movies: mrs henderson presents

Since Ma and I still had one free ticket left over from seeing all those movies in December and January, and since it runs out on Tuesday we decided it would be a plan to go and see something this weekend while we still could.

We did talk about going to see something we'd already seen again, but like I told her, I was more interested in having a new experience that wasn't necessarily going to be good, rather than repeating an experience I'd already had.

And since we've seen everything that's out that we would want to see, we ended up going to see Mrs Henderson Presents. Michael over at Pipedreams mentioned it the other day, saying it was quite good, so I figured it was probably going to be a safe bet, although I wasn't completely convinced, I have to say.

We decided on going to a very early session (10am, basically when the cinemas open) down at Marion, so we hopping in my car and drove on down there a little early so we could grab some breakfast. As we drove up the ramp and onto the upper parking level near the movies Ma said something about us having to go to the box office separately because of the free ticket, and I swore for about a minute straight.

Yes, you guessed it... I left the fricken ticket at home on the bookshelf. Bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger! I cannot believe I was just that stoopid!

Fortunately Ma had an ample supply of the $10 movie ticket things that they've been giving out (both all during January, and just about every week in Saturday's paper), so we ended up using those instead. But since we're going to see Kinky Boots on Monday and I have Camera Club on Tuesday, the free ticket will possibly go to waste. I thought about going to the movies on my own on Sunday, but there's not really anything on that I want to see, even on my own (I would have gone to Brokeback Mountain again, but it's still marked "No Free Tickets"). We'll see...

Anyway, back to Mrs Henderson.

I said to Ma on the way down that it was probably going to be me, her and a bunch of old people, seeing as how it was an English movie starring Judi Dench and we were going to the 10am session. I was nearly right.... There was me, Ma and two other people... one was a very old woman and the other was her daughter, not quite so old, but still getting up there.

On the subject of Dame Judi, I have to agree with Michael... "The movie stars Judi Dench and me loves her, so it's hard to go wrong. She's such an old terrier isn't she? Grrrr." Indeed! She just rocks in this movie, she's at her feisty best and dishing out the lines and the insults like a classy old drag queen... just brilliant. Bob Hoskins definitely holds his own against her though, and the two of them work wonderfully well together.

For those of us inclined towards boys, all the breasts on display are neither here nor there, but we do get Will Young in all his 40's suit wearing, big chinned glory... and I have to at least rent this on DVD to see whether or not Mr Young is visible with his kit off during one particular scene... unfortunately it was too fast for me to locate him (I'm guessing he was either hiding behind a piece of clothing or set decoration though).

Even without Mr Young's possibly nakedness, it's a very strong movie, and definitely worth seeing!

yani's rating: 4 tableaux out of 5