Movies by Mills (December 2014)

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EDITORIAL Another year nears its end and for Movies by Mills we celebrate Christmas with our 20th issue. Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar is our welcome page cover. It is a film that crosses time and space and embodies the meaning of love for that is the core of this extremely imaginative movie adventure from the creator of Inception. MbM pays tribute to the revered film critic Roger Ebert and his biopic Life Itself as well as a Q & A with the film’s director Steve James. The film will immediately appeal to film buffs and serious filmgoers as well as to the growing number of professional film reviewers in newspapers, on television and radio, as well as the online critics via websites and personal blogs – Roger championed them all. The film is an emotional document of one man’s passion for movies, his wife Chaz’s devotion for the man she loved and the incredible spirit and determination that carried him forward during his fight against cancer which would have defeated many men from still carrying on with their career. A Dark Reflection is a fictional story based on fact and the very worrying statistics that highlights aerotoxic syndrome that leads to many airline cabin crews dying of cancer because of safety issues, a secret that the airlines don’t want you to know. The film may well question your decision before booking your next flight. It works as an investigative thriller that is alarmingly factual. For the first time MbM reviews a Short film which cannot be ignored because of its brilliant authenticity – The Phone Call. It is about a woman who works at a help care centre taking calls from distressed or anxious people. It stars Sally Hawkins and is a wonderful example of great acting and should be studied closely by aspiring actors. The little film is one of ten films which have been shortlisted to be nominated for an Academy Award. For those readers who are making their own Short films take heed: keep the storyline simple and make sure it is good enough to attract the star that you really want. As this is the last issue before Christmas, and many readers will be looking at buying Blu-Ray and DVDs for presents, it seemed appropriate to recommend some good buys: five films then that should be in your collection. Also a quick list of films that are worth looking out for which will be theatrically released during the winter. Thanks to all who have helped provide material and assistance for this issue: the team at Premiercomms.com, Tristan Lorraine, John Hoyte, Carrie Thatcher, Mat Kirkby, Steve James, Warner Bros Pictures, Paul Ridler and you the readers. Enjoy the read. 3


INTERSTELLAR Spoiler Alert

For a filmmaker, the extraordinary nature of a few select individuals, pushing the boundaries of where the human species has ever been or can possibly go opens up an infinite set of possibilities. I was excited by the prospect of making a film that would take the audience into that experience through the eyes of those first explorers moving onwards into the galaxy - indeed to a whole other galaxy. Christopher Nolan What is amazing to me is that while the excitement of the story lies in its scope – the thrill of adventure and discovery of the unknown – one of my favourite things about Chris Nolan is the heartbeat of humanity he gives to his films. No one handles the sheer mass and scale of a world like he does because it always comes off as something personal and intimate. Matthew McConaughey From the beginning of time, the realm to expand our world or move our civilization forward has always involved great sacrifice by a handful of individuals, who put the greater good over any risk to themselves. This film really celebrates those who are brave enough to do that. Anne Hathaway This story is full of longing and heartbreak, but at the heart of its core is the beautiful idea that even if love is not something you can hold in your hands, it remains with you across vast distances in time and space. Jessica Chastain 4


Cooper (McConaughey) is a widower who lives with his two children Tom (Timothee Chalamet) and Murph (MacKenzie Foy). Once a NASA pilot, Coop now grows corn, but the blight is spreading and dust storms are coming to blind a farmer’s vision but fuel an astronaut’s dream. He is devoted to his children and when he is recruited for NASA to search for a habitable new planet, he must prepare to leave. Now you must tell me what your plan is to save the world, he tells Professor Brand (Michael Caine). We are not meant to save the world, Brand tells him, we are meant to leave it. I’ve got kids, Professor. Then get out there and save them. This scene precludes the most emotional and heartwrenching moment in the movie and one that is geared to pump the tear glands dry as Coop breaks the news of his departure to his beloved Murph, who shares his love for space travel. I love you forever, he tells her. I’m coming back. But Murph knows that if and should that happen it could be twenty years or more before she sees him again. Cooper is accompanied by two other astronauts played by Wes Bentley and David Gyasi and two witty machines TARS and CASH that have more inventiveness in their dialogue than their appearance. The humour in the film is provided by the interaction between these two chunks of metal and Cooper. So the crew, with the addition of scientist Brand (Anne Hathaway), the professor’s daughter, set off into space to save mankind. We learn things by just observing the visual appearance of wormholes and black holes. Most will enjoy the journey of this film, though it is a long one of 166 minutes but it is in IMAX which always enhances the spectacle. Let Cooper have the last word: We used to look up in the sky and wonder at our place in the stars. Now we just look down at our place in the dirt. 5


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LIFE ITSELF Spoiler Alert

On Thursday, April 24, this year in front of The Virginia Theatre in Champaign, Chicago, there was an unveiling of a bronze statue of Roger Ebert, celebrating his life as a film critic. The statue was created by sculptor Rick Harney and shows him seated and staring straight ahead with one arm outstretched and giving his familiar thumbs-up. It takes little imagination to hear him say I’ll see you at the movies. Fittingly, Roger Ebert’s last film review received a three-a-half stars thumbs-up; it was Terrence Malick’s To The Wonder. He closed his review: “There will be many who find ‘To The Wonder’ elusive and too effervescent. They’ll be dissatisfied by a film that would rather evoke than supply. I understand that, and I think Terrence Malick does too, but here he has attempted to reach more deeply than that: to reach beneath the surface, and find the soul in need.” I look at movies in my spare time. I look at DVDs and laser discs at home because I love movies. I have seen thousands of movies. Roger Ebert was a reporter with a passion for movies and consequently leading him to reviewing them for television and hosting the hit show in the 80s and 90s with fellow journalist Gene Siskel. The Siskel & Ebert 8


Shows were as entertaining as the movies they reviewed, and at times more so. He encouraged the idea that movies were to be discussed and not ignored. He knew his audience because he was one of them: a film fan that would be seen queuing at film festivals to attend screenings. Life Itself is a wonderful, awe inspiring documentary capturing the racing pulse of this most famous Pulitzer Prize film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times, film author, television reviewer, and internet blogger. The film does not shy from the downside of alcoholism or his painful battle with cancer. But perhaps its greatest strength lies when it touches us on a deep emotional level, for this is a love story. The meeting and falling in love with Chaz, when Roger was in his fifties, is heart-tugging. Directed by Steve James, who made Hoop Dreams, a film which Ebert championed as he always supported unknown filmmakers, which is why he leaves us with a treasured legacy of great film criticism, embodying determination, perseverance, honesty, and above all passion: even at his lowest ebb, Roger Ebert needed no persuasion to watch a movie to raise his spirits, and James shows this with carefully chosen archive footage. Martin Scorcese, Werner Herzog, Errol Morris testify to Ebert’s enthusiastic devotion and expertise as a film critic. This is the first documentary to be made on a single film critic, and only the second one on *film criticism. Life Itself gets two-thumbs up. *For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism was released in 2009 and featured film critics Andrew Sarris, Pauline Kael, Richard Corliss, Leonard Maltin, Richard Schikel, A.O.Scott, Kenneth Turin, and Roger Ebert. 9


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Q&A STEVE JAMES The following Q & A with the director of Life Itself took place after the screening of the film at the Curzon Soho on Friday November 7. Q: Steve, people seem to see filmmakers existing on one side and film critics on the other. As a filmmaker, what made Ebert different? SJ: I think he understood how hard it was to make a good film and I think that came from some of his friendships with filmmakers. They just didn’t sit and talk about favourite novels but about favourite films, about the process and I think he drank that in. I think a lot of filmmakers felt that when Roger came to your film he came with a desire to have both an appreciation of how hard it was to make a good film and a desire to want to really like it. And sometimes there are critics who come to the theatre with this attitude of ok, prove something to me, but you never got that from Roger. It didn’t mean he wouldn’t savage your film if he didn’t like it and made it even more painful, but you never felt that attitude, you felt he loved movies and he wanted to love your movie, and he also championed smaller films and smaller filmmakers, he saw this as his mission and I think once he had the sense of his power as a film critic along with Gene Siskel, and after Gene Siskel, he would use that power to bring people to films that they would not otherwise see. Q: Tell me a little bit about your own relationship with him prior to this film, assuming it goes back a way? SJ: It does. I met him as a result of Hoop Dreams because he and Gene championed that film, which really made a huge difference in the film’s life in terms of getting it out to the world, so I met him at a dinner in Toronto but I didn’t sit next to him so I didn’t get to talk to him. We both lived in Chicago and I would see him over the years but honestly I probably ran in to Roger about a dozen times over twenty years. Since I first met him he reviewed me a couple of times about films and I saw him a couple of times at social events, and I was always like: Oh, my God, you’re a film critic and I’m a filmmaker and we can’t be friends. I had his email address and I would email him that I have a new film coming out and I hope you will check it out and nothing more and I was very respectful of that. It was only when I read the memoir that I found he had friendships with filmmakers, not many and my thoughts were well why not me, we live in Chicago and Scorsese lives in New York. But it actually served the film because a lot of this was a big discovery for me to make a film, to read his memoir, doing this film. It was a great journey for me to go on as a filmmaker and I think if I had been close friends with him there might have been a few things I would not have put in the movie; might have been more inclined to try and protect him more. Now I wouldn’t have made the film if I didn’t admire him because someone who has been this good to me as a filmmaker I had no desire to do a take-down on Roger Ebert. If I had read the memoir and thought you know I don’t like this guy, I would probably have declined to do the film. This wasn’t a purely journalistic enterprise but at the same time I thought it was very important and he did too. Q: When did you realize that this was going to end up as an elegy? SJ: I was listening to Chaz and it seemed like his health was declining and he said himself that I probably won’t be around to see the end of this movie and then I would talk to Chaz apart from Roger and she would say, no I think he’s going to be around for another couple of years, I mean she had been through this before, I mean there had been times in the past when he said to her kill me, I don’t want to live or when things had been pretty dark and uncertain and they had got through it, so I wasn’t going to bet against Chaz on that. It wasn’t until near the very end: the day he died I was going to go to film him at the Rehab Institute and him going home. Two hours before he died I was texting back and forth and saying Ok Chaz, just tell me when to show up, and then he died, that is how sudden it was, even though all the indications were there and you could see that. Q: Some of those scenes in hospital were pretty rough to watch and I imagine that they must have been pretty rough to film as well. SJ: They were, I mean, some of the scenes in the hospital were shot by my wonderful cinematographer Dana Kupper, who has worked with me on a lot of films, but there were some situations where she wasn’t available or her family said that this was so...you know, could you just do it, so I did. And I remember the first day I walked in and he was asleep and to see his jaw hang down and see through his jaw and thinking, boy how are people going to handle this because it is so hard to look at, but then as you see in the shot, he wakes up and smiles and you see that look in his eyes and it was like that was a comfort to me because well, if we can be really candid which is what Roger wants and what I want about what he goes through and get people past that and you’ll see the thing that I want you

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to see which is the incredible courage and grace and even his sense of humour about it all. Q: You don’t shy away from the other side of him acting like a petulant kid, there is a great line in there which says ‘He was a nice guy, but he wasn’t that nice’, presumably you had to do that otherwise it would have ended up as being implausible? SJ: Yes, I mean Roger was very candid about his alcoholism days. He was candid about his love of big breasted women and I love when Bruce Elliott, the guy in the bar, said that some of the women that he had earlier dated were gold diggers or psychos. You know, I think he dated his share of those. But I think you really see it most in his relationship with Gene Siskel. It is interesting I mean there is a reason I wanted to call it Life Itself, based on the memoir, because we leaned on it and it is such a beautifully done memoir. It is a great template, it deserves that credit in making this film, but there is one big deviation that this film makes from the memoir and that is dealing with the relationship between Gene and Roger. In the memoir, Roger writes about Gene from a very sentimental...looking back on his old foe and friend and it is not nearly as vicious as it really was and I knew that we had to really dig into that. Q: There is another earlier quote in the film about cinema and I wonder how much that chimes with your own sense of what cinema is? SJ: I was at that event in 2005 when he got that star. I heard it was happening and I went down and I just wanted to see him get that star, but I missed that speech, I got there too late for the speech so when I saw the footage I was just blown away. It is for me the most clear and concise definition of what movies should aspire to be and in a way for me as a documentary filmmaker, the ultimate calling for film, especially documentaries, should be to have you sit in an audience not in judgement of people that you see on the screen but to really understand them, not have them whitewashed for bad behaviour, but to really understand and that was what Roger loved most about movies and certainly something that I try to actively do in the films I do. Q: Part of the film is also about journalism and the changes and about evolution of journalism. He starts out blogging and at the end of the film he has fully embraced the evolutions taking place. Were you aware of the subtext that was taking place? SJ: Absolutely. I mean the thing about Roger’s life which is interesting to me. His life paralleled this incredible period of history of journalism and of films. He became a film critic in 1967, which for American cinema was an apocryphal year, Bonnie and Clyde was released, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, The Graduate, I mean this was a serious watershed moment which most people would say was the great American Cinema of that time. It also paralleled the rise of cinephile culture where people just loved going to see arthouse films and European filmmakers and interesting American filmmakers and Kurosawa and these iconic film figures, so his career sort of paralleled all of that and he came up through that period of time and he saw all the changes as a film critic from 1967 to where we are now where there are big concerns about the logistics of theatrical film watching, but I think that one of the things that was so remarkable about Roger is that he both appreciated the grand traditions of journalism and of cinephile culture but he was never backward looking: he realized that you had to hold on to what we love, the great big screen experience of watching a movie together but we can’t say that is the only way we can see movies because they will die if we don’t embrace the new technologies that come along and I think that was remarkable for someone to do particularly for someone who had seen cinema at his greatest. Q: He embraced a great sense of popularism of an audience that weren’t necessary educated to universal cinema and he also wanted to reach across race barriers? SJ: And he did that beautifully. He wrote about the democratic art form in the most democratic of ways. He also found ways of bringing his own experience from time to time but never in a kind of navel basic way. I mean he would be writing about a romantic comedy and he would write about his own struggles with romance, and all those kind of things bound him to his audience. As Roger Simon, the writer says of him in the film: he was the guy sitting in the fifteenth row with a bag of popcorn in one hand watching a movie and that endeared him to everyday movie lovers. He was not only the first critic to win the Pulitzer Prize, which I’m sure aroused intense jealously among some established film critics, but he also with Gene Siskel, revolutionized the idea of film criticism on television and he created the whole idea and then he turned-around and went to the blogasphere of the internet. Roger was one of the people who went to bat for the internet critics with the studios and say these critics need to be at the screenings just like me. They are legitimate film critics, you cannot bar them because they don’t write for the New York Times or the Chicago Tribune. It was an extraordinary and powerful thing for him to do of his stature and he was constantly in the act of re-inventing. Q: What would Ebert have made of this film? SJ: I think Roger would have liked the film. I mean if he didn’t like it maybe I could point a finger at him and say, ‘You know dude, this is as much your fault as mine.’ I mean what he loved about the documentaries which were his favourite

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documentaries was they had intimate access, that they were honest, didn’t hide anything and they had complexity to them and he thought that if I am going to be a part of this I can’t have a different standard for myself. I have not normally done films about famous people. It is the first time I’ve done a biography, but he walked the walk and when you are famous there is generally a different level of candour that you are willing to share and understandably he acted as though he was not famous at all. He was just a guy who had this interesting life and was struggling with cancer. Audience: You said that you might have declined to do the project. Does that mean that someone was asking you to do this film or was it your idea? SJ: I wish I could say it was my idea but Garrett Basch, producer on the film, read the memoir, really liked it and thought it would be a great basis for a documentary and then put out an enquiry to Ebert’s agent and said what do you think about this? They weren’t discouraged but they didn’t say yes, they didn’t say no. Interesting, tell us more. They then reached out to me. I had not read Roger’s memoir and then read it, loved it and then said, yes, I would love to do this film. When I got to the end of the book I realized how it was a life that was important beyond being a film critic. It had this extraordinary journey of a life. that was what really hooked me, as well as he was an important person in the world of film. MbM: Thank you for making an amazing movie and a brilliant tribute to Roger. What has been the response of other famous film critics of the film? SJ: There are no other famous film critics (laughter). People refer to Roger as the beloved film critic. Honestly once the film was near completion and it was going to be premiered at Sundance and we had someone, a Press person, who was letting me know like which film critics were going to be reviewing the film, like Todd McCarthy of the Hollywood Reporter, and I thought that is great but then I thought I know Todd grew up in Chicago and he was eighteen years old when he met Roger, a snot-nosed film critic at the Sun-Times, and you could go down the line and the number of critics who were seeing this film and would review it, and they all knew Roger, some better than others, but they all knew the man. I suddenly got very fearful. Oh my God, this is why I like doing films about people that you have never heard of because I did not want film critics saying I know the man better than you, but fortunately it has rebounded to our benefit. They responded to the movie and I was actually really touched and moved and I know Chaz has been too by the way in which the film critics reviewed the movie. They said some nice things about the movie, but they started with a paragraph or two about what Roger Ebert meant to them or how they encountered Roger...they made it a very personal review about movies, about Roger, and then got around to talking about the movie. I think that is great. I mean I had no idea of his incredible reach until I made this film. Q: How was it for you after filming groups of people to be working with one character? Is it a thing you would want to do again or do you prefer filming groups of people? SJ: Most of the films I’ve done have been about individuals, there have been more than one in some cases, like The Interrupters there were primarily three subjects that we followed. Other films I’ve done, if they have had multiple characters, they still tend to be about individuals than about groups. So what was different about this for me was I knew that I was going to try and get my arms around an entire life of this man and that in some ways would mean a more traditional biographical film than what I have done in the past, but I also knew that I wanted to travel around in the present and see his life in the present and that was my approach to try to bond those two together. Q: Do you have a favourite critique of his? SJ: I think if you love Terrence Malick as a filmmaker then you should go and read Roger on Terrence. He loves Terrence Malick and I think he gets what is remarkable about his work. He is great on Herzog, he is great on Scorcese. He has been very kind to me over the years. I feel I’ve got insights to my own films from him, but I think one thing that was exciting for me was reading some of those earlier reviews that got him the Pulitzer starting in ’67, I mean right out the gate. I mean Roger was a fan of movies before he got that job, but he hadn’t written about movies and it is extraordinary to read some of those reviews. I mean Bonnie and Clyde, Cries & Whispers, Nashville, The Godfather. I mean just go back to some of those reviews And Blue Velvet, he went totally against the tide. The film was hailed as a masterpiece but he said ‘I don’t think so’ His problem with it was moral and ethical and he ended up being right about that film for the reasons he didn’t like it, now you may say that the reasons you didn’t like it, you make that choice yourself, but he really did believe that Isabella Rossellini was mistreated as an actress in the film and David Lynch had engaged by putting the actress out there in being naked, being ridiculed, in the movie. He gleaned that she must not have known what she was in for. When she wrote her autobiography some years later, that was exactly true.

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A DARK REFLECION *Spoiler Alert So the airlines are flying aircraft that aren’t.... Air worthy. You may not want to fly again after seeing this film or at least examine your travel options, for A Dark Reflection reveals some disturbing truths about airline safety that may cause you to have many sleepless flights. The opening sequence of this investigative thriller is beautifully crafted, grabbing your attention by symbolically taking your breath away and signposting the events to come. Helen Eastman (Georgina Sutcliffe) is a journalist assigned to report on a Middle East crisis which ends with her photographer being shot in front of her. Helen downsizes her ambitions and takes a job with a local newspaper to be closer to her boyfriend, Joe (T.J. Herbert) who is an air traffic controller, or was, because he has been suspended from work following a serious JASP AIR in-flight safety incident on his shift. Helen’s intuitive antenna is alerted when Joe tells her that he believes that a near air accident was caused by toxic air, but JASP AIR chose not to release news of the incident to the public. Why? Helen convinces her editor that there must be more to the incident, known as Flight 313 than JASP Airlines and the aviation authorities are admitting to. Prove it! He orders. So with trainee journalist Natasha Stevens (Rita Ramnani) they embark on a thorough investigation which reveals that hush money has exchanged hands to cover up the truth that cabin crews have been exposed to toxic air fumes and ultimately connects the airline with the toxicity known as aerotoxic syndrome. The testament of pilot Tompkinson, who was investigating the connection of contaminated cabin air with the deaths of so many cabin crews, announces that he has brain cancer and only a few months to live as a direct result of the airlines use of toxic organophosphates in all their planes. Helen takes samples from the aircraft’s cabin walls during a flight to Glasgow as further damning evidence against JASP Airlines. The man behind A Dark Reflection is Tristan Loraine, a former British Airways captain, and writer, producer and director of this remarkable and thoroughly gripping drama that cannot be lightly dismissed by upgrading you to first-class with this sort of knowledge in your seat wallet. You will not be sitting comfortably if you know that aerotoxic fumes are seeping into 15


your lungs. The illuminated warning sign is on: unfasten your seats belts. Doing further investigation to the many worrying facts that this film presents, it is worth looking at them in greater detail, but before I do let us look at past cases of companies besides the aircraft industry that were challenged because of their danger to health. On the literary front: Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring attacked the pesticide industry for its indiscriminate use of pesticides which resulted in revolutionising changes in the law thus protecting nature. Ralph Nader’s Unsafe at any Speed took on General Motors and the designed-in dangers of the American automobile. Civil Warriors by Dan Zegart was about Ron Motley campaigning to bring the tobacco industry to justice. One of the biggest whistle blowers in the film industry has been Michael Moore who investigated and challenged America’s health industry in Sicko and its gun laws in Bowling for Columbine. While of course the cover-up of the Watergate scandal was powerfully depicted in All the Presidents Men. Perhaps one of the most alarming screen investigations was in Richard Linklater’s Fast Food Nation which was a fictional account of the hugely profitable food take-away industry and what the burger chain businesses may be putting into their burgers. The film ran with the biting log line – Do you want lies with that? What makes A Dark Reflection so disturbing is that the air industry’s lies have led to mortality or severe illness in numerous cases for cabin crews and passengers too. John Hoyte, executive producer on the film, endured 16 years of physical and mental harm caused by his job as an airline pilot and his career was ended by a chronic illness. Hoyte began researching and networking with other mysteriously grounded aircrew to obtain a diagnosis of his debilitating symptoms. Aerotoxic Syndrome is aviation’s darkest secret, yet the cause of this toxic illness has never been formally accepted – despite it doing incalculable damage to aircrew and passengers health for over half a century, exposure to deadly neurotoxins that leak from jet engines into cabin air makes countless flyers seriously ill, and has led to some deaths. There is a parallel between the tobacco and aviation industries, where basic health & safety principles are ignored, whilst profit is made at the unquestioning public’s expense David Learmont, operations & safety editor of Flight International states in the foreword of John Hoyte’s book Aerotoxic Syndrome – Aviation’s Darkest Secret, No aircraft or aero-engine manufacturer denies that fumes from engine oil can get into cockpits and cabins, nor do they deny that these ‘fume events‘ happen from time to time. They do not deny either that these engine oils contain organophosphate materials that can cause neurological damage in humans. The oil containers even have warnings on them to that effect. A DARK REFLECTION will be released in the UK in February. 16


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THE PHONE CALL Spoiler Alert Heather (Sally Hawkins) works at a helpline call centre with Daniel (Edward Hogg). She is shy and lonely almost as much as the callers she speaks to. She patiently waits for the phone to ring, whilst nervously glancing across the room at Daniel and returning his smile. Hello, she says, I’m Heather. There is no reply, only the sound of whimpering. Heather sympathises and eases her way into the caller’s confidence by telling them about herself and that she understands how difficult it must be to talk about it. Slowly a man’s voice is heard and she coaxes him to tell her his name...Stan...but as she probes further, he reveals that his wife has died...and then does not want to talk about it and threatens to hang up...and Heather pleads with him not to...and very slowly begins to win his confidence and a strange bonding emerges that will change Heather’s life forever. The Phone Call was part of this year’s UK London Film Festival held at the Electric Cinema, Shoreditch. The film was written, produced and directed by Mat Kirkby and has already gathered an armful of awards including Best Narrative Short at the Tribeca Film Festival and has been shortlisted for nomination in next year’s Oscars. Mat Kirkby waited a year to get his leading lady, Sally Hawkins, and fine-tuned the script to its final draft of twenty pages, which Sally remembered and did in one take while the camera held her in close-up. The caller Stan (Jim Broadbent) is never seen, and just sat in another room reading his lines. Except for a few ums and ahs, the actors kept to the written script. Sally Hawkins is brilliantly convincing and once again shows why she is undoubtedly one of Britain’s greatest actresses; just a quick glance at her oeuvre confirms that: as Poppy, the eternal optimist in Happy-Go-Lucky. Rita O’Grady, the gutsy woman who leads fellow women workers out on strike for equal pay in Made in Dagenham, and as Jasmine’s sister, Ginger, in Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine. Another challenging role awaits her in Maudie playing the eponymous disfigured woman who works as a housekeeper while practising her skills as an artist and to become a respected figure in the community. The only thing that Mat Kirkby had in common with the film’s narrative was that he once worked at a call centre. Mat has previously made award winning commercials and he has also directed campaigns for Nike and Playstation etc. Prior to making The Phone Call he directed the Short Hard to Swallow. The Phone Call is excellent and with it Mat Kirkby has definitely confirmed his place as a director to watch. The Phone Call is the must-see movie of the year! 18


COMING SOON DECEMBER–FEBRUARY HERE IS THE RUNDOWN OF THE FILMS THAT YOU CAN EXPECT TO GET EXCITED ABOUT OVER THE NEXT THREE MONTHS.

BIG EYES Directed by Tim Burton Stars: Amy Adams. Christoph Waltz. A drama centred on the awakening of the painter Margaret Keane, her phenomenal success in the 1950s and the subsequent legal difficulties she had with her husband who claimed credit for her works. UK RELEASE: December 26

THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING Directed by James Marsh Stars: Eddie Redmayne. Felicity Jones. A look at the relationship between the famous physicist Stephen Hawking and his wife Jane. UK RELEASE January 1

BIRDMAN OR (THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE) Directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. Stars: Michael Keaton. Edward Norton. A washed-up actor who once played an iconic superhero must overcome his ego and family trouble as he mounts a Broadway play in a bid to reclaim his past glory. UK RELEASE January 2

INHERENT VICE Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Stars: Joaquin Phoenix. Jena Malone. In 1970, drug-fuelled Los Angeles Detective Larry Sportello investigates the disappearance of a former girlfriend. UK RELEASE January 30

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INTO THE WOODS Directed by Rob Marshall Stars: Meryl Streep. Anna Kendrick. Johnny Depp. A witch conspires to teach important lessons to various characters of popular children’s stories including Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Rapunzel. UK RELEASE January 9

WHIPLASH Directed by Damien Chazelle Stars: Miles Teller. J.K. Simmons. A promising young drummer enrols at a cutthroat music conservatory where his dreams of greatness are mentored by an instructor who will stop at nothing to realize a student’s potential. UK RELEASE January 16

THE SALVATION Directed by Kristian Levrig Stars: Mads Mikkelson. Eva Green. In 1870s America, a peaceful American settler kills his family’s murderer which unleashes the fury of a notorious gang leader. His cowardly fellow townspeople then betray him forcing him to hunt down the outlaws alone. UK RELEASE February 13

THE 2ND BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL Directed by John Madden Stars: Maggie Smith. Bill Nighy. Richard Gere. Dev Patel. The expansionist dream of Sonny and its making more claims on his time than he has available. UK RELEASE February 27

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DVD’S MbM’s Recommendations for XMAS Presents Film lovers are really quite easy to please when it comes to buying presents, so unless they have specifically requested an ARRI LT 35mm camera, or a film course at the New York Film School or at Raindance...or you can afford to buy them their own art house cinema...then the practical options would be DVDs. Ah, but which ones? Well, MbM has selected a short list of five DVDs of films which have been reviewed and praised this year; each one will list the special features available as extras on the discs.

SALVO GOD HELP THE GIRL BEGIN AGAIN MOOD INDIGO THE FAULT IN OUR STARS 21


SALVO Directed by Fabio Grassadonia & Antonio Piazza Starring: Saleh Bakri, Luigi Lo Cascio, Sara Serraiocco. Salvo is a body guard and hit man for a Mafioso. After foiling an attack on his employer, Salvo hunts down the man who organised it and encounters the man’s blind sister. She causes him to question himself and his existence. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hFutsiH1Q

EXTRAS · Short film “Rita” · The making of · Interview with directors and cast.

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GOD HELP THE GIRL Directed by Stuart Murdoch Starring: Emily Browning, Olly Alexander, Hannah Murray. As Eve begins writing songs as a way to sort through some emotional problems, she meets James an d Cassi, two musicians each at crossroads of their own. www.imdb.com/title/tt2141751/?ref-nv_se_1

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Theatrical trailer The making of origins, castings/ music Filming begins Completion Belle and Sebastian open exchange gig. Music/video


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BEGIN AGAIN Directed by *John Carney Starring: Keira Knightley, Mark Ruffalo, Adam Levine. A chance encounter between a disgraced music business executive and a young singer-songwriter new to Manhattan turns into a promising collaboration between the two talents.

EXTRAS Music/Videos The making of “Begin Again� *Seven years after his very successful film Once he pulls off another inspiring feel-good experience.

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MOOD INDIGO Directed by Michel Gondry Starring: Romain Duris, Audrey Tautou, Omar Sy. From the most imaginative film director today comes this beautiful fantastic love story. Wealthy, inventive bachelor Colin endeavours to find a cure for his lover Chloe after she’s diagnosed with an unusual illness caused by a flower growing in her lungs.

EXTRAS · Behind Michel Gondry · From the film to the book · The animated letter from Michel to Audrey · Deleted scenes · In the head of Michel Gondry · Creation of sets · Costumes · About the novel 28


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THE FAULT IN OUR STARS Directed by Josh Boone Starring: Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort. Two teens, both who have different cancer conditions, fall in love after meeting at a cancer support group. Screenplay is by Scott Neustadter & Michael H Webber, writers of 500 Days of Summer.

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Our Stars Audio Commentary by Josh Boone & John Green

Our little infinity

Scribe on set

The music behind our star

Stills gallery

Theatrical trailer


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Movies by Mills is an independent production for the promotion of Art House Movies around the world.

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