MANICHAEAN
04-24-2011, 04:04 AM
The Royals & the Cinema.
Last week I found myself in a cinema watching “The King's Speech,” and what a good film with great acting and dialogue it was.
Apparently Queen Elizabeth enjoyed it too. She reportedly found it moving and was touched by Colin Firth's sensitive portrayal of her father, George VI. Certainly you find yourself rooting for him through every agonizing stammer, willing him to get the words out.
It must be a weird feeling seeing yourself or close family portrayed on screen, but Queen Elizabeth must be getting used to it by now. Only a few years ago she was the main character in “The Queen”, which one suspects she did not find enjoyable at all, as it covered a particularly stressful time for her and her family. However she invited the actress who played her, Helen Mirren, to the Palace for tea and biscuits, so it must have been OK.
That film picked up several Oscars and it would be a surprise if “The King's Speech” doesn't do even better. At the very least Firth can look forward to tea and biscuits at the Palace.
I have only seen Queen Elizabeth twice in real life and both times it was little more than a fleeting glimpse when she whizzed past in the royal limousine.
The first occasion was the mid-1950s when she passed through my part of London to open something. All schoolchildren were summoned to line the route and we were given miniature Union Jacks to wave. We dutifully lined up and waited for ages, ending up cheering any vehicle that went past. When the Queen eventually came, it was all over in a few seconds and I just caught a flash of her in a yellow hat. It sounds a bit boring but we nine year olds weren't bothered. After all, anyone who contributed to us getting the afternoon off school was a hero, or in this case, a heroine.
Back to the movies. Saturday morning pictures used to be a tradition for English kids in the 1950s and 60s. I used to go to the Odeon in High Street Kensington, entrance fee six pence and once saw live, Roy Rogers & his horse.
Mum wasn't very enthusiastic about me going to the local "flea-pit" which she believed attracted all sorts of undesirables. And she was right.
Alas, sometimes things got a bit rowdy in the audience and wild sweet fights erupted with toffees, gobstoppers and peppermints flying around. Getting hit on the head by a water bomb was not particularly pleasant either.
Later in Nigeria it was a bit chaotic too. I remember watching “Lawrence of Arabia” at the Plateau Club in Jos where a projector displayed Peter O’Toole doing his stuff in the burning desert on a wall which doubled as a screen. The only trouble was that, although the audience was under a canopy, the wall was exposed to the elements, or in this case a tropical rainstorm!
In Kingston, Jamaica I went to see a truly terrible, so called comedy film. There were many locals smoking ganja, such that I became a victim of passive smoking and came out laughing my head off!
Those were the days my friends.
M.
Last week I found myself in a cinema watching “The King's Speech,” and what a good film with great acting and dialogue it was.
Apparently Queen Elizabeth enjoyed it too. She reportedly found it moving and was touched by Colin Firth's sensitive portrayal of her father, George VI. Certainly you find yourself rooting for him through every agonizing stammer, willing him to get the words out.
It must be a weird feeling seeing yourself or close family portrayed on screen, but Queen Elizabeth must be getting used to it by now. Only a few years ago she was the main character in “The Queen”, which one suspects she did not find enjoyable at all, as it covered a particularly stressful time for her and her family. However she invited the actress who played her, Helen Mirren, to the Palace for tea and biscuits, so it must have been OK.
That film picked up several Oscars and it would be a surprise if “The King's Speech” doesn't do even better. At the very least Firth can look forward to tea and biscuits at the Palace.
I have only seen Queen Elizabeth twice in real life and both times it was little more than a fleeting glimpse when she whizzed past in the royal limousine.
The first occasion was the mid-1950s when she passed through my part of London to open something. All schoolchildren were summoned to line the route and we were given miniature Union Jacks to wave. We dutifully lined up and waited for ages, ending up cheering any vehicle that went past. When the Queen eventually came, it was all over in a few seconds and I just caught a flash of her in a yellow hat. It sounds a bit boring but we nine year olds weren't bothered. After all, anyone who contributed to us getting the afternoon off school was a hero, or in this case, a heroine.
Back to the movies. Saturday morning pictures used to be a tradition for English kids in the 1950s and 60s. I used to go to the Odeon in High Street Kensington, entrance fee six pence and once saw live, Roy Rogers & his horse.
Mum wasn't very enthusiastic about me going to the local "flea-pit" which she believed attracted all sorts of undesirables. And she was right.
Alas, sometimes things got a bit rowdy in the audience and wild sweet fights erupted with toffees, gobstoppers and peppermints flying around. Getting hit on the head by a water bomb was not particularly pleasant either.
Later in Nigeria it was a bit chaotic too. I remember watching “Lawrence of Arabia” at the Plateau Club in Jos where a projector displayed Peter O’Toole doing his stuff in the burning desert on a wall which doubled as a screen. The only trouble was that, although the audience was under a canopy, the wall was exposed to the elements, or in this case a tropical rainstorm!
In Kingston, Jamaica I went to see a truly terrible, so called comedy film. There were many locals smoking ganja, such that I became a victim of passive smoking and came out laughing my head off!
Those were the days my friends.
M.