What Happens in a Bookshop After Dark

jwakeham — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 10:10:26 +0000

A Film Star Tells A Joke: Jimmy Stewart

jwakeham — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 17:30:20 +0000

Woody Allen: American Master

jwakeham — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 12:14:59 +0000

Here’s a fascinating extract from the new PBS documentary about Woody Allen’s life and work. It’s the perfect introduction to January’s season of his comedies at the BFI.

How Jason Segel persuaded Amy Adams to join The Muppets

jwakeham — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 11:04:16 +0000

I’ve always loved The Muppets. They were the highlight of my childhood weekends (along with Doctor Who of course) and a new Muppet movie was always an event. Now they’re coming back to the big screen for the first time in over a decade, and we’re opening the London Comedy Film Festival with a special preview of the film. Here’s how producers Jason Segel and Kermit persuaded Amy Adams to join the movie:

LoCo programme announced

jwakeham — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 10:55:35 +0000

On Tuesday evening we announced the programme for the first London Comedy Film Festival, which will be lightening up London from 26-29 January 2012. You can read the full programme here.

The Festival is a partnership between LoCo and the BFI, and we’re thrilled to be based at BFI Southbank, formerly the National Film Theatre. It’s where I first saw many of my favourite films, as well as dozens of inspiring interviews and masterclasses from some of today’s best writers and directors. And it has a similar place in the heart of many British film-makers; at the Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy premiere Gary Oldman spoke very touchingly about his teenage years at the BFI, and last night a British film director told me that NFT1 was his favourite cinema in London. It’s one of the few British screens where you can guarantee that the sound and projection will be perfect, and having now met many of the team there I couldn’t feel in better hands for our very first Festival. See you there …

Thank you to everyone at 18 Feet and Rising for our new Festival identity.

Inglourious Mr Fox

jwakeham — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 10:18:14 +0000

The magic of YouTube has brought us a whole new generation of film mash-ups. Here is Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr Fox, intercut with Inglourious Basterds:

And here’s my all-time favourite, a genuinely nightmarish blend of Requiem for a Dream and Toy Story 2.

Alternative Tintin titles

jwakeham — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 12:29:16 +0000

The title sequence for Spielberg’s film is terrific, with a witty score by John Williams score and some very lovely animation. But do also check out this alternative version by slimjimstudios, using Ray Parker’s little-known but wonderfully evocative Tintin theme.

Ane Brun: Do You Remember

jwakeham — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 09:47:15 +0000

Eurotrip opening titles

jwakeham — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 10:17:15 +0000

I’d never seen the 2004 comedy Eurotrip (a favourite of Charlie Lyne among others) until yesterday, but I laughed pretty much throughout. And if I’d been in any doubt about the kind of movie I’d be watching, the title sequence pretty much sets the scene. It’s not only a lovely use of animated graphics — before it became a cliche — it does exactly what a title sequence should: it sets up the tone and promise of the movie. Nice work, Prologue.

The Importance of Being Earnest

jwakeham — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 10:02:49 +0000

One of my favourite holiday novels this year was Adam Haslett’s Union Atlantic, the story of Doug Fanning, a rapacious investment banker who has just built his own McMansion, and his feud with Charlotte Graves, the ageing history teacher who owns the crumbling house next door. It’s a clash not just of generations but of values, and one of the best attempts in fiction to analyse the current crisis. In a book full of gorgeous writing, one paragraph in particular struck a chord. Towards the end of the novel Charlotte decides to take action. And this is what occurs to her:

As she stepped down the ramp onto the floor of the barn, she began to feel as she’d imagined she would, reading those stories in the papers over the years of the environmentalists and the anti-free traders who broke the law in the name of some greater justice, the anticipation of the act clarifying experience, rescuing it from the prison of language, the inward purpose blessing the otherwise desultory of meaning. And yet, for that very reason, she’d always considered such extremism adolescent. Too simple. Willful in its ignorance of the world’s complexity. And so deadly earnest. And yet how judgmental she’d been. What, after all, was wrong with earnestness? Weren’t Fanning and his kind earnest? Weren’t all the polluters earnest, the physical and the cultural? And did anyone ever impugn or mock them for it? No one ever thought to. Avarice was never shackled by a concern for authenticity. It didn’t care about image or interpretation.

People who care strongly about the environment or human rights or working conditions are so often apologetic or self-deprecating about their strength of feeling. People who care strongly about money never have to be. It’s time to be proud to be earnest. Let’s never be ashamed to care.