This week we bring you Juliette Binoche in what I can only describe as a rather cerebral movie. Star Trek this is not… However, it is a Cannes award winning (Prize of the Ecumenical Jury) film.

Michael Haneke, now an Oscar-winning director with Amour, amazed and perplexed critics and audiences in equal measure with this film, Code Unknown: Incomplete Tales of Several Journeys (or to use it’s original title, Code inconnu: Récit incomplet de divers voyages). The Guardian‘s Peter Bradshaw described it as ‘one of the most uncompromisingly difficult and challenging of the year’

The film features several different storylines, all of which intersect periodically throughout the film. The ‘code’ of the title may refer to the alienated, wandering characters who seem unable to decide how to interact with each other and life itself. It could also refer to the codes of film making. What can we really ‘know’ about people whose lives are presented to us on screen?

Don’t expect any traditional form of narrative closure. Haneke has made a career out of being abstract and oblique. But he’s also one the world’s preeminent film-makers so don’t miss the chance to see one of the greatest living directors lesser-seen films on the big screen.

Check out the trailer below:

As ever, screenings are FREE and all friends of CineClub are welcome

When and where: MC207 Cinema, 5pm, Wednesday 20th March 2013

In a change to the scheduled running order Cineclub seems to have dropped the bizarre Park Chan-Wook film Bakjwi/Thirst in favour of a timely science-fiction announcement. In case you’ve missed the recent news, J.J. Abrahms released some new trailers for the upcoming Star Trek film, Into Darkness. This is the second Star Trek film in what’s been called his franchise reboot, so it makes perfect sense to honour that announcement with a screening of the fan-favourite second instalment in the original film series Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Into Darkness teaser #1:

Into Darkness teaser #2

Rumor has it that Khan will return in this version – can you spot him?

Anyway, Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan sees Kirk, Spock and company take on an old foe from a 1960s TV series (‘Space Seed’) in the guise of the genetically enhanced Khan (played by Ricardo Montalban). It is also notable for featuring one of the first scenes made completely from computer generated imagery.

This was a box office hit, taking close to $100 million when it was originally released and helped reignite interest in the franchise – mainly due to the fateful conclusion… It went on to win two Saturn awards for best director and best actor (for William Shatner!), and was generally well-received by fans and critics alike.

This is quite a pacy little space romp with some truly memorable moments. Let’s just say that if you were a child when you saw this, you might have had recurring nightmares involving earwigs and ears…

Check out the original cinematic trailer below:

Here’s the Blu-ray trailer

As ever, screenings are FREE and all friends of CineClub are welcome

When and where: MC207 Cinema, 5pm, Wednesday 13th March 2013

After last week’s 1980s horror classic we got something a little different for you. We have a documentary that looks at some truly bizarre films and features people like Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino. Let’s give you the blurb from the official release

Blue jeans, sock-hops and drive-in movies: the Fifties were America’s age of innocence. But stalking the depths of its post-nuclear bliss, mass paranoia became fuel for Joseph McCarthy’s brand of Red Scare terror propaganda. Bomb shelters were a deluxe feature in every American home, government-sponsored educational reels promised an imminent nuclear threat from across the Atlantic, and Hollywood, Babylon of the western world, hung on the brink of collapse. It was here, in the last-ditch machinations of a dying juggernaut, that a mild-mannered, civil engineer’s son would become the most influential force in modern moviemaking.

Corman’s World is a documentary that tracks the triumphant rise of Hollywood’s most prolific writer-director-producer, the true godfather of DIY independent filmmaking: Roger Corman. Known principally for his work on low-budget B-movies and exploitation films, Corman is an Academy Award winner whose contribution to cinema was noted in 2009.  IMDb credit him with 56 directed films and some 400 produced films from 1954 through 2008, many as un-credited producer or executive producer.

Many of Corman’s films are rightly considered ‘cult classics‘ and include Death Race 2000, Pirhana, Forbidden and Suburbia. A number of noted film directors worked with Corman, usually early in their careers, including Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard and Peter Bogdanovich - often as part of ‘The Corman Film School’

Check out the trailer below:

As ever, screenings are FREE and all friends of CineClub are welcome

When and where: MC207 Cinema, 5pm, Wednesday 13th February 2013

In an era of reboots masquerading as sequels it seems fitting to bring you such a well-known film which is itself a reworking of an earlier film. This week’s screening is John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982, US) a film that was given the reboot/prequel/sequel treatment in 2011, but which is ostensibly a remake of the 1951 film, The Thing From Another World by Christian Nyby (with a little bit of help from Howard Hawks).

Don’t let any of that detract from the film itself – this is one of the quintessential science fiction horror films from the golden age of the genre. The Thing is one of John Carpenter’s finest films with a memorable performance from Kurt Russell and some wonderful special effects work by Rob Bottin and Stan Winston. You may never look at a Husky or an Alsatian the same way again….

Members of an American scientific research outpost in Antarctica find themselves battling a parasitic alien organism capable of perfectly imitating its victims. They soon discover that this task will be harder than they thought, as they don’t know which members of the team have already been assimilated and their paranoia threatens to tear them apart.

Man is The Warmest Place to Hide

Check out the trailer below:

As ever, screenings are FREE and all friends of CineClub are welcome

When and where: MC207 Cinema, 5pm, Wednesday 13th February 2013

So, we did it. We finally did it. We managed to screen Almost Famous last week. I hope it was everything you wanted and more!

This week we turn to a recent book-to-film adaptation that has been described as a British period piece as well as a science fiction film. Neither of these descriptions do the film justice, if truth be told.

Based on Kazuo Ishiguro’s wonderful Booker Prize short-listed novel (2005) of the same name, Never Let Me Go (2010) depicts an alternative history of Britain in which it is now possible for people to live in good health to the age of 100. But there is a cost to pay for this extended life.

The Guardian described the film as ‘a dreamlike parable of Britishness – a particularly miserable Britishness, a Britishness which submits numbly and uncomplainingly to authority’. This may be true, but is this, as The Guardian implies, the politics of the film? Bertolt Brecht said of his play Mother Courage and Her Children, ‘Even if Courage learns nothing, the audience can learn something by observing her’. Could something similar be said of Never Let Me Go?

There are some standout performances from Carey Mulligan (winner of the Best Actress – British Independent Film Awards; Breakthrough Performance Award – Palm Springs International Film Festival) and Andrew Garfield (Best Actor – Evening Standard British Film Awards). Keira Knightley also impresses in a supporting role.

Check out the trailer below

As ever, screenings are FREE and all friends of CineClub are welcome

When and where: MC207 Cinema, 5pm, Wednesday 6th February 2013

Another week, another change to the running order (see this link). We won’t be screening The Ninth Gate as advertised due to another clash with the presenter. Instead, we have brought forwards Terry Gilliam’s Oscar-nominated time travelling epic, Twelve Monkeys. Unlike last week, we hope to be back in our regular haunt of the cinema (MC207).

In a future world devastated by disease, a convict (played by Bruce Willis, acting against type) is sent back in time to gather information about the man-made virus that wiped out most of the human population on the planet.

From the creative mind of Monty Python member, Terry Gilliam (Brazil, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus,The Brothers’ Grimm) comes a discombobulating tale of temporality. Often voted one of the greatest time travel pictures of all time, this film features an academy award nominated performance from Brad Pitt as psychotic Jeffrey Goines.

Gilliam’s quest for filmic perfection is legendary and even inspired a wonderful ‘making of’ documentary that appeared on some of the DVD releases of the film called The Hamster Factor (available on YouTube), that was best described as an attempt to make a film with an European sensibility within the Hollywood system. Twelve Monkeys was also the first time that Gilliam had been given final cut approval on one of his now films.

Bring your thinking caps and time travel rule book for the post-film discussion (wait, have we already had that?).
Check out the trailer below: