First Stills From Sugarhouse Lane, Starring Andy Serkis

This movie sounds great. I wish all director's in the UK would focus on drugish gangster movies. Uk thug movies are great, keep'em coming!!!

I wish UK directors moved away from UK gangster/ gritty urban movies to be honest. 'Sugarhouse Lane' sounds good and all, but I kind of feel that the British film industry isn't particularly broad - we have had 'Rollin With The Nines', 'Kidulthood' and 'Life N' Lyrics' in the last 12 months or so, to add to the numerous gangster/ crime movies we had in the wake of 'Lock Stock'. The emergence of a small uk horror/ thriller film industry (from directors such as Billy O'Brien, Chris Smith, Michael J. Bassett, Adam Mason and Hadi Hajaig etc.) is heartening, but I think more could be done to really show-off the British talent we have - innovating and original movies, rather than bandwagon jumping movies.

i smoke bare fucking crack innit.

Yup - fair point, well made Michael.

Oh look, all of Michael's flames have disappeared. Keep it civil or go elsewhere.

Bench - you don't know what you're talking about.

By the way Bench the reason I know you don't know what you're talking about (in the case of Sugarhouse Lane that is.. :) ) is because I wrote Sugarhouse Lane and I've been through 5 years of HELL getting it off the ground.

I totally hear you about UK gangster capers - I 100% agree - they're very twee, annoyingly self satisfied and mostly rather absurd, uninclusive and downright 'SILLY'!

Yes, Sugarhouse Lane does have a minor caperish element to it - but it is actually a film very much based in reality and deals with drug addiction, poverty, rejection and madness.

Four things I actually know about and have experienced.

I very much hope you go to the see the film and if you live in the UK I will personally invite you and a mate to the opening night.

That's a promise by the way.

The proof is in the pudding my friend!

I might add I'm not against people criticsing the film - it is par for the course - but it kind of smarts when people make judgements on the film before they've even seen it!

:)

As for your comment about horror films - agreed - a good horror film is awesome but, for me at least, so many horror films also fall into the dreaded 'genre-ism'.

You have to understand that when you're trying to sell a film producers (i.e the people with the money!!) will desparately pigeon hole everything for the sake of their beloved MARKETING PROFILES.

I guess this is the point where 'business' meets 'art'.

It's very annoying from the art perspective but when someone is dropping alot of money into something I guess they want something they feel vaguely secure with - and in this case 'secure' is another word for 'familiar'.

Right now Sugarhouse Lane is in post production (i.e being edited) but I hope that when the final film comes out it won't be some daft caper but will be exiting, funny, dark and ultimately very moving.

Keep in touch mate.

Safe.

Also I might add - Film is 'a business' and 'business', whether we creatives like it or not, is about making PROFIT.

Yes, you don't want to sell out in order to make PROFIT, but it is important from the perspective of the producers, the director, the writer and everyone else involved that any film turns over financially.

Making films is an unbelievably expensive art form - the most expensive of all..? - but with that cost comes a strong commercial sensibility.

It is the producers with there beloved 'MARKETING PROFILES' that sustain cinema and make it a profitable, financially beneficial yet also creatively fulfilling medium to work in.

Without the producers and their beloved 'MARKETING PROFILES' (ooh, I said it again!) people like me (i.e the art side) would go totally out of control and it would be a case of:

THE LUNATICS HAVE TAKEN OVER THE ASYLUM!!!

We can all name films where the dynamic between 'art' and 'money' has gone totally out of whack.

APOCALYPSE NOW for me epitomises the meltdown of the art/commerce dynamic. Yes APOCALPYSE NOW has many sublime moments in it, but its downside is it is overblown (all that Marlon Brando Col. Kurtz stuff for example...) and self indulgent.

(Can I actually criticize the great Francis Ford...?! eek! Sorry!)

APOCALYPSE NOW was made in the era of 'the auteur' and I do believe that if Francis F. had had less clout and the producers had had a bit more control over him Apocalypse Now could have been the masterpiece it so nearly was. But as it was, the art side took over - it was a nightamre shoot and the film is too long.

BUSINESS AND ART.

They're both as important as one another.

YIN AND YANG BABY!

:)

Oh yeah one last point - Francis Ford Coppola also produced APOCALYPSE NOW.

So, you get my drift....?

Lunatics. Asylums. Take overs. And ting.

Dom, great to hear from the writer's fingertips. Not sure i'd be quite as harsh about Apocalypse Now but in the perpetual art vs. business debate you rarely get to hear the writer's take on things.



As a genre the british gangster movies have given us some amazing films... get carter... the long good friday... even lock stock. They're all uniquely different, great stories with great urban locations. I think what the other commentators have been saying about kidulthood and life n' lyrics are that it feels like the brits are mining the 'urban' thing a lot recentley. Sugarhouse Lane doesn't look too familar to those movies. That shot of andy serkis looks distinctly different in fact.

Booth - Okay maybe I'm being a little harsh on Apocalypse Now - after all, who am I to take pops at Francis Ford Coppola?! He's an amzing film maker! :) No doubt.

However the point I was trying to get across about Apocalypse Now is that I feel the film suffers in the last 40 or so minutes, due largely to Marlon Brando's endless mumbling in the dark. I believe if Francis F. had had a little less control over the finished product the movie would have benefited.

Another director who I believe could have done with a little less control over the finished product is none other than Mr. Stanley Kubrick! Eyes Wide Shut epitomises a director vanishing into his own sense of genius. It's a turgid film that is about an hour too long. In a nutshell: it is so boring!

Hey while I'm taking pops at amazing filmmakers I would include 'The Deer Hunter' in this overblown debate. The wedding scene at the beginning goes on...and on...and on...and on...and on. In this case I feel we do just about get away with it because when we cut to the action we are straight in on one of the great scenes in cinema (the russian roulette scene). The abrupt change of pace really jolts you into the moment.

Anyway I'm rambling now. Where was I?

Oh yeah little 'Sugarhouse Lane'! I know when I sat down and wrote the thing it was not my intent to write some gangster caper. I agree with Bench, there was a dirth of UK gangster capers in the 90s which came across as remarkably smug and over exited. Apart from Lock Stock (which does have its merits) these films were mostlty preposterous comic book nonsense.

[As an aside Stephen Macintosh - who played the posh drug dealer in Lock Stock - plays one of the three lead roles in Sugarhouse Lane. He's a great actor and really nails the role.]

It is certainly true that when writing Sugarhouse Lane it was not my intent to write a 'gangster caper'. However it was also not my intent to write some super gritty, super real drama in the vein of 'Nil By Mouth' or 'Scum'.

Hopefully Sugarhouse Lane will sit somewhere in between.

There is certainly a comic element to the story and people should have a few laughs along the way but the film should be suprisingly moving. 'Sugarhouse Lane' does deal in 'real life' and is about 'real things' like the class system, opportunity and rejection.

Anyway, thanks for the interest in it and I will happily answer any further questions about it. This is the website:

http://www.sugarhouselane.com/

Nice one.

:)

Hi Dom - nicely worded e-mail(s) mate. I understand everything you are saying about the industry and the compromises film-makers have to make for the 'greater good'. Personally, I think every film that gets made is worthy of praise, if only for the fact that people got out there and wrote it/ shot it/ distributed it etc - an expensive and daunting prospect that people, irrelevant of the quality, have got done.

The biggest point I want to make is that I wasn't criticising your film, though I can completely understand how you could read it as such - it was clumsy of me. My post was less to do with 'Sugarhouse Lane' than the first post made by Farrell who wished "all director's in the UK would focus on drugish gangster movies". It's his opinion and that's fine, but my comments were more with regards to his words - I love gangster movies, but only to have these made in the UK is a point of view I don't share. I think there is a trend to make urban/ gangster films in the UK based on past successes which isn't the way I would like to see movies made in a perfect world, but realistically I also appreciate just how much sense this makes, financially speaking. And it isn't only a UK thing - in Hollywood, if something does well, they try to emulate it e.g. Quentin Tarantino and the films he inadvertently spawned. It all makes sense, but it can get repetative.

In all honesty, I do think 'Sugarhouse Lane' looks to be more than a trend-follower, and a stand-alone film in its own right. The cast is strong and the story looks to have some real depth to it. I wasn't criticising it, but maybe I was judging it a bit in the sense that my preconceptions were that it looks to be a gangster-caper film and I think that this might be a common preconception - the elements involved, be it drug-use, madness, criminal underworld etc, are commonplace in gangster-caper films, and preconceptions evolve from familiarity (which, as you were saying, brings the money in, both from financiers, and the public). I suspect that these preconceptions are misconceptions in the case of 'Sugarhouse Lane', but you can see where the potential for incorrect classification comes from?

But I'm rambling too. In short, please don't think I was belittling your efforts or your film - I really wasn't. In the end, regardless of preconceptions, a good film is a good film. I really do wish you all the best with this one. You MADE it, and the UK industry being as it is, that is a feat in itself.

That said, you are f'in wrong about 'The Deerhunter' :)

Hey Bench - no worries. Once you see the film if you think it is crap then no worries mate! Everyone is entitled to their opinion! I guess it slightly annoyed me to see someone assuming the film was something it isn't. Also - I should have learnt this a long time ago - never post on the internet after having a few beers! It losens the typing fingers a little.

I know - hah hah The Deerhunter - it's awesome! But I do struggle with the very long wedding scene...

Nice one mate.

:)

A pissed writer? Hell will freeze over...