From Nirvana sticksman to Foo Fighters frontman, and with a musical legacy spanning collaborations with Killing Joke, Queens of the Stone Age and Them Crooked Vultures, Dave Grohl has already achieved a career of legendary status in music. Sound City sees him turn his assured hand to directing, documenting the life of LA’s legendary Sound City recording studio.

Opened by joint owners Joe Gottfried and Tom Skeeter in 1969, Sound City housed over four decades of recorded music, journeying a roller coaster ride of financial peaks and troughs along the way. The documentary is split into three parts opening with the history of the studio, progressing to the impact of technology and finishing with an emphasis on the principals of musical performance and songwriting.

Skeeter admits that to achieve their goal of attracting the best artists throughout the inaugural years of Sound City Studios, they knew that only the best recording equipment would entice them. The acquisition of a custom Neve Mixing Console was exactly the piece of kit to assume the role of their star magnet. The console – considered by many as the Rolls Royce of mixing desks – was priced at over $70k, double what Skeeter had paid for a house at the time.

The booking floodgates were opened following the recording of Fleetwood Mac’s eponymous album, with artists including Neil Young, Grateful Dead and Elton John all electing it as their studio of choice. Sound City was flying high until the digitally synthesised sounds of the 80s turned people away from the merits of their naturalistic, analogue output.

Struggling financially, it was Grohl’s own band Nirvana who rescued the studio in 1991, recording the momentous Nevermind and cementing their rich analogue sound as an essentiality for artists moving forward. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against The Machine and Johnny Cash are just a few of the many artists who subsequently recorded at the studio. Nevertheless, the development of recording software such as Pro Tools, which allowed musicians to record for free from the comfort of their own homes, was the catalyst for the demise and eventual closure of Sound City Studios in 2011.

Grohl largely takes a back seat until the third section of the film, preferring to put the emphasis on the recollections of other musicians and workers at the studio. Despite this, the story of Sound City is intertwined with his own personal journey through music, and the culmination of the documentary sees Grohl working with his musical hero Paul McCartney in his home studio (which now hosts the Neve Console, bought by Grohl from Sound City). The energy, spontaneity and excitement in the room is captured on the analogue tape – elements which are not present on more sterile Pro Tools recordings in the modern day.

The audience are left with an appeal to maintain the human elements in music. Too often the modernistic approach is to rely on digital tools to edit takes to perfection, whereas through practice and experimentation the un-tampered final take on an analogue tape simply captures the true heart and soul of music.

After just one afternoon of writing, jamming and recording a new song, Grohl leans over and asks, ‘Why can’t it always be this easy?’ to which McCartney replies, ‘It is!’

Sound City is released on DVD on March 11th 2013.

Film fans and stars took to the red carpet on Sunday 21st October for the BFI’s glittering closing gala at London’s Odeon Leicester Square featuring the European Premiere of Great Expectations.

With a stellar cast showcasing Britain’s next generation of acting royalty, this home grown remake of the Dickens classic was a fitting conclusion to the London Film Festival 2012. David Lean’s 1946 version, starring John Mills, is viewed by some as one of the most perfect films ever made and there have been numerous TV and film adaptions since. The challenge for any director taking on the costume drama was therefore to bring something new and fresh to the Big Screen. Director Michael Newell (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire), however, draws on the rich tones and production values we see in Potter, reuniting some of the franchise’s stars Helena Bonham Carter (Miss Haversham), Ralph Fiennes (Magwitch) and Robbie Coltrane (Jaggers). This production style, combined with strong comedic performances from a supporting cast, including the superbly Pumblechookian David Walliams, delivers a movie that encapsulates the very best of Dickensian characterisation and spirit in a real, but raw environs. Jason Flemyng is likeable as the kind, but modest blacksmith Joe Gargery, who reminds Pip of his lowly origins as his city life of a gentleman distances him from those who brought him up.

The film also sees touching performances from its younger cast including Charlie Callaghan as the warmly pugnacious young Herbert Pocket, who steals the biggest laugh in the movie. Jeremy Irvine returns after his success in Warhorse as a brooding Pip, painfully in love with the exquisitely cold Estella played stunningly by Holliday Grainger (Bel Ami).

Newell has avoided the stereotype dark misty atmosphere directors have often chosen for the Kent marsh scenes between the young Pip and escaped convict Magwitch, choosing instead a more natural and optimistic lighting.  This contrasts with the dirty, dark streets of London, flowing with blood and open flesh from street butchers that Pip encounters when he moves to London to become a gentleman at the hands of his mysterious Generous Benefactor, as well as the gruesome fire scene that engulfs Miss Haversham with flames at the end of the film.

As Miss Haversham, Helena Bonham Carter comes forward as a new grande dame of British cinema, playing the damaged and eccentric aging bride, jilted on her wedding day. “I like sick people and she’s really sick,” she told UBC Entertainment News on the red carpet before Sunday’s premiere. “I mean psychologically barking. Not everyone who gets jilted remains in their wedding dress for the rest of their life and tries to freeze time.”

Great Expectations is a solid adaption of a much loved British literature classic that releases on 30th November. With such strong acting talent and a faithful take on the story, we think that the movie will appeal to an upscale AB1 and female audience.

Last Thursday I was lucky enough to attend a media screening of the highly anticipated, 23rd Bond instalment, Skyfall. Whilst spending my lunchtime speaking to BT and reheating the previous night’s pasta bake was a flawless plan, I felt attending the screening was something I couldn’t pass up on.

Left with a sour taste in my mouth from the last bond venture, A Quantum of Solace, I was feeling sceptical about Skyfall. Whilst it’s been one of my most anticipated releases of the year, I was hesitant to throw my full enthusiasm into it in the interest of avoiding disappointment.

After entering the plush Sony screening room with dubiety squashing my child-like excitement, I am happy to confirm that I left the screening grinning like a 6 year old that’s overdosed on Sunny Delight.

The film opened with, in my opinion, one of the best Bond opening sequences ever full of adrenaline and excitement. The opening credits were equally as breath-taking with Adele perfectly complimenting the stunning visual credits we’ve come to expect from the Bond franchise.

Out of respect for the obvious hard work that’s gone into Skyfall, I won’t comment on any particulars but rest assured that Skyfall is a stunning credit to the franchise and a fitting title for the 50 year anniversary of Bond. It feels modern whilst respecting the heritage of Bond and delivers set pieces that will leave both the new and old Bond enthusiasts gagging for more. One noteworthy scene, set on the London Underground, left me jaw dropped and pleased that even top-secret spies suffer from commuter woes.

As always the casting is spot on with Javier Bardem stealing the show as a modern and suitably deranged Bond villain.

In summary, Skyfall encompasses everything we love about Bond and more; fun, thrilling and seriously cool. This latest instalment will leave all fans fulfilled and no doubt yield monstrous takings at the Box Office.

I’m now off to douse myself in samples of the latest 007 fragrance, hoping that some of the coolness rubs off (it won’t).

Skyfall releases this Friday 26th October.

The young characters of My Brother the Devil live in a world of perpetual violence, gang feuds and abuses both chemical and physical. It’s a world where a legitimate road to success is all-but invisible, and brash machismo – often backed-up by cold steel – is an ugly substitute for ambition. They’re pawns to their generals, men in their late-20s whose council houses are decked out like City Boy bachelor pads, except that for every set of iconic black-and-white photographs in a frame cluster, there’s a pair of antique machetes.

This is the world that Sally El Hosaini presents, and it’s one we’re all familiar with. Over the last decade, British cinema has indulged in something of an angry love affair with ‘the endz’, pushing out a steady stream of ‘gritty crime dramas’ with a tendency to feel like washed-out retreads of Boyz N the Hood with more muddled Afro-Caribbean patois and fewer barbeques. This recent tradition is carried over into My Brother the Devil but, thankfully, there’s something else going on underneath…

Unlike the other 2012 crime drama focusing around disenfranchised youths on the mean streets of East London, My Brother the Devil steers clear of the kind of sensationalism that dogged Ill Manors, and instead delivers a story of genuine heart and warmth amidst the backdrop of violence and poverty. The world the characters inhabit may be dark, but glimmers of light shine through. This is all well-trod territory, and a few of the plot turns come off a little heavy-handed, but Sally El Hosaini’s film is full of hope and humour, with well-drawn characters expertly played by the young cast, believable dialogue that isn’t afraid to occasionally step back and laugh at itself.

Overall, it feels like a far more balanced and therefore more honest account of the lives of young people in contemporary urban London. Other, harder crime dramas of recent years may claim to “tell it like it is”, but one suspects the filmmakers are, to a certain extent, serving their own creation myth. Hosaini maintains a certain level of professional detachment from the subject matter – no matter how close these characters and situations may be to her personal experiences and feelings, her priorities as a storyteller are straight, and this helps make My Brother the Devil the most satisfying entry yet into the ‘contemp. Brit-crime’ sub-genre.

My Brother the Devil releases 9 November 2012.

Odeon West End in its full glory

The cast

Billy Connelly (nearly Headless Nick), Maggie Smith (Professor McGonagall), and Michael Gambon (Professor Dumbledore)…no I’m not talking about a top secret Harry potter project but Quartet, the directorial debut from Dustin Hoffman (aka Captain Hook for the 90s kids out there).

The film centres on a retirement home for the old and extremely talented. From the start, you instantly get a taste of the characters and what’s in store as Gambon, head of the choir, shouts and instructs, the choir sing at the top of their lungs and Billy Connelly takes the mick!

Connelly’s character in the film is worth the ticket price alone. He is a ladies man, a smooth talker and young lad at heart, hindered only by the fact that he is getting old.

The relatively peaceful existence of the residents is thrown into slight disarray when Jean (Maggie Smith), an eternal diva of the opera world and former wife of one of the residents, arrives to stay. Long lost romances are reignited, delicate issues of old age are addressed, many a handbag is lost to forgetful-ness and sentences repeated for the hard of hearing.

It perhaps sounds bleak but the story is lovely and heart-warming and one which left me in tears by the end but laughing throughout.

The stars put on an amazing show and give a good lesson in how to grow old gracefully with a dash of attitude (whoever thought we’d hear Maggie Smith tell someone to “F**k Off!”).

At the start of the year The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel put a hand out to an upmarket audience and took over £20 million at the UK box office. Quartet runs along a similar vein, has Dustin Hoffman behind the camera and an all-star cast to match so is most definitely a feel good, upmarket Q1 release to look out for in January 2013.

Quartet releases 4 January 2013

On the rainiest of Wednesday nights, the DCM faithful padded over a sodden red carpet into a packed-out UK premiere of End of Watch – the new cop thriller by the writer of Training Day, David Ayer.  The influences really show too – the action is stark and brutal, with sombre down moments and tension hitting fever pitch at the grand finale.

This is no mindless shooter mind you, and underneath the gritty handheld realism and harrowing subject matter this is a buddy cop movie with a sincere heart.  The magnetic on-screen chemistry of Jake Gyllenhall and Michael Pena (present on the night to welcome the crowd) would be enough to carry the audience through from start to finish, displaying a friendship that is layered and believable.  They even make mention in the script that they are beyond friends – they are brothers.

End of Watch will open your eyes to the dangers the LAPD face on a daily basis and what it means to wear the badge.  In fact, Gyllenhall is said to have witnessed a genuine murder while he was researching for the film, riding with LA beat cops in the back of a patrol vehicle.  I really enjoyed the set-up, the mood and the delivery of this movie.  It feels spontaneous, the dialogue is both witty and personal, and the main characters deliver really solid performances. Jake is brilliant in this, and Pena bumbles like a Mexican Mark Ruffalo!    Tell your friends about this one and you’ll look like a total badass when they come back to you telling you they loved it.  An unlikely gem in 2012s crown.

End of Watch releases 23 November 2012.

It’s the beginning of an exciting new week at The BFI London Film Festival and the order of this evening is The Sapphires, the debut feature film from resident Aussie, Wayne Blair. Inspired by true events, it’s a gutsy, upbeat and at times satirical story of four girls with one dream.

It’s the late 60’s, 1968 to be precise, indigenous Australians have just been granted the right to vote, the civil rights movement is rife across the globe, and of course, the Vietnam War is in full throttle. The story focusses on three Indigenous sisters who have grown up in a rural mission, and whilst the universal notion of sisterly bickering is clearly still applied in deep Australia, the girls have one united dream… to make it big in the music industry and become stars.

The group perform at a local bar where they meet the hapless and often intoxicated MC Dave Lovelace (Chris O’Dowd) who agrees to manage the band and secures them an audition to entertain the US troops out in Vietnam. There’s one problem, Dave ‘I might look white, but this blood runs black on the inside’ Lovelace is a soul man, and the girls are born and bred country ‘n’ western singers. Dave’s persistence clearly pays off as the girls wow the judges with their soulful rendition of Marvin Gaye’s ‘Heard It Through The Grapevine’ and secure their place in Vietnam.

The rest of the film see’s the girls tour Vietnam, steadily becoming the flavour of the month with the American troops. The soundtrack is arguably one of the best of 2012 with hits ranging from Lynda Lyndells ‘What a Man’ to The Jackson Fives ‘Who’s Loving You?’ all leaving the most rhythm-less of cinemagoers hip-wiggling in their seats.

This is a glorious film which will appeal to men and women alike. It’s a heart-warming, soul-tastic, sing-along with a political under-current that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Its reference to the human rights movement, the assassination of Martin Luther King and 1960’s promiscuity are all off-set beautifully by O’Dowd who is fast becoming one Britain’s best loved comedic exports. A must see.

The Sapphires releases 7 November 2012.

If you’re a fan of French cinema, Michael Haneke’s Amour is a must-see film this November. As soon as it screened at the Cannes Festival, it was clearly very special and was the obvious choice to win the Palme d’Or.  But be prepared, it’s a gritty, matter of fact look at what happens in later life as the aging process takes over a couple’s world.

The Austrian director has united French cinematic legends Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva in this study on the beauty of spending your life with another person and how one copes with the suffering of a loved one. The acting is stunning. Emmanuelle Riva gives possibly the best screen performance I’ve ever seen as Anne, a piano teacher, whose life degenerates when she suffers a series of strokes. Trintignant’s tenderness as her husband Georges and his resolve to care for her as she becomes increasingly incapable is incredibly moving.

Haneke, who also wrote the screenplay, tells it like it is. There is no sentimentality or miserablism. But filmed almost entirely within the limits of a Paris flat, it shows how illness can shrink your world to the confines of these four walls. Isabelle Hupert also stars as the couple’s daughter, who is kept outside the couple’s increasing intimacy and is unable to take charge as her parents start to decline. The director cuts the film the way he wrote it, in single frame shots which allow the acting performances to shine with a realism that is exquisitely true to life.

It’s a film that will get you to think. Michael Haneke raises a number of issues such as how we care for the elderly, our responsibility to look after our parents and ultimately, euthanasia. However the director makes a rule not to pass judgement on anything. Judgement, he says, is left to the audience.

Amour is likely to appeal to art-house film fans who follow the works of international directors such as Truffaut and Almodovar, besides Haneke himself, with a passion for the craft of film-making, We expect this film to draw in an upscale, enquiring audience with an interest in culture, society and travel.

Amour releases on Wedensday 16th Novmeber.

It’s the opening of the BFI and what better way to kick off the 56^th London Film Festival than to pick a film which was crafted at the Three Mills Studios in East London and is the latest great offering from the quirky director who brought us the classic Nightmare before Christmas and The Corpse Bride.

Under the Disney banner, Frankenweenie 3D is enough to make the death of Bambi’s mom look like a happy affair. Set in a small suburban town in America, this monochrome film based on old Hollywood movies such as The Bride of Frankenstein and Gremlins is exactly what we’ve learned to expect from a Tim Burton film; gangly looking characters, death and a whole load of heart.

As the film starts, the iconic Disney intro kicks in but is quickly turned black and white, as 3D rain splatters down over the fairy tale castle. This certainly sets the tone of the film with the storyline following a science obsessed boy named Victor Frankenstein who sadly loses his lovable dog sparky to the pet cemetery. However, after a lesson from his gaunt looking science teacher, Mr Rzykruski, Victor decides to dig up the doggy corpse in a bid to bring his lovable pet back to life. In the dead of night and after some impressive sowing skills and a lightning storm, Frankenweenie is born!

Kids and adults will love it alike, but parents beware, it’s not for everyone as the subject matter is rather morbid and the scary pet-infused monsters which take over suburbia are enough fuel for a nightmare. Overall a funny, heartfelt storyline with some great 3D scenes and a must see for Tim Burton fans.

Frankenweenie 3D releases on Wedensday 17th October.

The big screen!

Our managing director Simon Rees with Georgina Lipscomb and Zoe Kretzschmar.

Myself with Amy Webster and Group M Group Head Andrew Bishop.

This week saw another successful edition of DCM Tuesdays take place with an advanced screening of latest horror fest from Momentum, Sinister.

From the producers of Paranormal Activity and The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Sinister lived up to its predecessors, provoking many hidden eyes behind popcorn boxes and screams of fright in the screening room of the Courthouse Hotel.

An assortment of agency representatives from across media land braved 2 hours of sheer terror as Ethan Hawke attempted to figure out the ‘sinister’ goings on at his family’s new house, haunted by terrible crimes committed there in the past.

Pre-film drinks provided the usual opportunities for catch-ups with old friends, introductions to new colleagues and discussions of current and future campaigns. Among the agencies present were Carat, Mediacom, MEC and Walker Media.

As people took their seats, the auditorium was buzzing with tension and anticipation to be scared silly. To introduce the event, Gareth Wragg (Group Head of the OPERA group) introduced the film and highlighted DCM’s recent journey in to full digital programming and exhibition. The whoops and cheers this announcement drew from the audience tell their own story of how beneficial this move is seen to be by brands interested in cinema advertising.

Then the film began. It scared, it terrified, it shocked and all in all left the audience leaving suitably frightened and a cowering at the sight of any small child on the walk home. We can’t say much without revealing all the gory secrets but if you enjoy being petrified, be sure to watch Sinister when it releases this Friday 5th October.

To become part of the DCM Tuesdays film club sign up here.