This is my first blog about the movies or cinema in the UK. I recently acquired a
Cineworld Unlimited card which has given me the ability to go the movies every day, all day if I wanted to or had the time.
The truth is there isn't ever that much that is good at the cinema IMHO. This blog is about what I like. I am not a movie snob, nor am I a movie intellectual. I have never studied cinema, but what I
have done is go to the cinema for almost 40 years, and I like what I like. What I like is to be entertained. My taste varies as does anybody's. I do like a lot of mainstream movies. My favourite movies are
The Empire Strikes Back and
Jaws. The Empire Strikes Back because when I saw Star Wars in 1977, it was one of those OMG I never thought movies could be this entertaining, but The Empire Strikes Back was all that Star Wars was, but more and darker!
Jaws was a revelation to me. I could not believe that one movie could so profoundly affect the actions of millions of people. I used to live in the Bronx when I was a child. We used to go to
Orchard Beach all the time in the summer. Jaws was released on 20th June, 1975. This was just before the children got out of school, but I was 11 and we shouldn't have been seeing the movie anyway. I talked my mother into taking us (after that she swore that she would never go to the movies with me again). My sister was nine at the time. Jaws traumatised me - in a good way - I think, and had me jumping out of my seat. I realised for the first time that a)
Steven Spielberg was an amazing director b) the power of music in a movie and c) people actually believed that a great white was coming to get them in two feet of water.
We sat on the beach all summer long and no one went into the water at all. The entire American psyche was affected. Oh the power of movies - YES!
I just returned from a screening of
Elizabeth: The Golden Age directed by
Shekhar Kapur, who also directed the first Elizabeth movie. I loved the first Elizabeth movie, but have never seen it on the big screen. Elizabeth had a lot to recommend it, including
Eric Cantona - yes he was wooden in it, but hell it's Eric Cantona ("when the seagulls follow the trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea!"). I was captivated by Cate Blanchett and the richness of the film. Whilst Elizabeth was an overview of the reign of Elizabeth I, Elizabeth: The Golden Age is about a specific period in her reign - aka when the Spanish Armada came to town. The movie also stars Geoffrey Rush who was in the first one and Clive Owen - he of the
Michael Madsen imitation school of acting.
Before I went to see this, I had heard interviews with Kapur and read and heard reviews about the film (
Empire and the god that is
Dr. Mark Kermode). I knew this movie would be very entertaining if nothing else. Elizabeth had the obligatory 99 costume changes and wigs - attention to detail is stunning. She seemed much more human in this film - a woman scorned (she succombs to the charms of Clive Owen, but then I guess someone has to), tears behind having her nation's fate in her hands, her agony over what to do with her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots and her duty to follow the law, Spanish treachery, etc., etc.
The film moves along at a slower pace to Elizabeth until we get to the scenes near the end where the Spanish Armada comes to town and thinks it will kick England's collective ass. King Phillip II of Spain is convinced that because England is godless (Protestant), Spain must fight a holy war. Well more fool him.
Walter Raleigh comes back from the new world with presents - potatoes and tobacco (well there you go, responsible for the potato famine in Ireland and all those cases of suing the tobacco companies :-) ). He enchants Elizabeth and a member of her court with his swashbuckling looks and ways.
So the movie is full of loads of scenes at court, lots of skullduggery and intrigue and climaxes with the battle scenes. The movie is 115 minutes long which is a good time limit for it.
Oh and I musn't forget, one of the last outfits Elizabeth is wearing looks like she is going to try to catch butterflies with her head.
Well worth two hours of my time, and there were previews for a new
Tom Hanks movie (I never seek out anything with Tom Hanks in it), a soppy romance called
P.S. I Love You with Hilary Swank which I will probably go and see and
August Rush with
Jonathan Rhys Myers and
Keri Russell -
Felicity for those of you that remember that show and she just happens to be in
Mission Impossible III which I am watching now. By the way, Mission Impossible III isn't a patch on
Mission Impossible II (
John Woo rocks -
what's with the doves in all his movies).
I'd love to hear comments on my ramblings, and will continue to write this blog to see how many movies I can get through in a year on my unlimited cinema card. I will also review movies that I see for the first time on Sky.
