21st February Not holding over on the review


Yesterday I did something I haven't done in a long time and that was having an afternoon trip to the cinema. Settling down amongst the silver surfers, I realised that having turned 60 I was now actually one of the silver surfer's myself, although with a distinctly better ability to negotiate the stairs.

And the reason for my trip, apart from the £5 price, was to watch 'The Holdovers', a film that had gained rave reviews and umpteen nominations. And despite a slow start it turned out to match the reviews, a meandering melancholy masterpiece, and we all know how much I love melancholy.

Revolving around a trinity of characters, a cantankerous, unpopular teacher, a bright, abrasive student, the school’s head cook and a recently bereaved mother, who all find themselves forced to spend the winter holiday together in an otherwise empty New England elite academy

It was a film that made me laugh, made me ponder and brought a tear to my eye, with a certain bleakness that lay just under its surface layer of humour, giving a biting edge that countered the occasional lurch towards sentimentality.

A film about loss, belonging, friendship and beign a Barton Boy, all accompanied by the best soundtrack to a film I have heard in ages, including this little number by Damien Jurado entitled 'Silver Joy'. Enjoy.


 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

6th May Olbia

Image
  A chance to stretch our legs today with our first port of call; Olbia, Sardinia. And it was a quick stretch too due to it being only a five hour stay. Up bright and early, so early in fact that the hot food at the buffet wasn't even ready to be served. Still it gave us a chance to watch the ship glide into port past a host of oyster/mussel beds, before performing a 180 degree turn to reverse into it's berth. A couple of short bus rides later and we were in downtown Olbia. But there an hour or so before anything appeared to open, the disadvantage of being early birds and something we don't seem to learn! Not that Olbia had a great deal to see or maybe if we had done the slightest bit of planning beforehand there might have benn but we didn't. It was pleasant enough but that's about it. It was pleasant enough but nothing special, indeed we were back on the ship after just a couple of hours ashore and then managed to sleep away most of th...
Read more

7th May Naples

Image
 I'm sure I've heard the phrase 'see Naples and die' suggesting that it is perhaps not the nicest location in the Mediterranean but if it's good enough for Diego Maradona fir a few years then it's good enough for me for 10 hours. Although the millions of tax free pounds he was paid might have eased his stay. By the time we got up, washed, dressed and up to The Kitchens, the rest of the ship were already there. Compared to the Marie Celeste of yesterday it was absolutely packed, presumably with people having breakfast before heading out on 8am excursions, our excursion was simply going to be the city of Naples itself as possible trips to Vesuvius, Pompei or the Amalfi coast would have been too much / tired.  So on a day when the weather initially seemed uncertain, we jumped aboard route A for the Hop on Hop off bus and headed out into the mayhem that is the Napoli traffic where it was every van, car and scooter for the selves. I think it's bes...
Read more