Gigs - Justin Townes Earle - Deaf Institute

Star rating – 9/10

Don’t you just love those evenings when you take a bit of a punt on a gig and hope it will be good and it turns out to be a totally fantastic and uplifting experience? Well Justin Townes Earle’s gig at the Deaf Institute turns out to be just one of those special nights. He had the crowd in the palm of his hand from the off – seemingly gazing into everyone’s eyes in an intense but very charming way. It must be a hell of a hard thing to live up to, being the country legend Steve Earle’s son, but Justin TE manages to transcend this and produce his own very special brand of country magic.

He is a born entertainer, and his honesty, openness, and humour about his own particular demons, namely drink and drugs was particularly refreshing. He entertained the packed audience in between each song with a ‘Now Ladies and Gentlemen...’ opening, then an amusing anecdote that made his songs truly come to life. He revealed how his favourite two things are young ladies and fried chicken; how he ended one love affair, admittedly with a slight overlap, then went straight onto his next romantic disaster; (Someday I’ll be Forgiven for This) and how his mother was a formidable character who had managed to detach his father’s retina on one occasion (Mama’s Eyes). He is a total crowd pleaser.

But amusing anecdotes aside, it was his music that blew me away. With lots of numbers from his latest fabulous CD ‘Harlem River Blues’, like the title song itself; ‘Christchurch Woman’ and ‘Wanderin’’, which he managed to make sound just as fantastic on his own up there on stage as it does with his full backing band on record. Like all true country artists, JTE is a tortured soul, with a chequered past – bad for someone personally, but an absolute prerequisite for a successful country career. He also treated us to pearls from his first CD ‘Midnight at the Movies’, which is equally impressive.

His voice is fantastic but his guitar playing is particularly impressive. Even to an untutored person such as me, I could tell his skills were something special – managing to make it sound as if there must of been more musicians hiding in the wings. But this was one hundred per cent Justin Townes Earle. It felt like it must have to watch the early Patsy Cline. He didn’t really want to leave the stage – and looked as if he had the energy to go on all night. He is really something special. You have been told.

Film - 127 Hours - directed by Danny Boyle

Star rating – 9/10

Director Danny Boyle is a Hollywood darling after the smash hit sensation ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, so it must have been tricky for him to decide which film project to work on next, knowing as he must have that the world would be eagerly waiting and expecting another masterpiece. And ‘127 Hours’, a tale of extreme human endurance, could not be further away from the hustle and bustle of a non-stop city tale set in Mumbai.

It is based on the true story of adrenaline junkie/thrill seeker/loner Aron Ralston, who went out for an adventure in the Blue John Canyon in Utah in 2003, and found himself trapped down a ravine with his right arm pinned down by an immovable boulder after an unexpected fall. Aron is depicted as a supremely confident, arrogant and self centred individual. Before he leaves home for his fateful trip, we see him not returning calls from his mother or sister – just letting them go to answer phone. He does not tell his workmate where he is going either, preferring not to engage in social chit chat. In fact he doesn’t tell anyone where he is going – a mistake that very nearly proves fatal.

James Franco plays the intrepid explorer Ralston, and gives what will surely become a career defining performance, brilliant as it is in showing the physical and psychological journey that our hero is forced to undertake. Franco is on screen for nearly every frame of the 94 minutes running time, and is totally believable as he portrays Ralston going through extremes of physical and mental torture that it is too painful for a normal human being even to fully contemplate. It is a stunning performance.

There is a slightly nervous wait for the accident to happen, as the plot is no secret. And when it does happen, from there on in this film is all about endurance, determination, and regrets. The title refers to the hours Ralston spends trapped before he decides to cut off his right arm with a rather blunt penknife, rather than die without food or water, alone in the deserted beauty spot. And the infamous arm cutting scene, when it comes, is very gruesome – no doubt about it – how could it be otherwise. But this is also a story of relationships, and how we all need them to survive, even incredibly pig headed and arrogant people like Ralston. He uses the time whilst he is trapped in the canyon to recall the people he loves and has loved, and uses his camcorder to record messages to them – mainly of apology at his selfish and inconsiderate behaviour to them.

It is a technically brilliant piece of film making, with full use of tricks such as split screen, flashbacks, dream-like hallucinations, and inside shots of his water bottle and fluid tube, as he focuses on how much water he has left and how long he can survive there for. The score is superb, with white noise used to great effect at particularly hairy moments. The film leave you with an incredible sense of awe at Ralston’s determination, as well as the more flawed sides to his pre accident character (we can only hope he took away some life lessons from the experience, although the film doesn’t say either way). So Danny Boyle triumphs once again, and remember, always pick up the phone when your mother calls, and always tell someone where you are headed on an extreme adventure...

Film - Abel - directed by Diego Luna

Star rating – 8/10

This is the directorial début from Diego Luna, who first made his name in ‘Y tu mama tambien’ with Gael Garcia Bernal, and has gone on to star in Hollywood hits such as ‘Milk’, and is set in his native Mexico. It is the story of a nine year old boy who has had a mental breakdown after his father left the family a couple of years before. The film opens with Abel being discharged from hospital, where he has spent many months without uttering a single word, to the loving care of his mother and family.

It features an extraordinary performance by 9 year old acting novice Christopher Ruíz-Esparza . Luna was keen to cast a kid who was not a trained actor, to get a more natural result, and he definitely struck gold with this talented boy, who plays a very demanding role with ease and sincerity. Co-incidentally, his 5 year on screen old brother Paul is played, also very naturally, by his real life brother Gerardo. The essence of the film is not so much the onset of schizophrenia in Abel, but the effect that his father’s absence has on the whole family, and the close mother and son bond that lies at the heart of the story. His mother, Cecilia, is powerfully and tenderly played by Karina Gidi, and it is her central performance that is the key to the children’s lives and future.

She is determined to care for her son at home, and does everything she can to protect him, even when he starts to take on the role of his absent father. His strange behaviour is at first very amusing, as his siblings play along with the game, but it is only funny in a tragic sort of way, with a level of unease created at finding humour in this very difficult situation. The family are living in a run down district in an abandoned neighbourhood, in a house that is literally falling apart. Cecilia is just about managing to bring up her family with no money from her errant husband, who left to find work in the US, but in reality has been living in Mexico with another woman and new baby. When he returns he is disturbed to find that his young son does not know him, and is acting as the father figure in his place.

I won’t give away the ending but it is essentially a message of hope. In the Q&A session that followed this special showing in the prelude to the excellent annual Viva! Spanish and Latin American film festival that the Cornerhouse puts on, Luna spoke passionately and intelligently about his film. He said it was an autobiographical piece in some of its themes, and is dedicated to Luna’s own mother who was killed in a car accident when he was two. He is also concerned about what he sees as the almost casual absence of fathers in many Mexican families, and the effect this has on their children. After becoming a father himself he felt the need to make a film about these themes.

And his film is powerful, honest, and very moving, if a little off the wall. Hopefully he will continue to contribute in such a thoughtful and serious way as a director, as well as an accomplished actor, in future. Please Cornerhouse, let’s have more of this sort of excellent film making, which also pulls in the crowds consistently, rather than the blockbusters which we can see at any old multiplex, that have featured far too much in the programmes of late.

Theatre - The Master Builder - Almeida Theatre

Star rating – 9/10

This weird, fabulous, dream-like play from Ibsen may not be to everyone’s taste, but it certainly is to mine. Written in 1892, it was in part autobiographical, as it features an older man’s infatuation with a younger woman, as Ibsen himself was love stricken in the same circumstance in his later life.

The younger woman in question here is Hilde Wangel, sparklingly played by Gemma Arterton, fresh from her film role as Tamara Drew, and demonstrating here that she is unquestionably not just a pretty face, although it has to be said that her beauty is striking, and her performance perfectly pitched. The older man is the Master Builder of the title, Halvard Solness, powerfully portrayed by the wonderful Stephen Dillane. You may know him as Thomas Jefferson from that great HBO TV series, John Adams, among many critically acclaimed roles he has played on stage and screen.

As I said the story is slightly strange, Solness and his duty bound wife Aline, as whom Anastasia Hille gives a haunting performance, are both guilt ridden in their own ways about a house fire in Aline’s old family home that destroys all they had, and the subsequent death from pneumonia of their twin baby boys. Solness is now rebuilding a family home for them to try to heal the wounds. Into this uncommunicative couple’s lives sweeps in the twenty three year old Hilde like a burst of raw energy. She dazzles Solness, and reminds him of the time when as a child she saw him climb to the top of a high tower he had built, and promised to return for her in ten years to make her a princess with her own kingdom. She now wants him to make good his promise.

Such is the dreamlike state that Solness finds himself in in Hilde’s presence, it is not really clear if these events really happened as Hilde says, but he is more than happy to believe her, and to sacrifice all he has for the infatuation he has for her.

Director Travis Preston has the action played in an uninterrupted one hour 45 minutes, so that the dream-like sequence is not broken, and the play hurtles towards its crescendo. I am not sure what message Ibsen was trying to convey in the play, it felt a bit Freudian to me, but this is a magical theatrical journey, propelled on with power by the two sparkling and memorable central performances by Arterton and Dillane. A thrilling ride.

Film - The King's Speech - directed by Tom Hooper

Star rating – 8/10

It must have been an unbelievably difficult thing for a person with a profound stammer and an antipathy to the limelight to be thrust into the role of monarch as George VI was after his brother’s abdication. And it is his speech impediment, and how he overcame it with the help of his eccentric Australian speech therapist Leonard Logue, that is the subject of this sure fire Oscar winner from Tom Hooper.

The central performances are excellent, with Colin Firth getting it just right as the shy and nervous Duke of York, known to this family, and to Leonard as Bertie, who has to battle his inner demons and not only face the world for such ceremonial tortures as the coronation, but must also give rousing speeches to lead the country as it enters war with Germany. Geoffrey Rush is also great as the antipodean with no qualifications to speak of, pardon the pun, but a whole lot of experience in getting his patients who have been through traumas of various kinds to relax and gain the inner confidence that will help in turn to improve their speech. And his methods are far from orthodox.

Touching personal details are revealed in the course of the speech therapy, such as the rather cruel aspects of Bertie’s childhood, which were perhaps normal for the upper classes and aristocracy at the time, but still very moving and sad. The historical details are fascinatingly told from this other, much more personal perspective than we are used to, from the abdication crisis, to the outbreak of war.

The picture captures the mood and feel of the period very well, right down to the London smog. Elland Road was apparently used as a substitute for Wembley Stadium, and Ely Cathedral for Westminster Abbey. And it is an all star cast, with Helena Bonham Carter as the Duchess then Queen; Guy Pierce as the dashing Edward VIII who cannot resist the lure and love of Wallis Simpson; and Timothy Spall as Churchill.

Above all it is a tale of ordinary but rather extraordinary friendship, which the King had apparently not experienced before in his life. Leonard treated him like a person from the start, and insisted on their relationship being on his terms. In return he gave support and help through the exquisite torture of all the major speeches that the shy King was called on to give. It is a touching film that maybe won’t change the world, but it is highly moving, entertaining, and will surely triumph come Oscar time.

Books - 1222 by Anne Holt

Star rating – 5/10

Hoping the catch the tidal wave of current popularity that Scandinavian crime fiction is enjoying, on the coat tails of Larsson, Mankell, and Nesbo, the next hopeful is Anne Holt, who has just had her novel ‘1222’ translated into English. It is far from Holt’s first book, this being the 15^th published book for the former Norwegian minster for justice, who has already sold over 5 million books in Europe. ‘1222’ features the former policewoman Hanne Wilhelmsen, who is paralysed from the waist down and wheelchair bound after an in the line of duty shooting, that also ended her career.

It owes more than a nod to the typical Agatha Christie type scenario where all the murders and possible suspects, occur in a lock in situation, with the sleuth in attendance in a Poirot style set up. After a train derailment in a remote part of the country, the passengers have to make their way to a nearby hotel as a fierce blizzard rages for days, thus making them virtual prisoners for the crimes to come. The plot thickens with the realisation that the train contained a locked compartment, which was emptied first, who occupants are being kept a closely guarded secret. Some suspect that members of the royal family are caught up in the drama.

Hanne Wilhelmsen is about to find out what is going on. She is a typical depressive, anti social detective with problems in her personal life, although with a nice Ironside twist that leaves her bitter about the loss of her beloved career, and with plenty of opportunity to observe the goings on around her.

The problem is that Holt is nowhere near as skilful as Christie in making this story interesting enough. There are almost too many people in the plot, with little in the way of built up characterisation, save a little too much stereotyping, to make us very interested in them, or have feelings of sadness or shock when they start to get killed. This is not Holt’s first Wilhelmsen novel, and is apparently a departure from her usual format. It would be good to have the series translated from the beginning of the story, and to read more from Holt without the artificial Christie type set up. It takes a master to make it work, and unfortunately this is not a crime masterpiece.