Something to watch tonight: Tuesday 4 February
The Last King of Scotland (Macdonald, 2006)
Correction: Yesterday – probably not for the first time – I put my Scorsese Fan Club membership at risk by confusing the titles of The Last Temptation of Christ and The Passion of the Christ. The error is regretted.
Back to business and, for some reason, my thoughts recently have been on dictators and dictatorships.
From February 2007, here’s my very brief review of The Last King of Scotland from the Capital Times:
The Last King of Scotland is a fictionalised portrait of Idi Amin, dictator of Uganda from 1971 to 1979 and self-appointed “Excellency President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea, and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular”. To fully appreciate Forest Whitaker’s superb performance check out the real Idi’s eyes in the archive footage at the end of the film and you can see the genuine bat-shit insane paranoia of the man.
Whitaker went on to win the Oscar for best actor that year
Also in that Capital Times column: Rocky Balboa (which I naively thought was going to be the last time we saw that character); Robert Altman’s final film, A Prairie Home Companion, which I really liked but the creator of the radio show that inspired it, Garrison Keiller, has been cancelled now; Adrien Brody investigates the murder of TV’s first Superman, George Reeves (Ben Affleck) in Hollywoodland; Will Ferrell playing in a lower key than usual in Stranger Than Fiction; and kiwi documentary Squeegee Bandit.
Eighteen years on, it’s interesting that Brody and Ferrell were still showing up in this newsletter yesterday.
Where to watch The Last King of Scotland
Aotearoa, Australia & Canada: Streaming on Disney+
India: Streaming on Hotstar
Ireland, USA & UK: Digital rental
Further listening
While last week was the final week for At the Summer Movies, it was the first week back for my regular conversation with Emile Donovan on RNZ Nights. We talked about Maria, The Haka Party Incident, The Franchise, Shrinking and the return of the Wellington Film Society.