Eddie the Eagle

This was a bit of a surprise: I missed the reviews of the film when it came out and based on the subject matter it did not appeal, but it was great fun.

It was our last film before Christmas so we chose something light. Everyone who came enjoyed it, no doubt helped by the mulled wine and mince pies.

Here are my notes:

Eddie the Eagle

UK 2016                      105 minutes

Director:                      Dexter Fletcher

Starring:                        Taron Egerton, Hugh Jackman, Christopher Walken, Iris Berben and Jim Broadbent

Awards and Nominations

• Won Truly Moving Picture Award at Heartland Film Festival
• A further three nominations, including a Teen Choice Nomination for Taron Egerton

“This Matthew Vaughn production is one of those cheerful Britcoms that celebrate the idea that we’re a bit crap and uncool as a nation, but carry-on-regardless spirit will see us through. In reality, you might regard it as a surreptitious hymn to innate national superiority: those Norwegians may have been mastering the sport since childhood, but a Brit armed with doughty innocence will only need a few months’ practice to emerge with honour.”

Jonathan Romney

Eddie Edwards (Taron Egerton) dreams of Olympic glory and takes up skiing so that he can take part in the Winter Games. While training in Germany he is taken on by Bronson Peary (Hugh Jackman), a former champion ski jumper who is now an alcoholic; Peary starts training his new pupil and uses various unorthodox methods to improve his skills. Eddie qualifies for the Olympics and at Calgary sets a British record with his ski jump.

The film is produced by Matthew Vaughn (director of Stardust (2007), Kick-Ass (2010), X-Men: First Class (2011) and Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014). He had been watching the film Cool Runnings (1993), a film about the Jamaican bobsled team at the Calgary Olympics, and wondered why no one made films like that anymore. Coincidentally Eddie “the Eagle” Edwards had participated in the same Olympics, and this might have been a catalyst for the film, although it bears little resemblance to the life of the real Eddie “the Eagle” Edwards who was warned that 90% of the story was made up. The character of Bronson Peary is entirely fictional.

Director Dexter Fletcher began his career as a child actor with a small role in Bugsy Malone (1976) and has subsequently appeared in many films and TV programmes, including Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) (which Matthew Vaughn produced) as well as Stardust and Kick-Ass. In 2012 he directed Wild Bill, his first feature film, followed by the highly successful musical Sunshine on Leith, which used music by The Proclaimers, in 2013.

Eddie the Eagle is a British/German/American production, with substantial funding from the German Federal Film Fund, and it received its world premiere at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.  Following its worldwide release the film grossed $46.1million including $12.8 million in the UK, which made it the highest grossing British film released in the UK in the first half of 2016.

Here is the trailer:

 

Hail Caesar (aka Hail, Caesar!)

This week we screened the most recent film from the Coen Brothers: Hail Caesar.

early on in our society's existence we screened Fargo (on the basis that it is mandatory for all film societies to show it at some point in their existence), but Hail Caesar was quite different: a screwball comedy set in 19502 Hollywood. It went down well, but some people were a little disappointed by George Clooney's role, as it was quite different from his more box-office friendly work. I enjoyed it very much.

Here are my notes:

Hail, Caesar!

USA 2016                    104 minutes

Director:                      Ethan and Joel Coen

Starring:                        Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Alden Ehrenreich, Ralph Fiennes, Jonah Hill, Scarlett Johansson, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton and Channing Tatum

“The Coen brothers’ lovingly goofy latest comes on like a breezy flipside companion-piece to Barton Fink – a jaunt through the underbelly of old Hollywood which finds not the fiery hell of the tortured artist but the upbeat splash of synchronised swimming, On the Town toe-tapping and toga-wearing biblical balderdash. With a ramshackle plot that appears to have been cooked up after drawing deep on the Dude’s biggest bong, the film pinballs between awol movie stars, red-scare nightmares and Bikini Atoll bomb tests, while raising important questions of whether God is still angry (“what, he got over it?”), how to make a lasso out of spaghetti, and the secret of balancing a bunch of bananas on your head (it’s all in the hips, lips, eyes and thighs, apparently).”

Mark Kermode

In Hollywood in the 1950s Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) works for Capitol Pictures as a fixer whose role is to keep scandals relating to film stars out of the press. His current work load includes concealing the news that DeeAnna Morgan (Scarlett Johansson) is pregnant, rescuing alcoholic actor Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) from a group of kidnappers whose members include Burt Gurney (Channing Tatum), an actor currently filming a musical comedy about sailors, and arranging for Laurence Laurentz (Ralph Fiennes) to cast young singing western film star Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich) in the period drama he is directing.

In Hollywood the 1950s was the time of the Cold War and the Red Scare: its response was to create escapist entertainment: westerns, musicals with extravagant dance sequences, aquatic spectacles and Roman epics with massive casts. The Coen Brothers saw the films of this period on TV when they were growing up and commented:

“We loved that stuff. We just didn’t realise we were watching crap.”

For the purposes of this film they re-created their own versions of these films and for verisimilitude shot them on film rather than employing digital cinematography which they have used for their most recent films.

The Coen Brothers first created Capital Pictures for Barton Fink (1991), but Eddie Mannix was a real character, although his real life was far more sordid than depicted in this film: he used his network of contacts to cover up, among other things, Judy Garland’s drug use, Great Garbo’s bi-sexuality, and was even suspected of involvement in the murder of Superman star George Reeves. The Guardian contains a regular feature called Reel History which a historian rates films based on real events for both Entertainment and History. For the former it receives an A- but a fail for the latter. In mitigation the article contains    the following verdict on the film:

 “The Coen brothers have done an Eddie Mannix on Eddie Mannix, covering up all the darkest, dirtiest parts of his story to create a sparkling comedy. Everything you see on screen is completely historically inaccurate – but that’s the point. Hail, Caesar! can wear its fail grade with pride."

 Here is the trailer:

 

 

 

Harry Potter Actors

As a keen fan of Harry Potter (first the books and then the films) I'd always thought that the Staff Room at Hogwarts contained the cream of British acting talent.

I've now read an article, presumably insured by the imminent release of Fantastic Beasts, giving some substance to my assumptions:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/harry-potter-kept-a-quarter-of-the-u-k-s-top-actors-paid/

Judi Dench is the unofficial mascot of our film club, on the basis that whenever we screen one of her films we get a good audience, so it is interesting to see that she tops the list of successful actors who have not appeared (so far) in any Potter-related films.

I just wish that that result of the US Presidential Election had gone the way of fivethirtyeight's final forecast!

 

Bridge of Spies

This week we screened Bridge of Spies. I'd seen and enjoyed it at the cinema, but even so a second screening was even better.

My notes are as follows

Bridge of Spies

USA 2016                    141 minutes

Director:                      Stephen Spielberg

Starring:                        Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance, Amy Ryan, Alan Alda and Austin Stowell

Awards and Nominations

• Won Oscar for Best Supporting Actor (Mark Rylance) and five further nominations including Best Film, Best Original Screenplay and Best Soundtrack
• Won BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor (Mark Rylance) and eight further nominations including Best Director, Best Film, Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Cinematography and Best Soundtrack

“Steven Spielberg’s Cold War spy-swap drama Bridge of Spies is a movie of glorious craftsmanship, human sympathy and flair. It’s a consciously old-fashioned piece of Hollywood storytelling conceived in something like the heartfelt, ingenuous style of Frank Capra. Where once we had Mr Smith Goes To Washington — here we have Mr Hanks Goes To West Berlin.”

 

Peter Bradshaw

50 Best Films of 2015

(Bridge of Spies was number two)

 During the Cold War the CIA recruits insurance lawyer James B Donovan (Tom Hanks) to negotiate the release and exchange of Francis G (Gary) Powers (Austin Stowell), the pilot of a U-2 spy plane shot down over East Germany. Donovan travels to Berlin to negotiate the deal, offering as an exchange the Soviet spy Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance) whom Donovan had previously defended during his trial for espionage in the US.

Screenplay writer Matt Charman became interested in Donovan after reading about him in a biography of President Kennedy; after a meeting with Donovan’s son in New York he pitched his story to several studios, with DreamWorks choosing to buy it and then Spielberg deciding to direct. DreamWorks then brought in the Coen Brothers to revise Charman’s original script, although their work with Charman was collaborative, as Charman confirmed in an interview:

“[The Coen Brothers] were able to really punch up the negotiations on the back end of the movie, then they handed the baton back to me to do a pass after they did their pass, to make the movie just sit in a place we all wanted it to. The flavour they brought is so fun and enjoyable. It needed to be entertaining but truthful.”

 Inevitably for the purposes of the film the screenplay had to compromise with strict historical accuracy: the most significant of the changes is that it shortens the timescales of events which while increasing tension can give a misleading impression of the whole operation. However most reviewers accepted this departure from the historical record as inevitable, and the film itself acknowledges this by advertising itself as being “inspired by true events”.

The film is a US/German co-production and Spielberg used many actual Berlin locations for scenes that actually took place there, including the former Tempelhof Airport for Donovan’s arrival and the real Glienicke Bridge (the so-called “Bridge of Spies”) to film the prisoner exchange. For the latter location the German government closed the bridge to traffic for a weekend to allow filming to take place, and Angela Merkel visited the set to watch the filming.

On its release the film received many positive reviews and many nominations during the awards season, but it was Mark Rylance who won most of the film’s awards for his role as Rudolf Abel. He had already won Tony and Olivier Awards for his stage work in New York and London as well as several BAFTA awards for his TV work, most recently for his role as Thomas Cromwell in the BBC adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall (2015), and so this Oscar has allowed him to complete an uncommon “triple” win.

Here is the trailer:

 

Starter for Ten

We have been running our film club for ten years now and decided to use one screening to celebrate it: we provided prosecco and a special anniversary cake, but the challenge was to choose the right film.

we brainstormed all the titles we could think of with "ten" in them and discarded most of them as too obscure or just plain wrong. And then we thought of Starter for Ten, which was released the  year we started and in retrospect would have been a possible film to screen back then.

Never mind, I'm glad to have seen it at last and really enjoyed it.

Here are my notes:

Starter For Ten

UK 2006                      92 minutes

Director:                      Tom Vaughan

Starring:                        James McAvoy, Alice Eve, Rebecca Hall, Catherine Tate, Benedict Cumberpatch and Mark Gatiss

Awards and Nominations

• One win at the Austin Film Festival
• Three nominations including Best British Film at the Empire Awards

“A modest and very British movie (though co-produced by Tom Hanks), Tom Vaughan's Starter For Ten is a rite-of-passage comedy about the working-class Essex boy Brian Jackson's first two terms studying English literature at Bristol University in 1985. James McAvoy is amusing and convincing as the gauche Brian who leaves his old chums (Dominic Cooper and James Corden from The History Boys) back home on the estuary and is torn between two fellow students, the self-consciously sophisticated, middle-class Alice (Alice Eve), and the wry, politically active Jewish Rebecca (Rebecca Hall). Much of the action turns on Brian joining Bristol's University Challenge team (Mark Gatiss does a hilarious Bamber Gascoigne). Among the various scenes of humiliation two stand out, one very funny in the style of Lucky Jim Dixon's weekend at Professor Welch's home, the other truly painful.”

Philip French

 
It is interesting to look back at a film ten years after its release to see how the careers of its cast and production team have developed. Screenplay writer David Nicholls read English and Drama at Bristol University and turned to writing after struggling to make a career as an actor: he wrote several episodes of the series Cold Feet before writing Starter for Ten as a novel after another series he had been writing was cancelled. His subsequent work includes adaptations of Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Great Expectations and Far From the Madding Crowd (starring Carey Mulligan) and among his novels is the award-winning One Day which he later adapted for the screen with Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess in the lead roles. Director Tom Vaughan also studied at Bristol University and made his name as a director on TV working on several series of Cold Feet. Starter for Ten was his first feature film and since then he has worked regularly for both TV and cinema. His most recent work has been for the TV series Victoria, for which he has directed three episodes.

 James McAvoy was already a rising star in 2006 with lead roles in The Last King of Scotland (2006), Becoming Jane (2007) and Atonement (2007) to follow on closely from this film, but Rebecca Hall, James Corden and Benedict Cumberpatch were all at the start of their TV and film acting careers after early work on stage. Additionally although Catherine Tate had written and starred in her own TV series she made this film before she appeared with David Tennant as a Tardis regular in Doctor Who, and the multi-talented Mark Gatiss, having made his name in The League of Gentlemen had yet to write for Doctor Who, co-create Sherlock or become a familiar character actor with roles in programmes as diverse as Game of Thrones, Wolf Hall, Sherlock (where his portrayal of Mycroft had strong echoes of Peter Mandelson)  and The Coalition (where he actually played Peter Mandelson and memorably made his first appearance out of a cloud of smoke.).

 

Here's the trailer:

 

 

Eye in the Sky

I saw the trailer for this film long before its release and got completely the wrong picture: I thought it was promoting an action thriller and wondered what stars of the calibre of Helen Mirren and Alan Rickman were doing in it. As a bizarre coincidence I think I saw the trailer the day that the news of Alan Rickman's death was released.

And then I read the reviews, was sorry that I'd missed it in its first run in the cinema and was delighted when we scheduled it to run earlier this month.

My anticipation of the film was entirely justified and even though i had a fairly good idea how the story would develop there were whole sections when i found myself on the edge of my seat and almost forgetting to breathe.

Here are my notes:

Eye in the Sky

UK 2015                      102 minutes

Director:                      Gavin Hood

Starring:                        Helen Mirren, Aaron Paul, Alan Rickman and Barkhad Abdi

Awards and Nominations

• One nomination for Best Narrative Feature at Palm Springs International Film Festival

“Here, the South African director Gavin Hood assembles an A-list ensemble cast (including Alan Rickman in his last on-screen role) for a provocatively tense thriller that negotiates the moral minefields of its thorny subject matter in crowd-pleasing fashion.”

Mark Kermode

Colonel Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren) is remotely commanding a drone operation to capture a group of dangerous terrorists in Nairobi. The mission suddenly escalates from a “capture” to a “kill” operation and the members of the military have to work with politicians and lawyers thousands of miles away from the action to gain their approval before they can strike.

The film has a complex production history, with Guy Hibbert’s screenplay being initially developed by BBC Films before Gavin Hood was appointed director and, subsequently, Colin Firth’s production company becoming involved to make the film. Firth himself planned to play the part of James Willett the UK Foreign Secretary, but the role was ultimately played by Iain Glen with Firth’s sole involvement being a credit as one of the film’s producers. Director Gavin Hood made the entire film in South Africa, but none of the four leading actors met up during the production: rather Hood filmed each of them alone to reflect their separate specific locations in the story. On its release the film received many positive reviews with critics commenting both on the cerebral spin it gave to the modern political thriller as well as the powerful acting of its cast.

Gavin Hood made his name with the South African drama Tsotsi (2005) which won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film before moving to the US where his more commercial films have included X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) and the science fiction epic Ender’s Game (2013).

 

Here's the trailer:

 

 

 

The Wars of the Roses

Over the past week I've finally managed to catch up with the brilliant BBC adaptation of Shakespeare's Henry VI and Richard III plays, ie The Wars of the Roses.

I've seen Richard III several times (with Anthony Sher, Ian McKellen and Kevin Spacey playing the king): each was brilliant in very different productions: traditional, a fascist 1930s, and mid-Atlantic. However these were standalone productions and it is only when you see how Richard develops over the three parts of Henry VI that you can fully understand all the historical background. Having also recently visited Laycock Abbey which was used as a location it was interesting to see how well it worked on screen.

It was no surprise to discover that Benedict Cumberpatch was brilliant in the lead role, but the production had casting in depth with Judi Dench and many other superb actors in supporting roles.

However having watched it at a time when news of the US presidential elections is flooding media as I watched the plays I began to see a strange and unexpected counterpoint to the drama. And then this morning I read this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/09/opinion/sunday/shakespeare-explains-the-2016-election.html?_r=0

Years ago I read a book called Shakespeare Our Contemporary while studying A Level English. Now I know that Shakespeare will always be our contemporary.

Brooklyn

This is our next film. I'm really looking forward to it as we started watching it at home but it was late and managed to miss the second part. Fortunately we have now scheduled it for later this week.

Here are my notes:

Brooklyn

UK 2015                      112 minutes

Director:                      John Crowley

Starring:                        Saoirse Ronan, Emory Cohen, Domhnall Gleeson, Jim Broadbent and Julie Walters

Awards and Nominations

• Nominated for three Oscars (Best Picture, Best Actress (Saoirse Ronan) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Nick Hornby))
• Won BAFTA for Best British Film and five further BAFTA nominations including Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress (Julie Walters), Best Adapted Screenplay
• A further 29 wins and 136 nominations

“What a moving, emotionally intelligent and refreshingly old-fashioned movie this is. The narrative may be perfectly situated in the early 50s, but the style of film-making harks back further still, to a time when “women’s pictures” were the backbone of popular cinema. Contemporary audiences raised on overblown spectacle and overwrought romance may have to recalibrate their reactions to appreciate the rich rewards of director John Crowley’s best film since 2003’s unexpectedly punchy Intermission. But for those enamoured of the 30s and 40s heyday of Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and Barbara Stanwyck, Brooklyn feels like a breath of fresh air.”

Mark Kermode

 

A young Irish woman Ellis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan) emigrates to New York City in search of a better life. Initially homesick, she begins to adjust to her new surroundings with the help of Italian-American Tony Fiorello (Emory Cohen) with whom she becomes romantically involved. A family crisis then compels Ellis to return to Ireland where she meets Jim Farrell (Domhnall Gleeson), and as a result she has to choose between two countries and the different lives they offer her.

Producer Finola Dyer read Brooklyn, the award-winning novel by Colm Toibin, after completing her work on An Education (2009). She felt that its story spoke to her on a personal level as her mother had emigrated from Ireland in the 1950s, and having met Toibin through a mutual friend he immediately granted her the film rights. Nick Hornby had produced the Oscar nominated screenplay for An Education and Dyer commissioned him to adapt Brooklyn for the screen.

Director John Crowley had read the book on its publication and agreed to take on the project after reading just 40 pages of Nick Hornby’s script. Crowley had himself emigrated from Ireland to London in his 20s and this was one of his main reasons for deciding to make the film. In an interview on its release he said he:

“…had emotional understanding from experience that could maybe help make this film not a period piece frozen in aspic, but could give it a directness that would resonate with a younger audience anywhere.”

At its premier at the Sundance Film Festival the film received a standing ovation and great critical acclaim, subsequently confirmed by the success of the film in the awards season. Following a bidding war for its distribution rights the film was released globally and to date has taken USD 62.1 million against its budget of USD 11.0 million.

After beginning his career directing stage plays in Dublin John Crowley made his name in the UK as an associate director at the Donmar Warehouse in London where he directed a filmed version of a short stage play by Samuel Beckett. He has subsequently worked extensively in theatre both in the UK and on Broadway. He made his feature film debut with Intermission (2003), a comedy drama set in Dublin and in 2007 won a BAFTA for Best Director for his film Boy A (made for TV in the UK but given cinematic release in the US).

It has recently been announced that Crowley will direct the film version of Donna Tartt’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Goldfinch.

Here's the trailer:

 

 

Florence Foster Jenkins

It's the beginning of our new season tomorrow. We always try to select a film that will be popular with our target audience so that they will come along and join for the year, and this time we have selected Florence Foster Jenkins.

Over the period that we have been running our club we've screened several earlier films by Stephen Frears including The Queen and Philomena. Our audiences enjoyed both of these very much and both screenings were well attended. Thus all being well we will have a large audience tomorrow.

I wrote my notes earlier today, and here they are:
 

Florence Foster Jenkins

UK 2016                      110 minutes

Director:                      Stephen Frears

Starring:                        Meryl Streep, Hugh Grant, Simon Helberg and Rebecca Ferguson

“As Les Dawson proved with such precision, any fool can play the piano badly, but it takes real skill to play it brilliantly badly. Similarly, Morecambe and Wise knew that the perfect way to mangle “Grieg’s piano concerto by Grieg” was to play “all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order”. Now, to the august list of superbly maladroit comedic musicians we may add Meryl Streep, who takes centre stage in this very likable, frequently hilarious, yet still poignant tragi-comedy from director Stephen Frears.”

 

Mark Kermode

Despite her generally poor singing ability Florence Foster Jenkins (Meryl Streep) aspires to become an opera singer with the help of her husband St. Clair Bayfield (Hugh Grant) and her pianist Cosme McMoon (Simon Helberg).

 Florence Foster Jenkins became a prominent cult figure in New York City musical circles from the 1920s to the 1940s, with eminent musicians as varied as Cole Porter and Enrico Caruso as her fans. She had initially trained as a pianist, but after an injury to her arm put an end to this she decided to use a substantial inheritance to resume her musical career as a singer. Initially she performed small recitals with attendance only by personal invitation and with music critics specifically excluded, but in 1944 she gave a public recital at Carnegie Hall.  The reviews of the performance were scathing and sarcastic, and shortly afterwards she had a heart attack and died.

Given the strange events of Florence Foster Jenkins’ life it is not surprising to find that it has provided inspiration for a number of plays and films. The most widely produced play is Glorious! which initially ran in the West End starring Maureen Lipman and which was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Comedy; it has since been performed in more than 40 countries worldwide. The award-winning 2015 French Film Marguerite was also loosely based on the life of Florence Foster Jenkins although the main character was called Marguerite Dumont, a tribute to Margaret Dumont who had initially trained as a singer before becoming a comic foil to the Marx Brothers in so many of their films.

Recent films from by Stephen Frears have included The Queen (2006) starring Helen Mirren and Philomena (2013) starring Judi Dench. Both films were artistically successful, especially The Queen with Helen Mirren winning an Oscar and BAFTA among numerous other awards in the title role. Florence Foster Jenkins has only just been released in the US but it is reasonable to assume that it will appear prominently in the nominations during the forthcoming awards season.

 

Here's the trailer:

 

And here is Margaret Dumont:

 

The Universe of the Coen Brothers

Having finally caught up with - and very much enjoyed - Hail, Caesar this article about the universe of the Coen Brothers was fascinating:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/aug/22/coen-brothers-universe-john-turturro-big-lebowski-jesus-quintana

Hail, Caesar is definitely a film for our Film Club. And I still need to catch up with the TV version of Fargo.

Best Films of the 21st Century - so far...

This is brilliant: a survey of the best films since 2000:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/aug/23/mulholland-drive-david-lynch-21st-century-top-films-bbc-poll?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+main+NEW+H+categories&utm_term=187164&subid=105500&CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2_footer

I've yet to check how many I have seen, but it will be an excellent source of inspiration for our Film Society.

Donald Trump is fictional...

I loved this piece in the Guardian which identified several cinematic foreshadowings of the great man [irony]:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2016/aug/02/films-donald-trump-citizen-kane-gangs-of-new-york

Apart from Bill the Butcher, Charles Foster Kane, Howard Beale and Greg Stillson I can also see an echo of Trump in the character of Yorrick Kaine, a fictional escapee from the Bookworld,  in Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde.

 

Spectre

For our AGM we try to choose a popular film to attract people to the one meeting we need to have each year. After a disastrous first AGM which we scheduled AFTER a screening and which went on and on we now have the meeting first and then screen the film.

When we had chosen Spectre we had not realised that it was quite so long - so it was a late night. I enjoyed the film very mucht, and agreed with most of the reviews that I'd read, but felt that the escape from Blofeld's lair in the desert was a bit of an anti-climax after so many of the earlier magnificent set pieces.

Here are my notes:

Spectre

 UK 2015                      148 minutes

Director:                      Sam Mendes

Starring:                        Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz, Lea Seydoux, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw

Awards and Nominations

• Won Academy Award for Best Original Song
• A further seven wins and 23 nominations

“If nothing else, the spelling of the title should tip you off that this is a thoroughly English movie franchise. Bond is back and Daniel Craig is back in a terrifically exciting, spectacular, almost operatically delirious 007 adventure – endorsing intelligence work as old-fashioned derring-do and incidentally taking a stoutly pro-Snowden line against the creepy voyeur surveillance that undermines the rights of a free individual. It’s pure action mayhem with a real sense of style.”

Peter Bradshaw

James Bond (Daniel Craig) attempts to thwart the plans of Spectre to hijack a global surveillance network and discovers that the organisation, led by Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) was behind the events of the previous three films in which Craig has starred as James Bond. Familiar characters such as M (Ralph Fiennes), Q (Ben Whishaw) and Eve Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) re-appear along with Andrew Scott as Max Denbigh, the head of a rival to MI6.

Spectre is the twenty fourth James Bond film and the fourth starring Daniel Craig. The story is original, but incorporates source material from Fleming’s stories, most notably the character of Franz Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz) whose father is a background character in the short story Octopussy. The screenplay reunites scriptwriters John Logan (who wrote Skyfall) and Neal Purvis and Robert Wade (who had worked on five previous Bond films) together with British playwright Jez Butterworth who had made uncredited contributions to Skyfall. The name SPECTRE comes from the novel Thunderball, but as Fleming had incorporated elements of an undeveloped film script into his novel this led to decades of copyright litigation, with the issue only being resolved in November 2013. It was this same dispute that allowed Sean Connery’s belated reprise of the role of Bond in Never Say Never Again (1983), in effect an updated remake of Thunderball (1965).

Sam Mendes had originally turned down the offer to direct Spectre after the success of Skyfall but he changed his mind as he found both the script and the long term plans for the franchise appealing. The film had a budget of $245 million making it the most expensive Bond film made, and it grossed $880.7 million, making it the second highest grossing Bond film after Skyfall and the sixth highest grossing film of 2015.

Sam Mendes has recently ruled himself out of directing the next Bond film and to date Daniel Craig has not confirmed that he will play Bond again. Amid the inevitable speculation about both director and leading actor one interesting potential choice of director that has emerged is Susanne Bier, who in addition to directing The Night Manager (2016) for the BBC had previously won an Oscar for the Best Foreign Language Film for In A Better World. Some critics have suggested that Tom Hiddlestone’s performance in The Night Manager was an audition for the role of Bond, although in recent interviews he has downplayed the rumour.

Here's the trailer:

 

The Lady in the Van

This was the final film of our season. Fortunately the DVD release was just in time for us to show it.

Our history shows us that Alan Bennett (The History Boys) and Maggie Smith (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotels et al as well as Downton Abbey) have always been popular so the combination of the two was irresistible.

It was also a very good film, although not quite the comedy the poster seemed to imply.

Here are my notes:

The Lady in the Van

UK 2015                      104 minutes

Director:                      Nicholas Hytner

Starring:                        Maggie Smith, Alex Jennings, Jim Broadbent, Frances de la Tour and Roger Allam

Awards and Nominations

• Won Best Actress Award (Maggie Smith) at the Evening Standard British Film Awards
• Nominations for Best Actress (Maggie Smith) at the Golden Globes and BAFTA Film Awards

“Having come a cropper with his screen adaptation of The History Boys in 2006, director Nicholas Hytner here hits the high notes that distinguished his 1994 stage-to-screen triumph The Madness of King George.”

Mark Kermode

In the 1970s Alan Bennett (Alex Jennings) offers the temporary use of the drive to his north London house to a homeless woman (Maggie Smith). She parks her battered van outside his front door – and stays there for 15 years.

The film is based on Bennett’s 1999 stage play which itself derives from the piece he had written about Miss Shepherd in his book Writing Home, and it reunites many people who have worked with him over the years.  Maggie Smith appeared in A Private Function (1984), Bennett’s first screenplay for the big screen and created the role of Miss Shepherd in the stage version of The Lady in the Van. The play was directed by Hytner, who has directed all of Bennett’s recent stage work, mostly at the National Theatre.  Hytner and Bennett’s previous film was The History Boys (2006) and the principal cast members from this production, with the exception of Frances de la Tour who has a supporting role, appear in cameo roles in this film.

As a stage actor Alex Jennings has won three Olivier awards for his work, which has been mostly with the RSC or at the National Theatre.  Here he has worked many times with Nicholas Hytner and first appeared in a play by Bennett when he had a leading role in The Habit of Art.  He subsequently played Alan Bennett on stage in Untold Stories Bennett’s dramatization of one of his autobiographical sketches. He is a skilled mimic, and in addition to Bennett he has played characters as diverse as Prince Charles in The Queen (2006) and President George Bush in Stuff Happens, David Hare’s “history play” about the Iraq War, once again directed by Nicholas Hytner at the National Theatre. 

Here is the trailer:

 

The Hundred Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out Of the Window and Disappeared

This film has the longest title of any we have screened for a long time - if ever.

I'd missed it at the cinema and did not know the book either, so I approached it with an open mind - and was pleasantly surprised. I think it did show its literary genesis, but as a film it had echoes of both Zelig and Being There. I enjoyed it very much.

Here are my notes:

The Hundred Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out Of the Window and Disappeared / Hundraåringen som klev ut genom fönstret och försvann

Sweden 2013               114 minutes

Director:                      Felix Herngren

Starring:                        Robert Gustafsson, Mia Skaringer, Iwar Wiklander, David Wiberg and Jens Hulten

Awards and Nominations

• Won five awards
• Nominated for seven further awards

“What we're left with is a peculiar example of the regional specificity of humour; a reminder that there's nothing so particular as that which makes a nation laugh. While Scandinavian doom and gloom remains a saleable commodity in the UK, Swedish humour appears to travel less well and it seems unlikely that the success that this ambitiously ramshackle picture has enjoyed elsewhere will be matched on these shores.”

Mark Kermode

The title of the film sums up the starting point for the plot: after the old man (Robert Gustsafsson) leaves his retirement home the film follows his adventures as he is chased by drug dealers and the police, intercut with episodes from his long life where, amongst others, he knew Harry S Truman, General Franco and Stalin.

 
The film is based on the novel of the same name by Jonas Jonasson which became a best seller initially in Sweden and then, after translation, globally with total sales of three million. The film was first screened at the Berlin Film Festival and subsequently has been shown in more than 40 countries. It is the third highest grossing Swedish film of all time, beaten only by The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009) and The Girl who Played with Fire (2009). 

Here's the trailer:

 

The Dark Horse

We make the decisions as to what to screen in a democratic manner: any one can suggest anything although it is generally the committee who exercise this right. The only other criterion is that you have to have seen what you recommend: we were all scarred by 35 Shots of Rum.

And so I recommended Dark Horse: I'd read the reviews when it was released but had been unable to find a screening and so bought the DVD. This was excellent and I've passed it on to family in South Wales and in-laws who follow racing, and everyone has really enjoyed it. Our area is quite horsey - just six miles from Newbury - and we managed to attract a good audience, with several people we had never seen before.

The film went down well with everyone, with some of our audience actually having been at the key Newbury race meeting that appeared in the film. We should definitely look out for other documentaries to screen.

Here are my notes:

Dark Horse: The Incredible True Story of Dream Alliance

UK 2015                      82 minutes

Director:                      Louise Osmond

Awards and Nominations

• Won Best Documentary at British Independent Film Awards
• Won Audience Award for World Cinema – Documentary at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival
• Nominated for Grand Jury Prize at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival

“With its sheer warmth and likability, this good-natured documentary won my heart – a real-life The Full Monty or Billy Elliot or Pride.”

Peter Bradshaw

This is the true story of a group of friends from a working men’s club in a depressed area of South Wales who decide to breed a racehorse. Initially they stable the horse on a local allotment, and then after choosing a trainer to prepare him for racing the results far exceed their expectations.

 Louise Osmond started her career as a journalist with ITN before becoming a documentary film maker. The subject of her work has been quite varied and her films include Deep Water (2003) about a round the world yacht race, McQueen and I (2011) about Alexander McQueen and Richard III: The King in the Car Park (2013). She had been planning a film about racing and had heard about Dream Alliance, but had been unable to progress discussions until a Hollywood production company, which had already optioned the story, withdrew its interest.

Here's the trailer:

 

What We Did On Our Holiday

This was my sleeper hit of the season. I'd never really watched Outnumbered on TV, but I'd been a keen fan of Drop The Dead Donkey plus the programmes that Andy Hamilton had written for radio.

The casting of the film was intriguing in the mix of the different backgrounds of the key performers, i.e. RSC and Doctor Who, Oscar Nominated Actress plus everything that Billy Connolly has done, but somehow it worked.

It was a black comedy, with definitely touches of Bill Forsyth's work, and iIenjoyed it very much.

Here are my notes:

What We Did On Our Holiday

UK 2014                      95 minutes

Director:                      Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin

Starring:                        Rosamund Pike, David Tennant, Billy Connolly, Ben Miller and Amelia Bullmore

Awards and Nominations

• BAFTA Scotland nominations for Best Actor (David Tennant) and Best Film
• London Critics Circle Film Awards Best Actress Award (Rosamund Pike)
• A further nomination for Best Film

“It’s impossible not to enjoy this big-hearted and sweet-natured British family movie from Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin – effectively a feature-format development of their smash-hit BBC TV comedy, Outnumbered, which pioneered semi-improvised dialogue from the children. It creates a terrifically ambitious (and unexpected) narrative with a tonne of sharp gags.”

Peter Bradshaw

 

Doug (David Tennant) and Abi (Rosamund Pike) take their children on a trip to Scotland to visit Doug’s elderly father for a family party.  Dog and Abi have decided to separate, but have kept the news secret so as to avoid spoiling the party; their children find it difficult to do the same.

Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin created and directed the BBC comedy series Outnumbered which ran from 2007 to 2014. Before this they were best known for the TV comedy Drop the Dead Donkey (1990 to 1998), although as writers their earlier work included sketches for many comedy shows including The Two Ronnies, Smith and Jones, and Not The Nine O’Clock News. 

Rosamund Pike first made her name playing Jane Bennet in Joe Wright’s 2005 film of Pride and Prejudice. She played supporting roles (and received good reviews) in numerous films including An Education (2009), Made in Dagenham (2010) before securing the lead role (and Oscar and Golden Globe nominations) in the acclaimed thriller Gone Girl (2014).  David Tennant’s career has included both stage and screen work: prior to Doctor Who his most high profile film role was in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) but he had already played leading roles with the RSC. Subsequently he returned to the RSC to play the title roles in Hamlet and Richard II (both filmed) as well as teaming up with Catherine Tate (after their brilliant double act in Doctor Who) in a version of Much Ado About Nothing set in the 1980s.  His subsequent TV work has included two series of Broadchurch (with a third series in production) plus the lead role in Gracepoint, its US remake. He also narrated the spoof documentaries 2012 (about the preparations for the London Olympics) and W1A (about BBC bureaucracy).

 Here's the trailer: