A Lesser Tati

It is worth  checking out the schedules on Talking Pictures TV. They show old films and old television but there are some considerable goodies hidden among the predictable dross. It was on this channel that I found the utterly brilliant Monsieur Hulot's Holiday. Not quite up to that sublime standard but enjoyable nonetheless is Jaccques Tati's earlier movie, Jour de Fete. You have to put up with annoying subtitles offered in a ridiculous demotic American but at its heart this warm comedy does what comedies ought to do - it makes you laugh. 69/100.  

The Love Of A Good Aphorism

I do like a good aphorism. Recently I seem to recall sharing with you the observation (not mine I should modestly admit) that music is the greatest expression of man's spirituality. Well here is its companion piece, one I picked up from a documentary on Sky Arts: good architecture is like frozen music. For those of you who have the misfortune ever to encounter me in person, be prepared to hear me passing that off as one of my own.  To round off this piece here is a picture of my idea of great frozen music. Unoriginal I know but, hey, there's a reason why these things become cliches.

Making Yourself Read

Marchant's Second Law - 'writers read'. Thus while I have been recovering from my recent back injury (still sore but I'm being a very brave soldier) I have supplemented my diet of telvision documentaries with quite a glut of reading. I surf the web thingy a fair bit - the BBC website is my starting point for news but I am also drawn to American sources because of my morbid taste for American politics. Trump/Biden has all of the dreadful allure of a grisly car crash. All you can do is look on and ask yourself yet again how it comes to this. What has happened to that welcoming and optimistic country that took me into its arms back in 1981? 

Real reading does not though (in the humble opinion of your correspondent) involve a screen - it is a matter of printed paper. And I am currently enjoying three very good books. One has to forgive Jonathan Coe the fact of his schooling at KES. He has a conversational dleivery and is funny about serious things, always the best way to aproach the difficult. I am a good way through The Closed Circle and I look forward to the time of day when I read it. I will review it thoroughly when I have finished.

I have become more like my late father and I have at least three books on the go at any one time. I try to ensure that at least one of these is non-fiction. At the moment that means Tommy, Richard Holmes' heavy tome on the lot of the soldiers of the Great War. It is authoritative and moving. Come to think of it, I think it was Mum and Dad who gave me the book for Christmas back in the good old days when he was alive and his mind still accessible to us.

The third book in my rotation is Evelyn Waugh's Unconditional Surrender, the final part of the Sword of Honour trilogy. On the last day that I saw Dad alive I read aloud to him from these novels. Decades earlier he had gently pointed me in the direction of Waugh, as he did with much literature without ever being prescriptive. Such statements are inherently ludicrous but I nonetheless offer up Waugh as the greatest English writer of the twentieth century. As for Dad, well, it's far easier - he was the greatest influence on my life.      

The Aping Of American Sports Coverage

I like my golf. Well, not my personal golf you realise - that will no doubt (once I have recovered from my bad back - getting there thank you) transpire still to be wayward. No, I like golf and golf courses. I like it done well and sympathise with it done badly. But there's a problem and it is one I have alluded to before. As Sky Sports throw more and more time (and one presumes more of that nice Mr. Murdoch's money) at their coverage, so it becomes less bearable. Overall the standard is dire - a sort of sentimentalised hard-core mediocrity.

Sky's coverage of the European Tour (must we really take the petro-dollars and call it the DP World Tour?) can largely be exempted from my denigration because the broadcaster generally puts the B Team on the commentary job - Richard Boxall et al. Even Rob Lee has become bearable. Problem is of course that the product (the golf itself) has beend devalued by the wrong-headed machinations of the PGA Tour and its European partner, such that the best players are siphoned-off to ply their trade in the States before an ever-diminishing televisual audience. The game has plummeted from meritocracy to a kleptocracy, running scared of that prize gobshite Greg Norman. Much gets more was how my Yorkshire grandmother used to put it. Quite. Unattractive. 

So what's so wrong with Sky's A Team? Ewen Murray is a great broadcaster but he has ceased to be the dominant voice. Instead we get too much of the pathetic Nick Dougherty and the over-promoted Wayne Riley. I can stomach Riley when he is out on the course but that is where he belongs. Dougherty has talent but bloody hell can a man get his tongue any further up Sir Nick Faldo's arse? Even Faldo (not the most unassuming of men) can seem embarrassed. Dame Laure Davies is excellent but gets drowned-out by the tidal wave of Dougherty's schmaltz and the inanity of Paul McGinley - that Blarney Stone has a lot to answer for. And as for Butch Harmon - well, really?

So what I am saying (ironically in a verbose McGinleyesque manner) is that there is too much blather and not enough objectivity. And it is not the OG pocket that drives this rant - I actually won money on the Masters this year but couldn't be arsed to watch the climax, waiting instead to check out the result when I awoke this morning.   

Species Of Noir, The Curse Of Google, And The Dangers Of Taking Stairs Quickly

Last Tuesday morning I was feeling quite optimistic about my golf game. I was due for an early start with the Seniors Section at Royal Pype Hayes and I had it in mind that I had learned the lessons of my humbling at Ynys Mon the previous week. Yes, this was going to be a good round, two in fact because my ambitious plan was to play two games in a day. The Monday night rugby/cricket boys had switched to Tuesday on account of bank holiday. What I had left out of my tactical armoury was a plan for getting downstairs. Long story short, I came a right pearler and fucked my back up (medical terminology) good and proper. A week on and I am still feeling the pain of the splenetic trauma (idiomatic slang) and golf is definitely off the menu. So is any form of exerecise. Silly old bastard.

Whilst I have been laid-up I have been watching a lot of television and old films. Until now it has not even been comfortable to hold a book - I am strangely particular about the right conditions for reading. There has been a lot of the noirish but first the widescreen spectacular. The Robe was the first film exhibited in Cinemascope. I would like to see it in the cinema but a decent print on a largish modern television still gives some idea of the spectacle. Richard Burton allegedly hated his own performance in it (for which he received the first of his multiple failed Oscar nominations) but I thought he was rather good. 70/100.  

Not all of the classic noir tropes are deployed (no narration, no flashbacks for instance) but The Big Sleep is beyond doubt film noir. Humphrey Bogart as Philip Marlowe spits out the crackling dialogue with huge presence and the atmosphere itself crackles when Lauren Bacall joins him on screen. It is not original to call this a great film but it is correct. And I do still love to wheel out the fact that Marlowe's creator was, like that other great writer P.G. Wodehouse, an Old Alleynian. On occasion you have to doff your cap to the English public school system. 90/100.

Many years ago (I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now) I compiled a list of my fifty favourite movies. That list would change a good bit if I undertook it again but I do recall that Orson Welles' Macbeth was on it then and, having revisited it, it would be today. In this I diverge from my learned doctoral supervisor. Yes, it is full of faults, not all of them down to the straitened financial circumstances in which it was produced, but it does manage to convey the visceral darkness that is at the heart of this, Shakespeare's tautest tragedy. Renaissance noir. 83/100. Mind you, if you really want to see Macbeth at its best on screen, take in Kurosawa's Throne of Blood.  

Next some Gotham Noir. I must declare an interest - I think Christian Bale is superb in pretty much anything he does. Thus I came to The Dark Knight Rises pre-disposed to enjoying it. It is perhaps the weakest of Christpher Nolan's Batman trilogy but we are talking about three very good movies here. 71/100. As I allocate that grade, I wonder if I am guilty of watching only good films these days. Old time is on our tracks boys and there may not be time to accommodate the mediocre. On which topic, I heard a voice I respect proposing 2001: A Space Odyssey as a great film. Should I give it yet another chance? The defect is probably mine.

I will finish with a film of the New Noir West, No Country for Old Men. But before I turn to that, a note of sadness. The film is adapted from the novel by Cormac McCarthy. I was introduced to McCarthy's fiction by the poet/academic Anthony Mellors. I googled Anthony to see where he might now be hanging his academic hat and/or practising his poetic art. It transpires that he died last year. We were very diffferent people but I regarded him as a good bloke - a designation he might have found amusing. 

Anyway, No Country for Old Men, a bleak tragedy of America's New West. It is testament to the brilliance of McCarthy and also that of the Coen Brothers who produced the film. Roger Ebert regarded their Fargo as a genuinely great movie and his conclusion that No Country is every bit as good is correct. 91/100.

More Joy

iPlayer and Radio 4 Extra are the two reasons I don't bitch about paying the licence fee. Yesterday I was pointing you in the direction of the Christopher Nupen documentary and today it is my happy duty to direct you towards anything bearing the imprimatur 'A film by Ken Burns'. You most often find these prize pieces of intellectual Americana on PBS America (my most watched channel on the old telebox) but you can watch his Country Music on iPlayer. Brilliant, thorough and captivating.

I've Got The Only Cure For Life, And The Cure For Life Is Joy

Not the first time I've purloined a masterful Clive James lyric (written for the music of Pete Atkin) and it won't be the last. Anyway, it came to mind as I mused my way out of the downer threatened by yesterday's speculations on asymmetric war. The cure for life is joy.

I have just watched (it's on iPlayer - seek it out) Listening Through the Lens : the Films of Christopher Nupen. It is no false modesty to say that I have a tin ear and zero musical talent but, rather as with wine, I have come to know what I like. The documentary about Nupen, himself a documentarist, reminded me that music is quite possibly the highest marker of human spirituality. As long as mankind is possessed of musicality there can be some hope.

Also there is running. My new shoes are working well and this morning I ran up the hill and back down into Benllech with the view out to Red Wharf Bay opening up before me. The cure for life is joy.  

Happy Places And The Shadow Of Asymmetric Warfare

Our world is a dreadful place. Our world is wonderful. This contradiction has, you may have noticed, been weighing upon me for some time - pretty much for ever.

Of all places I thought about this as I occupied a new happy place (actually a sub-set of a wider place) - the practice ground at Clwb Golff Ynys Mon where I am now a member. I practised my short game (very necessary) in a mood of self-righteousness burnished by having cleaned the windows at Plas Piggy this morning. As I flailed at golf balls, jets roared overhead as they came in to land at RAF Valley. I find their presence comforting. We can go into that at some later date. No, what I was thinking about was the asymmetric war currently being waged in Gaza. Israel have a formidable defenec force and are deploying it ruthlessly in Gaza - the ratio of terrorist deaths to civilian deaths is numbing. Netanyahu does not care an iota. He sees an enemy constitutionally committed to the eradication of the state of Israel and will pursue them no matter how many bodies he must trample over. This horrifies most of the watching world. However the vital point that evades those spectators is that Hamas' approach to the conflict is knowingly as asymmetrical as Israel's. Hamas care not a jot how many civilians they have to put in Israel's path. Their god is on their side. And before we get all gooey-eyed about the horror of it all, we might pause to consider the asymmetry of the bombing of Dresden, of Hiroshima, of Nagasaki. It makes one weep. Not, I suspect, that you care but the OG's preference would be for Israel to take what is left of the moral high ground and desist. This seemingly will not happen so long as Netanyahu is in power. Whilst liberal hand-wringers (in whose number I count myself) pontificate on this catastrophic mess, we might care to turn our attention to influential wings of two monotheistic religions, in their very different manners, acting as grisly death cults. If I wasn't so happy, I would cry.

But you see, that's the problem. I am happy. It is only when I face the world outside my euphoric bubble that I do just wonder if this whole human experiment has turned to shit. Will I feel better if I buy an electric car? Answers on a postcard to the usual address.

 

An Antidote For The Tired Mind

Yesterday was one of those days when things just come together and remind you why you love life. You won't have missed the fact that rugby union has been a large part of my life. A diminishing part. I woke yesterday still feeling the effects of a cold and forgave myself an intended run. Instead I settled down for a quiet day in front of the television here in my happy place - I'm in Ynys Mon. I wasn't over-optimistic about the Six Nations fixtures, anticipating another bout of tactical kicking and the accursed caterpillar ruck. Scotland would see-off a valiant Italy and dull England would be outclassed by Ireland. How wrong. How wrong. Italy's victory over the dim Scots was a tear-jerker. And then came the best England performance for an age. Not a complete performnace but one that at last betrayed some wit and intelligence. All washed down with a 2014 Rioja Gran Reserva. Herring roe on toast for supper. Life's been good to me. 

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

Certain serious critics have dismissed Leone's trilogy of Spaghetti Westerns as stylised and trivial concoctions of improbable violence. I watched the third of the trio again the other day and I'm here to tell you that The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is, all things considered, a very good film. In fact I'd go a little further and label it an important movie. It utilises a wide screen but plays a trick whereby the picture you see is all the characters can see. It does not pretend realism. It plays with Western conventions and pitches into the mix three outstanding central performances from Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach. On top of that comes the fabled music and the lovingly elongated close-ups. And for those who dismiss this recipe as over-long, well, sorry I can't agree - Leone takes his scenes to the absolute limit. It is a cunning game played beautifully and prepares us for what would follow in his Hollywood masterpieces - Once Upon a Time in the West, and Once Upon a Time in America. One more thing - the sub-plot of the Civil War battle is magnificent - a tremendous evocation of trench warfare and, if you look carefully, there is even an origin story for Eastwood's Man With No Name, cunningly stiched into the fabric of the text. Yes, important. And fun. 80/100.   

A Singularly Pointless Anecdote

That is how my well-thumbed copy of Halliwell's describes Ridley Scott's directorial debut, The Duellists. That is a bit too strong a denigration and we should note that Halliwell does accord the movie one lonely star - a mark of noteworthiness in the Halliwell system that grants stars only to the minority of pictures. No doubt the star was in acknowledgement of the film's indisputable cinematographic qualities. In addition, the fight sequences (largely confined to the sequence of ludicrous and barbaric duels fought between Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel) are bloody and gripping.

The tale (it is based on Joseph Conrad's fictionalised retelling of a true story of French military madness) is simple - the psychotic Keitel takes every opportunity that presents itself to kill his fellow officer Carradine. The ctach is that he has to do so under the ritualistic codes of duelling, hence the episodic structure. What we have is toxic masculinity gone wild. As I say, the Keitel character is psychotic, but the Carradine portrayal is of a man in reluctant thrall to the same toxic nobility. A trifling anecdote maybe, but not a pointless one. 61/100.    

Back On The Chain Gang

Which, by the way, is the title of my favourite Pretenders' song, not that this has anything to do with what I was going to say. No, what I want to talk about is Big Fat Pig's return to the streets of Four Oaks. Those new running shoes I told you about have passed their first test, indeed two tests. Two passages of my favoured route and no calf strain to complain of. In addition I have been out on the Precious Bike on each of the last two Sundays. Nothing gargantuan but plenty of middling climbs to make the thighs burn. What with my twice-weekly golf (I have joined the Senior Section at Royal Pype Hayes to add to the Monday outings with old rugby mates) I am feeling quite chipper about my physical condition. 

Here's something that bothers me - the England cricket team. They have revolutionised their approach to test cricket and quite properly hoovered-up some praise for their exciting approach. But these are the facts: by their hubris they gifted the Ashes to Australia and last week they lost catastrophically to India in a match they could quite plausibly have drawn. Since when has a defeat been a more desirable result than a draw? Unprofessional - and I don't care if they come charging out of the blocks this week and demolish India in the fourth test, my point still stands. It's sport, not professional wrestling. Making a classically gifted batsman like Joe Root look like a pissed-up pub player is no achievement at all. 

Usually at this time of year I would be girding my loins for the annual pilgrimage to the races at Cheltenham. Not this time. Never again I suspect. Too crowded, too corporate. This is a sadness but hardly a new phenomenon. It is precisely the same thing at Twickenham. God, never mind the running and cycling, this middle-aged-man-in lycra is knocking on the door of miserable old git country. Doesn't mean he's wrong though!

The Coup

John Updike's prose is poetic. I'm afraid I have no clue at to whether his poetry is prosiac, since I must confess I have never read any. So what of The Coup his 1978 attempt at an African comedy? It is, I suppose, a wry post-modern companion piece to Waugh's Black Mischief. But not nearly as good - not for this reader anyway. Don't get me wrong it is dauntingly beautiful in its composition but so dense that the comedy struggles to get out from under the taut wrapping of the prose. It plays artfully with point of view but, and here I suspect we have the key, it is at its most engaging when we flashback to the narrator/dictator's American college years. Updike's educated ennui with his own country shines through. A wholly admirable novel but not a page-turner. I doubt that Updike would be even remotely bothered by this middle-brow estimation. My instict upon finishing the book was to reach for Waugh's Unconditional Surrender, one of my late Father's favourite's, my well-thumbed copy of which I keep near at hand. Now that is mastery.  

Reasons To Be Cheerful

It has been quite a while since I can recall being so consistently content. I am sure there will be dark dog days but I have to say that the medicine is working. All of which is a tad surprising when you consider what a mess the world seems to be in. You don't need me to tell you but, in no particular order, Trump continues to thrive, Starmer prevaricates, Sunak flounders, the Middle East wallows in warfare, environmentalists gleefully inform us that fun should be outlawed. I could go on - stick with the project long enough and I no doubt will. 

But despite all of this, Big Fat Pig has decided to be happy. And shall I tell you the main reason why? Well yes I shall. Family - mine is bloody wonderful. But beyond blood ties there is the wider family - my school, my friends, my university, the rugby club. As the world at large goes to hell in a handcart, all these continue merrily on their way. I don't know anyone who seriously doubts that the world picture is bleak, but I have nothing but love for all of those who determinedly plough on with selective optimism.

It's about time I inflict upon you some views on the evidence of the first couple of weeks of the Six Nations. Let's start with England. They scraped past Italy (actually that match was not as close as the final score suggested) and past a predictably fired-up Wales. The doom-mongers have not been slow to condemn what they have seen but I think there are some reasons for optimism. Borthwick is a cautious coach but his revamped coaching staff are trying to bed-in a new defensive scheme. I like this but would have to concede that it is pretty alarming when it goes wrong. I don't think the situation is aided when Borthwick persists with Elliot Daly on the wing. Yes, I know he's got a cannon left boot and pace, but he is and always has been a defensive liability. And, by the way, if I'd been refereeing the Italy match I'd have sent him off for that trip on his opposite number. Heinous offence and bloody dangerous.

Scotland are England's next opponents and I marginally favour the Scots, provided, of course, that it is the Scotland from the first half of their match against Wales who turn up and not the disjointed rabble who ceded the second half to a neophyte Welsh team. If, as one suspects he will do, Borthwick brings back Tuilagi, it will be worth the price of admission just to watch Tuilaga and the excellent Tuipulotu career into each other.

France. Wherefor France? They got manhandled by the brilliant Irish in their opening game and then were supine against Scotland. As for the disallowed Scotland try at the conclusion of the match - the video official bottled it, plain and simple. All of which was rather a pity for the on-field official, Nic Berry, who had, in all other respects, a fine game. This was in stark contrast to James Doleman who handled the England v Wales fixture. He was uniformly dreadful albeit in an impeccably unbiased manner.

What to say of Ireland, other than that they appear streets ahead of all others. As for Italy, please let them win a game, not that I would stake anything on it.

I've got a new pair of running shoes. Tomorrow I will risk the dodgy calf muscles and give them their first outing. Report to follow.    

Adaptation To The Screen

Back on 9 December in the long forgotten year of 2023 I reviewed the screen adaptation of An Inspector Calls and made the unoriginal observation that such adaptations can suffer for the opening-up from stage to screen. So you might think it would be with the 1948 version of The Winslow Boy, as it happens another play in which I have appeared. Not so.

I suggest that The Winslow Boy is a lesser piece of theatre than An Inspector Calls, the closetedness of the latter making it an arresting morality tale. Curiously The Winslow Boy makes a better movie and the opened-out parts of the narrative serve better than the mildly clumsy flashbacks deployed in An Inspector Calls. 67/100.  

Definitions And The Defined: Venality

Venality: the state or quality of being venal (= willing to behave dishonestly in exchange for money)

 

 

Definitions And The Defined: Enablers And Their Enabled

Enabler: one that enables another to achieve an end, especially, one who enables another to persist in self-destructive behaviour (such as substance abuse) by providing excuses or by making it posssible to avoid the consequences of such behaviour.

And examples closer to home. It matters not (save as a matter of personal conscience) that they have recanted from their positions.

 

Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot

You know how the form goes. When I review a film I do so alongside a small reproduction of the movie poster. Today I break from that rule because what I am reviewing is one of those small moments of cinematic perfection. Of course there are great movies of more moment and meaning but I defy you to watch Jacque Tati's masterpiece without getting that warm, fuzzy feeling that the world is not really such a bad place. It has hardly any dialogue and if Tati (writer/director/star) has a cinematic forebear I would suggest Buster Keaton. The movie is small and beautifully put-together and contains a torrent of fabulous physical comedy. I won't spoil it for you by reciting the situations but do make sure you are paying particular attention when Hulot attempts to get his car towed. Brilliant. Big reproduction of the poster. 96/100.

New Year Resolutions And Other Garbage

I do have some resolutions but my main one is not to share my resolutions with anyone. Some things are best internalised.

Which, you might think, would be an end to this blog. But no, I promised some other garbage so here it goes. Something is rotten in the state of Britain, indeed in Northern Ireland as well, if we are to be terminologically correct.

Why are there so many bloody potholes on our roads? Why are junior doctors on strike? Why are standards of public behaviour so lamentable? Knife crime? I could go on but you know where I'm coming from. And this is not some churlish new year hangover-induced melancholia. No, I'm actually that most unusual of people - one who likes January. With my rose-tinted backward-facing goggles I reminisce fondly of fields of January mud that slowed the game to my pace and allowed me to play some of my best rugby. As I say, rose-tinted goggles.

I'm trying really hard to be fair about this but is there anyone in our political class about wehom I can feel sanguine, never mind admiring? Rishi Sunak is plainly a bright bloke but he seems to have fallen captive to what the spin doctors feel should be his public persona. Thus he meanders around the questions that are put to him and simply comes across as shit-scared, rabbit-in-the-headlights awful. Mind you the quality of political interviewing leaves much to be desired. Oh for those Sunday lunchtme Brian Walden interviews where seriousness was prized above assinine point-scoring. What about Keir Starmer I hear you say. Well (and I will concede that he has a point) he is so plainly scared of putting his foot in it that he finds new and more boring ways of saying precisely nothing. It will be an achievement of staggering imbecility if he manges to lose the upcoming election, opposed as he is by a shower-of-shit Tory party.

Could be worse - we might be in America and faced with the possibility of a second dose of Trump. I have decided that 'vulgar' is the mot juste. 'Dangerous' and 'evil' are equally apt. 

OG advises that you follow his lead - keep your head down and seek out the many reasons that still exist for being happy. Don't let the bastards wear you down. As a starting point you might like to note that the utterly brilliant and charming Paddington 2 is available on iPlayer for twenty-one days. 

Twelve Films at Christmas - 11 & 12

Today is the day that the cold realisation of no more bank holidays until Easter bites home. Not quite so bad for those of us who don't work anymore I suppose, but I feel your pain brother, I feel your pain. So we come to the last of the dozen, two movies that are good holiday fare but fall short of being excellent.

The Flying Deuces is not quite top notch Laurel and Hardy which is a pity because top notch L&H is right up there with the best of the Marx Brothers ie. monster. No matter, it is pacy and, most important of all, funny. 65/100. 

The good old-fashioned biopic doesn't really get made these days. That is to say, chronologies of a life, usually bordering on the hagiographic. These days there has to an angle. Which is fine, but sometimes you just want something warm and fuzzy. And that is precisely what you get with The Glenn Miller Story. The music is pretty ace too. 65/100.

Tweve Films At Christmas - 9 & 10

Two films today that I have reviewed in previous iterations of this feature. You can use the search button above to check out if I have observed critical consistency. Actually you needn't bother - I've done it already myself. Christmas does, of course, lend itself to nostalgic repeat consumption of festive films.

It is only a year since the Groupie and I attended a bibulous screening cum wine-tasting event at the Electric Cinema and enjoyed White Christmas. I was slightly concerned that the wine and the company might make me too genereous in my assessment. On this occasion I watched the film in the company of my mother on Christmas Day. Great fun, tuneful, comedic - I stick at 70/100.

When I reviewed Scrooge exactly three years ago, I lamented that I had to endure it (on Channel 5) in the horrible 'colorized' print. Well, praise be, someone was listening (I jest - I am not so vain as to think I have any influence) and this time it was in black and white, indeed, even better, a restored digitized print courtesy of the BFI. I up it to 74/100. 

PS. Happy New Year.