Eddie the Eagle, Victoria, Black Mountain Poets The Film Review

race as it stands. That is all and would stay at 6:30 p.m.. Now, it is

time for the Film Review. Hello and welcome. To take us

through the cinema releases is Jason Solomon.

We look at a typically British form of heroism, can Eddie the Eagle

achieve the Olympic dream? Also, Victoria. A night of clubbing in

Berlin takes a turn for the dangerous. And they are poets but

they do not know it. Can a pair of con artist fake their way through a

weekend retreat? I have a real soft spot for Eddie the Eagle the person,

I had not seen the film. Unlike you I did not like him at the

time. I was not for the heroism around a man who finished last. Yes,

he was there, and well done, and he beat a British record which did not

really exist anyway, but I was really against that. I know it is

all about the taking part but I just thought it was all a bit of a

circus. If we remember back, at the time, we laughed at him, but this

film does is lets us laugh with him. It is a sports movie, by the movie,

a montage -fest that goes on. It will go for the heart strings. It is

dangerous stuff, this ski jumping. Everything OK? Fine, just getting

ready. Never done it before. Honestly? Could you give me a push?

A push? It is a lot higher than I expected it to be...

That scared me. We will not give the game away as to what happened next.

It is all about that, if starts with a montage of him trying out various

sports and breaking his classes. It is very much a British movie about

the class system, it was the British Olympic committee do not want him

coming in from nowhere and say he will never make it. And then he

does, of course. He jumps through the hoops and gets onto the team and

becomes a hero, but only because she is a failure. It is very

interesting, I never liked it in real life. But with the beer

goggles, and the jutting chin, and the relentless or as he has, just

like the Rocky training montages, and you don't have to like boxing to

light Rocky. You just love it when the montage comes together. As we

can see, the bouncing along, the falling over, it is very funny. The

director, Dexter Fletcher, you might know him as a child actor, he was in

press-gang, and has become a very good director. He did a warm-hearted

film called Sunshine on Leith, set to the music of the proclaimers,

which was a success against the odds. And he has done it again with

a warm-hearted sensibility which carries the movie through. Keith

Allen plays the father who just want Eddie to be a plasterer, and Joan

Hartley plays the lovely mother who nurtures her son forward. A very

British movie that has done well in the States, because they love an

underdog story. I do not love an underdog so much but with this, I

had tears in my eyes by the end. Victoria is either a work of genius,

possibly, or a bit of a gimmick? The poster says, one night, one

take. And what that means is it was done in one single shot. We have

seen it done before in Goodfellas. But not for the entire film. To

hours! How do you do it? It is about a girl called Victoria goes clubbing

in Berlin. She is Spanish and get caught up with these guys who are

about to do a bank job. Although she does not know it. And they get

caught up in this long night. I was reminded of Barry Davies. The free

kick against Arsenal. He says, he is not going to have a go from here, is

he? He is, you know! I thought, he will not do this in one take, but he

does, you know. They get kidnapped, they go off buildings, into a car,

the camera never cut at all, it is extraordinary to watch. But all that

is a gimmick unless the is good. And it is. It is a Great War around

movie, in Berlin, a bit like Richard Linkletter, and then suddenly there

are gangsters on the run. Berlin has an extraordinary

atmosphere about it. It has a very modern history.

Techno, clubbing, very cool, Berlin stuff. The music is done by the

European techno Meister who I must confess I like, and the

cinematography is a tour de force. You think, all in one take, is he

going to make it? But he takes it to a whole new level. It is something

you can only do now with the technology. Because you don't need

to change the real. But to keep it all in short, in focus, every

character, it is some achievement. And also a really good film.

Black Mountain Poets. A change of pace. Nobody is going

for anything extraordinary. Bolelli Wills has done this kind of thing

before, most noticeably with Emily Mortimer. They play a pair of con

artists on the run who pretend to be sisters and turn up at a retreat to

avoid the police. Can they make it through by pretending to be the

poets? Well, it is not very difficult, some people read out the

and call poetry. As they proved here.

You Microsoft is read out a utility bill or a receipt or something.

Maybe I will, OK. grocery shopping at Tesco .com? One

delivery slots from ?1. Click, and connect groceries. Dr Pepper, ?2.

Total, ?2. Cash, ?10. It is not Seamus Heaney but it is

very funny. It is very funny in parts, I have to say. It is not a

huge cinematic experience, but you saw Tom Cullen, from Downton Abbey,

often very funny, very improvised feel. That scene apparently was

totally improvised. Somebody said, have you got a receipt? They just

produced from the garage on the way to the shoot. So it has that

spontaneity to it. And when it works it is very funny. A sweet

relationship emerges between the sisters, and it takes the Mickey out

of beat poets. Which I'm sure it is very to do!

The best of the week is Anomalisa. This is the first puppet film I have

reviewed on this sort. It is from Charlie Kaufman, the man who gave us

the eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind, and being John Malkovich. It

is very much about being inside his head. A tender, and vicious film

about a bloke having a midlife crisis in a Cincinnati hotel. He has

a relationship with a person attending his conference, voiced by

Jennifer Jason Leigh. She sings girls just Wanna have fun by Cyndi

Lauper in an extraordinary scene which becomes hilarious and tender.

I must warn you, there is puppet sex in this movie as well. But you

actually believe it, it is quite extraordinary.

Team America? Kermit and Miss Piggy.

We should leave that! Moving on, I can see a theme, technical wizardry

with new gadgets. Tangerine, shot on an iPhone. Sean

Baker made a very, very brilliant film. Not only is it shot on an

iPhone, it has two great performances in a very funny film,

like Victoria, sort of like a one night film, Christmas Eve, and their

relationship with their amps and the street. Beautifully performed and

the new marvel of cinema. It is where Hugh Grant once ended up

with Divine Brown. Don't want to remind him of that!

Thank you very much for watching.