A Room with a View

Featuring an unexpected amount of penises for a period film (or any other for that matter), this tells the story of Helena Bonham Carter’s upper class Lucy Honeychurch, who finds herself having to choose between two suitors; her betrothed, oily, irritatingly snobbish Cecil (Daniel Day-Lewis, over enunciating to grating effect) and Julian Sands’ playful, liberated yet of a lower social standing George. Obviously Lucy will choose the less pretentious and by all means friendlier George, overcoming the general repression of the times (a break-up is ended with a simple handshake), but the supporting cast makes this a worthwhile watch, from Maggie Smith’s unobtrusive Aunt Charlotte, Dame Judi Dench’s romance novelist, Simon Callow as the local vicar (and owner of one of the aforementioned phalluses) and Denholm Elliot as George’s forward thinking father. With so much talent surrounding them, it’s no wonder Bonham Carter and Sands struggle to shine, proving themselves to be merely audience ciphers.

Choose film 6/10

The Killing Fields

OK, I'm going to try and post a little more frequently now, instead of allowing a stock pile of watched films to be reviewed en masse at the weekends. I'm thinking maybe if I watch a film, I post about it the same day. Sound good? Awesome. I've checked my stats, and I'm a few films behind where I should be (I just made a graph, how I love Excel!), so I need to step this up a little. Also, I've had a check on LoveFilm, for when I eventually join, and there's quite a few films I'm going to have difficulty getting hold of as they're not available for rental, but we'll cross that bridge another day.

I've just watched The Killing Fields, a film in two halves that deals with Sydney, a reporter for the New York Times (Sam Waterston) stationed in Cambodia, and his interpreter/assistant/friend Dith Pran (Dr. Haing S. Ngor). During the troubles in Cambodia, Sydney and his fellow reporters (including John Malkovich) are taken capture by the Cambodians. If not for Pran, they would surely have been killed, so when the reporters are evacuated and Pran is unable to leave, Sydney does all he can to help his friend escape.

The first half deals with the turmoils suffered by the reporters, whilst the second shows Pran's escape from the concentration camp he is imprisoned within. The film was good, if not necessarily enjoyable due to the subject matter, and I especially liked the scenes of the reporters trying to create a fake passport to let Pran leave the country.

Choose life 7/10