Tag: period drama
Atonement
Director: Joe Wright
United Kingdom, 2007
When a young girl uses a series of events to doom the romance of the housekeeper’s son and her elder sister, the course of each of their lives is changed beyond foresight. So goes the story of Atonement, an adaptation of Ian McEwan’s manipulative novel by upcoming British director Joe Wright.
Whilst …
Die Fälscher (The Counterfeiters)
Director: Stefan Ruzowitzky
Austria, 2007
A busy master forger, Salomon Sorowitsch is a man with little concern for political ideals. And that’s what keeps him alive when war breaks out and he ends up in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Receiving preferential treatment to other prisoners, Sorowitsch is given the task of forging the currency that will keep the …
The Good Shepherd
Director: Robert De Niro
United States, 2006
Matt Damon’s got a tough job here. On the one hand he needs to play the absolute stoic, for whom life-changing decisions are met wordlessly with little more than a glassy stare. On the other, he needs us to empathise with him as his personal life falls apart because he …
The Last King of Scotland
Director: Kevin Macdonald
United Kingdom, 2007
James McAvoy’s turn as leading man here is a superb mix of naïveté, youthful exuberance and abject fear. It’s perhaps unfortunate then that Last King will always be remembered – pretty much to the exclusion of everyone and everything else – for Forest Whitaker’s career-defining performance.
As General Idi Amin Dada, the …
Frida
Director: Julie Taymor
United States, 2002
Frida is almost brilliant. For a start, it has to be one of the most beautifully shot films this decade, thanks in no small part to the prodigal cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto who adds these triumphant visuals to his impressive list (Babel, Brokeback Mountain, 21 Grams, Amores Perros). Elliot Goldenthal’s soundtrack, enhanced …
Howards End
Director: James Ivory
United Kingdom, 1992
There’s something grating about the bourgeois self-sufficiency of the upper middle class during Forster’s era, as it sits around babbling blithely about suffrage and philosophy. Yet for all its self-professed modernism, it took two World Wars to truly change the character of English society.
Nevertheless, Forster is documenting progress here and Ruth …
The Illusionist
Director: Neil Burger
United States, 2006
Looking for some diversion ahead of a long flight, I first came across Steven Millhauser’s unusual oeuvre in Bangkok airport around New Year 2001. Maybe I even judged the book by its cover, but a short story collection entitled The Knife Thrower & Other Stories would catch any travel-weary eye. Indeed, …
The Aviator
Director: Martin Scorsese
United States, 2004
The Aviator is not your typical Scorsese movie. As we open on a young Howard Hughes shooting his famously expensive Hell’s Angels, it’s hard to miss the fact that this biopic can’t have been cheap either.
The range of the movie is wide like Hughes’ flying feats. It covers his fascination for …
Zwartboek (Black Book)
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Netherlands, 2006
With the turbulent Hollywood years behind him, Verhoeven is back in Europe and the opening salvo is a freshly energetic epic that firmly suggests Amsterdam’s finest has rediscovered his mojo.
Ironic then that the only blot in this particular black book is Verhoeven’s oldest trick: a sudden acceleration in the third act, which …
Gangs Of New York
Director: Martin Scorsese
United States, 2002
Gangs Of New York follows the fortunes of Amsterdam Vallon, orphaned as a young boy by the mercurial leader of a rival gang in 19th century lower Manhattan.
The film marks the return of Leonardo DiCaprio who had given a string of pin-up roles the slip and DiCaprio’s protagonist Amsterdam Vallon …
Elsewhere on MikePadgett.com …
Society’s nutters
J’s sister reports on her blog that she was recently attacked by a drab, repressed-looking, extremely neurotic character in a tube station over allegedly skipping a fare (J’s sister has a season …
- Originally published: 25 Aug 2005 in Personalia
Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels
I have waited several years to see this painting, on display at the Royal Fine Arts Museum in Antwerp. It depicts a resplendent, charged image that somehow escaped the censure of conservative …
- Originally published: 28 Jul 2008 in Museums & Galleries
Lakes with the Lads
Locations included: Kirkby Stephen Ullswater Kirkstone Pass Grinton Richmond, North Yorkshire …
- Originally published: 11 Aug 2007 in UK
Easter in Munich
J and I visited Munich over the Easter break. The sun was out and the beer was flowing. The seat of Bavarian power in centuries past, Munich has been the home of Ibsen, …
- Originally published: 12 Apr 2007 in Europe
Ten years of the Euro
A decade ago today, the single European currency – the ‘Euro’ for short – was introduced. The Euro is not just a currency, of course, but the very symbol of European integration. Source: …
- Originally published: 1 Jan 2009 in Editorial
Who is that guy?
Hello you. I'm Mike Padgett and I work in the technology sector as an Information Designer.
I also enjoy travel, concerts, films and walking.
I'm based in Brussels, Belgium. My current favourite Belgian beer is St Feuillien Brune.