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.
The House of the Seven Gables
(by Nathaniel Hawthorne)
As ghastly, creaky, redundant and tedious as the accursed House of the Seven Gables itself, this classic Hawthorne is still worth reading for the atmospheric, overboiled thrills and Hawthorne’s unfailing psychological perceptions. Old Clifford, a crazed cross between Boo Radley and Dr Manette, is released from prison at just the juncture when his sister, the frowning and gaunt (she is an old SPINSTER) Hepzibah sets up shop after much deliberation and the delightful, fresh (she is a young MAIDEN) Phoebe arrives unheralded. These three share the House of the Seven Gables, ancient and gloomy home of the Pyncheons, built on stolen land, with a radical young daguerreotypist who has a secret of his own (no spoiler there). There are bloody deaths, an exhilarating train ride, cute urchins, weird chickens, meditations on time, convenient coincidences and restless ghosts aplenty in this southern gothic edifice.
Continue Reading →All the President’s Men
(Dir. Alan J Pakula) (1976)
Paranoia sometimes reflects the truth. The White House was obviously paranoid about everyone; the FBI was paranoid about the White House, and Carl Bernstein was paranoid about the New York Times. Lots of shoe leather gets worn out in this film and lots of dead ends and bum steers and waiting in dark parking stations finally pay off for Woodward & Bernstein of the Washington Post, in the scoop of the century.
‘I can’t think with your stereo on 11…’
Redford, Hoffman, Robards, et al are superb and whilst the facts get a bit lost in the shuffle, the essential thrust of courageous persistence for the truth comes through. Nixon is a genuine tragic figure in that he was brought down by the acts of underlings that today would be managed by a statement of regret at a presser, coupled with a distracting good news story unveiled at the same time. Modern politicians learned from Watergate, and not all of the lessons were salutary.
(‘Is this an FBI car park?’)
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Goodfellas
(Dir. Martin Scorsese) (1990)
Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) – by Irish Dad out of Sicilian Mom – doesn’t get school at all. He’d rather hang around and run errands for the local gonifs. And for about 30 years, it pays, but all bad things must come to an end.
Probably Marty’s best film, a generational gangster saga both comedic and dramatic. Full of rich characterisation and smart, funny performances, authentic violence, amoral fun, and brilliantly directed.
“I settle down with a nice girl almost every night, Ma.”
There are many truly inspired set pieces, such as the long tracking shot where Henry takes his girl Karen to a nightclub via the tradesman’s entrance; the bar-room ‘argument’ between psychotic Tommy (Joe Pesci) and a made guy; or the sequence (to the sound of Layla) where Jimmy Conway’s (Robert De Niro) accomplices turn up all over town (in serious but not urgent need of medical attention).
There’s wonderful use of music to convey the passing years and a remarkably intimate and believable snapshot into the underworld. Long, yes; overlong, arguably, but TVC wasn’t bored at all. We were too busy remembering the two golden rules: “Never rat on your friends, and always keep your mouth shut.”
Continue Reading →The Earl of Leicester Hotel
85 Leicester Street, Parkside, South Australia
Confession. We at TVC frequent The Leicester. We know the Liar’s bar, the Liar’s Restaurant (complete with witness box), very, very well. There is also a cozy bistro and the pokies lounge . Monica and Ian (the hard-working publicans) & Co. greet us with their friendly, witty, knowing, slightly sardonic manner. You know they’ve seen it all, including a shotgun hold-up and patrons who have completed the Beer Challenge 10 times. But it is invariably a welcoming and refreshing haven.
The famous, enormous ‘schnitties’ (Will you have yours with avocado and cheese? Or with bulls’ balls [sorry]?) – are, oddly, not available in the restaurant – but the restaurant is top notch and we don’t have any other quibbles. Perhaps our favourite dessert (chocolate peanuts, yes that’s right, chocolate peanuts) should be available at all times and perhaps the whole place is a little shabby, but that’s all part of the wonderful weirdness.
A refurbishment might mean that the Leicester would lose its pre-Photoshop collages of famous liars, weekly horoscope updates, Moe the Travelling Duck, Kingstonian the plastic horse who presides over a weekly meeting of the Liars’ Club, and the life-sized bull standing on his hind legs. That would be a tragedy. There’s nothing tragic here, just a tucked-away hostelry that’s cool in summer, warm in winter, and glowing all year round.
Continue Reading →
Good Night, and Good Luck.
(Dir. George Clooney) (2005)
Senator Joseph McCarthy (1908 – 1957) knew he was on a winner, in the early 1950s. There was a cold war on. There were active attempts to infiltrate American government and security services by Soviet agents and fifth columnists. The only thing is, the junior Senator from Wisconsin couldn’t prove any of it, but he carried on as if he could, and would.
McCarthy gives one of his more credible performances
A real problem was therefore lost in the fog of McCarthy’s bombast, bluster, dreamed-up lists of traitors, Senatorial kangaroo courts, and perversion of natural justice and the Constitution. Eventually, he was ‘censured’ (or something) by his abashed colleagues, shunned and consigned to obscurity, drinking himself to an early death.
This slight but watchable piece takes a very thin slice of the saga, the stoush between McCarthy and the CBS news show, headed by Edward M. Murrow, over the Senator’s questionable jurisprudence (e.g. the presumption of guilt, the compulsion to testify, the lack of particularized charges, the abject lies).
‘Happy Hanukkah’
McCarthy plays himself in archival footage, and seems an anachronism, compared to everyone in the newsroom, all very suave and hip, joking in an Ocean’s Eleven manner, and smoking like Beijing chimneys. Clooney plays a pretty bland and goyish producer, Fred Friendly. David Strathairn is fine as Murrow, but he is reduced to speech-making throughout. Frank Langella plays his usual Dracula role, this time without the fangs. In fact, and perhaps inevitably, due to the confined scope of the film, the whole shebang runs along like a tract. Reminders of the freedom of speech never go amiss, but next time George, could you enhance the civics talk with a bit of a story?
We except Ray Wise as CBS newsreader Don Hollenbeck, separated from his family and under a barrage of attacks over his perceived left-wing bias. Wise brilliantly conveys the visceral fear, anger, isolation and despair of a man on the edge. It is a remarkable performance which lifts the film during, and beyond, his brief appearances.
Continue Reading →Winter is Coming
(Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped) (by Garry Kasparov)
When the Soviet Union finally bit the dust, and the new Russia elected itself a vodka-swilling party animal (Boris Yeltsin) as President, who could have foreseen that a mere few years later, an obscure KGB Lieutenant, a colourless unknown, would assume power, and rise to the status of absolute dictator after the style of that chap Hitler?
Well this fellow, Garry Kasparov, did. He has suffered for it, certainly, but in the face of ignorance, cowardice and corruption, he is a valuable Cassandra to remind us what President Vladimir Putin is up to.
Kasparov, the world number one chess player for 20 years, lives in New York (where hopefully he has a lot of light on him, reducing his chances of bumping into a poisoned umbrella, sipping tea laced with polonium or finding himself locked in a suitcase). It would be safe to say he votes Republican (he’s an unreconstructed Reagan fan) yet he excoriates democratically (Bush and Obama both get short shrift).
The book is a polemic, essentially, but so debased is the West’s understanding of the new strategic paradigm, a necessary one.
Kasparov writes with the precision, clarity and conviction of someone who knows his mind and his quarry. Some quotes suffice to see the sense on show here:
“In 1987, Gorbachev said he wanted to build …”socialism with a human face”, to which I responded that Frankenstein’s monster also had a human face. Communism goes against human nature and can only be sustained by totalitarian repression.”
Russia’s “pseudo-democracy…includes elections with predetermined outcomes and every television channel with a slightly different position on how very well Putin is handling everything.”
“…whether they admit to it or not, half of the nations in the Middle East have rejected a push for nuclear weapons to match Israel’s because of America’s long shadow. It is difficult to see that restraint lasting very long if President Obama continues to meet Russian military aggression with weak sanctions, worthless negotiations, and expressions of deep concern.”
“On Iran, on Syria, and then again in Ukraine, Obama outsourced his foreign policy to Putin and, by so doing, he crippled the power of the office he holds in ways that will outlast his White House tenure for years.”
“War comes from weakness, not strength.”
by Paul Bodifee
Continue Reading →
Guillaume
Paddington, Sydney, January 2016
On a blustery evening when the Sydney streets had been washed as clean as the new year, TVC joined the well-heeled (and well-jacketed, well-hand-bagged, well-skirted and well-suited) at Guillaume in Darcy’s Building, This smart three-storey-terrace is set, rather incongruously, in an otherwise ordinary (if up-market) suburban street.
Slightly odd too, is sitting in the elegant revamp of what feels as if it had once been someone’s living room. Slightly too minimalist for TVC but – hold the presses! this means that the tables are acres apart and it is all lovely and quiet. This is not a place for shrieking children, scraping shoes or shouting over one another.
Although TVC chose á la carte over degustation, choice is still a little limited in that the diner has all 4 courses (with a choice between 4 dishes in each course). But it is not such a hardship. The food is superb, Frenchified, delicate yet satisfying. For us, the highlights were the savoury custard amuse bouche, the sashimi seafood with peach, the best pork belly, and the strawberry dessert.
The staff are all impossibly European, as polished as the décor, and excel in that mix of friendliness without servility or pushiness which is found only in top-notch European-influenced Australian restaurants (Vue de Monde, Pendolino, Magill Estate – that is, Magill Estate proper, not the more down-market Kitchen).
And you leave Guillaume with brioche and jam so that you can (sort-of) relive the experience at breakfast tomorrow in your cluttered, noisy hotel room or shambles of a home.
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 is disappointingly glossed over), the Cock Lane ghost and so on. I had hoped to learn more of the scientific theories of what ghosts are, or why we see them. The book starts well with a taxonomy of ghosts and is at its best when touching on ghost-explaining theories including ESP, quantum entanglement (utterly incomprehensible), cytoskeletal shadows and electrical forces. (interestingly enough, no “I see dead people” stuff here). Intriguing questions are asked – why do ghosts wear clothing? (This is answered by the ghost who told Lord Auerbach that she was “‘ a ball of energy’ without form projecting her appearance onto the minds of those looking at her”.). I was surprised to learn that ghosts used to be. seen at least as often in the day as at night, and once upon a time the ghost you saw was unlikely to be someone known to you . It is also of use to know that ghosts could be trying to communicate with you via your computer spellchecker (must be intolerant American ghosts then). Overall, a book which enthusiasts and adolescents will marvel at, but not the rest of us.
*On this disturbing tale of social media memes before social media, TVC recommends the excellent, “The Angel of Mons” by David Clarke.
“Ghosts on a Tree” by Franz Sedlacek (1933)
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 Ruben Guthrie, our endearing but frivolous alcoholic advertising exec (really?) has a fling with the endearing (but not model-material) addict he meets at an addiction group.
So far, so predictable, and dull. But the film lifts several levels when Alex Dimitriades’ character (the somewhat satanic Damian) enters. Ruben Guthrie’s parents (Jack Thompson and Robyn Nevin) take on a rather sinster demeanour as enablers and deniers, and Ruben Guthrie’s otherwise easy ride though the early experimental days of sobriety becomes more like dragging himself through thick mud. The ending is great. Just great. See “Flight” and “The Lost Weekend” first though.
All About Eve
(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.
“Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”
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 two performances that vindicate film in general: Bette Davis as the star descending, and George Sanders as DeWitt, self-described as “an improbable person…[with] contempt for humanity and inability to love and be loved, insatiable ambition, and talent.”
“You’re too short for that gesture.”
