Silver-celluloid

Check out the London Sundance Festival. Linked to the Sundance Festival in the U.S., the London Festival promises a huge line-up of cinema and music for every film aficionado out there. The festival starts on Friday 25th April and runs through until Sunday 27th April, and will show the cream of the independent cinema crop as well as panels and talks. Tickets are still on sale here , but they look set to go like hotcakes, so get there quick. Also, budding film-makers have the chance to purchase the Shorts Workshop package which is a Sunday seminar with advice, discussions and practical lessons. There are also tickets available for the Opening Night Party, so why not get yourself down there? For more information on the Sundance London Festival and ticket information go here . 

Woody Allen celebrated his 78th birthday this month, and that means it is time for Woodystock. This special event is held on Saturday 7th December at the Hackney Picturehouse cinema in London and is organised in association with the LOCO London Comedy Film Festival. Woodystock has become the annual celebration of Woody Allen's comedy and this year will be playing one of Woody Allen's classic movies, as well as live comedy from three young stand up comedians and Woody Allen-themed cocktails with live jazz. So if you are in the Hackney area, why not get yourself down there for some laughs and self-deprecating comedy? For more information, visit here .

Every state, province and country has a cinema rating system. This system is usually based around controlling the lower age limit of the audience and monitoring films so that they remain appropriate. The ratings system in most territories is self-regulatory and there is usually an independent body of people to vet each movie and make the appropriate decisions. In the UK this job falls to the British Board of Film Classification, and these decisions are mostly based on the incidence of bad language, nudity, sex and violence within each picture. However, in Sweden, some cinemas are going to introduce a new rating system alongside the one for age that will advise whether the film passes the Bechdel Test. They will be the first in the world to do this. For those who are unfamiliar with this test, it is a marker of the incidences of women on screen. The test is simple. To pass the test a film must contain a scene in which two named women have a conversation that is not about a man and do...

Starring: Chloe Grace Moretz, Julianne Moore, Gabriella Wilde Director: Kimberly Peirce Genre: Horror Running time: 100 minutes Certificate: 15 In all honesty, if you have seen the 1976 Brian DePalma directed Carrie , then there is really no need to watch this remake. As remakes go it is very good, but it follows the original very closely. Where this version does stray it makes very little difference to the overall film. For those who have not seen either version Carrie tells the tale of Carrie White (Chloe Grace Moretz), a high school student in her senior year who is horribly tormented at school and lives with a maniacally religious mother. However, Carrie is starting to realise that she might be more powerful than she once thought. Carrie has a good pedigree as it is adapted from the novel of the same name by Stephen King. Moreover, this version has the acting skills of Chloe Grace Moretz as Carrie and Julianne Moore as Margaret White, Carrie's mother. Both Moretz a...

Starring: Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks, Paul Giamatti Director: John Lee Hancock Genre: Drama Running time: 125 minutes Certificate: PG It seems to be habit for a lot of critics to sneer at films that are given to sentimentality but, as Alfred Hitchcock pointed out, audiences should be emoting or the film is not doing its job. Saving Mr Banks can be accused of being knowingly sentimental but this is what makes it so good. The film tells the story of P L Travers (Emma Thompson), the stern, no nonsense author of Mary Poppins . Travers has been pursued by Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) for twenty years for the rights to make the movie of her book. Horrified by the idea of letting go of her creation but desperately in need of money, Travers travels to Los Angeles to discuss the rights with Disney. This film is unexpectedly funny and captivating from the start, and the time in the screening flew as the film was totally engrossing. Emma Thompson truly shines as P L Travers, a character tha...

A quick heads up: if you are in London between the 24th and 30th November, it is not too late to take in some great films at the London Feminist Film Festival. 2012 saw the first ever London Feminist Film Festival and this year looks set to follow the groundbreaking trends, with many films being premiered at the festival, along with panel discussions and even a classic or two thrown in. There are still some tickets available for the events that are taking place at Picture House in Hackney, and the awards ceremony will be held on November 30th. To take a look at the programme of events click here and for more information about the festival take a wander through this link . So, for a good film that will definitely pass the Bechdel test, why not support the festival and catch some interesting films in the process!

Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth Director: Francis Lawrence Genre: Action, adventure, sci-fi Running time: 146 minutes Certificate: 12A The Hunger Games was the runaway success of 2012 making an instant icon of Jennifer Lawrence's incarnation of the already iconic character, Katniss Everdeen. The movie of the second book in The Hunger Games series has been hotly awaited, and now it has arrived, how does it measure up? In truth it is good, but not as good as the first. As with all 'second in the series' movies it suffers a little from not being a stand-alone film, and there is a lot of plot exposition that is somewhat cumbersome. However, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is produced to the same high quality with excellent acting from the whole cast. As expected, this movie picks up where The Hunger Games finished. Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) are living in the Victors' Village dealing w...