Bottle & Jug Dept.

The Brooksteed & Bottle & Jug Dept. plus Elaine Paige circa the I Know Him so Well video. If you're in Brighton today before 4pm do pop down to The Open Market on London Road to see Tom and buy AMAZING wine. We've stocked up.

English wine has moved on a fair bit, don't believe us? Pop in and see Tom at our wee sister Bottle & Jug Dept. he holds all of the evidence.

thank you to Tom at Bottle & Jug Dept. for selling my greetings cards, a donation of £14.00 (from sales of Christmas cards) to SHOUT WSK towards food parcels made today. 🙂

*PLEASE NOTE* we are not open today as we have a big clean up following our Christmas Fayre yesterday. Sorry for any disappointment but it's a great opportunity to give your liver a rest, December is a Marathon not a sprint though should you not want it to get out of practice Bottle & Jug Dept. is open for take away. We're open again tomorrow from 4.30pm.

Just a reminder if you're coming down to our Christmas Fayre raising funds for Superstar Arts today of how to get there. Worthing Boys Club is located on Ivy Arch Road about 10 mins brisk walk from the pub, it's just down from The Factory Live opposite the mosque. We have a mini beer festival at the Fayre with local heroes Merakai Brewing CO UnBarred Brewery Cloak and Dagger Brewing Bottle & Jug Dept. You get to meet the brewers too as they're helping us drink sling. Special thanks to the lovely guys of Goldbarz Cellar Services who have provided the bar set up. We've so much going on today please see earlier posts for details. The icing on the ginger bread house is that The Brooksteed also remains open for those seeking a little less Christmas.

We are well and truly counting down now to our Christmas Fayre at the Worthing Boys Club. Looking at the weather today we are really glad that we opted for an indoor event!

This Saturday from 12 midday you can enjoy a great selection of market stalls, fantastic live music and a brilliant bar (did you expect any less?)
Wines supplied by Tom from Bottle & Jug Dept., special Brooksteed gin surprises from us and Madame Jennifer Distillery with beers from Goldbarz, Cloak and Dagger Brewing, UnBarred Brewery and Merakai Brewing CO - including a new Christmas beer they have made specially for us.

The venue is dog friendly for well behaved owners and their furry companions and is an easy 10 min walk from the Brooksteed.

We encourage you to wear a face mask and there will be so much hand gel available that you won’t know what to do with it.

So many people have come together to make this happen and we are so incredibly grateful. We think you are going to have a ball and we look forward to seeing you on Saturday.

Our mulled wine station today is located at Bottle & Jug Dept. Please feel free to pop in and see Tom and bring your wine over to the pub, maybe do a spot of Christmas shopping while you’re there. If hot wine isn't your thing we have hot toddies in the pub.

Hi - do you have any sloe gin in stock? A Christmas gift request :-) Thank you

Don’t forget that it will soon be time to make merry at the annual WFC Xmas Party at #coastcafeworthing on the 6th of December. There will be excellent pizzas from the wonderful #pizzaface_ltd. And more exciting news we have great prizes for the winners of the Film Quiz. First prize is a WFC Membership and a bottle of fine wine courtesy of Worthing’s independent craft beer bottle and wine Bottle & Jug Dept.. Second prize are tickets for Connaught Cinema and another wine from Bottle and Jug. Third prize are tickets for the Dome Cinema. Thanks to all these local businesses for their very generous contribution to our prizes and party! Hope you can all make it! If you are not a member and want to join - just come along and join on the night or email the club - link in bio. You can always give the gift of a WFC Membership as a Xmas Pressie for the discerning film lover! Just get in touch with us. See you soon 🎉🍕🧁🍷🎟 🎞 🎄 xx #coastcafeworthing #pizzaface_ltd #connaught_cinema #domeworthing #bottleandjugdept #sunnyworthing #beyondbrighton #worthingstufftodo #worthingstuff

Happy weekend film fans. In case you're wondering what to see at the cinema this week, here's a few ideas for you......

TITANE (2021)
Julia Ducournau’s follow up to her superb 2016 debut Raw, Titane took home the Palme d’Or at Cannes this year. Whilst not perhaps quite up to the astonishing high bar of Raw, Titane is without a doubt no less imaginative. The film opens with a nasty car crash; a result of which sees central character Alexia have a titanium plate fitted in her head. After leaving the hospital, she shuns her parents and embraces their car. We then fast forward to Alexia as a grown woman, working as a s*xed up showgirl at a motor show. At the culmination of the show, a man forces himself on Alexia, and she brutally murders him. We soon learn that this isn’t the first murder she’s committed, nor will it be the last. More pressingly however, is that she follows this particular murder by climbing into the car she was modeling by, and having s*x with it. Shortly after this, she realises she’s pregnant, and is secreting motor oil from her va**na. With me so far? After committing another murder, Alexia is on the run from the authorities. She breaks her own nose, cuts her hair short, and hides her belly which is starting to show, eventually handing herself into the police claiming to be a missing boy, Adrien.
The film then changes tone and becomes something else entirely; Adrien’s father Vincent takes her in under the impression that she is his lost and damaged son, and the relationship between the two of them is what the film then focuses on. Although always conflicted about whether Alexia is actually his son, Vincent chooses to accept her for who she is. It’s an excellent message; Vincent doesn’t care who Alexia is, he accepts her with all her flaws, but he also doesn’t deny reality, he knows deep down something is not quite right. Ducournau’s talent is in abundance throughout Titane; it’s as dank and dark as the motor oil that leaks from Alexia throughout the film, with shades of J.G Ballard’s Crash thrown in for good measure. It also reminded me somewhat of Leos Carax’s masterpiece Holy Motors (2012) in the way it drags you into a story that isn’t possible in reality, but you don’t question it for a second while you’re in its embrace.

THE POWER OF THE DOG (2021)
After enjoying Jane Campion’s Top Of The Lake TV series (2013-2017) as she offered her ample bow to television, I awaited her return to film with bated breath. It’s delightful to announce then, that The Power Of The Dog is an astonishing piece of filmmaking. It’s a real shame that it has such a short cinematic release before it opens on Netflix on 4th December, but by the same token, if it wasn’t for Netflix it may not have been made in the first place. Based on Thomas Savage’s 1967 novel of the same name, The Power Of The Dog takes place in Montana in 1925 (actually filmed entirely in New Zealand) as wealthy cattle rancher brothers Phil and George Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch and Jesse Plemons respectively) meet widow Rose (Kirsten Dunst) as she puts them up for the night during a cattle drive. After taking a liking to Rose, George soon marries her, bringing her and her son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) to live on the brothers’ ranch. Phil takes a hateful dislike to Rose, and subsequently her son after he arrives on holiday from college. The film is teeming with simmering tension; we’re unsure as to why exactly Phil’s contempt is so rife, at times you’re almost holding your breath at the uncomfortable nature of some of the scenes. Magnificently shot by Ari Wegner, with sweeping strokes of the plains wonderfully fused with some truly excellent close up shots to somehow create a feeling of claustrophobia amongst a wide-open setting. What also adds to this is the performance of the main quartet of actors; in my opinion this is the best thing I’ve seen Cumberbatch do, and he’s usually no slouch. His outright disdain is matched by the creepiness of Kodi Smit-McPhee, and as the two share more exclusive screen time as the film progresses, it’s impossible to read entirely what’s going on behind the eyes of either, leading to a terrific edginess to the second half of the film. Campion has produced something utterly engrossing, truly beautiful and genuinely gripping, also aided by a wonderful score by Johnny Greenwood (yes, him again). If you can see it on the big screen, I urge you to seek it out.

ENCANTO (2021)
Disney’s latest introduces us to the Madrigal’s, a special family who live in a magical house in the mountains of Colombia, a charmed place called the Encanto. The magic of the Encanto has blessed every child in the family with a unique gift; (super strength, the ability to talk with animals for example) every child that is, except our heroine Mirabel. However, as the house begins to lose its magic, and subsequently the families’ special powers, it becomes clear that Mirabel may be the families’ only hope. Encanto is filled with catchy songs written by Lin Manuel Miranda, a man who is in extraordinarily high demand these days, and these add tremendous charm to a warm tale of a family coming together to save their future. Encanto looks gorgeous, as usual Disney’s eye for detail is truly immersive, but Encanto does lack the excitement of this years true Disney classic, Raya And The Last Dragon. There’s a real lack of peril, and although that may sound a foolish thing to say of what is a film aimed mainly at children, it’s something that Raya And The Last Dragon achieved in spades. In the end, Encanto’s main crime may simply be that it’s release comes in the same year as Raya And The Last Dragon, I may well have be a bit more positive about it if the bar hadn’t been set so high by Disney early in 2021. But that’s not to say there’s not plenty to enjoy in Encanto, there absolutely is, and it’s a solid if not spectacular entry into the Disney franchise.

BOILING POINT (2021)
The most excruciating film of the year, Philip Barantini’s one take restaurant drama deserves all the plaudits it’s getting. Stephen Graham plays the head chef of a London restaurant, a man who’s struggling with personal problems that have begun to affect his work. Assisted by an excellent supporting cast, the film is one shot, for ninety odd minutes, meaning the trials and tribulations as the restaurant opens are all in real time. The stress of working in such a high pressure environment are portrayed brilliantly, beginning with a surprise visit from health and safety officer, and going downhill from there. I felt utter hatred for many of the customers, including a racist father of a family, and a truly deplorable quartet of ‘lads’, who after being told that steak and chips aren’t on the menu, threaten to post bad reviews on instagram, (a social format that holds far too much sway in real life) whilst filming the staff without any sort of permission. For such a high-class establishment, there is a lot of sub human scum in attendance; but the point being that this is what restaurant staff have to put up with on a daily basis. It’s no wonder Graham’s Andy feels the strain at work as well as out of it. It’s not just the customers at fault though; one or two slackers in the kitchen add to the drama, making it more difficult for those trying their hardest to produce their best. Boiling Point is gripping and grueling, and although you can read one or two plot contrivances in advance towards the end, for the most part this is highly impressive experiment that throws you right into the vortex of a working high class restaurant in the countries capital.

THE WILD GOOSE LAKE (2019)
Diao Yinan follows up his Berlin Golden Bear win for Black Coal, Thin Ice (2014) with this stylish neo-noir thriller set in the remote fictional town of Wild Goose Lake. Zhou is a gangster, on the run from both his fellow mobsters and the police. We learn exactly why through lengthy flashback sequences that make up the bulk of the film after Zhou retells his story to a mysterious woman who has been apparently been sent to retrieve him by his once allies. Her exact motives remain unclear throughout, giving a terrific air of minimalistic tension to proceedings, as we also follow the story through the eyes of the gangsters and the police as the hunt for Zhou becomes a full-blown manhunt. There are some excellent set pieces, especially an early ‘competition’ between two opposing sets of the same gang to settle a score that was initiated from a bout of shocking violence during a supposedly peaceful meeting. The sheen is Nicolas Winding Refn-esque in its neon colour palette as well as its brutal violence, and interestingly enough the Refn film I found this one reminding me of the most was Only God Forgives (2013), a film that I didn’t have a particular amount of love for. The Wild Goose Lake is a more interesting and cohesive film than Only God Forgives, although it does perhaps lack some of the intrigue of Refn’s film. For the most part, Yinan marks himself out as a director of real talent; and that’s on top of his already prolific acting career. He played a central role in Zhangke Jia’s Ash Is Purest White, one of the best films of 2018, as well as being one of the best crime thrillers of recent years. The Wild Goose Lake owes a debt to that film, and although it never hits the heights of Jia’s masterpiece, Yinan does a great job of stamping his name onto the genre.
The Wild Goose Lake is available to stream on Mubi.

Don't forget our Christmas Party for members is fast approaching; come and join us at Coast on Monday 6th December at 7pm for some festive frivolity, as well as some food laid on by the good people of Pizzaface Worthing! And don't forget, quiz prizes donated by Bottle & Jug Dept. , Connaught Cinema and Dome Cinema , so come and chance your filmic knowldge to win!

If you're not already member you can come along and join on the night and gain access to the celebrations!
Members can also bring guests at £5 each on the door.
We'll see you there!

WFC, x