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. 

Philip Concannon in Sight and Sound Magazine September 2024: There is something satisfying and all too rare about enjoying a crowd pleasing entertainment.

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.