Wes Anderson’s whimsical wheeze, The Darjeeling Limited, was released yesterday, and to celebrate, D+CFilm has a week’s worth of interviews and features for your delectation.

There’s chat with Anderson, as well as stars Jason Schwartzman and Adrien Brody, and a glimpse at writing and shooting the flick.

As you may have ascertained, we’re pretty big fans of Wes, though haven’t really been blown away by one of his films since the days of Bottle Rocket and, of course, Rushmore. Will Darjeeling be a return to form? We shall see.

In the meantime, here’s the trailer to whet your appetite.

Posted by Thin White Duke

Follow the main cinema links for dates, times and matinee screenings.
Follow the title links for movie details, friendship and maybe more.

CARLTON THEATRE, TEIGNMOUTH

Deep Water (PG) Part of View From Here festival

PLYMOUTH ARTS CENTRE

Sicko (12A) Click here to watch trailer

Yella (12A) Click here to watch trailer 

TAVISTOCK WHARF

December Boys (12A) Click here to watch trailer 

DARTINGTON ARTS/THE BARN

Stardust (PG) Click here to watch trailer

Control (15) Click here to watch trailer 

The Counterfeiters (15) Click here to watch trailer

The Elusive Volcano (no cert) Click here for details

EXETER PICTUREHOUSE 

Brick Lane (15) Click here to watch trailer 

The Darjeeling Limited (15) Click here to watch trailer

The Assassination Of Jessie James… (15) Click here to watch trailer

Fimfarum II (PG) Click here to watch trailer

Bad Timing (18) Click here for trivia

THE POLY, FALMOUTH

Elizabeth: The Golden Age (12A) Click here to watch trailer 

If you want your local arthouse or cinema club featured in the Arthouse Roundup, send some details to info@dandcfilm.co.uk    

The View From Here is bringing you the top professionals in their field. That’s why we spoke to artist Vicky Smith about her career and the progression of her work. You can catch Vicky talking in person after a screening at the Blue Walnut Cafe on Thursday, November 29.

 

 Flash Video: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (46)

Making films is fun for all the family - just ask the Perry and Hockey family. Multi-generations of the female kin got together to devise, write, film and provide the score to an animation they wanted to produce as a family project and for their love of film.

The newly titled Perkey Productions - an amalgamation of the family surnames - is made up of Lianne, her daughter Abby, Lianne’s mother Joanne and two cousins (sisters Sarah and Charlotte) - with ages ranging from single figures up to the 50s.

Lianne said: “We all live in Exeter and three of us went to a fabric animation workshop during the Animated Exeter Festival last year. We were hooked.

“We decided immediately to apply for funding through the festival to create our own short film. We weren’t successful, but Liz Harkman from Exeter City Council decided to help us with funding applications from other sources.

“Unfortunately, we weren’t successful with anyone - mainly because the dynamics of our group didn’t fit in with the criteria of the funding. We are a family group! 

“If my mum and I had decided to back out of the project, the girls probably would have received funding because they were kids. We discussed the problem as a group, but in the end decided that the family dynamic is what made our project unique and we were in it together,” she said.

The group sourced all the material for an animation from the Exeter Scrap Store and support from the Exeter Phoenix media centre and forged ahead with the project.

“We’ve all discovered just how much work goes into a project like this, but we’ve already started working on the scope of some new projects including some short films.

“We believe our biggest strengths are our enthusiasm and the fact that we are just a normal family who enjoy spending time together and feel that no project is too big,” said Lianne.

The completed film is called The Everlasting Rose. It is about a sweet old gardener who puts a new rose in his garden and discovers that it continues to live and thrive through all seasons. 

People become interested in the longevity of the rose, things get a little bit out of hand and the gardener must make a difficult decision. At what cost does he want to know the secret of the rose’s life? 

It’s about five minutes long and is set to an original score. Stay tuned to D+CFilm for more news from Perkey Productions.

Posted by Cptn

The Motion Plymouth winners have been announced. And now all’s that’s left is to sweep up the popcorn and start making films for next year. Although, if you’ve caught that film festival bug, check out The View From Here: a celebration of moving image in South Devon from November 26 to December 1.

Motion Plymouth winners
Best Plymouth Movie - Evacuation, by Luke Pollard and Amanda Buckley
Best Music Video - You and Me, by Jon Glanville
Best Phone-in Movie (for movies made on a mobile phone) Song for a Stoma, by Jojo
Open category (fiction) - Isabella, by Geoffrey Taylor
Open category (factual) - White English Men, by Andy Oxley
Most commercially viable movie - Driven, by Anthony Butler
Movie with Most Artistic Merit - Hedgehogs and Honeybeads, by Martha Moopette
Best Movie from Outside the West - Blind Man’s Alley, by Tony Kelly

Of course, your friendly neighbourhood digest of all that is the world of film in Devon and Cornwall will bring you up-dates and snippets of all these at some point, but for now, here’s some links to a few of the filmmakers - Geoffrey Taylor talks about filmmaking with First Light; Anthony Butler chats about his film Driven; and Martha Moopette has a whole website and myspace, where you can see her film Hedgehogs and Honeybeads.

Posted by Cptn

A cast and crew are wanted for a short film to be shot in Devon on December 8 and 9.

There is already a skeleton crew in place, but a few more hands would be useful for director Jonathan Dupont’s film The Last Siren (and we’re not talking about Tara Fitzgerald).

He’s looking for actors to fill the roles of Alex (18-30) the lead of the piece, George (18 - 45), Leader (18-45) and Techie (18-45) - trying to keep doing
his job in the middle of a post apocalypse war, and finding that it just keeps getting harder… Heck, we know what that’s like - except for the ‘post apocalypse war’ bit.

The usual rules apply - local travel expense and food provided. No experience is necessary but is always a bonus.

So go on, get out there on the first step to your Oscar. For more details contact jonathandupont@gmail.com

Posted by Cptn

‘The rules of film making can be taught in five minutes,’ Orson Wells was once told. ‘The rules are learnt in order to be broken.’

Puffball is a film that denies the normal ‘rules’ of cinema as it is not a generic film. As its director, Nicholas Roeg, explained when he was at the Exeter Picturehouse last week: ‘It’s a love story, a horror story, a story about sex. Like our lives.’

Set in the heart of rural Ireland, Puffball explores the forces unleashed from curious minds. Seen though the eyes of four women, all at different stages of their life, this film steers the audience through a journey of witchcraft and sabotage. When Liffy, an ambitious, English architect, moves to the village she falls pregnant. Her neighbour Mabs (Miranda Richardson) is desperate, to the point of obsession, to have a son and convinces herself that Liffy’s unborn child was destined for her own womb.

Roeg’s haunting storytelling formula does Fay Weldon’s novel justice and his exceptional use of visual effects achieved through cinematography enhance the spellbinding plot. However, those unable to detach themselves from the pre-conceptions of cinema risk finding Roeg’s return to the big screen patronising and repetitive, as his use of themes and symbolism are not exercised lightly. Yet, fans of Roeg will be stimulated by lasting, sometimes grotesque images true his style as he plays with his familiar themes of sex, life and death.

Just as Orson Wells was told, Roeg’s first film in 12 years breaks the rules of cinema and sends them spouting like the contents of an exploded puffball.

Posted by Claire Horrocks

If Allan Moyle’s Pump Up The Volume seems a long time ago, that because it was (almost 20 years, in fact). Jeez, we feel old!

Since then we’ve had Liv Tyler and Renee Zellweger in the mediocre Empire Records (1995) and, erm, that’s about it.

So, it’s good to see Moyle’s latest, stoner comedy Weirdsville, out this week, though we have to say, it looks a bit poo.

Click here to watch the trailer. Who’s for some sprayonaise?!

Posted by Thin White Duke

This year’s Motion Plymouth festival draws to a close tonight with Flock - an outdoor installation using the physical presence of passers-by on the Barbican to illuminate ghostly dancers.

Inspired by Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and produced in collaboration between digital media artists KMA and choreographer Tom Sapsford, Flock was commissioned by the Institute of Contemporary Arts with the support of ROH2 at the Royal Opera House.

Then, there’s the Motion Plymouth Movie Star Reception, in the city’s Roland Levinsky Building from 8pm-11pm, where the winners of the festival’s film competition will be announced.

After the show is the After Party (in The Lounge, above The Treasury, Royal Parade) and after the party is the hotel lobby (possibly).

Tickets for the Movie Star Reception are a snip (not strictly true) at £20. For ticket details, call 01752 668761 or email info@motionplymouth.com

Motion Plymouth’s Katie Thompson told D+CFilm: “This is going to be a reception like no other, with a Hollywood feel.

“Our guests will be treated like celebrities and they’ll be able to walk around movie-themed installations.

“It is a red-carpet Oscar-style ceremony, as it is the prize-giving celebration for the entrants of the Motion Plymouth Movie Competition.”

And that’s about it, Motion Plymouth-wise til next year. Next up, on the local movie scene, is D+CFilm’s very own View From Here fest and D+CFree at Two Short Nights.

Stay tuned to D+CFilm for… heck, just stay tuned to D+CFilm, yeah?!

Posted by Thin White Duke 

Follow the main cinema links for dates, times and matinee screenings.
Follow the title links for movie details, friendship and maybe more.

PLYMOUTH ARTS CENTRE

As You Like It (12A) Click here to watch trailer

The Serpent (15) Click here to watch trailer

TAVISTOCK WHARF

Atonement (15) Click here to watch trailer  

DARTINGTON ARTS/THE BARN

The Singer (12A) Click here to watch trailer

Death Proof (18) Click here to watch trailer

Across The Universe (12A) Click here to watch trailer

Drawing Restraint 9 (18) Click here to watch trailer

The Thief Of Baghdad (U) Click here to watch trailer

EXETER PICTUREHOUSE 

Brick Lane (15) Click here to watch trailer

Death At A Funeral (15) Click here to watch trailer

Rendition (15) Click here to watch trailer

Grandhotel (15) Click here to watch trailer

The Man Who Fell To Earth (15) Click here for Wikipedia entry

THE POLY, FALMOUTH

Control (15) Click here to watch trailer 

If you want your local arthouse or cinema club featured in the Arthouse Roundup, send some details to info@dandcfilm.co.uk    

More than 400 kids, teachers, parents and VIPs arrived at Plymouth’s Vue Cinema on Tuesday, for this year’s swanky Young Motion Plymouth awards.

They mingled with VIPs outside the cinema – including Plymouth’s deputy Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress, city councillors and local media and education chiefs - and even had a chance to be photographed alongside a real Oscar, thanks to the attendance of Devon designer and Academy Award winner Alan Lee.

Lee told the event: “I’ve been to three Hollywood awards events and I can tell you that this ceremony is better. For a start, there are fewer people with obvious signs of plastic surgery!”

The night was the climax of Young Motion Plymouth 2007 – the first ever city-wide schools’ moviemaking competition which has been running since March.

But never mind all that guff - who were the winners?! Well, hold on a second, and we’ll tell you.

Best Animated Film: Glen Park Primary School with Drake’s Life, a history of the explorer. In plasticine. But of course.
Best Collective Filmmaking: Compton Animation Club, Compton CE Primary School, with a selection of off-the-wall Flash animations
Best Plymouth Film: Plympton St Maurice Primary School with For Drake’s
Sake, a mock news report about Plymouth history and architecture and the Mackay Plan
Best Young Filmmakers: Dunstone Primary School with Daisy In Trouble, an underwater rescue drama with whales and divers
Best Music Film: Lipson Community College with pop video Living for Thursday/Forget Me Not
Best Funded Film: Coombeshead College and MED Theatre with Lost Roots, a dual-plot piece weaving Dartmoor’s unwanted non-native beech trees with the tale of an Eastern European refugee living in Devon
Best Open Category Film: Stoke Damerel Community College, The Girl in Red, a romantic, monochrome animated stills movie

Highly Commended films included Katie Morag’s Day Out, by Highfield Community Primary School, If I Could Change The World, by Barne Barton Primary School, and The Three Fishes, by Drake Primary School.

Motion Plymouth’s Katie Thomson told D+CFilm: “The amount of schools and schoolchildren who took part in the competition was absolutely fantastic and the range and variety of movies that the judges watched was superb.

“We’ve got a lot of filmmaking talent in our schools and we’re already looking forward to next year’s event.”

Stay tuned to D+CFilm this week for more Motion Plymouth fun.

Posted by Thin White Duke

What are the Motion Plymouth festival people up to today, then?

Well, there’s The Big Sing, in Plymouth’s city centre from 4pm, where they’ll be projecting kids’ voices – and their faces – on to buildings and stuff.

Around 300 children will be performing a new piece of music commissioned by Peninsula Arts in this seasonal collaborative singing session.

Then there’s the Motion Plymouth Mash-up (innit, brap, etc), where the controversial Civic Centre building will be transformed into a big screen,
ready for the night’s Christmas lights switch-on with - waitferrit - the
Big Brother twins.

Let’s hope the massive pictures of children yodelling don’t send the confused twins into some kind of murderous rage - swearing at the startled crowd while sicking milk from their gobs. God, that’d be terrible.

Anyway, stay tuned to D+CFilm this week for more Motion Plymouth mayhem.

Posted by Thin White Duke

We’ve just been out to look at the Motion Plymouth festival Noogy 2.0.

The what now?! Well, Noogy is a collaboration between i-Dat (the University of Plymouth’s Institute of Digital Art and Technology) and Pyramid, Plymouth’s leading audio-visual, exhibitions and events company.

It’s an interactive installation at the front of the university’s Portland Square building. Passers-by can interact with Noogy 2.0 by dialling a number – 07511 253710 - and making sounds into their phone.

A display using 9,600 LED lights across an area of 50 square metres then flashes and swirls, corresponding to your hapless hooting.

Suffice to say, it’s top fun but a bit difficult to explain. Luckily, our D+CFilm snapper came along too, burdened down with thousands of pounds worth of photographic equipment (just check out our staggeringly good picture below!).

Stay tuned to D+CFilm this week for more Motion Plymouth japery.

Posted by Thin White Duke

The Motion Plymouth festival steps up a gear today, with another fist fulla fab film-type thingies.

First up, you can check out the wealth of moving imagery held in the Plymouth-based South West Film and Television Archive at a special shindig in The Lounge, above The Treasury, Royal Parade at 2pm, 3pm and 4pm.

Elayne Hoskin delivers insights on this rich resource while screening Plymouth gems from yesteryear.

There will also be a selection of digital stories from Estover Community College’s On The Move project, including tales about how the filmmakers came to be in Plymouth, which journeys changed their lives, or their relationships in families.

Feel free to turn up unannounced for the shows. The Lounge is fully accessible with a lift.

Meanwhile, enjoy an exclusive sneak preview of the newly-refurbished Immersive Vision Theatre known as The Dome, behind the University of Plymouth’s Portland Square Building, from 6pm-7pm.

Relax as boffins from the Institute of Digital Art and Technology whisk you to the edge of the known universe. And back. In under an hour. Crikey.

There’s only 40 places available and reservations are made on a first-come, first-served basis, so you’re probably waaay outta luck, chum.

And finally, look out for the launch of Noogy 2.0, at the Portland Square Building, University of Plymouth, at 7pm.

Call Noogy on 07511 253710 and watch as the sounds you make into your mobile turn into an electric vision powered by 9,600 LEDs. Standard phone rates apply, yada yada.

We’ll be telling you more about Noogy 2.0 a bit later on, so don’t touch that dial.

Posted by Thin White Duke

We were talking about the Young Motion Plymouth awards shingdig this morning and forgot to mention Frankie, pictured below.

Yup, Sir Francis Drake has been blinged up to become the 3D-specs-wearing golden statuette prize of the Motion Plymouth festival.

The trophy was made by Chris Clayton from Innovate - Centre for Creative Industries, especially for the twin filmmaking compos where adults and schoolchildren strive to win a Frankie for their on-screen efforts.

Motion Plymouth’s Katie Thompson told D+CFilm: “The Frankies are the perfect prize for the winners of Motion Plymouth and Young Motion Plymouth.

“We know the Oscars have been around for a bit but we’re sure that the Frankies will make a big impression on the moviemaking community.

“Sir Francis was around before the first ever moving image, but we’re sure he wouldn’t mind being associated with this 21st century Plymothian voyage of moviemaking discovery.”

But pray tell, who are these Centre for Creative Industries johnnies?

Well, apparently, they ‘generate and support knowledge transfer activities within the creative industries, raising the profile of applied research activities… which draw together expertise, resources and interest, focusing on maximising benefit for academic and market potential alike’.

Oh.

Stay tuned to D+CFilm this week for lots more Motion Plymouth
monkey business.

Posted by Thin White Duke