Film Club
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The Wrestler [RSC Film Club 31]
by LimeGreenLegend- 1 follower
- 2 replies
- 1k views
With the start of summer and the beginning of the European Football Championships, this month's film club is all about the sporting life. The winning film, nominated by @Con, is Darren Aronofsky's 2008 drama The Wrestler, starring Micky Rourke and Marisa Tomei. The film follows Rourke as Randy "The Ram" Robinson, a wrestler who was big in the 80s but is now well past his prime working small shows on the independent circuit as well as a part time job in a supermarket. He struggles with addiction, injuries and rocky relationships with his estranged daughter Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood) and stripper with a heart of gold Cassidy (Tomei). This is a superb fi…
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The Interview [RSC Film Club 30]
by LimeGreenLegend- 2 followers
- 4 replies
- 974 views
This month's film club is all about controversy, films that got people riled up for whatever reason. The winning film was nominated by @Beezand is the 2014 comedy The Interview, directed by Seth Rogen and and Evan Goldberg. The film stars James Franco and Seth Rogen as a talk show host and his producer who manage to arrange an interview with Supreme Leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un (Randall Park). When the CIA learn of this, they recruit the two to assassinate him. You can probably see where the controversy comes from here. A few months before it was released North Korea threatened action against the USA if it were to be. This led Sony to heavily edit th…
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Parasite [RSC Film Club 29]
by LimeGreenLegend- 1 follower
- 1 reply
- 1.3k views
This month we are celebrating the upcoming Academy Awards by watching a past winner. The category we were picking from was Best Director, after having previously done Best Picture and Best Actor with The French Connection and Judgment at Nuremburg respectively, with the winning film being the most recent recipient of the award, B0ng Joon-ho's Parasite. As well as winning the Oscar for Best Director Parasite also won Oscars for Best International Film, Best Original Screenplay (by B0ng and Han Jin-won) and was the first foreign language film to win Best Picture. It was also nominated for Production Design and Editing. Part black comedy, part thriller, …
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Atomic Blonde [RSC Film Club 28]
by LimeGreenLegend- 3 followers
- 14 replies
- 1.5k views
This month's winning genre and film come courtesy of @omarcomin71 who nominated Charlize Theron films, choosing Atomic Blonde as his film. Based on the graphic novel The Coldest City, Theron stars as Lorraine Broughton, an MI6 agent who has been tasked with finding a list of double agents being smuggled into the west on the eve of the collapse of the Berlin Wall. It is directed by David Leitch, former stuntman and uncredited co-director of John Wick. This is his first credited film, going on to direct Deadpool 2 and Fast and Furious: Hobbs and Shaw. This is a man who knows his action, so I'm expecting some good stuff here. This film also has a fantasti…
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Once Upon a Time in the West [RSC Film Club 27]
by LimeGreenLegend- 3 followers
- 9 replies
- 1.2k views
The category for this month's selection was the Sight and Sound director's poll of the 100 greatest film of all time. The winning film, chosen by @djw180 and @omarcomin71 placed at number 44 in the last poll from 2012 (the poll is conducted every ten years), Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West. This was the first film he made after the incredible The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, the last part of the Dollars trilogy, with this film being the first part of it's own trilogy of loosely connected films, the Once Upon a Time trilogy. I haven't seen any films from that trilogy so I'll leave it up to Sight and Sound to give a brief introduction and overview of…
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Can't Stop the Music [RSC Film Club 26]
by LimeGreenLegend- 3 followers
- 19 replies
- 1.6k views
Oh boy, we're starting 2021 off with a doozy. The winning, randomly drawn film for January is @Sinister's pick of Can't Stop the Music. Produced by Allan Carr, who had a small success with another musical a few years earlier, you may have heard of it - Grease, and directed by Nancy Walker, her only feature film directing credit, Can't Stop the Music is a fictional biopic of The Village People starring the group as themselves alongside a pre-Police Academy Steve Guttenberg and a pre-transition Caitlin Jenner. This is a film I have seen way more than it deserves, I could write my review now without re-watching it, so believe me when I tell you that it is bad. …
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Brazil [RSC Film Club 25]
by LimeGreenLegend- 3 followers
- 5 replies
- 1k views
And now for the alternative Christmas film selection, chosen by @djw180 and seconded by myself, the classic Terry Gilliam surreal satire, Brazil. Brazil stars Jonathan Pryce (Pirates of the Caribbean, The Two Popes) as Sam Lowry, an office drone for the Ministry of Information who has dreams of flying and a beautiful woman. One day a simple clerical error starts a chain of events that shakes up his world and introduces him to a memorable cast of characters as he tries to fight the system. This film has an amazing supporting cast including Ian Holm, Bob Hoskins, Jim Broadbent, Gilliam's Monty Python chum Michael Palin and Robert De Niro as the most badass heati…
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Home Alone [RSC Film Club 24]
by LimeGreenLegend- 3 followers
- 10 replies
- 1.4k views
It's time to get festive at the film club with a double bill of Christmassy goodness. First up, our traditional Christmas film, nominated by @Squirrel, the film that made Macaulay Culkin a superstar, Home Alone. Written by the king of 80s teen comedy, John Hughes (The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off) and directed by Chris Columbus (Mrs. Doubtfire, the first two Harry Potter films) Home Alone stars Culkin as Kevin, an 8 year old who is inadvertently left home alone when his family fly off to France for the holidays. Not only does he have to take responsibility for himself for the first time in his life, he also has to protect his home from opportunist…
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The Hunt for Red October [Film Club Extra 07]
by LimeGreenLegend- 3 followers
- 7 replies
- 1.4k views
The world lost a legend of cinema recently with the passing of Sir Sean Connery, so to celebrate his life and career the film club will be watching one of his classics. I think it's a testament to his acting ability and range that, despite being best known for playing James Bond, none of his 007 films were nominated. Instead there were nominations for a wide range of roles from across the decades, with the winner being nominated by @Squirrel, the Cold War thriller The Hunt for Red October. Directed by action movie legend John McTiernan, who also bought us Predator, Die Hard and The Last Action Hero, and based on a novel by Tom Clancy, Red October tells the sto…
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Mulholland Drive [RSC Film Club 23]
by LimeGreenLegend- 2 followers
- 1 reply
- 724 views
The month of November in the film club belongs to the legendarily strange director David Lynch, our second taste of his filmography after Dune. However, the winning film for this month is a much more Lynchian work that truly represents his style and the themes that he returns to in a lot of his work. @djw180and @Con both nominated a trip into the unsettling and dreamy world of Mulholland Drive. Mulholland Drive is a surreal neo-noir mystery that tells the tale of Betty, played by Naomi Watts, a young actress just arrived in LA and Rita, played by Laura Harring, who has become an amnesiac after a brutal car crash. When their paths cross life starts to get very…
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Jacob's Ladder [RSC Film Club 22]
by LimeGreenLegend- 3 followers
- 7 replies
- 1.2k views
It's October, so it's time for a horror film, and for the second month in a row we're watching @djw180's pick, the 1990 psychological horror Jacob's Ladder. Directed by Adrian Lyne, who also bought us Flashdance, Jacob's Ladder stars Tim Robbins as a Vietnam veteran who is haunted by the horrors of war as he tries to adjust to civilian life. This is a hallucinatory nightmare world of PTSD that Roger Ebert called a "thoroughly painful and depressing experience" and one that was "powerfully written, directed and acted." The supporting cast includes Elizabeth Peña, Danny Aiello, Jason Alexander and, in smaller roles, Kyle Gass from Tenacious D and Macaulay Culk…
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The King [Film Club Extra 06]
by LimeGreenLegend- 3 followers
- 2 replies
- 1.1k views
Our extra dose of medieval action comes in the form of David Michôd's The King, nominated by @Squirrel. This film is an adaptation of Shakespeare's plays Henry IV Parts 1 and 2 and Henry V. This is the latest of many adaptations of Shakespeare's epic, the most notable versions being Laurence Olivier's from the 40's and Kenneth Branagh's 80's rendition. Big shoes to follow, but with a cast including Timothée Chalamet as Henry Prince of Wales later Henry V and support from the likes of Robert Pattinson, Ben Mendelsohn, and Joel Edgerton, this stands a good chance of living up to the reputation of its predecessors. I've not seen this film, but I love both versio…
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The Iron Giant [RSC Film Club 21]
by LimeGreenLegend- 4 followers
- 14 replies
- 1.9k views
The winning film for this month's category of animated sci-fi, nominated by @Fido_le_muet, is Brad Bird's directorial debut, The Iron Giant, as chosen by @djw180. Based on the children's book by poet laureate Ted Hughes, but transposing the action to America, this film poses the question what if a gun had a conscience? The film, as expected for a Bird movie, has gorgeous animation and real heart and is truly a film for all the family. It has a great cast, including Harry Connick. Jr, Jennifer Aniston and, as the giant, Vin Diesel. I've not seen this since close to release, so am excited to revisit what I remember to be a fantastic film. souls..…
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American Psycho [RSC Film Club 19]
by LimeGreenLegend- 2 followers
- 12 replies
- 3k views
For July the film club was tasked with choosing a female-directed film, with the winning entry coming from Canadian filmmaker Mary Harron, who started her career as a music journalist writing for Punk magazine, and was the first person to interview The s*x Pistols for an American publication. She started her film career with the independent movie I Shot Andy Warhol, which is about a failed assassination attempt on the famous pop-artist. This infusion of violence and pop-culture came to the fore once again in her second film, American Psycho, based on the notorious Bret Easton Ellis novel, and our film for this month thanks to @Con and @Squirrel. American Psych…
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The Hurricane [RSC Film Club 18]
by LimeGreenLegend- 4 followers
- 9 replies
- 1.5k views
This month the film club is all about biopics, as submitted by @Fido_le_muet. Although this is the first time that it has been an official genre, we have had a few biopics in the past such as Max Manus, The French Connection and Rush. This month we return to the world of sports with the 1999 biopic of boxer Rubin Carter, The Hurricane, nominated by @omarcomin71. The film, directed by Norman Jewison (In The Heat of the Night, Fiddler on the Roof, Moonstruck) tells the story of middleweight boxer, Rubin "The Hurricane" Carter (Denzel Washington) who was wrongfully arrested and convicted of murder in 1966, and sentenced to life in prison. He was released in 1985…
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Seven Samurai [RSC Film Club 20]
by LimeGreenLegend- 2 followers
- 1 reply
- 1.8k views
This month the RSC Film Club is getting medieval on your *ss as we head back to the Middle Ages thanks to @Squirrel and @djw180. The winning selection was my choice (it's not a fix, I swear!), Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. This legendary epic (in all meanings of the term, this is almost three and a half hours long) tells the simple story of a small village constantly raided by bandits. When the villagers are at their most desperate they decide to go out and try to hire some samurai to fight them off. While the story is simple, the characters and their relationships are not, and thanks to the time we're given with them, and the excellent writing and perfor…
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Train to Busan [RSC Film Club 10] 1 2
by LimeGreenLegend- 1 follower
- 30 replies
- 2.8k views
The concluding half of our Halloween Horror double bill was nominated by @Spinnaker1981, who chose the 2016 South Korean zombie thriller, Train to Busan. The first live action film directed by Yeon Sang-h*, after the animated films The King of Pigs and The Fake, Train to Busan is a classic zombie apocalypse thriller with a twist. What if you were on a train when the world ends? This is another selection I haven't seen, but Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World) said of the film "best zombie movie I've seen in forever." That's a man who knows his zombies. Train to Busan stars Gong Yoo as a workaholic father who, for her …
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Blue Ruin [RSC Film Club 16]
by LimeGreenLegend- 2 followers
- 16 replies
- 1.9k views
The film club is all about sweet revenge this month thanks to @omarcomin71, with the winning film nominated by @doubleg213 and @JuniorChubb, Jeremy Saulnier's Blue Ruin. Written and directed by Saulnier, who also wrote and directed the fantastic Green Room, Blue Ruin stars Macon Blair (The Florida Project, Logan Lucky) as a man out for revenge, and that's about all I know about this film. I am looking forward to this though, as it has received excellent reviews, and Saulnier won the FIPRESCI award at the Cannes film festival for this film, an award previously won by legendary names like Orson Welles, Ken Loach, Jean-Luc Godard and Woody Allen. From watc…
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Max Manus: Man of War [RSC Film Club 17]
by LimeGreenLegend- 1 follower
- 6 replies
- 1.8k views
War was the theme for May's film club, with the winning film being Max Manus: Man of War nominated by @Lann. Max Manus is a Norwegian biographical film detailing the exploits of resistance fighter and saboteur, Max Manus and is based on books that he wrote himself. It was directed by Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg, who directed Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell no Tales and stars Aksel Hennie as Manus. The film is one of the biggest recent hits of Norwegian cinema, winning a record seven Amanda awards (the Norwegian Oscars) in 2009 at the Norwegian International Film Festival. I've not seen, nor heard of this film before, so can't say much e…
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The Lost Boys [RSC Film Club 09]
by LimeGreenLegend- 1 follower
- 19 replies
- 2k views
The first half of our Halloween Horror double feature is the film that made vampires cool again, blazing a trail for stuff like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Twilight. Nominated by @Pb76, 1987's The Lost Boys. Directed by the man who nearly killed Batman, Joel Schumacher (Falling Down, Batman Forever, Phone Booth) and starring an ensemble cast of established and up-and-coming actors like Corey Haim, Dianne Wiest, Kiefer Sutherland and Corey Feldman, The Lost Boys is the story of a new kid in town who suspects something is up with the local biker gang, led by the charismatic David (Sutherland). I've got not much more to say, having not seen this before, but I kn…
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The King of Comedy [RSC Film Club 15]
by LimeGreenLegend- 1 follower
- 16 replies
- 4k views
This month, because of the website merge, we forgo the genre nominations and instead put forward our favourite films. The winning entry was mine! This means our film for March is Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy. The film stars Robert DeNiro as Rupert Pupkin, autograph hunter, wannabe stand-up, and obsessive fan of late night talk show host Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis). He feels that if he can just get a spot on Langford's show then he can show the world how funny he is, and he resorts to some desperate measures to try to achieve this goal. Out of the nine collaborations between Scorsese and DeNiro this is my absolute favourite, beating out films l…
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Dear Basketball [Film Club Extra 05]
by LimeGreenLegend- 1 follower
- 1 reply
- 819 views
A few days ago the sports world lost one of its most beloved and iconic figures when Kobe Bryant, one of the greatest basketball players of all time, tragically lost his life at just 41 in a helicopter crash which also took the lives of eight other people, including his 13 year old daughter Gianna. This impacted not only the basketball world, or America, but the entire globe. Kobe didn't just win championships and awards on the basketball court, he also won an Oscar for the film he wrote, narrated and produced, Dear Basketball. It took home the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film in 2018. In the film we see Kobe as a child dreaming of being a player for the LA La…
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Judgment at Nuremberg [RSC Film Club 14]
by LimeGreenLegend- 1 follower
- 9 replies
- 2.3k views
Our film for Oscar season, with a best actor winning performance from Maximilian Schell, is the 1961 courtroom drama Judgment at Nuremberg, nominated by @djw180. Directed by Stanley Kramer (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World) and with a cast including Spencer Tracy, Judy Garland, Burt Lancaster and Marlene Dietrich as well as Schell, the film tells the story of the Nuremberg trials, where prominent n*zis and n*zi collaborators were tried for crimes against humanity. As well as the best actor Oscar, the film also won the statue for best adapted screenplay for Abby Mann, and was nominated for nine other awards, including best picture, be…
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Four Lions [RSC Film Club 13] 1 2
by LimeGreenLegend- 3 followers
- 34 replies
- 3.8k views
We're starting off 2020 with a bang, quite literally! Our genre for the first film club of the new decade is comedy, with the winning entry being the controversial Chris Morris film, Four Lions. Written and directed by incendiary British comedian Chris Morris (The Day Today, Brass Eye, Jam) Four Lions, released in 2010, is his film debut. It stars Riz Ahmed, Nigel Lindsay, Kayvan Novak, and Adeel Akhtar as four radicalised British Muslims who want to blow something up. They just don't know what, or how to do it. Morris has always been a controversial figure in the British comedy world. The special episode of his television show Brass Eye, "Paedogeddon", s…
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Gremlins [RSC Film Club 12]
by LimeGreenLegend- 1 follower
- 4 replies
- 1.8k views
It's December, so of course we'll be watching a Christmas movie for this month's film club. The winning film was nominated by @Spinnaker1981, 1984's Gremlins. Directed by Joe Dante (The Howling, Innerspace, Small Soldiers) and written by Chris Columbus (writer of The Goonies, Young Sherlock Holmes and director of Home Alone and the first two Harry Potter films), Gremlins stars Zach Galligan as Billy Peltzer, a teenager who receives a strange, but cute, new pet for Christmas. As long as he follows the three rules for looking after them, don't get them wet, don't expose them to light, and don't feed them after midnight, then everything will be fine. He doesn…
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234Rate the Last Film you Watched 2: Electric Boogaloo
What I Watched This Week #172 (Apr 14-20) Alien dir. Ridley Scott/1979/1h57m One of the greatest sci-fi horror films of all time, Ridley Scott's Alien stars Sigourney Weaver as a member of a deep space mining crew who takes a detour to an SOS message on the long journey back to Earth, finding a crashed ship full of eggs. My favourite thing about this film after seeing it so many times is how worn and lived in the ship is. I totally believe that it's real and functional and that this crew has spent months living in it. The opening sequence where we explore the empty ship while the crew is in cryosleep not only builds tension but allows us to take in the incredible details in the production design. Speaking of design, H.R. Giger's design for the xenomorph is the best in movie history (though the lil guy who bursts out of John Hurt's chest is kinda cute and goofy looking). The aggressively ph*llic look of it works well with the very male perspective fear of r*pe and childbirth. The whole cast is excellent, alongside Weaver and Hurt you have Ian Holm, Harry Dean Stanton and Yaphet Kotto, the latter two making a great comedic double team. 9.5/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Now You See Me dir. Louis Leterrier/2013/1h56m Now You See Me tells the story of a group of Las Vegas magicians known as the Four Horsemen (Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco) who rob banks live during their show, distributing the money to their audience. They are being tracked by Mark Ruffalo's FBI agent Rhodes who is determined to uncover their secrets. Totally forgettable fluff, there are some nice moments in here, and I liked the twist at the end even though you can see it coming a mile away. The big trick showpieces are entertaining in that artificial Vegas way that also feels hollow and meaningless. My biggest gripe here is with the four main characters and that I didn't like any of them. Like real magicians I found them to be annoying and so far up their own *sses that I was actively rooting against them every step of the way. The exception is Harrelson, though he comes close at times. There's solid support from Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman, with Ruffalo giving the best performance in the film. This is the definition of inoffensive cinematic background noise. 5/10 Cinderella dir. Georges Méliès/1899/6m Georges Méliès here with some more ground breaking work from the dawn of cinema. Not only is this the first film adaptation of Cinderella, it's also the first film adaptation of any fairy tale and also the first film to use dissolves to transition between scenes (with this being his first film with more than one scene). Watching this is to watch the evolution of film in real time, and, like the rest of his work, it's nothing less than magical. This is Méliès becoming more innovative and inventive with his films becoming more complex and technically demanding. The sets and costumes are beautifully detailed and like illustrations come to life. It's amazing to me that a film from the 19th century can still be so magical. 8/10 How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies dir. Pat Boonnitipat/2024/2h7m This family drama/comedy from Thailand stars Putthipong Assaratanakul as M, a lazy young man who has dropped out of college to try and start a streaming career ("wow four viewers" his mother chides early on). When he learns that his grandmother (Usha Seamkhum) has cancer he thinks that he can weasel his way to the top of her will by moving in with her to care for her. A tender and gentle film that also surprises with some pretty dark humour, I found this to be incredibly charming with two excellent lead performances from Assaratanakul and Seamkhum. Seamkhum is particularly impressive in her late in life film debut as the wily old woman who sees through all the bullsh*t from her grandson, but also sees something of herself in him. The plot is fairly predictable - of course the two will grow closer to each other and form a real bond by the time she dies - but the journey to that point, and the touching epilogue, I really enjoyed. There's a lot of family drama with the grandmother's children but it always feels close to reality and not emotionally manipulative or overly melodramatic at any point. 9/10 Shock Treatment dir. Jim Sharman/1981/1h34m Shock Treatment is a sequel to one of my all time favourite films, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and picks up with Brad and Janet (now played by Cliff DeYoung and Jessica Harper) a few years later with their marriage now on the rocks. To rectify this they appear on a TV show with the result being Brad getting committed to a psychiatric hospital run by Dr. Cosmo McKinley (Richard O'Brien) and Janet getting groomed for superstardom. This is perhaps even more bizarre than Rocky Horror, certainly more cynical, with the world now seeming to exists as a series of TV shows, a live studio audience never leaving, sleeping in their seats as the film happens on screens all around them. It's a strange dystopia that seems to predict the dominance TV would have over our lives to an even greater extent in the era of commercialism and Reganomics. If there's not a camera on you then you don't exist, like the antithesis of Rocky Horror's theme of "don't dream it, be it". Many of the Rocky Horror cast returns with the exception of Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick as Janet and Brad (though DeYoung and especially Harper do an excellent job in the roles) and most notably Tim Curry. I kept imagining him in the role played by Barry Humphries (most famous for playing Dame Edna Everage), a garishly sleazy host called Bert Schnick. Humphries is great, but we all know Curry would have been better. Another slight let down for me is the soundtrack. As a musical this doesn't really compare with Rocky Horror, though there are some catchy tunes in there, the main theme still popping into my head occasionally. 9/10 #21xoxo dir. Sine Ozbilge, Imge Ozbilge/2019/9m This animated short from Belgium shows a girl (Indra de Bruyn) and her experiences with online dating, hooking up with several men before finding a genuine connection. The most striking thing about this film are the visuals, with the film being rotoscoped, a process where live action footage is traced over by animators giving it natural movement, a process used by Disney for Snow White back in 1937. Here it's given a thoroughly modern makeover, with the screen bombarded with text and images and memes representing the experience of being chronically online. The aesthetic also calls to mind pop art of the 60's, showing that the digital world may be new but the problems of finding a partner are anything but. It's at times overwhelming, purposefully so, but there's still a cohesion between all these elements. The ending is a bit on the nose but it's well done, wrapping the whole thing up maybe a bit too neatly. 7/10 Toomas Beneath the Valley of the Wild Wolves dir. Chintis Lundgren, Drasko Ivezic/2019/18m Another animated short, this time from Estonia, this tells the story of Toomas (Drasko Ivezic), a wolf who is fired after turning down his boss's advances. With a wife and children to support he turns to prostitution and then gay p*rn. Meanwhile, his wife Viivi (Chintis Lundgren) is learning some things about herself thanks to militant feminist Alexandra Horn-Eye (Lee Delong). This reminded me a lot of Bug Diner, another charming and cheeky animation about sexuality and relationships starring anthropomorphic animals. That was stop motion while this is animated in a simple yet effective style, the linework wobbling between frames like Doug, the 90's cartoon. Like Bug Diner, this is also a very mature film with more human characters than a lot of live action films that tackle the same subjects. 8.5/10 No Home But Cinema: The Spaces of Chantal Akerman dir. Jessica McGoff/2025/14m (no trailer for this, so here's one for a similar film) This short essay film explores the films of Chantal Akerman through her use of space and locations, how she films them, how she moves through them and what they represent. McGoff doesn't narrate this film, rather her essay is presented as text on the screen over clips from films that illustrate her points. I like this approach and how it's executed. The text isn't presented in blocks but line by line and is edited with the rhythm of the film clips so that they're unobtrusive and allow you to fully immerse in the various worlds of Akerman. This doesn't go too in depth with any of her observations as they are things you will pick up on by just watching the films, but it would work as a good introduction to her and what to look out for in her work. 7/10 Hotel Monterey dir. Chantal Akerman/1973/1h3m (no trailer so have an extended clip) Staying with Chantal Akerman, Hotel Monterey is an observational documentary in which she explores the titular hotel, a cheap one in New York where she stayed when she first moved to the city, from the lobby to the roof. It starts off at night where her camera captures people milling about in the lobby, taking the elevators up and down. She then prowls the corridors like a ghost, her very formally structured compositions bringing out the textures of the grimy yellow walls. Methodically we move upwards until we are on the roof, it is day now, and the feeling of escape is palpable. We do this all in silence, and I mean total silence. No music, no background noise, nothing. Not only does this make us even more aware of what we're seeing on screen, but it also makes us aware of our own environment. An exploration of space is happening on the screen and in real life at the same time and it's kind of amazing once you notice that. It's like Akerman speaking out of time saying here I am, where are you? This also feels like a prelude to her masterful film News From Home, in which she takes the same approach but expands it to the whole city, though this time with sound. This totally isn't for everyone, it's not even close to what you'd call entertaining, but if you give it a chance you'll get so much out of it. 8.5/10- 1
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234Rate the Last Film you Watched 2: Electric Boogaloo
Local Hero (1983) dir Bill Forsyth A great early 80s British light comedy drama. Peter Reigert (who I have never seen in anything else) plays Mac, a lawyer / accountant / fixer working for Texas based Happer oil. The CEO, Mr Happer (Burt Lancaster), sends Mac to oversee the purchase of an entire Scottish fishing village that they want to demolish to build a new oil terminal. Mac expects at least some of the villagers, led by their lawyer / accountant / hotel manager Gordon Urquart (Denis Lawson - Wedge from Star Wars), to put up somewhat of a fight. But they are not quite the simple folk he expects. They already know what is going on and Urquart intends to squeeze as much cash as possible from the big oil company. It also co-stars a young Peter Capaldi, almost unrecognisable at times, as Oldsen, a Scottish Happer Oil employee assigned to help Mac and Jenny Seagrove as marine biologist Marina, working for them in what she knows is really just a job to generate good PR in case of environmental problems. Marina has slightly webbed feet, making her seem a bit like a mermaid as she swims, which her job requires a lot of. This is possibly a nod to the Jerry Anderson puppet show Stingray that had a mermaid called Marina. (And maybe having watched Team America last week this is what subconsciously made me decide to watch this film that I have seen many times before). It also features a host of other faces, mainly Scottish actors, familiar to anyone who has watched a lot of British TV over the years, like me. But sometimes it takes a while to recognise them, because this was made over 40 years ago. One of the non-Scots is Christopher Rozycki, who is great as the captain of a Soviet fishing trawler that makes frequent visits to the village. He quite clearly is not a believer in the political ideology of his homeland. He has a great line I wish I could remember word for word, but at one point he says to Mac something like “Don't look so worried. You are doing a great thing here. You are making people very rich!”. It is a beautifully made film, technically very, very good. It's set mainly in the village, but starts in Houston and switches back there a couple of times and has some stunning scenes of the Scottish countryside and coast. There's no great tension to the story, no massive plot twists. It's quite a gentle tale of Mac falling in love with the village he has basically come to destroy, but the locals just wanting the money. Forsyth got a well deserved BAFTA for the direction and a nomination for the original script. It also got a number of other worthy nominations including Chris Menges' cinematography and Mark Knopfler's modern score that includes the iconic “Going home” guitar – saxophone instrumental that accompanies the end credits. The only acting one was for Lancaster but the rest of the cast are very good, even down to some quite minor roles. I do have to pick it up on a couple of factual issues. The village is shown on a map in North West Scotland, but the oil is (was) all on the east, in the North Sea between Scotland and Norway. And I know, from a friend who used to live there and remembers the filming, it was mainly filmed on location in various villages on the east coast. The other thing might have been a deliberate joke at the expense of Hollywood. This is when Marina is showing Oldsen a colony of what are described as grey seals, but what we see on screen are quite clearly sea-lions, the sort you might well see in California but certainly not Scotland! Those don't really detract from the overall film though which is one of my all time favourites. 10 / 10- 2
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