Blinded By The Light, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood and Angel Has Fallen

Before Javed has that damascene moment when he discovers Bruce for the first time, the soundtrack of songs from the eighties sets the scene perfectly. From the introduction to "It's A Sin" by The Pet Shop boys to "The Sun Always Shines On TV" by A-ha and "Don't You Want Me" by Human League. When at last he is given those Springsteen tapes, there is a trademark guitar strum from one of the albums. But which one??? It's those moments that make a film for me.

And again, it takes ages for Javed to actually decide to listen to the tapes, and when he does, it accompanies the great storm of 1987. I thought this sequence was quite brilliant, not like one critic:
Javed’s immersion in the music of Springsteen takes place during the great storm of 1987 and in a silly, messily handled sequence, he’s inspired to frolic in the wind as lyrics appear on the screen and video footage plays on a wall. It’s one of many awkward attempts to truly embed Springsteen’s music in the film.

The film pulls no punches in it's depiction of a town like Luton in the eighties. And what it was like for a family of Pakistani immigrants. Javed's difficult relationship with his father is especially well handled. This is all down to director Gurinder Chadha who also co-wrote the script with the author of the original book. The lead actors are OK, however there are some excellent cameos from Rob Brydon, Hayley Atwell, Sally Phillips and David Hayman. 

Finally, the scene at the end with Javed's father and mother is terrific. I actually preferred this movie to Bohemian Rhapsody, Rocketman and Yesterday. I thought it was splendid. (This review took me half an hour longer than usual as I failed at first to find the word damascene.)

I think that Quentin Tarantino just wanted to make a film of the actors driving cars around Hollywood in 1969 listening to some classic songs of the day. But I guess he had to put a plot in there somehow. In the end he gives us one of his greatest movies, a kind of patchwork revolving around the lives of fading actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio reprising one of his typical edgy roles) and his stuntman and (only?) friend Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt in superior lade back form). Many of Tarantino's regular actors are here, sometimes you get distracted thinking which movies they made.

There are a whole series of set pieces, one of which is memorably outstanding. The setting is the run down Spahn Movie Ranch, the "home" to Charles Manson and his followers. Cliff stumbles on the place having given a ride to one of Manson's young female followers. What happens next is full of magnificent tension as Cliff investigates the place. The one saving grace is that you know Cliff can look after himself, having previously beaten up Bruce Lee. However, the superb writing and Pitt's presence takes the film to a new level. No violence, no CGI, just a great set and Brad.

Tarantino saves any real violence until the very end, saving it up for the villains. His regular producer Shannon McIntosh is joined by Harry Potter producer David Heyman. He explains how they needed to cut an hour  from the original three and half hours. This includes a third encounter with ten year old Julia Butters as one of Rick's co-stars. Her first scene when they discuss acting is superb. And Tim Roth's scene never made the final version. I would love to see what was taken out.

A decent popcorn thriller was spoilt for me by the prolonged shoot out at the end. Apart from that, there was plenty to enjoy as Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) is on the run from both the good guys and the bad guys. Have we not seen this before? However, there are some clever stunts in this, the third and last? of the franchise. ( Fortunately I avoided the second). Add in Morgan Freeman and Nick Nolte and the rest of the cast hardly matter.

Tring Book Club - The Sixteen Trees of the Somme by Lars Mytting and Someday I'll Find Me by Carla Lane

I cannot remember the last time I read a book that is basically a mystery that turns into a search or rather a quest. This book is carefully, intricately and meticulously plotted but not so complicated that you get lost. The author cleverly gives you the occasional little reminders along the way. Half way through I needed to write down a family tree just to keep my mind straight. Family History becomes complicated.

This captivating page turner is not a thriller in the classic sense, more a journey involving people to meet and documents to find. Although one archive just felt too much. Starting at home in Norway, Edvard's travels take him to the Shetland Isles and France. Events in a wood during the first world war is at the centre of the story.

Character development does take second place to the plot and the characters suffer as a result. But the translation is generally excellent. I had to read the ending twice, the first in a rush, the second time it made a lot more sense. There are twists and turns along the way, some I guessed, others I did not. A clever and enjoyable read.

It all started off so well with some nice anecdotes from her childhood. It isn't long before she and her friend Myra are at the BBC and being commissioned to write a comedy series about two young women sharing a flat. Whilst there is some interesting (but limited) stuff about the people there, there is almost nothing about the process of writing. Very little about the production meetings and who had what input. I wanted to know about each and every episode and where the inspiration and ideas came from. But no.

The chapter on "Butterflies" was a mystery. It felt like it was just one series when in fact there were four from 1979 to 1983. All in five and a half pages!!! Same again for "Bread" from 1986 to 1991. Somehow all this seemed to rush through so Carla can get onto what interests her most and that was the animal sanctuary she set up and as a campaigner for animal rights. None of this was of any interest to me.

Not only that, but half way through the book in the chapter titled "Changes", we are back at the BBC after "Bread was finished and she cannot cope with what she describes as "a new kind of comedy was being born", although no such programmes are mentioned. Is this just an excuse for the end of her career in television? Because she is so, so wrong.

Series such as "Last of the Summer Wine" went on until 2010, "The Vicar of Dibley" to 2007, "As Time Goes By " (with Geoffrey Palmer from "Butterflies" and Judy Dench) to 2005, "Dinner Ladies" to 2000 and "Still Game" to 2019. And our favourite "Detectorists" written by Mackenzie Crook, who also acted alongside Toby Jones, that won the 2015 British Academy TV Award for best scripted comedy.These and others prove that the situation comedy for a mature audience are still being produced.

Carla's insistence that the new kind of comedy "was in a different format, a different language even, thr0wing some viewers into a state of confusion. We were galloping towards something very new, and the middle-aged generation was being slowly squeezed out". This is complete and utter rubbish and I'm surprised her publisher didn't cut it out. I found it a disgrace. 

New London Architecture

It all started in 2014 when I went on a tour of the new £3 Billion Kings Cross redevelopment with Zoe and Hannah. The photo above shows the Granary Building and Granary Square.

But it wasn't until two years later that I arrived at the National Theatre to see the £80 Million refit described as  "Brutalism's Fine Revival".

Then in 2017 I returned to Kings Cross which was now in a far advanced stage of development. The apartments in the old gas holders were nearly complete. I want to go back now that the Coal Drops Yard is open.

 On to 2018 and the £2 Billion Paddington Basin.

More tasteful was the £50 Million redesign of the Royal Academy that I visited in the same year.

As was the new £50 Million V&A Museum Exhibition Road Quarter, also visited in 2018.

The most disappointing has to be the £2.2 Billion Nova Victoria. Ugly office blocks and a run of the mill shopping mall. My 2019 trip was a waste of time.

Completely the opposite is Battersea Power Station which I visited this month. This will be the most amazing of all the new London develpments. Well it does come in at £ 8 Billion.

So what is next? Well, apart from Coal Drops Yard, it has to be the new Weston Tower and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Galleries at Westminster Abbey. And one day Crossrail. If I live that long!

Measure for Measure at the RSC Stratford

I had to look up the meaning of the title. It comes from Mathew 7.2 "For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you". At the heart of this "comedy" is a powerful and unsettling message about morally corrupt politicians and sexual exploitation.  Vienna has sunk into the mire that resonates with events of today. Director Gregory Doran has let a play from 1604 speak yet again to a modern audience about the abuse of power.

Above are Sandy Grierson, who brings a grave melancholy to Angelo, thrust into a position he did not seek. But his performance is strained compared to Lucy Phelps as Isabella, a crusading evangelist at odds with all those around her.  However, neither are in the same league as the leads in the production at the Almeida in 2010. (See posting 13th April 2010). Rory Kinnear and Anna Maxwell Martin were outstanding in Michael Attenborough's modern setting.

There is some comedy to lighten the mostly dark mood. But even these interruptions are never less than salacious. Joseph Arkely is terrific as Lucio as is David Ajao as Pompey.

The cast is held together with a majestic performance from Antony Byrne as the Duke. But even his presumption in his last line only proves that he is not immune from the corruption that pervades this play. We go home in the same disgust as did Isabella. Some comedy!

The Art of Architecture - Battersea Power Station

The second in the Sky Arts series on The Art of Architecture featured Battersea Power Station. Whilst the first about the New York World Trade Centre Transportation Hub featured an in depth interview with architect Santiago Calatrava , it had very little about the construction. Whereas this one about Battersea Power Station was filled with very interesting (to me) sections about matching the new with the old.

The architect is WilkinsonEyre who also designed the reconstruction of the gas holders at Kings Cross. It was Jim Eyre who described how the Battersea building is such a complicated redevelopment featuring retail, apartments and offices within the shell of the old complex. And we were shown many of the features in the construction phase.

The overall development (including the brand new apartment and office buildings that finance the whole project) is £8 Billion. The brick structure is the largest in Europe and required 1.7 million new imperial sized bricks to match the existing. I loved how one of the team tracked down the original manufacturer Blockleys.

The chimneys were completely rebuilt but using the identical materials and type of construction as the originals. One will have a glass lift to a viewing platform at the top. I can't wait!

There are 16 tower cranes and numerous hoists on site requiring 44 crane drivers. I like this photo taken at night.

It was hard to find a photo inside the building but here is one.

This is what the shopping mall will look like.

There will be 69 lifts and 20 escalators. What I could not find was a photo of the four service cores that will house lifts, stairs and mechanical and electrical services. I had to watch the programme again to make sure that I wasn't dreaming. These are photos taken from the TV. The four rectangular concrete towers are the cores.

Apocalypse Now - The Final Cut

One night only. Apocalypse Now - The Final Cut was shown in cinemas last night. Predictably, not at my local Odeon, but Cineworld Hemel Hempstead showed it on their IMAX screen. So we were in for a wild ride. As Francis Ford Coppola said it is more of an experience than a traditional movie.

Did I ever see the film in the cinema forty years ago? Probably not, but I have certainly revisited the original over the years. I shall not go into the history of how this film was made, but it remains one of the most visually stunning pieces ever made. Some of the scenes involving countless extras is something to behold. Especially on a huge screen. And no wonder sound won the Oscar.

I had forgotten how bonkers was Dennis Hopper as a photojournalist (no name) high on alcohol and drugs as were most of the cast.

Now a running time of 183 minutes against the original 147 minutes (forgetting the Redux version at 196 minutes). The additional footage includes the dinner scene at the French plantation that I had forgotten existed. As I had the words of the title painted on something at the Kurtz base.

One of the critics has now said "I have come to think Apocalypse Now is a film you finally grow out of". I would not totally disagree, but as a cinematic event, it is hard to beat.

Stanley Kubrick at the Design Museum

This was definitely one of the best exhibitions I had ever seen. I totally agree with Will Gompertz, Arts Editor of the BBC who gave it five stars and says "The exhibition has been reconfigured and re-thought by the museum's curators with help from the designers, Pentagram. Elements have been thoughtfully added, such as Don McCullin's Vietnam War photographs, which Kubrick used as a reference source for scenes in Full Metal Jacket". He goes on:

You don't really get a true sense of the man behind the camera. Like almost all exhibitions nowadays, this is a myth-making enterprise in which the only criticism of the subject (letters from censors and disapproving cinema-goers) are designed to elevate his status as a maverick genius. But what it lacks in the way of a serious examination of an idiosyncratic, complex artist, it makes up for with a deeply researched documentary account of his working process. In the first room, we meet a young Stanley making a living by winning a few dollars playing chess and taking photographs for Look magazine (there's an accompanying exhibition of this early photographic work in the gallery above). We see the Eyemo camera he used for the fight scenes in Killer's Kiss, an early film he considered "amateurish". And in the corner is the cold-metal lumpen shape of his trusty Steenbeck editing table. 

What came across loud and clear was that Kubrick was far more comfortable editing his footage than anything else in the film making process. To sit at a cramped desk with film passing through a tiny screen for hours on end shows what a dedicated genius this man was.

One of the first items on display was this notebook for some special effects on The Shining. But they were written in a Quantity Surveyor's dim (dimension) book. There will not be many who spotted this!

In that first room of the exhibition is a piece of the script from Doctor Strangelove (one of my favourite movies). It is the part when the President speaks on the hot phone to his Soviet counterpart and includes the words "It's like this". Straightaway, I was bowled over.

What then follows is a room-by-room presentation of all his major films, starting with Paths of Glory and then Spartacus.  Amongst the hundreds of displays there is a shooting schedule for Paths of Glory. I have to say, I have never seen a shooting schedule before.

On the same film, a photo of a camera tower.

A sketch for an exterior of the hotel in The Shining.

Some costumes from that movie.

Some masks from Eyes Wide Shut.

Costumes from Barry Lyndon.

And those from 2001.

These are just a selection from a huge collection of items from the Stanley Kubrick archive. The presentation of those with a room for each film was just wonderful. I was in awe.

Battersea Power Station and The Design Museum

Following my visits to the redevelopments of the Exhibition Road Quarter in South Kensington, Paddington Basin and Kings Cross, this year it was the turn of Battersea Power Station. Arriving at Sloane Square Underground, I walked up King's Road and turned left to Albert Bridge. Then back along the Chelsea Embankment to Chelsea Bridge. A little further on to the Grosvenor Railway Bridge where I took the above photo across to the huge building site that is Battersea Power Station.

Back to Chelsea Bridge and over the River Thames to the entrance at Grosvenor Arch and into Circus West Village that is now open. There is a nice map on the Battersea Power Station website under "Getting Here".

Here there are restaurants, cafe's and shops nestling against the hoardings to one of the largest construction projects in Europe. Battersea Power Station. This is what I had come to see.

Although all the existing brickwork is being retained, the elevation above is all brand new, matching beautifully the original facades. The whole project is superbly organised, fourteen tower cranes and this is one of the classy hoists.

It was time for a break and I found a Coffee Works Project for a decaff cappuccino and a falafel wrap. This was the view from my table with the view through to the building site.

There are already some landscape areas and a water feature.

On the hoardings are some items from the old Power Station.

There are places to sit and a small viewing ramp where I could see back across the river.

And finally places to eat under Grosvenor Arch.

What I have missed describing are the huge apartment complexes, some of which are open and some under construction, all to help fund the enormously expensive redevelopment of the Power Station. It will all be quite something when it is complete. And those towers? They are completely new but in an identical construction as the original!

It was then time to head back to Sloane Square to get to Kensington High Street and the Design Museum and my next post.

The Keeper, The Current War and Animals

I had never heard about this film until it was advertised as a one off Senior Screen showing. Although clunky in parts, The Keeper was generally a fine interpretation of how it was in the late forties for an ex German Prisoner of War in North West England. As you might guess, he was not always popular. But it said a lot for the character of Bert Trautmann that he persevered in his love of goalkeeping.

The football part of the story was very familiar to me, the background was entirely new. The human and romantic drama is interwoven well, however the screenplay was not the best and the acting suffered as a result. The German/British joint production was headed by director,writer Marcus H. Rosenmuller. In the hands of another director, this could have been so much better.

Somewhere inside The Current War is a great movie struggling to get out. Maybe they should have changed the title to "Edison" and concentrated on the exploits of this genius instead. But no. Here we are treated to a mind numbing battle between the great inventor and George Westinghouse about the adoption of either alternating current or direct current  complete with small scenes of their respective domestic lives.

The idea of trying to portray the different characteristics of the two men left me quite bored, as it did most of the critics. Coupled with the fact that they never meet until the very end. A story about Thomas Edison might have explained the wonder of the first light bulb and electric power generation as well as sound recording and early moving pictures that are only touched on.

On the subject of power generation, I think it is assumed we already knew where that came from? But going back with Edison to his creation of the Pearl Street Power Station would have made a lot more sense. A huge missed opportunity.

Having read the reviews of the book by Emma Jane Unsworth, Animals did not seem the most likely story to make into a movie. A play maybe? My lasting impression was did the two flat mates ever go to work? And how did they cope with all the hard partying that filled their lives on screen.

The film suffers that predictable flaw when the author of the book adapts it for the screen herself. That is not to say that the script is poor, just at times the bickering is more embarrassing than smart. Holliday Grainger and Alia Shawcat as Laura and Tyler are well cast, the former particularly excellent as the aspiring novelist. Who knew that Jackson Brodie's assistant could act this well. Any movie where the lead struggles with her first novel has my vote. One scene in a cafe full of budding authors making notes was fine, it just did not need repeating.

Yes, that was the problem with the movie, too much repetition. Director Sophie Hyde might have done better alongside a fresh writer for the screenplay, but she does a pretty good job in the circumstances. If someone decided to rewrite as a play, I would definitely want to see it.