Radio Times

When did you last throw a sickie and take the day off?

Well, don't feel guilty. The visionary American director Terrence Malick took seven years off between The Thin Red Line in 1998 and his 17th-century historical epic The New World in 2005.

But that was nothing compared to his 20-year break between Days of Heaven in 1978 and The Thin Red Line. It only took Michelangelo four years to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

In fairness, after Days of Heaven, Malick moved to France to teach and work on future...

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As the 56th US Presidential election looms, with its torrent of ticker tape, flags and hype, it seems a shame that for those of us without a US passport, the whole thing will be a mere spectator sport. We may as well just sit back and enjoy the show, which is precisely what it is.

Long before Barack Obama became the Democratic nominee, he was liberal Hollywood's candidate of choice, banking $1.3 million in donations at a Beverly Hills fundraiser attended by Steven Spielberg and Eddie Murphy, with George Clooney and Barbra Streisand sending cheques.

Meanwhile, Republican candidate...

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The original King Kong, made in 1933, pioneered the use of stop-motion animation in its creation of the giant ape. Kong was indeed "the Eighth Wonder of the World" – and it was all done with metal, rubber, air bladders and rabbit fur. The New York Times called the film "a remarkable example of the most up-to-date camera tricks".

When Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson remade King Kong in 2005, he too used the "most up-to-date camera tricks" – but they now included the very latest computer technology. The result is that a...

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For me it was Mr Gilbert and Mrs Elderkin, who taught English at Weston Favell Upper School and who, between them, helped demystify the works of Hardy, Shakespeare and Dickens. But I mean no disrespect to either when I say that the Hollywood studios would hastily reject their tutelage of the future Radio Times film editor as a Hollywood pitch.

To cut it as a mentor figure in the movies you have to be uncompromising, or reclusive, or wild, or enigmatic, or - in the very specific case of Ryan Gosling's eighth-grade teacher in the excellent Read more...

Is it possible for the Hollywood mainstream to take a mature approach to portraying sexual identity issues? Sloan Freer weighs up the evidence.

Playing a pre-op, male-to-female transsexual may not be an obvious career choice for Desperate Housewives star Felicity Huffman. But in road movie Transamerica (Wednesday Film4) she proved her versatility with a performance that earned her an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe.

Like The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert before it, writer/director Duncan Tucker's colourful indie film married acerbic comedy with a poignant exploration of complex sexual identity issues. It was...

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In 2006, Boston neurologist Dr Martin Samuels concluded that it is possible be "scared to death". He cited "certain and very specific circumstances", such as a catastrophic event or even an amusement-park ride, which result in a "lightning bolt" of chemicals being sent to the brain.

In Film4's FrightFest season, designed to coincide with the annual film festival co-curated by RT's Alan Jones, there's no shortage of material to charge up this potentially fatal jolt. For most people, though, this adrenaline surge has no ill-effects: "The heart goes back to normal and we walk away."

But one person's...

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Here's a confession: I have no intention of going to see Mamma Mia!, even though it's still packing them in around the country. My deep-seated fear of this feelgood musical can be expressed in a radio ad for the film, in which one satisfied customer outside a cinema exclaims, "I sang and danced all the way through."

Singing along to the hits of Abba is one thing, but dancing? In the aisles? Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer patrons, even appreciative ones, to remain in their seats.

Don't get me wrong, I have absolutely nothing against dancing...

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Although the award-winning American medical sitcom Scrubs is due to return for an eighth season, pin-up star Zach Braff has already started to feather his nest in the movies, writing, directing and starring in offbeat homecoming comedy drama Garden State.

Whether he'll make the transition really count remains to be seen.

There is always fun to be had scrolling down to the bottom of a successful movie actor's CV, wherein lurk those appearances in single episodes of The Love Boat, Charles in Charge, even Red Shoe Diaries.

Movie careers generally begin in television,...

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I was genuinely saddened by the news in June that parts of the Universal Studios tour in LA had been destroyed by fire. The King Kong ride was lost, and part of Courthouse Square, where, among others, Back to the Future was filmed.

But it was harder to get worked up about the damage to a set from Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds, mainly because it was that of a crashed airliner – the fire effectively made wreckage of wreckage.

What a long trip it's been for The War of the Worlds. Written by...

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In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, it was James Stewart who asks the newspaper editor if he is going to print his confession about the shooting in question, and is told: "No, sir. This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

This has been a constant refrain in Hollywood, where real events have always been plundered for material, often with little regard for journalistic or historical accuracy. The question is: does it matter? Is it really cinema's job to provide a history lesson?

Take that wartime crowd-pleaser The Great Escape....

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Stanley Kubrick was the greatest American director this country ever produced. Although born in New York, he found England more to his liking than Hollywood and was based here for almost 40 years – hence, one of ours.

A season of his films airs on More4 from Tuesday 15 July, beginning with the documentary True Stories: Stanley Kubrick's Boxes.

Aside from his rarely seen 1950s documentary shorts, Day of the Fight and Flying Padre, we're talking big, bold, headline movies. He made just 13 features in 46 years, but their sheer thematic breadth marks...

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When Kathy Bates decided to direct herself in the 2005 adaptation of Jane Stern's book Ambulance Girl, she was candid about why: "I didn't want anyone else telling me what to do."

She sums up the seemingly eternal desire among actors to get behind the camera while simultaneously staying in front of it. They've had enough of being ordered around and wish to give the megaphone and monitor a go without actually depriving the adoring public of their face.

It's not always egomania, though. Charlie Chaplin's first short films were directed by other people but, as creator...

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The 1966 family comedy The Trouble with Angels, in which Hayley Mills creates mayhem at a convent-run school, is not Ida Lupino's finest hour.

But as one of America's very few working female directors in the late 1940s, 50s and 60s, she earned her two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. One for films, one for TV, where she ended up directing episodes of The Virginian and The Twilight Zone).

Lupino's name always comes up when discussing women who made the director's chair their own – mainly because there are so few examples.

So how...

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The first production released by Hammer studios for over 20 years comes with a very clear warning: "Contains very strong supernatural horror, sex, drugs and gore." (If that's not an invitation to view, I don't know what is.)

It's called Beyond the Rave, and revolves around a vampire cult in a very creepy English woodland. Beyond the Rave is available to view for free on social-networking website MySpace, where it has been unfolding weekly since April in 20 four-minute chunks.

It is, you must admit, thoroughly modern, though it is also thematically in keeping with the British production...

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