As long as it’s safe to use pandemic-related idioms again, we can safely say that Mank fever has swept the LWLies offices with a swiftness, leaving us all itching with anticipation for the new film from David Fincher. We’ve sprained our index fingers hitting replay on the full trailer unveiled earlier this week, and now Read More
How we trained the cockroach in Saint Maud
Occupation: Bug Wrangler. Well, on this occasion anyway. I’ve worked with everything from tigers to camels and crocodiles, but these days I specialise in the smaller critters that most other people don’t like: bugs, reptiles and rodents. I joke that someone has to do it, but the truth is these animals have always been my Read More
Bong Joon-ho’s early shorts are coming to the UK for the first time
Though viral idioms may be a bit iffy right now, it’s still entirely accurate to say that the world has been swept up by Bong fever in the wake of the filmmaker’s underdog Best Picture win for Parasite. A spiffy 4K restoration of his Memories of Murder is on the way, and soon, Bong Joon-ho Read More
COVID relief scheme offers respite for UK film and TV production
Mere days after chancellor Rishi Sunak suggested that musicians and other arts sector employees struggling financially should just get a new job, the UK government has made moves to provide relief to the entertainment industry. As the coronavirus continues to spread, though abating ever so gradually in some swaths of Britain, a fiscal shot in Read More
Tilda Swinton sits for Pedro Almodóvar in The Human Voice trailer
Not even a global pandemic can stop Pedro Almodóvar from creating his paeans to the strength, composure and complexity of womankind. Among the first surreal stills to depict a filmmaker proceeding with their work under quarantine was a photo of Almodóvar directing Tilda Swinton, and now a new trailer shows the result of that delicate Read More
Borat is back in the trailer for his Subsequent Moviefilm
Just when we need him most, Borat has returned to us. Sacha Baron Cohen took a big bite out of Dubya-era culture in the United States with the blockbusting 2006 movie vehicle for Kazakh reporter Borat Sagdiyev, who came to the West on a mission of enlightenment that quickly spun out into cringe-worthy calamity. Now, Read More
Watch the hair-raising first trailer for refugee horror His House
One in the handful of long-overdue reckonings that the UK film industry has faced over the past couple years concerns the presence of BAME characters onscreen and professionals behind the scenes. A diverse Britain should be reflected by a diverse cinema, and a new title coming online next month will contribute to that hopeful sea Read More
Could you design a postcard inspired by Hilma af Klint?
“Art history has to be rewritten.” This is the quote that piqued director Halina Dyrschka’s desire to create her debut feature film, Beyond the Visible: Hilma af Klint. Its subject is the pioneering abstract female artist, Hilma af Klint, whose name does not appear prominently in art history books, or on the walls of the Read More
Tricia Tuttle on what to expect from the 64th BFI London Film Festival
Tricia Tuttle on what to expect from the 64th BFI London Film Festival The Festival Director speak about putting together the most accessible, expansive LFF programme yet. This year has presented an unprecedented challenge to organisers of film festivals around the world, with many major events – from Cannes to Toronto – being either cancelled Read More
Kirsten Johnson ponders life and death in the Dick Johnson is Dead trailer
Kirsten Johnson has no use for the common language of documentary cinema, with its talking-head interviews and establishing drone shots and pretensions of an unattainable objectivity. She’s risen to the top of the nonfiction heap by embracing subjectivity, first assembling her autobiography Cameraperson through a swirl of free-associative footage, and now upping the ante of Read More
Denis Villeneuve’s Dune gets a spicy first trailer
While the COVID-19 pandemic has largely gutted the release calendar for 2020, the planet has still reached a juncture of confidence and security from which the blockbusters we were promised for this year can be trotted out with a tentative caution. Today, this proves fortuitous news for Timothée Chalamet superfans and devotees of sci-fi/fantasy alike, Read More
The 2020 BFI London Film Festival line-up has been announced
The 2020 BFI London Film Festival line-up has been announced This year’s scaled-back celebration mixes world cinema gems with something a little different. If nothing else, this wretched year has spurred innovation within the creative sector. Accepting that the time is not yet now for mass gatherings and business-as-usual celebrations of global art, institutions such Read More
No Time to Die gets an action-stuff, neon-soaked new trailer
If we know anything about James Bond, it’s that he’s very hard to kill. He’s made it through shark tanks and laser beams and gunfire of every variety, an agent so durable that not even a globe-spanning pandemic can stop him. 007‘s latest vehicle No Time to Die – Daniel Craig‘s last time donning the Read More
Francis Lee’s Ammonite to close the 64th BFI London Film Festival
Francis Lee’s Ammonite to close the 64th BFI London Film Festival The British writer/director’s lesbian romance will cap off this year’s LFF on 17 October. If you love a good period lesbian romance (who doesn’t?), the BFI London Film Festival has a hotly-anticipated treat for you. Following Monday’s announcement that Steve McQueen’s drama Mangrove will Read More
Paleontology and sapphic passions combine in the Ammonite trailer
The recent success of Portrait of a Lady on Fire left cinema audiences starved for more, craving their next fix of staid passions between beautiful, misunderstood women in a sapphic period piece. Specific as those needs may be, viewers won’t have to wait much longer to fulfill them, with the trailer for Ammonite now here Read More
Ai Weiwei has made a sobering pandemic documentary in secrecy
The great multimedia artist and human rights defender Ai Weiwei has not been sitting idly by while the world has descended into pandemic-fueled disarray. Though he’s been unable to leave his current residence in Europe, he nonetheless directed a new documentary titled CoroNation about the cataclysmic situation in Wuhan and the surrounding regions of China, Read More
Steve McQueen’s Mangrove to open the 64th BFI London Film Festival
Steve McQueen’s Mangrove to open the 64th BFI London Film Festival The first of five films from the director’s Small Axe anthology will screen for free to audiences across the UK. With the BFI London Film Festival set to move online for its 64th edition due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s a relief to know Read More
John David Washington: ‘I’m better acquainted with heights now’
John David Washington: ‘I’m better acquainted with heights now’ The star of Christopher Nolan’s Tenet revels in the toil of making an experimental mega blockbuster. Leaving behind a career in American football, John David Washington has been making steady waves in the acting sphere. His most lauded and recognisable roles have come from a number Read More
Steve McQueen’s John Boyega-starring miniseries is arriving this year
In recent months, John Boyega has proven himself beyond all shadow of a doubt to be a real one. He was on the front lines of the police brutality protests, speaking candidly about the sorry state of racial inequality in the UK without a care as to how it could affect his career prospects in Read More
See the trailer for a stripped-down concert film Nick Cave recorded under COVID
Of course an artist as tirelessly inventive as Nick Cave wasn’t going to let a little thing like a global pandemic slow him down. A new press release issued today by the musician/writer/filmmaker/all-purpose creative fount paints a picture of a Cave chafing under the confinement of quarantine, and using his resources to break through these Read More
BFI London Film Festival announces virtual 2020 edition
BFI London Film Festival announces virtual 2020 edition This year’s LFF will offer online screenings, free screen talks and more, widening access across the UK. As the ever-present threat of a global pandemic has made group gatherings in contained spaces all but impossible, film festivals have had no choice but to throw out the playbook Read More
A White, White Day
A police chief’s suspicion turns into an obsession in this chilly Icelandic drama from Hlynur Palmason. People react to bereavement in different ways. In the wilds of Iceland, a gruff middle-aged policeman takes time off work to grieve for his wife, who died when her car went off-road in foggy conditions. Ingimundur, played by esteemed Read More
Meet the women tackling racism in UK film and TV
A powerful open letter to the UK Film and TV industry calling for action to tackle systemic racism amassed 5,000 signatures before closing this week. Heavyweight Black and Brown actors like Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michaela Coel, Idris Elba, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Meera Syal and Sophie Okonedo put their names to the document, along with multiracial colleagues working Read More
New survey suggests UK cinemas won’t reopen until September
Everyone’s just about passed the two-month mark of the extreme new status quo under our pandemic-stricken reality, and people want something to look forward to. For cinephiles, the promise of widespread theatrical re-openings shines as the brightest light on the horizon, but that day may not be coming into closer view any time soon. Today Read More
AMC is heading for bankruptcy, but that may not spell the end
Amidst the assortment of panic-inducing surprises held by each new day in these hectic times of coronavirus, Variety contributed to the overall impression that the world is crumbling with a stop-in-your-tracks headline yesterday: “AMC Theatres Bankruptcy Likely, Analysts Say.” For those UK readers unfamiliar with the brand, the AMC chain runs the majority of multiplexes Read More
Onyx & Dope D.O.D. – Doomsday (Shotgunz In Hell Album)
[Intro: Jay Reaper] Ey yo move mate I’m getting moody Cause your music you don’t move me I’m in the mood today to just shoot away Nigga too cray Paul Mooney Ya bitch niggas just tomb raid em We crusade from here to UK Like a new plague Its to late We bring it, Doomsday Read More
Ace Hood – 2 Fux
Beast ( Renegade, renegade, renegade ) Uh, I wake up every morning, thank God, then I gotta get to it I never had a role model, money was the only influence While they was talkin’ ’bout it in the city I was really out doin’ it Hundred bands I was 19 and the man, I Read More
Vanessa Hudgens & Ashley Tisdale – Ex’s & Oh’s (Elle King Cover)
[Verse 1] Well, I had me a boy, turned him into a man I showed him all the things that he didn’t understand Whoa, and then I let him go Now, there’s one in California who’s been cursing my name Cause I found me a better lover in the UK Hey, hey, until I made Read More
Watsky – London Eclipse Lyrics
Come, the moon is over the sun We’ll use the shadows to run No one can stop us from leaving Come, the moon is over the sun We’ll use the shadows to run No one can stop us from leaving Breathing’s boring What a stupid task it’s Only 8 a.m. this train’s a moving casket Read More
P Money – Keepin’ It Real
[Verse 1: P Money] I just wanna make music Hit the studio, create music My fans purchase, download and play music Seek melody, metaphor and rave music That chill on the sofa and play music Don’t want a beat, just wanna play music Who am I kidding? I’ll beat when I play music and If Read More