Posted by Lou. The time is 9.18pm here in London, UK.

While we're doing review round-ups I may as well throw some in...


On my flight to Montreal I decided to go with Last Chance Harvey, a film I had been meaning to see ever since I saw them shooting a pick-up outside my work last year [the scene pictured left]. It spent a fair whack of time in my local hood (Southbank) so I wasn't disappointed on that front, though did find it frankly bizarre that they depict Paddington to Southbank via Piccadilly Circus as a light stroll. Anyhoo, the bonus is that it was actually a really sweet little film - intimate (just right for a small screen), unconventional (a romance between two people in the second half of their life? shock! horror!*), and starring one of the best performances I have ever seen from Dustin Hoffman.

I absolutely loved his portrayal of the pitiable Harvey - it moved to tears at times, and transcended the somewhat familiar territory it was carved in. Emma Thompson (who I will always love for her Sense and Sensibility) is also excellent, giving a very empathetic portrayal of a woman who has been disappointed to the point of not trying. Aside from one hideous scene - a cliche montage lifted straight from Four Weddings and a Funeral (and it was terrible in that too) - I thought it was a pretty sweet little film, perfect for a snuggly sofa night in.

*oh my god, I just looked up Dustin Hoffman's age and he is - would you believe it?? - SEVENTY ONE YEARS OLD! Fuuuck! I hope I age as well as him! (this prompted a flat "guess the age" competition - the most shocking one is that Gene Hackman is 79!! (and cripes is Meryl Streep ageing well at 60!!))


The other week I obtained some free tickets to Sister Act - the musical (yes, I know) - and hey, guess what? It was really good! It helped that I'd had a couple of pints before and a couple more during, but honestly, after a bit of a slow start it really got kicking and was a bundle of fun! Which, in retrospect, shouldn't have surprised me - I caught a bit of the movie on tv not long after and was reminded that that was a heck of a fun movie too.

It is an entirely new soundtrack, but the storyline varies little (other than a romantic sub-plot) and the nun characters are basically the same. The performers were all brilliant, and hilarious. But I must particularly single out the staging - during the slow start I was concerned that it was pointless showing off with bits moving here and there unneccessarily, but once they got to the convent and cathedral the staging really excelled. Go see it!


I was staging a "cheer up" weekend for a broken-hearted friend, which included going to the cinema (my first time in far too long). We nixed Sunshine Cleaning (but by god I will get there!) for a Swedish vampire film (I know!) called Let The Right One In (Låt Den Rätte Komma In), and so found ourselves sitting in a cinema on a Sunday afternoon loaded up with chocolate-sauce-covered-ice-cream ready and waiting for an hilarious Scandinavian vampire romp. Errr... which it wasn't.

So turns out that Let The Right One In is a genre-bending vampire-horror-crossed-with-melancholy-drama kinda film. Brilliant - except if the point of going was to cheer up a friend. Thankfully there are some delicious genre elements from the vampire side, but for the most part it is atmospheric and sombre, strangely beautiful and sweet. Particularly notable for the classical elements, a fantastic cameo from my favourite animals, and an unsettlingly brilliant performance by the young girl. I would definitely recommend this for a dark and wintery night, when you feel like some "serious" cinema.

Posted by Lou. The time is 11.09pm here in London, UK.

I got free tix* to Marilyn: The Dance Musical so thought "what the hey!" and went along with fellow musical buff Sherie and, well, we both despised it and thus I shall now proceed to pull it apart in detail.

Oh man, it was shite. I don't even know where to start. During the first number I realised that it was going to be a piece of rubbish - in one dance routine they attempted to "set the scene" of Marilyn's upbringing via interpretive dance. Our whispered conversation perhaps sums it up best: "this is absurd" "yes". You know what? Just skip it. Just skip it. It didn't in any way inform us of Marilyn's upbringing (other than containing a nod to her mother's psychiatric instability) and served no point other than to be tacky.

I must now mention the biggest issue I had with the show - the casting of Marilyn. Good gawd. They cast an expressionless dance who was characterised by being very tall and very lean, to the point of gangliness. Now, obviously I do not believe that women should be defined by their appearance. But we're talking about Marilyn Monroe. She was fundamentally defined by her appearance. She is an icon of the ages. Her career, her persona, her life were defined by the image of Marilyn Monroe. Yes, there was a whole lot more to Norma Jean (I shall mention this in a moment), but her legacy starts with and centres upon the image that was Marilyn Monroe. The dancer playing her did not in any way whatsoever evoke this image - seeing her in Marilyn clothing, seeing her going through the motions of "sultry" moves, watching her dance to the soundtrack of Marilyn's own voice with images of the real woman beamed larger-than-life over the stage, just served to distance the subject matter from the theatrical embodiment.**

So back to the show - the second number was worse than the opening one. Perhaps a low point in the history of theatre. As we listened to the wonderful sultry tones of Marilyn singing a playful song full of sexual innuendo the on-stage action veered far too far into the arena of vulgar and crass with a hideous overt and thoroughly unerotic scene of oral sex. It was actually embarrassing. Not racy, not risque, just embarrassing - and totally missing the point. As Sherie put it, it completely missed capturing her sensuality, instead going straight to sex.

Which leads me on to the other huge problem with this show - it completely failed to capture anything of the person. There was no sense of her career - nothing of the accomplished performer, actress, and comedienne. Nothing of her intelligence, nothing of the way she was used or the way she herself used the Marilyn Monroe image. Nothing about her well-known issues - her difficult nature, her addictions, her apparent emotional and potentially psychiatric unbalance. All we proceeded to get through the show was a series of passive relationships in which she - like so many women before her - was portrayed as an object defined by being the weak player in the lives of men, culminating in a downright offensive scene in which she lays herself out on a bed for JFK sacrificially, as if obligated to give her body over to the President.

Sherie mentioned that it was so weak and superficial that it was as if someone had just looked up the rudimentary facts on wikipedia and turned them into a show. (The baseball player, the "geeky" playwright, the supposed affair with a President, a suicide.) But reading her wikipedia page is far more interesting and reveals a quote from third husband Arthur Miller that tells more about Marilyn Monroe in one sentence than this show managed in 90 minutes: "She was a whirling light to me then, all paradox and enticing mystery, street-tough one moment, then lifted by a lyrical and poetic sensitivity that few retain past early adolescence."

Having failed to portray or evoke anything of the icon, the star, the seductress, the careerwoman, the messed-up-lady, the piece ending in her "suicide" was only a satisfactory ending in that it meant the end to a torturous hour and a half of seeing a great woman's life massacred.

I suppose I should also comment on the dance itself seeing as it was a dance show (the "musical" part was slightly misleading in that no-one actually performs any live music - it is all recordings (the best part of it, really)). As Sherie is a dance teacher I'll just regurgitate her verdict: there were some nice moments and the dancer portraying Di Maggio was great, but everything else was weak, the choices were all wrong (including an inaccurate dance style being used), and the choreography of Marilyn was totally oppositional to who she was. This was evident to even me and goes back into the incorrect physicality of the dancer - all long limbs and flexibility and sharp lines in en pointe ballet-shoes seems totally at odds with The Blonde Bombshell who to this day epitomises sultriness and sensuality.

Not recommended.


*I know people who know people

**I would hate for that to read as if I mean that long, lean female forms are inherently unsexy - I mean, rather, than Marilyn - like it or not - was defined by her curves, and you subsequently can't attempt to visually portray her without the curves. It's not just the curves themselves, but what they mean - how they shaped people's perceptions of her, and subsequently how that would have shaped her view of the world. It's just not able to be expressed via such a totally oppositional physicality, and I refuse to believe that they couldn't find a dancer with curves.