Lynn Shelton’s new film about relationships, both sibling
and romantic, is a very sweet and funny three-hander between the lovely Emily
Blunt, the equally lovely but cynical and kind of spiky Rosemarie DeWitt, and the
endearing emotional mess that is Mark Duplass.
Iris (Blunt) sends her best friend Jack (Duplass) to stay
at her family’s remote cabin after an outburst at a memorial party shows he is
still struggling to come to terms with his brother’s death a year on. The idea is for him to cycle there, spend
some time in solitude away from distractions, think about his life, and come back
a slightly saner man. When he arrives at
the cabin however he finds Iris’s sister Hannah (DeWitt) there for a similar
reason, having just split up from her girlfriend of seven years. Tequila is drunk, lesbianism is temporarily
rescinded, and they sleep together. Iris
shows up the next day, unaware of the drunken shenanigans, she reveals to her
sister that she is secretly in love with Jack, and over the next few days their
entwined relationships get a little knotty.
The strength of this film lies in the first rate
performances from all three actors (aside from the first scene they are the
only people in the film). Blunt and
DeWitt manage to pull off that complicated sisterly relationship, balancing closeness
with a never acknowledged undermining of each other that anyone with siblings
will recognise. The awkwardness between
Duplass and DeWitt is also completely convincing and never feels contrived. All three characters are witty, and endearingly
‘damaged’, but the film manages never to stray into the self-absorption of bad hipster
movie territory.
A great scene comes near the end of the film that subtly
captures the tone of the whole. Jack is
trying to destroy his bike – he throws it to the ground repeatedly but it barely
bends. It’s simultaneously sad and funny
because he’s trying to take his despair out on this bicycle, but his grand
dramatic gesture falls flat. It’s emotionally
moving, about dealing with death, and life, but it’s low-key and funny and somehow
realistic. Not many people have a cabin in
the beautiful wilderness that they can escape to when life gets too difficult,
but everyone has had that moment of frustration when they’ve tried to smash a
wall and all they’ve achieved is a throbbing toe.
Daniel Auteuil, of Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources fame, makes his directorial debut in the rather gentle, rather old-fashioned, but really rather sweet The Well-Digger’s Daughter. Astrid Bergès-Frisbey (who you may recognise despite the lack of mermaid tail from Pirates of the Caribbean 4, but don’t hold that against her) is the daughter in question, Patricia, a beautiful 18 year old who was brought up in Paris and has a repressed yearning for the finer things in life. Her father (Auteuil) thinks that he will be able to keep his beloved daughter close if she marries his good-hearted workmate and friend Felipe. She however only has eyes for the rich general store owner’s son Jacques, who is in the Air Force. Faced with the choice between a middle-aged well digger and a dashing pilot with a motorbike it‘s hardly a tough decision.
Alas we are in pre-war France, and after Patricia succumbs to Jacques’ charms he is immediately sent to the front line. Jacques unknowingly leaves Patricia pregnant; her father is appalled that she has lost her honour, Jacques’ parents are appalled that he would get involved with a girl from a poor family, and some mild parent vs. child, honour vs. love drama ensues.
Its mild drama is reminiscent of Downton Abbey and Sunday tea-times, where there’s never really any risk of danger. Its nostalgic charms therefore won’t appeal to everyone. If the idea of a boy falling in love with a girl as he carries her over a river because there is no bridge and she can’t manage to untie her shoelaces just makes you want to throw the couple, or yourself, in a river, then perhaps avoid this one.
If however you’re not averse to a bit of sentimentality then there are some fine sun-drenched performances to enjoy here. Don’t be so grumpy - sugar‘s good for you every once in a while.
If it takes ten thousand hours of practice to make a virtuoso then I’m not sure what that makes Michael Pennington - as stated in the subtitle to his show (and accompanying book) Sweet William he has spent ‘Twenty Thousand Hours with Shakespeare’. If nothing else, it makes him an excellent companion on a whistle stop tour of Shakespeare’s life and works.
A show such as this could have been very dry - an hour and a half lecture repeating for the thousandth time that we know surprisingly little about the facts of Shakespeare’s actual life, punctuated with the occasional ‘to be or not to be’ and rounded with a sleep. Instead, Pennington gives us hisown personal experience of Shakespeare. How he first encountered him on a family outing to see Macbeth when he was a young boy, then linking into Shakespeare’s portrayal of children. How he believes that Shakespeare joined a travelling theatre company in those lost years between Stratford and London, then linking into his own experience of being in a touring Shakespeare company and the difficulty of transporting stage weapons in Hong Kong (a universal problem, surely).
Pennington’s passion is clear throughout the show, especially when he discusses Shakespeare’s language. As we the audience love to have Shakespeare’s words in our ears, Pennington the actor clearly loves to feel the words on his tongue, deftly launching into a number of lesser-known speeches from a variety of the plays and sonnets, becoming a young boy, an old man, a spurned lover, all the while managing not to come across as an arrogant luvvie showing off his range.
Near the end of his talk Pennington describes Shakespeare as a master ventriloquist who created a multitude of voices. Continuing with that metaphor, and not sounding like it but intended entirely as a compliment, Pennington is a master dummy.
In the days before Stephen Fry was a national treasure and generally beloved know-it-all, when he was still a student at Cambridge, he wrote the comedy two-hander Latin! Or Tobacco and Boys. And, as you would perhaps expect from a play written by a young male student, sex is never far from the forefront.
The Burton Taylor studio is transformed into a classroom (well, there are some benches on the stage for the brave) as the audience become the students of Dominic Clarke, ably played by Barnabas Iley-Williamson, a Latin master with a passion for his subject, for youth, and for one of his 13 year old pupils, Cartwright. His relationship with the boy is found out by the pipe-smoking Herbert Brookshaw, played by Louis Fletcher, who promises to keep his secret in return for a bit of late night whipping from Clarke and some activities with peanut butter that one can only assume wouldn’t involve toast.With that kind of subject matter it’s not that surprising that this play doesn’t get laid on very often.
There is a difficult balance to be held between simply getting laughs out of the shock of the controversial and getting laughs because of the witty writing. The steady stream of sexual innuendo was very funny, and the interaction between Mr Clarke and his imaginary students was entertaining, but I suspect that there may have been quite a few Latin sex jokes that went over my head. Either that or the rest of the audience were far more worldly than me.
Come the climax, I have to admit that I was left a little unsatisfied. I think maybe I just didn’t get the full thrust of the play. There’s no need for performance anxiety though. I’m sure it’s great, if you like that sort of thing.
What do you do when the story's finished but there's more to say? Wait an appropriate amount of time then make a sequel! And if the thing you have to say happens to actually be incredibly similar to what you said in the first place, but with louder bangs, then all the better, right?
There are of course many good sequels that aren't just cynical ploys to make more money with no regard for Art (capital A Art, not just drawing and stuff). Where would we be without The Godfather 2? The Back to the Futures? The Toy Stories? This blog post? Maybe there is Art in the following list. Or quality at least. Maybe. Fast and Furious 5 ended up being one of Time Magazine's top films of 2011, after all, and who would have expected that this time last year?
Nicholas Cage returns as the excellently named Johnny Blaze in Ghost Rider 2. He's a sort of flamey skeleton biker. The first film had quite poor reviews, and and it's up against a lot of comic book superhero competition in 2012, as discussed in the last blog post. But the trailer has lots of loud bangs, and that is what we the viewing public like, isn't it?
2. StreetDance 2 - March
StreetDance 3D was the first film in this franchise. Who knows what will happen if they make another sequel. StreetDance 33D? StreetDance 3D2, featuring a breakdancing C3PO?
The first instalment was not exactly critically acclaimed. But this one has Rosamund Pike looking utterly beautiful and waving a sword about, so must be better.
4. Scary Movie 5 - April (probably. UK not yet confirmed)
Yes, this franchise is still going. Now that is scary.
It's got roman numerals or the cubed symbol instead of the number 3. It's got Jemaine from Flight of the Conchords. It's got something good to live up to with the original Men in Black. It's got potential. Men in Black II seems to have been wiped from my memory with the little MIB stick thing, which is possibly a good thing.
Not the best animated films by any means, but you have to have a heart of stone not to be charmed by the trailer for the fourth Ice Age.
7. G.I. Joe: Retaliation - August
It's got Dwayne 'No Longer The Rock' Johnson in it. That man makes a good action movie.
8. Step Up 4 - August
I wonder at what point they start stepping down.
9. The Expendables 2 - August
Apparently the script was too sweary for Chuck Norris so he's demanded it be toned down in order for it to get a PG13 rating in the US (so probably a 12A in the UK). Good old fashioned violent fun for all the family. Why not take your granny along, as she won't be offended by the language now.
10. Resident Evil: Retribution - September
Resident Evil 6. It seems no one ever gets bored of girls and guns.
11. Taken 2 - October
To be involved in one kidnap, Mr Neeson, may be regarded as a misfortune. To be involved in two looks like carelessness.
I'll have to add an extra one since there are so many. A sequel to the sequels, if you will. OR, the thing that makes this Twelve for 2012: The Sequel have a louder bang, in that there are 13 things in my list rather than 12. It's bigger, and therefore better.
13. Nativity 2: The Second Coming - December
The first Nativity film, with Martin Freeman, did not belong in the cinema. As a Christmas special on TV it was quite charming (my mum thought it was hilarious), but I would really have resented paying to see it. Is this what David Cameron has in mind when he talks about expanding the British film industry?
I just can't decide what I'm most excited about. Well no, obviously I'm most excited about the extra bank holiday. But the Mesoamerican calendar thing runs a fairly close second.
But as well as featuring enormous sports days with a distinct lack of the egg and spoon race and the possible end of the world, 2012 also promises to be a year of big films. Here's a look at twelve general trends and much hyped films to come in 2012. (you can listen to this while you read if you like, to temper the enthusiasm).
1. The Avengers - April
A load of superheroes who have films already get together and fight a supervillain. Super!
Emotional Michael Caine! Tom Hardy as a muzzled, sheepskin coat wearing terrorist! If the trailer's anything to go by this is going to be just as spectacular as The Dark Knight.
2012 appears to be the year of the superhero (though saying that, every year recently has appeared to be the year of the superhero). It is ten years (argh) since Tobey Maguire first donned the red and blue lycra suit, and now it is the marvellous Andrew Garfield's turn. According to the poster this is 'The Untold Story', and I for one am looking forward to hearing it.
4. The year of the reboot
As well as reboots of characters a la Spidey, 2012 also brings us reboots of universes. Why give up on a good franchise just because the story's finished? June brings us the highly anticipated Prometheus as Ridley Scott revisits the Alien universe, and August brings The Bourne Legacy. Without Bourne, because Matt Damon is gone. But still called Bourne. Though the new CIA man is called Aaron Cross. I am reserving judgement until I find out whether or not he can kill a baddy with the contents of a pencil case (not including a compass, as they are quite stabby anyway so that would be cheating).
5. The year of the weird remake
#1: Ray Winstone and Plan B take the John Thaw and Dennis Waterman roles in the film version of 70s cop show The Sweeney in September. If it's a success maybe we can expect Professor Green in Bergerac: The Movie in 2013.
#2: Colin Farrell steps into Schwarzenegger's huge shoes in the remake of Total Recall in August. Well they do look remarkably similar...
6. The year of reunion Anna Karenina reunites Keira Knightley and director Joe Wright from Atonement and Pride & Prejudice, Dark Shadows reunites Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton from Sweeney Todd amongst other things, and the one you've all been waiting for, American Reunion, reuniting all (or so it looks from the trailer) the people from the original American Pie, and not the 237 horrible sequels.
9. The year of fairy tales
Kristen Stewart is armour-clad action Snow White in Snow White and the Huntsman, Julia Roberts is strange-accented Evil Queen in fluffy looking Mirror Mirror, and Nicholas Hoult is Jack in Bryan Singer's quite hilariously dramatic looking Jack The Giant Killer.
Earthquakes in London is unlike any play I have seen before. It’s An Inconvenient Truth, by way of Top of the Pops and Chekov’s Three Sisters, with some apparently naked ukulele playing thrown in for good measure (though don’t just go for the ukulele, the scene’s quite brief).
We are in the company of three sisters in contemporary London. Eldest sister Sarah, the Environmental Minister for the current coalition government, is trying to block plans for a new runway at Heathrow Airport, while at home her marriage is crumbling. Middle sister Freya is about to have a baby. She has a loving husband, but can’t seem to see past her terror of the future. And youngest sister Jasmine is aimless and angry, struggling to deal with life.
Their lives develop and intertwine against the timely backdrop of the unsustainable stretching of the world’s resources, with reference being made to the earth’s population reaching seven billion this week. Their estranged father was paid off in the 1960s to talk down the catastrophic impact that increased air travel would cause to the environment (airlines do not come out of the play well at all) and he is now a prophet of doom, emphasising the spectre of apocalypse that haunts the play.
The politics manages to avoid preachiness, and the relationships are written and performed brilliantly, but after a bleak and powerful first half, the second half crumbles slightly. There are some very moving scenes involving the family, but it seems that in order to stop the play from being incredibly depressing an unconvincing uplifting bit is tacked onto the end. Perhaps this was necessary, but I wish it had felt a little less like an afterthought.
What saved the play from this fairly major flaw was partly the snappy, frequently funny dialogue, partly the innovative staging (including a well-used though slightly creaky revolving stage and a projected backdrop), and what I can only describe as the sheer bonkersness of the rest of it. Drunken dancing, surreal visions, terrifying yummy mummies on Hampstead Heath tormenting Freya to the backing beats of Goldfrapp, and a truly spectacular rendition of I Am Not a Robot by Marina and the Diamonds bring this play out of the rubble.
Spectacle is the right word for Earthquakes in London. There is a lot going on, both plot-wise and ideas-wise, and exuberance carries it through. It might not change the world, but it may well leave you feeling differently about it, for a while at least. Until you get in your petrol car to go home to your central heated house, anyway.
(NB trailer does not feature the cast from this production)
90s San Francisco is swapped for 70s Philadelphia as the musical version of the Whoopi Goldberg film Sister Act comes to Oxford.
I say musical version of the film, but this is perhaps misleading. The story is the same: A lounge singer, Deloris Van Cartier, witnesses her gangster boyfriend kill someone, so the police hide her in a convent to keep her protected until she can testify against him. Whilst there she teaches the nuns how to sing, they teach her about herself, the Pope gets involved, it’s all very uplifting. Add a bit of extra romance, an entirely new set of songs, and enough glitter to fill St. Paul’s Cathedral, and you’ve got the musical.
I was a little dubious when I heard that none of the songs from the film were going to be used in the musical. They were such a huge part of the film, I couldn’t see how any version of the story could work without them. But the shifting of the setting back to the 1970s is a brilliant move on the adaptors' part. As the film played with well-known motown songs, the musical remarkably achieves the same effect with completely original songs. By basing the new songs on the familiar sounds of 70s funk, soul, and disco, it still sounds like old favourites are being transformed into unexpected songs of religious worship.
The melodious jokes were great, but I did feel that quite a lot of the ‘normal’ jokes fell a bit flat. I didn’t really see the point of the comedy henchmen, but then there were many people in the audience who would have loudly disagreed with me, so I guess it’s just a matter of taste. Also character development was not exactly subtle, but with this kind of high energy romp I imagine that believable character arcs aren’t really a priority.
The cast were all excellent but the highest praise must go to Cynthia Erivo as Deloris, whose voice is amazing and who easily fills the habit left by Whoopi Goldberg.
As long as you don’t go expecting the film directly transposed to the stage, you will not be disappointed. With stained glass disco windows and a song involving the line ‘shake it like Mary Magdalene’, it would be a sin not to enjoy yourself.
The Lion King was one of the first films I saw at the cinema. I loved it then, and I still love it now. The Lion King 3D was to be the first 3D film I saw at the cinema. I thought this lent the experience a pleasing unity (only if it had been Hook, my actual first film at the cinema, could it have been more perfect). I hadn't really heard anything positive about 3D, which is why I hadn't been before, but you can't write something off without trying it first, can you?
So, along I skipped to the cinema. I got my 3D glasses. The oracle of the internet, yahoo!answers, had told me that it was fine to wear them over normal glasses. This was not true - I had to hold them on so they didn't fall off my nose - but I could cope with that for the sake of an exciting enhanced Lion King experience.
But I did not get an exciting enhanced Lion King experience. As the film opened on the scenes of the Serenghetti, accompanied by the glorious strains of Circle of Life, as the small children around me gasped with delight, I could only look around in confusion, peer over my multiple glasses to see the blurry screen, and realise with crushing disappointment that I am one of the 2-12% of the population who can't see 3D.
Algernon Charles Swinburne wrote:
If the golden-crested wren
Were a nightingale---why, then,
Something seen and heard of men
Might be half as sweet as when
Laughs a child of seven.
Well Algernon that is all well and good, but when the child of seven is laughing and you can't see what they're pleased about it's not sweet. It's just depressing, to be honest. Stupid children.
I had to keep the ridiculous glasses on because otherwise I was just watching a blurry screen half the time. So basically I watching a film in the dark whilst wearing sunglasses. Only for a film as wonderful as The Lion King could I have stayed for the whole thing.
So I don't think I'll be going to see any more 3D films. And I'll just have to hope that 3D isn't the future, and that it instead goes the way of those magic eye pictures that were so popular in the 90s that I couldn't see either. What do you mean, look through the image? Stupid magic eye seers.
I still love The Lion King though, and it was rather special to see it on the big screen again. And yes I did still cry when Mufasa's big liony face appeared in the sky, even though his nose wasn't sticking out at me and I had too many pairs of glasses on. Hakuna matata.
With Melancholia as a title, and Lars Von Trier as a director, it’s pretty clear that this isn’t going to be a light-hearted romp of a film. It’s an examination of depression and anxiety; it questions the existence of God, and whether there is any good in the world. And it also happens to be a disaster movie in which a massive planet called Melancholia is on its way to destroy the Earth. It is a relief that Bruce Willis isn’t in it really, otherwise would anyone even be able to tell the difference between this and Armageddon?
The film is split into two parts, one for Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and the other for Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg). In part one, Justine sabotages her own wedding reception at the beautiful home of Claire and her husband (an excellent, and rather different from Jack Bauer, Kiefer Sutherland) in a self-destructive spiral into depression. The feeling of foreboding as the family bickers and we watch everything gradually unravel is superbly managed. In the second part, we see the sisters’ reactions to the looming disaster, as the planet Melancholia comes ever closer. Justine, whose own melancholia has already overcome her, accepts her fate calmly. Claire is terrified.
The strange thing was that I felt the tension of impending doom much more strongly in the ruined wedding day part than in the destruction of the earth part. By the end I just wanted the planet to hurry up and send everyone on their miserable way. The performances were all remarkable, but the difficulty with watching a film populated by emotionally detached people is that I became emotionally detached myself.
Artistically it is a beautiful film. The slow motion opening sequence is stunning, as Justine and Claire feature in a set of images illustrating their melancholia to come – Claire tries to walk but sinks into the ground; Justine floats down a river in her wedding dress; the planet Melancholia slowly travels towards Earth, all to Wagnerian accompaniment. These scenes were moving. However, two and a bit hours later I, like Justine, was looking forward to the release of eternal blackness. Though in my case it was the credits, rather than death, that I was yearning for.
Mark Haddon was at the Oxford Playhouse on Friday performing a talk/essay especially written for the occasion, in support of the Playhouse‘s fundraising appeal. Haddon was alone on a stage set up for another play to be shown later that evening, there to deliver what was ostensibly an autobiographical talk, but what turned out to be a very intricately written, extremely engaging, and ultimately quite moving, work of poetry.
He ranged from school days, playing darts badly in the common room, to the moon landing, to strange fan mail after the success of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, via recitations of Henry David Thoreau and Louis MacNeice, with a bit of his own poetry seamlessly woven in.
As well as being an author, Mark Haddon also teaches students how to write, and he explained how he tells them that specific details are what brings writing to life, but that the gaps that the writer creates for the reader to fill are just as important. He subtly illustrated his own point by flowing undetectably from his own poem, Great White, about a terror of sharks, to a story about how he loves to swim in the Thames. This story wove in and out of another story about how he tried to combat his fear of flying by learning to fly himself. He would keep returning to these stories, and to a particular image of a single drop of rain on a floating feather, teasing poignancy out of the seemingly mundane.
Haddon managed to create a sense of wonder in tiny details, and clearly never wanted to lose his own sense of wonder at the universe. In writing, and in his approach to life, he said that it is not so much the answers that matter, but understanding the enormity of the questions. If said questions are being asked by Mark Haddon then I certainly want to listen.
Warrior. Grr. It's manly. It's tough. It features a Tom Hardy so beefy his shoulders have shoulders. But how will it fare in the ring against what is widely regarded (by me) as the best sports film ever made: Cool Runnings? GO TO WAR!
Round 1: The Sport. Bobsleigh vs Mixed Martial Arts (MMA)
Cool Runnings and Warrior are both about sport. As sports films go, this is a good start. But, even better, they are both about slightly obscure sport. I don't care about football, or boxing, or baseball (apart from that one with Madonna. And Field of Dreams, of course). But bobsleigh - that's exciting. It's a bit exotic and glamorous, in a lycra-clad sort of way. And mixed martial arts? That's even more exciting and mysterious. Who's heard of mixed martial arts? Oh, except for the fact that it is also known as cage fighting. (I searched for cage fighting on wikipedia and got redirected to the MMA page, so it must be true). And cage fighting makes me think of Alex Reid, ex-husband of Jordan, and it therefore rapidly loses its mysterious charm.
Round 1 to Cool Runnings.
Round 2: The Coach. John Candy vs Nick Nolte
Every sports film worth its stripes needs a down and out coach who is offered a second chance at glory. Cool Runnings has Irv Blitzer (John Candy), a disgraced former bobsledding gold medallist (this thought alone has to be worth extra points) who gets approached by the Jamaican bobsleigh team to coach them to victory at the Olympics.
Warrior has Paddy Conlon (Nick Nolte), a disgraced former fighting coach who is approached by his estranged son, beefy Tom Hardy, to train him up for Sparta, the big MMA competition. He's also an alcoholic. He's also also the father of the other fighter we care about as well. Ooh, juicy.
I just can't call it between them. Round 2 has to be a draw.
Round 4: Unlikely success of the underdog
Cool Runnings has the Jamaican bobsleigh team. I think that's all we need to know.
Warrior has beefy Tom Hardy's brother, Brendan. He's a school teacher. He doesn't belong here. He's just in it for the money so his family don't lose their home. How can he possibly make it through round 1? Trouble is, we know from the trailer that he gets to the final, so that he and his brother can sort out all their family problems by punching each other to near-unconsciousness. So when Brendan meets Russian man mountain Koba, who we are told he can't possibly beat, it's not that much of a surprise when he does.
And Cool Runnings has the Jamaican bobsleigh team. Round 4 to Cool Runnings
Round 5: The Pep Talk
Cool Runnings: "I see pride. I see power. I see a bad ass mother who won't take no crap off nobody."
YES. Inspirational. I try to use it as my own personal mantra when I'm not so overwhelmed by doubt that I forget how to form words.
Warrior: "You can do this"
Oh. Um. Quiet determination has its place as well I suppose...
ROUND 5, AND VICTORY, TO COOL RUNNINGS (because an MMA title fight has five rounds, and we want to do this authentically don't we? Otherwise what is the point of this slightly laboured fight metaphor?)
But a quick pep talk in the corner for Warrior, while it catches its breath and has some water and an orange segment. In most sports films, we follow one competitor, root for them all the way, and hope that they will win in the final. But in Warrior our sympathies are pretty evenly split between the two finalists, and it is much more interesting than the average sports film for it. Yes, it's been bashed about a bit by Cool Runnings, but come on, it's held its own. There's no shame in coming second to perfection.
If you’re looking for a bit of mindless escape for a couple of hours, you can do much worse than Beautiful Lies. You can probably do quite a lot better too, but in terms of undemanding, frothy rom-coms, this one doesn’t fare too badly.
Audrey Tautou plays Emilie, a salon owner, who receives an anonymous love letter. In order to cheer up her mother, who is still struggling to get over the breakdown of her marriage a couple of years ago, Emilie secretly forwards the letter on to her. The audience know, but Emilie does not, that the letter is from Jean, the salon handyman. Wacky circumstances result in Emilie eventually paying Jean to take out the mother, and love triangle ‘hilarity’ ensues.
Regarding said love triangle hilarity, I did have some issues with a mother and daughter being romantically involved with the same man, and at times the light hearted tone sat strangely with the manipulative actions of Emilie, but maybe this is just my uptight Englishness ruining the French fun.
There are plenty of laughs to be had, despite the reservations, and Audrey Tautou manages to bring charm to a pretty unsympathetic character. Saying that, I could probably watch her watch paint dry and find her delightful.
Go expecting Amelie and you will be sorely disappointed. This doesn’t have a fraction of the warmth and heart of that film. But if you seek amusing, beautiful-looking distraction, and perhaps inspiration for a holiday on the Cote d'Azur, then this will do the job. Don’t expect to remember it ten minutes after the end of the credits though.
As part of the Ashmolean’s current exhibition, 'Heracles to Alexander the Great', Temple Theatre Company let us walk in the company of legends as they performedUnmythableamong the statues in the Ashmolean's Atrium. It was a spectacular, though not entirely practical, setting (it was quite difficult to see sometimes) as the three actors, after welcoming us with olives (though sadly no plate smashing), invited us to enlist in the crew of the Argonauts. So we joined Jason and his crew as we – though mainly just Jason, as heroes don’t really share their glory with their friends – went on a quest for the golden fleece. On the way, after successfully getting through the Symplegades by chanting the famous Greek phrase “Go, dove, go” as the bird (man) flew through the rocks (ran up the Ashmolean stairs), we learned a bit about the quests of Heracles, and Orpheus, about the creation of the world, and my particular favourite, the story of Persephone being taken to the underworld and the creation of the seasons. Demeter and Persephone were played by one actor, and Hades and Zeus by another, with very funny results. It was no mean feat to represent such a number of characters with no props or costumes, and I thought all three actors were thoroughly entertaining in their light-hearted treatment of the myths. My friend found it a bit laboured and over the top, but that’s grumpy people for you. The exhibition itself displays recent discoveries from royal burial tombs and the palace at Aegae, the ancient capital of Macedon, and some of the items are stunning. There is a crown made of gold oak leaves and acorns that looks like it would crumble in the breeze, it is so intricate and delicate. That this is so beautiful and is still in one piece is just remarkable. MaybeUnmythablewasn’t as remarkable as a 2,500 year old crown. But it was good fun, I promyth. And the exhibition is certainly worth a visit, make no mythtake. Exzeus me, but no I will not Apollo-gise for the puns.
After ten years, and a staggering one thousand one hundred and seventy eight minutes worth of film, it all ends.Harry Potterclimaxes with the exciting, scary, emotional, and ultimately very satisfying final instalment,Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. The long winded title is the only thing that drags. We pick up immediately where we left off in the last film, with Harry, Ron, and Hermione searching for horcruxes (the vessels in which Lord Voldemort has placed bits of his soul in order to evade death). If you haven’t seen the other films, this is absolutely not the place to start. I have read the books, and seen all the previous films, and I still felt slightly lost at the beginning. After the first ten or so minutes of calm there is barely time to catch breath, let alone to try and remember what happened in the last film. Details are perhaps unimportant, (is it possible to say that after over 19 hours of film?!) as everything so far has been leading up to the final battle between Harry and Voldemort; between good and evil. The battle scenes at the end are on a par with any you would find in a war film, as our three heroes run across the rubble of Hogwarts, passing both enemies and comrades falling, great balls of flame, and the odd club-wielding giant and enormous spider just to remind us that it’s the smell of magic, not napalm, that we love in the morning. Director David Yates has made a beautiful film, cinematographically. He may have made a children’s action film, but that does not mean that he didn’t bother artistically. At the very beginning there is a shot of Professor Snape (played by the mesmerisingly wonderful Alan Rickman) in silhouette in a doorway; it only lasts a few seconds, but I found it remarkably moving. It is simple things like this, as well as the jaw-dropping action sequences, that have made theHarry Potterfilms since Yates took over such a pleasure to watch. All things pass. Questionable child actors become pretty decent (though still completely overshadowed by the likes of Maggie Smith and Ralph Fiennes) grown up actors. Chubby Neville the loser from the early films becomes a Henry V style speech-delivering, sword-wielding champion. Ron becomes a romantic hero (though he is still the only one allowed to swear, it’s OK, he hasn’t changed that much). Everything ends. Even highly successful film franchises. I’m quite sad to see this one go though.
One hotel suite. One old fashioned, camp villain. Three women, in three different points in time. But sometimes two are in the same time. And at one point all three are, but one doesn’t belong. Or is it two? Hang on, let’s travel back to the beginning. The revival of Alan Ayckbourn’sCommunicating Doors, on now at the Oxford Playhouse, is a time travelling romp of a comedy thriller. Dominatrix Poopay Desir is called to a hotel suite, and ends up witnessing an elderly man’s confession that he had his two wives murdered by his assistant Julian (an excellently creepy Ben Jones). Julian returns to the room and tries to kill her too, so she escapes through the (simply and effectively staged) communicating door. As she pops out the other side she finds herself in the same room, twenty years earlier. Here she meets the elderly man’s second wife Ruella, on the night she is to be murdered no less, played as a wonderfully no-nonsense, practical heroine by Liza Goddard (yes indeed 1990s children, Liza Goddard fromWoof!Didn’t everyone want to be able to turn into a dog when they were eight?). In a wry nod to the ridiculous set up, Ruella explains that everything does make sense, it just has an “unfamiliar logic”. The tone of the whole play is balanced to perfection, the comedy and thrills enhancing each other. But what drives the play is its heart. Ayckbourn said that he believes that your own good fortune in life often resides in the people you meet along the way. The relationship that grows between Poopay and Ruella is very moving, as they both learn how to be better people from each other. My only complaint, if I’m being very picky, is that there’s an anachronistic reference to videos in 2010. Who watches videos in 2010? But saying that, if the only complaint in a play involving murderous plots and time travel is about a throwaway reference to videos, I think it can safely be said that the unfamiliar logic is in very good working order. And it’s got Liza Goddard in it! FromWoof!! That’s surely worth the price of a ticket alone.
As I was waiting in the queue for my ticket toA Row of Parked Carsin the Burton Taylor Studio, I overheard someone describe it as ‘an examination of the human condition.’ Oh joy, thought I. An examination of the human condition, written by a second year Oxford student. This isn’t going to be pretentious and heavy going at all. But, despite being about the seemingly ubiquitous ‘angry young man’ and his suicide attempts, writer Matthew Parvin manages to avoid ponderous cliché with a witty script and lightness of touch to make this a very enjoyable night out. The short play is in five acts, each one a counselling session of sorts between the Reverend Regis, played by Sam Smith, and troubled youth Jeremy, played by Jeremy Neumark Jones. It is perhaps unfair to single out one actor in a two-hander play, and much, I’m sure, is due to the writing, but Jeremy Neumark Jones is an incredibly engaging presence on stage. He skilfully captures the arrogance and disdain of Jeremy, while never losing the audience’s sympathy. The two actors do bounce off each other well though, and obviously relish the blackly comic lines such as: Regis: What do you want to be in the future? Jeremy: Dead, I thought that was obvious. The big themes of suicide, and the futility of life, are not particularly original, but Matthew Parvin is brave enough to make numerous nods to writers who have covered these subjects before, including Shakespeare and T.S. Eliot. In the wrong hands this could have been horribly grating, but coming out of the mouth of the self-proclaimed ‘five-dimensional mind’ of Jeremy, potential accusations of pretentiousness are neatly sidestepped. A production worth crossing the road for. Just remember to look both ways first.
We learn many lessons as we move from childhood to adulthood, about love, and sex, and guilt, and death. But we’ll come to that later. Another, perhaps less soaring, but nonetheless important, lesson we learn is: don’t judge a book by its cover - or a film by its title.Love Like Poison, about a 14 year old girl coming to terms with her parents’ break up and her own emerging sexuality in the lead up to her Confirmation, sounds a bit like it’s going to be a post-Twilightmelodramatic angst-fest. It is not. For one thing, it’s French. Forgive my wild generalisation and stereotyping, but the French are better at talking about sex than us. Here, 14 year old Anna’s nascent sexuality isn’t presented as something controversial or shocking, nor is it sentimentalised. There is no clear divide between childhood innocence and adult experience. The adults are just as confused as Anna is. Her mother is falling apart after the breakdown of her marriage; the priest who tries to offer support is struggling with his faith as a result of his feelings for Anna’s mother. The one thing I struggled with was Anna’s relationship with her dying grandfather. In one scene she is giving him a bed bath and he gets an erection. He tells her he feels handsome and she promptly runs off. There are a couple of scenes like this, and maybe it is done to purposely unsettle the audience. If this is the case then it hit the mark with me. The film brilliantly captures the awkwardness and insecurity that are not solely confined to adolescence, and subtly weaves together the complexities of love, guilt, and religion, without ever being judgemental. A beautiful quiet mix of melancholy and hope. Much like life itself.
My local cinema (the most excellent Phoenix Picturehouse) has an Alfred Hitchcock season this week. This pleases me. I like Alfred Hitchcock films. I can tell someone that Alfred Hitchcock is one of my favourite directors, sound reasonably intelligent, and not be lying. So having the opportunity to see The Lodger, Hitchcock's first film, was pretty exciting. Plus it would give me a new talking point in the 'What do you know about Hitchcock?' conversation. I have never had this conversation but, you know, it's always good to be ready, should the opportunity arise.
The film is loosely based on the Jack the Ripper killings, with Ivor Novello (who I'm sure will be rooting for MY KZ, UR BF to win Best Song Musically and Lyrically at this year's Ivors)playing the titular lodger who may or may not have a penchant for killing golden-haired girls.
It's really interesting to see hints of Hitchcock to come: interesting camera angles, bits with staircases... hmm I think maybe it's a good job I have never had the Hitchcock conversation. I seem to have run out of things to say already.
The main thing that I will take from the experience is how very weird it is to sit in a cinema when there is no sound. This wasn't just a silent film in the normal sense, with some tinkly piano accompaniment. This was literally silent. For 80 minutes. I could hear the guy next to me breathing. I could hear my stomach rumbling (in my defence it was a lunchtime showing). I could hear my chair squeaking, and what was, I think, the cinema manager having a telephone conversation in the next room with a chap called Michael.
It's remarkable how much will power it required to sit in a silent darkened room for over an hour and keep my eyes open, even though I had huge respect for the moving pictures in front of me. I don't know whether I should be ashamed to admit that, or whether in actual fact very few people would now watch a silent film for pure entertainment's sake, without thinking 'I'm a bit bored, but this is really good fodder for the "Have you seen any silent films?" conversation so I'll try and concentrate'. (Obviously I haven't had this conversation either. But I'm ready now. Oh yes). I'm really glad I saw The Lodger, of course. But I'm even more glad that Hitchcock met Bernard Herrmann.
