Movies at Home: The Man Who Knew Too Much, Volver and The Boston Strangler

 

James Stewart, Doris Day and their son Hank, played by a young Christopher Olson, are in Marakesh in The Man Who Knew Too Much. This is Alfred Hitchcock remaking his 1934 film in 1956 with an altered plot. It just looks fantastic in colour, almost 3D in parts. Maybe because certain shots of the actors were superimposed on a screen of the city. I had seen the film some time ago (post 24th August 2020) but could not remember the plot until later on.

Stewart plays Dr Ben McKenna, and his wife, Jo Conway, is a popular singer. Cue Doris Day no less. When their son disappears, it's back to London (on a BEA flight!) where his kidnappers are plotting an assassination. The best part of the film is at their hotel when all their friends arrive, completely oblivious to their plight. A lot of film and TV makers should look at this film and see how it is completely understandable despite many twists and turns, rather than their overcomplicated plots. An assasin and some cymbals.

It was interesting to see the final part staged at The Royal Albert Hall. The orchestra there is conducted by Bernard Herrmann, who actually composed the score. Now we know why an orchestra is the backcloth to the credits at the beginning. 

Volver is another film I had seen before but did not recognise at all. One of Pedro Almodóvar's best. (See post 26th August 2020). One disaster after another, but it is Penelope Cruz who is superb, closely followed by Blanca Portillo and Yohana Cobo. The six main actresses deservedly shared the Palm d'Or at Cannes in 2006, and Cruz became the first Spanish actress to be nominated for a best actress Oscar. The film was also nominated as a best film in a foreign language at the same Academy Awards.

When the supposedly dead mother arrives, the film takes on a surrealist tone. But it all ends happily, and in the end, the film is all their about atonement. The director at the height of his powers.

I wasn't sure I wanted to see The Boston Strangler, but it was based around the reporters covering this evolving story. Keira Knightley and Carrie Coon are excellent as their investigations into multiple murders are gradually taken seriously. Both are very different women, but they get on really well together. They were the only reason I stuck with it, as the film itself is all a bit of a mess. It doesn't really know what it wants to be. The idea of following a reporter was fine, but the mix of her family life felt awkward. All the time we want to get back to the investigation and not lose the thread. 

The portrayal of the detectives in the case cast them as pretty inept, which they were not. All their criticism of Knightley seemed a bit ridiculous. The film then got somewhat complicated with the arrests and the disputed factual resolution. I think if it had stopped at the arrest, it would have made a better film. 

Dolly Parton RIP

 

I would never have posted about the passing of Dolly Parton if I had not seen the film Steel Magnolias only just over a week ago. Here is what I said then: "In the end it's Dolly Parton that I will remember. The glue that holds the thing together." Here she is in the picture with Julia Roberts.

As for her music, I would pick her best composition, I Will Always Love You, that big hit for Whitney Houston, and her best song, Islands in the Stream, written by the Bee Gees and recorded with Kenny Rogers.  

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.