musings

Fucking, boring.

Factual TV programmes abound. From economics to art, from astronomy to natural history – there is no shortage of documentaries to educate and entertain for the price of a TV licence.

I like learning about science and technology. Tomorrow’s World was a weekly favourite, although thirty five years later tomorrow has truly been and gone and we’re still waiting for most of the products featured in prototype on that programme.

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Right from the opening credits – with a throbbing Led Zeppelin (cover) soundtrack – you know you are watching a well-crafted film. Such a good start meant that I was able to relax, settle into my seat and prepare to immerse myself in the cinematic experience. I admit that this trance was briefly disturbed early on when Daniel Craig asks for a specific brand of cigarettes. I hoped that such product placement wouldn’t be peppered intrusively throughout. Thankfully it wasn’t – apart from

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I hugely enjoyed Terence Davies’ Of Time and the City but his latest nostalgia-fest is a curate’s egg.

Davies creates rich, sepia scenes of ’50′s Britain at least as evocative and depressing as those in 10 Rillington Place. Rachel Weisz does an outstanding job – in more than one sense. For whilst her performance is convincing as the camera lingers on her beautiful tortured expression, the film’s backdrop is an array of caricatures sprinkled with scenes of ludicrous sentimentality with an often intrusive soundtrack. I’m thinking of the sing-song in the boozer, and the London underground during the Blitz both of which are almost pastiche.

Weisz’s lover is supposed to be a self-centred cad, but is too one-dimensional to be either a convincing villain or the object of her lust. Simon Russell Beale has a better time of it as the pained and repressed cuckold.

+
Interesting allegorical sci-fi scenario
Surreal ‘Mervyn Peake’ quality
Plenty of Kirsten Dunst
Memorable last 5 minutes

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Annoying wobbly camerawork
Messy plot with too much thrown in
Like a film school project but with big name actors
Very annoying characters
Too much Charlotte Gainsbourg (as Kirsten Dunst’s sister!?)
Overly long

I had never been to Waterside Arts Centre, Sale until last Saturday. On a dark drizzly October evening it’s a sterile sort of place – like an up-market community centre.

The clientele were well-groomed theatregoing types. We didn’t fill the auditorium either, so the compere had to work especially hard to warm us all up for the four stand-up comedy acts which followed.

The first three were amusing, but the headline act Steve Shanyaski possesses a star quality which had me wheezing with uncontrolled laughter. He’s talented, insightful, self-assured, and definitely worth seeking out. Just remember your inhaler.

“I thought only black lads were drug dealers … and Mexicans?” interrupts Galway Garda Sergeant Gerry Boyle as the visiting (black) FBI agent Wendell Everett is delivering his briefing. I groaned as I watched this clip before being persuaded to go along and see The Guard.

However, my fear that this would be In the Heat of The Night played for cheap laughs was entirely misplaced. It is a light, whimsical film with an outstanding performance by Brendan Gleeson as the eponymous policeman who has a touch of the Lieutenant Columbo about him – outwardly simple with an underlying depth and intelligence.

The villains too are multi-dimensional. Whilst undoubtably ruthless they are also capable of discussing the writings of various philosophers as they drive through the night, and in this I was reminded of some of Vincent and Jules’ conversations in Pulp Fiction.

It’s a fantastic, funny debut by writer and director John Michael McDonagh and I look forward to seeing more from him soon.

Pretentious, bloated, self-indulgent twaddle. Beautifully shot, though.