Our friends at Grolsch Film Works have a website where you can find out what they’ve been up to and read/watch interesting stuff about films. Every week we'll be plucking the highlights. This is that.
FILM LOCATIONS: NOTTING HILL
Everybody knows the Richard Curtis rom-com classic, right? The famous blue door, that charming yet unkempt bookshop milling with beautiful people and the toothy but adorable film star played by Julia Roberts. Notting Hill (1999) has, rightly or not, been charming audiences and sky-rocketing real estate prices in the area for over a decade. In reality, its vision of the area is a far cry from the real Notting Hill (although it may have accurately predicted its extreme gentrification). Curtis’ ethnic cleansing of the area obscures its rich history of West Indian immigration in the 1950s, its roots in the Notting Hill Carnival, and its subcultural and underground links to everything from punk to the hippy movement.
FRIGHTFEST 2013: CONTRACTED
Samantha (Najarra Townsend) is a woman in transition. She's a lesbian caught between her still beloved ex Nikki (Katie Stegeman), her adoring best friend Alice (Alice MacDonald) and her less welcome admirer Riley (Matt Mercer). She is a former addict trying to stay on the straight and narrow. She is a wayward daughter who cannot wait to escape the overbearing embrace of her Christian mother (Caroline Williams). She is an amateur botanist hoping to win a big cash prize for her latest hybrid flowers, but in the meantime waiting tables at a restaurant to make ends meet. And, after being slipped a date-rape drug by creepy uninvited guest 'BJ' (Simon Barrett, writer of Adam Wingard's A Horrible Way to Die and You're Next) at Alice's party, she is now harbouring a sexually transmitted disease that is rapidly turning her world upside down.
SHARNI VINSON ON 'YOU'RE NEXT'
Australian actress Sharni Vinson headlines Adam Wingard’s latest horror flick, the mumblegore slasher homage You’re Next. We met up with Vinson in central London back in May, when she was doing promotional duties for what is hopefully her breakout role. The super-excited Vinson told us about how she wanted to be a stuntwoman.
WHY AMY SEIMETZ IS THE NEXT BIG THING
Amy Seimetz is an outstanding actress who has been kicking around in U.S. indie flicks for a while now. However, 2013 could well be her break-out year. With a critically acclaimed turn in Shane Carruth’s mind-bending sci-fi drama Upstream Colour, a role in season three of AMC’s The Killing, a gory cameo in You’re Next and what looks like the lead in Ti West’s found-footage horror The Sacrament – it’s time to declare Seimetz as the Next Big Thing.
THIS WEEK IN GIFS
James Franco Gets His Own Reality Show
Yup, don't act like you didn't know this was happening. With ten episodes planned at an hour each in length, it's been described as "an unscripted series in which he’ll explore his many personal artistic pursuits and passions", but if you've ever seen any of his Vines or YouTube videos you can probably guess it'll mainly be him aimlessly staring into the camera while half-asleep.
Keep your peepers peeled for more Grolsch Film Works updates next week. Go to grolschfilmworks.com to see what’s happening right now.