worried

Elsewhere I've reviewed some Hamlet related paper dolls. Meanwhile, it's Dollhouse dvd release day in the UK. Which isn't exactly the same thing. But digital Eliza Dushku paper dolls are available. I'd best stop there, I think. Um.

Unst

Film Mark Kermode visits the remotest cinema in the country:

"I've been to premieres. I've done Hollywood. I've done all that sort of thing. But it pales into insignificance when you're in a bus shelter in Unst. It's a remarkable place to see a film. I can't think of anywhere more extraordinary."

Also: Northern exposure

when authors attack

Books Here are the ingredients. Lazlo from The Dreamin's Demon blog reviews The Victoria Vanishes, a new book by Christopher Fowler. He says it's "juvenile and amateurish – more the stuff of a cheap late night thriller than bona-fide mystery novel. I recommend it as a time waster to be turned to only in the absence of more worthwhile activities, like doing dishes or washing socks."

Then, in the comments section of the post, the author, offers some feed back to the blogger, essentially saying that Lazlo has missed the point, which is that it was supposed to be a pastiche, and lists all the people who've liked the book including Harlan Ellison, and essentially becomes a bit unstuck.

I'll let you enjoy the resulting fu-yung. It isn't pretty and neither party comes out of it that well. [via, via]

Isn't she enjoying a coffee and croissant?

Film Sarah Churchwell on Breakfast At Tiffany's:

"The title credits roll over a scene of condensed, symbolic wishing: Hollywood as dream factory. Hepburn is standing, very slim, in a long, black column dress with a glittering, enormous collar necklace and the trademark black sunglasses that Jackie O would adopt a few years later. (Jackie O's supposedly iconic looks markedly resemble Hepburn's from a few years earlier.) The camera encourages us to gaze longingly with her through the Tiffany's window at diamonds and other jewels; and then she strolls up the street, munching the doughnut that we know is probably the only doughnut Hepburn ever ate in her life. But it is precisely these little touches of normality, of the ordinary, that humanised Hepburn's image."

Which almost captures the scene perfectly, except, and this is a point of order, isn't Holly eating a croissant? Isn't she enjoying a coffee and croissant? This lady seems to think so. Through the magic of the internet, the scene in question:



If it is a croissant (and without this turning into the Zebruder film in terms of analysis I think it is) doesn't that simply add to Holly's transformation, part of her New York affectation, a demonstration of her subsuming her identity in yet another way? I also think we're meant to interpret that this is Holly's typical morning routine, the comforts which keep her going until she can find her way home.

I know. It's unfair to pick out one detail in what is otherwise a very enjoyable feature. Perhaps I'm just sensitive because it's one of my favourite scenes in cinema, one of the reasons I began eating croissant, why I'm probably going to do just that right now. And from the quality of that clip it could just as well be a Danish pastry. I don't know what that would imply.

photograph

Photography This is currently my favourite photograph. Click to go large ...



"Gosh, is that the time?"

Oomoo

Liverpool Life Stephanie de Leng from Liverpool Confidential has an exhibition of photographs, curated by National Museums Liverpool, of Smithdown Road, which is at the end of our street:

"DAFNA'S cheesecake factory, the Brook House pub, Toxteth cemetery and a host of ethnic food places, junk shops, hippy chick and an 86 bus smashing through muddy puddles every 30 seconds. "

It will be on display at the wonderfully named Oomoo Café until the end of September.

utterly, utterly brilliant

Liverpool Life I rather undersold this last night, at least on this blog. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead at the Novas Liverpool is utterly, utterly brilliant. To repeat what I said at the opening of this review, I want to urge you, if you’re in the Liverpool area and you have an interest in theatre, however vague, to seek out this production before it goes forever on the 13th September. It deserves a large audience.

Catherine Jones has said some nice things about it in the Liverpool Echo. It’s at the Novas Contemporary Urban Centre which you may not have heard of (the taxi driver who took me certainly didn’t), but if you can get to Caines Brewery, it’s opposite (ish) there. Here’s a map and and ticket details. If you manage to visit on 5th, 12th or 13th you will be able to see this show and their Hamlet (also previously reviewed) back to back.

look at the cameras

Music Whitney Houston recently gave a free comeback concert in Central Park. I know there are other issues under discussion, but ...



... look at the cameras. Whatever happened to just turning up at a concert and listening to the music? Was it like this last weekend in Liverpool at the Matthew Street Festival?

Some Hamlet reviews ...

Elsewhere Some Hamlet reviews: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead at Novas Liverpool and a colouring book. And yes, I know I've been playing away a lot.

horrible

Film Heaven hath no fury than a film fan handed a poor transfer on Blu-ray:

"Gladiator is plagued almost from beginning to end by a lack of definition. The image appears blurred and smudged, with facial textures taking on the consistency of wax and the sets and locations faring no better. [..] Worse still, presumably in an attempt to compensate for the low detail the image has, the BD been subjected to an inordinate amount of edge enhancement, resulting in some of the worst haloing I have ever seen on an HD release. Soldiers now appear to be protected by force fields rather than regular armour, spears and trees literally glow, and, during Commodus’ triumphant return to Rome, literally every single poppy fluttering through the air has a defined white outline several pixels wide."

More screen caps here. This kind of issue plagued dvd at the beginning, with Warner Brothers in particular issuing what looked like transfers from the same master they used for the VHS. My original copy of All The President's Men is horrible. Still holding off on investing in BD for now then ...

challenge

Nature Stephen Fry takes on the challenge of taking another last chance to see. Something I didn't know:

"I wanted to find a place in Islington, but also felt that I needed time to look around and wait for the perfect property. Perhaps I should rent first? I offloaded my tedious residential worries on Douglas one afternoon as we sat in his study staring at a Mac and wondering, for the thousandth time, if we could stop it going "boing" and closing down whenever we tried to do something unusual with it. "Why don't you stay here for a year?" he suggested. "You can house-sit for me. I've decided to go round the world for 12 months seeking out rare animals."

The original radio series is available at the website for the new documentary.

a kooky place

Film The Trouble With Harry is one of Alfred Hitchcock’s late experiments. If you’re looking for modern films with which it shares some kinship, it’s Fargo or Mumford or on television Northern Exposure or Eureka, comedy dramas which portray small town America as a kooky place filled to the brim with eccentrics enjoying a slightly relax somewhat askew approach to life. The difference in Hitchock’s film, is that there’s no Joel Fleishman, no one to offer the outsider's perspective on the story.

A disparate set of townspeople all think that they’ve killed titular corpse, found at the opening of the film, and spend most of the duration playing the blame game. Droll rather than laugh out loud funny, as is often the case with Hitch, the best scenes are surprisingly those having nothing to do with the main plot, in particular between potential couple, solid John Forsythe and a luminous Shirley MacLaine making her screen debut, as they negotiate the terms of their relationship.

Hitch told Trauffaut (during their lifelong interview) that he thought the remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much was his favourite – the earlier version the work of a talented amateur (so modest), the latter of a professional. I think he's being unusually harsh on his younger self; the earlier film is thick with a musty atmosphere lost in the technicolor of the later model, but the remake's longer duration allows for more complex storytelling.

The latter also offers the surprising appearance of Doris Day in one of her few early dramatic roles. I love Doris Day. Always adorable, and watchable even in the most middling of films, a bit like a 1950s Zooey Deschanel or if we're being honest Julia Roberts. Trust Hitch to not only have her sing (well why would you cast someone like her and not give her at least one song) but make that integral to the climax.

As I also said in my comments about the original film, none of the antagonists have quite the same charisma as Peter Lorre though to a degree their bland normality probably increases their menace. Of all the films in Hitch’s canon, it’s quite surprising that this hasn’t been served with a remake – it would seem the perfect vehicle for Tom Hanks – though I suppose that’s true of all Jimmy Stewart’s films as we found out with You’ve Got Mail. On second thoughts …

in bed

Commerce I'm in bed for a couple of days with a tsunami of a cold and an earth splitting headache and while I'm there Disney buys Marvel Comics? Pass me the asprin.