TQS Staff
Since its debut last month at the London Film Festival the buzz around Steve McQueen’s second directorial outing Shame (the first being 2008’s Hunger) has been impossible to avoid. Following Brandon’s (Michael Fassbender) struggle with sex addiction and complicated relationship with his cabaret singer sister, Sissy, (Carey Mulligan) Shame takes us on a dark journey of addiction and self-destruction. Brandon is a high-flying (though non-defined) business man who admits to never have had a relationship for longer than 4 months who is so addicted to sex he watches porn around the clock, masturbates at work and picks up one night stands at… 
With a pitch currently underway to convert Charlie Chaplin’s work into 3D for multiplex release causing debate around the blogosphere, Silent Clowns was a timely piece of programming at Leeds Film Festival. The programme consisted of extracts from Snub Pollard, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Laurel and Hardy with a full feature screening of Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last comprising the second half. All the films were accompanied by a fantastic live band and introduced or had the premise set by Paul Merton. However, I deliberately contracted the title to omit Paul Merton earlier as to be completely frank, he might as… 
We’re spoiled for choice for shorts at this year’s Leeds Film Festival with 3 different strands comprising Short Film City; World animated, World live action and UK/Yorkshire. The first batch of the animated shorts is a certainly mixed bunch, ranging from the nightmarishly surreal to slapstick hilarious. Here I’m going to talk about the first six shorts of the first screening. Birdboy Birdboy follows the story of the eponymous misfit lost in his fantasies set against the backdrop of a town turned upside down following an explosion at the local industrial plant. The acid rain from the fallout destroyed the fish, trees… 
It’s interesting to think that the new version of Wuthering Heights started out life as a Hollywood prestige picture starring Natalie Portman, and at another point in its development was meant to star Michael Fassbender – who went on to star in an adaptation of a novel by a different Brontë – and be directed by the same man who gave us Hannibal Rising. It’s interesting partly because the development of any film is fascinating, and seeing just that handful of names conjures up a variety of different possible films that might have – but now never will – exist,… 
Leeds International Film festival is one of our most anticipated events of the year and is taking place 3rd-20th November and will showcase some of the best and most thought provoking films from around the world. In the run up to the festival, here at TQS we’ll be keeping you up to date with all the latest news/information as well as hopefully covering as many films as we can when the season actually begins….
