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Exclusive: Iris Apatow (Ballerina Overdrive) has landed a recurring role in the third season of Hulu’s popular drama series Tell Me Lies, Deadline has learned.

She’ll play the role of Amanda, a bubbly but fragile college freshman keeping a big secret. Apatow is the latest to join the cast following Costa D’Angelo, who boarded as a series regular last month, as we were first to report.

Based on the novel of the same name by Carola Lovering, who serves as consulting producer, Tell Me Lies returned for its second season last September and was renewed for a third in December. Grace Van Patten and Jackson White lead the series that charts a tumultuous but intoxicating relationship as it unfolds over the course of 8 years and sweeps everyone around it into its dangerous wake. In the series, a group of college friends has no idea that one addictive entanglement...

Young Werther draws inspiration from the 18th-century novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, yet its adaptation into Toronto’s urban landscape creates an unsettling transformation, reflecting our current era’s obsession with self-deception and impossible yearning.

In Goethe’s original, Werther’s unrequited love symbolizes youthful passion that promises redemption but leads to self-destruction. The film maintains this core narrative, moving through contemporary times with a tragic essence, filtered through a romantic comedy lens.

The film’s opening—playful in its historical reference, even mentioning Beatlemania—initially attracts viewers with a light moment before darker themes emerge.

In Toronto, Werther (Douglas Booth) wanders through a world of self-interest, intensely desiring Charlotte (Alison Pill), a woman committed to another. The modern setting provides minimal relief from his internal struggle, as he moves through the city’s warm atmosphere—a place that hints at fulfillment but never truly provides it.

Young Werther...

“Young Werther” is a new live-action romantic comedy feature, written and directed by José Lourenço, starring Douglas Booth, Alison Pill, Iris Apatow and Patrick J. Adams, now streaming on Prime Video:

“…based on the 1774 novel ‘The Sorrows of Young Werther’ by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a writer falls in love with a woman, but discovers that she's already engaged…”

Click the images to enlarge…...

An 18th-century love triangle relocated to the well-to-do of modern Toronto is big on banter and farce even if real passion is sometimes lacking

Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s 1774 epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther was one of the most influential books of its age, in part responsible for launching the Romantic movement, shaping ideas about the novel itself, and inspiring some of the earliest instances of copycat suicide. These days of course, it doesn’t have anything like the cultural influence that it had in its heyday, eclipsed by Goethe’s later plays, poetry and scientific endeavours. So hurrah for the film-makers behind this sweet Canadian-British co-production for their valiant, quixotic efforts to relaunch Werther for the youth of today. Writer-director José Avelino Gilles Corbett Lourenço resets the book’s love triangle among the well-to-do in modern-day Toronto, turning it into a kind of wan romantic comedy: part Goethe,...

Indie film fans have fallen in love with Young Werther, the bittersweet movie written and directed by José Lourenço. The story of Werther falling head over heels for the already engaged Charlotte is both charming and heartbreaking. But for the man behind the camera, it's a journey that's spanned years as he worked on the script and strove to get the movie made.

In an interview with Cbr, Lourenço speaks about why he was so inspired by The Sorrows of Young Werther, and why he wanted to do a book-to-screen adaptation of the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe novel. He reveals why he wound up directing the movie in addition to writing it. Plus, he reflects on working with Young Werther's talented cast and crew.

Cbr: Young Werther is your feature directorial debut. What made you want to direct the movie, when you were already writing the screenplay? Was that always the plan,...

“No one is more of a slave than he who thinks himself free without being so.”

― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

In 1947, a Holocaust survivor, Jewish architect Làszlò Tòth, arrived in Philadelphia. Born in Hungary before the war, he was an architect of the Bauhaus school, an architect of works that, in wartime terrain, remain resolutely standing. And who, as in the traditional genesis of men of genius from poverty and misery, will find himself the father of one of the most ambitious projects in his contemporary America.

A library, a cultural center, a church, a memorial. It is an immense, unclassifiable construction, a Brutalist masterpiece, a place of modernity for a modern community. Entrusted by the immoderately wealthy American businessman Harrison Van Buren (Guy Pearce), the architect is to design a building honoring the recent death of his mother. The project will absorb 30 years of Làszlò’s life, meticulously observed by camera master Brady Corbet,...

Modern adaptations of classical literature aren't anything new. Even just recently, the surprise hit romantic comedy Anyone but You was loosely adapted from William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. Young Werther isn't the next Anyone but You, especially since the 2023 movie had two of the biggest rising stars in the industry. Although that's not necessarily a bad thing either. José Avelino Gilles Corbett Lourenço seems far more interested in making a more direct adaptation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's 18th-century novel about unrequited love but with much more modern sensibilities. Sure, rom-coms about unrequited love also aren't that fresh, but that doesn't mean that they can't be charming.

A literary classic gets revived with Young Werther, based on the 1774 novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The film takes the basic outline of the original story and updates it for modern sensibilities. Douglas Booth stars as the title character, a wealthy young man of the the leisure class who falls in love with Charlotte, played by Alison Pill. The only problem: she's already engaged to another man (Patrick J. Adams). Undeterred, Werther decides to embark on a misguided quest to steal Charlotte's heart.

Alison Pill is best known to genre fans for her roles in classic pop culture franchises such as Star Trek and Scott Pilgrim Vs The World. She also notably appeared in Bong Joon Ho's Snowpiercer and had a small, but pivotal, role in M. Night Shyamalan's latest film, Trap. In Young Werther, she gets to play an object of romantic lust, but doesn't play...

Arguably one of the most insufferable protagonists in literature is the title figure in Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s “The Sorrows of Young Werther” — a martyr to unrequited love who ultimately commits suicide. The author soon distanced himself from this early work, despite the fame it brought him. No doubt that was largely because the fuel it provided for the subsequent Romantic movement (which he disdained) proved so flammable; there arose real-life cases of copycat self-annihilation amongst readers who fancied themselves as theatrically bereft as his hero.

Few beyond academics now are likely to recall the huge cultural impact the book had a quarter-millennium ago. Still, you needn’t be savvy to that historical footnote to enjoy the new “Young Werther” — though it does help. “Based on the smash hit 1774 novel of tragic romance,” as opening onscreen text announces, Jose Avelino Gilles Corbett Lourenco’s debut feature is a confident, clever update.

Young Werther is a new romantic comedy based on the classic smash hit novel of tragic romance, albeit with a modern spin. One of the year's funniest movies, its characters are complex and the dialogue is incredibly rich.

Taking on the title role of Werther in this engrossing adaptation of the 1774 novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, is Douglas Booth.

Many of you will know him best for his roles in Jupiter Ascending, The Dirt, and Great Expectations; however, the English actor is about to break into the world of comic book adaptations with season 2 of Netflix's The Sandman. 

Booth will play Cluracan, a courtier in the court of the Queen of Faerie and the brother to Nuala, who was given to Dream as a gift from his queen. Often drunk, and with a propensity to offend others even when sober, he nevertheless has...

It's tempting to immediately judge Young Werther by its first 10-15 minutes, but if you hold out a little longer, the true movie will reveal itself. Based on the 1774 novel The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang Goethe, the rougher edges of the book are sanded down and given a 21st-century sheen through the adaptation written and directed by José Lourenço. Though it was no easy task, Lourenço takes a rather dark and nihilistic story from Goethe and makes it plucky, bright, and an encouraging addition to the rom-com genre.

Young Werther follows the story of a passionate young novelist who, while on an errand in the city, encounters Charlotte. Despite her commitment to her fiancé Albert, Werther becomes entangled in an emotional affair with Charlotte, leading to a complex triangle of emotions and evolving relationships.

Release Date September 6, 2024Runtime 101 minutesGenres Drama, Romance, ComedyCast Liam Ma, Laurie Murdoch, Iris Apatow,...

The greatest female vampires in television and movie history include blood-sucking women from Swedish horror films, classic cult TV shows, and critically acclaimed independent movies. Vampires have always been an important part of TV and movies, and even earlier, books like Dracula were capturing the public's imagination with their tales of dangerous, hungry, and alluring creatures of the night. When most people think of vampires, they likely think of those strong male figures, such as the aforementioned Vlad Dracula or the vampire Lestat or Blade from the MCU.

However, some of the earliest depictions of vampires were actually women. Even before Bram Stoker's Dracula inspired numerous movies, vampires in fiction were often described as women. The 1797 short story, The Bride of Corinth, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is one of the earliest examples of vampires in fiction and tells the tale of an undead woman who stalks her former lover.

Romantic comedy and Toronto premiere Young Werther has landed a slew of international deals for the UK’s Mister Smith Entertainment.

It has sold to Signature Entertainment (UK-Ireland), Transmission Films (Australia/New Zealand), Front Row Filmed Entertainment (Middle East), Angel Films (Scandinavia), A-One Media (Cis), Playarte Pictures (Brazil), Blitz Film (Ex-Yugoslavia), Green Light Films (Ukraine), The Film Group (Greece), Nos Lusomundo (Portugal) and Anuvu (airlines).

As previously announced, the film will release in the US on December 13 via Grindstone Entertainment, in a deal negotiated by CAA Media Finance.

The feature directorial debut of Canadian filmmaker José Avelino Gilles Corbett stars Douglas Booth,...

A new book adaptation will bring a classic story into the modern world. Lionsgate has launched a new trailer for Young Werner, their upcoming movie written and directed by Jos Loureno. The project will be a new spin on The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang Goethe. Even though this narrative has been around for centuries, Loureno's take on the young man's love life will bring laughter and surprises to audiences thanks to the modern setting of the story. And it all begins with a young man trying to make the best out of an unpredictable trip.

Iris Apatow has signed with Sugar23 for representation following a highly competitive pursuit.

Next up, Apatow stars alongside Douglas Booth and Alison Pill in Young Werther, an adaptation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Classic The Sorrows of Young Werther for director José Avelino Gilles Corbett Lourenço, which premiered at TIFF 2024.

Apatow is currently in production on the upcoming women-led survivalist action thriller Ballerina Overdrive. Apatow stars opposite Uma Thurman, Lana Condor, Millicent Simmonds, and Maddie Ziegler in the 87North and Gulfstream Pictures production.

An in-demand young talent, Apatow’s previous film work includes Judd Apatow’s Netflix film, The Bubble, opposite Karen Gillan, Fred Armisen, Keegan-Michael Key, and Leslie Mann; Sausage Party, This Is 40; Funny People; Knocked Up and the short film Vodka, which debuted at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival.

On the series side, Apatow can be see starring alongside Rob Lowe and Sian Clifford in Netflix’s...

This article contains mild spoilers for "The Crow."

It makes logical sense why a consensus of opinion is such a desired thing. Our lives in this world are finite, and free time is a luxury in a capitalist society, so most folks don't want to waste their time on books, music, television, or films that most people generally seem to hate. However, there's just no greater drug-free high for a film addict than to take a chance on a movie whose reputation is in the toilet, only to emerge having had a decent time with it. These movies don't have to be Actually Good, they don't have to be hidden gems or unsung masterpieces (though some of them absolutely can be!); they just have to be Not Trash. Yes, this can happen with reappraisals when they fall into the rose-colored purview of nostalgia, but it can also happen when you...

Lamorne Morris and Iris Apatow are set to join the cast of Netflix’s “Unstable” for Season 2.

Morris will play recurring guest star Peter. The charismatic founder of a biotech start-up, Peter’s rising star manages to stoke the already intense rivalry between Ellis (Rob Lowe) and Jackson (John Owen Lowe).

Apatow will play recurring guest star Georgia, Anna’s (Sian Clifford) irreverent ex-stepdaughter turned unwilling Dragon intern. She copes with office life by stirring up trouble and making Anna’s life more difficult whenever possible.

In addition to the father-son duo, they’re joined by returning cast members Sian Clifford, Rachel Marsh, Emma Ferreira and Aaron Branch in the upcoming season. Fred Armisen will also reprise his guest starring role as Leslie, Ellis’s board-appointed therapist who is desperate to be liked and be friends with Ellis.

The comedy follows Ellis Dragon, a universally admired, eccentric, narcissist-adjacent biotech entrepreneur...

Blur’s comeback album, The Ballad of Darren, arrived this past summer, giving fans their first new release from the Britpop legends since they went on hiatus eight years prior. Now, frontman Damon Albarn has said that he’s done (for now) revisiting Blur, and is ready to get back to focusing on his other project, Gorillaz.

“It is time to wrap up this campaign,” Albarn told the French publication Les Inrockuptibles (via Far Out Magazine). “It’s too much for me. It was the right thing to do and an immense honor to play these songs again, spend time with these guys, make an album, blah-blah-blah… I’m not saying I won’t do it again, it was a beautiful success, but I’m not dwelling on the past.”

As for what he plans to do in lieu of further Blur work, Albarn expressed excitement for an “opera which...

Disney’s film, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, was inspired by a Nicolas Cage movie called Next, where Cage played a Las Vegas magician. The film connects to Disney’s Fantasia, specifically the segment titled “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” where Mickey Mouse plays the apprentice. The story of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice originated from a 1797 ballad by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and the music by Paul Dukas.

Disney found surprising source material for a blockbuster film with 2010’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. The film has a strange pedigree, beginning (in a roundabout way) with the Nicolas Cage film Next. Cage explains (via Yahoo!) that the movie, in which he plays a Las Vegas magician, gave him the urge to play a real wizard on screen. Cage took the idea to Next producer Todd Garner, who suggested that the idea could be made with Disney if it adapted one of their older properties.

Disney, who were...

Damon Albarn’s rock-centric outfit Blur are preparing to release The Ballad of Darren, their first album in eight years, yet the frontman recently revealed that he believes the title of “the last great guitar band” belongs to Arctic Monkeys.

In an interview on the music podcast Broken Record, Albarn shared, “I feel like there’s a bit more excitement about guitar music again, that can’t be a bad thing because it got so sterile. For me, the last great guitar band would have been Arctic Monkeys and I don’t really know if there’s anything as good as that since.”

Although his observation of rock’s recent past reads like a death knell, he appeared more optimistic for its future, noting that “there are bands with a huge amount of potential. It’s really dismantled itself — guitar music — and put itself back together again in a different form.

The perpetually busy Damon Albarn has revealed he is working on another opera. As part of our latest cover story, the Blur and Gorillaz frontman tells Consequence he is putting German playwright Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s The Magic Flute Part Two to music for the first time.

“I got offered this amazing opportunity to set Goethe’s Magic Flute Part Two to music and song,” says Albarn, who previously created an opera based on Elizabethan scientist John Dee in 2011. “I’m kind of teaching myself Goethe, which is not as great a task as it would have been if I hadn’t done a lot of study about, you know, other Renaissance men like Dr. John Dee. I’ve got a lot of the bases because I had to go a long way back to even vaguely understand what that was about. So, I did a lot of that 10 years ago.

Douglas Booth, Alison Pill and Iris Apatow have joined an adaptation of the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe classic “The Sorrows of Young Werther.”

The film, simply titled “Young Werther,” is produced by Toronto-based film and TV outfit Wildling Pictures, which describes the project as a modern retelling of the book.

Booth (“That Dirty Black Bag”) and Pill (“Scott Pilgrim vs. the World”) will take lead roles, with Apatow (“The Bubble”) also set to star along Patrick J. Adams (“Suits”). Production will begin this month in Toronto.

Drawing from Goethe’s passionate personal accounts, which were first published in letter form in 1774, “Young Werther” is the story of a charmingly irresponsible and enthusiastic young man named Werther (Booth) who finds himself at the mercy of Charlotte (Pill), whose allure and commitment to her impressive fiancé Albert turns Werther’s life upside down.

The project marks the feature directorial debut for José...

While the Emmys drew mixed reviews, the film festivals closed to strong applause this week, not only for their movies (we’d forgotten some) but for their star turnout.

Cate Blanchett, George Clooney, Taylor Swift and Julianne Moore were out there giving interviews and courting critics as in years gone by. Some had become strangers due to a mix of Covid-caused delays and their own rigid rules of self-protection.

Movie stars once made three or four films a year and were constantly before us, pitching their wares. I once congratulated Tom Hanks three times in a week and the Damon-Affleck team seemed equally ubiquitous. Now even Jennifer Lawrence wants the spotlight again and Harrison Ford has also abandoned invisibility.

Of course, the presence of stars at premieres also guarantees some flying shrapnel on social media. At the Venice premiere of Don’t Worry Darling, did Florence Pugh,...

Frances McDormand just wants to sing karaoke. She suggested this last night at the 2021 Oscars, a pretty lame evening save for her howling and unsurprisingly awesome acceptance speech for Best Actress — her third time winning the award. “When you’ve got voices like Leslie [Odom Jr.] and Marcus [Mumford], we should add a karaoke bar,” she said.

Twenty years ago last fall, McDormand starred in Almost Famous as Elaine Miller, a college professor who frequently told her budding music journalist son that rock & roll was about “drugs and promiscuous sex.” She was the...

Celebrated Italian writer-director Vittorio Taviani, winner of the Palme d’Or and Berlin Golden Bear, has died aged 88. He passed after a long illness, his daughter has confirmed to Italian media.

The director formed one half an acclaimed filmmaking duo with his brother Paolo: the two were known as the Taviani Brothers. The siblings became household names in Italy in the 1960s and worked on more than 20 movies together including 1977 Palme d’Or winner Padre Padrone and docudrama Caesar Must Die, which won the Golden Bear for best film at Berlin in 2012.

The former charted the story of Gavino Ledda, the son of a Sardinian shepherd, and how he managed to escape his harsh, almost barbaric existence by slowly educating himself, despite violent opposition from his brutal father. Caesar Must Die is the story of inmates at a high-security prison in Rome who prepare for a public performance of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.

After the best surprise possible to kick off the new year — the announcement that Claire Denis would be imminently beginning production on a new drama, one starring Juliette Binoche, Gérard Depardieu, and Xavier Beauvois — the Beau travail director was also able to finish it in in times for Cannes. Now set to open Directors’ Fortnight, the first look has arrived.

Adapted from Roland Barthes‘ A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments, which deconstructs the language of love, the film also has a new title after initially going by Dark Glasses. Screen Daily reports the English title is Let the Sunshine In (aka Un Beau Soleil Intérieur). Also starring Bruno Podalydès and Josiane Balasko, Directors’ Fortnight Artistic director Edouard Waintrop, says of the film. “What touched us is that it marks a radical change in tone for Claire Denis. We like it when film-makers try something new.”

See the Amazon synopsis for Barthes...

2017 just got a whole lot better. The last few years we’ve heard a handful of updates on what was thought to be Claire Denis‘ next film, High Life, an ambitious sci-fi drama starring Robert Pattinson. With shooting expecting to begin sometime this year, it looks like the project has been pushed back to make room for a smaller-scale feature from the White Material director, and one that’s just as enticing.

Juliette Binoche, Gérard Depardieu, and Xavier Beauvois will be leading the cast of Denis’ Les lunettes noir (translated to Dark Glasses), which kicks off a seven-week shoot in Paris and Guéret this month. Adapted from Roland Barthes‘ A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments, which deconstructs the language of love, the drama is expected to be completed in time for a fall premiere. [France 3/JulietteBinoche.net]

It’s still unclear in what form exactly Denis will adapt the material, which has already been...

A major talent of the New German Cinema finds his footing out on the open highway, in a trio of intensely creative pictures that capture the pace and feel of living off the beaten path. All three star Rüdiger Vogler, an actor who could be director Wim Wenders' alter ego. Wim Wenders' The Road Trilogy Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 813 1974-1976 / B&W and Color / 1:66 widescreen / 113, 104, 176 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date May 30, 2016 / 99.95 Starring Rüdiger Vogler, Lisa Kreuzer, Yetta Rottländer; Hannah Schygulla, Nasstasja Kinski, Hans Christian Blech, Ivan Desny; Robert Zischler. Cinematography Robby Müller, Martin Schäfer Film Editor Peter Przygodda, Barbara von Weltershausen Original Music Can, Jürgen Knieper, Axel Linstädt. Directed by Wim Wenders

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

This morning I 'fessed up to never having seen David Lynch's Lost Highway. Now I get to say that until now I've never seen Wim Wenders'...

The latest restoration of a German silent classic is F.W. Murnau's lavishly mounted version of the Goethe tale, starring Emil Jannings as Mephisto. It's an impressive drama but also has a sense of (Teutonic) humor here and there. Most every shot is a fantastic visuals, and the bigger scenes use visual designs worthy of fine art. Faust Blu-ray + DVD Kino Classics 1926 / B&W / 1:33 flat full frame / 106, 116 min / Street Date November 17, 2015 / available through Kino Lorber / 34.96 Starring Gösta Ekman, Emil Jannings, Camilla Horn, Frida Richard, William Dieterle, Yvette Guilbert, Eric Barclay, Hanna Ralph, Werner Fuetterer. Cinematography Carl Hoffman Production Design Robert Herlth, Walter Röhrig Film Editor Elfi Böttrich Written by Gerhart Hauptmann, Hans Kyser from plays by Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Christopher Marlowe Produced by Erich Pommer Directed by F.W. Murnau

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Back in film school, lecturers on cinema art of the 1920s claimed that Germany had an edge over Hollywood.

A major glossy magazine that used to be devoted largely to music -- but long ago fell under the spell of Hollywood celebrity -- still continues to cover music, specializing in listicles that seem designed mainly to provoke ire in those who care more about music than does said magazine (named after a classic blues song, in case you can't guess without a hint). This summer it unleashed a list of songs that, with that aging publication's ironically weak sense of history, managed to overlook the vast majority of the history of song. To put it bluntly, if you're claiming to discuss the best songs ever written and you don't even mention Franz Schubert, you're an ignoramus. My ire over this blinkered attitude towards music history festered for months, so I finally decided to do something about it by writing about some of the timeless songs omitted in the aforementioned myopic listicle.

This week's solid Supernatural episode comes with a Goethe-inspired suicide Macguffin. You can't say that about every fantasy show...

This review contains spoilers.

10.19 The Werther Project

The Werther Project opens with a gloriously macabre sequence as teenager Susie, back in the late 70s, finds the mysterious Werther Box and unwittingly unleashes a spell upon her family which causes them all to commit suicide. Susie survives the ordeal by virtue of being unconscious at the time and later runs into Sam and Dean, both seeking the box. Dean, unaware that the box contains the Codex that will translate the Book of the Damned, is infected himself and faces the decision of whether or not to end his own suffering. Sam, still stupidly working with Rowena, must decide whether sacrificing himself to save his brother is the right course of action as the witch watches over his shoulder.

Tying back into...

As an object, a letter is a lesson in immortality; it exists in a form of forgotten meanings that only change when the recipient allows them space to breathe. Its language is pure and uncorrupted by the corporeal, a beautiful (or horrible) surprise that will move to express what cannot be spoken; a link to our unconscious thoughts and desires. Once sent on its way to a potential explosion that may never arrive it seems to beckon a residual calm that allows cathartic contemplation and a sense of serene somnambulism that is broke only when the answer arrives. Epistolary novels reached their apogee in the 18th century with Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ Les Liaisons Dangereuses and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Die Leiden des jungen Werthers.

★★★★★F.W. Murnau was a director who fused the sweeping atmosphere of silent film, with a visual poetry all of his very own and in doing so crafted some of the most incredible films ever made. Before heading to Hollywood in the late 1920s - where he would make the sensational Sunrise (1927) - his final film in his native Germany was the prestige horror classic Faust (1926), a reworking of the well-known legend using Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's play as a starting point. A striking retelling, it explores the relationship of good and evil to stunning effect and has gone on to influence countless films since. It now arrives on UK Blu-ray for the first time courtesy of Eureka's Masters of Cinema label.

Lilting is about loss times two. Mother and partner divided when their love object was alive. Battling still after his unexpected death. But although you will get teary eyed, the film is not depressive by any measure.

Why?

Writer/director Hong Khaou's debut feature is exhilarating in its craft, its performances, and its tale of the eventual fusing of two disparate hearts. Also, in its timeliness. Many ethic groups residing in Western countries are still more than a few steps behind in their acceptance of same-sex relationships.

The film commences with the handsome, lithe Kai (Andrew Leung) visiting his mother Junn (Cheng Pei Pei) in a London retirement home. Junn, of Cambodian-Chinese origin, although having lived in England for decades, has never bothered to become proficient in English. In fact, "Fuck you very much"is about her total vocabulary. A widow, Junn has consequently always depended on Kai for everything,...

Sleepytime Drama: Bellocchio Messy Message Movie

After yet another career peak with his 2009 film Vincere, Italian auteur Marco Bellocchio continues his examination of Italian society with Dormant Beauty, a treatise on Italy’s hot button issue of euthanasia. Bellocchio managed to score one of the cinema’s most talented actresses ever to appear on screen when he signed French actress Isabelle Huppert (no stranger to Italian cinema (see a 1996 Goethe adaptation, Elective Affinities from Vittorio and Paolo Taviani), so it’s so unfortunate that this latest endeavor is so unconvincing in all regards.

At the core, based on a true story, the film revolves around three separate storylines, all going on in the last 8 days of Eluana Englaro’s life in February, 2009. Her father, Beppe Englaro, had decided to take his daughter off of life support after she’d been in a coma for 17 years, which divided the country concerning...

As we continue on, I need to once again clarify that if this list was “Joshua Gaul’s 50 Favorite Movie Musicals,” it’d be a quite a different list. But, if my tastes determined what is definitive, I’d be asking you all to consider Aladdin as a brilliant piece of filmmaking and wax nostalgic about my love for Batteries Not Included and Flight of the Navigator (not for the musicals list, of course). Much to my dismay, my tastes are not universal. I’d like to think my research methods are.

courtesy of themoviescene.co.uk

30. Annie (1982)

Directed by John Huston

Signature Song: “Tomorrow” (http://youtu.be/Yop62wQH498)

Originally a 1924 comic strip, the beloved stage musical about a red-haired orphan girl was brought to the big screen in 1982 and directed by John Huston (yes, that John Huston – director of The Maltese Falcon and The African Queen, not to...

The same team that brought you The Met’s recent hit production of Carmen returns with Massenet’s tragic romance Werther. The sublime new production comes to cinemas nationwide live on March 15th. For more information and participating theaters, visit http://www.fathomevents.com/event/werther

Two of opera’s greatest artists—Jonas Kaufmann and Sophie Koch—appear together for the first time at the Met in Massenet’s sublime adaptation of Goethe’s revolutionary and tragic romance. It is directed and designed by Richard Eyre and Rob Howell, the same team that created the Met’s recent hit production of Carmen. Rising young maestro Alain Altinoglu conducts.

Don’t miss the chance to experience the excitement of the Metropolitan Opera, including interviews and behind-the-scenes features exclusive to The Met: Live in HD series, all at your neighborhood movie theater!

Enter To Win

A Pair Of Tickets To See This...

Opera is waking up to the power of video. For his new production of Don Giovanni, the Royal Opera House's Kasper Holten collaborated with a designer who turned U2 tours and the 2012 Olympics into visual spectaculars. Stuart Jeffries goes behind the screens

"Don Giovanni is called the director's graveyard," says Kasper Holten. "It's impossible to do a perfect production. The existential moral journey of the seducer to hell is hard enough to make convincing – without having to juggle all the farcical elements, too."

So why is Holten, the Royal Opera House's director of opera, returning to Mozart's work for the third time (he has already directed it on stage and on film)? And why is he ratcheting up the risk with some of the tricksiest, most perilous video design ever seen on the British opera stage?

"It makes sense marrying video technology and Mozart," he explains. "If he were alive,...

Moving bits of paper around (the old way) or painting with billions of pixels (the new) has conjured up some of the greatest films of all time. From The Iron Giant to Persepolis, Guardian and Observer critics pick the 10 best

• Top 10 war movies

• Top 10 teen movies

• Top 10 superhero movies

• Top 10 westerns

• Top 10 documentaries

• Top 10 movie adaptations

• More Guardian and Observer critics' top 10s

10. The Tale of the Fox

A sneaky fox plays a series of underhand tricks on his neighbours in the animal kingdom, among them a timorous hare and a gullible wolf. The king of the beasts, a lion, summons him to face charges but the fox proceeds to outwit everyone, including the king himself. When Ladislas Starevich told this tale in the 1930s it was by no means new – versions of the Reynard story had been circulating around Europe for the best part of a millennium – but the...

Aleksandr Sokurov's tetralogy of power, previously dedicated to real biographical subjects (Lenin, Hitler, Hirohito), unexpectedly concludes with a legendary fictitious man: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust. The Russian director has loosely—one might even say wildly, fervently—adapted Goethe's play with a barely contained gleeful passion.

The mise en scène breaks out of the fetid, murmuring stasis so evocative of Molokh (1999), Taurus (2001) and The Sun (2005) and is freed to wander in a malleable, Ruizian manner around a sumptuously dirty and worn old German town of stone and earth. After beginning with a Forrest Gump-like descent of the camera from mirrored heavens, flying down to the grimy, sprawling town, the second shot after this luxurious, fantastical opening introduces Faust (Johannes Zeiler) via the decomposing ash-purple penis of a corpse he is dissecting in poverty and philosophical inquiry. With no money for food (let alone gravediggers), the doctor first approaches and then is chased,...

Review Michael Noble 8 Oct 2013 - 10:15

German Romanticism in Atlantic City? Why not. This is after all, Boardwalk Empire...

This review contains spoilers.

4.5 Erlkonig

"Be calm, dearest child, thy fancy deceives;

the wind is sighing through withering leaves."

This week’s episode opens with a series of carefully mounted images. We’re in Eddie’s room, his bed undisturbed. The camera picks up two caged birds before alighting on a photograph of his two sons as boys. It then turns its gaze to some sheet music of Schubert’s Lieder and a couple of Western novels, symbolic of Eddie’s German past and his American present. The window is open and the wind breathes through the room, its whistle audible amid the sound of Nucky’s urgent phone call from Willie.

With that, Erlkönig sets out the symbolism that will dominate an episode concerned with temptation and the decisions the...

Boardwalk Empire, Season 4, Episode 5, “Erlkönig”

Written by Howard Korder

Directed by Tim Van Patten

Airs Sundays at 9pm Est on HBO

Kate is new to Boardwalk Empire this season and her reviews will approach the acclaimed series from the newbie’s perspective.

This week, on Boardwalk Empire: Gillian becomes desperate, Mueller moves up, and Eddie is taken by the Erlkönig

As many viewers will no doubt be aware, Der Erlkönig is a poem by Goethe based on Danish folklore that was adapted by the great (early) Romantic composer Franz Schubert into one of his most famous lieder, or art songs. To set the mood for the discussion of by far the best episode this season, so far:

Schubert’s “Erlkonig” tells the story of a father racing through the forest on horseback to get his young son home while the son shudders and cries out to his father about the spectral Erlkonig (trans.

Boardwalk Empire's "Erlkönig" takes its name from the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's poem, which translates to "The Elf King," as recited by Knox and Eddie.  The story is about an anxious boy who is being carried home by his father.  The boy feels the presence of this King and warns his father, who dismisses it several times as nothing but a rustle or a whisper.  But, when the boy finally cries out in pain, the father realizes the "king" is real, and his son is dead in his arms.  "Der Erlkönig" is about the omen of death, and its namesake episode focused heavily, and with exceeding solemnity, on loss.  Hit the jump for why "In the end, all you can count on is blood." Boardwalk kept up its trend (after the premiere) of only focusing on a few characters per episode.  The chosen few of "Erlkönig" surely wish they weren't though,...

"Hollywood Unplugged," a new series on HuffPost Entertainment, shows our culture's most influential figures in a new light. Instead of focusing on their accomplishments, it examines how they continue to thrive despite the inevitable stress.

Hilaria Baldwin may spend a lot of time in the yoga studio, but that doesn't mean she's a stranger to stress. The yoga instructor, "Extra" lifestyle correspondent, and wife of actor Alec Baldwin is getting ready for her biggest job yet: parenthood. The couple is expecting a baby girl later this year so when it comes to unwinding these day, Baldwin knows it's more important than ever.

The Huffington Post: How do you know when it's time to unplug and recharge?

Hilaria Baldwin: I love to work, and I work a lot, but this means I get overtired. I can always tell that I am stressed out and overwhelmed when I start making silly...

In today's chapter of our ongoing tribute to horror's early days, we take a look at an epic dark fantasy from director F.W. Murnau, whom you may remember as the director of the 1922 film Nosferatu, the first – though unofficial – cinematic adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula. (For a really cool fictionalized take on the making of that film, check out E. Elias Merhige's Shadow of the Vampire.) When Murnau returned to horror four years later, he did so in a major way, with the most elaborate and expensive German film production to date; Fritz Lang's monumental Metropolis would edge it out of the top spot the following year. The story of Faust is universally known, but got a big boost from an adaptation by renowned German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, which was published in the early 1800s. The legend itself involves a master alchemist (Gösta Ekman) who...

Its wide range of contributors and influences make Lore something more than just another tale of post-Nazi Germany

Given its transnational provenance – its Anglo-German source novel adapted by a British-Bengali screenwriter, its Australian director and its bleak Nazi-era subject matter – I'm reluctant to dub Lore a straightforwardly German movie. This might seem counterintuitive given its story: a 14-year-old German daughter of prominent Nazis is left to trek northwards across a ruined Germany in the weeks after the Nazi collapse, her infant siblings and a displaced Jewish boy in tow, and her Nazi assumptions slowly unravelling.

That bald summary might induce one to categorise Lore in the long and honourable line of movies set against the death-seizures of Hitler's regime. That line stretched from Rossellini's Germany Year Zero, shot contemporaneously in 1947 in the actual smoking ruins, to 2008's Anonyma, in which sexual servitude is seen as one woman's only sane response...

★★★☆☆ Billed as a free interpretation of Goethe's original play, Alexander Sokurov's Faust (2011) sees the Russian auteur returning to his proclivity for challenging depictions of male protagonists, to somewhat perplexing results. Collating his traditional cinematic interests, namely the fragility and combined strengths and weaknesses of masculinity, Faust is a slow moving, murkily fascinating depiction of moral ambiguity, painted on a broad and visually operatic canvas that eschews straightforwardness in favour of a dreamlike narrative texture.

Read more »...

Dark Shadows (12A)

(Tim Burton, 2012, Us) Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Eva Green, Chloë Grace Moretz, Jackie Earle Haley. 113 mins

Another expensive pop-gothic fantasy (remake) for Depp and Burton's gallery – how long before either they get bored or we do? This time Johnny's an effete 18th-century vampire, reawakened in 1972 to reunite with his dysfunctional Addams-like descendants and marvel at the modern world. Expect fish-out-of-water silliness, a light shade of darkness, and the usual descent into messiness.

Café De Flore (15)

(Jean-Marc Vallée, 2011, Can) Vanessa Paradis, Kevin Parent, Hélène Florent. 121 mins

Music and mystery add a great deal to this well-made emotional drama, which switches between a present-day DJ and a 1970s mother (Paradis) whose child has Down's syndrome.

Beloved (15)

(Christophe Honoré, 2011, Fra/UK/Cze) Chiara Mastroianni, Ludivine Sagnier, Catherine Deneuve. 139 mins

Using flashbacks and musical moments, Honoré tells the story of a former prostitute, her daughter and the men in their lives.

Sokurov's version of Goethe's tragedy is part bad dream, part music-less opera, with hallucinatory flashes of fear

Aleksandr Sokurov's Faust is a version of Goethe's tragedy that won the Golden Lion at last year's Venice film festival; it is being presented as the last part of a "cinematic tetralogy" with three earlier films, Moloch (1999) about Hitler, Taurus (2001) about Lenin and The Sun (2005) about Hirohito. Generally, when directors claim this, it is a transparent ploy to shift the back-catalogue DVDs, but this surely can't be true of such a distinguished film-maker, and there is some dramatic interest in linking fictional Faust with three historical figures, each pondering power, destiny, heaven and hell.

The Austrian actor Johannes Zeiler is Faust, dissecting grisly corpses in a vaguely delineated central Europe in what looks like the 16th century of Marlowe's Faustus. He is brooding over the location of the soul (perhaps...

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Aleksandr Sokurov’s four-part meditation on the interplay between power and evil comes to a close with Faust, a challenging, dense take on Goethe’s famed text. With the previous three parts focusing on the travails of historical figures – Moloch on Hitler, Taurus on Lenin and The Sun on Hirohito – Faust might seem like a peculiar post-script, especially when it unfolds like a spiritual prequel, revealing just a little about what might have driven these men to unthinkable behaviours.

Sokurov’s film – which won the Golden Lion at least year’s Venice Film Festival – keenly plays fast and loose with the source material, changing plot structure, character machinations and location, rendering the project, for better and for worse, very much his own. The core premise of course remains the same; the well-meaning if frustrated Doctor Faust (Johannes Zeiler) visits a cantankerous moneylender (Anton Adasinsky), and after signing in his own blood,...