The Tampa Iced Tea Party

So this past week marks the passing of a Yorkshireman who made quite a mark on British Film and gave not just a franchise, but arguably an entire genre of spy films, some style in the soundtrack department. There are a few of John Barry’s classic Bond theme’s (and title’s for this post!) that I could pick, but in the end I decided on the Propellerheads version of Goldfinger (the full version is better and I love mad jazz piano at the end).

So since my last post I finally managed to shake the post-run limp that had been plaguing me for over 2 months. It started out all Dr House style – I would say Herr Flick, but Allo Allo never made it to America. Before I was done with it though it turned into the strangest thing… the Keyser Soze limp! I’d start hobbling, gradually pick up speed, and then, like that, it was gone!

Maintaining the cinematic theme this week, it’s awards season. There’s lots of second guessing who’ll win big this year, and where are the women and what happened to the diversity… well at least Lisa France at CNN has been doing so. My favourite part is:
“This year there was a decided dearth of diversity in the Oscar nominations. There are no women or people of color among the director nominees, and the acting nominees are all white. Javier Bardem, who is up for best actor for his role in “Biutiful,’ is a Spaniard and therefore European.”

It’s funny I thought there were more than a few Brits nominated! Now I know many of us have a problem with the European Union, but I think we still count as Europeans right?

Anyway, I’ve decided to stick my two-penneth in… but how to do it?
I think I shall have my own awards and they will henceforth be known as… The first annual Limey Awards!

It’s kind of like the BAFTAs or the Oscars, but the award can be squeezed and used to make Margaritas!

Best Animated Film

So Toy Story 3 has picked up lots of awards so far, and I can’t fathom why. It wasn’t original – it was number 3! Frankly it wasn’t really very funny either. Megamind was a tad better, but was still missing something. So The Limey goes to Despicable Me. Clearly I’m hardly its target audience, but it was both funny and had its own graphical style. Also, now I want my own Minions!

Best Comedy

I really don’t remember that many comedies from this last year. Frankly I think it was a year where the film industry lost its sense of fun – why else the lack of a sense of humour at Ricky Gervais’ skewering of Hollywood at the Golden Globes? Anyway, I can only specifically remember 3 comedies. Due Date was alright, although it trod the same ground as The Hangover. Scott Pilgrim was really quite good, but started to lose me at the end (and yes I love the rest of Edgar Wright’s efforts).

So the Limey surprisingly goes to Morning Glory. Not the most obvious choice perhaps, and the trailer makes it look awful, but if you’ve ever seen American breakfast TV you’ll laugh. Harrison Ford and Diane Keaton’s exchanges were great, and I quite identify with his “third most awful person on the planet” view of what passes for news reporting here.

Most Surprising Film

As they’re entirely of my own invention, I’m having a special category for the film that caught my attention and stayed with me for a while. I will confess to a little claustrophobia, mostly in situations where there’s not enough room to stand up straight, so the idea of seeing this on the big screen actually made me a little nervous. In the end it only had a limited release and I wasn’t able to catch it until the BA flight home at Christmas. It had me completely hooked, and a little disturbed frankly, even from the little seat back TV. You see this Limey goes to Buried – the story of a contractor in Iraq who gets kidnapped and buried alive with a lighter and a phone…

Best Film

So now for the biggie! This one’s tough as all 3 of these films were great and all very different. In third place: Social Network for the engrossing way it told it’s story. David Fincher has made a couple of my favourite films – Seven and Fight Club – and this didn’t disappoint either. I really felt for Zuckerberg’s friend Eduardo played by Andrew Garfield. Timberlake turned out not to be too bad either.

In 2nd place: The King’s Speech. The trailer looked intriguing, especially in a slightly expat, along way from home kind of way. The buzz was promising and it lived up to it. It was slightly strange sitting in the cinema seeing an era brought to life that I’d only heard about from family, but mostly read about. It was almost like finding out about some dark very distant family secret. Also a little odd seeing the Queen Mother played by Bellatrix Lastrange. Brilliant and fascinating, but not quite the one.

The Limey for Best Film goes to Inception.

With another all-star cast in this selection, this film really caught my imagination. Like many people I sometimes have quite vivid dreams – the ones that seem real, but odd, and then you wake up with a “what just happened?”. With a grand scale, a dark tone, and imagination that stays with you, this was my favourite of the past year.

And finally we’ll finish with the award for:

Worst Pile Of Doings From A Filmmaker You Used To Like

Instead of a nice Limey margarita, the offender gets a Key-lime pie in the face.

I hate to do this to an octogenarian, but Clint Eastwood directed possibly one of the worst films I’ve seen this last year. The trailer for Hereafter made it look good, but I’ve never been to a film before where, as soon as it was done, girlfriends and wives turned to their other halves and apologised for inflicting it on them!

So to answer Lisa France’s big question about diversity: maybe the big problem with the past year was that there were a lot of crap films that made it into the cinemas. Where are the great stories, the fascinating characters, and the inspiring imagination? I think that’s the bigger problem all round.

And very finally, and at the risk of overloading on the media clips, something to raise a smile. What happens when you cross The Biggest Loser with Despicable Me?