Films you've seen lately

[Pulcinella]

We went to see 'The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry' this week. A sad wee film with Jim Broadbent being Jim Broadbent and Penelope Wilton playing Penelope Wilton. Harold Fry sets out on an unlikely walk from his home in Devon to Berwick to visit an old work colleague in a hospice and on the way touches people's lives, including his own and his Wife's. Three-and-a half stars seemed an appropriate rating. I sort of enjoyed it. Mrs C thought it was a wee bit long

I'd go along with that!
I was lucky enough to get a 'grab bag' at our cinema's preview night: the bag itself, a copy of the book, a thermos flask, a compass, and a red PILGRIM T-shirt. You're right about Penelope Wilton: I kept on thinking that the Downton Abbey crowd might turn up at any moment!

[johncorrigan]

I'd go along with that!
I was lucky enough to get a 'grab bag' at our cinema's preview night: the bag itself, a copy of the book, a thermos flask, a compass, and a red PILGRIM T-shirt. You're right about Penelope Wilton: I kept on thinking that the Downton Abbey crowd might turn up at any moment!

That sounds like a result. Pulcinella, though you were missing the wee crystal ball thing that you hang in your window. [/I]

[Dave2002]

We went to see 'The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry' this week. A sad wee film with Jim Broadbent being Jim Broadbent and Penelope Wilton playing Penelope Wilton. Harold Fry sets out on an unlikely walk from his home in Devon to Berwick to visit an old work colleague in a hospice and on the way touches people's lives, including his own and his Wife's. Three-and-a half stars seemed an appropriate rating. I sort of enjoyed it. Mrs C thought it was a wee bit long

I wondered about going to that - but so far haven't.

Watched The Road Dance a few days ago. Apart from seeming tragic, and ultimately implausible, I was then surprised to be reminded that allegedly it's based on reality, and many of the events actually happened. Do I believe that? Not sure!

[Cockney Sparrow]

HOMEWARD
In the Autumn, Mrs CS announced we were going to a film showing, but couldn’t tell me much about it, or how she had heard about it – it had been arranged in a small local Amateur theatre. I assumed it was in support of the Ukrainian community and their home country (see description below) in trying to get the film some exposure here in the UK.

I’m not sure how to describe the experience – very realistic, well made technically (seems to me) and the twists and turns between the very determined and physically able father and his younger son (initially reluctant, resentful) in the overiding need to bury the elder son back in their homeland of crimea. The journey involves getting through into the occupied territory of Crimea (post 2014) and the multiple setbacks including an unexpected and shattering occurrence as they almost reach the place of burial. Of course the father and son come to understand each other better.

What I can say is that I felt the 90 minutes well spent, and the film recommendable – but I didn’t expect it to achieve much exposure. However, I now see its available, for over a year, on the iPlayer:

“Mustafa, a Crimean Tatar, and his son Alim transport the body of Mustafa's other son, a soldier killed in combat, from Kyiv to Crimea to give him a proper burial.”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001lsq9/homeward

Entirely unrelated, and probably doesn't qualify for this thread:

I recently greatly enjoyed, over the course of a few nights, the DVD of "Longitude". The ITV adaptation of the Sobel book about Harrison's timepieces and the decades long process in perfecting a time piece which, accurate at sea, would enable longitude to be established and thereby much safer navigation for ships.

A panoply of British actors, mostly male - principally Michael Gambon as Harrison and Jeremy Irons as the man who, in the 1920s restored the Harrison timepieces - switching between these locations in time made the drama workable for TV, and for me.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0192263/

[Pulcinella]

War Pony

The 'free for members' film last Tuesday at our local cinema.

Both the Times and the Guardian thought a bit better of it than we did.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/war-pony-film-review-b6v72s6qm?shareToken=6a6778a19a4a5be7eeea26be0a9b8d2a

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/21/war-pony-review-rousing-tale-of-love-and-money-on-a-native-american-reservation

[JasonPalmer]

Enjoyed the long good friday on bbc iplayer lastnight.

[smittims]

I usually find recently-made films uncongenial, so it's pleasant to come across one I like. Such was 'Second Spring' on Film4 the other evening.

The title suggests Ozu Yasujiro , and in its quiet dialogue and non-moving camera it shares with Joanna Hogg's films a hint of Ozu influence. Set in present-day east London and Kent (isle of Grain, I guessed) it's about a college lecturer who develops what I think is called 'Front Temporal Lobe Degeneration' which affects her behaviour. Some viewers may be put off by the open-ended plot (it doesn't have a 'beginning, a middle, and an end') but I saw that as a way of allowing you to make your own interpretation.

[Belgrove]

I’m not entirely sure about Christopher Nolan’s latest ‘Oppenheimer’. It is an elliptical and nonlinear telling of the physicist’s life from his unhappy experience as a postgraduate student in Cambridge in the 1920’s to his unhappy experience at the hands of a McCarthyite investigation in the 1950’s. In between he brought to fruition one of the most momentous events in mankind’s history. Given that it is a dramatic movie and not a documentary, it stands or falls by its cinematic qualities. Much of the dialogue comprises verbatim quotes (as recorded in the biography by Bird and Sherwin which Nolan based his film upon) from working and social associates, and inquiry transcripts, so the there is a verisimilitude to the story’s events. But a major strand of the film, the loss of Oppenheimer’s security clearance and his concomitant loss of political influence, hinged on a grudge harboured by an individual, which is shown several times, but at each reprisal, is obscured by an intrusive score. Nolan has previous form here, stating that he didn’t necessarily want his audience to hear all the dialogue in his films, which is grossly discourteous. Then again Nolan may be being all meta and playing with the notion of ‘uncertainty’ that underpins the physics that brought about the atomic bomb - the encounter with Einstein certainly plays on this notion. Cillian Murphy gives a remarkable performance as Oppenheimer, capturing his protean intelligence, charm, charisma, hubris and ultimately the demons that came to haunt him. There are many close-ups of his expressive face that require no words to convey meaning. It’s a gripping and compelling film that requires work from the viewer to assemble its mosaic elements into a coherent whole. But oxymoronically, it fails to justify its 3 hour running time through having that fractured structure. Worth experiencing in IMAX if you can, but take earplugs - there’s a very big bang.

[kernelbogey]

Just a quick endorsement of most of Belgrove's take on the Oppenheimer film. I just saw it last evening and am still processing my reactions. I strongly recommend it - but beware of a 3-hour very loud epic with no interval.

[richardfinegold]

Just a quick endorsement of most of Belgrove's take on the Oppenheimer film. I just saw it last evening and am still processing my reactions. I strongly recommend it - but beware of a 3-hour very loud epic with no interval.

I haven’t gone to an actual movie theater in about 8 years, due to my possession of both limited bladder capacity and a first rate surround system. A 3 hour movie isn’t going to entice me. When I saw Dunkirk and I couldn’t hear the dialogue I began to wonder if I should rethink this, I was dissuaded by my younger family members who saw it instate of the art theaters and still complained that they couldn’t hear the dialogue.

[Hitch]

Nolan's Tenet is known for its muffled sound mix, which seems to have been a deliberate choice by the director.

[smittims]

'Mumblegate' , as it's been called , is quite an issue with Tv drama viewers. I can understand a director wanting realistic atmosphere, as opposed to those old films where you can tell that the dialogue was all dubbed on afterwards in the studio, but I can't see the point of indistinct dialogue.

[LHC]

Nolan's Tenet is known for its muffled sound mix, which seems to have been a deliberate choice by the director.

I think Interstellar is notorious for being the worst for inaudible dialogue, and its clear this is a deliberate choice of Nolan's. When interviewed about Interstellar he had this to say:

Nolan said he had worked on the film’s audio for six months alongside composer Hans Zimmer, re-recording mixers Gary Rizzo and Gregg Landaker and sound designer Richard King. He admitted to an “unconventional” approach for a Hollywood movie, but said the final result was entirely considered and deliberate.

“I’ve always loved films that approach sound in an impressionistic way and that is an unusual approach for a mainstream blockbuster, but I feel it’s the right approach for this experiential film,” said Nolan. “Many of the film-makers I’ve admired over the years have used sound in bold and adventurous ways. I don’t agree with the idea that you can only achieve clarity through dialogue. Clarity of story, clarity of emotions — I try to achieve that in a very layered way using all the different things at my disposal — picture and sound.”

One scene in which some viewers struggled to hear dialogue featured Michael Caine’s character revealing key information to Jessica Chastain’s from his hospital bed. “We are following the emotional state of Jessica’s character as she starts to understand what he’s been saying,” said Nolan. “Information is communicated in various different ways over the next few scenes. That’s the way I like to work; I don’t like to hang everything on one particular line.”

I'm going to see Oppenheimer at the BFI IMAX next week and am looking forward to it.

[johncorrigan]

Just a quick endorsement of most of Belgrove's take on the Oppenheimer film. I just saw it last evening and am still processing my reactions. I strongly recommend it - but beware of a 3-hour very loud epic with no interval.

Indeed, kb. I saw it last night and was very proud of myself to have lasted without a trip to the loo...mind you, I had been avoiding fluids most of the afternoon. I thought Cillian Murphy was terrific - the camera seemed to love him. Always good, in my opinion, to see Matt Damon, and I was very impressed by Robert Downey Junior; and there were fine performances throughout. I thought I was done with lengthy films but 'Oppenheimer' fairly charged along and I was glad I saw it at the pictures. Although I had been told to expect a big boom, it still caught me unawares when it happened.

[kernelbogey]

Indeed, kb. I saw it last night ... there were fine performances throughout.:

I thought, in retrospect, that he'd made an error in not showing even a few seconds of newsreel footage of post-bomb Hiroshima. I had gone home from the cinema and pullled John Hersey's 60,000 word reportage Hiroshima down from my bookshelves, hitherto unread and read it cover to cover till 3 a.m. The movie is essentially about Oppenheimer, his psyche, his guilt. Not to show even a glimpse of the destruction and shattering physical consequences of the bomb - 100,000 people died in Hiroshima alone - made the movie a kind of expression of American isolationism.