Ben Wheatley’s Kill List was one of the most striking British films of 2011. A dark, lean hitman film which takes a wild turn two thirds of the way in, it deserved all the plaudits that came its way and heralded the arrival of a notable new talent in Wheatley. Less than a year after that film’s release the follow up is upon us and features a not dissimilar brand of pitch black comedy and violence. Although with leading comedy production house Big Talk behind this one, it’s no surprise that the comic elements are much stronger in Sightseers.
Alice Owen and Steve Oram play Tina and Chris, a relatively new couple, who decide to take their first holiday together. What starts out as a peaceful and promising sojourn around some of the delights of the UK countryside, including Keswick Pencil Museum and Ribblehead Viaduct, quickly turns into a violent killing spree as Chris’ homicidal tendencies are teased out by the behaviour of his fellow tourists. Read more
Of all the films on this list The Sapphires sticks out like a sore thumb. An unashamed and genuine crowd-pleaser, the film has already been picked up for UK distribution by Harvey Weinstein who has proclaimed it ‘this year’s The Artist’. Talk is that it’s planned for a January release, much like The Artist, and I wouldn’t bet against it making a similar splash at the box office.
The story is based on true events surrounding an aboriginal girl group who, facing prejudice in their home country, find themselves touring Vietnam during the war entertaining the American troops. The story may rely heavily on cliché but the performances are uniformly winning and the laughs come regularly. The main source of the humour is Irish comedian Chris O’Dowd, who puts in a sensational performance as the band’s put upon manager. Read more
In 1999, Danish director Thomas Vinterberg announced himself as a major talent with the devastating family drama Festen. Adhering to the strict code of Dogme 95, the film eschewed the use of such unnecessary tools as lighting and special effects in favour or story and raw, emotional storytelling. The film was a tour-de-force and many predicted a long and much vaunted career lay ahead for Vinterberg, much like his compatriot Lars Von Trier. It’s taken him thirteen years to produce a film of comparable quality but The Hunt is comfortably Vinterberg’s best film since Festen.
Mads Mikkelsen plays Lucas, a kind, good natured primary school teacher who is extremely popular amongst his students and contemporaries. This all changes when an accusation is made against by one of his young students. We, the audience, know the accusation to be false but it doesn’t take long before Mikkelsen’s life is slowly unravelling and he’s being assaulted in the local supermarket. Read more
It’s quite possible to argue that a person’s response to the film adaptation of On The Road will depend entirely on their reaction to the revered book upon which it’s based. Not being a fan of Kerouac’s autobiographical opus, the film had to do a lot to win me over and whilst it doesn’t eradicate many of the issues I had with the book, I was pleasantly surprised with much of the adaptation.
It helps that the casting is very strong, with Garrett Hedlund as Dean Moriarty replicating the highs of Friday Night Lights as opposed to the lows of Tron: Legacy. Sam Riley is perfectly fine as Sal Paradise and Kristen Stewart manages the right balance between naivety and vulnerability. The strong supporting cast is rounded out by Kirsten Dunst, Amy Adams and a scene-stealing Viggo Mortensen. Read more
Brad Pitt is becoming something of a Cannes veteran with Inglourious Basterds in competition in 2009 and The Tree Of Life picking up the Palme d’Or last year. He was back again this year, once again teaming up with Kiwi director Andrew Dominik (The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford). Killing Them Softly is a dark, gritty crime drama with a strong political undercurrent.
Pitt plays Jackie Cogan, a mob enforcer, who is called in when a poker game is held up and cleaned out by a couple of deadbeat criminals. Pitt’s job is to find the perpertrators and bring them to justice mob style. It’s brutal, violent and being very dialogue heavy, requires concentration from the viewer. As seemed to be often the case at this Cannes, the performances were first rate from the whole cast with Scoot McNairy and Ben Mendelsohn particular stand-outs as the weaselly robbers. Read more
The Cannes film festival is over for another year and as many attendees reflect on what was yet again a stellar year for the festival, it’s easy to identify a number of films which will be making different sized waves at the UK box office and awards ceremonies over the coming months.
It may seem obvious but for any film fan Cannes is a wonderful place to watch films. The cinemas are comfortable, with huge screens the width of the room. The audience are respectful, almost to the point of reverence and the films are more often than not of an extremely high quality, and even when they’re not you can witness a spectacular failure. Here’s a selection of some of the highlights which we can expect to see in UK cinemas over the next year. Read more
With both The Proposition and The Road, John Hillcoat has made quite a name for himself making brutal, bleak and masculine dramas. Based on the novel ‘The Wettest County In The World’, Lawless once again very much fits this description and features a stellar cast, including Tom Hardy, Guy Pearce, Gary Oldman, Jessica Chastain and Shia LaBeouf.
The film tells the tale of the notorious bootlegging Bondurant family, who during prohibition era America make their living producing Moonshine for the residents of Franklin County, Virginia. Their comfortable existence is threatened when a corrupt county attorney mayor decides he wants a slice of the pie. Naturally this doesn’t go down too well and before long a vicious, sadistic FBI agent Charlie Rakes (Pearce) is sent in to get the brothers to play along. Tensions rise further when the ambitious younger Bondurant (LaBeouf) ramps up the moonshine production and run-ins with Rakes get more fractious and violent. Read more
Despite having the accompaniment of a certain DCMer by the name of David Fitzgerald forced upon me for the evening, I was committed to deflecting my mind’s attention away from the strains of unsought companionship to focus on the delights of Charlize Theron (and the Snow White and the Huntsman premiere).
The fever-pitched frenzy of fans was in earnest as the main event began, with crowds of people animated in their excitement. Beautifully captured, elegant, breath-taking and striking are all words that could easily encapsulate it…Charlize was truly majestic as she walked down the red carpet. Some men became instantly enchanted, some even shied away with a sheepish unworthy glance. I was simply grateful that I’d spent that extra five minutes before we left looking in the Mirror Mirror. Read more
Digital Cinema Media (DCM) sent a traditional British treat in the form of fish and chip vans to MGOMD, M2M, Carat, OMD and PHD last week to raise awareness for their Best of British film packages in cinema.
The activity was well received by all the agencies, receiving twitter and Facebook coverage, with Anna Fitzgerald, Cinema Co-ordinator at PHD, commenting on the day "Thanks DCM for the lunchtime treat. Looking forward to all the great British films coming out this year, especially Bond and to running my brands alongside this wealth of British talent in cinema!"
The activity received positive press coverage in Media Week’s ‘Out & About’ feature on the 30 March and across the 3 days DCM treated 4 agencies, over 550 agency contacts, one tea lady and a road cleaner to approx. 600 portions of chips.
@lauralouisetait
@DCM_cinema_news lovely free fish 'n' chips at @OMDUK today!
@misslaurendyer
Free Fish and Chips outside the studio today, nice one @DCM_cinema_News #bestofbritish #yum
@TaraNarain
Free Fish&Chips for lunch! thanks @DCM_cinema_news #yummy
@dyl
free fish and chi ps van courtesy of @dcm_cinema_news outside the office #getinmybelly
@tomcarter89
Thanks @DCM_cinema_news for bringing some Fish & Chips to @caratuk to celebrate Best of British in Cinema #tasty
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[embed width=550]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-ynprkRhEI[/embed] Read more
Digital Cinema Media’s recent 'Introduction to Cinema' event brought new starters at media agencies and the next generation of media talent up to speed on all aspects of the cinema industry, from the cinema buying marketplace to the highly targeted audiences and creative solutions it can deliver.
The course is a free training event held twice a year in April and November. Three training sessions of its kind have taken place to date and the last event in April hosted 90 attendees from agencies such as Carat, Mediacom, Zenith, PHD, Maxus, Leo Burnet and Mindshare. Read more
Last Wednesday was similar to how I spend all my Wednesday nights - quick drink then off to see a film with my best mates Jay Z, Nicole Scherzinger and Lewis Hamilton. Well not quite.
I was lucky enough to attend the Men in Black 3 3D Premiere and at last proved that I was no longer cool in anyway shape or form as I shamelessly gasped and pointed at celebrities throughout the opening 10 minutes of the film. Read more
This weeks film schedule updates:
Red Lights now opens 15 June 2012 Read more
