A Street Cat Named Bob

This was a bit of a surprising choice for our most recent screening, as the reviews of the film, while respectable, had not pointed to anything exceptional in it. However I had not realised how successful the book had been and in the event we had one of our best audiences so far this season.

I've not read the book, but apparently the film makers made significant changes to some of the minor characters.  Nonetheless it worked well, and Bob, playing himself, was brilliant. From the credits I noticed that in total five cats played Bob: this was not immediately obvious, but there were a few scenes in which his ginger tabby markings seemed to move around a bit.

Here are my notes:

A Street Cat Named Bob

UK 2016          103 minutes

Director:          Roger Spottiswood

Starring:            Luke Treadaway, Joanne Froggatt, Anthony Head and Bob the Cat

“Dogs are plucky, loyal, lifelong companions. With cats, it’s sometimes just enough to make it through the night without getting our faces clawed off. That said, Bob, who appears as himself in this film (alongside six other ginger feline lookalikes), is a particularly gorgeous specimen. And Bob’s weapons-grade cuteness is almost enough to power this slight but warm-hearted film by Roger Spottiswoode (a veteran of the animal/human buddy movie genre, he also directed Turner and Hooch).”

Wendy Ide

 James Bowen (Luke Treadaway) is recovering from drug addiction and is trying to earn his living as a busker. When he finds an injured ginger cat (Bob the Cat) in his flat he takes it to an RSPCA vet for treatment and from that point on their two lives become intertwined.

The film is based on the book of the same name by James Bowen and Garry Jenkins. Bob used to accompany Bowen as he worked as a busker and videos of them appeared on YouTube, which led to an article about them in the Islington Tribune. The article was read by a literary agent who had been responsible for the UK publication of Marley and Me; she saw the potential in the story and introduced Bowen to the writer Garry Jenkins. Their subsequent book has sold over a million copies in the UK alone and has been translated into 30 languages.

Roger Spottiswoode began his career as a trainee editor and edited several early films by Sam Peckinpah. In the 1980s he moved into directing and in addition to Turner & Hooch (1989) his most notable films have included Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), with Pierce Brosnan as James Bond, and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s science fiction action thriller The 6^th Day (2000).

Here is the trailer:

 

The Love Punch

After the sublime Casablanca we screened The Love Punch as our last show before Christmas.

It caught the zeitgeist with the corporate raid and the loss of pensions as the raison d'etre for the plot, the cast were excellent and despite it being obvious from the first scene how it was going to end on the whole I enjoyed it.

Here are my notes:

The Love Punch

UK 2013                      94 minutes

Director:                      Joel Hopkins

Starring:                        Pierce Brosnan, Emma Thompson, Timothy Spall, Celia Imrie

“It really is completely absurd, and yet writer-director Hopkins carries it along at a canter... The accomplished cast do their considerable best. Likable fun.”

Peter Bradshaw

Despite their divorce Richard (Pierce Brosnan) and Kate (Emma Thompson) have an amicable relationship.  Richard is about to retire and when he learns that his pension fund has been frozen as his investment company is under investigation for fraud he and Kate decide to recover the money some other way.  With the help of a friendly couple (Timothy Spall and Celia Imrie) they travel to the south of France and plan to steal the diamond that Richard’s employer had given to his girlfriend.

 

Joel Hopkins was born in London but moved to the US to study at University.  He made his name with Jump Tomorrow (2001) which received good reviews on its limited release and was nominated for two British Independent Film Awards: the Douglas Hickox award for debut filmmakers and the Award for Best Screenplay.  He also won the BAFTA Carl Foreman Award for Most Promising Newcomer.

He met Emma Thompson while he was being considered to direct Nanny McPhee (2005) for which she had written the screenplay as well as starring as the title character.  After seeing her in a play with Dustin Hoffman he was inspired to write a film that reflected their interpersonal chemistry: the resulting film Last Chance Harvey (2008) was well received by critics.

Here's the trailer:



The Ghost

Here are my notes for our screening this week: 

The Ghost

UK 2010                      128 minutes

Director:                      Roman Polanski

Starring:                        Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Olivia Williams and Kim Cattrall

Nominations and Awards

• Won Silver Bear (Best Director) at the Berlin Film Festival
• Won Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor (Ewan McGregor), Best Screenplay (Roman Polanski and Robert Harris), Production Design and Music at the European Film Awards
• A further 11 wins and 21 nominations

“The Ghost is Roman Polanski's best film since Tess 30 years ago, and as immaculately crafted a thriller as we're likely to see this year. It may not be in the very first rank of his pictures, of which Chinatown remains the peak. But in every respect it's a characteristic work, with echoes of those stories of intruders breaking into troubled relationships (Knife in the Water, Cul-de-sac), savvy innocents getting out of their depth (Chinatown), people losing touch with their own identities (Repulsion, The Tenant), and the operation of a malevolent fate in a world where, like Oliver Twist, the trusting hero of Polanski's last film, you need to be suspicious of the kindness of strangers.”

Philip French

Ewan McGregor plays an anonymous ghost writer hired to work on the dull memoirs of a former British Prime Minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan) in order to justify a $10 million advance.  When he arrives in New England to begin work with Lang he discovers that his predecessor had died in mysterious circumstances, and then it seems that history might be about to repeat itself as he begins to discover alarming clues about Lang’s past in his predecessor’s notes.

 The film is based on the best-selling novel by Robert Harris, who also worked with Polanski on the screenplay which skilfully distils the complexities of the plot into a fast paced thriller.  In his novel Harris quotes Evelyn Waugh’s epigraph from Brideshead Revisited (“I am not I: thou art not he or she: they are not they”) but it is clear that the Langs are inspired by a recent British Prime Minister and his wife.  Pierce Brosnan gives a superb performance as Lang, and although he displays many of Blair’s characteristics he makes him a distinct character (quite unlike Michael Sheen’s uncanny impersonation of Blair in The Queen).  In a similar vein Olivia Williams turns Ruth Lang, despite her initial superficial resemblance to Cherie Blair, into a far more complex character.

Roman Polanski achieved international success with Knife in the Water (1962) and subsequently has lived and worked in the UK, the USA and most recently in Europe. In the USA his most successful film was Chinatown (1974) which received 11 Oscar nominations.  After leaving the USA in 1978 to avoid arrest he has lived and worked in Europe where his films have included Tess (1979), Death and the Maiden (1994) and The Pianist (2001), which won both the Palme d’Or at Cannes and the Academy Award for Best Director. 

Following the success of The Ghost, which he shot in Germany with the bleak desolation of the North German coast standing in for Martha’s Vineyard, Polanski has recently directed Carnage, from the play God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza, which was set in New York but which he filmed in studios in Paris.

Here's the trailer: