Bingo the King of the Mornings, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and The Unseen The Film Review

look ahead to the main award on

Sunday in Liverpool as well, and all

of the weekends Premier League

football. Now on BBC News, it's time

for the film.

Hello and welcome to The Film Review

on BBC News. Taking us through this

weeks cinema releases is Mark

Kermode. What have you been

watching, Mark?

Very, very

interesting week. We have Bingo: The

King Of The Mornings, a film about

the dark side of clowning. We have,

of course, Star Wars: The Last Jedi,

you might have noticed that this is

opening in cinemas! And a low-key

British! , The Unseen.

Bingo: The

King Of The Mornings, this is a

really curious looking one?

Very

interesting one, submitted for the

foreign-language Oscar although it

has not made it through to the short

list. It comes across as a cross

between the Chuckle Brothers and the

last third of Goodfellas. It is

inspired by a real-life story of

eight kids TV icon, this is a

fictionalised version in which there

is struggling actor who has made his

name in soft-core sex films and

manages to get a break as bingo,

this cloud on morning television,

and realises that he may actually

have found something for which he

can become celebrated and famous.

The downside is, he is not allowed

to say who he is, he has to be

completely anonymous, so he is

caught between fame and anonymity.

However he wants to stretch his

wings and see what he can do with

the role. Here's a clip.

Now, you can see from that, it has

got a strange turn to it, it is a

fantastic performance I Vladimir

Brichta as Bingowhat I like about it

is that it has a bit of the

backstage madness of live

television, something like Network.

It also has that sense as in

Accelerate, in that success goes to

his head, he falls into drink and

drugs and reckless behaviour, but he

is tortured because he can't tell

anyone who he is. It becomes that

classic tale of someone who is

famous in one area and completely

anonymous and another. It is not

without flaws, there are certain

moments when the drama oversteps

itself somewhat, but I didn't know

this story at all, it is inspired by

a true story, and I found it

gripping and weirdly enjoyable, not

least because there is something...

Amine, clowns are a strange presence

anyway...

Could go either way!

And

we saw the success of what has now

become the biggest selling horror

movie of all time. So, this is

something about different, it is not

entirely successful but when it

works, it has a kind of crazed

energy, which is down to the central

performance largely, which is very,

very magnetic.

And apparently there

is a new Star Wars film out of! They

should do some publicity, really.

Are you a fan?

To a degree, I lived

with someone who really, really is,

so it is on the list.

This ticks up

where the last one left off.

Arriving on the island and she is

looking for her true self. The thing

with any Star Wars film is that

there is a balancing at.

Light and

the shade, between the action and

the introspection and also between

satisfying the fans and the first

timers.

I think that Ryan Johnson

has done a fantastic job, and Ukip

all the stuff that you want from a

Star Wars film, the sabre battles,

the deep space explosions, the

dogfights, but you also get an awful

lot of internal character develop

and. What I liked most about this is

that it has a number of disparate

narrative strands, as they all do,

but each character arc is followed

through properly. It is a film in

which characters do what that

character would do. It's a film in

which action is character,

characters are defined not by what

they say but by their actions. Now,

I saw it with a home crowd, I saw it

at the premiere and in the final act

of it, people were laughing,

cheering, bursting into spontaneous

applause. My suspicion is that that

will be marched around the country,

because it's very well-made, very

confident, there is a little baggy

nest in it, there is one section

which I think is perhaps somewhat

overstretched, but I think it works

really well as a film. That said all

Star Wars films have a divisive

element. And nothing is going to

satisfy everybody. I have never been

a hard-core Star Wars fan but I did

enjoy this very much. I thought as a

piece of masterful storytelling in

which it obeys the rules of the

characters, the characters make

sense. It may be fantastical and

inventive but the characters make

sense, and that, for me, is the key.

And does it look fantastic?

Oh, yes,

it looks fantastic. In a way we sort

of take that for granted. It looks

really great, but it also feels

really solid. It feels like a

proper, you know, well-made,

stand-alone film.

That's excellent.

The Unseen, it is nearly Christmas -

have you brought me another horror

film, is this what you are doing?

This is a psychological chiller.

What is the distinction?! Broom

stick with me, this was 12 years in

development, it is a young couple

who suffered a terrible loss of a

child and after that, their

relationship is in crisis.

The

character played by Jasmine Hyde is

having panic attacks, and with those

panic attacks come strange fits of

blindness. Meanwhile, her partner is

haunted by the voice of the child.

Here's a clip.

I hear him.

Where?

In this room. I

hear him.

When?

At night. Sometimes

during the day. You don't believe

me.

What does he say?

He says he

loves me...

Now, you were asking

what the difference is between a

horror film and a chiller. I think

it is a tenuous distension, however,

it is to do with a sense of

creepiness. In its early stages,

this film is actually very, very

what a common very well played by

the central actors. And it has a

real atmosphere of unease, of the

uncanny, which is very hard to

achieve. I have to say in its later

stages it kind of loses some of

that, the more the plot starts to

explain itself, the more mechanical

it becomes and the less it became

interesting. But for its first

movement, it does establish that

sense of the cold hand on the back

of the net. The genuinely uncanny

sense that you're not quite sure

what's going on. You believe in the

characters, you believe in the

situation. And you share their

distress. But you also have that

sense we're in is, that sense of

unease. It's a very flawed film, and

I think overall, as I said, there

are missteps in the later acts that

let it down. But at the beginning it

has an atmosphere which I think

validates it, and it is really nice

to see something like that going up

against a behemoths like Star Wars:

The Last Jedi. And it's not a horror

film.

OK!

I may be just saying that,

but it's not a horror film!

Next, of

the rerelease of a classic.

I think

this is one of the greatest movies

ever made, A Matter Of Life And

Death. When was the last time you

saw it on a big screen?

When I was

at university, 300 years ago. I love

that image of wind therein have an,

looking down.

You need to see it on

the big screen, the idea of having

the other world as being

black-and-white, and the

Technicolor, so gorgeous, the

performances are brilliant. And

every time you see it, it just gets

better and better and better. And

incidentally, that is a film which

you can view as a fantasy or you can

view as a psychological, you know,

psychological romance. I would say

it's not a million miles away

from... I'm trying!

It is fantastic,

it is wonderful, worth seeing on a

big screen, you make a good point, I

haven't seen it on a for aeons. On

the smaller screen, DVDs...

Dunkirk.

Acquired in visit watching it on a

small screen?

I have seen it twice

on a big IMAX screen and wants on a

television screen, although the

television screens are now much

bigger. When you see it on a small

screen, you start to notice things

about the cleverness of the

structure, the fact that it has

these three interweaving time

periods and the fact that it into

weaves them so well, sometimes on

the big screen you're just so

overwhelmed by the spectacle of it,

don't realise just how smart the

construction of the film is.

Watching it on a smaller screen you

really admire the narrative... It is

a simple narrative but it is told in

a way which is really complex and

really crystalline. And actually I

saw things in it on the small screen

that I hadn't seen on the big

screen. Yes, the big-screen

experience is still the primary one

but it does work on the small

screen, for different reasons.

Mark,

good to see you as ever. Interesting

week.

All our previous programmes are on

the BBC iPlayer, of course. Enjoy

your cinema going! Goodbye!