MarkB-11

I suppose there's not much edge to a film where a dad learns he has a child, actually cares and actually becomes a loving man. Not much there, eh, folks? Is that what 'characterless' means? Should he have thrown a fit? Should she have gone Goth and taken up ska?

This is a sweet little film that failed to find an audience, which is a real shame. Craig Ferguson's script is sensible and caring and intelligent, as are the actors. The only possible quibble I have is that Phillipa Law might be underused. But then, her character wasn't really needed. Contrary to other opinions, Charlotte definitely managed to hold up her end. Was she given a Julia Stiles-level part. I think not, nor would that have been right to do.

Cute little film, with a good mix of music.

8 of 10.

Okay, so this is a sumptuously beautiful film. So the costumes and sets are rigorously period. So the manners are, on the surface, correct. This still doesn't work. I know there appear to be a substantial crowd of supporters, but that is perhaps because they, like this film, want to specially plead for self-destructive women to get the break no equally self-destructive man would even be considered for. Lily Bart is obnoxiously self-centered and casually wrecks several lives around her. She puts herself into terrible risk, both with her aunt and with Gus, then expects to be let off. When, as should be the case, there is no release without compensation (repentance and determination to amend herself in the future for her aunt, sleeping with him for Gus), she then begins the long descent because she refuses to bend or consider changing herself.

So, this should work, right? It doesn't because this is a fundamentally unsympathetic position and yet the filmmakers insist we sympathize with her. Well, I don't play that game. Either you have her prevented by real and EXTERNAL forces and thus be unable to change, or you focus on her as a willing antisocialite, but not both. It's both for Davies and I turn thumbs down on the effort, if only for that.

Besides, of all the actors only Eleanor Bron and Dan Ackroyd have any feel for the actual attitudes and sensibilities of the period. Eric Stoltz would like you to believe he does and Gillian Anderson doesn't even bother. This creates what supporters are calling a 'painterly' version. By that they must really mean 'frozen into a frame', when films like 'Tom Jones' make it clear you can do this and have action too.

There's just no heart to this film and, while I don't insist on a eucatastrophe, I do insist on a consistent tone and some kind of progress to finality.

Wish I could have gotten that here.

epic film, in any case. This is the equivalent of Doctor Zhivago or Lawrence of Arabia. That is, this is true if we only consider LotR:RK by itself. Naturally, that is the usual practice, even in series like Star Wars. However, LotR has simply changed the rules. Now, if you need to make a huge film, don't want to scrimp all that much, and still want to have people not faint in the theatres, you break it up and produce it in bits.

Clearly, PJ saved the best bit for last. RK is simply the finest most deeply-felt epic of all time. It beats Intolerance. It's more sweeping that Gone With the Wind (and I mean that in all seriousness: where GWTW narrowed as it continued, RK continues to open up, proceeding from a small, intimate and highly ominous opening to the incredible sight of tens of thousands of fighters trying to hold out (a la Zulu, another film PJ openly admits inspired him and which he tops, almost casually).

I guess The Godfather remains the best, sort of. I have come to dislike that film as I have aged. It's message does not deepen, which one would have expected. I think that to really make the full comparison, I'll have to wait that many years on LotR too, just to be fair.

Still, that makes LotR #2 all time. If you haven't seen it, please do. Then buy the Extended Edition. Can't fix the Scouring, but we can fix Faramir/Eowyn, yes?