The Lawn in March

 

Yesterday, the lawn had it's first cut of the year. The weather had been so good over the last week with lots of sunny days and a gradual increase in temperature to 14C. 

I had left it until the warmest day as I wanted to apply Pro Keen's Iron Sulphate straight after mowing. I could then water the lawn as recommended before dissolving the powder in a watering can. I cannot believe it took so many trips to spray the lawn. But the moss was the worst it has ever been and it was not long before it was already turning black.

This last picture is from the far end of the garden where there is no sun for months and the moss is the worst. Apparently, the iron sulphate not only kills the moss, but it also hardens the turf allowing better growth of the grass. It certainly seemed to work last year. Another month and it will be time for Pro Kleen's Grass Green fertilizer.

Oscars 2025

 

I looked at my post about last years Oscars and how much I was in agreement with so many of the awards. But not this year. The big winner was Anora. Best film, best actress, best director, best original screenplay and best editing. I did not agree with any of these. It's an OK movie, but nothing special. Perhaps the voters could not face watching the three hours plus of The Brutalist which, in my opinion is by far the better and more important story. I nearly didn't go because of the length and that only stopped me from seeing it again. 

I wasn't sure that Adrian Brody actually deserved the best actor award. Funnily enough I just preferred Timothee Chalamet in A Complete Unknown.  Demi Moore should have won best actress.  Brady Corbet should have won best director for The Brutalist as he did at the BAFTA's. And that film also deserved winning best cinematography. The final nail in the coffin of this years Oscars was the award for best animated feature. How did the silent, unheard of Flow beat Wallace and Gromit? Was that a huge anti-British vote? What else? I cry Fowl.

Fortunately, the Oscar for the best international feature went to I'm Still Here (see my review). Here is writer and director Walter Salles with his award.

Movies at Home - A Shot in the Dark, Passport to Pimlico and The Outfit

 

A Shot in the Dark  stars  Peter Sellers as the bumbling Inspector Clouseau, a spin off from the Pink Panther movies. All pretty silly, the pratfalls are rarely funny, but there are plenty of laughs along the way. Elke Sommer is the chambermaid accused of murder and Herbert Lom plays Clouseau's unfortunate boss and I recognised Graham Stark as his assistant. I had to look up who played Kato, Clouseau's karate partner. It was Burt Kwouk. It was all pretty stupid but good fun. They don't make films like this anymore.

Another of the Ealing comedies produced by Michael Balcombe,  Passport to Pimlico is not quite as good as some of the others. All based on the premise that finding some treasure and an ancient document shows that Pimlico is a legal part of the House of Burgundy. A very original story but the script is not as good as the premise. But what was interesting was the location. Nearly all filmed outside in the heart of Lambeth. So in 1949 we see lots of bomb sites, a cliff of sandbags and deserted buildings. (Even when I lived in London in 1952 there were still some of these). 

Stanley Holloway leads the cast, but it might have been Margaret Rutherford that audiences came to see. Did they cheer when she first arrives? We have songs from Jane Hylton as Molly with Charles Hawtry (an exile from all those Carry On films) on piano. Directed by Henry Cornelius and written by T E B Clark.  All a bit of nonsense with the odd chuckle. But a great bit of history.

A surprisingly excellent film starring Mark Rylance. I wondered why I had never seen it at the cinema, and then found it was only on very limited release in Curzon and other similar cinemas. However, in the end I found it probably worked as well, if not better on the small screen. Mark Rylance plays an English Jewish tailor in 1950's Chicago. No, "not a tailor, a cutter". Tailors only sew on buttons.  All the action takes place in his shop. He is somehow involved with the mob with all the coming and going. Things take a turn for the worse, with so many twists and turns along the way. The script is brilliant, written by the first time director Graham Moore and Jonathon McClain. The supporting actors are great, Johnny Flynn at his cruel best, Simon Russell Beale and Zoey Deuch. I'm so glad it was shown on TV.

Much Ado About Nothing - The Musical at The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

 

Anyone who knows me would be surprised at my choice for a trip to the theatre as demonstrated in the following photos.

The only reason I found myself at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane (apart from the fact that I had never seen anything there before) was to support Andrew Lloyd Webber and his fabulously expensive restoration of the theatre. In my post of the 14th April 2021 I included an article in The Times and said it might be years before a Shakespeare play was staged. And here we are four years later and I'm stuck with this lot. Thanks Andrew for using Jaime Lloyd. I even mentioned back then that the actors might need mikes for this huge auditorium and so they did in this production.

I did take the tour of the newly restored theatre as my post of 16th September 2021 and included some wonderful photos of the auditorium. All I could get yesterday was this!

The reason being was the light show and the awfully loud dance music that was on offer as we took our seats. I knew then we were in for something different. The RSC have been known to modernise some Shakespeare productions, songs and dancing, but this is strictly for the young. Before I start on the "play" let's me just say I had one of the best seats in the theatre. Sixth row on the left hand side on the edge of an isle. So my view was actually across the isle so pretty much unobstructed. Unlike maybe those in even more expensive seats in the middle (and mine was a horrific £95 but worth it for the view if not the tight legroom. I had thought that Andrew had said his restoration would be more spacious.

We have a completely bare stage, a song to start with all the pink ticker tape falling down as it does at various times. The only props are the eight small bucket seats for the cast. In the first act the actors are always on stage, either acting or seated. Somehow the director or someone must have got fed up with this for the second half.  The lighting was very good but added to the modernistic feel. A song to start and here were Hayley Attwell as Beatrice (top photo) and Tom Hiddleston as Benedict (next photo down). His entrance to a cacophony of screams from some young women in the audience. (That was a first for me). More screams later when he strips off his shirt. Unbelievable. 

Now these two stars are very good actors. Much of what they were asked to do was excellent. But something was missing. I thought this pay was renowned for the sparks that flew between the two. I didn't see any. They were certainly there in the superb RSC production I went to see in Stratford (see post 23rd October 2014) where it held me "spellbound, wonderful". But their bickering here just felt just silly. It felt somehow that director Jaime Lloyd had seen the play at Stratford and went for the exact opposite. The best part of this production was when the Beatrice and Benedict are hiding at different times to hear the others (who know they are there) extol the virtues of the other. This can always be knock about scenes and those that involve Hiddleston are the best of the evening. 

There are lots of reviews on the internet from "I couldn't wait to get home. Tom Hiddleston fans will delight in his winks, rear end wriggles" to a five star review in The Guardian and elsewhere. Am I just too old for this sort of thing? However, I had promised myself  a Shakespeare play at The Lane, and this was it.

Below is a picture from that marvellous production at the RSC in 2014.

I was early arriving in London for this matinee, so I had time to look at some of the stations on the new Elizabeth Line: Paddington, Bond Street and Tottenham Court Road. They were fine. I took some photos, but there are better ones on the London Transport Museum website: "The Elizabeth Line - Ten Bold New Stations". Here are a couple of mine.

February in the Garden

 

Halfway through February and no sign of the daffodils coming into flower. Unlike last year.

All because we have been in ten days of cold but mostly dray weather. With the temperatures  not to rise until Wednesday next week, that will be two weeks of a cold February.

Although there are signs in the garden of things about to change. The snowdrops are quite happy in the cold.

The primroses are in flower.

I thought the dianthus in the two large pots on the side patio were only annuals. But apparently not. Putting on some growth in front of the pruned roses.

However, there is nothing to report on the shrubs, not even a flower on the forsythia as there were last year.

At the end of the month, the first daffodil has come into flower.

As have some of the shrubs.

Then finally, on the last day of February, some of the daffodils have decided it's time to bloom.

Some crocuses I planted last year have also flowered at the front of the bedding border.

Pippa Nixon in Unforgotten

 

We are currently watching series six of Unforgotten. The first series was aired in 2015 with Nicola Walker and Sanjeev Bhaskar as the lead detectives. Sinead Keenan replaced Walker for series five and six. However, in series one and four to six, Pippa Nixon plays DC Karen Willetts. 

There are reviews on this blog about Pippa:

As You Like It at the RSC Stratford: post 22nd August 2013

King John at the RSC Stratford: post 7th September 2012

The Importance of Being Ernest: post  2nd May 2019

She also reprised her Rosalind from As You Like It at RSC Live!: post 13th October 2023

So her current role is quite a departure.

The Art of Fiction - Summary

 

When David Lodge says this book is for more general reading than university courses, there were still parts that I did not understand. Some of the fifty topics were better than others. I thought that some were padding to make it up to the fifty. Lodge is certainly a master of literary criticism and anyone interested in this subject would find much of interest. 

The Art of Fiction: Parts 41 - 50

 

41 Duration

Come Back, Dr Caligari by Donald Barthelme (1964)

David Lodge tells us about these "stories that continually tested the limits of fictional form". In this extract the author in "Will You Tell Me" stupidly (in my opinion) glances through the years in only a few words. Not clever.

42 Implication

Scenes from a Provincial Life by William Cooper (1950)

Here the writer "goes to the very edge of explicitness, something that would never have been allowed in previous decades. "Teasing the reader into the inferential construction of a scene that is both witty and erotic" when so much is implied.

43 The Title

New Grub Street by George Gissing (1891)

(So many of these nineteenth century authors of whom I had never heard). In this extract, Reardon had finished writing his novel but without a title, could not think of one, so he just used the name of the main character (as so many did in those days). Some interesting  notes from Lodge such as Martin Amis calling his second novel Dead Babies (1975), but the publishers changed it to Dark Secrets.

44 Ideas

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (1962)

"A novel in which ideas seem to be the source of the work's energy, originating and shaping and maintaining it's narrative momentum". So here it is the idea of the hooligans using their own version of slang. This short extract includes "droogs", "sherries", "yahzic", "grahzny", "vonay" etc. (Reading this brings back memories of the film).

45 The Non-Fiction Novel

The French Revolution by Thomas Carlyle (1837)

Could we not have had a more modern novel to demonstrate this? Why not instead Truman Capote's In Cold Blood etc which Lodge describes at the start of this piece. Or Schindler's Ark that was classed as non fiction in America but won the Booker Prize for fiction.

46 Metafiction

Lost in the Funhouse by John Barth (1968)

"Metafiction is fiction about fiction - novels and stories that call attention to their fictional status". The Granddaddy of them all is ..... yes: "echoes of Tristram Shandy". Why is Lodge so obsessed with this book? However, English novelists tend to use this device as an aside. Now that's good.  

47 The Uncanny

William Wilson by Edgar Allan Poe (1839)

So I consulted my 1963 edition of Tales of Mystery and Imagination (new when I bought it when I was eighteen) and there was the above story first of the forty six. It starts "Let me call myself, for the present, William Wilson". Typical of the author, this is a "Doppelganger" story. A depraved narrator tormented by this "rival". "Plunging deeper and deeper into dissipation". Lodge also talks about Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Hammer Films plundered Poe's short stories. 

48 Narrative Structure

I Would Have Saved Them If I Could by Leonard Michaels (1975)

Here are three extremely short pieces, not even paragraphs. THE HAND is five lines, ALL RIGHT is eight and MA just makes two. I think that Lodge must be running out of headings to make up the fifty.

49 Aporia

The Unnameable by Samuel Beckett (1959)

I didn't know that this Greek word means difficulty or being at a loss, literally "a pathless path, a track that gives out". The excerpt sounds just like something out of Beckett's Waiting for Godot. "What am I to do. What should I do. In my situation, how to proceed?" Lodge gives us a few more examples such as Shakespeare's "to be or not to be". 

50 Ending

Of course it had to be that. 

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen (1818)

Lord of the Flies by William Golding (1954)

Lodge discusses the difference between "the end of the novel's story" and "the last page or two of text". I would have been interested to hear the difference but he spends more time on his own novel Changing Places.

Companion, Bridget Jones - Mad about the Boy and I'm Still Here

 

A low budget movie that brought back memories of films like Her, Ex-Machina and The Final Girl. But here in Companion, the female is a robot. So an enjoyable futuristic satire. Unfortunately, the first few words of the film from Iris gives the game away completely. Why did they do that? My suggestion is go in five minutes late and avoid all trailers. Indeed, following this guidance you would never know Iris is a robot.

The story is OK, but the dialogue not great. Tom Shone in his three star review in the Sunday Times talks about director "Drew Hancock's high concept horror comedy". I didn't know any of the actors except for an unrecognisable Rupert Friend in a small early appearance. The film does not aim to be scary, and despite the obligatory deaths, it's mainly good fun. In fact the first death is off screen. Mark Kermode on his podcast loved it. Nothing in Sight and Sound.

Nor was there for the new Bridget Jones movie; Mad about the Boy. Most notable for it's collection of top British stars including Hugh Grant (worth the price of admission on his own), Colin Firth, Sally Phillips, Emma Thomson (only a tiny part that should have it's own movie), Neil Pearson (not seen him for ages - didn't miss any of his Between the Line's), Jim Broadbent (also very briefly), Celia Imrie, Isla Fisher and the big co-star, the ever reliable and brilliant Chiwetel Ejiofor as Mr Wallaker.

Lots of wonderful locations from Hampstead (I'm sure I visited The Spaniards Inn but that would have been over forty years ago), Hampstead Heath (all on this blog), Parliament Hill. The pub was now derelict The Hope and Anchor in Hammersmith. Then later on the Lake District: all sorts of conflicting locations on the net, but Derwent Water is favourite (Keswick, Kitchen Bay and near the familiar ferry at Hawes End). As tour leader, Mr Wallaker admits, this is the most beautiful place in the world. The old barn was Old Brandlehow Barn nearby. 

There were the odd funny parts, but "Bridget is older, wiser, sharper, funnier and marginally less dependent on pratfalls". Only one to my recollection. She even has  a highly respected job as a TV producer. The critics warmed to this fourth, and better film in the series. British director Michael Morris has the credit. All to a fine soundtrack although the only two that were familiar were Modern Love by David Bowie (Fabulous over the late opening credits) and Should I Stay or Should I go by The Clash. I somehow missed A Little Respect by The Hanseroth Twins (the backing musicians for Brandi Carlile).

I had to go to Cineworld in Hemel Hempstead to see I'm Still Here. A Brazilian film with many nominations at this weeks Oscars. It should win best international feature, and it's even nominated for best picture.  But not an easy film to watch. Set in 1971's Rio de Janeiro and based on a true story, it follows the well off Paiva family when the father is arrested and disappears for ever. His wife is played by the wonderful Fernanda Torres who, in my opinion is worth best actress ahead of Demi Moore and Mikey Madison. The film starts happily enough, parents and five children enjoying the beach and the weather. But in the background is always the threat of the military dictatorship. 

For a film that concentrates nearly all of the time on the family, it is tense, happy and heart breaking, all at the same time. Tom Shone in The Sunday Times says it is "all the more powerful for it's intense dramatic focus on the Paiva's family dynamic". Director Walter Salles is the reason. His other films include Motorcycle Diaries (recorded last week) and Central Station. He is the focus of the four page article in this month's Sight and Sound Magazine - see my review. Mark Kermode says it is one of the best films of the year, "brilliant and gripping". 

The Long Border

 

The only time we can see the long border is if we head out down the garden. So it does tend to get left out from much maintenance. With the weather this week having turned milder, it was out with the hoe to clear the horrible Speedwell that was spreading along the back of the border. It is in any case resistant to weed killer. But the hoe worked fine, it was just the crawling around between the shrubs to pick up the foliage and roots that was not. The photo below is from the very far end.

I had planted some bulbs which are now beginning to appear.

At the near end of the border the roses have been pruned and the weeds around them cleared. 

At the same time I pulled up some of the forget-me-nots which last year swamped the border.

Further on, as the photo below,  the Forsythia shows no sign of coming into flower as it had done already last year.

I found this photo of the Speedwell. Fortunately it doesn't self seed but just spreads, so clearing should help.

 

Sight and Sound Magazine - March 2025

 

Editorial

Mike Williams gives us an obituary of David Lynch who graces the cover of yet another edition of the magazine. It was only in the September issue that he was there on the front cover, again with the editorial from Mike Williams and a nine page feature. See my post of 26th August 2024. This time there follows thirteen pages in his memory.

Opening Scenes 

Ehsan Khoshbakht talks about the  Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof 's film The Seed of the Scared Fig. It was never on general release but it was on one evening at the Rex Berkhamsted. "His films are sombre and introspective".

Editor's Choice

Of the six features here, there is a recommended podcast called The Great Political Films: Jeanne Dielman etc. Only on Spotify, Apple and Amazon.

In Production

Ben Wheatley's Normal being filmed in Canada, Robert Eggers might be filming Werewolf  and Christopher Nolan planning Homer's Odyssey using brand new IMAX technology.

AI Spy, Obituary, In Conversation, Reader's Letters - nothing worth including.

Mean Sheets

Designer Brian Hung's posters for four of Hong Sangsoo's films that include three with Isabelle Hupert. 

The Long Take

Pamela Hutchinson says "it was thanks to VHS that I became a cinephile" and how David Lynch was a huge part of that. She goes on to describe lots of VHS movies from every vintage.

Flick Lit

Nicole Flattery tells us that the film Babygirl inspired her article about affairs with younger men on film. "As much as I enjoyed Babygirl and All Fours I was fascinated by their inability to address either power imbalance". 

TV Eye

Andrew Male talks about Star Wars: Skeleton Crew on Disney +. "Of to greener pastures and bluer skies".

David Lynch 1946 to 2025

An obituary over thirteen pages, most of which we have read before. He also graces the front cover as he did in September's issue. Is this all just too much? There is an interview he gave with Chris Auty for the Guardian Lecture at the National Film Theatre in December 1984. And from the Dight and Sound Archives, nine people from the film industry talk about his work.

Phantom Ride

Steven Soderbergh talks to talks to Philip Concannon about his new film Presence. It is filmed from the point of view of the ghost in a suburban house. So the camera is the ghost we never see as it observes the family who have just moved in. With a script by David Koepp. "The challenge of choregraphing the shots. It sounds interesting, a small film on a tiny budget, the opposit of his other new film Black Bag. That has a reported budget of $60 million and stars Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett.

My Sister Chantal

I didn't know that Sight and Sound have an Auteurs Series. The latest one hundred page print special is about Chantal Akerman. The director who died in 2015 whose films include Jeanne Dielman etc. Here the director Celine Sciamma (who I now know directed the superb Portrait of a Lady on Fire) writes about how she is influenced by Chantal's work. 

Truth Be Told

A six page special about Mike Leigh's new film Hard Truths. But not for me.

The Wound Is Never Closed

Director Walter Salles talks to Geoff Andrew about his new film I'm Still Here. (On at the Rex next week). A woman's husband disappears after his arrest in 1971 Brazil. "A triumphant return" from the director. There is a great piece about the casting of Fernanda Torres in the lead role of the wife and mother to five children. Apparently not for the faint hearted.

Reviews : Films

Already seen Nosferatu and A Complete Unknown -  see reviews. Want to see I'm Still Here (see above), Presence and The Seed of the Sacred Fig. No sign of any review for Bridget Jones or Captain America. I'm Still Here is reviewed by Nick James who says "Biopics are rarely to my taste but the power of this film overcame my prejudice". Then Leigh Singer reviews A Complete Unknown and calls Monica Barbaro "excellent" as Joan Baez, and that director James Mangold "nimbly navigates actuality". From South Korea comes By the Stream directed by Hong Sang-Soo's is his thirty second film. The rehearsing of a student play sounds interesting.

DVD and Blu-Ray - nothing of interest.

Rediscovery

Nothing is Sacred: Three Heresies by Louis Bunuel.. Three restored films that sound pretty bleak.

Lost and Found 

 Freelance is a 1970 movie directed by Francis Megahy who went on to direct episodes of The Professionals (1978) and Minder (1979-89). But his earlier film was about a small time crook played by Ian McShane with whom he went on to direct in TV's Lovejoy (1991-2) and other movies. In Freelance there are typical London locations such as Regent's Canal, alleyways and tower blocks. We can only see part of it on YouTube.

Also in this section is a 1988 German film The Cat and Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch Drunk Love. Better though sounded Akira Kurosawa's High and Low described as a "riveting thriller". One to look for except the DVD's are all too expensive.

Wider Screen and Books 

Nothing worth including here.

From the Archive

A Star is Born. (Sight and Sound Autumn 1973). Robert Callen talks about the Danish actress Asta Nielson whose eighty films were all made in the era of silent movies. "One of the all time greats of screen acting and a global icon". 

This Month in ..... 1998

The best of seven excerpts from that month's magazine is a review of Good Will Hunting.

Endings

It just had to be a Chantal Akerman film: Golden Eighties from 1986. Set in a Brussels underground shopping mall. But not for me.