Towards an appreciation of, or adequate response to, the riches of Wes Anderson's sheer genius in The French Dispatch (2021)

How even enumerate the riches of Wes Anderson's sheer genius in The French Dispatch (2021) ?

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

29 November

Towards an appreciation of, or adequate response to, the riches of Wes Anderson's sheer genius in The French Dispatch (2021)

Mythically set (any more than there's a Zubrowka) in Ennui sur Blasé, Wes Anderson's @french_dispatch (2021) is LOL funny, but no more in France than when he re- or dislocates in Japan in @isleofdogsmovie (2018) or in #moonrisekingdom (2012) [New England] !#JamesThurber

1 / 3 pic.twitter.com/VUYqJiGTcC

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 1, 2021

Knowing what he intends, Anderson also invokes @NewYorker's Harold Ross [Thurber's The Years with Ross], E. B. White (sometimes a co-writer with Thurber, e.g. Is Sex Necessary? Or, Why You Feel the Way You Do (1929)), even Hannah Arendt, in telling of one thing by another.

3 / 3 pic.twitter.com/cZvRTGYgbt

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 1, 2021

[...]

'My lobby boy !' :https://t.co/6EQcG7EtTn

Grand Budapest as GB :https://t.co/21rcGH09VM

Or changed passports, just as Gustave H. [Fiennes] sticks up for Zero Moustafa [Tony Revolori] - proudly, as former refugee from violence, saviour, and brother :https://t.co/esN6AnjN23 pic.twitter.com/PyGL6TARBh

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 1, 2021

[...]



More to come



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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

From the end : Ils salivent (They Salivate) (2020) by Ariane Boukerche at Cambridge Film Festival 2021

Ils salivent (They Salivate) (2020) by Ariane Boukerche at Cambridge Film Festival 2021

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

21 November

From the end : Ils salivent (They Salivate) (2020) :

Ariane Boukerche at Cambridge Film Festival 2021

Carpe diem*, so Th'Agent only just honoured the promise to director / writer Ariane Boukerche to watch her stunningly visual and provocative-of-connectedness twenty-minute short from the @camfilmfest @CFF_ShortFusion Shorts to Unnerve sequence :

Lots and lots going on ! !

1 / 6 pic.twitter.com/x1VNv2x0f8

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 23, 2021

* Such songs : https://t.co/2mttQv7Fm9 (admittedly known via Sting) and https://t.co/vMjfUUfcc4 [not the Gabriel reference wanted, but actually better]

* Party vibe / trax of The Matrix (1999), Fatboy Slim's https://t.co/Q7hCHoK1u0, but mixed with Ripley, Ducournau, &c.

3 / 6

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 23, 2021

Essentially, however you can, do try to go watch the whole strand, relish the journey as much as where it takes you ! :)https://t.co/uIwplH9aaAhttps://t.co/J636iSyXhDhttps://t.co/Gw49KRo1P7

5 / 6

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 23, 2021

* Which - if we're not that, ahem, famously talented average classicist Johnson - we only know through Williams in Dead Poets, etc.

6 / 6

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 23, 2021

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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Five Preview-style Tweets about Cesc Gay's Sentimental (The People Upstairs) (2020) at Cambridge Film Festival @ 40

Five Preview-style Tweets about Cesc Gay's The People Upstairs (2020) at Cambridge Film Festival

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

21 November

Five Preview-style Tweets about Cesc Gay's Sentimental (The People Upstairs) (2020) at Cambridge Film Festival @ 40

A quick few v. non-spoilery Tweets on #CameraCatalonia at Day 4 of #CFF2021 @ 40

Taking Sentimental (The People Upstairs) (2020) first, and before expecting to have an interview with the Catalan strand's programmer and Th'Agent's friend about the task [watch this space] :

1 / 5

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 22, 2021

* As with #CameraCatalonia's El reí borni² (The One-Eyed King) (2016), we at least start by taking sides

* Equally, as one could see this microcosm as a proxy for all sorts of dissolutions / severances (e.g. BX itself³) ; one might recall Inception (2010) as a parable ?

3 / 5

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 22, 2021

* Not Catalan, but there's https://t.co/kCTrjU20vZ

¹ In interview, Haneke says that he was amazed that Cannes' audience didn't walk out of it : https://t.co/0zWewXG7Xg

² Previewed here :https://t.co/72LFSam4u1

And here :https://t.co/tmoUSLwu9h

³ I.e. BX is BS

5 / 5 pic.twitter.com/KYpzwO0u58

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 22, 2021

* Sentimental* (The People Upstairs) (2020) [Scr 3] preceded by

* Sis dies corrents [Six Ordinary Days] (The Odd-Job Men) (2021) [Scr 1]

Both are available to watch in person (23 and 24 November, respectively) !

* Cesc Gay films Ficción & V.O.S., in earlier Catalan strands.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 21, 2021

Post-script :

PS Some audiences resist having permission to laugh at a comedy, despite others (though not Catalan / Spanish speakers) inviting them to follow suit :

My big recollection of laughter and a film is when a group of people in Screen 1 were intent on belly-laughs in @HappyEndFilm !

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 24, 2021

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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Forget The Singularity / Don't forget The Singularity : South Sea Bubble-Gum Rules

Forget The Singularity / Don't forget The Singularity : South Sea Bubble-Gum Rules

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

16 November

Forget The Singularity / Don't forget The Singularity : South Sea Bubble-Gum Rules

We can 'all do our bit', but - only when we all come together and / or the impact on the cost of indemnifying insurance claims works through into premiums, practice and people who get spooked at holding shares - does action on the right scale ever happen ?

Watch for...

1 / 2

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 16, 2021

We can 'all do our bit', but - only when we all come together and / or the impact on the cost of indemnifying insurance claims works through into premiums, practice and people who get spooked at holding shares - does action on the right scale ever happen ?

Watch for...

1 / 2

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 16, 2021

Globally connected, 'we needed' banks (even if making crap [non-]decisions on risk in lending), and were made to pay for their survival, so...

Bernie S., etc., may have got here first, and foreseen that stopping emissions poses hidden costs to pensions and in indemnity claims ?

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 16, 2021

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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

A response by Tweet to The Marian Consort's programme The Constant Heart during Cambridge Early Music's Festival of The Voice 2021

A response to The Marian Consort's programme at Cambridge Early Music's Festival of The Voice

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

3 November

A response by Tweet to to The Marian Consort's programme The Constant Heart

As the light fades each afternoon these letters spell out our name for all of Cambridge to see. An indication that we are here in the lightest & darkest of times, literally & metaphorically. Keep an eye out for them if you find yourself on Downing Place/Downing St #findyourplace pic.twitter.com/aJkmVPugBH

— Downing Place Outreach (@Downing_Place) October 22, 2021

As given during Cambridge Early Music's Festival of The Voiceat Downing Place United Reformed Church on Wednesday 3 November 2021 at 7.30 p.m.

Bound to be a marvellous evening with @marianconsort, in Cambridge at @Downing_Place, proving a lovely venue for vocal and instrumental recitals !

The one regret with such programmes that arch over one span, i.e. with no interval, is enough mental space to compare and contrast ?

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 4, 2021

Bound to be a marvellous evening with @marianconsort, in Cambridge at @Downing_Place, proving a lovely venue for vocal and instrumental recitals !

The one regret with such programmes that arch over one span, i.e. with no interval, is enough mental space to compare and contrast ?

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 4, 2021

As #UCFF found then and since 'The Marian Consort impressed both with the beauty that one could discern in individual voices, and in the quality of the ensemble, fitting themselves to this performance-space (the nave and transepts anterior to the chapel proper at Jesus College)'.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 4, 2021

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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

There is a drum, pounding unceasingly : Nerina Pallot's The Sound and The Fury Re-visited (work in progress)

There is a drum, pounding unceasingly : Nerina Pallot's The Sound and The Fury

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

There is a drum, pounding unceasingly :

Nerina Pallot's The Sound and The Fury Re-visited (work in progress)

¹ We're globally connected, but we don't know / check what proportion of our fellow human-beings this is ?

² #UCFF says it meaningly - we'll knee-jerk when Old Etonian Circuit Judges sentence 'chilling' crimes [https://t.co/N7tvRfaCI2].

Or ? : https://t.co/H8f0ZtBBhJ.

2 / 4

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 3, 2021

4 / 4

But perhaps there is no Common Time outside of Music [https://t.co/yS1gRn2Huk] and / or somewhere in 'Little Gidding' ? :https://t.co/A8QnhHbnEg

4 / 4

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 3, 2021

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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

TENET (2020) Reloaded : Is Nolan's film a full-on Blakeian prophecy - so impenetrable that we miss the light between the trees ?

TENET (2020) Reloaded : Is Nolan's film a full-on, so impenetrable, Blakeian prophecy... ?

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

2 November

TENET (2020) Reloaded : Is Nolan's film a full-on Blakeian prophecy - so impenetrable that we miss the light between the trees ?

'For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction'

- head on meets -

'Do not say

'"I will do to him as he has done to me ; I will pay the man back for what he has done"' pic.twitter.com/wmW7H8fPCg

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 1, 2022

It's 'intriguing' that The Telegraph appears, um, to be making literal capital from alleging - in the shock-tactic mode of 'revealing' stuff *and* a nick-name ! - summat to do with flights by the European Commission's President :https://t.co/VEQS56oFDr#KatharinaBlumWasNoLie !

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 3, 2021

It's intriguing, because *this* - which anyone could have said, any time [as it didn't really need a Werner Tötges on the case] - is apparently 'revealed' hypocrisy, but cute little #Shove, etc. or even banker Mirage are fine ? :https://t.co/LDLMatExbIhttps://t.co/osT5G0cs1T

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 3, 2021

Yes - we saw Biden with eyes closed. But we only saw Johnson animated.

— Dominic Minghella (@DMinghella) November 2, 2021

Other way around ?

His interests are only their interests, as that rag-doll of a puppy-idiot suits them as well as it suits him, and make him 'happy' and 'fun' :

If we mistake cause for effect, we miss that it's pretty Nietzschean [Twilight of the Idols and The Anti-Christ ?].

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 3, 2021

Musing, as I am now (a year on frm Tenet (2020)), and finally seeing much that Nolan submerged in it (a good film ?) - with his use of the palindrome in the Sator / Rotas word-square, and with Sator (played by Branagh), pressing a button à la Strangelove to end all Strangeloves : https://t.co/RBPk3JPree

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 3, 2021

As with Brecht's Arturo Ui, or Frisch in Biedermann und die Brandstifter (and the latter's chilling Epilogue, from the 1960 revision), it's working that saying about history as a reversal of time (and referencing Cher's song in writing my response) :

* https://t.co/5eTfbZMhq1. pic.twitter.com/5sdNgKnQJL

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 3, 2021

yeah, but back then it was THE ONLY FILM

— Anton Bitel (@AntBit) September 11, 2022

I really meant 'Sator / Rotas word-square', as - looking into it* - it seems that it had 'started its life' / had predecessor versions in which 'Rotas' was the first line (and 'Sator' the last), not vice versa.

Of interest to 'Paul is dead' theorists ?

* Albeit not minutely... pic.twitter.com/mHhCPZqIrx

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 11, 2022

I don't think that Schrader means it that way anyway / either way ?

Kill Bill Vol. 1 would be far, far worse for patients' sense of well-being, etc. !#ComaScene

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 11, 2022

Ah, but Schrader was in hospital, and Tenet's run-time is c. 2½h ?

I have :

(a) Re-thought it loads since my review in 2020,

(b) Read the screenplay [first spotted at NFT shop¹], and

(c) Re-watched it.

¹ I didn't need or want to pay a x2½ uplift on cover-price (= £25²) !

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 11, 2022

² No least as, where one would expect to find cast, crew and technical info (which IMDb often does so poorly), there's none - instead, it's bulked out with storyboards, fitted two per page in a portrait page-format, when, if included at all, they need landscape and one per page.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 11, 2022

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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)