Wow. We thought the first two episodes of Lost in Austen were good but it took a really big leap up last night. There's lots to like in it, including an amazing cast and amazingly good casting, but the script is really excellent. We can't wait for the final episode next week. I was amused to look on imdb and find that two episodes were written by Guy Andrews and two by a woman called Jane Austen who was born in Steventon, Hampshire in 1775. She seems to have done quite a bit of tv work ...
B-)
Ohna Falby - Paramount Picture Corp tramples SON
I was about to send a post to tell you about SON (the film directed by Daniel Mulloy and produced by Ohna) appearing on the YouTube screening room when this happened.
Dug is better than me at pointing out how crazy this is. It seems that someone at Paramount decided to file an infringement-of-copyright complaint on the basis that the film showed footage from Son of Rambow. SON consists entirely of original footage. Can they really be doing this just because the word 'son' is in the title?
They're obviously quick to act when it comes to randomly trampling on 'little' people, but so far they haven't even acknowledged Ohna's messages pointing out their mistake let alone withdrawn their complaint.
B-(
(Remember to see the film before you read or listen to any reviews but ...)
Following his recent mockery of Simon Mayo for pronouncing the first 'a' in Indiana Jones in the same way as posh people pronounce the 'a' in 'bath' (my hypothesis is that this might be to do with foreign word pronunciation, btw), I was really pleased to hear Mark Kermode starting his review of Wall-E by pointing out not only that it is not pronounced the same as 'wally' but that in fact anyone who's seen the film will find it hard not to say it in the same way as Wall-E himself does, before carrying on to talk pronunciation for large parts of the programme.
B-)
Another cultural highlight this week was a screening of Once at the NFT. It's a great film and was followed by a Q&A and then a live music performance from the two lead actors ('musicians who can half act' rather than 'actors who can half sing or play music' as they described themselves). It's a great movie. Hope everyone else realises.
B-)
Left all in the game in the middle, to make a pear and rhubarb crumble among other things, but came back for the end. The story was fairly predictable but there was some good writing and Ray was on top form swearing away. Could use this programme to explore the various meanings of the 'c' word (no, not 'cool, students).
But the really good film I saw this week was Enron - The Smartest Guys In The Room (yes, folks, that's irony). An amazing story, very well told. There's so much you could say about it but a few things particularly intrigued me.
First was to see how they started digging a little hole and ended up digging something big enough for the whole company to fall into, and to drag in Arthur Andersen, a whole pile of banks and the state of California with them. Hadn't realised they were responsible for the 'Governator'.
Second, was the connection they made between the Enron traders and the Milgram experiments (where more than 50% of ordinary folks turned out to be willing to electrocute strangers to the point at which they risked death just because a man in a white coat told them to). Funnily enough, I was just recently watching the start of Ghostbusters which was also inspired by Milgram.
Finally, it was that queasy feeling as you'd laughed at the evil idiots** for a couple of hours and were then reminded that it really wasn't funny at all, particularly when you saw what they did to Californians and to the ordinary employees who were completely shafted by them. As usual, the ordinary folk were left with nothing while the guys who caused the mess were cashing in their millions on the way to their cells.
B-)
**not including the guy whose suicide started the film
Yes, we're talking three movies in one week, folks. Today, Kiloh and I went to circus class with Apoa and waited in the cafe while she worked on the trapeze. Kiloh opened her little handbag and produced a giant hole punch, a staple remover and a stapler and set up an office in the cafe. We sat and worked on laptops and DS's, with a limited wifi connection while Apoa worked on her rope climbing and front balance.
Then we headed to Leicester Square and Chicken Little in 3D. The 3D was not hitech but it worked pretty well. It didn't add much to the movie, but there were a couple of nice moments when tentacles reached out to us from the screen. The movie was pretty good but not as gripping as some of the classics from recent years.
B-)
Saw this with Apoa today. She wasn't sure but I persuaded her and she thought it was pretty good. I think some of the middle bits were a bit slow and grownup for her. I've been playing the kids 'Folsom Prison Blues' for ages so it had a bit of family significance too. I really enjoyed it. I'm a sucker for popstar biopics anyway and would agree with Mark Kermode that this is up there with the Buddy Holly Story and Slade in Flame (although, to be honest, I don't remember too clearly what the teenage me made of them). Without wanting to spoil it, I thought the two best scenes were the 'one song' bit and the 'I can't go down there' bit.
Meanwhile, we came first equal in the school film quiz last night. We'd have won if we could have listed the 20 Broccoli Bond movies in their order of release. We got the first 9 and the last 3 but the rest were a bit of a Roger Moore-Timothy Dalton soup.
B-)
