Brighton Rock

Not many people are saying this at the moment, but let me tell you something. Brighton Rock is a great film. Yes, really.

Opening with a nail-biting fifteen-minute sequence that ramps up the tension as second-rate gangster Pinkie Brown seeks revenge for the murder of his mentor - and gets it in an explosion of stylish cinematography and alarming editing - the film never quite settles, constantly keeping you in a state of fear about what Pinkie might do next.

And he could do anything, because he's a complete psychopath. Portrayed brilliantly by one of Britain's greatest actors, Pinkie is a monstrous creation. He doesn't drink, smoke or eat chocolate, emphasising his inability to take pleasure in anything, even love - although it's clear he's incapable of and disgusted by the very notion, as evinced by the slightest flaring of his nostrils or sneer of his mouth. Make no mistake, this is a performance that will be remembered for a long time.

The supporting cast can't hope to compare but acquit themselves admirably, aided by a tight script and intelligent direction. And as for the visuals, well, this could be Britain's most beautiful film noir. Every frame is a perfectly composed nightmare, with dark-dwelling horrors nestling up to brightly-lit beauty and innocence at every turn.

All in all, Brighton Rock is a work of art the British film industry should be proud of, and I urge everyone to see it as soon as possible.

Apparently there's a remake out soon but I don't know anything about that.

That Was The London Film Festival

As recycling bins around the land groan under the weight of discarded LFF brochures and film bloggers lie awake wondering what in the name of sweet Mary Poppins they're going to write about for the next eleven months, The Incredible Suit takes a look back at what made the 54th BFI London Film Festival the only Film Festival to be seen at in London between the 13th and the 28th of October 2010.

It was a good year for...

Some Films
Not all films were good. In fact some were shit. Some that weren't shit included The Peddler, Blue Valentine, The Tillman Story, Never Let Me Go, Let Me In, Womb, Black Swan, Catfish, The Pipe, 127 Hours and Kaboom. The Incredible Suit's prize for the least shit film goes to the funny and touching The Kids Are All Right. Congratulations lesbians!

Sandra Hebron
Maybe it's just my imagination but the BFI's Artistic Director seemed to enjoy a much higher profile than usual this year. Perhaps it's because she featured in 99.9% of Ultra Culture's Twitter feed over the last month. Perhaps it's because she was interviewed live on Film 2010. Or perhaps it's because her name is an anagram of "Bear's Hard Onn".

Wanking
Not that I mind, but at least a quarter of the films I saw contained scenes in which people took matters into their own hands, which seems like a high proportion to me. Still I suppose that's art. Of those that didn't feature any self-service, Violante Placido in The American probably prompted a couple and Upside Down: The Creation Records Story was just full of wankers.

Sausage Rolls
The sausage and leek rolls at the BFI's Benugo bar are amazing. It's like there's a party in your mouth and everyone's invited, but the coolest people at the party are the sausage rolls and they're only interested in you and want to go upstairs and make sweet love to you underneath the coats on the spare bed. Oh yeah and they come in a pint glass.

The Incredible Suit
Thanks to the Wonka's Golden Ticket that is the LFF Press Pass, I was able to see lots of films for free, meaning I saved almost enough money to buy a portion of sausage and leek rolls at the BFI's Benugo bar.

But it was a bad year for...

Some Other Films
Out of 200 or so films you would expect some to be a bit rubbs. Fortunately most of what I saw wasn't, but the turds among the sausages this year included The American, It's Kind Of A Funny Story, Heartbeats, Upside Down, Route Irish and Edge. The Incredible Suit's award for the biggest load of old Shia goes to the painfully boring Living On Love Alone.

The Surprise Film
Every year there's a surprise film that people willingly pay to see before they know what it is, in the hope that it'll be a sure-fire future classic or a hotly-anticipated new film by an established director. This year it was Brighton Rock, which went down like ejaculate in a bowl of tomato soup. I didn't see it so I can't confirm whether or not it tastes of jizz.

NFT2
Most press screenings took place in NFT2, which isn't a terrible place to watch a film, but it is a terrible place to watch several films in a row, especially if you value your spine. It's also a terrible place to hold a screening like The American which attracts about four times as many people as there are seats. AND there's no mobile reception or WiFi. Speaking of which...

WiFi
Trying to connect to the internet at the BFI is like trying to catch a fish with a hula hoop, which is infuriating if you're trying to write a blog, check the screening schedule or tweet about sausage rolls. When you do manage to connect you're allowed approximately four minutes before the exclamation mark of doom appears and you fling your laptop into the Thames.

The Incredible Suit
Specifically, my amazing LFF preview. I only managed three films from the ten I recommended and two of them were crapples. Most annoyingly I failed to see Submarine, which is by all accounts Tick VG, and The Great White Silence, which looked like it could have been bum-blowingly great. Damn you, "day job"!

So that's the London Film Festival: the only time it's OK to sit in in a dark room with 200 strangers, stuffing yourself with sausage rolls and watching people masturbate. I can't wait to do it all again.

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Movie-Con III: Day 3

The final day of Movie-Con had a more relaxed pace than Saturday, which was a relief because I was starting to live life like it was a trailer, getting annoyed with all the gaps in conversations and music failing to drop out every time I made a crap joke.

A long scene from Tron: Legacy showing Garrett Hedlund being transported through the bowels of an Xbox raised my interest in the film by 1%, which means I might watch it on the telly. The 3D was good though, which is something I'll never admit actually thinking or writing if pressed.

I'm similarly disinterested in Machete, although the scene in which the titular Mexican mentalist abseils from a window with the aid of someone's large intestine certainly caught my attention.

Battle: Los Angeles looks like a less slick Independence Day with equally little irony; a fight scene from The Green Hornet was better than the trailers we've seen so far, and Ironclad is a gory medieval sword-orgy directed by a man called Jonathan English. Johnny, as he didn't call himself, introduced a clip with all the enthusiasm of a teenager reading an essay on Flemish porridge farming, then pulled a face when, during his panel, people asked his cast about their other projects. Quite right too. Why would the Empire Movie-Con audience want to quiz Jason Flemyng about Kick-Ass 2 rather than a film set in Rochester Castle starring Paul Giamatti as King of England?

Future best mates of The Incredible Suit Simon Pegg and Nick Frost turned up to introduce a long trailer for Paul, which was very pleasing. I'm slightly worried it might end up like one of Pegg's "other" comedies (you know what I mean), but to see the eponymous alien extending a middle finger and proclaiming "It's probing time" was good enough for now.

Undisputed nadir of the weekend came in the form of a diabolical gobbet of guff about Resident Evil: Afterlife, in which director and unbearable imbecile Paul WS Anderson repeatedly and ill-advisedly compared his film to Avatar before stating, with a completely straight face, that "You make a better product when you make it in 3D". Words fail me, although two very obvious ones spring to mind immediately.



Later on I failed to win the Bastard Hard Movie Quiz, and failed to get excited about the impending "re-version" (dear God) of Brighton Rock, although director Rowan Joffe offered a robust defence of his film and explained some of his artistic decisions clearly and interestingly. I liked him enormously but I doubt I'll go and see his film.

Then I saw Scott Pilgrim vs The World. More on that another day.

So that was Movie-Con III. In short, there was too much footage we'd all seen on the internet already but the exclusive stuff, the guests and other assorted fun made the weekend a big hairy bag of geeky funballs, and I congratulate Empire and the BFI for organising it just for me.

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