Whine & Dine
24. Dec, 2010 
1 Comment
Another Year
Another Mike Leigh Gem
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
Think we’ll have to keep reusing what we said in the opening paragraph of our Happy Go Lucky review:
When a Mike Leigh film is released, without question, you should go and see it. The man is incapable of bad filmmaking, and if you’ve seen anything he’s made, we’re sure you’ll agree. If the titles Naked, Vera Drake, All or Nothing, Meantime, Topsy-Turvy or Secrets & Lies don’t sound familiar, then you need to familiarize yo-self with them pronto tonto! They all are rich works that explore the banality of everyday (British working class) life, rife with both heartwarming and heartbreaking moments that are so genuine you’ll have a hard time ever forgetting them. The same is mos definitely true with his latest…
…Another Year. Yep, this guy has the golden filmmaking touch (and we’re not juss talking about getting his actors Oscar noms, which does and righfully happen), and he’s doing the fine serious adult themed work that Woody Allen used to do all the time. Â If yer looking for hot babes and explosions, look elsewhere, cause his films thrive on words, good and bad ones. Â Can you handle that??? Â You should
And like the Woodman, Leigh continually leans on a marvelously talented group of actors.  In Year he recruits stalwarts Jim Broadbent, Ruth Sheen and Lesley Manville, side players Oliver Maltman and Peter Wight + throwing a big screen bone to the caretaker of Hogwarts (David Bradley).  We don’t even need to bother explaining what characters they people play and what they’re all about cause they’re all so perfect at playing them and being them (Lesley Manville tops them all with her go for broken performance, and in our humble mumble opinion, deserves the Best Actress statuette).  Plus why should we bother, since you should see this without question.  Sure, it may not be the world’s strongest Mike Leigh film, but even an above average Mike Leigh film is still better than 98.23% of the flicks playing in a theater right now.  Hear, hear to another year with Mike Leigh!
It’s A Man-Manville World: Actors Acting – Lesley Manville
Another helps to close out a great Year in films in NY/LA only on December 29th and elsewhere elsewhen
and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…
