Category: Motion Pictures

Report

There was a great turn-out for the fourth annual quiz with 13 taking part – seven as individuals and three pairs of partners.

In Part 1 first-timers Ros and Neil posted spectacular scores at either end of the spectrum – 36 and 2 respectively, but everyone enjoyed the questions. Richard, on 28.5 might have run Ros close if he’d been in time for the first set of questions. Ian was third on 26.5.

Part 2 was a much closer contest, with only ten points separating the entire field. Those who had seen more of the films made good their advantage, with Jonathan & Serena winning on 31, Caroline second on 27 and Neil third on 26.

The aggregate champion was Ros. The full set of scores for parts 1 and 2 and overall are:

• Ros^* (36, 24, 60)
• Richard^* (28.5¹, 25, 53.5)
• Jonathan & Serena^* (22, 31, 53)
• Ian (26.5, 22, 48.5)
• Caroline (19.5, 27, 46.5)
• Nick & Carolyn (23, 21, 44)
• JT (10, 25, 35)
• Jon (9², 25, 34)
• Neil^* (2, 26, 28)
• Ellen & Simon (8, –³, -)

^* It might be fun next year if the top three contestants overall this year each posed a set of questions in Part 1. Plus, what about a section on the use of vehicles in films from Neil?

Participation

Since 2020 when I started Lockdown Films and After I’ve been keeping a running total of each person’s attendances, including at the special events. This is not a detailed register of who attended each time, just a total figure for the year for each participant in the film club. I’ve listed these totals below for the first half of 2023 and for the whole of 2022 for comparison.

Notes and Comments

Attending for any part of a meeting counts as attending.

My own participation is excluded, so the number of people in each meeting altogether is one more than the average attendance shown.

From the start of 2023 I’ve introduced the alternative Saturday discussion. If you treat each pair of Thursday and Saturday discussions as one event then this year there have been 11 events so far, including the Quiz and WILTY, with an average attendance of 9.8

The four new participants this year have been a fantastic boost to the group, as well as those who have been able to attend more frequently.

While the Saturday option has increased participation altogether the average attendance has of course gone down significantly because of the spread across two meetings. I think the optimum for a lively discussion with sufficient airtime for each individual is about 6 or 7 plus myself. With just one or two more people attending each time we would achieve that on average.

Of course the films themselves need to be appealing. This is the subject of the next section.

Appraisal

The other note I’ve been making after each pair of discussions is a sense of how well or badly each film went down with the group. This is a highly subjective, rough and ready estimate. All I’m aiming for is a very vague impression of the relative popularity of each film based on what people said or wrote. Some points to note:

• There are two columns in the table below – one for my own opinion after seeing the film this time, and the other for my attempted averaging of everyone else’s opinion, which is often very different.
• The group’s opinion is based on the impression I gleaned from the discussions plus any written feedback I might have got. This average is irrespective of the size of the pool i.e. whether a small or a larger number of people watched it and gave their views.
• Positive and negative opinions of equal strength cancel each other out. So if half the people loved a film and the other half hated it then it is on a par with a film that everyone thought was just about OK.
• The lists give no indication of how good or bad the films were reckoned to be in absolute terms, only their relative rankings. My own judgements are bound to be more positive overall than the aggregate of the members, since I’ve chosen nearly all of the films from my own past favourites. However this year so far almost every film has also been generally well received by the members who discussed it. Even the bottom one in the list had its admirers.

Rank	Chris	Average of Everyone Else
1	Reservoir Dogs	Shiva Baby
2	Goodfellas	Film Stars Don’t Die In Liverpool
3	Annie Hall	Annie Hall
4	Woman In A Dressing Gown	Pain And Glory
5	Film Stars Don’t Die In Liverpool	Raise The Red Lantern
6	Lawless Heart	Wild Rose
7	The American Friend	Tea With Mussolini
8	Pain And Glory	Goodfellas
9	Raise The Red Lantern	Garden State
10	Random Harvest	Random Harvest
11	Ice Cold In Alex	Lawless Heart
12	Shiva Baby	Three Kings
13	Garden State	Reservoir Dogs
14	Inside Llewyn Davis	The American Friend
15	Three Kings	Ice Cold In Alex
16	Tea With Mussolini	Woman In A Dressing Gown
17	Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence	Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence
18	Wild Rose	Inside Llewyn Davis

The films I’m lining up for the rest of the year will be at least as interesting and varied as those above.

Communication

The enforced transition from Microsoft Teams to Zoom went smoothly, and it will now be easier for any new person to join since there is no more need for a Microsoft account.

Using this WordPress platform as the information centre also has advantages. It has a simpler and more reliable notification mechanism for example. If you click on the overall site heading The Babbling Pond, and then scroll down to the bottom you can subscribe to the content. Every time I add a new post like this one, or update and re-publish The Next Two Films, you will get an email to let you know (in your Social tab if you’re on gmail or similar).

The downside is a slight loss of online ambience. On Teams everyone could post their own messages to the group or have individual chats. Use of these facilities seemed to be on the decline anyway however. And you can comment here as well. Just scroll to the bottom of any page to see this option. Please feel free to use it and get a new conversation going!

Special event on Thursday 20th April

To celebrate the third anniversary of Lockdown Films and After we will play WILTY once more, or WILTYOM, our own special version of the TV comedy panel game. It will take place during the Thursday time slot, from 6:30 pm to 7:50 pm.

I’m looking forward to sharing some more tall and true tales with the players from the last two years and the first-timers as we try to lead each other up the garden path.

The Game
To see the experts at play you can watch all the episodes from the last two series here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b007r3n8/would-i-lie-to-you

Our rules are easier. The big difference is that you get to prepare your statements and the stories behind them in advance.

When it’s your turn you first state the supposed fact about yourself in one short sentence. Then you can talk about it for up to one minute before anyone asks any questions.

After that the people on the other team have up to two minutes to interrogate you about it further before they come to a joint decision as to whether your claim is true or false. If they get it right their team gains a point. If they get it wrong your team gains a point.

Statements
Between now and the event think of two interesting statements you could make about yourself that nobody in the group except possibly your partner would know to be either true or false. It should be either an experience or incident from your past or some repeated behaviour or habit from your past or present. You can also if you wish produce an object that played or plays a part in the alleged incident or behaviour.

Your 2 statements can be either both true, both false or one true and one false. Do not tell anyone, other than your partner if you wish, either the statement or whether it is true or false in advance. Decide which one to use on your first turn in the witness stand and which on your second. Have an idea of what you will say during your initial story for each of them.

Teams
I will allocate people to the teams alternately as they join the meeting in the order they appear on screen, subject to these two constraints:

1. Any couple or two people joining together on the same screen, will be on the same team.
2. The number of people in total on each team, and the number of couples on each team will be the same or just one more or less.

Each team will then appoint a Captain. The captain’s responsibility is to determine the consensus of the team after they have questioned a member of the other team about their statement, and to state on behalf of the team whether they think it is true or a lie.

Procedure

The teams will take it in turns to put a member forward to tell their tale. Nobody should interrupt the speaker during their initial description of the supposed event or habit.

The team colleagues of the person whose story is being considered should not get involved in the questioning or the debate about whether it is true or not. They are very welcome however to make gratuitous humorous remarks.

Once everyone on each team has had a turn we will have a second round in the same sequence. If someone has to leave early they can jump the queue to have their second turn first.

Timing
As well as participating in the game I will set the one minute and two minute timers for the initial descriptions and the questioning and say when the time is up.

The Moment of Truth
When the cross-examining team has given their decision the person being questioned reveals whether the statement was true or false. It will make the moment more dramatic if you have previously prepared a TRUE and a LIE card (or just one or the other if your statements are both true or both false) and hold it up to camera e.g.

See you in Court!

Who are the best dissemblers and the grandest inquisitors in the film club? Find out on Thursday April 20th in our Third Anniversary Special Edition of Lockdown Films and After!

Join the Meeting

Topic: 18:30 Would I Lie To You Once More?
Time: Apr 20, 2023 06:30 PM London

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/74599150821?pwd=7pLcbIQ4efeHDHwfX73s15b6aVHGV1.1

Meeting ID: 745 9915 0821
Passcode: 5Ak3f0

If the meeting ends before we’re finished then join this one to continue:

Topic: 19:10 Would I Lie To You Once More?
Time: Apr 20, 2023 07:10 PM London

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/72885880528?pwd=qbxZhd7pWh4HHj5F5H8dxwTCezz1BA.1

Meeting ID: 728 8588 0528
Passcode: 6dGPdP

Please comment on this post with any queries you may have.

Glengarry Glen Ross

Playwright David Mamet’s incisive, witty and brutally frank exposés of the American male psyche in pursuit of money, sex and the sheer satisfaction of trampling over your rival to achieve your goal, reached its zenith, or nadir in terms of the behaviour depicted, with his 1983 play set in a cut-throat real-estate office. For the film version of Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) director James Foley insisted on box-office stars to play the major roles of office manager, motivational trainer and four salesmen who fight over the leads (unwary investors to be manipulated into signing a deal) and who regale each other with their methods of achieving closure. Boy did he get his wish! Never in the history of cinema has such a modest indoor scene been the setting for such a roster of renowned actors (too many to name here) to flex their muscles and show their mettle in close-quarter combat. The distinctive personalities and conflicting agendas in Mamet’s brilliant script make for a claustrophobic drama of the highest order in this production. I’m amazed it achieved only a single Oscar nomination.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104348/

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/glengarry_glen_ross

Snow Cake

Snow Cake (2006) is small independent film set in the snow drifts of Ontaria that might have been frozen beneath them without reaching the screen were it not for Alan Rickman accepting the leading male role and enlisting Sigourney Weaver as his co-star. No surprises in Rickman playing the decent, considerate but guilt-ridden visitor to the remote township of Wawa, but it was initially a bit of a shock to see Weaver looking so plain as the unworldly resident he has come to see. It’s a credit to the much lesser-known director Marc Evans and two scriptwriters that my growing interest in the characters and how their relations would develop soon banished the apparent bleakness of their situation. The critics seem a bit sniffy but I’m with the majority of ordinary punters in finding this a highly involving domestic drama with some original twists, a good mix of the serious and humorous, and of course beautifully acted by the two principals as well as the supporting actors. I’ve said almost nothing about the story, leaving it as virgin territory for the first-time viewer to discover.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448124/

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/snow_cake

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