During the election campaign there were many comments on the Labour Party's fascination with Doctor Who in its use of David Tennant to provide voiceovers for PEBs, and starring roles for Sean Pertwee (son of Jon) and Peter Davison.
However it is only now as the dust from the election finally settles that it's possible to see how Doctor Who provides a strange mirror to the rise and fall of the whole New Labour Project:
* The unexpected and triumphant return of the programme after many years off the screen.
* The replacement of the ninth Doctor by a Scottish successor.
* The return of several key characters from the first series as the final series from RTD reached its conclusion.
* The Tenth's Doctor's final words ("I don't want to go") sum up the amazing week of horse-trading followed the inconclusive result of the Generl Election.
* The casting of the youngest actor ever to play the Eleventh Doctor.
It only remains to be seen now how the Eleventh Doctor's relationship with his new companion will develop over the next five years. The good news so far is that the BBC has commissioned another series which will include a story by Neil Gaiman.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Friday, April 30, 2010
The Soloist
These are my notes for the film we screened last night. It was the last film of the season and although it was good we had a pretty small audience. next year we plan to end the season before Easter.
The Soloist
USA 2009 (117 minutes)
Director: Joe Wright
Starring: Jamie Foxx, Robert Downey Jr. and Catherine Keener
Awards and Nominations
Four nominations including Best Actor nominations for both Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr.
While at the Juillard School Nathaniel Ayers (Foxx) developed schizophrenia and after becoming homeless is reduced to playing a two-stringed violin on the streets of downtown Los Angeles. Steve Lopez (Downey) is a journalist, and after meeting Ayers he decides to write a column about him and his homelessness. The column is a great success, and as Lopez continues both to write about Ayers and to help him he is forced to grapple with the complex issues of the thousands of mentally ill who live on the streets of Los Angeles.
With its subject matter the film seems to be a close companion to Shine (1996), which was based on the life of the pianist David Helfgott who spent years in institutions after a mental breakdown. However Philip French, somewhat idiosyncratically, links it to Marley & Me (2008) and Julia & Julia (2009) in that all three films started as newspaper columns which their authors then turned into books.
The film is based on a true story that Steve Lopez told in a series of columns that eventually became a book called The Soloist. Since the success of the book Lopez has maintained a relationship with Ayers and has become his mentor. But Lopez always saw Ayers as more than one individual with a story to tell:
“I was told early on that this was a rare opportunity to humanise thousands like him. This story took me into a whole world, a world so close... to City Hall. Without him, without the evolving drama of his life, nobody would have cared about the public policy of it.”
As his relationship with Ayers continued Lopez became both an expert and an advocate for mental health and homeless issues and speaks regularly on the lecture circuit.
After beginning his career in television Joe Wright made his name in the cinema with an adaptation of Pride and Prejudice (2005) which won him a BAFTA for Most Promising Newcomer and which starred Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Bennett. He worked with Knightley again on the multi-Oscar nominated Atonement (2007). The Soloist marked a clear change of direction and helped Wright escape from being seen as a director of prestige adaptations of literary classics. His current project is another change of direction: Hanna is a story about a teenage assassin from Easter Europe who escapes from her background when a French family take her in.
The Soloist
USA 2009 (117 minutes)
Director: Joe Wright
Starring: Jamie Foxx, Robert Downey Jr. and Catherine Keener
Awards and Nominations
Four nominations including Best Actor nominations for both Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr.
While at the Juillard School Nathaniel Ayers (Foxx) developed schizophrenia and after becoming homeless is reduced to playing a two-stringed violin on the streets of downtown Los Angeles. Steve Lopez (Downey) is a journalist, and after meeting Ayers he decides to write a column about him and his homelessness. The column is a great success, and as Lopez continues both to write about Ayers and to help him he is forced to grapple with the complex issues of the thousands of mentally ill who live on the streets of Los Angeles.
With its subject matter the film seems to be a close companion to Shine (1996), which was based on the life of the pianist David Helfgott who spent years in institutions after a mental breakdown. However Philip French, somewhat idiosyncratically, links it to Marley & Me (2008) and Julia & Julia (2009) in that all three films started as newspaper columns which their authors then turned into books.
The film is based on a true story that Steve Lopez told in a series of columns that eventually became a book called The Soloist. Since the success of the book Lopez has maintained a relationship with Ayers and has become his mentor. But Lopez always saw Ayers as more than one individual with a story to tell:
“I was told early on that this was a rare opportunity to humanise thousands like him. This story took me into a whole world, a world so close... to City Hall. Without him, without the evolving drama of his life, nobody would have cared about the public policy of it.”
As his relationship with Ayers continued Lopez became both an expert and an advocate for mental health and homeless issues and speaks regularly on the lecture circuit.
After beginning his career in television Joe Wright made his name in the cinema with an adaptation of Pride and Prejudice (2005) which won him a BAFTA for Most Promising Newcomer and which starred Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Bennett. He worked with Knightley again on the multi-Oscar nominated Atonement (2007). The Soloist marked a clear change of direction and helped Wright escape from being seen as a director of prestige adaptations of literary classics. His current project is another change of direction: Hanna is a story about a teenage assassin from Easter Europe who escapes from her background when a French family take her in.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
The White Ribbon
These are my notes for the film we are screening this Sunday - and this is the film I've been most looking forward to seeing all year. From everything I have read I do not expect to be disappointed.
The White Ribbon (Das weisse Band, Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte)
Austria 2009 (143 minutes)
Director: Michael Haneke
Starring: Stefan Arndt, Veit Heiduschka and Michael Katz
Awards and Nominations
Winner of Palme d’Or at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival
Winner of the 2009 Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film
Nominated for 2 Oscars, including Best Foreign Language Film
A further 15 wins and 30 nominations
A series of mysterious incidents occur in a Northern German village in the 12 months preceding the outbreak of the First World War. The pastor, doctor and baron rule over the women, children and peasant farmers of the village, but although they exercise stern discipline over the members of their own families - the pastor forces his children to wear the white ribbon of purity as a punishment for wrongdoings – they are unable to identify the perpetrators.
According to Haneke, the film is about “the origin of every type of terrorism, be it of political or religious nature”, but his film refuses to offer up easy answers or even resolve the events it portrays. The story is narrated by the local teacher, looking back in old age, who announces that these events “could perhaps clarify something that happened in this country”. It is not clear what motive the narrator has for remembering – or misremembering – the events: possibly after surviving two world wars and achieving some social standing in Germany his own hindsight is now questionable.
Michael Handke started his career on German television and came to international notice when The Piano Teacher/La Pianiste (2001) with Isabelle Huppert and Benoit Magimel won the Grand Prize at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, while its stars won the Best Actor and Actress awards. Handke won the same award at Cannes for Hidden/Caché (2005) which was also nominated for the Palme d’Or. The White Ribbon received its first screening at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival where it won both the Palme d’Or and the international film critics’ prize.
The Guardian included The White Ribbon at number five in its list of the best films of the noughties (sic) where Peter Bradshaw described it as:
"...a ghost story without a ghost, a whodunnit without a denouement, a historical parable without a lesson, and for two and a half hours this unforgettably disturbing and mysterious film leads its viewers alongside an abyss of anxiety."
The White Ribbon (Das weisse Band, Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte)
Austria 2009 (143 minutes)
Director: Michael Haneke
Starring: Stefan Arndt, Veit Heiduschka and Michael Katz
Awards and Nominations
Winner of Palme d’Or at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival
Winner of the 2009 Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film
Nominated for 2 Oscars, including Best Foreign Language Film
A further 15 wins and 30 nominations
A series of mysterious incidents occur in a Northern German village in the 12 months preceding the outbreak of the First World War. The pastor, doctor and baron rule over the women, children and peasant farmers of the village, but although they exercise stern discipline over the members of their own families - the pastor forces his children to wear the white ribbon of purity as a punishment for wrongdoings – they are unable to identify the perpetrators.
According to Haneke, the film is about “the origin of every type of terrorism, be it of political or religious nature”, but his film refuses to offer up easy answers or even resolve the events it portrays. The story is narrated by the local teacher, looking back in old age, who announces that these events “could perhaps clarify something that happened in this country”. It is not clear what motive the narrator has for remembering – or misremembering – the events: possibly after surviving two world wars and achieving some social standing in Germany his own hindsight is now questionable.
Michael Handke started his career on German television and came to international notice when The Piano Teacher/La Pianiste (2001) with Isabelle Huppert and Benoit Magimel won the Grand Prize at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, while its stars won the Best Actor and Actress awards. Handke won the same award at Cannes for Hidden/Caché (2005) which was also nominated for the Palme d’Or. The White Ribbon received its first screening at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival where it won both the Palme d’Or and the international film critics’ prize.
The Guardian included The White Ribbon at number five in its list of the best films of the noughties (sic) where Peter Bradshaw described it as:
"...a ghost story without a ghost, a whodunnit without a denouement, a historical parable without a lesson, and for two and a half hours this unforgettably disturbing and mysterious film leads its viewers alongside an abyss of anxiety."
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Star Trek
In the great Star Trek versus Doctor Who debate I've always sided with the latter - even before its triumphant renaissance under Russell T Davies. However I have to admit that the film we screened on Sunday was pretty good, and that it deserves its five star review from Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian.
Here are my notes:
Star Trek
USA 2009 (127 minutes)
Director: J J Abrams
Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana and Simon Pegg
Awards and Nominations
Won Oscar for Best Makeup
A further 11 wins and 45 nominations
James T Kirk meets the half-human Spock while training at the Starfleet Academy. Kirk stows away on the USS Enterprise and together with other cadets like Nyota Uhura, Hiikaru Sulu and Pavel Chekhov has an adventure at the final frontier.
Star Trek first appeared in 1966 as a TV series that ran for three seasons before spawning four more spin-off TV series based in the same universe but with different sets of characters. In the cinema there were 10 Star Trek films featuring initially the (ageing) cast of the initial TV series followed by the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation. There are also many novels, comic books and video games, although purists consider these to be non-canonical.
The commercial failure of Star Trek Nemesis (2002) effectively killed the official Star Trek franchise in the cinema and it was not until 2005 that Paramount chose to reboot it with a story featuring the cast of the initial TV series portrayed by a new cast. The script is by Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzan who previously had worked with J J Abrams on Mission: Impossible III (2006) – another successful film franchise based on a hit TV show from the 1960s. Initially Abrams had intended only to produce the film, but decided to direct it as soon as he read the script as “I would be so agonisingly envious of whoever stepped in and directed the movie”. The writers were keen to avoid a complete reboot and thus it was important to them to cast Leonard Nimoy in the film. His performance as the older Spock is one of quiet dignity; and it is his voice over the final credits speaking the legendary words about the mission to seek out new life and new civilisations - amended to meet the politically correct requirements of a new millennium - where no one has gone before.
J J Abrams made his name as a writer and producer of eight films before making his debut as a director with Mission: Impossible III (2008). He followed this by producing the science fiction film Cloverfield (2008) before reverting to the role of director for Star Trek. His current future projects include producing Cloverfield 2 and Mission: Impossible IV as well as a possible commitment to direct an as yet untitled sequel to Star Trek. He has a parallel career in television where his credits include co-creating, writing, producing and directing Lost (2004-2010).
Here are my notes:
Star Trek
USA 2009 (127 minutes)
Director: J J Abrams
Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana and Simon Pegg
Awards and Nominations
Won Oscar for Best Makeup
A further 11 wins and 45 nominations
James T Kirk meets the half-human Spock while training at the Starfleet Academy. Kirk stows away on the USS Enterprise and together with other cadets like Nyota Uhura, Hiikaru Sulu and Pavel Chekhov has an adventure at the final frontier.
Star Trek first appeared in 1966 as a TV series that ran for three seasons before spawning four more spin-off TV series based in the same universe but with different sets of characters. In the cinema there were 10 Star Trek films featuring initially the (ageing) cast of the initial TV series followed by the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation. There are also many novels, comic books and video games, although purists consider these to be non-canonical.
The commercial failure of Star Trek Nemesis (2002) effectively killed the official Star Trek franchise in the cinema and it was not until 2005 that Paramount chose to reboot it with a story featuring the cast of the initial TV series portrayed by a new cast. The script is by Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzan who previously had worked with J J Abrams on Mission: Impossible III (2006) – another successful film franchise based on a hit TV show from the 1960s. Initially Abrams had intended only to produce the film, but decided to direct it as soon as he read the script as “I would be so agonisingly envious of whoever stepped in and directed the movie”. The writers were keen to avoid a complete reboot and thus it was important to them to cast Leonard Nimoy in the film. His performance as the older Spock is one of quiet dignity; and it is his voice over the final credits speaking the legendary words about the mission to seek out new life and new civilisations - amended to meet the politically correct requirements of a new millennium - where no one has gone before.
J J Abrams made his name as a writer and producer of eight films before making his debut as a director with Mission: Impossible III (2008). He followed this by producing the science fiction film Cloverfield (2008) before reverting to the role of director for Star Trek. His current future projects include producing Cloverfield 2 and Mission: Impossible IV as well as a possible commitment to direct an as yet untitled sequel to Star Trek. He has a parallel career in television where his credits include co-creating, writing, producing and directing Lost (2004-2010).
Friday, March 19, 2010
State of Play
These are the notes for the film we screened last night:
State of Play
USA 2009 (128 minutes)
Director: Kevin Macdonald
Starring: Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Robin Wright Penn and Helen Mirren
Awards and Nominations
Won International Award Best Actor (Russell Crowe) at the Australian Film Institute
Two further nominations, including Kevin Macdonald as Best Director
Congressman Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck) is leading an investigation into PointCorp, a private defence contractor whose operations involve the supply of mercenaries, when he hears that that Sonia Baker, a lead researcher in his team has apparently committed suicide on the subway. Reporter Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe) had been at college with Collins and as he investigates the death with his colleague Della Frye (Rachel McAdams) they begin to wonder whether Sonia Baker had been murdered.
The film is based on the six part TV drama by Paul Abbott first broadcast in 2003 which was set in London in the early days of New Labour. The film transposes the action to contemporary Washington under a Republican Administration, and the need to distill the core story into two hours means that what it loses in terms of character development it gains in terms of pace. Kevin Macdonald said that it was the complex blend of fiction with journalism and politics that had initially attracted him to the story, adding that he wanted to examine the ways that societies learn what is going on in the world and the extent to which people can trust what they read in the papers. He cited a series of key 1970s films – The Parallax View, Three Days of the Condor and especially All The President’s Men - as a major influence on State of Play.
The initial screenplay was by Matthew Michael Carnahan (who previously wrote the screenplay for Lions for Lambs (2007), Robert Redford’s most recent film as director) with further contributions from both Tony Gilray (scriptwriter for all three Bourne films and writer/director of Michael Clayton (2007) and Duplicity (2009)) and Peter Morgan, who wrote the screenplay for The Last King of Scotland (2006), Kevin Macdonald’s debut feature as a director, as well as the screenplays for The Queen (2006) and Frost/Nixon (2008). Despite Paul Abbott’s role as Executive Producer he had no involvement in the screenplay.
Brad Pitt had originally been cast as Cal McAffrey, but he left the production a week before production began as a result of differences over the script which could not be resolved due to the 2007-2008 Screenwriters Strike, and Russell Crowe took on the role at the last minute after a personal approach from Kevin Macdonald. This cast change delayed production and had the knock on effect of Ben Affleck taking over the role of Collins from Edward Norton, who had to leave due to scheduling conflicts. Fortunately Helen Mirren was able to adjust her own filming schedule to retain her key cameo role of Cameron Lynne, the editor of the Washington Globe - although some UK critics wondered why DCI Tennison had suddenly taken up a second career in journalism.
State of Play
USA 2009 (128 minutes)
Director: Kevin Macdonald
Starring: Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Robin Wright Penn and Helen Mirren
Awards and Nominations
Won International Award Best Actor (Russell Crowe) at the Australian Film Institute
Two further nominations, including Kevin Macdonald as Best Director
Congressman Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck) is leading an investigation into PointCorp, a private defence contractor whose operations involve the supply of mercenaries, when he hears that that Sonia Baker, a lead researcher in his team has apparently committed suicide on the subway. Reporter Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe) had been at college with Collins and as he investigates the death with his colleague Della Frye (Rachel McAdams) they begin to wonder whether Sonia Baker had been murdered.
The film is based on the six part TV drama by Paul Abbott first broadcast in 2003 which was set in London in the early days of New Labour. The film transposes the action to contemporary Washington under a Republican Administration, and the need to distill the core story into two hours means that what it loses in terms of character development it gains in terms of pace. Kevin Macdonald said that it was the complex blend of fiction with journalism and politics that had initially attracted him to the story, adding that he wanted to examine the ways that societies learn what is going on in the world and the extent to which people can trust what they read in the papers. He cited a series of key 1970s films – The Parallax View, Three Days of the Condor and especially All The President’s Men - as a major influence on State of Play.
The initial screenplay was by Matthew Michael Carnahan (who previously wrote the screenplay for Lions for Lambs (2007), Robert Redford’s most recent film as director) with further contributions from both Tony Gilray (scriptwriter for all three Bourne films and writer/director of Michael Clayton (2007) and Duplicity (2009)) and Peter Morgan, who wrote the screenplay for The Last King of Scotland (2006), Kevin Macdonald’s debut feature as a director, as well as the screenplays for The Queen (2006) and Frost/Nixon (2008). Despite Paul Abbott’s role as Executive Producer he had no involvement in the screenplay.
Brad Pitt had originally been cast as Cal McAffrey, but he left the production a week before production began as a result of differences over the script which could not be resolved due to the 2007-2008 Screenwriters Strike, and Russell Crowe took on the role at the last minute after a personal approach from Kevin Macdonald. This cast change delayed production and had the knock on effect of Ben Affleck taking over the role of Collins from Edward Norton, who had to leave due to scheduling conflicts. Fortunately Helen Mirren was able to adjust her own filming schedule to retain her key cameo role of Cameron Lynne, the editor of the Washington Globe - although some UK critics wondered why DCI Tennison had suddenly taken up a second career in journalism.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Harry, He’s Here To Help (Harry, Un Ami Qui Vous Veut Du Bien)
Harry, He’s Here To Help (Harry, Un Ami Qui Vous Veut Du Bien)
France 2000 (117 minutes)
Director: Dominik Moll
Starring: Laurent Lucas, Mathilde Seigneur, Sergi Lopez and Sophie Guillemin
Awards and Nominations
BAFTA nomination for Best Film not in the English Language
Nomination for Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival
A further seven wins and 12 nominations
On a hot summer day Michel Pape (Laurent Lucas) is driving south from Paris with his wife Claire (Mathilde Seigneur) and three young daughters to a remote farmhouse they have bought in order to renovate. While they stop at a service station a stranger introduces himself to Michel as Harry Balesteros (Sergi Lopez) a school friend whom he has not seen for twenty years. Harry slowly insinuates himself into the life of the family and then sets about reorganising Michel’s life with advice and manipulative acts.
The key motif of the plot – a charming sociopath inveigles his way into a stable relationship before wreaking havoc – is a key plot device from films like Strangers on a Train to The Talented Mr Ripley. However it is the former that is the key to this film, which consciously echoes a whole series of Hitchcock classics: Harry is the corpse in The Trouble With Harry and Balesteros is the name of the innocent victim in The Wrong Man. Philip French has also noted a more subtle Hitchcock reference: Hitchcock is said to have abhorred eggs, but Harry eats them raw and Michel starts writing a story called Les Oeufs.
All four actors perform well in the leading roles, but it was Sergi Lopez who won a Cesar for Best Actor. Since this film he has worked with a number of major European directors and has portrayed villainous characters in films such as Dirty Pretty Things (2002) and, more famously, in Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), in which he played the psychopathic Captain Vidal.
Dominik Moll was born in Germany, studied film in New York and now teaches film at the French National Film School. After the success of Harry, He’s Here To Help, for which he also wrote the screenplay, Moll directed Lemming (2005) a psychological thriller starring Charlotte Rampling and Charlotte Gainsbourg, once again from his own script. His next film will be The Monk, based on the classic Gothic novel by Matthew Lewis and starring Sergi Lopez.
France 2000 (117 minutes)
Director: Dominik Moll
Starring: Laurent Lucas, Mathilde Seigneur, Sergi Lopez and Sophie Guillemin
Awards and Nominations
BAFTA nomination for Best Film not in the English Language
Nomination for Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival
A further seven wins and 12 nominations
On a hot summer day Michel Pape (Laurent Lucas) is driving south from Paris with his wife Claire (Mathilde Seigneur) and three young daughters to a remote farmhouse they have bought in order to renovate. While they stop at a service station a stranger introduces himself to Michel as Harry Balesteros (Sergi Lopez) a school friend whom he has not seen for twenty years. Harry slowly insinuates himself into the life of the family and then sets about reorganising Michel’s life with advice and manipulative acts.
The key motif of the plot – a charming sociopath inveigles his way into a stable relationship before wreaking havoc – is a key plot device from films like Strangers on a Train to The Talented Mr Ripley. However it is the former that is the key to this film, which consciously echoes a whole series of Hitchcock classics: Harry is the corpse in The Trouble With Harry and Balesteros is the name of the innocent victim in The Wrong Man. Philip French has also noted a more subtle Hitchcock reference: Hitchcock is said to have abhorred eggs, but Harry eats them raw and Michel starts writing a story called Les Oeufs.
All four actors perform well in the leading roles, but it was Sergi Lopez who won a Cesar for Best Actor. Since this film he has worked with a number of major European directors and has portrayed villainous characters in films such as Dirty Pretty Things (2002) and, more famously, in Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), in which he played the psychopathic Captain Vidal.
Dominik Moll was born in Germany, studied film in New York and now teaches film at the French National Film School. After the success of Harry, He’s Here To Help, for which he also wrote the screenplay, Moll directed Lemming (2005) a psychological thriller starring Charlotte Rampling and Charlotte Gainsbourg, once again from his own script. His next film will be The Monk, based on the classic Gothic novel by Matthew Lewis and starring Sergi Lopez.
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