Tag Archives: Emma Thompson

Dec 10 2023
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Art, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized, United Kingdom

The Remains of the Day (1993). Just WOW.

Seen this four times now. It is impeccable and unexpectedly … devastating. I HOPED (to justify my hatred of the worst of mannered British cinema) this upstairs/downstairs malarkey to be balls but, oh no. 

Dr. L, sorry, Anthony Hopkins is an astounding thesp when he can be arsed and this wonderful film displays all of his gifts, how he can inject such a pitiful figure with pathos and something hidden but not quite revealed. What a heartless bastard this bloke is, dedicated to his duty – for folk who don’t give a tuppence about their servants’ well-being or advancement/adventures. He doesn’t know what else to do and it is purgatory witnessing it.

The Emma Thompson big-cheese housekeeper goes all-out to show how much she admires him and he is oblivious – what an infuriating fool of a character, but it’s explained why he is that way. He gets there in the end. Painfully. 

Tragedy in the best way. Get the tissues out.

And also, Fred Elliott from Corrie Street (1066-the end of the world as we know it) pops up as a district nurse in a tuxedo.

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Nov 03 2021
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Art, Cinema, Film, Uncategorized, United Kingdom

Howard’s End (1992). Oh my!

This movie quietly defines the quietly adventurous. It’s so basic Mise-en-scène and placid and it should be boring but it isn’t because there’s a reasoning behind the dull stylistics. These were Edwardian times; apparently you couldn’t say what you think and lived a life of repressed longings (to speak) or whatever.

Hopkins is out of this world here; he is incapable of ‘normal’. He can barely hold a conversation with another actor; almost everything he does is a monologue. He is unique and he didn’t become Hannibal for no apparent reason.

Despite their apparent quaintness, Merchant–Ivory did make some crackers. The Remains of the Day (1993) is their undoubted masterpiece, a Hopkins masterclass again. This is the prototype for these type of movies, of which there are more and more these days because they are a safe bet. None are any good, however. I took one look at a recent upstairs-downstairs thing and turned it off after 178 seconds.

Most of this shite is just … shite we send to our former colonial subjects. They think we are actually like this.

Nonsense.

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