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Blazing Minds (92 KP) rated Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019) in Movies
Nov 1, 2021 (Updated Nov 3, 2021)
The rest of the cast also works well in this production based on the based Elizabeth Kendall’s book “The Phantom Prince: My Life with Ted Bundy“, the film also stars Kaya Scodelario (THE MAZE RUNNER trilogy) as Carole Anne Boone, Haley Joel Osment (THE SIXTH SENSE) as Liz’s Co-Worker Jerry, Angela Sarafyan (WESTWORLD) as Joanna, Jim Parsons (TV’s THE BIG BANG THEORY) as Florida Prosecutor Larry Simpson and John Malkovich (DEEPWATER HORIZON) as Judge Edward D. Cowart.
![Quentin Blake](/uploads/profile_image/36f/02405478-e231-47df-8ee5-249c65eda36f.jpg?m=1522361060)
Quentin Blake
Book
Quentin Blake is a collaboration between Tate and the House of Illustration, published to coincide...
![The Bletchley Circle - Season 1](/uploads/profile_image/38f/f9be54a4-992b-4895-a00e-0897d943638f.jpg?m=1522328456)
The Bletchley Circle - Season 1
TV Season
Set in 1952, "The Bletchley Circle" tells of four women who have returned to normal lives after...
![Haunted Nights](/uploads/profile_image/32a/586c34b1-0cb6-41d5-9c86-6de2a9e5532a.jpg?m=1522323314)
Haunted Nights
Book
Sixteen never-before-published chilling tales that explore every aspect of our darkest holiday,...
Horror Supernatural
![1000 Years of Royal Books and Manuscripts](/uploads/profile_image/666/adc81051-48f1-49d5-9bac-51e2e659d666.jpg?m=1522338938)
1000 Years of Royal Books and Manuscripts
Kathleen Doyle and Scot McKendrick
Book
How important a part did books play in the lives of successive English monarchs and their families?...
![Spielberg](/uploads/profile_image/4b7/66e3a276-65b8-415c-a059-48174c9ec4b7.jpg?m=1522353634)
Spielberg
TV Show Watch
Filmmaker Steven Spielberg and his colleagues discuss the classic movies that made him famous,...
documentary biography
![Hold The Sunset](/uploads/profile_image/2f9/9bdaac8b-7df9-468c-98dd-2ce7ee1682f9.jpg?m=1522361183)
Hold The Sunset
TV Show
For Edith, life is pretty good. She's been a widow for some years now, but her children live locally...
comedy
![Four Princes: Henry VIII, Francis I, Charles V, Suleiman the Magnificent and the Obsessions That Forged Modern Europe](/uploads/profile_image/3d7/b5f654aa-224f-431d-bf11-a3ceaae583d7.jpg?m=1522336895)
Four Princes: Henry VIII, Francis I, Charles V, Suleiman the Magnificent and the Obsessions That Forged Modern Europe
Book
'Never before had the world seen four such giants co-existing. Sometimes friends, more often...
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Bob Mann (459 KP) rated Finding your feet (2018) in Movies
Sep 29, 2021
Sandra (Imelda Staunton, “Pride“) – now Lady Sandra, after her husband’s latest knighthood – is in a predictable, sex-free but reasonably happy marriage to legal beagle Mike (John Sessions, “Denial“, “Florence Foster Jenkins“) when her world is shaken to its core on discovering that Mike has been having a five-year affair with her best friend Pamela (Josie Lawrence). Moving in with her Bohemian sister Bif (Celia Imrie, “Bridget Jones Baby“), she struggles to integrate into her decidedly lower class lifestyle and find common ground with Bif’s dance club friends Charlie (Timothy Spall, “Denial“, “Mr Turner”), Ted (David Hayman) and Jackie (Joanna Lumley, “The Wolf of Wall Street“).
Can Sandra turn her downward spiral around and find love and happiness again? Well, the posters scream “The Feel Good Film of the Year” so you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know the answer to that! But it’s a bumpy journey for sure.
Getting all the acting honours is Timothy Spall, who is far too good to be buried away in this small British rom com. To watch him do “ordinary bloke doing ordinary things” is an absolute delight. He adds class and distinction to every scene he’s in, especially for those concerned with his truly tragic and upsetting back-story. Running a close second is Celia Imrie who has a wicked smile off to perfection and adds a lot of emotional depth to her performance: and she needs the range, since she too is on a pretty emotional journey through the second half of the film.
John Sessions and Josie Lawrence – old compatriots of course from the original version of TV’s “Whose Line Is It Anyway” – also deliver marvellous cameo performances, as does Phoebe Nicholls (“The Elephant Man”, “Downton Abbey”) as the tennis playing friend Janet.
Less convincing for me was Imelda Staunton, particularly in the first half of the film: for me she never quite pulls off the icy cold emotional wreck of Sandra, but is much better once the thaw has set in.
The film is written by Meg Leonard (in a debut script) and Nick Moorcroft (who did the “St Trinians” scripts). And there are some funny lines in there, although it has to be said that there are not enough of them. The majority of the best ones in fact are in the trailer, never bettered by Joanna Lumley’s zinger…. “My last marriage ended for religious reasons…. he thought he was God and I didn’t”! There’s not much more room for comic lines, since the rest of the script is stuffed with the dramatic outcomes from various flavours of old-age malady. Fortunately I was one of the younger members of the generally grey-haired audience, but for those further up the scale it must have been like staring into the void!
The film will win no awards for choreography, since the dance scenes are gloriously inept and out of sync. But this all rather adds to the charm of the piece.
Directed by Richard Loncraine, director of the equally forgettable Brit-flick “Wimbledon” and the rather more memorable “Brimstone and Treacle”, this is as Douglas Adams would have said “Mostly Harmless”: a film that most over-50’s will find a pleasant way to spend two hours. But go in expecting a drama with comic moments, rather than the hilarious comedy predicted by the trailer, and you will be better prepared.
(I should comment that the rating below is my view: my illustrious wife declared it a triumphant chick-flick and gave it FFFFf).
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The New Counter-Measures: Series 1
John Dorney, Guy Adams, Ian Potter and Christopher Hatherall
Book
Four new investigations for Sir Toby Kinsella and his specialist team. 1. Nothing to See Here by Guy...