London Film Festival 2019

JOJO RABBIT was our first film.   Set in the dying days of World War II, Jojo is an inept member of the Hitler Youth whose best friend is an imaginary Adolf Hitler, an hilarious performance by the director,Taika Waititi.   He discovers that his mother, played by the ever-delectable Scarlett Johansson, is hiding a young Jewish girl.   While part of him feels he should expose her, he realises what this would do to his mother and gradually becomes a friend of the girl.   Their time together contrasts with the time in the outside world though this is farcically portrayed until almost the end when the fighting arrives; Johansson is hanged for distributing pacific leaflets and the town all but destroyed with Jojo captured but set free.   The closing scene with the Jewish girl is touching and true.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY is set at a celebration of Catherine Deneuve's birthday en famille.   The discordant family has a wayward son trying to make a film of the event with a new girl friend in tow, a prodigal daughter who turns up with a lot of problems which she unloads during the film and a long-suffering older son who tries to keep things even - played by the director, Cedric Kahn who keeps out of the spotlight.   Over the top at times and reminiscent of some other French family dramas, well played by all.
ONLY THE ANIMALS is another French thriller about a missing woman whose car is found abandoned in a snowdrift, two warrring farmers one of whom finds her and keeps her hidden even though she dies while the other is duped by an African conman who convinces him online that he is sending funds to a beautiful young girl so that she can return to France.   The timeline of the film is anything but straightforward which is probably why I am having trouble now, a month later, remembering just who did what to whom.   Set, apart from the African interlude, in a bleak wintry countryside, it is beautifully photographed and satifactorily acted.
THE DUDE IN ME is a Korean comedy with a CEO gangster finds he has changed bodies with a nerdy student following an accident.   The student becomes super confident but his life is complicated by the fact that his mother and the gangster were once in love. Following several slapstick moments, a further accident reverses the body change with a happy ever after ending.
Takashi Miike's FIRST LOVE was the last film we saw.   A love story of sorts between a boxer dying from a brain tumour and a girl sold into prostitution to pay off her father's debts.   More subdued for
much of the time than many of Miike's films, it allows for the development of the two lovers before
the inevitable explosion of violence.
For once we seem to have made good choices even though the films differ a lot from each other
with the first two benefitting from star casts.   On balance, I think Jojo Rabbit takes first prize.

Connolly, John: The Whisperers

A Charlie Parker thriller finds him involved with a group of ex-soldiers running a smuggling operation between Maine and Canada.   They also have antique artefacts that they stole while in Iraq
some of which are central to this story.   Parker is hired to investigate an apparent suicide of one of
the soldiers returned from Iraq and he discovers that his subject is not the only one to have died.   He
is discovered by the gang while investigating a disused house and comes close to death as a result but, understandably in the overall context, he manages to get away and discovers that he is definitely
dealing with something more than human.   Reluctantly allying with The Collector whose path he has
crossed more than once previously, he is able to bring matters to a conclusion of sorts.   Well up to
the standard expect of John Connolly, this one has rather more of a supernatural element to go with
the more usual activity.  

Frightfest 2019

We limited ourselves to only four films this year.   On the opening night we saw 'Come to Daddy'
which stars Elijah Wood with Stephen McHattie and Martin Donovan in supporting roles, the latter
two being the reason for our choice.  Wood plays a failed actor visiting an isolated coastal house
where his father has unexpectedly invited him.   He lies about his achievement though it becomes
obvious that his father knows that he is not at all a success and relations between them become more
and mor violent.   Various twists in the narrative (you have to accept that Wood cannot recognise his
father) result in killings before a downbeat ending.   Could have been a lot better.
The next day we saw 'Dachra' mainly because it is a Tunisian film.   College friends go off into the
wilds to complete an assignment, helping a trader to fix his vehicle on the way.   However, he turns
up at the settlement in the wood that they are visiting and seems to be the leader there.   They find that their vehicle is also in need of repair but this requires a part which is promised but does not
arrive.   There is an attempt to set a scary atmosphere which does not quite work until one of the students goes for help but is attacked and killed by a fellow student leaving the only female alone
and in danger.  My recollection after over two months is somewhat more positive than the first impression I had: I did not find it at all scary or particularly well made but I now can see it was an
attempt at low-key horror.   The same day we saw "'Cut Off', a German thriller with the lead actor
playing acoroner who finds a capsule in a badly mutilated corpse which has inside it a phone number
and his daughter's name.   The action moves from the German mainland to Heligoland and there are
several twists in what is perhaps not quite a Frightfest film - it would be equally at home at the       London Film Festival.   Quite enjoyable without really ringing any bells.   Leaving the weekend films
alone, we went on Bank Holiday Monday to see 'Satanic Panic' which was a silly bit of nonsense.   A
girl recovering from cancer ekes out a living by delivering pizzas and takes a late order to an isolated
mansion in the hope of getting well-tipped.   The problem is that a Satanic sect is looking for a
virgin to sacrifice and she fits the bill.   The film does descend into somewhat farcical and bloody mayhem which puts it in the guilty pleasure not to be repeated file.

Talbot, Hake: Rim of the Pit

Another book that I have read based on a reference to it (I can't recall where), this is set in a wintry New England wilderness, thus being a sort of open-air closed room mystery.   Published in 1944, the book is pleasant enough but rather stilted.   The lead is an adventurer who has a flirtatious relationship with the stepdaughter of the women who is murdered.   The plot is straightforward though littered with red herrings.   I was left wondering why the recommendation that led me to the
book.   There is nothing wrong with it but, equally, nothing out of the ordinary which makes it one of
many amateur detective type novels of the 1920/1940 decades.

Herron, Mick: Slow Horses

Having read a review of the latest work by this author, I was curious to find out if the praise is justified.   A spy novel set in London featuring Jackson Lamb as the head of a crew of misfits who have been banished from the main office on Regent's Park to Slough House (the title of the novel is both a play on this and a reference to the supposed limited intelligence of the members).   Faced with the task of finding a kidnapped boy who is to be beheaded on live TV by those holding him captive, the team go through various attempts to trace and save him before their eventual success.   Well-written and well-paced, laced with humour, the book does tempt me to read more.

Fowler, Christoper: Wild Chamber

Another Bryant and May novel which is well up to standard.   The Peculiar Crimes Unit has been under threat of closure for some time with this book continuing its precarious existence. As ever, the eccentric interests of Arthur Bryant are material in the eventual solving of the murder at the heart of
the book.   I read this some moths ago, hence the limited review (which will be the case with some of the ones that follow.