AGM 2013 - Sunday 7th April 4pm

The Keswick Film Club Annual General Meeting will take place on Sunday 7th April at 4pm in The Alhambra before the 5pm screening of Let The Bullets Fly.

Cloud Atlas - Sunday 31st March 5pm

Only two films left this season, I'm sorry to say, but we are going out with a bang. This Sunday we have 'Cloud Atlas', based on the book of the same name by David Mitchell but I am told it is EVEN better than the book. The film covers three centuries, linking the lives of characters together by shared story lines and having the same actors playing different parts over the centuries. We have a big plot, big actors (Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving ...) Not surprisingly we also have a big budget for once - $100m+ The result is more than a blockbuster though; to quote Roger Ebert , himself borrowing from Churchill's description of Russia, '"it is a riddle, wrapped up in a mystery, inside an enigma"...But, oh, what  a film this is! And what a demonstration of the magical, dreamlike qualities of the cinema'. Possibly a season highlight? Come along and find out for yourself. As the film is nearly 3 hours long, we will be starting the intro at 4.55, with the film starting at 5.00.

Safety Not Guaranteed - Sunday 24th March 5pm

Safety Not Guaranteed looks like being highlight of the season - its hard to find a bad review. This from Digital Spy:

A low-concept film about time travel mightn't sound like much of a trip, but first-time director Colin Trevorrow offers good-natured fun and real substance in place of shiny surfaces and whizz-bang effects. He casts fellow indie filmmaker Mark Duplass as Kenneth, a possibly insane supermarket clerk who places an ad for a time travel companion, claiming to have the power at his fingertips. 

Aubrey Plaza gets the closest to him as Darius, a moody intellectual who most men would find intimidating, but Kenneth is too crazy to care and he's heavily armed, too. More importantly, he feels a kindred spirit in Darius after they share their personal reasons for wanting to turn back the clock. 

The Hunt - Today at 5pm

Mads Mikkelsen  (of 'a Royal Affair') plays a loner who takes on teaching the kindergarten in a small village school. All is going well until a small child makes an accusation which changes his life and the life of the community. Directed by Thomas Vinterberg, all the reviewers agree this is his best film since 'Festen' started his career in the 90s. The tense drama-thriller includes many gripping scenes, including one which Peter Bradshaw claims 'can only be watched through your fingers'. A must-see Keswick film; hopefully see you there!

No - Sunday 10th March 5pm

Our film on Sunday is No, the final film in Pablo Larrain's  Pinochet-era Chilean trilogy. It stars Gael Garcia Bernal, who is a familiar face (Even the Rain, Babel, Amores Perros, Motorcycle Diaries) and certainly enthused the audience at Cannes (don't worry, its the Cannes jury we have a problem with, not the audience) as reported by the Guardian:

Once in a while, a film comes along at Cannes that gets the blood pumping – a work that seems destined to break out of the arthouse ghetto, that feels, above all, like a fresh vision and voice. This year, that moment has come with No, a ­Chilean film tucked away in the Directors' Fortnight sidebar of the festival, its unpromising-sounding subject being Chile's 1988 referendum. Its premiere was greeted with whoops, cheers and seemingly unstoppable applause. 

What Gael's character does is key to understanding present-day Chile, says Larraín. "Pinochet imposed a capitalist society in Chile: our character grabbed the tools of capitalism that Pinochet had provided – advertising – to pull him out." For all the film's humour and joy, there is an ambivalence at the story's heart: a hardnosed cynicism in the admen's tactic of selling the idea of l'alegría, happiness, to the populace, just as if it were a soft drink called Free.

Bullhead - Sunday 3rd March 5pm

With the sun making Keswick the warmest place in England, I am not sure I should talk about us getting back to 'normal service' on Sunday after the excitement of the Festival weekend, but I will. We are showing another Oscar nominated film - 'Bullhead' - this time from Belgium. The plot of this film is a thriller about the illegal use of hormones in the cattle industry, but it is the underlying story of Jacky Vanmarsenille - the bull head of the title - that makes this a 'must see' movie. Played by Matthais Schoenaerts, we see a man tortured by his attempts to be macho and by events from the past that gradually show why he is this way. Schoenaerts' performance here won him the part in 'Rust and Bone', shown at the Alhambra earlier this year. Even the Daily Express are forced to say 'It looks fantastic, boasts an unusual storyline and Schoenaerts is as compelling as a young Marlon Brando'. I hope you enjoy too.