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johnrbroomfield
Reviews
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (2023)
Traveling light with a lot of baggage...
A human story which included a dog that didn't eat (or need poo bags). This story and the acting kept me engaged and made me think (and weep).
A dying friend 600 miles away was his goal. The reason he walked without any creature comforts until his feet bled is not revealed until the end. An immigrant doctor (but with qualifications unrecognized by the NHS) treated him and tended his feet; touchingly washing them like Jesus Christ.
Realistically, our hero's wife continued her attacks on him until she softened after he had walked about 400 miles after hearing his grief for their son killed as a result of overdosing on alcohol and drugs.
Wildlife (2018)
My parents divorced when I was 8 years old.
65 years later this is the first divorce movie I could relate to. Like Joe's Mum mine was also unfaithful. But my Dad moved out to live alone and I longed to live with him. About eight years after our parents divorced my brother and I lived for a month with our Dad hunting and fishing on an extended adventure holiday. Many decades later we still treasure that month we lived with our Dad in the home he had built for himself.
But I learned to love my Mum again and we became really close.
I enjoyed the movie but I tend to favor slice of life stories.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (2016)
Tina Fey's Homage to the US Marines
Funny and serious. An excellent movie showing many of the human stories behind our TV news. I found the end particularly affecting. Brilliant job Tina!
Brexit: The Uncivil War (2019)
Winning without a new vision...
...by giving the ignored and pissed off Brits who had never voted a chance to smash the establishment in the hope that what follows will be better.
3 million out of 33 million who voted in the EU Referendum promised by Blair and Brown (as they danced around the EU Constitution that morphed into The Lisbon Treaty) and then demanded by Clegg to be delivered by Cameron.
Having campaigned to Remain, Cameron resigned as soon as Leave won leaving no one willing to lead Brexit.
Fascinating to see how Leave achieved its shock win by using social media analytics to micro-target people who wanted to "take back control". Cumberbatch outplayed the establishment figures as a somewhat deranged but brilliantly effective strategist.
I, Daniel Blake (2016)
Daniel Blake gives up paid work for voluntary work...
...he's a skilled carpenter who suffers a heart attack and is recovering while taking drugs to prevent a further attack. Instead of asking for light duties he leaves paid employment to help a neighbor by working as a handyman doing up their council house.
Gradually he grapples with computers and the digital world that was passing him by and puts together his CV that is good enough to earn him a job interview but he turns it down!
Meanwhile the neighbor he is helping is starving herself to share the family's food with Daniel. She is leafleting her neighborhood for cleaning work but Dan is not selling his handyman or carpentry skills to earn some much needed cash.
Meanwhile the DWP's digital bureaucracy grinds exceedingly fine with rules that must be obeyed for claimants fulfilling their personal commitments to receive welfare benefits and to avoid sanction.
Unused to such discipline and computers Dan is sucked down into a spiral of despair.
The film had me screaming at the TV for Dan to sell his handyman services while continuing to help his neighbor. At no time did he stop work but he simply didn't take control of his life.
I guess that I was meant to feel sorry for him but I couldn't.
Good People (2014)
Delightfully gory and satisfying...
Couple who find the drug money win our backing but they are up against two sets of ruthless gangsters and crooked London cops.
Hail, Caesar! (2016)
A fabulous left coast dilemma...
Very funny and most entertaining spoof about a director responsible for physical production who is trying to do the right thing while finishing four movies, supporting misplaced talent, paying off the communists and resisting his cravings for nicotine. He could leave this crazy life for a life changing ten-year contract in the aerospace industry. But what will he do?
45 Years (2015)
Insensitive curmudgeon wrecks his marriage...
...once married for several decades do not pine for your former lover.