A Message From Plas Piggy

A first bank holiday since the coastal resorts reopened (well almost completely) after Covid meant a long journey yesterday to get here to Plas Piggy. Satnav routed us away from some lengthy delays on the M6 but it was still an hour plus longer than we might normally expect. Not helped by a tyre pressure warning light coming on - a bit of a mystery as it turned out because we found a garage and checked all the tyres and they were fine. Pressed the reset button and all seemed well!

But lo, what is that in the sky? It is the sun and we wake today to glorious weather. God is in his heaven etc. 

We watched a seriously good film last night. Winner of the Palme d'Or and of the Best Picture Oscar, Parasite is a jet black comedy from Korea. Laugh out loud funny at points, caustic and beautifully choreographed, this is film-making of the highest order. You can find it on Amazon - the only annoyance being that it took the combined expertise of the Pig and the Groupie a small age to work out how to switch on the subtitles, our Korean being a tad rusty. 83/100.

The King

 When I grade films these days, I think in terms of the gradings for university degrees. 60% gets you a 2:1, 70% indicates a First  and anything over 80% means it is seriously good.

In my last entry I gave Turks and Caicos a marginal 2:1. I just can't get past my problem with David Hare, although I am forced to concede that the good and great of British luvviedon disagree with me and seem to utter 'genius' as soon as the man's name is mentioned. Oh well, I don't suppose that Hare will be troubled by my indifference.

And so to a slightly better 2:1 - The King masquerades as an adaptation of Shakespeare's Henriad, concentrating on the kingship of Henry V. That description does the film a minor disservice - it is more accurately a reimagining of the gruesome history. Timothee Chalamet is a slightly fey Henry who learns that being king is tough - I believed in this character. Joel Edgerton (who co-wrote) is a gruff Yoda-like Falstaff, given a rather different ending from the one the Bard allowed him, Merry Wives aside. Definitely worth the deviation into Netflix. 65/100. 

Two Down, One To Go, Portentous Still The Word

The Johhny Worriker trilogy of made-for-television spy thrillers managed to pass me by completely at their origin. I reviewed Page Eight on here a couple of weeks ago. Good but blighted by David Hare's trademark heavy-handed politics. Portentous was the word I favoured and even a quick look in Roget doesn't reveal a better descriptor. Well, Hare is at it again in the second instalment, Turks and Caicos. Again perfectly passable fare but clumsy in its denouement, which is a pity because even I am prepared to believe that our masters are up to no good behind our backs. I just don't need it bellowed at me. The dialogue gets in the way of some deft plotting and direction but cannot obscure some stellar acting. Mind you it would be a dramatic crime of the first order not to produce a good film with Bill Nighy and Helena Bonham Carter at your disposal. 60/100.   

Ynys Mon, Mank, Golf, Betjeman

Having painted myself into a literary corner with my efforts on Antony and Cleopatra, I took myself off to Ynys Mon and the country estate to try writing in a different corner. A sort of rest-cure cum writing camp. It sort of worked - I feel a repeat coming on.

Whilst not writing I watched (on Netflix, who are very possibly taking over the filmic world) Mank and greatly enjoyed it. Having said that I woud probably have to concede that one might find the film more than a tad bewildering if not armed with a more than trifling knowledge of Citizen Kane. However, the Overgraduate, aka Big Fat Pig, aka the Boy Roberts, is armed with such knowledge - and if you are not, then what is wrong with you? Put this right immediately. You will thank me.

Anyway I won't spoil either film for you. Citizen Kane is one of the greatest films ever made. Mank is not but it is an arresting speculation on the lives and loves of some of the stratospheric talents involved in Kane. The cinematography in Mank is beautiful and, in itself, an homge to Kane. Gary Oldman is a very convincing drunk. The script is clever and taut. Recommended. 81/100.

I have on occasions demeaned the Brabazon Course at the Belfry as not even the best course in Sutton Coldfield and I'll (just about) stick to that judgment, but it certainly presented itself very well when hosting the British Masters this week. A proper test of golf and a tournament that produced a fairytale victory for Richard Bland, a journeyman pro playing his 478th European Tour event and achieving his first victory at the age of forty-eight. 

John Betjeman. I spent an enjoyable hour viewing a 1970s documentary in which he visited Norfolk's churches. You'll find it on iPlayer. It evokes a world now gone and an established church no longer known to us. Mind you, didn't we wear horrible clothes in the seventies.    

Wild Celebrations - Not

The Pig's sixty-first birthday slipped quietly by. He had lunch with his mother (who had brought with her his favourite quiche) and in the evening enjoyed (very much so) a meal of barbecue pork ribs, washed down with the last of the 2001 Barolo. Altogether a very passable sort of a day.

I wrote in glowing terms about Aaron Sorkin last week, and took another side-swipe at David Hare in doing so. Well, as it happens the Groupie and I took in an old Hare movie last night and I haven't changed my mind. I don't deny that Hare has oodles of talent but his politics can't help but intrude themselves and his characters (and this is where Sorkin wins hands down) speak in clumsy and portentous exposition. Having said that, Page Eight is a solid and reassuringly old-fashioned spy film. Not all the online reviews agreed but I thought Bill Nighy was rather good. 66/100.

What are we to make of politics? Quelle shower de shit, as the French don't say. I've been patient with Bors Johnson but his arrant mendacity on the ridiculous business of the renovation of the Downing Street flat is a bridge too far. Answer the bloody question you massive tool. Mind you, don't start me on bloody Keir Starmer, an unprincipled mediocrity who got his knighthood for banging-up wrong-uns. Smarmy lawyer indeed.