Finally - in a similar spirit to VW's cinema-ads [See film differently] ? - #UCFF's Brief Encounter Tweets (in draft ?)

Finally - a similar spirit to VW's cinema-ads [See film differently] ? - #UCFF's Brief Encounter Tweets

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

Michaelmas Day (29 September)

Finally - a similar spirit to VW's cinema-ads [See film differently] ? - #UCFF's Brief Encounter Tweets

Dedicated to Svetlana, as Shetland, on her birthday

Query :

In Lean's film, is Howard's character also sympathetic (as Johnson's telling means us to see her*), or actually to be seen in a noirish light, and his 'cover story' one that 'bigs him up' as worthy, so rather better than he is ?

* Fallible, but frightened and faithful. https://t.co/ZhXP9kKghE

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 29, 2022

On one clear level, we can read Howard as proxy¹, in a screenplay for which Coward's credited² (adapting his play).

¹ Then, or knowing of those times, one can see 'the encounter' through a lens of 'Careless Words Cost Lives', etc.

² E.g. https://t.co/4I1u30iBuT names others. pic.twitter.com/GpBB6xfZtV

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 29, 2022

Instead, or as an adjunct, maybe Howard's character does what we see in the prime part of this 1h 29 serially ?

Independently of what he says, what *do* we know of a man called Dr. Alex Harvey (Howard) ?

When he seeks Laura Jesson (Johnson), it's one thing ; does she find him ?

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 29, 2022

#UCFF came to Brief Encounter (1945) via a stage-adaptation*, before that became the norm of what theatres offer... : These are the spoilers !

Spoilers :

1) Alex's deniable medical status relies on being 'nifty with a hankie' when soot enters Laura's eye³ - hardly unlikely, in days of steam, at a railway-station !

2) A timely intrusion on the room that he's 'borrowed' for... ?

³ Word-play on immaculate / macula ?

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 29, 2022

Spoliers :

One might re-watch to ask :

* Who is Dr. Harvey ?

* Have we good reason to believe anything that he says about himself ?

At any rate, these tropes, clues, symbols are there...

Laura 'survives to tell the tale' to a husband to whom she imagines confessing.

ENDS

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 29, 2022

End-notes :

* At The Arts Theatre, Cambridge - some time, many more than 260 moons ago !


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

The Gold Machine (2022) at The Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge, plus Q&A

The Gold Machine (2022) at The Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge, plus Q&A (work in progress)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

13 September

The Gold Machine (2022) at The Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge, plus Q&A (work in progress)

Dr James Riley, of Girton, very ably hosted a Q&A for this film, whose release is a collaboration between Picturehouse Arts, Hot Property Films, and Dartmouth Film ['Pioneers in Britain of independent documentaries', another of whose films is Eric Ravilious : Drawn to War 2022)].

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 14, 2022

More to come...

Alive, and then very much not, they appeared in Grant Gee's directorial collaboration with writer Iain Sinclair in The Gold Machine (2022) last night...

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 14, 2022

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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Four Theses after dutifully watching the whole of Crimes of The Future (2022) : Crimes against remotely being cinematic (work in progress ?)

Four Theses after watching the whole of Crimes of The Future (2022) : Crimes against cinema ?

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

9 September

Four Theses after dutifully watching the whole of Crimes of The Future (2022) : Crimes against remotely being cinematic (work in progress ?)

Preamble :

This is about as cinematic as the whole film gets - and as much daylight

(From the opening shot, with Sotiris Sozos (as Brecken))

In preparing what follows for publication (e.g. checking such things as release-dates), it has become apparent that IMDb has been told to call Crimes of The Future (2022) Drama / Horror / Sci-Fi. (It obediently calls The Killing of A Sacred Deer (2017) Drama / Horror / Mystery.)

In fact, it is an indigestible, plasticized stew of (in chronological order*) such elements as :

* Doctor Who (1963 – 1989) [Especially The Troughton / Pertwee / Baker I years]

* Delicatessen (1991)

* Shadows and Fog (1991)

* Crash (1996) [Cronenberg's own, far superior film]

* Kinetta (2005)

* Raw (2016)

* The Killing of A Sacred Deer (2017)

* Pain and Glory (Dolor y gloria) (2019)

* The French Dispatch (2021)

As Wm. Blake might well have claim'd, so might he then - of his latest Crimes - Kronenbourg :

[...] My genius,
Labouring long, over my task, with me,
Gave wing to this Epicke. [...] pic.twitter.com/wbEzf4E5Xf

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 15, 2022

Four Theses (Review points proper)

(1) Only restrained by someone's recent Tweet** that one cannot justifiably comment on a film, if one walked out, it can now be said that, at 15-20 mins of 107, the impulse to leave Crimes of the Future then should have been taken.

(2) Without the names Viggo Mortensen, Léa Seydoux, Kristen Stewart, etc., Crimes would be indistinguishable from an undistinguished film-festival submission, whose 'screener' one would keep pausing to shout incredulous injunctions or obscenity (as if one's dutifully tortured watch were the real drama ?).

(3) A film that is over-reliant on speech - rather than juxtaposition of scenes or narrative-jumps - as exposition, and (inter alia) shabby interiors*** in low light-levels against which to set Lanthimos-like conversations.

(4) It helpfully used up a free ticket at The Arts Picturehouse.


Courtesy of Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart (as The Eurythmics), there is, now, a synopsis [Eurythmics, Annie Lennox, Dave Stewart - Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) (Official Video)], to which #UCFF links here !

Heady cinema days, 2 yrs ago...

A somewhat nonsensical screenplay, prioritizing sentiment* over science, but has nothing on Cronenberg's plot- and dialogue-driven latest or [other reasons] Official Competition (2021) !

* Differently, First Man (2018) jars, when in quarantine ? https://t.co/jfM4paNOCD pic.twitter.com/O57ZHqDaSh

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 11, 2022

More to come... ?






Afterword :

* Crimes even ended indeterminately, as if DC thought a sequel - though perhaps no more than one's imagined ending - profitable / sellable, or desirable ?

* Not least in the light of the film itself, must one question this English-language version's wording of 'A film by...' ? https://t.co/jpR2SPyPNo pic.twitter.com/iCYnuBbf9p

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 12, 2022

End-notes :

* Titles with underscoring will, in due course, have links to #UCFF reviews - the film-references are not necessarily to films rated well.

** Obviously, as it was in the last week, not this Tweet, but it will do... :

Okay, sorry I thought you meant one in particular. I have the 'Barry Norman Rule', after the old film reviewer, that unless I have seen a film right through to the end, I cannot comment on it. I will get back to you on 'Tenet' around 2023.

— Alexander Rooksmoor (@ARCRooksmoor) September 14, 2020

*** As of, if not in, the derelict buildings in Athens that we see in establishing shots. (Occasionally, we are en plain air)


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

The #DoubleDownOnDoublethink Tweets

The #DoubleDownOnDoublethink Tweets

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

8 September

The #DoubleDownOnDoublethink Tweets

'Two sources said Kwarteng described that day as a "great day for freedom"'

Shame about Freedom of Movement, though... ?

'Another said guests told Kwarteng to "double down" – an approach from which some stood to make profits.

Or just #DoubleDownOnDoublethink ?

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 2, 2022

Nice views, out of the window ?

The interview simply didn't #DoubleDownOnDoublethink - there were no real punches in the 'You're prepared to be unpopular' non-questions, which, er, spoon-fed opportunities to spout.

Might as well have gone directly to 'If it ain't hurting...' ?

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 21, 2022

'Churchill never backed a loser, except when his horse didn't win'#DoubleDownOnDoublethink

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 8, 2022

1) The market's never wrong.

2) Except when it's wrong ? ;) https://t.co/wLiP1Rggb6

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 7, 2022

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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

In a non-spoilery way, what can one say about the 'non-stop surprises' of Competencia oficial (Official Competition) (2021) ?

What can one say about the 'non-stop surprises' of Competencia oficial (Official Competition) (2021) ?

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

6 September

In a non-spoilery way, what can one say about the 'non-stop surprises' of

Competencia oficial (Official Competition) (2021) ?

Viewed at The Light Cinema, Cambridge

In a review*, what can one say that doesn't let the metaphorical cat out of a maybe non-existent bag about Official Competition (2021)... ?

* Let alone deliberately non-spoilery previews, such as - for five or more years - #UCFF attempted writing for #CamFF's #CameraCatalonia ?

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 6, 2022

¹ Also, Mexican painter, graphic artist, illustrator José Luis Cuevas (1934 - 2017).

² Some seeming ancestry / etymological web-sites use a fairly meaningless term 'bank shore' - it is clear enough that they must mean 'river bank'.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 7, 2022

4) In the vein of Hamlet's Player King, IMDb purports that one is a Comedy / Drama, the other a Drama / Comedy - in Competencia oficial (2021), there might have been two or three appreciative snorts, but there were no laugh-aloud moments (and no one else at all in the screen !)

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 7, 2022

6) The film (and film within it) must begin somewhere⁴ - it begins with mortality, focusing a mind

7) OK for a film predicated on (somehow) novel experience ?

⁴ To invert The Matrix Revolutions (2003), 'Everything that has an end has a beginning' [https://t.co/qd0k6kgfku]

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 7, 2022

9) In 'Learning to Breathe' [https://t.co/7JVko1qcXc], Nerina Pallot has a line 'There's nothing bound in thought you cannot do' - Östlund may have us credit Othello's prophetic 'Chaos is come again', but does Competencia oficial shy away from consequence into non-sequitur... ?

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 7, 2022

12) Competencia oficial 'unfolds' as if maliciously edited à la Broken Embraces (2009) - or maybe had scenes deleted for BBFC's 15 certificate ?

13) A not unblinking note of menace or nightmare, right at the end of the film, will not render it into a Post Tenebras Lux (2012) ! pic.twitter.com/6UptBXuHhh

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 7, 2022

Something more spoilery and / or less Tweety may follow here...

The shoot of the film within Official Competition (2021) is even more knapp [as they may still say in Germany ?] :

Thankfully*, we're only 'treated' to tantrums or tricks of rehearsal ! ?

* Clearly, we have no need to see or see finished Norma Desmond's screenplay à la Gillis.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 14, 2022

In a non-spoilery way, what can one say about the 'non-stop surprises' of Competencia oficial (Official Competition) (2021) ? :https://t.co/hIASeKVE4M

Perhaps it's a film for fans of *that book* by Eric Berne... ? ;) pic.twitter.com/hfzm2bczX0

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 15, 2022

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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

#TrueMastersMisnameMovies and wilfully #MisunderstandingFilmTropes : Yet another accreting collection à la #Spoonerisms, #Homophones, #CrapAdverts... ! ?

#TrueMastersMisnameMovies and wilfully #MisunderstandingFilmTropes  : Another collection ! ?

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

6 September

#TrueMastersMisnameMovies and wilfully #MisunderstandingFilmTropes  :

Yet another accreting collection à la #Spoonerisms, #Homophones, #CrapAdverts... ! ?

Definately Indiana Jones and The Temple of Gloom ! ;)#TrueMastersMisnameMovies

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 6, 2022

That bit in the film where the passenger in a hurry suddenly asks the cab-driver to pull over and wait... :

Why do they always talk about this guy called Demeter, and how would *that* keep him running anyway ?#MisunderstandingFilmTropes#Homophones

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) June 13, 2023

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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Findings and Favours : #CorneliaParker at Tate Britain ~ Curating an exhibition for people who like their art explained (away) ?

Findings and Favours : #CorneliaParker at Tate BritainT

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

29 August

Findings and Favours : #CorneliaParker at Tate Britain

~ An exhibition for people who like their art explained (away) ?

This is a place-holder : whatever Normal Transmission is may be resumed some time soon ?

Prelude :

#WalterSickert and #CorneliaParker at Tate Britain to-day - and saying goodbye to #SurrealismBeyondBorders, especially Rooms 1, 3, 4, 9, 11, the Ernst, Matta, Gorky, and At Land (1944) !

After now, if #UCFF makes it back, that's OK ; if not, also OK !

[Not there since Blake ?]

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) August 29, 2022

Main act :


#

Cornelia Parker's installation in the House is fitting right in with the weather outside! #uksnow We hope you're all staying warm and dry #CorneliaParker pic.twitter.com/mz6ZiEMY1n

— Kettle's Yard (@kettlesyard) March 1, 2018

Postlude :


More to come...






















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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)