London Christmas Lights: 2011 Edition

Unfortunately, the only central London cinema that was showing Moneyball today was in Leicester Square but I decided to take advantage of my walk home through the hoards of shoppers by taking a few photos of some of the Christmas lights. I didn't include my photos of the lights on Marylebone High Street or South Molton Lane, which have been the same for several years.

Earlham Street, Covent Garden. Quite pretty but hard to photograph, given all the super-bright street lamps.

Carnaby Street. The giant holly leaves and mistletoe are, perhaps more straightforward than last year's space Santas, but I like the style of this year's lights; unlike most of the others, they are bright rather than bling-tastic.

Regent Street. The giant stars (which usually feature on this street) are quite nice but it's a shame about the large sponsorship banners. The overall effect is a little too busy but that's probably a fair summary of this street at this time of year.

Close-up of one of the Regent Street stars.

Oxford Street. The street was mostly traffic free today (although apparently the ubiquitous pedicabs don't think they count as traffic) — EDIT: this was an emergency measure, according to the BBC. I hate Oxford Street at the best of times, let alone when it's crazy busy and blinged to the max. I didn't make it as far as Selfridges today but their lights were probably the classiest of the department stores on the street.

St Christopher's Place. I was a bit disappointed with these lights after last year's (or maybe 2009's) bold strips of fluorescent colour and given the traffic and the street lamps, it was quite hard to take good photos.

A New Ball Game

I have seen two or maybe three baseball games in my life and still haven't come close to working out exactly what is going on. One of those games may well have been an Oakland As game when I was in California with my family in 2002, this being the season that is the subject of Bennett Miller's new film Moneyball, which is based on Michael Lewis's book of the same name.

Fortunately, perhaps, there isn't very much baseball in the movie, which focuses on the attempts of Billy Beane (Brad Pitt), general manager of the As, and his attempts to use hard-core stats to put together a winning baseball team and finally win the American League. 

At the start of the movie, we see the As having a good season and reaching the playoffs, before losing to the New York Yankees. Three of their best players are poached and with a tiny budget compared to most of the other teams, Beane doesn't know what to do — it doesn't matter how well you do all season because if you lose the last game, that's all anyone remembers, he says.

He can't afford to buy any of the players he wants but he can afford Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), a gawky, 25-year-old Yale economics grad and number cruncher whom he poaches from the Cleveland Indians. Brand subscribes to the theories of Bill James, who first suggested that by doing some complex number-crunching on player data, you could find the most under-valued players and buy them cheaply. 

Beane starts buying new players, based on Brand's recommendations, and they think they're on to a winner. But manager Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman, who doesn't get to do much other than look sad, old and curmudgeonly) and many others, including the As' talent scouts, aren't convinced and Howe, in particular, refuses to go along with Beane and Brand's plans, playing his more expensive players instead of the new recruits. 

With the players not being played correctly, the team keeps losing so Beane takes the step of transferring some of his best players so that Howe has no choice but to play the new guys. Sure enough, the As hit onto a record-breaking winning streak, but of course, it's the final game of the season that counts...

The stat-crunching and rapid-fire player-trading is interspersed with elements of Beane's past and home life. At the age of 18, he had the choice between a full scholarship to Princeton or a place on the New York Mets. Most of the guys the scout recruits are good in only one or two areas, the scout says, but Beane excelled in five. 

Beane decides to play baseball but it doesn't work out and he never lives up to his potential as a great player. He is still on relatively good terms with his wife (Robin Wright) and her new husband and dotes on his 12-year-old, guitar-playing daughter. Pitt's portrayal of Beane is very sympathetic. We want his strategy to work and we want him to win.

And I liked Moneyball a lot: in some ways, it reminds me of a cross between The Damned United and The Blind Side (also based on a Michael Lewis book), with a twist of The Social Network thanks to co-writer Aaron Sorkin (the score reminded me of The Social Network too, although it is by a different composer). Sorkin's screenplay (co-written by Steven Zaillian) is compelling and with just the right amount of wit and humour. In fact, I enjoyed the movie so much that I'm now going to go and rewatch The Social Network.

Cold Ways Kill Cool Lovers

I first came across Annie Clark, AKA St Vincent, over four years ago at a random gig on a crazy trip to San Francisco. I really enjoyed her voice and her lyrics but although someone gave me a copy of her debut album, I had sort of forgotten about her. 

As for The National, I discovered them via Radio Paradise, although assorted people, ranging from The Bro to my boss seem amazed that I have heard of them. Fake Empire and Slow Show are well within my top 100 most played iTunes songs and, unusually for me, I often listen to both Boxer and High Violet as albums (I prefer the latter overall but the former has more stand-out songs).

You can imagine, then, how pleased I was to find a copy of a St Vincent–The National collaboration on one of Caitlyn's recent playlists. It's called Sleep All Summer and is, apparently, a cover of a Crooked Fingers song (not that I've heard of that band). I do love listening to Matt Berninger's deep, soulful tones, which are complemented very well by Clark's sound. And the lyrics are lovely if rather sad.

A Week Is a Long Time for a Third Assistant Director

I went to see My Week with Marilyn with E on Saturday, although the fact that I haven't blogged about it until now is probably indicative of my relative ambivalence towards the film. I had been looking forward to seeing it since it was suggested as a possible surprise film at the London Film Festival. Since then, however, I've made the mistake of reading and listening to too many reviews of it, most of which describe it as fun and frothy but overly ambitious. This seems fair to me, although as these reviews lowered my expectations, they may well have reduced my enjoyment as well.

As the film opens, it is 1956 and, we are told by the title cards, Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams) is at the peak of her career. The ink still damp on the certificate for her marriage to Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott), she is all set to come to England to film The Prince and the Showgirl, directed by and starring the imposing Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh); Marilyn's role was portrayed on stage by Olivier's then wife, Vivien Leigh (Julia Ormond), but Viv was deemed too old to play the eponymous showgirl on camera.

Meanwhile, in a castle/posh estate somewhere in the English countryside, Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne) is lamenting his fate as his family's 'spare' rather than its 'heir.' But this status does mean that his family can humour Colin's desire to work in the movie business and they help to put him in touch with Olivier's production company. Through sheer persistence and some quick thinking, Clark manages to talk his way into the role of third assistant director on TPATS; task one: find a big house near the studios for Marilyn and her entourage (including her acting coach Paula (a very funny Zoë Wanamaker) and her manager Milton (Dominic Cooper, whose Noo Yawk accent could have been better)) to inhabit during filming.

Clark is terribly excited driving into the set on his first day, loves every bit of his job and promptly starts seeing the wardrobe assistant Lucy (Emma Watson). But the rest of the crew despair Marilyn's inability to: a) turn up to the set on time, b) learn her lines, and c) show suitable respect to her eminent co-cast members like Dame Sibyl (Dame Judi — a casting that wouldn't be out of place in a Private Eye parody). 

She does rather take a shine to young Colin, however, and before long, he's standing up Lucy and sneaking out with Marilyn to show her his old school (Eton, natch) and his godfather's place of employment (the library at Windsor Castle), and to go skinny dipping in the Thames. He soon realises just how troubled the actress is, even if he is rather flattered to know that he is the only person on set who can encourage Marilyn to do her job — and show up on time.

Perhaps fortunately, the film doesn't focus too much on Marilyn's problems, focusing instead on the fun and frolics of the film set and the unlikeliness of a young, green 'second son' becoming her closest confidant for one week only. Williams looked stunning and her performance was solid (she seemed to be channelling Jen Lindley in the Dawson's Creek finale). Redmayne was also charming as the eager beaver Clark (I first saw him playing Jack in Pillars of the Earth and he'll soon be in an adaptation of Birdsong, and E and I were worried that he was way too young for us but apparently, he's nearly 30). 

Their friendship (or romance, or whatever it was) was convincing and they had good chemistry. MWWM is also a nice film for would-be film buffs like me — it's always fun to see what might have been going on behind the scenes in movies like TPATS. Many cast-members are, of course, somewhat underused but that's OK.

My most important question is: how do I get to become the third assistant director on Clive Owen's next film?

Truly Blue

When it comes to movies, I don't tend to watch a lot of comedies but even so, Terence Davies' The Deep Blue Sea is seriously bleak, with only the slightest glimmer of hope at the end of 100 minutes of despair. 

As the film opens, it is London in the early 1950s and Hester (Rachel Weisz) is composing a suicide note. Apart from Hester reading the note aloud, we don't get any dialogue for a good five or ten minutes. Instead, we see Hester turning on the gas and lying down, slowly shutting her eyes. She is "saved", in the end, by her landlady and one of the other tenants but as they warily leave her alone, she starts to reflect on some of the events of the previous few years.

Her husband William (Simon Russell Beale), a successful judge, cares for her deeply but their life lacks passion and they disagree over the importance of this. "Beware of passion, Hester," William's humourless mother tells her, "it always leads to something ugly." But Hester just runs upstairs and makes a call to her RAF pilot lover Freddie (Tom Hiddleston) and tells him she will be, "back in the city soon, darling." Of course, William overhears and wants to know who else she calls darling and when he finds out, he refuses to give her a divorce and tells her he doesn't want to see her ever again.

In most other films of this ilk, you would expect to see a decent chunk of the film showing Hester and Freddie being happy together but in The Deep Blue Sea we get about 90 seconds in a pub in Oxford, most of which is taken up with Freddie and his friend Jack (Harry Hadden-Paton) doing comic interpretations of their glory days in the war. 

Instead, from Hester's flashbacks and from the 24 hours that follow her suicide attempt, we see that although Freddie is the love of her life, she may not, perhaps, be his as he proves unreliable, forgetting her birthday, and is prone to loud, furious rages in inappropriate situations. 

In the present day, William, caring as ever, finds out about the suicide attempt, and tries to be helpful, offering to give Hester the divorce and begging her to come home. She is caught between the devil and the eponymous deep blue sea. It is only later that she realises that the way she feels about William, is probably the way Freddie feels about her (minus the sex and passion and all that).

So, not one for a grand happy ending then. The performances of the three lead actors are all very strong, Weisz's sad voice catching in almost every line she speaks, conveying Hester's desire and desperate need for more than just a platonic love and her despair at her impossible position. Russell Beale's William is very sympathetic, while Hiddleston is, by turns, charming and funny and then cruel, thoughtless and insensitive. 

The film itself seems to alternate between a somewhat melodramatic Brief Encounter (complete with haunting strings music (Samuel Barber's Violin Concerto, I think)) and a very quiet, serious stage play (with no music and no background noise). To paraphrase Brief Encounter, The Deep Blue Sea wasn't a very happy movie but it was well executed and with very good acting.

Is It a Bird?

After aeons of construction, King's Cross, where I work, is finally starting to get a little bit more interesting. First, came the art students from Central St Martins. Then, came eat.st, N1's (small) answer to Exmouth Market, with a selection of different food stalls every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. The Red Herring Smokehouse's bacon sarnies and Homeslice's pizzas have been my favourites so far.

Then last week, a giant birdcage appeared. This is art, apparently — the Identified Flying Object, more specifically — and eventually, the cage will have a swing inside and will, once a month, be lit up and suspended from a crane. And yes, the artist is French (a nicer sight for French visitors entering St Pancras than the smug Olympic rings, I suppose!).

Inevitably, I had to take advantage of the birdcage with a few leaps, some of which look like some seriously advanced pole-dancing. The other advantage of having the art students around is that you're never going to be the weirdest person on eat.st...

Coming Back to Haunt You

A few busy weekends in a row have meant that I'm behind on movies at the moment, as well as blog posts. I did get the chance to see The Awakening this afternoon, in the poky little room upstairs at the Mayfair Curzon (the one that makes you feel like you're in the private screening room of one of the area's mansions). This turned out to be quite atmospheric because as well as the main door to the screen, there is a little staff-only back door and throughout the movie, there were little noises and voices filtering through.

I thought about seeing The Awakening at the London Film Festival because a) I like a good scary movie and b) with Mad Men still not back on TV, six episodes of Dominic West in The Hour wasn't quite enough of a Don Draper substitute for me. Rebecca Hall stars as Florence Cathcart, who is a kind of 1920s, female Jonathan Creek. 

After debunking a seance séance at the start of the film, she returns home to find Robert Mallory (West), a teacher at a northern boarding school, waiting for her. He has been sent to persuade her to come to investigate the recent death of a young boy at the school and to banish the ghost everyone thinks was responsible (supposedly another young boy, who died a few years earlier when the school was still a private house). Mallory himself remains skeptical of Florence's skepticism and it is clear that they both have troubled pasts.

Reluctantly, Florence agrees and off they yomp to Cumbria, where she whips out her ghost-busting equipment. The boys are a little reticent about her presence but at least matron (Imelda Staunton), is glad Florence is there—she keeps a copy of Florence's book next to her Bible, she says. After a few days, Florence thinks she has solved the mystery, identifying the real 'ghost' and explaining the circumstances surrounding the boy's death. But as half-term arrives and most of the boys return to their homes, the spooky happenings continue, pushing Florence to question whether her rigid, rational world-view is in fact valid. Meanwhile, she must fight demons from her own past and deal with her growing feelings for Mallory.

With strong performances from the three leads and a strong sense of unease and tension throughout, I thought The Awakening worked well as a fairly straightforward ghost story. There is a big twist, which I half-anticipated (although I thought it was going to go in a different direction), and I think it worked well enough. Daniel Pemberton's score was also suitably haunting. A good film to see on a cold night, before hurrying home to warm up and unwind in front of a fireplace!