Mockingbird Review

Gwyn Vaughan Jones as Atticus Finch
To Kill A Mockingbird, is one of those novels that most (!) people remember with great affection from their schooldays. Harper Lee's warm and affectionate story of the coming of age of "Scout" Finch, the daughter of a small town lawyer, amid the racism of the American deep south, has a resonance with most people, even though they may not have read or reread the novel for years, and I really feel that this nostalgia for Lee's novel sometimes camouflages the brutality within the story....such as child abuse,the abysmal treatment of the mentally ill, alcohol addiction, and of course the horrendous racial divide within a rural community.
This stage version is beautifully set by Mark Bailey on a simple dirt road square of stage. Silhouette's of the tired folk of Maycomb are placed against a "Gone with the Wind" sky before Scout (an excellent Amy Morgan) starts her narration through the eyes of the eight year old tomboy.
The racial and economic tensions of 1935 Alabama grow steadily, until the cracking courtroom scene ( played cleverly still on the dirt road) bats to and fro between the dirt poor white trash Ewells and Atticus Finch who is defending defendant Tom Robinson. This scene is the best thing in the play , and Rhian Blyth ( as the abused Myella Ewell) is a standout, but having said all that, not everything works as well in this stage play as it does in the 1962 movie version.
The climax where the Finch Children are pursued by the abusive Bob Ewell is rather rushed and trivialised, and is absolutely lacking in the nail biting tension we witnessed as James Anderson stalked the terrified Mary Badham in the movie, but I guess it is a small complaint in a generally superior and enjoyable stage production .
8/10

Off to bed.... working an early shift tomorrow

To Kill A Mockingbird

Off to see the Theatre Clwyd Production of To Kill A Mockingbird this evening...review later!

New Oscar catagory

Now the Oscars nominations are out, and as usual the bun fight is uneven, manipulated and unfair!
Many years ago Elizabeth Taylor only won the statue for best actress because she had just had a tracheostomy!
Anyhow, I will not rant on about it all, but I would suggest that the academy would give an oscar for BEST MOVIE TRAILER!
These frantically edited snippets, are often little works of art in themselves, and although many of them bare no real connection to the main movie , the resulting "minifilm" is often a wonderful romp to be enjoyed....

my favourites are:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCqYuBIFE5I
(Dinosaur)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot3UCHHZmvc
(Australia)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBitOl11VnY
(All about my mother-) camp as christmas

I could go on and on and on.......sorry anout the links interested parties will need to cut and paste.....anyhow just sit back and enjoy CLIFFHANGER

Lilly

Well the plethera of videos continue ( and will stop for a while I promise you) with a brief introduction to my favourite hen on the field. the gentle natured Lilly.
Now the "voice over" was a little muted as I was mindful that the gravediggers are in to prepare for my neighbour's funeral later today.
Steve, the village elder (as I call him) is overseeing the work and is using the digger to scrape out the Church wall (which I am repairing) and to dredge out the ditch on the border of the field. Now all this work is his idea, so I am letting him get on with it as itis easier to do that rather than to discuss the whys and whatnots in any detail.....I feel a little like a spare wheel though ,so I will go and busy myself elsewhere

The Cottage and Church

I Know it is lazy blogging but I seem to be on a roll!
I will make one more "video" this afternoon then will get back to typing at the keyboard

Turkey Video

With my crappy old camera I took this brief video this morning.......

Chatsworth House and the movies

Chatsworth House, the ancestral home of the Duke of Devonshire, is perhaps one of the most famous of all of the English stately homes. Located a stone's throw from Sheffield, Chris and I spent many Sunday afternoons there, wandering around the grounds, gardens and house, so much so, that it actually became one of our most favourite places to visit.
I follow the Chatsworth House blog (http://www.chatsworthblog.org/) which is a kind of behind-the-scenes blog of the house and estate written by the staff of the big house themselves. Occasionally a little dry and polite, this diary of daily works is a fascinating account of something which is so English it actually hurts.....
The blog, does not go back far enough, to cover the funeral of the last Duke of Devonshire in 2004. I remember seeing the funeral procession on tv, when all the staff from the estate, from cooks in their starched white uniforms to the grooms in the stables, lined the grand driveway as the coffin was driven past. Amazingly moving!
Now I have blogged about this today as I spotted the house in a preview of the movie The Wolfman, the remake of the 1941 film. Shrouded with weeds and smoke the house still was unmistakable and impressive, and I wonder just how much will be shown of it in the Benicio del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, and Emily Blunt Gothic romp. I hope a little more than was shown in Pride and Prejudice where it acted as Darcy's "Pemberly".
Anyhow talking of previews, I saw the new Robin Hood trailer yesterday and was completely flummoxed by it!
Is it me. but is the whole thing a rehash of Gladiator? Same kind of music, same galloping horses and the same very deep manly growling, from a Maximus looking Russell Crowe!
Now I am not complaining here...... as Russ as a sex-on-legs Roman general floated my boat several times in the year 2000 so his rebirth in Robin Hood will be most welcome. Having said that, I suspect the film will be a pile of Sh*t.

Anyhow Chris is away yet again, this time in London. However we did have a nice lunch out today before he went.
A villager stopped me at dusk to complain that she had not seen the Chickens in the Churchyard for a while. She was so upset when I told her that the usual bunch she was used to seeing was the junior hens that had been killed last Saturday.....at least the guinea fowl with Rogo, remain loyal in their ambles amid the graves.

Avatar

Sam Worthington

I was feeling ok until I read all of the previous post comments this morning, and now I think I must have sounded a border line depressive!
The rain is lashing down, so I completed jobs, counted the poultry (all present), walked the dogs and drove to Prestatyn to the cinema , taking some heed of all of the advice to "have a break"!

I know there was a pensioner showing of AVATAR at the scala this morning, so at 10 am (yes AM) I lined up with a few adventurous silver hairs who were clutching their pension books, and asked if I could go in.
Now although I am a youthful looking 47 year old, the manageress waved me through quite cheerfully ( and a little too quickly for my liking) and feeling a tad guilty at bunking off, I sat down in the warmth and dry, intent in watching some mindless rubbish.......tee hee
Cinema is a wonderful diversion from the mundane for me. It is a treat, it is a ritual and it always feels as though I have "come home" in a strange sort of way as I make myself comfortable in the usual pull down cinema seat!
Like many geeky teenagers (I was an expert in 1970 disaster films, terrapins and tropical fish at 15!!!) I was a lonely kid.
There was no internet,computer games and the like to divert me from the misery of puberty, so for me it was cinema that was able to transport me to somewhere a little more exciting......All during the 1970s, burning skyscrapers, overturned passenger liners, Roger Moore's acting eyebrows and a whole series of 747 near misses, kept me amused and obsessed.

Anyhow back to Avatar, which was an inspired choice for a rainy and depressing day!

James Cameron's voyage into movie history is basically an adequate Christmas present of an adventure movie which has been wrapped up in some exquisitely beautiful wrapping paper. To look at, it is quite, quite amazing, and I was entertained with this boys-own actioneer from the very start.

In Avatar, Cameron pays homage to Aliens his 1986, public and critically acclaimed blockbuster, with gut wrenching battle sequences and a reintroduction to some of his most famous characters.

So we have Dr Grace (Sigourney Weaver) who is an older and wiser Ellen Ripley, tom boy Hispanic marine Trudy (Michelle Rodriguez) is a ringer for Pvt. Vasquez and mean bastard corporate manager (Giovanni Ribisi) is definitely based on the reptilian Carter Burke.

Having said all this, Avatar is an adventure film which pays further homages to the likes of A Man Called Horse (1970) and Dances with Wolves (1990) and by doing so, it will please everyone. as the basically simple story of a man finding his true "home" is a universal fairytale of sorts.

Sam Worthington makes for a measured and quite charismatic hero (he is very easy on the eye too!) and Zoe Saldana (who is never really seen except in her CGI form) is also very good as his alien love interest.

But this film's strength lies with what you see AND experience rather than the originality of the plot or the performances of the leading actors (good as they are)........and what you see IS quite beautiful and impressive.

I gave it a spirit lifting 9/10