UK Premiere of Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel To Open 2014 Glasgow Film Festival, Programme launched

The programme for the tenth edition of Glasgow Film Festival was announced today, studded with UK, European and World premiere screenings of some hotly-anticipated films, distinguished, fascinating guests and innovative pop-up cinema experiences. The tenth Festival, which is supported by Glasgow City Marketing Bureau, EventScotland and Creative Scotland, will open with the UK premiere of Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, and close with the Scottish premiere of Under the Skin, which was partly filmed in the city.

As ever at GFF, which in 2014 runs from 20 February – 2 March, Glasgow itself is the biggest star of the Festival. This year, look out for special events in unusual venues across the whole city: the gorgeous Gothic spires of Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum are the perfect surroundings for a fancy dress gala screening of Young Frankenstein, while the former industrial warehouses in North Glasgow become a retro-futuristic arcade for a ‘total cinema’ screening of Tron, and potholing enthusiasts are invited to a never-before-accessed location underneath Central Station for a mystery film. The tenth Festival also taps into the city’s live music and visual art scenes, and pulls out all the stops, collaborating with artists, DJs, musicians, fashion designers, bands, video gaming experts, comic book icons and Hollywood legends in a huge, glorious celebration of cinema in all of its forms.

Opening Gala: The Grand Budapest Hotel **UK PREMIERE**
Glasgow Film Festival’s first-ever closing gala was Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou – it seems particularly fitting that the tenth Festival opens with the UK Premiere of his latest film, two weeks after its world premiere at the Berlinale. The Grand Budapest Hotel is one of Anderson’s most ambitious creations yet, reflecting the political turmoil and social upheaval of Europe between the wars through the hectic lives of the staff and guests at one of the most famous hotels on the continent. The preposterously starry cast, headed by Ralph Fiennes and Tilda Swinton, includes Jude Law, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Murray, Saoirse Ronan, Harvey Keitel and Willem Dafoe. Thursday 20 February (19.30) | repeated Friday 21 February (15.45) | GFT


Closing Gala: Under the Skin **SCOTTISH PREMIERE**
Jonathan Glazer’s adaptation of Scottish-based writer Michel Faber’s extraordinary novel is the kind of audacious, spellbinding cinema you only experience once in a generation. Strikingly original in look and execution, it offers an unsettling exploration of loneliness and alienation located in a desolate Glasgow that feels as remote as a distant planet, with a stunning turn from Scarlett Johansson as a seductive alien entity luring her unsuspecting victims to their doom. Sunday 2 March (20.00) | GFT



Allan Hunter, Glasgow Film Festival Co-Director, said:
‘In the decade since the Festival began, it’s grown almost beyond recognition. One thing remains essential, though – GFF is and will always be an access-all-areas event, where you can meet the filmmakers, ask awkward questions, and make friends with the person sitting next to you. Everyone is a VIP here, and in our tenth year we’re pulling out all the stops, trying to create the best possible experiences for our audiences, and involving as much of the city as we can. 2014 is set to be a thrilling year for Scotland with the Commonwealth Games, Ryder Cup and Homecoming attracting visitors from all over the world. Glasgow is at the heart of these celebrations and we are proud to offer our special anniversary programme as part of what promises to be an amazing period in the life of the city.’

Special Events
Over the past few years, GFF has established itself as the home of pop-up cinema, creating exciting one-off ‘total cinema’ experiences in some of the city’s best-loved venues. The programme also explores crossovers between film and music, visual art, comic books and computer gaming, with a series of one-off evenings to remember.
Highlights include:
· The grandest Gothic gallery in Glasgow plays host to a monstrously good night, with a fancy dress gala and live organ recitals ahead of a screening of 1974 classic Young Frankenstein, at the Monster Mash at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.
· Recruits are sought for a potholing expedition: take part in a mystery cinematic descent deep beneath Glasgow Central Station to a space never before open to the public. Claustrophobes should probably not apply…
· In a special GFF commission at the Old Fruitmarket, Scottish indie-folk darlings Admiral Fallow collaborate with emerging filmmakers from across the country, and weave footage from the landmark 1951 documentary Glasgow, No Mean City into a one-off live performance.
· The lo-fi surroundings of warehouse-turned-nightclub The Glue Factory are transformed into a retro-futurist gaming arcade for a special screening of the 1980s classic, in Tron: Off The Grid
· Celebrate the Motor City with two days of techno, hip hop, documentary and visuals at The Arches. The endlessly funny Detroit hip hop artist Danny Brown teams up with filmmaker Rollo Jackson (who has made music videos for Hot Chip and James Blake) for a live audio/visual set, while godfather of Detroit techno Carl Craig DJs after a screening of Julien Temple’s celebrated documentary Requiem For Detroit?
· One of Scotland’s most hotly-tipped visual artists, Rachel Maclean, the current winner of GFF’s annual Margaret Tait Award, leads Tae Think Again: Rethinking Identity in Contemporary Scotland, a symposium of artists on Scottish identity, as well as serving up the world premiere of her new film on British nationality and Empire, A Whole New World.
· Eat along with the on-screen action in foodie classics When Harry Met Sally, Goodfellas, Rataouille and Withnail & I, as GFF teams up with hip feeders Street Food Cartel for Street Food Cinema at The Briggait, Glasgow’s beautiful former fishmarket.
· As a continuation of Game Cats Go Miaow!, the programming strand which explores the crossover between video games and cinema, audiences can turn a documentary into their very own gaming-style experience, with the interactive 48 Hour Games.
· GFF’s partnership with Glasgow’s Tall Ship continues, as we screen Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (the first ever GFF Closing Gala) and John Carpenter’s chilling sea-bound horror The Fog, in the hold of The Glenlee, under the water level. Look out for the smoke machine…
· A special day of programming celebrating Shetland, in film, poetry and song.
· A mini-strand of films from Commonwealth countries, connected to Glasgow 2014.
The Pop-Up! Programmers, a group of 18-24 year olds dedicated to making cinema accessible in community spaces, organise a series of exciting film events across Glasgow and Ayr. From a screening of The Steamie in Bridgeton (with special guests from the film and archive footage projected onto a drying green) to In the Mood for Love brought to Glasgow’s Chinese community, they’re bringing cinema directly to the people.
· Comic books and computers clash in the Geeks vs Gamers Super Quiz, as two celebrity panels, captained by Kapow! strand programmer and Kick-Ass kingpin Mark Millar and Game Cats Go Miaow! programmer / Scots comedy hero Robert Florence, face off in afficienado Armageddon…
· 2013 Jarman Award nominated artist Ed Atkins presents an eclectic compilation of classic artists’ films, strung together with a live karaoke performance, in Man of Steel.
· The UK premiere of Run & Jump, starring Will Forte, leads into a Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival discussion about the portrayal of mental health issues in cinema, led by Douglas T Stewart (BMX Bandits).

Confirmed Guests
· Director and Academy Award-winning set designer Roger Christian (Alien, Star Wars) presents the European premiere of his painstakingly-restored short Black Angel, shot in and around Scotland and created specifically to screen before The Empire Strikes Back in cinemas. Christian will also discuss his long Hollywood career and enduring collaboration with George Lucas.
· Legendary Dutch director George Sluizer discusses Dark Blood, famously River Phoenix’s last film. Sluzier has recently finished a final cut of the film, which has its UK premiere at GFF.
· Director, actor and writer Richard Ayoade returns to the Festival to discuss his new film The Double, which stars Jesse Eisenberg and Mia Wasikowska
· John Sessions, one of the most versatile and accomplished Scottish actors of his generation discusses his incredible career, which includes working with Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Anthony Hopkins, and a latex puppet of Margaret Thatcher.
· agnés b., the internationally-renowned fashion designer-turned-producer/director, delivers a masterclass on filmmaking and her cinematic inspiration, as well as the UK premiere of her film My Name Is Hmmm…, which stars Glasgow artist and Turner Prize-winner Douglas Gordon.
· Lauren Mayberry, co-founder of feminist collective TYCI and member of the band CHVRCHES, introduces The Punk Singer, the documentary about Bikini Kill frontwoman Kathleen Hanna.

UK Premieres
This year, a record sixty of the films in the programme – more than ever before – are UK premieres, including:
· The Opening Gala screening of Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel
· My Name is Hmmm…, the feature film directorial debut from French fashion icon agnès b.
· Mr Morgan’s Last Love, starring Michael Caine and Clémence Poésy
· Mood Indigo, the new film from Michel Gondry, starring Romain Duris and Audrey Tautou
· Kristin Scott Thomas and Daniel Auteuil in Before the Winter Chill
· The highly anticipated horror sequel Wolf Creek 2
· The restoration of James Dean’s star-making film, Rebel Without A Cause.
· Richard Dreyfuss starring in Cas &Dylan, directed by Jason Priestley
· Thomas Imbach’s new take on the life of Mary Queen of Scots, starring Camille Rutherford, Sean Biggerstaff, and Tony Curran as John Knox
· Dear Mr Watterson, an innovative profile of Calvin and Hobbes creator and legendary recluse Bill Watterson
· Go For Sisters, the latest film from cult director John Sayles

· The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out Of The Window And Disappeared, based on Jonas Jonasson’s globally bestselling novel.
· A Thousand Suns, Mati Diop’s hauntingly beautiful tribute to her late uncle Djibril Diop Mambéty’s multi award-winning classic Touki Bouki
· Quai D’Orsay, the new work from cinema legend Bertrand Tavernier
· The Red Robin, starring cinema veteran Judd Hirscht
Beyond The Edge 3D, a revolutionary 3D documentary piecing together Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s ascent of Everest using archive footage
Yves Saint Laurent, an evocative, exciting biopic of the pioneering French designer
Witching and Bitching, which has just received 10 nominations in Spain’s Goya Awards
Seven of the best new films made in Chile in the last year, as part of CineChile, our homage to Chilean cinema
Glasgow Film Festival is also delighted to host the first-ever public UK screening of the eagerly-anticipated A Long Way Down, based on the novel by Nick Hornby, starring Aaron Paul, Imogen Poots, Toni Collette and Pierce Brosnan

World Premieres
· A Whole New World by Rachel Maclean, winner of the 2013 Margaret Tait Award
· The House of Him, the feature film directorial debut from Burnistoun star Robert Florence
· David Graham Scott’s Iboga Nights, a revealing insight into a controversial treatment for drug withdrawal
· Documenting John Grierson, a profile of the Scottish filmmaker who created the documentary format
· Katie Cassidy, Michelle Tratchenberg and Eliza Dushku team up in the big screen adaptation of Daniel Schaffer’s graphic novel The Scribbler, as part of FrightFest. FrightFest will also screen the European premiere of Jordan Baker’s Torment
· Video Nasties: Draconian Days, a documentary looking at the restrictive censorship and horror movies of the 1980s

Scottish Premieres
The 2014 programme also features fifty-seven Scottish premieres, including:
· Oscar-nominated documentary 20 Feet From Stardom, about the legendary backing singers in rock & roll.
· Locke, starring Tom Hardy
· The Book Thief, the hugely-anticipated Holocaust film starring Emily Watson and Geoffrey Rush.
· Tom Hiddleston making a surprising appearance in Joanna Hogg’s excellent third feature, Exhibition.
· Chiwetel Ejiofor, Thandie Newton and Anika Noni Rose in the film adaptation of Orange Prize for Fiction winner Half of a Yellow Sun
· Kathleen Hanna profile The Punk Singer
· Starred Up, the new film from BAFTA Scotland winner David Mackenzie, starring Jack O’Connell
· Mistaken For Strangers, a rockumentary following The National on their European tour.
· Our Closing Gala screening of Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin, starring Scarlett Johansson

Our Festival Club takes over CCA’s Theatre and Terrace Bar for the duration of the Festival. A series of free talks and events examines the Scottish film, television and gaming industries from all angles – from casting to criticism, Scotland as film location and inspiration, and how to write for video games. After the discussions, a selection of GFF-associated DJs will keep things busy late into the night, in this unique club space where, if 2013 is anything to go by, audiences and filmmakers will most certainly meet and mingle.

As ever cinehouse and The People's Movies will be attending and we'll do our best to cover the festival to the best of our abilities. Happy Birthday Glasgow Film Festival!

Frifghtfest Glasgow 2014 - Battle For Supremecy In New Extended Trailer For Mo Brothers KILLERS

In 2012 Gareth Evans certainly put Indonesia on the map when it comes action thrillers with the superb The Raid and will again deliver that mayhem with The Raid 2: Berandal. Next week Evan's film will make it's world premier at Sundance Film Festival and it won't be the only Indonesian film at the festival. The Mo Brothers (Macabre, V/H/S 2) are set to showcase Killers and ahead of that premiere a brand new extended trailer has dropped online.

The brothers better known as Timo Tjahjanto and Kimo Stamboel are releasing one of the highly anticipated films of 2014 a film that's been described as 'the new I Saw The Devil' and that's what excites us about this film. Killers is a frenetic story of 2 men one a sociopathic serial killer in Tokyo another in Jakarta  a failing journalist & father both only connected due to their lust for blood. They pair post their crimes online it becomes clear the pair are battling for notoriety sending them both on a uncontrollable journey of ferocious self discovery.

Killers is a dark, twisted psychological battle of wits  is one film we cannot wait to see, no word on when this one will arrive on UK shores. Their is a little rumour it may make Film 4 Frightfest line up either next month at Glasgow Film Festival if not London Frightfest. Killers stars Kazuki Kitamura, Epy Kusnandar,Rin Takanashi, Ray Sahetapy who is better known as the crime boss from The Raid!

[update 21st January Killers has just be announced part of the line up for Film4 Frightfest @Glasgow Film Festival 2014...Yesssss!!!!]

Synopsis

Mr. Nomura is an eerily handsome, sharply dressed, sociopathic serial killer who preys on the women of Tokyo. In Jakarta, a world-weary journalist named Bayu finds himself unexpectedly falling into vigilantism after brutally killing two sadistic robbers. When each posts videos of his violent sprees online, the pair find one another on the Internet and begin a toxic and competitive duel. While Bayu clings to the hope that he can resume a normal life, Nomura continues to spill blood without remorse. Killing, advises Nomura, is something everyone ought to consider.
Timo Tjahjanto, codirector of the V/H/S/2 segment "Safe Haven," returns to Park City at Midnight, collaborating with longtime filmmaking partner Kimo Stromboel on their bleak and blood-soaked second feature as creative team The Mo Brothers. Killers uses energetic camerawork and a wildly varied musical score to vividly capture brutality in ways both bone-rattlingly frenetic and serenely transfixing, while always keeping audience members aware of their complicity with the characters' own bloodlust.

Sundance 2014 - Colonel Herzog Is Back! Watch Blood Soaked Trailer for Dead Snow: Red Vs. Dead aka Død Snø 2

I should have went to Specsavers! How did we miss this one!!!In 2009 pardon the punt just when you thought the Zombie genre was dead Tommy Wirkola's Dead Snow gave hope to the sub-genre. Nearly 4 years on Colonel Herzog  and his legion of undead nazis are back , he's pissed off, enjoy the first trailer for Dead Snow: Red Vs. Dead aka Død Snø 2

If the worst day of your life consisted of accidentally killing your girlfriend with an axe, chain-sawing your own arm off, and watching in horror as your closest friends were devoured by a zombified Nazi battalion, you’d have to assume that things couldn’t get much worse. In Martin’s case, that was only the beginning.

Picking up immediately where the original left off, Dead Snow; Red vs. Dead wastes no time getting right to the gore-filled action, leaving a bloody trail of intestines in its wake. Director Tommy Wirkola returns to the helm with a vengeance, coming up with more inventive ways to maim and dismember than you ever thought possible. Combining wry humor with horrific worst-case scenarios, this follow-up to the 2009 Midnight classic is sure to shock the weak-of-heart and delight even the most hard-core fans of the horror genre. Colonel Herzog is back, and he is not to be fucked with.

After a mediocre Hollywood feature debut with Hansel And Gretel: Witch Hunters, Wirkola will be keen prove his cult breakout film was not a one hit wonder. This trailer is thankfully with English Subtitles as it's to promote not it's cinematic release but the films World premier at this month's Sundance Film Festival. No UK release date has been set yet but do expect that to change after the festival with the film possibly playing the festival circuit. The trailer delivers a glimpse at the blood soaked snowy  carnage Film's Nazi Zombie will deliver.



Dead Snow: Red Vs. Dead stars Vegar Hoel, Stig Frode Henriksen, Martin Starr, Ørjan Gamst, Ingrid Haas, Jocelyn DeBoer. [Offical Sundance Festival Page]

source: Shocktilyoudrop

Film Review: How To Survive A Plague

Genre:
Documentary
Release Date:
8th November 2013 (UK, Cinema)
DVD (tbc)
Rating:
PG
Director:
David France

How to Survive a Plague is a film that was only released in UK cinemas last weekend, but which won a number of awards during last year’s film festival circuit; including the Boston Society of Film Critics best documentary, as well as winning in the same category at the Gotham Awards. It was also nominated for an Academy Award.

The documentary – directed by David France, and written by France, T. Woody Richman and Tyler Walker – provides an overview of the AIDS epidemic in New York City during the 80s, as both the casualties and the heinous reputation of its sufferers grew to extreme heights. As NYC Mayor of the time Ed Koch did little to act on the sweeping infection, activist groups such as ACT-UP (Aids Coalition to Unleash Power) and TAG (Treatment Action Group), led a powerful campaign in order to gain access to medication that was currently being denied to AIDS victims. Their movement also sought to alter perceptions of New York’s LGBT community, whose identity was, and still is, inherently linked to the spread of the virus.

France’s How to Survive a Plague is a work that should be applauded for bringing to our attention a struggle that was so intensively ignored during its time – a period not too long ago, where sick people were turned away from hospitals due to the stigma attached to their illness, and politicians and presidents recoiled in fear and disgust. Praise should also be given to the activist groups featured here, for the ceaseless filming and documenting of their meetings and campaigns; without which this production would not have been possible, and the struggle of this marginalised group would have remained unknown to its audiences. What France’s film ultimately achieves is in showing how meaningful change can occur when people are willing to stand up to their oppressors - there is a revolutionary spirit on display here which often feels lost in the current Twitter-age.

How to Survive a Plague is an affecting snapshot of a period of history, which remains relevant due to the comparable problems posed to others in similar situations today – albeit most likely on a different continent. A must see for non-fiction fans.

★★★★☆

Sophie Stephenson

Raindance Film Festival 2013 Review - Medora

Rating:
N/A
Release Date:
29 & 30th September 2013(Raindance)
Director:
Andrew Cohn, Davy Rothbart
There’s a common perception that films centred on American based sports are destined not to do well here in Britain where we prefer football to be played with feet and baseball is, well, just not cricket. There are of course exceptions, such as golden era Kevin Costner’s baseball ghosts drama Field of Dreams and last year’s Moneyball, but even acclaimed documentary Hoop Dreams failed to receive similar adoration on the European side of the Atlantic. It’s perhaps a good job then that new documentary Medora uses basketball only as a base upon which to rest it’s telling tale of modern America and the plight of its numerous small towns.
The aforementioned Hoop Dreams is a good reference point, focussing as the film does, on a group of poverty-stricken basketball players using their on-court time as a way of escaping an otherwise challenging existence. Sadly for this plucky bunch of ball players this is where the similarity ends. For they are not destined for NBA stardom with all that that brings, their results are very much at the other end of the spectrum, the San Marino of high school basketball teams in fact, winless in the previous season, record defeats and racking up another unenviable losing streak. The camera’s are there to catch each morale-sapping defeat as well as by the side of the young individuals who make up the team as they take us on a tour of their home lives and in so doing, the life of a forgotten American town.

We travel through deserted streets once teeming with locals and visitors alike, closed factories and power plants that used to provide employment for entire communities, boarded up shops and restaurants forced into closure, and the near-empty trailer parks known only as area’s to avoid on account of ‘meth heads’.

We’re invited into the lives of these teenagers, witnesses to their own personal trials in that all important graduation year – we even get to go to Homecoming. Along the way it’s not hard to warm to these characters, dealt an unfairly difficult hand in life and rooted in a town that offers little in way of escape. Their options are slim and we see each of them casually tread the path of their future, one that’s always defined by their past. Dylan has never met his father and wants to work to ensure other children won’t face a similarly hard adolescence; Rusty’s parents were never around either owing to alcoholism or ignorance, forcing him to drop-out of school before his 15th birthday. There’s Robby too, blessed with a family unit but struggling academically.

Following the team, their coach and this community we see a part of America often overlooked in films. There is no sprawling shopping centre or high rise buildings, no iconic cinematic Americana to speak of at all. What there is however, is a sense of community pride, one instilled in their tiny school and invested in the hopes of the basketball team. It’s what prevents the school being consolidated into a giant county-engulfing one and what keeps these teenage boys turning up week in week out to pull on their kits and face another humiliating defeat at the hands of a school 10 times their size.

There’s a prevailing sense of inevitability coursing through the film about the fate of such towns, tucked away from the highways and skyscrapers. There’s footage of an Obama address acknowledging the hard times faced while remaining hopeful for the times ahead. With Medora, directors Andrew Cohn and Davy Rothbart have echoed those sentiments, establishing the difficulties but forcing through elements of hope, embodied in no little part by the members of the basketball team.

★★★★☆

Matthew Walsh

Raindance Film Festival 2013 Review - Jake Squared

Rating:
15
Release Date:
27, 28th September 2013(Raindance)
Director:
Howard Goldberg
Cast:
Elias Koteas, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Virginia Madsen
With one of the most innovative set-ups on show at this years Raindance festival, Jake Squared comically questions the importance of certain life decisions, and the part they play in defining the self when all is said and done. The easiest reference point for the conceptual narrative of writer/director Howard Goldberg’s feature is Charlie Kaufman’s mind-melting Synecdoche, New York, casting as it does, the lead role within his own film portraying varying aspects of his own life. Fortunately tone is somewhat easier to determine, pitching itself somewhere between a meta-comedy and faux philosophical questioning.

The eponymous lead in question is a 50 year-old part-time film director and (slightly more than) part time real estate agent. A hopeless romantic at heart, Jake is at a loss as to how he has ended up alone bar the two teenage children resulting from his previous marriage. On a mission to make sense of everything he embarks on an ambitious film project casting himself as a hunky twenty-something as the host of a sprawling house party where guests will come and go and somewhere in amongst the endless rolls of footage will lie answers. Any answers will do.

The fourth wall not so much broken as well and truly obliterated, we float alongside actor Jake while being guided by real Jake as he interjects and interrupts various scenes offering his own direction and pieces to camera. Before long Jake’s film set spirals out of his control, gatecrashed by a host of uninvited guests. There’s 40 year-old Jake joining a drum circle, a perma-chilled bandana sporting Harley Davison fanatic; playboy Jake from his 30’s casually eyeing up female guests, and even a sprightly 17 year-old hippy Jake insistent on being called by his stage name Damien. To add to the disarray he is joined by girlfriends of the past mingling with family members long since passed in real life.

If this all sounds head-scratchingly difficult to work out then that may just be the point. Jake Squared attempts to take in a whole life to make sense of their place, and a whole life is a big sprawling, pattern-less maze which cannot be self-edited or escaped - there’s even a neat gag about the past catching up with you to prove just this.

Holding the film up and keeping it steady is a tight script acted with conviction by Elias Koleas who flitters between Jake through the ages bringing believability to each phrase of his life. It’s a clever trick making physical the psychological changes a person goes through in time, complete with lost loves, lost hair and lost ideals.

At times over-reaching and arguably naval-gazing (the many inserted quotes offer little to the overall film), Jake Squared is none-the-less an admirably ambitious film and a laudably inventive one.

★★★☆☆

Matthew Walsh

TIFF 2013 Review - Under the Skin

Rating:
15
Release Date:
9,10&15th September 2013 (TIFF) 13, 14th October (LIFF)
Director:
Jonathan Grazer
Cast:
Scarlett Johansson, Paul Brannigan, Jessica Mance
Directed by Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beast) and filmed entirely on location across Scotland Under the Skin is a film flaunting incredible cinematography strung together by a predominantly performance-orientated narrative. Based on the Novel by Michael Faber, Under the Skin follows Laura (Scarlett Johansson), an alien from another world, as she travels across Scotland kidnapping young men.

Glazer’s latest is a sci-fi film akin to 2001: A Space Odyssey in that one of the film’s main components is its striking tone and total control over the presented image. Daniel Landin’s exquisite palette of subdued tones creates a grim atmospheric back-drop for the film’s often macabre visual style. The same gorgeous control over image translates the Scottish landscape into a strange muggy alien territory, foreboding and stirring in equal measure. Hundreds of directors have only seen fit to make such land a charming tourist spot, whilst Glazer has here crafted an environment that is as much a character as Laura herself.

  Under the Skin is a road movie of sorts, shot in a near-documentary style of lingering shots and snappy disjointed editing, which again expand on the notions of “alien” culture. We are presented time and time again with bizarre social situations; the crowds of Glasgow’s Sauchiehall Street, Neds rampant in the night, masses of colour-coordinated football fans, all of them overpowering and vast, a sensory overload. But even these shots can tire on the viewer in a film with little dialogue and even less narrative explanation. As a companion to the novel, the film is possibly at its best, but still entirely able as a stand-alone project. For true intrigue: Glazer executes some of the most haunting, striking, and unsettling images of extra-terrestrial life ever put to film.

Glazer keeps the mystery of his alien culture tightly wrapped and that pays off big time, rewarding the audience with a kind of abstract macabre that strays into the realm of the horrific. The aesthetic of this alien technology is the definition of minimalism ensuring nothing can be deduced until the last moment, and though the use of contrast lighting is indeed perfect thinking , it at times crowds scenes with far too much shadow, erasing any finer details. In the same setting Mica Levi’s jarring and genius screech-synth scoring is at its best in Laura’s black widow sequences where it plays out like some bizarre striptease music done in pulse-like percussion. The young Londoner is proving a major talent in sound engineering and someone to keep your eye on.

Apart from the stunning cinematography, the most enrapturing thing about this film is Johansson’s turn as alien provocateur-cum-abductor. Relying less on her lines - which she drones in an awful regional accent - the starlet exhibits an accomplished and often intimidating portrayal of the alien amongst us. This is Johansson’s best performance to date. Johansson, as per, is stunning, and her beauty plays an important part in the alien’s role both during the alien’s predatory ventures, and in the film’s powerful lingering and poignant climax.

Incredibly beautiful piece of sci-fi horror with a stellar performance from Johansson and a soundtrack to compliment, Under the Skin is not the gripping sort of hunter/hunted thriller some may expect. If you can look past its relatively reserved lack of narrative you’ll find a powerful and considerate meander through the life of an alien in an alien land.

★★★★☆

Scott Clark

Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon - TIFF 2013 Review

Rating:
15
Release Date:
7,8,14th September 2013 (TIFF)
Director:
Mike Myers
Cast:
Shep Gordon,Alice Cooper, Michael Douglas,Tom Arnold, Anne Murray, Sylvester Stallone
Mike Myers’ directorial debut is proof not only that he’s a skilled director and impressive documenter, but the subject of his film is probably one of the coolest men to ever live. Shep Gordon, manager extraordinaire, is a power house of productivity, a messiah of good times, and an all-round nice guy. He’s managed Alice Cooper since the beginning of his career, practically invented the concept of the celebrity chef, and has managed to intertwine his existence with the mint of Hollywood and rock royalty by being one of the world’s greatest hosts. So says Supermensch; The Legend of Shep Gordon.

The key to Myers’ film is that he has a genuine respect for Gordon, like the rest of the stars who pop up through this charming - often hilarious - exploration of Gordon’s career. Michael Douglas, Sylvester Stallone, Myers himself, Alice Cooper, Willie Nelson, to name a few, all jump at the opportunity to give candid tales of Gordon’s frankly mindboggling life. From his humble, drug fuelled beginnings hanging out with the likes of Hendrix and Joplin, onwards through his fast-paced career in music and film. His legendary appetite for good times and women are here exceeded only by his love for seemingly everyone he meets.

Myers is an incredibly gifted filmmaker, fusing his zany wit and comic timing with Gordon’s own barmy life. His editing is sharp and gripping; snippets from movies and a great soundtrack make Supermensch nothing short of fascinating viewing. Perhaps Myers gets a bit caught up in his own love for the father-figure, at points making his documentary a kind of advertisement, but a keen sense of ‘the man’ Gordon as opposed to just ‘the legend’ maintains a suitably grounded and heartfelt film. The Alice Cooper chapter goes on a bit but Gordon’s input into Cooper’s vaudevillian act is vast and thus arguably important. Sure, near-ridiculous amount of good praise for Gordon gets silly at points, but only a cynical kind of tabloid gossip-craving would render this an actual fault. Take a page out of Gordon’s book and cheer the hell up.

No matter where your interests lie, Gordon’s life is at worst intriguing and at best mad. This is a highly impressive debut and a thrilling story of a loving friend, hedonist, innovator, and showman. The fifteen year old me wants another Austin Powers, whilst now I can’t help but hope Myers has another go in the director’s chair.

Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon is entirely watchable, vivid, and compulsive filmmaking punctuated by a host of celebrity guests, a great soundtrack, and some psychedelic editing. Myers’ debut film is an impressive exploration of a life well-lived: heart-warming, hilarious, but above all highly recommendable.

★★★★½

Scott Clark

TIFF 2013 Review - Thou Gild'st the Even

Rating:
12A
Release Date:
8th, 10th & 13th September 2013 (TIFF)
Director:
Onur Ünlü
Cast:
Derya Alabora, Ali Atay, Tansu Biçer

Undoubtedly one of the most bizarre features at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival is Turkish oddball drama Thou Gild’st the Even: a film that may strain the patience of some viewers but captivate others with its casual absurdity.

Onur Unlu’s film explores sorrow, hope, and the insanity of human nature through the life of a bored and depressed barber shop worker in a small Turkish town with two suns and three full moons. The people there have inherited extraordinary abilities. Cemal (Ali Atay) wanders through life despondent and unfulfilled whilst surrounded by an invisible teacher, an immortal doctor, and a beautiful girl who can stop time with a clap of her hands.

Beautifully shot in black and white with a kind of nonchalant regard for its weird moments, Onur Unlu’s film is startling in its lack of pretention, events just occur and no particular weight is put on them. The film would make a dull little study into the mind of a loner if it were not for its touches of surrealism which lace the feature like finely warped filigree. This doesn’t just apply to the characters and their behaviours but the bizarre scenes that spring up around them: the pill-fuelled flight, the brazen assassination in the night, a disturbed serenade totally lacking in romantic endeavour, all these fall awkwardly into place like some ill-constructed child’s toy. However Unlu eventually pulls off a successful illustration of life in all its nuts and sometimes heart-breaking entirety.

When the film starts to strain patience with its casual non-committal kind of narrative, it draws the viewer in by presenting yet another strange character whose bizarre ability has taught them some life lesson they can impart to a man truly lost in his own mundane existence. Excellent casting, beautiful scoring, and a fine eye for humour in a black and white world, definitely ease the passing of this often slow venture.

That’s the key to the film’s success: under the humour and weirdness there’s a story about a man’s life being told, a man who- for all intents and purposes- is totally ordinary besides his strange power. It’s a small town romance, a love story that documents jealousy and passion, family and friends, relationships and ultimately regret. Though time and again it finds such weird ways of relaying such everyday situations, the message will often pass by, only to be picked up later.

Though intriguing Thou Gildst the Even is at many points tiresome and not an easy pill to swallow. However, maybe a little alienation is obligatory as part of an absurdist drama with a Twin Peaks kind of logic to it. For a film lacking in true drama, there’s a lot of heart and poignancy to this truly strange and comical vignette into extraordinary lives.

★★★★☆

Scott Clark

TIFF 2013 Review - The Sacrament

Rating:
15
Directed By:
Ti West
Cast:
Joe Swanberg, Amy Seimetz, AJ Bowen
Release Date:
8th, 10th & 13th September (TIFF)

New Splat Pack maestro Ti West wowed us back in 2009 with House of the Devil then again last year with Innkeepers. Whilst House of the Devil was a slow burning kind of 70’s hark-back, Innkeepers was very much a modern horror.  His latest feature, The Sacrament, played at Toronto’s International Film Festival, but is it any good?

Unfortunately West goes for the slow burning thing again and it doesn’t pull off. Any slower and you’d be catatonic. The Sacrament is a film in the spirit of The Wicker Man but way less spooky. Two reporters ( AJ Bowen and Joe Swanberg) venture into South America after a friend receives a summons from his estranged sister. The trio arrive to discover the sister is living in an idyllic but secluded religious convent lorded over by the mysterious ‘Father’ (Gene Jones). About half way through you’re going to start wondering what the point of the film is, because it certainly isn’t to scare or entertain. Sure there’s an interesting concept here, but when the final act kicks off you realise that this has been a one trick pony: a script formulated around its ending, and no film should merely be a means to its own end.

Step away from the lack of substance and look at it from a different angle, then you can see that there are plenty of great components at work. The set for one is fantastic, no arguments there. But where Eli Roth’s The Green Inferno managed to successfully convey hell in a South American paradise, West squanders a set on an uneventful plotline and flopped mounting tension. By this I mean that West orchestrates his characters into position, presents us with the stage, but then it doesn’t really go anywhere bar its predictable finale. Actually, there’s one sequence of particular merit that ignites interest in the long shadowy boredom of the feature.

The performance of Gene Jones (the only man to win a coin toss in No Country for Old Men) is a carrot on a stick, enticing us through the film. Like Michael parks in Red State, there’s something utterly watchable about religious zealots, and they have the followers to prove it. Jones’s interview sequence with AJ Bowen, is one of the few really great moments in the film, its more intense than most of the film, and shows how much shit the three guys are in. Jones is masterful in his execution of dangerous hospitality and manipulation, as is Amy Seimetz as religious nut Caroline.

Bar a few great performances, West disappoints here with a predictable escapade into religious mania, perhaps faulted by its positioning as a post-Red State feature. Even then it’s still dull as dishwater, void of previously flaunted visual flare, and lacking any real drive to develop its characters. When the inevitable set piece kicks off, you really won’t care who survives.


★½☆☆☆

Scott Clark