About
Reviews (3)
09 March 2016
A wonderful score
I waited a long time to find this CD; from my first viewing I loved the music. The mix of African and Gaelic themes is compelling. It doesn't hurt that the last five tracks are by the World Beaters, the first two featuring Nusra Fateh Ali Khan, who has a lovely voice, In other words, I got more than I expected. Highly recommended.
16 March 2016
The Classic
2 of 2 found this helpful They don't make films like this anymore. The great screwball comedies (My Man Godfrey); the romantic comedies (Philadelphia Story) and least of all, something approximating The Thin Man series with William Powell and Myrna Loy. Witty dialogue, good characters and a very solid plot mark each of these four films. The only negative is the little boy in the fourth film --too much the Hollywood Kid.. Otherwise, everyone rings true and, in the manner of very good movies, even the bit players do their jobs well. The lighting and camera angles are appropriate to the plot, unlike so many modern films where the director uses darkness for its own sake. We watched all four on four successive nights and were left yearning for another... that can't be said about too many series. Brilliant.
16 March 2016
A neglected minor masnterpiece
don't understand why this film isn't shown more. To begin with, the two stars, Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson, have long been among the greatest of British actors. Branagh plays two roles (as does she); a German composer and an American private eye. His accents in both cases are pitch perfect. Thompson is the murdered American wife of the composer (for which he was put to death) and an amnesiac who is befriended by the PI. The events are thirty years apart but somehow are connected... Andy Garcia appears as a cynical reporter covering the wedding of the composer and his beautiful wife, and thirty years later, a creepy old man in a hospital; his smoking (noted in the first appearance) has caught up with him and he must breathe through a trach. As my wife said, if she dd smoke, that scene alone would make her quit. But Garcia has one important piece of information for Mike (Branagh's second role) for he covered the composer's execution and received his last words.
I won't go into the finale, when Mike finally realizes what is happening. It's tense and unexpected. A marvelous film if only for the acting of the three principle stares --Branagh, Thompson and Garcia. I highly recommend it.
By the way, the story is told in flashbacks, but they're easy to follow. The "now" is in color; the "then" is in black and white.