Loving Vincent

Year of Release:  2017

Director:  Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman

Screenplay:  Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman and Jacek Dehnel

Starring:  Douglas Booth, Robert Gulaczyk, Jerome Flynn, Saoirse Ronan, Helen McCrory, Chris O'Dowd, John Sessions, Eleanor Tomlinson, Aidan Turner

Running Time:  95 minutes

Genre:  Animated, biography

In 1891, one year after the death of artist Vincent van Gogh, postman Joseph Roulin (O'Dowd) asks his son, Armand (Booth), to deliver a letter Vincent had written to his brother, Theo. Armand, who disliked Vincent, reluctantly agrees.  Discovering that Theo himself died  six months after Vincent, Armand continues to the town where Vincent spent his last days, in the hope of finding someone who may be able to send the letter to the van Gogh family.  However, as he learns more about Vincent's troubled life and tragic death, Armand's perspective on him begins to change.

While not achieving much success in his short life, Vincent van Gogh is now recognised as one of the greatest artists of all time.  In this film, the main character Armand is trying to find someone to deliver a letter to,  In doing so he meets a number of Van Gogh's acquaintances, friends and enemies who tell him about the great man's life and personality, and episodes from Vincent's life are depicted in flashback.  The film itself was in production for six years, and employed a team of 125 artists to render each one of it's 65,000 frames as an oil painting on canvas using the same techniques that Van Gogh himself used, and using Van Gogh's paintings as models for each scene and character.  The result is an astonishing achievement, making Van Gogh's art live and breathe.  The film employed a technique called "rotoscoping" in which rather than just supplying the voices for the characters, the actors performed their scenes as if it was live action, and then the artists painted over each frame.  It makes for a striking and slightly disorientating fusion of animation and live action.  At times the film seems unsure as to whether the main focus is Armand's quest or Van Gogh's life, as it begins to become almost a mystery story in it's second half, as Armand becomes convinced that there is more to Van Gogh's death than meets the eye, which threatens to make the film less interesting, as Vincent's friend, Marguerite (played by Saoirse Ronan) says in the film: "You want to know so. much about his death, but what do you know of his life?"  And of course life must always be far more interesting than death.  However, the film dies ultimately manage to pull back from this, and it is a powerful and beautiful experience.

Douglas Booth in Loving Vincent
  

Molly's Game

Year of Release:  2017
Director:  Aaron Sorkin
Screenplay:  Aaron Sorkin, based on the book Molly's Game by Molly Bloom
Starring:  Jessica Chastain, Idris Elba, Kevin Costner, Michael Cera, Jeremy Strong, Chris O'Dowd, Bill Camp
Running Time:  140 minutes
Genre:  Crime, drama

Molly Bloom (Chastain) is a world-class skier, who is severely injured while trying to qualify for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, ending her athletic career.  Molly moves to Los Angeles where, after several low-paid jobs, she ends up as a secretary for an obnoxious, unsuccessful real estate agent (Strong) who asks Molly to run his weekly high-stakes poker game.  The game regularly attracts very wealthy and very famous individuals, including movie stars and sports stars, and Molly is soon earning  a lot of money.  When she is unceremoniously sacked by her boss, Molly starts running her own game, but soon finds herself in serious trouble with both the Mob and the FBI.

Based on a true story, this is a hugely enjoyable thriller.  With a witty, complex and intelligent script, and slick, dynamic direction from Aaron Sorkin, Jessica Chastain gives a truly great performance as Molly, who owns the entire film.  This is Molly's story and the other characters don't really get fleshed out, with Kevin Costner in particular never really getting much to do as her overbearing father.  Idris Elba however, gives a typically suave performance as Molly's lawyer, and he and Chastain have brilliant chemistry together.  Personally, I have never had any real interest in poker, I've never played it and don't really know anything about it, but the film makes the gaming scenes not only understandable for a newcomer, but genuinely exciting.  Even though there were times where I could see where the story was going, and there aren't many surprises, with a running time of well over two hours, this is a fast-paced film with not a scene or a line wasted.

Jessica Chastain and Idris Elba play Molly's Game       

The IT Crowd

Year: 2006 - ongoing
Director: Graham Linehan
Screenplay: Graham Linehan
Starring: Chris O'Dowd, Richard Ayoade, Katherine Parkinson, Matt Berry (season 2 onwards), Chris Morris (season 1) and Noel Fielding.
Running Time: 24 episodes over 4 seasons to date. 25 minutes per episode.
Genre: Situation comedy.

Summary: The show is set in the offices of Reynholm Industries, run by the deeply eccentric Denholm Reynholm (Morris) and, after Denholm's suicide, by his dim-witted, lecherous son Douglas (Berry). The offices, in the heart of London, are a glittering monolith of a building occupied by glamorous, attractive employees "not doing very much work and having affairs with each other". Except in the dingy, messy IT department located in the building's basement. Working in the IT department are Roy (O'Dowd) a workshy nerd who has a reel-to-reel tape recorder playing his standard answer to any enquiry: "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" and his best friend Maurice Moss (Ayoade) who is highly intelligent and knowledgable about science and computers but is completely clueless about pretty much everything else and still lives with his mother. They are pretty much hated or ignored by the rest of the staff and seen as "standard nerds". The newest member of the IT department is Jen Barber (Parkinson) a popular and fashionable woman who lied on her CV that she is an expert in computers when in reality she knows very little about them but manages to work as the "relationship manager" between the IT department and the rest of the staff.

Opinion: This British comedy series created by Graham Linehan (best known as the creator of the popular comedy series Father Ted (1995-1998)) is in many ways a traditional situation comedy which tends to start off the storylines with elements familiar to most people who have to work in offices and then spins them out into surreal extremes. The show is usually extremely funny with clever dialogue that incorporates numerous references to popular culture and most particularly geek culture, including frequent scenes that parody other TV shows and movies. The show features some memorable comedy characters in particular ubernerd Moss and the inept boss Douglas Reynholm (Berry). Unusually every seaon is a genuine improvement on the previous one. The first season was promising but awkward, a prolem shared by many British comedies during the first season possibly due to the short amount of time they get in each block (six episodes per season is usual for British comedy shows). However the most recent seaosn featured moments that were comedy gold. A show that's well worth checking out and sticking with.
A fifth season of the show has been commissioned and an American version is also rumoured to be in the works.