Dodgy dealings in the art world

Boogie Woogie
Star rating: ****

Dir: Duncan Ward
With: Gillian Anderson, Alan Cumming, Heather Graham

The Herald, 27 June 2009

This sardonic adaptation of Danny Moynihan's 2000 novel does for the art world what Robert Altman's caustic satire The Player did for Hollywood. Reworking his own book, Moynihan and director Duncan Ward, who has made a number of art-themed documentaries and who is married to a well-known curator, have made a fine job of relocating the action from New York to contemporary London.

In this post-YBA landscape, we meet a slew of shallow, self- centred, greedy and morally bankrupt individuals, all of whom shaft one another both figuratively and literally. Among them are Danny Huston's dealer and Heather Graham's disloyal PA, who are intent on purchasing one of Mondrian's Boogie Woogie paintings from Christopher Lee's elderly owner and conniving wife Joanna Lumley, Stellan Skarsgård's philandering collector and Gillian Anderson's equally adulterous trophy wife, and Jaime Winstone's up-and-coming video artist and the agent she unceremoniously dumps. That last is played by Alan Cumming, and it's telling that his character, along with Lee's art lover - the only half decent people in the film - end up sharing the same fate.

The ensemble cast have a blast playing a collection of utter swines, and although this is far too dark a portrait to be a laugh-out-loud comedy, it's nevertheless a deliciously nasty experience.

Ed Speleers, Alfred Molina off to 'War'

By Stuart Kemp, The Hollywood Reporter

Ed Speleers and Alfred Molina will don World War II uniforms and do battle with the Germans in "The Good War," a film being put together by indie U.K. production company Firefly Films.

The movie, budgeted at $18 million, tells the story of a British major who leads a platoon of ill-equipped troops who try to defend the strategically important island of Malta against Hitler's air force. Hostile islanders and a dangerous love triangle threaten to destroy the major's hopes of military success.

Penned by Jean-Pierre Magro, Matthew Hobbs, James W. Mitchell, Valentine Stockdale and Mark Thomas, the film will be produced by Firefly founder Hobbs. Guido Chiesa is under orders to direct.

The project, set to begin shooting in the summer, is being touted to global buyers by U.K.-based sales and finance house Intandem Films.