Films you've seen lately

[Nick Armstrong]

Harry H Corbett

He turned up as a Detective Inspector in one of the Scotland Yard episodes - playing broad Scottish, iirc

Derek Fowlds

Yes I saw that one - he was the disillusioned sidekick of Anton Rodgers's psycho villain, leading a group of idle rich kids on a 'fun' crime spree https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0587993...nm_flmg_act_66

Didn't DF also become Basil Brush's foil.... ? (Googles it: yes he was - 27 episodes when I was 8 - 11)

[Belgrove]

Whilst most horror films are risible, the best can be exceptional. Seeing comparisons of Hereditary being made with the likes of The Exorcist and The Shining, coupled with reports of it being terrifying, certainly piqued the interest.

It's a good film and contains one hair prickling moment, but it's potential to horrify as been hyped. What is effective is its establishing a sense of dread and distress within a deeply troubled family over a slow burning first two-thirds of the film, after which the gloves come off for a full cinematic assault on the senses. There are references to the aforementioned films, and to The Wicker Man, The Innocents, Rosemary's Baby and, in the use of the colour red and the role of seance, Don't Look Now. Yet it fuses these elements into something rich and strange. It's helped by exceptional performances from Toni Collette as a protective mother with issues, Gabriel Byrne her husband who provides an island of stability amid a disintegrating family, Alex Wolf as the son put under impossible pressures, and Milly Shapiro as the genuinely unnerving daughter. Collette is remarkable at expressing silent terror and anguish in her expressive face. The use of surround-sound is highly effective. The score works well too, there's even a reference to Das Rheingold. What does it all mean? Is it meant to be real? Perhaps the use of a Joni Mitchell cover over the closing credits provides a clue - or perhaps not...

[johncorrigan]

Mrs C and I decided we fancied a night at the pictures last night. Nothing much on that we fancied so we headed into Dundee's film theatre and took in 'The Bookshop' which had mixed reviews. An enjoyable quirky story set in East Anglia in the late 50s with excellent cinematography and some fine acting. It was one of those films where there was obviously a small budget, so there's some clunky scenes because they haven't been rehearsed to death. I enjoyed that. Bill Nighy was good value as usual, behaving at times like Spike Milligan, of all people. If you like bookshops, or East Anglia, you might enjoy this wee melancholy film. We did...and I'm not altogether sure I know where East Anglia is!

[Richard Tarleton]

Bill Nighy was good value as usual, behaving at times like Spike Milligan, of all people. If you like bookshops, or East Anglia, you might enjoy this wee melancholy film. We did...and I'm not altogether sure I know where East Anglia is!

We said hello to Bill Nighy and friend close to the Eel's Foot Inn in East Bridge, Suffolk (East Anglia ) a few years ago - he was munching on a bag of Adnam's crisps. They were setting off to walk to the beach at Minsmere.

[Dave2002]

Victoria and Abdul

Not what I expected at all - very good. Seems to be fairly close to the "truth" - and made a welcome change from the other programmes we've had in recent years about various royals.

There was one error I spotted - reference to a "billion" - seems unlikely as English usage would have resulted in a huge number. Then a billion would have represented 10^12, rather than 10^9.

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/09/queen-victoria-and-abdul-real-story

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/victoria-and-abdul-friendship-scandalized-england-180964959/

[johncorrigan]

We said hello to Bill Nighy and friend close to the Eel's Foot Inn in East Bridge, Suffolk (East Anglia ) a few years ago - he was munching on a bag of Adnam's crisps. They were setting off to walk to the beach at Minsmere.

Thanks Richard - such a terrific voice, even with crisps stuffed in there, I imagine. Although the fictional village in the film is in East Anglia, I've just read that the film was shot in Co Antrim, which makes sense as I thought some of the coastal scenes looked more like Western Islands of Scotland. Patricia Clarkson's in it too, playing the baddie - quality.

[Richard Tarleton]

Although the fictional village in the film is in East Anglia, I've just read that the film was shot in Co Antrim, which makes sense as I thought some of the coastal scenes looked more like Western Islands of Scotland.

How extraordinary - you can't throw a stick in coastal East Anglia without hitting a film location. Innumerable films and TV series..... Knowing Co.Antrim very well I can't imagine anywhere more unsuitable (though superb in its own right, he said hastily). Bill, I should have mentioned, was wearing a pea jacket to die for and shiny shoes, not at all the birdwatching attire normal thereabouts (think Bill Oddie ).

[LMcD]

Mrs C and I decided we fancied a night at the pictures last night. Nothing much on that we fancied so we headed into Dundee's film theatre and took in 'The Bookshop' which had mixed reviews. An enjoyable quirky story set in East Anglia in the late 50s with excellent cinematography and some fine acting. It was one of those films where there was obviously a small budget, so there's some clunky scenes because they haven't been rehearsed to death. I enjoyed that. Bill Nighy was good value as usual, behaving at times like Spike Milligan, of all people. If you like bookshops, or East Anglia, you might enjoy this wee melancholy film. We did...and I'm not altogether sure I know where East Anglia is!

All of Norfolk, all of Suffolk and - when we're feeling generous - carefully selected bits of North Essex and East Cambridgeshire. East Anglia is also a favourite setting, of course, for writers of detective novels, many of whose works find their way onto the large or small screen.
The East Anglian accent has been the downfall of many a fine actor. Alan Bates struggled in 'The Go-Between' and I can still - if I'm not careful - remember a TV adaptation of Arnold Wesker's 'Roots' in which Jane Horrocks sounded as if she'd come straight off a flight from Sydney.

[johncorrigan]

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All of Norfolk, all of Suffolk and - when we're feeling generous - carefully selected bits of North Essex and East Cambridgeshire. East Anglia is also a favourite setting, of course, for writers of detective novels, many of whose works find their way onto the large or small screen.
The East Anglian accent has been the downfall of many a fine actor. Alan Bates struggled in 'The Go-Between' and I can still - if I'm not careful - remember a TV adaptation of Arnold Wesker's 'Roots' in which Jane Horrocks sounded as if she'd come straight off a flight from Sydney.

Thanks L. When Mrs C asked me I said I thought it was that bit of England that bulged into the North Sea, just above London, which isn't far off given your description - Mrs C said she had thought it was near Wales!

[LMcD]

Many years ago the British School of Motoring ran an advertisement in which a map of the United Kingdom was driving a car. We here in East Anglia were the rump.

[Richard Tarleton]

What did you think of Shape of Water Gurnemanz? I'm unsure what all the fuss is about. I enjoyed it's well executed fantastical elements, and although freighted with the allegorical significance associated with the 'outsider', I don't think it went sufficiently beyond the bounds of its B-movie setting. I found the score (for which it is Oscar nominated) instantly forgettable compared with Johhny Greenwood's ravishing score for Phantom Thread. I've seen this a couple of times now, and would be more than happy to go see it again - it's sublime.

Finally watched this the other day - enjoyed it, for the reasons given above - a touch of Pan's Labyrinth in the villain, and the ending, nods to ET and (has anyone else remarked?) Paddington Bear (the flooded bathroom ) - and like you I can't remember a thing about the music, I'd have to watch it again.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

and (has anyone else remarked?) Paddington Bear (the flooded bathroom )

Caused by a helpless visitor taken into her home by Sally Hawkins ... ! I think you're on to something there, RT!

[Belgrove]

2001 - A Space Odyssey is 50 years old, and film director Christopher Nolan has supervised the rerelease of a print taken from the 70mm original to mark the occasion, which I saw on the massive IMAX screen at Waterloo in London. It certainly stands up as one of the great films of any era, and makes most movies made nowadays seem, frankly, rather dim witted and infantile, especially in terms of ambition and boldness of storytelling. The print does not have the pristine qualities one takes for granted from digital projection, it being noticeably scratchy at the beginning and end of a reel (one could hear the projector ticking away in the box during the periods of complete silence - an unnoticed and forgotten quality of attending the flics up to a decade or so ago), but the sense of the image being made in the camera was up there on the massive screen, entirely filling the field of view - the detail is breathtaking. The trippy stargate sequence is still one of the wonders of the cinematic world.

On reading the posts on the current Reith lectures, it struck me that this film provides a first depiction of war, over access to water. Given the global shortage of that resource, that will doubtless be the cause of another.

Lawrence of Arabia at the same venue next week - another corker that requires the biggest screen possible to appreciate it.

[Serial_Apologist]

I've just watched "Cash on Demand" (UK, 1961) on Talking Pictures TV, a thriller starring Peter Cushing as a put upon upstanding bank manager forcibly inveigled into carrying out a robbery on his own bank. Usually typecast in roles as either evil maker or evil buster, and once I think as Sherlock Holmes, it's easy to overlook just how affecting an actor Cushing could be. Channel 81 is proving to be a treasure-trove for too easily forgotten British masterpieces of the postwar period up to the mid-1960s.

Having recently acquired four British crime thrillers from the same era - "Sapphire", "Checkpoint", "The Informers", and "Turn the Key Softly", to indulge myself in some nostalgia porn, I find myself often struck by their portrayal of strong women characters, who are far from the latest kitchen gadget-huggging newly wed depicted in the cinema ads of the time as feminine role models in the pre-dolly bird, pre-feminist, miniskirted Swinging London late 1960s: hard to believe Joan Collins in "Turn the Key Softly" was just 19 at the time, 1953.

Unlike many of the war features of the time, for which Rawsthorne and Alwyn were recruited to supply suitably patriotic scores, many of the dramas of the era, as with the Ealing comedies, employed the great one-time member of Les Six, Georges Auric, and what, by contrast, has always struck me has been the subtly subliminal way the sheer "Frenchness" of his music manages to inform the ambience of these films, adding a very particular outsider's take on the cultural scene he would have found here.

Now about to watch "It Always Rains on Sunday" for the second time, a London-based 1947 thriller directed by Robert Hamer starring Googie Withers, John McCallum and Jack Warner. Again, Auric's powerful music; again, strong, authentic characterisations. Indeed this movie manages to transcend a frequent weakness back then in the portrayal of low life by avoiding caricature, and gets the London speak of the time right. It climaxes in a dramatic manhunt chase, ending up at night time in a marshalling yard, made especially noteworthy by the brilliant use of arc lighting.

[Tevot]

I've just watched "Cash on Demand" (UK, 1961) on Talking Pictures TV, a thriller starring Peter Cushing.... Channel 81 is proving to be a treasure-trove for too easily forgotten British masterpieces of the postwar period up to the mid-1960s ...

A very good morning to you all !

I'm currently on holiday in exotic North Yorkshire and came across Channel 81 while channel hopping yesterday. I saw part of "Morning Departure" a 1950 film about the fate of the crew of a sunken submarine (the cast includes John Mills and Richard Attenborough) and I was impressed by its production values and the quality of acting.

Also in agreement with SA about Peter Cushing - an able and versatile actor imho too often typecast - and his portrayal of Winston Smith in the 1954 BBC TV adaptation of 1984 is one that I admire.

Regarding film scores - I just looked up Malcolm Arnold and by heck wasn't he prolific !? The vast majority of the films he wrote music for I've never even heard of - let alone seen !!

Regarding Cash on Demand (which I have not seen) I note that it is being repeated this afternoon at 14:25 in case any of us forumites are not enthused by a certain football match taking place later today and seek alternative entertainment

Best Wishes,

Tevot