Saturday 17 October 2009

LFF4: Sharp suits

Here's another photo from yesterday - as the rather obscenely beautiful quartet of Nicholas Hoult, Tom Ford, Colin Firth and Matthew Goode arrive for the premiere of their film A Simple Man. I suspect that, in addition to directing and cowriting the film, Ford also designed the suits they're all wearing.

Today was a more relaxed day for me - a decent night's sleep, just one movie and a walk through chilly North London - it feels like I'm on holiday! Well, briefly at least. And except for the North London bit. Sure, attending a film festival is great fun for movie fans (and critics should be the ultimate movie fans), but it is also a lot of work. I need to write reviews of every movie I see, and seeing three or four films a day tends to build into a massive backlog. I caught up a bit today but still have a long way to go. And more movies to watch tomorrow. Here are a few highlights from today's programme...

44 Inch Chest
dir Malcolm Venville; with Ray Winstone, Tom Wilkinson, John Hurt 09/UK ***
With its limited setting, contained cast and existential plot, this feels more like a play than a film. So while it's well-acted by a first-rate cast, it also feels somewhat indulgent and oddly unsatisfying ... REVIEW >

Bellamy
dir Claude Chabrol; with Gerard Depardieu, Clovis Cornillac 09/France ***
Playful and intriguing, but too word-bound to make the central mystery work on screen, Chabrol's oddly lightweight film is most effective when it's examining the fascinatingly stubborn central character, played to comical perfection by Depardieu ... REVIEW >

Tales From the Golden Age
dir Cristian Mungiu, Ioana Uricaru, Hanno Hofer, Constantin Popescu 09/Romania *****
After the riveting 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Mungiu is back with five more stories from Romania's "golden age". But these tales replace that earlier film's brilliantly bleak chill with light-hearted irony ... REVIEW >

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