Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (directed by Nicholas Hytner, Br/dge Theatre)
So that was a bit oops.
Continue reading →Progress to Abandonment
This had been a distracted year, but I finally abandoned (read: submitted) a chapter I’ve been (not) working on for about two years.
It has its origins in a conference paper and a lay version of that which followed, but I’d cut the references and aparatus to avoid over crowding a PowerPoint and then a non-academic publication.
Continue reading →Between Lockdowns
So, after several months of barely getting to the edge of CT1 – perhaps a wander into CT2 – lockdown finally eased. I wasn’t in a hurry to get out and about, despite the restriction, with the first exciting thing being a visit on Bloom’s Day to the local second-hand bookshop, where I forced myself to buy three books.
Continue reading →Manic But No Dream Girl
Pixie (Barnaby Thompson, 2020)
There is a great film in here trying to get out — but it just throws too much into it. This isn’t the first two men and a woman crime caper movie — it’s a long time since I saw it, but Shooting Fish springs to mind — and its rural Irish/Northern Irish location gave it a feel of some of the films Channel 4 made in the 1980s. Musically, it wants to be a western, especially of the western variety, but the caption Once Upon a Time in the West of Ireland gag is a one off and risks being mistaken as the film’s actual title.
Don’t Call Me …
Shirley (Josephine Decker, 2018)
The first rule of biopics is that they are not biographies of their subjects — in this case we have Shirley Jackson (1916-1965), best known for the inexplicably thought to be frightening “The Lottery” and the twice-filmed The Haunting of Hill House. She clearly had some issues with smoking and barbiturates and other meds and an unfaithful husband.
Like a Version
The Forty-Year-Old Version (Rhanda Blank, 2020)
Wait — a film directed by a woman of colour? Who also wrote, produced and starred?
And utterly charming it is in a try not to think too much about Woody Allen way. Continue reading →
Rocks n Roles
Rocks (Sarah Gavron, 2019)
Apparently it takes the end of the world to see a female-directed film released, and here we have another one. I seem to recall some quibbles about the director’s Suffragette, but this is a remarkable piece of work in the Ken Loach tradition.
Most Bogus
Bill & Ted Face the Music (Dean Parisot, 2020)
At the tail end of the 1980s was a science fiction comedy, which was just about silly enough — two Californian slacker dudes have to pass their assignment to guarantee the future and are aided in doing so by a man from the future with a time travelling phone box. Continue reading →
Skidoo
23 Walks (Paul Morrison, 2019)
In this romantic comedy for pensioners, you have the collision of two film styles.
Skool’s Back
I have two sets of keys — one with front and back door, one with front and back door (twice), shed, bicycle lock, a broken display case key and what I hope is my office key. Outside of term time, I try to carry the smaller set.
