lrpulini

Yes, I absolutely loved this series. I would watch Glover in anything but he is really good here and I am happy to have discovered Erskine as another one to always watch. All the cameos are so much fun and Mrs Glover was a nice surprise. The series is way more interesting than the movie and the two leads are so authentic and complex. There are a lot of locations here (first, NYC), as well so lots of scenic eye candy. Yes, there is a lot of dialogue but it is crucial to the story. Good direction and editing as well.

Trust me: Give this a chance and you will be hooked. Hoping there is a Season 2.

This film only scratched the surface of what is probably a wonderful story. By focusing on the destestable Mrs. Henderson, the audience never got to know the much more interesting people, like Van Dam, the girls, the singers, etc. Judi Dench does her best, and Bob Hoskins is a delight, but the screeenwriters completely failed at getting us interested in any of these people or the sacrifices they made for their "art". Also, were nudity and homosexuality really that acceptable in the late 30s and 40s, particularly among the upper class? The film also sentimentalizes the sleazy aspect of the whole enterprise, which was equivalent to a "peep show" in a seedy part of Soho, according to a friend of mine, who lived in London in the late 50s. The "tableaus" were no way as beautiful as they are shown in the film. I was very surprised that Frears directed this-it was a little shoddy and the lousy screenplay didn't help, particularly with the stupid subplot about the blonde, which is about as musty as three-day old cheese. All in all, a fair film about a fabulous subject.

This was a mildly entertaining, slightly inconsequential vanity production mounted by Pierce Brosnan to move farther away from his James Bond image. My theory is when actors are locked into suave and debonair playboy or Everyman good-guy roles, they should always play either a hit man for a serial killer. It has worked for a number of people, notably John Travolta and Tom Hanks. Brosnan was terrific, looked really degenerate (ok by me-I like him scruffy), and seemed to be having a ball. Greg Kinnear and Hope Davis were also fine, and I enjoyed the two cameos by Dylan Baker and Philip Baker Hall. This was really a cross between Strangers on a Train and Pulp Fiction, but it did not take the usual turns and had a couple of surprises.

The interesting thing about this film was the totally negative and in my opinion, unwarranted, reaction it received from the audience at a screening of the Talk Cinema series. This series shows films a couple of weeks or months before they are released, in order to get audience feedback, and has 15 venues across the U.S. The audience is comprised of 30-60+ year old well-educated, well-heeled male and female patrons, in Suburban Philadelphia, PA. During the Q&A, following the film, 90% of the audience pronounced it "trash", "garbage", "offensive" and "totally a waste of time". In the five years, since I have been attending the series, I never saw a simple little Indie film get such a visceral response. Apparently, this was shown at many recent film festivals and had good word of mouth.

I will be interested to see if anyone else in Talk Cinema has seen this and what the audience reactions were in their part of the country.