27th Apr2015

TheEntertainmentWebsite.com reaches 200,000 hits!

by timbaros

Orange British Academy Film Awards 2010 - Red Carpet ArrivalsTheEntertainmentWebsite.com has reached the remarkable number of 200,000 hits (page views) in just under two years since its inception. It’s an amazing milestone in that there are so many film blogs and film websites out there on the internet; this proves that there is room for one more – one that is unique in terms of content and style, and which stands out from the others.

TheEntertainmentWebsite.com covers film, DVD and theatre reviews, as well as the current Box Office figures, upcoming film releases and West End productions, film awards, and a Film Trailer of the Week. TheEntertaimentWebsite.com also covers breaking entertainment news – including the untimely death of comedienne Robin Williams.

In the two years, TheEntertainmentWebsite.com has covered press conferences for major film releases including Philomena, Saving Mr. Banks, 12 Years a Slave and Red 2. TheEntertainmentWebsite.com has also interviewed actor Alan Cumming to discuss his career and the release of his 2013 film Any Day Now. TheEntertainmentWebsite.com has also been invited to attend the London, Sundance, BFI Flare Film festivals, the London Film Critics Awards, the announcement of the 2014 BAFTA nominations, as well as dozens of film premieres and red carpet events. TheEntertainmentWebsite.com was also granted access to Pride Director Matthew Warchus and writer Stephen Beresford as well as co-star Andrew Scott.

Other interviews granted to TheEntertainmentWebsite.com include ones with David W. Ross, star and writer of the American drama I Do; Stacey Passon – Director of the newly-released on DVD film Concussion: Shane Bitney Crone – Producer and star of the riveting documentary Bridegroom; and Darren Stein – Director of the camp comedy G.B.F.; and several others.

TheEntertainmentWebsite.com was created by Tim Baros in July 2013. Tim also writes for and contributes to Pride Life Magazine and website, The American Magazine and website, www.Hereisthecity.com, www.Blu-Raydefinition.com, TheGayUK online magazine and website. He has also contributed to TNT Magazine and Squaremile.com.  Tim Baros is the UK representative for the Gay & Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association.

What’s next for TheEntertainmentWebsite.com? Coverage of this fall’s London Film Festival, and to see lots and lots more movies and theatre.

Keep on clicking on TheEntertainmentWebsite.com!!

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26th Apr2015

Hidden Away – DVD

by timbaros

A ESCONDIDA A ESCONDIDAS - Still 16Don’t be fooled into thinking that Hidden Away is just another boy meets boy love story with a less than great cover photo of its two male leads. It’s a very well told and acted Spanish teenage gay love story that’s very heartwarming and enduring as well.

Hidden Away is not told as a simple coming of age story, and it’s not told in chronological order, which makes understanding and piecing the film together a bit confusing. Director Mikel Rueda has decided to tell the story in a way in which is supposedly meant for the viewer to put themselves into the characters shoes. So it opens with Ibrahim, a 14 year old young man, walking along the road hitchhiking, escaping from something which we won’t know until the very end. He’s from Morocco, but had gone to Spain a few years back looking for a better future. He’s been living in shelters, hoping to get his official papers so that he can stay in Spain. He lives in Bilbao, fully settled, attending school and living in a shelter for boys just like him. Then there is Rafa, also 14, Spanish, living with his parents. Rafa hangs out with boys just like himself, yet there’s one thing different about Rafa. He doesn’t like girls. There is one girl in particular who practically throws herself at him, but he just doesn’t reciprocate, much to the horror of his friends. Even though Ibrahim and Rafa’s paths initially cross (at one point in a club urinal), they don’t meet until a bit later in the film. And there’s a spark. A spark that at first betells an evolving and very close friendship between the young men, but then evolves into more than that. While there is no actual sex scenes in this film, Rafa and Ibrahim’s bond appears to be more than just physical, it’s emotional as well.

Ibrahim gets mixed up with a local gang that gets him to sell drugs, while Rafa whiles away the time looking for any reason to be with him. They initially bond over a cigarette, but their friendship, and romance, blossoms after they spend a day together hanging out and going bowling. It’s a relationship that we know is too good to be true. And when Ibrahim receives a letter from the government wanting to extradite him back to Morocco, he sees no other way but to run away, with Rafa by his side.

It’s the performances that make this film fantastic. German Alcaruz as Rafa brings an innocence to his part, a young man who knows what he wants and doesn’t care what his friends think. His facial expressions will melt your heart – Alcarazu gives a believable and touching performance. Adil Koukouh is also very good as Ibrahim. He’s bigger and more mature looking than Rafa, but he also has a special something that makes Rafa’s attraction to him seem very credible. Also very very good is Joseba Ugalde as Rafa’s best friend Guille. He knows he’s losing Rafa to Ibrahim and he’s OK with it, even when Rafa and Ibrahim have to go on the run, there’s a very touching scene when Rafa and Guille say goodbye to each and Guille tells Rafa that’s he doesn’t quite understand what is going on.

Hidden Away is a bit difficult to comprehend in the beginning as the scenes do jump around, and the subtitles on this film are quite small and at times hard to read, but stick with it till the very end and you will be rewarded with a love story that’s unique in it’s telling and at it’s very core is a film that tells the story of young love, young love that we’ve all experienced.

Hidden Away is now available to buy on DVD.

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21st Apr2015

A Good Marriage – DVD

by timbaros

AGM_Still02What would you do if you found out that your husband was a serial killer? That’s the dilemna Darcy Anderson faces in the new thriller A Good Marriage.

Darcy, brilliantly played by Joan Allen, seems to have the perfect family. Her young daughter Petra (Kristen Connolly) is engaged to be married, her son Donnie’s (Theo Stockman) new advertising business has just picked up it’s first client, and her husband Bob (Anthony LaPaglia – brilliant yet evil) is a successful accountant and well-respected both at his job and in his community, and is looked up to by his children. The Anderson’s have just celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary and end the evening with a sexual romp, with Bob’s insistence of moving the mirror in their bedroom so that he can look at them having sex. Bob has a busy job, and he also has a busy hobby, he’s a coin collector, so he spends lots of time away from home where he says he’s either working on client’s tax accounts or attending coin conventions, but is that the truth?

There’s a serial killer on the lose in the Anderson’s area who goes by the name “Beadie” who kills young attractive women. One day Darcy is in their garage looking for some batteries for the remote control when she finds an identification belonging to one of the women who was recently killed by the serial killer. Darcy is shocked, more than shocked, she can’t breathe. Is her husband the “Beadie” serial killer? How can this be? When Bob tells Darcy that he knows she knows, she tells him that she forgives him and that they can live their lives back to the way it was. But she’s torn between her loyalty to him and her sympathy for the victims. However, Darcy has other plans, and what she decides to do is both shocking and unexpected.

A Good Marriage is a taut, shocking thriller, and written by the master that is Stephen King, based on his book of the same name. The film’s twist and turns and shocking revelations make A Good Marriage an excellent pyschological thriller. Allen, whose not done much film work in the last 7 years, is excellent as the wife and mother who has her life turned upside down. LaPaglia, in the Alec Baldwin role, plays a man whose facade is not what is in the inside. Crisply directed by Peter Askin, A Good Marriage will keep you glued to the screen throughout, and with very good performances and a great story, it’s a must for all Stephen King fans, as well as for everyone else.

A Good Marriage is now available to buy on DVD and can be watched on VOD.

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13th Apr2015

Olivier Awards – Theatre

by timbaros

images-358Theatre’s big night took place last night at London’s Royal Opera House and it was Sunny Afternoon – a musical about The Kinks musical group – that took four awards at the ceremony. A View From The Bridge, which started it’s life at the Young Vic and which is now playing at The Wyndham Theatre, took three awards including one for Mark Strong for Best Actor. In the highly contested Best Actress in a musical, it was Katie Brayben taking the gong for playing songwriter Carole King in the newly opening musical Beautiful. The show ended with special award winner Kevin Spacey singing Bridge Over Troubled Water with Memphis the Musical’s Beverly Knight.
Complete winners below.

SPECIAL AWARDS
Sylvie Guillem and Kevin Spacey

BEST ACTRESS
Penelope Wilton for Taken At Midnight
Theatre Royal Haymarket

images-359

BEST ACTOR
Mark Strong for A View From The Bridge
Young Vic & Wyndham’s Theatre

BEST ACTRESS IN A MUSICAL
Katie Brayben for Beautiful – The Carole King Musical
Aldwych Theatre

BEST ACTOR IN A MUSICAL
John Dagleish for Sunny Afternoon
Hampstead Theatre & Harold Pinter Theatre

MASTERCARD BEST NEW MUSICAL
Sunny Afternoon
Hampstead Theatre & Harold Pinter Theatre

VIRGIN ATLANTIC BEST NEW PLAY
King Charles III
Almeida Theatre & Wyndham’s Theatre

THIS MORNING AUDIENCE AWARD
Wicked
Apollo Victoria Theatre

MAGIC RADIO BEST MUSICAL REVIVAL
City Of Angels
Donmar Warehouse

BEST REVIVAL
A View From The Bridge
Young Vic & Wyndham’s Theatre

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Angela Lansbury for Blithe Spirit
Gielgud Theatre

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Nathaniel Parker for Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies
Aldwych Theatre

BEST DIRECTOR
Ivo Van Hove for A View From The Bridge
Young Vic & Wyndham’s Theatre

BEST NEW COMEDY
The Play That Goes Wrong
Duchess Theatre

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MUSICAL
Lorna Want for Beautiful – The Carole King Musical
Aldwych Theatre

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MUSICAL
George Maguire for Sunny Afternoon
Hampstead Theatre & Harold Pinter Theatre

WHITE LIGHT AWARD FOR BEST LIGHTING DESIGN
Howard Harrison for City Of Angels
Donmar Warehouse

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Christopher Oram for Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies
Aldwych Theatre

BEST SOUND DESIGN
Gareth Owen for Memphis The Musical
Shaftesbury Theatre

XL VIDEO AWARD FOR BEST SET DESIGN
Es Devlin for The Nether
Duke of York’s Theatre

BEST THEATRE CHOREOGRAPHER
Sergio Trujillo for Memphis The Musical
Shaftesbury Theatre

AUTOGRAPH SOUND AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN MUSIC
Ray Davies for Sunny Afternoon
Hampstead Theatre & Harold Pinter Theatre

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN AN AFFILIATE THEATRE
Bull
The Maria at the Young Vic

BEST NEW OPERA PRODUCTION
The Mastersingers Of Nuremberg
London Coliseum

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN OPERA
Richard Jones for his direction of The Girl Of The Golden West, The Mastersingers Of Nuremberg and Rodelinda
London Coliseum

BEST NEW DANCE PRODUCTION
32 Rue Vandenbranden by Peeping Tom
Barbican
&
Mats Ek’s Juliet And Romeo by Royal Swedish Ballet
Sadler’s Wells

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN DANCE
Crystal Pite for her choreography in the productions of The Associates – A Picture Of You Falling, The Tempest Replica and Polaris
Sadler’s Wells

BEST ENTERTAINMENT AND FAMILY
La Soirée
La Soirée Spiegeltent

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11th Apr2015

’71 – DVD

by timbaros

71_2815828bIn the film ’71, Jack O’Connell gives another excellent performance. In this one he plays an army soldier trapped behind enemy lines in Belfast, Ireland.

1971 is the year which was at the height of The Troubles. It’s the time when most Protestants, who wanted Northern Ireland to remain in the United Kingdom, versus the Catholics, who wanted the United Kingdom to join a united Ireland, fought against each other, yet there were certain people within these communities who were for the opposite side.

O’Connell plays a young English soldier form Derbyshire who is part of a larger unit tasked with trying to calm a riot in Belfast. At the riot, all hell breaks lose; the locals are not happy to see the army there as they search local homes for terrorists. The locals revolt and attack the soldiers, the soldiers retreat and leave, and two of them, including Private Gary Hook (O’Connell), are left behind. The other soldier is killed, but Hook manages to run from the angry mob, but is chased by two of them through the city’s backroads and alleys. He does find a hiding place where he stays for a while. Once he feels it’s safe to venture back outside, he is befriended by a nine-year old (Corey McKinley in an excellent performance for a young actor). But, in what is one of the most surprising and shocking moments I’ve seen on screen all year, the pub blows up, with the kid in it.

Hook is eventually caught and beat up, but he is taken in by a father and daughter who are sympathetic to him and who hide him in their flat. But word spreads through the community that they are hiding a British soldier, and locals want to kill him. Meanwhile, his platoon starts looking for him as well. Who will find him first, and what condition will they find him in?

Director Yann Demange and writer Gregory Burke have created a film with lots of suspense and action, with amazing real scenes of rioting and violence. It’s beautifully shot by Tat Radcliffe – even the explosions look very vivid. But ’71 is not a perfect film. The showdown at the end is a bit overdramatic and plays with your heartstrings, and there’s lots of blood spilled but very little stains left, but it’s rising star O’Connell’s film. Formerly of television’s Skins and most recently in Starred Up as a young man who is sent to prison, O’Connell again displays that he can command a movie. His most recent film next film was Unbroken, which was about the life of Olympic athlete Louis “Louie” Zamperini – played by O’Connell. Produced and directed by Angelina Jolie, it helped O’Connell win the BAFTA Rising Star Award this past February.

’71 is now out on DVD.

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