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captainsblog...how did an amazing motion picture wind up in mine?
Over the weekend, we watched a remarkable piece from the Beeb titled Gideon's Daughter. I don't think Eleanor had a clue as to its pedigree; it was just hanging about the G's in the library's DVD bins when she snagged a bunch of films for her post-layoff period at the end of last month.
That film's a delightful self-contained story by itself, but its part-time omniscient narrator is a bloke named Sneath, played by Robert Lindsay, who the same writer/director introduced in a BBC production from earlier that year titled Friends and Crocodiles.
I cannot begin to do justice to the story or the performances in this slightly earlier production. Suffice it, it predicts much of the current world economic crisis in a dead-on sort of way, while still looking with a playful eye at the creativity and spontanaeity that is, and has always been, so much more important in life.
Instead, then, I'll just comment on the Local Colour that Eleanor and I both noticed, seconds apart, as we got into the heart of the motion picture.
----
Despite my frequent affectations, when you get right down to it, I've spent fewer than 90 days of my life across the pond. Most of those were lived out in a northwest London neighborhood known as Maida Vale, and much of my drinking in those earlier days (circa 1983, not far off from the oldest flashbacks in the film) was done at the gorgeous bar of a pub down the Crescent from my cheap student digs, known as the Warrington Hotel.
On our honeymoon in 1987, and again on a return visit in spring 2000, Eleanor and I visited that pub for its phenomenal architecture, its character, and (in its latter incarnation) its Thai food at the bar. From that latter visit, she probably knows it better than even I do, since she photographed it extensively with her just-deceased digital camera, and photoshopped many remarkable shots of its interior.
So when Paul and Lizzie (hero and heroine of the piece) arranged for a meetup roughly an hour into the current picture, we were amazed and thrilled to see that the production company had chosen Our Local as the setting for one of the key scenes in the entire movie.
There was no mistaking the gorgeous stained-glass window in the corner of the pub for the one that Eleanor took and improved so many photos of. The only oddity was the writers' decision to turn the pub into something of a Go-Go Dance hall, with jiggly flesh forming the backdrop of Our Heroes' conversation.
Best as I can tell, the story never returned to the Warrington, or indeed anywhere I remembered, after that brief encounter. Still, it was cool as all get-out to see that the place, filmed in 2005, still looks as phenomenal as it did in 2000, and 1983, and most likely 1883, and that it got to play a supporting role in such a thoroughly enjoyable story.
----
P.S. Eleanor not only recognises familiar architecture- although this locale was deja vu even for me- but she's awesome at spotting actors from totally unrelated roles. So it was here, as she quickly spotted, long before I ever would have, that a youngish relative of the male protagonist was played by Harry Melling, who also plays a youngish relative of another fairly famous male protagonist in a series of films where he goes by the name of Dudley Dursley.
Over the weekend, we watched a remarkable piece from the Beeb titled Gideon's Daughter. I don't think Eleanor had a clue as to its pedigree; it was just hanging about the G's in the library's DVD bins when she snagged a bunch of films for her post-layoff period at the end of last month.
That film's a delightful self-contained story by itself, but its part-time omniscient narrator is a bloke named Sneath, played by Robert Lindsay, who the same writer/director introduced in a BBC production from earlier that year titled Friends and Crocodiles.
I cannot begin to do justice to the story or the performances in this slightly earlier production. Suffice it, it predicts much of the current world economic crisis in a dead-on sort of way, while still looking with a playful eye at the creativity and spontanaeity that is, and has always been, so much more important in life.
Instead, then, I'll just comment on the Local Colour that Eleanor and I both noticed, seconds apart, as we got into the heart of the motion picture.
----
Despite my frequent affectations, when you get right down to it, I've spent fewer than 90 days of my life across the pond. Most of those were lived out in a northwest London neighborhood known as Maida Vale, and much of my drinking in those earlier days (circa 1983, not far off from the oldest flashbacks in the film) was done at the gorgeous bar of a pub down the Crescent from my cheap student digs, known as the Warrington Hotel.
On our honeymoon in 1987, and again on a return visit in spring 2000, Eleanor and I visited that pub for its phenomenal architecture, its character, and (in its latter incarnation) its Thai food at the bar. From that latter visit, she probably knows it better than even I do, since she photographed it extensively with her just-deceased digital camera, and photoshopped many remarkable shots of its interior.
So when Paul and Lizzie (hero and heroine of the piece) arranged for a meetup roughly an hour into the current picture, we were amazed and thrilled to see that the production company had chosen Our Local as the setting for one of the key scenes in the entire movie.
There was no mistaking the gorgeous stained-glass window in the corner of the pub for the one that Eleanor took and improved so many photos of. The only oddity was the writers' decision to turn the pub into something of a Go-Go Dance hall, with jiggly flesh forming the backdrop of Our Heroes' conversation.
Best as I can tell, the story never returned to the Warrington, or indeed anywhere I remembered, after that brief encounter. Still, it was cool as all get-out to see that the place, filmed in 2005, still looks as phenomenal as it did in 2000, and 1983, and most likely 1883, and that it got to play a supporting role in such a thoroughly enjoyable story.
----
P.S. Eleanor not only recognises familiar architecture- although this locale was deja vu even for me- but she's awesome at spotting actors from totally unrelated roles. So it was here, as she quickly spotted, long before I ever would have, that a youngish relative of the male protagonist was played by Harry Melling, who also plays a youngish relative of another fairly famous male protagonist in a series of films where he goes by the name of Dudley Dursley.