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Reviews
Mozart: Cosi Fan Tutte (2006)
A keeper
As I get older the world seems to get uglier and opera, which seemed so unengaging when I was young, seems now more attractive and essential than ever. Cosi is one of the loveliest Mozart operas, fascinating for all the well rehearsed reasons, but so often disappointing for so many reasons - singing below par (and WAM did set the bar rather high here, particularly for Fiordiligi), stagey sets with too much lace and nylon, and wooden acting.
The problem here is the modern theme of a beachside location, but the Dutch do seem to go in for this kind of thing. It has its own logic, though, and if one can ignore it and concentrate instead on the music and singing, the story and the actors, it can take one to heaven. There's very little to criticise beyond the staging ideas (well, one can always carp) but it's a very nice thing, and Sally Matthews is superb in her role. Miah Persson is another modern vocal wonder who did this opera proud; we are lucky to have such an interest in 18th century opera, the talent to perform it, and the means to make thrilling recordings.
A Midsummer Night's Dream (2016)
I'd love to vote 10 out of 10
This is a daft and lovely play given a new bbc adaptation devised by Russell T Davies. The sense of the play comes through very well, and Maxine Peake's Titania is great, an actress who understands how to get the meaning across, whereas Michelle Pfeiffer in the 1999 Hollywood showing is less punkish than Peake (who is also wonderfully randy) but Pfeiffer seems not to understand the poetry or know how to get it over. Peake does.
This production is for me enormously weakened by the presence of Matt Lucas who I find moderatelyh funny in some things he does, but the sub plot of the mechanicals can be terribly tedious and stupid and Lucas does his level best to make it worse. In the 1999 film Kevin Kline famously steals (perhaps) the whole film with his Bottom, and the whole group of nitwits, Roger Rees, Sam Rockwell et al. - the casting of these talents impresses versus the buffoonery of the bbc attempt.
It's hard to dislike RTD's work, though I think he's nuts to make Athens a fascist state and to kill off Theseus like that, but the whole thing is so mad that I reckon it's all fair game. The lesbian and gay touches (I noticed 3 - Demetrius loves Lysander for a bit, Titania and Hippolyta snog, and a guard and a black man are very smitten thanks to Puck (both Pucks, Stanley Tucci and the less pronounceable beauty in the bbc version are superb)are lovely, though. I note there is a version by Julie Taymor but I've searched the net and it's not available. Maybe it is perfect and not another curates's egg?
Sword of Honour (2001)
All is not lost
I was unaware of this film adaptation of Waugh's trilogy until today's showing on British freeview TV, and missing the first half hour, also missed the chance to record it to DVD. Drat. Until I saw it. Very pretty production by Channel 4 TV and Talkback, made some 8 years back, before Daniel Craig became a superstar.
I've read and reread a lot of Waugh but believed Sword of Honour to be an inexplicably stolid, inaccessibly unreadable work, so big, so long, so dull. Brideshead was the beginning of the end, the trilogy was the end writ large.
Until I found the BBC radio adaptation from 1974, over 11 hours rather than this film's 4. After a few hours I began to see the early Waugh wrapped inside the less obviously satirical wrappings, his humour and gravity. The genius, in short.
They don't make them like Waugh any more, nor do they make the people; the 1974 recording was made in time to catch many authentic sounding voices from the era, and some very fine acting. A gem which I recommend to any Waugh fans.
This film seems to be, probably, a rather adroit shot at a script which condenses a huge tome to a few hours, but the vowels are comprehensive school, Craig is hopelessly wrong, and there are but a few flashes of sharp observation and very little wit. But the audio version is available on the internet, and of course the pictures are better.
Mr. Brooks (2007)
The Greeks knew how to do it, but this film don't!
This is a nicely dressed film and it's always good to see Kevin Costner, though Dane Cook is not a face I know, though clearly previous reviewers know him well. and it's always good to see John Hurt, who seems to have made a comeback in recent times after a lull, though his character here is unexplained, and one must conclude he is the Costner's devil who sits on his shoulder, a fairly lame concept, but there we are. A previous reviewer commented he loved the way the script got inside the mind of the killer - phooey! We know nothing of this, except that Costner asserts he is an addict, and attends a self help group, lame lame lame. We are also asked to believe his daughter has inherited the 'addiction to murder' gene, another ludicrous device, unsupported by any science I have ever heard of. But the film trots on, rerunning grizzly murder shots etc., which is nice, but then I began to have a nasty feeling that the film was going to end on me without any resolution at all, no catharsis of any kind, just dribbling on and on. Then there was a resolution, of a kind, namely in the murderer's dream that his daughter stabs him with scissors. Dear oh dear, what a pathetic ending. This film was a poor excuse for a drama.
The Departed (2006)
What's a spoiler?
Who is to blame for this film? Couldn't be starrier. Interesting story. But the script was shockingly shockingly bad, and the direction pitiful. Loved the death and destruction, but that's all there is here. Just a designer film gone bad. Oh lord, and now I see I've got to write at least ten lines for my comment to be accepted. Well, I've come this far, gone through the registration process and everything, so as to be able to add a comment. I should get a life I think. But it's sad, when all the right ingredients are brought together in one place and the result is a damp squib. Couldn't call this film a disaster, particularly if you see it on DVD, then you can keep pausing and going away and pottering about and then coming back...think that's my ten lines?