Romeo & Juliet at The Garrick

To London for the Kenneth Branagh production of ROMEO AND JULIET, co-directed by Branagh, a Shakespeare I am not that keen on and it has been done so many times (at least 6 films?), but the cast of this current production whetted the interest. 

The leads are Freddie Fox (whom I last saw on stage as Bosie to Rupert Everett's Oscar Wilde in THE JUDAS KISS a few years ago, and who has since done TV work like CUCUMBER and films like PRIDE); Freddie stepped in at 48 hours notice (due to the injury of Richard Madden); Juliet is the equally busy Lily James (DOWNTON ABBEY, WAR & PEACE, CINDERELLA), 

Meera Syal gets a lot of value of value out of the Nurse, and Derek Jacobi now in his 80s is a very lively if older Mercutio - he even dances around the stage and seems fully recovered from leg injuries. 

Lady Capulet is that international star since the 1970s Marisa Berenson (DEATH IN VENICE, CABARET), whom I like watching as The Countess of Lyndon in re-runs of Kubrick's BARRY LYNDON (currently on release again after 40 years). She is just as mesmerising and ageless on stage here. 

The production (almost three hours long) does have its longeurs when reams of dialogue have to be delivered, but the essentials grip one and the staging is eye-popping, 

set in a 1950s Verona in the grip of the LA DOLCE VITA era: cue sharp suits, white shirts, sunglasses at night. The Capulet's masked ball is rather like that disco in THE GREAT BEAUTY and it certainly commands the attention. I liked it a lot more than the drab black costumes on a black stage setting of that RICHARD III also seen recently - see Shakespeare label. 

This R&J finishes this week and we then get Kenneth Branagh as John Osborne's THE ENTERTAINER, hardly revived since Olivier did it. 

Not so amazing, Grace

The Projector is now screening a new clutch of Trash Classics, and we are starting with the recent GRACE OF MONACO, which sank without a trace here (but now Sky Movies are showing it a lot). Actually it is not even entertaining enough to be a Trash Classic, it is just tepid and bad and gets dull halfway through its 90 minutes so one wants to fast-forward some of it, but it looks plush, a lot of money must have gone into it, but could they not have got a better script or story? It is not a biopic of Grace Kelly at all, but purports to show some fictional events:

The story of former Hollywood star Grace Kelly's crisis of marriage and identity, during a political dispute between Monaco's Prince Rainier III and France's Charles De Gaulle, and a looming French invasion of Monaco in the early 1960s.

It starts promisingly with that road she used to drive with those hairpin bends, and then we see Alfred Hitchcock arriving with a new script for the princess - it is MARNIE of course. It is amusing to see another Hitch impersonation to go with those other recent ones, but the first big mistake is here. We see the date on the screen - December 1961, and Hitch tells Gracie her co-star will be this new Scottish chap who is sensational in a new Cubby Broccoli film, but DR NO did not open until late 1962 - Hitch would hardly have signed Connery in 1961 ... he had not made THE BIRDS by then.

This farrago was widely reviled by and laughed at by critics across the world, it finally limped into London late (Nicole wisely cancelled London publicity tv appearances due to illness). It actually opened the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, no doubt as Monaco was just down the road from them. It is all about as truthful as the 1964 trash masterpiece HARLOW - a movie we love to hate here (Trash label) but that at least was more fun..

Nicole Kidman initially suggests Grace until we see her up close, but playing Grace has not harmed her career, she just keeps on filming, and was fun in PADDINGTON. (we liked her in THE PAPERBOY too). Tim Roth is all wrong as the podgy Rainer, and suggests nothing more than a suburban bank manager, and isn't that Robert Lindsey as Onassis. (bringing to mind Somerset Maugham's comment that Monaco or Monte Carlo was "a sunny place for shady people"). Old reliables like Derek Jacobi turn up as an old queen (sorry, nobleman) to tutor Grace - an Oscar-winning actress - on how to behave like a princess. This is where all credibility goes out the window. Grace gets to make a big speech at the end and we leave her there ,,,,  it all seems to be a simplistic story for those who know nothing about the real Grace Kelly or her career or movies.

We know Grace's marriage was no real fairy tale, she and Rainier were practically leading separate lives and she had a bolthole in Paris she used to visit, before that fatal accident. What we see here is a soapy melodrama - odd that director Olivier Dahan also did LA VIE EN ROSE about Edith Piaf.

GRACE OF MONACO may be a terrific Trash double bill with DIANA (no, I never wanted to see that). The two princesses met several times and oddly both died in strange car accidents ....

Coming Up: Shirley McLaine's excruciating WHAT A WAY TO GO, Ava Gardner's dreadful TAM LIN, Brigitte Bardot's terrible last film IF DON JUAN WAS A WOMAN !

Then: some classy European fare, starting with Jeanne Moreau and Alida Valli as nuns in the 1960 THE CARMELITES, and one of Sophia Loren's last Italian films before Hollywood called, the 1955 THE SIGN OF VENUS.

Plus the recent INTO THE WOODS and FOXCATCHER. We are going to be busy !

How now, Othello ?

Dipping into that Shakespeare backlog (6 HAMLETs, 4 MACBETHs, Olivier as Shylock, Welles as Falstaff, etc) finally, we get to see Laurence Olivier's powerhouse performance as OTHELLO, a National Theatre success in the early Sixties, when Billie Whitelaw and Maggie Smith alterated the role of Desdemona, but it is Smith in the film. All director Stuart Burge really had to do I imagine was let the cameras roll and capture this astonishing performance for posterity. Its stagebound of course, originally directed on stage by John Dexter, but is shot in widescreen so it looks good. This is my first OTHELLO and its rather ponderous as the characters spout reams of dialogue, but we watch for the performances. That National Theatre rep company shine here: Frank Finlay as Iago, Derek Jacobi as Cassio, Joyce Redman, Sheila Reid  Maggie Smith is a touching Desdemona and Olivier in his middle age - a decade after his RICHARD III (Olivier label), and almost two decades after his HAMLET - is simply amazing. The energy it must have taken to perform this on stage every night, as well as running the National Theatre, and then the film. (He also filmed BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING and KHARTOUM about that time, also blacked up as The Madhi for some very effective scenes - Olivier label). 

IMDB's summary puts it thus: Desdemona defies her father to marry the Moor of Venice, the mighty warrior, Othello. But Othello's old lieutenant, Iago, doesn't like Othello, and is determined to bring about the downfall of Othello's new favorite, Cassio, and destroy Othello in the process, by casting aspersions on Othello's new bride. 

Paul Robeson was by all accounts (it was not filmed) a brilliant Othello in the 1930s, and later actors to tackle it include Laurence Fishburne in 1995, Anthony Hopkins for the BBC, and of course Orson Welles' in 1952, another fascinating production, made on a shoestring. I shall be looking at that too before too long, I had a vhs cassette of it somewhere ... I wish I had seen more of those 1960s National Theatre productions, particularly their HAY FEVER, but I did see that astonishing ROYAL HUNT OF THE SUN at the Old Vic, up in the gods, in 1966, where Robert Stephens was that incredible Inca king in an unforgettable production, and in 1970 Smith and Stephens in Ingmar Berman's production of HEDDA and their restoration comedy THE BEAU'S STRATAGEM, both of which I went to twice. 
OTHELLO isn't an easy view, hardly a play to like (unlike HAMLET and the others) but each generation of rising actors want to give their reading of Iago's jealousy and portray the Moor.  

It seems Maggie Smith was feuding with Olivier (left, on set) during the production, and one evening she stuck her head around his dressing room door as he was either putting on or washing off the black make-up and said "How how brown cow?"! Shakespeare as far as we know never went to Italy, but set several of his plays there ...

Love is not the sweetest thing !

A trio of mesmerising star turn impersonations:  Derek Jacobi as painter Francis Bacon; Michael Douglas as Liberace; Helena Bonham-Carter almost as Elizabeth Taylor .....

I had been putting off seeing LOVE IS THE DEVIL and BEHIND THE CANDELABRA for some time, as I felt one may be too grim, and the other too camp - but they make up an astonishing double bill with a similar story arc: naive young man gets taken up by older artist who turns out to be a monster who tosses him aside when he has tired of him ... both stories capture facets of British and American gay life in the '60s and '70s and into the '80s perfectly .

In the 1960s, British painter Francis Bacon (1909-1992) surprises a burglar and invites him to share his bed. The burglar, a working class man named George Dyer, 30 years Bacon's junior, accepts. Bacon finds Dyer's amorality and innocence attractive, introducing him to his Soho pals. In their sex life, Dyer dominates, Bacon is the masochist. Dyer's bouts with depression, his drinking and pill popping, and his satanic nightmares strain the relationship, as does his pain with Bacon's casual infidelities. Bacon paints, talks with wit, and, as Dyer spins out of control, begins to find him tiresome. Could Bacon care less?

or as I said, on IMDB the other week: 

LOVE IS THE DEVIL, 1998. More artistic temperament in spades in this study of the painter Francis Bacon, and the man in his life, George Dyer, a small time crook. Again the casting is the thing: Derek Jacobi is uncanny as Bacon – as mesmerising as he was in I CLAUDIUS, while a pre-Bond Daniel Craig seems just right as the working class man out of his depth with Bacon’s Soho drinking pals who include Tilda Swinton - young David Hockney is depicted here too. John Maybury’s film  - I see it as a filmic version of Munch's "the Scream" - though cannot depict any of Bacon’s art but the film suggests their nightmare quality. The destructive relationship between painter and muse is caught as Dyer falls into alcoholism and pill popping, before his suicide. Grim is the word, at least Frear’s film on Joe Orton, another gay maverick artist, PRICK UP YOUR EARS had a lot of humour among the increasingly grim dramatics. 

John Maybury's film astonishes on many levels, capturing the selfish artist and the untidy (putting it mildly) studio, and all that drinking at the Colony and other drinking clubs. Jacobi is astonishing, whether cleaning his teeth with Vim detergent, putting shoe polish in his hair and applying mascara and powder before he heads off for an afternoon on the razzle, as Dyer sinks deeper into misery and booze and pills - Craig, as he was in LAYER CAKE and THE MOTHER and ENDURING LOVE is as solid as he was as Bond, James Bond.

BEHIND THE CANDELABRA, 2013: Before Elvis, before Elton John, Madonna and Lady Gaga, there was Liberace, pianist and flamboyant star of stage and television. Scott Thorson, a young bisexual man raised in foster homes, is introduced to Liberace and quickly finds himself in a sexual and romantic relationship with the legendary pianist. Swaddled in wealth and excess, Scott and Liberace have a sx-year  affair, one that eventually Scott begins to find suffocating. Kept away from the outside world by the flashily effeminate yet deeply closeted Liberace, and submitting to extreme makeovers and even plastic surgery at the behest of his lover, Scott eventually rebels. When Liberace finds himself a new lover, Scott is tossed on the street. He then seeks legal redress for what he feels he has lost. But throughout, the bond between the young man and the star never completely tears ...

Another terrific HBO movie (see THE NORMAL HEART, gay interest label) this Liberace movie is played for laughs as well as dramatics as ageing predatory older man ensnares rather naive young man. Scott (as depicted by Matt Damon) does not seem quite on the make, but is soon revelling in the glitz and glamour of the Liberace lifestyle. It is a shock to see Lee without his wig, as he and Scott get more involved, with Scott too having plastic surgery to look more like Lee, who talks of adopting him. 

Both actors turn in mesmerising performances, plus I did not recognise Dan Ackroyd or Scott Bakula (who delivers the zinger line to Scott: "Right now you are Judy at the Sid Luft obsese era"), while Debbie Reynolds was initially unrecognisable as Lee's mother, and Rob Lowe is the hilarious plastic surgeon. The tackier side of American showbiz is nicely depicted too. It is everything that Soderbergh's MAGIC MIKE should have been (see Mike label) ... while Damon has maybe his best role since THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY and Douglas is truly extraordindary as the great faker and master showman. Left: Soderbergh with Douglas. Liberace's 1955 film SINCERELY YOURS is reviewed at Liberace label. Also, its hardly unfair to depict Liberace like this, after all he had the nerve to sue - and win! - that British paper for casting aspersions on his masculinity! Douglas and Reynolds knew Liberace and his mother, so I imagine their portrayals are spot on. 

More camp showbiz excess is provided by BURTON AND TAYLOR, the BBC's 2013 biopic on the 1983 final teaming of the Great Lovers, who were selling themselves to the public, on stage in a doomed revival of Coward's PRIVATE LIVES. It was a last throw of the dice for Taylor to get Burton back into her orbit, even though he was poised to marry again. Helena (aided by great make-up, wigs, and those purple and lilac outfits) captures the capricious great star, forever late for rehearsals and seemingly not taking it seriously, to the annoyance of Burton and their director, but she delivers when she has to. She is also never far from the drinks trolley .... 

as Burton tries to avoid the booze and do the work. Bonham-Carter is fine as Taylor, but Dominic West suggests nothing of Burton's looks or voice to me, but does radiate a powerful presence, as he becomes horrified at the circus their play has become as the public come to see The Burtons ...

I saw The Burtons up close in 1970 at that Cinema City exhibition in London, as I have detailed previously - Taylor label - where they were with director Joseph Losey and critic Dilys Powell (left) as they were annoyed their SECRET CEREMONY film was a flop and being re-edited and sold to television. Eliizabeth looked marvellous in a gypsy type dress as she flashed that diamond, while Burton was in ranting mood in a safari suit!  The BBC film direted by Richard Laxton, captures a lot of their charisma and is jolly good fun. 

Award season, James Fox in DOWNTON, Dot & Gaga

Winter sets in, and award season begins .... after that summer of under-performing so-called blockbusters - come on, be honest, how many of them did you want to see? - finally good movies are back and the good ones are better than ever. Woody's BLUE JASMINE is still around (see my recent review below), and GRAVITY and PHILOMENA (right) are doing well too - I plan to see them by next week. Some of the main contenders have not opened here in the UK yet, so we await 12 YEARS A SLAVE and THE BUTLER, which should also get lots of nominations. 

Oscar predictions - maybe too early to say, but I would say Cuaron and GRAVITY for best director and film; Best actor has to include Tom Hanks back on a roll again after several years of films one did not want to see with not only CAPTAIN PHILIPS but also his turn as Walt Disney; Jude Law exposing a lot of himself and putting on weight (looking rather like a young Bob Hoskins!) for DOM HEMINGWAY, Chiwetel Ejiofor (who has been consistently brilliant for years) for 12 YEARS A SLAVE - a very likey bet - and Robert Redford alone at sea at 77! 

I thought Cate Blanchett had it in the bag for BLUE JASMINE but she may have peaked too early, I can picture Dame Judi getting the sentimental vote for the popular PHILOMENA and that story of the Catholic church in Ireland is so resonant; then one has to include Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet, and of course Sandra Bullock. These last three though are previous Oscar Best Actress winners, Cate and Judi are both Best Supporting wins and the Academy may feel its time they got a main award .... they are both terrific in NOTES ON A SCANDAL (above), on tv again this week .... we will be having another look at that. Its certainly one of Judi's best roles.  

On the TV front, the fourth season of DOWNTON ABBEY finished on a low note, but there is the new Christmas Special to look forward to next month, which sees the return of Shirley McLaine with Paul Giamatti and I am pleased to see our English veteran actor James Fox included too, obviously not playing a servant downstairs! Now if they could include an upstairs role for Sarah Miles too - she would be ideal as a disreputable grande dame acquaintance of Dame Maggie's Dowager ! (I saw James and Sarah with co-star Wendy Craig at that screening of Losey's THE SERVANT back in March, to launch its Blu-ray release - which was fascinating (as I had also seen Bogarde and Losey back in the 70s) - how often do you get the stars of a film present to talk about it, 50 years later! (Fox, Miles, Bogarde, Losey labels). 

For viewers in the UK, an amusing story about the popular BBC series LAST TANGO IN HALIFAX, back for a second series next week. It features those two golden oldies Sir Derek Jacobi and Anne Reid as the two old folk who fall in love and decide to get married, to the consternation of their offspring who have their own problems. An interview in "Radio Times" is amusing on how they have both had sex scenes with James Bond - Daniel Craig. Derek in LOVE IS THE DEVIL where he is painter Francis Bacon and Craig his lover (we will be watching and reviewing this soon) and Anne in that 2003 BBC film THE MOTHER where she is the older woman having a fling with the handyman. Derek pointed out that he had slept with Craig twice, whereas Anne had only once - but as she said, she is working on that\!  

Lady Gaga was fabulous and oddly endearing on last week's UK GRAHAM NORTON SHOW, which just gets better and better. After the dull Robert De Niro & Michelle Pfeiffer & Cher last week - this week's sizzled with Lady Gaga wearing that head-dress which kept hitting an amused Jude Law and then veteran English soap actress June Brown came on - and she and Gaga hit it off. June (85 at least) plays the chain-smoking Dot Cotton on UK soap EASTENDERS and is a UK institution. Gaga is lovely with her.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylqQCwvC6Bw

News round-up: Elton, Jacobi, Jasmine, bad reviews, Vanessa, Downton Tabby, A Single Man again ...

Sliding into mid-autumn already here, at least the 2 pigeons who live in the tree in the garden are still around ...

Sirs Elton and Jacobi: I did not think I would be buying any more Elton John albums. Like Rod Stewart (whom I also liked back in that 1970 era - over 40 years ago!) he seemed a spent force now - content to churn out concerts for the faithful who had not seem him yet. At least Dame Elton did not attempt The Great American Songbook or albums of Tamla covers or Christmas songs. His new album however THE IRONING BOARD - sorry, THE DIVING BOARD, has been getting universal raves - like that other '70s figure back with a stunning album this year - David Bowie's THE NEXT DAY.

THE DIVING BOARD is a treat with a host of new songs, some of which I am not too familiar with yet - but "Oscar Wilde Gets Out" is a stunner, with a simple lolloping piano background Bernie Taupin's lyric imagines Oscar's release from prison as he heads off to France and exile. Its going to be a grower, as no doubt will others on here. Recorded with a pared-down unit of piano, bass and drums, it is quite an achievement for an artist in his sixth decade. 
I suppose I could say that I used to 'hang out' with Elton back in the early 70s, that year 1972 when I moved to Chelsea and shared an apartment just off Kings Road, where we could congregate on Saturday afternoons, when Elton would drop in to D J Noel Edmunds' record shop where he would chat and sign albums - he signed my DON'T SHOOT ME I'M ONLY THE PIANO PLAYER gatefold - 

and I also remember chatting to him at Harrods, where he was sporting a pink suit, and with manager John Reid (and we saw 2 early concerts of his, one with Marc Bolan - at one of these I had a spare ticket which I sold to a visiting American or Canadian, who pulled out a large joint during the concert, which we smoked, to my initial "you can't do that here"  - how very rock'n'roll!). This was also the year I met Joni Mitchell, also in Kings Road - people must just have been more approachable back then, they didn't have entourages and were friendly, as both Joni and Elton were. I liked those first 3 albums of his - the ELTON JOHN album, TUMBLEWEED CONNECTION (you can hear Dusty on background vocals) and MADMAN ACROSS THE WATER - even now the opening chords of "Your Song" or "Tiny Dancer" bring it all back - like Rod's "Every Picture Tells A Story". By the time Elton has succumbed to showbiz glitz we had moved on, and also moved from Chelsea, down to South London .... good though to have Elton back, in good health again, and with a successful album, now lets hope its a popular success as well.

Sir Derek Jacobi's book is an engrossing read - a treasure trove of theatrical stories, featuring the likes of "Sir" (Laurence Olivier), Maggie Smith, Sarah Miles, Edith Evans, Ian McKellen and all the others Jacobi worked with, particularly during those great National Theatre days of the '60s. Young Michael York was also there, and it seems they were all besotted with him. He and Jacobi were friends and travelled around Europe, and there is a delicious story of them dropping in on Noel Coward in Switzerland - he had told Derek to drop in if ever passing. Jacobi was also York's best man at his wedding and has some interesting comments on dinner with the Yorks! As I said, a fascinating, easy read. It is though the standard price (£20) for a theatrical memoir but surely with a memoir like this one needs an Index and a full list of stage/film/tv credits (Jacobi keeps busy, with over 130 credits according to IMDB), but they haven't bothered .... It may be worth investing in his turn as Francis Bacon opposite Daniel Craig in LOVE IS THE DEVIL ?; and it looks like there will be a second series of that dreadful sitcom VICIOUS about the bickering old queens. The book is by Derek "as told to Garry O'Connor" (a reliable theatre biographer - he did a tome on Ralph Richardson, as I recall) - and indeed reads like Sir Derek is talking to us himself.  Just one howler: Veteran director Fred Zinnemann (Derek had a part in his DAY OF THE JACKAL is referred to as Fred Zimmermann 3 or 4 times!
Writer David Plante's book BECOMING A LONDONER will also be an engrossing read, covering as it does his arrival here in the '60s and being part of the Hockney/London literati set, due to his relationship with Nikos Stangos ... another fascinating '60s memoir then; also like Victor Spinetti in his delicious memoirs, Sir Derek has only good to say about Richard Burton with some nice tales of Burton's generosity, including to other actors. 

Its been an amusing week for reviews of current events. Two new films have encouraged the critics to heights of new adjectives. R.I.P.D. is DOA and TBA.

"Just when we assumed we'd seen the last of this year's wretched batch of summer blockbusters - many of them commercial and critical duds - one last contender arrives late, limping its way into release. Against stiff opposition R.I.P.D. may be the worst of the lot ... its laughs are almost non-existant, its action depends on seen-it-all-before CGI trickery and its plot defies comprehension" - seems such a waste of Ryan Reynolds and Jeff Bridges - but surely they must have realised what a stinker they were making.

DIANA on the other hand has had them laughing out loud. "An utterly pointless, shoddily scripted biopic that does no honour to the memory of the Princess of Wales .... the film is likely to be best remembered (if at all) for its squirmingly embarassing dialogue and unintentionally comic moments" and "Connoisseurs of awful films will enjoy this fantasy of what famous people are like in private" - its a Rom-Trag (as opposed to rom-com) as the tragedy unfolds. Naomi Watts (so good in EASTERN PRIOMISES, 2000s label) is not even the same height as the real Diana who was very tall. An interesting comment of Camilla Paglia's is quoted - that Diana was the last great silent movie star.

Why though do well-known actresses continue these impersonations?, which can never match the well-known reality - we are also getting Nicole Kidman as GRACE OF MONACO. I think we can safely assume that neither of them will be competing with Cate Blanchett (BLUE JASMINE) or Judi Dench (PHILOMENA) come next award season - here they are in their NOTES ON A SCANDAL in 2006, below The new Woody - his best in years it seems - opens here this week. I loved MIDNIGHT IN PARIS as per my review (2000s label) but just did not want to see his laboured TO ROME WITH LOVE at all. Talk about busy: I just checked Blanchett's profile on IMDB, she has so many current projects in pre and post production, including a Patricia Highsmith: CAROL. Interesting interview with her today too - she has been reading Highsmith novels and showing VERTIGO to her 5-year-old, also saw 2 television interviews with her, so they are certainly promoting the new Allen film! She has also got the well-paid gig of being the face of that new Armani perfume 'Si'. Woody has already had another filmed since JASMINE! (and the ever busy Sir Jacobi pops up in GRACE OF MONACO, like he did in MY WEEK WITH MARILYN!).

Odd reviews too for David Walliams as Bottom in the new A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM - "The Daily Telegraph" hated him, while other reviews have been raves, and it seems the new MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING with Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones, at the Old Vic, has fallen rather flat, with the leads being rather too old. Mark Rylance's production has set the play in 1944 wartime England, hence Vanessa with her gun out shooting rabbits! - like an older version of her lady of the manor in YANKS ?!

Another eye-catching quote - by "Sunday Times" critic A.A. Gill: "Kate Moss's one-liner "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels" is the defining quote of our age". I like it.

Meanwhile, Benedict Cumberbatch looks just right as Alan Turing in that new film he is making with Keira Knightley. I trust it will be true to the Turing story ... (Sir Derek of course also played Turing in BREAKING THE CODE).

The London Film Festival is about to open, and DOWNTON ABBEY is back for its 4th season tonight -  bring on the Gin & Tonic ... yes, Autumn is certainly in full swing! and of course we have STRICTLY COME DANCING too: Keep dancing! and I must get to see that new Italian film THE GREAT BEAUTY in the cinema this week.  

Another look too at Tom Ford's A SINGLE MAN, on tv: I covered this in full in my review (A SINGLE MAN label) - it seems more annoying now: a classic novel turned into a high fashion shoot, with a house and clothes totally not right for 1962 when the story is set, there is no gun or suicide intent in the book where George and Charley (Julianne Moore) are ageing in their late fifties, in rundown homes - not the glamour here in the movie, making it more unlikely that the fit 40s George would suddenly keel over - Isherwood in the novel imagines the time when George's body would give out - not it literally happening there and then when the young student (who is soon got out of his white underwear) is still in the house ....  

How to view DOWNTON ABBEY: Today's papers report complaints about the number of ad breaks in the latest series (fourth) of DOWNTON ABBEY - same as the others then. It seems that of the 90 minute programme 67 were the programme with 23 minutes of adverts, almost at 10 minute intervals. Here's how I watch it:  Record it to your device (Sky+ box in my case), prepare a gin & tonic, and begin watching the recording half an hour or so later, with drink in hand - then you can zap out the commercial breaks as they occur without ruining your enjoyment of the programme! The dvd should be out for Christmas!

And finally: 20 more posts and I will have clocked up 1,000 (as per archive and labels, below, right hand side) - which I think is enough for me, I never imagined I would do that many when I began back in 2010. I think I will have covered all I wanted to by then during my 3 years here, and I do have other writing projects I want to get on with - maybe my own '60s memoir! It won't be farewell though, I shall still be looking in and adding comments and photos of interest - so keep watching! 

Foyle's Vicious War

FOYLE'S WAR or new sitcom VICIOUS ? No contest ...

How pleasant to discover a drama series one did not bother with before, in a new series of British drama FOYLE'S WAR. A new series of 3 episodes set after the war gripped us from the start, as scripted by Anthony Horowitz and starring that under-stated actor Michael Kitchen as our detective, ably aided by his spunky girl friday Honeysuckle Weeks. In the new series she is newly married to a newly elected MP (Member of Parliament) and they live in a perfect pre-fab, one of those pre-fabricated homes built after the war, due to the housing shortage caused by bomb damage, and the then age of austerity.

It was with pleasure I discovered that box-sets of the previous 6 series were available, 22 episodes in all. I ration them out to Sunday night viewing, with a gin & tonic to hand ... 

It is 1940 and Britain stands almost alone against the might of Nazi Germany across the continent. The terrors of nightly bombing raids are only matched by the fear and hysteria of the population at the prospect of the seemingly inevitable German invasion. It is in this environment that Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle, of the Hastings Police on the south coast of England, works. Denied a transfer to the war effort, Foyle is nonetheless forced to confront the darkest acts of humanity on a daily basis. With his official driver, Sam, and his subordinate, Paul Milner, Foyle investigates murders, looting and theft, crimes of opportunism, crimes of war, crimes of passion and crimes of greed, because crime isn't stopped because of warfare.

Life during wartime is splendidly captured in these leisurely episodes with well-worked out stories and lots of period detail. Those cars, those clothes, how people lived then. But these are not done in a conscious way as in star-filled period dramas where the cars and clothes wear the characters ... Kitchen is the perfect actor here, underplaying nicely, a subtle mix of determination and humanity, as he gets to grips with each story, oftren being hindered by the officious secret services who operate as if they are above mere police detection, and lots of regular faces crop up: Rosamund Pike, Edward Fox, Sam West etc.  These are a world away from those for me unwatchable Miss Marple retreads stuffed with famous faces and updating and changing the classic stories. (Much as I like Julia McKenzie, the only Miss Marple for me is Joan Hickson in the 80s BBC versions). The cases involve murder, espionage and robbery on the south coast (the series was filmed, starting in 2002, around Hastings and Rye - also the setting of my beloved MAPP & LUCIA). The ideal series if you like you like well-crafted, intelligent drama. Watching it is like being back in the '40s or as we imagine what the '40s were like ...

Another new series too has caused a lot of consternation. VICIOUS (or VICIOUS OLD QUEENS as it was initially meant to be called) is a new, much publicised comedy series meant to be breaking ground showing the home life of two bickering old gay men, who have been together 48 years .... they bicker constantly but love each other dearly and their best friend Violet (Frances de la Tour) pops in a lot, and there is a gormless young man Ash who moves in to the apartment upstairs whom the older guys inexplicably fawn over .... This was also publicised a lot as it starred Sir Ian McKellen (whom I was chatting to 10 years ago, when out clubbing) and Sir Derek Jacobi - Gandalf and  Claudius, together at last .... but mere words cannot explain how dire and cringe-making it is, and totally dated as if stuck in some 70s timewarp. These two old queens are caricatures and stereo-types as much as Larry Grayson or John Inman ever were. The surprise is that the 2 knights go along with this charade, and that it was written of Mark Ravenhill and Gary Janetti, a writer from WILL & GRACE.  They are such an old fashioned couple - yet they live in Covent Garden. The fun part would have been if they were witty, modern, up-to-date eldergays - as a lot of older gay folk are, with say Joanna Lumley as their witty friend. But no, its painfully unfunny, abysmal and insultingly bad - the level of wit here is "Is Zac Efron a place or a person" which was said not once but several times in the opening episode. A missed opportunity then for showing how fabulous older gays can be .... sorry, Sirs, but I am heading back to the '40s with Inspector Foyle !

Days of future passed ...

..... no, not The Moody Blues - but musings on re-watching some sci-fi, fantasy and Roman history: 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY, LORD OF THE RINGS and I CLAUDIUS, all true epics - among the usual big movies on show over Easter - they always dig out LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, BEN-HUR and good to see BARABBAS on view again later today, its one I missed at the time and is surprisingly involving with a good De Laurentiis cast (Silvana Mangano naturally, but not for long) and that real eclipse of the sun ....

Back to outer space: coming across the brochure for the initial release of 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY the other day (left)  reminded me what an event this was, in Cinerama. My hippie pals of the time, 1968,  went to it repeatedly, and were on acid .... it seemed to be compulstory at the time ... I have of course seen it several times since. I even had a large plastic advertisement sheet (like right) which was used in a display at the WH Smith store in Kingsway, London at the time (as a friend of mine worked there at the time, thanks Joe) which would have been worth quite a bit if I had put it into one of those movie poster auctions Christies do, but when I unrolled it a few years ago it crumbled to pieces as the plastic had all cracked! The perils of keeping things too long ... ! 

The film is still magical to me (I am now going to get it in Blu-ray), I don't think any other space movie looks more believable, no other movie has such amazing visuals for its time, which is incredible when one realises it is almost 50 years old, and its 2001 date is already 12 years in the past .... so this is what the future looked like in 1968? Kubrick shot the moon scenes before the Apollo landing - It's pre-digital but has the most powerful imagery ever and has aged very little as we gaze at those space ships and modules docking and landing on distant planets, as the hostesses defy gravity.

and that amazing essential soundtrack. Kubrick succeeds in making us feel afraid by exploring the magnitude of space and the loneliness of it. Fascinating too is that voyage to Jupiter with Bowman (Dullea) and Poole (Lockwood), and the hibernating crew. One man alone in deep space, being so far away from home is a nightmare concept, especially when the controlling computer HAL reveals his own agenda ... No other movie leaves itself open to discussion like 2001. It is truly meant to be a surreal journey from that dawn of time to the magical cut of the bone and the spaceship ... It is a grand tale, that never dates, full of major human questions. I remember Arthur C Clarke's book was a stunning read too. Kubrick of course did the same with the 18th Century in the langours of BARRY LYNDON which seems a major achievement now too.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy is being repeated too, nice to return to them again, is it really a decade since they burst on the screen? I am not one for special effects or CGI movies - like TROY or KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, which like other CGI spectacles loook empty, fake and hollow. At least with the real epics like EL CID, CLEOPATRA, FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE etc - there may be some fakery and matt effects used, but mainly they look "real" - all those people and sets are usually there. The LOTR trio are an exception though, the special effects mesh seamlessly with the actors and the stunning scenery of New Zealand. It is just brilliantly done, like at the start Gandalf being so big in Bilbo Baggins' delighful home in that idealised Shire. Then there is Mount Doom and Mordar and Rivendell which all look so right. The aged Christopher Lee is amazing as Sauron taking on Gandalf. 

I remember seeing Ian McKellen being mobbed when out clubbing back around 2002 or 2003 - but he was very polite chatting to people, and I had a chat with him myself when I found myself next to him at the bar. As I said everyone wanted to talk about LOTR but I had got his GODS AND MONSTERS dvd that week, so we had a comment on that. He was at the Crash nightclub later that night too ... I can't though for the life of me see how that they (Peter Jackson) can make another trilogy from the 200 page THE HOBBIT ! That original hefty paperback tome of LOTR was an essential read during those late 60s years, when back with my hippie friends (Clive and others) - It took me months to read mine, on the train to and from work each day. This was the era of "International Times", the start of "Time Out", when Gandalf was popular in London with Gandalf's Garden, Middle Earth and other underground clubs, The Roundhouse (where we saw theThe Doors & Jefferson Airplane all-nighter, among others.... the films are a delicious wallow in all that once again. I find the second one rather a slog, with perhaps too much Gollum, but it all comes together perfectly in THE RETURN OF THE KING.

Back to Ancient Rome with the BBC '70s production of I, CLAUDIUS, being repeated once again, I have the dvd but would probably never watch it again, so ideal to record the weekly episodes and re-live it again that way. It has that overlit look of '70s television, unlike today's more natural lighting, but one can forgive it that, when the drama is this good. 

Once again we marvel at Derek Jacobi as Claudius, Sian Phillips as Livia ("don't eat the figs"), John Hurt's demonic Caligula, Margaret Tyzack, Brian Blessed, Patrick Stewart, Ian Ogilvy and so many others ...the sets may be small but it captures the Robert Graves story perfectly and takes its time ... bliss all round then.