Non-Alan Steve Coogan films, series, etc

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The Penguin Lessons trailer (2025)

[Miguel Wilkins]

'The Penguin Lessons'
Steve Coogan Makes a Feathered Friend in Sweet British Buddy Dramedy
Frank Scheck
hollywoodreporter.com
March 25, 2025

There are two things that can make any movie better: Steve Coogan and penguins. Fortunately, and not surprisingly considering its title, The Penguin Lessons features both. Well, at least one penguin, who goes by the name Juan Salvador. But he's more than enough. He's Coogan's best onscreen partner since Rob Brydon in the Trip movies. Loosely based on a memoir by Tom Michell, the film takes place in 1976 in Buenos Aires, where teacher Tom (Coogan) arrives to teach English to teenage students at a tony private school. His timing wasn't exactly fortuitous, as not long after he gets there the country is rocked by a military coup, with people disappearing subsequently.

Not that any of the tumult affects Tom, who soon embarks on a weekend getaway to Uruguay with his Swedish colleague (Bjorn Gustafsson, priceless), where he enjoys a flirtation with a local woman. Walking together on the beach, they encounter an oil slick and the bodies of several dead penguins. One, however, is still alive. Tom is eager to move on. "There's nothing we can do," he says with mock solemnity. "You can't interfere with nature."

But she implores him to help, and Tom, trying to impress her, agrees to take the penguin back to his hotel room and clean him up. Not only does this attempt at seduction not work, but Tom finds himself stuck with a penguin that won't leave him, even after he throws him back into the ocean. In one of the film's many implausibilities that you just have to go with, he smuggles the bird to Argentina and hides him in his on-campus apartment to avoid the watchful eyes of the school's officious headmaster (Jonathan Pryce).

It's not hard to guess what happens next. Tom, whose cynicism has already been well established, finds himself warming up to the adorable Magellanic penguin (I cop to knowing this from the press notes), working hard to procure fish to feed him and even bringing him to the classroom as a teaching aide. Which naturally does wonders for his bored students, who take a renewed interest in their lessons. And for Tom himself, who previously snuck off for naps during classes but now finds himself teaching with fresh vigor.

The trailer for The Penguin Lessons makes it look like a cutesy comedy, something that might have easily been called "The Dead Penguin's Society." The film is that, to a large degree. But it also attempts something more ambitious with a major plot element involving the disappearance of Sofia (Alfonsina Carrocio), the granddaughter of school housekeeper Maria (Vivian El Jaber), seized off the street by government figures right in front of Tom, who's too terrified to intervene.

We eventually learn the reason for Tom's hard-boiled indifference, involving a tragic incident from his past. With his appreciation for life newly restored by his feathered friend, he soon finds himself in the unlikely position of political activist, using Juan Salvador to strike up a conversation with one of the men who took Sofia and winding up spending a night in jail, beaten up for his troubles.

The film doesn't fully succeed in blending its disparate tones, but under the careful direction of Peter Cattaneo (an old hand at this sort of feel-good material, thanks to such previous efforts as The Full Monty and Military Wives), it emerges as an engaging delight from start to finish. That's partially thanks to the canny screenplay by frequent Coogan collaborator Jeff Pope (Philomena, Stan & Ollie) and partially, no make that majorly, to the superb performance by Coogan, whose expert deadpan comic timing and delivery make the film laugh-out-loud funny at times.

The Penguin Lessons also proves unexpectedly moving, its emotional manipulations fully forgivable. By the time it ends with home-movie footage of the real-life Juan Salvador happily swimming in the school's pool, you'll have fully succumbed to its charms.

[SteveCooganFan]

Director Peter Cattaneo speaks with Variety about his new film, 'The Penguin Lessons' (2025)

Pics from @jhoffman.bsky.social‬

[SteveCooganFan]

Steve Coogan and Charlotte Ritchie join crime drama 'Legends'

Steve Coogan and Ghosts star Charlotte Ritchie have joined the cast of a new Netflix series based on a real-life undercover customs operation.

Legends will also feature Strike star  Tom Burke and  I, Daniel Blake's Hayley Squires and revolves around an audacious plan to infiltrate Britain's most dangerous drug gangs in the 1990s.

The six-part series has been written by Neil Forsyth, who created The Gold for the BBC about a different heist, and which starred Dominic Cooper and Jack Lowden. 

Forsyth previously created the comedy character Bob Servant, as played by  Brian Cox, and  penned Eric, Ernie and Me, a one-off drama about Morecambe and Wise from the point of view of their writer Eddie Braben.

The Netflix logline for the show reads: 'In the early '90s, her Majesty's Customs and Excise was losing its battle with illegal drug smuggling across Britain's borders. The solution was extraordinary. In a top-secret operation, a small team of Customs employees were sent undercover. Their task — to infiltrate Britain's most dangerous drug gangs.

'But these were not trained spies. They were normal men and women, plucked from ordinary lives around the UK, put through a basic training regime, and tasked with building new identities in the criminal underworld. These identities were called legends.'

Legends does not yet have a release date.


Published: 19 Mar 2025
Via Chortle

[SteveCooganFan]

Michael Cera Making Directorial Debut With Comedy 'Love Is Not the Answer' Starring Pamela Anderson, Steve Coogan, Jamie Dornan and Fred Hechinger

Michael Cera is getting behind the camera for his directorial feature debut and has quietly amassed a impressive cast, Variety understands

The actor — best known for roles in "Barbie," "Superbad," "Scott Pilgrim vs the World," and "Arrested Development" — is set to direct "Love is Not the Answer," with Pamela Anderson ("The Last Showgirl"), Steve Coogan ("Philomena"), Fred Hechinger ("Gladiator 2") and Jamie Dornan ("Belfast") lined up to star. mk2 Films will launching the project in Cannes.

"Love is Not the Answer" also teams Cera — who penned the script — with fast-rising hitmakers 2am, led by Christine D'Souza Gelb, David Hinojosa and Kevin Rowe and producers of "Bodies, Bodies, Bodies," "Past Lives," "Babygirl," Celine Song's upcoming "Materialists" and "The Moment" starring Charli xcx. mk2 Films are handling international rights and 2am and CAA Media Finance will oversee North America.

Cera himself should be in Cannes attending for Wes Anderson's typically star-heavy competition entry "The Phoenician Scheme," part of an ensemble cast that also includes Benicio del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Riz Ahmed, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Scarlett Johansson and Benedict Cumberbatch.

Cera has spoken about his desire to direct previously, revealing in 2023 that he was working on an adaptation of the novel "Masters of Atlantis" by Charles Portis.

Alongside "Love is Not the Answer," mk2 Films Cannes slate includes six films in Cannes 2025 official competition in Joachim Trier's "Sentimental Value," the highly anticipated follow-up to "The Worst Person in the World"; Kleber Mendonça Filho's political thriller "The Secret Agent"; Mascha Schilinski's "Sound of Falling"; Hafsia Herzi's "The Little Sister"; and Carla Simón's "Romería."

Via Variety

[Miguel Wilkins]

Steve Coogan and Julia Sawalha in "Tales from the Crypt" (507)

[SteveCooganFan]

Very early 90s Coogan

[SteveCooganFan]

Pretty good impersonation of Coogan by Kevin Bishop (2025)

[SteveCooganFan]

Saipan review – football scandal makes for thrilling big-screen drama

Toronto film festival: Steve Coogan and a knockout Éanna Hardwicke take on Mick McCarthy and Roy Keane in this involving workplace drama about a 2002 tabloid storm

If the average cinemagoer sits down to watch the movie Saipan, unaware of the incident that inspired it, then an immediate montage of frantic radio soundbites does a nifty job at setting the scene before we've even seen a single image. Premiering at the Toronto film festival, it's likely that might be the case for many international attenders here, and the Irish directors Glenn Leyburn and Lisa Barros D'Sa set themselves the lofty task of translating the overwhelming scale of a very 2002 tabloid scandal for those who weren't knee-deep in the hows and whys. Words like soap and drama are thrown around, while one commentator compares the public outcry to that seen after the death of Princess Diana. How did a fight over cheese sandwiches turn into such a frenzy?

At its heart, Saipan is a workplace drama about the danger of mismanagement and the inescapability of office politics, it pulses with the relatable anger that erupts from the feeling of unfair treatment. It just so happens that the workplace is the world of football and the warring employees are two highly paid household names reaching boiling point as the World Cup looms. Steve Coogan is Mick McCarthy, a player turned manager, taking charge of the Republic of Ireland team as they make a rare appearance in a global tournament they're not typically associated with (it was their third, and to date most recent, World Cup). The media is perhaps rightfully crediting this to the involvement of Roy Keane, played by Éanna Hardwicke, whose success as part of Manchester United has levelled the national team up, whether McCarthy likes to admit it or not. They have a spotty history (we hear a brief reference to an on-pitch spar years prior) but both are entering a crucial period on best behaviour, aware of the many eyes on them.

Longtime Shane Meadows collaborator Paul Fraser's script lightly stacks up bones of contention in the months before flying us to Saipan, the location of a poorly defined team trip that's part gameplay prep and part R&R. Keane, an often humourless workhorse, is already struggling to play ball, annoyed at the ostentatious excess of the Football Association of Ireland and unsure of McCarthy's decision-making.

We soon learn that he had reason to be suspicious as the ill-advised getaway spins out of control. The hotel is junky and crumbling (Keane compares it to Fawlty Towers) with barely functional AC, unsafe sporting facilities and those aforementioned sandwiches for food. Keane's view of himself and what he does might seem grandiose (he's seen watching, and clearly relating to, footage of Muhammad Ali on the flight over) but the stakes are higher than they've ever been and his demands are not unacceptable (a fellow player dramatically gasps at his ask for a different meal, to which he replies, straight-faced, "It's egg on toast").

But it's less what he expects than how he asks for it, his manner alienating not just McCarthy but the players around him. The film follows this descent from forced pleasantries to an all-out slanging match, as tensions explode outside of backrooms and into the press, elevating a work dispute into a media scandal. Leyburn and Barros D'Sa's last film was the unusually sensitive and cliche-avoidant drama Ordinary Love, about a couple dealing with a terminal cancer diagnosis, and while the topics couldn't be more different, there's a similar level of care and restraint here.

Before the film starts, the standard "this film is a dramatisation" legal messaging that's often kept for the end credits is shown first, nodding to a story that may never be known in full and one that still inspires impassioned opinions from many. The film shows that McCarthy and Keane make ill-advised choices along the way but it's clearly more in Keane's corner, a convincing and at times moving portrayal of someone who just believes in basic fairness and honesty grappling with a world and a particular system at odds with him. Hardwicke, an actor unfamiliar to most, is an electric presence, a real star find of the festival.

He has the self-possession of someone confident in his ability and moral code and the bristling fury of one who can't believe that those around him can't quite live up to it. Coogan, continuing his unlikely career as one of England's most reliable character actors, is excellent but it's Hardwicke who steals it and their final, blistering confrontation is an escalating thrill to watch, as full-body rage finally takes over.

So much of the film is designed to stoke a response that even as someone at a distance from the original story, I found myself oscillating between surprisingly intense emotional reactions. There's something frustrating and eventually sad about watching men unable to resolve a conflict that could have been fixed by the smallest amount of humility or admitting wrongdoing (it would make for a fascinating piece of workplace training on how not to manage someone). At a game-length 91 minutes, Saipan smartly comes and goes with speed (for all of its anger, it's also a breezy, funny time) but it's the rare football movie that's worth a replay.

Saipan is screening at the Toronto film festival and will be released at a later date


Via Guardian