Tag: performance

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Dance Documentary Features Live Action Movies Music

The Extraordinary
Miss Flower

Directors – Iain Forsyth, Jane Pollard – 2024 – UK – Cert. 12a – 73m

****

A suitcase containing love letters, telexes and photographs found after her death, which inspired songs from singer Emilíana Torrini, becomes the key to a woman’s interior life – out in UK cinemas on Friday, May 9th

Every so often, a feature film turns up that doesn’t really fit the obvious categories, and this is one of those. It might be described as a cross between a documentary, a music promo and a home movie. Yet, none of those makeshift, pressed-into-service labels quite do it justice.

It’s a documentary because its starting point is a collection of personal items – love letters, telexes and photographs – kept in a suitcase by a woman named Geraldine Flower and subsequently found by her daughter Zoe some time after Geraldine’s death. Which is to say, found by her daughter Zoe, Zoe’s musician husband Simon Byrd and their friend the singer Emilíana Torrini. The latter had recorded some four albums and had come to a sort of creative impasse where she wanted to make another album but just couldn’t find the right creative spark. And then, the contents of Geraldine’s rediscovered case provided that impetus.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies Music

Slade in Flame

Director – Richard Loncraine – 1975 – UK – Cert. – 91m

****

Slade play Flame, a small-time rock band who cut their musical teeth managed by lowlife crooks before going on to a meteoric rise and fall managed by corporate suits– 2K Remaster for the film’s 50th Anniversary Re-release is out in UK cinemas on Friday, May 2nd following BFI Southbank premier on Thursday, May 1st

In the early 1970s, four-piece pop act Slade (singer-guitarist Noddy Holder, bass player Jim Lea, guitarist Dave Hill and drummer Don Powell) were a British pop phenomenon. They clocked up six number one singles, with three going straight to the number one position. To capitalise on that success, the band’s manager Chas Chandler, previously Jim Hendrix’s manager and, before that, the bass player with The Animals, decided Slade should make a movie; the band, however, didn’t want to make light, upbeat, whimsical fantasies like The Beatles vehicles (A Hard Day’s Night, 1964; Help!, 1965, both Richard Lester; Yellow Submarine, George Dunning, 1968); they wanted instead to make something darker, reflecting the experience of trying to make it in a band in England in the late 1960s.

First-time feature director Richard Loncraine proved to be an inspired choice, confirmed both by the gritty, urban nature of his many subsequent films (The Missionary, 1982; Bellman and True, 1987; Richard III, 1995) and for his signature compositional style (letterbox frame, sepia-dominated palette), developed with cinematographer Peter Hannan (The Missionary, not to mention Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, Terrys Gilliam and Jones, 1983).… Read the rest

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Documentary Features Live Action Movies Music

Pink Floyd at Pompeii

Director – Adrian Maben – 1972 – UK – Cert. PG – 93m

*****

Around the time of Meddle, Pink Floyd perform in the amphitheatre at Pompeii and in a Paris sound studio; later, at EMI Abbey Road, they work on their next album The Dark Side of the Moon – Pink Floyd at Pompeii – MCMLXXII is out in UK cinemas on Thursday, April 24th

This review is of the Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii – The Director’s Cut version that came out on DVD in 2003. There have been various versions over the years; indeed, that DVD release also contains the 62-minute cut which excises all the Abbey Road material. The newly released version (as yet unseen by this writer) boasts a 4K restoration and a new sound mix by Steven Wilson. Even without these new enhancements, the film is pretty impressive some fifty odd years on.

It starts and ends with a version of Echoes (which originally took up the second side of Meddle and is here conveniently broken up into a part one and a part two). This is followed by Careful With That Axe Eugene and another lengthy opus A Saucerful of Secrets. Three more numbers are recorded in Studio Europa-Sonor in Paris: the shorter, punchier (to give it its long title used in the film, which also constitutes the song’s entire vocal lyrics) One of These Days I’m Going To Cut You into Little Pieces, a blues called Mademoiselle Nobs similar to Meddle’s Seamus without lyrics but with a dog (the eponymous Nobs) howling along, and Set The Controls for the Heart of the Sun.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

The Crime is Mine
(Mon Crime)

Director – François Ozon – 2023 – France – Cert. 12a – 102m

*****

Two young women, an actress and a lawyer, take advantage of casting couch sex abuse of the former to boost both of their fledgeling careers – sharp period comedy with more to it underneath the surface is out in UK and Ireland cinemas on Friday, October 25th

A swimming pool. A lavish, art deco mansion. Out of a door staggers a clearly distressed, young blonde woman. Leaving the estate, she walks down the street, bumping into people. The setting and her clothes indicate the 1930s.

Meanwhile, a middle-aged M. Pistole (Franck de Lapersonne) calls on young brunette tenant Pauline (Rebecca Marder) to demand 3 000 Fr for five months’ back rent. A qualified lawyer, she manages to negotiate 48 hours’ respite on the grounds that a hotshot producer wants to put her flatmate Madeleine in his new play, and money will follow once the contract is signed. However, once Madeleine (Nadia Tereszkiewicz from Only The Animals, Dominik Moll, 2019) comes in to spill her tale of woe – in a manner closer to screwball comedy than rape or crime drama – it rapidly becomes obvious that the situation has changed.… Read the rest

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Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Harder Than The Rock
The Cimarons Story

Director – Mark Warmington – 2024 – UK – Cert. 12a – 100m

****

The story of Cimarons, the first British reggae band, who were formed in 1967 – out in UK cinemas on Thursday, October 3rd

As teenagers, they came from sun-soaked Jamaica to the UK to be confronted with a climate that was “rain, dull and gray.” In the 1960s, one of the areas that Jamaican immigrants came to in London was Harlesden, in Brent, and it was at Harlesden Methodist Church Youth Club in 1967 where Losely Guichy (guitar), Franklin Dunn (bass), Maurice Ellis (drums), and Carl Levi (organ) first met up and started playing music together, a site today commemorated with a blue plaque. They went through s number of singers over the years, notably Winston Reedy between 1974 and 1983.

By 1968 they were gigging as Cimarons. A performance at Paddington’s Q Club saw an A&R rep from Trojan Records in attendance, which led to a recording contract, their first album appearing in 1974, recorded in part as the Jamaican studio of the legendary Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry. Before that, they worked mainly as session musicians, appearing uncredited on numerous singles by black British reggae artists. The film isn’t particularly clear on the matter, but it’s mentioned that they lacked management and got hardly any royalties out of all this.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Art Exhibitions Movies

LAIKA
FRAME x FRAME

Pic: Toby Lewis Thomas, courtesy LAIKA and BFI

*****

Exhibition shows at BFI Southbank from Monday, 12th August to Tuesday 1st October 2024 (free to visit, but booking essential – click here) accompanied by the Stop Motion animation season including all five LAIKA feature films and much, much more

In the best part of two decades, US-based Laika Studios – named after the first dog in space – has carved itself a niche as arguably the foremost producer of stop-motion animation puppet films. That’s distinctly different from the other leading company in the stop-motion field, UK-based Aardman Animations, who specialise in plasticine animation. The difference is that plasticine is a malleable substance that can be reworked and remodelled one frame at a time, whereas although puppets can be moved a frame at a time, they can’t be remodelled.

Laika have consistently (and deservedly, in this writer’s opinion) picked up Oscar nominations for each of their five features, a remarkable achievement that speaks of the high quality of their work. Their five features (with a sixth forthcoming) are:

  • Coraline (2009): A young girl is lured into a darker, parallel world.
  • Paranorman (2012): A boy who can speak with the dead, ostracised by his local community, must save his town from dark forces by righting centuries-old wrongs.
… Read the rest
Categories
Animation Features Live Action Movies

The Lyricist Wannabe
(Tin4 Ci4 L,
填詞L,
lit. Lyrics Nerd / Dickhead)

Director – Norris Wong – 2023 – Hong Kong – Cert. 12a – 112m

****

A girl pursues her dream of becoming a Cantopop lyricist – out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 15th

The movies are full of rags-to-riches stories in which someone dreams of becoming a star, works hard to achieve that, and it ultimately all comes true. While that can happen, because in real life there are clearly stars out there, in most cases it doesn’t. This film follows a similar path: a girl gives her all to achieve her chosen dream but ultimately doesn’t make it, which is probably a far more common occurrence than the one in which the aspirant succeeds.

Law Wing Sze (Chung Suet-Ying) is a student at a church school run by nuns. She doesn’t read music, but is obsessed by Cantopop and wants to write lyrics, spending much time rewriting lyrics of old Cantopop songs such as Infernal Affairs which she rewrites as Student Affairs. For this endeavour she is summoned to Sister Che’s office where the nun / teacher helpfully gives her a crit session and suggests she change certain words to more accurately express what she’s trying to say without unintended double entendres.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Crazy Thunder Road
(Kuruizaki
Sanda Rodo,
狂い咲きサンダーロード)

Director – Sogo Ishii – 1980 – Japan – Cert. 15 – 97m

*****

Following on from Arrow’s superb BD of Sogo Ishii’s Burst City (1982) comes Third Window’s equally impressive BD release of its predecessor in the Ishii canon Crazy Thunder Road (1980) – on Blu-ray from Monday, February 21st 2022 and, as of January 2024, available to stream on Amazon Prime UK

This was Ishii’s Nihon University student graduation project, his first to be shot on 16mm rather than Super 8, which somehow got picked up for distribution by major Japanese Studio Toei which led to their giving him a budget for Burst City. Tom Mes, who as with Burst City supplies a commentary for the film, describes Crazy Thunder Road as “one of the Holy Grails of Japanese film releases if not the Holy Grail.”

When Toei presented Ishii with what seemed like astronomical funding for Burst City, it led him to overreach himself. In retrospect, he considers Burst City unfinished… [Read the full review at All The Anime]

Crazy Thunder Road was out on Blu-ray in the UK on Monday, February 21st, 2022 and, as of January 2024, available to stream on Amazon Prime UK.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

The Red Shoes

Producers-Writers-Directors – The Archers (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger) – 1948 – UK – Cert. PG – 135m

*****

A young dancer gives her all to the art of ballet, symbolised by the story’s centrepiece of the Ballet of the Red Shoes, in which the heroine is danced to death by the eponymous footwear – out in UK cinemas on Friday, December 8th; major season Cinema Unbound: The Creative Worlds Of Powell + Pressburger continues at BFI Southbank and on BFI Player until the end of December with a free exhibition The Red Shoes: Beyond The Mirror (booking essential) running until Sunday, January 7th 2024

The second movie by the Archers not to deal with wartime issues in any way, shape or form (the first being Black Narcissus, 1947) deals with art in the story of a young dancer torn between love and her chosen art form. Student Julian Craster (Marius Goring) is outraged to discover, during its debut performance, that his music tutor Professor Palmer (Austin Trevor) has lifted several passages of Craster’s college work to pass them off as part of his latest dance score Heart of Fire. His subsequent interview with ballet company head and creative genius Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook, who appeared in four Productions of the Archers and later in The Queen Of Spades, Thorold Dickinson, 1949) secures him a lowly job as music arranger for the prestigious Ballet Lermontov.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Tokyo Story
(Tokyo Monogatari,
東京物語)

Director – Yasujiro Ozu – 1953 – Japan – Cert. U – 136m

*****

Plays in the BFI Japan 2021 season October / November at BFI Southbank. Also currently streaming on BFI Player as part of the Japan programme alongside 24 other Ozu films together with a much wider selection of Japanese movies.

Elderly couple the Hirayamas (Chishu Ryu, Chieko Higashiyama) live in the seaside town of Onomichi, a day’s train ride from Tokyo at the time the film was made. Of their five children, Kyoko (Kyoko Kagawa) still lives at home with them and works locally as a primary school teacher, two live in Tokyo, one in Osaka and one went missing in action during the war, presumed dead. The son and daughter in Tokyo, Koichi (So Yamamura) and Shige (Haruko Sugimura), work as a doctor and a beauty parlour owner respectively. Both are married while the missing son has left behind a widow Noriko (Setsuko Hara). The fifth child is a son Keizo (Shiro Osaki) in Osaka which is on the train between Onomichi and Tokyo. The couple want to visit their offspring and see how they are doing for themselves.… Read the rest