Nellig

Wallender, Season 2, Episode 1 (Faceless Killers)

nellig — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:07:49 +0000

Enjoyed this. Kenneth Branagh was particularly pale, grim, lipless and exasperated. I’m also noticing the minor characters more, especially the lovely Tom Hiddleston as the perpetually snubbed whippersnapper, his blonde curls contrasting so nicely with Sarah Smart’s dark bob. The guy who plays Nyberg also manages to project a lot of atmosphere. Well, maybe this is that “acting” stuff we hear so much about.

Am also a sucker for the arty shots of wide, flat, windswept fields and close-ups of dour, pale faces. And the realistically shabby, crumpled clothes. Strangely, all this dourness and depressive Swedishness really makes me want to go and have a look at Sweden.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

nellig — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 12:48:50 +0000

Hard to say why this is so enjoyable. I still can’t quite grasp the details of the story, even after reading it up on Wikipedia. And Let’s Do the Time Warp Again is the only really good song. The rest is just a few good-looking people prancing about in suspenders. Nothing wrong with that. Although I’m slightly bored by the bits with Little Nell and Meat Loaf. In fact the whole thing could have used some drastic editing.

Could it be the proto-punk/goth element? It still seems strangely fresh and modern. The complex, transgressive Brits corrupting the impossibly square Americans? That’s always good.

No. Let’s be honest: it’s Tim Curry. What IS it about strapping, hetero men camping it up in heavy eyeliner and stockings? And can we have some more? Why don’t all men dress like that all the time? Would it be so much to ask? Sigh.

Overmanteled

nellig — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:34:46 +0000

My Mantel-obsession continues unabated. Have read several pieces by her in the last few days, and enjoyed them all. Just watched a video interview on the Guardian website. Well, I feel moved to review the author herself now.

I’d already seen pictures, and the spookily large, spookily bright eyes were previously noted, but the profile was new information. Something very bird-like, and not an eagle, not a hen, but definitely a very strong impression of probing, skewering, agile intelligence. Before the disastrous steroids she must have been irresistible, and even now is very compelling and well-dressed. That odd, girlish voice must have made her seem a harmless dolly back in the early 70s. No wonder she was so often patronised and underestimated.

Would dearly love to know about the areas left blank in Giving Up the Ghost, already the autobiography that gets my personal grand prix for the decade.

Wolf Hall

nellig — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:56:29 +0000

Hilary Mantel. Those strange green eyes. That compelling back-story. It ought not to be possible to write books so disparate and so good. Reading any one of them is like being inside a mind much bigger and clearer than your own.

Wolf Hall. OK, I couldn’t get going with A Place of Greater Safety, and pined for the universe of Beyond Black. Was surprised to be drawn right into this brutish, nasty, interesting world. Didn’t expect to hear my own voice saying “Oh!” at one particular death. Everybody in this world lives so fast and dies so young and if they’re lucky, so suddenly. The burn rate is so fast.

Speaking of burning, the Mantel mind doesn’t flinch from the flames that engulf live humans. This is not the only work to feature such combustion. Strange, the motifs that recur.

Wolf Hall has that swervy vervy sense of movement you also get from Patrick O’Brian. Also the hallucinatory clarity. Spooky.

Oh yes, the horribleness of Thomas More. Remember being taken to see A Man For All Seasons, aged about 8. (By lovely Miss Joyce and her sister who was a nun. I offered the sister a fruit gum. She refused, but kindly.) What a different picture we have here. Would not be at all surprised if Hilary Mantel had been taken to see the same film as a child.

So, anyway. Wolf Hall. It’s a corker.