Right after House of Cards was nominated for four Golden Globes, Netflix released the first trailer for Season 2; Kevin Spacey, Robin Wright and Carey Stoll were nominated for their roles, while the show was nominated for Best Drama Series.
“The road to power is paved with hypocrisy … and casualties,” Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey), says. Expect this season to be darker, more brutal. We can’t wait for the February 14th 2014 release date. Let the butchery begin.
With the secret release of Beyoncé’s self titled visual album today, Queen Bey is the woman that everyone is taking about. Get Beyoncé’s music video looks from Soft Paris, as featured in ‘Jealous’ and ‘Haunted’.
Beyonce released her new album which went straight to iTunes without warning in the middle of the night. She announced it on Instagram. Bearing a brand new music video for each of its 14 tracks as well as four bonus videos, we are pretty excited and just in time for Christmas too. Let’s hope someone puts it in our stocking (metaphorically anyway) A 30-second preview is below. What do you think?
Martin Scorsese has said he wants to retire from film-making after a ‘few more films’. The legendary Oscar-winning director was speaking last weekend at the Marrakech film festival, where he was acting as jury president. He went on:
“I have the desire to make many films, but as of now, I’m 71 and there’s only a couple more left if I get to make them, I miss the time when I had the desire to experiment and try different kinds of films, I miss that time, but that’s done, it’s over. There is obligation as you get older, you have family. I’ve been very lucky in the last 10 years or so to have found projects that combine the desire, the obligation to my family and the financiers.”
Scorsese said that when he started working with Leonardo DiCaprio it was “tricky” because the actor was so well known for Titanic. “When I did Gangs of New York and The Aviator, people kept asking me, ‘Is he an actor?'”
“I said yes. I saw What’s Eating Gilbert’s Grape, he film he did with [Robert] de Niro, This Boy’s Life before Titanic. So there’s a stigma there which people still refer to.
“But we found that he regenerated my enthusiasm for making films. Mainly because, as you get older, it gets physically difficult and also the business especially – the financial issues. You’re responsible for a lot of money, if you get it. It’s all pressure, but can you do it? His enthusiasm and excitement really kept me going, for another five pictures now.”
I had the pleasure of working on Scorsese’s Hugo and it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I still feel honored. I am glad that Scorsese will at least make a few more films, his contribution to cinema is outstanding. The day he retires will be a sad one but we will still have his legacy.
Take a bow! Noddy Holder, the man who admitted his song ‘Merry Christmas Everybody’ is like winning the lottery each year. He’s never admitted the actual income he receives form the PRS (Performing Rights Society).
The budding team of researchers at Prezzybox have spent the last year adding up all the factors that contribute to a wealthy annual Xmas cheque to find. For the first time here’s a definitive Christmas Royalty Calculator! As you can see here: http://www.prezzybox.com/apps/
This shows the Christmas Songs Royalty Earnings so far in 2013 *Keep checking as it updates every second. In 2013 Noddy Holder has earnt an amazing half a million pounds so far.
By the 31st of December Noddy Holder will have made well over £800,000, Whilst Mariah will have raked in £455,000 and the Pogues £520,000, not bad for a year’s work! Our researchers take into account PRS royalties, plays on radio, TV, duke box plays, shop plays and compilation album sales.
I have (proudly) never seen Deepthroat. Neither am I a fan of, nor watch porn, but even I know who Linda Lovelace is. I also have to say that I was deeply uncomfortable when, prior to this film being released, topless pictures of Amanda Seyfried were released to the press. This film is about a women who was raped, exploited and forced into porn; so a film about a women being exploited, which is promoted by a women being exploited is just uncomfortable. So it was with trepidation that I decided to review it.
To be fair, I think the film is good and harrowing. Showing Linda Lovelace as the victim I believe she was. The script is great, the acting is top-notch and the film does justice to the storyline. But I do think the underwater shot of Amanda Seyfried swimming in just a pair of pants was unwarranted. More thought should have been given in a film which is about rape, porn and exploitation. Some of Lovelace is very hard to watch, without giving away too much, Lovelace’s abuseive husband, Chuck played brilliantly by Peter Sarsgaard, beats her, rapes her and even sells her. He’s the one who gets her into porn, almost destroying her in the process. A brilliant and almost unrecognisable Sharon Stone plays Mum, a religious, traditional woman who find it hard to deal with her daughter’s work, and in the end feels guilty for turning her away when her daughter confesses her husband beats her, “What did you do to make him beat you? There must have been a reason.” Hard to believe a mother would say this to her child, and the scene where dad, played by the always amazing Robert Patrick, talks to his daughter, confessing he has seen her movie and had to walk out, “Is it something we did?…I had to walk out, that wasn’t my little girl up there. I didn’t recognise her” he weeps down the phone.
This is not a film to watch when feeling fragile and we had a male writer even refuse to watch it (he thought the topless pictures of Amanda Seyfried that were released were inappropriate). In the end I do think this is a good film that tells the story well, it just should have been less exploitative. Some of it made for uncomfortable viewing. But it does at least show how destructive porn is. A few people seemed annoyed that the film is from Lovelace’s point-of-view but to me that seems obvious: this is her story, but less of Amanda Seyfried naked next time would make their story stronger, and do more justice to Linda Lovelace.
Lovelace 
LOVELACE DISC INFORMATION:
Released: 23rd December 2013
RRP: £17.99 (DVD), £21.99 (BD)
Certificate: 18 (UK)
Running Time: 89 minutes
Extras: Behind Lovelace
Movie equivalent of Dead Sea Scrolls found dumped in skip
Two lost films from Peter Sellers’ early career have been found in a London skip and will be shown to the public for the very first time in 50 years at the Gala Opening of the 2014 Southend Film Festival.
Dearth of a Salesman and Insomnia is Good For You were both made in 1957 by the now defunct Park Lane Films and had been thought to be lost. They were discovered by Robert Farrow when the former film studio’s office building was being cleared
Mr Farrow, who lives in Thorpe Bay, Southend on Sea said: “As the building manager it was my job to oversee that each floor of the property was properly cleared prior to refurbishment back in 1996. I spotted 21 film cans in a skip outside the office block and thought they would be good for storing my Super 8 collection in. I took them home, put them in a cupboard and pretty much forgot about them. During a recent clear out I found them again and decided to see what the tins contained – it was then I realised they were two Sellers films including the negatives, titles, show prints, outtakes and the master print. It was amazing. I knew I had something, but it wasn’t until I called Paul Cotgrove from The White Bus, who organises the Southend Film Festival, that it dawned on me that I’d found something very special indeed.”
“I received Robert’s phone call out of the blue” said Paul, adding: “He said he thought he had some Peter Sellers films and asked if I’d like to show them as part of next year’s Film Festival. Of course, I was interested straight away – but when I did some research I was gobsmacked to see that the two films are widely regarded by film historians as being ’lost’ Peter Sellers movies. Robert’s find is the Dead Sea Scrolls of the Film World.”
Neither Dearth of a Salesman nor Insomnia Is Good For You have been seen in public for over 50 years. Both are short, running for approximately thirty minutes each. Sellers filmed them not long before his first, major starring film role in The Naked Truth – he had already achieved household fame as one of The Goon Show cast on BBC Radio, but was still attempting to make his mark on the big screen. In both movies, Sellers assumes a number of roles, including doing the voiceover in Insomnia is Good
For You – as Paul adds “He almost appears to treat them as show reels to demonstrate to film producers his considerable talents. “
Mr Cotgrove now intends to have the films digitally restored and present them on the opening night of the Southend Film Festival, on 1 May 2014.
The films were co-written by celebrated Canadian screenwriter, author and essayist Mordecai Richler and Dearth of a Salesman is believed to feature Judith Wyler, daughter of the Academy Award-winning film director, William Wyler. However very little is known about either film or how they were made. Paul says “We are busy researching and trying to speak to people who might have been involved in their creation – we’d love anyone who has any information to get in touch with us.”
Dimitris Verionis from The Peter Sellers Appreciation Society says “We are very happy that these films – long considered lost – will be shown again in public. Their screening celebrates the wonderful comic talents of Peter Sellers who was – during the time they were shot- a very popular British radio star (The Goon Show), and right before he reached international stardom. I cannot wait to see them in all their digitally restored glory.”
Drop the Dead Donkey actor Neil Pearson is also a rare books collector and owns the only known remaining Insomnia script. In a recent interview he said: “No biographer of Sellers that I’ve spoken to has managed to find the film. The British Film Institute doesn’t have it. It looks as if it is comprehensively lost. The script is not very good but there were clearly other people in it. He wakes up with his wife – who played her? How come we don’t know this? I’m putting out an APB about it right now.”
Paul hopes that the two films will provide answers to Pearson’s questions – and those of countless film buffs across the globe.
I was very excited to see Hunger Games: Catching Fire because I loved the first one so much. However, I was also worried that it would not be as good because it had so much to live up to.
One of the highlights of The Hunger Games was, of course, Jennifer Lawrence. An epic heroine, the new Ripley. A survivor with a heart, sacrificing herself for her sister. Straight-talking and brave; Katniss might be one of the best female characters in a film ever. She is certainly one of the most inspirational. A role model even for real women.
Whilst watching Hunger Games: Catching Fire one thing struck me: that there may be people watching it thinking our society is not like this at all, but the Hunger Games does reflect our society, and more countries more than others. The gaps between the haves and the have nots, social injustice, oppression; the Hunger Games is more than thrilling entertainment, it is also a statement on the world we live in. An intelligent action film, well written with brilliant acting and something to say.
It is hard to not get caught up in the story, in the characters and their plight. It is hard to not keep going on about Lawrence as Katniss. The audience love her, the people love her: she is the girl whos purity and bravery sparks a revolution. I have to confess that I have not read the books, but I really want to. Josh Hutcherson (Peeta) and Liam Hemsworth (Gale) are both excellent as the men Katniss is caught between: her real love and her media love. Who will she end up with in the end?
Peeta and Katniss are celebrities but also icons. They empower the people and pay the price. Peeta, Katniss and Haymitch (Woody Harrelson) make an excellent team, bonded together through what can only be described post-traumatic-stress-disorder. Katniss wakes Peeta up by screaming as she wakes up from a nightmare, he comes into her room: ‘It’s okay’, he says, ‘I get them too.’ Even Effie (Elizabeth Banks), that vacuous idiot, can barely take the injustice, finds her conscious and her feelings.
Donald Sutherland is excellent as President Snow and Machiavellian media chief Philip Seymour Hoffman is brilliant and full of depth. I was also pleased with myself as I saw the twist before it happened. The film is relevant, gripping and worthy. In fact the only bad thing I have to say is that it ended far too quickly and I have no idea how I am going to wait an entire year for the next installment.
Five stars.
This interview with Robert Valentine and Jack Bowman*, writers of The Legend Of Springheel’d Jack, was conducted over a quiet pint in The Ostrich Inn, Colnbrook.
RV = Robert Valentine
JB = Jack Bowman (who uses the pen name “Gareth Parker”)
Q. So, the second, three-part series of The Springheel Saga: The Legend of Springheel’d Jack – is under way. Where and when does the story continue from Series One, in The Terror Of London?
RV: The Springheel Saga: The Legend Of Springheel’d Jack, picks up seven years after the events of Series One [The Strange Case Of Springheel’d Jack], with the murder of thirteen-year-old pickpocket Maria Davis, who was long said to have been the only person who Springheel Jack ever killed. By this time Springheel Jack is no longer just a London phenomenon but is being seen up and down the country.
JB: And by this point, by the time of The Terror Of London, you’re more likely to see him appearing on stage in a Penny Gaff than in a dark alleyway. It’s 1845, Queen Victoria is well-established in her position as monarch, and Victorian society as we tend to think of it is taking shape. The new series is going to take Jonah Smith into some much darker places.
RV: Starting with the stench and gloom of Jacob’s Island, Bermondsey…
Q. The first series was very faithful to the history of the 1837-38 attacks and sightings. Is this also true of The Legend Of Springheel’d Jack, or have you developed the story with more creative freedom this time?
RV: Our mission statement has always been to follow the history, whether documented or apocryphal, as closely as possible. The Maria Davis incident is a part of the Spring-heeled Jack mythology rather than the true history, but we thought it was important to honour it anyway. Also, it was supposed to have occurred in 1845 and we were very excited to explore Jack’s transition into a folk character around this time. So I wouldn’t say we’ve had more creative freedom on Series Two because we’ve always had that, but I would say we’ve had fewer historical incidents to act as our guide-rope; the original case included an awful lot of solid sightings, but by the 1840s Jack had become a less tangible figure. So rather than a string of attacks, his increasing fame as a pop culture figure is the historical development we explore in this series; the case is over but the legend is growing. Hence the title!
JB: Certainly this time around, the history and the mythology becomes a little less specific; The Strange Case Of Springheel’d Jack dealt with a very strict series of recorded historical events and we took the decision to follow them reasonably accurately. This time, we were slightly freer to tell our story without the need to hit so many historical points.
RV: As long as our story kicked off with Maria’s murder, and took place under the umbrella of 1840s ‘Springheelmania’ – so penny gaffs, penny dreadfuls, Victorian journalism, Jack usurping the Devil’s role in Punch and Judy shows, etcetera – we were otherwise free to continue the story of Jonah Smith’s obsessive quest.
JB: Indeed. Last time we said Smith was going to enter his Ahab phase, and here it starts to happen.
Q. What other cultural influences are felt on this series, both in the series and on your approach to writing it?
RV: Peter Ackroyd’s fantastic book, ‘London: The Biography’ was a big influence on us again. The first series portrayed London as a vision of hell, and had a very infernal image system. This time around we try to present London as a theatre, and everything is given that slant. Also, last time the story was a police investigation and this time – without giving too much away – it’s a more Hitchcock-esque ‘Wrong Man’ thriller. If our audience spots one or two hints of ‘The 39 Steps’ or ‘North By Northwest’ as we go along, that’s not a coincidence!
JB: A few of our personal cultural concerns also remain; there’s our continued love of the British pub in there, and a celebration of London. There was also a lot of fun debating what historical elements could come into play; for example, the now lost Bartholomew’s Fair becomes a very important backdrop in Episode Two, while the breaking of the Portland Vase in the British Museum was part of the original treatment, as was Chough and D’Urberville. But sadly, we couldn’t make those elements work and they got dropped. RV: Interestingly, when we sat down to work out the details of Series Two, our early assumptions were that the story would take place in a theatre, and we were were quite worried that it would end up too much like the brilliant 1977 Doctor Who serial, ‘The Talons of Weng-Chiang’, which takes place at the very end of the 19th century and involves sinister goings on in a Victorian music hall. Luckily, we were rescued by history because in 1845 we were too early for the music hall; this was the time of the Penny Gaff, or Victorian pub theatre. Nevertheless, we remained wary of including anything that might evoke ‘Talons’. It was an anti-influence!
Q. Were you surprised by the response to the first series?
RV: Yes, it was lovely!
JB: Oh yes. That was amazing, and we’re thankful for it every single day.
RV: To be quite honest, I was surprised Series One turned out as well as it did; it was everything we’d hoped it would be back when we didn’t realise what big a task it was going to be!
Q. What was the writing process like this time around?
RV: The writing process differed slightly on Series Two and Three, mainly because Jack was directing Andrew Shepherd’s play, The Shakespeare Conspiracy, and overseeing the remixes of Series One, which was a mammoth project, so he had less time on his hands. We wrote the treatment as before, but I wrote the first draft of most scenes and then sent them to Jack and we did the back-and-forth that way. They were a lot faster to write than Series One because by that time we’d more or less perfected our formula.
JB: We also had the outlines for Series Two and three mapped out before they were commissioned. In fact, it’s fun looking back on the original outline for them, just a few lines long, written in 2008. All of this meant it made the process more efficient, and we’ve slightly tweaked the formula for Series Two because our aim was to tell a bigger story than Series One but with the need for fewer actors. Having said that, our cast was still huge on this one! I feel we made Mariele [Runacre Temple, Producer]’s brain explode last time with the size of the cast, and either we made her head explode a little less on Series 2 or by now she was used to it. Anyway, Rob hit on a brilliant idea that not only helped tell the story, but made it far easier to write, and that was to employ a narrator… James M. Rymer, played by John Holden-White.
RV: Which in a funny way brings us back to the history again, as we wanted a narrator and sidekick character to represent all the Victorian journalists who essentially created the legend of Springheel Jack. Rymer – who was in real life not only a journalist but also the creator of ‘Varney the Vampire’ and ‘Sweeney Todd’ – is the embodiment of all that. He was also meant to be a little bit like the writer Beauchamp in the Clint Eastwood western ‘Unforgiven’; a man steeped in the legend of his own time who suddenly finds himself face- to-face with the reality. As a device, having a narrator really helping the theme of storytelling that permeates Series Two. Whether it helped keep the cast numbers down is another matter!
JB: I saw no evidence of Mariele’s brain exploding this time, so I think we did good!
Q. How different is the world of 1845 London to 1837 Clapham?
RV: The Great Famine is going on in Ireland, so there’s a great Irish influx. And the telegraph has recently been instrumental in the arrest of a murderer called John Tawell. So times are definitely a’changing.
JB: The Metropolitan Police, and the idea of there being police in London at all, starts to feel like it’s an everyday, normal thing – which it wasn’t in 1837. Even the City Of London now has it’s own police force. Everything is creeping towards the London we know today; railway stations, trains, the birth of a metropolis.
RV: But there’s still a long way to go!
JB: As you’ll see when we get to Series Three.
Q. You had an amazing cast in the first series; who is returning, who is new?
RV: We’re delighted to have Christopher Finney return as Smith, who is now a Detective Inspector and a darker, more obsessed figure than he was the first time around. Also, Jessica Dennis returns as Charlotte Fitzrandolph which is wonderful. It would have been awful to bring Charlotte back and then not have Jessica be free to play her!
JB: Yes, she drops back into things when Smith least expects it, as only Charlotte can! This time around though, we’ve lost Hooks, so Smith is more of a lonely figure, but there are many new faces, including his sidekick Rymer (John Holden-White), the tough, gruff Inspector Garrick (Neil McCormack), magician Cuthbert Leach (Nicholas Parsons), magical assistant Lizzie Coombes (Josephine Timmins), impresario Oscar Snitterfield (Jeremy Stockwell) and the mysterious Punch and Judy man, Elijah P. Hopcraft (Andrew Shepherd). Sadly, as I said, we had to lose Chough and D’Urberville, who were the only other characters we planned to bring back, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be hearing Ben Whitehead return at some point…
Q. What was it like to work with Nicholas Parsons?
RV: It was an honour, and we were extremely fortunate to get him.
JB: I was directing another Wireless Theatre production called We Are The BBC in which Nicholas appeared with Stephen Fry, both playing themselves. It was during the talks with Mariele about that, that he asked if we had any other dramatic roles he could sink his teeth into, and Mariele immediately offered him this. And yes, he’s seen as the host of Sale Of The Century, and the chairman of Just A Minute, but to me, he was the doomed Reverend Wainwright in Doctor Who [The Curse Of Fenric]. A wonderful dramatic performance there.
RV: We had desperately hoped to get him in for Series One, so it was lovely not only to finally get our man, but also give him a meatier role than we originally had in mind. I can’t think of anyone better to play a Victorian stage magician, to be honest.
JB: It was a very straight forward day – first, I directed him for We Are The BBC, then Rob took over for The Legend Of Springheel’d Jack. It was a very efficient two and bit hours – as that’s all he was free for – as you’d expect from a National Treasure.
Q. Jeremy Stockwell appears to be channelling the spirit of Ken Campbell in his performance as Oscar; what was the thinking behind this? Was it his idea, or yours?
RV: The ghost of Ken Campbell has loomed large over the project; I just have a feeling it would have been something he might have enjoyed. Had he not passed away suddenly in 2008 we would have tried our darnedest to find a part for him somewhere.
JB: I knew Rob had always wanted to cast Ken Campbell in SHJ; however, he passed away before we even got close to finishing scripting Series One. However, I know Jeremy Stockwell very well, and I also knew he’d been directed by Ken. He tells such wonderfully silly stories about that man! And while we were filming a documentary together for BBC Four, it was then I discovered Jeremy could not only channel a flawless Ken Campbell, but was also planning a stage show where he would be playing him. So I pulled him to one side, mentioned the idea of him ‘being Ken’ in Series Two, and he loved the idea. I love working with Jeremy, and Jeremy loves playing Ken, and Rob got a Ken Campbell performance for SHJ, and Mariele laughed like a drain. It was perfect. I think you’ll love him.
Q. Finally, The Legend Of Springheel’d Jack launches with along with the new-look Wireless Theatre; what was the thinking behind that?
JB: Wireless Theatre has always continued to grow and expand, and it’s reached a point now where it has to find new ways to keep going for the years ahead. Everyone at Wireless Theatre prides themselves on producing and broadcasting modern Radio Drama for a modern world. And because of that, we are determined to keep audio theatre alive and well by creating original, exciting radio productions through fresh new writers and acting talent, and to do so, the model of Wireless Theatre has to change. However, it was Mariele’s idea to put The Legend Of Springheel’d Jack right at the heart of it all – and we couldn’t be more excited for The Springheel Saga and Wireless Theatre. Roll on the 6th December!
Our The Springheel Saga – Series 2: The Legend of Springheel’d Jack Review is here.