I Love That Film: london

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Tuesday, 21 June 2016

Remainder Review

If you like your films a little out of the ordinary, then give Independence Day: Resurgence a miss this weekend and see if you can find a cinema playing Remainder instead. Think Donnie Darko meets Synecdoche, New York and you might be getting an idea of what an oddball little film this is.

Here's a snippet of my review from last year's London Film Festival:

Rushing through a city and pulling a black case behind him, an unnamed man (Tom Sturridge) is hit by falling debris from the sky. After awaking from a coma and going through extensive rehabilitation, he discovers that he has been awarded with £8.5 million to keep quiet about the incident. He is plagued by strange visions of a building, a boy, an old woman and some cats on a roof, and decides to hunt down these elements in order to piece together the fragmented puzzle forming in his head. His recreations are handled by helper Naz and become more elaborate, including eventually the staging of a bank robbery.

Sturridge's character becomes like a filmmaker, manipulating and directing these recreations from his mind, while an ever-expanding roster of 'actors' are employed to carry out the actions and scripts that he envisions. The surreal nature of his visions means he must dress extras in morph suits, have people repetitively play Chopin in the same building and an old lady constantly cook liver so that the smell will waft up to his apartment. He is obsessive in capturing the detail, repeating the process over and over again to the befuddlement of all others involved...

Interested? Head to Starburst Magazine for the rest of my review of Remainder.

Here's the trailer:

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Tuesday, 7 April 2015

Wild Tales is out now in UK cinemas

If you live anywhere near London, you can now catch Wild Tales at a variety of cinemas in the capital. I first saw Wild Tales at Cannes in 2014 where it was one of my absolute favourites of the festival, along with the also excellent White God. My review of Wild Tales is at Tastic Film here but here is a short snippet:

"There is unlikely to be a funnier film in Cannes this year than the brilliantly bonkers and hysterically over the top anthology of short episodes that comprise director Damián Szifrón’s Wild Tales. Never has watching a collection of diverse characters being pushed to their limits and spectacularly losing control been as much fun as it is in this violent but hilarious film from Argentina..."

I don't know how long the film will remain in cinemas but it seems to be on at a few different places in London over the next week or so. I'm sure it will be coming to an independent art-house cinema near you, so don't miss it!

Tuesday, 3 March 2015

White God is out now in UK cinemas

If you live anywhere near London, you can now catch White God at a variety of cinemas in the capital. I first saw White God at Cannes in 2014 where it was my favourite film of the festival, and I then saw it again later in the year at the London Film Festival when I reviewed it for Starburst Magazine. My review of White God is here and my interview with the director and writer is here.

I don't know how long the film will remain in cinemas but it seems to be on at a few different places in London over the next week or so. I'm sure it will be coming to an independent art-house cinema near you, so don't miss it!

Here is the trailer:

Monday, 19 January 2015

35th LONDON CRITICS' CIRCLE FILM AWARDS WINNERS

FILM OF THE YEAR

Boyhood (Universal)

FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM OF THE YEAR

Leviathan (Curzon Artificial Eye)

BRITISH FILM OF THE YEAR

Under the Skin (StudioCanal)

DOCUMENTARY OF THE YEAR

Citizenfour (Curzon Artificial Eye)

ACTOR OF THE YEAR

Michael Keaton - Birdman (Fox)

ACTRESS OF THE YEAR

Julianne Moore - Still Alice (Curzon Artificial Eye)

SUPPORTING ACTOR OF THE YEAR

JK Simmons - Whiplash (Sony)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS OF THE YEAR

Patricia Arquette - Boyhood (Universal)

BRITISH ACTOR OF THE YEAR

Timothy Spall - Mr Turner (eOne)

BRITISH ACTRESS OF THE YEAR

Rosamund Pike - Gone Girl (Fox) & What We Did on Our Holiday (Lionsgate)

YOUNG BRITISH PERFORMER OF THE YEAR

Alex Lawther - The Imitation Game (StudioCanal)

DIRECTOR OF THE YEAR

Richard Linklater - Boyhood (Universal)

SCREENWRITER OF THE YEAR

Wes Anderson - The Grand Budapest Hotel (Fox)

BREAKTHROUGH BRITISH FILMMAKER

Yann Demange - '71 (StudioCanal)

TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

Under the Skin - Mica Levi, score (StudioCanal)

DILYS POWELL AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN FILM

Miranda Richardson

TOP 10 FILMS of 2014

1. Boyhood

2. Birdman

3. Under the Skin

4. Whiplash

5. Mr Turner

6. Leviathan

7. The Grand Budapest Hotel

8. Ida

9. Nightcrawler

10. The Theory of Everything

Tuesday, 21 October 2014

My Top 10 of the London Film Festival 2014

Quick disclaimer: some of these I saw at Cannes earlier this year but they were still playing at the LFF so I have included them here even if I didn't get a chance to see them again. I should also mention that I didn't get to see loads of films at the LFF such as The Imitation Game, It Follows, Whiplash or Men, Women and Children to name a few. Sounds like Whiplash may be many people's favourite of the festival but I'm afraid I will have to wait to see it like everybody else!

Anyway, here is my top 10. Click the titles for my reviews:

10. A Hard Day

9. Son of a Gun

8. Timbuktu

7. '71

6. Fury

5. Foxcatcher

4. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

3. Monsters: Dark Continent

2. Wild Tales

1. White God

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Monday, 20 October 2014

London Film Festival Day 6: White God Interview and Serena Screening with Jennifer Lawrence

On Monday, I got out of work, realised I’d lost my memory stick and that I would have to rewrite all my questions for White God director Kornel Mundruczo and writer Kata Weber again. The interview was at the Mayfair Hotel which was disgustingly posh and I got half an hour to sit down face to face with the talent. This was huge for me as 1. I’d never done a face to face interview and 2. I absolutely love this film.

I tried my best not to gush at them both and had way too many questions to get through in the allotted time but it went well. I figured I should take 30 questions just in case they give really short answers! The interview will be up at Starburst Magazine when White God gets its UK release. I urge you to go see it! Here is my review for Starburst Magazine.

Then I hung around for a screening of Serena. If all the tickets don’t get sold out for the public screenings in the evenings, then they dish them out to press if they want them. While I was sitting around waiting for the screening to start, there was a lot of security around and a whole big area of the cinema had been cordoned off for a ‘private party’. Somebody on Twitter had already told me that there was a rumour that star of Serena Jennifer Lawrence would be in attendance and lo and behold as the lights went down for the film, Lawrence and director Susanne Bier showed up to briefly introduce the film.

Lawrence had to jet off back to LA but Bier and Toby Jones hung around afterwards for a QnA session after the film.

Here is the trailer for Serena and my review:

Saturday, 18 October 2014

London Film Festival Day 5: Kung Fu Jungle, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

With a mighty hangover after my birthday celebrations, I got up to London for my second day of films. First up was Teddy Chen’s Kung Fu Jungle starring martial arts supremo Donnie Yen and a wealth of cameos from Hong Kong action cinema’s finest.

Here’s the trailer and my review at Starburst Magazine:

Next up, was one of the biggest and best surprises of the festival so far: A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night from Iran but co-produced by Frodo himself Mr Elijah Wood. I hadn’t been expecting much from this devoutly arty black and white vampire movie but it was gorgeous and surprisingly cool.

Here’s the trailer and my review at Starburst Magazine:

That trailer doesn't reveal much but trust me, this film is well worth a watch!

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Wednesday, 15 October 2014

Serena Review from London Film Festival

Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper sure must love working together. After Silver Linings and American Hustle, they are back for another helping of each other in Susanne Bier's depressing Depression-era drama Serena.

It's 1929 in the Smoky Mountains and Cooper plays George Pemberton, a man with a thriving timbre empire who falls in love with the beautiful Serena played by Jennifer Lawrence. The pair are married almost as soon as they meet and while George has to try and stop the local sheriff from turning the forestry rich land into a national park, his wife is easily settling in to the remote lifestyle. George isn't below stooping to bribery (and worse) in order to ensure he can keep cutting down the trees but his past is about to come back to haunt him with a bastard offspring and Serena's own inability to have children complicating matters.

Susanne Bier made the stunning film In a Better World which was Oscar nominated, subtle and unforgettable. Since then she has slipped into Hollywood slop with Love is All You Need and Serena continues her sudden slide into disappointment. When it starts, it looks as though JLaw might be returning to her Winter's Bone roots. The landscapes are lovingly filmed and the production design takes you back to the era convincingly.

But the problems with Serena are mostly with the script, characters and editing. It feels butchered, like someone has taken an axe to it and hacked it to pieces. Cooper and Lawrence meet, have sex a few times in a swift montage and are married. We are told Serena's back story briefly by one character and then she fills in a few more details herself later. It's all tell and no show and neither Cooper or Lawrence manage to create completely convincing characters. Despite Serena's tragic past, it is incredibly difficulty to muster even a shred of sympathy for either character.

The Pembertons are bastards, pure and simple. Selfish, conniving and greedy; you want them to fail. The supporting characters have the potential to be more interesting but are never given any time to develop. What is more, Serena reeks of misogyny. Lawrence may start off as an equal partner to her husband but she is soon deemed worthless by him if she cannot bear children. Perhaps that says more about George than it does about the (anti)heroine but Serena comes across as a spiteful Lady Macbeth style creature with few redeeming features.

Serena looks great but its choppy narrative has purely unlikeable characters that never fully convince despite solid performances from Lawrence and Cooper. Rhys Ifans and Toby Jones offer decent support but maybe its time Cooper and Lawrence had a break from each other.

On the plus side, Jennifer Lawrence turned up at the screening so it was cool to see her in the flesh, because you know... she's KATNISS!!! She even (jokingly?) asked us not to tweet about the film if we didn't like it. Sorry Jennifer, but at least we'll always have The Hunger Games!

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Tuesday, 14 October 2014

London Film Festival Day 2: A Hard Day, White God, 71, El Nino

Why am I starting my daily London Film Festival diaries on day 2 you may ask? What happened to day 1, Wednesday 8th October? Well after getting up at ridiculous o’clock to take my dog for a walk in the pitch black of an Autumn morning, I got to Bracknell train station to find that National Rail are basically wallet rapists.

After purchasing a ticket, I discovered that I’d bought a still unreasonably priced ‘any permitted’ ticket. So £25 ain’t good enough for that time in the morning apparently. I was then informed that I had to pay for a full price £32 ticket if I wanted to get into London before 9am. Frankly I felt shafted and a severe stab of sympathy for those who have to travel to London every day just to get to work. National Rail are truly bending the good working people of this country over and having their merry way with them.

Ho hum, I got over it eventually. So I missed out on seeing The Imitation Game with Benedict Slumberpatch and Ikea Knightley and also didn’t get to attend the press conference afterwards. I can live with that. As I had to get back for my (paid) day job in the afternoon, I wouldn’t have got round to seeing anything else on Wednesday. So I told National Rail to stick their £32 ticket, got a refund on my useless £25 ticket and went home, to the delight of my puppy.

But Thursday is another day. Moan over. It’s a day when I don’t have other work commitments and can stay in London as long as I like. I’m still determined to not let National Rail have non-consensual sex with my wallet every day so I decided to skip the morning screening of Men, Women and Children starring Adam Sandler and directed by Jason Reitman. It’s a shame as I’m very interested in seeing it. But not interested enough to let National Rail rob me of £32. Sorry, moan really over now.

So on Thursday I had lined up: A Hard Day, White God, ’71 and El Nino. My reviews will be up at Starburst Magazine as soon as possible and I will update this post with links when that happens. For now, here are the trailers:

A Hard Day: Korean corrupt cop thriller in which a detective is involved in a hit and run while being investigated by internal affairs.

White God: A teen girl is forced to give her up her beloved dog. As she descends into rebellion, her mutt Hagen go through hell at the hands of humans before taking his bloody revenge.

’71: A British soldier in Belfast 1971 gets separated from his regiment and has to survive a night in the divided city, stuck between warring factions.

El Nino: In the Gibraltar Straits, two young men become involved in drug dealing between Morocco and Europe. The obsessive cop on their tail is closing in as their business grows into the big time.

I’ve already seen White God at Cannes and I have an interview lined up with the director Kornel Mundruczo and writer Kata Weber on Monday. This was one of my two favourite films at Cannes 2014 and I can’t wait to talk to these two about the movie.

Also Jack O'Connell and 71 director Yann Demange turned up to introduce the film which was cool.

Day 3 of the festival is a day I have to work at the day job unfortunately and on Saturday I’m celebrating my wife’s 30th birthday (and my birthday) so my next update will be on day 5 of the festival, Sunday 12th October where I intend to see at least Kung Fu Jungle and A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. Stay tuned for more and please check out my reviews so far atStarburst Magazine.

I’m also going to try and do a short video diary each day from the festival:

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