Family Plot (Hitchcock, 1976): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 8.30pm
The final film from Alfred Hitchcock is being shown as part of the Passport to Cinema season at BFI Southbank. The movie also screens on July 9th and 14th and is introduced by the excellent Richard Combs on the 9th at 6.10pm. Details here.
Chicago Reader review:
Alfred Hitchcock's 53rd and final film (1976) was greeted with
affectionate condescension by most American critics, but there's no
reason to apologize for this small masterpiece, one of Hitchcock's most
adventurous and expressive experiments in narrative form. After the
blind alley of the heroless Topaz, Hitchcock here returned to the dual plotting of Psycho,
thinking it through again as a comedy in which the two
compared/contrasted couples (Bruce Dern and Barbara Harris versus Karen
Black and William Devane) do not meet until the final minutes.
Dave Kehr
Here is the trailer.
Sunday, 16 June 2013
Capital Celluloid 2013 - Day 186: Fri Jul 5
TAKE YOUR PICK
1 A Field in England (Wheatley, 2013): Curzon Soho, ICA Cinema, Ritzy and Hackney Picturehouses
The much anticipated release of Ben Wheatley's new production is going to be quite an event with film fans able to see the movie at the cinema, via home media, video on demand and on television via Film 4 (at 10.45pm). You can even buy it on Blu-Ray or DVD. Charles Gant has written about this innovative form of release in the July edition of the cinema magazine Sight & Sound.
You can see all the details of how you can see the film via the website page here.
Here is the trailer.
*********************************
2 We Are The Freaks (Edgar, 2013): Genesis Cinema, 6.30pm
This movie screens as part of the East End Film Festival, which runs from June 25 to July 10. Here are the details of the full programme.
This is the East End Film Festival introduction: A funny, moving and timely portrait of youthful hopelessness in the late Thatcher years. Justin Edgar’s witty drama sees Jack, who dreams of escaping his unfulfilling factory job, meet the talented, well to do Elinor. Heading off on a journey into the night, they pick up two eccentric friends and come into contact with rave culture, youthful rebellion and dangerous drug dealers. This is a punchy evocation of a dying counterculture, featuring a brilliant contemporary soundtrack and a roll call of recognisable faces from Skins and This Is England.
1 A Field in England (Wheatley, 2013): Curzon Soho, ICA Cinema, Ritzy and Hackney Picturehouses
The much anticipated release of Ben Wheatley's new production is going to be quite an event with film fans able to see the movie at the cinema, via home media, video on demand and on television via Film 4 (at 10.45pm). You can even buy it on Blu-Ray or DVD. Charles Gant has written about this innovative form of release in the July edition of the cinema magazine Sight & Sound.
You can see all the details of how you can see the film via the website page here.
Here is the trailer.
*********************************
2 We Are The Freaks (Edgar, 2013): Genesis Cinema, 6.30pm
This movie screens as part of the East End Film Festival, which runs from June 25 to July 10. Here are the details of the full programme.
This is the East End Film Festival introduction: A funny, moving and timely portrait of youthful hopelessness in the late Thatcher years. Justin Edgar’s witty drama sees Jack, who dreams of escaping his unfulfilling factory job, meet the talented, well to do Elinor. Heading off on a journey into the night, they pick up two eccentric friends and come into contact with rave culture, youthful rebellion and dangerous drug dealers. This is a punchy evocation of a dying counterculture, featuring a brilliant contemporary soundtrack and a roll call of recognisable faces from Skins and This Is England.
Wednesday, 12 June 2013
Capital Celluloid 2013 - Day 185: Thu Jul 4
TAKE YOUR PICK
1 Leones (Lopez, 2012): Rich Mix Cinema, 9pm
This movie screens as part of the East End Film Festival, which runs from June 25 to July 10. Here are the details of the full programme.
Here is the East End Film Festival introduction: Jazmín López’s captivating debut feature is an elliptical meditation on social frameworks, human nature and the desperation to escape a mapped-out future. Five young friends descend into the forest. They immerse themselves in word games, play and seduction. Mysterious and elemental, López’s debut owes much to Borges and earns her comparisons with Terrence Malick, Gaspar Noe and, in the use of that auteur’s Steadicam operator, Gus Van Sant.
Here is the trailer.
**********************
2 Fitzcarraldo (Herzog, 1982): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 5.50pm
This film, part of the Werner Herzog season at the BFI Southbank, also screens at the cinema on July 4th and 8th. You can find the details here.
Little White Lies review:
If fate conspires that you're only able to watch one Werner Herzog film in your lifetime, probably best to make it 1982's operatic downstream fantasia, Fitzcarraldo, a film whose own logistically tortuous production perfectly mirrored the designs of its fanatical lead character. Donning a white linen suit for the long haul, Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, AKA Fitzcarraldo (Klaus Kinski) packs up his gramophone and decides to take a steam ship down some of the most treacherous stretches of the Amazon with a view to bringing opera to the as-yet-uncivilised tribes of the deepest South American jungles. Although operating as a withering metaphor for extreme cultural subjugation, the film also works as an affirmative, yes-we-can odyssey which stands as a physical testament to the idea that even the most absurd folly can be achieved if you've got the mind and moxie to pull it off.
David Jenkins
Jenkins has picked his best ten Herzog movies for Little White Lies. You can read the article here.
Here is the trailer.
1 Leones (Lopez, 2012): Rich Mix Cinema, 9pm
This movie screens as part of the East End Film Festival, which runs from June 25 to July 10. Here are the details of the full programme.
Here is the East End Film Festival introduction: Jazmín López’s captivating debut feature is an elliptical meditation on social frameworks, human nature and the desperation to escape a mapped-out future. Five young friends descend into the forest. They immerse themselves in word games, play and seduction. Mysterious and elemental, López’s debut owes much to Borges and earns her comparisons with Terrence Malick, Gaspar Noe and, in the use of that auteur’s Steadicam operator, Gus Van Sant.
Here is the trailer.
**********************
2 Fitzcarraldo (Herzog, 1982): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 5.50pm
This film, part of the Werner Herzog season at the BFI Southbank, also screens at the cinema on July 4th and 8th. You can find the details here.
Little White Lies review:
If fate conspires that you're only able to watch one Werner Herzog film in your lifetime, probably best to make it 1982's operatic downstream fantasia, Fitzcarraldo, a film whose own logistically tortuous production perfectly mirrored the designs of its fanatical lead character. Donning a white linen suit for the long haul, Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, AKA Fitzcarraldo (Klaus Kinski) packs up his gramophone and decides to take a steam ship down some of the most treacherous stretches of the Amazon with a view to bringing opera to the as-yet-uncivilised tribes of the deepest South American jungles. Although operating as a withering metaphor for extreme cultural subjugation, the film also works as an affirmative, yes-we-can odyssey which stands as a physical testament to the idea that even the most absurd folly can be achieved if you've got the mind and moxie to pull it off.
David Jenkins
Jenkins has picked his best ten Herzog movies for Little White Lies. You can read the article here.
Here is the trailer.
Capital Celluloid 2013 - Day 184: Wed Jul 3
The Last Time I Saw Macao (João Rui Guerra da Mata, João Pedro Rodrigues, 2012):
Hackney Picturehouse, 8.45pm
This movie screens as part of the East End Film Festival, which runs from June 25 to July 10. Here are the details of the full programme.
Here is their introduction to tonight's movie: A narrator recounts his return to the ex-Portuguese gambling colony of Macao in search of a missing friend. João Pedro Rodrigues and João Rui, Guerra da Mata (To Die Like A Man), return with a glorious documentary/fiction hybrid that takes in film noir, post colonial guilt and the sensory overload of the city. Featuring a knockout lip-syncing opening dance number, and numerous diversions into reveries of time and memory, the film never loses sight of its thriller plot. Not just one of the year’s best films, but a film unlike any other.
Here is the trailer.
Hackney Picturehouse, 8.45pm
This movie screens as part of the East End Film Festival, which runs from June 25 to July 10. Here are the details of the full programme.
Here is their introduction to tonight's movie: A narrator recounts his return to the ex-Portuguese gambling colony of Macao in search of a missing friend. João Pedro Rodrigues and João Rui, Guerra da Mata (To Die Like A Man), return with a glorious documentary/fiction hybrid that takes in film noir, post colonial guilt and the sensory overload of the city. Featuring a knockout lip-syncing opening dance number, and numerous diversions into reveries of time and memory, the film never loses sight of its thriller plot. Not just one of the year’s best films, but a film unlike any other.
Here is the trailer.
Capital Celluloid 2013 - Day 183: Tue Jul 2
Where the Green Ants Dream (Herzog, 1984): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 8.45pm
This film, part of the Werner Herzog season at the BFI Southbank, also screens at the cinema on July 7th. You can find the details here.
Little White Lies review:
One of Herzog's lesser known fiction titles, the Australia-set Where The Green Ants Dream examines the diversity (and absurdity) of spiritual custom through the misted-up prism of light comic satire. A small cadre of Aboriginal tribespeople assemble on an area of parched desert in order to forcibly stymie the activities of a mining firm wanting to plunder the earth for minerals. These people have nothing, yet they will risk their lives so as no-one disturbs the dreams of the mythical, magnetic green ants, for it could place a horrible curse on future generations. Though the film is initially interested in lambasting corporate toadying, presenting the head of the mining firm bending over backwards to appease the cantankerous Aborigines, the film reveals itself as something bigger and more complex as it ruminates on the divisions in cultural attitudes that can never really be bridged and the poetic, often illogical schemes that people concoct inside their own minds to make life worth living.
David Jenkins
Jenkins has picked his best ten Herzog movies for Little White Lies. You can read the article here.
Here is the trailer.
This film, part of the Werner Herzog season at the BFI Southbank, also screens at the cinema on July 7th. You can find the details here.
Little White Lies review:
One of Herzog's lesser known fiction titles, the Australia-set Where The Green Ants Dream examines the diversity (and absurdity) of spiritual custom through the misted-up prism of light comic satire. A small cadre of Aboriginal tribespeople assemble on an area of parched desert in order to forcibly stymie the activities of a mining firm wanting to plunder the earth for minerals. These people have nothing, yet they will risk their lives so as no-one disturbs the dreams of the mythical, magnetic green ants, for it could place a horrible curse on future generations. Though the film is initially interested in lambasting corporate toadying, presenting the head of the mining firm bending over backwards to appease the cantankerous Aborigines, the film reveals itself as something bigger and more complex as it ruminates on the divisions in cultural attitudes that can never really be bridged and the poetic, often illogical schemes that people concoct inside their own minds to make life worth living.
David Jenkins
Jenkins has picked his best ten Herzog movies for Little White Lies. You can read the article here.
Here is the trailer.
Capital Celluloid 2013 - Day 182: Mon Jul 1
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Leone, 1966): Picturehouses Cinemas, 12 noon
Chicago Reader review:
'Sergio Leone's comic, cynical, inexplicably moving epic spaghetti western (1966), in which all human motivation has been reduced to greed—it's just a matter of degree between the Good (Clint Eastwood), the Bad (Lee Van Cleef), and the Ugly (Eli Wallach). Leone's famous close-ups—the “two beeg eyes”—are matched by his masterfully composed long shots, which keep his crafty protagonists in the subversive foreground of a massively absurd American Civil War. Though ordained from the beginning, the three-way showdown that climaxes the film is tense and thoroughly astonishing.'
Dave Kehr
Here is the justly famous Ecstasy of Gold sequence.
Chicago Reader review:
'Sergio Leone's comic, cynical, inexplicably moving epic spaghetti western (1966), in which all human motivation has been reduced to greed—it's just a matter of degree between the Good (Clint Eastwood), the Bad (Lee Van Cleef), and the Ugly (Eli Wallach). Leone's famous close-ups—the “two beeg eyes”—are matched by his masterfully composed long shots, which keep his crafty protagonists in the subversive foreground of a massively absurd American Civil War. Though ordained from the beginning, the three-way showdown that climaxes the film is tense and thoroughly astonishing.'
Dave Kehr
Here is the justly famous Ecstasy of Gold sequence.
Capital Celluloid 2013 - Day 181: Sun Jun 30
Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter (Hasebe, 1970): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 8.50pm
This film, which is screening as part of the Japanese film Seasons in the Sun season at BFI Southbank, is also being shown on June 25th. You can find the details here.
Here is the BFI introduction: The third in the five-episode delinquent girl-gang series that thrust Meiko Kaji to prominence, the provocatively-titled Sex Hunter is widely considered the best, with its raucous action and radical plot set in the mixed-race demi-monde surrounding a US naval base. The rough sexuality presaged Nikkatsu’s wholesale switch to erotic material the following year, which led to Kaji leaving the studio for more iconic roles as Female Convict Scorpion and Lady Snowblood.
Here is the trailer.
This film, which is screening as part of the Japanese film Seasons in the Sun season at BFI Southbank, is also being shown on June 25th. You can find the details here.
Here is the BFI introduction: The third in the five-episode delinquent girl-gang series that thrust Meiko Kaji to prominence, the provocatively-titled Sex Hunter is widely considered the best, with its raucous action and radical plot set in the mixed-race demi-monde surrounding a US naval base. The rough sexuality presaged Nikkatsu’s wholesale switch to erotic material the following year, which led to Kaji leaving the studio for more iconic roles as Female Convict Scorpion and Lady Snowblood.
Here is the trailer.
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