Oscar and Lucinda Reunion!

Ralph Fiennes and Cate Blanchett at the MOMA Benefit honoring Blanchett 11/17/15

nothing gets past the Fiennes gaze.

The eyes of perpetual intensity. 

Oh and also...

HBO’s LGBT History: Bernard and Doris (2008)

Manuel is working his way through all the LGBT-themed HBO productions.

Last week we looked at the provocatively titled but rather limp documentary Middle Sexes - Redefining He and She. This week, we turn our attention to Bernard and Doris, a rather enjoyable little film about billionairess Doris Duke and her gay butler Bernard Lafferty. It’s an otherwise lightweight exercise for actors and director alike but it does allow us to talk about that ubiquitous “gay guy/straight gal” pairing we’re all too familiar with.

Bernard and Doris (DVD)
Directed by: Bob Balaban
Written by: Hugh Costello
Starring: Susan Sarandon, Ralph Fiennes, James Rebhorn.

At one point in Bob Balaban’s HBO film, Doris Duke, “the richest girl in the world” as she was known ever since her father left his entire fortune to her, demands that Bernard - the increasingly flamboyant Irish butler she’s grown quite fond of - step aside from driving and let her take the wheel. She’s much too drunk to bear his slow pace and much too bossy to let herself be convinced otherwise. Inevitably, the unlikely couple are stopped by a cop and Doris is asked to step outside the car and told she’ll have to be breathalized. More...

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British diplomats, evil pharmaceuticals and The Constant Gardener

Andrew Kendall looks back at The Constant Gardener for its 10th anniversary...

"This whole machine is driven by guilt."

To look back, after ten years, at the overly stylised hand-held camera visual style of The Constant Gardener, it might not seem particularly noteworthy; but, the almost unintelligible camerawork of Fernando Meirelles' first English language film, just off the success of City of God, remains key to what makes The Constant Gardener one of the century's most effective (pseudo)-political thrillers. True, it has faded in history as one of the slew of dramas that tried to break into that impenetrable 2005 Best picture line-up. We remember it for Rachel Weisz’s luminous Oscar winning turn, but The Constant Gardener has more to offer than just its place in awards history – it’s an unflinching, exact, and effective film which has not lost its vigour in the ten years since it premiered.

More...

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A Splash of Sexy

 ...Murtada here with a very important question: Is this the sexiest family vacation photo of all time? 

It must be. Matthias Schoenaerts in all his manly glory, Ralph Fiennes giving us foxy intellectual older gentleman, Dakota Johnson lovely as a blond. And of course no words needed for Tilda Swinton (as they never do her justice). In their new film Tilda and Matthias are a famous married couple on vacation in Italy when Ralph and his screen daughter Dakota arrive to visit them unexpectedly. Trouble follows. 

A Bigger Splash is one of our most anticipated 2015 movies, and this newly released photo is a “GIMME NOW”. No wonder it looks so much more enthralling than the usual publicity still -  it was shot by Italian fashion photographer Paolo Roversi. The four pairs of blue eyes staring at us, invoke David Hockney’s same titled 1967 painting, that we assume has inspired the filmmakers.

For a change of pace let's talk about the guys and not the actresses. If you’ve seen Rust and Bone (2012) or Bullhead (2011) you know that Schoenaerts is sexy trouble on screen. However in his English language movies, he hasn’t fired up the screen quite as boldly despite an alluring duet with Carey Mulligan earlier this year in Far From the Madding Crowd. Schoenaerts also gives good quote.

"I’m also an animal. I can also be a beast. I know about sex”.

So the idea of him playing a rock star in a thriller about sexual intrigue has us captivated beyond words.

For a while Fiennes lost his sexy mojo. That glistening beauty in turmoil that made us fall in love when The English Patient (1996) came out had vanished. However with his delectable, funny and oh so sexy M. Gustave last year he got it back. And from the looks of this, he kept it.

This quartet might win awards at Venice, where A Bigger Splash is in competition, but they’ve already won our anticipation and impatience. That red carpet will be on fire.

Can you think of other cinematic quartets this sexy?