May book, film and TV review

Welcome to May's offering of greats and not so greats I have come across upon my "travels on the sofa".

BOOKS

MALTA CONVOY, by Shankland and Hunter. Understanding its strategic importance, Churchill made the defence of this tiny island (it's less than 100 square miles in area)a cause celebre. Hitler felt the same way, and each side devoted enormous resources and manpower to its survival/subjugation. Realizing an all-out attack could be costly and possibly fruitless, the Axis powers attempted instead to starve it out, and indeed by mid 1943 Malta was within 4 weeks of completely running out of grain and fuel oil. And then it would have been all over.
The authors, both military men though not directly involved, tell the story of a great convoy that set out from Gibralter in an extremely hazardous attempt to re-supply the besieged fortress with essentials. A huge fleet of warships and attack aircraft were waiting for it, and a titanic struggle developed. A well researched and even quite gripping account of one of the less celebrated tales of WW2.
SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, by Jane Austen. 2 sisters, one deeply emotional, the other more reserved, react in their own ways to romantic reversals. Once again Ms Austen weaves her intricate, superbly written web with a story that bites deep into the psyche. Essential reading.
FICTIONS (short stories) by Jorge Luis Borges. The Argentinian writer is now lionised throughout the world for his complex, Kafka-like creations that seduce, confuse and transport the mind into strange, unreal places. The early stories, with their scholastic parodies of other writers and styles, got me feeling I was out of my depth, but the latter set, which includes stories like "The Secret Miracle", "the End" and especially "The South" where a man finds himself agreeing to a knife fight to be fought the following morning and which he knows he cannot win, are sublime. A wonderful little collection.

FILMS

HOBSON'S CHOICE (1954) D-David Lean. A tyrannical but alcoholic north-of-England shop owner rules his family of daughters with a rod of iron, but one of them has decided to marry the hired help, and she too knows how to get her own way... David Lean is perhaps at his best with these small-scale productions, where he is able to draw the very best from his cast, especially a superb Charles Laughton and an excellent John Mills.
RIDICULE (1996) D-Patrice Leconte. At court in pre-revolutionary France, everything depends on wit. If you've got it, the King will smile on you and even finance your projects. if not you get the... ridicule. Our hero(Charles Berling) has wit to spare, but when he ridicules a rival, things start getting nasty. High production values and good writing make this eminently watchable.
JAR CITY (2006) D-Baltasar Kormakur. A fascinating murder mystery from Iceland, whose incredible landscape almost threatens to become the star in this exciting thriller. Recommended.
ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN (1948) D-Charles Batton. They're all in this one, not only the Monster, but Dracula and the Wolf Man also make an appearance in this frantically funny and anarchic romp through the various horror genres. Some say it is the best of the A and C films- certainly its energy and fun is maintained from first frame to last.
THE KILLERS (1946) D-Robert Siodmack. Ex con Burt Lancaster joins a gang to carry out a big heist, but plans to make off with all the loot himself. But his girlfriend (Ava Gardner) is one step ahead of all them. Darkest of the noir films of this post-war era, and highly effective stuff. Catch it.
CATFISH (2010) D-Henry Joost. A young New Yorker makes a friend online, but all is not as it seems. Deeply intriguing documentary account of his bid to distinguish the truth from a web of "e fiction".
BOOMERANG! (1947) D-Elia Kazan. A priest is gunned down on the street for no particular reason, and an honest DA devotes his life to finding the killer, despite a seemingly obvious suspect being caught early in the proceedings. A tightly directed and well acted noir.
THE BLACK SWAN (2010) D-Darren Arenovsky) Natalie Portman won the Oscar for her portrayal of a ballerina driven to madness in her search to find her "dark side" in order to play the eponymous role. But the scenes where she starts hallucinating are ludicrous; indeed, I laughed out loud at several points, which I'm sure was not the intention of the director. The beating heart of the movie remains Barbara Hershey's terrifying over-controlling mother.
ALL THAT JAZZ (1979) D- Bob Fosse. A warts-and-all portrayal of the director's own life and work as a celbrated choreographer, where he paints himself as a talented, speed-addicted, philandering arse. Highly convincing.
MY COUSIN VINNY (1992) D-Jonathan Lynn. Joe Pesci can be annoying (JFK) or brilliant (Raging Bull, Goodfellas), but here he is defintitely the class act, in his strong portrayal of a green-horn New York lawyer who finds himself in the deep South, defending his young cousin against trumped-up murder charges. Fred Gwynne is splendid as the judge, while Marisa Tomei is a miracle as Pesci's feisty fiancee.
FOUR LIONS (2010) D-Chris Morris. 4 would-be Islamic terrorists plan an outrage on Britain's streets, but events and their own hilarious ineptitude threaten to scupper their attempts. Very dark, but hysterically funny offering by our most subversive film maker. Will Adamson is particularly strong as the lone white man in the group, supposedly the "brains of the operation", but in reality completely clueless.

TELEVISION

SPIRAL (French, 2009) created by Alexandra Clert. A sort of French "Wire" and, like its illustrious American counterpart, shows clearly how blurred is the moral dividing line between the cops, the villains and the lawyers, all of whom have their own complex agendas which eclipse any proper ethical consideration. The characterisations are frighteningly real, production values high and acting performances strong. Try it.
HAWAII 50 (2010) Developed by Peter Lenkov and Alex Kurzmann. I'm old enough to remember the original series back in the 60s, with the estimable Jack Lord ("Book him, Danno!")in charge. Perhaps I'm getting too old for this sort of thing. The setting is stunningly beautiful, as are ALL the players, both men and women (and dolphins)in fact impossibly so. Police officers are NEVER this good looking, nor their wives, nor the crims they are trying to take down. In HD, the screen drips with gorgeous images to the point where one simply watches, without taking any real interest in the plots, which tend to be as improbable as the characters. Ideal brainless entertainment for a miserable winter's night in Britain.
CIVILISATION (1969) Written and presented by Kenneth Clarke, produced by Michael Gill. When I first saw this, it was in black and white, 405 lines and on a screen where there seemed to be a permanent snow storm in progress, and I still loved it. The BBC have now produced an HD update, which has just finished its run on BBC 4. For the first time I could properly appreciate the wonders Lord Clarke was standing in front of as he delivered his clipped,highly individual, but deeply insightful lines. In fact he was the first presenter to work in this way: now everyone does it, but no one has ever done it as well as he did. A true masterpiece of television. Will they now do the same thing for Jacob Bronowski's "Ascent of Man"? I do hope so.