clouseau (Peter Sellers) in the series of slapstick Pink Panther comedies. "Give me 10 men like Clouseau and I could destroy the world," blurts out the bewildered Dreyfus in A Shot in the Dark (1964).

Herbert Charles Angelo Kuchacevich ze Schluderpacheru was born into an impoverished aristocratic family in Prague. He studied philosophy at Prague University, where he organised student theatre. In 1939, on the eve of the German invasion of Czechoslovakia, he arrived in Britain with his Jewish girlfriend, Didi, but she was sent back at Dover because she did not have the correct papers. Her subsequent death in a concentration...

★★☆☆☆ The idea that the works attributed to William Shakespeare were written by somebody else is an interesting historical conspiracy. The likes of Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, Francis Bacon have all been suggested by various scholars and crackpots as being the real author of the great plays and poems, but it is the so-called 'Oxfordian theory' which proves the inspiration behind Roland Emmerich's period drama Anonymous (2011).

Read more »...

Reader Hank read my mind when he emailed me to suggest that the disappointment that is Anonymous makes one long for the flight of fancy of Shakespeare in Love... and for Rupert Everett’s fantastic performance as Christopher Marlowe. And since we have not yet gazed at Everett, here he is: And some more: Oooo, lovely: Nice: (If you have a suggestion for someone we should female-gaze at, feel free to email me with a name or a link to a particular photo. But check to see whom we’ve already gazed at.)...

If William Shakespeare didn't write the plays and sonnets that have beguiled people for generations, then who did?

That's the controversial question at the heart of Roland Emmerich's new thriller Anonymous, which launches in UK cinemas this weekend.

Emmerich (Independence Day, The Patriot, 2012) and writer John Orloff have woven the ultimate literary conspiracy theory into a historical drama set at the court of Queen Elizabeth I.

In a video included below (and in our video channel on the right), the filmmaker presents his case for why he believes Shakespeare didn't create the works attributed to him.

The so-called 'authorship debate' has been around for decades and has attracted an illustrious band of supporters down the years.

Academics, actors and writers - including Benjamin Disraeli, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Orson Welles, Sigmund Freud and Sir John Gielgud - have supported the claim that Shakespeare simply didn't write Shakespeare. Collectively, the doubters are known as anti-Stratfordians.

"Roland Emmerich's Anonymous is a well-polished cowpat that will confuse and bore those who know nothing about Shakespeare and incense those who know almost anything," declares David Edelstein in New York. The film begins with Derek Jacobi announcing on a contemporary Broadway stage that the plays we attribute to Shakespeare are, in fact, the work of "Edward de Vere, seventeenth Earl of Oxford, who could not, by virtue of his rank, have anything to do with the theater and so handed over his masterworks — many of which were not performed until well after his death — to a boobish actor named Will Shakespeare, who incidentally was the one who stabbed Christopher Marlowe in the eye. Less improbably, De Vere screwed Queen Elizabeth, as well as (accidentally) his own mum…. Apart from its ineptitude, Anonymous is peculiarly beside the point. Shakespeare's succession of masterpieces, near masterpieces, and thrilling misses is a...

By Jocelyn Noveck, The Associated Press

New York — O, for a juicy literary dispute that would pit scholars against Hollywood, with charges of snobbery, materialism, elitism and opportunism flying around like so many slings and arrows – not to mention the specter of young minds poisoned by the character assassination of a hero.

Heard about the new movie "Anonymous"?

The film by Roland Emmerich, a director better known for apocalyptic blockbusters than period dramas, opens on Friday. But already, its contention that Shakespeare was a simpleton, a fraud and perhaps a murderer who never wrote a word of those great plays has set off some epic sniping of which the Bard himself might be proud.

"A new low for Hollywood," says Columbia University professor James Shapiro. "Completely grotesque," says Stanley Wells, of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Britain.

Emmerich says he's been called names, and screenwriter John Orloff says one critic...