DVD Review - The Halfway House (1944)

The Halfway House, 1944.

Directed by Basil Dearden.
Starring Mervyn Johns, Glynis Johns and Sally Ann Howes.


SYNOPSIS:

A group of strangers take shelter at a remote Welsh Inn during a storm where they are soon brought together by a series of unsettling events.


If you are yet to enter the competition here at Flickering Myth to win a copy of Ealing Studios' production The Halfway House on Digital Versatile Disc, I do suggest that you hurry up and get a move on. This is a film worth seeing for three very good reasons. Pay attention ladies and gentlemen and I shall outline them for you.

Firstly The Halfway House is a fragment of history, a slice of our country’s past, and an especially engaging and vivid one too. For those of you enjoying the developments in three dimensional cinematic viewing or perhaps partial to the high definition of your colour television sets, it might be rather off putting that this is a film presented in mere black and white. I readily admit that I am not an avid viewer of black and white pictures myself.

I can assure you though that the lack of variation in colour is more than made up for by numerous other qualities. In fact, I’d go as far as saying that it added to the charm of the film. In any case, this is top notch black and white, because The Halfway House has been digitally restored to a wonderful standard, so that it is, to all intents and purposes, as good as a modern day release.

This film was originally released in 1944 and judging by references to the date during the plot, filmed in 1943. It is therefore significantly influenced by the context of the ongoing Second World War in Europe. A number of the characters have lost friends, colleagues and relatives during the conflict. Others are affected in other ways.

The Halfway House is somewhat inaccurately and crudely labelled as a horror but in reality it is an interesting infusion of ghost story, fable and propaganda. The propaganda element is particularly fascinating and marks the film out as a genuine historical artefact. It is not overdone to affect the level of satisfaction for a modern audience, but certainly during the conclusion an Irishman’s change of allegiance from neutrality to supporting the Allies is noticeably underlined.

The second principal reason you should see The Halfway House is the impressive and rounded characterisation, forming part of a touching and timeless narrative. Whilst the historical background to the plot is crucial to setting it apart from modern releases, the quality and nature of the storytelling is also no longer replicated by studios today.

The first half of the film introduces a wide range of characters across Britain (showcasing unusual scope and variety of outdoor locations for Ealing Studios), each with their own problems, from terminal illness to divorce and criminality. The second half then brings all of these characters together at The Halfway House, a Welsh inn that may or may not have been destroyed by fire. The kindly and wise owners of the inn, who speak almost poetically at points, help the guests to help each other. Gradually they all gain perspective on their issues and worries by taking time out from the everyday grind. Such an intricately woven moral is still just as relevant today.

The Halfway House is superbly acted, even by modern day standards. It has a marvellous script that seems to transfer something from the original play by Denis Ogden. Primarily that something is dialogue which allows characters to breathe and grow convincingly, as they would on stage. Somehow The Halfway House is full of excellently fleshed out characters, despite the ensemble cast.

The third key reason for seeing The Halfway House is that it is tremendously amusing. Part of that humour arises inadvertently from the old fashioned and outdated formal register of the dialogue, which I have tried unsuccessfully to mirror regularly throughout this review. In certain situations the tone and accent of 1940s British speech, along with that persistent formality, is unavoidably hilarious.

However most of the comedic moments are intentional, with a mixture of fabulous and average one liners on show, alongside character humour enabled by their believability. One moment in the opening segment, in which we meet a dodgy dealing crook, is amusing due to role reversal; our criminal dismisses an employee for NOT having a criminal record and lying about it. This is also an example of one of many moments where the war has turned things upside down.

As if those three major reasons alone weren’t enough to at least have a go at the competition, there are also too many minor points of interest to mention. Director Basil Dearden has been underrated for years, only to be steadily recognised more and more recently as a groundbreaking filmmaker, with films like Victim starring Dirk Bogarde challenging taboos long before that was easy to get away with and just an arty saying. His direction here is simple for the most part, with the exception of one smartly edited action sequence which could fit into a modern film, but effective and professional. It’s remarkable enough they were making films as entertaining as this with the war raging on.

Good luck in the competition! But basically make sure you see The Halfway House when it’s released on the 20th of June. It’s an unseen and unappreciated classic of British cinema.

Liam Trim (follow me on Twitter)

Movie Review Archive

Short Film Showcase - Cashback (2004)

Cashback, 2004.

Written and Directed by Sean Ellis.
Starring Sean Biggerstaff, Emilia Fox, Stuary Goodwin, Michael Dixon and Michael Lambourne.

Cashback centres on an aspiring art student, Ben (Sean Biggerstaff), who spends his nights working the graveyard shift at his local 24 hour supermarket. While his co-workers all have their own methods of wasting time as the clock ticks down on their shift, Ben has his own unique technique for fending off boredom by imagining that time stands still, giving him the freedom to explore his creative side.

Although Cashback received some criticism towards its excessive nudity, the short went on to win 14 awards including Best Narrative Short at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival, while it was also nominated for the Academy Award for Live Action Short Film in March 2006, losing out to Martin McDonagh's Six Shooter. Cashback also went on to inspire the full-length feature of the same name, which premiered at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival before receiving theatrical runs in the UK and North America.


Click here to view more short films and public domain features.

DVD Giveaway - The Halfway House

June 20th sees the release of the Ealing Studios ghost story The Halfway House on DVD, and to celebrate Flickering Myth have three copies to give away to our readers courtesy of Optimum Releasing.

Read on for the full synopsis and details of how to enter...

"The Halfway House is an enjoyable mystery tale of a group of strangers driven to take shelter at a remote Welsh Inn during a storm. Each has a personal problem to hide, but they are soon brought together by unsettling events perhaps precipitated by their hosts, the enigmatic innkeepers. Starring Mervyn Johns and real-life daughter Glynis, The Halfway House was written by Anghus McPhail (Whisky Galore!, It Always Rains on Sunday), Diana Morgan (Went the Day Well?, Pink String and Sealing Wax) and T.E.B. Clarke (Passport to Pimlico, The Titfield Thunderbolt) from the stage play by Denis Ogden."

To be in with a chance of winning all you need to do is drop us an email with your contact details, the subject heading "HALFWAY", and an answer to the following question...

The Halfway House director Basil Dearden won a BAFTA Award in 1960 for which of his films?

A) Dead of Night B) Sapphire

The competition closes at 5pm on Sunday June 19th. UK entrants only please.

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DVD Giveaway - Java Head and Tiger Bay

June 20th sees the release of the Anna May Wong double-bill of 1934's Java Head and Tiger Bay on DVD, and to celebrate Flickering Myth have three copies to give away to our readers courtesy of Optimum Releasing.

The first Asian American movie star to become an international star, Anna May Wong's career spanned over four decades, starting in Technicolor’s first two-strip color movie, The Toll of the Sea (1922) and was chosen by Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. to be in The Thief of Bagdad (1924), and co-starred with Marlene Dietrich in Shanghai Express (1932).

Read on for the full synopsis and details of how to enter...

"JAVA HEAD: The port city of Bristol, England, in the 1800s is home to Java Head, a sailing ship line company. The owner has two sons. One, a handsome seafarer, is in love with a local girl, but cannot marry her due to a long-running feud between their fathers. After a lengthy voyage, he returns with a very exotic, noble Chinese wife, which scandalizes the conservative town. His other son, a "landlubber", seeks to convert to steamships, to the disgust of his father. Even worse, he is secretly dealing in contraband."

"TIGER BAY: A young Englishman abroad, Michael, visits the local low-life spot of Tiger Bay to test his assertion that the spirit of human romance survives even in the most unpromising of circumstances. He intervenes when a local criminal protection racketeer targets a Chinese nightclub, and falls in love with the owner's young English foster-sister. But Olaf's gang have only just started their campaign against Lui Chang, the cultured, elegant woman who owns the premises... and she is determined not to be intimidated or driven out of business under any circumstances..."

To be in with a chance of winning all you need to do is drop us an email with your contact details, the subject heading "ANNA", and an answer to the following question...

Anna May Wong made her final feature film appearance alongside Lana Turner in...

A) Portrait in Black B) Imitation of Life

The competition closes at 5pm on Sunday June 19th. UK entrants only please.

The Prize Finder - UK Competitions
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DVD Review - Zombie Undead (2010)

Zombie Undead, 2010.

Directed by Rhys Davies.
Starring Ruth King, Kris Tearse, Barry Thomas and Christopher J. Herbert.


SYNOPSIS:

A small group of survivors attempt to escape the confines of a medical evacuation building after a zombie outbreak.


This is one of those films with a Ronseal title. There are lots of zombies and zombies are dead, but also sort of lively in a sleepwalking sort of way, hence the “un”. The marketing material continues the no nonsense approach, showcasing a tag line of “RUN.HIDE.DIE!”. Tellingly a footnote informs me that “this disc contains no extra features”. I say tellingly because you really don’t get anything more than a bunch of shirts smothered in red paint and lips sticky with jam.

Sarah has survived a “massive explosion”. She is rather distraught though that the blast has peppered her Dad with all manner of fatal wounds, from bites to paper cuts. Desperately she tries to stop him from bleeding to death in the back of paramedic Steve’s small car, ideal for students or the elderly. Steve tries to calm Sarah as they drive away from the city to an “evacuation centre”. When they get there, Sarah passes out after the doctor plunges a needle full of adrenalin into poor old Dad from a great height.

Sarah comes round to find no one about, apart from a wheelchair parked shoddily and at a skewed angle in the middle of a typical hospital corridor. Perfectly logically she starts to warily shout “hello” at no one in particular. Finally some bloke turns up, tottering towards her, but Sarah can’t quite make him out because of some lingering concussion and a random cut that’s appeared on her forehead halfway through the scene. Her vision clears up just as he’s right in front of her. Unfortunately for Sarah this fella is in a right state; he hasn’t moisturized for weeks and he’s horny as hell.

Thankfully the first of a few fat men in Zombie Undead picks precisely this moment to turn up with a randomly acquired blade (other conveniently placed objects will star later such as torches and a bottle of pills). He swiftly slices the sex pest’s skull like a melon. Then Sarah’s female failings kick in. Instead of showering her rescuer with gratitude she wails and whines, inching herself away from our chubby chopper. It takes him ages to explain that there are a load of “things” like the sex pest, with awful skin and serious body odour issues, staggering about the corridors leaking goo and munching flesh. Sarah slowly accepts the situation, a bit, and vows to help Jay (for that is our hero’s name) find his little brother if he helps her find her Dad.

Sadly for Jay, Sarah never quite embraces the survival instinct, always trying to save the zombies and people they encounter when they are beyond redemption. What are women like hey? Jay also isn’t helped by fellow porker Steve, who was the paramedic with the little car from earlier. Weirdly he is the slowest to come to terms with the blood billowing monsters. They find him cowering in a toilet cubicle, in an awfully amateurish immensely suspenseful scene with Jay crashing open the doors one by one, and despite his medical training he’s prone to chucking his guts up at the sight of other’s guts.

There are an awful lot of innards on show. If our fat protagonists could man up a little and acquire a taste for it there are feasts to be had, indeed zombies are regularly shown gobbling up intestines with grunting delight. One scene in yet another toilet (either funds were tight or the director loved the aesthetics of Condom machines and urinals) has what looks like a shrine to Lidl’s chipolatas, drizzled in organically sourced tomato ketchup and served on a bed of recently devoured homo sapien.

Even the gore lacks any variation or quality, despite unhealthy splutterings of it. The direction and editing is clunky, predictable and poor, but its imitation of handheld horror is competent compared to the script. The dialogue essentially has two levels, sounding either like cliché regurgitations of previous films or as if the shockingly bad and evidently inexperienced actors are improvising in a beginner’s drama class. As for the plotting a half hearted attempt is made to make things modern, with vague and contradictory allusions to a biological terrorist attack. It was obviously decided that to leave everything unexplained would be classier, thus depriving the audience of any satisfaction whatsoever from Zombie Undead’s 86 minutes.

Some answers surface from the pools of irritating disappointment as soon as the credits roll however. Why the unusual and implausible fat hero, with the weird undertaker/security guard costume? The film’s writer, Kris Tearse, was also its male star. The primary location was Leicester’s De Montfort University, which explains the extremely low budget feel. So a bunch of students are living the dream with this film it seems, no matter what its failings, some will be ecstatically excited when the DVD is released on the 30th of May. It has nothing new or engaging at all to recommend it. But to help justify the dream I will admit I flinched like a child at one point, and was genuinely surprised, although after the zombies had gone.

Liam Trim (follow me on Twitter)

Movie Review Archive

Ian McKellen and Judi Dench to fight zombies

It has been announced that Ian McKellen (X-Men, Lord of the Rings), Judi Dench (Casino Royale), Mark Williams (Harry Potter) and Gillian Anderson (The X Files) are all attached to star in a zombie comedy set in the 18th century. The Curse of the Buxom Strumpet is about the inhabitants of a small seaside town who are struck down with a deadly illness.

Directed by Matthew Butler, who has also co-written the script with Tori Hart, this feature is based on their short film E’gad Zombies, which also starred Ian McKellen. The pair will also be producing the film for their UK production company Fizz and Ginger Films.

Butler is currently in talks with sales agents in Cannes and shooting on the £2-million movie is expected to begin in Scotland later this year. Zombie films are all the rage nowadays, so it’ll need to be special to stand out, but Sir Ian and Dame Judi fighting the undead horde sounds like a great concept.

Emma Hutchings

DVD Review - Another Year (2010)

Another Year, 2010.



Directed by Mike Leigh.

Starring Jim Broadbent, Lesley Manville, Ruth Sheen, Peter Wright, Oliver Maltman and Imelda Staunton.





SYNOPSIS:



A happily married couple are surrounded over the course of a year by friends, family and colleagues each with varying degrees of unhappiness.





Prior to watching Another Year I was not in awe of Mike Leigh’s track record, but rather shamefully ignorant. I was keen to watch the film though because of some glowing reviews last year, promising trailers and that wonderful artwork and logo. I remember seeing said tree sprawling massively across an Odeon in London’s West End way back in the halcyon days of 2010, and thinking that was the type of thoughtful British picture I wanted to see.



The central idea behind the story, which Leigh scripted as well as directed, is tender, realistic and probably true to life. Happily married couple, Tom (Jim Broadbent) and Gerri (Ruth Sheen) are lucky and they know it. The people in their lives, who seem far less blessed, gravitate towards them for kindness and warmth. Their son Joe (Oliver Maltman) is taking his time to find love as his friends get hitched left, right and centre, Gerri’s co-worker Mary’s (Lesley Manville) bubbly energy conceals her loneliness and Tom’s childhood friend Ken (Peter Wight) is trapped in Hull watching his precious roots wither away. The narrative plays out with a chunk from each of the year’s four seasons.



The opening scene was just what I had been hoping for and what Leigh’s reputation guaranteed. Imelda Staunton plays an insomniac pressing her GP for sleeping pills but understandably her doctor seeks out the true, underlying causes. Staunton’s character is clearly completely miserable; crestfallen at her lot in life and the realisation that this is all she’s likely to get. The scene lasts a full five minutes, uninterrupted; Leigh really lets it breathe and grow. For most of the scene we don’t see the GP’s face, helping us truly inhabit Staunton’s excellent performance. We’ve all felt like that at the doctors, like you’re just another appointment to be checked off by a faceless health drone.



The GP refers our dejected and menopausal patient to a counsellor. It turns out that Gerri is a counsellor. And this is where the problems begin with Another Year. Gerri continues to be a counsellor for the duration of the story, always behaving as though maintaining professional standards, even alone in bed with soul mate Tom. Ruth Sheen’s tone of voice never varies more than a fraction, making her seem either mildly interested or not that bothered. Whilst Broadbent’s range of reactions to the various problems of friends are different and human, Gerri deals with each situation on dull auto-pilot. Sheen’s performance genuinely seemed mechanical and totally robotic, which was a real shock after all the talk of quality acting.



The passing of the seasons is beautifully shot and there are moments of heart warming dialogue that is convincingly ordinary and recognisable from everyday life. Do I really want to watch a film with conversations startlingly similar to the small talk I run away from in reality though? It all gets rather dreary, with next to no drama in the first two seasons and not a pinch of escapism. Leigh’s script also has some awful expositional dialogue, particularly for Lesley Manville’s character Mary, Tom and Gerri’s desperately clingy friend. I cringed at the clumsy manner her myriad but dull problems were introduced and grimaced later at Manville’s caricatured portrayal of an overzealous eccentric going off the rails. Her drunkenness at BBQs is amateurish.



Or is it? I honestly don’t know if I fell into the trap of mistaking the annoying traits of a character for bad acting and storytelling. This is because the last two seasons, autumn and winter, went a long way to redeeming the failures of the first couple. As Mary reaches rock bottom her character becomes far more bearable and Manville’s performance finally makes you empathise and feel pity, sympathy, and even sadness. David Bradley puts in a fabulous performance as Tom’s grieving brother who is a man of few words. Some of his scenes with Broadbent, and an extended one with Manville, are superb.



I don’t want to mimic the idiotic readers of the X-Factor age who throw away a book they’re reading in disgust because the characters are not “likeable”. Novels and films are not about providing you with brief friendship. But Another Year is hard to get into. As I’ve said I was really surprised by how irritating I found the performances of Ruth Sheen and Lesley Manville. In Manville’s case I think I judged her too quickly and her character was simply a vibrant pain in the neck, well realised. However I maintain that Sheen was simply two dimensional, which is disappointing given the importance of actors to such an ensemble piece. By the time Another Year ended I was starting to enjoy it but there’s no doubt that this is a film with the potential to frustrate as well as reward.

Liam Trim (follow me on Twitter)



Movie Review Archive

Movie Review - TT3D: Closer to the Edge (2011)

TT3D: Closer to the Edge, 2011.

Directed by Richard De Aragues.

Narrated by Jared Leto.





SYNOPSIS:



A documentary about the Isle of Man's famed TT motorcycle race.





For those that are unfamiliar with the Isle of Man and its world famous TT races let me assure you it’s thrilling, frightening and very dangerous. The small Isle sits in the middle of the Irish Sea and is home to around 80,000 Manxmen on an average day, but swells to almost double that figure for a fortnight in early summer. The TT is the worlds most famous motorcycle road race and takes place over a 38 mile circuit that snakes through towns and villages, passes usually quiet country pubs and across the top of several mountains. Unlike your average racing there are no run off areas, no safety barriers and no mercy for anyone who dares to take the challenging course too lightly. Straw bails are the only protection from garden walls, lampposts and possible death.



Beside road racing and the associated tourism the Isle of Man has another main source of income – film. The island is home to a large number of film making facilities and has pretty enticing incentives for filmmakers to shoot on the island. So – it was inevitable that at some point somebody would put the two together. My own personal fear was that the outcome would be a cheap British version of Days Of Thunder on two wheels. How could anyone get across the danger faced, bravery needed and personal stories of the hundreds of riders who pull on their leathers each year to attack the notoriously risky course? What about telling the story of those who had lost their lives on the merciless course? They say that fact is often weirder than fiction. And the true stories documented within TT3D is testament to that.



Richard De Aragues, who has earned a living from directing TV adverts, makes his feature film debut with this documentary. The film follows the stories of several riders over the course of the two week race meeting with the larger than life character of Guy Martin as it’s main character. Guy is a popular rider who lives for the rush of hurtling through country roads at up to 200 mph, but has never won a race at the TT. Also featured are the fastest man around the course and 15 time winner John McGuinness, local lad Connor Cummins hoping to gain his first win and talented rider Ian Hutchinson. Each of them committed to pushing themselves to their limits in order to win one of the 5 races.



Closer To The Edge brings the splendour and danger of the TT to the world and makes clear what it is at risk and also on offer for TT riders. Guy Martin is a lovable and eccentric character who, with a cup of tea in his hand, always seems to have something interesting to say whether it be about bikes or masturbation. Racing is clearly his life and the lengths to which Guy is willing to push himself are clearly on the edge of danger and would have a lesser man quaking in his boots. Guy is not pretentious, not too proud and not even a model professional the majority of the time. He just wants to race. When TT legend John McGuiness goes back to his huge gold motor home at the end of a days racing Guy martin sleeps on a mattress in the back of his transit. He isn’t worried about he trappings of fame, fortune or glory and brings a genuinely admirable touch of the human spirit to a race that is most certainly out of the ordinary.



Along side the stories of guts, glory and breaking records there is also that of the loss of life. Paul Dobbs was unfortunate to lose his life at the 2010 TT and his widow reflects on life after the racing with her two young sons. Anyone who has lost someone to the mountain course will surely be touched by their story. There are no worse words to hear at the Isle of Man than someone is ‘missing on the road’ and then the wait to find out if the problem has been simply mechanical or an accident.



The film also talks to John McGuiness and his wife on their thoughts of the TT, discusses with Ian Hutchinson how he prepares for the Isle and gets plenty of short stories and thoughts from other riders, officials, marshals, regulars to the racing and first timers. The footage of the racing has been captured beautifully.



Although I thoroughly enjoyed the film from start to finish I did have my questions. I wasn’t entirely sure why American actor and musician Jared Leto was chosen for the infrequent voiceover since Americans aren’t heavily associated with the racing. Perhaps he likes bikes? Or has been to the racing? But I know not the answer why. The film also did feel a little like one long TV advert at times. When Ian Hutchison is training in the gym he could have easily stopped, turned to the camera and told us what energy drink he uses to get the job done. And I may have gone out and bought one. Following Guy Martin around a lap of the course a huge logo for any brand of motorcycle could have easily sprung onto the screen. Clearly Mr De Aragues’ day job has filtered into his style of shooting. Also the use of 3D nine times out of ten added little or nothing to the film, but it was clear that certain camera shots and angles were chosen to emphasise its use. Perhaps Mr Aragues managed to make his deal with Cinema NX on the premise of it being their first or flagship 3D film and advertise their capabilities with the new technology?



However, it’s only in reflection I can pick any sort of whole in the film. Sat glued to my seat my heart raced with the breath taking speed of the bikes and the guessing as to whether or not a rider is still upright or missing on the road. TT3D: Closer To The Edge took me back to my own childhood on the Isle watching my own father race, tinker with his bike and talk of at what points the bike felt good or bad. I remembered vividly being 14 and riding my own 50cc bike around the paddock taking his helmet to be cleaned and collecting practice time sheets. I also remembered those we lost, the feeling of hearing someone was missing on the road and the moment the news came that they had not survived. It’s been 13 years since I last visited the Isle of Man but I can still smell the exhaust fumes in the air. I can still feel the rush of the bikes as they pass at 200 mph. I can still feel the memory of every rider to ever set off down Bray Hill etched into the course, the island and the history of the TT races whether they won or lost.



TT3D is a magnificent monument to those men and women who have lived and died on the Isle of Man. Thank you Mr De Aragues for such a touching tribute.

D.J. Haza



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Movie Review Archive

Behind the scenes of Attack the Block with Joe Cornish

Joe Cornish (he of The Adam and Joe Show fame) makes his theatrical debut as writer-director of Attack the Block, a sci-fi comedy that sees a teenage street gang fighting to repel an alien invasion of their South London council estate. The film is executive produced by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) and stars Jodie Whittaker (St. Trinian's), Luke Treadaway (Clash of the Titans), Jumayn Hunter (Eden Lake) and Franz Drameh (Hereafter) alongside newcomers Alex Esmail, John Boyega, Leeon Jones and Simon Howard, not to mention long-time Wright collaborator Nick Frost.



Attack the Block has been generating quite a bit of buzz since its premiere at SXSW back in March, drawing comparisons to cult 80s classic the The Goonies, and UK audiences will get a chance to see what all the fuss is about when the film opens in cinemas this Wednesday. Be sure to check out our review here, and let the director take you behind the scenes in this short video...

365 Days, 100 Films #15 - Attack the Block (2011)

Attack the Block, 2011.



Written and Directed by Joe Cornish.

Starring Nick Frost, Jodie Whittaker, Luke Treadaway, John Boyega, Alex Esmail and Simon Howard.





SYNOPSIS:



When aliens invade a South London council estate, it's left to a teenage street gang to try and save the day.





“He’s much taller in real life”, I thought, “and that’s when a little hunched too”. Joe Cornish ambled across the cinema screen to stand before us. He thanked Channel 4 for his breaks in life; a first job in production; giving him and his friend Adam Buxton their first show; partly funding his debut film that we were about to watch. If it weren’t for them, he imagined in a desperate alternate reality, he’d be holed up somewhere taking crack with his prossie girlfriend right now. “Shouldn’t have said ‘prossie’,” he quickly self-flagellated under his breath. As a listener of the Adam and Joe podcasts, watching him speak felt disorientating. My mind dismembered voice from mouth as though it were a very good piece of dubbing. It’s like the first time you ever saw John Motson. But to the film…



Attack the Block pits the inhabitants of a Brixton council estate, which they defensively refer to as “the Block”, against a very localised alien invasion (note: not ‘global’). The film opens on Sam (Jodie Whittaker), a nurse returning home to the Block, when a gang of hooded teenagers block her way. Their faces are obscured by shadow and the night takes care of the rest. Two of them flank Sam on their bikes to surround her. Their leader, Moses (John Boyega), demands her wallet and the ring around her finger. Shaking, she struggles to remove it quick enough, so Moses pushes her to the tarmac.



You’d expect Sam to be the protagonist here. Well, she’s kinda a co-protagonist later on, but it’s the gang who are the film’s heroes. Yeah, the ones who just mugged a defenceless lady – a white lady at that. When a piece of the sky crushes a nearby car, harbouring inside it a lean, sharp-toothed alien, your appetite begins to whet for the gang’s bloody demise. After all, it’s an established sci-fi/horror convention – the bad guys get ate. But instead it is they who kill the monster, impaling it on a stick with the same aggressiveness they exerted on Sam. You see, they aren’t the real bad guys. They could be, in time, but they’re still kids here.



It’s easy to forget that they’re only young because they’re so intimidating at first. But Cornish admirably reveals the gang’s age by humanising them with perceptive details (“I wanna go home and play Fifa”) and shows them as the youths demonised and ignored by society (unless for a knife-crime statistic). It makes it harder to blame them for bullying the street corners. They mooch back to the Block on their mobile phones, each moaning to their elders about staying out a little longer. You get little snippets from their conversations. They’re talking to grandmothers or uncles, not mothers and fathers. It’s safe to assume the homes to which they return are ‘broken’.



As they walk to the Block, the depth of the film’s cast is realised; Moses, and the other four who comprise his gang, are significantly developed; Probs and Mayhem, two pre-teens who want to join Moses’ gang are introduced; Brewis, a posh University graduate from Fulham, is sorely out of place and looking to buy weed; and Ron (Nick Frost), who gets stoned and watches the Discovery channel all day. That’s why he’s the best person to take the alien’s corpse to – he might be able to tell them what it is, and more importantly, if it’s worth any money. They seem quite preoccupied with this, like most kids who go through a spell of hyper-capitalist entrepreneurialism. I once set up a shop underneath my stairs when I was about eight, convinced I’d earn my fortune. At least I had stairs. They only have the stairwells that connect the Block’s floors.



When the alien ships start to crash to earth around the Block, camouflaged by the firework displays that litter the night’s sky, these brief introductions of supporting characters allows the film to effortlessly cut between them and their different sub-plots later on. But what of the monsters! Their jaws light up with a neon blue, but the rest of their furry bodies are so black they merge with the dark. That’s pretty handy when you consider the cost of puppetry and CGI. It’s called making your budget work for you. You never see enough of the monsters to make out their flaws, and it is this secrecy that makes them relentlessly terrifying. That’s called positive feedback. Germain Lussier at SlashFilm, who called the film a “genre-bending, cult classic in the making”, pointed out how Attack the Block imposes its geeky passion upon the viewer. It “elicits the kind of nostalgia that’ll make fans want to own and display tiny replicas of its protagonists and antagonists.” It’s an odd compliment, but an acute one. Journey into a Forbidden Planet and you’ll see the hordes of McFarlane miniatures of Spawn and Halo exhibited in glass cases. Look a little further on and you’ll see ones from The Warriors and Shaun of the Dead. Hopefully soon they’ll be accompanied by a range of Attack the Block’s monster plushies.



So the monsters proceed to attack the gang, and sometimes the gang attack the monsters, but the teenagers are loosing and get pushed higher and higher up the Block. The film isn’t sloppy though - all this action is fully supported by plot. Why, for example, do the aliens seem to be exclusively targeting them? We must also not forget Attack the Block’s wicked sense of humour and its occasional treats of inspired gore.



Cornish said before the film began that he was influenced by the monster films he watched growing up as a 80s child like Predator, Gremlins and Critters (it does sometimes feel as though he’s channelling Joe Dante). And just like those films, Attack the Block makes you want to have children just so you can scare the shit out of them from an early age.



Walking home at just gone 10pm, after seeing Attack the Block, you realise just how well it was photographed. Every frame captures the urban night. Illumination comes from car headlights, streetlights and mobile phones. It’s all unnaturally piercing, yet at the same time, for those who live in the built up areas similar to the Block, there’s a familiarity to be found in their electric glow. You really appreciate your estate’s orange bath after that, and then maybe you’ll start to understand the youths that share…shhh! Did you see that? Over there, in the corner, just out of the lamppost’s peripherals…

Oli Davis



365 Days, 100 Films



Movie Review Archive

DVD Review - London Boulevard (2010)

London Boulevard, 2010.



Directed by William Monahan.

Starring Colin Farrell, Keira Knightley, David Thewlis, Anna Friel, Ray Winstone, Ben Chaplin, Stephen Graham and Eddie Marsan.





SYNOPSIS:



A man newly released from prison falls in love with a reclusive young movie star and finds himself in a duel with a vicious gangster.





The trailer for London Boulevard at the tail end of last year promised the best kind of British gangster flick; slick, stylish, smart, sexy and darkly funny. A disappointingly short run in cinemas and a lukewarm critical reception suggested that something didn’t quite click though, despite the stellar cast and seductive snippets of footage. Perhaps audiences anticipated more of the same; substitute Ray Winstone for Michael Gambon and Colin Farrell for Daniel Craig and you essentially get Layer Cake. But I was inclined to disagree with the tepid expectations because of interesting parallels between criminality and celebrity.



Farrell plays Mitchell, a cockney con straight out from serving three years for GBH. He explains he was merely involved in “an altercation” (he educated himself through hordes of books inside) and that he’s no thief. He’s trying to convince Keira Knightley’s paparazzi besieged actress to employ him as a bodyguard, after he uses his street smarts and hard as nails attitude to help a friend of hers avoid a nasty scuffle. Mitchell eventually takes the job protecting the star from crude happy snappers, whilst simultaneously trying unsuccessfully to remove himself from friendships drawing him back into London’s underworld. Without even trying he rapidly builds a reputation for himself that Ray Winstone’s crime boss wishes to utilise.



I found the idea of a gangster tied to his life by the contracts of violent deeds and debts, compared and contrasted with a celebrity trapped by fame, an extremely interesting one. Neither can easily escape those aware of their existence and constantly keeping tabs on them. The relationship between Mitchell and his globally known actress had the potential to provide a refreshing lens through which to view a swaggering, traditional gangster story.



And at times the angle is slightly different. Some of the dialogue between Knightley and Farrell, particularly when they slip away to the countryside, is both full of black humour and believable observations about their determined destinies. But sadly most of the dialogue is ordinary and predictable and has indeed been seen countless times before. Farrell’s performance is neither fantastic nor a failure, merely passably cut off and charismatic, in keeping with the genre. He is suitably cool. Most disappointing is Knightley, who despite looking the part with a withered and thin appearance, never truly inhabits a role that must be close to the reality of her life on occasion. She ought to be capable of more than caricature with such personal experience to draw on.



For me the main problem with London Boulevard was that it boiled down to an endless simmering. The stylish and often mildly funny build up was pleasing enough for a while, but only because it seemed to hint at the plot coming together and igniting at some point. It never really does. The climax on offer lacks intensity and urgency. With funny, vivid performances in supporting roles from David Thewlis, Ray Winstone, Ben Chaplin and Anna Friel, London Boulevard ultimately lets down an impressive cast of capable Brits. As well as the audience.

Liam Trim (follow me on Twitter)



Movie Review Archive

Short Film Showcase - Shooter (2009)

Presenting short films from independent filmmakers...

Shooter, 2009.

Directed by Ronnie B. Goodwin.
Starring Paul Hunter.
Written by Ronnie B. Goodwin and Paul Hunter.
Produced by Ronnie B. Goodwin and Basil Khalil.
Music by Gregor Narholz.

Shooter is a multi-award winning short from director Ronnie B. Goodwin about an ex-soldier (Paul Hunter) haunted by his experiences of conflict. Seeking solitude in the wilderness of the mountains, lochs and forests of Scotland, the shooter is torn between the images of the inhumanity of war that plague his imagination and the natural beauty that surrounds him. Running at just five minutes, Shooter does a fine job of conveying the protagonist's internal struggle to deliver a thought-provoking and emotive piece of filmmaking.

The film has enjoyed a successful run on the festival circuit these past two years, including 27 Official Selections (including the Cannes Short Film Corner, Palm Springs International Short Fest and the Edinburgh International Film Festival), 2 Jury Nominations and 4 International Awards, while it was also named Best in Festival at the Swansea Bay Film Festival in 2010. Shooter has also recently enjoyed its British TV premiere on the Sky Super Shorts Channel, and you can find out more about the film and Ronnie's upcoming projects at his official site.


Click here to view more short films and public domain features.

Short Film Showcase - Diary (2010)

Diary, 2010.

Directed by Tim Hetherington.

Earlier this week came the sad news that acclaimed British war photographer and documentary filmmaker Tim Hetherington was killed in a mortar attack while covering the ongoing conflict in Libya. Having spent much of the past decade in war zones such Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Afghanistan, Hetherington had contributed to the acclaimed documentaries Liberia: An Uncivil War and The Devil Came on Horseback before receiving an Oscar nomination for his work as co-director (alongside Sebastian Junger) of Restrepo (2010), the Grand Jury Prize winner at the Sundance Film Festival last year.

In tribute to Tim here is his most recent work, the short film Diary, described by the filmmaker as "a highly personal and experimental film that expresses the subjective experience of my work, and was made as an attempt to locate myself after ten years of reporting. It’s a kaleidoscope of images that link our western reality to the seemingly distant worlds we see in the media."


Click here to view more short films and public domain features.

DVD Review - Killer's Moon (1978)

Killer’s Moon, 1978.

Written and Directed by Alan Birkinshaw.
Starring Anthony Forrest, Tom Marshall, David Jackson, Georgina Kean, Nigel Gregory, Jane Hayden, Alison Elliot and JoAnne Good.


SYNOPSIS:

Four drugged-up mental patients escape from the local asylum and seek refuge in a remote Lake District hotel where a class of stranded school-girls are staying.


As with a number of his contemporaries, exploitation filmmaker Alan Birkinshaw (Confessions of a Sex Maniac) made the jump from the skin flick to horror for his second feature, Killer’s Moon. Inspired by the ultraviolence of Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, Birkinshaw delivered what has since been referred to as “the most tasteless movie in British cinema history”, a description which probably isn’t too far from the truth. Killer’s Moon has been compared to I Spit on Your Grave but it kind of comes over more like St. Trinian’s meets Last House on the Left, mixing elements of the school-girl comedy, sexploitation, rape-revenge and slasher (before it even existed) into a low-rent, morally bankrupt and utterly incompetent piece of filmmaking.

The basic plot is a retreading of the US shocker Carnal Madness (a.k.a. The Sizzlers), with four psychotic sex-offenders escaping from a poorly-guarded nut house and wandering in the wilds of the Lake District, tripping out of their minds on LSD from an experimental treatment programme where they believe real-life to be a dream. Meanwhile a coach breaks down, forcing a class of boarding-school girls to spend the night in a hotel run by EastEnders’ Nana Moon. Sure enough the wackos soon arrive at the hotel to put them through hell, until the arrival of a couple of hikers who team up with girls to seek revenge.

Like a number of exploitation flicks, the film’s shoddy production values, laughable acting and weak script leave it verging on self-parody - only one that isn’t very funny. There isn’t really any other purpose for its existence than to offend, with unnecessary animal cruelty (thankfully simulated) and a flippant attitude towards rape; but it has to be said that apart from a few scenes the film’s shock-value has dissipated somewhat over the years. Instead we’re left with a poorly made piece of trash cinema that comes across as an X-rated episode of Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace.

The dialogue in Killer’s Moon was supplied by Birkinshaw’s sister, the acclaimed author Fay Weldon, who once said that the film was “picture dialogue – A, picture movie – D”; I can only surmise that Weldon was undergoing the same treatment as the antagonists, because lines like an M.P. saying: “You mean this criminal lunatic is walking around believing he’s in a dream? In my dreams I murder freely, pillage, loot and rape!” and a school-girl telling her friend: “Look, you were only raped, as long as you don’t tell anyone about it you’ll be alright” are pretty far from A-grade stuff in my book (well, except perhaps the one from the M.P.).

While I couldn’t really recommend Killer’s Moon to anyone except die-hard genre-fiends and completionists, the DVD release from Redemption Films is actually a pretty good package. The film’s sound and picture quality are better than you’d expect and the special features come with an audio commentary and interviews with Birkinshaw and actress JoAnne Good, along with the obligatory stills and trailers. Sadly, that’s about all it has going for it, except for a three-legged dog who probably delivers the standout performance of the film and certainly has the best character arc.

Gary Collinson

Check out the trailer for stylish British short film Ante

Earlier in the week I received an email from up-and-coming Yorkshire based filmmaker Chris Cronin, letting me known about a new short that's he's completed entitled Ante, which tells the story of two competing businessmen who find thsemlves targeted by the same hitman.

Running at 18 1/2 minutes and entirely self-financed, Ante is an accomplished piece of filmmaking with Chris demonstrating a keen eye for direction, employing fluid, slick cinematography, stylish editing and an impressive cast to create a tense and engaging thriller that's among the best shorts I've seen so far this year.

Take a look at the synopsis and trailer...

Ultra-competitive salesmen, Tom (GREG KELLY, Hollyoaks, Waterloo Road) and Raymond (STEVE McTIGUE, Cold Feet, Doctors) are up for the same promotion. When ruthless contract killer, Pierson (DAVID ROBERTSON, Shameless, The Street), comes on the scene it looks like they unwittingly hired the same hitman to take each other out. But Pierson has a problem. If he kills them both, no one will be left to pay the rest of his fee. As the clock ticks away on Tom and Raymond's lives, they must use all their sales skills to convince the contract killer which of them it would be most profitable to let live.

Ante recently enjoyed a successful premiere at Kino Shorts 15 in Manchester and the next public screening is this coming Friday at the London International Film Festival (see here).

If you can't make that, be sure to keep an eye on the official website for future screenings - you won't be disappointed.

New trailer and poster for Brit thriller Making Ugly

Government cuts are hitting everywhere in the UK at the moment and the British film industry is no different, with the abolition of the UK Film Council and a 15% reduction in funding to the BFI dealing a severe blow to our country's emerging filmmakers. However, that isn't enough to put off first time director Andy Niblo and production company Squarebox Yellow, whose debut feature Making Ugly is currently in the final stages of post-production ahead of a festival run later this year.

We first mentioned the film back in January and now - with the film just weeks from completion - comes word of a brand new trailer which you can check out right here...


"Neil (Paul Quinn) has his habits; he drinks too much and smokes too much. He also kills too many women. In a city of millions, who has noticed? A tape is sent to Neil with footage of his brutal violence. Who has been following him and what will they do with this knowledge?"

For more on Making Ugly, visit the official site.

James McAvoy to star in Welcome to the Punch

Scottish actor James McAvoy has announced that he’s planning to star in the crime film Welcome to the Punch, to be shot in the UK. It will be written and directed by Eran Creevy, whose debut was the low-budget, BAFTA-nominated drama Shifty in 2008 with Daniel Mays and Jason Flemyng.

The story follows London detective Max Lewinsky (likely to be McAvoy’s role), who gets pulled into a big conspiracy plot after the reappearance of his old nemesis, an armed robber known as Red Diesel. Creevy has described the film as “an epic crime thriller in the mould of Heat or Internal Affairs.” It promises to have the kind of scope and action usually more associated with Hollywood films.

Filming is expected to start in July, which would still leave McAvoy enough time for his rumoured reunion with Joe Wright (director of Atonement), on the film adaptation of Anna Karenina.

James McAvoy’s diverse career has seen him star in such films as Wanted, The Last King of Scotland, Atonement and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. He can next be seen at cinemas as a younger Charles Xavier / Professor X in X-Men: First Class, which is released on June 2nd.

365 Days, 100 Films #14 - Never Let Me Go (2010)

Never Let Me Go, 2010.



Directed by Mark Romanek.

Starring Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley, Andrew Garfield, Sally Hawkins, Charlotte Rampling, Domhnall Gleeson, Nathalie Richard and Andrea Riseborough.





SYNOPSIS:



A nihilistic tale following the relationships between two girls and a boy. Friends since childhood, they are forced apart and then back together by the dystopian reality they inhabit.





The first 20 minutes of Never Let Me Go are among some of the most boring ever committed to film. Not bad, just boring. Like a really, really dull BBC period drama that has very little dialogue and a lot of shot/reverse-shots of people looking at each other. You see, Never Let Me Go follows the lives of three friends from when they were at school to their mid-twenties, and that means child actors.



Thankfully, despite the director’s best efforts, it picks up. As soon as Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield and (not so much) Keira Knightley replace the child actors, the film actually becomes quite engrossing. Those first two are breathtaking actors. The focus is on Carey Mulligan, and she absorbs it with immense maturity. She’s the Jack Wilshere of British film.



Along with the actors, Never Let Me Go has a very intriguing premise. Adapted from Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel, the film imagines an alternate reality to our world. Not set in the future, nor even the present, but in some re-imagined late-70s, early-80s haze. Although the following is revealed only about half and hour in, it may be worth warning the potential spoilers start here. In this alternate history, cloning is a part of life, albeit a quietly ignored one. Children are produced from cloning procedures to grow into organ donors. They rarely live beyond 25. Society barely acknowledges their existence; they shut them away, presumably too ashamed of their dependence upon these doomed children. You can feel the guilt of a nation whenever the clones encounter normal people.



Our three main characters realise their purpose at the end of the film’s first part, when they are still children. It makes for quite a foreboding life. Later, Mulligan becomes a carer for those undergoing organ donations. It means she gets a few extra years before her first operation. We first see her at the side of one of her patients, an eye-patched girl lying pale white and weary in a hospital bed. But her battered complexion and patchy skin are the scars from a previous harvest – the fragile girl hasn’t even been operated on yet. It’s the film’s most heartbreaking moment, but she’ll save the lives of others in her sacrifice. It’s morally abhorrent, but frighteningly understandable.



All of this, however, is background noise. It can get quite loud at times, but the film’s main story is the relationships between Mulligan, Garfield and Knightley. The first two are made for each other, and they know it, but Knightley has a jealousy complex. She takes Garfield for her own and guards him fiercely. Nevertheless, the three remain close friends.



There aren’t any shootouts, androids or meta-humans - this is a subtle ‘sci-fi’ film (note the lower case) with a tragic romance. Sci-fi tales set in the future often hold a warning about our present, about what we might become if we continue how we are. Minority Report, for instance, takes our preoccupation with surveillance to its futuristic extreme. The Matrix does likewise for our dependence on technology. Although set beyond our time, they comment upon our present.



Never Let Me Go, however, seems to be set in the past. Rather than make you look at the present’s effect on the future, it encourages you to consider how the past impacts on today. It encourages you to question science’s role in the development of modern society. Every now and again you’ll see a logo saying ‘N.D.P.’ imprinted on a van door or jacket lapel. It stands for the National Donor Programme. This process, of growing humans for their organs, is a publicly funded government initiative. We’re all complicit, but any anger is directed towards our parents’ generation for letting it happen in the first place. The film is primarily a nihilistic take on the love between two people - but beneath the characters and setting, it’s a cry to arms. For what? Read a newspaper and take your pick.

Oli Davis



365 Days, 100 Films



Movie Review Archive

Teaser trailer and release date for Hammer Films' The Woman in Black

Distributors Momentum Pictures have used London's Kapow Comic-Con to unveil the newest offering from Hammer Films, The Woman in Black. After kicking off their comeback last year with the vampire remake Let Me In, Hammer released both the Hilary Swank thriller The Resident and Irish rural horror Wake Wood last month, while the iconic British studio's next outing sees Daniel Radcliffe attempting to shake off the spell of Harry Potter in director James Watkins' (Eden Lake) adaptation of Susan Hill's acclaimed supernatural tale.

Check out the synopsis and teaser...

Based on the classic ghost story, THE WOMAN IN BLACK tells the tale of Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe), a lawyer who is forced to leave his young son and travel to a remote village to attend to the affairs of the recently deceased owner of Eel Marsh House.

Working alone in the old mansion, Kipps begins to uncover the town’s tragic and tortured secrets and his fears escalate when he discovers that local children have been dying under mysterious circumstances. When those closest to him become threatened by the vengeful woman in black, Kipps must find a way to break the cycle of terror.

Trailer (courtesy of IGN)...


The Woman in Black also stars Ciaran Hinds (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy) and Janet McTeer (Tumbleweeds) and is based on a screenplay by Jane Goldman (Kick-Ass, X-Men: First Class). The film is set to hit UK cinemas on February 10th, 2012.

Michael Fassbender gets Good Vibrations

Michael Fassbender has signed up to star in a biopic about the life of punk legend Terri Hooley, the founder of a record store in Belfast called ‘Good Vibrations’. The store later evolved into a music label, which kick-started the careers of a number of Irish punk bands.

The German-born actor, who grew up in Co. Kerry in south west Ireland, was keen to return to Belfast after filming Steve McQueen’s debut award-winning film Hunger there and falling in love with the city. Good Vibrations will be directed by husband and wife Glenn Leyburn and Lisa Barros D’Sa (Cherrybomb).

It will also see Fassbender reunite with actor Liam Cunningham (Clash of the Titans), his co-star in Hunger. Their roles are currently unknown but it has been announced that Richard Dormer (Five Minutes of Heaven) will star in the lead role as Hooley. Shooting will begin in and around Belfast in August.

Fassbender can be seen this summer in X-Men: First Class in which he plays a younger Magneto. Later this year he will star in the new adaptation of Jane Eyre, out in the UK in September. He is currently filming Ridley Scott’s much-anticipated film Prometheus, alongside Charlize Theron and Noomi Rapace.