Munich Film Festival II

[selenak]

There is always a retrospective for one specific director at the Munich Film Festival, along with the new program. This year, it's for Stephen Frears. Considering that I've seen My Beautiful Laundrette, Dangerous Liasons and even The Queen repeatedly, I went for films of his I hadn't known, which so far meant:

Gumshoe: Frears' first feature film

Comments

[rozk]

Gumshoe has always been one of my favourite guilty pleasure movies, not because it's a masterpiece, but because it has that trinity of Finney, Finlay and Whitelaw at the height of their powers. It's Whitelaw playing the noir femme fatale she was always born to play; and Finlay showing us how quite deep villainy grows out of quite small things And Finney saying 'E is for Eddie; it's also for Enough which is what I've had' and scaring off the supposed hit-man by accusing him of being a groper are both among my personal anthology or Really Cool Stuff.

[selenak]

Finney, Finlay and Whitelaw at the height of their powers

True. I've never seen Finney in particular at that age, only years later. Finlay first as Olivier's Jago, which must have been earlier, and Whitelaw in particular was just great.

The bonding scene with the hitman at the end, complete with "I'll marry you" was terrific, too.

[airie_fairy]

Man, I just rewatched (and then subsequently reread, and then again rewatched) High Fidelity, so seeing that was awesome. I feel weird about how I identify with some of these parts, when it's supposed to be digging up male issues. But it's just so vibrant and awesome.

[selenak]

"Vibrant" is just the right word. I went out of the cinema with a huge grin on my face.