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Reviews
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011)
Indian summer for rom com retirees
The film is beautifully shot and you could almost be there in person, soaking up the sounds and colours, warming in the sunshine, careering around in the hooting tooting traffic, and enjoying the genteel pace of life in the exotic Marigold Hotel. We all loved the idea and promise of moving to a new and different environment. The actors are superb, totally inhabiting their roles. There is gentle humour, and very clever conversations. But for the over 60s in our group of film goers there were some inescapable questions. Who would provide health care, indeed how would that be paid for in the absence of an NHS? What if one choked to death in the dust and fumes? And none of us could see the point of having the youthful love interest, except that it felt somehow contrived as if to balance out the oldies. All in all, a really nice film, but on voting likely to appeal rather to the older generation (a pity) so not a high scorer all round.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)
another superb quest
Another showing of the quest, but this one precedes the restoration journeys of The Ring. Here, a much younger Bilbo, played brilliantly by Martin Freeman (so mild, yet so able to evoke emotion), is more or less coerced into undertaking a treacherous mission across mountainous territory in the company of dwarfs, to help restore their kingdom. Some reviewers thought the film overlong, and it does seem so at the beginning, particularly the somewhat protracted night when the dwarfs are encamped in Bilbo's cramped hovel. But as they cross epic landscapes and fall prey to ghastly creatures (the oily Gollum gets an outing too), one cannot help being drawn in to their adventure. The technological and graphic detail is amazing: how do they get unreality to look so really real? Of those of us watching the film, ages 13,19,30,36,66,68 we mostly gave it a thumbs up.
Eat Pray Love (2010)
pretty woman goes travelling to find herself
Julia Robert's fantastic smile lights up the screen as she travels through Italy and India and Bali. To accompany this the colours and sights are as luscious and ripe as its possible to be, and made me want to visit these places and eat till I burst. The men she is involved with are delicious each in his own way, and I really wanted to love the film. But I found it strangely lacklustre and even boring. Our heroine starts out reluctant to engage on any deep level, so it is no surprise when, to raise money for a new house in Bali for a new friend, she turns mainly to the new friends she has made along the way, whom she now calls her family. It seems so superficial. On the other hand, probably like everyone else I was rooting for her at the end ... would she or wouldn't she ... ?!
I Against I (2012)
Really enjoyed this film
Set in a metropolitan underworld, two very different protagonists are unwittingly caught in a slowly escalating nightmare over one night in which each has to find and eliminate the other or be killed himself. It is only through flashbacks and sudden twists that we the audience gets to find out what is really at stake, and to disentangle the motives in this psychological thriller. As a plot it really works well.
It may not be a big budget gangster movie from Hollywood, but there are enough close up car chases and fast action for one critic to have written that it's a bloke's film. Yes, but it's also a film you can watch alongside your girlfriend or boyfriend. Why? Because it has universal themes of someone ordinary being pushed beyond their limit, and love that ultimately has no limits. So we voted it our film of the month. There are 12 of us in the film club and we see 50-60 films a year. Go watch it.