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:

 

Pride

This was our first screening after the New Year: a delayed posting after some unexpected functionality in Windows 10 managed to disable my keyboard for several days. Fortunately I was able to resurrect my old lap top to produce the notes in time.

Pride

 UK 2014                      120 minutes

Director:                      Matthew Warchus

Starring:                        Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton, Dominic West, Paddy Considine and Andrew Scott

 Awards and Nominations

• Golden Globe nomination for Best Picture – Musical or Comedy
• BAFTA Award for Best Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer plus Nominations for Best British Film and for Imelda Staunton as Best Supporting Actress
•  BIFA awards for Best British Independent Film, Best Supporting Actress (Imelda Staunton) and Best Supporting Actress (Andrew Scott) plus four further nominations
• Winner of Queer Palm at Cannes Film Festival
• A further three wins and nine nominations

“OK, so it may not have the toughness of Brassed Off or the fleet-footedness of Billy Elliot, but what it does have is spine-tingling charm by the bucket-load. I laughed, I cried, and frankly I would have raised a clenched fist were both hands not already occupied wiping away the bittersweet tears of joy.”

Mark Kermode

During the miners’ strike in the 1980s a group of gay and lesbian activists decide to raise money to support miners’ families. The National Union of Miners is unwilling to accept the group’s support as it does not want to be openly associated with a gay group, so the activists decide to take their donation directly to a mining village in Wales. There is surprise in the village when the activists arrive, but ultimately the two communities build a strong alliance.

Like Brassed Off, The Full Monty and Billy Elliot the film is set against the context of consequences of Britain’s industrial troubles in the 1980s, but unlike the former three films the story of Pride is based on real events.   Many of the individuals in the large cast of characters were real people, with Imelda Staunton in particular receiving excellent reviews for her portrayal of Hefina Headon, being described by one critic as “part Mother Courage and part Hilda Ogden”.

Matthew Warchus is best known as a stage director: he has worked extensively in both the UK in the UK where he has directed both classic and contemporary plays as well as the musical Matilda.  He has directed several plays at the Old Vic in London, including Speed-the-Plow (a superb satire on Hollywood that starred Kevin Spacey and Jeff Goldblum) as well as Alan Ayckbourn’s The Norman Conquests trilogy. In 2014 it was announced that he would succeed Kevin Spacey as Artistic Director of the Old Vic and that he would be working with the team that produced Matilda to direct a musical version of Groundhog Day as part of his first season.