A Moving Image by Shola Amoo

London Film Festival 2016 Days 3 to 4

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A Moving Image ( dir-scr Shola Amoo)

Director Shola Amoo grew up in the Elephant and Castle, so he is no stranger to what gentrification can do to a community.  A graduate of the National Film and Television School, this is Amoo’s first feature. It is a documentary film within a drama, which allows him to use interviews with Brixtonians, scripted drama and the photographs of Neil Kenlock to explore a changing Brixton through what happens to Nina (Tanya Fear) when she returns there. Continue reading London Film Festival 2016 Days 3 to 4 →

London Film Festival 2016 Days 1 to 2

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A United Kingdom (dir. Amma Asante, scr. Gus Hibbert)

The 60th BFI London Film Festival kicked off on Wednesday evening with a gala performance of A United Kingdom, the story of Seretse Khama (David Oyelowo), king-in-waiting of Bechuanaland (now Botswana), and Ruth Williams (Rosamund Pike), an underwriter’s clerk. They marry, and incur the wrath of her family, his uncle, and the British and South African governments, who all conspire to separate them. Continue reading London Film Festival 2016 Days 1 to 2 →

A Monster Call BFI London Film Festival 2016

60th BFI London Film Festival Preview

Film, London Film Festival 2016

Ron Swanson casts his eye over the jewels of the London Film Festival.

It’s fitting that the 60th London Film Festival, which runs for the next week and a half, marks such a prestigious birthday with one of the best lineups in its history. Here are some of the highlights, and some of the films I’m looking forward to

Highlights

A Monster Calls – Juan Antonio Bayona’s beautiful, devastating film aims squarely for the heart, and hits it without hesitation. It is undeniably manipulative, but earnestly and skilfully so. It deserves to be seen and experienced by as wide an audience as possible. Felicity Jones and newcomer Lewis MacDougall are exceptional, while Toby Kebbell, in two scenes, delivers one of the year’s best performances. Continue reading 60th BFI London Film Festival Preview →

Denis Ménochet and Barry Keoghan in Martin Radich's Norfolk

Norfolk

Film, , , , , ,

Lissy Lovett has quite a lot of time for new feature Norfolk, but is baffled by the sight of a narrow boat on the Broads.

Norfolk is a county in the east of England. It’s where I was born and grew up, and it’s my favourite place in the world. Not that many people live there, but those that do are often unconventional and self-contained. There were once many Air Force bases, fewer now, but I’d often see strange planes in the sky when I was growing up. Norfolk is generally flat, with skies that go on forever, and has a series of man-made lakes, called the Broads, formed by medieval peat excavations. Continue reading Norfolk →

Dare to be Wild still of Cork coast

Dare to Be Wild

Irish cinema, New Releases, , , , , ,

The problem with a film based on a real story is that you always know how it is going to end.

Mary Reynolds (Emma Greenwell) wants to enter the Chelsea Flower Show with her wild Celtic garden and win the gold medal. To do this she needs the help of reluctant botanist  Christy Collard (Tom Hughes), £250,000 in sponsorship, and to convince the show to accept her entry. Continue reading Dare to Be Wild →

Stormy Weather

Classic Films, Musicals, , ,

Sarah Slade considers if Stormy Weather has weathered the storm.

stormy-weather

There is a school of thought that maintains that musicals of the Hollywood Golden Age were at the forefront of social commentary. Look at Carousel, with its depiction of domestic violence, single parenthood and walking on through the wind and the rain. Or Oklahoma in the light of Judd’s mental illness. Let’s skip over the message behind Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and look at Showboat, which has actual people of colour singing songs about rivers and takes a sideways look the trials of being mixed-race in the Deep South.

Continue reading Stormy Weather →

Miss Fisher does Pulp Fiction

Fashion against crime

Television, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Is there a correlation between sartorial savvy and the ability to nab a wrong ‘un? TheTramp investigates. 

If there is one genre that television loves, it is that of the detective drama. From gritty police procedural dramas, through to whimsical amateur detectives in quaint but deadly villages, there always seems to be a show on some channel or another, new or repeat (sorry, classic), with murders that need solving and solved they invariably are, the pleasure generally being how they are solved and by whom.

Continue reading Fashion against crime →