https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/lff/Online/default.asp
Programme is up.
Not bothered with LFF for the past couple of years (Pricey, my aversion to Q&As) but may get back in the saddle this year to make up for lost time.
Interestingly it looks like they’re using the Royal Festival Hall over the big Odeon this time round.
Anyone know what Royal Festival Hall is like for film screenings?
I saw Under the Skin there with an orchestra and it was fine though the projection didn’t look perfect, assume they would sort that out for something of this scale though.
Only two screening times for Titane, one of which is 11am on a Tuesday…
No idea they’d made Catlings Earwig into a film
Worse than Glasotnbury eesh
What a fucking ball ache that was!
Got everything in the end, but sheesh!
Keep forgetting to do the discovery pass stuff so pay more for two films than I would 3.
The Crossing
Memory Box
Titane
A River Runs, Turns, Erases, Replaces
Shepherd
A Banquet
Earwig
She Will
Neptune Frost
Missed out on Lamb
Was logged out twice with tickets in my basket, so ended up missing out on Worst Person in the World, but I’m spending a day with Flee, Earwig and Memoria, plus booked Wheel of Fortune & Fantasy on BFI Player.
Hoping a fair few come to Cinecity in Brighton, but still tempted to find a way to do Il Buco. Cinema!
I’m doing
Bergman Island
Red Rocket
Compartment No 6
Cow
Drive My Car
Titane
The Power of the Dog
Nitram
Il Buco
plus The Feast, The Story of Film, Hit the Road and Petrov’s Flu on the BFI Player
Anyone want a free ticket to Brother’s Keeper 5:45 tomorrow @NFT2?
Today I saw Last Night in Soho and it was a load of bollocks (then again I am an Edgar Wright hater)
It’s been a busy few days:
Bergman Island Tim Roth and Vicky Krieps go on a writing retreat to Faro, the Swedish community where Ingmar Bergman filmed a lot of his stuff. It gradually emerges that this is a meta-narrative and that there could be anything up to three or four layers of fact and fiction in play. Pretty decent.
Red Rocket Sean Baker’s follow up to The Florida Project is another tale of impoverished outsiders, this time in Texas. Simon Rex is fantastic as a washed up porn star who has turned up to mooch off his estranged wife. He’s virtually never off camera and is just exhausting in his constant wheedling and self-delusion. Very funny, although the eventual story line might have some folk clutching their pearls.
The Feast Welsh-language horror film as an unlikeable family put on a business dinner in a modernised farmhouse. Every camera shot is exquisitely framed and the whole thing looks nice, but it’s very thin stuff.
Compartment No 6 A Finnish girl and a Russian guy meet not very cute on a sleeper train from St Petersburg to Murmansk. Very likeable leads. Good fun.
Cow Andrea Arnold’s documentary on the life and times of a dairy cow. Arnold turned up for the screening and was in roaring good humour, but the film itself is a little ‘so what?’
Drive My Car Adaptation of three Murakami short stories, in this case centred around a widowed playwright putting on a multi-language production of Uncle Vanya. It’s extremely well done and acted, but I’d be lying if I said that I particularly enjoyed it. It’s three hours long and feels every minute of it.
The Story of Film: A New Generation Mark Cousins’ follow up to his previous epic series, this time concentrating on 21st century cinema. Some incredible films that I’d never previously heard of.
I’ve another three films tomorrow and three more before the end of the festival. Pretty decent so far.
Really looking forward to this one, I’m a big Franz Rogowski fan. Also very jealous you got to see ‘Worst Person in the World’, it sold out so quickly. I’ve read a lot of very positive comments, so hoping to see it in a cinema before it hits Mubi.
So far I’ve seen both Ryusuke Hamaguchi films. I absolutely loved ‘Drive My Car’ (wonderful exploration of love, loss and communication) and admired ‘Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy’. Mark Cousins ‘The Story of Film: A New Generation’ is exactly what you’d expect, full of passion and love, but lacked the magic of discovery that An Odyssey provided.
Red Rocket, Hand of God and The Worst Person in the World for me too. The latter especially I thought was fantastic. There was a Q&A with Joachim Trier afterwards and he spoke really well about it.
I have the “Surprise Film” tonight, which I’m hoping is good…
How was C’Mon C’mon?
Anyone want a free ticket to Azor tomorrow night (Weds 13th October)? Chilly political thriller set in Argentina at the time of the military dictatorship.
9pm in NTF1, good seat.
Has anyone seen anything at the Royal Festival Hall yet? I saw Titane yesterday (11.30am!!) and regardless of whether the film was any good or not (I did enjoy it), it was so fucking loud where I was sitting. Anyone else experienced this there?
There’s been a few complaints on Twitter about the sound and people missing lines of dialogue.
Titane Although I enjoyed this immensely, it should be recognised as utter sky-high bollocks from start to finish. There are two completely separate stories that are sort of overlaid on each other like slides on an overhead projector. It lurches from one jaw-dropping set piece to the next with no regard for any conventional internal world-building. The two leads are terrific. I’m being deliberately vague, as the less you know, the more you’ll enjoy it. It’s a wild, mad ride.
The Power of the Dog The first new Jane Campion movie in a while is a tale of a young wife and her son being introduced into the household of a pair of brothers in the latter days of the Old West. Benedict Cumberbatch waddles about as a rootin tootin cowboy who is clearly upset about something. Jesse Plemons and Kirsten Dunst also star and are very sweet together. Kodi Smit-McPhee very good as the greenhorn son. He’s incredibly tall and thin, particularly with his cowboy hat on. He must be nearly seven foot.
Nitram The bizarre true story of the perpetrator of the Port Arthur massacre. Caleb Landry Jones is a terrifying out of control giant who his parents (Judy Davis and Anthony LaPaglia) have to deal with. They are both superb and are the best thing in the movie. However, aside from the astonishing events that lead to the killer being able to gather the funds to indulge his fantasies, its a familiar story of a dangerous individual going off his medication and being sold a ridiculous arsenal of guns by dealers who don’t ask questions.
I didn’t notice the Royal Festival Hall as being abnormally loud - nearly all cinemas are too loud these days. But it’s a gloriously big screen.