Spotlight. A Bigger Splash and Triple 9

Always interesting but more in a drama documentary style, Spotlight fails to catch fire. The investigation is carefully plotted and meticulous in it's depiction of the journalist's search for the truth. It just felt a little flat and cold without engaging us emotionally. I expected a bigger reaction from the church that might have put the whole purpose at risk, but no. Tom McCarthy directs with a plan but no heart. All the acting is very fine but somehow without an intensity that might have made a difference.

Maybe it's me, but A Bigger Splash was another movie that could have been more emotionally involving. I guess if Tilda Swinton's recovering rock star Marianne Lane could have spoken (her throat condition only allows some occasional whispers) this might have been a great film.The first half was good but it overstays it's welcome in a slightly tedious second. Who wants to see them shopping? The few flashbacks were superb and I wanted to see more. Again the acting was sound, Ralph Fiennes maybe doing too well to be the annoying visitor.

At last, a promising police thriller full of corrupt cops and Russian mobsters. Unfortunately the dark intensity prescribed by director John Hillcoat misfires. These movies never need the unflinching  seriousness of the acting and the script, we just need to hear the words, explain what is going, a bit of light (think of the far, far superior The Inside Man) and get on with the action. "Predictable and incoherent at the same time" said one critic close to the mark. Woody Harrelson tries his best to lighten up and Kate Winslet is unrecognisable as the Russian mafia boss. This character needs her own movie.

4 Years of Running, and 100 Parkruns

My first ever run was on 16th February 2012. Just a very slow 2 miles with rests. Alison was pacing me for those first few runs, but off on my own I was running far too fast and ended up with a calf strain in April.

My first Parkrun was on the 31st March at Black Park, amazing I could run a 5K under 30 minutes. I can remember so well running with Alison and couldn't  believe how fast we started. But then came that injury which set me back a few weeks.

Saturday was my 100th Parkrun. As Alison wasn't there, I thought this milestone might just slip under the radar. No chance. Our run director Graham announced my name at the start. I could not believe how loud was the applause, mainly because we don't have that many runners (170). I doffed my running cap.

At the end lots of runners came up to talk to me including a chap I have never seen before who asked me questions on the way round. And then there was Neil who, having finished a lot earlier, ran with me the last couple of hundred yards so he could shout out "100" as we approached the finish. Thanks Neil.

Lissie Maurus at the O2 Forum Kentish Town

A change of venue from the Shepherd's Bush Empire to The Forum in Kentish Town took me to a part of London that was new to me. I didn't leave home until just before 7pm, drove to High Barnet station and took the eight stops on the Northern Line to Kentish Town. So I was at the venue at 8.20 pm and took in the last half of the support act The Travelling Band.

Lissie came on at just after 9 pm so not long between acts. Seventeen songs was a good number, especially as her backing group (the same Travelling Band) had only learnt the songs a week ago. She started with Hero, one of the best songs from her brand new (released last Friday) album my Wild West. In fact she performed five from this new CD which was about right. In fact Ojai as the penultimate song before the encore was great but following it with the new ordinary Shroud might have been a mistake.

But the setlist did contain most of her best old numbers including two fabulous unaccompanied acoustic  versions of Oh Mississippi followed by the outstanding Bully. When the band returned, we were soon onto the up tempo Don't You Give Up On Me,  Further Away (Romance Police) and the rocking new Daughters (on YouTube) only to be followed by my favourite ballad Everywhere I Go. 

Two excellent encores from her brilliant debut, and never bettered, album Catching a Tiger came Little Lovin' and In Sleep. That made six songs from that CD including those two acoustic numbers. That's what we wanted!

Terry Wogan

Like many people, Terry Wogan was a big part in my life. I first listened to his breakfast show in 1972 on my longish car journey from Farnsfield in Nottinghamshire to the site office at Bretton in Peterborough. These were the days of "Fight the Flab" but more importantly the mixture of great records and his Irish blarney.

A few years went by after we moved to Peterborough and then I was back listening in 1977, this time on another long journey to Harlow and Cheshunt. And then in 1979 on the morning drive from our home in Puckeridge to the office in High Wycombe. All the way through to Terry leaving Radio 2 in 1984, there were many early morning journeys in the early eighties around the various contracts in the south east and trips to head office all to the accompaniment of Wake Up to Wogan.

I have been trying to remember some of wordplay that punctuated his show, but so far I have only come up with Burley Chassis (for every single playing of a Shirley Bassey record) and the Bag of Spanners that were The Corrs. There were many more. Thanks Terry.

Room, The Big Short and The Revenant

It's Oscar season and all the films up for rewards come thick and fast. My favourite of these three is definitely Room. We read the novel by Emma Donoghue  for book club and having enjoyed it so much, wondered if the movie would be a disappointment. It wasn't. The author had written the screenplay and what a clever and emotional interpretation she made. The suspense was incredible, and the powerful story powerful alternates between  gruelling and uplifting. This is due to superb direction by Lenny Abrahamson and a stand out performances from Brie Larson as the mother and young Jacob Tremblay as Jack. And we have to guess why William H Macy cannot look at his grandson. A truly riveting movie.

 

How else to make a movie about the seriously fraudulent American housing mortgage crash of 2008 but to create a zany crazy picture of the zany crazy traders who spotted the crisis and themselves made a bundle. So an immensely enjoyable film about a highly worrying financial scandal. How else could writer and director Andy McKay (also writer for Will Ferrell movies that I hate) make such a movie. So we get a clever and funny screenplay and great turns from the likes of Christian Bale and Steve Carell. However the lasting impression is that the this was too raw a subject to deal with in this way. A guilty pleasure.

I tried hard to avoid The Revenant. I was not looking forward to a  raw and pulverising two and a half hours. When Mark Kermode said even he had to close his eyes to the bear attack, I thought no. But then there were the Oscar nominations so I forced myself to watch this ultimately powerful and brilliantly filmed piece of American history. I felt the cinematography was superior to anything I had seen before and created a new benchmark for outdoor scenes. Director Alejandro Inarritu and camerman Emmanuel Lubezski made it feel as if we were right there in the real wild west. Only Roger Deakins came close this year with his filming on Sicario.

This is maybe a movie to be endured, the wild frontier (the Davy Crockett song entirely missed the hardness of life on the edge) was an awesome sight. A story about endurance of the most difficult kind was, in the end, never boring. And then there was that first 20 minutes where the ferocity of the Indian attack and then the bear from which I never really recovered for the rest of the film. For a pure nerve shattering experience, it reminded me of the opening horrors of Saving Private Ryan. Leonardo DiCaprio was never the world's best actor, but what he goes through will probably win him an Oscar. And it will also push for best film (but not mine). Although how costumes are also nominated I will never know!

Stone Mattress, The Glorious Heresies and A God in Ruins

Not normally a fan of short stories, it was only that the author of Stone Mattress was Margaret Atwood that made me give them a try. And I'm so glad I did. Her writing has always been a delight but here she has sharpened her wit pen and turned it on the dark matter of the end of life. So what we get are brilliantly subtle pieces that are as good as anything she has ever written. Even Charis, Roz and Tony put in an appearance as a tiny sequel to "The Robber Bride", obviously after demise of Zenia. This is one book to which I shall certainly return.

The Glorious Heresies is an incredibly rude, slangy story, full of drugs, alcohol and sex. The underworld of an Irish city is beautifully portrayed in the language of the gutter. It took some getting used to but when I finally sorted out who was who and why, this debut novel from Lisa McInerny became a gripping tale of the secrets, lies and murder. Modern catholic Ireland comes in for hammering, both in terms of religion and finance. Low level gangsters permeate this novel like a bad hangover, and there plenty of those. What will this brilliant new writer come up with next?

I am a huge fan of Kate Atkinson, possibly my favourite author. I gave five stars to "Life after Life" and wished I could give it more. Same again for "Not the End of the World" which I described as "sharp, witty, intelligent, modern. In fact everything I love in a book. Pure genius.". Unfortunately A God in Ruins was a huge disappointment. Sharp? No. Witty? Missing completely (where were those big laughs in the brackets that punctuate the novel?) Intelligent? Hardly. Modern? Undoubtedly but somehow misguided this time?

The central story of Teddy's exploits with bomber command in World War 2 left me cold, somehow I think that this was not Atkinson's area (sharp, witty, intelligent all missing) and she treats her hard researched facts with ponderous respect. All the more surprising when early on Teddy's parents refer to the earlier war which had been "a rip in the fabric of their lives and she had sewn it up neatly" and their neighbour comments "unless you can do very good invisible stitching, there'll always be a scar won't there?". Trademark Atkinson but rarely repeated.

The family drama is actually a lot better than Teddy's war. But Atkinson's ultimate trick means we have to get a rather dismal look at his family post war. I don't think that worked very well compared with her earlier novels where the characters maybe flawed but are never boring. How it could win the Costa Novel award over Patrick Gale's "A Place Called Winter" is a travesty. Having said all that, even a disappointing Kate Atkinson book is better than most fiction.