Rules Don't Apply, Letters From Baghdad, Their Finest The Film Review

news that Ugo Ehiogu died after a cardiac arrest. That's coming up on

Sportsday at half past six but now it is time for The Film Review.

Hello, and welcome to The Film Review on BBC News, to take us

through the cinema releases this week is Jason Solomons. What do we

have this week? The glamour of old school Hollywood comedy backdrop for

a love story between a starlet and her chauffeur under the watchful eye

of reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes in Warren Beatty use Rules

Don't Apply. We have the sands of Time, which reveal voices from a

hidden mirror in the form of Gertrude Bell's, letters from

Baghdad as read out by Tilda Swinton in the doctorate -- in the letters

from Baghdad. And wartime London's rubble provides the setting for

Gemma Arterton and Bill Nighy a in Their Finest, as they struggle to

produce wartime propaganda and -- wartime propaganda movies. We begin

with Rules Don't Apply. Warren Beatty, he hasn't had the best of

years! With that Oscars fiasco. It has been his 16 years since he wrote

and directed... This was meant to be his big return. As he gets older is

he getting better? This is a vanity project that he wrote, directed,

starred in... It's interesting, he began the end of old Hollywood with

his film Bonnie and Clyde. It brought indie cinema into the fore,

destroying the old studios, a success in 1967. This is old

Hollywood where he started out in as an actor.

You can imagine him coming into town like the star Lily Collins does

here. It's good on the details of how a boss like Howard Hughes ran

the studios will stop everybody is waiting on him. Starlets, showbiz

and businessmen. Even presidents wait on the wealth of Howard Hughes

for their green light. It shows how he used to keep Starlets in various

places, the big mansions he kept them in, they were secretive, they

had rules that apply to them. But not too Warren Beatty's Howard

Hughes... Lowe I decided when I won a talent contest that maybe I would

give it a go in Hollywood. I am Frank. Two weeks in Los Angeles, you

are working for Howard Hughes? I'm having high hopes. $400 a week on

top of this? I hope Howard Hughes doesn't expect to meet you in a

hotel room... I would like to thank you for my acting classes, ballet

classes and the chance to become a star. What the hell is she doing

here? You said you wanted that girl? Yes, Marilyn Monroe! She is a

Baptist none... Sex is bad because it could lead to dancing. I am a

square. Movie actresses are supposed to be sexy, and they the rules in

this town? Without Carly Simon here, some people suggest that Warren

Beatty could be talking about himself and some of this? You think

this film is about you... He has been a figure in Hollywood, and him

playing Howard Hughes recently, played by Leonardo DiCaprio in

Martin Scorsese's The Aviator, he is a strange and shadowy figure that

Warren Beatty plays himself. Like Indiana Jones, with a pilot jacket.

I think Warren Beatty becomes obsessed with the mania that Howard

Hughes himself was overtaken by and the film becomes oppressive and

oppressive, you think it will be light and fluffy and full of 50s

jazz numbers, but it isn't. The romance between Lily Collins and

Alden Ehrenreich, it is overshadowed by his ego in his own film, a Howard

Hughes thing to do. I see where he was going but it is like Oscars

night, chaos awaits those fingertips! He will never live it

down! Letters from Baghdad. We've all

heard about Lawrence of Arabia but not many people have heard of

Gertrude Bell, the Queen of the Desert? Yes, maybe we have heard of

Lawrence of Arabia because of that epic tribute, Gertrude Bell never

really had hers, this documentary is as epic as it gets. There is another

film with Nicole Kidman in where she stars, this is a more fitting

tribute through this letters that she left through her correspondence

in the desert. She was the most powerful women in the British

Empire, the end of World War I the borders of Arabia were being drawn.

She was very much involved in that with Winston Churchill, riding into

the desert, a redoubtable British colonial figure, intrepid explorer,

part spy, part stateswoman, part and quit Aryan.

In the Arab world, she learned Farsi, she understood everything.

Magnus Atlevi played -- magnificently played by Tilda

Swinton, who you would expect. What is well done in the documentary

directed by two women, they resurrected these letters, finding

brilliant archive footage from Baghdad and Damascus, all of that

stuff we see we see on the screen now. The Sphinx is an apt figure as

Gertrude Bell stares out. There's footage now from the region which is

war-torn and ravaged, war was always something in that sand, but there is

an elegance to it, a kind of colonial innocence in that footage

which is beautiful. It really summons up a lost time, Gertrude

Bell's voice rings out as a lost voice of the British Empire. Let's

move onto Their Finest. British film crew attempting to

morale during the Second World War. What's not to like? In this film,

they have Bill Nighy and Gemma Arterton. They wanted to make

authenticity and optimism shine out to boost morale through the war.

Happy news wasn't enough. Stiff upper lip, chocs away for Their

Finest, directed by Denmark's Lone Scherfig. This goes back to the

1940s, Gemma Arterton making her way as a script girl, directing slop

dialogue. A romantic dialogue in movies. Here she is, elbowing her

way and find her voice on the set. Even taking

Bill Nighy who plays a washed-up actor, Ambrose Hillyard. An example,

a mention of the clever code, I may say that would be the first clever

thing that she's done in her life! LAUGHTER

Just a dash of humour and further along... Excuse me... Certainly. No,

no... It's the caption at the end is going to be "He's not listening but

the enemy might be". Is a joke for women who never think that their

husbands pay attention. If you start answering, the caption would make

sense. I wrote it. The scenario? I will be in my dressing room, if

anyone needs me... Gemma Arterton revealed on the one show recently

that she used Alex Jones's accent as a model for that? There is a

presenting gig for her if the Oscars are not forthcoming! I did not know

that was Alex Jones, very good! She is very good in it, Gemma Arterton,

the rosy cheeked script girl who becomes the force of the movie. It

is about female voices coming in while the war was on. And gaining

some power. People saying that when the war was finished that the women

would not go back into their little boxes after this taste of freedom.

It is about that, but the film is good at wartime tailoring and

capturing that rubble of London. It is funny, witty and elegant, as you

would expect from people like Bill Nighy, but the spectre of death is

never far away. A bomb drop away. The rubble of London. There is a mix

of romance and the making of a movie, like Rules Don't Apply

earlier, there is that madness of making movies which hangs this

together. It's interesting, movies provide shape and structure, and an

ending where life at that time was full of mess and never did. That is

why people loved movies back then. 30 million people per week went to

the movies. It was the revival for the British people, after a demise

beforehand? It would be great if this can get an audience of 30

million in the opening weekend, I don't think it will but this film is

bree witty, charming and elegantly done. A very good performance from

Gemma Arterton and neatly tied up by the director, Lone Scherfig, with a

good amount of skill. People would think it is a women's picture but it

has depth and elegance, and I love the wartime tailoring in the

costumes from Charlotte water. I may get one, a decent coat! The best out

is Get Out. It is a horror film? Yes, it is out at most on Mars, it

isn't a horror film in a scary way, race and is very edgy -- at most

cinemas. There is this depth going on, like the Stepford wives, a black

guy goes to a white bread neighbourhood to meet the parents,

the parents of his girlfriend... They do not know that her daughter's

boyfriend is black? And then they find out, then we realise that maybe

they do? It isn't a scary horror film with scary bits going on, it

could be a great date movie, it is a really edgy bit of US comedy, it

made me laugh a lot, Get Out. There is the British actor there who is

brilliant in it and Alison Williams, who was in Girls, that just finished

on television this week. If you are missing it, there is one of them in

Get Out. And the best DVD, the Lady from Shanghai. Orson Welles... And

Rita Heyworth, his wife at the time. She was a famous redhead. In this

famous nor are film, he cut her hair, and turned her blonde! The

studio were up in arms. They want her as a redhead. It's a bit of a

mess this movie, and the final sequence is a Hall of mirrors, you

don't know who is shooting at who, there's this scene which was later

spoofed. I love this film, it is a puzzle but has all of the classic

things you need from this kind of film. Orson Welles does one of the

worst Irish accents, he plays Michael O'Hara. Nevertheless, it has

a great atmosphere and shows that Orson Welles was a fantastic

film-maker but ultimately flawed. That is what you want from your

Orson Welles films. And that is what you want from Jason Solomons.

That's all for this week. Thank you for watching, goodbye.