BBC News - Film Industry Boost to UK Economy

Film tax relief brings in at least £12 for every £1 spent on it, according to the British Film Commission, with three new creative tax reliefs planned for 2013.

The film industry is worth an estimated £1.6bn to Britain's GDP and employs about 44,000 people.

The BBC's Steph McGovern visited a motion capture studio to find out how the magic happens.

She was joined by Sir William Sargent, chief executive of visual effects company Framestore, and Samantha Perahia of the British Film Commission.

Paranormal Activity 4 Review

A battle between horror conventions and innovations has been steadily brewing over the course of the "Paranormal Activity" franchise, and in the fourth film, the conventional finally wins. Less reliant on slow-burn suspense and larded with fake-out jump scares, this is the first sequel in the series that fails to advance the overall mythology in any meaningful way. Whether the faster pace and less inventive thrills will matter to hardcore fans, there's little indication the "Paranormal" brand has worn out its commercial appeal just yet. B.O. should be positively frightful (in a good way) through the Halloween season.
Small children chatting with spirits. A virginal teenage protagonist fending off her horny boyfriend. Creepy neighbors dabbling in the occult. Auds have seen it all before, which would be less of a concern if this "Paranormal" followed in its predecessors' footsteps and found fresh ways to spin familiar tropes. Instead, directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman and screenwriter Christopher Landon (all returning from "Paranormal Activity 3") seem to be suffering from creative malaise, settling for a few too many shots of doors ominously opening on their own, and multiple instances of the family cat scampering past the camera to deliver a sudden jolt. "Paranormal Activity 3" circled back to the past to explore the childhood of the first two movies' sibling protagonists, Katie and Kristi. The fourth film picks up five years after the end of part two, when Katie disappeared into the night with her infant nephew, Hunter, after murdering her sister. Using their whereabouts as a lingering question, the film introduces two 6-year-old boys. Robbie (Brady Allen), a loner with a proclivity for menacing asides, lives across the street from Wyatt (Aiden Lovekamp), a rambunctious lad with a lovely teenage sister, Alex (Kathryn Newton), and two stable parents, Doug (Stephen Dunham) and Holly (Alexondra Lee). A mysterious accident at Robbie's house forces the neighbors to become his temporary caretakers; Alex is the only one who notices all the unsettling things that coincide with Robbie's arrival. Even before Alex and her wisecracking b.f., Ben (Matt Shively), rig the home with cameras to provide the series' trademark nighttime video recording, the film plays fast and loose with the requisite found-footage style. Viewers are rarely clued in as to what's being used to film the action or why it's being recorded at all, other than what seems like Alex's obsessive need to carry around her computer and engage in frequent videochats with Ben. Eventually, the creepy notion emerges that various webcams in the house are permanently recording, whether their users know it or not, but the filmmakers never really follow through on the paranoid potential inherent in such an invasion of privacy. The pic's sole visual novelty comes from the use of the Xbox Kinect gaming accessory, which blankets the family living room with tiny green projection dots, visible only when captured by an infrared camera. The gimmick adds an otherworldly quality to select nighttime sequences, while doubling as a quirky bit of product placement. At least it's more original than the multitude of setpieces blurring the line between ripoff and homage in the pic's use of a Big Wheel tricycle ("The Shining"), levitating body ("The Exorcist") and bathtub ("A Nightmare on Elm Street"). Performances are fairly routine for the genre, though young leading lady Newton summons agreeable echoes of Dakota Fanning and Evan Rachel Wood. Tech credits are also in line with expectations, but the creeping intrusion of flashy visual effects and prosthetic makeup into what started as a low-tech series may not be to everyone's liking. Gregory Plotkin's editing further violates unwritten franchise rules by breaking up the "found footage" with jarring cuts, occasionally utilized for quick shocks. The film is dedicated to the memory of Dunham, who died of a heart attack last month. In addition to playing his onscreen wife here, Lee was Dunham's spouse offscreen as well.

BFI London Film Festival

The 56th BFI London Film Festival in partnership with American Express started this week under the new creative leadership of BFI’s Head of Exhibition and Festival Director, Clare Stewart, bringing a rich and diverse programme of international films and events from both established and upcoming talent over a 12 day celebration of cinema. The Festival will screen a total of 225 fiction and documentary features, including 14 World Premieres, 15 International Premieres and 34 European Premieres. There will also be screenings of 111 live action and animated shorts. A stellar line-up of directors, cast and crew are expected to take part in career interviews, master classes, and other special events. The 56th BFI London Film Festival will run from 10-21 October 2012.

Sinister - Total Film Review

Like most struggling writers, true-crime novellist Ellison (Ethan Hawke) spends far too much time in his room watching films.
What's harder to swallow is that none of them are Insidious, with which Scott Derrickson's slick horror shares much of its DNA (not to mention its producers).
Both movies feature young families uncovering old secrets in new houses; both have child-snatching demons glimpsed only in passing; and both aim for that tricky combination of spooky and funny.
Happily, both mainly hit the mark. In terms of spooky, one of Ellison’s films (found, naturally, in the attic) shows a family hanging from the tree in his backyard, while another reveals a face that moves eerily audience-wards behind his back. Though a little less scary, Sinister tackles its comedy scenes better than the earlier film, particularly those featuring fanboy cop Deputy So-And-So (the brilliantly awkward James Ransone) who’s all too eager to help Ellison with his investigations. “That is a conversation I would not want to be around,” he offers when Ellison decides to tell wife Tracy (Juliet Rylance) they’ve moved into a murder house. Frankly, she might have guessed something was up by how much time hubby spends wandering around the attic swinging his baseball bat at shadows. Thanks to a dependably driven performance from Hawke, Chris Norr’s gorgeously glassy cinematography and several shiversome reveals, Sinister manages to be both an opportunistic Insidious clone and a much more consistent watch. It may be as subtle as Ellison’s trusty slugger, but there’s no denying it gets the job done. Verdict: An enjoyable, if boilerplate, boo-flick that maintains an enviable rate of scares per minute by throwing everything – demons, ghosts, snakes, loud noises – at the screen.

Toronto 2012

The British film industry will be well represented at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). In addition to nearly 40 British productions and co-productions films in the programme, a large number of British industry delegates will be attending the Festival to do business, sell new British films, get projects off the ground and promote the UK to the international industry. Providing a focal point for meetings and information will be a dedicated UK Film Centre, delivered by Film Export UK in partnership with Film London and with support from UK Trade & Investment and the BFI’s Lottery Film Export Fund. For the third year the UK Film Centre will take over the Festival Room at the Hyatt Regency Hotel and will be open for business from 6-13th September. It exists to serve demand from the British industry and brings together the UK’s film commissions, national agencies, producers and sales companies with an aim to generate business with international markets and investors, promote the UK films and talent at this year’s TIFF and showcasing the entire UK offer.
Ill Manors trailer - Bankside Films - a UK Film Company

Hope Springs – Review by Peter Bradshaw, Guardian

Here is a syrupy Hollywood comedy about a sexless marriage in crisis, a subject for which, in this country, the two classic texts are Kingsley Amis's autobiographical novel Jake's Thing and Victoria Wood's song about being beaten on the bottom with a Woman's Weekly. Those are both very different from this film, which magics a saccharine happy ending out of thin air, and which despite the analysis theme is weirdly incurious about its characters' backstories. Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones are Kay and Arnold, empty-nesters in a non-sexual rut. Arnold, a decreasingly lovable grump, has to be bullied into going with Kay to couples-therapist Dr Bernard Feld (Steve Carell) and talking about his feelings for the first time in 30 years … or maybe ever. The therapy scenes are great, in the beginning: daringly long, drawn-out, uncomfortable sequences. But as the couple try to rekindle the bedroom flame the note of cutesy comedy kicks in and the movie gets phonier and phonier. There are no secondary revelations about Kay and Arnold them-selves, or about their grownup children, or indeed about Dr Feld himself, who is a sphinx without a secret.

Daniel Craig to play James Bond in at least two more films

Daniel Craig will play James Bond in at least two more films after signing a deal to portray the secret agent beyond next month's Skyfall, reports Deadline.

Craig is now set to star as 007 in at least five films, making him the third longest-serving Bond after Roger Moore, who had seven stints in the hot seat, and Sean Connery, who had six (plus the unofficial Never Say Never Again in 1983). He will overtake Pierce Brosnan, who played 007 four times between 1995 and 2004.

Craig made his debut in 2006's Casino Royale and starred in sequel Quantum of Solace two years later. Skyfall, from Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes, has been delayed by financial woes at studio MGM but is due to arrive in cinemas on 26 October.

Deadline suggests that Craig could star in more than five Bond films, though he would be likely to be over 50 by the time he came to do so. Moore was 57 when he shot 1985's A View to a Kill, though most critics believe his best work as 007 took place before he entered his sixth decade.

Craig, 44, will be playing Bond for the third time in Skyfall, the 23rd Bond film, in which Dame Judi Dench will reprise her role as the dapper spy's boss, M, for the seventh time. British actors Albert Finney and Ralph Fiennes take undisclosed parts, while Javier Bardem will be one of the villains and Ben Whishaw debuts in the role of gadget guru Q.

Naomie Harris is playing a field agent named Eve and French actor Bérénice Marlohe is set to play an enigmatic Bond girl named Severine. The Bond movies celebrate a half century this year: Skyfall's premiere comes little more than a fortnight after the anniversary of the first Bond film, Dr No, which received its world premiere on 5 October 1962.