The Way He Looks

 The Way He Looks 2014 (Hoje eu quero voltar sozinho)  

• Director: Daniel Ribiero
• Based on the book: no
• Cast: Ghilherme Lobo, Fabio Audi, Tess Amorim
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• None of them
• Why? It’s worth a try
• Seen: 31 December 2021       

       Teen-aged Leo (Lobo) is blind. His best friend is Giavana (Amorim). The kids in school bully him. A new kid Gabriel (Audi) joins his class. He and Leo become friends and Giovana feels abandoned.

       Just another teenage angst boy-meets-boy romance. Only one of them is blind and it’s in Portuguese, taking place in Brazil. That’s not enough to make it interesting. But for trying it gets 

2 * of 5.

 

 

Anna and the Apocalypse update 2021

 Update 26 December 2021 

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

Update 26 December 2021: nothing new to add but that it’s even better the second time. Now promoted to 4* of 5, and yes, definitely a Christmas tradition for us.

 

Last Christmas

 Last Christmas 2019

• Director: Paul Feig
• Seen by this director: TV episodes
• Based on the book: no
• Cast: Emilia Clarke, Henry Golding, Emma Thompson, Michelle Yeoh, Boris Isakovich, Lydia Leonard, Peter Mygind, Jade Anouka, Calvin Demba
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Emilia Clarke –amazingly nothing
• Henry Golding – The Gentlemen
• Emma Thompson – Effie Gray, The Children Act, Alone in Berlin, The Love Punch, Beautiful Creatures, Harry Potter, Nanny McPhee, Stranger than Fiction, Angels in America, Love Actually, Wit, The Winter Guest, Sense and Sensibility, In the Name of the Father, The Remans of the Day, Much Ado about Nothing, Peter’s Friends, Howards End, Dead Again, Impromptu, Henry V, Fortunes of War, Tutti-Frutti
• Michelle Yeoh – Sunshine, Tomorrow Never Dies
• Lydia Leonard – River, The Fifth Estate
• Jade Anouka – Fisherman’s Friends, Doctor Who
• Why? Emma Thompson
• Seen: 25 December 2021       

       There are very few Christmas films I am willing to see but this was written by Emma Thompson, and she plays the neurotic mother here and Thompson is Thompson no matter what. Therefore, here we sit on Christmas Day.

       Kate (Clarke) loves George Michael (thus the film’s title) and has a messed-up life: nowhere to sleep except for quickly-losing-patience- mates (she tends to break precious things) or one-night pick-ups at pubs. She’s a singer who fails at auditions. She works as an elf in a year-round Christmas shop run by a Chinese Santa (Yeoh) who is addicted to truly dreadful Christmas kitsch. Kate has serious problems with her family, refugees from the war in Former Yugoslavia. She has been seriously and should take care of herself but doesn’t.

       Then she meets Tom (Golding), a saintly do-gooder who’s annoyingly fun to be with and who has his own problems.

       The twist at the end was a real surprise. Hmmmm. There’s a tad too much feel-good at the very end but the characters are all quirky enough to carry it. The two leads are terrific, and Golding has the most beautiful speaking voice. This will become a Christmas standard along with Love Actually, The Holiday and Anna and the Apocalypse. 

4 * of 5.

 

 

It's a Wonderful Life

 It’s a Wonderful Life 1946

• Director: Frank Capra
• Seen by this director: Arsenic and Old Lace, It Happened One Night, maybe others
• Based on the book: no
• Cast: James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, Thomas Mitchel, Beulah Bondi, Gloria Grahame
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• James Stewart – The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Greatest Show on Earth, Bell Book and Candle, Vertigo, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Rear Window, Harvey, Rope, maybe others
• Donna Reed – Pepe, maybe others
• Lionel Barrymore – Probably something
• Thomas Mitchell – TV series
• Beulah Bondi – TV series
• Gloria Grahame – The Greatest Show on Earth, Oklahoma
• Why? James Stewart. And direct orders from several friends to see it NOW!
• Seen: 24 December 2021      

       Oh no, it starts with people praying. For George Bailey (Stewart). But OK, it’s all rather secular so maybe it’s all right.

       George has been a thoroughly decent person since he was a kid. Everyone loves him. Now he’s so despondent over all that life has done to him that he’s contemplating suicide for the insurance money. Apprentice angel Clarence (Mitchell) is sent down to Earth to help him.

       This is George’s story. And the story of his broken dreams.

       The film is as good as they say.  

4 ½ * of 5.

 

Billy Elliot the Musical

 Billy Elliot the Musical 2014

• Director: Brett Sullivan (live stage version)
• Seen by this director: I Robot, The Crow
• Based on the book: no
• Cast: Elliot Hanna, Ruthie Henshall, Deka Walmsley, Ann Emery, Chris Grahamson, Zach Atkinson
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• None of them. They’re mostly stage performers.
• Why? Need you ask?
• Seen: On stage in London. On DVD six or seven times previously. Now: 23 December 2021.      

       Nobody can match Jamie Bell, Julie Walters or Gary Lewis in these roles. Billy Elliot is one of the absolutely best films ever made.

       But when we saw this musical at the Victoria Theatre in London we were lost at ‘The Stars Look Down’ and in complete thrall until ‘Once Were Kings’, with many a tear in between. And many a laugh.

       When it was filmed and released on DVD our bliss was complete.

       This time we’re including it in our Christmas film watching because of the wonderful ‘Merry Christmas, Maggie Thatcher.’

       Like the film, this production gets 

10* of 10.

Down in the Delta

 Down in the Delta 1998

• Director: Maya Angelou
• Based on the book: no
• Cast: Alfre Woodard, Al Freeman Jr, Mary Alice, Esther Rolle, Loretta Divine, Wesley Snipes
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Alfre Woodard – 12 Years a Slave, American Violet, Bopha, Remember My Name
• Al Freeman Jr – Malcolm X, Finian’s Rainbow, TV series
• Mary Alice – Matrix Revolutions, A Perfect World, I’ll Fly Away, Malcolm X, Awakenings,
• Esther Rolle– Driving Miss Daisy
• Loretta Divine – Dream Girls, Crash, I Am Sam, Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, Stanley & Iris
• Wesley Snipes – White Men Can’t Jump, Jungle Fever, Mo’ Better Blues
• Why? It sounded interesting. Good cast.
• Seen: 19 December 2021      

       Loretta (Woodard) has two kids, a drinking problem, no job, and an angry churchy mother Rosa (Alice). They live in Chicago. To save Loretta from self-destructing, Rosa sends her and the kids to Uncle Earl (Freeman) in the Delta.

       It’s very yay family and rural living, yay church and the lord, boo hiss big city.

       Woodard makes it worth watching. She’s very good. As are Snipes and Divine. But let me tell you, if anyone forced me to live in Mariana, Mississippi, I’d have more to offer than the sceptical dirty looks Woodard does so well. Violence would be involved. That goes for any other small rural town in the world.

       The little bit of slave history is interesting but it’s kind of shoe-horned in. I appreciate what Angelou was striving for in this film but it’s just too sweet and predictable to really work.

 2 1/2 * of 5.

 

Kon-Tiki

 Kon-tiki 2012

• Director: Joachim Rönning, Espen Sandberg
• Based on the book, sort of, by Thor Heyderdahl
• Cast: Pål Sverre Hagen, Anders Baasmo Christiansson, Gustaf Skarsgård, Odd-Magnus Williamsson, Tobias Santelman, Jakob Oftebro, Agnes Kittelsen
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Gustaf Skarsgår – 438 dagar
• Jakob Oftebro – Snowman
• Why? I’ve loved the whole idea since my dad bought the book in the 50s.
• Seen: 18^th December 2021      

       Thor Heyderdahl, Norwegian anthropologist, has a theory that fifteen hundred years ago Peruvians set out westward across the Pacific Ocean on rafts built of balsam wood to populate the Polynesian islands. Five thousand miles. Everyone laughs at him. Ridiculous! Impossible!

       He decides to prove them wrong by doing it himself. His wife and sons are not happy about it, but he’s obsessed. He gets a crew together and off they go.

       Storms. Sharks. Illness. Madness. Fear. Conflicts.

       At times it’s so dramatic that I’m literally biting my nails. I love that science is so exciting. And beautiful. And provable.

       Maybe now I’ll finally read the book.     

5* of 5.