Luca Guadagnino is one of my favourite directors. If you have not seen his epic TV series, We are Who We Are, set on an Italian airforce base, you need to. I also love his Suspiria and Call me By Your Name that brought Timothy Chalomet to prominence.
Guadagnino loves blurring sexuality and sexual preferences and he does so again in this Tennis movie that has its share of jocks but is anything but Jockish.
It concerns the three way relationship between three tennis players, Tashi Donaldson (Zendaya) whose startling young career is abruptly cut short by a knee injury, her husband, Art, played by Mike Faist and her/their lover, Patrick, played by Josh O’Connor. Art and Patrick are private school buddies that simultaneously fall head over heels in love with Tashi at a tennis tournament and spend the next thirteen years fighting for her affection. She, having turned to coaching her succesful but failing husband, is happy to play each off each other (but subconsciously) she knows that they know that he knows what he knows about him and her.
It’s a non-consenting menage a trois that is deliciously wrapped up in bargaining, treachery and double crossing. The scene in which Zendaya intoxicates the two male leads is a brilliant and in part hilarious piece of sexual trickery that is the highlight of the movie.
It’s all set agains a low level tennis tournament that Patrick, now a journeyman, needs to win to improve his rankings and Art needs to win to restore his faltering confidence. Cue magnificent tennis action set to a pounding score By Trent and Atticus (one that will surely find its way onto my Spotify for regular listening), it’s maybe their best yet.
The cinematography is outstanding with a virtual reality feeling. If you’ve never faced a tennis ball at 140mph before, you will have after this. Just make sure to duck when it comes out of the screen at you (I wonder if there is a 3D version?).
It’s great really. Intoxicating, intriguing and unpredictable from start to finish with the final of the aforementioned Challenger Tour match in New Rochelle anchoring the action in what is a great story.
All three actors carry it off with aplomb and I’d strongly recommend it. Good escapist fun.
If M.C. Escher had written a whydunnit he might have called it Ripley.
I say this because the recent Netflix masterpiece starring Andrew Scott and written & directed by Steve Zallion (he of Schindler’s List fame – more on that later) is an Escherian nightmare of wrong turns, about turns, smart turns and climbs that lead to nowhere.
The plot (Patricia Highsmith’s genius cannot be overstated here) is one of the most elaborate and thrilling I have ever encountered. The world’s greatest crime writers thrown in a room together could not have conjured up anything more magical even if Jesse Armstrong had been put in charge of them. It’s not that it’s full of cliffhangers, as such, it’s the sheer chicanery that Tom Ripley demonstrates as he shape-shifts his way through the lives (and deaths) of himself and his unwitting benefactor Dickie (Deekee) Greenleaf that make this story so compelling.
But let’s start after Highsmith and look at what Steve Zallion brings to the party. Well, for a start, the script is terrific. I don’t know the novel so I don’t know if it’s laugh out loud funny – but this sure is. One might grumble at his mild mocking of Inspector Pietro Ravini’s occasional flaws with the English language, especially his pronunciation of Freddie Miles’ (Meeles) name, but Vittorio Viviani bring a wonderful blend of Inspector Clouseau and Poirot to the part that is delicious. His mild OCD is amusing and that is one of the themes that run through the movie.
Zallion can never have had as much fun making a film as here. He plays tricks with the audience from start to finish and his elaborate use of repetition (posting the mail, riffling through notebooks, application of pen to paper, placing of items on bureaux, zooming in on concierges, framing of the post office, police cars, the cat, stairwells, paintings, drinking (or not) wine, ashtray purchasing, mimicking of Caravaggio and Ripley) is bonkers and dazzling.
The central motif of climbing stairs is extremely interesting. I have two theories on this. 1) it represents class climbing – Ripley is a wannabe, a charlatan and a grifter. He aspires to greater riches and stature and is deeply uncomfortable in society situations such as at Peggy Guggenheim’s party in Venice where he is in real danger of being found out for not being one of ‘us’. He’s always climbing to attain his goal. 2) it represents the futility of the whole police hunt, the whole story, as Ripley outwits every character (even the reasonably savvy Marge) by shifting the sands, rearranging the staircases so that we reach that ‘going nowhere’ outcome that Escher so brilliantly portrays in his paintings.
And lastly there’s his choice of monochrome to create a film noire, but also a work of art. Art is a central metaphor of the series. Caravaggio’s work, his homosexuality and his murderous past are all reflections on Ripley’s own story. Ripley loves Caravaggio with a passion because he admires not just his work but his lifestyle. The fact that Greenleaf’s wannabe painterly skills are appallingly lacking is just a bonus.
The cinematography has to be seen to be believed. Mostly spot on (it’s occasionally a touch overexposed) by Robert Elswit (He’s PT Anderson’s go to guy and won an Oscar for There Will Be Blood – bosh!). It drives the mood and the beauty, aided by a strong soundtrack, and has its moment in the sun when he stunningly, and frankly hilariously, references Schindler’s List with a single step of blood red cat paw prints. One second of red in eight hours of monochrome. You know the scene I’m talking about in both productions, right? Episode 5 if you missed it.
And then theres the acting. Johnny Flynn I could take or leave, Dakota Fanning played her irritating role to perfection (entitled little Sylvia Plathesque romanticist that she is). I’ve talked about the marvellous Vittorio Viviani, but the stars of the piece are the deliciously camp and truly dislikable Eliot Sumer who gets his just desserts as Freddie Meeles and, of course, the joy of Andrew Scott.
What can I say about Andrew Scott that hasn’t already been said? In the last five years he has risen from nowhere to challenge Steven Graham as Britains top actor. I think he has more range than Graham but both are a delight every time they hit our screens.
In this Scott OWNS the screen. His arch, sometimes befuddled playing of the unintended villain that is Tom Ripley is extraordinary. He falls into his murders rather than premeditates them so that makes him OK, right? And we are desperate for him not to be caught, because Scott has intoxicated us with his charm, his humour and his intelligence, all hidden behind a relatively blank canvas of a face. In moments of stress you can see the brain ticking, by micro-movements of Scott’s demeanour. This is acting of the highest calibre and Ripley, not the victims, is our hero.
We love Andrew Scott, therefore we love Tom Ripley.
You might have guessed by now that I loved this. A straight 10/10.
First off, I have to state that I adore Yorgos Lanthimos. I adore Emma Stone. I adore Mark Ruffalo and I adore Willem Dafoe.
That’s it then. Slam dunk. Movie of the year. (Or is it?)
I also have to say that I am a great admirer of Alasdair Gray who wrote the source novel in 1992 and won the Whitbread Prize for his efforts.
The novel is described as a post modern take on Frankenstein in which Dr Godwin Baxter (there’s a pun in the name) creates a very different and lovable monster that he essentially adopts – Bella Baxter – a beautiful young erotomaniac brought back to life with the brain of an infant.
Bella is played with outrageous abandon by Stone and as the (long) movie unfolds, she evolves from a ‘beautiful retard’ that can barely speak and has dysfunctional locomotion (plus is keen on a terrible twos tantrum on a regular basis), to a fully fledged young genius and palatable member of Victorian(?) society.
But the journey she takes is eventful, colourful and stunning as she visits reimagined Paris, London, Lisbon and Alexandria in houses (and brothels) that merge Willie Wonka with Wes Anderson and a bit of Jules Vernes thrown in for good measure.
Three suitors attempt to unravel Bella’s being with varying degrees of success but the stand out is Mark Ruffalo’s outrageously posh gigolo Duncan Wedderburn. Rufallo’s sublime English accent more than makes up for Dafoe’s in and out Scots Frankenstein and he steals the show repeatedly as he seduces Bella before falling on hard times.
Stone is remarkable, but I was troubled by the sexual politics at play here. In a book written by a man and a movie directed by a man the male gaze is on Stone throughout and her route to success is through prostitution. I’d be interested to know what my female friends think of this strand of the movie. Is it objectification or is it liberalised feminism boldly and proudly on show? I found it hard to decide at the time, although surely the latter is Lanthimos’s objective.
It’s a tough movie to capture the essence of. The story is actually a little thin and quite unremarkable, but the styling and much of the script is extraordinary, truly extraordinary. If, for nothing else, the succession of mutant hybrid farm animals – a duck with a full sized pig’s head for example. And all of the central performances are notable (especially Ruffalo).
But, I think it’s a movie to admire, not to love. But, as a piece of art, it’s sublime.
Look at these magnificent creations for example. Obviously some are better than other but I love the way AI can make shadows meaningful. This could probably be achieved by human retouching of course, but it would be tricky.
Another 60th Birthday present that my pal Mike Donoghue bought me. It’s a curious concept strictly for the anorakish like me.
It’s been a perfect bog jobbie companion since May but passed its last useful event this morning.
I mean there’s not that much to say about this other than it’s a compendium of photos of record store branded paper bags and carrier bags – everything from Ripping Records to Woolworths and I very much enjoyed its company in that lonely room.
“What am I; meat? Room service?” says Marilyn as she’s manhandled by the CIA down a hotel corridor to provide ‘relief’ for a President Kennedy deeply embroiled in the Cuban Missile Crisis in his fetching cream corset. As he discusses manoeuvres with an uncredited opponent on the phone he encourages Marilyn to get down to business. Romantic it is not.
Commodification of sexual desire, even with the most beautiful woman in the world, it most certainly is.
This film deals with the packaging of Marilyn Monroe as every man’s greatest fantasy. As a studio asset and, yes, a piece of meat to be fed to the baying hounds as often as possible.
And Andrew Dominik portrays these hounds in several slo-mo ultra grainy, high contrast scenes where Marilyn is hustled through crowds of admirers, although they seem more like hunters, of middle aged men with big bloated mouths, sweating, grimacing, howling. It’s horror incarnate. It’s Eraserhead on steroids. It’s frankly magnificent.
This is what’s making people hate this magisterial movie. It ain’t pretty, bubbly Marlyn Monroe singing Happy Birthday to the President all coy and boo boop de doo. It’s the REAL Marilyn – actually, it’s the real Norma Jeane, drug addled, abused, raped, stripped naked (literally and metaphorically again and again), denied the child she so cherishes. Bullied by dominant, possessive, trophy hunting husbands (apart from the beautiful Arthur Miller played, like a ray of sunshine in the midst of Marilyn’s tempest, by Adrien Brody). Although, the trauma starts not at the hands of men but through her mother’s psychotic behaviour in Norma Jeane’s childhood.
Her early relationship, in a menage a trios with Cass Chaplin and Eddie Robinson Jr (the sons of their famous fathers), is important as Cass takes a key role as the movie develops. It’s sexy but dangerous, happy but formidable and it sets the pace for the objectification of Marilyn (Norma).
The haters hate this because, like Spencer last year, the gauze has been removed from the camera, denying the soft focus of Norman Jeane’s tortured life and revealing the reality and it makes them uncomfortable.
I, on the other hand, think this is a masterpiece of film making, all that Andrew Dominik has hinted at in the past, brought together in a searingly great pot pourri of styles (with substance) and storytelling of the highest order. It’s surreal in places, it shape shifts constantly from black and white to colour from full frame to square frame. It’s graciously wrapped in the in and out beauty of Nick Cave and Warren Ellis at their most mesmerising.
It may be fictionalised, a reimagining of Monroe’s life that was initially novelised by Joyce Carol Oates, but we all know it’s really true.
And, to cap everything, it’s got Ana De Armas at its core. No, not at its core. At its heart.
I’m not a big fan of impersonation movies, but I’ll make an exception here.
De Armas looks nothing like Marilyn in real life, (she’s a dark haired Latin American woman to start with) but, in a way, this is part of the movie’s magic because Marilyn looked nothing like Marilyn too. Marilyn was a disguise, the real person beneath, Norma Jeane, was no blonde bombshell, no sex siren.
De Armas is nothing short of breathtaking in this role, all whispery seduction one moment, raging diva the next, breaking down in a third. She reveals Monroe’s hidden depths in a wonderful dialogue with Arthur Miller in which she unearths his first love in the script of a new play and using Chekov’s Natasha as a reference point.
Miller is smitten.
We all are.
She effortlessly moves through every shade of Marilyn’s personality triumphing at her most beautiful, but equally stunning us at her lowest points (and there are many).
This movie is a tough watch. It’s not chocolate box in any way whatsoever. But it’s a celebration of cinematic skill, especially Chayce Irvin’s mesmerising photography (he’s shot Beyonce before) of metaphor, of surrealism, of art, of beauty, of passion and I absolutely loved every second of its bulky 2 hrs 46 minutes.
Bravo Andrew Dominik, Bravo Ana De Armas, Bravo Netflix.
Well, that’s the bar set for Best Movie at this year’s Oscars.
In which Benedict Cumberbatch blows his back catalogue out of the water in assuming a complex role that simply takes your breath away. It helps that he has the truly magnificent Jane Campion to direct him in what is a virtuoso performance on her part.
The entire movie plays havoc with “Western” stereotypes in a similar way to how Brokeback Mountain totally upended the genre’s conventions. But this is an even more nuanced movie than Brokeback Mountain.
Once again Kirsten Dunst shows how great an actress she is (I loved her in Melancholia and The Virgin Suicides and it’s a real shame that her reputation really lies in fluff and franchise movies, because she is so much better than that). Perhaps, finally, Dunst will be given the recognition she deserves by the Academy. Surely.
She plays the wife of her real life husband (Jesse Plemons)who plays Cumberbatch’s brother. Cumberbatch, a redneck bully with a secret, and Plemons, the more sophisticated of the two, bullied by his brother and manager of the ranch and its rather magnificent “stately” home. The mistrust and disharmony the two exhibit is relentless and deeply unpleasant.
Dunst comes into the family with a pubescent son from her widowed previous marriage (the marvellous Kodi-Smit McPhee – best known as a child actor in The Road and Let Me In, but all grown up now) he’s a pretty boy in a roughneck world, totally out of place and relentlessly bullied, just like his new step father.
But the son gets under bully boy Cumberbatch’s skin and sees him for what he really is. No need to explain – it’ll only spoil the fun.
Once again Jonny Greenwood pulls out all the stoppers with a brooding, thoughtful and magical score. And the camerawork by Ari Wegner is truly remarkable. She made a deep impression on me with her work on The True History of the Kelly Gang and also in Lady Macbeth.
The movie juggles the relationships between the two brothers and the new wife and her son artfully. The interrelationship between each of them shapeshifts throughout the movie and Dunst’s rapid descent into alcoholism (fuelled by Cumberbatch’s obvious hatred of her) is beautifully directed and performed.
Cumberbatch has never been like this, not even remotely, before. He’s a malevolent, evil force. Dunst is at her equal career best and Campion has rarely, if ever, put a foot wrong throughout her illustrious career. And this is a highlight.
This is a movie to really savour, to relish, but uncomfortably so.
My friend Lisl MacDonald has seen this show live and raved about not, so to my surprise it appeared on Sky Arts last night. I didn’t even know there was a film of it. It’s recorded by Spike Lee at a Broadway Theatre which makes it intense and kind of club like.
It’s a gig, but it’s a theatrical gig with a band of 14 all with their instruments bluetooth connected so no cables get in the way, which is essential because it’s also a dance performance.
All dressed in beautiful mid gray suits and in bare feet, David Byrne himself looks magnificent. Handsome, erudite and with a singing voice that has not aged a day since he first graced the stage of CBGB’s in the mid 1970’s.
The show starts with a chain metal curtain very slowly rising from the stage floor to envelope the stage in a shimmering metallic glow through which performers appear and disappear. It’s highly reminiscent of a show I saw at The Edinburgh Festival a number of years ago called Rosas: Rain, choreographed by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, one of the most beautiful contemporary dance shows I’ve ever seen. ( I feel sure Byrne must have seen it and been influenced by it).
YouTube won’t let me embed the link but you can watch a trailer of it here.
It’s the music that lifts this gig from not just outstanding to a level that even exceeds what many acknowledge to be the greatest gig film ever made (Stop Making Sense, incredibly by David Byrne, with Talking Heads).
The only thing this show misses is Psycho Killer, but it has many of Talking Heads’ greatest songs, including my all time favourite, I Zimbra, which has it’s back story interestingly explained by Byrne. ( a 1932 Dadaesque nonsense Poem.)
You’d think a Talking Heads show without the other Heads would lack something. No it doesn’t because the musical accompaniment is outstanding.
Technically it is utter perfection with glorious but understated lighting and sound that is off the scale in its perfection.
The finale is breathtaking and tear-inducing, bringing to a fitting conclusion a show that I will be watching many times in the future.
I truly love Wes Anderson but his movies are hit and miss. This, I’m afraid, is more miss than hit.
The problem is that he’s not the world’s greatest storyteller. And this, like Life Aquatic, just flounders around passing time not really going anywhere.
But what it lacks in that department it gains in spades in terms of visual elan.
It is gorgeous. Simply stunning as each tableaux unveils itself. The way he dresses his sets, the typography of the subtitling (it’s set in France) the art directional detail and the sheer fun is breathtaking. Unparalleled in fact.
I mean, this is really an art installation, rather than a movie. Two hours of high art that is just beautiful.
He plays with aspect ratio from the off, flitting about from 5:4 to 16:9 and pretty much anything else you can devise. Not making a fuss, just, you know, doing it.
And he has a brilliant cast with a very full frontal performance from Bond Girl, Lea Seydoux, in rather less apparel than she showed us in Matera, Italy, not a month ago. Owen Wilson is fun, Bill Murray, however, is rather under-utilised.
I’ll not bother you with the plot, seeing as Wes didn’t.
If you want art, go see this. If you want stories, do Jackanory.
Of course our lifting of the Scottish Cup, the big one, was far more recent , and far more important. But this photo of Paddy picking up the League Cup has a beautiful quality about it to reflect the Hibees’ beautiful game.
I hope we draw St Johnstone because we will in no way underestimate them.
They have jinxed us all season so this would be a good time to get one back.
It’s been a great, but frustrating season. But to finish third and aagin lift the Scottish Cup would make it a truly memorable one with a terrific squad and a magic manager.
Jon was my first boss back in 1985 at Hall Advertising. He hired a hot new secretary soon after, that I quickly winched and later married.
He, and his wife Chris, had a daughter, Ria, who we thought had such a cool name that we unashamedly nicked it for our daughter Amanda.
(Only joking, she’s also called Ria.)
But that master/servant relationship that began in the pre-internet days soon became a peer-to-peer and extremely good mates relationship, and it thrives to this day.
We even live quite close (only a few miles as the crow swims) he in Aberdour, I in South Queensferry.
We have both run Festivals.
His, The Aberdour Festival, has put him on first name terms with King Creosote (which I think is cool). Mine, the spectacularly unspectacular and now defunct Queensferry Arts Festival.
By the way King Creosote’s first name isn’t King, it’s Kenny.
One of the things that has cemented our relationship is our love of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra, whom we both saw, with Chris and my, not his, Ria at Glastonbury in 2011 (amongst other occasions).
The other is beer and food and wine and that.
And good advertising.
And good books.
Jon is cool but he doesn’t think so and you couldn’t tell it from the preposterously ham-fisted portrait he ‘knocked up’ in 30 seconds when I asked him to. Not for him a trip to Patrick Lichfield’s, oh no, he, like me, is a bit of a basher and what will do, will do.
I made it monochrome which spares some of the abject amateurism of it.
Anyway, Jon, you have great taste and I’m delighted to share your Unknown Pleasures with my readers.
My favourite author or book
Where do you start? When I was young, I read to impress – Iris Murdoch, Anthony Powell, CP Snow, JP Donleavy (although I really did like him). I then went through a phase of reading books in rotation – one to improve me, one to learn something technical, usually something to do with the Apollo space missions, and one to read without thinking.
I’m much less rigorous now and over the years I’ve read everything by Len Deighton, John Le Carre, Christopher Brookmyre, David Lodge, Tom Sharpe, Iain Banks (but not Iain M. Banks) – even Jilly Cooper. At the moment I do like Hilary Mantel, Jonathan Coe, Ian McEwen and William Boyd. And Ian Rankin.
I’ve just finished Barack Obama’s book which was uplifting and dispiriting in equal measure. How do we get from such a patently intelligent and humane man to Donald Trump in such a short space of time? Jon Sopel’s latest book Unpresidented is an entertaining romp through the last US election campaign.
I can say, as anyone that has ever worked with me will testify, I have yet to read any of the airport books like “How to be a winning manager by the time you get off the plane”
The book I’m reading
One Long and Beautiful Summer by Duncan Hamilton – a paean to county cricket as it used to be before the gel-haired marketing know-it-alls took over and turned cricket into a game for people with the attention span of a particularly dim goldfish.
The book I wish I had written
No real desire to write a book, not even the one that’s apparently inside me.
The book I couldn’t finish
Quite a lot but Lincoln in the Bardo was definitely one I couldn’t get into.
The book I’m ashamed I haven’t read
Can’t think of any particular one, although I would like to have appreciated Dickens more instead of rejecting him because he was a set text at O-Level.
My favourite film
Toss-up between Apollo 13 and Local Hero.
My favourite play
I’ve seen a lot of stuff at the Traverse and it’s difficult to pick any one as a favourite but I did enjoy Under Milk Wood by the Aberdour Players in our local village hall. The writing is brilliant, and it prompted me to get the BBC Richard Burton narration as an audiobook. Which is probably better than The Aberdour Players’ version.
My favourite podcast
Like Stephen Dunn I thought 13 Minutes to the Moon was outstanding.
The box set I’m hooked on
When does a TV series become a box set? I can’t cope with TV binges so still watch one at a time.
My favourite TV series
At the moment it’s Unforgotten
My favourite piece of music
Pretty much anything from my Jolly-Jon singalongaplaylist
My favourite dance performance
Every time I’ve seen NDT it’s been stunning, but I go to dance performances with Mrs S on the basis that if I have to sit through a dance show, she has to go for a curry afterwards…so the last dance performance she went to was with Mark Gorman as she doesn’t really like curry….
The Last film/music/book that made me cry
Oh What a Beautiful Morning from Oklahoma at my mother’s funeral. Although it was absolutely pissing down, so there was some laughter through the tears.
The lyric I wish I’d written
The Christmas one Hugh Grant’s father wrote in About A Boy that allowed Hugh to live quite happilywithout having to work.
The song that saved me
Not sure I’ve ever needed saving but California Girls by the Beach Boys reminds me of being a hormonal 13 year old, getting interested in girls and thinking the Californian ones sounded exciting – if only I had known what to do if I met one.
The instrument I play
I’ve tried and failed several – but one day I’m going to master the guitar and be transformed into the acoustic Bob Dylan
The instrument I wish I’d learned
Piano or clarinet
If I could own one painting it would be
Probably something by David Hockney
The music that cheers me up
Bean Fields by the Penguin Café Orchestra. With thanks to Mr Gorman who introduced me to the delights of the PCO.
He’s also tried to introduce me to Nick Cave but I’d rather poke my eyes out with a burning stick, thank you very much.
The place I feel happiest
Achiltibuie – thanks to Jim Downie.
My guiltiest cultural pleasure
Death in Paradise
I’m having a fantasy dinner party, I’ll invite these artists and authors
David Mitchell (the comedian, not the author), Billy Connolly, Meryl Streep, David Attenborough and Danny Boyle
And I’ll put on this music
My Jolly-Jon mix tape obvs.
If you liked this you might like to read the others in this series.
I knew, when I asked Murray to write this for me, that he was dying. But I knew he’d relish it. I knew that he would entertain us and shed light on his most treasured cultural memories.
It’s perhaps significant that the book he had just completed in the last weeks of his life was about stoic philosophy. Because he was stoic and witty to the end.
We weren’t big mates or anything. But I admired his great strategic mind and his love for African music, something we shared.
He will be greatly missed by his family and many great friends.
God bless Murray.
Here is something my good friend Pauline Platt sent me when my Mum passed away that may bring comfort to his family.
What is dying?
The ship sails and I stand watching till he fades on the horizon and something at my side says “He is gone”.
Gone where?
Gone from my sight, that is all: he is just as large as when I saw him.
The diminshed size and total loss of sight is in me, not in him and just at the moment when someone at my side says “He is gone” there are others who are watching him coming and other voices take up a glad shout, “There he comes””.
And that is dying.
He struggled to compose emails to me as we messaged each other “It’s the cancer Mark”, he told me when I said to him that one of his emails had “…hit the scrambler”.
You can see it in some of his final tweets.
Now we are left with these reflections after his short life.
Murray and I share a distinction. Both of us are ex-chairs of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising in Scotland (the IPA). I think he was the first ‘media man’ to hold the position. I was the first idiot.
Those of you who know him, know he’s no longer working, but he is a source of great inspiration to us all. That’s because he has terminal cancer and, rather than getting all sorry for himself, he’s doing stuff like this.
He’s being positive. He’s living the life he has left.
Captain Murray. We salute you sir.
My favourite author or book
Iain M. Banks (or Iain Banks if you’re more of a fan of his literary fiction) has long been my favourite author. He switches seamlessly between literary and science fiction and this Culture Universe is, to me at least, one of the most beautifully realised pieces of world-building in science fiction. And probably the best example of “fully-automated luxury communism” in literature. So many future-scapes are written as dystopian that it’s a real tonic to read about a universe which spells out such a vividly realised utpopian vision.
Not only that, his sense of playfulness and humour shines through in both the names and the dialogue of the “Minds”, the AI’s who run the whole shebang. I’m very sad every time I’m reminded there will never be another new Culture novel. RIP Iain.
The book I’m reading
I have just finished Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning” after reading a lot of Stoic Philosophy with which It showed a lot of similarities.
The book I wish I had written
Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks
The book I couldn’t finish
Too many to name. Life’s too short to waste on books you’re not enjoying.
The book I’m ashamed I haven’t read
None. Life’s also far too short to be ashamed about not reading a book.
My favourite film
Bladerunner. Brilliant set-design, great performances, a stunning soundtrack. It’s perfect.
My favourite play
I can’t even remember the last time I saw a play so I don’t think I’m qualified to answer this question.
My favourite podcast
I’m not really a podcast listener, but I’m a great admirer of what Giles Edwards and team have achieved with the isolaTED talks series. Some fantastic talks from impressive people in aid of an important and worthwhile cause.
The box set I’m hooked on
Last thing I was hooked on was zerozerozero on Sky. Mexican drug cartel ultraviolence, Italian mafia codes of honour and American avarice all rolled into one. Highly entertaining
My favourite TV series
Antiques Roadshow is a Sunday evening staple in our house. Of course you’d never sell it.
My favourite piece of music
As Long as I Have You by Garnett Mimms. A stomping piece of Northern Soul which we chose as first dance at our wedding after being introduced to it by Gideon, the guy behind Block 9 at Glastonbury who’s a friend of Emma (my now wife’s) best pal from school.
My favourite dance performance
Ashley Page’s The Pump Room performed by Scottish Ballet to an Aphex Twin remix of Nine Inch Nails. Most unexpected.
The Last film/music/book that made me cry
I’m not sure I’d stop if I started, so I’ve not cried for a while now.
The lyric I wish I’d written
I’ll leave it to the professionals.
The song that saved me
See My Favourite Piece of Music
The instrument I play
I don’t play any musical instrument but I do play other people’s records occasionally. Does DJing count?
Murray’s in-home Captain DJ booth. Complete with Lichtenstein backdrop.
The instrument I wish I’d learned
I wish I’d started DJing earlier
If I could own one painting it would be
Not a painting but a print, specifically, The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai. As a (very) amateur printer myself, I’m fascinated by the technique involved in creating these incredible woodblock prints.
The music that cheers me up
I’m a funk fan. Anything with a driving baseline
The place I feel happiest
Behind the decks. I was fortunate to hold a brief residency at the SubClub in Glasgow in the mid 2,000’s and warming up for Hardfloor to an over-capacity crowd from that booth is one of my happiest memories.
My guiltiest cultural pleasure
LIfe’s too short to feel guilt about the pleasures you take.
I’m having a fantasy dinner party, I’ll invite these artists and authors
David Byrne, Brian Eno, Olivery Bondzio, Snoop Dogg, Beyonce, Hilary Mantell, Margaret Atwood
And I’ll put on this music
Mostly African recently, although, not necessarily Afrobeat. I’m a huge fan of the Analog Africa label and have been slowly completing my collection of their compilations.
I’ve known Stephen for the best part of a decade now. He’s a phenomenon. A proper philanthropist who has, in his retirement from the energy industry where he made an impact at the very highest level, continued that impact, particularly in theatre and at Hibernian FC where he is a hands-on and much loved board director.
He’s a photographer, and an exceptionally good one at that, having undertaken study at degree level. But he’s intuitively great.
It’s in theatre that I know him best and his recent creation of the Stephen Dunn Theatre Fund is helping in many ways, most recently with the fabulous new podcast series presented by Nicola Roy called The Cultural Coven. You’ll find it on Spotify and Apple.
Here’s his beautifully curated and eclectic Unknown Pleasures.
My favourite author or book
I love a laugh, so it must be Spike Milligan’s Adolf Hitler, My Part in His Downfall. It is a book I can read again, and again, and always laugh out loud. I loved Milligan and his viewpoint on all life. His letters, particularly to HMRC, met in-kind by a very funny tax inspector, brighten up any day and are a template on how to deal with officialdom and jobsworths. However, it his beautifully observed, and no doubt greatly exaggerated, commentary on army life, the war and particularly the characters he encountered is a book I would take to that desert island if I were ever asked.
The book I’m reading
Svetlana Boym’s The Future of Nostalgia is my current read, primarily for my Masters in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography. It is a book worth reading in its own right however as it looks at nostalgia, from its historic position as a disease, cured in some armies by shooting, to the reasons we feel a longing for times and places from the past. Being of Russian birth there is a brilliant analysis of their psyche and approach to life, and of their former citizens!
The book I wish I had written
“From the Earth to the Moon” Jules Verne. Foresight or what!
The book I couldn’t finish
Loads of those. Mostly science fiction literature. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K Dick is one I gave up on in the early 1970s, only to love Blade Runner the film. Who knew!
The book I’m ashamed I haven’t read
The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. My English teacher at school was a great inspiration and she gave us the option to read either the Thucydides or An Inspector Calls by J. B. Priestley. I chose the latter and that started my love of theatre. Miss Merson wanted the former as she felt I would become a more rounded person. I was ashamed to let her down.
My favourite film
An impossible question. Depends on mood, genre and what is happening in the world. Recently I watched and loved Apollo 11, more a documentary but great, nevertheless. A bit of film noir such as Double Indemnity and of course a bit of To Catch a Thief, just to see the South of France!
My favourite play
Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller at the Young Vic was probably the best I have seen in recent years although Angels in America, Tony Kushner at The National Theatre was also up there.
My favourite podcast
15 Minutes to the Moon. Theme here!
The box set I’m hooked on
Don’t do box sets. Although have recently found Netflix but tried to avoid binges.
My favourite TV series
The Sweeney, followed by The Avengers followed by Rising Damp.
My favourite piece of music
Alone Again Naturally, Gilbert O’Sullivan. Loved it when it first came out and love it today.
My favourite dance performance
No great on dance. Went to a ballet once and thought it was noisy!
The Last film/music/book that made me cry
Fences. August Wilson play turned into a film directed and starred Denzel Washington and Viola Davis.
The lyric I wish I’d written
Colors changing hue Morning fields of amber grain Weathered faces lined in pain Are soothed beneath the artist’s loving hand
Don McLean, Vincent
The song that saved me
Not needed so far. However, Stay With Me, The Faces would feature!
The instrument I play
A Leica MP film camera.
The instrument I wish I’d learned
A triangle.
If I could own one painting it would be
Ophelia, Sir John Everett Millais. Pre Electricity Council meetings at Millbank I would sit and stare at it! Was offended when they loaned it to Russia and complained to one of the curators. It was mine you see!
The music that cheers me up
The Faces.
The place I feel happiest
In a theatre, preferably the Lyceum, although The National in London is a space I love and of course Easter Road.
My guiltiest cultural pleasure
Being able to go to the smoke at the drop of the hat to “do” theatre.
I’m having a fantasy dinner party, I’ll invite these artists and authors
Spike Milligan, Jack Lemmon, Billie Holliday, W. Eugene Smith, Bing Crosby and Stephen Fry.
This had been on my watchlist for a while but I was prompted to watch it when its director Shannon Murphy was BAFTA nominated as best director. It’s based on play by its writer Rita Kalnejais but it’s no play transformed to film. It’s a breathtaking film in its own right, in no small part due to its bold direction.
It’s about a terminally ill 15 year old girl, played beautifully and unmawkishly by Eliza Scanlen, a true star in the making who you may remember as the dying sister Beth March in 2019’s exquisite Little Women.
The plot revolves around Scanlen’s Milla who lives with her dysfunctional parents. Her dad, Ben Mendelsohn, is a psychiatrist, her mum, Essie Davis, is a retired concert pianist. Milla too plays violin rather well and attends an all girls music school where, despite her illness, is unembraced and something of an outsider.
One day on her way to school she almost ends up under a train thanks to the intervention of a 23 year old junkie, Moses (another fine performance by Toby Wallace) and so begins an unlikely romance/symbiotic relationship wherein Moses is invited into the family home, despite his thieving of the heavily sedated mother’s drugs, as her dad fuels his drug-taking habit via prescriptions he can write for him.
It’s largely hilarious, but gradually switches gear into poignancy without ever going all “Marley and Me” on us.
The central performance by the radiantly beautiful Scanlen is truly great as she navigates the relationship awkwardly, but entirely believably, with both her illness and her reluctant ‘boyfriend’; her first.
But it’s Murphy’s direction that draws the most admiration as a subject that could be car crash moviemaking as it negotiates all the usual tropes with a deftness of touch and a searingly brilliant soundtrack (including two scenes, one as she dances to Sudan Archive’s glorious violin infused Come Meh Way and another at a party where it all goes a bit hallucinogenic).
The real craft in this beautiful and ultimately moving movie is in the weaving together of episodes with quirky titling that captures the dying girl’s last year or so of her life without flinching and throwing in moment after moment of humour that’s genuinely laugh out loud, even if we, the viewers, think “Come on , this is no laughing matter.”
It’s no pity-porn, far from it, and that’s why it’s so affecting.
It’s a triumphant film deserving of even more recognition than it is already garnering.
This blew me away from the first bar of Mogwai’s omnipresent, brooding, lurking, evil, insidious, dangerous, murky, scary score.
In fact Mogwai is one of the reasons this programme scored a perfect 10 for me.
It’s electrifying. The violence is brutal but necessary and the story, although often complex, is worth disentangling.
It’s the best use of multi POV I’ve seen in a long time. Very long scenes that start with an innocuous framing device; a door, a forklift truck load of jalapeños, for example, become the jumping off point for two, occasionally three, ‘takes’ on a plot-critical scene. It’s genius.
The acting is obscenely great and as it develops it’s the Hodgkinson-suffering drug dealmaker’s son, played by Dane DeHaan, that eventually sits atop a masterful pile of gritty, entirely believable characters. Outstanding.
It’s a three level story about cocaine smuggling by the mafia from the Mexican Narcos via a New York shipping family (Andrea Risbourgh, DeHann and Gabriel Byrne) who broker a $60m transaction and oversee its calamity-ridden transfer from A to B via most of Africa (the bad bits).
And being Catholic takes a right good kicking by the way.
It’s white knuckle from start to finish (thank you Mogwai) and thrillingly filmed. At one point I said to my wife “I wish I could see this in cinema”.
I expect this to clear up in awards season. Bravo!
The first part of Steve McQueens ‘quintology’ of race related British films was the excellent Mangrove, about life amid (police) racism in 1971’s West London and concerned the trial of the Mangrove Nine. A group of Carribean immigrants who largely chose to defend themselves in the face of cooked up (no pun intended) charges. It’s a fine courtroom drama and is highly recommended.
Part two, in my view, is even better.
Lover’s Rock is built on a simple premise.
Init starts with the preparations for a ‘Blues Party’ in somewhere like Notting Hill in 1980’s London before easing gently into the party itself.
It holds little real narrative thread but, instead, somehow manages to convey a feeling of actually being at the party, scripted in Jamaican vernacular that’s often hard to follow (for me a white Jock) but it doesn’t really matter because, between the combined talents of McQueen and his astounding cinematographer Shabier Kirchner and editor Chris Dickens, we are drawn into an atmosphere that is truly immersive.
You know all those shit dance floor scenes you’ve seen in a million low budget productions? Well, this has none of them despite the fact that maybe 50% of the action takes place in the wooden-floored front room of a London detached house, with a Sound System crumbling its faded grandeur.
It’s monumental, as is the epic (largely) dub reggae soundtrack that suffuses it from the start.
The highlight is the central action around two songs, Janet Kaye’s Silly Games and one I confess I don’t know that brought the males on the dance floor to a Babylonian moshpit of sorts. (So good they play it twice).
Special mention must also be made for the Carl Douglas’, Kung Fu Fighting sequence.
All of this is epic because of the way McQueen’s direction oozes through the cramped flesh of the highly tactile dancefloor, sweating out ganja and suffocating in its smoke throughout.
It’s a breathtaking and wondrous achievement that will bear repeat viewing.
They’ve taken Gimlet Media’s astounding podcast and adapted not one, but two, TV series from it.
In the first, Julia Roberts not only allegedly bought the rights but assumes the title role of Heidi Bergman, a case worker at a mysterious ‘facility’ in which homecoming American war veterans are treated for PTSD. Why? You’ll have to watch to find out.
I’m no Roberts fan and although her performance is good I’d like to have seen Catherine Keener take her aural role on-screen. Likewise, I think both Oscar Isaac and David Schwimmer might have made better jobs of their roles than the TV replacements.
But that’s actually a quibble, because what we get is an excellent rendering of the story with outstanding direction, music and camerawork.
It’s an oddity, especially at its 20 minute length (echoing the podcast).
What the TV does, that adds value, is add the aforementioned production values to the already high quality that Gimlet achieved. The design, overall, is stunning; with a touch of the Kubricks.
But I’m left thinking, good as it is, a little was lost in the translation.
The same cannot be said of Season 2.
It’s now a significant diversion from the podcast.
We meet a new lead in Janelle Monae who plays Jackie (or is it Alex?) an employee of Geist (or is she), the company that administered (shadily) the ‘Homecoming’ initiative in Season 1.
She is almost literally lost at sea as the series opens. We have no idea who she is or how she got there, what’s more, neither does she.
This is a big ask for Monae who takes on her first lead role, to my knowledge, and has to rise to the challenge of carrying the series. I felt she was on the brink of failing the task at a few points, after all she’s a singer not an actor, but at each tipping point she just gets over the bar so that by the end I believe we enjoy a fine performance.
Steven James raises his game as Walter Cruz and his character gets much more rounded, but the real ‘find’ is Chris Cooper as Leonard Geist, the mill owner gone rogue, feeling overwhelmed by his own bastard creation.
Show-stealing, on an epic scale, is the filthy performance of Joan Cusack as (Officer) Bunda.
Season 2 shifts a gear. It’s even darker, it’s less familiar to us ‘Poddies’ and it’s found its TV voice. It just gets better and better.
The circular plot device means that nothing is clear until the very end of the final episode and that’s one of the reasons, the excellent Monae aside, that it makes such gripping viewing.
gibberish 