Saw this trailer posted on Balloon Juice,

And, honestly, despite loving many of these stars (Laura Linney, David Thewlis, Peter Capaldi, Daniel Brühl, Stanley Tucci, etc, ... ) and thinking that Benedict Cumberbatch is the absolutely perfect choice to play Julian Assange, I am not excited about this motion picture.

I do not for a minute believe that Dreamworks and Bill Condon are the right choices for this subject matter.  This seems to me to be the perfect recipe for disaster, an awful film, even if it is boffo at the box office.

I hope I am wrong.

************

Meanwhile, anybody see this amazing story on the front page of the NYT today? (Love my weekender subscription!) Olga Dogaru, who lived in the tiny Romanian village of Carcaliu, became haunted by the staggeringly beautiful paintings her son had brought home in a suitcase one night. There were seven paintings in all, including a Picasso, Matisse, Monet, and Gaugin.

The seven paintings stolen, and supposedly incinerated.

When Ms Dogaru learned that her son was a suspect in one of the greatest art heists in recent times, she thought the best thing to do to protect her son was to incinerate all seven paintings in a wood burning stove! (Or so she says, ... )

Now somebody needs to make a flipping movie of THAT story!

I will get right on it.








Mwah, 
Have a great Friday everyone,
Ardent

Parade's End is a bloody good little

Melodrama.  The mini-series was written by Tom Stoppard, and as he is also a producer, I imagine it is his little baby.  He has probably been itching for years to bring the Ford Madox Ford Parade novels to the big screen, and as so much of the best "films" today are television series, mini-series, or cable movies, why not have the Beeb and HBO birth your beautiful new baby for you? Plus, it certainly can not hurt (and HBO were v smart) to show Parade's End, an aristocratic English upstairs/downstairs smart-alec's soap set during The Great War, right after Season Three of Downton Abbey concludes.

Parade's End is infinitely better than Downton Abbey.  But despite being set in the same period, the comparison is not fair.  DA is an-open ended continuing series, whereas Parade's End is five hours long, full stop; an adaptation of what some critics thought of as an impenetrable or unadaptable series of novels.  

Yet, Stoppard was not deterred.  Good for him, and us.

Parade's End tells the story of Chrissie Tietjens,"the last Tory", and one of the most brilliant minds of his generation, watching stone-facedly as "his Jerusalem", "his green and pleasant land" vanishes before him, being replaced by trade unions, suffragettes, a rise in Roman Catholicism, loose morals, liberalism, partisanship trumping what is right, a totally Twit of the Year officious ruling aristocracy (h/t Monty Python), and just the whole world going to hell in a hand basket.

And, oh yeah, his drop dead gorgeous socialite Irish Roman Catholic wife is a horrible flirt and adulterer; spoiled rotten, and so consumed with only herself that at one point she uses one of her past flings to get her to the Western Front so as to ask her husband if she can be allowed to take up residence at his old family pile, Groby.  (The Wife and I literally wanted to strangle her throughout the entire series.)

Stoppard has done such a masterful job with this material, and has created something perhaps lately unique, a "film" that demands repeated viewings not because of glorious sweeping visual moments, or hilarious sight gags, or jokes; but so the viewer can completely digest and settle with some of the seriously breathtakingly lovely high brow novelistic dialogue.  Honestly, there are some scenes I will simply have to watch again.  And, I am greatly looking forward to that.  This is not a film that speaks down to its audience in any way whatsoever.  And, you really can not blink, either.  A lot of serious plot points are not played on the screen, at all.  You must pay rapt attention, though the rewards are worth such rapturous devotion.

Benedict Cumberbatch plays Chrissie Tietjens, and Rebecca Hall plays his wife, Sylvia.  It is some of the finest acting I have seen in a while.  Cumberbatch, in particular, is really building quite an impressive CV.  Cumberbatch's posture, face, and strange muttering strangled voice almost completely make you forget about the actor.  (That voice can be a challenge though for viewers.  We watched it with subtitles, just so we could get every juicy word.)  Ms Hall's attack was near as good, if of a different more technical style.  She has absolutely no intention of fooling you that she is someone else.  She is Rebecca Hall, dang it, and she has never looked more lovely in her life.  Red hair suits her.  Ms Hall prefers to attack her character through words.  And, it is absolutely delicious and ravishing to hear her roll and loll her tongue around Stoppard and Ford's exquisite high style language; to see her sulk and play exasperatingly bored is divine and sexy as all get out.  

"Hmmm, how best shall I torture my insubstantial half-man husband today?"

Parade's End comes supremely highly recommended by me.  I think you have to watch it through an HBO platform right now, or procure it through the grey market of the interwebs.  It is well worth it, though.  Those in love with the English language at its finest; or devotees of the themes of selflessness, sexual repression, unrequited love, honor, and relationships dominated by weakness and resentment should devour with relish the five delicious hours of Parade's End.

 Mwah, ... 

P.S.  And, then it is fun to watch Cumberbatch and Hall w/ James McAvoy and Dominic Cooper in Starter for 10 after you are done w/ all that heavy lit stuff!

It is not a great film,

Or, even perhaps, a really good film.  But I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Starter for Ten.

James McAvoy, Rebecca Hall, Dominic Cooper, and, oh yeah, ladies, that is Sherlock in there, too, with a stunning comedic tour de force performance.  (Plus, one of the writers/creators of Sherlock, who plays Sherlock's brother is also in Starter for Ten, as the University Challenge Host.)  Great 80s soundtrack, as well, ... The Cure, The Smiths, New Order, etc, ...

It is a pretty decent sentimental fun way to while away a hundred minutes.  Definitely recommended.

(By the way, I am still waiting to see the final installment of Sherlock this Sunday before passing judgement on it.  This season may be a little too "sexy", maybe they are overdosing on the bells and whistles? And where is Zoe Telford?! I will reveal all next week.)

"I thought that if you played an acoustic guitar/That it meant that you were/A protest singer"

Enjoy the videos,
Mwah, ... 

S'funny.

The Wife was asking me just a couple of days ago when we would be able to watch the second season of Sherlock, starring Benedict Cumberbatch.  I told her, Probably this Fall, round her birthday, September or October.

Nope.  The second season starts this Sunday.  What w/ Veep, Girls, and other programs on Sunday our dvr will prob catch fire.

(Renee's question might have been a trick.  She most likely learned about it playing Qrank.)









-- Ardent

Oh, my frickin' goodness,

I have so much to write aboot & once agin, so little time.  I have seen slightly more than a few movies recently that I would like to discuss.  And if I were any kind of real writer I would link the "reviews", if you will, Pauline Kael-New Yorker stylee.

I will try my bestest.

First, I have another correction for my blog:  Benedict Cumberbatch & Olivia Poulet are not  married.  They are long-time partners according to commenter Anonymous.  And if any fucking person is taking the time to make a comment on my sorry-ass blog, I am taking their correction as gospel.  So there.  


I fucking nearly cried (has got to be the worst paragraph link in history) when I watched Soderburgh's Spalding Gray "doc" OnDemand (for the second time) last night.  Soderburgh nailed it.  No voice-over, no "history" whathaveyou, just Spalding Gray telling his life story through his monologues & interviews.  Some would say (on Fox News), "What about his suicide?" Well, Soderburgh was smart enough, and disciplined enough, to proclaim through his film, 'That if Spuddy di'n't tell that story or appear in that interview then it does not make my film.'


(SPOILER ALERT! STOP NOW IF YOU ARE UNFAMILIAR W/ GRAY'S ANATOMY!) Of course, Soderburgh makes us cry at the end, w/ the howling dogs and the home movies. But the other, more crucial thing aboot this excellent film, basically aboot death and suicide, is how alive it makes me feel.  


Say what you will aboot Gray's neuroses & hypochondria & desperate pleas for attention & fame, yet Gray told a kind of straight white-man truth that so many of us can identify with.  & do identify with.  & he did it through near the most esoteric, pretentious sort of way; monologues, performed on-stage, part of the off-Broadway, avant-garde (&, gawd, does not this country hate the avant-garde [especially if it originates from New York, like his performances did.])    


I worked w/ a woman who knew Gray.  She proclaimed to me aboot numerous late-night phone calls, what a nuisance he was.  I di'n't believe her then & I do not believe her now.  


Gray was an incredible talent who did something I honestly believe I could do, as well.  He was so fortunate to be in Manhattan, w/ the Wooster Group, just when he discovered what his talent was.  He was a fragile fragile soul; exposed, seduced, and intoxicated with, yet terrified of fame.  


It was my buddy, Chris (I had made him watch Swimming to Cambodia & Monster in a Box) who told me that Gray was missing.  Everyone knew.  I knew.  Even then.  Everyone knew he had taken his own life.  


But Soderburgh shows all the wisdom, hilarity, depth, & heart that made Gray such a great (albeit troubled) soul.  


Gray, from Rhode Island, was really a New Yorker, a Manhattan-ite, living there, working there for a great period of his fame & livelihood.  Well, if the Gray's Manhattan art scene is something to be admired, reached for, the Manhattan art scene of the film, Tiny Furniture, is something I would like to avoid like the plague.  


Do not get me wrong, I liked the film.  But it is so New York, so, "My Dad writes for TV," if you know what I mean.  Some of the pop culture references fall completely flat, they are utilized way way too soon to resound w/ any kind of serious mainstream audience.  (Let us face it, if you are showing your fucking film in Fresno or, say, Tulsa, where this film will play, then it had better play, no matter whatever your college-kid intentions were.)  


I am flipping back & forth.  I loved the Charlotte character.  I loved the party scene where our protagonist is exposed as an attention whore.  I loved how we are expected to love this contemptible, self-hating woman.  I loved the film's depiction of the New York art scene as empty & blind to the new wave of media.  


But, I cannot get over the fact that she cast herself in the starring role, of a film she directed, w/ her real-life Mom and real-life sister playing those roles.  Even Plath's satiric, The Bell Jar, does not make me cringe like this film does.  


The sex scene in the tube? Is it a reference to Fast Times? & why am I not believing it anyway? 


Honestly, this director could grow & become a Todd Solondz-like master, or could fade away in to avant garde video theater & be never heard from again (except for cultish chick-y, gay types in the Village.)

Spalding Gray, made me change my mind what theater was.

OKAY, Fran Lebowitz, the Major & the Minor tomorrow.  

I really love the new BBC Series, Sherlock,

Starring Benedict Cumberbatch.  (What a name, hunh?)

Olivia Poulet

But I was just a wee bit miffed to see one of my favorite English Roses, Olivia Poulet, have such a tiny role in the second episode.  What a waste, I thought.  Why would she take such a tiny part in this huge new hit series?

But then after doing some research about the program I learned why she did it.

She is MARRIED to the star, Benedict Cumberbatch! She was just helping out, having fun, & got to act w/ her sweetie.  

With an umbrella in my drink.  Sorry, ladies (& gents) they're taken.

That is pretty cool.  


(And the show does still have Zoe Telford in it.)