3 Golden Globe 2016 Questions
The Golden Globe spider predicts...weird self-aggrandisement and bad dresses
QUESTION 1 How did Julianne Moore, who excels in dag…. …get it so right? QUESTION 2 How many canaries died to dress Jennifer Lopez? ..and does Angelina want her leg back? Although those shoes are worth showing off. QUESTION 3. Why does Sylvester Stallone look so much like Dean Martin these days? Answers awaited!
Continue Reading →The Natural History of Ghosts
The Natural History of Ghosts: 500 Years of Hunting for Proof (Roger Clarke) The Sunday Times review grab on the cover tells us that this book is “beautifully written, lithe, complicated and hugely rewarding”. “Beautifully written”. Two words that send a shiver down the spine. “Lithe, complicated and hugely rewarding”. Promises, promises. Unfortunately, the book is lithe and complicated in that there is no readily discernible structure to the context. “A Natural History” will only be hugely rewarding to those who wish to read or reread a telling of famous ghost stories – The Angel Warriors of Mons*, the Bell Witch case (although this one…
Continue Reading →Ruben Guthrie
(Written & Dir. by Brendan Cowell) (2015) One gets the strong feeling that the writer and director thought of the name “Ruben Guthrie” first and couldn’t or wouldn’t let it go. The eponymous main character (played well by Patrick Brammall) is called by his full name more often than not in the short, slight 93 minutes of this first, clearly somewhat autobiographical, feature by Cowell. At first Ruben Guthrie suffers badly from the same problem as does Fury Road – male protagonist has model girlfriend. All she has to offer is looks. Insulting and annoying to this audience anyway. Naturally…
Continue Reading →All About Eve
"Too bad, we're gonna miss the third act. They're going to play it off stage."
(Written & Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz) (1950) This curlicued lass, Eve (Anne Baxter) shows her pathological ambition to act from a mile away, but the Theatre Folk are too wrapped-up in themselves to notice. Margot (Bette Davis) notices all right, but too late. Addison DeWitt gets it immediately though; he’s a critic after The Varnished Culture’s heart (soft-hearted though he is), and he is prepared to help the fledgling, albeit at a very high ticket price. This is the granddaddy of bitchy theatre films, a wall of highly-strung wit that both diminishes a film like Birdman yet makes that inferior piece possible. It features…
Continue Reading →Inherit the Wind
Proverbs, 11:29 – “He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind: and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart.” ——- I watched this Stanley Kramer bag-of-wind With that pair of plump boiled hams, Tracy and March, In a hot and dusty courtroom, having a fine old time Debating whether a schoolteacher had sinned. Kids bit into the apple when their brains began to parch So he taught them evolution was no crime. Tracy, playing Darrow, fought the case upon the law, In other words he posed as legislator. But the facts were dead against him, so,…
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