Retrospective 2019- A Year in Film

October

Autumnal Buffet

Image sources: 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros. & A24

As we headed into the meatier season for UK releases, October threw up a healthy mix for UK audiences which included big studio sequel/reboots which ranged in quality from latest instalment of an exhausted cyborg apocalypse franchise ‘Terminator: Dark Fate‘, to zom-com follow-up ‘Zombieland: Double Tap’ and Stephen King adaptation and ‘The Shinning’ sequel ‘Doctor Sleep‘. They were balanced out by some much more memorable indie releases like warts-and-all Judy Garland biopic ‘Judy’ and delightful American bayou odyssey ‘The Peanut Butter Falcon‘, as well as mesmerising Latin-American child soldier drama ‘Monos‘ and lyrical gentrification meditation ‘The Last Black Man in San Francisco‘.

However the month’s cinematic footprint was ultimately hijacked by a clown-faced criminal in October, when Todd Phillips dropped supervillain origin story and his take on the makings of a madman ‘Joker‘ on UK and US audiences. A provocative and divisive Scorsese-inspired masterpiece with a titanic performance at its core, transcending the comic-book genre and owning the box-office while inevitably making a big impact on the awards season come early 2020.

London Calling

As usual October brought the world’s media (including us), plus the good and the great of global cinema to London town for the 63rd edition of the world’s most accessible major international film festival the BFI London Film Festival, with 200 films from all corners of the globe being showcased during 12 days of film appreciation, as well as the glitzy red carpet galas and celeb-watching of course.

Image Source: Getty Images

This year’s big opening night gala was a historical yet contemporary affair which saw Armando Iannucci take on Charles Dickens, as the British master satirist applied his distinctly cutting and socially perceptive wit to the legendary author’s most personal work with ‘The Personal History of David Copperfield’. A stylish and whimsical 19th century send up on industrialism, capitalism and the ruling classes, based on the semi-autobiographical formative Dickens novel and its eponymous protagonist, who comes of age while meeting disparate characters and learning the meaning of real strife first hand, on his way to gentlemanhood in this riches-to-rags-to-riches-to-rags-to-hapiness tale.

Iannucci was joined on the Leicester Square red carpet by his co-writer Simon Blackwell and producer Kevin Loader, plus a big chunk of the cast including Hugh Laurie, Darren Boyd, Bronagh Gallagher, Paul Whitehouse, Lynn Hunter, Daisy May Cooper, Aimee Kelly, Anthony Welsh, Morfydd Clark, Jairaj Varsani, Rangeer Jaiswal, Dev Patel, Anna Maxwell Martin, Nikki Amuka-Bird and Gwendoline Christie, ‘The Personal History of David Copperfield‘ is out on the 10th of January 2020 in the UK, with no US date yet. You can see our LFF review here.

The festival also featured big screenings for much anticipated films like ‘Jojo Rabbit‘, ‘Marriage Story‘ and ‘Knives Out‘, and closed with a gala showing of Martin Scorsese’s Netflix mob masterpiece ‘The Irishman‘, among many others. You can check out our full coverage and recap of this year’s festival here, plus all our reviews for the featured films so far here.

Those We Lost

Image source: 20th Century Fox, Getty, Miramax, Wire Images & Warner

October was a tough month for thespians which brought the loss among others of pioneering American singer/actress Diahann Carroll (84) (Julia, Claudine), flamboyant American comedian/actor Rip Taylor (88) (The Brady Bunch Variety Hour, Wayne’s World 2), and veteran New York character actor Robert Forster (78) (Jackie Brown, Mulholland Drive), plus infamous Hollywood producer/studio executive Robert Evans (89) (The Godfather, Chinatown) and veteran American comedian John Witherspoon (77) (Boomerang, Friday).

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