Good Persons

Not all actors who emerge from a serial success like E.R. become as well known as George Clooney. Having worked with Julianna Margulies in 'Paradise Road', I wondered where she had been for a while. Now I know. She took time off to have a family and then looked about for a suitable vehicle for her return. 'The Good Wife' is it and a worthy role it is too. Not in the Frank and Ernest tradition but in the 'this is what happens in life' tradition, with all the subtleties and challenges being a grown women in the professional world can present.

For her erring husband there is no one better than Chris Noth. He is every one's idea of a good sort, no matter how bad his roles make him and fits so easily into the various types of challenging partner most women have had that it is good to know he IS happily partnered and has a young child. Noth is also a poet, builder of log cabins and owner of several restaurants in America. No wonder he is known for his wide warm smile!

The episode last week showed a scene were the two as Mr and Mrs Florick had a 'conjugal' visit in gaol which was enough to put anyone off A. marrying a goal bird and B. being one.

This series is set in Chicago and boasts a really marvelous support cast including Christine Baranski whose attitude to the newcomer in her law firm is fabulously two faced. Superficially delighted to see another woman in the workplace she never the less wages a quiet war against her escalating success rate. There are no trite plot lines in this which may be the result of a husband and wife writing team, Robert and Michelle King.


I look forward to this every week and that's not easy to say these days!

To watch a trailer of 'The Good Wife' click here:

I Told You So!

I spent most of yesterday trying to avoid hearing Oscar news so I could watch it last night with some friends. Its a tricky act and I didn't make it. I knew 'Hurt Locker' came in as it is so extraordinary that it popped up in the main news sections on most media.

Of the film's Best Picture Award, Sandra Hall - film critic for the Sydney Morning Herald, told me 'The Hurt Locker' had almost been pulled for review, so little confidence did they have in it! These sort of upsets, when great blockbusters like 'Avatar' are raking in the dollars are quite unusual. Unusual for a woman director of a war film, unusual for a film without a major star and unusual for the editing, sound mixing and script writing to achieve such acclaim in this world wide forum for film!

I loved the 'The Hurt Locker' and I am still stunned at Kathryn Bigelow's achievement. What a world we live in when all those years of feminism have led us to this radiant woman and her muscular achievement illuminated with such wit and warmth that despite the hellfire, there is something infinitely beautiful about the story.

She had collaborated with Mark Boal on another story about war,'The Valley of Elah' which was a lot darker.They are a great combo and you only have to see their acceptance speeches to realise how shocked about their six awards they were themselves. Kathryn Bigelow looked as though she had to mentally keep herself upright! It was a delight to see her trio of lead actors line up arm in arm behind her too.

So...here's to you:

Kathryn Bigelow - Best Director
Mark Boal - Best Original Screenplay
Bob Murawski and Chris Innis - Best Achievement in Film Editing
Paul N. J. Ottosson - Best Achievement in Sound Editing
Ray Becket and Paul N. J Ott0sson -Best Achievement in Sound Mixing
THE HURT LOCKER - BEST MOTION PICTURE OF THE YEAR!
Click here to see a Kathryn Bigelow post Oscar interview:

Stand up that Girl.

I am a child of war. I am the daughter of a soldier and granddaughter and niece. I grew up surrounded by men and women who had fought and survived a world war. I remember our vicar used to creak down the aisle on one false leg (blown off in aerial combat) and my piano teacher had half one hand sheared off (hit by a doodle bug when riding her bike). I like and admire soldiers and I always feel revulsion when confronted by indulgent or melodramatic soldiery in movies. This is not one of them.

Right from the start you're in there with the American bomb disposal unit in Iraq. There is little if any music and the style is sparse and realistic. Now just how realistic is a moot point as the director is a woman and she is filming only miles away from the real Iraqi border. Added to this she is a person of some composure when constantly asked about her gender. The truth of the matter is that she is an attractive, stylish woman who leaves no fat on her product.

I think gongs of all varieties must go to her, her Actors, her scintillating Sound designer (I could have sworn the bullet casings of one gun battle ricocheted round the back of my seat),the Editor and Director of Photography.

The cast and crew shot in Jordan with Iraqi extras. There were few frills and they were hot and bothered. You will recognise some faces but particularly a new star in Jeremy Renner - an actor with serial killers and vampires in his repertoire. But if all this puts you off, beware. There are grace notes amongst these events that will never leave you.

Director Kathryn Bigelow used four cameras to capture the action. She says of her shooting style..."We experience reality, by looking at the microcosm and the macrocosm simultaneously. The eye sees differently than the lens, but with multiple focal lengths and a muscular editorial style, the lens can give you that microcosm/macrocosm perspective, and that contributes to the feeling of total immersion."

Wait til you get there. You'll know what she means.

To see a trailer of The Hurt Locker' Click here:

Going There

This is a rollick. I loved Fellini's films and always thought the women were wonderful. Extraordinarily sexy and vibrant AND elegant. I also thought they were of the times so that modern women had no hope of 'going there'. WRONG! This cast goes all the way there and a little further. Penelope Cruz shows what everyone who has seen her Spanish films always knew and so do the rest of the cast, Nicole Kidman, Judy Dench, Marion Cotillard, Kate Hudson, Fergie, Sophia Loren and all dancing round venerable, yes, Daniel Day Lewis.

The choreography is tailored to each of the main characters as are the songs and overseen by the redoubtable Rob Marshall. The dance is, at times so exuberant that I felt like jumping up and applauding! The auditorium was packed the day I went and some women had made the effort despite various walker type equipages. I feel sure they danced home too.

It does have a theme and I think this would be a 'chick flick' were it not for the oh so wonderful females with their fab outfits and great moves. It is good to be in this century where the two sexes can be together in the making of a film to the extent that there is something for each. Back in the day, the chauvinism was so obvious that it seemed vaguely treacherous to find those dances appealing.

It is a rock opera of sorts and it is interesting to see what has been left out of this version as apposed to the musical. For me, it makes it a great event and long may it run. And jump. And jiggle.

To see a trailor of 'NINE', click here:

Sherlock by any other name

Well,this new Sherlock Holmes is very new. Gone is the Basil Rathbone dignity and cool cogitation accompanied by an oafish or pedestrian Dr. Watson. Here is an English public schoolboy duo, delighting in each other's idiosyncrasies and quite a lot of blokey mayhem. It hasn't quite crept into the 21st Century - the women are very wicked or very good and both are very beautiful and astonishingly over made up but it is a real 'shot in the arm' so to speak and genuinely exciting.

Apart from Robert Downey Jnr's beautiful copy of an English accent, there is Guy Ritchie's take on Victorian violence which gives the rather slight leading man a sense of real threat and the fights a horrifying structure. As the pair meander through the highways and low roads of London, the CGI builds a wonderful vision of the city which has been the back drop for so many familiar tales. What a feast Dickens would have made of this with the murky waters of the Thames and all its elaborate grubby shipping springing to life. You can almost see Abel Magwitch scudding past in another small vessel as they build up to the ending.

You do get the idea that Jude Law and Robert Downey Jnr enjoyed working together - I thought I saw a smile that seemed to me like a real 'corpse' near the end but it only makes the japes jollier. I enjoyed the dismantling of the creepy events in a wonderful period style dissection near the end but the opening scenes were really stunning. A black carriage hurries through the narrow darkened streets while a figure runs parallel to it - they approach a gateway - a lead horse rears up but the momentum carries the contraption through and they hurry onward.

I have driven a horse and carriage and if that had happened to me, I may not have lived to tell the tale.

To see a trailer of 'Sherlock Holmes', click here:

Prisoner of Time

The first film I ever saw was Hitchcock's 'The Lady Vanishes". The second was 'The Prisoner of Zenda'. Recently I found a cassette of 'The Prisoner of Zenda' and it was startling to realise that the version I remember is the Ronald Colman film of 1937 and that the remake with Deborah Kerr and Stewart Grainger is a shot by shot copy, filmed in 1952.

And what a little horror it is too. I've watched Grainger in wonderful English melodramas where his sincerity and manly bravura suited the medium perfectly and I've even seen him get away with those terrible tights cum pantaloon things they make him wear but as, the lover of Deborah Kerr, he is hopeless. Playing the high born princess doomed to marry the wrong man, Deborah Kerr is dressed in a cross between a Gaiety Girl's ball gown and Dior's 'New Look' with the result that she looks both arch and tarty at the same time. The film has a woeful 'mincing' air and, in one startling sequence during the coronation, the guardsmen launch into a 'Folies Bergere' routine inter cut with location shots of a cannonade! What IS going on?

I think the earlier version is that rare thing, a creature suited to its time. It is set in a fictional small country reflecting the ancient internecine quarrels of the numerous small kingdoms of Eastern Europe with the added forboding of the war with Germany that was shortly to come. Some of the cast would serve in the army for the full duration of WW2 and there is a sense of masculine steel despite the whimsicality of the plot and their diminutive physiques. This strange combination of silliness and muscle seems to lend the whole thing gravitas. Even the costuming is an echo of the Court wear of the 19th century without any of the mawkish Nazi - like outfits of the 50's version.

I suppose, if there is anything for an actor to appreciate in these films, apart from a love of Ronald Colman, it is that there is a time and place for everything, remakes are rubbish and some actors can rise to almost any challenge.

In this excerpt , you can witness the ancient art of making 50 people fill up a palace!

Click here to see the 1937 version of 'The Prisoner of Zenda':

Thinking Woman's Detective

Inspector Montalbano is back! This Italian TV series has the best opening credits for anyone who is interested in Italy, or more specifically Sicily. The combination of 'Montalbano', the epicurean detective (why is it both the Italian detectives I love are so fond of their food?) his assortment of police officers, wonderful gallery of rogues plus the weirdest plotting, make this a real 'get away' night for me. Perhaps it's because the script deals so kindly with human frailties. Strangely enough, there is an underlying sense of decency and almost 'family' values amongst the wreckage Montalbano comes up against. And all set against the spectacular backdrop of Sicily.

I think its worth saying that the writer of the Montalbano novels, 84 year old Sicilian Andrea Camilleri, cut his teeth writing the late great (1964) 'Maigret' TV series. Surely there could not have been a blacker detective other than perhaps 'Callan' yet unlike contemporary detectives, these ones do provoke interest in their private lives. I have often felt like bursting out singing Noel Coward's 'Why Must the Show Go On?' when watching the feeble attempts modern script writers make to get us to care for their plods..."But is it quite fair to ask us to share your dreary private life?"


The beautiful town of 'Vigata' shown in the opening sequence is actually Porto Empedocle and I don't know what else you need to encourage a trip to Southern Sicily and to the SBS screenings except perhaps the marvelous choice of Luca Zingaretti in the leading role. This is a series written by grown ups, played by grown ups and suited to everybody. Oh wonder of wonders!

To see the opening of 'Inspector Montalbano', click here:

Climbing Higher

People say when they are doing something they particularly like, they can hardly believe it is them and wonder if they will be discovered as an impostor. When I got my first big acting job in a television series, I worried that I would get run over and the feeling of being so lucky would abruptly end.There's a feeling of 'Pinch me, is this happening?' I felt that filming 'Mao's Last Dancer' and, well now there is another landmark.

To celebrate 'Mao's Last Dancer' making $14 million dollars and climbing to the 12th highest grossing Australian film ever, I thought I'd put a selection of interviews of the main cast on the blog. They are attached to mine and contain wonderful insights from Bruce Beresford, Li Cunxin and producer Jane Scott on the casting and making of the movie.

Its especially interesting to hear Madeleine Eastoe talk about her preparation for her first acting role. As a prima ballerina with the Australian ballet, she had no experience of film work before but after working with a coach, she was considered to have mastered the American accent to the extent that the actors from the USA had no idea she was Australian!

I am keeping my fingers crossed that the film climbs up one more level - that will be overtaking the iconic 'Murial's Wedding', the truly fabulous Australian earner.

Also, a reminder that leading man, Chi Cao will be coming to Australia next year to dance in 'The Nutcracker'. Book that one in for an inspiring night.

To see interviews about the filming of 'Mao's Last Dancer', click here:

Looking for Ludwig

This is a long film for a Beethoven ignoramus. Two hours and twenty minutes, most of which is engaging but the last twenty did start me thinking about the quality of the upholstery.

Nevertheless, it is a fresh light on an old master. As someone who had to climb wooden stairs to an attic to have my piano lessons staring at an enraged Ludwig print...this kindly portrait came as a surprise. And he was quite a looker.

As a young man, the strength and intelligence is obvious in his eyes but also a warmth that is almost never represented in portraiture. The film takes us through his life musically using his work as a guide to his interior life. As always with the masters, the question of finances scurries after him relentlessly but here we are also introduced to his many romances and attempted engagements. Beethoven fell for titled women whose families did not fall for him - who knew that Von and not Van is the sign of aristocracy? -and the strain of his solitary life showed in his work.

As an ignoramus, I had no idea how revolutionary he was, not only in his thoughts as in 'Eroica' but in the techniques he used. Or how competitive in his mastery of the piano,vying with his contempories with extraordinary elaborate musicality. It is as shocking to hear of the performances that did not work as it is surprising to hear that the police were called to one recital at which the reception was so enthusiastic, the audience had to be forced to go home.

The documentary is filled with a delightful array of Ludwig experts, conductors, pianists and scholars, most of whom could have leaped fully formed from a Dickens novel. The entrancing nuttiness of their performances is one of the real highlights for me. Still, I would have liked more of his personal life but where to put it? Those seats were pretty hard at the end.
To see a trailer of 'In Search of Beethoven', click here:

Meryl, I hardly knew ya

Its no surprise that Ms Streep is barely recognisable in this. She is, after all who she is and so the weirdness of this performance in 'Julie and Julia' needs a little investigation.A glimpse of the real Julia Childs gives an idea of why the characterisation can be seen to be extreme at first glance, but not at second. Here was a genuine eccentric and, to my eyes an extremely lovable personality who combined a sort of breezy nuttiness with a great deal of hard work and all with the added benefit of a loyal and loving spouse.

The gorgeous Stanley Tucci steps in for this role and, as a pair he and Streep are a grown up example of lasting love. Odd but workable and very, very watchable. This is in sharp contrast to the younger couple who I found smart and annoyingly neurotic. I loathe cutesypie big city Americans - I would have quite liked to see the end of 'Annie Hall' three seconds after I met her and so, the trials of 'Julie'didn't quite move me as they should. Although I was very moved by the fact that she had acquired such a tolerant husband.

This film is another of Nora Ephron's creations and she has worked with Meryl Streep before in 'Silkwood'and 'Heartburn' but, while Ephron has logged up huge popular hits with 'Harry Met Sally' and 'Sleepless in Seattle', I think this is more in tune with us Baby Boomers. I am slightly ashamed of having loved the older couple so much more and I hope it was not a smug smile I felt forming when the film tells us that the real Julia did not approve of the younger woman's Blog.

Still, you've got to love a tryer and these two women were that...in spades. And have a look at the real Julia below. Despite the 'Noddy in Toyland' music, here was a cook with a great deal of intestinal fortitude.

To see a snippet of Julia Child's TV program, click here: