Abbie Watches Films

FX’s 2022 series The Bear follows Carmen ‘Carmy’ Berzatto (played by Jeremy Allen White), a young chef who has taken over his family’s iconic Chicago based sandwich shop following the suicide of his older brother. Boasting an impressive 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, The Bear has been highly revered by both critics and culinary professionals for its gruelling portrayal of kitchen life. Within minutes of the first episode the viewer is thrown into the chaotic and claustrophobic world of The Original Beef – staff are shouting over one another, inventory is wrong, customers are fighting in line, and the debt letters continue to pile up under Carmy’s nose threatening the future of the restaurant he already feels slipping from his grasp. The motley crew working with Carmy are quickly introduced, a group of hotheads who are particularly resistant to change and challenge his every move. Amongst the kitchen staff is new hire Sydney, an ambitious sous chef who is seemingly the only person around Carm...

Following on from my previous blog, this post will detail what I got up to at London Film Festival 2022. The Whale Tuesday was one of our busiest days at the festival, with two of our most anticipated films of the year premiering back-to-back. We started off with Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale , which sees the magnetic Brendan Fraser return to our screens and has garnered huge Oscar’s buzz during the festival season. The film follows Fraser as he plays the morbidly obese Charlie, a reclusive English teacher attempting to reconnect with his estranged daughter (Sadie Sink). I was incredibly lucky to attend the gala screening which was presented by the director and leading man himself; as the credits began to roll the audience erupted into a mixture of sobs and cheers as Fraser made his way to the stage to receive a 5-minute standing ovation, one of the very few ever recorded in the festival’s history. Uncomfortable, raw, and extremely claustrophobic at parts, The Whale will leave you ...

From the 5th to the 16th of October the British Film Institute presents their annual London Film Festival, showcasing a selection of highly anticipated up and coming releases and welcoming A-list guests from all over the world to discuss their new works. My best friend Nicole and I travelled down from Edinburgh on the second day of the festival, and this is what we got up to in the first few days.  White Noise presented by Director Noah Baumbach & cast After a long morning of travelling, we kicked off the festival in style with Noah Baumbach’s sci-fi thriller White Noise , an adaptation of Don DeLillo’s classic novel. Coming only a few years after his Oscar nominated film Marriage Story , the wildly bold and existential White Noise is unlike anything Noah Baumbach has made before. The film follows the peculiar Gladney family through a life changing ‘Airborne Toxic Event’ in their hometown in middle America. I am fairly new to the sci-fi genre however I thoroughly enjoyed White...

  Tangerine (2014) source: Mubi Shot entirely on an iPhone 5S, Sean Baker's 2014 feature Tangerine was immediately met with critical acclaim. Set on Christmas Eve and covering the span of 24 hours, the story follows two transgender sex workers on a drama fuelled odyssey through the various subcultures of Los Angeles in an attempt to investigate the accusations that Sin-Dee's boyfriend was cheating on her whilst she served a 28-day prison sentence. Whilst the primary reason for Baker's use of an iPhone to shoot was, for the most part, down to an extremely restricted budget, the up-close and personal camerawork plunges the viewer straight into the deep end of the lives of two women navigating life on the unrelenting streets of LA, with Baker stating in an interview with Flickering Myth 'using an iPhone for Tangerine allowed me to shoot clandestinely, to shoot hidden moments.' This is what Baker does best, he moves freely through the mania and approaches each project...