Tag: Eileen Atkins

REVIEW: Tea with the Dames [2018]

Jared Mobarak

It’s alright, you can still swear. Friends for over fifty years, Eileen Atkins, Judi Dench, Joan Plowright, and Maggie Smith join together for Nothing Like a Dame [Tea with the Dames] as they often have. This time, however, comes at the behest of director Roger Michell. And while it’s structured to appear like any other get-together this quartet has enjoyed at Plowright’s estate, there’s no effort to hide the production’s artifice under false pretenses of fly-on-the-wall intent. We see clapboards, listen to Smith good-naturedly call out a photographer off-camera, and…

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REVIEW: Gosford Park [2001]

Jared Mobarak

“I’m the perfect servant: I have no life” Watching Gosford Park again conjured thoughts about it being quintessential Robert Altman, thoughts I couldn’t conjure in 2001 considering it was my first true experience watching one of his films. It proves the perfect evolutionary end to a way of filmmaking he began over twenty years previous with A Wedding‘s sprawling cast, overlapping dialogue, and class strife. Its Agatha Christie-type whodunit conceit lends itself perfectly to his sensibilities and aesthetic, but we can thank Bob Balaban for enthusiastically asking to collaborate for…

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REVIEW: Robin Hood [2010]

Jared Mobarak

“We are men of the hood, merry at your expense” I’ll start this out with the truth: Robin Hood is not Robin Hood—and that’s not a bad thing. You’ll catch on very early once you realize the name Robin Longstride for Russell Crowe’s lead character isn’t an artistic change because it rolls easier off the tongue. No, the Loxley moniker does also exist; only it’s attached to King Richard’s right hand man, neck deep in the Crusades’ final hoorah. Throw in the fact The Lionheart himself dies within the first…

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REVIEW: Last Chance Harvey [2008]

Jared Mobarak

“Are you trying to get me to buy you a new dress?” It’s the little film that could, Joel Hopkins’ Last Chance Harvey. I remember it getting a limited run locally and then being surprised by Golden Globe nods for both leads, Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson. If the feel-good praise didn’t get me to want to check it out, the award accolades did; however, it’s not necessarily the type of film that I’d seek too ambitiously. But, when I had an hour to kill and Starz On Demand with…

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