Monthly culture: October 2018
Friday, November 2nd, 2018 01:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tamaranth13OCT18: Venom, Greenwich Picturehouse
Met (and in some respects exceeded) my low expectations. Not Tom Hardy's best performance: not even in the top ten. The dialogue was dire, the characters behaved as though they had no impulse control or empathy, and the only individual with much depth was Riz Ahmed's Carlton Drake.
Hypothesis: how different would this film have been if the symbiotes had been regarded / referred to as female, rather than male?
Further hypothesis: is this actually a story about love saving the world? (And I do not mean the relationship between Eddie and Annie.)
High points included Small Dog in Hospital; Stan Lee; the second post-credits scene.
20OCT18: It's True, It's True, It's True -- New Diorama Theatre
Couldn't see this in Edinburgh because it had such good reviews that all the tickets were sold. Instead, I saw it as my single cultural outing for the day, which probably helped. It's an arresting play, horribly close to the bone (though I note the elements of humour which seem mandatory for most Edinburgh hits, and which may have been slightly off-key here). It's a recreation of a trial that took place in Rome in 1612: the trial of Agostino Tassi for the rape of his sometime student, 15-year old artist Artemisia Gentileschi.
Told entirely in the words of the original court record (translated from Latin and Italian into English), it's acted by three women who continually swap roles: the judge, Artemisia, Tassi, Artemisia's companion Tutzia. There are discussions, and on-stage tableaux, of two of Gentileschi's most powerful paintings: Susanna and the Elders (Susanna being leered at by a group of uninvited men) and Judith Slaying Holofernes (archetypal female vengeance: Judith rolls up her sleeves). Some vile bits, too: Artemisia forced to repeat her accusations while thumbscrews are applied ('we can't risk Signor Tassi's hands'); Tassi's post-rape assurance, 'why are you crying? I promise that I'll marry you'; the sexual slanders about Artemisia and other men acted out, with the actors being 10ft apart as they grind and clutch and suck.
Some of the dialogue seems horridly familiar: 'I don't remember, sir; I have no memory of it... ' (Tassi); 'he told me he was joking and that I should calm down' (Artemisia). And Tassi's swagger: ugh.
Angry, powerful, reclamation and affirmation: it's true, it's true, it's true (says Artemisia, repeating it until the words are just sounds: 'I will say this forever'). Excellent acting, sparse staging, and a soundtrack of powerful angry women's songs: definitely wins the award for 'best use of Patti Smith's 'Gloria' in a theatrical production'. Highly recommended but note that some of it is disturbing.
25OCT18: Wise Children, Old Vic
Based on Angela Carter's last novel. The Chance twins are 'illegitimate in every way'. It's a wise child who knows its father, says one sister: their natural father won't acknowledge them, though his brother Perry is a constant presence and source of fun, money and frivolity. The sisters (Dora and Nora) are inseparable -- the play starts on their 75th birthday, and they look back over a life of love, lust, theatrical performance and solidarity.
Enjoyable and uplifting, feminist .. but I suspect it glosses over most of the nasties (the unpleasant revelation in the last 10 mins felt like a kind of betrayal). Excellent performances from the twins in their various age-incarnations, and a charming production. I should probably have read the novel first: I thought I had read it, in the dim and distant past, but nothing felt familiar.
26OCT18: Bohemian Rhapsody, Greenwich Picturehouse
Sex'n'drugs'n'rock'n'roll, without the sex and without the drugs. Presumably they wanted to make the film acceptable to less liberal cultures: I suspect the '12' rating was a side-effect, as I can't see teenagers being the target audience for this rock biography. Some reviewers felt the film was homophobic, but I didn't get that impression (though it was unfortunate that the villain was a gay man). Seems to have stuck with public-domain facts, and of course was shepherded by Roger Taylor and Brian May: it comes across as a loving memorial.
It left out most of the sex and drugs: the rock'n'roll was brilliant, though, from a humorous depiction of Roger Taylor recording the falsetto bits of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' to a big-screen recreation of Queen's Live Aid performance (which I remember watching live, long long ago). I also note that the Seventies scenes almost look as though they were filmed in the Seventies -- possibly a deliberately-faded colour palette?
Kudos to Rami Malek for a fey, funny-looking Mercury -- every flamboyant gesture counted, and so did the vulnerability -- and to Gwilym Lee who looks nothing like Brian May in real life, but was uncanny on screen.
Made me want to listen to Queen's Greatest Hits, but I don't have a car, much less one with a cassette player. [obscure joke]
29OCT18: Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir, Cadogan Hall
A mix of ancient and modern music, by European, American and New Zealand composers, sung with beautiful harmonies and the accompaniment of traditional Maori instruments. Highlights for me were 'O viridissima virga' (Hildegard of Bingen), the 'Bestiaire' of Jean Absil (dromedaries, carp, a peacock, crayfish, a cat), and 'Canticum calamitatis maritimae' by Finnish composer Jaakko Mäntyjärvi (about the wreck of the Estonia ferry in 1994).
Met (and in some respects exceeded) my low expectations. Not Tom Hardy's best performance: not even in the top ten. The dialogue was dire, the characters behaved as though they had no impulse control or empathy, and the only individual with much depth was Riz Ahmed's Carlton Drake.
Hypothesis: how different would this film have been if the symbiotes had been regarded / referred to as female, rather than male?
Further hypothesis: is this actually a story about love saving the world? (And I do not mean the relationship between Eddie and Annie.)
High points included Small Dog in Hospital; Stan Lee; the second post-credits scene.
20OCT18: It's True, It's True, It's True -- New Diorama Theatre
Couldn't see this in Edinburgh because it had such good reviews that all the tickets were sold. Instead, I saw it as my single cultural outing for the day, which probably helped. It's an arresting play, horribly close to the bone (though I note the elements of humour which seem mandatory for most Edinburgh hits, and which may have been slightly off-key here). It's a recreation of a trial that took place in Rome in 1612: the trial of Agostino Tassi for the rape of his sometime student, 15-year old artist Artemisia Gentileschi.
Told entirely in the words of the original court record (translated from Latin and Italian into English), it's acted by three women who continually swap roles: the judge, Artemisia, Tassi, Artemisia's companion Tutzia. There are discussions, and on-stage tableaux, of two of Gentileschi's most powerful paintings: Susanna and the Elders (Susanna being leered at by a group of uninvited men) and Judith Slaying Holofernes (archetypal female vengeance: Judith rolls up her sleeves). Some vile bits, too: Artemisia forced to repeat her accusations while thumbscrews are applied ('we can't risk Signor Tassi's hands'); Tassi's post-rape assurance, 'why are you crying? I promise that I'll marry you'; the sexual slanders about Artemisia and other men acted out, with the actors being 10ft apart as they grind and clutch and suck.
Some of the dialogue seems horridly familiar: 'I don't remember, sir; I have no memory of it... ' (Tassi); 'he told me he was joking and that I should calm down' (Artemisia). And Tassi's swagger: ugh.
Angry, powerful, reclamation and affirmation: it's true, it's true, it's true (says Artemisia, repeating it until the words are just sounds: 'I will say this forever'). Excellent acting, sparse staging, and a soundtrack of powerful angry women's songs: definitely wins the award for 'best use of Patti Smith's 'Gloria' in a theatrical production'. Highly recommended but note that some of it is disturbing.
25OCT18: Wise Children, Old Vic
Based on Angela Carter's last novel. The Chance twins are 'illegitimate in every way'. It's a wise child who knows its father, says one sister: their natural father won't acknowledge them, though his brother Perry is a constant presence and source of fun, money and frivolity. The sisters (Dora and Nora) are inseparable -- the play starts on their 75th birthday, and they look back over a life of love, lust, theatrical performance and solidarity.
Enjoyable and uplifting, feminist .. but I suspect it glosses over most of the nasties (the unpleasant revelation in the last 10 mins felt like a kind of betrayal). Excellent performances from the twins in their various age-incarnations, and a charming production. I should probably have read the novel first: I thought I had read it, in the dim and distant past, but nothing felt familiar.
26OCT18: Bohemian Rhapsody, Greenwich Picturehouse
Sex'n'drugs'n'rock'n'roll, without the sex and without the drugs. Presumably they wanted to make the film acceptable to less liberal cultures: I suspect the '12' rating was a side-effect, as I can't see teenagers being the target audience for this rock biography. Some reviewers felt the film was homophobic, but I didn't get that impression (though it was unfortunate that the villain was a gay man). Seems to have stuck with public-domain facts, and of course was shepherded by Roger Taylor and Brian May: it comes across as a loving memorial.
It left out most of the sex and drugs: the rock'n'roll was brilliant, though, from a humorous depiction of Roger Taylor recording the falsetto bits of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' to a big-screen recreation of Queen's Live Aid performance (which I remember watching live, long long ago). I also note that the Seventies scenes almost look as though they were filmed in the Seventies -- possibly a deliberately-faded colour palette?
Kudos to Rami Malek for a fey, funny-looking Mercury -- every flamboyant gesture counted, and so did the vulnerability -- and to Gwilym Lee who looks nothing like Brian May in real life, but was uncanny on screen.
Made me want to listen to Queen's Greatest Hits, but I don't have a car, much less one with a cassette player. [obscure joke]
29OCT18: Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir, Cadogan Hall
A mix of ancient and modern music, by European, American and New Zealand composers, sung with beautiful harmonies and the accompaniment of traditional Maori instruments. Highlights for me were 'O viridissima virga' (Hildegard of Bingen), the 'Bestiaire' of Jean Absil (dromedaries, carp, a peacock, crayfish, a cat), and 'Canticum calamitatis maritimae' by Finnish composer Jaakko Mäntyjärvi (about the wreck of the Estonia ferry in 1994).
