TheSubstantive.com

Django Unchained

In the nineties, Quentin Tarantino gave an interview with the Independent on Sunday where he spoke about how he would “run” to the cinema every time a new Martin Scorsese film came out. Tarantino himself continues to have the same effect on millions of film goers worldwide who, ever since his debut Reservoir Dogs in 1992, will take the time, effort and pay the money, to see anything Tarantino does on the big screen. And his latest offering, Django Unchained doesn’t disappoint. Continue reading…

To Rome With Love

Earlier this year Robert Weide’s enjoyable documentary on Woody Allen showed a filmmaker who stores ideas on post-it notes he later develops; To Rome with Love, Allen’s latest piece, looks to be a combination of four separate post-it notes of varying strength intercut against a majestic backdrop of Rome.

Starting with a beautiful tracking shot of the Italian capital, the exterior shots of Rome are the only constant to four vignettes, that are more like extended comedy sketches. The cast is naturally strong and includes Allen himself, first appearing on screen , expressing himself like a hypochondriac John McEnroe to his wife, played by Judy Davis. Continue reading…

Batman: The Dark Knight Rises Again

Marta-Emilia Bona was at the Batman Premiere this week. She reviews the film for The Substantive.

As a member of the general public who normally attends screenings of Hollywood blockbusters in a small cinema in Cardiff, it’s difficult not to feel somewhat intimidated when met with thousands of screaming fans and a red carpet as you enter Leicester Square. However, it’s impossible to deny the effect of the pomp and circumstance surrounding the premiere of The Dark Knight Rises (complete with twenty foot Batman mask and flaming bat crest – of course). Not being a huge Batman fan myself – I’m actually somewhat averse to the majority of superhero films – I must admit that even I was overwhelmed by the sense that I was about to experience the end of something big: the dramatic climax to an exquisitely executed trilogy. Continue reading…

Woody Allen: A Documentary

Robert B. Weide’s documentary on Woody Allen, originally made for US Television and edited down by the Director himself for cinematic release from three-and-a-half hours to 113 minutes that flew by, has finally reached the UK. In a full-house at the BFI’s Number 1 Screen for a Preview of the film last Thursday there was naturally a lot of love for the subject in the large darkened room, with the joy of every frame even sometimes spilling out into a few laughs in the wrong places.

With the opening titles and score in the style of an Allen film, the tone is set immediately, in a documentary that is a pleasure to watch throughout, as it chronologically tells the story of a prolific independent filmmaker, who has a habit of achieving everything he wants to in life. Intercut with scenes from Allen’s own films that perfectly illuminate elements of the story as well as at times causing prolonged bouts of laughter in the audience, it also includes golden archive footage that ranges from an appearance on a chat show hosted by Derek Nimmo to Allen trading punches with a Kangaroo in a boxing ring on an American variety show. Continue reading…

Marley

Ahead of the general cinema release this Friday of Kevin MacDonald’s documentary of Bob Marley, James Dickens reviews it for The Substantive.

I think it’s fair to say Bob Marley’s life was almost tailor-made for movie adaptation. The tough upbringing, rise to superstardom, political influence, religious excesses, womanising and eventual untimely and very public death was made for the big screen. Therefore I was very surprised at the lack of any cinematic depictions of the Reggae icon thus far.

However given the recent trend for musical biopics (Walk the line, Nowhere Boy, Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll to name but three) the timing now seems right, and a biopic based on Bob’s wife, Rita’s, Autobiography is currently in production. Marley though is entrenched firmly in the documentary camp, more along the lines of Julian Temple’s Joe Strummer feature ‘The Future is Unwritten’.

This film has taken a while to get off the ground. It was initially supposed to be directed by Martin Scorsese but due to scheduling conflicts, it was passed onto famous music film maker Jonathan Demme. He then also dropped out, citing ‘creative differences’ with producer Steve Bing. So it was left to director of Touching the Void and Last King of Scotland, Kevin MacDonald, to finally finish the film for its 2012 release.

So the question really is, was it worth the wait? Continue reading…

Faro Documents

What makes us go and see the films we see?

For me, the answer to this deceptively simple question is we choose the films we see via the film culture of our times and location. I get a thrill when I think of what a film culture is and the potential it has to help passionate moviegoers on their journey of cinematic discovery.  What is a film culture? In a sense, it’s the circus surrounding the freak-show that is cinema, it’s the dust in the beam of light from the projector – not as essential as the movies themselves but a conduit for a richer movie-going experience. It’s the magazines we read, the blogs we skim over, the stars tweets we reply to in the hope they might recognise us mere mortals. It’s also film clubs and societies, pop-ups or otherwise, cinemas, television and now, whether we like it or not, streaming.

I went to a screening of two rare Ingmar Bergman documentaries at the Lexi Cinema on Sunday night in Kensal Rise, a beautiful boutique one-screener which looks like a converted village hall. The night was hosted by the new collective A Nos Amours. And although I could be wrong, I don’t think the two film-makers behind the new collective, Joanna Hogg (Unrelated, Archipelago) and Adam Roberts, like to stream movies much. Continue reading…

Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2011)

Daniel Craig’s Mikael is our friend in the North of Europe, a journalist headhunted to investigate a disappearance of a girl nearly 40 years ago. Running parallel to Mikael finding his feet in the case we learn about Rooney Mara’s Lisbeth, a girl with a dragon tattoo who did the background checks on Mikael and is an expert research; early impressions are she appears to have the social skills of a member of a Brit-pop band while living on a horrible diet of sugary drinks, fast food and nicotine, all of which are provided by brands whose product placement no doubt helped to fund this lavish production. Continue reading…

Tyrannosaur

Peter Mullen’s Joseph is an angry old man. He spends daytimes sitting at the bar of one of those pubs that as soon as you walk in, you walk straight back out; he goads, antagonises and terrorises local shopkeepers; and, with a can of Red Stripe in his hand, his screams and swears violently in the street outside a bookies. And that’s all just in the first few minutes. Continue reading…

Dreams of a Life

Back in the early nineties, when the radio show 6-0-6 was about comedy and stories rather than manufactured debate, co-host Danny Baker quoted something the great footballer, Chris Waddle, once told him: Waddle said he had no friends, only acquaintances. An unexpected sentiment from a popular talent, and one that came to mind when watching the new British film, ‘Dreams of a Life’.

When the skeleton of a woman, thought to be in her thirties, was found in her flat in London three years after she in died, it was headline news. The description of the television blaring out while a body gradually decomposed in front of it, while Christmas presents gathered dust, was powerful imagery. Coupled with the nagging thought that someone’s disappearance could go unnoticed for three years means it is a tale people still recall now when prompted in conversation.

Continue reading…

Snowtown

Moments after the closing titles of ‘Snowtown’ finish, the lead actor Daniel Henshall walks to the front of the stage and knowingly turns back to an audience who are sitting back in their seats, having watched him play a terrorising serial killer for the best part of two-hours; he is at the Curzon Soho for a Q&A, the day ‘Snowtown’ open across the UK. He grins, and in his Australian accent, asks everyone if they are alright.

Not everyone who was at the screening that evening will have seen the dark humour in that smile. One member of the audience had already left, walking out after the most brutal scene in the film, when the nature of Henshall’s sadistic character, John Bunting, truly comes to the fore, torturing a character who the audience has no regard for, clearly for his own pleasure.

Continue reading…