Rev Stan's film blog

#LFF Stan does the red carpet

Really didn't think this would happen as I hadn't managed to nab any gala performance tickets. And even Poly didn't realise that the ticket she offered me for Monday night's screen of The Kids Are Alright was a gala until she arrived to the same scene I'd experience 10 minutes earlier: Leicester Square crowded with people, barriers up, paparazzi and the lovely long, plush red carpet leading into the cinema we were meant to be in.

I had to ask a policeman how I got into the cinema and he pointed somewhere towards the middle of the square near the end of the barriers.

'Shit, I might have to walk the red carpet,' thought I, a slight thrill passing through me.

And so I did.

Right,' thought I 'I'm going to take my time and enjoy the moment. No skulking quickly with my head down looking embarrassed - I'll look like I walk red carpets all the time and ignore the fact that people won't be taking a blind bit of notice.'

And so I did. I passed a couple having their photo taken by the paps - haven't the foggiest who they were but they looked day-time soap star-ish. And then it was all over and I was in the foyer. I hung around messing about on my phone just in case someone who was actually famous walked by but no.

Then Poly arrived and we headed off to our screenings (we had tickets in two different screens which start 15 mins apart).

It being a gala there was an odd mix of people milling around: press, glammed-up industry people and the everyday ordinary film-loving folk who'd bought a ticket, like me.

Then came the second surprise of the evening, well third if you count the free bottle of water and small chocolate bar each seat was furnished with. Just before the film started the artistic director of the festival arrived to say a few words, as is customary at a gala and then she introduced writer/director Lisa Cholondenko who said a few words. Then, and here was the really nice surprise bit, well it was for me as first-timer at a gala, she called up to the front a couple of her 'friends' one Ms Julianne Moore and Mr Mark Ruffalo who are in the film.

I'm not sure if they said anything because I was so busy scrabbling around in my bag for my iPhone to take a pic I missed most of their very brief appearance. The pic is below, cropped to buggery so you can make them out. You sort of can.

And then it was all over and time to watch the film.

 

#LFF The Kids Are Alright

This is a nice film. After the tensions of Brighton Rock, the emotion of Blue Valentine and the sheer Colin Firthness of The King's Speech it made a lovely contrast and great end to my first London Film Festival.

It's a comedy about a lesbian couple who've got two teenage kids, conceived using the same sperm donor.

Nic (Annette Bening) is a doctor, the bread winner and a bit of a control freak while Jules (Julianne Moore) bumbles from one business idea to the next now that the kids don't need a stay-at-home mum but they compliment each other and their partnership is strong.

That is of course until the apple cart is upset. Fifteen-year-old son Laser (Josh Hutcherson) wants to meet his biological father but is too young to arrange it. Sister Joni (Mia Waskowska) is eighteen and persuaded to make the call for him, her own curiousity sparked.

And so donor dad Paul (Mark Ruffalo) comes into their lives. He's a laid back restaurant owner who grows his own vegetables and rides a motorbike. He proves a hit with daughter Joni and soon wins over Laser too. Nic hates the interloper into her happy family and the influence he has over her children but tolerates him for their sake.

And Jules, well, Paul's arrival brings to a head some hidden tensions in her and Nic's relationship.

#LFF First mystery film experience: Brighton Rock

As a first-timer at the London Film Festival mystery film I was probably the most excited person in the auditorium at the Vue in Leicester Square. Still harbouring a faint notion that it might be The Tempest, even though most seasoned mystery-film goers I know had said it was highly unlikely, I settled down to wait for the film to start.

Some people prepare, do a bit of research into which companies have got films coming up for release. The order of the evening dictates that you get a chance to show off your detective skills.  Sandra Hebron, artistic director of the festival says a few words (there isn't a great deal she can say without mentioning the film, anyone in it or involved with it) and then asks the audience which film they think it might be.

Harry Potter was one suggestion which got rather a laugh and me transferring my faint hope away from The Tempest and onto my favourite boy wizard.

Then we were told that the film had been considered for the festival and would have been a gala screening, had it been shown and now we were getting to see its European premiere. Excitement goes through the audience.

The lights go down the curtains draw back and the credits roll. Various murmours go around the audience as the film makers details appear. It is a British Film because of the Film Council's and BBC's involvement, so that narrows it down. Fortunately the title Brighton Rock appears fairly early on to put us out of misery. Several people had suggested it and a collective cheer goes up.

It's definitely on my list so I cheered too. I've never seen the original Graham Greene/Terrence Rattigan penned film but I read Greene's book only a couple of years ago. And I have to say that in the main Rowan Joffe who directed and wrote the screenplay has done a pretty good job.

Of course things have been changed. It's been updated to 1964 when mods and rockers faced off  (cue some great shots of gangs of mods on scooters riding along the seafront) and the story and characters have naturally been slimmed down to make it a suitable film length.

The book opens with the line:

'Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours, that they meant to murder him'

It creates a sinister undercurrent of violence that give the book its tension throughout. And Joffe has recreated that tension on the big screen. After the first violent scene, danger and threat never seems more that a moment away as Pinkie, determined to make it as gang leader and a name for himself, takes ever more extreme measures to cover up his crimes.

#LFF Another Year with director/cast Q&A

Didn't get tickets to the actual glitzy gala thingy in Leicester Square, with all the celebs, but in a marvellous innovation they decided to broadcast the event live to cinemas around the country. So instead I walked the 15 minutes to the very nice Clapham Picture House and sat with South West London's finest, with a very quaffable glass of cabernet sauvignon. (And rather than costing £35 it cost £6.5o with my PH membership, bit of a bonus there).

We didn't get the live coverage of the red carpet as promised but we did get the opening speeches and the cast and director Q&A afterwards.

But first the film. Now I like Mike Leigh's films. I like the ordinaryness of them but how he manages to turn that ordinaryness into something that is engaging and entertaining. It's not for everyone, I know but there is something quite profound in everday existence.

The story, as the name suggests, takes in a year in the lives of Tom (Jim Broadbent) and Gerri (Ruth Sheen). First up, Tom and Gerri are happily married. They work, Gerri as a counsellor and Tom as an engineer. They have a garden and an allotment. They have a son who is normal and well-adjusted. And they have good friends. They are normal.

There is no high drama in their lives but the piece explores differing attitudes towards life, the choices made and how they deal with what life throws at them.

It is superbly acted, as you might imagine with a cast that also includes the wonderful Lesley Manville as Gerri's friend Mary, Oliver Maltman as Tom's friend Joe and a cameo appearance from Imelda Staunton. And it is funny, sad, moving, frustrating and above all entertaining.

#LFF all stand for the King's Speech

Colin, Colin, Colin will you just stop it. After spending years in the rom-com wasteland you follow up the superb A Single Man with the fabulous King's Speech.

OK so its not heart-wrencher like A Single Man and a costume drama about a member of the royal family overcoming a terrible stammer isn't making a massive political statement but it is just done so well.

Firth does an excellent job of conveying King George VI's fear of public speaking and the humiliation he feels from his inability to adequately express himself.*

Indeed there is one particular scene when, shortly after becoming King, Edward VIII snidely teases his brother's stammer and George or Bertie as he was known by his family, can't verbally fight back, paralised by his speech impediment the pain is written all over his face.

It can't be easy getting an audience to empathise with someone who's had a very privileged life but he does by showing that if you strip away the pomp and ceremony and stiff upper lip there is just a scared man underneath.

#LFF Blue Valentine - hankies at the ready

My first ever London Film Festival film this afternoon. I felt like a kid who's been allowed to sit at the grown-ups' table - shame the grown ups can't all arrive on time but more about that at the end of the post.

So Blue Valentine is a subtle piece about young couple Cindy and Dean who's marriage seems to have gone cold.  It focuses on just two periods in their relationship - the beginning and the end, jumping between the two.

Over the course of the two hours you gradually learn where their relationship is rooted and how it got to be in its current state. 

But this isn't the cliched story of affairs or bad husbands/wives it's much more subtle than that and all the rawer for it. It's about choices you make early on in your life and whether you can live with them.

In the later relationship Cindy (a beautifully underplayed performance by Michelle Williams) is preoccupied and snappy while Dean (a mature performance by Ryan Gosling) goes about his normal routine goofing around with his young daughter. Both know there is something wrong but shy away from confronting it.

The script by Derek Cianfrance, Joey Curtis and Cami Delavigne is sharply observed and the isolation Cindy and Dean ultimately feel is heightened by the fact that we are given no insight into how they really feel other than the little the say and how they behave towards each other.

Addicted to The Social Network?

Whatever you think about Facebook, a film about it doesn't immediately set the imagination on fire.

And, if the focus is primarily on the legal cases brought about by those involved or not involved, depending on your point of view, in its inception then you potentially have the makings of a paint-drying story.

However, Aaron Sorkin's screenplay in the hands of director David Fincher has turned the story of the creation of Facebook by a student at Harvard University and the subsequent law suits into an interesting, entertaining and engaging character piece.

The film was apparently legaled (as we refer to it at work) to within an inch of its life and with million dollar compensation claims having been already been paid out to disgruntled participants in the Facebook story you can understand why.

It does raise the question, though, of how much of the film is actually true and as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is the primary specimen under the microscope how accurate a portrayal of him it is. After seeing the film I found this article on the BBC website which seems to claim that the film is only about 40% accurate. Putting that one side it is still a great film.

Zuckerberg (played by Jesse Eisenberg) doesn't come off very well although I feel more empathy with his character than most reviewers seem to. I didn't see him as quite as calculated as some have made out. He seems to be socially inept rather than machiavellian.

Yes, his initial web creation was motivated by revenge on a girlfriend who dumps him but he subsequently becomes consumed by the project, connecting only with those who are on the same wavelength.

There are great performances all round, even from the curly-haired Justin Timberlake who plays Napster founder and Facebook investor Sean Parker. But special mentions have to go to Eisenberg and Brit rising star and soon to be Spider-man Andrew Garfield who plays his one time friend and co-founder Eduardo Saverin.

Let the Right One In vs Let Me In

I've been curious to hear what film critic Mark Kermode thought about the English language remake of one of my favourite films of last year Let the Right One In as Mark is a fellow fan.

It is unlikely I will go to the cinema to see Let Me In, even though it has got two great young American actors in it, as the trailer was enough to add weight to my argument that it would only be a poorer version (watching it felt like all the subtlety of the original had been stamped on by size 12 Hollywood boots). Although never say never.

This, from Mark Kermode's uncut blog isn't a full review as such but he does sum up the main difference between the two films:

 

The Way Back (trailer) and why I'm interested in seeing it

Thanks to Screen Rant for first bringing this to my notice but here is a little taster of Peter Weir's new epic.

I'm interested because:

a) Peter Weir has made some of the films that I've long loved, Gallipoli being the first back in the day when I was a Mel Gibson fan (before he went completely bonkers) and then of course Dead Poet's Society. Cheesy but it still brings a tear to my eye "O Captain! My captain!".

b) It's got some good actors - Colin Farrell, Mark Strong and star in the making Saiorse Ronan - as well as Stan fave Jim Sturgess

c) Anything set in Russia/with Russian accents is my new love since I saw the play Ivan and the Dogs this evening which I will be writing about on my Theatre blog just as soon as I get a night in.

Anyway here is the trailer:

 

Made in Dagenham

I've seen this film before. A year ago I was invited to a test screening of a rough cut of the film and then answer a questionnaire.

I remember liking the film but having a few bones to pick and I wanted to see the polished, tightened version to see if my view changed.

The story is based on true events of 1968 when the women machinists at the Dagenham Ford factory went on strike to get equal pay to their equally grade male co-workers.

Their strike brought the Ford plant to a standstill.

Interwoven into the true story are various emotional threads. Rita O'Grady (Sally Hawkins) who became the figurehead of the campaign battles with a husband who initially supportive is left to pick up the pieces of family life while she is out rallying.

Then there is Connie (Geraldine James) who is trying to cope with her husband who is suffering from post traumic stress from his stint fighting in the second world war. And Lisa (Rosamund Pike) is the first-class honours degree holding wife of one of the Ford bosses reduced to being the hostess with the mostess.