London Film Festival 2011

[superhero]

Modern technology huh? I love that Sandra also mentioned people tweeting the name of the film already in the 1st screening. The days when we didn't have twitter wasn't that long ago....
I am sure the film isn't trending at the moment.... haha

[reddie2]

I just read EthanRunt tweet... he sounds slightly pissed off

Can't blame him at all....

[superhero]

Not many people posting reviews of films from LFF apart from the usual people.

[EthanRunt]

I had to go straight to bed when I got home to prepare, new Cronenberg in a bit, so I've had this horrible film floating about in my head for hours, goodness knows what kind of damage it did to my synapses.

After a late start, Hebron walked her boots to the centre and did some crowd work, where people were sure it was to be My Week With Marilyn, so I was thankful when she mentioned no one's calls were correct.
But when the bbfc page came up (Real surprise moment) I had a little sigh of disbelief, given I saw some people talking about the film a few days ago after getting a proper screening of it they loved it, but it was the kind of film that was right up their alley [spoiler](Read "Stars Greta Gerwig")[/spoiler]

I counted 30 people walking out from title card reveal to final sequence, and I envied every last one of them.

A hollow, vapid waste of 100 minutes, Mean Girls if it was written by someone like Miranda July. Thinking it has wit, smarts, knows what comedy is, but is essentially repeating itself until people laugh, then adding slapstick.

To believe that it was not the writer/director's first rodeo, and that he's worked for two decades, is horrifying. The camerawork is limited, the lighting horrible, the sound recording at points completely off, and the script is just terrible, between the horrible characters and THE LACK OF ANY DISCERNIBLE PLOT, how this kind of thing gets made is worrying, but how it gets picked up for distribution is scarier.

And to have something so limited in it's appeal, the people who I saw liking it loved it because they are, erm, pretentious hipsters sometimes, Brighton Rock at least was an adaptation of a classic and a Brit flick, so it made more sense than this mess of a teen 'comedy' that'll please very very few.
Easily one of the worst film experiences of the year, and one that makes me think Hebron decided to torture us one last time.

Fail.

[mollygenevieve]

It was a terrible and utterly bizarre Surprise Film choice. I sat it out to the end, through sheer stubborn will and some sort of fading hope that it was all a grand joke.

[tarantinoed]

I saw the new Werner Herzog documentary today Into the Abyss. It was even better than the first one of his documentaries I saw which I loved (Grizzly Man). Although I was a bit disappointed in his follow-ups (Encounters at the End of the World and Cave of Forgotten Dreams) he makes these films like nobody else.

For instance, he keeps on filming people after they've finished talking in their interview and in this way you get to see more of what they're like e.g. you sometimes think as a result that they weren't genuine in what they said and that they are putting on a show which they try to maintain (with difficulty) while the camera remains on them. Conversely, the sincerity of some of his subjects is enhanced by these longish silent takes afterwards. Certainly a lot of the people he interviews come across in this style as a little weird but so what? Werner Herzog's documentaries always show that there's no-one weirder than Werner Herzog himself. He asks what you sometimes think are the most irrelevant questions and also asks his subjects to tell the audience things which they have obviously told him already. He doesn't pretend at a natural style but he really gets to the essence of issues and for a quite strange looking man with an even stranger foreign accent and delivery he manages to get an uncanny rapport with practically everyone he talks to in red neck Texas country.

This film looks at the death penalty in the US from the angle of examining a single crime - the victims, the victims' families, the perpetrators, the perpetrators' families, the executioner etc. Leaving aside the rights and wrongs of capital punishment explored in the film, it leaves you with a very strong impression of America's widespread poverty, deprivation, ignorance, drugs problems, penal system etc. that is very far from the ideal of The American Dream.

[kevinknapman]

Went to the BFI members surprise film tonight. Having avoided anywhere that might give away the film for the past 24hrs, it was completely ruined 5 minutes before the start by two idiots behind me. One of them knew what the film was, the other asked what it was. It was obviously too much to ask that the other woman say 'no it's supposed to be a surprise' but no she decided to be an idiotic moron instead, ruining it for anyone in earshot.
Having said that the LFF ruined it too by having the BBFC title card come up before the film, which would have made the surprise an anti-climax anyway.

As for the film I should probably start by saying that I love Whit Stillman. Metropolitan, Barcelona and The Last Days of Disco are great films, so the thought of his first film for almost 14 years is quite an exciting one.
Sadly Damsels in Distress never quite worked for me (and quite a lot of others too looking at last night's tweets). I liked a lot of the dialogue and laughed a few times, but the film as whole was too wilfully odd and alienating to really work. The characters were nothing more than mouthpieces for the (often witty) dialogue and never convinced as believable human beings. The plot was all over the place and unfocused. Plus there was a fair bit of weird and slightly awkward comedy that fell flat. The whole bit about the guy whose religion meant that he practiced anal sex was very strange and never really went anywhere.
I definitely didn't hate it as much as others did but it was a little disappointing.

[Beate]

Attention! A few tickets have been released for #LFF Closing Night Gala, The Deep Blue Sea: http://bit.ly/sdVV5g

[reddie2]

A further screening of Damsels in Distress has been added for tonight at 20.15 and it does not seem to sell well at the moment. Can I say I am not surprised?

Thank goodness after that excruciatingly bad movie, I managed to see both A Dangerous Method and Anonymus which were sheer cinema delight.

A Dangerous Method is yet another masterpiece from David Cronenberg. His direction and the cinematography were superb and so were Viggo Mortensen and Michael Fassbender as Freud and Jung. Must admit that did not like Keira Knightley's depiction of madness, but I am not a fan.
Very interesting and funny Q&A followed. 8/10

I am biased as I am crazy for whatever has the name Shakespeare on it, but totally fell for Anonymus as well. Vanessa Redgrave deserves an award for her old Elisabeth I and so does Rhys Ifans for his portrait of the Earl of Oxford, who's said to be the real author of the Shakespearian production. A very political drama with plenty of historical controversies (most definitely NOT what we learnt in the history books), but well constructed and enticing. 9/10

[tarantinoed]

Yes, I agree with you. I liked Anonymous and thought Rhys Ifans extremely good. It was a much better film than I expected after the scathing review on Film2011, for instance, last night. I also enjoyed A Dangerous Mind and thought Keira Knightly a bit OTT. I was mildly disappointed in the latter film because it was rather too much of a history of psychoanalysis for beginners - a little simplistic in its approach.