Watching: Greed and Casablanca

[white_hart]

The Picturehouse had a free preview of Michael Winterbottom's new film, Greed, for members yesterday, and given that the weather forecast suggested that once again it wasn't going to be a day for a walk, we went along. Greed stars Steve Coogan as fashion entrepreneur Sir Richard McCreadie, a man who appears to bear more than a passing resemblance to Philip Green, and follows him through the preparations for a lavish 60th birthday party on Mykonos. Interspersed with this is McCreadie's backstory, as seen through the eyes of his biographer Nick (David Mitchell basically playing David Mitchell if he was a jobbing journalist and not a successful TV and radio presenter). It's an excellent film, with more than a hint of The Great Gatsby to it, and it somehow manages to be simultaneously very funny, the kind of sun-soaked film it does you good to watch on a rainy February day, and a really hard-hitting look at the evils of 21st century capitalism in general and fast fashion in particular.

After watching Greed we went out for lunch before going back to the cinema to watch their Vintage Sunday film, which was Casablanca this week. While I've seen Casablanca many times before, I'd never seen it in the cinema, only on TV, and it was good to see it on the big screen; there are lots of little visual details I never picked up on when it was on a TV. It's a classic for a reason, and certainly held a packed cinema spellbound yesterday.

Comments

[norfolkian]

Ooh, I'm looking forward to seeing this. It reminds me a little (in ethos rather than storyline etc.) of A Cock and Bull Story and I loved that when that came out (way back in 2005 I realise now I've looked it up!).