tv The Film Review BBC News October 28, 2018 11:45pm-12:01am GMT
11:45 pm
need even more money for mental will need even more money for mental health. all of us! we will carry on after we have said goodbye to our viewers, getting interesting! ros altmann, mihir bose, pleasure, we ran out of time but thank you both very much. that's it for the papers tonight. you can see all the front pages online. it's all there for you, seven day, a week at bbc.co.uk/papers — and if you miss the programme any evening you can watch it later on bbc iplayer. a big thank you to my guests this evening, mihir bose and baroness ros altmann and, from all of us, goodbye. coming up next, the film review. cheerio. hello there and welcome to the film review here on bbc news. and taking us through this
11:46 pm
week's cinema releases, we've got jason solomons. jason, what have you got for us this week? yes, ben. the great pretender freddie mercury brings glam rock to opera, to create bohemian rhapsody — a costumed gallop through the highs and lows of queen. we follow the anguished face of one teenage girl as she experienced a dreadful massacre on utoya on 22 july in norway. and we have a rebirth of a cartoonist played byjoaquin phoenix in a sobering yet funny true—life memoir called don't worry, he won't get far on foot. right, let's start with bohemian rhapsody. i'm sure lots of people are going to go just for the music. but how is it, in your view, as a movie? absolutely, i mean, it is a run through queen's greatest hits in a sort of karaoke dress—up fashion. a very unknown actor called rami malek plays freddie mercury and he's very good, i have to say, at impersonating
11:47 pm
freddie mercury. and even deepening the role till he gets under his skin, like a little costumed action man in all his little outfits as he progresses, up to even the moustache. the film itself isn't a biopic of freddie mercury, that many people were hoping for. it is a biopic of the band, and how they got to their hits, and how they used to sit in studio with their big hair — brian may and roger taylor and john deacon, ‘deaks‘ as they call him — and how they used to argue, and all their little tiffs got turned into the famous riffs that we know. stamp to this beat. come on. now i want you to clap on the third beat. what's going on? you'd know if you were on time. i want to give the audience a song that they can perform. so what can they do? stamping. imagine thousands of people doing this in unison.
11:48 pm
huh? what's the lyric? # we will, we will rock you! of course, thousands of people did do that, hundreds of thousands. they're doing it now. maybe millions. but none the less, critics have sort of said it's a bit of a sanitised version of queen. what do you make of that? it is, i mean, it was produced by brian may and roger taylor, in a way. so they definitely had a say, and they wanted to make sure that everyone knew that brian may wrote we will rock you and john deacon came up with the riffs for another one bites the dust. so it is about the kind
11:49 pm
of collective. and it takes a fairly linear romp through how they met at university and then how freddie joined the band and how he changed his name from farrokh bulsara to freddie mercury. and then from killer queen on top of the pops to we will rock you, all the way to live aid. that's when it climaxes, in 1985, that famous show of all shows. most people agree queen stole the show of all shows, and freddie mercury was fantastic that day. the film climaxes — no spoilers here — in a sort of step—by—step shot—for—shot recreation of that gig, which is quite extraordinary. so the film has its high points, and it has its low points, when they argue, but it doesn't quite go into the real wrestling match that freddie mercury clearly had with his sexuality. i mean, when freddie mercury died of aids in 1991, the world was shocked. it was like, "freddie mercury is gay?!" you watch this and you think, well, how did he get away with it? that's the real story, and that's not quite what's gone into. the band seems to have tutted at freddie's excesses and his debauchery, and go home for their cup of tea with their wives. and it's got a slightly moralising tone. that said, it's there so that you can take your kids and your family, introduce them to the hits of queen, go and buy their best—selling hits album called volumes 1 and 2,
11:50 pm
and kind of stomp your way through them from i want to break free to the great pretender to don't stop me now. i mean, everything freddie sang, he meant, and he was doing in real life, too. all right. let's talk about the next film — utoya: july 22. and this was the absolutely horrific massacre on utoya island back in 2011. i think anybody who remembers that — in a way, you wonder why they would want to see a film about it, because it was so horrific. that's right. i think you're absolutely right there, ben. and they are notjust one film, there are two films out about this. paul greengrass did a film called july 22, which is currently out, it is on netflix. greengrass who normally is very good at these documentary style recreations — like he did united 93, just on the plane that hit the towers on 9/11. he did sort of a multi—stranded take on utoya, focusing on anders breivik, the right—wing gunman who perpetrated massacre and all the way to his trial. this film, which is made by a norwegian called erik poppe, is just on the island, just on the face of one girl, kaja, who is a sort of quite
11:51 pm
well—respected member of the young labour party. she wants to help everybody, and we are with her as this massacre unfolds. now, in this version, we don't see breivik at all, we just hear the boom of his gunfire and see the people running from him. it's a real kind of distillation of what it must‘ve been like to be on that island, not knowing what was going on, the confusion. it's almost done in one single, breathless take. i have to say, i was sitting near the front of the cinema, right at the front, and after about five minutes, i had to move to be back of the theatre to get some distance and perspective. it was too overwhelming. i was too — motion sickness, i was too shaken by it. i had to say that even with that distance, it was still very harrowing experience. but it did make me understand what it must‘ve been like to be caught in that situation. i don't understand the mind of the man who perpetrated it at all, and that sort of leaves me wanting a bit more from it. but it is, as a piece of film making, a rather breathtaking experiment, if you like. but whether this is the right topic to be experimenting with, it left a slightly bitter taste in my mouth.
11:52 pm
yes, it sounds like a hard watch. our third film is don't worry, he won't get far on foot. not the snappiest of titles, but tell us what that's about. well, actually, the title comes from a joke. because it's aboutjoaquin phoenix, who is a cartoonist, sort of in the gary larson style, sort of new yorker, that sort of cartoonist. and he plays an alcoholic called john callahan, who is so drunk one night, he gets into the car with jack black — a man played by jack black — and they have a car accident and he's left paraplegic. so the film is about him recovering from his injuries, and also recovering from his alcoholism and discovering his gift as a cartoonist, and giving him a black kind of look of humour at the world. he comes under the spell of a very charismatic sponsor, they called him in rehab, played byjonah hill, called donnie. phone ringing. hello. hey, is this donnie?
11:53 pm
yeah, who's this? hey, donnie, this isjohn callahan. i'm the neon cripple from outer space. oh, the man with the tangerine hair? well, i always thought of my hair as electric orange. but yeah, that's me. look, i got your number off the board. i'm calling because i need a sponsor. i do have a lot of piglets at the moment. what are piglets? i need a sponsor. my sponsees are piglets. laughter. that's funny. you want me to help you get sober. well, i saw you speak and i really liked what you had to say. i just... i don't know if you are serious. jesus christ. no, i call him chucky. what?! it's directed by gus van sant. the role of the originally intended for robin williams, but walking phoenix does very well with that, as doesjonah hill. they're both very good together. the film is a mix of sentimentalism and funny and dark humour, and very serious about rehab and alcoholism, as well.
11:54 pm
it's a strange mix, but sometimes it really works, and it's quite funny when you read the acerbic cartoons byjohn callahan. so a fitting monument to him, if you're aware of his work. ok, best out this week? i'm going to have to say that the best out, everyone is going to see, it's top of the box office — it's still a star is born. we've got a freddie mercury sort of biopic about the music industry. this one is really about the music industry. the music scenes, i think, are particularly well done. bradley cooper directing and lady gaga performing, i think terrifically, finding her voice in a star is born. maybe the sexual politics are a bit odd, about a man who can't really survive because the woman's doing better than him. but, you know, maybe he should get over it. that's what people are talking about, and that's what i like about this movie. it's getting people polarised, it's getting people talking, and it's getting people into the cinemas, because it's really a good old—fashioned hollywood melodrama. yeah, i loved it, i have to say. a little bit long, perhaps, and the first half felt sort of better than the second half. they're all a bit long, ben, to be honest with you. well, what about best dvd?
11:55 pm
dvds, you can always spin through them if they're too long, but what's the best dvd? don't do this one or you might miss a star, because it's ocean's eight. just out ehich has got it all—star cast — cate blanchett, rihanna. .. you never thought you'd see those two together! helena bonham carter, sandra bullock and anne hathaway. it's about the women who join together to perform a heist at the very fashionable met gala, the heist of a very valuable necklace, and the double—cross. i thought this was a really enjoyable, good old—fashioned sort of caper fun from hollywood, but with a female twist because of the female cast, i think they were all very good. it's very slick and it's often very funny as well. and it really shouldn't be seen as anything more than that. somebody said, "it wasn't very, it was a very dangerous, "there wasn't much jeopardy." it's a lot of costumes, a lot of good outfits, and a lot of laughs. yeah. all right, jason. thank you so much for being with us this week. thank you. and that is it for this week, though. thank you so much for watching and goodbye from us. hello.
11:56 pm
in the space ofjust a few days, we went from balmy weather to biting northerlies. in the week ahead, some very dramatic changes to come, too. we start off fairly calm before something a bit chilly, milder midweek and then potentially stormy by friday. here we are first thing on monday with a widespread frost. lows down to “i! or —5. a little milder for eastern coastal counties and that is because we are bringing in the breeze of the sea. some showers off the breeze as well. to the west of the weather front, trying to push in, doesn't get very far but feeding cloud into northern ireland and western scotland. hazy sunshine here. a decent day for many but it will still feel cool. perhaps not as cold as the weekend without the northerly. an easterly breeze as eight — ten. overnight monday into tuesday, the weather front pushes a cross as it fizzles out.
11:57 pm
this low to the east coming up from the continent could great eastern coastal counties on tuesday bringing heavy rain and strong wind. some uncertainty about the positioning of that at the moment and it may even push a bit further across us. for many, though, at decent day. again, slightly on the cool side with tablature is somewhere between seven and 10 degrees. —— temperatures. it's tuesday into wednesday that the pattern starts to change the low pushing to the north and the north sea and finally we can allow something to come in from the west and the southerly airstream to develop for wednesday. finally, some milder air coming into the south of the uk, temperatures back close to average. possibly heavy rain courtesy of that weather front and to the north of it, some decent sunshine. it will still feel rather chilly here. into thursday, we are talking about further rain targeting eastern england. in the west, a few coastal showers but overall, thursday and reasonable day with fairly average temperatures and light winds
11:58 pm
from the west or south—west. we have a deep area of low pressure rolling our wake containing it the remnants of tropical storm oscar. warm tropical areas tied up in this system. it will bump our temperatures up that it might bring widespread gates and bringing a heavy rain. dramatic changes are ahead. i'm xxxx in singapore. welcome to newsday on the bbc. i am sharanjit leyl in singapore. the headlines: tributes for leicester city chairman and thai billionaire vichai srivaddhanaprabha, who's died in a helicopter crash outside the club's stadium. you can see behind me of course there is this extraordinary outpouring of grief, these tributes have been laid, pouring in throughout the course of the day. and this is the scene live in rio, as supporters of the far right
11:59 pm
88 Views
IN COLLECTIONS
BBC News Television Archive Television Archive News Search ServiceUploaded by TV Archive on