Renoir Interviews

As part of the Rendez Vous with French Cinema festival in London, Red Carpet News sat down with Director Gilles Bourdos and beautiful star Christa Theret to chat about sumptuous French historical drama Renoir.  Christa Theret plays Andrée Heuschling, the model that inspired the final masterpieces of painter Auguste Renoir and subsequently married his son and celebrated filmmaker Jean Renoir.

Check out the exclusive in depth video interviews below:

Captain America 2 Plot Details

Marvel has started production on superhero sequel Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The second solo adventure for Chris Evans as shield wielding hero Steve Rogers will pick up just after the events of The Avengers and focus on Captain America finally coming to terms with the fact he’s now living in the 21st century.

Teaming up with fellow Avenger Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow, played by a catsuit clad Scarlett Johansson, Captain America will this time do battle with a powerful yet shadowy enemy in present day Washington D.C.

Sebastian Stan who played Cap’s sidekick Bucky Barnes in the first film will return, this time as the titular Winter Soldier. Robert Redford is also confirmed to join the cast,  playing “A senior leader within the S.H.I.E.L.D. organization.”

Rush Teaser Trailer

Two-time Academy Award winner Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind, Frost/Nixon), teams once again with fellow two-time Academy Award nominee, writer Peter Morgan (Frost/Nixon, The Queen), on Rush, a spectacular big-screen re-creation of the merciless 1970s rivalry between James Hunt and Niki Lauda.

The epic action-drama stars Chris Hemsworth (The Avengers) as the charismatic Englishman James Hunt and Daniel Brühl (Inglourious Basterds) as the disciplined Austrian perfectionist Niki Lauda, whose clashes on the Grand Prix racetrack epitomized the contrast between these two extraordinary characters, a distinction reflected in their private lives.

Set against the sexy and glamorous golden age of Formula 1 racing, Rush portrays the exhilarating true story of two of the greatest rivals the world has ever witnessed—handsome English playboy Hunt and his methodical, brilliant opponent, Lauda. Taking us into their personal lives on and off the track, Rush follows the two drivers as they push themselves to the breaking point of physical and psychological endurance, where there is no shortcut to victory and no margin for error. If you make one mistake, you die.

Check out the first Official Teaser Trailer below:

BAFTA Television Awards Nominations 2013

Full list below of BAFTA Television Awards 2013 nominations. This year sees shows like Game of Thrones, Twenty Twelve, Homeland, The Hollow Crown and The London Olympics Broadcast. 

Leading Actor

Sean Bean – Accused (Tracie’s Story)

Derek Jacobi – Last Tango in Halifax

Toby Jones – The Girl

Ben Whishaw – Richard II (The Hollow Crown)

Leading Actress

Rebecca Hall – Parade’s End

Sienna Miller – The Girl

Anne Reid – Last Tango in Halifax

Sheridan Smith – Mrs Biggs

Supporting Actor

Peter Capaldi – The Hour

Stephen Graham – Accused (Tracie’s Story)

Harry Lloyd – The Fear

Simon Russell Beale – Henry IV Part 2 (The Hollow Crown)

Supporting Actress

Olivia Colman – Accused (Mo’s Story)

Anastasia Hille – The Fear

Sarah Lancashire – Last Tango in Halifax

Imelda Staunton – The Girl

Entertainment Performance

Alan Carr – Alan Carr: Chatty Man

Ant and Dec – I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!

Sarah Millican – The Sarah Millican Show

Graham Norton – The Graham Norton Show

Female Performance in a Comedy Programme

Olivia Colman – Twenty Twelve

Miranda Hart – Miranda

Jessica Hynes – Twenty Twelve

Julia Davis – Hunderby

Male Performance in a Comedy Programme

Hugh Bonneville – Twenty Twelve

Peter Capaldi – The Thick of It

Steve Coogan – Welcome to the Places of My Life

Greg Davies – Cuckoo

Single Drama

Everyday

The Girl

Murder

Richard II (Hollow Crown)

Drama Series

Last Tango in Halifax

Ripper Street

Scott and Bailey

Silk

Mini-Series

Accused

Mrs Biggs

Parade’s End

Room at the Top

Continuing Drama

Coronation Street

EastEnders

Emmerdale

Shameless

International

The Bridge

Game of Thrones

Girls

Homeland

Factual Series

24 Hours in A&E

Great Ormond Street

Make Bradford British

Our War

Specialist Factual

All in the Best Possible Taste with Grayson Perry

The Plane Crash

The Plot to Bring Down Britain’s Planes

The Secret History of Our Streets

Single Documentary

7/7: One Day in London

Baka: A Cry from the Rainforest

Lucian Freud: Painted Life

Nina Conti – A Ventriloquist’s Story: Her Master’s Voice

Features

Bank of Dave

Grand Designs

The Great British Bake Off

Paul O’Grady: For the Love of Dogs

Reality and Constructed Factual

The Audience

I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!

Made in Chelsea

The Young Apprentice

Current Affairs

Britain’s Hidden Housing Crisis (Panorama Special)

The Other Side of Jimmy Savile (Exposure)

The Shame of the Catholic Church (This World)

What Killed Arafat? (Al Jazeera Investigates)

News Coverage

BBC News at Ten: Syria

Channel 4 News: Battle for Homs

ITN/Channel 4

Hillsborough – The Truth at Last (Granada Reports)

Sport and Live Event

The London 2012 Olympics: Super Saturday

The London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony: Isle of Wonder

The London 2012 Paralympic Games

Wimbledon 2012 – Men’s Final

Entertainment Programme

Dynamo Magician Impossible

The Graham Norton Show

Have I Got News For You

A League of Their Own

Comedy Programme

Cardinal Burns

Mr Stink

The Revolution Will Be Televised

Welcome to the Places of My Life

Situation Comedy

Episodes

Hunderby

The Thick of It

Twenty Twelve

Audience Award

Call the Midwife

Game of Thrones

The Great British Bake Off

Homeland

The London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony

Strictly Come Dancing

Olympus Has Fallen Review

The Plot:

A disgraced secret service agent finds himself at the center of a terrorist takeover of the White House 18 months after he failed to save the First Lady during a freak car accident. With the FBI, Navy Seals and Homeland Security outgunned and outsmarted, the President and his young son are both taken hostage. Now one man is a nations only hope.

The Good:

Gerard Butler has been largely treading water for the past few years, in rom-coms like Playing for Keeps and P.S. I Love You. An easy way of keeping the actor well paid and consistently on screen. It’s been a while since his breakthrough performance as King Leonidis in the brutal graphic novel adaptation 300, but it’s good to see him back on form here as agent Mike Banning.

Apart from a few dodgy accent slips, it’s easy to see him as a high profile security guard who has a charismatic relationship with both the President and his son. He brings an everyman quality to this performance which makes him more convincing in the role. Butler is thankfully self-aware enough to recognize when he’s delivering a particularly cheesy line. A playful glimmer in his eyes let’s audience know he’s definitely in on the joke

Accompanying him in supporting roles are Angela Bassett (Secret Service Director Lynn Jacobs) and Morgan Freeman (Speaker Trumbull). Having actors of this understated caliber helps counterbalance the ridiculousness of some of the scenes and forces a sense of credibility into what we’re watching.

Rick Yune is perfectly cast  as the villain of the piece. Amidst all the chaos of the epic take over scene, the criminal mastermind is cool, calm and calculated. It’s almost sinister how relaxed he is, and you automatically think back to his Bond villain Zao in Die Another Day. You find yourself intrigued as to what happen will happen next with him. As an actor, Yune really does play the ‘less is more’ card very well.

The Bad:

Olympus Has Fallen is a guilty pleasure, unashamedly packed with patriotic cliché’s.  There’s far more American flag waving and triumphant exclamations of “God Bless America” than most international audience will appreciate. You almost feel a little bit naughty for enjoying the film in spite such obvious flaws. However, Olympus has Fallen is still a very enjoyable film.

Director Antoine Fuqua is best known for gritty police drama Training Day. That film proved to be an Oscar winning vehicle for Denzel Washington. Fans misguidedly expecting anything similar from Olympus Has Fallen will obviously be left disappointed, alhough Fuqua does certainly tackle the new action genre with uninhibited and violent enthusiasm.

The Ugly Truth:

Overall, the film is a combination of cheese, violence (in parts verging on ultra-violence) and an almost worrying example of the most protected building in the world being overtaken by terrorists. Despite lacking some of the gravitas of a classic action flick, it’s really worth a watch. The fight scenes are exciting and you almost fear for your own safety a little when the terrorist takeover begins. Apart from a few dodgy lines Olympus Has Fallen makes for an engaging and solid watch – definitely one for the boys though.

Red Carpet Video Interviews below with stars Gerard Butler & Aaron Eckhart and the European premiere in London: