Happy Go Lucky Archives - The Playlist

Guillermo del Toro Reveals 3 Key Sally Hawkins Performances That Made Him Cast Her In ‘The Shape Of Water’

Kevin Jagernauth — Tue, 27 Feb 2018 21:12:30 +0000

With two Oscar nominations under her belt — for “Blue Jasmine” and this year for her terrific performance in “The Shape Of Water” — Sally Hawkins could walk away on Sunday with a golden statue for her mantle. Her work is astonishing in Guillermo del Toro‘s wondrous romantic fantasy, even more because she does it all without saying a word. It’s a huge ask of an actor, but the director knew he had the perfect vehicle for his film.

Continue reading Guillermo del Toro Reveals 3 Key Sally Hawkins Performances That Made Him Cast Her In ‘The Shape Of Water’ at The Playlist.

VIFF ’10: ‘Made In Dagenham’ A Pleasant Unexpected Surprise & An Intelligent Take On Crowd-Pleasing

Erik McClanahan — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 16:40:00 +0000

By far the most unexpected and pleasant surprise of our Vancouver coverage is Nigel Cole’s (“Calendar Girls”) “Made in Dagenham.” Going in we had low expectations for the film, a dramatization of the 1968 strike at the Dagenham Ford plant in where the female workers, who made up less than .01 % of the plant’s workforce at the time, fought for their right to sexual equality: it sounds like the stuff of cheesy Hollywood Oscar bait, or, even worse, Lifetime movies of the week.

Continue reading VIFF ’10: ‘Made In Dagenham’ A Pleasant Unexpected Surprise & An Intelligent Take On Crowd-Pleasing at The Playlist.

Sony Pictures Classics Buys Mike Leigh’s ‘Another Year,’ ‘Biutiful’ Still Anxiously Awaiting A Distrib

Edward Davis — Wed, 19 May 2010 02:14:00 +0000

Though some have called it miserablist, slow, etc. while others have seemingly dug its take on contentment and togetherness, either way, Mike Leigh’s Cannes picture, “Another Year” has been picked up by Sony Pictures Classics.

We always kind of assumed this was a Focus Features picture, since Focus Features International financed it, but that’s not always how it works. While some have been harsh on SPC in recent years —perhaps for not making “Moon” the big tentpole film they thought it should be (guys, it’s thinking man’s sci-fi, it has limited appeal) —the distributor is pretty perfect for the Leigh film, as they pretty much exclusively work with intelligent foreign films.

Continue reading Sony Pictures Classics Buys Mike Leigh’s ‘Another Year,’ ‘Biutiful’ Still Anxiously Awaiting A Distrib at The Playlist.

‘Sherlock Holmes’ Trailer Swashes Some Buckles Online

Gabe Toro — Tue, 19 May 2009 18:06:00 +0000

WB has unveiled our first look at “Sherlock Holmes,” their big summer tentpole and, wow, it looks fairly watchable. Robert Downey Jr. stars as the noted detective, here given an action-y facelift by director Guy Ritchie, producer Joel Silver and writer Lionel Wigram. Wigram has nothing to do with the screenplay, but supposedly it’s his source material, a new line of action-heavy Holmes comic books, that drives the inspiration of the film. Still, reading the older books, Holmes was no slouch in that department, so those having their feathers rumpled by the action choreography, swordfights and explosions should know the footage is in some ways staying true to the source material.

Continue reading ‘Sherlock Holmes’ Trailer Swashes Some Buckles Online at The Playlist.

This Week In DVD- Drink Your ‘Milk’

Gabe Toro — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 01:47:00 +0000

Anyone completely behind on last year’s films ought to take a look at this Tuesday’s releases. There’s no shortage of critically-acclaimed and Oscar-nominated films available, starting with Best Actor and Best Original (heh) Screenplay winner “Milk.” “Milk” strikes out on the format with extra features that include deleted scenes, and three making-of docs. Also on the docket is the haunting Swedish horror picture “Let The Right One In,” which is set to be remade by Satanic forces taking the form of Matt Reeves later this spring.

Continue reading This Week In DVD- Drink Your ‘Milk’ at The Playlist.

If We Ran The Academy

Rodrigo Perez — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 15:58:00 +0000

The Oscars are in six days. Are you as bored as we are?

David Carr started the “If I Ran The Academy” meme listing 1o things you would change in this year’s Oscars if you had magical powers and then Jeff Wells joined in. So the 10 things we would change if We Ran The Academy would go something like this:

1. “Che” would be a Best Picture nominee.
2. Kristin Scott Thomas would have secured herself a Best Actress nod for “I’ve Loved You So Long” and been the frontrunner.

Continue reading If We Ran The Academy at The Playlist.

To All Those Whiners Complaining About The Oscars That Haven’t Figured It Out After All These Years

Rodrigo Perez — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 00:18:00 +0000

As two wise characters once said: ” ‘Deserve’ ain’t got nothin’ to do with it.”

Aka: life isn’t always fair otherwise known as, lots of great films, filmmakers and actors got the shaft this year. It happens.

Continue reading To All Those Whiners Complaining About The Oscars That Haven’t Figured It Out After All These Years at The Playlist.

Golden Globe Acceptance Speeches: Mickey Rourke, Kate Winslet, Chris Nolan For Ledger, Sally Hawkins; More…

Rodrigo Perez — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 06:09:00 +0000

The best acceptance speeches of the night are already on YouTube. Our favorite is still Sally Hawkins’ win for “Happy Go Lucky,” she’s awesome. Well that and a close tie for Danny Boyle.

Continue reading Golden Globe Acceptance Speeches: Mickey Rourke, Kate Winslet, Chris Nolan For Ledger, Sally Hawkins; More… at The Playlist.

The Playlist’s Top 20 Films Of 2008

Rodrigo Perez — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:14:00 +0000

It’s that time of year again. Remember the tried and true formula: experience + resonance= fantastic film. As we all know art is not made within the confines of a calendar year and release dates are arbitrary, or at least monetarily driven, but that said, here’s what we have for the last 12 months of the year that was 2008.

A terrible year for movies? For American mainstream films, mostly, it was sub par overall.

Continue reading The Playlist’s Top 20 Films Of 2008 at The Playlist.

Award Season Watch: AFI Lists Its Top 10 Films Of 2008; ‘Slumdog’ Continues Nabbing Critical Awards

Rodrigo Perez — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 15:49:00 +0000

The American Film Institute released the winners of its AFI Awards on Sunday, including its annual top 10 list. The list is an interesting mix of mainstream (“Wall-E,” “The Dark Knight”) and indie films, “Frozen River,” “Wendy & Lucy”), but curiously enough, “Slumdog Millionaire” was snubbed. We wonder if it’s because it’s technically not an “American” film. Don’t get too excited fans of “Iron Man,” this AFI group also put “The Devil Wears Prada” on their list two years ago, and yeah, it didn’t penetrate Oscar in the slightest (aside from Streep, but duh).

Continue reading Award Season Watch: AFI Lists Its Top 10 Films Of 2008; ‘Slumdog’ Continues Nabbing Critical Awards at The Playlist.

No Love For KST Yet? The Leading Actress Category Is Hands Down The Most Interesting And Best Awards Race Of 2008

Rodrigo Perez — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 21:56:00 +0000

This is almost an emergency post: The Golden Globes are announced tomorrow and yes, while they don’t count and are kind of lame, they can’t help, but being a very strong influence on the Academy Awards. At the very least they set a mood and set a tone for better or worse. A lot of the influential critical awards are in and arguably the two-most important, L.A. and N.Y Critics polls came in today and yesterday.

Continue reading No Love For KST Yet? The Leading Actress Category Is Hands Down The Most Interesting And Best Awards Race Of 2008 at The Playlist.

‘Milk’ Tops The NY Critics Circle Awards, Wins Best Picture

Rodrigo Perez — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 17:13:00 +0000

“Milk” has topped the New York Film Critics Circle Awards list having won Best Picture and Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor for Sean Penn and Josh Brolin respectively.

Shut out of the director’s prize was “Milk” filmmaker Gus Van Sant. Instead, that honor went to Mike Leigh for his excellent British dramedy, “Happy Go Lucky” which was given also given the Best Actress award for the film’s winning lead Sally Hawkins. We’re glad to see ‘Lucky’ finally got some major award season love.

Continue reading ‘Milk’ Tops The NY Critics Circle Awards, Wins Best Picture at The Playlist.

Short Cuts, British Edition; ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ Scores At BIFA, ‘Hunger’ Tops At Sight And Sound

Rodrigo Perez — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:42:00 +0000

Man, after almost five days off due to Thanksgiving, there are 10,000 little bits of news to get to. Here’s a few from across the pond (cause if we didn’t break them up like this they’d be incredibly long).

Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire” was the big winner of the British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) taking Best Director, Best Picture and Most Promising Newcomer (Dev Patel). Other big winners included, “Hunger,” and “Happy Go Lucky.” “Man on Wire” won the Best British documentary award and “Waltz With Bashir” won the Best Foreign one.

Continue reading Short Cuts, British Edition; ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ Scores At BIFA, ‘Hunger’ Tops At Sight And Sound at The Playlist.

Shorcuts: Love For ‘Che’, Love For ‘Happy-Go-Lucky,’ & More…

Rodrigo Perez — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 18:18:00 +0000

Some love for “Che” from England. In Contention’s Guy Lodge goes to bat for the film and is totally on the money. “I find it difficult to square with the critics who have called “Che” a “mess,” or variations of the term. Dense and inescapably large, yes, but hardly messy. This is no-frills, narrative-oriented filmmaking, straightforward in its construction and unfussy in its aesthetic. Even the time jumps of “The Argentine” are negotiated with practicality; if anything, I could have stood a little more auteur flair.

Continue reading Shorcuts: Love For ‘Che’, Love For ‘Happy-Go-Lucky,’ & More… at The Playlist.

‘In Bruges’ and ‘Hunger’ Lead The British Independent Film Award Pack

Rodrigo Perez — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:32:00 +0000

Whenever awards bodies such as the British Independent Film Awards release their nominations, I have no choice but to question where ‘independent’ factor comes into play. Nevertheless, their thoughtful championing of the underdog(s) year in and year out is reason enough to let such thoughts slip. This year, Mike Leigh’s disarming “Happy-Go-Lucky” received a paltry 3 nominations, same as James Marsh’s highly regarded doc “Man on Wire” and Mark Herman’s so-so “The Boy in Striped Pyjamas” (in which I found Vera Farmiga excellent, and she received a Best Actress nom here too), while “Son of Rambow,” “Somers Town” and “The Duchess” snatched 4 apiece, which is laughable if only because Leigh’s film is so obviously a shutout.

Continue reading ‘In Bruges’ and ‘Hunger’ Lead The British Independent Film Award Pack at The Playlist.

A ‘Happy-Go-Lucky’ Director? Mike Leigh Still Thinks You’re Dumb

Rodrigo Perez — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 20:22:00 +0000

Rop of Sillycons: Several critics have have voiced a negative reaction toward [“Happy-Go-Lucky” protagonist] Poppy [Sally Hawkins] and perceive her as a blindly happy person, but I didn’t see it that way at all and have a hard time believing that was your intention.

Director Mike Leigh: “I think it is a ridiculous reaction to the film. I don’t really see it as defending the film as much as disagreeing with that rather dumb view of it.

Continue reading A ‘Happy-Go-Lucky’ Director? Mike Leigh Still Thinks You’re Dumb at The Playlist.

En-Ra-Ha! Why Eddie Marsan Should Get A Best Supporting Nomination

Rodrigo Perez — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 14:05:00 +0000

We at The Playlist usually put up our Oscar picks by now. Or at least if you go by last year (rather than predictions outright, it’s more of taking the temperature of the consensus). It’s been a weird year and December still feels like the month were the locks or easy-to-pick contenders will appear.

However, if someone had to ask us now about one of our favorite performances of the year, coming to mind is definitely Eddie Marsan and his spectacularly neurotic turn in Mike Leigh’s “Happy Go Lucky.”

Yes, it’s Sally Hawkins as the pathologically effervescent protagonist Poppy, that’s getting all the headlines, but if she gets an Oscar nomination (which it looks like she might), Marsan is no less deserving and possibly more-so.

Continue reading En-Ra-Ha! Why Eddie Marsan Should Get A Best Supporting Nomination at The Playlist.

New York Film Festival: That’s A Wrap

Rodrigo Perez — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 19:32:00 +0000

We burned the candle at both ends in the home stretch of the 46th Annual New York Film Festival, didn’t have a life and didn’t get much sleep, but it was worth it. We felt like it was like being at Cannes, we saw such remarkable international fare.

There were 28 films shown in total and we saw 18 of them which isn’t bad number all things considered.
Of course we saw some of the NYFF pictures at early TIFF, including, Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler,” Mike Leigh’s exuberant “Happy Go Lucky,” the Cannes-celebrated “Gommorah,” Steven Soderbergh’s sprawling and unsentimental “Che,” and “Waltz With Bashir,” the animated documentary about the Beirut massacre during the Lebannon war in 1982, by director Ari Folman.

Continue reading New York Film Festival: That’s A Wrap at The Playlist.

Weekend Box-Office: ‘Happy Go-Lucky’, ‘Rock N’Rolla’, Other Stuff…

Rodrigo Perez — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 04:08:00 +0000

The weekend, weekend, weekend. We won’t be seeing jack probably cause we’re still trying to keep up with the last bits of the very-excellent New York Film Festival (NY’ers should note the last screening of “The Wrestler” is this weekend), but there’s some decent stuff opening up.

Number 1 on our list of things you should see this weekend is Mike Leigh’s “Happy Go-Lucky.” The vibrant film is superficially chipper and has a dark and troubled meaty center via an astounding performance by Eddie Marsan who’s downright brilliant.

Continue reading Weekend Box-Office: ‘Happy Go-Lucky’, ‘Rock N’Rolla’, Other Stuff… at The Playlist.

Mike Leigh Says Don’t Dismiss ‘Happy Go Lucky’s Protagonist As Just “Unadulterated-ly Happy”

Rodrigo Perez — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:50:00 +0000

Is he speaking to directly to Jeffrey Wells? At the New York Film Festival, director Mike Leigh insisted that simply writing off the “Happy Go Lucky” protagonist (Poppy, brilliantly played by Sally Hawkins, though the character is divisive to many) off as simply “unadulterated-ly happy” is to be unfair to what he calls his “anti-miserablist film” (he should know he’s made quite a few miserablists) “The thing about Poppy is that to describe her as being unadulterated[ly] happy is not really to understand her at all,” Leigh said at the film’s Q&A.

Continue reading Mike Leigh Says Don’t Dismiss ‘Happy Go Lucky’s Protagonist As Just “Unadulterated-ly Happy” at The Playlist.

Telluride Film Festival Will Screen First (Small) Peek At Fincher’s ‘Benjamin Button’

Rodrigo Perez — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 19:42:00 +0000

We’ve never been to the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado (you’d have to send us), but it’s an amazing film festival if you consider this insanely quirky aspect of the fest: passes are sold out waaay in advance, like completely sold out. And when do they announce the line-up? What films will actually be playing? Umm, the day of, basically. Telluride starts proper tomorrow morning, but some films have been screened today and the final line-up just went out.

Continue reading Telluride Film Festival Will Screen First (Small) Peek At Fincher’s ‘Benjamin Button’ at The Playlist.

Does Jeffrey Wells Hate Mike Leigh’s Happiness?

Spencer Martin — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 13:43:00 +0000

Does Jeffrey Wells need a hug? The Hollywood movie critic seems to have picked up an odd distaste for Mike Leigh’s newest film, “Happy-Go-Lucky,” a British romantic comedy that centers around a thirty year old school teacher (played by Sally Hawkins) who loves life, and couldn’t be happier, no matter how many bitter, or angry people she encounters.

Wells wasn’t having it. “I hate people who ask me if I’m happy because, of course, they’re not really asking me that.

Continue reading Does Jeffrey Wells Hate Mike Leigh’s Happiness? at The Playlist.

David Thewlis Talks ‘Naked’, Reveals Mike Leigh’s Method Is Kind Of Nuts

Rodrigo Perez — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 19:19:00 +0000

If you’ve never seen Mike Leigh’s “Naked” (1993) stop what you’re doing right now. Leave work, go home, rent the movie, turn out all the lights, watch it and then coddle yourself in the fetal position for the next 24 hours.

If you barely know Leigh’s work, chances are you still probably know “Naked,” as this harrowing, brutal and disturbing look at a loudmouth, philosophizing fatalist in a two-three night stretch around London appeals to the grimmer, darker film lover and has become a nihilist classic (fans of “The Dark Knight” would surely appreciate this if they already don’t).

Continue reading David Thewlis Talks ‘Naked’, Reveals Mike Leigh’s Method Is Kind Of Nuts at The Playlist.

Kate Nash Featured In Mike Leigh’s ‘Happy Go Lucky’ Trailer

Rodrigo Perez — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 21:35:00 +0000

Kate Nash’s “Merry Happy” is featured in the trailer of Mike Leigh’s new film, “Happy Go Lucky.” As the title suggests, the British director is taking a break from his dark kitchen-sink dramas and going for something a little more light and whimsical; it’s a full-on comedy. And honestly, this is a nice reprieve given his work in recent years, while excellent, rather a heavy emotional load (“Vera Drake,” “Secrets & Lies”).

In the effervescent new comedy from director Mike Leigh (“Vera Drake,” “Secrets & Lies”), Sally Hawkins stars as the unforgettable Poppy, an irrepressibly free-spirited school teacher who brings an infectious laugh and an unsinkable sense of optimism to every situation she encounters as a single woman in London.

Continue reading Kate Nash Featured In Mike Leigh’s ‘Happy Go Lucky’ Trailer at The Playlist.