Mr Bean's Holiday (2007)

I went to see Mr Bean's Holiday at the cinema when it came out and I loved it, it was just so French! It made me desperately want to go to France.

I saw it for the second time a couple of days ago, it was very sweet, I still liked it. Mr Bean is unique, he is in a genre of his own; he is a silent movie- universally accessible. It's ridiculous that no one else has picked up on that. I should think it's made Rowan Atkinson a lot of money over the years.

I lie though, the French have a lot of stuff like this going on in film, that's why France was the perfect holiday for Mr B. The French still go for mime and physical comedy, that film Micmacs that I wrote about a couple of months ago, I don't know if I mentioned it but the lead character hardly says a word throughout... And of course Mr Bean in this film- harking back to the original series rather than Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie(1997) (which I also love)- has a vocabulary of about 6 words, one of them being "Bean".

Toy Story 3 (2010)

Brilliant and utterly, horrifyingly heartbreaking- definitely not for kids. But then the other films out there that have made me cry have not made me laugh out loud nearly so much. It was most excellent.

I especially liked how they made Andy look like Zac Effron.

The Pirate (1948)

Gene Kelly's wig was ridiculous and Judy Garland's real-life terror came though in her acting but together they were an excellent comedy and dancing duo. The film had some good songs and top-notch dancing. The ballet was a bit self-indulgent and Gene's black hot-pants were a bit campy, but hey, it's an MGM musical- and remember it's all in Judy's alcohol and drug-fueled mind!

Could have done without the reprise of Be a Clown though...

Ace poster!

Twilight: Eclipse (2010)

Even though there was a sort of exciting big fight scene in this one the film was still extremely uneventful- it ended with NOTHING happening- and it was ridiculously overlong.

The three leads are so horrifically uncharismatic and hateful, I don't know if it's just the three boring actors playing them or the appalling scripts or heck, both! But I wondered- as I had given up whilst reading book two because it was so disgustingly badly written, self indulgent and basically just unreadable!- I was wondering if I might actually end up liking any of the characters after seeing what happened in this movie. Well, I just wanted them all to die more!

Ugh. It made me want to watch Black Death again! It made me think Sean Bean was a good actor!!

Black Death (2010)

"Don't act until I tell you!" said Sean Bean half way through the film- I wish he'd bloody told them at the beginning!

This film was basically a medieval torture showcase! Some actors got hideously tortured but Eddie Redmayne showed that he has promise as a versatile film actor by playing a repressed monk and then at the end a psycho bad guy- but quite a pretty one. So this film was probably good for him but not for the others. Sean Bean played his usual and a rather miscast Tim McInnerny (still my favourite) played the heavy who ended up in the extravagant torture device last seen at the end of Blackadder I. Yeah, looking at Tim there playing a big thug I was like; "Oh dear, you really have some odd choices, Amy. Why do you like him?" And then he started speaking and even though the script was drivel McInnerny has a voice I could listen to all day. Sigh!

Terrible script, mostly terrible acting, terribly violent and above all terrible camera work- I felt headachy watching the hand held effect that lasted the majority of the film, ugh, focus damn it, focus!!

Women Beware Women -Middleton (National Theatre)

This production is now over!! Anna and I were supposed to see it in previews a few months ago but you know, I got sick and stayed sick for a very long time. But we managed to go down to London specifically to see it the day before it closed and it was magnificent!

I was expecting a massacre of Revenger's Tragedy (2008) proportions so when the final balletic death-dance came along I was pleased that there was an amazingly choreographed bloodbath but relieved that it wasn't bloody like the disturbing scenes I remembered from the last restoration tragedy I'd seen at the National. Yes, the final scene was amazingly well done, really beautiful and spine chilling without being disgusting, it was terrifying! One after another after another gets their revenge and is killed until there is no one left, wow, it made all the hairs on my arms stand on end!

Anyway, some brilliant performances. I went to see Sam Barnett and Harriet Walter, neither disappointed. Barnett did his usual cute Posner act (Awwww!! Posner betrayed!! Awwww!!) and Walter was outstanding, seemingly unknowingly cold and calculating in the first act and then a giggly girly so taken with the young boy in the second. Oh! That character was me! That was my future!! My two husbands dead and buried and then along comes Posner, a beautiful blond boy, sigh, swoon! I adore him!! Ugh, I'm going to be such a predator when I'm old. But enough about my horrible self-realisation. Harriet was amazing, a wonderful strong lead and she is stunning!

But there were discoveries too! That's what we love!! Discovering young actors! The two girls were good, especially Lauren O'Neil who had the stage presence of a young Alex Kingston, what a deep powerful voice that little blonde has!! But this is what it's all about folks... This was the same feeling the first time I saw Rory Kinnear on stage in The Man of Mode (2007), the same wide smile on my face, the inability to take my eyes off him whenever he was on stage. Harry Melling is hilarious. Who'd have thought that it would be Dudley from the Harry Potter movies who would come out of those films a promising actor. Not only is he ridiculously funny, both with delivery and physically- he is actually really good looking! I saw him in Mother Courage last year and he was playing the dim-witted son, he has been promoted to scene-stealing fool, it won't be long before he's given more opportunities. I can see his whole stage career, he is going to be brilliant.