Last night we watched The Courier on DVD, courtesy of Cinema Paradiso.
Based on a true story, the film was about British Businessman Greville Wynne who, during the cuban missile crisis, was recruited by MI6 to help smuggle out of Russia intelligence provided by Oleg Penkovsky.
I very much enjoyed this film; a great story that deserved to be well told, and excellent acting from the whole cast. Highly recommended.
Astonishing acting from Dominic Cumberbatch who seemed to shrink physically in the KGB prison. Watched via BFI rental. I was fascinated, but my wife and daughter lost interest. A slow burn.
David Rudkin’s TV adaptation on M. R. James’s ‘The Ash Tree’ on BBC 4 iPlayer. Originally broadcast 1975. Colour, unlike most of the other James adaptations. This reminds me that I should give Rudkin’s cult Penda’s Fen which I have on DVD another outing. It is much admired as a classic folk horror, but failed to engage me last year.
The Cohen bros have not made out duff movie in my eyes 
I think they have made some great films and some definite also rans for me.
I still think their best was their first, Blood Simple. Gets very regular viewings. Superb.
Charade
This is a superb film with a sterling cast. I would rate this above North by Northwest, which is high praise as I also love that film.
M
Does the special effects hold up to more shown visual details ?
It was all mechanical animatronics around that time.
Some of them look a bit shonky - thinking of arnies head expanding scenes in Total Recall.
I didn’t selectively look for any special effects looking dodgy. The whole picture screams out crisp vibrancy. Funny enough, it’s small details like the hue of the torch lights and flames that stick out a mile from any other media.
Doubtless it helps that it’s a brilliant film of its kind.
Oh this is wonderful. Anybody who has enjoyed the trials and emotions of a thirty year marriage will want to learn how your partner views the relationship.
As you might expect it is sympathetically acted.
Netflix.
N
I only made 25 years before my mate was called away and I never joined another team/or could find one that wanted me,
A telesales operative becomes disillusioned with his existence and begins to hunger for fresh excitement in his life. As he experiences a new awakening of the senses, his wife and daughter also undergo changes that seriously affect their family. Critically acclaimed, this film won Oscars for Best Screenplay, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Film.
Yes, a bit of a classic this one.
In 1920s New York City, a black woman finds her world upended when her life becomes intertwined with a former childhood friend who’s passing as white.
Watched this for the first time in decades the other night. OK, it’s over sentimental but it holds your attention, is moving and the poignancy of Robin Williams’ performance has become even more so since his death.
This is one of three films which came out in rapid succession with Penelope Ann Miller in them (also The Freshman and Kindergarten Cop) leaving me with ever so slightly a crush on her at the time… 
I’d forgotten Marge Simpson is in it too!
A good-quality Hammer period drama, set in the English Civil War and written and directed by Hammer regular John Gilling. Great cast – Lionel Jeffries as a sadistic Roundhead colonel, Oliver Reed as a duplicitous captain and Jack Hedley as the titular hero, a kind of Scarlet Pimpernel trying to rescue the King while avoiding the attentions of Cromwell’s troops. There’s a well-rendered period atmosphere and plenty of swashes are buckled. Good fun.
Another Hammer, this time from 1972, and directed by Robert Young. Set in a 19th century Serbian village, it’s about a vampirte count who, just before he is killed by villagers, curses them. Fifteen years later, a circus, led by Adrienne Corri, rolls up when the village is ravaged by a mysterious pestilence. Children start disappearing, and someone works out that the kids are being bumped off so that their blood may feed his vampiric relatives (many of whom are members of the circus troupe) and he may live. Fortunately they are all defeated. There are lots scenes of the vampire brood being biffed with stakes and crooses, buckets of absurdly crimson blood, a good score and a good cast of Brit character actors – Thorley Walters, Anthony Higgins, Lalla Ward, a very young Lynne Frederick, Laurance Payne and the underrated Skip Martin as a malevolent dwarf. Dave Prowse is also in it, as – you guessed it – a mute circus strongman.
It manages to transcend the daftness of the story. Splendid stuff
Little Women (2019)
When this came out I chose not to see it as I feared it would take a classic story and inject modern messaging into it. As it is on Netflix I thought I would see whether my fears were justified.
The film opens with Jo in New York. Yes, the writer director chose to move backwards and forwards in time, rather than have a linear timeline. While this might work for Tarrantino, and I emphasise the MIGHT, it certainly doesn’t here. The movements are distracting and rob important events of emotional weight. However, as I know the story I settled into it and began to enjoy some of the extra air that was given to the other girls story-lines. HOWEVER, this was not really capitilised upon, for instance:
Meg is shown being tempted to buy expensive satin when the family budget wouldn’t allow for it. I don’t believe this is shown in the other films of this book, certainly not in the Winona Ryder version. However, here the issue is quickly resolved and the growth that Meg goes through, with assistance with her mother, is not shown …so why bother?
In fact Marmee is grossly undercut. In the novel she is philosophically and morally strong, she is the family matriarch, but much of that strength is robbed from her and given to Jo.
The sisters are portrayed in a too modern fashion and the age differences are not properly marked.
Despite these reservations I found myself enjoying what was on display and had settled into the expanded story, until the ending. To say the writer / director failed to land the ending is understatement, she confused it and robbed it of much emotional resonance.
In this version when Jo takes her book, ‘Little Women’, to her publisher she leaves herself as a spinster. The publisher objects to this and she allows him to brow beat her into marrying her character, whilst she negotiates a better financial deal. She then adds the ending where she catches up to her German Professor and they have the resolution from the Novel. The implication being that this is a fictional expansion within the story. HOWEVER, in the final scenes the Professor is present in Jo’s school??
So what is the filmic truth?
The character of the Professor in this film is severly pruned and undermined. In the novel he helps Jo develop, partly because of his greater experience as he is so much older & better educated than she. Her rejection of his honest critique is shown here but not the book resolution, after all Jo is being presented and a MUCH more fully formed character, and in no need of assistance or advice.
This film takes a great novel and reduces it to a semi-modern mush. If the writer wanted to display modern mores then she would have been better served to have bought the story forward in time. Here the historic setting is simply a pretty backdrop with none of the historic backbone.
A big budget is displayed on screen, but I feel that the film itself is a sad reflection of a much loved novel.
M
Streaming on Netflix. Powerful acting and New Zealand landscapes (a substitute for Montana) to die for.
