Brideshead Redecorated

"Waugh? Huh! What is he good for?" - Mark Kermode, BBC Radio 5live

2008 filmic adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's classic novel Brideshead Revisited, starring Matthew Goode, Ben Whishaw, Emma Thompson and Jack Blackburn's brother. The alternative title was provided by Simon Mayo, acknowledging - as had been pointed out in an email from Peter in the Czech Republic - that the film was somewhat in the shadow of an already famous and highly acclaimed 1981 TV series starring Lord Jeremy of Irons and Anthony Andrews. Mark Kermode likewise couldn't see the point of redecorating Brideshead, apart from the scenes with Thompson, who is great but isn't in the film enough. He was ultimately frustrated that he couldn't bring himself to care, when the movie is all about Catholic guilt and men having feelings for men - themes that he is usually very interested in. (Indeed, he described his ideal movie as being one in which Richard Blinky Gere plays a conflicted Catholic priest opposite Thompson, with Linda Blair on roller skates and the songs of Abba on the soundtrack).