Films you've seen lately

[Belgrove]

I haven't seen the Mad Max film you mention, Belgrove; however since your recommendations have generally been very good I thought I would take Mrs C along to '3000 Years of Longing' this afternoon. An excellent story, very well told with a great performance by Tilda Swinton in particular, though Idries Elba was no slouch either. Looked great too. Also it is National Cinema Day, I found out at the box office, which meant three quid each for a ticket ...great Saturday afternoon entertainment. Thanks for the pointer.

That’s kind of you to say so john; delighted you enjoyed it. There’s a good deal of care and vision gone into its making and I’ve found myself thinking upon its qualities since - it’s so romantic. I note that many critics are saying it’s indulgent; what they miss is that romance is, or at least should be.

Do seek out Mad Max Fury Road (but don’t forget your earplugs) - it’s not like anything I’ve seen. A petrol driven pursuit from A to B, and then when the fuel has all but run out, the chase resumes from B back to A, running on nothing other than fumes and adrenaline. It’s totally bonkers, but goodness me, what a ride - and the colours!

[Lordgeous]

Not having read through 122 pages of this topic I don't know which films have already been mentioned but I recently watched "The Pumpkin Eater", a film that impressed me very much in the 1960s; a wonderful cast (Anne Bancroft, Peter Finch, James Mason, Maggie Smith etc) and memorable score by George Delarue which I was so taken with I went to 2 or 3 sittings in a row, armed with Ms paper and pen to jot down the themes! A beautifully shot picture (in wonderful B&W) which rarely seems to be mentioned or shown, except on the Imdb site: "My most favourite film of All Time" and man others, eg "Great movies remain great movies some of them, like "The Pumpkin Eater" acquire an extra something with the passing of time. Harold Pinter does really extravagant things with Penelope Mortimer's novel and the extraordinary Jack Clayton gives it just the right mixture of human drama and sharp satire. Anne Bancroft is indescribable moving, beautiful, powerful, frightening. Peter Finch is also superb as is James Mason. I particularly enjoyed the brief moments with Yootha Joyce, Maggie Smith and Cederic Hardwicke. I advise all movie lovers in the Los Angeles area to check the American Cinematheque listings. I saw "The Pumpkin Eater" there, a beautifully restored print and reminded me when one went to the movies to see adult themes treated by intelligent adult artist with enormous regard for their audiences. Oh, those were the days."

[Mal]

Just watched an excellent film on iPlayer - "Their Finest" - a very good performance from Gemma Arterton as a script writer for a film about Dunkirk being made in wartime to boost moral and get the Americans involved. It combines comedy and wartime drama very well... watch out for the very dark twist!

[muzzer]

Not having read through 122 pages of this topic I don't know which films have already been mentioned but I recently watched "The Pumpkin Eater", a film that impressed me very much in the 1960s; a wonderful cast (Anne Bancroft, Peter Finch, James Mason, Maggie Smith etc) and memorable score by George Delarue which I was so taken with I went to 2 or 3 sittings in a row, armed with Ms paper and pen to jot down the themes! A beautifully shot picture (in wonderful B&W) which rarely seems to be mentioned or shown, except on the Imdb site: "My most favourite film of All Time" and man others, eg "Great movies remain great movies some of them, like "The Pumpkin Eater" acquire an extra something with the passing of time. Harold Pinter does really extravagant things with Penelope Mortimer's novel and the extraordinary Jack Clayton gives it just the right mixture of human drama and sharp satire. Anne Bancroft is indescribable moving, beautiful, powerful, frightening. Peter Finch is also superb as is James Mason. I particularly enjoyed the brief moments with Yootha Joyce, Maggie Smith and Cederic Hardwicke. I advise all movie lovers in the Los Angeles area to check the American Cinematheque listings. I saw "The Pumpkin Eater" there, a beautifully restored print and reminded me when one went to the movies to see adult themes treated by intelligent adult artist with enormous regard for their audiences. Oh, those were the days."

This is a great film, based on the novel by Penelope Mortimer, first wife of Rumpole’s John. All her books are worth checking out, though most are out of print. She was a real talent, suffering as so many women of her generation did from the expectation they would marry and keep house not go to university etc etc.

[muzzer]

Just watched an excellent film on iPlayer - "Their Finest" - a very good performance from Gemma Arterton as a script writer for a film about Dunkirk being made in wartime to boost moral and get the Americans involved. It combines comedy and wartime drama very well... watch out for the very dark twist!

She’s a fine actress, I enjoyed that film too.

[johncorrigan]

Mrs C and I decided to enjoy a rainy Sunday afternoon with a trip to the movies to see Scorcher Ronan and Sam Rockwell in 'See How They Run'. She was very funny, I thought as Constable Stalker. That's four films I can think that I've seen her in (Manhattan, Little Women, French Dispatch) and she's been great and very different in them all. The film had a very good ensemble crew - Ruth Wilson, Shirley Henderson, Adrian Brody among others, as well as actors that I found myself wondering where I had seen them before. The film looked good too. Very entertaining.

[smittims]

'The Offence', a 1972/3 Sidney Lumet film made in England, is currently on Talking Pictures TV .

It's a dark psychological film about a detective sergeant (Sean Connery, the best performance I've seen him give) who fatally-injures a suspect (Ian Bannen) while questioning him in custody, and is then interrogated by the DCS (Trevor Howard).

It's a violent film, and although I usually avoid and deplore violence in fims where it's put in for cheap thrills, in this case it's (to coin a phrase) 'essential to the plot' , though I was surprised my recorder didn't make me insert the adults-only code as it does when there's the slightest nudity in a film!

An attraction for members here is that the score is by Harrison Birtwistle. I didn't know he'd done any film scores.

[johncorrigan]

I watched Herzog's homage to volcano chasers and documenters Katia and Maurice Krafft on BBC 4 last night. Absolutely amazing images that he strung together from their archive - at one point Herzog said, 'It's like creation in action', but it was also about destruction, pain, loss. And, of course, we also see the eruption that kills the couple. Highly recommend it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001d7lc/storyville-the-fire-within

[ChandlersFord]

'The Offence', a 1972/3 Sidney Lumet film made in England, is currently on Talking Pictures TV .

It's a dark psychological film about a detective sergeant (Sean Connery, the best performance I've seen him give) who fatally-injures a suspect (Ian Bannen) while questioning him in custody, and is then interrogated by the DCS (Trevor Howard).

It's a violent film, and although I usually avoid and deplore violence in fims where it's put in for cheap thrills, in this case it's (to coin a phrase) 'essential to the plot' , though I was surprised my recorder didn't make me insert the adults-only code as it does when there's the slightest nudity in a film!

An attraction for members here is that the score is by Harrison Birtwistle. I didn't know he'd done any film scores.

Superb film, but not one I could watch every day. I’d forgotten that HB did the score.

[Belgrove]

In Brugge was a left-field hit that matched Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell as an unlikely odd-couple of hit men on a job. Writer/director Martin McDonagh rekindles that magical chemistry in The Banshees of Inisherin, where they portray another odd-couple friendship, which one of them decides has no future, to the desolation of the other. Tragi-comic consequences obtain. Set on a (stunningly beautiful) island off the Irish coast, their collapsed relationship is perhaps a metaphor for the civil war that is distantly rumbling on the mainland - legacy, self-delusion, bone-headed stubbornness, cutting off one’s nose… maybe? The ensemble playing is pretty much immaculate, but Gleeson and Farrell can be hilariously funny and desperately sad by turns. It’s like a strange amalgam of The Dead, The Third Policeman and Father Ted. Farrell’s eyebrows alone may win an Oscar.

[smittims]

Another fine offbeat modern Irish film is 'Garage' , a tragic but beautiful tale of a man with what are called 'learning difficulties' who sees life in very simple straightforward terms and is too trusting. He unwittingly commits offences , which, although not serious, are beyod his ability to deal with the fallout and he (presumably) drowns himself. It sounds depressing but the quiet rural setting and sympathetic treatment make it rewrding to watch.

[bluestateprommer]

Saw Tár, the new Todd Field film with Cate Blanchett as the title character, Lydia Tár, the extremely fictional superstar conductor of a not-quite-exactly named (IMHO, AFAICT) orchestra in Berlin. Kind of surprised at the lack of discussion here, given its immersion in the world of classical music, unless it hasn't attained general release yet in the UK. I chatted with some orchestra friends after a screening, and they said that the film does a pretty good job of capturing some of the insider dynamics of the orchestra world, while obviously exaggerating some aspects for dramatic effect.

The film does drop a lot of real-life names in the world of classical music, and pretty accurately. The only slip was mention of the "Israeli Philharmonic", rather than the Israel Philharmonic. Julian Glover is featured as an older, retired conductor named "Andris Davis" (interesting choice of name, that), while the character of "Eliot Kaplan" seems to be based obviously on the investor and (extremely) amateur conductor Gilbert Kaplan, down to Mark Strong's visual appearance. Interestingly, the film mentions Marin Alsop pretty early on, flatteringly in passing, but while also seeming to base Lydia Tár's character on various aspects of Alsop's life, but refracted through a glass extremely darkly. For example, Lydia Tár is mentioned as a mentor to aspiring female conductors in a program titled "Accordion", while Alsop has mentored female conductors for years in her Concordia conducting fellowship programs. It's maybe not too much of a spoiler to state that Lydia Tár is slowly revealed as a less-than-fully positive person over the course of the movie.

Perhaps irrelevant nerd question: various reviews and write-ups about the movie describe the orchestra that Lydia Tár leads as "the Berlin Philharmonic". However, I'm thinking that the film never, or virtually never, specifically says the "Berlin Philharmonic" once, except maybe at the start in the interview scene between the real-life New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik and Cate B.'s character. There are conversational allusions to Furtwangler, Karajan (such as in one scene between Cate B. and Julian Glover), and a visual allusion to Abbado, but again, AFAICT, without actually using the phrase "Berlin Philharmonic". If anyone there watches the movie and can address this question, that would be great. In any case, the hall that features the orchestra scenes looks to be the Dresden Kulturpalast, and not at all the Philharmonie Berlin.

[smittims]

Thanks for this account; it sounds like an interesting film; I'll look out for it. It's rare, after all, these days, for a big cinema feature film to be based around classical music, so low has its status sunk since the days when this was common (Dangerous Moonlight, While I live, Cornish Rhapsody, Wherever she Goes, etc.) though I should mantion 'A Late Quartet' which I found both entertaining and credible , two words which don't always go together when music is depicted on film.

Fictional settings usually steer clear of direct references to actual people and organisations, mainly to avoid accusations of defamation or other criticisms. From what you say it seems to me that they intended to suggest the Berliner Philharmoniker without stepping into trouble, or maybe a distancing process took place during the making of the film.

[johncorrigan]

In Brugge was a left-field hit that matched Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell as an unlikely odd-couple of hit men on a job. Writer/director Martin McDonagh rekindles that magical chemistry in The Banshees of Inisherin, where they portray another odd-couple friendship, which one of them decides has no future, to the desolation of the other. Tragi-comic consequences obtain. Set on a (stunningly beautiful) island off the Irish coast, their collapsed relationship is perhaps a metaphor for the civil war that is distantly rumbling on the mainland - legacy, self-delusion, bone-headed stubbornness, cutting off one’s nose… maybe? The ensemble playing is pretty much immaculate, but Gleeson and Farrell can be hilariously funny and desperately sad by turns. It’s like a strange amalgam of The Dead, The Third Policeman and Father Ted. Farrell’s eyebrows alone may win an Oscar.

Horrible afternoon in West Angus so Mrs C and I decided to take in the Banshees in Dundee. I can add little to your fine commentary on the film, Belgrove, except that I thought the soundtrack was wonderful and the costumes too. It also reminded me, in places, of 'The Lighthouse' from a couple of years back. Terrific film.

[johncorrigan]

'Ikiru' is one of my favourite Kurosawa films, so I was looking forward to seeing how Bill Nighy would take on the role played so brilliantly by Takashi Shimura in the original. I enjoyed 'Living' with Nighy playing Mr Williams, a pen pusher in the Works dept of City Hall in London who finds that he only has months to live. Nighy was very good, as was Aimee Lou Wood, and Tom Burke. Never reaches the heights of the original, but not many could; although, maybe that was because I knew the story. I liked the soundtrack too and the trains looked very good. It was well worth a rainy afternoon visit to the flicks in Dundee.