Kodachrome - review

Kodachrome is a film about nostalgia. Nostalgia for an older, simpler time. Where photographs were taken on a camera and not a phone. Photos of other people and not selfies.
Nostalgia is always better when it has a basis in truth, and this film is actually based on a true story article about the last few days of the Kodachrome development system in America.
Jason Sudekis plays Matt, a music executive who is about to be fired because the music industry is changing the same way as film. Moving from the physical media to digital.
He is the estranged son of Ben Ryder, a famous photographer suffering from cancer, who wants to drive across America to get four rolls of film developed before they stop developing them. Only he needs Matt's help and the two of them take an Elizabethtown/As Good As It Gets-style road trip with Ben's nurse (Elizabeth Olsen) to help administer Ben's medication and keep the peace.
Olsen delivers her usual brand of warmth, charm and compassion just as she did in Liberal Arts. Sudekis proved in Colossal that he can deliver on the dramatic side just as well as the comedic and sparks off the cranky, curmudgeonly Ed Harris.
In a movie like this, it is the journey not the destination that is important and the story takes the predictable route to its destination with the character moments and plot points signposted a mile off and you are left always wishing that something truly special develops from the material but sadly the end result is slightly out of focus.

3 stars

Rebel Heroes - Glasgow Film Festival

One of the great things about attending the Glasgow Film Festival every year is how inclusive it feels. There is literally something for everybody screening during the festival. That includes the opportunity to see a classic film for FREE every morning from Thursday 22nd February to Sunday 4th March as part of their Rebel Heroes strand.
Rebel Heroes salutes the classic male mavericks and misfits who left an indelible impression on the movies. These include the likes of Steve McQueen, Marlon Brando, James Dean and Elvis Presley.
The season began with Angels With Dirty Faces starring James Cagney as gangster Rocky Sullivan, a lifelong criminal who is asked to give up his wicked ways by his childhood friend who is a priest looking to steer the local neighbourhood children away from a life of crime.
It features a tour-de-force performance from Cagney and one of the all-time great and most debated movie endings of all time.
Just as good as the films that are selected are the introductions that accompany every screening delivered by Festival Co-Director Allan Hunter. Allan provides some history and context to the film you will watch along with some fascinating film trivia. The perfect way to start your festival day!
Here is a list of the screenings coming up during the rest of the fest. Free tickets available on the door each morning prior to the screening.

Friday 23rd February - The Grapes Of Wrath
Saturday 24th February - On The Waterfront
Sunday 25th February - Rebel Without A Cause
Monday 26th February - Jailhouse Rock
Tuesday 27th February - The Defiant Ones
Wednesday 28th February - Breathless
Thursday 1st March - Cool Hand Luke
Friday 2nd March - Bullitt
Sunday 4th March - Dog Day Afternoon

Interstellar - review

With 2010's Inception Christopher Nolan explored the inner mind. With Interstellar, Nolan has decided to "dream a little bigger darling" and has set his sights on outer space to deliver a grand, awe-inspiring, wondrous 2014 A Space Odyssey.

The McConaissance goes out of this world as Cooper, a former pilot/engineer who now makes his living as a farmer on an Earth that is dying. He is given the chance to lead a mission to search for inhabitable planets beyond our solar system using Interstellar travel.

This leads to the central crux of Interstellar. Humanity versus the human race.

Several times Cooper is reminded of the sacrifices he must make to complete the mission:

"I've got kids, professor.
Then get out there and save them. We must reach far beyond our own lifespans. We must think not as individuals but as a species."

"You might have to decide between seeing your children again and the future of the human race."

On the one hand you have a mission to save the human race, on the other it is boiled down to our humanity and own individual survival instinct and Cooper's will to keep his promise to see his children again.

The awful truth of what this will take is demonstrated following a message from home after a visit to one of the new planet's surface.

To go into the plot and science in any more detail would do the movie a disservice and also possibly require a PHD as there is so much more to this film than the trailers have given away.

This is the type of film where plot and dialogue can take a back seat in the space shuttle as you strap in for the audio visual experience that Nolan, Zimmer and cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema have dreamed up (sometimes literally as there are times when Hans Zimmer's booming score overpowers the dialogue).

It also wears its influences on its sleeves like a host of NASA mission patches, with the biggest patch belonging to Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Not only are there certain themes and plot similarities between them but also the A.I. robot companions resemble the black monoliths plus both films reliance on practical effects in filming that ground them in reality whilst simultaneously taking us to galaxies and universes we could only dream of.

It is said that Man's reach exceeds his grasp but when that man is Christopher Nolan and he is reaching for the stars, the result is still an extremely powerful, moving, exhilarating cinematic experience.

4 stars

Out Of Print: A Documentary - review

I wish the release of Out Of Print online this week came under better circumstances but on October 15th Julia Marchese (director of the film and long-time New Beverly Cinema employee) announced that she had left the New Beverly in Los Angeles due to recent managerial changes at the cinema.

It might be too early to tell, and just to be clear I don't know the whole story, but I hope that what started out as a love letter to the New Beverly Cinema doesn't become a eulogy.

One the one hand Out Of Print is a documentary about a repertory cinema in Los Angeles called the New Beverly which became world famous for its eclectic range of programming, Grindhouse feel and celebrity patrons (many of whom appear as talking heads).

On the other hand, it is much bigger than that and looks at the importance of small independent cinemas like this, and the Prince Charles Cinema in London, are in keeping "film" alive in the form of 35mm when all the multiplexes have switched to digital.

Not only are they doing their best to keep the medium of celluloid alive but they also are bringing new audiences to old films that they might never have seen before or on the big screen.

The film reminds us that there is no better way to enjoy a movie than in a darkened cinema auditorium packed out with likeminded people who are there for the same reason that you are.

I have worked at the Belmont Filmhouse (formally The Belmont Picturehouse) for over eleven years now and some of my fondest memories include screening an original print of Predator to a sold-out audience or the many, many screening of The Room with all the crowd participation and flying spoons.

We've seen the transition to digital cinema, and while it certainly does have its advantages, there is nothing quite like the look, sound and feel of a reel print so it is very exciting that we'll be one of the few sites in the UK screening Christopher Nolan's Interstellar from a 35mm print.

But I digress, what is clear throughout every frame of Out Of Print is that it is a movie made by people who love movies about places that love movies screened by people who love movies, and that is something that should be supported.

It is a rallying cry to people to stop watching movies on their phones, turn them off and head to their local cinema and experience the film as the filmmakers intended.

Julia Marchese's enthusiasm for cinema shines through in the documentary and her future might lie in the box office counter at the New Beverly but Out Of Print demonstrates she might lie within the industry she has spent so much of her time fighting for and personally I hope that another repertory cinema takes advantage of her skills soon.