Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Hovering between five stars and no stars at all. After listening to unabridged audio versions of the three books of the Hunger Games trilogy I feel at once impressed and depressed. Battered into not knowing whether I can honestly use the star equivalent of liked, at the same time as being aware that "amazing" is akin to what I felt about some of it. The series ends in what seemed to me like relentless, unremitting grimness and horror. For a book I believed to be for young adults, it doesn't pull many punches and the moral dilemmas are also grown up, not to say topical. I have always been aware that I am not the target audience, but in fact the resolution of the romance plot was far less painful than I was expecting and for me paled in significance beside other momentous events.

I don't want to give away any spoilers as there are several twists, some of which I saw coming and at least one of which was like Ms. Collins saying brightly "What's that over there" and then kneeing me in the groin. These are books I won't forget in a hurry and I regret dismissing them and the spin-off film earlier, when I somehow lumped them in with the Twilight phenomena. I should probably point out again that I didn't read these books but listened to them. The reader, Carolyn McCormick, may well have coloured my opinion to some degree. I believe she did an excellent job however, differentiating clearly between different voices and even attempting a song. There were a couple of times when I felt errors of stress may have slipped through - Head doctor where the context implied head doctor for example - but in the main it was an excellent performance I thought, and well-matched to the material. In conclusion I will say bravo to her and the author...and I'm glad I don't have to go through that again...

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Dubloons and Debauchery

I hijacked games day this week (which was on Wednesday not Tuesday for once) and felt a bit guilty about it. Crabro kindly indulged my whim though despite originally wanting to get back to Battlelore (and who can blame him). I, however, had set up Richard Berg's GMT re-boot of the old Avalon Hill Blackbeard a day or two before, in an attempt to get on top of the complex old fashioned rule book and justify buying the game which had remained unplayed for six months or more. Having got it set up and failed once again to really assimilate all the rules I realised that the only way I was really going to master it was by playing it with someone and enlisting their help in learning it by experience.

The project proved to be difficult but for the most part good fun, mainly thanks to Crabro embracing his inner pirate wholeheartedly and being pretty villainous from the outset.

In the end we had to call the game without it reaching a proper endgame trigger. It was clear though that Crabro, who had started with the eponymous pirate, aka Edward Teach, and played him with thorough wickedness was the top buccaneer. You don't want your merchant ship to be found and looted by this man!

I'm glad that Crabro was interested enough, not just to play, but to print out the whole "living rules" and player aids and try to really understand the gameplay. Hopefully we will return to this next week and perhaps play multiple pirates and have more involvement with Kings Commissioners and Warships as well as perhaps sacking the odd port.

The game is full of period flavour and theme and I think I'm going to love it. I only wish someone would take my other favourite genre, the "wild west", and do the same.

You speak the truth, my faithful indian companion

...Is a line I often quote and is never recognised as anything but typical Rooftrouser eccentricity. It is in

Radio Days (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

fact spoken by a young character in Radio Days to a rabbi played by Kenneth Mars. The youngster is the junior version of the narrator, voiced by Woody Allen, and so is a version of the junior Konigsberg.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, film night unexpectedly came back into the calendar this week at short notice but was none the worse for being a surprise. Arthur turned up with the usual wonderful pie and beer (although he decided to stick to apple juice himself this week) together with some suggestions for the programme. He had with him two VHS tapes: One, "The Swimmer" we put by for another time as we decided on the other tape "Paris Trout" together with one from the "Rialto"'s own archive: Radio Days.

Another wonderful Bilko episode filled the intermission between the two features. This time it was "Bivouac" with a healthy dose of one of my favourite characters, Paul Ford playing the Colonel.

Paris Trout is one that Arthur and I had seen together at the very wonderful Duke of York's cinema in Brighton about twenty years ago in a period of that venue's history when it was run on the lines of an art-house film club (membership if I recall correctly was just a pound per year) and the programmes were full of amazing classic foreign and indie productions and every week brought films I shall never forget. Having said that we hadn't retained an awful lot of Paris Trout apart from a memory of the appalling, powerful central performance by Dennis Hopper as the eponymous Paris and his relationship with his wife. She does explain at one point how she came to marry this monster but it is still hard to fathom.

English: Dennis Hopper at the Cannes Film Festival in France. Français : Dennis Hopper au festival de Cannes (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It being fresh to us again, it was able to shock once more and did so. Trout is a truly horrible, and I really hope not too realistic, southern bigot running a shop and a loansharking business. He appears to believe that he is above the law and that the black population is so far below it that he can literally get away with murder either with at most a sham court case or likely a little bribery. To some extent this proves to be true but Trout has gone too far for his own brutalised and tortured wife (Barbara Hershey) and his lawyer (Ed Harris) and alone he teeters on the edge of madness. Hopper's performance is memorable, and while the other leads give a good account of themselves credit must also go to Trout's victims and very affecting performances by Tina Lifford and young Darnita Henry.

It's not an easy watch and if you are anything like me the illogical brutal prejudice and inhumanity will make you angry. It was directed by the Gylennhaal paterfamilias, Stephen, whose career has mostly been and still is, in television. The evidence of this film is that that is cinema's loss.

The choice of Radio Days (1987) was partly as antidote to the poisonous Paris, as it is full of comedic charm and whimsy as well as a sparkling period soundtrack. This is the Woodmeister's homage to his roots and the excitement of listening to the radio in America in the forties. Structurally it is a series of episodes or stories relating to the narrator (Allen as mentioned above) "his" family and their radio listening. These stories are interwoven on a background of the family's own stories - and what a family. The cast is marvellous and linking this with the last couple of films in our

English: Woody Allen at the Cannes film festival (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

"Woody retrospective" season, includes Mia Farrow and, in a small role, Jeff Daniels. The cast also includes other greats from the Allen rep. company: Julie (Marge Simpson ) Kavner, Dianne Wiest and Diane Keaton (who just gets to sing). Also notable among the cast, the great Wallace Shawn and Kenneth Mars as the rabbi mentioned above.

Radio Days is a perpetual delight, full of wonderful bits of surreal humour and memorable lines as well as catchy tunes, and a great period feel. It was like slipping down into a favourite armchair or a warm bath after facing the evil Trout. Speaking of trout, fish feature quite a bit in Radio Days but in an altogether more pleasant way. The whole thing is an unashamedly romanticised version of the past as the narrator says and as such is warm and soothing. A little red snapper?

Then there were three

Fresh from my kekloss outings I returned to prepare for games night and for once it was just the three regular blokes. Nevertheless we still decided on yet another go at Stefan Feld's gem Trajan. After two victories in a row, this time, perhaps distracted by the thought of having bought someone else some trousers I slipped back into second place and stayed there. Not too bad a score I think but on this occasion the Professor, having spent a week analysing aspects of the game, got into his stride and disappeared into a distant part of the score track.


I thoroughly enjoyed it again though and tried yet another different strategy, this time focussing more on shipping and far less on military conquest and building. After all that temple-knuckling, brow-furrowing thoughtyness we fancied something lighter as our second game and ended up playing Deadwood. I was delighted to give this another outing as western is a theme I love and I had played it recently enough to remember how to play it. In any case it doesn't have a complex rule set although one does have to learn the "powers" of quite a few buildings.

In the end it seems I may have won this one on a recount after a technical infringement, although the original result (another win for the Prof.) was in some ways more satisfying as it had involved a shoot-out to decide the outcome of a drawn game. [I felt a sort of tugging sensation there as some subconscious demon tried to get me to come up with some dreadful "fastest draw" type wordplay.]

Anyhow a quick, colourful little game and as ProfMudlark realised that he hadn't been paying the sheriff (Crabro) his dues and victory is decided on money, it would seem that I should have been the victor.  Yay me!


A very satisfying, enjoyable and harmonious evening's gaming to temporarily stop my kicking myself over trouser-mislaying antics.

I'd better change my name to RoofNOtrouser

because Rooftrouser is just too ironic a name for someone who keeps losing his strides. Anyway enough of my shopping woes, suffice it to say that I ended up making two visits to Brighton on consecutive days as a result of my trouser troubles, during which I also managed to see two very interesting films.

Julie Delpy @ SF Apple Store promoting "2 Days in Paris", 2007/7/29 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

First up was 2 Days in New York, Julie Delpy's sequel to her 2007 film about a French woman taking her American boyfriend to meet her family: Two Days in Paris.

La Delpy is an amazing film-maker in my opinion, perhaps deserving comparison with Woody Allen as an auteur. She not only writes, directs and acts but also has a hand in the composition of the original score. She employed her own mother and father and they turned out to be among the best things in "Paris". I particularly loved it because I recognised so much from my own painful introductions to a French girlfriend's relatives and friends long ago.

Sadly, her mother (who played Marion's mother in the first film) has since passed away but her wonderful, eccentric larger-than life actor father is still with us and features strongly in Two Days in New York. It loses a little for me in moving from an environment I'm familiar with, and it felt a bit chaotic structurally, nevertheless it was very enjoyable to be re-united with Marion (Delpy), her nymphomaniac sister Rose (played by Alexia Landeau) and Manu (Alexandre Nahon) her boyfriend, who is also an "ex" of Marion. Both Landeau and Nahon also had a hand in Delpy's screenplay.

PARIS, FRANCE - MARCH 19: (L-R) Alexia Landeau, Chris Rock, Julie Delpy, Albert Delpy, Alex Nahon and Christophe Mazodier attend '2 Days In New York' Paris Premiere at Mk2 Bibliotheque on March 19, 2012 in Paris, France. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

The story has moved on from Paris and Delpy is no longer going out with Jack but has another American boyfriend, divorced father Mingus (played by Chris Rock), she also has a child from her previous relationship, as does Mingus.

Chris Rock's performance was a pleasant surprise, being relatively understated in comparison to Delpy's "family" which worked nicely as a foil to the excesses of Jeannot, Rose and Manu. I have previously come across him in manic, shrill, action-movie mode but there is clearly a lot more to him as an actor than I gave him credit for.

While I perhaps didn't like this quite as much as the first, I enjoyed it very much and hope Delpy and her "family" return. If it was 2 Days in Herne Bay with this lot I would definitely pay to see it.

The following day, while briefly being re-united with my new chinos (a trew story), I also took in the most promoted and talked about film of the moment: Prometheus. This is where Ridley Scott has been re-united with the "Alien" franchise and, his iconic film being the first of that series, this certainly warrants some interest. Prometheus is not exactly a prequel though, more of a pre-pre-prequel as it would, and perhaps will, take two more features to join up to the saga of the ill-fated Nostromo.

Its pedigree is an awful lot to live up to and inevitably there has been some disappointment expressed by many reviewers. It is though, I feel, an undeniably big event film which at times spectacularly delivers the kind of cinema experience that is expected of a sci-fi blockbuster. It has of course been shown extensively in 3d and Scott is careful to promote that, however he did let slip in an interview that the 2d print is beautiful and I wouldn't argue with that. I think I will probably settle for that and not see both versions as I did with Avatar. I've now seen enough 3d to conclude that I always prefer the 2d version even where the use of 3d has created interesting moments. The loss of light and colour for me is too much of a trade-off and I hope that it will be recognised that it is no  more than a gimmick and is not "the future of cinema". Most films look better without it, although I have no objection to the existence of films made purely for the process. I think there is probably a place for the occasional "fairground ride" film made solely for spectacle, like Journey to the Centre of the Earth. Any film with any pretention to grown up plot, character development and cinematographic beauty needs to give the old dark glasses the boot however and this is without addressing the issue of composing for 3d effect which inevitably impacts on the director's and DPs vision.

Anyway... I loved Prometheus because it looks beautiful, allowed me to escape from hosenverlustshmerz to a whole new world and is a good example of one of types of film I go to the cinema in the hope of seeing. Indeed it complements the Delpy/Allen species of film to make up the two extremes of film experience I love, on the one hand adventure, spectacle, scares, drama, special effects and on the other romance, comedy, and well-written intimate character driven pieces with relishable dialogue.

Cropped image from this file. Ridley Scott in New York. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Depite the criticisms, Prometheus was clearly set up to be the first of two or three films and I hope the series continues. I was not wholly happy with it myself but I'm not quite sure why. Certainly Alien was an impossibly hard act to follow. The claustrophobic horror, the design, the "monster", the android character: These are things that no longer have the shock of originality and this is not the fault of Scott or the cast but are simply inevitable. "Prom" has all sorts of echos, including monstrous alien "birth", a sentient android etc but can't be expected to beat the original at its own game.

Where it does score is in some of the lavish lovingly shot views of the moon and the ship which are indeed beautiful. I hope there's more to come and, if not entirely satisfied, am more than happy to have a big sci-fi film back on the screen. I should also mention that there is some real quality in the cast too, especially Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender,  although one area traditionally poor in these big SF films is the dialogue and this is no exception.

It just occurred to me that I already want to see both these films again so that must be a good sign!

Woodyfest

The Purple Rose of Cairo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Film night and more of the "Woody Allen retrospective": This time The Purple Rose of Cairo and Alice. Sleeper might have been more appropriate for the second film, given that both old codgers were filling the air with zeds at some points during Alice, however the pairing made sense as both these films starred the  Woodster's former partner Mia Farrow and were a reminder of what a great actress she was.

There may be SPOILERS BELOW

"Purple Rose" was a film I had great affection for, having seen it in London with my brother many years ago. Going to the pictures with my little bro' is a rare enough pleasure and going to the cinema in London rarer still but the best thing about the jaunt was that we both loved Purple Rose. It is possible that I haven't seen it since and certainly Arthur was claiming this as only his second viewing. Happily the film still lived up to our golden memories of it and we were charmed and impressed all over again.

This is in my, indeed in OUR, opinion a little masterpiece and comfortably earns a place in our Woody Allen top ten. It has charm, laughs, great writing, pathos, good music (including a musical number performed by Mia Farrow and Jeff Daniels which I had forgotten) and a central conceit that is at once original and typically Woody.


The story is set in depression America with Cecilia (Farrow) taking refuge from her life, and abusive out of work husband (Danny Aiello), in the picture house. Eventually her dedication to "The Purple Rose of Cairo" attracts the attention of one of the characters, romantic heartthrob Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels in a dual role with Gil Shepherd, the actor who plays Tom).

Tom and Cecilia fall for one another and in a memorable summing up Cecilia says "I'm in love with a wonderful man. He's fictional, but you can't have everything."

The film has a bitter sweet quality which is perfectly complemented by its ending over which Allen refused to compromise, even though he was told that the film could have had much greater success if he changed it. In fact when asked why he didn't give the film a "happy ending" he is alleged to have replied "That IS the happy ending".

After another corking episode of Bilko in the interval, Alice, alas, played to a less than attentive audience now full of beer and pie and dozing. I can only say that on its release I saw it twice so I must have been impressed at the time. Following the current showing, I'm afraid I concluded that it seemed over-long (though only ten minutes or so over the classic hour and a half) and rather disjointed, but both of these could be illusion caused by the snoozing.

Cover of Alice

There are similarities with "Purple Rose" in that there is an acceptance of "magic" which in Alice manifests itself as Chinese herbal mysticism where doses of medicinal herbs (irritatingly, but not surprisingly, pronounced with a silent "h" in the American fashion) this time provide the necessary escape from a less than perfect life and marriage with such side-effects as flying and invisibility.

There are things to like but it seems improbably to me that, even if I hadn't had a nap during the showing, I would still rate it as highly as I did on its release in 1990. Not a patch on "Purple" at any rate. William Hurt plays the husband as a rather unpleasant man so not surprisingly I didn't like him although it may have been a good performance given that that is the appropriate response.

Another excellent film night. Perhaps a pity it follows hot on the heels of games night as an early night might avoid the problem of dozing which beset the post midnight second feature.

Let Osprey

A grand day's birding today. Firstly we went to a very full Arlington Reservoir. The air was full of birdsong but nothing very exciting was visible on the water, just a few mallard and a great-crested grebe or two. There was a cormorant or two about as well.

Meanwhile there was a lot of small-bird activity in the trees but this was mostly confined to sound rather than vision. In the course of our wanderings we did see chiff-chaff, blackcap, green woodpecker (in flight), goldfinches, reed bunting, sparrow and swallows darting above us. We had been hoping for a turtle dove but only managed the collared variety as we walked across the bridge and down to the church and back. We had seen a kestrel soaring and hovering but on the return journey to the reservoir we had very nice views of a red kite. Things were looking up.

The best was yet to come though and as we reached the shore of the far side of the reservoir, heading back for our lunch we noticed a really big bird with a long wingspan had appeared over the water. This was really exciting for us. An osprey!

We watched in awe for some time as he began to try and catch a fish. He made several unsuccessful attempts, plunging into the water and emerging to shake himself dry in mid-air. Finally though, he emerged with a fish and once he'd got it slung underneath in his talons neatly he began to fly North towards us looking for all the world like some kind of torpedo bomber with his trout arranged aerodynamically fore-and-aft. A helicopter clattered into view and caused him to change his mind but after it had passed he reverted to his original course and flew past us giving us brilliant views.

After that we had lunch. Nothing much could follow that. However, after lunch we headed for the coast to see if we could see any justification for the bad reports my bird-tutor had heard about the kittiwake colony this year. The tide was out and there was a fair bit of kittiwake activity with some sitting on the posts of a wooden groyne, some bobbing about out on the sea and others coming and going from the cliff face and making their characteristic kitti-waaake" cry. Happily, on scanning the cliffs with the 'scope we did see some evidence of eggs and are hopeful that the problem is only that the earlier bad weather has put back the breeding schedule a bit. Amongst the nesting kitties we also spotted a fulmar on a nest.

Finally we set off to the Seaford Head area and strolled down to Hope Gap and back. At the water's edge were a couple of curlew and once again the bushes seemed full of song. We saw and heard a number of skylarks and heard raven about. We were almost sure that we saw one fly over as it was making a characteristic raven sound. It wasn't as large as we'd normally expect but it could have been a juvenile at this time of year. We also saw meadow pipits, whitethroat, blackbird and a nice tubby thrush running through his repertoire of songs and impressions on top of a bush.

There were plenty of things besides birds to look at including wild flowers (I'm told there were a fairly uncommon vetch species, orchids, nightshades and bugloss amongst them). We also saw a number of insects including damsel flies, ladybirds and butterflies which included a number of small heath, chalkhill blue, gatekeeper, comma, speckled wood and painted lady I think

Like 'Buses...

It seems, you wait ages for a Trajan victory and then two come along together. Not, as you know, that I care much about the winning. It's the playing that's fun for me not the result...but...
having said that...
well...
it was quite satisfying to beat Crabro, MaOldie and ProfMudlark at a game I have so much respect for, on Thursday games night.

I'm not sure what I did right this time but if there was any overall strategy going on, it was simply to maximise the point scoring by trying to get some "ViPs" out of every turn. Whatever happened, it worked and I was well chuffed.

Just as we had the week before, we followed all that concentration with Flutter: a much lighter game...and just to add to the happiness quotient the Prof. had his first win at his favourite game. I think I was last, barely managing to improve on my starting money.

Still I was happy enough with the Trajan win... :-)

Trajan Victory at Last

Twosday games this week featured the same great double bill of Borg and Feld, beginning with both sides of another Battlelore scenario and finishing with another game of Trajan.

What can I say about these two games that I haven't already? They are currently two of our favourite games by two of our favourite designers and enormously fun and satisfying to play.

The main difference this week was that I, at last, won a game of Trajan. It wasn't by much, I have to admit (eight points in it I think), and actually both of us did much better this time, but it is nice to know that I can be competitive in a game I really enjoy playing. I'm not sure what I did right this time and I can still point to a rather chaotic strategy with missed opportunities but I think that I made more effective use of the mancala device at the game's heart, this time as well as exploiting the building and military areas quite well. Crabro meanwhile did better the senate area and in maximising bonuses than I did.

The Battlelore scenario didn't include any of those wretched cowardly goblins or the stalwart dwarves. In fact there were no monsters either so apart from the lore element it was a straight toe-to-toe scrap between infantry and cavalry with a couple of archer units each for a bit of "twanging" or "pinging" as ranged fire is known, and the odd "darken the sky" making them a tiny bit more useful.

BattleLore (Photo credit: Will Merydith)

The scenario didn't on the face of it look massively unbalanced and having lost the first battle 6-3, I initially feared that we would break the sequence of one-alls as Crabro had some lucky rolls and looked very threatening from the outset. With a sequence of decent cards giving me some solid advances though, the tide turned and ended on a surprising 7-1 victory for me, leaving the record of each of us winning every scenario, intact.

This game continues to be great fun for us and exactly my type of game as I let my inner fifteen year old self back out to play with miniatures and dice as on Saturday evenings so many years ago.

What a great day's gaming! Enormous thanks to Crabro for all the fun (and the lunch) as usual.

Moonrise Men in Shadows - Cinebinge

Eva Green (Photo credit: Photogrammaton)

Another cinebinge for me yesterday. Sadly Two Days in Paris has been completely ignored in this area and equally sadly, I failed to notice Raid until too late and missed that too. Meanwhile there were new films by two distinctive "auteur" directors whose work I like and the third outing for a franchise I've enjoyed, so it wasn't hard to find a triple bill.

CANNES, FRANCE - MAY 16: (R-L) Actor Jason Schwartzman, actor Bruce Willis and director Wes Anderson pose at the 'Moonrise Kingdom' photocall during the 65th Annual Cannes Film Festival at Palais des Festivals on May 16, 2012 in Cannes, France. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

First and best was the new Wes Anderson film "Moonrise Kingdom". Another sweet slice of whimsy from the writer and director of The Life Aquatic, Rushmore, Royal Tenenbaums, Bottle Rocket, Fantastic Mr Fox and Darjeeling Limited. This is typically quirky, with every frame carefully coloured and composed and with some oddball characters with their own logic.

It features a very good cast including Bill Murray from Life Aquatic as well as Francis McDormand, Bruce Willis, Ed Norton, Harvey Keitel, Tilda Swinton and others. The two unknowns playing the unlikely lovers at the heart of the story (Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward) are also very good. Jared (Sam) is one of an unlikely bunch of "Khaki Scouts of North America", led by well meaning if ineffectual scout leader Ed Norton, and uses his wilderness skills to run away with fellow misfit, Suzy. Meanwhile, the rest of the scouts and the aforementioned adults form a chaotic search party.

There are some stylised touches which echo some of the oddity of The Life Aquatic, in fact our exp

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (soundtrack) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

loration of the Suzy's house at the beginning of the film immediately brought that to mind as the camera pans about, looking through the side of the house and catching vignettes of the characters going about their lives. Here though it never overwhelms the film or distances us enough that the film and its characters are not engaging. This was a lovely cinema experience for me. A delight, which I would like to see again and at the very least will hopefully be in my DVD collection before too long.

After that start, inevitably the rest suffered a bit by comparison. A quick lunch break and then it was on

Cover of Men in Black (Deluxe Edition)

with Men in Black 3. Nothing wrong with the film, and I did enjoy it, but whether for the fact that its "back in time" plot deprived us of a lot of Tommy Lee Jones or for its overreliance on plot at the expense of the inventiveness of the previous films I can't decide. Perhaps it's just that we have seen it all before now. We know to expect big guns and butt-ugly monsters with lots of goo and slime and unpleasant orifices.

Even the always delightful presence of Emma Thompson didn't quite lift the excitement for me. I suppose you can't say that a film featuring giant fish monsters, people jumping off the Chrysler building and the launch of Apollo 11 etc isn't exactly just doing it by the numbers so perhaps it's just me that's jaded. Plenty of fun to be had but less originality I suppose...and why do we always have to be massively high up in every film these days?

English: Johnny Depp at a ceremony for Penélope Cruz to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Which brings me to the last film of the day (because of some cliff-edge teetering and plummeting). This was "Dark Shadows" by another quirky director whose work I love: Tim Burton. Not surprisingly the cast included his best pal Johnny Depp and his missus Helena Bonham-Carter as usual, and also included Michelle Pfeifer, Eva Green (as the evil baddy) and perhaps in a nod to the history of such gothic grand guignol, another Burton regular:  Christopher Lee.

The material is originally from a television series of the sixties and seventies about a cursed family and including vampires, witches and werewolves. Unfortunately I had never seen it so I didn't have the affection for the idea that I might have or spot the cameos by the original stars of the show, so it had to stand on its own as a film.





I must say I enjoyed it, but it is somewhat chaotic, and must be less original seeming to an audience post  Buffy, True Blood, Being Human, Twilight, Addams Family and endless other franchises than it appeared in the sixties.

Ideal material for Tim Burton of course as he is a lover of the fantastick, gothic and  macabre. In its way, often great fun especially if you can relax and go with Depp's camp and over the top performance. I enjoyed it, but both this and MiB felt lacking in originality in the wake of the delicious daftness of Moonrise Kingdom.

Film Night Two - Just as we thought it was safe...

We put in what turns out to have been a "banker" film night on Tuesday as Arthur didn't think he could

The Smallest Show on Earth (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

make Friday this week but as it turned out he was free after all so...why not just have another film night?

Why not indeed but just to make this one a little different we had pizza, salad and garlic bread in place of the traditional pork pie.

There may be SPOILERS below

The programme was fairly traditional consisting as it did of black and white films of the 'fifties and 'sixties. First up was what I jokingly referred to as Britain's answer to Cinema Paradiso - "The Smallest Show on Earth"  from 1957. This continued the theme of Peter Sellers' films amongst other links to recent fare.

Bill Travers and wife (as of this same year) Virginia McKenna play a couple who inherit a run down old cinema called the Bijou and against their better judgement end up running it with the aid of a motley assortment of equally run down staff including Sellers as a drunken old projectionist. Amongst other British celluloid stalwarts of the era we also find Bernard Miles, Sid James, Margaret Rutherford, Liz Fraser and Leslie Phillips in the cast as the Spensers try to run the "Old By-joo" to raise its value to Francis de Wolff the owner of the big "modern" rival in the town.

The comedy character actors are the delight here, while the leads (better known later as the Adamsons of Born Free) have a bit of a thankless task playing against the likes of Rutherford and Sellers. It is also a nice bit of social history with its reminders of the cinemas of my childhood (which were happily mostly more like the Grand

Francis de Wolff (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

than the Bijou). Basil Dearden directed and it was produced by Michael Relph with the famous team of Launder and Gilliat as executive producers.

The short feature played in the interval and accompanied by the pizza, was again a Bilko episode, in which our hero spends the platoon's money on a racehorse with the expected disastrous results and some great comedy mugging from the long-suffering Paul Ford.

After the interval the second feature was a Boulting Brothers comedy from 1963: Heaven's Above featuring another low key (compared to his later Pink Panther work) character performance by Peter Sellers. This time as a prison chaplain mistakenly

Peter Sellers (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

given a parish and as a well-meaning vicar, causing mayhem and an almost complete social meltdown in the town.

The last part of the film justifies the title although it does feel a bit like a different film tacked on the end. Much fun to be had again from an assortment of character comedians of the time as well as Sellers' own role. Bernard Miles crops up again and Eric Sykes, Miriam Karlin and Roy Kinnear have key roles but playing who's who with all the well known faces thronging the screen from Derek Nimmo to Ian Carmichael.

Oh Lore! or A funny thing happened on the way to the forum

More Borg and Feld on Tuesday (apologies for the fact this post has somehow got out of order) for some very satisfying board gaming and a brief break of the losing streak. We played our first Battlelore scenario to involve, not just lore, but a creature. In this case a large but not terribly powerful spider. I put her to good use before she got killed though and finished the scenario 7-3 (6 banners for the win this week).

After lunch though things went downhill and Dick pummeled away at my right flank (full of panic-stricken goblins) until I barely managed to stop it being a whitewash. Things could have been slightly different if my "Creeping Doom" spell had worked but there we are. That's what this game is like: Sometimes the luck is with you and sometimes against. If you play enough you get the triumphs as well as the disasters. I always enjoy it even when losing. Having said that though, I did find this replay disappointingly brief and I didn't even get to see what Crabro could do with a spider as he didn't bother to move it.

We finished off with another game of Trajan, and although I was initially in the lead (at one point by a considerable margin after a 20 point ship etc) I let this slip away steadily, even failing to prevent a full minus 15 malus after the first quarter. My excuse, if I was to make one, was that my head was gently throbbing and felt as though it was full of sawdust after an ill-advised return to beer drinking in the early hours with another friend. I didn't make the excuse at the time because to be honest I was a bit ashamed of the bad play and anyway Crabro's win was well deserved.

Oh no! They're sending us kids!

An early film night this week as Arthur has somewhere else to be on the traditional Friday. Nevertheless

Cover via Amazon

he arrived with the full trappings of a proper film night- Melton Mowbray pie, bottles of beer and a couple of black and white films.

The first of these was "Only Two Can Play" a Peter Sellers film of 1962 and this was followed by another episode of "Bilko" (One in which he meets his match in the delightful Sergeant Hogan). The final film of the day was "The Village of the Damned" a 1960 adaptation of John Wyndham's chilling Midwich Cuckoos, featuring George Sanders.

The first of these was the stand out by a long way, featuring a marvelous performance by Sellers as a Welsh librarian, tempted by the possibility of an affair with the exotic Mai Zetterling as an escape from his humdrum and rather impoverished life, which never quite manages to be consummated. All to the good when you consider that his wife is the lovely Virginia Maskell. Such is the skill and subtlety of Sellers' performance that we do have sympathy for his straying, despite meeting his wife and children.

There is much to be enjoyed and some great supportin

The Midwich Cuckoos (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

g acting. Sellers/Lewis' interaction with the oth

er's sha

ring the lodgings is funny, well-played and well written (by Brian Forbes from Kingsley Amis' novel). It makes one a little sad that Sellers, undoubtedly an extremely talented actor, enjoyed broader caricature so much that his later career moved away from such "straight" performances. Not that I would want to deprive the world of Clouseau I suppose...

Everyone Likes a Flutter Now and then

Thursday games and we were four again without MrWendell or Petra Pan. Not too suprisingly Crabro was keen to play Trajan again and so, despite the losses, was I.

Ma Oldie hadn't played it before but belied her gametag and impressed with how fast she picked up the rules. In fact the two who have played it most often were a fairly distant third and fourth (myself and Crabro respectively) while Ma the newbie gave the Professor a run for his money with a good second.

 Very enjoyable even for the losers. Stefan Feld really is the designer of the moment for me and Mr C.

We finished with some time to spare and went looking for a filler. We emerged from the games collection with the Prof.'s alleged favourite and old Spears game by the name of Flutter. Given that the Prof. has a mathematical brain the size of a planet, it is perhaps surprising that his favourite would be an old stock trading game that is pretty much completely random but I have to admit it was once again lots of fun.

A very pleasant and satisfying evening's gaming