R$N’s Late Night Flix Pix

R$N's casts an eye on the world of the capital's late night film screens and picks the week/end ahead's highlights….

Friday 2nd: 'The Shining' (22.50, Hackney Picturehouse)
Whilst it is very well publicized how effective Kubrick was at deeply unsettling his audience with this film, people often tend to forget how well 'The Shining' stands up as a piece of precision film making. The long, incredibly eerie silences; the static, icy camera-work. The attention to detail is what tends to linger in my memory about this film (the shot of the tennis ball rolling towards Danny alone took 500 takes because Kubrick wanted it to role down the pattern of the carpet perfectly. Yes, 500.) And Shelley Duvall's performance is so thoroughly and infuriatingly aggravating that, every time you watch this film, you're left with a lingering question: Was that deliberate so that we side every so slightly too much with Jack Nicholson? Or is she just that annoying? We may never know.

Saturday 3rd: 'Raging Bull' (23:00, The Ritzy, Brixton)
Scorsese's masterpiece? Maybe. It's probably his best blending of bare-knuckle urban honesty and his love of classic Hollywood film making. And it is one of the best uses of Black and White photography in post-technicolour film-making. De Niro has never been less sympathetic than he was here; paradoxically, he may never have been more entrancing either. Worth revisiting just for how refreshing it is to see a biopic not desperate to celebrate it's subject as much as possible. 'Raging Bull' is much more concerned with showing LaMotta as second best and why and is much more unique as a result.

Sunday 4th: 'Jules et Jim' (10.15, Chelsea Curzon)
A lot of the classics of the French Nouvelle Vague are very nice to look at but, for some, lack a directness or clarity when it comes to content. 'Jules et Jim' is not an exception as such, but it is a hugely enjoyable, if slightly meandering, essay on love and companionship, shown through the friendship of the eponymous heroes. And, as it employs such a playful, giddy tone, it sugars the pill of the fact that you're in London in 2012 rather than Paris in 1962.

Monday 5th: 'The Ladykillers' (18.45, Hackney Picturehouse)
I don't know how many of you go to all of these recommendations, but for those of you who definitely do, some weeks can get a little heavy. If you do actually go and see 'The Shining' on Friday and then follow it with 'Raging Bull' on Saturday, you'll probably spend Sunday recovering. So why not just go and see the original of 'The Ladykillers' on Monday? Especially if you've only seen the recent/awful adaption from The Coen Brothers, a undoubted career low point. Plus, it's Peter Sellars and Alec Guinness in the same film. Even though it has been revisited to death, it's still one of the great farces of Sixties Comedy.

Tuesday 6th: 'Badlands' (21:00, Prince Charles, Liecster Square)
There's not really much to say about Badlands. It's one of the best film's ever. It's the best film of the Seventies. If this came out before you were born, then this is a rare opportunity to see if in it's original glory on the big screen. Maybe the only one you'll get. If you only take one recommendation from this page EVER make it this one.

Laurence Turner