The Varnished Culture's Thumbnail Reviews
Regularly added bite-sized reviews about Literature, Art, Music & Film.
Voltaire said the secret of being boring is to say everything.
We do not wish to say everything or see everything; life, though long is too short for that.
We hope you take these little syntheses in the spirit of shared enthusiasm.
Sixty Stories
(Donald Barthelme) (stories 1964 – c. 1980)
A big anthology was always going to be a publishing challenge for a master miniaturist. The longer pieces here feel forced, repetitive (without consolatory cadence), smacking of desperation and Rushdie-like lists. When Barthelme works out an angle and sticks to it, he can be very good. His famous hit, ‘The School’, is hilarious. He is also menacingly funny where the violence is barely suppressed: in ‘Game’, two men are going berserk while stationed at a missile silo; there’s a kind of Straw Dogs meets Sleepers scenario in ‘For I’m the Boy’; in ‘On Angels’ the death of god requires a new paradigm; ‘The Phantom of the Opera’s Friend’ mirrors his disturbed buddy’s dilemma; there is healthy hostility as a man puts his girlfriend’s analyst straight in ‘The Sandman’.
His long, didactic pieces pall, though and even then, some lovely phrases shine through the murk: “Dun-colored fathers tend to shy at obstacles, and therefore you do not want a father of this color, because life, in one sense, is nothing but obstacles, and his continual shying will reduce your nerves to grease.” (‘A manual for Sons’). Lots of drinking and John Cheever- ill will predominate, quite richly for the patient reader, “slumped there in your favorite chair, with your nine drinks lined up on the side table in soldierly array…”
Bicycle Thieves
(Dir. Vittorio De Sica) (1948)
To glue posters to walls around ration-bound post-war Rome, a man needs a bike. When that bike, obtained with pawnbroker money, is stolen, the man is driven to desperate measures. A simple lesson in how adverse circumstances can break anyone, filmed and played naturally and without sentimentality. A classic.
Love Serenade
(Dir. Shirley Barrett) (1996)
There is simply something fundamentally wrong with Dimity and Vicki-Ann, lonely-heart sisters in Sunray, Queensland, back of nowhere. Why the wheelchair? Why the obsession with lounge lizard Ken Sherry? Why are they so obviously mad as hatters? Why does Sherry eat no fish yet has a giant marlin mounted on the wall? Why all the casseroles left on his doorstep? Why did he leave big time radio and TV in Brisbane? Why does he quote “Desiderata” (with due respect to Max Ehrmann, the most pretentious farrago ever twaddled)? Are there killer fish or black holes in the river? And why has Chinese restauranteur Albert come to embrace nudism?
These and many other questions are not properly answered in the best Australian comedy film ever. All comedy is black (as the saying goes) but for it to work somehow, you need actors to follow their mad, daring instincts and a director to give them the lead. Miranda Otto (Dimity), Rebecca Frith (Vicki-Ann), George Shevtsov (Ken Sherry) and John Alansu (Albert) are perfect, as is this film. It ‘caught us on the hop.’
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Becket
(Dir. Peter Glenville) (1964)
Henry II raises his Saxon friend to Archbishop against his friend’s very advice and then asks: who will rid me of him? Adapted from the Anouilh play, this is terrific, brilliantly shot and souped-up by Richard Burton as Becket and Peter O’Toole as the King. Burton captures the saint’s worldliness and stoic integrity that seduced and then baffled his monarch; O’Toole makes Henry authentic, likeable yet murderous.
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The Apartment
(Dir. Billy Wilder) (1960)
David Shipman (“The Great Movie Stars” 1982) wrote the best thumbnail review for this: “bitter-sweet, tragical-comical, sordid and sad”. Jack Lemmon gives an immortal performance as the heel who finds his spine in the last reel, an insurance schmuck who lets superiors use his handily located apartment for sexual rendezvous, till he falls in love with Big Boss Fred MacMurray’s latest conquest.
Only when midnight chimes on New Year’s Eve does she realize she loves him back. Features great, authentic playing by MacMurray as the ogre (Mr Sheldrake), a lovely turn by Shirley MacLaine as the depressed gamine, Lemmon’s charming work, great support roles and the scariest champagne cork-popping moment in film*. “That’s the way it crumbles, cookie-wise.”
“Shut up and deal.”
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Twelfth Night
TVC saw a theatrical reading of the Bard’s best comedy on a blustery summer evening in Victoria Square, the Square expensively revamped with little evidence of revamp. Yet kudos to the Council for the initiative of returning some varnished culture to the city’s jaded heart. Twelfth Night, produced by Holly Myers (also an excellent Viola), was played as Harold Bloom prescribed – “at the frenetic tempo that befits this company of zanies and antics.” Unlike much of the cast’s aspect in Trevor Nunn’s (1996) sombre film, here the roles were properly mined for laughs.
La Tombola
This inner suburb Italian restaurant is an Adelaide institution and its Majordomo, Tony, clearly loves his work. He has a great staff and kitchen but he personally ensures it always runs true. TVC in particular recommends the formaggio soufflé.
Continue Reading →Captain Cook’s Voyages 1768-1779
Stirring accounts of Cook’s scissoring across the world in leaky boats, to places often unexplored, from South America, Africa, South East Asia, the Bering Sea & Strait and all over the Pacific.
The Journal, 1768-71 (c/- Australian National Library)
This book is based on Cook’s journals and reports to Admiralty, selected by Glyndwr Williams for the Folio edition (1997).
Cook was one of a handful of giants in exploration when about a third of the world was unknown. By the time he was lethally sandwiched by natives in Hawaii, he had become famous in his homeland and well known to much of the rest of the world.
Death of Cook, by George Carter
This acclaim was appreciated by TVC when we dropped in on his cottage, built in Yorkshire (1855) and transported to the Fitzroy Gardens in Melbourne, stone by stone and reassembled in 1934.
TVC is still endeavouring to know what to make of this oversized, Jeff-Koons-style figure of the Capn., spotted recently at NSW Art Gallery
Bistro Vue
Wouldn’t it be nice, if like a girl who comes out of her emo stage and puts on a pink dress, Australian restaurants decided that now it is ok, in fact perhaps even desirable, to look pretty. Bistro Vue in Little Collins Street, Melbourne understands that it is ok and its eclectic, Frenchy, art nouveau style quite warmed the cockles of TVC‘s heart – starved as we are for carpet, flowers and colour.
L regretted not choosing the snails when the neighbour’s molluscs, little balls in pastry, were served. P’s onion soup was almost as good as his version, but he declared his confit duck perhaps the best he has ever eaten. L and Close Relative N found their beef braise and seafood pasta respectively a little too salty but otherwise excellent. Service is brisk and courteous. Best of all, it all looks so purty.
When you win at the races, go Vue de Monde! When in Melbourne Bistro Vue will do!
Stokehouse
Melbourne, December 2014
What is a stokehouse? We came across this sister to the restaurant with the same name in Brisbane when dragging ourselves through the Melbourne alleys, too weak from fatigue and hunger to care. We never did find out, but it doesn’t matter. We spurned the packed, noisy bar for the upstairs restaurant which happened to be as packed and noisy but also light and airy. Virtually the only decorations are large chandeliers wrapped in string nets which we eventually decided we liked.
I had to try the peach gazpacho. It was disappointingly sans peach as far as I could tell and rather ordinary. P’s venison carpaccio was top notch. We both had the pumpkin, sage and amaretti ravioli which was already sweet without the addition of PX sherry. A shame. We saw our bearded, gentle waiter later sitting at a busstop looking disconsolate. Cheer up! Despite some quibbles, we found Stokehouse to be an impressive, lively place for lunch and we at least left feeling much better.
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