BOOKS
EDWARD WILSON'S ANTARCTIC NOTEBOOKS, edited by D.M. and C.J. Wilson.
After Captain Scott himself, the most revered man to have died on the return from the South Pole in 1912 was undoubtedly Dr Edward Wilson. Described by Scott as the finest man he had ever known, Wilson was a talented naturalist and highly skilled watercolourist, as well has having endless stores of energy and strength, which is why Scott included him in the last party. He was also a devout Christian, literally devoting his life to living according to Christ's teachings.
This beautifully produced book contains many of Wilson's watercolours which show, inter alia, the extraordinary subtlety of colours in the Antarctic sky as the sun slowly rose over, or sank below, the horizon. Most of his pictures are tucked away in the archives of the Scott Polar Research Institute because they deteriorate rapidly on exposure to light. But here they are reproduced with loving attention to detail, the new advances in digital printing having enabled remarkable authenticity to be achieved. Reading the book and looking at these pictures was deeply moving, cataloguing as they do a great man's final days, engaged in a grand scheme of scientific discovery that would ultimately cost him his life.
THE BEST OF CORDWAINER SMITH.
Can you imagine a world 6000 years in the future? 16,000 years? That's what Cordwainer Smith did in the late 40s and 50s, inhabiting it with genetically engineered cats that can talk, robots that can read minds, and humans with such powerful minds they can fold space.
Cordwainer Smith (his real name was a scarcely more plausible Dr Cornelius Linebarger) imagined all this and more. His stories come down to us as if transported direct from the future in some sort of time capsule. The concepts he introduces are so strange, even the words used are unfamiliar sometimes, and the characters so exotic that we find ourselves strangely involved in his uniquely realised Universe.
Rather special.
IN TRANSIT, by Anna Seghers. As France falls before the Nazis, a young German man escapes from a concentration camp, swimming across the Rhine before finding his way to Paris. He adopts the identity of a writer who has killed himself and, holding his papers, makes his way to Marseille where he launches a campaign to flee his oppressors and make a new life in the New World. He soon finds this is the hardest job in the world, doubly so as half the time he is pretending to be someone else. He meets a handsome woman who is also trying to escape, but won't leave until she finds her husband- and guess who that is: the very man whose identity our hero has adopted. Can he keep the secret from her and still achieve his aim of leaving Europe with her? It seems an impossibly difficult task, which doesn't stop him trying. And trying...
Described by some as one of the greatest short novels of the 20th century, Anna Seghers has produced a multi-layered work of great depth and subtlety, but one which also captures the attention at the most basic level. It is exciting, gripping even, in its depiction of a whole army of displaced people who are desperate to escape the tyranny of the Nazis, but as in a book previously reviewed here, B Traven's The Death Ship, they are up against foes almost worse than storm troopers with machine guns: the implacable forces of bureaucracy and indifference. Terrific.
FILMS
GROSSE POINT BLANK (1997) D- George Armitage. A freelance hitman (an excellent John Cusack) takes a commission in his home town, where by sheer coincidence his old high school reunion is also taking place. He'd like to reconnect with an old flame (Minnie Driver), but he has a job to do. There are other small complications too, like another hitman who has been paid to kill him. It's all a bit too complicated for our hero, who just wants to score with his old GF.
Superior "hitman with a heart" movie with splendid performances all round, especially from John Cusack, who could put this film along with The Grifters in his claim to be placed in the front rank of Hollywood actors.
THE FROZEN GROUND (2013) D- Scott Walker. A hooker bursts into an Alaska police station claiming to have been abducted at gunpoint. Her story sounds plausible until she names her assailant, a local baker with strong ties to the community who surely couldn't be capable of such a terrible act. Could he? Only one detective believes her story (Nick Cage) and it seems he's up against the whole town when he insists he's onto the right guy.
Based on the true story of Robert Hansen, who in the 1970s kidnapped a series of young women, flying them into the icy wastes of Alaska, where he let them go- and hunted them down like game. I admired this film, with John Cusack (yep, him again) playing the super-respectable Hansen with ice-cool menace, and Vanessa Hudgens as the hooker with guts enough to help bring her kidnapper down despite the odds.
THIS IS NOT A FILM (2011) D- Jafar Pamali and Mojtaba Mirtakmash. An Iranian film maker is under house arrest for speaking against the government. He's desperate to continue working at his art, so he begins to make a film of his life within the prison of his home. As he doesn't do much, the film threatens to be a bit dull, but what emerges is an absorbing study of artistic frustration: what we see is a subtle and moving portrait of a man determined to fulfil his creative destiny. Scenes like the one where he simply observes the bin man going from floor to floor in his apartment block picking up the rubbish become somehow transformed into an epic tale. An extraordinary effort.
BRANDED TO KILL (1967) D- Seijun Suzuki. The number three ranked hitman in Japan botches his latest job and finds himself targeted by the number one guy. Add to this some very complex relationships with a girlfriend with a death wish and a wife who would also like to kill him and you have one very strange movie. You could call it a sort of Japanese noir, or you could call it an amazing piece of existentialist cinema. Whatever you call it, this is as revolutionary a film as you could wish to find: certainly as bold as say, Breathless or Les Enfants Terrible.
To summarise, wow!
MUD (2012) W/D- Jeff Nichols. While fooling about on a small island in the middle of the Arkansas river, two twelve year old boys come across an odd fellow living there. They rapidly fall under the spell of his downhome charisma and start to help him out in small ways: bringing him food, procuring tools to help him repair a small boat and passing messages to his girlfriend (a sultry, trailer-trash Reese Witherspoon). Then they hear the state police are searching for a man accused of murder. Could it be their guy?
This movie flows slowly, rather like the great river around which is centred, but a denouement is just around the next bend and we just know it ain't gonna be pretty. Well written and skilfully directed, this is another example of how Matthew McConnaughey, who plays the eponymous lead, has come of age, placing him now at the forefront of Hollywood acting talent.
PUSHOVER (1954) D- Richard Quine. A hard bitten detective (Fred McMurray) is given the job of surveilling a gangster's moll in the hope it will lead to him plus the 200 grand which was stolen in a recent bank robbery. Unfortunately he falls for her almost immediately (understandable: she is played by Kim Novak in her movie debut, with the kind of face and body anybody would wreck their career for) and teams up with her to get the girl, and the money for himself. But as in all the best Hollywood noirs, things soon begin to go horribly wrong.
Accomplished piece of movie making, with some rather strange parallels with Double Indemnity: a femme fatale, a grand plan which falls apart very quickly leaving a bloody conclusion. It doesn't have the sheer class of that classic, but it's still highly watchable.
THE EXILES (1961) D- Kent McKenzie. In the run down area of Bunker Hill in downtown Los Angeles, a group of Navajo Indians have left their reservation in Colorado and are trying to make new lives in the big city. In a way, not much happens. The men hang around the house for most of the day, getting over their hangovers while their women clean around them. When night comes they're out on the thrash again. At one point one of the men molests another Indian girl. He is quite brutish about it, and she slaps him. Annoyed and frustrated at her rejection he knocks her down. Yet only a few minutes later all seems forgiven and forgotten and the lads continue their partying until dawn. Finally they return home, where their women have been waiting for them all night long.
This film reminded me strongly of a Roberto Bolano novel: at one level it's just a group of people interacting and trying to have a good time. But it is far more than that: what emerges is for me a crucial piece of cinema- deeply insightful, compassionate and tragic in its portrayal of the disastrous consequences of the collision of two disparate cultures, the one far more powerful than the other. It was considered to close to the bone for American cinema distributors: they denied it a showing in the States for nearly forty years- thereby depriving American audiences of one of the finest films made throughout the 1960s And that is the real tragedy of this movie. It told a truth that Americans weren't ready to hear. Are they yet?
AMERICAN HUSTLE (2013) D- David O Russell. A couple attempting a financial scam are collared by the FBI and recruited to front up an even bigger scam to entrap a major league bad guy.
This film went down well in the States, where it received an Oscar nomination and there is a sustained energy about it which is highly seductive. But Bradley Cooper as the FBI agent was not believable to me. He was too excitable, too neurotic and far too erratic to be what I would consider to be FBI material. I could be wrong though. Christian Bale, however, is much more convincing as the scammer turned FBI narc, and Amy Adams who plays his wife is also good. Her gowns certainly won my approval. She wears many different ones in the course of the movie, and they all give a new meaning to the word cleavage. Apologies. As my wife would say, down boy...
THE WOLF OF WALL STREET (2013) D- Martin Scorsese. Being the life and times of Jordan Bellfort, Wall Street rogue trader and general larger than life diamond geyser. In the course of three long hours, we get to the heart of the man, and what lies at his heart, apparently, is a neatly folded $100 bill, which is waiting to be turned into more of the same. It's all about the money, stupid, and nothing else matters, not trust, not loyalty, not a moral framework, unless that moral framework is screw the other guy before he screws you. Jordan Bellfort is a real person, who was finally taken down by the FBI for insider trading, but not before he had made millions for himself and several other unscrupulous associates.
But is it a good film? I'm afraid the answer is no. For me it was a good hour too long, and lacked the polish we have come to hope for from one of America's leading auteurs. Scorsese has made, in Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas, three of the best films to come out of America in the last forty years. He has also made some appalling dogs, notably Gangs of New York and Casino. I am sorry to have to report that, despite a rapturous reception on his home turf, in Wolf he has made another in the latter category. Leo di Caprio is a fine actor, but here he is only asked to rant and rave for three hours and that just isn't good enough. Shame, I wanted to like it.
ALL IS LOST (2013) D- J.C. Chandor. A lone yachtsman in the middle of the Indian Ocean wakes from a deep sleep to find his boat has snagged a half-submerged container and been holed above the water line. Demonstrating the truth that you can fix absolutely anything with gaffer tape, he effects a repair. All seems well, but our ancient mariner (a gnarled but still beautiful Robert Redford) knows that all he has to do is hit some rough water and the whole thing could fail. Then he espies storm clouds off the port bough. Oh, shit...
This is a very unusual film: There is only one cast member, and there is scarcely any dialogue. In fact about the only thing you do hear him saying is an occasional "Oh, shit". The rest is one man's struggle against the elements, elements that seem to be conspiring to kill him. Remind me not to go ocean sailing in a small boat any time soon.
Despite its unusual nature, this film works surprisingly well. Redford completely captures the attention as he uses his intelligence and manual dexterity to keep death by drowning at arm's length for long enough for another boat to find him.
Some have criticised the ending, which I shall not spoil for you. Endings are hard, I know. But you judge for yourself. It's well worth it.
BARBARA (2012) D- Christian Petzold An attractive East German doctor (Nina Hoss) has fallen out with the authorities by having had the temerity to ask for an exit visa, and is sent to a provincial town near the Baltic coast to cool her heels. Knowing the Stasi are watching her every move, she still contrives to have a life of her own- albeit a rather dangerous one. Every month or so her apartment is raided and she is subjected to a full (and I mean full) strip search. Despite this, or perhaps because of this, she spends much of her mental energy working on ways to get the hell out of there. Finally a chance arrives, but by now she has befriended a young girl who was admitted to her hospital with an overdose. Will she run regardless or will her new friend keep her confined in her little hell?
Made to high professional standards and with great human warmth and compassion, this languid tale of fear and loathing in the East Germany of the 70s creeps into the soul, leaving this viewer not a little moved. Excellent work.
Friday, 31 October 2014
Thursday, 30 October 2014
You think ISIL is extreme?
Try the right of the Israeli Zionist faction. One of their number, a rabbi Glick, was shot yesterday, probably by agents of Hamas. And you can hardly blame them. Rabbi Glick was one of a group of Israeli extremists who want to cast the Muslims out of "Temple Mount" as they call it, bulldoze the two mosques that currently occupy it and rebuild the great Jewish Temple, just like it was before the Romans destroyed it in 70 AD. As the site is considered the third holiest place in the Muslim world, you can imagine they are not overly enthusiastic about the idea.
In a way the Muslims are fortunate it hasn't happened already. In 1967, at the height of the Six Day War, a heavily armed Israeli platoon was advancing on the Dome of the Rock. With them, acting as "spiritual advisor" was another one of those ultra-Zionist rabbis. He launched into a passionate plea to the soldiers to blow up the mosques once they had gained control of the site. According to stories I have heard, they drew back from this Armageddon-inducing act only at the very last moment. I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't more than a few Zionists around right now who wish that rabbi had got his way.
But it isn't all bad news out in the West Bank. I hear Sodastream, shaken by a 10% fall-off in its sales, has decided to close its plant in one of the illegal Israeli settlements. Boycotts do work sometimes, it seems. And poor old Scarlett Johanssen! Must be a bit of a blow to the ego when a company takes you on as its poster girl and its sales fall by 10%. Never mind darls. You can still cry all the way to the bank.
In a way the Muslims are fortunate it hasn't happened already. In 1967, at the height of the Six Day War, a heavily armed Israeli platoon was advancing on the Dome of the Rock. With them, acting as "spiritual advisor" was another one of those ultra-Zionist rabbis. He launched into a passionate plea to the soldiers to blow up the mosques once they had gained control of the site. According to stories I have heard, they drew back from this Armageddon-inducing act only at the very last moment. I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't more than a few Zionists around right now who wish that rabbi had got his way.
But it isn't all bad news out in the West Bank. I hear Sodastream, shaken by a 10% fall-off in its sales, has decided to close its plant in one of the illegal Israeli settlements. Boycotts do work sometimes, it seems. And poor old Scarlett Johanssen! Must be a bit of a blow to the ego when a company takes you on as its poster girl and its sales fall by 10%. Never mind darls. You can still cry all the way to the bank.
Friday, 24 October 2014
How are your teeth?
Mine are crap. At least they were. But in 2011 I started spending money on them. Now when I flash my smile, you see thousands and thousands of pounds worth of porcelain venirs and titanium implants. And they look good. As I quip, most people get only two sets of teeth, but I bought a third set.
Most people aren't that lucky. They haven't got that sort of disposable income to lay out on their teeth. So they rot. Why are (or were) my teeth crap? Because my parents, well meaning middle class folk that they were, taught me brush every day, but didn't tell me how. Consequently my yummers were deteriorating badly even before I hit my teens. And there's your problem.
A plan was proposed this week to get teachers to supervise their pupil's dental hygiene. This has come about because despite the interim of nearly 50 years since I was a school kid, parents are no better at teaching their kids how to look after their teeth than they were in 1960. Sweet drinks and chewy sweets are dissolving young people's teeth at a frightening rate, not just here but around the world.
But teachers say: whoa! I got paid to educate, I didn't sign up to be an unpaid dental hygienist.
And they've got a point. But how's this for a plan? Also this week a plan was rolled out to pay GPs £55 to diagnose someone with Alzheimer's- something they're already paid to do in their exceedingly generous contracts. So I suggest that this money be set aside, not to make wealthy GPs even wealthier by paying them to do something they should be doing already, but to pay distinctly unwealthy teachers bonuses for helping their charges look after their teeth. After all it is education, and that is in their job description, but if it's additional work they should be rewarded accordingly.
Most people aren't that lucky. They haven't got that sort of disposable income to lay out on their teeth. So they rot. Why are (or were) my teeth crap? Because my parents, well meaning middle class folk that they were, taught me brush every day, but didn't tell me how. Consequently my yummers were deteriorating badly even before I hit my teens. And there's your problem.
A plan was proposed this week to get teachers to supervise their pupil's dental hygiene. This has come about because despite the interim of nearly 50 years since I was a school kid, parents are no better at teaching their kids how to look after their teeth than they were in 1960. Sweet drinks and chewy sweets are dissolving young people's teeth at a frightening rate, not just here but around the world.
But teachers say: whoa! I got paid to educate, I didn't sign up to be an unpaid dental hygienist.
And they've got a point. But how's this for a plan? Also this week a plan was rolled out to pay GPs £55 to diagnose someone with Alzheimer's- something they're already paid to do in their exceedingly generous contracts. So I suggest that this money be set aside, not to make wealthy GPs even wealthier by paying them to do something they should be doing already, but to pay distinctly unwealthy teachers bonuses for helping their charges look after their teeth. After all it is education, and that is in their job description, but if it's additional work they should be rewarded accordingly.
Tuesday, 21 October 2014
Who says good news isn't sexy?
PARALYSED MAN WALKS AGAIN
"You'll never walk again" is probably what the poor guy with the severed spinal cord was told. Yet due to the cleverness of a Polish stem cell research unit combined with the dexterity of the neurosurgical team at UCL, that may turn out to be wrong.
Throughout my medical career a severed spinal cord has been accepted as the end of the story for those patients unlucky enough to experience such a terrible injury. But what was impossible only a few years ago is more than possible: it has actually happened.
"Maybe more important than a man walking on the Moon" is how the chief surgeon at UCL described it and I honestly believe this is no hyperbole. This development in medical science is little short of earth shattering, and should give pause for thought to those around the world, especially in the U.S. who continue to oppose stem cell research. It now seems there may be no limit to the miracles that may come to be over the next few years if the research is encouraged, rather than buried, as certain people on the "religious right" still call for.
PISTORIUS: THE SENTENCE
Some months ago I said in this blog that I didn't believe OP was guilty of deliberate murder, but that he had acted like a gung-ho, trigger happy gun nut. And after a long, but continuously fascinating trial, that was the conclusion of the court. Judge Masipa (and how strange is it for people of our age to see a black woman in South Africa exerting the power of the state over a wealthy, well connected white man?) gauged public opinion with enormous care before delivering her sentence and has, as I see it, gauged it to perfection. Even Reeva's family approved; there has been no appeal from OP's legal team and I suspect around the world people are saying: "That's about right".
He had to go to jail for recklessly causing the death of an innocent human being, but the fact that he will only serve about 10 months inside (as long as he doesn't shoot anyone else in the meantime) seems absolutely appropriate. Justice has been done, and seen to be done. Well done South Africa! At last, you have something to teach the world about fairness.
"You'll never walk again" is probably what the poor guy with the severed spinal cord was told. Yet due to the cleverness of a Polish stem cell research unit combined with the dexterity of the neurosurgical team at UCL, that may turn out to be wrong.
Throughout my medical career a severed spinal cord has been accepted as the end of the story for those patients unlucky enough to experience such a terrible injury. But what was impossible only a few years ago is more than possible: it has actually happened.
"Maybe more important than a man walking on the Moon" is how the chief surgeon at UCL described it and I honestly believe this is no hyperbole. This development in medical science is little short of earth shattering, and should give pause for thought to those around the world, especially in the U.S. who continue to oppose stem cell research. It now seems there may be no limit to the miracles that may come to be over the next few years if the research is encouraged, rather than buried, as certain people on the "religious right" still call for.
PISTORIUS: THE SENTENCE
Some months ago I said in this blog that I didn't believe OP was guilty of deliberate murder, but that he had acted like a gung-ho, trigger happy gun nut. And after a long, but continuously fascinating trial, that was the conclusion of the court. Judge Masipa (and how strange is it for people of our age to see a black woman in South Africa exerting the power of the state over a wealthy, well connected white man?) gauged public opinion with enormous care before delivering her sentence and has, as I see it, gauged it to perfection. Even Reeva's family approved; there has been no appeal from OP's legal team and I suspect around the world people are saying: "That's about right".
He had to go to jail for recklessly causing the death of an innocent human being, but the fact that he will only serve about 10 months inside (as long as he doesn't shoot anyone else in the meantime) seems absolutely appropriate. Justice has been done, and seen to be done. Well done South Africa! At last, you have something to teach the world about fairness.
Thursday, 16 October 2014
Attack of the Green Blobs
Are you a green blob? I suspect I am. In fact I'm sure I'm one of those execrable humans Owen Patterson has targeted as being what's wrong with the world today. Here follows a quick guide to see if you too are part of the green menace:
1. If you believe the science behind global warming has some basis in reality.
2. If you believe in preserving little creatures like newts and voles. Even if you kinda like preserving larger ones, like badgers and otters.
3. If you have reservations about pumping water into the earth under such pressure that it fractures the rock, allowing gas to seep up, where it is garnered by oil companies to increase their profits.
4. If you think solar farms and wind turbines might have something to contribute to energy production.
There are more, but I think you get the picture. That's right: you're part of the problem, not the solution. You're the one standing in the way of continuous economic growth, especially that of the major players in the military/industrial/oil complex. Put another way, your views are about as valuable to Owen Patterson as the gobbet of phlegm he coughed up this morning- a green blob, a minor nuisance to be discarded and forgotten as quickly as possible. So why, he would say, don't you shut up and stop getting in the way of the multinationals who are only trying to do their job: turning a decent profit for their shareholders. Because that's the only thing that matters today, right Owen?
1. If you believe the science behind global warming has some basis in reality.
2. If you believe in preserving little creatures like newts and voles. Even if you kinda like preserving larger ones, like badgers and otters.
3. If you have reservations about pumping water into the earth under such pressure that it fractures the rock, allowing gas to seep up, where it is garnered by oil companies to increase their profits.
4. If you think solar farms and wind turbines might have something to contribute to energy production.
There are more, but I think you get the picture. That's right: you're part of the problem, not the solution. You're the one standing in the way of continuous economic growth, especially that of the major players in the military/industrial/oil complex. Put another way, your views are about as valuable to Owen Patterson as the gobbet of phlegm he coughed up this morning- a green blob, a minor nuisance to be discarded and forgotten as quickly as possible. So why, he would say, don't you shut up and stop getting in the way of the multinationals who are only trying to do their job: turning a decent profit for their shareholders. Because that's the only thing that matters today, right Owen?
Friday, 10 October 2014
Which is worse: Ebola or IS?
All right, it's a pretty stupid question. I pose it because it is easy to see IS as a kind of force of nature, like a hurricane, tsunami or, a plague. I had a whimsical thought earlier this week when it was announced there would indeed be boots on the ground, and British ones at that, in the fight against Ebola, while we and the Americans are fighting shy of putting troops in to fight the fundamentalist threat. Fair enough at one level: the boots on the ground should be from the vastly wealthy Arab nations that are under direct threat: Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the other Gulf states. They have more than enough resources to counter IS, but will they act? I doubt it. They're more concerned with amassing wealth and maintaining their own power bases to organise a really meaningful opposition to the threat on their own doorsteps. In other words, they are weak, and I suspect they will actually fall when faced with the ultimate test. Their leaders will flee with their gold, leaving their people to their fates.
I like to think the Human Race should be constantly looking forward to improve itself; to live up to their name: Homo Sapiens- "Wise Man". This should involve working towards everyone achieving their full potential as well as learning to live in harmony with the environment. Therefore few things make me more angry than seeing human beings going in the opposite direction. The Amish people decided to stop moving forward at a time midway through the 18th century. So horses and carts and some tools and farm implements were allowed, but nothing new, no innovations were permitted. IS is worse: they want to hark back to a pre-medieval period- the 7th century AD to be precise, when Mohammed, peace be upon him, wrote down the Koran.
And UKIP, God bless them, they also want to turn the clock back to a mythical time when Britain didn't need Europe, when we were the most powerful nation on Earth and everyone did our bidding (even China) and God help them if they didn't. Someone should tell them, and the misguided people who support them, that that time disappeared long ago and we are now living in a much more complex, inter-dependent world. A world where a virus formerly confined to the forest primeval of the Dark Continent can now cross the world in a matter of hours and with the potential to cause mayhem just as effectively as any suicide bomber. It won't take boots on the ground to defeat it. It will take the combined efforts of all the world's cleverest immunologists and physicians to create a vaccine. We eradicated smallpox- we can eradicate Ebola too- but only if there is sufficient will out there to do it.
I like to think the Human Race should be constantly looking forward to improve itself; to live up to their name: Homo Sapiens- "Wise Man". This should involve working towards everyone achieving their full potential as well as learning to live in harmony with the environment. Therefore few things make me more angry than seeing human beings going in the opposite direction. The Amish people decided to stop moving forward at a time midway through the 18th century. So horses and carts and some tools and farm implements were allowed, but nothing new, no innovations were permitted. IS is worse: they want to hark back to a pre-medieval period- the 7th century AD to be precise, when Mohammed, peace be upon him, wrote down the Koran.
And UKIP, God bless them, they also want to turn the clock back to a mythical time when Britain didn't need Europe, when we were the most powerful nation on Earth and everyone did our bidding (even China) and God help them if they didn't. Someone should tell them, and the misguided people who support them, that that time disappeared long ago and we are now living in a much more complex, inter-dependent world. A world where a virus formerly confined to the forest primeval of the Dark Continent can now cross the world in a matter of hours and with the potential to cause mayhem just as effectively as any suicide bomber. It won't take boots on the ground to defeat it. It will take the combined efforts of all the world's cleverest immunologists and physicians to create a vaccine. We eradicated smallpox- we can eradicate Ebola too- but only if there is sufficient will out there to do it.
Monday, 6 October 2014
Death of a troll
Just two days after she was doorstepped by a Sky News reporter and confronted over her hate-filled tweets directed against the McCann family, Brenda Leyland was found dead, apparently at her own hand. Outside her own family, I wonder how many people will mourn her loss.
She was one of a small army of trolls who went online, usually, as in Ms Leyland's case, anonymously, to suggest that the McCanns were not only guilty of child neglect by leaving her alone to be abducted while they enjoyed a candlelit dinner some 50 metres away, but also of murdering her themselves. Presumably they couldn't be guilty of both- you take your choice. In this disgraceful hounding of an innocent family struggling with the most terrible grief, these trolls were joined by several national newspapers, most notably the Daily and Sunday Express. The newspapers were brought to book to account for their foul accusations and forced to admit there was not a shred of evidence to support their claims. The newspapers were heavily fined for their lies, but until last Thursday the individuals who took up the torch from the print media remained untouchable, free to express the hope that the McCanns themselves should be killed, even that their remaining children should be abducted.
This morning on The Today Programme a learned professor from Northern Ireland expressed his surprise that, living in a charming little village in the Leicester countryside, Ms Leyland fell into the category of internet troll. Normally, it would seem, profiling suggests they would come from sink estates, despicable low-life Billy-no-mates types who have a history of narcissism and sociopathy and far too much time on their hands. Now we can see that this sort of sickening behaviour transcends the class barriers.
Why did she kill herself? Did she anticipate the shitstorm of acrimony that was about to fall on her head and feel even death was preferable to that? Maybe she was already nursing a severe depression and this was her last straw. Perhaps, I like to think, in her last moments on this Earth, she apprehended some of the huge hurt she had poured on the McCanns.
This poor family has experienced the worst form of grief imaginable: to have a child snatched away by a predator; the guilt accompanying their own actions and worst of all, to have no resolution to the mystery of her disappearance. So my message to anyone seeking to dish out any more opprobrium on those wretched people is:
LEAVE THE MCCANNS ALONE. THEY'VE SUFFERED ENOUGH.
She was one of a small army of trolls who went online, usually, as in Ms Leyland's case, anonymously, to suggest that the McCanns were not only guilty of child neglect by leaving her alone to be abducted while they enjoyed a candlelit dinner some 50 metres away, but also of murdering her themselves. Presumably they couldn't be guilty of both- you take your choice. In this disgraceful hounding of an innocent family struggling with the most terrible grief, these trolls were joined by several national newspapers, most notably the Daily and Sunday Express. The newspapers were brought to book to account for their foul accusations and forced to admit there was not a shred of evidence to support their claims. The newspapers were heavily fined for their lies, but until last Thursday the individuals who took up the torch from the print media remained untouchable, free to express the hope that the McCanns themselves should be killed, even that their remaining children should be abducted.
This morning on The Today Programme a learned professor from Northern Ireland expressed his surprise that, living in a charming little village in the Leicester countryside, Ms Leyland fell into the category of internet troll. Normally, it would seem, profiling suggests they would come from sink estates, despicable low-life Billy-no-mates types who have a history of narcissism and sociopathy and far too much time on their hands. Now we can see that this sort of sickening behaviour transcends the class barriers.
Why did she kill herself? Did she anticipate the shitstorm of acrimony that was about to fall on her head and feel even death was preferable to that? Maybe she was already nursing a severe depression and this was her last straw. Perhaps, I like to think, in her last moments on this Earth, she apprehended some of the huge hurt she had poured on the McCanns.
This poor family has experienced the worst form of grief imaginable: to have a child snatched away by a predator; the guilt accompanying their own actions and worst of all, to have no resolution to the mystery of her disappearance. So my message to anyone seeking to dish out any more opprobrium on those wretched people is:
LEAVE THE MCCANNS ALONE. THEY'VE SUFFERED ENOUGH.
Wednesday, 1 October 2014
September 2014 book and film review
BOOKS
BERLIN NOIR, by Philip Kerr:
1. MARCH VIOLETS
2. THE PALE CRIMINAL
3. A GERMAN REQUIEM
In pre-war Germany and later in the ruins of post-war Vienna, an ex- cop turned private eye takes on cases that bring him very close to the centre of power in Nazi Germany. He has a set of moral values; they may not be much like ours but they're a big improvement on what he finds around him. And with wit, pace and verve, Philip Kerr brings Bernie Gunther to life in a way we haven't seen since Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammett. These immortals of noir must be mentioned, as Kerr owes so much to them, but he has refined the technique to a new level. All the books have been carefully enough researched to plunge us deep into the dark and dangerous underworld of Germany under the Nazis and, in the third book, the aftermath.
I loved these three books, loved their style, loved the atmosphere of menace combined with a sultry eroticism- there's nothing quite like making love to a beautiful woman when your life is in imminent jeopardy. Excellent stuff.
THE JEWEL THAT WAS OURS, by Colin Dexter.
An American tour party is visiting Oxford, but no sooner than they arrive one of them dies of a heart attack. Or is it? Also, examination of her purse reveals a priceless Saxon artefact she was going to present to the Ashmolean is missing. Curiouser and curiouser... False trails lead Morse everywhere but the truth, but he is not one to be put off the scent once he's caught a whiff of it.
One of the now famous Inspector Morse series of books, which must by now have made Colin Dexter only marginally poorer than God. This is my first excursion into the oeuvre; indeed I hadn't even watched any of the highly successful television adaptations with the late great John Thaw in the eponymous role. Why are they so successful? The fact is they are tightly written yet delightfully easy to read. We can't get enough of our hero's labyrinthine thought processes as he wrestles with the evidence trail. And perhaps key is the interplay between him and his faithful Sergeant Lewis, his linear thinking providing a perfect foil for Morse's lateral twist... Perfect airport reading.
FILMS
IDA (2014) (Polish) D- Pawel Pawlikoski. In post Soviet Poland, A teenaged novitiate nun goes to spend time with an aunt before she goes to the convent to take her lifetime vows. Her aunt turns out to be quite a player: a hard-drinking local judge, a big wheel back in the Soviet day and still much admired. She urges her niece to live a little before she gives everything up forever, and there's a few boys knocking around who wholeheartedly concur.
A superb film, a tip for best foreign film Oscar next year, which would be well deserved. Beautifully shot in terse monochrome, and directed with great sensitivity and insight. We are totally with Ida as she journeys through those last, fateful days as the time for her vows approaches.
HOME FROM HOME (2014) (Germany) D- Edgar Reitz. In mid 19th century Germany, the villagers aren't happy. They are all subjects of the local Baron, and just to remind them of their place, he publishes an edict emphasising the fact he not only owns the forest, he owns everything in the forest: all the game, all the trees, even all the berries and fruits and nuts. Then one young man, Herr Simon, hears people are being encouraged to emigrate to Brazil: there's even a promise of 200 acres of land to every man- his own land! Trouble is, there are family ties at home he cannot ignore..
In three glorious series on TV, Edgar Reitz showed that in Heimat he had created one of the greatest pieces of drama ever seen. What we have here is the prequel to Heimat, set two generations earlier, still in that familiar rolling country west of the Rhine. I can announce that he has maintained the superlative standard he set with his television magnum opus, and quite magnificently. Once again we are quickly immersed in the hearts and minds of the protagonists: we know them, we love them even, and therefore we are desperate to find out what happens to them. This is filmed story telling at its very best. Put another way, Reitz is the Tolstoy of the screen..
PARADISE: LOVE
PARADISE: FAITH
PARADISE: HOPE
(2012) (Austria)) D- Ulrich Seidl. Three films exploring the Heavenly virtues through the lives of three women in modern Austria. Apparently Seidl was going to make it a single movie, with interweaving plots a la Intolerance, but decided to make three separate, if linked, stories instead.
In Love, a middle-aged single mum, rather dumpy but still with certain needs, leaves her fourteen-year old daughter in the charge of an aunt and travels to Kenya in search of some brown sugar. Turns out it's easy enough to find, but she soon notices that somehow their hearts aren't in it. Was the whole thing a mistake?
In Faith, we focus on the aunt, a passionately committed Catholic, whose faith extends all the way to calling door to door and telling people how to live their lives. But beneath her piety lies a cyclone of turbulent emotions: fear, longing and deep, deep anger.
Finally in Hope, we follow the story of the fourteen-year-old daughter of the lady who went to Kenya as she is dispatched to a fat camp for the summer. Here she develops a crush on the dishy doctor, and it seems at first that the doctor is interested himself. For our inexperienced teen, this is almost too good to be true...
Here again we have three films of great skill and subtlety. I particularly liked the cinematography: the camera likes to remain still and calm, observing the action as it moves in and out of its ken. There are only a few exceptions to this technique, and even then it seems the camera is almost being made to move against its will. The films were "devised", Mike Leigh style, rather than strictly scripted: the actors (often people with no previous acting experience) are given a scenario and allowed to play with it organically. The final result works brilliantly, and very movingly.
BROADWAY MEDODY (1929) D- Henry Beaumont. Two pretty young chorus girls arrive in New York intent on making it big on the Great White Way. One of them is dating an aspiring singer/songwriter, so that's a possible in. Thing is, when he sees his GF's sister he starts wondering if he's picked the right sibling. But then they start getting invited to exclusive parties, and one of the upper-crust partygoers has less than gentlemanly designs on one of them.
Hollywood's first excursion into the big production musical turned out to have unexpected bite. The plot is grown up and the musical numbers extremely well done. So well done in fact it became the first musical to win the best picture Oscar, one of a very select list of musicals that achieved this highest honour. I can almost imagine Busby Berkely looking at some of the musical extravaganzas and thinking: "Not bad, but with a big enough budget I could make this look like a school play". Within a couple of years they gave him the money and the rest is history.
CAVALCADE (1933) D- Frank Lloyd. A journey through the lives of a well-to-do English family, beginning with the relief of Mafeking through to the early 1930s. I tell you, stiff upper lip isn't in it. These wealthy, privileged people lead (relatively) hard lives, especially when their sons go away to war. Will they ever come back? And if they do, will they make suitable marriages or become besotted with some music hall tart?
Americans wanted to find out in their millions; it was the second biggest film at the box office in 1933, also scooping Oscars for best picture and best director. As so often, the key to its success was the writing. It was based on a play by Noel Coward, and of course the master had a knack or tapping into the zeitgeist that could transcend oceans. It seems very stagey and stilted now, but as an historical document it remains important in the canon of American cinema.
THE HARRY HILL MOVIE (2014) D- Steve Benderlakt. Harry goes on a wild anarchic ride on the way to fulfilling his teddy-bear's final wish. Along with him trail the cream of British acting and comedic talent. Shame then, that it simply doesn't work. Speaking of zeitgeist, you'd think Harry had his finger on the pulse of British humour like almost no one else. I love his Harry Hill's TV Burp which rips she shite out of the soaps and a whole range of popular TV programming, but here Harry seems out of his depth. Some gags work, but actually time drags and my attention was often found wandering. Maybe they'll give him another chance; personally I doubt it.
ANCHORMAN II (2013) D- Adam McKay. TV anchorman Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell), now married to his nemesis in the first film, Veronica Cornerstone (Christina Applegate), has now gone national, but as co-anchor with his wife. And when he is told that they want her for sole anchor and give him the hard word, his life falls apart.
I kind of enjoyed the first Anchorman movie. America will never match us in crazy, zany movies, but this, like the Airplane movies came as close as they get. But here the format is becoming tired, the jokes not as funny, despite the fine performance of Steve Carrell as the autistic weather man. Will Ferrell should resist the siren calls of the money men and refuse to do a third Anchorman movie. He's a talented guy; he just needs a couple of fresh ideas.
PHILOMENA (2014) D- Stephen Frears. Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan), having been stitched up by New Labour spin doctors and now unemployed, is looking for a project to work on. He doesn't usually do "human interest" stories, but then he hears a tale of a woman (Judi Dench) who had her child taken away from her by nuns when she was a teenager in Ireland 40 years before. He decides to look into the story, and becomes increasingly horrified as he learns the truth. Maybe there is a story in this after all...
It's hard to watch Steve Coogan without thinking of Alan Partridge, but that's our problem, not his. In this film he turns in a highly effective performance as the uptight journalist/academic who becomes absorbed into Philomena's life story. And Judi Dench? Well she's Judi Dench, and she can act a good show in her sleep. Like the great Olivier, she just knows acting inside out. Highly creditable
BERLIN NOIR, by Philip Kerr:
1. MARCH VIOLETS
2. THE PALE CRIMINAL
3. A GERMAN REQUIEM
In pre-war Germany and later in the ruins of post-war Vienna, an ex- cop turned private eye takes on cases that bring him very close to the centre of power in Nazi Germany. He has a set of moral values; they may not be much like ours but they're a big improvement on what he finds around him. And with wit, pace and verve, Philip Kerr brings Bernie Gunther to life in a way we haven't seen since Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammett. These immortals of noir must be mentioned, as Kerr owes so much to them, but he has refined the technique to a new level. All the books have been carefully enough researched to plunge us deep into the dark and dangerous underworld of Germany under the Nazis and, in the third book, the aftermath.
I loved these three books, loved their style, loved the atmosphere of menace combined with a sultry eroticism- there's nothing quite like making love to a beautiful woman when your life is in imminent jeopardy. Excellent stuff.
THE JEWEL THAT WAS OURS, by Colin Dexter.
An American tour party is visiting Oxford, but no sooner than they arrive one of them dies of a heart attack. Or is it? Also, examination of her purse reveals a priceless Saxon artefact she was going to present to the Ashmolean is missing. Curiouser and curiouser... False trails lead Morse everywhere but the truth, but he is not one to be put off the scent once he's caught a whiff of it.
One of the now famous Inspector Morse series of books, which must by now have made Colin Dexter only marginally poorer than God. This is my first excursion into the oeuvre; indeed I hadn't even watched any of the highly successful television adaptations with the late great John Thaw in the eponymous role. Why are they so successful? The fact is they are tightly written yet delightfully easy to read. We can't get enough of our hero's labyrinthine thought processes as he wrestles with the evidence trail. And perhaps key is the interplay between him and his faithful Sergeant Lewis, his linear thinking providing a perfect foil for Morse's lateral twist... Perfect airport reading.
FILMS
IDA (2014) (Polish) D- Pawel Pawlikoski. In post Soviet Poland, A teenaged novitiate nun goes to spend time with an aunt before she goes to the convent to take her lifetime vows. Her aunt turns out to be quite a player: a hard-drinking local judge, a big wheel back in the Soviet day and still much admired. She urges her niece to live a little before she gives everything up forever, and there's a few boys knocking around who wholeheartedly concur.
A superb film, a tip for best foreign film Oscar next year, which would be well deserved. Beautifully shot in terse monochrome, and directed with great sensitivity and insight. We are totally with Ida as she journeys through those last, fateful days as the time for her vows approaches.
HOME FROM HOME (2014) (Germany) D- Edgar Reitz. In mid 19th century Germany, the villagers aren't happy. They are all subjects of the local Baron, and just to remind them of their place, he publishes an edict emphasising the fact he not only owns the forest, he owns everything in the forest: all the game, all the trees, even all the berries and fruits and nuts. Then one young man, Herr Simon, hears people are being encouraged to emigrate to Brazil: there's even a promise of 200 acres of land to every man- his own land! Trouble is, there are family ties at home he cannot ignore..
In three glorious series on TV, Edgar Reitz showed that in Heimat he had created one of the greatest pieces of drama ever seen. What we have here is the prequel to Heimat, set two generations earlier, still in that familiar rolling country west of the Rhine. I can announce that he has maintained the superlative standard he set with his television magnum opus, and quite magnificently. Once again we are quickly immersed in the hearts and minds of the protagonists: we know them, we love them even, and therefore we are desperate to find out what happens to them. This is filmed story telling at its very best. Put another way, Reitz is the Tolstoy of the screen..
PARADISE: LOVE
PARADISE: FAITH
PARADISE: HOPE
(2012) (Austria)) D- Ulrich Seidl. Three films exploring the Heavenly virtues through the lives of three women in modern Austria. Apparently Seidl was going to make it a single movie, with interweaving plots a la Intolerance, but decided to make three separate, if linked, stories instead.
In Love, a middle-aged single mum, rather dumpy but still with certain needs, leaves her fourteen-year old daughter in the charge of an aunt and travels to Kenya in search of some brown sugar. Turns out it's easy enough to find, but she soon notices that somehow their hearts aren't in it. Was the whole thing a mistake?
In Faith, we focus on the aunt, a passionately committed Catholic, whose faith extends all the way to calling door to door and telling people how to live their lives. But beneath her piety lies a cyclone of turbulent emotions: fear, longing and deep, deep anger.
Finally in Hope, we follow the story of the fourteen-year-old daughter of the lady who went to Kenya as she is dispatched to a fat camp for the summer. Here she develops a crush on the dishy doctor, and it seems at first that the doctor is interested himself. For our inexperienced teen, this is almost too good to be true...
Here again we have three films of great skill and subtlety. I particularly liked the cinematography: the camera likes to remain still and calm, observing the action as it moves in and out of its ken. There are only a few exceptions to this technique, and even then it seems the camera is almost being made to move against its will. The films were "devised", Mike Leigh style, rather than strictly scripted: the actors (often people with no previous acting experience) are given a scenario and allowed to play with it organically. The final result works brilliantly, and very movingly.
BROADWAY MEDODY (1929) D- Henry Beaumont. Two pretty young chorus girls arrive in New York intent on making it big on the Great White Way. One of them is dating an aspiring singer/songwriter, so that's a possible in. Thing is, when he sees his GF's sister he starts wondering if he's picked the right sibling. But then they start getting invited to exclusive parties, and one of the upper-crust partygoers has less than gentlemanly designs on one of them.
Hollywood's first excursion into the big production musical turned out to have unexpected bite. The plot is grown up and the musical numbers extremely well done. So well done in fact it became the first musical to win the best picture Oscar, one of a very select list of musicals that achieved this highest honour. I can almost imagine Busby Berkely looking at some of the musical extravaganzas and thinking: "Not bad, but with a big enough budget I could make this look like a school play". Within a couple of years they gave him the money and the rest is history.
CAVALCADE (1933) D- Frank Lloyd. A journey through the lives of a well-to-do English family, beginning with the relief of Mafeking through to the early 1930s. I tell you, stiff upper lip isn't in it. These wealthy, privileged people lead (relatively) hard lives, especially when their sons go away to war. Will they ever come back? And if they do, will they make suitable marriages or become besotted with some music hall tart?
Americans wanted to find out in their millions; it was the second biggest film at the box office in 1933, also scooping Oscars for best picture and best director. As so often, the key to its success was the writing. It was based on a play by Noel Coward, and of course the master had a knack or tapping into the zeitgeist that could transcend oceans. It seems very stagey and stilted now, but as an historical document it remains important in the canon of American cinema.
THE HARRY HILL MOVIE (2014) D- Steve Benderlakt. Harry goes on a wild anarchic ride on the way to fulfilling his teddy-bear's final wish. Along with him trail the cream of British acting and comedic talent. Shame then, that it simply doesn't work. Speaking of zeitgeist, you'd think Harry had his finger on the pulse of British humour like almost no one else. I love his Harry Hill's TV Burp which rips she shite out of the soaps and a whole range of popular TV programming, but here Harry seems out of his depth. Some gags work, but actually time drags and my attention was often found wandering. Maybe they'll give him another chance; personally I doubt it.
ANCHORMAN II (2013) D- Adam McKay. TV anchorman Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell), now married to his nemesis in the first film, Veronica Cornerstone (Christina Applegate), has now gone national, but as co-anchor with his wife. And when he is told that they want her for sole anchor and give him the hard word, his life falls apart.
I kind of enjoyed the first Anchorman movie. America will never match us in crazy, zany movies, but this, like the Airplane movies came as close as they get. But here the format is becoming tired, the jokes not as funny, despite the fine performance of Steve Carrell as the autistic weather man. Will Ferrell should resist the siren calls of the money men and refuse to do a third Anchorman movie. He's a talented guy; he just needs a couple of fresh ideas.
PHILOMENA (2014) D- Stephen Frears. Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan), having been stitched up by New Labour spin doctors and now unemployed, is looking for a project to work on. He doesn't usually do "human interest" stories, but then he hears a tale of a woman (Judi Dench) who had her child taken away from her by nuns when she was a teenager in Ireland 40 years before. He decides to look into the story, and becomes increasingly horrified as he learns the truth. Maybe there is a story in this after all...
It's hard to watch Steve Coogan without thinking of Alan Partridge, but that's our problem, not his. In this film he turns in a highly effective performance as the uptight journalist/academic who becomes absorbed into Philomena's life story. And Judi Dench? Well she's Judi Dench, and she can act a good show in her sleep. Like the great Olivier, she just knows acting inside out. Highly creditable
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