Submarine

I've got to say I'm very pleased with how 2011 is turning out. After 2010 parped out just four films that I would allow onto my DVD shelf, this year has already presented four that I'm itching to see again, and it's only 74 days old. So well done 2011 and well done Richard Ayoade for directing the sublime, subdued and substantially good Submarine.

With a cast of hyper-real characters, a handful of fantasy scenes and a script full of lines that literally nobody would ever say in real life ("Once, I ripped my vest off in front of a woman... it produced a very atavistic response"), Submarine is destined to be labelled with the nauseating "offbeat" and "quirky" tags that often get used to describe something that isn't Transformers 3, even though that film will almost certainly feature all of the above. Apart from the "atavistic" bit, obviously.

Ayoade marshalls all the elements of his film with such a deft hand it's hard to believe that it's his first feature, but with several ingenious music videos to his name already, he's clearly set to join Edgar Wright and Garth Jennings as a force to be reckoned with in the field of visionary British directors. His own script, adapted from Joe Dunthorne's novel, is full of pathos, romance and pant-pissing LOLs, Erik Wilson's cinematography is heartbreakingly gorgeous and Alex Turner's original songs are things of aching beauty.

Alex Turner: 'Piledriver Waltz'


But it's the cast that effortlessly wins you over: it's impossible to take your eyes off Craig Roberts as the deadpan hero Oliver Tate; if he doesn't become the icon of a generation of teenage boys then there's something wrong with the world. Yasmin Paige is exactly as alluring, aloof and untouchable as teenage girls are to teenage boys and Noah Taylor, Sally Hawkins and The Mighty Considine are note-perfect as the supporting cast of hopelessly tragic yet heart-warmingly human characters.

Struggling to find something wrong with it in order to not come across like a fawning berk, all I can come up with is that Submarine drags ever so slightly in the final act. Fortunately there are enough shots of Paddy Considine's tremungous hair to kep you entertained and you can be sure that zingers like "Feel my piss" and "You've got to shut this shit down" are lurking just under the surface, waiting to remind you that British film in 2011 is about so much more than stammering royalty.

Ultra Culture Cinema #06: Submarine

I failed to say anything about December's Ultra Culture Cinema screening of Catfish because I was so ill that it was all I could do to make it through the film without voiding myself of every last drop of bodily fluids, so I didn't really pay much attention to the trademark "high jinks" and "shenanigans" that accompany these events. I'd apologise for this but I'm reasonably sure you don't care.

Anyway, last Friday night I was in full control of all my personal exits, so I took myself to London's ICA for the sixth in Sky Movies' Blog Of The Year (ouch) Ultra Culture's now almost mythical screenings of very good films: Submarine.

I was going to write 4,000 words about the evening, but we all know that a picture speaks a thousand words, so instead here are four pictures that more or less (less) convey general high jinkery and shenaniganness. Hopefully they also show what it's like to sit behind an eleven-foot-tall News Of The World film critic in a cinema.

Host Charlie Lyne wearing some kind of jumper thing.

The two people in the middle observing the "high jinks" with confusion and fear are the stars of Submarine, Yasmin Paige and Craig Roberts. They obviously need to go to more Ultra Culture Cinema nights.

This man was made to wear a lot of feather boas in order to woo a complete stranger as part of the "shenanigans".

A film is starting somewhere on the other side of Robbie Collin.

Apart from all this there was the customary introductory video in which innocent tourists are made to display a staggering lack of knowledge about something peculiarly British (this episode's topic: Wales), lots of free pop, sweets and biscuits and a "zine" (like a magazine but not maga) with interviews, pictures, important phone numbers and a highly meta introduction from Submarine's protagonist Oliver Tate:

It makes more sense when you've seen the film.

More on Submarine nearer its official release date of March 18th (spoiler: It's brilliant).

The Top 10 Movies Of 2011

Now that 2010 is mercifully behind us and everyone has bored everyone else to tears with infinite lists of varying unimportance, I thought I may as well get in early with my favourite films of 2011.

Now obviously I haven't seen any of these yet, so it's a largely unjustified - not to mention pointless - list, but I firmly believe this is exactly what my favourite films of the year will be come the end of December. If I'm wrong you are all welcome to write a lengthy comment about what a waste of time this post is, although if you're going to do that you may as well say the same about all the other posts and that would be an even bigger waste of time, only yours rather than mine. OH THE IRONY.

And before you go any further I would just like to briefly apologise on behalf of various film studios for not having any official title designs for certain films, rendering this post even more amateur than it already was.

1

Opens August 19th

2

Opens April 22nd

3

Opens April 8th

4

Opens September 16th

5

Opens June 2nd

6

Opens March 11th

7

Opens August 12th

8

Opens July 15th

9

Opens March 18th

10

Opens December 26th

Hmm. It occurs to me that I really am the definitive Empire magazine reader. Anyway, was I right? Come back in twelve months and find out! Or, you know, come back every day. That would be better.

The 54th London Film Festival: Ten Things To Maybe See If You Want, I Don't Know, It's Up To You

Having spent the weekend poring over the programme for the American Express American Airlines Mofilm Windows 7 Renault Jameson Empire Lovefilm Vue Green & Black's London Film Festival (apols to the sponsors I didn't have space for), it's painfully apparent that this is a good year for intimate depictions of family life / the horrors of war / people struggling with their sexuality, not to mention five-and-a-half-hour biopics of terrorists. All well and good, but what else ya got?

Well, ignoring the obvious (Never Let Me Go, 127 Hours, Black Swan etc), here's just ten of the flicks I think I'll go and see if the elusive LFF Press Pass comes my way; if not I suppose I'll just have to pay, though that hardly seems right.

Archive Gala: The Great White Silence 

Restored footage of one of history's most tragic wastes of time, Captain Scott's expedition to the South Pole. The kind of thing that makes you truly question yourself when you use the phrase "Brrr, I'm freezing".

Film On The Square: Submarine

Written and directed by The IT Crowd's Richard Ayoade, starring Paddy Considine in a mullet and featuring the words "desirable eczematous classmate" in the BFI's write-up. Who wouldn't want to see that?

Film On The Square: 13 Assassins

A retired samurai has to gather a team of hard-nuts to overthrow an evil warlord in 19th Century Japan. Exactly like The Expendables,

but (I'm guessing) 100% less shit.

New British Cinema: Edge

Character drama about a bunch of lost souls in a hotel located on the edge (geddit?) of a disintegrating clifftop. Features amazing wallpaper.

New British Cinema: Upside Down

Yes, it's a music documentary, but sadly no, it's not about the 1990s boy band who hit the heady heights of No. 11 in the UK charts with "Change Your Mind". It is instead about the rise of indie record label Creation, responsible for some of the songs that CHANGED YOUR LIFE. If you're me.

French Revolutions: In Your Hands

Nobody does taut, intense, claustrophobic, psychological thrillers like the French, and when it stars Britain's Most Famous Bi-lingual Actress Who Was In Four Weddings And A Funeral, who could say non?

Cinema Europa: The Temptation Of St Tony

I know literally nobody who's ever said "I'm not interested in a completely mental Estonian-Swedish-Finnish film about severed hands, dead dogs, gravity-defying priests and chainsaw-wielding surgeons". NOBODY.

World Cinema: Catfish

I'm there.

World Cinema: The Parking Lot Movie

The documentary that may go some way to explaining why Steve Guttenberg's character in Police Academy hated the customers in his car park so much. And if that's all it achieves, it's succeeded.

Treasures From The Archive:

Man With A Movie Camera

The film I was made to read the most about without actually seeing

as a student arrives at the LFF in all its 1920s Russian experimental glory.

If you've ever enjoyed a special effect of any kind, watching this

would appear to be the respectful thing to do before commenting on

the blue guys in Avatar.

Obviously there are a bajillion more films worth seeing this year, and it's entirely possible that some from this list will be complete cack, but when else are you going to get the chance to find out? Exactly. See you there.

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