Following a sensational surprise appearance at last year’s Halloween BUG music-video special, John Landis returns to the BFI Southbank stage to discuss his work on such modern-day classics as The Blues Brothers, Animal House and An American Werewolf In London.
Tickets are scarce, but call the box-office now… you just never know your luck.
John Landis in Conversation, Tue 16 Mar, 20:15pm, NFT1
That’s right, The Human Rights Watch Film Festival is back for its 14th year, with 28 films from 20 countries showing from tomorrow until 26 March.
Highlights include The Balibo Conspiracy starring Anthony LaPaglia, an engaging thriller about five Australian journalists who go missing during Indonesia’s invasion of Timor in 1975; Raoul Peck’s Haiti-set Shakespearan tragedy Moloch Tropical; and the thought-provoking The Sun Behind the Clouds - Tibet’s Struggle for Freedom.
Closed Societies: Iran and North Korea, Accountability and Justice, and Development and Migration are the main themes explored by this year’s selection.
Showing 17-26 March at The Ritzy, ICA, Curzon Soho and Curzon Mayfair.
For more information, go to the Human Rights website.
With Michael Jackson’s final swansong This Is It doing record business, there’s no getting around the fact that late King of Pop is a moneymaking machine even beyond the grave. Spare a thought then to all those impersonators who have had to change their repertoire since Jacko’s untimely passing.
Well, that’s what went through my head when I watched Mister Lonely, the surreal drama from Gummo director, Harmony Korine. Made back in 2007, whilst Jacko was still with us, Korine’s indie stars Diego Luna as Michael, a Latino Jacko impersonator working the streets Paris.
After meeting another impersonator, Marilyn Monroe (Samantha Morton), Michael (whose terrible act reminded me of Leigh Francis in Bo’ Selecta!) is invited to stay at her Highland home - a grand estate and farm which operates as a commune for those lost souls who prefer to live as somebody else.
Amongst those living there are Marilyn’s husband and daughter, Charlie Chaplin and Shirley Temple, Abe Lincoln, Our Gang’s Buckwheat (who wants to live like a chicken), Queen Elizabeth II (Anita Pallenberg), and the Pope (Edward Fox).
But the idyllic commune is soon hit with drama as the farm’s sheep herd become diseased and must be slaughtered; the locals keep away from the commune’s big talent show; and Charlie shows his abusive side when Marilyn starts falling for Michael.
While the love triangle is well explored, the other characters are little more than decoration or a visual joke (the Queen and the Pope in bed together was hilarious). And, although I liked the profanity-uttering Abe Lincoln, I really wanted the other actors - particularly Pallenberg and Fox who were appearing together for the first time since Performance - to stretch their acting muscles. It was also a very odd choice making a 21st-century kid choose to be a 1940s child star.
Still Korine’s Mister Lonely is a heart-felt drama that’s beautiful to look at and a brave attempt at trying something different.
And did I mention the flying nuns? What happens to them is pure Buñuel.
Released 8 March
Lewis Carroll’s 1865 literary classic, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and its 1871 companion, Through the Looking-Glass, has spawned some 20 film adaptations over the years, including a Japanese anime, an adult-only musical and even a Danny Dyer crime drama.
As Tim Burton’s eye-popping 3D take on the classic tale opens in UK cinemas, we head down the rabbit hole for a retro look at some of the best Alice adaptations, many of which make up a season of films at the BFI in London…
1903 - Alice in Wonderland (Silent)
Recently restored by the BFI National Archive, this 8-minute 1903 version was made some 37 years after the publication of Carroll’s tale. You can now view it for free on the BFI website.
1933 - Alice in Wonderland
This star-studded Paramount version features Cary Grant as the Mock Turtle, Gary Cooper as the White Knight and WC Fields as Humpty-Dumpty. Very odd indeed, it takes a liberal approach to Carroll’s works, while offering up a heady dose of the surreal. Showing 12 & 14 March, NFT
1949 - Alice in Wonderland
This dreamlike Anglo-French adaptation blends live action and stop-animation in a faithful interpretation of the tale. Beautifully designed, set in an absurdist Wonderland, and filled with an eccentric gallery of grotesques. Showing 5, 7 & 9 March, NFT
1951 - Walt Disney’s Alice in Wonderland
Disney’s colourful animation was met with a hostile reception on its initial release, with British critics accusing Disney of Americanising Carroll’s work. But it still remains a vivid recreation of the classic tale, with some of the best songs ever to appear in a Disney film. Althogther now, ‘A very merry unbirthday to you…’ Available on DVD.
1965 - Alice
This Dennis Potter TV drama mixes biographical detail with fiction to explore the relationship between 10-year-old Alice and the Reverend Charles Dodgson. Showing 11 & 15 March, NFT
1966 - Alice in Wonderland
Actors dress in period garb rather than costumes in the curiously dreamlike BBC adaptation, that includes a stellar cast including Wilfred Brambell, Alan Bennett and Michael Gough. Showing 9 & 13 March, NFT
1972 - Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
This is one of the most lavish adaptations. The cast is a who’s-who of British talent, with Peter Sellers as the March Hare, Michael Crawford as the White Rabbit, and Dudley Moore as Dormouse. The extravagant spectacle also boasts a great score by the legendary John Barry and BAFTA-winning cinematography by Geoffrey Unsworth. Released 8 March (Oracle Home Entertainment)
1985 - Dreamchild
In 1932, Alice Liddell Hargreaves (a standout performance by Coral Browne) travels to New York aged 80 to attend a celebration of the centenary of Dodgson’s birth. Haunted by childhood events, Alice recalls the questionable attentions of the shy Dodgon (Ian Holm). Potter’s script is dark and complex and the film is filled with bizarre Jim Henson creatures. Showing 9 & 16 March, NFT
1988 - Alice
Czech puppeteer Jan Svankmejer’s adaptation is creepy and disturbing with a live-action Alice entering a wonderland filled with threatening stop motion characters and eventually becoming a doll herself. Showing 13 & 17 March, NFT
2010 - Alice in Wonderland
As so we are brought up to date with Burton’s big-budget 3D version. The all-star cast included Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway, Helen Bonham Carter, Crispin Glover and Mia Wasikowska as Alice. But will it become a memorable classic or has Burton gone a step too far favouring re-imaginings (like his pointless Planet of the Apes) over his own wonderful creations like Edward Scissorhands? Here’s what MovieTalk’s Jason Best had to say. Click here.
On general release from 5 March.
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Being a huge fan of crap movies, especially ones involving mutant animals on the rampage (Night of the Lepus, Empire of the Ants, and Prophecy spring to mind), I couldn’t wait to get my hands on Zombeak, the new horror comedy about a satanic killer zombie chicken. Oh how I was so disappointed.
In a plot that recalls Kenny Everett’s Bloodbath at the House of Death, a group of satanists, dressed like they just stepped out of a comic book, kidnap a waitress they want to use to raise Satan. But their plans go awry when Lucifer ends up possessing a sacrifical chicken. Cue: a very bad hand puppet attacking the cast who scream out their dialogue as though this was an episode of South Park.
Zombeak looks like a bad porn movie made on someone’s home computer. Even the special effects are just the fireworks setting on some cheap editing software.
An ‘orgy of violence’. Give me a break, even Night of the Lepus wasn’t this bad and at least that had Lana Turner in it. This is just a turd. For a better horror comedy that was made on a home computer, check out AA De Wynter’s hilarious homage to the Dr Phibes’ films in Vincent Resurrectus: Riddle of the Maps.
Released 1 March
From director Humberto Solas comes the 1968 Cuban political drama Lucia, three stories from three different periods of the country’s history, each from a different woman’s perspective.
In the first, Lucia is the unmarried, middle-aged daughter of wealthy plantation owners. It is 1895, and the war of independence against Spain rages through the country. When the idle Lucia falls for a handsome spy, the war soon becomes a gritty reality as Lucia finds herself torn between love and loyalty. The episode ends with a brutal bloody battle between naked natives and Spanish invaders, witnessed by a horrified Lucia.
The second story takes place in 1932, during the dictatorship of Gerardo Machado y Morales. Pretty young Lucia, bored by her bourgeois existence, falls in love and marries the revolutionary Aldo. Told in flashback, the story shows how Lucia is drawn into Aldo’s world of demonstrations and bloody assassinations. But when Machado is ousted, the revolutionary party is soon overtaken by its own orgy of excess (in a brilliant nod to Bunuel and Fellini).
The final story takes place in the 1960s following the people’s revolution. Lucia is a farm-worker who marries revolutionary comrade, Tomas. Cuba’s most patriotic song Guantanamera is then used to illustrate Lucia’s journey as her happiness is soon destroyed by Tomas’ jealousy and abusive treatment.
Solas’ political trilogy is an illuminating insight into Cuban national identity, leading up to and following the revolution. At two-and-a-half hours long, it’s a lengthy process that needs to be watched in parts to fully appreciate.
The acting is stylised - if a little over theatrical; the cinematography and editing a mixture of documentary and the surreal; while Solas makes brilliant use of the locations - crumbling mansions, war ravaged towns, fog-shrouded mountains.
Watching this landmark in Cuban cinema, I felt I was seeing a true talent at work, and one who has taken note of the grand masters of the art form, especially the Marxist director, Pasolini, who he greatly resembles.
Its 1990, Margaret Thatcher was on her way down, but the Tories were still strangling Britain as well as the human rights of gays and lesbians throughout the land. Visionary director Derek Jarman, who was living with AIDS at the time, was given the opportunity to adapt Christopher Marlowe’s dusty old 16th-play Edward II, about the British king whose open affair with his lover Piers Gaveston led to his murder, orchestrated by his wife, Queen Isabella of France, and her lover, Roger Mortimer.
To be queer in cinema in the 1990s was almost impossible as this was a period when gays were being demonised as carriers of a deadly plague. So it was with guts and determination that Jarman made this grim 16th-century drama, and dedicated it the repeal of all anti-gay laws. No longer would queer love be the love that dare not speak its name.
Due to funding being pulled at the last minute, only four sets were built for the film, which was shot at Bray studios, once the home of Hammer. But with ingenious use of lighting and terrific performances (Steven Waddington plays the king like a tough cagefighter, while Tilda Swinton is the ice queen personified), Jarman’s tinkering of Marlowe’s original text comes into its own. The minimalism here really pays off, and the sexual imagery makes this ‘more an Elizabethan lay than an Elizabethan play’ to quote Jarman himself.
With Edward II, Jarman wanted to lock the closet key firmly on the Tories. Using anachronistic imagery – modern dress (the military wear 1950s fatigues, while Swinton’s queen is dressed like Princess Grace complete with Hermes handbag), real-life gay activists battling riot police, and Annie Lennox singing Cole Porter - he parallels the injustice to the King with the prevailing homophobia of the day.
Today, Edward II, which gets a remastered Second Sight DVD release, remains a powerful testament to Jarman’s artistry. It also makes you aware just how far the rights of gays and lesbian have progressed in the past 19 years, helped greatly by Jarman and visionary activists like him.
Released 1 March
What do you do when you’re a highly-paid Premier League footballer with some spare dosh lying around? How about making a movie? Well, that’s exactly what Rio Ferdinand and Ashley Cole have done with the cracking buddy road movie Dead Man Running.
Danny Dyer (so perfect as the cocky East End lad he doesn’t ever need to do anything else) is Bing Keen, the best mate of Nick (Tamer Hassen, soon to be seen as Ares in Clash of the Titans), who has just 24-hours to pay £100,000 to a US loan shark (Curtis ‘50 Cent‘ Jackson in need of some acting lessons) or else he and his dear mum (Brendan Blethyn in a spot-on comical role) will be heading for a shallow grave.
What follows is fast-paced race against time as our anti-heroes race around some iconic London sights – and the outskirts of Manchester - making dodgy deals with some suitably mad characters, including jive-talking yardies, a Scottish drug dealer with a love of soft furnishings, and even Omid Djalili (surrounded by a bevy of busty burlesque dancers). But every time our two dodgy geezers get their hands on some bags (cash, that is), someone steals it from them. Now that’s just not sporting, is it?
Predictable but fun, Dead Man Running is the ultimate blokes film. With more swaggering than a Guy Ritchie movie, you can almost smell the testosterone as Nick and Bing banter, bicker and bond as they hit the road. Thank god Brendan Blethyn’s around to bring some style to the proceedings - her housebound hostage drama at the hands of Philip Davis’ gunman is worthy of a movie in its own right.
Perfect viewing just before a night out with the boys.
Rising new Aussie director Steven Kastrissios makes a powerful debut with The Horseman, a bloody, brutal revenge drama starring Peter Marshall (in a standout role) as the grief-stricken dad out to avenge his daughter’s death at the hands of some seedy pornographers.
This is Death Wish meets Get Carter mixed with a heavy dose of graphic violence guaranteed to make your temperature rise and your blood boil.
You want to know why The Horseman is the best revenge drama in years? Then check out my full review by clicking here.
Having already helmed the visceral slasher Creep and the comedy horror flick Severance, director Christopher Smith tries his hand at suspense in his latest offing, Triangle, an inventive addition to the genre which gets its DVD and Blu-ray release on 1 March.
Filmed in Australia, but set in Florida (basically for the all-important US market), the film stars Melissa George as Jess, the struggling single mum of an autistic boy, who just cannot shake the feeling that something is wrong when she goes on a sailing trip.
When the yacht is capsized during a freak storm, the sailing party board a seemingly deserted ocean liner, but Jess’s growing feeling of deja vu begins to move ever closer towards a horrible realisation.
Having seeing this release at its UK premiere last year, I was bowled-over by Smith’s plotting of the film’s events, and now with the new DVD/Blu-ray release, it’s great to revel in the chilling atmospherics all over again.
Part Greek tragedy, part The Shining… this ghost ship in The Twilight Zone is guaranteed to give you the shivers and keep you guessing right up to the end.
Special features include: The Making of Triangle, Audio commentary with director Christopher Smith; three storyboards; deleted scenes; competition winners poster design; and The Storm special effects featurette.
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