Knives Out is a razor-sharp whodunnit with laughs

It’s nearing Christmas and as we head to the shortest day, what could be more comforting than a good story? And among the most appropriate tales for long, dark nights, then a good whodunnit must rank pretty high.

So we have Knives Out from writer, producer and director Rian Johnson’s, a movie offering a very up-to-date take on the isolated country house murder story.

In literary terms, Agatha Christie was the boss of this genre. Her books might seem light, but that takes great skill.

Here, Johnson shows no less skill.

The family of successful crime novelist Harlan Thrombey gathers to celebrate his 85th birthday, but the next morning, he’s found dead, in an apparent suicide.

Or was it?

When his will is read, it emerges that, shortly before his death, the author had cut his entire family out in place of his young South American carer, Marta.

Step forward local police – together with “the last of the gentleman detectives,” Benoit Blanc, who’s been anonymously hired to find out what really happened – and we start to learn that quite a few of the family had motives for murder.

This is really very good filmmaking. It’s a twisty plot that produces surprises until the end, with an added layer of interest in the subtle commentary on attitudes among some of the entitled middle class in Trump’s America.

The script is excellent – not least in Blanc’s overly verbose, drawling, southern character, including an hilarious diversion on doughnuts, and doughnuts within doughnuts. Indeed, there are a number of laugh-out-loud moments in the film and more than a few opportunities for a sly chuckle (watch for the final shot).

The cast is universally excellent, headed by Daniel Craig as Blanc and Ana de Armas as Marta.

Other acting nods go to Christopher Plumber, who sparkles as Thrombey, Jamie Lee Curtis as Linda, his eldest daughter, and Don Johnson as her husband. Toni Collette produces a very nice turn as a lifestyle guru and influencer who’s Harlan’s widowed daughter in law.

As Harlan’s grandson, Chris Evans gets a post-Marvel opportunity to show that he’s not as wooden as Captain America, while Michael Shannon is very effectively creepy as Walt, Harlan’s youngest son.

Thoroughly enjoyable – and sticks in the mind for some time after.

All badged up

The overarching message from today’s exercise in re-badging my leather jacket, now returned from the cleaners, seems to have been that you can make statements without appearing to do so.

I started badging it some years ago, seeing it as a very personal form of ‘rock chic’ and absolutely refusing to add any obviously ‘political’ badges.

Over the last few years, it’s attracted plenty of comment and enquiry. Perhaps counter-intuitively, I think it says more about me and what I believe in than if I’d dressed the jacket in rather more obvious pins.

Loosely, there are themes. And as Thomas Mann once said: “Everything is politics”.

So here’s a guide to my newly badged jacket.

From top left (approximately) – travel is good. We start with a flag pin representing Lübeck. This was my destination as a 50th birthday ‘thang’: I’d never been out of the UK on my own before this and it was a (long overdue) rite of passage to prove I could travel to ‘Abroadland’ all on my own.

I chose Lübeck because of Mann and Günter Grass and because I’d spent around 10 years teaching myself a bit of German so felt a certain confidence in the idea that I might be able to communicate at a basic level.

It was a fabulous and seminal trip.

Füssen? More German stuff – Bavaria; the Alps; simply gorgeous. Ties in with the edelweiss pin.

Then Thomas Mann – I have spares ope this pin; that’s how important it is to me. I loved Buddenbrooks … but then I read Death in Venice and my mind was well and truly blown.

The travel section includes Collioure – of course – plus Vienna, Sorrento and Sicily: all are special to me.

Beethoven is crucial: I love classical music and Ludwig in particular. And his 250th birthday is next year, so it would be poor tom leave him out.

That Concorde? A lovely pin, bought in Folkstone, together with a Spitfire pin. But at present, wearing a Spitfire could send out all the wrong signals, while this suggests European co-operation.

The Royal Opera House? Well, if you read this blog regularly, you’ll know why.

The Haring ‘resist’ pin? Haring at Tate Liverpool was my art revelation this year and resisting the Establishment and racism and bigotry in general is good.

The birds? Well, I saw a kingfisher this year and interacted with a raven (my absolute top bird). I love corvids in general, including those beauties, magpies. Red squirrels – only seen in Germany and Austria – but wonderful nonetheless.

Stephen Sondheim is a god, Star Wars is a big part of my cultural life, along with The Wizard of Oz (and as some of you will know, I’m a ‘friend of Dorothy’), while Captain Haddock represents comics and cartoons, and Shakespeare … well, I ‘dig’ The Bard big time.

This is how to make comments about yourself but leave others imply enjoying the colour!

For the record – all hail vinyl

Today was going to involve a trip to the cinema to see Singin’ in the Rain on a big screen, but a chill I picked up when my lower legs and feet got soaked while working outside on Thursday put paid to going anywhere.

So instead, the day has offered another chance to indulge in a newfound household love of music – when it’s on vinyl rather than CD or digital.

Like the predicted demise of cinema as a result of TV, the death of records as a result of CDs and then the digital revolution has been greatly overdone.

Indeed, vinyl has been making a comeback for some years – particularly with DJs on the club scene: after all, how does scrubbing work when the music is on a CD or is digital?

There’s been a deck in wherever I’ve called my home – it’s been the one removable piece of one of those stacked hi-fi units. But it hasn’t been compatible with anything else we had for at least two decades. Some years ago, The Other Half bought a Bose amp and speakers that would link with our digital music, but it never worked with the aforementioned deck.

And yet …

Last month, the OH decided he was buying a new deck. The old one could be used in our study to digitise vinyl.

He went to Richer Sounds (a very ethically sound company, by the way) and came away with a very nice deck. But it didn’t quite work with the Bose kit. I suggested that, since he has a ‘big’ birthday coming up in January, I could get him a new amp and speakers as a pressie.

He didn’t want to wait that long – so I got it early. From Richer Sounds – which company I really do recommend. Ethically excellent and therefore, with superb, knowledgable staff. We’ll be back before the end of the year, because it looks increasingly likely that he’ll get a good CD player to add to the system, as a birthday present for me. I fully intend to take up the chance to test drive what they have with some of my favourite classical recording.

When we get that, we’ll use it to check just how much better vinyl is than CDs – or perhaps not. But for the moment, the evidence of our ears – and our souls – is overwhelming.

We’ve listened to easy, classical, rock, jazz, pop, folk-rock … and guess what? It’s all better. The sound is deeper, warmer and less … how to put it? Flat. You can easily imagine yourself in a concert space or a cathedral or in a recording studio – in other words, somewhere with space. For the first time, I see the shortcomings of CDs and digital.

Because for the first time, I’m listening to vinyl on really good kit, even if far from the top of any available range.

Growing up, my parents had one of those huge radiograms – the size of a big sofa, but probably lacking in the actual sound department. 

Back in the 1970s, the first really grown-up album I listened to was Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water, when babysitting and reading my employers’ copy of Emmanuelle as a much-needed sex education. Yet I’ve only ever owned it as a cassette and then a CD. A new, 180gm vinyl copy arrived yesterday: it’s like hearing it for the very first time.

Herbert Von Karajan

Last weekend, with a desperate, almost physical craving for something lushly late Romantic, I got hold of a new copy of Also Sprach Zarathustra and the Dance of the Seven Veils by Richard Strauss. Recorded in 1959 and 1960 respectively, by the Vienna Philharmonic and Herbert Von Karajan, these are iconic recordings.

We had listened to a recording I'd had since the 1980s of the Berlin Philharmonic, with Von Karajan conducting, playing Ravel’s Bolero and Debussy’s Prélude à l'après-midi d’un faune. A revelation.

The Strauss was no different.

Hearing all these on vinyl, was extraordinary. I know them well – or so I thought – yet there I was, clocking things I’d never heard before.

It’s true: vinyl produces greater warmth, greater detail – and a greater sense of space: it’s not ‘flat’. You are suddenly in the concert hall or the cathedral (if listening to organ music or a requiem) or even the studio.

Earlier today, I put on my 7” of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody (copy from the 1970s: eight-track and all that stuff). A work that I am almost unbelievably familiar with. And yes – it’s warmer and there is more detail – there’s a shimmer of bells at one point that I have never noticed before.

Then I followed it with an LP of James Galway playing Mozart’s flute concertos and, by god, if you don’t benefit from added detail with Wolfie, then where do you benefit from detail?

I have orders on the way for some minimalist American music (Glass, Adams and Reich) and for the new two-disc Jonas Kaufmann set of songs of Vienna, Wien. Apart from actually experiencing music live, I haven’t been as excited by it for years.

And what do we learn from all this? Certainly that, while tech and innovation can give us new things that are good, they are not inevitably better than what went before. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater – and other such clichés.

Oh – and investing in seriously good hardware will produce seriously good results.

The Name of the Rose – TV for grown-ups

Perfectly timed for the darkening evenings and the spooky joys of Halloween, a new eight-part German-Italian adaptation of Umberto Eco’s medieval crime story, The Name of the Rose, has finally landed on UK TV screens.

The first episode, which screened on BBC2 last Friday and is now available on iPlayer, introduces us to novice monk Adso of Melk as he joins Franciscan friar William of Baskerville, who is walking through Italy to an isolated Benedictine abbey.

There, he is to take part in a theological debate between the Franciscan order and the papacy in Avignon over Christ’s attitude to poverty and riches. However, the pope and a member of the inquisition, Bernard Gui, are scheming to accuse the Franciscans of heresy and get rid of the order.

Then, when William and Adso arrive at the abbey, it is to find that one of the monks has died in mysterious circumstances.

The 1986 film with Sean Connery and F Murray Abraham helped bring Eco’s literary 1980 novel to a wider audience: it’s subsequently been adapted for the theatre and for radio – and has influenced a number of games – but this is the first television version.

What (approximately) eight hours over two promises is much more time for the development of the philosophical elements of the story, the scheming and the theological disagreements.

John Conroy’s cinematography ensures it looks beautiful, within and without, and it’s superbly lit.

The screenplay is a joint effort, from director Giacomo Battiato, together with Andrea Porporati and Nigel Williams, plus star John Turturro (who’s also a producer). Battiato’s direction is generally surefooted, although there are moments when dialogue is lost to mumbling – and that wasn’t even a good thing when Marlon Brando did it, claiming method.

Of the performances, Turturro’s William of Baskerville looks to be a delightfully nuanced reading, with the underlying sparkle and wit just kept in check, while Rupert Everett’s Gui – seen relatively briefly in the first episode – already seems a thoroughly unpleasant and oily character.

Michael Emerson’s abbot is also worth watching and Damian Hardung looks to be comfortable as the blank slate that is Adso: Peter Davison narrates as the elderly Adso and does so very well.

All in all, plenty to enjoy – and plenty to make one look forward to the second instalment. Catch up now – if you didn't see it last week – and look forward to this Friday. Sod ‘box sets’ – this is what TV is supposed to be.

• The Name of the Rose is at 9pm on Friday evenings, on BBC2

Joker is stunning – and that's no joke

You could be forgiven for imagining that nobody had ever, ever before made a film about a loner who turns violent, given some of the hyperbolic response to Todd Phillips’s new movie, Joker – a stand-alone origin story for the infamous villain in DC’s Batman universe.

The hysteria around Joker has been such that star Joaquin Phoenix walked out of an interview with The Telegraph when the reporter asked him if he thought that the film could inspire a shooter.

Quite apart from it seeming that, in the US at least, it doesn’t take much to inspire anyone with access to a gun – and while also being aware that a 2012 screening in Colorado of Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises saw James Eagan Holmes slaughter 12 people and cause another 70 to be injured – one can only assume that the Telegraph writer in question has never seen films such as, say, Taxi Driver.

But let’s set aside such stupidity and look at the film itself.

Arthur Fleck is a troubled individual: he has serious mental health issues and a condition that makes him laugh hysterically – even at completely inappropriate moments and irrespective of how he feels – yet Gotham is slashing the social services he desperately needs.

Struggling to keep a job, he’s treated poorly by colleagues, while trying to care for his ailing mother and work up the routines to become a stand-up comic.

Nothing goes according to plan and, as Gotham itself spirals toward chaos, with the rich establishment showing scant concern for the general citizenry, Arthur is caught in the crossfire. The results are both predictable and tragic.

Joker is dark art house meets comic book: Phillips has stated that the only real comic influence on his origin tale is that of Alan Moore’s comic book, The Killing Joke, which sees Joker as a failed stand up, but this goes far further.

It’s close to impossible to not empathise with Fleck’s appalling situation and not understand his eventual reaction. Indeed, this is key to why the film has such a satisfying emotional and intellectual complexity. Fleck is not, incidentally, an ‘incel’ and this is not a movie about those who identify as such. It is a film that shows a hyper-capitalist society that is failing badly, rejecting anyone who isn't a millionaire and descending into chaos.

It is a world in which anyone less than a member of some sort of entitled elite is ignored and neglected.

In terms of the DC universe, Joker also provides a nice counter to the idea of the privileged, entitled, conservative playboy vigilante Bruce Wayne.

In terms of the cast, Frances Conroy gives a subtle turn as Fleck’s mother, while Zazie Beetz as his neighbour lends real human warmth to the piece and Robert De Niro is excellent as a smarmy TV talk show host.

But ultimately, the film rests on Phoenix’s shoulders and wow … well, what can one say? It’s a stunning performance that, unless something really crazy happens, will be featuring big time come awards season.

You cannot take your eyes off him, from the opening scenes until the end. It is a mesmerising, monumental performance.

Lawrence Sher’s cinematography is superb – Gotham is shockingly claustrophobic even in the open air. Phillips’s screenplay and direction are excellent.

The use of music is also worth noting: the shift from easy listening to rock ‘n’ roll is superb in what it reflects – and I will never be able to hear Sinatra singing That’s Life in the same way again.

Ironically, in having not been made by DC Films, it is the best film made from a DC character. Ever.

This is a classic for our times – and my goodness, it feels utterly timely too.

Fabulous stuff. Possibly the film of the year – do not miss.

Zellweger shows us the isolation – and guts – of Judy

It’s not news that Judy Garland led a troubled life – or that her problems began as a child – but one of the things that Rupert Gould’s new film, Judy, does so well is to shine a light on those problems from a contemporary perspective of understanding about mental health and abuse.

It’s 1968 and Garland – pretty much unemployable and uninsurable in the US – is broke, homeless and about to lose custody of her two children by third husband Sid Luft.

Her only chance seems to lie in leaving them with their father in the US and taking up an offer of a season at the Talk of the Town in London.

But thousands of miles away, her problems remain.

In a series of flashbacks, we see gaslighting MGM boss Louis B Mayer during the filming of The Wizard of Oz, feeding her insecurities about her looks, while at the same time, she was being chronically overworked, forced to diet drastically and then given pills to quell her appetite/keep her awake/help her wake up – and sleeping tablets to allow her to sleep.

While it’s only barely noted here, her mother’s part in all this was not a positive one. It’s also a pertinent reminder that, while the studio system produced many great movies, it was also an abusive system of labour.

Tom Edge’s script in an intelligent one: it allows us to see and understand that, while Garland most certainly was “impossible,” the seeds of that had been sown long before she had any control over her own life.

While this is central to the film, it avoids making Garland a simplistic victim. She is vulnerable and emotionally frail, without doubts, but she also has guts. And, while she detests the “business,” once on a stage and with a loving audience, she comes alive. Most of all, this Judy is complex.

It’s possibly a good 10 minutes overlong. One could make the case that none of her relationships with other character is fully developed. Yet one of the things that the film achieves is to make clear the conflict between Garland’s desperate loneliness, her equally desperate desire for love and friendship – and her constant ability to push away those who care and want to help. This is isolation.

Jessie Buckley is excellent as Rosalyn, the woman charged with looking after her in London; Rufus Sewell turns in a neat, nuanced performance as Luft, Michael Gambon appears as impresario Bernard Delfont, Richard Cordery is suitably slimy as Mayer, Royce Pierreson is excellent as bandleader Burt and there is a delightful performance from Andy Nyman as a gay fan.

But ultimately, the film rests on Renée Zellweger – and expect to see her deservedly in the awards nominations lists next year.

This is no impersonation, but what she conjures is a really deep sense of the internal struggle in Garland: this is a woman caught between performance (even if dealing with hotel staff or a doctor), the pain of not having her children with her, her own self-doubt, her need for friendship and support, and her inability to maintain any meaningful relationship.

In the stage performances, Zellweger is more than equal to the task.

Garland was an extraordinarily gifted performer. This year is the 50th anniversary of her death – as well as being the 80th anniversary of the iconic Wizard of Oz.

Judy makes one wonder if, given the abusive conditions under which it was made and Garland’s career created, it is acceptable to watch the latter. Yet her films remain her legacy and continue to give joy. It is a positive from a negative.

At the end of the film, she asks the audience: “You won’t forget me, will you? Promise you won’t.”

No. We won’t. And the films are precisely what will ensure that her iconic status continues.

The wonderful ... WONDERFUL Wizard of Oz

We didn’t go to the cinema a lot when I was child, but memory suggests that the most regular period for family film-going was from around about 1968-1971 when we lived in west London and would pop over the river to a cinema in Putney. It was during that period I saw Disney’s Snow White on re-release – and was terrified.

This was still the era of two-film programmes: Snow White was my first cinema trip and it was paired, if I remember correctly, with MGM’s Tom Thumb (Russ Tamblyn, Terry-Thomas, Peter Sellers et al).

It seems fairly safe to think that I saw The Wizard of Oz at around this time – 1969 would have marked the 30^th anniversary of the film’s release and explain why it was back in cinemas.

Wizard of oz t captured my imagination then and has never stopped being an important part of my cultural life since – which includes being in two stage productions (as the Mayor of Munchkinland in a girls’ school production and later, as the Wicked Witch of the West, before you ask).

Last weekend, The Other Half and I went to our usual cinema to watch a single screening for the 80^th anniversary.

I know the film so well that I can mouth along with the songs and a load of the lines, but seeing it on the big screen for the first time in ... gulps ... 50 years was a fascinating experience.

Being in a cinema makes you pay closer attention than if you’re watching at home, with all the distractions. Never before, then, had I really appreciated Harold Rosson’s cinematography – particularly in the opening sepia section of the film.

As times change and history moves on, you can view cultural works through a changing prism.

Today, Frank Morgan’s blustering conman wizard seems like a harbinger of politicians and political leaders for whom bluster and empty rhetoric is all they have.

Terry the cairn terrier – cast first and paid best of all her co-players – really is more than a set-dressing. She’s in is much of the film. Apparently, when she broke a paw during filming, she convalesced at Judy Garland’s home – and Garland desperately tried to adopt her.

Margaret Hamilton’s Wicked Witch of the West remains scary – there is nothing to make her more ‘child friendly’ at any stage. There’s nothing to blunt the fact that, for instance, she is a torturer – not least in her psychological torture of Dorothy as the film builds to a climax.

And so to Dorothy and Garland’s iconic performance. Somewhere Over the Rainbow retains its magic – not least in her rendition.

She produced an extraordinary performance: there is nothing brattish about Dorothy: she’s a serious young girl – an orphan with (apparently) no friends of her own age; vulnerable at the same time as being self-reliant and with a simple yet strong sense of what’s right and what’s not.

There is an extent to which The Wizard of Oz is like Casablanca: there are many ways in which it shouldn’t work – or at least, not have travelled well down the decades.

The message of there being “no place like home” is twee and limiting. The film as a whole is arguably over long and, with the introductions of the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion, repetitious.

And yet, and yet ...

At the cinema we went to, a new generation was seeing it on a big screen for the first time

Eight decades on, The Wizard of Oz defies so much and, in retaining its own magic, reveals for us again why cinema as a whole can be such a magical experience.