July 27th 
Happy and Glorious**                               
(GB 2012)
BBC. 5m.

James Bond escorts the Queen by helicopter from Buckingham Palace across London to the Olympic stadium.
The prize gimmick of the 2012 Olympic opening ceremony, a quite niftily made little short with some clever trickwork (animating Churchill's statue), and suitably entertaining for these sorts of occasions.

p: Lisa Osborne
d: Danny Boyle
s: Daniel Craig, H M Queen Elizabeth II

+ the Queen's "double" for the helicopter scenes was Julia McKenzie

A major coup for Danny Boyle: after sixty years of on-screen portrayals by the likes of Jeanette Charles, Helen Mirren and others, the real thing decided to have a go.

Jul 22nd 

Au Revoir les Enfants***                               

(Fra/WG 1987)

Experiences at a Carmelite boarding school in occupied France during WWII, where a boy realises his quiet, reserved classmate is a Jew in hiding.
Beautifully observed, no-nonsense filming by Malle based on his own childhood (as downbeat and truthful as were The Pianist and Schindler's List), with a heart-wrenching finale.

Written, Produced and Directed by: Louis Malle.
Starring: Gaspard Manesse, Raphael Fejto, Philippe Morier-Genoud, Francois Berleand, Francine Racette, Stanislas Carre de Malberg, Francois Negret, Irene Jacob.
Photography: Renato Berta.
Music: Various classical.
Production Design: Willy Holt.

Jul 17th  

Prometheus** (15)                         
(Odeon Colchester)

In the late 21st century, a team of space explorers travels to a distant planet attempting to find the original creators of human beings - who want to destroy them.
Scott's crack at 2001 territory: louder, brashly entertaining and also not as slick as Alien to which this is a prequel in different clothes (actually one of the few of late to credibly resemble its later world), answering some of the original's questions, and posing just as many new ones.

d: Ridley Scott
s: Noomi Rapace, Charlize Theron, Michael Fassbender, Logan Marshall-Green, Idris Elba, Guy Pearce, Sean Harris, Rafe Spall

Jul 11th   

Orphans of the Storm***                         

(US 1921)

D.W. Griffith. 150m. bw. silent

Two adopted sisters find their lives torn apart by the oncoming French Revolution.
Stirring historical melodrama with all the usual quaint Griffith characteristics, taking his own political slant (with a message against Bolshevism then slightly prevalent in America), but doing for the French Revolution what he did for the Civil War in The Birth of a Nation.

Written by: Gaston de Tolignac (D.W. Griffith), based on the novel "The Two Orphans" by Adolphe d'Ennery, Eugene Cormon.
Producer/Director: D.W. Griffith.
 Starring: Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, Joseph Shildrkraut, Monte Blue (as Danton), Sidney Herbert (as Robespierre), Katherine Emmet, Franke Losee, Leslie King, Lucille La Verne, Sheldon Lewis, Frank Puglia, Creighton Hale.
Photography: Paul H. Allen, Billy Bitzer, Hendrik Sartou.
Art Direction: Charles M. Kirk.

Preceded by:

Tom and Jerry at the Hollywood Bowl***

(US 1950. 7m.; d: William Hanna, Joseph Barbera; p: Fred Quimby.)

Jul 4th 

Man on Wire**                                                  

(GB/US 2007)
Discovery Films/Wall to Wall/Red Box Films. 90m.

In 1974 French tightrope artists Philippe Petit with his collaborators makes an audacious attempt to walk between the two towers of the World Trade Centre.
Atmospheric documentary which irritatingly flashes back and forth between the event itself and the meticulous preparation, missing certain details such as spells of imprisonment for the illegal stunts, but invaluably capturing some of the original footage, making the whole bonkers enterprise as breathtaking as it was in 1974, and especially nostalgic in view of the World Trade Centre's later fate (which is never mentioned).

Producer: Simon Chinn.
Director: James Marsh.
Featuring: Philippe Petit, Jean-Francois Heckel, Jean-Louis Blondeau, Annie Allix, David Forman, Alan Welner, and others.
Photography: Igot Martinovic.
Editing: Jinx Godfrey.