Sorry I haven’t posted anything in so long. I have been watching films and will be writing reviews on them soon. I promise

I went to London over the weekend to visit some friends. London is such a great city and I always love looking for film settings there (the blue door from Notting Hill, pretty much every scene from Match Point and so on). While my friend and I were having lunch near the Columbia Road flower market this weekend, we spotted Keira Knightly and her actor boyfriend Rupert Friend. This part of London is so full of quirkily dressed people that they really didn’t stand out. Every other person there could have been a star. It’s always fun to see actors in real life. Especially when they fit so wonderfully into their surroundings. It makes them more human. Keira looked a lot nicer and prettier in real life than in the films (I personally don’t like her as an actress), but she did look unnaturally skinny.

The Woman in Black

We went to see the play The Woman in Black at the Fortune Theatre near Covent Garden. It turned out to be the 20th Anniversary for this play to be shown at that theatre. It is a ghost story about a solicitor who is trying to tell his family about a time in his life where he encountered a ghost a long time ago. A young theatre director helps the now old man to make the story more interesting for his audience.

The entire play consists of these two men and a ghost woman in black who only comes on stage occasionally. The actors have to be incredibly good to keep the audience’s attention through the entire play, and they were. I didn’t actually expect to be scared in a play, but it was quite freaky. A lot of it was down to rather loud sound effects and sudden appearances of the woman. It was a lot of fun watching the play and getting scared by it. What I also really enjoyed was that the producer came onto the stage after the play and gave a short speech because of the anniversary. He was really funny and it felt special to have seen the play that evening.

Terminator Salvation

I got talked into watching this film by two of my old housemates from University (two boys as you can guess) and the film just really sucked (sorry Jon and Dave, if you are reading this…). I thought Christian Bale would be enough to enjoy the movie but he was terrible. All he did was use his intense dark Batman-voice and look tough. And then he hit a couple of guys. That’s it. And he is not even shown very often. It’s mostly about Sam Worthington’s character. Oh, and the story was: humans fighting against machines. This should not be the story of a Terminator film, because it is the setting. There should be a story around this setting. If I had a rating system, I would probably give this film a 1/5 (one for the special effects). Alright, that’s enough ranting, just take my advice and don’t watch it.

This is biographical film about John Wilmot, aka the second Earl of Rochester (Johnny Depp). He was an incredibly talented poet but wasted his talent on wine and women. In the film, Rochester passionately loves the theatre and decides to train a particular actress to become the best in all of London. King Charles II (John Malkovich) calls upon him to write a play for the visit of the French ambassador. The play, A Satyr on Charles II, turns out to be a portrait of the King’s sexual behaviour at court. Rochester is banished, which is the beginning of his downfall.

The film starts with a bang: Johnny Depp (beautiful as ever, with long flowing locks), in close-up, talks directly to the audience saying, ‘Allow me to be frank at the commencement. You will not like me. The gentlemen will be envious and the ladies will be repelled…’. Johnny Depp has that look in his eyes that pierces right through you, he absolutely owns the speech, he delivers it with such candour that you hang upon his lips until his very last word.

Then, unfortunately, the movie starts. I have to admit that I didn’t fully understand it (I googled it afterwards…). The story is a bit all over the place. It has no real flow and I lost interest quite early on. The cinematography tries to be beautiful, like a painting, but is often underlit. Depp is, of course, great but John Malkovich’s role is really too small to show off his wonderful talent. The side characters all look the same and could easily have been a single person.

Stephen Jeffreys wrote the original theatre play and the screenplay for this film. I wonder if he was pleased with the end result of the film. John Malkovich acted as Rochester in the play, but chose to be Charles II in the film. It is Laurence Dunmore’s first feature film (which came out in 2004 and he hasn’t done anything since…), so I guess he can be forgiven for not getting it quite right.

If you are an absolute Johnny Depp fan then go and see it (I guess in this case you already have…) but otherwise I wouldn’t bother. It had potential but it really turned out rather dull.

Woody Allen’s new film. (His latest film, Vicky Christina Barcelona, was just shown at Cannes. It will take a while for it to come to the cinemas.) Cassandra’s Dream is the last film of a London trilogy. But I would place it right in the middle: not nearly as good as Match Point (which is fantastic), but definitely not as bad as Scoop (which is simply not good).

Two brothers, Ian and Terry (played by Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell), are having serious financial problems and turn to their rich uncle (the wonderful Tom Wilkinson) for support. He is more then willing to help the boys out: “Family is the most important thing in life,” he exclaims. There is just one small favour he needs in return. Uncle Howard wants the two to “get rid of” a business relation who is threatening to disclose facts that would mean ruination for him. How far would you go?

McGregor and Farrell really make the film. They are hysterically tragic. Two failures looking for a bit of happiness in this world. There is just no way not to love them.

(Photo: Ness/ London 2007)