Oh, I need another list. Haven’t had one for a while. If you missed ’em, the previous ones were Top Ten Movies, Top Ten Books (fiction) and Top Ten Male Actors. And so, inevitably…
TOP TEN FEMALE ACTORS
(or actresses, if you insist)
01. Ingrid Bergman
Blogging the midnight oil! I remembered there was, after all, something worth commenting on from last week, and so, I present…
Classic Movie Mini-Review!
Last Thursday night, we watched The Third Man (1949). I hadn’t seen it in about ten years. I spotted the video for £3.99 (in Virgin) and snapped it up. Well, what a movie! Orson Welles—need I say more? Yes. Welles has no creative role here; the story is Graham Greene’s and the direction is Carol Reed’s (Ollie Reed’s uncle). The setting is post-War Vienna, both beautiful and yet still ravaged by the conflict. The story is about the black market, an apparently dead racketeer and a ‘third man’… to say any more would be a spoiler. The emphasis is totally on atmosphere.
Ah. So Elton John is making Anne Rice’s Vampire Lestat into a Broadway musical. Almost nothing Mr. Dwight does these days sparks my interest, but this sounds particularly dreadful. At least he isn’t taking the lead role himself. That would require an extra five or six vertical inches, major liposuction and weight-training, plus a different species of cranium-hugging beastie. (Then again, the vertical discrepancy didn’t stand in Tom Cruise’s way…)
Read More »Reg Dwight Vamps It Up!
Okay, just in time for it to still be Monday—I have a Top Ten! Let it roll…
TOP TEN MALE ACTORS
01. Gregory Peck
It was great news to hear that Ali Ismail Abbas has been flown to Kuwait and is receiving proper medical care. On a more cynical note, how good it was of Mr. Blair to condescend to ‘comment’ on the situation. But I’m not going to have another war rant…
Monday, I went to buy the video of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. A bit of extra money came our way, and since this counts as extravagance in our current impoverished state, what the hell! We watched it Monday night.
I thought the first HP movie was just okay. This one was a huge improvement, although as each of the books is longer than the last, there was much more condensing. Arguably, the plots also get better, so perhaps a stronger plot suffers less from omission. It was fast-moving and slick. The younger cast were much more polished. Robbie Coltrane was his usual awesome self. The FX were much better, in particular Dobby the house elf… I thought they might mess him up, but he was a wonderful CGI creation, furnished with a wide range of extremely realistic and endearing mannerisms.
Today is a nice day. I’m not a big weather fan, but today it’s sunny without being dazzling and fairly warm without being unpleasantly hot. (If blinding sun and blistering heat is your thing, you may not agree with me.)
I had a brief errand to do this morning, and instead of my usual approach—to rush to my destination as fast as possible and hurry back—I took a longer route through our nearby park, pulled off my jacket and wandered around dreamily for a while. It was really nice. I didn’t even fret about skin cancer! (I’m very pale and get little sunlight…) There were a few people about, but the place seemed so peaceful and relaxing. I’ve forgotten what relaxing is in recent times, i.e. probably the last 20 years! Must do this again sometime; since our dog got ill (and later died), going through places like parks just hasn’t crossed my mind.
Read More »Pleasant Atmosphere
A new Monday feature: Top Tens. For the next few weeks, anyway. This week I’ll try to list my…
TOP TEN MOVIES
Only about half of these movies would always make my list, no matter what; the rest is prone to change daily. Listed in no particular order…
01. King Kong (1933) Sentimental choice, of course—the four-year-old me who first saw this was spellbound. Today? It still it has a marvellous sense of wonder.
Movies. We have watched movies. Which was nice.
Thursday night, we finally got round to seeing From Hell. The original Alan Moore/Eddie Campbell graphic novel was one of the few recent comics I’d fancied reading, but I never got round to that either. I don’t know how faithful the movie is. But there are worse ways to kill a couple of hours.
Johnny Depp’s cod Michael Caine accent was perhaps questionable, but who cares? The Deppster is Godlike. *sigh* Acting-wise, I guess the invincible Robbie Coltrane stole the show. I love Robbie.
Read More »Movies & Stuff
The war trundles on. Did I say war? That should be invasion, right? Even a couple of journos are using the term lately.
Nothing to add, really, except—if you haven’t already seen it (it’s being linked to a lot), go here to read a blog by an Iraqi, right on the spot in Baghdad, seeing some of this stuff first-hand. Some people have doubted its veracity, but I’m willing to take it at face value. Anyway…
Don’t mention the war! I did once, but I think I got away with it.
I stayed up watching the Oscars last night. Hell, my sleeping patterns are screwed anyway (see time for this entry). Of course, it was a load of rubbish—business as usual, then. Even so, their giving an award to Roman Polanski was surprising and rather pleasing. Rather less pleasing was all the kudos given to Chicago, which strikes me as a frankly tacky pile of bilge. But what do I know.
Read More »The Academy Award for Tackiness Goes to…
This entry will smack of tokenism, as it’ll likely be the last one of this year. Best wishes for the new one to those who care.
Since this has become more a book/film comment sort of blog lately (accident not design), I’ll mention a couple of purchases. I took advantage of WHSmith’s sale, picking up the videos of Jeepers Creepers and A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) for £4.49 each. A good deal for a couple of pretty successful 2001 films.
Read More »Another Year Ends
