jackie-107

I watched this on TV out of nostalgic remembrance of the classic TV Saint series with Roger Moore which I grew up with in the 1960s. Not expecting similarity but hoping for some swashbuckling action in Simon Templar style, I was not disappointed. A thoroughly enjoyable Saturday evening viewing with a stylish Val Kilmer (an actor I'm not familiar with) who combined the Templar characteristics with James Bond finesse very well, and a cute Elizabeth Shue playing her part in the manner of the unlikely earlier Saint female leads (I've never seen a mini-skirted, sexy blonde scientific genius in all my years spent in Oxford!) but adding her own feisty zest to the proceedings.

I particularly liked tongue-in-cheek references such as the repeat use of the first bars of the original Saint theme tune interrupting the background music, and the stick-pin Emma produces at the end which mimics the original Saint logo, and the voice of Roger Moore on the final voice-over car radio. I also liked the device of imagining a childhood background for Simon Templar. The original character (and I have read all the books) has a suitably hazy and enigmatic past of which his readers as well as the other characters (including his girlfriend Pat and sidekick Hoppy Uniatz) know nothing about. Adam Smith made an angelic young Simon and the orphanage setting was highly appropriate.

Altogether an under-rated movie.

I was 12 when I watched Katy on TV. We had only just acquired television and Katy was one of the series run during the children's hour between 4 and 5 p.m. I had loved the Katy books at the age of 8-10 and the series was no disappointment. Susan Hampshire was a delight and I have followed her star ever since, sympathising with her as Fleur - never seeing her as nasty and venomous, only desperately disappointed in the one thing she wanted (Jon Forsyte) - relishing her portrayal of Becky Sharpe in Vanity Fair, impressed by her performances as Sarah Churchill (The First Churchills) and Lady Glencora (The Pallisers). She was always a TV actress first and foremost and her brief forays into film, such as Cliff Richard's leading lady in 'Wonderful Life', were not entirely successful. In the overblown TV soap opera 'The Grand' she leaves the rest of the cast way behind. Her latest star role as Molly in Monarch of the Glen shows her just as playful, as attractive, as appealing in her sixties, as she was as Katy or Fleur, and with Richard Briers, she raised the rather bland, soaked in Scottish whimsy, soap story to an acceptable level of acting standards.

I consider Susan the leading British TV actress of the second half of the 20th century. Though few people remember Katy now, it was a good start for an actress full of personality and skill, but unassuming and whose natural qualities bring a refreshing breeze of talent every time she appears.

Far From Heaven is now on my 'favourites' shelf. I have watched it several times and each time find something new and revolutionary. I don't need to repeat all the praise justifiably showered on this film in other viewers' comments and general reviews. Take those as read.

But one or two extra things I noticed which have not yet been commented on. First, when I visited the Edward Hopper exhibition in London last year (2004) I realised just how much Todd Haynes owed to this brilliant painter's perception of colour and stylised realism portrayed in his 1940s and 1950s paintings. There is one scene, where Cathy sits on the living room couch waiting for her husband's return after seeing him embracing another man at the office, that is a direct homage to Hopper's depictions of alienation and isolation, the loneliness of the individual. Cathy's superficial social perfection now hides the inner turmoil, distress, and alienated individual, cut off from all she knows as real. Haynes's faithful reproduction of 1950s film technicolour does more than evoke the period film techniques; it explores colour in similar ways to Hopper, especially in the muted neon greens and purples, pinks and oranges. So much is conveyed in a nuance of colour and pose, expression or motif (the scarf flying away in the wind) - these touches make this film so special.

Did anyone notice the surreptitious in-joke in the dialogue when Cathy and Frank decide to go to Miami to try and pull their marriage back together, and she enthuses about Miami by saying it's such a pink town! Such a neat double-entendre.

This film is one of those rare treats that rewards repeated viewings. One gains further insights each time. I thank Haynes and the magnificent actors, especially Moore who should have won the Oscar for 2003, but also Sandy Powell's costumes, Edward Lachman's cinematography, Ellen Christiansen's set decoration, all the producers, and Elmer Bernstein for a haunting score.

Joel Schumacher and Andrew Lloyd Webber have surpassed themselves with this marvellous film version of Phantom of the Opera. The essentials from the original story and the stage production have been enhanced with amazing and impressive effects: from the magnificent chandelier to the monkey music box; from a meticulously created backstage labyrinth with all the chaos and greasepaint, to the minutiae of the Phantom's lair with its miniature theatre, gilded mirrors, candle-holders, swan-shell bed and luxurious materials. I was reminded of similar details in Baz Lurhmann's Moulin Rouge, but Phantom far exceeds Moulin Rouge in quality, drama, and beautiful music. But it is the performances which make this film stand out so spectacularly.

The drama, pathos, sweetness, darkness, romance, of the music and plot would be nothing without the beautiful voice of Emmy Rossum, the charismatic playing by Gerard Butler, the charm of Patrick Wilson. They are so well supported by Minnie Driver who is fantastic - I will remember her in this role above all the others I have seen her in; Simon Callow, who is wonderfully camp and funny and brings out hitherto unsuspected comedy in the plot; Jennifer Ellison as Emmy Rossum's sweet friend who secretly envies her; but above all, Miranda Richardson who, as with everything I ever see her in, makes the part her own and totally believable. She, in the character of Madame Giry (in a completely different interpretation from the original story, and an expanded part from the stage production) epitomises the real darkness of the story, the seductiveness, subliminal eroticism, yet murky, subversively dangerous story of Beauty and the Beast. Her mannerisms, her expressions, her inner fury and turmoil (anger against Buquet, fear with her hand on her heart when the Phantom appears as Don Juan, erotic, winding her hair before her mirror, tight-lipped frustration with the frivolous attitudes of the new directors), her few words, and pent-up feelings, impress more than anyone else of the true nature of what this story is really about - a top layer of Gothic romance, and a deeper undercurrent of dangerous sexuality, violence, and death.

I have seen this film three times in the last week, and you need to see it more than once to take in the immensity of detail in set, costumes, performance, and lyrics. But by the third time it was Miranda Richardson who brought the whole thing together for me. Her love for her daughter (Meg), her ambition for her adopted daughter (Christine), her loyalty to, but knowledge of the madness in, the Phantom, and her secret love for him, which she transfers to Christine, encouraging Christine in the girl's confused fantasy of her Angel of Music, until she realises the danger, when she switches her loyalty to Raoul. She lives her life through others - her 'ballet girls' as well as the main characters, and assumes power from her knowledge of the Phantom and the Opera House, persuading Andre and Firmin of the real presence of the Phantom. She is at the heart of this movie together with the Phantom (as indicated in the flashback scene explaining where the Phantom came from) and the other characters revolve around her, yet she remains in the background - such a powerful, understated performance in the midst of equally powerful, overstated performances.

Ladies in Lavender, a pun on the phrase Lace and Lavender, used in days gone by to refer to ageing ladies of gentility, is a lovely film and a must for all aficionados of everything Dames Judi and Maggie do. They both give the most understated and effective performances, admirably aided by David Warner (who looked as old as they do - anyone remember Morgan?).

However, I have a problem with the period dating. If the film is set in 1936 and Maggie Smith's character's husband dies in World War I, how can she be around 65 or 70 years old? Her husband, surely, was about the same age as she was, or older, when they married, and the First World War finished in 1918. If he died, say, in 1916, that would still make him about 55 when he died - and men weren't called up for active service at that age. Can anyone enlighten me? Otherwise, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie.

This is the desperate story of a woman whose child-abused background led her to teenage prostitution and a disgust with herself and humankind before she reached 30, and then, desperate to keep the spurious affection and shabby love, however ill-judged and unbalanced, of an immature, lonely, and rather stupid lesbian, she turns into a serial killer. Based on the life of Aileen Wournos, Patty Jenkins and Charlize Theron have achieved not only a film of excellence and importance, but of a depth and darkness that takes your breath away. Charlize Theron's brilliant, bravura performance, Christine Ricci's impressive supporting acting, Patty Jenkins's direction, and the structure and script, make Monster an impressive film. Despite the depressing themes, all the more accentuated by sad motel rooms, low-life bars, and dismal highway nights when Wournos is seeking clients - and victims - the film is so strong on characterisation and with a script which rings true at every stage (despite some difficulty in understanding the mumbled dialogue between the two leads at times), it leaves a lasting impression of ineffable sadness.

The film works on many levels and the bottom line is a thorough indictment of the dark side of American society. The monster is American society which can produce, through ignorance, prejudice, abusive behaviour, easy gun-license laws, the death penalty, and so on, the kind of people which Aileen and Selby become. They are extreme examples, of course, but the message is clear. And this film does have a message even though it takes pains not to be judgmental. At the centre of the film, when Aileen confesses her first murders to Selby, she says she is okay with the Lord, it is the society that brought her up, the politics and the religion, that made her what she was. If politics and religion justify so many killings, her own killings are justified (as a way of compensating for the rapes, abuse, the inevitable prostitution, leading to more abuse and rape and hatred of men as well as herself). Her logic may be questionable but her point is well made.

I have noticed a recent succession of movies which focus on lesbian killers and the lesbian lead always ends up badly. Is it no longer valid to make film with a heterosexual female aggressor? Do those women have to remain passive, or victims, or at least equal with the men they are teamed with, but the lesbian is still 'the bad guy'. Thelma and Louise were not portrayed as lesbians (although they still had to come to a sticky end because of their crimes), but since then there is a noticeable trend in Hollywood to recognise these lesbian themed movies by giving the leading actresses Oscars - Frances McDormand in Fargo, Hilary Swank in Boys Don't Cry, and now Charlize Theron in Monster. (However, Monster knocks Boys Don't Cry and Fargo into insignificance.)

I wonder about the motives of Hollywood. The film world may pay lip-service to liberal tolerance of female homosexuality by recognising these actress performances, but the overall impression is that lesbians are not good people and I question that audiences will be encouraged to see lesbians as acceptable members of society, given the film examples in front of them.

So, to me, this film was not so much a feminist polemic as a depressing, but gripping, story about alienation and isolation, told in a way which can't help but leave the viewer asking a lot of questions about a society which creates such 'monsters'. Aileen is simply the flip-side of the American dream and, as such, turns the dream extremely sour.

Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant and Doris Day may have made better screwball comedies, but this one just about works, by downplaying punchlines and taking obvious idiocies as read, such as the leads' addictions to sweeties and their penchant for falling through doors or knocking things over. But with these traits, how is it their apartments are immaculate? A directorial faux-pas here.

Julianne Moore is wonderful as usual, playing the rather uptight divorce lawyer, impressed despite herself with Brosnan's physical attractions. She is a mistress of the personality contrasts: sweet smile against dagger-drawn eyes; disconcerted reactions with suave sophistication; professional aplomb in the courtroom, but slobbing out in front of the TV. She is not only determined to resist Brosnan but successfully compete against him, while her mother, brilliantly played by Frances Fisher, is determined to persuade her to accept his overtures. Frances Fisher almost steals the film with her over-the-top, much-married, society fashion character, distinctly contrasting with Julianne Moore's more stuffy persona (reminiscences of Edina and Saffy in Absolutely Fabulous?).

I cringed at the scenes in Ireland, but this film does not pretend to be anything other than a sweet-thing romantic comedy of deliberate game-playing. It doesn't go for stand-up jokes, but just bowls along happily in its overdose of sugar. Moore is marvelous in serious drama (The Hours and Far From Heaven) but is proving equally at home with zany comedy (see also Cookie's Fortune). Brosnan relies on his handsome looks to see him through any part, but his comedy timing is as excellent as Moore's. The characters' common clumsiness is as well-timed as anything Doris Day did in That Touch Of Mink, or Cary Grant in Monkey Business. Given that Brosnan and Moore are more often seen in adventure or drama, an outing into comedy does not go amiss and gives us a chance to see them do something different. I wasn't sure of the film to begin with, but it grew on me. As long as it is accepted as a light and frothy entertainment, with no other purpose than whiling away a Sunday afternoon in front of the fire with a box of chocolates, it's a fine movie. Does Frances Fisher ever play any other character than someone's mother?

At the end of this film, one wants to wash one's hands of the unmitigated cruelty pervading the atmosphere. The deliberate pace of the thirties setting (beautifully portrayed using the right houses, and suitable sets and costumes) ensures that every nuance of behaviour is clearly understood by the audience, and this is the great strength of the film. As I haven't read the book, but believe this is a faithful adaptation, I can commend both Charles Sturridge and the superb actors for translating what must be a difficult, but brilliant, novel by Evelyn Waugh, not only into an impressive film, but one that conveys thirties morals and social privilege in a way that rings true for today's 21st century attitudes.

I think this is the best performance I have ever seen by James Wilby. Cuckolded by his wife (Kristin Scott Thomas in a fantastic debut performance), suffering from the death of his only son, he turns from a kind and gentle husband to one who wreaks revenge on his wife by cutting off all financial support. His agony over his son is exactly restrained in the manner of the period, his embarrassment over setting up the grounds for divorce by being caught in flagrante, his bewilderment when one would think he should be released from torment but is trapped by a vindictive eccentric (Alec Guinness, as usual, quite amazing) in the middle of the jungle, after nearly dying of fever, is a tour de force. This is his film, but Kristin Scott-Thomas (who was the original reason I watched this film in the first place), is simply delightful as the spoil, bored wife who can't resist Rupert Graves's boyish charm and dilettante lifestyle. No wonder Robert Altman chose her for Gosford Park; she is made for these roles. Her character's brittle insouciance, total selfishness and insensitivity, her lack of concern for her husband and son while she pursues alleviation from boredom with Rupert Graves, is reminiscent of Daisy Buchanan's behaviour in The Great Gatsby. Kristin Scott-Thomas shows a sophistication and acting aplomb which is breathtaking.

Rupert Graves is convincing as the shallow man-about-town sponging off others but seducing charming to the ladies; Judi Dench gives a lovely cameo as his bourgeois mother; Cathryn Harrison is good as Millie, who is supposed to provide the evidence for the divorce; and Alec Guinness in one of his final roles, is chillingly menacing.

I recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys a good story well told, excellent acting, and a period setting.

I saw Mr Skeffington again yesterday. I had not seen it for years. I remembered it mainly for Bette Davis's outlandish and melodramatic performance and Claude Rains's restrained and impeccable characterisation of Mr Skeffington. The film concentrates on Fanny's desperate wish to stay young and retain her youthful beauty (which of course, she doesn't) and, despite the film's age (1943) her vanity and self-absorption echoes down the years to today's young and beautiful women, all fashion and frivolity, without a notion or care of the political climate around them. The story has a perennial quality, while the film roots itself in the melodrama of the period, emphasised by the heavy set furniture and over-fussy interiors.

Fanny's lack of awareness of the Wall Street Crash, or impending war, or the horrors of Nazism, is carefully drawn, without unbalancing the dramatic intent of the film's focus on Fanny, enough for the audience to understand just how shallow Fanny is, and by which the change of heart at the end, when lonely and with her beauty gone, she can afford to think of someone other than herself, is all the more poignant.

The drama is almost totally set within Fanny's house (the short, other scenes only serve to show events or the passing of time) which enhances the self-centredness of Fanny's existence. The disasters which overtake her brother, Trippy, who is just like her, vain and silly, but without her beauty and advantage of not having to earn her own living, serve as a mirror-image of Fanny herself and the device of her catching diphtheria through silly vanity (going sailing at the age of 40 in flimsy clothing and nearly catching her death) is exactly right to end her life of the 'beauty'. The adroit shift in emotional weight when Mr Skeffington returns from Germany, having lost his sight in a German concentration camp, takes the film to a different level. How appropriate that silly Fanny should lose her beauty through disease, but Mr Skeffington lose his sight as a victim of Nazi Anti-Semitism. Age, feeling, sensitivity, emotion, finally catch up with Fanny and the sea-change is wonderfully portrayed by Davis and the coming back together of husband and wife is one of the most memorable endings of Bette Davis's films, far more effective than her death in Dark Victory, or even 'Don't ask for moon, we have the stars' ending of Now Voyager.

I was delighted to see this excellent film again and feel it should certainly be counted among Bette Davis's (and Claude Rains's) best.

The art of David Lean in making film masterpieces from the 1940s to this last epic in 1970 is now a forgotten talent. Lean was the best at producing cinema that really was for the cinema. You can feel the cameras rolling, the scenes moving at a pace moviegoers can absorb and thrill to. Ryan's Daughter belongs with the best of Lean, and has long been underrated. The acting is wonderful - John Mills is outstanding, Leo McKern and Trevor Howard impeccable, Sarah Miles and Robert Mitchum excellent with just the right amount of awkwardness the parts require. Christopher Jones gave just the right amount of weight to the shell-shocked, traumatised World War I survivor of the trenches. The scenery lent itself to panoramic filming and the storm was a fantastic achievement on film for the period.

Unfortunately, Lean's epics don't come over half so well on the small screen. I wish we could see all these films again in the cinema. I saw the revival of Gone With The Wind in 1968 in a big London cinema and it was marvelous. Wouldn't it be wonderful to see Lawrence of Arabia, Dr Zhivago, and Ryan's Daughter again on the big screen?

The trouble with this film is in its direction and poor screenplay rather than the story, settings, and acting. The plot is unrealistic, but as most of the films I see out of Hollywood tend to be unrealistic, this was no better or worse than many. I like Ashley Judd and Tommy Lee Jones, and they did their best with the inadequate script. I have read the other comments on this film at this site and most have been scathing. I think that's a little unfair, I can think of far worse films than this. For a Sunday afternoon thriller, this film entertains and gives enough plot detail to keep your attention. I'd rather have a slightly second rate thriller with Judd and Jones, than a dozen silly comedies or dull romances. The 'double jeopardy' of the title - where you can't be tried twice for the murder of a person - is an interesting concept, and it was good to see Ashley turn the tables on her diabolical husband.

I have to say, I enjoyed this film, and I liked Judd's efforts. She tries very hard with her material - she just doesn't get good enough parts. Tommy Lee Jones is always good, if predictable. Having seen Judd in Frida and been impressed with what she did with a very small role, I am looking forward to her Linda Porter in 'De-Lovely'.

Hayley Mills excels in this understated, underrated movie juxtaposing the sordid criminal world (Alan Bates as a murderer on the run) with the innocence of children. Cleverly designed, perfectly acted (by all the children as well as the adults), pithily appropriate screenplay, believable accents (the setting is the Yorkshire moors in England), and a well-balanced, carefully planned production all combine to produce a mesmerising gem of a film. Already a star, Hayley Mills proved she was not just a pretty face and built on her impressive performance in Tiger Bay to create a moving character of budding adolescence, still trapped in childhood innocence and belief. The period of the early sixties is neatly conveyed, and Hayley Mills as Cathy creates a metaphor for the deeper layer of the film's message of the increasing social awareness and diminishing religious belief (despite the traditional Sunday School attitudes and practices) which was gradually bringing about the social change of Britain in the sixties. The story is well told, the drama is dynamic, the actors do a marvellous job and the film certainly deserves to be better known, if not least because it's an early example of Richard Attenborough's production skills.