Twelve Films At Christmas - 9 & 10

Christmas is officially over here at Casa Piggy - the lights and the trees came down at the weekend. There is a tinge of sadness in seeing them go but a greater urge (for the Pig at least) to look forward and to make 2026 a good year. As I now realise I have had a discreditably lengthy period of sunning myself in the minor glory of completing my PhD. This is not a good look and there is some catching up to do on some cherished projects. Onward and upwards!

But before anything else I need to tidy up the strand of films watched over the holiday. Thay have been a good bunch with only one dud and even that not too bad in truth. I refer to Charlotte Gray, which turned out to be a sadly uninvolving adapatation of Sebastian Faulks' well-received novel. I'm not sure that it is anyone's fault in particular but, you know how it is, some entertainments just never come together. This is one such. 58/100.

Now for something very different and very good. BlacKkKlannsman is directed by Spike Lee (not automatically a recommendation) and borders on the superb - actually I think it just topples into that category. It is strident and chillingly funny about the dangerous clowns in the KKK. Highly recommended. 82/100.    

Out Of Ireland, Out Of Wales, Of England

I married my way into the Irish diaspora. It is a nice place to be. I was born into the Welsh diaspora and, despite the turmoil in Welsh rugby, that is also a nice place to inhabit. I am though English and there are aspects of that that concern me. Let me illustrate.

On Friday I took a journey to the doctors surgery I have used since the Groupie and I first married. We have moved three times since then but have never felt any urge to transfer to a surgery that occupies the same supposedly rarified area as Casa Piggy. The service I receive from my doctors is superb and I can say that they have played a central part in keeping me alive. The National Health Service at its best is a thing of wonder. 

My drive to the surgery (I had requested a PSA test and they had readily agreed - no symptoms but I am of the age) takes me through Kingstanding Circle, a place with tender memories for us because we lived round the corner when first married in a lovely little house that cost us the princely sum of £15000. The Circle has been ambush-swathed in Union Flags and Crosses of St. George. I am at heart a patriot but this sort of display has come to feel threatening and somehow indicative of division and rancour. I cannot tell you how sad this all makes me feel as I hunker down in my middle class redout. I feel vaguely estranged from my own homeland.

After my blood sample had been given and I had admitted that, yes, my blood pressure remains stubbornly a bit too high, I drove on down Short Heath Road and up Station Road to Erdington to see my aged mater familias. As I waited for the temporary lights on Station Road to change I observed a slattern coming out of a convenience store dressed in pyjamas and a seedy dressing gown. It was half-ten in the morning. It may be a little thing and I may be a terrible snob, but really is this what we have come to?

Back to Ireland and a question springs to mind. How can that sainted isle produce two such contrasting products as Mrs Brown's Boys (which I'm sorry but I have to say this, is pitiful) and Leonard and Hungry Paul, which in case you haven't seen it is delightful, a sort of Napoleon Dynamite meets Derry Girls.

I don't usually approve of early Christmas trees but tomorrow is a working day for our decorator in chief (the Groupie of course) and next Saturday will be a tad late, so our trees have gone up this weekend and this afternoon I will mount the step-ladder and put up the outside lights (for switching on tomorrow) - all is well, mostly all anyway.

That blood pressure thing - I have been out running on both days since my test.           

It's Beginning To Feel A Lot Like Christmas

No, not the winsome song. If you want winsome you'll have to tune in for tomorrow's advent calendar entry. 

Instead I'm taking time out from the calendar to let you know that I set yet another PB on my three mile run this morning. All this really proves is that I have not hitherto been pushing myself, but, what the Hell, it keeps me happy, particularly as, touch wood, the old leg muscles are bearing up. All of which semi-strenuous exercise puts me in a good mood, the more so as Christmas looms on the horizon. It will be different, because of the Covid restrictions, just Groupie, the Pig, DN1 and DN2. But, and I have a feeling I'm not alone in this, I sense a societal desire to make the best of this bad job and a consequent elevation in public goodwill. People are certainly nice when I plod past them on the mean streets of Four Oaks. Let's hope I'm right.

I've located one good thing about the virus - it acts as a fine distraction as Brexit reaches its wholly predictable conclusion, that is to say, repeated failure to achieve a free-trade deal with the EU. Even those old Jobs at the BBC are struggling to summon- up angst about this 'catastrophic' denouement. The public outside the bubble, don't give a toss. When dealing with a protectionist leviathan like the EU, we should not expect anything else. The whole thing is weighed down by its own preposterous arrogance. Plu ca change as we don't say over here. 

More good news - I've already got my bumper Christmas edition of the Radio Times. It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.

Holidays Are Coming ... The Advent Announcement

I know, I know, you don't want any waffle or distraction you just want to know the answer to the biggest question on the cultural front. What is the theme of this year's Overgraduate Advent Calendar? Well may you ask - and the answer is that once again we are in the realms of music. We've had the albums, we've had the individual songs - and now we have cover versions. Twenty-four beauties of the species. Artists performing someone else's work.

See you tomorrow. I don't know whether it's a by-product of this sodding Covid business but I can't remember enjoying quite such a feeling of anticipation about Christmas. The Groupie and I even put up the tree a couple of days early. 

Twelve Films At Christmas: 12

A good old-fashioned epic to finish us off this Yuletide. The Fall of the Roman Empire bankrupted its producer Samuel Bronston by all accounts, which is a pity because it's actually not bad. Conceived and delivered on the grand scale, it is rather intelligent in its fanciful treatment of the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire. A thinking man's Cleopatra perhaps. And if there is no Elizabeth Taylor to distract us there is instead Sophia Loren, my liking for whom the Groupie can never understand - I know what I like and I like what I bloody well know. 6.5/10.

Twelve Films At Christmas: 11

Before we get to the film, a Happy New Year to all our readers.

Courtesy of Amazon Prime we discovered a gem of a film last night, one that belongs alongside other youthful rites of passage classics such as The Railway Children, Gregory's Girl and Hunt for the Wilderpeople. The film is Lad: a Yorkshire Story. Made on a shoestring budget and shot beautifully in the Yorkshire Dales this film is moving without being cloying and funny without being silly. It has tragedy and redemption. Highly recommended. 8.5/10. 

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.

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.

An Afternoon Of Great Films

The very apex of the yuletide season is fast upon us - the Roberts Christmas party. Today was advance planning day, which means bags of work for the Groupie and a little for Big Fat Pig. The Pig's most onerous task is to choose the wines - he will march on Majestic Wine and taste his way to a decision. It's a hard life.

As the planning was going on around him the Pig happened upon the 1946 version (by a mile the best) of Great Expectations. This is David Lean living up to his surname (his later works are a tad monumental) and directing a pacy affectionate piece of Dickens. 8.5/10.

And while that was going on the Pig was recording Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs for later consumption - he has told you before what he thinks of that masterpiece.

Twelve Films At Christmas: 10 & 11

Two Disney films, both ambitious in conception and stunning in execution.

Sleeping Beauty has the luminescent palette of ancient devotional paintings and is visually arresting even if the trouble with fairy tales is that you know who is going to win and how. 7/10.

This year's revisualising of The Jungle Book has a lot to live up to, the 1967 cartoon being an indisputable classic. Yet this new version manages to nod musically to the earlier film whilst setting its own high water mark in computer generated images. I really enjoyed this. 8/10.

Twelve Films At Christmas: 9

A candidate for the most quotable movie line decorates The Italian Job. And I mean of course the original 1969 film not its later imitator.

You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!

I have seen this best described as a caper movie. And bloody good fun it is. Two cultural behemoths do their filmic stuff - Michael Caine as Charlie and Noel Coward as the luxuriously incarcerated crime boss, Mr. Bridger. Great fun. 7.5/10.

Twelve Films At Christmas: 8

All sorts of liberties have been taken with the truth but Saving Mr. Banks remains a satisfying piece of work.

A mythologised account of the process of adaptation of Mary Poppins for the screen, the film is full of strong performances, most obviously from the reliably excellent Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks. There is a nice supporting turn from Paul Giamatti.

The Disney version of any truth should always be taken with a pinch of salt but at heart this is an affectionate and pleasing film. 7/10.

Twelve Films At Christmas: 7

At the rather smashing Electric Cinema to see (for the first time cinematically, the umpteenth time altogether) the masterpiece that is It's a Wonderful Life.

We sit in comfortable seats with plentiful legroom in the company of a chilled bottle of white and enjoy the unadulterated pleasure of a film that confirms the possibilities of cinema. It was door 24 on my first ever blogged advent calendar so I am repeating myself but if you have never seen this you really do have to make the effort. If it doesn't make you smile then you lack heart.

At the end of the screening the audience bursts into applause and heads out into the Decmeber chill with renewed optimism. 10/10.

Twelve Films At Christmas: 6

You have to be careful about revisiting films you enjoyed as a parent with your young children. When you watch through your own unaccompanied and less innocent eyes, the holes in the plotting can be all the more obvious. So it is with The Santa Clause, but the film is worth the effort if only for the clip when Santa strides to his sleigh to a ZZ Top soundtrack. 6/10.

Twelve Films At Christmas: 2 & 3

You can confuse yourself in knowing ridicule of Dick Van Dyke's ludicrous mockney but to do so is to miss the point about Mary Poppins, which is that it is a genuinely good film. The songs are terrific - I enjoy best of all Feed the Birds - and the pre (very pre) CGI effects are still arresting. It must I'm sure be on over Christmas (we noticed it on Sky Disney) so treat yourself to two hours of innocent fun. Perhaps with a glass of something pleasant and a mince pie. 8/10.

Now one we hadn't seen before but picked up from the same channel. Movies chronicling efforts to 'save Christmas' are opportunistically thick on the ground and Get Santa duly obseves the necessities of the generic cliches, but it has enough to mark it from competitors. It is stolidly British and has Jim Broadbent (whom we like) as an imprisoned Santa. It made me smile. 6.5/10.

Minor Suburban Decadence

Yesterday evening we did the Christmas wine re-stocking by visiting the ever excellent Majestic Wines at Four Oaks. They opened a nice Rioja for me and we obligingly bought a dozen to go with the other goodies (everyday white and fizz for the middle classes). We then popped to Sainsbury's for some essential victuals and paired this with buying the Christmas double issue of Radio Times. Nothing gets me in the Christmas mood so certainly as the purchase of this esteemed organ.

But none of that was the decadence. No, that was going to the bottom shelf of the wine rack and fishing out a Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc 2008 and drinking it whilst watching recordings of Delia Smith's Christmas. Rock and roll has nothing on us.

Twelve Films At Christmas: 1

The Groupie has reminded me that we have a habit of postponing the watching of festive films until too late and thereby miss out on them. Well not this year.

This Christmas has Idris Elba heading an ensemble cast, wearing a leather cap at a jaunty angle and sporting an American accent. It's a Christmas family reunion movie and not without its cliches despite its attempts at grittiness. (In what other festive film does the lead break a brandy bottle over another character's head in the opening scene?)

A quibble - either the version on Sky is dodgy or this is one of the worst sound engineering jobs in cinema history - the soundtrack is oppresively loud whilst the characters mumble/whisper. Or is that me showing my age?

Not without merit. Not without faults. Like all of us really. 6/10.

The Death Of A Popular Art Form: Advent Calendar 2016

Here is an observation that is unoriginal and bellows out my status as a man of a certain age: the dominant days of the long-playing record are gone and should be lamented. Try this for a potted history: the death of the LP

a cultural influencer

At school the truly cool kids carried the album du jour in a Virgin Records carrier bag. Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Yes, ELP, early (its earliness is important) Genesis, these were the coin of cool currency, until of course punk arrived and divided opinions. I lagged behind with my love of the Moody Blues and nostalgia for the Beatles. Best of all were the gatefold covers and the gnomic sleeve notes. A related pleasure was the cheap newsprint of the NME or Melody Maker which grubbied your hands on reading. John Peel, was, I suspect the leader of taste for most of that generation but my own interest in music was piqued by the fabulous Robin Valk on BRMB. He read excerpts from my letter on air and played Haymaking Time by City Boy at my request. I remember the pride I felt when people congratulated me at school the next morning.

I've never been a full-on muso and I can't play or sing a note but the album is a potent part of my cultural makeup. Yet today I admit I listen to my music on Spotify and fall into the temptation of the playlist and pleasures of the familiar. So before I forget these things I am going to use this year's advent calendar to muse on twenty-four albums that move me. They will be in  no order or scheme though I will as usual leave the best to last.

As an amuse bouche (it's not in the twenty-four) I reproduce the inside of the triple gatefold Woodstock album. Now there's a fine pub conversation - good triple albums.

Thinking While Running

What with the damage I did to my calf muscle in the Royal Parks Half back in October, a degree of lassitude and, of course, a nicely elongated personal Christmas season (mine started with the Chateau Roberts seasonal shindig on the first weekend of December and finished yesterday - through all of this the Groupie has been shamingly industrious) Big Fat Pig has been neglecting his running of late. So today's outing was the first for an age. And do you know what? It went well by the standard of these things thank you. BFP does seem still to be carrying some residual fitness from all that autumnal effort, which is pleasing.

To distract myself from the anticipated agony of the run I let my mind wander over a range of compelling subjects (well to me) and the resulting pensees are now set before you.

Yesterday witnessed a great piece of test cricket - 198 balls, 258 runs . The achievement should stand long in the memory. On the same day in Australia, 88000 attended a meaningless Twenty20 game in Melbourne while only a paltry 7000 could be arsed to attend a test match at the Sydney Cricket Ground. A great sport stands at death's door and the combined forces of commerce and television couldn't give a shit. The once vaunted West Indies stand emasculated in the test arena, meanwhile one of their better players chooses to ply his trade as a one-day mercenary and feels himself able to use a post-innings interview to make smutty advances to his interviewer - Chris Gayle Behaves Like A Knob . I have of late been reading extracts from the 1960 Wisden whilst at my toilet (this is a polite way of admitting that I keep a copy of Wisden in the bog - as any gentleman should). This was just before the advent of professional one-day cricket and although it was a world which clearly had to change we now face the simultaneous defenestration of baby and bathwater. I have no answer to all of this but can only observe that it is a monstrous pity.

Yum yum

Great discovery of the Christmas period was the rioja recommended to me by the estimable staff at Majestic for our party - Vina Majestica - bosting as we Masters of Wine are prone to say.

War and Peace on BBC1 last night. Pacy and involving and nostalgically plush. However, not entirely sure that we needed the addition of some incest to the Tolstoy mix. And how are they going to do justice to the whole thing in just six episodes? Judging by last night it will be fun finding out.

No half marathon this year but might dip my toe back in the triathlon waters. Pig in water, pig on a bike, pig on the run.

It has ocupied nine troubling years but just before Christmas my psychiatrist released me from her care. I will never be (probably never have been) entirely well but I have a far greater understanding of what ails me and a hugely increased tolerance of mental illness - my own and other people's. The process has been shambolic at times but overall it has been a great advertisement for the beleaguered NHS.  The service is in disarray and remains unmanageable in any commercial context, however it and the love of my family and friends conspired to save my life. Thank you all. I will do my level best to stay better.

And then the run was over. Three miles. Just thnk what mental elevation I will achieve as I get to longer distances. I bet you can't wait.
 





  

Happy Christmas

I had a rather lovely Christmas Day. This of course was largely due to the Groupie's organisational and culinary skills and to the presence of almost the full Roberts clan. My job was to look ornamental and get mildly drunk. I managed the latter of these tasks.

Local holy man

The day had started with mass at Holy Trinity Sutton Coldfield conducted by the very amusing and pleasingly holy Father Michael Ho. He fled Vietnam in 1982 and he tells good jokes. He exudes a resolute happiness and has charisma.

I have been a critic of Barak Obama's pieties but I must confess you could not be other than impressed by the President's television walk on the wild side with the bonkers Bear Grylls. Grylls was gushingly in awe of Obama and it is undeniable that the President has mega charisma. Much as I  might be underwhelmed by his politics he is an ornament to the American Dream - a thought which drags me back to reality and the wretched Donald Trump. May his downfall be the political story of 2016. Any other outcome is too miserable to contemplate.

The girls are taking me to see the new Star Wars later today as part of my Christmas present. Report to follow.