LFF 2016 PREVIEW: LA LA LAND

'An intimate masterpiece'

Diana Dabrowska, Cinema Scope

'You won't be able to stop yourself from falling helplessly in love with this over-the-top rom-com'

Tina Hassannia, Movie Mezzanine

'Both a love letter to a confounding and magical city and an ode to the idea of the might-have-been romance, in all its piercing sweetness'

Stephanie Zacharek, Time

Who'd have thought that Damien Chazelle's La La Land would turn up on the schedule for my London Film Festival visit this year. Not only this year, but this week: I fly over tomorrow, and Film #2 on Day #1 will be this original musical. Critics, especially the mainstream ones, have been knocked for six by the Whiplash director's new film starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, ever since its Venice premiere in August. Alongside winning Stone a Best Actress award there, it has since been to both Telluride and Toronto, where it won the Grolsch People's Choice award. Pundits are tipping this as the film to beat at the Oscars in February. Despite feeling a little cold on La La Land, based on any number of factors, attending the UK premiere of one of the year's most talked-about films was too good an opportunity to turn down! Out in limited release in the US on the 9th of December, with a wide expansion planned for the 16th, and in the UK on the 13th of January.

LFF 2016 PREVIEW: MOONLIGHT

A singular piece of cinema

Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times

[An] immeasurably tender portrait of a young black man struggling with his repressed sexuality over the course of three decades

Eric Kohn, IndieWire

There's not much more you can ask from a movie

Stephanie Zacharek, Time

Critics rarely react better to a film than they have for Barry Jenkins' Moonlight - the film sits, at the time of writing, at a Metascore of 100. It's this overwhelming wave of positive buzz that has seen this indie drama with a focus on minorities shoot straight to the top of many pundits' Oscar predictions, booking one high profile festival slot after another. Among those is a place in the 60th BFI London Film Festival next month, and Moonlight will be the first of 23 features on Screen On Screen's schedule. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to this one. Just a bit. Just an enormous, colossal, gargantuan bit. Released in the US on the 21st of October.