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In Kiev, Ukraine, this year's motto - "Celebrate Diversity" - hardly lived up to its words, at least visually. I think I managed to count at least two non-white faces among all the backing singers and dancers, but otherwise it was a case of 'Caucasian rules OK!'
I've been following the contest ever since the U.K. first entered it in 1958, missing only two or three in the late 1970s because I went along with the notion that the whole thing was a bit naff. Can't think how I ever could have bought into that idea!
The number of times when my voting choice turned out to be the actual winner I can count on the fingers of one hand, but last night it happened, with Portugal achieving its first ever win after a wait of 54 years! - a stand-out, simple and modest ballad without any gimmicks, performed by the distinctly unglamorous Salvador Sobral and composed by his sister - and one of the very few not sung in English.
I didn't know until the voting was over that the singer was suffering from a serious heart condition, causing him to miss some of the rehearsals. I can't say if this was widely known before the contest and might have added to a 'sympathy' vote, though even if I'd been aware in advance I still think this was the best song by quite some margin - and totally different from any other of the 26 finalists - a gently appealing non-belter.
Second was Bulgaria, a song which I didn't rate much, sung by the youngest of the participants, a 17-year old, who might have got the 'cutie' vote:-
Third came Moldova (which I'd have placed 5th), one of those barking mad entries which we love but don't like to admit we found infectious. (Nice dance moves.):-
Coming fourth, Belgium was a worthy contender, which I'd have put in around 8th position, though not remarkable enough to be much higher:-
And in fifth place, the ever highly-placed Sweden which, like Belgium I'd rate definitely above average but not spectacularly so:-
My own Top Five included three that didn't register in the final tally:-
1) Portugal
2) Romania - a happy, yodelling song which deserved to finish higher than the seventh place it did. Full marks for the sheer nerve of it! :-
3) Croatia - possibly the most remarkable listening event of the night, but finishing in a vastly unfair 13th place. A male performer with evident Pavarotti-like 'embonpoint' who sings in two vastly different registers. Possibly the most attention-grabbing performer of last night:-
4) Italy - An arresting image, and for a long time prior to the night the favourite to win, actually coming sixth. Song performed alongside man in a cheap-looking gorilla suit. Fun though, and not at all bad song:-
5) Moldova, which came 3rd.
And the U.K.?:-
Lucie Jones yelling out one of those so-called power ballads which bore me beyond tears. I've heard it several times and I still ask myself "Why?". Anyway, she managed our best position in years, coming 15th, so suppose one ought to be thankful that at least we weren't entirely humiliated as we often are.
I'm also very pleased that after a long time the title has been wrested out of the hands of eastern Europe and Scandinavia, which was getting all a bit depressingly predictable. So grateful for that.
Btw: I switched over during the several interval acts while votes were being cast and missed a stage-crasher coming on and baring his bottom. A bit sorry not to have seen that though must say that on the whole I got my evening's worth of entertainment - I've seen several worse than last night.
And finally, have to mention that out of the three presenters (Diversity? Hah!) I just couldn't take my eyes off one of them. Guess which!:-
So, till Lisbon(?) in 2018 - and in the hope that the U.K. can at last end what will then be our 21-year drought.
This sure is turning out to be a bumper year. Only just over one third exhausted and there's already a crowded field vying to make it into my Top 10 of 2017. Here's yet another strong contender.
Based on a novella by Nikolai Leskov, 'Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk', (which you, like me, may recognise as being the title of a Shostakovich opera), this film transfers the action from Russia to the bleak far north of England - and Northumberland was where it was shot. The nod to Shakespeare's character ought not to be taken too far. In both play and this film, the female character (here called Catherine), is a resolutely self-willed woman who connives in, or even executes, at least two murders. Pursuing any further analogy is pointless.
The film opens in the 19th century with Catherine (Florence Pugh - amazing!) getting locked into a loveless, though reasonably affluent, marriage-of-convenience. She soon shows she's made of steel and not to be pushed around, which her husband and his father resent as being unbecoming to a 'lady' in the society of that time.
When her husband (Paul Hilton) goes away for a while she takes on a menial lover (Cosmo Jarvis), trying to hide the affair from the servants, not entirely successfully.
It's hard to say much more without spoiling it, as there are a number of 'shocks' in the story which caused me to take a deep intake of breath - shocks more in the nature of the unexpected way the story was going rather than the 'jump-in-your-seat' kind (though I really could have done without having to see the shooting of a horse).
Dialogue throughout is spare and effective. There's a slow and deliberate pace to the (90 mins) film which suits the tale.
Also, it must be remarked that there's a refreshing colour-blindness to cast members, unlikely for its time, though it didn't get in the way for me at all
I think director William Oldroyd is to be congratulated on this feature. It has been criticised in some quarters as exhibiting a degree of tastelessness in some areas, but I'd rate the risk-taking as one of its many strong points. And I'm going to look out for the next feature starring the luminous Florence Pugh................8.
A 'one-joke' comedy which manages to make a slender 85 mins feel too long by half.
The 'joke' is that a star of a 1980s British TV detective series, 'Mindhorn', (Julian Barrett) is hauled out of an ignominious oblivion after failing, a couple of decades earlier, to make it in Hollywood and his career tanking still further following ill-advised drunken remarks on a TV chat show. His presence is now demanded by a serial killer (Russell Tovey - unfunny and annoying) who'll only communicate with the police through this character from the TV series which folded 25 years previously. So, now balded, paunchy, and out of condition, the ageing, past-it actor is roped in to try to lure the man into captivity by resurrecting the character.
You might be able to imagine the humour, with situations including his former stuntman double (Simon Farnaby - also unfunny and annoying), his agent (Harriet Walter), former lover (Patricia Deville) and senior policewoman (Andrea Riseborough) - but surprisingly disappointing, there's also an under-used Steve Coogan as Mindhorn's former co-star, now much more successful than the his one-time partner.
There are also cameos from Kenneth Branagh (uncredited) and Simon Callow - but, oh dear, did he have to mention 'Amadeus', just in case we needed nudging as to who he is? (For anyone not in the know, Callow was Mozart in the original London stage production of that play.)
'Mindhorn' takes place on an attractive Isle of Man, which is one of its most interesting features - and this time it's not standing in for another location.. (For non-Brits who don't know, the Isle of Man is a smallish, modestly populated island in the Irish Sea between the British mainland and Northern Ireland, still with its own ancient Parliament, the 'Tynwald', and world-famed today as the location of the annual T.T. motorcycle races event ).
Despite my absence of enthusiasm I did manage to smile at a couple of points, both in the first quarter hour or so, when the story was being set up. But after that the whole enterprise quickly ran out of steam.
Director Sean Foley has done nearly all his previous work for TV. Now with a bigger canvas and budget it still seems small scale with material not substantial enough for large screen treatment.
Incidentally, it might be of interest that whereas the film of 'The Promise' which I reviewed most recently, was accorded a certificate of '12A' despite its many harrowing scenes, comedy 'Mindhorn' is given a '15' certificate because of 'language and drug misuse'.
There have been better-than-average reviews of this film. I must say that it did hold out the promise of there being something more special but, frankly, for me it wasn't realised. If it's any consolation I have to say it could have been worse!....................4.5.
Heavy stuff, this. I'd been misled by several reviews complain-ing that the romance between characters played by Oscar Isaac and Charlotte Le Bon (who is also Christian Bale's character's parallel love interest) ill-advisedly eclipses the historical events taking place. I didn't find it so at all. Actually I thought the film engrossing and educational though, it must be said, with some harrowing scenes of brutality (mainly within a 30-60 mins in section of this 2+ hours film) more distressing than I've seen in any film for several years, and belying the fact that the film has been accorded a mere '12A' certificate in the U.K.
It's a subject I don't recall ever being seen treated in a feature film before - the apparently well-documented massacre of Armenian Orthodox Christians by Turkish forces in the early 20th century which, ever since then and even now, the Turkish government brands as 'lies' (or should that be 'fake news' or even 'alternative facts'?) led by that veritable 'champion' of a 'free'-press, Recep Erdogan - as long as it doesn't criticise him, otherwise it's unpatriotic and subversive, and therefore criminal! (I understand that this 'respected' leader has the approval of 'The Donald'. Now there's a surprise!)
I'd heard that detractors of the film have attempted to sabotage IMDb's rating system by an en masse registering of a minimum rating of 1/10 for this film. (What's the betting that hardly any one of them have actually seen it?). Despite that minimum possible score currently being submitted by 44% of 'viewers' the film still manages to achieve an average rating of 5.9, which is good going, though it must be said that a very high proportion of the remainder have, as a reaction, similarly given it a max score of 10/10, which it hardly deserves, though I can fully understand their ploy.
The film's action begins just before the outbreak of the First World War, an opening caption helpfully mentioning the imminent collapse of "the Ottoman Turk(!) Empire". (Obviously written by someone with a Trump-like grasp of history!)
Oscar Isaac, spouting a generic, pan-European foreign accent, is an Armenian medical student in rural Turkey while Christian Bale is an American investigative reporter based in (then) Constantinople with pretty Charlotte Le Bon in tow, the latter and Isaac immediately falling for each other at first sight, with Bale suspecting that something or other is going on and, naturally, disapproves.
It's the first time I've seen Oscar Isaac in a role that's sensitive and restrained (sometimes painfully so) throughout, and he manages it very well. Up to now he's always seemed to have played abrasive, even threatening, characters, but here he's a bit of a tame pussy cat.
It's likewise different for Christian Bale. Not the usual larger-than-life figure he normally inhabits, but here a more ruminative individual, still with a slight menace about him, but rather more profound and better-rounded, even if he does end up playing second fiddle to Isaac.
Also popping up in the cast in minor roles are the pleasing inclusions of Jean Reno, James Cromwell and Tom Hollander.
We see the persecutions and violent attacks on the Armenians by the Turks, their being dragged off (presumably to death), the forced labour camps with starving prisoners, some near-skeletal, the execution squads etc, none of which is easy to watch. I found myself grimacing on several occasions - those times when I could bear to look at the screen, that is.
I was very impressed indeed with direction (George Terry, who has also written some classic screenplays, most notably 'In the Name of the Father' of 1993) as well as photography. The scenery looks epic-like in scale, though I did sometimes feel the script could have done with a bit of perking up.
Music is not intrusive, and the film as a whole, though maybe a tad over-long, was never monotonous.
Oh, and by the way, if like me you positively drool over Mr Isaac when he sports a bushy beard (as he did in 'Inside Llewyn Davis', and even moreso in 'Ex Machina'), you're in luck as he does wear one in the middle of this film for a while. Shame that it's otherwise, and for other reasons, also the hardest part of the film to watch.
Summing up, this is much better than I'd though it would be, though I do repeat my warning of some difficult scenes....................7.
So, hauling myself out of sick bed once more - alarmingly close to most recent time for same reason - and armed with throat lozenges (sugar free!), I wasn't blooming well going to allow mere physical incapacity and sensible advice play any further part in demolishing my cinema-going plans, my having already missed at least one on the list, namely Warren Beatty's vanity project, 'Rules Don't Apply'. No Siree! Duty comes first - and moreso now with the eagerly awaited 'Lady Macbeth' coming round the mountain when she comes!
So just about everyone who will have wanted to see this prominently Jim Broadbent vehicle will have done so by now. (Can't think why such a quintessentially British, London-located film should have had such a long-delayed release date in its country of origin, months after most of the rest of the world has already seen it). Furthermore, its director is the Indian, Ritash Batra, whose lovely film, 'The Lunchbox' of 2013, I just caught up with a month or so ago on BBC iPlayer. So this latest one held quite some promise, a further boost being in having Charlotte Rampling in the cast. Though her overall screen time isn't many minutes in length, her scenes in the final third of the film are all strategic ones, and her presence is (as is usual with her) one of the most memorable aspects of the entire film.
A lot of the film is flashbacks to Jim Broadbent's Cambridge University days, his first romance there and the shattering effect of the suicide of his best friend, for which he harbours guilt feelings. Now a divorcee running a small camera shop, he's still in contact with his ex, (Harriet Walter) and has a close but occasionally tetchy relationship with his heavily pregnant single daughter (Michelle Dockery). Circumstances happen which occasion him to investigate those long-past University days, opening a can of worms, and eventually leading him to meet again his first love, Veronica (Rampling), played in flashback by Freya Mavor. His own younger self is acted by Billy Howie, and it must be said that neither of these two look much like their older selves being portrayed. But it's not very important, both present day and fifty years previous strands holding up well and interesting.
But overall it's Broadbent's film with him having the meatiest role he's had in many a year, which he rises to marvellously.
I believe that the story's ending was changed by the director without the approval of Julian Barnes, on whose novel the film is based, or that of scriptwriter Nick Payne. (Ironic, considering the film's title.) But in filmic terms it still works effectively and holds it together.
It's a gently-paced film, well satisfying with few, if any, histrionic moments. I liked it much more than I'd been expecting...........7.5.
Having moaned in my last post about how weary I'd become of watching WW2 films, here comes another one. I'd been under the impression from what I'd read, as well as from the trailer, that this would be a lighter take on the subject of the war, and it is, in fact, a refreshingly different one. However, despite a number of gently comic moments, I wasn't expecting the central romance to be quite so dominant in the storyline, and that did tend to dull my appreciations. If I'd been in a more generously receptive mood I might have valued the film more.
It's the early 1940s following the Dunkirk evacuation and the London blitz is ongoing, when the order goes out from Churchill's war cabinet to create a propaganda film showing British stiff upper lip, doughty determination and resistance against the Nazi onslaught. as well as depicting active participation by ally USA in the struggle to make that involvement more palatable to an American audience.
Gemma Arterton plays a scriptwriter who is drafted in to assist with the film, working with others including Sam Claflin (a name I didn't recognise but discovered that he'd been in 'The Hunger Games' films). Their initial working relationship is a testy one, though you can guess the direction in which it's going to go. The mindset of the company is that the assistance of women is only needed because most of the men are away fighting. But once the war is over........
Bill Nighy plays one of the actors in the film-within-the-film, a droll presence and, for me, always a welcome one despite his ever seeming to play the same character no matter in which film he appears. This is a more substantial part than we normally see him playing, though still on the 'bitty' side. He delivers lines desiccated in their dryness as only he can.
Also in the cast, in a much smaller role, is the fine Eddie Marsan, as well as Richard E.Grant as the surly, overseeing figure ensuring that the final product comes up to government requirements. In addition, in an uncredited, one scene, cameo role is Jeremy Irons, puling out all the stops.
The film deals with the tribulations of the film crew as they try to get their film accomplished while bombs are raining on London, the effects of which are, of course, devastating to both property and to lives. Meanwhile the romance between Arterton and Claflin plays out, which I must say I found a distracting nuisance, and much less entertaining than the trials of their film-making.
The film is mainly shot in near-black and white, with scenes in sepia tint, as has become conventional now for war films. But we eventually do see full technicolour near the finish, in brief excerpts from the completed propaganda film.
Danish director Lone Sherfig manages okay with her material. She did give us the very commendable 'An Education' in 2009, a film to which I awarded a rare '8'.
I'm certain that most others will have a better opinion of 'Their Finest ' than I can muster. Maybe my mood wasn't at the right setting from the start. As it turned out I did find it all a bit of a drag...........................5.5.
I felt I'd had more than my fill of WWII films and was going to bypass this for that reason. Not that I find them 'boring' as such, rather being made to see the endlessly repeated depictions of Nazi brutality upsets me more and more as I age. I don't need the reminding of what went on. Perhaps younger generations do.
However, this film has an infrequently documented angle to it: viz the fact the Channel Islands was the only British territory which was occupied by the Third Reich.
It's based on a - would you credit it? - true story of Lou Gould (Jenny Seagrove in a towering performance), a grocer's shop owner who has just lost her husband fighting in the war - or was it her son, thereby giving greater weight and poignancy to the film's title?
She takes in and hides an escaped Russian POW (Julian Kostov) who was one of a contingent of beaten up and starving prisoners brought to the island of Jersey to perform menial and arduous physical work. She gets him cleaned and tidied up, bushy beard shaved off, and gets him dressed in inconspicuous everyday clothes.
Although he speaks no English he must be a fast learner as the story starts in 1942 and by the next year he's already conversing in that language!
The story involves anonymous snoopers who report suspicious activities to the German occupiers, presumably in return for favours - and John Hannah, working on the postal service tries to intercept and destroy these messages. There's also Ronan Keating (one-time lead singer of 'Boyzone') in probably his first major serious role in a feature film - as well as the living legend, Susan Hampshire, whom, I must admit, I'd forgotten was in the cast and whom I failed to recognise.
It's a very serious film (directed by Christopher Menaul), not many laughs, shot entirely in appropriately subdued colours. The story is moving - though it's Jenny Seagrove in the main role who really carries the film with her subtly nuanced, highly professional performance.
I don't have any regrets that I decided to see this though I'd now prefer to wait a long while before I see yet another war film. Oh, wait a minute. There's Christopher Nolan's 'Dunkirk' coming over the horizon soon, so I'll have to make an exception for that. In fact I've got great hopes for it, with starry cast and all - even though reports are that it's spectacularly harrowing.
However, for 'Another Mother's Son'.................6.5.
