End of Term

Headed to my hometown again today for what may be the final films of the year (at least in cinemas). They were both films of whimsical old-fashioned charm and were both set in France.

I first saw Romantics Anonymous, at the Duke of Yorks, and it was a very nice, sweet little film. It won't be troubling the jury for my film of the year I'm sure but I had a happy smile on my face for most of the film. I felt it tapered off a bit at the end and could perhaps have been trimmed slightly but I shall be recommending it to relatives and friends who like an enchanting "romcom" without too much fear they will miss out on a happy ending.

It looks nice too, especially all those lovely chocolates filmed in a couple of genuine chocolatiers. Not often you get a film confection as charming as this without it being compromised by the heavy-footed formulaic writing of someone like Richard Curtis or a Hollywood studio making it overly contrived and saccharin.

I followed Romantics (after some failed Christmas shopping around Brighton and a long and rather damp walk), with Hugo, which has similarities: It's set in France and it has an old-fashioned charm.

Hugo was directed by Marty Scorcese, a bit of a departure for him as it is a family film (but not just a children's film). It was also a bit of a surprise to find him making it in 3d and singing the praises of the technology. Mark Kermode makes some interesting points about why he likes the 3d in Hugo although he detests it elsewhere (and says so whenever he gets the slightest chance). Anyway I can't comment on the 3d version as I haven't seen it. Purely because of timing in this case, I watched the 2d version.

The film looks good and is certainly an elegy to cinema itself but I wasn't so wholly overwhelmed as some people seem to have been. Sacha-Baron Cohen's turn as a damaged policeman (actually the "station inspector", but dressed like a gendarme) is truly weird and there was a little side plot with Frances de la Tour and Richard Griffiths that didn't seem to add anything or go anywhere. The look of it, with all its attention to the inner clockwork is striking and there's no doubting it's the work of a top director but...why am I not completely blown away? Perhaps because I didn't see it in 3d as Marty says I should. Also there didn't seem to be an awful lot of going on, most of the time which struck me as odd for a family film. Will children have the attention span to cope with the slow development of a plot about the early history of film?

Well it seems to be doing well so hopefully I'm wrong about that and whole families will adore it. It's an enchanting film in many ways and there's a great deal to enjoy. It's set in 20s/30s Paris and I believe I spotted James Joyce at one point and certainly saw the celebrated gypsy guitarist with the maimed hand, Django Reinhardt.

Two charming films anyway: Not bad for one day.

The Deep Dark Blue Sea

Terence Davies (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)Back to "The Duke's" today for the new Terence Davies adaptation of Terence Rattigan's play "The Deep Blue Sea".

There may be SPOILERS AHEAD.

I was expecting to like this one, given the writer and director and also everything I'd heard about it. The critics certainly seemed to like it and my favourite of that gang, the "Good Doctor" Kermode, seemed enraptured by the film and the presence of Davies. Slightly more worrying was the reception it got from the critic I love to angrily disagree with: Mr Bradshaw. An impression had formed, from these critics, and the charming Mr Davies' own words on the subject on Kermode and Mayo's review show, which could not be dispelled by reference to the disparity between the critics' view and that of the paying customers (according to Rotten Tomatoes).

In the end I did enjoy it and in fact it completely sucked me in to its claustrophobic re-construction of post-war England. If I have one criticism it is that it was too blooming dark and I mean that literally, although the darkness does also echo the dark, tragic, forboding tone of the piece. I think I remember that Davies joked, as I often do, that the world was in black and white then but actually there didn't seem to be that much contrast and I can only imagine that the designers cried themselves to sleep every night in frustration that their creation couldn't be seen. My imression was of great attention to detail but it was hard to tell. Of course this could all be a projection issue I suppose.

Image via Wikipedia

Terence Rattigan

Anyway, the atmosphere was very convincing albeit not likely to uplift your spirits. The writing is good of course and at times relishable, for example in a scene that Davies was asked to cut but fought to keep in: a tense meal where Hester and her mother-in-law are just barely keeping their anger and hatred in check.

The film betrays its stage roots often and I don't think Davies was concerned about that. The acting, which is conmvincing and enjoyable nevertheless also looks at times like stage acting but there are certain moments where the Rattigan text makes that seem inevitable. The "re-enactment of the Second World War" scene with its "Wizzo" RAF idioms seems very self-conscious and artificial now.

Overall I was immersed in the language, set design and acting to a very enjoyable degree and particularly liked Simon Russell Beale's William Collyer. I would just say though, that my memory of the 1950s, admittedly filtered through the eyes of a small boy, were that people were only too happy to turn their back on the blackout and switch the lights on. Far from the stygian gloom engendered by present day sodium lighting with the faint orange glow making everyone look like animated corpses, the streets had proper yellow-white lighting and in whichever part of the home people chose to live (usually the kitchen where I came from) there was bright cheerful light (and tea, lots of tea). Presumably Hester had put all her shillings in the gas meter and had nothing left for the electricity. 

Wednesday Wonders

Tuesday games were moved to Wednesday again this week and it was decided to have a look at some of the new games acquired lately. Crabro had produced a list of them with ratings and suggested that we work up the list from worst to best (as decided by Boardgamegeek rating).

We first had a look at Highland Clans (a.k.a. MacRobber) which languishes at a sub-5000 rank with a rating of 5.73. Probably not a terrible game by any means but it really didn't appeal to either of us so we decided to move on.

The first one played was Ming Dynasty (current rank 2741). Although we agreed that it was not a bad game at all, by lunchtime we felt that we had been working hard rather than having fun.

This is a game with nice wooden components and a straightforward mechanic but appeared to us to have no particular feeling of theme at all and consequently we had been playing quite a complex abstract. Not in itself a bad thing perhaps but the fact that "hard work" had entered both our minds was enough to make us decide to "move this one" also.

After lunch we continued with Utopia which is at an altogether more respectable sub-2000 rank. First impressions as we began to "punch" it was that the components were gorgeous. It was certainly a winner on wow-factor.

Having played it we were both agreed that it wasn't a bad game either. Coupled with the likelihood that our other gaming friends are likely to want to play it at least once when they see the nice bits, we decided this one was, at least for now, a keeper.

Neither of us were very sure that we had totally grasped the nuances of the rules and both resolved to read up some more before playing again. As it stood though Crabro was the winner by, I think, eight points having won Ming by a much greater margin.

Wednesday Whinging

Tuesday games had to move to Wednesday this week and started much later to boot. We finished with Schotten-Totten, a strangely themed card game by the prolific designer Reiner Knizia which was later re-themed and made more complex as Battle Line. I have owned it for a while and was glad to finally get to play it.
 Image via Wikipedia



I have a German version of it and am unaware if there is any rational explanation for the odd theming of clan warfare between stereotypical cartoon Scots. I'm not sure whether the Scots are terribly happy to see themselves as bare buttocked, kilt-wearing beligerent bagpipe-stranglers but they know where to find Reiner if they want to take it up with him. Meanwhile I see it really as a nice little abstract filler.

One of our two games of it, which entails a string of "battles" for marker stones between groups of cards in sets of three, was the only game I won all day so I'm grateful to Dr Knizia for that at least. Is anything worn under the kilt? No, it's all in perfect working order, to quote the late Mr Milligan.

As in other recent weeks, the other games were Memoir '44 (both sides of an all infantry scenario) and A Few Acres of Snow. In the former I had some terrible luck as well as playing badly, in the latter I just played badly I think. At any rate I got trounced once again by the French despite trying a completely different strategy from last week. To be fair Crabro had stopped his stomping on Boston and tried a completely different strategy himself.

I need to do some homework before next time, although I did at least win one siege this time. The Memoir scenario pitted French resistance groups with the additional flexibility in their firing and retreating rules but only three figures per unit against ordinary German units. Unfortunately, given that there was no armour present, I kept rolling tanks, tanks and stars...lots of tanks...

A very enjoyable day again anyway.