Co-production forum marks 20th anniversary this year.
Laurynas Bareisa, winner of the 2021 best film prize at Venice’s Orrizonti section for his debut Pilgrims, is among the directors presenting new projects at the 20th edition of the Sofia Meetings co-production forum (22-26 March).
The Lithuanian director is bringing Drowning Dry to Sofia where it is one of five projects in a section dedicated to second feature films.
The section’s line-up also includes The Last Slap by Italian director Matteo Oleotto whose debut feature Zoran, My Nephew The Idiot premiered in Venice’s Critics Week in 2013.
The Last Slap’s...
Laurynas Bareisa, winner of the 2021 best film prize at Venice’s Orrizonti section for his debut Pilgrims, is among the directors presenting new projects at the 20th edition of the Sofia Meetings co-production forum (22-26 March).
The Lithuanian director is bringing Drowning Dry to Sofia where it is one of five projects in a section dedicated to second feature films.
The section’s line-up also includes The Last Slap by Italian director Matteo Oleotto whose debut feature Zoran, My Nephew The Idiot premiered in Venice’s Critics Week in 2013.
The Last Slap’s...
- 3/17/2023
- by Martin Blaney
- ScreenDaily
Director Asif Kapadia makes slick work of Akram Khan’s ballet in Creature, which world premiered at the BFI London Film Festival. Based on Khan’s original concept and choreography, the English National Ballet Production is produced by Uzma Hasan for Little House Productions, and brings an intense cinematic sensibility to the bleak story exploring power, nature, connection and more.
Taking center stage as the Creature is the extraordinary Jeffrey Cirio, who went on to star in the stage production which was delayed due to the pandemic. He twists and slinks across the set with a performance that’s both animalistic and tenderly humane. The setting is a former Arctic research station, where Creature has been brought to be experimented upon by a Doctor (Stina Quagebeur). A cleaner, Marie (Erina Takahashi), catches his eye, and also that of the Major (Fabian Reimair), a stern presence in a swooshing military coat.
Taking center stage as the Creature is the extraordinary Jeffrey Cirio, who went on to star in the stage production which was delayed due to the pandemic. He twists and slinks across the set with a performance that’s both animalistic and tenderly humane. The setting is a former Arctic research station, where Creature has been brought to be experimented upon by a Doctor (Stina Quagebeur). A cleaner, Marie (Erina Takahashi), catches his eye, and also that of the Major (Fabian Reimair), a stern presence in a swooshing military coat.
- 10/16/2022
- by Anna Smith
- Deadline Film + TV
The event is entitled ‘when dance meets film’.
Filmmaker Asif Kapadia and choreographer Akram Khan will lead the conversation of this year’s Lff Connects talk at the BFI London Film Festival on October 7.
Titled ‘when dance meets film’. the event will explore the pair’s collaboration on Creature, directed by Kapadia and based on the English National Ballet 2021 stage production by Khan. It is making its world premiere at the Lff.
The film’s cinematographer Daniel Landin and editor Sylvie Landra will join the conversation to be moderated by Bafta’s head of programming, Mariayah Kaderbhai.
Previously announced speakers...
Filmmaker Asif Kapadia and choreographer Akram Khan will lead the conversation of this year’s Lff Connects talk at the BFI London Film Festival on October 7.
Titled ‘when dance meets film’. the event will explore the pair’s collaboration on Creature, directed by Kapadia and based on the English National Ballet 2021 stage production by Khan. It is making its world premiere at the Lff.
The film’s cinematographer Daniel Landin and editor Sylvie Landra will join the conversation to be moderated by Bafta’s head of programming, Mariayah Kaderbhai.
Previously announced speakers...
- 10/4/2022
- by Ellie Calnan
- ScreenDaily
The first person we meet in “Ray & Liz” is elderly Ray (Patrick Romer). Alone in a tiny room, abandoned by his wife Liz (Deirdre Kelly), he has taken to his bed seemingly permanently, waking only long enough to drink as much as it takes to keep himself drunk. He keeps a photo of himself as a young man with his bride stuck to a mirror next to a religious pamphlet that delivers the only foreshadowing this film feels like giving: a Bible verse instructing children to “obey [their] parents in everything.”
“Ray & Liz,” Richard Billingham’s debut feature, punctuates its main action with visits to this room, with the rest of the quietly downcast story taking place during the 1980s, as Ray and Liz descend into poverty, despair, and alcoholism in a council flat outside of Birmingham, England. Their children — Richard and his younger brother Jason — are along for the ride,...
“Ray & Liz,” Richard Billingham’s debut feature, punctuates its main action with visits to this room, with the rest of the quietly downcast story taking place during the 1980s, as Ray and Liz descend into poverty, despair, and alcoholism in a council flat outside of Birmingham, England. Their children — Richard and his younger brother Jason — are along for the ride,...
- 7/19/2019
- by Dave White
- The Wrap
“Ray & Liz” — the haunted and pungent debut feature by photographer Richard Billingham, who’s been dabbling in the form since the late ’90s — feels like watching someone painstakingly build a rusty time machine that only brings them back to their own rotten past. And to what end?
Billingham’s work has always been lauded for its lack of overt beauty; his most acclaimed pictures find his layabout parents cooped up inside the bleakest council flat in all of Thatcher-era Birmingham, the images striking for their deprivation and self-sufficiency. Rather than mine his home life for manufactured poetry, Billingham shot his family with an anthropological flare, as though he’d smuggled a camera into an animal enclosure that the bourgeois art world had only seen from the outside. (Billingham’s 1998 short “Fishtank” has nothing and everything to do with the similarly named Andrea Arnold film that would follow a few years later.
Billingham’s work has always been lauded for its lack of overt beauty; his most acclaimed pictures find his layabout parents cooped up inside the bleakest council flat in all of Thatcher-era Birmingham, the images striking for their deprivation and self-sufficiency. Rather than mine his home life for manufactured poetry, Billingham shot his family with an anthropological flare, as though he’d smuggled a camera into an animal enclosure that the bourgeois art world had only seen from the outside. (Billingham’s 1998 short “Fishtank” has nothing and everything to do with the similarly named Andrea Arnold film that would follow a few years later.
- 7/11/2019
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
Turner Prize-nominated artist Richard Billingham turns his hand to filmmaking with an overwhelmingly personal, intricately observed depiction of his troubled upbringing and neglectful parents. This remarkably assured debut feature was born out of Billingham’s single-screen video artwork Ray and his acclaimed 1996 photography book Ray’s a Laugh, which captured his poverty-stricken domestic life with uncompromising honesty. Shot beautifully on 16mm, Ray & Liz proves just as candid and heralds Billingham as a unique cinematic voice.
The narrative unfurls through several vignettes and snapshots of Billingham’s childhood. We begin on an act that frames the other two set pieces – Ray (Patrick Romer) is a bedridden, old man whiling away the reminder of his life by staring out the window of his council flat and getting drunk by 9am on home-brewed beer. We then flashback to the early 80s where a younger Ray (Justin Salinger) and chain smoking Liz (Ella Smith...
The narrative unfurls through several vignettes and snapshots of Billingham’s childhood. We begin on an act that frames the other two set pieces – Ray (Patrick Romer) is a bedridden, old man whiling away the reminder of his life by staring out the window of his council flat and getting drunk by 9am on home-brewed beer. We then flashback to the early 80s where a younger Ray (Justin Salinger) and chain smoking Liz (Ella Smith...
- 3/8/2019
- by Luke Channell
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Art imitates life “Ray & Liz,” the autobiographical debut feature by Turner Prize-nominated artist Richard Billingham; that’s nothing new. But it’s the way art imitates, reflects and recomposes other art — specifically, Billingham’s much-discussed photography — that lends complex layers of memoir and mimesis to this singular spin on the British kitchen-sink drama, preserving both the director’s childhood and his creative evolution in gorgeous, grainy amber. Collating multiple visual and thematic preoccupations from the director’s fine-art oeuvre (notably his bleakly intimate portraiture of his working-class parents) and filtering them through the ingenious compositional eye of d.p. Daniel Landin, “Ray & Liz” is formally arresting and rigorous, though not at the expense of its direct emotional force. Commercially, this Locarno competition entry is an uncompromisingly hard sell, though festival bookings will come thick and fast.
Familiarity with Billingham’s photographic output is by no means vital to an appreciation of “Ray & Liz,...
Familiarity with Billingham’s photographic output is by no means vital to an appreciation of “Ray & Liz,...
- 8/7/2018
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
If there is an image to best introduce audiences to the grimy cinematic world of Ray & Liz–the remarkable debut feature of Turner prize-nominated visual artist Richard Billingham–it might be, fittingly, the very first one to hit the screen: that of a cracked, burnt-out light bulb filmed dangling beneath a nicotine-stained ceiling. Billingham has spent much of his career as an artist documenting and, in his short films, dramatizing the lives of his father Raymond and mother Elizabeth (Deirdre Kelly and–best of all–Ella Smith) and Ray & Liz could be viewed as a culmination of that work. It’s an immersive poetic-realist dive into the artist’s fractured memories of his parents during the time he spent growing up in Birmingham in the ‘70s and ‘80s.
One could say that the main strength of Ray & Liz is the vividness of those memories. Billingham’s screenplay cuts between three time periods,...
One could say that the main strength of Ray & Liz is the vividness of those memories. Billingham’s screenplay cuts between three time periods,...
- 8/7/2018
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
One of our most-anticipated films in the Locarno Film Festival lineup is Ray & Liz, the directorial debut from acclaimed U.K. photographer and artist Richard Billingham. Shot by Under the Skin cinematographer Daniel Landin, the film is divided into three chapters as Billingham recalls his memories of growing up, and specifically his parents’ relationship. World premiering today, the first trailer, clip, and poster have now arrived which shows off the film’s distinct style and promising drama.
“Ray & Liz is a concentration of my own lived experience of growing up in a tower block on a council flat during Thatcher-era Britain. By sticking true to real life, lived experience and observation I want to recreate a world that can only have come about from my being a witness to it,” Billingham said. “Throughout the film Ray and Liz’s relationship is tested by poverty, addiction and being sold short...
“Ray & Liz is a concentration of my own lived experience of growing up in a tower block on a council flat during Thatcher-era Britain. By sticking true to real life, lived experience and observation I want to recreate a world that can only have come about from my being a witness to it,” Billingham said. “Throughout the film Ray and Liz’s relationship is tested by poverty, addiction and being sold short...
- 8/6/2018
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Consolidating as one of key sales agents at the Locarno Festival, Fiorella Moretti and Hedi Zardi’s Paris-based Luxbox has acquired sales rights to Richard Billingham’s awaited Golden Leopard contender “Ray & Liz” and “Suburban Birds,” from China’s Qiu Sheng, screening in Cinema of the Present. “Suburban Birds” is Luxbox’s first Chinese title. Both titles were announced July 11 by the Locarno Festival as its unveiled its full lineup. Rapid Eye Movies has already acquired German distribution rights to “Ray & Liz,” meaning Luxbox’s world sales rights deal is for outside the U.K. and Germany.
World premiering in Locarno’s main international competition, and produced by Jacqui Davies at her new production house, Primitive Film, “Ray & Liz” returns to the same bedrock inspiration which launched Billingham’s photographer career in the 90s as the first recipient of the Deutsche Borse Photography Prize: His own family – parents Ray and Liz and younger brother Jason.
World premiering in Locarno’s main international competition, and produced by Jacqui Davies at her new production house, Primitive Film, “Ray & Liz” returns to the same bedrock inspiration which launched Billingham’s photographer career in the 90s as the first recipient of the Deutsche Borse Photography Prize: His own family – parents Ray and Liz and younger brother Jason.
- 7/11/2018
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
The Yellow Birds director Alexandre Moors on Kevin Powers' novel adapted by David Lowery and Ronnie Porto: "The book is beautiful. A beautiful piece of English literature." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
The Yellow Birds, shot by Sundance award-winner Daniel Landin (Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin) and edited by Joe Klotz with a a terrific score by Adam Wiltzie, Adam Peters and Marc Ribot, stars Alden Ehrenreich and Tye Sheridan with Jack Huston, Jennifer Aniston (also an executive producer), Toni Collette, Jason Patric, Lee Tergesen, and Olivia Crocicchia.
Alexandre Moors joined me for a conversation on his second feature (after Blue Caprice with Isaiah Washington and Tequan Richmond). The first time I heard about Kevin Powers' novel The Yellow Birds was from the director of Augustine, Alice Winocour when she was in New York for her film Disorder (Maryland) during Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in 2016. Matthias Schoenaerts played Vincent, a soldier returning from.
The Yellow Birds, shot by Sundance award-winner Daniel Landin (Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin) and edited by Joe Klotz with a a terrific score by Adam Wiltzie, Adam Peters and Marc Ribot, stars Alden Ehrenreich and Tye Sheridan with Jack Huston, Jennifer Aniston (also an executive producer), Toni Collette, Jason Patric, Lee Tergesen, and Olivia Crocicchia.
Alexandre Moors joined me for a conversation on his second feature (after Blue Caprice with Isaiah Washington and Tequan Richmond). The first time I heard about Kevin Powers' novel The Yellow Birds was from the director of Augustine, Alice Winocour when she was in New York for her film Disorder (Maryland) during Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in 2016. Matthias Schoenaerts played Vincent, a soldier returning from.
- 6/14/2018
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Fares Fares and Hania Amar in The Nile Hilton Incident - in Cairo, weeks before the 2011 revolution, Police Detective Noredin is working in the infamous Kasr el-Nil Police Station when he is handed the case of a murdered singer. He soon realizes that the investigation concerns the power elite, close to the President’s inner circle. Photo: Courtesy of Sundance Film Festival
Sundance Film Festival drew to a close last night at an awards ceremony in Park City, Utah, that was dominated by talk of Donald Trump's executive order to ban Muslims travelling from Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Sudan and Somalia, including refugees, from entering the Us for the next 90 days.
The big winners included Syrian documentary The Last Men In Aleppo, directed by Feras Fayyad and Steen Johannessen, Macon Blair's drama I Don't Feel At Home In This World Anymore, Dina, direted by DAn Sickles and Antonio Santini...
Sundance Film Festival drew to a close last night at an awards ceremony in Park City, Utah, that was dominated by talk of Donald Trump's executive order to ban Muslims travelling from Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Sudan and Somalia, including refugees, from entering the Us for the next 90 days.
The big winners included Syrian documentary The Last Men In Aleppo, directed by Feras Fayyad and Steen Johannessen, Macon Blair's drama I Don't Feel At Home In This World Anymore, Dina, direted by DAn Sickles and Antonio Santini...
- 1/29/2017
- by Amber Wilkinson
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
The Sundance 2017 juries and audiences unveiled their picks on Saturday night.
In the grand jury prizes, Macon Blair’s I Don’t Feel At Home In This World Anymore claimed the Us dramatic award and Dina by Dan Sickles and Antonio Santini won U.S. documentary.
Tarik Saleh’s The Nile Hilton Incident won world dramatic and Last Men In Aleppo by Feras Fayyad and Steen Johannessen prevailed in the world documentary category.
In the audience awards, Matt Ruski’s Crown Heights and Jeff Orlowski’s Chasing Coral were the favourites in the Us dramatic and documentary strands.
World cinema selections I Dream In Another Language by Ernesto Contreras and Joe Piscatella’s Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower emerged victorious in the dramatic and documentary sections.
“This has been one of the wildest, wackiest and most rewarding festivals in recent memory,” said festival director John Cooper. “From a new government to the independently organised Women’s March On Main...
In the grand jury prizes, Macon Blair’s I Don’t Feel At Home In This World Anymore claimed the Us dramatic award and Dina by Dan Sickles and Antonio Santini won U.S. documentary.
Tarik Saleh’s The Nile Hilton Incident won world dramatic and Last Men In Aleppo by Feras Fayyad and Steen Johannessen prevailed in the world documentary category.
In the audience awards, Matt Ruski’s Crown Heights and Jeff Orlowski’s Chasing Coral were the favourites in the Us dramatic and documentary strands.
World cinema selections I Dream In Another Language by Ernesto Contreras and Joe Piscatella’s Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower emerged victorious in the dramatic and documentary sections.
“This has been one of the wildest, wackiest and most rewarding festivals in recent memory,” said festival director John Cooper. “From a new government to the independently organised Women’s March On Main...
- 1/29/2017
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
The 2017 Sundance Film Festival is coming to a close with tonight’s awards ceremony. While we’ll have our personal favorites coming early this week, the jury and audience have responded with theirs, topped by Macon Blair‘s I don’t feel at home in this world anymore., which will arrive on Netflix in late February, and the documentary Dina. Check out the full list of winners below see our complete coverage here.
The U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Documentary was presented by Larry Wilmore to:
Dina / U.S.A. (Directors: Dan Sickles, Antonio Santini) — An eccentric suburban woman and a Walmart door-greeter navigate their evolving relationship in this unconventional love story.
The U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic was presented by Peter Dinklage to:
I don’t feel at home in this world anymore. / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Macon Blair) — When a depressed woman is burglarized, she...
The U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Documentary was presented by Larry Wilmore to:
Dina / U.S.A. (Directors: Dan Sickles, Antonio Santini) — An eccentric suburban woman and a Walmart door-greeter navigate their evolving relationship in this unconventional love story.
The U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic was presented by Peter Dinklage to:
I don’t feel at home in this world anymore. / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Macon Blair) — When a depressed woman is burglarized, she...
- 1/29/2017
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
War, of course, is hell. We know this, but it stands that we should be reminded now and again. With The Yellow Birds, filmmaker Alexandre Moors tries to find beauty in the brutality. From a screenplay by David Lowery and R.F.I. Porto and based on the novel by Kevin Powers, the film centers on two young soldiers, Brandon Bartle (Alden Ehrenreich) and Daniel Murphy (Tye Sheridan), in the thick of the Iraq War.
Taking orders from the intense and unstable Sergeant Sterling (Jack Huston, doing a lot here, for better and worse), Bartle and Murphy become fast friends. At a family event, Murphy’s mother Maureen (Jennifer Aniston, also on as executive producer) meets Bartle and asks that he look after her son. This interaction underlines the conflict to come.
The narrative is structured around a mystery: what happened to Murphy? It’s a disjointed framework, in which we slowly...
Taking orders from the intense and unstable Sergeant Sterling (Jack Huston, doing a lot here, for better and worse), Bartle and Murphy become fast friends. At a family event, Murphy’s mother Maureen (Jennifer Aniston, also on as executive producer) meets Bartle and asks that he look after her son. This interaction underlines the conflict to come.
The narrative is structured around a mystery: what happened to Murphy? It’s a disjointed framework, in which we slowly...
- 1/24/2017
- by Dan Mecca
- The Film Stage
This year’s Sundance Film Festival is mere days from unspooling in snowy Park City, Utah and, with it comes a brand new year of indie filmmaking to get excited about. As ever, the annual festival is playing home to dozens of feature films, short offerings and technologically-influenced experiences, and while there’s plenty to anticipate seeing, we’ve waded through the lineup to pick out the ones we’re most looking forward to checking out.
From returning filmmakers like Alex Ross Perry and Gillian Robesepierre to a handful of long-gestating passion projects and at least one film about a ghost, we’ve got a little something for every stripe of film fan.
Read More: Sundance 2017: Check Out the Full Lineup, Including Competition Titles, Premieres and Shorts
Ahead, check out 20 titles we’re excited to finally check out at this year’s festival.
“Landline”
The trifecta behind previous Sundance...
From returning filmmakers like Alex Ross Perry and Gillian Robesepierre to a handful of long-gestating passion projects and at least one film about a ghost, we’ve got a little something for every stripe of film fan.
Read More: Sundance 2017: Check Out the Full Lineup, Including Competition Titles, Premieres and Shorts
Ahead, check out 20 titles we’re excited to finally check out at this year’s festival.
“Landline”
The trifecta behind previous Sundance...
- 1/11/2017
- by Chris O'Falt, Eric Kohn, Graham Winfrey, Jude Dry, Kate Erbland, Steve Greene and Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
Here's your daily dose of an indie film, web series, TV pilot, what-have-you in progress -- at the end of the week, you'll have the chance to vote for your favorite. In the meantime: Is this a project you’d want to see? Tell us in the comments. Ray & Liz Logline: On the margins of society the Billingham family perform extreme rituals, breaking cultural taboos, muddling through lives decided by factors beyond their control. Elevator Pitch: "Ray & Liz" is Deutsche Börse Prize winning artist Richard Billingham’s first feature film. With cinematographer Daniel Landin ("Under the Skin"), Billingham returns to the iconic, sometimes shocking photographs he captured of his family during Thatcher-era Britain to tell a universal story of everyday conflicts, loneliness, love and loss in three episodes: Ray lies in bed alone, imprisoned by alcohol, as flies crawl up the walls around him. Liz beats Ray's brother Lol to...
- 3/1/2016
- by Indiewire
- Indiewire
The producers are launching a kickstarter campaign to unlock further funding for Ray & Liz.
Turner prize-nominated photographer and artist Richard Billingham is moving into feature films with Ray & Liz, a drama recounting his childhood in a Birmingham council flat.
Billingham has been developing the project with producer Jacqui Davies (The Sky Trembles And The Earth Is Afraid And The Two Eyes Are Not Brothers) for four years, with the support of the BFI and fashion designer agnes b.
The film has its genesis in Ray, a single-screen video artwork that Billingham premiered at the Gylnn Vivian Art Gallery in Wales in June 2015.
Some of the material shot for that project will be used in the first part of Ray & Liz, which will be dividied into three distinct chapters.
Patrick Romer has been cast to play Billingham’s father, while Deidre Kelly, aka White Dee on Channel 4’s reality TV programme Benefits Street as well as Channel...
Turner prize-nominated photographer and artist Richard Billingham is moving into feature films with Ray & Liz, a drama recounting his childhood in a Birmingham council flat.
Billingham has been developing the project with producer Jacqui Davies (The Sky Trembles And The Earth Is Afraid And The Two Eyes Are Not Brothers) for four years, with the support of the BFI and fashion designer agnes b.
The film has its genesis in Ray, a single-screen video artwork that Billingham premiered at the Gylnn Vivian Art Gallery in Wales in June 2015.
Some of the material shot for that project will be used in the first part of Ray & Liz, which will be dividied into three distinct chapters.
Patrick Romer has been cast to play Billingham’s father, while Deidre Kelly, aka White Dee on Channel 4’s reality TV programme Benefits Street as well as Channel...
- 2/10/2016
- ScreenDaily
The Nominations: Best Cinematography
“Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)” Emmanuel Lubezki
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” Robert Yeoman
“Ida” Lukasz Zal and Ryszard Lenczewski
“Mr. Turner” Dick Pope
“Unbroken” Roger Deakins
Shoulda Been a Contender: Daniel Landin for “Under the Skin” or Bradford Young for “Selma” & “A Most Violent Year”
For the unique and utterly intoxicating look of Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin, it would have been great to see his name amongst these nominees. And then there’s the continued neglect of Bradford Young, responsible for the look of two excellent films this year with Selma and A Most Violent Year.
Should Win: Emmanuel Lubezki for “Birdman”
A recent winner at the Asc Awards, much like his work (and Oscar win) in Gravity, the dp who goes by the nickname of “Chivo” and his work in Birdman will be studied for generations to come.
Could Win: Robert Yeoman...
“Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)” Emmanuel Lubezki
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” Robert Yeoman
“Ida” Lukasz Zal and Ryszard Lenczewski
“Mr. Turner” Dick Pope
“Unbroken” Roger Deakins
Shoulda Been a Contender: Daniel Landin for “Under the Skin” or Bradford Young for “Selma” & “A Most Violent Year”
For the unique and utterly intoxicating look of Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin, it would have been great to see his name amongst these nominees. And then there’s the continued neglect of Bradford Young, responsible for the look of two excellent films this year with Selma and A Most Violent Year.
Should Win: Emmanuel Lubezki for “Birdman”
A recent winner at the Asc Awards, much like his work (and Oscar win) in Gravity, the dp who goes by the nickname of “Chivo” and his work in Birdman will be studied for generations to come.
Could Win: Robert Yeoman...
- 2/20/2015
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Alain Guiraudie’s Stranger by the Lake leads the pack in this year’s International Cinephile Society Awards with nine nominations, while Xavier Dolan’s Mommy (a film considered a 2014 release but landed theatrically last month) places 2nd, with eight total noms. The Grand Budapest Hotel, Under the Skin and Boyhood all placed well and should effectively land wins in the multiple categories below. The winners of the 12th Ics Awards will be announced on the 20th. Here are the noms:
Picture
• Boyhood
• The Grand Budapest Hotel
• Goodbye to Language
• The Immigrant
• Inherent Vice
• Mommy
• Mr. Turner
• Only Lovers Left Alive
• Stranger by the Lake
• Two Days, One Night
• Under the Skin
Director
• Xavier Dolan – Mommy
• Jonathan Glazer – Under the Skin
• Jean-Luc Godard – Goodbye to Language
• Alain Guiraudie – Stranger by the Lake
• Richard Linklater – Boyhood
Film Not In The English Language
• Force Majeure
• A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night...
Picture
• Boyhood
• The Grand Budapest Hotel
• Goodbye to Language
• The Immigrant
• Inherent Vice
• Mommy
• Mr. Turner
• Only Lovers Left Alive
• Stranger by the Lake
• Two Days, One Night
• Under the Skin
Director
• Xavier Dolan – Mommy
• Jonathan Glazer – Under the Skin
• Jean-Luc Godard – Goodbye to Language
• Alain Guiraudie – Stranger by the Lake
• Richard Linklater – Boyhood
Film Not In The English Language
• Force Majeure
• A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night...
- 2/3/2015
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
Did "Under the Skin's" absence from this week's list of Oscar nominees represent a glaring oversight? Hardly. Despite being beloved by critics, Jonathan Glazer's unsettling sci-fi wasn't expected to rack up any nods. Which is fine! Some of the best movies never get their due come awards season. Me? I can't get it out of my brain. I've previously mentioned "The Babadook" as the year's best horror movie, and from a conventional standpoint it certainly is. But while "Under the Skin" is far from a traditional fright flick, it disturbed me in a deeper way than any pureblood horror film in recent memory. The beach scene alone! Haunting, horrifying, utterly unforgettable. Director Jonathan Glazer is one of the true visionaries working in film today. With the help of cinematographer Daniel Landin and his special effects team he conjured up a collection of the most striking images I saw...
- 1/21/2015
- by Chris Eggertsen
- Hitfix
One of the "surprise" nominations Thursday morning that I felt like I saw coming once the BAFTA nominees were revealed was "Ida's" recognition in the Best Cinematography category. Part of my reasoning was that just last year, the American Society of Cinematographers (Asc) handed it the organization's inaugural Spotlight Award. If industry cinematographers were still nominating the film a year later (i.e., the BAFTA nod), then surely it still had enough heat to make it in. And so it did. Now, a day later, this year's Asc Spotlight Award nominees have been unveiled. Once again, a foreign black-and-white film, Finland's "Concrete Night," is in the mix as director of photography Peter Flinkenberg got a nomination. Also in play, and what an awesome inclusion, is Darius Khondji for his jaw-droppingly gorgeous work on James Gray's "The Immigrant." Rounding things out is Daniel Landin, whose atmospheric work on Jonathan Glazer...
- 1/16/2015
- by Kristopher Tapley
- Hitfix
The American Society of Cinematographers has nominated “Concrete Night,” “The Immigrant” and “Under the Skin” for the Spotlight Award, an honor designed to bring attention to films whose main exposure has been through film festivals or limited theatrical release.
Last year’s Spotlight Award, the first ever given out by the Asc, went to Lucasz Zal and Ryszard Lenczewski for “Ida”; on Thursday, the two were nominated for an Oscar for that film.
See photos: 19 Biggest Snubs and Surprises: Oscars 2015
This year’s nominees are Peter Flinckenberg for “Concrete Night,” a stark black-and-white film that was Finland’s Oscar entry...
Last year’s Spotlight Award, the first ever given out by the Asc, went to Lucasz Zal and Ryszard Lenczewski for “Ida”; on Thursday, the two were nominated for an Oscar for that film.
See photos: 19 Biggest Snubs and Surprises: Oscars 2015
This year’s nominees are Peter Flinckenberg for “Concrete Night,” a stark black-and-white film that was Finland’s Oscar entry...
- 1/16/2015
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
After "Birdman" led the Central Ohio Film Critics Association's list of nominees, it was "Selma" that proved the most popular effort of the bunch. The film won five awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay. "The Grand Budapest Hotel" and "Whiplash," meanwhile, each won a pair of honors. Check out the nominees here, the full list of winners below and a whole lot more at The Circuit. Best Film "Selma" Top 10 1. "Selma" 2. "Whiplash" 3. "Snowpiercer" 4. "The Grand Budapest Hotel" 5. "Nightcrawler" 6. "Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)" 7. "The Imitation Game" 8. "Boyhood" 9. "A Most Violent Year" 10. "Gone Girl" Best Director Ava DuVernay, "Selma" (Runner-up: Wes Anderson, "The Grand Budapest Hotel") Best Actor David Oyelowo, "Selma" (Runners-up: Jake Gyllenhaal, "Nightcrawler" and Michael Keaton, "Birdman") Best Actress Essie Davis, "The Babadook" (Runner-up: Scarlett Johansson, "Under the Skin") Best Supporting Actor J.K. Simmons, "Whiplash" (Runners-up: Josh Brolin, "Inherent Vice" and Mark Ruffalo,...
- 1/9/2015
- by Kristopher Tapley
- Hitfix
The Denver Film Critics Society has announced nominees for the year, and it was "Birdman" that came away with the most mentions with eight. "American Sniper" and "Inherent Vice" weren't far being with six each. They liked "American Sniper" so much they even nominated Sienna Miller's somewhat wasted performance. Check out the full list of nominees below. The rest at The Circuit. Winners will be announced Jan. 12. Best Picture "American Sniper" "Birdman" "Boyhood" "Inherent Vice" "Whiplash" Best Director Clint Eastwood, "American Sniper" Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, "Birdman" Richard Linklater, "Boyhood" Paul Thomas Anderson, "Inherent Vice" Christopher Nolan, "Interstellar" Best Actor Bradley Cooper, "American Sniper" Ralph Fiennes, "The Grand Budapest Hotel" Jake Gyllenhaal, "Nightcrawler" Michael Keaton, "Birdman" Eddie Redmayne, "The Theory of Everything" Best Actress Marion Cotillard, "Two Days, One Night" Scarlett Johansson, "Under the Skin" Felicity Jones, "The Theory of Everything" Rosamund Pike, "Gone Girl" Reese Witherspoon, "Wild" Best Supporting Actor Josh Brolin,...
- 1/7/2015
- by Kristopher Tapley
- Hitfix
In nominations announcements from those critics groups who bother with them, "Birdman" is far and away the leader, even if "Boyhood" remains the overall victor on the winning side. That played out again with the Central Ohio Film Critics Association, which handed Alejandro González Iñárritu's film 10 nominations Sunday morning. One wonders whether the film could lead with the Oscar nods, too, when they are announced in just 11 days. Check out the full list of winners below. Winners will be announced Jan. 8. And catch the rest at The Circuit. Best Film "Birdman" "Boyhood" "Gone Girl" "The Grand Budapest Hotel" "The Imitation Game" "A Most Violent Year" "Nightcrawler" "Selma" "Snowpiercer" "Whiplash" Best Director Wes Anderson, "The Grand Budapest Hotel" Damien Chazelle, "Whiplash" Ava DuVernay, "Selma" Alejandro González Iñárritu, "Birdman" Richard Linklater, "Boyhood" Best Actor Ralph Fiennes, "The Grand Budapest Hotel" Jake Gyllenhaal, "Nightcrawler" Michael Keaton, "Birdman" David Oyelowo, "Selma" Eddie Redmayne,...
- 1/4/2015
- by Kristopher Tapley
- Hitfix
After a summer season of blockbusters that gave the cinematic landscape of jewels and gems worthy of inspection a shake, “awards season,” from which some worthy contenders showed themselves, came roaring. Likewise, a backlog of more movies in the thick of this holiday season growing, certain timely realities proved elusive, in terms of getting to see everything 2014 — a year with more discoveries on my part than planned anticipation — had to offer. For that reason, potential favorites may turn up by the time some people, including myself, get to see those.
Yet, among the larger blockbusters (Interstellar, Godzilla, Guardians of the Galaxy) and widely lauded releases (Gone Girl, Boyhood, Whiplash, Birdman), surveying every crevice of that landscape, there were a lot of movies that were released, watched, podcasted about and reviewed here on Sound on Sight.
(Look for Sound on Sight’s finalized, staff-wide list of this year’s best on December 28.)
In fact,...
Yet, among the larger blockbusters (Interstellar, Godzilla, Guardians of the Galaxy) and widely lauded releases (Gone Girl, Boyhood, Whiplash, Birdman), surveying every crevice of that landscape, there were a lot of movies that were released, watched, podcasted about and reviewed here on Sound on Sight.
(Look for Sound on Sight’s finalized, staff-wide list of this year’s best on December 28.)
In fact,...
- 12/26/2014
- by Fiman Jafari
- SoundOnSight
Nyff coverage continues with Michael C on Mike Leigh's latest
When a film like Mike Leigh’s Mr. Turner comes along you find yourself wishing you could take back all the “great cinematography” praise you tossed around so cavalierly on other films so that the words can carry more weight now that you really need them. Ideally, so far in 2014, one would have only applied the same praise to Darius Khondji’s work on The Immigrant. Ok, yes, Under the Skin’s Daniel Landin also. It’s been an exceptional year.
Not content to merely display his paintings, Leigh and cinematographer Dick Pope manage to permeate the air with the aura of J. M.W. Turner’s art. Some of the film’s images produced audible gasps at the screening I attended. The glory of the visuals grant Leigh and company the freedom to dispense with the many of...
When a film like Mike Leigh’s Mr. Turner comes along you find yourself wishing you could take back all the “great cinematography” praise you tossed around so cavalierly on other films so that the words can carry more weight now that you really need them. Ideally, so far in 2014, one would have only applied the same praise to Darius Khondji’s work on The Immigrant. Ok, yes, Under the Skin’s Daniel Landin also. It’s been an exceptional year.
Not content to merely display his paintings, Leigh and cinematographer Dick Pope manage to permeate the air with the aura of J. M.W. Turner’s art. Some of the film’s images produced audible gasps at the screening I attended. The glory of the visuals grant Leigh and company the freedom to dispense with the many of...
- 10/6/2014
- by Michael C.
- FilmExperience
Each week we pick a film and ask brave cinephiles to choose what they think of as its Best Shot. Next Tuesday is Ingmar Bergman's Oscar winner for Best Cinematography Cries & Whispers (1973) but before we get to that dying sister merriment, let's travel to Scotland where Scarlett Johansson is luring men to their doom. Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin is mysterious enough that it need multiple eyes to decipher it. And the film even repeatedly suggests you do the looking what with it's eyeball construction (?), predatory gaze, and actual dialogue.
Do you want to look at me?
We do, Scarlett, we do.
I normally show the choices in chronological order within the context of the film but given Under the Skin's brooding enigmatic events and telling repetitions, the articles are displayed in the order they were brought to my attention from the Best Shot club members.
Best Shot...
Do you want to look at me?
We do, Scarlett, we do.
I normally show the choices in chronological order within the context of the film but given Under the Skin's brooding enigmatic events and telling repetitions, the articles are displayed in the order they were brought to my attention from the Best Shot club members.
Best Shot...
- 7/23/2014
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
Formless void and darkness. And then light, blinding light. Jonathan Glazer and his gifted cinematographer Daniel Landin present them in that Biblical order. They toy with them for the remainder of Under the Skin, separating them like they're playing god.
Honorable Mention
Perhaps they are since this haunting film begins, as far as I can tell, with Creation, or a creation of sorts. Is it our protagonist being formed (?) or, rather, assuming a new form complete with vocal exercizes to play the role. (The mystery woman is never named in Under the Skin, and none of the men she entices and lures into her formless void, ever think to ask her for it so we'll refer to her as "She" or "Her" since it's Scarlett Johansson we're talking about). What She needs language for is something of a mystery. She seems to communicate best telepathically in the eery repeated shots...
Honorable Mention
Perhaps they are since this haunting film begins, as far as I can tell, with Creation, or a creation of sorts. Is it our protagonist being formed (?) or, rather, assuming a new form complete with vocal exercizes to play the role. (The mystery woman is never named in Under the Skin, and none of the men she entices and lures into her formless void, ever think to ask her for it so we'll refer to her as "She" or "Her" since it's Scarlett Johansson we're talking about). What She needs language for is something of a mystery. She seems to communicate best telepathically in the eery repeated shots...
- 7/22/2014
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
Before the holiday weekend we wondered what AMPAS voters might latch on to had they had to vote right then on the Oscars. It was a hypothetical exercize since we all know the studios backload the year and 85% of the intended contenders for "best" honors are as of yet unavailable. On to something not at all hypothetical.
Consider this my tracking sheet for the film bitch awards at year's end. It also doubles as an Fyc directed at Academy members. Awards are too often regarded as trivial pursuits but they aren't at all. Award winners and nominees go into the history books or web archives as it were and, later, baby cinephiles seek them out for cinematic education. I speak from experience and I've heard so many similar growing up cinephile stories over the years that I know this to be true. So think carefully over even movies you didn't...
Consider this my tracking sheet for the film bitch awards at year's end. It also doubles as an Fyc directed at Academy members. Awards are too often regarded as trivial pursuits but they aren't at all. Award winners and nominees go into the history books or web archives as it were and, later, baby cinephiles seek them out for cinematic education. I speak from experience and I've heard so many similar growing up cinephile stories over the years that I know this to be true. So think carefully over even movies you didn't...
- 7/7/2014
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
Stars: Scarlett Johansson, Paul Brannigan, Jessica Mance, Joe Szula, Lynsey Taylor Mackay | Written by Walter Campbell | Directed by Jonathan Glazer
When Jonathan Glazer last directed almost ten years ago he polarized audiences with his controversial film Birth. His latest effort will no doubt have a similar effect. Under the Skin is a Kubrikian-esque Science Fiction thriller that will fully transfix some with its eerie imagery and bore others with its cold demeanor and methodical pace. Those who argue the format of movies has become stale will find that Glazer pushes cinema forward by being willing to leave some behind.
Ambiguity may not be a strong enough word to describe the films premise. Scarlet Johansson plays an alien dressed in the skin of a woman who prowls around Glasgow seducing young hitchhikers. Her purpose is unstated, but she traps these men in this static state for the benefit of her kind.
When Jonathan Glazer last directed almost ten years ago he polarized audiences with his controversial film Birth. His latest effort will no doubt have a similar effect. Under the Skin is a Kubrikian-esque Science Fiction thriller that will fully transfix some with its eerie imagery and bore others with its cold demeanor and methodical pace. Those who argue the format of movies has become stale will find that Glazer pushes cinema forward by being willing to leave some behind.
Ambiguity may not be a strong enough word to describe the films premise. Scarlet Johansson plays an alien dressed in the skin of a woman who prowls around Glasgow seducing young hitchhikers. Her purpose is unstated, but she traps these men in this static state for the benefit of her kind.
- 7/7/2014
- by Dan Clark
- Nerdly
Under the Skin
Written by Walter Campbell and Jonathan Glazer
Directed by Jonathan Glazer
UK, 2013
An alien life form comes to Earth disguised as a beautiful woman, to prey on unwary human males, seducing them and luring them to their doom. Nine times out of ten, a premise like that of Under the Skin would produce a crass, low-brow skin flick, psuedo-porn masquerading as science fiction. But director Jonathan Glazer seems to know this, and has performed the same bait and switch as the alien in the film, luring audiences in with the promise of eroticism and dropping them unawares into a disorienting, frightening landscape. But unlike the poor saps of the film, victims of Glazer’s seduction will come out with their internal organs still safe and sound in their body cavities, and a truly unique film experience to reflect on.
Under the Skin, quite intentionally, plays on a lot of tropes.
Written by Walter Campbell and Jonathan Glazer
Directed by Jonathan Glazer
UK, 2013
An alien life form comes to Earth disguised as a beautiful woman, to prey on unwary human males, seducing them and luring them to their doom. Nine times out of ten, a premise like that of Under the Skin would produce a crass, low-brow skin flick, psuedo-porn masquerading as science fiction. But director Jonathan Glazer seems to know this, and has performed the same bait and switch as the alien in the film, luring audiences in with the promise of eroticism and dropping them unawares into a disorienting, frightening landscape. But unlike the poor saps of the film, victims of Glazer’s seduction will come out with their internal organs still safe and sound in their body cavities, and a truly unique film experience to reflect on.
Under the Skin, quite intentionally, plays on a lot of tropes.
- 5/7/2014
- by Thomas O'Connor
- SoundOnSight
Stars: Scarlett Johansson, Paul Brannigan, Jessica Mance, Joe Szula, Lynsey Taylor Mackay | Written by Walter Campbell | Directed by Jonathan Glazer
When Jonathan Glazer last directed almost ten years ago he polarized audiences with his controversial film Birth. His latest effort will no doubt have a similar effect. Under the Skin is a Kubrikian-esque Science Fiction thriller that will fully transfix some with its eerie imagery and bore others with its cold demeanor and methodical pace. Those who argue the format of movies has become stale will find that Glazer pushes cinema forward by being willing to leave some behind.
Ambiguity may not be a strong enough word to describe the films premise. Scarlet Johansson plays an alien dressed in the skin of a woman who prowls around Edinburgh Glasgow, Scotland seducing young hitchhikers. Her purpose is unstated, but she traps these men in this static state for the benefit of her kind.
When Jonathan Glazer last directed almost ten years ago he polarized audiences with his controversial film Birth. His latest effort will no doubt have a similar effect. Under the Skin is a Kubrikian-esque Science Fiction thriller that will fully transfix some with its eerie imagery and bore others with its cold demeanor and methodical pace. Those who argue the format of movies has become stale will find that Glazer pushes cinema forward by being willing to leave some behind.
Ambiguity may not be a strong enough word to describe the films premise. Scarlet Johansson plays an alien dressed in the skin of a woman who prowls around Edinburgh Glasgow, Scotland seducing young hitchhikers. Her purpose is unstated, but she traps these men in this static state for the benefit of her kind.
- 4/19/2014
- by Dan Clark
- Nerdly
Under the Skin
Written by Walter Campbell and Jonathan Glazer
Directed by Jonathan Glazer
UK and USA, 2013
A profound sense of unease permeates and accompanies Under the Skin, Jonathan Glazer’s first film in nearly 10 years. Glazer’s debut feature, the excellent British gangster picture Sexy Beast, married vicious and profane dialogue with a penchant for nightmarish imagery; his follow-up, the austere and stately Birth, was a quieter piece that relied heavily on the porcelain-doll qualities of his leading lady, Nicole Kidman. Each of his three films, Under the Skin included, have a knack for presenting the ostensibly normal as something indescribably frightening, whether it’s the sunbaked backyard of an ex-thief or a middle-aged man’s daily jog through Central Prak or the simple act of driving a van through a rainy city. More than his previous features, though, Glazer leaves behind the vagaries of plot and exposition-as-dialogue in Under the Skin,...
Written by Walter Campbell and Jonathan Glazer
Directed by Jonathan Glazer
UK and USA, 2013
A profound sense of unease permeates and accompanies Under the Skin, Jonathan Glazer’s first film in nearly 10 years. Glazer’s debut feature, the excellent British gangster picture Sexy Beast, married vicious and profane dialogue with a penchant for nightmarish imagery; his follow-up, the austere and stately Birth, was a quieter piece that relied heavily on the porcelain-doll qualities of his leading lady, Nicole Kidman. Each of his three films, Under the Skin included, have a knack for presenting the ostensibly normal as something indescribably frightening, whether it’s the sunbaked backyard of an ex-thief or a middle-aged man’s daily jog through Central Prak or the simple act of driving a van through a rainy city. More than his previous features, though, Glazer leaves behind the vagaries of plot and exposition-as-dialogue in Under the Skin,...
- 4/18/2014
- by Josh Spiegel
- SoundOnSight
It's been a decade since iconic music video helmer Jonathan Glazer's entrancing sophomore feature "Birth," a film that drew both boos and applause at its world premiere in Venice in 2004. That film has since amassed a cult following. Glazer's highly anticipated third feature "Under the Skin" drew the same mixed response in Venice last year following its Telluride debut, and like "Birth," his new work is sure to be analyzed and argued over for years to come. Read More: How Dp Daniel Landin Captured Scarlett Johansson's Alien Nature in 'Under The Skin' Very loosely based on Michael Faber's acclaimed sci-fi novel of the same name, "Under the Skin" centers on an alien who takes on the comely shape of Scarlett Johansson in rural Scotland to hunt down human prey for mysterious purposes. With the film finally opening Stateside today, Indiewire caught up with Glazer to discuss casting Johansson,...
- 4/4/2014
- by Nigel M Smith
- Indiewire
The best movie culture writing from around the internet-o-sphere. There will be a quiz later. Just leave a tab open for us, will ya? “I Was a Hollywood Personal Assistant” — Obviously anonymous and almost pure gossip, it’s still an interesting read from a Hollywood assistant that reflects the worst stereotypes in a Devil Wears Prada kind of way. “Is Watching Movies Too Hard, or Are Audiences Getting Soft?” — Sam Adams at Criticwire amplifies a Dissolve piece from Noel Murray about how art is meant to be inconvenient. And, seriously, if you pause Schindler’s List to grab tacos, you’re not watching it correctly. “How Hulk Met Your Mother And The Nature Of Finales” — You Know Who at Badass Digest makes a case for the strength of “light” entertainment while arguing that How I Met Your Mother stayed true to its nature all the way through the end. It’s a strong piece, but...
- 4/3/2014
- by Scott Beggs
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
British cinematographer Daniel Landin first met director Jonathan Glazer when he did a one day pick-up shoot on "Sexy Beast." Since then, the two have collaborated on various projects, mostly commercials. Over the years, the two continued to talk about Glazer's planned adaptation of "Under the Skin" based on the novel by Michael Faber. Inspired by the films of Akira Kurosawa and Andrei Tarkofsky, in particular "Rashoman" and "Andrei Rublev," respectively, Landin and Glazer eventually collaborated to create a startlingly real and yet wholly foreign environment for Scarlett Johansson's mysterious and predatory character in "Under the Skin." We recently spoke with Landin -- who has worked as a lighting designer for Alexander McQueen's fashion shows and as a Dp for music videos for Radiohead, Robbie Williams, Madonna and others -- about the unique challenges he faced in bringing Glazer's vision to the screen, including working with existing light sources,...
- 4/2/2014
- by Paula Bernstein
- Indiewire
Under the Skin
Written by Walter Campbell
Directed by Jonathan Glazer
UK, 2013
It’s about time that people start getting excited about Jonathan Glazer and his uniquely transcendent contributions to cinema. Under the Skin represents the director’s third film, a rabbit hole masterwork of baffling beauty and seduction spearheaded by a career best performance from Scarlett Johansson. Glazer returns after a nine-year hiatus, his last film – 2004’s Birth, mostly fell on deaf ears as a divisive dramatic/thriller. While Birth was in fact a nice sophomore success, Glazer drastically steps his game up with Under the Skin, an often troubling and beautiful film that should baffle and surprise in equal measure.
Loosely adapted from a novel by Michel Faber, Under the Skin follows Johansson’s unnamed brunette seductress (though IMDb lists her as “Laura”), as she rides around rain-soaked modern Glasgow, cunningly seducing young men before harvesting their bodies in uniquely abstract fashion.
Written by Walter Campbell
Directed by Jonathan Glazer
UK, 2013
It’s about time that people start getting excited about Jonathan Glazer and his uniquely transcendent contributions to cinema. Under the Skin represents the director’s third film, a rabbit hole masterwork of baffling beauty and seduction spearheaded by a career best performance from Scarlett Johansson. Glazer returns after a nine-year hiatus, his last film – 2004’s Birth, mostly fell on deaf ears as a divisive dramatic/thriller. While Birth was in fact a nice sophomore success, Glazer drastically steps his game up with Under the Skin, an often troubling and beautiful film that should baffle and surprise in equal measure.
Loosely adapted from a novel by Michel Faber, Under the Skin follows Johansson’s unnamed brunette seductress (though IMDb lists her as “Laura”), as she rides around rain-soaked modern Glasgow, cunningly seducing young men before harvesting their bodies in uniquely abstract fashion.
- 4/1/2014
- by Ty Landis
- SoundOnSight
This is the poster for Scarlett Johansson's sci-fi thriller Under the Skin. In the film she plays an alien who is sent to seduce and abduct human men. The movie comes from director Jonathan Glazer, and this is the synopsis:
In search of loners, Laura (Scarlett Johansson) drives around the exquisitely moody landscapes of the Scottish highlands. She’s an alien, sent from afar and equipped with enough human language and awesome seductive power to capture, destroy and presumably send home human males. And then, her curiosity about her human body and an accidental act of pity disrupt her mission: talk about lost in translation! Jonathan Glazer, known for his brilliant music videos and Sexy Beast, and cowriter Walter Campbell adapt Michael Faber’s acclaimed novel to create a surprisingly layered tale. Under The Skin begins like an effectively creepy sci-fi horror film, but soon deepens into a lyrical...
In search of loners, Laura (Scarlett Johansson) drives around the exquisitely moody landscapes of the Scottish highlands. She’s an alien, sent from afar and equipped with enough human language and awesome seductive power to capture, destroy and presumably send home human males. And then, her curiosity about her human body and an accidental act of pity disrupt her mission: talk about lost in translation! Jonathan Glazer, known for his brilliant music videos and Sexy Beast, and cowriter Walter Campbell adapt Michael Faber’s acclaimed novel to create a surprisingly layered tale. Under The Skin begins like an effectively creepy sci-fi horror film, but soon deepens into a lyrical...
- 2/11/2014
- by Joey Paur
- GeekTyrant
We've got a new teaser trailer for Scarlett Johansson's sci-fi alien thriller Under the Skin, in which she plays an alien who is sent to seduce and abduct human men. It's a mesmerizing trailer that leaves a lot to the imagination. It comes from director Jonathan Glazer, and it sure looks like it's going to be a strange film.
In search of loners, Laura (Scarlett Johansson) drives around the exquisitely moody landscapes of the Scottish highlands. She’s an alien, sent from afar and equipped with enough human language and awesome seductive power to capture, destroy and presumably send home human males. And then, her curiosity about her human body and an accidental act of pity disrupt her mission: talk about lost in translation! Jonathan Glazer, known for his brilliant music videos and Sexy Beast, and cowriter Walter Campbell adapt Michael Faber’s acclaimed novel to create a surprisingly layered tale.
In search of loners, Laura (Scarlett Johansson) drives around the exquisitely moody landscapes of the Scottish highlands. She’s an alien, sent from afar and equipped with enough human language and awesome seductive power to capture, destroy and presumably send home human males. And then, her curiosity about her human body and an accidental act of pity disrupt her mission: talk about lost in translation! Jonathan Glazer, known for his brilliant music videos and Sexy Beast, and cowriter Walter Campbell adapt Michael Faber’s acclaimed novel to create a surprisingly layered tale.
- 1/31/2014
- by Joey Paur
- GeekTyrant
Stars: Scarlett Johansson, Paul Brannigan, Jessica Mance, Joe Szula, Lynsey Taylor Mackay | Written by Walter Campbell | Directed by Jonathan Glazer
Review by Scott Clark of The People’s Movies
Directed by Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beast) and filmed entirely on location across Scotland Under the Skin is a film flaunting incredible cinematography strung together by a predominantly performance-orientated narrative. Based on the Novel by Michael Faber, Under the Skin follows Laura (Scarlett Johansson), an alien from another world, as she travels across Scotland kidnapping young men.
Glazer’s latest is a sci-fi film akin to 2001: A Space Odyssey in that one of the film’s main components is its striking tone and total control over the presented image. Daniel Landin’s exquisite palette of subdued tones creates a grim atmospheric back-drop for the film’s often macabre visual style. The same gorgeous control over image translates the Scottish landscape into a strange muggy alien territory,...
Review by Scott Clark of The People’s Movies
Directed by Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beast) and filmed entirely on location across Scotland Under the Skin is a film flaunting incredible cinematography strung together by a predominantly performance-orientated narrative. Based on the Novel by Michael Faber, Under the Skin follows Laura (Scarlett Johansson), an alien from another world, as she travels across Scotland kidnapping young men.
Glazer’s latest is a sci-fi film akin to 2001: A Space Odyssey in that one of the film’s main components is its striking tone and total control over the presented image. Daniel Landin’s exquisite palette of subdued tones creates a grim atmospheric back-drop for the film’s often macabre visual style. The same gorgeous control over image translates the Scottish landscape into a strange muggy alien territory,...
- 9/30/2013
- by Guest
- Nerdly
As far as I can tell, the highly existential experiment known as Under the Skin is essentially a fish out of water story and the reaction of said fish and the school in which she's trying to swim. In this case the "fish" is an extraterrestrial being and the "school" in which she swims is humanity as a whole, with humanity represented by the people of Scotland. This, still, is an oversimplification as writer/director Jonathan Glazer (along with co-writer Walter Campbell) have loosely adapted Michel Faber's 2000 novel into a story of an alien being come to Earth to harvest humans for sustenance and, in the process, finds compassion for her victims only to find with compassion comes injury. This, at least, is my interpretation of what I see as a highly cynical look at humanity, our judgment of others and mistreatment of those we don't understand. Told through...
- 9/13/2013
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Under the Skin
Written by Jonathan Glazer and Walter Campbell
Directed by Jonathan Glazer
UK, 2013
It’s not difficult to see why Jonathan Glazer′s 9-year hiatus from the big screen has been so protracted given the deeply uncommercial nature of his extremely disquieting new film Under The Skin. Carried aloft on a wave of five-star reviews from its Venice premiere, the film is based on the cult novel by Michel Faber, and on first sight seems to be a Lynchian reworking of Roeg’s The Man Who Fell To Earth, with Scarlett Johansson perfectly cast as a porcelain succubus, all raven hair and deadly crimson lips.
We gaze at the murky wastelands of Glasgow and the mist-drenched lochs through her unyielding eyes, an alien amongst us who may or may not be an extraterrestrial, or may just be from somewhere else. She preys on the young men of the...
Written by Jonathan Glazer and Walter Campbell
Directed by Jonathan Glazer
UK, 2013
It’s not difficult to see why Jonathan Glazer′s 9-year hiatus from the big screen has been so protracted given the deeply uncommercial nature of his extremely disquieting new film Under The Skin. Carried aloft on a wave of five-star reviews from its Venice premiere, the film is based on the cult novel by Michel Faber, and on first sight seems to be a Lynchian reworking of Roeg’s The Man Who Fell To Earth, with Scarlett Johansson perfectly cast as a porcelain succubus, all raven hair and deadly crimson lips.
We gaze at the murky wastelands of Glasgow and the mist-drenched lochs through her unyielding eyes, an alien amongst us who may or may not be an extraterrestrial, or may just be from somewhere else. She preys on the young men of the...
- 9/11/2013
- by John
- SoundOnSight
Under the Skin
Written by Walter Campbell
Directed by Jonathan Glazer
UK, 2013
It’s about time that people start getting excited about Jonathan Glazer and his uniquely transcendent contributions to cinema. Under the Skin represents the director’s third film, a rabbit hole masterwork of baffling beauty and seduction spearheaded by a career best performance from Scarlett Johansson. Glazer returns after a nine-year hiatus, his last film – 2004’s Birth, mostly fell on deaf ears as a divisive dramatic/thriller. While Birth was in fact a nice sophomore success, Glazer drastically steps his game up with Under the Skin, an often troubling and beautiful film that should baffle and surprise in equal measure.
Loosely adapted from a novel by Michel Faber, Under the Skin follows Johansson’s unnamed brunette seductress (though IMDb lists her as “Laura”), as she rides around rain-soaked modern Glasgow, cunningly seducing young men before harvesting their bodies in uniquely abstract fashion.
Written by Walter Campbell
Directed by Jonathan Glazer
UK, 2013
It’s about time that people start getting excited about Jonathan Glazer and his uniquely transcendent contributions to cinema. Under the Skin represents the director’s third film, a rabbit hole masterwork of baffling beauty and seduction spearheaded by a career best performance from Scarlett Johansson. Glazer returns after a nine-year hiatus, his last film – 2004’s Birth, mostly fell on deaf ears as a divisive dramatic/thriller. While Birth was in fact a nice sophomore success, Glazer drastically steps his game up with Under the Skin, an often troubling and beautiful film that should baffle and surprise in equal measure.
Loosely adapted from a novel by Michel Faber, Under the Skin follows Johansson’s unnamed brunette seductress (though IMDb lists her as “Laura”), as she rides around rain-soaked modern Glasgow, cunningly seducing young men before harvesting their bodies in uniquely abstract fashion.
- 9/10/2013
- by Ty Landis
- SoundOnSight
Via: TheFilmStage
Scarlet Johansson plays an alien in this sci-fi erotic thriller called Under the Skin. She is sent to earth to seduce and abduct human males. Below, you'll find the first mesmerizingly psychedelic teaser trailer that is packed with a lot of dark clips. The film recently screened at the Venice Film Festival, and it seems to be getting solidly good reviews. Here's the synopsis:
In search of loners, Laura (Scarlett Johansson) drives around the exquisitely moody landscapes of the Scottish highlands. She’s an alien, sent from afar and equipped with enough human language and awesome seductive power to capture, destroy and presumably send home human males. And then, her curiosity about her human body and an accidental act of pity disrupt her mission: talk about lost in translation! Jonathan Glazer, known for his brilliant music videos and Sexy Beast, and cowriter Walter Campbell adapt Michael Faber’s...
Scarlet Johansson plays an alien in this sci-fi erotic thriller called Under the Skin. She is sent to earth to seduce and abduct human males. Below, you'll find the first mesmerizingly psychedelic teaser trailer that is packed with a lot of dark clips. The film recently screened at the Venice Film Festival, and it seems to be getting solidly good reviews. Here's the synopsis:
In search of loners, Laura (Scarlett Johansson) drives around the exquisitely moody landscapes of the Scottish highlands. She’s an alien, sent from afar and equipped with enough human language and awesome seductive power to capture, destroy and presumably send home human males. And then, her curiosity about her human body and an accidental act of pity disrupt her mission: talk about lost in translation! Jonathan Glazer, known for his brilliant music videos and Sexy Beast, and cowriter Walter Campbell adapt Michael Faber’s...
- 9/3/2013
- by Joey Paur
- GeekTyrant
Sneak Peek the $10 million-budgeted crime feature "44 Inch Chest", starring Ray Winstone, Ian McShane, John Hurt and Tom Wilkinson.
Screenplay is by Louis Mellis/David Scinto ("Sexy Beast") and produced by Richard Brown/Steve Golin ("Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind").
"44 Inch Chest" is also noted as the feature directorial debut of UK commercial director Malcolm Venville, with cinematography by Daniel Landin and a collaborative musical score between Angelo Badalamenti and Massive Attack.
"...'Colin Diamond' (Winstone) is a successful car salesman, who after discovering his wife 'Liz' is having an affair has an emotional breakdown. Diamond's friends convince him to kidnap his wife's lover. Diamond's partners in crime are gambler 'Meredith' (McShane), bigoted 'Old Man Peanut' (Hurt), practical 'Archie (Wilkinson) and combustible 'Mal (Stephen Dillane), who by turns encourages Diamond's lust for revenge..."
Click the images to enlarge and Sneak Peek "44 Inch Chest"...
Screenplay is by Louis Mellis/David Scinto ("Sexy Beast") and produced by Richard Brown/Steve Golin ("Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind").
"44 Inch Chest" is also noted as the feature directorial debut of UK commercial director Malcolm Venville, with cinematography by Daniel Landin and a collaborative musical score between Angelo Badalamenti and Massive Attack.
"...'Colin Diamond' (Winstone) is a successful car salesman, who after discovering his wife 'Liz' is having an affair has an emotional breakdown. Diamond's friends convince him to kidnap his wife's lover. Diamond's partners in crime are gambler 'Meredith' (McShane), bigoted 'Old Man Peanut' (Hurt), practical 'Archie (Wilkinson) and combustible 'Mal (Stephen Dillane), who by turns encourages Diamond's lust for revenge..."
Click the images to enlarge and Sneak Peek "44 Inch Chest"...
- 8/22/2010
- by Michael Stevens
- SneakPeek
With their florid use of the F-Word, Ray Winstone and his low-life cronies hit a high note
Can profanity be poetic? Does swearing make a screenplay soar? Can excessive use of the F-word push back the literary frontiers?
Singular screenwriters Louis Mellis and David Scinto (who penned Sexy Beast after disowning the equally edgy Gangster No 1) clearly think so and on the evidence of 44 Inch Chest they may have a point. I struggle to remember a movie which contains quite so much blistering Anglo-Saxon verbosity or which features a line to rival the full-frontal, four-letter phrase: "You fucked his fucking wife, you fucking wife fucker!" The swearing is so intense, so incessant, so insane, that at times you start to wonder whether the ghosts of Derek and Clive haven't entered the room to fulminate upon the subject of "the worst job I ever had…" And yet in the midst of...
Can profanity be poetic? Does swearing make a screenplay soar? Can excessive use of the F-word push back the literary frontiers?
Singular screenwriters Louis Mellis and David Scinto (who penned Sexy Beast after disowning the equally edgy Gangster No 1) clearly think so and on the evidence of 44 Inch Chest they may have a point. I struggle to remember a movie which contains quite so much blistering Anglo-Saxon verbosity or which features a line to rival the full-frontal, four-letter phrase: "You fucked his fucking wife, you fucking wife fucker!" The swearing is so intense, so incessant, so insane, that at times you start to wonder whether the ghosts of Derek and Clive haven't entered the room to fulminate upon the subject of "the worst job I ever had…" And yet in the midst of...
- 5/8/2010
- by Mark Kermode
- The Guardian - Film News
A pretty good year.
George Clooney in .Up in the Air.
Photo: Dale Robinette/ Paramount
It seems to be a critical tradition to bewail the awfulness of each year's movies. But how often is this really true? With the annual caveat that it's impossible (and meaningless) to designate one movie or filmmaker as the "best," here are a number of 2009 pictures I liked a lot in various aspects, with one entrant in each category selected, fairly arbitrarily, as the "best," and equally worthy contenders noted below them.
Best Picture:
"Up in the Air" A mainstream film with a complex heart and a brain, too. Not exactly a comedy, not precisely a drama, but as close to a perfect movie as any other this year.
Also really good: "The Hurt Locker": Can it actually have been seven years since Kathryn Bigelow's last picture? This scrappy low-budget film, with a breakthrough performance by Jeremy Renner,...
George Clooney in .Up in the Air.
Photo: Dale Robinette/ Paramount
It seems to be a critical tradition to bewail the awfulness of each year's movies. But how often is this really true? With the annual caveat that it's impossible (and meaningless) to designate one movie or filmmaker as the "best," here are a number of 2009 pictures I liked a lot in various aspects, with one entrant in each category selected, fairly arbitrarily, as the "best," and equally worthy contenders noted below them.
Best Picture:
"Up in the Air" A mainstream film with a complex heart and a brain, too. Not exactly a comedy, not precisely a drama, but as close to a perfect movie as any other this year.
Also really good: "The Hurt Locker": Can it actually have been seven years since Kathryn Bigelow's last picture? This scrappy low-budget film, with a breakthrough performance by Jeremy Renner,...
- 12/22/2009
- MTV Movie News
In the mini-pantheon of Asian-horror remakes, The Uninvited winds up being more welcome than last year’s underachieving triumvirate of One Missed Call, The Eye and Shutter. Well-crafted enough that it doesn’t feel like an opportunistic knockoff, it suffers less in comparison to the Korean original, A Tale Of Two Sisters, than from the fact that the story ingredients of both are familiar from numerous past genre films.
I should pause here to note that I wasn’t one of the many who admired Kim Ji-woon’s Sisters; where plenty of viewers saw a subtle suspenser that slowly but surely ratcheted up the creep factor, I saw an enervatingly paced film where not much happened—certainly not much that hadn’t been done before and better in other domestic-fear fare from Korea and Japan—and “paid off” in a show-offy, incoherent series of revelations. The Uninvited (which, to confuse things,...
I should pause here to note that I wasn’t one of the many who admired Kim Ji-woon’s Sisters; where plenty of viewers saw a subtle suspenser that slowly but surely ratcheted up the creep factor, I saw an enervatingly paced film where not much happened—certainly not much that hadn’t been done before and better in other domestic-fear fare from Korea and Japan—and “paid off” in a show-offy, incoherent series of revelations. The Uninvited (which, to confuse things,...
- 1/30/2009
- Fangoria
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