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Monthly culture, July 2023
01JUL23: The Mikado (Gilbert and Sullivan, Sasha Regan) -- Wilton's Music Hall
Another all-male G&S that doesn't overdo the campness: there are some excellent falsetto voices here, and some real sweetness. Also an extremely vicious tennis duel during 'Three Little Girls'. They've taken out all the faux-Oriental stuff, which was a relief. The 'little list' was not as contemporary as some I've heard, but did single out 'modernist composers': 'they'd none of them be missed / their songs don't even rhyme'. A polished, cheerful afternoon of gaiety in the old-fashioned sense.
06JUL23: Asterix and Obelix: The Middle Kingdom (Canet, 2023) -- Netflix
The first live-action Asterix without Depardieu as Obelix: instead we get a chap in a fat-suit. I watched with English dub and subtitles, which was a mistake as it meant I understood all of the dialogue (though not why it was written in the first place). Subtitles do not match actual dialogue, depriving English viewers of some frightful puns. Soundtrack abyssmal (I loathe the approach of 'let's play a little bit of a pop song that is vaguely relevant, and then cut back to Film Muzak') and plot incoherent. Some famous names, who presumably were well-paid and only had to read a small part of the script. Non.
10JUL23: Illusionaries: Memories of a Dead Poet (Arash Irandoust)
A story told over three immersive rooms, with sound and projected art: K and I had each room to ourselves for the 10-minute programme, and were encouraged to make ourselves comfortable. The first room focussed, I think, on war and conflict, with an impenetrable collage of audio and spoken word. The second, with mirrored walls, was like being in a kaleidoscope: fractal images, surreal elements, trippy music. The third was a dark cosy space with pebble-like cushions and a round space like a hearth for the projections. The whole thing was interesting, and well-executed, but I don't think either of us understood or made sense of the overall arc. It wasn't cheap, but then if each booking gets each room to itself for 10-15 minutes that limits the throughput. I think I found the Van Gogh Alive event easier to assimilate, though it wasn't as creative.
13JUL23: Eldorado: Everything the Nazis Hate (Cantu / Lambert, 2023) -- Netflix
Documentary focussing, at least initially, on the queer nightclub Eldorado in Berlin during the Weimar Republic: much joy and liberty to start with, and mixed-race socialising, and openly loving queerness: but then, of course, Nazism. Many familiar names: Ernst Rohm (and the thinly-veiled homoeroticism of Nazism); tennis star Gottfried von Cramm; Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (where artist Toni Ebel received sex reassignment surgery). This was a fascinating mix of reconstructions and actual archive material: I had no idea that so much film footage had survived.
Amid the history there's an interview with an elderly gay Jewish man, Walter Arlen, who was born in 1920 and remembers gay life in 1930s Germany. His first lover Fülöp Loránt died in a concentration camp: but Walter escaped to America, and now lives in California with his husband. His story brought tears to my eyes. It felt more immediate than the footage and the reportage: a reminder that the horrors of Nazism are within living memory. And there are too many parallels between then and now.
Interesting to watch this in film group with a German friend: 'my people were vile (looking at their strutting hideousness)'. Reader, she is not wrong.
14JUL23: Naomi Novik at Waterstones Piccadilly
Naomi Novik talked about her Scholomance books: subverting the 'magic school' trope; parents making selfish choices for their children; El as the villain, speaking truth to power and recognising systems, rather than individuals; 'it's a grimdark world, but I'm not a grimdark writer'. She spoke about writing (fanfiction is like a jam session, community spirit and hanging out with friends; nobody ever wrote a good story who hadn't written a bad story first) and about founding Archive of our Own. (Interviewer Emma Torz remarked that 'AO3 trope-tagging has changed a whole generation of readers': cheers from the audience.) And we got to hear a bit about Novik's next novel, Follies, which features inexplicable ruins. 'Venice, as a whole, is a Folly.'
I miss my former immersion in fanfic fandom...
15JUL23: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Mangold, 2023) -- Greenwich PictureHouse
Great reconstruction of 'Moon Day' in New York City (with a nicely edited skyline), featuring 'Magical Mystery Tour' and then 'Space Oddity'. Sallah returns with his grandchildren; Indy rides a horse, and turns out to have a goddaughter, played by the redoubtable Phoebe Waller-Bridge; Toby Jones is villainous; good de-ageing in the first act, which takes place during WW2. There's some tragic backstory concerning Jones' dead son, which could have done with a little more screen time. I did squeak at a few vexing lines: no, Linear B is not a code; by 'one hundred centurions' (the number of dead in a shipwreck) did they mean 'one hundred centuries'? But this was good fun, especially the Siege of Syracuse: and the ending was surprisingly satisfying.
20JUL23: I, Tonya (Gillespie, 2017) -- Netflix
Rewatch for film club, in preparation for admiring Margot Robbie in Barbie. I do love this film. Alison Janner's micro-expressions! Robbie's physicality! (She didn't do all the skating, but she trained for four months.) Sebastian Stan's surprising ugliness! This time around I noticed the classism more than before, and the relative absence of male characters.
Accidentally discovered afterwards that there's legitimate video of Jeff and Tonya's wedding night listed on IMDB. Ewww.
21JUL23: Oppenheimer (Nolan, 2023) -- Greenwich PictureHouse
Three hours long, could have been half an hour shorter (trimming a couple of the abstract shots of explosions, raindrops etc), and the dialogue clearer: but I found it utterly compelling, with some marvellous performances. There are two timelines, 'Fission' (in colour, from Oppenheimer's point of view) and 'Fusion' (in black and white, more objective, focussing on Lewis Strauss' attempts to demolish Oppenheimer's reputation). Being a Nolan film, the action flips back and forth, with increasingly short scenes in each timeline. The focus is very much on Oppenheimer and his gradual realisation that, in a very real sense, he has destroyed the world: also his experiences with the Communist party, his womanising, and his relationship with his brother.
Very few women, though I liked Emily Blunt as Kitty Oppenheimer: a nice understated depiction of a marriage built on mutual support. A lot of details that I hadn't known: for instance, the name 'Trinity' was inspired by Oppenheimer's reading of John Donne's Holy Sonnets (more), and the implication that Oppenheimer's mistress (a sadly underused Florence Pugh) was murdered.
I think Strauss might have been Robert Downey Jr's first really serious post-MCU role, and he was amazing: the digital ageing was very well done, too.
21JUL23: Barbie (Gerwig, 2023) -- Greenwich PictureHouse
After a late lunch, a complete change of mood: Barbie is female-focussed, very funny, and overwhelmingly pink. Helen Mirren's narration was dry and witty, the Kens were suitably bitchy and Margot Robbie's itchily unblinking Barbie was simultaneously splendid and unsettling. Lots of great lines, some Serious Philosophical Discourse ('I want to be a part of the people that make meaning -- not the thing that's made') and Kate McKinnon as Weird Barbie. This was the perfect chaser to Oppenheimer, but it's an excellent film in its own right. And we all have a little bit of Barbie in us: that's microplastics for you...
27JUL23: Kabaret Nusantara -- Wilton's Music Hall
Indonesian dance group Lila Bhawa showcased different styles of Indonesian dance -- including Java, Bali, Betawi, Sunda, Makassar, Daya -- to a recorded soundtrack, with a great deal of verve and joy. The costumes were gorgeous, and it was interesting to compare the different styles: I thought I detected Dutch influence in the Sumatran music, if not the actual dance, while the Javanese piece felt much more Oriental and featured body movements one doesn't tend to see in Western dance -- specifically head movements, imitative of birds. There was a framing narrative of an Englishwoman visiting the various islands, assuming each time that the island she'd landed on wouldn't take long to see ... Also, an interlude where she was being taught a dance by an impatient Indonesian woman -- the latter's interjections and gestures had the Indonesian elements of the audience (of which there were many) in gales of laughter. And there was one dance with two white girls in fringe dresses, which I couldn't help interpreting as the Gap Year Dance. A joyful and colourful evening.
Another all-male G&S that doesn't overdo the campness: there are some excellent falsetto voices here, and some real sweetness. Also an extremely vicious tennis duel during 'Three Little Girls'. They've taken out all the faux-Oriental stuff, which was a relief. The 'little list' was not as contemporary as some I've heard, but did single out 'modernist composers': 'they'd none of them be missed / their songs don't even rhyme'. A polished, cheerful afternoon of gaiety in the old-fashioned sense.
06JUL23: Asterix and Obelix: The Middle Kingdom (Canet, 2023) -- Netflix
The first live-action Asterix without Depardieu as Obelix: instead we get a chap in a fat-suit. I watched with English dub and subtitles, which was a mistake as it meant I understood all of the dialogue (though not why it was written in the first place). Subtitles do not match actual dialogue, depriving English viewers of some frightful puns. Soundtrack abyssmal (I loathe the approach of 'let's play a little bit of a pop song that is vaguely relevant, and then cut back to Film Muzak') and plot incoherent. Some famous names, who presumably were well-paid and only had to read a small part of the script. Non.
10JUL23: Illusionaries: Memories of a Dead Poet (Arash Irandoust)
A story told over three immersive rooms, with sound and projected art: K and I had each room to ourselves for the 10-minute programme, and were encouraged to make ourselves comfortable. The first room focussed, I think, on war and conflict, with an impenetrable collage of audio and spoken word. The second, with mirrored walls, was like being in a kaleidoscope: fractal images, surreal elements, trippy music. The third was a dark cosy space with pebble-like cushions and a round space like a hearth for the projections. The whole thing was interesting, and well-executed, but I don't think either of us understood or made sense of the overall arc. It wasn't cheap, but then if each booking gets each room to itself for 10-15 minutes that limits the throughput. I think I found the Van Gogh Alive event easier to assimilate, though it wasn't as creative.
13JUL23: Eldorado: Everything the Nazis Hate (Cantu / Lambert, 2023) -- Netflix
Documentary focussing, at least initially, on the queer nightclub Eldorado in Berlin during the Weimar Republic: much joy and liberty to start with, and mixed-race socialising, and openly loving queerness: but then, of course, Nazism. Many familiar names: Ernst Rohm (and the thinly-veiled homoeroticism of Nazism); tennis star Gottfried von Cramm; Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (where artist Toni Ebel received sex reassignment surgery). This was a fascinating mix of reconstructions and actual archive material: I had no idea that so much film footage had survived.
Amid the history there's an interview with an elderly gay Jewish man, Walter Arlen, who was born in 1920 and remembers gay life in 1930s Germany. His first lover Fülöp Loránt died in a concentration camp: but Walter escaped to America, and now lives in California with his husband. His story brought tears to my eyes. It felt more immediate than the footage and the reportage: a reminder that the horrors of Nazism are within living memory. And there are too many parallels between then and now.
Interesting to watch this in film group with a German friend: 'my people were vile (looking at their strutting hideousness)'. Reader, she is not wrong.
14JUL23: Naomi Novik at Waterstones Piccadilly
Naomi Novik talked about her Scholomance books: subverting the 'magic school' trope; parents making selfish choices for their children; El as the villain, speaking truth to power and recognising systems, rather than individuals; 'it's a grimdark world, but I'm not a grimdark writer'. She spoke about writing (fanfiction is like a jam session, community spirit and hanging out with friends; nobody ever wrote a good story who hadn't written a bad story first) and about founding Archive of our Own. (Interviewer Emma Torz remarked that 'AO3 trope-tagging has changed a whole generation of readers': cheers from the audience.) And we got to hear a bit about Novik's next novel, Follies, which features inexplicable ruins. 'Venice, as a whole, is a Folly.'
I miss my former immersion in fanfic fandom...
15JUL23: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Mangold, 2023) -- Greenwich PictureHouse
Great reconstruction of 'Moon Day' in New York City (with a nicely edited skyline), featuring 'Magical Mystery Tour' and then 'Space Oddity'. Sallah returns with his grandchildren; Indy rides a horse, and turns out to have a goddaughter, played by the redoubtable Phoebe Waller-Bridge; Toby Jones is villainous; good de-ageing in the first act, which takes place during WW2. There's some tragic backstory concerning Jones' dead son, which could have done with a little more screen time. I did squeak at a few vexing lines: no, Linear B is not a code; by 'one hundred centurions' (the number of dead in a shipwreck) did they mean 'one hundred centuries'? But this was good fun, especially the Siege of Syracuse: and the ending was surprisingly satisfying.
20JUL23: I, Tonya (Gillespie, 2017) -- Netflix
Rewatch for film club, in preparation for admiring Margot Robbie in Barbie. I do love this film. Alison Janner's micro-expressions! Robbie's physicality! (She didn't do all the skating, but she trained for four months.) Sebastian Stan's surprising ugliness! This time around I noticed the classism more than before, and the relative absence of male characters.
Accidentally discovered afterwards that there's legitimate video of Jeff and Tonya's wedding night listed on IMDB. Ewww.
21JUL23: Oppenheimer (Nolan, 2023) -- Greenwich PictureHouse
Three hours long, could have been half an hour shorter (trimming a couple of the abstract shots of explosions, raindrops etc), and the dialogue clearer: but I found it utterly compelling, with some marvellous performances. There are two timelines, 'Fission' (in colour, from Oppenheimer's point of view) and 'Fusion' (in black and white, more objective, focussing on Lewis Strauss' attempts to demolish Oppenheimer's reputation). Being a Nolan film, the action flips back and forth, with increasingly short scenes in each timeline. The focus is very much on Oppenheimer and his gradual realisation that, in a very real sense, he has destroyed the world: also his experiences with the Communist party, his womanising, and his relationship with his brother.
Very few women, though I liked Emily Blunt as Kitty Oppenheimer: a nice understated depiction of a marriage built on mutual support. A lot of details that I hadn't known: for instance, the name 'Trinity' was inspired by Oppenheimer's reading of John Donne's Holy Sonnets (more), and the implication that Oppenheimer's mistress (a sadly underused Florence Pugh) was murdered.
I think Strauss might have been Robert Downey Jr's first really serious post-MCU role, and he was amazing: the digital ageing was very well done, too.
21JUL23: Barbie (Gerwig, 2023) -- Greenwich PictureHouse
After a late lunch, a complete change of mood: Barbie is female-focussed, very funny, and overwhelmingly pink. Helen Mirren's narration was dry and witty, the Kens were suitably bitchy and Margot Robbie's itchily unblinking Barbie was simultaneously splendid and unsettling. Lots of great lines, some Serious Philosophical Discourse ('I want to be a part of the people that make meaning -- not the thing that's made') and Kate McKinnon as Weird Barbie. This was the perfect chaser to Oppenheimer, but it's an excellent film in its own right. And we all have a little bit of Barbie in us: that's microplastics for you...
27JUL23: Kabaret Nusantara -- Wilton's Music Hall
Indonesian dance group Lila Bhawa showcased different styles of Indonesian dance -- including Java, Bali, Betawi, Sunda, Makassar, Daya -- to a recorded soundtrack, with a great deal of verve and joy. The costumes were gorgeous, and it was interesting to compare the different styles: I thought I detected Dutch influence in the Sumatran music, if not the actual dance, while the Javanese piece felt much more Oriental and featured body movements one doesn't tend to see in Western dance -- specifically head movements, imitative of birds. There was a framing narrative of an Englishwoman visiting the various islands, assuming each time that the island she'd landed on wouldn't take long to see ... Also, an interlude where she was being taught a dance by an impatient Indonesian woman -- the latter's interjections and gestures had the Indonesian elements of the audience (of which there were many) in gales of laughter. And there was one dance with two white girls in fringe dresses, which I couldn't help interpreting as the Gap Year Dance. A joyful and colourful evening.