London Film Festival

This is on us once again. Have bagged tix for

The Handmaiden
La La Land
Graduation
Manchester by the Sea
Elle
Toni Erdmann
Certain Women
The Untamed
Personal Shopper
The Death of Louis XIV
The Unknown Girl
Brimstone.

Touch me!

Not many for me this year. I think this time I’ll just see most on general release. Was tempted by La La Land though.

A Monster Calls
Ovarian Psycos
Manchester by the Sea
Surprise Film
Paul Verhoeven talk
Certain Women
The Autopsy of Jane Doe

Only booked for Toni Erdmann and Moonlight so far - rest will have to wait till I get back from hols.

My understanding was that tickets aren’t on sale until the 15th? Have you booked through press accreditation?

Would like to see, but assuming I won’t get tickets:

Arrival
Manchester by Sea

Otherwise:

Christine
Trespass Against Us
The Untamed
Prevenge
City of Tiny Lights
The Ghoul

NM - Just bought a membership, figured it all out

I did the same yesterday. I used to be a member years ago when it was cheaper. On the plus side you can get cheap student tickets (if one is a student!) for films. I couldn’t be bothered with the hassle of the annual website crash.

In the end I have tickets to:

Christine
Bleed For This
The Untamed
Prevenge
Trespass Against Us

Will keep an eye out on the 29th for extra tickets. Would love to enter the Free Fire ballot but thirty notes is way too much.

A Dark Song
Noonday Witch
Psychonauts, the Forgotten Children
I Am Not a Serial Killer
The Void (Although clashes with that Folk Horror thing at the British Museum)

I pretty much just got stuff from the Cult section of the website. The Russian film with the woman with a tail looked interesting as well…plus the Julian Barratt one. Also, should Prince Charles Cinema be in the higher price bracket? Either way, looking forward. Was trying to double up on a couple of days but could only do so for A Dark Song/Noonday Witch.

It’s time!

Christine tonight, looking forward to it. What’s on your slate?

I’m seeing:

Down Under
Moonlight
Only Wanna Laugh (shorts program)
The Fury Of A Patient Man
Being 17
Goldstone

starting on Saturday morning

Only seeing three this year

The Untamed
Toni Erdmann
Prevenge

and my girlfriend is going to see The Handmaiden too, which I can’t make.

The Handmaiden
La La Land
Graduation
Manchester by the Sea
Elle
Toni Erdmann
Certain Women
The Untamed
Personal Shopper
The Death of Louis XIV
The Unknoiwn Girl
Brimstone

Spaceship
Moonlight
A Dark Song
Toni Erdmann (3 hrs long on Sunday morning, this may have been a mistake)

Will book more when more comps become available.

So last night I saw the best and worst films I’ve seen so far this year. An emotional rollercoaster.

Spaceship was dreadful. Trite, self aware British debut about a group of posh teenagers (god posh teenagers are the worst), saying nothing in-particular and wrapped round a false sense of being profound. Alarm bells rang when the director basically gave himself a pat on the back at the intro for hiring… some women. Well done pal, must have been hard to find some women. I walked after 45 mins.

However there was the mother of all pallet cleansers with Moonlight which was just extraordinary. A tale of male black masculinity which while follows some familiar tropes, lifts itself above all of them to become something very special indeed. Sensational performances, dreamlike cinematography and the most satisfying & absorbing film I’ve seen in some time, This feels incredibly important. Go begging for a ticket at the Ritzy screening tomorrow.

So, A Dark Song was pretty great. Pretty uncomfortable viewing. Got a bit silly towards the end . Didn’t stay for the q and a. Should have as I am just bumbling around, waiting for Noonday Witch.

Big day yesterday.

La La Land just bowls you over with the charm and charisma of Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling. Musical numbers occasionally a bit on the nose. Gosling turned up at the end and the audience wet itself.

Graduation a really enjoyable tale of the mess that is current Romania and how everything now works on petty corruption and doing favours for people. With inevitably awkward results.

Manchester by the Sea probably the film of the day. Kenneth Lonergan’s epic tale of a schlub dealing with the fall out of his brother’s death… Basically two and a half hours of people coping with shit. But very very funny and Casey Affleck just sensational.

Elle is Paul Verhoeven going massively over the top in an exploitation sex thriller that is as ripe as a black banana. Isabelle Huppert gets her teeth into the role with such gusto that you can really sense how much she is enjoying herself. This film should be good for at least a dozen Guardian columns on rape fantasies.

Today was Toni Erdmann. A film that almost defies description. Billed as a comedy there are moments where I was crying so hard with laughter that I could barely see. But it’s far more than a comedy. Won’t say much more except keep clear of the petits fours.

A complete contrast was Certain Women, a tale of minor emotions in rural Montana. Well done but not my thing.

I was at Toni Erdmann today too. Found it a mixed bag, really brilliant in parts but the middle sagged and I found some of the plot hard to believe (her just letting him to go to work with her when she was seemingly very committed to her job, for example). The Whitney Houston bit was absolutely wonderful though.

We were at Toni Erdmann as well.

Yeah, it was way too long after a promising start, and I had got fed up with it up until the Whitney Houston bit, which was great and the party afterwards was terrific too.

We saw The Untamed as well. It’s hard to explain it without using spoilers, but I liked it, and if you like the idea of a Mexican social realist version of Possession, then you’ll like it too.

My girlfriend also went to see The Handmaiden which was apparently very good, but would have been better had it finished 20 minutes earlier.

The festival descended into farce on Saturday evening: during the shorts program they played the wrong film.

Instead of a comedy called “Mother” by director Leo Leigh (son of Mike Leigh) a drama about sexual exploitation of underage girls called “Madre” by Colombian director Simón Mesa Soto was shown. Very embarrassing, with the director and cast of the UK short present in the audience, as was Liam Gallagher, but that’s probably not relevant.

Things weren’t helped by a laconic half-hearted apology from the BFI representative, who off-microphone loudly declared that he “wasn’t taking the blame for this”. Shambolic.