El viaje de Teo

We have heard of the fence between Mexico and the United States, but it’s still hard to picture fully what it’s like. El viaje de Teo, which screened at Cornerhouse on Sunday lunchtime in their Spanish language film festival, showed us the reality of this insane situation.

Teo is a young Mexican boy whose father has just got out of jail, and together they attempt to cross the US border with a group of other desperate people. Teo barely knows him, but shows a lot of solidarity towards this unknown man when things go wrong.

Eventually, finding himself on his own, Teo tries to find his father with the unlikely help of a boy not much older than himself, and they get to see firsthand the bad side of this people trafficking. Tenacity and courage get them a long way. There is a lot of unexpected and unselfish help from people on the way, and also nasty cruelty.

Life isn’t perfect, and thankfully the film doesn’t make this a sweet little story that ends happily on all counts. But it’s uplifting. And at times it’s funny, like the chilli eating episode.

This was yet another almost full screening. It’s good to see the interest there is in films from other countries.

Los años desnudos

It sold out long before it started, The Naked Years, in Cornerhouse’s ¡viva! film festival. So as I said the other night, maybe it’d be a good thing to have more screenings? There is another one on Monday, so worth coming for. There was a much needed short talk before the film, by Andy Willis from the University of Salford, in which he provided the background to this kind of ‘sexy’ film from the 1970s.

Los años desnudos is a new film, looking back to those days when sexy films were suddenly legal, and before they moved on to more hardcore varieties. It’s the story of three actresses and how they grow and how their friendship develops.

There are sexy nuns (I don’t even want to think about the effect of google searches here) and sexy prisoners and lots of other farfetched film scripts. If you can call them scripts. The audience thoroughly enjoyed the numbers dialogue.

Sleazy and generally useless or unreliable men are the same everywhere and at all times. Following on from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, this was another ‘women’s film’. Very different, but still oddly related. These ladies knew what they wanted, and they may not have had the right methods, but they did move on.

Loved Sandra’s mother who looked so pleased when she saw how much her daughter earned that she reckoned she’d willingly strip off herself for half that amount.

Very interesting film, which brings you back to that easily forgotten fact that Spain was only recently not a democracy.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

I think I’ve got it now. There is nothing like watching a film again. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which has just arrived in Britain, and at Cornerhouse, was pretty much the same this time round. But I think I worked out why it’s not doing well with the (male) reviewers that I’ve read.

This is very much Men Who Hate Men Who Hate Women, if you’re with me? The film of Stieg Larsson’s novel is the opposite way round to the traditional crime/thriller/adventure story. I think that may be why I like it, and that may also be why men like it less, even though they could be unaware of the reason.

Mikael Blomkvist might be a hero and he’s fairly intelligent. But it’s Lisbeth Salander who does all the cool stuff. She’s the really intelligent one, she’s the one who is violent, she’s the one who calls the shots on relationship issues. Lisbeth rescues Mikael (sorry about the spoiler, but you should know this by now), and Lisbeth decides if she wants to sleep with him. She runs after the murderer. She rigs up the security in the cottage. Lisbeth gets to ride the motorbike. She sleeps with women. And she has the cool tattoo, whatever your opinion about tattoos may be.

What is there for men to feel comfortable about?

Now that I’ve got all that feminist reasoning out of the way, what remains to be said is that this really is a great film. The book has been criticised for it’s poor language, but that’s less obvious in a film. Swedes are silent, so there is less to say, and less to translate. The subtitling was fine for the most part. Slight difference between murdering and killing, I think, but never mind.

Nice scenery of woods and lakes and empty roads and dramatic bridges. Lots of suddenly very old Swedish actors, and most of those who are famous seem to be in the film. I think there will be less call for a Hollywood version than seemed likely last year. The Swedish version is as it should be, and there is no need for either Branagh or Costner to get involved. Swedes do it better.

Doing it the Swedish way has caused one slight problem, however. It’s an 18. I didn’t see that coming, but I suppose there is just too much nasty sex and violence for 17-year-olds. The rape scene is unpleasant. The worrying thing is that you get used to it. But you have to have it, since the whole trilogy hinges around what happens early on in the first part.

NCIS – Double Identity

Let’s all admire new technology!

But DiNozzo’s wet socks can go. Episode 17 was a very run-of-the-mill kind of affair. Ordinary crime and more of a stay-at-home feel for the team. Ducky’s ties were more worrying than DiNozzo’s wet sock.

Ducky reckons he needs to evolve; hence the ties instead of bow ties. We don’t like the new ties, so they had better go. So had the reason for them. Sorry Ducky. Abby is training a new puppy for someone, but I’m not sure it’s good to ‘take your – or someone else’s – puppy to work’, especially if work is a place for dead people.

It’s finally goodbye to Mrs Mallard, sad though it is. Nina Foch, the actress, died a long time ago, while Ducky’ mother has ‘lingered’.

Haven’t seen Gibbs resting and lying down on the job in autopsy for a very long time. He needs to be careful.

(Photos © CBS)

Mal día para pescar

Or Bad Day To Go Fishing, which it certainly was. Not that it was fishing as such. Bad day it definitely was, and remind me not to need an ambulance or emergency medical care in Uruguay. I think Mal día para pescar was set in the past, 1980s or some time, which may explain some of the antiquated health services available.

The Cornerhouse Spanish language film festival’s screening of this Uruguayan film was very popular, with a nearly full auditorium and latecomers continuing to arrive after the film started. That could be an argument for showing ads and trailers, otherwise it’s always a relief not to have them. There could even be an argument for one more screening of an excellent film like this.

You get conmen everywhere and at all times. This was no different. Gary Piquer as Prince Orsini (yes, really) tours the country in the company of his East German wrestler Jacob, a former world champion, but now rather the worse for wear. In each town Jacob challenges the locals to have a go at wrestling him, in the hopes of winning $1000. They never do. This is presumably because Prince Orsini does not play fair and makes sure he doesn’t have to part with money he doesn’t actually have.

Except, in this latest town where a woman is hellbent on her boyfriend winning them the money for their wedding. Orsini tries everything he can think of to prevent it. He uses the local newspaper editor to do some of his trickery for him, he thinks, but the rather amused looking editor seems capable of looking after himself.

Things go wrong, as they have to with this set up. But perhaps not in the way you imagine. There are winners and there are losers in this sad and ugly game.

Some of the dialogue is in English, as Orsini’s wrestler doesn’t speak Spanish. Gary Piquer speaks very good English, which may be explained by him being born in Scotland, according to IMDb. And Jacob is no ex-German. I was thinking Swede, but he’s Finnish. Nice boy, anyway, when he’s not going berserk.

Percy Jackson

They had better have more films planned soon or half made already, since that Logan Lerman isn’t going to stay young much longer. In fact, the Percy Jackson actor is already 18, and Percy is much younger than that. I’m fairly sure that in the book he doesn’t drive. He did in the film.

It wasn’t a marvellous film, but it was OK. Better than the half of the book that I managed before giving up a few years ago. I’d say it’s quite good for the Greek myths. Once you’ve watched this, it’s likely that the few myths behind the adventure will remain as knowledge. Anything which reinforces half known facts is welcome, and I was pleased with myself for getting the Medusa angle before it was made obvious.

Speaking of dear Medusa, those who left the cinema while the credits ran missed a little something towards the very end. Now that people no longer need to run in order to avoid the national anthem, it can be worth hanging on a bit to see what film makers put in after or in the middle of the credits.

Had been impressed – as usual – that there were a few big names in the film. They were cameos, really, with the possible exception of Pierce Brosnan as a horse. Centaur, I mean. His front half wasn’t bad looking. I liked Catherine Keener a lot more in this, so maybe she’s growing on me.

I kept getting confused, since when Pierce suggested going to Olympus, I kept thinking trips to Greece, when in actual fact Olympus had moved to Manhattan, so they didn’t have far to go.

The reasons behind Rick Riordan’s books were skated over rather quickly. A few mentions of dyslexia and ADHD, and that was it. But maybe we have to be grateful for anything that can give children with one or both of those problems some screen exposure.

¡viva!

We should have been there, at Cornerhouse, for the grand opening of  ¡viva!, their Spanish and Latin American film festival. The 16th, I believe. But I was indisposed, so had to cancel. I don’t mind not getting the free drink so much, as not getting to see Solo Quiero Caminar, which was the opening film. It’s on again on Monday evening, and if I can manage it, I’ll go then. But it may require a minor miracle, so we’ll have to see.

Anyway, ¡viva! has a good programme, and I’ll be trying to fit in as many of the films as I can manage over the next three weeks. Most films are only on a couple of times each, so do check the programme carefully.

New Roger Whittaker tour dates

I’d heard the whispers for a week or two, but now it’s official. Roger Whittaker has another tour in Germany and Austria planned for next spring. Great news for us all, but mostly for the fans in Germany. There’s at least twenty venues and dates, so it should be possible for most to find one they can attend.

As for the rest of us, it can be hard to know what you are doing twelve months on, so buying concert tickets is an uncertain thing, and you can’t know how to travel there this much in advance.

It’s very tempting, though. While there have been rumours of another tour in the UK or in Denmark, they don’t appear to have materialised. And to be honest, I prefer the German concerts. They may be harder to get to, and are not cheap when everything is taken into account. But the concerts are so much more fun.

So, what to do?

NCIS – Mother’s Day

This may well qualify as the worst ever episode of NCIS, and with over 150 to choose from, that’s not bad going. Well, it is. But something has to be at the bottom, to prop up all the others.

There are lots of reasons for this, and the main one is that they put so many wrong decisions together in the one episode.

You can’t really have someone like the Director of a Federal Agency condone what Gibbs did. Gibbs shouldn’t have done it, and since he did, Vance should have dealt with it more appropriately. As many fans have said already, it’s somewhat unlikely to have all these people connected to Gibbs witnessing crimes all the time. You could introduce friends and family as just that.

For Gibbs’s mother-in-law to be Shannon’s mother, and for them to be estranged. I don’t know. It didn’t feel right. Gena Rowlands was excellent as the unpleasant mother-in-law, and old enough, if that isn’t a rude observation.

Flashbacks with Sean Harmon as the young Gibbs… Nice for Sean, but he had to be well over 18 in this and he didn’t look it, until it was eight years later and Mark Harmon, who definitely looked more than the 33 or so that Gibbs would have been.

I know. It’s only nerds who sit at home calculating these things.

And the ghastly lawyer was back and she and Gibbs were far too friendly. I can see what he needed to use her for, but what happened to get them to this stage? Keep us guessing – and fuming – by all means, but we need to be in on this, too.

Other than all this, I quite liked it. Palmer was funny, although his girlfriend was a little OTT.

Gibbs in the gents, mopping himself after what must have been a good cry? Hmm.

Interested to see that some fans on Special Ops thinks Gibbs should get less screen time now, because so many new fans are young and crave the younger characters more. What are they watching NCIS for then? And did they ever consider that old women need someone long out of nappies to drool over? Did they? I mean, I like McGee, but I’m old enough to be his mother. In which case I’d be married to Donald Bellisario, and that would be seriously weird.

(Photos © CBS)

Sven Hedlund is 65

Time flies. I’m sure it wasn’t terribly long ago that the sweet looking young man from Valentine’s Day was twenty. Now he is 65. Today.

The photo is from Graceland, I believe, and I’ve ‘borrowed’ it from the man who is responsible for photos and things to do with Svenne’s new CD SVENNE SINGS ELVIS IN MEMPHIS. His first Elvis album came in 1967, and was one of the first LPs I ever bought. They used to cost a fortune!

Anyway, I think a nice car photo is appropriate. The car is nice, too. Not just the photo. And the 65-year-old isn’t bad.