Review: A Mighty Heart

"True story" movies are a genre I generally avoid. Titanic bored me: there's no suspense in the story for me when I already know the ship is going to break in two and sink. Same with Apollo 13. United 93 I didn't even bother to watch; all those 911 movies seemed exploitative propoganda as well as predictable.

So I approached A Mighty Heart without much hope. It does, to an extent, suffer from the same problem. 'Most everyone knows the story of the kidnap and murder of Journalist Daniel Pearl. The film is, however, based on his wife's memoir of the events, which is less well known. And the movie succeeds by not trying for huge suspense. Instead, we are shown the human side of the events: the efforts of real people behind the headlines and politics, with the movie audience watching while knowing that it cannot end well. It's an effective choice.

( Cut for length )

Review: Mrs Henderson Presents

"Sexual intercourse began in 1963..." Philip Larkin tells us, and it's kind of true, isn't it? We tend to think of the older generations as hopelessly Victorian and conservative. My own grandparents actually were. I imagine if Granddad had ever seen the kind of fiction I write it would have given him a stroke. Come to that, so might this movie. I saw it on DVD this weekend when I was too sick to do anything else and I've just got to tell you all how great it is!

Mrs Henderson Presents gives a very different impression of the generation of my grandparents: the generation which lived through two world wars. It's based on true events, but not well known true events, so unlike Titanic you don't know the end before the opening credits, and in this movie, it wouldn't really matter if you did.

( Why don't we have naked girls? )