The End of Oak Street, Spa Weekend and Tony

In the absence of any intelligent movies during the summer holidays (except for The Odyssey, which I have already seen twice), I found The End of Oak Street. A typically strange fantasy family drama with added dinosaurs. A lot of running, chasing, and searching, and that's just these prehistoric creatures. Yes, and the parents and children too. The former are actually big stars in their own right. Goodness knows what Ewan McGregor and Anne Hathaway thought they were doing. They are almost unrecognisable. Their daughter was OK, but their son is such a pathetic creature. Poor child, he was written as this awful wimp. He's only happy with his dog and doesn't take much guessing what happens to him. 

Tom Shone in the Sunday Times describes this "Faustian rush in the Spielburg suburbs". It's straight out of the Twilight Zone as a brand new forest surrounds this block in suburban America. Complete with every kind of dinasoar who are not happy. Except, maybe for the one that found drinking from a pool to their taste. Maybe we can class this as a camp classic to go alongside Cocain Bear, Anaconda and lots of others. 

Again, I usually avoid films like Spa Weekend. The writers and directors Jon Lucas and Scott Moore are quite famous for movies such as The Hangover, which, I think, is into the third in the franchise. Lots more like this. But all you need to know about this film is in the poster. Here are three actresses that are quite familiar: Leslie Mann is the lead character, and she is very personable, as well as Isla Fisher and Anna Faris. The one I didn't know was Michelle Buteau. 

I have to say it was better than I had feared. There were only a couple of scenes that really grated and some gross incidents we could have done without. What I liked best were the scenes with just two people when there is some reasonable dialogue. The film obviously looked great; the setting of this luxury spa was a picture. But that introduction of the "fourth friend" was, I guess what the film needed, awful though she was. Thank goodness her early stupidity soon waned. 

There were some decent modern songs along the way. But looking at the soundtrack listings, I only knew Want You Back by Haim. 

Even this biopic of the soon-to-be-famous chef Anthony Bourdain does not feature in any of my Sight and Sound magazines, and I don't know why. In Tony he has no idea what he wants to do except write a best-selling book. He is only nineteen, but he has been rejected at college and, instead, hops on a ferry to Provincetown on Cape Cod, where the girl he wants to see is working. Emilia Jones is fine as the pretty Nancy. Dominic Sessa is excellent as this pretty awful youth who thinks he is far better than he is. He lies all the time to make an impression, making out he is really something when he is just a loser. Someone you would avoid at all costs.

When everything goes wrong, he ends up working in the kitchen of Antonio Banderos. Basically just washing up. We spend some time there with the other staff. Here there is Monica Raymund as Mary, an older waitress who seems to acknowledge something in Tony, but that is all. I thought something might develop, but it doesn't. We never know who she really is. When things go pear-shaped, at the kitchen and with Nancy, it seems to be all over. But at the end, he has learnt something from the chef, and some cooking on the beach makes an impression. So there is only a clue at the end that puts Tony on a path to his true vocation and life as a famous chef. The film is set in 1975, and the songs are all pretty familiar.

Tom Sone in the Sunday Times says, "We get fistfights and clambakes, black eyes, hangovers and the unforgettable sight of Banderas shooting a massive tuna with a shotgun from a boat, like a latter-day Captain Ahab. 

As to Provincetown, where nearly all of the movie is set, there will not be many people in the UK who see this film who will have been there. When we see Tony on the ferry from Boston, it is very cloudy, which it can be on Cape Cod. We actually drove to Provincetown from our hotel in Hyannis on that longish stretch with the sea on either side. We were there in May 2011, so that is fifteen years ago. I remember it being very quiet, not like it was in the film where it was so busy. These days it can get up to sixty thousand visitors. 

I remember sitting outside a cafe near the harbour waiting for our whale-watching sea adventure. 

Garden in August

 

Although the Antirynums in the bedding border look fine in the photo above, they have been the least successful of all time. Straggly, falling over (now supported by props) and far too tall. Despite the fact that I gave them a chop over a month ago. Yes, they are colourful, thank goodness. But next year I think we might be back to dahlias.

The only colour in the main border is this delphinium "sky blue and white". I would have preferred a deeper colour, but at least it's flowering. 

The cosmos I grew from seed are nearly all tiny and white and not worth a photo. All except this maroon one in that tiny border next to the conservatory. Maybe it's sheltered and gets warmth from the wall? Try some more next year.

Next is the hydrangea macrophila that was given to Alison. On the plus side, it loves it in the sheltered spot next to the roses. (I thought hydrangeas were difficult to grow). The downside is that it is tucked away and difficult to see. Hey ho. 

Maybe the most extraordinary feature is this flower on the spring-flowering clematis montana. Just one flower.

The dianthus in pots seem to like the hot weather.

Next to the side patio, the echinacea and the verbena "lollipop" have survived.

At least a shrub in the main border is late flowering. This hibiscus is years old.

The achillea in the far round border has survived without any watering. I found advice that they can be less tall by pruning in spring.

Below is a buddleia growing wild at the very far end of the long border. I thought it only had na couple of flowers, but I had to deadhead over twenty, and there are more to come.

In the same border as the achillea above, one of the two huge poppies is sprouting after it was pruned. No sign on the other one.  

There is only one flower of note in the wildflower border, and that is the centaurea scabiosa, or greater knapweed. A wildflower I planted many years ago. I do not water, and it loves the sun. There is even no sign of a cornflower.

This is the Salvia Amistad, the early Christmas present from my sister-in-law. Doing well in the big pot, but I have a good place for it in the garden in spring.  

Still flowering after all this time is the Weigelia Red Prince. The shrubs have survived the drought.

Another view down the side patio with the rose on the right blooming again.

The best flowers of all are the roses. As advised, they never get any water, and these are flowering on repeat.

The pink rose below has just come into flower again. The branches are all straggly and have to be supported.

How the garden looks today

 

The photo above is actually my screensaver. Taken in June last year, the border was full of colour. But today it looks completely different. The drought has taken its toll. Only the white rose is in flower. I followed that advice about never watering roses, and they have flowered on repeat all summer despite the lack of rain.

But just behind the white dwarf wall, the campanula have decided to flower again. I might give them a drop of water.

Below is how the main border looked in July.

And today. Just the delphinium on its second flowering.

Oxygen, So Late in the Day and The Predicament

 

A very early Andrew Miller novel that was actually shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2001. I have no idea why. There is hardly any story. Two brothers, Alec and Larry, and their terminally ill mother Alice. Larry (a washed-up actor from a soap that everyone remembers) travels home from America with his young daughter Ella, and there is one interesting part when Alice is allowed home after they arrive. The "perfume she sprayed as a kind of luxurious air freshener".

I did like the description of the boy's father, Stephen Valentine, 'living uninhibitedly as a drunkard" and £everything that it meant". And "brooding, drinking, dreaming up new enemies for himself, building his own elaborate hell". There are some alternating (but boring) chapters about an almost unconnected Hungarian playwright (I think that Alec is translating his latest effort) called Lazlo Laza, who is living comfortably in Paris. There is so much superfluous stuff that the critics probably liked. Of the other three books by this author that I have read, "Pure" was by far the best.

Probably the shortest book I have ever read. It is actually a short story of forty-five pages that could have been twenty if it were in normal typeface. Before it starts there is an extract from the Philip Larkin poem "Aubade". The whole poem is better than these three lines. But it's about someone contemplating death so far too morbid for me. The story is about Cathal and a failed relationship with Sabine that is distilled into these devastating sentences. Is the fact that he is not a nice person the reason? Maybe this episode will change him, or maybe not. Or does the author think that poem is how it will end?

We are in 1963 (and I'm just finishing sixth form), and here again is Gabriel Dax. We met him first in "Gabriel's Moon", which I thought was the writer-on-top form. Gabriel is now a double agent, which seems very tiring, given that he is trying to finish writing his book on Rivers. He has not only to listen to instructions from his boss, Faith Green, but also the Russian agents that seem to monitor his every move.

However, Gabriel is off to Guatemala (typical of the writer, exploring all these different countries). Apparently, the possible new leader will only talk to him. But things do not go to plan, and Gabrile is soon back home before leaving for Berlin. The story moves along at a decent pace; all the cities are very well described in their sixties setting. The book is entirely written from the view of Gabriel, the closest to the first person that you can get. In Berlin, it's all about a visit by President Kennedy (note 1963), and Gabriel is on the task force to make sure it all goes to plan. MI6 are on the trail of possible assassins, but they have all disappeared. Should we be worried?

Movies at Home: On the Waterfront, Steel Magnolias and Monolith

 

Directed by Elia Kazan, written by Budd Schulb and starring Marlon Brando, the 1954 film On the Waterfront won eight Academy Awards (including those above) and was nominated in the other four categories. I'm amazed I have never seen it before. Set in the dockyards of New Jersey, and filmed in black and white, it starts with someone being pushed off a high roof. Joey, played by Brando, was the "only longshoreman to talk to the investigators", and the dead man's sister Edie Doyle (the wonderful Eva Marie Saint, winning the Oscar for best supporting actress in her very first role) wants to know who was responsible. Her first conversation with Joey is outstanding. But it's all corrupt at the docks, except for Joey, who prefers his pigeons. (He was a top boxer but was forced to throw a fight.  With the immortal words "I could have been a contender". 

What I did like was the moving camera, especially the scenes at the docks. I also have to mention other members of the cast. Carl Malden is excellent as the priest Father Barry. I liked the ambiguity of the relationship between Joey and Edie. Is she just using him to find out about her brother? She is off to train as a teacher at a college way out of town. For me, that was the best thing about the film.

You could not get such a different film from the above as Steel Magnolias. A formidable cast of female stars are preparing for a wedding in small-town America. All these families in smart, colourful houses led by hairdresser Truvy Jones, played by the effervescent Dolly Parton. She has a brand new assistant, Annelle, an unrecognisable Daryl Hannah. What a brilliant piece of casting that was. But, for me, it's Sally Field who makes the movie, oozing class as the bride's mother. How she is torn between happy and sad. Her daughter Shelby is played by Julia Roberts in one of her early roles. 

Directed by Herbert Ross, the film's success is all down to writer Robert Harling, who adapted his successful play for the big screen. There is so much wonderful dialogue. I wonder how I had never seen the film before. It's now famous for the number of brilliant one-liners. "She's a troubled twisted soul; her life has been an experiment in fear. " Whoever made the cake explains she can do anything except snakes. "I don't have the counter space." In the end it's Dolly Parton who I will remember. The glue that holds the thing together.

Another completely different movie. Monolith has just one person on the screen. I thought back to films such as Buried with Ryan Reynolds and Tom Hardy's Locke. Also Searching (2018) and Missing (2022) are mainly characters and their computers. In this Australian science fiction drama, Lucy Sullivan plays a disgraced online journalist who is trying to gain fame for her podcast. The story of a strange black brick is brought to her attention, but is this fact or fiction? The whole film involves Lucy trying to find out the answer.

So a lot of the time we hear the people she interviews telling their strange stories. At first (obviously) Lucy (only known as the interviewer) does not believe a word, but gradually (obviously) she begins to believe in some truth. That seems to be when her mental health starts to crumble. I do like films with lots of dialogue, and this one (obviously) is one of those. Directed by Matt Vesely from a story by Lucy Campbell. Hmmm. 

The Odyssey in IMAX at Hemel Hempstead Cineworld

 

I had already posted a review of The Odyssey on 28th July 2026 when I was "underwhelmed" with its presentation. I wondered what I might have missed not seeing it in an IMAX theatre, so off I went to Cineworld in Hemel Hemstead on one of the hottest days in living memory. First of all, it did seem a lot better on this massive screen (everyone there was seated in the back two rows). However, there were only a couple of instances when I thought the film went into an almost 3D picture, although there is always that clarity of detail if that is what you like. I'm much more interested in the dialogue, although some of that was quite clunky, even if there are some one-liners that stood out.

And this time round I was hugely impressed by the presentation of the story; I just thought it was almost narrated by Odysseus (played by Matt Damon) when he is marooned on that island with Charlize Theron's super cool Calypso. (She is devastatingly in control, tough and polished). During the movie, those typically complicated cuts were now actually enjoyable, as they made so much more sense. Especially those first dozen minutes when I actually knew the backstory and motivations of all those characters we see for the very first time. 

I have to say that the American accents were far less obvious this second time round. I don't know why. They just seemed to blend into basic English after a while. And the sudden switching of time and place all seemed to make much more enjoyable sense, and the film went quicker and was better because of that. I also realised why Samantha Morton should at least be nominated for an Oscar for her role as Circe. And that Robert Pattinson, normally a hero in Nolan's pictures, was so ghastly as Antinous. 

So Christopher Nolan has done it again. He just wants you to see his films more than once, at the cinema or on TV, as I did for Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, Prestige, The Dark Knight, Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, Interstellar, Dunkirk, Tenet and Oppenheimer. 

Desert Island Discs - Seventy Years of Castaways: The 1990's and 2000's

 

The 1990s

Those personalities chosen for the 1990s seemed far less interesting than those for previous decades. Nicole Kidman, for example, is only mentioned in the introduction, so you have to go to BBC Sounds to hear her choices. We hear how Sue Lawley (now the regular presenter) does not meet the castaway until the recording. She has assistant Rosemary Edgerley to prepare the background. And despite most people at the BBC wanting to avoid politicians, the fiftieth anniversary in 1992 featured John Major, the only time a sitting prime minister did so. 

The introduction also describes many other politicians on the programme, but not as interesting as the visit to the USA to record three personalities. Except the third with Buzz Aldrin was postponed many times; on the last occasion when it was all set up, he ducked out.

John Major     26th January 1992

See above. His father was sixty-six when he was born. He had performed in music halls, but when a business venture went wrong, their lives became quite hard. So John left school at sixteen, had various jobs and became a self-made man. His luxury was a full-size Oval cricket ground together with a bowling machine. 

Other personalities included Bob Geldof (6 September 1992), Julie Andrews (18 October 1992), Stephen Hawking (25 December 1992). Tony Blair arrives after Gordon Brown. 

The 2000s and on

Sue Lawley vacated the chair in 2006, having hosted since 1988. Nearly eight hundred editions. There is a long list of the betting odds of who might take over. Well down the list was Kirsty Young, who became the new presenter. Some thought she was "too lowbrow", but look who is the seat now.

Advances in technology now mean the programmes are all available on iPlayer. This also gave the opportunity to count the most popular recordings. All are classical pieces. When the public were invited to choose theirs in Your Desert Island Discs, at the top was Lark Ascending, with Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb in fifth place. (48 Million views of their Live at Pompeii on YouTube). 

The seventieth anniversary programme (and the last in the book) on 29th January 2012 featured David Attenborough. His fourth appearance. I'm not at all sure why anyone should be invited more than once. 

JK Rowling     5th November 2000

'Why, JK?' she is asked. The publisher may have wanted to deflect it was a woman writing about Harry Potter. Rowling says she was so thrilled to be published "they could call my anything". This is a superb interview, especially the detail of how she started writing the first book.

None of the others in this section were worth noting. Especially that fourth appearance of David Attenborough. At the end of this very heavy volume are a list of THE COMPLETE CASTAWAYS and an index. There is an update of this book called The Definitive Desert Island Discs by Ian Gittins. It takes us through eighty years of castaways.