Movie review - "Silver City" (2004) **1/2

John Sayles movies are always worth watching and for the most part this is an engrossing combination of detective film and political satire, as a rumpled investigator (Danny Huston) looks into a corpse that has been fished out of the river by a governor candidate (Chris Cooper). Huston is like an aging shaggy dog, an interesting type of detective, cheerful and a bit incompetent; Cooper is hilarous as the well meaning dimwit. There are also entertaining cameos from actors like Richard Dreyfuss, Billy Zane, Thora Birtch, etc. Around the half way point the film becomes a bit muddled with the points it seems it wants to make - the story lacks drive, and the big secret isn't really enough of a secret to power the film. Like most of Sayles movies, there's a down beat ending.

Movie review - "Chasing Amy" (1997) *****

Brilliant comedy drama which remains Kevin Smith's masterpiece - funny, tight, well acted, low budget, imaginative til the end. The opening credits start things off on exactly the right note (being tone), every member of the cast is perfect.

Movie review - Hitchcock #24 - "The Lady Vanishes" (1938) *****

Wonderful thriller that looks even better over the years. Michael Redgrave and Margaret Lockwood aren’t among Hitchcock’s better known pair of stars, but they work marvellously in a jolly-good-chaps 1930s kind of way. He has a good natured, wet, intellectual quality which is perfect for the part (Robert Donat in 39 Steps mode would have been too dashing – although not Donat in Goodbye Mr Chips mode, if that makes sense). Lockwood is terrific fun and they make a spirited, youthful couple – you can imagine them spending their honeymoon hiking in the Cotswolds or something.

The piece glories in its Englishness – you’ve got cheery sensible Lockwood, slightly eccentric Redgrave, glorious Dame May Whitty having a ball as a very useful senior citizen, adulterous Cecil Parker and his stressed out partner, the magnificent Basil Radford and Nauton Wayne, the very likeable cockney nun in high heels who works for the baddies until she realises they’re trying to kill an English lady. (It’s not all rah-rah Royal Britannia, though – it makes fun of British hypocrisy and the slipperiness of their foreign office.)

An extremely well acted movie – so many of the roles were open to caricature but the actors don’t take that option (well, not all of them – the suave European types do their European thing). It helps that this is more of an ensemble piece than a star vehicle; most of the Brits get a chance to shine, even at the end.

Many wonderful moments: the nun wearing high heels; Dame May Whitty making a dash for it across the forest as people try to shoot her; pretty much everything Radford or Wayne say (eg “I say you can’t go about tying up nuns”); Redgrave’s “I went to Cambridge line”; the realisation only the British passengers are left on the train because it’s tea time. I love it.

Book review - "State of Fear" by Michael Crichton

Michael Crichton's back and he's not happy. Not happy about criminals - there's savage scenes where victims of crime talk about killing their attackers and they do kill them (Crichton was robbed at gunpoint before he wrote this book). Not happy about academia, who he describes as mostly funding whores (which is true). Not happy about do-gooding Hollywood types, who he lampoons and makes look foolish (and gives a grisly end).

Most of all he's not happy about global warming, which he not only believes is false but the concept of which some people are so devoted to they are willing to set off a series of artificially-created environmental disasters to bring attention to the cause.

Crichton always writes a good techno thriller and I enjoyed a lot of it, the exotic locations, exciting actions sequences in Antarctica and the Solomons; I went with the science (he flings a lot of data and journal references at you) because I don't know enough not to. Didn't believe the environmental terrorists on that scale though - I'm sorry, even if they are misguided I can't see them as that ruthless. Or well organised. If they'd been terrorists or criminal masterminds, yes, but not environmentalists. I guess I'm just prejudiced. (NB I had the same problems with "tungsten" in Gilda.)

He also cheats by giving many environmental arguments to dopey/villainous characters such as the Martin Sheen-like actor Ted Bradley (who is actually likable in an appalling way). The superhero professor character is a bit irritating.

Book review - "Outposts" by Simon Winchester

Before Winchester wrote the best seller The Surgeon of Cawthorne he was a foreign correspondent and travel writer and in the erly 80s penned this delightful book, a series of visits to the remaining British Empire outposts through the world. In addition to the ones everyone knows -- Gibraltar, Hong Kong (then), Bermuda - there are odder ones like Ascension Island, Falklands (which he vists just as the war begins), St Helena, Tristan, British India Territories. 

The edition I read was a 2003 one, with an intro updating it. It's an interesting intro - it makes a comparison between the old British Empire and the new empire of global corporations. He also says he thinks the Empire was a good thing. However, he isn't very nice about the remaining colonies in his book - Falkland Islanders are a bit pathetic and the war was a waste, British Indian Ocean Territories are a black stain on British memory, Gibraltar is pathetic, Bermuda is weird. He does like St Helena. 

The travels are always interesting, especially the really obscure places, and I liked the history (there could have been a bit more of it - and a little more local colour and maybe some photos). Winchester keeps running into people he went to school with - the old school tie network seems to have evolved neatly.

Book review - "Black Jack - Political Gladiator"

Fascinating biography of Jack McEwen, head of the country party and deputy PM for Australia from the late 50s to the early 70s, briefly PM after Holt's death. When people talk of the "Menzies era" they really mean the Menzies-McEwan era - his philosophies helped define the economy. He was in charge of trade, not the treasury. A protectionist, there is some doubt whether his influence was all good - his biographer argues that he was totally right up til 1960 but after a key adviser left he became more inflexible. It probably really would have been better for Australia had the Libs been voted out in 1961 like the public seemed to want - they had run out of puff. But McEwen was clearly a giant, a man who inspired fear and respect on both sides, a formidable opponent. The stories of his clashes with McMahon and Gorton are the most dramatically interesting; there is also a lot of stuff about tariffs and trade which can be a little heavy going at times. Was he right? Would you prefer him back? His is a story that should be told and remembered more than it is.

Movie review - Hitchcock #25 - "Jamaica Inn" (1939) ** 1/2

This film, Hitchcock's last before he left for England, normally cops it from critics and while it isn't up to the standard of his great English classics I really enjoyed it. Great start, with a moody Cornish coast, lots of waves crashing and creepy inns, and its a pretty good story, as lovely young Maureen O'Hara arrives at an inn that is HQ for some ship wreckers.

The villains are an engaging bunch, and there is a surprisingly touching relationship between O'Hara's aunt and her husband, one of the main wreckers. Charles Laughton is in fine form in the lead; Robert Newton isn't as comfortable in the romantic lead Robert Donat part - he looks too odd.

Two major plot holes: why doesn't Laughton kill Newton when he has the chance? Why does Laughton risk taking O'Hara away with him at the end? In true Hitchcock heroine style, O'Hara gets slapped around, has to tear off her dress and is bound and gagged. Spectacular climactic fall.