A night with Jim Broadbent ( 'Le Weekend' Review)

So, exciting news: on monday myself and Ollie visited our local film club for a very special event; a Q&A with Jim Broadbent as well as a showing of film Le Weekend, in which he stars alongside Lindsay Duncan!

First lets talk about the film:  
Filmed entirely over a month In Paris, with a small all French crew this feature from director Roger Michell (Notting Hill, Changing Lanes & Morning Glory) is a quirky and fun tale of married couple Nick and Meg, who go back to Paris (their honeymoon destination) for their anniversary. It certainly isn't all happy and loving, in fact their relationship is very close to breaking point after all these years. I would say the film was pretty average, funny in parts but the ending was quite unended in a sense, leaving us not knowing what was going to happen between the couple. If you're looking for a fun romantic comedy this is not it, it is quite focused on the darker side of marriage and at times I definitely wanted to shout "JUST LEAVE HER" through the screen at Nick (played by Broadbent).

Now onto the night itself and the question and answer session with Jim:
The cinema was completely full, with people even standing at the back and it got so hot in there we had to open the fire doors during the intermission (the cinema is very old and still has an intermission in each showing where ice cream can be purchased!). We battled through the heat however to make it to the end where Jim Broadbent, who had watched the film with us, came down and sat behind a microphone with one of the Film Club's creators ready to answer our questions. 

The thing that was most surprising to me was how much he referred to the script; people asked him how much of the characterisation he created himself, or how his marriage reflected on that of Nick and Megs, but his answers were all to do with the script. In reality he didn't have much impact on the creation of the film, he just turned up, did a few takes of each scene over a month in Paris and then went home, which is very different to some of the stories you hear from other actors who take a year to get into and create their character, although I know this wasn't Jim's biggest film, and the character probably wasn't too different to himself (he's also been married for 30 years, just like Nick and Meg!).

Fun fact; Mr Broadbent was actually the second choice of the part of Del Boy in Only Fools and Horses! 

We had a very fun night at what will be one of our last visits to film club for a while due to University in September. For more information on the Q&A with Jim Broadbent click here for a local newspaper report of the night.

By Rosie.

Film4 Summer Screen at Somerset House

On Friday, Rosie and I had the pleasure of going to London to go to Film4's Summer Screen at Somerset House. To those who don't know what i'm talking about, it's basically an outdoor cinema in a courtyard which every August for the past 10 years has shown a variety of films. The film we saw was Rosemary's Baby (our 51st film, and one of my all time favourites), but the event plays a variety of different films, from classic (The 400 Blows), cult (Mad Max 2), world cinema (The Great Beauty), independent film premières (Two Days, One Night) and teen classics (Spring Breakers). During a speech, it was revealed Rosemary's Baby had been a film Film4 had wanted to show here since it began in 2004.

I am perhaps not the best person to review the film itself as I'm totally biased, it being one of my favourites. It was the fourth time I have seen it (I think) and I enjoyed it just as much as I have before. The film follows Rosemary and Guy, a young couple who move into a new flat. However things get tense when Rosemary becomes pregnant and paranoid that her intruding neighbours want to bring harm to her unborn child. I won't give too much away but the last thing the man from Film4 who gave a speech prior to the film said was 'Hail Satan'. I totally agree that the film deserves its classic status and rave reviews, the performances are amazing, and it is so so tense and scary, yet so subtle and classy without any big obvious scares. 

The day itself was very fun. We arrived at Somerset House early in the afternoon to look around all the exhibitions and galleries (some related to Film4, such as the poster exhibition, others independent of the event). We advise you do this as it was interesting and means when the doors open later on you can just go and find a spot to sit straight away. The building is very beautiful, even in the pouring rain (which became a bit too much towards the end but didn't stop our enjoyment of the film). We took a picnic to eat during the film, with cushions and a rug to create our own little living space for the time we were there. Perhaps the most impressive thing was the light display just as the film began, which was made more magical by the rain. It was very nice watching a film in such a lovely place and seeing planes go over our heads at the same time.

Here are our top tips for Summer Screen:

1. Get there early, look around, then start queueing (from inside the venue, not on the street). People started arriving around 5.30pm when we went.

2. Take blankets and rugs, and lots of them. The floor is concrete and can be uncomfy after a few hours. However don't take too much, as remember you are taking it around London with you (Inflatable pillows are perfect!)

3. Take an umbrella. The film goes on whatever the weather (as we found out) and we would have been soaking and miserable without one. We were promised by other blogs we had read before hand that Film4 give out free ponchos which carry their logo if it rains, sadly this was not the case for us.

4. Get the best spot. We succeeded in getting out desired spot, near the back, in front of the projector, where there was a fence to lean against. We also had a good view of the screen, as being near the front you would have had to crane your neck to see the screen.

5. Be respectful of people around you. People were, mostly, however some people had their umbrellas waving around unaware they were blocking peoples view (aka the people sat in front of us).

It would definitely be something we would both do again, and it has been something I've wanted to do for a long time. I would definitely recommend going, however tickets sell out very quickly (even though they allow lots of people in; we were actually surprised at how many people were in the queue).

Ollie

From Nebraska to The Office - A few Reviews

So it's been a while since our last post but now our exams are officially over we are watching films pretty much non-stop; I thought I would kick start the blogging again with a couple of thoughts on some things we've watched recently, TV and film.

Nebraska - 

"Does he have Alzheimer's?"

"No, he just believes what people tell him."

"That's too bad."

We watched Nebraska a while ago, our 253rd film to be exact, and it follows the story of a quiet drunken father with a little dementia on a journey with his son to pick up a million dollar prize, which is in reality just a marketing scam. The film was quite different than we anticipated, laugh out loud in places, but very poignant. The creation of characters are what makes the film, set amoungst the very real black and white landscape of Nebraska. Bruce Dern who plays Woody deserves an Oscar in my eyes for his performance; a man out of touch and seemingly untouched by the events surrounding him. Woody's wife Kate was also brilliant- a very vibrant and hilarious character who brings all the humor to the film.

9/10

Lost in Translation- 

"For relaxing times, make it Suntory time."

A hyped up story of intimacy and friendship; two unexpected lives colliding into each other in the centre of Japan, this critically acclaimed feature from director Sofia Coppola (The Bling Ring, Somewhere) didn't really live up to our high expectations. The setting and cinematography was beautiful at times but for both myself and Ollie we didn't find there was much to the film. Perhaps this is quite deliberate and gave a true reflection of Charlotte and Bob's relationship as it was somewhat brief and unknown, and perhaps exploring things in greater detail would contradict the purpose of the film. Nethertheless we didn't enjoy it as much as we intended to due to many of the pointless scenes and long pauses. 

5/10

The Office (U.S)-

There is a master key and a spare key for the office. Dwight has them both. When I asked, "What if you die, Dwight? How will we get into the office?" He said, "If I'm dead, you guys have been dead for weeks."

Having watched The Office U.S through from the start of season 1 to the end of 9, spanning a total of 12 real life years, I can safely say this series beats all others. It's hilarious, emotional and you feel such a connection to the characters; you've watched them grow and change, make good and bad decisions, all while working at the Dunder Mifflin paper company. Steve Carell is brilliant in his role as company regional manager Michael Scott and Rainn Wilson's creation of Dwight is unlike any other with his no nonsense facts about bears and beet farms and his determination to be Michael's right hand man. The season finale which I watched very recently was the perfect end to the series, hitting every note we could have wanted, without overplaying any of them. The show both demonstrated and celebrated everything that made it so extraordinary. Pam, during her last talk to the camera says "There's a lot of beauty in ordinary things, isn't that kind of the point?" And it completely was. 

10/10

Also memorably watched were Full Metal Jacket, Pulp Fiction and Orange Is The New Black which were all excellent. 

Keep an eye out for an upcoming post about the one time we MET JIM BROADBENT! as well as the time we WENT TO FILM 4's SUMMER SCREEN AT SOMERSET HOUSE! (both coming very soon to a good film blog near you (aka this one))

By Rosie

THE 5TH ANNUAL ROLLIE AWARDS - COMMENTARY

HELLO.
Well hasn't it been a long time. Over 2 months to be exact, since our last blog post. We have both been very busy, both currently in the middle of crucial exams and any spare time we have we feel we should be revising, not blogging. Even film watching has slowed down recently, having only watched 8 films in the past 2 months *cries*. BUT, soon we will have a long summer to spend our days doing nothing but watching films, so we apologise for our absence to all our faithful readers (lol).

I have a lot to discuss, but the main point of this post is to talk about our 5th Awards which took place on 3rd May. This season took the longest to complete (5 months) and was the season with the most polarity when it came to the films themselves - many were excellent, many were awful, there were actually very few that were just average. To celebrate our 250th film Rosie and I went out for a lovely greasy Chinese meal in town which was followed up by watching two classic films - Taxi Driver (1976) and The Lion King (1992). Taxi Driver was an impressive and interesting watch, slightly dated, but with great themes and performances and a slick score. The Lion King was just as sad and stunning as ever, and it was the first time both of us had watched it since we were very young. Both films didn't let us down at all.

The nominees and winners of each award can be found here.

And now for my review of the winners/season in general. Rosie and I fought hard over the winners, perhaps more so than usual - for Best Film, we both loved all four nominees, however I favoured The Green Mile, she favoured Captain Phillips. We both resolved to let our other favourite Dallas Buyers Club win. Oz the Great and Powerful was a unanimous verdict for Worst Film, however I would like to give a special mention to Only God Forgives for being pretentiously bad. Another award where the decision was easy was Scariest film - although When the Lights Went out and Stigmata were both creepy, the only horror this season that truly scared the shit out of us was [REC]. For both Best Male and Best Female, any 4 of the nominees could have won as they were all amazing, perhaps with the exception (for me) of Jennifer Garner in Dallas Buyers Club. The Lifetime Achievement Award was awarded for the second time, this time to Tom Hanks for his work in 6 Rollie films. BIG LOVE TO TOMMY HANKS. Amazing films that didn't win awards include The Green Mile, Her, Life in a Day, Like Father Like Son and In a Better World.

Since the last awards the Oscars has been and gone, and we have watched 6 of the 9 nominees for Best Picture (we are going to watch a seventh, Nebraska, tonight). One nominee, Gravity, was watched last season, and 12 Years a Slave, Her, The Wolf of Wall Street, Dallas Buyers Club and Captain Phillips were watched this season. I would personally rank them in this order: 

- Dallas Buyers Club
- Her
- Captain Phillips
- The Wolf of Wall Street
- Gravity
- 12 Years A Slave

Rosie would rank them in this order:
- Her
- Dallas Buyers Club
- Captain Phillips
- Gravity
- The Wolf of Wall Street
- 12 Years A Slave

They were all amazing, but we both felt that 12 Years a Slave wasn't as worthy winner of the Best Film award than the other ones we had seen. We look forward to seeing the remaining nominees in the future.

Here's to the next 50 films!

Ollie

4 Films that changed my life

I would like to think every film I watch changes my life positively in some way, but sometimes that is just being too optimistic. Narrowing this list down to 4 films was incredibly hard but without any further ado, here are some films that changed my life:

Life In A Day

This film comes first on the list just because it was so memorable for me, and I have watched it recently. Thousands of people all over the world film one day - the 24th July 2010. After hours and hours of brilliant editing and sound mixing (the music is beautiful and never feels intrusive) we get to see the world on this particular day and it is amazing to see different people from different corners of the world, the richest and the poorest, all doing so much on this planet in only one day. It really makes you realise what you've got, how lucky you are (as someone who lives a comfortable life in a moderately rich country) and how vast our planet Earth is and what it has to offer. This film is just completely incredible and really gets my sense of adventure going.

Halloween (films 1-8)

The other half of Rollie fashioning his idols 'look'. Which is which?

This franchise makes a very unlikely appearance on the list. It's not here for the quality of the film-making or script-writing, and certainly not here for Jamie-Lee Curtis' performance (bless her). Instead it earns its place in my top five because it marks the 'Rollie friendship' most perfectly and wholly. The films are so bad they are laughable and Micheal Myers has grown to become both mine and Ollie's favourite character. Each Myers flick gets worse than the last, but we still love it and we don't care how often we hear an awful teenage actors scream or see Michael rise from the dead. I don't urge anyone to watch the later Halloween films, the first is okay and the second slightly better, but it's all downhill from there. Long live Michael Myres.

Shutter Island

This was for a long time my absolute favourite film, and I believe it is what started my passion for the subject of psychology which I am now going onto study at university. The film makes you believe you are figuring out exactly what is going on; you are sat there thinking you are like Sherlock Holmes for the most part because you've 'got it all sussed', but then it swiftly pulls the rug from under your feet near the end and you are left dazzled in amazement. Leo DiCaprio plays the role of US Marshal Teddy brilliantly. He is sent into a mental asylum to search for missing inmate Rachel who is presumed to be hiding nearby; the asylum sits on an island and the only way off is through the docks which are controlled by armed guards. Rachel is much more difficult to find than first expected and we start to question if she even lost at all.This is a brilliant psychological thriller and well worth its hype.

The eighth day

 

I first saw this french film as a child with my dad and I regard it as my first proper grown up film (as well as Alien which I watched at the age of 9 and which scarred me for life). It is a beautiful tale of a recent divorcee's new friendship with a young man who has downs syndrome. Normally the two would never even meet, but their paths were set to cross and what grew between them was a friendship so loving and pure. This is definitely a tearjerker but also a feel good film and one which I have always remembered.

By Rosie.