Kingfisher at the Canal

I had just started on my way back home, walking down the Wendover Arm of the Grand Union Canal, when I saw a flash of blue in the trees. I only had my phone with me that has a very poor camera. But both these photos do have a speck of blue if you look hard enough. A beautiful kingfisher.

As I walked down the canal path, the bird flew from tree to tree just ahead. And I followed just behind. I stopped when the kingfisher stopped. Once near the end of this section of the canal path, a lady coming towards me from the opposite direction also stopped when I pointed out the bird, for which she was delighted. I just wish I had my camera.

 

28 Years Later : The Bone Temple, Hamnet and Mercy

 

I only went to see 28 Years Later : The Bone Temple as I had seen the previous three. See my posts of 20th June 2025 (28 Days Later), 4th June 2007 (28 Weeks Later) and 15th July 2025 (28 Years Later). The only good thing about the latest movie is Ralph Fiennes reprising his role from the previous film. This time a violent mob has been parachuted in from A Clockwork Orange but far less interesting. Actually, the second half is far better than the awful first with all it's gratuitous violnce. Surprisingly, we see little of the undead in this version. The ending is pretty spectacular as the ghastly leader of the mob gets his just deserts in the worst way imaginable. But I wish I hadn't bothered.

Let me start by saying the book by Maggie O'Farrell is a wonder. Less so is it's adaptation to a play at the RSC Stratford and here a similar disapointment. So much of the book is fabulous prose that is so hard to capture in a film. Director Chloe Zhao may have been selected after her superb Nomadland, but here she seems to have plumped for a kind of art house film. Visions of a tree at the very beginning is always a give away. A pastoral saga? Maybe I know the story too well, but the family drama that takes up most of the movie is not that interesting. Scenes of birth, for example, take up too much time. The film's success relies on the magical and very last act at the Globe Theatre. And although, like Mark Kermode, even though I was not moved to tears with the ending scored by Max Richter's obvious On the nature of daylight, it is still a very clever piece of theatre. The film almost topples those brilliant last dozen pages of the book. 

As for the cast, I must be in a minority thinking that the two Irish actors in the lead roles were right in your face, thinking look at me. There was no subtlety from Jessie Buckley as Agnes nor from Paul Mescal as William. Again except for the ending.  I wanted paired back performances. Fortunately those came from Joe Alwyn as Bartholamew and Emily Watson as the mother. Maybe I loved the book too much. The film itself may have been aimed at a young audience coming to the play for the first time with all that intensity. That's my only reason why it won best picture at the Golden Globes and with all those nominations for an Oscar.  Is this a mainly woman's film? The writer, director and lead actress tells us about falling in love, birthing children, and bringing them up with an absent father. That is ninety percent of the movie. 

The critic's reviews were mainly positive. Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian gave it five stars. Nicolas Rapolo in Sight and Sound magazine describes it as "an immersive account of the desire, grief, love and anger that that course between a woman and her playwright husband". I was more interested, as was someone on mumsnet, with the Echinacea next to where Agnes was working in the garden. Back to thje book, and will always remember meeting Maggie O'Farrell at the Hay Literary Festival where she signed her latest book. 

I was trying to think where I had seen something similar to Mercy. I find that might have been Searching (2018) where similar events are played out on a computer screen. Here it's Chris Pratt (I didn't think he could be this good) locked in a chair and given ninety minutes to give A I  interogator Rebecca Ferguson enough reason to exonerate him from the killing of his wife. Because we are way into the future, every event is held in banks of video that Chris can call on as evidence.

I liked the fact that early on he is full of anger that hinders this process. But of course in all these things, he gradually gets himself together and prove what a great investigator he rerally is. So we have stacks of video filling the screen with huge energy. The story is at first a slow burner that gradually gathers pace with a resulting last act that is fast, derivative, complicated and totally bonkers. But what went before was jolly interesting. It certainly had to be seen in the cinema. 

Mark Kermode's Surround Sound - Part 1

 

Opening Titles - "Just the Music"

Just a note before I start. There is quite a lot to write about from Mark Kermode's Surround Sound. So as I did for Greg Doran's My Shakespeare, I will give each chapter it's own post. Mark starts at the beginning with his early years when he became interested in the music in films. Starting with 2001 and Silent Running. He says that in the latter, Joan Baez had two songs of which Rejoice in the Sun is his favourite movie soundtrack song of all time. So we gather that from a young age, Mark has always loved music in movies. He runs through many of his fvourite soundtracks, too many to mention. 

Mark talks about his five years at Scala Radio and meeting Simon Mayo with whom he still works on their podcast. There is a section on female composers of film scores. One example is Eiko Ishibashi who scored the wonderful Drive my Car (2021). "My favourite soundtrack of that year, and one of the finest of the 21st century" says Mark. 

This first chapter seems to be, as Mark puts it, "a seemingly endless list of composers". As he says "my own personal experience of film music is both scattershot and shambolic". (I would not argue with that given the first sixteen pages of the book). Better is the description of the racks of vinyl records at 58 Dean Street where it was "an education" for all those film soundtracks. (This is well before the internet). He goes on to talk more about his five years with Jenny Nelson at Scala Radio. Jenny presented Classic FM's "Saturday Night at the Movies". 

But Mark's favoured brand of music was .... skiffle. (See posts of 28th February and 28th March 2018). He talks about Neil Brand and his "peerless ability" to perform improvised piano accompanyment for silent cinema, and who had joined Mark's skiffle group (The Dodge Brothers) to play for old movies at the Midnight Sun Film Festival in Finland. The band also had a gig at Glasonbury playing to a silent movie.

Chapter 1 - Never Silent

This chapter is all about the days of silent movies and how the musical accompanyment grew to support them. Apparently that in the UK it was the old music halls that began to show these films and already had an established orchestra who could provide the music. There were musical directors who began organising the score to fit each scene. Sometimes the film would arrive with the score written specifically for that performance and others relied on classic choices.

Mark goes on to talk about the first film to have synchronised music in 1927's The Jazz Singer. It's success led to every film having a musical soundtrack. But even today, you can still find old silent movies being shown with live music.

See my post of 27th September 2023 : "The Story of British Cinema" on Sky Arts : "The Pioneer Years".

Soundtrack Selection - "It's a Wonderful Life"

Mark says this is "my favourite Christmas movie". (It's my least favourite.) Skipping the story and background to this oh so familiar film, we get to the composer of the score. Dimitri Tiomkin conducted an eighty piece orchestra and a choir of forty. Born in Russia, Dimitri became the "highest paid film composer in Hollywood". He gained twenty two oscar nominations and won four times. These imncluded The Ballad of High Noon which used to be played regularly on the radio.

Chapter 2 - "How did we get here?"

Part 1: From Korngold to Williams

Erich Wolfgang Korngold was an Austrian composer. There is an early mention of his score for the 1968 film Karakatoa, East of Java. (Full movie on YouTube). Mark goes on to list all the films he scored. Did he create the symphonic film score? I was amazed that his first two films won the oscar for best music. Although it was the studio's head of department who received the trophy. He had to wait until 1939 to win an oscar under his own name for The Adventures of Robin Hood.

Doreen Carwithen was the world's first female film composer. In 1941 she won the Aylesbury Music Scholarship. She studied at the Royal Academy of Music and went on to write the scores for over thirty films as well as other music. Mark tells us there was a "depth and complexityto her music as well as a spirited tunefullness". (See Men of Sherwood Forest (1954). There is in her honour, the Carwithen Music Festival at Haddenham in Buckinghamshire every July at St Mary's Church. There is a plaque at No 8 High Street where she was born. 

A long section follows about Usha Khanna and Bollywood in general. There is, of course, a part about A R Rhaman (Slumdog Millionaire). Then here comes Bernard Herrman who composed the music for over two hundred movies! A few are described here. Then on to John Williams and his fifty year collaboration with Stephen Spielberg. Mark is in awe of this peerless composer. Obviously, there is much more to come on these later in the book. 

Soundtrack Selection - Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Mark thinks that this film is "not universally one of his best". (I think it's one you can see time and again, don't know why). There is a lot of familiar background to the film before we get to the score by Jocelyn Pook. This British viola player toured with The Communards for many years.There is an interesting background to how and why director Stanley Kubrick found her. Mark explains how some of the music was composed and recorded before some scenes were shot so it could be played at the same time. Twenty five minutes of her score made it to the final film. Jocelyn talks about how she felt "out of her depth" and only knew for sure that her music was used was when she saw the final finished film. Mark concludes "It's a credit to Pook's genius that, whether one loves or hates Eyes Wide Shut, it is impossible to imagine the film without her music. It really is the very best thing about Kubrick's flawed swansong. Without it, the movie would simply fall apart".

Movies at Home: North by Northwest, Pixie and The Eternal Daughter

 

Despite seeing numerous extracts from North by Northwest, I don't think I had ever seen the full movie. This Alfred Hitchcock classic from 1959 did not disappoint. When David Thomson in his book Have You Seen ..... talks about the director's film Vertigo that he loves to death, but then now "realised, for the first time, that North by Northwest is better". I have to agree. Here "fears are rendered as comedy". The all star cast are superb, as is Bernard Herman's score.

Olivia Cooke is excellent as Pixie in this comedy thriller set in the west of Ireland. She is the stepdaughter of a small time gangster and teams up with a couple of useless young men when a bag of loot falls into their laps. Pixie is attractive and cunning in a film that is described as "Father Ted meets Tarantino". Yes, there is violence and the shoot out is straight from one of the latter's movies.

The real gangster is Father Hector played by Alec Baldwin as a rogue criminal with a gang of hoodlums. Directed with gusto by Barnaby Thomson and quite well written by his son Preston, Thank goodness for something original and witty. 

The Eternal Daughter is the first film I have seen by writer/director Joanna Hogg. (Her two films called The Souvenier are on BBC iPlayer). Tilda Swinton plays both filmaker Julie and her mother Rosalind who arrive at this isolated hotel in the dead of night. Rosalind remembers it as a mansion where she stayed as a young woman. But not everything seems right. Are there any other guests or is this all in someone's imagination. There seems to be just the receptionist, but who does the cooking? 

The film is very slow, but somehow has its' moments. When the mother and daughter talk it is much more interesting. The mother can be a little fractious and the daughter seems on edge. But the scenes with the two are fine. Julie is here to write her next film, but hardly gets a word down on her laptop. There are strange noises in the night that gets her out of bed.  Is this a kind of ghost story? The ending tells us all.

Oscar and Bafta nominations for Sentimental Value

 

My film of the year Sentimental Value earned nine nominations for a 2026 Oscar, (only two foreign language films gained more, ten for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) and Roma (2018),) and it should have been more. Here they are:

Best Picture
Best International Feature Film
Best Director
Best Actress in a Leading Role: Renate Reinsve
Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Stellan Skarsgård
Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Elle Fanning
Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas
Best Writing (Original Screenplay)
Best Film Editing

How can a film earn nominations in all four acting categories and not earn a nomination for best casting beats me. There were also eight nominations for this film at the Baftas.

The film that beat it to the Palme d'Or at Cannes, It was just an accident only gained three Oscar nominations and just one for the Baftas.

Killing Time, Love, etc and The Life Impossible

 

Only 103 pages that could have been condensed to half that. But full of marvelous Alan Bennett wit. It all takes place at Hill Topp (two p's is important) House where elderly residents occupy a retirement home. It was probably a superior mansion in it's early days, but now showing it's age. Those residents are easily spotted by their Christian names: Audrey, Margaret (both names of my aunts), Elizabeth, Violet and Phyllis. The men are mostly referred to by their surnames.

It's when Violet (Mrs Vokes) dies that there is an outing to the crematorium that is strangely one of the funniest parts. It was Woodroof who, typically, had convinced Canon Lumley that he should be the one to press the button to send the coffin through the curtains. "Nor could he be prevented from pressing the one adjacent, which fetched it back before Canon Lumley ("It's not a toy") regained control of the proceedings and sent Mrs Vokes to her final rest".

When they had left, it was one of the management who said "Pensioners. They think they own the place". Don't we? It's when covid breaks out that things change dramatically. With Mrs McBride (the boss) and Zulema (who does everything else) both in hospital that things obviously go wrong. An excellent story despite it's brief length.

"Love, etc" is the sequel to "Talking it Over". At the end of my review of the latter I said: "It's when Oliver realises that he's in love with Gillian that the book takes a massive turn. The author cleverly describes his inner turmoil. For me, I loved the first half (of the book), but the second became a bit of a soap opera. Although the writing is top drawer as usual."

Once again we have joint narrators, mainly Stuart, Oliver and Gillian. They speak to us as if we were more than casual acquaintances. Ten years have passed since we last heard from them, Oliver and Gillian are now married and have two daughters. Stuart moved to America after his divorce to Gillian, where he met and married Terri but that did not last. Back home (after a successful business in the States) he becomes involved with the married couple.

Oliver has become even more verbose than he was last time: "If not quite so Olympian or Confucian a view, then at least have some perspective, some shading, some audacious juxtaposition of pigment, OK?". (Is this just the author showing off? Once I nearly threw the book across the room). Better are those parts that involve Ellie, an assistant to Gillian's business, who cannot understand why her boss puts up with her husband. (Oliver is typically a waster, still boring us to death: "At first I took it to be an ocular disturbance possibly occasioned by a gourmandising attitude to the dothiepin".)

However, I did like the ever growing relationship between Stuart and Gillian and her children, but as in these situations, nothing is resolved. The book is suddenly over, as if the author had many more chapters but ripped them up and let us decide where they go from here. Or another book?

Grace Winters is seventy two and telling her story to Maurice. It's his letter to her at the beginning that reminds her of his mother who has recently died. Grace has been left a villa on the island of Ibiza by Christina, a friend she hardly knew. It's a bit run down, small, on a busyroad and miles from anywhere. Christina has left her a letter describing all the places Grace shoulod visit. But is Christina actually dead, they never found a body.

She meets the elderly Alberto as the letter recomends and agrees to a midnight boat ride and to go diving. "Grappling into a wetsuit, by the way, is one of the all time challenges in life. It requires the strength of an ox and the limbs of a contornionist". (Don't I know - not easy in your sixties or seventies). It's the dive that changes everything for Grace and that is where the fantasy aspects of the novel start. The lights deep in the ocean, special powers, lots of introspection and philosophy. And that is where I nearly gace up. I am just not a fan of fantasy. Add in someone truly awful who has terrible plans for the island, and a fight is on the save the heritage of Ibiza. It was only because it is so well written that I made it to the end.

The Garden in January

 

Today was the first time since the very beginning of December that I ventured out into the garden. It was a nice bright and sunny day although it was pretty chilly. The bulbs in the bedding border are already in bud.

Apart from gathering all the twigs that I had piled up in the borders, the main job today was pruning the roses. I tried to cut them into a vase shape as recommended. Here are some below.

Some of the winter flowering shrubs look good.

This year I planted wallflowers instead of bulbs. Not great at the moment but will see in the spring.

I topped up the compost in a pot of iris. Those in the borders also look fine.

Some nice snowdrops.

I removed all the Asters from the border under the living room window that had struggled to flower last year. A nice space for something new in what looks like some decent soil between the Echinacea and the rose Blue for You.