ENTERTAINMENT THE BEST OF BRITISH IN BYRON Returning for its third year, the BBC First British Film Festival is thrilled to announce its full line-up of films, showcasing the best and brightest in films from the British Isles. Featuring 28 titles, the program captures the magic, unique humour, romance, traditions and new age vitality of British culture.
Also featured in the festival are: The festival will open with Paolo straight from its premiere at Sorrentino’s highly anticipated the Toronto International Film
QUEEN OF THE DESERT SCREENS DURING THE BRITISH FILM FESTIVAL AT PALACE BYRON BAY CINEMA – OCTOBER 29 TO NOVEMBER 18
cinema BY JOHN CAMPBELL
film, Youth, nominated for the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes film festival, and the follow up to his Academy award-winning film, The Great Beauty (2013). Following two old friends, retired composer Fred (Michael Caine) and film director Mick (Harvey Keitel), on vacation at a prestigious hotel in the Swiss Alps, the film is an introspective and thought-provoking, wry buddy comedy.
Donovan is not expected to make waves, but he goes by the book and, despite the general public’s hostility, is driven by those shiny ‘American values’ with which Spielberg is so enamoured. Hanks, with his knitted brow, is typically undaunted as the upright man who won’t be stood over, but though based on real events, he seems less convincing when the stage is relocated to the Cold War’s front line. As the infamous Wall is being constructed, a U2 surveillance pilot and a Yale economics student are held captive in East Berlin. Donovan is assigned the task of negotiating a trade of ‘their guy for ours’ and sent to the divided, wintry city to deal as an independent go-between with Russians and Germans (‘your countries’ names are too long,’ he says after grappling with the unabridged USSR and GDR). The intrigue and dark theatricality of these scenes have more of the Coens about them (all that’s missing is Christoph Waltz turning up as an interrogator), including an episode of terrific impact when Donovan witnesses a shooting from a train. Spielberg’s positivity reasserts itself in the patriotic ending to a film of tension and gritty realism, notwithstanding the title’s oddly undergraduate pun.
North Coast news daily: www.echonetdaily.net.au
This is just the tip of the iceberg – The British Film Festival screens at Palace Byron Bay Cinema from October 29 to November 18. Tickets and programs available at box office or online at www. britishfilmfestival.com.au
Reviews
WEDNESDAY
28 OCT to
WEDNESDAY
4 NOV
BRIDGE OF SPIES BURNT This is a movie of two parts in which the former informs the latter while somehow remaining strangely detached from it. This might be due the not entirely compatible pairing of Steven Spielberg as director with Joel and Ethan Coen as co-writers. Spielberg is a supreme storyteller with a hearton-sleeve belief in the primacy of family and the lofty ideals enunciated in the American Constitution, while the Coens, at their most indulgent, tend to mock and bite the hand that feeds them. It opens in 1957, as tensions between the West and the Communist bloc are rising precariously. A brilliantly shot sequence has a Russian spy, Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance), being pursued by CIA agents in the subway and on the streets of New York. After he is finally arrested, a humble insurance lawyer, James Donovan (Tom Hanks), is appointed as his defence counsel.
Festival, The Man Who Knew Infinity; this year’s BFI London Film Festival opening night selection, Suffragette; Queen of the Desert, from legendary director Werner Herzog; and Dare to be Wild, the true story of Irish heroine Mary Reynolds.
Bradley Cooper is Adam Jones, a celebrity chef (spare me). He is chatting up the beautiful Helene in a fast food joint, with the aim of hiring her to work as a cook in his kitchen. She is devoted to haute cuisine, but Adam confronts her with an utterly convincing and true demythologising of the cult of food snobbery – from whence you might expect John Wells’s movie to not fawn so slavishly over the ‘chef as genius’ paradigm. There is a lot of writing by numbers as we follow Adam’s troubled character arc (yawn) from ruination to redemption. He is a reformed junkie/alcoholic and you know that at a crisis will topple him off the wagon and jeopardise the progress he has made, just as you know for sure that the heavies to whom he owes money will give him a (deserved) hiding. You also have no doubt that he will get the girl (that surely can’t be a spoiler), but what I found almost inexplicable was that Helene would have anything to do with him. In the throes of a tanty and in front of her fellow employees, he grabs her violently by the scruff of the neck and bombards her with a torrent of abuse. Later, upon hearing some news that makes him sad, he abandons her at a swank function so that he can wander around a market feeling sorry for himself. Tony (played by the wonderful Daniel Brühl), the gay maître d suffering a long held, unrequited love for Adam, is similarly forgiving of the great man. And what the weirdly dressed Emma Thompson is doing in the mix taking blood samples from Adam is beyond me. Though filmed with panache, there are probably more quick-cut collages of meals being prepared than is necessary (George Harrison singing ‘clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon’ from ‘Piggies’ flew into my mind), but the surprise act of revenge is a beauty. It’s an okay movie, but not nearly as good as Ratatouille.
OPENING NIGHT EVENT
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BRITISH FILM FE STIVAL 2015 B R I T I S H F I L M F E S T I VA L .C O M . A U
Tomorrow - 6.30pm: Cake Wines & appetizer. 7.00pm: YOUTH (CTC) followed by after party Tix: Movie Club $45 General $50
TOM HANKS Royal Ballet
ROMEO AND JULIET
SUN & WED ONLY
OPENS THURS
BRIDGE OF SPIES (M) (NO FREE TIX) Thu 10.30, 4.00, 6.45 Fri/Mon/Tue 10.20, 4.00, 6.45 Sat 10.45, 1.45, 6.45pm Sun 10.10, 1.50, 6.45pm Wed (4) 11.30am, 2.00, 6.45pm THE DRESSMAKER (M) (NO FREE TIX) Thu 1.50, 4.15, 6.30, 9.20pm Fri/Mon/Tue 1.50, 4.30, 7.00, 9.20pm Sat 11.50, 4.30, 7.00, 9.20pm Sun 9.10, 4.30, 6.50, 9.10pm Wed (4) 2.10, 4.40, 7.00, 9.20pm BURNT (M) (NO FREE TIX) Wed (28) 1.50, 4.30, 7.00pm Thu/Fri/Mon/Tue 11.45, 4.20, 9.30pm Sat 11.40, 4.40, 9.30pm Sun 11.30, 4.40, 9.30pm Wed (4) 2.20, 4.30, 9.30pm LEARNING TO DRIVE (M) Wed (28) 4.30pm Thu 9.20am Fri/Mon/Tue 9.30am Wed (4) 9.10am THE MARTIAN (M) Wed (28) 1.45, 4.10, 6.45 Thu 1.15, 9.00 Fri/Mon/Tue 1.10, 8.45pm Sat 3.40, 8.45pm Sun 3.30, 9.10pm Wed (4) 11.20, 8.45pm
ROYAL BALLET: ROMEO & JULIET (CTC) (NO FREE TIX) Sun 1.00 Wed (4) 11.00 Enjoy our licensed bar
Lavazza Espresso Coffee
OPENS THURS
THE INTERN (M) Wed (28) 9.00, 11.30, 9.00pm Thu 9.20am, 1.50pm Fri/Mon/Tue 9.20, 2.00 Sat 9.20, 2.15pm Sun 9.10, 11.30am Wed (4) 9.00, 4.20pm BLACK MASS (MA15+) Wed (28) 9.00am, 2.00, 9.30pm Thu 11.20am Fri/Mon/Tue 11.30am Sat 9.15am Wed (4) 9.10am SICARIO (MA15+) Wed (28) 11.25am THE WALK (PG) Wed (28) 9.00, 11.20, 9.15 BBC FIRST BRITISH FILM FESTIVAL 2015 (NO FREE TIX) Full times & buy tix at: britishfilmfestival.com.au Thu 7.00pm - YOUTH (CTC) OPENING NIGHT EVENT! Fri 6.30pm - THE PROGRAM (M) Sat 1.30pm - DARE TO BE WILD (CTC) Sat 6.30pm - SUFFRAGETTE (CTC) Sun 1.30pm - DARK HORSE - THE INCREDIBLE STORY OF DREAM ALLIANCE (PG) Sun 6.30pm - WOMEN IN LOVE (M) Mon 6.30pm - SHOOTING FOR SOCRATES (PG) Tue 6.30pm - FILMED IN SUPER MARIONATION (PG) Wed (4) 6.30pm - MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE (M) Gift cards are the perfect gift
Group Bookings available
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