Movies

David Lean, Mike Leigh, Terry Gilliam, Stephen Frears , Terrance Davies, Ken Loach, Danny Boyle

Peggy Cummins, Seductive Star of a Cult Film, Dies at 92

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Peggy Cummins, an actress best remembered for her turn as a femme fatale with a hair trigger in the influential low-budget film noir “Gun Crazy,” died on Dec. 29. She was 92.

Her death was confirmed in a Facebook post by Dee Kirkman, a friend. Ms. Kirkman did not provide further details.

Slender, blond and young, Ms. Cummins, who grew up in Ireland and moved to the United States in 1945, had more often played innocents before being cast in “Gun Crazy.”

In “Gun Crazy” (also known as “Deadly Is the Female”), released in 1950, she played Annie Laurie Starr, a seductive carnival sharpshooter who [ . . . ] NY Times

 

The Phantom Thread’s Lesley Manville Talks Range and Fragile Masculinity 

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Among the several delights in Paul Thomas Anderson’s consistently surprising new movie Phantom Thread is its incisive explication of how fragile masculinity can be. Daniel Day Lewis, in what he has announced will be his final film role, plays Reynolds, a couture designer in 1950s London, whose world is propped up by the fleet of women he employs. Along comes a muse, Alma (Vicky Krieps) who challenges his ritualistic way of life and teases out the fetishistic extents of his relationship with power. The trailer makes it look like some sort of a thriller, but Phantom Thread is a romance that is funny more often than not—of all the films in PTA’s oeuvre, it shares the most with 2002’s Punch-Drunk Love [ . . . ]

More: The Phantom Thread’s Lesley Manville Talks Range and Fragile Masculinity 

A sugary Christmas fantasy? Yes – and I love it, actually: a defence of Richard Curtis’s 2003 romcom

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One of my favourite festive traditions is to snuggle up on the sofa with a full glass and an even fuller stomach to watch Love Actually. Richard Curtis’s 2003 romantic comedy, which tells nine different love stories and stars every famous actor you care to think of, is perfectly silly and totally delightful.

For millions of us, it is as much a part of Christmas as brandy butter or bread sauce. And the good news is, it’s now on Netflix – if you happen to miss the endless screenings on ITV2.

But while the film holds a place in the national imagination, it is not an uncontroversial one. In fact, it is difficult to think of another film that inspires quite this much hatred in some, while providing comfort and joy for so many others.

In recent years, Love Actually has been condemned for being, among other things, cynical, creepy, sexist and fat-shaming. Yes, really. [ . . . ]

Read More at source: A sugary Christmas fantasy? Yes – and I love it, actually: a defence of Richard Curtis’s 2003 romcom