My Day: “Burn After Reading”

I turned it off after it was half over.  not because it was a bad film, but because it was really a worthless film.  A CIA investigative agent gets demoted, and quits the agency.  He and his wife are having problems, but she has a boy friend, who has another wife.  So that’s one complication, especially as the agent doesn’t know about the boyfriend (although he knows the boyfriend).

In the meantime, the agent decides to write his memoirs.  It goes on a computer disc, which he loses and which is found at a local gym, where two of the people who find it decide, first, to return it (once the owner is identified), and second, to return it but ask for a reward, and, three (after several unpleasant communications with the agent) decide to ask for even more…….

This is where I quit.

But what is extraordinary about this film (which maybe you never really heard of) is the cast, which includes George Clooney and John Malkovich, and Frances McDormand, and Tilda Swain and Brad Pitt.  All those folks – but the film is just plain silly.

Yes, Malkovich is the agent, Swain his wife, Clooney her boyfriend (sorta), and Pitt and McDorman the blackmailers.  Bet you could have guessed that.

My Day: Around the World in 80 Days

Is Jules Verne for adults and adolescents?  I don’t know, even after reading this book.  And my other question is :  how come the film had that great hot air balloon, and there was no balloon in the book?  And I guess I have a third question, too.  Why isn’t his name Phineas Fogg, why is it Philius Fogg?

So, Philius, who is a reclusive Englishman who plays whist every day at his men’s club, makes a bet that he can go all around the world in 80 days.  This is still the 19th century, so that was about as fast as possible.  And he bets virtually everything he has.  And, with his newly hired valet, Passpartout, he takes off that very day.

For a while things go well, then there are some problems, largely because there was a big bank robbery in London, and someone decided that Philius is the culprit, which is why he is leaving town so quickly. and heading around the world.  So, a detective follows him, waiting for receipt of a warrant, so he can arrest him.  That’s fine, as long as they stay in the British Empire, including  in India where they rescue and damsel in distress, but once they hit China, all bests are off.

Transportation problems slow them down, but…..by luck he arrives 5 minutes before the end of 80 days, and gets the money and marries the damsel in distress, who is no longer in distress.  But he almost wound up with neither.  And why is that?  You have to read the book.

 

My Day: “Patrick Melrose”

A five part HBO series based on a number of “semi-autobiographical” novels by Edward St. Aubyn starring Benedict Cumberbatch.  What a weird series.  How unpleasant.  But, I think it is supposed to be.

Patrick is the only son of a dysfunctional father (a talented musician/composer who was trained as a doctor), who married a very wealthy dysfunctional woman and quit working, spending his days drinking, drinking, drinking, bossing his wife around, and abusing his son.  Patrick himself does not have his father’s talent or education, but drinks and takes drugs and is generally out of control.  Attractive to women, he is also married and has two sons, and spends most of his time out of control.  His mother owns a beautiful estate in the south of France, where Patrick and family vacation, but she decides to give it to a foundation run by a young new-age guru, leaving Patrick and his family out in the cold.  She dies, too.

Patrick’s wife leaves him, and at then end of the series he seems to be back with his old girlfriend, who has her own troubles.  Not sure what will happen after that.

The story line is not chronological, but goes back and forth, increasing a bit the confusion of the viewer, but then again, it makes little difference, because whichever generation you are looking at, whether Patrick is 5 or 45, someone is always drunk or stoned and out of control.  Cumberbatch and the rest of the cast do a fine job, but you can only do so much portraying the British idle rich.

 

My Day: Anthony Trollope and The Warden

I had never read Trollope and this seemed like an easy way to explore his writing.  I found the book an interesting period piece, but not one that I would recommend you put on your must-read list.

He’s the priest and warden of a rural church that has a connected residence for twelve aged, indigent men, a residence left to the church some time ago as a bequest.  The warden was put in this place by the presiding bishop, who also happens to be the father-in-law of the warden’s older daughter.  His younger daughter is unmarried, but in a 19th century English relationship with a young man whom today would be called an activist, looking to better the life of the poor and downtrodden.  (This reminded me of a book a read a month or two ago, Sybil, by Benjamin Disraeli, written about 20 years earlier but also centered on the difference between the wealthy and the much larger poorer classes of England.)

The warden is provided a good salary for his role with the old folks residence, which his daughter’s activist boy friend believes to be uncalled for,, thinking that the will bequeathing the building to the church required the earnings on the accompanying endowment be distributed in part to the residents of the building.  He arranges a lawsuit to the brought against his girl friend’s father, the bishop and the bishop’s son (his girl friend’s brother in law).  This does not go over well with the girl friend.

It also does not go over well with her father, the warden, one of the universe’s most noble beings, who thinks that maybe the lawsuit is appropriate and maybe he shouldn’t be receiving the annual salary he gets, which allows him and his daughter (he is a widower) to live as well as they do.

The activist and the girl friend make a deal.  One agrees to get the lawsuit dropped, and the other agrees to marry.  Simple.  But not so simple, because even if the suit is dropped, will the warden be satisfied to return to his financially comfortable life?

Won’t give you the answer to that one……