Sherlock Holmes as an Ultimate Fighter? Professor Moriarty as a shadowy terrorist? Irene Adler as a super con artist? Yes, and the city of London as it was in the good old days of Queen Victoria. Or as close as you can get with a lot of computer generated images.
Victoria's London was as much of a star in Sherlock Holmes as Robert Downey, Jr and Jude Law. The cobblestones themselves spell out the opening credits as we follow Lestrade and Watson to the scene of a crime. The back alleys, the sewers, the river Thames, the Tower Bridge under construction, and all the great landmarks make their small appearances on screen.
Oh sure, the story of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson saving the world take center stage, but the stage itself is London. It's a perfect film for my London Thoughts, as it is not quite real-and much cheaper to get to.
The London of Sherlock Holmes is amazing and beautiful, and since it is set in the 1890s or there abouts, there is a lot of smog to help trick the eye over the details. Unlike, say Avatar, where every frame was a special effect and looked like a special effect, the London of Sherlock Holmes often looked like London. Some of the more gimmicky shots had that latent oh-look-CGI feel to them, but they were not enough to be a problem for me.
The story is pure Scooby Doo, but I still liked it. Robert Downey, Jr is great as Sherlock Holmes, even if he can't really be bothered to put on much of an English accent. I liked Sherlock Holmes, and I liked the CGI London at the heart of it.
Happy-Go-Lucky is the story of a school teacher who lives by the motto Put On a Happy Face. We follow her around in the seemingly mundane and pointless random events that make up her life. She in 30 years old and yet still likes to go clubbing and doesn't know how to drive.
She hears a mad homeless man talking to himself and wanders over to have a chat with him-and tells him that she understands him. She takes driving lessons from a very unhappy man whose sole purpose in life is to be a good Driving Instructor.
The moral of Happy-Go-Lucky is that most people hate other people who are happy all the time. Go on and give it a try. Walk around with a smile on your face and see how long it takes someone to ask-What are you smiling about, eh?
I found this movie by reading the Top Ten List of PBS film critic David Edelstein. He really like Happy-Go-Lucky and I think it was pretty good too. It has that whole kind of slice of life feeling that Mike Leigh does so well. I really liked Naked, a wonderfully weird film about a homeless man wondering the streets of London. Would have been fun if they could have got David Thewlis to play the homeless fellow in Happy-go-lucky.
Sally Hawkins's Poppy is the one wandering the streets of London here. Her flatmate always close at hand as she goes happily about. They share a bed as well as a flat, and you can't get much closer than that. As the movie starts we have nothing but questions, most of which are answered as the movie makes it's way forward.
Poppy and her flatmate Zoe, played by Alexis Zegerman, are both teachers and spend a bit of their time doing odd teacher things. Before we know they are teachers we see them making crude bird costumes which look pretty much nothing like birds. These are projects for small children.
This is a great London film, as many of the great bits of the great city make cameo appearances. Poppy wanders around Camden Town, she wanders around the Thames Barrier Park, she learns to drive a round-a-bout and lives to tell the tale. I love seeing London in films, as it the main way that I get to see the city.
So Poppy is ready and willing to try new things-so she starts taking driving lessons and dancing lessons from two fairly unhappy people. But then, it seems that everyone the hyper happy Poppy meets is on the verge of suicide. When we first met her, she is happily riding her bike around the streets of London. She stops to go shopping and enters a bookstore where the shop attendant can't be bothered to say two words to her. She then finds that her bike has been stolen while she was shopping. Oh, well-she sings and dances down the street, her only regret is that she didn't get to say goodbye to her bike.
By the time Happy-Go-Lucky ends airhead Poppy has had a couple of sobering experiences and is not smiling like an idiot at everyone she meets. In fact, she now seems a bit suspicious of everyone. But not to worry, her frighting experience behind her, the film ends with her rowing on the lake with her flatmate and laughing on the phone with her boyfriend.
There is never enough time to do or say all the things that we would wish. The thing is to try to do as much as you can in the time that you have. Remember Scrooge, time is short, and suddenly, you're not here any more. -The Ghost of Christmas Present
My favorite Christmas movie is Scrooge starring Albert Finny. This is a musical with a number of great songs and lots of silliness mixed in with the story of that old miser Ebeneezer Scrooge and three ghosts that haunt him into goodness.
Made in 1970 Scrooge was a bit past the musical heyday of 1950s, but it is still a great film. A brilliant supporting cast includes Edith Evans, Kenneth More, Anton Rodgers, and Alec Gunness. I love the melancholy feeling of Albert Finny and his one true love that he lost to his love of money.
There is a great song called Thank You Very Much in which the entire city of London seems to be celebrating the death of the wicked old Scrooge. There is also the sad and hopeful Happiness sung by Scrooge's one true love, though Scrooge is too blind to see the truth until he is brought back to the past. I also like the happy and fun December The 25th.
I've watched Scrooge every year for several years now. One of the keys to falling in love with any musical is hearing the songs over and over again. Maybe Scrooge is not up there with My Fair Lady or Camelot, but I like it. If you haven't seen, you should really give it a look.
Narrowing the endless list of London based films down to ten was made a bit easier by selecting only movies I have actually seen and liked. So this is a pretty personal list, filled with my own tastes and fancies. All are easy enough to find and if you haven't seen them, or haven't seen them in a while, think about giving one or two a look.
10. A Clockwork Orange-Stanley Kubrick's Sci Fi horror movie starring sci fi actor Malcolm McDonald, who doesn't like Sci Fi fans. Anyway, its a story of the near future where everything is BAD. It's one of those movies you should see once, but really never bother seeing again.
9. The Elephant Man-Well, the movie had John Hurt playing part of John Merrick and I really liked the version with David Bowie. But this was a brilliant movie as well. A nice dark Victorian London with lots darkness and lots of misunderstandings. Shot in black and white in an area of London near Tower Bridge, The Elephant Man is heart breaking and creepy at the same time.
8. An American Werewolf in London-they just don't make them like this any more. The effects of a man turning into a wolf were state of the art at the time, and are still pretty impressive. It's the story of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. One of a handful of John Landis movies that made everyone think he was going to be the Next Spielberg.
7. Naked-the story of a homeless man and no one that loved him. Mike Leigh film about the gritty and dark side of London and how one misanthropic fellow spends a few days on the streets of London. It is a violent and pointless story which features a nice cameo by a Security Guard who is pining away for a woman he has been spying on from the office building where he works.
6. Richard III-One of the only good Alternate Reality Shakespeare films, this one set in a 1930s London ruled by a fascist dictator. It is an amazing film on a number of levels. Ian McKellan makes a great evil ruler and my favorite scene is when his jeep won't start and he yells-A horse, a horse, My Kingdom for a horse-and a solider rides up on a motorcycle and replies-You may have my horse. I just always loved that bit of silliness.
5. Sliding Doors-Gwyneth Paltrow in a sci fi flick where nothing makes sense if you miss the first ten minutes-and barely makes sense if you catch the first ten minutes. It's the story of Choices and what happens when we enter a door instead of exiting it. Is it better to know all, or not know anything? Ignorance is bliss-or is it?
4. 28 Days Later-there is something wonderful about seeing the empty street of London in this zombie style horror movie. There is blood and gore to the max and Infection can happen from a single drop of blood. Die, die, everyone die. The story of the end of the world, or at least the end of London. This was a great movie and it had incredible effects.
3. The Hours-the hyper tragic story of two people destined for a bad end. Nicole Kidman in one of the best of her many strange roles. I was deeply effected by this film because I was so like the little boy who never wanted to be away from his mother. Maybe all children never want to be away from their moms, but I could relate to the tragic child's desperation. I'm sure Virginia Woolf shows up in London here somewhere. Again, a great film, but I only needed to see it once.
2. My Fair Lady-the story of a poor flower girl who moves into a London mansion with a couple of odd old men who teach her how to speak properly. The sets and costumes are wonderful, the songs are some of the best ever written, and the cast is pretty much perfect. Julie Andrews didn't get the part as she was busy making another great London set movie-Mary Poppins. But I think Audrey Hepburn was perfect and could never really imagine the film version of My Fair Lady with Julie Andrews as Eliza Doolittle.
1. Notting Hill-hands down my favorite London movie, despite the fact that it has the most over-rated actress of her time, Julia Roberts, in the lead. Hugh Grant is a sappy business man who owns a bookshop that only sells travel books. It says something about the cost of living in London that Hugh's character can't afford to live on his own. This is one of the best casts I have ever seen in a movie and one of the rare movies made during my time of going to the movies that I can watch over and over again.
Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks has acquired the rights to the science fiction novel Chocky by John Wyndham, according to reports.
Trade magazine The Hollywood Reporter said Pollinger, the UK agency which handles the literary estate of the late author John Wyndham, agreed the deal.
"Chocky" tells the story of a boy who has a mysterious imaginary friend with whom he frequently argues. As the boy's father gets increasingly suspicious, it becomes clear that an alien entity has taken up residence in the boy's consciousness. Spielberg likes stories with spooky sci fi kids, A.I. was a sci fi movie about a strange child who was a robot.
Oscar-winning director Steven Spielberg's credits include such sci fi greats as ET and Jurassic Park.
Chocky is a 1968 novel written by John Wyndham, the British science fiction writer best known for writing The Day of the Triffids.
Of course, just because Steven Spielberg had optioned the rights does not mean there will actually be a Chocky movie made. But we can keep our fingers crossed and hope that it will happen. While a lot of the story in Chocky takes place out in the country, I would expect there to be a scene or two in London, as just about every movie set in England has to have a least a few shots of the River Thames and London Eye.
Sherlock Holmes as an Ultimate Fighter? Professor Moriarty as a shadowy terrorist? Irene Adler as a super con artist? Yes, and the city of London as it was in the good old days of Queen Victoria. Or as close as you can get with a lot of computer generated images.
