The featured film in February 2022 was Schindler’s List (1993). We reviewed the film and feedback was all about the power of the imagery and for many a reminder of the movie that had not been watched since first viewed. It was highly rated – in fact the highest received to date from the club members attending – 8.5 average.
The Storyline
Oskar Schindler is a vain and greedy German businessman who becomes an unlikely humanitarian amid the barbaric German Nazi reign when he feels compelled to turn his factory into a refuge for Jews.
Businessman Schindler (Liam Neeson) arrives in Krakow in 1939, ready to exploit and make his fortune from World War II, which has just started. After joining the Nazi party for political expediency, he recruits Jewish workers to his factory. When the SS begins exterminating Jews in the Krakow ghetto, Schindler arranges to have his workers protected to keep his factory in operation, but soon realizes that in so doing, he is also saving innocent lives.
Based on the true story of Oskar Schindler who managed to save about 1,100 Jews.
The Peanut Butter Falcon is an adventure story set in the world of a modern Mark Twain that begins when Zak, a young man with Down Syndrome, runs away from the nursing home where he lives to chase his dream of becoming a professional wrestler by attending the wrestling school of Salt Water Redneck.
Through circumstances beyond their control Tyler, a small-time outlaw on the run, becomes Zak’s unlikely coach and ally. Together they wind through deltas, elude capture, drink whisky, find God, catch fish, and convince Eleanor, Zak’s carer and nursing home employee with a story of her own, to join them on their journey.
The Club Review Group met on 16th January at 19:30 giving it a rating between 6 and 9 – the common critique was generally positive but some features towards the end were unnecessary and implausible. The general depiction of Zak and Tyler was greatly admired.
A sensitive and soulful man earns a living by writing personal letters for other people. Left heartbroken after his marriage ends, Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) becomes fascinated with a new operating system which reportedly develops into an intuitive and unique entity in its own right. He starts the program and meets “Samantha” (Scarlett Johansson), whose bright voice reveals a sensitive, playful personality. Though “friends” initially, the relationship soon deepens into love.
Jonze conceived the idea in the early 2000s after reading an article about a website that allowed for instant messaging with an artificial intelligence program. After making I’m Here (2010), a short film sharing similar themes, Jonze returned to the idea. He wrote the first draft of the script in five months. Principal photography took place in Los Angeles and Shanghai in mid-2012. The role of Samantha was recast in post-production, with Samantha Morton being replaced with Johansson. Additional scenes were filmed in August 2013 following the casting change.
The film created lively debate amongst film club members as the concept and believeability varied in appeal.There was some surprise at the UK rating.
The October 2021 Club Film was A Month in the Country
The Storyline
Two shaken soldiers (Colin Firth, Kenneth Branagh) recover from World War I one summer in a Yorkshire village.
The film is an adaptation of the 1980 novel of the same name by J. L. Carr, and stars Colin Firth, Kenneth Branagh, Natasha Richardson and Patrick Malahide. The screenplay was by Simon Gray.
Set in rural Yorkshire during the summer of 1920, the film follows a destitute World War I veteran employed to carry out restoration work on a Medieval mural discovered in a rural church while coming to terms with the after-effects of the war.
The film was shot during the summer of 1986 and featured an original score by Howard Blake. The film has been neglected since its 1987 cinema release and it was only in 2004 that an original 35 mm film print was discovered, due to the intervention of a fan.
The film received mixed reviews from the film club on the 17th October 2021 at 19:30.
The first version was reviewed by the Club members for a compare and contrast exercise with the 2004 version.
The Storyline (1962)
An American POW in the Korean War is brainwashed as an unwitting assassin for an international Communist conspiracy.
Near the end of the Korean War, a platoon of U.S. soldiers is captured by communists and brainwashed. Following the war, the platoon is returned home, and Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey) is lauded as a hero by the rest of his platoon. However, the platoon commander, Captain Bennett Marco (Frank Sinatra), finds himself plagued by strange nightmares and, together with fellow soldier Allen Melvin (James Edwards), races to uncover a terrible plot.
The two versions of The manchurian candidate were reviewed by the Club in September.
The Storyline (2004)
Kuwait, 1991. Seized in a nocturnal ambush during the Gulf War, the platoon led by Major Bennett Marco (Denzel Washington) and Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber) are taken to a secret island laboratory. There they are brainwashed and implanted with mind-control chips by the sinister Manchurian Global corporation. False memories of Shaw’s bravery are implanted and Shaw returns to America a decorated hero.
Washington, the present. Shaw secures a vice-presidential nomination after bullying intervention by his mother, Senator Eleanor Prentiss Shaw (Meryl Streep), who is in uneasy alliance with Manchurian Global. Marco and his surviving platoon members suffer nightmare flashbacks challenging Shaw’s heroism. In a violent confrontation with Shaw, Marco uncovers a microchip implanted in the candidate’s back. Expert Richard Delp (Bruno Ganz) examines it and, via electroshock therapy, helps Marco recall what really happened in Kuwait.
Marco’s superiors are sceptical but FBI agent Rosie (Kimberly Elise) becomes his confidante. The brainwashed Shaw responds to subconscious triggers from Manchurian Global and murders several people who threaten his political ambitions. In New York, Marco and Rosie try to reason with him. Eleanor Prentiss Shaw, the mastermind of the plot, uses subconscious triggers to control Marco, ordering him to attend her party’s Election Day rally. Marco is programmed to kill the new president-elect, leaving Shaw free to rule America alone. But Shaw, battling against his brainwashing, makes sure both he and his mother are slain by Marco’s bullet, averting a corporate coup d’état.
A wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbours from his Greenwich Village courtyard apartment window, and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder, despite the skepticism of his fashion-model girlfriend.
Rear Window is a 1954 American mystery thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and written by John Michael Hayes based on Cornell Woolrich’s 1942 short story “It Had to Be Murder”. Originally released by Paramount Pictures, the film stars James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter, and Raymond Burr. It was screened at the 1954 Venice Film Festival.
The film is considered by many filmgoers, critics, and scholars to be one of Hitchcock’s best[4] and one of the greatest films ever made. It received four Academy Award nominations and was ranked number 42 on AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movies list and number 48 on the 10th-anniversary edition, and in 1997 was added to the United States National Film Registry in the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
The film was generally well received by the Film Club on 25th July at 19:30 although some mebers thought it rather dated.
a 1990 Irish drama film written and directed by Jim Sheridan and starring Richard Harris, John Hurt, Sean Bean, Brenda Fricker and Tom Berenger. It was adapted from John B. Keane’s 1965 play of the same name. The film is set in the early 1930s in County Kerry, although it was shot almost entirely in the Connemara village of Leenaun.
“Bull” McCabe (Richard Harris) has spent three decades tending a rented field on the bluffs by the sea in Ireland. When the wealthy widow who owns the plot decides to sell it, she holds an open auction to spite McCabe. A rich American (Tom Berenger) with visions of a factory on the site outbids him, and McCabe then schemes with his emotionally crippled son, Tadgh (Sean Bean), to hold on to the land — his only consolation in a life of loss, toil and a marriage gone sour.
The Club reviewed the film on 27th June 2021 at 19:30. It received rather mixed reviews – a ‘marmite’ movie – adored or disliked.
An American courtroom drama written by Reginald Rose concerning the jury of a homicide trial. It was broadcast initially as a television play in 1954. The following year it was adapted for the stage. It was adapted for a film of the same name, directed by Sidney Lumet and released in 1957. Since then it has been given numerous remakes, adaptations, and tributes.
The play explores the deliberations of a jury of a homicide trial, in which a dozen “men with ties” decide the fate of a teenager accused of murdering his abusive father. At the beginning, they are nearly unanimous in concluding the youth is guilty. One man dissents, declaring him “not guilty”, and he sows a seed of reasonable doubt. Eventually he persuades the other jurors to support a unanimous “not guilty” verdict.
The Club review exposed very mixed reviews of the film. Rated from 4-8.
A 59 year old carpenter recovering from a heart attack befriends a single mother and her two kids as they navigate their way through the impersonal, Kafkaesque benefits system. With equal amounts of humor, warmth and despair, the journey is heartfelt and emotional until the end.
Directed by Ken Loach and written by his long-time collaborator Paul Laverty, it stars Dave Johns as Daniel Blake, who is denied Employment and Support Allowance despite his doctor finding him unfit to work. Hayley Squires co-stars as Katie, a struggling single mother whom Daniel befriends.
The film won the Palme d’Or at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, the Prix du public at the 2016 Locarno International Film Festival and the 2017 BAFTA Award for Outstanding British Film.
The Club review session was very animated and praised the film
The March 2021 Film Review was Stranger than Fiction
The Storyline
I.R.S. auditor Harold Crick suddenly finds his mundane Chicago life to be the subject of narration only he can hear: narration that begins to affect his entire existence, from his work to his love life to his death.
A fun, whimsical tale about an office drone trying to save his life from his narrator, Stranger Than Fiction features a subdued performances from Will Ferrell that contributes mightily to its quirky, mind-bending affect.
The main plot follows Harold Crick (Ferrell), an IRS agent who begins hearing a disembodied voice narrating his life as it happens – seemingly the text of a novel in which it is stated that he, the main character, will soon die – and he frantically seeks to somehow prevent that ending. The film was shot on location in Chicago, and has been praised for its innovative, intelligent story and fine performances. Ferrell, who came to prominence playing brash comedic parts, garnered particular attention for offering a restrained performance in his first starring dramatic role.
HW Film Club 