Features
Monday, August 15 2011
The 100 Essential Directors Part 5: Derek Jarman to Mike Leigh
Mid-way through our series, Day 5 is a glorious mishmash of international auteurist cinema. Today we go from saints and sinners, from Brookyln to Britain, from the beginning of time to the Dystopian future, and around the world and beyond.
Monday, January 31 2011
Missed Movies of 2010, Part 1: 3 Idiots to Lebanon
In part one of our missed movies special feature, the staff looks at a wide variety of titles, from a creepy urban legend, a look at vampires, South African style, and the latest from greats like Mike Leigh and Robert Duvall, to documentaries of such famous (or perhaps, infamous) faces as Joan Rivers and Spalding Gray.
Friday, December 24 2010
Straight No Chaser: "Another Year's" Arch Melancholia
We present an exclusive round table interview with Another Year director Mike Leigh and actors Jim Broadbent, Lesley Manville and Ruth Sheen, getting a crash course in the intricacies of the patented Mike Leigh filmmaking process from the maestro and his players.
Wednesday, February 18 2009
Mike Leigh and His Affinity for Writing Brilliant Female Characters
The director of Happy-Go-Lucky tells PopMatters: “…Each of us is the center of his or her universe. Everybody is as valid as everybody else.”
Wednesday, September 10 2008
Talk, Talk, Talk: October 2008
What studio suit thought this was a good idea? With four months to schedule your high priced efforts, you instead unload almost 30 overpriced pictures on an unsuspecting movie audience.
Columns
Monday, January 26 2009
No Girl So Sweet and ‘Happy-Go-Lucky’
At first fearing a British Amelie, Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky surprisingly became Mazur’s favorite film of 2008.
Friday, October 10 2008
Irrational Exuberance
Watching Mike Leigh’s sublimely fresh Happy-Go-Lucky, you could be forgiven for wondering what the rest of humanity is so depressed about, anyway.
Friday, August 29 2008
Katrin Cartlidge: The Working Actress
Whether it was through silence, grotesquerie, fury or intelligence (or, at times, lack of intelligence), Cartlidge was not afraid to upturn the dark corners of the women she portrayed.
Reviews
Wednesday, July 27 2011
'Naked': The Dispossessed of a Post-Thatcher England
In post-Thatcher England, the future looks bleak in this two-hour journey to oblivion, down the dark alley of a twisted soul.
Tuesday, July 26 2011
Plenty of Sadness, Plenty of Joy in 'Another Year'
Tom and Gerri's charming, understated relationship sets the foundation for the social framework of the entire group.
Monday, May 2 2011
The Film Versions of Gilbert & Sullivan's 'The Mikado' and 'Topsy-Turvy' Stand on Unequal Footing
Why was the 1939 Technicolor curio The Mikado not included as an extra on the far superior Mike Leigh extravaganza Topsy-Turvy? The earlier film is but a pale shadow of Leigh's meticulous artistic vision.
Monday, January 3 2011
'Another Year': A Part of History
Appearing occasionally over the four seasons that structure Mike Leigh's film, Tom and Gerri's friends tend to illustrate the couple's serenity.
Monday, July 6 2009
High Hopes
Leigh takes on ordinary and infuses blinding colour, broad comedy, crude monikers and flamboyant performances.
Blogs
Friday, January 30 2009
Leigh's Artistry Accents this 'Happy-Go-Lucky' Lark
Poppy is what you would call "self-contained". She exists within her own unique little universe, content to be a free thinking, free spirited 30 year…
News
Friday, May 21 2010
Why there will never be another Mike Leigh
CANNES, France — "I always have a problem giving films titles," Mike Leigh says, thinking about it. "That comes last, and this film was a…
