Summer is over, just look outside for proof, but right around the corner to help combat those post-summer blues is the UK's premier film extravaganza, the 58th BFI London Film Festival. The programme was announced at Odeon Leicester Square on Wednesday and includes a huge 245 feature films and 148 shorts. To save you the time of trawling through the comprehensive brochure, I've picked out a few of the key highlights so you can be first in the queue when the tickets go on sale on 18 September.
The festival is bookended, unsurprisingly, by the opening and closing night galas and this year there's a distinctive WWII feel. Opening proceedings is The Imitation Game. Benedict Cumberbatch stars as genius mathematician, Alan Turing, who helped crack the Enigma code, which was instrumental in the allies winning the war. It's directed by Norwegian, Morten Tyldum, who if you saw 2012's Headhunters, you'll know can tell a pacy yarn with twists and turns with ease and after its premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, Cumberbatch is being talked up as a serious awards contender. Read more
Headlines this week have claimed a decline in cinema takings following a summer of lacklustre performances by many of the Hollywood blockbusters. The same is not the case in the UK argues Digital Cinema Media's head of film, Tom Linay.
With the summer having drawn to a close just a few days ago, this week has seen a number of articles in the press assessing the box office performance of films released in the summer months and how it compares to previous years. The chat has particularly focussed on the US, where the box office was down year-on-year but when we focus on the UK, it’s a slightly different story. Read more
Mini is showcasing its latest Countryman car range at cinema nationwide with a localised ad campaign targeting over 140 locations.
The ‘Mini at the Movies’ scheme was developed by media agency Vizeum in association with Digital Cinema Media (DCM), a firm which controls 80 per cent of the cinema marketplace. Read more
Gap, the iconic American clothing brand, today revealed a series of films that will air on TV, in cinema, in stores and online, created by Academy Award-nominated director David Fincher (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Social Network, Fight Club and the much anticipated Gone Girl). The four new commercials – Kiss, Drive, Golf and Stairs – mark Gap’s return to television.
Fincher’s inspiration and cinematic touch is clearly apparent, with a creative treatment that sets them apart from Gap’s previous TV campaigns. The four films were created with Wieden+Kennedy New York as part of Gap’s new campaign, Dress Normal. Read more
It seems the trend for nomination on social media knows no ends but thankfully #cinephilephoto is now using the trend to bring some of the best scenes in cinema history to Twitter. Nominees have to choose and post one of their favourite scenes in film. Notable entrants so far have been from Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright, and Rian Johnson and our very own Tom Linay. Here are some of our favourite entries so far:
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Action film stars who made their name in the 1980s have no trouble finding roles these days, as long as they are willing to play to their ironic appeal.
None have done this better in commercials than Jean Claude Van Damme, who has swapped earnestly taking out legions of villains in movies for flexing his muscles (from Brussels) with knowing grin. Read more
The programme for the 58th BFI London Film Festival launched today. This is the 10th year DCM has partnered with Britain’s leading film event and one of the world’s oldest film festival.
This year's BFI London Film Festival kicks off on October 8 with Alan Turing drama The Imitation Game and finishes on October 19 with David Ayers' tank drama Fury. The full line-up, featuring 245 features and 148 shorts, has now been announced. Read more
Pernod Ricard has called on Academy Award-winning actor Jeff Bridges to star in its western-inspired four-minute cinematic ad for Kahlúa.
The four-minute ad, "the White Russian", will launch online and in US cinemas. Read more
The sky has a more frequent greyish tinge and rumours abound that at least one of the major retailers already has Christmas decorations for sale. Summer is officially over, which also heralds the end of the inaugural DCM Fantasy Film League. Just in case this is news to you, Autumn starts on 1 September and we asked participants to pick a selection of films from different categories that hit cinemas this summer. We then collated the opening week box office performance for each film and whoever had the highest total at the end of the summer wins a five star cinema experience in London. It might sound simple, but predicting film performance rarely is and this summer has definitely sprung a few surprises.
Perhaps unsurprisingly the biggest opening week came in August with the return of the four Rudge Park alumni in The Inbetweeners 2. It had the benefit of opening slap bang in the middle of the school holidays and it proved that public appetite for the characters hadn’t waned. Just behind was May’s biggest blockbuster and the most popular pick in the category with 211 people plumping for it, X-Men: Days of Future Past. Once again, it had the benefit of opening in a school holiday (make a note for next year) and it also helped that it delivered on the big budget spectacle front. Only just behind was Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, which didn’t have the benefit of opening during the holidays but was helped by the fact it was an absolute corker and the best reviewed blockbuster of the year. It still went big and is one of only three films this year so far to cross the £30m mark. Other strong performing blockbusters include Guardians of the Galaxy and Transformers 4: Age of Extinction. Read more
Lucy held the top spot for the second successive weekend, falling 37% to £2m and a very healthy cume of £8m. It’s already director, Luc Besson’s (Leon, The Fifth Element) biggest UK hit and signals a return to box office form after last year’s disappointing, The Family (£1.1m). There’s still plenty more to come too and it should finish its run north of £12m.
Let’s Be Cops was the highest new entry in second with £1.7m, £506k of which came from Wednesday and Thursday previews. On paper it didn’t look that promising, with a relatively unknown cast and a director with a patchy track record (Something Borrowed, The Girl Next Door) but it’s strong US performance hinted that the marketing was connecting with audiences and the UK opening confirms that. There also appears to be a strong disconnect between critics’ reviews and audience reaction. It has a rating of 30 (out of 100) on Metacritic, which aggregates prominent critics’ ratings, while on IMDB it has a much more healthy audience rating of 6.8 (out of ten). Read more
Hollywood studios have known there is money in tears since Walt Disney killed Bambi’s mother in 1942. Now they are using science to make people who love to cry at the movies very happy.
By manipulating an array of tricks known as “psychocinematics” — or what scriptwriters call “telling a good story” — they aim to get multiplexes ringing to the sound of teenage sobs. Read more
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