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Abel Ferrara’s sci-fi horror Body Snatchers was largely overlooked in 1993, but it’s aged remarkably well in the decades since.

Movie-goers and film scholars have argued for decades over which side of the political divide director Don Siegel and his collaborators fell on when they made Invasion Of The Body Snatchers at the height of the Cold War in 1956. Did it tap into contemporary fears of an insidious communist takeover, or was it a Crucible-like jab at McCarthyist witch hunts?

Siegel always maintained that he didn’t have politics in mind when he made the film, adapted from author Jack Finney’s novel, The Body Snatchers; he simply intended it to be an entertaining, disturbing thrill ride. And what a thrill-ride it is: starring Kevin McCarthy as a small-town doctor who’s slow to realise his patients – and gradually the entire town – is being replaced by soulless pod people – it’s a tense,...

Venice film festival: Luna Carmoon’s deeply strange and compelling study of hysteria shows the ways in which childhood trauma can bloom in adult life

A social realist psychodrama of amour fou here in this fiercely intense and often macabre tale from feature first-timer Luna Carmoon, showing how suppressed childhood trauma blossoms into a secret theatre of adult dysfunction and delusion, but it’s also a story in which Carmoon finds the possibility of redemption and escape. Hoard is all the more intriguing for being a very personal project for Carmoon, something made clear in what appears to be an analogue-video home movie clip over the closing credits.

In its study of loneliness and a kind of marooned and thwarted sexuality, Hoard is in some ways like early Ian McEwan such as The Cement Garden – although the lead character has conceived a bizarre obsession with Volker Schlöndorff’s movie The Tin Drum,...

Do you enjoy the art of the unexpectedness in writing? Well, I do and by reading Murakami’s books for a while, I can say with a pinch of bitterness that I have almost mastered the ability of predicting the “goin’ ons” of the next page quite often. This needed unexpectedness is served nicely in a story collection like “The Elephant Vanishes”, which contains 17 short tales of either realism or surrealism published in Playboy, The New Yorker, and other magazines between 1980- 1991. Paradoxically, the collection’s first edition was released in English in 1993, followed by the Japanese release in 2005.

To work out the riddle of the Elephant, we must pinpoint a few things that differentiate this collection from his more ambitious projects. First and foremost, the flow of the words is different. The absence of the famous Murakami rhythm is present. It seems that the writer didn...

A rather pedestrian presentation of a potentially fascinating story, Vanessa Lapa’s “Speer Goes to Hollywood” expands on a little-known footnote to the Hydra-headed history of the post-war fates of top Nazi lieutenants. It is based on the 1972 recordings of conversations between Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect, friend and wartime munitions minister, and screenwriter Andrew Birkin (the Kubrick protegé who co-wrote “The Name of the Rose” and directed “The Cement Garden”) as they collaborate on a screenplay based on Speer’s memoir “Inside the Third Reich.” But Lapa’s embellished archival doc falls some way short of the cinephile/history lover’s catnip that tantalizing summation promises.

For one thing, here Speer does not, in fact, go to Hollywood. The conversations were recorded in the Heidelberg home where he lived following his release from prison after serving the 20-year sentence handed down at the Nuremberg trials. That Speer did not...

The Booker-winning author on Angela Merkel, tennis and his tribute to The Go-Between

Born in Hampshire, Ian McEwan, 70, took a creative writing Ma at the University of East Anglia. In 1976, his first collection of short stories, First Love, Last Rites, won the Somerset Maugham award; his first novel, The Cement Garden, was published two years later. He won the Booker prize in 1998 with Amsterdam. His novels Atonement and On Chesil Beach are both films, and The Children Act is in cinemas on 24 August.

When were you happiest?

In my mid- to late-20s, in London, beginning to publish, living hand to mouth, having fun. Also now, when love and life and work have finally cohered.

Author Ian McEwan is hot stuff all of a second. The multi-award-winning British author is no stranger to screen adaptations — “The Comfort Of Strangers” and “The Cement Garden” in the early 90s, and “Enduring Love” and the Oscar-nominated “Atonement,” to name but a few — but 2017 marks something close to peak McEwan.

Two movies based on his work are premiering at Tiff at the moment — “On Chesil Beach,” with Saoirse Ronan (read our review here) and “The Children Act” with Emma Thompson.

Continue reading First Trailer For ‘The Child In Time’ Starring Benedict Cumberbatch [Watch] at The Playlist.

Jane Birkin on Jacques Rivette: "I went to see Céline et Julie vont en bateau." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Charlotte Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin are being celebrated in New York with 19 films and a series of conversations. After a screening of Agnès Varda's Jane B. Par Agnès V., Birkin spoke about working with Jacques Rivette on L’Amour Par Terre with Geraldine Chaplin, 36 Vues Du Pic Saint Loup, La Belle Noiseuse with Michel Piccoli, and taxidermy.

Claude Miller's L'Effrontée; Michel Gondry's The Science Of Sleep (La Science Des Rêves); Andrew Birkin's The Cement Garden; Yvan Attal's My Wife Is An Actress (Ma Femme Est Une Actrice); Birkin's Boxes (Les Boites); Claude Miller's The Little Thief (La Petite Voleuse); Varda's Kung Fu Master! (Le Petit Amour); Serge Gainsbourg's Charlotte For Ever; Jacques Doillon's The Prodigal Daughter (La Fille Prodigue); Bertrand Tavernier's Daddy Nostalgia...

What do we know about San Diego, California? SeaWorld & Shamu. But wait, that’s not all! The San Diego Latino Film Festival is back with its 22 nd edition and they went all kindsa crazy. New venue, new vibe and jam packed with the best Latino film has to offer. As one of the last Latino film festivals still standing they really made a point to accentuate the spectrum of filmmakers coming out of Latin America and the Us. San Diego Latino has always been a favorite festival of mine as they run on community love and deserve to be celebrated. So, what happens when you abandon Chilenos, Peruanos, Mexicanos, Domincanos, Argentinos y Venezolanos on a deserted island and only allow them one book, an album, a film and a companion from the movies? Read on.

Bernardo Quesney - "Desastres Naturales" (Chile)

Book: The Cement Garden (Ian McEwan). I don´t know if this is my favorite book but it was very important in my adolescence. I felt very close to the main character. Loved by my friends and hated by our parents.

Film: "El Angel Exterminador" by Luis Buñuel. Buñuel is the film director that I want to imitate. I think he is perfect - his sense of humor, his Mexican films. Nothing is "normal" in his cinema. When I read his memoirs I felt that I knew him.

Album: Love in C Minor – Cerrone. Uff! Cerrone is the soundtrack of my everyday walk. It´s simply marvelous. When I put Cerrone in my bedroom I start to dance like John Travolta as Tony Manero. Naked or with boxers.

Companion: Raul Peralta from "Tony Manero." This is a character I feel respects life. It’s so amazing that Raul knows every phrase of that movie. Being Chilean and imitating something from a distant culture is a representation of the Chilean culture. Our nation is an imitation. It’s like we need role models.

Guillermo Zouain - "On the Road, Somewhere" (Algún lugar) (Dominican Republic)

Film: When people ask me what my favorite film is I usually tend to go for "Jaws," "Seven Samurai"or "The Royal Tenenbaums." In this case however I would have to choose "The Breakfast Club," John Hughes is a genius and this movie in particular he guarantees to keep his audience feeling happy, young and rebellious no matter what.

Album: It would be Paul Simon’s Graceland. I think surviving is all about the mood and keeping it happy in my deserted island. Graceland always makes me smile. I’ve been listening to this album since I was a kid and have never grown tired of it. The whole album has a kinetic feel that exudes, transmits and inspires movement. Paul Simon, by Paul Simon, Nashville Skyline by Bob Dylan and Lola vs. Powerman and the Moneygoround part 1 by the Kinks would follow.

Book: Palomar: the Heartbreak Soup Stories, A Love and Rockets Book by Gilbert Hernandez. The good thing about this comic book is that it will give you an array of things: length, many characters, even more details and above all drama and gossip. Palomar’s community of characters will also keep me company while rescue comes. I spent a year reading this book just because I didn’t want it to end.

Companion: I would have to go with Dr. Who, come on the guy speaks all the languages in the universe, has centuries of experience, has been in all kinds of trouble and has a time machine. His sonic screwdriver doesn’t work on wood though.

Enrica Perez - "Climas" (Peru)

Film: If you twist my arm I'd have to pick Almodovar's "Talk to Her." It's not only one of my favorites but the film has also this fate "anything-can-happen" quality and I'm such a drama lover! It would be perfect to be stuck with it on a deserted island. I would never get sick of it.

Album: Without a doubt: The Very Best of Maria Callas. The voice of this woman and the arias of this album on an island… what can I say?… I would wake up in heaven every single day.

Book: I would pick Ernesto Sabato's On Heroes and Tombs. It turned my life upside down when I first read it as a teenager and every time I've read it again I understood something completely different. This book tends to transform and change with time. It's kind of frightening and fantastic at the same time.

Companion: I read in a past quiz someone picked Mary Poppins… damn! That was a good one!!! But to avoid repetition, I would pick Indiana Jones. I mean, c'mon… do I have to explain why?

Gilberto González Penilla - "Los Hamsters" (Mexico)

Film: There are many films I consider favorites but If I had to take just one film to a deserted Island it would be "Cinema Paradiso" for the simple reason it reminds me of the love for cinema and is a film that I can tire of easily.

Album: It would be a Pink Floyd album. That would make me happy and would be perfect for a deserted island to reminisce of my adolescence.

Book: I had it in my mind to choose between a novel or a book of stories, but for the occasion the ideal book would be Notes on Cinematography by Bresson. It’s a book of small notes and thoughts by Bresson. The more I read it I find different meanings of cinema and life itself.

Companion: It would certainly be without doubt Woody Allen. He’s a director whom I admire and surely on a island it would be fun and full of anecdotes.

Humberto Hinojosa – "I Hate Love" (Mexico)

Book: Count of Monte Cristo . It was my first book when I was a child and I have very good memories of it. I enjoy it every time I read it again.

Album: The Beatles Abbey Road. I've heard it my entire life and I have never gotten tired of it. I think it works on an island. I also listen to it with my wife and kids so it would give me hope of rescue.

Companion: Wall-e. I'm sure we would be best friends forever.

Film: If I'm going to be on an island with Wall-e, I'm sure we will have a great time watching "The Party" by Peter Sellers over and over again which would be my choice of a film.

Andrea Herrera Catalá - "Nena, Saludame Al Diego" (Venezuela)

Film: It is an established fact: I can watch "Streets of Fire" five hundred times, and I'll never get bored. Besides, with this film I would bring a little more music to the island!

Companion: Rob Gordon from "High Fidelity." He is quite talkative and he could tell me tons of stories about his life, his girlfriends, the concerts he's been to... He would bring lots of records inside his head, and anecdotes and fun facts about them. It would be like having a never ending music magazine. We would compose new songs, we would do vocal jam sessions and Air Band contests... Until I wanted to kill him, or maybe the other way round.

Book: Cosimo Piovasco, Italo Calvino's Baron in the Trees. I could find new advice from Cosimo every time I read it, on how to live in peace with myself. This book has love, ideology, adventure, battles, joy and sorrow. Everything mixed up in just one big story. I recall I enjoyed a lot when I first read it. I'll let you know how is it going in reading number 1743.

Album: Bocanada by Gustavo Cerati. It is a gem, an amazing record. It is a pleasure listening to it next to the sea, lying under the sun. Cerati deserves a thousand and one tributes.

Emiliano Romero – "Topos" (Argentina)

Book: I feel the need to mention that this list changes permanently, depending entirely on my metamorphosis as a human being. Tengo Miedo Torero (My Tender Matador) by Pedro Lemebel. I would choose this book because it merges social and political reality with fiction. It depicts sensitive characters that have to cope with desires and ideologies. The book makes me want to embrace every single detail of life. It also encourages everyone to defend their right to be whatever they want to be.

Film: "Les Amants du Pont-Neuf" (The Lovers on the Bridge) by Leos Carax. This film manages to transform ugliness and pathos into beauty. Each scene makes me feel the magic of cinema. It really blows people's minds. The actors play their parts in a grotesque-acting style, yet with profound truth.

Album: Transa by Caetano Veloso. This album makes me feel happy. While I listen to it, I realize that the mixture of the different world cultures is really enlightening. Jazz, Rock, Bossa Nova, Tango, lots of talent and Latin blood.

Companion: Cosmo Kramer from TV series "Seinfeld." I would choose him because he always does what he feels. He never censors himself, nor thinks twice about things. He loves what he does and does what he loves to do, always. Besides, I think that the physical work of the actor is absolutely brilliant.

Check out the roster: http://sdlatinofilm.com/2015/

Written by Juan Caceres . LatinoBuzz is a feature on SydneysBuzz that highlights Latino indie talent and upcoming trends in Latino film with the specific objective of presenting a broad range of Latino voices. Follow [At]LatinoBuzz on Twitter and Facebook...

News.

The BFI London Film Festival has announced its 2012 award winners. Jacques Audiard's Rust & Bone is the Best Film, and Benh Zeitlin's Beasts of the Southern Wild (which also picked up an award at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival this past week) is the Best Debut. For a complete list of winners, click here. The Rome Film Festival has unveiled some additions to their lineup, including new films from Paul Verhoeven (his mid-length feature Tricked, which we've previously shared the trailer for) and Peter Greenaway. Via The Guardian: It's hard to go very long without hearing word of new projects from Werner Herzog, and his list of forthcoming films has grown yet again with the announcement of his adaptation of Dbc Pierre's Vernon God Little:

"Herzog will return to Texas: it's about a teenager who heads to Mexico after becoming a scapegoat for a high-school killing in a small Texan town.

Werner Herzog, whose next film can always turn out to be about absolutely anything, is set to return to fiction with his next project, an adaptation of Dbc Pierre’s 2003 novel Vernon God Little.

The beloved German director – who has been a prominent force in the filmmaking scene since the 1970s and has amassed a hugely dedicated following – hasn’t directed a fiction film since the strange and relatively obscure My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done in 2009. His last films were the brilliant documentaries Cave of Forgotten Dreams (which focused on primitive cave paintings) and Into The Abyss (an extensive portrait of a Texas death row inmate).

The subject matter of Man Booker Prize-winning novel Vernon God Little seems apt for the Herzog treatment: the story follows a teenager who travels to Mexico after becoming involved in a high school killing in Texas. It’s regarded as somewhat of a black comedy,...

Following his feature documentary "Into the Abyss" and its companion piece, the docuseries "On Death Row," Werner Herzog is set to return to narrative filmmaking for his next project, Variety reports. Herzog will direct an adaptation of D.B.C. Pierre's 2003 Man Booker Prize winner "Vernon God Little" scripted by Andrew Birkin ("The Name of the Rose," "The Cement Garden"). The novel centers on the titular character, a teenager who flees to Mexico after authorities link him to a high school shooting perpetrated by his best friend. Read More: Werner Herzog Challenges Young Cinematographers at Icg Event: 'Be Bold, Develop Your Vision, and Stick to It' What this means for Herzog's other brewing narrative project, the Gertrude Bell biopic "Queen of the Dessert" set to star Naomi Watts and Robert Pattinson, remains to be seen. Herzog will next be in theaters acting as Tom Cruise's nemesis in...

1.) The most interesting trade news as of late is word Warner Bros. has acquired the Mickey Spillane series of mystery novels featuring private investigator Mike Hammer. I personally have only seen one previous Hammer adaptation, that being Robert Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly, which I really enjoyed and even started my Criterion review saying, "If 75% of movies were like Robert Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly I could watch one a day and never get bored." Of course, that is the big wonder, how much will WB's adaptations be like Aldrich's film? A noir crime thriller as fun as it is hard-nosed and serious. Apparently the hope is to build a new action franchise surrounding the Hammer character, which is said to have inspired Ian Fleming's James Bond as well as Lee Child's Jack Reacher, Stacy Keach starred in a late '90s television series as Hammer and he's...

Adaptation of Dbc Pierre's award-winning novel marks a return to fiction, and to Texas, for the German director

German director Werner Herzog is to return to fiction for his next project, an adaptation of Dbc Pierre's 2003 novel Vernon God Little, reports Variety.

The eclectic film-maker's last fiction feature was the eccentric My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done in 2009, and he has concentrated on documentaries in recent years, with Cave of Forgotten Dreams, about the Ardèche cave paintings, and Into the Abyss, a study of Texas's death row.

In Vernon God Little, Herzog will return to Texas: it's about a teenager who heads to Mexico after becoming a scapegoat for a high-school killing in a small Texan town. The novel was given the Man Booker prize in 2003 and Whitbread first novel award (now Costa) in 2003.

There is no word on any casting, but the script will be written by Andrew Birkin,...

The question mark in our title, but things are pretty clear – director Werner Herzog has just announced that his next project will be an adaptation of Vernon God Little novel, written by Dbc Pierre. At this moment the whole thing sounds quite interesting to me. After all there’s a little description which goes like this: desperate times throw up the most unlikely of heroes. I can handle that, what about you?

Herzog will direct the whole thing from a script written by Andrew Birkin, and just for the record Birkin is the man who stands behind stories like Name of the Rose and The Cement Garden. Not bad team at all if you ask me!

Vernon God Little story is set in Texas and follows a teenager caught up in the aftermath of a high-school shooting committed by his best friend.

But, if you want even more details about the story,...

My friend Stephen Blackman, who has died after a stroke aged 55, was the director of photography on some of the most memorable and successful TV commercials of recent years, including John West's "bear fight" advert and Virgin Atlantic's "love at first flight".

His commercials won many awards, and Stephen was in great demand all over the world, especially for shoots for car manufacturers such as Audi, BMW and Chevrolet. In an industry not always known for its kindness of heart, Stephen remained unfailingly courteous. He was always willing to give advice and share professional secrets, and he possessed a calmness under pressure that endeared him to his crews.

Stephen tackled everything with conviction and a deep confidence in his own expertise. He was the cinematographer on the 1993 adaptation of Ian McEwan's The Cement Garden, as well as the films Strictly Sinatra and Trigger Happy (both 2001).

He was born in Oxford to Alan,...

France's most self-critical film star, Charlotte Gainsbourg has grown up surrounded by controversy. As she collaborates with Lars von Trier once again, in Melancholia, she talks here about motherhood, movies and preserving her father's memory

A pregnant Charlotte Gainsbourg runs her fingers across her bump, which is encased in cashmere and discreetly wedged behind the table of a Paris hotel bar. She is trying to work out what her children might hate her for. Because to her, France's most self-critical film star, it is obvious that they will hate her for something. "You always have so much to reproach your parents for," she muses. "It's normal. I can see already what my kids will have to blame me for. I prefer to anticipate the bad side rather than get a slap in the face later."

Gainsbourg, 40, is fascinated by bad parents. "I like bad mothers," she declares. What she means...

Famous as much for her parents, Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, as her acting, the French film star is raddled with self-criticism and doubt

A pregnant Charlotte Gainsbourg runs her fingers across her bump, which is encased in cashmere and discreetly wedged behind the table of a Paris hotel bar. She is trying to work out what her children might hate her for. Because to her, France's most self-critical film star, it is obvious that they will hate her for something. "You always have so much to reproach your parents for," she muses. "It's normal. I can see already what my kids will have to blame me for. I prefer to anticipate the bad side rather than get a slap in the face later."

Gainsbourg, 40, is fascinated by bad parents. "I like bad mothers," she declares. What she means is she likes playing parental incompetents – hapless drifters or neglectful control-freaks...

The veteran German film writer and producer died earlier this week aged 61. We look back over his career in clips

The sudden death of Bernd Eichinger has left German cinema reeling, as arguably its most powerful and influential figure is no longer around. Eichinger started writing and directing in the early 70s New German Cinema ferment, but really made his mark as a producer – his first serious credit was on the 1975 movie The Wrong Movement, directed by Ngc wunderkind Wim Wenders. The Wrong Movement is one of those odd Wim Wenders road movies featuring Rüdiger Vogler, made in between Alice in the Cities and Kings of the Road, that were so bafflingly influential at the time. (Try watching Chris Petit's Radio On, you'll see what I mean.)

But Eichinger's production career didn't take proper wing until the New German Cinema wave was all but over. In 1978 he bought an established distribution company,...

Ten years ago today, Madonna's Music (2000), one of her very best records, dropped into record stores. Director Guy Ritchie, to your left, was then her new man. He was advertising -- the record I mean! See the "Music" logo on his tanktop? Ever the selfless altruist, Madonna wore a black t-shirt promoting his project, Snatch (2000) which had opened the month before in the UK and was soon going to the Us. It would become his biggest hit. Until Sherlock Holmes (2009) that is.

But back to 2000. Ah, the heady days of early romance. She had given birth to Rocco, her only biological child with Guy, the month before. They were married by December.

Madonna was of course, no stranger to loving alpha male movie men since actor/directors Sean Penn and Warren Beatty preceded Guy. Famously, she's now entered their realm. Paparazzi are basically snapping Madonna daily now while she films W.E.

With the next James Bond on indefinite hold, director Sam Mendes looks to be moving onto other projects and is already looking at a film adaptation of author Ian McEwan's 2007 novel "On Chesil Beach" for Focus Features reports Deadline.

Set in the UK in the 60's, the story revolves around two repressed virgins in their early 20's whose futile attempt at lovemaking leads to doubt and recriminations.

Carey Mulligan ("An Education," "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps") is apparently interested in the female lead role while McEwan himself will adapt the script. McEwan is best known for the novels "Atonement," "Enduring Love," "The Innocent," "Amsterdam," "The Comfort of Strangers," "Saturday" and "The Cement Garden".

Mendes, who will also direct a musical production based on Roald Dahl's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" opening next year, remains committed to the next James Bond film. He has, however, apparently told Disney he...

Who is he?

A 36 year-old Greek director and the film world's newest provocateur. His satirical black comedy Dogtooth, which is out on 23 April, beat off the likes of Precious at Cannes last year to win Un Certain Regard – the festival's strand for "different and original" film-making.

I'm almost afraid to ask: what's it about?

Imagine a cross between The Cement Garden and The Wasp Factory, as directed by Lars Von Trier, and you're pretty close. Three kids in their late teens, a boy and two girls, have been raised in total hothouse isolation from outside influences. Their parents (vile arrogant dad, under-the-cosh mum) have fed them a string of wacko lies about how the world works.

Sounds sinister. Tell us more.

The siblings are forbidden to leave their rural house and believe the biggest threat they face is from cats (cue the grisly end of a stray with a garden...

Since debuting aged 13 with her father, Serge Gainsbourg, on a pop single called 'Lemon Incest', the French-British actress and singer has courted controversy. Last year she starred as a demonic mother in Lars von Trier's controversial film Antichrist. As her third album is released, made with Us songwriter Beck, she talks to Sean O'Hagan about her recent brain surgery and her enduring feelings for her late father

In the summer of 2007, Charlotte Gainsbourg had what seemed like a minor water-skiing accident. Six months later, after attending a gala screening in Venice of Todd Haynes's film, I'm Not There, in which she played one of Bob Dylan's wives, she suffered "a seven day headache". Back home in Paris, she went to the doctor for a check-up and found out that she was lucky to be alive.

"They did an Mri scan and found that my brain had been...