Saturday 16 January 2021

Miss Jean Louise, stand up....

Golden Anniversary
During Lockdown Three Point Zero, you take your celebrations where you can. So, if The Harry Potter Film Club has to meet on Zoom, then so be it. The group started as a prelude to watching The Cursed Child at the the theatre (in the olden days of theatre-going) because one person had limited knowledge of the Wizarding World. But then it continued, fuelled by a love of wine and cake and sociable bonhomie. And we decided to mark the 50th film with dressing up as characters from films we’d already watched, thus, above:
  • No-Face from Spirited Away
  • Sadness from Inside Out
  • Idgie Threadgoode from Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop CafĂ© 
  • Mr Perks from The Railway Children and
  • Lina Lamont from Singin’ in the Rain
Hey, Boo, fifty films and counting
There have been
  • 10 Fantasies
  • 7 Comedies
  • 5 Animations
  • 5 Documentaries
  • 4 Dramas
  • 3 Historical Films
  • 3 Crime Thrillers
  • 3 Musicals
  • 2 Biopics
  • 2 Family Films
  • 2 Literary Adaptations
  • 2 SciFi Movies
  • 1 Disaster Movie and
  • 1 Satire.
Over half were made since the Millennium and the earliest so far was 1940's Pinocchio. The 50th anniversary film choice was Robert Mulligan’s 1962 movie of Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird with landmark performances by Gregory Peck (as Atticus Finch), Estelle Evans (as Calpurnia), Mary Badham, Phillip Alford and John Megna (as Scout, Jem and Dill), Brock Peters (as Tom Robinson), and Robert Duvall (as Arthur (Boo) Radley.) With mood-perfect rhythms and music by Elmer Bernstein and a miraculously faithful adaptation by Horton Foote, the movie captures the spirit of the novel without simplifying any of the moral and legal complexities. The film remains light touch in the way a modern version, I think, would be far more heavy-handed.

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