Picturehouse Podcast 94: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Dreams of a Life & Judy Garland!
Hope you’re all having a Merry Christmas!
Now, down to business. Sam and Simon review a few of last films to be released 2011, including David Fincher’s adaptation of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and Carol Morley’s acclaimed documentary, Dreams of a Life. The boys also make time for Judy Garland in Meet Me In St. Louis, which has recently been restored to it’s former glory and is playing in cinemas nationwide.
If you’re an iPod/iPhone/iPad kind of person, why not download the podcast using iTunes.
Picturehouse Podcast: Mission Impodsible
Happy Boxing Day readers!
Tom Cruise is back in the latest MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE (released in cinemas today) and to celebrate Picturehouse Podcast hosts Sam and Simon catch up with the previous M:I movies in order to prepare themselves for MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – GHOST PROTOCOL. It’s a condensed catch up for those planning to watch the fourth installment at the cinema.
If you’re an iPod/iPhone/iPad kind of person, why not download the podcast using iTunes
Our Top 5 Films of 2011
We’ve asked Picturehouse staff from all across the country to vote for their favourite films of 2011, in an attempt to try to pull together a definitive Picturehouse Top 5 of the year.
In the interest of fairness (and because it looks pretty cool) we’ve created a word cloud with the film choices of EVERYONE who took part in our vote represented (the bigger the film’s title the more votes it received). We had over 60 nominations in total, so our Top 5 of 2011 are merely the tip of a large and varied iceberg.
No.5 – A SEPARATION (dir. Asghar Farhadi)
“With great power and subtlety, Farhadi transforms this ugly quarrel into a contemporary tragedy.” – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
No.4 – SUBMARINE (dir. Richard Ayoade)
“Richard Ayoade reveals a distinctive cinematic talent with his debut” - Isabel Stevens, Sight & Sound
No.3 – THE ARTIST (dir. Michel Hazanavicius)
“It’s one of the most shamelessly joyous movies I’ve ever seen.” – Charlie, Lyne, Ultra Culture
No.2 – WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN (dir. Lynne Ramsay)
“Tilda Swinton is mesmerising in a vital, visceral adaptation of Lionel Shriver’s bestseller.” – Robbie Collin, The Telegraph
No.1 – DRIVE (dir. Nicolas Winding Refn)
“When it lets rip, it really does let rip” – Mark Kermode, Kermode & Mayo’s Film Review
“Drive takes the tired heist-gone-bad genre out for a spin, delivering fresh guilty-pleasure thrills in the process.” - Peter Debruge, Variety
“A brilliant piece of business that races on a B-movie track until it switches to the dizzying fuel of undiluted creativity.” - Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
“Here is still another illustration of the old Hollywood noir principle that a movie lives its life not through its hero, but within its shadows.” – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
What have we missed? Leave a commet below or get in touch via Twitter and Facebook.
Here is a selection of personal lists from members of staff here at Picturehouse towers:
Clare Binns, Director of Programming & Acquisitions
- A SEPARATION
- DRIVE
- BRIDESMAIDS
- LAS ACACIAS
- THE ARTIST
Jonothan Carpenter @ Abbeygate Picturehouse, Bury St. Edmunds
- THE TREE OF LIFE
- ARCHIPELAGO
- DRIVE
- RED STATE
- TINKER TAILER SOLDIER SPY
Micallar Walker, Events Co-Ordinator
- BRIDESMAIDS
- DRIVE
- I SAW THE DEVIL
- WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN
- BLUE VALENTINE
(Honorable mentions: ANIMAL KINGDOM, PINA, ATTACK THE BLOCK)
Deborah Alison, Cinema Programmer
- THE ARTIST
- CORMAN’S WORLD
- WE WERE HERE
- DRIVE
- BLACK SWAN
Alice Frain, Business Affairs Executive
- BLACK SWAN
- WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN
- HANNA
- TRUE GRIT
- BRIDESMAIDS
Jo Blair, Cinema Programmer
- BRIDESMAIDS
- A SEPARATION
- LAS ACACIAS
- POETRY
- DRIVE
(Honorable mentions: ANIMAL KINGDOM, THE TREE OF LIFE)
Duke of York’s Picturehouse, Brighton
- SUBMARINE
- BLACK SWAN
- ANIMAL KINGDOM
- PINA
- SENNA
(Honorable mentions: WEEKEND, CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS, 13 ASSASSINS)
You can also listen to the Duke of York’s Splendor Cinema Podcast also talk about their favourite films of 2011.
Thomas Roberts @ The Gate, Notting Hill
- MELANCHOLIA
- HUGO
- TROLL HUNTER
- RANGO
- 13 ASSASSINS
Pete Duggan @ City Screen Picturehouse, York
- MELANCHOLIA
- TAKE SHELTER
- DRIVE
- WARRIOR
- WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN
- THE ARTIST
- DRIVE
- THE SKIN I LIVE IN
- WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN
- SNOWTOWN
(Honorable mentions: PINA, SENNA, CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS)
Dom @ Picturehouse at FACT, Liverpool
- DRIVE
- SENNA
- HUGO
- TRUE GRIT
- 13 ASSASSINS
James Turvey @ Stratford-Upon-Avon Picturehouse
- ATTACK THE BLOCK
- PAUL
- THOR
- CAPTAIN AMERICA
- TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
Laura Brookes @ Stratford-Upon-Avon Picturehouse
- THE GUARD
- DRIVE
- THE IDES OF MARCH
- TYRANNOSAUR
- ATTACK THE BLOCK
Emma Lewis, Print Co-ordinator
- THE SKIN I LIVE IN
- DRIVE
- SUBMARINE
- MARGARET
- TYRANNOSAUR
Paul Ridd, Cinema Programmer & Acquisitions Assistant
- DRIVE
- MARGARET
- TOMBOY
- KABOOM
- SCREAM 4
(Honorable mentions: WEEKEND, POTICHE, TAKE ME HOME TONIGHT)
Chloe Fellerman, Cinema Programmer
- WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN
- THE ARTIST
- I SAW THE DEVIL
- DRIVE
- RANGO
(Honorable mentions: TYRANNOSAUR, ANIMAL KINGDOM)
Chris Harris, Cinema Programmer
- CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS
- DRIVE
- WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN
- DREAMS OF A LIFE
- OSLO AUGUST 31st
Maya Nakamura, Communications Manager
- SENNA
- DRIVE
- CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS
- NEVER LET ME GO
- BLUE VALENTINE
Sam Clements, Digital Marketing & Picturehouse Podcast host
- THE ARTIST
- SUBMARINE
- DRIVE
- MELANCHOLIA
- BRIDESMAIDS
Simon Renshaw, Picturehouse Podcast host
- THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN: THE SECRET OF THE UNICORN
- THE ARTIST
- SUBMARINE
- TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
- A SEPARATION
With the holiday season now in full swing, it was inevitable – perhaps one might even go so far as to say elementary – that the weekend would see a tussle between family friendly openers. Ultimately, the sleuthing skills of RobertDowney Jr’s Sherlock won out, with Guy Ritchie’s bombastic sequel SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS clocking in at first place with an impressive haul just under £4M. The figure tops the original film’s 2009 opening by almost £1M, and bodes well for the film’s fate in the coming weeks as it goes up against stiffer blockbuster competition from the likes of Tom Cruise, Spielberg’s mega horse and a lady with a certain dermatological enhancement. Less dazzling was a second place entry for rodent saga continuation ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: CHIPWRECKED. At a £2.3M opening, the sequel has seen a Reichenbach fall of over 50% on previous entry ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: THE SQUEAKWEL, which opened on £5.5M back in 2009. While the prospect of witnessing the collected chipmunks stranded on a desert island, starved and awaiting a certain and slow death may have massively appealed in theory, audiences young and old were evidently in no particular mood to actually go and see the carnage unfold on screen.
Once again, the remainder of the top ten was filled out by a host of holdovers duking it out for attention. Aardman’s CGI toon ARTHUR CHRISTMAS just kept hanging in there, with a weekend take of £1.3M adding to a running total that now stands at well over £15M. Shrek spin off PUSS IN BOOTS meanwhile took a respectable £1.3M to average £2549 from 508 sites, but this still well below industry expectations for so handsome a cat. However, the biggest loser of the weekend was multi-stranded comedy NEW YEAR’S EVE, which at an average of £1,931 from 443 sites, has well and truly flopped its way into week 2, suggesting that in the midst of a recession punters are in no mood to sit through two hours of moneyed stars and Oscar winners slumming it for a bit of romcom dollar.
The only two limited openers to make a significant impression were Carol Morely’s shock doc DREAMS OF A LIFE, and the BFI’s stunning reissue of musical MEET ME IN ST LOUIS. DREAMS has already made a significant impression with a series of sell out preview screenings and lively Q&A events prior to its 18 screen opening. But a weekend haul of £27,100 and £1,242 average is not quite the slam dunk many had expected from the film. Word of mouth has been strong however, and midweek business may pick up to see the film avoid an anonymous death to shame society. In nine sites, and with a weekend total of £13,046, was Judy Garland’s strange festive favourite MEET ME IN ST LOUIS. Averaging at £1,450, the reissue has performed extremely well, especially since weekend business will have for the most part been limited to a few one-off shows.
Across the pond the US box office was also topped by those pesky two high profile franchise entries, SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS at a gross just over $40M, and ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: CHIPWRECKED at $23.5M. But with Sherlock’s previous caper opening at $62.3M in 2009, and Alvin’s at $48.9M, these results rank as significant disappointments. More successful was a 425 site release for TomCruise’s latest outing as secret agent Ethan Hunt in MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 4. With the film only available in Imax, five days prior to a saturation release, studio Paramount have struck gimmick gold with a smashing $13M haul and a stonking $30.5K average. Topping the independent box office meanwhile was Roman Polanski’s acidic comedy of manners CARNAGE, which at a gross of $85,696 and an average of $17,139 from just five sites, bodes well for expansion in the New Year. Also opening was Alex Stapleton’s acclaimed doc CORMAN’S WORLD: EXPLOITS OF A HOLLYWOOD REBEL, which in two sites grossed $7K to average a decent $3.5K of speciality box office. However, arguably the biggest success story was an expansion for UK smash TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY, which went from four to sixteen sites to increase its profits by a smashing 46% and take $452,278 and an average of $28,267. After ten days of very limited release, the breakout film has totalled over $850K.
Christmas weekend typically sees a wholesale drought of releases big or small, save for a handful of high profile Bollywood entries. DON 2 anyone? But Boxing Day more than makes up for this with studio Goliaths MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 4 and GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO going head to head for the Christmas Blues coin.
- Paul Ridd
Re-Imagined Film Posters #3: JINGLE ALL THE WAY
To celebrate the Hackney Picturehouse’s screening of JINGLE ALL THE WAY on 16 December. We’ve got not one, but two fantastic event posters.
By Jake Snellin.
By Ginette at Picturehouse HQ.
Picturehouse Podcast 93: Margaret & Another Earth
Sam and Simon talk about Kenneth Longergan’s MARGARET, Brit Marling and William Cahill’s ANOTHER EARTH and Sam Cuthbert presents JINGLE ALL THE WAY…
If you’re an iPod/iPhone/iPad kind of person, why not download the podcast using iTunes.
P.s. Sam and Simon will present PLANES TRAINS & AUTOMOBILES at Stratford Picturehouse, London on 15 December.
A SPANISH CAT, A HOST OF HOLLYWOOD STARS, AND A ROGUE PLANET ALL FLOUNDER AT AN UNCERTAIN BRITISH BOX OFFICE
UK punters were clearly not especially in the mood for a bit of Pussy on the side this weekend as a lacklustre three days at the UK box office saw SHREK spin off vehicle PUSS IN BOOTS take the top spot, but struggle nonetheless with a comparatively disappointing haul of £1.9M and an average of £3,839 from 511 sites. Starry romcom NEW YEAR’S EVE fared even poorer, clocking in at third place, with a £1.1M total to have backers yearning for Auld Lang Syne – or more specifically the weekend of 12 Feb 2010, when previous entry VALENTINE’S DAY took a stonking £3.7M. Better days. Meanwhile, resilient hold ARTHUR CHRISTMAS kept on giving with a solid £1.4M in its fifth week, but both lavish Scorsese kids pic HUGO and penguin saga entry HAPPY FEET 2 struggled in their second weeks on just over £700K each.
The only other new entry to make the top ten, hard-edged stoner comedy A VERY HAROLD AND KUMAR CHRISTMAS 3D, scraped in at ninth place. Opening in a limited 135 sites, the film took £182,694 and an average of just £1,384 to suggest its core audience were simply too blazed to actually go to the cinema, and may simply wait for the DVD. Filling out the remainder of the top ten were holds THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN PART I, MY WEEK WITH MARILYN and THE THING, all slowly diminishing their returns, the latter, a big budget remake, sinking significantly faster in only its second week on a terrible average of £578 from a still epic 313 sites. Sundance buzz-film ANOTHER EARTH meanwhile opened very soft with a lousy £87,240, and an average of just £765 from 116 sites, to have distributor Fox wistfully imagining a parallel world where people actually went to see the film. On a smaller scale, old-fashioned French costumer THE WELL-DIGGER’S DAUGHTER also failed to deliver on the promise of big guns director Daniel Auteil and a popular source novel from Jean De Florette scribe Marcel Pagnol. The film took just £3,659 from nine sites.
Over in the states, the box office slumped to its worst performance of 2011, with the top twenty taking only $72.3M in ticket sales, a figure well below last year’s lowest weekend frame in early September. Both all-star romantic comedy NEW YEAR’S EVE and raunchy Jonah Hill vehicle THE SITTER opened to lacklustre figures at the first and second spot. The former raked in a total of $13.7M, well under the industry-projected $20M, while the latter took $10M and an extremely soft average of $3,636 from its ambitious 2,750 site release. Fourth week hold THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN PART I dropped 52% in third place with a rapidly diminishing weekend total of $7.9M, while THE MUPPETS in its third weekend held up quite well with $7.1M and a less drastic dip of 36%.
Meanwhile, outlook was significantly less downbeat for two – ironically bleak as hell – small openers and a pair of limited holds. There were Smiley’s all round for UK smash TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY, which took a stonking $301K from just four sites in New York and LA, averaging a spectacular $72,250. This bodes well for the film’s fortunes as it slowly widens in the coming weeks before a mainstream release Dec 23. Charlize Theron’s turn as a boozy former beauty queen in Jason Reitman’s YOUNG ADULT meanwhile took a smashing $320K from eight sites, for a strong $40K average. Award winning silent film hold THE ARTIST grossed an estimated $292K, going from six to 16 sites to scoop a wonderful $18,250 average. And another Weinstein title, SHAME widened from ten to 21 sites and took an estimated $276K and $13,143 average. The NC-17 sexistentialist romp has taken an impressive $774K to date and opens Jan 13 in the UK.
From this Friday, mainstream audiences can enjoy Guy Ritchie’s fast and loose, deer stalker free take on Arthur Conan Doyle’s beloved hero in blockbuster sequel SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS, while punters who missed out on previews this weekend, can catch up on squeakwel ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: CHIPWRECKED. At the more independent end of the spectrum, Carol Morley’s high profile, critically divisive shock doc DREAMS OF A LIFE goes out on limited release after a series of sell out previews, while the BFI’s reissue of bonkers musical MEET ME IN ST LOUIS gets a seasonal outing. Clang clang clang went the trolley…
Paul Ridd
Re-Imagined Film Posters #2: PLANES, TRAINS & AUTOMOBILES
By Sam Gilbey Illustrates for the Stratford Picturehouse in London’s upcoming screening of the John Hughes classic on 15 December 2011.
See detailed pictures over at Sam’s official website.
CHRISTMAS AT PICTUREHOUSE
This year at your local Picturehouse we’ll be screening two very special films as a Christmas treat for our customers. The first, Frank Capra’s magnificent 1945 melodrama IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE is the quintessential Christmas movie, complete with a fondly remembered role for Jimmy Stewart as family man George Bailey, an eminently relatable tale of a small town everyman under pressure, and an upbeat ending that’s been happily seared onto the collective memory as the ultimate testament to Christmas good cheer and hope. The film could rival Dickens for sheer optimism and no Christmas programme would be complete without it.
The second, Marcel Carne’s 1945 epic LES ENFANTS DU PARADIS, couldn’t be more different, and on first glance appears a highly unlikely film to grace our screens at Christmas. If only because its ending is so resolutely downbeat, its view of romance so pessimistic and its depiction of the hurt humans do one another in the name of love so scabrous. Tiny Tim would not approve, that’s for sure.
The gloriously emotional tale of Belle Epoque Parisian life, and the thwarted romance of mime Jean Baptiste (Jean-Louis Barrault) and irresistible actress Garance (Arletty), LES ENFANTS DU PARADIS has been given a new lease of life this year, thanks to a stunning restoration by the BFI. Every beautifully composed frame has been meticulously cleaned, scanned and converted to a digital transfer. One of the great triumphs of the film is its scale, and the meticulously choreographed crowd scenes recreating the hussle and bustle of Parisian life onstage and off, have never looked more alive with movement and energy.
So, where the scrumptious IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE tugs at the heartstrings and reminds us all what to cherish and be thankful for this Christmas, watching Carne’s devastating film provokes gratitude of a more complex nature. At the end of a year that has seen films good, bad and ugly triumph and flounder at an uncertain box office, and with the very future of cinema-going itself still very much hanging in the balance, there can be no more fitting celebration of its remarkable possibilities than to screen LES ENFANTS, one of its finest products.
Tiny Tim can go boil his head, quite frankly.
- Paul Ridd
IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE & LES ENFANTS DU PARADIS are just two of the fantastic seasonal screenings at your local cinema. Full programme here.
A Merry Christmas from all at Picturehouse HQ. Happy viewing and long live cinema.
YOU CAN COUNT ON MARGARET
This weekend, like any self-respecting cinephile, I ventured to the Odeon Panton Street in search of that elusive beast MARGARET; the long gestating, bitterly fought over, legal minefield of a film that YOU CAN COUNT ON ME helmer Kenneth Lonnergan has been working on for the best part of six years. After a shoot that wrapped in 2006, the film has finally been released in the UK on 2 December. On one screen. The fact I had to sit in a tiny, iffy-smelling fifty seater and watch the film on a screen barely bigger than my own television only added to the sheer right-onness of the experience, and I sat back ready for what the following 150 minutes had in store for me, filled with a smug sense of self-satisfation that only the few of us who were there will remember when the film expands it’s screen count next week.
What I could not have been prepared for was just how great the film actually is. And I’m not just saying this because it deserves all the help it can get. It does. But I can say with absolute sincerity that I left shaken and unsure what to do with myself, short of running up and down Leicester Square shrieking about how everyone should pile into that ludicrous screen and just bloody well see it.
The film, which centres on wealthy New York teen Lisa (Anna Paquin) is awesome in scope and ambition, incorporating a huge cast of entirely believable, rounded characters and complex themes into its epic running time. But what really sets the film apart is its success in capturing the experience of actually being a teenager. Where most young characters on screen come across as little more than precocious cyphers, unconvincing stand ins for their adult writer creators, Louisa is a fully rounded, flawed and utterly convincing teenager. This is in part due to the astonishing, committed performance from Paquin, who can, from one scene to the next, and even sometimes within a scene, lurch from eminently loveable heroine to queen bitch, from tough spirit to vulnerable child. But it’s also down to the bravura, many will say novelistic, structure of the movie. Rather than streamline his film into an easily consumable progression towards an emotional pay off, Lonnergan jumps effortlessly, chaotically from scene to scene, capturing the fits, stops and starts of Louisa’s coming of age experience, the mess of a real life lived. This strategy is so effective, that when the big pay off does come, it is all the more moving for it.
You’ll notice through all this I have been quite cagey about what actually happens in the film. I think this is for the best as its best experienced completely blind. Just go see it, and you’ll see what I mean. A modern American masterpiece. You heard it here first.
- Paul Ridd
MARGARET is out now in the UK. Picturehouse listings for MARGARET.
(Not playing near you? Let us know that you want to watch it via our Facebook & Twitter pages).
Trailer:
