Liberal Burblings

Archive for the ‘Film’ Category

We went to Newbury’s new Vue cinema for the second time yesterday. It was great to see the lobby full to bursting as people queued up to get into (I think) Avatar and Sherlock Holmes. We saw Sherlock Holmes amongst a full house for that screen.

It’s a great film. Beautiful to look at, some superb music, action packed, fast moving, with the usual Holmes intrigue and a very exciting ending.

Robert Downey Junior is superb (and even his English accent seems convincing) and it’s great to see a shedload of brilliant performances from British actors such as Jude Law (as Watson), Mark Strong, Eddie Marsan and arch-luvvie James Fox.

Rotten Tomatoes has the full SP here.

The coast was clear for a few hours today, so I had time to watch a film which I like; in my strange way – which is often not shared by the rest of my family (“In the loop” being a classic example of that genre). After a great deal of research on Rotten Tomatoes into the films showing at the new Newbury Vue, the Corn Exchange Screen One and Sky Box Office, I plumped for “Looking for Eric” on Sky. It had a “88% fresh” score on Rotten Tomatoes, which is very good.

I was not disappointed. It is a wonderful film and deserves to be a classic, watched for years to come. After a rather grim story line, it has a fantastically satisfying ending. For me, the highlight of the film is the wonderful John Henshaw, who is one of my favourites in whatever things he pops up in (including the advert for the Post Office!).

John Henshaw

I know I’m slow on the uptake, but I’ve finally been able to watch the film Milk. A wonderful, inspiring film it is too. Sean Penn is brilliant in it, so brilliant that it is difficult to believe it is actually him. It is also difficult to believe that such an outrageous piece of legislation as Proposition No 6 was a serious proposal just thirty years ago.

That was the uncomfortable question I asked myself on a couple of occasions during my viewing of “In the loop” yesterday. The film was a blast – I laughed uproariously at regular junctions all the way through. James Graham has already provided a superb review, so I won’t attempt such a thing.

Suffice it to say that it is a fantastic film but I do think it is a film for moderate to heavy political anoraks. In a theatre of sixty people, there were probably only a third of the audience who were regularly “getting” the jokes.

When Judy (Gina McKee) protested to Peter Tucker (Capaldi) that something was “within my purvue“, Tucker shouted at her “Purvue? What do you think this is? A ***king Jane Austen novel?” I laughed my head off – very loudly – at this, only to find the gentleman in front of me turning around to look at me as if I was disturbing his enjoyment of the film. (He didn’t laugh once during the whole film, as far as I could see). After momentarily feeling admonished, I then relaxed with the thought that the oevre was actually advertised as a comedy, so laughing is normally allowed on such occasions. Is it wrong to laugh too loudly? I think not.

A further illustration of the anoraks-only appeal of the film was when the naive Toby Wright (Chris Addison), in a Washington hotel bathroom, chatted on his mobile with his old college friend working in CNN. After talking about going out for a beer, he casually mentioned that he was going to a “Secret War committee” the next day. I laughed at this. I was alone in the auditorium in my appreciation of that. Needless to say, the “Secret War committee” featured on CNN a few minutes after the bathroom-CNN friend conversation.

But the best line of the film, for me was after an insult and swear-word laden argument between Tucker (Capaldi) and Lt Gen George Miller (played by the excellent James Gandolfini) (or was it the Bolton bloke?). They called each other every name under the sun and thoroughly and derogatorily explored each others’ parentage. In the end, Tucker walked away and then turned around, looking very hurt, saying “By the way, DON’T EVER CALL ME ENGLISH AGAIN!”.

BBC Breakfast this morning featured some clips from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which is out soon. The main attraction of this film, for me, is Imelda Staunton as Dolores Umbridge.