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Post by kathryn on Oct 8, 2017 8:27:02 GMT
97 minutes won't be including credits so I think you could leave once the credits appear but I don't know how far it is from Mayfair to OLS? 20 min walk or 8 minute drive along Picadilly apparently, though will be tight either way. Hmm. I've not had a screening start on time yet, but not sure if that makes any difference. |
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Post by n1david on Oct 8, 2017 9:16:59 GMT
20 min walk or 8 minute drive along Picadilly apparently, though will be tight either way. Hmm. I've not had a screening start on time yet, but not sure if that makes any difference. Yes, and I’m getting a bit annoyed given the BFI emails telling me that all LFF films start on time without trailers. Haven’t had a clash yet, but had to duck out of one Q&A because the screening started 10 minutes late and I didn’t want to leave in the middle of the Q&A. |
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Post by callum on Oct 8, 2017 10:18:17 GMT
Thanks Kathryn and David - think I'm going to go for it. The second film has directors and guests so hopefully Claire Stewart will give it a lengthy intro to work in my favour!  |
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Post by Marwood on Oct 9, 2017 11:11:35 GMT
Hmm. I've not had a screening start on time yet, but not sure if that makes any difference. Yes, and I’m getting a bit annoyed given the BFI emails telling me that all LFF films start on time without trailers. Haven’t had a clash yet, but had to duck out of one Q&A because the screening started 10 minutes late and I didn’t want to leave in the middle of the Q&A. I've seen three films at the LFF this year, and none have started on time (Pickups was 10 minutes late last night) and they've all had two trailers in front of them. Anyway, yesterdays films: My Generation: rather enjoyable, better than the 'Weren't the 60s great?' sort of programmes that channels 4 and 5 fill up their weekend evening schedules with that I was half expecting/dreading, helped immeasurably by Michael Caine actually appearing on screen rather than just doing a voiceover (and rather than the usual 'celebrity' talking heads who have next to no connection to the events on screen, this has Caine talking to the likes of Paul McCartney and Twiggy) . I thought it lost its way a bit towards the end when it got a bit bogged down with drugs talk, but as Caine and the director David Batty said in the Q&A after, it would be impossible to fit the decade into 85 minutes (a TV series is to follow). Must admit it was a bit disconcerting when the lights dimmed to look to my right and see Michael Caine stood right next to where I was sitting...
Pickups: a sort of docudrama/comedy starring Aidan Gillen as an actor called Aidan, who may or may not be a serial killer, and his relationship with his son and fans (a word of advice, don't go asking him for a selfie if hes out with his dog, picking up dogsh*t  ). An odd little film, rather enjoyable but hard to see masses of people lining up to see this when it gets a proper release (not sure this is the sort of thing that GoT fans will lap up) - I can see why it took so long to edit this after the initial filming, but it was well photographed and had some nice music as well (by Jamie Thraves, the director). There are some funny moments, but there are also some really odd moments that jar with this (it doesn't really have a conventional storyline, if that is what you primarily look for when you see a film).
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Post by n1david on Oct 9, 2017 21:51:39 GMT
Battle of the Sexes. Liked it.
Call Me by your Name. Loathed it. Obviously in a minority here as it's currently sitting at 96% positive on Rotten Tomatoes, bur couldn't get on with this at all.
Amant Double: Bizarre supuercamp French so-called erotic thriller. Love most François Ozon stuff but this was a bit much even for me, and a truly lousy ending.
Bad Lucky Goat. Amusing (but no more than that) Columbian comedy. Its future acceptance will be challenged by the fact that a major plot point means that they cannot say that "no animals were harmed in the making of this film".
A day away from the LFF tomorrow to trip down to Chichester to see Serena's Lear. Hoping that the second half of the festival has some more gems - I seem to be striking more misses than hits so far this year.
(Oh and both of today's screenings started over 10 minutes late - one was a gala where it might be understandable, but the other had no introduction, the film just started late.)
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Post by Deleted on Oct 10, 2017 8:56:56 GMT
Call Me By Your Name is the best film of the year thus far for me (going by American release dates). Timothée Chalamet is an exceptional, exceptional young actor. Couldn't sleep last night because this one was stirring around my head so much. 5*
I find it funny that the director of God's Own Country has been retweeting stuff about how his film is better because it includes full frontal male nudity. I enjoyed God's Own Country and appreciated the male nudity (as an artistic choice), but that film is nowhere near as sexy, sensual or loving as this one.
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Post by Marwood on Oct 10, 2017 9:07:25 GMT
Have found out that Michael Caine is going to be at the screening of My Generation I'm going to at the Curzon the Kings Road - woot woot! And I'll also get to see Cillian Murphy, Timothy Spall, Bruno Ganz, Kristin Scott Thomas and Cherry Jones at The Party, Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin at Jabberwocky and Aidan Gillen at Pick-Ups: S. Craig Zahler will be at the screening of Brawl In Cell Block 99, but I'm hoping Vince Vaughn will be a late arrival to make this a grand slam of woot woots... And Vince Vaughn confirmed for Brawl... yay!  |
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Post by kathryn on Oct 10, 2017 10:50:16 GMT
Saw Funny Cow last night and Big Fish and Begonia on Sunday.
Big Fish and Begonia is beautifully animated and visually stunning, but I'm not quite sure I entirely followed who everyone was and why everything was happening. Still, very enjoyable to watch - beautiful images of dolphins flying through the sky.
Funny Cow has been described as miserablist, and it's true it portrays very grim circumstances featuring domestic violence and some very un-PC jokes. But it's ultimately about a woman who manages to be herself and live her own life, without compromising who she is to fit in. Maxine Peake and Paddy Considine put in terrific performances. I enjoyed it a lot - though it certainly won't appeal to everyone.
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Post by callum on Oct 10, 2017 20:56:10 GMT
Having a great time this festival. Making the most of trying to attend films with Q&A sessions, often makes the whole feel of a festival much richer. Gladly gave Ambassador Samantha Power a standing ov after seeing The Final Year on Sunday, and would have done the same for Billie Jean King for Battle of the Sexes had she returned following the end of the film.
Really enjoyed Last Flag Flying yesterday and looking forward to The Shape of Water and The Florida Project that are still to come.
At least with the Weinstein scandal my fear that the Surprise Film would be The Current War has been quashed. Still hoping for Lady Bird, but will likely be The Disaster Artist I feel, which I'm fine with too. I think if it was going to be Lady Bird, On Chesil Beach would've been scheduled to play closer to the Surprise Film so Saoirse Ronan could attend the Q&A. Still, if she's still in town you never know...
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Post by Jon on Oct 10, 2017 21:35:32 GMT
Having a great time this festival. Making the most of trying to attend films with Q&A sessions, often makes the whole feel of a festival much richer. Gladly gave Ambassador Samantha Power a standing ov after seeing The Final Year on Sunday, and would have done the same for Billie Jean King for Battle of the Sexes had she returned following the end of the film. Really enjoyed Last Flag Flying yesterday and looking forward to The Shape of Water and The Florida Project that are still to come. At least with the Weinstein scandal my fear that the Surprise Film would be The Current War has been quashed. Still hoping for Lady Bird, but will likely be The Disaster Artist I feel, which I'm fine with too. I think if it was going to be Lady Bird, On Chesil Beach would've been scheduled to play closer to the Surprise Film so Saoirse Ronan could attend the Q&A. Still, if she's still in town you never know... I will be kicking myself if The Surprise Film is The Disaster Artist as it looks hilarious, luckily it is released in December I doubt the surprise film is The Current War as it got terrible reviews! |
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Post by callum on Oct 10, 2017 21:52:21 GMT
They've opened the circle in OLS for the Surprise Film this year so still plenty of tickets left...
Also forgot to share I got an email saying that 16-25s can now get £5 tickets IN ADVANCE for certain high-profile events including The Florida Project red carpet on Friday and the Annette Bening Screen Talk on Thursday afternoon.
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Post by Jon on Oct 10, 2017 22:41:00 GMT
They've opened the circle in OLS for the Surprise Film this year so still plenty of tickets left... I'm seeing Battle of the Sexes at the same time at the Curzon Mayfair so I can't make it anyway. |
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Post by callum on Oct 10, 2017 23:50:51 GMT
They've opened the circle in OLS for the Surprise Film this year so still plenty of tickets left... I'm seeing Battle of the Sexes at the same time at the Curzon Mayfair so I can't make it anyway. I imagine some will sneer at it for being a crowd pleaser but it's so well-directed and well-acted, it's probably the film I most 'enjoyed' so far. I was on Cloud Nine at the end of it! You'll have a great time Jon. |
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Post by Marwood on Oct 11, 2017 0:00:40 GMT
Saw The Party earlier tonight and have to say I thought it was very poor: I'm guessing it is supposed to be a black comedy but if so, the laughs were few and far between - it was only the fact I knew the running time was a 'mere' 71 minutes that made me sit through this to the end. I'd say this was maybe the worst film I've seen at the cinema this year, its hard to see this being an amazing success when it gets its full release at the end of this week (I didn't stick round for the Q&A after, I'm not going to clap like a trained monkey for something I don't like).
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Post by callum on Oct 11, 2017 2:30:43 GMT
Yep the running time put me off - asking people to pay full price for 71 minutes is a bit of a joke, though from the sounds of it the running time was the best thing about it. I presume 71 mins includes credits so why on earth wasn't this put on BBC2 or Sky Arts...
At least cinemas can schedule a performance every hour and a half.
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Post by Marwood on Oct 11, 2017 12:13:03 GMT
Just got a ticket for the gala screening of Three Billboards, so it is worth looking if you didn't get tickets for something you want to see when they first went on sale.
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Post by showgirl on Oct 11, 2017 13:51:50 GMT
Just seen the early showing of Chez Nous, translated as This Is Our Land. Not the sort of film you could exactly report "enjoying" but certainly riveting and sobering - and imo, well worth seeing. Released in France back in February but no UK date yet that I could find, so an added incentive.
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Post by callum on Oct 11, 2017 14:01:28 GMT
I'm sure some of you will be delighted/horrified to know that this morning's performance of The Shape of Water started 23 minutes late, with no intro either. Although I was up in the circle, down in the stalls some slow-clapping and cheering started about 15 minutes in, if we had to wait any longer there would have been a riot!
This is very bad showing from the BFI though - I imagine some audience members would have had other films to get to, and this very late start would have thrown them completely off balance. I'm seeing Killing of a Sacred Deer on Friday morning at OLS and need to be somewhere by 2pm so hopefully we won't have the same situation then.
Anyway, The Shape of Water was brilliant and extremely moving and gorgeous and probably my favourite of the festival so far.
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Post by foxa on Oct 11, 2017 15:24:24 GMT
I was down in the stalls for the The Shape of Water (not slow-clapping.) Even once they dimmed the lights some people were still shouting things like 'About time,' etc. This was the fourth LFF screening I've gone to this year and the first which started so late and didn't have any sort of introduction/Q&A. But yes, it's a beautiful film.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 11, 2017 20:29:07 GMT
I was a little disappointed in The Shape of Water, but probably only because I had such high expectations. Beautiful to look at, gorgeous score, excellent performances all around. My investment in the story was pretty minimal though.
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Post by foxa on Oct 11, 2017 22:02:24 GMT
Snutte, yes, I felt the same - but I was also really hungry for the last half hour, so I think that distracted me a little. ;-)
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Post by showgirl on Oct 12, 2017 4:23:18 GMT
Perhaps I was lucky with my single screening (or maybe the fact that it was a midday one meant that there were unlikely to be any surprise guests), but having read comments above re late running, I'd been careful to allow a large gap between the scheduled end time of the film and the start of the matinee I was seeing afterwards. However, everything went like clockwork, though not having attended an LFF performance for several years, I was surprised both by the number of latecomers and no-shows (the latter based on seats apparently booked when I selected mine.)
A bonus for me was the chance to pay only £6.50 (concession rate) to see a film in what appeared from the seats to be a premium screen I'd never previously seen at Vue Leicester Square, where even the cheapest rates would normally be almost double that. OK, I had to pay a £1 booking fee on top, but it was still an unexpected pleasure to find that a special screening of this type was way more affordable than the standard type.
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Post by Marwood on Oct 12, 2017 9:41:41 GMT
So, Brawl In Cell Block 99: not highbrow by any means - its basically a grindhouse/exploitation film featuring some supreme ultra-violence and as such, not one to go and see if you're in the last bit squeamish about seeing limbs get popped and heads stomped on (or take your granny to see) - if your idea of movie heaven is something like Victoria & Abdul or A Room With A View then you might just want to give this a miss...
I enjoyed it, the tension is kept at a slow steady level until the titular Brawl when quite literally, all hell breaks loose and the action is shot well without loads of fast edits and jittery camerawork which seems to be the curse of fight scenes in film in recent years. Vince Vaughn is pretty good in this (and a total badass) - nice to see him break out of the cycle of pretty poor comedy films he had been stuck in for the last few years.
The film is fairly long (2 hours and 10 minutes) but it didn't seem too long - The Party was 'only' 71 minutes but that seemed to drag on forever compared to this.
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Post by n1david on Oct 13, 2017 9:19:29 GMT
Another vote for Chez Nous which I enjoyed a lot - not so much a sideswipe at the FN as a full-on attack. Well acted, let down a bit by an epilogue out of tone with the rest of the film.
Reinventing Marvin was my second French film on Friday, which moved me a lot - I found it profoundly sad. Seems to be inspired by the semi-autobiographical novel End of Eddy, it's a tough watch which proves to be a much sharper take on typical gay movies, where coming out leads to a land of rainbow unicorns and true love. I thought this was a much more interesting film that Call Me by Your Name, but I know I'm odd in that respect.
A day today at the Odeon Leicester Square, so my butt will be suffering by the end of the day (the Vue and the BFI are so much nicer auditoria). Happy End, Downsizing and Florida Project.
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Post by callum on Oct 13, 2017 14:17:05 GMT
David - please do let us know whether your screenings at OLS are impacted by the noise of industrial drilling outside - the final hour of Killing of a Sacred Deer this morning was ruined by the sound of huge drills. I know there isn't much BFI can do about this but it was very annoying.
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). An odd little film, rather enjoyable but hard to see masses of people lining up to see this when it gets a proper release (not sure this is the sort of thing that GoT fans will lap up) - I can see why it took so long to edit this after the initial filming, but it was well photographed and had some nice music as well (by Jamie Thraves, the director). There are some funny moments, but there are also some really odd moments that jar with this (it doesn't really have a conventional storyline, if that is what you primarily look for when you see a film).
