Day: 23 October 2004

Down With Love

Down With Love is my Saturday night in movie.

Down with Love Cinema poster
Down with Love

Supposedly, the Ewan McGregor and Renee Zellweger romantic comedy Down With Love is an attempt to recreate the new York City of 1963 (some say to recreate Doris Day/Rock Hudson’s ‘Pillow Talk‘). As I haven’t actually seen Pillow Talk it’s hard to compare the two but most reviewers suggest the Doris Day comedy is considerably more sophisticated.

Still, for a Saturday night on the sofa this wasn’t so bad. It had amusing moments. Zellweger is Barbara Novak, in town promoting her smash-hit book that carries the same title as the film and they’ve tried to make her look the part of a 1960s New York girl – I am not sure if they were that successful. McGregor is Catcher Block, the cad-about-town investigative magazine journalist who has a string of lovely ladies after him. Inevitably he is to interview her for a magazine article and the chase is on. Both performances are confident but certainly not great. David Hyde Pierce, as Block’s publisher, seems to repeat his role as Frasier’s Niles but that’s no bad thing as he puts in a solid, amusing supporting performance.

There’s a great pay-off (which I shan’t spoil) but suffice to say Zellweger’s long monologue is impressive and, apparently, took six takes to get right. It’s one of those films where you need to watch the credits as there’s a musical scene (apparently shot at the request of the actors) over the end titles which is well done.

Down With Love is amusing for the most part but it’s kind of predicable in many places but it was a good Saturday night sofa film. See it and smile.

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Lucky Man: A Memoir

An absorbing and very well-written book that proves that people in the public eye and just like the rest of us.

Michael J Fox
Michael J Fox

Lucky Man is not a typical Hollywood star autobiography. While it is peppered with references to the television shows and movies Michael J Fox has made it is – most definately – not a name-dropping ‘look at me’ celebrity obsessed biography. Yes, it’s an insight – although not too revealing – into the inner sanctum of Hollywood stars but it’s very much grounded in the real world. It deals with the highs and lows of a film career and the pleasures and pressures that brings. When reading the book you really do feel as if Michael J Fox has been able to take a step back and look upon his own career from outside. He’s able to analyse the fame, the money and identify both the good and the problematic that his career has brought him. However, from the beginning of the book, his upbringing and his rise to (and through) fame are placed in context by the Young Onset Parkinson’s Disease diagnosis. That diagnosis has allowed Fox to asses what’s important to him and write a book that shows him as a genuine, warm and open individual. There’s no sentimentality about the book and he does detail how the disease effects him but, at no point, do you feel like an intruder into his private life. Despite the difficult nature of the Parkinson’s Disease descriptions, Lucky Man is an absorbing and very well-written book that proves that people in the public eye and just like the rest of us.

Inspirational Eden

Tim Smit provides an insight into the group vision that resulted in one of the more successful Millennium projects – Eden. And the fact that it is the work of a committed group of people is not lost on the reader. Smit regularly repeats the mantra that Eden was only developed thanks to the work of a wide range of individuals from contractors to councils, and not forgetting the plant-men.

Tim Smit provides an insight into the group vision that resulted in one of the more successful Millennium projects – Eden. And the fact that it is the work of a committed group of people is not lost on the reader. Smit regularly repeats the mantra that Eden was only developed thanks to the work of a wide range of individuals from contractors to councils, and not forgetting the plant-men.

If you want to understand some details behind the way such projects are developed then this is a book you should read. When the project was floundering while all the funding partners came together then Tim Smit was there and he relives it through the book. Sometimes you wonder how it call came together.

On the other hand, if you are a plant-lover, gardener or horticulturalist then this is also a book you should read. Smit tells the fascinating story of the development of the biome concepts and the plants they chose to grow. More importantly he discusses the relationship between man and the natural surroundings we inhabit; debating our fragile relationship with a range of environments along the way.

However, what you take from this book is a mixture of all of the above. Landscaping, plant husbandry and environmental considerations sit alongside planning, funding, road building and visitor education projects. It’s one man’s personal account rather than a definitive history and the cast of characters seems endless and, sometimes, confusing. However, the determination and vision that drove the project; the commitment and enthusiasm of all the people and the role Eden believes it should be playing on the world stage are all presented in an accessible, very readable account of, what seems to have been, a long but successful process. If this book doesn’t inspire you to aim higher and better, then nothing will.Buy Eden at Amazon.co.uk