CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR. Dir Mike Nichols. 2007

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Covert assistance doesn't get much PR so this seems to be an American propaganda film demonstrating how the US funded the defeat of Russian troops in Afghanistan during the eighties, whilst making the point that after sales service is non-existent at US inc.

Congressman Charlie Wilson is persuaded to visit the refugee camps in Pakistan and is converted to the cause of the Afghan people fleeing occupation. More than simply a tale about Wilson’s realization that civilians suffer in wartime, this could have the subtitle, ‘Americans love guns.’ Wilson manages to persuade various committees to supply money which provides anti-helicopter weaponry and the chaps get very excited about these big tools. He is, however, unable to persuade them to provide any cash for schools or hospitals once those Ruskies are whupped. Iraq war anyone? West Wing scriptwriter Aaron Sorkin delivers a rapid fire script which, with mumbling, is sometimes hard to follow but it’s nicely acted. Hanks is believable, as is Roberts - apart from the distracting blonde wigs, and Philip Seymour Hoffman has fun as coarse but quick-thinking Gust.

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GLORIOUS 39. Dir Stephen Poliakoff. 2009

Glorious 39 strips away illusions. Poliakoff presents the apparent idyll of an English aristocratic family headed by genteel patriarch Lord Keyes (Bill Nighy). He presides over a country estate in Norfolk and his elegant townhouse in London – a world of golden light, romantic ruins, servants, house parties and happy children. But this is 1939, a mere 21 years since the Great War, the war to end all wars, in which millions died, Britain was crippled with war debt, and the English country house system which he so values was almost annihilated. There are many references to the ancientness of his family and tradition, but now, few male servants remained alive or unmaimed to work the English landscape or to be in service to the old families. Fearing domestic and political upheaval, appeasers such as Keyes sought to prevent Churchill leading the country and taking Britan to war, and to buy off Hitler to preserve British cultural and national identity. Nighty is excellent, contro...

LOVERS OF THE ARCTIC CIRCLE. Dir. Julio Medem 1998

I should have done some research before going to see this because I thought it was going to be about lovers in the Arctic Circle. Instead of being transported to the icy wastes of an unfamiliar landscape the film is set in urban Spain, but in a very cold Spain with wind, rain and everyone in thick jumpers. Shot in near monochrome, the effect is cold and the Spartan interiors of apartments provide a bleak, comfortless setting for love to blossom. Otto and Ana meet as children and are attracted to each other due to the nature of coincidence, and coincidence plays a large part in the narrative. The two children are engaging and there are some comic scenes between them when young and, later, as teenagers, with trysts in the night and their love kept secret. However, once they’re older the story loses momentum and, at times becomes surreal and confusing as the viewpoint moves in and out of the two characters’ imaginations. Otto suffers an extreme grief reaction when his mother acci...

Running ‘till your nipples bleed

An email from a friend of mine arrives; she complains that, at work, she is routinely subjected to gruesome accounts of female colleagues’ intimate medical procedures and gynaecological problems. I am all commiseration because I, too, have had years of listening to workplace chats about periods, childbirth and sex lives. Oh please. Later, I wander off for a walk in the early evening sunshine and it is so silent and so beautiful that I flop down on the grass and lay awhile gazing out over the rolling fields, and the mouth of the river, and fall into a reverie. Two men pass by. A few minutes later sounds of women’s talk float nearer and, by the time the two females of the species draw level with me, I have risen up from my deliciously recumbent position in the meadow, alert and tense, something like a meerkat. “I do feel for her. Going down that IVF route is such an emotional roller coaster. I was never prepared for how terrible it was going to be.” I remain frozen in my meerkat position...

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