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jonw
Reviews
Casanova (2005)
worst ... script ... ever
This film has some quality ingredients: A great historical character, some great actors, a fine director, some showy art & costume design, and a Hollywood budget. What a shame that the story is a load of tosh, the farce is barely farcical, and the dialogue seems to have been finished over the weekend by an 5th-grader.
If you feel in the need for some pseudo-historical comedy, I suggest you watch "Shakespeare in Love" instead. Then see what the same combination of ingredients can be made into when given the talents of a world class writer (Stoppard).
Avoid.
Notting Hill (1999)
not too bad
You know what this film is about?
It's about £30k onto the value of my parents flat!
Seriously, besides the noticeable effect on west London house prices (resident one R. Curtis), and the fun to be had baiting Japanese tourists in the Portobello (everyone has painted their door blue now!), this isn't a bad movie.
The obvious comparison is with Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994). But the essential difference for me is that the female lead in this is sympathetic. Roberts brings to the role a charm and a beauty beyond mere physical appearance. What I find wrong about MacDowell's similar efforts (Four Weddings, Green Card (1990), Groundhog Day (1993)), is that I can't understand why the male lead actually likes her. Given that the film makers wouldn't tell MacDowell "play it so that nobody likes your character", I can only attribute this difference to the relative abilities of the actresses. Which surprised me, as I wasn't previously a huge fan of old fat-lips (the band Bongwater described the execrable Pretty Woman (1990) as "It's fun to be a prostitute!").
This is a fairly mindless, but very warm and fuzzy movie. Don't expect to be intellectually challenged, or get a real picture of what life in West London is like. But if you are in the right mood, and/or with the right person, it will be a pleasantly spent evening.
A Canterbury Tale (1944)
delightful
This is a delightful little movie, not as grand as other Pressburger/Powell efforts, but definitely recommended.
The scene with Bach's Tocata & Fugue in Canterbury Cathedral has to be one of my favorite musical moments in film, right up there with "La Marseillaise" in Casablanca (1942) or Nicolas Cage singing "Love Me Tender" in Wild at Heart (1990).
A Very Peculiar Practice (1986)
More about British Uni's than about doctors ...
This was a great series, catch it if you can. Although superficially about a rather strange medical practice & its staff, it's actually a thinly veiled critique of academic life and politics in a small provincial English university. A BBC classic.
Went the Day Well? (1942)
Classic wartime morale booster!
This story of German covert action in a quiet English village deserves to be better known. It has a multi-threaded plotline, great characterisation and acting, real tension, and (for it's time) pulls no punches in its depiction of violence. If you want a film that captures the mood of Britain as an island alone against Hitler, don't watch "The Eagle has Landed" - watch this!