And now the end is here and so we face the final cinema curtain… That’s right ladies, gentlemen and cinephiles, after hundreds of films, a galaxy of stars and numerous night stood outside in the freezing cold, The Times BFI 52^nd London Film Festival has come to a close and we’ve survived with our dignity and sanity intact (well, almost).

Following on from the excellent first week of programming, which you can read about here, the second half of the annual cinematic shindig saw more galas, premieres and exclusives than you can shake a foot-long hotdog at - and thankfully killer very much won over filler.

The programme’s big guns particularly did not disappoint…

Steven Soderbergh and Benicio Del Toro popped into the capital to plug their bum-numbing but brilliant four-and-a-half-hour epic Che (Part 1 and Part 2), an engrossing evocation of the man and his motives which charts his journey from Cuban rebel to Bolivian insurgent in vivid detail.

Rian Johnson follows up his brilliant debut, Brick, with another tale that subverts a well-worn genre, The Brothers Bloom. A warm-hearted and knowingly kooky take on the con man movie, it plays like Ocean’s Eleven directed by Wes Anderson and features a raft of likeable performances from the likes of Rachel Weisz, Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo.

It wouldn’t have been the LFF without some old-school Englishness and Aussie director Stephan Elliot’s Easy Virtue didn’t disappoint. Starring the lovely Jessica Biel as a bohemian American who launches herself into the lives of Ben Barnes’ young aristo and his stiff-upper-lipped parents, played by Colin Firth and Kristen Scott Thomas, this slice of 20s culture clash based on Noel Coward's caustic play manages to balance fun performances with a deceptively dark denouement and an anachronistic soundtrack (brilliantly, Billy Ocean’s When The Going Gets Tough is given a jazz-age arrangement).

This year’s surprise screening was a gift indeed. Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler is a hugely impressive achievement and we got the chance to tell the director and his star Mickey Rourke just that when they came to town to introduce the Oscar-tipped movie. A story about an aging grappler and his attempts to make amends with his estranged daughter while battling his own (numerous) demons, it’s a funny, thrilling, devastating film and we can’t recommend it highly enough.

Oliver Stone’s none-more-timely Bush-burning biopic, W., gave us a little bit of politics when it rolled into the city for The Times Gala. Stone and his cast, including Josh Brolin, Thandie Newton, Toby Jones and the lovely Elizabeth Banks, were present to answer questions about a movie which, given the director’s much-publicised rants about America’s incumbent president, gives its subject a surprisingly easy ride. An unexpectedly humanistic take on a deeply flawed individual, it’s not as shallow a film as you might have expected.

The biggest night of the entire festival, however, was reserved for the Royal World Premiere of Quantum Of Solace. A big-budget, gadget-rich, star-studded affair, it featured Bond affiliates old and new and, despite the chilly conditions, set the penultimate evening off with a bang. You can read more about 007’s big night out here.

And rounding it all off at the Closing Gala was Danny Boyle’s critically lauded Slumdog Millionaire. Perhaps not the starriest choice to mark the LFF’s final night, it’s nevertheless a fascinating story about a young man from the Mumbai slums who wins big on India's Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, get arrested for cheating and is then forced to tell his life story in flashback. We’re telling you now, this is going to be a critical darling when the 2009 awards season kicks off.

Join us next year for more films, stars and celebrations… The LFF’s organizers better get planning right away, 2008 is going to be a tough act to beat.

Glen Ferris

Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Banks, Thandie Newton and friends celebrate the European premiere of Oliver Stone’s Bush biopic.

It’s something of a massive understatement to say that the current incumbent of The White House is not very well liked but, for a few hours on a rainy night in London, he was the star of the show.

Oliver Stone’s Bush-burning biopic, W., got its European premiere at The Times Gala of the 52^nd London Film Festival and the cast were out in force to support the director with his controversial new project.

Showing Dub-Ya’s rise to power after years of heavy drinking and wild living, Josh Brolin’s portrayal of America’s current President has surprised people by being more sympathetic than you might expect.

“Everyone is a human being, they get up in the morning and they think they’re the good guy,” says Oliver Stone of his subject. “I’m not a journalist, I’m a dramatist and my job is to portray Bush as a human.”

The film also star Elizabeth Banks as Laura Bush, how did she feel about playing the First Lady?

“It’s very intimidating, you worry that she’s going to see the movie and audit me,” says Banks. “She’s very much an enigma, she’s a very private person and we’re trying to tell their story and of course they’ve never had a camera in their bedroom so I just did my best to discover who this person is and get under her skin.”

Has she ever met Laura Bush in real life?

“I have met her actually,”she says. “We met in 2003 long before I ever played her - it’s an odd irony of my life. She screened Seabiscuit at the White House for her and the President and we were all invited, so me and Steven Spielberg met her then. I don’t think that I’ll be invited back to see this one though.”

Thandie Newton, who plays Secretary Of State Condoleezza Rice, was also on the rain-sodden walkway.

“It was fantastic, I loved the theatre of it,” says Newton of her role. “It was very liberating because Oliver wanted to do something theatrical and he wanted to be audacious, I think he actually toned it down a lot from what we did on set. Compared to the body of material that’s been made about this administration, we kept things relatively low-key.”

Does she think the movie will affect how the current presidential race will turn out?

“I don’t think so,” she says. “A little Hollywood movie isn’t going to change how things are done politically but it was our small contribution to the wealth of information that is available to people as they decide who is going to run the country in a few months time.

“I don’t get the vote because I’m English but with W I felt that was able to contribute in another way so that was exciting.”  

There's nothing like a little bit of decadent glamour to get a film festival going: in 1953 Brigitte Bardot created a scandal by taking to the Croisette in Cannes wearing nothing but a bikini; London 2008 is getting it in the form of Easy Virtue - starring Jessica Biel, Colin Firth and Kristin Scott Thomas.

Based on Noel Coward's famous play, Easy Virtue is set at the end of the roaring 20s when a young Englishman falls in love with a young American actress who takes his family by surprise and by storm.

Easy Virtue is at cinemas nationwide from November 7th but we've got a bunch of tickets to giveaway for a special London Film Festival screening taking place on October 29th.

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