The Mike Leigh Poll

Haha! Exactly.

btw i was unable to tell if a climactic line in Mr. Turner was "The sun is gone," or "The sun is God."

knowing Turner probably the latter?

That seems to be the case, but either works in context.

Leigh & company (audio) at NYFF:

http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff2014/blog/listen-mike-leigh-and-the-crew-of-mr.-turner-uncover-the-world-of-j.-m.-w

more reviews, video interviews

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-mike-leighs-mr-turner

watched Life is Sweet for the first time since 1998. After twenty years of wonderful movies, it looks underwritten: Horrocks' misanthropy (a rough draft of Thewlis' Johnny a movie later) gets quasi-resolved after Steadman confronts her; and the restaurant stuff sputters after a scene.

A good reminder that Spall's always been good delineating Dickens-esque caricatures. The pineapple!

It's a shame that so much that is well observed in this gets overwhelmed by unbelievable grotesquerie. It's the same for many of his films though like High Hopes where the working class family life scenes get trumped by ridiculous scenarios with the yuppie neighbours.

And I finally saw Mr. Turner too which is hobbled for the same reasons. Is there any reason to make Ruskin such a ridiculous buffoon?

I didn't see evidence of grotesquerie in LIS. As for Ruskin, I accepted the caricature b/c so much of the movie is seen from Turner's pov.

Spall and Horrocks are broadly written and played but their characters made sense.

I just found the whole restaurant scenario and Spall's performance grotesque. Horrocks pulled it off against all the odds.

I'm thinking Another Year might be his best lately

Vera Drake is excellent.

I havent seen that one

Watched Mr Turner last night. Absolutely wonderful.

Just watched "Another Year". Not sure how to feel about seeing Lesley Mansville portrayed as histrionic again (as in "Secrets and Lies"). A fine performance, but there's something broad about contrasting her desperation with the more settled, liberal Tom and Jerri couple. Perhaps the point is that for some people things stay roughly the same, whether they're fuck ups or getting through life comfortably with a smug disposition. The final dinner scene where Tom is talking about travelling and Ronnie and Mary look bored at the apparent superficiality of it all is well pitched.

Lesley Mansville portrayed as histrionic again (as in "Secrets and Lies")

??

Shit, I think I got her confused with another actress. My mistake.

Saw "Nuts in May" at the cinema last week. Utterly classic.

http://68.media.tumblr.com/fa81b072d35c5669db90e01bd5337905/tumblr_ns3q19GGlg1ubegd2o1_400.gif

She's in Secrets and Lies but she's very low key in it. I agree with you though, the film is completely off balance. The whole character is virtually unbelievable.

I got Lesley confused with Brenda who also plays a similarly damaged and hopeless person.

Lesley plays the woman in the adoption agency who gives the mothers details to Hortense. She's only in a couple of brief scenes.

Unbelievable? Quite the contrary, I found her character chillingly real; seen parts of that woman in real life many times.

Meantime out on Criterion. Jarvis Cocker's fumbling interview with Leigh is a minor classic; he still dresses like it's 1983.

Jarvis or Leigh?

Naked is so amazing. Lesley Sharp is the best

so good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAo-43C2xnc

Turned 75 yesterday... revisting his London locations:

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/mike-leigh-london-locations

Meantime out on Criterion. Jarvis Cocker's fumbling interview with Leigh is a minor classic; he still dresses like it's 1983.

OTM. I actually liked the interview more than the movie (which I thought was just ok).

(that said, the movie is already looking better to me in the rearview)

Life is Sweet wrecked me. Beautiful movie. god, that scene with Wendy and Nicola

the tim spall restaurant stuff ruins it imo. it's just so stupidly grotesque.

grotesque? i'd agree that it's kinda shoehorned in, the real meat of the movie is with the kids, but that scene isn't even that long, and idk i found it heartbreaking. but idk i am from the USA

i just didn't believe that person would exist so it made the rest of it weird. alison steadman is amazing as is jane horrocks who's virtually unrecognisable.

love life is sweet so much

Happy go lucky is my absolute fave

Peterloo is a bit of a dud, sadly. I really wanted to like it. It's full of very dubious expositional dialogue and wonkily old fashioned cartoonish acting, for e.g. men staggering like they'd learned a staggering-motion by watching a silent melodrama. Leigh is also tone-deaf, as usual, when presenting upper class characters. Caricature barely covers what he's doing here and it sits uneasily with everything else.

Re: the expositional dialogue you get lots of scenes with mill workers talking about the corn laws in ways that just don't convince (they are actually talking to the cinema audience rather than each other) and one bafflingly ill-judged scene where a magistrate reads a letter about northern insurrection to his maid who then wanders off saying "oh dear" /scene ends. It's actually funny how bad this scene is but there are lots of equivalent scenes that aren't quite as bad.

The scenes around and during the massacre itself are just badly directed, there's no other way to put it. They had barely any impact at all, badly conceived, badly directed. Leigh was just out of his depth here.

It looks absolutely beautiful, for the most part. The colours are wonderful. There's some bad cgi in there though.

There’s video review of this on the Times website where the two film critics are just incredulous at how bad this film is.

http://thequietus.com/articles/25608-mike-leigh-beyond-the-hits

for some reason I was thinking it was Loach who was making the Peterloo movie, which definitely would have contained lots of dubious expositional dialogue as well. I think think this type of movie needs a Peter Watkins type approach or - no pun intended - it will be more corny history drama, of which there is no shortage of.

It makes you years for that kind of invention or for what Bill Douglas brought to the Tolpuddle Martyrs story in Comrades.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_I91gVdG2_Q

this is how you do it

I’ve never even heard of that, thanks.

I’m also thoroughly sick of seeing that Vincent Franklin guy in everything.

Interesting Quietus article, and always keen to see thoughts on 'Another Year' . Find this a bit much to take however:

Gerri has professional satisfaction and has made a peace with her age; Mary is clinging to a kind of femininity and sexuality that isn’t really a possibility anymore, something that’s maybe already left.

Pedantry perhaps, but I feel like Another Year was definitely a 'hit' for Leigh

Yes, I really liked it as a film..I was very sympathetic to Mary and found Tom and Gerri a bit cold and self-satisfied.

for some reason I was thinking it was Loach who was making the Peterloo movie, which definitely would have contained lots of dubious expositional dialogue as well

Fwiw, I'd like to see a Loach take on this. His Spanish civil war film includes lots of exposition but is still very good and moving. I do think it owes a lot to Watkins though, in a very respectful way.