Lions 25.7

Yesterday was a day for sports watching - first the rugby and then the third day of the Open Championship at Royal Portrush. Both events started attractively only to descend into a weird and rather boring predictability.

The Lions first. They came out of the traps in an angry rush and, truth be told, they had put Australia away within the first quarter of the match. Huw Jones and James Lowe both butchered try-scoring opportunities but this did not matter against an impotent opponent, Tom Curry and Tadgh Beirne showed themselves to belong in that over-used categorisation 'test match animals'. I must admit that I had been against Beirne's selection - I am an admirer of Ollie Chessum. I was wrong. Beirne was commanding and, in the best sense, destructive. The last thirty minutes of the match desceneded into that product of the modern squad game, disjointed replacement-strewn boredom. I stick by my 3-0 prediction, however the Lions missed a chance yesterday to demoralise utterly their opposition.

It's certainly not his fault but I'm afraid Scottie Scheffler's brilliance on the golf course is a tad boring. He is superb but I doubt that anyone would call him charismatic. I was never a Tiger Woods fan but one does have to admit that he had a whiff of cordite about him. Despite my misgivings, I will be tuned in for the final round of the Open this afternoon hoping to be proved wrong.

Criminality And Charisma

Ask me to identify my two favourite actors. Go on. Thanks. Christian Bale and Johnny Depp - probably in that order. Thus it will not come as a surprise to discover that I liked Public Enemies, Michael Mann's 2009 gangster pic. Depp plays the chillingly charismatic John Dillinger, the murderous bank robber who is hunted down by Bale's single-minded FBI agent Melvin Purvis.

Depp and Bale are both excellent (you knew I was going to say that) in a movie that is arresting but falls just short of greatness. 71/100.   

Lions 25.4 - 6

The phony war is almost over and on Saturday morning the Lions will play Australia in the first of the three tests. Yes, yes, yes, I hear all the stuff about the difficulties of bringing together players from four nations. Blah, blah, blah. Here's the truth - the Lions should win the series 3-0. I completely concede the sporting excellence of the Australian nation but the fact is that rugby union is in a fallow rut in Aus just at the moment. 

I won't bore you with an anlysis of the latest tour games - each rather tedious for a variety of reasons. What I will excoriate is the complete lack of romanticism in the attitude of the Lions' management. Owen Farrell is parachuted into the squad. Leinster's third choice tight-head prop likewise. The shirt is devalued. Read John Reason's books on the 1971 and 1974 tours if you want to know how magnificent things used to be. It is a sporting civilisation gone with the wind. Oh well.  

And incidentally the most pertinent international rugby of last weekend was played in Argentina where England (shorn of a whole team by the Lions) won a titanic clash with Los Pumas. Maybe, just maybe, Steve Borthwick is getting to grips with this international coaching malarkey. 

The Enticing Serendipity Of Satellite Television

I watch a lot of films, more old than new. Sometimes I bore you with reviews. I rarely go to a cinema - as Sartre so aptly put it, 'L'enfer, c'est les autres". Sorry about that. I do however cherish those visits where a rapt silence seems guaranteed. I was on one occasion precisely one half of the audience for an afternoon screening of Hoop Dreams. 

Modern multi-channel televisision is awash with films. Much dross but also plenty of good stuff. I mention serendipity and I will give you an example. I recently watched Went the Day Well?, of which more anon. I have also (along with the Groupie) watched the 1947 adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby. The serendipity? Well that comes in the identity of the man who directed both, credited on screen simply as 'Cavalcanti'. This got me intrigued. Who was this exotically titled auteur behind two such arrestingly English films? In full he was Alberto de Almeira Cavalcanti, Brazilian by birth but a citizen of the world, ulitimately blacklisted as an alleged communist. Look him up on the interweb thingy and marvel at a nomadic life of creativity.

Went the Day Well? was made at Ealing Studios in 1942. It is, I suppose, a propaganda film but it is rather more than that in its imagining of an English village invaded by the Nazis and the magnificent and resourceful resistance of the villagers to the Germans. It crops up on Talking Pictures TV, the merits of which I have previously advertised. 72/100. Another factor that recommends the film is that the source story is by Graham Greene. 

From 1947, Nicholas Nickleby is not in the same league but it is highly enjoyable - I have guiltily to confess yet again that I find Dickens easier to enjoy in adaptation than in the original prose. Nickleby perhaps suffers in inevitable comparison with David Lean's masterful translations of Dickens to the screen. Nonetheless very viewable. 66/100.   

Lions 25.1-3

The British and Irish Lions are now well into their tour of Australia. It may be a far cry from the massive adventures of old but hey-ho that is professional rugby for you and I won't grumble on about that subject again. The ship has sailed.

 

Thus far the Lions have endured a predictable roughing-up in Dublin at the hands of Argentina followed by two less than brilliant wins against sub-standard Aussie opposition. It really is time that we stopped demeaning the Pumas and recognised them as full members of rugby's top table. As to the the denuded Force and Reds teams that the Lions despatched, well you do just wonder whether Rugby Australia really understand what they have got in the shape of the Lions. But enough of such churlishness.

What can we say about how the tour is shaping up? The latest speculation that I have read posits that Andy Farrell (a deeply pragmatic coach) will pick as many as nine Leinster players in his test side. I hope not - we all seem to be forgetting that Leinster defeat to Northampton. Tommy Freeman deserves to be in the test side. He is the only English back I would pick. Tom Curry has lost form just at the wrong time. Jac Morgan has refound his mojo and must surely be revelling in playing some unfamiliar winning rugby. The kick-off receiving has been an embarrassing mess. Kelleher is not a better player than Jamie George who has been left to the consolation of touring with England. Nobody seems to have mentioned it but I am particularly impressed by Fin Russell's defence - he looks like a man on a mission to me. Modern strategic myopia and some misguided law changes have conspired to diminish No 8 as a specialist position but I would pick Jack Conan ahead of a converted flanker. This is a subject on which I willingly declare my bias.

The Lions should win the series. Should.  

 

Two More Films

Lee is a commendable biopic about the storied female photographer Lee Miller. I wouldn't normally specify the sex of the principal but it is germane in consideration of this film - Miller broke down the barriers placed in her way and produced some of the most arresting images of World War II. In the title role, Kate Winslett gives a compelling performance. Something, however, stops this from being anything more than a good film. Perhaps we are these days too inured to the horrors of the Holocaust but I found myself admiring the workmanship evident in the movie rather than, as I think was intended, being shocked at what Miller (and by extension we the audience) saw. 68/100. 

Lee has modern gloss and a big star. My second subject today is an altogether different kettle of fish. An Honourable Murder is a 1960 British 'B' feature but one that has a nice whiff of ambition. It is a reworking of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar - the action is shifted to corporate London. It is a concise adaptation, a shorter reworking of a short source. I (immodestly) credit myself with knowing a little about Julius Caesar - it was the first Shakespeare I ever studied even vaguely seriously (O Level 1976!) and a chapter of my thesis is dedicated to it. I did not resent the purloining of the plot and attendant themes (afer all Shakespeare himself liberally stole from Plutarch) and rather enjoyed the entertainment on offer. I located this film thanks to my daily checking of the listings for Talking Pictures TV - a channel that shows some right old dross but also carries gems and curios. 60/100.