Cemetery Junction - Teaser trailer featuring Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Ralph Fiennes

Do not expect to learn too much about the film in this one, but if you are a fan of The Office or Extras then you'll enjoy this.

Cemetery Junction is due out next year and as well as Ricky and Ralph it stars Christian Cooke, Jack Doolan, Felicity Jones, Tom Hughes, Emily Watson and Matthew Goode.

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Cold Souls - Trailer

Is your soul weighing you down? Paul Giamatti has found a solution! In the surreal comedy Cold Souls, Paul Giamatti plays an actor named… Paul Giamatti. Stumbling upon an article in The New Yorker about a high-tech company that extracts, deep-freezes and stores people’s souls, Paul very well might have found the key to happiness for which he’s been searching. But, complications arise when he is the unfortunate victim of “soul-trafficking.” Giamatti’s journey takes him all the way to Russia in hopes of retrieving his stolen soul from an ambitious but talentless soap-opera actress. Balancing a tightrope between deadpan humor & pathos, and reality & fantasy, Cold Souls is a true soul searching comedy. Also starring David Strathairn, Dana Korzun and Emily Watson.

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Cemetery Junction - Filming has begun on Ricky Gervais' new film

Principal photography is set to commence on location in London today on Cemetery Junction, the first motion picture written and directed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, the multi-award winning team behind The Office and Extras.

Ralph Fiennes (The Reader, Schindler’s List), Ricky Gervais (The Office, Extras, The Invention of Lying, Ghost Town), Emily Watson (Synecdoche, New York, Breaking the Waves) and Matthew Goode (Watchmen, Brideshead Revisited) feature alongside stars-of-the-future Christian Cooke, Felicity Jones, Tom Hughes and Jack Doolan.

Cemetery Junction tells the funny, touching and universal story of being trapped in a small town and dreaming of escape.

In 1970s England, three blue-collar friends spend their days joking, drinking, fighting and chasing girls.

Freddie (Christian Cooke) wants to leave their working-class world but cool, charismatic Bruce (Tom Hughes) and lovable loser Snork (Jack Doolan) are happy with life the way it is.

When Freddie gets a new job as a door-to-door salesman and bumps into his old school sweetheart Julie (Felicity Jones), the gang are forced to make choices that will change their lives for ever.

The photo is a costume/makeup test of the three leads. Gervais and Merchant saw them as "the English 23 year-old, John Travolta, James Dean and Lou Costello." I can kind of see where they are coming from with that photo.

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Synecdoche, New York, 2008 - Movie Review

Director: Charlie Kaufman
Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Michelle Williams, Catherine Keener, Samantha Morton, Emily Watson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Dianne Wiest, Tom Noonan.

Score: 7.5 / 10

This excellent review is by regular LFF reviewer, Sarah Louise Dean.

Its not often that once having seen a film, you need to consult a dictionary. Its even rarer to do so before the film. In fact, I needed to do both. Frankly, I was stuck at the title. For the uninitiated, Synecdoche (pronounced (si-nek-doc-kee) means, amongst other things, referring to one characteristic of something in order to refer to the whole. For example saying you have ‘coppers’ in your pocket when you mean you have pennies, which are made from copper.

Synecdoche -New York is both written and directed by Charlie Kaufman, he who wrote the beautiful yet absurd Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Being John Malkovich. Be warned, this film is not a linear fairytale, but if you like being challenged then you should give this a go. The name of the film might be a little pretentious, but it is a clever and telling insight into a moving and multilayered story. Kaufman is asking whether, by focussing on one small part of your life, you can establish the meaning of life itself, and he doesn’t care if he alienates half the audience by doing so. Synecdoche is one of those films that asks many more questions than it answers.

Philip Seymour Hoffman is outstanding as Caden Cotard, a theatre director in the New York suburb of Schenectady (get it?) who is married to Adele (played by the wonderful Catherine Keener) an artist specialising in miniature paintings. The marriage is not particularly happy and one day Adele announces that she is taking their 4 year old daughter Olive and her best friend Maria (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to Berlin for an exhibition of her work. Whilst away Caden begins a flirtation with Theatre box office clerk Heather (Samantha Morton with a decent American accent and an impressive cleavage) whilst suffering a number of mysterious ailments, any of which may be life threatening, or merely psychological. Caden’s revival of Death of a Salesman starring Michelle William’s Claire is a resounding success and off the back of it he receives a seemingly limitless grant from the Macarthur Foundation (a real life body which anonymously bestows vast sums of money on creative ‘geniuses’). Caden uses his new found wealth and purpose to create an ever evolving reality-based theatre project. He hires actors to effectively live their own lives in a huge warehouse under his direction. Along the way Caden develops personal relationships with Claire (played by Williams as just the right side of ingénue) and Heather, whilst trying to make contact with Olive in Berlin. Caden builds his set to resemble his own apartment, hires Sammy (played expertly by Tom Noonan as a kind of Larry David with added pathos) to play himself and later Emily Watson’s Tammy to play Heather, and the lines between art and reality become increasingly blurry. Caden’s relationships with his wife, his lovers and his daughter grow, develop and ultimately flounder, whilst at the same time, the theatre piece remains unfinished and my not be shown to an audience. Is Caden a miserable failure, or is this his grand plan? Later a celebrated theatre actress arrives (Dianne Wiest) saying she wants to assist and relieve Caden of some of his burden.

Although the film is hugely interesting, the plot is not easy to wade through, and Kaufman expects the audience to have an appreciation of the theatre industry which most won’t have. As shown when Caden says to Claire “Today, I want you to play yourself”, and she looks completely perplexed, Synecdoche is not without humour, its just the dry kind. Its certainly a work of genius to create something just straightforward enough to mean something different to every viewer, and it has a clever ending. I’m just not sure whether I could stomach a repeat viewing, just yet.

Synecdoche, like a great deal of Kaufman’s work, also has an inexplicable sadness about it. It wrings out the poignancy of life in a blackly comical manner. But, in parts the film is just plain weird. I found it easier to cope by thinking that time is irrelevant in the movie, and that its normal for Heather’s house to always be on fire. But the questions kept coming. Is there some message in Adele’s work being on such a small scale and Caden’s being huge? What is happening to the world outside whilst Caden magnifies his internal life? But it is this Kaufmanesque weirdness that makes Synecdoche so pleasurable. The movie should also be praised for featuring countless well drawn female characters.

Synecdoche does not shy away from the bigger issues. Are we in control of our own destiny? Can we be absolved from responsibility by allowing someone else to dictate our choices? Many will already know if they want to see this film. Some will dismiss Synecdoche as nonsense which fails to entertain. But I’d respond by asking, surely isn’t this what modern cinema is all about? Visual puns, hyper-reality played out by professionals at the top of their game, and a film that you won’t see anywhere else, which all justifies the cost of your expensive cinema ticket. Ultimately I don’t care that I couldn’t work out exactly what it all meant – I was entertained and it made me think, and for that I am very grateful.

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Synecdoche, New York - 2008 - Movie Review

Director: Charlie Kaufman
Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Samantha Norton, Dianne Wiest, Emily Watson
Running Time: 124 minutes
Score: 10 / 10

This review by allisonalmodovar and may have spoilers

Charlie Kaufman explores the depression of Caden Cotard, a playwright/ hypochondriac (Philip Seymour Hoffman). It all stems from his wife (Catherine Keener), but he knows and the audience knows that she is not the cause of all his problems, although she is quite unsettling.

We are introduced to Hazal (Samantha Morton), a sweet distraction from his decaying family life. However, his sense of loyalty stands in the way of anything meaningful happening with her.

As he grows older, Caden becomes acutely aware of the things that are missing from his life. His focus is on himself, but in his myopic state he cannot identify the problem. So he comes up with the best solution he can. He'll make a play of his life. And in so doing, maybe he'll find out what went wrong. Maybe he'll find out who he is. Maybe he'll only continue to destroy his life.

Sammy, the actor who plays Caden in the play, seems to overtake Caden's life and becomes more like Caden than Caden himself could ever be. Lines of fantasy and reality blur as Sammy makes creative choices about the character of Caden that Caden disagrees with. Then, as if that weren't enough, the role mutates to the point where actress Millicent Weems (Dianne Wiest) takes over the role. She becomes Caden's doppelgänger, taking control of Caden's life, when he is unable to cope.

The film starts in October, 2005 and continues over forty years into the future. Nothing much changes in the world around the characters. The only thing that is constant is time, spinning out of control. When his grown up daughter, Olive, falsely accuses him of ruining her life, her perception totally skewed, Caden begs to be forgiven in what is a very moving scene.

Not to be overlooked is Hope Davis' psychotherapist character. She plays the straight guy, nodding, asking how Caden feels. Oh it feels bad? Good! Her collection of self-help books (all written by her) don't help Caden solve his problems. They are only false remedies that Caden tries, in effort to satisfy him in his life. Caden either projects his health problems onto her, or she has problems of her own (a grotesque blister on her toe that mirrors the boils on Caden's legs).Emily Watson plays an actress that is portraying Hazal's character. To me, she and Samantha Morton are like the same person, the same actress. I only saw their similarities. However, apparently, Charlie Kaufman cast them because of their differences. Also, the characters are supposed to be extremely different. But at first, the overwhelming similarities are often confounding.

Emily Watson takes over Hazal's character and acts in ways Hazal would never act, just as Sammy and Millicent overstepped their bounds with the Caden character.

What is moving about this movie? Certainly Caden's connection with his daughter, Olive. Certainly his affection for Hazal, the closest thing he has to a soulmate. Yet he always manages to screw things up with her, no matter what. Also, death is explored in this movie, the idea that we're all going to die one day. That everyone is the main character of their own story. That we all have choices.

Synecdoche, New York is a gross and weird movie too, different from anything that you'll see this year. That's ultimately why I love it. It attempts to show the truth through all the seemingly unimportant details, yet they are tied together in a nice bow without the movie seeming too perfect. It's offensive to many, the way life is shown, yet I laughed at the things I should have been shocked by.

After this film, it almost doesn't make any sense to see any movie by anyone except for Charlie Kaufman. No one has more sense of oneself (and everyone else) and yet no one is more lost and wandering (and boy, I thought I was bad!). Kudos to Kaufman for succeeding yet again, when he could have taken the easy way out and written something more simplistic or less gut-wrenching.
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