The UK box office saw an upturn this weekend with the top 15 up a whopping 97% from last weekend. Two films were responsible for the lion’s share of this increase, family animation Turbo and Tom Hanks' nail-biter, Captain Phillips.
Turbo opened with an impressive £3.9m, although £1.8m of that was from previews. That’s a bit better than Epic, which opened with £3.2m (including £1.4m from previews) in May. With half term week kicking off on Friday, Turbo should have plenty left in the tank. Read more
Digital Cinema Media (DCM), the market leader in UK cinema advertising, has partnered with Berghaus, the outdoor clothing and equipment manufacturer, to produce the first national cinema ad with tailored local messaging, directing cinemagoers to their nearest Berghaus stockists.
The national ad concludes with several different end frames, targeted at specific local areas, driving audiences to their local Berghaus stockists, including Blacks retail stores, the outdoor experts. This is something that would not have been possible before the advent of digital operation in cinema. Read more
On Wednesday morning, DCM and The Screen converged in the fabulous Dolby Screening room to update the cinema industry on the progress of digital and the new opportunities it affords advertisers.
Speakers included Michael Kali, Head of Corporate Sales and Advertising at Vue, who gave an update on the roll out of its digital operations. He explained how the transition from analogue to digital has freed up the cinema chain, made them more flexible and able to respond to changes in cinemagoers tastes more effectively. Read more
Digital Cinema Media (DCM), the market leader in UK cinema advertising, has welcomed The Olympic Studios to its Independent Exhibitor portfolio. The new partnership coincides with The Olympic Studios’ stunning re-opening on 18 October 2013.
The addition of The Olympic Studios to DCM’s estate strengthens DCM’s London independent cinema offer which is a huge draw to upmarket and discerning audiences in London, showing art-house films as well as big budget Hollywood hits. Read more
The 57th BFI London Film Festival, in asscoation with American Express is over for another year and it once again showcased some of the most exciting upcoming films in the world. The main galas rightly commanded much of the attention and yes, Gravity, Captain Phillips and 12 Years A Slave are as good as you’ve probably heard, but the programme was incredibly deep and diverse and there were gems to be unearthed throughout.
In this week’s special podcast we’ll give you an overview of some of the 235 feature films that played at the festival as part of our review of potentially the festival’s strongest ever year. With record equalling numbers attending the festival (151,000 people), it was a fantastic twelve days. Read more
Ralph Fiennes’ first directorial feature since his 2010 debut, Coriolanus, is a well-executed period drama focusing on Charles Dickens (Fiennes himself) at the height of his career when he meets Nelly Turnan (Felicity Jones), a younger woman who becomes his secret lover until his death. Based on Claire Tomlin’s 1990 biography of the same name, Fiennes’ double turn as director and actor shows us how the romance came to be, portraying the effect it had on both of them and serving as a study of adultery, celebrity and social standing of the time.
The story is told through the eyes of Nelly as she reflects back on her time with Dickens in a series of flashbacks. Although a slow burner to begin with, this is more than made up for with the extravagant costumes and settings which put the viewer firmly into this Dickensian world. What then follows is the arc of this blossoming relationship between Dickens and Nelly, coming at the expense of his neglected wife Catherine (Joanna Scanlan), lending potential to various interpretations of who the invisible woman in the title really is. Read more
This week, DCM Close Up talks to Keith Garrow, Manager of Dorking Halls. Keith tells us about the diverse offerings the venue brings to the Mole Valley community, from live shows in the Grand Hall to 3D screenings of the latest blockbusters.
How did you end up working in cinema and what do you love about it? Read more
Tuesday night a team of DCM crew were in attendance for the glitzy BFI Centrepiece Gala Premiere of Inside Llewyn Davis, the Coen Brothers’ hotly anticipated film following the huge success of their last collaboration, True Grit.
The event took place at the Odeon Leicester Square and in attendance were Ethan and Joel Coen, alongside the stars of their film Oscar Isaacs [Drive], John Goodman and our very own Carey Mulligan. The film is a period piece set in New York during a week in the winter of 1961, which follows meagre existence of Llewyn Davis, an embittered folk singer whose life pans out like a lamenting folk song; effectively homeless in the icy confines of New York City, crashing on the couches of those who have not yet tired of his selfish ways, wandering aimlessly by day and playing for a dwindling audience in the Gaslight Bar, a dingy club in Greenwich Village, the centre of the 60s folk scene. Read more
Energetic, confident, assured, charismatic, ambitious, witty, funny. All qualities that Joseph Gordon-Levitt exhibited on stage when introducing his new film Don Jon as part of the Laugh gala in association with Empire on Wednesday evening. Clearly immensely proud to be presenting his debut film as writer-director to the Odeon West End audience, he exuded enthusiasm and charm in his brief but winning introduction.
They are also qualities that can be applied to the film, in which Gordon-Levitt also plays the title role. In his intro he revealed that having graduated from successful child star, he’s always been fascinated by the film-making process and had been considering how he was going to make his debut film for a number of years. Heavily influenced by the films of Hal Ashby (Harold And Maude, The Last Detail) and the legendary Libertine Don Juan, Gordon-Levitt has extended his reputation with a flashy, if imperfect, debut about a New Jersey lothario who has a hidden and unhealthy relationship with pornography. Read more
Director Jonathan Glazer is a man responsible for some of the greatest music videos of all time and his two features to date, Sexy Beast and Birth demonstrate that his formidable talent extends to longer narratives too. With his latest film, Under The Skin, he has undertaken something else entirely. It’s less a narrative and more a sensory experience that contains a host of images that won’t be forgotten any time soon.
What narrative there is follows an alien called Laura, played by Scarlett Johansson with dyed hair and fur coat, who has rather unluckily found herself in Glasgow (of all the places to land). The film documents Laura experiencing the world and interacting with humans for the first time. She drives around in a transit van, visits shopping centres and nightclubs and does scenic coastal and forest walks. For reasons that aren’t explained, or if they were I missed it, she also leads unsuspecting and rather aroused males to their death in a mysterious black liquid that reduces its victims to a chilling husk. There’s also a man on a motorcycle who drives around Scotland interacting with people and locations that Laura has come into contact with. His purpose isn’t clear but it adds to the unsettling and discordant feel of proceedings. From first to last minute, the film successfully conjures, through oppressive sound design and off-kilter visuals an other-worldly and yes, alien atmosphere. I’d say it’s most relatable to the ambience Glazer created in his stunning video for UNKLE’s Rabbit In Your Headlights. Read more
An almost dialogue free account of one man on a boat in bad weather. Not perhaps the most tantalising one line summary but when that one man is screen legend Robert Redford, who delivers a genuinely captivating performance, it elevates the film almost into the realm of must-see.
The set-up is simple. Redford, as we learn from an opening voiceover, has left his family to sail around the globe in his yacht and has run into trouble. His voiceover reveals he’s almost given up hope and is ready to accept his fate. We cut to eight days previously and the yacht has just struck an abandoned shipping container in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Tearing a hole in the boat’s hull, Redford, listed only in the credits as ‘Our Man’, awakes to find his cabin filling with water. Read more
A semi-improvised comedy from one of the creative talents behind the mumblecore movement, set around a craft beer brewery couldn’t be more achingly hip but thankfully Drinking Buddies is superbly cast and surprisingly insightful.
Olivia Wilde plays Kate, a Chicago brewery worker who loves beer and socialising with her colleagues, particularly Jake Johnson’s Luke. Kate is in the relatively early stages of a relationship with the more reserved Chris (Ron Livingson) and Luke has been involved with Jill (Anna Kendrick) for a number of years, however this doesn’t stop either of them indulging flirting at regular opportunities. Read more
