PREFACE
This is the sporadically updated blog of reviews by Harriet, author of In the Aquarium: a londoner's life.
I have kept the reviews separate to enable them to be indexed and therefore more easily accessible (see listing below).
FAVE FILMS DEAD MAN What an idea, the man is dying for almost the entire length of the film, the music is fantastic, its black and white, ideology, mythology, funny, sad, Johnny Depp sex god...
THE DRAFTMAN'S CONTRACT The first Peter Greenaway film I saw and possibly the most accessible. Beautiful set, costumes, direction. Fantastic soundtrack.
MULHOLLAND DRIVE I knew exactly what was going on right up until the last 15 minutes and damn it but then I lost it.
NIGHT ON EARTH Jim Jarmusch made the only film with Winona Ryder worth watching and it had Beatrice Dalle (say no more)
O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU? Roar out loud with laughter and tunes that make you love country music. My sister had to sneak out of the cinema ahead of our dad and me cos she was so embarrassed at our laughing.
ORLANDO Quiet, passionate, time travel.
PITCH BLACK Bails and I watched this with its bleached scenery and its whoar factor star. We LOVED him, Mr Diesel take a bow.
RESERVOIR DOGS Tight Tarantino gang heist gone wrong. Great soundtrack. And there's something about Michael Madson, dancing just before cutting off the cop's ear...
ROMUALD ET JULIETTE Truely lovely romance comedy.
THREE COLOURS TRILOGY Blue, White and Red. I liked them all. Quiet stories, beautifully shot.
THE USUAL SUSPECTS Its a story told. And the first time I saw it I didn't get the twist until just before it happened.
Seen The Reviews
Saturday 13 September 2003 Sticky Jubilee Gardens, South Bank
It hadn't really decided who it was aiming itself at - kids or adults, it hadn't decided whether it was a great fireworks display or a narrative performance piece. So although some of the effects were lovely it at times seemed slow and somewhat confusing. It was a spider that was eating a fly and the fly was in the belly of the spider, or something. It wasn't helped by the fact that the audience felt it was a fireworks display and two dads just behind us kept up a running commentary of what was happening so the kids sitting on their shoulders kept watching and everyone went oooo and aahhhh when the fireworks burst. Performance or fireworks display - it wasn't the best of either. But it was interesting.
Thursday 4 September 2003 His Girl Friday National Theatre
Great adaptation (by John Guare) of The Front Page by Ben Hecht & Charles MacArthur.
Set was great - about 10 minutes before the beginning of the play actors were milling around on the stage with stagehands who were erecting walls and putting in sugar windows etc. Actors pretending to be makeup girls were doing makeup and others pretending to be set staff or directors instructed. And then the play began but almost didn't realise it.
There's a group of reporters hanging out in the press room of the court house waiting for a story to break about a hanging, possibly the last hanging in Chicago. Wise cracking, card playing, alcholic reporters who all talk at 110mph. A couple of keystone cops. A bent mayor and sherif trying to rig the election. A newspaperman-woman who has left the profession and found a nice insurance salesman to get married to (who sadly has one of those mothers) but who once was married to the best reporter of the bunch. So there's going to be a hanging. But the prisoner escapes during the assessment of his mental state. His reprieve is covered up by the bent mayor and sherif and they try to bribe the messenger. The escaped murderer finally breaks into the press room onto the returned newpaperman-woman. They try to get him out of the building in a roll-top desk. And it all ends happily ever after.
Part way into the very beginning I began to notice that they were producing a black and white play - the whole set, costumes and everything were only in black, white and shades of grey. Speed of the dialogue was fast. Cleverly staged. Funny. They captured the quirkiness of films of the time, the jovialness and the comedy.
Starring Zoe Wannamaker (who is great), Alex Jennings (also great) and many other familiar actors who all managed to portray the historic nature of the play and the story without it seeming weird.
I really enjoyed it. A gripping yarn. And a very good exit from all the cast at the end.
