Mjeteconer Just perfect...

Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Red-125 "House of Cards" (1990) is a TV mini-series directed by Paul Seed. It stars Ian Richardson, who portrays Francis Urquhart, the Tory Chief Whip under Margaret Thatcher. Urquhart has hopes for high office. However, like Shakespeare's Richard III, it suits him to act reluctant to go any further than Chief Whip under the new government.However, like Richard III, he has no hesitation to use blackmail. fraud, and violence to work his way up to the top. (Richardson played Richard III for the Royal Shakespeare Company. He makes direct reference to the play at one point.) Susannah Harker plays Mattie Storin, a young, attractive newspaper reporter. She has a keen mind, and a voracious appetite for knowing what's really happening at the House of Commons. She's OK with "off the record." But she really wants to know. (Some reviewers have likened her to Lady Anne in Richard III, but I don't see it. I think her part was created for this film.)Diane Fletcher plays Urquhart's wife, Elizabeth. It's a small role, but an important one. There's no equivalent role in Richard III. However, Elizabeth Urquhart is a stand-in for Lady MacBeth. She's just as ruthless as Urquhart, and she encourages him at every step.This isn't a perfect film. Like Richard III, Urquhart takes us into his confidence, and expects us to side with him against his opponents. Richardson is very good at that. You can't help but admire the way he moves upward step by step.On the other hand, some of the schemes he uses are patently obvious. This is true of the "Turkish Bank scandal." Anyone with half a brain could tell that this was a setup. Mattie Storin manages to ferret it out, but it was sitting there in the open from the start.People have naturally compared this movie to the U.S. House of Cards TV series. I haven't seen the series, so I can't add my opinion. However, I doubt if any actor could play Urquhart better than Ian Richardson. He dominates the film completely, and he's truly a great actor.This movie was made for the small screen, so I don't think it's necessary to view it in a theater. We saw the original version, released on VHS, where it worked well. It's a fascinating film, and you'll never be bored watching it.

bob the moo I recently watched the first season of the Netflix show House of Cards and it reminded me that I had never actually seen the version which the BBC made even though it is held in high esteem. I tried to put all of that to one side in approaching the show because it is not the perfect show that some would have you believe. Instead it is a very enjoyable slice of cynicism and humor which plays out much better in a shorter run than the US version had to deal with. We join the Conservative Chief Whip Francis Urquhart as his party enters a leadership race to replace the outgoing Thatcher. Supportive of the new man, Urquhart is deeply offended when Collingridge decides that he will make no changes – depriving Urquhart of a cabinet position. With his gentlemanly exterior hiding a much darker heart, Urquhart sets out to bring down the Collingridge government from the inside, and position himself for a new job.The shorter run and the cold British tone to this show helps the narrative because it makes it much sharper and tighter; okay it moves maybe a bit too fast at times but generally it is engaging and surprisingly satisfying in how it moves. It was screened at a time of political change and general frustration with politics (a feeling that continued into the grey years of Major and probably contributed to the massive swing towards Labor and Blair a few years later), and there is a certain gleefulness in the writing as it scandals opposition and goes beyond where required. Although it presents itself as realistic, this dark sense of humor does help the viewer to get through moments where it is most unrealistic (the hands-on approach of Urquhart sometimes feels a bit daft) and mostly it is engaging because it does it with conviction. As a satire it has a lot of teeth; okay some of the shots of rats scurrying is a bit heavy-handed, but it is infrequently used and generally the show manages to feel bitter in a way that the US version did not ever quite manage to sell.Much has been said of Richardson in the lead and he is a delight. His clipped English gent and superiority makes the character work very well, and he makes for a very engaging and entertaining lead character. There is a downside to how good he is, and this is that the rest of the characters and cast do not quite stand up to his level. This is mainly in the writing because none of the other characters ever feel like they are even close to being his equal – whether in the hapless politicians in his sights or in the journalists who seem to take a very long time to catch on. That said there are solid performances from Harker, Anderson, Emmanuel, Fletcher and others, it is just that Richardson has the best material and the best performance.It takes liberties with realism but it does it with a dark sense of humor that helps it work; moving slickly through twists and turns it has an enjoyable cynical coldness and drollness to it, all of which is perfectly captured by Richardson in the lead.

chaos-rampant The story is riveting. Chief Whip of the Conservative Party gets the short stick in the new government (it is the first elections after a decode of Thatcher), and so resolves to destroy his Prime Minister and elect himself in the position. The acting is top notch. Ian Richardson as Francis Urquhart whips up a frenzy of Shakespearian machination: Iago in the scenes where he advises the PM, Macbeth at home with his conspiring wife, Richard III in the halls and secret meetings.It is overall a joy to watch.So, I would recommend it without reservation to anyone interested in a great piece of narrative. The satire is sharp, even though the plot is sometimes too convenient to really buy. But I have to qualify this with a personal observation; I am interested, above all, in films that set aside contemplative space for the viewer. Film is the ideal medium, because the camera can sketch that empty space in the gaps of story, whereas theatre has to rely on the spoken word to sculpt images, at least the British tradition inherited from Shakespeare. And that is what we have here, great theatre that just happened to be filmed.Imagine this: the same story (as a primary text, it is superb), but the narrator is truly untrustworthy and fabricates Nabokov-like parts or all of the environment. In the film, Urquhart as the narrator manipulates everything except our gaze.So we go from one malicious ploy to the next, Urquhart confides in the camera in the first person, winks, hums, invents, seduces, a wry devil, but none of it is abstract enough to allow us to lose control of reality and co-conspire in the fabrication of missing bits.In this mode, we (the viewer) would be Urquhart's nemesis in the hunt for power over the story, a role which in the film is set aside for the young journalist—Urquhart's Lolita Haze. My guess is the writer wanted to write this in the Nabokov vein, but missed the main stratagem.Richardson 'gets' it, having played Lolita on the stage as apparently Nabokov himself.I salivate at the opportunities. In the meantime, you will see this and write one of the best movies ever about political intrigue.

dimplet Here we go again.If you haven't already seen this brilliant series, now's the time. If you have, now's the time to watch it again. Do I have to spell it out to you Brits? Of course, readers of News of the World probably don't watch such fancy fare, so I suppose I do, except there isn't an News of the World, anymore.In Britain, it's hard to tell whether art is imitating life, or life is imitating art, particularly when it comes to journalism, and that's certainly the case with House of Cards. Instead of using an old- fashioned microcassette tape recorder, they hacked directly into cellphones. I had the misfortune to work with a British editor once, and he had absolutely no compunction about making things up out of thin air to liven up my accurate, factual story. He also liked to dress up as a woman and have his picture taken.But in all fairness, Rupert Murdoch is not a British citizen, though that's no excuse for News of the World being the formerly best selling paper in the country. Murdoch is an Australian, though he took on American citizenship for business reasons. And he's been messing with our media world, too.What I want to know is whether Rebekah Brooks viewed Mattie Storin as a role model in her ruthless quest for power, or whether David Cameron even saw that there was anything wrong with the actions of Francis Urquhart?Speak up! I can't hear you.