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Civil War, directed by Alex Garland, offers an accurate portrayal of war photographers and their moral quandaries. The film was shot on-location in Atlanta, Georgia, showcasing different filming locations that add to the road-trip feel. Despite revolving around an American conflict, production for Civil War was eventually moved to London, England for post-production needs.

A powerful war epic written and directed by Alex Garland, Civil War received some backlash for its execution. In Garland's other fare, science-fiction elements take center stage, creating off-beat and somewhat-surreal atmospheres. That approach was true not just of the filmmaker's feature-length projects like Ex Machina and Annihilation, but the TV series Devs as well. Instead of focusing on world-building, however, Garland's Civil War is an accurate portrait of war photographers at large. The job's complexities, thrills, and moral quandaries are put on full display thanks to Kirsten Dunst's Lee Smith, a renowned photojournalist.

It's...

For Starwoids, the scene is immutable gospel: Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) is taken by the old sage Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness) into a rundown, sleazy cantina in the city of Mos Eisley on the planet Tatooine. They know they can find an off-the-books pilot-for-hire there, hoping to deliver an important message to a distant world, a message that could conceivably take down the entire evil Empire that rules the galaxy. Scanning the room, Luke and Obi-Wan find Han Solo (Harrison Ford), a ne'er-do-well smuggler who is in debt to the mob, but claims to have the fastest starship in the galaxy.

Luke is out of his element in the cantina. He's young and inexperienced in the realm of vice and crime. Obi-wan famously described the cantina as a hive of scum and villainy. Because Han was in his element in this bar, he was most assuredly a scummy villain. It...

On 27th February 2023, Nucleus Films will release the shocking 1970s horror film Dark Places on Blu-ray.

There’S More Than Death Waiting For You In Dark Places

Legendary British stars Christopher Lee, Joan Collins and Herbert Lom get together in a grisly tale of hidden loot in a haunted house.

Dr Ian Mandeville and his sister Sarah mean to get their hands on the £200,000 stashed in the derelict Marr’s Grove – only to find that Edward Foster, a stranger to the district, has recently inherited the place. As Edward rapidly succumbs to the influence of the mansion’s long-dead owners, madness and bloody murder ensue…

Directed by Don Sharp, this long-awaited UK Blu-ray premiere has been remastered from original vault elements and is packed with bonus features.

Also starring Jane Birkin, Robert Hardy and Jean Marsh…

Dare you enter Marr’s Grove and encounter the evil lurking within?

Special Features:...

The original vamp on 70 years of showbiz life, having Boris Johnson as a boss and why partying is a dying art

Dame Joan Collins, 88, was born in Paddington and trained at Rada. She began appearing in films while still in her teens, with more than 70 credits including Our Girl Friday, Land of the Pharaohs, The Virgin Queen, The Stud and The Bitch. During the 80s, she found fame as Alexis Colby in the US soap Dynasty, a role that won her a Golden Globe. In recent years she returned to TV with the likes of The Royals, Benidorm and American Horror Story. Her new memoir, My Unapologetic Diaries, is out now.

Did returning to your 90s diaries whisk you back in time?

Absolutely. They weren’t written in the usual way. I never put pen to paper. Between 1989 and 2006, I talked into a Dictaphone practically every night when I got home,...

Laura Fairrie’s family-sanctioned film praises the author’s personal courage, work ethic and feminism-lite but doesn’t delve very deep

Mega-selling author Jackie Collins enjoyed her big-haired and shoulder-padded heyday with raunchy books like Hollywood Wives, The Bitch and The Stud; now she is celebrated in this family-sanctioned fan-documentary praising her personal courage in the face of spousal abuse, her work ethic and her feminist-lite celebration of commercial success for sexually attractive women. It’s watchable, with some stinging rebukes for the male snobs – including, I’m sorry to say, Clive James, normally a great pop culture ally, shown here in a gruesome TV clip alongside Bernard Levin mocking Collins in her absence.

Collins grew up in the shadow of her more glamorous older sister Joan Collins, she had some cosmetic work done (which she was delighted with) and tried, like Joan, to crack Hollywood. When that didn’t work out,...

Jackie Collins epitomizes one of the 20th century’s favorite types of star: the celebrity novelist who gets rich and famous writing scandalous best-sellers about fictionalized scandalous celebrities. She rode in from England to Hollywood to take up her throne as the queen of the delectably trashy sex-and-shopping paperbacks, peaking in the Eighties, right around the time her real-life big sister Joan Collins starred in the prime-time soap Dynasty. Jackie turned herself into a wildly successful one-woman factory for fantasies with nuanced titles like The Bitch and The Stud. Yet...

Jackie Collins created a literary empire and attracted millions of fans with her stories of empowered women who successfully navigate the world of the “rich and famous.” They had fabulous hair, fabulous sex and fabulous lives.

Critics hated Collins’ novels, dismissing the author as “the queen of trash.” But that’s deeply unfair. Books like “Hollywood Wives,” “Lady Boss” and “The Stud” helped define a certain kind of 20th century feminism, one that saw Collins’ heroines thriving in board rooms, back lots and executive suites, spaces that had previously been dominated by men.

“Lady Boss: The Jackie Collins Story,” a new documentary from CNN Films, traces the author’s career and meteoric rise to the top of the best-seller lists, while also revealing the personal struggles that shaped her work. To tell that intimate story, director Laura Fairrie drew on Collins’ home videos and diaries, and interviewed her children, close friends and sister,...

There is a riveting moment in “Lady Boss,” an insightful documentary about the life of novelist Jackie Collins, in which we see Collins preparing her face for the camera. She brushes her bangs a bit with her finger as if to give herself something positive to do, but there is turmoil going on behind her eyes; it looks like she is struggling to hold down enormous pain and insecurity, and this struggle is intensely active, for there was nothing passive about Collins.

Once the camera is ready for her, Collins has arranged her face into the semi-snarly made-up armor that she presented in her glamorous public life, which always included large hair, shoulder pads and a liking for leopard-print fabric. Collins was English, but her books were very successful in America because she subscribed religiously to the American urge for self-reinvention.

Collins grew up in the shadow of her movie star sister,...

Durban — With world leaders arriving in Johannesburg this week, with an aim toward boosting trade ties and stimulating the economies of the five member states at the annual Brics summit, delegations from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa gathered in Durban to highlight the countries’ cultural output at the 3rd annual Brics Film Festival.

Running parallel to the Durban Film Festival, the Brics festival opened Sunday night with a splashy ceremony featuring live performances and short films from each of the member states. At the Durban FilmMart on Monday, a delegation of filmmakers and cultural representatives from each nation gathered to look at how the festival – still in its infant stages – can set the groundwork for greater collaboration in the years ahead.

“We do have a lot more in common with Brics countries than we have with our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world,” said South African filmmaker Xoliswa Sithole,...

Chicago – The ageless Joan Collins is probably best known for the prime time soap opera “Dynasty,” which ran from 1981 to 1989, but she is also a throwback to the last of the old studio system in Hollywood, when she was signed to a contract with 20th Century Fox in 1955. For her latest act, she will appear in the upcoming eighth season of FX Channel’s “American Horror Story.” Her birthday, May 23rd, is today.

Dame Joan Henrietta Collins was born in Paddington, London, and received her early performance education at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She was 17 years old when she signed with the J. Arthur Rank Film Company in Britain, and made her debut in “Lady Godiva Rides Again” (1951). She rose quickly through the British system, eventually receiving top billing in “Our Girl Friday” (1953). Hollywood came knocking shortly thereafter, as took a role in director Howard Hawks’ “Land of...

Every good film deserves a sequel. And then there’s The Stud which got one too. Sister act Joan and Jackie Collins followed up their mega-smash with 1979’s The Bitch which continues the bed-hopping adventures of Fontaine Khaled, the glamorous disco-owner still looking for love in all the wrong places. Remarkably, Joan’s star continued to rise; The Stud and The Bitch opened the door to her long-running role on TV’s Dynasty.

Joan Collins in 'The Bitch': Sex tale based on younger sister Jackie Collins' novel. Author Jackie Collins dead at 77: Surprisingly few film and TV adaptations of her bestselling novels Jackie Collins, best known for a series of bestsellers about the dysfunctional sex lives of the rich and famous and for being the younger sister of film and TV star Joan Collins, died of breast cancer on Sept. 19, '15, in Los Angeles. The London-born (Oct. 4, 1937) Collins was 77. Collins' tawdry, female-centered novels – much like those of Danielle Steel and Judith Krantz – were/are immensely popular. According to her website, they have sold more than 500 million copies in 40 countries. And if the increasingly tabloidy BBC is to be believed (nowadays, Wikipedia has become a key source, apparently), every single one of them – 32 in all – appeared on the New York Times' bestseller list. (Collins' own site claims that a mere 30 were included.) Sex...

British novelist Jackie Collins, whose licentious-fiction romps through glamorous night lives have sold more than 500 million copies in 40 countries, has died of breast cancer at 77. Collins earned notoriety in 1968, with the publication of her novel The World is Full of Married Men. The prolific romance writer Barbara Cartland, who wrote over 700 novels (!) in her life, called the book disgusting; it was banned in several countries and subsequently sold very well in America. Her next book, The Stud ('69), announced her as the more lurid, female-oriented foil to Philip Roth, whose masturbation-centric classic Portnoy's Complaint came out that same year. Collins wrote about the lascivious side of Hollywood with the Hollywood series ('83-'03) and the seedy world of organized crime with the Santangelo novels, the last of which, the 600-page the Santangelos, came out this June. Collins began writing for film in the '70s, and...

Best-selling author Jackie Collins, whose novels about the lives of the rich and famous in Hollywood were often inspired by real-life experiences, died today, her family said. Collins, who kept her illness private, died of breast cancer. She was 77. The mid-1980s TV miniseries Hollywood Wives and 1990 Lucky Chances were based on her books. Additionally her novels The Stud and The Bitch were made into movies that starred her sister Joan Collins. She also adapted The World…...

The diva of Dynasty is now a dame. Joan Collins, who played scheming, shoulder pad-wearing Alexis Carrington in the hit 1980s TV show, was made the female equivalent of a knight in Queen Elizabeth II's annual New Year's honors list. The star of potboilers including The Stud and The Bitch was recognized for her services to charity. Collins, 81, is a longtime supporter of nonprofit groups helping children. London-born Collins said Tuesday it was "humbling to receive this level of recognition from my queen and country, and I am thrilled and truly grateful." Actress Kristin Scott Thomas, who is due...

The diva of Dynasty is now a dame. Joan Collins, who played scheming, shoulder pad-wearing Alexis Carrington in the hit 1980s TV show, was made the female equivalent of a knight in Queen Elizabeth II's annual New Year's honors list. The star of potboilers including The Stud and The Bitch was recognized for her services to charity. Collins, 81, is a longtime supporter of nonprofit groups helping children. London-born Collins said Tuesday it was "humbling to receive this level of recognition from my queen and country, and I am thrilled and truly grateful." Actress Kristin Scott Thomas, who is due...

Aleister Crowley. When it comes to being infamous, few names come to mind more than his. Let's face it; the dude was evil and batshit nuts! The perfect fodder for a horror film, and there's indeed a new one on the way!

Directed by Richard Driscoll, The Devil Rides Out stars Steven Craine (Highway to Hell, Return of the Jedi, HeadHunter), Bai Ling (The Crow, Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow), Lysette Anthony (Krull, Jack the Ripper), Sylvester McCoy ("Dr Who," The Hobbit), Oliver Tobias (The Stud, Arabian Adventure), Robin Askwith (U571, Flesh & Blood Show, Confessions of a Window Cleaner), and Dudley Sutton (The Devils, Football Factory).

Synopsis

Dealing with the loss of his family to his murderous brother, Vincent (Robin Askwith), George Carney (Steven Craine) is already a man on the edge of life. Three stories merge from the mind of a writer trapped in a coma in hospital,...

Jackie Collins has sold over 400 million books worldwide with her saucy tales of fame, fortune and lust. The author told me, however, that many of her characters are based on people we all know, because what really goes on in Hollywood is much more scandalous than even fiction.

"I remember, before Clinton was president, I was sitting at a dinner in Beverly Hills and one of his aides was there and told me that he was definitely going to be president, except for one problem: the zipper problem," Jackie tells me. "They knew way before he was elected!"

Collins revealed they she still writes in long hand and gets a thrill telling her tales, which she keeps leather-bound in her Beverly Hills mansion where real life is a constant inspiration. Good thing Jackie's friends still tell her secrets.

"Oh, they tell me stuff all of the time. ... So I am...

Joyce McKinney is a woman with a lot of love to give and in 1977 she found a man to devote herself to completely. This man was Kirk Anderson and according to Joyce the two fell madly in love. The only problem was that Kirk Anderson was a Mormon and following their whirlwind romance Kirk ‘disappeared’. The circumstances surrounding Kirk’s disappearance are the first of many situations in which the real story is almost impossible to discern. It later appeared to transpire that Kirk had moved to the UK for Mormon missionary work but Joyce was adamant that he had been kidnapped and taken to the UK against his will.

Hiring a private investigator, a pilot and bodyguards she traveled to find Kirk, liberate him from the Mormon church and continue their relationship. Liberate him she did, and not just from the church. Hiding out in a cottage in Devon...

The documentary-maker talks to Sukhdev Sandhu about working as a private detective, breaking into a mental hospital and the spat with Us beauty queen Joyce McKinney over his new film, Tabloid

This is weird. The documentary film-maker Errol Morris says he likes the Guardian – "It's my favourite paper" – but, sitting in the lobby of a sleekly manicured hotel in New York's SoHo district to talk about his work, it's not clear if he likes documentaries very much. "This is going to get me depressed," he groans. "I feel as if I became a documentary film-maker only because I had writer's block for four decades. There's no other good reason. I don't know what I should be doing. I'm tired of everything – mostly of myself."

It's weird not because Morris is being downbeat – after all, he once had a magazine column entitled The Grump; a typical post on his Twitter account...

Dynasty legend Joan Collins has paid tribute to her friend and former co-star Sue Lloyd, who died on Thursday.

Collins was devastated to learn that British model-turned-actress Lloyd had died aged 72 from undisclosed causes.

The pair became close as young actresses when they were both cast in movie The Stud and its sequel The Bitch, which were both based on novels by Collins' sister Jackie.

Collins tells Britain's Daily Telegraph, "She was the life and soul of parties in the late Seventies when we were working on The Stud and The Bitch. We had a lot of fun filming The Stud when we had to strip for a pool scene. 'Let's get drunk,' Sue suggested, as we were both highly embarrassed about it. So we did and the scene rocked."...

Actor known for her roles in The Ipcress File and Crossroads

The actor Sue Lloyd, who has died aged 72, exuded glamour and sophistication on screen in the 1960s, before finding renewed fame two decades later as Barbara Hunter in 714 episodes of the TV soap opera Crossroads. But it took two attempts by the serial's producers to persuade her to join a programme that was roundly abused by the critics.

"My initial reaction was to be a bit sniffy about it," Lloyd recalled in her 1998 autobiography, It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time. "The soap was renowned for its wobbly scenery, bizarre storylines and regular slaughtering by the critics. Why would I, just back from filming [Revenge of] The Pink Panther with Peter Sellers in the south of France and about to embark on the comedy The Upchat Line with John Alderton, want to get involved in a project like that?...

The beauty queen, the Mormon missionary tied to a bed – Joyce McKinney's bizarre story gripped Britain in the 1970s and is now retold in a fine documentary

Joyce McKinney is one of those names that for people of a certain age opens a doorway into the past. To mention it is to be transported back to the 1970s, when there were only three TV channels, British food was awful, sex was naughty and Fleet Street was still the home of national newspapers. Back then computers were the preserve of boffins in white coats, but even if journalists had managed to lay their hands on some mainframe monster the size of a small house, and programmed it with all the ingredients of the perfect tabloid story, the results could never have matched the bizarre and compelling tale of a wannabe beauty queen's obsessional love.

Featuring a missionary, a kidnapping, bondage sex,...

Leicester Square Theatre, London

"I hope she's wearing shoulder pads!" says a woman behind me as we await the first glimpse of super-diva Joan Collins. We were to be disappointed.

When Collins arrived onstage in spangly black trousers – to much whooping – her shoulders were bare.

The well-preserved actor, best known for her starring role in Dynasty, has been in the news recently following the publication of her latest book, The World According to Joan Collins.

In it she catalogued the causes of broken Britain, including bad manners, liberal parenting, benefit scroungers, reality TV and the fat woman in front of her at the cheese counter.

Wisely, her one-woman show did not touch on the political. Instead we were given an abridged version of her memoirs, or perhaps an expanded version of her Wikipedia entry.

"I was born in the second third of the 20th century," she said coyly, as if...

Joyce McKinney is a woman with a lot of love to give and in 1977 she found a man to devote herself too completely. This man was Kirk Anderson and according to Joyce the two fell madly in love. The only problem was that Kirk Anderson was a Mormon and following their whirlwind romance Kirk ‘disappeared’. The circumstances surrounding Kirk’s disappearance are the first of many situations where the real story is almost impossible to discern. It later appeared to transpire that Kirk had moved to the UK for Mormon missionary work but Joyce was adamant that he had been kidnapped and taken to the UK against his will.

Hiring a private investigator, a pilot and bodyguards she traveled to find Kirk, liberate him from the Mormon church and continue their relationship. Liberate him she does and not just from the church. Hiding out in a cottage in Devon Joyce...

Actor Oliver Tobias looks set for a second marriage - to a woman 27 years his junior. Tobias, 53, is best known for his role opposite Joan Collins in trashy 70's flick Stud, The (1978), where he played a toyboy waiter who sleeps with the wife of his rich boss. But Tobias insists his relationship with 26-year-old model Araballa Zamoyska has nothing to do with age - in fact the age difference is "totally irrelevant" to him. He says, "She has an old head on young shoulders and I find it disrespectful when people comment on it." And the actor, currently starring in hit London West End musical "La Cava", would definitely consider marriage to the blonde bombshell. He admits, "I'd like to get married again and I'd like to become a father again, but I want to do it properly... I think it's great to get down on one knee and ask your good lady if she will marry you."...