[QUOTE=RealityChuck] Hear My Song – delightful comedy about the hunt to bring legendary Irish tenor Josef Locke to perform in the UK – where he’s a tax exile. Ned Beatty playes Locke, but the movie is about Adrian Dunbar’s efforts to find him and convince him to sing – without being arrested by dogged revenue agent David McCallum.
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It is indeed absolutely delightful, and can be enjoyed by all ages. A true family film.
And I must mention Tara Fitzgerald as the gorgeous, intelligent foil to Dunbar.
[QUOTE=Bobotheoptimist]
I enjoyed Michael Collins and Bloody Sunday.
Kind of political, but interesting nonetheless.
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There’s also the new Ken Loach movie The Wind That Shakes the Barley which won the Palme D’Or last year. It looks at the War of Independence and the Civil War that followed. I loved it and was very moved by it. It’s a bit tough on the Brits tough but then again they were tough on us
If you can get your hands on it I’d highly recommend The Treaty which is way better than Michael Collins (a Hollywood movie with a lot of BS history in it IMO).
The Decline and Fall…of a Birdwatcher- great ultra-obsucre hip 60’s comedy;
A Taste of Honey
This Sporting Life
Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
Look Back in Anger
Room at the Top
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
Scum
Intermission- great recent Irish Pulp Fiction style film.
Brighton Rock
Brief Encounter
[QUOTE=bubastis]
An irresisistable gangster/ road movie… brilliant.
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I agree wholeheartedly, though I called it “little known” when I mentioned it in post #22.
A Taste of Honey
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
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These are brilliant flicks. Don’t let the fact that they’re old films put you off!
I saw Gregory’s Girl as a kid - everyone had a crush on Clare Grogan. I rented it recently, but the DVD had a language track that was the original which was much better than the dubbed version. But you’ll need subtitles.
Lisa-go-blind’s Mike Leigh picks are great as well. There’s a DVD out of some of his Playhouse dramas. The one I saw was about a couple with a shaky marriage having a cocktail party… forgot the name, but it was one of the best films I’ve ever seen.
Great thread. I’m inspired to go to Netflix and check some of the newer films out!
[QUOTE=jjimm]
:eek: You can’t be serious!?! That’s shocking.Abigail’s Party?
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Yes - the US version of Gregory’s Girl is dubbed with Northern-sounding voices. No real Hibernian brogues. My particular version had another track with the original voices. I mean, it only makes sense. The story’s set in Scotland, not Leeds. Though I suspect your average American would have a real hard time with the dialogue. Heck, I did, and I grew up in the UK. Subtitles are a necessity for us Yanks.
Some twenty-plus years ago, I was home sick one day. I spent the morning watching TV: game shows, talk shows, and so on. But the afternoon movie came on, and not having enough energy to get up and change the channel to something more interesting with lovely parting gifts (our TV did not have a remote in those days), I watched it.
It was Rattle of a Simple Man, a British film from 1964, and it was a treat. Bascally, a group of soccer fans have travelled to a game. They’ve had a few drinks, their team has won, and they decide that one of them needs to be set up with a prostitute. So they find one, and literally push him into her apartment. You might imagine that yuks would abound. But that wasn’t so.
Because that’s where it got interesting. No, there was no sex. What there was, was a long conversation between the prostitute and the very shy man, where each expressed their innermost feelings. I realize that this brief description might be enough to turn many off, but it was a truly intricate bit of filmmaking, IMHO, since most of the film took place in the prostitute’s apartment, and was nothing more than a gripping conversation. I don’t recall waiting for the end, and another game or talk show; rather, I was transfixed by the character’s stories. When it did end, I was surprised to find that two hours had passed.
To be able to hold this viewer’s attention with nothing more than a conversation is, IMHO, quite a feat. I wish this film was available on DVD, but sadly, that does not seem to be the case.
For more Scottish accents try The Rocket Post, which came out here recently.
A bit like the classic Whisky Galore and also based on a true story - about a 1930s scheme to improve communications with the outlying Hebridean islands by a rocket mail system!
Great fun, but with a darker ending than you’d expect…
