Jim Broadbent

The real honor roll at Hogwarts Academy in the "Harry Potter" films has nothing to do with child wizards and their magical aptitude: It's the list of esteemed British thespians who have been brought in to cast their spells as the colorful supporting players. Gary Oldman, Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Maggie Smith, Miranda Richardson, Kenneth Branagh, Ralph Fiennes, John Hurt and the late Richard Harris are just some of the elite performers who have trod the stone floors of the sorcery academy.

Five years ago the Bristol, England-based Aardman animation folks — who created the stop-motion legends Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep and therefore are eligible for sainthood — made the digitally animated British/American co-production "Flushed Away. " Jam-packed with peril, if not with charm, the film had both eyes on a crossover American audience that never materialized. Now comes happier news and a much better film. The company's second digitally animated feature, billed as "an Aardman production for Sony Pictures Animation," carries the name "Arthur Christmas.

FOR MANY performers, the idea that they might become "character actors" fills them with dread. But not Jim Broadbent, who has transformed the category in a career stretching to the late 1970s. His most recent effort, "When Did You Last See Your Father?," opens on Friday and adds yet another distinctive exploration of the diverse human experience to his ever-growing portfolio. "That is my niche," he says of the character-actor label. Some niche.

The real honor roll at Hogwarts Academy in the "Harry Potter" films has nothing to do with child wizards and their magical aptitude: It's the list of esteemed British thespians who have been brought in to cast their spells as the colorful supporting players. Gary Oldman, Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Maggie Smith, Miranda Richardson, Kenneth Branagh, Ralph Fiennes, John Hurt and the late Richard Harris are just some of the elite performers who have trod the stone floors of the sorcery academy.

Jim Broadbent has the look of an English Everyman, the kind of bloke who would be more at ease hoisting a pint at the local pub back home than drinking designer water in a tony Beverly Hills hotel lobby, his location for the day. The soft-spoken actor can sometimes hardly be heard over the holiday soundtrack playing nonstop in the background, and his casual appearance is a marked contrast to the sumptuous seasonal decor.

No woman was ever ruined by a book, New York City Mayor Jimmy Walker famously said, but filmmakers are always being seduced by them, with unlucky audiences left to pay the price. The latest case in point is "Cloud Atlas," which has been turned into a film with muddled, frustrating results. It's not difficult to see why the filmmaking Wachowski siblings joined forces with Tom Tykwer to jointly write and direct a version of David Mitchell's hugely ambitious novel. It's a book that deals with, as Andy Wachowski has said, "the sum of human experience," that unabashedly investigates what is important in life.

Five years ago the Bristol, England-based Aardman animation folks — who created the stop-motion legends Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep and therefore are eligible for sainthood — made the digitally animated British/American co-production "Flushed Away. " Jam-packed with peril, if not with charm, the film had both eyes on a crossover American audience that never materialized. Now comes happier news and a much better film. The company's second digitally animated feature, billed as "an Aardman production for Sony Pictures Animation," carries the name "Arthur Christmas.

Director Mike Leigh leaves you speechless with this eccentric 1991 film that is at once surreal and very real, a film in which nothing happens and everything is experienced. Leigh concentrates on a working-class family living in a north London suburb: Wendy (Alison Steadman), her husband Andy (Jim Broadbent) and their twin teen-age daughters Natalie (Claire Skinner) and Nicola (Jane Horrocks, pictured, with Timothy Spall).

"Cloud Atlas," based on the 2004 novel by David Mitchell, tells six nested stories spanning several hundred years and three continents. Cast members including Tom Hanks, Halle Berry and Jim Broadbent play multiple interconnected roles across the centuries. 1. In 1849 in the remote South Pacific, where the slave trade is flourishing, Dr. Goose (Hanks) administers medicine of dubious value to naive traveler Adam Ewing (Jim Sturgess). Ewing's peculiar connection to a slave creates trouble aboard their ship.

Don't panic, don't touch that dial, but for the second week in a row (after the fine LeBron James documentary "More Than a Game") I'm pounding the drum for a sports film. But as written by the always entertaining Peter Morgan, responsible for "The Queen" and "Frost/Nixon," "The Damned United" is considerably more than a sports film. Starring the top-flight quartet of Michael Sheen, Timothy Spall, Colm Meaney and Jim Broadbent, this is a motion picture about ambition, betrayal and moral blindness, the tale of a complicated, driven, gifted man (who happens to be a professional soccer coach)

FOR MANY performers, the idea that they might become "character actors" fills them with dread. But not Jim Broadbent, who has transformed the category in a career stretching to the late 1970s. His most recent effort, "When Did You Last See Your Father?," opens on Friday and adds yet another distinctive exploration of the diverse human experience to his ever-growing portfolio. "That is my niche," he says of the character-actor label. Some niche.

Jim Broadbent has the look of an English Everyman, the kind of bloke who would be more at ease hoisting a pint at the local pub back home than drinking designer water in a tony Beverly Hills hotel lobby, his location for the day. The soft-spoken actor can sometimes hardly be heard over the holiday soundtrack playing nonstop in the background, and his casual appearance is a marked contrast to the sumptuous seasonal decor.

Filming has started in Germany's historic Babelsberg studios outside Berlin on a new version of Jules Verne's "Around the World in 80 Days." The movie, starring Jim Broadbent, Jackie Chan and Kathy Bates, is being directed by Frank Coraci ("The Waterboy"). It's the first large-scale Hollywood production to be shot at the studio, and with costs running around $100 million, it's estimated to be one of the most expensive films ever made in Germany.

Four years after Iris Murdoch's death, her husband is selling the working library of nearly 1,000 books collected and annotated by the late author over six decades, auctioneers said Monday. John Bayley doesn't have room for the books at his house in Oxford now that he's remarried, said Rachel Lee. Her company, Rachel Lee Rare Books, will sell the collection, valued at about $240,000, at the Antiquarian Book Fair in London from June 5 through June 8.