Category Archives: Period and Historical

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Events, offers and releases 10/2/14

An image of the lego movie characters.
An image of the lego movie characters.

The Lego Movie Courtesy of Warner Bros.

Releases – In Cinemas Friday 14th February

Her– Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams and Scarlett Johansson. Her sees a lonely writer (Phoenix) develop an unlikely relationship with a newly purchased operating system that’s designed to meet his every need. Check out the trailer by clicking here.

Monuments Men – George Clooney stars in, directs, produces and writes this World War II drama that sees an unlikely team given the task to rescue art masterpieces from Nazi thieves and return them to their owners. Based on a true story the movie co-stars Matt Damon, John Goodman and Cate Blanchett. See the platoon get to work in the trailer here.

The Lego Movie –  for the child that lives in all of us, The Lego Movie will add some laughs to your valentines day. An ordinary LEGO minifigure, mistakenly thought to be the extraordinary MasterBuilder, is recruited to join a quest to stop an evil LEGO tyrant from gluing the universe together. Featuring the voices of Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Morgan Freeman and Liam Neeson, this film will entertain everyone, from the youngest to the oldest. See the trailer here.

To book tickets visit the Odeon website.

Offers

See The Book Thief for Free!

Before the general release of the film on Friday 26th February you have the chance to see World War II drama, The Book Thief, before anyone else on Tuesday 11th February.

Narrated by ‘Death’ the story is set in World War II Germany and describes a young girl’s relationship with her foster parents, other residents of her neighbourhood, and a young man who hides in her home during the escalation of World War II. The film is directed by Brian Percival and is an adaptation of the New York Times bestseller written by Markus Zusak and published in 2005.

All you need to do is head over the ShowFilmFirst website and enter this code: 482715. But be quick as these kind of offers don’t last long and once the tickets are gone, they’re gone.

Events

A golden bear statue which is the top prize at the Berlin International Film Festival.

The Golden Bear, the top prize and the Berlin International Film Festival.

 

Berlin International Film Festival – 6th-16th February 2014.

With around 300,000 tickets sold, the Berlin International Film Festival is often seen as the largest publicly attended film festival in the world based on actual attendance rates. Up to 400 films will be shown throughout the event across various venues in the capital.

Films to look out for are Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, Lars Von Trier’s Nymphomaniac and Calvary, a black comedy starring Chris O’Dowd and Brendan Gleeson.

For a full list of screenings and up-to-date news click here to visit the Berlin International Film Festival website.

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Method behind the magic: Saving Private Ryan

Image features a still from the D-Day landing scene in the film Saving Private Ryan. The camera is looking over a German soldier firing at allied forces.
Image features a still from the D-Day landing scene in the film Saving Private Ryan. The camera is looking over a German soldier firing at allied forces.

Image via www.savingprivateryan.wikia.com.

Released in 1998, Stephen Spielberg’s magnum opus Saving Private Ryan is considered one of the greatest and most realistic portrayals of war ever produced. Rated #36 on IMDb’s all-time greatest movie list and a very high 93% on movie critic website Rotten Tomatoes, Saving Private Ryan received nominations for 11 academy awards, winning 5, including the Best Director award for Spielberg. Amongst many other accolades, the film also won awards at the Golden Globes, Grammy’s and the BAFTAs.

The poignant messages and emotional drive of the film launches the audience into world that is both dangerous and unpredictable. Although receiving some criticism, mainly for disregarding the contribution of several other countries to D-Day, Saving Private Ryan will forever be remembered for its realism. Brilliantly intense performances from Tom Hanks and Matt Damon particularly, allowed Spielberg to focus on the terror of the war, rather than the heroics of the men in uniform. However, he did not make it easy it portray.

To prepare his stars for the “hell on earth” mentality of war, Spielberg enrolled almost every cast member into a Ten Day boot camp with retired marine Dale Dye, who was given the responsibility of pushing the actors to the peak of physical and mental exhaustion. Dye would fire blanks from point blank range, conduct heavy combat and survival skills training and would only refer to the each person by their character name.

Dye later explained that “to the extent I can, I immerse the actors in that lifestyle: I take them to the field; I make them eat rations; I make them crawl and sleep in the mud and the cold and the dirt… And when they come out, if I’ve done my job successfully, they have an inkling of what people sacrifice to serve their country in the military.”

Not all of the actors had to take part however. Matt Damon, Private Ryan himself, was made exempt from the training, only to turn up at the very end holding a cappuccino, as the story goes. This was a deliberate decision from Spielberg, in a bid to create a sense of animosity between Damon and the rest of the crew that would be reflected in the film.

On the training, Vin Diesel stated that “To have to sleep under harsh rain conditions and be woken up after only a few hours following a really hard day-it was very rough. It was something I’ll never do again, but it was something that I’ll always be thankful for have been completed.”

Tom Sizemore also spoke about the training after the films, explaining that “Something happened. We learned that no one does anything alone in the war. It’s all about teamwork. We got a taste of that and it brought us closer together so when we started shooting the movie, we felt a bond that we had gone through something very difficult together.”

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The all-encompassing Tarantino-verse

Quentin Tarantino holding a camera
The Bride swordfighting

Image via http://derekwinnert.com/

Sometimes you can flick to a film and just know whose it is. There’s that director footprint, like a seal of ownership, that you can identify within minutes of switching on. Sometimes it’s a visual style – you can tell a Pixar film from a mile off. Or maybe it’s the dialogue that’s distinctive. But what about the films of Quentin Tarantino? What makes them so, recognisable?

These films are incredibly indepth, with a ton of unique characters and brilliant ways in which they interact. But how do the films themselves do this? Tarantino has spent his life painstakingly crafting a spiderweb-like film universe, in which every character branches out to another somehow. This band of rogues overlaps in between his films in ways that are as weird and wonderful as his creations.

These aren’t plot related, mind you. These crossovers are more like Easter Eggs, teasing and giving little enjoyable in-jokes to only the most observant of fans. Film buffs say that good screenwriting is to give every character a backstory. Well Tarantino could dedicate entire films to his.

I’ll start with an easy one. Pulp Fiction‘s Mia Wallace tells John Travolta about her failed TV show, Fox Force Five. Sound like Kill Bill to you? Maybe it isn’t Uma Therman playing The Bride, but Mia Wallace? Coincidence I think not.

Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield holding guns

Image via http://handsomecitizens.com/

Speaking of John Travolta, did you know that Reservoir Dogs‘ Mr Blonde and Pulp Fiction’s Vincent Vega are related? Here’s a big hint – they’re brothers. Tarantino originially intended to write The Vega Brothers as a prequel but scrapped the idea when both Messrs Travolta and Madsen aged more than their respective characters.

Okay with that? Good, cause here’s where it gets a little deeper. Keeping with Reservoir Dogs, Mr White’s relationship with a woman known only as “Alabama” can be linked with the same girl from the Tarantino scribed True Romance. It’s also a safe bet to assume Detective Jack Scagnatti from the Tarantino penned Natural Born Killers is related to Seymour Scagnetti. Remember him? He was mentioned as being a parole officer in Reservoir Dogs by Mr Blonde.

Further down the rabbit hole we go. Tarantino himself has admitted that he writes two kinds of film; “movie movies” and the “Realer than Real” universe. These “movie movies”, From Dusk Till Dawn and Kill Bill are films that character from his other films would enjoy. So, in the drama Curdled, a character is seen watching the Gecko brothers from From Dawn Till Dusk on TV. This would explain both why there are suddenly vampires in a Tarantino film, and why no one in Django Unchained is worried about vampire attacks. The rest of his films are firmly in the “Realer than Real” category.

I could keep going endlessly with speculation and fanboy-driven ramblings, or you could go and watch the films and marvel at what Tarantino has created yourselves. Or, you could head to Cracked.com and check out their theory on the ending of Inglorious Basterds. It certainly blew my mind.

If that is true, then the man truly is a genius. Either way, you have to love how this guy’s brain works.

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Places to visit: Pride and Prejudice

An old english country house in the sunshine.
An old english country house in the sunshine.

Groombridge Place or Longbourn. (Image via www.flickr.com/photos/turboff)

The 2005 adaptation of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is a period classic. The picture was filmed at a handful of stately homes, historic towns and rural locations. Here are five worth visiting.

Let’s begin with the home of the Bennet family, Longbourn manor, also known as Groombridge Place. In Austen’s novel, and the 1995 film, the real Longbourn was imagined in Hertfordshire. It is thought that the fictional home of the Bennets might lie in the small village of Redbourn(1) (there is even a resemblance in the name). However the 350 year old moated manor house, Groombridge Place, actually resides in the village of Groombridge four miles west of Tunbridge Wells, Kent.

Groombridge Place is now a beautiful tourist attraction home to several stunning gardens, an ‘enchanted’ forest and a bird of prey centre. The house is even available for private hire and offers wedding receptions in the oak panelled Baronial Hall. Adult tickets are £8.95/9.95

Next, Basildon Park, the Georgian mansion that plays the part of Netherfield. Netherfield is the house that Mr Bingly rents near Longbourn and we first see it when Elizabeth visits her sister Jane.

The grand house was rescued from ruin by Lord and Lady Iliffe in the mid 1950’s and today the mansion is decorated with salvaged 18th century fixtures and fittings alongside fifties themed rooms like the 1950’s kitchen which is a still used today. If you visit in the Christmas period you might be lucky enough to sample a homemade mince pie from one of the volunteers.

Basildon Park is situated in Berkshire, seven miles north of Reading. For non-National Trust members, an adult ticket is £10.90.

Moving a little further north we have Burghley house, otherwise known as Rosings Park the home to Lady Catherine De Bourgh. In the Novel Rosings is described as an impressive mansion in which the glazing alone is worth over five hundred pounds. Burghley house certainly does not disappoint.

The Elizabethan house was built in the mid-16th century by William Cecil, and has well over one hundred rooms. The entrance to the house takes you through to the old Brewhouse which has been renovated into a modern visitor center. You can find Burghley House 20 miles from Peterborough, near Stamford where some scenes were also filmed. An adult ticket is £12.70

Two small yet significant locations worth noting are Stourhead Garden and Stanage Edge. Stourhead is a huge 2,650 acre estate with an impressive house built in the early 1700’s. But it is also home to one of the film’s most romantic locations – the Temple of Apollo – where Darcy first proposes while sheltering from the stormy rain. Without a National Trust membership, admission to the garden only is £7.70.

Stanage Edge is a spectacular place; it is four miles long and stands at 458m tall – the highest point of the gritstone crags. It is the peak which Elizabeth stands pensively staring into the distance on her visit to the Peak District. You can find the crag to the west of Sheffield City close to Hathersage. In the summer months buses run to Stanage Edge on Sundays.