Happy Death Day 2U, On the Basis of Sex and Glass

After finding that the original Happy Death Day received a good review on this blog:

OK, it was just a rip off of Groundhog Day, but it was interesting to see all those events that initially are ignored by the lead, knowing that at the end they all see her better side. I'm not a fan of slasher movies, and that aspect did put me off. But there were enough scenes that relied on a decent script and likeable actors that made it worth seeing. Jessica Rothe is perfect in her role of the witty and bolshie Tree. Again, a young female Bill Murray. Very clever. So well done director Christopher Landon and writer Scott Lobdell. 

I found the sequel to be both better and worse. The story was better but the script not so. I guess that was because the original writer, Scott Lobdell, was no longer involved. Returning director Christopher Landon took up the reins and, despite some witty moments, the dialogue was even more hammy than before. Jessica Rothe repeated her role from last time and did the best she could.

I thought On The Basis Of Sex was one of the best movies I had seen in the last year. An intelligent and moving film following the early career of Supreme Court judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg as she tackles sexism in the workplace and gender equality in the case she takes to appeal. I found it amazing that the real Ginsburg's nephew, Daniel Stieplemann  wrote the screenplay, although my guess is that the excellent director Mimi Leder lent a hand. Felicity Jones had come in for some criticism in the lead, but not knowing the real characters, I found she nailed the part. As, surprisingly, did Arnie Hammer as her husband. 

The last in the trilogy that started with Unbreakable and then Split, gathers together most of the cast from the first two movies for that same weird story of (possibly) super human powers. I think it's best to gloss over the story and concentrate on presentation. I found the cinematography and production design to be first rate. The characters are just those we have seen before. Bruce Willis doing his glum introverted turn,James McEvoy being bonkers in his twenty personalities and Samuel L. Jackson just broodingly silent. It was amazing to see Spencer Treat Clark all grown up as David Dunn's son from Unbreakable. Sara Paulson might have been out of her depth as Dr Ellie Staple, but that was probably the script. It just seemed to me that M Night Shyamalan man ran out of ideas and the final sequence, although classily shot, was a less than a satisfactory ending.

Tring Book Club - The Bees by Laline Paull

I enjoyed the first third of this imaginative and well written story of Flora 717. I became totally involved in her early life in the hive, and her first exploits in the open air. The author gives us lots of information about the workings of the various hierarchy of the bees and their different roles in the hive. I liked how the author gave the different kin character, the male drones were quite funny.

I was mystified how  Flora 717 could produce an egg when she was not the Queen. At book club, Hilary  explained this unusual event.

The book also tries to work, less successfully in my opinion, as a thriller with Flora's adventures on the outside, and the threats on the inside. I just found the story flagged half way through and could not sustain the 300 plus pages. The last part was fine, but if only a stronger editor had cut the book to two thirds it's length, I might have been more impressed. 

Can You Ever Forgive Me, Green Book and Welcome To Marwen

One wonders how Julianna Moore and Chris O'Dowd, the original cast for Can you ever forgive me, would have fared. Not anything like the Oscar worthy performances of Melissa McCarthy and Richard E Grant. The former is outstanding as she demonstrates her theatrical background, and her pairing with Grant is a perfect match. His Oscar nomination is so well deserved. There is even another great cameo from Jane Curtin as Lee Israel's agent. With terrific direction from Marielle Heller and even better script with co-writer Nicole Holofcener, this is a classy affair.

Just as good is Green Book. And another great double act. But before that, I have to mention the outstanding screenplay. Peter Farrelly (who also directs), with help from Brian Currie and Nick Vallelonga, has written a sensitive and unbelievably witty script based on the true story of Nick's dad Tony Vallelonga, played here by a career best Viggo Mortensen. Equally excellent is Mahershlla  Ali as top pianist Dr Don Shirley. I also thought that in a small role, Linda Cardellini as Tony's wife was brilliant.

Predictably disappointing (as the critics had warned), Welcome To Marwen borders on the creepy. It is only saved by the fact it is based on the true story of Mark Hogancamp. Played here by Steve Carell, it relies on the humanised CGI of director Robert Zemeckis to liven what is an over sentimentalised version of the damage done to Hogancamp in the brutal attack he suffered in 2000. Carell fails to convince and it is left to a collection of improbable actresses led by the always excellent Leslie Mann to try and lift the film from it's mediocrity.

David Bowie: Finding Fame on BBC2

Part three of Francis Whately's Bowie trilogy describes how David Robert Jones became David Bowie. In 1965, David joined The Lower Third as their singer David Jones. They recorded three singles that disappeared without trace. The last was his composition "Can't help thinking about me" for which the billing now read David Bowie and The Lower Third.

Having left The Lower Third, Bowie recruited a new band in February 1966 to form David Bowie and The Buzz. Not only did they play The Marquee club (on Sunday afternoons?) but they also played that famous gig at the University of Sussex on 22nd October 1966. As noted in my post of 27th February 2010, I admit I cannot remember their performance. But I still have the ticket.

In December, Bowie had left the Buzz to go solo, followed by joining another band, The Riot Squad, in 1967. A usual, that did not last.

ART at the Oxford Playhouse

There they are. Three friends studying that picture. Stephen Tompkinson (Ivan), Nigel Havers(Serge) and Denis Lawson (Marc). A terrific cast who have us in fits of laughter throughout. Whipped into shape by director Ellie Jones. As their names suggest, we are in France and the banter between the three is not always nice.

First staged in 1996, Christopher Hampton explains in the programme how Sean Connery held the British rights to Yasmina's Reza's play and was employed by Sean to do the translation that we saw last night. It ran for eight years in London, rare for something not a musical.

There is also a photo in the programme of the original cast: Albert Finney, Tom Courtney and Ken Stott. How poignant that today we learnt of the death of Finney at the age of 82.

I loved the set by Mark Thomson, the tall, beautifully unblemished walls of the apartments with superb lighting by Hugh Vanstone. An earlier performance in Northampton was noted by one reviewer for it's depleted audience. But the Playhouse has been nearly sold out all week. Last night's audience were very enthusiastic, bursting into applause for Tompkinson's long monologue about the trials of his coming nuptials.

Just under ninety minutes straight through, the intensity could never be broken with an interval. We even get Pinter type pauses, especially when a bowl of olives gives some tempers a break.

Buddy Holly:Rave On - BBC 4

I was only 14 when Buddy Holly died in that plane crash in February 1959, and in those days our access to popular music was almost zero. So although this momentous event passed me by, he became, and still is, one of my favourite recording artists. The contributors on this superb programme on BBC 4 ( Don McLean, PaulAnka, Brian May, Hank Marvin, Dion, Robert Wyatt, Duane Eddy, Jerry Allisson (Buddy's drummer), Don Everly, Larry Holley and Bob Harris) all feel the same.

After a section on Buddy's early life as a talented musician, his first recording session at Decca was described as an unhappy experience. This was to change when he arrived at Norman Petty's studio in Clovis, New Mexico. There he recorded That'll Be The Day with some other other songs. This became the first No 1 for The Crickets in both the USA and UK in 1957. Brian May shows his box of the first 45 rpm records he bought. First up was Rock Island Line and seventh was That'll Be The Day. He plays the record and describes the innovative electric guitar playing that Buddy brought to this song. His guitar solo in the middle is still awesome today. (Paul McCartney said elsewhere that in their early days, they couldn't work out how to play Buddy's guitar intro).

Next up Peggy Sue and more innovation, this time with drums, with that consistent beat that never falters. Brain May explains that this time the guitar solo is basically all chords, even more staggering than the previous record. On Everyday the percussion is just the slapping of the knees, then on Not Fade Away it's just a box. Brian, again, loves the intro harmony on Maybe Baby. 

Next came a piece about the tours, and even that visit to the UK in March 1958 with nineteen consecutive dates. Then his influence on The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Elton John before we reach his marriage to Maria Santiago. His music changes to orchestrated ballads during 1958 like Words of Love, It Doesn't Matter Any More. It's Raining in My Heart and True Love Ways.

By the end of the year Buddy split with Norman Petty who he believed was withholding money and, being so short of funds, took to touring again, culminating in that fateful plane crash just after take off on 3rd February 1959. Aged 22 and only eighteen months from when he had that first hit. As many said, who knows what he would have done if he had lived longer.

We might not be able to understand much on Don McLean's American Pie, but now we know what the first part is all about:

A long long time ago
I can still remember how
That music used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And maybe they'd be happy for a while

But February made me shiver
With every paper I'd deliver
Bad news on the doorstep
I couldn't take one more step

I can't remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride
Something touched me deep inside
The day the music died.

Don explains he was a paper boy when the crash happened and read about it on "every paper I'd deliver". The programme was a fitting tribute to that day 60 years ago this month.

Brian May with his prized copy of That'll Be The Day. 

Colette, Mary Queen of Scots and Vice

This is how to make a great movie from a less than promising true(ish) story. Keira Knightley delivers a career best as country girl Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, entering marriage with Henri Gathier-Villars, played  in his usual one dimensional projection by Dominic West. There are many aspects to this film that made it so enjoyable. Wash Westmoreland's direction and script (with Richard Glatzer andRebecca Lenkiewicz) are exemplary and are matched by the wonderful sets and costumes from late nineteenth century Paris and Burgundy.

Equally great to look at is Mary Queen of Scots. Whenever you see Working Title as producers, you  now that it will be something special and this is no exception. Bravely employing theatre director Josie Rourke for her first film, there is great tension and drama as the movie cuts between the two courts. This could have been a mess, but with editor Chris Dickens, it felt completely right. A good screenplay by Beau Willimon from the book by John Guy, with a huge cast and great locations. Saoirse Ronan was fine as Mary, although constantly at fever pitch, but the revelation was Margot Robbie, excellent as Elizabeth. Her make up must win Jenny Shircore and the team an award.

Not what I expected. Adam McKay has followed his The Big Short" with this semi-anarchic drama about the rise of Dick Cheney from Yale drop out to (maybe) the most powerful man in America as VP to George Bush. The movie swings between a normal bio-pic to art house (fly fishing has never featured so prominently) to visual and editing trickery. But at the heart we have an Oscar worthy performance from Christian Bale as Dick and an even more deserving one from Amy Adams as his wife Lynne. Not to mention Steve Carrell, terrific as Donald Rumsfeld and Sam Rockwell as George Bush Jr. I didn't stay for the post credits scene.

Guitar, Drum and Bass on BBC4 - Series1.1. On Drums ... Stewart Copeland!

After having watched the episodes on guitar and bass, I wasn't going to bother with the drums. But I decided in the end to give it a go. When it started with Buddy Rich, I thought I might as well forget the rest as all modern drumming starts with him. However there was something about the early jazz drumming that led me to remember the Saturday nights at the Dunmow Jazz Club in my youth. The drummer always had a solo when the rest of the band could take a break.

It was when Stewart Copeland talked about Earl Palmer that I was glad I had watched the programme. Earl was the drummer on "The Fat Man" by Fats Domino. I agreed with Copeland that this was the first ever rock and roll recording in December 1949. The introduction of the backbeat was all down to Palmer and is the basis of all rock drumming to this day. Listen to Chuck Berry's "Rock and Roll Music" ("it's got a backbeat, you cant' lose it").

It was good to hear Sandy Nelson, (on "Let There Be Drums") one of the few drummers to lead instrumentals into the charts. I didn't realise how Ringo Starr was admired by the drumming fraternity. He is credited with much creative work on recordings by The Beatles.

But like the other two episodes in the series, once we were onto heavy rock, I was lost. I even fast forwarded through the final part about drum machines.

The History of Love, The Wardrobe Mistress and The London Train

Somewhere in this novel is a superb book trying frantically to burst out of this writer's creative complexity. And I'm not talking about the book within the book called, you've guessed it, "A History of Love". I was less than enthralled by Nicole Krauss's later novel "Great House", but her earlier book had such great reviews. Yes, the prose is very fine, but there is very little plot. There is too much pontificating about past mundane events.

There is an interesting counterpoint between two narrators, Alma Singer is fourteen and Leo Gursky is in his eighties, their narratives are distinctly different in that one uses a clever literary device that becomes boringly repetitive after a while. There is one particular section at a funeral and it's aftermath that shows what a talent Nicole Krauss could be if she stuck to passages like this. 

It's 1947, and in London the theatres are crumbling, even the seats. This terrific novel from Patrick McGrath sets the world of London theatre against dangerous gatherings of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists. Kept locked away during the war, they are trying to re-establish themselves as a political force. Their uniforms are banned, but that does not stop them.

The main character is Joan Grice who has just lost her husband, Charlie Grice, a famous actor. "Was there no end to the qualities she discovered in him now he was dead". In grief, she is trying to come to terms with his death, but stumbles on a horrifying secret he kept from her. At the same time, she is tormented over a new relationship and comforting her daughter.

I loved the construction of the book, I warmed to all the characters despite their flaws, the theatrical aspects were superb (Twelfth Night and The Duchess of Malfi are woven brilliantly into the story) and the atmosphere of post war austerity is real. The narrative uses a clever device, where the chorus describes the action in the first person plural. "We all loved Gricey".

Maybe there could have been more about Joan's work as a wardrobe mistress, but that is not what the book is really about. It's when grief takes it toll.

There is no doubt that Tessa Hadley is a splendid writer. However, like "The Past" and "Clever Girl", she sometimes seems to deviate on peripheral subjects and long descriptions of places and the past. But when she concentrates on the story of her character's relationships, she is a master of her prose. It takes well into the second half of this book, that is split into two, to realise the heart of the story. 

In the first half, Paul is middle aged and at odds with his wife and a daughter from a previous marriage. In the second half we follow the story of Cora, separating from her husband. The title of the book provides the catalyst for what comes next.