It has been announced that Ian McKellen (X-Men, Lord of the Rings), Judi Dench (Casino Royale), Mark Williams (Harry Potter) and Gillian Anderson (The X Files) are all attached to star in a zombie comedy set in the 18th century. The Curse of the Buxom Strumpet is about the inhabitants of a small seaside town who are struck down with a deadly illness.
Directed by Matthew Butler, who has also co-written the script with Tori Hart, this feature is based on their short film E’gad Zombies, which also starred Ian McKellen. The pair will also be producing the film for their UK production company Fizz and Ginger Films.
Butler is currently in talks with sales agents in Cannes and shooting on the £2-million movie is expected to begin in Scotland later this year. Zombie films are all the rage nowadays, so it’ll need to be special to stand out, but Sir Ian and Dame Judi fighting the undead horde sounds like a great concept.
Starring Jim Broadbent, Lesley Manville, Ruth Sheen, Peter Wright, Oliver Maltman and Imelda Staunton.
SYNOPSIS:
A happily married couple are surrounded over the course of a year by friends, family and colleagues each with varying degrees of unhappiness.
Prior to watching Another Year I was not in awe of Mike Leigh’s track record, but rather shamefully ignorant. I was keen to watch the film though because of some glowing reviews last year, promising trailers and that wonderful artwork and logo. I remember seeing said tree sprawling massively across an Odeon in London’s West End way back in the halcyon days of 2010, and thinking that was the type of thoughtful British picture I wanted to see.
The central idea behind the story, which Leigh scripted as well as directed, is tender, realistic and probably true to life. Happily married couple, Tom (Jim Broadbent) and Gerri (Ruth Sheen) are lucky and they know it. The people in their lives, who seem far less blessed, gravitate towards them for kindness and warmth. Their son Joe (Oliver Maltman) is taking his time to find love as his friends get hitched left, right and centre, Gerri’s co-worker Mary’s (Lesley Manville) bubbly energy conceals her loneliness and Tom’s childhood friend Ken (Peter Wight) is trapped in Hull watching his precious roots wither away. The narrative plays out with a chunk from each of the year’s four seasons.
The opening scene was just what I had been hoping for and what Leigh’s reputation guaranteed. Imelda Staunton plays an insomniac pressing her GP for sleeping pills but understandably her doctor seeks out the true, underlying causes. Staunton’s character is clearly completely miserable; crestfallen at her lot in life and the realisation that this is all she’s likely to get. The scene lasts a full five minutes, uninterrupted; Leigh really lets it breathe and grow. For most of the scene we don’t see the GP’s face, helping us truly inhabit Staunton’s excellent performance. We’ve all felt like that at the doctors, like you’re just another appointment to be checked off by a faceless health drone.
The GP refers our dejected and menopausal patient to a counsellor. It turns out that Gerri is a counsellor. And this is where the problems begin with Another Year. Gerri continues to be a counsellor for the duration of the story, always behaving as though maintaining professional standards, even alone in bed with soul mate Tom. Ruth Sheen’s tone of voice never varies more than a fraction, making her seem either mildly interested or not that bothered. Whilst Broadbent’s range of reactions to the various problems of friends are different and human, Gerri deals with each situation on dull auto-pilot. Sheen’s performance genuinely seemed mechanical and totally robotic, which was a real shock after all the talk of quality acting.
The passing of the seasons is beautifully shot and there are moments of heart warming dialogue that is convincingly ordinary and recognisable from everyday life. Do I really want to watch a film with conversations startlingly similar to the small talk I run away from in reality though? It all gets rather dreary, with next to no drama in the first two seasons and not a pinch of escapism. Leigh’s script also has some awful expositional dialogue, particularly for Lesley Manville’s character Mary, Tom and Gerri’s desperately clingy friend. I cringed at the clumsy manner her myriad but dull problems were introduced and grimaced later at Manville’s caricatured portrayal of an overzealous eccentric going off the rails. Her drunkenness at BBQs is amateurish.
Or is it? I honestly don’t know if I fell into the trap of mistaking the annoying traits of a character for bad acting and storytelling. This is because the last two seasons, autumn and winter, went a long way to redeeming the failures of the first couple. As Mary reaches rock bottom her character becomes far more bearable and Manville’s performance finally makes you empathise and feel pity, sympathy, and even sadness. David Bradley puts in a fabulous performance as Tom’s grieving brother who is a man of few words. Some of his scenes with Broadbent, and an extended one with Manville, are superb.
I don’t want to mimic the idiotic readers of the X-Factor age who throw away a book they’re reading in disgust because the characters are not “likeable”. Novels and films are not about providing you with brief friendship. But Another Year is hard to get into. As I’ve said I was really surprised by how irritating I found the performances of Ruth Sheen and Lesley Manville. In Manville’s case I think I judged her too quickly and her character was simply a vibrant pain in the neck, well realised. However I maintain that Sheen was simply two dimensional, which is disappointing given the importance of actors to such an ensemble piece. By the time Another Year ended I was starting to enjoy it but there’s no doubt that this is a film with the potential to frustrate as well as reward.
A documentary about the Isle of Man's famed TT motorcycle race.
For those that are unfamiliar with the Isle of Man and its world famous TT races let me assure you it’s thrilling, frightening and very dangerous. The small Isle sits in the middle of the Irish Sea and is home to around 80,000 Manxmen on an average day, but swells to almost double that figure for a fortnight in early summer. The TT is the worlds most famous motorcycle road race and takes place over a 38 mile circuit that snakes through towns and villages, passes usually quiet country pubs and across the top of several mountains. Unlike your average racing there are no run off areas, no safety barriers and no mercy for anyone who dares to take the challenging course too lightly. Straw bails are the only protection from garden walls, lampposts and possible death.
Beside road racing and the associated tourism the Isle of Man has another main source of income – film. The island is home to a large number of film making facilities and has pretty enticing incentives for filmmakers to shoot on the island. So – it was inevitable that at some point somebody would put the two together. My own personal fear was that the outcome would be a cheap British version of Days Of Thunder on two wheels. How could anyone get across the danger faced, bravery needed and personal stories of the hundreds of riders who pull on their leathers each year to attack the notoriously risky course? What about telling the story of those who had lost their lives on the merciless course? They say that fact is often weirder than fiction. And the true stories documented within TT3D is testament to that.
Richard De Aragues, who has earned a living from directing TV adverts, makes his feature film debut with this documentary. The film follows the stories of several riders over the course of the two week race meeting with the larger than life character of Guy Martin as it’s main character. Guy is a popular rider who lives for the rush of hurtling through country roads at up to 200 mph, but has never won a race at the TT. Also featured are the fastest man around the course and 15 time winner John McGuinness, local lad Connor Cummins hoping to gain his first win and talented rider Ian Hutchinson. Each of them committed to pushing themselves to their limits in order to win one of the 5 races.
Closer To The Edge brings the splendour and danger of the TT to the world and makes clear what it is at risk and also on offer for TT riders. Guy Martin is a lovable and eccentric character who, with a cup of tea in his hand, always seems to have something interesting to say whether it be about bikes or masturbation. Racing is clearly his life and the lengths to which Guy is willing to push himself are clearly on the edge of danger and would have a lesser man quaking in his boots. Guy is not pretentious, not too proud and not even a model professional the majority of the time. He just wants to race. When TT legend John McGuiness goes back to his huge gold motor home at the end of a days racing Guy martin sleeps on a mattress in the back of his transit. He isn’t worried about he trappings of fame, fortune or glory and brings a genuinely admirable touch of the human spirit to a race that is most certainly out of the ordinary.
Along side the stories of guts, glory and breaking records there is also that of the loss of life. Paul Dobbs was unfortunate to lose his life at the 2010 TT and his widow reflects on life after the racing with her two young sons. Anyone who has lost someone to the mountain course will surely be touched by their story. There are no worse words to hear at the Isle of Man than someone is ‘missing on the road’ and then the wait to find out if the problem has been simply mechanical or an accident.
The film also talks to John McGuiness and his wife on their thoughts of the TT, discusses with Ian Hutchinson how he prepares for the Isle and gets plenty of short stories and thoughts from other riders, officials, marshals, regulars to the racing and first timers. The footage of the racing has been captured beautifully.
Although I thoroughly enjoyed the film from start to finish I did have my questions. I wasn’t entirely sure why American actor and musician Jared Leto was chosen for the infrequent voiceover since Americans aren’t heavily associated with the racing. Perhaps he likes bikes? Or has been to the racing? But I know not the answer why. The film also did feel a little like one long TV advert at times. When Ian Hutchison is training in the gym he could have easily stopped, turned to the camera and told us what energy drink he uses to get the job done. And I may have gone out and bought one. Following Guy Martin around a lap of the course a huge logo for any brand of motorcycle could have easily sprung onto the screen. Clearly Mr De Aragues’ day job has filtered into his style of shooting. Also the use of 3D nine times out of ten added little or nothing to the film, but it was clear that certain camera shots and angles were chosen to emphasise its use. Perhaps Mr Aragues managed to make his deal with Cinema NX on the premise of it being their first or flagship 3D film and advertise their capabilities with the new technology?
However, it’s only in reflection I can pick any sort of whole in the film. Sat glued to my seat my heart raced with the breath taking speed of the bikes and the guessing as to whether or not a rider is still upright or missing on the road. TT3D: Closer To The Edge took me back to my own childhood on the Isle watching my own father race, tinker with his bike and talk of at what points the bike felt good or bad. I remembered vividly being 14 and riding my own 50cc bike around the paddock taking his helmet to be cleaned and collecting practice time sheets. I also remembered those we lost, the feeling of hearing someone was missing on the road and the moment the news came that they had not survived. It’s been 13 years since I last visited the Isle of Man but I can still smell the exhaust fumes in the air. I can still feel the rush of the bikes as they pass at 200 mph. I can still feel the memory of every rider to ever set off down Bray Hill etched into the course, the island and the history of the TT races whether they won or lost.
TT3D is a magnificent monument to those men and women who have lived and died on the Isle of Man. Thank you Mr De Aragues for such a touching tribute.
Joe Cornish (he of The Adam and Joe Show fame) makes his theatrical debut as writer-director of Attack the Block, a sci-fi comedy that sees a teenage street gang fighting to repel an alien invasion of their South London council estate. The film is executive produced by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) and stars Jodie Whittaker (St. Trinian's), Luke Treadaway (Clash of the Titans), Jumayn Hunter (Eden Lake) and Franz Drameh (Hereafter) alongside newcomers Alex Esmail, John Boyega, Leeon Jones and Simon Howard, not to mention long-time Wright collaborator Nick Frost.
Attack the Block has been generating quite a bit of buzz since its premiere at SXSW back in March, drawing comparisons to cult 80s classic the The Goonies, and UK audiences will get a chance to see what all the fuss is about when the film opens in cinemas this Wednesday. Be sure to check out our review here, and let the director take you behind the scenes in this short video...
Starring Nick Frost, Jodie Whittaker, Luke Treadaway, John Boyega, Alex Esmail and Simon Howard.
SYNOPSIS:
When aliens invade a South London council estate, it's left to a teenage street gang to try and save the day.
“He’s much taller in real life”, I thought, “and that’s when a little hunched too”. Joe Cornish ambled across the cinema screen to stand before us. He thanked Channel 4 for his breaks in life; a first job in production; giving him and his friend Adam Buxton their first show; partly funding his debut film that we were about to watch. If it weren’t for them, he imagined in a desperate alternate reality, he’d be holed up somewhere taking crack with his prossie girlfriend right now. “Shouldn’t have said ‘prossie’,” he quickly self-flagellated under his breath. As a listener of the Adam and Joe podcasts, watching him speak felt disorientating. My mind dismembered voice from mouth as though it were a very good piece of dubbing. It’s like the first time you ever saw John Motson. But to the film…
Attack the Block pits the inhabitants of a Brixton council estate, which they defensively refer to as “the Block”, against a very localised alien invasion (note: not ‘global’). The film opens on Sam (Jodie Whittaker), a nurse returning home to the Block, when a gang of hooded teenagers block her way. Their faces are obscured by shadow and the night takes care of the rest. Two of them flank Sam on their bikes to surround her. Their leader, Moses (John Boyega), demands her wallet and the ring around her finger. Shaking, she struggles to remove it quick enough, so Moses pushes her to the tarmac.
You’d expect Sam to be the protagonist here. Well, she’s kinda a co-protagonist later on, but it’s the gang who are the film’s heroes. Yeah, the ones who just mugged a defenceless lady – a white lady at that. When a piece of the sky crushes a nearby car, harbouring inside it a lean, sharp-toothed alien, your appetite begins to whet for the gang’s bloody demise. After all, it’s an established sci-fi/horror convention – the bad guys get ate. But instead it is they who kill the monster, impaling it on a stick with the same aggressiveness they exerted on Sam. You see, they aren’t the real bad guys. They could be, in time, but they’re still kids here.
It’s easy to forget that they’re only young because they’re so intimidating at first. But Cornish admirably reveals the gang’s age by humanising them with perceptive details (“I wanna go home and play Fifa”) and shows them as the youths demonised and ignored by society (unless for a knife-crime statistic). It makes it harder to blame them for bullying the street corners. They mooch back to the Block on their mobile phones, each moaning to their elders about staying out a little longer. You get little snippets from their conversations. They’re talking to grandmothers or uncles, not mothers and fathers. It’s safe to assume the homes to which they return are ‘broken’.
As they walk to the Block, the depth of the film’s cast is realised; Moses, and the other four who comprise his gang, are significantly developed; Probs and Mayhem, two pre-teens who want to join Moses’ gang are introduced; Brewis, a posh University graduate from Fulham, is sorely out of place and looking to buy weed; and Ron (Nick Frost), who gets stoned and watches the Discovery channel all day. That’s why he’s the best person to take the alien’s corpse to – he might be able to tell them what it is, and more importantly, if it’s worth any money. They seem quite preoccupied with this, like most kids who go through a spell of hyper-capitalist entrepreneurialism. I once set up a shop underneath my stairs when I was about eight, convinced I’d earn my fortune. At least I had stairs. They only have the stairwells that connect the Block’s floors.
When the alien ships start to crash to earth around the Block, camouflaged by the firework displays that litter the night’s sky, these brief introductions of supporting characters allows the film to effortlessly cut between them and their different sub-plots later on. But what of the monsters! Their jaws light up with a neon blue, but the rest of their furry bodies are so black they merge with the dark. That’s pretty handy when you consider the cost of puppetry and CGI. It’s called making your budget work for you. You never see enough of the monsters to make out their flaws, and it is this secrecy that makes them relentlessly terrifying. That’s called positive feedback. Germain Lussier at SlashFilm, who called the film a “genre-bending, cult classic in the making”, pointed out how Attack the Block imposes its geeky passion upon the viewer. It “elicits the kind of nostalgia that’ll make fans want to own and display tiny replicas of its protagonists and antagonists.” It’s an odd compliment, but an acute one. Journey into a Forbidden Planet and you’ll see the hordes of McFarlane miniatures of Spawn and Halo exhibited in glass cases. Look a little further on and you’ll see ones from The Warriors and Shaun of the Dead. Hopefully soon they’ll be accompanied by a range of Attack the Block’s monster plushies.
So the monsters proceed to attack the gang, and sometimes the gang attack the monsters, but the teenagers are loosing and get pushed higher and higher up the Block. The film isn’t sloppy though - all this action is fully supported by plot. Why, for example, do the aliens seem to be exclusively targeting them? We must also not forget Attack the Block’s wicked sense of humour and its occasional treats of inspired gore.
Cornish said before the film began that he was influenced by the monster films he watched growing up as a 80s child like Predator, Gremlins and Critters (it does sometimes feel as though he’s channelling Joe Dante). And just like those films, Attack the Block makes you want to have children just so you can scare the shit out of them from an early age.
Walking home at just gone 10pm, after seeing Attack the Block, you realise just how well it was photographed. Every frame captures the urban night. Illumination comes from car headlights, streetlights and mobile phones. It’s all unnaturally piercing, yet at the same time, for those who live in the built up areas similar to the Block, there’s a familiarity to be found in their electric glow. You really appreciate your estate’s orange bath after that, and then maybe you’ll start to understand the youths that share…shhh! Did you see that? Over there, in the corner, just out of the lamppost’s peripherals…
Starring Colin Farrell, Keira Knightley, David Thewlis, Anna Friel, Ray Winstone, Ben Chaplin, Stephen Graham and Eddie Marsan.
SYNOPSIS:
A man newly released from prison falls in love with a reclusive young movie star and finds himself in a duel with a vicious gangster.
The trailer for London Boulevard at the tail end of last year promised the best kind of British gangster flick; slick, stylish, smart, sexy and darkly funny. A disappointingly short run in cinemas and a lukewarm critical reception suggested that something didn’t quite click though, despite the stellar cast and seductive snippets of footage. Perhaps audiences anticipated more of the same; substitute Ray Winstone for Michael Gambon and Colin Farrell for Daniel Craig and you essentially get Layer Cake. But I was inclined to disagree with the tepid expectations because of interesting parallels between criminality and celebrity.
Farrell plays Mitchell, a cockney con straight out from serving three years for GBH. He explains he was merely involved in “an altercation” (he educated himself through hordes of books inside) and that he’s no thief. He’s trying to convince Keira Knightley’s paparazzi besieged actress to employ him as a bodyguard, after he uses his street smarts and hard as nails attitude to help a friend of hers avoid a nasty scuffle. Mitchell eventually takes the job protecting the star from crude happy snappers, whilst simultaneously trying unsuccessfully to remove himself from friendships drawing him back into London’s underworld. Without even trying he rapidly builds a reputation for himself that Ray Winstone’s crime boss wishes to utilise.
I found the idea of a gangster tied to his life by the contracts of violent deeds and debts, compared and contrasted with a celebrity trapped by fame, an extremely interesting one. Neither can easily escape those aware of their existence and constantly keeping tabs on them. The relationship between Mitchell and his globally known actress had the potential to provide a refreshing lens through which to view a swaggering, traditional gangster story.
And at times the angle is slightly different. Some of the dialogue between Knightley and Farrell, particularly when they slip away to the countryside, is both full of black humour and believable observations about their determined destinies. But sadly most of the dialogue is ordinary and predictable and has indeed been seen countless times before. Farrell’s performance is neither fantastic nor a failure, merely passably cut off and charismatic, in keeping with the genre. He is suitably cool. Most disappointing is Knightley, who despite looking the part with a withered and thin appearance, never truly inhabits a role that must be close to the reality of her life on occasion. She ought to be capable of more than caricature with such personal experience to draw on.
For me the main problem with London Boulevard was that it boiled down to an endless simmering. The stylish and often mildly funny build up was pleasing enough for a while, but only because it seemed to hint at the plot coming together and igniting at some point. It never really does. The climax on offer lacks intensity and urgency. With funny, vivid performances in supporting roles from David Thewlis, Ray Winstone, Ben Chaplin and Anna Friel, London Boulevard ultimately lets down an impressive cast of capable Brits. As well as the audience.
Presenting short films from independent filmmakers...
Shooter, 2009. Directed by Ronnie B. Goodwin. Starring Paul Hunter. Written by Ronnie B. Goodwin and Paul Hunter. Produced by Ronnie B. Goodwin and Basil Khalil. Music by Gregor Narholz.
Shooter is a multi-award winning short from director Ronnie B. Goodwin about an ex-soldier (Paul Hunter) haunted by his experiences of conflict. Seeking solitude in the wilderness of the mountains, lochs and forests of Scotland, the shooter is torn between the images of the inhumanity of war that plague his imagination and the natural beauty that surrounds him. Running at just five minutes, Shooter does a fine job of conveying the protagonist's internal struggle to deliver a thought-provoking and emotive piece of filmmaking.
The film has enjoyed a successful run on the festival circuit these past two years, including 27 Official Selections (including the Cannes Short Film Corner, Palm Springs International Short Fest and the Edinburgh International Film Festival), 2 Jury Nominations and 4 International Awards, while it was also named Best in Festival at the Swansea Bay Film Festival in 2010. Shooter has also recently enjoyed its British TV premiere on the Sky Super Shorts Channel, and you can find out more about the film and Ronnie's upcoming projects at his official site.
Click here to view more short films and public domain features.
Earlier this week came the sad news that acclaimed British war photographer and documentary filmmaker Tim Hetherington was killed in a mortar attack while covering the ongoing conflict in Libya. Having spent much of the past decade in war zones such Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Afghanistan, Hetherington had contributed to the acclaimed documentaries Liberia: An Uncivil War and The Devil Came on Horseback before receiving an Oscar nomination for his work as co-director (alongside Sebastian Junger) of Restrepo (2010), the Grand Jury Prize winner at the Sundance Film Festival last year.
In tribute to Tim here is his most recent work, the short film Diary, described by the filmmaker as "a highly personal and experimental film that expresses the subjective experience of my work, and was made as an attempt to locate myself after ten years of reporting. It’s a kaleidoscope of images that link our western reality to the seemingly distant worlds we see in the media."
Click here to view more short films and public domain features.
Written and Directed by Alan Birkinshaw. Starring Anthony Forrest, Tom Marshall, David Jackson, Georgina Kean, Nigel Gregory, Jane Hayden, Alison Elliot and JoAnne Good.
SYNOPSIS:
Four drugged-up mental patients escape from the local asylum and seek refuge in a remote Lake District hotel where a class of stranded school-girls are staying.
As with a number of his contemporaries, exploitation filmmaker Alan Birkinshaw (Confessions of a Sex Maniac) made the jump from the skin flick to horror for his second feature, Killer’s Moon. Inspired by the ultraviolence of Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, Birkinshaw delivered what has since been referred to as “the most tasteless movie in British cinema history”, a description which probably isn’t too far from the truth. Killer’s Moon has been compared to I Spit on Your Grave but it kind of comes over more like St. Trinian’s meets Last House on the Left, mixing elements of the school-girl comedy, sexploitation, rape-revenge and slasher (before it even existed) into a low-rent, morally bankrupt and utterly incompetent piece of filmmaking.
The basic plot is a retreading of the US shocker Carnal Madness (a.k.a. The Sizzlers), with four psychotic sex-offenders escaping from a poorly-guarded nut house and wandering in the wilds of the Lake District, tripping out of their minds on LSD from an experimental treatment programme where they believe real-life to be a dream. Meanwhile a coach breaks down, forcing a class of boarding-school girls to spend the night in a hotel run by EastEnders’ Nana Moon. Sure enough the wackos soon arrive at the hotel to put them through hell, until the arrival of a couple of hikers who team up with girls to seek revenge.
Like a number of exploitation flicks, the film’s shoddy production values, laughable acting and weak script leave it verging on self-parody - only one that isn’t very funny. There isn’t really any other purpose for its existence than to offend, with unnecessary animal cruelty (thankfully simulated) and a flippant attitude towards rape; but it has to be said that apart from a few scenes the film’s shock-value has dissipated somewhat over the years. Instead we’re left with a poorly made piece of trash cinema that comes across as an X-rated episode of Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace.
The dialogue in Killer’s Moon was supplied by Birkinshaw’s sister, the acclaimed author Fay Weldon, who once said that the film was “picture dialogue – A, picture movie – D”; I can only surmise that Weldon was undergoing the same treatment as the antagonists, because lines like an M.P. saying: “You mean this criminal lunatic is walking around believing he’s in a dream? In my dreams I murder freely, pillage, loot and rape!” and a school-girl telling her friend: “Look, you were only raped, as long as you don’t tell anyone about it you’ll be alright” are pretty far from A-grade stuff in my book (well, except perhaps the one from the M.P.).
While I couldn’t really recommend Killer’s Moon to anyone except die-hard genre-fiends and completionists, the DVD release from Redemption Films is actually a pretty good package. The film’s sound and picture quality are better than you’d expect and the special features come with an audio commentary and interviews with Birkinshaw and actress JoAnne Good, along with the obligatory stills and trailers. Sadly, that’s about all it has going for it, except for a three-legged dog who probably delivers the standout performance of the film and certainly has the best character arc.
Earlier in the week I received an email from up-and-coming Yorkshire based filmmaker Chris Cronin, letting me known about a new short that's he's completed entitled Ante, which tells the story of two competing businessmen who find thsemlves targeted by the same hitman.
Running at 18 1/2 minutes and entirely self-financed, Ante is an accomplished piece of filmmaking with Chris demonstrating a keen eye for direction, employing fluid, slick cinematography, stylish editing and an impressive cast to create a tense and engaging thriller that's among the best shorts I've seen so far this year.
Take a look at the synopsis and trailer...
Ultra-competitive salesmen, Tom (GREG KELLY, Hollyoaks, Waterloo Road) and Raymond (STEVE McTIGUE, Cold Feet, Doctors) are up for the same promotion. When ruthless contract killer, Pierson (DAVID ROBERTSON, Shameless, The Street), comes on the scene it looks like they unwittingly hired the same hitman to take each other out. But Pierson has a problem. If he kills them both, no one will be left to pay the rest of his fee. As the clock ticks away on Tom and Raymond's lives, they must use all their sales skills to convince the contract killer which of them it would be most profitable to let live.
Ante recently enjoyed a successful premiere at Kino Shorts 15 in Manchester and the next public screening is this coming Friday at the London International Film Festival (see here).
If you can't make that, be sure to keep an eye on the official website for future screenings - you won't be disappointed.
Government cuts are hitting everywhere in the UK at the moment and the British film industry is no different, with the abolition of the UK Film Council and a 15% reduction in funding to the BFI dealing a severe blow to our country's emerging filmmakers. However, that isn't enough to put off first time director Andy Niblo and production company Squarebox Yellow, whose debut feature Making Ugly is currently in the final stages of post-production ahead of a festival run later this year.
We first mentioned the film back in January and now - with the film just weeks from completion - comes word of a brand new trailer which you can check out right here...
"Neil (Paul Quinn) has his habits; he drinks too much and smokes too much. He also kills too many women. In a city of millions, who has noticed? A tape is sent to Neil with footage of his brutal violence. Who has been following him and what will they do with this knowledge?"
Scottish actor James McAvoy has announced that he’s planning to star in the crime film Welcome to the Punch, to be shot in the UK. It will be written and directed by Eran Creevy, whose debut was the low-budget, BAFTA-nominated drama Shifty in 2008 with Daniel Mays and Jason Flemyng.
The story follows London detective Max Lewinsky (likely to be McAvoy’s role), who gets pulled into a big conspiracy plot after the reappearance of his old nemesis, an armed robber known as Red Diesel. Creevy has described the film as “an epic crime thriller in the mould of Heat or Internal Affairs.” It promises to have the kind of scope and action usually more associated with Hollywood films.
Filming is expected to start in July, which would still leave McAvoy enough time for his rumoured reunion with Joe Wright (director of Atonement), on the film adaptation of Anna Karenina.
James McAvoy’s diverse career has seen him star in such films as Wanted, The Last King of Scotland, Atonement and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. He can next be seen at cinemas as a younger Charles Xavier / Professor X in X-Men: First Class, which is released on June 2nd.
Starring Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley, Andrew Garfield, Sally Hawkins, Charlotte Rampling, Domhnall Gleeson, Nathalie Richard and Andrea Riseborough.
SYNOPSIS:
A nihilistic tale following the relationships between two girls and a boy. Friends since childhood, they are forced apart and then back together by the dystopian reality they inhabit.
The first 20 minutes of Never Let Me Go are among some of the most boring ever committed to film. Not bad, just boring. Like a really, really dull BBC period drama that has very little dialogue and a lot of shot/reverse-shots of people looking at each other. You see, Never Let Me Go follows the lives of three friends from when they were at school to their mid-twenties, and that means child actors.
Thankfully, despite the director’s best efforts, it picks up. As soon as Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield and (not so much) Keira Knightley replace the child actors, the film actually becomes quite engrossing. Those first two are breathtaking actors. The focus is on Carey Mulligan, and she absorbs it with immense maturity. She’s the Jack Wilshere of British film.
Along with the actors, Never Let Me Go has a very intriguing premise. Adapted from Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel, the film imagines an alternate reality to our world. Not set in the future, nor even the present, but in some re-imagined late-70s, early-80s haze. Although the following is revealed only about half and hour in, it may be worth warning the potential spoilers start here. In this alternate history, cloning is a part of life, albeit a quietly ignored one. Children are produced from cloning procedures to grow into organ donors. They rarely live beyond 25. Society barely acknowledges their existence; they shut them away, presumably too ashamed of their dependence upon these doomed children. You can feel the guilt of a nation whenever the clones encounter normal people.
Our three main characters realise their purpose at the end of the film’s first part, when they are still children. It makes for quite a foreboding life. Later, Mulligan becomes a carer for those undergoing organ donations. It means she gets a few extra years before her first operation. We first see her at the side of one of her patients, an eye-patched girl lying pale white and weary in a hospital bed. But her battered complexion and patchy skin are the scars from a previous harvest – the fragile girl hasn’t even been operated on yet. It’s the film’s most heartbreaking moment, but she’ll save the lives of others in her sacrifice. It’s morally abhorrent, but frighteningly understandable.
All of this, however, is background noise. It can get quite loud at times, but the film’s main story is the relationships between Mulligan, Garfield and Knightley. The first two are made for each other, and they know it, but Knightley has a jealousy complex. She takes Garfield for her own and guards him fiercely. Nevertheless, the three remain close friends.
There aren’t any shootouts, androids or meta-humans - this is a subtle ‘sci-fi’ film (note the lower case) with a tragic romance. Sci-fi tales set in the future often hold a warning about our present, about what we might become if we continue how we are. Minority Report, for instance, takes our preoccupation with surveillance to its futuristic extreme. The Matrix does likewise for our dependence on technology. Although set beyond our time, they comment upon our present.
Never Let Me Go, however, seems to be set in the past. Rather than make you look at the present’s effect on the future, it encourages you to consider how the past impacts on today. It encourages you to question science’s role in the development of modern society. Every now and again you’ll see a logo saying ‘N.D.P.’ imprinted on a van door or jacket lapel. It stands for the National Donor Programme. This process, of growing humans for their organs, is a publicly funded government initiative. We’re all complicit, but any anger is directed towards our parents’ generation for letting it happen in the first place. The film is primarily a nihilistic take on the love between two people - but beneath the characters and setting, it’s a cry to arms. For what? Read a newspaper and take your pick.
Distributors Momentum Pictures have used London's Kapow Comic-Con to unveil the newest offering from Hammer Films, The Woman in Black. After kicking off their comeback last year with the vampire remake Let Me In, Hammer released both the Hilary Swank thriller The Resident and Irish rural horror Wake Wood last month, while the iconic British studio's next outing sees Daniel Radcliffe attempting to shake off the spell of Harry Potter in director James Watkins' (Eden Lake) adaptation of Susan Hill's acclaimed supernatural tale.
Check out the synopsis and teaser...
Based on the classic ghost story, THE WOMAN IN BLACK tells the tale of Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe), a lawyer who is forced to leave his young son and travel to a remote village to attend to the affairs of the recently deceased owner of Eel Marsh House.
Working alone in the old mansion, Kipps begins to uncover the town’s tragic and tortured secrets and his fears escalate when he discovers that local children have been dying under mysterious circumstances. When those closest to him become threatened by the vengeful woman in black, Kipps must find a way to break the cycle of terror.
The Woman in Black also stars Ciaran Hinds (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy) and Janet McTeer (Tumbleweeds) and is based on a screenplay by Jane Goldman (Kick-Ass, X-Men: First Class). The film is set to hit UK cinemas on February 10th, 2012.
Michael Fassbender has signed up to star in a biopic about the life of punk legend Terri Hooley, the founder of a record store in Belfast called ‘Good Vibrations’. The store later evolved into a music label, which kick-started the careers of a number of Irish punk bands.
The German-born actor, who grew up in Co. Kerry in south west Ireland, was keen to return to Belfast after filming Steve McQueen’s debut award-winning film Hunger there and falling in love with the city. Good Vibrations will be directed by husband and wife Glenn Leyburn and Lisa Barros D’Sa (Cherrybomb).
It will also see Fassbender reunite with actor Liam Cunningham (Clash of the Titans), his co-star in Hunger. Their roles are currently unknown but it has been announced that Richard Dormer (Five Minutes of Heaven) will star in the lead role as Hooley. Shooting will begin in and around Belfast in August.
Fassbender can be seen this summer in X-Men: First Class in which he plays a younger Magneto. Later this year he will star in the new adaptation of Jane Eyre, out in the UK in September. He is currently filming Ridley Scott’s much-anticipated film Prometheus, alongside Charlize Theron and Noomi Rapace.
Back in December last year the organisers of the Edinburgh International Film Festival announced that the event would undergo a dramatic overhaul for its 2011 programme, with traditional aspects of the festival such as red carpet premieres and jury prizes scrapped in favour of a complete 'reinvention' spearheaded by the creative trio of actress Tilda Swinton and former directors Mark Cousins and Lynda Miles.
However, The Scotsman has reported that Swinton, Cousins and Miles have all now departed. "Our involvement ended when we submitted more than 100 ideas for the creative and artistic vision for the festival and we've not been involved since the middle of February", said Mr. Cousins. "We were all doing this unpaid and have busy lives. I'll be in the audience come June."
To further muddy matters, Swinton spoke to THR and claimed that her involvement in the EIFF was never official: "was never a part of such an initiative and I was clear from the start that I wanted this misinformation corrected by the festival. However, my understanding is that such a correction never took place."
Former music industry executive James Mullighan has been working hard since February to try and salvage the event, which is set to commence in June, and there are growing fears that the festival is currently months behind in its organisation and may have lost its way.
Written and Directed by Gareth Edwards. Starring Jacob Court and Allen Leach.
After spending the early part of his career supplying visual effects on documentaries such as Seven Wonders of the Industrial World (2003), Space Race (2005) and In The Shadow of The Moon (2007) and directing the BBC TV docudrama End Day (2005), British filmmaker Gareth Edwards went on to win SCI-FI-LONDON'S 48-Hour Film Challenge in 2008 with the five-minute short Factory Farmed. Written, shot and edited in just two days with a team of four, Factory Farmed is a superb technical achievement that fully demonstrates the director's impressive visual flair.
Edwards has since went on to continue his 'one-man' film revolution with the release of the lo-fi sci-fi Monsters last year, for which he received a BAFTA nomination for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer, losing out to Four Lions' Chris Morris. Edwards is now taking his talents to Hollywood where he is busy developing a big-budget Godzilla reboot for Legendary Pictures.
Click here to view more short films and public domain features.
Starring Craig Roberts, Yasmin Paige, Sally Hawkins, Paddy Considine, Noah Taylor and Gemma Chan.
SYNOPSIS:
Submarine details the teenage years of Oliver Tate as he processes the confusion of his parents’ dithering marriage and his own longing heart.
Richard Ayoade directed the music video for Vampire Weekend’s ‘Oxford Comma’. It’s filmed in one hugely complex and intricate take, but looks inventively effortless. Wes Anderson-by-numbers, really. Nevertheless, it’s a very good piece of filmmaking. Ayoade is arguably more famous in front of the camera, as the I.T. Crowd’s Moss, or Darkplace’s Dean Leaner, but he’s trying. He now has a feature under his belt - Submarine.
The film follows Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts), an impossible dreamer, through adolescence. He’s read too much Nietzsche and seen too many Truffauts. It puts him at odds with his majestically crude school friends. Oliver tells us all this through his own neurotic narration. He falls for a girl at school, Jordana Bevan. Because she’s a bit of an outcast, like him, he reckons he has more of a chance. When he says ‘outcast’, you know he actually means, and believes, ‘misunderstood’. Teenagers, eh?
Aside from these complications of the heart, and general coping with existence, Oliver’s parents’ relationship is becoming increasingly strained. His father, Lloyd (Noah Taylor), is a marine biologist who’s susceptible to bouts of depression. He once drank hot lemon from the same cup for four days without changing or washing it - a smart detail, signalling for whenever he starts his spiral down. We notice Lloyd holding the hot lemon cup, sure, and so does Oliver (there isn’t much he doesn’t notice). But his mother, Jill (Sally Hawkins), carries on her flirtations with their new next-door neighbour; her old flame, Graham (Paddy Constantine). Hopefully she’s too blinded by the attention, rather than being beyond caring for her dull, dispirited husband.
Later on in the film, it emerges that Jordana’s mother is very ill. She asks Oliver to visit her in hospital the following Friday at 6pm. As he is about to leave,he sees Lloyd sipping from that unwashed hot lemon cup. Does he stay with his depressed father, or visit his girlfriend’s dying mother? The latter is surely more pressing, and he’d promised Jordana so sincerely. Was he going to leave the house anyway? Such choices are beyond the pay-grade of a 15 year-old.
The film is cut with that particularly European brand of melodramatic flair. This is not just for style’s sake. We are watching the film through Oliver’s perspective. He sees his life as some French New Wave masterpiece, one yet to be unearthed by film scholars. It rings true for anyone who has ever been a teenager. We’re all tortured, undiscovered geniuses at that age.
We can all relate. Much of Submarine’s humour comes from this self-absorbed, exaggerated perception of Oliver’s life. It’s funny because we’ve been there. Who hasn’t thought, during an especially significant moment in one’s life, how good said significant moment would look from a crane shot slowly tracking out? However, as Oliver pessimistically notes, his life story would probably only have the budget for a simple track-back. Ayoade’s camera then simply tracks back to end the scene. Even the very mechanics of filmmaking mock Oliver’s teenage self-absorption.
If you watch Submarine with a complacent eye, you’ll liken it to the American ‘indie’ films. Wes Anderson’s name is now never far away when considering anything with contemporary quirk. But that ‘indie’ scene feels stagnant these days. ‘Indie’ is now a style rather than a means of production. At its best, the American ‘indie’ output can be very enjoyable. At worst, though, it can be insufferably smug.
What Submarine accomplishes, and very well, is a joining between the best parts of the American ‘indie’ films – comical neuroticism, benign quirkiness and a deep emotional attachment – to the stylistics of the continent. After all, between the two is where we sit politically. Why not try it out in British film?
Starring Nick Ashton, Oliver Boot, Tracy Ifeachor, Joseph Kloska, Jay Taylor and Cicely Tennant.
SYNOPSIS:
In October 2005, five young people were kidnapped in the Highlands of Scotland. Stripped and abandoned in the the wilderness, they were forced into a deadly game where the hunters became the hunted...
You are a mega-bucks banker, a liberated twenty-something, a first class slut. You’re a whistling milkman, a tearaway toddler, a grieving widow. You’re a freedom fighter utterly consumed by ideological struggle. You’re a madman, a gunman, a best man. You’re an axe wielding gamekeeper in deep, sensuous love with your ladylike employer. You’re a sophisticated stalker, leering like an aristocratic butcher at young girls you view as goddesses; cheap meaty chunks of divine beauty. You’re a prisoner that’s only ever known the reality of four bare walls. You are human.
You’re barely clothed, stripped of decency and alone in the wilderness. You’re unreasonably frightened; terrified merely by nature’s regular and natural breathing. You feel an irrepressible sense of panicky foreboding deep in the truth of your gut. The cold bites greedily at your bare skin, sinking you deep into inescapable agony. You’ve never known anything like it; the never-ending needles of pain, the relentless rattle of your rib cage, the fear. The pain and fear of the hunted as you run for your life. As you run like an animal.
As you read this in the comforting light of your computer screen, chances are you are none of these things. And yet we can all imagine, however slightly, what the existence of a freedom fighter or a widow might be like. We can never truly know until we have lived it, and even then no two individuals will share identical emotions. But as human beings empathy remains one of the handful of characteristics that truly sets us apart from animals and beasts. There’s nothing quite like the sadness of feeling someone else’s loss as if it were your own or the failure of someone close to you to understand your own melancholy. Some may argue in favour of other traits and skills, like language and pure intelligence. In many ways though, empathy is the foundation to all art, the essence and gateway to all storytelling.
Empathy is at the heart of the intriguing central premise to Blooded, a British debut film out on the 1st of April. The release date of April Fool’s Day is fitting given that Blooded is part of the modern phenomenon of “is it truth or is it fiction?” storytelling. It makes use of a documentary/reconstruction format to tell the tale of the kidnapping of a group of pro fox hunting campaigners by an extremist animal rights group in the picturesque, but barren, Highlands of Scotland. Empathy becomes crucial to the story when the mysterious kidnappers release their captives across the wilderness in their underwear, before pursuing them with guns to make them experience the horror of being hunted. Presumably the horror the foxes feel seconds away from a mauling by the hounds.
It’s certainly a distinctive and controversial concept for a film. The narrative is presented in unfamiliar layers compared to your average feature. We’re introduced firstly to the idea that a group of pro-hunters were filmed by a group of anti-hunters in the Highlands and that the resulting video became an internet sensation. We then meet the “real” pro-hunter personalities that lived through the event in classic documentary interview style. These interviews continue throughout the film through both voiceovers and close-ups. We also have the majority of the action shown to us via a reconstruction of the “actual” events, with different actors than those playing the “real” people. All of this is confusing and disorientating at first. But not in a bad way.
Just because Blooded has an unusual structure and deals with politically sensitive issues, does not mean it’s destined to fail. In fact last year I loved Catfish, a film in a similar truth/fiction style that dealt with current and also potentially dull and alienating topics. The cocktail of unconventional storytelling and thought provoking subject matter can prove a potent and satisfying one indeed. It has the potential to really set a film apart as an original success. Sadly though it’s a difficult balance to strike and Blooded doesn’t quite find it.
As the opening of the film developed, I began to think of Blooded as an incredibly subtle mockumentary. The selection of hunting as the central issue seemed to be a swipe at all the modern day life and death disagreements about ultimately trivial things. The self-important tone of the music in the background, coupled with the overly sincere acting at times and some sweeping shots of grand Highland scenery for the titles seemed to say, gently, “look at this sad bunch of tossers who got mixed up in such an odd ordeal over something as pompous as hunting as if it were life’s defining feature”.
The film walked the line so finely between a tone of mocking and seriousness that I thought Blooded had the makings of a truly brilliant comedy spoof during its steady opening segment. Even beautiful cinematography of the stunning Highlands shrouded in mist and fog and sunshine seemed hilarious when viewed in the right jokey light at times. There were some good funny moments which utilised both the reconstruction and interview format to excellent effect. Most notably, when an American girlfriend of the group has shot her first stag, the experienced hunter takes some blood from the creature and wipes it on her face. He assures us she didn’t seem to mind this “Blooding” ritual, only for her to immediately respond in her interview “I resented that immediately”.
As the film progresses however the laughs are increasingly unintentional, as the story morphs into some sort of horror/political comment hybrid. The problem is that the hazy humour hovers over the rest of the film so that none of the “scares” are shocking. The animal rights activists, whilst extreme and clearly nutty to pull off such a stunt, just have too much of a conscience to be truly horrific foes.
Far too much emphasis is placed on the political issue. After watching Blooded, I delved through production notes from the filmmakers about their intentions and witnessed the “is it real?” marketing campaign online drumming up substantial interest. The filmmakers insist Blooded has no political agenda. It’s a thriller in documentary form and is not intended as a mockumentary. Blooded is meant simply as a thought provoking thriller, shot in a distinctive way, with some vague allusions to modern extremism.
Unfortunately for the filmmakers and director Ed Boase, Blooded fails as a thriller. I think it could have worked as very clever and subtle humour, had there been some more obvious signposts. Blooded ends up being controversial for the sake of it. It’s not enough to be simply thought provoking, especially when the entertainment is feeble and vague. The filmmakers must at least have an idea as to what sort of thoughts they want their audience to be thinking.
Watching Blooded with a friend of mine, neither of us could make sense of it. He said that the ending was “weak” as the film petered out and I agreed with him. As with so many films, Blooded tries to be several things at once, with the result that it does none of them well. My instinct on the one hand is to applaud Blooded for trying something different, but a much stronger voice of reason on the other is saying that the filmmakers needed to think harder about what it was they were trying to do.
Blooded is released in UK cinemas and On Demand this Friday and arrives on DVD on Monday, 4th April.
It has been announced that Ian McKellen (X-Men, Lord of the Rings), Judi Dench (Casino Royale), Mark Williams (Harry Potter) and Gillian Anderson (The X Files) are all attached to star in a zombie comedy set in the 18th century. The Curse of the Buxom Strumpet is about the inhabitants of a small seaside town who are struck down with a deadly illness. 
Joe Cornish (he of 
Earlier in the week I received an email from up-and-coming Yorkshire based filmmaker Chris Cronin, letting me known about a new short that's he's completed entitled 
Government cuts are hitting everywhere in the UK at the moment and the British film industry is no different, with the abolition of the UK Film Council and a 15% reduction in funding to the BFI dealing a severe blow to our country's emerging filmmakers. However, that isn't enough to put off first time director Andy Niblo and production company Squarebox Yellow, whose debut feature 
Scottish actor James McAvoy has 
Distributors Momentum Pictures have used London's 
Michael Fassbender has 
Back in December last year the organisers of the Edinburgh International Film Festival announced that the event would undergo a dramatic overhaul for its 2011 programme, with traditional aspects of the festival such as red carpet premieres and jury prizes scrapped in favour of a complete 'reinvention' spearheaded by the creative trio of actress Tilda Swinton and former directors Mark Cousins and Lynda Miles. 
