Be Kind, Please Rewind

He's a Crutch Potato. He's the…

Vidiot

Week of April 12, 2013

Fake cast. Real sympathy. First up…

 

Hyde Park on Hudson

The upside to a country’s president being bound to a wheelchair is that they will always get the prime parking spot at the G8 summit.

However, the disabled Democrat in this dramedy didn’t publicize his paralysis.

When Daisy’s (Laura Linney) sixth cousin Franklin D. Roosevelt (Bill Murray) requests her company at his summer estate in upstate New York, she willingly responds.

Upon subsequent visits, she becomes the polio stricken president’s mistress, but the affair sours when she discovers other indiscretions.

Meanwhile, Eleanor Roosevelt (Olivia Williams) prepares the country home for King George VI (Samuel West) and his wife’s (Olivia Colman) first visit to America.

Loosely based on letters between the kissing cousins, Hyde Park on Hudson features picturesque landscapes and a whimsical performance from Murray, but the script flounders between political posturing and unsubstantiated dalliances. 

Besides, when it comes to having sex with relatives, who are British Royalty to judge?  0

***Downton Stabbey*** 

 

Gosford Park

The best part of being a servant at an English country manor is getting to serve all that disgusting British food to your snooty aristocrat masters.

Another plus, as this mystery points out, is all of the gossip.

Sir William (Michael Gambon) and his wife (Kristin Scott Thomas) invite a countess  (Maggie Smith), an actor (Jeremy Northam), a Hollywood producer (Bob Balaban) and additional Lords and Ladies to their bucolic estate for the weekend.

Amid the affluent activities, the house servants (Helen Mirren, Richard E. Grant, Emily Watson) and the guests’ attendants (Ryan Phillippe, Clive Owen, Kelly Macdonald) intermingle.

But when the host turns up dead, everyone in the mansion becomes a suspect in Inspector Thomson’s (Stephen Fry) inept investigation.

While the mystery is subtle, the secret relationships between the class systems are blatant and, in some cases, taboo.

Incidentally, the one thing that won’t kill you in the English countryside is overexposure to the sun.

He's a Sore Footman. He's the...

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