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(Glasgow Film Festival: Film At Home; Wed 24 Feb to Sat 27 Feb) https://glasgowfilm.org/glasgow-film-festival/shows/minari-n-c-15 "Minari" It’s 'The 1980s', and David (Alan S. Kim), a seven-year-old 'Korean American' boy, is faced with new surroundings and a different way of life when his father, Jacob (Steven Yeun), moves their family from 'The West Coast' to rural 'Arkansas' in search of their own 'American Dream'. David and his sister Anne (Noel Cho) have mixed feelings about this move; at first excited by their new mobile home, they soon grow bored being in a backwater. His wife, Monica (Yeri Han), is aghast that they live in a mobile home in the middle of nowhere, and naughty little David and Anne are bored and aimless. When his sly, equally mischievous grandmother Soonja (Youn Yuh-jung) arrives from 'Korea' to live with them, her unfamiliar ways arouse David’s curiosity. The arrival of their foul-mouthed, but incredibly loving grandmother brings new energy to the family dynamic, but Jacob’s determination to make it as a successful farmer throws the family’s finances, and it's relationships Meanwhile, Jacob, hell-bent on creating a farm on untapped soil, throws their finances, his marriage, and the stability of the family into jeopardy. Amidst the instability and challenges of this new life in the rugged 'Ozarks', "Minari" shows the undeniable resilience of family and what really makes a home. It all begins as recent 'Korean' arrival Jacob whisks his family from 'California' to 'Arkansas', determined to carve out the rugged independence of farm life, even if it's one on shaky ground in 'The US' of 'The 1980s'. While Jacob sees Arkansas as a land of opportunity, the rest of his clan is flummoxed by their unforeseen move to a new life on a pint-sized piece of land in the far-flung 'Ozarks'. But it's two unlikely family members at opposite ends of the spectrum, wide-eyed, unruly seven-year-old David; and his equally defiant, just-off- the-plane-from-'Korea' grandma Soonja, who start to forge the family’s new path. In the midst of profound change, they clash at first, but soon discover the imperfect but magical bonds that root the family to their past as they reach towards the future. Jacob takes deep pride in his self-reliance while his wife Monica pragmatically tries to keep family life intact amid the chaos Jacob has whipped up with the move. Oldest sister Anne rapidly gains savvy and responsibility as she's handed big, unasked-for responsibilities, while David mischievously tries to repel his newly arrived grandmother Soonja, who upends the fragile peace with her foul-mouthed but perceptive commentary. Then there’s the humor and humanity of Jacob’s employee Paul (Will Patton), a fervent 'Pentecostal' in a perpetual state of repentance. He has a more unusual vision for his life. You root for Jacob because he’s doing this terribly risky thing, taking his family to this crazy place without even consulting them and putting them on the edge of disaster. You could easily despise this guy and not trust him at all. We've to understand of what it’s like to be Jacob, to be thirtysomething and to have kids relying on you but also have this fire to pursue your own ideas of success and happiness. Jacob holds firm to the idea that ultimately David and Anne will benefit from his dream, once the dust settles. But while Jacob’s wife Monica admires his aspirations, that doesn’t mean she can easily embrace life in an 'Arkansas' trailer in the middle of nowhere. She’s anxious about the family’s isolation, and about where her own life and marriage goes from here; even as she transforms their trailer into a place that increasingly feels like home. As "Minari" builds, David witnesses his father’s dream waver on the edge of absurdity, then near catastrophe as it seems the family’s future might literally go up in smoke. David offers an impish, joyful way into complicated memories, but he also offered something else, that open, awed-by-it-all spirit that can illuminate the beautiful strangeness of life. With his lack of language for what it means to be an immigrant, David becomes a conduit for the feeling of an entire unmoored family trying to find their bearings. Conjuring David’s boyish exuberance, angst, and cheekiness is a particular revelation, merging the child and parent within him. There’s a dance going on where David is a creation of two opposing things; out inner memories of being scared, excited, and curious as a kid. An important part of Anne’s character is that she’s serious about caring for the people she loves, There are so many little moments, like when Jacob’s digging the well and David’s sits there looking bored. The film’s momentum completely opens up when Soonja arrives. She’s vulgar and has a wicked sense of humor, but what we find interesting is that quite often salvation comes from someone like that. Somehow, she might embody ideals of tolerance and love more than anyone. For all the tumultuous changes in David’s life, nothing sets off more sparks than the arrival of Soonja, who, much to David’s abject horror, moves into his bedroom, making them instant rivals. To David, Soonja can’t possibly be a real grandmother. She certainly doesn’t bake cookies or tenderly dote. She smells weird, gets a kick out of teasing him, and is as foul-mouthed as anyone he’s met. Nevertheless, in ways David cannot immediately see, he and Soonja share much in common; both are spirited rebels, both are physically vulnerable, and both are linchpins of the family, with Soonja connecting them to where they’ve come from just as David points to an unseen future. And when David pulls a boyish prank on Soonja, hoping that will make her go away, it instead binds them closer as David realizes Soonja understands him better than he could have known. Salvation is more directly sought by the family’s invaluable neighbor, who lends Jacob the help he needs to tend to his crops. This is Paul, a completely committed 'Pentecostal$ who speaks in tongues but doesn’t say much about the reasons he's driven to make so many amends. Even as the ferocity of Paul’s faith is a mystery and at times an affront to Jacob, no one in David’s family can quite shake the strange, poignant beauty of Paul’s kindness to them. The film uses the intensity of Paul’s belief as a means to reveal who he's as a person. Paul is always an important character. The companionship he finds with Jacob speaks to how two people can come from entirely different backgrounds, yet find a closeness rooted simply in shared work. Like Jacob, Paul’s a man living in the gaps. He's alone, misunderstood, and burdened. Jacob relates to that intrinsically, even if he sees himself as a man who believes only in science and hard work. They both have their beliefs, but at core, they’re just two lonely dudes trying to do their thing, which is their connection. Jacob and Paul discover they can simply be themselves. As 'The Arkansas Dream' threatens to dry up and upend each member of the family, the film explores how a family navigates not only the very specific dilemmas of assimilating into rural America but also broader questions of elemental humanity, the gaps we all wrestle with between family ties and independence, faith and skepticism, feeling like an outsider and yearning to belong. Though each character has their own comic plight, there's no judgement or satire. Too often you see people in American films speaking English who would not in their real lives. But the more authentically a film depicts the details of how people really live, the more meaningful it's. There’s a dissonance to speaking 'Korean' at home that you can’t get at any other way. Two human beings trying to exist together is difficult enough, but when you add the pressure that they’re under there are going to be cracks. Just as working his own patch of land is the lure for David’s father to head for Arkansas, so too is the power of the land woven throughout "Minari". This family might speak 'Korean', but their fates are as tied to the potential and peril in 'The American' soil as the characters in John Ford’s "Grapes Of Wrath", George Stevens’ "Giant", William Wyler’s "Big Country", or Terrence Malick’s "Days Of Heaven". There’s a constant level of risk in farming that so few movies let you feel. Named for a peppery 'Korean' herb that thrives best in it's second season, "Minari" is a tender, funny, evocative ode to how one generation of a family risks everything to plant the dreams of the next. The film unspools with all the vividness of a lived memory. While in it's basic outlines "Minari" might seem to be a story we know; a tale of immigrants making a go at their own vision of 'The American Dream; the film brings a fresh and illuminating take. For within the film’s at once playful, powerful, and candidly detailed family remembrances comes a larger story: the impact of the journey on a new generation of young 'Americans'. It's a deeply personal immersion into reconciling two worlds, with boundless affection for both. There’s so much more drawing us together as human beings than the superficial categories we have created. For some, "Minari" might be a chance to see a 'Korean American' finally telling the story, but we've find these characters mean just as much to people from 'Arkansas', or from 'New York', or anywhere. Loving people is a lot of work, and things will go awry at times, but at the end of the day you have that love and it’s real and so meaningful. All people have their masks, all people have their triumphs and their failings.

(Release Info London schedule: Saturday 27 April 11.00 am - Canterbury | Knutsford | Richmond | Ripon | Soho Sunday 28 April 11.00 am - Colchester | Mayfair | Oxford | Sheffield | Victoria | Wimbledon) "Vox Lux" "Vox Lux" follows the rise of Celeste (Natalie Portman) from the ashes of a major national tragedy to pop superstardom. The film spans 18 years and traces important cultural moments through her eyes, starting in 1999 and concluding in 2017. Beginning in 1999 with a violent mass tragedy, a teenaged Celeste (Raffey Cassidy) is rushed to the hospital, barely surviving a harrowing encounter. With her loyal sister Eleanor (Stacy Martin) by her side, she recovers. After singing at a memorial service, Celeste transforms into a burgeoning pop star with the help of her songwriter sister. The duo puts their grief to song, composing a memorable ballad sung by Celeste that becomes an anthem to an ailing nation. Her parents hire a scrupulous manager (Jude Law) to take her under his wing. Under his tutelage, her career skyrockets to superstardom, with all the vice that comes along. Celeste's meteoric rise to fame and concurrent loss of innocence dovetails with a shattering terrorist attack on the nation, elevating the young powerhouse to a new kind of celebrity; American icon, secular deity, global superstar. As the film enters it's second phase set in 2017, Celeste has grown into her early 30s. She's mounting a comeback after a scandalous incident that derailed her career. Though praised by legions of fans, her private life has been plagued by scandals and addiction, a strained relationship with her sister, and a teenage daughter of her own that she neglected to raise. As the launch of her grand opus looms, she must confront another act of violence. Touring in support of her sixth album, a compendium of sci-fi anthems entitled 'Vox Lux', the indomitable, foul-mouthed pop savior must overcome her personal and familial struggles to navigate motherhood, madness and monolithic fame in 'The Age Of Terror'. The film incisives a character study with a mature sense of style all his own. It's protagonist is a pop star called Celeste and it chronicles key events and cultural patterns that have so far defined the early '21st century' via her gaze. Celeste becomes a symbol of 'The Cult Of Celebrity' and 'The Media Machine' in all it's guts, grit and glory. Her music is a great luxury. But there's a difference in the sort of eco-system that comes, that grows around a pop star. Or if they had been present, in the case of a memoir, has her memory of past experiences not betrayed her? The character feels attacked. So, she lashes out at absolutely everybody. In the scene with her and 'The Journalist' (Christopher Abbott) both have extremely valid perspectives and points of view and she’s mostly in the wrong, in fact. In that moment, the most important thing is not when she says to the journalist, 'You’ve got nothing to be proud of. I don’t share that sentiment remotely'. The most important thing is when she goes, 'You’re right, you’re right', and that’s the reason that moment appears in the film, because she’s consoling herself by basking in a lie, to try to comfort herself. The character of course has a few of those moments where she’s a bit 'Trumpy’ and that’s one of them. And also, this character is suffering with 'PDST'. She’s not really designed to be a monster at all. She’s as much a victim of the era as she's a leader of the era. The film is very much about the fact that 'The 20th Century' was marked by the turn of the banality of people and 'The 21st century' will be defined by the pageantry of people. The film’s themes and the character are intrinsically linked, and so, she’s not a monster. It's about the questions around the psychology of what violence does to individuals and to mass psychology, to group psychology; certainly because of being from a place where people have encountered it for so long. But, unfortunately, it’s been a phenomenon now that, in 'The United States', we experience regularly with the school shootings, which are a type of civil war that we've in 'The US', and of terror in 'The US'. And the psychological impact of what that means for every kid going to school every day, of every parent dropping their kid off every day, and how small acts of violence can create wide-spread psychological torment. There’s a great moment in the film where she says, 'Let’s make it we'. So, her trauma becomes a collective trauma. "Vox Lux" is based on Robert Musil’s book 'The Man Without Qualities', which is about a character whose sort of on the periphery of major events, during the fall of 'The Astro-Hungarian Empire'. There’s an omniscient narrator (William Dafoe) that’s sort of sardonic and the film applies this Robert Musil-style and tone to something contemporary. The film is the continuation of "The Childhood Af A Leader", but on the other side of the century; an historical melodrama set in America between 1999 and 2017. The film connects the life of the protagonist to some major historic events. 1999 was 'Columbine', then we see 'The Twin Towers' in 2001. But this film definitely represents a more corporate brand of fascism. But yeah, we've to see them as being linked in a way for structural reasons and the fact that they're both fables that are sort of defining moments of an era. One in the early part of 'The 20th Century' and this one in the early part of 'The 21st century'. "Vox Lux" demonstrates a more transparent contract with the reader than the traditional historical biography because one is able to access the past without questioning the author about how they could provide such a detailed account of an event without having been present for the event themselves. Featuring original songs by Sia, "Vox Lux" is an origin story about the forces that shape us, as individuals, nations, and gods. The film guides into fearless places in the name of art, finding beauty in the ugliness of the world and daring us to pay attention. It’s a piece of art that's really more of a portrait, and more of a reflection of our society; the intersection of pop culture and violence, and the spectacle that we equate between the two. It's a statement or send an important message to 'The US' about their gun control policies. It makes people feel things that they recognise and that they can see some of things that we’re facing in our society right now. "Vox Lux" chronicles moments that defined 'The 20th century', the last twenty years. We’re all been through a lot. But the truth is, it’s quite a difficult film to speak about because it isn't an attempt to create.anything which is too didactic. It's something that's supposed to be a sort of fable or a poetic rumination of what we’ve all been through for the last twenty years. We live in an age of anxiety. We feel like we’re having more sleepless nights than ever. The film is sort of born of that. It's designed to be where we could all come together and think about it together collectively.

(Release Info London schedule; Curzon Victoria, 58 Victoria Street Westminster, London SW1E 6QW, The Courier, Fri 13 AUG, 11:00 15:30 21:00) https://we-love-cinema.com/cinemas/386-curzon-victoria/ "The Courier" "The Courier" is a true-life spy thriller, the story of an unassuming 'British' businessman Greville Wynne (Benedict Cumberbatch) recruited into one of the greatest international conflicts in history. At the behest of 'The UK's MI-6' and Emily Donovan (Rachel Brosnahan), a 'CIA' operative, he forms a covert, dangerous partnership with 'Soviet' officer Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze) in an effort to provide crucial intelligence needed to prevent a nuclear confrontation and defuse 'The Cuban Missile Crisis'. On 16, October 1962, President John F Kennedy is handed high-altitude photographs taken from 'U-2' planes flying over Cuba that shows 'Soviet' soldiers setting up nuclear-armed missiles on the island. 'The United States' have been tipped-off that 'The Soviet Union' is putting nuclear warheads on 'The Caribbean Island'. 'The Cuban Missile Crisis' sees the world on the brink of nuclear war. Greville Wynne has a sense of humour, doggedness, and an unexpected strength. This guy goes on an extraordinary journey. From being an ordinary businessman, one who's quite severely dyslexic, almost to the point of illiteracy, to being a conduit for 'The West' to get the most important bit of secret information during 'The Cold War' and 'The Cuban Missile Crisis'. It's about an everyday guy in the centre of that world with all these thrilling elements and this massive global political backdrop while it’s about him and his family, and he ends up trying to save the world. Wynne’s mission is to make contact with a 'Soviet' military intelligence colonel named Oleg Penkovsky. They strike up a significant friendship. Penkovsky likes him and trusts him. And Penkovsky sees that loyalty returned when Wynne tries to help him escape. Wynne returns to Moscow even after being warned that he would put himself in peril by doing so. Wynne decides that he has to help his friend Penkovsky escape. 'The KGB' catches Wynne trying to help his friend, and he's arrested on 11 May 1963, and subsequently is sentenced to 8 years in jail. And then we get the tragedy of this very ordinary man being stretched to the limits of his endurance, physically and mentally in a 'Russian Gulag'. What he endures is all the more incredible considering he isn't a trained spook and he has no background or inclination to do the work he's asked to do. He's released from jail in exchange for the spy Gordon Lonsdale (Jonathan Harden) in 1964. The prison experience changed Wynne. He falls into a state where his mental health is challenged. He becomes an alcoholic and leaves his wife. He lost his business income and so, needed money. Then there's the secrecy that's part and parcel of espionage so 'MI6' never acknowledge his work even after he's released. 'The British' government never publicly acknowledged anything he did or thanked him for what he has done. "The Courier" culminates with Wynne shaven-headed and alone in prison. The film hints that even when he's released all will not be well. He's a broken man no longer at peace with himself. Oleg Penkovsky is a legendary source that 'The Americans' have in 'The Soviet Union'. Penkovsky, codenamed 'Hero', is a 'Soviet' military intelligence colonel during the 1950s and early 1960s. Born in Vladikavkaz in 1919, his father died fighting as an officer in 'The White Army' during 'The Russian Civil War'. He has to hide parts of his past because he's related to a man who's the enemy of 'The Communists'. He has to carry this on his back. Penkovsky is able to detract attention from his family history by proving his belief in the cause by joining 'The Soviet' army. He's very well respected in the military world but after the war, no one cared about this anymore. He has all of these medals, but he's just a high-ranking bureaucrat. This guy is fearless, narcissistic and self-obsessed. He’s like a forgotten actor who wants to have a big comeback. His ego is also what make Penkovsky think he could get away with being a whistle-blower. He's convinced that this would never happen to him because he thinks he's too smart and by the time 'The Soviets' would find out, he would already be living in Montana, in 'The United States'. The friendship with Wynne blossoms so quickly because they've shared experiences. They understand how much they both risked. There's a need to give each other support. It's quite interesting the idea that if you've someone and you do have a family and it matters to you, how do you manage when a big chunk of your life is off-limits. One of the things that push Penkovsky and Wynne together in the film is that they both share this problem. Sheila (Jessie Buckley) is Wynne's wife. There's hardly any information about Sheila at all. Sheila has to constantly keep a lid on her emotions. There are a lot of suppressed emotions in the sixties, especially a housewife who's unhappy and unfulfilled in life. Everything is smoke screens and smiles behind pained eyes. Basically, lots of quiet moments which are interrupted with sharp sips of martinis. Emily, 'The CIA' operative comes up with the idea of using Wynne to get information out of Moscow. She's a composite of a few of the real-life 'CIA' officers who worked the Wynne and Penkovsky operation. Emily is fictional, in the sense that at the time, the officers who worked on this operation are all men. Being a woman operating in a very patriarchal world, Emily has to be very strategic and clever to get her own way. Emily needs to use plenty of wiles to manipulate the men around her. Her male superiors need to believe that they're calling the shots even when they're implementing plans conjured up by Emily. Is it patriotism alone? Is it a desire to prove her worth in a male-dominated world, or even a male-dominated profession? Did she have a personal connection to this war that drove her? To get what she wants, Emily must appear non-threatening. That’s largely a period thing, but also a battle that women still fight today. Emily believes that she’s the smartest person in the room or at the very least, she has something valuable to This film is about the history of 'Russian American' espionage. There’s a long history of successful great 'Cold War' thrillers, the difference here's that rather than being about inscrutable people with inscrutable motives it has a clear emotional heart, and it's essentially about a relationship between two men who did something extraordinary. In October 1962, 'Soviet' ballistic missiles were being deployed in Cuba. President Kennedy demanded their removal. When Khruschev refused, both sides began preparations for a nuclear war. For 13 days, a policy of brinksmanship saw the world facing the threat of nuclear war. The world was going to end. People crowding into churches who had never been to church. This sent many around the world into a state of panic. The world sort of held its breath, it’s not just a fight between two countries, it’s every country in between them that would be affected. The film incorporates the crisis into the screenplay. Just trying to get a sense of that fear and helplessness that people felt that the world might end and there's not a 'God' damn thing we can do about it. You had ships sailing to Cuba with missiles, you had 'The Americans armed and ready and you had everybody hovering over buttons and codes. It only takes a few hotheads in charge of the codes, a few polarised opinions and people shutting off and not having a dialogue for catastrophe to happen. A generation had passed since the end of 'The Second World War', and new functional architecture had been appearing around the globe. The clothes were changing, but the swinging sixties had yet to arrive. The film shows the competition between 'The Soviet Union' and 'The United States'. Both superpowers were pursuing initiatives trying to demonstrate that their way of doing things created a better life for their citizens and more advanced technology. There's this big epic feeling of the architecture during that time because of the competition between the two countries, particularly in the sixties with 'Brutalist' architecture and 'Soviet' architecture. There was no nuclear war that such a scenario was not only feasibl but that many feared it would be inevitable. "The Courier" seems to be part of our history. The drama feels immediate and visceral. In the past four years, with Korea, Trump, China, and the pulling up all the old nuclear treaties between Russia and America, "The Courier" feels a little bit urgent in a rather scary way.

(Release Info London schedule; November 24th, 2018, Curzon Soho, 11:00) "Disobedience" A woman returns to her 'Orthodox Jewish Community' after the death of her rabbi father and stirs up controversy when she shows an interest in an old childhood friend. In a 'Jewish Orthodox Synagogue' in Hendon, the frail Rav Krushka (Anton Lesser) collapses whilst giving a sermon. As funeral rites commence in London, the Rabbi’s exiled daughter Ronit (Rachel Weisz) is living her life as a photographer in Manhattan. During a photo shoot she's told by 'The Brooklyn Synagogue' of her father’s death; wounded by the news and in a vulnerable state, she gets drunk in a local bar and sleeps with an undetermined man. Ronit flies home to London where she feels out of place in 'The Orthodox Jewish Community' she left behind. She's greeted at the home of Dovid Kuperman (Alessandro Nivola), a son figure to the Rav, who's taken aback by the unexpected return of his childhood friend. Her welcome inside the home is hostile from those in the community gathering in the Rav’s honour. Her aunt Fruma Hartog (Bernice Stegers) greets her more openly, though the air is frosty between Ronit and her uncle Moshe (Allan Corduner). Ronit is both upset and angry that she was not informed of her father’s illness and that her father’s obituary claims he was childless. Despite tension surrounding Ronit’s sudden departure in the past, Dovid invites her to stay with him and his wife. Ronit is shocked to discover that he's married to their former best friend Esti (Rachel McAdams), now a teacher at an Orthodox girl's school. It's uncomfortable between the two women; a complicated past is clearly hanging over them. The next day Ronit visits her father’s grave. After further prayers at their home, Dovid, Esti and Ronit go to a dinner at the Hartog house with Rabbi Goldfarb (Nicholas Woodeson). Ronit tries to talk to her Uncle about selling her father’s house, but he tells her now is not the right time for such a topic. Conversation turns to Ronit’s successful career as a photographer and Goldfarb's daughter Rebbetzin (Liza Sadovy) questions why she goes by Ronnie Curtis (Adam Lazarus) after seeing one of her photos in a magazine. Esti, quietly joining in the conversation, states that women change their names all the time when they get married and lose their own history. Everyone is silently shocked at Esti’s controversial comment. Rebbetzin continues questioning Ronit’s life in New York and asks why she's still not married, as it’s the way it should be for a woman. Ronit disagrees, calling marriage an institutional obligation and if she had stayed in the community and been married off, she would have killed herself. Everyone is shocked by her outburst and Ronit, blaming her jet lag, excuses herself to go home. Dovid, upon Esti’s request, leaves to walk her home. Ronit breaks down to Dovid, hoping her father knew she truly loved him. Dovid, struggling against the rules of his religion, tries to comfort his childhood friend without touching her. Ronit visits her uncle Hartog at his wigmaker’s shop to continue the discussion of selling her father’s house, but is informed by Hartog that the Rav left the house and all its contents to 'The Synagogue'. She leaves and soon runs into Esti outside a supermarket. They visit the Rav’s house together, a rundown mess full of medical equipment, it is not so much the house that Ronit wanted, but for her father to acknowledge her in his will. Esti admits that she does not want Ronit to leave again; past feelings are reignited and they kiss, at first timidly as Ronit pulls back, and then passionately. Ronit retreats once more, confused about her feelings. They leave the house and Esti confesses that she had called 'The Brooklyn Synagogue' to let Ronit know of her father’s death. She tells Ronit that she married Dovid, a man she doesn’t love romantically but respects, as she was mentally unwell following Ronit’s sudden departure and married their best friend upon the Rav’s suggestion. As they relax into each other’s company and kiss again, they're interrupted by Hinda (Clara Francis) and husband Lev (Mark Stobbart) and are unsure how much they saw. Esti rushes home, tense; she almost embraces Dovid but their marriage still lacks the passion she has with Ronit. At school, Esti is summoned to see the headmistress Mrs. Shapiro (Caroline Gruber) where Hinda and Lev are waiting to confront her. Allegations about Esti and Ronit also plague Dovid when he's asked by 'The Synagogue' to take on the Rav’s work. Ronit waits for Esti at the school gates, where Esti tells her about the formal complaint Hinda and Lev have submitted against her. Upon Ronit’s suggestion, they escape the close knit community and head into central London for the day. Ronit and Esti continue to be conflicted in their attraction to one other; Esti feels guilty and is trying to lead a good life in line with her faith, but cannot help but desire her former lover. They go to a hotel where they make love, completely at ease and euphoric in each other’s company. They talk about how Ronit’s father first learnt of their relationship all those years ago. Esti returns home late at night, where Dovid is waiting in their bedroom. He tries to get close to her but his yearning to be intimate with his wife is rebuked once again by a confused Esti. Nauseous the next day, Esti begins to wonder if she's pregnant. Dovid confronts Esti about Mrs Shapiro’s accusations and she admits what happened between them. Dovid’s anger almost turns violent as he releases his frustration at his wife’s inability to embrace their life together. Ronit, having overheard the argument, tries to persuade Esti to leave her husband, but Esti struggles to come to a decision. They both try to convince each other, and themselves, they're happy in their lives. Unable to cope with the current events, Dovid seeks refuge in a quiet Synagogue library. The atmosphere is tense when he returns home for dinner with Ronit and Esti. When Ronit announces that she has booked a flight back to New York that night, Dovid seems relieved and quietly asked his wife what she plans on doing now. Ronit and Esti share a difficult goodbye, both unable to share their true feelings. Esti accuses Ronit of taking the easy option by leaving, Ronit storms out the house and Esti slams the door behind her; both heartbroken at the recent events. In the middle of the night, Esti leaves the house and returns to the hotel room with a pregnancy test. Waking up at the airport the next morning, Ronit receives a panicked phone call from Dovid saying Esti is missing. After trying to calm him down, she continues to check into her flight, but later decides to leave and help Dovid in the search for her. Returning home after failing in their search for Esti, Ronit is still angry that Dovid didn’t tell her of her father’s illness. Esti returns from hiding and, having heard everything, announces her pregnancy. Dovid is joyous, believing a child will solve all their marital problems, but Esti instead asks for freedom for her and her child. She was born into the community and wants to give her child the freedom of choice she never had. Dovid is speechless and Esti feels guilty for crushing her husband’s dreams of becoming a father. Ronit and Esti attend the Hesped at the Synagogue, intimidated by the judgemental looks they receive. Esti tries to make peace with Dovid, but he ignores her. Moved by the temple’s sacred atmosphere, Ronit asks Esti to be with her in New York. They clutch hands as Dovid takes to the podium, where he struggles to deliver the official speech on the Rav’s passing. Seeing Ronit in the crowd, he instead contemplates the notion of freedom and choice, a topic that the Rav spoke about in his final sermon, and grants Esti the autonomy she has requested. Dovid declines 'The Synagogue' position and abruptly leaves the Hesped. Outside, overcome with emotion Esti and Dovid hug. Ronit watches on in the distance until Dovid extends an arm and the three friends have a long heartfelt hug together. Next morning, Ronit prepares to leave for the airport. She bids a quiet farewell to Dovid outside his bedroom and goes to see Esti, who has slept on the sofa. They say goodbye; it seems Esti has decided against joining Ronit in New York. As Ronit’s taxi pulls away down the street, Esti runs after her and the pair share a long goodbye kiss, promising to remain in contact. An emotional Ronit visits her father’s grave one last time and takes a photo, achieving a sense of closure over his passing and the recent events. Ronit is this modern, free spirited woman who has run away from her origins. Esti has stayed in the community but has run away from her true self. By letting Ronit know of her father’s death, Esti not only allows Ronit the opportunity to reconnect with her origins, but also calls her own destiny; knowing this is her last chance to be set free. And there's this other important element of Dovid, the Rav’s spiritual son and natural successor. The days of mourning allow all these passions and repressed feelings to come out and a new order is established. During the years, Esti has become a master in disguise, hiding behind wigs and manners. But deep inside she’s a desperate woman trying to reconnect with who she's. Even though Esti is navigating through a lot of complex situations, there's something very stable about her that allows the character to be strong and fragile at the same time Ronit and Esti are the same person divided in two. One escaped and became free, the other stayed and embraced the religion; but both paid a big price. Ronit is living with her guilt that she has erased her father from her own life after he disowned her. When she left, she chose not get in contact with him. There's this regret of being too late to forgive each other. To find forgiveness and peace with a parent before they die is incredibly important to carry on with your life. A part of her story is about how you can leave where you’re from, but you can’t really leave it behind; you carry it with you wherever you go. You think you're free living your life, but you need to find closure on certain things. For Ronit not to be contacted about her father’s illness, she’s denied closure to come and say goodbye which is very painful. Ronit questioned the religious laws; her free liberal thinking is immensely dangerous to the tiny closed community. There are so many rules and laws and Ronit questioned them hard and was seen as a rebel and anti-authoritarian as a result. It's a love story between all three of them and how their relationships evolve and their lives are affected by these days of grief. Esti is a gay woman who's in a loving heterosexual marriage. In her religion, homosexuality is considered a sin, but she believes in god so she’s trying to do the right thing by her marriage. She's in a lot of psychological pain because of this decision and Ronit’s return releases all her desire to be free. At the same time, she doesn’t view her life as a prison because she loves Dovid as a dear friend. Dovid is an innately conservative and spiritual man, who was Ronit’s father’s favourite student. Growing up, Ronit was jealous of their relationship because they could sit around talking about Judaism for hours, which didn’t appeal to Ronit. So there’s always been a bit of sibling rivalry between the two of them, but Dovid is a decent, morally good man. Even though the community is warning him about the trouble Ronit could bring, he knows she is mourning her father and should be involved. When his decency is tested in a very serious way, he discovers an existential spirituality outside any given doctrine, and Alessandro has really tapped into that and the sense of righteousness that you need play a Rabbi. At a young age, Dovid's father saw a quality and a connection with god in Dovid which could help bind the community together in a way that he had, so he became his pupil. Dovid’s adolescence would have been spent with this man, which is how he came to be so close to Ronit and her best friend Esti, who he might not have known otherwise because young men and women are kept quite separate in 'The Orthodox World'. After Ronit left, he became adopted by him as his only child so the situation is difficult for everyone. The man was essentially his father. His death at the beginning of the script really sparks of this confusing situation where she comes back to mourn him and there mourning him like a father. Dovid represents someone who has committed his life to his religion in a very intense and profound way, and has to reconcile those beliefs against his sense of goodness and his love for the people he's closest too. It really explored that dilemma for him in a detailed, complex and beautiful way. Dovid and Esti have a loving relationship built on deep friendship and full of respect. When Ronit left so suddenly, Esti was destroyed and Dovid was there to pick her up, so she’s very grateful to him for saving her life in some ways, but she might still be with him out of certain obligation and gratitude. She's living a life she thinks is good enough by ignoring her sexuality and making the choice to be with Dovid. Esti is a real believer in Judaism and being a good Jewish wife and member of the community, it’s a belief that lives deep inside her. So to have her sexuality deemed not acceptable in her community creates an inner struggle for her. For the most part, she believes she's happy but doesn’t realise she’s cut off this major part of herself. It’s difficult for Esti to have Ronit return and not be able to openly comfort her, she's very self conscious about how she acts and respectful of Dovid as they are the pillars of the community. She also feels the real sting that she left, not just her but Dovid as well. They're a great group of friends that only had each other and when Ronit left, it was a real betrayal to both of them. But somewhere deep inside, Esti knew that things needed to change, which is why she gets the message to Ronit that her father has passed; her return is the catalyst for Esti to revaluate her choices. This film is based on Naomi Alderman’s 2006 novel ‘Disobedience’. What really grabs about the novel is the theme of transgression in the modern world where there's almost nothing taboo anymore. The term disobedience means very little unless you find the right community to set it in, like the small 'Orthodox Jewish Community' in North London. If you find a story of transgression within an ordered old fashioned society, you've a great universal drama that anyone can relate to. What responds most in the film is how utterly human these characters are with all their flaws and self-doubt; their forgiveness and their disobedience. We all have a fear of family, as well as a love, and we want to honour the complexity of love and loss in her book. "Disobedience" is a drama of love and the fight for acceptance against the confines of the regimented 'Orthodox Community' in North London. We’re going through a war in which only certain relationships are considered legitimate and who draws the line where and with which authority. This is a story about characters that are willing to change and evolve, but to do so they've to go through very rigid structures and that confrontation resonates with what we’re going through nowadays as a human society all over the world. The 'Jewish Orthodox' background is of course very important but what’s really going on in the film, in a certain way transcends that particular cultural specificity. The heart of the story is very universal. These are people who are full of passion and affection for each other. Sometimes 'The Orthodox' is perceived like a hostile community, ruthless in it's judgement of the outside world. Life is always presenting you with situations that aren’t easily resolved. So ideally people will walk away without easy answers; the best stories are the ones that aren’t packed. Hopefully people will walk away having had their opinions and preconceptions about certain life challenged. The film explores the theme of personal freedom and what it means to follow your own path, it's a story that has an incredible amount of hope in it. "Disobedience" is a very intense journey. The characters are going through a certain turmoil that defines the film and makes it oscillate between different tones. The story explores the whole emotional spectrum of Ronit, Esti and Dovid. They feel very real, very close. You feel like you're sitting at the dining tables and lying in those beds with the characters; Even though we might not know much about the very secretive world of 'London Jewish Orthodoxy', the film generates a very intimate, strangely familiar feeling. It's a story about confused human beings interacting and trying to do the best they can against a background of fixed conceptions. This is a story about characters that are willing to change and evolve, but to do so they've to go through very rigid structures and that confrontation resonates with what we’re going through nowadays as a human society all over the world, where the old paradigms seem to be either obsolete or insufficient.

Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to carry on reading this, about a film starring an absolute nutter, in which he tries to kill himself by jumping from helicopters and other modes of transport, to stop a nuclear bomb, but in all fairness, ends up being a being a pretty decent action film.  📷Originally posted by mastersofthe80s Yep, everyone’s favourite Scientologist returns as Ethan Hunt in film number 6 of Mission Impossible. It’s a very good film, I don’t remember seeing 5, these films just blend into one big mash up of Tom Cruise running around saving the day now. But you didn’t need to see 5 to see 6, it was pretty self-explanatory about the recent events, who the bad guys were, and there is a lot of exposition to give newer audiences an idea of what is going on. So the story itself was rather good, it didn’t feel dragged out (despite being nearly 2 and a half hour long) nor did it skip over the narrative and just get to the action. There were enough twists and turns to keep you guessing, although it is pretty obvious what the main reveal is.  The action scenes are very impressive. You know how you normally watch a film and you can pretty much guess that there is a stunt double or a huge green screen backdrop being filmed somewhere in Luton, well in Mission Impossible, I genuinely don’t have an idea anymore. I mean there’s no way that Tom Cruise, the actor, the megastar, the millionaire would willingly dangle from a helicopter by himself. I know there are supports and stuff (I think) but who knows what could happen. I know the man is absolutely nuts, and that Scientologists probably don’t believe in gravity or death but I was seriously impressed watching the stunts. Fair play to the guy. The epicness of each action scene was an improvement on the previous one, and technically it looked stunning. I don’t really get excited about stunts now because they are all pretty much the same, few booms and a bit of fire but this was another level of craziness.  📷Originally posted by gothamsreck0ning We have to talk about this guy. Firstly, look at all that masculinity. How incredible that the more masculine he is e.g. reloading his guns to punch someone, the more prominent his manly features are. LOOK AT THE BEARD! Honestly I’ve been looking at this for a solid 5 minutes and I can’t quite get over how hilarious this looks. How does the beard change like that? Could it be an accident with the lighting? Is it because he puffs out his cheeks therefore showing more beard from underneath? Who knows. But we do know that he doesn’t kill the guy, but his recent comments about the #metoo movement probably has killed his chances with women. Who am I kidding, look at the man, he looks like a bloody God. I feel sorry for him because he has come under a lot of stick with what he has said, it’s quite clear what he has meant to say but unfortunately it’s come across in a bad way. He’s worried about flirting with women in case they don’t want a flirt and it then makes him look like a bad guy. Look mate, just don’t be a creep with women, that’s all women want. Just respect them, talk to them without being weird, don’t grope. We all like a cheeky flirt Henry, especially me wink wink. Just kidding, I don’t fancy people who can magical grow a chest pocket out of thin air.  4/5 You know, I went into this film after an incredibly long, stressful and frustrating shift at the cinema where I work and I really wasn’t expecting a lot. I was hoping for some decent action film that has got some good moments, nothing special but something that passes the time. And I was pleasantly surprised that it had some very good moments that turned out to be a very good action film.

(Release Info London schedule; Sun Jul 11, Mon Jul 12, Tue Jul 13, Wed Jul 14, Thu Jul 15, Fri Jul 16, Sat Jul 17, Picturehouse Central, Piccadilly Circus, 13 Coventry Street, LONDON W1D 7DH, United Kingdom, 3:30 PM) https://www.picturehouses.com/movie-details/022/HO00010945/summer-of-soul "Summer Of Soul" The documentary is part music film, part historical record created around an epic event that celebrated 'Black' history, culture and fashion. Over the course of six weeks in 'The summer Of 1969', just one hundred miles south of 'Woodstock', 'The Harlem Cultural Festival' was filmed in 'Mount Morris Park' (now 'Marcus Garvey Park'). The footage was never seen and largely forgotten; until now. "Summer Of Soul" shines a light on the importance of history to our spiritual well-being and stands as a testament to the healing power of music during times of unrest, both past and present. The feature includes never before-seen concert performances by Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, 'Sly & The Family Stone', 'Gladys Knight & The Pips', Mahalia Jackson, B.B. King, and 'The 5th Dimension'. A song isn’t just a song. It can capture a moment in time. It will tell you a story, if you look close enough. Stevie Wonder and David Ruffin, products of 'Motown’s Hitsville USA' system, each have a style intended to appeal to both 'Black And White America', and both are in the process of remodeling their careers in 'The Summer aof ’69'. Ruffin has recently parted ways with 'The Temptations' and is forging ahead as a solo artist, while Wonder is moving from the feel-good love songs of his earlier days to a politically tinged funk sound. Nowhere is the bursting of Wonder’s new identity feels more than in the film’s cold open, where he unleashes a drum solo whose every strike clears the way for the oncoming philosophies that would define his later career. Probably no artist encapsulated this period of transition more than the mix-gendered, mixed-raced race supergroup, 'Sly And The Family Stone', the only act to play both 'Woodstock' and 'The Harlem Cultural Festival', a fitting fact for a band that seemed to straddle the two separate worlds, and gives new definition to 'Black' artists. 'The Apollo 11' moon landing occurred on July 20, the same day Stevie Wonder, David Ruffin, and 'Gladys Knight And The Pips' take to the stage. Nina Simone deliverers a sharp edge in her fearless set, wherein she sings her anthem 'To Be Young, Gifted And Black' for one of the song’s first public performances. Of great importance is how the composition articulated the tenor of 'Black America' as it transitioned into 'The 1970s'. In 1969, vast socio-political headwinds swirling around the country came to 'Harlem’s Mount Morris Park'. During 'The 60s', 'Americans' witnessed 'The Vietnam War', a rising drug epidemic, and the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Robert Kennedy. Only a year earlier, in 'The Summer Of 1968', parts of 'New York City' went up in flames following the death of Martin Luther King Jr. While the film focuses on performances, "Summer Of Soul" uses past footage as a catapult for real-time change and reflection. Nearly overlapping with 'The 1969 Woodstock Festival' 100 miles away, these seminal 'Black' artists performed for over 300,000 people at a once-in-a-lifetime event. From 'June 29th' to 'August 24th', 'The Harlem Cultural Festival' played for six Sundays in 'Harlem’s Mount Morris Park'. Unlike that other music festival upstate, the footage from 'Fhe Harlem Cultural Festival' could not find a home that summer of 1969, and instead sat in a basement for over 50 years, keeping this momentous celebration hidden until now. The film seeks to recover the meaningful spirit of the past, when the biggest names in 'African-American' music, culture, and politics came together for six consecutive weeks for a landmark, transformational 'Black' cultural event. "Summer Of Soul" documents the moment when the old school of 'The Civil Rights Movement' and new school of 'The Black Power' movement shared the same stage, highlighted by an array of genres including soul, 'R&B', 'Gospel', 'Blues', 'Jazz', and 'Latin'. 'Blacks' have always been a creative force of our culture. But sometimes those efforts are easily dismissed. It goes to show that revisionist history and 'Black' erasure, be it mean, spirited or on purpose or by accident is very real. The initial directive for the festival was laid out by 'The City Of New York' to commemorate the one-year anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination under 'The Banner Of Black Unity'. 'New York City' had thrown smaller versions of 'The Harlem Cultural Festival' in ’67 and ’68, though the smaller events felt more like casual, block parties. But the festival in 1969 was supersized; some thought the expanded version was intended to divert the local population from additional rioting brought on by the anniversary of King’s death. 'New York City Mayor John Lindsay' walked the streets of 'Harlem' in a bid to quell the unrest, and became a key backer of the festival. The film represent the evolution of 'Black Music', not necessarily in a linear way: from it's roots in gospel, to the blues and feel-good soul, to the futuristic hybrid of soul represented by Sly Stone, through to the activist music of the late '60s'. “But gospel ended up in the middle because it’s importantly heavy, telling the story of 'The MLK' killing for instance. And the gospel in the middle becomes the pivot point or fulcrum where 'Black Music' and 'Black Identity' tip over into a new post-'MLK' world. After 50 years, are we truly back at square one with the exact same unrest, protests, deaths, shootings, and injustices? "Summer Of Soul".is a searing testament to the cyclical and constant nature of racial prejudice. The same urban decay inflicted upon Harlem during the 1960s exists in urban areas housing people of color across the nation today. There's simply too much happening off-stage, in Harlem, in New York, in America, for us to focus on just what's happening on-stage. Progress was being made in 1969, but there's still so far to go. The war on poverty, job equality education, all those things. To 'The Harlem Community', there were a lot more important issues than putting a man on the moon. The bedrock non-violent strategy of 'The Civil Rights Movement' receded to a charged 'Black Power' philosophy. 'African-Americans' transitioned from suit and ties to bell-bottom pants and dashiki shirts. Chemically relaxed hair gave way to natural afros. And younge 'African-Americans' began defining themselves separate from a white lens. The wider we zoom out, the more similarities we see with what's happening in America even today, 50 years later.

(Release Info London schedule, June 25th, 2020, Curzon Home Cinema) https://www.curzonhomecinema.com/film/watch-anthropocene-film-online "Anthropocene: The Human Epoch" A cinematic meditation on humanity’s massive reengineering of the planet, "Anthropocene" is a four years in the making feature documentary film from Jennifer Baichwal. Third in a trilogy that includes "Manufactured Landscapes" (2006) and "Watermark" (2013), the film follows the research of an international body of scientists, 'The Anthropocene Working Group' who, after nearly 10 years of research, are arguing that the evidence shows 'The Holocene Epoch' gave way to 'The Anthropocene Epoch' in the mid-twentieth century, as a result of profound and lasting human changes to 'The Earth'. From concrete seawalls in China that now cover 60% of the mainland coast, to the biggest terrestrial machines ever built in Germany, to psychedelic potash mines in Russia’s 'Ural Mountains', to metal festivals in the closed city of Norilsk, to the devastated 'Great Barrier Reef' in Australia and surreal lithium evaporation ponds in 'The Atacama Desert', the filmmaker has traversed the globe using high-end production values and state of the art camera techniques to document the evidence and experience of human planetary domination. At the intersection of art and science, "Anthropocene" witnesses, in an experiential and non-didactic sense, a critical moment in geological history; bringing a provocative and unforgettable experience of our species breadth and impact. 'Anthropocene' is our current geological epoch, proposed by members of 'The Anthropocene Working Group' and beginning mid-twentieth century, in which humans are the primary cause of permanent planetary change. 'The Anthropocene' is a term widely used to denote the proposed current geological epoch, in which humans are the primary cause of permanent planetary change. The research charts the progression of human influence on 'The Earth’s' system through a variety of markers: the terraforming of land for agriculture, industrialization and urbanization; the extraction of resources and the phenomenon of anthroturbation; sediment displacement, the proliferation of dams and groundwater depletion; the technosphere, consisting of all human-systems and technologies, which now weighs upwards of 30 trillion tons; and human-influenced peak levels of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus. At time of writing, 'The Anthropocene' is not a formally defined geological unit within 'The Geological Time Scale'; it must be formally debated and ratified or rejected by 'The International Commission On Stratigraphy', a process that can take decades. Our current period of geological time is widely accepted to be 'The Holocene Epoch', which began some 12,000 years ago as the glaciers of the last ice age receded. We've reached an unprecedented moment in planetary history. Humans now affect 'The Earth' and it's processes more than all other natural forces combined. 'The Anthropocene Project' investigates human influence on the state and future of 'The Earth'. 'The Holocene Epoch' started 11,700 years ago as 'The Glaciers' of the last 'Ice Age' receded. We've left 'The Holocene' and entered a new epoch; 'The Anthropocene'. Humans have become the single most defining force on the planet and that the evidence for this is overwhelming. Terraforming of 'The Earth' through mining, urbanization, industrialization and agriculture; the proliferation of dams and diverting of waterways; 'CO2' and acidification of oceans due to climate change; the pervasive presence around the globe of plastics and other technofossils; unprecedented rates of deforestation and extinction; these human incursions are so massive in scope that they've already entered, and will endure in, geological time. Embracing and developing innovative techniques, the film embarks on an epic journey around the world to every continent save 'Antarctica', to capture the most spectacular evidence of human influence, while taking time to reflect on the deeper meaning of what these profound transformations signify. The result is a collection of experiences that will immerse viewers in the new world of 'The Anthropocene Epoch', delivering a sense of scale, gravity, and impact that both encompasses and moves beyond the scope of conventional screens and prints. It feels like the films keep getting bigger in scope. This is because the urgency around problems we face at a global level demands it. But big picture subjects falls apart without an appropriate balance of scale and detail. Sometimes you need to go up in the sky to convey place, but if you stay up there all the time, you float away from what is meaningful. Humans are not meant to remain at an omniscient level, though we like to contemplate from there and technology allows us to do so. The film tries to intelligently translate one medium into another; which meant in most instances trying to convey scale in time. Hence the eight minute long, single take opening sequence. The vast Eupa factory floor would not have meant as much without the glances up from workers as the dolly passed them, or the person sleeping at his post after everyone left for lunch; the massive resettling of people and cities for 'The Three Gorges Dam' would not have resonated without the woman sewing at the construction site. The biggest lesson is illumination through juxtaposition. The film did not have a lot of information about context; if you needed more than a few words to describe where you're, it isn't going to work. Instead the film puts one place against another to sharpen the focus of both; 'The Buriganga River' next to a pristine 'Lake Ealue' in 'British Columbia'; people taking a sacred bath in 'The Ganges' at 'The Kumbh Mela' next to girls cartwheeling on the beach in California. But here again it's the combination of big picture and particular focus that brought an experiential understanding of context. It's the testimony of Inocencia Gonzales from 'The Cucupá Nation', whose fishing community is decimated as a result of the dry delta, that makes viewers understand that place. "Anthropocene" steps one place back from the other two films in it's premise; that humans change 'The Earth' and it's systems more than all natural processes combined. The film required a global perspective to drive home the fact that we humans, who've really only been up and running in modern civilization for about 10 thousand years, now completely dominate a planet that has been around for 4.5 billion. How do you convey that domination? Here again it's tempting to stay in the realm of the big; the omniscient. The aerial perspective, through helicopter and cineflix or drones, is woven all through the film, and sometimes the only way you experience a place; the phosphate mines in Florida, for example, or the oil refineries in Houston, Texas. But when everything is big or far away and diagrammatic, scale becomes incomprehensible. A timelapse of one small piece of bleaching coral tells the story of anthropogenic ocean acidification, and the tusks of seven thousand elephants, each one carefully weighed and recorded, becomes the way we understand human-directed extinction. The balance of scale and detail is also where we've learned from each other over 13 years of collaboration. This film certainly deploys the big picture, and endeavors sometimes to convey a place in one wide frame. But the film also seeks moments of intimacy, the detail needed to reveal, understand or encourage empathy within context. This is where the ethics of engagement are critical, and go further to say that ethics are the most important dimension of our filmmaking practice. When you go all over the world for your project, it's crucial to try and do so with humility, and an openness to what the context wants to tell you about itself, especially its overlooked margins or ignored corners. The post-1950 period of accelerated industrial development, extraction of natural resources, population growth and globalization, bringing unprecedented increases in forms of human-caused pollution. The measurement of time as it relates to geological phenomena, encompassing the entirety of Earth’s history since it's formation. Our current geologic epoch, which extends to approximately 11.7 thousands years before the twenty-first century, and is the second of two current 'Quaternary Epochs'. A dynamic marriage of lens-based media and cutting-edge technology, "Anthropocene" combines documentary storytelling with responsive gigapixel essays, 360° film, and '3D' modelling to fully immerse audiences in these photographic worlds, revealing what they signify for both the history and future of human civilization, and it's accumulated effect on the planet. The film allows audiences to journey to some of the most imposing, stunning, and remote locations in the world; places they will learn they're connected to, or often accountable for, but would never normally experience. These hot spots encourages exploration of the entire image, give context connecting the photo to the tenets of 'The Anthropocene', and offer gratifying scavenger hunt moments of discovery. Designed to open up a unique and complementary exploration of locations, ideas, and themes, '360°' video and cinematic 'VR' bring the borderless frame to cinema, offering viewers a completely different relationship to the photographic image, where the spatial relationships between objects and people in the images remain intact. The aim is to create experiences that literally take viewers into the realities of 'The Anthropocene'; hard-to-reach, out-of-bounds locations that few people ever get to visit in their lifetime.

Avengers: Infinity War In my last Marvel film review of Black Panther, I expressed how over-saturated I was by the Marvel movies formula: a bit of plot set up then bish-bash-bosh things start hitting each other. We do get more of the same here, but I felt that there was actually a sense of threat. For once we got a good amount of the villain's back story so that almost was an origin story. This provided so much more gravitas to the situation to the Avengers and Earth are in then we ever got from Ultron in Age of Utron's (an "age" in that movie being redefined as a few days) portrayal. We get both a physical and emotional weight to the film's big bad- Thanos. Though an entirely CGI character, when he walked or hit something (or someone) you sure felt it. In previous Marvel movies I've sometimes found this to be lacking. I believe this would have been a motion capture performance from Josh Brolin, and if so he put in a stellar performance. If it wasn't motion capture, then bravo to the CGI team as we felt everything that Thanos did through his expressions. It is a testament to the directors (the Russo brothers- best known for other top rated Marvel movies Captain America's Winter Soldier and Civil War, and also for the TV series Arrested Development and Community) that we simply just didn't get the generic dead eyed power hungry villain that we get all too often (especially in DC movies). I thought the CGI work on Thanos' was excellent. You could see every muscle and hair which made him seem very, very real and to be afraid of. The heroes that we have seen team up before were split and mixed with each other to create fresh dynamics. Again to give credit to the directors, the overall balance of the sheer multitude of characters was done really well. For the heroes that got a lesser role, I think it was justified as either we haven't yet seen enough of them in the MCU to warrant a lot of screen time or we haven't had a lot of meaningful back story to their character to give enough emotional weight. This emotional weight being important as the film has relatively little time for plot explanation and understandably relies a lot on its actions set pieces, so if this weight was lacking, viewers may switch off or become numb to the whole thing. Of course we got the standard Marvel movies quick quips throughout- but i found that most of them hit home- and especially for the laughing seagull viewer that was sat behind me. Mr Seagull always particularly loved a Game of Thrones star's small role- which to be fair was fantastically done. I think the comic fan boys almost would have have gotten what they wanted from this film- especially the climax. But may have a similar little big problem with the film. This being that I don't understand the rationale for Thanos' plan. Its hard to explain without spoilers, but ultimately he has justified to himself into doing some horrific actions for the greater overall good, but unless I've misunderstood how the infinity stones work, with his power, he could do a simple good action for a greater overall good. Other than my little big problem, I think its a good film and holds together very well for such an epic coming together of so many characters. Though over 2 and a half hours, it speeds over an hardly stops for breathe. Well worth seeing, even if you've felt you've been bashed in the head too many times by the Marvel juggernaut.

A Quiet Place VERSUS Truth or Dare So let’s play a quiet game. Do you choose ‘A Quiet Place’ or ‘Truth or Dare’? Do you choose the film that earned its jumps scares, or the one that pumped up the volume whenever it wanted to make you jump? Do you choose the film that had a fairly original premise or the one with a clichéd narrative? Do you choose the film written and directed by Jim from The American Office, or the film written and directed by the guy that made the massive let down that was Kick Ass 2? A Quiet Place was a very, very good Twlight Zone-esque B-Movie that took a simple, easy to understand idea and took it as far as it could go. A family lives in a world where they can’t make noises over a whisper without creatures that sense their prey only through noise hunting them down. We are drawn into the quiet world and hold our breath when a character drops something by accident- this even in a cinema with a fairly talkative audience. Unlike the other film, A Quiet Place earned its occasional jump scare through plot alone. By this I mean that it didn’t have to turn the speakers up to eleven. In fact, it managed to achieve one jump scare by the simple shot of a babbling brook (not as scary as an A-Level exam on The Scarlet Letter though I promise you). On the other hand, Truth or Dare took a simple kids / drunken teenager game and turned it into a overly convoluted mess. The first third, to be fair, was set up quite well. Decent character building which then quickly turns onto the main plot. A group of teenagers play a game of truth or dare that soon turns deadly. But then the film lost hope in itself and gave up on its own simple rules. Starting making up its own rules to keep the plot going, and escalated far too quickly and without reason. I was expecting a bit more of over the top deaths associated with the Final Destination franchise but they were all quite bland really. Some horribly clichéd horror moments- I swear if I have to watch a character in the bathroom look down and then up at their own warped reflection in the mirror one more time I’ll have to choke myself in a bucket of Odeon’s overpriced, chewy popcorn! So if you like your horror movies, I urge you to go see A Quiet Place rather than Truth or Dare. Leave the latter for underage teenagers that snuck in so they can laugh away their terror or try touching that girl’s hand that they sit next to in maths.

Breaking In I went into this with low expectations. From the brief trailer I saw, I felt justified in assuming a formulaic family home invasion movie. Even the title ''Breaking In'' even suggests to this. But turns out I got two things wrong. For one, this is not a bog standard home invasion film, its flipped- the mother, Shaun (played by Gabrielle Union) is trying to break into her house, and second, it's certainly not bog standard. This film finally gives us a female lead that genuinely at no point does she do something stupid that inevitably leads to her dying or causing someone she loves to die needlessly. Actually, this character's intelligence and ability to handle herself physically is both a strength and a weakness of the film. It was highly refreshing to see a non-moronic person in this situation (i,e hey, lets split up from my friends and wander into the dark woods alone when I know there's a murder out there called Mr Killer Axe, or hey lets hit the bad guy down once then run away leaving him to kill me later...why not smash his head in you cretin??!! Anyway, I'm sitting in the cinema enjoying myself, watching this no bullsh*t character trying to get into the building where their family is held hostage by multiple villains, I realise what this film most closely resembles. DIE HARD. Yes, this is in fact a small scale version of the classic action movie Die Hard, with a female John McClane. She even loses her shoes at one stage! The antagonists' leader played by Billy Burke (apparently of Twilight fame), lets call him Hans, was the perfect foil to Shaun. He thinks logically and tries to anticipate and force Shaun into situations- like in a sick home invasion version of chess. Yeah so he and his cronies may be a little generic- yes they want ALL THE MONEY, but hey, this was easy to watch, no nonsense entertainment that didn't leave you screaming for villain to kill stupid ass protagonist who deserves to die. I've checked out a couple of the poor reviews of this film already and they seem harsh. Clearly they don't think that Die Hard is one of the greatest Christmas movies of all time. If you've seen Avengers already and want to go see something that won't make you want to tear your eyes out like I assume 'I feel pretty' and 'Life of the Party' are, then go see Breaking In. Yippee ki yay!

(Release Info London schedule; December 1st, 2018, Curzon Victoria, 11:00) "The Old Man & The Gun" "The Old Man And The Gun" is based on the true story of Forrest Tucker (Robert Redford), from his audacious escape from San Quentin at the age of 70 to an unprecedented string of heists that confounded authorities and enchanted the public. Wrapped up in the pursuit are detective John Hunt (Casey Affleck), who becomes captivated with Forrest’s commitment to his craft, and Jewel (Sissy Spacek), a woman who loves him in spite of his chosen profession. Forrest Tucker only ever has one occupation, but it's one he's unusually gifted at and pursued with unabashed joy. It just happened to be bank robbing. In the early 1980s, at a septuagenarian age, Tucker embarked on a final legend-making spree of heists with 'The Over-The-Hill Gang', a posse of elderly bandits who employed smooth charm over aggression to make off with millions. Tucker never stopped defying age, expectations, or rules; he makes his twilight the pinnacle of his life of crime. If the sole art form he knew is robbery, he's darned if he isn't going to try to perfect it, no matter how elusive the dream. He’s someone who does what he loves and gets away with it. The film imbues the story with the rollicking mythos of a modern Western. The feeling is that of a campfire tale about a simpler time; i.e. the 1980s, that last decade just before mobile devices and the internet changed everything. It's a time with less hurry and more room to hide, which makes the chase that erupted between Tucker and the lawman who pursued him a thing of slow-burning beauty both men relished. And as Forrest is chased, he too is chasing something; a last chance at love and at a legacy, even if it must be an outlaw one. But what makes this story unique is that it’s an allegory for an uncompromising artist’s soul. Robbing banks maybe isn’t the greatest choice of art form but it’s what Forrest did, so he put his heart into it. And like all uncompromising people, Forrest sacrificed a lot, in terms of relationships, in terms of what he missed and what he risked. Forrest believes that wanton violence is the sign of an amateur holdup man. The best holdup men, in his view, are like stage actors, able to hold a room by the sheer force of their personality. He's a gentleman, even if he's gentlemanly bank robber. It harkens back to almost a James Cagney type of movie, where there’s an innocence to it. Forrest is a wonderful, complicated character, so full of life and risk and enjoying danger. On the one hand, Forrest is a dreamer but on the other, he’s capable of taking great risks and he’s someone who you can trust has the capacity to go through with a plan, and trust is key in this world, We root for Forrest because we understand him as a man who wants to keep doing what does best, a man looking for love and success who isn’t ready to quit. It's Tucker’s desire to keep upping his game that draws the law to him one last time. The film touches on these deeper themes in a playful way. It's important for the film to have levity, to feel like a fun legend people tell their kids at night.   Even amid the eccentric annals of famed outlaws, Forrest Tucker is an original, a career bank robber who escaped prison 18 times and pulled off bank heists well into his seventies. The real Forrest Silva Tucker grew up in Depression-era Florida, brought up by his grandmother and raised on dime-store novels about stickup men who broke out from the social margins. He began his own life of crime in his early teens with a stolen bicycle and from then on, spent his entire adulthood in and out of prison; often breaking out of prisons, including his most notorious escape from San Quentin. Molding himself into his own version of the crime legends he’d read about, he would become as renowned for his calm, personable heist style as for amassing a total of 18 successful escapes from incarceration. Forrest Tucker passed away in 2004 at the age of 83, after serving just 4 years of his 13-year sentence for armed robbery in Texas when sent to prison in 2000. Two qualities seemed to bind Forrest; dedication to his chosen craft and an ability to tap into a boyish passion no matter their age. The end of the road is something Tucker always sought to avoid, one of the reasons perhaps he became one of the world’s greatest escape artists.   The real Forrest Tucker was married three times, but it was his last wife who saw him for who he was. The script riffs in a semi-fictional way on the character of Jewel, exploring why a fiercely independent widow might choose to share her life with a bank robber still dreaming of the biggest and best heist he might pull off. Jewel is content on her own. Her children are grown up and gone. Her husband has gone on to the other side and she lived on a ranch with all of her animals. She's very rooted and she's the opposite of who Forrest is. Forrest went whichever way the wind blew, he always has. But Jewel is just grounded and everything for her is about her relationships with both people and animals. In that context, deciding to let Forrest woo here's most of all a welcome leap into one of life’s unknowns for Jewel. Jewel is at a point in her life where she thinks, maybe it’s time for me to do whatever I want. In saying yes to this man, she's really saying yes to life. And she could do that, because she's already so independent and didn’t really need anybody to take care of her. Forrest Tucker knows he's lucky to discover in Jewel a woman who accepted his enormous flaw of being a wanted man, while falling for everything else about him. She knows who Forrest is and she knows this terrible thing about him but still, she supported him. She didn’t particularly like what he did, but she loved him for the kind of human being he's. She knows Forrest couldn’t stop, even if a part of him would have liked to. She knows, Forrest doesn’t rob banks for any darker purpose other than for the thrill of knowing he can figure it out. She gives him a place to go, a place to stop and rest his weary bones, if just for a moment, and she gives him a good friend. The film excavate the improbable nature of Forrest and Jewel’s connection; exploring why two people who seem so thoroughly unlikely as a couple on the surface match at a deeper level as two people each still looking to extract something more out of life. Sweet as things are, they both know it’s just a matter of time before the law caught up with Forrest again. Teddy Waller (Danny Glover) is a more prototypical criminal than Forrest, someone who didn’t quite have it all together. He has had a screw loose. He was in prison for 10 years, he had made a lot of mistakes and, you know, his socks didn’t  match. Forrest is much more together. He's composed and that’s why he's the gang leader. The thrill of the heist for Forrest Tucker is matched by the meaningfulness of the pursuit for the cop who decided he's going to nab him; John Hunt. Forrest is an undeniable force, able to get the bank tellers to swoon and cooperate. So John Hunt looks at him and wonders; is the way this guy lives his life an example I should be applying to myself? That’s a hard thing for a police officer to ask about a criminal. And it creates a really interesting interplay both inside Hunt and with Tucker. Hunt is kind of a lone wolf. He's discontented with the police department, so he went off and decided he’d figure this case out all on his own. But there's also something about the romance of a non-violent, life-long bank robber that appealled to Hunt. He has a kind of admiration for Forrest. Even as Forrest grows closer to Jewel, the Texas policeman John Hunt is closing in on him. But Hunt too is more a source of pride than distress for Forrest, who enjoyed being worthy of a grand chase and having an opponent to outsmart. For Forrest, that respect comes with realizing that Hunt is going to be the animal that chased him and he's going to be the animal that escaped. Hunt confesses that he did indeed have a qualified respect for Tucker, even as he sought to bring him to justice. It's a time when a cop could take his time chasing a robber, when the contest of the chase itself could overtake the finality of the capture, which is what happens between Forrest and John Hunt. In real life, Hunt never actually met Tucker face-to-face. But in the film, they've two intriguing encounters. In their first, Hunt is humiliated by Tucker when he finds himself standing in a bank line waiting to make a deposit when a stickup occurs right under his nose. From that moment, Hunt makes it his life’s mission to catch this guy, and that’s the start of a deeper connection between the two of them where they each are playing the other and pushing the other. This film is based on a story, journalist and author David Grann has written about Forrest for 'The New Yorker' in 2003, three years after the bank robbing legend been sent back to prison at age 80 for yet another cunning heist to cap off a literal lifetime of them. The internal joyousness of the character is his guide into telling the story as an almost anti-procedural, making both the crimes and the pursuit of the criminals secondary to the spirit of the storytelling. The film turns the story into two gleeful cat-and-mouse games; one the unfolding love story between Tucker and perhaps the only woman who would ever put up with his outrageous career choice; the other the story of the world-weary law 9 who decided to chase him. A few decades ago, both crime and law enforcement had a different feel. With no internet or smart phones and few computers, if police wanted to share information across state lines it was done by telephone or U.S. mail. Most cops still carried revolvers, not automatic weapons. The chase is where all the energy was. It’s always a little bit of a letdown in movies when the chase has to end, isn’t it? "The Old Man & The Gun" takes place on the cusp of the 80s, which allows the film to pay a homage to 70s filmmaking. At the same time, the film’s settings are an outgrowth of the film’s characters. The film is being more of a throwback emotionally rather than in it's style. The emphasis is on the people and it’s almost not important when and where this all takes place. It’s just that you suddenly might realize that hey, nobody has a cell phone or the internet and you’re in this world that’s a little different from the one we live in now. Super 16 has such a special aesthetic quality that immediately harkens back to 70s filmmaking. And it looks really old-fashioned. The film wants the image to feel old but also wants to avoid nostalgia. People use their imagination more. The film stuck to the physical side of everything being pre-1981. It's a colder, more sterile look, using greys, whites and primary colors, rather than everything being warm browns, woods and oranges. It’s about aspiring to the classic American dream. Western showdowns, comic capers and gritty tales of complicated cops and robbers, but all in service to a fresh take on living outside the lines. It’s a subtle, human take on a crime story, but it also has a very jazzy kind of feel. Less is always more and the film leaves audiences with mysteries and questions. "The Old Man & The Gun" pushes against all natural instincts and see how far outside our comfort zone we could get ourself.

"On Chesil Beach" It's summer 1962, and England is still a year away from huge social changes; 'Beatlemania', 'The Sexual Revolution' and 'The Swinging Sixties'. We first encounter Florence Ponting (Saoirse Ronan) and Edward Mayhew (Billy Howle), a young couple in their early 20s, on the day of their marriage. Now on their honeymoon, they're dining in their room at a stuffy, sedate hotel near 'Chesil Beach'. Their conversation becomes more tense and awkward, as the prospect of consummating their marriage approaches. Finally, an argument breaks out between them. Florence storms from the room and out of the hotel, Edward pursues her, and their row continues on 'Chesil Beach'. From a series of flashbacks, we learn about the differences between them, their attitudes, temperaments and their drastically different backgrounds, as well as watch them falling deeply in love. Out on the beach on their fateful wedding day, one of them makes a major decision that will utterly change both of their lives forever. "On Chesil Beach" is a powerful, insightful drama about two people, both defined by their upbringing, bound by the social mores of another era. "On Chesil Beach" is a gripping, heart-rending account of a loving relationship battered by outside forces and influences first formed in childhood, in a society with strict, inflexible rules about uniformity and respectability. Florence was born into a prosperous, conservative family in a neat, organised home presided over by her overbearing father Geoffrey (Samuel West), a successful businessman. Edward comes from a contrasting background. His father Lionel (Adrian Scarborough) is a teacher, while his art expert mother Marjorie (Anne-Marie Duff) is brain-damaged after an awful accident; their home is informal somewhat chaotic and closer to nature. Florence is a talented, ambitious violinist with a string quartet; Edward has graduated from 'UCL' with a History degree and aims to become an author. They married as virgins; two very different people, but deeply in love. Only hours after their wedding they find themselves at their dull, formal honeymoon hotel on 'The Dorset Coast' at 'Chesil Beach'. They dine in their room, and their conversation becomes stilted and nervous. The consummation of their marriage is fast approaching, and while Edward welcomes the prospect of sexual intimacy, Florence is scared by it. The tension between them boils over into a heated argument as Florence feels repelled by Edward’s advances. She dashes from the room, out of the hotel and on to 'Chesil Beach', with Edward in pursuit. On a remote part of the beach they've a blazing argument about the profound differences between them. One of them makes a startling decision that will have life-long consequences for them both. In a series of flashbacks, the film emphasises the differences between Florence and Edward, the underlying tensions and circumstances that contributed to that crucial moment on their wedding day. Other scenes illustrate what happened to these two people in subsequent decades and how their lives were shaped by that dramatic stand-off on 'Chesil Beach'. In the forefront, Florence is a violinist. She’s reserved, not much into any kind of fashion. She’s a girl who probably went to a university in a dormitory of girls with like- minded backgrounds. Her mother Violet (Emily Watson) is of a certain age, so she would never be high-end fashion; she’s kind of settled in the mid-1950s. So, the influence on Florence is from her mother; she's never a fashionable young girl, but nicely dressed and interested in music. The clothes worn by Florence and Edward also hint at the difference in their social circumstances; Edward looks not very well looked after, a little frayed about the edges. He seems to be in the same jacket all the way through, whereas she changes a lot; usually something nice from department stores. Money isn’t a problem for her family, the Pontings. Even though he's from a family without much money, Edward is bound by a sense of respectability, typical of this early-1960s period. He’s followed the constraints of wanting to be like his father, who’s a teacher. Most men of that time wore jackets and ties. Florence’s ‘going-away dress’ needed to be something special, and to make a statement in visual terms. There are still signs of hormonal adolescence in there for sure, but with Edward, a lot of that anger comes from a righteously indignant place. So, if he or someone he cares about has been wronged, that’s the point at which his anger or rage will rear its ugly head. So, there’s this real dichotomy in the story, and it feels like Edward is at loggerheads with the world in which he finds himself. If their wedding day had happened even a couple of years later, things might have gone better for Florence and Edward. They’d have been more able to talk about things. They’d have had a lot more facts to go on. With the two of them the film wants to move them forward from the 50s into the 60s. The film shows this is their height of fashion. Like the new modern man and wife together; on the beach. Ian McEwan’s 'On Chesil Beach' is among the most acclaimed British novels of this century. Published in 2007, it was short-listed for 'The Booker Prize', garnered glowing reviews and became a best-seller. But as often happens in the film world, it took a long time for the book to make the transition to the big screen. There's a simplicity of narrative and a clarity of emotion about it. It's a portrayal of a young woman at a particular time, and what that meant for her; defining her creative ambitions and her sexual being, her own self. And it’s clear how these two young people are affected by the time they live in. McEwan’s novel is a highly specific work in many respects. The year in which most of the story takes place, and in which Florence and Edward are married, is 1962, just before the dawning of a new youth culture and a sexual revolution that would sweep the western world. And the book’s main geographical location is 'Chesil Beach' itself; an extraordinary place like no other. It was just on the cusp of the 1960s, so it was a time that was crucial both for fashion and for this story. This was pre-teenage revolution. 'The Beatles' hadn’t quite happened yet. Girls still dressed very much like their mothers and boys like their fathers; that's to say, conservatively. 'Chesil Beach' (‘Chesil’ is derived from an Old English word meaning ‘shingle’) has been designated a site of special scientific interest (SSSI); it's fossil-rich and important to wildlife. It’s also very cinematic, and the most cinematic part of all turns out to be also the most inaccessible. It’s separated from the mainland by a lagoon, and it goes out on a long spit of land seven to nine miles long. The physicality, and the relationship the beach has to the land and water around its so peculiar. It’s essentially a strip of land that juts out into the water and it’s kind of isolated. There’s something about that coastline, and the beach itself feels untouched, untainted by human hands. It’s the closest you can get to something 100% natural. Looking out over that beach, it can be tempestuous, it can be serene. But even in it's serene stillness there’s something very disconcerting. That encapsulates the human condition quite well. Even in it's stillness and absence of anything, there’s something quite disconcerting about it, and about our existence. One of the great thing about this script is that it reveals two central characters that are both sympathetic, but also flawed and limited by the circumstances they've grown up in. Film is the ideal medium for showing interior life because the camera can pick up nuances of thought and subtext, and the big screen reveals them. The main visual idea is of two people trapped by the time they’re living in, and the sense that they’re living in a world not of their own making. Music is very important in the movie, as both characters’ identities are grounded in their musical taste. Early 60s Rock n’ Roll and chamber music performed at 'Wigmore Hall' in London. The film tackles the issue of social pressure being put on young people, no matter what era they grew up in, to be or to behave in a certain way. The story has a very specific sense of place and time. One side of the movie is about a particular time; the moment before the liberal values of the sixties kicked in. The other side is more universal; the challenge of true intimacy, first sexual encounters, and how one bad decision can shape your whole life. These questions are as alive for contemporary audiences as ever. This film gives you a new perspective on our parent's generation. We now live in a time of a toxic nostalgia, where many people think that the past was a better, simpler time to live in. If you look at the emotional lives of many people born in the first half of the twentieth century and the emotional repression that was the norm in the UK, how traumatised many people were by the war and the hardship they suffered; it was not so easy. We're now little more sympathetic to what that generation had to deal with, how strong they're to survive it and what they sacrificed along the way. Audiences will take away from this story a sense of how dangerous it's to react to difficult situations rashly, and how fortunate we're to live in a time when we can be more open about our feelings. Repression of any sort is harmful. Learning who we truly are makes us more integrated human beings and more able to make wise choices for ourselves and those around us.