Latitude 2014: Keith Allen - My Movie Life

Like Total Film , Keith Allen will return to Latitude in 2014, and he’s bringing a lot of special guests to his Establishment Club .

We recently caught up with the outspoken actor and comedian, to find out about the movies that make him tick. Check out his answers below...

The Movie That Always Makes Me Cry
Emotionally, ZULU had that effect on me. There are so many moments [ that can set me off ]. There’s the development of Hooky’s journey, which is amazing. There’s a wonderful moment when he does a roll call at the end with Colour-Sergeant. He asks Hooky, and he doesn’t answer. He says, “I know you’re there – I see you!” And, of course, the singing of ‘Men Of Harlech’.

The Movie That Everyone Loves But I Hate
I tend not to watch the blockbusters. I know a film everyone loves that I thought was drivel. THE WOLF OF WALL STREET . Absolute twaddle. [ I disliked ] everything. Everything about it. I’ve seen it done much better. It was boring. I found it extraordinarily repetitive. There’s some great moments in it, like the car scene. There’s some great little things. But as a film? It was a disappointment. I like Leonardo DiCaprio. I think he’s got a really good head on him, without a shadow of a doubt.

The Movie That Everyone Hates But I Love
My relationship with cinema was very alive in the ‘70s and ‘80s when you had independent cinemas and cinema clubs, especially in London – the ICA, Scala. So I went to see lots of films and programmes late at night, pissed. There are lots of films I know that people don’t like, like Nic Roeg’s BAD TIMING , which to me was absolutely brilliant. When I talk about [ Andrei ] Tarkovsky, especially The Stalker , people think I’m demented – he has an incredible body of work.

The Movie I Love But No One's Heard Of
My favourite film is a [ Claude ] Faraldo film called THEMROC . I just love its position, its attitude, what it was saying. It was funny, clever, and expressed everything I felt in the ‘70s and ‘80s. It’s a guy who’s just absolutely had enough of modern life. Modern life is shite. Later he becomes more macabre. He kills a policeman and takes him up to his flat and spit roasts him. It’s amazing. I would recommend it to everyone.

The Movie That Scares Me The Most
THE EXORCIST . It was terrifying. It seems so antiquated and faintly comic now, but when her head spun round and she spewed, you’d never seen those kind of effects anywhere. It was terrifying. When I was at college in Cardiff, we drove up so that we could see it before everyone else in Wales. We saw it in Leicester Square. There was a St. John’s Ambulance crew, in the cinema, taking people home who were fainting.

My Favourite Comedy Movies
I like the first two HANGOVER films. The first two of those really made me laugh. And also Blades Of Glory with Will Ferrell about the ice skaters. Me and my missus try to see it every year around Christmas. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Midnight Run is one that’s a really fantastic film. But it just makes me laugh because it’s such an understudied performance. It’s Robert De Niro, with Charles Grodin. That is a classic comedy. I think that that is genius.



Keith Allen is performing at Latitude Festival, which runs from 17 – 20 July 2014. For tickets and more info, go to www.latitudefestival.com

Find out more about Keith Allen’s Establishment Club at Latitude

Matt Maytum
Editor, Total Film

I'm the Editor at Total Film magazine, overseeing the running of the mag, and generally obsessing over all things Nolan, Kubrick and Pixar. Over the past decade I've worked in various roles for TF online and in print, including at GamesRadar+, and you can often hear me nattering on the Inside Total Film podcast. Bucket-list-ticking career highlights have included reporting from the set of Tenet and Avengers: Infinity War, as well as covering Comic-Con, TIFF and the Sundance Film Festival.