...for loads of DVDs to start piling up in our postbox! Since Astrid was born, we don't get to the cinema much anymore (like, actually never) and last year was pretty chaotic so we didn't actually get around to watching very many of Matthew's BAFTA screeners, but this year we're really trying to get stuck in. Sadly, we've only seen one film so far, but it was a really good one: The Guard. (Okay - it's really good if you liked In Bruges, which was directed by this guy's brother, and you don't mind a lot of swearing, good-natured racism, prostitutes and casual violence. So, not your cup of tea, Mom!)
So we're trying to be conscientious BAFTA members but this year's film-makers aren't making it easy. A lot of the films they're sending are challenging, to say the least. This is the batch they sent yesterday, along with my thumbnail reviews. My analysis is based, as usual, on a mish-mash of things I've heard on the radio, headlines of reviews I haven't read in full, and posters I've seen on the Tube, usually as my train is speeding past the platform.
The Deep Blue Sea - based on a Terrence Rattigan play and starring Rachel Weisz as the ruined woman. Looks dreary, though I'm sure the art direction is very good and she looks amazing in period costume.
Melancholia - Lars van Trier. Ugh. Kirsten Dunst. Double ugh. About the actual destruction of the world, unlikely to be a real upper.
We Need to Talk about Kevin - School shooting and associated parental guilt. Although every review I've read quotes the hilarious line, "Mummy used to be happy. Now Mummy wakes up every day and wishes she were in France," I can't imagine this will actually be very funny.
Wuthering Heights - Andrea Arnold's gritty, realist interpretation of an overwrought Romantic novel - now with added race issues! Apparently, her tactic of using non-actors is not as successful here as in her earlier film Fish Tank (which really was very good).
Archipelago - according to the Guardian, this film is "subtle, mysterious, murky and utterly distinctive". Note that the word "entertaining" is not used (though the Telegraph does say it is "hilariously uncomfortable". Okay).
Fire in Babylon - a doco about West Indies cricket in the 1970s/80s. Might actually be fun to watch.
Knuckle - a doco about bare-knuckle boxing in the Traveller (Gypsy) community. Likely not as much fun to watch. The Guardian calls is a black comedy without the comedy - ouch!
Sleeping Beauty - weird, Australian psycho-sexual drama, rumoured to be quite arty. Bleurgh.
Snowtown - an "often unwatchable" Australian serial killer movie about "a twisted family and a blighted community", a "social-realist horror show". But based on a true story! Good times!
All I can say is bring on Arthur Christmas, Tin Tin and The Muppets.
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