Creative Accounting #554

Nick Cave = Ian Curtis(Joy Division) + Gil Scott Heron(Blues)

(on watching 20,000 Days on Earth)

NYC - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

First view of America - a narrow long island or strip lit by the setting sun, bordered seaward by a thin wall of light sand and green/brown land, containing channels and tamed sea, meandering rivers and occasional harbours



Being a flaneur around night-time New York around Madison and 45th (having been reading Edmund White's The Flaneur)



Watching a French film on the plane to NYC - Ne le dit a Personne (Tell No-one) - a classy thriller starring Francois Cluzet who has aspects of Dustin Hoffman

Starspot #136

2/11/07 Jimmy Carr (at Channel 4 - on its 25th birthday)

25/10/07 Colin Firth (in foyer of Vue(?) cinema on south side of Leicester Square)

Rules of the Movies 2

When people drop their shopping, the bag always contains round fruit [by U]

People always have french bread in their shopping (in those brown paper shopping bags)

People always move the steering wheel around, even when they're driving down a straight road [courtesy, much though it pains me to say, of Sky Movies]


Evil butlers have no tongues [by N e.g. Stormbreaker, Goldfinger]

Superheroes with high strength are fat [by N e.g. Fantastic Four, The Incredibles]

Dustin Hoffman will always run given half a chance (e.g. The Graduate, Marathon Man, Kramer vs Kramer)

Venus

It was on the good ship Venus, by Christ you should have seen us, the figurehead was Peter O'Toole, still handsome with his floppy TE Lawrence hair (despite his skeletal age). The great Leslie Phillips did a "haallooo" for us all at the premiere of 'Venus' at the Chelsea Cinema. Female lead, Jodie Whittaker was there in a little black number, reminiscent of Imogen Stubbs and Kate Winslet. Director Roger Michell introduced everyone. Producer Kevin Loader attended, alongside Corinne Bailey Rae (who did the music with David Arnold), writer Hanif Kureishi and good old uncle Richard Griffiths.



At the party afterwards dear, dear Johnny Hurt pulled by. Execed by Tessa Ross of FilmFour and Scott Rudin which links to both work and play (the other Paramount Scott, Katherine's other half) plus the link of the Rokeby Venus to Art Vandals - throw in the locations from my manor (from Camden and Kentish Towns to the Chandos caff by the dentist's) and you have a movie I feel pretty connected to. I love what they've done with the poster - they had a tableau vivant at the post-screening pardee which looked the biz, reminiscent of happy hours life drawing in Andi's class.



Leslie Phillips was perfect. O'Toole did a great job, plenty of chemistry and shared experience there. Jodie was fine in a slightly ropey role (a touch of Jane Horrocks meets something else i've seen before). Plenty of enjoyable scenes and a few cracking lines. A fine 96 minutes in the cinema by anyone's standards.



Bumped into Axel 'The Light Side of the advertising Force' Chaldecott and Ian 'Lara Croft' Livingstone along the way. Catering by Jonathan Rutherford Best's mob. All in all, not bad for a Monday night - not least for the A1 Thesps. Boing! "Time for bed"