Adaptation To The Screen

Back on 9 December in the long forgotten year of 2023 I reviewed the screen adaptation of An Inspector Calls and made the unoriginal observation that such adaptations can suffer for the opening-up from stage to screen. So you might think it would be with the 1948 version of The Winslow Boy, as it happens another play in which I have appeared. Not so.

I suggest that The Winslow Boy is a lesser piece of theatre than An Inspector Calls, the closetedness of the latter making it an arresting morality tale. Curiously The Winslow Boy makes a better movie and the opened-out parts of the narrative serve better than the mildly clumsy flashbacks deployed in An Inspector Calls. 67/100.  

Definitions And The Defined: Venality

Venality: the state or quality of being venal (= willing to behave dishonestly in exchange for money)

 

 

Definitions And The Defined: Enablers And Their Enabled

Enabler: one that enables another to achieve an end, especially, one who enables another to persist in self-destructive behaviour (such as substance abuse) by providing excuses or by making it posssible to avoid the consequences of such behaviour.

And examples closer to home. It matters not (save as a matter of personal conscience) that they have recanted from their positions.

 

Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot

You know how the form goes. When I review a film I do so alongside a small reproduction of the movie poster. Today I break from that rule because what I am reviewing is one of those small moments of cinematic perfection. Of course there are great movies of more moment and meaning but I defy you to watch Jacque Tati's masterpiece without getting that warm, fuzzy feeling that the world is not really such a bad place. It has hardly any dialogue and if Tati (writer/director/star) has a cinematic forebear I would suggest Buster Keaton. The movie is small and beautifully put-together and contains a torrent of fabulous physical comedy. I won't spoil it for you by reciting the situations but do make sure you are paying particular attention when Hulot attempts to get his car towed. Brilliant. Big reproduction of the poster. 96/100.

New Year Resolutions And Other Garbage

I do have some resolutions but my main one is not to share my resolutions with anyone. Some things are best internalised.

Which, you might think, would be an end to this blog. But no, I promised some other garbage so here it goes. Something is rotten in the state of Britain, indeed in Northern Ireland as well, if we are to be terminologically correct.

Why are there so many bloody potholes on our roads? Why are junior doctors on strike? Why are standards of public behaviour so lamentable? Knife crime? I could go on but you know where I'm coming from. And this is not some churlish new year hangover-induced melancholia. No, I'm actually that most unusual of people - one who likes January. With my rose-tinted backward-facing goggles I reminisce fondly of fields of January mud that slowed the game to my pace and allowed me to play some of my best rugby. As I say, rose-tinted goggles.

I'm trying really hard to be fair about this but is there anyone in our political class about wehom I can feel sanguine, never mind admiring? Rishi Sunak is plainly a bright bloke but he seems to have fallen captive to what the spin doctors feel should be his public persona. Thus he meanders around the questions that are put to him and simply comes across as shit-scared, rabbit-in-the-headlights awful. Mind you the quality of political interviewing leaves much to be desired. Oh for those Sunday lunchtme Brian Walden interviews where seriousness was prized above assinine point-scoring. What about Keir Starmer I hear you say. Well (and I will concede that he has a point) he is so plainly scared of putting his foot in it that he finds new and more boring ways of saying precisely nothing. It will be an achievement of staggering imbecility if he manges to lose the upcoming election, opposed as he is by a shower-of-shit Tory party.

Could be worse - we might be in America and faced with the possibility of a second dose of Trump. I have decided that 'vulgar' is the mot juste. 'Dangerous' and 'evil' are equally apt. 

OG advises that you follow his lead - keep your head down and seek out the many reasons that still exist for being happy. Don't let the bastards wear you down. As a starting point you might like to note that the utterly brilliant and charming Paddington 2 is available on iPlayer for twenty-one days. 

Twelve Films at Christmas - 11 & 12

Today is the day that the cold realisation of no more bank holidays until Easter bites home. Not quite so bad for those of us who don't work anymore I suppose, but I feel your pain brother, I feel your pain. So we come to the last of the dozen, two movies that are good holiday fare but fall short of being excellent.

The Flying Deuces is not quite top notch Laurel and Hardy which is a pity because top notch L&H is right up there with the best of the Marx Brothers ie. monster. No matter, it is pacy and, most important of all, funny. 65/100. 

The good old-fashioned biopic doesn't really get made these days. That is to say, chronologies of a life, usually bordering on the hagiographic. These days there has to an angle. Which is fine, but sometimes you just want something warm and fuzzy. And that is precisely what you get with The Glenn Miller Story. The music is pretty ace too. 65/100.

Tweve Films At Christmas - 9 & 10

Two films today that I have reviewed in previous iterations of this feature. You can use the search button above to check out if I have observed critical consistency. Actually you needn't bother - I've done it already myself. Christmas does, of course, lend itself to nostalgic repeat consumption of festive films.

It is only a year since the Groupie and I attended a bibulous screening cum wine-tasting event at the Electric Cinema and enjoyed White Christmas. I was slightly concerned that the wine and the company might make me too genereous in my assessment. On this occasion I watched the film in the company of my mother on Christmas Day. Great fun, tuneful, comedic - I stick at 70/100.

When I reviewed Scrooge exactly three years ago, I lamented that I had to endure it (on Channel 5) in the horrible 'colorized' print. Well, praise be, someone was listening (I jest - I am not so vain as to think I have any influence) and this time it was in black and white, indeed, even better, a restored digitized print courtesy of the BFI. I up it to 74/100. 

PS. Happy New Year.