Best of 2017 – Screen
This year is different, I no longer go every other week to the cinema. We got a big 4K TV too, and finally succumbed to a Sky subscription.
I did not usually review films I’d seen at home. Note the LINKS to reviews below. There is an astonishing amount of World War Two stuff in this year’s lists. I wonder if it’s a Brexit thing.
BEST FILM
1 DUNKIRK Directed by Christopher Nolan (REVIEWED)
It is easily the winner. See my review. This film renders the dialogue almost obsolete … it takes three quarters of the film before they realise the French guy IS French, and can’t speak English. It’s a triumph. It’s a film every British kid should see. Indeed, with The Battle of Britain, it was “Our Finest Hour” which leads me to #2 …
2 THEIR FINEST directed by Lone Scherfing
starring Gemma Arteton, Sam Clafin and Bill Nighy
A Dunkirk link … I hadn’t reviewed this one though I’ve seen it twice. I had read the novel though, which is entitled Their Finest Hour (And A Half). So here we are, still in 1940, just after Dunkirk. This follows the adventures of a film propaganda unit in Britain in the period, and they’re trying to make an uplifting drama about the Dunkirk small boats on a budget. Catrin Cole (Gemma Atherton) has been employed as a specialist scriptwriter of “Slop” (female-oriented dialogue). She comes from a steelworker’s family in Ebbw Vale … and my grandad worked in the steelworks there, and like her, my aunt spent the Blitz in London. It’s not slapstick, it has serious moments, romantic moments, poignant moments and very funny pastiches. It’s an overlooked minor film of immense quality. As is the novel. I saw recently that of publicly funded films in a long list, it was the only one that broke even, though DVD sales will have helped that. Bill Nighy’s participation is so often the sign of a great British film. Here he plays a rather precious ageing thespian. Yes, he joked about that in interviews too.
The film within the film that they’re making is hilariously naff, and in fairness we watched a real World War Two “inspiration for the Home Front” movie right after it, Millions Like Us, and it was technically extremely proficient.
3 LA LA LAND (Reviewed)
Yes, I thought it was last year too, but I saw it in January 2017. And it was in time for awards this year. See review.
4 BABY DRIVER
At least we’re allowed to watch this, in spite of Kevin Spacey’s presence as the criminal boss. I don’t think you should eradicate the man’s films and TV because he turns out to be a predatory sexual harasser. Where would you stop? Every 1930s to 1950s Hollywood mogul was. Spacey, as Richard III, is one of the finest actors I’ve ever seen on stage. OK, he’s a bastard. So was the real Richard III. Half the rock musicians I listen to were bastards too.
I’m not usually into car chases and heists and shootings, but then they’re rarely done this well. The soundtrack is in my Top 10 albums.
5. THE DISASTER ARTIST (REVIEWED)
See the review. One of those films that appear in December so as to be fresh in the Academy’s mind.
6. HIDDEN FIGURES
This one links back to Their Finest as it’s also about an unrecognized female contribution to a great event. In this case, three African-American women working on the American NASA space project in the early 1960s. I’d assumed it was an ultra-PC rewrite of history before I saw it, but an American friend who had worked with NASA put me right. It’s true. They were well-known at NASA. He had met people who knew them. It’s also a remarkable history of race relations in the USA as they were then.
7. THE SECRET SCRIPTURE
An Irish film, based on a novel. Directed by Jim Sheridan. Should you review a film you saw on a plane? Well, I think it’s justified if you were so intrigued by the story you watched it again on the flight home. Rose (Vanessa Redgrave) has spent sixty years incarcerated in a mental hospital. We move to flashback to see her (played by Rooney Mara) in 1940 … for indeed this is another film set in World War Two. So who put her there? The priest, Father Gaunt (Theo James). This is a tragic and horrific story of Ireland, caught here in a vice between the Roman Catholic Church and the Irish Republican Army. They compete in evil. Very moving BUT the plot twist at the end really is a step too far.
8. ALLIED
Whoops! World War Two again. This starts in Casablanca and ends in Blitzed London. A spy story in a way. The one minor criticism is that the contrast between the glorious colours of Casablanca and grey London is extreme, and also that the really big scene, the assassination in Casablanca comes just before the middle, and it never hits that impact afterwards. A weepie, too. Technically 2016, but I never heard of it until 2017.
In Their Finest (#2) the film makers are forced to import an American pilot into their 1940s propaganda film so as to encourage American entry into the war. In Allied they have the same dilemma, in that they need a wartime hero, and it starts early on in Morocco (i.e. before December 1941) but they’ve got Brad Pitt as lead and I guess he can’t do British English accents … some Americans can do them perfectly. So they make him Canadian and he always has a Canada flash prominently when he’s in uniform.
9. BEAUTY & THE BEAST
You can’t avoid it.
10. PASSENGERS (REVIEWED)
see review
WORST FILM
So many contenders, but forget obvious rubbish like Fist Fight, this was the one I disliked most of serious contenders for our screens:
CHURCHILL
We’re on World War Two again, this time with the events leading up to D-Day, but we get no big scenes. Nothing much to look at. Brian Cox is a fine actor, but I simply did not believe any of the scripted conversations with either the British or Americans. No one was there. It’s wildly speculative. While I’m sure Churchill personally was a bastard, and while we know he was seriously incapacitated with heart problems at crucial points, I don’t think he was bumbling or inept, Stupidly stubborn? I might accept that. I doubt he was rendered indecisive or incapable by his memory of the losses in disastrous Gallipoli campaign in The Great War, as here. I have no illusions that he was a saint. As a kid, my Great Uncle Ben drilled me in how Churchill turned cavalry against striking Welsh miners in 1926. Ben was there. My dad hugely admired Churchill. My Welsh mum did not. At university, a friend’s Scottish miner dad told me that in the mining areas, people booed Churchill on the radio even in the war. Norman Mailer nailed the point in The Naked and The Dead which was set in the Pacific campaign. The only way to beat evil and ruthless enemies is to appoint a stronger, more ruthless leader on your own side, then get rid of him the minute the war’s over. As we did in the 1945 election. So yes, I admire that side of him. I loathed this film, and as well as ringing false, it was also dull and tedious.
Interestingly Darkest Hour starring Gary Oldman is due on UK screens in January 2018. Another Churchill biopic.
TV SERIES
No particular order. We don’t watch much live TV. We timer-recorded these and watched them through with some enjoyment.
VERSAILLES Series 2 BBC2
So many people we know disliked this, put off by the eclectic bonking count. We are addicted to the series. A French production with an English cast and done in English for the world market. In itself, that’s an amazing climbdown! Sumptuous settings and costume and music. Alexander Vlahos plays Phillipe, Duke of Orleans. George Blagden is his brother, Louis XIV. Both are brilliant actors. Great supporting cast too.
THE DURRELLS, Series 2 ITV
I might have liked a more faithful rendition of My Family & Other Animals as we listened to it many times on audio cassettes on long journeys. I have to have a soft spot for a book which starts in Bournemouth. Margo later returned to Bournemouth, and was often in the local Waterstones, I was told.
We also listened to the sequels on audio, and this one covers all three Gerald Durrell Corfu books. Its secret is perfect casting, exactly as I imagined every one of them. Great opening credits too.
THE HALYCON
A great London hotel during … The Blitz in World War Two. How dare they say the British are obsessed with World War Two. Excellent storylines, and we were intrigued how they ended Series One … anything could happen in Series Two. So watch your contractual demands, is the signal to the cast. We are looking forward to it in 2018.
VICTORIA Series 2 ITV
So popular that it’s even getting a Xmas Day special this year. And Jenna Coleman really is gorgeous as are the settings. Very good plot lines too. Our long held image of the dumpy Queen Victoria dressed in black, hair in a severe bun, is overturned by the sexy little Queen as played by Jenna Coleman.
POLDARK, Series 3 BBC1
Sunday Night comfort TV. I did an article on Series One. We are probably not going to last through many more series (there are potentially so many more possible), but still enjoyed this one.
SIT COMS:
My favourite sitcom of all is EPISODES.
Series 5 has been shown in the USA this year, but no dates are announced for the UK yet. Hopefully early 2018. Like Their Finest, it’s about a male-female scriptwriting team. No wonder Karen and I love both.
The Upstart Crow
David Mitchell as Shakespeare with a Brummy family. It switches between Stratford and London. His landlady’s daughter, Kate, longs to be an actress, but women aren’t allowed on stage. The three members of the Globe company that we know about … Burbage (lead roles), Will Kemp (the comic roles) and Condrell (who does women’s roles) are a joy to watch. The first time I saw it I didn’t get it. A friend told me to buy the DVD. I’ve watched everything in Series 1 and 2 at least twice. I feared the references were too erudite, while proud that I understood them, but everyone seems to enjoy them.
The Detectorists
A lovely gentle, lightly comic series about metal detector enthusiasts. It’s a grower. Mackenzie Crook not only stars (with Toby Jones) but created it.
ARCHIVE SERIES
A FAMILY AT WAR – REVIEWED
Oh. Back in World War Two yet again. We watched the lot this year. Fifty-two episodes, originally broadcast from 1970 to 1972 when I didn’t have a television. See my review.