The Party

 

The Party 2017

• Director: Sally Potter
• Seen by this director: Ginger & Rosa, The Man Who Cried, Orlando
• Based on the book: no
• Cast: Kristin Scott Thomas, Timothy Spall, Patricia Clarkson, Bruno Ganz, Cherry Jones, Cillian Murphy, Emily Mortimer
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Kristin Scott Thomas – My Old Lady, The Invisible Woman, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, Contre toi, Elle s’apellait Sarah, Nowhere Boy, The Other Boleyn Girl, Il y’a longtemps que je t’aime, Keeping Mum, Man to Man, Gosford Park, The English Patient, Richard III, Angels and Insects, A Handful of Dust
• Timothy Spall – Mr Turner, The Love Punch, Ginger & Rosa, Harry Potter, The King’s Speech, From Time to Time, Sweeney Todd, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Topsy Turvy, Still Crazy, Our Mutual Friend, Hamlet, Secrets and Lies, Life Is Sweet, Gothic, Quadrophenia
• Patricia Clarkson – Maze Runner, The Bookshop, Shutter Island, Lars and the Real Girl, Good Night and Good Luck, Six Feet Under, Dogville, The Station Agent, Far from Heaven, The Green Mile
• Bruno Ganz – The Reader, Bread and Tulips,
• Cherry Jones – The Village, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, The Perfect Storm, Erin Brockovich, Cradle Will Rock, Light of Day
• Emily Mortimer – The Bookshop, Hugo, Shutter Island, Lars and the Real Girl, Paris je t’aime, Dear Frankie, Bright Young Things, Young Adam, The Kid, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Notting Hill, Elizabeth
• Cillian Murphy – Dunkirk, Transcendence, The Dark Knight Rises, Inception, The Dark Knight, Sunshine, Batman Begins, Cold Mountain, Girl with the Pearl Earring, 28 Days Later
• Why? The cast
• Seen: 27 December 2020      

       Janet (Scott Thomas) has been appointed Minister of Health and is preparing a little party to celebrate while her husband Bill (Spall) broods. One of the guests (Clarkson) is cynically snide and constantly irritated with her aphorism-spouting New Age husband (Ganz). Another (Murphy) snorts cocaine in the loo and has a gun. Another (Mortimer) announces that she’s expecting triplets and her wife (Jones) doesn’t know what to think.

       Then Bill drops a bombshell. Or two.

       I was expecting something like Bright Young Things but this party makes Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ look like a quiet civilised dinner dinner.

       On second thought, it is rather funny.

       Oh yes, it’s in black and white, which is most always a plus. Brilliant cast. 

 4* of 5

 

Moulin Rouge

 

Moulin Rouge 2001

• Director: Baz Luhrman
• Also seen by this director: The Great Gatsby, Australia, Romeo & Juliet, Strictly Ballroom
• Based on a book: no
• Cast: Nicole Kidman, Ewan McGregor, Jim Broadbent, John Leguizamo, Richard Roxburgh
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Nicole Kidman – Destroyer, Top of the Lake, Genius, Queen of the Desert, Strangerland, Before I Go to Sleep, The Railway Man, Rabbit Hole, Nine, Australia, Margot at the Wedding, Fur, The Interpreter, Cold Mountain, The Human Stain, Dogville, The Hours, Birthday Girl, The Others, Eyes Wide Shut, Practical Magic, Billy Bathgate
• Ewan McGregor – Trainspotting 2, American Pastoral, Our Kind of Traitor, Star Wars etc, Mortdecai, August Osage County, Jack the Giant Slayer, The Impossible, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, Perfect Sense, The Ghost Writer, The Island, Big Fish, Young Adam, Little Voice, Velvet Goldmine, A Life Less Ordinary, Brassed Off, Trainspotting, Shallow Grave
• Jim Broadbent – The Lady in the Van, Brooklyn, Filth, Cloud Atlas, Harry Potter, Another Year, Hot Fuzz, Vera Drake, Bright Young Things, Little Voice, Gangs of New York, Topsy-Turvy, Smilla’s Sense of Snow, Richard III, The Crying Game, Life Is Sweet, Brazil, Black Adder
• John Leguizamo – John Wick, Cymbeline, The Happening, Romeo & Juliet, Carlito’s Way
• Why? The cast and the director.
• Seen: Once before. Now 26 December 2020.

             Stealing songs wildly from musicals and pop music of all eras, this is the glittering and tragic story of the doomed lovers, the cancan dancer Satine (Kidman) and the aspiring playwright Christian (McGregor) at the Moulin Rouge ca 1900.

       It might be the most colourful and frenzied film ever made. It might be the silliest film I’ve ever seen too and it’s so romantic it makes my teeth ache but, to quote the film itself, it is most certainly ‘dazzling’ and ‘spectacular’. As well as mad and wildly entertaining. Kidman and McGregor do their own singing too.

 4* of 5

 

 

Love Actually updated

 

Love Actually 2003

 

Seen again on Christmas Eve 2020. The last time we saw it was in memory of Alan Rickman. He is still sorely missed.

I have nothing to change or add. The film still gets 4*.

• Director: Richard Curtis
• Based on book: no
• Cast: Alan Rickman, Bill Nighy, Gregor Fisher, Colin Firth, Liam Neeson, Emma Thompson, Kris Marshall, Heike Makatsch, Martin Freeman, Joanna Page, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Andrew Lincoln, Keira Knightley, Hugh Grant, Nina Sosanya, Martine McCutcheon, Laura Linney, Thomas Brodie-Sangter
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Alan Rickman – the Harry Potter movies, The Butler, Alice in Wonderland, Sweeney Todd, Snow Cake, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Dogma, Michael Collins, Sense and Sensibility, Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, The January Man, Die Hard, Romeo and Juliet
• Bill Nighy – Hotel Marigold 1 and 2, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Girl in the Café, The Boat that Rocked, Valkyria, Hot Fuzz, Notes on a Scandal, The Constant Gardener, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Shaun of the Dead, Auf Wiedersehen Pet, Kiss Me Kate
• Gregor Fisher – The Merchant of Venice
• Colin Firth – Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The King’s Speech, Genova, Mamma Mia, Then She Found Me, Nanny McPhee, Girl with a Pearl Earring, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Black Adder, My Life So Far, Shakespeare in Love, A Thousand Acres, Fever Pitch
• Liam Neeson - The Dark Knight Rises, Life’s Too Short, The Next Three Days, Seraphim Falls, Kingdom of Heaven, The Gangs of New York, Les Misérables, Michael Collins, Rob Roy, Schindler’s List, Nell, Ruby Cairo, Ex Calibur
• Emma Thompson – the Harry Potter movies, The Boat that Rocked, Brideshead Revisited, Nanny McPhee, An Education, Last Chance Harvey, Stranger than Fiction, Angels in America, Wit, The Remains of the Day, Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, Peter’s Friends, Howards End, Dead Again, Fortunes of War, Impromptu, Tutti Frutti
• Kris Marshall – Easy Virtue, The Merchant of Venice
• Heike Makatsch – The Book Thief, Tara Road
• Martin Freeman – the Hobbit films, Fargo, The World’s End, Hot Fuzz, Breaking and Entering, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Shaun of the Dead
• Joanna Page – From Hell, Very Annie Mary, David Copperfield
• Chiwetel Ejiofor – Dancing on the Edge, 2012, Children of Men, Kinky Boots, Dirty Pretty Things, Amistad
• Andrew Lincoln – only this
• Keira Knightley – Never Let Me Go, Atonement, Pirates of the Caribbean 1-3, King Arthur, Bend It Like Beckham, Star Wars Episode I
• Hugh Grant – Cloud Atlas, Music and Lyrics, American Dreamz, About a Boy, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Notting Hill, Sense and Sensibility, Four Weddings and a Funeral, The Remains of the Day, Impromptu
• Nina Sosanya – The Last Tango in Halifax, Bonekickers, Much Ado about Nothing (Retold), Manderlay
• Martine McCutcheon – only this
• Laura Linney – Jindabyne, Driving Lessons, The Squid and the Whale, Mystic River, Dave, Lorenzo’s Oil
• Thomas Brodie-Sangter – Wolf Hall, Nowhere Boy, Bright Star, Nanny McPhee
• Why? The cast
• Seen:  Twice before. Now 15 January 2016 

       Alan Rickman is no more. But he lives in his many films. We have recently watched the Harry Potter films and Snape will never leave us.

       In Alan Rickman’s memory we chose this film this evening.

       I know it’s silly and hopelessly romantic and all that. But with this cast, even Hugh Grant, and with the British humour we knew even the first time that it would be two hours of bittersweet….well, you know, British humour and love.

       And our Alan Rickman is one of them. Not nearly enough for our needs on this sad day after the news of his death. But in the bits he’s in he’s…well, you know, Alan Rickman.

       It’s a movie to love. And I do. Of course.  They know how to make us do that.

       It’s Christmas and I hate movies about Christmas but I forgive it because it’s just so…well, you know, what it is. Sometimes it’s nice to be manipulated. Me, an old toughie.

       Thank you, Alan Rickman. You will be remembered.

 

4 * of 5

 

 

        http://rubyjandsmovieblog.blogspot.se/2016/01/love-actually.html

Die Hard

 

Die Hard 1988

• Director: John McTiernan
• Seen by this director: Die Hard with a Vengeance
• Based on the novel by Roderick Thorp
• Cast: Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Bonnie Bedelia, Reginald VelJohnson, Paul Gleason, DeVoreaux White
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Bruce Willis – Looper, Moonrise Kingdom, Friends, The Siege, Armageddon, The Fifth Element, The Twelve Monkeys, Billy Bathgate, In Country
• Alan Rickman – Eye in the Sky, The Butler, Harry Potter, Sweeney Todd, Snowcake, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Love Actually, Galaxy Quest, Dogma, Michael Collins, Sense and Sensibility, Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, The January Man, Romeo and Juliet
• Bonnie Bedelia – Presumed Innocent, They Shoot Horses Don’t They?
• Reginald VelJohnson – Die Hard 2, Crocodile Dundee in New York
• Paul Gleason – Doctor Who, The Man Who Knew Infinity, The Hobbit, Twelfth Night, Sherlock Holmes/Game of Shadows, Extras, V for Vendetta, Tristram Shandy, Bright Young Things, Gosford Park, Longitude, Whatever Happened to Harold Smith?, Wild, Cold Comfort Farm, Jeeves and Wooster, Peter’s Friends, A Fish Called Wanda, A Handful of Dust, Black Adder
• DeVoreaux White – 1917, Yesterday, Misfits, The Hollow Crown
• Why? My FB group promised me this is a Christmas film. That I don’t remember but I remember liking it. It’s high time to see it again.
• Seen: Once before. Now 24 December 2020.      

       Hot shot business tycoon Holly (Bedelia) is at a Christmas party with her corporation in a luxury hotel in LA. Her somewhat estranged husband John (Willis), a NY cop, comes to LA to spend Christmas with her and the kids.

       Bad guys led by Hans Gruber (Rickman) take over the hotel with evil and mercenary intent.

       John sneaks around the hotel barefoot, in trousers and an undershirt with one gun to do the heroics.

       I’m sceptical. All this macho gun stuff is a bit stale and his cynical one-liners are not amusing. But it’s lovely to see pre-Snape Rickman. This might be the first film we ever saw him in, same for Willis.

       Anyway, you know what? The one-liners get funnier, it is very exciting, I like Al (VelJohnson) and Argyle (White) and even John turns out OK.  The use of Beethoven’s Ninth is effective too.

 

 4* of 5

 

 

Love and Friendship

 

Love and Friendship 2016

• Director: Whit Stillman
• Seen by this director: The Last Days of Disco, Homicide Life on the Street (one episode)
• Based on the novella by Jane Austen
• Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Morfydd Clark, Tom Bennett, Jenn Murray, Chloë Sevigny, Stephen Fry, Xavier Samuel, Emma Greenwell, Justin Edwards, Jemma Redgrave, James Fleet
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Kate Beckinsale – Underworld etc, Absolutely Anything, The Aviator, Serendipity, The Last Days of Disco, Shooting Fish, Cold Comfort Farm, The Prince of Jylland, Much Ado about Nothing
• Tom Bennett – Breathe
• Jenn Murray – Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Brooklyn, Testament of Youth, The Fades
• Chlöe Sevigny – Zodiac, Broken Flowers, Manderlay, Dogville, American Psycho, The Last Days of Disco
• Stephen Fry – Doctor Who, The Man Who Knew Infinity, The Hobbit, Twelfth Night, Sherlock Holmes/Game of Shadows, Extras, V for Vendetta, Tristram Shandy, Bright Young Things, Gosford Park, Longitude, Whatever Happened to Harold Smith?, Wild, Cold Comfort Farm, Jeeves and Wooster, Peter’s Friends, A Fish Called Wanda, A Handful of Dust, Black Adder
• Justin Edwards – 1917, Yesterday, Misfits, The Hollow Crown
• Jemma Redgrave – Doctor Who, Howards End
• James Fleet – The Hollow Crown, Mr Turner, The Decoy Bride, Tristram Shandy, Milk, Sense and Sensibility, Four Weddings and a Funeral
• Why? Austen
• Seen: 20 December 2020      

       Jane Austen, as we know, can be quite acerbic, here more than ever.

       Beautiful, poverty-stricken (as the wealthy see it) and manipulative Lady Susan (Beckinsale) causes deliberate havoc among several wealthy gentry families, trying to marry into money and marry her reluctant daughter (Clark) off to a charming if inane Sir James (Bennett). Complications ensue. In fact, it’s all quite difficult to follow.

       Beckinsale is good, as is the whole cast, and it’s amusing, but quite shallow and not the biting but affectionate social analysis that Austen is so good at. 

 3* of 5

 

 

 

Anna and the Apocalypse

 

Anna and the Apocalypse 2017

• Director: John McPhail
• Based on book: no
• Cast: Ella Hunt, Malcolm Cumming, Sarah Swire, Christopher Leveaux, Marli Siu, Ben Wiggins, Mark Benton, Paul Kaye
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Ella Hunt – Robot Overlords, Les Misérables
• Mark Benton – Hustle, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Breaking and Entering, Doctor Who, Topsy-Turvy, Kiss Me Kate, Career Girls
• Paul Kaye – Doctor Who, Humans, Friday Night Dinner, Hustle, Shaun of the Dead
• Why? Who knows?
• Seen: 19 December 2020      

       Just your normal Christmas musical with unhappy teenagers singing in the corridors and cafeteria about unrequited love and the need to escape their dreary small town in Scotland. There’s even a nerdy tyrannical headmaster.

       Until the zombies show up.

       Shaun of the Dead or The Girl with All the Gifts it is not but it’s a decent zombie film and a decent musical. Not bad entertainment for the Saturday evening before Christmas. Who knows? It may become a Christmas tradition in this Scrooge-y household. 

 3 ½ * of 5

 

Doctor Zhivago

 

Doctor Zhivago 1965

• Director: David Lean
• Other films seen by this director: The Bridge over the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, Great Expectations, Brief Encounter
• Based on book by Boris Pasternak
• Cast: Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Geraldine Chaplin, Rod Steiger, Alec Guinness, Tom Courtney, Ralph Richardson, Rita Tushingham
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Omar Sharif – Hidalgo, Funny Girl, The Yellow Rolls Royce
• Julie Christie – Glorious 39, Finding Neverland, Harry Potter, Hamlet, Heaven Can Wait, Nashville, McCabe and Mrs Miller, The Go-Between, Petulia, Far from the Madding Crowd, Fahrenheit 451, Darling
• Geraldine Chaplin – The Impossible, The Hollow Crown, Chaplin, Nashville
• Rod Steiger – Mars Attacks, The Ballad of the Sad Café, The January Man, Happy Birthday Wanda June, In the Heat of the Night, Oklahoma, On the Waterfront
• Alec Guinness – Kafka, A Handful of Dust, Star Wars etc, Lawrence of Arabia, The Bridge over the River Kwai, Great Expectations
• Tom Courtney – Unforgotten, Flood, Last Orders, Quartet, Whatever Happened to Harold Smith?, The Dresser, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, The Loneliness of a Long-Distance Runner  
• Ralph Richardson – O Lucky Man!, Oh What a Lovely War!, Exodus, Richard III
• Rita Tushingham – Being Julia, The Girl with the Green Eyes, A Taste of Honey
• Why? A must
• Seen: Twice before. Now 19 December 2020      

       This is the film that turned me into a pacifist. I saw it when it came out and I left the cinema shaken and changed forever.

       A lot has happened since then, in my life, in Russia (mostly bad, not the least in recent decades) and in the world.

       The need for revolution is greater than ever. If we’re determined, and lucky, it could – and must be – non-violent.

       That’s what this film taught me.

       It’s not perfect. Their hair is too clean, Lara doesn’t really have much character, and Tonya is too sweet.

       Nevertheless, for what the film has meant to me 

5 * of 5

 

 

Hotel Mumbai

 

Hotel Mumbai 2018

• Director: Anthony Maras
• Based on book: no
• Cast: Dev Patel, Nazanin Boniadi, Armie Hammer, Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Anupam Kher, Jason Issacs
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Dev Patel – The Man Who Knew Infinity, Chappie, Hotel Marigold 1&2, Slumdog Millionaire
• Armie Hammer – On the Basis of Sex, The Lone Ranger, Veronica Mars
• Anupam Kher – The Silver Linings Notebook
• Jason Isaacs – Case Studies, Harry Potter
• Why? Dev Patel
• Seen: 18 December 2020      

       You maybe remember this event. I do, though not in detail.

       Arjun (Patel) works at the exclusive luxury hotel in Mumbai, The Taj Mahal Palace. A series of terrorist attacks take place throughout the city at the same time, including the hotel. Arjun and much of the staff risk their lives, some losing them, to protect the guests.

       Though we follow the terrorists too and get to know them a bit as individuals, we don’t learn who masterminded it all, and in reality, that is still unknown.

       The film is dramatic, and Patel is good, as always. But I can’t silence my thought that though of course murder is never acceptable, the extreme wealth and luxury of the hotel are part of the cause of the emergence of terrorism from poverty, oppression and inequality. 

 3 ½ * of 5

 

Beat the Drum

 

Beat the Drum 2003

• Director: David Hickson
• Based on book: no
• Cast: Junior Singo, Owen Sejake, Mary Twala, Clive Scott, Noluthando Maleka, Tom Fairfoot, Nthati Mosheseh
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Owen Sejake – Tsotsi
• Mary Twala – The Dark Tower, Life Above All
• Tom Fairfoot – Doomsday
• Why? Sounded good.
• Seen:13 December 2020      

       Young Musa (Singo) has lost both parents to a dread disease and leaves his grandmother’s village to find his uncle in Johannesburg and try to earn some money. He takes the drum his father had made him and sets off.

       The disease is AIDS. It kills, and people deny it exists.

       The film is interesting and pedagogical, and the boy is appealing. There are touching moments, but it doesn’t grip as deeply as it should. After slow and relentless grimness, the ending is sugar-coated.

  3* of 5

 

Jojo Rabbit

 

Jojo Rabbit 2019

• Director: Taika Waititi
• Seen by this director: What We Do in the Shadows, Boy, Flight of the Conchords, Eagle vs Shark
• Based on book by Christine Leunens
• Cast: Roman Griffin Davis, Thomasin McKenzie, Scarlett Johansson, Taika Waititi, Sam Rockwell, Rebel Wilson, Alfie Allen, Stephen Merchant, Archie Yates
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Roman Griffin Davis – nothing yet, but wow, watch out for this kid!  
• Thomasin McKenzie – The Hobbit Battle of Five Armies
• Scarlett Johansson – Hail Caesar, Lucy, The Avengers, He’s Just Not that Into You, The Other Boleyn Girl, The Prestige, The Island, In Good Company, The Love song of Bobby Long, Girl with the Pearl Earring, Lost in Translation, The Man Who Wasn’t There, Manny and Lo
• Taika Waititi – What We Do in the Shadows, Boy, Eagle vs Shark, Flight of the Conchords
• Sam Rockwell – Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, Moon, Frost/Nixon, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Galaxy Quest, The Green Mile
• Rebel Wilson – Absolutely Fabulous the Movie, Pitch Perfect
• Alfie Allen – John Wick, The Kid, The Other Boleyn Girl, Elizabeth
• Stephan Merchant – Fighting with My Family, Life’s Too Short, I Give It a Year, The Invention of Lying, Extras, Hot Fuzz
• Archie Yates – nothing yet but what a sweetie
• Why? Waititi
• Seen: 12 December 2020      

       Jojo (Davis) is, his friend Adolf (Waititi) tells him, the best little Nazi ever, and the boy jumps and skips joyfully down the street and through the forest while the Beatles happily sing ‘Komm, Gib Mier Deine Hand.’ He’s off to a week-end camp where boys will become soldiers and girls will learn to cook and become pregnant. They’ll all learn to burn books and hate Jews and fun stuff like that.

       A comedy about Nazis. About bullying. About killing. About kindly Adolf giving advice to a sad lonely little boy.

       Funnily enough, it’s very funny. And incredibly serious. And sad. And bittersweet.  Essentially perfect.

       See it. Now.

 5* of 5

 

The Avengers

 

The Avengers 2012

• Director: Joss Whedon
• Seen by this director: Much Ado About Nothing, Serenity, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly
• Based on book: no
• Cast: Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston, Clark Gregg, Cobie Smulders, Stellan Skarsgård, Samuel L. Jackson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Harry Dean Stanton
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Robert Downey Jr – Sherlock Holmes Game of Shadows, Sherlock Holmes, The Soloist, Zodiac, Fur, A Scanner Darkly, Good Night and Good Luck, Richard III
• Chris Evans – Scott Pilgrim vs the World, Sunshine
• Mark Ruffalo – Shutter Island, The Kids Are All Right, Zodiac, Rumour Has It, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, My Life Without Me
• Chris Hemsworth – Snow White Winter’s War, Thor
• Scarlett Johansson – Hail Caesar, Lucy, He’s Just Not that Into You, The Other Boleyn Girl, The Prestige, The Island, In Good Company, The Love song of Bobby Long, Girl with the Pearl Earring, Lost in Translation, The Man Who Wasn’t There, Manny and Lo
• Jeremy Renner – Arrival, 28 Weeks Later, North Country
• Tom Hiddleston – The Night Manager, High-Rise, Only Lovers Left Alive, The Hollow Crown, The Deep Blue Sea, Thor
• Clark Gregg – Much Ado About Nothing, Thor, Five Hundred Days of Summer, In Good Company, The Human Stain, The Usual Suspects
• Stellan Skarsgård – Mamma Mia Here We Go Again, Our Kind of Traitor, Cinderella, The Railway Man, Melancholia, Thor, Frankie & Alice, Mamma Mia, Pirates of the Caribbean et al, Dogville, The Glass House, Dancer in the Dark, Amistad, Good Will Hunting, Breaking the Waves, Hamlet, Den enfaldige mördaren
• Samuel L. Jackson - The Hateful Eight, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Django Unchained, Jumper, 1408, Star Wars, Kill Bill, Changing Lanes, The Red Violin, Jackie Brown, The Long Kiss Goodnight, True Romance, Jurassic Park, Pulp Fiction, Jungle Fever, Mo’ Better Blues, Sea of Love, Do the Right Thing
• Gwyneth Paltrow – Mortdecai, Contagion, Two Lovers, Infamous, Proof, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, The Royal Tenenbaums, Shakespeare in Love, The Perfect Murder, Sliding Doors
• Harry Dean Stanton – The Man Who Cried, The Green Mile, The Straight Story, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Wild at Heart, The Last Temptation of Christ, Paris Texas, G.I. Jane, Rose, Alien, Godfather II, endless 60’s TV series
• Why? Whedon, the cast
• Seen:11 December 2020      

       Let’s just say that when things go terribly wrong, and the Universe is in danger, Loki (Hiddleston) walks through a force field to make everything even worse. Good guy (sort of) Captain (or whatever) Fury (Jackson) decides that the only solution is to gather a gang of superheroes, call them the Avengers and put them to work.

       There’s a lot wrong with the film (sorry, Joss). The story is thin, the action and plenitude of fighting is boring, it’s too long, and Hemsworth as Thor and Evans as Captain America have about as much appeal and charisma as a cardboard box.

       It is, however, funny and it’s a joy watching the other actors making lots of money with this nonsense and clever one-liners. Hiddleston is especially adorable (isn’t he always?), Ruffalo is cuddly when he’s not a huge great nasty roarer, Johansson is always as cool as they come, and Downey Jr, well what can I say? No wonder Paltrow is in love with him.

 

 3 ½ * of 5 (Hal is underwhelmed and gives it 2*.)

 

High Life

 

High Life 2018

• Director: Claire Denis
• Seen by the director: Chocolat (not the one with Binoche, the other one)
• Based on book: no
• Cast: Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, André Benjamin, Mia Goth, Agata Buzek, Lars Eidinger, Claire Tran, Ewan Mitchell, Gloria Obianyo, Jessie Ross
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Robert Pattinson - Queen of the Desert, Twilight, Remember Me, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
• Juliette Binoche – Dan in Real Life, Breaking and Entering, Paris je t’aime, Caché, Chocolat, The English Patient, Rouge, Blanc, Bleu, Wuthering Heights, Les amants du Pont-Neuf
• André Benjamin – Battle in Seattle, Be Cool
• Mia Goth - Wallander
• Claire Tran – Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
• Why? Sci fi
• Seen: 6 December 2020      

       A man and a baby on a spaceship plagued by malfunction. Who are they? What are they doing there? Where is everyone else? What happened?

       Slowly the story emerges. It was a ship populated by hardened young criminal on a mission beyond the solar system to approach a black hole and harvest energy. One of the criminals, Dibs (Binoche), who murdered her children and husband, has another mission, to force her fellow passengers to produce foetuses and living healthy babies. Only one baby survives. The father is Monte (Pattinson).

       It’s a surreal psychological and sociological study of losers from a future dying Earth confined on a dying spaceship surrounded by a lethal universe on a very long and very slow suicide mission with no possibility for success. The film is strange, at times violent and perverse. It’s very slow and often unpleasant.

       I can’t see the point, possibly there is none although she made the film for a reason I assume. And in fact, it’s fascinating and beautifully filmed and the actors give strong performances.      

3 * of 5 (Hal says 4)  

 

1917

 

1917 (2019)

• Director: Sam Mendes
• Seen by the director: Spectre, Skyfall, Road to Perdition
• Based on book: no
• Cast: Dean-Charles Chapman, George MacKay, Claire Duburcq, with small roles played by Colin Firth, Andrew Scott, Mark Strong and Benedict Cumberbatch
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Dean-Charles Chapman – Breathe, Before I Go to Sleep
• George MacKay – Sunshine on Leith, Defiance, Rose & Maloney
• Why? Subject
• Seen: 5 December 2020      

       Two young soldiers, Blake (Chapman) and Schofield (MacKay), are sent through no man’s land and enemy territory reportedly abandoned by retreating Germans to warn British troops of a trap being set by the Germans which would cost hundreds of lives. We follow Blake and Sco step by step through barbed wire, deserted trenches, bombed out wasteland, collapsing and booby-trapped German trenches, past rotting corpses of soldiers and horses, across empty fields, through empty farms, town ruins.

       We’ve seen many films about World War I. This is one day, one mission, two soldiers in France in April 1917.      

4 ½ * of 5   

 

 

Tomorrowland

 

Tomorrowland 2015

• Director: Brad Bird
• Based on book: no
• Cast: George Clooney, Britt Robertson, Hugh Laurie, Raffey Cassidy, Thomas Robinson
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• George Clooney – Hail Caesar, Gravity, The Descendants, Burn After Reading, Michael Clayton, Good Night and Good Luck, Intolerable Cruelty, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Solaris, The Perfect Storm, O Brother Where Art Thou?, The Thin Red Line, Friends
• Britt Robertson – The Space Between Us, Cake, Dan in Real Life
• Hugh Laurie – The Night Manager, Sense and Sensibility, Jeeves and Wooster, Peter’s Friends, Black Adder
• Raffey Cassidy – Dark Shadows
• Why? Hugh Laurie
• Seen: 4 December 2020      

       Sometimes you’ve got to take chances. Hugh Laurie is good. George Clooney can be. Maybe this is better than it looks.

       The future is scary, but when Frank (Clooney) was a kid it was cheery, ‘just a dream away.’ Young Frank (Robinson) invented a rocket pack, but it didn’t quite work so Governor Nix (Laurie) at the Invention Fair turned him down. The girl Athena (Cassidy) was, however, most impressed, and leads him into a very high-tech city in the future. But, adult Frank tells us, everything went wrong.

       Casey (Robertson) disapproves of Frank’s pessimism and tells her own version. She’s a science genius and longs to travel to the stars.

       It’s a kids’ film and the first half hour is a bit shaky but then it’s fun and I find myself liking it a lot. The cast is great, and the story is entertaining. It’s a bit preachy but the message is a good one, the kind of message I try to spread.

       It’s on us. And we can choose to do it. 

 3 ½ * of 5 (Hal is underwhelmed and gives it 2*.)

Doctor Strange

 

Doctor Strange 2016

• Director: Scott Derrickson
• Also seen by this director: The Day the Earth Stood Still
• Based on a book: no
• Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Chiewetel Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams, Benedict Wong, Mads Mikkelsen, Tilda Swinton
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Benedict Cumberbatch – The Child in Time, Sherlock, Richard III, The Hollow Crown, The Imitation Game, August Osage County, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Small Island, Creation, The Other Boleyn Girl, Atonement, Amazing Grace, Starter for 10, To Kill a King
• Chiewetel Ejiofor – The Martian, Dancing on the Edge, 2012, Children of Men, Kinky Boots, Serenity, Love Actually, Dirty Pretty Things, Amistad
• Rachel McAdams – About Time, Sherlock Holmes Game of Shadows, Sherlock Holmes, The Time Traveller’s Wife, Slings and Arrows
• Benedict Wong – Annihilation, The Martian, Prometheus, Johnny English Reborn, Sunshine, Tristram Shandy, Dirty Pretty Things, Wit
• Mads Mikkelsen – Arctic, Rogue One, Casino Royale
• Tilda Swinton – Hail Caesar, The Zero Theorem, Snowpiercer, Only Lovers Left Alive, Moonrise Kingdom, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Burn After Reading,  Michael Clayton, Broken Flowers, Thumbsucker, Young Adam, Adaption, Beach, Orlando
• Why? Recommended by friends.
• Seen: 29 November 2020      

       Impressive cast.

       Doctor Stephen Strange (Cumberbatch speaking AmE) is an extremely skilled neurosurgeon, charming, arrogant, rich and famous. When his hands are severely damaged in a car crash (cause by his own arrogance) he refuses to accept that he will never operate again.

       Kamar Taj, Nepal. Multi-universes. Super magic. Mind over matter.

       Loads of special effects (more than necessary). Stephen is amusing, one of Cumberbatch’s more likeable roles (unlike the rest of the world, I loathed Sherlock, and he was dreadful as Richard III). A bit of Harry Potter, a bit of Doctor Who, a bit of Batman, a bit of Primeval. It’s entertaining but astral fist fights are just as boring as material ones.

 2 ½* of 5

 

Glass

 

Glass 2019

• Director: M Night Shyamalan
• Seen by the director: Split, The Happening, The Village, Sixth Sense
• Based on book: no
• Cast: James McAvoy, Samuel L Jackson, Bruce Willis, Anya Taylor-Joy, Sarah Poulson, Spencer Treat Clark, Charlayne Woodard
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• James McAvoy – Split, Filth, Wanted, Atonement, Becoming Jane, Starter for 10, Shakespeare Retold Macbeth, Inside I’m Dancing, Bright Young Things, White Teeth, X-Men
• Samuel L Jackson – The Hateful Eight, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Django Unchained, Jumper, 1408, Star Wars, Kill Bill, Changing Lanes, The Red Violin, Jackie Brown, The Long Kiss Goodnight, True Romance, Jurassic Park, Pulp Fiction, Jungle Fever, Mo’ Better Blues, Sea of Love, Do the Right Thing
• Bruce Willis - Looper, Moonrise Kingdom, Friends, The Siege, Armageddon, The Fifth Element, The Twelve Monkeys, Billy Bathgate, Pulp Fiction, In Country, Die Hard
• Anya Taylor-Joy - Split
• Sarah Poulson - Serenity
• Spencer Treat Clark – Cymbeline, Much Ado About Nothing, Mystic River, Gladiator
• Charlayne Woodard – Terminator the Sarah Connor Chronicles, Hair
• Why? Sequel to Split
• Seen: 28 November 2020      

       Kevin and all his DID personalities (McAvoy) are still out there murdering young women. David (Willis) walks around all day hunting him and other villains. He’s psychic. Amazingly he catches him/them. Even more amazing is that they are both locked up in a high security mental hospital, where Elijah (Jackson) also happens to be. They are all under the care of Dr Staple (Poulson) who is researching individuals who believe they are super-heroes.

       Casey (Taylor-Joy), one of Kevin’s victims in Split, gets involved.

       The story emerges only slowly, and the surprising twists don’t end until the last frame.

       Now is a fine time to discover that this is the third in a trilogy so now we’ve got to watch the first one! With Willis and Jackson.

      

4 * of 5   

 

 

The Nanny

 The Nanny 1965

• Director: Seth Holt
• Based on the novel by Marryam Modell (Evelyn Piper)
• Cast: Bette Davis, Wendy Craig, Jill Bennett, James Villiers, William Dix, Pamela Franklin
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Bette Davis – The Winds of August, Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, Pocketful of Miracles, All About Eve, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex,
• Jill Bennett – For Your Eyes Only, Moulin Rouge
• James Villiers - For Your Eyes Only
• Pamela Franklin – The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, various TV series in the 60s
• Why? Bette Davis
• Seen: 22 November 2020      

       In a well-to-do but dysfunctional family the boy Joey (Dix) returns home after time in a home for disturbed children. The daughter in the family has died under mysterious circumstances.

       It’s Bette Davis and she’s a nanny so we immediately assume that she’s the villain. But Joey certainly seems to be a little monster, so whodunnit?

       It could be a manifesto to reveal unfair work conditions for child minders and servants, but I think it’s just meant to be a psychological thriller. The cast is very good, Davis is as Davis is and I am fond of black and white films. 

3* of 5.