Shocking and Hilarious

Can a movie, or a TV series, be shocking and hilarious at the same time? For me Yes but does that make me weird?

On that point, I'll be blogging about Squid Game in a few days.

Meanwhile I've watched a couple of feature length Netflix sports-related documentaries in a series called Untold. Last night was Untold: Crime & Penalties and tells the story of the Danbury Trashers ice hockey team. The previous episode Breaking Point I watched was about the tennis rivalry and friendship between Mardy Fish and Andy Roddick and, ultimately, Fish's anxiety and mental health problems. There's an episode about Caitlyn Jenner who, as Bruce Jenner, won Olympic gold for the decathlon, one about an 'infamous' (I'd never heard of it, so relatively infamous) NBA brawl, another about female boxer Christy Martin.

In each case the central structure features a defining moment, which we see at the beginning, an examination of why this happened and finally an assessment of the outcomes.

The Danbury Trashers came about as a result of mob boss (if he was one of the ubiquitous Dragons' Den dragons, he'd be "trash disposal mogul") Jimmy Galante, who bought his 17 year old son A.J. a UHL [United Hockey League, a minor league one level below the NHL] ice hockey franchise, making A.J. President with carte blanche to hire whomever he wanted to play in the team. What could possibly go wrong? In true Dirty Dozen style, he recruits a bunch of the best and the worst - the best players with the worst (most violent) temperaments, setting them the goal of terrifying their opponents into submission. I am not really familiar with ice hockey but it has always seemed to me a sport flirting on the edge of violence, so none of this is surprising. The central moment occurs when one of the team's players has his leg broken by an opponent - and you can easily imagine what follows.

There's a subplot with the FBI investigating, and eventually indicting, Jimmy. He is acclaimed as a hero for creating this sporting monster, with the Danbury locals fully in tune with the macho  approach of the team. The players give extended interviews and the director makes a good stab at humanising them. To the extent that there are definitely hilarious moments to go alongside the gut-wrenching barbarity of it all, yes, my central premise is proven.

Breaking Point is set around Mardy Fish's sudden withdrawal before a match against Roger Federer, using this to probe his life of intense pressure to succeed from a very young age, a breakdown, recovery and his final decision to retire as a player and subsequently, amongst other things, his being open about his well-being issues and his campaign for awareness of mental health issues for sports stars. An extended interview with Fish himself frames the documentary and, as with Crime & Penalties, there are interviews with key people - particularly Andy Roddick in this case. It's neither shocking nor hilarious but a worthwhile and sensitive examination of a familiar sporting issue. I'm looking forward to seeing the remaining three in the series.

The Power of the Dog

This movie, a dramatisation of a novel by Thomas Savage, is already receiving a number of award nominations. For me it's an art film, by which I mean that it's more than just a visual narrative; it embraces various art forms. From amazing Montana landscapes to a modernistic score performed by what seems to be a string quartet with occasional piano, with authentic 1930s paraphernalia such as motor cars, clearly numbered acts and a very wide screen, the movie begins with an impressive cattle drive which defines the central location of the story.

The title is taken from Psalm 22:20: “Deliver me from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dog.” Director Jane Campion (of Top of the Lake) has said "The power of the dog is all those urges, all those deep, uncontrollable urges that can come and destroy us". It also felt to me to have a sense of the "black dog" of depression.

I mulled over how much to tell of the whole story or to avoid spoilers for you. I have tried to follow a middle path, to tell enough to encourage you to watch the movie but not to make it a fruitless exercise. I might not succeed so you may want to watch it before reading further.

Phil and George Burbank own a ranch and the film centres on their relationship. They are shown as very different siblings; Phil is the practical, physical rancher and George the manager. They don't really much like each other. Both are lonely but deal with that differently: Phil relishes being on his own whereas George seeks to alleviate his loneliness by marrying local inn owner Rose, whom Phil takes an instant dislike to and calls a "suicide widow". There's a scene where George says to Rose "how nice it is not to be alone". Rose has a son Peter who is mocked by Phil and the ranch hands for his effeminate ways.

These are the four characters whose journeys we follow. There are hidden depths to Phil and Peter; eventually Phil comes to see great worth in the young boy and helps him develop ranchers' skills, particularly when he discovers that Peter saw his father hang himself and now his mother is deteriorating into alcoholism. Peter responds, growing surprisingly self confident and determined.

George and Rose are frankly less interesting and become peripheral to the narrative.

Phil himself has hidden depths. In one scene the Governor, visiting the ranch, reveals Phil was "Phi Beta Kappa in Classics at Yale". This is my main reservation about the film: none of Phil's background is explored or explained - how did this educated and cultured man end up as a cattle herder? - and I wanted there to be more to this character, less of it hidden. He helps Peter to grow but doesn't do so himself.

In Top of the Lake, Campion has a clear feminine focus, so strong that "men are bad, women good" pretty much sums up the theme. Here she hints at effeminate male sexuality with some homoerotic scenes and suggestions - but no more than that, it's subtle suggestion, nothing more. I'm not sure it adds anything to the film but I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a second reservation for me.

My final issue is that the strong, wide visuals and excellent musical score really mean that I wished I had seen it in the cinema to get the full experience. This may be a reservation about my TV rather than the film. Overall I believe this a worthwhile film, it's pace is near perfect, the acting is excellent and the characters well-defined and well contrasted. If you watch it, let me know whether your thoughts are different from mine.

More Movie Notes

The Trial of the Chicago 7 is an entertaining dramatisation of the events surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Protesters attempted to storm the convention centre to protest the Vietnam War and, in particular, Hubert Humphrey's apparent support for - or at least non-opposition to - the war. Those on trial in September 1969 were prominent activists and, although they were all accused of conspiracy, they were mostly unconnected and just met in the protests. There were originally eight defendants but one, Bobby Seale the co-leader of the Black Panthers, was eventually separated from the others - in the movie by a declaration of mistrial after several highly amusing altercations between Seale and the judge.

Aaron Sorkin paints each of the defendants in bright dramatic colours: Sasha Baron Cohen is a highly intelligent but crazy Abbie Hoffman, Jeremy Strong (aka Kendall Roy in Succession) is Jerry Rubin; they are founding members of the Youth International Party, known as Yippies, dedicated to revolution. They engage in student level stunts, constantly disrupting the trial and arguing that it's a political trial. In contrast Eddie Redmayne is the straight man of the group, a teacher and co-founder of Students for a Democratic Society, who argues for a non-violent, non-confrontational presentation of their defence, a stance which lessens as Frank Langella's Judge Hoffman behaves increasingly erratically and antagonistically towards them.

Mark Rylance does his droll thing as their lawyer and the film is well worth a watch, particularly for fans of Sorkin's writing. The energy never fades and there is a typical Sorkin set piece speech to round it all off.

Inside Man is a heist movie from 2006, mostly straightforward in its use of a hostage negotiator (Denzil Washington) and his interaction with the leader of the robbers (Clive Owen). There's a sub-plot involving Jodie Foster and Christoper Plummer which feels contrived but turns out to be a  crucial part of the plot. So far so ordinary. What intrigued me, however, were the tactical devices used by the robbers.

There is a clever robber leader, who has thought of all possibilities and tactics, one of which is to have the hostages wear clothing and face masks identical to those of the robbers, so as to allow the robbers to escape by exiting with the hostages. Sound familiar? If you've seen Money Heist, it will be. No Dali masks here but otherwise it's a rip-off. Feels like obvious plagiarism which, given this film is from 2006 and Money Heist from 2017, makes me a little less enthralled by the latter. There's even a common musical device: We know that Money Heist uses Bella Ciao as a kind of leitmotif; Inside Man does a similar thing with the Bollywood love song Chaiyya Chaiyya, the latter making no sense whereas Bella Ciao at least represents anti-capitalist protest. Putting aside the disturbing plagiarism, I would class this movie as a mildly entertaining and undemanding couple of hours' watch. 

Fracture pits Anthony Hopkins against Ryan Gosling in a courtroom drama. I guess you couldn't find two actors more unalike in terms of their usual roles. Hopkins, in Hannibal Lecter mood, is some kind of super-genius engineer who discovers his wife is having an affair with a police detective. He's clever enough to plot out the perfect crime, shoots her and confesses. Gosling plays a laconic, smug La La Land Assistant District Attorney who is plotting a lucrative move to the private sector but has time before that happens to take on this final "open and shut" case, given the confession. Things don't turn out quite like that, as you may guess, and he is eventually intrigued by the challenge of taking down his clever antagonist.

There's a strong musical element in the film. On occasions - particularly in the opening seven minute sequence with no dialogue - it feels like a symphonic exposition. Sometimes a bit distracting. There are clever references to the movie's title in the opening titles  

but it's not at all clear to me what Fracture means in the context of the plot. Overall it's the kind of film which depends on excellent chemistry between the two leads and they provide that. A good thriller.

Above Suspicion is a crime thriller set in a run-down Kentucky town and based on a true story. The dark local culture contrasts with the arrival of a clean cut rookie FBI agent and he recruits a local young unmarried mother, desperate to escape her past and present circumstances, as an informer. It is fairly mundane but does have Emilia Clarke (aka the Mother of Dragons) in a gritty role.

Four movies in four days? I know, but there was a distinct lack of TV football. 

Being The Ricardos

This movie is a lemon. Lemons are not edible fruits; they exist only to add zest to other food. No-one eats a lemon on its own. The film is a dud; something which has no meaning or point. It describes a week in the life of the making of an episode of the 1950s sitcom I Love Lucy, starring Lucille Ball and her real life husband Desi Arnaz.

The original was a gentle, charming comedy of a type which would make no-one laugh today. So why regurgitate its memory and focus on the mechanics of making an episode? It's reasonable to suppose that there is something more to this: a tragic element, a remarkable difference to this episode rather than any of the other 179; the lemon must be the seasoning for something. But no, it just trundles along, the only hint of drama being the fact that it was during the making of this episode that Ball was "outed" as a Communist - the era of McCarthyism in the United States. If this was at the forefront of the movie, making it about the horrors of that period, there might have been a point to it. But no, it's just a bit of colour to support the dull essence of the "Monday read through, Tuesday rewrites, Wednesday first rehearsals", etc.

Nicole Kidman as Lucy and Javier Bardem as Desi deliver Aaron Sorkin's rapid fire script as best they can and it just feels like Amazon Studios thought that the combination of those three would be enough to disguise the paucity of the story. It isn't. In many ways it feels like a stage play, which seems alien to Sorkin's normal "walk and talk" style and only goes to make the movie even more static. 

It's probably fundamental to the subscription model of the streaming companies that they have to provide a constant diet of new content in order to guarantee continuing subscriptions, so it's hardly surprising that the quality varies enormously. The Plot section of this film's Wikipedia entry comprises just one sentence. Tells you everything.

I frequently find myself at odds with film critics when they (and sometimes I) review a film. Our approaches, and goals, are different. Critics assess films from technical, artistic and historical points of view: "aspects of Kubrick", "Monroe at her best channelling her inner Bergman", "great use of wide angle lens" and so on. I want to be entertained but, more than that, I want to see a film which I'd be happy to see again and to recommend it to others, and it's not a chore to keep going to the end. Funnily enough, I was quite entertained by this film but only in a "nothing else to do" way. I saw it through to the end but I don't think it would have mattered to me if I had abandoned it halfway. I'm glad I'm not a professional critic required to watch film after film and never sneak out after half an hour.

Movie Nights

I used to enjoy the lead ups to the Oscars and other movie award announcements. In the days when cinemas could be visited and the only dangers were teenagers flicking popcorn at each other and fellow oldies sniffling and coughing their way through winter colds and spreading their flu germs. Ah the good old days. Nowadays it's Netflix, Amazon and Disney+ in our sterile homes. Life is a constant stream of movie nights. I posted previously about Oscar-winning films but here is this year's update.

Last night I watched one and a quarter movies. Starting with The Lost Daughter starring Olivia Colman, whom I have liked only once in a film - as Queen Anne in The Favourite. It is billed as a psychological thriller but in the half hour before I gave up there were no thrills and many long sequences of Colman practising her range of facial expressions. I like my films to have either a narrative or a point - where is this movie going and why has it been made? For me it was dreary in the extreme and, to the extent there was any dramatic motivation, a disturbing and discombobulating focus on unhappy childhood scenes and memories. A thinking person's film. Not for me.

In contrast, Don't Look Up is a riotous, crazy, satirical film about a comet going to crash into the earth. And inept politicians. And greedy capitalists. A non-thinking person's film. A cast of Hollywood A listers led by Meryl Streep, Leonardo di Caprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Jonah Hill and Cate Blanchett seem to all have been told by the Director "here's your role; just over-act as if your life depends on it" - i.e. the comet is going to kill you all - is backed by impressive cameos by in particular Mark Rylance and Ariana Grande. And a Muppet. Streep is a (way OTT) President, Hill her son and Chief of Staff who calls Lawrence's grad student "dragon tattoo boy", Leo the Professor Nerd who goes bonkers with Blanchett's chat show host (you'll have to check it out to get my meanings). Grande provides some musical class; Rylance is the world domination tech guy with more than a touch of Dr. Strangelove.

It's pantomime. Not to mention the most glorious, Laugh Out Loud post credit moment you will ever see (I've learned my lesson). Oh, and once you've seen that, there's an endless (well five minutes' worth) list of boom operators, set decorators, casting directors' second assistants, matte artists, dolly grip thingies and whatnot - and finally ... another post credit scene (not such a good one though). Enjoy!

Can you please stop making post-credits scenes?

We've all seen them; the nerds who stay seated, eyes glued to the cinema screen, while the closing credits roll. While the smart guys - us - get out pronto to get to the front of the taxi queue. 

Occasionally, though, we get caught out. It happened to me last night as I switched off (this was on TV not at the cinema) at the end of a very unsatisfying Wonder Woman 84 - not a patch on the original. I rarely read reviews of films before watching them; I don't want to be influenced by critics whose motivations are very different from mine. But I often read them afterwards. To see what others thought and occasionally, usually in spy movies, to figure out what on earth just happened.

That's how I found out that Wonder Woman 84 has a post-credits scene. If I had been in the cinema I'd have completely missed the opportunity to view the scene but I just re-viewed the film from where I had switched off and there it was. And frankly a scene of no consequence whatsoever (which actually sums up the movie anyway). Unlike the most meaningful case I encountered: the final episode of the excellent TV series Sharp Objects. Oops - I missed the reveal of the "what happened?" answer. I had just thought that not being absolutely certain of the who and how of the killing was a good ending, leaving the viewer to figure out their own solution.

Post-credits scenes were common to all seasons of Westworld but I can't think of another TV series example. It happens with a lot of Marvel movies but mostly they are teasers for the sequels.

It's my belief that it's the Moviemakers Union of Plumbers, Property Masters, Editors, Technicians and Set Decorators (MUPPETS) who insist on their members being named in the credits, as part of their contracts. Coincidentally The Muppet Movie of 1979 was one the earliest examples of a post-credits scene, when Animal

yells "Go home" at the audience.

I don't like it. I'm gonna have to train myself to watch the closing credits of everything now. Please stop!

Maggie Thatcher did something good

Never heard "may the force be with you"? You're not a Star Wars fan then. It's an iconic phrase first uttered, I believe, by General Dodonna to his Rebel troops just before the Battle of Yavin in Star Wars: A New Hope, the original movie of the franchise. Now called Episode IV - don't ask.

The Battle of Yavin was also known as the Battle of the Death Star, with which my loyal readers will be familiar as a result of my documenting jigsaw puzzle travails.

Here's how it's going, by the way.

In other words, slowly.

Anyway, Star Wars fans, never knowingly undersold, spotted the close pronunciations of force and fourth and have for two decades now celebrated the Fourth of May as Star Wars Day. The first formal celebration was in Toronto in 2001 but in fact “May the Fourth be with you” was first used by Margaret Thatcher’s party to congratulate her on her election on May 4th, 1979, and the saying quickly caught on. I couldn't discover the authoring genius of the Conservative party that thought of this but the phrase is now protected by trademark by LucasFilm for use in toys and for "Fan club services; entertainment services, etc. I think this blog is OK because no-one ever accused me of being entertaining. I hope the original author got recompensed.

I know plenty of my readers will never utter the phrase again as a result of my revealing its origins. If you're not one of those, what should do on Star Wars Day tomorrow? Here are some suggestions.

1. Show up to work as Darth Vader.

2. Make a Baby Yoda puppet.

3. Make some Portion Bread (Episode VII: The Force Awakens).

4. Host a virtual Star Wars fancy dress party.

5. Binge watch all nine episodes: 25 hours 7 minutes. Bring some popcorn.

Don't forget - your children, grandchildren and great grandchildren will surely ask you "what did you do on Star Wars Day?" You'd better have an answer ready. 

Page Eight

What do you do when you start watching a movie and, early on, you are pretty sure you have seen it before?

I had that experience last night with a film called Page Eight. I had thought it was a new one but it turns out it's a 2011 film. Although it has the feeling of the 1980s.

It's an all British affair, written and directed by David Hare. If you think of classic British - particularly English - male actors, who do you think of? Bill Nighy - yep, he's here. Michael Gambon - yep, he's here too. Also Ralph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz, Felicity Jones, Saskia Reeves, Holly Aird. I suppose not quite Brit A listers by a good B+ team.

It's described by Mr Wiki as a "thriller" but that's just wrong. There are no thrills. It's about espionage and politics and how they interact but it proceeds at a comfortable pace, Bill Nighy in the lead doing his bumbling, stumbling, flawed but loveable Englishman and a direction style of a series of set piece episodes as though in a stage play. Which, considering Hare's career, isn't surprising. At one point he seems not to have got the hang of television: in a meeting, Nighy says "have you read page eight?" and it's obvious the others haven't, so the camera pans to the printed page and someone's finger follows the words along. Maybe it's an attempt at self-deprecating cinematic humour that I missed.

The film moves through a sequence of espionage memes such as American black sites, Israeli West Bank atrocities, thoughtful spy doesn't trust his political masters so goes rogue, spy steals classified documents and threatens to leak them to the press; none of them treated in any detail - perhaps because this isn't a ten episode TV series. It's very undemanding with a just about plausible plot - it's clear from about the fifth minute who are the bad guys - and no action of the kind you would expect in an espionage thriller; no guns, no confrontations. It's John La Carré without the depth, done and dusted in less than two hours.

I'm not really selling this well, am I? But the thing is, despite my sneering pomposity, I enjoyed the company of the people in this film and the facile and relaxed style. I subsequently discovered it's the first of a series called The Worricker Trilogy [Johnny Worricker is Nighy's character]. I have put the follow up films Turks & Caicos and Salting the Battlefield onto my Netflix watch list.

If you want a warm, cuddly movie to watch for an hour and three quarters, on the couch with your loved one, some wine and popcorn, and you don't want to have to think too hard or follow a complicated plot, this could be for you!

Oh and did it turn out I had seen it before? I'm not actually sure but I think not; that feeling was triggered by one scene where Bill Nighy and Rachel Weisz meet. Looking back, it's a scene you could see in any Bill Nighy film, so probably not.

The Irishman

The Irishman is not just a movie; it's a three and a half hour movie experience. Robert De Niro stars in Martin Scorsese's epic adaptation of Charles Brandt's book I Heard You Paint Houses. The book tells the true story of the alleged mafia hitman Frank Sheeran and the tale is narrated by De Niro as Sheeran, who describes his associations with, and actions on behalf of, infamous mobsters of the fifties and sixties.

Prominent among these is the teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa. I remember, as a teenager, hearing about Hoffa, his corrupt practices, support of Richard Nixon and antagonism to the Kennedys. This was the period when John Kennedy was elected President, appointed his brother Bobby as Attorney General, and subsequently became involved with the infamous Bay Of Pigs shambles. It was a time when the world saw hope in a "new dawn" under the leadership of a young, charismatic American President, but there were always rumours of shady underworld associations, including in his assassination. The film overtly references these events as the background to its portrayal of, literally, mob rule.

It's a monster of a film and the epithet "epic" is warranted. It's a men's tale, with little in the way of female casting. I suppose in a way it glorifies violence and corruption and Sheeran displays no remorse. But there is a sadness and inevitability of decline as the years, and society's evolution, move on.

The title of the  book is in reference to saying, "I heard you paint houses"—a mob code meaning: I heard you kill people, the "paint" being the blood that splatters when bullets are fired into a body. This tells you everything about the film. It has echoes of The Godfather and The Sopranos - and, I guess, pretty much every mobster film/series ever made. What distinguishes it is the real life context.

De Niro, and his co-stars Al Pacino and Joe Pesci, were in their late 70s when they shot the film and some remarkable CGI "de-aging" took place in production. It's an A list cast with an A list director but lost out to Parasite in the 2019 Oscars. I thought both films were excellent and I couldn't choose one or the other. In fact I could watch them again - which is rare for me.

Also rare for me is not whingeing about any film over two and half hours. In this case, it just seems to need the time and never drags.

Much recommended. If you enjoy gangster movies.

Oscar winning movies and those that should have won

I watched Moonlight (best picture 2017) last night. I enjoyed it except that I had a struggle some of the time to hear the dialogue. A sign of my advancing years rather than a flaw in the film. It was a film that made me feel uncomfortable, at different moments for different reasons, but is a worthwhile exploration of a young man growing up and his various relationships. But it ultimately left me with an impression of lifelong sadness, so it was hard for me to find positives for the character. Not a feel-good film, unlike the film it beat for the Oscar, La La Land. Other beaten films of that year I haven't seen but it seems a weak year to me.

The previous year, 2016, seems to have contained a stronger field. Non-winners (I can't really think of them as losers) include the hugely enjoyable Mad Max: Fury Road, The Big Short, Bridge of Spies and The Martian. The winner was Spotlight but the best, in my opinion, was Brie Larson in Room (she got Best Actress).

2015 had two biographical films, The Imitation Game about Alan Turing and The Theory of Everything with Eddie Redmayne (of whom normally I'm not much of a fan) as Stephen Hawking. Clint Eastwood directed American Sniper and I thought Selma, about the US Civil Rights movement and starring David Oleyowo as Martin Luther King, was perhaps the best of those. The winner was Birdman, which I haven't seen, which I something I may remedy soon.

2014 was a stellar year for me. The outstanding 12 Years a Slave won the Oscar, but the runners-up list includes an excellent batch including Dallas Buyers Club (which I would probably have chosen), American Hustle (a fun A List romp), Gravity, the tense Captain Phillips and one of Leonardo DiCaprio's best roles, The Wolf Of Wall Street.

2013 had one of my favourite softie rom-coms, Silver Linings Playbook, Tarantino's tough Django Unchained, Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln, Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty (which I would make no. 2) and my no. 1, Beasts of The Southern Wild. For me it's a wonderful movie. And of course, in front of all these excellent offerings, the winner was the worst of them all and possibly the worst Oscar winner ever, Argo. Ugh.

Skip over 2012 and the dreary films such as The Artist, War Horse and The Tree Of life, and move back one final year to 2011, which had one of my favourite films of recent years - Winter's Bone. If you haven't seen it, do so! But it was listed in a truly exceptional year in which The King's Speech won and included Toy Story 3, The Social Network, Black Swan, Inception, 127 Hours, The Fighter and True Grit. One of the best years ever?

I could go on and on but I won't. You'll have noticed I skipped the latest three years. I haven't seen many of the nominations, partly because of my local cinema's dispute with one of the distributors so certain films never arrive in St Austell. But here are brief observations:

2018: The excellent Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri beaten by The Shape Of Water, a film in which a mute cleaner falls in love with a humanoid amphibian; mm.

2019: Olivia Colman wins Best Actress in the very entertaining The Favourite but is beaten by Green Book (which I have downloaded ready to watch) for Best Picture. [11pm] I watched Green Book tonight, discovered after about 2 minutes I had seen it, but it's good enough to watch again, so I did. Highly recommended.

2020: I enjoyed Little Women and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, thought 1917 was one-dimensional and haven't yet seen Parasite, the winner.

Share your opinions in the Comments!

Movie nights

Everyone has movie nights, right?

In the absence of footy on TV, I'm downloading classic films, maybe one a night.

I'm trying to find some I haven't seen but am happy to repeat some of the most enjoyable.

And they are mostly going to be classic/iconic films, so no James Bond, Star Wars or The Hunger Games.

I couldn't remember whether I'd seen The Shawshank Redemption but after just a few minutes on Sunday I realised I had. But it's such an excellent movie that I watched it again.

Monday was an all-time favourite, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Yesterday I revisited The Matrix; some time since I saw that. And maybe I'll re-watch the sequels.

Tonight it will be The Godfather.

My friend Tony recommended The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Doesn't sound like my kind if film but I'll give it a go.

A few days ago, I started Forrest Gump, having avoided it until now. I really struggled with it but I should persist, I think.

Here's a few I'm considering (not in any particular order). Suggestions are very welcome!

Citizen Kane
Dr Strangelove
Vertigo
The French Connection
Rosemary's Baby
The Dark Knight
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Amadeus
Parasite
No Country For Old Men
The Departed
Green Book

There are also plenty of TV series I haven't watched. But that's for another time.

Brief musings on Tuesday

I read in today's Times2 that "A lot can go wrong if you overdo your daily run".  I get that, so no more running for me.

How often do you have to use Mr Google when you have just watched a movie or TV show, especially a season finale, in order to figure out "what happened there?" For me, quite a lot. Last night I watched two such. Firstly, the season finale of Westworld. This was season 3 and I remember that I gave up watching season 2, although I can't remember why. Maybe the violence, maybe the sense of not knowing what's going on. Nevertheless I decided to give seaason 3 a go, because the basic premise of Westworld (artificial lifeforms and the degree to which, if at all, they develop sentience) is intriguing. But here we are again - after last night, on to Google to find out what just happened. In so doing, I discovered that, contrary to what I thought I had heard, this was not the final season so, in a year's time, I'll be in the same dilemma. Is it worth it?

Also I watched 2001. Again. For the umpteenth time. And still baffled by the ending. Onto Google ending to see what others think. Maybe I've done that before, it wouldn't surprise me. Don't get me wrong, it's still a great film, but there is still the nagging feeling that Kubrick and Clarke didn't really think the thing through to the end. I guess I should check the book, which I think was completed after the film.

Now sometimes I have no problem with a baffling ending, because it forces me to think through the central thesis of the film/TV series. I think 2001 is in this category, as was the last ever episode of The Sopranos. But if it makes you think "who cares?", not so much. Such as the ending of Lost (I can't believe I actually stayed up until 2am to catch it live from the US). Or Westworld.

Am I the only person afflicted by this? Does that make me dumb?

I also read and think about proposals to restart the football season. Now there is no-one more eager to watch it again live on TV than me but the whole idea, even behind closed doors, seems crazy. It's a contact sport, players run about very fast, puffing, panting, perspiring; what happens when one player, who has recently played in a match, is diagnosed with the virus? Re-suspend? Agree it was a ghastly mistake and cancel the season? Nonsense, just be patient and finish the season in a year's time, if necessary.

I fear I'm beginning to sound like Rod Liddle. Ugh.