I took my children, 7 and 8 to see this on the weekend and they loved it. It is silly, childish, overly sentimental, has easily identifiable goodies and baddies and plenty of slapstick - in other words your typical kids film. Viewed in that light it isn't bad and there are some very funny moments, like the flatulent zebra and the surprisingly advanced (for a film like this) joke about the ball bearings - much cruder than usual for an American movie. Us Brits love that kind of thing however.
Reviews
30 Reviews
Pearl Harbor
(2001)
Good for a laugh........
3 June 2001
Warning: Spoilers
This really does leave no cliche unsaid and no trite cinematic plot device unused. I sat through the first hour with friends, several of whom said they were going to leave (but didn't) and we weren't the only ones snorting into our popcorn with disbelief or guffawing at quite incredibly banal lines. How Kate Beckinsale got mixed up in this I don't know, she is a very highly educated woman (even if her father was a Seventies sitcom star)- the money I suppose, that is usually it. When she said some really awful line I half expected her to turn to the camera and give a knowing wink at times.
That said, I have to give it to ILM, the attack scenes are brilliant, especially the shot following the bomb down, if cartoonish and I'm not sure it was possible to fly planes that close to the ground or close together without wind shear causing upsets, but no matter for that section of the film I was transfixed.
The film is very easy on the Japanese who were a fascist military dictatorship who did after all attack without declaring war and whilst still talking peace.
Some gripes, the whole cinema here laughed when (over a siren sounding the all clear not the alert) the newsreel spoke of Hitler's Luftwaffe bombing 'downtown London' (it just sounds very odd to British ears), Roosevelt's cabinet members talked of giving aid to Russia before it was in the war (the US did give the UK help before it joined the war but made us pay handsomely for it) and I just couldn't get Ewen Bremner's 'Trainspotting' role out of my mind when seeing him in this. This was the first and probably last raid there ever was on US citizens in what was very nearly US territory, but I think US audiences should remember London had raids like this almost daily in 1940/41 and continuing for years after (the last German bomb to fall on London was in March 1945!).
If you go to this with the right attitude of healthy scepticism and an ear for irony (not something our American counsins are always good at)you'll probably have a good time. If not, for European audiences it is far too cloyingly sentimental. Voight will probably get Best Supporting Oscar for Roosevelt though.
*Possible Spoiler*
More than a few of the London audience fell about laughing at the end when Affleck came out of the plane and looked back to let his eyes follow a coffin out of the plane. To his credit he looked as if he was having difficulty keeping a straight face too...........
That said, I have to give it to ILM, the attack scenes are brilliant, especially the shot following the bomb down, if cartoonish and I'm not sure it was possible to fly planes that close to the ground or close together without wind shear causing upsets, but no matter for that section of the film I was transfixed.
The film is very easy on the Japanese who were a fascist military dictatorship who did after all attack without declaring war and whilst still talking peace.
Some gripes, the whole cinema here laughed when (over a siren sounding the all clear not the alert) the newsreel spoke of Hitler's Luftwaffe bombing 'downtown London' (it just sounds very odd to British ears), Roosevelt's cabinet members talked of giving aid to Russia before it was in the war (the US did give the UK help before it joined the war but made us pay handsomely for it) and I just couldn't get Ewen Bremner's 'Trainspotting' role out of my mind when seeing him in this. This was the first and probably last raid there ever was on US citizens in what was very nearly US territory, but I think US audiences should remember London had raids like this almost daily in 1940/41 and continuing for years after (the last German bomb to fall on London was in March 1945!).
If you go to this with the right attitude of healthy scepticism and an ear for irony (not something our American counsins are always good at)you'll probably have a good time. If not, for European audiences it is far too cloyingly sentimental. Voight will probably get Best Supporting Oscar for Roosevelt though.
*Possible Spoiler*
More than a few of the London audience fell about laughing at the end when Affleck came out of the plane and looked back to let his eyes follow a coffin out of the plane. To his credit he looked as if he was having difficulty keeping a straight face too...........
Queen of Destiny
(1938)
Gallop through history
25 February 2001
I caught this when it was shown on a digital channel as a last-minute replacement recently. In the UK at least there has been a lot about Queen Victoria recently as last month was the one hundredth anniversary of her death.
I understand that this film is largely a colour remake of the earlier 'Victoria the Great', made in black and white with much of the same cast a year earlier, but which concentrated much more on the Queen's early life. This film opens with her already Queen and largely deals with her life with Albert until his death in 1861. The rest of the film is a very quick gallop through the political ups and downs and technological achievements of the last 40 years she was on the throne.
Dame Anna Neagle, whose husband Herbert Wilcox was the producer of this, is less imperious than perhaps she could have been, but I suppose one must remember that this was made 62 years ago and the Queen had only then been dead some 37 years.
The sets and costumes are sumptuous, the expense when this was made must have been immense. It would also appear that the Palace, having seen the success of the earlier film, and the Royal family being shell-shocked by in the Abdication, saw this as a blessed piece of positive spin. The result is that this has exteriors shot at Balmoral, Windsor Castle, Osborne House (where much of 'Mrs Brown' was filmed) and Buckingham Palace, where they appeared to have had access to the inner courtyard which has probably unprecedented for the time. I don't believe any other commercial film has had permission to film inside Buckingham Palace.
The history is accurate if sanitised but it all seems a little stilted to modern ears but is still worth a look, museum piece as it is.
I understand that this film is largely a colour remake of the earlier 'Victoria the Great', made in black and white with much of the same cast a year earlier, but which concentrated much more on the Queen's early life. This film opens with her already Queen and largely deals with her life with Albert until his death in 1861. The rest of the film is a very quick gallop through the political ups and downs and technological achievements of the last 40 years she was on the throne.
Dame Anna Neagle, whose husband Herbert Wilcox was the producer of this, is less imperious than perhaps she could have been, but I suppose one must remember that this was made 62 years ago and the Queen had only then been dead some 37 years.
The sets and costumes are sumptuous, the expense when this was made must have been immense. It would also appear that the Palace, having seen the success of the earlier film, and the Royal family being shell-shocked by in the Abdication, saw this as a blessed piece of positive spin. The result is that this has exteriors shot at Balmoral, Windsor Castle, Osborne House (where much of 'Mrs Brown' was filmed) and Buckingham Palace, where they appeared to have had access to the inner courtyard which has probably unprecedented for the time. I don't believe any other commercial film has had permission to film inside Buckingham Palace.
The history is accurate if sanitised but it all seems a little stilted to modern ears but is still worth a look, museum piece as it is.
They don't come much better than this
22 January 2001
Albert Finney's first film is set in the North of England in the late 1950s. Times are changing as living standards rise quickly and social attitudes become more flexible - or are they? Whereby, of course, hangs the film. Arthur Seaton is out for a good time within the confines of his life and the film foreshadows attitudes that became prevalent in later decades.
Shot in black and white, probably to give a realstic feel, and the scenes at the fairground are particularly good even today.
I spotted a street and pub near to my home in London used as one of the night exteriors, so although some must have been shot in the grim North, parts of London stood in for Nottingham.
The film is short, pithy and refreshing and even if the central character isn't that nice a guy, your sympathy is with him. British cinema at its best. 8 out of 10 from me.
Shot in black and white, probably to give a realstic feel, and the scenes at the fairground are particularly good even today.
I spotted a street and pub near to my home in London used as one of the night exteriors, so although some must have been shot in the grim North, parts of London stood in for Nottingham.
The film is short, pithy and refreshing and even if the central character isn't that nice a guy, your sympathy is with him. British cinema at its best. 8 out of 10 from me.
Topsy-Turvy
(1999)
Good if you like G & S
15 January 2001
You have to be fairly well disposed to G & S to enjoy this, and it may be a tad long for newcomers.
Jim Broadbent is brilliant as the irascible Gilbert as is Cordunner as the high living Sullivan.
You get big slabs of the Mikado in particular, as the conception, writing and staging of it runs the plot here.
If there is a criticism it is that it has longeurs sometimes (the bit with Gilbert's father seems bizarre) and perhaps 20 minutes could have been chopped with no ill effect.
Perhaps it is a mark either of the stability of the British state or perhaps more likely British taste that 'The Mikado' staged by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company was still being performed in a brilliant new production at the Savoy Theatre in London as of January 2001.
Jim Broadbent is brilliant as the irascible Gilbert as is Cordunner as the high living Sullivan.
You get big slabs of the Mikado in particular, as the conception, writing and staging of it runs the plot here.
If there is a criticism it is that it has longeurs sometimes (the bit with Gilbert's father seems bizarre) and perhaps 20 minutes could have been chopped with no ill effect.
Perhaps it is a mark either of the stability of the British state or perhaps more likely British taste that 'The Mikado' staged by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company was still being performed in a brilliant new production at the Savoy Theatre in London as of January 2001.
Supernova
(I) (2000)
Oh, dear.......
15 January 2001
I picked this up on DVD at the video shop never having heard of it, I certainly don't remember it being released commercially in the UK.
There may be several reasons why. Firstly, the plot is hackneyed - this is the stalker in the big dark house, or perhaps 40 years ago Alistair Maclean would have set it on a wartime submarine. In any event it is a bit of a rip off from 'Alien' with none of the style, sense of fear or panache of that picture.
Secondly this seems to have been hacked about a great deal. The deleted scenes on the DVD (complete with alternative ending) shows that a completely different film may have been contemplated.
Thirdly, so many formulaic elements have been included as background for the characters it seems this film could have been written by a committee. However, I didn't think the SFX were too bad actually and it all looked very expensive. A turkey, not the worse you'll find, but definitely clucking loudly.
There may be several reasons why. Firstly, the plot is hackneyed - this is the stalker in the big dark house, or perhaps 40 years ago Alistair Maclean would have set it on a wartime submarine. In any event it is a bit of a rip off from 'Alien' with none of the style, sense of fear or panache of that picture.
Secondly this seems to have been hacked about a great deal. The deleted scenes on the DVD (complete with alternative ending) shows that a completely different film may have been contemplated.
Thirdly, so many formulaic elements have been included as background for the characters it seems this film could have been written by a committee. However, I didn't think the SFX were too bad actually and it all looked very expensive. A turkey, not the worse you'll find, but definitely clucking loudly.
The Man Who Cried
(2000)
A bit disappointing
31 December 2000
Christina Ricci must have cursed herself for appearing in a film with Cate Blanchett and then finding herself comprehensively acted off the screen by an actress of the highest calibre.
It is a warm story but full of plot holes, why for instance did a Jewish girl with a British passport stay in Paris after it was obvious it would fall to the Germans. And the French didn't start carting off Jews until 1942. Ricci's British accent is wobbly and sometimes entirely absent but then she has so few lines you hardly have time to notice.
Given the few comments here I would hazard a guess that this hasn't found an American distributor yet and it is really only playing European art houses at the moment. Not worth going out of your way to see unless like me you'll see anything with Blanchett in. 6/10
It is a warm story but full of plot holes, why for instance did a Jewish girl with a British passport stay in Paris after it was obvious it would fall to the Germans. And the French didn't start carting off Jews until 1942. Ricci's British accent is wobbly and sometimes entirely absent but then she has so few lines you hardly have time to notice.
Given the few comments here I would hazard a guess that this hasn't found an American distributor yet and it is really only playing European art houses at the moment. Not worth going out of your way to see unless like me you'll see anything with Blanchett in. 6/10
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
(2000)
Good but not their best
1 December 2000
I feel a bit curmudgeonly saying this is not the best from the Coen brothers, because even they are streets ahead of most others. Very different perhaps from Blood Simple (still their best after Fargo)and Lebowski it has some hilarious vignettes, especially the toad/frog scenes.
One thing though, for non-American English speaking ears this was often very difficult to understand and they complain bitterly on here about British or Australian accents in films they find hard to tune into. Well we couldn't understand a lot of this..........swings and roundabouts I suppose.
One thing though, for non-American English speaking ears this was often very difficult to understand and they complain bitterly on here about British or Australian accents in films they find hard to tune into. Well we couldn't understand a lot of this..........swings and roundabouts I suppose.
Mapp & Lucia
(1985–1986)
Hilarious and faithful adaptation
28 October 2000
This was first shown on Channel 4 here in the UK in about 1985, I don't know if it was ever repeated. I missed it then and it wasn't until I read the books several years later that I started to look out for it. I recently got the entire series on video (would have been better on DVD) and it is a hoot.
The main characters were just as I pictured then and the casting was spot on. Geraldine McEwen (not yet a Dame alas, apropos a previous comment) and Nigel Hawthorne (who is indeed Sir Nigel) shine as Lucia and Georgie but perhaps they had easier characters to portray and it is Prunella Scales as Mapp who give the best and most difficult characterisation, though all the parts are really caricatures. Everyone must have had such fun making this and Lucia's costumes are something to behold.
The exteriors are mostly Rye in Sussex, where the author E.F. Benson lived (and was the Mayor). Lucia he probably based on himself, which begs the question who was Georgie in real life?!. You can go to the house he lived in which was clearly Mallards in the books and is now National Trust property. Henry James lived there before him. However, it wasn't used as the exterior here.
Some characters from the books are dropped in the series, the Padre's wife and the Wyses's daughter, but you don't miss them. Traces of McEewen's power mad and devious Lucia can be seen in her portrayal of the mad religous mother in 'Oranges are not the Only Fruit' (1990).
Sip tea and cakes with friends on a wet Sunday afternoon as you watch this - it'll cheer you up no end.
The main characters were just as I pictured then and the casting was spot on. Geraldine McEwen (not yet a Dame alas, apropos a previous comment) and Nigel Hawthorne (who is indeed Sir Nigel) shine as Lucia and Georgie but perhaps they had easier characters to portray and it is Prunella Scales as Mapp who give the best and most difficult characterisation, though all the parts are really caricatures. Everyone must have had such fun making this and Lucia's costumes are something to behold.
The exteriors are mostly Rye in Sussex, where the author E.F. Benson lived (and was the Mayor). Lucia he probably based on himself, which begs the question who was Georgie in real life?!. You can go to the house he lived in which was clearly Mallards in the books and is now National Trust property. Henry James lived there before him. However, it wasn't used as the exterior here.
Some characters from the books are dropped in the series, the Padre's wife and the Wyses's daughter, but you don't miss them. Traces of McEewen's power mad and devious Lucia can be seen in her portrayal of the mad religous mother in 'Oranges are not the Only Fruit' (1990).
Sip tea and cakes with friends on a wet Sunday afternoon as you watch this - it'll cheer you up no end.
Billy Elliot
(2000)
Liberating repressions
15 October 2000
Warning: Spoilers
This may contain spoilers.
For the first time for many years this hard boiled cynic had a tear in his eye at the cinema!
Other have given plot outlines so I won't do that. This boy is just fantastic in his portrayal of Billy, a boy on the edge of starting to discover all that there is in this game we call life. His dancing is pretty uncoordinated but he's got a fire which burns in him telling him to do it and his dance teacher, Julie Walters with fag constantly in hand, sees this too.
One of these life discoveries is to start throwing off what represses you, in this case a blinkered family and social structure that couldn't see firstly that life isn't all the pit, drinking and boxing or secondly that mines have to be closed if there is no coal in them, and however much you strike you can't change that. The saddest line was when Billy is asked if he's been to the magnificent gothic Durham Cathedral as his village is very near there and says he'd never been taken. Billy is surprised to that his father (who sports a Glaswegian accent) has never been to London.
Luckily the miners strike was only a back drop to the story, but for our foreign readers the strike was called by the largely Communist leadership of the miners union without a ballot as a result of which led to only about two thirds of miners striking. The strike had little public support outside the mining areas who responded as one would expect with great violence to those who did continue to exercise the right to work and who naturally asked for police protection. Only Mr Wilkinson on the film hints at the background to the strike.
This is an unashamedly feel good movie which should win some Oscars. Billy's cross dressing friend has the best line in the whole thing though. Billy: 'Why have you got a dress on?' Friend: 'Oh, my Dad does it all the time.' And where do they find those grim locations?
8/10 from me, which is very high, I've only ever given a few films 9 and none 10, though 'Elizabeth' got close.
For the first time for many years this hard boiled cynic had a tear in his eye at the cinema!
Other have given plot outlines so I won't do that. This boy is just fantastic in his portrayal of Billy, a boy on the edge of starting to discover all that there is in this game we call life. His dancing is pretty uncoordinated but he's got a fire which burns in him telling him to do it and his dance teacher, Julie Walters with fag constantly in hand, sees this too.
One of these life discoveries is to start throwing off what represses you, in this case a blinkered family and social structure that couldn't see firstly that life isn't all the pit, drinking and boxing or secondly that mines have to be closed if there is no coal in them, and however much you strike you can't change that. The saddest line was when Billy is asked if he's been to the magnificent gothic Durham Cathedral as his village is very near there and says he'd never been taken. Billy is surprised to that his father (who sports a Glaswegian accent) has never been to London.
Luckily the miners strike was only a back drop to the story, but for our foreign readers the strike was called by the largely Communist leadership of the miners union without a ballot as a result of which led to only about two thirds of miners striking. The strike had little public support outside the mining areas who responded as one would expect with great violence to those who did continue to exercise the right to work and who naturally asked for police protection. Only Mr Wilkinson on the film hints at the background to the strike.
This is an unashamedly feel good movie which should win some Oscars. Billy's cross dressing friend has the best line in the whole thing though. Billy: 'Why have you got a dress on?' Friend: 'Oh, my Dad does it all the time.' And where do they find those grim locations?
8/10 from me, which is very high, I've only ever given a few films 9 and none 10, though 'Elizabeth' got close.
The Limey
(1999)
Very good despite 'you wrote me'
16 August 2000
I loved this film and the directorial effects of strange cutting and overlapping dialogue, but equally I can see these are intensely irritating for others. But isn't it good that sometimes a film challenges you like that?
I actually live in South London, where this man is supposed to come from and I've rarely heard cockney rhyming slang. I have heard 'let's have a butchers' for have a look and the more euphemistic 'I'm having my chalfonts done' (Chalfont St Giles = piles) but nothing else and it seemed very contrived to me to have Wilson spout it and then have to explain it.
That said, this is a great little revenge thriller with Fonda great as a bizarrely toothsome cowardly villain with good support from Newman but it is Stamp who really walks away with this - probably his best outing since Billy Budd.
And yes, I have to agree with an earlier comment as it immediately grated with me and Stamp should have known better. No Brit would ever say 'you wrote me' - we'd always say 'you wrote to me'.
I actually live in South London, where this man is supposed to come from and I've rarely heard cockney rhyming slang. I have heard 'let's have a butchers' for have a look and the more euphemistic 'I'm having my chalfonts done' (Chalfont St Giles = piles) but nothing else and it seemed very contrived to me to have Wilson spout it and then have to explain it.
That said, this is a great little revenge thriller with Fonda great as a bizarrely toothsome cowardly villain with good support from Newman but it is Stamp who really walks away with this - probably his best outing since Billy Budd.
And yes, I have to agree with an earlier comment as it immediately grated with me and Stamp should have known better. No Brit would ever say 'you wrote me' - we'd always say 'you wrote to me'.
This Life
(1996–1997)
Better second time around
16 August 2000
This has just finished a repeat of the whole series in the UK, being shown late every week night during the summer. It is amazing it was first shown nearly five years ago and has been finished over three years now. This has brilliant and believable scripts, tight storylines told with economy, all played with great panache.
Nearly every actor has gone on to better things, if there could be anything better than this, Jack Davenport to Hollywood films, Daniela Nardini into several very good homegrown dramas and Andrew Lincoln does the voiceovers for about 50% of British ads.
The final episode has to be the most satisfying piece of television ever and the final scene of that episode made it into the top 100 TV moments of the Millennium as voted by the UK's Channel 4 viewers.
As a piece of British life in the mid-Nineties it will probably become an icon of the period. As a lawyer myself, the legal scenes were spot on, as befits the author's origins. They left this at the top, and rightly so as anywhere from that final scene would have been down hill.
Nearly every actor has gone on to better things, if there could be anything better than this, Jack Davenport to Hollywood films, Daniela Nardini into several very good homegrown dramas and Andrew Lincoln does the voiceovers for about 50% of British ads.
The final episode has to be the most satisfying piece of television ever and the final scene of that episode made it into the top 100 TV moments of the Millennium as voted by the UK's Channel 4 viewers.
As a piece of British life in the mid-Nineties it will probably become an icon of the period. As a lawyer myself, the legal scenes were spot on, as befits the author's origins. They left this at the top, and rightly so as anywhere from that final scene would have been down hill.
Relative Values
(2000)
Nothing much has happened
26 June 2000
Near the end of this picture one of the characters says 'Well, nothing much has happened' and they were very right. This is a lightweight confection, mildly amusing at most and probably best suited to a female audience over 60.
It is certainly not from one of Coward's best plays and seems to hold back just when some broad farce (which it badly needed) was about to begin. The class theme and story seems terribly dated now as does the horror of an aristocratic family marrying an American (or so we are led to believe) but I suppose we have to remember this was written only a decade and a half after the King had to abdicate to marry an American.
Stephen Fry gives good value as the butler and Colin Firth is cast rather against type as a bitchy queen and has the best scene in the film with Baldwin, aping scenes from Casablanca.
Julie Andrews plays Julie Andrews as ever, so no change there then.
I'll be generous and give it 6/10.
It is certainly not from one of Coward's best plays and seems to hold back just when some broad farce (which it badly needed) was about to begin. The class theme and story seems terribly dated now as does the horror of an aristocratic family marrying an American (or so we are led to believe) but I suppose we have to remember this was written only a decade and a half after the King had to abdicate to marry an American.
Stephen Fry gives good value as the butler and Colin Firth is cast rather against type as a bitchy queen and has the best scene in the film with Baldwin, aping scenes from Casablanca.
Julie Andrews plays Julie Andrews as ever, so no change there then.
I'll be generous and give it 6/10.
Gangster No. 1
(2000)
Better than I thought
13 June 2000
I saw this with a friend as a second choice compromise and we were both pleasingly surprised. This is a very violent film with gratuitous obscene language in abundance and if that puts you off, don't see it. It doesn't betray its stage origins much either save in two longish scenes at the beginning and end between Thewlis and McDonald.
It is a story about gang warfare in London in the late Sixties and the rise to power of the main character who is never named (indeed in the credits he is noted as gangster 55). I'm not one to look for such subtexts usually but this had a strong homoerotic theme below it - the gangster is never seen to be intimate with a woman and is intensely jealous of the Thewlis character, whereby hangs the whole film.
One particular gory scene is seen by the audience from the victim's point of view and really is very frightening - the young actor playing the gangster, and like another reviewer his name escapes me, was very good in this particular scene (and indeed throughout) and should go far.
Malcolm McDowell redeems his years in (presumably lucrative) American tat with a role he could got well over the top in and get away with it. And Jamie Foreman does a good impression of someone who could be the now dead Ronnie Kray, who he apparently knew as a young boy.
The best though is Thewlis - I'll go to see anything with him in, even the Big Lebowski, and I'm never disappointed.
An 8 out of 10 from me.
It is a story about gang warfare in London in the late Sixties and the rise to power of the main character who is never named (indeed in the credits he is noted as gangster 55). I'm not one to look for such subtexts usually but this had a strong homoerotic theme below it - the gangster is never seen to be intimate with a woman and is intensely jealous of the Thewlis character, whereby hangs the whole film.
One particular gory scene is seen by the audience from the victim's point of view and really is very frightening - the young actor playing the gangster, and like another reviewer his name escapes me, was very good in this particular scene (and indeed throughout) and should go far.
Malcolm McDowell redeems his years in (presumably lucrative) American tat with a role he could got well over the top in and get away with it. And Jamie Foreman does a good impression of someone who could be the now dead Ronnie Kray, who he apparently knew as a young boy.
The best though is Thewlis - I'll go to see anything with him in, even the Big Lebowski, and I'm never disappointed.
An 8 out of 10 from me.
Maybe Baby
(2000)
Hmmm.......
4 June 2000
This romantic comedy lost its way a bit leaving it only partly romantic and I'm afraid not always very funny. There are a few shots at Auntie (the BBC for our overseas readers) and several very good lines though some may be very familiar to those who have seen writer Ben Elton's stand up show or his BBC series.
A full cast of 80s alternative comedians makes their appearance, Emma Thompson almost looking identical to her mother in 'Saving Grace' in her mad hippie cameo and Dawn French affecting a bizarre Aussie accent as a nurse.
Hugh Laurie does well as always in his role as a sort of alternative 90s Cary Grant and James Purefoy will get most people's juices running (cf. the line by Joanna Lumley's character quoted in an earlier comment) but all in all this just wasn't funny enough, I don't know why, perhaps there were just too many targets.
Only 6/10 from me I'm afraid.
A full cast of 80s alternative comedians makes their appearance, Emma Thompson almost looking identical to her mother in 'Saving Grace' in her mad hippie cameo and Dawn French affecting a bizarre Aussie accent as a nurse.
Hugh Laurie does well as always in his role as a sort of alternative 90s Cary Grant and James Purefoy will get most people's juices running (cf. the line by Joanna Lumley's character quoted in an earlier comment) but all in all this just wasn't funny enough, I don't know why, perhaps there were just too many targets.
Only 6/10 from me I'm afraid.
All in the Family
(1971–1979)
Originally a British show
30 May 2000
Nobody commenting here seems aware that this supposedly quintessential American show was originally a British sitcom running from 1966 to 1975, called 'Till death do us Part' and which was very controversial when first shown in the UK in the Sixties - in America it took several years before such issues could be aired. Perhaps the theme was universal though - bigots when exposed to rational thought are ridiculous. It never really took off here partly because with very few chnages sometimes the scripts were lifted from our version - you will see if you look at the credits for this show (on the tapes not on this database)that its origins and original writer here, Johnny Speight, were always credited.
In our version the layabout son in law was played by an actor called Tony Booth who's daughter Cherie married Tony Blair, who later because PM of the UK!
In our version the layabout son in law was played by an actor called Tony Booth who's daughter Cherie married Tony Blair, who later because PM of the UK!
Saving Grace
(2000)
Another quirky Ealing style comedy
28 May 2000
This wasn't quite as good as the billing and the story almost ran on tramlines but it is amusing. All the Ealing elements are there, friendly small community, local worthy in difficulty, big bank threatening, baddies who are incompetent, a funny climax and a happy ending.
Look out for Emma Thompson's mum as a stoned shop-keeper with a strange line in headgear and Denise Coffey, an under-rated actress who I remember running home from primary school to see in 'Do Not Adjust Your set' with Eric Idle in about 1967.
Worth a look and Blethyn is good as always but not quite as good as it could have been, perhaps a tad sentimental for modern British tastes but might play well in American art houses. Nice Cornish (?) scenery.
Look out for Emma Thompson's mum as a stoned shop-keeper with a strange line in headgear and Denise Coffey, an under-rated actress who I remember running home from primary school to see in 'Do Not Adjust Your set' with Eric Idle in about 1967.
Worth a look and Blethyn is good as always but not quite as good as it could have been, perhaps a tad sentimental for modern British tastes but might play well in American art houses. Nice Cornish (?) scenery.
The Winslow Boy
(1999)
A filmed play
28 May 2000
I've just seen this on DVD as I missed it on it's brief general release here in the UK. This play is excellent on stage where the constraints of live theatre mean much happens off stage and has to be reported by those on stage. Sometimes where not much happens off stage a filming can work - see Asquith's 'Importance of being Earnest' for a good example.
Filming such a play means you can open it out and this cried out for it. There are some scenes in Parliament sure but we needed a bit of the courtroom drama. The dramatic scene between Morton and the boy comes off rather low key here, whereas it is brilliant and intense on stage.
There is very good acting here and the restrained emotions typical of the British middle classes then (and now for that matter) but with just a little more opening out this could have been so much better.
The play was based on a real life case of 1912 called the Archer-Shee case - the boy was killed in the First Worl War. The First Lord of the Admiralty (or minister for the Royal Navy for our overseas readers) then was Winston Churchill I believe. Mamet's made a bit of a point with the casting of the First Lord in his version.
The 1949 version is better in my book.
Filming such a play means you can open it out and this cried out for it. There are some scenes in Parliament sure but we needed a bit of the courtroom drama. The dramatic scene between Morton and the boy comes off rather low key here, whereas it is brilliant and intense on stage.
There is very good acting here and the restrained emotions typical of the British middle classes then (and now for that matter) but with just a little more opening out this could have been so much better.
The play was based on a real life case of 1912 called the Archer-Shee case - the boy was killed in the First Worl War. The First Lord of the Admiralty (or minister for the Royal Navy for our overseas readers) then was Winston Churchill I believe. Mamet's made a bit of a point with the casting of the First Lord in his version.
The 1949 version is better in my book.
Up at the Villa
(2000)
Good adaptation
7 May 2000
This doesn't seem to be getting a very wide release in the UK though it is a fine little film, fairly faithful to the W. Somerset Maugham novella from which it is taken.
Kristin Scott Thomas was exactly my idea of the heroine Mary Panton, a British widow in late 1938 Florence, who in short order has a marriage proposal, falls in love and has a one night stand and then gets mixed up in a sub-Hitchcockian plot with Sean Penn.
There's a great cameo from Anne Bancroft as an ex-pat American (with a cruel streak towards the end).
Not outstanding, but it hangs together and you feel you've had a bit of high and low culture by the end. Derek Jacobi seems wasted though and the underlying theme of the rise and corruption of fascism is absent from the book, but I think helps here.
Kristin Scott Thomas was exactly my idea of the heroine Mary Panton, a British widow in late 1938 Florence, who in short order has a marriage proposal, falls in love and has a one night stand and then gets mixed up in a sub-Hitchcockian plot with Sean Penn.
There's a great cameo from Anne Bancroft as an ex-pat American (with a cruel streak towards the end).
Not outstanding, but it hangs together and you feel you've had a bit of high and low culture by the end. Derek Jacobi seems wasted though and the underlying theme of the rise and corruption of fascism is absent from the book, but I think helps here.
Kevin & Perry Go Large
(2000)
Crude and unsophisticated but very funny
25 April 2000
Loads of knob gags, verbal and visual, teenage angst tackled head on and some fun cameos make for anything but a family film.You really feel for Kevin and Perry sometimes, even now 20 yeasr after I was a teenager, but they can be obnoxious. Rhys Ifans is good as a horribly seedy DJ (the scene in the limo when he licks his fingers is particuarly base) and the girls squeezing their spots will have you squirming.
That said there were lots of belly laughs amongst the crudity. This isn't a subtle film but if you don't expect much and know what to expect you won't waste your money.
Why is this being noted as a TV film when it is on UK wide cinema release?
That said there were lots of belly laughs amongst the crudity. This isn't a subtle film but if you don't expect much and know what to expect you won't waste your money.
Why is this being noted as a TV film when it is on UK wide cinema release?
Doesn't include the Amp
14 March 2000
While this can't seem to decide whether its a comedy or a thriller perhaps that doesn't matter because its a cracking film with great pace and humour and a bloody convoluted Jacobean plot. I loved the camera tricks which so annoyed others (I particularly liked the sceen introducing Soap with a saucepan shot from below) and the grainy stock.
With no great stars (save perhaps Vinie Jones who for our oversea readers was a very big football [i.e. soccer] star before taking up acting) the cast is spot on. I believe that there is only one female speaking role (the croupier) and only two female roles all told, which must be a record of some sort these days.
Brits and Aussies (the Oz accent being an extension of cockney) won't have problems with the accents but for goodness sake Americans, more English speakers live outside the US than in it and we've struggled for years with heavy New York or Southern US accents without complaint. I've never understood what Blanche in the Golden Girls was on about for instance and the Dukes of Hazzard only became intelligible when we got teletext sub-titles about 20 years ago.
Yes, the are superfical likeness to a number of films and the ending is a bit of a rip off from the Italian Job, but hey, this hung together very well even so. And in the last scene, which is actually set on Battersea Bridge in London, you can see my flat in the background...........
9 out of 10 from me. Can't wait for the next Guy Ritchie with Vinnie again and Brad Pitt.
With no great stars (save perhaps Vinie Jones who for our oversea readers was a very big football [i.e. soccer] star before taking up acting) the cast is spot on. I believe that there is only one female speaking role (the croupier) and only two female roles all told, which must be a record of some sort these days.
Brits and Aussies (the Oz accent being an extension of cockney) won't have problems with the accents but for goodness sake Americans, more English speakers live outside the US than in it and we've struggled for years with heavy New York or Southern US accents without complaint. I've never understood what Blanche in the Golden Girls was on about for instance and the Dukes of Hazzard only became intelligible when we got teletext sub-titles about 20 years ago.
Yes, the are superfical likeness to a number of films and the ending is a bit of a rip off from the Italian Job, but hey, this hung together very well even so. And in the last scene, which is actually set on Battersea Bridge in London, you can see my flat in the background...........
9 out of 10 from me. Can't wait for the next Guy Ritchie with Vinnie again and Brad Pitt.
Bedrooms and Hallways
(1998)
Ealing Comedy for the Nineties
13 March 2000
This is a gentle romantic comedy about the diversity of human sexuality and in some ways not unlike an Ealing comedy with its friendly pokes at New Agers and estate agents.
It was very well worth it alone though for the Jane Austen send up scene - handsome James Purefoy striding about in breeches saying 'I've been out all day whipping stable boys - would you like a whipping, boy' to footman Kevin McKidd who nearly orgasms on the spot. This is a bit of a cinematic in joke anyway as several of the cast (Purefoy, Ehle and Walter) have all starred in recent Austen adapataions.
There are several belly laughs too - this is one for curling up with someone of the same or opposite sex, and having a cuddle and glass of wine whilst you enjoy it.
It was very well worth it alone though for the Jane Austen send up scene - handsome James Purefoy striding about in breeches saying 'I've been out all day whipping stable boys - would you like a whipping, boy' to footman Kevin McKidd who nearly orgasms on the spot. This is a bit of a cinematic in joke anyway as several of the cast (Purefoy, Ehle and Walter) have all starred in recent Austen adapataions.
There are several belly laughs too - this is one for curling up with someone of the same or opposite sex, and having a cuddle and glass of wine whilst you enjoy it.
American Beauty
(1999)
Brilliant tragi-comedy - Jane Austen on acid
7 February 2000
After I came out of the cinema having seen this the strangest thought hit me and that was that were she alive Jane Austen could have written and directed this - well perhaps after a tab of acid. She always said that all she needed was a small town and six or seven characters and she could spin a compelling story. And this is what you get here, it wa slike a novel where you can't wait to find out what happened next and like Austen there are plenty of laughs (and some real belly laughs at that) and huge tragedy as have all the best comedies if not so directly as here.
This film has what so many American films lack - a sense of the ridiculous and of irony. The fact that it had a British theatre director shone through, but he had very good material to work with.
Kevin Spacey does here what only great actors can do, and not many American actors, and that is underact, Olivier could do it and Guinness is best at it but Spacey brought great subtlety to this role. In comparison, Bening was shrill and over the top I thought, though I appreciate her character was neurotic and highly strung.
The three youngsters were great, all ones to watch, especially Wes Bentley. And why was Mrs Fitts holding the plate as he left?
Oscars all round I think, and well deserved.
This film has what so many American films lack - a sense of the ridiculous and of irony. The fact that it had a British theatre director shone through, but he had very good material to work with.
Kevin Spacey does here what only great actors can do, and not many American actors, and that is underact, Olivier could do it and Guinness is best at it but Spacey brought great subtlety to this role. In comparison, Bening was shrill and over the top I thought, though I appreciate her character was neurotic and highly strung.
The three youngsters were great, all ones to watch, especially Wes Bentley. And why was Mrs Fitts holding the plate as he left?
Oscars all round I think, and well deserved.
Angela's Ashes
(1999)
Rather depressing
25 January 2000
I'm told the book is better than the film, but save for the odd moment this is a rather bleak movie and a fairly damning indictment of the narrow Irish nationalism of DeValera's Catholic theocracy of the 1930s and 40s, the legacy of which still haunts us today.
I got the feeling that both Emily Watson and Robert Carlyle, though good, weren't particularly stretched in their roles though the performances from the youngsters were superb.
Several questions were left unanswered though perhaps we are to supply our own answers - what happened to the father? Why did mrs Finucane die? What is the significance of the title, save that Emily Watson is forever poking fires.
Worth a look, but don't go out of your way for it.
I got the feeling that both Emily Watson and Robert Carlyle, though good, weren't particularly stretched in their roles though the performances from the youngsters were superb.
Several questions were left unanswered though perhaps we are to supply our own answers - what happened to the father? Why did mrs Finucane die? What is the significance of the title, save that Emily Watson is forever poking fires.
Worth a look, but don't go out of your way for it.
Queer as Folk
(1999–2000)
Takes No Hostages
24 January 2000
This is being re-run here in the UK prior to a second series later in the year. It didn't raise the controversy it was expected to though not for want of trying - it had the strongest language I've ever heard on a terrestrial channel and within a few minutes of the opening of the first episode you are seeing fairly explict underage gay sex.
This perhaps gives an unfair view because it is funny, sad, has elements of soap, gives a stylish and modern view of present day life in the UK without being hostage to the heritage industry and in a British city that is not London (it is set in Manchester) and has an strong underlying theme of unrequited love.
Throughout, Stuart leers sexily at anything in trousers (save for the lesbians!), Vince picks up the pieces and gorgeous Nathan (Charlie Hunnam) wants his gay sexual awakening and he wants it now!
There's a cinematic in joke when Vince (Craig Kelly) apes a scen from 'Titanic' - he played the wirelss operator who sends the distress signals in that film.
There are some great lines too:
Stuart to passing friend: How's your partner? Friend: Still dead.
And when Vince Stuart and Nathan turn up at the hospital after Alfred's birth and the new mother takes one look at Nathan then Stuart and says 'I see we've both had a child tonight!'
This was made by an indepnedent production company for Channel Four and not by the 'British BBC' (sic as an earlier comment tautologically has it) - Auntie wouldn't have touched this with a bargepole.
Great soundtrack too - series is out on video and DVD and the soundtrack on CD.
If you like strong meat, gay or straight, you'll love this.
This perhaps gives an unfair view because it is funny, sad, has elements of soap, gives a stylish and modern view of present day life in the UK without being hostage to the heritage industry and in a British city that is not London (it is set in Manchester) and has an strong underlying theme of unrequited love.
Throughout, Stuart leers sexily at anything in trousers (save for the lesbians!), Vince picks up the pieces and gorgeous Nathan (Charlie Hunnam) wants his gay sexual awakening and he wants it now!
There's a cinematic in joke when Vince (Craig Kelly) apes a scen from 'Titanic' - he played the wirelss operator who sends the distress signals in that film.
There are some great lines too:
Stuart to passing friend: How's your partner? Friend: Still dead.
And when Vince Stuart and Nathan turn up at the hospital after Alfred's birth and the new mother takes one look at Nathan then Stuart and says 'I see we've both had a child tonight!'
This was made by an indepnedent production company for Channel Four and not by the 'British BBC' (sic as an earlier comment tautologically has it) - Auntie wouldn't have touched this with a bargepole.
Great soundtrack too - series is out on video and DVD and the soundtrack on CD.
If you like strong meat, gay or straight, you'll love this.
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