I’d go with “There is no Easter Bunny, there is no Tooth Fairy, and there is no Queen of England.”
I watched Catherine Called Birdy last night. It’s set in mediaeval times, and stars Bella Ramsey, Andrew Scott, and Billie Piper. Directed by Lena Dunham (apparently a dream project of hers since she read the book), it is a comedic take of a young girl coming of age in a British Noble family.
It was fun, and also a bit of a jumble. It’s mostly about Birdy watching all her friends and family getting married off judiciously, and then she has to navigate the same thing, but she’s an unruly tomboy scamp and doesn’t want any part of such shenanigans.
It felt like there was much more depth to be explored than the movie managed to achieve, so it was somewhat unsatisfying at its conclusion. Also the de rigueur modern music soundtrack* was not in any way artfully inserted. But, having said that, Bella Ramsey was fantastic, and if they wanted to follow it up with a sequel, I’d watch it.
It’s on Amazon.
*at one point they play a Billie Piper song, but it’s a cover, so that was weird
She Dies Tomorrow
Terrible, one of the worst movies I’ve sat through recently. Skip this movie, it is a boring snoozefest and not worth it.
No, it doesn’t go anywhere. That is the question you will be asking in the opening 30 minutes. No, it just meanders and ends. Terrible film.
On Netflix. Good silly fun.
I’ve seen it, and it simply reinforces my theory that Simon Farnaby has a whole exhibitionism thing going on. He spends the whole film in basically tiny gym shorts and trainers, in Yonderland one of his characters is constantly finding excuses to get naked and another drops trou on camera a couple of times, and in Ghosts his character is perpetually naked from the waist down (albeit covered by shirttails). Eventually one starts to notice a trend.
But I agree that Mindhorn is good silly fun.
Last night I watched Slumberland, which I didn’t realise was (loosely) inspired by the Winsor McCay comic strip Little Nemo In Slumberland until the scene where the bed walks down the street.
The storyline is about a girl called Nemo (Marlow Barkley), who lives in a Lighthouse, and whose Father (Kyle Chandler) passes away, goes to live with an Uncle (Chris O’Dowd) she has never met, then starts to have vivid dreams where she meets a loose cannon named Flip (Jason Momoa) and they go on adventures in her attempt to be with her Father again.
It’s a lot better than it ought to be, and the VFX in particular are mindblowingly impressive for a Netflix movie. Also it made me cry.
Jack Webb directs and stars as a coronet-playing Jazz band leader in late 1920s Missouri involved with manager/racketeer Edmond O’Brien. Reed-thin and wearing some of the worst (albeit, period-correct) clothes I’ve ever seen on a leading man, Jack punches out his own clarinet player Lee Marvin (twice!) as well as one of O’Brien’s much-bigger henchmen and it’s not very convincing. Martin Milner – star of the Webb-produced Adam-12 thirteen years later – is the band’s totally obnoxious drunkard drummer. His death in an alley is beautifully filmed and the movie’s highlight. Janet Leigh’s character makes absolutely no sense - but looks gorgeous – Peggy Lee croons a couple undistinguished numbers before going insane and O’Brien gives a remarkably Trump-like performance; all he’s missing is the orange hair.
I’m no fan of Jazz, let alone Dixieland, but most of the musical numbers were not too dreary. The exceptions were two songs sung by Ella Fitzgerald, which I thought were outstanding (esp. “Hard Hearted Hannah”). Overall, I found this underrated-if-flawed drama mostly entertaining, unexpectedly well-directed and lit, with some good dialogue and bad plotting.
The Banshees of Inisherin on HBO. Colin Ferrell and Brendan Gleeson reunited (by the same director) for a very dark comedy (dramady?) about two friends who live in a small community on a remote Irish island in the 1920s, along with a host of peculiar folk. It’s a metaphor for the Irish civil war that pitted friend against friend in 1922-23. Extremely well done, if rather odd.
Streamed Monstrous with Christina Ricci
Billed as Horror\Suspense, it was…not, really. Standard tale of someone who has not dealt with a loss.
The twist was evident halfway though, so no surpises.
Her son had been dead for year and she was NOT in the 50’s
The Last Vermeer, a story about a Dutch artist accused after WWII of selling a priceless Vermeer to Hermann Göring during the Nazi occupation and thus being considered a collaborator. Based on a real person and story, I don’t want to give away any details because if you don’t know the story, the twist (such as it is) is pretty nifty; otherwise you end up waiting for the eventual reveal. A skilled turn from Guy Pearce.
Huh, I thought you were talking about Tim’s Vermeer, directed by Teller(yes, the magician). I’ve not heard of The Last Vermeer.
Spirited. Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell do a modern take on Scrooge, complete with ghosts working year-round to research, plan, and haunt one (un)lucky soul on Christmas Eve. Not quite a child-safe movie, but plenty of the Ferrell- and Reynolds-style humor, if you enjoy that. Personally, hilarious, even if Ferrell’s schtick got a bit old a decade or two ago.
Oh, and it’s a musical, where none of the cast have an especially strong voice. But the dancing is pretty slick at times.
I watched The Railway Man tonight. About a English POW and coming to terms with his torture by the Japanese. It was pretty good. Based on a true story, so that it had that going for it. Big name stars, fine camera work.
I enjoyed this. Well done film.
Finally saw The Grand Budapest Hotel (the film mentioned in the OP some eight years ago).
Every scene is visually sumptuous. The mid-century set design is as charming as can be, right down to the many retro fonts used for signage. And Wes Anderson employs a range of strikingly original ideas here. It feels like the film he was born to make.
And yet…
This film – like most of Anderson’s work – is so stylized that it’s hard to get invested in the characters or to care about the plot. And that’s a huge handicap for any work of fiction on the screen. A good film should draw you in and get you to suspend your disbelief; this one didn’t come close to doing that.
The Grand Budapest Hotel is one of my favorite movies, let alone favorite Wes Anderson movie. Ralph Fiennes is hilariously dead-pan. The dialogue is so crisp you could get a paper cut on it. And, of course, the visuals are amazing.
Yesterday I watched an old war time comedy with Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea and Charles Coburn called, The More the Merrier (1943), about a single woman in housing crunched DC who rents out a room to an old retired millionaire who needs a room for two days (but rents it for a week) who then sub-lets half of his room to a bomber mechanic. Hijinks ensue. It isn’t slapstick, but it has a few of those elements. There is a ton of that sarcastic 40’s patter:
Benjamin Dingle: What’s your name?
Joe Carter: Carter.
Benjamin Dingle: Bill Carter?
Joe Carter: Joe Carter.
Benjamin Dingle: I used to know a fellow named Bill Carter.
Joe Carter: Wasn’t me.
Benjamin Dingle: Don’t you suppose I know that?
Joe Carter: What’d you ask for, then?
Benjamin Dingle: I guess I know what Bill Carter looked like.
Joe Carter: Not like me.
Benjamin Dingle: Oh, then, you know Bill Carter.
Joe Carter: No, I don’t, but he sounds like a great guy.
It’s a fun afternoon watch with a few risque (for the forties) moments. Jean Arthur is gorgeous. She basically retired from acting not long after this one due to crippling anxiety.
Amsterdam’s cast is a veritable who’s who of who’s hot right now (Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Michael Shannon, Anya Taylor-Joy, Rami Malek, Andrea Riseborough, Timothy Olyphant, Chris Rock, Mike Myers, Taylor Swift, Zoe Saldana, and Robert De Niro ). But I found the end result just kind of “okay”.
I, too, am a big, big fan of The Grand Budapest Hotel. Endlessly inventive, quotable, lovely to look at, with a great cast, memorable soundtrack and all sorts of clever details. The kind of movie in which I notice something different every time I see it. Ralph Fiennes, whose character is hilariously, unpredictably either ultra-refined effete or boiler-room coarse, should have won an Oscar IMHO.
My favorite Wes Anderson film, just a bit ahead of Rushmore.
I saw Nope and Ticket to Paradise over the weekend, I think both on the Peacock streaming service.
“I’m going to play this movie like I’m working with the Royal Shakespeare Company. I will never wink, I will never do anything Muppety. I am going to play Scrooge as if it is an utterly dramatic role." -Michael Caine, to director Brian Henson
Damn, that cast makes a great trailer! A lot of wasted talent on a rather weak story. It could have been better if it wasn’t wedded to an obscure and ultimately irrelevant event in US History.