Last chance Harvey

Last chance Harvey is about a middle aged divorced man who goes to his daughter's wedding and has his life changed around by a middle aged spinster. Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson play the principals and it has a feel-good factor, but you can't quite see where it comes from.

Harry Potter (part 7)

Last night I watched the DVD of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (PART 1). I read the book some time ago and the film follows the book pretty straightforwardly. Every English actor who's ever worked must have got a day's pay from this production since apart from the three children and Ralph Fiennes most appearances are very brief.

The youngsters are now 17 and we get a lot of teenage angst as well as the features of puppy love. We are still at the derring-do stage of the adventure, though the death of the house-elf is a bit moving and we can grieve also over the demise of Dead-Eye. But we had all that with Sirius Black and Dumbledore in previous episodes.

With one film to go, can we evaluate the whole series? As a saga of good versus evil, it doesn't have the sweep of Lord of the Rings. Some have made a fuss about all the sorcery being anti-Christian, but those are just the accoutrement's of the genre.

In the story of the three brothers that explains the Deathly Hallows we begin to see the morality behind the series. Ambition and pride and selfishness are all denigrated; humility is prized. Not very deep then. Betrayal for selfish ends is what haunts them, but Harry is going to have to do something big to defeat Voldemort. I wonder what it could be?

Crazy Heart

We watched Crazy Heart last night. This won an Oscar for Jeff Bridges a couple of years ago as well as one for T-Bone Burnett for best song.

The story is an old one. C & W songwriter becomes famous, gets a lot of money, squanders it on cheap whiskey and loose women, is reduced to performing in bowling alleys, is redeemed by a good woman, goes back to writing songs, blows it, gets himself clean again, but the woman won't take him back.

The story is hackneyed and the appearance of Robert Duvall reminds us that he made a similar film several years ago. This is one that definitely needs the subtitles since the speech in unintelligible. Perhaps that's just as well since the language that one can hear is foul. On the other hand you get the impression of the story without the actual words.

Still I enjoyed the music. Advice? Don't bother with the film, get the CD.

The King's Speech

We finally got around to watching The King's Speech on DVD, courtesy of my daughter and son-in-law.

So many Oscar winning movies have disappointed, but I am glad to say this film didn't. It is clear to see that the movie emerged from British Television. Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle were the hero and heroine of Pride and Prejudice and David Bamber was also in that; Anthony Andrews starred in Brideshead Revisited, Derek Jacobi in I Claudius (as another famous stammerer) and Cadfael, Helena Bonham Carter has been in many classical dramas but has been seen fairly recently on TV as Enid Blyton, Anne Boleyn, Morgan Le Fey and Vera Brittain. Only the Australians, Geoffrey Rush (Shine) and Guy Pearce (L.A. Confidential) are really big film stars. Timothy Spall has been the star of several Mike Leigh low-budget successes.

The Oscar-winning director, Tom Hooper had previously made The Damned United, which I watched earlier in the year, but he also cut his teeth in television with one of the Prime Suspects and the John Adams mini-series.

I thought the sense of period was well captured and the playing of the principlals excellent. It was a serious piece of movie making and an unusual subject that was well worth the acclaim.

Brief Encounter

Last night we watched Brief Encounter again. It is one of the classics of British Cinema. David Lean directed and Noel Coward produced. It was made during the last year of the war, just before the return of the troops and it embodied the pre-war attitude of right and wrong. It was perhaps the last film which displayed the idea of adultery as wrong. Here was a couple, each married to someone else, who fell in love with each other. The passion was strong, but the guilt was stronger. In the end it was circumstance that prevented the consummation, but the betrayal was there despite it's lack of a physical manifestation.

Trevor Howard was 7 years younger than Celia Johnson, and in his first big part, but it is really her film rather than his, although Carnforth station is the real star.

A film like that could no longer be made. Such consummate actors capable of showing real emotion could not be employed and the theme would seem trite today. How corrupt we have become!

The Sound Barrier

Last night we watched another David Lean film, The Sound Barrier. Again it starred his wife, Ann Todd, together with Ralph Richardson, Nigel Patrick and Denholm Elliot. Like Psycho, it dispensed with it's Box Office attractions half way through the film.

Although ostensibly a story about technical advances, with the early days of jet airplanes glorified, but became a male versus female thing. Men believed things were worth doing, because they were there; women caring more for preserving life and limb. We hear the same battle when men go to war. Men can justify being in Iraq and Afghanistan, but women see the body bags and coffins.

Again the film showed what a great artist David Lean was, even before Lawrence of Arabia.

Madeleine

The other night we watched an old David Lean film, Madelaine. It starred his wife, Ann Todd, and was the story of the Glasgow alleged murderess, Madelaine Smith. The case was famous for the Scottish verdict of 'not-proven'.

From time to time the old murder mystery is revisited on TV and most experts today consider her guilty, but she got away with it. The story was set in the 1850s and it was beautifully filmed in black and white. The attention to detail and the careful atmosphere that was developed show that Lean was one of the great directors. If you get a chance to see this great film, don't miss it.

Inception

I watched Inception last night. This film by Christopher Nolan has attracted a lot of attention. It had the same ideas and CGI techniques as The Matrix and having seen one of these things you can guess what is happening. The film is a fine romp, but give me The Heiress any day.

The Heiress

Lat night we watched The Heiress, a reworking of the Henry James novella Washington Square, starring Olivia De Havilland, Ralph Richardson and Mongomery Clift.

The story is well known. A rather plain and uninteresting girl is a disappointment to her father, a successful and accomplished doctor. She is unexpectedly courted by a handsome and well-mannered young man who proposes marriage. The doctor, suspecting a fortune hunter, threatens to disinherit her. Despite this they plan to elope, but the young man with only 10,000 dollars a year to collect rather than the 30,000 he was expecting does not turn up. She blames her father and he dies with their differences unresolved. Years later the young man turns up and tries it on again but she exacts her revenge on him.

A comment on the father's actions: he was more concerned with doing what was right than with doing what was good.

The 1949 film is excellent. It was directed with terrific skill by Wiliam Wyler and Olivia De Havilland won her second Oscar for the part. Richardson was also nominated and it is hard to see how he did not win (Broderick Crawford won for "All the King's Men.")

Aaron Copeland won an Oscar for the score and the song Plaisir d'Amour was featured. The lyrics sum up the theme of the film:

Plaisir d'amour ne dure qu'un moment.
chagrin d'amour dure toute la vie.

The joy of love lasts only a moment
The pain of love lasts a lifetime.

It was written in 1780 by Jean Paul Égide Martini and set to music by Hector Berlioz.

Toy Story 3

We watched Toy Story 3 last night. Tom Hanks got his break in Splash out of hundreds who read for the part. As in Blink this was a first impression decision by the producer Brian Grazer. It was because Hanks was instantly likable. He wasn't the funniest or the best looking actor interviewed, but he was able to do 'mean' and you forgave him, even if he made choices you disagreed with, he was still likable. None of us knows him, but we get the impression that he is decent, trustworthy, down to earth and funny. He was made for Woody. Or vice versa.

That being said I didn't think it was as good as Toy Story 2, though probably deserved its Oscar as there was nothing better on show. I think that should preclude a Toy Story 4.

Movies - Boomerang (not Eddie Murphy) one to look out for.

Courtesy of Film 4 I watched an early (1947) Elia Kazan film called Boomerang. It had a stellar cast including Dana Andrews, Jane Wyatt, Arthur Kennedy, Ed Begley, Lee J. Cobb, Karl Malden, and Sam Levene.

Based on a true story and filmed on location in a documentary style, I thought it just great. It had one Oscar nomination for best screenplay, but how much better it was than most of the stuff we get served up today. No sex, no swearing, no innuendo, a soundtrack that let you hear every word, no intrusive music; the black and white photography was sharp and the story was important.

It showed the danger of trying to get a confession by torture. This was just sleep deprivation, not brutality. Sleep deprivation was supposed to have been introduced by the Chinese in the Korean war, but clearly was being used in New England police stations before that. It showed the unreliability of eye-witness evidence and the danger of newspaper headlines in putting pressure on politicians. It showed the risks of public officials being subject to local elections and that even those elected on a whiter-than-white platform are corruptible.

Without Film 4 I would have had to pay £42 to buy the DVD! Thank you Film on 4.

Taken to Star Trek

I finally got round to watching last years Star Trek prequel. I have had it on my hard drive for a few weeks, but was waiting for a listless day when I didn't feel creative. It was an exciting romp with no real depth, but well done. Eric Bana made a fearful villain and the real Leonard Nimoy reprised the old Spock do give it a bit of depth. There never were any deep sci-fi themes in Star Trek and in the end like an old John Wayne movie it ends up with a fist fight. Many bangs and whistles and a lot of CGI, but it takes your mind off things. Interesting to see Ben Cross, last seen in Chariots of Fire as Spock's father, and Simon Pegg from Shaun of the Dead as the new Scottie.

Also watched Taken, the Liam Neeson vehicle about what an ex-CIA agent does when his 17-year old daughter gets kidnapped into white slavery in Paris. He doesn't weep.

Nothing like mindless violence to pass the time.

Solaris

Over the past couple of days I have been watching the two films based on Stanislaw Lem's scifi novel Solaris.

Andrei Tarkovsky's 1972 Rusian film is given three stars by Halliwell and is undoubtedly beautifully shot, but it is overlong at 165 minutes. Steven Soderbergh's American film shot 30 years later is not a remake, but another go at what is a difficult novel. The book was originally written in Polish and later translated into French. The only English version (of which Lem disapproves) is a translation from the French. Soderbergh's version is shorter at 98 minutes and only gets one star with Halliwell. [For those unfamiliar with Halliwell, one star represents a very good film. He gave four stars very seldom - recent films would be Gosford Park, American Beauty, LA Confidential and Fargo - and three stars fewer than 800 times in the history of film; examples would be the African Queen, Death in Venice, Gigi, It Happened One Night, the first two Lord of the Rings films (the third gets 4), Night of the Hunter, both versions (Olivier and McKellen) of Richard III, Silence of the Lambs, and the Usual Suspects.]

The plot of the film consists of the experiences of a psychologist Chris (or Kris) who is sent to find out what has gone wrong on a space station orbiting the planet Solaris. Only two members of the crew remain; one being weird and the other withdrawn and formally scientific. Chris begins to understand when he sees his first 'visitor'. It appears that the planet is producing replicants of characters drawn from the crewmen's memories. In Chris's case it is his dead wife who committed suicide seven years previously. The replicants are so real that it is frightening and different crew members have dealt with the experience in different ways. At first Chris despatches his in a space pod to die of asphyxiation, but a second example soon appears and he reawakens the love he had for his wife.

In a sense this is a love story, which explores through flashbacks what went wrong in the marriage and whether given a second chance they could expand their relationship without making the same mistakes. Soderbergh's version is much more explicit about what their problems were and Tarkovsky is much more enigmatic. Only hints are given about who were the 'monsters' for the other crewmen.

In the end the decision has to be made; would you rather live with a replica of your dead wife (albeit one that is entirely drawn from your memories of her) or go on living without her.

If you are into scifi or love stories I can definitely recommend both films.

The Hurt Locker

For my birthday I had a DVD of The Hurt Locker, Kathryn Bigelow's Oscar winning movie. I finally managed to watch it last night. I have a fine collection of War Films and although it is a good film in some respects with lots of bangs and flashes, it must have been a poor year if it swept the board at the Oscars.

It is about the men who defuse bombs. We know that they are heroes and far too many have returned home in body bags. It is a job I just could not do. Many years ago there was a television series, Danger UXB, starring Anthony Andrews (Brideshead Revisited) which covered the same ground. This film saved money by using stars like Guy Pearce, Evangeline Lily (Lost), David Morse (St Elsewhere's) and Ralph Fiennes for what looked like a day's filming, and the main parts were played by actors I had never noticed before.

As usual for modern films I had the subtitles switched on, though this just emphasized the profanity of the language. I suppose it it how soldiers speak, but not in my living room.

The hero was a man who was so reckless as to be in love with war - the same character that Steve McQueen plays (rather better) in the old film, "The War Lover". I think the film rather pulled its punches in that the only leading character to die was a wuss of an Army Psychiatrist, who was so naive it's a wonder that they let him travel without his nanny.

I doubt that the film will do much for American/Iraq relations. The Iraqis came over as nasty underhand cowards and the Americans as bombastic drunks. There was one extended passage where the bomb disposal squad go 'Haji hunting' at night. It illustrated the gung-ho nature of the film's hero, but it was extremely difficult to follow what was happening.

In summary just like they don't make Westerns like they used to, they don't may war films either.

Slaughter of the Innocents

Can anyone out-Herod Herod? At this time of the year Herod makes his most important entrance on to the world stage. He is not known for his construction of the Temple nor for engineering works such as the development of water supplies for Jerusalem, the building fortresses such as Masada and Herodium, and for founding new cities such as Caesarea Maritima. Nor does his claim to fame rest with the murders of several members of his own family, including his wife Mariamne. He is most famous for the murder of several little boys under the age of two in the environs of Bethlehem.

With this in mind I have watched a couple of movies of high quality in recent days.

The first was Changeling directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Angelina Jolie. This is very closely based on a true story from 1928 about the Wineville chicken coup murders in which a Canadian, Gordon Stewart Northcott, kidnapped and molested up to 20 young boys before brutally murdering them. He was assisted by his 13-year-old nephew, Sanford Clark, whom he had also molested and abused. The film focuses on the mother of one of the missing boys, Christine Collins, and her reaction when the LAPD foists on her another child that she knows not to be her son. The film exposes the incompetence and corruption of the LAPD and demonstrates how far we have come today in the treatment of women. In 1928, just a few years after female suffrage, they were treated as empty-headed, emotional, flibbertigibbets, who could be locked up in a psychiatric hospital if they didn't do what a man told them.

Perhaps coyly, no allusion is made to the sexual abuse of the little boys, but the hanging of the perpetrator is shown full-frontal. Eastwood believes that abusers of children are most deserving of the death penalty.

The second film was The boy in the striped pyjamas, directed by Mark Herman and starring David Thewlis and Vera Farmiga. The plot is developed from a novel by John Boyne and is told from the point of view of Brno, a little boy like any English boy of the period (1940). He plays at being a soldier or a airplane pilot, except that he's not English, he's German and his father is the SS Commandant of a Jewish extermination camp. Brno misses his friends when they move out of Berlin, but he finds a mate called Shmuel who like the other people on the 'farm' is dressed in striped pyjamas with a number on them. If the point of The Changeling was to demonstrate that women are people, the point of this film is to demonstrate that Jews are people too.

Brno's family are Christian and you see them a couple of times at prayer, yet they are seemingly unaware of the horror that is being committed in their name. This aspect of the film has been criticized as it seems to exculpate the ordinary German. Gradually it dawns on the Commandants wife what is happening. Meanwhile Brno lives in his own world and one day he digs underneath the wire and dons the striped pyjamas to help Shmuel to hunt for his missing father, with terrible results.

We are all particularly sensitive to the abuse and murder of children and these two films use the murder of children to highlight the plight of others who are oppressed, women and Jews, but by extension they speak to us of all who are subjected to unjust treatment. Few of us will experience the horror of the holocaust or be involved with a pedophile ring that uses 'snuff' killings for sexual gratification, but these horrors are the ultimate extension of the sort of attitudes most of us have to other people. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus equates looking at a woman lustfully with adultery and anger with your brother with murder. Not loving your neighbor as yourself by the same extension arrives at the horrors described in these movies.

Not so good today

It seems that the day after the chemo ends is a poor day. I can't seem to think much and my concentration span is only about 15 minutes. I suppose some would call it 'chemo-brain'. On the other hand, I am coming down off a large dose of steroids, I only slept for 4 hours last night, I have retained water from the steroids and put on about 4 pounds, and my BP is up to 155/80. So maybe its just tiredness.

I was going to write something about 'The Oxford Murders' starring Elijah Wood and John Hurt, but apart from saying it was an enjoyable puzzle that I watched in 4 stages because of my chemo-brain I can't think of anything interesting. The reviews were mixed, but it was better than that. I think I'll keep it in my collection

The other thing I had in mind to write about was 'Winter in Madrid' by CJ Sampsom who writes the Henry VIII detective stories. I knew very little about the Spanish Civil War, so this was a good introduction and an interesting thriller. Worth a read.

What to do when you don't feel well.

The last few days have seen me rather below par. I have been tired and had abdominal discomfort, though no real pain. My appetite has been poor and I've lost a few pounds. However, this is nothing like the chemotherapy side effects that I have inflicted on others.

To pass the time I have been reading. I recommend the following:

The Reed Stephens novels. These are written by fantasy writer Stephen Donaldson. Normally he writes epics about Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever, battling with Lord Foul, but between times he throws off a Chandler-esq thriller. It is light entertainment, but fast moving.

The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale. This is a non fiction account of a famous 1860 murder at Road Hill House in Wiltshire. A 3-year old was snatched from his bed and found with his throat cut in an outside privee. The first professional detectives from Scotland Yard were called in and quickly solved the case, but could not secure a conviction. Many years later a suspect confessed, but received life imprisonment rather than the gallows.

The story takes in the development of the fictional detective, and involves Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens. The background social history of Victorian England is fascinating.

I have also watched some movies: two Jack Lemmon films: The Out of Towners and The Front Page and a Douglas Sirk movie, Me and My Gal. Six more Douglas Sirks to watch.

Cataloguing films

I am still cataloguing my movies on DVD and VHS. I now have about 900, including 90 children's films (mostly on VHS).

The directors who now mostly feature are Alfred Hitchcock with 19, David Lean with 14, Steven Spielberg, Billy Wilder and Peter Weir, each with 10, Clint Eastwood and Ingmar Bergman with 8 each, the Coen brothers and Douglas Sirk with 7 and on 6 come James Ivory, John Huston, Martin Scorsese, Michael Powell and Stephen Frears.

As far as male actors are concerned, Humphrey Bogart leads with 18, Anthony Hopkins is next with 14, then Clive Owen with 12 and John Mills with 9. Then tied with 8 films each are Al Pacino, Alec Guinness, Daniel Day Lewis, Morgan Freeman, Robert De Niro, Tom Cruise, William Holden and Alan Rickman.

For Female actors the order is Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench with 10, Helen Mirren and Nicole Kidman with 9, Ingrid Bergman, Kate Winslett, Julia Roberts and Diane Keaton with 8 and Helena Bonham-Carter and Meryl Streep with 7.

I'm not sure what this says about me. I suppose it says I like old war films (John Mills) and I tend to collect everything by certain directors; that I like Film Noir and good actors. Perhaps someone could suggest from these lists which films you think I don't have in my collection and those I ought to have.

Incidentally, I still haven't watched more than 200 of the films.

The DVD race

Now up to 628 films. A slight change in the running order for Directors, Steven Spielberg is now on his own at number 5 with 7 films - I just found a copy of A.I. in the garage. John Ford now has 5 and Michael Apted enters with 4. (Nell, Amazing Grace, Coalminer's Daughter and Enigma). For Male Actors Bogie is still in the lead, now with 18, Clive Owen moves into 4th place with 11, and Daniel Day-Lewis and Robert De Niro come in with 7. For Female Actors Angelina Jolie comes in in second place with 7 and Scarlet Johansson enters with 5 (Match Point, Girl with a Pearl Earring, A Good Woman [a new version of Lady Windemere's Fan], Lost in Translation, and The Horse Whisperer). I still have another cupboard full of films to add.

Look out for Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson, Judi Dench, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Kevin Spacey who are all close behind.

Favorite Film Stars

It can be measured by how many of their films I have on DVD.
1. Humphrey Bogart 16
2. Anthony Hopkins 14
3. Cary Grant 13
4=. Clint Eastwood 8
Clive Owen 8
6=. Michael Caine 7
Tom Cruise 7
Alan Rickman 7

As far as women go:
1. Cate Blanchett 8
2.= Nicole Kidman 7
Diane Keaton 7
4.= Bette Davis 6
Helen Mirren 6
Kate Winslett 6
7.= Helena Bonham-Carter 5
Jodie Foster 5
Julia Roberts 5
Ingrid Bergman 5
Susan Sarandon 5

Of course, it is not a fair comparison since there are still some films I want to own and haven't got around to buying yet and there are some series like the BBC Shakespeare where there are so many actors that my database doesn't mention them all. Nevertheless, the only surprises for me are how high Julia Roberts and Tom Cruise feature. I would have put Al Pacino higher than Cruise and Sissy Spacek higher than Roberts.