Konterr
Brilliant and touching
Forumrxes
Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.
Fairaher
The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.
AttyTude0
I would leave it at that, but I believe I am obliged to write 10 lines. Ten lines to state the obvious? Oh, well. This is what happens when I'm not in charge.I must admit that I soon tired of this film and didn't watch the end. One of the reasons is that I found nothing humorous in this film, which is presented as a comedy. At least I never found the combination of old age and sex amusing. To me it's pathetic and embarrassing. Like the proverbial "excentric" old relative who's very sweet and all that, but it's wiser to keep out of sight, locked up somewhere. Watching the great Judi Dench prancing about, acting the naughty, profane and rude (in a most unfunny way) little old lady was painful beyond endurance. I mean, she says things like the saddest thing that could have happened to her son was not being killed in the war, but having died without seeing a pair of tits ... need I elaborate?This film has enough nudity and "sexual content" to please those who have turned postponed adolescence into a habit, or for the gullible, who are fooled into believing things like paying taxes is patriotic, or that smut can be disguised as art. If you must waste your time, there are better ways of doing it than watching this silliness.
Roedy Green
This movie pulls on the heartstrings even though the two leads are cantankerous old birds (Dench and Hoskins) who snipe at each other with great wit and energy. It tells the story of a Windmill Theatre in the London West End through incarnation after incarnation it is forced into to stay afloat. There is lots of music of many genres, dancing and female nudity, and more female nudity.WWII sneaks up on them. It is all the more horrible the way it imposes itself, hurting innocent people, even though nobody had any political or military interest.The movie ends with some Andrews sisters and Vera-Lynn style music affirming the war will end and they will prevail. Outside the streets are filled with rubble. The music is full of love and hope, nothing at all about getting even or killing the Germans.It focuses on the minor emotional trials of war, and less on being blown to bits. It is closer to ordinary life, and hence got under my skin more easily.The main problem with the movie is they treat the female actresses as furniture. Their sole job is to sit like statues (required by the Lord Chamberlain) stark naked. Bertie is only male dancer/singer. Yet we learn nothing of his private life. He is handsome and charming, so the lack of story seems odd. They could have clipped a few of the less spectacular dance numbers to drop a few hints.
secondtake
Mrs. Henderson Presents (2005)A terrific story and a straight up, almost stodgy telling of that story. The two main actors—Judi Dench and Bob Hoskins—are so stellar, the movie is a joy to watch. But director Stephen Frears seems determined to not make this dramatic, and so we have a well made but uninvolving kind of filmmaking. The result is fun but disappointing—and the more fun it seems, the more disappointing it is as a movie.The concept is totally winning, and taps into the WWII patriotism of London surviving the Blitz as well as an older woman rising out of recent widowhood to really DO something with her remaining life. And she does, buying an old theater and hiring a man to run it. A musical review (vaudeville) act is established. When this has only temporary success, they launch into the real hook of the theater, and of the movie: nude women (no men) would be used as stage props during the performances.Naturally the men love it, especially the soldiers who flock to the place. Censors find a way to accept it, the public finds a way to love it, and our leading pair charge ahead with their restrained English version of the French theater free-for-all of, say, Moulin Rouge. All of this is great in its own way. Our two leads are developed quite well as characters, though always with a feeling of distance. And the remaining cast is thoroughly kept away from any emotional complexity. Even the troubling issue of several women having to take their clothes off is given modest, unprobing attention, even though that might be the second most powerful part of the movie.The first most powerful aspect is of course the relationship between the leads. It's interesting. You might even say it's predictable, except that it isn't quite. But their mutual respect and mutual wariness of each other personally ends up unchanged from start to finish. That they have a kind of platonic love is the point, but it's really not much of a point.I wanted to love this film and I loved the idea of the film for sure. But the detachment from intensity and depth is astonishing. Even the camera almost never gets close, rarely showing a real expression with any intensity, instead giving the big view. Someone made a stylistic decision to do all this, and make it an explanation of the facts rather than an immersion in them. And it doesn't quite work.
lovefaithtruth
I came to this movie after seeing Bent and getting to Martin Sherman. Wanted to lap everything that he had created and looked forward to this treat.What a disappointment! What starts an endearing quip between Judi and Biob becomes repetitive and after a while 'oh shut up'. The research that must have gone to make this was very inadequate so the plot remained centred around rich woman, arrogant manager of the theatre she owned, nude women - that was it..and of course a world war. one would think that would be enough, instead the writer scrapes for material and makes conversations out of thin air which are mere reel-fills.you don't really know where its going after a while, and unless you are seriously interested in female nudity - this will be a big yawn. its a tragedy that a movie with sound potential could become a big disaster sustained only by the might of its actors - even they however need heavy duty lifting to manage.
