Archive for the ‘culture’ Category

tardy girl: part one

Posted: 06/14/2004 in culture, films
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These are very late :)

The Day After Tomorrow – contains extended scenes of peril (never!)

I like a good disaster flick.

Be it flaming meteoroids hurtling towards Earth, Shirley Winters drowning on a capsized ship or the core mysteriously slowing down – I say bring it on. This is a very enjoyable way to waste an afternoon, the cast do a stirling job and bless them for not actually saving the northern hemisphere. Dennis Quaid makes an excellent ‘Cassandra’, as the crumpled climatologist whose predictions fall on deaf ears and then has to haul arse to rescue his estranged son. It would have been more fun if they had played up more of the differences between an arctic expedition over desolate land and the urban landscape. The merry band of survivors hauled up in the NY Public Library weren’t too annoying but if I had been there I would have had every inch of the room they were huddled in filled with books to burn and had a scavenger party dispatched to abandoned vessel before you could mumble ‘frozen sausages’.

The science is obviously wobbly and if they channelled the budget of the film into climate research then the future might be a bit rosier – but that’s as much fantasy as this plot!

Troy – contains strong battle violence (they didn’t call it the battle of Troy for nothing)

I am turning into a bit of an anorak when it comes to the ancient Greeks. I like to think of them as a legalised StarTrek obsession and I can’t get enough of the whole honour/retribution thing (must be my Klingon side). First off, this is a modern interpretation of the Trojan War therefore it does not rigidly follow Homer’s ‘The Iliad‘ – the conflict has been condensed, characters are merged, other’s dispatched where once they survived and we do not see the god involvement (but they are referred to through out). There is a strong cast that add gravatas and support the ‘weaker’ Achilles (plus Hector is the real hero that steals the show). Brian Cox as Agamemnon is a suitable megalomaniac, but he better watch out as he could be evolving into the Scottish Marlon Brando and surely Peter O’Toole’s Priam is a shoe in for an Oscar nod.

It’s a capital adventure and a solid summer blockbuster. Finger’s crossed they do the ‘sequel‘ as Sean Bean makes a heart melting Odysseus.

quote, unquote

Posted: 06/05/2004 in books, culture, studying
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Two pearls from The Odyssey…

‘For we who are people upon this earth are jealous in judgment’ (Book 7, Odysseus smoozing with King Alkinoos).

‘They all would find death was quick and marriage a painful matter’ (Book 17, Penelope hoping her absent husband, Odysseus, would hurry up and come home to deal with the troublesome suitors).

…three guesses what I am revising tonight :)

the shape of things

Posted: 06/05/2004 in culture, london life, theare
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Loved it and Neil Labute rocks.
The cast is awesome.
The staging and set is v Ian Schrager.
Faith restored in the medium of the theatre…..a flutter of air kisses and luvees all round.

oleanna plus romeo & juliet equals cher

Posted: 06/01/2004 in culture, london life, theare
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Book-ending my trip north was some memorable nights out – the theatre trips were disappointing so the winner by a mile was the woman in her fifties belting out songs whilst prancing around in a thong:)

It feels as if Cher has been doing her farewell tour for years but apparently this is it and what a show – Britney and Christina take note. Acrobats, dancers, sequins and an elephant….. I love that Cher answers to no-one and doesn’t give a fig. At one point she dons a costume very similar to the one she was ridiculed for wearing on the ‘Turn Back Time’ video – the only difference is the nylon is a slightly higher denier this decade.

Two things drew me to David Mamet’s Oleanna – his wordsmith and the eye candy that is Aaron Eckhart. I enjoyed the themes raised in the play (is higher education this centuries greatest swindle) and the performances were fine. Strangely, Eckhart came across as more conformable in his role as the professor (though a little young) than Julie Stile’s portrayal as a student – go figure as she is studying at university in real life. The thing that bugged me was that it was rather short, 90 minutes including the interval, and it deserved a third act. There is a power struggle through out – first with the lecturer having the knowledge the student desperately wants, then it flips and the lecturer doesn’t understand the charges of sexual harassment and finally snaps. I thought it would be more interesting if the power flipped again and violence wasn’t the result.

The Globe’s production of Romeo and Juliet was so poor that I was nearly pushed to an act of violence myself. They played the first half for laughs – which undermined the gentle comedic relief that the Nurse brings. Apart from the Friar, nobody else seemed comfortable with the prose and their presentation made it ackward. I felt is a lazy production relying on the awesome setting of the Globe and the jewel coloured costumes.

9 over watched films in my possession

Posted: 05/04/2004 in culture, films, pop culture
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1. Original Stars Wars trilogy
2. Indiana Jones trilogy
3. Withnail and I
4. Grosse Pointe Blank
5. Highlander
6. Thelma and Louise
7. Jurrasic Park
8. Practical Magic
9. Blade Runner

nb. I just wanted to clarify that I don’t keep a log of all the films I watch….I just know which ones I can recite verbatim :)

There was no possibility of taking a walk that day….so we sat about surfing the internet

Posted: 04/11/2004 in books, culture, films
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After stagnating on ‘Jude the Obscure’ for nearly a month, I set myself the challenge of racing Radio 4′s Book @ Bedtime to see who could finish ‘Jane Eyre’ first.

Since I am not restrained to fifteen minutes Monday to Friday, it is no surprise that I have won :)

I found it rather unsettling – my memory of Jane was as a timid mouse of a character (a la Fanny Price of Mansfield Park) but she is a scheming little vixen and cut from the same cloth as Becky Sharp. I would not have put it past her to have set Rochester’s bed alight herself!

I am ashamed to admit it but I saw a very bad film about Rochester and his first wife Wide Sargasso Sea, I lay the blame squarely with cable and it was definitely a mortgage movie for all concerned! A mixture of corsets, voodoo and clipped British accents….I hang my head in shame….

Faith restored

Posted: 03/24/2004 in culture, films
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Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself is an extraordinary film that has an old fashioned flavour with a twist of Capra.

It is set in Glasgow and is the tale of two brothers who are left to run their father’s run down second hand bookshop. Harbour is the sensible one and protective of his troubled, younger sibling Wilbur. As the title suggests Wilbur is bent on ending his life – unfortunately (or fortunately) he is incompetent. He grows more despondent with every failed attempt and more humiliated every time he returns to the suicide help group. Enter Alice, a single mother, who entwines herself in both their lives.

This is an exceptional black comedy – smart and ultimately a very satisfying experience.

Run me a bath I feel cheated and dirty….

Posted: 03/22/2004 in culture, films
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I have a pretty high tolerance for bad movies. Give me an entertaining or visually pleasing picture that are either flawed or otherwise vacuous (The Core, Fast and the Furious, GI Jane, Terminator or Alien 3 to name a few) and you wont here me complain. Unfortunately, Taking Lives built itself up to be a smart, scary thriller but turned out to be IMO a dead donkey. It stars the uber talented Angelina Jolie and the premise was intriguing – I had hopes of The Bone Collector spliced with Prime Suspect. The superb cast is underused (as is Montreal), the twists are easier to work out than your average episode of Law & Order and then the plot line starts to fall away.

I haven’t read the book, but I do intend as I have a feeling that it makes a better job of weaving a story that enthrals and entertains.

Dusting off my compassion

Posted: 03/21/2004 in books, culture, daily life
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Oh my, what a busy few days – I was so glad when they let me finish my shift early so I could amble home and slump in front of the computer. Hard enough being a dynamic, multi tasking, 21st C gal but throw in a sick Alex and even I am struggling to keep up. I was v worried on Saturday as he only (half heartily) checked his email once, lucky it only seems to be a 24hr bug and he is now merrily programming away.

This months reading group proved to be another lively debate. I don’t think ‘Flowers for Algernon’ was to everyone’s taste. I feel that SciFi stories tend to date, so whilst I enjoyed it I had to keep in the back of my mind that it was written forty odd years ago. The general opinion was that Algernon was indicative of that decade, over time the themes become less powerful and maybe in twenty years time the same would be thought of ‘Lovely Bones’.

I guess I better return to tending to the sick….

Arts imitation of life.

Posted: 03/18/2004 in culture, daily life, films, Radio
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For the first time in the history of the UN a film is being shot on site, The Interpreter, and this was my shallow motivation for visiting last weekend. As it turned out the tour around the building and learning about it’s history were far more interesting than spying on the extra’s milling around. Our tour guide was v friendly and informative. It’s such a great accomplishment having a delegates from 191 countries gathered together but very frustrating when you realise all the restriction the UN operates under. When we were in the General Assembly the actors playing the delegates started to come in and our guide found it v amusing that there seemed to be an equal spilt between the sexes when in reality the majority of the countries representatives are male. So at least we have equality in celluloid :)

This evenings episode of The Archers should be a blast – at the Borchester Land Conservative Dinner Dance (or what ever the proper title is). Brian is coming across as a don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t want to know type regarding Adam’s new boyfriend and Lillian bumping into her ex-flame Matt and his wife should make an interesting menage a trois!

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