Unofficial Cambridge Film Festival [#UCFF]

Monday, 6 December 2021

Three predictive Tweets on Matrix 4 : One, Zero, √-2

Three predictive Tweets on Matrix 4 : One, Zero, √-2

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

6 December

Three predictive Tweets on Matrix 4 : One, Zero, √-2

Not (necessarily) in Eliot's 4Q sense, but do we know the end from the beginning ?

The trope's there in the predecessors, and Alice, so patent in The Matrix (1999) - with, from memory, 'Wakey-wakey, Neo !', 'Follow the white rabbit', and 'See how far down the rabbit-hole goes' - is resurfacing, as also the dissenting voices when The One goes back to The Source.
— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 7, 2021

The hazard is that, when those dismissive of The Matrix Reloaded (2003) and / or The Matrix Revolutions (2003), baulked at the service's apparently irrelevant stopping-points, or what they deemed its graphic failures, it all exactly maps on the Carrollian universe !
— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 7, 2021

Postlude cum Prelude :

Goin' good, on Matrix Released Day, and #UCFF is - in its true sense - trying to anticipate the Carrollian Twists and Turns that, who knows, might take us to the Isa Bowman acrostic (and beautiful poem) in Sylvie and Bruno ?

Three predictive Tweets on Matrix 4 : One, Zero, √-2
— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 9, 2021

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

Sunday, 5 December 2021

Why to watch The Last Bus (2021) [and wish that many award-winners matched this film's manifold qualities !]

Why to watch The Last Bus (2021) [if only big award-winners had this film's manifold qualities !]

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

5 December (and 8 December, etc.)

Why to watch The Last Bus (2021) [if only big award-winners had this film's manifold qualities !]

It transcends one melody- or plot-line, and operates interchangeably on multiple staves [a chamber orchestra, playing https://t.co/xGjMejFNNi [here, @BerlinPhil under Rattle] ?] - or much better than a 3-stranded documentary !#BusHero - #UCFF nearly forgot having noted the tag. https://t.co/ITDlL8Dcux
— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 8, 2021

Now compiled, on #UCFF, at 'Why to watch The Last Bus (2021) [and wish that many award-winners matched this film's manifold qualities !]' :https://t.co/LvH5pknktW https://t.co/OeFxw7ZX33 pic.twitter.com/FoROwIDn3A
— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 6, 2021

As they say, Timothy Spall's a piece of all right !https://t.co/G7lCxmmnpJ

With my usu. Cottenham companion for monthly cinema in its community cafe, a film :

* That surpasses Nomadland (2020) for breadth, consistency, layering of image

* Where Spall's conviction holds us
— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 6, 2021

* Full of humanity, film savvy, and examples of courage or inclusion that don't hide from life's realities, beauties and brutalities

* To knock back flaccid one-hit efforts at screenwriting such as in On Chesil Beach (2017)

* Whose cinematic vision embraces #lagrandebellezza
— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 6, 2021

Peter Mullan could have engaged as Spall does (and superbly did in Hector* (2015)).

* Seen, with gratitude, at @Saffronscreen, where a Monday-night film's very often been a good recommendation to watch in its own right [or Spall in The Journey (2016) : https://t.co/VMKsaCRInO]. https://t.co/ITDlL8Dcux
— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 6, 2021

Since #CamFF, Th'Agent's been back in cinema-spaces for :

* The Last Bus (2021) [@lastbusmovie / #BusHero]

* The French Dispatch (2021) [@french_dispatch] x2

* C'mon C'mon (2021) [@cmoncmonmovie] x2

And would happily re-visit that real / unreal world in which Spall plays !
— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 17, 2021

More to come (if time permits)...

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

Friday, 3 December 2021

A lot of heart : Byron Wallen at Cambridge Modern Jazz with his 'Four Corners' Band (work in progress)

A lot of heart : Byron Wallen at Cambridge Modern Jazz with his 'Four Corners' Band

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

A lot of heart : Byron Wallen at Cambridge Modern Jazz with his 'Four Corners' Band (work in progress)

It was @byronwallen* at @camjazz earlier - his 'Four Corners' band of @Rob_Luft (gtr), Paul Michael (elec. bass), Rod Youngs (drums) :#UCFF didn't hear much of the first set, but the 2nd gave engaged playing, varied moods and thoughtful use of effects-pedals.

* Tpt, pf, perc.
— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 4, 2021

A second gig that, despite Cambridge International Jazz Festival's not going ahead this year, had been preserved by CMJ, clearly there had been those who took the opportunity of a Friday-night slot to come to town especially, which is a real encouragement for jazz in Cambridge.
— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 4, 2021

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

Thursday, 2 December 2021

Can’t wait to play for you... And it doesn’t feel weird ! : Trish Clowes with her My Iris Quartet at Cambridge Modern Jazz on Thursday 27 May at 7.30 p.m. (uncorrected proof)

Trish Clowes with her My Iris Quartet at Cambridge Modern Jazz on Thursday 27 May at 7.30 p.m.

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

27 May (posted 2 December 2021)

Trish Clowes with her My Iris Quartet at Cambridge Modern Jazz on Thursday 27 May at 7.30 p.m.

Can’t wait to play for you... And it doesn’t feel weird ! [work in progress (uncorrected proof)]

Set-list :https://t.co/mQj3R9jQTH with a view
2.Time
3.Almost [From 'Two days ago ?', Clowes thought]
4.Amber
5.Morning songhttps://t.co/QCVjfjL12P idea
7.Just the Nesshttps://t.co/xJP5uOHLDc to fall [Ninety Degrees Gravity album]
— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 1, 2021

Alongside fluency in and between registers¹, what one can also slow down to hear in Clowes' playing,

behind the clarity of her runs (which Clowes will elide to suit the musical mood or purpose),

is a measure of restraint, of careful placement

Jean-Paul Belmondo

The gig proper – a run-through, as one Covid-informed set, for 75 mins – begins with (1) a jaunty and literally up-beat opener, taking us immediately to the experience and expectation that syncopation, rim-taps, and an emphasis as well as on rhythmicity as on melodic line or material were the things around which this instrumentation-led group of music-makers coalesce and find their means of coherence.

So it was that an early electric-organ solo 'sounded the note of' funk, and Stanley then went on to provide a soft undertow to Clowes – any solos in this gig were just there, and were not in need of / did not invite the apparent appreciation of applause : in a gig like this one, and with a wholly engaged ensemble cast (albeit with Clowes as clear leader), it gets in the way of the ensemble (and mar what one would value).

(2) 'Time', by deliberate contrast, more resembled a ballad, gently, optimistically and unapologetically romantic in the form of its soaring statement on sax, but then, by way of a slightly Caledonian (Hibernian ?) groove and drone, there was an emanating sense of hours that hang a bit too heavily, which yet, by noodling on, one gets past.

Another outright, if brief, statement of the thematic material made way for a slurring and skirling of the tenor-sound, and took us into what, poetically, felt as if they might be the squalliness of sails, and that they (or we) were in the wind and the sky !

Tweet (to come)

(3) 'Almost' began in a free vein, in which the sensation continued of being connected with a world external to the physical venue, of seeing – or even being ? – a bird, coasting on thermal-currents, or of a brook, being followed upstream.

As to both overall content and Clowes' own tone-colour and ambit of palette, there seemed to be, in and beyond the music played, a personal and organic observation and reflection that saw the inner through the outer – or through the other – and its seeming exteriority.

A segue of rim-taps and alterations in tempo and rhythm brought us to the firstlings of Montague's and Clowes' playing off each other, which is one of this quartet's greatest depths. This approach to being present and open to, and as aware as possible of, each other, and – in gigging that already creatively extends the mere (pre)text of a song or tune – an act of addition that seems to exceed the available forces :

For, at times, perhaps we had glimpses here of something more certain or more visible than that which we know (or know that we know), and also the sensation, in the very instant of their vanishing, that other things do and can become tangible.

In (4) 'Amber', a new work from, with or for an old-established cellist collaborator² (and written in the name of the person behind Donate4Refugees), Clowes gave us elements of note-patterns³, and a querulous riff, which, with Montague, became a call-and-response of riffs, before a switch of time-signature [...]

Writing, and performing it, with a sense of place and of its intenseness

(5) 'Morning song' proved to embody tonal uncertainty in what, at first, seemed an open and frank tune from the heart, and which when Montague picked it up, became as if that now-uncertain heart had lurched into a sudden and terrifying perception of the vertiginous actuality of the moment. (Those who have ever experienced an unspecific, but doom-laden, anxiety would have related to that dread moment.)

Moving past which, however, Clowes made a bluesily contemplative re-visit to the initial material, and, joined again by Montague, one could easily imagine a couple, smooching alone on the dance-floor, as evening breakers crashed on the shore-line. (Well, Th'Agent could !)

Again – as in the aside for 'Morning song' (with Clowes saying that it was so called because she wrote it in the morning) – Clowes could not resist describing (6) 'No idea' as 'Another amazing title' – and its start did seem to evoke seeking around, without finding (or else rooting around, but not giving up ?)

In any case, maybe a little as with Bridget Riley's Hesitate (1964) [alluded to above], the material then centres on a falling interval (which 'might' have been an echo of a bird-call* ?), but soon differently modulated, stressed or breathed through, before widening out into another rockin' / stomping section, full of creations and warmth, and a wealth of ideas and optimism.

Yet Clowes, keeping it back and under, and then seeming to resume with the initial thematic content - whereas, perhaps, it was only to bring on the abruptness of the number's ending ?

NB This is where the review 'collapses into' rough expansions / transcriptions / interpretations of the gig-notes...

(7) Riffy opening and to and fro, as to the lead playing, between Clowes and Montague. Then, more Morse-coded marks, gestures or tics led into what felt a haunted, echoic and ruminative soundtrack, perhaps for a noir that exists only on the level of sound ? (As Clowes confirmed afterwards having said on other occasions, she has found inspiration before in the cinematic work of a film-maker friend) – yet one, or of how we feel about ourselves in this (or any ?) world.

In a coda, in and during which the humour of Maddren, more and more theatrically and obviously shuffling and rummaging in his sticks – until all were brought into both hands, and then propelled onto the surface of part of his drum-kit, brought on a broader smile and a snort of appreciation.

Left with Montague, the tempo slowed, the texture broadened outward and into a feeling of nourishment, and a quiet close.

In announcing the final piece, Clowes made it clear that she had had our experience that 'The church sounds amazing !', and straightaway added to that comment A keeper ! (Afterwards, with friends, etc., there seemed to be agreement that the venue's carpeted flooring and other upholstery, as well as the natural construction of the space, makes for a very suitable acoustic.)

Arrival (2016)

(8) 'Free to fall' (from the album Ninety Degrees Gravity) had the feel of a ballad in a folk idiom, being breezily and calmingly mused over.

However, when we moved into the main section, at a fast tempo and with off-beats and the other features of the quartet's style, there was a hinting at bowing-out in a joyous and jubilant moment.

In fact, even if by way of a high-magisterial rock-style solo from Montague, there was a breathy and slow and calmed end to the gig.

The show was over, but we weren’t going to be done with thinking about the atmospheres that, on the isle of this shallow dais, Clowes and the My Iris Quartet had brought before us and, so, into being. Yet, not as Prospero to Miranda, but more the magic that Miranda found herself able to work on her embittered father in her direct and unenslaved response [even if Huxley got there and (cynically ?) subverted it] :

[…] Oh, wonder !
How many goodly creatures are there here !
How beauteous mankind is ! O brave new world,
That has such people in’t ! […]

End-notes :

¹ Which #UCFF tries to invoke as smokily burnished colours in the lower one, and a more lightly coppery timbre above... ?

² Lucy Railton, one assumes (in which case, actually heard live, some time, at Cambridge Modern Jazz) ?

³ Although, when asked afterwards by #UCFF, not actually in any conscious relation to birdsong.

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

1982 to 1984 Re-visited : Koestler, Hume and Bernard Williams

1982 to 1984 Re-visited : Koestler, Hume and Bernard Williams

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

2 December

1982 to 1984 Re-visited : Koestler, Hume and Bernard Williams

'I was a bit lost in the inner world that I had retreated into, but there was no sense of people trying to be curious with me or trying to empathise, and I found that more challenging than the experiences I was going through' https://t.co/fUl9ogYK2k
— Anne Cooke (@AnneCooke14) December 2, 2021

'The baby, assailed by eyes, ears, nose, skin, and entrails at once, feels it all as one great blooming, buzzing confusion [...]'

[Scientific American at : https://t.co/IByHf3ruLh

* Koestler urged 'holistic' (Janus : A Summing Up), but it then became denuded of power...

2 / 2
— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 2, 2021

The philosopher David Hume and others had dilated on this, e.g. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1948) (revising somewhat his A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-1740)) :

More than a century earlier, they already knew how we automatically process information to cope. https://t.co/TBaap2pR42
— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 2, 2021

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

Tuesday, 30 November 2021

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

[...]

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

Tuesday, 23 November 2021

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/uIwplH9aaA https://t.co/J636iSyXhD https://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

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

Sunday, 21 November 2021

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

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

Monday, 15 November 2021

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)
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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

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

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

Wednesday, 3 November 2021

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

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

[..]

[...]

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

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

Tuesday, 2 November 2021

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/LDLMatExbI https://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

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

Sunday, 31 October 2021

Festival of The Voice - Tuesday 2 to Thursday 4 November 2021 - all at 7.30 p.m.

Cambridge's Festival of The Voice - Tuesday 2 to Thursday 4 November - all at 7.30 p.m.

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

31 October (updated 3 November)

Festival of The Voice at Cambridge Early Music -

Tuesday 2 to Thursday 4 November - all at 7.30 p.m.

Three Concerts at Downing Place United Reformed Church, Downing Street

Formerly St Columba's (entrance now on the side, hence Downing Place = CB2 3EL)

Having heard The Marian Consort before, though not in their programme The Constant Heart, this is my personal choice of concert to attend – it would be a shame to miss them, so, although travelling NW the following day, I'm risking a night out (and maybe giving ad hoc help, if my CEM friends need it (I may also be around to help, before the gig, on Tuesday)) :

The Marian Consort explores loss and lament in sacred music by Tudor composers and presents new works by Ben Rowarth and Donna McKevitt in that context

Link to the gig-page here

£25.00 (no booking-fee, but donations are welcome)

There is also a combined ticket for all three concerts (Tuesday 2 to Thursday 4 November), subject to availability - £70.00 (or £65.00 to Friends of Cambridge Early Music)

Fayrfax Quincentenary – Ensemble Pro Victoria

On the day before, Tuesday 2 November, there is a programme called Fayrfax Quincentenary, given by Ensemble Pro Victoria, since...

This year is 500 years since the death of Robert Fayrfax (probably the most important composer of the Tudor era ?).

Can confirm adrenaline levels rise when flailing next to delicate glass lamps! 🙈🤦🏼‍♂️
We return to Cambridge tomorrow for the first time since we left as students… do pay us a visit for some very special music! https://t.co/OP79nuBUp1
— Toby Ward (@tobychward) November 1, 2021

It has been a pleasure to open our #CambridgeFestivalOftheVoice tonight with @EnsembleEPV, congratulations for such an enchanting performance! #fayrfax500 pic.twitter.com/1o4HHnmhXN
— CambridgeEarlyMusic (@CambsEarlyMusic) November 2, 2021

Including this one, to open this year's Festival of The Voice at Cambridge Early Music, Ensemble Pro Victoria is celebrating Fayrfax’s canon with a series of concerts, plus, as well as videos and podcasts, a new recording of selected sacred and secular works.

The aim of this concert in Cambridge will be to offer not only a taste of all genres and styles in which Fayrfax was prolific, but also the chance to hear world-premiere reconstructions and some rarely-performed works.

http://www.cambridgeearlymusic.org/booking/?event=Fayrfax%20Quincentenary

£25.00 (as above)

Echo (conductor by Sarah Latto)

On Thursday 4 November, the final concert in this year's Festival has Gorczycki’s Missa Paschalis as its centrepiece, but will interlace it with the work of composers who lived and worked in Warsaw and Krakow in the 16th and 17th centuries :

* Missa Paschalis – Kyrie – Grzegorz Gerwazy Gorczycki (1665 – 1734)

* Iniquos odio habui – Luca Marenzio (1553 – 1599)

* Missa Paschalis – Gloria

* Gaudent in caelis – Asprillo Pacelli (1570 – 1623)

* Missa Paschalis – Sanctus

* Ego flos campi – Vincenzo Bertolusi (c. 1550 – 1608)

* Missa Paschalis – Benedictus

* Laetentur caeli – Mikołaj Zielenski (1560 – 1620)

* Missa Paschalis – Agnus Dei

http://www.cambridgeearlymusic.org/booking/?event=The%20Polish%20Court

£25.00 ea.

As mentioned above, there is also a combined ticket for all three concerts (Tuesday 2 to Thursday 4 November), subject to availability - £70.00 (or £65.00 to Friends of Cambridge Early Music)...

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

Unofficial Cambridge Film Festival [#UCFF]

Monday, 6 December 2021

Three predictive Tweets on Matrix 4 : One, Zero, √-2

Sunday, 5 December 2021

Why to watch The Last Bus (2021) [and wish that many award-winners matched this film's manifold qualities !]

Friday, 3 December 2021

A lot of heart : Byron Wallen at Cambridge Modern Jazz with his 'Four Corners' Band (work in progress)

Thursday, 2 December 2021

Can’t wait to play for you... And it doesn’t feel weird ! : Trish Clowes with her My Iris Quartet at Cambridge Modern Jazz on Thursday 27 May at 7.30 p.m. (uncorrected proof)

1982 to 1984 Re-visited : Koestler, Hume and Bernard Williams

Tuesday, 30 November 2021

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

Tuesday, 23 November 2021

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

Sunday, 21 November 2021

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

Monday, 15 November 2021

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

Wednesday, 3 November 2021

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

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

Tuesday, 2 November 2021

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

Sunday, 31 October 2021

Festival of The Voice - Tuesday 2 to Thursday 4 November 2021 - all at 7.30 p.m.

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