Twelve Films At Christmas: 6-10

It's been a funny old Christmas to say the least. There is no perfect recipe for handling grief - even in the case of someone like my Dad whom dementia had been slowly stealing from us for several years. The finality of his passing leaves me a little numb.

But there is some solace in even the silliest of cinematic offerings and today we have selections from across the filmic spectrum.

First a good new offering even if it falls inevitably short of the joyous exuberance of its half-century old source material. Mary Poppins Returns lacks the attention-grabbing tunes that inhabit Mary Poppins but it stands up as a worthy family film on its own terms. 7/10.

Our next entry is a shortish (which can be a good thing) and action-packed piece of utter nonsense. Olympus Has Fallen was daft but its sequel London Has Fallen is way sillier. The plot lays waste to vast tracts of our capital city (good effects) and makes alarming assumptions about the corruptibility of our police and security services. It is all done with such speed that it holds your attention in spite of what your brain is telling you. Quite possibly the most preposterous film I have seen - and that is quite some statement given what I think of 2001. 4/10. 

It has become culturally compulsory to watch it at Christmas but I still harbour real doubts about the morality of Love Actually. I am wary of my emotions being manipulated so blatantly. In many ways it is one of the most exploitative films I have seen. That however cannot mask the craftsmanship at play and the fine acting of Emma Thompson, Bill Nighy and Alan Rickman. It would be a faux worthy statement to deny that I enjoy it but I feel a little more violated at each sitting. 6/10.

Let us take things onto an altogether higher plane for our two final films. I sat down to watch Some Like It Hot in the company of my Mum. If you want to get picky about these things I suppose you can harbour doubts about the sexual politics of this film but you have to admire the sheer acuity of script, direction and, above all playing that is on show. Jack Lemon. Tony Curtis, never better and Marilyn Monroe completely captivating. As the final words of the film remind us 'Nobody's perfect', but some movies get pleasantly close. 9/10.

And that brings us to a conclusion with, marginally, the best of the bunch. As I get older and soppier (honest guv) the more the end of The Railway Children has the power to move me close to tears. That this was Lionel Jeffries's directorial debut borders the miraculous because every frame of this piece is working its socks off. Less is more. 9/10.

Advent 24

I first heard this song on the Robin Valk rock show on BRMB - some of my contemporaries were John Peel listeners (Radio 1) but for me the favoured guide through music was Valk. For years I did not own a copy of the song other than the tape I took from Valk's show.

With all good wishes for Christmas I give you what I consider, after due deliberation, the greatest song of all time - Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd. You can of course also make an argument for my old School song but that is not available on YouTube and would, I admit, be a parochial choice.

May your god go with you.

Advent 23

Yesterday we had the best video of the 80s and today we have probably the most cringeworthy video of all time. It comes from a time when George Michael was still masking his sexuality (we forget how far we have come in such regards) but it is coupled with my choice as the greatest Christmas song ever. Yes even better than Fairy Tale of New York and When a Child is Born. Please enjoy Wham's Last Christmas.

Tomorrow we round it all off with the single best song ever written. You know you can't wait what with my taste being so unimpeachable and all.

Brian David Roberts 1934 - 2019

The breaking of so great a thing should make
A greater crack: the round world
Should have shook lions into civil streets,
And citizens to their dens: the death of Antony
Is not a single doom; in the name lay
A moiety of the world.

My father died yesterday. As I stood over him for the last time these lines from Antony and Cleopatra came to mind. My brother, as so often, got it right and more succinctly, 'He was a great man.'

He was a King Edward Foundation scholar at school, A City of Birmingham Exhibitioner at the LSE, RAF officer, schoolmaster, headmaster, rugby and cricket player and administrator, devoted husband, an inspirational father and magnificent grandfather. In a life where I have been lucky to be exposed to many clever people he was the cleverest man I ever met. In his last years he was diminished by dementia but his magnificence remained. He was indeed a great man. Rest in peace. 

Advent 22

I cannot hear this song without thinking of its bonkers Bauhaus video - as I think I suggested yesterday, possibly the best of the bonkers age of the music video, the 80s. Mind you video never did quite kill the radio star.

Advent 21

Best cover version ever? Woodstock is a Joni Mitchell song, written despite Mitchell having had to miss Woodstock due to prior commitments. There is a Crosby, Stills and Nash version as well but it was Matthews Southern Comfort's cover that made the song a hit.

Tomorrow, best video of the eighties?

Advent 20

This for me would be the song to play loud and proud in the car on the way to a rugby fixture - if I was still playing that is. The Groupie and I have seen Muse twice - quite brilliant. Uprising.

Tomorrow we indulge my inner hippy.

Advent 19

I must point out that my Advent calendar is not assembled in order of merit, although I will admit that the final twenty-fourth entry is categorically the best song ever recorded.

That initial caveat aside I proffer the opinion that Judith Durham's voice is the purest of them all.  Mind you, I can hear you (quite properly) yelling 'What the hell do you know about music you big fat pig?'. You are quite right and moreover you are the lucky ones because for you, unlike the Seekers, the carnival is not yet over.

Advent 18

One of the all-time great lyrics, I saw the rain dirty valley/ You saw Brigadoon/I saw the crescent/ You saw the whole of the moon.

The Waterboys with one of the best singalong anthems.

Advent 17

My Dad the English teacher always told me that there are no degrees of uniqueness - the word unique is an absolute, something is either uniqie or it is not. Which brings me to Leonard Cohen. He is/was unique. First We Take Manhattan.

A Hesitant Return To Politics

It may not have passed your attention that OG (don't you just hate it when people refer to themselves in the third person) has been deafeningly silent throughout all the electoral shenanigans that came to a halt last Thursday. What you perhaps will not have forgotten is that OG aka Big Fat Pig (don't you just hate it when people refer to themselves in the third person by two different noms de plume) has expressed a comprehensive detestation of all our political tribes.

All of which means that I was surprised by OG's reaction when the (surprisingly accurate) exit poll was unveiled on the BBC at just after ten o'clock on election night. He punched the air and allowed himself a celebratory beer. It was not that I was delighting in the triumph of the serial adulterer Boris Johnson, but that Corbyn and McDonnell would not be allowed to lay waste a country which, despite it all, I still love.

I believe in the nation state and in a mixed economy which is sceptical of state intervention. I also believe in old-fashioned public decency and education as both a right and an opportunity. Corbyn and the dangerous McDonnell would impose upon us their dreary and West-hating dogma. I punched the air because I knew I would not after all be governed by men who despise affluence and think they know better than I how my money should be spent. Only when the danger had passed did I realise how serious I had been about the prospect of emigrating. Here's hoping that The Boy Boris can pull off that elegant trick of combining fiscal conservatism with nuanced liberalism. The Pig will not be holding his breath but for a small time he will tend to optimism.    

Advent 16

We're still on the folk scene (eclectic, like I told you) following hard upon that nice bit of electro-punk we had last week. This time it is Ewan MacColl (whose daughter's rendition of Billy Bragg's New England narrowly misses inclusion) protesting that he may be a wage slave on Monday but he's a free man on Sunday. The Manchester Rambler.

Twelve Films At Christmas - Or Quite Possibly More - 1 - 5

Christmas is definitely upon us - not only have we had the matchless Biennial Roberts Christmas Party but also I have that vital seasonal accoutrement, the Christmas edition of the Radio Times.

Hardened readers will have noted the slightly different title for this year's filmic blogs. I've got off to a flying start and may not therefore be able to confine myself to the usual round dozen films. Lucky me. Lucky you.

There's some real crackers (Christmas jokelet there - I know I spoil you) in this first batch, not least Coppola's 1974 The Conversation, a taut, claustrophobic thriller with a commanding central performance from Gene Hackman. 8/10. Coppola wrote, produced and directed this at much the same time that he was giving us The Godfather Parts I and II. Talk about being in the zone.

Next up on my screen has been another very good film. You don't see Laurel and Hardy films on the television these days. They were a staple of my youth and I am always wary of recreations which may damage cherished memories. I need not have worried. This biopic is generous to these two comedy titans and it draws fine turns from Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly. Stan & Ollie. 8/10.

An honourable mention next for Disney's A Christmas Carol, Robert Zemeckis's motion capture take on everybody's favourite Dickensian Christmas. It makes a nice companion piece for the same director's Polar Express even if it is not quite as much fun as my personal favourite adaptation of the story (we all know it but how many of us have actually read it?) A Muppet Christmas Carol. Worthy of a place on the Christmas menu, the Zemeckis film gets 7/10.

It is very silly and raises questions of child protection for the humourless but I have to say that I enjoyed Nativity!. Warm-hearted and with a cast of winsome, but not overly so, children. Oh and the main thing, it makes you laugh. 7/10.

Finally in this first tranche I have saved the best till last. An absolute undeniable classic, a film that observes the three classic unities but which never feels thereby constricted, a movie that does all sorts of clever things (for example the way the score merges in and out of the action) but which never becomes self-conscious. Altogether brilliant. High Noon. 9.5/10.

Advent 15

This one speaks for itself. A change in tone from yesterday, to put it mildly. If Ralph McTell gets tired of performing it then he never let's on.

More folk tomorrow. Get yourself another pint of real ale and roll yourself a smoke.

Advent 14

This is the one where I bend the rules slightly. They're my rules after all. The coruscating Never Mind the Bollocks was in my earlier Advent of great albums and you will recall (pay attention at the back) that no artist can be in this current list and the former. For these present purposes Johnny Rotten and John Lydon are not the same artist, just as the Pistols and PIL are not the same band. Public Image Ltd - Rise. As I have said before, anger is an energy.

Advent 13

I wish I could claim that I had this all planned out in advance but it is a sheer fluke that the most miserable song on my list comes up on Friday 13th. Anyway, who believes in all that superstitious bollocks. Here is poor old Morrisey complaining that every day is like Sunday. I know he is a bit of a prat but Morrisey does have the soul of a poet.

Advent 12

I'm not even clear in my own mind how this brilliant track managed to qualify for this year's list. Surely the album One of These Nights should have been in the earlier Advent calendar? What was I thinking? Anyhow, it's all a plus for you today dear reader - the Eagles perform Lyin' Eyes.

Advent 11

This one's a bit corny I know but this is a song that has had the power to move me to tears. Not tears for my father who is still with us but for Grandpa Hayward who was a friend and who did not live to see me qualify as a solicitor, something from which he would have taken joy.

Advent 10

After yesterday's slice of pure pop today we have what Warren Zevon himself modestly desrcibed as a novelty song. It is rather more than that - a tuneful and clever riff and, oh, his hair was perfect (the werewolf that is not Warren - listen to the lyric).

Interesting fact: John McVie and Mick Fleetwood played on the original album version.

Advent 9

I promised you a guilty secret so here it is - any list has to have a girl band in it so I give you Little Mix. A near perfect piece of pop confection with (to this tin ear) a touch of the Phil Spector Wall of Sound about the production.

Tomorrow is very different.

Advent 8

I spoke yesterday of the serendipity involoved in the Spotify Radio feature, heaping particular praise upon the musical journey you will go on if you state a liking for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Today we have a track brought to me on that very journey - Stephen Stills' So Begins the Task.

Tomorrow, something very different from the locker marked 'Guilty Secrets'.

Advent 7

There was a time in the seventies when I felt like the only person who did not own a copy of Neil Young's Harvest. As with a lot of good music I came to Neil Young fairly late. Well, the fact is that all those people who got there before me were spot on. Here is the title track.

There is a spiritually profitable game to be played on Spotify - use the Radio feature whereby the clever algorithm composes a playlist for you based on a selected artist. By giving Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young as the baseline for your list you unearth all manner of goodies.

Advent 6

I first heard Goldheart Assembly performing Harvest in the Snow on Radio 4's Saturday Live and was utterly beguiled by it. I could find the track only as a free download on the band's website though these days it can be found on Spotify etc. When I played Egeus in A Midsummer Night's Dream (not a big role but the best production I have been in) I used to pace the woodland surroundings of the open air theatre rehearsing my lines and listening privately to this tune. Tomorrow a different type of harvest.

Advent 5

I make no claims of good taste or discernment - well actually I do but I'm being modest. Today's choice is a near perfect piece of pop schmaltz complete with a corny and self-regarding video. But when all is said and done Jon Secada's Just Another Day is a very superior noise.

Advent 4

The eclecticism continues. This is a hippyish remnant from 1973. Covered by several artists I stick with the original Maria Muldaur version of Midnight at the Oasis. Cactus is our friend - indeed.

Advent 3

My tastes can charitably described as eclectic - code for all over the shop. Anyway, as if to prove the point we have a lovely bit of country today, Glen Campbell's Galveston. Country music tells simple stories with precision and conciseness. I'm a sucker for its better examples.

For copyright reasons (apparently) I cannot embed the video but if you click on the message "Watch this video on YouTube" you will see Glen in all his cravated glory - at least I think that's a cravat.

Advent 2

Today's choice is rousing yet, after sane reflection, chilling. It is a putative Nazi anthem though it was in fact written for the musical Cabaret in 1966. The accompanying clip from the brilliant film version of that musical is cleverly done - at first we see only the face of the young singer. The voice is clear, clean and uplifting. Only gradually is his Hitler Youth uniform revealed. Note as well the old man in the crowd who has seen it all before and refuses to be roused. A stellar piece of music - Tomorrow Belongs to Me. 

A King At Nightfall - Farewell To The Hypertension Kid

After a long illness Clive James succumbed to Leukaemia last weekend. A true great has died, on balance the greatest critic and cultural influencer of the last fifty years.

I've encourged you to do this before but if you have not yet done so please take on board the songs that James wrote with Pete Atkin. They display a gargantuan wit with elegance and affection - pete atkin/clive james

A sample:

Last night I met the Hypertension Kid/ Grimly chasing shorts with halves of bitter/ In a Mayfair cub they call the Early Quitter/ He met my eyes and hit me for a quid

Beautiful and so very clever. As they say in Wayne's World, we are not worthy.

Advent 1

I promised you cheese so here it is. Those of you a certain age and comic sensibility will recall that Johnny Mathis was the musical preference of Gerald the Gorilla. Well here you can hear why - the second best Christmas song of all time. No, you'll have to keep reading to encounter the best.