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]