Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr Fox will have its world premiere at the London Film Festival's opening gala tonight. Suchandrika Chakrabarti reviews. In case you don't know (shame on you if you don't), Fantastic Mr Fox is a 1970 children's novel by Roald Dahl. The film fleshes out the original storyline, which sees Mr Fox outsmarting the local triumvirate of mean farmers - Boggis, Bunce and…

  This is the animated banner that greets visitors to the new documentary website brought to you by the Documentary Film Group in association with the British Council. It's a one-stop shop for documentary, created especially for everyone interested in the art and craft of documentary filmmaking. The site will bringing the latest news and events from the global doc community, with…

The 55th BFI London Film Festival opens tonight!  Oh. Fernando Meirelles. This is no City of God. This isn't even Love Actually. It just. Doesn't. Work. So... there's sex trafficking, infidelity, infidelity, people meeting on a plane, loooooads of interminable airport scenes, a brilliant bit of Anthony Hopkins in AA (but his character never rings true), pretty brunettes bringing sad guys redemp…

Welcome to Page to Screen # 1, Laurence Boyce’s newest column that takes a look at some of the best books related to cinema, TV and anything else that fits into our broad remit. From serious academic tomes to graphic novels, weighty reference material to film tie-ins there’ll be something here for everyone to feast your eyes on when not actually in the cinema. The honour of th…

Propelled forward with the raw exuberance of the music and characters within the dance music scene of Brazil's favelas, rarely is a documentary so sexy, foul-mouthed and downright fun. Refreshingly void of narration or authorial presence, ‘Favela on Blast' drops you in at the deep end of Rio's ‘Funk Carioca' scene, relying only on personal accounts from the D.J's, M.C's and characters within it…

It’s looking like a pretty quiet summer for blockbusters. Harry Potter has caused a stir but seems somehow slight, Transformers 2 has distinguished itself by being absolutely diabolical and Star Trek seems like ages ago. So, if you’re not fancying your local multiplex then Special Edition # 31 would seem to be the perfect option for all your film watching needs. Laurence Boyce leads y…

As the  50th London Film Festival gets underway, a new update from Suchandrika Chakrabarti, with previews of Penny Woolcock's Mischief Night, the Spanish Dark Blue Almost Black and a real-life Argentine horror story, Buenos Aires 1977.             Mischief Night (Penny Woolcock, UK, 2006)   The third part o…

It’s the time of year when the summer blockbusters that filled the cinemas begin to fill the DVD shelves instead. In Special Edition # 27, Laurence Boyce looks at one of the biggest hits of the summer alongside some cinematic classics, some laughs and a few TV staples. I've also been watching films with a lot of porn in them, but as its work then it’s allowed. You know, I…

If you’re a fan of Blade Runner – and there are many – you may be happy that there’s a new book exploring the classic film. However, if terms such as ‘Intertextuality’, ‘Liminal Space’ and ‘Cyberethnography’ are liable to give you a sudden headache then maybe you’d better check out Laurence Boyce’s review of The Blade Runner…

Shane Meadows has been awarded almost iconic status as one of the pioneers of low budget filmmaking in Britain, which he certainly is, but some people find his work on screen doesn't always reach – on the audience satisfaction scale - the parts others claim it does reach. This week his latest opus Dead Man's Shoes opens Stateside in Greenwich Village, the heartland of New Yor…

Special Edition # 35 is  your special Xmas bumpercolumn with plenty (and we really mean plenty) of DVDs for you to be getting your teeth into. Laurence Boyce will point you in the right direction if you’re looking for presents or simply some ways to escape the endless rounds of Xmas television. So let’s get cracking with just what exactly Santa may put in your stocking over Christmas, especially…

Films, films and more films. And some TV shows. Yes, Special Edition# 34 has plenty of fun things for you this time around. It’s a good job the clocks went back or Laurence Boyce wouldn't know where to find the time…. It seems that all our directors have decided to have a laugh: after Mike Leigh decided to head down the comedy route in Happy-Go-Lucky and some would say that Guy Ritchie has been…

Michael Haneke's critically-acclaimed The White Ribbon, which was released on DVD yesterday, is a chilling look behind the apparently normal façade of a small north German village in the lead-up to the First World War. Narrated by one of the most sympathetic characters, the schoolteacher, when he has become an old man, the film shows us brutal events, some apparently perpetrated by children, b…

It seems as though there are two films in Oliver Stone's W., fighting to separate themselves from each other. There is the story of George W. Bush (Josh Brolin), the president who took his country to war in 2003. Then there is Dubya, the son in awe of his father, George H. W. Bush (James Cromwell); who feels rivalry with his little brother Jeb (Jason Ritter); and who sees politics as the family…

  It seems that DVD companies have decided to educate us in cinema history as they’ve gone ‘auteur crazy’ with a number of box sets and new releases containing the greatest work of some of the most famous and influential directors of the past hundred years. So if your DVD collection is mostly populated by the films of Steve Guttenberg and Pauly Shore, then you&rsq…

How did we cope before the advent of DVD’s? Rewinding a video tape took ages, the quality was something less to be desired and there was a nary a special feature in sight. How our film loving predecessor’s must have suffered in that primitive world - well, unless they had loads of money and bought a Laserdisc. Thankfully, we’re now knee deep in DVDs and Special Edition # 28 is…

Years in the making, The Master Course In High-End Blocking And Staging is the most comprehensive and ambitious Directing Course in the world. A groundbreaking learning tool, the course teaches high-end camera work through over 9 hours of 3D animated instruction on 6 Region-Free DVDs.    WHO'S IT FOR? For Directors, Cinematographers, Script Supervisors, 3D Animato…

As dedications go, the one to (500) Days of Summer tells you immediately that we are definitely not in rom-com land anymore, Toto: "Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Especially you Jenny Beckman. Bitch.” Wow. And although the film is fun, occasionally true and makes you feel incredibly sorry for the main character, Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), the underlying bitt…

Whether you're old enough to remember seeing Jason And The Argonauts on the big screen or fondly hark back to bank holidays where you could comfortably settle down for a screening of Clash Of The Titans, the films of legendary animator Ray Harryhausen have enchanted many a movie goer. But as much as Harryhausen is loved by his audience, he is also revered and respected throughout the film…

Wow. When Mike Leigh goes comic, he really goes for it. Happy-Go-Lucky , the tale of Poppy, a North London primary school teacher with a very un-London persistently sunny nature and a whole host of whacky quips, gets driving lessons and talks too much. That's the film. The latest Mike Leigh film. No, really.             Here's th…

Thanks to the perils of blown up computers and various other technological problems, Special Edition # 4 has been a long time coming. But never fear as Laurence Boyce had managed to move heaven and earth (and, more importantly, has managed to install a new version of Windows XP) to bring a bumper crop of all the DVD’s that are fit to watch when the bright sunshine starts to get a l…

Tim Burton has always had something of a schizophrenic career. On one hand he’s the eccentric visionary who works on the fringes of Hollywood with such films as the fabulous Edward Scissorhands and the commercially unsuccessful yet brilliantly twisted Mars Attacks. On the other hand he’s at the heart of the Hollywood machine, helming the merchandise monster that was Batman and th…

Andy Serkis (Lord of the Rings, King Kong), Sacha Baron Cohen (Ali G. Borat et al), Milo Twomey (Band of Brothers), Rebecca Craig (Casualty, Emma, Silent Witness) star in this recently discovered remarkable British comedy. The Jolly Boys Last Stand is a unique and unforgettable show of their raw talent available to rent and buy from 13th February 2006 (RRP £14.99) When "El Presidente&…

Now, as the holiday season has come to an end, it’s come to that time of year when you have loads of vouchers to spend (“Oh, thanks for that Auntie. A voucher I can spend in a specific shop, as opposed to money which I can spend – you know – anywhere”) and DVD’s to exchange for something better. So Special Edition # 36 is here to point you in the right direction as Laurence Boyce examines some of…

Life is a strange thing. It keeps interfering when you want to do a DVD column. Yes, due to lots and lots of things, Special Edition has been away for a long time. But it’s never been forgotten and Laurence Boyce returns with Special Edition # 29 complete with lots and lots of discs, including an absolutely ton of British cinema, that you can get to keep you entertained whilst you absolutely igno…