Tag: BFI

AFTER BREXIT CHILDREN OF MEN RECLASSIFIED AS DOCUMENTARY

LONDON – Following the shock result of the UK referendum to leave the European Union, the dystopian satire Children of Men has been reclassified as a documentary.

The British Film Institute has reclassified Alfonso Cuaron’s 2006 dystopian satire Children of Men following the Brexit result of the UK referendum on the European Union. A spokesperson for the BFI said:

The thing is we originally thought that the racism and hatred towards immigrants shown in Cuaron’s film was over the top, but actually we see that it is the driving thought of most little Englanders, of who there are much more than we realized.

But why is the BFI making such a political stance?

Well, did you like An Education? Or Hunger? Or Macbeth, Nanny McPhee, Amy, or Tinker Tailor, Soldier ,Spy? Or Game of Thrones? Or Under the Skin, or Pride, or Berbarian Sound Studio?

I didn’t like Nanny McPhee.

But did you like The Lobster, fish Tank, Belle? Shaun the Sheep?

Yes.

Then those were all made with vital help from the EU Media fund which paid the UK over 130 million pounds over the last decade. That won’t be there anymore.

Oh.

Exactly.

Children of Men star Clive Owen.

SHARON STONE’S VAGINA IS REMASTERED BY THE BFI

LONDON – Next year’s Sharon Stone retrospective at the BFI has run into controversy after the institute’s director,Amanda Nevill, claimed that the infamous flash of Stone’s vagina in Basic Instinct has been altered at the request of Miss Stone herself.

“Sharon has always claimed she was tricked into exposing herself by the director,” said a revealing Nevill:

“Though she fully appreciates it had a significant effect on her career and she has nothing against cinematic nudity per say, she feels the scene was not an accurate representation of her vagina and by utilizing modern technology, it is possible to digitally enhance and more importantly, de-age, her vajayjay.”

Nevill went on to say that the BFI and Stone have been working with James Cameron in a bid to create the ultimate upskirt experience:

“Cameron took hours of footage of Sharon’s vagina from a multitude of angles using his 3D camera. So now when she uncrosses her legs during the infamous interrogation scene the audience will be taken on a swooping three dimensional journey up her skirt and across the surface of her vagina. After several laps of her labia majoria the camera rushes up her vaginal entrance, past her cervix and eventually comes to rest in her uterus. It’s a stunning scene but you cannot appreciate its grandeur until you’ve seen it with your own eyes. Though it is a bit like the end of Star Wars when the X-Wings are attempting to destroy the Death Star.”

We asked James Cameron about his work on the film and he revealed that he was so pleased with the outcome that himself and Stone are planning to develop a Theme Park ride based on the footage.

“We’re currently working on a deal to have Basic Instinct: The Interactive Ride installed at Universal Studios. Almost everything is in place but Michael Douglas is uncomfortable with me sticking a camera up his asshole. We’ve tried it once and he was just not into it but next time I figure I’ll get him drunk first and see what happens.”

The remastered version of Basic Instinct will be shown at the BFI in spring 2020

BFI SEASON OF FILMS INSPIRED BY THE FALL

LONDON – This summer the BFI are programming a whole season of films inspired by the music and lyrics of British post-punk band The Fall, led by Mark E. Smith.

Seven films will be shown at the BFI on London’s South Bank from June the 19th to June the 29th, 2015, comprising some obscure works that took as their titles song lyrics from the musical opus of the Manchester based band. Programmer Nathanial Bisculo spoke EXCLUSIVELY to the Studio Exec:

Very few people know about these films because of a kind of collective curse. But throughout the 80s and 90s, it became chic for every film director of any kind of international reputation to make what became known as their ‘The Fall’ film.

The season kicks off with Roland Joffe’s Spoilt Victorian Child, a period drama starring Helena Bonham Carter as Adeline, the titular Nineteenth Century brat who comes of age in an era of covered table legs and incipient prostitution. A commercial and critical disaster the film is no longer available on DVD and so the rare print that the BFI acquired will offer the rarest of occasions to view this lost classic. Roman Polanski’s black comedy set in a deserted British seaside town – actually filmed in Stockport – British People in Hot Weather, features a wonderful performance by Donald Pleasance as the Punch and Judy man, who goes on a murderous rampage. Eat Y’Self Fitter was made my David Lynch between Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart but because it ran into trouble with censors, this Nicolas Cage starring tale of auto-cannibalism never saw the light of day. Martin Scorsese’s Hip Priest along with Sofia Coppola’s Code Selfish with be shown as a double bill, both films having been saved by annihilation by the personal intervention of the British Prime Minister David Cameron, who rates The Fall as almost as good as Chris Rhea.

This Nation’s Saving Grace: The Films and The Falll will take place at London’s Southbank from June the 19th to the 29th, 2015. Biscuits will be made available.

KRULL: NEGLECTED MASTERPIECE

 HOLLYWOOD – Film makers from all over the globe have added their voices to a growing tsunami of public opinion demanding that 1983 British fantasy film Krull be elevated to the status of Best Film of All Time.

 Michael Haneke even staged a protest at the Oscars on Sunday, refusing to speak in his usual pristine Oxford accent and instead pretending to be German: ‘It went over their heads,’ he later complained.

Steven Spielberg – making his first public pronouncement after having become the President of the Jury at Cannes – reviled film programmers everywhere for neglecting a film he rates as ‘Better than Lawrence of Arabia, but not quite as good as Red Sonja.’

Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiweiweiwie tweeted: ‘Without #Krull, Rien!’ And noted Slovakian philosopher Slavoj Zizek argued in his essay ‘The Glaive: a five pronged phallus!’ that Krull ‘shits on Vertigo FROM A HEIGHT!’

The popularity of the film however has also provoked a backlash from Liam Neeson and Robbie Coltrane. ‘I’m in it,’ said Neeson to express his argument against the film’s rediscovery.

The list of powerful advocates now includes Matt Damon (a self-professed Krull-ite), Ben Affleck (who thanked Krull just after Canada) and  the prestigious British Film Institute which has promised to screen it ‘some time in the next five minutes’.

EDGAR WRIGHT TO REMAKE KRULL

HOLLYWOOD – Following his exit from Ant-Man, Edgar Wright – the visionary director who brought us Shaun of the Dead and the almost good Scott Pilgrim Vs the World – has tweeted his willingness to remake Krull, the 1983 fantasy film starring Ken Marshall, which many say is better than Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai.

Last year, the Studio Exec wrote the following:

Steven Spielberg – making his first public pronouncement after having become the President of the Jury at Cannes – reviled film programmers everywhere for neglecting a film he rates as ‘Better than Lawrence of Arabia, but not quite as good as Red Sonja.’Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiweiweiwie tweeted: ‘Without #Krull, Rien!’ And noted Slovakian philosopher Slavoj Zizek argued in his essay ‘The Glaive: a five pronged phallus!’ that Krull ‘shits on Vertigo FROM A HEIGHT!’

The popularity of the film however has also provoked a backlash from Liam Neeson and Robbie Coltrane. ‘I’m in it,’ said Neeson to express his argument against the film’s rediscovery.

The list of powerful advocates now includes Matt Damon (a self-professed Krull-ite), Ben Affleck (who thanked Krull just after Canada) and  the prestigious British Film Institute which has promised to screen it ‘some time in the next five minutes’.

Now Edgar Wright is on board, he will have a stellar cast of A-listers willing to work for free. Ring the bells, spread the news, Krull is coming to a cinema near you.

But there’s always the chance it will be sh*t.

5 FACTS ABOUT THE LONDON FILM FESTIVAL

LONDON – So Festivals come and Festivals go but what are the FACTS! Well, the Studio Exec in anticipation of his British sojourn has polished off his best Dick Van Dyke and cor’ Blimey Guv’ if these aren’t the FACTS! behind the 57th BFI London Film Festival in partnership with American Express.

1. The London film festival originally took place in New York. It was called the London Film Festival due to the fact that the organiser was famous novelist and wolf channeller Jack London. But when he became disinterested in the world of cinema due to his death, they moved it to London so that it would make more sense.

2. Although there have been 57 editions of the festival, they only began to actually show films three years ago. Festival organiser Billy Connolly said that screening films was considered a waste of valuable drinking time.  

3. The BFI stands for Big Friendly Idiots.

4. The opening film of the festival this year is called Captain Phillips and stars Tom Hanks as the inventor of the screwdriver.

5.  As the festival takes place in Britain booing or applauding at the end of screenings is discouraged and audiences are asked politely to restrict their reactions to a quiet clearing of phlegm from the back of the throat.

For more FACTS on everything from this to that click HERE!

LOST HITCHCOCK FILM DISCOVERED

HELSINKI – Following the finding of a lost Orson Welles film in Italy, it has come to light that another forgotten masterpiece has been discovered in an attic in Helsinki, a film directed by none other than Alfred Hitchcock.

Made in 1952, during an unusually fallow period for the master of suspense, it stars James Mason and is entitled Whoops-i-Doosie. 

Film historian Mark Cousins (not that Mark Cousins but another one with a less irritating voice) has had a chance to see the film:   

This was a case of a misdirection for Hitchcock. His first and only musical comedy, Whoops-i-Doosie is about a man called Harry (James Mason) who suffers from vertigo, but who decides to disguise himself as his own mother – a famed ornithologist – as a way of charming a nosy female reporter Marnie (a young Janet Leigh), who is obsessed by birds. Although the plot is muddled, there are glimmers of genius as in the scene when Harry trips over some rope, grabs onto a curtain which unfortunately is torn and falls out of a rear window only to injure his topaz. Some of the songs – ‘The Trouble with Harry’ for instance – are anodyne at best and the dance routines are pedestrian, with Mason a particularly poor hoofer, but one can see ideas forming that would reappear in later and better films. Ultimately this is not a masterpiece to add to the oeuvre of the maestro, but it will be poured over for years to come and is certainly a remarkable find.

The BFI have announced that they will be showing the film as a part of a retrospective – Mason or Hitchcock they haven’t decided yet- and Sight and Sound are currently revising their top ten list to see if they can squeeze Whoops-i-Doosie into the top three.  

A restored version of Whoops-i-Doosie will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray in 2014. 

MICHAEL CAINE BAD FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCED

LONDON – The first Bad Michael Caine Film Festival is to begin on Friday at the BFI on the Southbank, London, UK. Organizers say there’s not need to go online to book tickets or even inquire about it: Just turn up in your best Michael Caine gear and lets ‘have a laff!’ The film festival – which lasts for three weeks – will include many favorite bad films made by the Cockney character actor in his endless quest to buy bigger and nicer houses.

The festival kicks off with a gala showing of Jaws IV: the Revenge which will be attended by Sir Michael Caine himself. Of the widely deplored sequel Mr Caine once said, ‘I’ve never seen it, but I have seen the house it bought.’

The festival will continue with showings of:

Sunday, 2nd December:    On Deadly Ground
Monday, 3rd December   Ashanti
Tuesday, 4th December    Goldmember
Wednesday, 5th December Shiner
Thursday, 6th December Bullseye!
Friday, 7th December  Get Carter (remake)
Sunday, 9th December Sleuth (remake)
Tuesday, 11th December Journey 2: The Mysterious Island
Wednesday, 12th December Miss Congeniality
Thursday, 13th December Bullet to Beijing
Saturday, 15th December Cars 2
Tuesday, 18th December Water
Wednesday, 19th December Blame it on Rio
Thursday, 20th December Swarm
Friday, 21st December Beyond the Poseidon Adventure
Saturday, 22nd December The Fourth Protocol

SIGHT AND SOUND POLL: ERRATA

LONDON – The Sight and Sound top 100 poll is (as you will all know) a way for top film critics from all over the world to pretend they like Citizen Kane once every ten years. In a revolutionary upset this year, on the 1st of August, it was announced that critics would be pretending to like Vertigo – not Psycho or The Birds but Vertigo and no longer Citizen Kane – for ten years. However, in an unprecedented upset, the British Film Institute today has published a set of errata which radically alter the composition of the list and will undoubtedly cause open handed slap fights in cinema lobbies up and and down the world.

The errata reads so:

During the compilation of the original list over 800 critics, programmers and directors were asked for their preferences. However, due to myopia and some out and out snobbery the final list that was published contained some serious errors, and errors is a generous interpretation of the facts. Please adjust the published list in the following way: 

  • In the first place where the list reads: ‘Vertigo directed by Alfred Hitchock (1958) with 191 votes’ it should instead read ‘Maid in Manhattan directed by Wayne Wang with 231 votes’. 
  • In the second place where the list reads: ‘Citizen Kane directed by Orson Welles (1941) with 147 votes’ should instead read ‘We Bought a Zoo directed by Cameron Crowe (2011) with 230 votes’.
  • Other changes include Tokyo Story (3rd place) which has been overtaken by the Italian sex comedy A Policewoman on the Porno Squad (1979) directed by Michele Trantini; La Règle du Jeu (4th position) has been overtaken by Cannonball Run II (1984).

The rest of the list remains pretty much unaltered although The Human Centipede makes a surprise entry (no pun intended but gladly received) at 45 ousting Abbas Kiarostami’s Close-Up, which even the director called ‘dull’. Nick James the editor of Sight and Sound is climbing an unnamed Scottish mountain and so is unavailable for comment.