Watch your health!

Just watched Irresistible, a film made in Australia with Susan Sarandon, Sam Neill and Emily Blunt. A neat piece of suspense, if a little unable to overcome its improbabilities. Neill comes across as the least believable of the three, even though he has the easiest part. It’s almost as if he isn’t really bothering too much. Sarandon as always is strong and detailed in her playing of someone who might need to up their health insurance, while Emily Blunt does her best with a role that seems odd from the outset. The great thing about Sarandon is that she can let you know depths in the character without uttering a word. It’s a pity she has to deal with some melodrama here, since she actually invests the character with considerable personality.

Also watched The Last King of Scotland a few days ago. Forest Whitaker is superb in the role of Idi Amin, and James McAvoy (miles away from the last time I saw him as Mr Tumnus) plays the fictional character of a doctor who becomes Amin’s right hand man – when it suits Amin. McAvoy’s Dr Garrigan is a young man who appears to have it all together when it comes to healing the sick, but who is quite amoral in his dealings with people outside of his doctoring. He appears to be wise, but the film is about him actually learning wisdom, at great cost to himself ultimately, and at the expense of several other people’s lives. It’s a film to watch more than once, if you can bear the brutality of the world Amin inhabits (although the brutality is kept to a minimum, visually, until the very end; otherwise it’s mostly hinted at in cutaway shots).

Mr Woodcock

Went to see the rather odd comedy, Mr Woodcock, today. It’s a little offensive in spots, but never pushes the boundaries in any real way.

It concerns a young man who’s made good by writing a popular self-help book. When he arrives home to accept the town’s honorary award, he discovers that his mother is dating his former – and very unpleasant – PE teacher. The rest of the film is dedicated to the young man’s attempts to get rid of this potential step-father, and the latter’s ability to stop him in his tracks every time.

I found it funny enough, occasionally laugh-out-loud. It probably would have been better if we’d watched in on DVD, since it has that sort of quality, really. But we saw it on the big screen because it was the only movie that was showing in the next period of time. In fact the session had already started, but English cinemas being what they are, we only missed about a quarter of an hour of ads.

Billy Bob Thornton does his usual grumpy, morose character – with a suspicious twinkle in his eye; Sarah Sarandon shows that comedy can be found in any character, and Sean William Scott is a likeable and energetic character who pushes the thing along.

Not a world-shattering piece, but it was better than sitting outside reading in the cold.

Scratchings

I don’t know whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing that my post on athlete’s fingers keeps coming up when people go searching for info on athlete’s foot, itchy bottoms, and scabies (which is apparently called the seven year itch because of the longevity of the infestation). Am I keeping the right sort of company here?
They’re advertising an ointment at home in NZ on tv that claims that once you use it you’ll never have athlete’s foot again. A most counterproductive ointment in these days of stuff that has no longevity. I always intend to check out the price on the stuff. For starters it looks as though there’s far more there than you’d need, and I can’t imagine it goes for a few dollars.
To go off on a completely different track, I see that people have been searching for Winifred Kavalieris again – and this blog came top of the search list. Wow! Thanks, Winifred.
And someone else has been searching for Wally Crossman paintings on the Net. They won’t get far: I think there are very few listed. Having said that, I checked under Wallace Crossman, and found a page of his works.
I see the argument about whether to put lemon or orange peel in your compost is still raging (though raging might be putting it a bit excessively). I say, you can put some of these in your compost. I have no idea where people get the idea that worms ‘hate’ them. Just don’t overdo it.
And the quote from Shall We Dance – where Susan Sarandon talks about needing a witness to our lives – has picked up our site too. I checked out one other search result and found this delightful quote:
“Kissing is a means of getting two people so close together that they can’t see anything wrong with each other.” Ren Yasenek

Marriage as a Witness

I’ve been searching in vain on this blog for a quote I was sure I’d put on here at some earlier time, but it’s not coming up under any search word I’ve tried. So, here it is (possibly again). It comes from the movie Shall We Dance, and is spoken by the wife who’s mistakenly thought her husband was having an affair. I like the way it talks about the value of marriage.

We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet... I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things... all of it, all of the time, every day. You're saying 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness'."

Audrey Wells is the scriptwriter.

Dead Man Walking

I was just about to go to bed last night when I found that Dead Man Walking was on tv. I hadn’t seen it again since it first came out in 1995, and though it had already started I finished up watching more than three-quarters of it again.
What an emotionally-charged movie it is. Sean Penn gives the performance of a life-time, making us alternatively like and dislike this arrogant, young man who’s gone along with the disruptive antics of an older man whom he admires, and finishes up raping a young woman and killing her boyfriend to impress him. Even though he was 35 at the time the film was released, he is more than credible as a young man in his early twenties.
Susan Sarandon’s performance is more subtle, and a great deal is conveyed by her expression rather than her speech, but it’s far superior to many of the performances she’s given subsequently.
The Christian aspect of it, for once, isn’t made a fool of. Tim Robbins, as director and writer, could have made the priest who counsels Sister Helen into one of those caricatured religious beings who pervade many movies over the last two or three decades. Instead, he shows a man who is struggling to see the right way through a difficult situation.
But the three other outstanding performances are those of Raymond Barry as the father of the boy who’s been killed, and Lee Ermey and Celia Weston as the parents of the raped and murdered girl. These three must have revelled in the space Robbins gives them to give depth to their characters. We swing from sympathy to irritation to anger to sympathy again as we watch them relate their stories to Sister Jean – who isn’t always the most sympathetic of listeners herself.
And talking of space, you never feel as though this story is hurried in any way. There isn’t that rush cutting so typical of modern movies, where one scene is barely over before another one is shoving its way in.
One other performance should be mentioned: Roberta Maxwell as Penn’s mother. She could easily have gone over the top, since she’s a woman given to bursting into tears. Instead we have to face with her the fact that somehow she’s brought up a ‘monster’ and her bewilderment as to how this could have happened, and we are glad to see Sister Jean holding her in the worst moments, as that’s what we’d all want to have done.
Couple of bits of trivia: Jack Black has a relatively small role in it, as Penn’s brother, and there’s a popular indie-band in The Netherlands called "Seanpenn".