Screenjabber blogs

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows iPad app

Stuart OConnor — Sun, 13 May 2012 18:12:17 +0100

By Stuart O'Connor

Thanks to Twitter, we've seen TV becoming more interactive – particularly during live shows. Witness the Twitter activity here in the UK during shows such as The Apprentice, Britain's Got Talent and Question Time, to name but three.

Now the movie studios are getting in on the interactive act, with what they're calling "second screen" apps for tablets and mobile devices. So far we've seen iPad apps in conjunction with the Blu-ray releases of The Smurfs and Monty Python & The Holy Grail, and the latest to get the treatment is Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.

Currently available just for the iPad, you download the app and sync it to your Blu-ray player as you start watching the film. Of course, that depends on both your iPad and your Blu-ray player being Wi-Fi enabled.

So while watching the film, at certain points you can use the app to gain extra content about the film – additional clips, behind-the-scenes footage, script pages, image galleries, interviews with cast members, scene breakdowns and so on. It really does enrich the viewing experience.

A nice touch, though, is that away from the film itself, the app is also standalone – a sort of coffe-table ebook companion to the film. So while travelling on a train, say, you can read all about the making of the film itself, from scripts to storyboards, and even a history of the Sherlock Holmes character, from the oringal Conan Doyle novels to the latest film and TV incarnations (although the well-regarded Steven Moffat BBC series Sherlock doesn't rate a mention).

It's the perfect app – available for free at the Apple iTunes store – for Holmes buffs everywhere, and points the way to how our entertainment is going to become much more interactive.

• Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is out on DVD and Blu-ray in the UK on Monday May 14

Walt Disney's Taxi Driver

Tim Pelan — Sun, 13 May 2012 17:06:20 +0100

By Tim Pelan

Bryan Boyce's short film parody Walt Disney's Taxi Driver comically substitutes Disney imagery with Travis Bickle's obsessions of Manhattan malaise and decay. The insertion of a mousketeer hat onto Travis' head looks slightly "goofy", but other touches are brilliant – you'll never hear the line "All the animals come out at night" the same way again ...

Screenjabber Pubcast: Darkness takes its toll

Stuart OConnor — Sun, 13 May 2012 15:44:22 +0100

Sarah Sharp is back in charge of the boys this week as she corrals Doug Cooper, Keith Emmerson and Stuart O'Connnor to discuss Tim Burton and Johnny Depp's latest effort, Dark Shadows, Mel Gibson in How I Spent My Summer Vacation (aka Get The Gringo), Cafe de Flore and 2 Days in New York. Plus we ponder the mystery of Sarah's missing shoes ....

You can listen to and download the podcast here – or subscribe to it on iTunes ... plus you can also follow us on Twitter, or join us on Facebook.

We'd love your feedback too, please. After having a listen, come back here and post your comments below (you'll have to register first).

Terrestrial TV Highlights 12-18 May

Louise Bolotin — Fri, 11 May 2012 14:48:17 +0100

By Louise Bolotin

If you don’t look where you’re going on Saturday night, you’ll end up tripping over a slew of classic movies – not since Christmas has a weekend night been so packed with films (Channel 4 especially has turned over its entire schedule). But if you’re not scoffing popcorn, following The Voice/Britain’s Got Talent or eagerly tuning into the outstanding Scandi-noir drama The Bridge then you could do worse, a lot worse, than watch Ben Hur (Channel 5, 6.05pm). It’s not the Charlton Heston classic film, but a fairly respectable miniseries being shown in one three and a half hours chunk. It’s littered with major British talent – Hugh Bonneville, Marc Warren, Alex Kingston, Ray Winstone and Art Malik all put in appearances while Joseph Morgan stars in the title role.

Coast returns for a seventh series on Sunday (BBC2, 9pm). Neil Oliver again fronts the show, with team regulars each contributing segments. This opening episode veers between Scapa Flow in the far north of Scotland and the Isle of Wight down south.

There’s a Downton Abbeyish feel to Chatsworth (Monday, 9pm, BBC1), a three-part documentary exploring a year in the life of this most famous of stately homes. The house doubled up as Mr Darcy’s home in the 2005 film Pride and Prejudice but it’s the several hundred staff who run the place and shed light on the behind-the-scenes efforts to keep everything ticking over for the public who offer more compelling viewing than the lush antiques and aristocracy. The iconic 7 Up franchise is back for its seventh series, with those bright-faced kids now 56 Up (ITV1, 9pm). Michael Apted again writes, directs and presents the participants of this most fascinating of social experiments in depicting ordinary people’s lives down the years.

Legal drama Silk (Tuesday, BBC1, 9pm), starring Maxine Peake, has been recommissioned for a second series. There are six new episodes about life at Shoe Lane Chambers where Martha Costello, now promoted to QC, tackles tough court cases. The excellent supporting cast includes Frances Barber, Rupert Penry-Jones and Phil Davis. From crime to grime, Dirty Britain (ITV1, 9pm) offers an intriguing insight into those clean up after us, from the sewer crew in Manchester who get first-hand knowledge of dietary habits to the litter-pickers who clear the ground after major events. The psychological aspects of our filthy habits are enlightening. Dexy’s, touring their first album after a 27-year hiatus, are the star attraction on Later Live… (BBC2, 10pm), while folkie June Tabor and smooth-voiced Rumer line up alongside Hot Chip.

Felicity Kendal’s Indian Shakespeare Quest (Wednesday, BBC2, 9pm) is surely one of the more bizarre contenders in the BBC’s current cross-platform Shakespeare season but the tale of how the Bard shaped the culture of the subcontinent is a fascinating one. Kendal, who grew up in India, began her acting career there and speaks fluent Hindi, so is in a good position to explain why the playwright had such a powerful effect, from colonial dominance to the rise of the Bollywood musical. Meanwhile, Lewis (ITV1, 8pm) returns for a sixth season with four new two-hour episodes. This classy whodunit has been a very successful spinoff from Morse and the first mystery sees Lewis and Hathaway try to crack a strange case in which a Lewis Carroll obsessive dies in horrific circumstances.

With the Beeb’s move to Salford almost complete and most of the rest of the London base shifting across the capital to the revamped Bush House, the site of the iconic “concrete doughnut” in Shepherd’s Bush is about to be emptied and sold off. Tales of Television Centre (Thursday, BBC4, 9pm) is a loving, feature-length homage to the fifty-plus years it served as the base for national broadcasting. Stars old and new queue up to share their memories and there are some fabulous clips from the archives. For a snapshot of this most popular of popular culture, this is unmissable.

Get ready to rumble: Prometheus set for D-box treatment

Tim Pelan — Thu, 10 May 2012 07:10:04 +0100

By Tim Pelan

D-box is the latest cinema gimmick meant to "enhance" the cinema experience. According to the D-box company website: "With its unique, patented technology, D-BOX Motion Code, uses motion effects specifically programmed for each film, TV series or video game, which are sent to a motion generating system integrated within either a platform or a seat. The resulting motion is perfectly synchronised with all onscreen action, creating an unmatched realistic immersive experience."

The seats have begun to slowly roll out in UK cinemas, starting in Glasgow's Cineworld, and arriving later in the O2, Greenwich, among other planned sites. Matthew Eyre, vice-president of operations for Cineworld Europe, has confirmed in an interview with 3D Focus that Prometheus will get the D-BOX treatment. Here is an extract:

3D Focus: Will Prometheus be a D-BOX encoded film?
Matthew Eyre: Yes and it is looking fabulous. We are extremely excited about Prometheus. We are also extremely excited about Snow White (and the Huntsman) which opens on the same day, both of which are D-BOX encoded. This is all part of our Customer First process. We are trying to enhance the experience for all of our customers in many forms. Technology is just one of them. We have put IMAX in three sites so far and we are putting D-BOX in another three and then potentially another 24 or 25 after that over the next two years based on the success of the initial roll out.

3D Focus: What are your expectations for Prometheus?
Eyre: It’s a bit early to say for Prometheus. We have started taking bookings for d box which is doing extremely well. It is going to be big for us.

What do you think? Do you want to feel every shake and roll as Prometheus touches down planet side? Feel Shaw's (Noomi Rapace) stomach lurch as she tumbles down corridors, pursued by who knows what? We'd like to see your comments below.

INTERVIEW: The Raid

Stuart OConnor — Wed, 09 May 2012 20:38:21 +0100

Screenjabber's Stuart Barr chats with The Raid writer-director Gareth Evans and star Iko Uwais. WARNING: this article contains some spoilers. Beware!!!

As you have no doubt heard, there is a new boy on the action movie scene. Welsh director Gareth Evans is about to make a huge splash with Indonesian film The Raid. The film also brings us a new action star in Iko Uwais, the most promising new martial arts star to come along since Tony Jaa. Screenjabber gave The Raid a five star-review – and honestly, at this point it is hard to see another action film coming anywhere near it for sheer visceral thrills this year.

This isn’t the first collaboration between Evans and Uwais. They first met when the director was shooting a documentary about the Indonesian martial art of silat (of which Uwais is an expert). Evans admits they didn’t hit it off immediately; Uwais was smarting from a bad experience with a talent agency which had seen him swindled out of a deposit and then not paid for filming a commercial.

Stung by this experience he was working for a telecoms company as a courier when they met. “When we saw him perform ... we thought, ‘Wow he’s got screen presence’.” Evans contacted Uwais to offer him a leading role in the silat film he was prepping, Merantau. “He didn’t believe me until the first day of the shoot. Which would have been one really elaborate prank to pull on him.” Merantau was a moderate success in Indonesia, but it failed to break out internationally. In the film Uwais played a villager who comes to the big city to pursue a dream of teaching Silat. Inevitably he gets caught up trying to save a girl and her brother from some local gangsters. The film is, as Evans freely admits, overlong, but established that the director had style and showed off Uwais’ impressive talents. It also taught Evans some valuable lessons that would go into the planning of The Raid.

Ghost Recon Alpha revealed

Toby Weidmann — Tue, 08 May 2012 11:03:51 +0100

By Toby Weidmann

A full-length feature film based on Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon video game series moved a step closer to becoming a reality this week with the launch of a live-action short based on the bestselling franchise. Ghost Recon Alpha has been made available to stream exclusively on LOVEFiLM’s Instant channel for free, and serves as a taster for what gamers can expect in the forthcoming Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Future Soldier game, released on all platforms on May 25.

The short film, which follows the exploits of four special forces soldiers, the Ghosts, as they hunt for a stolen WMD, boasts an impressive line-up of talent, most notably behind the camera. The film has been written by Timothy J Sexton, of Children Of Men (2006) fame, and directed by François Alaux and Hervé De Crécy, winners of an Oscar for their short Logorama (2009). The quality doesn’t stop there, with Trent Opaloch (District 9, 2009) as cinematographer; Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol’s (2012) Radek Bruna coordinating the stunts; real Navy SEAL Harry Humphries serving as military advisor; and the film produced by Little Minx, a satellite production company of Ridley and Tony Scott’s.

The game’s publisher, Ubisoft, set up Ubisoft Motion Pictures last year with the express purpose of developing films based on its popular videogame franchises, which include Assassin’s Creed, Splinter Cell and Ghost Recon games. While Adrian Lacey, IP Development Director, Ubisoft Paris Studios, would not be drawn on specifics of a feature-length Ghost Recon film at a launch event for the short, he did drop a few titbits about the company’s intentions.

“Ubisoft Motion Pictures is something we have put together recently,” he said. “Entertainment is obviously a big part of what we do, so [a feature-length film] is something we’re looking at very closely. Ubisoft Motion Pictures tells that story in itself. There’s nothing I can confirm, but as owners of the Tom Clancy franchise we are looking at developing things further. [Ghost Recon Alpha] was just the first test.”

Perhaps an indicator of future developments is, although the short sets up Ghost Recon Future Soldier’s main story arc, Ubisoft also wanted the film to hold up as a standalone piece. Lacey said: “We really wanted to give the film-makers the independence to give you a unique experience to the game. We wanted it to stand and live as its own entity.”

• To watch Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Alpha, visit LOVEFiLM

Screenjabber Pubcast: Just the two of us ...

Stuart OConnor — Sat, 05 May 2012 16:16:33 +0100

It's a slimmed down pubcast this week in more ways than one. Join Doug Cooper and Stuart O'Connnor on the comfy couch at The Bar on TCR in London as they talk about the films Safe, American Reunion, Silent House, Goodbye First Love and How I Spent My Summer Vacation (aka Get The Gringo).

Plus the guys have a bit of a whinge about movie trailers that give away too much (yes, we're looking at you, Prometheus).

You can listen to and download the podcast here – or subscribe to it on iTunes ... plus you can also follow us on Twitter, or join us on Facebook.

We'd love your feedback too, please. After having a listen, come back here and post your comments below (you'll have to register first).

J'Accuse: Star Wars Episode IV SE Jabba scene

Tim Pelan — Fri, 04 May 2012 19:24:44 +0100

In which Jabba confronts Han Solo

By Tim Pelan

When George Lucas first clapped eyes on what CGI could do for his mate Steven Spielberg’s dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, he probably rubbed his hands with glee and thought: "Great. Now I can improve some of those things that bugged me back in the ’70s!" Fair enough; replacing the wolfman in the cantina scene (a mask from a wolfman B-grade horror movie) with what looks like a duck billed platypus probably seemed like a good idea at the time.

But Lucas went too far. He dusted off old unused footage of rotund Northern Ireland actor Declan Mulholland as the prototype Jabba The Hutt, fearsome ganglord and Han Solo’s underworld employer, narked with him for losing a shipment of Spice. Lucas had his ILM minions work for the best part of a year prior to the 1997 Special Edition re-release, to basically rotoscope a crappy looking approximation of the memorable Jabba puppet from Return Of The Jedi over Mulholland’s frame. Then he stuck it back into the film.

The scene fails on a number of levels. Harrison Ford, as Solo, walks closely all around Mulholland, going behind him, stopping just beside and right in front of him. To accomodate the CGI alien Jabba, ILM had Han clumsily lift up as if stepping on jabba’s tail to get around him. Apart from looking plain awful, this just doesn’t square with Jabba’s fearsome reputation, especially in front of his hired goons. Compare Han’s cockiness here to his wary bargaining when he is released from the carbonite in Jabba’s palace on Return Of The Jedi.

Also, the CGI just wasn’t good enough. Jabba looks like a six-year-old slapped a bunch of play dough together: he’s the wrong colour and texture, he changes size according to the camera angle he is viewed from, he is just a mess. The scene also rehashes dialogue from Han’s encounter with Greedo in the Cantina. it is completely extraneous, inserted purely to impress. I wasn’t clamouring to see this scene. If Lucas wanted to insert missing scenes I would far rather have had Luke’s conversation with Biggs at Anchorhead station before his old friend leaves to join the rebellion, even if it does slow the pace of the film a little. The Jabba scene failed and Lucas must have listened to the fans. But not too closely. He merely improved the quality of the CGI slug for the DVD release. It still jolts the viewer out of the film because it simply looks fake, it is obvious the actor and the creature aren’t occupying the same reality.

There is also room to doubt Lucas’ claims that Jabba was always intended to be a large, slug-like creature of some sort. Mulholland’s so called “fuzzy vest” as Lucas described it (as if a stand in visual motif for the creature), is a fully fledged costume, in keeping with the underworld style of Mos Eisley’s “hive of scum and villainy.” Also, Mulholland wasn’t just a stand-in; ok, he wasn’t a big name on the world stage, but he had a body of work behind him. There is no indication in contemporary records that the scene was being shot with consideration towards adding effects shots later, as the actors interaction together also indicates. It is possible Lucas intended Jabba to be humanoid, at least. When he dropped the scene, dialogue between Han and Greedo was extended to incorporate elements from the Han / Jabba encounter. Han’s line to Jabba (“You’re a wonderful human being”) is now meant to be a humourous reference to his alien appearance, when in fact it could have been a sarcastic reference to his human personality.

The final insult is adding Boba Fett to the encounter, as a Jabba hanger on. He’s supposed to be a cool bounty hunter, who just happened to stay on at Jabba’s palace to party on after capturing Solo. Just because fans like him, he doesn’t have to pop up everywhere! He even turns and mugs toward the camera towards the scene’s close.

Here is the 1977 footage, the 1997 special edition and the 2004 DVD effects edited together.

Terrestrial TV Highlights 5-11 May

Louise Bolotin — Fri, 04 May 2012 14:55:55 +0100

By Louise Bolotin

The ambitious Planet Earth Live (Sunday, BBC1, 7.50pm) promises to be unmissable for fans of wildlife documentaries. This is far grander in scale than any David Attenborough series as the Beeb attempts to cover the springtime struggles of animals the world over in eight episodes over the next three weeks. Spring, of course, is when most baby creatures are born, giving us a unique cross-continental opportunity to eavesdrop on their struggles to survive in a harsh world. It is indeed live so expect the unexpected. (Also Wed/Thur this week, see schedules for times.)

A Civil Arrangement (BBC4, 9pm) stars Alison Steadman as Isobel, the mother of a lesbian who’s about to get hitched in a civil partnership ceremony. It’s a 30-minute comic monologue written by Colin Hough in which Isobel ponders on the state of her own marriage to her difficult husband as she helps her equally stubborn daughter with the wedding preparations.

Older viewers will love Britain Beware (Monday, ITV1, 10.15pm), an unashamedly nostalgic look back at the public information films that were regularly screened on the BBC and ITV up until the 70s. From Tufty the Squirrel’s road safety tips to the exhortation to “learn to swim!”, this was the nanny state on celluloid, warning us of danger at every turn. Younger viewers – tune in and hoot at how we used to live. Ade Edmondson presents.

Are we about to see a revival in UK manufacturing? After Mary Portas opened a factory in Manchester to make designer knickers, here’s The Town Taking on China (Tuesday, BBC2, 8pm) in which cushion producer Tony King expands his Merseyside operation because his production base in China is struggling to recruit workers and his labour costs are soaring there. A snapshot of one company, this two-parter offers a window of insight into the changing nature of business in Britain in a global economy.

There’s a fresh look at the 1936 abdication crisis in Edward VIII: the Plot to Topple a King (Wednesday, C4, 9pm), which explores the role played by Cosmo Gordon Lang, the-then Archbishop of Canterbury. Vehemently opposed to the prospect of Wallis Simpson as queen, Lang sought relentlessly to manipulate the situation, like a modern-day Iago, and is depicted here as the ruthless power behind the throne who forced Edward to stand down as king. Presented by former England cricket captain Michael Vaughan, Sporting Heroes: After the Final Whistle (BBC1, 10.45pm) looks at what happens to professional sports players when the time comes to retire from the field. It’s a shame this interesting documentary is being screened so late as it throws up some important questions about making the right decisions on handling life post-career and reveals the very different outcomes for some well-known stars.

Never mind the brilliant Alan Turing, it appears he was beaten to it. The Two Thousand Year Old Computer (Thursday, BBC4, 9pm) unveils the truth behind the ancient mystery of the Antikythera Mechanism, a computer invented by the Ancient Greeks. It’s taken experts more than a century to work out what out it was from the surviving bronze fragments, so complex was this machine. This is a simply astonishing tale that forces us to rethink everything we know about what we thought was a modern machine. My documentary of the week.

First screened two years ago, BBC4 is reshowing Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Runnin’ Down a Dream, Peter Bogdanovich’s epic four-hour long documentary of the band (Friday, 9pm). Episodes, the sitcom starring Friends heart-throb Matt LeBlanc and the ever-watchable Tamsin Grieg is back for a second series on BBC2 at 10pm. And, as the Eurovision Song Contest looms nearer, our entry this year Engelbert Humperdinck warms the sofa on the Graham Norton Show on BBC1 at 10.35pm. Strictly for diehard fans.

The Expendables 2 international trailer

Stuart OConnor — Fri, 04 May 2012 07:00:59 +0100

By Tim Pelan

The new trailer for The Expendables 2 has arrived, with more explosions than you can shake a stick of dynamite at. Plenty more corny lines ("I now pronounce you man and KNIFE!"), bigger roles for '80s action legends Arnold Schwarzenegger ("I'm back!") and Bruce Willis, plus some newcomers – Jean-Claude Van Damme and the infamous Chuck Norris. Sly has passed directing duties over to Simon West, of Con Air fame, and the scale this time around looks bigger, though no less ridiculous. Here is the synopsis:

The Expendables are back and this time it’s personal… Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone), Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Yin Yang (Jet Li), Gunnar Jensen (Dolph Lundgren), Toll Road (Randy Couture) and Hale Caesar (Terry Crews) – with newest members Billy the Kid (Liam Hemsworth) and Maggie (Yu Nan) aboard – are reunited when Mr Church (Willis) enlists the Expendables to take on a seemingly simple job. The task looks like an easy paycheck for Barney and his band of old-school mercenaries. But when things go wrong and one of their own is viciously killed, the Expendables are compelled to seek revenge in hostile territory where the odds are stacked against them.

Hell-bent on payback, the crew cuts a swath of destruction through opposing forces, wreaking havoc and shutting down an unexpected threat in the nick of time – six pounds of weapons-grade plutonium; enough to change the balance of power in the world. But that’s nothing compared to the justice they serve against the villainous adversary who savagely murdered their brother. That is done the Expendables way…

The Expendables 2 opens in the UK on August 17. You can watch the trailer below.

Latest trailer for The Dark Knight Rises

Tim Pelan — Tue, 01 May 2012 17:01:08 +0100

By Tim Pelan

It's trailer madness! Chris Nolan says: "I see your Prometheus trailer, Sir Ridley, and I raise you," then unveils his (hopefully final) trailer for The Dark Knight Rises, ahead of its expected American premiere with their screening of The Avengers. It's a sombre piece that delivers on mood and suggests ominous events in store for the poor (and not so poor) folk of Gotham, without managing to give too much away, in my opinion. We have it embedded below.

Latest Prometheus trailer

Tim Pelan — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 07:00:41 +0100

By Tim Pelan

If you happen to live in the United Kingdom, were you watching Homeland on Channel 4 on Sunday night? Did you see the latest Prometheus trailer? No? Well, fear not, we have it for you here, to pause and peruse for all the spoilerific details you want. And judging by what IS revealed in very quick cuts, it doesn't look likely that Prometheus will receive that dreaded kiddie-friendly 12 certificate.

Pubcast Special: A chat with Robert Llewellyn

Stuart OConnor — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 18:06:00 +0100

Stuart O'Connor is joined by Toby Weidmann and Stuart Barr for a beer and a chat with writer, actor and broadcaster Robert Llewellyn about his new novel, News From Gardenia, as well as his other ongoing projects, Fully Loaded and Carpool.

Oh, yes, and we also get some juicy goss about the upcoming new series of Red Dwarf.

You can listen to and download the podcast here – or subscribe to it on iTunes ... plus you can also follow us on Twitter, or join us on Facebook.

Terrestrial TV Highlights 28 April – 4 May

Louise Bolotin — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 09:17:20 +0100

By Louise Bolotin

If there’s one thing Saturday viewing really lacks it’s something really meaty on the main channels. BBC4 has been doing a fine job over the last year or two with its imported Nordic noir thrillers entertaining a million or so of us every week (if you missed The Bridge last weekend, catch up now then tune in at 9pm), but otherwise all that’s on offer is an endless diet of talent shows and quizzes.

BBC2 is having a nostalgic “light entertainment” moment this Saturday, the best of which is The Art of Tommy Cooper (9pm), an affectionate portrait of the ever-popular magician and stand-up. It’s too brief at just half an hour long, but there are some standout archive clips of his act among the talking heads paying tribute. Earlier, there’s a repeat of Stephen Fry’s 100 Greatest Gadgets (C4, 6.30pm), a sofa-crushing three hours long but a nonetheless entertaining cornucopia of the toys and gizmos that have changed our world. Look out for fellow geeks such as Charlie Brooker waxing lyrical about their must-haves.

Notable for their ability to trash a dustbin in two minutes, dump the foulest-smelling poo in your garden and keep you awake half the night with their sexual antics, yet also highly intelligent and beautiful, urban foxes have divided city populations like no other. Foxes Live – Wild in the City (Monday, C4, 8pm) is the first attempt to put these fascinating creatures in the spotlight and chart what they do and how many there are. Some of the foxes have had cameras attached so we can see the world for the first time through their eyes. Daily all week.

ITV1 is screening a mammoth documentary on Tuesday about The Hunt for Bin Laden (9pm). Weighing in at two hours long, it charts the 20-year search for the world’s most feared and wanted terrorist that culminated in his assassination in Pakistan exactly a year ago. There’s a pleasing symmetry between this and last week’s C4 docu on the liquid bomb plot, as this adds to our pool of understanding about those who seek the downfall of the West. Secret service operatives are uncharacteristically frank here about their many missed or bungled attempts to find Bin Laden. Later Live… with Jools Holland (BBC2, 10pm) is largely notable for Sinead O’Connor’s first appearance on the show in 17 years. Damon Albarn and Richard Hawley also play.

In amongst the surfeit of shows that tell us how much our valuables might be worth at auction, Lucy Worsley: Antiques Uncovered (Wednesday, BBC2, 8pm) is a gem, pardon the pun. This is an entertaining social history about how those heirlooms were actually used back in the day and it explores just why certain makers of fine china and furniture became sought-after brands in the modern era. And Sarah Lund is back on our screens, reimagined as Sarah Linden in The Killing US (Wednesday, C4, 10pm), the second series of the English-language remake. In my view the original is far superior but the American version is good enough in its own way

The BBC’s Shakespeare season gets really underway with the two-part Shakespeare in Italy (Thursday, BBC2, 9pm), a country where a significant number of his plays were set. The charming historian Francesco da Mosto explores why the Bard was so drawn to Italy, a place he had never visited but was so heavily influenced by. The theme this week is love, with the inevitable look at Romeo and Juliet’s Verona plus a trip to Venice where the tormented Othello found his life unravelling.

It’s election night, too, of course. Vote 2012 (BBC1, from 11.35pm) is fronted by stalwart David Dimbleby, who takes us through the local election results for thousands of council seats around the nation. Will the Tories and Lib Dems get a further kicking? Will Ed Miliband finally earn his stripes? It’s also the result for the London mayoral battle, surely a toss-up between Ken and Boris. And a dozen or so cities are having referenda on whether to opt for their own elected mayors. Emily Maitlis, Nick Robinson and Jeremy Vine are on hand to analyse all the twists and turns.

Friday is very definitely Fleetwood Mac night on BBC4. Don’t Stop (9pm) covers their lengthy career from the 1960s onwards, while Peter Green: Man of the World (10pm) is a feature-length portrait of the Mac’s founder member. An early casualty of the band, he struggled with numerous addictions and mental ill health for many years but somehow survived to resume his recording career. He tells his side of the story, with input from his former bandmates and celebrity fans like Noel Gallagher and Carlos Santana. Both programmes are packed with archive footage.

Screenjabber Pubcast: We assemble to review The Avengers

Stuart OConnor — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 19:05:39 +0100

Well, The Avengers and quite a few other films come under the critical gaze this week. Host Sarah Sharp takes control of the discussion as Doug Cooper, Stuart Barr, Nick Wheatley, Keith Emmerson and Stuart O'Connor gather at The Bar on TCR for a beer or two, and a bit of banter.

Also in the lineup this week are Battleship, The Cabin in the Woods, Elles, Elfie Hopkins, Lockout, Salmon Fishing in The Yemen, Strippers vs Werewolves and Being Elmo. So sit back, pour yourself a drink (unless you're driving) and enjoy ...

You can listen to and download the podcast here – or subscribe to it on iTunes ... plus you can also follow us on Twitter, or join us on Facebook.

We'd love your feedback too, please. After having a listen, come back here and post your comments below (you'll have to register first).

Hulk: an arthouse blockbuster

Tim Pelan — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 18:08:41 +0100

By Tim Pelan

What do you get when you combine Marvel’s monster from the id with an Oscar winning art house director? Crouching green giant, hidden subtext. Welcome to Hulk, a SMASHING art house blockbuster!

I’ve never previously liked superhero crossover or team stories, so I am cautiously optimistic at the thought of The Hulk's portrayal in Joss Whedon’s The Avengers. The Hulk to me was a rage machine unleashed by Bill Bixby banging his hand off a car jack in the lashing rain, on the run from his past. That’s why Ang Lee’s serious psychodrama is such an interesting take on what too many fanboys see as just “HULK SMASH”.

“We’re going to have to watch that temper of yours.”

Ang Lee’s approach was to deal with repressed memory, and the sins of the father visited on the son. Nick Nolte is David Banner, a former scientist on a military base who secretly continued his super strength / recovery experiments on his infant son, when barred from using human test subjects. Young Bruce witnessed a violent argument between his parents, but as an adult (played by Eric Bana), he has blocked the details from his mind. Now a brilliant scientist himself, he works unwittingly in the same field with his ex-girlfriend Betty Ross (Jennifer Connelly). Betty is the daughter of General “Thunderbolt” Ross (Sam Elliott), who locked Banner snr up for the crime witnessed by Bruce. Banner snr is now released and hoping to find the key to his life’s work through his son’s untapped transformative state.

“I didn’t come here to see you. I came here to see my son. My real son. The one inside of you.”

After the traditional Gamma ray exposure, Bruce is ready to Hulk out when pushed. Banner Snr sends his mutated dogs to eliminate Betty, the barrier between father and son reconnecting. Hulk has a ridiculous fight with the giant pooches, the only mis-step in his action sequences. Only an actor of Elliott’s calibre can deliver the line “He saved you from a giant, mutant poodle, and I’m indebted to him for that“, and not sound ridiculous.

The director tried to create a monster movie, in the vein of Frankenstein or Jekyll and Hyde, rather than a superhero film. After the Scooby scrap, Hulk crawls to the water’s edge and looks down at his reflection, like Frankenstein’s monster. What sells the creature is the emoting in his face, like King Kong with Anne Darrow. When Betty realises Bruce is locked somewhere within, she reaches up to touch his face. Hulk cares for her, and feels confused, in mental torment.

“Talbot. You’re making me angry.”

The real villain of the piece is Glenn Talbot (Josh Lucas), a rival scientist working with General Ross. Banner is taken into custody in, irony of ironies, the same base where he lived with his crazy dad. As Bruce and Betty wander the deserted civilian area, they pause by Bruce’s old home. In a simple but brilliantly composed shot, Betty pushes off on a rusty swing, Bruce leaning on the frame, fence posts stretching into the flat horizon behind them. This speaks a thousand words about their lost innocence. Talbot tries to push Banner’s buttons, but he holds it together, so he’s put under to try and stir his subconscious into erupting. As David Banner tells Betty the truth of what happened, Bruce finally remembers and Hulks out, bigger and badder than before.

“Bingo, that must be some jumbo nightmare he’s having.”

There then follows a fantastic extended chase sequence, through the underground base, the desert wilderness, and finally San Francisco, before a bonkers face off between Hulk and Banner snr. More than Frankenstein, the father is obsessed with transcending his own puny flesh.

Bana gives a subtle, nuanced performance as the quiet, restrained Bruce, gradually coming to realise what monsters lurk in the shadows of his mind. Connelly gives an equally good interpretation of what is little more than lover / mother substitute (it’s all very Freudian and Oedipal). In fact, the entire cast is excellent, playing a straight bat all the way. Editing is extremely innovative, with multiple shots framed like comic book panels, zooming in and out, alternating between splash panels and insert shots. In the most bravura example, Hulk spits out an explosive charge. Talbot looks at it, turns to run, and is frozen on the spot, comic style outlining around his body as the explosion fills the frame behind him.

“When it happens, when it comes over me and I totally lose control, I like it.”

From traditional lighting and house / office sets for the drama led first segment, the cinematography and set design leaps into heightened hyper-reality for the Hulk extended chase. His rage completely unleashed, Hulk goes for it, smashing tanks and helicopters, leaping great distances, a primal force unfettered by societal norms.

The CGI Hulk is fantastic, the texture of grit and sand on his skin totally convincing (as convincing as a giant green behemoth can be, anyway). At one point the effects team considered an animatronic Hulk, for the transformation sequences at least, with arms swelling and turning green over a metal armature, ripping material. This approach was ditched, however.

The Hulk changes size according to how angry he gets, and can leap huge distances, all from the comics. But for the reboot a few years later, this was scaled down, because it was deemed silly. It seems Lee couldn’t win. He was damned for treating characterisation at a serious and measured pace, then for giving the fans the kind of Hulk they expected from the original strips.

I don’t care, I think Hulk is a brave, bold departure, that deserves more recognition. Don’t dare dismiss it, because as Bruce says in the rainforest, “No me hogas enfader, no te va a gustar cuando este enfadado!”

Terrestrial TV Highlights 21-27 April

Louise Bolotin — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 12:04:53 +0100

By Louise Bolotin

It seems there is no end to our appetite for subtitled Scandinavian crime drama. First there was Wallander (so good we remade it in English with Kenneth Branagh), then last year two series of The Killing had us all in ecstasy, followed by Borgen which began airing in the new year. BBC4 bought in all these and is now showing The Bridge (Saturday, 9pm). The bridge in question is the Oresund, nearly 8km long and connecting Copenhagen to Malmo in southern Sweden, and there’s a body on it, dumped exactly halfway across. Thus we get two detectives for the price of one – the Swedish Saga Noren, blonde, spiky and cool, and her Danish counterpart Martin Rohde, beardy, shambling and irritating. This double episode kicks off with the mismatched pair on the trail of a clever serial killer and battling for jurisdiction over their joint investigation.

As we head into a mammoth summer of sport, The London Marathon (Sunday, BBC1) should provide some tips on which professional runners to watch in the Olympics. Coverage starts at 8.30am. Brenda Blethyn is back on screen as the Geordie detective Vera on ITV1 at 8pm. This was a surprise hit last year, Blethyn having been expertly cast despite the initial raised eyebrows. She’s a joy to watch as the scruffy but tough DCI Stanhope. Episode one sees Vera reunited with her first-ever sergeant – his home has been firebombed and the attack raises difficult issues for them both. Hot on Vera’s heels, Perspectives: David Walliams – the Genius of Dahl (10.15pm) sees the comic turned children’s writer explore the enduring appeal of Roald Dahl’s books for kids and adults alike. The poignant moments in his life are balanced perfectly with the contributions from comedian Tim Minchin and actor Joanna Lumley.

The BBC is launching a major Shakespeare season across its platforms – you can’t fail to have missed the ubiquitous trailers. Matters get underway on Monday evening with The King and the Playwright: a Jacobean History (BBC4, 9pm), a three-part exploration of the works the Bard produced later in his career after the Scottish and English crowns had been united under James I. The monarchical union, achieved amid much political turbulence, inspired Shakespeare to write some of his finest plays, including King Lear.

I think I may be alone in not liking Richard Bacon’s radio show on Five Live, but I had new-found respect for him when he took on the internet trolls on BBC3 a few weeks ago. Now he’s back on the small screen with a mission to unearth the nation’s Hidden Talent (Tuesday, C4, 9pm). Here the broadcaster takes a fairly randomly chosen group of ordinary people out of their usual jobs and their comfort zones and plonks them into a series of tests to see what, if any, hitherto undiscovered aptitudes they have for things they have never attempted before. The results are surprising and fascinating. Later Live… with Jools Holland (10pm) is notable for appearances from Norah Jones and the Chieftains, who’ve been playing together an incredible 50 years.

If you’ve seen the Judi Dench film Mrs Brown, then Queen Victoria’s Last Love (Wednesday, C4, 9pm) will be slightly familiar territory. Here, her love interest is not the rough and ready Scottish ghillie played so wonderfully by Billy Connolly in the film, but her Muslim servant Abdul Kharim. Kharim started out as her chef but quickly worked his way up the royal ranks to become her trusted confidant. Was he, like John Brown, possibly a secret lover? We may never know but this documentary examines the disruption this highly controversial liaison caused for the monarchy, to the point Victoria’s children prepared to have her declared insane and the empire’s stability teetered.

The Plot to Bring Down Britain’s Planes (Thursday, C4, 9pm) investigates terrorist plans to blow up US aircraft departing from Heathrow with liquid bombs in 2006. This thrilling documentary rocks up the tension between our patient, methodical MI5 operatives and the gung-ho Americans who wanted to swoop in and arrest the suspects pronto. The Yanks got their way, as usual, neatly illustrating our very one-sided special relationship, but we still face restrictions on what we can take on board a flight and this is an eye-opener about some of the ways we track al-Qaeda cells for months before rounding them up to face trial.

The week finishes with two satisfyingly frothy morsels of showbiz. John Le Mesurier – It’s All Been Rather Lovely (Friday, BBC2, 9pm) is a portrait of the much-loved Dad’s Army actor who epitomised the English gentleman both on and off screen. Classy, charming and also privately long-suffering (twice cuckolded in his married life), this is a heartwarming tribute to the man and the actor. It’s followed by …Sings Bacharach and David (BBC4, 10pm), a top-notch selection of archive performances of big stars singing their way through the hits of this great songwriting partnership. They’re all there – Sandie Shaw, Cilla and Dusty, Aretha Franklin and Rufus Wainwright, even the Stranglers with their fabulous, much underrated version of Walk on By with its 4-minute keyboard solo in the middle.

Pubcast Special: The Cabin in The Woods

Stuart OConnor — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 10:52:12 +0100

WARNING: Here there be spoilers!

Host Stuart O'Connor is joined by Screenjabber regulars Doug Cooper and Stuart Barr – along with special guests Robbie Collin, from the Daily Telegraph, and Sam Faulkner from Screengeek.co.uk – to delve into the twists and turns of The Cabin in The Woods. And a reminder: do NOT listen until after you've seen the film.

• Read our review of The Cabin in The Woods

You can listen to and download the podcast here – or subscribe to it on iTunes ... plus you can also follow us on Twitter, or join us on Facebook.

HBO to adapt Philip Kerr Berlin Noir novels as series

Tim Pelan — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 22:24:17 +0100

By Tim Pelan

Buoyed perhaps by the success of HBO adapting George R R Martin's complex, multi-arc A Song Of Ice And Fire series as Game Of Thrones, HBO and Playtone partners Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman are in talks with author Philip Kerr to adapt his Berlin Noir novels as an HBO series.

The novels focus on Kripo (Kriminalpolizei) detective and latterly private detective Bernie Gunther, throughout the political upheaval of the 1930s, survival during the war years, and the emerging Cold War, a series that spans 20 years.

Gunther is a wisecracking everyman, a decent sort in a world gone mad, tipping a hat to Dashiel Hammett's Sam Spade and Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe.

Deadline.com reports: "Numerous studios and producers pursued the property as a feature, but the author decided to go for a prestige series. He’s gone through enough development hell on the feature front on past books and HBO can point to enough successes like Game of Thrones to show the merits of an episodic adaptation of novels with storylines that span around 20 years. Playtone just produced the critically lauded Jay Roach-directed Sarah Palin pic Game Change, and after producing with Jann Wenner the 25th Anniversary of the Rock N Roll Hall Of Fame, Playtone is producing each annual induction ceremony that will air on HBO."

Chris Nolan interview and fresh Dark Knight Rises images

Tim Pelan — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 20:49:00 +0100

By Tim Pelan

An illuminating interview with Christopher Nolan by Jeffrey Ressner has appeared on The Directors Guild Of America website.

In it Nolan talks about how he began, shooting on his dad's old Super 8 camera. How he is self-taught; his working process with actors; how he uses multiple cameras for stunt work but relies on single camera for dramatic scenes.

He talks about how he visualises what he wants without the need for storyboards, and his belief that shooting on film as opposed to digitally is superior. Nolan talks about what he loves about IMAX, and how he feels 3D is "a misnomer". It's a fascinating interview, well worth a read.

Also appearing on the web are further hi-res images from The Dark Knight Rises, shown below.

Prometheus preview Q&A: full transcript

Stuart OConnor — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 09:16:00 +0100

Ridley Scott, Noomi Rapace, Michael Fasssbender and Charlize Theron talk Prometheus

CHAIR CHRIS HEWITT (from Empire magazine): Ridley you had an idea for a prequel to ‘Alien' based around the Space Jockey for a long, long time but at what point did that coalesce into something solid, into this?

Prometheus preview

Stuart OConnor — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 09:03:45 +0100

By Stuart O'Connor

It's always the way. I've been spending months now trying to avoid all talk of Prometheus. I've read absolutely nothing about it. I've watched none of the teasers or trailers. I've totally ignored those monthly magazines with spoiler-filled features. Why? Because I wanted to go and see it in June completely cold. I wanted to sit there with no preconceptions, knowing nothing at all about the film, and just let it all unfold on the screen before me.

Sod's Law, though – I was invited to a preview event, where you see a few minutes of footage from the film and get a Q&A with someone involved in the production. I was tempted to say no and stick to my cunning – though tough to execute – plan. Until I saw who was on the list for us to speak to: director Ridley Scott, and stars Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron and Noomi Rapace.

Needless to say, my plan went straight out the window.

So, what did they show us? It was about 12 minutes of footage, and it felt like the scenes were from early in the film. You can read a complete breakdown of the footage over at Bleeding Cool, if you want to, but briefly:

• We meet Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) on an archeological expedition in Scotland.
• We meet David (Michael Fassbender), an android, on board the Prometheus.
• We meet Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron), the company "suit" on board the Prometheus.

The Prometheus is a scientific ship (the Nostromo in the original Alien from 1979 was a mining vessel) and is all clean, shiny and sterile. The scenes on board that we're shown are very reminiscent of the opening scenes of Alien – we're introduced to the crew as they are woken from hypersleep, then see them interacting over breakfast as they near their destination.

The footage was presented in 3D, and it works. Very well. It shows that once again, in the hands of an exceptional filmmaker, 3D is not just a gimmick but a genuine tool. Martin Scorsese proved it with Hugo last year, and it looks like Scott has followed suit with Prometheus. The scenes of the Prometheus in space were particularly impressive. Also, what comes across quite strongly is that Rapace's Shaw is probably the main character in the film.

So yes, I was pretty hyped about Promethus before this preview event; I'm now super-excited. Along with The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises, Prometheus is one of the most anticipated blockusters of 2012. And it's looking as though it will live up to the hype.

• Listen to the full Prometheus Q&A
• Read the full transcript of the Prometheus Q&A

PRESS RELEASE: WWE stars Regal and Fox to meet fans in Cardiff

Stuart OConnor — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 15:18:15 +0100

WHAT: Signing session
WHERE: HMV Cardiff, Queen Street
WHEN: Thursday April 19 at 4pm

Fans of WWE get the very rare chance to meet William Regal and Alicia Fox in person when they visit HMV’s Queen Street store in Cardiff to sign copies of The Best Of Raw & Smackdown 2011 on DVD and Blu-ray on Thursday April 19.

William and Alicia will be at the store from 4pm to meet fans and sign copies of the new DVD and Blu-ray. Raw and Smackdown 2011 feature the most surprising moments, strangest guest appearances, and most intense rivalries in and out of the ring. From the return of The Rock and Edge's shocking retirement to C.M. Punk's stormy tenure as WWE champion and the removal of Mr. McMahon as company COO, all are featured in this "must have" retrospective.

Due to anticipated demand the event will be wristbanded. Fans can pick up free wristbands at HMV which allow them access to the signing. 300 Wristbands will be available only from HMV Cardiff store from 8am on the day of the event. One wristband per customer maximum, in person only, while stocks last, subject to availability, at participating store only. To avoid disappointment it should be noted that all Personal Appearances are subject to change and WWE/HMV provides no assurances that any talent named will be attending on the day.

INTERVIEW: The Gospel of Us director Dave McKean

Stuart OConnor — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 17:45:02 +0100

By Jonathan Hatfull

As a three day open-air event, The Gospel of Us is hardly a typical stage-to-screen adaptation. Was that an interesting challenge for you?
It was a great challenge. It was terrifying; I only got one take of everything. It only happened once and if we didn’t get it we didn’t get it. If an actor stumbled a line, well that’s something I’m going to have to deal with. And so there was all of that. It was unusual because bound up in the very nature of the piece was this idea of interpretation, and mythologizing. So Michael was really wonderful and supportive and open to me making my own film, my own version. There are bits in the film that have barely got anything to do with what he planned for the play but he understood and was excited by the fact that this was my version, my voice. Because it doesn’t take anything away from what he did with the play or what Owen did with the novel.

Was this project something you were looking for? How did they get in touch with you?
No, not at all. I was in touch with Michael about doing a book; he’s a big comics fan. We were talking about doing a book that would be part autobiography, part actor’s journal, and something that would deal with the three big roles in his life at the time. One of them was Hamlet, which he did at the Young Vic, one of them was Edgar Allan Poe, which he’s written a film script for, great script, and one of them was this, playing Christ, or a Christ-like figure.

What a brilliant trio!
Great trio! All have father issues, I think. So he was doing research and he went to Oberammergau in Germany where they do a big passion play every ten years, and I met Owen Sheers and Bill Mitchell there, and they were all talking about this show, and it just sounded amazing. And so at the end of the weekend I said “Why isn’t anybody shooting this? This sounds too good to miss.” Bill Mitchell just said “Well you do it” So I didn’t go chasing this at all, it just blossomed as an amazing opportunity.

Would you ever be interested in directing a more conventional film with more of a traditional narrative?
Well I have, my second and third film have kind of swapped places. I directed a film a couple of years ago called Luna that has unfortunately been dogged by the disease of low-budget filmmaking in England: money. We’ve kept on having to refinance the film, so now we’re in the last stage. It’s all shot, all edited, animation has started. Got the music started and sorted, so we’re in the last bit. I think we’ll finish it this year. But it was due to be finished a year and a half ago. That’s a much more regular film in as much as it’s four actors in a house. I had control over it and I wrote it. It’s kind of an unusual film.

How do you think your background in illustration affects how you direct films, especially with a film like this?
This felt like an illustration job, in as much as, if I’m doing an illustration job with Ray Bradbury or Neil Gaiman, or whoever, they are the author. Their text is king, and I have to look at the text and find the best way to express that visually. And I can push and pull things, I can draw attention to things, I can affect it quite heavily, actually, and with the books that I’ve done with an author called David Almond, I can actually start to change the story to a degree, and obviously he has to be OK with that. And that’s the power of illustration, I can do that.

With this, Michael and Owen and Bill were the authors. The text was done, I didn’t interfere with the text or with the actors’ performances or anything. I didn’t direct anything! I’m credited as the director, I didn’t direct anything. So that was all done, and then I gathered that raw material, the raw text, and then the illustration took place in the editing suite, where I cut certain things, emphasise certain things, grade it a certain way, add treatments, add animation, to express certain ideas. Not to get in the way, I hope I didn’t get in the way of it, but to try and express it, in film, not theatre.

Do you have any plans for future film projects?
I have vague plans. The problem with film is that I have no power. I can’t make a film happen. I can do the lunches! I can nod approvingly and listen to people saying “Yeah, we’ll fund the next film” and know that it probably won’t happen. Unlike a book where I do have power, I can call the publisher and say “I want to do this book, can we make it happen?” Because they’re cheap, basically, and there’s too much money in film, I can’t make that happen. So I have plans but I try not to dwell on them, really. So I’m happy if they happen, but I live my life as an illustrator, I’m very happy as an illustrator, and the film thing just percolates along. I’m not a full-time filmmaker, it would drive me crazy.

POST-SCREENING Q&A

The Curzon Renoir screening of The Gospel of Us was introduced by star Michael Sheen and director Dave McKean. Both men were both clearly very proud of what they had achieved in bringing the three day theatrical event to the big screen. Sheen spoke of how excited he was about bringing McKean’s unique vision to the experience, while McKean spoke of how pleased he was to be able to present a finished version and no longer having to worry about how to nail Sheen to a cross.

After the film, Sheen and McKean returned with writer Owen Sheers to talk about their experiences making it. Sheers talked about the project as being inherently visual, with the entire town working as the stage and the idea of “The different perspectives of witness.”

Sheen told the audience that he had begun preparations for the project two and a half years before they put on the play. He spent a great deal of time trying to meet as many people in Port Talbot as possible, talking to local groups, charity organisations, and retirement communities, because he wanted them to inform him what the piece would be about. “The town has to tell us the story it wants to tell.” Sheen grew up in Port Talbot and the film clearly means a great deal to him personally, and he mentioned there are some autobiographical moments in there too. He spoke about how the town is often the brunt of jokes in the area, which has led both to a self-deprecating attitude at the same time as a fierce local pride.

Sheen, Sheers, and McKean also spoke about the fears they had as they were about to start. They only had one shot at everything, what if it rained, what if nobody showed up? Then thousands of people descended, and McKean had to scrap his plans and instruct his cameramen to shoot what they could. Paparazzi were a problem on the first day of filming, although McKean told how his wife had dealt with a photographer who was in the way by tugging on his trouser leg and shouting at him. He also talked about how the nature of the crowd meant that it was impossible to get a shot for more than three seconds without an iPad getting in the way. Sheen revealed that local theatre performers had been mixed in with the crowd but after the first day they were indistinguishable from everyone else.

What really came through during the Q&A is how impressed and pleased the three were with how much the project meant to the town. At the local premiere a few days ago there was an exhibition with photographs and written memories, while locals showed Sheers their tattoos of lines from the script. Sheen hopes that, in the future, people will point out locations from the film, “That’s where they crucified Michael Sheen, that’s where they beat him up, that’s where he needed a break and had a bit of chocolate”. On the other side of the coin, he mentioned that a teacher had asked a classroom in Port Talbot who the son of God was, and a child piped up: “Michael Sheen, Miss.”

Terrestrial TV Highlights 14-20 April

Louise Bolotin — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 12:42:37 +0100

By Louise Bolotin
It’s the 100th anniversary of the Titanic this weekend, which unless you’ve been living in a tent in the Kalahari, you couldn’t possibly have failed to notice. The Saturday and Sunday schedules are ghoulishly crammed with all sorts of screen memorabilia from the daft to the outlandish via the outright mawkish. Ignore them. There are better things to feast your viewing eyes on in the week ahead.

The week kicks off in grand style, literally, with the 165th Grand National, live from Aintree. Coverage begins on BBC1 from 1pm on Saturday, with Clare Balding fronting. The legendary steeplechase is scheduled for 4.15pm. Early birds, however, have a new cookery show to brighten the day. Saturday Cookbook (ITV1, 8.25am), presented by Michelin-starred chef Mark Sargeant and 2007 Celebrity Masterchef winner Nadia Sawalha, looks suspiciously like a copy of BBC’s Saturday Kitchen (10am) with its celebrity guest and a cook-off between Sargeant and a guest chef (Yorkshire puds rather than omelettes). It’ll be interesting to see if it can hold viewers’ attention against James Martin’s established dominance of the weekend cookery shows. The Cube (Saturday, ITV1, 9.15pm) returns for a fifth run, with Philip Schofield once more at the helm of the physical skill-based game show inside the giant Perspex box.

Tucked away on BBC1 late on Sunday night is the bizarre story of Denis Avey. Witness to Auschwitz (11.10pm) reveals how he broke into the most notorious death camp and swapped places with a Jewish inmate, thus saving his life. Avey, now in his 90s, tells his tale while experts examine whether his feat would even have been possible. Is Avey telling the truth or not? Tune in to find out.

The 70s (Monday, BBC2, 9pm) is more than a four-part nostalgic trip down memory lane. It was the decade that saw Britons flock en masse to Benidorm as foreign package holidays took hold while wearing some of the most hideous fashions. Historian Dominic Sandbrook covers these in a gently mocking sort of way, while casting a more serious look at the major political upheavals that included the miners’ strike, the Winter of Discontent and the rise of Thatcher. Enjoy the terrific soundtrack as he also documents the period’s music genres of glam, prog rock, disco and punk.

Jools Holland returns on Tuesday for his long-running Later Live series (BBC2, 10pm). Legend Paul Weller is the headline guest, showcasing his chart-topping album Sonik Kicks. There’s more fabulousness on Wednesday – Elizabeth Taylor: Auction of a Lifetime (Wednesday, C4, 9pm) is a serious look at the film icon’s unrivalled collection of jewels. They went under auction last year, raising a staggering $116 million. This film tells the stories behind some of the rarer and feted stones, interspersed with some edge-of-the-seat clips from the auction. And there are some revealing contributions from Hollywood A-listers that include the likes of Liza Minelli and Mickey Rooney.

BBC2 dominates the Thursday night schedule, firstly with the return of top chefs Antonio Carluccio and Gennaro Contaldo. The Two Greedy Italians: Still Hungry (8pm) hit the road in their homeland in a camper van. First stop for the pair is Calabria, in the toe of the country’s boot, where they recall childhood meals and cook up some local recipes. Louis Theroux: Extreme Love (9pm) follows, in which the quirky film-maker visits a special school for autistic children in New Jersey. The school is pioneering methods that help both the children and their parents, who often live with almost unbearable burdens. It’s not always easy to watch but as you’d expect with a Theroux programme there are unexpected insights galore into this little-understood condition.

Interview: Drew Goddard

Stuart OConnor — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 17:02:49 +0100

If you go down to the woods today ...

By Stuart Barr

At Glasgow FrightFest in February, there was significant buzz about one film not being screened, THE CABIN IN THE WOODS. You cannot have failed to have heard about Drew Goddard’s directorial debut, produced and co-written by fan favourite Joss Whedon. Many lucky FrightFesters have already seen the movie at advance screenings in London and Lincoln but on the 13th of April Lionsgate are finally releasing the film many people are calling a “game changer” for the horror genre.

Goddard is nothing if not energetic in promoting his debut. Normally such chats are a splurge of details about the film in question, but CABIN is a bit different. It’s one of those rare films that works exists within a genre (in this case horror obviously), but like Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson’s SCREAM (1996) it uses the audiences overfamiliarity with the material to subvert expectations and surprise. As such the less you know going into the film the more fun you will have. So interviews with Goddard have been a case of dancing around the meat of the film. This one will be no different.

Lets wind the clock back a little and look at the reasons why it has been such a long and difficult road for this film to reach your local screen. Filming of Cabin was completed way back in 2009, with the film intended for release in February 2010. This was bumped back almost year to January 2011 as the 3D craze was at its height and the studio behind the film, MGM, decided to post convert it. Plans were scuppered when MGM filed for bankruptcy in November of 2010 and Cabin became another asset to be fought over. This must have been a frustrating time for the debut director, did Goddard ever lose faith?

“No, not at all. We weren’t the only people affected by this. THE HOBBIT got delayed, James Bond got delayed. There’s a reason those movies aren’t in theatres yet, they should have been out years ago. When you see heavyweights like The Hobbit and Bond going down, you realise it is not about you. This was about bigger problems... I was more worried about protecting the film, we knew because the studio went bankrupt that there was going to be new ownership. Cabin is different, it’s not your average everyday movie, and you need to make sure that someone who is in charge understands it... Lionsgate won it and they were great. That just calmed everything down. Once I knew they didn’t want to change anything, they liked the film for what it was and were behind it. As soon as I knew that it calmed me down immensely.”

Thankfully the 3D plan (which neither Goddard or Whedon were in favour of) was sensibly dropped along the way.

I put it to Goddard, that it is a little bit of a hard sell creating a film that by its nature is best experienced cold. One can easily recommend it to fans of Joss Whedon, and also say that horror fans will find something to interest them. But how would he sell it to someone who was neither? “...we set out to make the most fun horror movie that we knew how to make. That was our goal, we wanted to give audiences the experience of a good horror film where you are laughing as much as you are screaming... one of the most gratifying things about making this movie, we hear time and time again ‘y’know I don’t even like horror films, but I love this film’”.

Whedon has described the film as ‘a loving hate letter’ to the horror genre. Goddard smiles when he hears this, it’s clearly been coming up a lot. “The key word in there is ‘love’, because we love the genre and we always have.” So where does the ‘hate’ part come from? “... there [are] things that have become a little stale. We noticed the sort of ultra violence, fetishisation of the kill, dumbing down of [horror] films starting to happen. This movie was very much a reaction to that in some ways.”

Cabin has been read as a condemnation of the ‘torture porn’ sub genre. Goddard is keen to make sure this notion is dispelled. “There are certainly films that meet that criteria that I love. So I always feel weird bashing an entire genre. The truth is that there are good movies and there are bad movies. There are good movies that have torture in them, that I have responded to, and there are bad ones... The truth is we just love horror movies and we just set out to make the best one we knew how to make.”

It must be extraordinary to hear people talking about your debut film as writer and director and using terms like ‘game changer’? “it’s nice when people are saying nice things, but it’s not like we set out to try and deconstruct anything, or change a game.” The director laughs at the notion “We just wanted to tell the best story we knew how to tell... I leave it to everyone else to decide how it should be viewed.”

The is no getting away from the fact that CABIN is a film that takes an active approach to genre. That cat is very much out of the bag. So what films influenced Drew’s love of horror? “I grew up in the eighties, nobody was more influential on me than John Carpenter and Sam Raimi. Those two, they sort of shaped me in a very profound way. They were my gateway drug and it just sort of expanded outward from there I suppose.”

In another interview you said that when you were young you were most scared by the psycho’s, but that now you found the monsters more appealing. What might have caused that shift? “...it all comes down to execution, a man in a mask can still be incredibly scary. There’s a movie called THE STRANGERS that came out not too long ago that scared the hell out of me. And that is just people in masks... there’s scary monsters and there are scary men, if it’s well done it will get me.”

There is a level on which CABIN seems to be grappling with the fundamental question of why we watch horror films at all. Why does Goddard think he is drawn to them? “There is certainly something about the release that I enjoy. In particular watching [horror] with an audience and feeling that energy. There is almost a ritual aspect to watching horror films... we all get in touch with the darker spirit and in a weird way celebrate it. There’s nothing like it, no other genre has that palpable energy that courses through the room when we are all screaming at the same time. I must get us in touch with some primal instincts. Otherwise I don’t know why we would do it.”

Stephen King has said that horror and comedy are bedfellows, that you can stand outside a movie theatre without knowing what is playing, but if you hear the audience you know it is either laughter or screams. So it’s either a comedy, or a horror film. “Absolutely, I think they are different sides of the same coin. There is something about getting in touch with that horrific side of you that needs a release, that needs the comedy to help. I remember the first time I saw ALIEN... seeing the alien burst through the chest... the audience was stunned and then broke out into laughter. Even though there was nothing. It wasn’t a joke. I feel that people needed that response, they needed to release because what they had seen was so horrific.”

Goddard grew up in the New Mexico town of Los Alamos, which is where the atomic bomb was created. In Cabin there are two key characters played by Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford that clearly seems to have come from the director’s well of childhood experience. “This film was very much influenced by where I grew up... the only reason [Los Alamos] exists is to make weapons. So certainly, that was a profound influence on me, and it will always be. It’s a protected suburban environment whose sole purpose is to design weapons of mass destruction. So the problems inherent there where things we wanted to explore with Cabin in the Woods.”

Some viewers may find echoes with the section of BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE where Michael Moore tries to draw parallels with the tragic school shooting and the fact that many of the parents of Columbine worked in a plant that constructed missiles. There is something about the industrialisation of instruments of destruction, and how the process removes the connection between the product of workers’ labour, and the products’ intended purpose. Which is? As the sentient bomb says in John Carpenter and Dan O’Bannon’s DARK STAR ‘to explode of course’.

Whedon has said of Goddard that he is the type of guy who will spend hours picking out the right type of blood spatter (this makes him a true FrightFester at heart), so which is better Hammer poster paint, Fulci orange or Argento pink? The director laughs.. “that’s a great question... In terms of finding the right balance, I look at THE DESCENT a lot... I like my blood to read sometimes black. I feel that if it goes too florescent it takes me out of it, it doesn’t look like real blood. I like to feel that the blood is oxidising as its happening. You want to see that striation, where starts brighter and then slowly gets darker as real blood does. In recent times HIGH TENSION (the US title of HAUTE TENSION, aka SWITCHBLADE ROMANCE) did it really well.”

With such a long delay between shooting and release, you might worry that Cabin will look outdated. However, the film has a rather hazy sense of period that makes it hard to date when it is set. Was this intentional, or just luck? “No I was definitely aiming for the haziness, because I didn’t want it to be about any particular point in time. Because of the nature of what we are doing there is a tendency for people to look at it and say that this must be a critique of what is happening right now which I did not want. I wanted it to be a more global critique, I wanted it to be about the bigger questions not what is happening today.

“It was very much intentional that I didn’t make specific pop culture references that would tie is into a time period... Thank god I did, because when we got delayed I was very happy that we didn’t tie ourselves in to a specific period.”

In some ways the three year delay in the film’s release has worked in Cabin’s favour. For one thing Chris Hemsworth has become a star in those years. Goddard agrees “It’s fantastic. We joke about it, but it’s true, this is the best thing that could have happened to us. Things have worked out great, our actor has become the god of thunder and we are at a studio that loves and supports us. Joss and I joke all the time, be careful what you worry about, it might just be the best thing for you.”

• This interview first appeared in the FrightFest online magazine

From Titanic to Tinseltown: Belfast's Painthall Studios

Tim Pelan — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 17:08:03 +0100

By Tim Pelan

The Painthall of the former Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast’s Queen’s Island is the immense construction where workers once painted component parts of the mighty ships that followed such majestic liners as the Olympic and the Titanic. Out of the ashes of the industrial past, a new booming industry is gathering remarkable pace. Now they are filmmaking, not shipbuilding, within this unprepossessing building.

Set on an eight-acre site five minutes from central Belfast, the Painthall, run by Northern Ireland Screen, contains four 16,000sq ft “cells”. These were the paint cells where the ships would be painted. They are set out within a square and connected by an internal road and streets. Each cell is 90ft tall and has one 3ft thick external wall that is actually a 75ft door. The building itself has massive doors 170ft by 60ft that can be opened fully, so that sets constructed within can actually be wheeled outside if required for filming in good weather. Otherwise they can be used indoors against green screen.

For a sense of how big the sets within can be, here is a featurette on the first major production to shoot there, children’s fantasy adventure City Of Ember, starring Bill Murray and Tim Robbins, and produced by Tom Hanks.

Northern Ireland Screen took a gamble after City Of Ember by taking out a three-year lease on the Painthall. Initially it lay vacant for seven months, but since then, Painthall Studios has not looked back. Among the many prestige projects filmed there are the Iraq-based TV drama Occupation, Danny McBride’s fantasy / sword-and-sorcery spoof Your Highness, and HBO juggernaut Game Of Thrones, which recently finished filming its second series at the studio and other locations worldwide.

All four cells were used on Your Highness, two linked up for a castle interior set, and linked to a courtyard that extended outside also. Here is a compilation of behind the scenes footage from the Your Highness locations around Northern Ireland, and on sets within the Painthall studios.

Due to the enormous size of the building, there was at one time a four-second reverb on sound. Purpose built acoustic drapes have minimised that to an acceptable level. Painthall construction manager and local boy Tom Martin started in the film business in 1990, and has worked on many projects including The Crying Game, Braveheart and Mission: Impossible, so the studio and it’s army of grips, riggers, carpenters and so on is in safe hands. He has remarked that productions such as Game Of Thrones love the fact that they can have all the studio space they need within the heart of a thriving city, yet be within ten minutes of a very adaptable countryside location, perfect for the fantasy / middle ages settings.

The Painthall studio has inherited five wild cats that manage rodent control, and make themselves at home underneath the studio floors. The biggest, a ginger named Spartacus, has even taking to sleeping on the Iron Throne of one of the Game Of Thrones sets. A great honour was to have George RR Martin, author of the Song Of Fire And Ice series on which Game Of Thrones is based, visit the set and sing the praises of the local and international crew, and the superb facilities they worked in. The more positive feedback there is, the more work will come there. HBO is committed to using the studios as long as the show is recommissioned.

The use of the facility and the good working practices between the American and local crews has generated renewed confidence in the local film and TV industry. Even independent film makers are feeling the buzz. Marty Stalker of Scattered Imagaes screened short films by himself and other filmmakers made as part of the C Project in a local cinema on March 31. Belfast itself is increasingly doubling for other locations in TV projects, seen as a cheaper and reliable alternative to London facilities.

The biopic Christopher And His Kind, starring current Doctor Who star Matt Smith, filmed 1930s Berlin scenes there, complete with Nazi flags draped from Georgian buildings. The conspiracy drama Hidden, starring Philip Glennister, used many Belfast city centre locations to stand in for scenes in contemporary London.

Two new stages are to be built on the waterfront adjacent to the Painthall. The aim is to have smaller and larger projects shooting concurrently, or to offer even more flexibility to larger projects. At the minute the exterior looks anonymous and industrial, with building work going on, and no studio logo even up. Within a few years though, it will be as identifiable as the famous 007 stage at Pinewood, and a centre piece to the civic expansion that is going on in the Titanic Quarter, a soon to be rapidly bustling hub of hotels, apartments and new college facilities, as well as the new state of the art Titanic visitor centre. Perhaps some day within its cells a Bond villains volcano lair will be built? ”We’ve been expecting yew, Mister Bond, so we have!” Ahem. I’ll get me coat …

Death Waltz Recording Company debuts with vicious vinyl

Stuart OConnor — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 15:50:20 +0100

By Stuart Barr

Founded by Rough Trade record store manager Spencer Hickman, Death Waltz Recording Company is a new venture aiming to reissue (or in some cases just plain “issue”) classic and cult film soundtracks in lavish-sounding vinyl special editions.

Strictly limited to only 300 copies, each of their first round of releases is being pressed on coloured vinyl and will be accompanied by specially written liner notes, newly commissioned artwork, and a variety of added value goodies such as posters and screen prints.

Clearly made for fans by fans, the releases look to bring a similar level of collectibility and loving care that Arrow video have offered with their range of cult Blu-ray releases. The titles announced for Death Waltz’s first round of releases should really get the juices flowing in the mouths of soundtrack fanatics.

The first two releases scheduled for May are:

Zombie Flesh Eaters (Zombi 2) composed by Fabio Frizzi
A first on vinyl. Frizzi’s score for Lucio Fulci’s best known spaghetti splatter flick is memorable in its own right. The release comes on red and clear splatter vinyl, with artwork from cult favourite Graham Humphreys the artist responsible for many iconic UK horror posters and VHS covers including The Evil Dead and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Humphrey’s also designs the posters for the London Film4 Frightfest Festival. There will be sleeve notes from Frizzi and musician and genre film buff Stephen Thrower.

Escape From New York, composed by John Carpenter
Remastered, with six tracks that never made the film. Artwork by Jay Shaw (aka Iron Jaiden). Sleeve notes by Carpenter’s frequent musical collaborator Alan Howarth. The release will be pressed on black and orange vinyl.

Future Death Waltz releases will include Jeff Grace’s House of the Devil score, Johan Söderqvist’s Let The Right One In score, and Michael Andrews Donnie Darko score.

These releases are sure to be sought after collectors items, they are being sold exclusively from Death Waltz’s website.

Terrestrial TV Highlights 7-13 April

Louise Bolotin — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 12:28:07 +0100

By Louise Bolotin

Easter wouldn’t be Easter without masses of old films crammed into the schedules. It’s as if the channel heads assume everyone is going away so don’t bother to programme anything half-decent for those staying home, who are in the majority. Predictably, the weekend highlights revolve around religion and sport.

Indeed, the weekend would be unthinkable without the annual Boat Race (Saturday, BBC1, 1pm). Now in its 158th year, the Oxford and Cambridge rowers battle it out on the Thames between Putney and Chiswick yet again. Cambridge have scooped the trophy more times overall , but only just, while Oxford have won 7 of the last 10, so place your bets carefully.

For the faithful, church services kick off on Saturday with Easter from Kings (BBC2, 5.05pm). On Easter Sunday, BBC1 is the channel to watch, with the live Easter Day Eucharist at 10am, followed by the traditional Urbi et Orbi, live from Rome at 11am.

The best viewing of the long Easter weekend is undoubtedly the massive slice of popular culture known as Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall (Monday, Five, 1.40pm), to mark the 25th anniversary of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s staggeringly successful musical (it’s taken $5 billion at the box office). This Cameron Mackintosh production was filmed last October and stars Ramin Karimloo as the Phantom and Sierra Boggess as Christine. It’s a bum-numbing three and a half hours, so make yourself comfy because this is a gorgeous production with spectacular sets and shouldn’t be missed.

The Mighty Mississippi with Trevor McDonald (Tuesday, ITV1, 9pm) sees the popular newscaster embark on another three-part travelogue, exploring the biggest and most important American waterway. Don’t expect any groundbreaking surprises – this series is all about famous landmarks, beautiful scenery and the history. Setting out on his trip from New Orleans, Sir Trevor takes us through the Deep South and the taint of slavery as he heads upstream. There’s light relief at 10.35pm on BBC1 with the Matt Lucas Awards, in which the popular comic brings his Radio 4 show And the Winner Is to the small screen. Along with his studio guests, Lucas decides which unsung heroes should get a gong of recognition. This one definitely needs time to bed in, and sparkier guests, but it has its good moments.

If the Apprentice, which is dominating Wednesday nights again (and looking very tired with it), doesn’t cut it for you then maybe the thoughtful Divine Women (BBC2, 9pm) will. Bettany Hughes fronts this three-part series exploring the central role women have played in all religions from pretty much the dawn of time, even if it’s been largely hidden. This is a delightfully feminist exploration that restores these women to a place in the public history annals.

As the media reaches fever pitch over the 100th anniversary of the Titanic disaster (15th April), there’s a timely and poignant appraisal of The Sinking of the Concordia: Caught on Camera (Wednesday, C4, 9pm). The rapid sinking of the cruise ship off the coast of Italy in January stunned the world in an age when big liners really are supposed to be unsinkable. This documentary is told from the passengers’ perspective, many of whom recorded the disaster on their mobile phones as it unfolded. Their footage is shocking.

It’s comedy central on Thursday with, firstly, the return of Russell Howard’s Good News (BBC3, 9pm). Now in the primetime slot, the irrepressible comic takes the mick out of the week’s top headlines. And Ricky Gervais is back too, with a one-off comic drama. Derek (C4, 10pm) is probably the controversial star’s best work since The Office. At just 35 minutes long, it’s a brief, bittersweet vignette about a vulnerable old man working in a retirement home. It’s not perfect, but close, and thankfully a million miles from Gervais’s recent, ghastly anti-PC outings.

There’s more to laugh about on Friday when Have I got News For You returns for its 43rd run (BBC1, 9pm), but you really won’t want to miss the first-class rockumentary Sweet Home Alabama (BBC4, 9pm). This exploration of the Southern rock genre takes the civil rights movement as its starting point and catalogues the success of bands such as Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers, who teetered between country, confederate culture and redneckery to produce a unique sound. And beards. Don’t forget the beards.