Bridget Jones's Baby

This is our most recent screening. there was some debate, ie a quick chat, about whether it was too "popular" for our society, but there have been requests in the past for more "female friendly" films - I still remember Mama Mia with a shudder, although it was a profitable evening on the bar - so we went ahead with it.

I'd enjoyed the film at the cinema and found it even better on a second screening: there were some filthy lines I'd not picked up, knowing how the film was going to end made it possible to see the misdirection that the production team had carefully applied at key points, and I'd completely missed that Darcy's middle name was "Fitzwilliam".

I'm pleased to record that just about everyone enjoyed it - and once again we had good takings on the bar.


Here are my notes

Bridget Jones’s Baby

UK 2016                                  123 minutes

Director:                                  Sharon Maguire

Starring:                                   Renee Zellweger, Colin Firth, Patrick Dempsey, Emma Thompson, Jim Broadbent and Gemma Jones

“This is a better Bridget than the last movie, The Edge of Reason, because it doesn’t feel the need to indulge shark-jumping setpieces like zipping off to Thailand. We stick in her old London manor of Borough and she’s still in the same old scuzzy flat, still working for a cable TV news company, where she has now improbably become a producer. This is pretty broad comedy we’re talking about: not Mrs Brown’s Boys-broad, but broad nevertheless. Yet the effect is achieved in the same way as the first movie. Basically, Bridget presides over a kind of coalition government of very good supporting turns which on aggregate enforce their chaotic comic rule over the audience. Just about.”

 Peter Bradshaw

Shortly after her forty-third birthday Bridget Jones (Renee Zellweger) discovers that she is pregnant but is only 50% sure who the father is: after getting drunk at a music festival she sleeps with a handsome stranger (Patrick Dempsey), and at the christening of a friend’s child she meets Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) again and they subsequently spend the night together. As her pregnancy progresses Bridget makes increasingly desperate efforts to obtain DNA samples from each man to confirm which of them is the father.

It is a truth universally accepted that a globally successful film must be in want of a sequel (or two). Thus the 2001 film of Bridget Jones’s Diary, from Helen Fielding’s bestselling novel was followed in 2004 by a looser adaptation of her novel Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, with a screenplay by a team that included both Andrew Davies (whose work includes the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice that made Colin Firth’s name) and Richard Curtis. This too was globally successful and from 2009 there was discussion of a third film. Although Renee Zellweger and Colin Firth soon committed to the project, despite protracted negotiations over the screenplay Hugh Grant declined to take part. Thus the film finally went ahead without Daniel Cleaver and the screenplay, by a team that includes Fielding and Emma Thompson (who created a superb role for herself), goes back to Helen Fielding’s original columns in The Independent to produce a new story that introduces Jack Quant (Patrick Dempsey) as a rival love interest to Mark Darcy. Somewhat confusingly Helen Fielding has also just published a new novel Bridget Jones's Baby: The Diaries in which Daniel Cleaver, Hugh Grant’s character, plays a significant part.

On its UK release the film became the most successful romantic comedy ever. In terms of its overall performance in 2016 in the UK and Ireland it was the third most successful film of the year, being beaten only by Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. All three films are either sequels or spin-offs; this is perhaps indicative of the risk averse attitude of producers of big budget films.

 

Here's the trailer:

 

 

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:

 

Paddington

This was our last film before Christmas, and so we wanted something that would be a bit of fun.  I knew that the film had been well reviewed, but had not expected to have enjoyed it so much and laughed out loud so many times.

After the film I started thinking about Theorem and Boudu Saved from Drowning. Was Paddington an ursine remake?

Here are my notes:

UK 2014                      95 minutes

Director:                      Paul King

Starring:                        Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent, Peter Capaldi and Ben Whishaw

Awards and Nominations

• BAFTA nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay
• Nomination for Alexander Korda award for Best British Film
• BTVA nomination for Best Voice Acting Award (Ben Whishaw)
• Winner of Best Comedy at the Empire Awards
• Two for nominations for Best Film

“The jokes are good…, ranging from laugh-out-loud observations about the transformative effects of parenthood (and knowing mentions of “exotic wrestlers”) to slapstick bathroom episodes. Ben Whishaw turns out to be the perfect voice of Paddington …, his lilting diction at once childlike and wise, his delivery naive yet oddly noble. ‘Please look after this bear’, says the tag around Paddington’s neck. Rest assured, they have.”

Mark Kermode

 

After travelling from Peru to London in search of a new home, a polite young bear meets the Brown family at Paddington station. The bear is lost and alone so the Brown family offer him a place to stay – and name him Paddington.

 

Paddington Bear first appeared in print in 1958, and since then he has featured in more than twenty books of stories by Michael Bond. In the 1970s the BBC broadcast a series of short films adapted from Michael Bond’s stories with Michael Hordern memorable as the narrator.  For this film Paul King worked with screenwriter Hamish McColl (who had worked with Rowan Atkinson on Mr Bean’s Holiday (2007) and Johnny English Reborn (2011)) to develop a new story that included characters and elements from Bond’s works.

Paddington was Paul King’s first cinema film as director.  He began his career on TV where he directed 20 episodes of The Mighty Boosh and six episodes of Come Fly with Me, although he has also worked in theatre where he has specialised in comedy. David Heyman, best known as producer of the Harry Potter films, bought the film rights to Paddington Bear in 2007 and worked on the story in consultation with Bond and King since then.  Heyman’s aim with the character of Paddington was to achieve the level of verisimilitude for CGI characters achieved in the Harry Potter and recent Planet of the Apes films, although the film also used an animatronic version as well.

Paddington was the most expensive film ever produced by production company StudioCanal but it was a global success with total earnings of USD 259.6 million. It has now been confirmed that there will be a sequel, with King in discussions to direct it.

 Here is the trailer: