Category: Film

Original Pirate Material: DocoBanksy at the Portobello Film Festival

“What do you mean, I have to introduce the film?”

Here we are, in my front room. DocoBanksy, calmly sipping on a cup of my finest espresso. Next to him, Lady Dem, his soulmate, muse and sounding board. She looks at me sympathetically, but she knows the score as well as I. What Doco wants, Doco gets. It turns out Doco doesn’t want to introduce his own damn film at the opening night of the Portobello Film Festival. Which can only mean one thing.

Continue reading Original Pirate Material: DocoBanksy at the Portobello Film Festival

The Word is Out On Frightfest From The Gruesome Twosome

This weekend is one of the most important in the horror calendar. The August Bank Holiday is home to Frightfest, the five-day smorgasbord of shivers, the feast of fear, the cornucopia of chills that sits at the bleeding heart of London’s Leicester Square.  

Frightfest the 13th is bigger than ever, with nearly 100 films spread over five days and three screens. So the question is, how by all the nether gods do you navigate all that? What’s your gameplan, pilgrim?

Fret not, fear fan. There is a way.

Continue reading The Word is Out On Frightfest From The Gruesome Twosome

Happy Families: X&HT Saw Splice

Coincidence fascinates me. I mean, I don’t believe there’s anything in it. It’s clearly just my brain mapping meaning and pattern onto unrelated events. But it’s still fun when it happens.

As a serial procrastinator, it’s taken me the best part of six months to get engineers out to look at the stuttery HD playback on our plusbox. When I finally did so, it took less than five minutes to sort, and I was left with a more open schedule for my day than I’d planned. So, I had a bit of a browse on our newly sprightly V+ feed, and found a block of free movies, including one I’d missed on its limited UK release–Vincenzo Natali’s bio-sci-horror Splice.

The coincidence kicked in as the credits rolled and I realise that the film starred Sarah Polley, director of the most excellent Take This Waltz that I raved about earlier in the week. The two films could not be more different. Take This Waltz is a delicate, precise parody of chick flick clichés. Splice is… Well, it’s bugshit crazy, in a very good way indeed.

Continue reading Happy Families: X&HT Saw Splice

This Is Not A Love Song: X&HT Saw Take This Waltz

In a lot of ways, romantic fiction is all about making excuses for infidelity. There are no end of stories out there that feature a main character trapped in a loveless marriage, only to be swept off her feet and out of the door by a dashing hero archetype. The spineless schlub of a husband shrugs, smiles and lets her go, content to let the caged bird fly. She's a free spirit and she deserves more than he can offer because… because she's the heroine, OK?

Sarah Polley's amazing new film Take This Waltz applies an overdue stress-test to the cliches, with a simplicity and honesty that's rare in the chick-flick world.

Continue reading This Is Not A Love Song: X&HT Saw Take This Waltz