Top Three Must-See Films Currently Screening in London
Reviews of Society of the Snow, Stop Making Sense (1984) and Dream Scenario with Henry Scott Irvine. Showing at Curzon, Picturehouse and Netflix in January 2024.
Society of the Snow is the story of the fateful flight of The Uruguayan rugby team, which crashed onto a mountain glacier in the Andes. Very few passengers survived. They found themselves in one of the world’s toughest environments. We witness their disaster and journey through snow covered mountains, and back into civilisation. This film is Spain’s official entry for the 96th Academy Awards with multiple Award nominations lined-up. If you’ve already seen Alive? Erase it from your memory. This is the grittier dramatised Spanish version of this true story made by filmmaker J A Byone, the director of The Impossible and The Orphanage. See it at the Curzon or Picturehouse, now or on Netflix from January 4th 2024
Stop Making Sense (1984) from Silence of The Lambs Director Jonathan Demme. Fully remastered and reissued in 4k Digital Stereo. Demme captured the frantic energy and artsy groove of The Talking Heads in this concert movie shot at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre in 1983. A time capsule back to when their frontman, David Byrne, first appeared on an empty stage, armed with only an acoustic guitar, to be gradually joined by bassist Tina Weymouth, drummer Chris Frantz, keyboardist Jerry Harrison, and a raft of back-up singers to perform the band’s period hits. This culminated in a legendary performance by Byrne in an enormous powder blue suit. Possibly the best concert movie of the1980’s? Catch it at The Prince Charles Cinema or at Picturehouse Cinemas now.
Dream Scenario is almost a modern day take on the kind of comedy seen in the vintage Hollywood classic Harvey except there are no imagined life-sized Rabbits. This could’ve been a vehicle for Jimmy Stewart. Except he’s long dead. Nicholas Cage plays a hapless family man, a college lecturer, who suddenly appears as an apparition in numerous people’s dreams. This leads to new found fame and TV spots for Cage’s character, a late middle-aged, balding, beardy man. Cage literally reinvents himself as James Stewart in this warm-hearted, funny, ‘high-concept’ film from writer-director Kristoffer Borgli. See it at selective London Cinemas now.
