At long last, this is the film that is finally bringing Colin Firth the praise he really deserves as one of Britain’s most accomplished, but unsung acting talents.
Based on a Christopher Isherwood story and lovingly, reverently directed by fashion designer Tom Ford, A Single Man is a story of love, loss, mourning and eventual reconciliation of one man with his lot.
It may have been billed as BJ Penn vs Kenny Florian, but at the end of UFC 101, all anyone was talking about was Anderson Silva taking on Forrest Griffin.
Hugely anticipated, the fight was over in just three minutes, and fan favourite Griffin was showed up by Anderson who looked superior in ever way. Dodging strikes from Griffin without breaking a sweat, Silva showed an almost prescient level of awareness. Even stranger than the way Silva channeled Neo from The Matrix, was the way Forrest waved the fight to an end after receiving what appeared to be a relatively tame jab.
Then, bizarrely, before Silva’s hand was even raised, Griffin ran from the octagon, making himself look like a fool and putting a giant dent in his integrity.
Watching this movie version of South Africa’s historic win in the 1995 Rugby World Cup is a bit like watching the old style play by England; effective but stolid, unimaginative and about as exciting as a local club fixture on a rain-logged pitch.
In England, 1995 is memorable in rugby terms as the year an unstoppable juggernaut in the shape of Jonah Lomu scuppered our chances of getting to the finals by steamrollering his way through both of the Underwood brothers and most of the other England players to boot.
This week sees another adaptation, this time from the small screen to the big screen.
More than 20 years ago, Edge of Darkness was a BBC miniseries catching the zeitgeist of the age. The thrusting 1980s had given way to a decade of unease and tension, of fear and mistrust of big corporations and of government, and conspiracy thriller Edge Of Darkness caught that overlying sense of foreboding and menace brilliantly.
Unfortunately, the film never once matches the original for intensity or for that purity of feeling. Instead, everything is not so much dark as just muddy.
When reviewing The Road a few weeks ago, I wondered if any of the other high profile book adaptations coming up this year would be as faithful or as profound.
If anything, Precious is even more breathtaking than The Road and when I say breathtaking I mean it literally – this movie delivers a punch to the solar plexus that will leave you gasping.
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