All posts tagged: tender

Robert Duvall Remembered by Tender Mercies Director Bruce Beresford

Robert Duvall Remembered by Tender Mercies Director Bruce Beresford

Published by Daniella Wilson

Following the death of the legendary actor Robert Duvall on Sunday at the age of 95, Bruce Beresford, the Australian filmmaker who directed Duvall in 1983’s Tender Mercies, for which Duvall won the best actor Oscar in 1984, shared his memories of Duvall exclusively with The Hollywood Reporter. As you can read below, Beresford — whose credits also include 1979’s Breaker Morant, 1986’s Crimes of the Heart and 1989’s Driving Miss Daisy, which won the best picture Oscar — remembers the actor as “surly” but “absolutely great.” * * * I never saw Duvall again after Tender Mercies. It was on in Cannes, but I was filming something else, so I never got to Cannes. And then we were both nominated for Oscars, but I was somewhere else filming. The film was written by Horton Foote. Horton had written other roles for Bob. In fact, Horton suggested Bob for his first film, To Kill a Mockingbird. And Horton wrote Tender Mercies specifically for Bob. I had the script sent to me by the Hobels [Philip Hobel …

Shadowlands review: Hugh Bonneville shimmers in tender CS Lewis play

Shadowlands review: Hugh Bonneville shimmers in tender CS Lewis play

Published by Daniella Wilson

A star rating of 4 out of 5. Shadowlands at the Aldwych Theatre, written by William Nicholson and directed by Rachel Kavanaugh, tells the story of great English author CS Lewis and his relationship with American writer Joy Davidman. The story asks whether suffering is the price of love. Whether intellectual faith can survive lived grief. Largely, it succeeds in taking audiences on the emotional journey. Hugh Bonneville and Maggie Siff, unsurprisingly, deliver laudable performances, grounding the production in warmth and humour. Their connection feels sincere, and so the story’s message feels personal rather than an abstract concept. Where the relationship, and show at large, might have benefitted is from a sharper portrait of Lewis before Joy enters his life. A greater emphasis on his romantic isolation would have created a clearer contrast between the man who theorises about pain and the man who must endure it. As it stands, Lewis feels broadly consistent before and after meeting Joy, softening the emotional transformation he undergoes. For all its looming tragedy and theological debate though, Shadowlands …

Stephen Graham in Tough but Tender Youth Prison Drama

Stephen Graham in Tough but Tender Youth Prison Drama

Published by Daniella Wilson

It’s not easy trying to reinvent the prison movie given the regularity with which most of the world’s major film industries grind them out. But every so often, one comes along that adheres to the basic template of the genre while shrugging off the formulaic elements, electrifying it with probing psychology, unpredictable character dynamics and unexpected intimacy — alongside the shocking violence. David McKenzie’s explosive Starred Up is a relatively recent example that comes to mind. Actor-turned director Ashley Walters’ impressive feature debut Animol can’t match that 2013 drama’s Shakespearean muscularity. But it has power, ferocity, almost unbearable tension and a vein of tenderness that make it belong in the same conversation. It also shares a queer thread with Starred Up that’s best not detailed here, beyond saying that it’s gratifyingly surprising, handled with empathy and shaded in gray rather than black and white. An impressive young principal cast of mostly unfamiliar faces is another plus. Animol The Bottom Line Terrifying and touching in equal measure. Venue: Berlin Film Festival (Perspectives)Cast: Tut Nyuot, Vladyslav Baliuk, …

The best Super Bowl chicken tender recipe and a game-changing sauce

The best Super Bowl chicken tender recipe and a game-changing sauce

Published by Daniella Wilson

Sign up to IndyEat’s free newsletter for weekly recipes, foodie features and cookbook releases Get our food and drink newsletter for free Get our food and drink newsletter for free Sometimes a chicken nugget is just a chicken nugget. But sometimes it’s a crisp, panko-crusted strip of chicken breast with a sweet and tangy sauce. Super Bowl Sunday is snack time at its finest. No one is looking for fancy footwork (at least not in the food realm; we do want to see that on the field). I have hosted more Super Bowl parties than I can (want to) count, and what I can tell you is that the delicate little canapes aren’t going to fly off the buffet as fast as the nachos. The best Super Bowl food lives in the same realm as the best bar food. And that includes chicken tenders. If you tend to think of chicken strips as a guilty, kiddie-centric pleasure, give yourself permission to relax and enjoy them. They’re basically fried chicken sans bone. But these chicken strips …

Julie Campiche: Unspoken review – a harpist’s tender, quietly radical hymn to women who endure | Jazz

Julie Campiche: Unspoken review – a harpist’s tender, quietly radical hymn to women who endure | Jazz

Published by Sam Flores

When the London jazz festival ran online only in 2020, an enthralling livestreamed performance by Swiss harpist Julie Campiche’s avant-jazz ensemble was a startling highlight, introducing UK audiences to a virtuoso instrumentalist and composer who was already turning heads in Europe. Campiche plucked guitar, zither and east Asian-style sounds from the harp, mingled with vocal loops, classical music, Nordic ambient jazz and more. You might call her soundscape magical or otherworldly if it didn’t coexist with a campaigner’s political urgency on environmental and social issues. But Campiche is too much of a visionary to overwhelm the eloquence of pure sound with polemic, as her new album, the unaccompanied Unspoken, confirms more than ever. The artwork for Unspoken by Julie Campiche Campiche’s extra-musical agenda here is a celebration of sisterhood, dedicated to women in public and private lives who have inspired her. The opening Anonymous is built around a Virginia Woolf quote – “for most of history, ‘anonymous’ was a woman” – repeated by a chorus of women’s voices in different languages building to a clamour. …

The History of Sound review | Tender love story will deepen Josh O’Connor and Paul Mescal’s fanbases

The History of Sound review | Tender love story will deepen Josh O’Connor and Paul Mescal’s fanbases

Published by Daniella Wilson

A star rating of 4 out of 5. A tender, decade-spanning love story, exquisitely told by director Oliver Hermanus, The History of Sound is yet another wonderful showcase for the considerable talents of Josh O’Connor and Paul Mescal. The British actor O’Connor, best known for his work as Prince Charles on The Crown, and the Irish-born Mescal, famed for Normal People and, more recently, Gladiator II, are already dizzyingly popular; this first collaboration is only likely to deepen their fanbases. Premiering in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, The History of Sound begins, briefly, in 1910, as Mescal’s Lionel narrates about his unique appreciation of music. “I thought everyone could see sound,” he intones. But it won’t be for another seven years that he meets a man who is similarly in tune with sound. In a bar one night, David (O’Connor) is playing a piano. They will soon become firm friends and more. David, we learn, grew up in Newport, then London, and comes from a wealthier background than Lionel, who was raised up on …

Chris Pine and Jenny Slate in Tender Romantic Drama

Chris Pine and Jenny Slate in Tender Romantic Drama

Published by Daniella Wilson

Whether playing sexy comedy or hostility, raw emotional agita or hollowness, Chris Pine and Jenny Slate are so damn fine in Carousel that you keep wondering why we seldom get to see these gifted actors bite into characters of such substance and complexity. Rachel Lambert’s latest is a strange and beguilingly lovely relationship drama. Eventually. But first, the writer-director needs to get out of her own way, peeling away the fussiness and frustration of her oblique approach and finally cutting back on her overbearing use of a cascading score to give us unfettered access to characters about whom it’s clear she cares deeply. Not to pile onto composer Dabney Morris, who presumably is doing what was asked of him, but the wall-to-wall music of the opening scenes is almost a deal-breaker. Even before the title card appears, we get that the plinky-plonky melodies are meant to suggest the merry-go-round of life, with the rise and fall of the horses mirroring the ups and downs of our relationships. It’s a trite metaphor, and a movie as …

‘Emotional’ Gordon Ramsay shares tender father of the bride photo from daughter Holly’s wedding

‘Emotional’ Gordon Ramsay shares tender father of the bride photo from daughter Holly’s wedding

Published by Daniella Wilson

Gordon Ramsay has shared his first photos from his daughter Holly’s wedding to Olympic swimmer Adam Peaty. The celebrity chef, 59, posted a carousel of images on his Instagram page, including a sweet snap of father and daughter holding hands in the car on the way to the ceremony at Bath Abbey on 27 December. “One of the most exciting car journeys ever in a father’s life is on the way to the Church with your beautiful daughter, incredible conversations and helping her to stay calm and relaxed ahead of our walk down the aisle, @hollyramsaypeaty @adamramsaypeaty @tanaramsay a moment I’ll never ever forget,” Gordon wrote in the caption. © Instagram / @gordongramHolly holding hands with father Gordon in the car on the way to her wedding The picture showed a close-up of the intricate lace detailing on model Holly’s Elie Saab wedding gown. After the ceremony, Holly, 26, changed into her mother Tana’s wedding gown from 1996 for the reception at Kin House and entered the dinner to Take A Chance On Me by …

Belgrave Road by Manish Chauhan review – a tender tale of love beyond borders | Fiction

Belgrave Road by Manish Chauhan review – a tender tale of love beyond borders | Fiction

Published by Sam Flores

“Love is not an easy thing … It’s both the disease and the medicine,” a character says in Manish Chauhan’s meditation on modern love. This poignant and perceptive coming-of-age story, about two strangers who become star-crossed lovers, is a powerful portrait of the lived realities of immigrants in Britain, and of love as home, hope and destiny. Newly arrived in England following an arranged marriage with British-Indian Rajiv, Mira feels increasingly out of place as she finds out that Rajiv holds secrets and loves someone else. On the eponymous Belgrave Road in Leicester, entire days go by “without sight of an English person”, and Mira feels “disappointed that England wasn’t as foreign or as mysterious as she had hoped”. She takes English classes, finds companionship in her mother-in-law and fills her days with household chores, but nothing shifts her deep loneliness. Tahliil is an asylum seeker from Somalia, who, together with his sister, Sumayya, joins their mother in Leicester. He works as an at-home carer and at a cash-and-carry for cash-in-hand while he waits for the …