Posts Tagged ‘The Last King of Scotland (2006)’
Author: James
Your story or your life?
It’s an interesting phenomenon – cinema, down the years, has by and large served the Fourth Estate very well. Choice examples such as Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole (1951), All the President’s Men (1976) by Alan J. Pakula, and Michael Mann’s The Insider (1999) are very much ancestors to Kevin McDonald’s State of Play (2009), which was itself originally a very highly rated Paul Abbott-written BBC mini-series directed by David Yates, back in 2003.
Author: James
Monster performance
How can the inhuman be humanized? It’s a difficult line to tread – a very successful attempt of recent times came with Oliver Hirschbiegel’s marvellous Der Untergang (2004), which chronicled the last, pathetic days of one Adolf Hitler (Bruno Ganz).
Acclaimed documentary film-maker Kevin MacDonald (Touching the Void (2002)) here turns his attention to the life and times of brutal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland. True, the central, Oscar-winning performance from Forest Whitaker is as good as you’ve heard and better, but MacDonald’s film as a whole is undermined somewhat by its juxtaposition of fact and fiction.
- Colin: Mike: the Matrix was utter toss. Don’t go there. Anyhow, I’m right with you on Aliens –...
- Colin: James: Why not do ten more and see if you can avoid putting the god-awful travesty that is Independence Day in...
- CD: The Day the Earth Stood Still (it’s about an alien who is Jesus…but better than ET) Soylent Green...
- James: Hello Chris, and welcome to Picturenose!
Many thanks for your comment – I thought, in fact, that... - James: Colin, good points, both on Westworld (which should really have been included, I know, I know) and otters.