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Brideshead Revisited but Why?

October 26, 2008

I've just been to see the movie and am left with the question WHY pounding in my head. I remember the TV series as being six months of action packed triumph and tragedy yet the 2 hours and 15 minutes seemed to drag in the cinema. The lady taking the tickets tried to stop the young things ahead of us from going in! They didn't last long and weren't the only ones. It's not a terrible film, it all looks beautiful and the chap who plays Charles Ryder is very good and of course Emma Thompson is captivating but it doesn't seem very different from the TV series and certainly wasn't better. Of course, I watched the TV series in 1982 so I'm probably not in a very good position to be comparing. Also, a further minus as far as the movie version was concerned was the bloke in front of us who was eating caramel popcorn which comes in the crinkliest bag known to mankind and should be banned from all cinemas if not the universe although on the other hand him reaching into it did wake me up on a couple of occasions.

I watched a really good movie on DVD the other day though called In the Valley of Elah with Tommy Lee Jones (he's the actor not Pam Anderson's husband, right?) and the fabulous Charlize Theron. It's about a Dad looking for his son who has gone AWOL after getting back from Iraq. A pretty sad but incredibly subtle and brilliantly acted film about the reality of war, whether you are for it or against.

XSK

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