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thisbluespiritSo as I was saying on the accidental post the other day, I have been watching another batch of Jeremy Northam things over the past few months and pretty much all of them were either really great or at least interesting or both at once, so here are some more of them:
I rewatched Dean Spanley (2008) for my![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
intoabar assignment I didn't complete (I was not in an S&S mood but signed up with S&S as an option, guess what happened?) I wasn't intending to rewatch it fully because it was so soon after the first time, but actually it was just really good, so I did, and this time I wasn't so ill my emotions were jetlagged, which I have to say does improve the effects of a film. In terms of Jeremy Northam, I think this is one of his most quietly beautiful performances.
It is this odd little mix of fairy-tale/whimsy and grief, very well executed by a small but excellent cast (Peter O'Toole, Sam Neill, Judy Parfitt & Bryan Brown), and in the latter respect therefore not so unlike:
The Winslow Boy (1999) which I rewatched after my Mum returned it to me. I had been pining to do so, and then, suddenly, alas, I had finished it (it was just as good as before), which was how the gifset happened, because that helped with the sadness of having watched it and not being able to look forward to doing so any more. (It did work, though. I think I will always have fears that it won't, which one day will inevitably be true.)
Anyway, see my gifset, which has a) little moving pictures and b) halfway coherent thoughts in the tags. But if you like Terence Rattigan or low-key excellently observed character studies, it is a treat.
Not a rewatch: Happy, Texas (1999) - a comedy that stars Jeremy Northam and Steve Zahn as a pair of clueless small-time criminals who accidentally escape from prison, and go on the run in a camper van that turns out to belong to a gay couple who run children's beauty pagents in small towns. So they end up in Happy, Texas, trying to run a pageant, maintain their cover, and rob a bank, and end up in way over their heads on every count.
I watched it twice in a row, because it was exactly the happy, cheering thing I needed in my life right then. It's funny, but never mean, and anything that should have weight, has. Have a handy and excellent gifset made by someone else on tumblr.
Anyway, as part of it, Jeremy Northam has to fake date William H Macy's sheriff "Chappy" aka Our Hero of the piece. (They do not wind up together, but they do get to go dancing in a gay cowboy bar before the truth comes out. William H Macy says that was great, JN is a tall glass of water, even if maybe a tad too tall for some moves.)
My first thought in describing it was thoroughly good-hearted, and I was amused/pleased to see that in a 2012 interview, Jeremy Northam described it very similarly as "sweet-hearted". (It is, apparently, the most fun he had working in the US. I saw some clips on YT before risking getting it, and Ally Walker turned up in the comments saying much the same thing, so people seem to have enjoyed making it, too! Not essential, of course, but nice.)
Incidentally, while watching it and wondering why some random bits of scenes were familiar, I finally realised that my former housemate N had had a Jeremy Northam phase in c.1999-2000 while I was not paying attention. I realised I'd seen parts of The Net in passing, too, but I thought that was part of her eternal Sandra Bullock quest, but Happy, Texas clinched it. Now that I think about it, I think the first thing I ever watched with her was Emma (1996)!
[Otherwise i just zoomed my two irl bffs , so i'll catch up with all else another day!]
I rewatched Dean Spanley (2008) for my
intoabar assignment I didn't complete (I was not in an S&S mood but signed up with S&S as an option, guess what happened?) I wasn't intending to rewatch it fully because it was so soon after the first time, but actually it was just really good, so I did, and this time I wasn't so ill my emotions were jetlagged, which I have to say does improve the effects of a film. In terms of Jeremy Northam, I think this is one of his most quietly beautiful performances.It is this odd little mix of fairy-tale/whimsy and grief, very well executed by a small but excellent cast (Peter O'Toole, Sam Neill, Judy Parfitt & Bryan Brown), and in the latter respect therefore not so unlike:
The Winslow Boy (1999) which I rewatched after my Mum returned it to me. I had been pining to do so, and then, suddenly, alas, I had finished it (it was just as good as before), which was how the gifset happened, because that helped with the sadness of having watched it and not being able to look forward to doing so any more. (It did work, though. I think I will always have fears that it won't, which one day will inevitably be true.)
Anyway, see my gifset, which has a) little moving pictures and b) halfway coherent thoughts in the tags. But if you like Terence Rattigan or low-key excellently observed character studies, it is a treat.
Not a rewatch: Happy, Texas (1999) - a comedy that stars Jeremy Northam and Steve Zahn as a pair of clueless small-time criminals who accidentally escape from prison, and go on the run in a camper van that turns out to belong to a gay couple who run children's beauty pagents in small towns. So they end up in Happy, Texas, trying to run a pageant, maintain their cover, and rob a bank, and end up in way over their heads on every count.
I watched it twice in a row, because it was exactly the happy, cheering thing I needed in my life right then. It's funny, but never mean, and anything that should have weight, has. Have a handy and excellent gifset made by someone else on tumblr.
Anyway, as part of it, Jeremy Northam has to fake date William H Macy's sheriff "Chappy" aka Our Hero of the piece. (They do not wind up together, but they do get to go dancing in a gay cowboy bar before the truth comes out. William H Macy says that was great, JN is a tall glass of water, even if maybe a tad too tall for some moves.)
My first thought in describing it was thoroughly good-hearted, and I was amused/pleased to see that in a 2012 interview, Jeremy Northam described it very similarly as "sweet-hearted". (It is, apparently, the most fun he had working in the US. I saw some clips on YT before risking getting it, and Ally Walker turned up in the comments saying much the same thing, so people seem to have enjoyed making it, too! Not essential, of course, but nice.)
Incidentally, while watching it and wondering why some random bits of scenes were familiar, I finally realised that my former housemate N had had a Jeremy Northam phase in c.1999-2000 while I was not paying attention. I realised I'd seen parts of The Net in passing, too, but I thought that was part of her eternal Sandra Bullock quest, but Happy, Texas clinched it. Now that I think about it, I think the first thing I ever watched with her was Emma (1996)!
[Otherwise i just zoomed my two irl bffs , so i'll catch up with all else another day!]
no subject
Date: 16 Jul 2024 02:06 pm (UTC)Hurrah for great viewing \o/ Much better than watching the dregs, which I'm doing!
'Happy, Texas' sounds a million times better than 'Paris, Texas'(!).
no subject
Date: 16 Jul 2024 05:22 pm (UTC)Deja vu? ;-)
Hurrah for great viewing \o/ Much better than watching the dregs, which I'm doing!
Well, this was a while ago now - next up the more mixed bag of what remains, lol.
'Happy, Texas' sounds a million times better than 'Paris, Texas'(!).
Happy, Texas was great if you need a fun cheer-up film anytime!
no subject
Date: 17 Jul 2024 03:49 pm (UTC)Probably will need after watching terrible old films!
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Date: 17 Jul 2024 08:07 pm (UTC)I think it's comparative; I think there are not-so-good ones but I haven't heard tell of any horrors like pretty much every pre-1965 film Alfred Burke made. XD
With it being summer, I still haven't gone back to The Invasion (supposedly not great) or The Statement (hopefully good) because I don't want to be pining for them when I am stuck in the other room where the sun isn't.
no subject
Date: 18 Jul 2024 02:05 pm (UTC)Best to save movies for optimum watching times, yes.
no subject
Date: 18 Jul 2024 05:13 pm (UTC)... No, no, it's Alfie who has the bad films and the terrible alien invasion film! (Although apparently it is obligatory for everyone to have at least one slightly dodgy alien film. It's just that Alfie has a) at least two of them and b) the whole aliens advertising in <>i>Bikini Girl thing.)