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The most recent time I stretched the scope of this blog to discuss comedy it was to talk about last year’s Laughs in the Park. Amongst the various acts was Adam Riches, someone I had never heard of but who turned out to be the highlight of the day. I swore back then in July 2011 that “if Adam Riches does a gig near me, I’m there.” Adam Riches has since won the Edinburgh Comedy Award at last year’s fringe festival and currently has a month-long stay at the Soho Theatre. Naturally I went along to see if he was as good as I remembered.

Adam Riches is a unique act; he never introduces himself or appears on-stage out of character, instead introducing himself as a series of characters, each more eccentric than the last. To go into too much detail about the characters and sketches would be to ruin the show, and frankly the sketches spiral so far out of control that I’d struggle to fully describe them and you might think I was making bits up. I will say that at one point the entire audience was in danger of getting a tennis ball in the face.

What Adam Riches has become known for is instilling fear in his small, vulnerable audience of just 150 comedy fans. The fear comes from Riches reliance on audience participation, for each of his sketches to work Riches must pluck at least one audience member from the crowd and gradually push them further out of their comfort zone. It was amazing to watch as not one of the selected few managed to resist their call to the stage, perhaps it was because Riches never asks, but simply demands, to be joined on-stage or maybe because we all knew deep down that to say no would ruin the show for everyone else. Whether they were riding lizards on skateboard or giving Riches a drink “as starlings do”, the unlucky chosen audiences members threw themselves into their roles.

Despite the perpetual sense of fear instilled in me by the possibility of having to go on-stage, Adam Riches was overwhelmingly funny. I laughed so hard I made noises I had never heard before and at one point tried to catch my breath mid-laugh, inhaled far too hard and almost killed myself in the process by inhaling my entire face. Adam Riches was so funny it was bad for my health.

I can’t recommend Bring Me the Head of Adam Riches enough, though for safety would suggest you sit near the back and in the middle of a row. What you get for your money is an hour filled with bizarre, insane comedy which can only truly be enjoyed when experienced live in a small theatre.

Bring Me the Head of Adam Riches is at the Soho Theatre until 17th March.

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Lord Chris Smith has handed in his homework in the form of a review of UK film policy. Despite David Cameron getting everyone in a right bother last week, it turns out that the review itself is balanced and considered and at no point looks to focus on the profitability of the films which receive public funding. Instead there is a focus on investment in training, distribution and restoration alongside simple film production. David Cameron gave us all the wrong impression, something which hardly fights against his status of prick. PLEASE NOTE: Mild Concern most definitely has a political bias.

The report is lengthy and gives in total 56 different suggestions for ensuring the future success of the UK film industry. The short version is that the BFI have a lot of work to do to, I’d hate to have been in their offices as they read through 56 items they will need to start addressing ASAP. You can read the entire report in a rather jazzy PDF or just read my summary of the recommendations below. I’ll try not to drone on.

Make Films for Everyone
Looking back to last Wednesday’s rant it seemed as if Julian Fellowes was speaking out against art house films, but a look at the review shows that the idea is instead to fund a wide variety of films. The review suggests funding a broad and rich range of British films, ensure a plurality of taste in funding, and specifically funding to support the “unique challenges” of animation and independent family films that parents can enjoy with their children. We get to keep our Tyrannosaurs but must support other film genres too.

Get Films to Everyone
Funding is not just for production, but for distribution too. Far too often I recommend a great independent film forgetting that in London we are lucky to have access to all releases while other areas don’t get a glimpse of treasures like Submarine. Suggested methods of ensuring everyone gets access to independent British cinema include coordinating local cinemas and film societies across the country, “enhancing social cohesion”, using new digital technology and broadband to get films to all areas and having smaller exhibitors exchange best practises. There is even a suggestion of funding screening equipment in community halls for rural areas, no one will be left out.

Promote the British Film Brand in UK and Abroad
The BFI is to spend plenty of time and money building the “British Film Brand”, possibly through an annual “British Film Week”. Another suggestion is for a UK wide film festival offering from the BFI to promote independent films, spreading the success of the London Festival to other areas. The BFI is also recommended to set out an international strategy for UK film, develop international co-production and BBC Worldwide is to continue to invest in and promote British films on a global level.

The Children Are Our Future
Lots of suggestions for the BFI to invest in educating young people in all aspects of film; every school should offer film education including making, seeing and learning about British films. Prepare to watch Kes everyone. A strategy is needed to ensure that production skills being taught are the “Gold Standard” and the three Skillset Film Academies are in need of review. The BBC and their like are to continue to invest in talent development and be the leading gateway to the industry for new talent. There should be a career ladder for any film-maker beyond their first film and any company receiving lottery funding should have a scheme in place to invest in developing new talent. Education should stretch beyond film-making and cover new media and entrepreneurship in the film industry. Talent should also be nurtured outside of the London area.

Let’s Get Digital, Digital. I Wanna Get Digital. Let’s Get into Digital
The review stresses the importance of moving to digital for a variety of reasons, and while the plight of the projectionist is sad it does seem to make sense. Digital distribution of independent British films will make it cheaper to transport for exhibition and allow access to more film for smaller venues. The report also recommends the BFI working with online distributors to help promote and invest in UK films.

There Be Pirates
The review loses me slightly in its recommendation of pushing forward the Digital Economy Act (something I’ve ranted about before, twice). Piracy may well be bad but censoring the internet is not the answer; Wikipedia will go offline for a day tomorrow to protest a similar move in America. Other suggestions to combat piracy are pro-copyright education in schools, for the Government to tackle file sharing sites and to make it a criminal offence to record films shown in cinemas.

Not All About Return on Investment
Far from being the money hungry beast David Cameron led us to believe this report might be, it instead suggests that the BFI relax recuperation targets for its investments. The report also recommends that any money returned to the lottery fund due to a film’s success be available to that film’s writer, director and producers and the funds be directly made accessible to whichever company made the successful film so that they can go on and try to repeat that success.

Protect British Heritage
The final suggestions from the report look at protecting the heritage of British cinema, looking to ensure the long-term safety of and access to the UK’s significant collection of films. It’s all about preservation and presentation. This includes the BFI forming new partnerships to get funding from outside investors to help digitise and exhibit classic British films and the BBC to maintain funding for archiving UK television.

Outside Investment is Key
While mostly advising the BFI on how to spend our money, the report also stresses the importance of the BFI drumming up outside support. This includes a call for all the major UK broadcasters (BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and BSkyB) to openly set out their financial commitments to British films, and suggest that the BFI incentivise private investment in UK film and encourage sponsorship and philanthropy for film culture.

It’s All About Balance
Recommendation number 17 pretty much sums up the report by stating that, “The Panel recommends that BFI funding for film should be broadly balanced between filmmaking and distribution activities (development, production, P&A) and activities related to film culture (audience development, film education and training, film export, lifelong learning, archive and heritage, activity in the Nations and Regions, economic cultural and policy research); and further recommends that within the two broad categories as much flexibility should be available to the BFI as possible to respond to the needs of audiences, the film industry, and film culture.”

It looks mostly good to me, any emphasis on improving distribution is key, and it looks like there isn’t too much emphasis on profits over art. Good on you Lord Chris Smith, and shame on you David Cameron for getting me worked up over nothing.

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As much as we are obliged to look back over the year just gone, we are obliged to look ahead at the year just beginning. It’s always exciting to look at the next twelve months and all the exciting treats that are coming to our screens. Below are my personal picks of the films worth seeing in 2012, and I’m hoping there will be many more besides, a few gems I haven’t even heard of yet. Read more »

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As 2011 comes to a close is it my obligation as a film blogger to put together my pick of 2011′s releases. I’ve gone for my top twenty as narrowing it down to just ten would be too harrowing a task and my only rule is that they must have been released in UK cinemas during 2011. This takes us from The Next Three Days (absolutely not in the list) to The Lady and The Artist and is only limited to films I have seen. I’ve also chosen not to speak to the wider Mild Concern team, mostly due to laziness, barring watching Waste Land at Kat’s insistence. This was a decision I have come to regret considering the rambling you will find below.

The scene properly set, let’s get onto the list. Looking back 2011 has been a great year for cinema, here are my top 20 releases of 2011:

Read more »

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Tomorrow is Christmas Day (don’t look so surprised) and with the TV schedule filled with plenty of holes it’s important to know what film to put on once everyone has surrendered to a turkey induced coma. As we don’t trust you to think for yourselves we’ve each picked our ultimate Christmas film, both of which you are now obliged to watch. (It is important to note that Kat was too busy watching ballet to make her pick).

As Joey of Friends (who also happens to love Die Hard) once said; “if you’re going to do something wrong, do it right.” Die Hard is the embodiment of this statement. Die Hard is an action film released during July – not so unusual – but is possibly the best Christmas film ever.

Die Hard has it all; terrorists, snow, Alan “Professor Snape” Rickman, Bruce “Bruce Willis doesn’t require another name” Willis, a love story, explosions, a very festive soundtrack, product placement and the office jerkoff getting shot. Far better than any Charlie Brown Christmas Special I ever sawed.

On the face of it a balding Joe Everyman running around a building shooting Germans doesn’t seem very Christmassy but let’s look at what the actual story is about. John McClane’s marriage is a little on the rocks but he’s a good guy committed to trying to make it work. He wants to be with his family over the holidays – maybe even patch things up and get back together. Really, Die Hard is about a poor bloke who drew the short straw trying to be nice to his wife when a bunch of lunatics came a running with guns and C4.

Surely though, this only helps the guy? Some women (*insert ‘I’m no anti-feminist’ sentence here*) just bang on about how chivalry is dead – so wouldn’t you say that your estranged husband barefoot running through broken glass, dodging long-haired krauts shooting at him with AK47s and doing his best to get you back home to your children is a bit nicer than, say, a film about bastard parents who forget their child, leaving him to calamitous albeit still psychotic home invaders?

Die Hard is all about family, their importance, their safety and preserving the peace during the festive period. We all have our quarrels, but during Christmas doesn’t everyone’s family do battle just to be nice to each other? Going back to quote in the first paragraph; Die Hard is definitely not your conventional Christmas film, but it has the heart and ruddy determination to be the best, and if you don’t think so I only have one thing to say to you – Yippee ki yay, motherfucker.

When picking the ultimate Christmas film it’s hard not to get swayed too much by sentimentality, childhood memories or the presence of Zooey Deschanel. The best film to watch at this time of year needs to be one that has more to offer than just good cheer, there needs to be moments of terror and a few songs to sing along to too. Obviously The Muppet Christmas Carol fits this bill precisely (for some reason the door knocker becoming a screaming face has always given me the creeps) I’ll be Blogalongamuppeting about that soon, so it’s got to be The Nightmare Before Christmas.

While set in the town of Halloween, Nightmare is ultimately the story of one man’s discovery of Christmas and what it really means. Clearly Jack doesn’t always go about Christmas in the right way, kidnapping “Sandy Claws” was a questionable move, but he gets there in the end and his heart, if he even has one, is definitely in the right place.

If there’s one moment in Nightmare that will give you the Christmas spirit it will be Jack Skellington arriving in Christmas Town and singing “What’s This?” dazzled as he is by all the sights that Christmas brings. It’s enough to warm the cockles of the most Scrooge-like individual. And to ensure that it doesn’t get too schmaltzy we have Oogie Boogie, a humanoid sack of bugs with murder in mind, terrifying.

All of this, combined with Tim Burton’s unique style and the inherent charm of stop-motion animation, makes for the perfect Christmas film. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and ultimately you’ll spend Christmas Day singing “This is Halloween” which is a novel way to celebrate the birth of baby Jesus. If you’re not convinced here’s a song to convince you:

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