Killing Bono!!!!

We saw our third free film of March this evening and I think it was the best. I really enjoyed 'Limitless' but for laugh-out-loud laughs Killing Bono beats it hands down. If you loved 'The Commitments' you'll probably really like this movie too.
We didn't realise that the book the film comes from is a true story (Big Man's favourite kind of film....when I told him, after watching 'Public Enemies' that Babyface Nelson died after John Dillinger in real life, rather than before him as in the film, Big Man said that I had 'totally ruined it' for him. Go figure.) and one that is set in the city where I grew up and almost in my era there too. The premise is that two sets of schoolboys start bands - one band has a pair of brothers in it, the other goes on to be U2. We all know what became of U2 but the story really concerns the brothers and that's where all the comedy comes from.
Although the film is ostensibly about the band there isn't a great deal of music (I didn't think so anyway) because it's mainly about the relationship between Ivan and Neil McCormick (I think Neil wrote the book 'I Was Bono's Doppelganger') played by Robert Sheehan and Ben Barnes, who does a pretty good Dublin accent imho. It also has Peter Serafinowicz in a very funny role and Pete Postlethwaite in his last film. If you get a chance please go and see it - a feel-good, very funny movie. And we saw it for free which always adds an extra star for me.

Incidentally (this is a bit of showing off here!), U2 may be every Irishman and woman's favourite musical sons now but when I saw them supporting The Clash at the Top Hat in Dun Laoghaire back in 1978, in a half-empty hall, they were treated with absolute contempt. I remember their current songs of the time were '11 O'Clock Tick-Tock' and 'I Will Follow' and there was certainly none of this messianic, sunglasses-wearing Bono carry on then. U2 were merely an annoyance before The Clash appeared.
I've just read on the 'net that thousands now claim to have been at that gig (probably U2 fans) but trust me....this ex-Dublin Punk was there!

Does that make me officially cool?! ;P

Date Night #2

It was a toss-up tonight between describing our latest date night and my work this week. I've decided to leave the work post until Friday.

The free movie this evening was called Limitless and starred Bradley Cooper (I think he's quite the heart-throb is some quarters but I'd never seen him before), Abbie Cornish (another new one on me) and Robert DeNiro who is looking more and more like my dad the older they both get. Goodfellas is just about my favourite film of all time so anything that stars Mr D is fine by me.

The film's described as a paranoia-fuelled action thriller. It starts almost in a comical way - the hero (or perhaps anti-hero) is a loser whose girlfriend dumps him and who is unable to start the book that he has been given an advance to write. However it gets darker as it goes on and there is an uneasy ending that you might not really agree with. The idea is an interesting one and you come out of the cinema wondering whether you would want to try the pill Eddie takes, were it available. There was one part in Limitless when I wondered what the point of the particular story-strand was, but mulling it over later I think I see why it was put in. It is the kind of film that you'll think about afterwards. The characters were fairly well-drawn - Eddie is a consistently weak man who gets an enormous stroke of luck and runs with it but doesn't really question the ethics of what he does; Lindy, Eddie's girlfriend, is his conscience but ultimately shows herself to be corruptible (don't think that's too strong a word); but Robert De Niro's captain of industry disappointingly ends up rehashing the retired Jimmy Conway. Still, he tries his best with a limited part and in all honesty it's totally Bradley Cooper's film. 

Having said all that, I did leave the cinema saying 'I loved that film'. It's escapist and it has some holes in it but if you want a good date movie you could do worse than Limitless. BTW, our own Anna Friel is in a small role, almost unrecognisable and with a strange Estuary/NYC hybrid accent.

Strange as it may sound I think Big Man and I enjoyed the movie more because we weren't able to sit together. The showing was in a smaller screen than normal and because we didn't get there 'til 6:15 for the 6:30 start there were no 'two-at-the-end' seats left. Big Man likes to be on the aisle on account of his bad knee - it needs to be stretched out when he's sitting down - so he sat in a single disabled seat (a PREMIERE one, no less!) whilst I sat a few rows further forward in an aisle seat. Win-win situation - Big Man didn't have me commentating on everything (yeah, yeah, I know I'm a pain in the ass patron but don't hate me for it); gasping and hiding my face at scary bits; and I wasn't squished up next to him, feeling constricted and resentful.

There's more than one reason I call him Big Man y'know.......

Lately I Have....

...seen a preview movie and read a book for my book club so I decided to write about both in one post. The film was 'West is West' and is the sequel to 'East is East' (as if you highly intelligent and cultured folks needed that pointing out!) I loved East is East - the scene with the 'sculpture' and the matchmaker is hilarious - so I was hoping that this one would be as good.

Well, I can tell you it is funny - there are perhaps not quite as many laugh-out-loud moments as there are in East is East. The focus is on Sajid, the youngest child of George and Ella Khan and this time the action is set in Pakistan. It's beautifully filmed...within minutes of the main characters arriving at the airport I said to Big Man 'I want to go there'! It looks heavenly. Not all of the characters from the first film reappear; the sister and one of the brothers aren't even mentioned and Jimi Mistry as Tariq only makes a cameo appearance. Again it's family dynamics that are under the microscope and this time the family is the one George left behind 30 years ago when he went to Salford - the first Mrs Khan! However, it's a good fun, feelgood film that I would recommend highly.

I am a voracious reader and although my taste is usually for thrillers (Michael Connolly, John Connelly, Stuart MacBride, Peter Robinson) I am often stretched by our book group choices. They're not always to my taste - I couldn't even finish Mort by Terry Pratchett  - but sometimes we have something I wouldn't normally have contemplated reading - The House on the Strand by Daphne DuMaurier, for example - but end up really enjoying. This time it was War Horse by Michael Morpurgo and I have to confess that I read it in three hours on the afternoon before our meeting. It's fairly short, maybe 180 pages, and it's a children's book. I enjoyed it I suppose, it was a sweet story. The problem was that I couldn't get past it being a kids book and thought it was very simplistic and a bit...cliched maybe? I feel bad even saying it because I know a lot of people love it plus I hear the stage show is magnificent. And I know that I don't really fall into the target audience! It's the kind of book I would have read nightly to Red and Mr Charming when they were young and I think they would have liked it. But in this family even now, nothing beats a good Enid Blyton. Now that IS good storytelling!

 What have you been reading and watching?

  

True? If You Say So.....

Anyone who has read my ramblings so far will know that a) I like films, and b) we have a Date Night here once a week where we see a movie, sometimes eat out but always have a little sweet treat to go with it. Tonight it was The King's Speech, the multi-Oscar -nominated Colin Firth film, with Butterkist popcorn. We'd had free tickets to see it right at the start of the year but didn't go for one reason or another and then every time we saw it advertised I kept saying 'Oh, I wish we'd gone to see it when we had the chance'. So this evening we saw it.
Hmmmmm.

This is clearly the Royals as America sees them, despite it being a British film. All cuddly and warm-heartedly egalitarian beneath their stiff upper lips. I can go with it being a true story in as much as King George VI, the Queen Mother (as she became) et al really existed but I'd say that's probably all that's true about it. Some of the scenes between Colin Firth as Bertie, and Geoffrey Rush as his speech therapist were just cringe-making. I'd go so far as to say ludicrous in fact. That's not to say that the performances aren't splendid - they are (despite Helena Bonham-Carter's teeth being far too good for her to really pass as the Queen Mother). It's just that the whole thing is Royalty Lite - Royalty how silly people might like to think they are. Just like us underneath. Well d'oh. For one thing we all know that you can't put a hand on any of them - remember the uproar a few years back when the Prime Minister of Australia, or maybe Canada, put his hand on the Queen's back to usher her along? If they're like that now, what were they like in the 30s?

No, I'm sorry King's Speech. You've disappointed me deeply. Epic fail, as Mr Charming would say. And don't expect too many Oscars....the accents are all wrong.