BFI London Film Festival

[IanSchultz23]

Originally Posted by adamhopelies

I don't particularly hold much stock in "critics" as a collective force in any real sense, it just so happens that many of my best friends happen to be film critics and so I value their feelings to varying degrees based on a number of things.

What's a "middle tosser" btw?

I meant to write middle class tossers, first day festival fatigue set in by that point

[adamhopelies]

Originally Posted by IanSchultz23

I meant to write middle class tossers, first day festival fatigue set in by that point

Ha! Alas, that is far from my own experience within the field, with most of my own pals, bar the odd one or two with a broadsheet or radio gig, afforded only modest lifestyles from criticism. MichaelB has written similarly over in the Arrow thread too (tho our social circles do cross so there's every chance we're both thinking of the same people when we say this).

[IanSchultz23]

I was being a bit facetious but we all know there are a few who fit that description

[adamhopelies]

Originally Posted by IanSchultz23

I was being a bit facetious but we all know there are a few who fit that description

Meh, what does that have to do with anything? Class snobbery from any angle is ugly. I'd hazard a guess that the vast majority of people on this forum are middle class!

[IanSchultz23]

I wasn't being totally serious

[duggie walker]

Originally Posted by adamhopelies

Ha! Alas, that is far from my own experience within the field, with most of my own pals, bar the odd one or two with a broadsheet or radio gig, afforded only modest lifestyles from criticism. MichaelB has written similarly over in the Arrow thread too (tho our social circles do cross so there's every chance we're both thinking of the same people when we say this).

Not sure class is solely defined by income. There's a few pretty skint Lords out there; and some fairly well-off cabbies.

[IanSchultz23]

Kermode is in the yes camp for High-Rise.

[duggie walker]

Still not sure why this isn't in the Movies forum but anyway... seen another four since TRUMBO...

HITCHCOCK/TRUFFAUT is a doc about the famous interview sessions between the two directors. It pretty much does what it says on the tin though newcomers to Hitchcock will get more from it than I did. Clips from the Master's work aside, I'm not sure it warrants a visit to the cinema: This is more like the docs that were once routine as extras, during the Golden Age of DVD (sigh...). What would be great would be for this to be packaged along with the full audio transcripts of the interviews by the likes of Criterion or MOC.

SON OF SAUL focuses on the SonnerKommando in WW2 - essentially, the jews who were forced to directly assist the Nazis with the extermination programme. The film-maker chooses to (literally) focus on the eponymous Saul throughout, so the actual atrocities occur in the background, glimpsed only in passing and usually out of focus. This strategy pays off big-time in giving us the feeling of being there, as it happens, in Auschwitz, and it really does feel like Hell on Earth. The downside is that it's often difficult to keep track of who's saying and/or doing what, which is occasionally irritating and takes you out of the film's reality. Still, a very powerful film, which - at its best - reminded me of COME AND SEE.

HIGH RISE - Ben Wheatley is the real deal, imo, so I was on board for this one; and for the first hour, I wasn't disappointed: Hugely imaginative, often very funny, HIGH RISE has hints of Gilliam, Kubrick, Roeg and Cronenberg throughout, whilst still feeling like its own thing. But whilst the film isn't as wilfully obscure as A FIELD IN ENGLAND, it's still slightly on the wrong side of enigmatic and certainly too long to sustain such a dispassionate tone and I felt less and less engaged as it dragged towards its climax. It may be that it grows on second viewing - it's certainly quite dense - but on first viewing, all I can say is that I was fairly glad when it ended. Wheatley and Tom Hiddlestone did a short Q and A afterwards.

BONE TOMAHAWK - The two producers in attendance seemed quite proud of the fact that they shot the first draft of BONE TOMAHAWK. Unfortunately, it shows. I've heard comparisons with JAWS and UNFORGIVEN being cited in praise of this "men on a mission" western but it really doesn't have anywhere near the depth of characterisation that those films had, nor the philosophical insight; meaning that I found it quite a slog until the last third finally unleashes an onslaught of fairly hard-core gore and craziness. I don't know if it was enough to redeem the whole film for me but it came close, and I'm sure - like HIGH RISE - this is a film that'll find some passionate admirers. It's one very odd movie, for sure: I just think it could have been more than that.

[IanSchultz23]

Originally Posted by duggie walker

HIGH RISE - Ben Wheatley is the real deal, imo, so I was on board for this one; and for the first hour, I wasn't disappointed: Hugely imaginative, often very funny, HIGH RISE has hints of Gilliam, Kubrick, Roeg and Cronenberg throughout, whilst still feeling like its own thing. But whilst the film isn't as wilfully obscure as A FIELD IN ENGLAND, it's still slightly on the wrong side of enigmatic and certainly too long to sustain such a dispassionate tone and I felt less and less engaged as it dragged towards its climax. It may be that it grows on second viewing - it's certainly quite dense - but on first viewing, all I can say is that I was fairly glad when it ended. Wheatley and Tom Hiddlestone did a short Q and A afterwards.

BONE TOMAHAWK - The two producers in attendance seemed quite proud of the fact that they shot the first draft of BONE TOMAHAWK. Unfortunately, it shows. I've heard comparisons with JAWS and UNFORGIVEN being cited in praise of this "men on a mission" western but it really doesn't have anywhere near the depth of characterisation that those films had, nor the philosophical insight; meaning that I found it quite a slog until the last third finally unleashes an onslaught of fairly hard-core gore and craziness. I don't know if it was enough to redeem the whole film for me but it came close, and I'm sure - like HIGH RISE - this is a film that'll find some passionate admirers. It's one very odd movie, for sure: I just think it could have been more than that.

I was at both of those, saw Black Mass in the morning too. I got to meet Wheatley afterwards, I loved it even more on the 2nd viewing and I loved it the first time around.

[duggie walker]

I wanted to like it more than I did. I admire Wheatley's general attitude and m.o and I thought KILL LIST was a work of greatness within its genre. But HIGH RISE actually demands a fairly unfussy, linear narrative, imo. There were lots of moments, details and stylistic choices that were wonderful; but I felt that he just botched the "geography" of the piece - not just the physical location but the hierarchies within it. This may have been purposeful, I don't know; if it was, I think he lost more than he gained.