What's wrong with Scarlett Johanson?

You may well ask. She has just announced that she has relinquished her role as an ambassador for OXFAM because of that charity's opposition to Soadstream factories operating in the illegal settlements on Israel's West Bank, ie the militarily occupied part of Israel some people refer to as Palestine. She also fronts the Sodastream company's advertising campaign you see, so there's a conflict of interest for our blonde lovely to grapple with..

I have a question for you, Scarlett: Considering how you're already worth millions and millions of dollars, how come you think it's right to stick with a company that helps perpetuate the illegal settlements in the West Bank, rather than supporting one of the most widely respected charities in the world, and one that has clearly identified those settlements as being a fundamental part of the problem in that region: settlements which have been branded illegal by the UN and the EU, and with which even Israel's greatest ally the US has expressed its deepest misgivings.

So, Scarlett: are you really that greedy and money grabbing, or have you simply been conned by the schmoozers at Soadastream, who've told you not to worry your sweet little head about things like this and concentrate on fluffy little kittens instead?

You've lost my support, lady, and I won't be going to see one your films again until further notice- or until you grow up and realise that with your position of great power comes great responsibility. Try exercising that responsibility, go to the naughty step and think about what you've done.

January 2014 book and film review

Welcome to the first media review of the year. Only two books this month, but a slew of movies from the 30s to the 13s!

BOOKS

WOLF HALL and BRING UP THE BODIES, by Hilary Mantel. The life and times of Thomas Cromwell, from childhood to the death Anne Boleyn. Wolf Hall opens with the lad Cromwell being beaten half to death by a brutal drunk of a father and escaping abroad to become a mercenary with an Italian army, before returning to Britain to help arrange the King's divorce from Katherine of Aragon and the split with Rome. The second book covers his greatest triumph: engineering the downfall of Queen marque II, the rather less than Good Queen Anne Boleyn. If only she'd had a son...

These two books have caught the imagination of the reading public in a way not seen since Harry Potter, and with rather better reason. Mantel offers us, not unsullied documentary fact, but a "proposal". This, she proposes, is how it how it might have been. But she has researched her subject with great care and produced a fine piece of writing as she speculates on the workings of the mind of one of our most intriguing historical figures. Just how did the son of a blacksmith rise to be the foremost commoner of the land, wielding power over earls, dukes and even the great king himself. And if we believe the narrative, even Cromwell is not quite sure how he did it.

I enjoyed these books greatly, with their terse, matter-of-fact style (perhaps a little like the man himself?), immersing us in a world where it never seems to stop raining and where horrible death lurks around every corner for the unwary, reckless, or even simply indiscreet. Will she write a sequel, covering Cromwell's plan to marry his master off to the Mare of Flanders, a marriage which went sour within six months and cost Cromwell his life? I wouldn't be surprised. Watch this space...

FILMS

THE SIGN OF THE CROSS (1932) D- Cecil B DeMille. A powerful Roman tribune (Frederick March) falls for a beautiful Christian slave who is about to be fed to the lions. This arouses the jealousy of Nero's wife (Claudette Colbert) who's having an affair with him. Can he save the girl or will he follow her into the arena himself?

This wasn't the first of DeMille's epics; he'd already made a couple of silent biblical blockbusters like The Ten Commandments, but here he established himself as perhaps the first director to become a bankable name in his own right. Made in the pre Hays code era (just), it features the celebrated "bathing in ass's milk" scene, which caused a sensation at the time of its release and certainly for this viewer remains one of the sexiest sequences ever committed to celluloid. Not that DeMille had to work that hard to make such a sultry, gorgeous creature as Claudette Colbert look good, but it proved too much for the censors. When the film was re-released in 1940 they excised the entire 12 minute segment from the finished film, denying an entire generation of adolescents the best turn-on they could ever wish for. However I am pleased to announce that the copy I was able to obtain was complete and unexpurgated. Woo hoo!

 KILL LIST (2011) D- Ben Wheatley. Two unpleasant young men are commissioned to perform a series of targeted assassinations. The pay is good, but eventually even they begin to have qualms about their grim task. Kill List established his reputation for making films with well observed characters carrying out distinctly unpleasant deeds as in his later Sightseers and A Field in England. It's easy to become revolted by Wheatley's offerings, but you can't help watching. Notable.

STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS (2013) D- J.J. Abrams. Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) and crew put themselves in harms way to bring down an evil genius with special powers (Benedict Cumberbatch) Will they prevail? Of course they bloody will. Defeat Kirk and Spock? Never!
 I speak as a firm fan of most of the Star Trek franchise, from the tacky but exciting (as well as sexy) original series, through Patrick Stewart's Next Generation (he doesn't like to talk about it these days, but that's only because he knows it's what history will remember him for) and also the various movies (quick guide: the even numbered ones are the best). The same rule may be applying here. I was a little underwhelmed with JJ Abrams' first Star Tek movie, but I enjoyed this a lot more. The characters have had a chance to grow into their roles, and they work well with a rather better plotted story which is littered with references to its progenitors from the earliest times. The only failure for me was Simon Pegg's lamentable rendition of Scottie, not that Jimmie Doohan could act either, but Pegg's version just comes over as a sort of half-drunk Glaswegian idiot. And that's not Scottie at all.

MAGNOLIA (1999) D- PT Anderson. Somewhere in southern California, a number of characters interact in a tableau of interconnected stories which somehow weave into each other in a rather disturbing way. Famous for its extraordinary "raining frogs" scene, and also perhaps for Tom Cruise's best acting performance to date, I was certainly absorbed by this strange, sprawling essay on all things American, from a motivational speaker who hides a dark secret, to a traumatised woman who rejects her dying father, to a lonely cop who befriends an addled junky teenager. It's all grist to PT Anderson's mill and he makes a fine job of putting it together. However, I will say this: it is also one of the foulest-mouthed movies I have ever seen, with sickening profanities issuing from the lips of every character, women included, from first scene to last. This is a popular mode these days, though whether it is appreciated I'm not sure. I know people talk like that, but...

WORKING GIRL (1988) D- Mike Nichols. The working girl in question is Melanie Griffith, who works as a secretary in a big Wall Street firm. But she has money making ideas of her own, one of which is stolen by boss Sigourney Weaver. When our girl discovers what has happened, she determines to steal it back, assisted by a smitten Harrison Ford (Weaver's fiancee) who is drawn to her sass, to say nothing of her obvious physical attractions. But can they get the hide-bound directors to buy it?
Having carried all before him in a glittering Broadway career, Nichols exploded onto the film world with The Graduate in 1968. From there he had a slightly patchy progress (Catch 22, Carnal Knowledge), but many thought this was a welcome return to his best form, and certainly the film was a big hit at the box office. Today I fear it has dated rather badly, though it remains a light, frothy comedy in addition to highlighting the issue of the "glass ceiling" that women endured at that time, and to some extent still do.

HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN (2004) D- Alfonso Cuaron. Our eponymous hero seeks out the man who, maybe, maybe not, was implicated in the death of his parents. But he is up against one of the most powerful wizards in the world, so he'd better watch out...
I should admit at the outset that I've never read a Harry Potter book (I read the first three pages of the first one and put it down, never to pick it up again) or even seen any of the films. Then a friend told me he thought this was the most "cinematic" of them, so I gave it a try. He's right: it is cinematic, and this is in no small part down to to director Alfonso Cuaron, who may be up for an Oscar this year for his efforts with the film Gravity. Yes, it does look very good on screen and the special effects are startlingly effective. But it remains a kid's film, just as the books are kid's books, and despite the extremely impressive cast list (Richard Griffiths, Fiona Shaw, Robbie Coltrane, Gary Oldman inter alia) it remains just that: kid's stuff. Enjoy...

WILD THINGS (1998) D- John McNaughton. A pretty young student (Denise Richards) goes after teacher Matt Dillon, but when he rebuffs her advances she accuses him of rape. But nothing is as simple as it seems in this movie, where, like a Dan Brown book, everything we thought we knew five minutes ago turns out to be wrong- and not just once but again and again.
OK. So far so good. And with a stellar cast (Kevin Bacon,  Bill Murray, Neve Campbell) to play out the story you'd think we'd be onto something good. Wrong. This film is terrible, mainly because of the tacky writing and a very cynical eye to the main chance on the part of director McNaughton. It raised eyebrows at the time because of the amount of sex and nudity in a mainstream movie, but, and I know this will astonish some of my friends, I'm afraid it takes more than a few gorgeous scantily clad women to make a good movie. And in this case it actually makes it even worse.

HOUSE OF TOLERANCE (2011) D Bertrand Borello. In fin de siècle Paris, the denizens of a bordello ply their trade to the upper crust, worrying if they'll go down with the clap or, as happens occasionally, get brutalised by a vicious client.
In an elegant, languorous style, Borello paints his pictures with a brush that might have been borrowed from the great photographer Helmut Newton, yet, like his images, and despite the lubricious content, the result is curiously unerotic. The colours are deep and rich; the women quietly beautiful, but there is something lacking in this movie: a decent plot and characters with which we can identify. The result therefore, in spite of its innate loveliness, is ultimately unsatisfying.

HITCHCOCK (2013) D- Sacha Gervasi. Hitch is searching for his next screenplay- he'd like to do a real horror movie this time. He can't find anything that suits, until someone gives him a copy of Robert Bloch's book Psycho. The rest, as they say, is history. He needs to find a leading lady to be stabbed, and he plumps for luscious Janet Leigh (played by Scarlett Johansen). Doubtless he'd like to test her on the casting couch, but he's always under the gimlet gaze of wife Alma (Helen Mirren).

We've seen Hitchcock biopics before, notably The Girl, a made-for-TV movie in which the rotund one's relationship with another blond beauty, namely Tippi Hedren, is explored during the making of The Birds. The fact that I recall very little of that offering is not exactly a good sign, and I fear this too will fade in the memory fairly quickly, even allowing for Anthony Hopkins making a pretty good fist of his role as Hitchcock. Helen Mirren isn't right as Alma; Scarlett Johansen a mere cypher as Leigh. I think it a shame they couldn't do more justice to the Great One. Alfred Hitchcock was one of our greatest directors, yet as he points out in one of the few telling moments in the film, he was never recognised by Hollywood in the shape of an Oscar, perhaps out of a mixture of anti-British sentiment and jealousy. Disappointing.

EDEN (2012) W/D- Megan Griffiths. A brutal gang of sex traffickers kidnap a young girl from the town of Eden, and that is the name they give her as she begins her new life as a sex-slave- that and the fluffy little kitten they give to all the girls in the belief this will comfort them. The business is efficient and profitable- if a girl gets pregnant they remove the baby near term and sell it on- any other problems they solve with murder. But Eden (Jamie Chung) is bright, resourceful, and she is constantly looking for the chance to escape. At first it seems impossible, but she is a patient soul...

An extremely disturbing and powerfully made portrait of the sex trade; the images linger long after the closing scenes as we remind ourselves that all this is real, and happening right now, around the world.
Nasty, but compelling.

GREAT BEAUTY (2102) D- Paulo Sorrentino. A slightly elderly man is invited to an all-night party in Rome and partakes of the usual pleasures on offer, but can't help thinking, as he looks back over his life, that he's getting a bit old for all this... This film owes a certain tribute to Fellini's great film La Dolce Vita; there is the same vapid, hedonistic world and the same sort of world-weary man observing it through eyes that have seen a lifetime of excess. And to what end? he asks himself.

To me, the real star of this film is Rome itself, lovingly depicted in all its mercurial moods, from dawn, through the heat of the day, to twilight, and on into velvet darkness. As a whole though, all we can say is, it ain't no Fellini...

CAESAR MUST DIE (2012) D- The Taviani Brothers. In a prison in central Italy, the inmates (some of whom have committed terrible crimes) put on a production of Julius Caesar.
Here at last, the cream rises to the top. Caesar Must Die is actually filmed in a real prison, and the actors are indeed a motley collection of mafia bosses, rapists and murderers. Back stories behind the basic "let's put on a play" theme are woven into the narrative, and the result is an astonishing achievement; skilful, subtle and deeply moving. Just how the Taviani brothers drew such powerful performances from players with little or no acting experience is an unfathomable mystery, but they did it, and did it magnificently. Bravo!

A new star in the tennis firmament

Congratulations to Stanislav Wawrinka for his brilliant victory in Melbourne today. In doing so he has become only the second player to have beaten beaten the numbers one and two seeds on the way to his victory and the only man to have beaten Rafa and Djoki in the same championship. More importantly he was able, after a worrying but understandable dip following Nadal's back injury, or whatever it was, to resurrect his concentration and come through against the wounded tiger that was Nadal.

We need a change at the top of world tennis and at last it has happened. Not that I would be so foolish as to write off Rafa as I did last year after he lost his favourite tournament, Monte Carlo. He went on to carry all before him in 2013 in truly spectacular style. However he now has one more player to worry about as he enters the clay court season.

Why don't I like Nadal? It's not his play, certainly. He has replaced Borg as the greatest player from the back of the court the world has ever seen, and his forehand is without equal in tennis history. Moreover, his fighting spirit is unsurpassed, as we saw today, when despite his back strain he nearly came back from the dead. So what is it? Well, I don't like his incessant bum-crack explorations, and all the other irritating delaying tactics which make his games last far longer than necessary, and which puzzlingly, frequently do not attract the kind of time penalties (as we saw today in the Australian final) that they should according to the rules of the game. I agree, once he gets going he's electric, but it takes so long!

One last, and probably unwise prediction. Now Wawrinka is in the mix at the zenith of the game, what chance Murray ever winning another Grand Slam? In this observer's view, slim to none. But I don't care. He won the Big One, and in my lifetime, so really he doesn't have to do anything else to be my hero. Prove me wrong Andy!

Everyone's a terrorist these days

In Montreux yesterday the Syrian ambassador was at pains to point out that the opposition to his master's regime were "terrorists". Well he would, wouldn't he? Not so comfortable to accept the fact that the majority of the rebel coalition are home grown citizens who, fed up with the tyrannical regime Assad heads, have taken up arms against him. Sure, there are imported "terrorists" (some might call them freedom fighters, but what's in a name? Everything actually), but they are vastly outnumbered by Syrian nationals, many of whom are probably as worried about the Al Qaida element as we in the west are.

Likewise, the Russophile prime minister of the Ukraine was quick to brand the rioters on the streets of Kiev as "terrorists". Really? Isn't it actually the case that these people (who rather worryingly come from the far right politically) are simply furious that he has ignored a large body of opinion which wants greater ties to the EU, perhaps even becoming a member one day. And whether or not they were from the far right, now the government in Ukraine has rushed through laws prohibiting almost any kind of street protest, they certainly have good grounds for registering their opposition to a state which is increasingly resembling a banana republic.

You know, I'm surprised some tory politico didn't call the post-Duggan rioters terrorists too. As it turns out it wouldn't have been far off the mark, because later evidence showed that in the main they were the lowest form of rioters: economic ones. Apparently 75% of them already had criminal records, so maybe they should indeed have been labelled "economic terrorists". It would have described them perfectly.

Oh, she'll get used to it

That's what they said at the hearing aid clinic where I had taken my mum to have her hearing aid fitted. A complex and intricate task, requiring the input of a number of highly trained professionals, who told me that after perhaps a few initial teething problems, "she'll soon get used to it". But as it turns out, none of it was of any use to her whatsoever. For my mum has severe Alzheimer's, and she can't "get used" to anything anymore.

You and I are capable of learning by experience: what we were told yesterday sinks in and is remembered today. We learn heuristically, that is to say by trial and error, so what was difficult yesterday may be a little easier today, until we have cracked whatever problem it might be, like, say, learning how to place a hearing aid in ones ear and adjusting to the new, enhanced sound. We will notice how our own voice is changed when the hearing aid is in place; it seems odd at first, like hearing ones self played back by a tape recorder. "Surely that isn't me!" we say, though we get used to it in time.

People with memory loss don't get used to anything. They arrive in each moment unencumbered by the experience of the recent past, so learning is impossible. They can't adjust, assimilate, or any of the other things the technicians at the clinic assumed, in their ignorance, would allow her to get used to her new hearing aid. So my mum cannot and will not ever be able to perform the basic, but to begin with slightly involved process of fitting the aid correctly into the ear, a device so lovingly moulded into an exact analogue of her own ear. Even if someone else performs that task for her, she is disturbed by the new, enhanced sound that we would adjust to in a couple of days at the most.

So when the clinic phoned me today and gave me a follow-up appointment for my mum, I sadly declined and explained my reasons. I'm not sure they completely understood what I was on about, but I hope so. I had to try to help my mum; she's helped me on so many occasions since I was a babe in arms, so it's only right for me to do what I can to help her now. But this, this is a hopeless case and any further intervention could only be seen as a cruelty.

Media supplement: Law and Order

Is there anyone, anywhere, who hasn't seen a single episode of Law and Order? Not me, certainly. Since the series, created by Dick Wolf, was first aired in 1990 I must have devoted literally hundreds and possibly thousands (if we include the countless commercial breaks) of hours to it, and its several children, including Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and Law and Order: Criminal Intent. In its twenty year run, it outlasted other notable cops/robbers/lawyers shows such as Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue. One of the keys to success was the writer's practice of "ripping stories from the headlines", using big crime stories from the US and further afield. (in one episode of Criminal Intent, for example, they chose to transpose Dr Shipman to a Manhattan setting, but then leaving almost all the other details extant.

The format, which has become a classic of its kind, has remained remarkably consistent over twenty years, though that may indeed part of its attraction: First there is the opening segment, giving us, the viewers, an overview of the crime itself. This is where they packed in the high production values, in order to hook the viewer in and keep him or her watching. From there the story divides into two halves: the first part of the show dedicated to seeing the cops at work, developing suspects and bringing them to the DA (what we would call the CPS)  who, in "part two" would then take them to court. And of course, its clarion call salted through each episode in regular procession, the famous Bom bom! (in D flat; we checked) which itself became an unmistakeable trademark of the show

Both sides of this story proved absorbing, though was I the only one who felt the real meat of the programmes lay in the police "half" of the story, whereas the lawyers seem to spend most of their time arguing over a deal? Will it be murder 1, and a possible death sentence, murder 2, usually 25 to life, or even a lesser charge if they give someone else up?  Because while Michael Moriarty (Ben Stone) and later Sam Waterston (Jack McCoy) were both great actors with well written parts (the series has been faultlessly written from the beginning, which of course is the best way to keep your audience), the fact remains that for so many years by far the most charismatic figure on the screen was Jerry Orbach's detective Lenny Briscoe. And when he died, something in the show died too, and the writing was on the wall for one of the most successful franchises in television history.

You could see them getting desperate as their ratings gradually dwindled: more and more spin-offs, like Law and Order: Los Angeles and even Law and Order:UK  (I never went there), and more and more new personae with increasingly brief half-lives. They learned their lessons, putting less emphasis on the legal eagle segment and focusing more on the detective work, but these are all crucial signs of the decline and fall of a great media empire. The final, frantic change occurred quite recently in Criminal Intent (featuring the excellent Vince D'Onofrio) when they changed a perfectly acceptable opening music theme to a hideous, hysterical blaring which did more to engender a migraine than ensure the viewers didn't reach for their remotes.

So, farewell, Law and Order. You have served me well over two decades, but all good things, even on the tellie, must come to an end, and we must move on with our lives somehow...

Whales and dolphins: even cleverer than we thought

There have been some fascinating wildlife docus on recently covering the lives of whales and dolphins, and it seems that the more we learn about them, the more sophisticated creatures they turn out to be.
In Dolphins: spy in the pod, we have seen how they work in groups and generally look after each others interests in a disturbingly human way. We even saw a young dolphin, seeking a life on his own away from the pod, show distinct signs of loneliness and seeking, and indeed receiving comfort from a dolphin of a completely different species- a behaviour never before reported in the wild.

In a recent programme on whales, we saw how one whale, his spine damaged following a collision with a boat and unable to feed for itself, was cared for by the rest of the school, who sheltered him from predation from other whales and even fed him. This sort of display of compassion amongst dumb creatures shows yet again how marvellously sophisticated and noble they are. Nurturing the weak and defenceless in our community is not only a human characteristic, it is one of our most evolved traits.

Not that this was a consideration for the owners of a "Sea World" type facility in San Diego recently. They had two whales in captivity, mother and child in the same huge tank. Then they decided to transfer the young whale to another facility in Florida. Separated, both whales showed signs of stress, losing weight and refusing to co-operate with their human handlers. Most heartbreaking of all, the mother began to emit deep, penetrating sounds the humans had never heard her make before, and eventually realised she was using special sounds designed to cover the greatest distance under water to communicate with her child. These sounds can carry across hundreds of miles in open water, but they cannot cross a continent of land.

To me such treatment is tantamount to the most severe form of animal abuse and should be banned. Come to think of it, the trapping of these animals for the entertainment of human beings is an obscene practice in itself and should, like bear baiting, be made a thing of the past. To put them in a tank, however large, is like subjecting a human to solitary confinement in a an 9 foot by five punishment cell- for life. That's what I call cruel and unusual punishment. And they haven't even done anything to be punished for!

Ariel Sharon RIP (not)

Israel and the US are mourning the loss of a crucial figure in international politics this morning. Not me though. Because despite a determined and highly effective attempt to rewrite history by the man himself and his supporters, the World needs to remember one or two indisputable facts about him.

Firstly it was Sharon who signed off on the massacre by the Lebanese phalangists of 1700 Palestinians at the Chatilla and Sabra refugee camps in southern Lebanon in 1982. This was only a small part of the devastating consequences of his country's invasion of southern Lebanon in that same year. A later internal enquiry by the Israelis themselves showed Sharon had lied to his own Prime Minister at the time over the extent of the incursion, which eventually led to the deaths of more than 17,000 people in Lebanon, most of them in Beirut.

Second, it was Sharon who decided in 2000 to make a deliberately orchestrated tour of the tunnels below the Dome of the Rock, tunnels dug without any consultation with the Muslims whose great Mosque now occupies the site on which the Jewish Temple once stood. Sharon knew his act would enrage the Muslims and correctly anticipated it would spark the third Intifada, which in turn supplied him with the justification to tighten Israel's hegemony over the Palestinians with which they share their land; in particular the building of the Separation Wall around the occupied territories of the West Bank.

These acts certainly identified him as an extremely shrewd political operator (he was also able to persuade the US that Arafat was in league with Bin Laden over 9/11- a total lie which everyone in America obediently lapped up) but despite his origins on the left of the  Zionist movement in the nascence of the Israeli state, any sober analysis of the facts will show him to have turned out to be one of the most brutal and racist leaders of the modern era.

So, farewell, Mr Sharon, but you will not be missed by me

Free the naked rambler!

Yesterday Stephen Gough, aka "the naked rambler" was imprisoned for 16 months for refusing to abide by the rules of his ASBO which forbade him from "exposing his buttocks and/or genitals in a public place".

Is he really such an evil man that he attracts a prison sentence greater than those often handed down to burglars, arsonists and even violent hooligans? I think not. Sure, Mr Gough has broken the cardinal rule in that he has defied the establishment, and the state is always hard on any one who dares to do that. But whose problem is it really: his or ours? Are we so screwed up, so rigid in our society that there is no room for the individual who challenges our most basic axioms of "permissible behaviour"?

I live in the city of Cardiff, which I have always observed to be a remarkably tolerant community. A few years ago, an elderly and probably disturbed lady regularly wandered the streets of our city with her skirts hitched up to the point where her genitals were on display to anyone who cared to look. As far as I am aware, she was never arrested, though I think she was probably discreetly asked to leave department stores when she wandered inside. Otherwise she was left alone in her weirdness, free to act out the doubtless deep psychological issues her activity suggested. I never heard anyone say that "something should be done" about her. She was simply considered part of the human landscape of the city.

I have little doubt Mr Gough also has his psychological "issues"; he has stated that he had a revelation one day that he was "good" and suspected that other people were likewise, and it was this revelation which led him to expose himself. Of course I don't understand this, but I defend his right to act in the way he does. Why is he so offensive to ordinary people? It's just the body God gave him, the same body shared by half the population of the planet, so it's not exactly unfamiliar to us.

I say, it's our problem if we can't handle his nudity, not his. If we were a truly tolerant and compassionate society we'd let him do his thing unimpeded. It's not as if he'll spawn a slew of imitators, especially in the winter months. And so what if he did? So let's just relax and see him for what he really is, one of that rare, but illustrious breed: the Great British Eccentric.