Plenty of atmosphere, all of it nasty. Plenty of sharp dialogue without one single moment of human decency ever poking through the total gloom. Nice pointless plot in which all men are suspected of everything and not to be trusted. Possibly the most utterly objectionable film I have ever seen after Silence of the Lambs.

You must see it, as an education in pure, unadulterated prejudice masquerading as interesting psychological complexity. And Meg Ryan really got into it, as you can see from the Parkinson interview on YouTube, and Nicole Kidman co-produced it, so these babes think it really says something about sex, love and men – which is simply terrifying.

Because no mysoginist, no matter how bleak his world, no matter how many women had cruelly rejected him, could ever turn out an image of woman as utterly hating and completely negative as the men portrayed in this film.

What it tells us, that a bunch of rich, attractive, powerful and intelligent women in the most cosseted country on earth could make such a movie, what it tells us is that something is terribly wrong…

This voiceover enables Woody to illuminate the easy lives of a bunch of stupid American clichés, to mould them this way and that around a bunch of stupid romantic and life clichés, to foil them with a bunch of stupid cliché Spanish stuff - and yet to extract a dry laugh from a jaded and hostile viewer (me) at every single turn.

I have never liked the guy, never liked his arrogance, never liked his antics, never liked his strange family relationships and never liked the adulation he used to get from dunderheads starved of anything more meaningful. But if he had learned to step back sooner, as he does here, if he had broadened his field of vision like he does here, my God, he could have been almost half a contender.

For American humour, this film is brilliant, almost European in its almost sophistication. A very enjoyable romp, though the sex could have been more explicit and the Cruz identity almost spoils it by overacting to put  Scarlett in her place when actually the third woman, the incidental, woman, the Spanish artist and the voiceover are the real stars, especially the voiceover.

Choices:

1)          mesmerise yourself while passing dingy garage run by yobs offering a “free safety” check and recoil in panic when they discover worn shocks and offer to fit a reconditioned aircon something or other much cheaper than the main dealer; knowing nothing about cars you think it has to be done now and leave the car for three days; after hassling them on the phone twenty times, the final bill is about £700, less for cash; drive away and wonder if the aircon really is working or if they even changed the oil, let alone the front shocks

2)          opt for safety and book a luxury coffee break at the main dealer’s gorgeous showroom while a brittle woman plastered with make-up who knows nothing about cars but everything about billing patiently wears down the customer before you; glance at Daily Torygraph and National Geographic while trying not to admire the gleaming coupe next to your comfy leather armchair; speak to brittle woman for five minutes and depart in loan car for the day, desperate not to scratch it; return at teatime to see gleaming old car in parking lot and glimpse of beautiful workshop area where uniformed engineers are looking at computers; endure even longer wait for brittle woman’s assistant, hairstyle woman, who has a white Afro that surpasses description of any kind; drive away in immaculately valetted vehicle with £1, 287.67 plus VAT less in your bank account; this is fine if you have loads of money but the aircon still isn’t working like it used to

3)          learn something about cars and spend time tracking down the last real garage for miles, where Sid answers the phone after he’s crawled out from under an old Jag; book in for vague list of possible things that need doing and arrive early on appointed day to find Sid and Bill already on their bacon sandwiches after starting work at six; they don’t say much and they wave you away so you catch the bus home and hope for the best; at lunchtime Sid phones to explain something you don’t understand but it’s not that expensive so you say yes; when you turn up at closing time Sid and Bill are still at work on a treacherous Alfa, swearing at each other and obviously exhausted; your car is parked behind several others they must have done that day; you wait, wondering when they retire and why anyone would fancy Miss July 1983 for so many years; Bill arrives, because he is the communicator… explains that you are very lucky because they found a something that had worked loose from the aircon lying in the oil-pan where it could have fallen in the road and been lost, oh dear; he’s sorry but they had to change the brake pads and I didn’t answer when he rang me; apologetically hands over grimy scrawl bill culminating in the sum of £312 inc. VAT and tells you the shocks can wait another year; they don’t take credit cards but it’s OK to bring the rest of the cash tomorrow, when you can collect the MOT cert., OK?

This evening I witnessed what must be the death throws of that business model, at a depressing warehouse where flabby women waddle and spotty youth “manages” to be as completely unhelpful as possible, knowing zero about their own stock and not even trained to say “good evening” in response to polite customers who recognise them as human beings, which is a waste of time because they are not. From the financial pages I know that this chain of sheds is on the rocks and about to go bust, but have they learned anything about customer care in thirty years, have they used their huge sourcing muscle to bring quality goods to the public at reasonable prices? Have they fuck. The retail space consists of acres of crap bath and bed room layouts, all of them nasty but few of them cheap, followed by acres of own brand shite, all of it nasty but none of it cheap, followed by acres of garden furniture, most of it nasty and some of it cheap as well as nasty. The stuff you actually want, like a halogen bulb, a decent paint brush with proper bristles, some carpet tacks, whatever… it’s all carefully hidden away so you have to ask a confused assistant who waddles around for a while before saying she’ll ask the manager, who is busy with a queue of irate consumers returning trash and arguing about special offers that didn’t scan as such when they got to the checkout.
Finally you have your stuff and in a murderous mood you join a long line for the single open till that has broken down while fat waddlers and spotty managers whine at each other and look at their watches. They’re people, you tell yourself. Say good evening and engage in sympathetic banter about what a long day it’s been. Waste of time. The best you get is a grunt, blank incomprehension when you mention the lovely evening sunlight and the interesting breeze that is blowing the bags away, no thanks for keeping them in a job so they can buy some more junk food to exacerbate the spots and improve the waddle, not even a goodbye.
Personally, I’m sad that the excellent hardware store where I could have done this in five minutes for about the same price and had a jolly amusing chat with a friendly person about how well Arsenal are doing this season – has long since closed to be replaced by yet another fucking money-grabbing optician charging a 600% mark-up. But we asked for this when we were seduced by having the spending power of proudly rising house values and were able to improve our own homes meaning that decent workmen had nowhere to go and the world filled up with last minute cowboys who rip you off and the only way to get a plumber these days is to be insured.

Ugly, greedy, slimy-suited capitalism 5, ordinary people and consumers, 0. Quality of life index, minus 30%.

If classical performers were photographers and we were using the concept of contrast we might differentiate between the high contrast, edgy, nervy, explorative, sometimes monochrome mode of interpretation and the blander, more colourful, more lyrical tendency that was very strong before what’s his name came along with the best-ever selling classical recording, his famous Four Seasons. Now every scrap of old Italian music, which used to be ignored or when played sound like metronomic Scarlatti, is being given the authentic oomph by tight little chamber orchestras with charismatic leaders, usually claiming to use period instruments to produce their sharp but grainy sounds. A good thing, probably, because Bach used to be boring when it was done as a babbling brook and Haydn still is so often turned into chocolate box that anything else is welcomed by listeners who are gasping for something with some sex about it.

By complete contrast, the classic German interpretations of Beethoven have always been far too harsh and it’s taken diverse foreigners and methods to find the inner lyricism, the two calling birds that are forever chirping at each other, even in his grandest pieces and intrinsically modernist late quartets.

Poor old Brahms seems to be the ultimate victim, a man for whom the peel of bells is the prime inner compass, a music that seems to fall heavily between whatever compass points professional musicians happen to be adjusting the direction in whatever epoch. They still haven’t mastered Brahms. And I wonder about Schubert, the great unpredictable, source of such sweet melodies and such God-awful, all-over-the-place discord at the same time.

And how about Mozart? So perfect in so many ways. Surely a genius that great can’t have intended so much slush to issue from his instant creations. Surely they can feel the scope for mood in all those endless sonatas and concertos that are so often reduced to technically proficient Muzac… Doesn’t Mozart, more than any composer, need a Nigel Kennedy to come along and kick some ass?

Well, in my view, it has finally happened, and the critics overwhelmingly agreed on giving it five stars. If you want to rethink Mozart so it has something in its trousers, have a listen to this from Kremer.

http://player.omroep.nl/?aflID=10013723

Well now you do; these:

http://www.amazon.com/Dvorák-Complete-Piano-Music-Box/dp/B0009OALJM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1248635439&sr=1-1

Reviewed here:

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classRev/2005/Sep05/Dvorak_Poroshina_92606.htm

Somf it, like Grieg’s famous Lyric Pieces, is repetitive. But much of it will stir the nature in your soul.

The technology is breathtaking, ditto the visual impact and the plot lines work on you because just when you think someone on any side of the vested and personal interests in play is about to do something decent or honest, they don’t. The American spooks with their technology are show as both omnipotent and powerless without the old-fashioned cunning displayed by the head of the Jordanian secret service, who is an unforgettable character.

There is a kind of resolution of the main plot theme at the end but several backstories you have been building in your heart are left unresolved or tainted with potential tragedy and in this sense it feels oddly accurate to what life must be like on the front line between Western Imperialism and Muslim terrorism.

Innocent people on both sides get dragged in and badly harmed, which is another even-handed strength of the moral compass of the film. But you’ll need a strong stomach for the torture scenes and a strong spirit for the wasted and scattered lives. Alas, it is also the kind of movie that may set your female companion to wondering whether men actually enjoy violence for its own sake.

Here is a quote from the last two verses:

I been double-crossed now for the very last time and now I’m finally free,
I kissed goodbye the howling beast on the borderline which separated you from me.
You’ll never know the hurt I suffered nor the pain I rise above,
And I’ll never know the same about you, your holiness or your kind of love,
And it makes me feel so sorry.

Idiot wind, blowing through the buttons of our coats,
Blowing through the letters that we wrote.
Idiot wind, blowing through the dust upon our shelves,
We’re idiots, babe.
It’s a wonder we can even feed ourselves.

Reviewed thus: “If I am to be allowed only one musical work on a desert island, then I should choose Koroliov’s Bach, because forsaken, starving and dying of thirst, I would listen to it right up to my last breath.”
(György Ligeti)

It’s incandescent, truly. The greatest breakthrough in Bach keyboard I’ve ever heard: it’s bright, skillful, passionate, professional, imaginative… WOW!!!