Given the choice of films offered by the collected cinemas of London today, I didn't think I would make it to the cinema. Let's see... Micmacs: I've seen the trailer ten times and it annoyed me so much I never want to see the film (as a French film, there is no dialogue in the trailer, just a gravelly American voice-over and an overdose of freakiness and quirkiness; no, I'm not a fan of Jeunet, especially not in Amélie). Capitalism: A Love Story: already seen and already been irritated by Michael Moore's latest polemic (and not just because I was hoping for something better from the LoFiFest surprise film). The Crazies: in another frame of mind, I might have been tempted, but I wasn't in the mood for horror. The Lovely Bones: still putting the inevitable disappointment of this one off. Leap Year, Valentine's Day and all other shite, date-related date movies: no further comment necessary.
Luckily, I can always rely on the BFI to provide a more pleasing cinematic experience and at the moment, they are showing Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. A number of years ago, I would never have believed I would see and enjoy this film. Until a few years ago, I disliked films made before 1990 and especially musicals (or even those with more than one musical number). Since my film epiphany in 2005, however, I have deleted most of my existing movie rules (others included no Kubrick, no black and white, and no silent films) and to my surprise, most of the films I have seen that would previously have excluded have been enjoyable.
I liked GPB although not as much as the rest of the audience (average age 55 and about two thirds male), many of whom spent much of the film laughing loudly and hysterically, slapping their thighs and trying not to induce myocardial infarction with aforementioned hysterical laughter. I didn't quite go that far but I did laugh quite a few times and responded to some of the witty dialogue with an appreciative smile on even more occasions. I didn't even mind that there were five whole songs because, let's face it, GPB wouldn't be the same without them. The person writing the BFI programme notes seems to have been a little confused, however, as the actress playing Dorothy Shaw was named sometimes as Jane Russell and sometimes as Rosalind Russell. Rosalind Russell looked great in 1953, aged 46; however, she did not look like Jane Russell did in 1953!
Pedantry aside, it was good to see something a bit silly and funny for a change, as well as being able to admire Jane, Marilyn and their stunning costumes!
28 February 2010
24 February 2010
Famous Last Words
The idea of the story of a city being told by watching the different groups of immigrants who move there is interesting and uniquely suited to New York. The same concept wouldn't work for London, for example.So I said yesterday on Edward Rutherfurd's novel New York. Naturally, this evening as I stepped off the Tube, I was almost knocked over by a woman holding a weighty paperback entitled London and of course, the author was indeed Edward Rutherfurd. Walking back from dinner at Le Relais de Venise tonight (as ever, there was a huge queue out of the door, despite the inclement weather), we noticed that Daunt Books was open (someone was giving a talk) and went in for a browse. I made a beeline for the R section of fiction and found Rutherfurd's London. I didn't get time to read the blurb properly but, according to Amazon,
London has perhaps the most remarkable history of any city in the world. Now, its story has a unique voice. In this epic novel, Edward Rutherfurd takes the reader on a magnificent journey across sixteen centuries from the days of the Romans to the Victorian engineers of Tower Bridge and the era of Dockland development today. Through the lives and adventures of his colourful cast of characters, he brings all the richness of London's past unforgettably to life.Is London's history more remarkable than that of New York? I suppose I will have to read London to find out--it's only 784 pages, after all. It's interesting that in the blurb, the building of Tower Bridge is highlighted, which reminds me that the building of Brooklyn Bridge didn't really feature at all in New York (the difficulties of crossing the bridge in a blizzard does become a plot point in one chapter, however), although the construction of the Chrysler and the Empire State Building comes up.
I think I'll read a few shorter novels to rebuild my motivation before tackling London or at least buy the paperback!
23 February 2010
Of the City over Time
One of my Christmas presents was Edward Rutherfurd's new book, New York, a 1,000-page, hardback tome that follows the fortunes of one New York family and the other families, from a range of provenances, with whom they come into contact over about 350 years. My parents thoughtfully gave me the book before we went to France, so I wouldn't have to lug it back home but although it sounded interesting--very much like my kind of book--I only started reading it a couple of weeks ago as it is so heavy and bulky. As predicted, my reading time has declined greatly since my commute was reduced to about 40 minutes per day, round-trip, and I only read about 50 pages per day on the Tube and buses and it feels terribly inefficient to bring a 1,000 page book with me if I'm only going to get through 50 pages.
The book opens in 1664 when New York is merely a little fishing village called New Amsterdam. The first protagonist is a wealthy Dutchman named Dick van Dyck who has sneaked away from his wife in order to meet up with his illegitimate half-Indian daughter, Pale Feather. She has made him an intricately designed wampum belt as a symbol of her love; all he has to give her is a shiny, silver dollar coin. These two objects recur periodically throughout the tale.
We are then introduced to the Master family, who arrive in New York from England and over time become wealthy merchants and, later, bankers. The Masters, named, according to the author in the preface, for the Masters of the Universe of Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities, are the central family in the novel and although sometimes one or two generations are skipped over between chapters, we follow them all the way to Manhattan in the 21st century. The book deals mainly with New York's cosmopolitan nature and as well as the van Dycks' and the Masters' slaves and servants, other major characters include the Irish O'Donnells and the German Kellers inhabiting the Lower East Side in the 19th century, the Italian Carusos at the beginning of the 20th century, and the Jewish Adlers living in 1950s Brooklyn.
The stories of the individual families, other than the Masters, were sometimes unsatisfying and concluded rather too hastily for my liking. I wanted to know what happened, for example, to Kate, the clever cousin of one of the key Masters whom she humiliates with her culture and her knowledge in the mid-18th century. We find out later that she did well for herself but this is really just an aside. At least in the story of the Master family, there is more consistency and because some of the Masters appear in two chapters (one as a central character when they are young and one as a more minor character when they have stood aside to let the younger generation take over).
Of course, to say that some of the stories of the people depicted in New York is missing the point because it really is the story of the city, even more so than Bonfire of the Vanities and even more than The Emperor's Children. In those two books, the characters are really the most important feature but in New York, they are just the road the author uses to drive from 17th century New Amsterdam to modern-day Manhattan. This isn't necessarily a bad thing: I learned a lot about the history of the city and its role in the American Revolution and the American Civil War. I learned about the dangers of being downtown in the 19th century, especially around Five Points (although Martin Scorsese already taught me a lot) and the poor conditions of the Lower East Side (although the excellent Tenement Museum in New York taught me a lot more) and, of course, the the stock market crashes of 1929 and 1987 come up too (and yes, the links with Bonfire do continue to resonate).
The event that annoyed me most was the telling of the events of September 11. It was inevitable that this day would take place at the climax of the novel (after all, there have not, since then, been any other events in New York that would make it into a "all-time greatest hits of New York history" like Rutherfurd's book) and of course, it had to be covered but it just felt a little too rushed for my taste. The Emperor's Children also revisits September 11 but again, because the latter is really about the characters (three friends), the depiction of the day feels less contrived--the focus is more on the personal level rather than the general.
Edward Rutherfurd's book is an ambitious and impressive undertaking. Even with 1,000 pages, the attention-seeking New York soon sucks up space and it is to the author's credit that he was able to pack so much history into the book. The idea of the story of a city being told by watching the different groups of immigrants who move there is interesting and uniquely suited to New York. The same concept wouldn't work for London, for example. If I found some of the families' stories uninteresting, it was, in most cases, because they had not been allocated enough pages to make me care about them. On the other hand, my favourite pairing was wannabe-boho Charlie Master and young, Jewish gallery assistant, Sarah Adler; unfortunately, just as I started to care about what happened to them, we skipped forward to the next generation (although it doesn't quite end there) and I had to try to be interested in Charlie's son Gorham and his romantic interest too...
The book opens in 1664 when New York is merely a little fishing village called New Amsterdam. The first protagonist is a wealthy Dutchman named Dick van Dyck who has sneaked away from his wife in order to meet up with his illegitimate half-Indian daughter, Pale Feather. She has made him an intricately designed wampum belt as a symbol of her love; all he has to give her is a shiny, silver dollar coin. These two objects recur periodically throughout the tale.
We are then introduced to the Master family, who arrive in New York from England and over time become wealthy merchants and, later, bankers. The Masters, named, according to the author in the preface, for the Masters of the Universe of Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities, are the central family in the novel and although sometimes one or two generations are skipped over between chapters, we follow them all the way to Manhattan in the 21st century. The book deals mainly with New York's cosmopolitan nature and as well as the van Dycks' and the Masters' slaves and servants, other major characters include the Irish O'Donnells and the German Kellers inhabiting the Lower East Side in the 19th century, the Italian Carusos at the beginning of the 20th century, and the Jewish Adlers living in 1950s Brooklyn.
The stories of the individual families, other than the Masters, were sometimes unsatisfying and concluded rather too hastily for my liking. I wanted to know what happened, for example, to Kate, the clever cousin of one of the key Masters whom she humiliates with her culture and her knowledge in the mid-18th century. We find out later that she did well for herself but this is really just an aside. At least in the story of the Master family, there is more consistency and because some of the Masters appear in two chapters (one as a central character when they are young and one as a more minor character when they have stood aside to let the younger generation take over).
Of course, to say that some of the stories of the people depicted in New York is missing the point because it really is the story of the city, even more so than Bonfire of the Vanities and even more than The Emperor's Children. In those two books, the characters are really the most important feature but in New York, they are just the road the author uses to drive from 17th century New Amsterdam to modern-day Manhattan. This isn't necessarily a bad thing: I learned a lot about the history of the city and its role in the American Revolution and the American Civil War. I learned about the dangers of being downtown in the 19th century, especially around Five Points (although Martin Scorsese already taught me a lot) and the poor conditions of the Lower East Side (although the excellent Tenement Museum in New York taught me a lot more) and, of course, the the stock market crashes of 1929 and 1987 come up too (and yes, the links with Bonfire do continue to resonate).
The event that annoyed me most was the telling of the events of September 11. It was inevitable that this day would take place at the climax of the novel (after all, there have not, since then, been any other events in New York that would make it into a "all-time greatest hits of New York history" like Rutherfurd's book) and of course, it had to be covered but it just felt a little too rushed for my taste. The Emperor's Children also revisits September 11 but again, because the latter is really about the characters (three friends), the depiction of the day feels less contrived--the focus is more on the personal level rather than the general.
Edward Rutherfurd's book is an ambitious and impressive undertaking. Even with 1,000 pages, the attention-seeking New York soon sucks up space and it is to the author's credit that he was able to pack so much history into the book. The idea of the story of a city being told by watching the different groups of immigrants who move there is interesting and uniquely suited to New York. The same concept wouldn't work for London, for example. If I found some of the families' stories uninteresting, it was, in most cases, because they had not been allocated enough pages to make me care about them. On the other hand, my favourite pairing was wannabe-boho Charlie Master and young, Jewish gallery assistant, Sarah Adler; unfortunately, just as I started to care about what happened to them, we skipped forward to the next generation (although it doesn't quite end there) and I had to try to be interested in Charlie's son Gorham and his romantic interest too...
21 February 2010
Crazy in Love
I had been waiting to see The Lovely Bones for a long time. I really enjoyed Alice Sebold's book when I read it a number of years ago and was interested to see what Peter Jackson would make of it. However, it has not had very good reviews and while I don't usually care about bad reviews, on this occasion, I am worried that I'll end up seriously disliking it. Now that it has finally been released, I decided to give it a miss this weekend, although I am pleased that one of my Flickr photos was added to a promotional website for the film, which has composite posters made up of assorted Flickr photos, mainly of cloudy and/or ethereal landscapes. Now I just need to find it...
Instead of The Lovely Bones, I went to see Crazy Heart, in which Jeff Bridges stars as a talented country singer/songwriter who is fighting a number of demons, including loneliness, regret and alcoholism. As Bridges has received a Best Actor Oscar nomination for the role, I thought I ought to check him out. In any case, I've liked him since I saw him in The Last Picture Show, which remains one of my all-time favourite films.
And Bridges is very good as aging singer Bad Blake. He drinks too much, he married too many women for too brief periods of time and he doesn't take care of himself. He stumbles and mumbles through the days, playing gigs that are a lot smaller than those he used to play and envying a younger country star, Tommy Sweet (played by the ever-swarthy Colin Farrell), whom he once mentored. He isn't very thoughtful and he disappears in the middle of his gigs to go and vomit. In short, he is in a bad place, although he still has a number of very enthusiastic fans.
Along comes Maggie Gyllenhaal as a Santa Fe reporter called Jean. She is about thirty years his junior and wary of the effect having him around will have on her four-year-old son but nonetheless, they embark on a romance and he Bad tries to clean up his act. The son, in desperate need of a father figure, adores him but it isn't that simple. "I knew what the risks were with you," says Jean, "and I took them because I love you." When dealing with washed-up, alcoholic country stars, this is not always enough.
I suspect Bridges probably will win the Oscar but my vote would go to Colin Firth for A Single Man. Bridges was great as Bad Blake but Firth as George is subtly, heart-breakingly excellent. Firth's role will probably be considered too understated by the Oscars Powers That Be, although that, of course, is precisely the point.
Instead of The Lovely Bones, I went to see Crazy Heart, in which Jeff Bridges stars as a talented country singer/songwriter who is fighting a number of demons, including loneliness, regret and alcoholism. As Bridges has received a Best Actor Oscar nomination for the role, I thought I ought to check him out. In any case, I've liked him since I saw him in The Last Picture Show, which remains one of my all-time favourite films.
And Bridges is very good as aging singer Bad Blake. He drinks too much, he married too many women for too brief periods of time and he doesn't take care of himself. He stumbles and mumbles through the days, playing gigs that are a lot smaller than those he used to play and envying a younger country star, Tommy Sweet (played by the ever-swarthy Colin Farrell), whom he once mentored. He isn't very thoughtful and he disappears in the middle of his gigs to go and vomit. In short, he is in a bad place, although he still has a number of very enthusiastic fans.
Along comes Maggie Gyllenhaal as a Santa Fe reporter called Jean. She is about thirty years his junior and wary of the effect having him around will have on her four-year-old son but nonetheless, they embark on a romance and he Bad tries to clean up his act. The son, in desperate need of a father figure, adores him but it isn't that simple. "I knew what the risks were with you," says Jean, "and I took them because I love you." When dealing with washed-up, alcoholic country stars, this is not always enough.
I suspect Bridges probably will win the Oscar but my vote would go to Colin Firth for A Single Man. Bridges was great as Bad Blake but Firth as George is subtly, heart-breakingly excellent. Firth's role will probably be considered too understated by the Oscars Powers That Be, although that, of course, is precisely the point.
18 February 2010
Patriot Games
1995 was the year I got into rugby. I say that as though I'm some great rugby fan now but that isn't the case. However, in 1995, my last year of primary school, I did play a lot of rugby, although since then my involvement with the sport has consisted of one year on the sidelines as a dutiful if not always enthusiastic supporter, circa 1999.
I remember two things from the 1995 Rugby World Cup: the official soundtrack and the tournament organised for various Oxfordshire primary schools, each of which was representing one of the World Cup teams. My school was representing Scotland but we actually won the tournament and for some reason, I was the captain so I got my photo in the local paper alongside the other captains. Ah, fame... The soundtrack stayed with me longer and I still like to listen to it now, especially the French song (Fauré's Pavane with some chic French peeps voicing the phrase, "allez les Bleus," over the top) and the title track, World in Union from Kiri Te Kanawa, even though it's cheesy because I do like a bit of Jupiter.
It turns out my knowledge of all of the important things associated with the 1995 World Cup is practically non-existent, or so I learned while watching Invictus tonight. I guess I was too young and/or too self-involved at the time to notice or understand the significance of the event for South Africa. I know a little more now and I was thankful that there weren't too many extended scenes of actual rugby playing.
The film opens with the South African rugby team in a sorry state. They are playing badly and don't have the support of a large proportion of the population who associate the almost entirely white players with Apartheid and the oppression of the previous regime; captain Wikus Van De Merwe--I mean Francois Pienaar--played by Matt Damon, has his work cut out for him if he is going to lead his team to victory at the upcoming World Cup. In fact, it was lucky they were hosting or they might not have got through to the finals. Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) also has his work cut out for him because South Africa as a whole is in a sorry state. He has to start somewhere though and for the South African people to unify through their shared support of the rugby team, all the way to the finals, seems as good a place as any to start.
Of course, there are obstacles along the way but you know how it's going to end (hint: with Kiri Te Kanawa singing World in Union in the stadium and no one minding because they are all so happy). After Team America, I haven't been able to take Matt Damon seriously but he puts in a strong performance as the captain of Team South Africa. They almost lost me when some incredibly cheesy song called Colorblind ("it's not just a game / you can't throw me away / I put all I had on the line") started playing as the team were gearing up for the competition. On hearing Kiri, however, I was overcome with nostalgia for 1995.
All in all, Clint done good, although the editing could have been a little tighter--I'd have enjoyed the film more had it been about 20 minutes shorter; this may just have been because like with the Arctic conditions I experienced while watching The Road, the cinema decided to pump up the heat tonight. I thought this was so I could really feel what the Springboks were going through, running around in the heat but actually, the World Cup took place during the South African winter, of course...
I remember two things from the 1995 Rugby World Cup: the official soundtrack and the tournament organised for various Oxfordshire primary schools, each of which was representing one of the World Cup teams. My school was representing Scotland but we actually won the tournament and for some reason, I was the captain so I got my photo in the local paper alongside the other captains. Ah, fame... The soundtrack stayed with me longer and I still like to listen to it now, especially the French song (Fauré's Pavane with some chic French peeps voicing the phrase, "allez les Bleus," over the top) and the title track, World in Union from Kiri Te Kanawa, even though it's cheesy because I do like a bit of Jupiter.
It turns out my knowledge of all of the important things associated with the 1995 World Cup is practically non-existent, or so I learned while watching Invictus tonight. I guess I was too young and/or too self-involved at the time to notice or understand the significance of the event for South Africa. I know a little more now and I was thankful that there weren't too many extended scenes of actual rugby playing.
The film opens with the South African rugby team in a sorry state. They are playing badly and don't have the support of a large proportion of the population who associate the almost entirely white players with Apartheid and the oppression of the previous regime; captain Wikus Van De Merwe--I mean Francois Pienaar--played by Matt Damon, has his work cut out for him if he is going to lead his team to victory at the upcoming World Cup. In fact, it was lucky they were hosting or they might not have got through to the finals. Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) also has his work cut out for him because South Africa as a whole is in a sorry state. He has to start somewhere though and for the South African people to unify through their shared support of the rugby team, all the way to the finals, seems as good a place as any to start.
Of course, there are obstacles along the way but you know how it's going to end (hint: with Kiri Te Kanawa singing World in Union in the stadium and no one minding because they are all so happy). After Team America, I haven't been able to take Matt Damon seriously but he puts in a strong performance as the captain of Team South Africa. They almost lost me when some incredibly cheesy song called Colorblind ("it's not just a game / you can't throw me away / I put all I had on the line") started playing as the team were gearing up for the competition. On hearing Kiri, however, I was overcome with nostalgia for 1995.
All in all, Clint done good, although the editing could have been a little tighter--I'd have enjoyed the film more had it been about 20 minutes shorter; this may just have been because like with the Arctic conditions I experienced while watching The Road, the cinema decided to pump up the heat tonight. I thought this was so I could really feel what the Springboks were going through, running around in the heat but actually, the World Cup took place during the South African winter, of course...
12 February 2010
"That's Not Love, It's a Psychiatric Disorder"
It made a refreshing change to leave my desk at 5.30 on a Friday and arrive at a Leicester Square restaurant (J Sheekey) at 5.45. We had to have an early supper as we were going to the theat-ah--my second play this year! The play in question was The Misanthrope, starring Damian Lewis, Tara FitzGerald and, of course, Ikea Keira Knightley, the latter having surprised many critics with a less flat-pack performance than usual.
I saw a couple of Molière plays (The Misanthrope and The Miser) thanks to a visiting theatre troupe that came to our school a couple of times to perform. We were given, I believe, a copy of the script with an English translation to help us understand. I get the two plays quite confused, possibly because I saw one of them before I got into French (circa 1998 or whenever it was that I fancied that half-French guy).
It all came back to me fairly swiftly, though, in the first few minutes of tonight's production--a modern (and sometimes post-modern) translation set (mostly) in the present day among the shallow, insipid ranks of celebrity and tabloid culture rather than the 17th century aristocracy. I had been warned when booking that my seat and the Bro's would have a "very slight viewing restriction." When we showed up, however, there was a fairly substantial pillar, which meant the far right side of the stage was completely blocked and I had to edge as far to the left of my seat as possible (to the delight of the man sitting next to me--an elderly academic type). I had hoped that the empty seats next to me would remain vacant throughout but sadly they were filled a few seconds before the curtain went up. There were two free seats next to the parents and I'd hoped to move there for the second half but sadly, they were claimed during the interval. Nonetheless, I was more annoyed about the website's failure to manage my viewing restriction expectations than anything else.
And so the play. Well, Damian Crimp's script is very sharp, very clever and very, very funny with plenty of self-mockery: the protagonist (played by Damian Lewis) is also a playwright, Alceste, and there are references to Molière, French society and to post-modernism itself. "Are you coming on to me?" asks Ellen, a journalist. "Now that's a question I'd rather was answered by a semiotician," replies John, Alceste's mate.
Damian Lewis and Tara FitzGerald (who plays a bitchy acting teacher) were both great, as were most of the rest of the ensemble. Inevitably, Keira was the weakest link, although she wasn't terrible. She plays a self-absorbed, vain, vapid American actress who swans about the rest of the cast (other actors, agents and hacks) with an air of superiority while toying with Alceste's heart. Keira does an OK job but her American accent was a) inconsistent and b) very whiny and high-pitched, so much so that by the end, I'm sure only dogs could hear her. Although, of course, she is playing a silly, flamboyant character, every line she uttered and every movement she made seemed like overkill and as though she was trying way too hard to avoid being described as bland and expressionless. She got a lot of laughs but most of these were really due to the script rather than to her acting.
The strangest scene (again playing heavily on the Molière references) opens with Alceste waking in a dark, candle-lit room to find a large Frenchman in full 17th century garb (wig and all) on top of him. He tells the guy to speak English and fuck off and eventually realises he's not having a dream or stuck in the ante-chamber to hell (nice Sartre reference) but in a hotel suite where a Louis XIV style fancy dress party is about to take place.
In the words of the ever wise and misanthropic Alceste, "People will speak highly of a pile of shit, if they've dressed up and spent fifty quid to see it." This is probably true but thanks to a fantastic script and some great cast members, I'm glad I went, pillar or none.
I saw a couple of Molière plays (The Misanthrope and The Miser) thanks to a visiting theatre troupe that came to our school a couple of times to perform. We were given, I believe, a copy of the script with an English translation to help us understand. I get the two plays quite confused, possibly because I saw one of them before I got into French (circa 1998 or whenever it was that I fancied that half-French guy).
It all came back to me fairly swiftly, though, in the first few minutes of tonight's production--a modern (and sometimes post-modern) translation set (mostly) in the present day among the shallow, insipid ranks of celebrity and tabloid culture rather than the 17th century aristocracy. I had been warned when booking that my seat and the Bro's would have a "very slight viewing restriction." When we showed up, however, there was a fairly substantial pillar, which meant the far right side of the stage was completely blocked and I had to edge as far to the left of my seat as possible (to the delight of the man sitting next to me--an elderly academic type). I had hoped that the empty seats next to me would remain vacant throughout but sadly they were filled a few seconds before the curtain went up. There were two free seats next to the parents and I'd hoped to move there for the second half but sadly, they were claimed during the interval. Nonetheless, I was more annoyed about the website's failure to manage my viewing restriction expectations than anything else.And so the play. Well, Damian Crimp's script is very sharp, very clever and very, very funny with plenty of self-mockery: the protagonist (played by Damian Lewis) is also a playwright, Alceste, and there are references to Molière, French society and to post-modernism itself. "Are you coming on to me?" asks Ellen, a journalist. "Now that's a question I'd rather was answered by a semiotician," replies John, Alceste's mate.
Damian Lewis and Tara FitzGerald (who plays a bitchy acting teacher) were both great, as were most of the rest of the ensemble. Inevitably, Keira was the weakest link, although she wasn't terrible. She plays a self-absorbed, vain, vapid American actress who swans about the rest of the cast (other actors, agents and hacks) with an air of superiority while toying with Alceste's heart. Keira does an OK job but her American accent was a) inconsistent and b) very whiny and high-pitched, so much so that by the end, I'm sure only dogs could hear her. Although, of course, she is playing a silly, flamboyant character, every line she uttered and every movement she made seemed like overkill and as though she was trying way too hard to avoid being described as bland and expressionless. She got a lot of laughs but most of these were really due to the script rather than to her acting.
The strangest scene (again playing heavily on the Molière references) opens with Alceste waking in a dark, candle-lit room to find a large Frenchman in full 17th century garb (wig and all) on top of him. He tells the guy to speak English and fuck off and eventually realises he's not having a dream or stuck in the ante-chamber to hell (nice Sartre reference) but in a hotel suite where a Louis XIV style fancy dress party is about to take place.
In the words of the ever wise and misanthropic Alceste, "People will speak highly of a pile of shit, if they've dressed up and spent fifty quid to see it." This is probably true but thanks to a fantastic script and some great cast members, I'm glad I went, pillar or none.
07 February 2010
R but No R
Well, my little winter break in the sun is about to come to an end and while there has been much activity and plenty of relaxation, I don't feel particularly rested, mainly because the boiler in our Cannes flat is located in the spare bedroom, which means that when anyone wants to have a shower in the morning, they have to come in to turn it on and it is very noisy. Never mind: fun has been had and the sun even came out yesterday morning and stayed for the weekend.
Yesterday, we drove out into the Estérel mountains for a walk. It was bright and sunny but very windy and I was forced to wear my shiny, white trainers with my otherwise stylish outfit as none of my other footwear was suitable. We sheltered in a little rocky cove for some soup and then headed back town for assorted running, leaping and shopping. Dinner was at Astou, one of the nicest fish restaurants in town. The oysters and jumbo prawns I had for my starter were very good; the faux filet I had for my main course, not so much (not rare enough and far too fatty for my taste), but I had to have it as I hadn't had a steak yet this holiday.
Today, we caught the boat out to Ile St Honorat, which was a bit of a mission in itself as there was some bike race in town today and the Croisette was partly closed off to traffic (policed by a lone policeman who got very annoyed every time a pissed off Frenchman got out of his car to move the carefully erected barriers so he could get through), which meant the bus down to the port was very late. Eventually, though, we got to the marina and made it out to the island. It was a beautiful day and very warm in the sun. We went into a little castle, with multiple floors and balconies providing plenty of Escher-like vistas and space for leaping. There is a monastery on the island and the monks maintain a shop where they sell wine (not quite like this one) and sweets shaped like monks--I'm not too sure about the appropriateness of suckable monks, but what would I know? Then, there was just time for a long lunch at Cresci, on the sea front, a final run in the sun and some packing before my very late flight. With luck, I'll be home by half-midnight...
Yesterday, we drove out into the Estérel mountains for a walk. It was bright and sunny but very windy and I was forced to wear my shiny, white trainers with my otherwise stylish outfit as none of my other footwear was suitable. We sheltered in a little rocky cove for some soup and then headed back town for assorted running, leaping and shopping. Dinner was at Astou, one of the nicest fish restaurants in town. The oysters and jumbo prawns I had for my starter were very good; the faux filet I had for my main course, not so much (not rare enough and far too fatty for my taste), but I had to have it as I hadn't had a steak yet this holiday.
Today, we caught the boat out to Ile St Honorat, which was a bit of a mission in itself as there was some bike race in town today and the Croisette was partly closed off to traffic (policed by a lone policeman who got very annoyed every time a pissed off Frenchman got out of his car to move the carefully erected barriers so he could get through), which meant the bus down to the port was very late. Eventually, though, we got to the marina and made it out to the island. It was a beautiful day and very warm in the sun. We went into a little castle, with multiple floors and balconies providing plenty of Escher-like vistas and space for leaping. There is a monastery on the island and the monks maintain a shop where they sell wine (not quite like this one) and sweets shaped like monks--I'm not too sure about the appropriateness of suckable monks, but what would I know? Then, there was just time for a long lunch at Cresci, on the sea front, a final run in the sun and some packing before my very late flight. With luck, I'll be home by half-midnight...
05 February 2010
Non C'è Due Senza Tre
Much as I enjoy visiting the Cannes flat in summer, the charms of the town in winter are somewhat more limited. The cooler weather means no sunbathing, many of the bars close for the winter (meaning you can only have a cocktail if you are willing to pay 15 euros for it in a hotel) and a lot of the shops and restaurants do their refurbishments during the town's quietest time of year.
We came across our first fail on Wednesday night. Having just arrived, we hadn't done a full shop and so the plan was to go to Pizza Jean-Jean--a takeaway pizza van in our hood (Palm Beach), which apparently serves very good pizza. We tried calling Jean-Jean to place an order but only got through to his voicemail, in which he helpfully said he was closed on Mondays from November to March but didn't mention anything about Wednesdays. So, the Brother and I were dispatched to Jean-Jean's regular parking space. After all, he could have been so inundated with orders that he was too busy to answer the phone. Alas, Jean-Jean wasn't there at all. Plan B was to walk back along the Croisette to our favourite Italian restaurant, Vesuvio, which also does take out. Alas! Vesuvio was closed for refurbishments. Plan C was to acquire an onion from the Casino with which Mum could whip up some delicious pasta sauce (along with whatever was in her larder).
Nice as the pasta was, once I have been thinking about eating a nice pizza, nothing else will really do, so we had to go to Italy where--surely--we would be able to find some decent pizza. Of course, it started pissing down last night and was still chucking it down this morning. Nonetheless, the plan had been made so to Italy we went. It was very scenic driving through the misty mountains above Nice and then along the winding, coast road, through the tunnels and into Italy. Stop one was the picturesque village of Dolceacqua, full of pretty, narrow lanes, an old castle and an ancient bridge. There wasn't a single other person to be seen and the few pizzerias we found were all closed so it was a relief to come across Il Borgo, which luckily did gorgeous, coal-fired pizza with thin, crispy bases and plenty of prosciutto on top. Delicious.
The rain worsened over lunch and the Italians in the restaurant were bemused by my reiterations of the phrase non c'è due senza tre, which, of course means "it never rains, it pours" (but not in the literal sense), which was interesting for my family but probably made no sense to the Italians. I was very happy to parlare italiano, though. On the way back home, we stopped at Ventimgilia, near the French border, which was seriously boring on a rainy Friday afternoon. The shops were full of cheap, discount crap, fake designer handbags and duty-free booze. It definitely wasn't our kind of town so we drove on home, which meant the sun came right out, producing a gorgeous rainbow over the Alps. And it was a good pizza...
We came across our first fail on Wednesday night. Having just arrived, we hadn't done a full shop and so the plan was to go to Pizza Jean-Jean--a takeaway pizza van in our hood (Palm Beach), which apparently serves very good pizza. We tried calling Jean-Jean to place an order but only got through to his voicemail, in which he helpfully said he was closed on Mondays from November to March but didn't mention anything about Wednesdays. So, the Brother and I were dispatched to Jean-Jean's regular parking space. After all, he could have been so inundated with orders that he was too busy to answer the phone. Alas, Jean-Jean wasn't there at all. Plan B was to walk back along the Croisette to our favourite Italian restaurant, Vesuvio, which also does take out. Alas! Vesuvio was closed for refurbishments. Plan C was to acquire an onion from the Casino with which Mum could whip up some delicious pasta sauce (along with whatever was in her larder).
Nice as the pasta was, once I have been thinking about eating a nice pizza, nothing else will really do, so we had to go to Italy where--surely--we would be able to find some decent pizza. Of course, it started pissing down last night and was still chucking it down this morning. Nonetheless, the plan had been made so to Italy we went. It was very scenic driving through the misty mountains above Nice and then along the winding, coast road, through the tunnels and into Italy. Stop one was the picturesque village of Dolceacqua, full of pretty, narrow lanes, an old castle and an ancient bridge. There wasn't a single other person to be seen and the few pizzerias we found were all closed so it was a relief to come across Il Borgo, which luckily did gorgeous, coal-fired pizza with thin, crispy bases and plenty of prosciutto on top. Delicious.
The rain worsened over lunch and the Italians in the restaurant were bemused by my reiterations of the phrase non c'è due senza tre, which, of course means "it never rains, it pours" (but not in the literal sense), which was interesting for my family but probably made no sense to the Italians. I was very happy to parlare italiano, though. On the way back home, we stopped at Ventimgilia, near the French border, which was seriously boring on a rainy Friday afternoon. The shops were full of cheap, discount crap, fake designer handbags and duty-free booze. It definitely wasn't our kind of town so we drove on home, which meant the sun came right out, producing a gorgeous rainbow over the Alps. And it was a good pizza...