This blog is dedicated to the memory of Mary Allin Travers.9 November 1936-16 September 2009.
Thank you for giving my childhood a meaningful soundtrack.
NEWPORT 1963.PETER,MARY AND PAUL JOIN HANDS WITH JOANIE,
BOB,THE FREEDOM SINGERS, PETE SEEGER AND THEODORE BIKEL
Oscar winning movies have been a little thin on the ground of late. Dustin Hoffman won his second Academy Award in the role of the gifted savant, Raymond, in
Rain Man [e.tv.Sunday.22.10.]
This must surely qualify as one of the most irritating, not to mention mannered, acting performances of all time. But Hoffman gets it completely and absolutely spot on. This is exactly how an autistic person behaves. Hoffman’s awkward stiltedness masks a brilliant performance. Only an actor of Dustin Hoffman’s calibre could have sustained this kind of non acting for over two hours.
TOM AND DUSTIN MAKE A WINNIG TEAM
Not for the first time, Tom Cruise does a more than competent job, in a role that is not sympathetic or easy to maintain. Playing Raymond’s brother, Cruise counterpoints the older actor and allows Hoffman the room to reach for greatness.
The movie also won awards for Direction, Best Picture and Best Screenplay. Interestingly, we know a great deal more about the condition than we did in 1988, so the script does sometimes, descend into cliché and stereotypes.
With Mental Awareness Week coming in the first week of October, we should all be better informed. If Autism goes undetected, it can be a terrible burden on family and patient alike.
September the third marked the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War. By design or accident, M-Net is showing a BBC film called Conspiracy on Saturday at 23.35.
HE IS ALMOST AS SCARY AS THE REAL THING
It stars Kenneth Branagh as Reinhard Heydrich, one of the architects of the Final Solution. Sometimes, Branagh can, sometimes, be a little too theatrical for the cinema, but, here, he is chillingly superb as Heydrich, probably the most terrifying Nazi of all.
... ‘I am not now and never have been a member of the Communist party of America’ ... sentiments that ruined careers, lives and reputations and peaked when Senator Joseph McCarthy unleashed his anti communist witchhunt on the creative fraternity in Hollywood.
THE SENATOR THAT RUINED LIVES
People lost their jobs, livelihoods, some even their lives. No one was safe; actors, directors and writers were encouraged to accuse and betray their friends and colleagues. Artists suspected of having left wing sympathies went into exile and wrote under assumed names. This persecution lasted for the better part of a decade.
In the movie, Goodnight, and Good Luck, [Friday.SABC3.19.30] George Clooney directs and stars in a film about veteran broadcaster, Ed Murrow and the role he and others played in the downfall of the Senator from Wisconson, who had made it his private mission to purge The United States of every ‘red under the bed’. McCarthy wielded a deadly combination of insinuation, innuendo and lies to punish and humiliate his hapless victims.
Clooney gathered an exceptional cast to tell this unsavoury chapter of American history. David Strathairn stars as Ed Murrow, while Patricia Clarkson, Jeff Daniels, Robert Downey,Jr. and Frank Langella all provide outstanding support.
THE MEDIA HELPED TO BRING GUNNER JOE DOWN
Joseph McCarthy plays and condemns himself, thanks to interspersed old newsreel footage. This movie is one of the finest I’ve seen in a long time. George Clooney may have a sexy smile , but he is one of the most talented artists around.
What is a sex symbol? And what is an actor? And where do these lines bisect? Or connect, should they blur one into the other? This week, we have a good mixture of both.
For starters, we have two screen James Bonds. Pierce Brosnan played Ian Fleming’s sexist rather than sexy spy in rather an androgynous way. Brosnan has always been a light leading man, romantic, charming and just a little fey.
He is much the same in Laws of Attraction [e.tv.Thursday.20.00]. The film is pleasant enough, if you’ve nothing better to do, but don’t cancel anything important. His co star, Julianne Moore is a lot more interesting as the Joan Baez character in the Dylan movie, I’m Not There [M-Net.Monday.02.25.]
BALE AND MOORE
COME GATHER ROUND PEOPLE........
.........FOR THE TIMES THEY ARE A'CHANGIN'
JOANIE AND BOB
Nobody would dare call Meryl Streep a sex symbol, but she certainly exudes sexuality in the musical Mama Mia! [M-Net.Sunday.20.00 and Wednesday.23.00] Abba were too plastic and processed for my taste, but they wrote catchy tunes and sold crates full of vinyl in the 70s and early 80s.
IT LOOKS LIKE A SCENE FROM AN MGM MUSICAL--AN AIRBORNE MERYL STREEP
The movie has none of Abba’s stridency and false sentimentality, but retains, somehow, all the spontaneity and adds, as well, a new freshness. The film plays like a good old fashioned MGM musical, I loved every moment of it.
Yes, Pierce Brosnans voice should have been dubbed , but everybody else, audience included, is having such a good time, that you hardly notice.
If Pierce Brosnan was a light weight James Bond, Sean Connery was the definitive one. Connery refused to become type cast, and even as a young man, played a variety of different character roles.
In The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, [e.tv.Saturday.13.30] he plays Rider Haggard’s Allan Quatermain. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is a wonderful idea that doesn’t quite work. Based on a graphic novel, it’s an intriguing idea of mixing fictional characters [Dorian Gray, Dr Jekyll, Mina Harker etc] in a real life setting.
ITS THE 'SPOT THE VICTORIAN FICTIONAL CHARACTER' COMPETITION
One wants to kick the director off his chair and shoot the script writer in the foot, it could have been a great movie but like so many brilliant ideas it doesn’t follow through. It’ more than enough for an entertaining evening’s viewing though.
And before anybody tells me, Mina Harker is the WOMAN in Bram Stoker’s Dracula—She is more of a gentleman than the rest of them put together!
Brad Pitt is very good in Twelve Monkeys [SABC1.Sunday.20.00] The movie itself is a sci- fi time warp piece that is a little too smug for its own good. Another sex symbol of sorts, Bruce Willis, co stars, which doesn’t help the film one bit.
Someone else who began his career as an off- beat, sex symbol is Michael Caine. He stars along with Brenda Blethyn, Jim Broadbent, Ewan McGregor and Jane Horrocks [in the title role of] Little Voice [M-Net.Tuesday.23.00]
A VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS
Based on a play by Jim Cartwright, it is a remarkable film, which looks at talent and how unscrupulous people can take advantage of a naive, raw aptitude. One only has to think of the gifted but gullible Susan Boyle. Stirring music in the Judy Garland/ Edith Piaf tradition, give a fine film added polish.
If Michael Douglas is a sexy star, give me Robert Duvall anyday. They co star in Falling Down; [SABC3.Friday.22.00] a sharp and not always pleasant, examination of the American way of life.
Tom Hanks is no hunk, but he always has been a very natural film actor. In The Green Mile[SABC3.Saturday.19.30], he is much as always.
A SUPERB PERFORMANCE FROM MICHAEL CLARKE DUNCAN
Based on a novel by horror writer Stephen King, the only horror in this movie is of a manmade variety, the electric chair. There is a lovely performance from Michael Clarke Duncan as the condemned man.
When Mystic Pizza [e.tv.Sunday.11.00] was made in 1988, its star, Annabeth Gish, was likened to a young Katherine Hepburn .Not too much has happened to her, career wise, since then. In the movie, the rather thankless part of her mousey sister was played by an actress about to do great things, her name— Julia Roberts. In Movieland, you never can tell, can you?
STAR QUALITY--FROM THE OUTSET
Attack Force Z [SABC3.Sunday.02.30] was an Australian movie, made as long ago as 1982.Its young star, Mel Gibson, was destined to become a serious sex symbol as well as a serious actor/ director. The movie is a taunt war drama, set in the Pacific.
MEL GIBSON--HOT BEFORE NOT
Heath Ledger stars in The Sin Eater aka The Order [e.tv.Saturday.21.40]. Ledger had a special quality, as seen in both Brokeback Mountain and The Dark Knight. But will he retain a posthumous cult career? Only time and whim of public will tell. The movie is a piece of quasi religious claptrap, too silly to be taken seriously.
WILL HE STILL BE REMEMBERED TEN YEARS FROM NOW?
I’m still working on the REPEAT catalogue, bear with me. I’d love some comments on District 9—have not had the chance to see it yet.