RadicalStu Blog

Ripping DVD's

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The Constant Gardener

My favourite film of last year was The Constant Gardener; an excellent antidote to some of the unrealistically cheery Hollywood blockbusters that we are mostly bombarded with. 

This is the story of a British diplomat, Ralph Fiennes as Justin Quayle and his political-activist wife, Tessa (Rachel Weisz).  Tessa campaigns against the policies of a large drug company in Kenya and ends up dead.  The, basically, apolitical Justin sets out in search of answers and finds a wholly different Africa from  the one that he experiences in his day to day work as a diplomat.  His trail of discovery is wonderfully described right up until the disturbing ending.

Based on the John Le Carre novel of the same name, this film combines fantastic cinematography of the Kenyan wildlife and human situation with a complex, realistic conspiracy thriller.  Thoughtful political insights nestling happily alongside all of the elements of a taught thriller make this a cinematic triumph for Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles.

I recommend it without reservation.  Watch it now.

My First Harry Potter Experience

I have a sister, Sharon, who stays in Essex.  Despite the obvious Essex girl jokes, and the fact that she has lived there for nearly 15 years now, she is still very Scottish.  For Christmas, she comes home to my parents house.  This Christmas, on the day after Boxing Day, Penny and I went out for lunch with Sharon.  Sharon’s birthday is at the beginning of January, so we planned on buying something for her birthday after lunch and then going to see a film. 

So, we picked her up at my parents and headed into Glasgow.  The nearest car park to where we wanted to go was at the St. Enoch Centre, so we headed for there; along with the rest of the West of Scotland.  When we eventually managed to park, we headed for Princess Square for lunch.  When we got into Princess Square we found ourselves in Crabtree & Evelyn where I spent several years getting hungrier and grumpier.  We did manage to get Sharon’s birthday present, so it was productive at least.

We then had a look around the various eating establishments in Princess Square before settling on Barça.  This is a Tapas Bar and served a wide range of delicious dishes, most of which we had between us, as well as a bottle of Australian Shiraz.  This took up quite a chunk of the afternoon but we eventually dragged ourselves outside to Borders Books.  This took another chunk of time while Penny and Sharon each collected a pile of books.  We then collapsed in the Starbucks to take stock. 

While there, Penny asked what time the car park closed.  The answer of “seven” initiated a whirl of activity; it was already 10 past.  Sharon and I paid for the books while Penny, the only one who hadn’t been partaking of the wine raced back to the car park to get the car.  A sob story about a pregnant sister-in-law enabled her to convince someone to let her in and she collected us outside in plenty of time to head for the cinema.

Now, I had successfully avoided reading any of the Harry Potter books or seeing any of the films and I was quite prepared to keep that up indefinitely.  So, on this day, it was by dint of a bit of an ambush that I ended up watching the latest Potter film, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Obviously, there has been a lot of publicity about every new Harry Potter release and I had still managed to avoid them.  My prejudice was that it all sounded a bit like the Enid Blyton boarding school books that I had read during my pre-adolescent read-anything-ever-written period.  They were OK for an eight year old but I had no wish to revisit them.  For many people, the fantasy element would have been an attraction but I am very selective about my fantasy.  The Lord of the Rings is great but I have no time for the many imitators of it.  Harry Potter didn’t sound anything like as interesting as even these; very much a children’s fantasy.

In general, my prejudices seemed to be pretty accurate when I watched the film.  It was well made with lots of fine acting performances, the special effects were very effective and the story hung together well enough.  However, it was clearly a juvenile story, lacking in depth and subtlety.  As such, it was very good but  I won’t be desperate to renew my contact with the series.

King Kong

Penny dragged me off to see King Kong on Wednesday.  I was in no particular hurry to see it but I am probably glad I did.  It is a well put together movie with plenty of good performances and a special effects Kong that lived up to the legacy of the original movie.  Kong is very much the star of the movie but this also leads to the main problem with it; the length of time before he makes an appearance.  Peter Jackson has taken a lesson from his phenomenally successful Lord of the Rings films to be that a film should be 3 hours long.  The problem is that, while the Lord of the Rings had enough story to support (and even require) that, the story of King Kong is really rather simple.  Three hour films should be rare.  It is uncomfortable to sit and watch for that amount of time and you need to be very much into the story for it to work.  A three hour version of King Kong is simply too long.  At two hours it would have been a great film.  At three hours, it is still an experience, but it is not a great film.

Keeping Mum on Orange Wednesday

Penny has an Orange phone and regularly takes advantage of the Orange Wednesday, two for one offer.  Normally we go to the Showcase cinema at the Phoenix in Paisley.  However in recent weeks months there has been an obnoxious smell in the foyer that makes the experience unpleasant.  Penny has also been disappointed with the decreasing selection of Ice Cream flavours and so she prompted us to try somewhere different.  So, for the first time we spent our Wednesday evening at the Odeon at Springfield Quay in Glasgow.  This met our requirements, no smell and lots of ice cream flavours, but was slightly more expensive and slightly further away but it was all round a better experience.

Keeping Mum is a charming and innocent film about Anglicanism, country life, voyeurism,  adultery and murder.  Really, it is.  The subject matter sounds grim but the film is very light so you come out really feeling like it is the charming and innocent film I am claiming.  It is in the classic tradition of British comedies with a relaxed feel similar to movies like The Lady Killers and Local Hero.

Keeping Mum works reasonably well as a comedy.  Rowan Atkinson plays the basically straight role of the uptight vicar with his normal comic genius and the rest of the cast are just right for their characters.  The plot is complete nonsense but never takes itself seriously enough for that to matter.

Penny enjoyed it more that I did but it was fun and is worth seeing.  You won’t miss anything by waiting till it’s out on DVD though.