I destroyed the Old Bailey!(Και έχω τις φωτο για να το αποδείξω!)

Τώρα που είμαι μακριά απο τα νύχια της Scotland Yard, μπορώ να το ομολογήσω: Εγώ ανατίναξα το Old Bailey!

It is to Madamme Justice that I dedicate this concerto, in honour of the holiday She seems to have taken from these parts and in recognition of the impostor that stand in Her stead...

(Ζήλεψα που έχασα τα επεισόδια στην Ελλάδα και επειδή το κλίμα ήταν πολύ γιορτινό στο Λονδίνο, είπα να φυτέψω τα εκρηκτικά στο Old Bailey και να περιμένω...)

V for Victory! (click to enlarge)

And now the crescendo!

PS: I know of no reason / why the Gunpowder Treason / should ever be forgot....


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Hindi Special: Γιατί Λατρεύω το Bollywood

Σας διαβεβαιώ: Είμαι ένας φυσιολογικός άνθρωπος.

όμως...

Λατρεύω το Bollywood.

Η θεά Aishwarya Rai.

Γιατί έχει σκηνικά αφάνταστου πλούτου και αδιανόητου kitsch.

Χορευτικά μεγάλης περιπλοκότητας και ακόμα μεγαλύτερης σαχλαμάρας.

Γιατί ενσωματώνει τις χειρότερες δυτικές επιρροές και τις ισχυρότερες ανατολίτικες αντιστάσεις.

Γιατί έβαζε τις σημαντικότερες φωνές της Ινδίας, αυτές της Asha Bhosle και της Lata Mangeshkar. Μόνο που τις έβαζε playback σε ατάλαντες ανάφτρες.

Γιατί δίνει στο cliché (κυριολεκτικά) επικές διαστάσεις.

Γιατί έχει πρωταγωνίστριες με εκφραστικά μάτια και πανέμορφο στήθος (πρόσωπο ήθελα να πώ)

Γιατί αυτές οι πρωταγωνίστριες έχουν ως παρτενέρ χάλια - σε βαθμό φάρσας - πρωταγωνιστές

Γιατί απλά... είναι ο καθρέφτης μιας lumpen υπερδύναμης.

Dum maro dum (Hare Krishna, Hare Ram)
Η φωνή της μεγάλης Asha Bhosle playback στην σεξυ Zeenat Aman.
Προσέξτε το ανεκδιήγητο ροζ πουκάμισο με τον γιακά που φοράει ο πρωταγωνιστής/σκηνοθέτης Dev Anand




Neeve Nanna (Only you were mine) του Vijaya Anand.
Απο το Dance Raja Dance.
Ουδέν σχόλιο. Απολαύστε.





Bobby Deol και Preity Zinta, "Tera Rang Balle Balle"
Απο τα αγαπημένα μου.
Go figure...



Dhoom Tana απο την υπερπαραγωγή (με όλη την crème de la crème του Bollywood) του 2007: "Om Shanti Om"

Επαναλαμβάνω. Κατά τ'άλλα είμαι ένας απόλυτα φυσιολογικός άνθρωπος....


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Rabbit season!

"Bugs Bunny's first official appearance was in A Wild Hare, directed by Tex Avery and released on July 27,1940" (from the Wikipedia article)

Since then, the greatest rabbit of all times with the nasal timbre of Mel Blanc's great voice has been one of the most beloved cartoon heroes.

With great lines such as "Ah... we should have taken the right turn in Albuquerque" (pronounced Albu-koiki) and hilarious antagonists such as Duffy, Elmer Fudd ("Shhhh... be quiet, I'm hunting wabbits...) Yosemite Sam ("Whoah camel, whoooooooahhhh....") and the rest Looney Tunes characters, the Bugs Bunny films stand fast in the Pantheon of all-time humour classics.

(Duck season - rabbit season)


Happy birthday Bugs!!!

PS: What's up Doc?

The shadows of Paris.

One of the best songs by Henry Mancini ( possibly second only to Meglio stassera) from the Pink Panther: A Shot in the Dark OST. Great music and the lyrics are right at home.

Why must we meet in the shadows of Paris
where hardly a star seems to shine?

Why can't we meet in the sunlight of Paris
where Paris can see you are mine?

Have you come to me from another
whose lips you have tried?

Do you still belong to another?
Is that why we hide?

Why am I cold in the sunlight of Paris
where laughter and song fill the sky?

Why am I warm in the shadows of Paris
when I know that dawn means goodbye?

Have you come to me from another
whose lips you have tried?

Do you still belong to another?
Is that why we hide?

Why am I cold in the sunlight of Paris
where laughter and song fill the sky?

Why am I warm in the shadows of Paris
when I know that dawn means....




Goodbye.

PS Flying for Aéroport Paris-Charles de Gaulle, at dawn.

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Il Gattopardo pt. III - The film

"One of the films I live by"

Martin Scorsese

I end the Leopard posts introductory trilogy with a few words about the 1963 incomparable cinema masterpiece "Il Gattopardo" by Luchino Visconti.





One must first note that it would be really difficult to find a director better suited to direct such a film. Luchino Visconti (b. 1906) was a descendant of the Visconti family of Milano, the family that alternately with the Sforzas ruled Milan as Dukes for much of its independent medieval and Rennaisance history. As a young man he saw the two wars rendering any notion of nobility obsolete, a fate that was sealed by the rise of the nouveau-riche bourgeoisie.

Indeed, he shot several other films dealing in a similar way with the same concept of the decadence of nobility: "The Damned" (La caduta degli Dei/Götterdämmerung - 1969 ), "Death in Venice" - 1971 and "Ludwig" - 1973.

The film itself is exemplary in every way.

The photography manages to capture the essence of burnt flint that seems to insinuate itself in every colour of the sunblasted sicilian landscape.

The music was written by no other than Nino Rota.

The casting was superbly fortunate. Burt Lancaster as the patriarch of the Corbera family is a convincingly true Leopard, suave, noble and imposing. Alain Delon cuts the correct bella figura that Tancredi was supposed to be, a man of the new order of things, adapted to the manners, morality and compromises of the new less-than-noble era of italian history.

And then... Claudia Cardinale. No words for that woman. Absolutely no words for the creature that could easily give the legendary beauties that have supposedly walked this earth a run for their money.


The point of this post of course is not to laud an acclaimed masterpiece but to draw attention to some details that give the film the depth that an adaptation of such a novel truly deserves and I will illustrate these points with stills captured from the remastered bfi DVD release.

I choose to begin with this wonderful shot of the sicilian countryside. The picture alone makes one’s thought hazy, like a summer midday of merciless sunlight in the mediterranean. I can almost smell the hay and the horses… like the lazing summers of my childhood at Crete:



The Corbera family arrive at Donnafugata, where they are - in the customary (and surrealistically silly) way - greeted by the village band playing “Noi siamo zingarelle” ( “We are gypsy girls” by Verdi’s La Traviatta). Rota has followed the cadence and rhythm of this piece throughout his career. Extra note: “VIVA GARIBALDO” (sic) in the background...:



Probably the best moment of the film’s cinematography: The Corbera family attending the Te Deum liturgy, as another custom of their visits to Donnafugata, before even going to their estate to freshen up, the dust from their long journey by carriage from Palermo still on their clothes and faces, making their pose truly statuesque. Superb :



A shot so fundamentally “Risorgimento” that it has become a staple of its imagery: The plebiscite in Donnafugata:



And now the most striking detail that has left me completely flabbergasted… Sicilian Garibaldini singing “La Bella Gigogin”. This in itself is noted in the book and nothing too original, since La Bella Gigogin (Beautiful Teresa, Gigogin being a piemontese diminutive of Teresa: Teresa -> Teresina -> Gigogin ) was a very popular allegorical garibaldine song. However the greatness of the film was that its lively rhythm was adapted to sound like a Sicilian serenata, slow and almost wailing…!!! I do not know who had the brilliant inspiration to do this but whether it was Rota or Visconti, he managed to set the tone – for those who know - for the whole affair in the sicilian politics. The SI on their hats means YES in the plebiscite for the unification of Sicily and the rest of Italy and the dissolution of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Splendid:

A quindici anni facevo all'amore / Daghel'avanti un passo, delizia del mio cuore
(At the age of fifteen I made love/ come forth a pace, delight of my heart)

The reception at Donnafugata: The wealthy but ill-educated and crude Don Calogero Sedàra, and his daughter Angelica:

Don Calogero's comical entrance and his ill-fated attempt to shake hands with the Prince.

Note the expressions: Tancredi (Alain Delon) in rapture and Concetta (Lucilla Morlacchi) poisoned by envy and despair

Uncertain and nervous but still, the very image of loveliness

And the dance near the finale. I have absolutely no words. The old surrenders to the hands of the new, and a chapter of Italian history passes away in a swirl of grace, beauty and bravura. No words at all…



In the end:
"Noi fummo i Gattopardi, i Leoni; quelli che ci sostituiranno saranno gli sciacalletti, le iene; e tutti quanti Gattopardi, sciacalli e pecore continueremo a crederci il sale della terra."

(We were the Leopards, the Lions; those that will come in our place will be the petty jackals, the hyenas; and the whole lot, Leopards, jackals and sheep, will continue to believe that we are the salt of the earth - trnsl. by me).

The Leopard: Don Fabrizio Corbera, Principe di Salina, in his study, packed with telescopes and mathematical and astronomical papers...

PS: “But we shouldn’t waste sorrow over the aristocracy of misfortune” Count Hasimir Fenring, Dune by Frank Herbert

PS II: Click on images to enlarge...

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Rude Awakening!

Sherilyn Fenn, photo by George Hurrell

Today is the birthday of actress Sherilyn Fenn.

She is rather well known from her role as Audrey Horne in the "Twin Peaks" series and of course from her leading role in "Boxing Helena".

However, what I really loved from her work is the sitcom "Rude Awakening", which used to be aired after midnight in the greek TV.



Sherilyn Fenn stars as Billie Frank, an ex soap-opera star that faces huge problems, including sex-addiction, alcoholism and an insufferable rich, single mother Trudy Frank (Lynn Redgrave).

Although rather bitter, Billie tries to gather the pieces of her life but always seems to fail as various temptations draw her back into a dead-end. However her sharp sense of humour always seems to carry her through even when she is joking not only with her own problems but with the problems of others (especially fellow alcoholics from Alcoholics Anonymous sessions).




As a memorable punchline, Tim Curry as a guest star was quarrelling with the insufferable Trudy, Billie's mother, so she responded with something along the lines of "What do YOU know, you, with your last year's Armani suit..."

The show was a fantastic asset for late-night TV and it is rather unfortunate that it was cancelled after the third season (with greek airings not even reaching that far...)

Too bad.. anyway, Happy Birthday Sherilyn!!

Marie Antoinette ROCKS! : Nevermind the bollocks, here's Sofia Coppola!

I had a mind to write about Marie Antoinette at some point or the other in the women series, because I feel that she is one of the most wronged figures in World History. However this is something for the distant future, since there are so many other much more important women to cover.

Today I am addressing another major injustice, the one done to the film "Marie Antoinette" by Sofia Coppola.






Sofia Coppola is my favourite film director of the new generation. I agreed to watch "Lost in Translation" half-heartedly, mainly out of fanatical devotion to Bill Murray and it turned out to be probably the most innovative, romantic and dreamy film released in the past five years.

When I heard that Sony Pictures would not release "Marie Antoinette" to theaters in Greece due to bad reviews I was apoplectic!



Later I got the chance to see the movie on DVD and it was brilliant! Not a cinematic Masterpiece, not a Begman anatomy of the human soul but a brilliant movie nonetheless, a rollercoaster of wonderful costumes, fantastic colours and a fast-paced direction along the lines of modern disco and punk music, which by itself is a very bold, laudable and in the end VERY SUCCESSFUL artistic move.



I am writing all this because if this artistic experiment by a talented director is condemned by the critics to oblivion, then what should happen to all the total nonsense that is being shamelessly released as action or horror movies, like "Shoot'em Up" (starring, unfortunately for him, Clive Owen) that I spent last night trying to watch?

A pity.

Nevermind the idiots. Nevermind the bollocks. Go Sofia!!!



(along the lines of "Aphrodisiac" by Bow Wow Wow from the "Marie Antoinette" OST) :

Take an a-a-aphrodisiac, don't do no-no-nothing, just relax
Your ha-ha-heart goes piddle-pat, take an a-a-aphrodisiac

If you want to fall in love with somebody
Somebody that you're not in love with at all

With an a-a-a-aphrodisiac, your ha-ha-heart goes piddle-pat
Don't do nothing, just relax with an a-a-aphrodisiac

If you want to fall in love with somebody - hey
Somebody that you're not in love with at all
Exciting you, just make you love me too
Somebody that you're not in love with at all

I'm your a-a-a-aphrodisiac, don't do nothing, just relax
Gives you a a a heartattack, just take your clothes off, this is overjack

If you want to fall in love with somebody
Somebody that you're not in love with at all

Take an a-a-a-aphrodisiac, don't do no-no-nothing, just relax
Elephants is unagreed, wo-wo-wo-word to succeed!

A-a-aphrodisiac, gives you a a a heartattack
Don't do nothing, just relax, I'll be your aphrodisiac

Don't do nothing, just relax, with an a-a-aphrodisiac!!!

The Nightmare before Christmas: An observation and a dedication

Recurrent themes are the staple of poetics. They are usually motifs that we have come to recognise as universal truths or the natural outcome of things. Loved ones separated by the magic of villains, evil people having their vices turned against them and so on.

As it is, one of the most ironic things is to see otherwise powerful and clever people fall into such traps because arrogance or dire need or passion or a combination of all of these elements made them behave like cartoon villains.

I am saying all these things because several days ago I watched the digital 3D remaster of Tim Burton's "The Nightmare before Christmas". Among other poetic leitmotifs, it shows the time-honoured universal truth that a free-spirited woman cannot be trapped in a tower as a piece of property, like Rapunzel (as Dr. Finklestein, in the movie, tries to keep Sally the Rag Doll locked in his tower).

Indeed this notion appears in poetic creation about as frequently as the belief that no real gain can come from bartering with evil spirits.

This prompted me to write about Hedy Lamarr and how that idiot austrofascist husband of hers tried to keep her trapped in a meaningless existence as a simple showpiece. It is in times like these that one realises how blind to some simple facts people can be.

How can a wild spirit be trapped? How can lock and bars and pig-headed obstinacy match the wiles of a determined mind?

For some people, freedom is simply non negotiable.
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My dearest friend if you don't mind

I'd like to join you by your side

where we can gaze into the stars

and sit together, now and forever

for it is plain as anyone can see

we're simply meant to be...

(Finale (reprise) by Danny Elfman, The Nightmare before Christmas, 1993, Touchstone Pictures)