Talking Movies

May 29, 2020

Any Other Business: Part LIV

As the title suggests, so forth.

Emily Maitlis punished for telling the truth, Domic Cummings given free pass for breaking lockdown

Dominic Cummings broke the rules, the country can see that, and it’s shocked the government cannot.

The longer ministers and prime minister tell us he worked within them, the more angry the response to this scandal is likely to be.

He was the man, remember, who always got the public mood, he tagged the lazy label of ‘elite’ on those who disagreed.

He should understand that public mood now. One of fury, contempt, and anguish.

He made those who struggled to keep to the rules feel like fools, and has allowed many more to assume they can now flout them.

The prime minister knows all this, but despite the resignation of one minister, growing unease from his backbenchers, a dramatic early warning from the polls, and a deep national disquiet, Boris Johnson has chosen to ignore it.

Tonight, we consider what this blind loyalty tells us about the workings of Number 10.

We do not expect to be joined by a government minister, but that won’t stop us asking the question.

Peter Mandelson was an essential part of New Labour; in the triumvirate of himself, Tony Blair, and Gordon Brown.

Tony Blair fired Peter Mandelson, twice.

How pathetic a man of straw must Boris ‘Bullsh-t and Bluster’ Johnson be to fear firing Dominic Cummings even once?

SEAL Team: Mandy & Jason!

Hey now! That was unexpected. Almost exactly two months ago I was noting that Jessica Pare’s burnt CIA analyst Mandy had been notably underused in season 3, so it was nice to see her unexpectedly get tactical alongside Blackburn and Davis as Havoc fell, and impose herself on the action in her guilt-ridden determination to rescue her kidnapped asset. I said then that her ‘work the problem drive’ and firefight skills gave new hope to shippers that Mandy and Jason would get together, despite the awesome kismet that exists in Emily Swallow as Jason’s partner Natalie; uniting as it does Supernatural‘s Amara with Buffy’s Angel. And now, thanks to the coronavirus tanking the last two episodes of the season, season 3 has ended with the very unexpected knock on the door of Jason to Mandy. In a visceral twist on Bones and Booth’s imperviousness versus strength equation they are now finally suited as romantic partners because they are both as damaged as the other.

Will the NCH survive this?

I completed a survey the other day from the National Concert Hall looking for feedback on the various options they are exploring for re-opening under COVID-19 conditions in the coming months. It provided considerable food for thought. Should there be no intervals to avoid people stampeding to the toilets and queuing too closely for refreshments? How much of the hall should be left empty? What about temperature checks and the end of physical tickets? How disconcerting would all this be? How likely would it be that you would simply wait for a coronavirus vaccine before venturing out to hear live music again? After reading thru all these puzzlers I began to wonder if the NCH will actually survive this. After all its audience does skew older so would be more likely to eschew mass gatherings prior to a vaccine. And if many seats have to be left empty will the prices perforce rise for the remaining seats creating a doom loop where demand falls because of high prices causing even higher prices to try and stabilise revenue? And how does one even programme in the absence of an interval? The logic of a concert like Arvo Part’s Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten followed by Grieg’s Piano Concerto followed by an interval followed by Brahms’ 2nd Symphony falls apart if there is no interval. Can large symphonies even be performed under social distancing? Or will there need to be many re-orchestrations of gargantuan orchestral works for chamber orchestras? There were a number of concerts I had planned to attend that have fallen victim to the government lockdown – Maxim Vengerov playing and conducting, Barry Douglas leading the Beethoven Triple Concerto, the RTE NSO tackling among other works Sibelius’ 5th Symphony, Beethoven’s 6th Symphony, Debussy’s La Mer, Nielsen’s Clarinet Concerto, and Rachmaninov’s 3rd Piano Concerto. I don’t know if programmes like this will exist in the near future, and I don’t know if I will be willing to put myself at risk to hear the music performed live.

2020: The Year the Final Curtain Fell

There has been much talk in a spuriously optimistic life gives you lemons make lemonades vein about how Shakespeare wrote some of his greatest works during the plague. There has been less talk of how Shakespeare’s company took commercial and artistic advantage of the decimation of their rivals by the plague. And the stop-start nature of the Elizabethan theatre looks to be the most salient point of all. This may be the end of theatre as we know it for quite some time. A general shuttering of the theatres akin to Cromwell might last for some years with intermittent ineffectual re-openings in between resurgent waves of the coronavirus. Theatre as an art form might come back eventually, after a vaccine is found, but it is unlikely that all the individual theatres currently around will be there to return at that point. There will be something between a winnowing and a purge. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Gate Theatre need to be founded anew in 2028 for its second attempt at reaching 100.

By gad, sir, that’s leadership”

Leo Varadkar went for a picnic in the park with friends, days after his Assistant Secretary General Liz Canavan publicly told people not to go for a picnic in the park with friends. “If you’re visiting a public amenity try not to stay too long at the site or have picnics. Please do your exercise and then go home.” People accurately heard “try not to … have picnics”. Leo tried to, with some level of organisation, and succeeded. How did Canavan respond? Claiming she had not seen images of Leo having a picnic in the park with friends. Indeed… Well, hold the briefing for a second, and the assembled press corps can pull up the pictures and hold their phones up and then, having seen them, she can comment on them; unless she averted her eyes to maintain an increasingly implausible plausible deniability.  The damage control centred on insisting that Leo had moved residence since lockdown, despite telling off people for going to their second homes, and therefore he was allowed to go for a picnic in the park with friends because it was within 5km of his residence. Nobody cares that Leo was within 5km. Some people might care that he’s escorted by Gardai when he moves residence when everyone else was being stopped by Gardai for attempting to do so. Everybody cares that Leo’s staff told everyone else not go for a picnic in the park with friends, while Leo himself was clearly planning to do just that himself. Perhaps he wanted to ensure an empty park for ease of social distancing? Canavan’s defence was, “Again this is guidance. We’re asking people to use their head.” We are using our heads. If it’s guidance that doesn’t apply to Leo, then it shouldn’t apply to anyone else either, so why bother mentioning it at all? Defending the indefensible is the one thing politicians do that infuriates more than any other infraction. There was no apology, no contrition. Not unlike Dominic Cummings, who flagrantly breached the rules he was instrumental in drawing up and promoting, and can’t stop lying about it. No apology, no contrition, just increasingly outlandish excuses and explanations. To drive from one end of England to the other for childcare is the act of a caring father? Meanwhile people walking their dogs in a deserted area are shamed by police drones, people attempting to enter supermarkets as couples to speed up their shopping are shamed by officious stewards, and people attempting to sit in parks are hysterically abused at close quarters by braying police officers. Elsewhere England’s father of the year is busy bundling his wife and kid into a car for a 30 mile drive, to check if he can see beyond the bottom of the driveway. One would have thought it might make more sense, paternally speaking, to make that suicide run a solo mission. But then of course by an astonishing coincidence it was his wife’s birthday when the Specsavers Special steamed into a noted beauty spot. Meanwhile in America Senators Loeffler, Burr and Perdue are also stoutly maintaining the coincidental defence: they did not run from a classified briefing on the coronavirus to find a quiet corner in the Capitol to shout “SELL FOCKING EVERYTHING!” down the phone at their stockbrokers, before brainstorming which stocks would likely rise in a global pandemic, and ringing back their stockbrokers with instructions on what to buy. When the elite decide not to follow the rules, they should not be surprised if the plebeian masses suddenly out of nowhere get the idea not to follow the rules either. Pericles died in the plague that devastated Athens in the early years of the Peloponnesian War. Pericles will be remembered forever. One wonders if the current crop of leaders will be remembered that far into the future? Or will they have created a world that thinks of Pericles only that he should have sailed to Sardis to test his eyesight…

April 19, 2019

5 Modern Works for mourning

Arvo Part: Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten

Richard Strauss: Metamorphosen for 23 Strings

Olivier Messiaen: Quartet for the End of Time

Krzysztof Penderecki: Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima

Samuel Barber: Adagio for Strings

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