Dermot: Entertainment

Who Do You Think You Are? Jerry Springer BBC1 and iPlayer

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 10:41:34 GMT

This hit (Patsy Kensit/ Bill Oddie) and miss (Jeremy Clarkson/ Boris Johnson) show last night produced one of those Must See TV hours that only the good old BBC can produce, when Jerry Springer traced his family roots back only two generations to the Holocaust, which claimed the lives of his grand parents and a large number of close relations.

I confess to a certain amount of snob base prejudiced ignorance regarding Springer and his lamentable genre of trailer trash exploiting telly, but a recent appearance on Question Time unveiled a thoughtful, liberally minded and erudite communicator so the aarrgh factor was somewhat negated, and by the end I had an admiration for the man, which makes his career moves seem all the more baffling.

This appalling story of random cruelty and twists of fate put me in mind of my experiences with two Holocaust survivors, Paul and Joe who came to work with the kids when I worked at RMS.

You might wonder about all this but I passionately believe the only way we can make kids aware of what went on is by getting them to hear it first hand. I could rattle on endlessly (and frequently did) about all these issues but to hear it first hand is unbeatable and I'm still so proud of what we did.

It was at the height of the Yugoslav Civil War and John Major's craven stand off approach, which allowed the genocide in Bosnia and the siege Of Sarajevo.

A medieval and disgraceful period in European History and Thank God the Blair and Clinton were prepared to come to the rescue of Kosovo when they had nothing to gain. They did it because it was right. Period.

This makes the Iraq thing even more confusing when you put in this context.

But the slaughter in Bosnia was result of the same processes that produced the unbelievable thing that was the cold blooded industrial murder of 6 million Jews and 2 million others such as disabled, gays, gypsies, Slavs and Jehovah's Witnesses.

Paul was a Trade Unionist and in 1990 he was awarded the OBE for services to his local community through his Union work. The local press did an interview and within five questions had told them he was a Holocaust Survivor.

One problem, his wife and kids had no idea so that night he told his story for the first time and it all went from there as he felt ready to go public and relate what happened so that no one could use the excuse that they didn't know.

As it happens this coincided with the release Of Schindler's List (Richard was coming out of the cinema, head bowed along with everyone else, shocked by what he had seen. Two girls were in front of him. One turns to the other; “What did you think”. “Hmmm.. OK but not as good as Mrs. Doubtfire!) and the growth of what some cynics call the Holocaust "Industry".

There is a school of (stupid) thought that says this interest in the Holocaust is encouraged by Jews in order to excuse the excesses of the Israeli Government in their brutal and inhumane treatment of the Palestinians.

Bollocks. I’m sure there are a few Jews who do this. But we have to disentangle attitudes to Israel from what happened in Europe.

Personally I think the foundation of a Jewish State in Palestine in the way it was handled was plain wrong.

You have to see it as a Euro/American Colony in the Middle East and take it from there.

The fact is that Israel exists and ain’t going away so we have to deal with that reality, BUT something MUST be done to stop the Israeli’s disgusting and humiliating treatment of the Arab people’s who are regarded as a conquered nation who are getting uppity and treated as such on an everyday level.

It goes without saying that terror and suicide bombings are equally evil acts and are in fact counter productive as they provoke greater repression and plays into the hands of the hardliners like Sharon and his successors.

But WHY are they happening?

Bugger reality ,it’s all about perception. The Palestinians have seen their country occupied by rich Euro/American people who have stripped them of nationhood and made them poor. And the State of Israel is in receipt of huge US subsidies and has armed itself to the teeth including Nuclear Weapons. So it’s no wonder that Israel is seen as a Bad Thing in the region.

There is a strong argument that the Jews who wield the power in Israel are suffering from a collective dose of Abused becomes Abuser.

Now I bet people like Nick Cohen would want to see me strung up as a Nazi sympathiser for saying this. In SOME Jewish people’s view you are automatically a Holocaust Denier if you air such views.

It is well recorded that kids from marriage splits are four times more likely to have a failed marriage, twice as likely to suffer domestic violence as adults (low self esteem being the main reason), have poorer educational outcomes, are more likely to “suffer” from dyslexia and AHDD and are three times more vulnerable to drug addiction.

Sad but true. Now take that and extrapolate it to the Jewish Experience.

Just go with me here. Such trauma has to affect the Collective Psyche of any group of people so the evil vested on them is now channelled towards the Palestinians and behind it all is “we were victims. It’s not fair”. So they lose the ability to empathise with the Palestinian people.

So the chain has to be broken somehow.

The Israelis have to stop seeing themselves as victims and reach out to the Palestinians from a position of self-confidence.

Rabin started this process by saying “We have nothing to fear or feel ashamed about” and he and Arafat brokered a way out. Until he was assassinated by a fellow Jew who said he had “sold out”. Then retreat back into “everyone hates us” territory by Sharon. Cue Intifada Two.

Paul told us of his experiences which saw him lose both his parents and all four of his grand parents. He was born in Germany in 1926 but fled to Holland when the Nazis came to power and ended up in the same class as Anne Frank.

His life followed hers in parallel until she died in Belsen and he survived.

What I found amazing was that a small old guy with a weedy Brummie accent could hold 240 16 year olds rapt attention for two hours.

It was incredible and powerful. He broke down when describing his mother’s last hours in Belsen but they went with him. But not in a mawkish way. You often find with teenage girls that they enjoy it if something like a car crash happens and they spend ages crying even if the had no connection with the person. Hormones I suppose. Or just immaturity. There wasn’t any of that and when I encouraged them to write about it, the analysis was spot on.

Paul is an old fashioned Socialist and he described in class as well as racial terms. And he made direct parallels with Rwanda and Bosnia so it wasn’t seen in isolation.

Joe Pearl. What a guy. I met him at a book launch by Terry Waite for the new Anne Frank Diary in 1995. I asked him if he knew Paul. “Lightweight! He was only in Westerbork and Belsen. Holiday Camps!”

I discovered there is a distinct hierarchy of Holocaust seniority and if you weren’t in an Extermination Camp such as Auschwitz then you had an easy war. He meant it as well.

Joe came to RMS in 1996 and his talk was the most harrowing thing I’ve ever heard…all told in a matter of fact cockney way.

He was with his family and forced to dig a trench in a forest. The Germans went along the line. A bullet in the back of the head and into the trench.

He watched this happen to his three sisters and his Mum. Just as they got to his brother all hell broke loose, as there was an air raid. He legged it into the forest with his brother. They went to a farmhouse but heard the guy alerting the authorities so had to run off again.

They were lucky to meet up with the Resistance who tried to help them but in the end they walked at night across Europe and eventually ended up being caught and put into the Camp run by Goethe of Schindler’s List infamy (Ralph Fiennes played him).

Joe has a scar on his face as he was slashed across the face by the Commandant for not throwing himself on the floor in supplication. He would have been shot but the gun jammed.

Then Auschwitz. Hideous.

I can’t get my head around how people can behave in such a depraved way. Just the casual nature of the violence. Doing it for kicks.

Joe escaped when Auschwitz was evacuated by the Germans in December 1944 and lived rough until they made contact with the Americans in Austria.

He discovered his eldest brother had survived and was living in Russia in 1990.

What I find unreal is how he could switch off from this and lead a normal life and raise successful kids.

It was the same for the Nazis. Eichmann (if you do spell check it comes up with henchmen weird eh?) lived a normal life as an office clerk and his colleagues were absolutely flabbergasted when Mossad caught up with him and his past as the architect of the Final Solution came out.

They simply couldn’t believe it. He was deferential to the bosses, mild mannered, didn’t dominate in social events so how could he be one of the most powerful Nazis, part of the inner circle?

This is the sociopathic behaviour demonstrated in the Sopranos and in the real world by the Sinn Fein/IRA.

You dehumanise your opponents so you can’t empathise with their suffering.

Pierrepoint (2006) Dir Adrian Shergold ITV1

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 22:28:37 GMT

The Internet Movie Data Base is a fantastic resource for researching, commenting on and reading about film and TV, especially when you get the dreaded “What were they in?” moment.

Easily solved by this superb website which exhibits the internet at it’s best.

There is however, a major error when you look up the fantastic Adrian Shergold film “Pierrepoint”, as the writing credits go to the poor mans Danny Baker, Bob Mills, famous in the 90’s for his “hilarious” David Seaman’s Football Bloopers, and even worse, Phil Tuffnell’s Cricket Nightmares. Just horrible.

But it’s true. Counter checking proved that the Lard Man so called Comic, was indeed responsible for the brilliant, understated and chilling script, so sensitively played by Timothy Spall and Juliet Stevenson, two better performances you will be hard pressed to find on TV this year. Yes. It’s ITV. Suprising but that’s life.

Pierrepoint was the most prolific hangman of the 20^th Century, notching up 608 executions between 1933 and the mid 50’s when, racked with doubt, and having been turned from popular hero executing 47 Nazis, to hate figure of the Abolitionists who were beginning to take the ascendancy in the wake of the Ruth Ellis and Timothy Evans cases, he decided to retire.

Both cases were notorious, Evans a clear cut miscarriage of justice and Ellis shown no mercy by a barbaric and inhumane system. Add in the unbelievable execution of the mentally incompetent Derek Bentley, (Let Him Have It is one of the best British Films of the 90’s) meant that the groundswell for abolition became a tide and in 1965 Capital Punishment was suspended for a five year period, and once the evidence showed it’s futility Parliament voted for permanent abolition in 1970.

This film is not, however about the Capital Punishment as an issue in which the makers want us to take sides, more about Pierrepoint’s struggles with himself.

Delivering groceries, being a pub comic and eventual ebullient mien host in his own hostelry on the one hand, to developing into Britain’s number one hangman due to the efficiency and humanity in which he was able to dispatch his victims.

He took pride in the speed that he was able to execute people due to his fastidious study of the practice and although able to detach himself from the victim, he showed compassion by executing the youngest woman first in the Nazi series as “she will be most frightened”.

Indeed he was incensed when they were a coffin short after one day of dispatching organisers of Belsen, being told to “dump it in with the others”, that he threatened to walk of the job.

“They’ve paid the price and the slate is clean”, was his motto as he prepared the bodies for burial with the utmost dignity and respect bringing humanity to a grisly process.

And it was his inherent humanity that caused Pierrepoint to question what he was doing when a particularly personally harrowing execution is performed.

I have to admit I’m sceptical about this particular incidents reality as it seems far too coincidental and contrived but it does give the writers the vehicle to develop the story as we see the hangman finally break, receiving no sympathy from his oddly cold wife (Juliet Stevenson), who seems more capable of denial than her husband.

I made a detailed study of the Holocaust when I worked at Robert May’s School, and talking to survivors it comes across that it is somehow easier for them to deal with the horrors than those who inflicted them, as for the Jews there was no choice, whereas the perpetrators were often racked with guilt and many committed suicide in the years following the war as there was some element of deciding whether to actively participate or to be a passive onlooker.

And I suppose the same is true for Pierrepoint, as he chose this trade and eventually playing the two parts became too much to bear. A stunning film and one that questions why we do what we do. This is a must see picture which for me, is right up there with the likes of The Shawshank Redemption in the existential stakes.

Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008) Dir Eric Brevig. Vue Cinema Hull

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 16:51:34 GMT

What if Jules Verne’s classic novel turned out to be true….

The 3D is the thing with this film. And it is mightily impressive, enhancing what is essentially a series of fantastic action sequences marred with cruddy dialogue and a creakingly predictable Uncle Bonding With Orphaned Teenage Nephew Whilst Getting The Girl Despite Being a Geek scenario.

3 D films used to be rubbish as witnessed by this correspondent in Belfast at a showing of one of the Freddie Kruger films in the ‘Eighties, but thanks to new, radical technology it becomes a real experience and is totally convincing as the viewer recoils or winces as appropriate.

I look forward to seeing a proper film such as Batman or Wanted in such a format assuming it’s possible to combine the 3D affect with CGI.

Batman: "The Dark Knight" (2008) Dir Christopher Nolan. Vue Cinema Hull

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 08:54:33 GMT

There has been a fair amount of hype surrounding Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker in this, Christopher Nolan’s second outing in the chair of the Batman franchise, but if there is a petition for Ledger to receive a posthumous Oscar then I will enthusiastically sign. The Australian’s performance takes Batman to a new, darker and existential level.

No mask or OTT stylism for Ledger’s creation. Just scruffy, caked, mouldy make up that emphasises a hideous scar and this portrayal is about as far as Jack Nicholson’s cartoon creation as you can get.

Christian Bale’s Batman has the right royal hump. Derided by some in Gotham City as a mere vigilante in comparison with squeaky clean DA Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), to add insult to injury the new city official is moving in on his girl, and when Dent declares war on the mob by indicting 526 suspects, the Joker is called in to restore the criminal balance.

This picture is totally different from the 1960’s Adam West creation and here Nolan has combined Satrean human condition analysis with stunning action sequences to produce the best film I have seen this year. My only concern is for a rather generous 12A certificate as there is some strongish violence and menacing themes. Allowing for the fact that you can assume kids two years younger get to see it, a 15 would have been more appropriate, as this is not a children’s film in the conventional superhero sense.

“I cannot exist without you”, the Joker tells Batman and therein lies the core question posed in this film. Can you have good without evil? Is this a necessary philosophical balance, and if you think about it Batman, and by extension all well-intentioned altruistic human actions are defined by in response to evil in the world.

Heavy duty stuff, and clocking in at 152 minutes this is a lengthy picture, but in no way as a viewer do you feel the film to lose momentum with every scene and piece of dialogue integral and the cast deliver a superb experience with Heath Ledger rightly garnering the major plaudits.

Killer of Sheep (1977) Dir Charles Burnett NFT. Mama Mia (2008) Dir Phlilydia Lloyd Wanted (2008) Dir Timur Bekmambetov Vue Cinema Hull

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:01:23 GMT

A Blue Collar black American’s life in ‘Seventies L.A…

Normally the above sentence would conclude with “is brought to life”. Not a chance here.

This was the most pointless film I have ever seen bar non, despite it being bigged up by a bloke from the BFI who introduced it as a defining moment in black, or indeed any genre of Cinema.

He was a black American, so maybe it did resonate with him but, typically the audience was made up almost entirely of earnest, well meaning, right on Guardian readers. Err… yes, people like me.

It’s a fine line between empathy for the plight of fellow humans and emotional tourism not followed up by actions, and I get the feeling that there are certain types of people who attend these sorts of things and actually are bored shitless, but when drinking the fair trade tea afterwards eulogise about what an “honest portrayal of life” we have just seen. A woman said this to me, but I was too polite to demure and admit the thing bored me to death, so much that I slept soundly for the final half hour.

The bloke went to work, hated it, shouted at his kids for not sticking up for each other in a fight, fiddled about with DIY on his kitchen floor, turned down a chance to earn a few bob as a get away driver, messed about with an engine and then dropped off the back of his pick up truck, was vaguely feeling maritally unfulfilled, and then went to bed.

Maybe Killer of Sheep was the first time black people had experienced being portrayed as ordinary and with the same problems as their white compatriots, but the speaker (not necessarily the director because I don’t know his motivations), failed to acknowledge, as many have done since and will continue to do, that Class is the issue and that Malcolm X was right on the money when he said, “You can’t have Capitalism without racism”.

The over the top praise for this film is patronising, and reminisent of the reception given to Richard's all time favourite film, Ten Canoes.

On a totally different note, Mama Mia is a total musical tour de force, and if Meryl Streep doesn’t get nominated for Best Female Actor at the Oscars, then I’m a monkey’s Uncle.

The cheese element is taken as read by the director and as a result the sets and costumes are nothing special, which only serves to enhance the songs and the story, and not cause unnecessary distraction from what is a joyous and tremendously fun film which I thought was just brilliant, positive escapism at it’s best.

Streep was simply sensational in the lead part, driving the whole film with the energy of a woman forty years her junior, and her singing was first class as was the whole cast’s with one notable exception.

Why was Julie Walters in this film? She was utterly pointless to the extent that it annoyed me, which was a shame given how surprisingly good Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stelan Starsgard were.

Abba were brilliant. Great pop numbers crafted with the skill of classical composers at work, and this story brought some of the best songs ever written to exuberant life.

Wanted is a fantastic action movie, which must be experienced in a digital HD cinema, as all that is good about CGI is present in this brilliantly paced, yet strangely existential film.

The dark themes of revenge, self-esteem and morality are here, but not in a preaching, dare I say stereotypical Hollywood way. The story is outlined and you can make your own mind up about how far you want to reflect on what is presented, the story being a revenge of the nerd type affair.

But Wanted’s main appeal is the unbelievably good action, and one of the best car chases committed to celluloid in these hi tech times.

James McAvoy has been mentioned as a possible successor to David Tennant in Doctor Who, but on this, and recent showings such as the Last King of Scotland, he is set for mega Hollywood stardom.

Adulthood (2008) Dir Noel Clarke. Vue Cinema Hull

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 15:56:28 GMT

Six years on and Sam (Noel Clarke) is released from gaol having been convicted for the manslaughter of a black contemporary at the end of this film's prequel, the impressive commentary on inner city London youth, 2005’s Kidulthood.

I was very enthused by the first pictures and felt that Clarke had made an important contribution to the debate about teenage, and particularly black male social exclusion, and illustrated the thesis, since validated by the Audit Office that the twin factors of socio economic status and whether your parents live together hinder and often destroy educational, and by extension life success.

But where Kidulthood was insightful, its bigger sibling was clichéd. Where Noel Clarke’s writing and direction were inspired, this film was laboured and where Kidulthood engaged the viewer in a roller coaster ride Adulthood was poorly paced and failed to draw me in for sustained periods.

Noel Clarke is a fine writer/actor/director but this film verged on self-indulgence, but given the woeful quality of the cast it’s perhaps unsurprising that he ended up carrying the thing almost single-handed.

His leading lady (Scarlett Alice Johnson) was wooden beyond belief, and her accent veered wildly between street patois and stage school cut glass Cheltenham Ladies College, in totally random ways.

One character was especially poor, and on scanning IMDB it transpires that Dabs was played by some wanna be gangsta rapper known as Plan B. He was absolutely hopeless and totally out of his depth.

Overall this film was a huge let down, with a weak story and a poor cast. Can anyone tell me what Danny Dyer’s cameo was all about? Pointless.

Clarke is a major talent, and lets hope this is his Shane Meadows equivalent of the total stinker that was Once Upon a Time in the Midlands.

Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanomo Bay (2008) Dir John Hurwitz Odeon, Hull

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:01:30 GMT

When Kumar chases his friend Harold out of the aeroplane loo brandishing a bong that looks suspiciously like a poison gas canister there is only really one way that things can go…

No stereotypes are left unchallenged in this riot of a movie, which is childish, gratuitous, crass, offensive and thus extremely funny. I haven’t laughed out loud at the cinema in absolutely ages.

The brilliant thing about this over the top and in places foul (Fed: “This is what you can do with the Bill of Rights”. Rubs. Kumar: “Urgh! Don’t you EVER wipe man!?) film is that it challenges our political and social expectations. No really.

There is no slack in this film. It is truly breakneck stuff and a testament to the brilliant screenplay that the time just flew by and you are completely engrossed (and grossed) for the whole of the picture, something often lacking in comedy.

Dumb and Dumber meets Midnight Express, with a dash of Fahrenheit 911 thrown in for good measure. A gem of a film.

We saw this at the Odeon mainly due to the idiotic show times for other films at the Vue. Either 6.30 (too early if you have kids) or 9.30 (too late if you have work in the morning.

Watching a film at the Odeon is like watching a portable in the corner if you have a wide screen telly, after going to Vue.

7.30, 8.00 and 8.30 please Mr. Vue Showing Times Organiser. Ta.

BBC Radio Humberside Late Show. Every Picture Tells a Story

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 09:38:18 GMT

Steve Redgrave of BBC Radio Humberside's Late Show was trawling the blogs of people from our Fair City, and came across this nonsense. You can draw your own conclusions as to why, but Steve asked me to come in and talk about what I get up to on his show via a feature known as "Every Picture Tells a

Story", and here is the result.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/humber/content/articles/2008/06/05/107_eptas_dermotrathbone_feature.shtml

I was absolutley bricking it as the clock in the studio ticked around, but once it began I actually quite enjoyed it.

Don't play any drinking games involving downing a shot each time I say "Y' know" or "err" as you will end up clinically dead after about five minutes.

Iron Man (2008) Dir Jon Favreau Vue Cinema Hull

Mon, 19 May 2008 15:40:24 GMT

When arms dealer and all round techno wizard Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jnr.) is taken hostage in Afghanistan, he must use all his wiles to escape by taking the stolen missile technology that the Bad Guys want him to activate and turn it into an Iron Man suit which he can use to blast the baddies and fly away.

On his return to the God Ol’ US of A Stark sees the error of his blood soaked money making ways and decides to use his gifts for the Greater Good.

Clichéd? Absolutely. Bile inducing sentimentality? By the bucket load. Lame love interest? You betcha. Did I care about any of the above? Totally not.

This is a fantastic action movie with brilliant special effects, lots of explosions and fire and the flying sequences for Iron Man were enhanced by the digital pictures and sound in the Vue Cinema.

I have to say that I was a bit taken aback by the casting of Downey in the superhero role, but it really worked as his natural scowly cynicism added depth to the character of Stark, especially at the start of the film.

I found the casting of the Arabs as Bad Guys predictably depressing, but it was the Ruskis during the Cold War so this is just art reflecting the state of things, but I imagine it doesn’t make life as an Arab American any easier.

The arms trade is a horrible, nasty and necessarily immoral canker on our world and when you realise that £50 billion solves Africa’s problems, the fact that an eye watering £900 BILLION is spent every year on ways for humans to kill each other says it all about capitalism and its twisted priorities.

At least Tory Defence Minister Alan Clark was brutally honest when John Pilger asked him did he lose any sleep about selling arms to the Suharto Regime, which used Brough made jets to slaughter East Timorese civilians.

He said; “I don't really fill my mind much with what one set of foreigners is doing to another."

Clark went on to have this exchange with Tam Dayell who asked; “How many dead or tortured East Timorese are acceptable to this Tory Government in exchange for a defence contract with Indonesia?"

Clark replied; “I'm not into that. I don't know anything about that."

Iron Man is a very enjoyable film, not just leave-your-brain-at-the-door action as there are some interesting plot twists along the way, and there is one thing in the film which makes you think it’s going to be oh so predictable, but isn’t.

In Bruges (2008) Dir Martin McDonagh. Vue Cinema, Hull

Tue, 13 May 2008 13:38:15 GMT

When a contract killing in London becomes a botch job, the two Irish hit men are sent to hide out in Bruges. What could possibly go wrong?

Quite a lot it seems, as Ray (Colin Farrell) and his mentor Ken (Brendan Gleeson) have dramatically different views on what constitutes such things as “lying low” and “having a good time”, consequently mayhem ensues, and when the Big Boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes), a major league psychopath decides to go on the rampage things go from bad to worse.

Genre? Black gangster comedy? I am not sure as the subject matter is truly grim involving the accidental slaying of a child, guilt, betrayal and suicide but the gags just keep on coming and not in a staged comedy way. They ebb and flow as an integral part of the plot and some of the dialogue and situations are just laugh out loud funny.

Bathos, I think is the term that sums up much of In Bruges best and I thought that it was a tremendous picture with a strong ensemble cast, but Ralph Fiennes is an absolute show stealer in the final third of the film.

If William Hurt deserved to win the Best Supporting Actor for a History of Violence, then Fiennes must be a shoe in as it is a difficult balance to strike between caricature and impact when you have so little time to develop the character.

Ben Kingsley provides the template in Sexy Beast, and Fiennes delivers the same sort of performance as the mentally unhinged and ruthless gangster. Blistering and energetic but without losing the context or side lining the main cast.

When Ray gets mixed up with a Belgian film hand, a “midget” (“Did you often feel like topping yourself, you know, what with the height thing an’ all?”) and a stash of drugs the action really begins after a necessarily sedentary opening to the film.

Writer Martin McDonagh must be an Arsenal fan as he has Ray and Ken discussing purgatory thus;

“It’s when you are a bit shit, not that good but not that bad”.

“Like Spurs then?”

“Well, yeah.”

I enjoyed this film a lot, and it’s the sort of picture that when you ruminate on it a bit more at home, you find it was actually quite existential behind the jokes and shootings.

Happy-Go-Lucky (2008) Dir Mike Leigh. Vue Cinema Hull

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 09:58:25 GMT

Thirty-year-old Primary School teacher Poppy (Sally Hawkins) is enjoying her life, work, and friends despite the attentions of bonkers driving instructor Scott (Eddie Marsen) and the sometimes harsh realities of contemporary London life.

For most of the film I was, once again the sole audience member and I wonder if the Vue will knock this 1pm Friday slot on the head.

Bafflingly a guy joined me twenty minutes into the film and left well before the end.

Maybe he was put off by the fact that a combination of a lidless coke, popcorn, my stick and the laces of my shoes contrived to make a mess of school outing proportions on my row.

Mike Leigh is a great writer and film maker and I confess to being an enormous fan of his work, Career Girls was repeated this week and a second viewing reminded me of what a little gem it really is.

Leigh tackles life as he sees it, and often this means the heavier side of the human condition is covered, Naked (1993) and Vera Drake (2004) spring readily to mind.

But then there is 1977’s Abigail’s Party in which Leigh uses humour to uncover the snobbery inherent in ‘Seventies Britain.

Happy Go Lucky is a very funny picture and if we use Mark Kermode’s barometer of five laugh out loud moments as a benchmark, then this film passes with flying colours.

Poppy is optimistic and bouncy in a Labrador sort of way, and this infuriates Scott, her driving instructor to the point of vein popping apoplexy as he rants on about how messed up Society really is in a diametrically opposed worldview to that of his pupil.

I liked this film a lot. It is easy to cynical, and God only knows there are a myriad of reasons why people end up bitter and twisted like Scott does, and sometimes the charge of naive can be laid at Poppy’s door, but she is street smart and sassy and her boundless positivism is a choice she has made, so good luck to her and all those out there like her. Standing up to be counted, refusing to be cowed in the face of life’s difficulties, never giving up, and ultimately making a real difference to people’s lives.

Life is for living and enjoying whilst recognising, as Poppy does that there are plenty worse off and they should be helped. There is a scene between Poppy and an unhappy boy in her class that resonated with me and I only hope that I dealt with such things 10% as well as she did.

So thank you to Mike Leigh for his uplifting, female-centric writing, Sally Hawkins for portraying all that is good in people and to Eddie Marsen as Scott for reminding us what can happen if you give in, are defeatist and allow cynical depression to rule.

Mike Leigh, you little beauty.

Secret Army, UKTV History, Weekdays

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 10:38:13 GMT

This brilliant series from the 70's is now being repeated on UKTV History.

It is set in the Second World War but is far from the stereotypical wartime drama. The heroes are flawed and the Germans shown in a more realistic light.

Clifford Rose plays the chilling Nazi Brussels Commandant brilliantly and his character could be seen by some as a caricature, but can people who order mass murder at the drop of a hat be portrayed sympathetically?

Terrance Hardiman and Michael Culver play Luftwaffe officers in charge of hunting downed Allied airman whilst trying to break up the escape line whose story forms the basis to the show.

Both are shown to be ordinary people stuck in an extraordinary situation, and the contempt that Brandt (Culver) has for his Gestapo superior is cleverly and subtlety done as Kessler is a fanatical ideologue whilst the airman is only involved because of circumstances, a situation that must have been familiar to millions of Germans who had no love for Hitler but had to fight for their country non the less.

This show can only enhance or understanding of the psychology of the war and un package the real feelings that people experienced through this, the darkest period in European history.

The plot revolves around "Lifeline" which is an evasion line for downed airmen run by Lisa (Jan Francis) and restaurant owner Albert (Bernard Hepton). The former is scarred by the death of her parents and wants to defeat the Nazis at seemingly all costs.

She is portrayed as ruthless and willing to take hard decisions for the greater good. An especially dark episode ends with the Candide owner, Albert, giving up two allied airmen to certain death in order to protect the line.

This is brilliant, well thought out drama and very thought provoking. We can all look at the German people and say it couldn't happen here, or at the Occupied Countries and say we would have been in the Resistance.

But Nazi domination was based on simple everyday slights to minorities that in themselves didn't seem OTT but produced an atmosphere of fear and the opportunity for ruthless or inadequate people to do their worst whilst people looked the other way or said, "It's not my problem”.

This is exactly the dynamic that allows (present tense) Sinn Fein/IRA to keep Nationalist areas under control and mean that real democracy and the rule of law are a sham in Northern Ireland, sacrificed at the altar of the so called “peace” process.

Six million don't die because the Nazi Elite thought it was a good idea. You have to make people complicit or at best make it so they are ambivalent to the fate of others or just plain scared, tactics used to devastating effect by Sinn Fein/IRA over the last thirty years.

This drama is for me the best thing broadcast by the BBC ever drama wise and I would put it up there with the Sopranos as it is just one of those shows where everything clicks into place.

Dark, atmospheric, Pinteresque spring to mind and its Belgian production values give the thing a Satrean existentialist feel.

There is a myth that telly was better in the 70's. It wasn’t. It was mostly terrible but with the odd absolute gem such as Secret Army and Denis Potter’s genius material. I wonder if these programmes would be made today due to ratings, which is the King.

Thank God for HBO and US programme makers with brilliant serial dramas such as The Sopranos, Dexter, Jericho, Huff just to mention a few where an uncompromising approach is adopted by the makers who view the audience with respect rather than as stupid sponges, something which irks me about ITV especially.

Funny Games US (2007) Dir Michael Haeke Vue Cinema, Hull

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 12:34:51 GMT

A family trip to an idyllic lakeside setting is interrupted by the arrival of two violent sadists…

This is a shot for shot, line for line remake by the same director except the scenario is moved from Austria to the USA, and even the sets are identical which makes for a strange experience.

I saw the original about five years ago on TV and can say beyond shadow of a doubt that it is one of the bleakest and disturbing films one could ever see, and Haneke, I’m glad to say, resists all temptation for a more upbeat finale to appease the studio.

This film is a commentary on what can happen when people become totally amoral, and have had any sense of revulsion removed from their psyche just allowing pure evil to rule their actions and thoughts, taking pleasure from the base suffering of fellow humans.

As the original was in German it was hard not to make connections with the actions of those caught up in the madness of the Nazi Regime and the opportunities that it afforded for humanity to sink to it’s lowest of depths, especially as the two young sadists are on the face of it clean cut, well mannered and respectable with the ability to turn on and off their psychotic tendencies.

And this is how it must have been in the Nazi Era as men and women performed unspeakable acts of craven depravity whilst being family people and, post war, continuing fully functional and conventional members of Society.

For our times one only has to hear about what goes on in the Occupied Territories as an ostensibly Democratic Western Society (Israel), conducts the barbaric oppression of the Palestinians and those Israelis involved carry on normal lifestyles midst such chaos, seemingly unable, or unwilling to do something about it.

The violence in Funny Games is clinical and meted out with the minimum of fuss and this is what makes it so utterly chilling.

The fact is that such behaviour is completely and everyday occurrence for these two young men, as indeed on a different scale this is true of certain members of our Society.

Uncomfortable stuff but well worth exploring.

The photography is simple, and we have a number of single shots that go on for minutes at a time and prove very effective, showing that simplicity is often best when creating an ambience.

The cast produce an outstanding ensemble performance, but special mention must go to Naomi Watts as the wife and mother who witnesses the wanton destruction of her family for absolutely no reason other than as entertainment for these amoral young men.

As a thriller the picture works fantastically, with good pace and construction, but it is as a timeless existential commentary that lifts Funny Games into the realms of being an excellent, bordering on great film.

Horton Hears a Who (2008) Dir Jimmy Hayward. Vue Cinema Hull

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 17:06:37 GMT

I deliberately didn’t read any reviews of this film; I just wanted to take my son to see a movie, not get into a heavy-duty dissection of what or may not be the agenda of a kid’s film.

I’ve read the controversies surrounding the penguin film, is it or isn’t it Christian Fundamentalist propaganda, and my reaction is; “Get over it! It’s flippin film for crying out loud!”

But… By the end of this film I was starting to get irate and feel like the writers were making some lame point about how Christians are an oppressed minority, and the Big Bad Atheist Lobby won’t believe in what they spout unless they have incontrovertible proof.

The basic plot is that Jim Carrey’s animated elephant Horton can hear a whole civilisation existing as a speck on a flower. He goes out of his way to protect them in the face of the scorn and disbelief of his peers.

The book, which I checked out in Waterstones, afterwards is a ten-minute read job, and I found it endearing.

But the movie is padded out and is about as subtle as a brick. Yes, we get it that you can’t see God. Yes, we get it about intelligent design. Blah, blah. Yawn.

I asked Conor if he enjoyed it. He said yes, mostly I suspect because of the well animated, slick and colourful production values, but when I asked him if it was funny he said; “Not much. Only a bit”.

Which surprised me as I thought a film voiced by Carrey and Steve Carrell would set out to be hilarious.

But even without my objections on propaganda grounds, it was just slow and unmemorable, padded out with stuff like the old Elephant On a Rope Bridge gag.

Disappointing really would sum up my feelings on this film.

There Will Be Blood (2007) Dir Paul Thomas Anderson Reel Cinema, Hull

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 17:34:28 GMT

Where there is greed you can be assured vengeance will ensue, just as night follows day.

That’s what Capitalism boils down to, and why conflicts past and future all have one common denominator; resources and the struggle for them.

This film is like reading a tough book such as Nausea by Jean Paul Sartre. You know it’s good for you. Challenging, making you think about how things are on an existential level, questioning basic values and precepts. But you wouldn’t want to read it again.

There Will Be Blood is a long picture and a film that requires a great deal of concentration, but it is worth it. And how, as we delve into the soul of Daniel Plainview and his ambition to make as much cash as is imaginable from the California desert and it’s black gold in oil desperate early 20^th Century America.

Daniel Day Lewis is simply awesome as the completely amoral oil prospector for whom there are no sacred cows that remained un slain in his quest for wealth and power.

The Irishman’s Oscar is uncontested in my view, and Plainview is the most convincing, awe-inspiring, and downright mortifyingly scary character to take the big screen for a very long time.

Daniel Plainview will do absolutely anything and personifies why naked and unfettered Capitalism is, along with Religious Fundamentalism the biggest threat to our very existence on the planet.

I paid a monumental £5 for a small box of popcorn and a Coke so it was with some interest that I read the below article. Too right. Rip Off Britain at it’s worst.

http://www.shieldsgazette.com/news/Cinema-food-prices-are-a.3823222.jp

Naked (1993) Dir Mike Leigh. FilmFour British Connection

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 17:29:39 GMT

This bleak and nihilistic film by Mike Leigh has the potential to be a truly great British film in the realism genre, right up there with Ken Loach’s Raining Stones and Gary Oldman’s autobiographical masterpiece Nil by Mouth, but it is hamstrung by two characters who are relatively superfluous, but are in the film enough to derail it through poor dialogue and woeful acting.

Leigh’s traditional modus oporendi is perhaps the cause of the problem, as he presents the actors with a basic outline and allows them to develop the script through improvisation during rehearsals.

This film exhibits the best and worse outcomes of this methodology, as David Thewlis delivers one of the best performances by a British actor of the last twenty years in the role of Johnny, a highly intelligent but socially disadvantaged Mancunian who also has mental health issues (we assume) and ends up at his ex girlfriends flat in London in the wake of a violent sexual encounter up North.

Thewlis’ blistering performance is simply stunning, and through him we are encouraged to reflect of a wide variety of social and philosophical issues, from misogyny through to the very meaning and purpose of our existence.

Leigh differs from Ken Loach insofar as his films, though heavily politicised, are not as overtly didactic and the viewer is more at leave to muse on the issues raised. There is no real resolution plot wise and we are left to wonder at what would have happened next.

Thewlis’ genius is to portray Johnny’s scattergun and chaotic approach to life, but also to unlock his deeper feelings and innermost thoughts, articulating them through a variety of encounters over a couple of days.

In addition Lesley Sharp plays the ex girlfriend as an understated complement to the manic flatmate (the late Katrin Cartlidge) whom Johnny seduces and then discards, and Thewlis himself.

There are two other main characters and this is where the problems begin.

Greg Crutwell portrays the toff landlord who comes around to seduce the females but ends up being a violent bully. The character is a cardboard cut out, and just seems totally out of kilter with the Leigh oeuvre and whilst I appreciate the writer's aim of (I assume) comparing Johnny with him from the perspective of him being very similar but with money and aspiration, it just didn't work.

Sandra (Claire Skinner), the leaseholder comes back unexpectedly early from a sojourn in Zimbabwe only to discover this ménage of dysfunctional humanity, but her reactions are bafflingly inappropriate and the dialogue involving her is woeful.

But these gripes accepted, Naked is a worthwhile and important commentary on our times, still feeling fresh and relevant as Raining Stones does fully fifteen years on