The Medusa Fora

DzM wrote:...It is clear that Hollywood has dangerously over scraped the bottom of the idea barrel and has moved on to eating their own young. Again. Some more.

'Plus ca change...' or something.

Every Little Step (Endgame, 2008)

In which we watch the audition process for the recent Broadway revival of A Chorus Line, the musical in which we watch the audition process for a Broadway musical. It's metasomething.

And it is at least preferable to Dickie Attenborough's lamentable original screen version of the play.

I've requested Once Upon A Time In America, 3 times from LoveFilm and 3 times they've sent a damaged DVD

Rufus Wainwright in Milwaukee At Last (2009)

The Damned United (2009)

Hmm. The surviving family of Brian Clough are known to have intensely disliked David Peace's novel The Damned United and you can sort of see why, as it disturbs a great number of Ole Big 'Ead's demons that Nigel, Simon, Barbara and Elizabeth would understandably rather had stayed subdued. It is less clear why they have also publicly detached themselves from this movie version, which systematically removes everything that made Peace's book both an unexpected highpoint of sports literature and an uncomfortable souvenir for the Clough family who, after a lifetime of retrieving empty bottles of Bell's from the Clough rose garden, may have felt the time had finally come to celebrate the great man's primary legacy as a football genius. Unfortunately, it is no more possible to posthumously separate Sir Brian's alcohol intake and barbed wit from his soccer supremacy than it will be easy to uncouple Shane MacGowan's "lifestyle" from his body of work in due course.

It is very clear from both the deleted scenes and the director/star commentary on this DVD version of the movie that David Peace's superbly imagined interior monologue for Clough became a definite, though reluctant casualty of the almost impossible task of translating it to film. The deleted scenes in particular indicate a much more raw, visceral and strange movie than the one we are left with. The creators argue, convincingly, that Clough's torments served mainly to unbalance the narrative and detract from the central story of how the upstart crow became manager of Don Revie's Leeds United for all of 44 disastrous days in 1974. In choosing to zone in on this period, bigger questions about the complex Clough psyche are brushed aside and even his alcoholism is largely ignored, though it's certainly understood to be an underlying cause.

The trouble is, the real Clough story sprawls from the premature end of his prodigious and under-recorded playing career at the age of 27 to the blotchy, scarcely fathomable individual who retired as Nottingham Forest manager just that little bit too late to crown his career with glory, but not so late that even on the same day as he led his legendary Football Club to humiliating relegation, he shared the most tearful and loving public farewell imaginable with the Forest faithful in 1994. David Peace uses the freedom of the Novel form to tell both the Leeds United story [set in motion when, on his first day in charge Clough informed the League Champions they had dishonourably won all their "medals, pots and pans" by "cheating", a not entirely unfair charge, as even the former Leeds veterans interviewed on the Bonus Material now more or less concede] and the greater Meta-Clough saga, by making Brian's internal monologue central to the book's narrative style. That this did not work for the movie indicates only that The Damned United is not suitable source material for a movie version, which surely was always self-evident.

Nevertheless, a movie it is and, for all the fact that it has essentially failed, there remains much to admire about it. Though the chameleon-like Michael Sheen gives an immensely thoughtful, well-researched and brilliantly-played performance as Clough, it falls seriously short of even beginning to channel what made Clough tick, though there is evidence, again on the basis of the deleted scenes, that this was certainly not because he refused the attempt. But comparatively simple men like Tony Blair (The Queen)and David Frost (Frost/Nixon)are just not in the same pantheon as Clough. Sheen works especially well with Timothy Spall, superb as Clough co-manager Peter Taylor, and if the movie has a major redeeming feature it is that the Clough/Taylor partnership, rightly viewed as a sort of impossible marriage, substitutes for the greater Clough Demons in providing the film's narrative thrust. It remained one of the great final sorrows of Clough's life that he never reconciled with his estranged old friend before he, Taylor, died. The excellent supporting cast includes Jim Broadbent and Henry Goodman as Derby and Leeds chairmen respectively. Colm Meaney is an uncanny Don Revie. Luxury casting indeed.

Like the vast majority of Forest supporters, I did not know Brian Clough well on a personal level, as he was in fact considerably more private and less gregarious than his carefully-cultivated Champagne Socialist man of the people image always inferred. But I did chat to him briefly on a flight from Glasgow to London, where we were both destined for the same Arsenal v Forest League clash. He asked me to pray for him. I didn't. But I knew what he meant.

Bruno

The Proposal-Sandra Bullock. Not bad.

CraigBatty wrote:

Clash Cadillac wrote:...[i]Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Always a fave... "What're ye going to do? Bleed on me?!?" HAH!
\

"It's just a flesh wound"...."You've got no arms left you stupid bastard!

I went to see that movie 2012 last night. Walked out before it finished. I am sure other people loved it but personally I found it to be an assault on my senses and intellect. Not so much as a nod to the Mayan's (unless they started on about that in the last 40 minutes). Weak story lines/plot and boring characters. I'd put it in the same category as Eyes Wide Shut and Vanilla Sky. They should have chopped the first 40 minutes off and slapped a Disney logo on it and made it into a kids movie. Utter rubbish and nonsense. Great visual effects but I need more than that....great effects are just expected as the norm these days.

On the other hand, I finally watched District 9 this weekend and loved it. Gritty and dirty.

The Transformers 2 : Revenge of the Fallen beside Megan Fox......it's better then the first movie if you like this genre.

Also seen before but I can't change the channel once spotted .....The late Heath Ledger in his awesome role in The Dark Knight. Damn thing pops up on pay cable WAY too much lately. Causing me to freeze in my tracks for far too long.

philipchevron wrote:Rufus Wainwright in Milwaukee At Last (2009)

Rufus fans should check out the streaming (solo, audio) concert at CBC concerts on demand :
http://www.cbc.ca/radio2/cod/concerts/20090801rufus

Bruno -

Gods know, I love Sacha Baron Cohen, and think he is one of the cleverest and funniest little creature alive, BUT...

Like 'Ali G In Da Hood (or whatever it was called)' and 'Borat' this is another example of how difficult it is to sustain a stand-up character designed for 10-20 minute grabs over a 2-hour feature film. Like the proverbial Curate's egg, this was very good..in parts. Cohen is, I feel, at his best when these characters are confined within the parameters of quick comedic jabs. Not necessarily one-liners, but not the slightly character-undermining overextension seen in his films.

All in all, highly fun, but still disappointing... 1 & 1/2 fins up.

I saw Boondock Saints 2 all Saints day yesterday. Was absolutely horrible. Other than Billy Connoly the thing was a joke. Some of the worst acting and writing I have seen

CraigBatty wrote:Bruno -

Gods know, I love Sacha Baron Cohen, and think he is one of the cleverest and funniest little creature alive, BUT...

Like 'Ali G In Da Hood (or whatever it was called)' and 'Borat' this is another example of how difficult it is to sustain a stand-up character designed for 10-20 minute grabs over a 2-hour feature film. Like the proverbial Curate's egg, this was very good..in parts. Cohen is, I feel, at his best when these characters are confined within the parameters of quick comedic jabs. Not necessarily one-liners, but not the slightly character-undermining overextension seen in his films.

All in all, highly fun, but still disappointing... 1 & 1/2 fins up.

I saw Bruno, remember thinking at the time that it wasn't nearly as bad as some of the reviews had indicated and, when it finished, forgot its content completely.