‘Lovers Rock’ Review: Steve McQueen Opens the New York Film Festival With a Lyrical Reggae House-Party Movie Set in the London of 1980

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Star Trek sensation William Shatner, the fantasy failed to match the reality.The 90-year old was invited by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in his shuttle in October 2021, but when he arrived, he was totally unimpressed.So far, most of the select few who have returned after a trip to space with Bezos' rocket company Blue Origin have been deeply emotional about their journey.However, that wasn't true of William Shatner, whose only thought at one point was: "Why am I bl**dy doing this?!"The trip was arranged for an Amazon TV documentary that retail giant Bezos had organised, entitled Shatner In Space.Fans might have thought the Canadian actor, who played Admiral James T Kirk in Star Trek and whose fictional birth in the show was 2233, might have relished the chance to play with the space-time continuum in another realm.However, in conversation with SFX magazine, he revealed his slightly horrifying trip: "I looked back, and I could see a wake, like a submarine under the water might leave.“The air was tumultuous, filling in as the ship went through it."Then my eyes went up, and there was impenetrable blackness – the kind I’d seen once in a cave.“It’s blackness that’s almost touchable.There was no spinning stars and the majesty of space.For those who'd had fantasies about a glittering night sky of the type romanticised in art, William was forced to disappoint them, stating: "It was ominous. It was death.”He also found that his age meant space travel quickly took its toll."Most of the practice was about getting back into your prostrated seat in weightlessness.

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A new trailer for a collection of films made by Steve McQueen gives a glimpse at the performances of Letitia Wright and John Boyega.

“If you are the big tree, we are the small axe,” states a Jamaican proverb, inspiring the title of “Small Axe”, an upcoming anthology series from director Steve McQueen for Amazon Prime Video.

“If you are the big tree, we are the small axe,” this is the Jamaican proverb that has inspired filmmaker Steve McQueen‘s, “Small Axe,” a collection of five films inspired by real-life events about ordinary people showing courage, belief, and resilience to overcome injustice and achieve something transformative in their West Indian community. READ MORE: NYFF 2020: 12 Most Anticipated Films You Need See Three of the “Small Axe” film are playing at the now-started New York Film Festival, “Mangrove,” “Red White And Blue,” and just premiered before the weekend to much critical acclaim, “Lovers Rock.” Our review by Robert Daniels described the film as an atypical Steve McQueen affair.

Earlier in the week, the 2020 incarnation of the New York Film Festival got underway officially, with one part of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe anthology, Lovers Rock, serving as the Opening Night Selection. Having seen it, the movie serves as both a strong start for NYFF this year, as well as a smaller and far less awards friendly selection. That’s not a bad thing, just noteworthy. The film is showcasing something far different than Oscar potential, and in a year like this one, that’s probably for the best. Still, it’s an interesting choice (arguably even more so now, having been seen) for the 58th New York Film Festival.

Like most aspects of life, the New York Film Festival looks a little different this year, switching to a mostly virtual format in light of the pandemic. While this will limit the chances for the film community to gather in-person, it’s still a joyful time for film lovers to unite virtually to celebrate the world’s best films after a lost summer of moviegoing and luckily, the festival’s opening night film, Steve McQueen’s “Lover’s Rock,” is a portrait of a joyful community, a feast for the evocation of the senses of a wild house party of West Indians in 1980 London.

There's a heady, hypnotic interlude midway through Steve McQueen's dreamy celebration of Black community and culture, Lovers Rock, when Janet Kay's 1979 hit "Silly Games" plays out on the turntable and is taken up by the people crammed into the suburban London living room where a house party is being held. For a full five minutes they continue singing a cappella — the women in particular — their voices matched by the ecstasy of their swaying bodies.

Todd McCarthy Watching Lovers Rock is akin to going to see Romeo and Juliet and only staying through the first act, to departing a basketball game after the first quarter, to sipping the soup and skipping the rest of the meal. A mere wisp of a thing, Steve McQueen’s 68-minute feature, the only fictional section of a five-film anthology called Small Axe about London’s West Indian community between the late 1960s and 1980, steeps you in the atmosphere and music of the latter date.

Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen’s films rarely have a light touch. For example, “Hunger” recounts the life of IRA member Bobby Sands, and the group’s organized hunger strike; “Shame” depicts sex addiction; “12 Years a Slave” violently retells the story of a freed Black man kidnapped into slavery; and “Widows” explains the socio-political environment for women and Black people in Chicago.

As his “Lover’s Rock” opens the New York Film Festival, Steve McQueen says he’s delighted to return to the festival seven years after “12 Years A Slave”.

Mike Fleming Jr Co-Editor-in-Chief, FilmEXCLUSIVE: After blazing on the London art scene with work that won him the Turner Prize, Steve McQueen established himself as an important filmmaker who showed the unbreakable spirit of an Irish hunger strike in Hunger, and the horrors of antebellum slavery in 12 Years A Slave. For his latest work, he has turned inward to his own roots growing up in a Black West Indian community in London to cull five distinctively different but connected stories in Small Axe.

The buzz around Steve McQueen's five-part BBC/Amazon anthology film series Small Axe is crescendoing ahead of the world premiere of three episodes at the New York Film Festival later this month, and The Hollywood Reporter now has an exclusive first-look photo from the film entitled Alex Wheatle. The series explores five stories from within London’s West Indian community between the 1960s and 1980s, with this film telling the true story of Wheatle, an award-winning writer for young people, and his own remarkable and often humorous journey through the care system, and then to prison following the Brixton Uprising in 1981.

Yep, festival season is a little weird this year, but if the currently-ongoing Venice Film Festival and just-started Toronto International Film Festival are any indication, the 58th New York Film Festival is going to be just as good, albeit enjoyed from a safe distance. The festival has a terrific line-up that includes movies from Steve McQueen (three films from his “Small Axe” anthology, Chloe Zhao‘s “Nomadland” starring Frances McDormand, “David Byrne’s American Utopia” from director Spike Lee, “The Human Voice” from Pedro Almodóvar, Orson Welles’ doc “Hopper/Welles,” “On the Rocks” from Sofia Coppola,” and so much more.

The 64th edition of the BFI London Film Festival — rejigged due to the COVID-19 crisis and largely shifted online for 2020 — has unveiled its full program. Chloe Zhao's buzzy Nomadland — bowing in Venice before heading to Toronto and New York — is set to screen, together with Pixar feature Soul, directed by Pete Doctor.

coronavirus pandemic, with a programme of 58 films from around the world — 50 of which will be premiering online.Steve McQueen’s Mangrove will be opening the festival, and the new film from God’s Own Country director Francis Lee Ammonite will be the closing night gala.Further films that are set to premiere include Spike Lee’s filmed take on David Byrne‘s smash-hit Broadway show American Utopia, as well as Miranda July’s new film Kajillionaire and Josephine Decker’s Shirley Jackson biopic Shirley.A selection of titles will be premiering in cinemas exclusively – including Mangrove, Ammonite, the new Pixar title Soul and Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland — while several others will offer viewers both virtual and in-cinema options.Other films to look out

The biggest film festival in the UK is set to make its comeback in a very different London this year due to both Covid-19 and a very politically-charged period in history.

Naman Ramachandran The 64th edition of the British Film Institute London Film Festival (LFF) revealed its full program Tuesday, containing a robust line-up of 58 features from around the world, as well as a range of extended reality (XR) projects and shorts.As previously announced, Steve MacQueen’s “Mangrove” will open the festival and Francis Lee’s “Ammonite” will close it.Highlights of the program include Harry Macqueen’s mature love story “Supernova,” starring Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci; Rob Lemkin’s “African Apocalypse,” where British-Nigerian poet, activist and the film’s co-writer Femi Nylander travels to West Africa to uncover the secrets of a colonial killer whose spirit lives on; and Bassam Tariq’s Berlin winner “Mogul Mowgli,”