anniemarshallster Reviews

Ripley (2024)

Zaillian having his Orson Welles moment

[10/10 · 29 April 2024]

Three Influences - ORSON WELLES - Citizen Kane and Touch of Evil (particularly the framing and the lighting); FELLINI - La Dolce Vita (particularly the end scene on the beach); CARAVAGGIO - the perfect duality.

Ways of Seeing - the camera POV Tom arrives at ATRANI: a stranger in a strange land. The first bus ride has proceeded R to L (creating unease - against the norm of much western cinematography and culture), accentuated by the desperate curves and careless driving of the bus on the road. On his getting off we see in long shot the bus proceed from L to R (crossing the line quite explicitly and reflecting Tom's dislocation and sensory confusion). A deliberate visual jolt? Once there, Tom is confronting linguistically and physically by people and geographical challenges. Tom perceives people through his own filter - beautiful in Dickie's case, lumpen in Marge's case, menacing in Freddie's case (and initially baffling in all the Italians' cases - soon overcome with language skills), so the camera shooting Marge as "large" always reflects his jaundiced view. Significantly, his first view of Dickie and Marge is a entwined couple lying on the beach - a reverse Pieta - seen from a high, detached angle.

The Lighting The B&W lighting is not flattering by Hollywood standards to Andrew, Dakota or Johnny - rather it's deliberately shows up character in every face and body. And the cast of local yokels are especially vivid. Zaillian delights in showing the working faces of working people. The only ones rescued from that revealing lighting are the magical, mystical singers and female hangers-on of the gilded set (reflecting Tom's rather dazzled vision of this brave new world of money). An exception is Freddie Miles who is presented as a young Dorian Gray - beautiful on the outside, ugly on the inside - who is cleverly embodied in the sexually ambiguous Eliot Sumner. But Freddie (and Max - another gilded youth briefly glimpsed) is part of the Eurotrash world that Tom is so jealous of.

Zaillian's Tempo Zaillian aimed to reproduce the book so this Ripley is for the readers but he still had to make choices other than Highsmith's. The movie camera sees what Tom Ripley sees. But perception of events is not equal in time. Some sequences edited in almost real time - such as the boat murder - are excruciating because of their length (not a criticism, by the way). Similarly, the finding of Freddie's body by the Police and the details of his mortuary journey are slow and treated with high irony. Other events are shot and edited in standard movie time. The contrast emphasizes the power of the real time events. Zaillian's uses of diegetic music (in collaboration with the great Jeff Russo) and film score plus his wonderful ambient sound fits with the B&W images perfectly.

Black humour: Murder as farce: the killing of Dickie is tragedy but the killing of Freddie becomes pure farce; and there is no shortage of humour in this series. So many examples - Why does the purchase of the frig make Tom so uneasy? It's a domestic symbol of connection between Dickie and Marge and he cannot bear it. Repetitions used as jokes: stealing the pen & then the ring, the suitcases dragged back and forth - hidden and not hidden, stairs in Atrani, stairs in Rome, the drive to and from the Appian Way round the Victor Emmanuel palace. However, the best joke is the silent comedy of the cat, who apart from performing the best side-eye in the business, stands witness for us as Tom laboriously drags himself, bodies and suitcases up and down stairs. The cat of course then gets the blame for the blood. Tom is always lucky.

Zaillian's sense of the characters Tom is a vampire. Not by drinking blood but by becoming Dickie Greenleaf, an act of homage. Tom adopts Dickie's coat, hat, scarf, style and lifestyle. Sometimes, the light of wickedness shines through Andrew Scott's eyes thanks to key lights and some occasional unflattering low lights. Tom's taste is aspirational but initially vulgar (the robe) but he's a quick study and by the end he's a different person. He truly has absorbed Dickie who has taught him (only too well) about Caravaggio, personal style and how to manage the world with sangfroid. His initial lack of taste betrays him to Freddie and to Marge who both know he's faking it. But Tom will gradually grow into an art lover - his taste in furnishings improves, his taste in clothes improves, his taste in cities improves, his ability to handle murder investigations improves... Dickie is the ICON at the heart of the story. As an icon he doesn't have to do much except BE. Dickie trusts people. He is an Innocent, easily scammed and perhaps flattered. Does Zaillian perceive him as a Dostoevskian holy fool? Not entirely: Dickie is very suspicious of the Camorra guy, Carlo. But he is no threat to Tom other than to his armour propre (not wanted for skiing). This sets off murder in this version (differing from the book). Why does Dickie take the boat out? A good-mannered sense of sparing Tom the bad news in public? No notion that the world could turn on him? A belief that he is safe in the water but Tom not. Hoping to avoid a scene after the tastelessness of the "daffodils" on the beach? Ep 6 sees a visitation of Dickie's ghost (the second and last), fully dressed in winter coat and dripping water through the Rome apartment. He nudges Tom with his finger - "Tom, Tom, wake up.... I swam." Tom wakes up with a smile. The moment is delightful and shows why Tom fell in love with Dickie (his offbeat humour and charm, the lack of resentment).

Marge is Tom's alternative gender rival but lacking in murderous impulses and LUCK, that supreme element so remarkable in Tom's path to paradise which as Dante Alighieri mentioned '... begins in hell.' Marge is a small-town girl from the Midwest. Tom's NY emollience means nothing to her and she distrusts him from the get go. Does she instinctively recognise his inner neediness?

You can't keep a good actor down - they have smuggled in their own interpretations as they should (just doing their jobs) and despite Steve Zaillian are more than his meat puppets as became clear doing the Media for the launch.

Conclusion Would Patricia Highsmith have liked this version? My guess is she would have given her grudging approval (she was a famous curmudgeon) but she would have LOVED the cat!

National Theatre Live: The Motive and the Cue (2024)

Big John and Little Dick

[9/10 · 23 March 2024]

Jack Thorne writes frequently for television and it shows. Long form drama and emotion are not his thing. He's a workmanlike assembler of other peoples' materials (a snapper up but not at Autolycus level yet). So here Shakespeare provides 90% of the heart and emotion - emotion being somewhat lacking although constantly referred to.

The meat of this text is an argument between two different periods/styles - the two main protagonists being Gielgud and Burton. It has lots of laughs and much pathos but few big dramatic moments of its own other than those inserted from the Hamlet text. What it definitely does provide are some of Burton's big moments and one of Gielgud's big moments - these all remarkable - but without these it would just reflect the dicking around between Gielgud and Burton. From the opening there is a clear difference between the two leads - Burton prowls restlessly around the stage and occasionally leaps onto chairs and tables. Gielgud always sits, Liz sensibly climbs (a moderator between the two). Gielgud is reverently called "Sir John" throughout and Burton is called "Dick".

However, the meta plot - Mendes directing a play about Gielgud indecisively directing a play about the notoriously indecisive Hamlet (probably the most discussed protagonist in literature) using an overly decisive lead actor in Burton - is involving. There's even more meta to the script than that - Jack Thorne is writing a script set largely in a rehearsal room about a production which is to be set in a rehearsal room. And one of the key plot points is the delivery of the Speak the Lines Trippingly advice to the players (Shakespeare himself going all Meta).

A scene between Taylor and Gielgud drops a huge load of backstory and motivation about Burton into the plot. This info drop leads to Gielgud's suggestion that Burton play Hamlet as a man reluctant to engage because he wasn't au fond a lover of his father's character. Finally, the working concept is born.

I have never seen Gatiss as clever as when playing Gielgud - the fluting voice, the diffident charm, the courtesy to others and love of what he does. I have seen Gielgud on stage three times and this appears a resurrection. The character certainly scores the sympathy vote from the audience.

The harder part to play (not least physically) is Burton: someone from a working-class background, owner of a raspy growly heldentenor voice with vowels as precise as Gielgud's but sharper edged, with deep notes and a positive tendency to shriek or bellow when roused (who else but Flynn?). Mother, Mother, Mother (in full bellow). A plangent voice was Burton's - hence all the voice overs. Flynn is remarkable as Burton, all flashy, drunken surface charm, masking the insecurity underneath. He pulls off the voice, the drive and the sexiness (who knew Burton's penchant for red socks?) and a suggestion of attraction to his Ophelia (not missed by Taylor) as well as the frustration of one creative being forced into another creative's box instead. So, Burton's drunken persona is let out for a gallop on stage.

The other characters fill up space, provide feed lines and backstory and give verisimilitude to an occasionally unconvincing narrative. Gatiss scores the sympathy vote with the Shakespeare lovers in the audience and people of a certain age who've seen Gielgud do his melodious thing from time to time. His preferred standing mode is a backward incline which is very amusing.

Flynn too is right into Burton, all underlying Welsh vowels, emphatic consonants, touchy feely hands and inordinate thirst wrapped up in a strong physical package, the full sixties middle aged male wrapped in apparel of slacks and cardigans, polo necks and jackets. The bombast is properly turned up to the max and Flynn's vocal repertoire is fully engaged. As is his innate physicality and love of clowning.

Would the script work as well without these two resurrectionists?

Mark Gatiss and Johnny Flynn were both nominated for best actor award. Gatiss predictably won. Flynn's, however, is the more difficult part to perform - there's so many layers - playing a tentative and anxious Burton with 98% proof blood assaying a Broadway Hamlet with his delivery of To Be or Not to Be encapsulating all those layers and its "off the cuff" delivery to Gielgud. So subtle. So nuanced.

One Life (2023)

Not brilliant, not bad, just workmanlike

[6/10 · 6 March 2024]

Relying on good casting to pull together a relatively minor humanitarian effort to save children (mostly Jewish) from the onrush of Nazi persecution in Czechoslovakia doesn't make for a BIG movie; perhaps the best takeaway being that bureaucratic obstructionism always raises its ugly head when people are trying to do something humanitarian and worthwhile.

So that's very appropriate for these troubled times.

And there's always regret that more wasn't done...

No accident I think that the movers and shakers who do achieve humanitarian things are often the "outsiders".

Perhaps the script needed more interaction with those Czech families... And a touch more anger!

The Lovers (2023–2024)

supermarket or television

[8/10 · 3 February 2024]

Seamus (Johnny Flynn) works a close resemblance to Alan Partridge in his pieces to camera, not so much Andrew Marr but with more than a touch of Robert Peston. He is a vain and immature jovial TV presenter, a ditz, in other words, but a nice ditz. I doubt the BBC would inflict him on us but one never knows these days. Perhaps that's the joke. Plenty of verbal jokes: "Campbell to my Blair, Ingham to my Thatcher, Goebbels to my...." or "Life is random and meaningless..." Seamus (AKA John/Jon Snow -slightly laboured) is fundamentally kind, if a bit simple, easily baffled by his producer Ndidi who is (nice joke NOT overplayed) significantly taller than him and highly intelligent with bat-like hearing. Incidentally Seamus reveals nerves about interviewing pollies etc which I don't buy for a minute. Alan Partridge thinks he can do it and so should Seamus. Ongoing in-joke that Seamus wears terrible clothes when he's NOT before the camera. Some adlibs. And we are in the land of farce where anything goes.

Interestingly for a rom-com, it's Janet that pushes the relationship forward all the time, Seamus not exactly holding back but demonstrating that he's been well-schooled in the rules of feminism (presumably by Frankie, who is very bossy) and his Mum who probably brought him up nice even if it was in the wilds of North East London. Janet, played by the remarkable Roisin Gallagher, makes all the running in this affair, Seamus trailing a beat behind. Definitely the proactive one, she's also had more slings and arrows in her life, giving a bit of depth at the end. Depth at the beginning would have been welcome too. Janet has a confidante in her co-worker, but Seamus has no one to chew things over with except for the professionals in his business; Janet's co-worker sees the romance, Seamus' producers see the icebergs ahead. Opposites attract - she's constantly sending him up.

The denouement of Janet's trauma hidden under a very black and dirty sense of humour (the trauma political rather than emotional, although the writing makes clear how intertwined they are) is quite quickly polished into nothingness by Tim, the other producer, who says at least she's not the Taliban. So definitely lots of options for a series 2!

Hugh Grant moments are skirted but mainly averted. There are moments where JF's comic flair is exploited, trying to prove he's famous, doing moonwalks, pratfalls, a fun display of actors' tricks. The Richard Curtis vibe fights with the political reality vibe, teetering on that edge. The script definitely knows how to borrow. One FATHER TED joke (the fighting couple who manage the shop and their sudden cessation of hostilities in front of others) is ventured. What sort of evangelical malarky is being peddled in that church Seamus wonders? But on further viewing it seems perfect for the ex-members of L. U. V. Who really DO have to learn to love themselves a little more.

The support cast is good and it looks lovely. It's more adult territory than the fondly-remembered LOVESICK; for example, Seamus dodges telling girlfriend Frankie about Janet at first but when he grasps that particular nettle it's a far more adult scenario - there's little sorrow but a considerable hurt pride on Frankie's part; ego damage that he's ditched her for a trolley dolly which she somehow transfers back onto Seamus. But she's good at weaving that into her own future narrative. Now that's sophistication and reality!

The weakest section is the wrap - he's standing in the rain, a crowd gathers..... And there's that Richard Curtis vibe again, especially the final emotional embrace in the rain and the pullback to the admiring applauding crowd, thankfully trumped by the shots in the supermarket where he lends a hand while Janet finishes her shift. Performative feminism to the end!

BUT why do I have that faint sense of Deja Vue?

The Holdovers (2023)

Good performances and pleasant but derivative

[7/10 · 26 January 2024]

Three good performances and some stonking snowy scenery. Boston Common maybe? And the Ivy League has never looked more enticing.

Some great soundtrack music. I even think I caught a snatch of BLUE OYSTER CULT at the beginning.

A classic setting of a posh US boys school - providing all facilities except normal life. Fathers fly in on their own private helicopters yet.

BUT

So three unhappy misfits find themselves a team. Escaping to Boston they explore (shades of Ferris Bueller here) and get into trouble.

They all grow.

This is all fine and dandy but there's nothing new to see here, folks.

As a nice Anierican fairytale it's inoffensive but I'd like more edge.

Beast (III) (2017)

I feel like a yoyo with this film

[10/10 · 25 January 2023]

So clever this film - it opens on a prayerful vigil, turns to Moll's monologue (VERY REVEALING this) and then maybe turns into an ill-fated romance between clashing cultures. But that's just the facade.

Moll, like killer whales, smiles all the time. Remember that.

She has the one of the signs of a witch. Remember that.

Her mother is an evil old witch of the social kind. Remember that.

Her father doesn't know where he is half the time. Remember that.

Her brother is a lying selfish slob. Remember that.

Her would-be boyfriend is another lying unattractive slob. Remember that.

Her birthday party is obliterated by her popular sister's pregnancy announcement. Remember that.

She has committed an extreme act of violence. Remember that.

She has nightmares of a violent kind. Remember that.

Pascal represents everything that will annoy Moll's stultifying family - he's freedom of every kind. When Moll moves in with him, she puts away her childish pretty yellow sun dress. Out come the muddy boots and cardigans and darker hues.

Is Pascal a serial killer? He's been convicted mainly of being a teenage tearaway and of having had sex at 18 with a 14 year old. Besides he works with his hands, has dirty fingernails and is a bit sweaty. On Jersey this has the good middleclass burghers (mainly incomers I suspect) in a frisson of horror.

The two are under pressure. Tensions rise between them. He semi-throttles her and she seeks revenge. Does her admission of lying to her would-be boyfriend satisfy that urge?

There's a conciliatory dinner, where she confesses to violence and wants Pascal to admit to being the serial killer, which he does. Why? Is it a genuine confession or an attempt to pacify Moll's inner demons?

Then the denouement: a drive and an act of extreme deception followed by another throttling.

Pascal: "We're the same, you and I."

Who is the Beast?

Don't Look Up (2021)

Hello - it's the end of the world again.

[10/10 · 29 September 2022]

We're all going to die (a truth universally acknowledged if not fully comprehended). This time we're ALL going to die, which is a slightly different matter.

DON'T LOOK UP came out round about the moment Covid came out (ill met by moonlight, guys). It reflects that time of confusion - no one wanted to know, no one wanted to do anything to upset the political status quo, and solutions were sought from spaced-out entrepreneurs rather than qualified scientists. And of course, DON'T LOOK UP comes out of a heavy mulch of dystopian movies which reflect the anxieties of their time. For instance, when WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE arrived (1951) we believed that the world's governments would get together to help humanity to survive.

Not anymore folks.

We've already had WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE, DR STRANGELOVE, MELANCHOLIA, THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE, THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME and now DON'T LOOK UP. There are many more.

The plot of WWC (late 1950s) is almost a template for DLU - except at the time we were encouraged to think that world governments would get together to work on an escape pod for a selection of humanity. Dr Strangelove reveals growing cynicism about governments but we laughed at the end of the world.

Lars von Trier's MELANCHOLIA at the beginning of the new millenium had the balls to treat the subject emotionally rather than satirically. DLU starts out as satire but gradually moves towards the emotion of the end of the world....

DLU's portrayal of a president of the USA with her luxurient golden curls and inability to prioritise is not a million miles away from some Western leaders. So we're all burying our heads in the sand.

The key issue which seems to divide audiences is the failure of mankind to do anything about the problem.

The Mark Rylance character (as mad as a box of frogs) is hardly a reassuring leader for the future. Or is he a deadly warning?

This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper (and a couple of post-credit jokes.

The Score (I) (2021)

a new kind of cinema?

[8/10 · 14 September 2022]

Humphrey Bogart's High Sierra or The Petrified Forest never end well. Nor do Jane Greer's excursions. And that's just America. There's Europe too - Truffaut's Breathless or Shoot the Pianist (from David Goodis' Down There on a Visit). They don't end well either.

Little trips to the countryside undo the best laid plans, and Mike's plans were laid by Sally rather than by him and it shows.

He's a wannabe and a bit of a softie which he hides by growling and cursing at Troy his young sidekick and the growing relationship with Gloria.

Watch Gloria - she's the one, the Bette Davis, the survivor.

Troy is a surprise - an innocent but canny and very very fast on his feet.

There is of course a McGuffin - a bag of money. Everyone wants it but no one seems to want to take it away. Eventually it ends up in the hands of those who perhaps need it rather than want it.

Then there's the music. That's unusual - overlaid over film noir, it shouldn't but it does work. Johnny Flynn has enormous fun translating his music for new singers and providing little extras. Apart from set songs like IN THE DEEPEST, HARD ROAD and JEFFERSON'S TORCH, which are sung as and when appropriate, Troy and Gloria also do a version of BROWN TROUT BLUES together and CHANSON (new) is heard murmuring in the background via the radio. As the BFI notes say: '...the songs weren't telling the story, they were telling the emotional journey of the characters..." which is pretty well what Johnny Flynn's music does all the time.

There is other music of course - very reminiscent of Flynn's score for A BAG OF HAMMERS long ago - which ties the film together.

So I loved it - a musical, a heist, a love story and a British film noir - who could ask for anything more.

Malachi Smyth's first feature deserves respect but essentially it deserves to be seen. SO GO SEE IT.

The Newsreader (2021– )

exceptional

[10/10 · 28 July 2022]

I thought this was a genuinely out of the vaults program the BBC had discovered would fill the summer slot. But it's new.

Well, blow me down with a feather and congrats to all the talent that made it look genuinely 1986. Brilliant.

Script had me way behind the twists too.... And all those faces I know so well - I want to go home (almost) - but MacInnes and Downey and Torv you smashed it. And so did everyone else.

Operation Mincemeat (2021)

a bit of a limp biscuit

[7/10 · 16 April 2022]

Stiff upper lips, quiet heroism, and so on... Yes, all there.

And the emphasis on the small back room boffins was appropriate. But there was no sense of real desperation - maybe you have had to have been a european film maker who experienced occupation for that.

And why the childish insertion of a love story to ginger up the plot? Delete that and you would have had a tighter, more compelling one. If looking for emotion or pathos or the pity of war, which perhaps the love story was groping towards, surely the life and death of the man whose body became the man who never was might have provided that hook, if explored a little more thoroughly?

There were flashes of wit - using Ian Fleming to frame his own plot was clever and Johnny Flynn's unerring ear did the voiceover well. The cast was full of excellent actors all of whom could deliver those lines and torpid plot points in their sleep.

Is this the best that the British film industry can do? And why is the British film industry still fighting WW2? Can't we face up to the battles of the present and the yet to come?

The Outfit (2022)

How do you improve on perfection?

[10/10 · 11 April 2022]

This is one of those movies that slide in under the radar to show you how it's done...

Big reveals - yes/ Reverse ferrets - yes/ Slippery dialogue - yes/ Compelling visuals - yes/ A voiceover which actually works - yes/ and so on.

The dialogue flows easy like 20 year old scotch and the performances convey all the slips and slides of this complicated bunch of criminals and their circle... All are complicit in one way or another.

Made quickly during lockdown on a set not far from Mark Rylance's home, and shot in story order, this is a wonderful example of guerrilla film-making, in and out, done and dusted, no messing about. Probably only possible because of Rylance's name but think of all the other "names" in this production - it's a shedload of talent, mostly British talent pretending to be Chicagoan. Period set and costumes and period weapons and McGuffins.

So it's a movie that sounds like a stage play - so what? And uses tricks like a single set - so what? It rests in good company with Three Billboards (cinema), Rope (cinema), or Hangmen (theatre).

I love the final resolution for its imagery - this is what it's all about - atropos.

Contractor 014352 (2017)

through the barriers

[10/10 · 31 May 2021]

This is a charmer of a short film - a little gem - observing and subtly commenting upon modern life. So many of us office drones feel dehumanised by our bosses that one tiny act of rebellion becomes momentous. The isolation is destructive because we work for people who have lost their own connection with the world.

The disconnect isn't just in the office but in the whole world about us.

And so we end up dreaming of encounters in pubs or somehow mind-meld with strangers seen at a distance.

We are not just numbers on a spread sheet. There is a chance for change.

Brotherhood (2015)

Saved by Tobeeee

[10/10 · 26 April 2021]

Old fashioned in the extreme - yes Corny - yes Flat dialogue - yes Lame direction - yes Would I look at this again - YOU BET Why - Because Johnny Flynn is clowning his heart out for us Result - wouldn't have missed it for the world.

It's the practice run for Scrotal Recall

Every time it's back on air I sit back for my guilty guilty pleasure and another look at Toby's wardrobe.

The Dig (2021)

Anglo Saxon attitudes - class, art and sex in the 1930s

[10/10 · 2 March 2021]

Every word of this film is freighted with meaning, as is every image. There's nothing superficial or redundant. The assembly of events via sound and image is subtly double-edged, conveying what is and what might be, occasionally teasing audience expectations and presenting alternatives which challenge our preconceptions of what should be. To make a period drama that genuinely conveys how the people probably felt rather than how we would like them to have felt requires emotional and historical insight, some innate poetry and a willingness to take risks with audiences' levels of empathy and understanding. So, a necessary note of appreciation for the direction by Simon Stone, the script by Moira Buffini, the lighting, the camerawork, the design (costume and set) and the performances by everyone. There are no small parts in this film. It has been an incremental process of delicate decisions. This film is a meditation about England and the English at a perilous moment in history as much as it is about Sutton Hoo and its treasures. There's poetry intertwined with myth, magic and humour - all underlying the concrete facts. In its conjunction of emotion, time and landscape it seems unlike most modern British cinema; one has to hark back to the past, to the extraordinary films of Powell and Pressburger in the 1940s, especially A CANTERBURY TALE, to match this mood, style, humour, sadness and triumph. Clearly, I believe The Dig belongs in very special company. This is our current Zeitgeist. It speaks to us now. I anticipate we will still feel as moved by The Dig in another seventy years.

Song One (2014)

Okay Anne you can stop singing now

[5/10 · 13 November 2020]

Coming off Les Mis I guess Anne Hathaway thought it would be a good idea to give the pipes another airing.... Not with this limp biscuit of a plot, luv.

Anne Hathaway provides a performance based on sad eyes and lots of profiles of that long neck - not really enough for the audience. Johnny Flynn is given little to do except look sympathetic and sing nicely (but the songs aren't exactly his and lack his style and punch). The moments where the audience could have some fun are muted and quickly over. Consequently Mary Steenbergen steals the show with her energy.

It's a very "romantic" plot - she's sad/ he's stuck creatively - the only cliche it avoids is that they don't disappear together into the sunset. It looks pretty - lots of NY skylines over the river at night.

Don't want to rain on Johnny Flynn's parade on this one but it was very early days, he wasn't in his own environment, Hathaway was a producer, and no one seemed to have a clue that he is a fine comic actor (as she can be too when given a decent script).

As already noted Mary Steenbergen steals the show because she is allowed her moments of fun and whackiness but for the rest of the time the storyline is buried under a tone of funereal reverence for the poor lad on the bed. The Danish Suzanne Bier did this plot so much better in OPEN HEARTS.

Some of the music acts were fun.

It's cruel to call it a vanity project on Anne Hathaway's part but I suspect that that is what it is.

If you make a film about the impact of a singer and then blatently misuse the singing talent of your male lead you HAVE NOT BEEN PAYING ATTENTION.

Stardust (II) (2020)

FROM JONES TO BOWIE TO ZIGGY

[10/10 · 18 October 2020]

Stardust opens with David Bowie in spacesuit as Keir Dullea playing David Bowman. We're in full Kubrick mode with the flight through time and space. Can you hear me? Someone asks. And asks. And again. We wake to land in New York. No one to meet and greet - what is happening? He was promised a full and proper tour. A stranger in a strange land promoting The Man Who Sold the World? Bowie is in a cleft stick, promoting an album about madness - the one topic he is terrified to approach, that one word triggering a response he is unable to control. Why does he go? Because he is yearning to be acknowledged as the artist he wants to be. The dominant emotion is fear, switching from dark/sad to funny/brilliant via flashbacks. The predominant colour is a ubiquitous, patterned, depressive brown - the signature of the seventies. The most frequent images are of endless corridors leading to a kind of hell. Who can play this anorectic, heroin-thin David Bowie? Well, it's useful to have someone with the training and endurance required for the outer version. With a bit of tweaking - lens for the eye, teeth prosthetics and possibly way too much lettuce to create the emaciation (there's a very bony spine on view later) - Flynn achieves a Bowie that looks right. Then there's the inner Bowie. In terms of talent Johnny Flynn is the goods. He covers the full skill set - sings, plays guitar, moves, mimes - he's done the hard miles in the music industry (literally driving around North America with miniscule budgets), he's fought Mercury Records, he is the creative process in making music. Like Bowie, he is musically and verbally sophisticated and eclectic in his sources and mentors. He's a survivor and he's weathered tough times. Bowie can be described as a little bit fey - which in full "lost in translation" mode turns into Yiddish feygele which turns into American fag. This does not go down well at US Customs or anywhere else in God's own. Clearly, he is weirding out the Americans (and he is weirded out by them). So, the American tour is a series of small catastrophes - based partly on cultural misunderstandings and a careless attitude on the part of his British Manager but more often on a deliberate refusal by Bowie to engage with the questioners' probing assumptions. The trip might be simply a comic odyssey that could happen to anyone, even Mr Bean. But overlaid with Bowie's personal and creative anxieties it takes on another dimension. He's a prisoner of the white lines on the freeway and the black loops of the power lines, hunkering down in the back seat of the clapped-out station wagon under the protection of his hat. The saga of car journeys, gas stations, food stops, grim hotels and even grimmer "events" where Bowie is supposed to woo a disinterested crowd like a performing seal are as distressing to us as they must have been to him. And the distress of his American handler from Mercury Records, Ron Overman (Mark Maron - terrific), is also palpable and sourced in a large, warm and human background which contrasts strongly with Bowie's maternal home. Bowie's mother was reportedly cold and difficult. His aunts on her side showed schizophrenic symptoms. She has given birth to a daughter and adopted her out. His brother Terry is floridly schizophrenic and rejected by his mother. The film hints at an R D Laing diagnosis of Terry by his psychiatrist - very much 1971 (see Mike Leigh's Bleak Moments). Traumatic rejection as an issue. David's next. That traumatic rejection is coming for him too, possibly in the form of audience rejection. No wonder he accedes to Angie's version of love which is controlling but engaged. Angie is fiery, tough and more than a touch solipsistic. Jena Malone plays her like a walking flame thrower. Possibly she dreams of a career of her own equal to that of David's. And she has infantilised David - he is a polite child throughout until the final ascension to Ziggy. Bowie's first performance (to a crowd of vacuum cleaner salesmen) is notable for the contrast between his slam-dunk performance of Good 'Ol Jane and the indifferent crowd who just fixate on his dress. Another opportunity comes at another unofficial gig where he's not wearing the dress and gives a fierce rendition of Jacques Brel's In the Port of Amsterdam but then flees for a quick hit/bonk rather than chat to the only reporter who seems open to his music when she asks "are you one of the madmen?" At his first interview he reclines like a nicely arranged odalisque on a sofa, dress flowing, with a mask on a stick - trying to connect with a disbelieving interviewer by resorting to mime (Lindsay Kemp had a lot to answer for, I'm thinking). Continually Bowie fluffs his lines, his opportunities, his interviews and his audiences. Later he's talking on the radio to Middle America via a DJ who uses three syllables to pronounce England. He's been told to be wholesome. Light touchpaper and stand back. Bowie and Ron (a sad-eyed trier) eventually bond over Iggy and the Stooges in that American forcing house - the car - how else? And Ron keeps trying for a Rolling Stones interview. Back in New York chasing the interviewer (they miss him of course) he meets Warhol (is it Holly Woodlawn on the door?). Warhol just films him doing mime but fancies Bowie's shoes, well, he's just finished making Trash the previous year. A concert with the Velvet Underground softens the disappointment and Bowie has a full-on musician's discussion with Lou Reed. Not Lou Reed? It doesn't matter. New York is subtly teaching him that you don't have to be real to be authentic. And Ron's Iggy story - "he doesn't care" - carries weight too. The worst and final interview happens, coked out of his head in LA, where Bowie seemingly ditzes that interview with Rolling Stone. But if you listen carefully, he is laying out the roadmap for the future - David Bowie is the image and David Jones is me. Music is the mask., I am the message. But he retreats into himself and refuses to engage when asked what the message is. It's a significant moment. There's a crisis of confidence and a possible thought of suicide but then Ron says if you can't be yourself, be someone else. He barely registers at the time. After he returns home to London he's starting to work (Hunky Dory is beginning to come to him) and Angie's not happy. Finally, he's thrown off the dress, that may be why. A time lapse, he's come up for air, forced the band into onesies, makeup, the full catastrophe, dropped Mercury for RCA, found his inner alien and now emerges reborn - strides out on stage with those gangling legs, that androgynous costume and the full macquillage - Ziggy with his men from Mars. General triumph. And we're done. Well, not quite. The end credits - Ziggy giving his all to My Death Waits like an old Roué. And that's well worth waiting for. If I haven't made it clear how brilliant Johnny Flynn is in inhabiting David Bowie then I'll say it loud - this is a performance to treasure. Afterthoughts Understandably Duncan Jones doesn't want the public ferreting around the psychosexual politics of his parents' marriage (who would - Martin Amis being the exception that proves the rule?) but Stardust does tread relatively discreetly. "In British pop, it was Bowie and Bryan Ferry ... who came up with the idea that you weren't just a singer acting out your life, or a fan imitating a singer acting out his life, but could - singer and fan - be haunted by a persona." - Andrew O'Hagan, London Review of Books, 8th October 2020. I take this as a classic instance of morphic resonance. Utopia Avenue, the 2020 novel by David Mitchell brings in a fictionalised David Bowie as a recurring if not central character. Clearly Bowie is no longer an individual. He is now an icon, happening right now. The film's tight budget really works in a positive way to create the appropriate look for the story. Lindsay Kemp taught mime to Bowie, Kate Bush and Viv Stanshall among others in the early seventies. Buy the soundtrack - well worth it. Johnny Flynn locates a remarkable intimation of where Bowie's voice was coming from and going to. And there are some great musical choices.

Lotus Eaters (II) (2011)

A film where the script is as aimless as the lives of its protagonists?

[4/10 · 6 September 2020]

How to analyse? OK this is going to out me as very very very old but I've seen all this before - 1962 in fact - with John Hurt in a little film called The Wild and The Willing. That one made about as much impact as this one. Which goes to show that low-key stories about yoof going off the rails and into danger don't resonate much because actually you don't have to go to the movies for that - just check out your family, neighbours or suburb. There's a bit of Broadway Market on screen which for afficionados of London past and present is a bonus. A couple of cafes seem much the same in 2020 as in 2011. The B&W cinematography isn't particularly striking or sharp. It needed more contrast to create some excitement - as it was, it tended to look a bit tepid. And I'm surprised they choose to use it since colour stock these days is cheaper and I suggest would have improved the look of the film (if you're trying to show glamour please give us some). Johnny Flynn is a definite plus playing spaced-out doomed youth with considerable charm plus two songs (one over end credits) and Antonia Campbell Hughes brings intensity to her role. They and Amber Anderson are why I'm giving this a four. All the other fellas blur together as do the other girls really but at least the girls would have enjoyed all the dressing up - clothes are fun. But as for the rest.... Meh.

Love Is Thicker Than Water (2016)

Fresh, Honest, Funny

[10/10 · 25 June 2020]

Very intelligently shot on what is clearly not a lavish budget, this film punches way above its weight. Catch the Port Talbot scenes with the screen broken in half and the follow up split screens later - the story is being intelligently told through its visuals, echoing the theme of the characters - so many things split them apart, but clearly in the end the heart has its reasons. Love is Thicker Than Water has a very big heart indeed. It isn't unconventional in its plotting - a "meet cute", followed by a rapturous series of encounters both emotional and sexual, then the meeting with both sets of parents (slight clouds on horizon), then the deaths, then the severe conflicts. And so on and so on. But the uptown girl/downtown boy meme is handled entertainingly (she's Jewish, he's Welsh) and both actors are so funny and delicious and their scenes together are so spontaneous that I was convinced that they weren't rehearsed but were rather a brilliant bit of improv. (As Lydia Wilson and Johnny Flynn are both highly professional actors I concede that that is unlikely). Talking about professional actors, the whole cast is brilliant from the Big Names down to the very tiny parts. And the director(s), writer(s) and editor(s) are very secure in what they are trying to achieve so there are no moments where you think - WTF. The animation which is Arthur's thing as well as Vida's cello playing thing are interesting and convincingly portrayed and provide a metaphor for how the relationship shifts from one pole to the other without collapsing. It's not a pessimist's film I'm delighted to say but it never promises happiness ever after - so it's for the hopeful realists among us. Enjoy. Extra Bonus - the music.

Upload (2020– )

William Gibson on laughing gas

[22 May 2020]

Best crazy sci fi since Legion. Great cast, brilliant scripts and fantastic special effects. Canadian grand hotels (I presume) have never looked so beautiful. Such a clever idea and so well realised.

Emma. (2020)

Relax and enjoy this riff on Emma

[10/10 · 9 April 2020]

Emma is a spoiled little rich girl living a parochial existence in a rural backwater where she leads society, such as it is - according to Jane Austen's text. She is bored but insufficiently educated or naturally intelligent to find something useful to do, so meddles rather dangerously in peoples' lives. The film takes this unpromising material and makes a true comedy from it - the italianate 18th C style operatic music underlining her walk down the corridor telling you right from the start that this is an artifice, a game, an entertainment - And I was very entertained. Anya Taylor-Joy has the perfect little "cat that got the cream" face and Johnny Flynn's Queen Bee song over the end credits tells us that she has has indeed got all the cream to be had. The Gypsy Rose Lee reversé that Johnny Flynn undertakes is amusing. Never has a male leg looked so seductive with a stocking being drawn up it. Another enjoyable moment was the introduction of Mrs Elton dressed as a wasp and (gasp) occupying the front pew. Incidentally Mr Knightley seems to spare himself church-going duties - one of those new-fangled deists perhaps? Read this film as an ironic divertisement - a confection for your pleasure.

Lovesick (2014–2018)

This show will save your life - you'll be laughing too hard to hear the grim reaper at the door.

[10/10 · 13 March 2020]

After a full day of coronavirus news my husband and I were undecided whether to drink the coolaid now or deal with our predicted death by pneumonia more pro-actively by watching SCROTAL RECALL. We're not the aimed at demographic (clearly) but we took option B - so glad we did. Have finished season 1 (Riverdance the highlight) in one hit and looking forward to Seasons 2 and 3 tonight. I remember MEN BEHAVING BADLY - maybe this is the update but it's so much funnier. And somewhere in here lurks the spirit of Richard Curtis. It's also seemingly set in Glasgow - big plus - with occasional jaunts out of town. The scripts are amazing - taut, sharp and tightly plotted. The musical details are classics. The jokes (verbal, physical, slow builds, fast builds, prat falls, in your face (everything covered here) are to die for. And the cast is glorious. Dylan (Johnny Flynn) is sweetly honest to the point of dangerous, occasionally demure but mostly confused; Luke (Daniel Ing) is hyper and also confused and our lovely girl in the middle Evie - the one with a brain - (Antonia Thomas) is also extremely confused. And all those women! Everyone one of them perfectly cast. Dylan's list is quite long (although inordinately sprinkled with names beginning with A) so three seasons seems about right.

Babylon Berlin (2017–2025)

What a corker!

[10/10 · 27 February 2020]

For all lovers of German cinema - it's totally back! Visually, artistically, musically.

I enjoyed Deutschland 83 and its variants enormously but this is a whole new dimension.

Grab Siegfried Kracauer's FROM CALIGARI TO HITLER together with Otto Friedrich's BEFORE THE DELUGE and read every word again; then luxuriate in this masterpiece of longform television.

The directors - totally immersed in the period - spoil us with iris shots, shadows, distorted angles and so on to ground the visuals. It's Fritz Lang crossed with Murnau, Pabst and Wiene.

This amazing series is an homage to and a lament for Weimar Germany with LOTS OF DANCING.

We know what is waiting in the wings and sadly it isn't just Zarah Leander.

Succession (2018–2023)

Brilliant funny sharp and totally now

[10/10 · 26 October 2019]

So the one percenters are as miserable as the rest of us - this is the good news from SUCCESSION. The bad news is that the one percenters are miserable in amazing locations and while being totally cossetted from reality. Damn them. An astonishing cast is supported by great visuals, sets, locations & music. King Lear maybe? But who's playing Cordelia? And who's playing PoorTom or the fool? Can't wait to see who gets what in the end but I don't want this to end just yet - sign of a series that has sucked me in, I guess.

Succession (2018–2023)

I want to be Daddy's girl

[10/10 · 13 July 2019]

The casting director deserves a special bow... I haven't seen such group excellence in ages and of course Brian Cox is beyond perfect.

Sarah Snook - you are gorgeous. Elizabeth Murdoch is probably taking notes,

Matthew McFadyen - where DID you find that voice - hilarious.

And everyone else is outstanding.

Locations and sets are also very special....

Arcadia (II) (2017)

Blood and soil and being British

[8/10 · 8 April 2019]

Watching this late at night on my own is a slightly disturbing experience but the film has an elegaic charm (or magic) of its own with its music and subdued voice track.. It addresses man's ancient connection with the earth through custom and ritual and how that could be destroyed by modern life. The customs and rituals aren't always pretty or easy to contemplate - more Frazer's GOLDEN BOUGH than Thomson's LARK RISE TO CANDLEFORD. It reminded me a little of a book ny George Mackay Brown - GREENVOE - in its intertwining of the past and the present through ancient rituals. I've seen another work by this director - FOR THOSE IN PERIL - and I admire his poetic sensibility.