Northwest Film Event Highlights – February 2016
February offers a constant supply of Hong Kong action and Groundhog Day on a loop
Crime: Hong Kong Style
We’ve made it through the dreary dredges of January. Well done us! Now that our bank balance is starting to recover from the Christmas splurge, we can make it to all the ace film events coming up this month. Take, for example, Crime: Hong Kong Style, HOME's season dedicated to Hong Kong crime flicks, which boasts a selection of action-packed movies too good to miss. It all kicks off with a screening of As Tears Go By (4 Feb), the highly influential debut of director Wong Kar-wai.
Released around the same time as that film was Ringo Lam's City on Fire, the movie Tarantino borrowed wholesale from in Reservoir Dogs. While Wong has moved on to more refined fare with the likes of In the Mood for Love and The Grandmaster, Lam is still in the Hong Kong crime film racket, with stylish neo-noir Wild City (8 Feb) getting its UK premier2 in Manchester.
Can’t get enough of the Hong Kong crime genre? Get down to the one-hour intro to HOME's season, presented by curator Andy Willis on 10 Feb, to get to grips with the genre's key trends and cycles. A must for genre fanatics.
Liverpool Radical Film Festival
You’ll also find a couple of gems at Liverpool Small Cinema, such as French drama Two Days, One Night (4 Feb), starring Marion Cotillard, which will screen as part of the Liverpool Radical Film Festival. You’ll find Cheap Thrills there too, celebrating the over-the-top mayhem of Charles Bronson’s Death Wish 3 (11 Feb). They’ll even throw in some original Cannon Films trailers circa 1985 to help you get in the mood.
Groundhog Day 24hr Hogathon
Liverpool Small Cinema are also celebrating American holiday Groundhog Day (2 Feb) with the perfect screening of Harold Ramis' existential comedy of the same name. In the 1993 film, a sardonic TV weatherman (played by Bill Murray) inexplicably has to repeat the same day over and over again in a small town in western Pennsylvania. You should be able to sympathise with Murray's character's predicament at Small Cinema's event, as they'll be showing the film on a loop over the course of 24 hours. If the full Hogathon is too daunting, you can go for a more manageable double-bill instead.
Valentine's Day Film Screenings
Oh yeah, there's also February's other holiday: Valentine’s Day. If you’re into that kind of thing, a screening of You’ve Got Mail should be perfect for a lovey-dovey evening with that special someone. Find it at FACT Liverpool on, you guessed it, 14 Feb.
Like to see a little more action on your dates? Perhaps Manchester’s latest RAD screening will get your romantic juices flowing. They’ve lined up a double-bill of twisted love stories True Romance and Natural Born Killers at Gorilla (also on 14 Feb). Flowers, chocolate, gratuitous gun violence. Who said romance was dead?