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Turbo Kid

Written & Directed by François Simard, Anouk Whissell & Yoann-Karl Whissell

Canada / New Zealand, 2015

Turbo Kid is a post-apocalyptic love letter to the action-horror genre. It looks and sounds wonderful, with the kind of world building you would expect from ‘80s film aficionados. The writing-directing trio of François Simard, Anouk Whissell & Yoann-Karl Whissell dials up the kitsch and adds just enough heart to keep things from getting too zany. Unfortunately, a lackluster script and bland leading performance prevent Turbo Kid from being more than just a pleasant trifle, but it’s a bloody fun way to spend your Saturday night.

Turbo Kid is a movie for movie lovers. From the funky costumes to a pitch-perfect synth soundtrack, it gets all the details exactly right. Ironically, this loving homage to ‘80s cheese more closely resembles a classic western than a Cannon Films holdover. The reluctant hero duels it out with the...

Each and every year, the South by Southwest Film Festival comes together in Austin, Texas to shine the spotlight on some of the most provocative and ingenious indie horror films from across the globe. The 2015 SXSW line-up is no exception, featuring a multitude of thought-provoking titles and genre-bending awesomeness that we could not be more excited to check out during the festival this month.

Here’s a look at several of the films from SXSW 2015 that have us excited for this year’s line-up and should stay on your radar once they’re officially released at a later date:

The Final Girls

Director: Todd Strauss-Schulson, Screenwriters: M. A. Fortin, Joshua John Miller

Max and her friends are mysteriously transported into a famous 1980s horror movie that starred Max's mother, a celebrated scream queen. Reunited, they team up to fight the film's maniacal killer and find their way back home. Cast: Taissa Farmiga,...

This year’s South By Southwest Film Conference and Festival (SXSW 2015), which will run from March 13-21 in Austin, Texas, has unveiled the lineup for its beloved Midnighters section, which aims to showcase the best and brightest in genre filmmaking, from thriller to horror to science-fiction. Attendees will witness 11 titles including nine world premieres at Midnighters this year, with filmmakers like Karyn Kusama and Rodney Ascher in the mix.

SXSW’s senior programmer Jarod Neece commented on the Midnighters lineup, stating:

“Creepy, clever, engrossing, and frightening are just a few words that come to mind when I think about this year’s SXSW Midnighters lineup. These nine world premieres and two festival favorites are helmed by five first-time filmmakers and several SXSW alumni.”

Midnighters always introduces some fascinating genre pics, and whether there’s something here that will go on to Oculus-style success remains to be seen, but it’s...

SXSW’s Midnighters selections often give horror fans the first look at indie horror’s finest releases of the year and their 2015 lineup has just been announced, including nine movies that will be making their world premiere during the festival:

“Scary, funny, sexy, controversial – provocative after-dark features for night owls and the terminally curious.

The Corpse of Anna Fritz (Spain)

Director: Hèctor Hernández Vicens, Screenwriters: Hèctor Hernándes Vicens, Isaac P. Creus

Anna Fritz, a famous and beautiful actress, has died recently. Three young men sneak into the morgue to see her naked. Fascinated by her beauty, they decide to become the last people to have sex with her. Cast: Alba Ribas, Cristian Valencia, Bernat Saumell, Albert Carbó (World Premiere)

Deathgasm (New Zealand)

Director/Screenwriter: Jason Lei Howden

New kid in town Brodie and bad-boy Zakk quickly bond over their mutual admiration of heavy metal. But when these two metal thrashing losers unwittingly summon malevolent forces,...

SXSW top brass have unveiled the Midnighters section and the complete short film line-up at the festival, set to run in Texas from March 13-21.

This marks the second year of the section and the 2015 offerings comprise 11 genre films including nine world premieres.

“Creepy, clever, engrossing, and frightening are just a few words that come to mind when I think about this year’s SXSW Midnighters line-up,” said SXSW producer and senior programmer Jarod Neece.

“These nine world premieres and two Festival Favorites are helmed by five, first-time filmmakers and several SXSW alumni. We will be screening four films a night at midnight during all nine days of SXSW, and we can’t wait to unleash them on the SXSW audiences”

The Midnighters line-up appears below including synopses provided by the festival:

The Corpse Of Anna Fritz (Spain)

Director: Hèctor Hernández Vicens

Anna Fritz, a famous and beautiful actress, has died recently. Three young men...

The Mr Selfridge actor and director of The Kid talks about his family

I went back recently to my old council estate in South Oxhey, where all these poky tin houses are identical, and you start seeing your childhood through your parents' eyes because you realise what it must have been like for them to bring up a family in that environment. There are lot of good people there but those estates are purpose-built and there's no interaction between that estate and any of the very nice surrounding areas. There's one road on and one road off and the school was built within the estate, so that the kids don't infect the surrounding areas.

There was a lot of frustration in our family growing up but, generally speaking, we were happy. My mum had a son from her first marriage and lost custody of him so I didn't see much of him growing up.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

In a seemingly further attempt at throwing random ideas at a movie screen until something sticks, Steven Soderbergh follows the by the numbers experiment in kinetic setups, Haywire, with a flashily choreographed but ultimately, emotionally flat look at the world of male strippers.

Still, for the first half of Magic Mike you’d be forgiven for thinking that emotions aren’t really the prime focus for Mike and his crew, as cash is stuffed in waistbands, women scream and throw themselves at them with abandon, and the nightlife is filled with neon drinking, clubbing and so many more women that the first time we meet the eponymous Mike (Channing Tatum) he’s waking in the company of a pair of them, and being completely clueless as to whom one of them even is. Though to be fair, the one he’s at least familiar with (Olivia Munn...

Would it matter If I said Magic Mike was a bad movie? Are there persuasive enough words to scare off those who are jumping up and down to see Channing Tatum (21 Jump Street), Alex Pettyfer (I Am Number Four), Joe Manganiello (True Blood), Matt Bomer (White Collar), Kevin Nash (WWF/WWE wrestler), and Adam Rodriguez (CSI: Miami) strip down to thongs? I didn’t think so. And as you continue shaking your head no, I can honestly say that Magic Mike is a good time, even though it’s not necessarily a great movie.

Tatum is “Magic Mike,” an entrepreneur with bad credit, living out the dreams of young men by having a casual sexual relationship with a liberal psych major (Olivia Munn). Mike also moonlights as a stripper at Tampa’s finest establishment for male revue, the Xquisite. He also gets a percentage of the club’s cover admissions...

Chicago – It turns out that Channing Tatum did a bit of male stripping on the way up the show business ladder, which adds some spice and verisimilitude to “Magic Mike,” a backstage tale about the masculine side of theatrical disrobing, supported by Matthew McConaughey and Alex Pettyfer.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

Boys just want to have fun in this male version of “Showgirls” – complete with the naive-kid-turned-exposed-performer and a clichéd subplot about his downfall. Channing Tatum is the centerpiece as the title character, and actually adds some depth into a solid story directed with a sharp edge by Steven Soderbergh. Throw in Matthew McConaughey in full “McCounaughey Mode,” and all will leave the theater exclaiming his catchphrase, “all right, all right!”

Tatum is Mike, a mysterious “entrepreneur” who meets a 19 year-old employment drifter named Adam (Alex Pettyfer) at a roofing job. He sees Adam later in the evening, and needs his help. Mike...

When I first heard the premise of the film, I thought director Steven Soderbergh was making his own version of "Showgirls." But to the contrary, "Magic Mike" turns out to be fun, sexy, and crazy with just the right amount of cheese. (Watch the video below)

Channing Tatum harkens back to his glory days of male stripping to come up with the story. It's interesting to note that while most actors would shy away from their semi-naked past, Tatum embraces it and even makes a movie about his experience. (Exclusive interview with Channing Tatum and Matthew McConaughey)

Tatum stars as Mike, a struggling entrepeneur by day, and the headliner of an all-male revue by night. The club is called Xquisite and his troop is known as the Kings of Tampa. Their owner is the Messiah of the male strippers, Dallas, played by Matthew McConaughey. (Exclusive interview with Alex Pettyfer and...

The marketing and female fervor for Magic Mike has largely surrounded the fact it takes place in the world of male stripping and features an often shirtless Channing Tatum in the film's titular lead role, flanked by a variety of additional man flesh to give ladies something to scream about. The film delivers on its promise of gyrating and pelvic-thrusting, barely clothed men as the music plays and the lights shine, but beyond that you get a film that comes across as a truly authentic drama with a performance from Tatum that makes you believe you may actually be looking at the movie star Hollywood so desperately wants him to be.

From the outset there is no doubt this is a Steven Soderbergh feature. His attention to detail, every frame drenched in a sepia hue and the gentle hum of ambient noise in a room as two people share thoughts...

Chicago – Beefcake is on parade in the new film “Magic Mike,” about a troupe of male strippers in sunny Florida. The film was partially based on the true life experiences of Channing Tatum, who did perform briefly in his late teens. In the film he is Magic Mike, and Joe Manganiello portrays “Big Dick” Ritchie.

“Magic Mike” is directed by Steven Soderbergh, and although it balances the outrageous male strip shows with some inevitable downfall in the performers, it maintains a feeling of truth and a path beyond the stage. HollywoodChicago.com recently got to talk to the lead actor Channing Tatum and his supporting cast member Joe Manganiello during a promotional swing through Chicago.

Channing Tatum, Title Character of “Magic Mike”

Channing Tatum’s career is on fire. Fresh from the success of the “21 Jump Street” remake, he follows up with a personal project in “Magic Mike.” As mentioned before,...

Pony up, ladies! This weekend sees the release of the hunk-tastic "Magic Mike.” As promised, the Steven Soderbergh-directed film delves into the world of male stripping and boasts plenty of eye candy: Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer, Matthew McConaughey, Joe Manganiello, Matt Bomer and Adam Rodriguez. There's no doubt that audiences will be lining up in droves for this titillating flick, but how does "Magic Mike" really measure up? Let's take a look in this week's Pro-Con. (Mild Spoilers Follow) Pro: Matthew McConaughey Let's just get this out of the way right now: Matthew McConaughey was perfect as the perma-shirtless emcee, Dallas. He was able to capitalize on his nude, bongo-playing persona (he actually played the bongos at one point), but with a wink. You've never heard the ubiquitous "all right, all right, all right!" until you've heard McConaughey say it while in stripper-garb. Pro: The Spectacle I'd put "Magic Mike's" fictional club,...

Sexy! Daring! It will literally Be Raining Men!

For months, the ads for Magic Mike have been screaming promises of greased-up, stripped-down, body-shot-fuled debauchery at us with all the subtlety of a Westboro Baptist funeral crasher. So it's with both a tip of the hat and a bit of a sigh that I report that yes, Magic Mike is the most awesomely unabashed celebration of Chippendale-variety crotch-wagging ever to grace the American screen ... and it's also a pretty damned decent drama as well. Much like the man at its center, Mike deserves to be seen as the total package ... even though the packages most of us will be plunking down our singles for would have been plenty.

Chronicling three months in the lives of a group of strippers in Tampa, Mike is the perfect summer movie: its pace is unhurried; its attitude is refreshingly blase; and its sun-soaked, skin-filled landscape...

Alex Pettyfer (The Kid) and Cody Horn (Brooke) star as siblings in the new dramedy "Magic Mike" from Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh. The Kid becomes Mike's (Channing Tatum) protegee much to his sister's chagrin. But Brooke is the voice of reason of the movie and the actress who plays her, Cody Horn, is brilliantly breathtaking!

In this interview, we talked about:

*** Their interest in working in the film

*** Their characters and how The Kid is really closer to Pettyfer than any of the characters he's played before

*** The first time Alex wore a thong

*** How you will remember Cody Horn's name after "Magic Mike"

*** The dialogue and how Soderbergh grounded the film in reality

*** Alex's trepidations in playing a male stripper

*** How they picked up the energy of the crowd...

Ladies, hold on to your panties… because sexy just took over the big screen!

Mike has a lot on his plate. He is a roofer, he owns his own detailing company, and one day he hopes to open his own his own custom furniture business. Oh, did I forget to mention that he’s a stripper in an all male review. On one of his roofing gigs, Mike meets Adam “The Kid” and ends up bringing him into the fast paced, crazy world of dancing, women and money.

First thing’s first… a round of applause for the casting in this film. Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer, Matt Bomer, Joe Manganiello and Matthew McConaughey are all fantastic actors. I’ll just go ahead and throw it out there that they all happen to be incredibly well-built and attractive. This film is one big handsome sandwich, and the audience is in the middle.

There's wild weather in the forecast this June 29th, because Magic Mike will be raining men at the Cineplex as it opens across the country! Set in the world of male strippers, this dramatic comedy stars Channing Tatum in a role tailor made for his biceps and abs. The film follows Mike as he takes a young dancer called The Kid (Alex Pettyfer) under his wing and schools him in the fine arts of partying, picking up women, and making easy money. Now some of you excitable audience members can take part of the magic home with our sexy Magic Mike giveaway. Relive some of the steamy action by pulling on, and then ripping off a branded T-shirt, or simply don a cool military cap in completing that topless ensemble you've climbed into to tease the ladies. Girls, you can show your support with a sultry little tank top number...

There’s just something about Channing Tatum. Clearly, he’s got that magic touch (why else would Paramount be reshooting “G.I. Joe: Retaliation” to add more Chan?), a certain je ne sais quoi that would inspire veteran auteur Steven Soderbergh to bring his early life story as a Florida stripper to the silver screen, while making the ultimate male stripper movie in the process. It just so happens to be a really good film too, one that’s about more than just shakin’ what the good Lord bestowed on Mr. Tatum and pals.

Despite what the marketing may have you believe, the film is a two-man show: Alex Pettyfer plays Adam, aka The Kid, Mike’s protégé and foil in this tale of money, work and excess. The Kid’s a recession-era Millennial just trying to make a buck, fuck and get fucked up. Maybe he has no lines in...

A dramatic comedy set in the world of male strippers, .Magic Mike. is directed by Academy Award® winner Steven Soderbergh (.Traffic.) and stars Channing Tatum in the title role. The film follows Mike as he takes a young dancer called The Kid (Alex Pettyfer) under his wing and schools him in the fine arts of partying, picking up women, and making easy money.

“Magic Mike,” starring Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer, Matthew McConaughey, Cody Horn, Olivia Munn, Matt Bomer, Riley Keough, Joe Manganiello, Kevin Nash, Adam Rodriguez and Gabriel Iglesias, will be in theaters Friday, June 29.

What could be better than a girls night out with martinis and manis? Martinis, manis, and the men of “Magic Mike” of course! Warner Bros. Pictures and Wamg invite you to enter for your chance to win passes to the advance screening of Magic Mike in St. Louis on June 25th.

Official Rules:

1. You Must Be In The St.

The Kid With A Bike (12A)

(Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, 2011, Bel/Fra/Ita) Thomas Doret, Cécile de France, Egon di Mateo, Jérémie Renier, Fabrizio Rongione. 87 mins

Once again, the Dardenne brothers pull you into the world of a poor, marginalised soul and keep you there, without resorting to any fancy tricks. How do they do it? In this case it's impulsive young Cyril: no mother, rejected by his father, no friends, and only his talismanic bike to cling to. What's to become of him? It sounds rather worthy but, in fact, it's an effortless watch – powerfully acted, paced like an action movie, and shifting into a higher gear of spiritual grace when it needs to.

The Hunger Games (12A)

(Gary Ross, 2012, Us) Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Wes Bentley, Donald Sutherland, Stanley Tucci. 143 mins

Teens are signed up, trained up and scrubbed up for a reality TV game of death in this...

We really were spoiled for choice last week. Three or four major releases of varying quality hit the multiplexes with 21 Jump Street the clear success story and The Devil Inside the proverbial turd in the punchbowl.

Unfortunately it’s another week of slim pickings this time out as the one major release of the week has ensured that rival studios haven’t dared put anything up against it. Hence you may notice the predominance of The Hunger Games in this week’s article.

If you want to check to see if any of these films are playing near you, you can visit Find Any Film and they’ll be able to help.

The Hunger Games *Pick of the Week* Iframe Embed for Youtube

It’s this week’s big release and, let’s face it, you might as well go and see it sooner or later. Prepare for a media...

It was a real treat to interview the humble and positive Kevin Lewis whose newest book The Scent of a Killer is out now. The Kid hits stores in Australia on 27/06/2011.  The Kid is a very difficult watch, initially, for the long stretch there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel, how was the mood on the set and how did you feel? I only went on set a couple of times, I wanted to leave them with the freedom to do what they wanted with it, but when I did go on, everyone was really cool and upbeat about it. I did not go on set for the childhood scenes. The actors wanted to ask separate questions and what...

Did Lars von Trier's Hitler gaffe blow Melancholia's chances? Did Terrence Malick show up? Find out who won the Palme d'Or and how the night unfolded for the rest of the contenders at this year's festival

5.00pm: So, this year's Cannes is almost at an end. The credits have rolled on the official screenings, the Marché has shut up shop and Henry Barnes and Laurence Topham and I are the only ones still standing from the Guardian.

Last night the awards winners were announced in the sidebar competitions (of which more later). Tonight it's the turn of the main competition: by 7pm UK time we'll know which film Robert De Niro, Jude Law, Uma Thurman el al chose to give the Palme d'Or to. So stick with us - I'll be recapping the last weekend, weighing up the contenders and then liveblogging the ceremony from an increasingly glam and noisy Palais.

The True Adventures Of The World’S Greatest Stuntman

Written by Vic Armstrong w/Robert Sellers | Published by Titan Books

Vic Armstrong has seen it all. Broken shins, busted shoulders, concussions…you name the injury, and he’s had at least one on the sets of some of the biggest films of the last 40 years, from You Only Live Twice to Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade. Beginning as a stuntman in the early ’60s on smaller pictures, Vic worked his way up to co-ordinating stunts for Bond movies and second unit directing work on major Hollywood pictures like Gangs Of New York, and has the stories – and friends – to show for it.

The autobiography takes the usual chronological approach to its author’s life, with occasional asides to relate how certain life lessons or skills were applied later on, and begins with Vic’s rural English upbringing before his...

From the epic to the intimate, classical music has been at the centre of some of the most ambitious films at the Cannes festival

I've been especially interested this year in the striking use of classical music in scores for films in contention for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes film festival.

Particularly brilliant, I thought, was the use of a single phrase of Beethoven's Emperor Concerto in Luc Dardennes's The Kid With a Bike. The film, which pleased me enormously for the economy, even severity, of its storytelling and editing, was similarly sparing with its music. The same, fleeting four bars – which lingered in the brain unresolved – were used on several occasions, and it was the only music in the film. It became an elegant punctuation mark, but because it hovered, always arrested in its motion, it helped lend the film an atmosphere of quiet tension. It was...

Poker like no other game has played an integral part in film scenarios and plots over the years. It's unimaginable to picture a western saloon, or a Las Vegas casino without a deck of cards being shuffled somewhere. The high's and lows of the card game has provided some of cinema's most memorable scenes, so Flicks News HQ has decided to compile some of what we consider to be the greatest scenes in film history revolving around poker.

Read below as we show our hand at some of our favourite poker scenes:

6. The Cincinnati Kid

The film that put poker on the map is the tale of Eric "The Kid" Stoner played by the king of cool himself Steve McQueen. The film's finale when The Cincinnati Kid takes on 'The Man' and loses, with the victorious Lancey Howard remarking You're good, Kid, -but as long as I'm around you're second...

Juliette Lewis takes overacting to new heights in Conviction. But which other actors' panto performances have left you reeling?

Conviction is a dead-serious awards-tipped real-life courtroom weepie about a man wrongly convicted of murder, who languishes for 18 years in the clink while his devoted sis juggles bar work and single motherhood with a law degree to try and get him out. There's admirable thematic business about the true worth of DNA, and Hilary Swank and Sam Rockwell act their socks off as the siblings. The supporting cast is top drawer, too, including a couple of Oscar nominees – Melissa (Frozen River) Leo and Juliette Lewis. Leo is chilly and exacting in the thankless role of a scantily-motivated bent cop. And Lewis is … well … Lewis is completely bananas.

She may have just two or three scenes, but, golly, does she milk 'em. Playing a white trash nympho alcoholic who's one of the chief witnesses for the prosecution,...

Treacle Jr and Made In Dagenham shared the Best Film award at the 21st Dinard Film Festival. Both pictures took home a Hitchcock d’Or on Saturday night, at the French festival designed to celebrate British film. Dagenham - or We Want Sex, as it is titled in France - also won the Best Screenplay and audience awards, while Mr Nice director/ Director of Photography Bernard Rose picked up the Hitchcock Blanc for Best Cinematography.Stuart Hazeldine’s thriller Exam won the exhibitors' award, the Hitchcock Bronze. Treacle Jr writer/director Jamie Thraves (The Low Down) re-mortaged his house in order to finance his third feature, a funny and moving London-set drama. The jury, which included The Kid director Nick Moran and a game Sienna Miller, joined in a chorus line dance to Abba’s Thank You For The Music, as the ceremony came to a rather surreal conclusion in the French costal town.

Among the high profile films slated for competition this year at the 2010 Savannah Film Festival are Tanya Hamilton's "Night Catches Us," a new short from Academy Award-nominee Bill Plympton, and Nick Moran's "The Kid" starring Rupert Friend and Natascha McElhone. The festival, hosted by the Savannah College of Art and Design, runs in downtown Savannah from October 30 to November 6. Plympton's new animated short, "The Cow Who Wanted to ...

Winter's Bone (15)

(Debra Granik, 2010, Us) Jennifer Lawrence, John Hawkes, Kevin Breznahan. 100 mins

What No Country For Old Men did for west Texas, this striking landscape thriller does for Missouri's Ozark mountains. This is no country for poor women: an insular rural community clouded by drugs and patriarchy where they do things their way. So when Ree learns her father's skipped bail, and the family home was his security, she must ask difficult questions in dangerous places – chiefly among her extended outlaw family. Tough suspense, documentary-like observation and character drama are perfectly balanced.

I'm Still Here (15)

(Casey Affleck, 2010, Us) Joaquin Phoenix, Sean Combs, Anthony Langdon. 107 mins

What was Joaquin thinking? This film won't clear that up, but it at least shows you what he was doing: taking drugs, falling out with friends and the movie biz, rapping badly and descending into mumbling incoherence – apparently.

The Other Guys (12A)

(Adam McKay, 2010, Us) Will Ferrell,...

Natascha McElhone was made ugly for her role in 'The Kid'. Director Nick Moran admits the British actress - who shot to fame starring in 'The Truman Show' with Jim Carrey - was too beautiful for her part, so the make-up team had to work hard to make her less attractive. Speaking on the red carpet at 'The Kid' premiere in London's Leicester Square last night (15.09.10), Nick said: ''Yes we put a lot of make-up on her to ugly her up a bit for the role, but it's not 'Planet of the Apes' type make-up, she still had to act underneath all ..

This week, Xan Brooks discovers the remote Ozark mountains that are the setting for Sundance smash Winter's Bone. Xan speaks to co-writer and director Debra Granik about her passion for stories told frugally, and her fortune in finding newcomer Jennifer Lawrence, from whom she coaxes a fabulous central performance as an impoverished youngster fighting to keep her family home and find her wayward father.

Xan is joined by Henry Barnes to discuss the lineup for this year's London film festival. We hear from the festival's artistic director, Sandra Hebron, and from British directors Kim Longinotto, whose film Pink Saris screens at the festival, and Guardian first film award winner Joanna Hogg. Hogg also discusses her follow-up to Unrelated, Archipelago.

Henry and Xan also review some of this week's other releases including Nick Moran's The Kid, starring Rupert Friend as a street fighter with a troubled past, French zombie thriller...

British actor Rupert Friend was left terrified as he trained for his role in upcoming gangster movie The Kid - he had to learn to fight.

The film is an adaption of the 2003 true story by Kevin Lewis, and Keira Knightley's boyfriend takes on the part of the title character, who is abused as a child and ends up embroiled in the criminal underworld.

Friend spent time with Lewis, who insisted the actor trained in a specialised gym - and he admits he struggled with the gruelling workouts.

He tells Britain's Seven magazine, "I didn't want (Lewis) to feel I was an emotional vampire... I did have to understand him as a person.

"When you first walk into a boxing gym you see the ring in the middle and there's this 'holy s**t' moment: that's the danger zone, I'll stay over here. But the trainer was insistent every day you have to make the ring your home, and outside scary."...

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (15)

(Werner Herzog, 2009, Us) Michael Shannon, Willem Dafoe, Udo Kier, Chloë Sevigny, Grace Zabriskie. 93 mins

Herzog produced by David Lynch: it sounds like an outsider cinephile's fantasy but it's sadly not a patch on the best of their individual works, though worth watching for the cast alone. If it weren't supposedly based on a true story, you'd think the story came out of a late-night Lynch/Herzog weird-off. While delusional am-dram actor Shannon is holed up with two hostages, having just killed his mother with a sword, the cops try to work out how it came to this. Clues include ostriches, flamingoes, jelly, Greek tragedy and, yes, a dwarf.

Tamara Drewe (15)

(Stephen Frears, 2010, UK) Gemma Arterton, Roger Allam, Bill Camp. 111 mins

A postcard of the English countryside with a rude message on the back, Frears's pastoral satire balances bubbly comedy and cutting observation expertly,...

A down-at-heel Brit biopic proves rewarding against the odds...

Alain de Botton once wrote a chapter entitled How To Suffer Successfully. It is either an oxymoron or, perhaps, a prescient insight into the life of best-selling crime author Kevin Lewis. And whilst de Botton was referencing Proust, there is a certain kinship, however indirect, between the French literary genius and Lewis, whose acclaimed memoirs The Kid and The Kid Moves On he has now adapted into a film alongside actor-turned-director Nick Moran.

The story focuses on Lewis (portrayed by Rupert Friend, Augustus Prew and William Finn Miller) and his impoverished adolescence in 1980s London as an intelligent but abused child with a penchant for doodling on walls, who is shuffled between foster homes whilst being bullied at school. Despite his upbringing, and with the support of a few unsung heroes along the way, Lewis tries to make something of himself,...

A trailer for drama movie "The Kid" has been made available for viewing pleasure. An exclusive courtesy of The Sun, the video presents the scenes from the past and future of a boy named Kevin Lewis, showing his hard life.

The film is based on the bestselling memoirs of writer Kevin Lewis, who was growing up on a poverty-stricken London council estate, beaten and starved by his parents, bullied at school and abandoned by social services. Even after he was put into care, he found himself out on the streets caught up in a criminal underworld that knew him as 'The Kid'.

Rupert Friend portrays adult Lewis, with Natascha McElhone playing his sadistic, chain-smoking mum. Ioan Gruffudd lands a role as a sympathetic schoolteacher, while Nick Moran serves behind the lens for the movie. "The Kid" will arrive in the U.K. on September 17.

London -- U.K. sales and finance banner Intandem Films, listed here on the Alternative Investment Market, told the market it is forecasting a fall in revenues in the year to June 30, 2010 ahead of its scheduled November full results release.

But the London based group said it also expects to show the reduction of losses this year from the same period in 2009.

The company issued its trading update ahead of the publication of its report and accounts for the year ended 30 June 2010, which are scheduled for release in November 2010.

It noted that sales have been brisk for Nick Moran's "The Kid" and "Beneath Hill 60," scheduled for DVD release here in September, is also doing good business.

The company also added the Kevin Spacey starrer "Telstar" to its roster of international sales slate and aims to continue its strategy to secure worldwide sales rights for films in the $10 million to $25 million budget range.

Brighton On Screen

With the Brighton Rock remake on its way, the Duke Of York's cinema is getting in early with a season of films made in, or with links to, the area. An obvious choice is Quadrophenia, but the more curious should check out odder fare, like The Flesh And Blood Show, directed by former Doy projectionist Peter Walker, the dour thriller Jigsaw and John Mackenzie's Made, a social drama featuring folkie Roy Harper. The centrepiece is Brighton Rock Unseen, a tribute to Graham Greene's original novel and the iconic 1947 movie it spawned.

Duke Of York's, Sun to 29 Aug; picturehouses.co.uk

Chichester Film Festival

Opening with Sylvain Chomet's lovely, Jacques Tati-inspired animation The Illusionist, the 19th Chichester Film Festival is bent on bringing magic of all kinds to the screen. Aside from previews of upcoming Us, European, Asian and British flicks – including...

Nick Moran returns to directing with The Kid, based on the autobiography and the true story of Kevin Lewis’ abusive childhood, this is one of the British premieres for the Edinburgh Film Festival.

The film opens up with Kevin Lewis (Rupert Friend) being thrown out of a truck and entering an abandoned house, where he plans to kill himself in an empty bedroom. We soon flashback to the eighties where we see Kevin as a child and soon find out that the house was his old childhood home.

After seeing his lifestyle as a child and what he had to go through, we see Kevin as a teenager a few years later where he is moved into a foster family after teachers sees his bruised body. The focus moves to his attempts to make a name for himself and what struggles he has with the challenges that lay in front of him.

London -- Former Bond girl Britt Ekland, director Mike Hodges, New York's Museum of Modern Art's senior film curator Laurence Kardish and Iranian director Rafi Pitts have all been called to jury duty as the Edinburgh International Film Festival (Eiff) is due to kick off June 16.

The quartet have signed up for the festival's main draw jury, the Michael Powell jury, and will assemble under the panel's president Patrick Stewart, organizers said.

Named in homage to the U.K. filmmaker and inaugurated in 1993, the Michael Powell Award is sponsored by the U.K. Film Council and carries a prize of £15,000 ($22,000).

The prize aims to reward imagination and creativity in British filmmaking and 2009 saw Duncan Jones walk off with the prize for his debut "Moon," while the jury gave Katie Jarvis last year's best performance in a British film for "Fish Tank."

The winner of 2010's Michael Powell Award will come from Ashey Horner's "brilliantlove,...

Sir Patrick Stewart heads the jury at Edinburgh this year, with some strong British films in contention. Meanwhile, Madonna is to make a second foray into direction and lost gem Bronco Bullfrog is restored to its full youthful East End glory. By Jason Solomons

Tartan up the juries

Sir Patrick Stewart - we do not yet know if he will insist on using the full, grand title - is to head the Jury at the 64th Edinburgh international film festival. The actor, who can legitimately be called "Mr President" for the duration of the event, will sit in judgment over the prestigious Michael Powell award, given to the best British film at the festival. Competitors include: Paul Andrew Williams's Cherry Tree Lane (his searing debut London to Brighton premiered at the festival in 2006); Nick Moran's The Kid; Huge, the directing debut of comic actor Ben Miller; and Soulboy,...

Two highly-anticipated second feature films from U.S. underground filmmakers will be making their World Premieres all the way over at the 64th annual Edinburgh International Film Festival, which will run for twelve days on June 16-27. The films are Rona Mark’s The Crab and Zach Clark’s Vacation!.

The Crab, which screens on June 21, is the touching story of a verbally abusive man born with two enormous, mutant-like hands; while Vacation!, which screens on June 20, tracks four urban gals let loose in a sunny seaside resort down South.

Both Mark and Clark previously screened their debut features at Eiff. Mark’s Strange Girls screened there in 2008 and Clark’s Modern Love Is Automatic screened in 2009. Both films also ended up as runners-up in Bad Lit’s annual Movie of the Year award, again Strange Girls in 2008 and Modern Love in 2009. Sadly, these two masterpieces are still unavailable on...

London -- This year's Edinburgh International Film Festival will close with the world premiere of "Third Star," a British tragicomedy from newcomer Hattie Dalton starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Burke, Jj Feild and Adam Robertson.

The movie will bookend the Scottish shindig with the previously announced opening gala of Sylvain Chomet's "The Illusionist" at the festival boasting 133 movies from 34 countries, organizers said Tuesday.

British galas competing for the U.K. Film Council sponsored Michael Powell Award for best British feature include world debuts for Paul Andrew Williams' "Cherry Tree Lane," "Huge" by Ben Miller, Edward McHenry and Rory McHenry's "Jackboots On Whitehall," Nick Moran's "The Kid," Viv Fongenie's "Ollie Kepler's Expanding Purple World," "Pelican Blood," by Karl Golden and "Soulboy" by Shimmy Marcus.

Organizers picked Ryan Piers Williams' "The Dry Land," Werner Herzog's "My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?," Floria Sigismondi's...

David O'Hara has joined Showtime's "The Tudors" as a recurring.

On the drama series about the reign and love life of Henry VIII (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), which is shooting its fourth and final season in Ireland, O'Hara plays the Earl of Surrey, the son and heir of the Duke of Norfolk. He is the arrogant but sensitive scion of an ancient family.

Scot O'Hara also has landed a role on the final installment of the "Harry Potter" series, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," on which he will play Albert Runcorn, a Ministry of Magic employee who gets impersonated by Potter to get into the Ministry.

O'Hara, who recently wrapped the features "The Kid" with Rupert Friend and Natascha McElhone and "Golf in the Kingdom" opposite Malcolm McDowell, is repped by Affirmative Entertainment and U.K.'s A.R.G.

London -- James Fox has joined the cast of Nick Moran's "The Kid," which is due to start shooting here next week.

Fox joins Rupert Friend, Natascha McElhone and Ioan Gruffudd in Moran's sophomore directorial outing, which is based on Kevin Lewis' best-selling autobiography. It details the story of a young man who survives a vicious upbringing and a violent past.

Tin House Films and London-based finance and sales banner Intandem Films will produce the film, due to begin an eight-week shoot on Monday.

Moran's directorial debut, "Telstar," debuted at last year's London Film Festival.