Love and Mercy

Starring John Cusack, Paul Dano, Paul Giamatti and Elizabeth Banks
Written by Michael Alan Lerner and Oren Moverman
Directed by Bill Pohlad
USA 2015
121 mins

The musical bio pic has seen some notable critical and box office successes in recent years including 'Walk The Line', 'Bohemian Rhapsody' and 'Rocketman'. Ever since the days of 'The Glenn Miller Story' this genre has favoured a format which blends the big hits of the artist along with their personal highs and lows plus a bit of music business skullduggery to boot.
'Love and Mercy' - the story of Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys - is no different in many ways. It focuses on Wilson's musical genius, his well-publicised drug and mental health issues plus his fallings out with the band and his relationship with the woman who saved him.
What really distinguishes the film are the performances of the two actors who portray Wilson at different times in his life - Paul Dano and John Cusack. Dano in particular brings an authenticity and insight to the role of the younger man while Cusack is an actor who always lights up the screen. The musical recreations are also first class - with all the key songs getting a look in.
This is a real summer movie and if you love the Beach Boys music it is definitely for you - but even if they leave you a little cold there is plenty to enjoy here...

Tomboy

Starring Zoé Héran, Malonn Lévana, Sophie Cattani and Mathieu Demy
Written and directed by Céline Sciamma
France 2011
82 mins

One of the most exciting and distinctive talents working in French cinema is Céline Sciamma. Her feature output includes 'Water Lilies', 'Girlhood' (screened by the AFC a few years back) and most recently "Portrait of a Lady on Fire'. Her films combine arresting visuals, powerful emotion and great use of music to tell their stories - often of the disenfranchised and marginal;ised in France today.
'Tomboy' tells the story of 10-year-old Laure who moves to a new neighbourhood and in an effort to fit in with a new crowd adopts the identity of a boy. Her strategy works but very soon complications arise...
The young actors in this movie are astonishingly natural - slipping into their roles both new and traditional with ease. The shades of meaning in the story make it a universal as well as a particular account of growing up and the confusion and joy of that time in our lives.
Describing the ambiguity which lies at the heart of her film, Sciamma said she was drawn to the subject of childhood because 'it’s a time when everybody pretends to be someone else for an afternoon, everyone makes up stories about themselves.' She was also clear that her film was built on several layers of meaning, and shouldn’t be pigeonholed. 'I made it so that a transsexual person can say ‘that was my childhood' Sciamma explained, 'and a heterosexual woman can also say it'.

The Lunchbox

Starring Irrfan Khan, Nimrat Kaur and Nawazuddin Siddiqui
Written and directed by Ritesh Batra
India 2013
105 mins

In April of this year the distinguished Indian actor Irrfan Khan died at the age of only 53. His career spanned Bollywood and Hollywood - he starred in The Warrior and Life Of Pi as well as Slumdog Millionaire, The Namesake and Paan Singh Tomar.

Khan was a philosophical man and a devout Muslim. When he learned that he was gravely ill he tweeted, quoting Gone With the Wind novelist Margaret Mitchell:
'Life is under no obligation to give us what we expect.'
Later on he said:
'God speaks to each of us as he makes us, then walks with us silently out of the night.'

In The Lunchbox he plays a world-weary widower on the verge of retirement who becomes engaged in an exchange of letters with an unhappily married woman when a lunchbox she has prepared comes to him by mistake. Their correspondence leads to a change in his attitude to life as well as a gentle romance between them.

This charming and uplifting film was the debut feature of Ritesh Batra and has distinct echoes of Helene Hanff's 84 Charing Cross Road. It is set in the vibrant bustle of Mumbai with its famous and complex system of Dabbawallas who pick up and deliver lunches to those at work.

The Lunchbox is a fitting tribute to a gifted performer who will be sadly missed.

Do The Right Thing

Starring Spike Lee, Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Giancarlo Esposito and Bill Nunn
Written and directed by Spike Lee
USA 1989
120 mins

Just as the Coronavirus pandemic subsides the shock waves of a new event are sweeping the globe - following the murder in police custody of George Floyd - an unarmed Black American. 'Black Lives Matter' protests have sprung up in countries all over the world raging at this new injustice - the latest in a series of such incidents. Will this one finally bring about change in key areas of the United States and begin to put an end to the institutional racism that continues to thrive there - even though slavery was abolished over 150 years ago?

A number of documentary films deal with the subject - Ava DuVernay's excellent '13th' is available to watch free on YouTube while 'Whose Streets?' from 2017 about the killing of Michael Brown and the subsequent Ferguson Uprising is available on Amazon.
However we have chosen to programme a drama - 'Do The Right Thing' - by the celebrated African-American filmmaker Spike Lee, whose 'BlacKkKlansman' won an Academy Award for Best Screenplay in 2019.
Lee's seminal 1989 movie , set on a single, blisteringly-hot day in Brooklyn, is an eloquent and vibrant drama which gets to the heart of racial tension but never feels like a lecture or a sermon. High-energy performances, a rich, raucous hip-hop/R&B soundtrack plus dynamic production design and cinematography make 'Do The Right Thing' a compelling, visceral experience. A gifted cast including Lee himself, Giancarlo Esposito, John Turturro and the late great Danny Aiello bring their characters into vivid focus as intense heat and petty squabbles take them out of the frying pan and into the fire.
It's a truthful film, sometimes uncomfortably so, but also funny, brash and surprising - a modern classic.

Rams

Starring Sigurður Sigurjónsson and Theódór Júlíusson
Written and directed by Grímur Hákonarson
Iceland/Denmark 2015
92 mins

Gummi and Kiddi - two middle-aged Icelandic brothers - are sheep farmers and neighbours involved in a 40-year-old feud. When disease threatens their flocks they become drawn in to a plot together - disaster threatens but will blood prove thicker than water?
Grímur Hákonarson's poker-faced, slow-paced and strangely touching comedy won the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes in 2015. Rams is full of memorable moments and benefits from a spare script and wonderful performances.
Like 'A Woman At War', another Icelandic ilm screened by the AFC in the last year, the extraordinary volcanic landscape of the island forms a monumental and striking backdrop to this delightfully deadpan tale.

Tampopo

Starring Tsutomu Yamazaki and Nobuko Miyamoto
Written and directed by Juzo Itami
Japan 1985
115 mins

For many of us lockdown has meant a big change in eating habits - probably cooking more and certainly not eating out. As a reminder of that lost experience here is perhaps the greatest film about food ever made. Tampopo is a freewheeling, joyous celebration of the art of cooking and eating with a healthy dose of sex on the side.
Juzo Itami's movie was a huge arthouse hit in the 1980s - managing to be funny, startling, erotic and satirical as well as hunger-inducing.
So settle down with a bowl of noodles and prepare to enjoy a cinematic banquet !

Son of Rambow

Starring Bill Milner, Will Poulter,
Jessica Stevenson and Eric Sykes
Written and directed by Garth Jennings
Produced by Nick Goldsmith
UK 2007
96 mins

The latest of our 'virtual' weekly film club screenings is a special tribute to the co-founder of the Acton Film Club - Mark Mason.
Mark died suddenly ten years ago. His marvellous wit, unique character and boundless energy are much missed. Mark's widow Amanda has been at the very heart of The Acton Film Club ever since.

'Son of Rambow' is written and directed by Garth Jennings, one of the most gifted pop promo directors to hail from these shores. With his production partner Nick Goldsmith, through their company Hammer and Tongs, they created memorable videos for such artists as Robbie Williams, Supergrass, Pulp and Blur. In 2005 they made a film version of Douglas Adams’ classic sci-fi comedy The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and followed that in 2007 with this charming, funny and eccentric British coming of age comedy.
The film is set in the early 1980s and tells the story of Will, a young boy from a strict religious family and his friendship with Lee Carter - the worst behaved kid in school. Together they set out to make a film to enter in the Screen Test Young Filmmakers competition. Inspired by Sylvester Stallone’s ‘Rambo - First Blood’ they embark on an ambitious action movie - the making of which which leads them into various hilarious adventures.
Son of Rambow is quirky, beautifully observed and boasts fantastic performances from its two young stars.

Mark was the Special Effects Supervisor on this film. The effects needless to say are terrific and a testament to what Mark and the Asylum team could achieve even on a modest budget.

Being There

Starring Peter Sellers and Shirley MacLaine
Written by Jerzy Kosiński
Directed by Hal Ashby
USA 1979
130 mins

Peter Sellers - the star of 'Being There' - is one of cinema's true comic geniuses. Along with Chaplin, Keaton and a handful of others his perfect timing and extraordinary physical precision imbue any role that he inhabits not only with truth but also sympathy. He was also incredibly funny. From bloody-minded shop stewards to smooth-talking criminals and bumbling detectives to demented Nazi scientists Sellers' talent and range knew no bounds. His career had its ups and downs but he was never better than in this film playing a simple-minded gardener who by accident becomes a powerful political adviser in Washington - without having a clue of how or why.
A prescient script full of pregnant pauses and meaningful silences plus beautiful direction by Hal Ashby (the genius who made 'Shampoo', 'The Last Detail' and 'Harold and Maude) make 'Being There' one of the finest comedies of the 70s or any other era. It was Sellers last great film and a fitting swansong - he died just a year after its release at just 54 years old.
Watch and marvel at how little he seems to do and to what great effect...

A Matter of Life and Death

Starring David Niven and Kim Hunter
Written and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
UK 1946
106 mins

Quite simply one of the most beautiful, romantic and extraordinary British films ever made. In the USA called 'Stairway To Heaven' it is perhaps the greatest achievement of the filmmaking duo of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger - who through their company The Archers created some of British cinema's most unique and imaginative works.
You may have seen it before - in which case marvel at it again. If you have not then you are in for the cinematic experience of a lifetime.
With the 75th anniversary of VE Day approaching this film gets to the heart of what that conflict meant and what it left behind whilst looking forward from it to a brave new world where love and understanding hold the balance of power...

Pain and Glory

Starring Antonio Banderas and Penélope Cruz
Written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar
Spain 2019
113 mins

This, the latest offering from the inimitable Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar, is a wonderful, intensely personal movie about age, experience, friendship and forgiveness.

Banderas is brilliant, the storytelling nimble and the tone bittersweet and truthful.

Charade

Starring Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant, Walter Matthau and James Coburn
Screenplay by Peter Stone
Directed by Stanley Donen
USA 1963
113 mins

Stanley Donen was one of the finest Hollywood musical directors - the man behind 'Singin' In The Rain', 'On The Town', 'Funny Face' and many other classics. He started out as a dancer and choreographer, lived a long life and in his seventies was presented with an honorary Academy Award for which he gave one of the all time great acceptance speeches including a song!

Donen's films are characterised by a lightness of touch and playful humour as well as some of the most iconic and memorable song and dance numbers ever captured on celluloid. He was also an experimenter and innovator with special effects, animation, editing and cinematography. Even his lesser movies are distinguished by fascinating stylistic touches.

Donen directed only a handful of non musicals and 'Charade' is one of them. It's a comedy thriller of the Hitchcock variety - in the same vein as 'North By Northwest' and 'Topaz' - full of exotic locations, a twisty plot and two fabulous stars in the lead roles. The whole movie has its tongue very firmly its cheek...

Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn play a mysterious American in Europe and the translator who gets mixed up with him and a complex plot involving stolen gold, wartime intrigue and single, double and triple crossing. Both actors had worked with Donen several times before and are clearly enjoying themselves enormously. A terrific supporting cast includes Walter Matthau and James Coburn.
As we find ourselves stuck at home in the current lockdown this elegantly-choreographed entertainment will help keep the blues at bay and put some much needed glamour into our lives.

La Belle Époque

Starring Joel McCrae and Veronica Lake
Written and directed by Preston Sturges
USA 1941
90 mins

In the difficult times we are living through cinema has a unique power to transport us - to take us out of the present situation and for a few hours to immerse us in another time and place. This classic Hollywood comedy from Preston Sturges is one of the finest and funniest you will ever see - an effortless and uplifting road movie with sparkling dialogue and beautifully modulated performances from two actors who were huge stars at the time but have since been lost to film history.
The film tells the story of John Sullivan - a successful director of Hollywood comedies who longs to make 'serious' art films. Disguising himself as a tramp he sets out to get some real world experience - before long he has teamed up with a struggling actress and together they find themselves in all sorts of trouble...
Veronica Lake was often cast as a femme fatale - her trademark 'peekaboo' hairstyle and slinky beauty made her a popular box office attraction in films noirs and detective pictures. Lake's career was comparatively short - barely extending beyond the 1940s - unlike her co-star who made films for over 50 years. Joel McCrae was a handsome easy-going actor and a natural comic performer who began his career in the silent era and went on into the 1960s - working with Hitchcock and many other top directors along the way.
But the true star of Sullivan's Travels is its director Preston Sturges - a matchless creator of romantic screwball comedies including 'The Palm Beach Story' and 'The Lady Eve'. His characters, plotting and witty lines mean his films seem as fresh today as when they were made - smart, relevant and wise as well as joyfully funny.

Settle back and enjoy...

Sullivan's Travels

Starring Joel McCrae and Veronica Lake
Written and directed by Preston Sturges
USA 1941
90 mins

In the difficult times we are living through cinema has a unique power to transport us - to take us out of the present situation and for a few hours to immerse us in another time and place. This classic Hollywood comedy from Preston Sturges is one of the finest and funniest you will ever see - an effortless and uplifting road movie with sparkling dialogue and beautifully modulated performances from two actors who were huge stars at the time but have since been lost to film history.
The film tells the story of John Sullivan - a successful director of Hollywood comedies who longs to make 'serious' art films. Disguising himself as a tramp he sets out to get some real world experience - before long he has teamed up with a struggling actress and together they find themselves in all sorts of trouble...
Veronica Lake was often cast as a femme fatale - her trademark 'peekaboo' hairstyle and slinky beauty made her a popular box office attraction in films noirs and detective pictures. Lake's career was comparatively short - barely extending beyond the 1940s - unlike her co-star who made films for over 50 years. Joel McCrae was a handsome easy-going actor and a natural comic performer who began his career in the silent era and went on into the 1960s - working with Hitchcock and many other top directors along the way.
But the true star of Sullivan's Travels is its director Preston Sturges - a matchless creator of romantic screwball comedies including 'The Palm Beach Story' and 'The Lady Eve'. His characters, plotting and witty lines mean his films seem as fresh today as when they were made - smart, relevant and wise as well as joyfully funny.

Settle back and enjoy...

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Starring Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant
Written by Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty
Directed by Marielle Heller
USA 2018
107 mins

Without doubt one of the strangest and most delightful crime movies you will ever see this witty, touching and unlikely caper features the oddest of odd couples and a plot that seems impossible were it not for the fact that is based on the real life story of Lee Israel - a struggling literary biographer who turns to forgery to pay the bills.

Melissa McCarthy is quite brilliant as the curmudgeonly Israel and she finds a perfect foil in Richard E. Grant as her flamboyant partner in crime Jack Hock. The two cut a swathe through the snobbish literary scene of 1990s New York - purveying 'original' letters penned by a host of great writers for handsome sums. They are outsiders who take delicious revenge on the establishment and entertain us royally in the process.

The project was originally conceived for Julianne Moore and Chris O'Dowd but after a creative split it was recast - a stroke which lifted the film into the category of modern classic. The script crackles with wit - managing to be funny and to have real depth - at once a touching portrait of loneliness in the modern city and a hilarious attack on the pretension and nonsense of the world it inhabits.
If you are seeking an intelligent and weirdly uplifting diversion from the isolation of the current situation then look no further...

The Farewell

Starring Awkwafina, Zhao Shuzhen and Tzi Ma
Written and directed by Lulu Wang
USA 2019
100 mins

A big hit at the Sundance Film Festival in 2019, writer/director Lulu Wang's second film is a delightful, bittersweet comedy-drama based on an episode from her own life.

Aspiring young Chinese-American writer Billi discovers that her beloved grandmother Nai Nai has only a few months to live and that, as is traditional in Chinese culture, the diagnosis is to be kept back from her by the family. Billi is convinced that her grandmother should know the truth and is consequently forbidden to join a wedding party in China that has been arranged as a disguised farewell to Nai Nai. But she disobeys her parents instructions and travels to China to confront the situation head on.
Lulu Wang originally published a short story about her own grandmother which was to become the basis for the screenplay of 'The Farewell'.

Awkwafina - the talented comedian and rapper excels in the role of Billi while the veteran Chinese actress Zhao Shuzhen is perfectly cast as Nai Nai. This affecting and accomplished movie examines contrasting cultures, generations and personalities and counterpoints humour and high emotion to revealing and rewarding effect.

Ace In The Hole

Starring Kirk Douglas, Jan Sterling, Richard Benedict and Porter Hall
Written by Walter Newman, Lesser Samuels and Billy Wilder
Directed by Billy Wilder
USA 1951
111 mins

This week's screening is in tribute to Kirk Douglas - one of the last great stars of the golden age of Hollywood who died a few weeks ago at the age of 103. In a career spanning over 60 years Douglas was a liberal philanthropist, a writer, a producer and a director but above all a charismatic, physical and powerful actor who often played driven, obsessive and unlikeable characters alongside more conventional leading roles.

'I've met a lot of hard-boiled eggs in my life, but you - you're 20 minutes!'
So says Jan Sterling of Kirk Douglas's ruthless newsman Chuck Tatum in this brilliant, coruscating drama about fame, ambition and the dark appetite for disaster that lurks inside all of us...
The great Billy Wilder was the director and co-writer - his glittering Hollywood output includes comedy classics like 'The Apartment' and 'Some Like It Hot' but also darker gems such as 'The Lost Weekend' and 'Double Indemnity'

'Ace In The Hole' (known as 'The Big Carnival' in the US) is firmly in the latter group. A talented but notorious journalist is fired from the big city paper where he works and finds himself broken down and out of luck in New Mexico reporting for The 'Albuquerque Sun-Bulletin' - covering uneventful local news and going crazy in the process. When he stumbles on a hot story in the form of a local man trapped underground he is determined to exploit the situation and put himself back in the limelight.
Douglas makes the most of a razor-sharp script - snarling and snapping his way through this unsparing expose of media morality and the unhealthy fascination of the public.
As true today as it was when it was made 70 years ago - don't miss one of the great screen performers at the top of his game.

Join us in the Trades Union Club for this screening - there's a very reasonably priced bar but please note no food is available.

Frances Ha

Starring Greta Gerwig, Mickie Sumner, Charlotte d'Amboise and Adam Driver
Directed by Noah Baumbach
US 2012
86 mins

Two films have featured large in this years awards nominations - 'Marriage Story' and 'Little Women'. One is a heart-breaking account of the end of a marriage and its aftermath, the other a bold and clever reinterpretation of a classic American novel. The directors of both these films - Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig - collaborated on 'Frances Ha' - they co-wrote the screenplay, Gerwig stars and Baumbach directs.
It's a very New York story - a struggling young would-be dancer has to change apartments when her flatmate leaves. She moves between Chinatown, her home town of Sacramento and even takes a quick trip to France in a search for direction and identity. Along the way friends, colleagues and boyfriends come and go on this ramshackle odyssey.
The script owes much to Woody Allen with its Big Apple flavour and self-absorbed characters but it has its own qualities and insights too. Baumbach and Gerwig have both developed as writers since this film but there is much to enjoy here. The sequence where Gerwig runs through the streets to the sound of David Bowie's 'Modern Love' is joyous and uplifting - a perfect blend of music and image that recalls the pleasures of living in the city.
Look out for Adam Driver - one of the finest actors working in cinema today who gives a brilliant performance in 'Marriage Story' and features here in a supporting role.
Baumbach and Gerwig are now in a relationship as well as cutting a swathe as indie film makers. They are rumoured to be collaborating on a Barbie movie next - the mind boggles but you can be sure it will not be a Disney-style family movie!

Join us in the Trades Union Club for this screening - there's a very reasonably priced bar but please note no food is available.

Picnic at Hanging Rock

Starring Rachel Roberts, Dominic Guard, Helen Morse and Jacki Weaver
Written by Cliff Green
Directed by Peter Weir
Australia 1975
107 mins

Australia has been in the headlines many times this year as a series of gigantic fires have devastated large areas of the country. A stark reminder not only of the effects of climate change but also of the extraordinary, harsh and unforgiving environment of that country. Its natural beauty is undeniable but so are the perils of getting lost or stranded in the bush...

'Picnic At Hanging Rock' was one of the first Australian films from the so-called 'New Wave' of directors to find success. Its potent mixture of Victorian manners, schoolgirl dynamics and subtly supernatural overtones drew in audiences worldwide. The film's director Peter Weir would go on to have a highly successful Hollywood career - helming a series of intelligent mainstream movies including 'Witness', 'The Truman Show' and 'Master And Commander'. He has twice won BAFTA's for best director.
'Picnic At Hanging Rock' is set on Valentine's Day 1900 in the state of Victoria. A group of schoolgirls and two of their teachers travel to a local landmark to picnic but in the course of day mysterious events occur and several of the party go missing...

The eerie atmosphere and strange, stark majesty of the geography is perfectly captured by the evocative camerawork of Russell Boyd who won a BAFTA for his work. He would go on to win the Oscar for best cinematography on 'Master And Commander' in 2003.

The performances are excellent - the brilliant Welsh actress Rachel Roberts plays the stern headmistress of the school while Dominic Guard, who shot to fame as the child star of 'The Go-Between', plays a young local man who becomes embroiled in the mystery.

Joan Lindsay's novel, on which the picture is based, is ambiguous as to whether the story was true - it is in fact entirely fictitious - but such is the films power many that believe the events actually happened...

Please join us for this screening of an unusual and haunting classic.

Smile of a Summer Night

Starring Ulla Jacobsson, Eva Dahlbeck and Harriet Andersson
Written and directed by Ingmar Bergman
Sweden 1955
108 mins

Happy New Year!

Ingmar Bergman is one of the most celebrated directors of all time - his intense, soul searching dramas get to the heart of the human condition. His movies are considered to be profoundly influential stylistically - he is undoubtedly one of the most original and distinctive auteurs in world cinema.
Bergman's films are often serious not to say sombre and although sometimes uplifting they are unflinching in their portrayal of our behaviours and misbehaviours...
In 'Smiles Of A Summer Night' we see a very different side of this great Swedish artist. This is a delicate, witty and charming romantic comedy following the antics of four pairs of lovers in a country house on Midsummer's night - the shortest night of the year in Scandinavia and traditionally a night of partying till dawn.
Bergman demonstrates a supremely light touch with the action and characterisation as the couples switch partners in an effort to resolve their differences and dilemmas.
Sublimely shot by Gunnar Fischer - a regular Bergman collaborator who lensed the director's classic historical fantasy 'The Seventh Seal' - with its iconic chess game between Death and Max Von Sydow's knight.
'Smiles Of A Summer Night' was the inspiration for Woody Allen's 'A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy' and for the Stephen Sondheim musical 'A Little Night Music'.

As we begin 2020 and the days at last start to get longer don't miss this summery, bawdy gem from a master filmmaker.