Behind the Candelabra (2013)

Paul and I saw the Liberace film. It was great. Brill performances and a great comedy turn from Rob Lowe. Shame it's not on at the cinema in America so it can't win any Oscars, Michael Douglas was great as disgusting old Liberace, what a creep! The part he was born to play baby!!

My Week with Marilyn (2011)

Anna saw it at the cinema and said it was shite, which was a shame because I'd fancied seeing it because I wanted to see how Kenny tackled being Larry- to me it seemed the perfect casting.
My dad rented it and we watched it together. I thought it was brill! A great British ensemble piece and I actually managed to enjoy Judi Dench (there's a first!)
Also, just as I expected, Kenny nailed it. At some points I forgot he wasn't Olivier.

The King's Speech (2011)

And speaking of ensemble pieces... What a vast array of British talent in the background of The King's Speech! Yes, Colin Firth was brilliant (even in the mandatory British film sweary routine- fuck bugger fuck tits, etc.) Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter were their usual good support but look at the rest! And I'm not talking about Timothy Spall (they wheel him out for every Brit-flick) or Gambo or Luvvie Jacobi, I'm talking about Anthony Andrews! Adrian Scarborough! Claire Bloom! Jennifer Ehle! All these people lurking in the background having barely a line between them!
Bertie Portal stood behind Colin Firth in practically every scene! That man is a joy on stage! It's ridiculous!
I loved spotting them all and knowing their names, I am such a geek.

Hattie (BBC4)

Robert Bathurst was so good in this. I know he does a lot of theatre- though not enough in the West End- and he's always working in bits of TV and radio- he turned up in Downton Abbey as Lord Boring-middle-aged-suitor-to-ugly-sister (I think that was his character's name), but I've always thought he's so overlooked! Really he was phenomenally good as broken-hearted John le Mesurier in this BBC drama. He was the star of the show, I felt so awful for him, and almost instantly took back what I said as it started ("Rob's a bit miscast.") He was wonderfully tragic and charming.
He was the best of the Uptown Boys!! The most handsome!! And see! See!! He's the best actor too!!

Glandular Fever roundup: Nowhere Boy, Avatar, Sunshine Cleaning, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

I have seen a bunch of films this week because I am ill. All films that I have wanted to see, some for a while, some that have just come out. I can't be doing with reviewing each separately so here is a roundup. The list: Sunshine Cleaning(2009), Nowhere Boy(2009), Avatar(2009), Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist(2008).

I'll say straight off that I enjoyed them all, except Avatar which was the biggest pile of crap I've ever seen and I knew that it would be (my dad made me watch it, it wasn't on my list). Yes the CGI is amazing and it looks beautiful and I'm sure on the big screen and in 3D it was an experience. But it is still a film about a self-righteous American who befriends the natives and leads them into a mindless war where even though they win they have millions more fatalities than the enemy. Self congratulatory American drivel.

Nowhere Boy was about John Lennon's teenage years and I was worried (as a Beatles expert) that I wouldn't like it, the casting or whatever. But no, I really did like it, and I felt very emotional watching it, especially that bit at the end where Paul and John have a punch at each other and then start crying because both of them have just lost their mums. Of course, that is what kept these two vastly different geniuses together all those years, but I never really thought about it, and it made me terribly sad! Maybe it was just the glandular fever! I thought the casting was great, though not keen on George- he was a much prettier boy than that- Paul as played by that ugly kid from Love Actually was actually quite a good choice and of course the boy playing Lennon was sometimes exactly like him and then sometimes stunningly gorgeous! As per usual with these British films, excellent ensemble, Kristin Scott-Thomas and Anne-Marie Duff gave brilliant performances and David Morrissey in the background was good solid support.

Sunshine Cleaning I liked too, the two gals were good and Alan Arkin never disappoints, very real but with surprising moments of subtle hilarity considering the subject matter! Could have done without the weird Emily Blunt/Lesbian not-relationship though, I didn't think that added anything.

I watched Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist with my dad and we both liked it- and he is the kind of person who thinks American Pie is a good coming-of-age teen comedy! I thought it was very well written, I liked that it all took place over one night, that made it different from the other Indie teen movies out there- that probably also star Michael Cera. She was really lovely though and all I could think was she could do much better than him!

Bright Star (2009)

This film does nothing for Keats' poetry at all. The few times that verses are recited they're recited by people who have hideously inconsistent accents. I was expecting more, damn it! I bloody love Keats and I was willing to try and overcome my dislike of Ben Wishaw to watch the movie of his life- well it wasn't the movie of his life, it was the movie of the last three boring years of his life.

And what a waste of Sam Barnett!! He comes in all jolly and we all shout "Posner! Hooray! There's going to be a song!!" and in the following scene there was a song- but effing Ben Wishaw sings it and we don't see Barnett again until the end when he spills a cup of tea over himself in the background in attempt to put some humour into the god damn film!

Charmless actors = charmless film.

I'm sure Wishaw will one day surprise me and be gripping, but I don't like him. And don't even get me started on how awful that Australian girl was as the lead. Ugh!

Walk the Line (2005)

I stupidly bought Dreamgirls (2006) a couple of days ago because it was reduced to £5 and I'd never seen it. Ugh, why do I keep doing this? Just like when I went to see Mama Mia! and assumed it would be good... I saw Enchanted, Sweeney Todd, Hairspray and something else... Can't remember what, anyway, I saw al those films and thought "Hey! Hollywood's going back to making good old fashioned musicals! The emphasis was on the word good. They were Singing in the Rain standard! (well, not that good, but not friggin' Brigadoon bad!) I'm fooled by these terrible films with songs. Dreamgirls was horrendous, hello, plot? Where are you!? The numbers that the band sang on stage were good! The unexpected songs that the actors suddenly started singing not on stage were jarringly awful! Make your mind up! Make a film about a band where you get to see them doing their numbers or do a musical, don't mix them! Or if you do, make it clear you're going to do that!! Don't put the first off-stage number in more than half an hour into the film! Start with one! Then we know it might happen again and we can leave the cinema!!

Walk the Line. There's a film I should have bought. Instead I watched it a day later, ah, a good film, a film with fantastic musical performances in all the right places- on stage!!! I don't know why I thought Dreamgirls would be good, I think somewhere in my mind I had remembered it was a film about the Supremes. I like the Supremes. There's one memorable song in Dreamgirls, and I only remember it because ITV use it in practically all of their advertising. Johnny Cash, he had some good songs, and thank God, in the film about Johnny Cash they used Johnny Cash songs.

I like Country music and I like Rock and Roll. Early Rock and Roll like this is my favourite. My sister is all about new music, so was my Suzie and my Shona (past flatmates). I don't list music as an interest because I feel I know nothing about it, but I'm always singing and when I do find something I like (which is a couple of times a year I suppose) it's usually Rock and Roll or Country. The last person I added to my music list (in September) was Emmy Lou Harris -guess which genre she comes under.

I got goosebumps at the Bob Dylan cover, I was thrilled when I saw the boy playing Carl Perkins do a number or two and I loved Jerry Lewis, the film was great! Why did I wait so long to see it?! Maybe it was my aversion to Reese Witherspoon's chin, odd, I like a lot of her films, well, Pleasantville and Election. But she and Phoenix were spot on perfect and amazing singers. I'll be watching it again soon.

Anyone seen my Carl Perkins and Chums album? Or whatever it's called... Pals?