Lockdown due to COVID at the start of the year caused a great rise in the number of people doing DIY around their homes.
Coronavirus saw DIY stores such as B&Q, Homebase and Ikea be more popular than ever with hour long queues and stock shortages.
Restrictions being reintroduced will see this popularity maintained.
Have you done or are thinking of doing some DIY during Coronavirus lockdowns this year?
— Euan Quinn (@FilmByEuan) November 22, 2020
Many others in the UK have carried out improvements around their homes.https://t.co/Xm0HFkmyPw pic.twitter.com/8zKk2EnfYK
This summer, the Design Museum in London held a Stanley Kubrick exhibition. I went to it and here is my experience.
The exhibition told the story of Stanley Kubrick’s life and showed his creative process when writing, directing and editing his films.
It was split up into sections based on his different films with props, sets, artwork, scripts and more. Each section had clips from the film playing such as the hallway scene from The Shining, the battle scene from Barry Lyndon and Alex’s arrest in Clockwork Orange.
Seeing Kubrick’s attention to detail through how he planned shots, researched characters and looked for locations gave an even greater appreciation of his art.
All of this made it a very immersive experience.
Most, if not all, the material in the exhibition was on loan from the Kubrick archive held by the University of Arts London. Stanley Kubrick’s family donated this to the university as it was just lying about unorganized at his manor where he spent the last years of his life.
Unfortunately, the exhibition isn’t on in London anymore, but it is a touring exhibition and is opening in on January 18th at the Museum of Moving Image, New York.
The Glasgow Film Festival takes place every year around the end of February, the 2020 festival being Wednesday 26th of February to Sunday 8th of March. As it’s run by Glasgow Film Theatre you can expect a wide variety of films such as art, big budget classics and everything I talked about earlier(LINK TO GFT POST).
Through the festival ‘Special Events’ are held where classic movies are shown in interesting locations. Previous years have had Dazed and Confused with a roller disco before and The Man Who Fell to Earth at the science centre. This year examples of the films being shown at these events are Alien, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, The Blair Witch Project, The Matrix and Ghostbusters.
The festival is opening with Jonah Hill’s directorial debut Mid90s. The film is about a young teen Stevie (Sunny Suljic) who doesn’t get along with his mum and brother that his lives with so befriends the people who work and the local skate shop. This coming of age story feels like the West Coast version of Larry Clark and Harmony Korine’s 1995 film, Kids.
The soundtrack and setting captures the time period perfectly, and with it being most of the actors first big roles it gives a real feel for the characters.
This was one of my favourite, if not favourite films of 2019, so is a worthy choice to be the opener of the 2020 festival. So I would say it is definitely one of the not miss events of the festival.
Tickets go on sale at 10am on Monday 28th of January. glasgowfilm.org/festival
A main focus of director, Richard Linklater is how time passes. His first films that focused on this are The Before Trilogy.
Before Sunrise released in 1995 tells the story of Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy), who meet on a train to Vienna and wander the streets until Jesse’s flight the next morning.
Then in 2004, the sequel Before Sunset came out. This is set 9 years later where Jesse and Celine meet up after being apart this whole time. Again, they just walk about talking about life but this time in Paris.
Finally, after 9 years in 2013 the final film in the trilogy is released, Before Midnight. They are now together as a couple, with children, and this film focus’ on them reflecting on their lives.
The titles of films obviously are each part of a day, this represents how short life is when you really think about it.
Each film is set in a single day and gives a look into their lives at that certain point. It starts in the first film, as they are young with no real responsibilities in life. Then in the second film Jesse is an established author and both of them are in separate relationships. And to conclude the trilogy Jesse and Celine are together and as mentioned before, with children.
These films are a study of time and just shows how life can change and develop. Even though all the films are really just the characters talking, it pulls you in and gets you invested into where the character will be after 9 years each time.
The Before Trilogy set Linklater up for Boyhood, which was a single film shot over 12 years and takes elements from the trilogy and expands on them.
Adam Wingard’s 2014 film The Guest is an underrated modern thriller with horror aspects. The film is about a solider, David (Dan Stevens), who visits the family of one of his friends who died during the Afghanistan war, well this is what he says.
With his arrival, deaths start to happen around the town and the family’s daughter Anna (Maika Monroe) starts to question who he really is.
On release the film was met with mixed reviews but has already gathered a cult following.
The film mixes horror and humour, and stylistically is reminiscent of films from the 80s. Wingard got the idea for the film when he watched a double feature of Halloween and Terminator, and it is easy to see how these films influenced ‘The Guest’.
It feels like it was also influenced by Drive due to the 80s inspired synth music, neon-soaked shots and Dan Stevens’ character being mysterious just like Ryan Gosling in Drive.
David is a physical representation of the slasher trope, he seems indestructible like the main characters in classic slasher films such as Michael Myers, Jason, Freddy Krueger etc. The closing shot of David still alive after being attacked and being in the fire again is a nod to this trope of early horror films.
The synth heavy music throughout the film helps create the mood and as a whole the is very good.
This film deserves a lot more attention than it gets, for taking these influences and creating something new.
Martin Scorsese’s most recent film The Irishman has received its Netflix release and here are my thoughts.
The film follows the story of Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) who is an enforcer for the Pennsylvanian crime family and his relationship with union boss Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino).
The film is narrated by De Niro’s character and jumps through his life during the second half of the 20th century in the 3-and-a-half-hour runtime. However due to the editing, design and setting you never feel disoriented and always know what time period the part of the film is in.
It was great to see Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Harvey Keitel back together in a Scorsese directed mob movie. Their performances were outstanding and held up compared to the previous films such as Goodfellas and Casino
Even having the long run time, no parts felt dragged out and I wasn’t bored at all. The film pulls you in and without expecting it the 3 and a half hours have passed.
I talked about the de-aging technology in my previous post and I am happy to say it is done well in the vast majority of scenes. CGI was used on De Niro’s eyes making them blue and even though this sounds miniscule, it’s very distracting at some points. Another part that the CGI takes away from the film is when De Niro’s character is seen to rough up a shop owner but from the way he moves it looks off as he is really 76 years old.
As a whole the de-aging is done very well.
I would rate The Irishman a solid 4/5 and it has been met with praise from most, with a lot of talk about Oscar nominations.
The Irishman is now streaming on Netflix.
In 1939 the first art-house cinema to be built outside of London, The Cosmo, was opened on Rose Street Glasgow. This was then bought by the Scottish Film Council and the Glasgow Film Theatre was opened in 1974.
The cinema has three screens where they do screenings, lectures, workshops, Q&As and hold the Glasgow Film Festival. With screen one being able to show 16mm to 70mm film, the options of films are endless. This is the only remaining cinema in the west of Scotland with the ability to show 70mm film.
GFT shows big budget, new release cinema but what makes it better than the other options in Glasgow is their programme of classic film and art house releases. They have themes/seasons where they will show a range of films that all have something in common. Right now, some of the seasons running are Cult Classics such as The Shining, Dazed and Confused and Blade Runner BFI Musicals Tour, showing Singing in The Rain, Calamity Jane, Cabaret and many more. And as the holidays approach Christmas films such as ELF, It’s a Wonderful Life and White Christmas.
With it being an art-house cinema, you would expect the tickets to be expensive, but this is not the case. Student tickets are around £8, and you can apply for a free 15-25 card that will get you in for only £5.50.
You can find what’s on at the GFT here.
Andrew “Rapman” Onwubolu’s debut film Blue Story is at the centre of controversy.
The film tells the story of a gang war of two rival neighbourhoods in south London. It focuses on two characters, Timmy (Stephen Odubola) and Marco (Michael Ward), who were best friends in school but joined rival gangs causing them to be fighting against each other.
The release comes at a time where knife crime in London is at an all time high with the majority of these attacks being in and around the areas the film is set.
This year alone 23 teenagers have been killed because of knife crime in London.
Vue Cinemas have reported 25 incidents happening in their premise’s nationwide related to the film. The main incident being a brawl in Brimingham which left seven police officers injured and five teenagers arrested.
This has led to Vue banning Blue Story from being shown in any of their cinemas.
However, Rapman told the BBC “”They were just in a cinema apparently for Frozen [2], but then they pinned it on Blue Story”. He feels there are “hidden reasons” behind the ban that Vue have failed to comment on. Rapman feels Vue are missing what the film is really about and the ban is racially motivated against urban youth in the UK.
Blue Story opened third in the UK box office and I’m sure it will still succeed even with this ban is in place.
Martin Scorsese’s mob movie The Irishman received a very limited release in theaters on November 1st with the movie dropping on Netflix at the end of the month. The film has been in the works for nearly 10 years so is greatly anticipated.
The Irishman gets Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Harvey Keitel back together, with the addition of Al Pacino for a 3 and a half hour Scorsese masterpiece.
The film is based on the 2004 book “I Heard You Paint Houses” by Charles Brandt. It tells the story of former labour union official and reported hitman Frank Sheeran’s (Robert De Niro) involvement with Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci) and the Pennsylvania crime family.
One of the most interesting parts of the production of the film is the de-aging technology used. As there are scenes where De Niro and Pesci (both in their late 70s) play their midlife selves visual effects were implemented to try to make them look younger. This has been met with mixed responses by those who have seen it, with opinion divided whether it looks good or not. I’m unsure about how I feel about this and will need to see the movie, rather than just trailers, to make up my mind.
Scorsese chose to make ‘The Irishman’ with Netflix as they gave him freedom to create the film as he saw best.
The Irishman will be available to watch tomorrow, Wednesday, November 27 for everyone with a Netflix account. It is not clear what exact time it will be released so keep checking!
Film By Euan