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tv   The Film Review  BBC News  March 8, 2020 11:45pm-12:01am GMT

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to already, before we even got to coronavirus, they were thinking about how they could relax at an increase in spending. if you are on top of that and say yes, we will inject more money into the health service and ensure that people who self isolate continue to get paid and we will have help for businesses to make sure they don't close down, they were concerns in the tory party about where that money will come from. people will be looking for good news and something uplifting, that the government had this under control. the chancellor is had to refocus budget and i think we will see increased spending in order to deal with coronavirus but it will be a budget that marks the departure from austerity. that is what the party have been desperate to do in both rhetoric terms and in real terms. the big question is whether the day today expenses for our nurses and teachers, will they increase that? today they have been tight but the
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indications are that the government will look to change to that and corona gives a set another reason to do that. i think they wanted to do it anyway but this is another reason to do that. then the big question is if you are spending more, wary diverting the spending for and how do you ensure that it makes people's lives across the country better. my worry is that they keep levelling up at we have spent a lot on infrastructure to get takes ten years to materialise and does not necessarily yield the economic returns to if they are going to be spending more day to day spend, the big question is how will it impact oi'i big question is how will it impact on people make their lives better? let's end with something that i wa nted let's end with something that i wanted to call light—hearted but here, a beautiful picture of a dog. and crufts is serious business and it finished at. i don't get it. cats
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are where it is that. but this is a beautiful beautiful dog there that has been groomed to within an inch of its life and looks like it has stepped out of lady and the tramp did it coronavirus, football matches, it has not stopped this dog showed. and that shows that we are all keeping calm and carrying on and grooming our dogs. how can that dogs see?! cats or dogs? probably dogs. probably dogs to take you are outnumbered. rachel and i agree, cats are where it is at. a big thank you. that's it for the papers tonight. thank you to rachel and miatta.
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hello and a very warm welcome to the film review on bbc news. to take us through this week's releases is mark kermode. hello, mark! hi! what have you been watching? a very mixed bag. we have onward, which is an animated quest. military wives, inspired by a true story of strength through song. and escape from pretoria, which does pretty much what it says on the tin. so onward. yeah, so this is pixar‘s latest animation. it begins in a fantastical world in which magic has been superseded by more down—to—earth, you know, electricity and gas. two brothers, chalk and cheese, one of whom believes in the sort of the old myths of sword and sorcery, the younger one who is kinda of slightly withdrawn. they botch a spell to bring back their lost father for a day.
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they only manage to bring back half of him, so they must embark upon a quest and whilst they're on a quest, they must learn to be able to control their newly found magical power. here's a clip. 0k! here we go. focus. uh.. something wrong? sorry, it'sjust your stance is... here, chin up, elbows out, feet apart, back slightly arched. 0k, how does that feel? great! ooh, one more thing... barley! 0k, 0k. magnora gantuan! don't let the magic spook you! 0k. elbows! what? elbows up! no, no, no — it's too high! that's too high! i'm trying to focus here! oh, yeah, yeah, yeah! focus. focus on the can. focus. barley! idid it! it worked! the can is huge!
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and the van is huge! and you're... oh, no! chuckles. that makes me think a little bit of harry potter, i have to say. yeah, and a little bit of shrek. and here's the weird thing. at the beginning, i thought ok, this does not have the classic, simply, like toy story, when you're out the room, the room, the toys come alive. monsters inc, they need you to be scared because that's how they get, you know, that's how they generate power. or even, you know, inside out, which is numskulls. um, at the beginning of this, i was thinking, "i do not get the set—up. they are in a magic world, but there is no magic." what happens about halfway through is that the film really finds its feet and it becomes centrally about the two brothers and their relationship and then it builds toward a third act which, somehow, from the — honestly the chaos of the narrative up until that point, manages to pull, like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, a really satisfying resolution that makes you go, "oh, ok! i forgive you for everything that was kinda of a misstep up until that point". so i do not think it is a classic but i think that the last act is so good...
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you know that thing about... that's so curious! ..the end of a film really is the thing that defines what it is. people will come out of this film with a really sort of really warm, feel—good feeling, despite the fact that there is a good section of it in which it's a bit derivative, and yet it's also a bit obscure, it's a bit like we have all seen it before, but it's also like this is not hanging together. but then it hits the third act and then you go, "ok. i forgive you for everything you have got wrong until now". so is it a real weepy? because the story could make you — it make me cry! you know, two brothersjust trying to see their father, who's dead, forjust 2a hours. well, i confess that i was moved. however, i did not cry as much as i cried in the next movie which is out this week, which is military wives. oh, wow! 0k. this is the new film by peter cattaneo, who made full monty. yes! it's obviously inspired by a true story of the military wives, and it is a story of people — of partners of service people who are off on tours of duty finding strength through song, forming a singing group.
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at the centre of it, we have chalk and cheese characters again. we have kristin scott thomas, who is kate, who is sort of uptight and believes in classical music. we have lisa, who is played by sharon horgan, who is much more kind of why don't they just we sing pop songs? "why can't we sing cyndi lauper‘s time after time?" incidentally, the minute anyone sings anything from cyndi lauper‘s time after time, i start crying. laughs. you could — you could accuse the film of a lot of things. it is kind of cliched, it's kind of formulaic. it hits some very, very obvious button—pushing moments. some of the characters are done in thumbnails. but it is one of those films that just — i have seen it twice now and both times, i have laughed solidly because there is a great comic chemistry between kristin scott thomas and sharon horgan particularly. and also, there are four or five sequences in which ijust wept! and because the thing about it is that for all the things that are wrong with it, for all the things that are cliched, for all the things that are corny, it gets little details right. and it is amazing how much a small detail — someone packing away their partner's things for the time that they will be away on the tour of duty. somebody asking, "how do you cope? do you just not talk about it?"
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and then being greeted by silence — these little moments which mean when everyone bursts into song and when they start writing the songs inspired by the letters, it all comes together. and, you know, ithink — as i say, i have seen it twice and there are many things that you could pick holes in, but i do not care to because it worked on an emotional level and i cried like an idiot. oh, my god. if you cried, then i will be crying too, we can — we can guarantee that. i love crying in movies! i quite like a good cry, to be honest. it's a great thing. yes, yes. escape from pretoria. yes. based on a — based on a true story again? based on a true story — based on a book by tim jenkin called inside out: escape from pretoria prison. so he was arrested in apartheid south africa for distributing leaflets, incendiary leaflets. at the beginning with see with this — what looks like an explosive device, but it's just used to sort of blow these leaflets up into the air. given a very long sentence and believes that it is his absolute duty to continue to oppose the apartheid regime by attempting to break out. how do you break out? you're in a prison in which you're behind several locked doors.
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an apparently insurmountable problem, but not so. here's a clip. for many nights, i sat on my bed and stared at the lock. i tried 100 ideas in my mind, and then, i tried 100 more. it sat there, staring back at me, every single night. and then it dawned on me. you don't have to know everything. you only have to know enough. now, quiet! start with what you know and you work backwards. hmm.
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so, how do you get the lock open? the obvious answer is you're going to need keys. now, here's the thing with the film. as you have seen from that clip, i think, some of it — it has an interesting array of accents, not all of which are completely on the money all the way through. i have always thought that the flaws in a film reveal whether the film is good or bad, because if a film is good enough to get you over those flaws, that means that something is working. i worried about the accents for about ten minutes and then ijust got caught up in the story, in this extraordinary story of how on earth do you get out of this prison with all of these locks? the film is put together very, very well in terms of the way in which it gets you invested in the minutiae of this solution that they come up with. the fact that you know it's a true story, but at the same time, you're kind of of going, "that can't work! that would never work! you can't possibly do that!" and yet, you start to see them doing it. i think it was really gripping
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and i confess that i went in sort of uncertain about, you know, whether or not, because because i'd seen the trailer in which i'd heard some of the accents being not really great, but none of that mattered to me. i thought it was a really gripping thriller. 0k! and ifound myself — you people always talk about being on the edge of your seat. at one point watching it, i thought "i am actually on the edge of my seat!" somebody is doing something very small and very precise and there is very little going on, and i am really, really worried about whether the bit of chewing gum on the end of that stick will be able to pick up the thing you have dropped, which is an indication of it working. that's interesting! 0k. that's escape from pretoria. and best out? we both love... yeah, portrait of a lady on fire. both love it. well, i am a huge fan of celine sciamma anyway. i loved girlhood. i love her previous work. this is an extraordinary story, an 18th—century story about someone is sent to paint somebody who does not want to be painted. and sciamma, you know, said that she envisaged the film as a kind of treatise on the female gaze, and i think it is that, to some extent, but the reason it works is because it engages you emotionally.
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yes. i mean, it's like a thriller, it is like a kind of hitchcock thing, it's, it's — you believe in the characters. and it's beautiful to look at! it looks like a vermeer! i thought that it was absolutely beautiful. but it does, doesn't it? there are clearly moments in it where you think "that actually looks like a vermeer!" and quite spare and simple, visually, but very striking, and the constant crackle of the fire throughout so much of it. and a very, very sparse use of music, and what music there is is music that is generated on—screen. there are two sequences, major sequences — the sequence at the end with the vivaldi, there's the sequence in which the thing happens which the title of the film, when everyone's doing that clapping and singing — i thought that sequence was absolutely mesmerising! i thought it was eerie and strange and beautiful and powerful and it was — no, iwas thrilled by the film. i absolutely loved it. absolutely loved it. terrific. i am glad you like it as much as i do. absolutely love it. and dvd, for anyone staying at home? well, doctor sleep. um, the reason i have chosen this is twofold. firstly, there's nothing better than a film which delivers so much more than you expect, ok? this is the sequel to the shining —
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and i know that stanley kubrick fans are very, very sort of protective of the shining. what it does is it takes influences both from the stephen king and the stanley kubrick. my feeling is if you are a stephen king fan, you'll like it. if you are a stanley kubrick purist, you're gonna a — and i fell for it. i thought this is so much better than anyone had any right to expect. and on dvd, there's also a director's cut, which i am very much looking forward to watching over the weekend. ah! ok, all right. thank you very much! see you next time. enjoy your cinema—going, whatever you choose to see this week. see you next time. bye— bye. once again showers and rainbows are plenty on sunday but as the showers begin to fade as we get into the first part of monday it could be a chilly start. things will change markedly after that bright sunny start for many because we have a weather front lurking towards the west which eventually, through the morning, will rob northern ireland of that sunshine by lunch time we
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will have seen rain and by mid—afternoon western parts of scotla nd mid—afternoon western parts of scotland england and all of wales would have seen a fair amount of rain. driest for the longest towards the east with a high ten or ii. rain. driest for the longest towards the east with a high ten or 11. not just a single set of front but those fronts are still trailing across the british isles on tuesday and there are still a few isobars is also a cloudy affair with further bursts of rain and concerns about the intensity of rainfall across north—west england and wales dig towards the east, if those skies begin to clearfor towards the east, if those skies begin to clear for any length of time we could be looking at 15, i6, possibly i7 time we could be looking at 15, i6, possibly 17 degrees dig.
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hello and welcome to newsday. i am kasia madera in london. italy sees a sharp rise in the number of deaths from the coronavirus is a quarter of the population is impartial lockdown. you can see just how empty it is also the coronavirus measures and fear have hit every part of society. we're looking at what lessons europe use from asia as measures to contain the outbreak and it is a new phase. and i'm sharanjit leyl in singapore. also on the programme. surviving deadly religious rites in deadly little. we go to meet some displaced muslims to find out what lies ahead for them. residence for this area had to flee and save their lives
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before rampaging

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