Three screenings at this year’s Göteborg festival will ‘transform the audience’s state of mind’ with a live hypnotist on stageThe Göteborg film festival is no stranger to stunts. It has previously featured screenings for a single audience member at a N…
From Loveland to Blueback: 10 Australian films to look out for in 2022
Hugo Weaving, Rose Byrne and Zac Efron star in some of this year’s big movie releases, with directors George Miller, Ivan Sen, Baz Luhrmann and Gracie Otto at the helmThe last couple of years have surely reminded us that nobody can predict the future a…
Licorice Pizza – Paul Thomas Anderson’s joyously nostalgic coming-of-age tale
Anderson crafts an offbeat love story that manages to be sweet, hilarious, absurd – and wholly believableThere’s something propulsively intoxicating about the films of Paul Thomas Anderson. Watching Punch-Drunk Love left me in exactly the state describ…
Garbo by Robert Gottlieb review – distant darling of the silver screen
The renowned editor wittily explores the appeal of the actor, whose ability to charm and mystify mesmerised admirers – until her abrupt retirement in the age of the ‘bombshell’In more innocent or credulous days, the faithful sat in the dark to gaze at …
New year arts: Observer critics pick the culture to get us through to spring
From live music to glass sculpture, game-changing performances to fitness podcasts… our writers on cultural treats to light up the months aheadKathryn Hunter appears in The Chairs, Eugène Ionesco’s absurdist apocalypse drama, translated, adapted and di…
New year honours feature Covid experts with Chris Whitty knighted
Tennis player Emma Raducanu, Olympians and Paralympians, and actor Daniel Craig also among 1,122 people receiving awards Leading figures of science and medicine during the coronavirus pandemic have been feted in the Queen’s new year honours list, inclu…
Books and films censored under Franco still circulating in Spain
Dictator who died in 1975 stamped out mention of Spanish civil war, sexuality and anti-Catholic viewsA Spanish association has called for an investigation into the enduring legacy of censorship during the Franco regime after it emerged that censored ve…
Bambi: cute, lovable, vulnerable … or a dark parable of antisemitic terror?
A new translation of Felix Salten’s 1923 novel reasserts its original message that warns of Jewish persecutionIt’s a saccharine sweet story about a young deer who finds love and friendship in a forest. But the original tale of Bambi, adapted by Disney …
James Franco admits sleeping with students and says he had sex addiction
Actor gives first extended comments about accusations that came nearly four years agoJames Franco has acknowledged sleeping with students of an acting school he previously ran, saying he struggled with a sex addiction and has been working to improve hi…
The Matrix Resurrections review – drained of life by the Hollywood machine
Keanu Reeves is back as cyberpunk icon Neo but fans of the original will find this cynical reboot a bitter pill to swallowEighteen years after what we thought was the third and final Matrix film, The Matrix Revolutions, Lana Wachowski has directed a fo…