Some Fringe benefits, but...

I was so looking forward to watching Fringe after reading about it in the glossies that for the first 10 minutes I didn’t notice the Mistake Number 1 that was trying to catch my attention. Alas, not for long. But it was such a great opening scene: An airliner hits turbulence, a man injects himself with either insulin or anti-anxiety meds and as he makes his way to the bathroom with an airhostess trying to rush at him, telling him to get back to his seat, he turns and screams rend the air. His face seems to be melting, a horror that catches up with every other passenger as the camera moves backward. Then, it pulls away and all we hear is silence 40,000 feet in the air. This is the X-Files delightfully updated, Joshua Jackson and new face Anna Torv providing the eye candy. It should be a great show, paced, interesting characters and a running darkness of plot that keeps you coming back for more. The paranormal is the point of entry here, with FBI Agent Olivia Dunham bringing a fresh-faced optimism to the hard-edged world of human experimentation and other oddities. Well, that’s the problem, you see, Anna Torv as Olivia. She is effortlessly gorgeous and oddly annoying, not because of but despite this. She must speak in a monotone and an accent that cannot be placed, ending with a pursing of the mouth no matter what mood she is trying to convey. The accent seems eastern European until Google tells you she’s Aussie (with Estonian blood, ahh...). As for the moue, maybe someone should just tell her that it’s not sexy? It’s difficult to watch the show now, but one must try because there is a saving grace: John Noble as Dr Walter Bishop who has been sprung from a mental institution and whose verbal meanderings are hilarious; he keeps you on your toes as he is liable to spew viciously when you least expect it. Joshua Jackson (best known, unfortunately, for Dawson’s Creek and as Diane Kruger’s BF) plays his son Peter Bishop, not consistently. Jackson has his good days (you believe him) and his bad (he seems to think he’s in a play where he has to throw his voice to the back rows). The token black actor comes in the form of the highly expendable Lance Reddick as bossman Agent Phillip Broyles. There is one other point of interest: Mark Valley (from Boston Legal) who plays rogue agent John Scott, (dead rogue agent whom I suspect will not be dead for very long) and who plays it well. He has also upped and married Anna Torv and little things like that always raises my interest level.

Another Tarantino classic

Quentin Tarantino understood early that movieland was the only kind of life he wanted. In that sense, he’s like a lot of us who know that this world is not quite up to the mark, so we need to escape it the best way we know how. Tarantino is the best way we know how. He’s manic and clever and gives his audience just what they need. You don’t watch Pulp Fiction or Kill Bill or Grindhouse or Inglourious Basterds without thinking about it for days, months, years after. If that isn’t the mark of genius, I don’t know what is.
Inglourious Basterds’s opening scene is an instant classic. There is a bucolic image of the verdant French countryside where a man is seen in honest labour, chopping logs and a young girl is hanging up the washing. A car comes up the winding drive, inside are three men in uniform. As the car comes to a halt, you see the men are in German uniform, are in fact Nazis, and the watcher’s adrenalin notches up. This is the beginning of an agonizingly slow build-up of terror that ends, as expected, badly.
The sole survivor of the Jewish extermination in microcosm, Soshanna, goes on to work in a cinema house in France. The mark of the beast is seen on her face, devoid as it is of feeling. But when she learns that Hitler and his crew will attend a premiere at her theatre, she comes back to life and plans murder with relish. In this she has unknowingly become part of a parallel plot, one spearheaded by the Basterds, men who hunt Nazis for sport. The opening scene is invested with so much human emotion that you would think everything else will be an anti-climax. Not in Tarantino’s hands. It is, instead, the start of an almost 3-hour extravaganza that fulfills all our secret desires. When it comes to making a great film, it’s all about the director - look at the debacle of Twilight. Here, Tarantino has got the most compelling performance from every one of his players. Diane Kruger makes up for Troy with a mean, tough spy persona whose death is as terrible as the times; Brad Pitt continues his comedic streak after the marvelous Burn After Reading (his white jacket scene before the climax is hysterical) and Christoph Waltz as the SS maniac Max Landa (the Who? you’re asking in your mind you never will again after Waltz wins the Oscar next year) mingles hilarity, horror and self-seeking to the point that mad though he is, you miss him when he’s not onscreen. Rod Taylor’s few minutes of screen time as Winston Churchill is invested with all the power the WW2 hero embodied and Melanie Laurent (who apparently screamed on the streets after being told she was in the movie) as Soshanna is vulnerable, steel-cored and unforgettable.
There’s been a lot of talk about the title of this movie. A slurring of reality, sometimes a spoof, sometimes a comic strip, that’s what’s in a name. When QT misspells the title, we need to figure out why; this is what the director wants us to do when he says it’s just his way of spelling it, or that it’s his homage to Basquiat.
The script is vintage Tarantino, long dialogues that keep you straining so as not to miss a nuance, that allow the characters to luxuriate in their skins. It’s no surprise that Inglourious Basterds has made four times what it cost.

forgive him anything

Clint Eastwood always made women weak at the knees, whether he was not acting in spaghetti westerns or making jaws drop worldwide with Unforgiven. It’s not the good looks, of course, it’s the class. The loping stride, the unflappable demeanor, the slash of a wicked grin, ever so lopsided, he’s the kind of man people want on their side to give them credibility. It’s why Angelina Jolie clung on to him for The Changeling but even Clint couldn’t stop La Jolie’s star power from ruining her acting chops, not that she has many. “I want my son, I want my son” should go down in the annals of horrific hamming. Of course, to give discredit where it’s due, why Clint thought it worthy to have a grieving mother be as cold and hard as Angelina’s character, with sharp points of inappropriate red lipstick, will forever be a mystery. But I still admire Clint. All the more after hearing him describe how he prefers to say other things rather than Action! and Cut! He’ll say instead, softly, “Ready when you are” and after the scene, “I think that will do”, or “Ok, that’s enough of that shit”. Love him.

What if....

Now that the Indian elections are over, I wonder……

What if Sonia Gandhi had been a blonde Italian? I don’t think she would have found the level of acceptance she has found in the country, even if she chose to wear simple, cotton sarees. She would have done an Evita act and, very possibly, been hounded out.

Speaking of Sonia’s simple cotton sarees, so like her late mother-in-law’s, I like Michelle O, even though she tries so hard to be Jackie O. Those bodycon, simply-cut dresses, those pearls, the coiffed hair, the stand-by-your-man stance…the reason why she deserves respect is not just because her man deserves that kind of stance but because she seems remarkably heartsound herself. Her interviews, like Marilyn Manson's, are so articulate and clever they give you a delicious shiver up the spine. It's rare, you see, to find clarity of thought out there.

Land of the…….

You think the longer you live, the less likely you are to be shocked. Not true. Even though I am a Glambert as they say, before reading the following on E!Online, I would have said that the talk of not voting for Adam Lambert because he was gay was just trying to reason away the unthinkable AI result. Maybe, I thought, the majority just likes mediocrity, maybe that’s all there is to it. I think the following snippets which you can find (unless E’s moderator is back from whatever rock he/she was hiding under) beneath The Big Picture on E!’s site speak, astoundingly, for themselves.

If this doesn’t stop the exodus to America, nothing will.

Under Adam Lambert’s pic, you will read this:

“Can you say "So gay"?”

“Why is he being photographed? he didnt even win...and thank god! A freaky cross dresser shouldnt be an "IDOL"

“Fucckin faggott! * .Im so happy He didint win american Idol!”

“I personally can't wait for this freak's 15 minutes to be up. People, there are 1,000's of people like this weirdo in theater, they all sound and act the same, he's absolutely NO DIFFERENT. When I saw those very very very disturbing pictures of Adam dressed as a blue devil with his tongue stuck down some little man wearing makeup's throat, I completely lost anything I might have liked about this transvestite. He seriously has issues, and how someone like him got past the AI producers is beyond me. Now I'm reading somewhere that there are pictures of him in his early 20's making out with a 16/17 year old boy. If that's true, aren't we supposed to draw the line when it comes to sexual predators? I honestly cannot believe that America is so infatuated with this person. He's a trans-genderbending, very very strange individual, and I for one can't wait for him to go away. NO WAY will I let MY kids "idolize" this freak.”

Under Halle Berry, you will read this:

            “Her negrofied attitude makes me think it would have done her some good to work on my               great great grandfather's cotton plantation.”

      Under Salma Hayek and her baby’s photo, you will read this:

            “this baby is f**king ugly just like all the other "no spik english" babies out there.”

             I think any further comment from me would be an anti-climax.

Thank God Adam's not America's idol

It has, literally, taken me days to get over what happened to my boy Adam Lambert. I watched, aghast, as the wrong person was voted American Idol. But after a night spent tossing and turning and wrestling with the meaning of life, I finally understood. They didn’t get it wrong. They got it right, of course they did. America’s idol HAS to be Kris Allen: He is ordinary, talented enough, conventionally good-looking. Very simply, he will not give you any sleepless nights. In the end, Americans want to be safe and secure in their beds. The rest of the planet wants passion, star power, incandescent talent, chiseled beauty and originality.
When the idiots say Adam Lambert screams, I guess they didn’t hear Feeling Good, Tracks of My Tears and If I Can’t Have You.
When the idiots wonder whether he is gay, I guess they don’t know that their brother, sister, aunt, uncle and give a parent or two may be gay as well. (I take it for granted that the idiots don’t know that being gay isn’t a choice.)
When the idiots say he’s theatrical, I guess they have never watched a great play which they will remember for the rest of their lives.
When the idiots say the judges liked Adam too much, I guess what they really mean is that the judges should have lied so they could have voted for Adam as an underdog and not because he was unusually talented. That’s AI for you.
There is a question on the AI site which reads : ‘Does anyone else feel strangely protective about Adam?’ The reaction he evokes is as unusual as his talent.
Here was a boy who was young, focused, bursting with the kind of ability no one had ever seen before, and who delivered a polished apple to his teacher every single week. We bit and were hungry for more. But some saw the apple with a serpent in its core, complete with ebony fingernails and blue-black hair. They wished for milk instead. They got it. But the rest of the planet got more. We have found Adam Lambert and we will remember him for the rest of our lives. Every future success will be toasted by his acolytes from New Zealand to Israel – that is a large swathe of the planet – and he will by then be No 1 on the fan pages set up by E!Online (he is now No 3, and no, the Idol winner is nowhere to be seen).
I have watched AI for years, been a diehard fan, looked forward to those four months more than birthdays, anniversaries or world travel. Now, I can never watch it again, on a matter of principle. Who wants to see injustice, talent ignored? We have enough of that in our daily lives. Of course my abstinence will mean nothing to AI, but that’s ok, now AI means nothing to me.
One of my favourite lines ever is this: “When a true genius appears in the world, you will know him by this sign, that there will be a confederacy of dunces against him.”
‘Nuff said.

Movie on DVD: Never Back Down

For some reason, I was riveted by this same ol same ol story of a young, angst-ridden American teenager who fights his way out of his sense of guilt over his father’s death and gets the girl in the end. The girl is Amber Heard, and I can predict she will go far. She has the face of a siren - you know, the ones sitting on rocks and luring sailors to their doom? And the body of a Playboy centrespread. When has Hollywood ever asked for more? Sean Faris is a thinner, taller version of Tom Cruise and with a beauty spot as strategically perfect as Cindy Crawford’s, naturally he has come far from his days on the sets of Life as We Know It.
As for Cam Gigandet, what a sublime face and all he has ever got is to play the villain which he does well, granted, but in everything from Twilight, The OC and now this? A bit much.
Someone give him a saga in the Rocky mould and we’ll discover a superstar.

The Reader, Bernhard Schlink

Kate Winslet owned this movie body and soul so the book is bland in comparison. But it does give you the time to realize that the German sense of guilt over the Holocaust will never fade. When the Kid sleeps with Hanna, it’s a metaphor for the German people colluding with the Nazis. And his continuing relationship with her shows that the bond, though tenuous, can never be severed except by some final act of absolution. Although when Hanna does away with herself it’s more an act of release since she cannot face the one from prison and into a world that she no longer knows. This is why Windows Kindle will never win over moving the pages of a book leisurely with your fingers. It gives the reader time to muse over the wonder of the written word.

What Simon said

I have always disliked Cowell to a certain extent. Yes, when he gets it right, he gets it very, very right. And when he gets it wrong, it’s so very, very wrong. But any man who has the cojones to say to millions of moral dilettantes the following, has my vote: That we can all take it for granted that Adam will sail into the finals but we shouldn’t, so vote. And that people should vote for Adam because of his talent. Now that is straight shooting, if you’ll pardon the pun. What with Adam being inundated with slurs on something that is no one’s business but his own, (that wannabe Perez Hilton discussing his ‘lifestyle’ with Ryan on radio? Gimme a break.) It’s no wonder Simon’s sense of fair play got kick-started. Mr Baggy Tee has never said such a thing before, just as he has never given a contestant a standing ovation before.
There’s just something about Adam, apart from the ease with which he delivers his notes to us - like strawberries dipped in Nutella. He is calm, fun-loving, not a mean bone in his body and so chockfull of charisma that when he is on stage, we have eyes for no one and nothing else. And of course I’m over-reading the sitch, as Buffy would say, but I see in Adam’s mother’s tears watching her son become a worldwide phenomenon before her eyes, the sorrow over the years when she thought he was just a loser.
The fact that this phenomenon is standing with that mediocre talent going by the name of Kris Allen is enough to make my already simmering BP go up, up, up. Yes, Kris sang ONE song well, Kanye’s great Heartless, but ONE song does not a superstar make. Yes, every teenybopper in the country votes for his cute babyface and that should have taken him only so far. To stand next to Adam Lambert? What a travesty. That spot belonged to either Matt G or Allison.
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Another reason why Adam’s the One is because he never gives those utterly annoying fingers up to the camera when his numbers are being read out. I remember Jordin Sparks doing it to the point where it looked like she was having an epileptic seizure, and Danny Gokey’s heart symbol throughout this season has made me want to bring my lunch up. (What in the world, btw, was Sparks' Battlefield nonsense? More epileptic seizures was what it looked like. She needs to hunker down in Biosphere 2 for a few years and figure out how to be somewhat genuine in the talent dept. and not so bloody daft.)
Did anyone, I wonder, notice how Danny’s Joe Cocker song was so like Adam’s iconic Tracks of My Tears? The way he sat on the stool with the musicians on a line with him and tried to be soulful. Oh dear. And his homecoming was marked by nothing so much as Jamar getting his 15 minutes with a vengeance.

Nicole Kidman’s India moment

Nicole has goddess appeal, the porcelain skin, the lithe and sensual body, the enhanced beauty, and the kind of talent that allows her to walk into a space and own it (Golden Compass comes most readily to mind). She has now added to her bag of tricks with a Schweppes ad with Rubina Ali and Arjun Rampal, aka The Handsomest Man in India. The ad is inexplicable, but who cares. The Indian motifs are stunning, (the Ridley Scott/ Shekar Kapur touches less so). Nicole is in her firmament as usual and her co-stars symbolize how rich the sub-continent is in good looks and ambition. A fine reason to youtube.

Movie Must: The International

Nic best buddy and high-wattage talent Naomi Watts is wonderful in The International. But leading man Clive Owen, once described by Julia Roberts as “dreamy”, would make anyone look good. He has a kind of access on the screen that Tom Cruise, for example, would never allow us. In The International, he ducks and weaves global intrigue and venality so beautifully that we love the ride. The movie is taut, interesting and has a kind of Bond veneer (Owen has been perennially pinned as the next Bond) without the smugness inherent in James.

You go, girl

Miss California said what she believed (that’s why she’s not Miss America): She thinks a man should marry a woman. Now it’s ok to say that a man should marry a man, that makes you cool, liberal, sophisticated. Children are taught in school that their Two Daddys love them very much. Sean Penn will use the Oscar stage to blather about gay marriages and how we must fight tirelessly to allow them. Good, great, thanks Sean for underscoring what a bleeding heart you own. Now why don’t any of these bleeding hearts allow others to voice their opinion, too? Perhaps because if you exercise your freedom of thought and speech in America, they quickly disabuse you of the notion that either exists; they are for propaganda purposes only. It’s like when the Dixie Chicks said they were ashamed that Bush was Texan and were instantly reviled. Of course they got a great hit single out of it with Not Ready to Make Nice, but I ask you.