Tag Archives: Kate Winslet

Enigma

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Bletchley Park, 60 miles outside London during the Second World War. The Germans have just changed the codes they use for their military communications, so the English bring in Tom Jericho (Dougray Scott), their former code breaking prodigy who was the only one able to crack the codes last time around. The problem is, Jericho went a little bit insane after some business involving his former lover Claire (Saffron Burrows), who has recently disappeared. On top of all this, there’s a rumour of a mole inside Bletchley Park, and when Tom investigates Claire’s disappearance with her room mate Hester (Kate Winslet), Tom finds incriminating evidence that could point towards Claire being the culprit, and he even finds himself under suspicion. Oh, and of course he’s working against the clock, as there’s a flotilla of US supply ships heading directly towards a cluster of German U-boats, and only his code-cracking skills can possible save them.
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Quills

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The Marquis de Sade (Geoffrey Rush) has been imprisoned by Napoleon for writing sexually explicit novels Justine and Juliette. Whilst in prisoned at the Charenton Insane Asylum, de Sade uses a laundry maid (Kate Winslet) to smuggle out his scripts. The Abbe de Coulmier (Joaquin Phoenix), who runs the asylum, battles constantly with the rebellious de Sade, until eventually Dr. Royer-Collard (Michael Caine), a conditioning expert, is brought in to ‘cure’ the man.
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Holy Smoke

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Hurrah, another Jane Campion film. I can’t say I was much of a fan of The Piano, so I wasn’t much looking forward to this, the next available film featuring Kate Winslet (Hideous Kinky and Faeries are as yet out of my reach).

Winslet plays Ruth, a young Australian girl (with a distinctly English accent) who has travelled to India to find herself. As well as finding that, she discovers and becomes willingly entangled in a mass marriage/suicide cult, and her understandably concerned family would rather she just came home. After Ruth’s mother (Julie Hamilton) manages to persuade her daughter to come back to Sydney with her, utilising a fake illness for her father and a very real asthma attack for her mother, the family bring in P. J. Waters (Harvey Keitel), a professional ‘exit counsellor,’ an expert at convincing people to give up their new found cultish beliefs and return to their previous lives.
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Hamlet

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There are some films on the List that I’ve no idea when I’ll get to them. These films fall into three categories – the ones I absolutely adore but have no clue how I’ll even start writing about them, the ones I desperately do not want to watch (but am too much of an anal completist to ignore) and the really long ones. This four-hour-plus cut of Hamlet obviously falls into the latter, but fortunately for me, my girlfriend opted for Kate Winslet as her Film-Maker of choice, and seeing as I’ve reached that point in Winslet’s career in which she appeared in Hamlet as Ophelia, I can cross off Kenneth Branagh’s opus from the Empire 5-Star 500. As for the unspeakable films I don’t want to see, whenever LoveFilm drop Salo through my letterbox it shall not be a good day, though I could pull an In The Realm Of The Senses and bottle it when I’ve taken as much as I can stand.
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Jude

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I had a discussion with my girlfriend recently about The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, instigated by my viewing of the unimpressive trailer for the new remake (in 3D, of course). When I explained the basic premise – a group of kids run into a family of skin-wearing cannibals – she was appalled at A) why someone would watch such a film, B) why someone would make it, and C) what kind of depraved soul would own such a monstrosity. I then answered questions A and C (she wouldn’t have cared that Tobe Hooper made it) by pointing to the copy of the film on my DVD shelf. Why do I bring this up? Well, though I’m not a massive fan of horror (I haven’t seen The Texas Chain Saw Massacre since I bought it), I will occasionally watch a film for the same reasons I go on rollercoasters; they add a certain element of thrill and excitement – and terror – otherwise missing from my humdrum existence on this Earth. My question is, who would watch, make or own a film like Jude?
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A Kid in King Arthur’s Court

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It seems I didn’t quite think through the strategy of watching the entire careers of various prestigious film-makers. Who’d have thought that, before they became renowned and laden with numerous awards, actors would take any roles going to pay the rent, regardless of the claptrap they may be. And so it is with A Kid in King Arthur’s Court, the family-friendly second entry on Kate Winslet’s CV, and what I hope will be the worst, although seeing as I’ve still got The Holiday to watch at some point, this may not be the case.
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Heavenly Creatures

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Christchurch, New Zealand, the mid-1950s. Two girls, Pauline (Melanie Lynskey) and Juliet (Kate Winslet) run terrified through the dense forest, the air streaked with their screams and their faces streaked with blood. They burst through the bushes and emerge to the concerned face of a passer-by with the words “It’s Mummy! She’s terribly hurt!”So begins Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures, the true story of two schoolgirls whose problematic home lives forge a bridge between them, a bridge that leads to a fantasy world of princes and princesses, giant butterflies, murder, topiary and unicorns. But when their parents strive to separate the two, the girls hatch a plan to remain together by taking drastic actions.

Top 5… Films of the Film-Makers I’m Watching

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I know what you’re thinking: “A Top 5? On a Monday? Madness!” and you’re correct. However, this isn’t any old Top 5. No, it’s a Top 5 that’s actually five Top 5s, all of which are likely to change over the next few months. Basically, as regular readers will know I’ve recently decided to watch all of the films by some of my favourite film-makers, but I thought I’d give you all a taste of my opinions of them before I completely submerge myself. So, below, are my current Top 5 lists of the films of George Clooney, the Coen brothers, Alfred Hitchcock, Steve McQueen and Kate Winslet. I’ll re-do each person’s list once I’ve finished all of their films. Chances are, if you’re favourite of their films isn’t on any of the lists then I haven’t watched it yet. Or you’re wrong.

Sense and Sensibility

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 Lord Dashwood (Tom Wilkinson) passes away and, unable to split his vast estate between his two families, his wife and three daughters are ousted from their palatial mansion by their half-brother John (James Fleet) and his vile wife Fanny (Harriet Walter), and are forced to considerably downsize their opulent lifestyles. Hope, it seems, arrives in the forms of Fanny’s reserved brother Edward (Hugh Grant) and the dashing Mr. Willoughby (Greg Wise), who each take a shining to two of the Dashwood sisters (Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet).

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Heavenly Creatures

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A true story told via the diary entries of the young Pauline (Melanie Lynskey), Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures is one part coming-of-age story, as the introverted outsider Pauline meets and bonds with Kate Winslet’s rich but sickly Juliet, and part exploration on the journey that ends with possible mental disorder. The two girls give great performances in their first film roles (though Winslet shows the greater potential to go on to win an Oscar rather than a regular role on Two and a Half Men), as the girls become closer whilst their parents become increasingly more worried. The film moved slowly, with a sense that the central relationship will not end well for anyone involved, and some scenes seem contrived – the fourteen-year old girls spontaneously stripping to their underwear as they run through the wood – but maybe that’s just a New Zealand thing. The brutal ending is shocking and abrupt, in stark contrast with the lands of make-believe and daydreams the girls have previously been living in, and the imagery sticks with you for a long time.
Choose film 6/10