A Year of Zip Movies: February 2012

[starfishchick]

Pirate Radio (a.k.a. The Boat That Rocked) (2009)Directed by Richard Curtis. Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Nick Frost, Rhys Ifans, and a bunch of British people (mostly guys) who live aboard an illegal (pirate) radio ship broadcasting rock and pop music from the North Sea in the 1960s. Kenneth Branagh is the bureaucrat who wants to shut them

Comments

[rysmiel]

I've seen two really excellent films recently which I would recommend, since you're asking and all.

The Fallen Idol (1948) is the other Carol Reed/Graham Greene collaboration, and why it's not as well known as Our Man in Havana or The Third Man, I have no idea, as brilliant though they each are it is better. It's about the young son of the French Ambassador to Britain being left home with the residential butler and his wife for a couple of days; the boy is just brilliant, Ralph Richardson is very sympathetic as the butler and there's a realistic failed marriage there seen, as is pretty much all of the film, very well through a child's eyes and a child's understanding, and the combination of misunderstandings and who has heard what when and is keeping what secret from whom is kind of using the techniques of farce to build an extremely tense serious drama.

Also, I finally got to see Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, which I have been meaning to for years. It's also extremely good, though harrowing enough that I doubt I will watch it

[msilverstar]

On a fandom rec, we watched "Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame" which sounds like a mystery but is really a gorgeous Chinese historical epic. Lots of pagentry, effects both physical and CGI, fighting, wirework, and a whole lot of politics. Definitely worth getting the Blueray if you have a player!