Colin Firth

Empire of Light

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Stephen and Hilary on the roof of the cinema

Margate on the south coast of England is one of many British seaside towns that’s seen better days. So has its cinema, Wonderland, here renamed by Sam Mendes and his team as the Empire, for a story set in 1980 about people who’ve seen better days, a country too, perhaps. Britain once had an empire of its own, of course. Metaphor and symbolism hang heavy in Empire of Light and affect every aspect of it. In the opening sequences cinematographer Roger Deakins’s camera mooches balefully about the interior of this palace of plush. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s score weeps. This place isn’t in good shape. Bits are roped off, a whole floor … Read more

Lifeforce

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Space Girl about to go on the rampage

The cheap and cheerful Cannon Group were ready for the big time in the mid 1980s. Having made a decent amount of money out of various barrelscrapers – Death Wish sequels, Chuck Norris actioners and assorted Ninja movies – they decided to move upmarket. Lifeforce was the result, a big-budget (for them) sci-fi movie and the first of a three-picture deal between director Tobe Hooper (still hot from Poltergeist) and the “Go-Go boys”, as Cannon owners, cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, were known. The film was a total flop on its release and got hacked about a bit in an attempt to make it more sellable. That didn’t work either. However, over … Read more

Supernova

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Stanley Tucci and Colin Firth in a field

Supernova is an admirably tight drama starring Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci. It gives us the who and the where immediately – Sam (Firth) and Tusker (Tucci), a long-established couple on holiday in the Lake District in one of those tiny RVs, a Fiat Autotrail, that offer all the creature comforts (cooking, sleeping, sanitation) a crab could want. There’s a bed (the opening shot of a naked Sam wrapped around Tusker) and there’s banter as the two drive from one location to another, Tusker wheeling out the terrible jokes, Sam groaning in response, the pair of them reacting to the landscape and the songs on the radio as the vehicle snakes along tight … Read more

The King’s Speech

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Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush in The King's Speech

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 19 June Wallis Simpson born, 1896 On this day in 1896, Bessie Wallis Warfield was born in Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania. Her father died of tuberculosis when she was only a few months old and she was supported by various members of her father’s family, until her mother remarried, though it was her father’s brother who paid for her to attend Maryland’s most expensive girls school. Bright, ambitious and always well dressed, Wallis was popular and in 1916 she married a US Navy aviator, Earl Winfield Spencer Jr. An alcoholic and womaniser, her husband and Wallis had an on-off relationship with … Read more