24FPS at LFF 2011: Plan of Attack

I've just heard that, for the second year running, I'm a fully accredited member of the press corps for the London Film Festival, so I'll be aiming to bring you expanded coverage even from the extensive coverage I had last year. Hopefully this will mean more reviews and more interviews across the four weeks that the festival runs for us (two press weeks, two full festival weeks). So, to give you a bit of an idea as to what you can expect, here are the 83 (yes, 83) films I'll be aiming to see at this year's festival with the first ten in a rough order of importance to me.

1: Alps

There is no film, none, at the festival or otherwise, that I presently want to see more than Yorgos Lanthimos' follow up to his monumental Dogtooth (which I saw at LFF 2009). I have avoided all plot details, all reviews, all I know is the 20 second clip we saw at the press launch makes me suspect that this is not just more of the same, and that I'll be disappointed if it's not the film of the year.

2: Martha Marcy May Marlene

I've been dying to see this, and Elizabeth Olsen's (sister of Mary Kate and Ashley) apparently revelatory performance, since it premiered to glowing reviews at Sundance in January. It sounds smart, dark and disturbing... right up my alley in other words.

3: Shame

Great reviews from the festivals it has played so far, and Fassbender's Best Actor award at Venice promise much for Steve McQueen's second film. I like both Fassbender and Carey Mulligan, and I always like to see filmmakers and actors exploring sex in a truly adult way. I'm hopeful that's what we'll get here.

4: Dreileben

Dreileben is actually three films by three German directors. Each film has the same starting point; the escape of a convict from custody, but each then spins its own story, linked subtly to the others. A project this ambitious will likely either be a tremendous success or a total disaster, I'm looking for ward to finding out which based on the titles of the three parts; Beats Being Dead, Don't Follow Me Around and One Minute of Darkness.

5: A Dangerous Method

I've said it before, but it bears repeating, the ingredients are fantastic here; David Cronenberg making a film about psychoanalysis, and a cast comprising Michael Fassbender, Viggo Mortenson, Kiera Knightley and Vincent Cassell. I honestly can't see how I won't love it.


6: Michael

The case of Josef Fritzl has inspired several provocative pieces of art (the bestselling novel Room being the best known) and this tough sounding film from Austria by a former casting director who has worked with both Jessica Hausner and Michael Haneke promises to be challenging. It's about a 35 year old man who keeps a 10 year old boy prisoner in his cellar. Reviews from Cannes were mixed, but Austria has turned out some impressive films and filmmakers of late, who have dealt well with difficult subject matter.

7: She Monkeys

My liking for European teen movies has been something of a running theme on this site and through the various LFF's I have attended (this is my sixth), and this Swedish example sounds promising. The story of two 15 year old girls on the same equestrian acrobatics team falling for each other suggests echoes off both Fucking Amal and Water Lilies. I can only hope She Monkeys is half as good as either of those great films.

8: Into the Abyss: A Tale of Death, A Tale of Life

In the wake of the execution of Troy Davis, whose guilt was in substantial doubt, Werner Herzog's documentary about the death penalty couldn't be more timely. Herzog is a fascinting guy, and I'm sure he'll have an interesting take on this issue, I hope the film will let all sides speak in the case it focuses on, rather than become a campaigning film.

9: Sarah Palin: You Betcha

In terms of catching the Zeitgeist, Nick Broomfield's latest may have missed its moment, but still, it has the potential to be a very funny, and not a little scary, insight into the American right wing. Hopefully Broomfield can go beyond name calling here and dig a little deeper into what makes Palin and (perhaps more interesting) her supporters tick.

10: The Fatherless

Another Austrian film, and I always seem to have one film in my main selection that for some reason I can't quite pinpoint, just calls out to me and says that it's going to be good. In 2008 it was Everybody Dies But Me, in 2009 Dogtooth, in 2010 Nothing's All Bad (all films that made my Top 10 in their years). It's about a group of grown children who have just lost their father, and their memories of their unconventional upbringing, and apparently flashes back and forth from present to past. The still above is what really stood out for me, there's just something starkly evocative about that image. I hope this one pays off.

and here, in alphabetical order, are my other Must See titles...

The Art of Love
The Artist
Asmaa
The Awakening
Back to Stay
Bernie
Better This World
The Bird
Breathing
Carnage
Coriolanus
Corpo Celeste
Crazy Horse
Darwin
The Dish and the Spoon
Dreams of a Life
The Fairy
50/50
Flying Fish
The First Born
The Forgiveness of Blood
The Giants
Goodbye
Guilty
Hara Kiri: Death of a Samurai
Headhunters
Here
Hors Satan
Hunky Dory
Hut in the Woods
The Ides of March
Junkhearts
Last Screening
Last Winter
Let the Bullets Fly
Like Crazy
The Loneliest Planet
Lotus Eaters
Low Life
Miss Bala
The Monk
The Natural Phenomenon of Madness
Natural Selection
Nobody Else But You
On The Sly
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
Oslo, August 31st
Ostende
Play
Rampart
Return
Seven Acts of Mercy
17 Girls
Silver Bullets
Sleeping Sickness
The Sleeping Voice
Snowtown
Stopped on Track
Strawberry Fields
The Student
Superheroes
Take Shelter
Tales of the Night
Trishna
Twilight Portrait
Undercurrent
W.E.
We Have a Pope
We Need to Talk About Kevin
When the Night
Wild Bill
Without
Wreckers
Wuthering Heights

There are also a few (typically three) films yet to be announced (not counting the surprise film). I would hope that at least some of these will feature: Take This Waltz (Sarah Polley's second directorial effort, starring Michelle Wiliams, Seth Rogen and Sarah Silverman), Killer Joe (William Friedkin's latest, with the brilliant young Brit Juno Temple in the lead), Himizu (The latest from cray, and prolific, Japanese auteur Sion Sono), The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Some remake by some bloke called Fincher) and at least one film with Isabelle Huppert, given that there are several to choose from right now.

24FPS at Empire Big Screen 2011: Day 1

24FPS At Empire Big Screen 2011: Day 1

The movies have taken over the O2. There are movie cars [the DeLorean, various Bond cars], movie costumes [the Batman Begins batsuit, though I'd have preferred to see the Batman and Robin one, if only to giggle like an immature 12 year old at the fact it has nipples], movie props [original Ray Harryhausen models], and even Darth Vader, who apparently wandered, apropos of nothing, past the press room around 9am. Yep, this job can be weird.

I started my day proper (after an abortive Pint of Milk live, which was supposed to feature Mark Gattis, who got hung up at a Sherlock panel, and so didn't appear) with a 3D 'debate' panel. Debate was limited as WETA artist Dan Lemmon, Empire's Dan Jolin (who was supposed to be the 3D sceptic of the panel, but kept somewhat quiet) and two representatives of a post conversion house talked 3D. I didn't really get an entirely satisfactory answer to my question of whether, given that this 3D process is just about five years old, they thought the new technology (or artform, as they all seemed to regard it) had yet had its Birth of a Nation or Citizen Kane moment.

The tone of the session may have been very pro 3D, and I remain, if not explicitly anti 3D, a significant sceptic, that said, the way that the panel talked about their work - particularly conversion - did make me think about it as art rather than commerce for perhaps the first time. There was (too) much love for the unremittingly terrible Avatar, but there were some interesting things said, particularly about the upcoming Dredd, in which DP Anthony Dod Mantle is apparently using 3D for facial close ups, in order to use faces as landscapes of a sort. 3D, on that evidence, might yet become interesting.

The next two panels were both hosted by Kim Newman, whose reviews in Empire were the thing that got me into horror movies and who remains something of a journalistic hero. The first panel was supposed to be a discussion of the enduring appeal of Dracula, but none of the other participants made it, so Newman simply threw the floor open to questions on any (horror related) subject. He spoke with the passion and humour that makes his criticism so much fun to engage with, and, when I asked about the video nasties, reminisced at length about the DPP list ('a shopping list'), his warm fuzzy feeling for Last House on the Left (the first review he sold) and the fact that that era, while terrible for the country, was the making of many of his generation of critics. We also got tips on some up and coming horror directors to watch for, a sceptical response (from the author of Empire's Video Dungeon series remember) about the idea that bad movies can be good and droll observations about the annoyances of being a 'vampire completist'. Okay, so it wasn't the panel planned, but I doubt I'll enjoy many more this weekend.

Immediately following that panel, Newman returned with Tom Six, director of the Human Centipede films for a discussion of the recent BBFC ban of Human Centipede Part 2: Full Sequence. Six; young, with a friendly face and manner and clad in a straw stetson and khaki suit was about the last thing you'd expect of the man who just made a film in which a man wanks with sandpaper. He engaged with Newman and with the audience, giving full and frank answers to questions, in perfect English with a pronounced Dutch accent, usually with his tongue somewhat in his cheek.

We were told that the recent appeal against the banning of Part 2 has been rejected, and the filmmakers and distributors are now talking with a barrister, taking advice about whether the film is legally obscene, and planning a fresh run at an appeal. Six seemed both frustrated and amused by the BBFC; frustrated because they have somewhat spoiled his film by publishing a detailed (but, he says, selective) synopsis and are, inadvertently, encouraging UK fans to illegally download his film rather than pay for it, and amused because the film has already passed uncut in the much more censorious Australia. Six also noted that he understood how the film could cause offence, but that he didn't understand the ban, because 'How likely some idiot will make a human centipede?'.

There was an amusing picture painted of the audition process for a Human Centipede film, as Six related auditioning his Part 2 lead. He was asked to rape the Centipede as part of the audition, and raped a chair in the room 'like a maniac', at which point 'I knew he was the man for the part'. Asked about the possibility of Hollywood remake, Six said he'd sign off on it if there were big stars involved 'if they get Tom Cruise on his hands and knees, I'd like to direct that film'. Finally we got some teasing hints on Human Centipede Part 3, which will be shot in the US, 'will upset a lot of people' and will shoot this coming January. I haven't yet seen the Human Centipede films, but after spending some time with their director I'm looking forward to them.