Issue 6
October 2013
SAIORSE RONAN FILM OF THE MONTH - HOW I LIVE NOW + Q&A BEST OF RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 50 YEARS A FILM CRITIC – PHILLIP FRENCH FilmFest Follower Arthouse Ambiance DVD of the Month
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EDITORIAL SAIORSE RONAN MbM’s cover star this month rocketed to success in Joe Wright’s “Atonement” as Briony Tallis, a thirteen year old girl who accuses her sister’s lover of a crime he did not commit. Four years later she played a girl raised by her father to be an assassin in Wes Anderson’s “Hanna”. So Saiorse is no stranger to portraying tough young women and in her latest film, “How I Live Now” she again has to face unknown dangers to survive in a third world war. MbM was fortunate to be at a preview screening of the film as well as the Q & A with Saiorse, the film’s director Kevin Macdonald and its screenwriter Penelope Skinner and you can eavesdrop on that in this issue of MbM. MbM also attended the 21st annual celebration of independent film held at the Vue Piccadilly and selected from its rich and varied programme two films to review and what four stars films they were: “2 Jacks” directed by Bernard Rose, adapting a Tolstoy short story into a glamorous trip through Hollywood with Danny Huston playing a film director trying to finance his latest project. “Twenty Million People” was the other film to get passionate about. It is a charming feel-good movie about a cynical young guy who does not believe in soul mates, but of course his thinking is totally turned upside down when he falls deeply in love. Written and directed and starring Michael Ferrell. The added attraction to Raindance is that the stars are not reserved for the big screen but will invariably be sitting in the audience with you. One of the doyens of film criticism: Phillip French received a BFI Fellowship at the NFT. 50 Years a Film Critic looks at that event and pays tribute to one of Britain’s greatest reviewers of film. Regular readers will know the importance that this magazine gives to film festivals where most of the greatest films ever made are first seen, so there is a list of 60 film festivals around the world to entice you to visit some day. My thanks to Josh Cockcroft of Entertainment One, Tessa Conway-Holland of Curzon World, Michael Ferrell, Chris Prine, Devin Sanchez, Living Boy Productions, Raindance Film Festival and to Paul Ridler for his patience and expertise in designing the look of MbM. And...of course to you the reader who are kind enough to share this passionately produced monthly magazine to fellow film lovers, filmmakers and friends. Enjoy the read
Brian Mills 3
HOW I LIVE NOW Spoiler Alert
The screen adaptation of the award-winning young adult novel by Meg Rosoff and directed by Kevin MacDonald promises a lot and exceeds expectations. Daisy (Saoirse Ronan) is a fifteen year old American who was born into the world at the expense of the life of her mother, a trauma she has really never come to terms with, but endeavours to camouflage her feelings with a hardened and defiant attitude to life but struggles with the constant voices in her head; negating most opportunities and causing her to follow a regimen of rules. She has been despatched by her father to spend the summer with her aunt and cousins at their farm in the English countryside. At first she is cold and distant to her host’s warmth and kindness: preferring to stay in her room, refusing to go fishing or swimming with them but then she meets Edmond(George MacKay) her older cousin and her admiration for his quiet and manly protectiveness intrigues her and her feelings soon turn to love. Suddenly their idyllic summer romance is st shattered by the outbreak of a 21 century world war and they are forced to fend for themselves. When the invaders arrive at the farm, Daisy and Edmond are brutally separated. Daisy’s goal is to be with him again and she embarks on a desperate 4
journey with her youngest cousin Piper, an adventure which is fraught with danger. An exhausted Piper declares that once she gets home she is never going to walk again. The cast, music and direction are superb, but it really is the stand-out performance by Saiorse Ronan as Daisy that ignites the screen. This young actress always delivers regardless of whether the material is good or bad. The preview screening of the film at the Curzon Mayfair was followed by a Q & A with the director Kevin Macdonald, actress Saiorse Ronan and screenwriter Penelope Skinner. The following is an edited version of that Q & A. Q: Penelope you are one of four writers who worked on the screenplay and I’m curious to know how you worked with Kevin on the development of the screenplay and how it went through various stages and the challenges that you faced? P: I could hear a voice when I read it for the first time and with the book. When I read the script it felt that it didn’t have a voice even though she was there you couldn’t hear her voice. KM: I think that was a reaction to how to deal with the problem of the novel and that the novel is first person narrative and Daisy tells us but doesn’t tell anyone else. And you have a short space of time to learn who she is before the war breaks out. So an awful lot has to happen in the first 35 minutes. You have the third world war, you have her arriving from America, falling in love, getting to the stage when she doesn’t want to go back to America, all this has to happen incredibly quickly. SR: Like you were saying the other day as well. All the little snippets of information you receive about her past. 5
The relationship with her father, her mother, and what happened to her mother. Why this place is so important to her. She is being broken down in every sense for herself, for Eddie and the audience too. Q: What really captures the essence in the film of the book is having this voice-over. I haven’t seen this in a film before of having this barrage of thoughts and emotions suddenly hitting the audience in the same way as in the book. How far in the script were you when that process came about? KM: Well, Penny put that idea in, but we had no idea of what the noise in her head was. It was really the last thing that you wrote. We had the idea that Eddie calms this tortured frantic thinking. We had this line “All that noise inside your head”. But we didn’t know whether that noise was going to be screeches or crashes or whether it was going to be verbal. Q: Your film is a dystopian sci-fi film. What fascinated you about the story and attracted you to it? KM: Well you think of dystopian sci-fi films and you think of New York with dinosaurs, smashing cars, knocking down buildings and that is the end of the world as Hollywood has imagined it. Yet in this book, it is third world war in the countryside. You don’t really see what is happening and that to me was much more interesting, much more British, much more scary in a way because you don’t really see when they are stopped at the checkpoint and confronted by the terrorists in the film, you don’t know what language they speak, what their faces are like...they are in the distance, so that ambiguity is frightening. SR: The film is very intimate. The first five weeks of shooting...it was just the 6
goats, the dogs, the cows and the cat. And I think what changed the energy so much that made it very authentic on the first day we shot was the breakfast scene. We had got to know each other over a couple of weeks but we hadn’t properly acted before together. And I think because the way that first half of the film was shot and was so spontaneous and cameras were shooting and they just ran around the kitchen to cover something different every time, so we never knew if we were going to be on camera four seconds in or whether it was going to be on Harley or whatever. So your energy had to be there but it was very natural. As we went on, the relationships you saw on the screen were genuine and we loved each other and became incredibly close. It was like a summer camp. The questions were then opened up to the audience: Q: How much of the rich nature that was in the book did you decide to include in the film? KM: The book is about the beautiful English countryside even though it was filmed in Wales. The first half of the film is very organic and handheld cameras, while the second half is much colder looking. The cameras were more observing, more objective, static and of course nature changes. Q: How much pressure were you under in making the film? KM: I don’t think we were under any pressure. Nice thing about making for Film4 here is we got to make the film we wanted to make. There was no one pushing us to do otherwise. We took out a lot of dialogue because we found it was unnecessary. We had a lot of fun creating the sound, creating a new world. Q: In the book the character is American and how did you adapt to that. 7
SR: She is supposed to be from New York and spent time in Boston. But I think that is important for Daisy’s DNA. I was born there and even though I am not clearly a New Yorker but I think that when we were on the look of Daisy one of the things that really helped me was to bring the attitude of who she was in the beginning of the film, was the confidence that you get and New Yorkers are confident and you get the feel that she is from a place that is strong and fierce, even though it may be for her a false confidence KM: What worked really well is the response to her from the other characters to this New Yorker, they are so jolly. SR: I think they are fascinated by her and to her she is quite intimidated by them because they are not simple English folks, they are Bohemian, open minded in a way, relaxed in who they are and she is not that way at all. Q: Saorise, looking back on your films you seem to play strong characters. SR: I think I really respect the characters that I play. I have never wanted to play the girl next door. I don’t find they are very interesting to read unless they have something going on behind their eyes. One thing I really respond to is an air of mystery and whether that is just a mystery for me that I can hold onto and the character may be very up front to the audience. I need to have something to unlock. It keeps me attracted and makes me want to care, to figure out who the person is. Q: Kevin, thinking about your films, not just features, but characters like in “State of Play” that are mavericks? KM: I think mavericks are interesting, lead interesting lives. I think we always 8
like to think of ourselves, whether it is in a police series or whatever as that person who breaks rules. Q: Kevin, you mentioned about Film4 and how easy it was with them. Is that unusual to have that freedom? And to all of you, do you find it unusual to have that sense of freedom, as a screenwriter, as an actress? KM: That is the great thing about Film4. You know in France, for example, as long as you are making a film for a certain amount of money and the risks are not too enormous, that you are often allowed to just get on with it. In Hollywood there is so much money at stake...and I had different experiences when I made films for more money. PS: This is the first time I have ever worked as a screenwriter. SR: I think there is always more pressures for directors and producers because you don’t know what goes on behind the scenes. I mean I haven’t really done big budget films but I think the stress levels in the producer’s eyes are more when there is more money involved. I think you are more creative when there is less money because you just have to make do with what you’ve got. It is like with this film, I think Kevin said the other night that if we had millions to spend there would be special effect shots. KM: And it would have made it look like all the other dystopian films. SR: Yes, and there would be pressures visually but the fact is...it wouldn’t have been this film and I don’t think it would have been as powerful. I think the power of suggestion is a great thing. It gives the audience something to think about and with less money to spend that is sometimes better. 9
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60 FILM FESTIVALS 1 CANNES 2 TORONTO 3.VENICE 4.SUNDANCE 5.HONG KONG 6.BERLIN 7 KARLOVY VARY 8 LONDON 9.TRIBECA 10.MELBOURNE 11.EDINBURGH 12 ROTTERDAM 13.SYDNEY 14 PUSAN 15 SAN SEBASTIAN 16 PALM SPRINGS 17 DUBAI 18 ROME 19 LOCARNO 20 BAHAMAS 21 MAR DEL PLATA 22 CLEVELAND 23 BEIJING 24 MIAMI 25 PORTLAND 26 HEARTLANDS 27 DALLAS 28 SAN FRANCISCO 29 SEATTLE 30 LOS ANGELES
31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60
MUNICH AUCKLAND NEW YORK RAINDANCE TACOMA WARSAW SHANGHAI DUBLIN THESSALONIKA TOKYO STOCKHOLM MUMBAI MEXICO BANGKOK CAIRO MILAN DAMASCUS MOSCOW SARAJEVO TORINO CHICAGO HAWAII HELSINKI SHETLAND VANCOUVER TRAVERSE CITY BAHAMAS HAMPTONS INTERNATIONAL BOULDER ANN ARBOR
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RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL TWO JACKS Spoiler Alert
The protagonist is Jack Hussar (Danny Huston) a washed-up filmmaker, womaniser, heavy drinker and gambler who comes to Hollywood to try to get finance for his new movie. In the second half of the movie, many years later, we are witnessing Jack’s son, also named Jack, and played by Huston’s real-life nephew Jack Huston. What struck me most about this film was the way it looked. The images of the first half of the movie are amazingly beautiful: black and white tinged with various colours and all created in post production in the editing using a Canon 7D. The second half of the film is shot in colour which looks like a shabby substitute after the affects of Hussar’s sequences. Attending the screening was the film’s writer, director and DOP, Bernard Rose, actors Danny Huston and Laura Cleary, and producer Julia Verdin. 13
Two Jacks is based on a short story by Leo Tolstoy, The Two Hussars, and continues Rose’s attraction to filming Tolstoy. Production budget was low because Rose made the film on location in LA and in someone’s home. The cast included Jacqueline Bisset, Sienna Miller, Billy Zane and Richard Portnow. There are many memorable sequences, a spectacular dance sequence for one and with the hypnotic images, I found the film as seductive as Sienna Miller’s character Diana. The downside is that like a lot of films it at present does not have a UK distributor, so MbM will be championing it all the way until it finds an arthouse release. Mention must be made too about the soundtrack. Rose decided to go for Russian music and the balalaika added vibrancy to the film. I cannot leave this review without letting you see a glimpse of the film’s look www.youtube.com/watch?=LwtVEnRMzUM Now can you see what I mean? What an inspiration this is for budding filmmakers. Like Bernard Rose said “It is all about commitment”.
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RAINDANCE TWENTY MILLION PEOPLE This quirky and charming romantic comedy looks at the heartache that guys go through when their girlfriends leave them and what desperate steps they may take to get them back. Brian is a perpetual pessimist when it comes to love; he does not believe in soul mates and jokes about the absurdity of such a notion. This is of little help to Edward his best friend who does believe in soul mates and has just lost his when she leaves him to be with her folks. Everything seemed to change after they showed a romantic comedy for the ‘film night’ at the Jersey City coffee shop where Brian reluctantly works until something better comes along. Slowly he begins to question his ideas on relationships when he starts dating Ashley a stand-up comic and falls in love with her. But then, without rhyme or reason, Ashley disappears, gone, vaporised into thin air. Brian enlists the help of broken hearted Edward and the fictional characters from the romantic comedy to find her. 17
Twenty Million People is a fun-filled film about ‘real’ people rather than ‘reel’ people. It is like a meet-up with friends that you knew and shared good times with. The film was made on a shoestring budget using the crowd-funding site, www.Indiegogo.com to raise funds. On the end credits a long list of names of people who helped to get the movie made are named. Reminiscent of 500 Days of Summer, TMP is delightfully entertaining and the dialogue is crisp and clever and undoubtedly Woody Allen inspired. In the majority of romantic comedies the view of broken-hearted lovers is seen from the woman’s perspective, the male seemingly incapable of being sad and merely accepting the break-up and moving on to the next relationship. But here we have a story of two guys who have been told that it is all over, or in the case of Brian not being told but left without a reason. I am sure there are many who can relate to Brian’s pain and revisit the moment when their lovers packed their bags and walked out on them. It could happen to you and more than probably has but hey, you will find someone else...there are twenty million people out there.
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ARTHOUSE AMBIANCE THE CURZON MAYFAIR The Curzon Cinema Mayfair is part of the Curzon World Group, one of six of its art-house cinemas and promoted as its jewel in the crown, and that jewel is a diamond. It originally opened in 1934 and was family run. It was instrumental in bringing awareness to cinema patrons of international films as a result of screening Max Ophuls’ “La Ronde”. The birth of Curzon Cinemas began in May 1934. It had a 492 seat auditorium with a raised section containing luxury ‘club’ seats and luxury blue carpets and velveted armchairs. In September 1939 the cinema was closed for refurbishment but due to the war it stayed closed and was taken over for army screenings. During that time the lease was acquired by Harold Wingate and has remained in the family ever since. After the war, the Wingates became distributors for foreign films, bringing classics like De Sica’s “Bicycle Thieves“, and Truffaut’s “The 400 Blows” to its London audiences. Come 1963 the cinema closed and the building demolished to make way for an office block which would include a cinema. In 1966 the new Curzon opened with “Viva Maria” starring 21
Jeanne Moreau and Brigitte Bardot. The cinema now boasted having a larger 500 seat auditorium, a 43-foot by 20-foot screen and Royal Boxes. In 2002, the rear seats were converted and a second screen was installed, offering a wider selection of films. Today The Curzon is a twin screen. Screen One: 311 Seats (2 wheelchair spaces) + 2 Royal Boxes with 4 seats in each. 35mm projection, 2K digital projection from Deremi server, Beta SP and Digibeta, Blue-ray, DVD and 3D Screen Two. 101 seats. 2K digital projection from GDC server. Beta SP and Digibeta, Blu-ray, DVD, Data, mini DV and 3D available. 12 film premieres at the Curzon Mayfair each year – often red carpet, celebrity affairs. The Curzon Mayfair celebrated its 75th birthday in 2009. It is a Grade II listed building. 22
50 YEARS A FILM CRITIC PHILLIP FRENCH “Phillip French published his first film column for The Observer in 1963. He has been our finest writer by far of regular film criticism, receptive, beguiling, well informed alert to the visual as well as the literary, unpretentious and particularly good at putting over the experience of watching films. His column has been a weekly antidote to all those reviewers who are over enthusiastic and those who are under enthusiastic. And of course there have been the books: “The Movie Moguls”, “Westerns”, “I Found it at the Movies”. On his announcement of his retirement, there were warm messages from fellow critics, filmmakers: Martin Scorcese, Walter Hill, Nicolas Roeg, John Boorman, Mike Leigh and Ken Loach”, so introduced Sir Christopher Frayling, author of a string of books on Spaghetti Westerns, to the BFI’latest recipient of its Fellowship award – Phillip French. At the NFT he shared his favourite movie moments with a packed auditorium warmly welcoming him to the stage. Here are some of the highlights of the evening. CF: You said that in 1939 you became a discerning man at the age of six. PF: 1939 was the greatest year ever for cinema. I committed to memory fifty stars from a set of cigarette cards though I had never seen any of their films. My first experience of Dickins was David Lean’s Great Expectations and my first experience of Graham Greene was John Boulting’s Brighton Rock. CF: When you were an arts producer with the BBC you did a broadcast with Umberto Eco author of The Name of the Rose, do you remember that? PF: During the negotiations to go out to Milan to see Eco, he came back with the shortest message I’ve ever had. It just said “Ok. Eco.” CF: I remember too that he had a rather thick accent. During the interview he kept talking about the importance of Biggles. It is only when we transcribed it that we realized he was talking about the Beatles. First clip: STAGECOACH 1939. Scene: Ringo Kid faces off against the Plumber brothers and shoots them down. CF: Orson Welles said that when he was preparing Citizen Kane he watched those clips thirty times. And when asked who the old masters were he said: John Ford, John Ford, John Ford. 2nd Clip: The Third Man. 1949. Scene. A kitten finds Harry Lime in a doorway in The Third Man. Holly Martins, slightly drunk, sees a figure in the doorway on the opposite side of the street, a kitten by the man’s feet. Martin shouts out to him: “What kind of spy do you think you are, satchel-foot? Come out, come out, whoever you are.. A window opens and a woman shouts out in Austrian:”Be quiet. Go Away”. The light shines across straight onto the other man’s face. Martins recognizes him “Harry!” The light goes out and only Harry’s shoes are seen. Martin runs across the road towards him but is intercepted by a police car and the car comes between them and by the time it has passed, there is no sign of Harry Lime. CF: Your next three clips are about writers who are fascinated about cinema who made brief unaccredited appearances in some favourite films of yours. PF: I saw this when I was about ten, Double Indemnity. It was a very characteristic piece of writing by Raymond Chandler: a very weak man going towards the abyss, a theme of film noir. Having loved the books of Chandler, I even changed my name to Phillip because I loved Phillip Marlowe, making it my first name rather than my second. Fred McMurray walks past a man who is sitting there reading a newspaper and it is definitely Raymond Chandler, making an uncredited appearance, which no one recognized for over 50 years. 23
2nd clip is Performance. Borges, who was a very good film critic at one time and one of the few to lay into Citizen Kane. PF: Performance, one of the best British films ever made. Borges loved gangsters. The clip is about when a bullet goes into a man and suddenly Borges face appears. CF: You were one of the first to take Performance seriously in Sight & Sound I believe. PF: I had to explain the themes of Performance to Borges, who was then blind. 3rd Clip is Grahame Greene. I liked him after seeing Fallen Idol, The Third Man and Brighton Rock. He appears as Mr Johnson in Truffaut’s DAY FOR NIGHT. CF: What is realism? PF: Mike Leigh’s Secret and Lies A single shot between Marianne Jean-Baptiste & Brenda Blethyn at the kitchen table. It is highly cinematic. On stage they would have been given certain things to do. It grips you. Life can never grip you like a film can. Having those women actors reacting to each other and their circumstances becomes an effective kind of experience of the acting. CF: When you did a programme for BAFTA a few years ago, you mentioned Vera Drake, also by Mike Leigh and another single shot when she realizes what she has done as an abortionist. It is obviously a kind of realism that appeals to you. PF: A long way away from the fun and games of westerns. CF: The 4th Clip is from The Chess Players which brought together two of your favourite filmmakers: Richard Attenborough and Satajit Ray. PF: They are wonderful filmmakers and are culturally gifted. I think this is one of Attenborough’s best films. The idea came about chess, avoiding the chess game of life. It is beautifully edited. CF: Your review of Gandhi? PF: At the centre of this week’s major movie is a small bald bespectacled figure who walked with crowds, kept his virtue and worked with kings without losing the common touch and an astute politician with a sense of destiny and renowned for his modesty and revered by his followers as an almost saintly man. He is of course, Sir Richard Attenborough. CF: Final Clip is A Late Quartet. PF: The breakup of a string quartet when the leader leaves because of ill health and announces his retirement during Beethoven’s Opus OneNo.31 Christopher then opened the questions up to the audience. Q: Does it get you down having to watch bad movies? PF: I have a certain resilience. You can always learn something from even from the worst film. PF: Barbican –Bergman Women?. Arnold Wesker was rude by saying to get on with it and leave it to Liv Ullman. I cherish the moment because it confirmed my opinion about Arnold Wesker. Q: If you hadn’t seen all these movies who would you have relied on? PF: Graham Greene, Dilys Powell, C J Lejourne. Q: When you choose the main film of the week, how do you do that? And how important is it to stay at the end to read the credits? PF: The end of The Mission after the credits one full shot of Altamirano (Ray McAnally) giving the audience an accusing look. It is an image that remains with me. CF: Final Clip: Hannah and her Sisters. When he has hit rock bottom and is saved by a visit to The Metro Cinema New York. As a fellow of the BFI Phillip French now joins the illustrious company of past winners such as: David Lean, Satjajit Ray, Orson Welles, Laurence Olivier, Akira Kurosawa, Dilys Powell, Dirk Bogarde, Bette Davis, Graham Greene, Jeanne Moreau, Alec Guinness, Richard Attenborough, Clint Eastwood, Michangelo Antonioni,John Mills, Martin Scorsese, Michael Caine, Bernardo Bertolucci, Elizabeth Taylor, Abbas Kiarostami, Mike Leigh, John Hurt, Ridley Scott, Danny Boyle, Isabelle Huppert and Judi Dench. French is a Critic’s Critic. 62 years issues of Sight and Sound, adorn his library. French ended the evening by paraphrasing James Cagney “Made it Ma. Top of the World.” And top of the world he has been to his readers and fans around the world 24
FILMFEST FOLLOWER MbM RECOMMENDS 9th — 20th October
LONDON THE PAST
Directed by Aschar Farhadi. Starring: Berenice Bejo. Ali Mosaffa. Tahir Rahim. A man returns to Tehran to finalize the end of his marriage and begins to investigate the events of the past four years.
THE SPECTACULAR NOW Directed by James Ponsoldt Starring: Miles Teller. Shailene Woodley. A high school senior who thinks he has his life sorted until he meets a cute but definitely not cool girl who knows exactly what she wants.
CHINESE PUZZLE
Directed by Cedric Klapisch. Starring: Roman Duris. Audrey Tautou. Xavier follows his ex-wife to New York to be near their kids, to start over. Klapisch first introduced Xavier in “Pot Luck” and then again in “Russian Dolls”.
PHILOMENA
Directed by Stephen Frears. Starring:Judi Dench, Steve Carell. An Irish catholic woman tries to find her son more than fifty years after being forced to give him up and to live in a convent. 25
SAVING MR BANKS
Directed by John Lee Hancock. Starring: Tom Hanks. Emma Thompson. Paul Giamatti. An attempt by Walt Disney to buy the screenplay rights to the bestselling book “Mary Poppins” despite the author’s reluctance to sell.
ENOUGH SAID
Directed by Nicole Holofcener Starring: Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Toni Colette. James Gandolfini. A romantic comedy about the misfortunes of a divorcee, but things get complicated when she starts dating her new best friend’s husband.
GRAVITY
Directed by Alfonso Cuaron Starring: George Clooney. Sandra Bullock. An astronaut and a scientist attempt to return to Earth after debris crashes into their shuttle leaving them drifting alone in orbit.
THE INVISIBLE WOMAN Directed by Ralph Fiennes Starring: Ralph Fiennes. Felicity Jones. The story about Charles Dickins and his years-long secret love affair with a young actress.
INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS
Directed by Joel & Ethan Coen. Starring: Oscar Isaac. Carey Mulligan. Justin Timberlake. John Goodman. A penniless musician tries to make it as as a solo artist but struggles to break through despite earlier success. 26
11.6
Directed by Philippe Godeau. Starring: Francois Cluzet. Bouli Lannere. Corinne Masiero. In 2009 an armoured car driver made international headlines with a daring bank robbery which he carried out successfully without resorting to violence.
UNDER THE SKIN
Directed by Jonathan Glazer Starring: Scarlett Johansson. A strange but totally original journey into an alien world, its central character stalks down human prey with an insatiable drive until that is a routine pick-up kindles an empathetic response.
THE LUNCHBOX
Directed by Starring: Ritesh Batra Starring: Irrfan Khan. Namrat Kaur. A lunchbox sent through a courier service by a woman to her disgruntled husband ends up at the wrong man’s desk. The man eventually realizing the mistake sends a letter back to the woman and so begins a wonderful feel-good film.
NEBRASKA
Directed by Alexander Payne Starring: Bruce Dern. Will Forte. Woody (Dern) a forgetful old man, takes a trip from Montana to Nebraska with his son to collect a million dollars which he believes he has won, despite his son telling him otherwise. 27
2 AUTUMNS, 3 WINTERS
Directed by Sebastien Bertbeder. Starring: Vincent Macaigne. Maud Wyler. A comedy drama about love, chance and storytelling that has a distinctly nouvelle vague feel about it. Arman shares a passion for Judd Apalow movies with his best friend Benjamin. Then one day Arman’s life begins to change when he literally bumps into Maud.
GLORIA
Directed by Sebastian Lelio Starring: Paulina Garcia. A fifty-eight year old woman is a regular on the middle-aged singles scene meets a retired naval officer who may appear to be in search of a one-night stand but soon is besotted with her glamorous confident persona.
BERTOLUCCI ON BERTOLUCCI
Directed by Luca Guadagnino. Walter Fasano. A documentary on Bernardo Bertolucci including clips from hundreds of hours of archive material revealing a frank portrait into the director’s life.
CAPTAIN PHILLIPS
Directed by Paul Greengrass. Starring: Tom Hanks. Barkhad Abdi. A hijacking of a US container ship by a crew of Somali pirates 28
EXTRAS
DVD OF THE MONTH
POPULAIRE Directed by Regis Roinsard Starring: Romain Duris. Deborah Francais. Berinice Bejo.
FILM**** An insurance agent employs a new secretary but finds that she is hopeless at even the most basic clerical duties and he is about to dismiss her when he discovers that she can type and amazingly fast. So he hires her and trains her so that she can enter the regional speed typewriting writing contest. If there were ever a ‘huggable’ film – this is it. It has the charm of a Hollywood Doris Day movie and the get-off-your-seat thrill of competiveness.
EXTRAS None
Read the full remove in the first issue of Movies by Mills.
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