The Sessions

I forst saw a blub review of this film by David Denby in the 19 Nov 12 issue of NYer by David Denby (Easily the most highly sanctified movie about sex ever made. John Hawkes plays a fortyish man in the nineteen-sixties, a polio victim who lives mostly in an iron lung. He’s never had sex, and he’s desperately horny. After talking it over with his priest (a morose William H. Macy), he hires a sex surrogate, played by a brisk, frequently naked Helen Hunt (looking great, for the record, at forty-nine). Hawkes is inventive and charming, and the writer and director Ben Lewin makes him ruefully funny; the actor is easy to take. The filmmakers know that their therapeutic approach to lust is a bit creepy, and they try to joke their way out of it. They don’t succeed: the sex scenes and the long discussions with the priest—an unhappy voyeur—are all a bit queasy, yet you can’t laugh. The movie is so clammily sensitive and tame that it stifles any strong response. Based on the life and journalism of the late poet Mark O’Brien.)

I did not find Macy morose; on the contrary, he showed a range of emotions, including gloom. He played a priest who, despite his misgivings, talked with a parishioner about sex outside of marriage. As a friend.

Roger Ebert begins his 3.5 stars review: At a time when sex is as common in the movies as automobiles, his need and his attempt to fulfill it requires an awesome dedication. The film is a reminder of how unique sexual intimacy is, and even how ennobling.

And he ends it: "The Sessions" isn't really about sex at all. It is about two people who can be of comfort to each other, and about the kindness that forms between them. This film rebukes and corrects countless brainless and cheap sex scenes in other movies. It's a reminder that we must be kind to one another.

Stephen Holden in the NY Times also liked it: Arriving in a culture steeped in titillation, prurience and pornographic imagery, “The Sessions” is a pleasant shock: a touching, profoundly sex-positive film that equates sex with intimacy, tenderness and emotional connection instead of performance, competition and conquest. There are moments between the client and his surrogate that are so intensely personal that your first instinct may be to avert your eyes. But the actors’ lighthearted rapport allows you to rejoice unashamedly in their characters’ pleasure.

A chance to win

Having finished One shot at forever, I wanted another baseball book, and this one looked good. Challenging, too: inner city kids and baseball. It is far more than that, and far less than about baseball. Oh, it is there, baseball, but so are drugs, losers, broken families. This is more a sociological ract than a baseball book. Not that there is necessarily anything wrong with either sociology or a tract about the inner city, but it was not the book I wanted. I stayed with it, but could not finish it. I gave up. I guess I have that luxury. To me, it is just a book.

Liberal Arts

Very good film. No special effects. No wanton sex. Very cerebral (characters read books!). In other words, a mature film —which, of course, had terrible box office. Ebert quite liked it, as did I.

Josh Radnor's "Liberal Arts" is an almost unreasonable pleasure about a jaded New Yorker who returns to his alma mater in Ohio and finds that his heart would like to stay there. It's the kind of film that appeals powerfully to me; to others, maybe not so much. There is a part of me that will forever want to be walking under autumn leaves, carrying a briefcase containing the works of Shakespeare and Yeats and a portable chess set. I will pass an old tree under which once on a summer night I lay on the grass with a fragrant young woman and we quoted e.e. cummings back and forth.

The  entire review is worth quoting, really.

"Liberal Arts" has been criticized in some quarters as a sitcom, in part because Radnor stars in a famous one, "How I Met Your Mother." Those who see it that way are well-guarded. God forbid that they would ever "fall for anything." I strive to leave myself vulnerable.
There is a word to explain why this particular film so appealed to me. Reader, that word is "escapism." If you understand why I used the word "reader" in just that way, you are possibly an ideal viewer for this movie.

Merci beaucoup .

Safe house

Incredibly violent. In my eyes, even Denzel could not save this form being a worthless piece of shit. A waste of time. I wish I could get the two hours back.

Maggie Smith

One of my very favourite actors. A couple of weekends ago I was in the mood to watch an old favorite of mine, in which she stars, so I got My house in Umbria. Still delightful. I've watched so often, I know much of the dialogue — even some in Italian.

Last weekend, Saturday, specifically, I needed a film to watch. Looked through TCM's list, and picked out a couple. Watched Travels with my aunt — after five minutes, zzzz! Awoke an hour later, and turned it off. Oh, well.

A small town, an unlikely coach, and a magical baseball season

Saw it on display on a table at PN, and took it. A gem. Ballard goes back to 1970, in Macon, IL, and looks at the baseball team. Managed by an unlikely coach, a nonconformist who allowed the players to call their own practices, their own signals, their own games, the team makes a run at the Illinois state championship before being disqualified (and that by the initiative of its school's principal, who di dnot like the coach). In 1971, the team goes back to the state championship, and loses the final game. Along the way, the young men develop an abiding respect and love for their coach.
Ballard then finds the men, grown up, and traces their life's trajectory. Two did play pro ball, and one is in the majors, as a coach (or was, in 2010).
Well written, nicely paced, thoroughly enjoyable. My only complaint: it ended too soon; I could've read another hundred pages.

This Bird don't soar

Bird!

After reading this review of Crouch’s book, I was excited, and reserved the book. Why? Don’t I know enough about Charlie Parker? Of course I do; I’ve been listening to Phil Schaap for decades. DO I need to know more? Of course not. But … this is Bird. So I took the book. I read to page 41, and, disappointed, and annoyed, I shut the book. And returned it. Crouch relies on metaphors, similes, cliches, and other grammatical tricks, tries to come up with a cadence that he supposes, I suppose, will make the reader feel Bird’s music … But, it don’t work.

    Example: discussing Coronado’s exploration of the territory above the Rio Grande led by Marcos de Niza. Included in the group was an African slave named Estevan. This Arab Negro, Crouch writes, died up there, Niza said, for some foolish and arrogant act; the promotion from slave to scout had yeasted his head to self-destructive proportions. You know, give them an inch. (41) What?

And: But the things his fellow band members were thinking was of no consequence to Charlie Parker. He had his mind on other matters. How does Crouch know? Conjecture? Sure, it is easy to suppose Parker wanted to score dope before playing music, but that can not be assumed, not in a biography. In fiction, sure.

Greenberg (2010)

Ebert liked it (This is an intriguing film, shifting directions, considering Greenberg's impossibility in one light and then another. If he's stuck like this at 40, is he stuck for good? What Ben Stiller does with the role is fascinating. We can't stand Greenberg. But we begin to care about him. Without ever overtly evoking sympathy, Stiller inspires identification. You don't have to like the hero of a movie. But you have to understand him — better than he does himself, in some cases). I'm not so sure.

A. O. Scott liked it, too. I am not so sure.

The best exotic Marigold Hotel (2011)

an ensemble cast consisting of Judi Dench, Celia Imrie, Bill Nighy, Ronald Pickup, Maggie Smith, Tom Wilkinson and Penelope Wilton, as a group of British pensioners moving to a retirement hotel in India, run by the young and eager Sonny, played by Dev Patel.

Gets 78% & 79% in Rotten Tomatoes. About right. Wilkinson charcater is very well portrayed. Patel's seems a stereotype that nearly drowns in syrup. Ebert liked it. As did Stephen Holden in the Times: The screenplay does a reasonably skillful job of interweaving its subplots and of creating some mild surprises. This is a programmatically feel-good movie whose tempered optimism and insistence that it’s never too late to leave your comfort zone and explore new horizons stays mostly (but not always) on the safe side of sentimentality. Besides its sterling cast, its ace in the hole is its pungent depiction of Jaipur’s teeming streets, which give an otherwise well-mannered movie a blinding splash of color.

Finding Forrester (2000)

Fondly remembered, I went looking for it. Watched. Liked it; watched it twice. Ebert gave it three stars.
Ebert: The movie contains at least two insights into writing that are right on target. The first is William's advice to Jamal that he give up waiting for inspiration and just start writing. My own way of phrasing this rule is: The Muse visits during composition, not before. The other accurate insight is a subtle one. An early shot pans across the books next to Jamal's bed, and we see that his reading tastes are wide, good and various. All of the books are battered, except one, the paperback of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, which looks brand new and has no creases on its spine. That's the book everyone buys but nobody reads.

Both Connery and Brown are superb in their acting. 

Devil in a blue dress (1995)

Early Denzel smokes the role of Easy Rawlins.
The film begins in noir fashion when Easy Rawlins (Denzel Washington) says "A man once told me that when you step out of your door in the morning, you're already in trouble. The only question is, are you on top of that trouble or not?"

The Great Debaters (2007)

Denzel in an excellent performance as the coach of a debateteam from Wiley College, a small East Texas school. The team slays the dragons of competition and racism.

Based on a true story, the plot revolves around the efforts of debate coach Melvin B. Tolson (Denzel Washington) at historically black Wiley College to place his team on equal footing with whites in the American South during the 1930s, when Jim Crow laws were common and lynch mobs were a pervasive fear for blacks. In the movie, the Wiley team eventually succeeds to the point where they are able to debate Harvard University. This was their 47th annual debate team.
The movie also explores the social constructs in Texas during the Great Depression including not only the day-to-day insults and slights African Americans endured, but also a lynching. Also depicted is James L. Farmer, Jr. (Denzel Whitaker), who, at 14 years old, was on Wiley's debate team after completing high school (and who later went on to co-found C.O.R.E., the Congress of Racial Equality). According to the Houston Chronicle, another character depicted on the team, Samantha Booke, is based on the real individual Henrietta Bell Wells, the only female member of the 1930 debate team from Wiley College who participated in the first collegiate interracial debate in the United States. Wells also happened to be a minor African American poet whose papers are housed at the Library of Congress.
The key line of dialogue, used several times, is a famous paraphrase of Augustine of Hippo: "An unjust law is no law at all."
Another major line, repeated in slightly different versions according to context, concerns doing what you "have to do" in order that we "can do" what we "want to do." In all instances, these vital lines are spoken by the James L. Farmer Sr. and James L. Farmer, Jr. characters.

The major characters are very well acted. Denzel delivers a soliloquy about Negroes and racism that is a perfect example of the excellence of his acting. Wonderful film.

Definitely, maybe (2008)

An old favorite that holds up nicely.

Great opening sequence. Kevin Kline shines in a small role ("be a man; drink." "Are you comfortable?" a nurse asks him as he lies in a hospital bed after a heart attack. "I make a living," he answers, continuing, "give us a smile, sweetheart, I've been waiting all my ife to use that line."). And Maya ("What's the boy word for 'slut'?"). The five main characters are good. Quite enjoyable. Still.

Saturday Night Fever (1977)

Again coming out of my writing, this time considering Bruce Weiss and Nora Ortiz, and dancing, this film popped into my consciousness. Still a great dela of fun. Travolta was magnificent.

Searching for Sugarman (2012)

a documentary film directed by Malik Bendjelloul, which details the efforts of two Cape Town fans in the late 1990s, Stephen 'Sugar' Segerman and Craig Bartholomew Strydom, to find out whether the rumoured death of American musician Sixto Rodriguez was true, and, if not, to discover what had become of him. Rodriguez's music, which never took off in the United States, had become wildly popular in South Africa, but little was known about him there.

Excellent. Engrossing story, excellent music.

Ernest Hemingway's The killers (1946)

Tense! Taut! Terrific! Wikipedia page has a theatrical release poster of this film. Excellent film noir. First big role for both Lancaster and Gardner. Well done.

My Afternoons with Margueritte (2010)

Gérard Depardieu plays a simple man — a man who is supposed to be something of a simpleton — who encounters an old lady (sounds so much better in Spanish, una anciana, or someone in her third life stage) on a park bench. They bond over the pigeons he names for her. She reads to him from Camus's The Plague.

Ebert had it this way:
Germain believes he cannot read. Actually, we discover later, he was taught to read but never taught to have a shred of self-confidence. She begins to read to him — The Plague by Camus — and he is an ideal listener. With her as his catalyst, he makes slow steps toward self-esteem.

Through flashbacks, his lack of self-esteem is explained. At the root of it, lies his mother. The films has all the elements of a good work, but never quite sparkles. Ebert gave it three stars. I give it two. I found it quite similar to Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont, which I liked much better.


Mediocre.

Bridge at Remagen (1969)

Recommended by PN patron. George Segal emotes, does nice job as Army leiutenant leading a squad spearheading US advance across the Rhine. Ben Gazzara does good job as a cynical soldier who is, nevertheless, a crack shot and fearless. Robert Vaughn slightly overplays role as German major sent to hold the last standing bridge crossing the Rhine. Hitler has ordered the bridge to be blown up, even though that will strand 75,000 German soldiers. Despite efforts to hold bridge, an unofficial order given to vaughn's character by his commanding general,  he finally decides to blow it up, only to hVe the dynamite he was sent for the jon turn out to ne defective. In next to last scene, Vaughn's major is shot by firing squad. Film tried to show war was more than just shooting, anticipating "Saving Private Ryan" by three decades. Very good war movie.

Pursued

Probably reviewed in a New Yorker magazine sidebar column. Interesting seeing Teresa Wright in this role. Judith (not yet Dame) Anderson, ditto. Story holds up pretty well.

Why I left Goldman Sachs

Interesting look at the culture of Gokdman Sachs, by an insider.

City Island

Good acting. Great in spots. Enjoyable.

American Graffiti

Good music. Film did not hold up all too well. Still enjoyable.

Sag Harbor

Very well done.

The author blurs the line between fiction and memoir as he recounts the coming-of-age summer of 15-year-old Benji Cooper in the family's summer retreat of New York's Sag Harbor. "According to the world, we were the definition of paradox: black boys with beach houses," writes Whitehead. Caucasians are only an occasional curiosity within this idyll, and parents are mostly absent as well. Each chapter is pretty much a self-contained entity, corresponding to a rite of passage: getting the first job, negotiating the mysteries of the opposite sex. There's an accident with a BB gun and plenty of episodes of convincing someone older to buy beer, but not much really happens during this particular summer. Yet by the end of it, Benji is well on his way to becoming Ben, and he realizes that he is a different person than when the summer started. He also realizes that this time in his life will eventually live only in memory. There might be some distinctions between Benji and Whitehead, though the novelist also spent his youthful summers in Sag Harbor and was the same age as Benji in 1985, when the novel is set. Yet the first-person narrator has the novelist's eye for detail, craft of character development and analytical instincts for sharp social commentary.Not as thematically ambitious as Whitehead's earlier work, but a whole lot of fun to read. Copyright Kirkus 2009 Kirkus

Glory

From my writing the story of Blanco Gregor, the history teacher, I thought of this film. Watched it. Remains, in my mind, a magnificent film. The acting is superb: Morgan Freeman, Matthew Broderickl, Cary Elwes, Andre Braugher, Jihmi Kennedy, and, of course, Denzel, are superb. What a fine film. Ebert gave it 3.5 out of a possible 4 stars.

Then She Found Me (2007)

Stephen Holden in the NY Times is positive: “Then She Found Me,” a serious comedy, is more impressive for what it refuses to do than for its modest accomplishment. The directorial debut of Helen Hunt, who plays April Epner, an anxious 39-year-old kindergarten teacher in New York City, it has all the ingredients of a slick, commercial farce, which it emphatically is not. 

Better than most of the crap that has been made in the last decade.

Your Sister's Sister (2011)

A.O. Scott in the Times pretty well gets to the crux of it, in his Movie Review: Solitary Retreat to a Remote Island Leads to Many Mix-Ups: Lynn Shelton’s ‘Your Sister’s Sister’. I liked it. Far more cursing than I thought necesary to capture the conversational style of the characters.

Roger Ebert liked it, writing about Mark Duplass, who plays Jack:  He's tall, comfortably built, shaggy, genial. He wears his testosterone lightly. He helps this film succeed because he doesn't push too hard in a tense situation.

I had this entry in my calendar on 12 November 2012: reviewed by Joe Morgernsten in WSJ.com on 6/15/12 - Lynn Shelton's lovely tale of swirling feelings was shot in a mere 12 days, on a budget that must have been minuscule. A couple of minutes after it's started, though, you know you're in the presence of people who will surprise and delight you.

Black Balloon

Another film that I saw coming attractions for (from the DVD of Captain Abu Raed), and interloaned. A family moves to a new neighborhood; the father is in the armed forces, his wife is heavily pregnant, and they have two grown sons: Charlie, who is autistic, and Thomas, 15, who is charged with caring for his older brother. There is some excellent acting, especially, I thought, by Luke Ford, who plays Charlie. Autism is shown is its different parts: Charlie's behavior, its effects in his family, the ignorance of others. Quite well done, though the ending was a bit weak.

Roosevelt's secret war

After reading Jack 1939, I picked this one up: interesting, detailed. Stopped at p. 360

An unfinished life

Dallek, Robert. (2003). An unfinished life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963 Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Co.

After reading Jack 1939, I picked this one up: I know the name of Robert Dallek, a historian. I realized that I have, perhaps, probably, never read a biography of JFK. Read to p.222, the mid-1950s. My overall impressions are that the Kennedys were dirty, rotten scoundrels; that JFK was an opportunist, a right-winger out of convenience and some conviction; that he could never have gotten away with all the lying about his health that he engaged in; that he reluctantly embraced liberal ideas; and that he was one very lucky man, to have become the idol and liberal icon that he did become. Well written book, though a little too favorable, I thought.

Captain Abu Raed

I saw coming attractions for this film when I watched Hedgehog, and took it out. I did not know quite what to expect, and I was impressed by the film. It's a great little story: a janitor in  Queen Alia International Airport in Amman finds a captain's hat, takes it home, is seen wearing it by a kid who, in turn, asks him to tell him stories about his travels; at first he refuses, but is worn down by a gaggle of kids who insist on hearing his stories; he fabricates them from pieces of knowledge he has, and in the process fascinates them and himself; one other kid, Murad, is a skeptic, and deliberately breaks the spell the Captain has woven by showing three of his admirers that he is not an airliner pilot but a janitor; that boy is abused by his drunken father, who also physically abuses his wife; the Captain liberates the family form the drunkard's abuse with the help of Nour, a thirtyish female pilot who is being pressured by her father to marry, who befriends him, and, in turn, looks to him for company and guidance.

One technique that I liked was that, in scenes that build to an apotheosis, the actual act is not shown, but implied. Such a scene is when the drunkard father is going to teach his son Murad a lesson by burning his hand, the actual burning is not shown; the scene builds up with such tension that it is unnecessary to show the act itself. Hollywood does not do that; it would have shown the burning in excruciating detail.

Excellent film.

Norman Granz

Hershorn, Tad. (2011). Norman Granz : the man who used jazz for justice. Berkeley : University of California Press.

 When I saw it, I had to take, even though, at the time, I had four or five other books. A couple of years ago I saw a CUNY grant available for writers of biography. Daydreaming, I wondered whom I might write about, and Granz came around: I could not fin done bio written about him. Interesting man, interesting book. After starting to write La Roja en verde, and the arrival of Hurricane Sandy, things changed. Worth going back to; stopped at p.122

Mentioned in book: Nat King Cole

Sleepy Lagoon case - connected to Zoot suit riots

 David Stone Martin - influenced by the line art of Ben Shahn;drew covers for Granz


 Joe Turner sang in Duke Ellington's Jump for Joy in LA, 1941 (34)

Marie Bryant: sang with Duke; had relationship with Granz

p.46: Prez's only recordings without drums, first in a trio 

T-Bone Walker (51)

Gjon Mili (65) - Jammin' the Blues

 

Flight

NY Times review- NYT Critics' Pick

Interview: John Gatins on wrestling his demons to write 'Flight'

How Does Denzel Washington Take Off?

Robert Zemeckis Returns to Live Action Movies With ‘Flight’

Taco USA

Interesting. Stopped on page 49

Swell

(2012). Swell ; A year of waves. by Evan Slater ; photos edited by Peter Taras ; [maps by Tina Zellmer]. San Francisco : Chronicle Books.

Hedgehog

Based on the book, Elegance of the hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery; translated by Alison Anderson. It well captures the essence of the book, even while necessarily trimming detail. Renée Michel is the concierge at a luxury apartment building in Paris who hides herself and her interests behind the appearance of the stereotype all tenants expect. Paloma Josse is the precoscious 11 year old daughter of a government minister and his hooked-on-psychoanalysis wife; she has decided to kill hersel fon her 12th birthday, in 165 days, to spare herself the absurdity of living an empty meaningless life.

When a tenant dies, the estate agent brings around a new tenant, a Japanese man who immediately is impressed with the concierge. "Did you know," he asks the concierge, the family that has left? The agent chimes in "they were very nice, very happy."

"All happy families are the same," Renée says, automatically, not thinking about it.
"But all unhappy families are unhappy in their own way," retorts Kakuro Ozu, the new tenant. Then he asks about her cat, and before the concierge can say anything the agent says its name is "Leo."

Kakuro senses that Leo is named after Leo Tolstoy; the sentences he and Renée exchanged are from Tolstoy's work "Anna Karenina." And so Renée realizes when, after the new tenant and the agent leave, she dashes into her room of books, takes a copy of "Anna Karenina" from the shelf, and finds the quotes. She immediately berates herself: she counts on not being known by her tenants as anything more than an indistinct concierge.

Soon Kakuro meets Paloma. Riding on the elevator, he asks her if she is indeed learning Japanese. Oui, she answers, and begins speaking in Japanese. Asking if he can correct her, Kakuro does so gently, amused and impressed by his new young friend. And they do become friends. Kakuro asks after Madame Michel, and Paloma wonders if he also knows that the concierge, inside of her rough exterior, is a gentle and intelligent person. In her review of the book in the NY Times in September 2008, Caryn James writes: The sharp-eyed Paloma guesses that Renée has “the same simple refinement as the hedgehog,” quills on the outside but “fiercely solitary — and terribly elegant” within. Yet there is no mention of “The Hedgehog and the Fox,” Isaiah Berlin’s essay on Renée’s beloved Tolstoy, which may make this the sliest allusion of all.

The film captures these three characters perfectly. Paloma's writings (in the book) become a video journal she is making as her last act in life. René and Kakuro are fully developed characters. All three are enamored of things Japanese. Kakuro gives Renée a present of a beautiful 2-volume ciopy of "Anna Karenina." Soon he  asks her up to his flat for dinner, and convinces her that her being a concierge should nto be a barrier between them.



I watched it twice, two days in a row, and, if anything, enjoyed it more the second time.

The extra man (2010)

Wanting a film to watch, unable to find anything much, on Friday I searched for Kevin Kline films, and found this one.

Louis Ives (Paul Dano) heads to New York City following an embarrassing incident that forces him to leave his job. He rents a room in the apartment of Henry Harrison (Kevin Kline), a penniless, wildly eccentric playwright. Additionally, he accepts a position with an environmental magazine, where he encounters green-obsessed co-worker Mary (Katie Holmes). But it’s Louis’ new home life with Henry that really sparks his imagination. Developing a mentor/apprentice relationship, Henry exposes Louis to the duties of an “extra man,” a social escort for wealthy widows.

Enjoyable. Good. Interesting. Yet ... uneven. Still, I enjoyed watching it. Stephen Holden in the Times puts it well.

John C. Reilly's character does not work at all. Katie Holmes's character could have been more developed. Dano and Kline are wonderful.

London River

In the aftermath of the terrorist attack in London on 7/7/2005, two parents arrive in search of their children: a white woman who lives in Guernsey, and an African man who comes from France, where he works. She is Christian, he Muslim. She is aghast at the changes in London: Muslims everywhere, including the neighborhood in which her daughter had a flat. When she arrives at the address, she incredulously verifies with the taxi driver that it is indeed the right place. He has lived in France for 15 years, has not seen his son in all that time, and arrives at the behest of his estranged wife to find their son.

Stephen Holden writes in the NY Times: Its stars, Brenda Blethyn and Sotigui Kouyaté, couldn’t possess more dissimilar screen presences. Ms. Blethyn, the British actress best known for “Secrets and Lies,” belongs to the Mike Leigh school of minutely detailed naturalism. Mr. Kouyaté, who died in April 2010 at 73, was associated for many years with the ritualistic theater of Peter Brook. Tall and gaunt, with graying dreadlocks, his deep-set eyes conveying a stoic, bone-weary resignation, he suggested a mythic African pilgrim leaning on a walking stick while roaming the world on an endless spiritual journey. “London River,” whose title evokes the city’s multicultural stream, was his final film.

A reviewer in the Telegraph UK praised it. Kouyaté, the Burkinabé veteran who died in April this year, won Berlin’s best-actor award, and it’s hard to imagine this film without his gangly, dignified stoicism at its heart. For Blethyn, who has sometimes been broad to the point o caricature, it’s a rare chance to explore a deeply plausible character from the inside out, reminding you how subtly she can handle reflexive, Middle England prejudice while keeping you on side. The film around them is timid at times, a little hemmed in by its own scrupulous humanism, but it still affords as moving an acting partnership as you’ll see all year.


In RottenTomatoes, it gets 90% - 65% marks, well illustrating how critics have a different (in this case, better) grasp of the artistry of a film.

I very much liked it.

Ten little Indians

Saw last 45 minutes of this film, on TCM. {Is that a politically correct expression these days?}It is an adaptation of the Agatha Christie novel And Then There Were None. One of the characters was played by Hugh O'Brian was a favorite of mine, years ago.

Time is not kind to anyone's looks, except those who choose to try and defy time and its effects. To those time is cruel, and deservedly so.

2007

Iron Lady

I approached the film skeptical about objections voiced by some admirers of Mrs. Thatcher, to the effect that the former PM was shown disrespect by the film's treatment of her. Part of that was an abiding respect to Meryl Streep's talent and career. Part of it, as well, was my contempt for her admirers; I was never a fan of her politics or policies.

After watching the film, I have two distinct impressions: Streep, as always, nails the role in a way that, perhaps, no one else could have: she becomes Margaret Thatcher, not just with her hair and her accent and her manner, but in the very essence of her.

Secondly, I think the film was indeed disrespectful of Thatcher. The former PM is reduced to a demented former PM haunted by the ghost of her husband. Everything about her revolves around that haunting, to the point that her political career seems secondary. Margaret Thatcher was a far more important political figure, both in British and world politics, than that.

Rogert Ebert begins his review: You have to be very talented to work with Meryl Streep. It also helps to know how to use her. "The Iron Lady" fails in both of these categories. Streep creates an uncanny impersonation of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, but in this film she's all dressed up with nowhere to go.

 In RottenTomatoes, the film gets 53% - 51% ratings. A reviewer in the Guardian UK site does like it. Eventually, the film-makers suggest, Thatcher's increasing isolation, brought about by her rigidity, singlemindedness, inability to accept advice and contempt for most of her colleagues, brings about a form of madness that foreshadows the Lear-like dementia ("I will not go mad") that infects her dotage. He does criticize it, certainly praises Streep, but, in the end, does like the film (Breathtaking in its detail and nuance, its subtle gestures and inflections, this multifaceted jewel of a portrait is altogether grander than the commonplace setting of the film.)

One review I thought well captured the film was by AO Scott in the NY Times: As for “The Iron Lady” itself, beyond the challenge it poses for Ms. Streep, its own reason for being is a bit obscure. It is likely to be the definitive screen treatment of Mrs. Thatcher, at least for a while, and yet it does not really define her in any surprising or trenchant way. You are left with the impression of an old woman who can’t quite remember who she used to be and of a movie that is not so sure either.

Love or hate her, Margaret Thatcher is a grand historical figure who can not be reduced to a tottering old woman who once used to be Prime Minister.

Secretariat (2010)

Rather good dramatization of a legend. Rousing, heartwarming, and squarely traditional, Secretariat offers exactly what you'd expect from an inspirational Disney drama -- no more, and no less.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

Murky remake of the Alec Guiness's serialisations of two novels by John le Carré: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People. A little difficult to follow, for the slow twists and subtle turns, as well as the at times thick accents, but, ultimately, good cinema.

Fever pitch (2005)

What a piece of garbage. Jimmy Fallon plays a school teacher whose entire life is defined by his fanaticism: he is not just a Boston Red Sox baseball fan, but everything in his life is about the baseball team. I imagine there actually are people of his ilk. Drew Barrymore plays a driven career woman who for some reason falls for this guy. Inexplicably, the film gets 64% - 62% readings in Rotten Tomatoes. Luckily, the DVD was damaged, and I got a good reason to turn this thing off.

3 books returned

The checklist manifesto: how to get things right, Atul Gawande.
Explores the use of checklists, originating in aviation, in medicine. Gawande logically moves through how lists were developed, and refined, his acceptance and adoption of lists in his medical practice, and in the WHO in a study and project on reducing the number of surgeries performed. In his usually meticulous manner, the good doctor lays out the case for using checklists: conscientiously used, well written (concise and comprehensive), they can help in any field. I quite agree. I have begun to develop a checklist for investing.

Bing Crosby: a pocketful of dreams : the early years, 1903-1940, Gary Giddins.
The only biography that seemed worth reading turned out not to be. Giddins is a music wroter with a long record; I have read some pf his work. But, in this case, he seemed to be (too) enamored of his subject matter. I put it down rather quickly. I'll have to look for another biography. My desire to read about Crosby came from reading Seabuiscuit; Crosby was a racehorse owner who was in friendly, and not-so friendly competition with the Biscuit's owner, Charles Howard. Of course, crosby also has a connection to Bix Beiderbecke. I was hoping to read all about both, but, alas, this was not to be the book for me.

The fountainhead, Ayn Rand ; with special introduction by the author. After Paul Ryan was nominated for the Republican VP nomination, I thought I would take a look at this work that he lauds as being very important in his life. I read two pages and put it down; it was very poorly written, for my taste.




One out of three is good: a .333 batting average is baseball is very good.

Water for Elephants (2011)

Cute, had its weaknesses, but it worked, for me.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2012)

Better than expected, really. Fairly good, rather enjoyable.

Quirky and a little reserved, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is nonetheless a charming little romantic drama sold by some strong central performances.

 McGregor's accent is rather quirky. Scott Thomas's character was quite the caricature, and weakened the film, if anything.

The Debt

Anthony Lane (not David Denby, as I mistakenly misremembered) reviewed this film in the New Yorker 21 September 2011 issue.
As with Spielberg’s “Munich,” there is an awkward, irresoluble tension between the movie’s urge to thrill and the weighty pull of the historical obligations that it seeks to assume. How much, to be blunt, should we be enjoying ourselves? What do we owe to “The Debt”? Whatever the sum, it is more than the film itself, gloomy with unease, seems able to repay.

It received a 6.9 rating in IMDb.com, and a 76% - 67% rating in RottenTomatoes. I have a calendar entry on 26 August 2011, moved up from earlier. I finally got it yesterday, and watched it last night. I rather liked it.

I liked it quite a bit. The three less renowned, younger, actors do much better work than the older, more renowned actors. All six rather botch the Israeli accent, but, again, the three younger ones do better with it.

A.O. Scott in the Times: The labors of the cast help to make “The Debt” a compact, reasonably clever and sometimes piquant entertainment, but they also make you aware that it could have been more.

Greatest movie of all time?

Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo Dethrones Citizen Kane as the Greatest Movie of All-Time reads the headline of a story. Much as I enjoyed watching Jimmy Stewart in Anatomy of a murder last weekend, and much as I like Kim Novak (I lo-oh-ve Kim Novack), I don't know about that.

Move over, Orson Welles. Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 thriller Vertigo has been named as the greatest film of all time by more than 800 international film critics and experts. The poll, carried out every 10 years by Sight & Sound, a magazine published by the British Film Institute, picked Hitchcock’s psychological drama as the best film ever made. For the past 50 years, Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane held the top spot, but this year, critics picked Hitchcock’s masterpiece over Citizen Kane, which has been relegated to second place.

I'll have to think on it.

BBC News also notes that Vertigo was Hitchcock’s most personal film in which he tackles “one of his recurring themes — love as a fetish that degrades women and deranges men.”

Hitchcock does have a reputation as a sexual bully. Funny how film people, critics and civilians, overlook the foibles (sexual and otherwise) of film makers (A certain Allen, Woody, is whom I am thinking of in this regard).

Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story was named as the third greatest film followed by Jean Renoir’s La Règle Du Jeu (The Rules of the Game) and F. W. Murnau’s Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. The list of the top 50 greatest films, compiled by Sight & Sound, can be found here.

I saw several Ozu films early last year (From reading The elegance of the hedgehog, I became aware of this Japanese film maker. Luckily, the library where I work owns 3 of Ozu's films on DVD), and I agree that he made great films.

Time has it own 100 greatest films list.

From Hitchcock to Watchmen: See the 50 Greatest Movie Opening Sequences