Chimerica, Almeida Theatre

We booked Chimerica ages ago because we needed a Saturday matinee to make our London trip complete, nothing was on that grabbed us, even Chimerica we thought sounded a bit naff, granted we'd only read the title and nothing else but we booked it anyway saying "I wonder if Stephen Campbell Moore looks like a turtle in real life or just in the History Boys film?"

Stephen Campbell Moore is incredibly attractive in real life! So was Claudie Blakely, but I knew that anyway, she's super cute. BUT the attractiveness of the actors played no part in how fucking awesome Chimerica was. The play had just opened, and we looked briefly at a Guardian review on the way just to see what we were letting ourselves into, five stars and the phrase "incredibly filmic" jumped out. 

The staging was amazing, a rotating box with sliding doors provides countless different rooms and settings, projections of photographic backdrops set the time and the scenes perfectly. Chimerica was like State of Play (the bbc drama not the US film), journalists getting too involved in a story, but this time a photographer getting in too deep, it was a thrilling scary and exciting drama with a believable love story dropped in! There were scary bits too! It was amazing, by the interval neither of us wanted it to end, it was the best most enjoyable piece of theatre I'd seen for ages, it was really great. A week later all the newspapers had given it five stars and it was transferring to Broadway. Enjoy it America! It's a brilliant political thriller!

In the House (2013)

I wonder what it is about Kristin Scott Thomas that the French like? That cold almost frigid character she always plays, is that what foreigners think the English Rose is? I have known women who come across cold and frigid, they always marry foreigners, I suppose anyone else would realise they are socially awkward, to the foreign eye they are just English.

Anyway, I like KST ok, she's fine but I found the way she delivered her lines was too English, surely the French audiences noticed this? She delivered her lines with the sarcastic intonation in the wrong places, right if you're speaking English, but weird if you're French. Vis the plot, again it was like people raving about Tim Roth in Broken, she was just a bit part in the background, it was all the French actors, her husband, the creepy boy and the family he gets involved with, they were the film, it wouldn't have mattered if she'd been there at all! 

But it was a good film, I think I'll make my dad rent it when it comes to the Library.

The Woman in Black (2012)

Celia and I had a tv day, we had a tub of celebrations and we had a whole load of other yums. We watched Something Wicked This Way Comes, a favourite of mine from way back, young Jonathan Pryce, you are super lovely and scary as fuck. We watched the first House of Cards and Celia fell in love with Urquhart just as I had, oh FU, you creepy calculating charmer! We also went and bought the Woman in Black and watched it. It was GREAT! YES, you heard me! I enjoyed it! I thought it was a good old fashioned make-you-jump Hammer horror film. when they relied on shadows and half seen things out the corner of your eye it was a hundred times scarier than anything graphic or gruesome! Daniel Radcliffe was best when he didn't speak, he's good at acting scared so he was good in the part. I also liked the dog and was glad it didn't get hurt! Fun times!

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

I wish I'd had a comfier seat because this film was long! It was good though, it looked good and it was a good one for keeping your brain going. It took a couple of hours before anything exciting happened though and it was a bit of a sausage-fest. No women apart from Tom Hardy's squeeze but then Tom Hardy was the Bond character in this spy film, Mark Strong was a bit at the beginning as well and I like him.

Anyway, was the book as gay as the film? The bit I enjoyed the most (apart from Tom Hardy being beautiful) was Mark Strong's heartbroken face and those big brown eyes crying at the end, AW! Sausage-fest.

The 39 Steps (1935)

The Robert Powell version was the first version I saw, it was boring, recently that Rupert Penry-Jones one was on TV and I watched it because my friend Calum was an extra, it was AWFUL. But I'm off to see the comedy play in London next week (for the fourth time in as many years, I might add) so I thought I'd watch the Hitchcock that it's based on to get me in the mood.

Bloody funny.

It was hilarious and exciting, I loved it and I can't wait to see the play again.

Rosemary's Baby (1968)

I really enjoyed this film, I thought it was a nice balance of horror and just good story telling. There was nothing gross, no gore, just suspense and paranoia- and quite a bit of unsettling comedy actually. There was a moment towards the end- probably when Charles Grodin turned up- when I thought "Jeez, maybe it is all in Rosemary's mind, maybe she's just mental!"
But it turned out everything was fine!
Oh wait, no it wasn't! She gave birth to the son of Satan!

The House that Dripped Blood (1971)

JD, Heather, Big Iain and I had a Dundee-horror night last weekend, I like horror films but I don't like gore, I like psychological thrillers. JD delivered with an excellent variety of pics, we started with two recent horrors; Pontypool (2008) and The Children (2008).

Pontypool was exactly what I wanted, thumbs up to that one, a real mind-fuck!! I fancied The Children because I fancy Stephen Campbell-Moore, JD lied though, there was gore in that film- gross realistic wounds!!- I don't like that!! I like things that will haunt my brain!

I'd had enough of realism. So after the two recent films JD asked what we would like next, I chanted "Catweazle! Catweazle!" I needed something light.

We'd both been watching Mark Gatiss' History of Horror documentaries on BBC4 and I'd enjoyed the section on British horror so much that I'd watched the horrible (but good) Witchfinder General so my host picked out this little gem...

The House that Dripped Blood, despite it's title and gross poster over there, contained not one single drop of blood! Just four little horror stories starring a collection of dreamy British actors! And when I say dreamy I mean I've always liked them; Denholm Elliot starred in the first, then gorgeous Peter Cushing- swoon, big handsome brute Christopher Lee and then, urm, John Pertwee hamming it up in the last- BUT with cameo from even hammier Geoffery Bayldon aka CATWEAZLE!!

Vertigo (1958)

Ah, Jimmy Stewart, well, he was just more convincing as a love interest when he was young and in black and white, wasn't he? But when the film turns sour he is utterly convincing as a creepy, obsessive stalker!

Another gem from Hitchcock. I loved it! You think it's slow and obvious, but it's not!! And you need that slow start for the rest of it to really heat up! After those first 70 minutes when it really starts I was gripped! And after another half hour I was on the edge of my seat! Oh my god! I thought I knew what was going to happen at the end! But I didn't!!

Phew! What a film!

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

Phew!
Suzie and I had a book club in Chicago, In between sight seeing and meal times we'd retire to the nearest cafe and open our books- her American copy with the Mason's seal on the front and my English copy with the key that appears only on one page of the book and is never used. Anyway, the point is it was much more exciting reading it with someone else, Suzie was always three pages ahead of me so I would hear her gasp and say things under her breath along the lines of "No way!" a minute or two before I did the same.
Yeah, I liked Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code (the first one especially as I read it in Rome) so I was really glad that this one came out just in time for my trip to America- a trip that involved 8 seperate flights (last one tomorrow). It was just as good as the other two- if you like that sort of thing- we especially liked the No-Way!-Chapter three quarters of the way through, and the Phew!-Chapter fifty pages afterwards!

The Public Enemy (1931)

Jean Harlow, sex-symbol. eh? Looked like a hideous troll-pig to me.

The Public Enemy was some sort of public service film to put people off becoming gangsters, getting mixed up in bootlegging and disappointing their Ma. It was terrifying! No exaggeration, I will have nightmares about that final scene!!

This was back in the day before censors, there's sex, violence, gore, all sorts of stuff! So the message was crime doesn't pay, they made that pretty damn clear!

James Cagney here in I think one of his first film roles, well, he was a sort of even-creepier Malcolm McDowell. I don't know how Jean Harlow makes it onto the poster she was in three scenes, what a sicht! The girl Cagney was seeing before her (the one whose face he shoves a grapefruit into- iconic/controversial scene) is very elegant and pretty, I suppose she would have been a drag though, too boring for a gangster. It must have been part of the message; if you turn to crime you will never be with beautiful women, only skanky trolls.

Anyway it put me right off crime, I did feel sorry for Ma and for the shell-shocked veteran brother (who seemed to smash all the furniture in the house), Tommy was a prick but that final scene was a bit much:

"Ma! Tommy's coming home from hospital!"

"Is he all right?"

"-he must be, or they wouldn't be bringing him home..."

A knock at the door, Mike opens it to Tommy's corpse, he is tied up in a body bag, showing is his dead blood-drenched face staring blankly, it keels over face first onto the floor with a sickening thud.

They all drank lemonade.... The End!