Showing posts with label film. Show all posts
Showing posts with label film. Show all posts

May 11, 2016

Cannes Film Festival opens





We went to Cannes yesterday, because we're writing a story about terrorism, and the Festival's opening would be the ideal multiplier of terrorism's effect: one Brad Pitt is worth thousands, if not millions of other innocent victims, you'll agree. We're not sure we'll have an actual blast in the story, so here's one from the Pulitzer-winning last novel of Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch:


[hang on; under development]


The opening has always been on a Tuesday, because the festival has always lasted for 12 days, the festival competition always featured 22 films, two per day, with the last day, a Sunday, dedicated to the awards ceremony.





So it's Tuesday, May 10, and we leave the house at 15:30  to arrive at the red carpet event at 17:00. 

Apr 4, 2015

Interstellar --- Seattle (2)




We're late with this review because we're always late---plus, we're early in the sense that the movie hasn't yet been released world wide.

Unfortunately, the sound through the Delta Airline ear plugs on Flight 467 from London-Heathrow to Seattle-Tacoma is so bad that we have trouble following the plot---although, wait---now having read the flick's Wikipedia entry we're realizing we somehow did manage to follow the plot but failed to appreciate the redeeming influence of Caltech professor Kip Thorne, the only excuse for this movie ("highly accurate, the movie, scientifically, highly accurate," reviewers rave). Kip Thorne is a real physicist and knows everything about black holes and wormholes and Einstein ("gravitational waves"), and he's listed as executive producer of this sci-fi production set in the year 2060.

What is it? You normally know inside 60 seconds whether you're watching a bad movie, right? Is it because the titles stink? That's oft the case, but not now. No, its something about the Midwestern accent of Texas-born Matthew McConaughey. It's like when you drive past this sex worker and you need to look no further, there's one layer of makeup too many. There has been one script conference too many for this movie, and Christopher Nolan, the director knows, knows deep inside...

Jan 8, 2015

French for beginners (Sacha)


(From the pages of Charlie Hebo)

And the corresponding fragment from the Green Eyes? No prob, bro. Étant donné (given that) the depiction of the auteur (self-centered film-maker) is Jean-Luc Godart, author of Pierrot le Fou, and other nouvelle vague movies.

Here goes (beginning of Ch. 23 of Part I, titled "In flagrante masterclass"):


There isn’t much left of Gohard's casual-ceremonial ways, the dildo has him in its grip, or counter grip, whatever. And while the situation is serious enough, I can’t suppress another collateral thought, this one involving the washed-up scriptwriter and an art house flick in which Gohard would try to answer the doorbell now, dildo and all, somehow haunching to the door, shifting from leg to leg, perhaps groaning. He reaches the door, opens it, and gulps “Hilfe.” (Come to think of it, didn't Godard (Jean-Luc, not Gohard) make a movie exactly like this, with Woody Allen as a peripatetic porn star and a peripatetic flower pot that’s always blotting the view of the adult parts of the unfolding drama? Did Allen survive?)

The door bell rings again. So it’s the postman. No, it’s Sunday. No, it’s Monday. It's not for nothing that us escorts are paid well—if we are paid at all—there's so much learning by doing involved. Shall we open the door? My budging A-level instincts tell me to stay put. Godehard moans softly, it's unclear whether he's praying or trying to say something. He rolls his head, that's what Buddhist monks do a lot.

We expect the echo of a failed doorbell initiative, silence followed by departing footfalls. Instead we get the clanky noise of metal on metal. There's something tentative to this, perhaps it’s a burglar who’s been pushing the bell to see whether the residents are at home and is wielding a picklock now. Godehart can't really roll his head any more. In flagrante masterclass.

I wonder whether the burglar could sue us for emotional damage done to him as he unsuspectingly tumbles upon harmful obscenity. While I thus wonder, the door swings open and clear, female eyes, enhanced by manly glasses, come into focus. Dr. Dyke.
Godehart can't speak at the moment, but Dyke can, presumably, although she doesn't. She ceases all activity whilst her medical mind assesses the situation. There she stands. It would be an understatement to say that we stared at each other (the more so because Godehart cannot really participate, his eyes left to dangle at the pond boys on the wall).

What's the washed-up scriptwriter doing in all this? He has a writer's block, I have to carry on alone. When you're in a hole, stop digging. That's perhaps a good idea, the more so since you’re in panic and can’t recall Dyke's real name, it could be a bad idea to use her moniker at this delicate hour. When we met for the first time, Dyke and I, her first words were "Your work?" That was twelve hours ago. What will she say now? Will she ever speak again?

"Your work?" she asks.
"Welcome to Godehart Wagner's home," I reply, one of my better lines today.
"I'm unsurprised," she says.
"Que sera, sera," I say—what can I say, there's no way to take this seriously. Even the dildo victim sports a smirk on his lips, a painful smirk at that, but a smirk nonetheless. Even the washed-up scriptwriter chimes in, we hear Doris Day singing in the background.


Are you still there? Then you'll possibly like the GREEN EYES. The first part is out now, available as Kindle book on Amazon, under this link:


Night Owl Reviews
"click"

Nov 9, 2014

Lord Byron, Bill Clinton, etc --- Venice (4)

It's been a year since we've been in Venice, and now we've hit upon this beautiful picture by Hannes Steinert, depicting, you know of course ...


Spot the anachronism

... depicting the Lido of Venice. All this while we are excerpting a biography about Lord Byron providing deeper insight into his sex life, including his life in Venice (spoiler alert: self-serving ellipsis ahead)---Byron will feature in the second part of our episodic novella "The Grand Tour"---John and Alex from the Green Eyes finally marry and are off to Europe where they end up at the feet of the Fountain of Geneva whose story they learn from Richard Zugabe, librarian of the Geneva City Archives and owner of an apartment in the Villa Diodati nearby. Right, that's the first chapter of "The Grand Tour" which segues into a tryst at Zugabe's place and evokes the narrative material about Byron who had rented the villa in 1816 & who looked EXACTLY like Bill Clinton & who had apparently left a cache of manuscripts behind the wood paneling of his bedroom---for Richard Zugabe to discover.

The young Bill Clinton---sorry, just kidding, "George Gordon, 6th Lord of Byron," William Edward West, (1822)

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