Change Your Image
dlbuckle
Reviews
A Room for Romeo Brass (1999)
Nearly, but not quite
I read with interest the comments of others. A Room for Romeo Brass is a good film, but not great. I can't be completely objective about it. I grew up in Calverton, the town where most of the action was filmed. I used to visit the fish and chip shop, the park and some of the same streets on my way to school (Oldfield(?) School shown in the film isn't in Calverton).
I enjoyed Twenty-four Seven and like Shane Meadow's use of non-actors. However, the acting was so very variable in A Room for Romeo Brass that it tended to detract from the story. The two boys and Paddy Considine were great but Romeo's mother and sister were disappointing in comparison. Funnily enough, I was reminded of Lynne Perrie (later acting equally badly in Coronation Street) in Ken Loach's Kes. He too used non-actors and generally got great results.
The film is certainly worth a viewing. It's great to hear some Nottingham accents on the big screen too! The variation in mood through the film is very well done. However, its not a classic.
An Interview with Dennis Potter (1994)
A frank and moving interview with a great writer
Recorded shortly before Potter's death, Melvyn Bragg allows Potter to discuss his life and work freely.
What is particularly unusual about this interview is that everyone knows at the outset that Potter has been diagnosed with a terminal cancer and is expected to live for only a few more weeks. Despite this crushing knowledge, the interview is both funny and enlightening. Potter never indulges in self-pity. He is clearly immensely grateful for the opportunities that have come his way. In particular, the support he has received from television companies (where much of his work was produced).
He discusses his final works (Cold Lazarus and Karaoke), not yet released that he strove to complete before his illness prevented him from writing.
Potter punctuates the interview by lighting cigarettes and drinking wine, two of his life-long pleasures that mean so much to him now.
The interview is not depressing and one is left with the impression of a wonderful man who has written for the public, using the medium that they most readily watch, television.