Does Six Sell?

Now that my days of quirky linguistics studies are long behind me and I have to make do with proper science, I still enjoy reading linguistics-related articles in the news.  Daniel Gilbert's NYT article, Magic by Numbers, was fun. Although I haven't been into numerology since the '90s, I can't deny that certain numbers do have certain, irrational properties in my mind. I don't like even numbers because of a vague feeling of irritation they inspire in me. On the other hand, I particularly like seven and 13 and numbers with lots of sevens in them; nine and three, meanwhile, are lower down my table of awesome numbers.

So, I can see that irrational feelings about numbers might affect the way we behave. I'd like to think that the phonetics of numbers in prices wouldn't affect my decision to buy or not buy something but marketing people are sneaky and if they're willing to slip in all sorts of super-seductive and sexy fricatives to get me in the mood for chocolate (or whatever), then why not slip in a few more by making the price £6.66? Consumers [heart] fricatives (like /s/, /f/ and my favourite, [ʒ]) and front vowels, according to a Journal of Consumer Research study; or at least, those sounds make them think of smaller prices. Stops (like /t/, /p/ and /k/) and back vowels (like the /u/ in goose) make people think of large, expensive things. Maybe people think I'm a little taller than I am because there are two stops and only one fricative in my name: [bɛks]. In any case, I don't like being manipulated in the supermarket, so to speak, which means I end up acting irrationally when it comes to price.

Phoneticians got to feel important again today with all the media coverage of a new exhibition on the continuing evolution of the English language at the British Library. Hopefully, they will record my RP/SSBE accent and me reading Mr Tickle for posterity. Oh, and I don't like to prescribe but it's totally sez, ayt, MIS-chiv-us, huh-RASS, GA-ridge, SKED-ule and aitch. And yes, I know my own idiolect with its mix of old and new variants is the perfect example of Britain's changing speech.

No Surprises. Now There's a Surprise.

LoFiFest screenings/events attended: 6
Red carpets crossed: 2
A/B List actors sighted: 8
Bars of Green & Black chocolate: 4
Clive Owen sightings: zero

After a LoFiFest binge last week and the week before, my enthusiasm had dimmed for the final film for which I had a ticket: the members' surprise film. I had been feeling pretty knackered all day and by the time I left work, I was suffering from the tail end of a migraine and was thinking of bunking off. The fact that the surprise film last night was the remake of Brighton Rock, transposed to the '60s, and I wasn't keen to see it, having not warmed to either the book or the original film. Still, there was a chance that — after the mass protest at last year's LoFiFest when the surprise film and the members' surprise film were the same — the BFI might have scheduled a different film for the members this year and even though my ticket was free, I didn't want to miss out on something great.

Spotted at Charing Cross on the way home.

Well, I was less impressed still when the artistic director of the festival announced before the film started tonight that, "as you'll all probably know, tonight's film is the same as last night's surprise film." Actually, no, that's wrong. Neither the programme nor the LoFiFest website make it clear — or even suggest — that the two films will be the same and indeed, someone posting on the LoFiFest Facebook group, claimed they had been told by the BFI that the two films would be different. Never mind; I can't really complain when my ticket was free and at least I'll know next year that the two events will likely show the same film.

As for Brighton Rock, given my adverse viewing conditions (not helped by the tallest man in the cinema sitting in front of me), it could have been worse. I was almost nodding off for the first 20 minutes but then slowly became a little more engaged. Slightly. I wasn't convinced by either Sam Riley (Pinkie) or Andrea Riseborough (Rose) but Helen Mirren put in a good turn as Ida and Andy Serkis as Mr Colleoni.

I still couldn't find myself caring about any of the characters at the end, however, and was quite keen for it wrap up ASAP. Ah well. Better luck next year on the surprise front, BFI.

Baking for Dummies: Cake Decorating Edition

When I left my old job, some nine months ago, one of my leaving presents was a voucher for a cupcake-decorating lesson for two. Naturally, I booked Maman and me in for a session three days before the voucher expired (yesterday) and despite the public transport issues, we ventured up to Belsize Park to the somewhat unglamorous hotel at the foot of Primrose Hill (after first enjoying a great late breakfast at Chamomile).

There were about 20 women in the lobby (no guys) and so we were split into several groups; my group was run by a charming American guy who told us, "I'll be your cocoa... I mean I'm from [cocoa-related company name]," and was later puzzled by the Brits' lack of love for peanut butter (not from me).

The cupcakes had already been made so we were learning how to ice them and how to make decorations out of something called sugar paste ("you can buy it from that place that's called something like Iceland" - that would be Lakeland, then!). The instructor must love showing groups of women how to warm up the sugar paste in their hands, rolling it between their fingers and gently kneading... I wasn't particularly good at making the shapes; when it comes to artistic pursuits, I've always been good with ideas but not so good at putting them into practice. My perfectionism only made me more nervous and with rather long fingernails, I was struggling. Maman was equally self-critical although she still found time to tell me I was squeezing the icing bag all wrong.

As we left the hotel, we got caught in a freak hail storm and had to taxi back to NoMaRo where I finally got my nails done. I'd been planning to chill in London Town last night but the parents persuaded me to go back to the Shire with them, mainly because they wanted a designated driver so they could drink at Jamie's Italian; I got to drive the Beamer and had a nice dinner so I couldn't complain. This morning was at least quite chilled, after a very frosty but bright and gorgeous autumnal run around Christchurch Meadow.

A Tale of Two Swans

To say that Black Swan is intense is like saying that I like coffee and yet “intense,” “powerful” et al. are the best words I have to describe the film. I enjoyed it too but that feels wrong; the viewer becomes complicit with the protagonist, deriving pleasure from pain. Physically and psychologically uncomfortable to watch as it was, I was impressed with Darren Aronofsky’s latest film.

Natalie Portman plays Nina, a twenty-something ballerina who strives for perfection in every move she makes and every thought she thinks. She has been dancing in the corps at her company in New York for four years and is determined to get the lead in the next show but first she must convince the director Thomas (Vincent Cassel) that she has the passion and wildness to play the Black Swan in Swan Lake as well as the control and dedication of the White Swan.

She’s more than a little nutty even before she gets the role. Her relationship with her mother (a former dancer who gave up her career to raise her daughter) is complex and fraught and she has a nasty habit of scratching herself until she bleeds and making herself throw up. Oh, and tearing off shards of her skin and cutting her fingers down to the quick with scissors. Much worse too but because Nina seems to be a little crazy, we’re never quite sure what is really happening and what she is seeing or imagining or dreaming. Regardless: it’s not very pleasant to watch someone make herself bleed, even if you know (or suspect) it isn’t real.

As the film progresses, Nina’s world becomes increasingly violent, not helped by the arrival of Lily (Mila Kunia), a beautiful, edgy dancer from San Francisco, who looks like she might win the lead role because she is a more convincing Black Swan than Nina. Lily tries to be Nina’s friend at times but it also seems like she’s trying to stab Nina in the back—perhaps even literally—and to steal her role for good.

Scott Franklin, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel, Darren Aronofsky

Now, it’s all a little confusing what with the mirrors everywhere, Nina’s fantasies and nightmares (or are they?), and the fact that on opening night, everyone is in costume, and from a distance, it can be hard to tell which dancer is wearing the costume. It also didn’t help me that one of the other dancers—Veronica—looks a lot like Lily and I thought at first that her character was supposed to be Nina’s rival and “Lily” would turn out to be a figment of Nina’s imagination.

Winona Ryder stole every scene her character Beth, a “practically menopausal” dancer, who is forced into retirement and is delightfully unhinged (she seemed to be borrowing from Brittany Murphy’s character in Girl, Interrupted). Sadly, her example does not make Nina think that she could end up like that; quite the opposite as Nina only sees perfection in Beth and tries to emulate her, stealing her lipstick and jewellery. And her knife.

The soundtrack was great too—always nice to hear the Chemical Brothers sampling Tchaikovsky—and a world apart from Aronofsky’s last film, The Wrestler (I don’t think it would have worked to have even Springsteen’s Brilliant Disguise pimped out with some Swan Lake samples). At the Q&A afterwards, attended by Aronofsky, the producer, the ever charming Vincent Cassel and Mila Kunis, Aronofsky said Black Swan was the other side of the coin of The Wrestler, although funnily enough, it took more than telling the ballet world that this film would “do for ballet what The Wrestler did for wrestling” to convince them the film was a good thing.

There were some members of the Royal Ballet in the audience who, when questioned at the end, said, “it was quite real.” Ironic for a film that draws and redraws the boundaries of reality time and time again. 

How to Go to the London Film Festival

I joined the BFI a few months after moving to London, almost two years ago--shortly after the 2008 LoFiFest as I was in San Fransisco for the whole of October. Many people join in the weeks running up to the Festival in order to qualify for the LoFiFest members' priority booking period. BFI membership is excellent value with a range of free tickets on offer throughout the year, special members' events and discounts on tickets (and other things) but I would say that it is bad value if you don't plan to use your membership after the festival.

Last year, I was a LoFiFest virgin. I was very excited to receive the programme in the post--how could I possibly choose which films to attend? I wasn't fussed about attending the opening or closing night galas so I didn't apply via the post and just waited until the online members' priority period. The only events I really cared about were the Clive Owen Screen Talk and Clive's new film, The Boys Are Back. The website was very crashy that morning but I got my tickets. I then picked a few others including Chloe, The Informant! and the Surprise Film and managed to get tickets for them--but only by checking the BFI website several times a day to see whether there were any returns (the BFI does email and tweet about returns but I had more luck just checking myself).

This year, I felt a little more confident about the booking process. I really wanted to see Never Let Me Go but I knew the odds of getting tickets weren't good. Of the other films, I chose two galas (Black Swan and Conviction), two regular films (Les petits mouchoirs and Blue Valentine) and the (free) members' surprise film. To apply for the opening night, you have to apply by post and I thought that as postal applications are processed first, I'd apply for the other tickets at the same time. Online booking opens a week or so later but if you've applied by post you don't necessarily know by then if you've already got tickets so you can't apply online for the tickets that are released for online bookings. It turned out I didn't get tickets for any of the galas but I did get tickets for the other three films.

Many people have complained about this on the BFI's Facebook page (well, about the fact they didn't get tickets for the films from their postal apps even if they dropped off the booking form in person, rather than about me not getting them). It is a little frustrating but after finding out my ticket allocation (or lack thereof), I just stalked the LoFiFest website to see if any tickets had been returned. Maybe I was just lucky, but I got tickets for all three galas, including Never Let Me Go. Black Swan was the hardest to come by--I happened to come across one lone seat in the front row for Friday night's screening and decided to pounce rather than hold out for a better offer. Yes, it's a bit of a pain to keep checking the website but I really wanted to see these films and I figured it was worth a little extra effort on my part. Also, I chose films that won't be released in the UK soon and so didn't mind paying a little extra for the tickets.

I don't blame BFI for their booking system (although it wouldn't hurt a) to clarify how it works and what "first come, first served" means and b) to rent some more servers when the online booking opens) because for me to go to these kind of events at all is pretty amazing, let alone to six over the course of two weeks. It's a shame that others do and that they are threatening to rescind their membership.

Another thing I had to learn by experimentation was which screenings to attend to get the Q&As with the cast and crew (the BFI has now provided an explanation here; perhaps this could go in the programme next year). Some screenings are listed in the programme as "galas" and are more expensive but I found that generally, you would only get the Q&A and celebrity guest appearances on the screenings on the first night the film is on (even though the screenings all cost the same). The BFI also says that if there are two screenings of a film (at 8.30 and 8.45, say), it's often best to go for the later one because the actors will usually want to watch the film with the audience and so introduce the first film, introduce the second film, watch the second film and do the Q&A with the second film audience. This happened at the 8.45 performance of Conviction and hopefully it will happen with the 8.45 of Black Swan. Meanwhile, cast and crew sometimes turn up for non-gala films--I think The Informant! last year was a non-gala but the director and writer showed up. I don't think The Boys Are Back was a gala either but I knew Clive would be in town for the Screen Talk the following day and so guessed he'd be there.

My main request for the BFI is to bring back Clive Owen next year. Other than that, I'm happy to soak up the LoFiFest atmosphere and see some great new films; if I also get to see the actors and crew, that's an added bonus.

LoFiFest 2010 Part IV

LoFiFest screenings/events attended: 4
Red carpets crossed: 2
A/B List actors sighted: 6
Bars of Green & Black chocolate: 2
Clive Owen sightings: zero

One of the great things about LoFiFest is that it is relatively easy (and cheap) for members of the public to go to the premieres of some of the biggest films. Now that I've snatched up a ticket for Black Swan, I've acquired tickets to all the films I wanted to see and all it took was a bit of stalking of the BFI website. Last year, however, I found it a bit tricky to work out which events would have the cast and/or crew showing up to answer questions after the film--this didn't happen for all of the films marked "galas" (only if you were attending the film's first screening) even though you were paying more money.

This year, I was a little clued up but I was still surprised not to see any of the actors or crew of Blue Valentine today given that it was the only screening of the film in the programme. It turns out there was a separate gala for the film to which public tickets were not, I assume, available. I didn't mind too much; I like Michelle Williams--although my questions for her would probably have been about her Dawson's Creek days --but it wouldn't be like missing an opportunity to see Clive Owen in the flesh.

Blue Valentine itself was good (and has already been tipped for possible Oscars). It's the polar opposite of Away We Go: it takes a young couple who are so in love and then shows how easy it is for their relationship and their happiness to be ruined. Cindy (Williams) and Dean (Ryan Gosling) married young and have a young daughter and a nice house. But Cindy had always wanted to be a doctor and had to settle for being a nurse instead and Dean's various talents (singing, drawing, playing music) are wasted as he spends his days painting people's houses (which is great, he says, because he can start drinking at 8 a.m.).

The film intersperses scenes from a few consecutive days in the present with scenes from earlier, happier days--when Cindy and Dean met, how they got together, some of the decisions they had to make. They both seemed to think that because they loved each other, that would be enough to get them through whatever fate threw at them. And they are so happy in the flashbacks. They sing and dance in the street, they make promises and they believe they can do whatever they like. A number of years later and life isn't so great. They both love their daughter a lot but suddenly, it feels like that is the only thing they have in common as the grind of everyday life starts to wear them down.

Williams's performance was brilliant; I was less keen on Gosling, although that is possibly because I found his character unsympathetic. We shall see, though, come awards season. If there was an Oscar for Best Credits, this film would win hands down. The credits roll over a black background with a fireworks display taking place and every time a firework goes off, for a moment we see an illuminated image of Cindy and Dean from earlier in the film. It was really beautiful and a nice way to end what wasn't a very happy film.

LoFiFest 2010 Part III

LoFiFest screenings/events attended: 3
Red carpets crossed: 2
A/B List actors sighted: 6
Bars of Green & Black chocolate: 2
Clive Owen sightings: zero

I saw Guillaume Canet's film Ne le dis à personne some three years before I first read a book by Harlan Coben, the author of the novel on which the film is based, and I really enjoyed the film. And not just because Canet, who is hot, was also acting in it. Canet's next directorial project was Les petits mouchoirs (literally "hankies" but translated as "Little White Lies"), which I saw tonight as part of LoFiFest. Sadly, M. Canet was not in attendance and nor were any of the cast or crew. As the film went on for over two-and-a-half hours, this was possibly for the best. Although it was in need of a bit of script tightening to bring it down to a more reasonable length, I quite enjoyed the film. And I have to wonder whether I would say the same if an English version starring Vince Vaughan, Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston were made.

Les petits mouchoirs is like a super-long episode of Friends but set in France and with characters who are slightly older--chronologically if not emotionally. At the start, Ludo, one of their number gets in a motorbike accident while wired on coke and ends up in intensive care. But the friends travel down from Paris to the seaside, near Bordeaux, every year to spend time at Max and Véro's second home and they figure that they can still go down for a couple of weeks because they won't be able to visit Ludo before then anyway. Before they leave for the beach, Vincent, married to Isa and with a six-year-old son, tells Max that although he is totally not gay, he loves Max's hands. Oh and his body. He hopes this won't make things awkward though.

Max (played by François Cluzet, who also starred as a very different type of character in Ne le dis à personne), however, is a giant control freak, unable to relax, even on holiday. When they arrive at the house, he screams into his mobile for about five minutes because someone hasn't mowed the lawn. Later, he becomes obsessed with trying to stop weasels (!) getting into the house and keeps the feed from the CCTV cameras at his hotel and restaurant playing on his laptop at all times. None of the others, including his long-suffering, eco-holic wife, Véro, can understand why Max is being such a shit to Vincent and certainly not why he takes his anger out on Vincent's son.

Then there are Eric and Marie (Marion Cotillard) who are best buddies. Eric's dancer girlfriend Léa is supposed to join them in Bordeaux but only stays long enough to dump Eric at the airport and return to Paris. Marie, who seems to be some kind of anthropologist, has revolving doors into her flat through which a constant stream of men seem to pass. Hurt, post-dumping, Eric asks why he and Marie have never slept together given that she's slept with everyone else (including Ludo, whom she dated at some point in the recent past). Marie prefers to sleep with men to whom she has no emotional connection, however, and so when one of her friends with benefits, a hot musician, drives all the way from Paris to be with her, she can't cope and sends him packing. Even though he's a really good musician. And a good shag. And really cares about her.

Finally, there is Antoine, the lovable clown, who spends most of the film pining over his ex, Juliette, analysing every word she ever said to him and debating if and how he should respond to a text she sends him. But when Eric tells him she's engaged, he can't quite believe it and the two of them take an impromptu road trip back to Paris to try to win back their women.

But despite their seemingly great lives, these people are seriously dysfunctional. When tragedy strikes again, a friend, who lives near Max and Véro's Bordeaux house, points out that they're all selfish, self-involved liars. They don't know what's important and they lie to one another and--most crucially--they lie to themselves and thus can never grow up. This all sounds quite heavy and dramatic but the script had as many laughs as an episode of Friends and the relationships between the characters felt sincere and believable. I still maintain that the film would have been tighter if it had lost about 30 minutes of the "oh look, we're a load of immature 30/40-somethings who are having a wonderful time fooling around by the sea" section but then I didn't keep checking my watch during the film either.

LoFiFest 2010 Part II

LoFiFest screenings/events attended: 2

Red carpets crossed: 2

A/B List actors sighted: 6

Bars of Green & Black chocolate: 2 

Clive Owen sighted: zero

The programme for LoFiFest is so huge, it can be difficult picking out the films that are going to be worth seeing. Sometimes, it's obvious, like last year, I was clearly going to prioritise Clive's film, The Boys Are Back, and the Screen Talk he was giving. This year, a lot of the galas sounded interesting but I narrowed the choice down to Never Let Me Go, Black Swan (to which I haven't yet got tickets) and Conviction. 

Betty Anne Waters, Hilary Swank, Sam Rockwell, Minnie Driver, Pamela Gray

The latter is based on a true story and stars Hilary Swank, who plays Betty Anne Waters, a woman who puts herself through university and then law school so that she can try to free her brother Kenny (played by Sam Rockwell), who is serving a life sentence for a murder he didn't commit. Betty Anne and Kenny don't have a very happy childhood and are taken away from their mother and sent to separate foster homes. Kenny has a history of bad behaviour and a criminal record and is convicted on the basis of the testimony of two ex-girlfriends and on a blood type match (but not, because this is 1980, a DNA match). After the appeal fails, Betty Anne refuses to give up and decides that if the legal system can't help her brother, she will just have to do it herself and eventually uncovers a number of irregularities in the proceedings at the time of the crime and during the trial. 

The case becomes her life and she and her husband eventually split up (this is not explained in the film but it is implied that her obsession with trying to free her brother--who may not even be innocent--has taken over their lives) and, later, her young sons decide they want to live with their father. But Betty Anne fights on, helped by her friend Abra (Minnie Driver) and by Sandy Cohen (this time playing himself, a lawyer from Brooklyn), who fronts an organisation called the Innocence Project, which helps those who are fighting wrongful convictions.

Some spoilers follow...

Perhaps because it was based on a true story, I thought an unhappy ending was unlikely. And indeed, after a number of dead ends and false starts, Kenny is freed. Sadly, Betty Anne explained in the Q&A that her brother had an accident a few months after he got out and died but to the credit of the film makers they left this part (even from the "what happened next" notes at the start of the credit) as they wanted to focus on the fact that he was freed. 

As well as Betty Anne Waters and the writer, Pamela Gray, Hilary Swank, Sam Rockwell and Minnie Driver were all on stage for questions afterwards. All of the audience questions and comments were for Betty Anne, although the host did direct a few towards the actors first so they didn't feel completely useless (on the way out, Driver was standing by the escalators offering kisses--it's possible she knew the guy she kissed as I walked past--presumably having decided that she wanted some attention).

Swank's performance was powerful--more so, I think, than Julia Roberts's Erin Brockovich and certainly more so than Sandra Bullock's Leigh Anne Tuohy--and moving and it was great to see her on the stage at the end with Betty Anne. Conviction strikes the right balance between gripping legal/crime drama and inspiring family saga. Pamela Gray, said in the Q&A, "if this were fiction, people would say it was too contrived" but I think that Swank's convincing performance gave the film the conviction it needed.

Borrowing Trouble

Although I enjoyed Malcolm Gladwell's books The Tipping Point and Blink, I was less impressed by Outliers (so much so that it took me until page 30 before I remembered I'd already read it once) and so I never bothered to check out What the Dog Saw, which I had thought was a book of short stories anyway. Actually, it's a compilation of some of Gladwell's articles from the New Yorker archives and while each article does tell a tale (or three), they are based on true stories.

I picked up a copy of the book in my library at the weekend when, once again, I had run out of books to read. Gladwell is an excellent story teller. Not all of the topics interested me a great deal but others were fascinating. I particularly liked the story of John Rock, who helped to create the contraceptive pill but whose desire to please the Church by creating a more "natural" pill (that allowed women to have periods "like normal") may have failed to prevent the unnecessary deaths of many women from breast cancer. As with most of the other articles, this one went off on a number of different tangents but pulled together nicely in the end.

Another article looked at the case of a British playwright, Bryony Lavery, whose play about a female psychiatrist turned out to have borrowed substantially from the life of psychiatrist Dorothy Lewis--and from a profile Gladwell himself had written about Lewis. In the piece, Gladwell compares inspiration, accidental borrowing and deliberate plagiarism across the arts. The guitar riff in Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit sounds a lot like part of Boston's More Than a Feeling but is this plagiarism? What about the four distinctive opening notes in Beethoven's Fifth Symphony: had they really never been played before in that combination?

It happened that I was retelling the anecdotes from the last article last night in a Soho restaurant. I'm sure it was just a coincidence and I wasn't being overheard but I was surprised to hear the same topic being discussed on the Today Programme this morning: does musical inspiration count as plagiarism and if so, was Handel a thief?

Last night's Mad Men also touched on the nature of plagiarism, accidental or otherwise. If an award-winning creative director in an ad agency comes up with a lot of great ideas, who's to say that he hadn't already thought of the idea that he saw in the portfolio of a mostly unemployable young thing? Of course, once your client likes the idea and you can't talk them out of it, hiring the young thing is the only solution. And of course, the very same storyline happens in Matt Beaumont's book E, where the (admittedly talentless and downright horrible) creative director pinches an idea he spots in the portfolio of a young creative team and pitches it himself. Later, he has to hire them both before they sue his ass.

Yet anyone who watched last night's Apprentice will know how hard it is to come up with anything truly original. At least, anything that is truly original and not a piece of crap.

Still Not Letting Go

I read Never Let Me Go almost two years ago; I probably heard about it because the deal for the film version had just been signed and having read a (thankfully sparse) review, I knew I had to read the book as soon as possible. Indeed, I did and I loved it (it was my favourite book of 2008). More than that, though, it has haunted me as it has haunted many people who have read it. On one level, it's a tragic love story--a love triangle gone horribly wrong--but it's also so much more than that and it is so successful because of the subtly devastating twists Kazuo Ishiguro inflicts upon the reader, bit by by painful bit. Not to mention the awful euphemisms, where every day words like "donor" and "completion" take on cruel new meanings.

After such a heart crushing novel, I was worried about the film version. More so when I found out Keira Knightley had been cast although less so when I found out she was playing Ruth, the jealous best frenemy of the protagonist, Kathy H. At the time, I didn't really know Carey Mulligan, who was cast in the lead role, although I saw her with Keira in Pride and Prejudice. I saw some on-set photos of various beaches in Norfolk and was then left to wonder how the film would turn out.

The film isn't coming out in the UK until January but luckily, I got tickets to see it opening this year's London Film Festival (AKA LoFiFest) and attended the premiere tonight. After the excitement of the red carpet and having about 75 paparazzi yelling, "Keira!" at me (OK, maybe they weren't talking to me), it was into the auditorium where eventually, the director, producers, writer, author and many of the cast (including Carey Mulligan, Keira, Andrew Garfield and their mini-mes) came up onto the stage to be clapped and, in some cases, to talk. And then it all began...

It was always going to be difficult for a film to pull off Ishiguro's technique of revealing things in slow and steady stages, mainly because it was through his subtle language that this worked well in the book. The film had to be less subtle and I was worried when, in the opening scenes, I felt the viewer was told too much. I thought it would make later revelations less powerful than they would otherwise be. Actually, though, the film was plenty chilling, plenty moving and plenty tragic nonetheless, partly thanks to great performances from Mulligan and Garfield, Mulligan playing her character's quiet acceptance and understanding of her fate perfectly, which contrasted sharply with the scene of Garfield's character raging by the side of the road, unable to contain his fury and pain any longer. Keira was fine too, playing the best friend whose selfish actions separate Kathy H. and Tommy; it definitely wouldn't have worked with Keira playing Kathy.

I was so intrigued by the idea of Never Let Me Go that I bought the book right away (I now buy books only rarely--when I'm sure I will read them again) and I will reread it now. Although the film did capture the mood of the book and many of the important scenes, there was a lot that it missed out and while many of the edits were probably the right ones, it will be nice to revisit the rest--and Ishiguro's beautiful words.

People in Wooden Boxes Shouldn't Throw Phones

What better way to spend a rainy, blustery Sunday lunchtime than by watching a 90-minute suspense-fest at the Curzon? In Buried, Ryan Reynolds plays an American truck driver who has been contracted in Iraq and who wakes up to find himself in a coffin, buried underground somewhere in Iraq. His convoy was intercepted and there was fighting and he really doesn't know where he is but he does have a phone (although it takes him some time to switch the language from Arabic into English) and a lighter. Oh and not much oxygen so panicking isn't going to be a good plan. And yet, his wife isn't answering her cell and most of the other people he calls aren't particularly helpful.

It's difficult to say much more without spoiling things but it was suitably suspenseful for my tastes and Reynolds did a great job--at least his face and hands did; they were really all we got to see. I was, however, expecting to be very freaked out by this film and I wasn't at all. In fact, part way through I was almost chuckling to myself about claustrophobia and other such silly fears. Until Reynolds's character wakes up to find a snake slithering down his leg. Having had ophidiophobia for as long as I can remember, I was then highly freaked--the BBFC didn't say anything about any snakes, sustained or otherwise--and realised I should be more sympathetic towards people with fears of confined spaces (if not grapefruits). The woman in front of me, who had talked her way through the adverts and trailers, developed a loud and sustained cough as soon as the film started. This degree of empathy was, I thought, a little excessive.

On a slightly more spoilerish note...



...The phone in question looked like a fairly decent CrackBerry thus...did it not have GPS on it? This film was set in 2006 but my CrackBerry, bought soon after then, had a pseudo-GPS on it, which could have helped to narrow down his location more quickly. Failing that I might have used the lighter to burn a hole in the coffin and dig my way out. We already know he's not buried very deeply...