More Travel

We are just back from another 2 week visit to London and vicinity.  While I had expected to be in Vienna in October, I gladly settled for London in late August and early September.  One of the reasons for the early travel (it was still high tourist season when we arrived) was because a film of Deb's was showing at a film festival that she has always wanted to visit.  The Women Over 50 had selected a film of hers for the fifth time, so we finally made the journey to Lewes to experience the event.  We had visited The Depot Cinema informally in May.  Deb came home with a runner up certificate for She Makes a Moving Picture, which received high praise from the judges.  The festival was a full one day affair, divided into blocks.  I attended the first block, where Deb's film screened, then literally headed into the hills for some spectacular downs walking.  Deb spent the entire day at the festival.

 

Another reason for our London trip was to continue our walking segments of the London Loop and the Capital Ring.  As in May, we completed one Loop segment and two Ring segments.  While only two Ring segments remain to complete, we still have four more of the longer Loop segments to do.  We also increased our cultural doings quite a bit this time, after a very slack attempt last May.  We visited the National Gallery, Apsley House, Courthauld Gallery, Guildhall, Temple and three Roman ruins within London.  In Eynsford we visited a Roman ruin and a castle ruin, while in Lewes I visited the ruins of a large priory.  We even saw several Banksy works of art, one of them in situ still and the others on pub walls.  Of course we managed to squeeze in a few pub visits as well, even discovering a new fabulous oasis for craft real ales.  

 

It was an exhausting trip with no days off, though a few times we returned early to the hotel for a quiet evening lying on a bed, feeling our feet tingling from much walking.  We flew with Air Canada from Windsor, leaving on a Wednesday and returning exactly two weeks later.  All flights went well except our final journey home from Toronto to Windsor, which ran just over two hours late.  Our final day was a 22 hour marathon of a very long bus ride and the two flights home.  Much more about the trip will be forthcoming over the next two weeks on the Travels Abroad blog, link in upper left margin.  We managed to meet with Caroline once; our second visit was cancelled due to bad weather and some transport problems for Caroline.

 

First photo of the trip, as we set out from Highgate on segment 12 of the Capital Ring.  Sadly we never got to try the whiskey.  This billboard was on the side of the Boogaloo Pub (not visited).

 

There are hardly any red box telephones remaining in London.  These are set up as an art display outside Smithfields Market. 

 

One of our relaxing evenings at the hotel we managed to watch a Criterion movie offering via Deb's phone and tablet.  She made it magically appear on the hotel TV and we lay in bed and watched the remarkable Ashes and Diamonds, a Polish film from 1958 directed by Andrzej Wadja.  Somehow,this masterpiece had slipped past us until now.  It is a totally amazing film from start to finish, with many moments of brilliance and genius.  The plot has to do with the assassination attempt on a pro-Russian (communist) speaker coming to a small town to try and convince the workers to join the communist party.  Opposition party members first fail in their attempt, killing two innocent men instead by mistake.  The film has plenty of tension and release, as the main assassin character falls in love with a barmaid at his hotel and nearly pulls out of the attempt.  This is a riveting film from start to finish, with superb writing and excellent photography supporting the good acting.  Highly recommended!

 

Now showing on Criterion.  The poster is a tribute to the film's best shot,

an upside down Christ on the cross.  

 

Thursday night, amidst loads of laundry, we watched an oddball film, deemed a "sunshine noir" by Criterion.  Violent Saturday is a 1955 film directed by Richard Fleischer and starring Victor Mature, Richard Egan, Ernest Borgnine, Lee Marvin and several other recognizable character actors.  The action takes place in a small Arizona town (filmed in Bisbee, AZ, a place we have visited a few times).  The film is ostensibly about a bank heist to be undertaken by three out-of-town criminals, but it also partly a Douglas Sirk melodrama about various inhabitants of the mining town.  So, a film that is a cross between a soap opera and crime drama.  Results are mixed, but as it is filmed in Cinemascope with De Luxe colour, the film is always great to watch.  Mature plays the hero who stands up to the criminals, getting shot himself and rescued at the last moment by Borgnine, who plays a pitchfork wielding peace loving Amish farmer who is pushed over the edge by the criminals.  He gets no credit at the end for his heroic and life saving action.  Definitely worth watching, especially on a 50" TV screen in a small room.

 

Leaving Criterion Sept. 30th. 

 

I'll be back with trip updates soon.  Check back in a few days.

 

Mapman Mike 

 

 

 
 

 

 

4 Recent Films

Actually, there are five.  But we'll get to that one a bit later.  First the Criterion Channel viewing.  We haven't seen Bergman's The 7th Seal in so many years.  Deb chose it for her weekly viewing, and we were both mesmerized by it.  It's worth the price of admission just to stare at Max Von Sydow as a knight just returned from the Crusades.  He and his squire are disillusioned men, returning to find their homeland ravaged by plague, and crackpot Christians doing everything but helping.  We had forgotten the moments of humour the film offers, remembering it only as grim and unrelenting.  But it isn't, as the final dance of death affirms.  This is one of two images of the film that sticks in the viewer's mind, the other being the chess game.  This is one of the best movies about medieval times I have ever seen.

Now showing of Criterion. 

Her leaving Oct. 31st choice was The African Queen, directed by John Huston and starring Bogart and Hepburn as two unlikely allied fighters in Africa against the Germans.  This is a great adventure film, always fun to watch.  Filmed in Africa, the role won Bogey his only Oscar.

A Hollywood classic, and a great film, too.  Showing on Criterion. 

I chose Point Blank, an unrelenting crime story starring Lee Marvin and Angie Dickinson, and directed by John Boorman.  Marvin is double crossed and is shot and left for dead during a heist.  His pal and crime partner also leaves with Marvin's wife.  When Marvin survives he goes after his $93,000.  And nothing is going to stop him from getting it.  Marvin is pure ice as he goes after big guy after big guy, until the final showdown.  Not to everyone's taste, and there are some brutally violent scenes, but Marvin never once actually kills anyone, and I really liked the pacing of the film.

Lee is da man.  Showing on Criterion. 

 A lot of John Huston films are leaving October 31st, so we will be watching a lot of them.  My going away choice was called Fat City, starring Stacy Keach, Jeff Bridges, and, in an Oscar-nominated role as a soused barfly, the unforgettable Susan Tyrell.  As a rule, I try to avoid boxing films.  For example, I have never seen any of the Rocky pictures.  This is a boxing picture, but it is just so good in all its detail that I easily watched the entire thing, including some pretty gruesome fight scenes.  Keach is fantastic in a role that Huston wanted Brando for, giving the right amount of burnout and emptiness to the performance, as well as having some hope for a better future.  When we see him give up alcohol, return to the ring, train to get into shape,and then finally win a fight, he is given $100 for his effort from his manager.  This reality check sets him back forever, and the image below is from the final scene of the film.  There are so many good performances and wonderful small moments in the film that it is pure enjoyment and enlightenment from the get-go.

A still from the final scene of Fat City, showing on Criterion until Oct. 31st.  

And now on to the mystery 5th film.  I watched Apollo 13 in Sudbury with my brother and sister-in-law last weekend, and really enjoyed it.  I remember the events well, though I was in high school at the time, and a lot happened during the night.  There were no all-news channels, only bulletins and updates on the regular news.  The things that went wrong on that flight, and how they managed to fix them, would never be believed if this was a SF film or novel.  Truth is certainly stranger than fiction.  An excellent film.

I think we watched this in Sudbury on Netflix. 

Look for another update by the weekend.  My next project is to write the October article for our astronomy club's newsletter, which I hope to begin working on tonight.  things are slowly coming back into focus for me, as we have had a barrage of cloudy, rainy nights, with more of the same on the way.  While it is disappointing not to have any more clear nights this lunar cycle, it is also good to have my life back again.

Mapman Mike