Film Series: I'm So Excited! Gala Launch Screening

Tuesday 23rd April was much hyped by the Picture House team, who were showing the UK Gala Launch of the new Pedro Almodóvar film 'I'm So Excited!', with live screening of the red carpet in Hackney before the film and a live Q&A with Almodóvar afterwards.

In honour of this glamorous event I splashed out on the premium balcony seats at the Duke of York's.

From the trailer that I'd seen the previous week I was expecting the usual mix of saturated colours and campness prevalent in much of his work, together with a return to the comedy of his earlier films.

The film begins with sun drenched shots of the taxiway at Madrid's Barajas Airport interspersed with 80s style graphic imagery and an upbeat 80s style soundtrack.  The feel was very much like the UK British sitcoms of the 1970s that were stretched into feature films, or a later Carry On film such as Carry on Camping.

First up was a funny little vignette featuring Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz as ground crew readying a plane for take-off.

The action then moved to the business class section and cockpit of the plane itself, where it remained until the final few minutes of the film, with a landing at the white elephant mothballed airport at La Mancha.

The film is funny, bawdy and incredibly smutty with a hilarious musical number halfway through; the underlying storyline is not dissimilar to the slapstick / disaster genre of the Airplane films of the 80s.

In the Q&A Almodóvar explained that he was comparing the optimism of Spain in the 80s, newly freed from dictatorship and about to enter the EEC with the current financial crash.  Sadly it was not one of Almodóvar's better efforts and the comedy combined with social commentary was a bit clunky.  A fun night out but I'm not sure it was worth the hype.

Film Series: Promised Land

The Brighton & Hove Movie Club has had some great events lately, which has really got me in to the cinema going habit again.

Promised Land is the new Matt Damon film and was showing at the new Dukes at the Komedia cinema in the North Laine.  It was a smaller group than usual as there were rival films being shown in Shoreham and Hove, so just four of us met in the very comfy bar area before heading into the startlingly empty auditorium - there were no more than ten people in the whole place and we were able to bag the sofas.

So how was the film?  Well it was directed by Gus Van Sant, the screenplay was written by and starred Matt Damon and John Krasinski (Mr Emily Blunt); and was based on a novel by Dave Eggars.

Set in rural Pensylvania, it centres on the attempts of two consultants Steve and Sue (Damon and Frances McDormand) from Global Crosspower Solutions trying to buy up hydraulic fracking rights from residents of a small town.  Krasinski is the environmental campaigner trying to stop them.

Damon is excellent as the 'good guy' working for the big bad energy corporation; his childhood was scarred by unemployment in his Iowan farming community, he sees fracking as a way to help communities achieve financial independence.  McDormand is awesome as the jaded, seen it all before sidekick who is there to do a job to support her teenage son.

Damon is settling well into middle age (he is 42), slightly podgy around the middle and greying hair at the temples he is becoming an American everyman; McDormand at 55 has a face that is full of character, generally dour but occasionally lit up with a smile - she is brilliant in this role.

The scenery is stunning and the aerial shots (the helicopter pilot gets a mention in the credits) are incredible, with the pairs red truck cris-crossing the green landscape.  There are also lots of cleverly filtered shots - through dirty windscreens or bug covered flyscreens.

Tentative romances start for for both main characters, for Damon with the local school teacher and for McDormand with the grocery and gun store owner, but this is no rom-com and the stories and lightly played.

After a surprising twist, the film is let down by a smaltzy ending, but overall I'd give it 4 out of 5.

Spring Weekends

After the fourteen months of winter that we have seemingly endured, the last two weekends have been blue skies and sunny.  Perfect for a walk along the seafront?  Not so easy in Brighton unfortunately.

Last week was the Brighton Marathon, with much of the action taking place along the full length of the sea front.  I was there watching out for a friend of a friend running her first marathon.

Photo courtesy of Carina Badger

This week there was a somewhat less altruistic event going on, the English Defence League were marching / protesting on one part of the seafront and various anti-fascist and anarchist groups protesting against them on another part of the seafront - with the police attempting to keep them apart.

I of course had forgotten that all this was planned when I arranged to meet a friend for coffee at Red Roaster at the bottom of St James Street, pretty much in the centre of the action!  As I arrived I had to push my way through the anti-fascists and their neatly stacked placards as they coordinated their soy latte and vegan snack orders.  I wondered if in a parallel café elsewhere in Brighton the EDL supporters were having a similar pit stop to buy English Breakfast tea and crumpets...?

Half an hour later the sirens and chanting started and a running battle between the police and youths in hoodies and face masks commenced on the street - the anarchists maybe?

It all seemed relatively good natured from our vantage point inside the café, though the customers sat outside grabbed their drinks and ran inside, so maybe not so much fun up close.

Photo courtesy of Urban75

Hopefully these were not our only sunny weekends of the summer....

It's been a while....

I've been heavily focused on my book review blog 06.51 from Brighton over recent months and have somewhat neglected found in Brighton.  Well, now that spring appears to finally be here, maybe it's time for a spring clean and some new posts?

So what's been happening?  The last twelve months have been a time of many changes for me, this is on top of the major change the year before of moving to Brighton that actually inspired the blog in the first place.

About this time last year work took a manic turn and pretty soon I realised that it was making me miserable, so dusting off the CV and updating the Linked In profile began in earnest.  One opportunity that caught my eye was with Transport for London - and after several interviews over the summer and early autumn I finally had an offer in my hand and was ready to call time on fifteen years at Network Rail.  I had already booked a month in Australia for Christmas and New Year, so actually left one job half way through my holiday then started my new one from the other side of the world.

Jumping back a bit, in September I turned forty - I celebrated with friends in Barcelona and did a bit of blogging.  Around the same time I also had a bit of a health scare, which was finally diagnosed as cancer of the thyroid a few weeks ago - removal of the offending gland is tomorrow, so fingers crossed that chapter is coming to a close.

Life in Brighton is getting a bit better, I still don't 'love' it but am happy enough here for the next year or so and will be finishing off the house (bathrooms, garden and external painting) over the coming months.

Anyway - that's the catch up, blogging will be more regular going forward....