A WARM WELCOME TO SEASON 6
(scroll down for details)
(scroll down for details)
|
|
|
Friday 20th October - 8pm
"FENCES" (2017) certificate 12A running time 139 minutes ***This tremendous piece of theatre gained four 2017 Oscar nominations including Best Picture. Viola Davis won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress*** 
|
Broadway is called the Great White Way because of the lights emanating from Times Square and the dozens of theatre marquees. But it’s also the case that the work seen there is predominantly white, too. Things are changing, and the late, great playwright August Wilson is central to this change. His monumental cycle of 10 plays – each set in a different decade of the last century – have all been seen on Broadway, with 1982’s Jitney taking its current belated bow there now.
But it was the Pulitzer and Tony winning play Fences that in 1987 began Wilson's Broadway assault, and it’s also the sole play from the cycle that has had a West End run – and not once but twice, at the Garrick in 1990 (when a young Adrian Lester played the aspiring baseball player son) and again in 2013 at the Duchess with Lenny Henry as the patriarch. Now Denzel Washington, who starred in a 2010 Broadway revival of the play, has used his star power to bring it to the screen, directing it (his third outing as film director) as well as reprising his stage role as Troy Maxson. The cast includes four of the other principals who shared the stage with him in 2010. Washington's film version opens the drama up a bit. It begins with him and his best friend (and former prison inmate) Bono riding the Pittsburgh streets, where nine of the 10 plays are set, on the back of the refuse truck that they work on. We also see him visiting City Hall to successfully challenge the city's institutional racism. But essentially this is a domestic drama, and most of the action takes place inside the house and its backyard that he shares with his second wife Rose, played by the luminous, stunning Viola Davis, and resentful teenage son Cory (Jovan Adepo). If all the talk sometimes provides a reminder of the film’s stage origins, Washington's fierce use of close-ups amplifies its intensity, too, and the sense of the confinement of the lives it portrays, with the building of the garden fence that gives the play its title is also a powerful metaphor: they keep people in as well as out. The Stage (part review) 5 stars |
"Classic" Wednesday 25th October - 8pm (new event for this season)
"BICYCLE THIEVES"" (1949) ("The Bicycle Thief" USA Title) certificate U running time 89 minutes b and w *Please note: Only soft drinks are available but you are welcome to bring your own alcohol* Undisputed classic film of all time - we are proud to present this masterpiece as our first "Classic Wednesday" presentation - as relevant today as it was in 1949 - remastered for the Big Screen! 
|
There was a time when any self-respecting film-goer, or even television-watcher, would know and have seen Vittorio de Sica's Bicycle Thieves. Now, when many college kids think of Pulp Fiction as almost prehistoric, that's no longer the case.
Yet it's hard to imagine what the history of cinema would look like without Bicycle Thieves. Released in 1948, and immediately heralded as the key document of Italian neo-realism, more so even than Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City (1945), it's the missing link between Chaplin's The Tramp and the Dardennes brothers' The Child.Generations of filmmakers, from Satyajit Ray in India, Mohsin Makhmalbaf in Iran and Charles Burnett in America, have been captivated and inspired by this enduring testament to the poetry and pathos of working-class life, its passionate depiction of human aspiration in darkened times. Written by Cesare Zavattini and loosely based on a novel by Luigi Bartolini, the film is set in the aftermath of the Second World War, when huge swathes of Rome had been reduced to rubble, and much of its demoralised population was steeped in poverty. One of them is Antonio (Lamberto Maggiorani), a proud husband and father, whose life takes a turn for the better when he is offered a job pasting film posters on the city's walls. Joy turns to panic: he lacks a bicycle. But, helped by his wife, who pawns their bed linen, he manages to buy one, only to have it stolen within hours. The film, formerly about the search for employment, now becomes a search for the bicycle and the person who stole it. It's a quest whose dramatic simplicity takes the form of a modern-day Greek tragedy. Maggoriani, and the young Enzo Staiola, who plays his son as they wander the city, were non-professionals, and their faces have a naked expressivity that, once seen, can never be forgotten. De Sica, like his fellow neo-realists, regarded the pomp and dazzle of pre-war Italian cinema as a form of fascism. Bicycle Thieves abandons the studio for the grime and elegance of the city's flea markets, rain-sodden piazzas, football stadia. Through its lanes and under aching skies Antonio treks: desperate, relentless, heroic. He is a man who has done little wrong in his life. He is a man, decent and true, who wishes only to hold his head up high and to protect the people he loves. He is a working man who has been failed by an economic system that exploited him while pretending to protect him. Sight and Sound (part of article) |
|
Friday 27th October - 8pm
"LOVING VINCENT" (2017) certificate 15 running time 93 minutes ***NEW CINEMA RELEASE - OUR THANKS TO ALTITUDE FOR PERMISSION TO SCREEN THIS FILM*** "Manchester By The Sea" will now be screened on Friday 1st December 
|
There is something brilliantly bonkers about Loving Vincent. Made over seven years, directors Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman recreated the paintings of Vincent van Gogh with actors against green-screen, then employed 125 artists to paint over 62,450 frames to reflect the artist’s style. The result resembles Richard Linklater’s adventures in rotoscoping, Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly, but seemingly painted by the world’s most famous artist. It might not completely satisfy dramatically but Loving Vincent is one of the most beautiful films of 2017, offering a glimpse of life through different eyes
From the opening hand-painted credit sequence — prefigured by van Gogh’s quote “We cannot speak other than by our paintings” — we are pulled into van Gogh’s hyper-sensual worldview, its beauty amplified by Clint Mansell’s gorgeous score. The form is the content here, from a yellow blazer that burns the eye with its intensity to black inky nights, from wild colours to the most delicate pastels. Art historians will have a field day catching references (helpfully pointed out at the end); the rest of us can just wallow in its splendour. Empire (part review) 4 stars |
Friday 3rd November - 8pm
"MY COUSIN RACHEL" (2017) certificate 12A running time 104 minutes 
Friday 10th November - 8pm "LONDON SYMPHONY" (2017) documentary film Q and A with the director certificate U running time 72 minutes b and w |
Weisz owns the screen as Rachel: it is a theatrically self-aware performance, encased in shimmering black, an outfit occasionally accessorised with jewellery to which Rachel is not entitled. In an early spasm of rage, and before he has laid eyes on her, Philip demands to know from a servant what Rachel looks like and if she has a moustache. The answer to this ungallant question is of course no, but there is something dark and sensually hirsute about Weisz’s presence, mixed with an insolent confidence in her bearing. She effortlessly wins a round of gamesmanship with Philip when first arriving in his house, succeeding in making him feel uncomfortable, when he had decided to make her squirm. Her success is amusing and obliquely erotic.
As for the way the narrative pans out, that will need some indulgence that the film has more or less earned with its storytelling verve. The audience is entitled to ask what importance Rachel’s cousin-hood or cousin-ness has, given that it is emphasised in the story and featured in the title. They may or may not be satisfied with the outcome. I was. Weisz is a great villainess, a character who uses the promise of sex and the actual activity of sex for her own ends and yet keeps alive the possibility that she isn’t what we suspect. The final long-shot of Rachel and her horse is another allusion to Hardy, with an entertaining frisson of the macabre. Guardian (part review) 4/5 star Special Event!
Nominated for Best British Film at this years Edinburgh Film Festival - introduced by the films director and editor Alex Barrett Honouring and recognising the city of London through the power of images set to a beautifully orchestrated score, London Symphony - the crowdfunded documentary film from critic and filmmaker Alex Barrett - is an ode to a bustling, diverse and ever-changing capital. It's a move to recapture the symphony films of the 1920s, when such metropolitan cities as Berlin and Paris where featured in their own films similar to this one. Barrett uses the familiar structure of a musical symphony - split into four separate parts - for his film, which has been shot in over 200 locations in and around the outskirts of London. It's a short slice of city life (the film clocks in at a slim 72 minutes) that nods to the past but places its emphasis on the kind of place London is today - multicultural, full of building works and stunning architecture, with the old existing alongside the new. Cranes are everywhere, while big, modern buildings dominate the skyline, signposts signalling more construction work to come. We're swept through parks, streets and into cinemas, museums and places of religious congregation, people captured scuttling about their business, meeting for drinks and taking leisurely walks. Cinevue (part review) 4/5 stars |
Friday 17th November - 8pm
"BABY DRIVER" (2017) certificate 15 running time 113 minutes If you were a fan of "BULLITT" with Steve McQueen in 1968 welcome to 2017 and a brilliantly different car chase heist movie!
|
After wisely walking away from the car crash of Marvel’s 2015 film Ant-Man, Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright is back in the fast lane with his most thrillingly cinematic romp. A romantic musical disguised as a car-chase thriller, Baby Driver combines the over-cranked action fantasies of Hot Fuzz with the poptastic sensibilities of Scott Pilgrim vs the World. At its centre is Ansel Elgort’s eponymous getaway driver, who uses earphones to drown out the “hum-in-the-drum” of tinnitus (the result of a childhood accident) and orchestrates his life to carefully chosen iPod playlists. Whether he’s burning rubber or fixing a peanut butter sandwich (“right up to the edges”), this former joyrider spins his wheels and records with the same infectious exuberance. Think An American in Paris meets The French Connection, or Walter Hill’s The Driver as remade by Baz Luhrmann – it really is that much of a blast.Accidentally indebted to smooth criminal Doc (Kevin Spacey), Baby is always “one more job” away from freedom. At home he cares for foster father Joseph (CJ Jones), who listens to music with his fingertips, and from whom Baby has learned signing and lip-reading – invaluable skills. At work he’s surrounded by wild cards: Buddy and Darling (Jon Hamm and Eiza González), a latter-day Bonnie and Clyde with matching his and hers tattoos; Bats (Jamie Foxx), a loose cannon who claims the monopoly on “mental problems”; Jon Bernthal’s ever-gruff Griff; rocker Flea’s Eddie No-Nose (formerly Eddie the Nose – don’t ask); and Lanny Joon’s JD, who “puts the Asian in home invasion”.The only sure thing in Baby’s life is his growing love for waitress Debora (Lily James), who does indeed “look like a zebra” in her black and white diner uniform, and who sings “B-A-B-Y” to herself as she waits tables, dreaming of heading west “in a car I can’t afford, with a plan I don’t have”. The ghosts of Tony Scott’s True Romance and Jim McBride’s Breathless (and the movies that inspired those films) haunt their whirlwind romance, a pulp fiction mash-up of comic-strip tropes, fired by palpable human chemistry.
Mark Kermode - Guardian (part review) 5 stars |
Friday 24th November - 8pm
"THE BEGUILED" (2017) certificate 15 running time 94 minutes |
Filmed on 35mm rather than digital HD
Sofia Coppola - Winner of Best Director at this years Cannes Film Festival for "The Beguiled" Coppola, whose work includes The Virgin Suicides, Marie Antoinette, Somewhere, The Bling Ring and Lost in Translation (which made her only the third women in history to be Oscar nominated as Best Director) is at the top of her game here, crafting a vibrant melodrama that both plays to her strengths and brings new colors to her cinematic palette. The filmmaker and her gifted cinematographer Phillippe Le Sourd (The Grandmaster) create a sultry atmosphere of lacy beauty curdled by blood lust and the sound of battle off in the distance. But, oh, the war inside. Kidman and Farrell engage in a mesmerizing duel of wits. But it's Dunst, in a performance of aching beauty and restraint, who finds the film's bruised heart. Coppola is a virtuoso of image and sound. but don't mistake her delicate touch for weakness. The Beguiled is a hothouse flower of startling power and intimacy. You can't shake it. Rolling Stone (part review) 4/4 stars |
|
"Classic" Wednesday 29th November - 8pm
"THE GRADUATE" (1967) certificate 12A running time 101 minutes **Beautifully remastered 50th Anniversary edition** **Please note: The bar will not be serving alcohol but you are welcome to bring a bottle** 
|
Is it really half a century since Dustin Hoffman’s Benjamin Braddock questioned whether Anne Bancroft’s Mrs Robinson was trying to seduce him?
The Oscar-winning The Graduate celebrates its 50th anniversary this year which seems the best excuse to restore it to pristine condition and return it to cinemas. Hoffman’s recent college graduate Benjamin returns home to Los Angeles facing a future that leaves him confused. One of the finest films of the 1960s remains just as clever, witty and relevant today as it captures the doubts and uncertainties of a generation questioning the values of their parents. A chance to see an American classic on the big screen and a welcome alternative to a summer of blockbusters. Telegraph 5 stars |
Friday 1st December - 8pm
"MANCHESTER BY THE SEA" (2017) certificate 15 running time 137 minutes (postponed from 27th October) |
Oscar for Best Actor 2017
Writer-director Kenneth Lonergan specialises in studies of grief, guilt, and bewilderment. You don’t watch his movies in the hope of the kind of New Year cinematic pick-me-up that La La Land provides. Manchester By The Sea is in a similar register to You Can Count On Me (2000) and his troubled 2011 feature, Margaret. In his movies, he provides very closely focused anatomies of characters who’ve suffered extreme emotional trauma. Here, janitor and handyman Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) is the one who is suffering. The film could easily have seemed grim and foreboding in the extreme – a story of a father and husband who inadvertently caused a tragedy in his own family and is full both of self-loathing and of hostility towards the world. That Manchester By The Sea is so absorbing is down to Lonergan’s painstaking directorial style and to a superb Method-style performance from the lead actor. Guardian (part review) 5 stars |
Friday 8th December - 8pm
"THE ODYSSEY" (2017) French with English sub-titles certificate PG running time 120 minutes |
If you are a fan of the Blue Planet you will love this big screen adventure film about the life aquatic of Jacques Cousteau..........
UNDERWATER explorer Jacques Cousteau is given the full biopic treatment by Jerome Salle, and at two hours long, I do mean full. Salle tells the Frenchman’s story largely through the prism of his sometimes troubled relationship with his younger son, Philippe (Pierre Niney), with Cousteau (Lambert Wilson) shown flaws and all as a man determined to do things his way. The Odyssey covers familiar ground, including Cousteau’s long career as an inventor, as well as putting a fresh perspective on his career as a pioneer of reality television. As you would expect, the scenes below the sea are stunningly shot, with the sequence of Niney swimming with sharks awesome. Independent (part review) |
|
Christmas Family Film
Friday 15th December - 6.30pm (please note the earlier time!) "BEAUTY AND THE BEAST" 2017 Live Action Musical certificate PG running time 129 minutes THIS FILM HAS A PG CERTIFICATE AND MIGHT NOT BE SUITABLE FOR ALL CHILDREN - ALSO AT 129 MINUTES IT'S QUITE A LONG FILM! 
|
“Live-actionification” is not an actual word. It may soon become one, though, given the frenetic pace at which Disney are turning their animated classics into films featuring human actors. The Jungle Book, Dumbo, The Lion King... it seems only a matter of time before we get a photoreal The Rescuers Down Under. The ones released so far have made major bank. But even so, those charged with rebooting Beauty And The Beast must have felt a thrill of foreboding — akin to, say, the experience of approaching a cursed castle teeming with living crockery. Many have floundered trying to adapt the classic 1740 fairy tale upon which Disney based their animation, from the Fran Drescher-starring The Beautician And The Beast to the equally ropey recent French version, which paired Léa Seydoux and Vincent Cassel. Adding to the immense pressure was the passion felt by fans of the adored ’toon version. Had this gone wrong, the Magic Kingdom may well have been stormed by a pitchfork-wielding mob.
Happily, gone wrong it has not. Under the stewardship of Bill Condon, a director well-used to intense fans after his experiences making two Twilight films, the team behind this mega-money extravaganza rarely put a foot wrong. Empire (part review) 4/5 stars 
|
Click on COMING SOON in the main menu for a selection of film trailers for the films we will screen in 2018
SEASON RESUMES - Friday 5th January 2018 - 8pm with "LA LA LAND" (2017) - Oscar Best Actress
SEASON RESUMES - Friday 5th January 2018 - 8pm with "LA LA LAND" (2017) - Oscar Best Actress
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
THE FILM CLUB INCOME CONTRIBUTES TO THE RUNNING COSTS OF THE COMMUNITY LIBRARY AND HELPS KEEP IT OPEN - ARE YOU INTERESTED IN VOLUNTEERING TO ASSIST WITH FOH AND THE BOX OFFICE?
WE NEED ADDITIONAL CREW email: longcrendonfilmclub@gmail.com for details
Besides our film programme, trailers and membership details being available on our website www.longcrendonfilmclub.com we also email members one month in advance.
We also publicise our programme at Long Crendon Community Library and in The Crendon Crier.
You can follow us on Facebook and Twitter (by clicking on the social media icons below) for news on new films being added to our programme each month. www.facebook.com/longcrendonfilmclub
Please note if you are viewing the website on mobile phone there is a drop down menu on the top left by the logo.
THE FILM CLUB INCOME CONTRIBUTES TO THE RUNNING COSTS OF THE COMMUNITY LIBRARY AND HELPS KEEP IT OPEN - ARE YOU INTERESTED IN VOLUNTEERING TO ASSIST WITH FOH AND THE BOX OFFICE?
WE NEED ADDITIONAL CREW email: longcrendonfilmclub@gmail.com for details
Besides our film programme, trailers and membership details being available on our website www.longcrendonfilmclub.com we also email members one month in advance.
We also publicise our programme at Long Crendon Community Library and in The Crendon Crier.
You can follow us on Facebook and Twitter (by clicking on the social media icons below) for news on new films being added to our programme each month. www.facebook.com/longcrendonfilmclub
Please note if you are viewing the website on mobile phone there is a drop down menu on the top left by the logo.
