Me, Myself & Moi

"The Motive Is Always Money"

noreply@blogger.com (Bexquisite) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 23:19:00 +0000

The last three Steven Soderbergh films I saw were Contagion, The Informant! and Ocean's Thirteen. They were both good and they were also very different. In his latest movie, Haywire, he borrows a little from the Ocean franchise (stylistically, at least) and a lot from Joe Wright's Hanna. The result is an action-packed (but not too noisy!), tightly edited thriller that doesn't take itself too seriously but entertains throughout its 90-minute duration.

Gina Carano, a former mixed martial arts fighter turned actress, stars as Mallory, a freelance black ops soldier who discover she is being played by her boss and ex-lover Kenneth (Ewan McGregor). Several other big names prop up the title cards--Antonio Banderas, Michael Douglas and the darling of everyone (except the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, it seems), Michael Fassbender. Mallory is sent out on a mission in Barcelona, supposedly to rescue and safely deliver a Chinese prisoner. On her return, Kenneth convinces her to take another job in Dublin--easy work, he says, and all she will need to do is pretend to be the wife of a British spy (Fassbender) at a party, wear a dress and look pretty. But then she finds the body of the Chinese prisoner at the party and in his hand, he is holding one of her brooches, and, smart cookie that Mallory is, she realises she is being set up.

What follows is the fast-paced, city-hopping, parkour-filled journey of Mallory seriously kicking ass as she tries to seek vengeance on and gain her freedom from the guys who have wronged her. The story is told partly through flashbacks, with more details being added to scenes we have already seen when Mallory finds out what really happened. Carano has a few IMDb credits to her name but this appears to be her first big role in a feature-length film and she is good and manages to pull off that tough-but-vulnerable balance. We don't see as much of the other actors but McGregor is convincingly dodgy ("the motive is always money," he says, seeming surprised that anyone could think otherwise), and although Banderas didn't quite bring out his Puss in Boots voice, screentime with him is rarely a bad thing (exception).

Unlike Hanna, with its pumped-up Chemical Brothers score, Haywire is a cooler affair, with the score reminding me a lot of Ocean's Eleven in places (not surprising given that David Holmes worked on both films) and, unusually for this genre of film, quietening down during chase sequences and fights. This is a proper action film with a lot of fights and some great stunts but it's a lot less in-your-face than most other films in the genre. Perhaps Soderbergh is trying to appeal to the teenage-girl market (which could also explain the strong female lead). And if you're a purist when it comes to this genre? Fear not: judging by the trailers, there are plenty more traditional action thrillers on their way.

Beyond Words

noreply@blogger.com (Bexquisite) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 23:02:00 +0000

The UltraLounge in the basement of Selfridges is conveniently located halfway between the Longchamp and Nespresso concessions so it is unsurprising that I walk past it on a regular basis. The area gets a new concept every few months ago; past themes have included an ice cream bar, the Museum of Everything and a posh charity shop. Usually, they combine some aspect of shopping or eating with something more educational, informative or worthy.

Until March 1, the UltraLounge is being occupied by Words Words Words, a sort of high-concept library "that celebrates the power of the written word." I poked my nose in briefly at the weekend and took a few photos (poor quality because I used my iPhone and it was quite dark inside). The walls are filled with bookshelves that are lined with beautifully coloured book organised into sections that include "poetry and drama" and "modern classics." You are encouraged to pick up a book and sit down to read it in one of the many sofas and comfortable arm chairs available. iPads are available for perusing of the interwebs and if you are a Luddite, you can have a go on an old-school typewriter (sadly, they don't have Anthropologie's awesome but mad expensive typewriter docking station) or practise your Latin verb conjugations on the giant blackboard.

They also have a full calendar of reading- and writing-related talks and events, including sessions on handwriting analysis and story telling. Of course, this being Selfridges, there are plenty of language- and word-themed gifts for sale, such as Tatty Devine's Helvetica necklace (which is nice, although I think their personalised name necklaces are more fun), a Latin grammar tea towel and a sans serif initial mug.

So, if you're in central London over the next few weeks, it's definitely worth stopping by. And if you do and you are also an Anthropologie fan, you'll be pleased to note that Anthro now have a homewares concession close to the UltraLounge. There isn't a huge range available (I'm not sure whether they also carry Anthro clothes upstairs now) but it's always nice to peruse pretty pottery without having to trek all the way down to the Anthro store in Regent Street.

The new Anthro concession in Selfridges

Who's Afraid of Brooklyn Bridge Park?

noreply@blogger.com (Bexquisite) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 17:13:00 +0000

Roman Polanski's new film Carnage starts with a fight between two 11-year-old boys, but it is the boys' parents behaviour that becomes increasingly childish as the film progresses. Carnage is a middle-class farce--a comedy of ill manners--adapted for the screen by Polanski with Yasmina Reza, based on the latter's play, and with strong performances from the four lead actors (Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz and John C. Reilly). Apart from a distant shot of then boys' fight in Brooklyn Bridge Park at the beginning and a similar shot at the end, the entire film takes place in the apartment of one set of parents, which makes sense given that the film was adapted by Polanski and Yasmina Reza from Reza's play Le Dieu du Carnage. Carnage is very funny but it's also very uncomfortable to watch in places as relations between the two couples rapidly deteriorate.

As Carnage opens, Penelope Longstreet (Foster) is typing an official document on her computer, aided by her husband Michael (Reilly) and by Nancy (Winslet) and Alan (Waltz) Cowan. The Cowans' son Zachary has, it seems, hit Ethan Longstreet with a stick, knocking out a couple of teeth. The parents think they are doing the right thing by talking things over among themselves rather than, say, issuing lawsuits, but they can't even agree on the right verbs to use in the document ("armed with a stick" vs "carrying a stick" is debated). Still, Penelope seems to think she is doing the Longstreets a favour by being so tolerant and forgiving. The couples don't have much in common. Nancy is an investment banker and her husband works in big pharma and fields a call on his BlackBerry about once every three minutes for the duration; Michael, meanwhile, owns some kind of hardware store and Penelope is an art-loving writer. The Cowans can't wait to leave but every time they try to do so (sometimes making it as far as the hallway), they end up starting--or being drawn into--another "discussion" with the Longstreets.

Tensions rise, apple and pear cobbler is consumed, accusations are made, expensive scotch is drunk and the BlackBerry is broken. And that's before we get to the projectile vomiting! At times, there seem to be temporary peace treaties; other times, the men ally together against the women. In any case, the sense of a proportionate reaction to a small fight between their sons is lost early in the film and the rest is taken up with four conflicting personalities, who can't help but desire to defeat and destroy one another. Carnage is reminiscent of Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf? in this respect.

This film could have been a fairly sharp, funny, sort of interesting perspective on the mores of modern, middle-class American, but the chemistry between the four main cast members really take Carnage up a notch. Waltz, as the big pharma director who has more important things to deal with than worry about whether his son was right to hit another kid (namely a nascent PR crisis), and Foster, who plays the sanctimonious mother who wants to be seen to be easy-going and tolerant but who is actually incredibly martyred and uptight, are the stand-outs. But Winslet, whose character really comes into her own after the scotch has been brought out, is also very funny.

Mama Can't Buy You Love

noreply@blogger.com (Bexquisite) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 17:11:00 +0000

This week is obviously the week for dominant, controlling mother figures in the movies. On Tuesday, it was Vanessa Redgrave playing the formidable mother of the title character (Ralph Fiennes) in Coriolanus; today, I watched the equally formidable Judi Dench as the mother of J. Edgar Hoover (Leonardo Di Caprio) in Clint Eastwood's new film J. Edgar.

I knew very little about Hoover before I saw the film. I knew he had founded the FBI (although not that he ran the bureau and the Bureau of Investigation that preceded it for nearly 50 years) and I remembered a little from Public Enemies but otherwise, I went into J. Edgar with a blank slate. And I don't think I'm much clearer on the real Hoover now, even after a two-hour movie, but that may be due to the controversies that emerged during his later years and after his death. Yes, he may have championed forensic science, fact-based investigations and the concept of a national crime database, but did he also lie, overstep his jurisdiction and rub a number of important people--including various presidents--up the wrong way? Eastwood's film tries to portray both Hoover's achievements and his personal and professional failings but this paints quite a confusing picture.

The movie opens in the early 1960s and Hoover (still played by Di Caprio, heavily swathed in prosthetics) is looking back on his career as he talks separately to two people from the FBI's PR department (actually, one of them may have there for another reason; either I missed that bit or it wasn't clear). First, we see the bright young Hoover being singled out--for his work ethic and his lack of interest in dating or starting a family, as much as for his ideas--by the Attorney General and promoted to the position of director of the then Bureau of Investigation. Through the older Hoover's memories, we see some of his triumphs--heading up the operation to arrest John Dillinger, tracking down the man he believed was responsible for the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh's soon and increasing the power and the remit of the FBI. Of course, we are seeing all of this through Hoover's eyes and, it seems, he may not be the most reliable narrator--we know he likes to be in the spotlight and to take credit for things that may not be entirely his own achievements.

Early in his career, Hoover hires Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer), a young, smartly dressed but somewhat under-qualified chap to whom he has taken a shine. This begins a deep but often difficult life-long friendship and, the film, suggests perhaps a closer relationship than that. Trouble is, Hoover grew up in the shadow of his aforementioned controlling mother, with whom he still lived until her death when he was in his forties. The relationship seems Oedipal at times but more than anything, his mother wants him to succeed and to bring glory back to their family name. She wants him to get married because it would look good and when he tries to tell her that he doesn't like dancing--especially not with women--she reminds him what happened to a kid they knew who was "daffy" and who ended up killing himself. After his mother's death, we see Hoover trying on some of her clothes and jewellery but this felt more creepy and Norman Bates-like than a representation of his repressed sexuality. Nonetheless, Tolson is still there with Hoover, right until the end of the movie; he died three years later and the two are buried close together in the Congressional Cemetery.

Di Caprio is excellent in this film and Hammer puts in a decent performance too, even though the prosthetics the older version of his character wears seem less realistic than Di Caprio's and are pretty distracting. I haven't even mentioned Naomi Watts's role as Helen Gandy, who was Hoover's secretary for over 50 years. As usual, Watts was good, though I didn't realise it was her until the end of the film! The structure felt clumsy: we keep jumping back and forth and then back a bit further and then further into the future. I'm also still unsure as to what we are supposed to make of Hoover at the end of the film: that he is a complex character with both good and bad in him? If so, this is fair enough, to some extent, although it would have been nicer for the film to come slightly off the fence, one way or another, and for the direction to be a little clearer.

Caffeine Crisis

noreply@blogger.com (Bexquisite) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 22:13:00 +0000

I've been pretty tired this week and unfortunately, my sleepiness seems to have coincided with a series of unfortunate coffee events. This photo illustrates what my desk at work looked like this morning. Clockwise from left: my favourite coffee mug from Joe in New York; the plunger from my Bodum French press inserted into the boss's Bodum filtre Belgique coffee mug; someone else's tea mug; my broken French press; the filter part of the boss's Bodum caffeination device; Papa's KeepCup* from the Missing Bean (Oxford's only independent espresso bar).

Because I am lazy, I use my Nespresso machine to get my first caffeine hit before I go to work. If it wouldn't feel too indulgent and if the machine were quieter, I might have bought a Nespresso for work too. Instead, I got one of Bodum's three-cup French presses (their "cups" are tiny because this makes a good mug-full of coffee), which produces pretty good coffee, especially when I'm plying it with a particularly nice blend of ground coffee (I usually buy from the Espresso Room). However, at work we regularly get emails from the facilities department warning us not to let a single coffee ground fall down the sink. As such, I get quite paranoid about emptying the coffee grounds into the dustbin and some mornings, when I haven't yet had enough coffee, I am rather too brutal with my poor little French press.

Earlier this week, I broke another French press, cracking the glass on the bin. As the crack was near the top, I tried making my coffee anyway, putting less water in, but of course, when I poured the coffee, it leaked all over my desk. The following day, I borrowed my boss's Bodum filter. I knew my coffee wasn't ground correctly for this coffee maker but I didn't expect the water to just fall straight through into the cup, taking only a tiny amount of coffee with it. It looked like black tea and tasted awful but I drank it anyway. This morning, I made myself an espresso first thing and then made myself a longer drink (I'd call it a dry cappuccino, although it's what you get if you order a double macchiato in Caffè Nero or similar) in the KeepCup to take with me on the journey into work. This tasted nice but didn't quite provide the second caffeine hit I'm used to.

As you can't replace the glass beaker in the French press model, I will now have to buy another French press. But perhaps I would be better off buying a steel version that I can't break with my super-strong arms. These are, of course, more expensive but given that I've got through two French presses in 18 months (or maybe a year), the unbreakable version might make better sense. And yes, I realise this post could have been tagged #middleclassproblems...

*I've been admiring the KeepCup for a long time. I like the design, they come in lots of different sizes and you can choose your own colour scheme. I haven't bought one yet though because I didn't think I would use it. I mainly drink macchiato in espresso bars but I'm not going to carry around a plastic cup in my bag just in case I decide to buy a coffee. As a commuting tool, however, it might work for me--especially on those occasions when I can't make coffee at work.

The Churl with the Dragon Tattoo

noreply@blogger.com (Bexquisite) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 22:34:00 +0000

Of course Ralph Fiennes picked Coriolanus for his directorial debut and of course he didn't consider anyone apart from himself for the title role and of course he cast Gerard Butler on account of the latter's "great personal charisma." I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to see the movie but decided it was better to sit through two hours in the big screen at the BFI Southbank than to have to endure three-plus hours in a theatre at some later date. So, what did I think of the film? Well, I didn't hate it and although I found myself almost drifting off during some of the more complicated politics in the middle, I persevered and thought Fiennes did a decent enough job with a crap play. Some spoilers follow.

Fiennes plays Caius Martius Coriolanus, son of the proud feisty Volumnia (Vanessa Redgrave), husband of the ethereally beautiful Virgilia (Jessica Chastain), father of a kid who get about two lines of dialogue, and friend of Menenius (Brian Cox). And he will totally have his vengeance on the people of Rome, who turned on him and exiled him soon after his moment of glory.

Fiennes' Rome is contemporary and is supposed to be any-city but it definitely has a very Balkanesque feel to it. As the film opens, the Romans are at war with the Volscians, led by Tullus Aufidius (Gerard Butler), and Caius Martius proves his prowess on the battlefield, capturing Corioles and earning the name Coriolanus, having added two new scars to the 27 he already has. He is soon elected consul but his political rivals, including Sicinius (James Nesbitt), aren't best pleased and manage to turn the masses (who have never been Coriolanus's biggest fan) against him, forcing him to flee the city. For the first half of the film, we see Fiennes' unflinching, pale blue, Snape eyes staring impassively from his blood-drenched face. During his exile, he grows some hair and a beard and cleans his act up and goes to find Aufidius, begging his old enemy to let him fight with the Volscians against Rome. Aufidius is suspicious at first but eventually agrees to take Coriolanus on as a partner in his attempt to take Rome.

The Romans find out about this development, mainly from the BBC News 24-like news coverage from "Fidelis TV" (presented by Jon Snow!), and send Menenius to try to talk Coriolanus down but to no avail ("this Martius is grown from man to dragon," he says--with a tattoo to match, it seems). Luckily, Mommie Dearest is more persuasive, telling Coriolanus to think of his wife and his soon and the children, goddamnit. And because he clearly has something of an Oedipus complex, he agrees to a peace treaty between the Romans and the Volscians. Aufidius, who has been standing around uncharismatically, has been won over too, "Yeah, OK. I was totes in tears too," he says. But before the ink on the peace treaty is even dry, Aufidius starts to think that he has been gazumped by his rival and sets his goons loose on our anti-hero (spoiler: he has more than 29 scars by the end of the film). "Dude, I thought you agreed with my momma," Coriolanus complains. "No, dude, you tricked me," says Aufidius. "It's all those long words you keep using. And that crazy old-fashioned slang. I can't keep up, man."

The first half of the movie is very violent but as with many Shakespeare plays, the final act is very talky and drags a bit. Butler's performance was mediocre and Chastain didn't have very much to do other than stand around looking pensive and trying to find the way of Grace; Redgrave, however, was excellent and Fiennes was convincing as the unlikable, arrogant Coriolanus. The screenplay contained only dialogue from the original play and this worked well, in general, other than seeming to confuse Gerard Butler at times. Fidelis TV, which pops up to update us throughout the film, was a clever idea but I found it a bit distracting--a little like a cross between Private Eye's Nursery Times and Brass Eye; besides, Baz Luhrmann used a TV newsreader to play the prologue in his Romeo + Juliet. Coriolanus is not a cheerful film and it's not really my kind of film, but if you like explosions and/or Ralph Fiennes, you will probably love it.

Dance Anthems Is Dead, Long Live Dance Anthems!

noreply@blogger.com (Bexquisite) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 20:41:00 +0000

I've written before about my former love of dance anthems (pronounced dance anfems, of course) but a random conversation in the office earlier this week about late nineties and early noughties dance music sent me back to my dance/trance playlist on iTunes. I used to own hundreds of these songs, most of them bought as CD singles, but on reaching university and embarrassed by my teenage taste, I deleted most of them from my computer and chucked the CDs. Since then, I've been slowly re-acquiring some of my old favourites.

For years I listened religiously to Dave Pearce's Dance Anthems on Radio 1 on Sunday nights, which was great because they tended to play a lot of the same songs week after week and there wasn't too much D&B, which I disliked even then. Yes, you had to put up with all the listeners who had been "having a wicked weekend, largin' it in Basingstoke" calling in with their requests for shout-outs for their Basingstoke buddies. I probably tuned in to the show a few times while I was at university and had assumed it was still on in the same slot but alas! It turns out that the programme was shunted onto Radio 6, to which I have never knowingly listened, and then finished altogether last spring. Alas!

I can't even listen again to the last show but they did include the playlist and I'm pleased to note that it seems hardly to have changed since I last tuned in: a nice little opener from Armand van Helden (which, I seem to remember, often opened the show), and then Liquid, Delerium, William Orbit, Matt Darey, Rui Da Silva, Paul van Dyk, Energy 52, Underworld, Push, Mauro Picotto and Rank 1, they're all there. And with the exception of the latter, which I have just re-acquired, every single one of the songs I've just listed is still on my computer (or on my computer again), proving my point about the repetition.

Anyway, in the name of nostalgia, I've put together a list of my top five dance anthems (this is all relative, of course; only the top two get four-star ratings in iTunes):

1. Silence (radio edit) -- Delerium ft Sarah McLachlan
2. Insomnia -- Faithless
3. Liberation (For an Angel) -- Matt Darey
4. Angel -- Ralph Fridge
5. 9 pm (Till I Come) -- ATB

Forgotten gem: I had completely forgotten about the Rank 1 song, Airwave (surprisingly, given that the song is also extensively sampled in another trance tune I did still have called True Love Never Dies), but after listening again to the radio edit, I conceded that either this or Café del Mar by Energy 52 would be my first reserve.

Blue Non-Suede Shoes

noreply@blogger.com (Bexquisite) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 23:12:00 +0000

My incipient Kate Spade addiction seems to increase with my bridge playing (yes, I am a loser but I do like wearing spade-themed jewellery while playing cards--clubs would be better still). I should really unsubscribe from their mailing list, partly because all of the information provided about sales and special discounts is only relevant for US customers and partly because I just get too tempted by all the pretty accessories. Last year was Kate Spade's year of colour, where each month they picked a different colour and released a lot of different items in that colour (and most of the colours were colours I liked). This year, it's the year of pattern, and the pattern of the month is stripes, which means they have quite a few nautical-themed products.

I went to the Kate Spade store in Covent Garden today to see whether their dollar-pound conversion rates had improved at all (they hadn't). Luckily, I had a movie to get to, so there wasn't too much time for temptation, although I did eye up a few items, including the hugely impractical but very cool travel magazine clutch and some jewellery. Annoyingly, I left my open spade ring at my parents' flat in France and I'm now being won over by the anchors away and sailor's knot rings, although I will probably wait for the next 30% off day. I also really like the sentiment of the New Year's resolutions-inspired range, including the eat cake for breakfast pouch. As though I need any encouragement.

I did make one purchase this afternoon, although not from Kate Spade. I've been wanting to get a simple, unadorned pair of dark or deep blue ballet pumps for a long time and although I did eventually get a pair of navy pumps from Joules last summer, I really wanted a colour that would work with black as well as navy. So this pair of deep cobalt blue pumps from Banana Republic (not available online in the UK) worked perfectly. They are also really comfortable and will work for the last few months of winter as well as in the summer. They were £65 but I've been burned before waiting for things to go on sale at Banana Republic and then discovering my size is sold out. As with Kate Spade, the US website of BR seems to offer a lot more discount codes than its UK equivalent, but as BR doesn't offer shoes or petite clothing online in the UK, it doesn't usually make that much difference to me.

"What Is Right Can Take on Multiple Interpretations"

noreply@blogger.com (Bexquisite) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 22:38:00 +0000

When I saw the trailer for J.C. Chandor's film Margin Call a few weeks ago, my first reaction was, not another movie about the evils of capitalism. To be fair, the two most recent such films were both documentaries and one by Michael Moore, so I decided to give Margin Call a shot, not least because with Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany and Jeremy Irons, it seemed to have a fairly solid cast.

The movie centres around a crucial 24-hour period in the life of a Lehman Brothers-like investment bank. It's Manhattan in 2008 and the shit is about to hit the fan, or, as CEO John Tuld (Irons) more delicately puts it, "the music is about to stop." At first though, we just see some suited ladies coming in to the bank, taking aside various employees to talk to them. Initially, I thought they might be the feds but it turns out they are consultants brought in to fire a lot of employees, including Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci), who is somewhat concerned about some important data he has been working on. He is ushered from the building by security but before he leaves, he manages to hand over a data stick to one of his analysts, Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto), telling him to "be careful." Sullivan looks at some of the models, staying late to finish off what Dale started, and the news isn't good: the company is holding some very dodgy positions in sub-prime and other crappy mortgages.

He tells his buddy Seth (Penn Badgley) and Dale's boss Will Emerson (Bettany), and slowly the message of "we're screwed" passes up through trading director Sam Rogers (Spacey) and two risk senior partners (Simon Baker and Demi Moore) to Tuld himself, as they try to decide what to do. The only real option, though, is to sell as much of their dodgy holdings as possible the following morning before their clients and the other banks realise something is up, a move that will probably kill the traders' careers because the people they screw over will never buy from them again and will, of course, tell all their friends.

Even though you know what's coming, the film is suspenseful and engaging, partly because we grow to care about or at least sympathise with some of the characters, although others are more stereotypical caricatures. Sullivan is a handsome and well-intentioned if sometimes naive former MIT propulsion expert ("so you are a rocket scientist"). Number crunching is the same wherever you do it so you might as well try to make some more money, he says. He's a nice, hard-working guy, though. Spacey's character Rogers is also big on doing the right thing, although clearly his job is his whole life; as the film closes, we see him trying to bury his just-deceased, much-loved dog in the garden of his estranged ex-wife. His world has just collapsed and he doesn't even have anyone to tell. Emerson is more ambiguous: he seems quite cold and ruthless throughout, not really caring that Dale and the others had to lose their jobs as long as his own was safe, and talking about spending a large chunk of money on booze, drugs and strippers and billing it all to clients. But when asked if he can be relied on to lead the troops in selling the bad holdings if Rogers chickens out, he just says that he's sure Rogers will do the right thing. "What is right can take on multiple interpretations," warns Jared Cohen (Baker), one of the characters on the greedier, self-aggrandising side of the spectrum.

Then there is Seth, who is a 23-year-old analyst, who is obsessed with money (he is played by Penn Badgley, who also plays Dan Humphrey in Gossip Girl). He is the kind of guy who asks his boss--and his boss's boss--what their salaries are and diverts a 1am search for his former boss to a strip bar. He's the kind of guy who watched Wall Street on DVD for the first time while at university in the mid-noughties and decided that Gordon Gecko was exactly the person he wanted to be when he grew up (I should know; there were plenty of guys like that at St Jocks'). Needless to say, when he realises he's probably going to get fired--despite his solid performance for the company and all his help during the 24 hours from hell--and goes to the bathroom to cry, we don't feel very sorry for him. "This is all I've ever wanted to do," he tells an unsympathetic Cohen.

Overall, then, there are good and bad eggs in this company, just like in every other company. Margin Call manages to convey this effectively without too many detours into the characters' personal lives. A scene involving Sullivan and an ex-girlfriend (played by Meryl Streep's daughter) was apparently cut from the final version, perhaps to keep this tight focus. With good performances from Spacey and Irons and, to a lesser extent, Bettany, the film is definitely worth checking out--if you haven't already seen enough movies about the banking crisis, of course.

Lady Day

noreply@blogger.com (Bexquisite) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 17:45:00 +0000

I went to see The Iron Lady yesterday, even though I suspected I might not like it, which is unusual for me. The reviews have been decidedly middling but I figured that there is a good chance Meryl Streep will win the best actress Oscar for her performance as Margaret Thatcher, so it was worth seeing even just on that basis. As it turned out, the reviews were mostly right: Streep is very convincing as the Iron Lady and Jim Broadbent is also great and very funny as Denis Thatcher, but Phyllida Lloyd's movie felt like it was somehow missing the point, or, at least, missing the interesting parts of Thatcher's life.

Part of the problem is the framing device: an ageing, present-day Thatcher is suffering from some form of senile dementia and having hallucinations of her long-dead husband. She is supposed to be finally sorting through and getting rid of her husband's belongings and while she does so, she looks back on her life and career. This framing device would be fine if it simply opened and closed the film but it felt like almost half of the movie featured the present-day Thatcher, rather than focusing on her rise to power and her successes and failures as Prime Minister. We did get to see some of the latter but it was mainly portrayed through a series of brief snapshots: "oh, I want to be an MP"; "oh, now I've got kids"; "oh, I think I'll run for leader of the Tory party"; "oh, let's take back the Faulklands." As such, the portrait painted was highly superficial and almost seemed to trivialise many of the events. The director may have said that the film is really about ageing but if you wanted to make a film on that subject, surely you didn't need to choose Margaret Thatcher as the central character.

I am, technically, a child of the 1980s but I'm too young to remember most of it and my knowledge of British politics after the 17th century is shockingly bad. The Iron Lady is definitely not the film to see if you want to know more about Britain in the '80s. My other problem is that I didn't recognise most of the politicians and so unless they were mentioned by name, I had no idea who they were, although clearly they were supposed to be recognisable. As I say, there were some brilliant performances in The Iron Lady but overall, the movie was poorly structured and too shallow for my taste.

On the subject of ladies, however, my parents were in town and we managed to get last-minute tickets to see The Ladykillers in the West End. I haven't seen either versions of the movie and wasn't sure quite what to expect but it was a great production. Peter Capaldi was excellent as Professor Marcus, and the other actors were good fun too, including James Fleet (trivia: the actor who played the father of his character in The Vicar of Dibley, Gary Waldhorn, was sitting behind us in the audience). The set design was also fantastic, consisting mainly of the interior of a crooked, spiral-staircase-filled house, which rotated to reveal the front of the house, next to King's Cross Station (cleverly, for a scene involving a robbery, small, remote-control toy cars and trains were driven on tiny tracks up the side of the house, getting around the problem of portraying an action-packed car chase). The Ladykillers was definitely much more fun than The Iron Lady...

Mitzy's New Friend

noreply@blogger.com (Bexquisite) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 20:51:00 +0000

I'm always attracted to handbags in bright pinks, turquoises and purples but because I often wear clothes in some or all of these colours, they aren't very practical. Although I love my turquoise Oliver Bonas handbag and my pink Anthropologie bag, most days I use either Mitzy or her smart Fossil cousin. But in winter, I pretty much live in my tan knee-high boots and since I also got a leather jacket in a similar colour, I have been in need of a new handbag in a neutral, non-brown colour.

A walk through Selfridges after Christmas introduced me to Marc by Marc Jacobs' Petal to the Metal Satchel in a gorgeous slate grey colour and as Harrods were offering a 10% discount to reward card-holders recently, I went ahead and purchased. It's the perfect size for me (big enough for my iPad, wallet, gloves, water, Moleskine, a book and more) and comes with handles that are long enough for me to wear it on my shoulder, as well as a detachable cross-body strap (I don't wear cross-body bags very often but it's nice to have the option). There are also plenty of pockets, including two zipped ones on the front and one in the flap, and enough internal pouches to keep all of my kit organized. I really like the gold bird sparrow hardware on the front, which is small enough not to be too blingy. Compared with Mitzy, the handles feel a little flimsy but Petal is really comfortable to carry and I can't wait to take her for a spin.

Marc by Marc Jacobs' Petal to the Metal Satchel in shadow

I love my Mulberry bags but I was never really taken with the ubiquitous and often copied Alexa and haven't been keen on any of the styles or colours since then (apart from the wildly impractical hot fuchsia Bayswater). This is my first MBMJ bag and, in fact, my first MBMJ purchase. I don't know whether Petal will be quite as resilient as Mitzy but I'll do my best to take care of her.

The Mission Remains the Same

noreply@blogger.com (Bexquisite) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 22:44:00 +0000

I watched the first of the revamped Mission: Impossible movies on the back of a school bus somewhere in Benelux. The small screen didn't really do it justice (I mean, Tom Cruise looks small enough on an IMAX screen) but it was entertaining enough--more so to my 14-year-old self than episodes of Yes, Minister, sanctioned by my history teacher, anyway. I never bothered to check out M:I-2 or M:I-3 (and it doesn't seem like I missed much) but as I had finally caught up with my cinema to-watch list, I decided to give the fourth film, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol a shot, despite there being too much punctuation in its title.

IMF agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) has been set yet another impossible mission: proving his innocence in the face of damaging allegations made by a range of women from hotel maids to journalists. Oh, wait, that was the other IMF. What really happens is that he busts out of a Russian prison, with the help of his crack team of feisty Jane (Paula Patton) and geeky Benji (Simon Pegg). In a recent botched mission, the IMF lost some valuable nuclear launch codes and must now recover them from a mad Scandi physicist (Michael Nyqvist, not looking much like Mikael Blomqvist) before he brings "peace" to the world through the medium of nuclear war. To make things more challenging, the IMF has been implicated in an explosion at the Kremlin, triggering Ghost Protocol, which disavows the team and means they have no help and no back-up and are going to have to work jolly hard if they are going to save the world and, more importantly, their reputation. Along the way, they acquire the services of government analyst William Brandt (Jeremy Renner), who makes even n00b Benji look like an experienced field agent.

If you like big explosions, cool gadgets and impressive stunts (Cruise reportedly did his own stunt work on the scene where Hunt scales the tallest building in Dubai using only a pair of 50% functional Spidey gloves), you won't be disappointed with M:I - GP. There are no great surprises and not much great acting but the plot certainly ticks along and Pegg definitely gives the stand-out performance, although he also gets the best lines. As for Cruise, he mainly runs around looking all serious, although I find it hard to take his running style seriously. Overall, M:I - GP is a solid, if not particularly special or otherwise outstanding, action thriller.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Take 3

noreply@blogger.com (Bexquisite) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 21:31:00 +0000

Much as I enjoyed reading Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and, to a lesser extent, its two sequels, I was wondering how much more time I was willing to invest in the franchise. I watched all three of the Swedish movie adaptations, the first of which was very good and the last two were simply good. This adds up to nearly 2,000 pages and over seven hours of screen time. The Swedish movies were, I thought, well-edited, cutting out many of the unnecessary and/or over-complicated sub-plots and, crucially, the excruciatingly detailed background information about the ins and outs of the Swedish legal and political systems, and making the movies watchable and edgy, if sometimes rather ordinary, thrillers.

But then along came David Fincher, who decided the world needed an English-language version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I like many of Fincher's other films, especially Zodiac and The Social Network, and I thought that if anyone could produce a creative adaptation of the book with an interesting new angle or hook, it would be him. Actually, though, Fincher's TGWTDT is a lot like Niels Arden Oplev's. It's still set in Sweden, the characters all speak with vague Scandinavian accents, and Stockholm is still very dark, cold, rainy, snowy and monochrome. Even Noomi Rapace reportedly turned down the opportunity to reprise her character Lisbeth Salander in the Fincher version because she'd already been playing Lisbeth for three years and couldn't face acting out the same old stories.

This isn't to say that I didn't enjoy the new film. As with its predecessors, it was long (2h40) but didn't drag and didn't get bogged down in the heavy research component of Lisbeth and journalist Mikael Blomqvist's investigation. Blomkvist, played here by Daniel Craig, who deigned to gain a little weight to remind viewers that Blomkvist ain't no Bond (not that this stopped him sporting some extremely brief briefs in several scenes). He still wasn't slubby enough for Blomvist and I would probably have preferred to see Michael Nyqvist reprising his role. Rooney Mara was excellent as Lisbeth, a brilliant but troubled young hacker with a penchant for piercings. Mara brings a hint of frailty to the role, whereas Rapace's portrayal was definitely harder. In this film, the character of Lisbeth remains a cipher, to a large extent (if Fincher decides to remake the second and third films, her character and her background will become more central to the plot). She and Blomkvist don't meet until about halfway through and even then, when they try to find out what happened to the niece of a wealthy industrialist who disappeared 40 years earlier, they tend to work separately, taking a very occasional break together in his bed.

TGWTDT 2.0 is not a bad movie, then; I enjoyed it a lot. It's just not especially necessary and I wouldn't recommend that anyone who has seen the Swedish movies goes out of their way to see the new film. But if you are new to Lisbeth Salander (or have just read the books), Fincher's new adaptation is a dark, well-paced, action-packed thriller and is definitely worth a watch. Trent Reznor's score fitted especially well with the mood of the film, the opening credits looking and sounding a lot like a Nine Inch Nails music video--unsurprising given that Reznor founded the band and Fincher directed one of their videos.

A Year in Leaps

noreply@blogger.com (Bexquisite) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 19:28:00 +0000

I have now officially given up on the idea of compiling a list of my favourite five songs of the year. In 2011, I added about 50 new songs to iTunes, of which only ten were released in 2011. For what it's worth, my favourite was, by a long shot, This Ain't No Hymn by Saint Saviour, which I've played over 60 times since October.

Far more worthwhile is for me to rank my top five leaps of the year. 2011 has been a great year for leaping and although I managed to whittle down my favourite leap photos down to a list of 12 fairly easily, the final cull was harder. Some of the leaps that didn't make the top five included: my current blog header, taken on Christmas Eve in Cannes; my leap-in-a-birdcage in London (best use of a supposed art installation); and my reconstruction of the original leap outside the Louvre in Paris. Now, here are the top five:

1. Highest leap -- Atlas Mountains, Morocco. This was definitely my highest leap--in terms of altitude, anyway. Our tour guide was highly amused by the fact that I would insist of jumping for the camera at every available opportunity, despite having a horrible cold.

2. Highest leap II -- New York City, USA. This photo, taken on the High Line in June, made good use of one of the benches to give me some extra height. Bonus points for retaining some of my modesty.

3. Earliest leap -- Nowheresville, UK. Not bad for six-thirty in the morning! This was taken at the very end of my college's May Ball in June. St Jocks' famous bridge was all decked out in college colours so it was too cool a photo opportunity to pass up.

4. Coldest leap -- Cannes, France. Cannes was actually very sunny and fairly warm this Christmas. However, this leap was taken shortly after a very cold and extremely brief swim in the Med, so it was lucky we got the photo in one take.

5. Narrowest leap -- Stockholm, Sweden. Mårten Trotzigs Gränd, the narrowest alley in Stockholm, provided the setting for this leap. It was quite hard to jump safely (hence the spirit fingers) but I liked the way the perspective came out.

I considered taking a leaping photo every day in this leap year but leaps are quite hard to capture well using a self-timer so I decided to can that idea but I may still highlight one leap per month. In the meantime, happy leap year, everyone!

My Top 5 Movies of 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Bexquisite) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 23:28:00 +0000

I broke the 100 barrier again this year, movie-wise, watching a total of 109 films in 2011, a few more than last year's 95. It was easy to narrow down my top three but ordering the movies proved more difficult. In any case, here are my top five:

1. We Need To Talk About Kevin. It seems like the 2012 Academy Award for best actress will fiercely contested but Tilda Swinton, playing the mother of the eponymous Kevin, definitely stands a good chance. We Need To Talk About Kevin is bleak and uncomfortable to watch. It's also a brilliant film, although definitely not good first-date (or any date) material.

2. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. As with last year's list, my #2 film is the only one I saw twice, enjoying it just as much--if not more--second time around. With great performances from Gary Oldman, Colin Firth and the rest of the ensemble cast (even if there were too many blonde-ish mullets), beautiful cinematography and a plot filled with plenty of complicated espionage and betrayal. The only disappointment was that a few of the lines from the 1979 TV series that my father recorded onto one of his many audio-compilation-of-TV-shows-and-movies tapes and played ad nauseam, ad infinitum throughout my youth didn't appear in the script (you can watch them here, starting at 1:35; "Officially, you're absent without leave...").

3. The Skin I Live in. I was hooked on this one as soon as I saw the trailer and although it isn't perfect, Almodóvar's film is dark, twisted and compelling, with Antonio Banderas starring as Robert Ledgard, the charismatic but troubled plastic surgeon who, among other things, is trying to create an extremely resilient synthetic skin without pissing off "the scientific community." (I work for a scientific publisher--which is thanked in the credits for providing journals for Ledgard's office, incidentally--and was amused by the characters' main concern about Ledgard's more ethically dubious research was what "the scientific community" would think, rather than, say, the police.) Almodóvar is definitely at his bonkers best in The Skin I Live in.

4. The Descendants. Sure, part of the fun of watching Alexander Payne's latest film was spotting George Clooney on the red carpet and watching him, Payne and the young co-star Shailene Woodley (who was great) talking about the movie on stage at the London Film Festival. But The Descendants is an interesting film in its own right and it's always fun to see Clooney acting against type (this time playing the family man).

5. The Artist. It's a little unfair for me to include this film in my top five over The King's Speech, when I only saw the former this afternoon and I watched the latter almost a year ago. But The Artist definitely lived up to the hype and engaged even me--a real stickler for good dialogue--despite having almost no dialogue and very little sounds at all, apart from the musical score. I'd recommend The Artist for cinéphiles and lovers of early cinema in particular but the sweet, if sometimes a little melodramatic (intentionally so) story of a silent movie actor who refuses to adapt to the arrival of the talkies. A longer review will follow.

Honourable mention: Senna. This is my token documentary entry and although it didn't quite make my top five, I really enjoyed it, despite knowing little and caring less about motor racing.

The Next Three Days
Paranormal Activity (DVD)
The Killer Inside Me (DVD)
The Children's Hour
127 Hours
The Young Victoria (TV)
The Boat That Rocked (TV)
The King's Speech
Morning Glory
The Fighter
Ocean's Eleven (1960; TV)
The Mechanic
Rabbit Hole
Hereafter
Primal Fear (DVD)
Jagged Edge (DVD)
The Adjustment Bureau
A Few Good Men (DVD)
Archipelago
The Rainmaker (DVD)
Another Year (DVD)
Fair Game
Route Irish
The Lincoln Lawyer
Source Code
Submarine
Scream 4
Oranges and Sunshine
The Color of Money (DVD)
Rosemary's Baby (DVD)
Let the Right One in (DVD)
Water for Elephants
Let's Scare Jessica to Death
Thor
Badlands (DVD)
Hanna
Along Came a Spider (TV)
Kiss the Girls (TV)
The Caine Mutiny
Les Ojos de Julia
The Contender (DVD)
Unforgiven (DVD)
Gli Angeli del Male
Senna
Killing Bono (TV)
Potiche
The Messenger
Taken (TV)
Incendies
Bridesmaids
Date Night (DVD)
Gone Baby Gone (DVD)
A Separation
Trust
La Princesse de Montpensier
The Philadelphia Story (DVD)
The Big Picture
Beginners
Witness for the Prosecution (DVD)
All the President's Men (DVD)
The Tree of Life
Mr Nice (DVD)
Project Nim
Sarah's Key
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
TRON Legacy (DVD)
One Day
The Skin I Live In
Limitless (DVD)
Planet of the Apes (1968; DVD)
X-Men (TV)
Jane Eyre
Kill List
Last Night (plane)
Midnight in Paris (plane)
Super 8 (plane)
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Drive
Warrior
Red State
The Men Who Stare at Goats (DVD)
The Help
Like Crazy
The Greatest Movie Ever Sold
The Ides of March
The Descendants
We Need to Talk About Kevin
Damsels in Distress
Anonymous
Contagion
Miss Bala
The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn
The Name of the Rose (TV)
Tabloid
The Weather Man (TV)
The Awakening
The Deep Blue Sea
My Week with Marilyn
The Other Man (TV)
In Time (DVD)
Ponyo (TV)
Margaret
Shame
Defiance (TV)
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
A Dangerous Method
Hugo (sadly in 2D, thanks to the Cannes cinema)
The General's Daughter (DVD)
The Artist

My Top 5 Books of 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Bexquisite) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 17:16:00 +0000

Despite my valiant attempts to read on my short bus journey to work, I still only managed to read 121 books this year—about the same as last year. Technically, I haven't finished Steven Pinker's new book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, but a) it is nearly 700 pages long and b) I should have finished it by the end of tomorrow. I found it relatively easy to narrow down my top five but less so to put them in order. In any case, here they are:

1. Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks. Yes, that's right: my favourite book of the year is found in the science-fiction section. I reviewed the book more fully here, but the reason it got the top spot was because even though I read it nearly a year ago, it has really stayed with me all year long, more so than any other on my list. Tragic, complex and witty, Surface Detail is easily my favourite Iain M. Banks novel.

2. Restless by William Boyd. I almost excluded this book because I felt sure I had included Any Human Heart, by the same author, in my top five last year or the last year. However, a quick check of my 2010 and 2009 lists indicates that somehow, AHH never made it onto one of my lists (I'm pretty sure I read it last year). I liked AHH a lot more than Restless, but the latter has the same haunting tone and generation-spanning, if not quite epic, plot. To atone for my error, I'm making Restless #2. In brief, a middle-aged woman living in the countryside in the 1970s slowly reveals to her daughter her past life as a Russian spy by sharing with her chapters from her memoir. The set-up is clever, allowing for those little earthquakes of realisation that I enjoyed so much about Never Let Me Go, and Boyd is a seriously engaging writer.

3. Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan. I read this novel because I was having trouble tracking down Sullivan's latest novel, Maine, which I still haven't read. Again, my full review of Commencement can be found here, but this story of four very different girls as they enter, pass through and graduate from a prestigious girls' college, rang very true (and is a lot less cheesy than I have just made it sound!).

4. The Submission by Amy Waldman. Widely tipped for a range of literary prizes, The Submission is another American novel for which I had to wait an unduly long time to read. A jury is convening to select the design of for 9/11 memorial and, soon after a winner has been chosen, the jury chair discovers that the winning architect is Muslim, whose minimalist memorial garden shares certain features with Islamic gardens. The decision as to whether he should be named as the winner is taken from the jury's hands as the press gets wind of the news. Focusing on the implications for the architect, several of the jury members (one of whom lost her husband on 9/11), a journalist and others whose lives were touched by the attacks, The Submission is a rich and often witty portrait of the political and social mores so common in our post-9/11 world.

5. Difficult Daughters by Manju Kapur. Set in the 1940s, during the time of the Partition of India, and is a story both of this liberation and the attempts of Virmati, the eldest of 11 children in a Punjabi family, to liberate herself from the expectations of society and family, first through her university studies and then through a burgeoning relationship with one of her professors, who is already married. Similar to Restless, this story is told through the eyes of Virmati's daughter, Ida, as she tries to find out more about her mother's life and her parents' marriage.

Meanwhile, here's the full list of the books I read this year:

Sunset Park — Paul Auster
The Tudor Queens of England — David Loades
This Bleeding City — Alex Preston
The Hell of It All — Charlie Brooker
Surface Detail — Iain M Banks
Palo Alto— James Franco
What You See Is What You Get — Alan Sugar
The Mind's Eye — Oliver Sacks
Germania— Simon Wilder
The Snowman — Jo Nesbo
Redbreast — Jo Nesbo
The Mammoth Book of Alternate Histories
Nemesis — Jo Nesbo
The Devil's Star — Jo Nesbo
Death and the Virgin — Chris Skidmore
The Unnamed — Joshua Ferris
Meeting Mr Kim — Jennifer Barclay
Restless — William Boyd
Berlin Game — Len Deighton
The Oxford Murders — Guillermo Martinez
Difficult Daughters — Manju Kapur
The Lincoln Lawyer — Michael Connelly
Proust and the Squid — Maryanne Wolf
The Leopard — Jo Nesbo
The King's Speech — Mark Logue and Peter Conradi
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother — Amy Chua
All We Wanted Was Everything — Janelle Brown
Sweet Valley Confidential — Francine Pascal
The Bonesetter's Daughter — Amy Tan
Killing Bono — Neil McCormick
The Nine — Jeffrey Toobin
The Great Perhaps — Joe Meno
A Favourite of the Gods — Sybille Bedford
Winning Arguments — Jay Heinrichs
Girls Like Us — Sheila Weller
Charly 9 — Jean Teulé
Room — Emma Donaghue
If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This — Robin Black
The Winter Queen — Boris Akunin
Case Histories — Kate Atkinson
127 Hours — Aron Ralston
The Shipping News — E Annie Proulx
The Report — Jessica Francis Kane
Kingpin — Kevin Poulsen
Sing You Home — Jodi Picoult
The Spoiler — Annalena McAfee
Daughters—in—Law — Joanna Trollope
A Secret Kept — Tatiana de Rosnay
One False Move — Harlan Coben
We Need To Talk about Kevin — Lionel Shriver
Only Time Will Tell — Jeffrey Archer
The Postmistress — Sarah Blake
Lucky Break — Esther Freud
Sister — Rosamund Lupton
Afterwards — Rosamund Lupton
Everything We Ever Wanted — Sara Shepard
Started Early, Took My Dog — Kate Atkinson
The Godfather — Mario Puzo
Moonlight Mile — Dennis Lehane
Gone with the Wind — Margaret Mitchell
Water for Elephants — Sara Gruen
Double Fault — Lionel Shriver
Commencement — J Courtney Sullivan
Girl from the South — Joanna Trollope
The Blind Assassin — Margaret Atwood
The Third Angel — Alice Hoffman
Caleb's Crossing — Geraldine Brooks
Brother and Sister — Joanna Trollope
The Confession of Katherine Howard — Suzannah Dunn
True Grit — Charles Portis
I'm Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59 — Douglas Edwards
Witness the Night — Kishwar Desai
The Sea House — Esther Freud
Moonwalking with Einstein — Joshua Foer
Law and Disorder — Tim Kevan
The Drowning People — Richard Mason
The Good Daughters — Joyce Maynard
What the Nanny Saw — Fiona Neill
Joanna — Nancy Goldstone
Best Friends — Joanna Trollope
Second Honeymoon — Joanna Trollope
A Passionate Man — Joanna Trollope
Palladio — Jonathan Dee
Our Kind of Traitor — John Le Carré
Submarine — Joe Dunthorne
Is That a Fish in Your Ear? — David Bellos
American Weather — Charles McLeod
Behind the Scenes at the Museum — Kate Atkinson
Adapt — Tim Harford
The First Wife — Emily Barr
Wild Swans — Jung Chang
The Lady of the Rivers — Philippa Gregory
The Submission — Amy Waldman
The Book of Lies — Mary Horlock
Player One — Douglas Coupland
By Nightfall — Michael Cunningham
The Fear Index — Robert Harris
The Sense of an Ending — Julian Barnes
Live Wire — Harlan Coben
The Marriage Plot — Jeffrey Eugenides
The Traitor's Wife — Kathleen Kent
The Unfixed Stars — Michael Byers
A Fool's Alphabet — Sebastian Faulks
blueeyedboy — Joanne Harris
Transition — Iain Banks
The Diary of the Lady — Rachel Johnson
The Donor — Helen Fitzgerald
The Deadly Touch of the Tigress — Ian Hamilton
Mary Boleyn — Alison Weir
The Litigators — John Grisham
Sarah's Key — Tatiana De Rosnay
A Long Lunch — Simon Hoggart
Sex on the Moon — Ben Mezrich
Gang Member for a Day — Sudhir Venkatesh
The Fifth Witness — Michael Connelly
All the Things We Never Said — Sara Shepard
The Post—Birthday World — Lionel Shriver
The Good, the Bad and the Multiplex — Mark Kermode
The Remake — Clive James
Thinks — David Lodge
The Better Angels of Our Nature — Steven Pinker

Royalty and Royal Purple

noreply@blogger.com (Bexquisite) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 21:38:00 +0000

After six hectic days in Cannes, I am now back in London, which means I can get a good night's sleep, uninterrupted by TGVs and rogue boilers, even if I do have to go to work tomorrow. On Boxing Day, I took a morning off from running, although the aforementioned TGVs meant I didn't get much of a lie-in. After some faffing, I went to read in the sunshine at Café 72 on the Croisette. I hope the Good Doctor did not object too much to me reading his new book, The Good, the Bad and the Multiplex, in Cannes, given his shunning of the film festival this year. Canada Chick and I then went to see Hugo in 3D, except because we were in France, when we got to the front of the queue and were charged for a regular movie and not a 3D one, the cashier told me that it would in fact be in 2D. If we wanted to see the 3D version, we would have to go to another cinema and it would be dubbed into French. I quite enjoyed the film but was disappointed that I didn't get to witness the film whose 3D was endorsed even by Mark Kermode.

Yesterday, we drove to Italy, stopping for pizza on the sea front in Sanremo. The French are surprisingly mediocre when it comes to pizza but Sanremo is obviously far enough from the border because my margherita was very good. Sanremo is a pretty town, with a lovely, hilly old town, which is a labyrinth of tunnels, archways and passages (not unlike parts of Marrakesh, although with fewer motorbikes). On the way back, we stopped off in Monte Carlo, which was, as expected, pretty blingtastic, the casino being particularly tasteful. We took a spin on the big wheel and, to Maman's delight, while we were waiting we got to watch the end of the Arsenal-Wolves match on the TV in the big wheel guy's booth (we did well to hold Arsenal to a draw). The Monaco royal family, it seems, were not in residence.

After a week of no shopping in Cannes, I went down to Covent Garden and Regent Street fairly soon after arriving home this evening. I finally got around to buying a new pair of trainers so that I can leave a pair of my older running shoes at my parents' house, which means I don't need to take a pair with me every time I go to stay with them. Sweaty Betty have some pretty good deals during sale season but they only had two pairs of trainers suitable for those of us with neutral gait, one of which was bright purple. I like purple but these shoes, the Asics Gel Tarther, were a bit hardcore and I was about to walk away when the sales assistant told me to feel how light they were and she was right! They were bloody light! I ended up trying them on and as they were reduced to £41 (£36 with my Sweaty Betty members' discount), I bought them. Maybe the sales assistant was trying to get rid of the overly bright shoes or maybe she was taking part in a bet. Either way, I like my new trainers and they will be great for taking with me when I go on holiday because they are compact as well as light (apparently they are the best-selling Asics shoe in Japan and so they have some Japanese characters on the tongue...).

Joyeux Noël

noreply@blogger.com (Bexquisite) — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 22:50:00 +0000

For what was supposed to be a relatively relaxed Christmas Day, it ended up being pretty busy, what with early-morning running and leaps, a walk to the top of the hills above Cannes (and leaps), a now traditional Christmas Day swim in the freezing Med (and leaps to warm up), and, eventually, the usual presents-and-dinner combination (being France, we had beef not turkey, happily).

The Bro rather stole the show on the good news front and he and Canada Chick will be joined, albeit civilly, in her motherland next year. All of the Champagne had already been drunk so we toasted them with a G and T (their names also beginning with those letters).

All in all, it has been a lovely Christmas. Happy holidays to you and yours!

Mad, Bad and Sad

noreply@blogger.com (Bexquisite) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 17:28:00 +0000

A Dangerous Method isn't out in the UK until February so I took the opportunity to see it in Cannes today (fortunately in version originale rather than dubbed into French). This makes the second film this month in which I have seen Michael Fassbender play a sex addict, although as Carl Jung in A Dangerous Method, his obsession is often, if not always, an academic one.

A Dangerous Method opens in 1904, as the troubled Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley) is brought, kicking and screaming, to a hospital in Zürich where Jung intends to treat her using a controversial new technique of one Signund Freud (Viggo Mortensen), known as psychoanalysis or, as Jung puts it, "talking to the patient." Spielrein, it turns out, was abused by her father from a young age but what is really causing her "episodes" is a build-up of the shame of having derived sexual pleasure from the abuse. Yes, thinks Jung, this is very Freudian indeed.

We follow the growing relationship between Jung and Spielrein, the latter becoming the former's lover and muse and, after she recovers, a psychologist herself. Jung loves his fertile wife Emma but she is only the foundations of his house, he says, while Spielrein is the love of his life (another lover is "the perfume in the air").

The movie also examines the relationship between Freud and Jung, Jung initially seeing Freud as a father-figure and mentor and Freud seeing Jung as the son and heir who will continue promoting psychoanalysis after his own demise. But they disagree over the way forward for their field and the dispute is heightened when Freud finds out that Jung has misled him as to the nature of his affair with Spielrein.

There were good performances from the three leads, including Keira, who managed a solid Russian accent and was just hysterical enough for Spielrein's earlier years, toning it down nicely as her character recovers, matures and suffers from a broken heart. Christopher Hampton's screenplay was tight and engaging, even if the time jumps, often of several years, felt a little too frequent, rushing the character and plot development. I can't remember if this film has been suggested as possible Oscar nomination fodder; I suspect it will lose out to bigger and better productions but A Dangerous Method remains a thoughtful and enjoyable story about the relationships between three notable historical figures.

Christmas Eve, Cannes-Style

noreply@blogger.com (Bexquisite) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 17:22:00 +0000

Well, with apologies to all those who woke up to a cold, grey or rainy Christmas Eve, the weather here was gorgeous again today. Papa and I went for a sunrise run and then we all went down to the market to buy food supplies. I was in charge of the bûche (Yule log) but finding one that wasn't excessively creamy and covered with accoutrements proved a little tricky so we settled for Paul's bûchettes.

We had lunch on the beach at Bijou Plage, but not before a quick dip in the sea—very brief in my case and only achieved by sprinting in at full speed and then falling over, submerging myself shoulder-deep. After lunch, a strong breeze materialised, forcing us to move on, but not before I managed a few leaps.

I then went to the cinema (of which more to follow later) and had a wander back home via the shops. Cannes at Christmas really isn't all that bad...

I Can Do the Cannes-Cannes

noreply@blogger.com (Bexquisite) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 21:53:00 +0000

After last year's Christmas trip to Cannes was snowed off, I was relieved to see the forecast of much milder climes this year. Cannes was 16 degrees and sunny today, perfect for a little afternoon stroll along the Croisette and a little light (window) shopping on the rue d'Antibes.

Sadly, even French brands are more expensive here than in the UK (the Chanel Rouge Allure lipstick I like is £24 at home but €30 here, for example). The rue d'Antibes was pretty hectic, especially FNAC, as the French rushed to do their last-minute shopping. Ive been coming to Cannes for Christmas for five years but it's still slightly strange to see the Christmas lights up amid the palm trees and when it's so warm.

We had dinner with The Bro and his girl, Canada Chick, at Vesuvio, a family favourite. For once, I didn't have a pizza, opting for an escalope of veal, which was delicious and which will need to be burned off with a run along the Croisette tomorrow morning.

Bexquisite's 2011 London Food and Drink Awards

noreply@blogger.com (Bexquisite) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 22:20:00 +0000

It's that time of the year when I usually start to compile lists of my favourite movies, books and music of the year but this year, I've also decided to do a round-up of some of my favourite new places to eat and drink in London. These places aren't necessarily new to London but I first visited them all in 2011 and being me, I've prioritised caffeine, burgers and gin.

1. Best new macchiato: Tapped & Packed (Fitzrovia)
Tapped & Packed has been around on Rathbone Place for a while but I only got around to checking it out when they opened a branch on ToCoRo. There is no sign outside--just a suspended bicycle--and the sugar comes in old Tate & Lyle tins. The decor is very minimalist and natural and it's a great place to relax and recaffeinate, away from the bustle of ToCoRo. Most importantly, though, their macchiatos are rich, smooth and delicious.
Runner up: Store Street Espresso

Tapped & Packed's macchiato

2. Best new brunch: St Ali (Clerkenwell)
If I had done a best new borough of 2011, it would probably be Clerkenwell. Although I work relatively close, Clerkenwell always felt a little too far to go at lunchtime. Nonetheless, I've been to St Ali a couple of times now. They roast their own coffee, which is gorgeous, but they also have a great brunch menu--French toast with sweet-cure bacon and syrup really hit the spot but most of the other options on the menu also sounded tempting.
I'm actually quite boring when it comes to brunch and I felt I couldn't nominate the Riding House Cafe again, so there is no runner up in this category.

3. Best new street food: eat.st (King's Cross)
Lunchtime at King's Cross used to be a rather boring affair. It was usually a choice between the not-exactly-cheap gastropubs and sandwich-type fodder. Now, we have our own food stalls on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, tucked away near the building site between the back of King's Cross and St Pancras. The stalls change from day to day, but my favourites include Homeslice (delicious wood-fired pizza), The Red Herring Smokehouse's posh bacon sarnies, and The Ribman's pork rolls.
Runner up: Exmouth Market

4. Best new cocktail: Experimental Cocktail Club (Soho)
I still haven't managed to visit the two cocktail joints at the top of my to-drink list (Callooh Callay and 69 Colebrooke Row), but I did make it to London's snooty sister of the Parisian Experimental Cocktail Club. I've complained before about the shocking service in the London ECC, but this category is best cocktail, not best bar, hence the ECC's victory, its signature St Germain drink being the best cocktail I've had this side of the Atlantic this year. London still needs to take a cue from New York on the secret speakeasy front...
Runner up: Purl (Marylebone finally gets itself a cocktail bar!)

5. Best new burger: Meat Liquor (Marylebone)
I first read about Marylebone burger-and-booze newbie, Meat Liquor, in Time Out shortly before it opened last month but because it is closed on Sundays and Mondays and because I've been so busy over the past month, I haven't been able to test out the claims of faultless burgers and fab, boozy cocktails. Meat Liquour doesn't take bookings and the queue can get pretty intense. Luckily, we got there at around six this evening and didn't have to wait long. By the time we left, at about seven-thirty, the queue was halfway up Welbeck Street. The music was loud (metal, mainly) and the decor was very cool: angry red and black graffiti scrawled over the walls, including the surprising central cupola, and very little lighting. Meat Liquour definitely gets bonus points for bringing some much-needed coolness to Marylebone. More importantly, though, my bacon cheese burger was, as promised, superb, and the fries ("not chips") and onion rings were also tasty. An interesting cocktail list fulfilled the "liquor" component; I opted for something fruity and with a hint of Absinthe.
Runner up: Riding House Cafe (see below)

Meat Liquor and its central cupola

6. Best new restaurant: The Riding House Cafe (Fitzrovia)
This was a very easy category for me to award. I've been to The Riding House Cafe five or six times since it opened in the spring and every time has been great. I love the concept of all-day dining--visiting a place first thing for coffee and some brunch, turning up for an afternoon pudding, or coming for cocktails and/or dinner--and the RHC does it very well. On most of my visits, I've ordered the following: a small selection of the sharing plates as a starter, the cheese burger (perfectly medium rare), and, if I have room, one of the chocolatey puddings. Oh, and the cocktails are great too; my favourite is the raspberry and elderflower Collins.
Runner up: Spuntino (it wouldn't be Bexquisite London restaurant round-up without a Russell Norman component)

"Dangerous at Both Ends and Crafty in the Middle"

noreply@blogger.com (Bexquisite) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 22:52:00 +0000

Sherlock Holmes doesn't like horses; not the Sherlock portrayed by Robert Downey Jr in Guy Ritchie's new film Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, anyway. "They are dangerous at both ends...and crafty in the middle," he complains when French gypsy Simza (Noomi Rapace) provides him with a steed on which to escape to Germany. I suspect Ritchie wanted Holmes's description to apply to the movie as well but although I was entertained, SH:AGoS, to coin an acronym, felt a little bit like Pirates of the Caribbean 2: fun but a little too long and not especially coherent.

I'll admit that SH:AGoS had a lot to live up to--not just on the basis of its predecessor (which I predicted would cause expectation problems for any sequel) but also because of the excellent BBC TV series Sherlock, which I loved and which is returning to TV screens anon. There are plenty of action sequences, stylish freeze frames and down-the-barrel-of-the-gun/cannon shots, chases and hilarious scenes with Robert Downey Jr in disguise. The bromance between Holmes and Watson (Jude Law) continues and is even amplified, despite Watson's marriage to Mary (Kelly Reilly) towards the start of the film and his subsequent attempt to go to Brighton on his honeymoon. Jared Harris (known to me as Lane Pryce from Mad Men) was suitably cold, calculating and clever as Moriarty and Rapace did her best but was under-used as The Girl with the Tarot Cards and a Potentially Wicked Brother. Naturally, Stephen Fry managed to steal many of the few scenes he had, playing Holmes's brother Mycroft--Sherlock may have worn a number of creative costumes throughout the film but he couldn't top Mycroft's birthday suit...

All the right elements are present in SH:AGoS, then, but the plot felt seriously confused. Much of what I felt was build-up in the first hour or so ended up being the main plot. There definitely wasn't enough craftiness in the middle. Again, this is partly a product of wanting to watch Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock instead, with his constant and infuriating deductions and genius; Downey Jr's Holmes has brilliant moments but they seem too brief and we see more of him rushing around and getting into fights. The latter isn't necessarily worse; the former is just more my kind of thing.

Make Every Month Feel Like Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Bexquisite) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 20:26:00 +0000

December 2011 Glossybox

I'm too much of a Scrooge to want to have Christmas every month but it was Glossybox's advert in last week's Stylist teasing me with the excitement of receiving a box full of beauty treats every month that pushed me into finally signing up (well, and the fact that you could get £5 off your first box with the code stylistdec1411). I've been following the growing trend for beauty box subscriptions since the end of last year when I watched a few videos from beauty fanatics in the US opening their Birchboxes. The concept is as simple: you pay a small monthly fee and receive a beautifully packaged selection of five luxury beauty samples; the samples are usually a pretty decent size and you often get at least one full-size product in each box. You get a little card telling you about the products and, in the case of Glossybox, a QR code with a link to buy them online.

The boxes finally hit the UK this spring and although a number of different companies are now available, I was put off by the price--at £10 plus P&P per month, they are more expensive than the $10 Birchbox. Carmine were doing an offer where you could get £3 off a single box, without needing to subscribe, and because you could see which products you would receive, I bought one but didn't subscribe. Meanwhile, I persuaded my beauty-loving boss to sign up to Glossybox and recommended the service in my Christmas gift guide. When I saw my boss's December box, however, I gave in and subscribed. We got a slightly different combination of products but my two favourite products from her box also appeared in mine. So, here's what I got:

Sparkly nails!

1. Deborah Lippmann mini nail varnish in Razzle Dazzle. I've been wanting to try a Deborah Lippmann varnish for a while but had never got round to it. I saw this colour in my boss's box and knew I had to try it. It's a glittery raspberry shade and looks great with my new Daunt Tote. £16 for the full size. Bonus product: one pack of Deborah Lippmann's Stripper To Go nail varnish remover.

2. Rituals foaming shower gel in Yogi Flow (200 ml). Shower gels are one of the products I always buy cheaply so it's great to get a full-size Rituals product. This one, containing sweet almond oil and Indian rose, smells great and I'm looking forward to trying it. £6.

3. Blink+Go make-up compact in grey. I haven't heard of this brand but I like this palette, with six eye shadows (greys and greeny browns), two blushes (coral and pink), a mirror and two brushes. The green and orangey eye shadow colours aren't me but the other shades and the blushes are pretty but I will probably keep the compact in my desk at work to top up my make up if I'm going out after work. £14.95.

Cargo lip gloss, Blink+Go compact,
Deborah Lippmann nail varnish

4. Cargo lip gloss in Morocco. Another new brand to me and Morocco is a pretty, rose pink, which gives nice shine and isn't too sticky. I don't think I got a full-size gloss (which are £10), but it was a reasonable sample and I'll definitely use it.

5. Bionova eye wrinkle treatment. This was the only product in my box that I didn't really like, mainly because I don't yet have wrinkles; I also have sensitive eyes and I find that anti-ageing products really irritate my skin. I might try to give this away, if I can do so without offending. They use lots of sciencey words on the box, like "nanocomplex" and "polypeptides," which annoys my inner science press officer, but who knows? Maybe it works. The sample is 4g, or about one third of the full size (which costs £43).

Overall rating: 4/5. This was a great box for me. I know I'll be lucky if I like four out of five products every month (I'm sure they made an extra effort with the December box, given the Christmas gift potential) but I'll give Glossybox a go for six months and if the average score drops below 3/5, I'll reconsider my subscription.

Christmas Wrap Up

noreply@blogger.com (Bexquisite) — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 22:02:00 +0000

Why is it that every Christmas, I run out of Scotch Tape with one more present to wrap? This year, I also managed to run out of wrapping paper when I still had one of Maman's gifts to do (it's one of the more awkwardly shaped items from my stocking filler/Secret Santa gift guide). I was tempted to run down to Tesco in my pyjamas at 11.30 last night but decided I should probably just wait until today, even though it meant braving Oxford Street again. I discovered that work has paid me early this month, which will definitely help my ailing bank balance (I moved too much into my savings account, forgetting it was gift-buying season, rather than over-spending). After a frugal few weeks, I picked up a new set of PJs from Gap, which were reduced to £14.99 and are very soft and cozy.

As for my presents, they are all wrapped now and ready for me to take to Cannes, where we will hopefully be spending Christmas this year, with The Bro and Canada Chick (his other half). My parents can be quite difficult to shop for at Christmas. Papa has at least one of most of the things he might want, whereas I know Maman's taste pretty well but she often has technical complaints, such as, "Why don't I have any stocking fillers?" or "How come I'm the only one who didn't get any chocolate?" or "I'm not sure about this one" (usually addressed to Papa, especially when he has bought something expensive and/or particularly thoughtful). It seems funny that when I was younger I got so excited about opening my presents, but rather like Damien in the John Lewis advert, I look forward to seeing others open my gifts to them.

Anyway, with only a week to go until Christmas, I suppose I ought to listen to a few of the 28 Christmas songs I have on my computer, my favourites being Bright Eyes' Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, Low's Christmas album, and, less hip, the original Do They Know It's Christmas.