Kate Winslet: Naturist

Kate Winslet, it seems, is more than just a disembodied pair of breasts that sporadically unveil themselves at inopportune moments in movies. Apparently there is a voice associated with those mammaries (and therefore, one assumes, a mouth, tongue, trachea and who knows how many other body parts too), and it is a voice that has become familiar to the public at large. It was only natural then that the lady in question would use said voice within films, as is the case here with two semi-documentary dramas that focus heavily on nature: The Fox And The Child and Pride. After all, it's no secret that voice acting is a great deal easier than full-body acting, as there's no hours of make-up, preparation of scenes and lighting or extravagant costumes to put on (or take off, as the case may be). Unfortunately, the appeal of an easy job can cause a lull in judgement in choosing said work, as is the case with both of these films.

All the King's Men

In 1950s Louisiana, door-to-door brush salesman and parish treasurer Willie Stark (Sean Penn) runs for Governor, under the eye of local politician Duffy (James Gandolfini). A local reporter (Jude Law) takes a personal interest in him, and ends up working for/with Stark, much to the disapproval of his stepfather (Anthony Hopkins) and his childhood companions (Kate Winslet and Mark Ruffalo).

Hideous Kinky

Julia (Kate Winslet) has upped sticks from her one-bedroom London flat and moved to Marrakech after her partner cheated on her and left. Accompanying Julia are her two daughters, seven year old Bea (Bella Riza) and five year old Lucy (Carrie Mullan). Whilst in Morocco, Julia runs into financial difficulties and seeks romance, eventually finding it with street acrobat/quarry labourer Bilal (La Haine's Said Taghmaoui), before continuing to travel around the foreign lands with her children.

Finding Neverland

London, 1903. Acclaimed playwright J. M. Barrie (Johnny Depp) has just written a play, Little Mary, but unfortunately it hasn't done too well. When his maid cuts the review from his newspaper, Barrie spies Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (Kate Winslet) and her four young boys playing in the park and soon begins spending a great deal of time with them. He finds their exploits to be inspirational, and indeed they inspire within him the idea to write a new play, one that children can enjoy as well as adults, about a boy who never grows up.

The Life of David Gale

David Gale (Kevin Spacey) used to have it all. He was the Head of Philosophy at Austin University, an acclaimed writer with a wife and son (with some dinosaur pyjamas I'm more than slightly jealous of), co-director of Death Watch a group against the death penalty, and he had the moral standing to turn down the advances of a nubile young student out for an easy A (Rhona Mitra). Now, however, he's in jail, about to be condemned with the very punishment he's spent his life protesting against, having been convicted of the rape and murder of his friend, colleague and fellow protester, Constance Harroway (Laura Linney). Three days before his scheduled execution, Gale requests three interviews with ambitious yet unfortunately named magazine journalist Bitsey Bloom (Kate Winslet), to whom he tells his story in the hope that she will believe him, and discover whoever is behind his supposed framing for the crime he says he didn't commit.

Iris

Iris Murdoch (Judi Dench), the celebrated British author, is writing her 26th, and ultimately last, novel, Jackson's Dilemma, when she begins to experience the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. Her husband, John Bayley (Jim Broadbent), always the less dominant half of the couple, struggles to cope with the situation and care for his wife. Meanwhile, we see the beginnings of their relationship, as their younger selves (Kate Winslet and Hugh Bonneville) meet as students at Oxford University whilst she attempts to get her first novel published.

Carnage

After their sons have an altercation in the park, their parents get together to settle the matter over coffee and cobbler. Just as the Cowans (Kate Wisnlet and Christoph Waltz), the parents of the fight's assailant, are leaving the Longstreet's (Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly) apartment, they end up being drawn together for the rest of the evening under various circumstances, be it phone calls, not wishing to upset the neighbours by arguing outside or one of the party throwing up everywhere. Tempers fray, bonds are formed and broken, alcohol is drunk and all politeness and civility is thrown out the window.

Contagion

Chaos descends onto the world when a deadly, and highly contagious, illness descends worldwide, seemingly beginning with Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow), who has just returned from a business trip to Hong Kong. The CDC are soon brought in to deal with the situation, but things rapidly spiral out of their control as the illness spreads across the country. We follow the outbreak from the points of view of those desperate to stop it, members of the public affected by the crisis, and the few who see it as an opportunity for personal gain.

The Holiday

Iris (Kate Winslet), a London-based journalist, has just had her heart destroyed by her colleague Jasper, who she has longed after for many years, but he's just got engaged to someone else. Meanwhile Amanda (Cameron Diaz), the owner of a hugely successful L.A. movie trailer company, has just discovered her boyfriend Ethan (Edward Burns) is cheating on her. Both women decide they need to get away from everything for a few weeks, so opt for a house swap, trading homes for a fortnight over the Christmas period. But when they had originally hoped to get away from love, they each end up finding it in the most unexpected of places.

Christmas Carol: The Movie

Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly debt collector in 19th century London, is something of a git. He shuns all those around him, choosing to spend Christmas alone instead of with his nephew, his only living relative. He is cruel to his clients and staff, rude to charity collectors and has no qualms with ordering people to be locked up and their furniture repossessed on Christmas Eve. Oh, and he pours a bucket of cold water onto Tiny Tim, a sickly carol singer, who also happens to be the son of Scrooge's secretary, Bob Cratchit. After finishing work on Christmas Eve, Scrooge is visited by the spirit of his former business partner, Jacob Marley, who warns him that he will be visited by three more ghosts before the morning, in the hope that Scrooge will change his miserly ways and live a better life, or face the same fate as Marley.

Enigma

Bletchley Park, 60 miles outside London during the Second World War. The Germans have just changed the codes they use for their military communications, so the English bring in Tom Jericho (Dougray Scott), their former code breaking prodigy who was the only one able to crack the codes last time around. The problem is, Jericho went a little bit insane after some business involving his former lover Claire (Saffron Burrows), who has recently disappeared. On top of all this, there's a rumour of a mole inside Bletchley Park, and when Tom investigates Claire's disappearance with her room mate Hester (Kate Winslet), Tom finds incriminating evidence that could point towards Claire being the culprit, and he even finds himself under suspicion. Oh, and of course he's working against the clock, as there's a flotilla of US supply ships heading directly towards a cluster of German U-boats, and only his code-cracking skills can possible save them.

Quills

The Marquis de Sade (Geoffrey Rush) has been imprisoned by Napoleon for writing sexually explicit novels Justine and Juliette. Whilst in prisoned at the Charenton Insane Asylum, de Sade uses a laundry maid (Kate Winslet) to smuggle out his scripts. The Abbe de Coulmier (Joaquin Phoenix), who runs the asylum, battles constantly with the rebellious de Sade, until eventually Dr. Royer-Collard (Michael Caine), a conditioning expert, is brought in to 'cure' the man.

Holy Smoke

Hurrah, another Jane Campion film. I can't say I was much of a fan of The Piano, so I wasn't much looking forward to this, the next available film featuring Kate Winslet (Hideous Kinky and Faeries are as yet out of my reach).

Winslet plays Ruth, a young Australian girl (with a distinctly English accent) who has travelled to India to find herself. As well as finding that, she discovers and becomes willingly entangled in a mass marriage/suicide cult, and her understandably concerned family would rather she just came home. After Ruth's mother (Julie Hamilton) manages to persuade her daughter to come back to Sydney with her, utilising a fake illness for her father and a very real asthma attack for her mother, the family bring in P. J. Waters (Harvey Keitel), a professional 'exit counsellor,' an expert at convincing people to give up their new found cultish beliefs and return to their previous lives.

Hamlet

There are some films on the List that I've no idea when I'll get to them. These films fall into three categories - the ones I absolutely adore but have no clue how I'll even start writing about them, the ones I desperately do not want to watch (but am too much of an anal completist to ignore) and the really long ones. This four-hour-plus cut of Hamlet obviously falls into the latter, but fortunately for me, my girlfriend opted for Kate Winslet as her Film-Maker of choice, and seeing as I've reached that point in Winslet's career in which she appeared in Hamlet as Ophelia, I can cross off Kenneth Branagh's opus from the Empire 5-Star 500. As for the unspeakable films I don't want to see, whenever LoveFilm drop Salo through my letterbox it shall not be a good day, though I could pull an In The Realm Of The Senses and bottle it when I've taken as much as I can stand.

Jude

I had a discussion with my girlfriend recently about The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, instigated by my viewing of the unimpressive trailer for the new remake (in 3D, of course). When I explained the basic premise - a group of kids run into a family of skin-wearing cannibals - she was appalled at A) why someone would watch such a film, B) why someone would make it, and C) what kind of depraved soul would own such a monstrosity. I then answered questions A and C (she wouldn't have cared that Tobe Hooper made it) by pointing to the copy of the film on my DVD shelf. Why do I bring this up? Well, though I'm not a massive fan of horror (I haven't seen The Texas Chain Saw Massacre since I bought it), I will occasionally watch a film for the same reasons I go on rollercoasters; they add a certain element of thrill and excitement - and terror - otherwise missing from my humdrum existence on this Earth. My question is, who would watch, make or own a film like Jude?

A Kid in King Arthur's Court

It seems I didn't quite think through the strategy of watching the entire careers of various prestigious film-makers. Who'd have thought that, before they became renowned and laden with numerous awards, actors would take any roles going to pay the rent, regardless of the claptrap they may be. And so it is with A Kid in King Arthur's Court, the family-friendly second entry on Kate Winslet's CV, and what I hope will be the worst, although seeing as I've still got The Holiday to watch at some point, this may not be the case.

Heavenly Creatures

Christchurch, New Zealand, the mid-1950s. Two girls, Pauline (Melanie Lynskey) and Juliet (Kate Winslet) run terrified through the dense forest, the air streaked with their screams and their faces streaked with blood. They burst through the bushes and emerge to the concerned face of a passer-by with the words "It's Mummy! She's terribly hurt!"So begins Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures, the true story of two schoolgirls whose problematic home lives forge a bridge between them, a bridge that leads to a fantasy world of princes and princesses, giant butterflies, murder, topiary and unicorns. But when their parents strive to separate the two, the girls hatch a plan to remain together by taking drastic actions.

Top 5... Films of the Film-Makers I'm Watching

I know what you're thinking: "A Top 5? On a Monday? Madness!" and you're correct. However, this isn't any old Top 5. No, it's a Top 5 that's actually five Top 5s, all of which are likely to change over the next few months. Basically, as regular readers will know I've recently decided to watch all of the films by some of my favourite film-makers, but I thought I'd give you all a taste of my opinions of them before I completely submerge myself. So, below, are my current Top 5 lists of the films of George Clooney, the Coen brothers, Alfred Hitchcock, Steve McQueen and Kate Winslet. I'll re-do each person's list once I've finished all of their films. Chances are, if you're favourite of their films isn't on any of the lists then I haven't watched it yet. Or you're wrong.

Sense and Sensibility

 Lord Dashwood (Tom Wilkinson) passes away and, unable to split his vast estate between his two families, his wife and three daughters are ousted from their palatial mansion by their half-brother John (James Fleet) and his vile wife Fanny (Harriet Walter), and are forced to considerably downsize their opulent lifestyles. Hope, it seems, arrives in the forms of Fanny's reserved brother Edward (Hugh Grant) and the dashing Mr. Willoughby (Greg Wise), who each take a shining to two of the Dashwood sisters (Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet).

Titanic

Now bear with me here, but I do actually really like Titanic. This may all stem from a fascination with the tragedy as a child, but its also in part due to James Cameron’s direction of a film too easily written off as a soppy romance that just happens to be set aboard the most famous nautical disaster of all time, other than Speed 2: Cruise Control. What Cameron does is take 1958s A Night to Remember, the foremost Titanic film pre-1997, and add characters you genuinely care about; DiCaprio’s steerage class ragamuffin and Winslet’s pressured poor little rich girl, as well as a sense of spectacle unavailable to film makers in the pre-CGI movie making era. There is a clear divide in the film – and eventually in the ship too – around the half way mark, once the inevitable iceberg has viciously assaulted the great ship and departed without exchanging insurance details, where the gender that the film panders to switches. Initially, the tale of an across-the-tracks romance between the leads and comparisons of their expertly realised respective classes, culminating in a steamy encounter in a car in storage is squarely aimed at the female half of the audience, but as soon as the Atlantic ocean decides it wants to come aboard and everything starts taking place on an ever increasing incline, the ensuing carnage, death and destruction should appeal to any man with a penchant for disaster movies.

Weaving fact (Kathy Bates’ ‘unsinkable’ Molly Brown) with fiction (Apparently one reason the iceberg wasn’t spotted until it was too late was due to Jack and Rose sharing a passionate snog on deck) it isn’t difficult to understand why this was the Biggest Film of All Time™ until Jimbo’s latest azure-tinged epic.

Negative points? At 3 hours it’s a bit of a trek, and the multiple villains (there’s at least four, not counting the iceberg) are all a bit too one-note to be believable, even though one, Jonathan Hyde’s weaselly marketing man Bruce Ismay, is based on a real person. There are also a few too many shout-at-the –screen moments of stupidity on behalf of the leads escape attempts – surely Rose would have realised Jack would have a better chance of survival on his own, if she has got on a lifeboat. That being said, there isn’t enough to detract from the quality of the film, with the characters and story never being overshadowed by the stellar effects work.

Choose film 8/10