Tuesday, 7 January 2020
ANNOUNCEMENT
I now mainly post on Facebook. If you are not already my friend, try asking. I usually say yes!
Saturday, 30 November 2019
November 2019 film review
LE MANS 66 (AKA FORD VS FERRARI) 2019 D- James Mangold
In 1964, someone persuades Henry Ford II that it would be good for sales if he could build a car to win the famous Le Mans 24 hour endurance race and thereby end the hegemony of Ferrari, who have dominated the race for years. Ford calls upon Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon), a man who has established himself as a winner (though not in Europe) and he in turn asks a friend, Jeff Miles (Christian Bale) to help him build it and, even more important, drive it.
But Miles is a ‘difficult’ man, whose face doesn’t fit, and the Ford hierarchy would squeeze him out of the plan. But Shelby is a man used to getting his way...
This film has a lot going for it. Directed by James Mangold, whose last film was Logan, easily the best of the X men series, and featuring strong performances from the lead players, it is both thrilling and insightful. My only criticism is the lack of strong female roles, with the exception of Caitriona Balfe as Miles’s wife, but even there her contribution is peripheral. Definitely a man’s film then, though women have praised it too, among them my own wife.
THE IRISHMAN 2019 D- Martin Scorsese
“Do you paint houses?” An Irishman (Robert deNiro) is asked. “Yes”, he responds, “And I do my own carpentry too.” It would seem this is Mafia code for “Do you murder people for money?” And “And I clean up afterwards” respectively. And there you have it. For this is the story, and for Scorsese a very well worn path I think you’ll agree, of a hitman and his hits. Some way into the film we meet Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino, who for my money steals the show), leader of the immensely powerful Teamster’s Union and “the second most powerful man in America”, who befriends deNiro and uses him as minder-in-chief. Of course everyone knows that Hoffa disappeared in 1975 and his body has never been found...
When it comes to portraying the shady, violent world of the Italian Mafia, nobody has done it better than Scorsese. His Goodfellas was perhaps the definitive gangster movie. And in this film, produced by Netflix, he has the advantage of some remarkable technology with which has been able to ‘de-age’ the main characters, including a Jo Pesci, who when left ungraphiced clearly is in more need of this technology than any of the others. But in this reviewer’s opinion, this is only a gimmick, a piece of wizardry which doesn’t really add much to the movie. And like Le Mans 66, there is a distressing paucity of women’s roles. In Goodfellas we had the estimable Lorraine Bracco. In this, women stay well in the background.
LITTLE MONSTERS (2019) D- Abe Forsythe
In a rural township in Australia, a primary school teacher (Lupita Nyong’o) takes her class on an outing to a local theme park, well it’s more a farm that’s been done up as a petting zoo. Whatever. On the way there we meet no-hoper Josh Gad who manages to persuade teach to let him act as chaperone in place of a parent who has dropped out. She’s not entirely sure about him, and she may be right to be so, but in the event he proves an invaluable ally when the farm is attacked by a huge gang of marauding, wait for it, zombies.
For yes, this is a zombie flick, Ozzie style. This is in fact a very tight little movie, well acted and directed, with not too much gore but plenty of laughs as well as nastier moments. I understand Mark Kermode, world’s biggest fan of horror movies, didn’t rate it, but maybe all that blood and guts have jaded his palate. The fact is, I did.
THE IRISHMAN 2019 D- Martin Scorsese
“Do you paint houses?” An Irishman (Robert deNiro) is asked. “Yes”, he responds, “And I do my own carpentry too.” It would seem this is Mafia code for “Do you murder people for money?” And “And I clean up afterwards” respectively. And there you have it. For this is the story, and for Scorsese a very well worn path I think you’ll agree, of a hitman and his hits. Some way into the film we meet Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino, who for my money steals the show), leader of the immensely powerful Teamster’s Union and “the second most powerful man in America”, who befriends deNiro and uses him as minder-in-chief. Of course everyone knows that Hoffa disappeared in 1975 and his body has never been found...
When it comes to portraying the shady, violent world of the Italian Mafia, nobody has done it better than Scorsese. His Goodfellas was perhaps the definitive gangster movie. And in this film, produced by Netflix, he has the advantage of some remarkable technology with which has been able to ‘de-age’ the main characters, including a Jo Pesci, who when left ungraphiced clearly is in more need of this technology than any of the others. But in this reviewer’s opinion, this is only a gimmick, a piece of wizardry which doesn’t really add much to the movie. And like Le Mans 66, there is a distressing paucity of women’s roles. In Goodfellas we had the estimable Lorraine Bracco. In this, women stay well in the background.
LITTLE MONSTERS (2019) D- Abe Forsythe
In a rural township in Australia, a primary school teacher (Lupita Nyong’o) takes her class on an outing to a local theme park, well it’s more a farm that’s been done up as a petting zoo. Whatever. On the way there we meet no-hoper Josh Gad who manages to persuade teach to let him act as chaperone in place of a parent who has dropped out. She’s not entirely sure about him, and she may be right to be so, but in the event he proves an invaluable ally when the farm is attacked by a huge gang of marauding, wait for it, zombies.
For yes, this is a zombie flick, Ozzie style. This is in fact a very tight little movie, well acted and directed, with not too much gore but plenty of laughs as well as nastier moments. I understand Mark Kermode, world’s biggest fan of horror movies, didn’t rate it, but maybe all that blood and guts have jaded his palate. The fact is, I did.
November 2019 book review
LITTLE SIBERIA, by Antti Tuomainen.
A meteorite falls in a remote Finnish village, Turns out it’s a very rare kind, and maybe worth as much as a million euros. Greed breaks out in the village as its inhabitants argue over ownership. The heavenly body attracts interest from outside too: the Russian mob reckons they can just take it for themselves.
It is placed in the local museum while its fate is decided, and on the rota of people assigned to guard it is our hero, a pastor who has served in the armed forces in Afghanistan, so he can take care of himself. Which he will need to do, as one attempt after another is made to purloin the hot rock.
A very different tale from Palm Beach, Finland; nonetheless Mr. Tuomainen has created another quirky, violent little tale of nastiness in the Arctic. And although I like to read important, significant books even, I also like a cracking good read. Which this very much is.
FEED THE RAT, by Al Alvarez
The ‘rat’ of the title being the itch to take risks and push the envelope that is within some people, which must be ‘fed’ if boredom is to kept from the door. Some ‘feed their rat’ by mountain climbing, and this skilfully crafted book is about these men, and one man in particular: Mo Antoine, a Brit despite his exotic name, who constantly seeks greater challenges on peaks throughout the world.
Alvarez, an experienced climber himself, accompanies Mo on some of these ventures, though must bow out when the technical challenges become too great for him, and he is forced to sit and watch his illustrious friend negotiate vertical pitches that seem to lack any discernible hand or footholds.
Alvarez has established a glowing reputation for his writing, especially in America where he regularly contributes to The New Yorker. And this is as good an introduction into his oeuvre as you might wish for.
MEMOIRS OF AN INFANTRY OFFICER, by Siegfried Sasoon
This achingly beautiful yet at times horrific account of life in the trenches of the Great War follows on from his book Memoirs of a Fox hunting Man and covers the period 1916-1917, as the British and French throw themselves continually against the German defenses, usually to little avail and at terrible loss of life.
Sasoon himself, who calls himself Sherston in this book, has already distinguished himself in battle more than once and has won the Military Cross as a result. But soon he begins to realize the awful futility of war in general and this conflict in particular. Knowing that as a ‘war hero’ his voice will carry considerable weight, he hatches a plan to denounce the generals and political leaders who have chosen to continue the war for no readily discernible reason. But will anybody listen, even to him? Or will he simply be labelled a man driven mad by shell-shock and dispatched to a psychiatric institution? Read on, if you like crisp, exquisite prose telling a story of death and inglory.
A meteorite falls in a remote Finnish village, Turns out it’s a very rare kind, and maybe worth as much as a million euros. Greed breaks out in the village as its inhabitants argue over ownership. The heavenly body attracts interest from outside too: the Russian mob reckons they can just take it for themselves.
It is placed in the local museum while its fate is decided, and on the rota of people assigned to guard it is our hero, a pastor who has served in the armed forces in Afghanistan, so he can take care of himself. Which he will need to do, as one attempt after another is made to purloin the hot rock.
A very different tale from Palm Beach, Finland; nonetheless Mr. Tuomainen has created another quirky, violent little tale of nastiness in the Arctic. And although I like to read important, significant books even, I also like a cracking good read. Which this very much is.
FEED THE RAT, by Al Alvarez
The ‘rat’ of the title being the itch to take risks and push the envelope that is within some people, which must be ‘fed’ if boredom is to kept from the door. Some ‘feed their rat’ by mountain climbing, and this skilfully crafted book is about these men, and one man in particular: Mo Antoine, a Brit despite his exotic name, who constantly seeks greater challenges on peaks throughout the world.
Alvarez, an experienced climber himself, accompanies Mo on some of these ventures, though must bow out when the technical challenges become too great for him, and he is forced to sit and watch his illustrious friend negotiate vertical pitches that seem to lack any discernible hand or footholds.
Alvarez has established a glowing reputation for his writing, especially in America where he regularly contributes to The New Yorker. And this is as good an introduction into his oeuvre as you might wish for.
MEMOIRS OF AN INFANTRY OFFICER, by Siegfried Sasoon
This achingly beautiful yet at times horrific account of life in the trenches of the Great War follows on from his book Memoirs of a Fox hunting Man and covers the period 1916-1917, as the British and French throw themselves continually against the German defenses, usually to little avail and at terrible loss of life.
Sasoon himself, who calls himself Sherston in this book, has already distinguished himself in battle more than once and has won the Military Cross as a result. But soon he begins to realize the awful futility of war in general and this conflict in particular. Knowing that as a ‘war hero’ his voice will carry considerable weight, he hatches a plan to denounce the generals and political leaders who have chosen to continue the war for no readily discernible reason. But will anybody listen, even to him? Or will he simply be labelled a man driven mad by shell-shock and dispatched to a psychiatric institution? Read on, if you like crisp, exquisite prose telling a story of death and inglory.
Monday, 25 November 2019
AN APOLOGY
Followers of this blog may have noticed a paucity of posts lately. This is because I have discovered Facebook and now use it as my ‘internet mouthpiece’, if you will. It’s a useful discipline to distill one’s thoughts into 100 words or less, though giving up the opportunity to write at further length has been a bit of a wrench.
I will still post on this blog from time to time, especially around the end/beginning of each month to post reviews of films and books I have encountered for the first time. For the rest you can find me on FB under the name ‘Steve Glascoe’ if you wish to keep up with my stream of consciousness, such as it is.
But once again, apologies if you have felt abandoned.
I will still post on this blog from time to time, especially around the end/beginning of each month to post reviews of films and books I have encountered for the first time. For the rest you can find me on FB under the name ‘Steve Glascoe’ if you wish to keep up with my stream of consciousness, such as it is.
But once again, apologies if you have felt abandoned.
Thursday, 31 October 2019
October 2019 film review
EL CAMINO (2019) W/D- Vince Gilligan (Netflix production)
Which begins at the precise moment when Breaking Bad ends, with Walter White enacting his ultimate act of redemption by freeing his assistant, Jessie Pinckney, from his enslavement at the hands of the evil white supremacist meth gang. So then, we could call this “What Jessie did Next”. What he does is to find a way to disappear, because he knows the DEA are still after him, anxious to lock him up in a super-max facility for a couple of hundred years. But disappearing off the face of the Earth is not as easy as it might seem, even with a quarter of a million clams in your back pocket...
I haven’t come across anyone yet who didn’t think Breaking Bad was perhaps the greatest piece of television drama ever made, so its creator, Vince Gilligan had a lot to live up to. Yet he does, in this film which carries all the skill, humour and ongoing sense of lurking threat that characterised the original. Dotted with little flashbacks which take us back to the magnum opus, I can say for all BB fans, and for the 4 people who still haven’t got round to seeing it, this film represents required viewing.
DOLEMITE (2019) D- Craig Brewer (another Netflix production)
Eddie Murphy, perfectly cast and turning in one of his best acting performances to date, plays Rudy Ray Moore, a real-life character who in the 70s made a career out of a fusion of rap and stand up comedy, but who then wishes to make a ‘blacksploitation movie’ to showcase his talents. Eventually he puts his movie together on a shoestring. At first Hollywood has no interest in this upstart, but then the film gets shown in a theatre in Detroit which has its predominantly black audience in raptures of delight. Finally he is adopted into the mainstream and the rest is highly profitable history.
In summary, Eddie Murphy finally comes of age in a movie of the front rank. We’ve already seen him shine in Dreamgirls, but here he has ensured his rep as a genuine class act.
October 2019 book review
THREE LETTERS FROM THE ANDES and A TIME TO KEEP SILENCE, by Patrick Leigh-Fermor
I review these two books together, for they are both barely 100 pages long and could easily have been placed in a single volume. The first is, as its title suggests, the only slightly edited text of three letters he wrote to his wife about an ‘expedition’ he undertook to Peru, ostensibly to climb some unnamed peaks, but really to hang with his friends and absorb the atmosphere of a country which at that time (the late 50s) had been only lightly touched by a tourism trade which has grown exponentially since the ease of plane flight made such places as Machu Picchu accessible to almost everyone. His friends make an interesting crew: the Duke of Devonshire, a couple of talented writers like himself and some acclaimed alpine mountaineers anxious to test their skills in an alien landscape. Paddy himself did not participate in these climbs, confining himself to cooking and chronicling events. His letters, exquisitely written as all his writing is, conveys all the travails, carousing and adventures in a totally engaging way.
The second book is also as advertised, describing his brief sojourns in two Catholic monasteries, the Benedictine establishment of St Wandrille’s in Normandy, known for its relatively benign regime, and then at Grand Trappe, a far more austere Cistercian monastery where silent contemplation and almost continuous prayer are the orders of the day: every day. And while Paddy seems to settle quickly into the life of the first, he cannot manage the severity of the second. One wonders how he managed to smoke in either of them. He was well known to smoke up to 100 fags a day (though he lived to 96, incredibly), and must have had to conceal his addiction with great care. Interestingly, he doesn’t mention it.
Finally he travels to Cappadocia in Turkey to visit an abandoned monastery cut into the limestone mountainsides. Once again, with his immaculate prose, we find ourselves in his extraordinary mind as he imagines what life must have been like there. In all three sections there are detailed and fascinating accounts of the history of the places he visits, and as in his masterpiece A Time of Gifts, these diversions are what really bring the accounts to life.
SHACKLETON, by Roland Huntford
Being the life and exploits of one of Britain’s most renowned polar explorers. Like Scott, he ultimately failed in his ventures, though unlike him, survived his attempts and brought all his men home with him. Unlike Scott, he was an Anglo-Irishman, and therefore not quite the solid member of the establishment Scott was. But like Scott, he failed to learn the lessons the Norwegian explorers Nansen and Amundsen tried to teach him. They said the only way to explore the Poles was to ski and use many dogs. But both Brits had some strange aversion to a kind of ‘unmanly’ device which skiing represented to them, and saw dogs more as pets than beasts of labour, which of course huskies and their like are bred to be. As a result the Brits failed where the Norwegians succeeded.
There wasn’t a lot of love lost between Scott and Shackleton. In fact they detested each other, I think it is fair to say. And Huntford makes it clear whose side he was on. When Huntford published his notorious book “Scott and Amundsen” in 1979, he didn’t try to hide his contempt for Scott, whose arrogance and stubbornness, in his view, cost not only his own life but that of several of his comrades. The book resulted in a re-appraisal of one of Britain’s most iconic ‘heroic failures’, and it was only in 2003, when Randolph Fiennes published his own book “Captain Scott” that an attempt was made to rehabilitate Scott’s reputation. Fiennes felt Scott was the victim more of bad luck than bad judgement, and makes no secret of his dislike of Roland Huntford, who has never even been to the poles, never mind led voyages of exploration. That may be the case, but one thing is inescapable: Huntford can write. His account of Shackleton’s life is one of the most thrilling biographies I have ever read.
I review these two books together, for they are both barely 100 pages long and could easily have been placed in a single volume. The first is, as its title suggests, the only slightly edited text of three letters he wrote to his wife about an ‘expedition’ he undertook to Peru, ostensibly to climb some unnamed peaks, but really to hang with his friends and absorb the atmosphere of a country which at that time (the late 50s) had been only lightly touched by a tourism trade which has grown exponentially since the ease of plane flight made such places as Machu Picchu accessible to almost everyone. His friends make an interesting crew: the Duke of Devonshire, a couple of talented writers like himself and some acclaimed alpine mountaineers anxious to test their skills in an alien landscape. Paddy himself did not participate in these climbs, confining himself to cooking and chronicling events. His letters, exquisitely written as all his writing is, conveys all the travails, carousing and adventures in a totally engaging way.
The second book is also as advertised, describing his brief sojourns in two Catholic monasteries, the Benedictine establishment of St Wandrille’s in Normandy, known for its relatively benign regime, and then at Grand Trappe, a far more austere Cistercian monastery where silent contemplation and almost continuous prayer are the orders of the day: every day. And while Paddy seems to settle quickly into the life of the first, he cannot manage the severity of the second. One wonders how he managed to smoke in either of them. He was well known to smoke up to 100 fags a day (though he lived to 96, incredibly), and must have had to conceal his addiction with great care. Interestingly, he doesn’t mention it.
Finally he travels to Cappadocia in Turkey to visit an abandoned monastery cut into the limestone mountainsides. Once again, with his immaculate prose, we find ourselves in his extraordinary mind as he imagines what life must have been like there. In all three sections there are detailed and fascinating accounts of the history of the places he visits, and as in his masterpiece A Time of Gifts, these diversions are what really bring the accounts to life.
SHACKLETON, by Roland Huntford
Being the life and exploits of one of Britain’s most renowned polar explorers. Like Scott, he ultimately failed in his ventures, though unlike him, survived his attempts and brought all his men home with him. Unlike Scott, he was an Anglo-Irishman, and therefore not quite the solid member of the establishment Scott was. But like Scott, he failed to learn the lessons the Norwegian explorers Nansen and Amundsen tried to teach him. They said the only way to explore the Poles was to ski and use many dogs. But both Brits had some strange aversion to a kind of ‘unmanly’ device which skiing represented to them, and saw dogs more as pets than beasts of labour, which of course huskies and their like are bred to be. As a result the Brits failed where the Norwegians succeeded.
There wasn’t a lot of love lost between Scott and Shackleton. In fact they detested each other, I think it is fair to say. And Huntford makes it clear whose side he was on. When Huntford published his notorious book “Scott and Amundsen” in 1979, he didn’t try to hide his contempt for Scott, whose arrogance and stubbornness, in his view, cost not only his own life but that of several of his comrades. The book resulted in a re-appraisal of one of Britain’s most iconic ‘heroic failures’, and it was only in 2003, when Randolph Fiennes published his own book “Captain Scott” that an attempt was made to rehabilitate Scott’s reputation. Fiennes felt Scott was the victim more of bad luck than bad judgement, and makes no secret of his dislike of Roland Huntford, who has never even been to the poles, never mind led voyages of exploration. That may be the case, but one thing is inescapable: Huntford can write. His account of Shackleton’s life is one of the most thrilling biographies I have ever read.
Wednesday, 16 October 2019
How should they play it?
The parents of Harry Dunne, killed in a hit and run incident by a woman driving on the wrong side of the road, met with President Trump yesterday to talk about what happens next. They can’t really have expected him to waive diplomatic immunity for the woman in question and force her to return to Britain to face justice. That would fly in the face of a convention in place for nearly 50 years; indeed, I think very few nations would have either. But the surprise came when Trump told the grieving parents he had the woman in an adjoining room and invited them to speak to each other.
But they declined such a meeting, insisting that the only outcome they were interested in was her coming back to Britain to face prosecution for causing death by careless or dangerous driving. And leaving the scene of an accident. But were they right to turn down a face to face meeting? If it had been me, I don’t think I could have resisted the chance to look into her eyes and say: “So, do you believe in taking responsibility for your actions?” And if the answer comes back yes, they could ask why in that case is she choosing to hide behind the cloak of diplomatic immunity. It wouldn’t change anything, but it might have made them feel a bit better to see her squirm. And can they not still sue her in the U.S. for wrongful death, maybe winning millions of dollars in damages?
I hope they do. I have made mistakes in my life, some of them serious, but I have always taken responsibility for my actions. And Mrs Sacoolas should do the same.
These are difficult, if not agonising decisions for a grieving family to make. I just hope they’re being advised by the best lawyers in America about how to take their case forward. And that they take that advice when it is offered.
But they declined such a meeting, insisting that the only outcome they were interested in was her coming back to Britain to face prosecution for causing death by careless or dangerous driving. And leaving the scene of an accident. But were they right to turn down a face to face meeting? If it had been me, I don’t think I could have resisted the chance to look into her eyes and say: “So, do you believe in taking responsibility for your actions?” And if the answer comes back yes, they could ask why in that case is she choosing to hide behind the cloak of diplomatic immunity. It wouldn’t change anything, but it might have made them feel a bit better to see her squirm. And can they not still sue her in the U.S. for wrongful death, maybe winning millions of dollars in damages?
I hope they do. I have made mistakes in my life, some of them serious, but I have always taken responsibility for my actions. And Mrs Sacoolas should do the same.
These are difficult, if not agonising decisions for a grieving family to make. I just hope they’re being advised by the best lawyers in America about how to take their case forward. And that they take that advice when it is offered.
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