John Boorman

Making "In My Country" two years ago in South Africa was an emotionally draining experience for veteran director John Boorman. The drama, which opens today, is set against the backdrop of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings that took place in the country from 1996 to 1998 to investigate human rights abuses under apartheid.

Donald E. Westlake's greatest literary creation, Parker, was first played on-screen by Lee Marvin in "Point Blank" (1967). Marvin's collaboration with first-time feature director John Boorman was wonderfully fertile, giving birth to some indelible cinematic moments. Boorman encouraged Marvin to remain so silent, to suppress his intentions so deeply, that costar Angie Dickinson became totally frustrated in their scenes. Finally, Boorman encouraged Dickinson to unleash her anger by physically attacking Marvin.

What's a ruthless spy and a pathological liar to do in a post-Cold War world where none of the old rules apply and everything's up for grabs? Why, team up and turn the espionage game into the ultimate con and walk away with a fortune, of course. At least that's what Pierce Brosnan and Geoffrey Rush try to do in "The Tailor of Panama," the John Boorman film that opened last weekend to strong business in limited release ($1.8 million on 199 screens).

I don't know exactly when Liam Neeson turned into Hollywood's favorite vengeance machine - the go-to guy for settling scores - but he has definitely arrived with an emotionally gripping performance in the current box-office hit "The Grey. " Surely "Taken" in 2009 , with his ex-CIA operative in a relentless and ruthless bid to find his kidnapped daughter, signaled that he had made the A-team. And in 2010, he would actually join a re-imagined "A-Team" as its tactical leader, Hannibal, with all the historic resonance that name implies.

When John Boorman stood up at the Cannes Film Festival in May to accept his best director prize for "The General," a fact-based gangster film, not everybody was applauding. Some citizens of the British filmmaker's adopted homeland of Ireland were downright irate. Like "The Godfather" and almost every other powerful crime film you can think of, this one has been slammed for romanticizing a violent thug.

"Zardoz" (1974), directed by John Boorman. 105 minutes. Rated R. For wild science fiction fans, this is a trippy examination of what happens when intellect overpowers humanity and humans taste immortality. For the less philosophical, it's a unique chance to see a bare-chested Sean Connery run around as a gun-toting savage with a ponytail.

Donald E. Westlake's greatest literary creation, Parker, was first played on-screen by Lee Marvin in "Point Blank" (1967). Marvin's collaboration with first-time feature director John Boorman was wonderfully fertile, giving birth to some indelible cinematic moments. Boorman encouraged Marvin to remain so silent, to suppress his intentions so deeply, that costar Angie Dickinson became totally frustrated in their scenes. Finally, Boorman encouraged Dickinson to unleash her anger by physically attacking Marvin.

Oscar-nominated film maker John Boorman (for "Hope and Glory") tells us he and another nominee--actor Marcello Mastroianni (for "Dark Eyes")--may soon be "swinging" into action on a new film. The two men, who worked together on 1970's "Leo the Last," dined in Rome recently, where the actor suggested an ideal subject for collaboration--Tarzan. Boorman said Mastroianni would play the king of the apes in his 60s and no longer quite the dashing figure he once was. "I like the idea," said Boorman.

With a cheesy title such as "Zardoz" and an opening monologue by a floating, disembodied head sporting an Egyptian headdress and a penciled-on mustache, it is easy to understand why John Boorman's 1974 fantasy film might grow dusty on video store shelves. But for fans of wild science fiction, the film is a trippy examination of what happens when intellect overpowers humanity and humans taste immortality.

THE American Cinematheque is going European -- at least for one week. The showcase "EuroCinema: New Films From Europe" begins this evening at the Egyptian Theatre with the Los Angeles premiere of John Boorman's newest film. "The Tiger's Tail" is an Irish black comedy thriller starring frequent Boorman collaborator Brendan Gleeson as a property owner from humble origins who is now overextended and on the verge of a nervous breakdown until he comes across his doppelganger.

Call it kismet, fate or a clever marketing tool that led to the DVD debuts today of British director John Boorman's first American film and his latest feature. A former documentary filmmaker, Boorman made the leap to features in 1965 with the well-received musical "Having a Wild Weekend" (it was known as "Catch Me if You Can" in England), which starred the popular British pop group the Dave Clark Five.

"In My Country" is the kind of serious, intelligent probing of the work of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, set up by the government in 1996 to investigate human rights abuses under apartheid, that one would expect from a director of the caliber of John Boorman. He has confronted the horrors straight on but has been stymied by a ponderous script adapted by Ann Peacock from the book "Country of My Skull" by Afrikaans poet Antjie Krog.

Making "In My Country" two years ago in South Africa was an emotionally draining experience for veteran director John Boorman. The drama, which opens today, is set against the backdrop of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings that took place in the country from 1996 to 1998 to investigate human rights abuses under apartheid.

"MEMORY is definition of life," director John Boorman writes in his gracefully composed and haunting autobiography. Yet memory of the kind he is talking about -- highly personal and delicately shaded -- is a subject mostly excluded from movies. It does not directly inform them the way it does so many, perhaps most, seriously intended novels.

What's a ruthless spy and a pathological liar to do in a post-Cold War world where none of the old rules apply and everything's up for grabs? Why, team up and turn the espionage game into the ultimate con and walk away with a fortune, of course. At least that's what Pierce Brosnan and Geoffrey Rush try to do in "The Tailor of Panama," the John Boorman film that opened last weekend to strong business in limited release ($1.8 million on 199 screens).

"Entertainments" is the way celebrated British novelist Graham Greene described his clever, sophisticated diversions such as "The Third Man" and "Our Man in Havana," and John Boorman's spiffy film version of spymaster John le Carre's "The Tailor of Panama" is very much in that satisfying but often ignored tradition.

Though he's been dead only four years, Dublin gangster Martin Cahill is taking his place alongside Jesse James, Billy the Kid and Clyde Barrow as movie heroes from the wrong side of the law. Cahill became known as the General, and through the eyes of writer-director-producer John Boorman he takes on almost mythic qualities.