The London Underground Film Festival celebrates opening night with some of the best underground film, music, and performance art Europe has to offer, compered by Princess Julia.

GERTRUD STEIN
Synthpop chanteuse Gertrud Stein will be gracing our stage, accompanied by her virtual backing dancers.

SOFT RIOT
Soft Riot is JJD of Savage Furs: one person with a lot of antiquated equipment and lighting performing sinister, minimalist electronic “pop” songs equally influenced from dystopian film, soundtracks and various types of “wave” music. A forthcoming EP, “Another Drone In Your Head”, will be released on the US label Tundra Dubs in early 2012.

PARDON MY EARLY EXIT; HOPE YOU SURVIVE!
A rare performance by the gender bender-sound-art-project – pardon my early exit; hope you survive! , an open multimedia platform to experiment with sound, vision, touch, smell, taste, and the six and SevEn senses, an obsessive/compulsive collector interested in what others reject or can’t find use for, to give it a new life, a new name and a different meaning. Loud or quiet, clean or distorted, no preconceptions, restraint is a tool to reach further, sink deeper, spread out wider and shrink. For this special occasion expect or unexpect deep sea creatures and aliens … as above, so below!

EMERGENT BEHAVIOUR
Performance art duo Emergent Behaviour will be presenting a new piece devised especially for the London Underground Film Festival.

MILKandLEAD
Theatre and body art performer MILKandLEAD will be performing “The Red Virgin Mary”, exploring the sacred and profane in a re-reading of the traditional self-immolation rituals performed by sacristans in some southern Italian villages.

Plus DJs:

HEIDI HEELZ
Creator of Dice Club and erstwhile bass player in The Guillotines, Heidi is now on a mission to instigate a glam rock resurgence. It is going quite well. Catch her at GlamRacket every first Saturday of the month at The Buffalo Bar or at her residencies at Aces & Eights, The Lexington and The Retro Bar. And while you’re at it check out her Roxy and Eno tribute band “Proxy Music” (next gigs: Dec 20th at The Buffalo Bar and Dec 31st at The 100 Club).

BRAVE EXHIBITIONS
Brave Exhibitions is cold/minimal/no(w)-wave muzak club renowned for the avante-garde and the “unexpected”. Established in the notorious darker corners of Shoreditch, London, and now expanded to Berlin – Brave is a rookery for precocious bands, performance artists, and DJ’s that will compel and disturb you.

NEVER COME BACK
Founded by Emily Rose England and Alison Lewis, Never Come Back is London’s newest experimental dance party. The club featuring some of the most exciting performers to grace the scene and spinning classic and new minimal wave, NDW, coldwave, queerwave, post-punk, synth pop, new beat and old EBM.

PROJECTIONS:
Carmen Burguess is an Argentinian artist who works with several techniques, including collage, video, installation, drawing, and fotonovel. Her graphic work has been published around the world and used for novels and magazine covers. She illustrated writers such as H.P Lovecraft. Based in Berlin since 2008, Carmen is half of the band Mueran Humanos.

MOMENTO MORI
The Opening Night Party will also be the launch of an exhibition of new works by Emily Rose England, called “Momento Mori”.

Advanced tickets are available at: We Got Tickets”

By PSA
4:22 PM

WIth the guns and the explosions, this looks like the rom-com action hit for 2012.

By Darren Atwater
11:09 AM

Welcome to the new Hackney Picturehouse on Mare Street, opening today. Bonus: they serve London Fields beer.

12:17 PM

(Image above shows the critics gathering for preview screening of HP7Pt2)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (HP7Pt2) picks up, obviously, where the the last film left off, with Harry, Hermione and Ron chasing after and destroying horcruxes into which He Who Must Not Be Named has invested chunks of his soul. Whereas the first Deathly Hallows seemed a sort of satire on camping holidays in the UK, the second is a relentless battle against the forces of good and evil, wherein characters loved and hated are dealt their final fates.

Harry Potter, the biggest franchise in book and film history, is finally done and fairy dusted. Millions more pounds, perhaps billions, are still to be made in book sales, boxed DVD sets, amusement park tickets and assorted accessories such as video games, commentaries and spin-offs. Yet the bulk of the financial adventure is over. HP7Pt2, incidentally, is also the chemical formula for heffalump tears, a crucial ingredient in a Potion of Sentimental Commercialism.

Contrary to what many pundits seem to think, however, the cultural significance of Harry Potter is only just beginning. Critics may sniff at JK Rowling’s creation, but the kids who love it are going to be reading the books to their kids long after the professional naysayers are dead and patrolling Azkaban. Playground word-of-mouth, not media coverage, propelled early sales of Harry Potter into the stratosphere. Children don’t tend to pay much attention to literary reviews, and anybody who knows anything about the reading habits of kids knows that it wasn’t parents foisting “must reads” on their little darlings that made Rowling’s boy wizard such a publishing phenomenon.

Painted in a palette ranging from iron to lead, without a single scrap of Weasley knitwear to jumper-start the colour scheme, and lit only by gloomy skies and bursts from deadly wands, Hallows actually contain more humour than any of the films since Chamber of Secrets. Apparently the film makers finally realised the morbid themes of death and regret might be better offset by playing up the story’s more lighthearted, entertaining aspects. If all the films had been as enjoyable and thrilling as this one they might have made twice as much money and half as many grumpy enemies in the press.

In the octology’s conclusion Harry finally stops whining and takes destiny on the jutting chin of his square head. Neville finds a spine, Hermione and Ron get to make out, the late Dumbledore is revealed as being, above all, a ruthless tactician, and Snape is, well, the coolest Emo wizard ever. (I’ve long had a theory that Harry is actually the product of a one-night adulterous fling between the surly Potions professor and lily-white Lily Potter in the basement of the Leaky Cauldron Pub. I don’t care how low the alcohol content is, you serve enough butter beer and there’s going to be unicorn action going on downstairs.) Voldemort, however, is somewhat diminished as a bogeyman by having almost as much screen time as Harry. And frankly, Potter is beginning to become the scarier-looking of the two.

While the focus is obviously placed on our three main heroes, Deathly Hallows Part 2 at last sees minor characters, played by fantastic actors, flexing their magical muscles. While short, these scenes are often the punchiest, most energised moments in the film. Matthew Lewis as the other prophesied boy wizard, Neville Longbottom, carries several key moments on his shrugging shoulders. Maggie Smith is given a chance at last to have some real fun while Julia Walters kicks Slytherin ass and unleashes the nearest thing to a wobble in the franchise’s 12 certificate. (As yet another aside I think the film is unfair to Slytherin, the dorm of the school dedicated to, yes, future City Bankers, but also to the weird, broken Goth kids who don’t even fit into the wizarding world. For centuries they’ve been good enough for their parents to pay the school’s fees, but at the first sign of trouble- one girl says they should turn Harry over to the Deatheaters to spare everybody else. Fairly practical thinking, it seems to me- and they are evicted by McGonagall! Shameful. Send owls to your local MP. )

Most of the actors are, as usual for Harry Potter films, utterly wasted. Sure, Robbie Coltrane filled the screen through much of the first two films, and Helena Bonham Carter’s Bellatrix LeStrange was elevated in Half Blood Prince and HP7Pt2 to become one of the all time great screen villains. But to be all but ignored for the grand finale seems cruel. Here LeStrange serves mostly to reveal how cool Mrs. Weasley can be when you let her out of the kitchen. Most of the film is a connect the plot points exercise for fans of the books. Having said that, and keeping in mind I am actually a big fan of both the books and movies (How dare he call himself a film critic! For a start he calls them ‘movies’!) I feel I can say this is easily the best of the series, even above Prisoner of Azkaban, and a fitting conclusion to a British mythology equal in eventual cultural impact to (wait for it) Lord of the Rings. There. I said it. Go writhe in your cringing place if you disagree. Meanwhile, I’ll be in that back room of the Leaky Cauldron with a barrel of butterbeer, a stack of slash zines and hopes the Grey Lady of Hogwarts will one day comes to her senses.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows opens pretty much everywhere 15 July. 12A certificate.

By Alan Hindle
5:56 PM

Photograph by Sonny Malhotra

Hand-built in Hackney Wick, with local reclaimed materials, ‘Folly for a Flyover’ has transformed the derelict underside of the A12 Flyover into a performance space for all manner of events. From 24 June until 31 July they’re holding workshops by day and screenings, live scores, light shows and performances by night.

Evenings are arranged around weekly themes from ‘Fables’ and ‘Characters/Superheroes’ to the Hackney Wicked Festival. Films will range from animated classics to early and experimental cinema, including Flash Gordon, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Toy Story and Tron (with a live score performance) whilst performances are confirmed from the likes of Peggy Sue.

You can check out the full schedule below.

June
24 – Once Upon A Time In A Folly Far Far Away feat. Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs
25 – The Adventures of Prince Achmed w/Live Soundtrack by Sawchestra
26 – The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

July
1 – Middle of The Road w/ Peggy Sue
2 – The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms
3 – Requiem For Detroit
8 – Tron w/Live Score
9 – Trip To The Moon and Other Shorts w/Live Score
10 – Secret Screening
15 – Flash Gordon
16 – Minnie The Moocher and Gertie and Her Gaeity
17 – Toy Story and Bicycle Thieves
22 – Akira
23 – 2001: A Space Odyssey
24 – Wizard Of Oz
29 – Hackney Wicked Presents Video and Short Films
30 – The Wild One
31 – A Few More Dollars

Details on how and when to purchase your £4 movie tickets can be found over on Folly For a Flyover’s website.

By Lauren Down
10:23 AM

Those clever, clever folks at Warner Bros. have gone and done it again: taken a hugely successful film like The Hangover (highest grossing R-rated comedy film of all time, dontcha know?) and strung it out into an unnecessary sequel. Less hangover, more paralytic three-day blackout – the kind which really starts to drag after a while. In the second instalment of Todd Phillips’ über-successful buddy comedy concept the ‘Wolfpack’ are back, and you can bet your bottom baht* that it’s going to be messier, crazier and yet somehow exactly the same as Las Vegas. Except with more Thai ladyboys.

By Rebecca Sear
2:52 PM

Mahamet-Saleh Haroun’s third cinematic feature, sparse and emotionally kinetic, tells the modern-day allegorical tale of a Chadian man, Adam (Youssouf Djaoro); once unchangeable by the world, and content in his life, while seemingly devoted to his family (but more so his past), who begins to disintegrate as a result of pressures outside his usually taut control; forces which jolt him out of his still-water complacency.

By Declan Tan
1:39 PM

Hoping to ride on the success of the bafflingly popular yet seemingly plot-less Paranormal Activity, and the relentlessly money-spinning blood-fest that is the Saw franchise, here comes yet another horror film centred on a demonic kid. Only, one gets the distinct impression that the makers wanted to take a well-worn horror concept to new heights of nightmarishness; sadly the result is pretty ridiculous.

By Rebecca Sear
5:20 PM

In this light-hearted remake of the 1981 film, Russell Brand takes on the taxing role of a flamboyant bachelor billionaire, Arthur, who is nanny-ed into unemployability by lifelong governess, Hobson (Helen Mirren). Arthur’s days spent cavorting around New York with his chauffer dressed as Batman and generally indulging in laddish pursuits are threatened when mummy (Geraldine James) delivers a crushing ultimatum: marry money hungry socialite Susan (Jennnifer Garner) and ensure the future of the family business or face a life of poverty. What seems like a solid business agreement is jeopardised via a chance encounter with a captivating writer from Queens, Naomi (Greta Gerwig), and Arthur must choose between his love of money and his love of a penniless enchantress whom his mother loathes.

By Rebecca Sear
10:23 AM

Jerzy Skolimowski (writer of Knife in the Water, writer-director of Deep End, actor in Before Night Falls) is clearly not a bad sort. His credits speak for themselves. And on top of writing one of Polanski’s greatest hits, he’s won a Golden Bear, Special Jury prizes galore and was even in Eastern Promises, which wasn’t such a farce either.

With Essential Killing he’s back in the fold-out director’s chair he seemingly carries around, popping it open when his mood so fits, and here he’s got the volatile talent of ‘Best Actor’ in Venice, Vincent Gallo , heading it all up quite confidently.

By Declan Tan
2:24 PM