Category / Cinema

by hutchwp

The Skull (Freddie Francis, 1965)

Freddie Francis’s 1965 Amicus Productions film The Skull was recently restored and released by Eureka Entertainment in the UK. It’s perhaps not the most gripping of horror films ever made, but with the classic pairing of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing in the leads roles it offers a lot to fans of Amicus and Hammer.

The film follows Christopher Maitland (Cushing), an antiques dealer with a penchant for the obscure and curious, particularly pertaining to the occult. He acquires the valuable skull of Marquis de Sade, a man we learn about in the opening prelude set over 100 years previous. The skull has been stolen from Sir Matthew Philips (Lee), a fellow antiques dealer. Valuable though the skull is, Philips has no interest in reclaiming it, for reasons that are initially unapparent.

  
When watched alongside modern horror films, The Skull may be hard to appreciate. This is to do with pacing. Watching a horror film celebrating its 50th anniversary needs to be watched with a mindfulness of the context. The cheap shots and by-the-numbers techniques used today are nowhere to be seen. The horror in a film like this is drawn from the suspense built up by every element of the film working together and a quality acting performance of the lead character. You simply can’t view any film like this out of the context of the landscape of cinema at the time of original release.

Lee is atypically subdued in his performance as Sir Matthew Philips. It is a supporting role but it’s really worth checking out to see him portraying someone likeable for a change.

The plaudits should go to Cushing though. He carries it towards a tremendous climax in a film that actually has almost no dialogue for the final act. He may have more popular roles – or indeed more mainstream roles – but this is an off-the-radar performance that warrants at least one viewing to underline his acting credentials.

Enhancing Cushing’s performance is some excellent camerawork and framing from director Francis and cinematographer John Wilcox. It’s all about intelligence in angles and getting close enough to feel the sheer panic on Maitland’s face as the cursed skull becomes increasingly threatening. They do such a great job that the skull becomes a character itself, especially when we’re seeing the world through its empty eye sockets.

A thoroughly enjoyable horror film for anyone looking for an unusual and obscure Cushing-Lee release.

The Skull is available to purchase on Eureka Blu-ray now.

Note: The poster I used for the featured image of this article was by the excellent Andy Potts. His website is full of fantastic posters he’s done for various reasons. Check it out.

by hutchwp

Films of the Year 2015

I couldn’t decide on just ten films this year, so I went with twelve instead.

Birdman: The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance
UK release date: 2nd January 2015
Review: “There are some brilliant moments of hilarity in here, some surprising and well-handled special effects and a few intensely emotional back-and-forths from actors giving their everything to their art. The first truly great film I’ve seen this year. I can’t recommend it enough.”

The Theory of Everything
UK release date: 2nd January 2015
Review: “Redmayne’s performance was astonishing. He completely nails it, working as both a great piece of acting and an uncanny impersonation. The frustration that must be felt by the thousands of sufferers of MND is channelled directly to the viewer by coupling some intimate close-up camera work with some exceptional acting. If Redmayne wins the Oscar next month it will be because of the latter parts of the film.”

Whiplash
UK release date: 16th January 2015
Review: “In the history of cinema, there have been a small number of characters so full of evil they barely resemble human beings anymore. We’re talking Louise Fletcher’s Nurse Ratched, Ian McDiarmid’s The Emporer. I think we can add another one to the list after seeing Whiplash.”

Big Hero 6
UK release date: 30th January 2015
Review: “The animation is the really mind-blowing element of a film that scores highly across the board. It’s fast-paced without ever feeling like it’s trying to lose you in action. The detail given to the plethora of uniquely designed characters is notable, too, and this serves to make each character feel worthy of your investment. If they’re going to spend that long making Hiro’s hair look so awesome, he must deserve a bit of attention on an emotional level too.”

The Duke of Burgundy
UK release date: 20th February 2015
Review: “A highly satisfying, twisting and twisted tale that deserves a wide audience.”

listenupphilip

Listen Up Philip
UK release date: 5th June 2015
Review: “Each character is introduced to us from a position of imbalance and for the most part they spiral into a world of depression and failure. Schwartzman is in fine form throughout, in a role not too dissimilar to others we’ve loved to hate him in. Irritating and overly-confident characters are something of his forte, which is funny if not just because he comes across as anything but irritating in interviews he gives.”

Inside Out
UK release date: 24th July 2015
Review: “This is truly up there with the best Pixar films, no easy achievement given they have been responsible for so many of the best animated films over the last twenty years. It’s the perfect emotional rollercoaster to ride on whilst celebrating reaching the start of their third decade in the motion picture business.”

Irrational Man
UK release date: 11th September 2015
Review: “There are six listed cast members here, but there really are only two stars here. Phoenix and Stone make a formidable pairing. He may have put on some weight for this role, but Phoenix’s allure is still very much there and his convincing lost soul act is enough to make his appeal to the much younger Stone quite believable. It doesn’t quite reach the joyful heights seen in Midnight In Paris, though is streets ahead of the unfathomably popular Blue Jasmine. Well worth checking out if you can find it.”

Orion: The Man Who Would Be King
UK release date: 25th September 2015
Review: “Orion is a documentary worth watching, and it’s an experience enhanced if you know nothing about Ellis. It goes a long way into intimately portraying a man torn between being forced to hide behind a mask and enjoying the limited success he was achieving. It is balanced and as such avoids over-celebrating Ellis, concentrating on his personality rather than his success.”

Suffragette
UK release date: 12th October 2015
Review: “This is a powerful piece of cinema and a relevant work of art. It is essential viewing for all women, any of the 33.9% of the UK public who decided not to vote in the 2015 general election, and anyone with a passion for excellent cinema.”

Bridge of Spies
UK release date: 27th October 2015
Review: “This is an ode to traditional storytelling and any movements it makes to remind us of Spielberg’s supreme talents are trumped by its underlining of Tom Hanks as one of the greatest living actors. This is not a story about espionage, politics or the Cold War. It is a film about one man’s unwavering desire to stick to his principles.”

Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens
UK release date: 17th December 2015
Review: “J. J. Abrams has managed to pull off a minor miracle. In just over two hours he has erased most of the memories of the prequel trilogy, reminded us of the best of the original trilogy and set up a new storyline that has the whole world anticipating where the next steps will take us. The prospects for the future of the franchise all of a sudden look extremely rosy.”

by hutchwp

Cinema Etc. – Most Popular Film Reviews 2015

There have been quite a few reviews posted here this year, so I thought it would be of interest to frequent visitors to find out which were the most popular posts on the website for the year. These are all reviews of new films release in 2015, counting down from ten to one.

10. Into The Woods (Rob Marshall, 2015)

9. Big Hero 6 (Don Hall and Chris Williams, 2014)

8. No Manifesto (Elizabeth Marcus, 2015)

7. Spy (Paul Fieg, 2015)

6. My Dad (Marcus Armitage, 2015)

5. Fußball, Wie Noch Nie / Football as Never Before (Hellmuth Costard, 1971)

4. Tiger Orange (Wade Gasque, 2014)

3. Esio Trot (Dearbhla Welsh, 2015)

2. City Lights (Charlie Chaplin, 1931)

1. Elstree 76 (Jon Spira, 2015)

I suppose the thing about all these films is that they are slightly less covered in popular media so searches would place each review higher. Football as Never Before has picked up a huge amount of interest over the last couple of months after an article was published about it on a popular British news website. City Lights is a strange one as it’s one of Chaplin’s most popular films, though it was recently rereleased on Blu-ray, which could explain it.

Enjoy catching up on those articles if you missed any of them this year!

by hutchwp

Film review – Hasta La Vista / Come As You Are (Geoffrey Enthoven, 2011) 

As road movies go, Come As You Are follows a well-worked formula quite closely. It goes something like this: a group of young friends decide to go on a road trip together to overcome a fear or hang-up. In the process of doing so they also learn a lot more about themselves and thus the purpose of the trip changes despite the goal remaining the same. 

That opening paragraph drastically does this film a disservice, because the unique plot elements are more than enough to allow this film to feel fresh and deliver an effective message. The three Flemish friends in this case all suffer from a form of physical handicap: Lars (Gilles de Schryver) is wheelchair-bound due to a debilitating and aggressive brain tumour; Philip (Mariano Vanhoof) suffers from paraplegia and has vastly restricted physical movement, thus needing constant care; Jozef (Tom Audenaert) is almost fully blind and can only see vague outlines of objects. The story starts with Philip, who has recently discovered that there is a brothel set up in the south of Spain especially for men with physical disabilities, so they decide they need to trick their parents into letting them go on a holiday to the vineyards of Europe, with the brothel as their real destination. 

The basic hilarity of this situation would be easy to play for cheap laughs, but director Geoffrey Enthoven and writer Pierre De Clercq thankfully find a more pertinent voice in the bittersweet frustration of their situation. Whilst the holiday should be a huge release to finally get away from their parents and see the outer world at their own pace, the day-to-day reality of their disabilities is far too restrictive. 

One of the more interesting story arcs is actually for the backup minibus driver Claude

by hutchwp

Secret Cinema February 2016 Preview

Secret Cinema is a company that puts together immersive film-based experiences, set around one film. You step into an alternative reality and live in the film for a few hours, somewhere along the line actually watching the film too. Having thoroughly enjoyed the Star Wars Secret Cinema earlier this year, my first Secret Cinema event, when Secret Cinema announced their next project was coming in February 2016 I instantly put my name down for tickets.

The biggest difference this time is that nobody knows what the film is. We’ll be stepping into a world of the unknown, much like the older Secret Cinema events. A lot of people have rushed to buy tickets but are now wondering what exactly they’ve signed up to.

So what clues have they given to us? Let’s break it down.

What films won’t it be?

I think we can safely rule out any film that Secret Cinema and Future Cinema have already performed. The following films have already been covered.

A Night at the Opera (2008)
Alien (2009)
Anvil: The Story of Anvil (2009)
Back To The Future (2014)
The Battle of Algiers (2011)
Blade Runner (2010)
Brazil (2013)
Bugsy Malone (2009)
Dead Poets Society (2014)
Dirty Dancing (2013)
Funny Face (2008)
Ghostbusters (2008)
The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
The Harder They Come (2009)
if…. (2008)
The Interview (2014)
Lawrence of Arabia (2010)
Paranoid Park (2007)
Prometheus (2012)
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (2010)
The Red Shoes (2011)
Saturday Night Fever (2013)
The Shawshank Redemption (2012)
Star Wars: A New Hope (2015)
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (2015)
The Third Man (2012)
The Warriors (2009)
Wings of Desire (2010)

Quite an extensive list there. It’s a shame some of them have already been done and may never be repeated. The videos of some of them have been reported recently on the Secret Cinema Facebook page. The Third Man looked particularly immersive.

What clues have we got?

Perhaps the biggest clue as to the content of the film is the fact it is simultaneously being played out in London and Moscow. Secret Cinema regularly performs in London, but Moscow seems to be significant.

There are a number of popular English-language films wholly or partly set in Moscow that could be relevant:

The Bourne Supremacy
The Bourne Ultimatum
Cast Away
Iron Man 2
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
Rocky IV
Rocky V
X-Men: The Days of Future Past
X-Men: First Class

These films are all fine, but the Moscow connection is tenuous at best. The Bourne series could be the best option. However, they simply don’t fit the cult film status that you could categorise all the previous films as.

Surveillance seems to be key

Throughout all the visuals about the event have been suggestions of spying and surveillance. Going to the official page on the website, you are greeted by audio that sounds like a submarine sonar blip, with someone typing on and old-fashioned typewriter overlaid. These also feature on some of the visuals.

Quotes 

Elsewhere there are quotes featured, which include the following:

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” – Oscar Wilde (The Importance of Being Earnest)

“The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery.” – Anais Nin

“Everything is relative in this world, where change alone endures.” – Leon Trotsky (The Revolution Betrayed)

“Take a walk on the wild side.” – Lou Reed (Take A Walk On The Wild Side)

“Hence a commander who advances without any thought of winning personal fame and withdraws in spite of certain punishment, whose only concern is to protect his people and promote the interests of his ruler, is the nation’s treasure. Because he fusses over his men as if they were infants, they will accompany him into the deepest valleys; because he fusses over his men as if they were his own beloved sons, they will die by his side. If he is generous with them and yet they do not do as he tells them, if he loves them and yet they do not obey his commands, if he is so undisciplined with them that he cannot bring them into proper order, they will be like spoiled children who can be put to no good use at all.” – Sun Tzu (The Art of War)

“Wild honey smells of freedom
The dust — of sunlight
The mouth of a young girl, like a violet
But gold — smells of nothing”
– Anna Akhmatova (The Smell of Gold)
Note: This was a quote provided in Russian

These quotes imply some kind of war theme, or perhaps people being oppressed or under over-zealous surveillance. There are also hints of revolution against it.

So what are the best bets?

Possibility 1

It is unlikely that the film won’t be English-language, but not impossible. What if the film wasn’t language-dependent at all? Silent films would be a bold move but one that could pay off if it was the right film.

1924 film Aelita from director Yakov Protazanov is an early silent film and is often cited as an influence on Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. Based on a novel by Alexei Tolstoy, it features heavily topics of sci-fi but its setting in 1920s Russia allows themes of political and social commentary that meant it was banned from cinemas in the Soviet Union.

You can watch the whole thing for free here.

I also found an excellent article on the film by Andrew J Horton at this location. A fascinating read.

I’d love to see this but in all honesty it seems highly unlikely.

Possibility 2

  

One film that seems to be cropping up in discussions across the Internet is Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. The satirical comedy from 1964 certainly has the surveillance and war themes running throughout and is also considered a cult film by many. Its 99% rating on Rotten Tomatoes shows it would be a popular choice.

The opportunity to witness a live recreation of the war room scenes would be hilarious. However, how they would skip between the war room and the B-52 bombers is a mystery to me so I’m not convinced this is the best option.

Possibility 3

Before George Lucas took on the universe with Star Wars, he had an extremely popular cult film called THX 1138. A little thought makes this a real possibility. 

The tickets on offer come in two categories: Operative (standard) and Operative X. The latter comes at twice the price, but the use of the word Operative brings the suggestion of a dystopian reality where names are gone and people are just a number. 

The lead characters in THX 1138 included the titular character played by Robert Duvall, an operator in a factory building android police officers, and SEN 5241 played by Donald Pleasance, a CCTV operator in charge of surveillance. Both are operatives but one has a distinct superiority over the other.

The world would be immersive if done properly. Imagine plentiful android police wandering around and telling us to not do certain things. White rooms with seemingly no walls with everyone wandering around aimlessly. 

Whether enough people know of the film to really enjoy it is another matter. For me, this is a strong contender based on what we currently know.

Possibility 4

  

The final option considered is 1984 (Michael Radford, 1984). If you’re going for a surveillance-themed film then you can’t go wrong with this film. It is the quintessential film and book on the topic, so much so that the words “Big Brother” are used in common vocabulary to describe anything the public seems to be over-bearing on the surveillance front.

The totalitarian state rules the world in which it is set, and the main character Winston Smith (John Hurt) works for the Ministry of Truth rewriting history to suit the desired story. 

The settings would be much easier to achieve than THX 1138, and it is slightly more mainstream than that film. Imagine being sent into a huge office block to rewrite a scandalous news story into something far more saccharine. The dystopia on the outside of the buildings and attempting to avoid capture by the Thought Police… All very appealing!

The only downside is the similarity to the film Brazil, already featured in a previous Secret Cinema event.

Conclusion

Well, nothing is nailed on and their clues don’t really help too much, but there are some strong contenders I wouldn’t mind experiencing. Hopefully this article has got you a little more excited.

Tickets are almost gone but some nights have limited availability.

Update

I’ve written an update following the recent communications. Check it out here.

A preview for the next event, Secret Cinema Presents 28 Days Later, can be found here.

by hutchwp

Merry Christmas!!!

Hope you all have a fantastic time today and over the weekend. Christmas is a great time to catch up with your loved ones properly. Of course, there’s always the opportunity to take in a film or two along the way, but there are more important things… Like the awesome 1000-piece Star Wars jigsaw I’ve bought for my household. That’ll do for the week!!

Have a good one!

by hutchwp

The Force Awakens… quite a few questions…

Warning: This article contains spoilers. Reading it will probably ruin the film for you.

The film is out now and the whole world is busy digesting their first viewing, whilst kicking themselves for not buying more tickets earlier now they’ve realised how good it is.

Whilst the film has achieved a lot, it has also left us with a few questions that may not be answered for another 18 months. Here are a selection.

Rey’s History

forceawakensreyandbb8

Rey has abilities never-before-seen by any untrained Jedi. The ability to use mind control, telekinesis and force pushes are usually only achieved by Jedi masters, yet she was able to perform everything with no training whatsoever.

In this case, it does make us wonder who her mother and father are. One guess would be that she is the daughter of Han and Leia – Leia is after all a carrier of Jedi abilities (though has never been seen to use them on screen).

Perhaps instead her father is Luke Skywalker, though this would require an explanation as to who her mother is. Given the final sequence of The Force Awakens, this could be a more feasible option and gives room to develop Luke’s recent history through flashbacks.

I’m foreseeing the line “Now the circle is a figure of eight.” Or something.

Where did this guy go?

forceawakenszuvio

Star Wars: The Force Awakens Constable Zuvio Ph: Elena Dorfman © 2015 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Right Reserved.

Constable Zuvio has a very sinister look about him. In the pre-release press he was a reasonably prominent character, and was most recently featured in a large Empire Magazine article about the new film. There was also an action figure released when there wasn’t really many characters to get your hands on.

In the article, Empire reported that LucasFilm described him as a “vigilant law officer on a mostly lawless world” and a man who “keeps order in a frontier trading post”.

Well, his story obviously wasn’t important enough to warrant avoiding the cutting-room floor. I fully expect to learn about his whereabouts when the Blu-ray is released as his is inevitably going to be one of the deleted scenes, probably around the same time as the alleged Chewbacca arms-ripped-from-sockets scene that made the novelization but not the film.

What happened to make Leia and Han lose touch?

forceawakensleia

One of the most unexpected elements of the film was when Han and Leia were reunited after a seemingly long time. They passed some comments that seemed to suggest there was some history between them. Furthermore, when the final battle had finished and the remaining team returned, Chewbacca and Leia didn’t seem to even acknowledge each other. That seemed a little strange. Clearly something has happened beyond the fallout from the unexpected turnout of their son Ben, and I’m not buying that Han was just wanting to keep “doing what he did best”. I wonder whether this will be explored in future films or left as it is.

How much of Episode VIII has been filmed?

There were clearly some shots in the trailers that weren’t used in the film and whole characters that were taken out. Given the final scene left Luke with Rey on a distant island, it would seem like a bit of a waste to get everyone over there just for 30 seconds of film. This makes me wonder if they’ve also filmed the opening sequences of the next film.

Why was Captain Phasma so underused?

forceawakensphantasm

Captain Phasmastic

This may be the same reason as Constable Zuvio, but Gwendeline Christie seemed criminally underused when she was so featured in the run up to the film and the press. Perhaps it was due to filming conflicts between The Force Awakens and Game of Thrones, but I’m hoping we either learn her backstory through future installments or perhaps a comic book series. It just seemed really unusual when she’s done so much promo for it and was limited to just a handful of appearances.

Why was C-3PO’s arm red?

Maybe it was explained at some point but I don’t recall when. Seemed a little pointless.

The full review of Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens is here.

by hutchwp

Film review – Grave of the Fireflies / 火垂るの墓 (Isao Takahata, 1988)

To be fair to Isao Takahata, writer and director of Grave of the Fireflies, he doesn’t pretend he’ll be delivering a happy-go-lucky lighthearted anime to the audience. The title hardly screams cute, the poster smacks of grimness. Then there’s the opening scene, in which the voiceover declares that he dies.

The film tells the story of two children – Seita (Tsutomo Tatsumi) and Setsuko (Ayano Shiraisha) – who are struggling to stay alive in the final few months of World War II. Their mother has died in an American air raid and their father is a captain in the Imperial Japanese Navy, meaning they have to stay with their unsympathetic aunt. However, with the continued threat of airstrikes and a growing unease with their situation, the pair decide to fend for themselves.

When discussing this film with anyone who has been lucky enough to see it, you will invariably get the same response. “Grave of the Fireflies?” Then comes the deep intake of breath. Then comes the deeper exhaled sigh. “Grim. Great film, but really depressing.”

graveofthefirefliesscreenshot.png

The film does not glamorise war in any way. It spends the entire running time delving into the relationship between the two siblings, the bond the war is creating and their resilience despite the tragedy surrounding them. The film gives an overwhelming sense of the individual impact of the war on the innocent people it affects. It doesn’t explicitly give a negative anti-war message, and it doesn’t attempt to portray the enemy (in this case the American Air Force) in a bad light. All these things are simply deduced by the fact that Setsuko and Seita’s story is so unbelievably sad.

The animation is absolutely stunning. It’s almost three decades since its release and its hard to think of a more realistic portrayal of Japan in animation. As the screenshot above shows, it is all greys and browns, though in this case Setsuko sits in the foreground in a blue ball attempting to protect herself of the reality of her mother’s fate. As Seita deals with it in his own way in the background, the effect is one of the most powerful images in the film. What else would two children do when their whole lives are turned upside down in such a catastrophic manner?

Since the release of this excellent film, Takahata has directed just four  more animated feature films, all of which were released with Studio Ghibli: Only Yesterday, Pom Poko, My Neighbours The Yamadas and The Tale of Princess Kaguya. Whilst all of these are excellent films, none quite have the same impact as Grave of the Fireflies, a film that has stuck with me since the first time I saw it over a decade ago.

by hutchwp

Riley’s First Date? (Josh Cooley, 2015)

If you loved the Pixar animated feature film Inside Out then chances are you’ll… like “Riley’s First Date?”, the short included as a bonus feature on the various Blu-ray versions of the release.

It centres around a mysterious boy showing up at Riley’s household to take Riley out, with most of the jokes coming from the parents’ reactions to interacting with him. If you’ve seen Inside Out itself, it is essentially an extension of the final sequences of the film, popping in and out of the characters’ heads in rapid succession for quick laughs.

It lacks any of the emotional pull that made the film a huge success over the summer, but it does succeed in getting a few jokes that make it worth a watch. It can’t go down as a reason to purchase the Blu-ray – you don’t need any more reasons than the fact it’s the best Pixar films released for years.

by hutchwp

Bridge of Spies (Steven Spielberg, 2015)

After a relatively long break, Steven Spielberg is back behind the director’s chair, and it was worth the wait.

Reading the description of Bridge of Spies, his first film since the hugely successful biopic Lincoln, it has all the hallmarks of some of his greatest achievements in cinema. It’s based on a true story. It’s a story about individual battles within a larger situation. It stars Tom Hanks. It would have been a surprise if this wasn’t a huge success.

Set between 1957 and 1960 during the height of the Cold War, the film focuses on James B. Donovan (Hanks), a lawyer tasked with negotiating the release of Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell), a pilot whose U-2 spy plane has been shot down over the Soviet Union. The negotiation concerns trading Powers for Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance), a Soviet KGB spy held captive in the USA who Donovan has previously defended in court. However, tensions rise when Donovan shows his determination to include an additional US citizen – student Frederic Pryor (Will Rogers) – in a move that seemingly only he is keen to see through.

bridgeofspiesscreenshot

The film at times threatens to be sabotaged by a slow pace, though Spielberg keeps it going just enough to avoid it becoming a snooze-fest. The plot is one full of intricacies that reward the attentive viewer, so I’m not sure the modern audiences will get it in the same way they did with Schindler’s List, for example. [1]

This is an ode to traditional storytelling and any movements it makes to remind us of Spielberg’s supreme talents are trumped by its underlining of Tom Hanks as one of the greatest living actors. This is not a story about espionage, politics or the Cold War. It is a film about one man’s unwavering desire to stick to his principles. Hanks portrays Donovan as a totally unassuming man whose aggression is only touched on when he feels the principles for which he stands are threatened. As with most of his best roles, it has a way of pulling you in and asking you what you would do in his shoes.

If it is considered for any awards in the next few months, it will be for Hanks as an actor in a leading role. For all the clever cinematography and attentive set design, they are merely the stage on which Hanks is allowed to fly.

Bridge of Spies is release in cinemas worldwide on 27th November 2015.

[1] I’m well aware that this sounds condescending. It is fueled directly by the woman in front of me who three times during the film decided to have a quick check of her phone next to her pocket. Whilst it was only a minor distraction for me (it wasn’t so bad to warrant me tapping her on the shoulder), she missed two critical plot points and the description of what the characters did next in the final credits. Definitely a justification for the theory that the audience’s participation level is as important as the care put into a film.