Movies at Home: The Truth, Paris Texas and Youth

 

Well her daughter didn't think it was, The Truth that is. Legendary actress Fabienne played by the imperious Catherine Deneuve has published her memoirs. But her daughter, screenwriter Lumir played by Juliette Binoche, has taken exception and maybe in retaliation is making Memories of my Mother, a scfi drama. So this is all set up for some wonderful sparring between two actresses at the top of their game. Add in Ethan Hawke as Lumir's husband and a failing actor and there is lots to enjoy. Director Hirokazu Kure-eda in his first non Japanese feature has made the most of the film's settings in a luxury Villa and the scenes in Paris. After all their arguments, the two stars agree that "we get each other". Whether that is for better or worse, we are left to ponder. I have added the director's 2018 Palme d'Or winner Shoplifters to my to see list.

Another top director, Wim Wenders won the 1984  Palme d'Or at Cannes for Paris, Texas. In a desert in West Texas strides Travis Henderson (Harry Dean Stanton) looking like some kind of drifter. We watch the landscape, a silent man and the guitar of Ry Cooder. Just a haunting theme. A card in his pocket leads to a rescue by his long lost brother Walt who takes him home. Here I was so impressed by his ever loving wife Anne played majestically by Aurore Clement. The problem is that they took in Travis' son Hunter when Travis disappeared and this new relationship with his father is an emotional part of the film. Hunter's mother Jane gave him to her brother Walt to look after as she could not cope.

But what interested me was the location of the house high up in the Verdugo Hills overlooking Burbank Airport and the city suburbs way below. Later Travis and Hunter make the effort to track down Jane (Nastassja Kinski) and for some reason, it is she who fronts most of the film's posters. The movie is of it's time that is 1984. I found the first longer half far superior to the second, almost like two different films. It's quite a sad movie, lit up by some outstanding performances and the staggering light. 

This movie was also discussed by David Thomson in his book "Have You Seen.....". He says "I used to like it very much". But he is now less impressed and finds it "uncomfortable". As I said, it is of it's time.

Saved by a wonderful performance by Michael Caine, Youth could have been so much better. Instead of concentrating on the drama, it drifts off into art house type visuals as images are patched in. In the most luxurious hotel up in the beautiful mountains of Switzerland congregate the rich and the famous. The elderly ex conductor Fred Ballinger (Caine) is here on his usual summer break. Also here are Harvey Keitel  as Mick Boyle, a film director not accepting he is way past his sell by date. They do have some interesting conversations, but not enough that we can understand their past. 

Also here is Rachel Weisz as Ballinger's daughter and Paul Dano as actor Jimmy Tree getting into a new role. So there was plenty to look forward to, but unfortunately it is only the scenery and hotel interiors that are the best things about this movie. Co-writer/director Paolo Sorrentino thinks a number of short scenes can make up for the lack of a coherent narrative. He was wrong.

A note about the hotels used for the film. The 19th century Waldhous Flims Resort Spa, a five star hotel, and a few valleys away, the Besshotel Schatzalp in Davos. It  had the perfect view. Travel expert Simon Calder (who we love) said the film "knitted together two historic hotel resorts in mountainous Eastern Switzerland", courtesy of Emily Rose Mawson in The Independant.

Alice Guy at the Olympic Opening Ceremony

 

My post of the 27th February this year about Alice Guy was inspired by an article in the March edition of Sight and Sound magazine. The first female film director was French, and here she was, rising from The Seine at the Olympic Opening Ceremony along with nine other remarkable women from that country in the "Equalite" section. 

It took me a long time to find this photograph, most publications included photos of other statues of the ten. But then, low and behold, I found a piece from yalefilmarchive, who proudly announced this was she of their Alice Cinema. Hurrah!

Rose Blue for You

 

This was the rose Blue for You in June when it had masses of flowers. By early July they had faded and it was time for a pruning and feeding.

It is now ready to bloom again and I counted eighty six new buds. It seems to do well in a sheltered spot in the side patio next to the brick wall, soaking up the heat. The flowers are just beginning to arrive. They seem to be more blue than last month.

Cordon Tomatoes

 

When Alison brought home a tomato plant that had been given to her by her friend Phyllis, my reaction was that I no longer do veg. However, I was persuaded to give this a go, and started with planting it in a large container and placing it at the junction of the back wall and the conservatory.

Cordon tomatoes are grown on a single stem and are also known as vine tomatoes. All side shoots need to be pinched out and then also the top when it achieves the desired height. In our case at the top of our tallest support. It was lucky I had a full bottle of tomato feed. There are now about a dozen tomatoes having formed, Alison having the most important duty of counting them.

The Seventh Son, Yellowface and Family Album

 

Despite the fact that some of the science is baffling, ("sequencing the genome of homovannesiensis") this is a terrific novel. Set in the future, Seth is the product of some highly unethical engineering headed by billionaire and rogue scientist Lukas Parn. Talissa Adam thinks, as a surrogate, that she is simply carrying the baby for another couple that will fund her research. Little does she know.

We follow Seth as he grows up with his family. He goes to school where, although a little different to the other children, that is nothing really remarkable. The conversation the parents have with his teacher a the end of term is brilliantly subtle and superbly written. Fast forward to Seth at university and one of the oldest colleges. He hardly attends lectures but has some odd ability. In time something leaks about his background. Talissa comes back into the story, her later relationship with Seth (and his parents) is quite remarkable.

I'm afraid this was not my kind of book. Possibly a novel for readers much younger than me, maybe the language seeming how they must communicate. There was very little subtlety in the prose, but lots of swearing to compensate. The narrator was the most awful person that you could imagine. Fortunately I know no-one remotely like her. And it does the book absolutely no favours.

"Don't we all want a friend who won't challenge our superiority". That's June Hayward moaning about her successful "friend" Athena Linn. Well, that doesn't last long. One reviewer says it's "a lackluster examination of plagiarism, privilege and cultural appropriation that is too assured in it's own rightness". So is this a satire that just ploughs relentlessly forward to an ending that is even worse than what went before? I have no idea.

In 2012 our book club read "Moon Tiger" by this author. We were all very impressed by the novel and in my blog posting of 1st November I left a note to read another of Penelope Lively's books. It has taken me over thirteen years to do that, and only because an article in the Sunday Times on the 14th June included this book in "what to read if you loved Tom Lake". That is a new novel by Ann Patchett, a favourite author and just ordered today. The others listed were books I had read: Elizabeth Strout's "Olive Kitteridge" (27th September 2016), Anne Tyler's "Breathing Lessons" (27th January 2015) and Tessa Hadley's "The Past" (12th September 2016). The only one I had not read was Rose Tremain's "Absolutely and Forever" despite all those others of hers on my shelf.

Back to "Family Album" set in Allersmead, the large aging family home of the Harpers. Six, yes six, children. It took me a while to work out who was who as the story switches back and forth in time. The parents are Alison and Charles, children Paul, Gina, Sandra, Katie, Roger and Clare. We find out all about their childhood and later lives. Not forgetting Ingrid, a live in help for their mother. The descriptions of  the lives of this family are sometimes amusing, sometimes fractious, always interesting. Charles is an academic author of some well received works, but has trained himself to keep in his study and deaf to the goings on in the house.

Each child is introduced in later life as they arrive for a family party, a silver wedding. But mostly the first half is about childhood such as a holiday in Crackington Haven. Later, with the children grown, there are little gems with Paul back at Allersmead, always the black sheep of the family. There are wonderful sections for each of the family, with those parts that involve Gina that are just fabulous. Even Ingrid gets her own story. However, I had forgotten that Lively is such a great writer, I enjoyed dawdling over a paragraph wondering how you get to write this well. Poles apart from a book like "Yellowface".

The Garden in July

The main border is, perhaps, past it's best. But what is interesting is that some plants are now thriving as others fade. 

The bedding border now has verbena in different colours after the original dwarf dahlias were a disaster. But I did have room for half a dozen new ones which seem to be fine. Most not yet in flower.

Some of the roses have finished their first flowering and have new buds for a second bloom. Especially the rose Blue for You. Others are still in flower. Another "good year for the roses".

At the front of the side patio border, an echinacea has popped up.  I cannot remember where this came from, someone must have given it to me, or maybe from a seed packet. But it is doing OK, in about 5mm of soil. The asters are trying to invade it's space.

Only one of the three hostas at the end of the side patio has flowers. Not sure why.

I love the agapanthus, although they might look better in border than in a container. But this is their  third year.

I removed that very tall plant that was dominating the hot bed. The achillea seem better having been pruned earlier in the year. And the poppy has started to flower again.

See other posts for Hypericum Hidcote and the Acanthus. 

Next, a couple of photos from the end of the long border that do not get much attention. At the top, the yellow anthemis is backed by the white astrantia, and below the good old heuchera still flowers after all these years. Somewhere at the back, a transplanted piece of acanthus still appears every year.

There is a separate post for the large Acanthus, but due to the blight that has attacked the leaves, it has been cut back to leave a couple of new stems.

I found a rogue Buddleia in the long border that has now been removed and a peg inserted where it used to be in case it reappears. The whole area around the roses looks far better, especially the poppies.

And finally, the area at the end behind the laurels where I used to have the compost heaps, has now been completely cleared of the prunings of the leylandii from last years visit. An interesting area for the future. The stumps from the old Aylesbury Prune trees that died refuse to break down despite stump killer. 

 

Noel Coward's Present Laughter - National Theatre Live

 

I can understand why the poster for Present Laughter has just a photo of Andrew Scott as he is the main attraction. However this play is definitely an ensemble piece featuring  a wonderful cast of ten. Written by Noel Coward in 1939, it was first performed in 1942 with Coward in the main role of Garry Essendine, almost a parody of himself. Here Garry is brilliantly played by Andrew Scott in his Olivier award winning performance. 

I'm not sure why I have never seen this play before, as it has been revived many times over the years with notable actors in the lead role. I avoided all reviews so knew nothing about the plot. The first two acts revolve around Garry's household and their many visitors. All seem to want a piece of Garry, a famous actor,  and his hysterics are almost forgivable. The third and last act turns into something more like a farce, but at all times this is a welcome comedy. I laughed a lot and much is down to Scott and the cast. 

The other two actors that were very familiar were the excellent Indira Varma as Garry's wife Liz (picture below) and the wonderful Sophie Thomson as his secretary and general factotum Monica Reed. i found afterwards that director Matthew Warchus has changed the gender of a couple of the cast but I would not have guessed. They obviously add to the general chaos of Garry's life. But maybe he brings it all upon himself. It was great.

Hitman, A Quiet Place - Day One and Fly Me to the Moon

 

A partly true story about Gary Johnson who, although not a detective, worked undercover in Texas posing as a hitman. Glen Powell is excellent in this role, although I thought he was a little wooden in Anyone But You. However, all the cast are great under the superb direction of Richard Linklater. so a highly entertaining movie. I wasn't sure where it was going in the first hour, but the twists and turns in the final third are terrific. A film with nearly all dialogue for an hour and three quarters. That's just up my street.

Having seen the previous two films, I had no intention of seeing another in this franchise. But Wendy Ide in The Guardian gave it four stars, and it did seem different. This was my first time back to the Odeon in Aylesbury, having given up my Cineworld season ticket at Hemel Hempsted, and invested in a new monthly pass. The screens are smaller than I was used to, so will just have to go nearer the front. But the seats in this "Luxe" conversion are deep, wide  and spacy.

As for the film, I enjoyed the locations in New York, especially inside an office block and a church as our intrepid duo seek shelter from the alien invasion. The plot of this prequel, such as it is, is well constructed and at least lets us know how we got to those later stories. Lupita Nyong'o is very good in the lead and has good support. The director has, thank goodness, spared us from too many scenes that involve the aliens. The story is all about survival and that is fine. All the better for being a ninety minute movie. And that Frodo, the black and white cat steals the show.

There is so much that is wrong with this film, I wonder why I enjoyed it so much. I'm just glad I didn't read any of the, mostly, awful reviews before I went. It is too long (well over two hours) especially for a light relationship film. There is zero chemistry between the two stars despite Scarlett Johansson's best efforts. She is by far the very best thing about this movie, Channing Tatum is the worst. Almost an embarrassment, he should stick to action films, here he is completely wooden and out of his depth. Johansson is constantly appealing, charismatic and totally carries the film. It is actually quite weak when she is not on screen. 

So this is partly a rom com (no. not really), docu drama, light comedy and history lesson. It has high production values, a huge cast and it looked really good. Costume designer Mary Zophres has made the ladies look fashionable for the time. Except that the mainly male cast all look the same. Assistant Anna Garcia (a rising star) started with an orange and black striped dress that looked like our very first sofa from 1968). Woody Harrelson is a cut above in acting terms as the nasty government fixer. Writer Rose Gilroy has made a very decent script. The film was light and enjoyable and despite it's failings, I loved it. 

The soundtrack was OK. Sweet Soul Music, These Foolish Things, Moon River, To Love Somebody and Fly Me to the Moon among others. But I wanted a much better choice.

In July 1969 I was twenty four and I set my alarm for the moon landing of Apollo 11. Half asleep, I watched in awe along with countless millions of others. History in the making. 

There Can't Be A Fine Picture Without A Fine Script

 

An article FROM THE ARCHIVE in this year's summer edition of Sight and Sound Magazine is headed by the title above. The director Elia Kazan's contribution in the summer of 1957 was all about the writers. This was after a dozen or so years directing films such as A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront and East of Eden. He talks about his first producer Louis Lighton "working on the script". (Is that what producers actually do?). He remembers his first day at Twentieth Century Fox and lunch at the commissary, (my old company built a commissary store at the US airforce base at Lakenheath) and describes the setting out of the tables. All those for the producers reserved along the best wall and then  the stars in the middle. But that remote table was for .... the writers.  They "seemed to be embarrassed to be there". "As I say, I'd come from Broadway where the writer was God and his lines were sacrosanct by contract".

Kazan talks about the studios having bought the book rights and turned it over to the "construction man" to put the plot into shape, then over to the "dialogue man", then the "polish man" and maybe an "additional dialogue man" before the producer and even others who work on the final version of the script. "All pretty confusing" and it did "thrust power and pre-eminence on the directors".

But things have changed. He goes on the mention the recent Academy Awards (1957 remember) where three films were recognised where the writers "carried through from start to finish". "So now the writers, who used to sit in that caustic clump in the farthest corners of the studio commissary, are being brought forward. A number have been moved forward to non-writing jobs. Above all, writers are being invited ...... to write original and serious pictures. The last is the big step, and the big hope". 

Sight and Sound Magazine - Summer 2024

 

The Summer Edition of Sight and Sound has the following description on their website: From our vantage point in 2024, we sit one quarter of the way through the 21st century. To acknowledge this milestone, we have enlisted the help of 25 of our finest critics, asking each to nominate a film that is significant within our cinematic era – the kind of film that could be put into a time capsule for the cinephiles of the 22nd century and beyond to marvel at, a movie that is both representative of and a high watermark of the years 2000 to 2024. 

Listed in chronological order, these 25 entries – one from each year – form a fascinating snapshot of our times. With no aspirations to comprehensiveness, this is a subjective, esoteric, perhaps even provocative, collection of films. From the UK to Brazil to China to Lesotho, from independent breakthroughs to Hollywood hits to the utterly uncategorisable, our cover feature celebrates the films of the century so far.

The EDITORIAL (Mike Williams) in this edition chooses a Thai director as the most significant film maker of the century so far. Just because his films regularly make the top ten in each year. Apichatpomg Weerasethakul. No, I had never heard of him either. Or any of his movies. Then extensive name checks of other directors who made those top tens. 

Fast forward to IN PRODUCTION where Ruben Ostlund (I enjoyed his The Square and Triangle of Sadness)  is working on his new film The Entertainment System in Down. Shot on board a real airliner where the passengers have a "bumpy ride".

IN CONVERSATION is with screenwriter Efthimis Filippou who describes his relationship with director Yorgos Lanthinos on their new film Kinds of Kindness where a starry cast led by Emma Stone and Willem Dafoe appear in all three stories. Filippou sounds like a writer on the edge of extreme who has to be reigned in.

There are normally four articles in the TALKIES section starting with Nicole Flattery's FLICK LIT. About James Baldwin's 1976 book of film criticism. Then Pamela Hutchinson's THE LONG TAKE where this month she talks about female film directors. From Alice Guy-Blache to Emily Blunt in Te Fall Guy. Then TV EYE  by Andrew Male where the BAFTA TV Award for Best International Series went to  Class Act. And lastly THE MAGNIFICENT '74 by Jessica Kiang, a homage to Chinatown's "convincing storytelling". But, for me, the movie is completely let down by the ending (see post 18th January this year) and how Roman Polanski changed Robert Towne's ending for something much darker and totally unsatisfactorily. The crooks win!

Over fourteen pages, the CANNES BULLETIN has ten articles including one on Francis Ford Coppola's  Megalopolis and Sean Baker's Palme d'Or winner Anora. If I had to look out for one film of the couple of dozen from the festival it would have to be Emilia Perez that won the jury prize.

Then we come to the main section of this edition: FILMS OF THE CENTURY. (So far). Twenty five critics choose an "era defining" film for each year  from 2000 to 2024. First up is Agnes Varda's The Gleaners and I from 2000 and chosen by Pamela Hutchinson, then in 2001 comes Steven Spielberg's  A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Park Chan-Wook's marvellous Old Boy is Hannah McGill's choice for 2003 that is followed by an article from October 2004's FROM THE ARCHIVE. It includes eight stills from the film, each with an explanation. Other picks are David Cronenberg's A History of Violence from 2005 and Jordan Peele's 2017 film Get Out.

TIMELINE OF THE CENTURY lists Sight and Sounds top ten films for each year. from 2005 to 2023. Here are the number ones for each year together with my choice from the other nine that I would like to see for the first time or to see again.

2005   Brokeback Mountain                       The Beat My Heart Skipped

2006   Hidden                                             Hidden

2007   4 Months 3 Weeks and Two Days    Inland Empire      (Five other brilliant films)

2008   Hunger                                            Gomorrah

2009   A Prophet                                         Let the Right One In

2010   The Social Network                         Winter's Bone    

2011   The Tree of Life                                A Separation

2012   The Master                                       Berberian Sound Studio

2013   The Act of Killing                             Frances Ha

2014   Boyhood                                           Leviathan

2015   The Assassin                                     Son of Saul

2016   Toni Erdmann                                   American Honey

2017   Get Out                                             Twin Peaks - The Return

2018   Roma                                                 Leave No Trace

2019   The Souvenir                                     The Irishman                                     

2020   Lovers Rock                                      The Power of the Dog

2021   The Souvenir Part 2                          Petite Maman

2022   Aftersun                                             Saint Omer

2023   Killers of the Flower Moon              Do not expect too much from the End of the World

OZPOCALYPSE NOW

A major piece on Furiosa: A Mad Max Story with an interview with George Miller.

AUTEUR'S THE RIGHT WORD

A previously unpublished interview by Matthew Thrift with director Roger Corman (who died in May at the age of 98), "the undisputed king of the American B movie". And a "giant of American independent cinema". The interview was originally commissioned for a magazine that went bust. Then he came to the UK and made all those Edgar Allan Poe movies such as The Fall of the House of Usher. (There is a full page photo of Vincent Price).

REVIEWS

There are twenty new films that have reviews, mostly international. There is one for Furiosa where the franchise is "losing steam", and for The Bikeriders "a void in the film's heart". Kinds of Kindness is too long and Tom Shone said avoid, and the others were of no interest.

In REDISCOVERY, Heartbreakers from 1984 is only on Blu Ray.

In DVD'S AND BLU RAY up pops Stephen Poliacoff's Hidden City with Charles Dance and Cassie Stewart from 1987. A paranoid thriller from a favourite writer and director.  Coming soon from the  BFI at £16.99. Maybe not.

WIDER SCREEN features "Dawn of the Ted", a review of the book "Teddy Boys: Post War Britain and the first youth revolution". 

In the BOOKS section comes the latest in the BFI Film Classics Collection, David Wier's "The Leopard", describing the 1963 "classic". The vast collection also includes books on films from Midnight Cowboy to Pulp Fiction and TV series from The Singing Detective  to Prime Suspect. all mostly at £22.99 each! But I have found and bought Blade Runner on eBay for £4.60.

Saved the best for (almost the) last. FROM THE ARCHIVE is from the summer edition of 1957 and "There cannot be a fine picture without a fine script". The director Elia Kazan wrote about the writers. This will have it's own post.

ENDINGS has an article about the 1971 movie Straw Dogs, "a model of escalating suspense". In particular the smile to camera at the end from Dustin Hoffman. Director Sam Peckinpah has a script only very loosely based on the book "The Siege at Trencher's Farm". Some staggering twists and turns in the last part and those last lines as Hoffman and David Warner have no idea where they are going. 

                                

Goodbye Cineworld Unlimited - and Hello Odeon my LIMITLESS Plus

 

It was sometime after I retired seventeen years ago that I registered for a Cineworld Unlimited card at Hemel Hempstead. My first red card was cancelled during Covid but then a black card arrived with some more benefits. 

But now the journey is becoming a little tiring, and sometimes the sound is too loud. There also seem to be fewer films that I want to see and I can still go to Hemel occasionally, or Aylesbury and the Rex at Berkhamsted. Anything over two hours is now too long, unfortunately, hence avoiding Furiosa. 

So thank you Cineworld for all those years of seventeen screens and free parking. Just a shame it was not a bit nearer.

This week I had a look what was on at the Odeon in Aylesbury and saw that there were positive reviews for A Quiet Place - Day One. Odeon have a monthly subscription called myLIMITLESS Plus. It was slightly more expensive than the standard price as Aylesbury is an Odeon Luxe. The seats are huge and the leg space massive. And still cheaper than Cineworld.  However, the screens are not as big and there will be slightly less choice of film. I don't get a card, everything is online and I just take my mobile phone. It worked!

Acanthus hungaricus "White Lips"

 

The Acanthus near the conservatory has always done well over the years. But never as spectacularly as this year. So far twenty five flower spikes. It will be interesting to see how tall they grow.

Hypericum Hidcote

 

In June last year, I posted the picture below of the Hypericum where all the stems had died in the heavy frosts the previous winter. This Spring, there were signs of new growth and this week it has flowered. It doesn't seem to mind the poor soil.