Films you've seen lately

[Richard Tarleton]

[QUOTE=LMcD;691191]

It certainly is (the most appropriate thread) - g in it but there we are .not entirely sure what Ed Balls is doing....
Meryl Streep's oeuvre seems to divide neatly into films in which she plays original characters, and ones in which she plays real people (recently, FFJ, Julia Childs, Katherine Graham, Margaret Thatcher....). I can never quite rid myself of the thought that I'm watching Meryl Streep playing yet somebody else, and how well she's doing it......Recently watched the film in which she plays a (fictional) former white water rafting instructor, opposite baddie Kevin Bacon, The River Wild - now there's another fine actor.

Introduced by Vinteuil in #478

Indeed - but this is the film thread..... Struggling to keep order here.

[Stanfordian]

[QUOTE=Richard Tarleton;691213]

Indeed - but this is the film thread..... Struggling to keep order here.

Put it on the 'Television you've seen recently' thread then? Is there one? There should be!

[Serial_Apologist]

Today's transmission of the Ealing/Boulting Bros 1947 "Hue and Cry" has been another saliutary reminder of the wonderful shoestring-funded films produced post-war in this country, of which I have now built up a personal collection of DVDs recalling my childhood surrounds and company. Many of the scenes were filmed on bomb sites and in bombed out buildings, which I doubt if H&S regulations would now allow, even for stunt persons, let alone the children shown scrambling over and through the ruins.

[Nick Armstrong]

On a rainy day, I've been watching Florence Foster Jenkins which was broadcast on 5 August (being a BBC film, I see it's also on iPlayer) - what a treat. I saw it in the cinema with an aunt who sings in amateur musical theatre () and loved it then, and again now. Lovely treading of a tightrope between the ludicrous and the touching.

I remembered Hugh Grant was good but I'd forgotten how very good (as in everything he's done recently). The scene where, having put Madame Florence to bed, he's persuaded to dance at the after-show party (to Louis Prima's Sing Sing Sing) is hilarious. And the ambiguity of his relationship with FFJ is fascinating - solicitous humouring of a cash-cow, or genuinely loving and protective? - as when he hears her record on the radio and realises things are escaping his control...

Loved the line from one of the callers to the radio show: "I lost my left leg and half my face at Guadalcanal but that dame's got me happy to be alive"

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

On a rainy day, I've been watching Florence Foster Jenkins which was broadcast on 5 August (being a BBC film, I see it's also on iPlayer) - what a treat. I saw it in the cinema with an aunt who sings in amateur musical theatre () and loved it then, and again now. Lovely treading of a tightrope between the ludicrous and the touching.

I remembered Hugh Grant was good but I'd forgotten how very good (as in everything he's done recently). The scene where, having put Madame Florence to bed, he's persuaded to dance at the after-show party (to Louis Prima's Sing Sing Sing) is hilarious. And the ambiguity of his relationship with FFJ is fascinating - solicitous humouring of a cash-cow, or genuinely loving and protective? - as when he hears her record on the radio and realises things are escaping his control...

Loved the line from one of the callers to the radio show: "I lost my left leg and half my face at Guadalcanal but that dame's got me happy to be alive"

- a delightful and moving film, thoroughly recommended for i-Playing if anyone missed it.

By a curious coincidence, the FFJ story was the inspiration behind the French film Marguerite which appeared in British cinemas at almost the same time as the Streep/Grant film. I hope that that gets a TV broadcast soon, too,

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

"They can say I couldn't sing, but they can't say I didn't sing!"

(Rather sums up my violin playing.)

[Nick Armstrong]

- a delightful and moving film, thoroughly recommended for i-Playing if anyone missed it.

By a curious coincidence, the FFJ story was the inspiration behind the French film Marguerite which appeared in British cinemas at almost the same time as the Streep/Grant film. I hope that that gets a TV broadcast soon, too,

Indeed; and of course FFJ has a thread of its own following the cinema release: http://www.for3.org/forums/showthrea...Foster+Jenkins

[Nick Armstrong]

"They can say I couldn't sing, but they can't say I didn't sing!"

(Rather sums up my violin playing.)

That final scene is very well done though - hearing the song through FFJ's 'mind's ear'... and in that scene and the lead-up to it, St. Clair Bayfield's motivation seeming to come down on the side of genuine and deep feeling for her and her happiness.

[LMcD]

I was recently lucky enough to purchase from a charity shop, for the princely sum of 10p each, a few DVDs of art-house films including 'Closely Observed Trains', which I first saw 40 or more years ago.
Released in 1966, i.e. 2 years before the Russian invasion, this Czech rites of passage/coming-of-age film is set in the 2nd World War when the occupying power was Nazi Germany. The parallels are obvious but not laboured. It packs a lot into its 88 minutes, managing to be comical, satirical, erotic, political and tragic. It deservedly won the Oscar for best foreign language film.

[gurnemanz]

All these years later I still remember the woman getting her bottom rubber stamped.

https://goo.gl/images/8NMwBz

[Bryn]

I was recently lucky enough to purchase from a charity shop, for the princely sum of 10p each, a few DVDs of art-house films including 'Closely Observed Trains', which I first saw 40 or more years ago.
Released in 1966, i.e. 2 years before the Russian invasion, this Czech rites of passage/coming-of-age film is set in the 2nd World War when the occupying power was Nazi Germany. The parallels are obvious but not laboured. It packs a lot into its 88 minutes, managing to be comical, satirical, erotic, political and tragic. It deservedly won the Oscar for best foreign language film.

Good to find the whole film (split into tow parts) is available on Dailymotion.

[Belgrove]

Is The Little Stranger a Loseyesque observation on the post-war English class system, a psychodrama, or a tightly controlled ghost story in the vein of The Innocents? It's all of these (possibly?), and very effective it is too in the cool and leisurely manner of its storytelling - no cheap thrills, just mounting dread. Dr Faraday is called to the decaying Hundreds Hall, where two generations of the psychologically and physically damaged Ayres family are also in a state of decay. But Faraday has been here before, as a child, and it transpires he has a connection with the house and the Ayres family that is not entirely straightforward, and from this the plot unfurls. Domhnall Gleeson is excellent as the buttoned-up medic and Ruth Wilson is superb (when is she not?) as Catherine, the daughter of the house, who enters into an awkward but entirely plausible relationship with Faraday. Both these characters evolve in a way that is unexpected. Interesting that one of the film's themes touches upon the territory of manipulation, ground that Phantom Thread explored earlier in the year. This is a subtle and troubling film, definitely worth a look.

[Stanfordian]

'King of Thieves' with an ensemble cast the British crime film based on the Hatton Garden safe deposit burglary of 2015. On the one hand with so many disagreements amongst the gang it's surprising they got away with anything. It seems £20million from the haul is still missing so they couldn't have been as bungling as made out.

Enjoyable - but I don't expect it will win any awards.

[Dave2002]

'King of Thieves' with an ensemble cast the British crime film based on the Hatton Garden safe deposit burglary of 2015. On the one hand with so many disagreements amongst the gang it's surprising they got away with anything. It seems £20million from the haul is still missing so they couldn't have been as bungling as made out.

Enjoyable - but I don't expect it will win any awards.

I couldn't work out whether it is a documentary or a comedy . Great fun.

[Conchis]

Film Stars Don't Die In Liverpool: an excellent film and much better than the (similar) My Week With Marilyn.