Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 300: Thu Oct 29

Dead of Night (Cavalcanti/Hamer/Dearden/Crichton, 1945): Castle Cinema, 6.45pm

This is a 16mm presentation from the great Cine-Real team and is also screened on October 25th. You can find the full details here.

Time Out review:
Nearly 60 years on, Ealing's compendium of spooky tales remains scary as hell. The best of the five stories, which we see enacted as they're related in turn by guests at a country house, are Alberto Cavalcanti's 'The Ventriloquist's Dummy', with Michael Redgrave possessed by his deceptively lifeless little partner, and Hamer's 'The Haunted Mirror', with the splendid Googie Withers a reluctant participant as history repeats itself; least frightening, but amusing, are Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne as typically obsessive sporting coves in Crichton's 'Golfing Story'. Best of all, however, is the overall narrative arc, with the framing story finally taking a headlong rush into a nightmarish realm almost surreal in its weird clarity and familiarity.
Geoff Andrew

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 299: Wed Oct 28

Brother (Kitano, 2000): Prince Charles Cinema, 6.15pm

This is a 35mm presentation.

Chicago Reader review:
A yakuza chief who’s turned up in LA helps his brother form an alliance between Japanese and black gangsters, which rivals the city’s Italian Mafia only until the new syndicate clashes with the old. The chief, played by writer-director-editor Takeshi Kitano (aka Beat Takeshi), exhales self-parody and cool in the same breath. Though he bonds with local Omar Epps in the buddy configuration typical of action comedy, Kitano’s handling of this convention—and of extreme violence—is unique. The buddies are characterized by deceptively simple twists on acknowledged stereotypes, and their intimacy evolves gradually through an accumulation of small gestures. A wizard at manipulating time, Kitano introduces staccato elements that interrupt the meditative pace even as they help set it. And he uses this paradoxically peaceful tension to inspire in us a kind of spiritual response to the violence—a sensation that’s utterly different from the visceral reaction we have to most actioners, which we only hope is catharsis.
Pat Graham

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 298: Tue Oct 27

X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes (Corman, 1963): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 6.30pm

This 35mm presentation (also screened on November 23rd) is part of the Roger Corman season at BFI Southbank. You can find the full details here.

Chicago Reader review:
Scientist Ray Milland discovers a potion that gives him X-ray vision, and after becoming a freak he ends his days as a sideshow attraction promoted by Don Rickles, who gives a fine low performance. This queasy 1963 SF parable was directed—quickly and cheaply—by Roger Corman for American-International, drawing some of its strength from its tawdry drive-in overtones. Milland grows through his debasement, and the production offers plenty of it.
Dave Kehr

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 297: Mon Oct 26

Bamako (Sissako, 2006): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 6.10pm

This 35mm presentation is in the Big Screen Classics strand at BFI Southbank . The movie also screens on November 10th. Full details here.

Chicago Reader review:
A large portion of this highly original 2006 feature from Mali by Abderrahmane Sissako (Life on Earth, Waiting for Happiness) consists of a hearing devoted to the operations of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Africa, with judge, black and white lawyers, and witnesses all played by nonactors who’ve written their own speeches, many of them angry. All this is set outdoors, in a backyard in a poor section of Bamako, the capital of Mali, and the remainder of the film is devoted to glimpses of everyday African life taking place around this event. Sissako scrupulously avoids making any facile connections between his two blocks of material, and his cast, even when silent, are always eloquent.
Jonathan Rosenbaum

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 296: Sun Oct 25

Ball Of Fire (Hawks, 1941): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 12.15pm

This 35mm presentation is in the Billy Wilder season at BFI Southbank. The movie also screens on November 6th. Full details here.

Time Out review:
Marvellous performance from Barbara Stanwyck, all snap, crackle and pop as the brassy nightclub entertainer Sugarpuss O'Shea who seeks refuge with seven crusty old professors (plus Gary Cooper) to escape unwelcome attentions from a gangster, and whose vocabulary (not to mention charms) excite delighted wonderment in the professors since they have just reached 'Slang' in the encyclopaedia they are compiling. Rather surprisingly, Hawks slightly muffs the sequence in which the gangster and his aides get their comeuppance; otherwise his handling of the sparkling Brackett-Wilder script and its subversions of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is pure joy.
Tom Milne

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 295: Sat Oct 24

Heat (Mann, 1995): Everyman Screen on the Green, 5pm

Rejoice! Screenings from prints are back at Everyman Screen where Michael Mann returns from September 25th to October 24th in a season dedicated to five unforgettable works from one of modern cinema's most influential filmmakers. This 35mm screening (also being shown on October 23rd and 25th) is part of a programme that included Collateral, Last of the Mohicans and Thief. Full details here.

Time Out review:
Investigating a bold armed robbery which has left three security guards dead, LA cop Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino), whose devotion to work is threatening his third marriage, follows a trail that leads him to suspect a gang of thieves headed by Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro). Trouble is, McCauley's cunning is at least equal to Hanna's, and that makes him a hard man to nail. Still, unknown to Hanna, McCauley's gang have their own troubles: one of their number is a volatile psychopath, while the businessman whose bonds they've stolen is not above some rough stuff himself. Such a synopsis barely scratches the surface of Mann's masterly crime epic. Painstakingly detailed, with enough characters, subplots and telling nuances to fill out half a dozen conventional thrillers, this is simply the best American crime movie - and indeed, one of the finest movies, period - in over a decade. The action scenes are better than anything produced by John Woo or Quentin Tarantino; the characterisation has a depth most American film-makers only dream of; the use of location, decor and music is inspired; Dante Spinotti's camerawork is superb; and the large, imaginatively chosen cast gives terrific support to the two leads, both back on glorious form.
Geoff Andrew

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 294: Fri Oct 23

The Devils (Russell, 1971): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 8.45pm

This is a 35mm restoration print of Ken Russell's cult movie and is being screened for a week ending its run on October 29th. You can find the full details here. The new director's cut was a great success at the London Film Festival and these 35mm presentations seem sure to prove very popular.

Time Out review:
There's plenty here that's still incredibly shocking. The scenes of plague are truly vile, as are the climatic torture scenes. But what horrifies most is Ken Russell's nihilistic view of the world in general, and humanity in particular: almost without exception, we are shown to be vain, lustful, perverse, self-serving, murderous, disease-ridden, exploitative, decadent, deluded creatures unworthy or incapable of salvation. Approach with extreme caution.
Tom Huddleston

Here (and above) is the trailer.