Final round-up of late summer repeats

That magic waterfall from UNCLE BOONMEE

A final look at some late summer/early autumn repeats from British television, before we go on to some new stuff ... there's been lots to look at again!

THE QUEEN. A  huge hit in 2006 and still great entertainment now. One just knew Helen Mirren was on course for that Oscar, while Michael Sheen and Helen McCrory are unnervingly right as Tony and Cherie Blair. The glimpses of the real Diana brings back memories of that crazy time in 1997 .....

SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE, 1998. S I L is a huge hit on the stage here in London now - the film though is the one for me, stupendous cast, great costumes and sets, and that endlessly witty script by Tom Stoppard. If Elizabethan life was not like this, it should have been. I particularly like one of Judi Dench's 8 minutes as Queen Elizabeth laughing at the dog.  Its a perfect romance too ....... Joseph Fiennes is one of the most attractive guys ever here. More on him at Fiennes label, and my long review of the film.

KHARTOUM, 1966. I had forgotten how good KHARTOUM is, directed by stalwart Basil Dearden, and 2nd Unit (presumably those battle scenes) by veteran Yakima Canutt (the chariot race in BEN-HUR etc). It has two towering performances - Charlton Heston, steadfast as usual, as General Gordon, and a mesmerising turn (in a handful of scenes, but dominating the film) by Laurence Olivier as The Madhi - 

he is almost unrecognisable, blacked up here. This was Olivier's great late period, running the National Theatre, films like TERM OF TRIAL and BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING (where he is almost ordindary) He was also playing OTHELLO to great acclaim at the time, also blacked up as the Moor, (it was also filmed, with Maggie Smith). 
His Madhi is a stunning creation.  The film is quite topical now, showing as it does the confrontation between Western imperialism and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism - this time in the Sudan of the 19th century. Add in Ralph Richardson as Gladstone, and familiar faces like Richard Johnson, Marne Maitland, Peter Arne, Nigel Green, Michael Hordern, Alexander Knox, Douglas Wilmer, Johnny Sekka. The fascinating story of how General Gordon (a fanatic to some) manages to hold Khartoum as the Madhi's forces attack is well told here and its totally engrossing. 

SPEED. Popcorn movie time: SPEED is 20 years old now, a hit from 1994 - we loved it at the time, and I still like it now. Maybe Keanu and Sandra's best moment - well, till GRAVITY for Sandra (though I like THE PROPOSAL too). Buffed up Keanu is ideal here and De Bont's film delivers stunt after stunt on that bus, the runaway underground train, and that plunging elevator at the start. Jeff Daniels is dependable as usual and Hopper is the ideal nasty villain. As a popcorn classic its up there with Petersen's AIR FORCE ONE and the Indiana Jones movies. 

UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES, 2010. If there is one director whose work is suffused with a contemporary kind of magic, something you can't quite put your finger on, its Thai art-house sensation Apichatpong Weerasethakul. This sometimes bizarre, always enchanting, film is his most accessible, telling the last days in the life of Uncle Boonmee and the importance of caring and of being cared for, as we roam over his past and maybe future lives.  

My full review (Boonmee label) goes into it in more detail. Its a meditation on death and re-birth as we see those various apparitions of his past lives as animals, perhaps that water buffalo in the moonlight at the start - the the mysterious catfish which makes love to the princess with that waterfall in the background. I like that long scene with when Huay, Boonmee's wife who has been dead for 19 years, reappears at the dinner table and they all talk to her as though she only left yesterday. 

Indie romcom time: Martha meets the boys ...

MARTHA, MEET FRANK, DANIEL & LAURENCE (1998)  (with thanks to Colin for this one).
 Laurence recounts to his neighbour how his life long friendship with Frank and Daniel has been overturned in just three days by their each independently meeting, and falling for, Martha, who has no idea of their connection. Slowly the tale unfolds, the narrative moving backwards and forwards gradually filling in the gaps until we see the whole picture. Or, as the blurb says:

Meet Martha. She's single, sexy and sick of her life. With her last $99 she buys a plane ticket to London - one way! Meet Daniel. He's single, successful and thinks he's sexy. When he bumps into Martha at the airport in America, its love at first sight - well at least Daniel thinks so!  Meet Frank and Laurence, Daniel's best friends, although it doesn't always look that way. Frank is constantly engaged in a game of one-upmanship with Daniel, while Laurence always appears to be stuck in the middle. They have not met Martha yet but they will - and when they do you'll discover that two is company, three is a crowd and four is definitely a catastrophe!

Ok then, a clunky title for an amusing romcom - its a quirky, off the wall one where zany people do quirky, off the wall things like hop on a plane to London with their last $99, as you do - they would not be allowed into the UK with no money for a start! and Martha and Laurence would not be in the same queue at the airport either! 
And where you spend $5,000 to get a total stranger you just suddenly fall in love with, put in the first class next plane seat to you - though she is booked on a different flight! and set her up in a good hotel. (She at least sells the ticket on for $2,0000). But we must not carp about things like that. Its a quite sweet little comedy with all the comings and goings of the cast, as Laurence narrates his version to neighbour psychiatrist Ray Winstone (very subdued here). Its a nice look at London too back then, at the end of the nineties, before it became the crowded, expensive city it is now, as we take in nice hotel rooms and Laurence's ideal flat, and art galleries and restaurants. The various strands eventually come together as all three guys eventually confront Martha - though why these 3 smart London guys fall for this very ordinary American girl is never satisfactorily understandable. 

The three actors are caught nicely here early in their careers, all are still busy now. Fiennes (just before ELIZABETH and SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE)  seems the main guy, Hollander is a delight as usual and is pretty as a picture here, before his indie hits like LAWLESS HEART or BEDROOMS AND HALLWAYS - he was actually on television here last night, bulked up by two stone, to play Welsh poet Dylan Thomas in A POET IN NEW YORK, a new BBC drama (which I have yet to watch)  following his very successful REV comedy series (1998 would have been the year I saw him on stage as the petulant Bosie to Liam Neeson's Oscar Wilde in the first production of THE JUDAS KISS). Rufus scored as that very sharp Italian detective ZEN - well his suits were sharp at any rate! and he was in a recent production of Pinter's OLD TIMES - as well as that Dublin bus driver that Albert Finney fell for in A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE in 1994 (gay interest label). The unknown quantity here for me is Monica Potter, I do not know her at all - she has been busy too, recently with PARENTHOOD tv series. Scripted by Peter Morgan (THE QUEEN, FROST/NIXON etc) and directed by Nick Hamm.  Its a pleasing romcom and time capsule to those heady late '90s.  

Life upon the wicked stage . . .

SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE was one of those polarising movies back in 1998/1999 - did you prefer it or SAVING PRIVATE RYAN ? (just like in 1994 were you a PULP FICTION or FORREST GUMP kind of person? - It was definitely PULP for me, I have never wanted to see GUMP!). While I enjoyed SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE at the time, it was a great evening at the cinema, I have hardly thought about it since, and now that we have Shakespeare debunked in ANONYMOUS, a television showing of SIL made me relish it all over again.

A friend of mine, Leon, over at IMDB puts it perfectly in his review:

Given the little information available on Shakespeare the Man a movie, either full of gravitas or, as here, a tongue-in-cheek entry, was a brilliant idea waiting to happen and the only mystery is what took so long. The two writers have contrived to cater for just about everyone from the Shakespeare scholar to those with a reasonably nodding acquaintance - i.e. someone who can name say ten of the plays off the top of their head and are aware of Marlowe as the author of The Jew Of Malta, Tamburlaine and Dr. Faustus but wouldn't necessarily associate 'Kit' with CM - to those who wouldn't know Shakespeare from Pete Doherty but have a thing about Gwynneth Paltrow, Joe Fiennes or both and provided humor for all from the 'in' jokes such as the bloodthirsty young boy who identifies himself as John Webster, to the conceit of Shakespeare seeing a shrink to say nothing of the Victor Victoria spin on girls playing boys playing girls and the wry twist on Romeo and Juliet. This movie has just about everything, spectacle, social history, satire, romance, glamor and top quality thesping all round. Definitely one to own on DVD and replay annually.

The cast certainly dazzles: Joseph Fiennes is ideal as is Gwynneth - will they ever be as iconic again? - and they are surrounded by Colin Firth amusing as the obnoxious beau, Judi Dench makes an unforgettable Elizabeth I in her few minutes, then there is Simon Callow, Anthony Sher, Tom Wilkinson, Geoffrey Rush, Imelda Staunton perfect as usual, Rupert Everett, Ben Affleck, Jim Carter, Martin Clunes and the rest. [Fiennes was also in Tudorbethan mode the same year as the Earl of Leicester to Cate Blanchett's Virgin Queen in ELIZABETH]. Tom Stoppard's script amuses too as writer and actor Shakespeare strugges with his new play "Romeo and Ethel the pirate's daughter" and then he spies the lady Viola who loves the theatre but women cannot appear on stage, and there is that arranged marriage ... It ends on a satisfying note though with Will getting his inspiration, Viola going to the New World and the Queen demanding "a comedy next time for Twelfth Night".

At the time it was considered by some with disdain as the perfect Miramax/Harvey Weinstein production designed and marketed to win all those awards, but here is one instance when they were deserved. Costumes, scenery, lighting, and sound - all the technical and design elements are incredibly well researched and well executed as love, life and the theatre are conjured up in the Elizabethan era. I never wanted to see director John Madden's follow-up CAPTAIN CORELLI'S MANDOLIN which by all accounts was a filleted version of a book I loved, rendering it just a Greek travelogue with some very questionable casting ...

My friend Daryl adds that SAVING PRIVATE RYAN seemed too self-important at the time when it was really an updated version of those World War II war movies like THE STORY OF G.I JOE, whereas audiences actually enjoyed the verbal wit, romance, comedy and great period detail of SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE.