All About Carmen, Bourne, and Keira

Carmen Jones: The African-American re-imagining of Bizet’s opera felt like a production very much on its last legs. Tsakane Valentine Maswanganyi playing Carmen had a throat infection we were told, and she had decided to battle on. Despite her incredible sass and stage presence, her airy, choppy vocals as she sang round her illness sometimes made you wish they’d sent on the understudy. Her leading man, Andrew Clarke had an unappetising tone, so with the two leads not at their best, it was down to solo performances from Brenda Edwards (ex of X-Factor, and clearly still having fun) and the stunning Sherry Boone as Cindy Lou to save the day.

Bourne Ultimatum: With action films usually dishing up cliche-ridden, lowest common denominator entertainment I have no idea how the makers of the Bourne Ultimatum have pulled off the coup of producing such an astonishing film. With a frenetic pace that just won’t let up, intriguingly shaky camerawork and impressively subtle acting performances all round, without a doubt, this film out-Bonded the last Bond. The most unnerving scene was the assassin loose in Waterloo station, which will certainly have me watching my back next time I wait for the 8.30 to Woking.

Atonement: Judging from the phosphorescent blue rinses in our matinee audience, grandmas will love Keira Knightly and co swanning and pouting around their way round an English country mansion in this tale of false accusations, love and war. The rest of us might wonder why they attempted to spread such a wafer thin plot over 130 minutes, padding out the screen time with jarring Tarantino-esque flashbacks and inappropriately beautiful shots of the Dunkirk evacuation. Someone was really going for the “Best Cinematography” Oscar and my patience ran out as rolls of low lying mist parted like the red sea to reveal the glowing Keira, who didn’t seem to have much chemistry with her male lead to add to the woes. The script would have made a good showy ITV1 drama, and that’s all.

All About My Mother: This Old Vic adapation of Pedro Almodovar’s classic Spanish language film was mostly successful. But something didn’t quite ring true about English speaking actors indulging in Mediterranean displays of grief and emotion, call me old fashioned. Lesley Manville lacked true depth or intensity as Manuela, which is essentially the lead role, but Dame Diana Rigg as Huma lent the production the necessary gravitas. The best laughs went to Mark Gatiss as the transsexual Agrado, with his soliloquies on life, transexuality and plastic surgery, which just goes to show that us Brits love a drag queen.

Note to Hollywood

I had the pleasure of seeing Notes On A Scandal this weekend, and Judi Dench was absolutely fierce as the obsessed stalker of young teacher and thoroughly deserves her Oscar nomination. The pace was pedestrian, but the denouement was electrifying.

But isn’t this just another tired lesbian stereotype being played out on our screens yet again? Lesbians seem to either be unconvincing sources of titillation for heterosexual men who can be “cured” at the drop of a man’s zipper, or unhinged pyschos. Judi’s character Barbara Covett falls into the latter category.

It’s particularly telling when in shots from Judi’s point of view, we see her casting her eyes over the alluring curves of Cate Blanchett as Sheba Hart. The message seems to be: Isn’t this creepy?

I’m all for cinema depicting a range of interesting characters, but when it comes to lesbians in particular, I don’t think the balance is quite there yet. The challenge for mainstream filmmakers is to show us a three-dimensional, non man-baiting, non-psychotic lesbian. Who’s up for it?

The Doo Scooby Code

After a romantic birthday meal on the Thames, at Le Pont De La Tour (Fish, chips and mushy peas – delicious) I thought I would treat The Chef to tickets to the Da Vinci Code, unwisely ignoring the critical drubbing this film received. Big mistake – because the film takes some groundbreaking ideas and presents them to the audience like an extended episode of Scooby Doo.

There’s the same over-simplistic explanatory dialogue aimed at people with the intelligence of a six year old and Tom Hanks resembles Shaggy on prozac with his “dragged through a hedge” look and mumbled autopilot performance. Meanwhile, Audrey Tatou has two expressions – “pout”, and “slightly surprised pout” – just like a cartoon character. On being told earth shattering news about her ancestry, she adopts the same expression you or I might when told strawberries are on a two-for-one offer at Tesco.

Suspension of disbelief was nigh on impossible. In fact some of it was comical, especially the self-flagellating mad monk – no doubt menacing in the book, but downright silly on screen. He would make an ideal villain for Scooby and the gang. Thinking about it, Scooby Doo is preferable to the Da Vinci Code – at least it’s all over in twenty minutes and not two and a half bum-numbing hours.