Summer of Film 2013 (Preview)
Having been writing for `The People’s Movies` film blog since last year I finally went to my first proper film event last night in the form of a launch party for Summer of Film 2013.
An evening spent with other film bloggers and journalists presented by Alex Zane, film journalist for The Sun Newspaper and Sky Movies presented clips from some of the biggest summer blockbusters.
Held at Somerset House in London in the stamp building, the room where a scene of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides was filmed. I found this rather surreal, especially as the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy is one of my favourites.
Walking in to the venue I felt important and as though I fit in immediately, waiters came round with trays of drink including red and white wine, beer and orange juice and water for those who didn’t want to drink.
As soon I walked in me and my mum (my guest for the evening) got approached by a cartoonist by the name of Chrissy Marshall who drew our portraits whilst he spoke to us about our favourite films. He asked us both what our favourite films were within the past twelve months, I went completely blank to begin with but told him that mine was Les Miserables and that I was excited for The Great Gatsby.
He then asked a bit about the blog I work for, he assumed that I owned it and when he asked how many facebook likes it had I explained to him that I didn’t run it I just wrote for it and how it is in fact owned by the lovely Paul Devine from Glasgow in Scotland.
At around 7:30 the actual event started.
Alex Zane started by giving a bit of information about what would happen throughout the evening letting us know that there would be two special
guests; some quiz questions and music from band Off The Record before telling us about the films of the summer.
The first category was comedy. He chose a few British films to talk about including The Worlds End and Alan Partridge Alphapacker both due out in August.
Alphapacker is the first time we’ll be seeing Norwich’s favourite DJ on the cinema screen whilst trying to sell his media career and how he ends up as hostage in the third part of their cornetto trilogy. The first Shaun of the dead and Hulk First.
The Worlds End. Why is it called that? Because old friends go on a pub crawl looking for a pub cool who then find out Worlds End could be more literal than ever imagined. In reality the location of the Worlds End was the gardeners arms in Letchworth.
Richard Curtis has returned with British Comedy About Time which opens at the end of September and stars Bill Nighy and concerns a family who’s men have the amazing ability to travel back in time and relive any moment in their past.
Emma Watson appears in a couple of comedies released this summer. This is The End which continues the catorpsnic theme this year. A group of actors having a party at James Franco’s Hollywood home has suddenly faced the apocalypse. It’s an expansion of the teaser trailer made six years ago by Jay Baruchel and Seth Rogan who also star along with Jason Segal, Jonah Hill, Emma Watson, Danny McBride and many more.
The Hangover Part 3. The wolf pack including Ed Helms and Bradley Cooper return. The trailer is below and looks very funny.
Ed Helms also appears in a second comedy this summer, Were the Mirrors which also stars Jennifer Aniston, it aspires that the Millers are a fake family created as a cover by west drugs dealer.
Fans of Wedding Crashers will be pleased to know that Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn return following up the 2005 hit with The Internship which is out in July about two 40 something out of work salesman who get offered work experience at Google.
Grown Ups 2 is released in cinemas. Adam Sandler has made his first sequel and is back with Chris Rock and Taylor Lautner.
Melissa McCarthy of Bridesmaids stars in both The Hangover Part 3 and the new film from Bridesmaids director, The Heat where she plays partner of an uptight FBI Agent Sandra Bullock in order to crack a drugs case which is in cinemas at the end of July.
To end the comedy section is a British comedy called All Stars about a dance show that is put on to save a beloved dance club. It stars Ashley Jenson and Kimberly Walsh.
The first of the two special guests was then introduced on stage. The Chief Executive of Film London Adrian Wootun who talked about filming locations that are used in and around London. Somerset House being one of them in which, as I mentioned earlier has been used to film Pirates of the Caribbean and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Greenwich is also used a lot aswell as some of the tube stations, the most recent example 
being Skyfall.
Tom Cruise has recently finished filming in London and it is now confirmed that Avengers 2 and Cinderella are a few of the next films that will be shot in the city.
He also spoke about how big an impact Danny Boyle and the Olympics have had on shooting in London. It is also starting to become popular within TV shows such as Game of Thrones and Sherlock and how he expects both the studios and London to be very busy by June and July.
A trailer of The Internship was then shown before moving on to the Documentary Category. Among these Chimpanzee, Beware of Mr Baker and 1D 3D in cinemas August.
We then moved on to the category of Revivals, all time favourite films relaunched in cinemas. Jurassic Park 3D, Roman Holiday and Dial M for Murder are just a few.
The films in the Adventure and Suspense category include White House Down.
The trailer for Red 2 was shown and the evening then moved on to the Penultimate Preview section of Animation Adventures which included films Monsters University and Planes.
A vote of a poll of the most iconic screen icons was then announced which was voted for by more than 2000 people. The list included:
1. Holly Golightly as played by Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)
2. James Bond 007 in the series of 23 films from Dr No (1962) to date
3. Michael Corleone as played by Al Pacino in The Godfather Trilogy (1972, 1974, 1990)
4. Hannibal Lecter as played by Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and subsequent films
5. Captain Jack Sparrow as played by Johnny Depp in The Pirates of the Caribbean films from 2003.
6; Darth Vadar in the Star Wars episodes (from 1977)
7. Tony Montana as played by Al Pacino in Scarface (1983)
8. The Joker as played by Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight (2008)
9. Forrest Gump as played by Tom Hanks (1994)
10. Rick Blaine as played by Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca (1942)
11. Sugar Kane as played by Marilyn Monroe in Some Like it Hot (1959)
12. The Terminator as played by Arnold Schwarzenegger (from 1984)
13. Indiana Jones as played by Harrison Ford (from 1981)
14. RP McMurphy as played by Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
15. George Bailey as played by James Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
16. Don Vito Corleone as played by Marlon Brando in The Godfather (1972)
17. The Man with No Name as played by Clint Eastwood in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly(1966)
18. John McClane as played by Bruce Willis in the Die Hard series (from 1988)
19. `Red` Redding as played by Martin Freeman in The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
20. Johnny Castle as played by Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing (1987)
Some of the other big blockbusters that film fans can look forward to are:
Iron Man 3– 25th April 2013
Thor 2-30th October 2013
Captain America-The Winter Soldier– 4th April 2014
The Avengers 2– 1st May 2015
The Wolverine-26th July 2013
Star Trek: Into Darkness-9th May 2013
Man of Steel-14th June 2013
The Lone Ranger– 9th August 2013
The Great Gatsby– 16th May 2013
The Summer Festival official trailer including more than 52 films of the summer was then shown. The trailer is below:
The second guest of the evening Ian Freya, Empire Journalist then spoke about the films he was most excited about including Star Trek Into Darkness. He told us about how he got started within the industry as a professional writer and journalist. He started his career in his early 30s but made films when he was younger, he wanted to be Steven Spielberg. He also told us about how he interviewed him on the set of War Horse and had a chair next to Stevens with his name on it. He gave us some advice on what its like working at Empire, most of it is fun with the interviewing and going to watch films but there’s also the boring side which include meetings etc. The key to working at any magazines is ideas. They work on three issues at a time so you know what’s going on in advance. He also talked about his worst interviews, what’s more important between fun or fact, his favourite film of 2013 and how to deal with spoilers.
To end the evening Mark Bakeman presented Alex Zane with a caricature of him done by Chrissy in order to say Thank you for presenting the show.
Summer of Film 2013 is now Live!
For more information go to: www.filmnetwork.com
Emily Pontin
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