12 Films At Christmas - 9 & 10

Two films of relatively recent vintage today, but of very different provenance. The big studio production first. Disney is mining its old back catalogue of cartoons and making shameless real life + CGI rehashes of them. I reviewed the new Jungle Book favourably last year but reserved greater affection for the hand-drawn original. A similar conclusion applies to the new Beauty and the Beast. The action (and the songs) have been broadened slightly but to no telling effect. Plus we have the casting of a bankable star in the shape of the tiresome Emma Watson (a very poor man's Emma Thompson) whose weakish voice has to be augmented by the chorus. Don't get me wrong it's a perfectly entertaining film but, when all's said and done, why bother? 6.5/10.

Confession time. My estimation of Beauty and the  Beast was driven down with each passing second of the next film I watched. I can't recommend Hunt for the Wilderpeople highly enough. Set in the wilds of New Zealand this is by turns tragic, uplifting and very, very funny. A genuinely great picture. 9/10.

12 Films At Christmas - 5, 6, 7 & 8

There is as ever  a lot to choose from at this time of the year - I find thumbing through the festive bumper edition of the Radio Times almost as exciting as watching the films. We have a mixed bunch to review today. None dreadful, indeed one potential GOAT, to return to the sporting vernacular of my advent efforts. But first a British caper that amuses but doesn't fully take off  - yes that pun is intended, I just can't help myself. Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines merits 5.5/10.

Oh the joys of Christmas that lead us from that to the boisterousness of Oklahoma! (yes it does have an exclamation mark, rather like all of Trump's subliterate tweets, though with rather more reason). This is the film of the first Rodgers and Hammerstein collaboration and the singing and dancing are superb though the translation onto the widescreen (it was the first feature shot in Todd-AO) somehow shrinks the spectacle. I love a good old musical. 7/10.

And now for that putative GOAT. It has twice appeared in my advent calendars, in fact was the first ever door 24. It has to be rewatched every Christmas because it speaks of human potential and of the possibilities of film as a medium. I awarded It's a Wonderful Life 10/10 when last I blogged about it. Should I temper this by saying nothing is perfect and downgrade to 9.5/10? No, I'm sticking with last year's verdict. Still 10/10.

Last for today and not by any means least, something more modern. Hidden Figures is 'based on the true story' so presumably takes some Hollywood liberties with the truth, but the core of it is about the vagaries of the American Dream. As the USA reached for the moon it also reached haltingly for racial and sexual equality - in this film the two journeys are intertwined. A reassuring text in the modern context of America. Giant leaps for mankind remain feasible, notwithstanding the passing fashion for moral backsliding. 7.5/10.

Advent 24

In academic circes one is (quite properly) told never to quote Wikipedia. But these are not academic circles and on this occasion Wikipedia gets it spot on:

Bradman's Test atting average of 99.94 is often cited as the greatest achievement by any sportsman in any major sport.

 Obviously I never saw Bradman play but the sheer weight of the statistical evidence is there for all to view. He scored twenty-nine centuries in just fifty-two Test matches. His first class career average was ninety-five. A very select club of the greats have a Test average in the sixties - Bradman is fully fifty percent better than all his challengers. I have been fortunate to see some great batsmen - Tendulkar, Lara, Steve Waugh, Viv Richards - but the figures cannot lie: Don Bradman was by a ludicrous margin the supreme batsman of all time.

 Happy Christmas and may your god go with you.

Advent 23

I've thought long and hard about this one - today's entry on the list could easily have been held back for Door 24 on the old calendar. The sport in which he excelled can leave me queasy but also at its best delivers a fearsome nobility. It is, of course, boxing and he, of course, is Muhammad Ali.

Olympic champion at light heavyweight, professionally he went to war with other big beasts in the heavyweight division - the list of the vanquished is compelling: Liston, Cooper, Patterson, Frasier, Norton and, most memorably of all, George Foreman. Ali was the most famous man on the planet. GOAT.

Who will it be tomorrow?

Advent 22

Those boooming spin passes that liberated two great fly-halves (Barry John and Phil Bennett); the raking kicks from the base of the scrum; the surging and irresistible breaks; that try. From schoolboy champion athlete to national icon, Gareth Edwards gets the OG vote as the greatest rugby union player there has ever been. Ferocious poetry.

Advent 21

Tiger Woods may have been the golfer who most dominated his opponents but his body and his temperament (off the course) let him down short of the peak of Olympus. And who can we still see standing there at the summit? Jack Nicklaus of course. Eighteen professional major championship victories over two and a half decades. GOAT.

12 Films At Christmas - 3 & 4

Robert Zemeckis directed A Christmas Carol about which I was complimentary the other day. Animated Christmas films are obviously up his street because he is also responsible for The Polar Express which we have also now enjoyed. It has enough jeopardy and darkness to lift it out of the saccharine. There is a particularly well realised scene where a discarded rail ticket blows in the wind - highly reminiscent of the feather we follow at the opening of Forrest Gump. You can't call it a rip-off because Gump is, of course, another Zemeckis film. Good but not great. 6.5/10.

Our next film is though definitely great and, which is more, an example of that great bar room debating canard - sequels better than the originals. It's a close call but I'd put Toy Story 2 just ahead of Toy Story. Mind you, if you asked me again tomorrow I might have changed my mind. And what about Toy Story 3, the film that proves to Godfather Part III and Return of the Jedi, that momentum can be maintained. 8.5/10.

Advent 20

Now we have only the GOATs left on this calendar. Yesterday it was the best English cricketer ever I was privileged to set eyes on. Today we have the game's greatest all-rounder. As a child Dad took my brother and me to Edgbaston to see Warwickshire play Nottinghamshire in the John Player Sunday League. The reason was that we were going to see the world's best cricketer, Garfield Sobers. As it happened Sobers had a modest day whilst Warwickshire were propelled to victory by a century from a lesser West Indian god, Rohan Kanhai. Nevertheless my father's estimation had piqued my interest and I took joy thereafter in everything Sobers did, whether batting (he played what Bradman deeemd the best innings ever seen in Austarlia), bowling (left arm seam, finger spin, or wrist spin), or fielding with cat like reflexes. All of this brilliance was effected with a modest dignity. GOAT all-round cricketer.

 

Advent 19

A few very special sportsmen break out of the confines of their sport. They become part of the spiritual furniture of society. It was true of Babe Ruth and for an Englishman it is true of Ian Botham. Botham on the cricket field was, at his best, utterly compelling, an irresistible force of nature. In particular he seemed to have been put on the earth to humiliate Australians.

I was away working in America for the summer of 1981 and therefore encountered the heroics of that fabled season at several steps removed. JRS and my father would send me press cuttings and I would read them out loud to my fellow British camp counsellors. The mere statistics of his career are impressive but tell only a portion of the tale. When the mood was upon him Botham could move mountains. Modern attempts to equate the admirable Andrew Flintoff with Botham are I'm afraid off the mark. Flintoff was intermittently very good; Botham often and belligerently refused to lose, in fact choosing to win all on his own. There is a difference and you need to have seen it to understand it. The best English cricketer I have watched and certainly the most charismatic.

Advent 18

Now for one of those GOAT's. To understand Babe Ruth's iconic status I suggest that you spend some happy hours getting to grips with the statistical niceties of baseball - there are a lot of them, even more than in cricket. Ruth had a career batting average of .342. That is good, very good. But, much more telling, he slugged 714 home runs. Until he arrived on the scene the career home run record had been 139. He changed the face of the game he decorated. And beyond the captivating stats there is the sheer largeness of life that he brought to it all. Google 'house that Ruth built', or 'the curse of the bambino' and you will begin to get what I mean. GOAT.

Advent 17

Today my favourite modern rugby player - not the greatest albeit very,very good. Richard Hill was perhaps the least lauded in that famous England RWC winning back-row but for me he was the most complete footballer. He was capped all across the back-row and it should not be forgotten that he was the chosen No. 7 in the Lions winning test sides in South Africa in 1997. On the next Lions tour (Australia 2001) it was the unlawful assault on him by Nathan Grey that marked the turning point in the series. Maybe not the GOAT but some player.

12 Films At Christmas - 1 & 2

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas - we've even got a bit of the bloody snow still lying around. Thus it is right that we should start this year's dozen with a Christmassy offering. We came to Disney's A Christmas Carol with some trepidation - after all you cannot help but know the plot and the Disney imprimatur can sometimes indicate sentimental schlock. But have no fears, this computer animated version is very good - certainly not one for children (or others) of a sensitive disposition, some of it genuinely dark and scary. 6.5/10. No make that 7/10.

The Groupie was out at her office party last night so I watched L.A. Confidential. This is a very superior noirish thriller with two Antipodeans, Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce excelling themselves as very different LA cops who are thrown together in a compromised battle against corruption. A stylish addition to the genre. 8.5/10. In the intellectual near vacuum that currently poses as arts commentary, I suppose we will be enjoined to feel guilt at enjoying this great film because its cast does include the pariah Kevin Spacey. Just as we must not enjoy Wagner. Don't even strart me. 

Advent 16

When writing in this list about John Francome I repeated that old saw about the inadvisability of meeting your heroes. Francome proved it wrong. And so does today's heroine. We encountered Dame Kelly Holmes in the unlikely surroundings of Cheltenham Races and, do you know what, she was lovely. Does that sound patronising? Sorry, but she was, just, really nice.

All she had wanted was to be an Army PTI and only slowly did it dawn on her quite how considerable an athlete she could be. She suffered countless injuries but, as living proof that the good guys/gals do sometimes win, she took double Olympic gold in Athens in 2004. Her sheer unbelieving joy at the first of those victories remains one of sport's great images. 

Book Review

As a break from the Advent list, I thought I would share with you a couple of books recently read and which I recommend.

In an earlier Advent list I included Clement Attlee as one of my spiritual (that may not be the best word - do I mean intellectual?) influencers. Citizen Clem is a well-constructed biography of this great man, written with zest by John Bew. Bew I must add is an academic based at God's own King's College London. Any minor eminence by association will be exploited by the shameless Overgraduate.

Very different in timbre is Christopher Buckley's No Way to Treat a First Lady. This rabelaisian tale of unscrupulous American politicians and pond scum lawyers had me smiling and reading avidly. It was written a decade and a half ago but it chimes pleasingly with the present rotten state of America. You have to laugh because the only alternative is to cry. Enjoy in particular the machinations of Boyce 'Shameless' Baylor, 'the man who broke $1000 an hour, the sound barrier of legal billing.' There is a part of even the crustiest workaday lawyer that wants to be like Baylor.  

Advent 15

Some sportsmen become surrounded by an aura of near-invincibility - no one is perfect but some get close. Joe Montana for example. He started four Super Bowls, threw not a single interception and was three times the game's MVP. All of this from someone drafted eighty-third overall in the third round of the college draft amidst doubts about his athleticism and his arm strength. Joe Cool indeed.

Advent 14

Possessed by a Faldoesque craving for perfection, Jonny Wilkinson is an altogether more lovable icon than the golfer. But make no mistake, both were possessed by a devilish attention to detail.

He was self-endangeringly committed to his cause and combined this with a technique honed by hours of practice. That drop-goal says it all - delivered clinically and decisively off the 'wrong' foot. A genuine hero - as revered in his adopted Toulon as on this side of the Channel.

Advent 13

There is no gainsaying the record of Tiger Woods but in all honesty I have never warmed to the man. He dominated golf in an unparalleled manner but it would seem the golfing gods are not to be mocked and his fall from grace was spectacular. He will be back but without his previous psychological edge.

I start with the case of Woods because when I admit my coolness to him it makes my next choice on the list seem a little contrary. I choose a player nowhere near as talented or prolific though nonetheless a titan of the sport. This man had and even more tetchy relationship with the press and he could behave with a stunning lack of grace. However this is what he was: a completely dedicated sportsman who got the utmost out of his game. He was thoroughly un-English in his commitment to professional sport and I admired him for it. Nick Faldo always gave us the spectacle of someone doing his damnedest to win. The contrast between him and Greg Norman in that Masters final round of 1996 was as telling a moment as the crucible of top sport can provide.

Tomorrow another slave to his profession/art.  

Advent 12

I promised you that this boy has a good engine, in fact some of his less charitable critics have alleged that Chris Froome must have a secret motor on his bike.

It is all too easy to be sceptical about cycling's grand tours, what with the industrial scale cheating in which Lance Armstrong participated. However a part of me has to say that you'd practically need to be on drugs to contemplate tackling these races.

Froome won his fourth Tour de France this year, but more enthralling still was his victory in La Vuelta in Spain. This was unfinished business for Froome and by landing that title he embedded himself amongst the modern greats. Not Eddie Mercx but still bloody impressive. Arise Sir Chris?  

Advent 11

The snow is lying all around, deep and crisp and even.

At number 10 we had Bryan Robson, of whom it was surely said (by Ron Atkinson you would expect) that the boy had a a good engine. Well, today's great has possibly the best engine of all time. Sir Mo Farah who can run the last lap of a 10000 metre race far faster than most humans can run that lap fresh. A great champion and a proud immigrant to and advocate for this tired old island of ours. His mien is generally uplifting and it is sad that our beastly press can sometimes be seen to bring down his mood. GOAT? In British terms undoubtedly.

Tomorrow, another good engine who has had trouble with certain elements of the press.

Advent 10

A great pub debate is to name the best player you ever saw playing. ICW and I have played this game about the best players we saw playing for West Bromwich Albion. For him it is the late Laurie Cunnigham. I think that's a good call but there is one even better in my mind. Bryan Robson was athletic, ridiculously brave and, like Martin Johnson in a different sport, a leader by example. He might, in my view, have been England's greatest centre back had he been deployed there but instead he dominated the hub of midfield and scored a lot more than his fair share of goals. He may be best remembered for his Manchester United achievements but he remains my favourite Albion legend.

  

Advent 9

It's the almost legendary Roberts Christmas party tonight so I'm in preparation mode and have little time to blog. I'll be brief. For those familiar with my opinions on rugby football, today's nominee will come as no surprise. For technical grasp of her position coupled with physical equipment, I have never seen a better player than Maggie Alphonsi. I'm not a big one for nicknames but Maggie "the Machine" does convey something of her relentlessness.

Advent 8

Yesterday we had the image that has come to haunt English football. Today we have the picture that warms the heart of English rugby fans but with every passing year makes those fans yearn for the good old days: Martin Johnson lets out a triumphal roar and holds the Webb Ellis Cup aloft.

Of all the achievements of Northern Hemisphere rugby (and I include in this the astounding Lions teams of the seventies) I just about rate the 2003 world Cup win as the pinnacle. Johnson was at the forefront - indomitable and suitably vicious, the man others followed unquestioningly. The team was put together with obsessive drive by the frankly bonkers Clive Woodward. Luck played its part - for example Johnson was not Woodward's first choice as captain - that was Dallaglio who got blown out of the water (but not out of the team - Woodward always knew which side his bread was buttered) by that unlamented journalistic coup, a New of the World entrapment. As Millwall fans and Brian Moore have been known to say: no one likes us, we don't care. 

Advent 7

A picture tells a thousand tales. Here is the image that has come to haunt English football. Today's choice, Bobby Moore, holds aloft the unprepossessing Jules Rimet Trophy. Moore was an elegant and unhurried defender who was judged the player of that World Cup of 1966. Arguably he touched even greater heights as a player in Mexico four years later. Take a look at that photograph - not a splash of branding on show. We've never had it so good?

Recommended Reading

A couple of things I struggle with: Booker Prize winning novels; authorial ventures into the demotic - the former tend to the overwritten and the latter can be embarrassing. But both these prejudices are triumphantly defeated by Peter Carey's True History of the Kelly Gang. In a thrilling exercise in literary ventriloquism, Carey gives Ned Kelly a plausible voice, a voice that can be affectingly beautiful:

That is the agony of the Great Transportation that our parents would rather forget so we currency lads is left alone ignorant as tadpoles spawned in puddles on the moon.

To maltreat someone else's joke, if I could write that well I would never go out, I'd stay at home reading my own words. This is a mighty novel. 

 

What's Another Word For "Inept"?

I ask because in casual discussion I am running out of descriptors for our government's handling of bloody Brexit. We are being taken to the cleaners by an arrogant cartel that thinks itself invincible. In charge of our project of exit is an impuissant Prime Minister who never believed we should leave in the first place. At this stage we have the inglorious spectacle of the Taoiseach doing Sinn Fein's republican dirty work for it and proving that in the world of the EU a little bitty piss-ant country can, when the mood suits the grand panjandrums, hold another to ransom.

For a bit of insight on how badly we have played this read Lionel Shriver in The Spectator - EU Divorce Bill

The EU would seem to be like the Hotel California - you can check out any time you like but you can never leave. It doesn't have to be this way but we need some sodding strong leadership rather than the craven appeasement which keeps getting chucked back in our face. And my argument here is not with those Remainers who so patronisingly question my sanity (I'm sorry boys and girls but honestly I'm not a political mentalist) but with the soggy middle grounders who can't be arsed to do any job properly. For the record I go back to what I was saying two years ago: I believe in the nation state and I am that annoying hybrid, a Catholic Unionist. The greatest chance of my constitutional nirvana lies outside the EU, just as does the greatest hope for true Corbynite socialism. That's a democratic risk I am content to run. My respect for Corbyn might be greatly increased if he would stand up and admit this truth - a truth he stuck to for all those rebellious years on the back benches but which now conveniently eludes him.

Oh well, there's always Christmas to look forward to. Cheers all.

Advent 6

 My contention yesterday was that Martina Navratilova is the greatest tennis player of all time. I can hear justifiable grumbles on behalf of other notables, but what the hell. It's my list

On the Greatest Of All Time (GOAT) front I suspect that today's bold assertion may be less troublesome. Jerry Rice is the GOAT amongst wide receivers. If you ever get the chance, find out about the murderous off-season regime that Rice put himself through to assure his enduring physical prowess.

A tad prickly off the field, Rice was devastatingly elegant on it. And all of this having been drafted out of unfashionable Mississipi Valley State University. Poetry in motion.

Advent 5

Fifty-nine, count them, fifty-nine Grand Slam titles, including eighteen singles titles. Here's a bold assertion - Martina Navratilova is the greatest tennis player in history. Athletic and using the classic one-handed back hand, she was nevr less than compelling to watch in action. Off the court this political refugee from the privations of the old Czechoslovakia became a standard bearer for the inclusivity that marks America at its best. These days this sane, generous commentator can be found railing on her Twitter feed about that arch git Donald Trump. More power to her tennis elbow.

  

Advent 4

I'm afraid I fear for cricket - proper cricket that is. Apologies for repeating myself but the ghastly charade that is Twenty20 is nothing less than the bastard child that will devour its own parent. Along with much else this is one of those things about which Michael Holding is right. Holding, by the way and despite his murderous grace, does not make the countdown. Instead we have a bowler at the other extreme of velocity. Shane Warne was the magician responsible for the single best delivery in my lifetime. Always worth another look.

Advent 3

There will, you will not be surprised, be more rugby players in this list than from other sports, but today's entry is the only one from the thirteen man code. So you might mischievously argue that amongst the many prejudices overcome by Mal Meninga is my own inborn prejudice in favour of rugby union.

Of South Sea parentage Meninga had the double handicap of being a Queenslander in the days of separate Premierships. Having conquered all in his home state, Meninga moved on to the Sydney league and did it all again. He fitted in a still fondly remembered spell at St Helens and was the goalkicking fulcrum of two undefeated touring Kangaroo squads. His was the last hurrah for straight on toe-poke kicking but the accumulation of kicked points should not obscure the magisterial centre play that is his legacy.

Just yesterday the Australian team he coaches won the World Cup with a hard-fought 6-0 defeat of England. YouTube has plenty of evidence of his talents - give it a look.

Advent 2

Part Canadian (he won his Olympic gold as a Canadian), part Englishman (he was born and initially schooled in London), Lennox Lewis sometimes struggled to enthuse his British audience but the fact is that he was the last undisputed Heavyweight Champion of the World, unifying the alphabet soup of sanctioning bodies and honourably standing above the machinations of the crook Don King. He lost twice in his professional career and avenged both defeats.

Boxing always leaves one grubbily sceptical - should we really be entertained by the sight of men (and women these days) battering each other around the head? Possibly not, but notwithstanding the brutality and the promotional excess, it can give us a rugged nobility. Lewis got out with his marbles and his fortune intact and by the standards of the sport behaved at all times with an outstanding dignity. And eventually he won over the British public who acclaimed him Sports Personality of the Year in 1999. Quite right too.