Following on from my previous post where I blogged about how much I was looking forward to BBC Four’s Women We’ve Loved series, I have just found time to sit down and catch up with Enid, which aired last week.

I have to say, I found this programme absolutely beastly (for lack of a better word!).

Now, I say this not as a reflection of the programme, nor the quality of it – which was absolutely superb and first-rate! - but because I feel that I have had my story-book vision of Enid well and truly shattered! It was horrible to watch and see someone as beloved as Enid Blyton depicted in such a way.

Now of course, I am not disputing that she may very well have been like this – I know that the BBC did a lot of research before hand with the people who knew her best (including Imogen, her daughter) -  I just found it so hard to watch, and so terribly sad to see this side to her; a side that I never thought would have existed.

For those who missed it, the programme explored the abandonment of a young Enid (and her family) by her father, and the rose-tinted spectacles that she saw his life through (as a side note perhaps there is a parallel with the audience and Enid, and in both stories the shroud of this perception dropping?). It showed the difficult relationship that Enid had with her mother as a result of this. From there the programme quickly moved onto Enid becoming a very strong-willed woman and, rather than focusing on her public success, the programme focused on her private life, especially on her relationship with her two husbands and her children.

It was awful to watch Enid shunning those around her, including her own children, who were portrayed as being nothing more than an inconvenience to her. One of the low points of the programme was when Enid was having a tea party for some competition winning children, and she deliberately excluded her own children, sending them away before the other children arrived, and then lying about the fantastic life she led with her own children.

Ultimately, the story went full circle, with her own children dismissing her and Enid ultimately became her own mother in many respects.

I suppose that it was a different era back then, women had to be strong and have a stiff upper lip if they wanted to be successful, and without doubt Enid Blyton was the most successful female of the first half of the last century. I have recently read online that the BBC refused to have Enid Blyton on their programmes for over thirty years, dismissing her stories as ’small beer’ and not believing her worthy of air time. They finally permitted her an interview shortly before her death. It is therefore quite fitting that the BBC should be airing this series forty years on I think.

I think that this surprise side to Enid Blyton is what will make the programme such a success. Many people, myself included, were expecting tales of sandy beaches and lashings of ginger beer, whereas in reality Blyton’s life was as far removed from this as could be. I think that ‘Enid’ successfully managed to tell a completely different story, and I applaud the cast and crew on this production for doing so.

It was fantastic to see Helena Bonham Carter in such a different role to those we’re used to seeing her in, and I though that the entire cast were very strong, and very believable.

There is a wonderful article in The Telegraph where they talk to Bonham Carter about her role, and the programme itself – well worth reading if you want a more structured/traditional collection of thoughts of the programme and the characterisation.

Without doubt, Blyton was the best author that has ever existed in my opinion – if nothing else, her sales statistics say it all – and I can only hope that, if her personality was as was depicted in ‘Enid’, that on the inside she was as happy in life as she managed to make the countless readers across the World who picked up / continue to pick up one of her stories.

As a child, I spent many a happy hour lying on my bed reading about the stories of the Famous Five, the Secret Seven, of goblins and fairies, of the Magic Faraway Tree and the Wishing Chair, and I still read these books to this very day. They are simply put some of the best stories ever written.

The Enid Blyton Society has a collection of quotes that their forum users believe show a sense of Enid’s personality and morality coming through in her works, and again, I’d recommend my readers to have a look around their website if you have an appetite for further reading on Enid Blyton and her stories

My favourite thus quote thus far is for when things are going wrong in life – “The best way to treat obstacles is to use them as stepping-stones. Laugh at them, tread on them, and let them lead you to something better.”

Tim Burton
24 November 2009

Tim Burton MoMA, New York

The master of the cool, cruel, and creepy finally had his MoMA début on 22 November 2009, when Tim Burton unveiled his retrospective at the renowned Museum of Modern Art in New York.  Explore the mind of Tim Burton through the ages, showcasing every detail of his sketches, drawings, paintings, short films.  If you’re in New York from 22 November 2009– 26 April 2010, this exhibit is not to be missed!  Take part in this pop cultural experience, moving through the distorted, unsettling, and disturbingly surreal world of Tim Burton.

I can’t wait for Alice in Wonderland to come out.

Related Links:

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/313

“I’m sure I’ll take you with pleasure!” the Queen said. “Two pence a week, and jam every other day.”
Alice couldn’t help laughing, as she said, “I don’t want you to hire ME – and I don’t care for jam.”
“It’s very good jam,” said the Queen.

“Well, I don’t want any TO-DAY, at any rate.”
“You couldn’t have it if you DID want it,” the Queen said. “The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday – but never jam to-day.”
“It MUST come sometimes to “jam to-day,” Alice objected.
“No, it can’t,” said the Queen. “It’s jam every OTHER day: to-day isn’t any OTHER day, you know.”
“I don’t understand you,” said Alice. “It’s dreadfully confusing!”

The following chunks of factoids on Alice, chess, and conspiracy theories all come courtesy of that there ol’ wiki: let it take you for a spin today!

Most main characters met in the story are represented by a chess piece, with Alice herself being a pawn. However, the moves described in the ‘chess problem’ cannot be carried out legally due to a move where white does not move out of check (a list of moves is included – note that a young child might make this error due to inexperience).

Although the chess problem is generally regarded as a nonsense composition because of the story’s ‘faulty link with chess’, the French researchers Christophe LeRoy and Sylvain Ravot have argued that it actually contains a ‘hidden code’ by Carroll to the reader.

The code is supposed to be related to Carroll’s relationship with Alice Liddell, and apparently contains several references to Carroll’s favorite number, 42.

The theory and its implications have been criticized for lack of solid evidence, misrepresenting historical facts about Carroll and Alice, and flirting with numerology and esotericism.

Oh, no, not esotericism. I simply cannot brook such a thing.

Previous Alice anticipation posts can be found here.

EN ESTA OPORTUNIDAD,NOS DELEITAREMOS CON LOS PRIMEROS AFICHES QUE SE HAN PUBLICADO DE ”ALICE IN WONDERLAND”,LA NUEVA AVENTURA FILMICA DE TIM BURTON.

I meant to gather quotes from the Red Queen and the Queen of Hearts, but instead I ran across this intriguing wikipedia entry so I pasted that almost in its entirety instead. The entry describes the Red Queen Hypothesis and talks about evolution, sex, genetic arms races, and the “cost” of males.

I have lost the credit for this picture.

The Red Queen’s Hypothesis, or “Red Queen Effect” is an evolutionary hypothesis. The term is taken from the Red Queen’s race in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass.

Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen in the forthcoming Tim Burton movie

The Red Queen said, “It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.” The Red Queen Principle can be stated thus:

“For an evolutionary system, continuing development is needed just in order to maintain its fitness relative to the systems it is co-evolving with.”

The hypothesis is intended to explain two different phenomena: the advantage of sexual reproduction at the level of individuals, and the constant evolutionary arms race between competing species.

“The Queen of Hearts” by Simon Sherry on redbubble

Science writer Matt Ridley popularized the term “the red queen” in connection with sexual selection in his book The Red Queen. In the book, Ridley discussed the debate in theoretical biology over the adaptive benefit of sexual reproduction to those species in which it appears. The connection of the Red Queen to this debate arises from the fact that the traditionally accepted theory (Vicar of Bray) only showed adaptive benefit at the level of the species or group, not at the level of the gene (although, it must be added here that the protean ‘Vicar of Bray’ adaptation is very useful to some species that belong to the lower levels of the food chain).

“Future Queen of Hearts” by Micklyn on redbubble

By contrast, a Red-Queen-type theory that organisms are running cyclic arms races with their parasites can explain the utility of sexual reproduction at the level of the gene by positing that the role of sex is to preserve genes that are currently disadvantageous, but that will become advantageous against the background of a likely future population of parasites.

I don’t know where I got this

Sex is an evolutionary puzzle. In most sexual species, males make up half the population, yet they bear no offspring directly and generally contribute little to the survival of offspring. In fact, in some species, such as lions, males pose a positive threat to live young fathered by other males (although this could be viewed as a manifestation of Richard Dawkins’ so-called selfish gene, whose ‘goal’ is to reproduce itself, which may as a consequence suppress the reproduction of other genes). In addition, males and females must spend resources to attract and compete for mates. Sexual selection also can favor traits that reduce the fitness of an organism, such as brightly colored plumage in birds of paradise that increases the likelihood for an individual to be noticed by both predators and potential mates (see the handicap principle for more on this). Thus, sexual reproduction can be highly inefficient.

This came from an online auction; the crown sold 8-25-09. Not to me.

One possible explanation for the fact that nearly all vertebrates are sexual is that sex increases the rate at which adaptation can occur. This is for two reasons. Firstly, if an advantageous mutation occurs in an asexual line, it is impossible for that mutation to spread without wiping out all other lines, which may have different advantageous mutations of their own. Secondly, it mixes up alleles. Some instances of genetic variation might be advantageous only when paired with other mutations, and sex increases the likelihood that such pairings will occur.

“Princess of Hearts” by Basia McAuley on redbubble

For sex to be advantageous for these reasons requires constant selection for changing conditions. One factor that might cause this is the constant arms race between parasites and their hosts. Parasites generally evolve quickly, due to their short lifespans. As they evolve, they attack their hosts in a variety of ways. Two consecutive generations might be faced with very different selective pressures. If this change is rapid enough, it might explain the persistence of sex.

“Opposite attract” by Jenni Holmada on flickr

Interesting shit, am I right?

He aqui los posters mas interesantes de las peliculas que espero con ansias, todavia no hay niguno de Harry Potter and the deathly hallows part I, pero me conformo con los de Alicia en el pais de las maravillas y Avatar, no les pierdan la pista a estos proximos clasicos!

click en las pics para agrandar

VERDICT:
9/10 Lead Salads

Not quite David Fincher’s best movie, but still, it’s freakin’ Fight Club. This here movie kicks a fine amount of ass.

Fight Club is about a humdrum guy whose humdrum life gets turned upside down after being seated next to one Tyler Durden on an otherwise humdrum flight for his humdrum job. Humdrum. Anyway, after his apartment accidentally blows up, he moves in with Tyler, they become quick pals, and then they form Fight Club after a night of heavy drinking – a nice little place for them and their fans to beat the living shit out of each other. So Fight Club gets really popular, it gives new meaning to this guy’s life, it also eventually turns into an even wackier little shindig called Project Mayhem, and then shit really gets crazy.

Point is, there aren’t too many movies out there like Fight Club.

I know I’m a bit behind the ball on this one what with last week being the tenth anniversary of this family favorite, but hey, glad to finally have an excuse to review this.

So, why does this movie kicks so much ass? Let’s start with director David Fincher.

Like I said, this isn’t his best movie – a well-earned title still held by Se7en – but it’s a close runner-up. The thing I like most about this guy is that not only is a really good storyteller and continually churns out one original, gritty movie after another, but, man, does he know how to use lighting to his advantage. This is one of those things you have to see for yourself to really get, and this isn’t really a characteristic that I’m prone to point out in movies, but the entire movie looks like it was filmed in a damp basement, and that is awesome. There’s stark contrasts between light and dark all around, it’s got this “Finchian” (Copyrighted 2009, Cut The Crap Industries) blend of sleek and dirty from the shiny glint of city buildings to the bloodied face of a maimed everyman, and everything about the way this sharp, grimy movie looks totally complements the dark story it’s telling.

Look, when you see a David Fincher movie, you know it’s a David Fincher movie. Not to belabor the point, but I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the dude is one of the best working directors out there today and he sure knows how to make a movie look good.

And hey, guess what, there’s a solid little cast here, too! Well I’ll be!

I’ve always been a big fan of Edward Norton, and while this isn’t the best thing he’s ever done either, he still plays a really good protagonist as our humdrum anti-hero, Cornelius. He probably would have been more memorable if it weren’t for Brad Pitt and his eight-pack abs as Tyler Durden. I’m slowly coming over to the mindset that Brad’s actually a good actor after his turn Inglourious Basterds recently, and even though there’s a whole lot of eye candy going on with him in this movie, the fact of the matter is that Tyler Durden is one hell of a character. Most of the credit is probably due to the script in this case, but still, hard to knock Brad this time around.

Helena Bonham Carter is also in it as Ed Norton’s main squeeze, Marla, and boy howdy is she creepy as hell. 

And Meat Loaf is in it, too, and he’s good, and not just because his name’s freakin’ Meat Loaf.

It’s not often that adaptations end up being better than the source material, but after trucking through Chuck Palahniuk’s novel a couple years ago, I’m still sold on Fincher’s take. Still not really sure if there’s a moral to the madness, but whatever, Fight Club is one wild ride that’ll have you hooked right from the opening shot. Lots of memorable scenes, has one awesome twist going for it, a real biting sense of humor that just adds to an already terribly well-written script, and even though it might be a little too gnarly for some, it’s pretty darn rewarding for all you postmodern fanboys out there.

Great script, great director, people making soap and punching out Jared Leto. Sounds like a winner, alright.

Tim Burton

Tim Burton at MOMA! Doesn’t that sound like fun? The exhibition opens up Nov. 22nd, so start planning your road trip. In the meantime, check out the Burton-styled page on the MOMA site as well as the video below…

Um, by the way, Tim’s main squeeze is Helena Bonham Carter and it seems she created a line of lingerie and swimwear called Pantaloonies a few years back! How bizarre!

]]> http://themodernguilt.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/tim-burton-no-moma/ Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:47:15 +0000 Essy http://themodernguilt.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/tim-burton-no-moma/

Tim Burton ganhou uma homenagem no MOMa em NY por sua brilhante carreira cinematográfica. E é claro que como não poderia ser diferente, a homenagem foi apresentada por Johnny Depp e sua esposa, a atriz Helena Bonham Carter. Báfu não?

ps: Johnny Depp sijogou na noite e saiu carregado, vi tudeeenho da janela do meu ap em NY, rs. Mas esta meio assim tmbm neam? Prontofalei!

MoMa Mia!!!
So you want to rub shoulders with the stars…you love art…you’re into Tim Burton flicks…you love Johnny Depp…and…well you enjoy an adult beverage every once in a while. If this sounds like you kind of event then you missed a great night at The Museum of Modern Art. This was NYC at it’s best…what NYC is suppose to be…an opportunity to enjoy art, see creative expression and fight your way to the open bar on an equal playing field with some big names. (Yeah Johnny I was the guy who took the last lime! On guard!)

On Exhibit
Myself and a group of friends had the opportunity to take part in Tuesday nights tribute to Tim Burton and I must say it was a blast! If you knew where to look you had a chance to say hello to the artistic and gracious Mr. Burton, the undoubtedly ’star amongst stars’ Johnny Depp and a host of others like Helena Bonham Carter…that truly made the evening a great memory. Danny DeVito and his daughter Gracie, Brooke Shields, the Olsen twins and many other stars roamed the floors paying homage to the art of Burton and tripping over guys like me.

Wonderland
Even if you aren’t a Burton fan you can certainly appreciate his magic. He has this unique ability to bring to life fairy tales and fantasies beyond the normal imagination. You get a glimpse at some private beginnings of some of his unique thoughts and how he built them and translated them to the big screen. Drawings, paintings, costumes, and 3D models and other forms of his art filled the halls of MoMa that allow you a little closer to the man and his work. I absolutely need to go back and take my time to tour the exhibition to appreciate many of the things that were overlooked that evening due to being distracted by all the live forms of art making their way through the crowd.

You’ll get a look at many of the props for the soon to be blockbuster movie ‘Alice in Wonderland’. Movie buffs, artists, animators and designers alike as well as children of all ages will all go away with some appreciation from this exhibition…don’t miss it…it runs till April 26 ‘10. Don’t be surprised if you see a big push to the event prior to the release of the 3-D reimagination of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, March 2010..it’s going to be a fun ride.

Burton films: Vincent (1982), Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985), Beetlejuice (1988), Batman (1989), Edward Scissorhands (1990), Batman Returns (1992), The Nightmare Before Christmas (as creator and producer) (1993), Ed Wood (1994), Mars Attacks! (1996), Sleepy Hollow (1999), Big Fish (2003), Corpse Bride (2005), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), and Sweeney Todd (2007); writing and Web projects include The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories (1997) and Stainboy (2000).

Hello again! We continue our discussion of Emma Watson’s fashion sense, giving you our insights into the Vogue Italia photo shoot, the NYC Half-Blood Prince premiere outfit, her appearance on Jonathon Ross and many more of her fabulous clothes, with a bit of Cheryl Cole thrown in for good measure. Enjoy!

VOGUE ITALIA

JULIE: Seen Vogue Italia?

EMMA: Yes, kind of a fairytale Romanticism thing going on. Gorgeous clothes. I like the dress with the ruffles; it wouldn’t look out of place in the couture wedding gown montage in Sex and the City: The Movie.

JULIE: Yeah, the Italia shoot is gorgeous; I loved the one where she’s standing on the window.

EMMA: I have a picture up of her standing on the table in front of the window in a red dress. Is that the one?

JULIE: No, she’s in a green dress. A long, floaty number. She looks beautiful in that.

EMMA: Ah, I just saw it!

JULIE: You like?

EMMA: From the thumbnail it looks stunning… oh my god, she looks beautiful, like a Grecian goddess. That is a perfect photo in every way.

JULIE: Mark Seliger did that. He’s a genius.

EMMA: I like photographers who don’t just do a typical modelling shoot.

JULIE: The ones where they’re telling a story and not just getting a celebrity to stand in front of a background and grin.

EMMA: Or pout.

JULIE: To be honest, that’s why Vogue and Bazaar and the like are the best. Cosmo is good for a bit of ‘How to Care for Your Hair’ but if you want proper photo shoots by people who know what they’re doing then you should go to them.

EMMA: Definitely. Shame they’re so expensive. I always just stand in the shop and read them; shop assistants look at me with utter hatred.

JULIE: So do I; it’s a luxury I can only have once a month. And shop assistants look at everyone with utter hatred.

EMMA: Don’t they only come out once a month anyway?

JULIE: Yes, but you can’t have them all. Well, I can’t, anyway.

AND BACK TO PREMIERES…

EMMA: This was one dress I really liked: the white skirt and the leather halterneck top.

JULIE: For the Half-Blood Prince premiere in NYC? That was Proenza Schouler. They’re very good – big on having a different top and bottom. Lots of people are doing that at the moment; I see a lot of people who’ve sewn a skirt on a different top to make a dress.

EMMA: That’s a good idea if you can sew. Which I obviously can’t.

JULIE: Get a sewing machine!

EMMA: I’d get my hair caught in it or something. I really liked that one – different, but not in a crazy way. Again, without colour, though.

JULIE: As per.

EMMA: I do think the paler shades suit her, though; I really liked that beige Burberry she wore on Friday Night with Jonathon Ross. But then, I liked the style more than the colour.

JULIE: It was a bit… puffy.

EMMA: What, the Wossy one? It wasn’t that puffy. I thought it gave her a nice silhouette.

JULIE: It did, yeah. I think it was a standing-up dress, though, a bit like Cheryl Cole’s Vinyl record dress. It looked good standing, but looked bloody awful when she was sitting down.

EMMA: OH MY GOD! With the big chest-plate things? Terrible.

JULIE: Well, I liked it when she was standing up, but it looked ridiculous sitting down, as if she’d made it herself.

EMMA: I hated it from the start. You know how you see couture on the runway and it looks beautiful, but you know it’d look stupid to wear off the runway because it’s art? It’s like Cheryl Cole got that monstrosity straight off the runway without having it developed into ready-to-wear, so because it’s NOT on the runway it looks ridiculous.

JULIE: I feel Helena Bonham-Carter does the same, but she’s too awesome so she gets away with it.

EMMA: Yeah, it goes with her quirky, eclectic style, which Cheryl doesn’t have.

JULIE: WAGs tend not to be with the unique style so much! Having said that, I really love Chezza.

CONCLUSION!

EMMA: I feel we should wrap up with the famous flashing dress from the HBP premiere.

JULIE: Definitely.

EMMA: Which… to be honest, I didn’t like it.

JULIE: Really? I loved it. It did exactly what it was supposed to do: it made her look taller with a small waist. I thought it was beautiful.

EMMA: I think it was too old for her, and she’s got a small chest so that neckline was far too much for her. It’d be beautiful if you saw it on an older woman. But you’re right, it does make her figure look amazing.

JULIE: If it was on us, though, we’d have too much boob. I’d rather see a flat chest in that than Jordan busting out.

EMMA: Well, yeah, obviously that’d look awful in a very different way. But I think it makes her chest look masculine, especially in a frontal picture.

JULIE: I have to disagree.

EMMA: What about the fact that she later nearly flashed her boob after already having flashed her knickers?! Surely that proves it was too low. Was it Burberry, by the way?

JULIE: Ossie Clark. Vintage.

Harry Potter und der Halbblutprinz sorgen für eine zauberhafte Zeit.
Jack Bauer überbrückt im Serien-Special die nächsten 24 Stunden.
Gewinnspielfrage zum Kinofilm Paranormal Activity…

Der Winter lässt noch auf sich warten und die Eichhörnchen bunkern fleißig ihre Beute. Rüsten auch Sie sich für die kalte Jahreszeit und füllen Ihre Wunschliste mit knackiger Filmkost.

Verschieben Sie den Winterschlaf! Harry Potter und der Halbblutprinz sorgen für eine zauberhafte Zeit. Jack Bauer überbrückt im Serien-Special die nächsten 24 Stunden und bleibt hellwach, denn sein Auftrag ist eine wirklich “harte Nuss”.

Werden Sie im Magazin selbst zum Nussknacker und lösen die Gewinnspielfrage zum aktuellen Kinofilm Paranormal Activity hier!

Harry Potter und der Halbblutprinz

In ‘Harry Potter und der Halbblutprinz’ schließt sich Voldemorts Faust immer enger um die Welt der Muggels und der Zauberer – sogar in Hogwarts ist man nicht mehr so sicher wie früher. Harry vermutet die Gefahr in der Burg selbst, doch Dumbledore konzentriert sich eher darauf, Harry auf die Entscheidungsschlacht vorzubereiten, die nun bald bevorsteht.

Gemeinsam suchen sie nach einer Strategie, mit der sich Voldemorts Verteidigungslinien durchbrechen ließen. Zu diesem Zweck engagiert Dumbledore seinen alten Freund und Kollegen, den ahnungslosen Lebenskünster Professor Horace Slughorn. Denn Dumbledore ist überzeugt, dass Slughorn mit seinen guten Beziehungen über entscheidende Informationen verfügt.

Unterdessen bekommen es die Schüler mit einem ganz andersartigen Gegner zu tun: In den Mauern der Burg spielen die Hormone der Teenager verrückt. Harry fühlt sich immer stärker zu Ginny hingezogen – doch Dean Thomas geht es genauso. Und Lavender Brown hat sich Ron ausgesucht, aber nicht mit Romilda Vanes Schokolade gerechnet!

Währenddessen kocht Hermine vor Eifersucht, will aber ihre Gefühle auf keinen Fall zeigen. Nur ein Schüler bleibt inmitten dieser knospenden Romanzen völlig unbeeindruckt. Er will unbedinigt Eindruck machen – und sei es mit dunklen Machenschaften. Während alle Welt verliebt ist, bahnt sich eine Tragödie an, die Hogwarts unwiderruflich verändern könnte.

Darsteller: Michael Gambon, Robbie Coltrane, Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter, Jim Broadbent, David Thewlis, Warwick Davis, Richard Griffiths, Timothy Spall, Fiona Shaw, David Bradley, Julie Walters, Gemma Jones, Daniel Radcliffe, Mark Williams, Helen McCrory, Emma Watson, Tom Felton, Rupert Grint, Devon Murray, James Phelps, Alfie Enoch, Jamie Waylett, Oliver Phelps, Matthew Lewis, Josh Herdman, Bonnie Wright, Dave Legeno, William Melling, Ralph Ineson, Natalia Tena, Katie Leung, Shefali Chowdhury, Afshan Azad, Jessie Cave, Evanna Lynch, Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, Tony Coburn, Suzanne Toase, Amelda Brown, Nina Voelker, Robert Knox, Georgina Leonidas, Anna Shaffer, Tom Moorcroft, Johnpaul Castrianni, Rod Hunt, Freddie Stroma, Scarlett Byrne, Louis Cordice, Isabella Laughland, Teresa Mahoney, Frank Dillane, River George, Charlie Bennison, Dean Garnham.

Serien-Special
Sein Name ist Bauer, Jack Bauer. Die Zeit, die ihm bleibt:
Vierundzwanzig Stunden.

Video Buster stellt Ihnen eine Serie vor, die echtes Suchtpotential besitzt. ‘Echt’ ist in der TV-Produktion 24 weniger die Handlung, die sich von Staffel zu Staffel überbietet, echt ist zunächst einmal ein geniales Konzept: Eine Serie in Echtzeit, in der wir Zuschauer 60 Minuten unseres Lebens auch 60 Minuten des ereignisreichen Arbeitsalltag eines Mitarbeiters der Anti-Terror-Einheit CTU (Counter Terrorist Unit) begleitet.

Auf einigen Feldern ist ‘24′ mit derben Flüchen und ungeschminkten Gewaltszenarien zur TV-Hauptsendezeit ebenfalls einzigartig. Kritische Stimmen wurde immer dann laut, wenn es um Folter-Darstellungen und Waffeneinsatz zur Erzwingung der moralisch oder zumindest politisch legitimierten Ziele ging, in der inzwischen 8 Staffeln umfassenden Serie (im Januar 2010 startet Episode 1 der Season 8 in den USA).

Hauptdarsteller Sutherland gewann einen begehrten ‘Golden Globe’ und ‘24′ einen ‘Emmy’ für die beste Drama-Serie. Zu Recht? Urteilen Sie selbst und steigen Sie jetzt mit einem wahren Helden der TV-Unterhaltung in Boot: CTU’s Jack Bauer wartet auf Sie, zwar nicht ganz in Echtzeit, aber garantiert echt spannend! Weitere Informationen gibt es hier!

Minha reação a cada filme do Tim Burton lançado é de torcer o nariz, mas o cara é muito foda. Não dá pra não gostar de nenhum filme dele. Mesmo com as caricaturas que viraram o Johnny Depp e a Helena Bonham Carter.
Um barbeiro[Depp] volta da cadeia pra Londres com sede de vingança. Queremos carne humana, é isso! O mais legal do filme são as voltas que o roteiro dá, quando pensamos que o negócio está tomando um rumo, surge o inesperado. O final é bem disgusting, mas ainda poderoso.
No mais, tem aquela estética soturna bem característica do diretor, super direção de arte[premiada no Oscar] e figurino, retratando perfeitamente uma Londres a la David Copperfield. E a trilha do Danny Elfman não deixa nenhuma melodia na cabeça mas não incomoda.
E ainda que caricatos, Depp e Carter têm seus bons momentos no filme, mas pra mim a melhor interpretação é a do Alan Rickman[casaria com a voz dele] como um suposto vilão[?].
*
E só hoje descobri que o Sacha Baron Cohen participava do filme. Ui!

Drama sobre la corte británica

Helena Bonham Carter encarnará a la Reina Madre

Foto: Reuters	Ampliar

LOS ANGELES, 17 Nov. (Reuters/Ep)

La actriz británica Helena Bonham Carter interpretará a la futura Reina Madre en The King’s Speech, un drama sobre los entresijos de la corte británica en el que compartirá protagonismo con Colin Firth (Mamma Mia!, La última legión) y Geoffrey Rush (Piratas del caribe, Munich)

La cinta, que según apunta una información publicada por ‘The Hollywood Reporter’ recientemente comenzó su filmación en Inglaterra, relatará la relación entre el rey Jorge VI (Firth) y el logopeda Lionel Logue (Rush), quien ayudó al monarca a perder su tartamudeo y liderar a Gran Bretaña durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial.

Bonham Carter encarnará a su consorte, la reina Isabel, quien se convirtió en Reina Madre tras la muerte prematura de su marido en 1952. La esposa de Tim Burton no deja la corona, ya que interpreta a la Reina de Corazones en la versión de Alicia en el País de las Maravillas que dirige su esposo.

El elenco de la cinta también incluye a los actores Jennifer Ehle, Guy Pearce, Derek Jacobi, Timothy Spall y Michael Gambon. El cineasta Tom Hooper (The Damned United) dirigirá el filme con un guión escrito por David Seidler. Su estreno está previsto para mediados del próximo año.

Bonham Carter as Enid Blyton

When I was a child, Enid Blyton was my favorite author. She was beloved of most children: a wonderful storyteller whose stories kept you entranced. But what was she like as a person? Helena Bonham Carter was, at first glance, a surprising choice, to play Blyton in this BBC 4 biopic, but – then so was Trevor Eve who played Hughie Green, in the last series and I thought he was absolutely great!

Enid Blyton

The young Enid gets into storytelling to distract her siblings from the furious arguments which are going on between their parents. Her father eventually leaves for another woman (or so her mother says, though all her life Enid won’t believe this). It is easy to see why Enid starts escaping into her own world. She leaves home as soon at the first opportunity (Enid never stops running all through her life). She trains to become a schoolteacher, though her real ambition is to be an author. Rejected many times, she keeps trying, until eventually a door opens. Not one to hang around, she marries her publisher.

the very famous Five books

Their early days seem idyllic. What a blow it must have been to her to be told she couldn’t have children.. But despite these problems, she does have a child (in fact two,) but motherhood does not come easily to her. She seems more work inspired, than nurturing. Time for a nanny. But although she is honest about her failings, she does have some odd ideas about how to handle week old babies….

Enid Blyton bedtime story book

It is strange the way Blyton is different with other children than her own, and a bit baffling really. She seems more relaxed whilst in the company of children she doesn’t know. To an extent, she seems to shun anything that doesn’t fit into her world of fiction, such as the War. It’s as if in her refusal to be distracted, it will just go away. When her husband starts drinking, she banishes him into the spare room!

Noddy a popular Blyton character

Blyton is the ultimate escapist, and does not like the banalities of motherhood: writing comes first. When Blyton finally comes to terms that we are at war, she contributes by digging for victory with her children and entertaining officers whilst her husband is away (escapism again). Eventually of course, she takes a lover ‘Uncle’ Kenneth Waters.

the magical land of Enid

The acting was really good and the attention to period detail wonderful. Bonham Carter makes a great Blyton, showing all her contradiction. She is both hardened and yet vulnerable in her reluctance to face reality. The way that Blyton deals with harsh reality is through her children’s tales, where a happy ending is assured and cake is distributed with lashings of Ginger Beer She has such a hard unfeeling edge to her to her personality though and is able to compartmentalise her life skillfully, dismissing her children. Poor Hugh (ex husband) gets the treatment time and time again, and very cruelly. It is incredulous the way that she can turn her back on anything she doesn’t want to deal with, including her mother and her siblings. A very complicated, emotionally damaged but talented person, whose end was indeed tragic.

Watch it HERE　

Semana passada a página de um fã no Facebook divulgou um pôster do filme Alice no País das Maravilhas. Agora foram disponibilizados mais dois cartazes que juntos formam uma imagem

Confira abaixo os três cartazes separados, e na galeria do site omelete pode ser conferido o pôster feito com a junção das três imagens;

O filme de Tim Burton foi todo feito com captura de movimentos e será lançado em 3D no dia 5 de Março de 2010.

Y ya van tres, que si alineamos debidamente y en el orden correcto forman uno solo. El último en salir tiene como único protagonista a uno de los principales reclamos de la película, Jonnhy Deep como Sombrero Loco. Os dejo los dos pósters anteriores también.

I had a particularly bad day today and I have no idea why.  I felt really crappy when I left the house.  Mind you, I dind’t get a terribly good night’s sleep so that could have had something to do with it.  All day I felt really down but the day went fairly quickly, thank goodness and I came home, had tea and sat down to do bugger all.  Things picked up for a while but they seem to be back to where they were 2 weeks ago and slowly sliding again.

We caught up on Fringe and are now sitting down to watch Sweeney Todd.  Paul doesn’t really do musicals but he’s quite enjoying this one.  It’s mostly because it’s Johnny Depp and Tim Burton gothic style.  Must admit, I like the Johnny Depp/Helena Bonham-Carter pairing.

I’ve been getting clued up what deals I can get with a Blackberry so I’m going to try my luck with O2 tomorrow and see what they can do for me.  I was going to ring them tonight but truth be told I just can’t be arsed!  I can’t wait till January though.  I always need to have everything yesterday…terribly impatient.  Watch this space…

Matthew Macfadyen as Hugh Pollock

The former Spooks, Pride and Prejudice, Little Dorrit and Criminal Justice star plays Enid Blyton’s first husband Hugh Pollock in Enid (BBC4, 9pm tomorrow).

At one stage singing along to the Flanagan and Allen song Run Rabbit Run.

But the iTunes store will just have to do without Matthew’s rendition.

“No, I won’t be releasing it,” he laughed when we met back in April.

“Hugh used to sing Run Rabbit Run to this wind-up record. He’d drink and sing it on his own in the living room at the top of his voice.

“I’m not doing it at the top of my voice, but I thought it was quite a nice scene.”

One that was filmed on a day after the rest of the production had finished, so keen were the TV team to include it.

Enid Blyton was a woman ahead of her time in so many ways.

This new film also shows how she shut Hugh out of her life when they divorced, cutting him off from his two daughters.

Helena Bonham Carter gives a remarkable performance as the acclaimed writer, as you can read here and here.

I thought Matthew’s many fans might also like to read some of what he had to say about the film and his role in it.

On the day of the press round table interviews, he and his actress wife Keeley Hawes had just returned from a Disney theme park trip with their three children – Myles, nine, Maggie, five, and Ralph, three.

“We were there for five days, which is about three days too long,” smiled Matthew. “My youngest took it very seriously and was kissing Mickey and talking to him.

“We had to queue up and meet Donald and Mickey and then meet Woody and Jessie, which was a very big moment for him. And he said, ‘Thank you having us.’ It was so sweet.

“But Noddy is a big person in our house…”

 Was Matthew a Blyton fan as a child?

“I read The Famous Five, primarily, and I read The Magic Faraway Tree. I didn’t really get into The Secret Seven. I sort of graduated from The Famous Five into Roald Dahl, I suppose.”

What does he think is the appeal of Blyton?

“There’s lots of absolutes and certainties in her writing, which is very reassuring for children. There’s the moral certainties, the good and bad, there’s a bit of danger in there and there’s a sort of continuity and a sameness about her stories which children like. They enjoy that repetition. And she wrote masses, didn’t she?”

Enid (Helena Bonham Carter) and her two daughters

“Not really. I’d heard rumblings about her not being terribly good with children. But she was good with children – perhaps not so good with her own. But it’s a different time.”

Hugh Pollock?

“He’d been married before. He’d come back from the Great War and he worked for a publishing house. He was a quite dashing guy. Like a lot of men, he’d come back from the First World War quite affected by it. He met Enid and was sort of besotted by her early on. Imogen, his daughter, was saying he had a very dry wit. But he carried a sort of melancholy from the First World War.

“It was a different time. Like all good writing and the way that it’s presented, it’s interesting, it’s not black and white. He must have been fairly difficult to live with and she had this huge career. She was a real taskmaster for herself. She was manically ambitious and busy.”

The divorce? Enid went on to marry second husband Kenneth Waters, played in the TV film by Denis Lawson.

“She sued Hugh for divorce on the grounds of adultery, rather than the other way around. That was the sort of man he was. He was a gent. She cut him out of her life very quickly once they divorced. And he didn’t maintain a relationship with the two daughters. And you see Enid going out of her way to stop him coming round. She drew a line under their relationship.”

(Kenneth later adopted the two girls, further pushing Hugh out of their lives. Hugh went on to marry his third wife Ida. He died in 1971 but she is still alive and at 101 is reported to be about to publish her own autobiography)

The Second World War:

“I think Hugh was profoundly worried by the the beginnings of the rumblings of the Second World War and couldn’t understand why his wife wasn’t sharing his sense of worry, fear and anxiety about it. In the Second World War he was in the Home Guard with his old regiment in Surrey.”

Matthew has a moustache in Enid. Was it his own?

“It was not,” he laughed. “No, we made friends every morning. Helena kept making me laugh. Lots of giggles.”

Hugh was a drinker. Is acting drunk difficult?

“Once you analyse it, it’s actually someone trying to do something very precisely, because no-one really thinks they’re drunk when they’re drunk, unless they’re really gone. You’re trying to stay in control. It’s tricky. Some people who drink just top themselves up and you don’t really know that they’re permanently pickled.”

Hugh (Matthew) and Enid (Helena)

“It just came along. It’s quite bleak out there at the moment. There’s not a lot happening. I was going to do A Passage To India and that was pulled. It’s a strange time. So it was a nice day when my agent rang with this.”

Would he work in America?

“Well, the family, we live here. There’s enough work. I don’t have any ambitions to live there, really. I don’t mind going where the work is, I don’t mind going to wherever, but…if there was nothing going on here, I’d probably go to LA for the pilot season. But there’s plenty of good stuff here.

“I’m doing a little bit with the Robin Hood film. I’m the Sheriff of Nottingham. It’s a very incidental character. It’s not the Alan Rickman Prince of Thieves. I just get humiliated. He’s a local bureaucratic idiot who’s after taxes. The bigger the movie, the more impersonal it is, the less you know.”

Is he thinking about theatre work?

“Yeah, it’s just whatever comes up. I really take it day by day, because that’s all you can do, unless you’re in a position where you can go, ‘Right, I’m going to do this…’ Which I’m not. If a great play came up, I’d jump at it.”

(Matthew has since signed to star on stage with Kim Cattrall in the Noel Coward play Private Lives, at London’s Vaudeville Theatre from Feb 24 2010, following a two week run in Bath which starts on Feb 10)

Keeley was working on ITV1 drama series Identity at the time of this interview and is now filming the final series of Ashes To Ashes:

“We’ve got three kids, so we’ve got a nanny and child care help. We’ve just moved house, just as the western economy collapsed. So we need to go out to work.”

Does he watch much TV drama?

“I watch very little. I really don’t. The last few years I haven’t watched anything. I kind of feel like it’s wasting my life. Once I’ve got the kids in bed and all that, the last thing I want to do is sit and watch TV. I’d rather read a book or have a glass of wine with my wife. I can’t remember the last thing I watched. That’s terrible.”

So you haven’t been watching Keeley in Ashes To Ashes? (He also appeared in a guest role for one episode)

“Oh yes, I’ve seen that, yeah, yeah. I saw it a while ago. Unfortunately you can’t be a guest twice. I really loved that. And that was my own moustache.”

Jelly and ginger beer for tea

“I hope I’m a good dad. I’m a pushover, really. My daughter, especially, runs rings around me.”

Is the outdoor childhood of Blyton’s books one we should return to, rather than children sitting in front of TVs and playing computer games?

“I think there’s something lovely about kids going out. I try and make my kids independent and encourage them to take risks. I think I’d worry if they were sitting in front of the TV all day, which they’re not. But I think it’s quite good for kids…it ties in with what we were saying about why Enid Blyton’s fiction is comforting. It’s a routine and I think over-stimulus is not always a good thing.

“I remember when I was little, I wanted and I needed time to stare at the wall and think and stop. And nowadays there’s a lot of, ‘Let’s do this, and we’re doing this.’ And actually it’s quite nice just to sit. My kids are very good. They sit and pick up a toy and they play with it for ages on their own.”

Were you ever in a Famous Five style gang yourself as a child?

“No. I wanted to be. My brother and I tried to create adventures. My father worked for an oil company so we moved around a lot. We were in London and then Lincolnshire and then the Far East, and Scotland as well.

“My youngest likes Noddy. And then my eldest has got into Mr Gum, written by Andy Stanton. He’s very funny. I tried him with The Famous Five but he’s not really bothered.”

Is there a pressure when you are an actor and a parent to do the voices when you read a bedtime story?

“It depends on how much wine I’ve had when I’m telling the story. If we’ve had a few glasses of wine of a night and then I pick them up and start reading them, then I really go for it, yes. ‘Ho, ho, ho…’ But I try and skip pages. Some of the books are really long. And they always know: ‘Daddy!’ There’s a long one called The Night Pirates. It’s a good 10 minutes.”

Working on talking books?

“I’ve read two and I never want to do it again. I’m really bad at it. Awful, like torture. Some actors are very good at it. I’m really bad and I don’t enjoy it. Life’s too short. I did a Tony Parsons book, awfully. And I hadn’t really done my homework. I had all these accents to do. Two days in the recording studio. Even the sound recordists were going…really bad. Stephen Fry reading the Harry Potter books is amazing. That’s such a feat of stamina. The muscles start going in your mouth.”

Matthew met Blyton’s surviving youngest daughter Imogen:

“She was lovely. It’s nerve-wracking in the sense that you’re playing her father. But she was very sympathetic and very sweet. She said she was glad I was playing him and that he was very dry and funny. She had seen a few things I’d done, so that was quite nice.”

Enid: Helena Bonham Carter Extras

The Enid Blyton Society

Enid Blyton BBC Archive

Enid DVD

Matthew Macfadyen Fansite

Private Lives: Vaudeville Theatre, London

Follow Ian Wylie on Twitter

After seeing the new posters and mentioning seeing the trailer at the cinema the other day in 3D. I decided to go on a search on youtube to find the trailer and post in on my blog. I really do just love Johnny Depp the more and more I see him. I do find this trailer very teasing as you do not really get to see much (which is a plus) but it really leaves you wanting more.

What do you make of this trailer?

Are you looking forward to this movie?