Screening Log

This new site feature is a collective effort to summarize our viewing habits. Occasionally, you will find titles here that are coming to a theater near you, in addition to films viewed on television, and even films viewed in piecemeal. The screening log is archived each month; to view past entries select a month in the menu below.

March 2007 activity

Total Log Entries: 60

Total Comments: 32

Full Archive

Advertisements

The Queen / UK / 2006

I was on a fairly remote holiday the week Diana died, so this film was something of a revelation for me- thank God I was spared the sight of my countrymen transforming themselves into rabid, weeping, zombified tabloid junkies. The film depicts a state of national hysteria not seen since The Beatles, and it’s deeply unsettling.

The film itself is surprisingly effective- I was expecting drawing room drama, and there’s a fair amount of that. But the writers manage to get a real foothold on the characters, as do the actors- both Helen Mirren and particularly Michael Sheen do an astonishing job working within a restrictive cage of necessary mimicry, managing not only to convey absolutely the personalities they are invoking, but to make us care about them, which in the case of Tony Blair is an achievement little short of miraculous. Credit, too, for Mark Bazeley as Alastair Campbell, who exudes all the dripping revulsion of that most odious of all Blair’s cronies. This, too, would have been a more worthy Best Picture winner than The Departed.

by Tom Huddleston | Source: DVD
20 Mar 2007 1:37 PM | Comments (1)

Comments / 1 total / Submit Comment

  1. Petros / 21 March 2007 / 12:13 AM

    I was living in London the day D died and although the TV and tabloids were splattered with the news most people seem to have gone on with their lives. I found the movie indulgent and inaccurate. It seems that it was made to serve the royal linage. It is time that brighten moves on with the times and see their royalty to what they are…

Submit Comment

Please note that your email address will never be displayed on this page.

HTML is enabled; line breaks (<br />) and paragraphs (<p>) are automatically converted. Apostrophes, ellipses, em- and en-dashes, and quotes are also automatically formatted.

Recent Updates