Director: Sasie Sealy
Writers: Angela Cheng, Sasie Sealy
Stars: Tsai Chin, Hsiao-Yuan Ha, Michael Tow

Lucky Grandma screened as part of the Laugh strand at BFI London Film Festival - the synopsis of a retired woman who finds herself right in the middle of a gangland war in Chinatown, New York, definitely promised to be interesting. The film is also the debut feature from Director Sasie Sealy, who worked hard to get the film made independently with her co-writer Angela Cheng.

Grandma Wong (the veteran stage actress, Tsai Chin) gets on a Chinatown bus headed for the casino. Anyone who has ever graced one of those buses will be delighted with this sequence; the atmosphere, the people,  the chaotic queuing and dinginess of it all; it's hilariously realistic and something to relish. Grandma has had her cards read and been told that today is her lucky day, so has taken out all of her savings in a bid to make enough money to stay in her apartment and not have to move in with her son’s family.

Wong wins big at the casino - only to lose it all. Seems that she’s a not-so-lucky grandma. When she gets back on the bus, the guy in the seat next to her has a heart attack and passes away. While she sits there in shock, his bag falls down on her lap. It's filled with money. It's serendipitous.

Unfortunately the random guy on the bus was a mobster, and his gang family come looking for it. What ensues is a cat-and-mouse caper which sees Grandma enlist the help of a bodyguard after being ambushed in her home, and tangled further into a war between several gangs who are all after the same money. It's packed full of action, and enlists a full Asian-American cast that reflects the diversity of the New York scene, which is so refreshing to see on the big screen.

If you watch this film for one reason, it's to see Chin in a stand-out performance that is brilliant to watch unfold. Her unwavering self of self adds to the drama-die of the piece and you can't help but think about the combination of people in your own life who is like her. Likeable? I'm not so sure. She's so stubborn and un-moving, with only little flashes of warmth. Engaging? Absolutely. You can't take your eyes off of her.

Director: Michael Winterbottom
Writers: Michael Winterbottom (screenplay), Sean Gray (additional material by)
Stars: Isla Fisher, Asa Butterfield, Steve Coogan

Prolific British writer/ director Michael Winterbottom returns to our screens with a satire about consumerism, consumption and extreme wealth in Greed, which had its European premiere at the BFI London Film Festival last night. Richard McCreadie is a fast fashion magnate; a household name people love to hate, who belittles his staff and drives a hard bargain when making deals. He is also, we learn, a parasite who drives businesses to the ground to pad out his personal wealth and is happy to exploit factory workers in Sri Lanka to keep his manufacturing costs down. Winterbottom once again teams up with Steve Coogan, who, as ‘Greedy McCreadie’ is ostentatious and nasty. Delivering one-liners that are at first hilarious but become worrying as the film plays on and we realise who he really is under the layers; a nasty bully. With a deep tan and the possibly the worst teeth I’ve seen on screen yet, he is celebrated for his ridiculous wealth, despite his effect on the world.

McCreadie is celebrating his 60th birthday with a huge Gladiator -themed party in an attempt to improve his personal PR after a string of bad business dealings. He has demanded that an amphitheater is to be built, a real lion procured for the entertainment and a bunch of A-listers to attend the event in Mykonos. While his workers attempt to create this fantasy, Syrian refugees watch on from their homes in tents on the beach next to their hotel. A stark reminder of the reality we face in the modern world; extreme poverty vs. extreme wealth. A battle of circumstances.

The cast are fantastic. Isla Fisher gets the best lines as McCreadie’s ex-wife. David Mitchell is the writer hired to chronicle McCreadie’s life, allowing us an outsiders view of the family. Asa Butterfield has some great and telling moments as their frustrated son, and Dinita Gohil is an employee who has a personal connection to the workers who suffer in Sri-Lanka. The narrative is quite jumpy, a little messy, but the heart is there and the cast are all more than game.

Winterbottom has made a very entertaining film which feels sadly relevant. It’s a satire which pokes fun at the greed of certain individuals but at the same time packs a huge punch. I found myself laughing less as the film went on, but not to the detriment of my enjoyment of the film. McCreadie is not so far from the figures we know in society, Winterbottom even includes a clip of Sir Phillip Green in the credits as he lists shocking facts about the distribution of the world’s wealth and the average days pay for factory workers in third world countries. It slowly becomes a more uncomfortable watch, but one that hopefully leads to a little self-education for it’s audiences as to what we can do to discourage the utter madness of greed and power of the fat cats sitting at the top.

Director: Richard Stanley
Writers: Richard Stanley, Scarlett Amaris, H.P. Lovecraft (based on the short story by)
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Q'orianka Kilcher, Joely Richardson

Review: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

What to say about Color Out of Space? Well, the first thing to mention is that this film is the long-awaited release for the Richard Stanley followers out there, genre fans still in love with his early cult horrors Hardware and Dust Devil. Then there’s the folklore surrounding his disappearance from the film industry after being fired on set of The Island of Dr. Moreau (everyone should watch the very good documentary Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau, it’s on Amazon Prime right now, thank me later.) Then there’s the fact that anyone who has ever interviewed him has said the same thing; his answers are so unexpected. He speaks in couplets, a stream of consciousness. Listen to Elijah Wood’s podcast with him (visitations - an amazing podcast about genre movies) and you’ll hear first-hand how he tells stories, how he answers questions but never really answers them, the incredible history that he has, the wonderful rhetoric. Wacky doesn’t really cover it.

The world therefore rejoiced when Stanley announced that he was adapting a H.P. Lovecraft novel for the big screen; Color out of Space, produced by Elijah Wood’s production company Spectrevision, no less. Lovecraft has long had cult status for readers who enjoy out-of-this-world sci fi horror novels. Then came the news that added even more intrigue; Nicholas Cage would star in it. Hugely prolific though he is, Cage has recently garnered much affection for his leanings towards horror - from Mandy on wards. It seems that the unholy trinity of Lovecraft, Stanley and Cage had come together, before anyone had even thought to ask for it.

The premise is simple - the Gardner family has traded city life for the quiet country after they inherit a rural family estate located near Arkham, Massachusetts. Stanley admitted that it's because of its earthly setting that he chose this book to adapt, along with it being a particular favourite of his mother's. The film opens with the daughter Lavinia (Madeleine Arthur) performing a ritual to protect her mother from getting cancer again. She also, rather tellingly, wishes aloud that she will soon escape the place. She’s a sulky teenage girl with a lot of eyeliner and is already sick of the countryside until she meets a handsome scientist who is testing the water in the area.

Father Nathan (Cage) is a struggling artist and tries his hand at gardening and alpaca farming. Both pursuits are failing pretty badly. His wife, Theresa, the amazing Joely Richardson, is in recovery from her illness but not that you’d know it - she spends most of her time speaking to her clients on video calls about the stock exchange before the wi-fi cuts out. It becomes clear that the family are slightly frustrated to be finding themselves out in the sticks. All except the two sons; Jack and Benny, who are way more easy-going and add an innocence to the affair.

One evening a small meteorite crashes in the yard. When the family investigates, they find a purple-glowing orb which delights the town, with the Mayor declaring that she’ll bring a TV crew the following day to capture all the juicy action. However, before she can return, the orb withers into dust, but not before infecting the local water supply (hence the scientist!).

A beautiful spectrum of colours hover in a foreboding manner in the very air around the house and grounds, and soon an alien life-force begins to show it’s hand, with horrific effect.

It’s not a pure horror movie, it’s a B movie that knows what it is the audience its intended for. The script itself leans into that. It’s hilarious (Cage delivering the lines so boisterously and with relish) and one-liners had the whole room falling out of their seats. This treacle-thick dark humour mixes with the shocking gory horror, and delicious creature special effects that we all wanted to see in a Lovecraft movie. The film just looks beautiful too - the colours reminiscent of the dizzying effects seen in Annihilation. Certain frames blow the mind.

Richardson is brilliant and steals every scene she’s in. Cage's descent into madness is one we know well and enjoy. Only he can 'lose his shit' like he does (there's a YouTube compilation someone made of this very thing and it is glorious.) The cast has obviously had a lot of fun making the film and working opposite Cage. On meeting Stanley, Richardson said that the first thing he did on set was to pull two meteor rocks from his pocket and rub them together to demonstrate how they ‘bleed.’

‘Richard comes from out of space,’ she said at the BFI London Film Festival screening earlier this week. I’ve no doubt of it.
 

Review: ★★★★
Director:Simon Bird
Writers:Lisa Owens (screenplay by), Joff Winterhart (graphic novel) 

Based on a graphic novel (which I must immediately seek out and consume), Days of Bagnold Summer is a brilliant coming of age story. Daniel is a bored teenager in the suburbs living with his librarian mother, Sue. As Simon Bird’s directorial debut, it’s his chance to show his filmmaking style and the kind of projects that he wants to make going forward. At the London Film Festival screening of the film this week Bird joked that he’d chosen something that wasn’t too expensive to make, but I’d argue that this is a complex film; its complexity lies more in the humanity of the narrative and not its production values. Put simply, it’s an entertaining film. The mother-son relationship is hilarious and, at times, really provoking. We see someone we know in each character. Nothing really happens in the film, but at the same time everything shifts during this one summer.

Earl Cave plays Daniel, with long greasy hair and a diet of white carbs. His summer in Florida with his dad has been cancelled at the last minute, and a long six weeks spent in his house with his mum stretches ahead of him endlessly. Wearing a Metallica hoodie, he walks around the quiet town slowly, handing out CVs in the hopes that he’ll get a summer job. He soon gives up and returns to the house, to stare vacantly at the TV screen. There’s a lot of this, but it isn’t dull. Cave doesn’t just bring angst to Daniel, but a vulnerability too. A shyness that he hides with his black nail polish and baggy clothes.

Sue is played by the utter genius Monica Dolan, all lip quivers, wide nervous eyes, pastel outfits and ‘mumsy’ hair. Her life seems simple and beige - a kind of death by suburbia - but drama bubbles beneath the surface. Daniel blames his mother for his dad leaving, Sue shrugs off Daniel’s mean comments but shows glimpses of how she really feels. In one scene which treads a careful line between heartbreaking and darkly funny, she breaks down during a Reiki healing session given by her hippy neighbour, played by the comedy queen Tamsin Greig. At one point she asks Daniel if he wants to go to the seaside with her. It’s a real effort to spend quality time with her son, and her frustration is palpable. She feels alone and afraid as Daniel struggles to engage with her. Their relationship is fascinating throughout; Bird choosing to be sympathetic towards both characters.

It feels at once nostalgic, and also very contemporary. It also feels extremely ‘British’ in it’s comedy and pace. I would recommend this for teenagers and adults alike - there’s something that we can all learn from it and, as I said in the opening, it’s truly entertaining. Isn’t that what all films should be?