Hollywood
Hollywood is the new Spanish inquistion
There’s fear and loathing in this town and in El Lay it’s even worse. Torquemada and Savonarola are in charge,…
High life
I may have spoken too soon last week when I defended my old friend Harvey Weinstein. It now looks very…
High life
I smell a rat when it comes to Harvey Weinstein. Let’s take it from the start. The telephone rang very…
I met Weinstein and, yes, I’d heard the rumours
According to an ex-employee of Harvey Weinstein’s, the movie producer once whispered something to himself that she found so disturbing…
Woman of a thousand voices
‘On air, I could be the most glamorous, gorgeous, tall, black-haired female… Whatever I wanted to be, I could be……
Speech therapy
Oslo opened in the spring of 2016 at a modest venue in New York. It moved to Broadway and this…
Ivory towers
Great novels rarely make great movies, but for half a century one director has been showing all the others how…
Let there be light
If you’ve never heard the John Wilson Orchestra, it’s time to experience pure happiness. Buy their 2016 live album Gershwin…
Russell Crowe knows how to wear a pair of inverted commas: The Nice Guys reviewed
Regular filmgoers must be losing count of the Rabelaisian revelries they’ve been invited to of late. You may recognise the…
‘Do black movies really not sell?’: Don Cheadle on Miles Ahead
Don Cheadle talks to Jasper Rees about the long, hard road to bringing Miles Davis’s life to the big screen
A film that dares to suggest that paedophile priests may be capable of holiness
Damian Thompson admires a Chilean film about paedophile priests which, unlike Spotlight, dares to explore social and psychological complexities
Are the Coen Brothers taking us for a ride? Hail, Caesar! reviewed
The latest film from the Coen brothers is a comedy set during the ‘golden age’ of Hollywood and in some…
Was Klaus Mann all Thomas Mann's fault?
Thomas Mann, despite strong homosexual emotions, had six children. The two eldest, Erika and Klaus, born in 1905 and 1906…
Moguls and other Hollywood monsters
This collection of Hollywood tittle-tattle is moderately interesting, unpleasantly salacious and largely unsourced, says Philip Hensher
Miserable libretto, music to match: Andrea Chénier reviewed
Opera North continues to be the most reliable, inspiring, resourceful and enterprising opera company in the United Kingdom, and all…
The Oscars surrender to the golden age of protest
Are we living in a golden age of protest? A bunch of aggrieved citizens only has to raise a murmur…
I hate to admit it, but Spike Lee is right about the Oscars and racism
In 2017 it will be exactly 50 years since a dapper Sidney Poitier announced to Rod Steiger, in the excellent…
Homage to awesome Welles on his centenary
One day in May 1948 in the Frascati hills southeast of Rome, Orson Welles took his new secretary, Rita Ribolla,…
Darth Vader is dirty and it’s not just me that thinks so
Star Wars taught Hollywood how to make children’s films for adults, says Tanya Gold
Tricycle’s Ben Hur is magnificent in its superficiality - a masterpiece of nothing
It’s the target that makes the satire as well as the satirist. Is the subject powerful, active, relevant and menacing?…
How Technicolor conquered cinema
Peter Hoskin celebrates Technicolor’s 100th birthday
N.M. Gwynne’s diary: Old names worth dropping
As I get older (and my 74th birthday is now close), I get deeper and deeper into nostalgia. I do…
Don’t believe Orson Welles, says his biographer Simon Callow — especially when he calls himself a failure
Orson Welles would have been 100 this month. When he died in 1985, aged 70, the wonder was that he…
Why Bette Davis loathed theatre
It was called Frankly Speaking and by golly it was. The great screen actress Bette Davis was being interviewed by…