Men are from Mars, Women....answer to Venus?!

The story follows Maurice & Ian (Peter O'Toole & Leslie Phillips), a pair of aging actors who never quite hit the big time. Now in their "Golden Years" Maurice continues to work but the roles are far from glamorous (mostly corpses!) But they have a comfortable routine, meeting for breakfast in their favourite cafe with another friend, Donald (played by 'Uncle Vernon' - Richard Griffiths) where they enjoy some witty banter and discuss who they know in the 'Deaths' columns of that days papers. This easy routine is thrown by the arrival of Ian's grand-niece, Jessie (newcomer Jodie Whittaker)

Jessie quickly tries her great-uncles patience with her inability to cook & clean and her bad attitude towards everyone she meets. Maurice, on the other hand finds her totally enthralling & takes her under his wing, attempting to introduce her to the cultural sights of London. Jessie runs hot and cold, sometimes showing a lost and vulnerable side when her guard is down but quickly switching back to her 'world-weary, no-one can hurt me' attitude and often taking advantage of the strength of Maurice's feelings for her but then feeling guilty about it. As Maurice tries to giver her the benefit of his experience he is surprised to see how little he really knows about todays world and how he fits into it. Jessie slowly learns from Maurice the value of respect, not just for others but for herself.

As Maurice's life draws to a close Jessie acts as his nurse and grants him his final wish; taking him to the seaside and helping him paddle in the icy sea. When he dies, he dies a happy man with Jessie at his side. At his funeral his ex-wife Valerie (Vanessa Redgrave) offers Jessie the chance to make a go of it in London with the use of Maurice's old flat. The transformation from cocky girl to self-confident young woman is clear and you hope for her that she has learnt something that will stay with her for life from her friendship with this old man.

The film is beautifully made with great performances from a stellar cast who ironically stick two-fingers up to those casting directors who feel older actors are only good for corpses shown in the story. How Peter O'Toole has never won a Best Actor Oscar is beyond me but this year was unfortunately not going to be his year with the strength of Forest Whitaker's performance.

I don't know that I can necessarily say that I enjoyed the film but I did like it - it is undoubtedly a very evocative film, showing beautifully the vulnerability of the human race but keeping the humour.

Babel

WHAT A MASSIVE WASTE OF TIME!

Need I say more? Well ok then - it's a bit of a poo post if I don't, so I will...


...The film has four distinct segments, each taking place with different people.
1) Morocco - The Moroccan family, who live in the desert and farm goats.
2) Morocco - Brad and Kate who are for some reason on Holiday sans Children, and are on a tour bus.
3) USA/ Mexico - The Mexican Nanny, looking after Brad and Kate's kids.
4) Japan - The Japanese girl who's father gave a gun to a Moroccan man.

Ok. The first three all link quite nicely. The Japan thread is a bit out there, but I'll get to that bit later.

The Moroccan children are given a rifle by their father, who buys it from someone in exchange for a goat and some money. The boys shoot at a tour bus, (after a pointless and random wanking scene,) the bullet hits Kate Blanchett, Brad has a panic, and the bus is diverted to a nearby village with a doctor. Lovely.

Kate is quietly dying on the floor of a house, and Brad tries to get the US embassy to arrange for an ambulance. Meanwhile, the Mexican nanny looking after his kids is going to miss her son's wedding, so she and her nephew take them over the Mexican border to the wedding. The wedding finishes, the nephew is drunk, it's very early in the morning, and they are stopped at the US border because they don't have the right papers. But when they get pulled over, the nephew powers through the fence, creating a high speed chase. Having driven into the desert some way, he gets his Aunt and the American children out of the car, and leaves them, saying he'll come back. He doesn't. The Nanny leaves the children in the baking sun, flags down a border patrol car, is arrested, the kids are eventually found, and the nanny is deported.

Meanwhile, Kate wees herself, and then is flown out by helicopter, the tour bus having abandoned them. Turns out the Japanese girl's father gave the gun as a gift to one of the Moroccans after a hunting trip. Except, we're treated to random Japanese girl nakedness, and trying to force herself on to people for quite some time, which was totally pointless and random, and didn't form any integral part of the film. Oh, and none of it was chronological - it jumped all over the place depending which character the film was following! Argh!

I was also of the opinion that Kate and Brad's acting was less than mediocre, and Brad just seemed to be playing himself, and even then wasn't very convincing. As Hev said "if it wins an Oscar I will be very angry"!

0.5 Stars - John

The story of the psychotic old stalking lesbian!!

This week it was back to the Picture House for Notes On A Scandal with the uber-wonderful Jame Dudi (or Dame Judi Dench to those of you not in the know!)

Dench stars as Barbara Covett, a domineering and lonely old History teacher at a north-London school. Apart from her cat, Portia, she is alone, without friends or confidantes but all this appears set to change when the posh, young, beautiful Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett) joins the school as the new art teacher. Barbara feels Sheba to be a kindred spirit and loyal friend; her special friend.

Barb intertwines herself into the lives of Sheba and her family; her writer husband Richard (played by Bill Nighy) and their two children (stroppy teenage daughter, Polly & younger son Ben, affected by Downs Syndrome). Sheba senses the loneliness and need for a friend in Barb, and her warm and welcoming nature shine through as she fills that void in Barb’s life. But then there is Steven Connolly (played by Irish newcomer Andrew Simpson); the attractive 15 year old student who Sheba takes under her wing. When she enters into an affair with the boy, it can only lead to disaster when Barbara finds out. When it becomes clear that Barbara wants more than Sheba is able to give, a commitment above and beyond that of friendship, obsessive Barbara uses her knowledge of the affair to wield a controlling power over her friend which threatens to tear apart the lives of those involved.

All of this is recorded in Barbara’s extensive and exhaustive collection of diaries. It’s here that the audience is shown the deeper and often, delusional thoughts of the aging teacher. Her belief that the intensity of her feelings for ‘S’ are mirrored by the younger woman, her despise for the family she believes binds her against her will from moving on and, later, the act of sheer evil which causes the lives of those around her to unravel, are all dutifully written down. This proves to be Barbara’s undoing when her dreams are shattered by a forthright explosion of emotion from Sheba following her discovery of the diaries.

Notes On A Scandal is a psychological thriller, adapted for screen from Zoë Heller’s Booker Prize-nominated novel of the same name by Patrick Marber, whose previous works include Closer, and directed by Richard Eyre who worked with Dench previously on Iris.

Dench and Blanchett both deliver wonderful performances; the chemistry and tension between the two actresses is integral to making the story believable. The careers of Dench and Blanchett bear a remarkable resemblance to one another. Both Academy-Award-winning actresses started out in theatre. Dench played Ophelia in a 1957 production of Hamlet; Blanchett played the same role in a Sydney production in 1993. Both actresses played Queen Elizabeth I in the same year and they each won an award for her portrayal (Blanchett a BAFTA for Shekhar Kapur’s ELIZABETH and Dench an Oscar for SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE) Both woman have been seen in a range of roles, showing what seems to be an effortless ability to move between the classics to contemporary urban pieces. Notes On A Scandal brings the two together on screen for the first time and the result is, in short, a brilliant piece of cinema.

TA x

Ah, how I liked this film. Jame Dudy was indeed fantastic in her cold, bitter, twisted, lesbanian role, and sometimes you just had to laugh at how twisted and stupid her manipulations became. Kate was good in her role as Sheba (CAT FOOD!), and Bill Nighy once again successfully plays himself (I'm not a fan of his really...) It's a riveting story, and keeps you enthralled throughout, which unfortunately makes the film feel far to short and unsatisfying!

3.5 Stars - John

HRH "The Queen"

Breaking from tradition this week (something HRH knows all about... ...Tradition I mean, not necessarily breaking from it...) Anyway, TA and I went to the Picturehouse to see "The Queen," but this time - it was a MONDAY!

Also it was quite a cheap trip as I used my complimentary tickets that I got as a result of the Ghostbuster's film reel, wrong order fiasco. TA has yet to receive any iota of compensation for her visual discomfort during that particular performance, but hey ho.



Now the film started at 18:30, so I left work at 15:30 (I am NOT a part-timer as EVERYONE keeps telling me!) and arrived at the cinema (having parked in the dreaded car park,) at about 18:05 to get the tickets all sorted, but TA was on 6 o'clock cover, so had to get in from work. Which was great, except she missed the bus by 60 seconds, so had to wait a while before getting the park and ride, and then root marched herself through the centre of Exeter to get to the cinema for 18:35 - not a problem, one medium coke and a small sweet popcorn later - we were ensconced! (Oh, but I put the popcorn on my lap and then took my coat off (boy's really CAN'T multitask - and needless to say, it fell over - oops!)

The film itself was very well done, and starts with the election of The Right Honourable *Cough* Tony Blair MP as Prime Minister, and his first meeting with the Queen, where he asks her if he can become Prime Minister, only to be told that she in fact does the asking! The film then charts the ups and downs of the week following the death of Princess Diana, and her funeral.

From the dreadful crash in Paris, we follow the Queen from the moment she is told of the news, through her determination to have a private funeral, as was the wish of the Spencer family. She toils with the growing problem of an anxious public, keen for the royals to have a physical presence, and to show a greater respect for the late Princess. Resisting all attempts to get her to return to London, and fly the flag at half-mast, and bolstered by her mother, she somewhat foolishly sticks to her guns. It is only when the situation is critical and Tony Blair and the tabloid press inform her of the dissatisfaction among her peoples, that she relents, and returns to London to give a live statement to her loyal subjects, paying tribute to Diana.

Two months after the princess’ death, Blair attends his weekly audience with the Queen, where she professes that although the monarchy’s popularity has recovered, that she will never quite recover from “that week,” whilst also informing Mr Blair, that he too will experience the swift change in public opinion!



It was brilliantly done, with just the right amount of humour and stereotypes at the start (Prince Philip can't be done in any other way!), before the film became a little more serious, but with smatterings of real footage from the Book of condolence queues and the millions of bouquets outside Buckingham Palace, it made some people sniffle. Helen Mirren was brilliant as the Queen, and she certainly deserves the Oscar for the Best Female lead.