Jane spotted the film “I’ve Loved You So Long” (Il y a longtemps que je t’aime) on someone’s list of the films that should have won oscars but weren’t even nominated and last night we watched it (courtesy of the excellent VPL DVD collection) and it really is a great performance by Kristin Scott Thomas et al. This is a very good film and certainly should have had a nod from the 2008 Oscars. Highly recommended.

Lately we’ve been letting the PVR record the daily broadcasts of old “Inside the Actor’s Studio” interviews with actors etc. Sometimes it’s just “not interested… hit delete” but often we watch enjoy these interviews and a recent Al Pacino interview caused us to realise that we had never seen “Dog Day Afternoon”(1976)… off to the VPL which has a great collection of videos and in a few days, we had it. What a great film! Sidney Lumet directed, following up on their 1973 collaboration for “Serpico” (more…)

Last night we watched “The Whole Wide World” a 1996 film that we’d missed hearing about when it was first released. Renée Zellweger and Vincent D’Onofrio both excellent in the story based on the book by Novalyne Price about her relationship in the 1930’s with the ‘greatest’ pulp fiction writer Robert Howard. This was Renée Zellweger’s first serious work (more…)

Can a good movie be made for just $250,000 ? Last night we watched Quinceañera and decided that clever film makers could. This great little Sundance winner (Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award) doesn’t seem “cheap”, it just seems real. The settings are real, hand-held camera work allowed them to film in only three weeks and a strong group of actors were assembled. The film follows a fourteen year old girl who is anticipating her Quinceañera (a coming-out celebration) in a few months. Then she discovers that she’s pregnant, (more…)

Last night we watched a DVD from the very good VPL collection. A 2003 TV movie remake of “The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone” with Helen Mirren and Anne Bancroft. After viewing it we couldn’t figure out why we’d never heard of this version, then once I’d looked it up on imdb we remembered that TV movies don’t get Oscar mentions (or thumbs up or down). Mirren is strong as we’d expect but Bancroft is also great in the role of the Contessa (played by Lotte Lenya in the 1961 Vivien Leigh-Warren Beatty original). Actually the role came close to home for Bancroft, (more…)

We’ve been Prairie Home Companion fans since sometime in the 1980’s when I accidentally found it while ‘radio surfing’ shortly after we’d connected our radio to the Cable TV feed and started receiving Seattle NPR stations.

So this summer, it was a special treat to watch Robert Altman’s Prairie Home Companion film while visiting with friends in Waterloo (and to be introduced to the Princess Cinemas there). (more…)