I need to watch The Third Man!

It's listening to movie soundtracks that does it. There are just so many films I need to see again, and again, and again, and I have no time to do it in...

Revision. Ahem.

I am not a happy bunny!

Over here in the sunny world of the A-level student, exam month has arrived! And so has a craving for a good film I haven't felt for an age. You have no idea how much I want to rewatch The Godfather. And Guns of Navarone. I'm starting to get distinctly twitchy towards Legend of 1900 too. Even The Two Towers has wobbled back onto my must see list, after all the excitement about the Hobbit movie. I've resorted to mourfully listening to the Reservoir Dogs and Jackie Brown soundtracks while reviewing contempary opinions on Philip II's financial policy within mainland Spain - it's like last year all over again!

Ah, Reservoir Dogs. I'd forgotten quite how much I love you. The music alone is making my brain dribble out my ears.

This is all one long way to say, don't come here expecting a post for the next few weeks. For though I will undoubtedly give in and write a 32 page article on the use of music in QT movies, or the use of 70s guitar twangs in modern cinema, or try and argue that something blatantly offensive is still valid cinema (see: Song of the South, SS Experiment Camp), theoretically I'm far too busy to do anything of the sort.

I've started thinking about "1567 Revolt of the Nethelands: the movie". The hero is William of Orange, the Dutch noble who (single handedly, they'd have you believe) liberated about half of his country from Spanish dominion and religious persecution. He was a brilliant politician who I wrote my history coursework on, his particular skills being successfully uniting the disparate groups behind a single leader. He needs to be someone with gravitas, but not too beefy. He was really quite a sensitive noble guy at heart - I'm thinking maybe David Wenham, who cinched the gentle-but-heroic Faramir in Lord of the Rings.

The immediate villain of the piece is the nasty Duke of Alva, sent by King Philip II to sort the rebels out with an army, painted by generations of protestant historians and propagandists as a one-note Lord of Darkness. Who better than Christopher Ecclestone? Well, lots of people probably, but I couldn't help noticing the facial similarity between he and the much maligned Duke.

And who for Philip II himself? Like the Duke of Alva, Philip II was the bogeyman under the stairs for generations of protestants. In my Entirely Historically Accurate movie, which will utilise my fair and based-on-available-evidence knowledge,

I want him to be the evil cackling pantomime villain he's been until the revisionist historians got ahold of him. In an ideal world where he's not dead, I'd get Antony Ainley, who played the Master on Doctor Who in the 70s. The Master and Philip II shared several traits - an awful beard, a penchant for black velvet, the habit of chuckling evilly to himself, the desire for WOOOORLD DOMINATION! Yes, it's going to be one of those historical epics where the producer hires a quorum of historical experts on the period, and then ignores most of what they say. Might make a better movie...

I've yet to see Elizabeth: the Golden Age. I'm told Philip II is played very much in this vein, as a villainous religious maniac:

What else am I studying? Well, Branagh's Hamlet is perfect enough for me; Branagh's Frankenstein leaves much to be desired. But it does contain the phrase "maybe if I reverse the polarity of the neutron flow", so it ain't all bad.

My two english modules are one on Hamlet and Chaucer (The Merchants Tale, all lying and "thronging". It'd make a tedious film, unless you made it into an all-out shamelessly bawdy comedy, in which case I still wouldn't be interested. Unless it was filmed it in the original Chaucerian English. The story is all about bad wives - the word wife is spelt wyf, and pronounced "wiff!", and its hilarious...) and the other on the gothic.

I'm not sure Frankenstein could ever make a good movie, because frankly I don't think its a great book. I also agree with those who see it as more science fiction than gothic - it's built on a "what if" premise, it's all about what it means to be human, and it all starts with man meddling with science. Doctor Who remade it as "Brain of Morbius"; Ridley Scott remade it as Blade Runner, hell, even King Kong and Edward Scissorhands can be seen as its distant cousins. The other book I'm studying is The Monk, a good ole story of a saintly friar who gets involved in pretty much every depravity the 17th Century author could get away with. Brilliant book! It'd make a distastefully nasty film though...

Our other history module is on Ireland - specifically 120 years of it, from Wolfe Tone's uprising in 1789 to the Anglo-Irish treaty in 1921. What a bloodbath. Two friends and I considered making a movie of the entire topic, with three of us, changing hats along the way; but frankly, even though it's fascinating, I wouldn't know where to start with filming it. I'd be far too terrified of offending someone, and films why try to be inoffensive normally end up watery and muddled.

Parnell was an Irish nationalist leader, and a pretty darn good one. He was a skilled politician, who had wide reaching links from Westminster, where he was an MP, and more radical nationalist organisations such as the Fenians. At one point, the Times attempted to blacken his reputation by connecting him with open acts of violence - that would be an interesting event for the movie. Another is he deliberately(ish) getting himself thrown into jail to avoid committing to either side of an issue to retain universal support, a smart bit of political manouvering.

So far, so ordinary. The bit which'll make the producers ears prick up was his long running and romantic affair with the married Kitty O'Shea, the biggest open secret in London. They lived together, had three children and refered to each other as husband and wife; Captain O'Shea even bailed Parnell out of prison. Then, at the height of his political career, the Captain decides to divorce her and Parnell's adultery is cited in the divorce case. And it explodes - despite the fact everyone knew, Victorian hypocracy strikes. Parnell's party is split into Parnellites and anti-Parnellites - Parnell loses the support of Gladstone and the Liberal party (note on Irish politics: in this period, the Irish Parliamentry Party were too small to make a difference. They wedded their support to either the Conservatives or Liberals, effectively determining who would get in, in exchange for Irish reforms). And naturally, as this is my movie, play up a sub-buddy relationship between he and Gladstone who knew very well about the affair, but has to play to public opinion. Parnell loses all his credibility; though he does marry Kitty and dies a few years later in her arms.

Hollywood would LOVE it - a big, sweeping historical story, yet with a powerful love story set at the front. From the first gangster movies, cinema has always loved the rise and fall story. I can see the trailer now - "In a land of conflict...one man will risk everything...for the woman he loves..."

...and d'ya know what? A little investigation reveals that Clark Gable played Parnell in the movie of the same name in the 30s. It flopped. But at least it proves my idea was a good one. Time for a remake? I'd go see it, he's one of my favourite characters in this topic (as far as you can have favourites in history. My favourite Brit politician is Peel, because he's smart and pragmatic, willing to deal with problems because they are problems, not because he's committed to this or that policy. And his smile was compared to "the gleam on a coffin lid", which is cool. The other person I really admire is Daniel O'Connell, who organised large "monster meetings" to show support for repeal of the union. The Brit government finally threatened to forcibly shut one down at Clontarff. What did he do? Decided not to hold it. Now that might seem like a pretty useless action, and indeed it was - that was the end of his repeal association - but that's not the point. It would have been easy to just take a stand and watch the slaughter, but giving in was far braver. It's also nice to have someone in this topic 100% opposed to violence. Just don't get me started on Carson, who's still a baddie as far as I'm concerned...)

If anyone knows where to find a copy of this movie (and I mean literally anywhere), I want to see it! You can even post it to me and I'll promise to post it back.

Sod that. I'm watching Reservoir Dogs. Philip's twin foreign policy of concervacion and messianic imperialism will have to wait...

Brideshead Regurgitated

Go and see Speed Racer. Take your kids. And your pets. And your next-door neighbours

Ahem. Sorry, I'll stop dribbling and try to write coherently.

9 years ago, the collective human jaw crashed to the floor a few minutes into this little action movie known as The Matrix, as the camera spiralled around a hovering Carrie Anne Moss. I was only 9 at the time, so by the time I saw it the wow factor had worn off.

What very few people noticed is the anime influence. It certainly never struck me until I saw the Animatrix, discovered the Wachowski's love for the whole...is it fair to call anime a genre? A movement? In any case, they adore it, and the concept behind bullet time was merely what anime had been doing for years - hero leaps up into a pose and pauses before delivering a killer blow. All they did was translate it into three dimensions and you have it, instant cool.

I knew it was based on an anime series, but I was amazed how faithful it was. Not to the story - I never followed Mahha GoGoGo, but the style. Particularly the way heads move past each other in dialogue.

I just wish I had more courage in my convictions to say outright that its the most brilliant original movie made since whenever. It's easy to dismiss this as a kids film, and believe me your 8-year-old boys will love it. But that's not quite the point - this is the movie Kill Bill wanted to be, a gleeful pastiche of a much loved genre. But where QT failed, the Wachowski's succeed: in filling the audience with their enthusiasm. It's still sufficiently childlike to entertain the nippers, but stylistically, it looks like the most expensive episode of Power Rangers ever.

So please, go see Speed Racer ready to experience deliberately obvious characters in the midst of an offbeat masterpiece. It's not even style over substance - the substance is a level clever than it had to be - and go see it at the biggest cinema you have. You're lucky - your local doesn't have 9 seats in a row at its widest point. There were two other people in the cinema besides us, they were at the back, we were at the front and there were only 20 rows between us.



But lets talk about the real reason we went to see Speed Racer - Matthew Fox, the artist formerly known as Jack from LOST. The irritating doctor to those of you who switched off in the first series. Remarkably, his acting has visibly improved across the series - he's starting to plough some impressive emotional depths, and increasingly looks like the only one who'll get off the island with a career. He was good in this. The last Film I Watched With My Sister Because It Had Matthew Fox In was We are Marshall - see this post for what I thought of that slushfest - which was the utter antithesis of this. It was obvious; this is knowingly obvious. It was boring. This is pretty damn exciting, and I don't mean loud music and car crashes - I mean visually exciting, thrilling direction. You ain't seen nothin like it.

Unless you're an anime fan. When you ain't seen nothin like it...in three dimensions.



PS - Doing a bit of investigation into the new Brideshead Revisited movie. The prospect is bleak. As a fan of the book, and the tv series, it has some work to do in my estimation. Hell, I've een been seen to complain that the series (a virtually word perfect adaption) cuts my favourite line
from, the book!




I don't object in principle - after all, Pride and Prejudice also made a good book, then a good perfect BBC adaptation, then a good two hour movie with all the dross chopped out. There's a lot of Brideshead that could go, but the difficulty is that it's ALL dross. They eat dinner. They drive. They talk. If you're looking for plot, then frankly there ain't none. Once you start cutting, its hard to know what to keep.


Brideshead is a story in two acts, and inevitably the movie intends to focus on the less interesting, less subtle and frankly, less romantic relationship between ordinary bod Charles and Julia Marchmain than betwee Charles and her brother Sebastian. Think Brideshead - think teddies, Oxford and strawberries on the lawn! All doomed to the big bad world of cut. pparently they're removing the references to catholicism, which is really ripping the guts out of the novel. Without lingering in spoiler territory, it'll put Julia's motivation entirely oput of whack.

Brideshead is also a story of a life. People drift in and out, Charles gets a lot older. The Julia relationship takes place when they are both in the middle of it. Inevitably, they'll rocket it into his youth so the actors can remain pretty, which will again change the focus and feel of their eventual coming together.



I don't want to damn it automatically. They could still make a good story out of it, even if it ain't whats on the page. But it won't be Brideshead, at which point they could easily twist their desired rewrite into a totally new film. Mind you, marketing and distribution and all, tying it into a recongised concept will increase its appeal. But not by much - because the Brideshead lovers are into period drama anyway, and thus you won't expand your audience by much.



Lets look at the official guff:

"A provocative and suspenseful drama, “BRIDESHEAD REVISITED” tells an evocative story of forbidden love and the loss of innocence set in the pre-WWII era. i.e. it wants to be the new Atonement. This line gets up my nose bigtime. There is no suspense, its far too sedate a story for that. I don't know what they mean by provocative; probably the same thing as evocative, a film which moves you, just like every other film ever made. That's production company double speak. I don't get what's so forbidden about it either. Loss of innocence is arguably the best descriptor.


In the film, Charles Ryder becomes entranced with the noble Marchmain family, first through the charming and provocative Sebastian Flyte, and then his sophisticated sister, Julia. The rise and fall of Charles’ infatuations reflect the decline of a decadent era in England between the wars. That's much better. Oh how I wish that was the film they are making, as it sums it up wonderfully. Academy Award-winner Emma Thompson co-stars as Lady Marchmain. No I don't think so. No please. The film, based on Evelyn Waugh’s acclaimed novel is adapted for the screen by multiple BAFTA Award-winner Andrew Davies who did pretty much any BBC adaptation you can name and Jeremy Brock and directed by Julian Jarrold."





Now for the poster:

I like the dramatic placement of Lady Marchmain - even though this was probably just to get their biggest star, Emma Thomson, on the poster, she's a key character and well suited to the "overshadowing villain" position here. Unfortunately, I can forsee her standing in the way of the "forbidden love" mentioned before, which'll be a pity - her damaging effect is so much more subtle and realistic in the book. I also like them featuring Brideshead itself - it's a cornerstone of the book, an important character in its own right. Obviously the three pretty leads are playing "spot the love triangle" in the corner, but it works.

But you know my low quip about it wanting to be Atonement (ironic for a book which clearly itself wanted to be Brideshead at times, with the fountain and tiled floors)? What colour is Julia wearing? What colour is the word "revisited"? Yes, its the same shade as that stunning and iconic dress sported by Keira Knightly in all the publicity. Clearly gunning for your subconscious!

The tagline reads: "Privilege. Ambition. Desire. At Brideshead, everything comes at a price." Two minds. On the one hand, I hate it for being so obvious, so American, so everything that the book isn't. It sounds like the characters will be striving for those things, aiming at complete hedonism. They're not - the tragedy is that they're born into the privilege. On the other, aside from the wretched clichedness, it does sum up the themes pretty well. Change it to "Privilege, Love and Catholicism" and I'd be happy (because it is love, not desire, even though love doesn't sell as well as sex these days)

Rating: PG-13 for some sexual content. Because even period dramas don't sell unless someone takes their clothes off.

And now for the trailer. This could be the deal breaker. Like a watched pot, a watched youtube buffering bar never boils.

Pardon me, wiping the vomit off the carpet. What was that?! It was all going so well. It was very bizzare seeing the well loved Castle Howard inhabited by a new generation of flapper dresses and cravats, very odd indeed. As such, it was quite bizzare to see other actors in the roles. I'm not a complete Brideshead obsessive, you realise; I didn't expect to feel this facet of a new adaptation would feel so troubling. It looks like the catholicism is back on the bill, for which I am thankful. As predicted, the whole time frame has been shrunk - Julia is going to Venice, and any relationship there will be taking place while the actors are young and gorgeous. It looks like they'll deal with the sexual ambiguity of the Charles/Sebastian relationship, probably making it more overt (in the book, it's never stated that they are more than friends, even though there is a troubling transfer of platonic affection from Sebastian to proper passion for his sister, who it is often stated looks very similar. For me, the most satisfying reading is that he and Sebastian are in love of a kind, but not one that's ever stated. i.e. I feel ambiguity is best.)

The grot set in when they called Evelyn Waugh's masterpiece an "acclaimed" novel, which for me is a bit like saying Shakespeare was a fairly good writer. Acclaimed may suit for a modern little known novel, but it feels odd here.

And then they start frantically cutting like it's the most exciting thriller ever, giving away half the plot, and what a plot it is! They've turned Charles and Julia into Cecelia and Robbie as far as I'm concerned. After all this meandering and mulling over the various possibilites and trying to be even handed, I'm not sure I'd get to the end of the film. Not sure I'd get to the end of the trailer for a moment here.

It was inevitable that there would be chopping. But why introduce entirely new elements? It's a powerful story alone. Charles is seduced by the lifestyle, but he's not a social climber. Like I said above, making things which are subtle more obvious and cheap. And as for engaging Julia against her will? Perlease. She's barely a maiden fair being carried off by a villianous monster.

All in all, maybe this is one I'll have to miss. And make myself one day, and properly. I'd quite like to see the movie in the first half of the trailer, that looks OK. But from 1:44 onwards, things go downhill. They're trying to churn drama out of an entirely undramatic book. The joy of Brideshead Revisited is the sublety, but they have to make everything so horribly obvious.

PPS - Boycott Heinz Sandwich Spread! It's too creepy. You note it's not "tomato spread" or "chicken spread". Nope, it's "Sandwich Spread", to distinguish it from all those spreads you don't put on sandwiches. Lets see what it's described as: "A tangy cruchy spread". Oh look, it spreads. Ingredients? Well, whatever they are, they're tangy and crunchy. Dead mice perhaps? Finally, the serving suggestion - and this is the idiot-proof bit. "Heinz Sandwich Spread is a perfect addition to any sandwich".

Er, thanks. Naturally. NOW BAN THIS SICK SPREAD!

Wolves may lurk in every guise...

Today I sat down to devour a childhood favourite which I recently rediscovered at a charity video store - a piece of bug-budget technicolour fluff, responsible for the catchy musical hook "I'm Hans CHRIST-IEN AN-derson!" which has been bottling around my head for years, without ever resolving itself because I'd forgotten the rest of the tune. Inevitably, the memory plays tricks. In my mind, the lead role had been played by Dick Van Dyke, and I recalled a scene which was absent completely.


Now I revisit it, I recognised it for what it was - the child of an unholy alliance between Oliver! and Les Enfants du Paradis.



Seriously, stay with me for a moment. The Copenhagen scene, with it's overlapping songs from various tradesmen, was so similar to "Who will buy a wonderful morning" that we actually checked to see if it had been made after Oliver! (incidentally, it hadn't - and I feel that the HCA version of the scene had more musical merit)



At the same time, there's something rather more adult going on here. Like two movies - one, with the happy storytelling Hans cheering up children and singing; the other, a tale of twisted love with domestic abuse, in a harsh world everybody but he can see. Happy ending? No sir...



Hans, such a happy innocent that his apprentice talks him into leaving town before he's thrown out to spare him the heartbreak. Who's the only person who thinks he's in with a chance with Garance - sorry - the lead ballerina (HCA's lead romantic couple were even a dead ringer for
Baptiste and his love...) Speaking of ballet, the Little Mermaid dance sequence between the Prince and heroine at the ball is one of the most beautiful things.



I particularly liked the relationship between Hans and his young assistant Peter, in which Peter was by a long shot the wiser and more grown up. I suppose this is what fanfiction is for...



Maybe this is just another case of reading too much into kids films, just as my "child's eye view" theory attempted to excuse the innocent racism of Song of the South. But wheras that was probably a step too far, I think I'm genuinely onto something here. All in all, perfect for a girl on the irritating cusp between wanting to believe as a child and be enchanted, while desiring all the realism and nasty irony of a cynic grown up.



Speaking of magical realism, nasty irony and cusps, I also discovered The Company of Wolves. Kneel and pray, folks, kneel and pray this is the one I've been looking for, just as Tideland was my dream film last year, and one so low rated on IMdB that I voted it an angry 10/10, even though I usually reserve that for Godfathers and JFK, and in my right mind maybe it deserved an 8 or 9...

There are things I just love. Decaying buildings. Fairy tales. Things which are scary not because they are dangerous, or threatening, but just downright wrong on a subtle level. Despite Friend 5's theory that I love violent movies, I love them best when it's just the threat of violence just around the corner. Girls in floaty white dresses. Gentlemen with long dark hair. And wolves.



Mix them all together, and you've got an alternate blend to the perfect movie I found in Millar's Crossing. Little Red Riding Hood, with werewolves, sex and suited-devils who drive in white vintage cars. Throw in some truly alarming special effects, and the grotesque fairy tale horror that is Terry Gilliam on a good day, and you have a brilliant movie.




In short, it's love, and may the relationship be long. I'm now particularly interested in Neil Jordan, who has not only made me a tailor made movie, but also made me love a biopic - a genre I've never had time for - Michael Collins. A stonkingly well made film. He's definitely a director to watch out for - we got his Mona Lisa free with a paper, so maybe I'll give that a spin.

Incidentally, let me introduce you to Eugenio Recuenco, currently my favourite artist, certainly my favourite photographer, and one of the reasons Company of Wolves was such a hit:

His imagery is very in line with my own imaginings, and it's often right there on the line between creepy and beautiful. His way of shooting, his use of light - I don't know how he does it, but he can fill a photo with the ingrained dust and dimness of a renaissance religious painter. Like what you see? The rest of this collection can be viewed here, and come running if you ever see a film which reminds you of them: http://www.gianfrancomeza.com/18EugenioRecuenco/fotos2/vogue%20cuentos/0.htm

PS - you may recall a few months back I was feeling faintly embarassed about overreacting to seeing an ex-Doctor on stage. I had considered what I would do if ever I met someone famous, and had always hoped that I'd react with some decorum...I really didn't, but I hoped and assumed it was a one off thing. Because on an intellectual level, they are just ordinary people, nothing special, and I never approved of people crushing on the Doctor anyway...this weekend I was fortunate enough to see my other favourite band, the Guillemots, on stage at our cruddy local concert. Being that it was local, we were the only hardcore fans, so we got right in the middle, right in the front. We had the word Guillemots painted across our faces, and were all wearing the band t-shirts we had bought half an hour before. To cut a long story and a lot of boasting short, after a good half hour of bouncing, hugging and squealing, I must put paid to my hopes of ever reacting well when meeting my idols, because I've been hopelessly starstruck both occasions. Maybe it's a proximity thing...after all, we were only three or four meters away from the Fyfe himself, a little further from the other members of the band...

The Guillemots, because I feel like talking about them, are an experimental four-piece, who never lose sight of what makes great pop - they sing about birds, mountains and the cutest sort of true love; they use everything from sampled screaming to typewriters, with a very strong ethnic-y and inventive use of percussion. You might have heard "Get Over It", being played on Radio 1 all the time. And like all the best bands, they're better live.

They lit up the stage in a festival wholly made up of fuzzy indie-kids playing two guitars and a drum, and pretending to sing about something relevant in obvious repetitive verses. Occasionally three guitars. Certainly not dashing between keys, acoustic guitars, double basses and cowbells...

In any case, all this drooling doesn't bode well for a career in showbiz.

We are...

I feel that when I'm going to spend an hour and a half, especially in these troubled times with A-levels lurking around the corner, I deserve to spend it on a film, not a movie - I'm already getting my predictable plotting and substandard acting fix from Doctor Who, thanks.

So this is a big shout out for my sister, who invariably quashes any real suggestion by saying "I feel like something light this evening", by which she means somewhere between "I want to watch something I've seen a million trillion times before starring an actor I like from TV" and "I don't want to watch what you're watching". And if you think I'm being harsh, the "something light" we watched yesterday eventually turned out to be We are Marshall, a cheery story about a tragic mass slaughter that affects a whole town. Over the weekend, the "something light" was Rent, an old fashioned tale of street muggings, poverty and AIDS.

The thing is, I've got this faint concept in the back of my head that if I watch enough of her films, maybe she'll get the idea she has to watch one of mine back. It ain't worked yet, and is unlikely to...she's set her heart on watching "1001 films to see before you die", which'll never work out firstly because she roundly refuses to watch anything resembling a classic off the list when its suggested, and secondly because none of them star an actor formerly seen in either Lost or Alias , with the exception of The English Patient. Incidentally, I've seen 165 off this list. Feel free, however, to track her progress on the list here: http://1001filmlist.blogspot.com/


Anyway. We are Marshall was never going to go down well with me. 50% real life tragedy, 50% feel-good movie, all set against the background of sport: something I will never understand. I don't just mean the rules, I mean the whole mentality. Here, they treated it like they'd all come back from 'Nam, complete with flashbacks in the field and grudging respect.

Did I enjoy it? Not really. Be MOVED! Be STIRRED! Be UPSET! Be INSPIRED! The problem with true stories is that they're true stories. On the one hand, you can't justifiably groan when the underdogs get the upper hand. But on the other, when dealing with memories and tragedies, you have to be careful. And the gently-gently approach hampers this film. It had about 6 executive producers - which I interpreted as "a cabal of people from the true story wanted it made"

What did occasionally lift it was the actors. Matthew McConnaughty is in airbrushed mode, no less annoying when playing a character who's meant to be annoying. But Matthew Fox was very good, as well as looking increasingly like the only Lost actor to make it off the island with a career. I also liked the young man who played Nate, although that may just have been the lovely 70s sweater-rollneck-tash combination he was sporting. I was born in the wrong era! And the President, David Strathairn, who I found bizzarely fanciable alongside being a wonderful character (invesitgation reveals I recognised him from L.A. Confidential). Ian McShane, the poor man's Al Pacino, deserves our respect for being the only guy in the movie who the "cliche approach" doesn't work on.

When I say the "cliche approach", I refer to a certain sort of logic that works in the screwed up world of We are Marshall. The scene starts with conflict and misunderstanding. There's no way person A is gonna agree with person B. Then person B begins to rubberduck - "you know, back when I was a kid my daddy had a ranch. And every day, he used to take those ranchhorses e.t.c." Enter piano, soft and sparse. Enter strings. FEEL MOVED DAMMIT! And by the end of the scene, persons A and B are friends again. From the point I started noticing, this scene pattern occured 8 times. Thank goodness, then, for Mr McShane being the only character it bounces off, more than once! He obviously can't hear the background music (dad suggested Saving Private Ryan; mum suggested The Right Stuff as far as the score was concerned).

The music was good, from a merely artistic standpoint - it's just the way they used it was horrible (see= "cliche approach") I feel like I'm kicking a puppy here. Attacking a feelgood sports movie for not being cinematic gold, when that's never what it aspired to be. For what it was, it was as good as it could be, probably better. But who cares? I don't have time to watch anything this predictable! Certainly the story was intriguing enough for me to want to find out what really happened (amend "this is a true story" to "this was a true story before Hollywood got its hands on it", please. It may have been accurate, but I hate that label...). And I did learn that American Football teams have about 50 players, which I'd never have imagined otherwise.

All in all, we are bored, we have seen it all before, we are amused by the obviousness of the direction and script, and in the occasional glimmer, we are Marshall.

Out of Aaaaafrica

"If I know a song of Africa - of the giraffe, and the African new moon lying on her back; of the plows in the fields, and the sweaty facesof the coffee pickers...does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on? Or will the children invent a game in which my name is? Or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me? Or will the eagles of the Ngong Hillslook out for me?"

I just wanted to share these words from Out of Africa, partly because leaving somewhere you love does make you feel a lot that way, but mostly because the cadence of the phrases and the way Ms Streep lets them roll out are the most beautiful things. Everything about that film is - the landscape, the words, the actors. But particularly those lines - obviously, taken from the book (which I have read and recommend) Mind you, did Isak Dinsen a.k.a. Karen Blixen write in her native Danish? In which case, there's a translator somewhere to which I also owe some thanks. As it happens, she was remembered - a district in Africa is still called Karen. Or is it a town?


P.S. Hobbit. Going ahead. With Guillermo del Toro. Quite frankly, I'm not sure it could be better if they tried...

Everything's satisfactual...

After yesterday's dive into the sticky debate over whether it was right for Song of the South to remain unreleased in the US, I was just itching to watch it and get my own opinion.

Well. It's hard, very hard. I almost wish this was an overtly racist piece of work, so a judgement would be easy. The problem is this - it isn't obviously cruel, but it is insensitive. By which I mean, the black characters are portrayed as nice, happy, loveable people - but in a way that could be construed as quite offensive. My mum boiled it down to the perfect phrase - "Uncle Remus is poor compared to the lead family, but rich in other ways", and it's that cliche along with a blinkered view of post-war history that makes this an uncomfortable watch at times. Certainly it wasn't intended as racist - on the contrary, the whole idea of the young boy and old man finding common ground is as a-OK as it gets - but it is spoilt by 40s attitudes which are no longer acceptable. I can see both ends of the spectrum - if you weren't aware of the controvesy, some people might not even notice - alternately, I can understand how a lot of people would see this as extremely offensive.

But I hold to my guns - overt censorship is wrong. What this film needs is honesty: a dvd release, maybe at a higher rating to indicate its controversial status, with a jolly good special feature acknowledging and tracking the film's troubled history. An adult would understand that the film says more about 1946, when it was made, than the period it is supposed to represent. And I'm fairly sure it would all go over the head of child, especially one living in our modern multi-cultural society - most kids would take the fun of the animation away with them. All the same, I would think before sitting a child in front of it. By the time they are old enough to appreciate the context, they'll have grown out of it anyway...Mum suggests that were I black, I may feel differently - maybe so. I'm certainly not denying it's a contraversial piece. But surely it's better to get the debate in the open, than Disney hiding it away and whitewashing the past. If it was any other company than it'd be fine. Pretending to be squeaky clean doesn't make it so.

My mother and I discussed whether even small parts of it could be released - maybe the cartoon segments, but the "jes sir I no think dat" language would mean it would have to be entirely redubbed as well, at which point you've got barely anything left.

Ignoring all that for just one minute, this is a wonderful film. The mix of live-action and animated segments is awfully clever, especially for the time. Especially noteworthy is Remus surrounded by flying creatures - wheeling in and out of sight, perspective perfect - and the real-dog menaced by the cartoon-frog at the end. The central friendship is very affecting, with Johnny finding someone to replace the father-shaped hole in his life - and the animated segments are great fun.

Particularly interesting was his father's role in all this. It is never clearly stated why little Johnny and his mom move to their grandmother's, nor why the father is compelled to return to Atlanta. Its only addressed in the opening scene - and barely there. It's hinted over something he wrote, but what I don't know. There is an absolutely fascinating story going on here, one Johnny (and therefore we) never fully understand.

At times I felt maybe it was cleverer than it appeared - or perhaps this is the response of any 18 year old over-analysing something made for the under 10s? Remus hints at troubles every now and then - it could be read, by your bored intellectual, maybe a child's-eye-view argument could excuse the whole film. Because what would a 6-year-old kid dragged away from his home care about the sociopolitical context? I'm probably grasping at straws here - all I'm saying is I wanted to know exactly what his father had done.

All in all, an utterly charming film. It's just a pity that its fortunes are so interlinked with this whole horrid issue, because you can't judge it on its artistic merits alone.

PS, while we're talking racism in Disney, give Peter Pan a whirl. Now arguably these are "injuns" the same way the pirates are pirates - the villains of childrens games enlarged into life - but still...I did a study of it for my Native Peoples of the Americas project about five years back, and picked out everything that's wrong with it - and that's so much it's not even worth separating. Is it offensive? To be honest, it's so OTT I'm not sure it counts. Should Peter Pan be banned? Why are you even asking me this...