The day I met new Star Wars star John Boyega

After the announcement that John Boyega is going to be a central character in Star Wars: Episode VII, it has taken me a whole day to realise/remember that I met Boyega at an Attack the Block screening and Q&A back in 2011. I chatted to him outside the screening and got some photos and I even remember saying to him and Alex Esmail that they were going to be big, big stars after this film. Obviously I had no idea how big Boyega is about to get!

I couldn't believe Attack the Block was not a massive hit so I'm pleased that at least Boyega is now going to be a mega-star in one of the biggest films of all time! Check out my pics:

Boyega on stage left

Boyega takes pics of his cast mates

Boyega and cast mates

Edgar Wright was also there!

Wish I'd had the guts to get a photo with him!

Trio of Trailers: The World's End, Captain Phillips, The Great Gatsby

Three trailers have caught my attention today and I thought I would share them just in case you haven't seen any of them. They are The World's End, Captain Phillips and The Great Gatsby.

The World's End

The hugely anticipated trailer to the Cornetto trilogy closer is finally here. The World's End has possibly one of my favourite casts ever and almost certainly the best British cast in a very long time. Joining Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are Paddy Considine, Eddie Marsan and Martin Freeman making up the group of mates on an epic pub crawl that just might also be the end of the world. I also noticed a very brief moment of Mark Heap (who was excellent in Pegg, Wright and Frost's TV show Spaced and also appeared with Pegg in the brilliant sketch show Big Train) who is a legend and will no doubt be hilarious. This is the first time I've seen all the shiny eyed people and so the trailer has got me more excited than ever for this.



Captain Phillips

Ever since I heard Paul Greengrass was making another based on real life drama, I was excited. I thought his United 93 was one of the most gripping, terrifying, realistic, horrifying and emotional films I have ever seen. His record with real life events is impeccable with his movies being more like documentary reconstructions than fiction films. Check out Bloody Sunday if you haven't. The story of a real life hijacking of a ship by pirates, Tom Hanks stars as the titular Captain Phillips. I hadn't heard of this story until I read about the film but it sounds like a perfect narrative for a blockbuster and I couldn't think of anyone better than Greengrass to bring it to the screen. Check out the trailer:



The Great Gatsby

Finally I bring you the trailer for Baz Luhrmann's adaptation of The Great Gatsby. Not because this is a new trailer but because I believe it is opening the Cannes Film Festival tonight and also I'm seeing it in Leicester Square tonight. I don't really know what to think about this. I love Leo and I loved Romeo and Juliet but other than that, I'm not a big Luhrmann fan. I know nothing about the book or the older adaptations so am going into this with only the little knowledge I have from the trailer. It certainly looks and sounds pretty!

That was Rafe Spall in Shaun of the Dead?

Am I the last person to realise this? Rafe Spall was in Shaun of the Dead as possibly/maybe the first guy I think to say 'you got red on you' to Shaun. Man he's changed in the last 8/9 years. I swear he had rocking abs in I Give it a Year which I reviewed here (the film, not his abs). Still it just shows he had comedy in his bones right from the start. He's also just been confirmed for a cameo in At World's End after his small roles in Shaun and Hot Fuzz so that's a nice bit of news. That makes two things I've learned today.

Also I've just had four reviews published on Filmoria today so if any of these take your fancy, head on over and give them a read:

Chile's Oscar nominated No starring Gael García Bernal

The Fall of the Essex Boys

And a pair of Mario Bava's film re-released on Blu-ray and DVD:

Black Sunday

Lisa and the Devil

Did you know that this was Rafe Spall or is this shocking to anyone else?

2011 List #6: Highlights

Beginning the year with an advance screening of 127 Hours followed by a Q&A with one of my favourite directors, Danny Boyle, was my absolute highlight of the year.  Not only did I get to see one of the best films of the year, I also got to ask Mr Boyle a question.  My career in film journalism failed to take off immediately as I'd hoped but my burning desire to tell everybody about this incredible moment was what got me starting this here blog.  Thanks again to Lovefilm for organising this event and for giving me the opportunity to speak to one of my heroes.  See the video of my nervous question-asking here.  That's me asking the first question.


Here are some frankly pretty poor photos of Mr Boyle I took with my crappy camera.  

 

My other highlight was an advance screening of Attack the Block followed by a Q&A with director Joe Cornish and stars John Boyega, Jodie Whitaker and Luke Treadaway.  Here's another pretty poor photo featuring from left to right: John Boyega (Moses the badass), Luke Treadaway (the posh one), Jodie Whitaker (the nurse in distress) and Joe Cornish (debut director extroardinaire).

Another excellent screening organised by Lovefilm that I was lucky enough to get myself tickets to, the film is another of my favourites of the year and it was great to ask the cast what Joe Cornish was like as a director.  Sadly there is no video evidence of this.  However what was cool was that more of the cast were in the audience and so was a certain Mr Edgar frigging Wright, producer of the film and director of Shaun of the Dead!!!  Here is possibly the worst quality photo of Joe Cornish ever taken. 





After the film and Q&A, I managed to get a few sneaky photos of the cast outside the cinema.  I was convinced this film would be easily as big as Shaun of the Dead and really enjoyed seeing the young cast members hanging around outside like ordinary mates before they get super famous.  John Boyega seems to be on the way to doing bigger things with Spike Lee's new TV series Da Brick already in the can.  As for Franz Drameh and Alex Esmail (also pictured here), the future looks less bright for now.  But here's hoping at least Esmail who played Pest, the comical runt of the gang, can get more work.

And here is the mighty Edgar Wright, who I managed to sneak a quick handshake with before he disappeared.










So those were my two main highlights of the year.  As I have posted about before here, this is the year that I tried really hard to get to as many preview screenings and Q&A's as possible.  Lovefilm, Total Film and ShowFilmFirst have been brilliant, but also Paramount Pictures put on a couple (Footloose and Tomorrow When the War Began) too.  Like an astronomer, I got to see the stars up close including Anna Faris, Jessica Brown-Findlay and Rachel Hurd Wood and I also got to review some films before they actually came out such as Bridesmaids, Stake Land, What's Your Number?, Real Steel and Life in a Day. 

I also got to go to a test screening of the directorial debut of Ben Drew (aka Plan B) which was a really interesting experience, particularly as I teach about these to media students and have recently written an article for Media Magazine about them. 

I only got up to the London Film Festival once but I got to hear a talk from Kevin MacDonald (director of Life in a Day), Asif Kapadia (director of Senna) and Carol Morley (director of Dreams of a Life) on the boundaries between fact and fiction.  I also met Jonothan Rhodes in the audience; star, producer and co-writer of the great short film Big Society. 

Another very personal highlight is that this year I started my PhD.  My supervisor introduced me to the director of supremely sick but hugely influential masterpiece/abomination Cannibal Holocaust, Ruggero Deaodato, before a special screening of the film in London.  Here's a sneaky picture I took.  The girl in the background is his grand daughter who I can thankfully add did not stay for the screening.






Finally, every time I get a comment or I see that the pageviews on my blog posts have gone up has been a highlight for me.  I love writing about films and I love doing this blog.  I'm sure many people would think I'm far too old to be starting a blog but it is giving me great joy and I have no intention of stopping anytime soon.  So this a massive, huge, incredibly soppy thank you to anyone reading this, and to everyone who has read, commented on or left a link to one of my posts this year.  Special mention must go to Scott at Front Room Cinema who seems to comment on everything I write and every other blog I read and to CS at Big Thoughts from a Small Mind who has posted many a link to my blog. These guys have fantastic blogs and their encouragement makes me feel stronger when I worry that my words will not be read.

And if anyone has any advice about how to get in to more preview screenings, I will be eternally grateful.  Happy New Year everybody and here's to all the film bloggers and makers out there, may you live long and prosper!

Best of British

After seeing ‘Attack the Block’ this week at a preview screening attended by Joe Cornish, some of the cast and Edgar Wright, I feel obliged to gush about how awesome British film of the last decade has been. Ok so I’m really talking about British film as in the fairly low-budget but generally commercial movies that might as well be American because of their obviously American influences and dedication to popular American genres.

The films I’m choosing to pick out will probably not be much of a surprise. Loved by critics and audiences and popular on both sides of the Atlantic, I’m not trying to dazzle you with rarely seen undiscovered gems.

So what’s got me all excited about British film (apart from the hilarious ‘Attack the Block’). Well obviously ‘Shaun of the Dead’ (2004), a film which is continually mentioned in the reviews and publicity for ATB. But going back a little further; 28 Days Later (2002), Dead Man’s Shoes (2004) and This is England (2006).

Shaun, directed by Edgar Wright and starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost took the zombie genre and affectionately parodied it. Written by Pegg and Wright as a tribute to Romero’s Dead trilogy and beating the disappointing ‘Land of the Dead’ into cinemas by a year, audiences loved it’s mix of zombie horror conventions and slacker romantic comedy character dynamics. It was released just after Zack Snyder’s running zombie remake of Dawn of the Dead (a film which owed as much to 28 Days Later as it did to Romero’s original Dawn!). Shaun took British settings (including a devotion to the great British pub), characters and actors and mixed them with the shuffling subtext-laden zombies of Romero’s Night, Dawn and Day trilogy.

Very funny, sweet and surprisingly gory, the film had something for most people. The use of Rom-Zom-Com in the marketing clearly helped the film to pull in men, women, horror and comedy fans. Not only did Romero love it, America and the world loved it leading to a $30 million gross off a £4 million budget. Edgar Wright became a hot director taking his kinetic style from ‘Spaced’ up a gear and sending him onto ‘Hot Fuzz’ and ‘Scott Pilgrim Vs the World’. Pegg became an international star delivering on his comedic potential so clearly visible in ‘Big Train’ and ‘Spaced’. And the breakout was blatantly Nick Frost who was gifted with the character of Ed, the loveable stoner/dealer sidekick.

Frost, incidentally plays another stoner/dealer in ATB and gets a lot of laughs with a relatively small role. It’s great to see this little unit working together again and again and supporting each other. Pegg and Frost have written and starred together in the recent ‘Paul’ while Wright went off to direct Scott Pilgrim. Frost pops up in ATB which is exec-produced by Wright. Cornish had a cameo in Hot Fuzz, wrote some material for ‘Big Train’ and has been co-writing the screenplay for ‘Tintin’ (for Spielberg no less!) with Wright.

Then there’s Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later which as far as I’m aware gave the world the gift of running zombies. As a Romero fan I feel bad for saying this but zombies that run are f**king cool! And 28 Days Later not only made them run, but it also called them ‘The Infected’ and introduced the Rage virus making the monsters absolutely terrifying in their ferocity… all red eyes, vomiting blood and animalistic snarls. Boyle was one of my favourite directors anyway with the classic ‘Trainspotting’ already proving what an amazingly gifted director he is. But after ‘A Life Less Ordinary’ and ‘The Beach’, I was concerned that Boyle had sold out big time and was destined to make films that would never reach the quality of Trainspotting. Boyle talks about his discomfort with mega-budget filmmaking briefly in this video http://www.lovefilm.com/interviews/127-Hours-Danny-Boyle-Q-A (skip to 2.09)

Like Shaun of the Dead it took recognizably British settings, particularly the famous opening scenes of a deserted London, British characters and actors and mixed them with zombie horror conventions. The idea of other people being more dangerous than the zombies continued from the Romero films as well as the distrust of the military and authority in general. Again, audiences in Britain and America loved it with an $82 million gross from an $8 million budget. An inferior but still incredibly fun sequel followed and I hear rumours that Boyle might return to direct a third one day.

Then there’s the wonderful Shane Meadows. After super low budget social realist gems Twenty Four Seven and A Room for Romeo Brass, Meadows misfired in my opinion with Once Upon a Time in the Midlands. But then he made a very British, very unconventional take on the slasher film, Dean Man’s Shoes. Gritty and realistic, with outstanding performances from Paddy Considine (see also Le Donk and Scor-zay-zee for more Meadows/Considine magic) and Toby Kebbell, this is a horror with a heart. The vengeful returning soldier brother and his use of a gas mask when stalking prey feel like a mix of Western and slasher conventions, but the villains of the film are the most ordinary looking, recognizably British pathetic drug dealing criminals you will ever see in a film. As a result this one failed to set the box office on fire. Too real, too British and not as slavishly dedicated to following genre conventions, it is still a brilliant and emotional film.

Meadows soon went on to write and direct This is England, another film in the tradition of American History X and Romper Stomper that takes an extremely charismatic racist bastard and plonks him centre stage to give an up and coming actor the chance to show their skills. America gets Edward Norton, Australia gets Russell Crowe, and now Britain’s own Stephen Graham gives a brilliant, raw performance as nutjob Combo. This film is not a devoted genre film like others mentioned in this article but I had to mention it as it is one of the most unforgettable and powerful British films of the last decade.

So anyway back to Attack the Block. Taking science-fiction conventions (aliens invade earth) and splicing them with inner-city kids in a distinctly British tower block, the film is fast, funny and exciting. Filled with uniquely British slang, an exceptional young cast and brilliantly directed by first-time feature director Joe Cornish on a low budget, I highly recommend if you haven’t seen all the posters or the trailer for this yet, you seek them out and then go watch it. This is destined to be a huge hit and I hope that American audiences will be able to decipher the slang and make this an even bigger smash than Shaun.

I know there are countless other smaller British films that I should be supporting but the industry will only keep growing if Britain keeps producing films that can sell overseas. With the (soon to disappear) UK Film Council being prominent in the opening credits of ATB, it feels like an important time to big up British film. We can produce films that the whole world wants to see and for my money, the films listed here are some of the absolutely greatest films produced in the last decade.

Let’s just hope all the filmmakers don’t permanently move to Hollywood and forget the British settings, characters and actors that helped to make their name.

Any other low-budget but commercial British gems I should have mentioned?