The Importance of Being Earnest (2002)

 "Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years."

Oscar Wilde is awesome. I've read everything he ever published at one time or another. And, of all his plays, The Importance of Being Earnest is the most fun, just edging out An Ideal Husband. So I should enjoy this film, right?

Well... obviously the script is faultless, as it's Wilde with only minor, functional changes. And the cast is broadly excellent- especially Reese Witherspoon, Colin Firth and Rupert Everett. There are some creative visual touches behind the basic dialogue and scenes- Cecily's fantasies, the revelation that Aunt Augusta was a chorus girl before meeting Lord Bracknell, and that Jack, at the end, is telling a bit ofa porky about being called Ernest. I can see why these were done.

But... well, there's a rather brilliant 1952 film of this play, one that looms over this version like an intimidating mountain. It's quite plausible that I'd have enjoyed this version more if I hadn't seen and enjoyed its magnificent predecessor. We'll never know. But... it just isn't as good, and isn't really different enough or quirky enough to make upfor that.

Plus, although I can understand the desire to expand the settings and locations and to try and make this film not look like a static,filmed stage play... that's what the play is. It's people standing in rooms talking. Pretending otherwise doesn't work.

And finally... a production of The Importance of Being Earnest always stands or falls on its Lady Bracknell. And Edith Evan's languidly witty version of the character is quite definitive. Judi Dench is very good here, but her inevitably sterner interpretation simply cannot compare with her truly great predecessor.

Still, taking this film on its own terms, there are things to like here. it's good to see a more modern cast speaking these lines. But, if it's not too late, I'd recommend watching this first and the 1952 version second.

1917 (2019)

 "Am I dying?"

"Yes, yes, I think you are."

Wow. How else can I begin? This film is at once a tour de force of cinematography, an epic quest that is at times both dreamlike and almost evocative of Lord of the Rings... and profoundly, deeply, realistic. It's a profound work of the cinematic art that will linger in my mind. And I'm sure there are subtexts and metaphors which have just swooshed right over my head.

The cinematography, by the great Roger Deakin, is sublimre, giving us a textured world that feels at once both of its time and utterly real. The first few minutes, from the field right through the trenches and what must be a cavernous set, are apparently a single shot... and the feat is repeated again and again as Schofield and Blake traverse the bleak sights of No Man's Land on their desperate mission.

The War and its very real horrors are superbly evoked- the rats, the mud, the fear, the grim humour, the bloody awful food, the normalisation of violent death. The dialogue feels real So do the characters- we get to know Blake and Schofield very well, and Schofield's slow metamorphosis from reluctance to absolute determination is well-earned and feels real.

And yet... there is also, somehow, a mythic element here, an epic quest, a kind of Odyssey, a picaresque tale of wanderings. It is hard not to see the cherry trees as metaphor- cut down in their prime, but they will grow again. And the poor orphaned baby, with milk from Schofield, is another sign that out of death comes rebirth. And yet, at the same time, war is unremittingly grim.

An extraordinary work of genius. Literally my only criticism is of Colin Firth's moustache.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017)

 "Well, if you save the world, you knoiw what that means...!"

I rather enjoyed the previous Kingsman movie, a fitrst class rollicking modern action movie which was basically a modern version of James Bond written by Jane Goldman and directed by Matthew Vaughn. I enjoyed this film for exactly the same reasons.

The first film was excellent. This sequel, unusually, maintained exactly the same level of quality, in exactly the same style. It's a blockbuster action film in the James Bond sort of genre, only without the historical weight and constraints on the visual style.

This works. Taron Egerton in=s a splendid lead. Julianne Moore is almost as good a Bond villain as Samuel L. Jackson was. We have a whole new American cast, led by Jeff Bridges, after Kingsman is destroyed, and are introduced to a new American secret socety based in the state of bluegrass and fried chicken, what would be the coolest state in the USA if it were not the fact that it votes for the Republican party, a fascist cult that hates democracy and is rightly despised by all who love freedom, including one hundred percent of the mainstream centre-right, . If you're reading this and you're a Republican, kindly cease doing so. And, indeed.cease reading my blog. You hate freedom and I loathe you as I loathed the USSR. Democracy hates you asv you hate democracy. Death to all you love. Thank you.

I admire the attitude this film takes to the drugs war. Personally, I'm on the fence. Cannabis obviously needs to be legalised, not least so that I can occasionally smoke it (at old-fashionred strength), but heroin? The film, while not telling us what think, addressed the topic thoughtfully, while showing us the cool side of Kentucky at the same time as giving us a US president almost as much as a prick as the criminal Trump. May he die in prison.

Anyway, superb film,.a blockbuster every bitbas good as the original..

Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014)

 "This ain't that kind of movie, bruv."

This, in spite of being from pretty much the same creative team as the rather good Kick-Ass and ultimately, indeed, the creation of Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons, is a film I've somehow avoided seeing for seven years. I'm glad thise years are now over; ths doesn't pretend to be anything other than a gloriously violent and stylish blockbuster, but it does this very well indeed, and with a great deal of visual flair.

The premise- a private secret service operated as a second venture of a posh Savile Row tailors- is intriguing although, unlike Eggsy, I'd be inclined to be concerned about the acountability of such a private organisation. I don't think we should read too much into the class subtext as chav Eggsy goes through a rite of passage to become an agent, but it's fun to see him succeed. Colin Firth, too, is superb as his effortlessly awesome mentor, and inevitably there's a cool role for Michael Caine. We also have Mark Hamill playing against type as a British professor, but the most stellar perfrmance by far is that of Samuel L. Jackson, as the Bond villain he was born to play, rather intriguingly pointing out that the Chinese secret service is rather worrying as it has no particular name..

The film works superbly as a straightforward Bond-Style action film, but with the added little touch of lots of nods at the fourth wall, from the verbal sparring between Harry and Valentine on old Bond film tropes to the moment where the latter seems about to tell the former all his plans before putting him in an elaborate death trap, but shoots him instead. 

This film may not have much to say about the world, but it entertained me an awful lot. One of the better class of modern Bond pastiches.

Mary Poppins Returns (2018)

“This family is clearly in desperate need of a nanny."

I'm almost glad the winds and the rain were so angry and threatening today: Mrs Llamastrangler, Little Miss Llamastrangler and I don't often all watch films together but we watched this today. And it was wonderful.

The casting is spot-on, and not only the nice little cameo for nonagenarian Dick Van Dyke at the end, complete with tap dancing. Emily Blunt is absolutely superb as Mary Poppins. She approaches the part in exactly the right way- echoing Julie Andrews without being a slavish copy, giving what is very much her own performance which is nothing short of a triumph- charismatic, assured, compulsively watchable. Lin-Manuel Miranda is only passable as Bert's replacement Jack, with a mostly ok Cockney accent in flagrant disregard of tradition. And one of the children is, of course, the precociously talented Pixie Davies from Humans.

It's the '30s now, and Michael and Jane have grown up. But Michael is now widowed with three kings, which makes him tense and vulnerable as well as providing a good excuse for Jane to be living with them. But there's trouble afoot as plot necessity demands that the family home be threatened with repossession unless a miracle is to somehow happen. This plot looks awfully similar to that of Nanny McPhee but, of course, it would be the mother of all pot/kettle situations to accuse a Mary Poppins film of ripping off that particular, er, homage. It's especially amusing to see Colin Firth as the baddie here.

The film is splendidly entertaining throughout, with the fantasy sequences being splendidly child-friendly and visually exciting. The songs, if nowhere near as memorable as those of the original, are good. For such a belated sequel this is really very good indeed.

Mamma Mia! (2008)

“Nurse! Donkey testicles, quickly!"

Ok, I suppose after the last few years I can't quite say I don't like musicals. No, I'll never be a huge fan of show tunes, but the genre is much broader than that. But anyone who knows me will know that, open-minded to all sorts of delightfully weird music that I am, I have pretty much zero tolerance for chart pop, which is cynical, depressing, exploitative, unlistenable and vile. So why do I like Abba?

Well, Abba are the poster girls and boys of a more innocent time, when "pop" encompassed a broader range than today's horrible world of girl bands and boy bands, wankers like Cowell and his fellow amoral svengalis, and horribly compressed, autotuned, incredibly narrow "music" that no longer appeals to ordinary people. But Abba? They wrote their on songs, played their own instruments, hurt no one. It was a very different world.

Hence the joyous stage show, and this rather fun film with its inexplicable number of stars. I mean, Meryl Streep? She's incredibly classy, garlanded with Oscars, appears only in the most serious films, is pretty much America's answer to Dame Maggie Smith... yet she deigns to appear in a bit of fun like this. And no, she most certainly cannot sing. But, frankly, who cares? She's giving it a go, as is Pierce Brosnan, whose singing looks good only next to hers.

The plot, bizarrely, with its farcical moments and rigid structure, only needs a bit of crossdressing to look suspiciously like a Shakespeare comedy. But this kind of structure works, and the plot is very cleverly woven around the songs and, while there is conflict and drama, things always remain suitably light and fluffy. A delight.

Nanny McPhee (2005)

"I did knock..."

I wasn't originally going to blog this, hence the fact that I'm wings big it without any notes. It isn't the sort of thing I'd usually blog; just one of many bit of Christmas telly that we're catching up on the Sky Plus, in this case recorded because Mrs Llamastrangler is rather fond of it.

But in hindsight it deserves a blogging, not least because I have nothing else to blog at the moment; it's been a busy few days. Besides, it's rather good, and Emma Thompson would be my ideal choice for the next Doctor Who donuts worth a look at her.

She is, of course, brilliant, both as star and as writer of this adapted screenplay. This may fit into an existing tradition of children's fantasy in a Victorian milieu (cough Mary Poppins cough), but that is no bad thing. Oh,of course you can criticise it for uncomplainingly showing us a socially stratified world, but that's implicit in the setting. To complain would be churlish. And yes, Colin Firth is the same in everything and only ever plays Mr. Darcy, but he fits in nicely here.

The fantasy conceit is brilliant. Emma Thompson is brilliant. Thomas Sangster is brilliant. Angela Lansbury is... interestingly miscast. We even get brief scenes of Derek Jacobi camping it up. As recent kids' films go, this is one of the best.