Archive for the 'Film & TV' Category

Now this is just what you need on your Monday morning commute to work - some noisy young people dancing to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” on the London tube…

It’s the passengers’ reaction (or non-reaction) that really capturers the London experience.

…. who sent me get well wishes while I was laid up with flu - via emails, comments on this blog and also Facebook. Don’tcha just love social media? Since anyone who engaged with me face to face would be risking their own health, virtual contact was the best way to cheer me up while I was stuck at home germ-ridden and infectious.

While I was languishing on the sofa, wrapped in a duvet with a hot toddy close at hand, watching rubbish TV, I was struck by how in movies everyone is healthy and if someone starts exhibiting the slightest symptom of anything, you know it’s going to end in tears.

Coughing - if any character in a movie coughs, they will be dead by the next reel. It’s going to be lung cancer, TB or in costume drama, the dreaded influenza. See the Ewan McGregor character in Miss Potter: the moment he coughs on that rainy train platform, it’s “uh-oh” for a happy ending.

Headaches - headaches can only mean one thing: a brain tumour. See Dr Green in ER.

Looking pale and fainting - cancer. See any movie involving a beautiful star playing a mom or a daughter, usually while having a difficult mom-daughter relationship.

The exception is sneezing. A character sneezing is funny for some reason and will be in sweat pants, surrounded by tissues and talking funny (fuddy) through a bunged-up nose (dose).

If you can think of any more examples of movie or TV illnesses, please add a comment so we can compile a definitive list of life-threatening illnesses diagnosed from minor symptoms….

Photo: thanks to yarnivore on flickr.com (CCL)

Whenever the wind blows incessantly, it starts to drive us all a bit mad. The grit flies up into our eyes. The blustering and rattling becomes irritating. The flutter of air on our skin invades our personal space. Or maybe that’s just me…?!

Anyway, when the wind persists this way as it has done recently with the wild weather we’ve been having, it always makes me think of the wind in the film Black Narcissus that eventually drives the nuns over the edge - literally.

It’s one of my favourite movies in its wonderfully melodramatic handling of claustrophobia, repressed passion, longing and madness - all done on a painted set somewhere in Ealing or Pinewood to represent the Himalayas. Deborah Kerr does her best “rigid and brittle on the outside but wild and passionate if only you ripped that habit of her” performances. Kathleen Byron is fab as the lusty nun who hankers after David Farrar (in the shortest hottest pants ever to be worn by a man on screen), whose madness is evoked by her slashing gash of red lipstick at the end. And a young Jean Simmons exudes innocent sexuality as the young Indian girl in contrast to the uptight nuns.

So, if you fancy a night out with the nuns, the film club at the Dulwich Picture Gallery is showing Black Narcissus next Monday. See details below.

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GalleryFilm

A Story to Storm Your Heart! Drama at the top of the world.

Two-time Oscar winner from one of the great screen partnerships of all-time – director Michael Powell and writer Emeric Pressburger.

Five young British nuns move to the convent of the St.Faith Order - based in the Himalayan foothills. Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr) is assigned as the superior sister, and her liaison with civilization is the government agent Mr. Dean (David Farrar). This lonely and exotic place and the presence of Mr. Dean awaken the innermost desires of the sisters, and Sister Ruth (Kathleen Byron) descends into the madness of temptation!

Starring Deborah Kerr, Flora Robson, David Farrar, Sabu, Kathleen Byron and Jean Simmons.

Ticket includes: refreshments and a draw for 2 tickets for entry to the August evening screening of GREASE (on August 16, 2007)

£8; Friends £6

Tickets from galleryfilm@yahoo.co.uk or 020 8299 1859

Getting to Dulwich Picture Gallery

Photo: thanks to cfyn.ifas.ufl.edu

Who might that be?

Yes, you guessed it. JK Rowling. (For anyone left on the planet who doesn’t know who she is, she is the author of the Harry Potter books.)

She is honoured in Wired magazines’ 2007 Rave Awards. They write:

“Rowling was paid a $4,000 advance. Today she is the first person on the planet to become a billionaire by writing books.”

She gains this status not just through her books alone but through the films and action figures and all the other related tie-in merchandise. “Rowling is the reigning master of what you might call MMFWs — massively multireader fictional worlds”, says Wired.

All I can say is: Wow!

You can visit her site at www.jkrowling.com.

Pic: thanks to adistantsoil.com

There’s a great article in the Independent today by Danuta Keane about “Why so many novels never make it to the big screen”.

“Books provide filmmakers with ready-made plots on which to base screenplays
(useful when plagiarism claims start to fly), and a proven audience. But unless
they are global mega-sellers like Dan Brown, J K Rowling or Michael Crichton,
the actual authors are lower on the food chain than the screenwriter, and if you
think they are respected, watch Sunset Boulevard or The Player.”

The Player is one of my favourite movies - showing how a sensitive literary story is turned into a blockbuster starring Julia Roberts and Bruce Willis in an explosively ridiculous ending.

I had my own brush with Hollywood with my first novel The Flame Tree. It was truly a brief encounter but telling none the less. It went something like this:

Hollywood production company: Love the story.  Where is Malaysia? Can we set it in Vietnam?

Me: Uh, no.

The End.

Danuta’s article also has a list of the 5 best film adaptations of books and also the 5 worst. I’d add to the best adaptations “Gone With The Wind”, “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” and “Maurice”. And amongst the worst - Polanski’s “Tess of the D’Urbevilles”.

What are your favourite or least favourite film adaptations of books? Which adaptations do you think are the best or the worst? Add a comment or email me and let’s see if we get a consensus or lots of different views!

As I mentioned last week, I’ve been collaborating with another lawyer-turned-writer, Caro Fraser on a TV drama. While my books have been legal thrillers, Caro’s novels have focused more on human relationships and drama. I had never worked on a joint writing project before and at first, I was worried that with two strong-willed, highly creative people whose previous writings have little in common working together, we might end up in arguments and never speaking to each other again. I am pleased to report that we haven’t exchanged fisticuffs at all!

We have both in fact been invigorated by this collaboration. My action/ thriller approach to story brings thrills and spills and driving momentum to the pacing. Caro’s more detailed approach to relationships puts a brake on my more outlandish ideas, tempering them to fit the human drama. We’ve both also enjoyed talking over plot points and character motivation and trying out different angles and possibilities.

Writing a novel on your own can be a long, tortuous and isolating process. No-one knows your characters or story as well as you do so although you may discuss and explore certain aspects with a friend or another writer, their input is limited. Collaborating with another writer means you both own the project and we are both very keen to make sure the other person has a stake in each step of the process. We both have an in-depth knowledge of the characters and their motivations and a shared vision for the outcome of the story. We rely on each other’s focus and creativity as much as on our own input. It’s been a hugely refreshing process and I think, we’ve both learnt a lot that we can also carry on in our future individual writing projects.

Caro comes round to my place every other Friday morning and we work till lunch time, capturing our character sketches and story arc on a laptop. We both contribute mid-morning munchies – very important! – spring rolls, prawn toast, onion bhajis, quiche etc. We sit at my dining table or wander around the room going: How about this? What about if…? No, wait, scrap that, try this for an idea… Yes, yes, I like that… Mmmm, I’m not sure about this…

After Caro heads off home, I am usually completely shattered. This creativity business really is exhausting but I really feel a sense of achievement. I imagine that this must be how athletes feel after a good round of tennis or a marathon! We’ve now finished the character briefs and their story arcs, an outline for the six episodes and a rough sketch for the actual dialogue of the first episode. When I get back from KL in March, we’ll start work on polishing the script for the first episode and putting the treatment together to submit to the TV people.

Photo: thanks to accentinteractive.net

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As you know, I’m involved in GalleryFilm, the film society which is part of The Friends of the Dulwich Picture Gallery. A few weeks ago, we showed Deepa Mehta’s “Earth”, set in India during the weeks leading up to the partition of India and Pakistan. We themed the evening with free samosas and Indian tidbits sponsored by local foodstores SMBS and Cheeseblock in Lordship Lane and Cobra beer donated by Cobra. There was a prize draw to win tickets to lectures on Indian art at the Picture Gallery - and special bonus tickets to a talk by this year’s Turner prize winner Simon Starling.

Starting a new local society is always an uncertain affair. Will anyone come? Have we pitched the film selection just right - or completely wrong? This was only our second screening and while more people came to the first film “Mona Lisa” than we had expected, we were stunned to find we were fully booked for “Earth” even before the doors opened. We managed to squeeze in five more seats while the queue of people who hadn’t booked grew longer. We rushed in and out of the auditorium counting seats and panicking that we might have sold too many tickets. In the end we had to turn people away.

None of us on the GalleryFilm team had seen the film before the screening but I gamely invited the hundred or so audience to stay for a discussion afterwards. The events in the film are seen through the eyes of an eight-year old Parsee girl, whose kind but distant parents leave her in the care of the Hindu maid and her circle of Muslim, Sikh and Christian friends. As the country draws closer to partition, the ethnic and religious tensions come up to the surface and the friendships begin to tear apart, ending in violence, tragedy and betrayal. As I sat there watching all this, I was conscious of how starkly it contrasted with the mellow convivial pre-show drinks and nibblies we’d just had. I started to worry about the discussion I had promised after the film - would the emotions stirred up in the film spill out into the debate? Would people complain that this wasn’t the nice jolly evening they’d planned on?

As it turned out, when the lights came up, it was as if the film had made us all in that room connect with each other at a real and human level even though we had all one hundred of us only really met that night. In the audience were a mix of ages and among the Caucasian faces, there were Asian young people and families who had come - parent, grandparents and the younger generations. A younger English woman, referring to the legacy left by the British as portrayed in the film, said she felt shame at being British. Someone else pointed to the parallels in Iraq where different tribal groups were fighting amongst themselves.An older Asian lady shared that she had been around seven at the time of partition and had witnessed painful things that she had never talked about. An older Asian gentleman told me how crowds had come to his grandfather’s house looking for a man they were after to kill and how his grandfather had managed to disperse the crowd. I’m sure many of those families went home that night and talked and shared their personal stories in a way they might not have if they had not come to see the film.

One Asian lady emailed this to us afterwards: “Thank you so much for the recent showing of ‘Earth’. I had a particular interest in seeing this film. My mother had moved from her home town, G—-, to move to S—- to live with her new husband and new in-laws in 1947 after her marriage.

My mother always said that they were unable to understand how neighbours who had been their close friends suddenly became their enemies simply because they were Hindus. The partition of India was an extremely traumatic experience for all concerned.” *

I have always loved movies but that night was the first time I really experienced the true power of film.

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*I have anonymised the details for the purposes of privacy.

GalleryFilm is run entirely by volunteers - as is the Friends of the Dulwich Picture Gallery. All profits go to support the work of the Dulwich Picture Gallery.

The next film is Peter Greenaway’s “The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover” on Monday 18 December.

Our 2007 season takes off in the new year with “Now, Voyager”, “The Wings of the Dove”, “Jailhouse Rock” and “Girl with a Pearl Earring.”

To find out more about GalleryFilm and book tickets for our films, click here or go to www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk and follow the links to Friends Events.

The film is available in the US or UK versions. You can buy a UK version from amazon.co.uk, by clicking on the picture here:

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Earlier this year, I got to know local film-maker and impresario David Grey and wanted to explore what it takes to make films in these days of digital technology. He encouraged me to make a little film - a very little film, I must emphasise. So over several days, I shot some footage around my South London suburb and he talked me through the editing process.

The result is a 1m 30sec film called “Versailles in my Front Garden”, a meditative piece sharing my observations of the very British obsession with the front garden.

I thought no more of it.

David has just told me that the film will be having its world premiere at the Ritzy Cinema in Brixton, London on 09 November as part of a programme showcasing the films produced and supported by his two production companies Silver City Film and Village Film during the last year. The other films on the programme are, in my view, real films of merit and I am flattered - and still a bit stunned - that he considers my film worth including.

If I can master the technology, I will try and upload and stream a copy of “Versailles” onto Fusion View for your amusement.

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You can find out more about Silver City Film at www.silvercityfilms.co.uk and Village Film at www.village-film.co.uk

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BEHIND THE SCENES

In the last few months, I’ve been involved in the programming committee for a new film club, GalleryFilm, at the Dulwich Picture Gallery and it’s been an interesting ride, learning all about what’s involved in running a club and showing films. GalleryFilm is part of the Friends of the Dulwich Picture Gallery, which is entirely run by volunteers to raise funds for the Picture Gallery’s art exhibitions.

It all began when I was helping on a music video shoot at a nearby restaurant. The director was local film entrepreneur, David Grey. We bumped into the Chair of the Friends, Ingrid Beazley, and I introduced them. Ingrid is a dynamo of energy, always looking for ways to broaden the activities of the Friends. David knows anything you need to know about film - making them and showing them and raising funds for them and encouraging up-and-coming directors to make more of them.

Ingrid pulled together a core team of us volunteers, with David as consultant. We have Stephen Henden, who lives down my road, an IT whizz and local WW2 flying bombs expert, and Steve Slack, an editorial writer at the British Museum, who are both on the Friends’ main committee already. Apart from David, none of us knew anything about what goes on behind the scenes to put on film shows. All we knew was that we loved films and wanted to put on an evening of film a month locally so we didn’t have to trek into Central London to watch good movies.

With David’s guidance, we learnt all about getting a licence from the Council for premises to show films to the public and where you have to go to hire films with the proper permissions to show at public gatherings. We had some films on our list that those companies did not have on the “permitted public screenings” list so we had a go at tracking down the copyright holders to get express permission.

One search, for Deepa Mehta’s “Fire”, took me first to Pathe UK who told me it was not one of their films but I should try L.A. Pathe. L.A. sent me to the Directors Guild in New York, who sent me to the Canadian Directors Guild in Toronto, who sent me to another branch in Toronto, who said they would pass my request on to Ms Mehta’s representatives. A few weeks later, Ms Mehta’s colleague emailed me back to say that the rights were vested in Pathe UK. Which was where I had started in the first place. Aaaargh!

Amazingly, it has all pulled together and we have our autumn screenings set and we’ve issued a press release and everything. And tickets are selling hot and fast!

GALLERYFILM PROGRAMME

Here is the film programme:

16th October - the 1986 British film, Mona Lisa, starring Bob Hoskins, Cathy Tyson and Michael Caine, chosen to tie in with an exhibition connected to the painting of the same name. (”Sometimes love is a strange and wicked game. She was a tart. He was an ex-con. And she was about to shatter his life forever.”)

20 November - the Indian film, Earth, (”The 1947 partition of India and Pakistan seen through the eyes of an eight-year-old Parsee girl growing up in Lahore - A darkly fascinating and magical look at epic social upheaval and a remarkably affecting human tale that shines through it all”)

18 December - Peter Greenaway’s The Cook The Thief His Wife and Her Lover (”A deliberate and thoughtful film set in an elegant gourmet restaurant called Le Hollandais. Spica dines at this restaurant frequently, along with his gorgeous wife Georgina and his group of uncouth associates”.) .

GalleryFilm’s screenings will take place on the 3rd Monday of every month, at Dulwich Picture Gallery. There will usually be food, drinks and mingling, and various tie-ins with current exhibitions

HOW TO BOOK TICKETS AND WHERE TO GO

Screening will be at 7.30pm in the Linbury Room at the Dulwich Picture Gallery - “The most beautiful small art gallery in the world” - Sunday Telegraph. For directions, click here

Tickets are £5 for Friends and £7 for non-Friends. All profits go to the Picture Gallery, which is a charity. The Picture Gallery houses a magnificent permanent collection of old masters, including works by Poussin, Claude, Rubens, Murillo, Van Dyck, Rembrandt, Watteau, Gainsborough and many others and has regular special exhibitions of other artists and artwork. Friends enjoy free entrance to the gallery and other benefits.

If you’d like to come along, please book tickets in advance by emailing galleryfilm@yahoo.co.uk - please state the number of tickets you need, which film(s) you want to see and whether you are a Friend or not. Also, please mention Fusion View!

Or, if you prefer, use the form below and I will forward your email to Stephen who is handling the ticketing.

PLEASE SPREAD THE GOOD NEWS!

Also, if you can think of 3 friends who may enjoy watching great movies in the lovely surroundings of an art gallery, please email them and copy & paste the link below to your email.

http://www.fusionview.co.uk/2006/09/behind-the-scenes-at-galleryfilm/

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Useful links:

Dulwich Picture Gallery

David Grey, Village Film

Friends of the Dulwich Picture Gallery

Stephen Henden’s Flying Bombs and Rockets site

We continue our Fusion Stories series with the first Fusion View podcast where I interview Dishad Husain, the British-Asian director, about making his award-winning short film “Holly Bolly”.

You can listen to the podcast by clicking on the embedded player below.

Alternatively, you can listen to this and other Fusion View podcasts by clicking here.

The links to Dishad’s films and projects mentioned in the podcast are:

• www.imotion.com
• BBC Film Network, “Holly Bolly” page

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To read or listen to more Fusion Stories, go to the sidebar in the far right of the Fusion View homepage and click on the Category “Fusion Stories”.

Do you have a fusion story to tell? Do you have cross-cultural experiences in your life you would like to share? Find out how you can tell your story on Fusion View by going to the Announcements section in the middle sidebar of the Fusion View homepage and clicking on “Tell Us Your Fusion Story.”