12 Angry Men

1957 - Dir.: Sidney Lumet - 1 hour 36 minutes

Shown at The FeckenOdeon on 26th October, 2013

 
 In form, "12 Angry Men" is a courtroom drama. In purpose, it's a crash course in those passages of the United States Constitution that promise defendants a fair trial and the presumption of innocence. It has a kind of stark simplicity: Apart from a brief setup and a briefer epilogue, the entire film takes place within a small New York City jury room, on "the hottest day of the year," as 12 men debate the fate of a young defendant charged with murdering his father. This is a film where tension comes from personality conflict, dialogue and body language, not action. It is a masterpiece of stylised realism.

The story is based on a television play by Reginald Rose. Rose and Henry Fonda acted as co-producers and put up their own money to finance the film. It was Sidney Lumet's first feature, although he was experienced in TV drama, and the cinematography was by the veteran Boris Kaufman, whose credits ("On the Waterfront," "Long Day's Journey into Night") show a skill for tightening the tension in dialogue exchanges. To make the room seem smaller as the story continued, he gradually changed to lenses of longer focal lengths, so that the backgrounds seemed to close in on the characters. "In addition," Lumet writes, "I shot the first third of the movie above eye level, shot the second third at eye level and the last third from below eye level. In that way, toward the end the ceiling began to appear. Not only were the walls closing in, the ceiling was as well. The sense of increasing claustrophobia did a lot to raise the tension of the last part of the movie." In the film's last shot, he observes, he used a wide-angle lens "to let us finally breathe."

This film is commonly used in business schools to illustrate team dynamics and conflict resolution techniques.
Nominated for 3 Oscars, the film lost out in all its categories to The Bridge on the River Kwai.
The "unusual-looking knife" is an Italian stiletto switchblade with a Filipino-style Kriss blade.

Wadjda

2013 - Dir: Haifaa el Mansour
 Shown in FeckenOdeon 2 on 18th October, 2013

As the first woman to shoot a Saudi Arabian feature film, writer-director Haifaa Al Mansour has already assured herself of a small place in history. And yet Wadjda stands on its own merits. The road is dusty, bumpy and fraught with danger but up ahead lies a bittersweet party and the scent of a happy ending. Wadjda knows it is there and she bears down on the pedals. In Saudi girls don’t ride bikes and they certainly don’t ride them with their male friends... in fact Saudi girls aren’t allowed to do much at all. This tale could so easily have delivered its message in a worthy, plodding way. Instead it’s light, funny and very human - and opens up a window on a world we westerners know little about.
While the film has no direct moral message, it becomes a clear illustration of how many of the rules Wadjda faces are not about being a moral person, but about control—control of women by men. The main drama in the film revolves around the absurdity of laws that control the independent movement of women: Wadjda has to watch with envy as her male friends bike around the neighbourhood streets for fun, while her mother has to rely on an unreliable driver just to get to work. As she learns the Koran by heart, Wadjda also begins to figure out which nonsensical rules she should subvert and which ancient lessons she should aim to follow.
It took Mansour five years to pull together the funds to film Wadjda - the money eventually came from a German company.  Her crew had always to be on the lookout for religious police during the six-month shoot and she was often obliged to hide in the back of a van to avoid detection. She was driven to make the film that she says is based on a niece, whom she described to the New York Times: "She's very feisty, she has a great sense of humour, but my brother is more conservative, and he wanted her to conform," she said. "To me, that's a great loss. It reminds me of a lot of girls in my home town who had great potential. They could change the world if they were given the chance."
While Haifaa al-Mansour's gruelling effort to make the film is certainly impressive, Wadjda doesn't rest on the accomplishment of being an international first - the film is excellent by any standard. It would be a great film even if it were the fourth film shot in Saudi Arabia or the hundredth.

Les Misérables

2012 - Dir.: Tom Hooper - 2 hr 40 mins

Shown at The FeckenOdeon on 28th September, 2013

Oh, how musicals divide us! Some of us love them, some of us hate them... and some of us don’t quite know what to make of them - especially when they’re as quirkily made as this one. This is a film based on a stage show based on a play based on a book. All the previous incarnations were incredibly successful. The novel, written by Victor Hugo in 1862, was a best seller in many lands and in many languages. Hugo’s text is regarded as a great humanitarian work that encourages compassion and hope in the face of adversity and injustice. The musical version originally appeared in 1985 as a collaboration between the Royal Shakespeare Company and impresario Cameron Mackintosh - it continues in the West End, on tour and on stage throughout the world. When the movie was proposed it was widely expected that it would be a glossily made and star studded extravaganza - a faithful, OTT, big screen version of the stage show.... but then Tom Hooper got involved. Mr Hooper, an experienced TV director, came fresh from his first big screen success in the form of “The King’s Speech” and Mr Hooper had his own ideas. To start with he didn’t cast singers in the leads. Instead he chose singing actors (as well as some who hadn’t done singing at all). His second decision was to make his actors sing throughout - making it more of an opera than a musical. The success or otherwise of this approach has been the subject of much debate - you will doubtless make up your own minds as you watch tonight’s show. What can be said without pre-judging is that there has been nothing like this attempted ever before and that Mr Hooper is a brave man to tackle a “national treasure” in this very bold and imaginative way.

 

Skyfall

2012 - Dir.: Sam Mendes

Shown at The FeckenOdeon on 31st August, 2013

This is James Bond’s 23rd film appearance in 50 years... which, assuming that he’s in his 30s in the first film, makes him at least 70 years old and, considering his lifestyle, he’s looking remarkably trim. In fact this film is widely considered to be one of the best Bonds ever. This is a full-blooded, joyous, intelligent celebration of a beloved cultural icon, with Daniel Craig taking full possession of the role still inevitably identified with Sean Connery. Lots of things have changed in 50 years - Q and Miss Moneypenny are practically kids. M has not only changed sex but is preparing to retire - and "Skyfall" at last provides a role worthy of Judi Dench. At 77 she is all but the co-star of the film, with a lot of screen time, poignant dialogue, and a character who is far more complex and sympathetic than we expect in this series. The film is guided by a considerable director (Sam Mendes) who delivers not only a terrific Bond but a terrific movie, period. Mendes, better known a a theatre director, abandons any arty pretence and gives us a well shot, well told story - here is James Bond lifted up, dusted off, set back on his feet and ready for another 50 years.
● Daniel Craig was 43 when Skyfall was made and has said that he fears that he’s getting a bit old for the physical demands of playing Bond. Sean Connery gave up the role at the age of 53 and is now 82 - the same age as Honor Blackman.
● The film's opening sequence shot in Adana and Istanbul in Turkey took around two months to film, three months of rehearsals, four months of preparation, 200 crew members from England and another 200 local crew in order to produce around 12-14 minutes of screen time. For the motorbike chase Coca-Cola was sprayed on the tarmac of the streets in Istanbul to keep the bikes from sliding.
● The Paddock Tank (aka the Exterior Tank) at Pinewood Studios doubled as the exterior of the Shanghai Golden Dragon Casino. The set was lit by three-hundred floating lanterns and two thirty-foot high dragon heads.
● Work on the film was halted for several months because MGM went bankrupt. A financial deal and a tie up with Columbia/Sony rescued the project, time was made up and Skyfall was released as planned - in time to celebrate Bond’s 50th anniversary.
● The Aston Martin DB5 car is the same one used in Goldfinger.

Goldfinger

1964 - Dir: Guy Hamilton

Shown at The FeckenOdeon on 31st August, 2013

James Bond is the most durable of the twentieth century's movie heroes, and the one most likely to last well into the twenty second century - although Sherlock Holmes of course is also immortal, and Tarzan is probably good for a retread. One reason for Bond's longevity among series heroes is quality control - Bond is consistently Bond: He remains recognizably the same man he was in 1962, when "Dr. No" first brought Ian Fleming's spy to the screen. Even the crypto-Bonds, like the oddball David Niven hero of the maverick "Casino Royale" (1967), or the spoof Bonds, like Our Man Flint and Matt Helm, follow the general outlines of the Fleming legend. He is an archetype so persuasive that to change him would be sacrilegious. Of all the earlier Bonds, "Goldfinger" is undoubtedly the best - if it is not a great film, it is a great entertainment, and contains all the elements of the Bond formula that would work again and again. It's also interesting as the link between the more modest first two Bonds and the later big-budget extravaganzas; after this one, producers Albert "Cubby" Broccoli and Harry Saltzman could be certain that 007 was good for the long run.
Bond’s creator, Ian Fleming, visited Pinewood during shooting but died before the movie's release. No doubt he would have approved of producer Albert R. Broccoli's perfection of the 007 myth. Goldfinger is more than just a spy thriller; it establishes the Bond film as a genre all of its own. Forty-nine years after its original release it's obviously dated: Bond's gripe about needing earmuffs to listen to The Beatles seems quaint and the rear-projected European locations are jarring (the studio still hadn’t budgeted for expensive overseas locations - and you have to bear in mind that until 1969 we Brits were not allowed to spend more than £50 per trip outside the country). Yet what's incredible is how authoritative Connery still seems. At the top of his game, he was never so comfortable in the role, a perfect synthesis of cynicism and sophistication.  Moore, Lazenby, Dalton and Brosnan never came close to that - though Daniel Craig has a good crack at it in  “Skyfall”. (As a Goldfinger ticket holder you can buy a ticket for tonight’s showing of Skyfall for just £3!)
● In the Ian Fleming novel, Pussy Galore is a lesbian, which is why she gives Bond the cold shoulder to start with. Her team are known as the Cement Mixers. Honor Blackman was 37 when the film was made - making her the oldest Bond “girl” in the series. She’s now 82 and still working.
● The producers wanted Orson Welles to play Auric Goldfinger, but Welles was too expensive. Then Gert Fröbe began arguing over his salary (he wanted 10% from the movie's earnings) prompting the producers to wonder whether Welles would have been cheaper after all.... especially as Fröbe’s English turned out to be so poor that he had to be dubbed by an English actor.
● Author Ian Fleming partially based the title character on the controversial Modernist architect Erno Goldfinger. The architect threatened to sue Fleming's publisher who contacted the author to inquire whether he might consider renaming the character, and the novel. Fleming replied that he'd be delighted to comply... if he could change it to "Goldprick."

The Commitments

1991 - Dir: Alan Parker
Shown in FeckenOdeon 2 on 2nd August, 2013

The Commitments was Alan Parker's third film about pop music. His first, “Fame”, was a frothy coming-of-age-musical that made the most of its youthful enthusiasm despite a lacklustre script. The second, “Pink Floyd: The Wall”, was a depressive, insular, and angular pastiche of moody myth-making that was interesting mainly for people who fried their brains listening to "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" a hundred times too often. The Commitments sits somewhere in the middle: An engaging, open-hearted entertainment that pulls off two neat tricks. First, it's one of the few movies about rock-pop-soul music that seems to have the right idea about why and how bands come together, with some fine performances from rank amateurs. But more impressively, it finds some great humour in a setting that's defined by grinding poverty. That setting is North Dublin, where Jimmy Rabbite (Robert Arkins) is trying to simultaneously shrug off his parents' bad taste and the dole-driven life that surrounds him. The film is based on the first of Roddy Doyle's so-called "Barrytown Trilogy" about the lives of the Rabbitt family. The remaining two books, The Snapper and The Van were also made into films starring Colm Meaney as Jimmy Rabbitt, Sr.
The really weird thing about watching “The Commitments” now is that it is suddenly a period film. Not so much dated but capturing an era just before it disappeared. Real time-capsule stuff. Relics like video stores abound. And if you don’t get a wave of nostalgia when the price of a bag of chips gets mentioned, you probably weren’t alive in 1991.
As for the music, it propels the film completely in places powered by Andrew Strong’s blistering vocals - Andrew, son of Irish soul singer Rob Strong, was 16 when the film was made and got the part when he tagged along with his dad to an audition. This is his only film appearance but he continues to record and perform. In casting the band at the centre of what was his fourth musical, director Alan Parker auditioned over 3,000 musicians, picking the top 12. It's the old manufactured pop band trick, but Parker also manufactured his cast - 10 of the main players had no previous acting experience. Full performances of soul standards start to dominate as the film goes on culminating with three songs in their entirety towards the end. It’s an amazing latitude given to the material by Parker that is almost unthinkable today.

Lincoln

2012 - Dir: Steven Spielberg

Shown in FeckenOdeon 2 on 5th July, 2013

A HISTORY LESSON : Lincoln is an American film about an American hero. In case your knowledge of American history is as vague as mine, here is a basic primer:
Abraham Lincoln, a self-taught Illinois lawyer and legislator with a reputation as an eloquent opponent of slavery, shocked many when he overcame several more prominent contenders to win the Republican Party's nomination for president in 1860. His election that November pushed several Southern states to secede by the time of his inauguration in March 1861, and the Civil War began barely a month later. Contrary to expectations, Lincoln proved to be a shrewd military strategist and a savvy leader during what became the costliest conflict ever fought on American soil. His Emancipation Proclamation, issued in 1863, freed all slaves in the rebellious states and paved the way for slavery's eventual abolition, while his Gettysburg Address later that year stands as one of the most famous and influential pieces of oratory in American history. In April 1865, with the Union on the brink of victory, Abraham Lincoln was shot and killed by the Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth; his untimely death made him a martyr to the cause of liberty and Union. Over the years Lincoln's mythic stature has only grown, and he is widely regarded as one of the greatest presidents in the nation's history.
LINCOLN ON THE BIG SCREEN
Abraham Lincoln has made more film appearances than Mickey Mouse...
● The first known motion picture based on Mr. Lincoln was 1908 film The Reprieve: An Episode in the Life of Abraham Lincoln. Directed by Van Dyke Brooke, the film shows Lincoln pardoning a sentry who fell asleep on duty.
● In 1914 D.W.Griffith’s epic “Birth of a Nation” depicted Lincoln’s assassination and the same director made a biopic in 1930 entitled “Abraham Lincoln”.
● In 1939 Henry Fonda played him in “Young Mr Lincoln” - a fanciful piece which had the young Abraham solving a murder that took place 20 years after his death.
● In 1940 Raymond Massey played him in “Abe Lincoln in Illinois” where the love life of the young Abe was brought to dramatic and colourful life.
● In the 1950s he made the transition to the small screen in episodes of The Readers Digest Teleplays and General Electric Theater.
● In the 1960s he appeared in “The Way the West Was Won” and featured in animatronic form in Walt Disney’s “Great Moments with Mr Lincoln” at the Worlds Fair - and he also time travelled into an episode of “Star-Trek”.
● In the 1970s he appeared in “The Muppet Show” and a Flashman film before going even further down market in the 1980s when he starred in “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure”. A biopic by Gore Vidal which paired him with Mary Tyler-Moore did little to salvage his reputation.
● It’s probably best to draw a veil over the next two decades -  suffice it to say that Abe appeared in Red Dwarf, Animaniacs, Histeria, Coneheads, Celebrity Deathmatch, Evil Con Carne, The Simpsons... and many, many more.
● He began the present decade in “Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter” and one might have thought that his reputation may have been salvaged by tonight’s respectful and dignified film... but, never one to turn a job down, he’s accepted the title role in the forthcoming “Abraham Lincoln vs The Zombies from the Asylum”.

English Vinglish

2012 - Dir: Gauri Shinde

Shown in FeckenOdeon 2 on 17th May, 2013

“Here is a likable family comedy from India with its own air of innocence, and a boisterous cameo from Amitabh Bachchan. Former ad director Gauri Shinde makes her feature debut, and the star is Bollywood veteran Sridevi. It's very amiable, feelgood entertainment that goes down as well as the heroine's tasty ladoos.”
Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
For a Bollywood comedy to receive a review, let alone a flattering one, in a British mainstream newspaper would have been unheard of a few years back - but here we are looking forward to a technically accomplished, cleverly scripted and highly enjoyable movie that has earned a box office return far in excess of anything the big American distributors can attain.
It’s a strangely topical tale when issues of immigration are high on the political agenda in the UK and when women are redefining their roles in Indian society. How do you cope when you find yourself in a foreign land unable to understand or speak the language? How do you cope with the unfamiliar social pressures from a freer society? The film tackles the issues with a light touch but the messages are there and may hit home harder for being delivered with a smile.
The star of this film, Sridevi, is remarkable for the fact that she hasn’t acted for 15 years. Her career was at it’s peak when she decided that her young family came first and took a career break. Her return to the screen was a big selling point and it’s fair to say that she didn’t disappoint her fans.

Lawrence of Arabia

1962 - Dir: David Lean - 3 hrs 40 minutes

Shown at The FeckenOdeon on 27th April, 2013

What a bold, mad act of genius it was to make "Lawrence of Arabia," or even think that it could be made. In the words 27 years later of one of its stars, Omar Sharif: "If you are the man with the money and somebody comes to you and says he wants to make a film that's four hours long, with no stars, and no women, and no love story, and not much action either, and he wants to spend a huge amount of money to go film it in the desert, what would you say?" The impulse to make this movie was based, above all, on imagination. The story of "Lawrence" is not founded on violent battle scenes or cheap melodrama, but on David Lean's ability to imagine what it would look like to see a speck appear on the horizon of the desert and slowly grow into a human being. He had to know how that would feel, before he could convince himself that the project had a chance of being successful.
T.E. Lawrence must be the strangest hero to ever stand at the centre of an epic. To play him, Lean cast one of the strangest actors in recent movie history, Peter O'Toole, a lanky, almost clumsy man with a sculptured face and a speaking manner that hesitates between amusement and insolence. O'Toole's assignment was a delicate one. Although it was widely believed that Lawrence was a homosexual, a multimillion-dollar epic filmed in 1962 could not possibly be frank about that. And yet Lean and his writer, Robert Bolt, didn't simply cave in and rewrite Lawrence into a routine action hero. Using O'Toole's peculiar speech and manner as their instrument, they created a character who combined charisma and craziness, who was so different from conventional military heroes that he could inspire the Arabs to follow him in that mad march across the desert.
Although it won the Academy Award as the year's best picture in 1962, "Lawrence of Arabia" would have soon been a lost memory if it had not been for two film restorers named Robert A. Harris and Jim Painten. They discovered the original negative in Columbia's vaults inside crushed and rusting film cans, and they also discovered about 35 minutes of footage that had been trimmed by distributors from Lean's final cut. To see it in a cinema, as we’re doing tonight, is to appreciate the subtlety of Freddie Young's desert cinematography - achieved despite blinding heat and the blowing sand, which worked its way into every camera. "Lawrence of Arabia" was one of the last films to be photographed in 70mm (as opposed to being blown up to 70 from a 35mm negative). We can now, thanks to further restoration work achieved through digital means, see it in 2013 exactly as David Lean meant us to see it in 1962.
● David Lean hoped to film in the real Aqaba and the archaeological site at Petra. Much to his regret, however, the production had to be moved to Spain because of cost overruns and outbreaks of illness among the cast and crew before these scenes could be shot.
● When production was moved to Spain filming did not resume for three months because writer Robert Bolt had been jailed for participating in a nuclear disarmament demonstration. He was released only after Sam Spiegel persuaded him to sign an agreement of good behaviour.
● Peter O'Toole is considerably taller and better looking than the real T.E. Lawrence (6'3" to Lawrence's real life height of 5'6"). Noel Coward is rumoured to have said, on seeing the premiere, "If he'd been any prettier, they'd have had to call it Florence of Arabia."

In Love with Alma Cogan

2011 - Dir.: Tony Britten

Shown in FeckenOdeon 2 on 19th April, 2013

 

The British film industry is good at things like this. Understated, gentle, well written, well acted and highly enjoyable. Unfortunately the people who control our major cinema chains and TV stations don’t agree. "In Love with Alma Cogan" had an excellent script and cast, got backing from the UK film Council and was shot and edited on time. The finished film was shown to universal acclaim at several independent film festivals and gained a major award at the Canadian International Film Festival and then..... nothing. The major distributors, cinema owners and TV programmers wouldn’t touch it. It wasn’t that they thought it was a bad film. It just didn’t fit into any of their categories. Despite the breakthrough of "oldie" films like "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" the big chains still take a great deal of persuading to show anything not aimed at the youth market. It’s possible that the fact that this film doesn’t contain posh theatrical Dames may have counted against it.... Matters are made worse by the fact that most commercial cinemas are in hock to American studios who loaned them money to convert to digital - whilst tying them into deals obliging them to show almost exclusively American films.

The producers did what Tony Hawkes ("Round Ireland with a Fridge") did and what many British film makers are increasingly having to do. They e-mailed small independent cinemas and film societies and asked them to give the film a showing. To date it has been seen in over 60 village halls, arts centres and small cinemas the length and breadth of the land. It’s not quite the same as a blanket circuit release but at least the people who worked hard to make this film have the satisfaction of knowing that it’s being enjoyed by an appreciative public.

The writer and director Tony Britton explains why he made this film:

Some time back, my son Oliver had come back to the UK for a winter visit and sitting on the Pier one windy November, eating fish and chips, insisted that I make a film about the Pier and Pavilion Theatre. A certified Los Angeles film nut, he was convinced that Americans would love this quaint setting and all I had to do was come up with a quintessentially British storyline. I had intended writing something for Norfolk resident Roger Lloyd Pack and the tale of Norman, the world weary boss of the Pavilion Theatre began to take shape. The title and main narrative literally came to me in the bath, just before going to see Roger perform Elliot's "The Wasteland" at the delightful Sheringham Little Theatre.

The Pier Theatre is real. The first recorded show on the pier was in 1905 and it continues to provide summer entertainment in the form of its famous "Seaside Special" show. Far from being on its last legs, it’s a great success and in 2005 the auditorium was extended to increase the capacity to 510.

Planes, Trains & Automobiles

1987 - Dir: John Hughes - 1 hours 28 minutes
Shown at The FeckenOdeon on 23rd March, 2013

This is one of those films that has inexplicably stuck in the international sub conscience. It was never a blockbuster. It didn’t attract the sort of critical acclaim that would make it an art house favourite. It’s never been as much of a cult movie as, say, The Blues Brothers... Yet everyone knows it, everyone has a favourite moment, a favourite quote ("You’re going the wrong way" or "Those aren’t pillows" for example) which instantly triggers an empathetic smile. Apart from the excellent writing and the fine acting, it’s probably the thought that this could happen to any of us that gives it that extra lift. Anybody who has ever endeavoured to fly or travel by bus or otherwise transport him-or-herself from one place to another has met Del. For the regular commuter, he is that dreaded archetype - the guy in the next seat. Your life is lived in mortal terror of him. If you're sitting quietly minding your own business waiting for your plane to take off and there's only one seat left on the aircraft and it's right next to you and a not-small person squeezes his way past the stewardesses and advances toward you grinning a big, blobby grin ... that's Del. Only your worst enemy -- or that fiendish deity who takes a perverse joy from scrambling our travel destinies -- would give Del the seat assignment next to yours on a crowded commuter flight. But that's exactly what happens to Neal.... or YOU!

SWEARING ALERT

For those of you sensitive to the use of strong language we suggest you cover your ears when you see Neal approach the car hire counter. He only uses one word. It begins with F. He uses it many, many, many times for about a minute. It’s an object lesson on how the power of a swear word diminishes the more times you use it... which might be the point the scriptwriters are making... or it might not! You can safely unstop your ears at the end of the scene - the rest of the film is F free.

Barnacle Bill

1957 - Dir: Charles Friend - 1 hr 23 minutes

Shown at The FeckenOdeon on 23rd March, 2013

By the time "Barnacle" Bill was released, Ealing Studios had already sold off its physical studio (to the BBC) and was about to shut down altogether. After so many great films in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Ealing couldn’t adapt to changing times. But it went out doing what it did best and this is a typical Ealing film. There’s a group of very British, eccentric characters in an outlandish situation and they take it all with superhuman control. It’s all been done before, and done before by Ealing, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a lot of fun. Alec Guinness puts in another top notch performance - perhaps with a bit more gusto than normal. The supporting cast is excellent (when has an Ealing film ever had a weak supporting cast?), the characters, particularly Ambrose, are engaging, and the story presents plenty of opportunity for witty banter and comfortable chuckles. It might not be the most hilarious side splitter - but it does give us a final fond look at a world before every movie had to be a blockbuster. It was titled "All at Sea" in the USA.... because the studios feared it would be associated with a lewd seafarers’ song entitled "Bollocky Bill The Sailor".