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Our newest film critic gives his verdict on IT GIRL in this Vlog film review. Check it out and SHARE with the world. If you are interested in doing a Vlog film review, feel free to use the community forum to post your own. It can be of any film you like, simply upload to your YouTube channel and use the video link option in the post to enter. UK Film Review.

There are two things I love in life. Films. Football. To be precise, West Ham United. So when I saw a FILM that was set a FOOTBALL stadium, to be precise, WEST HAM UNITED’S old stadium I was so excited. My life was made. The only thing that could go wrong was how bad the film was. And fuck me, it went downhill as soon as the film started to play. A right pile of shite.  (for context with the rest of this review, West Ham are a terrible football team, just awful. So when I say, the film was as bad as the football that is normally played there you’ll get the joke) There’s a Russian revolution gone on. Two brothers are the leaders. One of the brothers realises its gone too far and leaves with the help of the British government and gets a new identity. Pierce Brosnan, he turns into Pierce Brosnan. We’ll come back to that. Dave Bautista is an ex army who is visiting his niece in London, he’s got tickets for the West Ham game, the last game to be played at the stadium. They go to the game together. Now remember the other brother, the one who isn’t Pierce Brosnan, well he is London to capture his brother. For some reason, instead of just getting him at his house, he decides to capture him at the football game. I know right, makes no sense. So he takes over the control room and tries to locate where he is sitting using some special face-recognition technology. At the same time, Drax’s niece goes missing so he goes up to the control to try and find her (the terrorists have killed the phone lines) and comes face to face and ends up killing them to save his niece.  📷Originally posted by gamorasnebula Now there’s a few stupid problems with the film that I can clarify as a football fan: 1) No way would Dave just be able to buy tickets to the last game at the stadium if he wasn’t a season ticket holder, or had a membership. Seeing as he hates England and football, its highly unlikely he would have one.  2) Erm, why are the away fans sitting in the old chicken run? We all know that they sat in the Trevor Brooking lower stand.  3) Honestly when I go to football stadiums I can’t even take the cap of my water bottle into the stadium. Seriously I have to take that off. Christ knows how them Russians got them flares into the stadium. 4) There is no way West Ham fans would let that massive flag block their view from the match. Any fans bring one of them into the stadium, they’d be bottled. 📷Originally posted by ultragooner89 This is the CAPTAIN. He’s like 5ft 4. Trying to take on a 6ft 4 bloke. What do you think the fans would do? Anyway. The film had a budget of £20 million, apparently. Which, for a Sky original film is a big budget. But I’m not too sure where that money was spent because the special effects were awful. It was so badly done. The shots were shaky, the green screen was obvious, the colour grading was horrible. It was so messy, more messy than West Ham’s defence. Ayo. The whole plot doesn’t really make sense. I have no idea why the Russians don’t grab the guy when he is at his home. If they know he will be attending the football game, they surely must know where he lives. But instead they do this where they are easily going to attract police attention. Which in the end they do. God its awful.  They acting is pretty woeful too, although I think this mostly comes down to the shoddy characters than the actors themselves. Dave Bautista neither has the charm of a Bruce Willis, nor the cold wit that Arnold Schwarzenegger so effortlessly oozes into his action roles. His niece, played by Lara Peake, who to be fair is pretty decent, but she isn’t from London and her accent is awful. You’re telling me the casting directors couldn’t find one East London actress? I think Pierce Brosnan lost a bet, or the director has got some dirty secret about him because I don’t know why he is in the film. It’s quite obvious he is the brother because we see him for one shot at the start of the movie and then not again until the final act of the film. And poor Amit Shah, who whilst likeable, falls foul of the racist abuse that comes from the white working class. It’s a classic trope that always pops up in football films. And whilst the writing uses his character to make fun of his religion, it also creates a barrier between the white working class as the film pokes fun out the far-right stereotypes that we are so use to seeing. White people running scared when a Muslim shouts ‘Allahu Akbar’.  Are there any good things about this film I hear you cry? Well, it was nice seeing the old stadium again. But thats purely from a West Ham point of view. It was good that the old bill punched that guy who called football, soccer. But thats purely from a football point of view. Oh there was a good scene when Dave is having a fight with a Russian and sticks his head in the boiling fat fryer and his face burns off. But thats purely from a sadistic point of view. 0/5  You know when I first started doing this I had a code for what rating a film should be. 1 to 5. 5 being to the best. 1, being the worst. I didn’t even account for 0. I didn’t think it possible for a film to not even score at least a 1 rating. All I can say is well done for creating a big pile of rubbish. Final Score 1 vs How many hours I’ve lost watching this, 1 and a half. 

(Release Info London schedule; June 19th, 2020, Curzon Home Cinema) https://www.curzonhomecinema.com/film/watch-on-a-magical-night-film-online "On A Magical Night" We meet Maria Mortemart (Chiara Mastroianni), a woman who's dissatisfied with her marriage after a heated argument with her husband Pierre (Anthony Devaux). After 20 years of marriage, Maria decides to leave her husband. She moves out for the night to stay in a hotel across the street from their home and settles in room 212 from which she watches her husband and reflects upon their life together. While mulling over her decision, various people from her past appear, offering their opinions. She's visited by her late mother (Marie-Christine Adam), her dead grandmother (Claire Johnston), Richard Warrimer (Vincent Lacoste), a younger, 25-year-old version of her husband, her husband’s first love Irene Haffner (Camille Cottin) and her many lovers, to berate her for a string of infidelities. In room 212, she reflects upon her marriage, gifted with the ability to see it all at once. There, she has a bird’s eye view of her apartment, her husband, and her marriage. In this comic romp, she confronts her past lovers and relationships on one magical night, fantasizing about the lives she could’ve lived and wondering if she’s made the right decisions. Inspired by Leo McCarey’s 'The Awful Truth', this is a playful, witty fantasy, served by stunning cinematography. From the very beginning, the story looks like a conjugal tale more than a report on couples. The film takes a familiar topic, a couple in crisis after many years of marriage, and revives it with abundant creativity and cinematic strokes of genius. 'Thus play I in one person many people, and none contented'. We believe that this 'Shakespeare' verse, that John Irving borrowed for the title of one of his novels, defines quite well the initial mystery in that story. Let’s pretend a woman, Maria, one night has the revelation that she has the gift of seeing how there are always more people around her than it seems. Her husband is also her young fiancé, and the teenager she did not know. Her rival Irene is also Irene the role model of her future life. Her lover Asdrubal Électorat (Harrison Arevelo) is all of her lovers in one person. Maria would be like a fixed star that would attract satellites around her that keep multiplying. The story follows the poisonous steps of this invasion and simultaneously builds with Maria the antidote to escape them. Let’s pretend that woman, Maria, experienced finding her voice among all the voices that block her. The more Maria would like to think about her life, the more her life turns out to be filled with protagonists who want to speak for her. Maria crosses a street, hoping for some perspective, to see herself from the outside, to see her apartment, her husband, her marriage from above. Yet now she's not facing loneliness, but the noisy group of people who claim they've suffered from her, her freedom, her desires. Among them, Maria is like a prisoner of more or less aggressive signs that she must interpret. And we don’t have much of an explanation for it except that they're shamefully sweet and exhaustingly kind; these four characters liked one another. In our great ideas about films and how cinema happens, we forget this essential, precious and rare element; the love that the characters feel for one another. The trust, the humor, the affection, the friendship between them. This film owes everything to the health, kindness, tenderness, wildness and delicate and benevolent warmth of the characters. As often, “On A Magical Night” proceeds from "Les Fleurs", which has not been shot, barely been written, but which is it's secret source. The story is set during 'The Occupation', then in 'The 50’s'. There's an imaginary painter, a piano, 'The Picardie' region, 'The Opéra Garnier' and two female characters who are keeping a secret that they could not access themselves. We find ourselves watching Leo McCarey’s “The Awful Truth”; Irene Dunne and Cary Grant as an infallible married couple after their divorce. It takes us to an overly solemn level. How many filmmakers have taken an interest in the subject of conjugal conversation? We're more and more distrustful of this importance, this sort of domination that some films command to cinema itself. "On A Magical Night” expresses in a sentimental and stubborn way, the attachment to fiction cinema where let’s pretend has more value than the let’s do it as it's. Here, fiction in the sense of enchantment. We've let ourselves been swept along it in a dance with forgotten steps, charmed by it's spells. And little by little, it appeared to us that it's not nothing, in this day and age, to claim the precious tools of acting, of metaphor, to favor the magic of backstage, of tricks, in a work that aims to make life happen during a film. We should not forget that we've been twenty-five and that we loved us madly when we was that age! For years, we've gotten our bearings in life from the love stories that punctuated it. It was back in the days of 'X' or in the days of 'Y', month-long or night-long romances seemed to be the highest points of our existence. As if romantic faithfulness allowed us to multiply projects. We're aware that it's arbitrary, and maybe irrelevant to bring up these two words, truthfulness and films. We're quite tempted to claim that loving lengthily has certainly allowed us to shoot often.

(Release Info London schedule; July 23rd, 2019, Curzon Soho, 99 Shaftesbury Ave, Soho, London W1D 5DY, United Kingdom, 9:00 PM) https://www.curzoncinemas.com/soho/film-info/marianne-and-leonard-words-of-love "Marianne & Leonard: Words Of Love" "Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love" is about the beautiful, enduring love story between legendary folk singer Leonard Cohen and his Norwegian muse Marianne Ihlen. The story begins on 'The Greek island of Hydra' in 1960, where Leonard, then a struggling and unknown fiction writer, and Marianne, a single mother with a young son Axel, become part of a community of expat artists, writers and musicians. The film follows their relationship from the early days on 'Hydra', a humble time of free love and open marriage, to how their love evolved when Leonard becomes a successful musician. She's an enormous influence on him. Marianne and Leonard’s is a love story that would continue for the rest of their lives. Along the way we learn of the tragedy that befell those that could not survive the beauty of 'Hydra', the highs and lows of Leonard’s career, and the inspirational power that Marianne possessed. This are magical moments of life. Never-before-seen footage shot by legendary documentarian D.A. Pennebaker make for a unique portrait of an idyllic 1960’s bohemia. Marianne had been visited the year before by D.A. Pennebaker, who had filmed her with her young son, and very much impressed her with the joys of documentary filmmaking. It's D.A. Pennebaker’s footage of Marianne, shot all those years ago, that's used in the film. D.A. Pennebaker, Marianne, and Leonard have remained the greatest of influences. It's on 'Hydra' in 1968 that director Nick Broomfield, then aged 20, first himself meet Marianne. Under 'The Greek' moon and stars she introduces him to Leonard Cohen’s music and encouraged Nick to make his first film. As she's with so many artists, Marianne is an enormous influence on Broomfield, who direct many documentaries about iconic music legends including Whitney Houston, Tupac Shakur, Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love. It's a time that left a lasting imprint on both Marianne and Leonard, whose friendship would last another fifty years. Marianne and Leonard went through many highs and lows. Bonded for life, even though drifting apart, they died three months apart in 2016. This touching documentary illuminates tender aspects of the enduring love between the Canadian musician and his Norwegian muse, who gained immortality through his songs 'So Long Marianne' and 'Bird On The Wire'. This Marianne is Norwegian Marianne Ihlen, his lifelong muse with whom he started an intense relationship in a time of free love. Nick Broomfield, director of documentaries such as 'Whitney: Can I Be Me', 'Biggie & Tupac' and 'Kurt & Courtney', follows their unconventional relationship from the early days in idyllic Greece. Along the way we learn of the tragedy that befell those that could not survive the beauty of 'Hydra', the highs and lows of Leonard’s career, and the inspirational power that Marianne possessed. In later life when Marianne lay dying, Leonard himself old and sick wrote to Marianne. 'Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine, I've always loved you for your beauty and for your wisdom, but I don't need to say anything more about that. Endless love, see you down the road'. Does love have to be conventional? "Marianne & Leonard" is a beautiful illustration of the twists and turns of a complicated relationship that has produced some of Cohen's most famous songs. Archive material and some recent interviews tell the story of the interrupted yet never ending love that began on the island of 'Hydra'. Cohen was mostly a writer at the time, the songs came later, when the melancholy poet evolved into a prominent musician. When Cohen became famous, and Ihlen became known as his muse, their relationship suffered and they lived apart more than they lived together. Still, their connection remained strong, even after Ihlen returned to Norway. A love story that defies conventional structure and slides back and forth in time within a rough chronology.

(London Film Festival, October 7th, 2019, Odeon, Tottenham Court Road, Central Cross, 30 Tottenham Court Rd, London W1T 1BX, UK, 15:10 pm) https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/lff/Online/default.asp?BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::permalink=jojorabbit&BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::context_id= "Jojo Rabbit" "Jojo Rabbit" is a 'World War II' satire that follows a lonely German boy Jojo Betzler (Roman Griffin Davis) as whose world view is turned upside down when he discovers his single mother Rosie (Scarlett Johansson) is hiding Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie), a young Jewish girl, in their attic. Aided only by his idiotic imaginary friend, Adolf Hitler (Taika Waititi), Jojo must confront his blind 'Nationalism'. Based on Christine Leunens novel 'Caging Skies', first published in 2004, the story begins in fictional 'Falkenheim'. In this quaint town under 'Nazi' rule, the end of the war is rapidly approaching. However, in 10-year-old Jojo’s bedroom, anticipation is mounting. For today, he finally has the chance he’s been waiting all his 10 years for, to join The Hitler Youth'. To Jojo, so credulously gullible and susceptible to the pervasive propaganda that surrounds him, it feels like his first opportunity to do something big and important, to help protect his single mother he loves beyond anything, and maybe even to feel like he belongs. To sooth his insecurities, Jojo brings along an outsized imaginary friend; a clownish, hare-brained apparition of Hitler, who with all the emotions of a child dispenses advice Jojo might have sought from his absent father. With Adolf in his head, Jojo feels invincible. But in fact, Jojo’s troubles are just beginning. Humiliated and nearly decapitated in 'The Hitler Youth' camp, his frustration only grows deeper. Then, Jojo makes a discovery that slowly, yet radically, transforms how he sees the world. Chasing what he believes to be some kind of phantasm, he finds instead that his mother has been hiding a 'Jewish' girl in the wall at terrible risk to them all. The shock nearly undoes him, here's the danger he’s been warned about living in his own home, under his own nose, mere feet from where he regularly confides in his imaginary friend Hitler. But as Jojo endeavors to keep tabs on the mysterious Elsa, his fear and vigilance grow into something even Adolf cannot seem to fathom. For the more he gets to know Elsa as a person, the more she becomes someone Jojo can’t imagine allowing anyone, including his 'Nazi' idols, to harm. While "Jojo Rabbit" is very much a comic allegory about the costs of letting bigotry take hold, whether in your bedroom or a nation, Jojo also takes a very real journey as a child coming-of-age. For in finding the courage to open his mind, he discovers the power of love to change your path.   Jojo is a very, very conflicted boy, so that's a big challenge. When you first meet him, he truly believes all the propaganda he’s seen. All Jojo knows about 'Jews' is from propaganda and the teachings at school which says they've got horns and devil tails and they're monstrous creatures. But you also see that he’s just a sweet kid who doesn't really know what he's talking about! He’s looking for something in 'The Nazis' that's missing in his life. His father is gone, and his mum is busy with things she doesn’t talk about, so he has no one except his imaginary friend, and he imagines that the only one who can really help him is Hitler. Jojo is a mix of blind gusto and untamed emotions in stride. He has that sparkle in his eye and the extreme enthusiasm for life. He mixes anger, anxiety, discovery and other subtle emotions into the humor. He reminds people of the harrowing history of bigotry, and how deeply it can affect not only entire societies, but especially children. Jojo’s awakening seemed to mirror how the world reacted after 'WWII'; stunned by a collective human loss of innocence, then uniting to affirm that hateful ideas would never again be allowed to take hold like that. As bizarre and unexpected as it's to interact with Hitler, some of the most demanding scenes come as Jojo wrestles with how to react to Elsa, who he truly believes has devilish powers. Yet, even Jojo cannot keep up his suspicion of Elsa for very long. While at first, he merely keeps her secret for fear of his mother getting arrested, the more he gets to know Elsa, the more he can’t resist what starts to feel like an authentic, eye-opening friendship that's rocking his world. In many ways, Elsa has all the bravery and sense of dignity Jojo only dreams of having. In spite of everything he thinks he’s supposed to think, Jojo really starts to like her. It’s quite confusing for him; how can he have such affection for Elsa despite his strong beliefs? It makes him question everything, even Hitler.  Elsa is basically living in a cave, almost starving and all alone, so it's difficult to find such strong feelings and go on pro-'Nazi' rants at her. At first, you don't really know if she's a monster or a ghost. You don't know who she's or what her intentions are.  You’re in Jojo’s point of view, so you start off with a fear of Elsa. But then, like Jojo, you see more and more of who she's and all that she's going through. As Elsa and Jojo start to see each other more clearly, outside of all the propaganda that surrounds them, they develop a relationship almost like a brother and sister. She's mysterious to entice Jojo to want to know more, but with a humanity that strips away Jojo’s illusions and confronts him with the discomfiting fact that everything he’s been led to believe about 'Jews' is all a terrible lie. Elsa’s situation is so vulnerable the whole way through, trapped in this small crawlspace, but the film wants to counter that by showing that Elsa is actually stronger and fiercer than anyone. She's a girl who isn’t a victim at all and definitely doesn’t see herself that way. The character of Elsa represents nothing less than the hope and resilience of humanity when confronted with unbridled hate and evil. She doesn't want pity, she just wants to be able to live her life without all this crap happening. Elsa transforms Jojo in spite of himself. The film likes the dynamic where, contrary to what Jojo expects, Elsa holds most of the cards and calls the shots. But also, they're in a 'Catch-22' that binds them together because both face terrible stakes if their secret gets out. Also vital is creating all 'The Nazis' in the film to be ridiculous and mockable, full of all the same flaws and quirks as the rest of us, which makes their participation in the fascist realm that much more of a chilling warning of how easily malevolent ideologies can take root on a large scale. This is especially true of Jojo, who initially reveres what he sees as Hitler’s might, until he sees in Elsa and his mother a principled strength that's so much greater. It's important that Jojo be clearly seen as a 10-year-old-boy who really doesn’t know anything. He just basically loves the idea of dressing in a uniform and being accepted. That's how 'The Nazis' indoctrinated kids, really, by making them feel part of this really cool gang. It's about the idea of seeing the madness of war and hate, something grown-ups very much manifest, through the eyes of a child. Adults are supposed to be the people who guide children and raise them to be better versions of ourselves.  Yet when children look at us in times of war, adults seem ridiculous and out of their minds.   You’ll go to Morocco, take up lovers and make them suffer, look a tiger in the eye and learn to trust without fear. That’s what it's to be a woman, or at least what it could be. You don’t get to see the full extent of their relationship, but Rosie Betzler is someone that’s saving her life and putting a lot on the line just to have Elsa in her house. Elsa feels admiration and a longing to establish a relationship, a longing to have a mother and someone to speak to. The film turns Rosie not only into a single mother, but also a defiant woman who decides that so long as ideals of empathy and tolerance are being pushed to the margins, she will work fearlessly to uphold them. Contrary to Jojo, she sees all too clearly the poisonous world Hitler is forging, so her natural response is to help, as she says, by doing what she can, which in her passionately practical way is a lot. But that also means hiding the truth of her life from Jojo to keep him safe, while hoping her little boy comes to his senses. She's really strong solo mom who's trying to save her son and others from this horrible situation, but at the same time trying to retain Jojo’s innocence. She's trying to balance her need to live boldly and be true to herself while doing all she can to keep Jojo safe through loss and peril. Being a mother is a big part of her identity but it's just one part. She also is full of fervor and ideas and the film wants her to have all those different shades so that she might feel really full of life. Rosie is unabashedly imaginative, poetic and romantic and at the same time, she's this very grounding force for Jojo. She's fighting for 'The Resistance' and is really a very modern woman. She's such a bright light in this very dark time. Even though Rosie is a dreamer and a bit of a comedian, she's also very pragmatic. Very much part of being a parent is that constant balancing between your practical, responsible, adult side and the side who can create a magical world for your kids. She's truly the strongest character in the film. Adolf Hitler (Taika Waititi) is really recent in terms of human history and we’ve got to keep talking about it, because the dynamics that caused it aren’t going away. He’s a figment of Jojo's imagination so his knowledge of the world is limited to what a 10-year-old understands. He’s the little devil on Jojo’s shoulder, basically. He’s also a bit of a projection of Jojo’s heroes all combined, including his father. Jojo’s fantasy version of Hitler is hardly the historical figure. Instead, he’s a loony, larger-than-life mashup of Jojo’s own impulses, desires, things he’s read or overheard and his yearning for a father figure. Jojo’s version of Adolf can actually sometimes be quite nice, which might seem a bit weird because he's Hitler, but at other times he's properly scary. He’s very light in the beginning, like Jojo, but by the end of the film he's just this sad, sad despot. Captain Klenzendorf (Sam Rockwell) is the cheekily imperious trainer of 'Hitler Youth Troops' who's at various times Jojo’s idol, nemesis and confidante. He has one eye, zero faith in the military command and a growing number of secrets. Captain Klenzendorf lives in a world of his own. He has all this flamboyant creativity that we want to give expression to at the end, when he explodes onto the scene.   Providing deadpan comic relief throughout "Jojo Rabbit" is Fraulein Rahm (Rebel Wilson), the instructor who teaches the girls how to perform their womanly duties in war time but dreams of joining the frontlines herself. Fraulein Rahm follows in this tradition, ever-willing to believe every absurd 'Nazi' myth that makes the rounds. Despite her satiric portrait of a woman who questions absolutely nothing she hears, Fraulein Rahm is representative of many German women who took lead roles in the war. She serves in every way she can; teaching girls their womanly duties, giving Jojo physical therapy, then manning a machine gun. Perhaps the most hilariously dark and frightening character of all in Jojo Rabbit is Captain Herman Deertz (Stephen Merchant) of 'The Falkenheim Gestapo', who meticulously investigates reports of hidden 'Jews' and resistors. The character reminds people of just how outrageous cults of personality can become. There's something laughable about the worship of this little man with his little moustache who looks like an angry accountant and that’s one of the things that the film plays with. There’s a sense of how people can be swept up by, for lack of a better word, bullshit. It’s something still resonating right now. We still see people all over the world being up in these things, especially when there’s a uniform and an identity involved, so it seems well worth satirizing.   'The Hitler Youth' was first created in 1922 to indoctrinate kids and teens into 'Nazi Ideology' and train them to ultimately be tools of war. This gives us a sense of just how dark the reality of Jojo’s world is, no matter how much he just wants it to be a glorious adventure, as any 10-year-old would. What 'The Nazis' did to children was really awful. They wanted to have an army of fanatics to help them take over the world. Nazis' were parodied on screen as early as the 1940s when they're still very much a global threat, with the key being that the last laugh was always on them. Both during and after the war, Hitler was routinely mocked because it was a way of people dealing with the horror they're seeing. If you can reduce Hitler to something laughable, you win. The book is more of a drama, though it has comic moments. The film has more fantastical elements and obviously more humor, creating a kind of dance between drama and satire. The film creates something like a jazz riff on Leunens book, whipping up the structure of her story into an antic allegory of how fear mongering can take root in naïve mind, and how love can come out of left field to topple down the walls we put up against other people. If the book is a classical, panel painting, the film is more like Picasso’s 'Guernica'.   Like the story, the design of "Jojo Rabbit" presents the world through a 10-year-old’s confined but vivid lens, full of bright colors and bucolic beauty even amid the oppression and destruction of 'Nazi Germany'. At that age, you remember everything but with a kind of brightness to it all. Everything looks like a Spring morning. The film has all those 'Neorealist' qualities where there are sunny and charming moments but also very dramatic moments, and the mood can go from funny to tragic in a snap. That era between 1930 and 1945 was actually a revolutionary one for style in Europe, despite the war. In a lot of 'WWII'-era films, everyone dresses in brown and gray and it just feels kind of sad and dated. But if you look at the fashions of the time, though, there's really lots of bright color and high style. It's an era that in most people’s minds unspools in black-and-white. To see that world in color, the way Jojo, Rosie and Elsa would have experienced it, gives it a whole new dimension and aliveness. We've seen so many muted period films from 'WWII', whether in black & white or in more somber colors, that we're shocked to see such a vibrant spectrum of color.  But that's the reality and once the film decides to reflect this, it's an idea that circulated through the set design and the costumes and helps to set the tone for the story. At Jojo’s age things are a little more rosy-tinted and the world seems bigger and more amazing. So, the film recreates this feeling, the feeling we all have in childhood, but within 1940s Germany. For most of the film, we’ve been in Jojo’s imagination, with his playful view of war, but when the battle hits the town, we’re suddenly struck with the reality of what war really is. The frightening atmosphere and noise of it feels very real. In some ways it feels very visceral and real, but the film also creates something that becomes a kind of magical and surreal moment in the film. As the events in the film grow darker, so too do the colors. For the happier, more playful moments in the film, we've a diverse palette of oversaturated colors.  Then, the film tapes those off as more drama comes into play. Most of the film takes place in 'The Autumn" so we've lush greens sprinkled with gorgeous reds, oranges and pinks into the street scenes. However, hidden deep within the lightness of the house is Elsa’s dark, cramped space behind the wall, which forges an opposite feeling, mirroring the nearly unbearable tension under which she's forced to live. Rosie’s look has to be so distinctive that the audience recognizes her, in a flash, in the scene that's a devastating emotional turning point of the story. The butterfly seemed to express who she's, and the film uses a very distinctive pair of shoes, which stand out for a lady in that era. It's more powerful when you just see the shoes and make the connection to the butterfly in this moment. The camera always tries to make sure the audience is aware of Rosie’s shoes. For example, you really notice them when she’s dancing by the river in that light moment. The best comedy has always come out of the hardest human situations and 'Nazi Germany' is one of the hardest situations in history. "Jojo Rabbit" offers a sharply funny, yet profoundly stirring, child’s-eye view of a society gone mad with intolerance. The film makes a powerful statement against hate with this pitch-black satire of 'The Nazi Culture' that gripped 'The German Psyche' at the height of 'WWII'. It's a story almost too appalling to approach with sober solemnity, that of a boy who, like many at that time, has been brainwashed into absolutely gung-ho devotion to Hitler. He then mines from it a dark, mesmerizing comedy that ultimately unravels the toxic ideas of 'Anti-Semitism' and persecution of the other. Balancing on a comedic high-wire, the film mixes the fury of satire with an insistent sense of hope that fanaticism and hate can be overcome. The film follows very much in the footsteps of Mel Brooks, Charlie Chaplin, Ernst Lubitsch and Stanley Kubrick to name a few. The script has a charged, satirical edge in the vein of say "Dr. Strangelove" and other black comedies that confront heavy subject matters by making them very funny. "Jojo Rabbit" is a fresh way to re-visit the most unsettling of topics through the paradoxically moral force of out-and-out parody. But much as the film owes to its bold forbearers, The film feels very much of our times, with it's deeply human characters whose blinded foibles might amuse but whose inner predicaments are deadly real and pointedly relevant right now.     The film opens a comfort zone but also any notion that stories about 'The Nazi Era' have been played out, especially when the lessons of those times are so urgent right now. With 'Nationalism', 'Anti-Semitism' and other forms of religious and racial intolerance on the rise, the stakes of grabbing people’s attention felt sky-high. The film brings the audience in with laughter, and once they’ve dropped their guard, then start delivering these little payloads of drama that have serious weight to them. Even if you don’t see them right away, you’ll feel them. It’s after the laugh that the strings start to be felt, drawing one’s consciousness to things that aren’t quite right, aren’t entirely funny, into deeper, more complex emotions, amongst these, the realization of the absurdity of the situation, and the tragedy and pain. In the end, as much as "Jojo Rabbit" showcases the tragically absurd realities of authoritarianism and nationalistic fervor, as well as the personal wages of prejudice and hate, the film equally reminds us of our human connection and the simple responsibility we all have to do what we can, including simply trying to be good to one another. This feels like exactly the right time to tell this story, because this is a case where you don’t want it to be too late to tell it.

(Release Info London schedule; August, 12th, 2018, Red Cinema, 12:20) "Beirut" Caught in the crossfires of civil war, 'CIA' operatives must send a former U.S. diplomat to Beirut to negotiate for the life of a friend he left behind. In 1972 Beirut, American diplomat Mason Skiles (Jon Hamm) hosts a cocktail party accompanied by his wife and Karim (Yoau Saian Rosenberg), the 13-year old Lebanese orphan whom they hope to adopt. The festivities are disrupted when Mason’s best friend, CIA Agent Cal Riley (Mark Pellegrino) arrives with startling information about Karim. Seconds later, terrorists attack the party with tragic results. Ten years later, Mason, now an alcoholic working as a mediator for labor disputes in Boston, gets approached by a stranger in a bar, who hands him a passport, cash and a plane ticket along with an urgent invitation from mutual friends that he travel to Beirut. Reluctantly, Mason arrives in Beirut only to find that the formerly picturesque city on the sea has become a violence-ridden warzone. Mason soon discovers the real reason he’s been called back. 'CIA' and 'Embassy' officials Donald Gaines (Dean Norris), Gary Ruzak (Shea Whigham) and Ambassador Frank Whalen (Larry Pine) explain that terrorists have kidnapped a CIA agent. Mason’s mission; negotiate a swap for the release of terrorist leader Abu Rajal (Hicham Ouraqa), believed to be imprisoned by Israeli secret police, in exchange for the American. Navigating the rubble-strewn city with the help of his Embassy-assigned handler, savvy cultural attaché Sandy Crowder (Rosamund Pike), Mason secretly meets with the kidnappers and uncovers clues that help him unravel competing agendas advanced by Israeli military boss Roni Niv (Alon Aboutboul), 'Palestinian Liberation Front' minister Bashir (Ahmed Said Arif) and corrupt bureaucrats. Confronting ghosts from his past, Mason faces a formidable question; who do you trust in a world where the truth emerges only when it’s convenient, or profitable? A taut action thriller from director Brad Anderson, Beirut takes an unflinching look at the cost of freedom. Mason Skiles is a communicator rather than just a terminator. He’s not some guy who solves everything by throwing a magic hammer or casting a spell or doing things that don’t really exist in life. As a negotiator, Mason’s gift is that he’s able to talk to people not in a backhanded or sneaky way but by basically saying, 'you've something I want and I've something you want'. We've to find that place where we both leave something on the table and ideally, each of us gets a little of what we want. When people live in a country not their own they need to have tremendous respect for local culture and local politics to understand what’s actually happening on the ground. He’s a facilitator. He wants both sides to win. He’s not there to undermine the other government at all. There’s a great deal of respect and intelligence that goes along with that approach. When we first meet Mason, he seems to have it all together, trying to do good things in the world. He's extroverted, almost like he’s showing off. That’s why the film puts him in party duds with the off-white suit. This cocktail party is his territory. He's in control. Then, in a few terrifying seconds, Mason’s life falls apart. It takes a while for Mason to pull himself out of this profound tragedy. Ten years later, Mason’s outfits signal his slide into alcoholism as a demoralized, backroom labor negotiator. It's important to create a disheveled, deconstructed type of mishmash of different things in order to communicate the fact that Mason’s life is falling apart. Then when he comes back to Beirut, the audience focuses on the character and plot more than his wardrobe. There’s one shot midway through the film where Mason’s dressed in an Oxford shirt and loafers while he walks through a deserted city square that’s just been completed destroyed. That’s the kind of contrast that's really exciting, as a way to show Mason’s alienated state of mind. When he goes back to the place where it all happened, that’s where Mason begins to find some happiness and his place in the world. When you think about the terrorism and fundamentalism and the political intractability in Beirut, which is all still sadly true today, it’s important to look at the reasons behind all that. How did we get here? In addition to Beirut’s politically charged themes, the film looks forward to exploring the personal trauma that lends depth to Mason’s journey. Sandy Crowder’s job description as a keeper of secrets impacts the character’s personal life in compelling ways. She can’t really trust anyone so Sandy doesn’t let people get too close. She’s sort of a proto-feminist who’s there for the adrenaline rush. It's a tough world for women in the agency in the ’80s. There were very few female agents. There are 14 pay grades within the CIA and most women hit the ceiling at around level seven. She’s defined by her actions. Sandy’s decisions under pressure eventually affect the outcome of the whole story and that6s pretty exciting. She comes in as this mystery person in the second act, so it's interesting to forge the relationship between Sandy and Mason. He doesn’t really know this person but he has to trust her. That dynamic dovetailed very nicely with the film’s political nature and intrigue as the film figures out where the story is leading and why. 'CIA' agent Gaines (Dean Norris) is a guy, who represents a hardball approach to international problem solving. You need both the carrot and stick. You hope Mason can make diplomacy work but you always need somebody like Gaines so you've the heavy hand of 'The CIA' backing it up. Shifty political operative Gary Ruzak (Shea Whigham) loyalties are to the president. He’s very much a company man who’s in Lebanon to fix this situation before it goes bad and he’ll make a deal with the devil if necessary. Big political themes don’t get addressed very often in movies anymore. This movie deals with something important rather than just having the action element or a comic-book element, which seems to be the tenor of most large-scale movies right now. At the time, Beirut is a hot topic because Tom Friedman’s book 'From Beirut To Jerusalem' has just come out. "Beirut" has a historical setting, it feels true to life without actually being a true story. The fictional script based around facts on the ground including the 1984 kidnapping of 'CIA Station' Chief William Buckley. It's all very garish and gothic, not too clean like an American movie but more European style. Against the backdrop of a politically dysfunctional Lebanon, the film strives to develop the interior psychology of his hero in the manner of master spy novelist John Le Carré. His books were extraordinary, although they didn’t always make for good movies because they're so hard to condense. And then the idea of a character like Mason, who’s faced with great disappointment; that’s very much a John Le Carré thing. Mason is a character in need of redemption, which is also true for Jason Bourne and Michael Clayton. "Beirut", is about people trapped inside a political situation, while at the same time Mason is forced to confront his past and his own weakness. But "Beirut's" fictionalized portrayal of U.S., Israeli and 'PLO' scheming in 1982 Lebanon ultimately proved too hot to handle. The problem is that the script is accurate. 'The PLO' didn’t have exemplary behavior. Israel did not have exemplary behavior. 'The U.S. State Department' did not have exemplary behavior. Nobody looked good at that moment in time except for the hero of this story. The script is still very intense but the political radioactivity has completely subsided. There’s not much argument anymore about what happened in Lebanon in the winter of 1982. It’s also an emotional journey about characters in this war-torn part of the world who are trying to find some goodness or something hopeful that they can hang onto. Thrillers today tend to be violent, over-the-top action movies or else they rely heavily on some kind of technological solution, whereas "Beirut" is very human. A period thriller loaded with resonance for contemporary audiences, "Beirut" revisits the roots of 'Middle Eastern' terrorism as a backdrop to a timeless story about one man’s quest for peace. Audiences who see "Beirut" will become interested in some of the history that the film touches on. It's about the idea that one person can make a difference, however small. In a bad situation, you've to suit up and try to make things better. "Beirut" also invites audiences to experience an exotic locale teeming with intrigue. The film creates this smoky, dirty, grimy, beautifully tattered world. In the end, if people walk away with questions about America’s involvement in Beirut in the ’80s, that’s great. The film leads people trying to learn more about this time frame, that’s fantastic. But it’s really more about the sensual experience of the movie and putting the audience into this world, in all it's screwed-up glory. The character’s willingness engages in dialogue stands in stark contrast to the current political climate. Everything’s so polarized now that you can’t say anything for fear of being a traitor to your party or a traitor to your country or a traitor to your religion. It seems like we only have the capacity to see things in black and white, but the world doesn’t exist in that color scheme. If we’re not talking, we’re fighting, and that doesn’t seem to be a very legitimate way to move anything forward. So honestly, that’s the message people take away from this movie; instead of fighting, maybe talking works a little better.

https://youtu.be/tSX3_jKR53s

First seen at the Raindance Film Festival, our movie critic Chris Olson reviews short film Balcony for UK Film Review. You can see his Vlog film review below:

■ (Release Info London schedule; August 4th, 2019, BFI Southbank, London SE1 Belvedere Road, South Bank, London, England, SE1 8XT, 12:30 PM) ■ (Release Info UK schedule; August 23rd, 2019, Phoenix Cinema and Art Centre, Leicester 4 Midland Street, Leicester, LE1 1TG, 10:15 AM) "Playmobil: The Movie" For more than 45 years, children around the world have been delighted by the 7.5 cm-tall plastic figure toys known as 'Playmobil'. This year, the popular toys come to animated life in 'ON Animation Studio’s' beautifully crafted and imagined new movie. Featuring a live-action prologue and epilogue, "Playmobil: The Movie" is centered on an imaginative young girl named Marla Brenner (Anya Taylor-Joy) who embarks on an epic journey after her younger brother Charlie (Gabriel Bateman) disappears into the vast and wondrous animated world of 'Playmobil'. As Marla tries to find her brother in this magical realm, she encounters a memorable cast of 'Playmobil' characters including a friendly food truck driver Del (Jim Gaffigan), dashing secret agent Rex Dasher (Daniel Radcliffe), a modern fairy godmother (Meghan Trainor) and the power-hungry Emperor Maximus (Adam Lambert). After being reunited with her brother, her sweeping adventures teach Marla to break free from her structured adult life, reconnect to her childhood dreams and enjoy the endless possibilities of her imagination. Like many animated family classics, "Playmobil: The Movie" is a 'Musical'. If a character has a song, you want to hear bits of that song to remind you of their want or their need, whatever it's. The movie begins with a song in the live-action world, where the main character Marla is aspiring to her future. She expresses her feelings about the world, and it sets up the whole journey. It encourages young people to go out there and conquer the world out there. The song serves as the musical peaks in the movie. We want to approximate life in a sense. We like to sing when we’re feeling very good or sad. So, the main character sings to celebrate a moment or feel the blues. Get wet in the rain and enjoy the ride. The heroine of "Playmobil: The Movie" is Marla Brenner, a spirited young woman who's thrust into the magical world of 'Playmobil' when her young brother Charlie disappears into a fantastic toy universe. In the beginning of the movie, Marla is really excited about going out into the world and she has such a zest for life. When her little brother goes missing, they both end up on this mad adventure when they get sucked into 'Playmobil-Land', and she has to find him. Marla has a very grown-up sensibility and throws her into this eclectic wildness that's the world of 'Playmobil'. She has to face problems that she's not used to solving without the benefit of her digits, or a stiffness in her arms, or all those sorts of things. Something that's really fun about this world is that the film adopts the genre of that world and the film language of that world. She's really going to be a fish out of water as she's bounced from a world of 'Kung Fu' to a world of 'Sci-Fi'. All of a sudden, she's riding on the back of a dinosaur. 'Playmobil' lets you do that, because all of these worlds are so wildly diverse. Some of the obstacles that Marla faces in 'The Playmobil World' echo epic traditional film moments, allows to wink at the audience with clever homages to films as diverse as 'The Indiana Jones' movies, martial arts classics such as 'Crouching Tiger', 'Hidden Dragon', 'Gladiator' films and 'James Bond'-type spy capers. Marla who’s zooming out on her life, and then she has this adventure and comes back to it with a newly found perspective and a lot of gratitude. That's a very important, healing message. So, the movie is a really lovely story of courage and family love, but it’s also very funny and entertaining. Charlie Brenner, Marla’s younger brother, whose imagination and sense of wonder, draws him to the amazing realm of 'Playmobil'. In the beginning of the movie, Charlie doesn’t see Marla’s point of view. She’s too strict with him. When he has to take responsibility, he really starts to understand that she was just doing her best to take care of them. As a result of their time in 'Playmobil-Land', their relationship changes. They get closer and they feel more like a family again. The film has a huge amount of care and attention and comes up with something that pays a lovely homage to the world of imagination and how toys fire up the imagination and make you connect with others. So the film as a whole will be imbued with that same kind of joy of discovery and the sort of family relationship between Marla and her brother is very sweet. One of the first characters Marla meets in 'The Playmobil World' is Del, a happy-go-lucky food truck driver who decides to help her along the way. He’s kind of a guy who gets by thanks to a lot of side jobs. The interaction with Marla changes his life in some ways. Del is certainly someone who's able to move between the different worlds of 'Playmobil' and as we get to find out, he also has a heart of gold. Initially, Del has selfish motives for helping Marla, but he soon reveals that he does have a big heart as the adventure unfolds. You don’t see his humanity in the beginning of the movie, but he and Marla navigate these worlds together to track down Marla’s brother. He has a lot of interactions with lots of people, so he’s a very useful person for Marla to accidentally come across. Rex Dasher is a smooth and savvy secret agent. He's sort of 'Playmobil' world’s version of 'James Bond'. He exists to be a toy parody of 'James Bond', but it’s all sorts of the silliest bits of Bond, more of 'The Roger Moore-Era Bond' than 'Fhe Daniel Craig Persona'. 'The Fairy Godmother' is everything! She's amazing, super cool and down to earth. She comes to the aid of Marla when she needs her the most. She has a tattoo, and is edgy. She kind of has fishnets on her arms, and has pink hair and flowers in her hair. It reminds of 'The All About The Bass’ video with a little more edge. In the movie, 'The Fairy Godmother' helps revive Marla’s spirit. She reminds Marla that she can get through anything, that the power is in her. 'Emperor Maximus' is the villain of the movie, but he’s also completely out of his mind. In a weird way, he's lovable. He's a childlike spoiled brat of a dictator. He decides that his way of keeping control over the people is by giving them a big fight to watch, a la 'Rome'. He's completely obnoxious. He's the bad guy, but you kind of like him and hate him all at the same time. The 'Pirate Blood Bones' (Kenan Thompson) often gives pep talks to the rest of the bunch. He’s always like, ‘come on guys we can do whatever we want'. During the journey, the main characters visit different worlds, the idea is to change the look and feel using the codes and cinematography of the genre each sequence refers to. 'The Viking' sequence is the entry in this world. It's contrast strongly with the real world we've left behind. It's vibrant, colorful, and the kind of messy battle you would find in "Braveheart" or "Gladiator". When Marla ends up in 'The Wild West World', audiences are taken to the dry, empty plains. We've this super strong light that’s used to emphasize her effort to get to the town, and the images are almost overexposed because of the sun being so strong. The pace changes too, using the classic western codes, slower camera moves, close up shots on the staring bad guys. Then she and Del escape to 'The Spy Sequence', which is treated like a retro futuristic 'James Bond' classic with surprising gadgets, an atmospheric night and villains with a dark plan. The lighting and mood of the exterior sequence compares to a film noir, the saturation is toned down to let more space to the shadows and lights, and there’s fog as well. This also contrasts with the bright lab-like villain facility and their super cool retro computers. Then there are wide open spaces of the drive on the highway, followed by the mix-and-match world of 'Constantinopolis' and the power-hungry 'Emperor. Maximus' has access to modern technology, so we can turn the games into a giant light show to really captivate the audience. We also move on to the busy, futuristic 'City Of Glinara'. For this sequence the film reminiscences 'The Fifth Element', funny creatures, robots, infinite glass buildings and lens flares. In this 'Asian'-inspired city, the best place for a smuggler to hide would be a huge karaoke machine. First, there's the scary gray forest from which Marla is unable to escape, with all the many twisted trees, which are a metaphor for her tangled mind. Then, we move on to the shiny, colorful fairytale city which restores hope and send her back on her way to her brother. The challenge is to look at the broad landscape of 'The Playmobil Universe' and identify the kinds of characters and story, the film wants to develop. It’s about forgiveness and understanding, a fractured family finds a way to come back together. This feels like a worthy and meaningful story to tell. The characters are emotionally upended and turned literally into something else, and that transformation challenges them in a remarkable ways. Their journey inspires them to act courageously and offers hope that the best version of their life together is yet to come. Classic storytelling and universally relatable characters help strengthen the film’s broad appeal. Many of us grew up with 'James Bond' movies, Clint Eastwood’s spaghetti westerns, and movies about knights and magical kingdoms. When we got together and started talking about genre jumping, we're like kids again, playing with toys in the living room. The film brings that same level of playfulness and joy to audiences around the world and remind them that with imagination, anything is possible. We're able to contrast a young character that really has that sort of superpower to create worlds and have this expansive imagination contrasted against somebody that never really had that, and you see that missing component from their life and how essential it's. We've this opportunity to have 'Playmobil’s' really fun and silly multi-world, which also allows you go to a deeper place and talk about character and what it means to graduate from childhood into adulthood. This movie has this amazing ability to find magic in the mundane. When you think about the world of toys, especially 'Playmobil', they're sort of sitting there just waiting for a child to activate it and unlock it's magic. We see those toys from a kid's eyes, not what he has in front of him but what he imagines; the pirate in his hand has a stiff plastic cape, but when he plays he sees it, the cape floating in the wind. That’s what the movies does, which explores this idea of a wish fulfilment visually. The animation is based on how a kid would see the toys through his/her imagination. You see the arms and legs bending at 90 degrees, but we still maintain some of the iconic constraints of the toys. Their necks don’t bend. They've no fingers and noses, and surprisingly, we discovered that we didn’t need them. We can tell everything we want without fingers or noses. From time to time, the visuals remind audiences that we're still playing with 'Playmobil' toys. You see the skin change from something fleshy and organic to a texture that has little sparkles of plastic in it. One of the remarkable aspects of the film’s animation is how the animated 'Playmobil' characters each display their complex and special personalities with such elementary visual cues. We've a laid-back character like Del, who's very different from the villain 'Emperor Maximus'. But when you put them side by side, they are the same toys. They both have beards and literally come from the same mold. "Playmobil: The Movie" provides the opportunity to remember how as a child we used to play with our favorite toys. Launched in 1974 'Toys' like 'Playmobil' are a gateway to your earlier memories. They can be like time machines as they take you back and immediately give that spark. It's very important to convey the true emotions that we all experience in childhood. The central part of the movie is the ability to bring back the feelings and spirit of childhood that come with playing with 'The Playmobil Toys'. With 'Playmobil', you get the feeling that anything is possible. You create the rules, and you become a character in this movie. Kids can be 'Knights', 'Vikings', 'Princesses' or 'Cowboys'. It’s not a girl- nor boy-driven toy. We often see boys and girls playing together in the world of 'Playmobi'. You've pirates, knights, police officers, firemen, brides, princesses, and children connect to these characters all over the world! You can mix the characters, the figurines and the worlds, and the only limitation is your imagination. You can travel through time, fly to the moon and be a pirate at the same time. They're quite serious about their game, but they've great fun! So it’s about serious fun as well as creating own stories. The world of 'Playmobil' offered us endless story possibilities. Most fairy tales use a visual device that bookends the story. This film explores opening up a storybook or having a narrated opening, but none of it feels organic to the story. To have a dynamic contrast and stimulating visual from animation it's best to have a live-action opening and ending. The protagonist Marla has lost touch with the child’s point of view that she used to have. It feels right to show her in a live-action world where there's no magic. When she finds herself in a very magical situation, which is the entrance to the world of 'Playmobil', it becomes the catalyst for the whole movie. 'LEGO' is to construction, 'Playmobil' is to role playing. The film wants to reflect that idea in the movie since Marla literally gets turned into a toy and ends up in a magical world. This is mportant for a creative education. You can go through a lot of different experiences, but just like the main character in the movie, you should never forget about your dreams and your childhood. Know that anything is possible if you trust yourself and stay optimistic. It’s also the magic of imagination that you see in all of these distinct 'Playmobil Worlds'. Everything feels familiar, because for some of us, it’s not that distant memory. And for children, it’s a world that they know very well. The movie has both an honest, emotional core it, while being funny and entertaining at the same time. Simple plots with complex characters. One of the special devices that sets the movie apart is that the characters get to travel to different realms, which allows to have fun with various cinematic genres. If you think of your favorite genre films like 'Westerns', 'Fantasy', 'Sci-Fi', 'Musicals', there are tropes that are familiar in all those movies. The film uses those tropes as our comedic framing device. As the characters travel through the different lands, "Playmobil" adopts the cinematic language, acting and dialogue from the different genre’s and just have fun with it. There’s a certain chord that animated movies strike inside you. Maybe it’s because you don’t expect them to affect you so deeply or have such a powerful meaning. Animated movies have this emotional impact more than regular live-action movies do. Audiences will really love this movie because it’s entertaining, very creative, and it will make you laugh and cry at the same time. It really hits you in the heart right from the beginning and keeps you engaged all the way. There’s a lot at stake, but there’s also a lot of honest emotion and we infuse the comedy all throughout the movie as well. It’s always nice to go back to something that you loved from your childhood as it triggers an honest emotional response. This movie will make audiences remember the young person inside of them. That's why this is truly a family movie that everyone will enjoy. It's important because it reminds us that everyone is bound to grow up and take on responsibility of adulthood, but at the end of the day, you can't lose the child inside of you. This movie really reminds people to always be a little bit of a kid inside and to honor that, to honor the part of you that wants to play, create, and have an imagination. It's a great vehicle for positivity, and parents and children will leave the theater feeling upbeat and optimistic about the future. "Playmobil" is just an awesome piece of our culture.

(Release Info London schedule; June 29th, 2019, BFI Southbank, Belvedere Rd, Lambeth, London SE1 8XT, United Kingdom, 17:15 pm) https://walloh.com/movies/33714-photograph/ "Photograph" Rafi (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), a struggling Mumbai street photographer, pressured to marry by his grandmother Dadi (Farrukh Jaffar), convinces Miloni (Sanya Malhotra), a shy stranger, to pose as his fiancée during a family visit. Despite vast cultural differences, the pair develops a surprising connection that challenges their worldviews in a wistful and funny romance. Rafi comes to Mumbai from a small village to earn money to pay off an old family debt. Working as a street photographer, he shares one small room with friends and sends almost everything he makes to his grandmother, Dadi, in the hope she will be able to buy back her ancestral home. To satisfy the elderly woman’s desire for him to marry, he sends her a photo of a shy stranger, claiming that the girl, Miloni, is his fiancée. When his grandmother insists on a meeting, he tracks Miloni down and asks her to pretend to be his betrothed. A sheltered young woman studying to become an accountant, Miloni lives a quiet, middle-class life with her parents, and awaits an arranged marriage to a suitable boy when she finishes school. She impulsively agrees to Rafi’s scheme, opening the door to an unexpected adventure at the crossroads of tradition and modernity. "Photograph" is a heartwarming and comical snapshot of life in contemporary Mumbai. Miloni, a shy and traditionally raised middle-class 'Mumbaikar', crosses paths with Rafi, a 'Muslim' villager living in the city trying to scratch out a living as a street photographer. Who are these people, what happens to them and how it's that their lives go along together for some time. Miloni is very strong, and keenly sensitive to the needs of others. She's devoted to her family, but also feels burdened by the ties. She's seeking a sense of freedom that she has never had, freedom from family traditions, expectations, status, societal norms. Miloni’s experience of life is limited to home and school, but she has a measure of curiosity about the world around her. She has never had a chance to decide what she wants. She has been led by her family’s priorities for her and by the force of tradition. She's a dutiful daughter. The logical next step for her is marriage to a suitable boy, one carefully vetted and selected by her parents. But meeting Rafi has her wondering if there could be more to life. There’s constant pressure from the society to be a certain way. Meeting Rafi opens an entirely new world to Miloni and it’s the world she wants to live in. He allows her to experience things she hasn’t before. Through his friendship with Miloni, Rafi is exploring the possibility of falling in love, something he has never felt he had the opportunity to do. He’s letting himself go for once in his life. Rafi and Miloni are divided by radically different religious, economic and cultural backgrounds, and even skin color, but both struggle with the same kinds of existential questions. India’s in a very interesting place now. For probably centuries, people always thought as a family first. Recently, they've started to think of themselves as individuals rather than as part of a family. It’s become one of the central conflicts in Indian life today. Miloni and Rafi find themselves at odds with the expectations of a modern world in which they can’t ever truly be themselves. For her, it means that while she has been raised to be a professional and is excelling in her classes, she still lives with her parents and must defer to them in all things, including her choice of career and husband. For his part, Rafi has moved far away from the village he grew up in and lives without family around him, but he's still bound by tradition to restore his family’s honor and to satisfy his grandmother’s wishes. Differentiating visually between Rafi’s chaotic, hand-to-mouth world and Miloni’s orderly family life is essential. It helps to define the internal state of a character with the color of their surroundings, especially in quiet movies like this that are expressive only in ways that are true to the characters. The film uses warmer light and mainly handheld camera work to depict the scenes in Rafi’s world. As an example, there's a scene in which Miloni walks from her apartment building’s elevator into her parents’ apartment. The elevator itself establishes her relative economic privilege, while her reaction to the conversation in the apartment offers a window into her thoughts. There's a sense of nostalgia that Rafi has, and that Miloni has inherited from her grandfather. The sense that these characters would have been happier in an earlier time when life was simpler in India, when everyone was not running around so much, when there was only one kind of cola on the stands, one TV channel, and two kinds of cars. Miloni speaks about missing a soft drink from her childhood called 'Campa Cola'. It was the only cola available in India for years. It's a golden-age fallacy, but the nostalgia is what binds the two characters together. Following the intersecting paths of two people who would typically never meet has a source of humor. The different ways people express that can be both funny and sad. People often mistake that kind of longing for loneliness. Longing is an act full of life and vitality, with room for humor and sadness and everything in between. Lots of people longing for all kinds of things; the past, things they dream of but have never seen, other people, even for the smallest of things. Rafi’s imposing grandmother, whom he calls 'Dadi', has a single mission in life; to make sure her grandson gets married sooner rather than later. She writes Rafi letters, sends messages though friends in Mumbai and relentlessly entreats him to find a wife. Her determination may seem hilariously over-the-top to some audiences. It’s pretty realistic. It may seem exaggerated, but that’s pretty much how it goes. After a certain age, if you’re not married it becomes the point of your life for both men and women. All your relatives are asking why you aren’t married yet. When Rafi tells his grandmother he's engaged, she immediately makes the grueling journey from her village to meet his fiancé. Dadi, a diminutive dynamo, turns her laser focus on Miloni as soon as they meet, dominating the conversation with a barrage of blunt questions to determine her suitability as a wife. Perhaps because the three characters are so different, their encounter opens new doors for each of them. Some people are able to inspire us to be something other than what we believe we can be. They do that for each other. She brings about a curiosity in him. She inspires him to take a moment for himself and do something for somebody other than his family. He gives her an opportunity to explore and expand her world, to take on a new persona when she's with him and his grandmother. There’s a lot of nobility and sacrifice that goes into thinking as a family as opposed to thinking as an individual. These people are torn between that and putting their own desires first. Since the international success of his 2013 debut feature film, "The Lunchbox", "Photograph", marks Batra’s return to his roots for an inspired and funny look at love in the contradictory world of modern urban life on the Indian subcontinent. The film is inspired by both exuberant 'Bollywood' musicals and a classic 'Shakespeare' comedy. They're always some kind of 'Taming Of The Shrew' adaptation. There are hundreds of them with a poor guy who’s maybe a car mechanic and a rich girl who's a little hot-tempered. For decades, 'The Indian Film Industry' has made tales of plucky heroines who defy tradition and family with the men they love it's stock-in-trade. The girl in these movies has little more to do than look pretty and spend three hours being mindlessly pursued by the hero as her family alternately bosses her around and mollycoddles her. Nowadays she may have a job, a goofy group of friends, a lovable dog, or none of these, but she’d certainly have a say in who she wants to end up with. Living in Mumbai today has more a feeling of an independent arthouse film than a 'Bollywood Extravaganza'. The action of "Photograph" begins at the bustling 'Gateway Of India', a landmark that has become a symbol of both modern and historic Mumbai. Built to commemorate the visit of 'King George V' and 'Queen Mary' to India in 1911, it has become a favorite place for tourists and locals alike, with pleasure boats that tour the harbor and vendors of all kinds. For decades it welcomed dignitaries arriving in India via 'The Arabian Sea'. So it’s a tourist attraction but also a local hangout and it’s always jam-packed with people. "Photograph" is the first film shot at 'The Gateway' since the 2008 terrorist attack on the nearby 'Taj Mahal Palace Hotel', a Raj-era architectural marvel that's often seen in the background of the film. Mumbai is a densely populated city of about 20 million that continues to grow every day. There are about 10,000 people moving to the city every day. There's a mass migration from the villages into the city. Mumbai is a city of stark contrasts, home to both a 27-floor private residence and some of the most desperate slums in the world. Centuries-old temples and modern office buildings co-exist side-by-side, while the glitzy world of 'Bollywood' and India’s straight-laced financial sector flourish. Luxury hotels and restaurants have proliferated in recent decades. 'Chowpatty Beach' is a longtime destination where visitors still enjoy the city’s renowned street food, bhelpuri, in a portable paper cone. In this complicated, hectic world, the film tells a story of extraordinary sweetness and optimism. The location has much to do with the story. It's shaped by life in Mumbai, which cannot be replicated in any other city in India or elsewhere. People are defined by the small corner of 'The Earth' they stand on. The film captures the city we travel through every day, the people we meet every day. Nothing expresses a character’s internal state more than how they perceive magic in a world that seemingly has none. If you believe in a ghost, maybe he will come and speak with you someday. "Photograph" may surprise audiences with a picture of an incredibly diverse metropolis. It's a classic independent film that Americans will easily relate to. It’s about finding companionship and maybe even love, but filtered through an Indian sensibility. Whether it's to save the home in the village or complete a degree or get a temporary reprieve from family pressures through this photograph, they end up making some space in their own lives for the things they long for. They're finally able to think of themselves as individuals, not just a cog in the family machine. It does show that India is no different from anywhere else in the world in many ways. This film is not meant to be a cultural education as much as it's an emotional experience that's true to the time and place, which is today in India. It's a simple, timeless, universal message about vastly different people being able to transcend boundaries. In these times, where Trump wants to build a four meter wall at the Mexican border, this is a very important message.

To say I was expecting a little more from this movie is to say nothing. If you’re on the lookout for a compelling horror-tale with a well-constructed plot that will keep you on the edge of your seat the entire time, you definitely shouldn’t bother with this flick. I first acquainted myself with the art of Svyatoslav Podgaevsky, the director of The Mermaid, through his second movie “Queen of Spades: The Dark Rite.” I was pleasantly surprised and satisfied with his modern take on the infamous legend of Russian folklore. The movie was a breath of fresh air in the dying -or perhaps already dead- Russian cinema. And though a story about kids who accidentally summon a demon while playing a game is painfully familiar to all of us, it’s the first Russian horror movie I can remember, that does justice to its multiple American analogues. Then came last year’s “The Bride” which also left a vivid, lasting impression on me. Noticing Podgaevsky’s professional growth spurt within the past three years, I had no hesitation in buying the ticket for his next upcoming film. The Mermaid, however, with its action-packed trailer and tastefully designed poster, much to my regret, turned out to be a disappointment. The only element in the movie that accomplishes a desired result, in my opinion, is the atmosphere. What truly sets the mood of the film right from the start is the color pallete. The director sticks to minimalism and is selective about the colors in order to enhance their effect. Most scenes are shot in dark blue, green and grey under-lit tones which are constantly present in the everyday life of the protagonists, suggesting that the supernatural world and ours have overlapped. It may also show the power the paranormal forces have over feeble human nature and indicate that the main characters are doomed. The opening scene is particularly gripping and atmospheric with a lantern illuminating the mist over the lake and a man failing to hold onto his wife as she’s being dragged down into the lake by an unseen force. The scene promises a bone-chilling, mystery-driven film. But it never happens. After that scene we are transported into the present where, right off the bat, we are struck by a flat unconvincing performance of the lead actress Viktoria Agalakova, who plays Marina and who also starred in the previous film of the director “The Bride.” And if in “The Bride” the cast is bigger, and the lead actress’ stiff portrayal is compensated by other more engaging performances which makes the miscasting forgivable and the movie watchable, in this one the spotlight is fully on her. Looking totally unaffected by the fact that her fiancée Roma (Efim Petrunin) is under the maddening spell of an evil spirit, we watch her mechanically act as the script dictates, accompanying her actions with forced facial expressions and movements. Naturally, we feel uninterested in what is going to happen to her before something ever does. More than that, there isn’t a moment in the film when she looks troubled, let alone frightened, and thus all visibly massive efforts put into the creation of an uncanny villain are shattered. For when the leading lady isn’t terrified of the antagonist, the entire situation strikes the audience as fake. All characters are badly-written, lack depth and unique traits that would make them memorable. And even though there’s a hint at a character arc in the film, it is so badly executed that it only evokes confusion. Marina is scared of water and doesn’t know how to swim. So, in order to save her boyfriend, she has to confront her fear of the water. Instead of slowly building her way up to overcoming it – like it would happen in a decent horror movie - she just willingly plunges into the lake without expressing fear or any conflicted emotions whatsoever. That certainly leaves the audience feeling cheated and disappointed once again. To make matters even more disastrous, the plot unfolds at an unnaturally fast and smooth pace giving the film an obvious touch of cheesy phoniness. The intended twist is spoiled before it ever gets a chance to occur: in the scene where Marina gives a haircut to Roma’s sister (Sesil Plezhe) they discuss an old slavic ritual which involves hair cutting. An attentive viewer will promptly put the pieces together and deduce that the ritual is the key to destroying the Mermaid, and that it is due to be performed at the climax. The movie overflows with jump scares, but instead of seamlessly fusing them with the plot, the director falls into the habit of cutting off an important scene and ‘freezing’ all the action in attempt to keep the audience focused on the looming screamer. It only reduces the boo effect though, for he might as well have been announcing on the loudspeaker “Brace yourself! There’s about to be a jump scare!” When watching “The Mermaid: The Lake of The Dead” a feeling of déjà-vu grows stronger by the minute as the identical elements and techniques from other movies of Svyatoslav Podgaevsky rush to mind. Again, we are faced with a vicious female demon that “won’t leave you alone once she’s set her eyes upon you”. And again, we witness an otherwise promising idea being so shallowly and lazily carried out on screen that it starts to resemble an annoying broken record.

(Release Info London schedule; July 11th, 2018, Picturehouse, 21:00) "Marrowbone" Four siblings seek refuge in an old home after the death of their mother, only to discover that the house has another, more sinister, inhabitant, in this haunting directorial debut from Sergio G. Sánchez. "Marrowbone" tells the story of Jack (George MacKay), Billy (Charlie Heaton), Jane (Mia Goth), and Sam (Matthew Stagg), 4 orphan siblings that only have each other and that face the threat of a voracious past, that doesn't let go and the promise of a future of light that doesn't really sets in. While they try to overcome that moment, they take shelter in a house, which actually is a great fiction that allows them to live under the mirage of being safe from that, which harms them. Jack, Billy, Jane, and Sam represent different way, sometimes opposed, sometimes complementary to face the trauma they've in common. That's why their inner relationships are so fascinating and complex. The main weight falls on Jack. As the older sibling, he faces the responsibility of looking after his siblings. He struggles with the usual concerns of a boy his age, his love for Allie (Anya Taylor-Joy), and the responsibility his mother has given him by asking him to keep the family together. He's a tortured character because he lives with anguish and emptiness in his memory and is constantly trying to close that hole. By contrast, Jane, the second sister, symbolizes goodness in the absence of the mother. Whenever there's a violent or negative instinct, Jane compensates. She fights for the brothers can leave behind their painful past. Billy, the third of the siblings, is perhaps the most troublesome. He represents courage, the bravery that Jack sometimes lacks. In return he has a tendency to rush and move towards the dark side. It contrasts with Jane, who leads the family into the light. Billy is therefore one of the most interesting characters in the story as it condenses the fears of the group, the fear with which they've to learn to live with. He's only a teenager who, like the boys of his age, wants to explore, feel free. A vehemence that given the peculiar situation in which his family is, turns out to be counterproductive and dangerous. The most obvious metaphor for summarizing Billy's character corresponds to that of a caged bird that's eager to fly.   The fourth brother is Sam. He's the youngest, so everyone feels they've to overprotect him by hiding the most scabrous aspects that have led them to their present situation, which is funny considering Sam is very conscious of what happens. In this sense, Sam is a fundamental pillar of the family. He tries to remain innocent before his siblings, as if he fears to put them in danger if he verbalizes everything he knows. It seems that his older siblings need to believe that he's more tender and naive than he really is. For them, his innocence is living proof that not everything is corrupted in the world. Allie is practically the only link they've with the outside world, the lens through which they observe what goes on outside the walls of their little microcosm. She's a bright, cheerful character that holds us to the story and the moment in which it happens. Allie represents the real world. Her life is radically different from the sibling's one. The romance between Jack and Allie accurately sums up the idiosyncrasy of both characters. It's teenage love shared by two young people who neither want nor have time to consider where it will lead.   There's another character that's also essential and has to do with the Asturias nebula. It's the house where the siblings live, the miniature universe that frees and cages them at the same time, and which, although in the film is located in a fictional point of Maine. The protagonists live in the world with their own rules, invisible to society that continues with their concerns on the other side. All this is very easy to convey thanks to the house they chose, because it's totally isolated, with no signs of modern life around it, as if the history had really run it's course without it. In addition to the house, it's also important the recreation of the town that Jack visits on occasions to run errands. This village is conceived in the film to aggressively contrast with the reality of the house. While this has barely evolved since 1931, when the house was closed, the village people live fully in the year that corresponds to them, 1969. It's a town that we don't see much in terms of footage, but the feeling that you are somewhere else has to be very fast. The chosen place is 'The Old Factory Of Arms Of Oviedo', which also has to be transformed to fit the geographical and temporary needs of the story.   "Marrowbone" is Sergio G. Sánchez's filmmaker debut. Up until now, Sánchez had been responsible for some of the best screenplays of recent Spanish cinema, praised for his ability to manage emotions and connect almost immediately with the audience. Especially well known are "The Orphanage" and "The Impossible". It's a complex story, with different time lines, with several twists. This idea of a novel in installments is not by chance. "Marrowbone" shares with this type of literature the presence of an independent universe, filled with secrets that entices the audience and invites them to stay and live inside. The odyssey of four siblings that cross the Atlantic escaping from a mysterious trauma with a life of it's own. The four siblings are flesh and bone people. One wants to stay and live with them, know their secrets and be by their side in their fears. A great deal of it comes from the special interest in childhood, youth and all which happens when their characters swim into the deep and dark water of adulthood. It's not by chance that "Marrowbone's" main characters are four kids that haven't yet reach adulthood. The same way "The Orphanage" and "The Impossible" placed the lights and shadows of childhood at the core. The film defends the importance of fiction as a medicine to cure deep wounds or even as shelter for a hostile reality we're not able to manage. It's a combination of fantasy and terror and drama genre. The film creates a cinema, which is analogous and supplementary, with obsessions and themes alike.   It's a subtle approach to the genre, without tightening the screws. The genre, as a way of reaching the truth, but not as a purpose itself. It's the kind of feature that's no longer done, that don't requires special effects or make up; terror is at the story's core and gradually consumes everything. Genre is a crucial and essential element that gradually sneaks under the door, always to help the characters, not the other way round. The fantastic element helps narrate the ordinary in an extraordinary way, as something that can't be, but it in the end, is. "Marrowbone" moves along different areas. A balance between drama and different elements of genre that adjust to the point of view of four siblings, full of life, but also with anxiety. And all of it, impregnated with a unique romanticism that tinges each frame. It's only logical that the family dynamics between the four members constitutes the cornerstone that articulates all the film. In "Marrowbone", all those principles take place simultaneously. We know something is happening beyond that surface of apparently calm images, and of course, we're willing to unravel it's deepest nooks We want to cross the threshold and dig into the story.   "Marrowbone" is a thriller that combines many elements, thriller, horror, love story and fantasy. The film invites the viewer to participate in the game, to actively participate and compose a puzzle. It's a classic movie of suspense, it seems like a movie from another time, away from the patterns of the current genre cinema. But for this not seem like an exercise of nostalgia, the film tries to narrate it for it to have a complex and original structure. Sanchez uses the simile of a Russian doll to define the structure of the film. This is not a classic story in three acts. The framework is more complex. Each time a new mystery is revealed it's as if we open one of these matrioshkas, the film changes and reveals a new identity. What begins as a story becomes a family drama, then to become a ghost story, then a psychological thriller and so on until finally to the last of those dolls that encircles the heart of the story that which surrounds the emotion of this fable. But once you know all the secrets, you can watch the movie again and understand it in another way. The most poetic, or fabled, side of history takes on a new meaning once you understand everything that's happening and you can see it again, taking a different journey with it's characters. It's cinema appeals to that apparently complete happiness, but incredibly fragile, in which you can get a glimpse of the cracks of growing up. It's a message directly to kids; telling them that once they cross that line, they're force to grow up, even though in essence, they're still children. In our cinema, the look is always connected to a kid's point of view. It happens in the films we've done together and it happens in "Marrowbone". The characters struggle between different worlds, they fight to remain in one, but they're destined to grow up and enter the other one. The phrase that the mother states, can also be understood like a hidden message for the audience. It's telling us that going through that threshold will take us directly to the film's mysteries, to a secret that promises to change us forever. A point of no return. A journey that has to do with the fantastical. It's a movie with a lot of heart, with a lot of spirit. The audience is going to find a very rich universe, full of nuances, with many turns and, above all, a lot of emotion.