It's just a few weeks, some days and an hour or two until the 61st London Film Festival takes over literally everyone's lives, and if you're not excited about it then you must be the kind of person who leads a fairly healthy lifestyle. Can we meet up one day and chat about it? A friend of mine needs tips on how to be a better person.
Anyway, because I labour under the misapprehension that someone else might be interested, here are the ten films I'm most tumescent about at #LFF2017, along with some stills from those very films to make this post mildly more interesting to look at. If you're really mental you might even enjoy the reasoning behind my carefully-curated choices, so I've shoved all that shit in too. Enjoy!
78/52
As should be painfully clear by now, I bloody love Alfred Hitchcock. I also bloody love deep dives into tiny but unutterably significant moments in film history, and Psycho's shower scene definitely counts as one of those, I've checked. 78/52 spends 91 minutes looking at the 78 setups and 52 cuts that make up the scene; I would have preferred a ten-part series on the whole of Foreign Correspondent but you don't get anything in life if you don't make it yourself.
Amant Double
I didn't even know François Ozon's latest film existed until the LFF's press launch last week, when Festival Director Clare Stewart calmly described it as channeling Alfred Hitchcock and Brian De Palma. If that isn't enough to make you try and book tickets, which will probably be an exercise in hair-tearing futility if previous booking experiences are anything to go by, then you're a dickhead, bugger off.
Call Me By Your Name
I failed miserably at watching Luca Guadagnino's A Bigger Splash, so am hoping to catch this in an attempt to justify my claims to be a person who knows things about films. Plus if everything I've read about it is true then watching it should feel like going on a nice sunny holiday without the unbelievable stress of packing, so two thumbs up to that.
Downsizing
Kristen Wiig is in it, job done, next
Happy End
I've been schooling myself in the ways of The Haneke over the summer, which has been an absolute LOL riot I can tell you. I don't know if you've ever seen Funny Games but that is a tremendous knockabout comedy to watch with the kids, while Amour is a feelgood romcom for the whole family, especially granny and grandad. So this, which has the word "Happy" in the title, cannot be anything but an equally enormous bucket of sparkly joy.
The Killing Of A Sacred Deer
After The Lobster I would watch anything Yorgos Lanthimos does. In fact I did, I watched Alps, but I didn't like it. Still let's give the fella a chance, he might get lucky again.
Last Flag Flying
I am here for anything Richard Linklater does so this is a total no-brainer. In fact I am so committed to this film that I bought a DVD of The Last Detail (to which this is a loose sequel) off eBay for £6.99 so I could be fully up to speed. A bit pricey tbh but it did arrive the next day, so thanks "jma3691", I will definitely leave you positive feedback even though you haven't left any for me. I mean I paid, like, immediately, so I really don't know what your fucking problem is.
The Shape Of Water
Not terribly sure about this in all honesty, having never actually enjoyed a Guillermo Del Toro film, but it looks kind of weird and Sally Hawkins is in it so you've got to give it a go haven't you. Pretty sure the trailer gives away a major plot point though, and if that proves to be the case it will only strengthen my anti-trailer stance, which is already pretty solid. So WATCH OUT, HOLLYWOOD MARKETING TYPES!
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Having said all that about trailers, the one for this features Frances McDormand swearing her face off and it's very funny and probably convinced me to see the film, so maybe trailers are OK after all? Man, it's hard being committed to a strong personal belief these days.
You Were Never Really Here
I literally know nothing about this except Lynne Ramsay made it, and if you've seen We Need To Talk About Kevin then you'd better be queuing up for this too, otherwise you're a steaming poo with poo for brains and poo coming out of your mouth and ears and probably your eyes too.
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The 2017 London Film Festival runs from the 4th to the 15th of October (2017, obviously) and you can see even more exhaustive information than you've just read about it here. Goodbye!
