William Norton's Election Week At The Movies

THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE
(UNLESS YOU LIVE IN TOWER HAMLETS, IN WHICH CASE HE’LL PROBABLY BE SKIPPING YOUR HOUSE AND CALLING 1,700 TIMES AT THE HUT DOWN THE ROAD WITH A LARGE SACK OF BALLOT PAPERS)
No publicity material available at the time this review went to press.

WAITING FOR GORDO
The film of the absurdist play.  Two dozen tramps hang around Downing Street waiting for the arrival of a friendly rescuer - who never turns up.  They then try to hang themselves.

Starring: Jack Straw as Estragon; John Prescott as Vladimir; Charles Clarke as Pozzo; Geoff Hoon as Lucky

CH verdict: Watching this story unfold will allow you to acquire a heightened awareness of the tedium and meaninglessness of human existence.

À BOUT DE RE-SHOUFFLE
Classic French film from Jean-Luc Goddard and Francois Truffaut.  Antoine is a young thug who models himself on Humphrey Bogart.  He hijacks a minor Western European democracy, but, while driving it around, he has an unfortunate accident with the police and is forced to go on the run.  He roams about the capital, desperately trying to save himself by conducting frantic reshuffles of his friends.  He tries to persuade his girl to flee with him to Italy, where his pal Silvio has a hideaway, but the plans come to nothing as the police net tightens….

Starring: Jean-Paul Belmondo as Antoine; Jean Seberg as Cherie.

CH verdict: the Police do seem to take rather a long time to hand out justice.

CITY HALL
Thriller.  New York has an idealistic mayor pledged to deliver harmony and justice.  But then an investigation into a policing mistake uncovers the hidden truth about the secret deals which keep his administration going.  Is he going to be forced out in scandal?  How long have you got?  In the meantime, the Tories kick out all his councillors anyway.

Starring: Al Pacino as Mayor Blair; John Cusack as the investigator

CH verdict: the best bit is the sequence showing the declaration of poll for 270 new Conservative councillors.  Up yours, BBC.

BECKETT
Medieval drama.  The King decides to appoint a trusty stooge to run his clerics – but quickly realises he’s made a disastrous mistake: he thought Beckett lacked a mind of her own, but it turns out she doesn’t really have a mind at all.  Time to arrange a tragic misunderstanding (perhaps involving frequent air flights?)

Starring: Peter O’Toole as the King; Richard Burton in a dazzling trailblazing cross-dressing role as Archbishop Margaret à Beckett.

CH verdict: the audience will be understandably confused when the King asks “Who will rid me of this turbulent thief?” and the knights think he’s referring to himself.

THE LONG GOODBYE FRIDAY
Crime thriller.  A very large number of Labour candidates call on the Prime Minister on the Friday after polling day to present their interpretation of the election results.  He feels their pain – and so he should; he caused it.

Starring: Bob Hoskins as the lovable villain trying to pull off one last big deal, but plagued by bombs going off everywhere around him; 3,875,578 extras as defeated Labour councillors

CH verdict: probably the best British gangster movie ever made – certainly features the most successful British gangster.

JOHN REID: LIVE AT THE LONDON PALLADIUM
Comedy video of a real performance.  Lovable joker explains how he’s going to restore confidence in the criminal justice system.

CH verdict: It’ll have you in stitches – which is more than Reid managed to do when he was Health Secretary.

Comments

[Graeme Archer]

Thank you William!

[kingbongo]

William, every week you set the bar a little higher; surely Iain Dale should be publishing a book of reviews as a companion volume to the little red book of Labour sleaze.