Sunday, 30 August 2020

Live-Tweeting from The 2020 Proms - The LSO under Simon Rattle

Live-Tweeting from The 2020 Proms - The London Symphony Orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle

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

 30 August
Live-Tweeting from The 2020 Proms - The London Symphony Orchestra
under Sir Simon Rattle on 30 August 2020









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Wednesday, 26 August 2020

Plotting to have Christopher Nolan make a rom-com next...

Plotting to have Christopher Nolan make a rom-com next... But who plants the seed ?

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

26 August

Plotting to have Christopher Nolan make a rom-com next... But who plants the seed ?



Nolan heard it from Lilly first* : Chris, are you really writing a rom-com ?




Cypher : It means fasten your seat-belt, Dorothy, cos Kansas is going bye-bye !



End-notes :

* Or was it Lana... ?




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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My tenet is... : #UCFF's Predictions about Tenet (2020)

My tenet is... : #UCFF's Predictions about Tenet (2020)

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

26 August

My tenet is... : #UCFF's Predictions about Tenet (2020)













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Monday, 24 August 2020

Brief observations, by Tweet, about 'Rule, Britannia !'

Brief observations, by Tweet, about 'Rule, Britannia !'

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
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24 August

Brief observations, by Tweet, about 'Rule, Britannia !'









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Friday, 21 August 2020

Some grumpy Tweets about Babyteeth (2019) (work in progress)

Some grumpy Tweets about Babyteeth (2019) (work in progress)

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

20 August

Some grumpy Tweets about Babyteeth (2019) (work in progress)







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Monday, 17 August 2020

La banca prossima qui vicino ? Non è ! : A review, by Tweet, of Proxima (2019)

La banca prossima qui vicino ? Non è ! : A review, by Tweet, of Proxima (2019)

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

17 August

La banca prossima qui vicino ? Non è ! : A review, by Tweet, of Proxima (2019)

'Next' is what the film-archetype of a casting-director irritatedly shouts...



As one reported earlier on Proxima (in an e-mail to Cambridge Film Projects) :

 Rehashing too many competitive / 'who gets to do what and why' elements from First Man (2018) ; often just reminding of films such as In a Better World (2010) or, more so, A Thousand Times Goodnight (2013) ; and with huge elements of implausibility vis-à-vis what happens with Sarah's (Eva Green's) and her crashingly badly named daughter Stella - though the performance by Zélie Boulant, playing Stella, was easily one of the best things about Proxima !







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Sunday, 16 August 2020

Playing Around with Pyjamas (nonsense in progress)

Playing Around in Pyjamas (nonsense in progress)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
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16 August

Playing Around in Pyjamas (nonsense in progress)


Doris Day in The Pajama Game (1957)


Despite sounding as though it should, The Pyjama Game (1957) doesn't even have its origins in one of those successful (i.e. long-running) men-in-boxer-shorts and hiding-in-wardrobes farces - this list has nothing to do with either anyway...



Pyjamas !* (2009)
Bad Pyjamas Gone Bananas !*
Pyjamas ! (1971)

Hannah and Her Pyjamas
Broadway Danny Pyjamas
Manhattan Murder Pyjamas
Pyjamas over Broadway
Take the Pyjamas and Run
Stardust Pyjamas
Pyjamas and Death / Love and Pyjamas
Annie Pyjamas / Pyjamas Hall
Cafe Pyjamas
Irrational Pyjamas
Pyjamas and Wives / Husbands and Pyjamas
Radio Pyjamas
The Curse of The Jade Pyjamas / The Pyjamas of The Jade Scorpion



The Sound of Pyjamas / The Pyjamas of Music
Rabbit-Proof Pyjamas
The Pyjamas over The River Kwai / The Bridge over The River Pyjamas
Barry Pyjamas
The Pyjamas Man (2013)
Blue Pyjamas (1986)
The Pyjamas, The Witch and The Wardrobe
Mary, Queen of Pyjamas
Absolute Pyjamas







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Thursday, 13 August 2020

Christopher Nolan and the non-poetics of Inception (2010)

Christopher Nolan and the non-poetics of Inception (2010)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
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12 August

Christopher Nolan and the non-poetics of Inception (2010)

We need look no farther than Andrei Tarkovsky - in Solaris (1972), Mirror (Зеркало [Zerkalo]) (1975), Stalker (1979) - to be shown dazzling profundity in simplicity.


NB Spoilers in the Tweets immediately below !




Dædalus proper :



By contrast with Tarkovsky (whose films are alluded to under the title), one of the premises of Inception (2010) - stated when Cobb is telling Ariadne* why he needs her to design a certain type of maze (and, rather obviously, Cobb / Nolan is all along really referring as much to cinema) - is that its complexity serves to conceal the fact that a dream-world has been fabricated, not dreamt per se.





[...]




End-notes :

* Of all people, given the signification of her name !



Nota bene - Level -8
Appendix of spoilery stuff ! :






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Wednesday, 12 August 2020

Outline for a proposed film 2.1 [corrected / with casting ideas] : Primavera [or Dario ?] - or The Mandrake Serenade

Outline for a proposed film 2.1 : Primavera [or Dario ?] - or The Mandrake Serenade

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

16 July

Outline for a proposed film 2.1 [corrected / with casting ideas] :
Primavera [or Dario ?] - or The Mandrake Serenade

'Reap what ye shall sow'



For Rosy and Brent



1. Lucia Argenta and Michael Hope meet at a performance of Verdi's Otello, and, talking during the interval, become friends : he is in Milan for a year during his degree (Italian and French), and she is older. (Despite the name, Michael is unaware that Lucia married date-rape Carlo Argenta when young, who killed himself in guilt that he had shaken her and she then miscarried.) She did not go to university, but has already established herself in business, buying and selling rare recordings [as Dischi Mandragora]

2. They are close, but never lovers - something holds him off, even at romantic operas at La Scala, and he never quite trusts Vincenzo, Lucia's father [Vincenzo, from the old Italian Mandragora family], who was widowed early, during the birth of Lucia's younger sister, Primavera (who is away, in Manchester, at Royal Northern)

3. Michael and Lucia write to each other when he returns to the family home in Lancashire (where he sings in a church choir, led by Nancy Kadmuss), before completing his degree
4. A year or so on, Lucia is visiting Primavera in Manchester (who chose to stay there, despite giving up on becoming a professional singer) and, to see Lucia again, Michael (who has never met Primavera) is invited to a party that Primavera is throwing in Lucia's honour

5. Primavera works there in music publishing, and Michael works for a company that makes travel arrangements for musicians

6. Unknown to him (and of which Primavera is also unaware), Lucia and Vincenzo (who is also visiting, but not in evidence at the party) contrive for Michael and Primavera to meet early on at the party, and have bewitched them both with love-potions

7. The effect is such that they abandon their wontedly cautious behaviour and disappear to the roof-garden, where they kiss and pet heavily, then return to the party separately

8. As the party continues, so does the effect of the love-philtres, and Primavera (having told Lucia how struck she is on Michael) manages to suggest privately that Michael should stay the night, who, without his usual level of reserve, agrees

9. One of the last to leave, Lucia had earlier seemed to slip out of the party and to have brought back a chilled bottle of a quality Italian sparkling wine for Primavera (and Michael), but, in fact, she gets the bottle from Vincenzo, and lets him in (to hide in the roof-garden ?), when she returns, as the bottle will knock Primavera and Michael out soon after they take it to bed, and, when Vincenzo has seen that they are unconscious, he will let Lucia back in, who rapes Michael to orgasm while he watches / listens next door, afterwards emptying away all but a small residue in each glass (and leaving the empty bottle, as if the couple had consumed its contents)

10. FF through a montage or other telling of Primavera's being mortified that she does not remember the vigorous love-making, without protection, that proves to have made her pregnant, and that, although Michael also does not have any conscious memory of that first time, he seems never to find her or her love-making exciting, and yet they marry and stay together because of their son, Dario, with only the distant attentions of his grandfather and apparent aunt, except for family visits

11. The suggestion that, although they are a couple out of duty, they do not even find themselves blessed by Dario (or vice versa), and that - not just through teething, etc. - they have never been able to rely on undisturbed sleep, and have moved to detached property (where tensions with neighbours no longer arise), and near Michael's parents. George and Anne (who can give support with childcare)

12. Yet tensions repeatedly happen, when Dario pesters and pesters to be allowed to play in the garden, but invariably wreaks 'destructive wonders' on the planting, etc., as soon as anyone's back is turned (which behaviourally mirrors their life with him in microcosm), so that Primavera finally asks Michael to fence off the garden and gives Dario his own patch of the garden near the house, where nothing that he plants he does not soon uproot or trample on - until three seeds are given to him by Nancy, Michael's old choir-mistress, as part of Dario's Christmas present, all of which, now oddly assiduous, he feeds and waters into vigorous life, as he approaches his seventh birthday

13. Dario's screams and rages at night have finally subsided, but Michael and Primavera, driven mad by a shrieking of unidentifiable origin when they tried to sleep, have resorted to heavy-duty ear-plugs, which means that they are unaware that, after arriving on Dario's birthday, and on an early flight, Lucia and Vincenzo have been greeted at the door by Dario, and proudly shown his three established plants - which so repulse and horrify Vincenzo, at some gut level, that he wrenches them out of the ground, unaware of their shrieks, and that first Lucia, and then Dario, fall down dead behind him, and we see him - as if at the end of Mozart's Don Giovanni - reached for by arms and pulled down, through the patch of soil, and into [???]


ENDS

© Copyright Belston Night Works 2020


Preliminary ideas for casting :

Michael Hope ~ George MacKay

Lucia Argenta ~ Saoirse Ronan

Primavera ~ Florence Pugh

Vincenzo Mandragora ~ Ralph Fiennes

Nancy Kadmuss ~ Carl Peck (or, also, Fiennes (in the vein of Alec Guinness) ?)

Dario ~ Timothée Chalamet [by CGI, made to seem a child of four to nearly seven] ?

George Hope ~ Also Fiennes

Anne Hope ~ KST




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)`
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Tuesday, 11 August 2020

Stacks : An illustrated poem

Stacks : An illustrated poem

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

 6 May - 11 August

Stacks : An illustrated poem

For S. T. Saunders







© Copyright Belston Night Works 2020




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Sunday, 9 August 2020

Musings (by Tweet) in advance of visiting [sc. expecting to visit] Kettle's Yard again - after around five months

Musings in advance of expecting to visit Kettle's Yard - after an absence of ~5 months

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

8 August

Musings (by Tweet) in advance of visiting [sc. expecting to visit] Kettle's Yard again -
after an absence of around five months







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Wednesday, 5 August 2020

Recollections of [old] Adrian House - not, largely, 'the happy memories'

Recollections of [old] Adrian House - not, largely, 'the happy memories'


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

5 August

Recollections of [old] Adrian House - not, largely, 'the happy memories'






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Friday, 31 July 2020

No hawks or hand-saws : Re-visiting North by Northwest (1959)

No hawks or hand-saws : Re-visiting North by Northwest (1959)

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

31 July


No hawks or hand-saws : Re-visiting North by Northwest (1959)








Jessie Royce Landis (as Clara Thornhill, Roger O. Thornhill's mother¹)


[...]







[...]





End-notes :

 ¹ Though only a year separated Grant and her in age.




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Outline for a proposed film 2.0 : Primavera [or Dario ?] - or The Mandrake Serenade

Outline for a proposed 2.0: Dario [or Primavera ?] - or The Mandrake Serenade

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

16 July

Outline for a proposed film 2.0 : Dario [or Primavera ?] - or The Mandrake Serenade

NB Now superseded by version 2.1 - fully corrected, and with preliminary ideas for casting


'Reap what ye shall sow'



For Rosy and Brent


 1. Maria Mandragora and Michael Hope meet at a performance of Verdi's Otello, and, talking during the interval, become friends : he is in Milan for a year during his degree (Italian and French), and she is older, and did not go to university, but has already established herself in business, buying and selling rare recordings as Mandragora

2. They are close, but never lovers - something holds him off, even at romantic operas at La Scala, and he never quite trusts Vincenzo Argenta, Luigi's father, who was widowed early, after the birth of Maria's younger sister Primavera (away, in Manchester, at Royal Northern)

3. Michael and Maria write to each other when he returns to the family home in Lancaster (where he sings in a church choir), before completing his degree
4. A year or so on, Maria is visiting Primavera in Manchester (who chose to stay there, despite giving up on becoming a professional singer) and, to see Maria again, Michael (who has never met Primavera) is invited to a party that she is throwing in Maria's honour

5. Primavera works there in music publishing, and Michael works for a company that makes travel arrangements for musicians

6. Unknown to Michael, Maria and Vincenzo (who is also visiting, but not in evidence at the party) contrive for Primavera and him to meet early on at the party (of which Primavera is also unaware), and bewitch them both with love-potions

7. The effect is such that they abandon their wontedly cautious behaviour and disappear to the roof-garden, where they kiss and pet heavily, then return to the party separately

8. As the party continues, so does the effect of the love-philtres, and Primavera (having told Maria how struck she is on Michael) manages to suggest privately that Michael should stay the night, who, without his usual level of reserve, agrees

9. One of the last to leave, Maria had earlier seemed to slip out of the party and to have brought back a chilled bottle of a quality Italian sparkling wine for Primavera (and Michael), but, in fact, she gets the bottle from Vincenzo, and lets him in (to hide in the roof-garden ?), when she returns, as the bottle will knock Primavera and Michael out soon after they take it to bed, and, when Vincenzo has seen that they are unconscious, he will let Maria back in, who rapes Michael to orgasm while he watches / listens next door, afterwards emptying away all but a small residue in each glass (and leaving the empty bottle, as if the couple had consumed its contents)

10. FF through a montage or other telling of Primavera's being mortified that she does not remember the vigorous love-making, without protection, that proves to have made her pregnant, and that, although Michael also does not have any conscious memory of that first time, he seems never to find her or her love-making exciting, and yet they marry and stay together because of their son Dario, with only the distant attentions of his grandfather and apparent uncle, except for family visits

11. The suggestion that, although they are a couple out of duty, they do not even find themselves blessed by Dario (or vice versa), and that, not just through teething, etc., they have never been able to rely on undisturbed sleep, and that they move to be near Michael's parents to have their support with childcare and a detached property where tensions with neighbours no longer arise

12. Yet tensions repeatedly happen, when Dario pesters and pesters to be allowed to play in the garden, but invariably wreaks destructive wonders on it, as soon as anyone's back is turned (which behaviourally mirrors their life with him in microcosm), so that Primavera finally asks Michael to fence off the garden and gives Dario his own patch of the garden near the house, where nothing that he plants he does not soon uproot or trample on - until three seeds are given to him by Michael's old choir-mistress, as part of Dario's Christmas present, all of which, now oddly assiduous, he feeds and waters into vigorous life, as he approaches his seventh birthday

13. Dario's screams and rages at night have finally subsided, but Michael and Primavera, driven mad by a shrieking of unidentifiable origin at night, have resorted to heavy-duty ear-plugs, which means that they are unaware that, after arriving on Dario's birthday on an early flight, Maria and Vincenzo have been greeted at the door by Dario, and proudly shown his three established plants - which so repulse and horrify Vincenzo, at some gut level, that he wrenches them out of the ground, unaware of their shrieks, and that first Maria, and then Dario, fall down dead behind him, and we see him - as if at the end of Mozart's Don Giovanni - reached for by arms and pulled down, through the patch of soil, and into Hades


ENDS

© Copyright Belston Night Works 2020




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Wednesday, 29 July 2020

Outline for a proposed film : Dario - or The Mandrake Consignment

Outline for a proposed film : Dario - or The Mandrake Consignment

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

16 July

Outline for a proposed film :
Dario - or The Mandrake Consignment

'Reap what ye shall sow'


For Rosy and Brent



1. Luigi Mandragora and Nancy Hope meet at a performance of Verdi's Otello, and, talking during the interval, become friends : she is in Verona for a year during her degree (Italian and French), and he is older, and did not go to university, but has already established himself in business, buying and selling rare recordings

2. They are close, but never lovers - something holds her off, even at romantic operas in The Arena, and she never quite trusts Maria Argenta, Luigi"s mother, who was widowed early, after the birth of his younger brother Dario (away, in London, at The Guildhall)

3. Nancy and Luigi write to each other when she returns to the family home in Suffolk (where she sings in a church choir), before completing her degree

4. Several years on, Luigi is visiting Dario in London (who chose to stay there, despite giving up on becoming a professional singer) and, to see Luigi again, Nancy (who has never met Dario) is invited to a party that he is throwing in Luigi's honour

5. Nancy works for a company in London that makes travel arrangements for musicians, and Dario works in music publishing

6. Unknown to her, Luigi and Maria (who is also visiting, but not in evidence at the party) contrive for Dario and her to meet (of which Dario is also unaware), and bewitch them both with love-potions

7. The effect is such that they abandon their wontedly cautious behaviour and disappear to the roof-garden, where they kiss and pet heavily, then return to the party separately

8. As the party continues, so does the effect of the love-philtres, and Dario (having told Luigi how struck he is on Nancy) manages to ask Nancy privately to stay the night, who, without her usual level of reserve, agrees

9. One of the last to leave, Luigi has seemed to slip out of the party and to have brought back a chilled bottle of a quality Italian sparkling wine for Dario (and Nancy), but, in fact, he gets the bottle from Maria, and lets her in (to hide in the roof-garden ?), when he returns, the bottle will knock Nancy and Dario out soon after they take it to bed, and, when Maria has seen that they are unconscious, she will let Luigi back in, who rapes Nancy to orgasm while she watches / listens next door, afterwards emptying away all but a small rresidue in each glass (and leaving the empty bottle as if the couple had consumed its contents)

10. FF through a montage or other telling of Dario being mortified that he does not remember the vigorous love-making, without protection, that proves to have made Nancy pregnant, and that, although she does not have any conscious memory of that first time, she seems never to find him or his love-making exciting, and yet they marry and stay together because of Lucia, with the distant attentions of her grandmother and apparent uncle, except for family visits

11. The suggestion that, although they are a couple out of duty, they do not even find themselves blessed by Lucia (or vice versa), and that, not just through teething, etc., they have never been able to rely on undisturbed sleep, and that they move to be near Nancy's parents to have their support with childcare and a detached property where tensions with neighbours no longer arise

12. Yet they repeatedly happen, when Lucia pesters and pesters to be allowed to play in the garden, but invariably wreaks destructive wonders on it, as soon as anyone's back is turned (which behaviourally mirrors their life with her in microcosm), so that Dario finally fences off the garden and gives Lucia her own patch of the garden near the house, where nothing that she plants is not soon uprooted or trampled on - until three seeds that are given to her by Nancy's old choir-master for Lucia's at Christmas, all of which, now oddly assiduous, feeds and waters into vigorous life, as ahe approaches her seventh birthday

13. Lucia's screams and rages at night have finally subsided, but Nancy and Dario, driven mad by a shrieking of unidentifiable origin at night, have resorted to heavy-duty ear-plugs at night, which means that they are unaware that, after arriving on an early flight, Maria and Luigi have been greeted by Lucia on her birthday and proudly shown her three established plants - which so repulse and horrify Maria, at some gut level, that she wrenches them out of the ground, unaware of their shrieks, and that first Luigi, and then Lucia, fall down dead behind her, and we see her, as if at the end of Mozart's Don Giovanni reached for by arms and pulled down, through the patch of soil, and into Hades


ENDS


© Copyright Belston Night Works 2020


However, Rosy [#UCFF's esteemed editor at TAKE ONE] then gave these notes... :

Gender flip all the characters and I’ll exec produce. And don’t come back to me with a Considine attitude.


 [In obedience to which dictates [which assuredly reference #UCFF's Q&A comments on Paddy Considine's Tyrannosaur (2011)], we then derived version 2.0...]


NB Now superseded by version 2.1 - fully corrected, and with preliminary ideas for casting




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