Word: branagh
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...Cannes still flourishes, it's because it is supported by Hollywood films and stars. For the world press, a star is by definition American--or in a pinch, English. So everyone ogles at the big parade: Dustin Hoffman, Elizabeth Taylor, Cher, Mick Jagger, Kenneth Branagh, Sandra Bullock and Elton John. None of these worthies were showing completed films; they were on hand simply to bring luster to a festival where voyeurism is a vocation. Gawkers in evening dress could watch La Liz at a lavish dinner to benefit AIDS research, where she auctioned off a Robert Rauschenberg painting with...
Movies like this used to have lots of singing and dancing, not to mention Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. But if you love show-biz fables in which the desperate improvisations of sweet-souled egomaniacs are rewarded by improbable last-minute success, writer-director Kenneth Branagh's A Midwinter's Tale is a very acceptable update. Especially if you like Woody Allen too. For Branagh has adopted a number of Allen's mannerisms: shooting in black and white, using old songs for the score--in this case, frugally, just one song, Noel Coward's great anti-show biz anthem...
...Branagh also shares with Allen a belief that actorly self-absorption is a dish best served cold sober. How sublimely unconscious of their own silliness are Nicholas Farrell's Tom, engaged to play Laertes, but full of intellectual pretense ("Hamlet is Bosnia..."), and Julia Sawalha's Ophelia, stumbling about because she refuses to wear glasses onstage. Joan Collins does such a nice turn as a high-powered agent that one fancies she might make a go of acting if writing novels continues to sour for her. Branagh sometimes sacrifices bite to the sentiment so endemic to show biz. But this...
...like this used to have lots of singing and dancing, not to mention Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland," says TIME's Richard Schickel. "But if you love show-biz fables in which the desperate improvisations of sweet-souled egomaniacs are rewarded by improbable last-minute success, writer-director Kenneth Branagh's 'A Midwinter's Tale' is a very acceptable update." Especially if you like Woody Allen. Branagh has adopted a number of Allen's mannerisms in shooting this story of a half a dozen profoundly marginalized English actors determined to put on a play. "Branagh sometimes sacrifices bite...
Nothing like a little competition between estranged spouses at the box office. KENNETH BRANAGH'S most recent writing effort, A Midwinter's Tale, will be shown at the Sundance Festival this week, while Sense and Sensibility, adapted by his erstwhile wife, EMMA THOMPSON, is still charming audiences nationwide. The films have eerie similarities: they're loosely based on classics (Tale is about a troupe of actors trying to stage Hamlet in a small town); they're dialogue driven; and in each, siblings find romantic partners. But there are telling differences. Branagh's film is small budget, black and white...