tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post3496651943920422461..comments2024-02-06T16:17:25.826+00:00Comments on THE GRØNMARK BLOG: "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" - Movie vs. TVScott Gronmarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15118026157459333174noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-81931070594473013942014-10-26T08:09:11.593+00:002014-10-26T08:09:11.593+00:00The mini series was far and away much better than ...The mini series was far and away much better than the pile of toot the Blog waxes lyrical about. Typically modern take; concentrating as it does, on the Gay aspect. <br />I notice the Blog makes no mention of the sequel to Tinker..<br />Not surprising, really. They appear to have resigned themselves to the fact that they where out of their depth with Tinker..<br />that the sequel isn't going to happen.<br />WASTE OF MONEY.<br /><br />PS<br />I can only think they used big names in order to sell a weak screenplay as the big names appeared to play their parts in the spirit of Patrick Stewart, but not nearly as polished.<br />The musical end summed up the whole repast. <br />A crossbow. I suppose Aids would've taken too long however, they could've played it to music and made that the sequel. LolAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-49533608902834729872011-10-11T22:00:00.349+01:002011-10-11T22:00:00.349+01:00Shakespeare should only be performed by British ac...Shakespeare should only be performed by British actors? Nonsense. I have just heard on Radio 4 that the Globe Theatre is mounting a festival of 37 of Shakespeare's plays next spring as part of "The Cultural Olympics". They will be performed by the national theatre companies of 37 selected countries [non- English speaking]. The director of the Globe who is organizing this event [I missed his name] delivered the following insights in the course of the interview in case you missed it: " They care passionately about Shakespeare in the Sudan - it helped sustain them through their recent civil wars"; " Not being able to understand the various languages will help the audiences to focus on the architecture of the plays" and "Argentina is located at the southern tip of South America".<br /><br />"Cymbeline" in the Sudanese dialect sounds like a fun night out. Book early to avoid disappointment. What next? TTSP in Farsi or Swahili? We do indeed live in exciting and sensible times.<br />Tuesday, September 27, 2011 - 09:45 AMMULTICULTURALISTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-92142099788446145712011-10-11T21:59:31.689+01:002011-10-11T21:59:31.689+01:00Crap adaptations.
I rermember Greer Garson in P&a...Crap adaptations.<br /><br />I rermember Greer Garson in P&P. She and Olivier had a ludicrous archery scene at a garden party? Garson and age. She played Calpurnia in the Brando version of "Julius Caesar"when she was over 50 [C. was 30 on the Ides of March 44 B.C.] and it showed. She also married the actor who played her young son in "Mrs Miniver" and it also looked peculiar.<br /><br />Bad Shakespeare film adaptations. I give you the modern verions of "Romeo+Juliet" sic] ]with DiCaprio [Brian Dennehy plays "Ted" Capulet] and "Titus" [Andronicus] with Hopkins [human meat pies and the ghastly Scottish actor Alan Cumming]. There was "Taming of the Shrew" with Burton; his infatuation with Taylor blinded him to the fact that she was a rotten actress with a screechy voice. I haven't seen Al Pacino in "The Merchant of Venice",.but I don't think it was very good. Shakespeare should be limited to classically-trained British actors [ditto Ibsen and Scandinavian actors].<br /><br />Jane Austen. "Emma" with the anaemic Paltrow exercising her pre-Shakespeare in Love accent. Film ruined by another ghastly Scottish actor IMcEwan] sporting a very unfortunate hair-style and making a complete hash of the obligatory ball sequence [see Miller and Armstrong who have hopefully killed off the ball sequences forever].<br /><br />And then there is "Alice in Wonderland". According to IMDb there have been 16 separate productions over the last 50 years. Not being brought up in Britain I have never understood the fascination with "Alice" [or "Peter Pan" or "Wind in the Willows" - though I have dark suspicions]. I have watched some of these adaptations and I simply don't get it. Why do they keep churning them out? Do they make money? Now, the Brothers Grimm and HC Anderson. That's another story - both lit and fig, as they say..<br /><br />To end on ghastly Scottish actors - Robert Carlyle in "Hitler. The Rise of Evil" [2003]. There is a scene where Carlyle is invited to an upmarket dinner party and fronts up in his Lederhosen looking like a little boy. It is surreal. Hitler and Alice. Where would the studios spend their money otherwise?<br />Monday, September 26, 2011 - 08:29 AMFILM CRITICnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-15748391664612503532011-10-11T21:59:01.359+01:002011-10-11T21:59:01.359+01:00MOSCOW RULES
George may have to come out of retir...MOSCOW RULES<br /><br />George may have to come out of retirement.<br /><br />There are two jobs for him to do.<br /><br />----------<br />1. I went to a lecture given by Dr Emma Widdis yesterday, one of the series given at the Cambridge alumni weekend, entitled “Life has become better, comrades; life has become more fun”: Stalin Goes to the Movies. For some details please see http://alumni.cam.ac.uk/events/weekend/weekend11/handouts2011/Handout%20Dr%20Emma%20Widdis.pdf<br /><br />We all know a bit about the early Russian film directors around the time of the Revolution and maybe a bit about the late ones, after Stalin. Few people know much about the Russian directors in between, working during the 1930s and 40s, said the lecturer and, in my case, she couldn't be righter.<br /><br />Stalin decreed that Russian films should express socialist realism. But no-one knew what it meant. So some member of the Nomenklatura was sent over to Hollywood to take notes.<br /><br />There followed a stream of films with a pretty lead actress belting out songs about improving production in her knitting factory, smiling peasants singing and dancing Busby Berkeley-style as they get in the golden grain harvest (Oklahoma! (admittedly 1955), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), ...), and tragic stories of pretty lead actresses being blackmailed by unscrupulous Germans, threatening to denounce them for their bastard black babies, Germans who promptly come unstuck when communes of every race in the USSR welcome the black babies in their arms, smiling at them, singing at them and dancing all the while.<br /><br />Much good fun was had by all. You, too, can enjoy film clips from this oeuvre at http://www.soviethistory.org/ where I can promise you hours of entertainment (drill down through the years, through the topics listed to the videos links).<br /><br />Dr Widdis ended by asking us not to go round saying there's this woman in Cambridge denying the forced population movements, the famines and the Gulag, it's just that it's obvious that not everyone suffered under Stalin, some people did well.<br /><br />Mr Smiley, Sir, it may be utterly blameless but I do think it might be worth looking into. The film clips shown during the lecture were all spoken of as obvious propaganda -- compare comments elsewhere on the Gronblog about Pathé News -- and so it's a bit rich for the Head of Department in the Department of Slavonic Studies at Cambridge, for it is she, to claim that they demonstrated that some people did well under Stalin. Isn't it?<br /><br />----------<br /><br />2. On the way home, the wife and I listened to Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller's third Reith lecture at the end of which she said she hoped that by the time of her next visit to the Lubianka, they would have installed Ladies lavatories, it had all been a bit inconvenient last time she was there.<br /><br />Mr Smiley, Sir, could you send a lamplighter? Or one of Toby's pavement artists?<br />Sunday, September 25, 2011 - 03:17 PMDMnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-11439500828544925562011-10-11T21:57:06.272+01:002011-10-11T21:57:06.272+01:00How about a post on really crap TV or film adaptat...How about a post on really crap TV or film adaptations. I'd be happy to offer the 1940 version of Pride and Prejudice. Where to start? Greer Garson more of an age to play Mrs Bennett than Elizabeth; Rev Collins turned into a town clerk to avoid offending American religious sensitivities; and the ending changed so that Lady Catherine de Burgh says to D'Arcy "It's OK with me. Go on and give her one, son". OK, I might have exaggerated the last bit but not by all that much.<br /><br />I challenge you to nominate a worse one.<br />Saturday, September 24, 2011 - 06:37 PMEX-KCSnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-65948244265631444952011-10-11T21:56:38.875+01:002011-10-11T21:56:38.875+01:00A TTSS nerd writes: I was undecided until I read y...A TTSS nerd writes: I was undecided until I read your post but I will go and see it. I cannot re-read the book without envisaging Alec Guinness polishing his spectacles on his tie and I am not sure Gary Oldman will have quite the same effect. There were weaknesses in the TV version. I thought Ian Bannen was too old to play a convincing Jim Prideaux and the shooting scene in the forest includes a most unconvincing stunt forward roll. But these are quibbles about a classic series.<br /><br />I recall the scene with the bird in the book but not in the series. I don't recall the bee in the car from either. Everything Le Carre has written since has been a bit of a disappointment, including Smiley's People, despite the satisfaction of stuffing the Soviets at the end.<br />Saturday, September 24, 2011 - 04:40 PMEX-KCSnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-65861536591935531242011-10-11T21:56:10.974+01:002011-10-11T21:56:10.974+01:00I am now very much looking forward to seeing this ...I am now very much looking forward to seeing this film.<br /><br />I was disappointed that you missed the opportunity to do some name-dropping. Your grand-mother "starred" with Michael Aldridge [Percy Alleline in the original TV production] in the 1955 Norwegian war film "Shetlandsgjengen". Very few people know this.<br /><br />Saturday, September 24, 2011 - 04:40 PMSDGnoreply@blogger.com