The Post

Seen at the wonderful Glasgow Film Theatre

Bea says:  We managed to get to this much-hyped, latest Spielberg outing on its day of release in the UK, at the wonderful Glasgow Film Theatre, along with a nearly full house on a sleety Friday afternoon.

Well, it is a good story, strongly-written with good pace and two excellent actors holding the fort effortlessly (Streep and Hanks).  It’s nicely shot, and there are some great scenes of how newspapers used to be – hard copy papers, typewriters, printing presses, the papers manually bundled together, thrown into trucks, driven to delivery points. Just that made me realise how different things are in the world of work today. 

Of course, much is made of Graham’s gender and her invisibility in the otherwise all-male boardroom, and after the Supreme Court win.  I was more interested in her personal story of entering the workforce after her husband’s suicide; and Cecil and I discussed later – we would both have been loth to take the risk of going to print; was it the fact that she hadn’t worked until she was 45, and so was more naïve of potential work problems that helped her take that risk, or was it really that she was a born editor? 

I also think that this is the more interesting of the gender issues presented in the film; that middle and upper class women did not routinely work at this time (not very long ago) and so if a time came when they had to, it was difficult and traumatic.  The film does not really look that much either at how things were changing for younger women entering the workforce, or the experience of working class or poorer women, who did have to work.  There was also an audible groan in the audience at the dinner party when the women retired to the lounge room and the men stayed around the table discussing politics…But in reality this aspect of the film felt a bit tacked on, as a response to the womens’ marches and #metoo campaign over the past year.  

Perhaps I’m just being cynical, but there was only one really key female character in the film, and lots of men….it's still “his”tory I’m afraid.

The film’s other and more central theme was that of freedom of the press, and is impossible to miss, perhaps if anything (although I agree with it) a bit heavy handed….there are quite a few speeches to camera about it, thinly veiled in the plot.

But, it is in its own way a must-see, and a comment on our times which only a bit more than a year ago I could not really have foreseen.  Spielberg’s technique is excellent, my only comment would be to deliver the message with a lighter touch.

Watch out for the young hippy girl delivering the package to the Washington Post – Spielberg’s daughter who is an actor in her own right.

***1/2

Cecil says: I liked The Post for the way it took me back to days when newspaper really did go to press. I remember the smell and the din of the printing presses turning on the Hull Daily Mail as a child; Murdoch and The Times dispute of the 1980s largely did for all the old type-setting and printing work done before I got into media myself.

But I was struck by the scene where the journalists' copy arrives on the desk of the sub-editors, and he immediately strikes out most of the first sentence, replacing it with just a word or two. It reminded me how vital the role of sub-editors used to be, and just how many mistakes, repetitions and poorly constructed sentences get through to print these days since that stage of the production process is now done (or not done, in fact) by journalists themselves.

I actually didn't know about the Pentagon Papers story so that was interesting, though the whole way it was portrayed made you know that Watergate was just around the corner, with Nixon shouting orders down the phone about suppressing press freedoms, covert phone calls to sensitive sources (the famous 'Deep Throat' in Watergate) and the fact that the Washington Post was in the game of such revelations over that period.

I was in the Post offices in 2010, and the offices themselves looked much as they were shown to be in the 1960s-70s of this film. It was also nice to see the Jefferson Hotel, where we had one of our final drinks before leaving Washington.

But the film only gets three stars from me for reasons Bea has already alluded to. Spielberg was being almost as full-on about his 'message' as directors like Ken Loach or Michael Moore can be. I didn't need the First Amendment rammed down my throat or the really obvious references to gender equality, but clearly Donald Trump does need that, as do the voters who supported the current President, and probably sadly some of them DO need the message ramming down their throat, as both Trump and many of his supporters seem to have changed little in the 365 days since he took office.

Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep were wonderful, though. Great to watch them on the screen together.

***

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Seen at the Studio Cinema in Dunoon

Cecil says:  The strangest thing about the timing of watching this film is that only the night before we had watched a DVD of a classic film made 50 years ago, and immediately there were so many parallels. In fact, some might say that Sidney Poitier's In the Heat of the Night inspired Three Billboards so much that you could argue the new film is virtually a remake of the old.

It's the setting of a small town police station, though in Missouri now rather than Mississippi; there are the bumbling idiot cops with their racism and sexism (the latter is new in the 2017 film, mind); the Chief who means well and is trying to do the right thing by the disadvantaged; and the black hero, who in both films is a senior police officer, though Poitier is the main man right from the start in the Heat, whereas Clarke Peters only comes in at the end to sort out the mess in Three Billboards...

There's a lot of violence in Three Billboards, some so bad that I had to look away. There isn't a lot of joy, either, but since we're dealing with a middle-aged woman coming to terms with her anger and grief over her teenage daughter being raped and murdered, as well as the anger and internal confusion in many of the small-town folk she has to deal with, I guess laughs were never likely to be aplenty here.

It was hard to empathise with any single character in the film, too, which meant I never felt emotionally engaged or too bothered about which way events turned. Funnily enough, the only moment of being moved came from a relatively minor character, the wife of Willoughby, the police chief (Woody Harrelson), played by Abbie Cornish. Her emotion at the sudden suicide of her husband is raw and well-played, though her accent is a bit bizarre throughout, and we wondered if she was even meant to be an English woman or Aussie (she is actually from NSW).

Overall, Three Billboards was a gripping watch, though not the masterpiece some I know have claimed it to be. Coming for us so soon after watching In the Heat of the Night meant we had lots to talk about afterwards about how much (or in many ways, little) America has changed in 50 years.

***.5

Bea says: 
Watching this film made me wonder how age affects our ability to tolerate graphic depictions of violence.  Back in my 20s when Tarantino was all the rage, I saw all of them and don't remember it bothering me too much.  I haven't revisited them though - perhaps it was how it was presented?  I too had to cover my eyes and turn away from the screen a lot during this film.  It's also not one for those who don't like bad language as there is a lot of it.

The story is strong; a woman with a lot of personal issues attempts to take on a local police force and in doing so most of the small town who support them, who she feels are dragging their feet in solving her daughter's rape and murder.  It is a bleak story, and a complex one as the film uncovers themes of connection, understanding, and forgiveness.

There are many very moving movements - her memory of the argument she and her daughter had the last time they saw each other; her son's intervention when her violent ex-husband pays a call; the moment the billboard advertising salesman offers the violent cop Dickson a glass of orange juice; the letters left by the chief of police after his suicide and read out by various characters, at times turning their lives in different directions.

All was not what it seemed in terms of characters in this film, which gave it much depth; I found it hard to dislike Dickson despite his violence and racism; and in fact his character improves with guidance and experience; the new chief of police I thought I should like made me question his trustworthiness as I wondered if his response to the new evidence Dickson brought him was a cover up.

The ending  -I won't spoil it was equally disturbing and uplifting

It's good - it's not often that a film attains the depth of a novel, but this one does.  Good performances all round.  A little bit too realistically shot for me.  Well directed.
****

All the Money in the World

Seen at the Studio Cinema, Dunoon

Cecil says: The kidnapping of John Paul Getty's grandson happened when I was just 12 years old and in my stark view of the world at the time, I probably just saw it as a young rich kid in a rough country a long way away and a stingy family that made matters worse by not paying the ransom.

Of course, real life is much more complex than that, and the saga portrayed in All the Money in the World shows the different levels of psychology going on both within the Getty clan and among the gangsters involved.

The strange thing for us, though, was that the cinema in Dunoon had left the preview for this film on the footage to be screened before this film, so we got a fairly lengthy extract of the film which made us wonder if we had walked into the wrong room. Even more interesting was that the preview still featured Kevin Spacey in the role of Getty himself, even though the film itself has become a talking point for he fact that Spacey was air-brushed out after the scandals against his name, and Christopher Plummer took on the Getty role in the final version.

Plummer (Christopher - rather than the other unrelated actor Plummer who played the grandson) was actually magnificent, and it's a credit to him that he played the role so well at such short notice.

Getty may have been a pretty despicable character, but for me the more alarming aspect was the portrayal of 1970s Italy, particularly in the south, where it must have been hard to know who you could trust, and I can remember a politician called Aldo Moro being kidnapped and his body ending up in the boot of a car.

The film dragged on a bit longer than it maybe should have, but otherwise was a good watch. I can't say I identified with anyone portrayed, mind you, and was at no point actually moved, though I had to turn away when the rather graphic scene was shown of young Getty getting his ear cut off...

I can't help wondering how good Spacey might have been, but then having seen Plummer at his best, I can't help also wondering why he wasn't cast in the role in the first place.

***.5

Bea says:  An interesting story which I knew nothing about before seeing the film (I was a toddler when the story would have been in the news).  However the questions the film brought up for me were in a way much more interesting than the film itself - firstly, based on that unexpected preview was this actually the film that had edited Spacey out (I had heard that there was one that had done so)?  And secondly, what happened to Paul Getty after that highly traumatic kidnapping episode at the vulnerable age of 16?  With alcohol and drug abuse in the family, did he turn to those in order to cope?

Well, the answer to both questions is yes.  Ridley Scott re-shot all of Spacey's scenes in a very short period of time; with Mark Wahlberg allegedly doing better out of that financially than Michelle Williams, according to the internet.  And Paul Getty - already a drug user prior to the kidnapping, a fact rather glossed over in the film - did develop a major problem with drugs and alcohol after the kidnapping, and followed a rather hippy and arthouse 1970s.lifestyle, if again the internet is to be  believed.  Such a major problem in fact that he experienced a stroke following an overdose in the 1980s, with life changing consequences.

The film is good - it is well-written, well-shot, and well-directed as I would have expected from Ridley Scott.  It is perhaps a little overlong; I did want to cut to the chase about 3/4 of the way through and see the resolution of the kidnapping and what happened after - this was brief actually and prompted my research into the life of Paul Getty.

Plummer was a surprisingly inspired choice and was excellent, as were Wahlberg and Williams.  They had a lot to work with and did so with understated flair.

***.5

The Man Who Invented Christmas

Seen at the wonderful Star Cinema in Eaglehawk near Bendigo.  This cinema is struggling financially, so we participated in their “bums on seats” campaign, bringing ourselves and a friend.

Bea says: This was a great insight into Dickens, who, I realised I knew very little about despite having studied his works exhaustively in my days as a student of English literature. 

I didn’t know that A Christmas Carol was written in only 6 weeks, under tremendous financial pressure following several flops, and that the concern in all his books about the working conditions of children in the Victorian era stemmed from his own childhood in a boot-blacking factory after his family fell on hard times.  I knew that Christmas trees were something of a transplant from Germany, brought over by Prince Albert, but not that Christmas as we know it today didn’t really exist prior to this era.

A Christmas Carol is rather overdone these days in terms of faithful reproductions of the story; this was a fresh new take as it showed the story developing and growing and Dickens' always wonderful characters coming to be – a small exchange in the film also shows how Dickens apparently got some of his characters’ names.

Above all – and we saw this on the 23^rd December – it was an uplifting reminder to (and no apologies for sounding cliched here) follow one’s own dreams and path, and do good by others where and when you can.  A great message to take into 2018 in these somewhat dark times.

****

Cecil says: Like Bea, I was bowled over as much by the setting as the film itself, with it being so close to Christmas and in an old hall that has been converted into one of those cinemas with only sofas to sit in.

I also hadn’t realised that Dickens went through such a tough patch, but had that almost Mozartian tendency to live above his means, only to turn out another classic and get things back on an even keel – only Dickens, we learnt, didn’t always produce best sellers and he was short of a bob or two while writing a Christmas Carol.

I also enjoyed seeing how he picked up names for characters along the way, though I already knew that from my tour of UK cathedrals, where Portsmouth and Southwark gave him a few good names.

I kind of enjoyed the Thackeray character, who keeps popping up like a bad penny to gloat over Dickens’ failings, having had lots of success himself in America. I can’t help wondering if he was thrown in mainly for an American audience since he is so much more popular and well-known over there. It’d be nice to know what made the film producers bring him in – were there diary entries they sourced from either Thackeray or Dickens himself?

I can’t quite give this film the four stars Bea has, though the occasion overall – close to Christmas and in an independent cinema we hadn’t been to before – is worth four. But for me, it’s

***.5

Only the Brave

Seen at the Sale Cinema in Gippsland, Victoria

Cecil says: This film felt all the more poignant because we are just moving into a fire-risk part of Australia, and as we drove through the bushy area near the NSW/Victoria border, we had passed through a hazy area which might have been cloud if it had not been for the stream of local fire service vehicles rushing in the opposite direction to us once we had driven through the area. And that slightly acrid smell that always comes with bush fires.

The next morning, the film felt even more relevant as the same fire trucks sped past us heading home after dealing with whatever fire there had been that day up in the hills in the rain.

The film itself was somewhat formulaic. You know the kind of disaster film where we spend two thirds of the story seeing all the minutiae of domestic life of very ordinary people, and there is that build-up to a situation where you know something dreadful is about to happen. There are the usual meaningful last words to people when they don’t know it’s the last words, but somehow the very fact that the film includes them shows that they will be the last…

But having said all that, the film was gripping, and actually very moving at the end, as you know the surviving firemen will be ridden with survivor guilt.

It was a good film to see as we move to an area where lives have been lost in the past and no doubt will be in future due to raging fires. Thoroughly enjoyable and a useful reminder of the fantastic work the fire service does.

***.5   

Bea says:  I had absolutely no expectation of this film whatsoever going in, and thought it would be some hero/action type genre.  I had no idea it was based on a true story and it moved me to tears.  I would highly recommend it; it was more personally relevant to us now than it would have been in previous years, but the story, writing, acting and direction are good, and the cinematography is very good.  Watch out for a brief appearance by Michelle Williams who seems to be popping up everywhere now if in small and rather typecast roles.

****

Murder on the Orient Express

Seen at the Yamba Cinema in northern NSW

Bea says: :  I am perhaps biased as I am something of an Agatha Christie fan, and I am also a fan of Kenneth Branagh.  I am sure I have seen an old black and white version of this years ago, and I had read the book years ago when on a Christie jag as a teenager, and again more recently, but I hadn’t retained too many plot details so enjoyed the whodunnit – but I mostly enjoyed the sumptuous costumes, set and cinematography of the steam train and the snowy landscape; particularly as Cecil and I had travelled through that region only a few years ago.

Branagh treats the original well and does not try to meddle with a winning formula – it’s just updated into the modern “Harry Potter” look films tend to have now and with a little more psychological understanding and insight than I remember into Poirot; well done with the light touch I would expect from Branagh.  The all-star cast are fantastic particularly Depp in fine form as a villain.

I loved that the closing scene (spoiler alert) paves the way for the next instalment, as Poirot is called away to the Nile – I find myself looking forward to it tremendously!

**** Four stars for atmosphere alone!

Cecil says: I am less of a Christie and Branagh fan than Bea, but when we found the little local cinema in Yamba had this on, I was open t giving it a go, and did actually enjoy the experience. I, too, had read the book in my teens but had also forgotten the outcome (how do crime writers manage that?).

Funnily enough, the train setting reminded me less of Harry Potter (I’m also not a fan) than of Lar von Trier’s Europa, which this film really made me want to track down again.

I’m not sure this remake would have worked without the star cast, but if you’re Branagh, I guess you can pick up the phone and have anybody you want in your movie: hence Penelope Cruz, Michelle Pfeiffer, Judi Dench, Derek Jacobi, Johnny Depp…the familiar faces just kept on coming and if this was a stage play, you could almost hear the spontaneous applause from the audience as yet another celebrity hit the screen. Couldn’t help wondering why Bill Nighy wasn’t in it, since he’s in everything else these days; maybe he and Branagh don’t get along??

Yes to this film for cinematographic quality, acting, and the epic nature of the setting. Well worth a view on a quiet weekend away.

***

The Mountain Between Us

Seen at the Roxy Cinema in Nowra, NSW

Cecil says: A moving trip to the cinema for us as this was our last visit to the wonderful Roxy Cinema in Nowra before our move away from New South Wales. The film was gripping, but not as moving as the feeling of this being our last trip to Nowra.

The plot boils down to Kate Winslet and Idris Elba getting stuck at a US airport because of an impending storm, but Alex (Winslet) having the guile to get the two of them onto a private plane to get to their destination. Trouble is the guy who’s flying the plane has a heart attack and the plane comes down on a snowy mountain peak, and the two survivors (Winslet and Elba) plus pilot’s dog, spend most of the rest of the film trying to get down from the mountain in one piece.

The dog has only a minor role, though it does get into scrapes itself as it comes face to face with a cougar and seems to get itself lost at inconvenient times – and then reappears out of the blue in a way that made me wonder if something got lost on the cutting room floor. I’m not even sure really what the dog adds to the plot, or why the script writer felt it was needed.

Surely there was enough to get your teeth into dealing just with the Winslet/Elba relationship as it developed, though I’m not sure the chemistry between the two protagonists really worked on the screen. Was that a casting issue? Or just that the film didn’t really get inside what exactly made these two bond. Sure, helping each other survive will often bring two humans closer than anything else can, but I just didn’t believe in the ‘love’ that developed between these two.

The idea of getting down a mountain alive has been done before (there was the film years ago about the survivors of the Chilean plane crash in the Andes) and this film did a nice job of raising some of the dilemmas you’d face if it happened to you. And most of it felt believable.

But I couldn’t help thinking, when they reached the house half way down, there would have been a clearer track to get to the house. Otherwise how would the people who built it in the first place have got the materials up there? So any dramas and near-death experiences from that moment on felt a little bit far-fetched.

The film was engaging, though, and gave us enough ammunition for a good post-film post-mortem.

***

Bea says: Yes, I agree mostly with Cecil on this one – a willing suspension of disbelief was certainly required.  However, I don’t mind the survivor genre, as I quite like to think about what I would do in the situation.  In this film, Kate Winslet’s character took a lot of risks, and Idris Elba’s was too cautious, which I think was supposed to provide the chemistry between them (it didn’t).

I did think that perhaps the characters might have looked a bit more – unwashed – in the sex scene, and that they also might have looked colder and more uncomfortable as the cabin had holes in the roof and poor heating, and they had not eaten for a while…. perhaps I’m getting old, but I don’t think I’d have looked as glamorous as Winslet did in the same situation.  But I did try to suspend that disbelief as disaster followed disaster as they descended the mountain. 

What this film did better, for about the last ten minutes, was examine how hard it is to fit back into normal life and society after a life-changing experience like surviving a plane crash in a remote location, and although the ending was a bit romantic and twee, it satisfied me.  Winslet and Elba both did what they could with this film, and were able to make it watchable.

**.5