We saw and enjoyed "The Choral". It's a "good British film" although the portrayal of Elgar is ridiculously OTT.
We also got round to watching "Mr Burton" (on TV). It was, we felt, a bit of a curate's egg: the acting was excellent, the script was middling, the mattes of Port Talbot were awful! We enjoyed spotting the locations, too!
We saw and enjoyed "The Choral". It's a "good British film" although the portrayal of Elgar is ridiculously OTT.
We also got round to watching "Mr Burton" (on TV). It was, we felt, a bit of a curate's egg: the acting was excellent, the script was middling, the mattes of Port Talbot were awful! We enjoyed spotting the locations, too!
We saw and enjoyed "The Choral". It's a "good British film" although the portrayal of Elgar is ridiculously OTT.
We also got round to watching "Mr Burton" (on TV). It was, we felt, a bit of a curate's egg: the acting was excellent, the script was middling, the mattes of Port Talbot were awful! We enjoyed spotting the locations, too!
“A curate’s egg”?
"Good, in parts."
It relates to the story of the curate, having a meal with his rector, and being served an egg which was partially gone off felt unable to criticise it when questioned by the rector, thus describing it as "good, in parts". It has connotations of the good bits not making up for the bad.
We saw and enjoyed "The Choral". It's a "good British film" although the portrayal of Elgar is ridiculously OTT.
We also got round to watching "Mr Burton" (on TV). It was, we felt, a bit of a curate's egg: the acting was excellent, the script was middling, the mattes of Port Talbot were awful! We enjoyed spotting the locations, too!
“A curate’s egg”?
"Good, in parts."
It relates to the story of the curate, having a meal with his rector, and being served an egg which was partially gone off felt unable to criticise it when questioned by the rector, thus describing it as "good, in parts". It has connotations of the good bits not making up for the bad.
We saw and enjoyed "The Choral". It's a "good British film" although the portrayal of Elgar is ridiculously OTT.
We also got round to watching "Mr Burton" (on TV). It was, we felt, a bit of a curate's egg: the acting was excellent, the script was middling, the mattes of Port Talbot were awful! We enjoyed spotting the locations, too!
Saw it last week. Very enjoyable though a bit predictable. I didn't cotton on till the end credits that it was by Alan Bennett. Very much his style.
I get a weekly email from a local arthouse cinema. Next week, among other films, they're showing "Proud Valley" (1940) starring Paul Robeson as an incomer who struggles to be accepted in a Welsh mining community but ends up as a Jesus-type figure. I won't be going as I've seen it, but it's an interesting watch. And of course Robeson strongly supported the Welsh miners during the Depression and afterwards, though forbidden to travel by the McCarthy Commission.
We saw and enjoyed "The Choral". It's a "good British film" although the portrayal of Elgar is ridiculously OTT.
I also saw and enjoyed The Choral last week, and I was curious about the portrayal of Elgar, as I know nothing about him as a person. Did he have a reputation for insisting that people don't adapt/modernise his music? Or is that just something that Bennett created for the plot of the film?
That leaves us with Elgar himself: in Bennett’s version (and Beale’s droll performance) a blustering snob, condescending towards his amateur fans. Well, yes; and at the same time, very much no. It’s true that Elgar, a shopkeeper’s son, was insecure, prone to mood-swings and could be horribly rude. At a dinner in his honour at 22 Old Queen Street, London (now the offices of The Spectator) he told a young singer who’d performed one of his songs that ‘you have spoiled my evening’. On the other hand, he was consistently supportive towards the regional choral societies and festivals that performed his music, particularly in the Midlands and the North. He owed them his career. In his own words, ‘The living centre of music in Great Britain is not London, but somewhere further north’, and many would still agree.
Would Elgar have objected – as he does in The Choral – to a certain amount of cutting and rearranging of his music to suit local conditions? Again, it seems not. Excerpts from Gerontius were sung in Bolton (again, in May 1916) with a bare piano accompaniment, which makes the scratch orchestra in The Choral look positively lavish. Far more plausible is the Catholic Elgar’s outrage, in the film, at finding his heartfelt profession of faith rewritten to make it ‘less religious’.
I have no idea why I’m able to view it. Mind you this is the first thing I’ve clicked on from them in I don’t know how long, so it’s entirely possible that you get like one free article a month or something and maybe you saw another one earlier, I don’t know.
I scrolled through the last couple of pages and didn't see a mention of it, but has anyone seen the new Frankenstein? We watched it last night and I had a lot of thoughts, then we had a lively discussion over brunch with our daughter and her partner who saw it last week. I thought generally it was a good adaptation with some significant variations from both the book, and early movie versions -- but am interested to know what others think. Del Toro does love humanizing "monsters."
After doing some chores and going to an appointment, I had a few spare hours, so went to the theater to see Conclave. It was an extremely good movie, IMHO, and I've recommended that my daughter would probably enjoy it too. She's been thinking about going to see it.
I would watch it again.
Finally got around to watching this. It was indeed very good. Significantly better than the book IMHO.
After doing some chores and going to an appointment, I had a few spare hours, so went to the theater to see Conclave. It was an extremely good movie, IMHO, and I've recommended that my daughter would probably enjoy it too. She's been thinking about going to see it.
I would watch it again.
Finally got around to watching this. It was indeed very good. Significantly better than the book IMHO.
I preferred the book, but thought the movie was very good.
This time I viewed Madame X (1929) staring Ruth Chatterton. It is based on a 1908 play, and it was previously filmed in 1916 and 1920 in silent versions. After this version, the story would be filmed again in 1937, 1952 and 1966....and probably several more times under different titles. It is a story of a woman whose husband throws her out of the house (and away from her son) because she has had an affair. After the expulsion, her life goes on a downward trajectory of poverty and alcoholism (absinthe being her drink of choice). Eventually she is arrested on a murder charge and goes to great lengths to keep her identity secret so as not to bring shame to her now-adult son who (by chance) is now representing her in his first case as an attorney.
The 1929 version is another film directed by Lionel Barrymore and his first sound feature. It was released in August of 1929--and there is no doubt that films released even a month later are better in terms of sound quality. In the very early sound films, the movies are very static because the actors all have to huddle around the hidden microphone. Barrymore tried to give more mobility by tying a microphone to a fishing rod and moving it around over their heads (essentially a primitive form of a boom mic). It may have allowed more motion, but the sound quality suffered from this improvisation.
Another curiosity of this film. The opening and closing titles are done without any music. Why? Well, when the movies were silent, the theaters had theater musicians to play during the films. For a brief period during the transition to sound, the filmmakers would allow the titles to be quiet so that the theater musicians had at least some work (before the sound revolution inevitably made them unemployed).
The movie is heavy drama with zero comic relief and Chatterton gives a tremendous performance of a woman in decline. Comparing her fresh-face appearance as a society wife at the start compared to her appearance as an impoverished alcoholic is stark and she almost seems like a different person. (This is actually part of the plot--during her trial her former husband does not at first recognize her until he hears her speak.)
It is not what I would call a pleasant film and the sound quality is on the rough side making it often difficult to understand what is being said (at least for my old ears). Still, if you feel the need to be depressed, it is worth a viewing!
Thanks, @ChastMastr - that was interesting. I'm actually currently reading Alan Bennett's The Uncommon Reader, and realising he does take a lot of liberties in depicting famous people in his fiction!
Another movie available on YouTube: Condemned! (1929). This was released (I think) in November of 1929, so a few months after "Madame X"--and it is technically superior in almost every respect. Much better audio, and a massive improvement in camera work with a couple inventive shots.
The movie opens at the penal colony on Devil's Island. The warden is complaining to his young, pretty wife (Ann Harding) that she should allow a prisoner to work as a servant in their home, as it reflects badly on him that his wife is doing household chores like scrubbing floors. She resists because the prisoners frighten her. Clearly, she is a sensitive soul, while he is more concerned about his image than with her workload. Enter Ronald Colman as a new prisoner brought to the island (convicted for theft). The warden selects Colman to be their prisoner-servant because Colman is more genteel and cultured than the usual lot.
Really, he should have known better. Inevitably, Colman and Harding fall in love, and the consequences of that lead to the rest of the movie. Still, it does allow for a confrontation between the warden and Colman, with the angry warden demanding: "Yes or no! Did you give my wife a monkey?" That's not a line you are likely to hear in any other movie....
Ronald Colman is good, as always. In 1930, he was nominated for Best Actor for his work in this film and "Bulldog Drummond" (1929). (In those days, an actor could be nominated for their body of work during the year rather than just a single film.) He lost to George Arliss (for "Disraeli" and "The Green Goddess").
The film is light entertainment, but entertaining none the less.
Our family went to see Wicked: For Good last night. (We saw part one on the day after Thanksgiving last year, so figured we’d do a repeat.) I liked it very much, as I had the first installment, but I never could shake the feeling (or knowledge) that I was watching the second act of one theatrical piece I’d seen the first act of a year ago, rather than a story in itself. The two movies need to be seen together as one whole, imo.
Our film club showed Cinema Paradiso last Wednesday.
It's a film I can watch from time to time. That version was one of the public releases. I have the director's cut version which has the scene of Toto's mother asking his girlfriend not to follow him as that would inhibit his prospects. It puts a different perspective on the scene where he leaves his Sicilian town to go to Rome and she does not turn up at the railway station to say goodbye.
Comments
The Clone Wars TV series is excellent!
Many thanks!
RR XX
We also got round to watching "Mr Burton" (on TV). It was, we felt, a bit of a curate's egg: the acting was excellent, the script was middling, the mattes of Port Talbot were awful! We enjoyed spotting the locations, too!
“The Choral” is definitely on my list.
"Good, in parts."
It relates to the story of the curate, having a meal with his rector, and being served an egg which was partially gone off felt unable to criticise it when questioned by the rector, thus describing it as "good, in parts". It has connotations of the good bits not making up for the bad.
Saw it last week. Very enjoyable though a bit predictable. I didn't cotton on till the end credits that it was by Alan Bennett. Very much his style.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EKJXWLFvQs
I also saw and enjoyed The Choral last week, and I was curious about the portrayal of Elgar, as I know nothing about him as a person. Did he have a reputation for insisting that people don't adapt/modernise his music? Or is that just something that Bennett created for the plot of the film?
I’m able to view it—here’s the relevant part:
I have no idea why I’m able to view it. Mind you this is the first thing I’ve clicked on from them in I don’t know how long, so it’s entirely possible that you get like one free article a month or something and maybe you saw another one earlier, I don’t know.
And no, @Trudy, I haven’t seen it yet, but it’s on my list.
I’ve heard it’s very good and I need to see that.
Finally got around to watching this. It was indeed very good. Significantly better than the book IMHO.
This time I viewed Madame X (1929) staring Ruth Chatterton. It is based on a 1908 play, and it was previously filmed in 1916 and 1920 in silent versions. After this version, the story would be filmed again in 1937, 1952 and 1966....and probably several more times under different titles. It is a story of a woman whose husband throws her out of the house (and away from her son) because she has had an affair. After the expulsion, her life goes on a downward trajectory of poverty and alcoholism (absinthe being her drink of choice). Eventually she is arrested on a murder charge and goes to great lengths to keep her identity secret so as not to bring shame to her now-adult son who (by chance) is now representing her in his first case as an attorney.
The 1929 version is another film directed by Lionel Barrymore and his first sound feature. It was released in August of 1929--and there is no doubt that films released even a month later are better in terms of sound quality. In the very early sound films, the movies are very static because the actors all have to huddle around the hidden microphone. Barrymore tried to give more mobility by tying a microphone to a fishing rod and moving it around over their heads (essentially a primitive form of a boom mic). It may have allowed more motion, but the sound quality suffered from this improvisation.
Another curiosity of this film. The opening and closing titles are done without any music. Why? Well, when the movies were silent, the theaters had theater musicians to play during the films. For a brief period during the transition to sound, the filmmakers would allow the titles to be quiet so that the theater musicians had at least some work (before the sound revolution inevitably made them unemployed).
The movie is heavy drama with zero comic relief and Chatterton gives a tremendous performance of a woman in decline. Comparing her fresh-face appearance as a society wife at the start compared to her appearance as an impoverished alcoholic is stark and she almost seems like a different person. (This is actually part of the plot--during her trial her former husband does not at first recognize her until he hears her speak.)
It is not what I would call a pleasant film and the sound quality is on the rough side making it often difficult to understand what is being said (at least for my old ears). Still, if you feel the need to be depressed, it is worth a viewing!
The movie opens at the penal colony on Devil's Island. The warden is complaining to his young, pretty wife (Ann Harding) that she should allow a prisoner to work as a servant in their home, as it reflects badly on him that his wife is doing household chores like scrubbing floors. She resists because the prisoners frighten her. Clearly, she is a sensitive soul, while he is more concerned about his image than with her workload. Enter Ronald Colman as a new prisoner brought to the island (convicted for theft). The warden selects Colman to be their prisoner-servant because Colman is more genteel and cultured than the usual lot.
Really, he should have known better. Inevitably, Colman and Harding fall in love, and the consequences of that lead to the rest of the movie. Still, it does allow for a confrontation between the warden and Colman, with the angry warden demanding: "Yes or no! Did you give my wife a monkey?" That's not a line you are likely to hear in any other movie....
Ronald Colman is good, as always. In 1930, he was nominated for Best Actor for his work in this film and "Bulldog Drummond" (1929). (In those days, an actor could be nominated for their body of work during the year rather than just a single film.) He lost to George Arliss (for "Disraeli" and "The Green Goddess").
The film is light entertainment, but entertaining none the less.
I still think I like the stage musical better.
It's a film I can watch from time to time. That version was one of the public releases. I have the director's cut version which has the scene of Toto's mother asking his girlfriend not to follow him as that would inhibit his prospects. It puts a different perspective on the scene where he leaves his Sicilian town to go to Rome and she does not turn up at the railway station to say goodbye.