In The Bleak Midwinter

Actually by the OG measure of seasonality, it is not yet even winter - by my reckoning that comes on 1 December. Nonetheless we awoke here at Casa Piggy to a blanket of snow. Thus the Pig is not playing golf today. Just as well because he is not friends with his driver at present. 'Twas ever thus.

The Lower Grounds at Casa Piggy

 So anyway, you have all no doubt been wondering why Big Fat Pig has been silent after a flurry of posts during Groupie and Pig's brief holday at Plas Piggy. Sorry about that. Just to fill you in, the last day of our stay was spent walking from Wylfa Head to Cemaes, the walk including a stop-off for a pint at the turning point. Lovely. We than had a very good pub meal back in Benllech at the Breeze Hill, under new management, marked by a particularly fine example of that prize side, onion rings.

We watched three films during our holiday, nothing to get overly excited about but decent holiday fare. In ascending order of merit, we first have The Mirror Crack'd, a workmanlike Christie adaptation laden with stars but lacking in pizzazz. I have to be in a certain relaxed frame of mind for Agatha Christie on either film or television. I have no interest in identifying/guessing the culprit, but rather want the text to wash over me. 55/100.  

Next best is Blunt a television film from an age when the BBC could afford more ambitious projects.This retails (yet again) the Philby/Burgess/Maclean/Blunt spy scandal, concentrating in particular on the relationship between Burgess (played by an excellent Anthony Hopkins) and Blunt (the equally meritorious Ian Richardson). In particular Hopkins conveys a convincing picture of Burgess as hugely well-educated but prize shit. 61/100. 

Finally we have the 1974 film of Murder on the Orient Express. This is the one decorated by Albert Finney arrestingly hamming it up as Hercules Poirot, whilst surrounded by a cast of more restrained co-stars. Poirot is worthy of caricature so Finney just about gets away with it. The pace occasionally drops to the pedestrian but the period detail is consitently well-done. 68/100. 

And now the snow is melting. Back to November drabness. Soon be Christmas.

Yesterday I Have Mostly Been:

Visiting Bodnant Garden. This is a wondrous place and as good a reason as you might find to justify the National Trust policy of taking over a great garden even if the adjoining great house does not come with it. I believe this policy may have been instituted with Bodnant as its first example. The Groupie and I walked extensively and enjoyed a picnic lunch at the Far End of the garden. 

Eating - anchovies on toast. A particular favourite.

Drinking - Chianti.

Feeling - good about life.   

Yesterday I Have Mostly Been:

Worrying - about my stiff knee; about Trump's clear victory in the US election. Shame on the Democratic Party for finding no better candidate than Kamala Harris. But the sun is shining on the Great Orme as I write this and I will expend my energy on things I can control.

Walking - along the coast path at Trearddur Bay, probably the nicest village on Ynys Mon. I was, of course, with the Groupie, so life can hardly get better.

Eating - at the Sea Shanty in Trearddur Bay. Monster portions at bargain prices with swift, unobtrusive service. Washed down with a pint of Golden Gate IPA. Altogether most satisfactory.

Reading - The Mabinogion. Still.

Yesterday I Have Mostly Been:

Running slowly - before breakfast and ruing my stiff knee, the latest manifestation of my old age. To add to the knee, it's bloody hilly here at Plas Piggy.

Visiting Caernarfon - the castle may be a symbol of oppression but you have to say it's a rather magnificent symbol. Nice pint in the bar of The Black Boy and a bowl of chips shared with the Groupie.

Listening to - Gil Scott-Heron, Pieces of a Man. Nice.

Reading - The Mabinogion. In English translation, sorry about that.

Film's Most Charismatic Actor?

I refer to Marlon Brando and I turn for evidence not to his famous turn in The Godfather (one of my favourite movies but one where Brando goes a tad over the top) but to two monochromatic performances in 1953 and 1954 respectively. The second of these even has learned nominations as the greatest cinematic performance of all time.

Julius Caesar was the first Shakespeare I ever studied seriously (O Level) and it has a chapter to itself in my doctoral thesis. The play is not, I have decided the 'broken-backed thing' derided by some critics. Yes Caesar gets bumped-off barely halfway through the text, but the play fair rattles along and gives us, particularly in Brutus and Antony, plenty of politico-drama to get our teeth into. The 1953 film is loyal to the text and James Mason makes a persuasively priggish Brutus. I am never quite sure about John Gielgud (this, I accept is probably my problem) but he enunciates Cassius's lines beautifully. It is, however, Brando who muscles his way to the foreferont as Antony. A highly resepctable adaptation. 70/100. 

Brando's work in On the Waterfront is on an altogether higher plane. This is a magnificent film, ornamented with a slew of notable method-acting tours-de-force - take your pick from Rod Steiger, Karl Malden or Lee J. Cobb, but you will eventually be brought back to Brando as Terry Molloy. It is a gift of a part but what Brando does with it is breath-taking. The movie lasts barely more than ninety minutes but satisfies on every level. 93/100.

Tweve Monkeys And A Panda Crossing A Bridge

I bet you were expecting a convoluted joke after that heading, but no I'm afraid it's another of my opinionated blogs on films, all of them good but not of the top notch.

I really enjoyed Kung Fu Panda (I think I watched it one Christmas although I don't seem to have reviewed it on here) but it is the sequel Kung Fu Panda 2 that is now under the OG microscope. As with almost all modern CGI, the animation is breathtaking whilst lacking the romance of the early hand-drawn cartoons - I still regard Snow White as arrrestingly brilliant and somehow satisfying, perhaps a recognition of the intense labour involved in its production. Well KFP2 lacks that appeal but it is vibrant and funny. 65/100.  

And now for something completely different. Twelve Monkeys is a Terry Gilliam film, craftily directed and gripping as its plot veers about in the protagonist's time travel. That the protagonist is played by Bruce Willis is a help - always watchable and particularly well-suited to a role that has him dripping with sweat and lurching from one beating to another. Good but not great. 68/100.

Let's take it to the bridge. The Bridge on the River Kwai to be exact. I had somehow managed to avoid sitting through the entirety of this film until last week. I had caught multiple snatches of it over the years (so much so that I think I had taken in the whole thing in a cut and paste manner). The wait was worth it. This is a compelling and beautifully realised piece of cinema. However when you come to it armed with the knowledge that it is directed by David Lean and that Lean was responsible for the truly great Lawrence of Arabia, there is a risk of mild disappointment. So I have no hesitation in calling it a very fine film but not quite a very great one. 79/100.     

21st Century Gothic

I take you all the way back to 19 January 2013 when I praised to the hilt Pan's Labyrinth as part of my advent listing of great films. I have just watched it again this afternoon and can confirm that this is cinema at its most enthralling. Guillermo del Toro has never done anything better (in itself quite a recommendation) and Sergi Lopez's performance as the evil Captain Vidal is a terrifying treat. I won't let you know the plot since that would spoil the fun but I really do urge you to track down this film. If you can find it showing in a cinema, please let me know. I first saw it at Vue in Birmingham in a near empty theatre at the time of its first release. 95/100.