aardvarkinmud What pictures do you like to look at?
This question really made me think and I wasn't sure why kind of pictures to talk about, so I've divided it up. First of all I'm going to talk about paintings, then abstract images and then photos.
Paintings
I'm very much a lover of classical art. Rob and I have been known to go to the National Gallery and spend five hours going round the older sections with the audio tour. I love just sitting and looking at the paintings while listening all about them. I love epic paintings that tell a story and I find some of the early religious work absolutely beautiful. Below are some of my favourites.
The Execution of Lady Jane Grey by Paul Delaroche 1833
I remember seeing this painting when I first visited the National Gallery on a school trip when I was seventeen. I stood in front of it for ages and it made a huge impression. I have never forgotten it and I have to go and see it every time I go to the gallery.
Samson and Delilah by Rubens
I love the colours in this one. There is so much stillness and tension as Samson's hair is cut.
Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian by Piero del Pollaiolo
This one has so much going on and the aspects of all the men firing arrows as Saint Sebastian as incredibly interesting. I know that it all has a meaning because I listened to it last time I was in the National Gallery, but I can't remember exactly what it was. All I know is you can go barely a room in that section of the gallery without coming across another Saint Sebastian; he seems to have been a very popular subject.
The Death of Actaeon by Titian
Another tragic painting, but with so much life and interest.
Ophelia by John Everett Millais
I love this painting for all it's detail and emotion. I saw it in an exhibition at the Tate Britain. The fact that the model was ill because she lay in the water so long for the painter to finish the work and her father charged him for the doctor's fees just add to it's realism.
Abstract Images
I'm not much of a fan of abstract art, but I do rather like Jackson Pollock. The way he used colour and shape is simply fascinating.
I find a lot of abstract art boring (and this is just my opinion, I know some people really enjoy it), but I could look at a Pollock for hours. Abstract art with something of an organic feel is by far my favourite when it comes to paintings. However, I also like computer generated art. I love fractals.
I find the endlessly repeating patterns restful and intriguing. The fact that you get fractals in nature is also fascinating (and tasty as in the example below :)).
Photos
Now I'm going to be shallow :D. I've done the arty bit and I do like to look at arty photos too, but one of my great joys is looking at photos of my favourite actors. Guess who's first!
There is absolutely no doubt that James McAvoy is nice to look at. He has lovely hair, intense blue eyes and lovely pink lips that just beg for many things :). When you hear him speak he also has the most wonderful Scottish accent.
However, it is not just these qualities that have made me want to share my adoration of this wonderful actor.
He is a fabulous human being
Not only does he do his bit for charity, but he's also a thoroughly nice chap. For example he hangs around in the freezing cold to sign autographs and say hello to all his fans even after he's been to a premier and then had a full on stage performance as well.
There was also a time in Heathrow airport where, when there were big flight delays and his plane was delayed by eight hours, he and his co-star from "The Last Station", Kerry Condon decided that rather than just sit around they would take muffins and water to other passengers. Here's the quote from James:
“Everybody was in really good spirit. Thousands and thousands of people were trying to get their bags out of a mountain of bags but it was hilarious. “Kerry got a big box of muffins and I got a lot of water and calcium tablets and we went around finding children who were crying and really annoying their parents, so we were like, ‘Do you want a muffin?’”
This is also the man who was doing an interview for his new movie Trance (psychological thriller with amnesia) when asked: "Is there a memory you have that you would never want stolen?"
replied "Probably my baby boy sleeping on my chest." He is also always so clear about how much he loves his wife and how much she means to him. How can you not love him?
He has a wicked and often twisted sense of humour
Here is a man who can rarely get through an interview without making a joke, who is often smiling a mischievous smile and who laughs with abandon. He's not shy about talking about sex or sexual appendages and often makes jokes about both. He is, in fact, a man after my own heart. He has an angelic face and a somewhat dirty mind :).
If you want to watch someone really having fun in an interview, watch some of the X-men: First Class interviews where he's with Michael Fassbender. They are hilarious. Here is just one of them:
He is the most amazing actor
Here is a guy who is 5'7'', which for an actor is definitely not tall. Yet I have seen him play romantic leads, actions heroes, geeks and the ultimate in dramatic parts. He can literally play any role as far as I can tell. He has the versatility to pick up a script and make it his own as well as having amazing chemistry with his co-stars. (The picture to the left is from Welcome to the Punch).
Let me introduce you to some of my favourites.
If you want a film that will make you laugh and cry in equal measure then you should see Inside I'm Dancing (aka Rory O'Shea Was Here). In this film James plays Rory, a young man in a wheel chair who has virtually no movement left and he's something of an arse and determined to live his life to the full. Rory befriends Michael, played by Steven Robertson) who has cerebral palsy and virtually unintelligible speech and Rory changes Michael's life forever. You will need a box of tissues handy.
Another one of my favourites is Children of Dune in which James plays Leto Atredes II. He does spend half the mini-series half naked, which is an added bonus, but he also brings the role to life. Children of Dune is the sequel to Dune the mini series and was made in 2003, so James looks very young and yet he brings a maturity to the role which belies his boyish features. I love sci-fi and I love the Dune books and these productions really bring the stories to a new level.
Then we come to Wanted with Angelina Jolie which is a role James didn't initially get. Originally they were looking for a traditional action hero type like Brad Pitt, but then they decided they wanted something of a more geeky individual. James goes from office keyboard jockey to kick ass hero during the film and I love this movie. It's contemporary sci-fi meets thriller and is based on a comic book, so it's real world, but the heroes have slightly superhuman powers. Guns, actions, stunts and big explosions.
James is also Professor X from the X-men movies. No, that's Patrick Stewart, I hear you say, which is correct, but James plays the young Professor X in the First Class films. From what I've seen in interviews he's really excited to be doing the next movie because he gets to work with Partick Stewart. James is a huge Star Trek fan. He's also a brilliant Professor X. I was never really a Professor X fan until I saw X-men First Class and James made him come alive. This is the role that really made me a fan and after I saw the film I spent several months collecting most of James' back catalogue.
James has two movies out at the moment, Welcome to the Punch, which is brilliant and I wrote a review of it here, and Trance, which I wrote a review of here. They are both well worth seeing. In fact both are worth seeing more than once.
Welcome to the Punch is a police thriller set in London, with a very slick, US blockbuster style of filming to it. James plays Max Lewinsky, a police officer on the hunt for his nemesis, a master crook by the name of Jacob Sternwood.
Trance is a psychological thriller directed by Danny Boyle and a complete mind f**k. James plays Simon, an art dealer turned art thief who double crosses his partners and then manages to lose his memory.
Now these are by no means James' only films, he's played a morally ambiguous doctor in The Last King of Scotland, a faun in The Chronicles of Narnia, a play boy gambler in Penelope, a young gentleman of society in Becoming Jane, a gardener in Atonement and so many more. He looks as fine in historical costume as he does in a leather jacket and jeans and he can carry them all off.
James is undoubtedly one of my two favourite actors and ties in first place with Tom Hiddleston, who I will be talking about for T :). If you've never seen one of his movies, I can't recommend them more.
I'll let you into a secret, he's also the inspiration for one of my original characters, but I'm not going to tell you which one. It's kind of obvious if you go looking :).
If you would like to see what all of my posts will be about in advance, click here to see my theme post. My twin and I are also doing the A to Z Challenge over at our fantasy erotica blog: http://fantasyboysxxx.blogspot.co.uk/
Title: Trance Director: Danny Boyle Cast:
James McAvoy...Simon
Vincent Cassel...Franck
Rosario Dawson...Elizabeth Summary: Simon, a fine art auctioneer, helps set up the theft of a very valuable painting but during the theft, double crosses the thieves and takes the painting and hides it. During the robbery he is hit on the head and the resulting brain injury means he doesn't remember where he put it. A hypnotherapist tries to help him unravel his memory and the lines between reality and what's in Simon's head start to blur.
First, let's get the shallow part out of the way. James McAvoy has a very, very nice naked arse, which is on display for quite some time in the middle of the film. I approve.
Okay, now on to deeper things. I really enjoyed this film (and no not just because James gets naked). I'm not always fond of psychological thrillers that are mind benders, which this most certainly is, but this one is put together beautifully. What I really love about it is the repeating ideas which mean that you can actually watch it the way it pans out and enjoy it, but if you don't want to believe that's the way the story actually went, hell, you don't have to. I'll put my theory of what really happened at the end under a spoiler section.
There are actually six characters in it nearly all the way through, but I do have to admit only three really impinged on my memory. The other three were good, and required, but I never did figure out their names. As far as my brain is concerned they are The Black Guy, The Skinny Guy and The White Guy. I do apologise to the fine actors who played them, but there was so much going on I did not have enough brain power left to pick up their characters' names.
The three main protagonists are Simon, Elizabeth and Franck (see the piccie above). I'm not going to lie, I went to see the film because of James McAvoy (if you look round my blog you might notice I'm a bit of a fan), but I was not remotely disappointed by the rest of the cast either. Rosaria Dawson is magnificent as Elizabeth, the hypnotherapist and Vincent Cassel is superb as the very practical Franck.
This is ultimately a film about a strong woman manipulating the men around her. There is no doubt through most of the movie who is in control and it is brilliantly done.
The way the film moves from reality to fantasy back to reality so smoothly with very few indications of what is real and what is not, means that anything could be happening. There are clues as to the plot reveal at the end throughout the whole film, so you can look back and go, oh yeah, and, if you're like me, pick them up on the way through, but, because of the nature of the movie, nothing is actually black and white.
The plot uses repeating ideas and mirrors events with one character with another so that anything is possible.
Now don't get me wrong, the plot is more than a little far fetched. Hypnotic suggestions, mind control; it's all in there, but as long as you go with that being real, it's perfectly put together. It requires that suspension of disbelief, but then so do many cold war dramas of the sixties and seventies and it's asking no more.
The cinematography is beautiful and the looking straight at the camera shots are used wonderfully to make the audience sit up, take notice and feel uncomfortable.
Word of warning, however, if you are squeamish or triggered by torture (male or female) or rape/violence towards women, do not watch this film. Highlight here to find out why if you wish to know >> There is a graphic scene of torture at the beginning involving fingernails and there is an almost rape towards the end as well a scenes of a woman being hit in an abusive rather than part of the plot everyone is getting beaten up way.
I really enjoyed this film and now I would like a copy so I can watch it again just to see if what I think I saw I actually saw :).
So on to my theory of what really happened, highlight the following paragraphs to read it because lots of spoilers:
My whole theory revolves around one idea: the painting is a fake. I still think Elizabeth is the brains behind the whole operation, but the head auctioneer is in on it too, along with the seller of the painting. It's all actually an insurance scam and Franck is the fall guy. Simon did go to Elizabeth about his gambling and she was helping him and they did have an affair, but it never got ugly. What happened is the painting came in, the head auctioneer realised it was a fake and they all saw an opportunity to get rich from the insurance and pay off all Simon's debts. Franck is the one easily hypnotised, not Simon and the whole last part of the film is his delusion, rather than a good percentage of the movie being Simon's. They needed some criminals to make it look like a real robbery and they used Simon's contacts to find Franck. Simon took the painting and it never left the building. Elizabeth hypnotised him to forget the truth so that when he was beaten up by Franck he couldn't reveal the scam, but that's as far as her input with him went. Every other interaction they had was for Franck's benefit. The one snag was when Simon was hit on the head, but it played out in their favour in the end because it made the whole thing more believable. The original plan had involved a fake head injury or psychosomatic amnesia or something. When the gang allowed Elizabeth to hypnotise them, they gave her the opportunity she needed to plant suggestions, to which she gave Simon the key. While she was with Franck, doing to him exactly what she had told him she was going to Simon, Simon went to the others and sent them as far away as possible, since by the end of the movie they are supposed to be dead. From the point where Elizabeth tells Franck there is something she wants to tell him, right to the end, it all happens in Franck's head. There was no red alpha, no murder and no flaming car; Elizabeth planted it all in Franck's mind. Then she and Simon jetted off to somewhere hot and out of the way and she sent the vid back to Franck to make sure he believes it all. or It did all happen as shown and in Trance 2 Simon comes back (we all know if you don't see the body in the bag, death is questionable - that's movie law) and spends the entire movie playing mind games with Franck and Elizabeth.
Title: Welcome to the Punch Cast:
James McAvoy - Max Lewinsky
Mark Strong - Jacob Sternwood
Andrea Riseborough - Sarah Hawks Writer: Eran Creevy Director: Eran Creevy Summary: Max Lewinsky is a police officer in London and three years ago he almost caught Jacob Sternwood, top criminal single handedly. It almost cost him his career and when Sternwood, now retired, is forced to return to the UK because his son is involved in a shooting, Max is there to try and catch him. However, there are deeper things going on and nothing is quite so straightforward.
I read one review of this that said it was incoherent, but I have no idea what film they were watching. You have to pay attention, but that's because the story has details and makes perfect sense. I loved this film and can't wait for the blu-ray release.
One of the things I really liked about this movie, is it is a film all about guns and yet it sends the message that being unarmed is actually safer. Part of the plot is a politician trying to get support for London police officers to be armed, but the only reason Max is alive for most of the movie is because at the beginning he was unarmed. He also spends most of the film without a gun even though everyone else seems to have one. I thought it was brilliantly done.
James McAvoy plays Max Lewinsky, who, in the first few scenes is a fiery young police officer desperate to take down Jacob Sternwood, master criminal.
It doesn't go so well.
Three years later we meet a police officer who is good at his job, but who is toeing the line and not causing waves.
James does an absolutely superb job of showing us both sides of Max's character. Then, as the film goes on we see the old Max coming forth again, and boy can he kick arse when he wants to. He is brilliant as ever and gives us the complexities of Max as well as his failings. Also can I just take a shallow moment to say that James also looks very fine throughout this film :).
The second lead, Jacob Sternwood is also played brilliantly by Mark Strong. Left is how we see him at the beginning of the film as the sharp criminal, right is how we see him throughout most of the movie as the desperate father.
He is a bad guy; he shoots people, but he's also rather likeable and not as psychotic as the "evil bad guy" (as my brain kept referring to him), Warns. I suppose Sternwood is the gentleman theif where as Warns is the thug.
The third performance I want to talk about is Andrea Riseborough as Sarah. Sarah is Max's partner and exactly how he used to be before his tangle with Sternwood. She is strong, competent and calls Max on his shit as well as being the only one willing to support him against his dick of a colleague (and it's most annoying because I can't remember his name and IMDB don't have it).
There is a perfect moment between Sarah and Max that displays the depth of feeling they have for each other, but neither of them is willing to step over the line.
This film starts with a car chase, who could possibly not give it points for that. It's not a car chase sort of film mostly, but the one at the beginning is great. Interesting and not too long, just the way I like them :). It's not a big explosions kind of film either, but what it does have is some great gun battles. Three stand out in my head and they are all superbly put together.
There is a fast pace, good dialogue, great acting, superb plot and stunning visuals; this is a great film. It's even darkly funny in places, which is just brilliant. I can't recommend it more.
So, that is the end of my review, but I just have to add, be still my slashy little heart. Oh my, the fanfic vibes I got off this. Max and Sternwood have this staring into each others' eyes moment at the end of the film, admittedly over a gun, but it just fired every fanfic button I had. It's like Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy, or Loki and Tony Stark; it just screams, we are enemies and yet we should be kissing madly :). See below and tell me I am wrong.
This weekend my husband and I had a long weekend in London, mostly so that we could go and see James McAvoy in Macbeth, and boy was it worth it. I can say that this production of Macbeth is bloody brilliant and I meant that quite literally.
Now if you don't like the sight of blood this is not the production for you. Half the cast are covered in it for half the play and the floor gets covered at least twice. That being said, the blood is not over the top since this is a very violent version of the play.
Please be aware this review will contain spoilers for the staging of the production, I'm pretty sure most people reading this already know what happens in the play ;).
For those who do not know, this version uses the original text, but is set in a distopian Scotland of the near future. It is all about conflict and it shows it in spades. It is definitely the most exciting version of Macbeth I have ever seen.
First of all there was one thing I was slightly unimpressed with, but that had nothing to do with what was going on, on the stage. The theatre is small and the seats are cramped and not very comfortable. However, I was so enrapt in the play that I only noticed these things when the actors left the stage, i.e. the interval and the end. That was when I discovered my bum was numb and it was stiflingly hot. Take water if you are going to see this; you will need it.
It's a slightly odd layout in that the front rows at both the front and the back of the stage are actually on the stage. It looked very exciting to be on the front row, a little too exciting for some people. At one point I think one lady thought she was about to be decapitated by a machete and I am sure one chap shrank about a foot when he was yelled at by Macbeth.
Okay, on to the play.
It grabs your attention straight away with a bang and then never lets go. I was thoroughly impressed with the whole cast who delivered their lines in such a way that it was totally understandable. I know Macbeth quite well, having studied it at school and never forgotten (well done Shakespeare and Miss Spittle), but Rob didn't know it as well and he thought it was incredibly clear. I've seen some plays where the cast have delivered the dialogue so badly it's unintelligible, but this production didn't have one speech I didn't get.
Then there is the acting. James McAvoy is stunningly good. He entered the stage and immediately owned it. The fact he was banging a machete and an axe on the ground probably helped, but he didn't really need it. He was commanding and engaging and, boy, is he strong and fast. In his soliloquies he filled the stage, which was a hell of a job with the audience all round, and when he was sharing the stage he gelled with all the other characters.
Macbeth's decent from hero to tyrant was shown in every word he spoke and every action he made. He was marvellous from his first hug with Banquo (Forbes Masson), to his final, bloody death throws thanks to Macduff (Jamie Ballard). This is an incredibly physical production; no standing around just spouting lines and McAvoy shows his strength and flexibility at every turn. There is also beautiful chemistry between him and Claire Foy as Lady Macbeth.
Which is a nice sidestep onto Lady Macbeth, for she was also fantastic. Her "Out damn spot..." was a work of utter beauty. It's really a shame that Lady Macbeth doesn't have a huge death scene like Macbeth, because she would have been epic. She went from conniving wife, to completely batty with wonderful fluidity and the way she and Macbeth get very cosy a time or two was nicely hot.
The one scene where McAvoy basically drags Foy around the stage it utterly amazing. The tension is incredible.
As I have said before the whole cast were marvellous and I could go into raptures about all of them, from the witches to Macduff's son, but it would take me far too many words. Hence I will mention the other two stand out performances for me: Forbes Masson as Banquo and Jamie Ballard as Macduff.
Banquo was every bit the firm friend to Macbeth. There was no doubting they were comrades in arms and men who had had each other's backs. It was there in all their interaction and made is so much more poignant when that fell apart. Masson was wonderful throughout, but he really shone in the banquet scene, where he ends up nose to nose on a table with Macbeth before being drenched in blood from the ceiling.
Then there is Macduff. The scene where he finds out about the death of his wife and children actually made me cry. There is a part where Ballard actually howls in grief and that just did it for me. That was it, I blubbed. I think it was the most heart-wrenching scene from Shakespeare I have ever seen on stage. Simply amazing.
I wish I could go back and see it all again, even with the uncomfortable seats and incredible heat. It was utterly fantastic. The best Macbeth I have ever seen and not just because I am a huge fan of James McAvoy.
Then there was the standing outside the stage door to get an autograph from James. The first thing I have to say, is thanks to my long suffering husband for standing with me and taking pictures. I would have liked to grab a few of the others for autographs too, but it's really quite hard to figure out who are actors when everyone is bundled up in hats and scarves and not covered in blood - who knew ;).
We waited for quite some time, but it was worth it. James came out and signed and talked and had photos taken. He is such a lovely man; genuinely sweet and so nice to everyone.
Thank you James.
I'm pretty sure I didn't make a complete idiot out of myself, although I did discover that silver sharpies do not like the cold. It worked, but barely.
And there you have it, the highlight of my weekend.
This is a superb production and, if they aren't completely sold out, you should all go and get tickets.
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