Filmmaking Articles by Michelle Thomas
More Glorious Learnings For KazakhstanAparently writer Sacha Baron Cohen was unable for interview so we have to make do with Borat...
Making MischiefRamon Tikaram has cut his hair. Now I do know, in the logical bit of my brain, that he isn’t Ferdy from This Life, but I guess that show made such an indelible impression that its hard to believe that the actors have actual lives, but here’s the...
The Brilliant Mister BaleChristian Bale was, until last year, best known as Patrick Bateman from American Psycho. Since then he has played a number of intense characters including, most famously, Bruce Wayne, and now Jim, unhappy Gulf War veteran in Harsh Times. Ironically,...
Guards! Guards!Prison Break is a rollickingly endearing ronsealesque* blast of a show that typifies what many are calling a new Golden Age of Television. In the wake of shows like The Sopranos, Sex & The City, The West Wing, and 24, American television drama has...
Team AmericaJohn Battsek, Oscar-winning producer of One Day in September, has always been into football. Like many British boys, he dreamed of being a premiere league footballer, and had always had subliminal memories of an American team called the New York...
DreamweaverDave McKean is a bit of a renaissance man. Probably best known for his collaborations with Neil Gaiman (particularly the cover art for the Sandman series), he is also an an illustrator, photographer, comic book artist, filmmaker and musician, now...
What the Dickens!The Dickens Museum is just one of the many houses in which the great author lived, his only surviving London home and the place Oliver Twist was actually written, its four floors packed with Dickens ephemera. He would probably have felt quite at...
Hotter than JulyThe first thing I notice about Miranda July is that she’s tiny, much younger looking than she appears on celluloid, and curiously old-fashioned, with enormous, Frodo-like blue eyes and thick, bobbed hair. July is in London to promote her debut...
Yes WomanI started writing YES in the days following the attacks of September 11th 2001 in New York City. I felt an urgent need to respond to the rapid demonisation of the Arabic world in the West and to the parallel wave of hatred against America....
Lunatic FringeWriter-director Annie Griffin is in the loo when I arrive to interview her in the oddly named Blue Drawing Room of a private London club. Why is it a drawing room, I wonder; who withdraws here now that the Ladies are out passing the port and happily...
Dream A Little DreamIn early May 2003, ads began to go up in Prague announcing the opening of a new hypermarket, Cesky Sen (Czech Dream). Its simple, colourful posters (exhorting shoppers NOT to come, NOT to spend), catchy jingle, flyers, tv spots and competitive...
Dynamic DuoThe Hospital is a new members club in London's Covent Garden. It is very calm and spacious and slightly bizarre, as if the interior designer read Wallpaper and said ‘I want that one’ about everything in it. Still it’s very pleasant and they make tea...
10 Years of DogmeTen years ago, on the 100th anniversary of the Lumiere Brothers first public film screening, Lars von Trier took the podium at the celebratory Paris symposium and introduced a new kind of filmmaking. This was the Dogme 95 manifesto, and the...
Baffled by Bollywood? Worried by WuXia? Alienated by anime? Part 3Fear not, for armed with Future Movies trusty Bluffer's Guide to the new Asian cinema, you'll know your baksheesh from your bushido, impress your friends and delight your colleagues with your wealth and depth of knowledge. Pub quiz,...
Aqueous HumourI’m sitting at the back of the conference room on a little stage, drinking tea, when I catch a glimpse of slim bottle green velvet thigh and a swish of long black hair in the doorway. No way can that be Anjelica Huston, I think. Must be her...
The Forgotten: Dominic West InterviewSheffield-born actor Dominic West has been inching his way up Hollywood's greasy pole for a while now, with roles in Chicago, Mona Lisa Smile, and now The Forgotten. Future Movies caught up with him for a movie-making...
Baffled by Bollywood? Worried by Wuxia? Alienated by anime? Part 2Fear not, for armed with Future Movies trusty Bluffer's Guide to the new Asian cinema, you'll know your baksheesh from your bushido, impress your friends and delight your colleagues with your wealth and depth of knowledge. Pub quiz,...
Making The IncrediblesA slightly surreal - and very cool! - day began with me being escorted by a handsome, besuited flunky down to the lavish new screening room at the bizarrely overdecorated Soho Hotel. After watching the film, and lunch, we were bussed down to the...
Baffled by Bollywood? Worried by WuXia? Alienated by anime? Part 1Fear not, for armed with Future Movies trusty Bluffer's Guide to the new Asian cinema, you'll know your baksheesh from your bushido, impress your friends and delight your colleagues with your wealth and depth of knowledge. Pub quiz,...
The Lord of the Rings SymphonyThe Lord of the Rings, not content with being the most popular book in Britain, and occupying three slots in the all-time top ten box office, seems to be extending its dominance across all artistic categories. The film's thunderous soundtrack,...
