Film Reccomendations

Mansfield Park

Thank you... any more?

Have Pride and Prejudice sitting right here just have to make the investment to watch it :wink:

Mansfield was Altman, but had that English sensibility.
What was the one about living in London during the Blitz? I enjoyed it.With Joan Plowright.

husker you really should! It is well worth the 4 hours!

Was it

Tea with Mussolini?

I had no idea that was Altman. I didn't see his mark on it at all. I liked it because it was faithful to the book, and the book contained Austen's the most obvious social commentary. (I had a friend in college who said she didn't like Austen because she never offered any social commentary/criticism, and that's just not true. She did as much as she would have been allowed, I think.)

~~~
I think I rented Persuasion (don't know who directed that one, either) and I wasn't impressed.
~~~
As far as British directors go, I have a soft spot for Peter Greenaway (The Draughtsman's Contract, A Zed and Two Noughts), though I still haven't seen his most famous The Cook, The Thief, His Wife...
(Hey, now I know what to go rent today)

Altman's "Gosford Park" is also in the British venacular. Most of the Merchant/Ivory are great films:

"Howard's End"
"Maurice"
"A Room With a View"

and, of course, most of David Lean:

"Lawrence of Arabia"
"A Passage to India"

Two of my older favorites:

"The Black Narcissus"
"The Stars Look Down"

'Howard's End' was a great one. Poor old Leonard Bast!

You might refer to this link that had some activity this year on movies from the UK:

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3473&highlight=british+movies+films

Films based on Thomas Hardy's novels are really great:

1) Mayor of Canterbridge (or something like that) with Alan Bates
2) Jude
3) Far Away From the Madding Crowd
4) another one very well known, but I can't remember the title right now.

You might be thinking of "Tess" and here's a link to all the films that have been adapted from his novels:

THOMAS HARDY NOVELS ADAPTED TO FILM

Welcome to A2K and please keep posting!

Didn't Micheal Caine have some nutty movies in the 70's. Mostly spy movies (inspiration for Austin Powers), and Alfie.

I read his autobiography. A hoot.

I'm not sure out of the over one-hundred films Caine has been in as far as "nutty," but "The Man Who Would Be King" was the best film he was in from the 70's. He admits himself he took roles in what should have been obviously second-rate projects like "The Island" and the truly awful "Beyond the Poseidon Adventure" Here's his film listings for the 70's:



Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979) .... Captain Mike Turner
Ashanti (1979) .... Dr. David Linderby
... aka Ashanti, Land of No Mercy
California Suite (1978) .... Visitors from London - Sidney Cochran
... aka Neil Simon's California Suite
The Swarm (1978) .... Brad Crane
Silver Bears (1978) .... Doc Fletcher
... aka Fool's Gold (USA: bootleg title)
A Bridge Too Far (1977) .... Lt. Col. J.O.E. Vandeleur
The Eagle Has Landed (1976) .... Col. Kurt Steiner
Harry and Walter Go to New York (1976) .... Adam Worth
Peeper (1975) .... Leslie C. Tucker
... aka Fat Chance
The Man Who Would Be King (1975) .... Peachy Carnehan
... aka Rudyard Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King (USA: complete title)
The Romantic Englishwoman (1975) .... Lewis Fielding
... aka Une anglaise romantique (France)
The Wilby Conspiracy (1975) .... Jim Keogh
The Destructors (1974) .... John Deray
... aka Marseille contrat (France)
... aka The Marseille Contract (UK)
The Black Windmill (1974) .... Maj. John Tarrant
Pulp (1972) .... Mickey King
Sleuth (1972) .... Milo Tindle
Zee and Co. (1972) .... Robert Blakeley
... aka X, Y and Zee (USA)
Kidnapped (1971) .... Alan Breck
Get Carter (1971) .... Jack Carter
The Last Valley (1971) .... The Captain

Trust me, it was nutty. A spoof, but was trying to be serious. He was a debonair (yeah, with brillo hair and horn-rimmed glasses) spy, who kept getting kidnapped and brainwashed, and released.

He ran around in tight floodwater gabardine pants, barely escaping explosions.

Still,....I liked him.

Maybe Get Carter. I'll investigate.

No way was it Get Carter. In that movie, someone had successfully straightened at least part of Caine's hair.

No, it was this one:

THE FOURTH PROTOCOL centres around a nasty Soviet plot to win the cold war by exploding an atomic bomb at an American base making it look like an accident caused by the Americans leading to unilateral nuclear disarmament and the break up of NATO leaving those dastardly commies to invade Europe . The plot had actually been used before in the James Bond movie OCTOPUSSY and in many ways this does feel like a mind bending spy movie with Harry Palmer ( Michael Caine ) taking on communist traitor James Bond ( Peirce Brosnan ) , bizarre to say the least but as strange as it seems it is somewhat compelling , even though the climax is very predictable with the good guy trying to stop the bad guy detonating the bomb

There are a few problems with the screenplay though . We have several scenes that don`t really add anything to the plot like the scene where Caine`s character smacks a couple of skin heads . Very admirable though it adds nothing to either plot or character development since we know he`s already a good guy , no need to prove it . I also couldn`t help noticing a rather ridiculous scene where the baddie decides to cut the throat of a possible witness , wouldn`t this draw attention to himself ? Wouldn`t the victim`s blood splatter all over his clothes ? And why would the witness need to be killed ? It`s not like he`s going to run to police and say " I tried to get off with a man in the gents toilets and I saw him recieve a radio from an airline pilot . He must be a KGB agent or something "

Like most Forsyth stories there`s a lot of characters ( Maybe too many ) and they`re played by familiar British character actors but few of them make an impact with the exception of Ian Richardson and Anton Rodgers who both appear in the best scene of the movie where an intelligence chief confronts a traitor . If you think acting is a doddle think how you`d react if a director said to you " Okay , you play a dogmatic patriot , you`d do anything to stop the world being over run by communist tyranny and you`ve done your level best to stop this happening . But then this character has found you out and worse he`s just told you that you`ve been helping these nasty evil reds all along " how would you play the scene ? Richardson and Rodgers are superb in this scene even if it doesn`t really have anything to do with the main plot

A fairly good thriller even if it`s not tightly plotted and you know where it`s heading
-------------
Entertaining, if camp entertains you. (It really does me.)

That could also be "The Ipcress File" where he was kidnapped and brainwashed --a better film than "The Fourth Protocol" and it was the breakthrough film of his career. Both films were spoofed by Mike Meyers amongst the James Bond movies and others. It could be that these 70's spy flicks are really dated and deserved to be spoofed. "The Bourne Supremacy" still has a lot of the same elements but seems more sophisticated and timely.

<oops>

I'm thinking I saw The Ipcress File AND The Fourth Protocol...and they morphed into one.

You're right. The Fourth Protocol didn't have brainwashing--and The Ipcress File didn't have Pierce Brosnan.

<laughs> <laughs harder> That may explain why I thought it was so nutty. I'm sure you sympathize with me now.

Okay, Lash, just lay off that holiday cheer (highly rum laced eggnog?) Anyway, Merry Christmas.