Sunday, 3 December 2023

Seen at Cambridge Film Festival 2023 / #CFF42 (work, desperately slowly, in progress)

TSeen at Cambridge Film Festival 2023 / #CFF42

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

26 October

Seen at Cambridge Film Festival 2023 / #CFF42 (work, desperately slowly, in progress)




Key :

For a very rare change, for #UCFF, no films this year were not watched in full (although excepting, for example, the recorded Q&A for Mutt, which ran directly after the closing credits and when Th'Agent needed to be on the way elsewhere).

That being said, since there were occasions when quitting the film had been tempting (because of, say, a massive disjunction or clash of mood or quality with what had been watched beforehand), and that experience is denoted by Exit, although the film was watched to the end.

Similarly, in the case of film-titles denoted by Asp, there had been an aspiration or intention to watch that film quite soon after another, but similar reasons, tiredness or simply wanting to socialize (and not watch a film for the sake of it) supervened.


Thursday 19 October :

(1) 8.20 Typist Artist Pirate King (2022) ~ Opening Night Film + Q&A (Screen 1)


Friday 20 October :

(2) 12.30 In the Company of Women (2023) ~ Camera Catalonia (Scre3n 2)

(3) 2.25 Sprich mit mir (Talk to Me) (2023) (Screen 2)

(4) 6.00 Quest (2023) ~ Camera Catalonia (SCreen 3)

(5) 8.30 Poor Things (2023) (Screen 1)



















Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Thursday, 9 November 2023

The #ChocolateIsNews ? ! Tweets - Well, news when Christmas is next month...

The #ChocolateIsNews ? ! Tweets - Well, news when Christmas is next month...

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

9 November

The #ChocolateIsNews ? ! Tweets - Well, news when Christmas is next month...

















Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Friday, 3 November 2023

A putative series of entries for The Enquiring Adult's Encyclopædia of Drivel : #BannedNames

A putative series of entries for The Enquiring Adult's Encyclopædia of Drivel  : #BannedNames

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 putative series of entries for The Enquiring Adult's Encyclopædia of Drivel  : #BannedNames





For the unlucky and / or unwary, there will be more to come...







Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Wednesday, 1 November 2023

Keen appreciation for Neil Brand's Laurel & Hardy show : Seen at The Stables, Wavendon, MK

Keen appreciation for Neil Brand's Laurel & Hardy show : Seen at The Stables, Wavendon, MK

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 (additions, 5 January)

Keen appreciation for Neil Brand's Laurel & Hardy show : Seen at The Stables, Wavendon, MK
















Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Thursday, 26 October 2023

#UCFF's initial Tweets about Mutt (2023) (posting still under construction)

#UCFF's initial Tweets about Mutt (2023)

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

26 October (end-note expanded, 27 OCtober)

#UCFF's initial Tweets about Mutt (2023) (posting still under construction)










End-notes :

* The film seems to have no internal logic why it is so called.

However, #UCFF has since been advised, by one more likely to be in the know, that the word is used in the States synonymously with 'schmuck' (and referred to the authority of its being used in that way by Groucho Marx no less) : that being so, the pejorative usage in Yiddish [the link is to Wiki] adds colour, because, although 'schmuck' derives from the German word Schmuck (der Schmuck, which means 'jewelry'), its literal Yiddish meaning is a vulgar way of referring to the penis. (One can therefore infer that 'Dick' (or 'Cock') might have been more resonant titles in British English.)




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Three initial Tweets about 20,000 Especies de abejas (20,000 Species of Bees) (2023)

Three initial Tweets about 20,000 Especies de abejas (20,000 Species of Bees) (2023)

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

26 October

Three initial Tweets about 20,000 Especies de abejas (20,000 Species of Bees) (2023)







More to come (D.V.)...










More to come (D.V.)...




























Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Thursday, 19 October 2023

Opening Night at Cambridge Film Festival 2023 : Carol Morley's Typist Artist Pirate King (2022) + Q&A

Opening Night at Cambridge Film Festival 2023 : Carol Morley's Typist Artist Pirate King (2022)

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

19 October

Opening Night at Cambridge Film Festival 2023 : Carol Morley's Typist Artist Pirate King (2022)



















































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Tuesday, 17 October 2023

The Takács Quartet at Cambridge Music Festival with Haydn, Hough and Beethoven (uncorrected proof)

The Takács Quartet at Cambridge Music Festival with Haydn, Hough and Beethoven

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

17 October

The Takács Quartet at Cambridge Music Festival with Haydn, Hough and Beethoven (uncorrected proof)


Programme :

(1) Haydn ~ String Quartet in D Major, Op. 71, No. 2

(2) Hough ~ String Quartet No. 1

(3) Beethoven ~ String Quartet No. 8 in E Minor




Personnel :

On the stage of West Road Concert Hall, the players of first violin (Edward Dusinberre) and viola (Richard Yongjae O'Neill) had elected to sit on piano-stools, and at opposite ends, with Harumi Rhodes (second violin) to Dusinberre's left, and cellist András Fejér to O'Neill's right (and next to Rhodes).


First half :

* Joseph Haydn (1732 – 1809) ~ String Quartet in D Major (1793), Op. 71, No. 2 (Hob. III : 70)

1. Adagio - Allegro
2. Adagio
3. Menuetto : Allegro
4. Allegretto - Allegro


(1) Haydn opens this string quartet in a very gracious mood, with the instrumentalists passing the partitioned line between them as if in a relay, but, of course, The Takacs Quartet does so in an effortless way that belies the concentration and skill involved. It was likewise clear from their smiles, to each other or to themselves, as they read what was on the page (especially Harumi Rhodes), that they were enjoying his wit, and the risk-taking modulation near the Allegro's conclusion.


The Adagio is the movement that feels to be the emotional centre of the work, and in which it became apparent that the attention of the audience at West Road Concert Hall was rapt. We might also have become aware of hearing the viola as 'an outlier' to the harmonic background that was given by the other instruments.

That being said, there is a reversal towards its end, and it is then the first violin that gives the incidental detail. However, it also proves to be very nearly the final bar, by which point Haydn's sensitive writing and the quartet's playing had wrung all of us out – we, and they, too !


From the Menuetto's spirited and lively introduction we pass into an in-between world, where Dusinberre (vn) and O'Neill (va) were playing exceptionally quietly. In this composition for string quartet, as a whole, it is noticeable that there is such great economy, with Haydn writing absolutely no more material than is necessary.


As in the opening movement, there is good-natured writing and fragmentation of the melody-line between the parts in the Allegretto, and with dance-rhythms becoming more prominent in the Allegro section. Haydn appears to indicate a coda (since it might turn out to be a late set of variations – or even a false ending ?), and we came to the end of this well-received performance of a gem of a piece.



* Stephen Hough (b. 1961) ~ String Quartet No. 1 (2021), Les Six rencontres

1. Au boulevard
2. Au parc
3. À l'hôtel
4. Au théâtre
5. À l'église
6. Au marché


(2) As Joanna Wyld's programme-notes imply, which quote extensively from Stephen Hough's own comments on the character of the rencontres*, and the music suggests, this set of movements is of a very cinematic nature : filmic depiction, and juxtaposition rather than 'development', is its mode of operation, but it also features what we heard in the Haydn, where fragments that make one musical line are passed around between the players.


The vigorous and colourful sound-world of Au boulevard was followed, in Au parc by the evening's first use (?) of Pizzicato, alongside what felt to be more than a hint of moto perpetuo, and a genial mood, but one perhaps tinged with Hitchcockian unease ?

Without intentionally listening out for the style of Francis Poulenc, it was À l'hôtel that most obviously reminded of it and his approach to melodic and harmonic invention. Until it proved to have a definite end, it seemed uncertain whether it might have been played without a break between it and Au théâtre.

However, that was not the case, and the latter's slide or 'tap' notes straightaway set it apart - was this, maybe, in the spirit of Arthur Honegger ? In any case, it continued with evocations of 'hamming' or stage horror, much use of tremolo, before a more serious and sad section (Tragedy after Comedy ?), and, with the viola prominent, a quiet close.


À l'église had wistful and phlegmatic writing, which was patently moving the performers (in this work's 'emotional centre'), and which might have had resemblances to Georges' Auric's cinematic score for Cocteau (La belle et la bête (1946)). Au marché seemed to have an incessant quality (and no bars' rest for any of the players ?), but yet a finality about it, marking its conclusion with bell-tones and their peals.



Second half :

* Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827) ~ String Quartet No. 8 in E Minor (1806), Opus 59, No. 2 (the 'Razumovsky' set**)

1. Allegro
2. Molto adagio
3. Allegretto
4. Finale : Presto


Beethoven's moody and magnificent (3) quartet is very different from what went before, so it truly did need an interval beforehand, as well as nothing to follow it – although, at the end of a powerfully affecting performance (not to say, of course, evening as a whole), an encore was repeatedly called for.


In the Allegro that opens the work, the viola keeps the line going, and the musical ship afloat, with an alleviation of the other players' harmonies. Perhaps, for maximum effect, our performers allowed themselves distending the suspenseful rests per tutti, but they principally and aptly gave the writing its full due weight from pacing and their dynamics.

They fitly reminded us, too, by bringing them out, how the composer's dissonances might have been 'shocking' in Vienna in the early nineteenth century (as the embedded Tweets allude to).


Through having noticed it when a pianist, say, performs a complete set of Nocturnes or Études, the writer, at least, believes that there is largely more scope, in a less-familiar number within that set***, for deviating from what is expected in or from it : though simultaneously asserting that this movement is 'the emotional centre' in Beethoven's work, yet the Molto allegro's 'under-exposure', as it were, likewise gives more and / or different scope for individuation.


The Allegretto is, of course, very familiar, but this was glorious, and, with the playing of Rhodes and O'Neill to the fore, full of rich expectancy that led us on to the joyous fugato section, where we could again hear the delicacy of the viola's tones.

To come...


The Finale also sounded fresh and, and we could again see that the players had smiles at the writing's felicities. Those same elements could be heard, which had been there in the opening work, of fragmentation of the musical line : it is always a sign of good programming when compositions 'talk to' each other !

Entrancing and entranced, right up to the end that we knew was coming and which we were willing on, this was a fit conclusion to a compelling evening of fine music from The Takács Quartet.


End-notes :

¹ Although Hough refers to Les Six, it seems that the string quartet was commissioned and written for a recording by The Takács Quartet of works for string quartet by Ravel and Dutilleux (neither of them members of Les Six).

² All three works come to us through patronage, even if, in the case of Sir Stephen's composition, we now say that it 'was commissioned'.

³ Which, differently put, is to say that, unlike those that are often played solo, or with one or two others that have been excerpted from the set, one that is far more infrequently heard does not have a recording or performance practice that suggests how it 'should' sound. (The same principle applies to the excessively known or played sections of the Verdi or Mozart Requiems.)




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Thursday, 21 September 2023

#UnMissableTitles

#UnMissableTitles

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

5 September

#UnMissableTitles












































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Tuesday, 19 September 2023

Inception, dreaming and is Cobb 'awake' [whatever that is] when the film ends ? (work in progress)

Inception, dreaming and is Cobb 'awake' [whatever that is] when the film ends ? (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)

26 July

Inception, dreaming and is Cobb 'awake' [whatever that is] when the film ends ? (work in progress)




Michael Caine, as a lecturer in an unspecified discipline at a French academy (which, however, we may rightly assume to be La Sorbonne), graces a scene close to the start of Inception [which, thanks to this word from the world of insurance, necessarily sounds like the start of the start], and then does not reappear until the closing ones.

From their conversation, we learn that Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), whom he addresses as 'Dom', is his son-in-law and that he had once been one of his brighter students. (The credits tell us that Caine's character is called Miles, but we do not hear that name used.) Despite Cobb's seeming implication in the death of his daughter (Mal**, played by Marion Cotillard), Miles appears to have relatively few reservations about introducing Cobb to one of his current students, once he has first urged Cobb 'to come back to reality', and Cobb has argued both that, after what happened, he has to use what he was taught to do as he does (but cannot now be the architect of his own dream-deceptions), and, moreover, that the job that he is undertaking represents his only chance to be what Miles and Cobb want him to be able to be, a father to his children.

When Cobb asks for someone 'at least as good as' he was, Miles claims that Ariadne (Elliot Page) is 'better than' Cobb. (Apart from at the end of the film, where Miles meets Cobb at the airport, we see Caine do no more than effect an introduction to Ariadne. (If, that is, Cobb and co. have actually reached Arrivals...))


More to come...


























Appendix :





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Saturday, 9 September 2023

Barbie Tweets

Barbie Tweets

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

8 September

Barbie Tweets
Star-billing for Fanny Brice (Barbra STreisand) at The New Amsterdam Theatre













































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Thursday, 7 September 2023

The #MakeDishesLessAppealing Tweets

The #MakeDishesLessAppealing Tweets

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

The #MakeDishesLessAppealing Tweets












































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Wednesday, 5 July 2023

Operas ruined (with one letter) : Th'Agent's efforts at demolition

Operas ruined (with one letter) : Th'Agent's efforts at demolition

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

Operas ruined (with one letter) : Th'Agent's efforts at demolition





















































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Tuesday, 4 July 2023

On watching Asteroid City (2023) - and not giving a damn about seeing it again

On watxching Asteroid City (2023) - and not giving a damn about seeing it again

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

4 July

On watxching Asteroid City (2023) - and not giving a damn about seeing it again






More to come...





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