Filmspot: 2011

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Filmspot

Posted: 27 Nov 2011 03:46 AM PST

We’ve been thinking about puppets recently. As you know, we’ve got a screening of The Muppet Christmas Carol coming up on 17th December at the International Lawn Tennis Centre in Eastbourne (full details in our previous blog post, and booking details below), and 2011 would have been the 75th birthday of the puppet pioneer, and one of Filmspot‘s cinema heros, Jim Henson. So, we thought we’d present some of our favourite cinema puppetry!

We’ve has to impose a few rules on ourselves here, though – the world of puppetry is so vast, we’re talking live action puppetry this time (we’ll save stop motion for another day!)

5. Gremlins

Here’s a particularly rousing clip from Gremlins 2

Gremlins used a range of puppetry to bring the innocent little mogwai, Gizmo, and it’s sinister offspring to life, including animatronics and marionettes. Directed by Joe Dante, Gremlins was the first and best of a batch of comedy-horror films about nasty little beasties that surfaced in the 80s. Dishonourable mentions include Critters, Ghoulies, Hobgoblins and Munchies.

4. Where the Wild Things Are

Spike Jonze’s rendering of ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ breathed life into Maurice Sendak‘s beautiful book illustrations through the very effective combination of animatronic, costumes and CGI.

3 . Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life

Although only in the film for short clips, the grotesque animatronic puppet version of Gainsbourg is what sets this wonderful biopic apart from most. Wonderfully acted and stylishly shot, the puppetry element represents Gainsbourg’s personal demons – yes, it’s an obvious trick, but it does add a great dose of quirkiness into something that could otherwise be fairly straight forward. After all, I think Gainsbourg’s philandering and rock and roll life style has been fairly well documented before!

2. Kooky (Kuky se vrací)

This is a recent discovery, about a teddy bear who ends out in landfill when his asthmatic owner is forced to throw him away. Directed by the award-winning Jan Svěrák, this film certain takes much inspiration from the marionette puppetry of the Czech Republic, where it was made. The film features a cast of beautifully detailed characters, designed by games designer Jakub Dvorský, including the antagonist Nightshade, who looks slightly reminiscent of Little Otik, the titlular ‘character’ tree stump baby from the film by Jan Švankmajer…

1. Of course, the anything that the Henson Company goes near

Yes, well – we could have made a list of ‘the best Henson related films’, but there are too many to list. Here’s a clip from Labyrinth, featuring a very helpful worm…

Jim Henson, and his creature workshop, have had a profound influence on film over the past few decades, by making the impossibly feel tangible and bringing fantastic and fun characters to life. Not only did Henson bring us The Muppets, but also fantasy films such as The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth – and they worked on creatures and effects for countless others including the Dennis Potter version of Alice in Wonderland, called Dreamchild.

You can, of course, see Kermit, Jim Henson’s most famous creation, strutting his stuff in our next Filmspot event on 17 December, ‘The Muppet Christmas Carol’. Doors will be at 2pm, for a 2.30pm start.

Tickets
Tickets for The Muppet Christmas Carol (or White Christmas, which we are also presenting on 17 December at 7pm) cost £6.50 (£5 concessions and children) each
Please contact the Events Office at Eastbourne Borough Council
tel 01323 415442 or purchase on line at <http://www.visiteastbourne.com/eshop/default.aspx?dms=71&shop=11&sct=323

Here’s Kermit, duetting with Tiny Tim, just to get you all in the mood!

Monday, November 21, 2011

Filmspot

Christmas events in Eastbourne: tickets now on sale!

Posted: 20 Nov 2011 04:56 PM PST

Hi there Filmspotters!

The big news is that we’ve got a couple of great Christmas events in the pipeline for this December, both on 17 December 2011 at the International Lawn Tennis Centre, Devonshire Park, Eastbourne.

Filmspot are teaming up with Eastbourne Borough Council to present two special film events this Christmas. With performers, festive music, vintage trailers and B-movies, and themed catering to set the atmosphere, this will be a perfect start to the Christmas season!

Muppet Christmas Carol (1992), 2.30pm

Fans of the Muppets will probably be aware that 2011 would have been the 75th birthday of puppeteer and muppet creator, Jim Henson. In celebration of this puppet-pioneer, we will present a special screening of The Muppet Christmas Carol, with a few festive touches!

Gonzo the Great takes the place of Charles Dickens to narrate this fun, musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol. It stars Michael Caine as Ebenezer Scrooge, and an entire cast of creatures from Henson’s workshop, including many familiar faces, such as Kermit the frog and Miss Piggy as Bob and Emily Cratchett.

White Christmas (1954), 7.00pm

Featuring a treasury of the evocative songs of Irving Berlin, and a cast of real icons of the golden age of cinema, White Christmas oozes Hollywood glamour – just the thing to start the festive season!

Bob Wallace (Bing Crosby) and Phil Paris (Danny Kaye) meet while serving in the second World War. After being de-mobbed, they team up to become a highly successful song and dance double act. After a five year run, they take a well earned break in a skiing resort in Vermont, accompanied by two sisters, Betty (Rosemary Clooney) and Vera (Vera-Ellen). They find the resort, owned by their old army boss, on the verge of bankruptcy, due to lack of snow. They swiftly step in to organise a benefit concert – but can they save the resort?

This Christmas classic features the songs Sisters, Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep, Snow and, of course, the titular White Christmas, amongst many others.

Tickets
Tickets for either film cost £6.50 (£5 concessions and children) each
Please contact the Events Office at Eastbourne Borough Council
tel 01323 415442 or purchase on line at <http://www.visiteastbourne.com/eshop/default.aspx?dms=71&shop=11&sct=323

The International Lawn Tennis Centre, Devonshire Park is situated in the heart of Eastbourne, surrounded by trees and gardens. The courts play host to 6 tournaments in the summer including the pre – Wimbledon Aegon International which attracts international players. The courts have also been a venue for Team GB Davis Cup ties and are often referred to as the best grass courts in the world.

…and in other news…
They Clapped and She Bowed Once More on 4th December was a great success. The Filmspot team were assisting artist Amy Cunningham with her performance of On Standby, a composition which involved live singing, recorded sound and video, at St James’s Church Piccadilly.

Photograph: Samuel Herbert

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Filmspot

They Clapped Until She Bowed Once More: 100 Years of Women’s Music

Posted: 25 Oct 2011 03:29 PM PDT

The Filmspot team have an exciting winter ahead – for starters, we have our first event in London!

We're going to be up at St James's Piccadilly next Friday, 4th November, assisting Amy Cunningham at the upcoming concert, They Clapped Until She Bowed Once More: 100 years of Women's Music, presented by Contemporary Connections.

Female composers have fought for years against the perception that writing music is a man's game. This misperception will be challenged at a concert to celebrate 100 years since the formation of the Society of Women Musicians (SWM).

The concert will include pieces written by women in the early and mid twentieth century against a background of suffrage, feminist campaigning and social change. These will be juxtaposed with specially commissioned responses from three contemporary composers Amy Cunningham, Lynne Plowman and Rhian Samuel.

Filmspot will be working on the video projections for Amy Cunningham's performance for voice and single screen video, On Standby (2011)

In 1944, a young Daphne Oram who was later to become pioneer of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, worked at the Royal Albert Hall as a programme engineer. She was on standby to sync up gramophone records with live music in case of a bombing raid.

'On Standby' is part of a series of works investigating the role of women in the assimilation of pioneering technology into culture. Shifting between recorded material and live voice, this work uses imagery and sound from contemporary mobile phone advertising and seeks out fault lines and limitations in their construction and content. The voice is intended as a way to access these fault lines, to amplify them and to pose questions.

The concert starts at 7.30pm, telephone 020 73810441 for reservations. For more information, contact contemporaryconnections2011@gmail.com or find contemporary connections on Facebook.

Amy Cunningham: Biography

Process, transformation and mediation are central to Amy Cunningham's practice. Her artworks are realised in a variety of media including film, video, sound, drawing and performance. A key medium is her classical singing voice. She sees her artworks as vehicles that travel back and forth between the obsolete and the futuristic, exposing and embracing gaps and glitches in forms, media or ideas. This process has led to a series of works in which a conflation of time periods and subject matter occurs, including a fictional computer game in a real 18th century garden, opera as a video installation and an Internet broadcast as a song cycle. Cunningham has recently been selected for the PRS for Music Foundation, New Music Incubator 2011-2012.

Amy Cunningham studied Fine Art at Wimbledon School of Art, London and The Slade School of Fine Art, University College London. Since 2000 she has exhibited performance, installation and screen-based work in various galleries and Festivals in Europe including: Café OTO, Norwich Gallery, Pitzhanger Manor Gallery London, Soundwaves Festival, Brighton, ZINGERpresents, Netherlands, Towner Gallery Eastbourne, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nîmes, SC Gallery Zagreb, Croatia and Serpentine Gallery, London. Since 2004 she has been a key member of the artist collective SpRoUt. She is currently Senior Lecturer in Music and Visual Art, University of Brighton. http://artsresearch.brighton.ac.uk/research/academic/cunningham

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Filmspot

The Halas & Batchelor Archive

Posted: 19 Jul 2011 03:16 PM PDT

As readers of this blog will be aware, we have a very special screening coming up this Friday (22 July) at St Nicholas Church, Brighton. We will be presenting Halas & Batchelor’s Œ’Animal Farm’, with a short talk from the filmmakers’ daughter, Vivien Halas (booking details below).

In preparation of this, the Filmspot team asked Vivien to pick out three of her highlights from the Halas & Batchelor Archive, which she recently donated to the BFI. This collection of film prints, stills, scripts, papers and original cells, forms the largest single donation of British animation to the institute, and features many gems.

Automania 2000 (1963)

A satirical and prophetic short film, directed by John Halas and written by Joy Batchelor, Automania 2000 presents the future, as they predicted in 1963. It has turned out to be worryingly accurate, portraying consumerism gone mad. It won a British Academy Award and was nominated for an Oscar.

Symphony Orchestra (1964)
From a series of short films made for the BBC entitled Tales from Hoffnung based on the drawings of artist and musician, Gerard Hoffnung. Packed full of witty visual gags, it depicts an orchestra giving a performance to end all performances!
History of the cinema (1957)
Paying tribute to, as well as parodying, Hollywood tradition, this short was one of John Halas personal favourites. He co-wrote the film with Nicholas Spargo, who went on to pen Willo The Wisp. It was included in the annual Royal Command Performance.
All of these films are available on the DVD which is included with Vivien’s informative and richly illustrated book, ŒHalas and Batchelor Cartoons. It gives Vivien’s personal account of her parents, alongside critical insights by Paul Wells, Richard Holliss and Jim Walker, and includes a foreword by Nick Park.

FILMSPOT SCREENING OF ŒAnimal Farm (1954), with introductory talk from Vivien
Halas
Friday 2nd July, 7.30pm St Nicholas Church, Brighton
Tickets £7 (£5 concession)
Available from Brighton Ticket Shop (www.brightonticketshop.co.uk)
Part of the CMP Festival

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Filmspot

Royalty…

Posted: 30 Jun 2011 04:44 AM PDT

As a warm up for our forthcoming screening at the CMP Festival of 'The Prince and the Showgirl' (ticket details at the end of the post!), I thought I'd share a few Royalty themed films (for those of you not already exhausted by all things regal, following certain big national occasions earlier this Spring that shall not be mentioned!).

Yes, yes, I know I missed off the King's Speech… any of your favourites I've missed off, just let us know!

Madness of King George (1994)

So rather than 'The King's Speech', I give you another much-lauded British film. Adapted for the screen by Alan Bennett from his own play, and starring Nigel Hawthorne who is at his finest as the ailing monarch. There are some wonderful strong performances, and fast paced, witty dialogue. Bennett took a wonderful play and turned it into a different, more focused animal for the screen.

Throne of Blood (Kumonosu Jô) (1957)

Macbeth, in feudal Japan – in the style of a Japanese noh play – by one of Japan's greatest directors. Many Shakespeare adaptations could/ should have made it into this list, but this, although certainly not the most accurate, is certainly one of the most engaging. Visually stunning, and featuring Kurosawa's favourite lead, Toshiro Mifune, it oozes atmosphere and menace. The sparse, simple settings suggest stage sets, and the ominous fog outside build on the sense of claustrophobia that pervades the film. A true screen adaptation, which doesn't aim to merely put the play onto the screen, it is a re-imagining, taking Macbeth as its starting point, and fully exploring its themes.

Robin Hood (1973)

Of course Disney had to feature in this list, after all, what about all those Disney Princesses? I haven't chosen a Disney princess this time, though – I'm going for the cowardly lion, Prince John (voiced by the fantastically campy Peter Ustinov).

This feature is, to me, Disney at their best – it's a fun, stylish film with a great sound track, and solid animation. Created on a tight budget, the animators reused footage from earlier features in some of the scenes, notably pinching from 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves', 'The Jungle Book' and 'The Aristocats', so you could almost call it a greatest hits compendium!

Roman Holiday (1953)

Audrey Hepburn's first American feature, 'Roman Holiday' is a delightful romantic comedy, co-starring the ever-charming Gregory Peck. Hepburn plays Princess Anne, from an unknown country, who is on an official tour of Europe. She is overwhelmed by her schedule of official duties, and escapes to experience 'real' Rome, where she meets Joe Bradley, an American journalist. When he discovers her true identity he decides to take her on a whirlwind tour of the city, after promising his editor an exclusive interview.

The Princess Bride (1987)

This would have featured on the list anyway, but is here in honour of the great Peter Falk, who sadly passed away last week.

'The Princess Bride' needs no introduction – it has a huge cult fan-base, who can undoubtedly quote huge portions of the film word for word. Based on William Goldman's 1973 novel of the same name and directed by Rob Reiner (of 'Spinal Tap'), it is a fairy story with a quirky and biting sense of humour. Although very of its time, the witty script lifts it, and it feels much fresher than the tongue in cheek fairy tales which have become in vogue since 'Shrek'. Go and watch it now, and don't forget to memorise all the quotable lines…

FILMSPOT SCREENING OF 'The Prince and the Showgirl' (1957)

Saturday 16^th July, 4pm St Nicholas Church, Brighton

Tickets £7 (£5 concession)

Available from http://www.brightonticketshop.com/

Part of the CMP Festival http://www.cmpcaonline.org.uk/category_id__65.aspx