The Christmas 2010 Coca-Cola Advert

It is nearly Christmas, hoorah, and we all know what that means.  Carol services, advent crowns, Jesus?  No!    It means the Coca-Cola advert with the lorries will be on TV.  (Apologies to my mother - I know Christmas is all about Jesus really).

But this year, things are different.  Coca-cola have planned a two-prong attack, and I seem to have missed the first prong (do I need to apologise to my mother again?).  Apparently the 'Holidays are Coming' advert underpinned the 'anticipation phase' of Christmas, which ran from 14 November to 13 December.  Now we are into the 'celebration phase'.  But I am not ready to celebrate.  I did not see any lorries on TV (though the contributors to this fascinating yahoo answers chain obviously did), and now all I have is this unpleasant offering:

I do not like the Coke Santa when he moves.  He's got that dead behind the eyes, slightly evil Tom Hanks in Polar Express look about him,  but he's not computer generated, he's an actual person.  When he tilts the snow globe, about 21 and 38 seconds in, it is particularly disturbing.  Tilting the snow globe sounds like a terrible euphemism.  Sorry to my mother, again.

I'm sure it's lovely to drink Coke at Christmas so that you can feel a sense of togetherness that no other fizzy beverage can provide, but the thought of a creepy puppet master dressed up as Santa, manipulating the level of the land so that people can have a Christmas snog does not fill me with Christmas cheer.  And the song is rubbish.  Bah humbug.  Ah, now I have found the true spirit of Christmas.

The Apprentice - interviews round 15 December 2010

This is it.  The moment we’ve been waiting for since we realised that Lord Sugar was never going to see on his own that Stuart Baggs the brand is a ridiculous man.  Yes, it’s time for the interviews episode of The Apprentice, undoubtedly the best part of every series.  Who can forget Lee's dinosaur impression?  Who can forget… no, that’s the only thing I remember about any of the other interview episodes.  But still, the return of cloud-haired papyrus-wielding Margaret Mountford was a joyous prospect.

Stuart Baggs the brand is clearly also a fan.  "Margaret!"  he cried lovingly, as he entered the room and saw her across the table.  In his head: trumpets were playing; a slow motion run towards her as they were magically transported to a field of galloping ponies; a lingering embrace.  But alas it was not to be.  She rapped his knuckles and became Miss Mountford for the rest of the interview.

Another highlight was learning that Chris referred to himself on his application form as a 'revered theology scholar'.  Has he done a PhD?  Is he well-versed in the Dead Sea Scrolls?  Well no, but he did do RE at A-level.  I'm shocked he wasn't asked to take part in the Christopher Hitchens Tony Blair debate, personally.

Other than that nothing overly exciting happened, I am disappointed to report.  Stella breezed through, and dull Chris got the second place (despite Nick Hewer saying that he "droned on"), seemingly because Joanna is rubbish at interviews and Jamie had begun to do Gordon Brown-esque twitchy smiles which I imagine made everyone nervous.

So who's going to win?  Presumably Stella, but we shall see on Sunday (note, not Wednesday), when she and Chris must design and market new alcoholic drinks.  I suppose it will be nice to not have to go cold turkey from reality TV on Sunday night.  And going by last weekend's standards, Take That are bound to make an appearance.  It has been four whole days since they've appeared on television.

Of Gods and Men *****

Of Gods and Men opens in a monastery in Algeria in the 1990s, with a small group of French monks quietly and methodically going to prayer. Everything is symmetrical, orderly, and peaceful. They live in harmony with the Muslim villagers, selling honey at the market and running a medical centre. This harmony, however, is about to be broken. 

Their serene balance is disturbed by a group of violent fundamentalists, who are now looking for medical supplies as some of their members have been injured fighting. The head of the monastery stands up to them, but they know that they will be back. The monks must decide whether to stay, and almost certainly be killed, or to leave, and abandon the people who rely on them so much. When talking to the villagers one of the monks compares the brotherhood to birds on a branch, unsure whether or not they are about to fly away. A woman replies that the monks are actually the branch, and it is the villagers who are the birds. Without the monks they have nothing to stand on. 

The film, frankly, is remarkable. The power of emotion it inspires is something I have rarely experienced in the cinema. A particularly effecting scene occurs towards the end of the film, when the monks have their ‘Last Supper’. There is no dialogue, it is just a group of men eating, while Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake plays in the background. The camera pans round each of their faces, and we see every line, every flicker of fear, of happiness, and of faith, in themselves and in their God. 

This is not the kind of film to just pop to in order to while away a couple of hours. You feel every single one of its 122 minutes. Normally I would say that a film feeling long is a bad sign, but that is simply not the case here. The pace is slow, and the scenes are long, but it is somehow fitting that a film like this leaves time within it for contemplation. 

Of Gods and Men will stay with you for a long time after you leave the cinema. And you may take a while to leave. I had to sit until the end of the credits to gather myself, as did a lot of the audience. Astonishing, beautiful, captivating, devastating; I could go through the alphabet. But I won’t, don’t worry.


Original review here.


PS Just to clarify, I did not see this Of Gods and Men.  Though I'm sure the above review would apply to that, too.

My Afternoons with Margueritte ***

My Afternoons with Margueritte is not exactly a film full of high-octane thrills and spills.  But you can probably tell that from the poster: Gerard Depardieu and an old lady sit on a bench, feeding the pigeons.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that the poster is a plot spoiler - sitting on a bench feeding the pigeons probably takes up a good half of the film.  

Depardieu plays Germain, a lovable loser.  He lives in a trailer in his mother’s garden.  He has friends in the village, but they all laugh at him and think he is stupid.  Then he meets Margueritte, an intelligent, highly literate woman in her 90s, and she reads to him, and thus unlocks the door to knowledge, and enlightenment, and self-respect, and respect from others, and all those other clichés that we get from this ‘gosh, isn’t reading good?’ kind of film.

But, despite it winning no prizes for originality, My Afternoons with Margueritte is actually very sweet and touching.  The relationships between Germain and the women in his life - his scary mother who has never shown him any love, his ridiculously pretty, young, vivacious girlfriend (sorry to be shallow but, really?  French women don’t like dungarees, do they?), and of course Margueritte - are all very sensitively and movingly conveyed.  

This is very much Sunday afternoon cinema.  Themes of ageing, of mother/son relationships, of different kinds of love, are covered at a very gentle pace, but it never fails to be charming.  Oh, apart from at the very end where an awful saccharine poem is read over the end credits.  I would advise you to leave before that bit, as the sugar content may send you over the edge.  You’ll get horribly hyperactive on the way home.

[Original review here]

Oxford Poets - Oxford Playhouse, 12 November

Encompassing Geoffrey Chaucer and Michael Rosen, and taking in Ancient Greece and the shops of Oxford High Street along the way, Live Canon really impressed at the Oxford Playhouse on Friday. They performed Oxford Poets, poetry and the occasional song by men and women with some connection (however slight) to Oxford. 

The initial thought of going to a poetry recital made me slightly nervous. In my mind I had images of people draped in black, a fog of cigarette smoke, maybe the odd beret and a set of bongos in the background. Live Canon are nothing like this (though I do mourn the lack of a bongo player). The three of them are young, energetic, and wonderfully engaged with each other and the poetry, and therefore with the audience. 

It is an increasingly rare thing to be able to hear classic and modern poetry performed, and I am a new convert to its joys when it is done well. It does take work from the audience, but the rewards are great. Listening to poetry takes a different type of concentration, and it did take me a good ten minutes to tune my brain into the rhythms in order to understand, well, anything to be honest, but once I managed that it was a really special experience. Lines that could have seemed indecipherable on a page came to life when spoken aloud. 

Massive congratulations to Live Canon for delivering a lovely performance, and managing to seamlessly move between themes of education, war, love, even existence itself, with barely a pause. I will certainly be looking out for their work in the future. Despite the lack of bongos.


[For fear that I am not obeying my terms and conditions, the original of this review is here.  All of my other theatre reviews are at dailyinfo.co.uk too.  I don't think there are many of you reading this that I wouldn't have directed to dailyinfo first anyway, so I can't imagine I need to worry about copywright issues.  But we can pretend that this is proper, can't we?]

Journey's End - Keble College, 9-11 November

Set entirely in an officers’ dugout close to the front line towards the end of World War I, Journey’s End tells the moving story of a small group of officers as they wait to go over the top. We watch how the relationships between the men develop and shift over the course of a few days, and learn how they cope differently with the pressures of war.

The production of this play by Sinclair Productions is particularly timely, with the final performance set for Remembrance Day. And despite being a different country, a different century, and a considerably different way of fighting, the examination of the horror of war is particularly important today.

The way that themes can be applied to contemporary war is perhaps part of the reason why the play is still a GCSE set text. And this is where Sinclair Productions begin their own battle. The challenge of putting on a text read in schools is that the audience will naturally be made up of a large proportion of school children. And school children are probably the most difficult audience to please. There is much to commend in this production, with excellent set design, imaginative lighting, and decent performances, but the cast really struggled to keep the audience’s attention.  The funny scenes just weren’t funny enough, whilst scenes of real poignancy fell sadly flat as the tension was broken by mistimed giggling. It is easy to blame the children for not keeping quiet, but then maybe if the diction had been a little clearer, and the connection between the cast and the audience had been a  little stronger, it would have been much more difficult to become distracted.

Royal Hunt of the Sun - Oxford Playhouse, 27-30 October

Royal Hunt of the Sun is a little performed play by Peter Shaffer. After seeing it, it becomes clear why. This is a play in which gold is a main character, in which the cast start off in Spain, end up in Peru, tramp through jungle, cross the Andes (yes, cross the Andes), massacre 3,000 Incans, and all the while conduct a deep and profound argument about the morals of invasion, and the place of religion in today’s society. And in this case, all on a student budget. 

The cast make a valiant effort, but in the first half I was completely lost. I think this was in part due to confusing staging, and in part due to the fact that in the first scene I couldn’t really hear what they were saying because of the ‘ambient’ noise of sweeping and blacksmithery. Then I was distracted by Incans on stilts.

Things improve vastly in the second half, thanks in no small part to the fact that it’s all set on the same continent so the staging can be much simpler. Also, Joe Robertson as the Incan god Atahuallpa is allowed to take off his Golden Grahams headdress and really shine as the son of the sun. Maybe it was part of the message of the play, but it was only when the god stopped being a distant figure on a pedestal in a comedy hat and became a man that I was really able to engage with their world, and thus with the play as a whole.

There are some really interesting arguments, and a couple of great performances, but for me the treasure was too far out of reach.

The Social Network ****

How did a man with decidedly ropey social skills manage to create the biggest social website in the world?  So asks The Social Network.  Well, sort of.  The question is there in amongst an examination of ideas (as in: at what stage does an idea become something more concrete, that can be owned and thus monetised, rather than ‘an examination of ideas’ being my impressively vague description of the film)…  I seem to have lost my train of thought.  This is the challenge of being part of the facebook generation - I don’t even have the attention span for music videos.  3 minutes?  No, no, far too long.  I can’t manage to concentrate for the length of a sentence.

I did actually manage to concentrate for the whole of The Social Network, thanks to Aaron Sorkin’s clever script in which everyone is engaging, but no-one comes across especially favourably, and David Fincher’s masterly direction.  His manipulation of depth of field speaks volumes: in scenes of conversation Mark Zuckerberg is often the only object on screen in focus, subtly but pointedly conveying, if not exactly his self-interest, his obvious lack of interest in what anyone else has to say.

This is a remarkable story, remarkably well told.

A couple of points of interest: 

-It has what I consider to be one of the most realistic nightclub scene ever seen on screen.  I really liked the fact I had to strain my ears to hear the conversation over the music.

-The Winklevoss twins are played by the same person, by way of computer wizardry (much like the other technical term, 'computer trickery', but even more cleverer).  I saw the film before I knew this, and didn’t notice at all.  Things have changed since Hayley Mills in The Parent Trap.  Now that’s a good film.  I wonder if Hayley Mills has a facebook page… What was I writing about…?

Hairspray - Oxford Playhouse, 12-23 Oct

Hairspray is without doubt the most fun that you can have with Brian Conley in drag and Les Dennis in ill-fitting trousers. If inane grins and tapping toes amongst the audience are a measure of musical success, I don’t think it could score any higher. The songs are infuriatingly catchy, the productions values are incredibly high, and the mood is incessantly joyous.

Hairspray is quite easily one of the cheesiest things I have ever seen. In my entire life. Baltimore, where the musical is set, looks pretty different in The Wire, it has to be said. But it is utterly aware of its campness, playing up to the fact constantly. In a musical where Brian Conley plays the main character’s mother, I think campness can hardly be a surprise. 

The basic story is that Tracy Turnblad is considered too fat to dance on TV. She makes friends with some black people, they make a stand and then everyone is allowed to dance together. The politics are handled with the sensitivity of a sledgehammer. A notable line was “We’ll set off sparks like Rosa Parks”. Had this been the type of show to have an important, ‘serious face’ message, it would have been cringeable (thank you The Apprentice series 6 for a handy new word). But the contagious sense of joy means that whilst the message of equality and ‘oneness’ is conveyed, it is made far less clunky by show tunes and jazz hands.

All the cast are excellent, but special mention has to go to Brian Conley and his ‘daughter’, Laurie Scarth, for their unflagging energy and infectious enthusiasm. It seems unfair to put a spotlight on mistakes, but the highlight for me had to be the duet between Les Dennis and Brian Conley as husband and wife, where we experienced lost slippers, giggles, and highly disturbing bodily contact that I think will give me nightmares for weeks.

My main warning: Go to this with your children and they will want to be in musical theatre when they grow up. Correction: Go to this and you will want to be in musical theatre when you grow up.

Will Self - Oxford Playhouse, 8 September

Near the beginning of his talk, Will Self said something to us along the lines of, ‘in a couple of hours you’ll look back at this and think it was all some sort of surreal dream’ (though he probably used a few longer words).  And he was completely right.  His talk (and seemingly his new book, Walking to Hollywood, from which he read a few excerpts) was a very entertaining, but for me quite disorienting, meld of fact and fiction.  A sort of memoir that contained so much fantasy that it was difficult to keep a sure footing.

He came onto stage carrying a plate of sandwiches, and handed them out to the audience, so that was nice.  He then got slightly distracted by the strangeness of clingfilm.  How can a man still be interesting whilst talking about sandwich covering?  I was impressed.

The problem I found was that I couldn’t tell if he was laughing at us all for being there in the first place.  When asked for his thoughts about the state of theatre today, he told a story of going to see a play and being more impressed by the part played by the audience, who were more convincing than any of the actors on stage.  They played their role as middle-class theatre goers with real passion.  They applauded in all the right places.  As did we.  At the end of an extract we applauded, and Will Self said he’d like applause when he got out of bed in the morning.  Was he laughing at us, a bunch of people playing the part of the audience, believing his readings were true until they would suddenly switch and he was fighting Daniel Craig’s body double?  Is it possible to enjoy something and be made to feel quite intense self-loathing at the same time?  I might go and read Walking to Hollywood to see if I can find any answers.  Probably a pointless task.  Sigh.

Back to the Future *****

It's back to the cinema for Back to the Future, to celebrate its 25th anniversary.  I wasn't sure seeing it on the big screen could make me love it any more, but I was wrong!  The collective groan of pleasure when The Power of Love kicked in, as Marty skateboarded holding on to the back of a car, was possibly one of the best moments of my cinema going life.  Perfection.

Spend Spend Spend - Oxford Playhouse, 5-9 October 2010

Spend Spend Spend!, on at the Oxford Playhouse all this week, is a musical of two halves. Two utterly entertaining, equally terrific halves, but two halves nonetheless. It is based on the true story of Viv Nicholson, a miner’s daughter from North Yorkshire, who in 1961 won the biggest sum ever won to that date on the pools. 

The first half is a riot, and hilariously follows Viv on her way from rags to riches, with coarse humour taking in bunny girls, a fireman with dancing pecs, and a song incorporating an impressively wide variety of ways to say sex. This gives way to a more moving (though no less funny) second half as riches return to rags, the raucous energy quieting a little to reveal a very timely message about the true value of money. 

The real strength of the show lies in the multi-talented cast. They create all of the music themselves, and the incorporation of the instruments into the staging is really well done. I also found myself humming the title song on the way home, and that is always a good sign. 

If I had to be find fault with anything, it would be that Karen Mann as senior Viv’s Yorkshire accent isn’t always perfect, but the heartbreaking performance she puts in as a woman full of regret, living on memories, more than makes up for it. I was also ready to complain about choreographer and director Craig Revel Horwood’s vanity in inserting a quick Strictly Come Dancing reference, but I have since learned that Viv and her husband Keith did actually receive their big cheque from Bruce Forsyth! What a small world. 

So, I urge you to spend spend spend your money on a ticket this week. Ba dum cha. Yes, if I were as talented as the cast and were holding a drum right now, I would say that was deserving of a rimshot. I thank you. I’m here all week. As is Spend Spend Spend

A Town Called Panic ***'

Don’t judge a book by its cover?  And don’t judge a film by its milk advert.  A new personal code I intend to live by.  I find this advert quite unbelievably annoying, but 70 minutes of a basically identical premise is somehow extremely funny.

It’s Horse’s birthday, and Cowboy and Indian have forgotten to buy him a present.  They decide to build him a barbecue, but don’t have enough bricks so buy some off the internet.  But, zut alors, they accidentally buy 50 million bricks instead of 50.  This leads to a manic adventure taking in the centre of the earth, the North Pole, and the depths of the ocean, with barely time to breathe.

Watching A Town Called Panic feels a bit like watching Postman Pat, or Pingu, on speed.  By the end I was exhausted.  The animation is delightfully crap, and hides what was undoubtedly an enormous amount of hard work.  It’s not quite Adam and Joe Show levels of charming unsophistication, but it doesn’t feel far off.  (Yes, I know that reference is about ten years out of date now, and isn’t really relevant anyway, but I wanted to link this clip in somehow, just because it makes me laugh).

If you like your comedy clever and highbrow, then this film is not really for you.  If, however, you want to escape in silliness for an hour, with the main thought running through your head being ‘this is actually insane’, then I highly recommend.

I would have given this four stars, but took off half because I think you have to be in a very specific mood to enjoy this, otherwise funny could too easily become being-repeatedly-bashed-over-the-head irritating.

The Secret in Their Eyes ****

On the surface The Secret in Their Eyes is a crime thriller set in Buenos Aires in the 1970s, following detective Esposito as he investigates a brutal case of rape and murder.  But to that we must add the layer that he is looking back from 25 years later, as he is now retired and writing a book about the case.

In re-visiting the case he is attempting to deal with his past, including the fact that he was in love with his superior, Irene, and has been ever since, but has never been able to voice it.  This plays out very subtly and beautifully beneath a tense and tightly crafted murder story involving some stunning set pieces - look out for the chase scene in the football stadium.

The corruption of the justice system at the time is an interesting subtext to the film.  I am ashamed to admit that my knowledge of Argentine history pretty much begins and ends with Madonna, so the political edge went over my head slightly, but ultimately this didn’t seem to matter.  I understood that people could just ‘disappear’, without needing a knowledge of the Dirty War (isn’t it nice, this learning together?).

This is much more than a run of the mill crime thriller, and much more engaging than a dry documentary of Argentina‘s political past, which probably explains why it won Best Foreign-Language picture at this year‘s Oscars.  This is a film about constancy, about friendship, about memory, and about people’s reasons for being.  And about secrets.  Revealed in people’s eyes.  But you probably guessed that.

Charity Shop Challenge #1 - FTW (1994)

Director: Michael Karbelnikoff
Starring: Mickey Rourke, Lori Singer
Genre: Crime/Western/Romance
Charity shop: It was a present so I’m cheating before I’ve even started.  Sorry reader(s?).

Way back in the mists of time, before the advent of internet acronyms that needed googling to be deciphered, when Mickey Rourke’s face was still more flesh than plastic, FTW stood for F**k The World.

Rourke plays Frank T. Wells (see his initials?  How clever), a cowboy who has just got out of prison.  He killed a man but it wasn’t really his fault.  He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.  With a knife.  But anyway.  He’s a loner who just wants to be free from the shackles of his past, like the wild horses that run in slow motion across the prairies of Montana.  I think this was a deep bit, but all I could think of was Susan Boyle.  Frank T. Wells just wants to make enough money to buy a ranch, so he competes in rodeos.  Lots of rodeos.  In slow motion.

Scarlett (Lori Singer) is a damaged woman.  She’s the victim of some completely unnecessary incest which only seems to be in the film to be a bit controversial.  She meets Frank T. Wells when she’s on the run from the police, after robbing a bank (in slow motion) and watching her brother get shot.  She has FTW tattooed on her hand, and she and Frank T. Wells realise they’re destined to be together.  They have quite a lot of sex: in the rain, on the car roof, in a hot spring in the middle of a field (do you get hot springs in Montana?).  But their dark pasts, and the police, are always catching up with them.  There’s a beautiful moment where they point guns at each others’ heads, such is the intensity of their love, and the dark pasts are revealed, and it’s very emotional.

Will they be able to evade the police?  Will Frank T. Wells win the rodeo championship?  Where else can they fit in some slow motion?

Highlight:  Frank T. Wells’ Native American friend gives him some advice: ‘We do what we do because something inside tells us to.  And that’s that.’

Interesting fact:  Apparently Mickey Rourke turned down Bruce Willis’ role in Pulp Fiction to write and star in FTW.  Oh Mickey, what a pity.

Conclusion: Glorious nonsense.  FTW  For The Win!

Why Should You Care That I've Seen Things?

I have been wondering, what reason can I give you to read this over the thousands of other film/culture blogs that are out there (unless you‘re my friend or family and you take pity on me)?  Well, I don’t have the contacts to get previews or exclusives (apart from the Goodnight Sweetheart musical revealed below, news I must admit I am pretty excited by).  If you don’t live in Oxford I can’t imagine you’ll be enticed by the theatre reviews (though they are of the utmost quality and are certainly worth a read).  And so, for something a little bit different, I proudly present…

THE CHARITY SHOP CHALLENGE

From time to time I will, for the sake of science, or culture, or truth, or beauty, or something, purchase a random DVD from a charity shop, and tell you all about it.  Thus will we learn about films we would probably never otherwise have heard of, and I will become a good, charitable member of society.

The Rules:
1. I will not spend more than £2 (unless charity shop DVDs are more expensive than I think they are).
2. I will not limit the choice by genre, age, perceived quality, or whether or not I have heard of anyone in it.
3. If I realise that watching random films that no-one has ever or will ever see is a massive waste of time and I should be watching something better, then I am allowed to stop.

Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran: Writing for the Stage and Screen - Oxford Playhouse, Sept 17 2010

Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran have had a prolific television writing career for the past 25 years, their work including Shine on Harvey Moon, Birds of a Feather, and Goodnight Sweetheart.  But they are not here as television writers, but rather as Olivier nominated playwrights, and the talk takes place on the set of their newest play, written especially for the Oxford Playhouse, Von Ribbentrop’s Watch.


The play is inspired by a true story: Laurence Marks (who is Jewish) bought a watch for $200 and years later discovered that it originally belonged to Joachim von Ribbentrop, Nazi Germany’s Foreign Minister who was hanged for war crimes after the Nuremberg Trials.  It turned out that the watch was worth about £50,000.  Whether it would be morally right for him to make a profit from Nazi memorabilia developed over three years from argument with his friend and writing partner Maurice Gran, to art.

Aside from very engagingly selling their play (Saturday was unfortunately its last night in Oxford before it goes on tour), they also talk about their theatre career in general.  They say that chance encounters have played a huge role in their success, but how many of us can say that we just happened to sit next to Alan Ayckbourn at the Hay-on-Wye Literary Festival?  Their television career made these chance encounters, with the right people, possible.

On being a writer, Marks says that everyone in the room will have had a wonderful idea, but only one person will know that they have had it.   Von Ribbentrop’s Watch raises the question, what would you do if you discovered you owned some Nazi memorabilia?  Sell it?  Give the money to charity?  Donate it to a museum?  Or write a play about it?

PS. Goodnight Sweetheart: The Musical is coming.  You have been warned.

Gainsbourg ***

Biopics are a tricky genre. The challenge is to engage someone who knows all the facts already, and someone else who knows none. I fell into the latter category. The only things I knew about Serge Gainsbourg before the start of the film were that he was French, and he wrote the song that was used in the beer advert with the sexy ladybirds. 

Now I know a bit more, though the actual biographical details are quite confusing. Wives and lovers come and go without much explanation. And I have no idea how many children he had. Though maybe he didn’t either. 

This is more than a run of the mill ‘The Life and Times of Serge Gainsbourg’ movie however. It is based on the graphic novel by Joann Sfar, who also directs the film. We meet Serge as a young boy in Nazi-occupied Paris, when he still went by the name of Lucien Ginsburg. He makes up stories for his sisters, and from these stories springs the most surreal, and probably most enjoyable, part of the film. He invents a character, a kind of nightmarish man-sized puppet alter-ego that follows him round into adulthood, whispering to him his insecurities and ambitions. 

This surreal element disappears about half an hour from the end of the film, and with it went my interest. Maybe a huge fan of Serge Gainsbourg would have enjoyed seeing him record a reggae version La Marseillaise, but for me it really added nothing to the complex and interesting character that had been presented for the first three quarters of the film. 

So, basically, I think for a Serge Gainsbourg fan it would be great: a biopic with lots of songs, plus quirky, innovative elements. And lots of beautiful women. No ladybirds though.

Apples - Burton Taylor Studio, 23-26 June 2010

Heartbreaking, and brutal, and funny, and shocking, the stage adaptation of Richard Milward's novel Apples is brilliant. 

A group of six teenagers are growing up and trying to cope with life the only way they can see how - they go out clubbing, get drunk, get high (the apples here are ecstasy), sleep around, anything to escape from being inside their own heads. 

The characters may not want to be inside their own heads but we do, and we are granted access as they tell us their stories via a series of dramatic monologues within the scenes. This works brilliantly as Adam reveals to us his OCD behaviour, his violent home life, and the fact that he can cope with all this because of Eve, with whom he is hopelessly in love. She barely knows that he exists. We are not in Paradise. The Garden of Eden here is a Middlesborough council estate, and behind the poetic and moving attempts to work out who they are lurks the threat of physical violence, and sexual violence, desperation, and bewilderment. 

The difficulties of being not quite an adult and not quite a child are dealt with very cleverly, moving seamlessly between mentions of drug-fuelled nights out and Scooby Doo and jammie dodger-fuelled days in. 

The staging is brilliant: the set is minimal, with just a few chairs and some screens which are used really innovatively. The music is brilliant, the lighting is brilliant, the actors are all brilliant, even the scene changes are brilliant, with them effectively being part of the performance. You may be able to tell, I quite liked it. 

Heartbreaker ****

Heartbreaker (L'Arnacoeur) is the perfect antidote to the below par romantic comedies that have been offered up in recent months.Sex and the City 2? Letters to Juliet? Non, merci. This is so far superior it's almost silly to compare. 

Admittedly, the plot is quite predictable. Alex (the remarkably attractive Romain Duris), his sister, and her husband get paid, by fathers or siblings or friends, to split up couples. Don't worry, only couples where the woman is unhappy and doesn't realise it. We don't need to get distracted by morals here. Alex breaks up relationships, he doesn't break hearts. Even though the film is called Heartbreaker. Hmm, maybe there's a nuance lost in translation. Anyway, quelle surprise, Alex falls for his mark, Juliette (the equally remarkably attractive Vanessa Paradis), but will he be able to steal her away from her fiance? (Her fiance played by Andrew Lincoln. Yes, Andrew Lincoln from Teachers and This Life. In a French film.) And will he be able to keep professional and personal feelings separate? And will they kiss in the end?

You can probably guess the answer to those questions. So why go and see another predictable romcom? Firstly, the guilt factor from seeing a frothy film is completely blown away because it's in French. It's got subtitles, therefore your friends will think you are very cultured and highbrow. Secondly, predictable can be wonderful when it's done well. Most of Audrey Hepburn's films were predictable, but they were glorious because they were charming. And this is certainly charming. It is silly, and funny, and warm, and irresistible. And beautiful to look at, both in cinematographic and aesthetic terms (did I mention how attractive the leads are?). And they recreate the iconic scene from Dirty Dancing, and the only thing that was lame and embarrassing about it was the very big grin left on my face.  Formidable!

Titus Andronicus - Corpus Christi College, 9-12 June 2010

Titus Andronicus, on this week at Corpus Christi College, is hilarious. Trouble is, I still haven’t worked out if it’s supposed to be. The story is extremely gruesome, and includes murder, rape, hands being chopped off, tongues being cut out, a bit of cannibalism. Did I mention the murders? There are quite a lot. When a play begins with a bowl of blood on the stage, and most of the cast have a red tinge to their clothes already, you know you're in for a dramatic time. 

And dramatic it certainly was. There was shrieking, and screaming, and growling, and moaning, and manic shouting. There was quite a lot of manic shouting. Corpus Christi auditorium doesn't really have the best acoustics for manic shouting. 

But for me, the incoherent words did not matter, and to be honest the plot didn't really matter either. The gore mattered. There was quite a lot of gore. I don't think violent scenes have ever made me laugh so much. Everything was played so melodramatically, it almost became farce. 

There is a line in the play, "Why dost thou laugh? It fits not with this hour". It probably came after a murder. But it made me wonder: was it Shakespeare's intention that the audience should be laughing? Maybe it was a comment on people finding entertainment in violence. Maybe in this production the actors and director were being extremely clever and had turned what is commonly thought of as tragedy into practically slapstick comedy. But, then again, maybe it was just brilliantly bad. 

Oh, and Titus and his brother Marcus are women, and there's a midwife with a beard. I have no idea why.

Dangerous Liaisons - Trinity College Gardens, 2-5 June 2010

Sex, manipulation, and revenge are the unholy trinity of players in Trinity Players' Dangerous Liaisons, performed in the beautiful setting of Trinity Lawns this week. (Apologies - I am slightly ashamed of that first sentence, but really, who can resist an unholy trinity of players? Not I, obviously). 

So, we are transported to late nineteenth-century France, where the Marquise de Merteuil challenges her friend/ex-lover/rival the Vicomte de Valmont to seduce the young and innocent Cecile, to whom another ex-lover of Merteuil has become engaged. This is partly as an act of revenge, but mainly just for her own amusement. Valmont however thinks this is too easy, and has his eye on the virtuous Presidente de Tourvel. The Marquise tells him that if he can obtain written proof of a sexual encounter with the Presidente de Tourvel, then his reward will be one last night with her. Thus the game begins. How seriously do they take it? Win or Die. 

The play is witty, dark, and sexy, and the Trinity Players just about pull it off, though hopefully the line-fumbling will lessen as the run continues. Chloe Courtney has the stand out performance as the cold, calculating Marquise, bored by and detached from the world around her. She manipulates all of her pawns, including Cecile and the man Cecile is in love with, Danceny, with a great air of ennui. 

The highlight for me has to be the sword fight near the end. Being on the front row I did fear for my life slightly, particularly as I'm sure that Danceny's fringe cannot have helped his hand eye coordination. 

Win or Die? Win, definitely. Join me, and don’t try to resist the unholy trinity in the glorious sunshine this week. Though do remember to pick up a blanket in the interval. It’s less fun to watch winning and dying with chilly knees.

Much Ado About Nothing - OFS Studio, 25-29 May 2010

Shakespeare meets Allo Allo in Oxford Triptych Theatre’s production of Much Ado About Nothing. Sicily is replaced with post-war France, signified by a long rendition of 'La Marseillaise', some rather enjoyable accordion music, and a couple of huge tricolores festooning the stage (more of which later).
 
The action centres around a bistro run by Leonato, father of beautiful Hero. Don Pedro, Claudio, Benedick, and evil Don John return from war, Claudio promptly falls in love with Hero, grumpy Don John does a bit of evil plotting, and high jinx ensue. But all this is background really for the two characters who steal the show. The actors playing Benedick and Beatrice are excellent as the verbal adversaries who are tricked into falling in love with each other. Or just tricked into admitting what was there all along. What may to a modern audience seem rather contrived becomes convincing, thanks to the obvious enjoyment that Benedick and Beatrice take from their war of wit, and the chemistry between the pair.
 
But back to the big flags: at first it is unclear what is gained by transplanting the story to France. It is all worth it however in the scene where Benedick hides while eavesdropping on Claudio and Don Pedro (who incidentally bears a remarkable resemblance to Charlton Heston), and becomes convinced that Beatrice loves him. The sight of Benedick’s moustache showing through the white stripe of the tricolore is truly a joy to behold.
 
Aside from the strong performances of Benedick and Beatrice it has to be said that some of the acting is hit and miss, and some of the humour does fall a little flat. All in all though this is a pretty good version, and also your last chance to go to the intimate OFS Studio before it is closed for refurbishment. So go along if you can, otherwise you will be an ass, and if you’re very unfortunate it will be written down. Now you want to go, don’t you, just to find out what on earth I’m talking about.

Bad Lieutenant ****

'It feels like we're working for some kind of greater good,' says Xzibit's gang boss to Nicholas Cage's eponymous Bad Lieutenant as they make a business deal, whilst in the background his two henchmen dump a body in the river. But there is no greater good here in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans, as Nicholas Cage wades through the moral swamp investigating a murder. Everything is corrupt and sleazy. The fact that this scene is funny hopefully goes a little way to illustrating the blackly comic tone of the whole of Werner Herzog's latest release. He takes a traditional good cop gone bad tale, and breakdances all over it. 

Nicholas Cage's manic performance sees him back to his joyously over the top best, as he somehow makes a seedy, drug addled, gambling, corrupt cop someone that you, perversely, want to succeed. It is impossible to take your eyes off him, apart from when a couple of smiling iguanas share a fantastically insane scene with him. He's a brilliant detective, but the sole driving force of all of his actions is the desperation to score drugs. He would threaten to kill your granny if it would help him.

How did something so bleak and amoral make me leave the cinema in such a good mood?

Completely bonkers, and completely brilliant.