Last night as I was falling asleep, forcing myself not to think about the chapter in the Neverending Saga that has given me so much trouble, my brain suggested, “Fix the chapter BEFORE the one you’re working on.”
So I went back and eviscerated that chapter. Time will tell if it was the right choice, but I pondered my next move, next chapter while I played this game.
I finished in record time because author names will always jump out at me. If they’re there to find, that is. I worked longest looking for “Bronte,” until I finally glanced at the word list and realized Bronte wasn’t on it.
Something is wonky with our cable today. Since Tim isn’t home tonight, Tom and Eva went to his place to watch the Alabama-Georgia football game with Pollock. Meanwhile, Debby’s watching it at her place. I was in the mood for a little baking, so I took them both a sampling of my results.
Sausage and cheese balls are an ideal snack for football viewing. I have a big salad to eat, but I’ll definitely eat some of these, too.
Time for me to get back to see if changes in Chapter 14 will help my progress on Chapter 15.
Recently I read an article featuring a well-known actor/director/filmmaker because I’ve always loved not only watching movies, but learning about the creative and business aspects of making them. This particular article wasn’t about this person’s celebrity but was more focused on how independent film processes, particularly marketing and distribution, have changed from last century to this one. The way I use this kind of information fictionally has included many facets of filmmaking, especially in the Neverending Saga in all its iterations through the decades. Sometimes my writing spills over into fictional television and live theatre. But primarily, the Saga includes two independent filmmakers woven into many of my other characters’ plotlines.
Dramatized from real historical events, in 1997’s Her Majesty, Mrs. Brown, after Queen Victoria’s beloved husband Prince Albert dies, she goes into seclusion at Windsor Palace. The nation, Parliament, her court, and her family all want her to come out of mourning. Her staff suggests that the Scotsman John Brown, stable master, a favorite servant of her late husband, come from Scotland to ease her back into life. They regret it when a deep bond develops between the queen and the headstrong, opinionated Mr. Brown. The relationship brings upheaval to the palace and scandal to the country. I’d never seen this movie, and I loved it. Judi Dench can’t go wrong, and Billy Connolly, musician, comedian, and actor, is well cast. A great movie for an Anglophile like me.
I first saw 1995’s Restoration in Montrose’s River Oaks Theater. I’m not sure if I’d heard good things about it, or whether I went alone or with someone, but the movie mesmerized me and I’ve never forgotten it. It stars Robert Downey Jr. as Merivel, a seventeenth century medical student, who only reluctantly uses his gifts because he’s more interested in a life of debauchery and a place in the royal court. There’s a great supporting cast: Sam Neill as the king; Polly Walker as Celia, favorite mistress of the king and object of Merivel’s obsession; David Thewlis as Pearce, another doctor who recognizes Merivel’s skills and urges him to keep studying and practicing medicine; Meg Ryan as the tragic Katherine who helps Merivel find his humanity when he’s banished from the royal court; Ian McKellen as Will Gates, who does his best to take care of Merivel, and so many more. Oh–Hugh Grant plays a portraitist, because what’s a British movie without Hugh Grant? If you like historical movies with lots of costumes and scenery, this is a good one.
1994’s Tom & Viv is a really sad movie, but I’m glad I watched it. It’s based on American poet T.S. Eliot (who became a British citizen) played by Willem Defoe, and Eliot’s first wife, Vivienne Haigh-Wood, played by Miranda Richardson. Both are heartbreaking in their roles, but Rosemary Harris playing Vivienne’s mother Rose became my favorite character in the movie. (She also played the grandmother in My Life So Far, and was one of my favorites in that film, too.) Both Tom and Vivienne struggle with a variety of physical and emotional illnesses. It’s not a happy film, and it shows how abysmal medical care was for women during the timeframe of the movie (1914 to 1947) (though as Miranda Richards points out in an interview, some things haven’t changed). Maybe not an easy watch, but if you like biographies, turn-of-the-century films, or stories about literary figures, this is good–just very sad.
Last one is 1999’s An Ideal Husband. Some of the reviews for this one are less than enthusiastic, but I’m not a critic, and I was grateful for the levity of characters at cross-purposes after watching Tom & Viv. An Ideal Husband is set in London in 1895 and adapted from Oscar Wilde’s play of the same name. Rupert Everett shines as determined bachelor Lord Goring; Julianne Moore plays the treacherous Mrs. Cheveley, who causes all kinds of problems; Jeremy Northam plays Sir Robert, an ethical man with a threatening secret from his past he’s trying to keep from his upright wife, Gertrude, played by Cate Blanchett; and Minnie Driver, who plays Sir Robert’s younger sister Mabel. Some of my favorite performances came from Peter Vaughn as Phipps, Lord Goring’s manservant, and from John Wood, who plays Lord Goring’s father Lord Caversham with great, fractious dialogue between the two.
The book series I recently reread follows generations of three families from the 1770s to the 1940s. The characters are schoolteachers, journalists, lawyers, writers, entertainers, soldiers, and impoverished to aristocratic, and the books’ timelines encompass the American Revolution, the American Civil War, the Spanish American War, World War I, and World War II.
The sadness from the books lingered as I began viewing a set of movies included in British Cinema Collection: 8 Acclaimed Films. This collection was released in 2014, and I probably bought it then or shortly thereafter, but I’ve never even removed its cellophane until now. There are eight movies on two disks.
In 1999’s My Life So Far, Fraser Pettigrew (played by Robert Norman), ten years old, lives on a Scottish estate with his large family that includes his parents, grandmother, siblings, and a variety of other family members and new acquaintances who come to visit. I very much enjoyed this movie and its great cast (led by Colin Firth, Rosemary Harris, Irène Jacob, Mary Mastrantonio, and Roddy McDowell). It’s set in 1927, a time of ongoing recovery from World War I and with World War II looming on the distant horizon. On a personal note, possibly only Colin Firth could begin by playing a character I like, then turn really despicable, and somehow manage to charm me again at the end of the film.
I’d seen 1995’s The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain before, but I enjoyed the rewatch. Great cast, including Hugh Grant, Tara Fitzgerald, Colm Meany, Kenneth Griffith, Ian Hart, and Ian McNeice, among others. Two cartographers are sent to a small town in Wales in 1917 to measure the height of a mountain that may qualify as only a hill. Again, I experienced a bittersweet sensation. Set while World War I is still raging in Europe, two of the characters are former soldiers, a man from the town who’s shell-shocked, and one of the cartographers, who, when questioned about why he isn’t serving at the front like all the men missing from their village, admits that he did serve but was discharged after experiencing the same shell-shocked symptoms. There’s abundant humor and some romance, but its biggest attraction for me is how this town of elderly inhabitants, along with women, children, contentious, quirky, and not entirely able-bodied people, work together to defend their mountain’s honor and their village’s pride.
The fourth movie on this disk, 1998’s Sweet Revenge, isn’t the kind of movie I generally watch. Though it’s described as quirky, mean people behaving badly will never be my chosen genre. I did appreciate the excellent cast (Sam Neill, Helena Bonham Carter, and Kristin Scott Thomas in the lead roles, with an equally talented supporting cast), and I think people who like black comedy would enjoy the movie. Two people driven to consider ending their lives due to the impact of horrible people (one a boss; the other, a lover), encounter each other on a bridge. One of them comes up with a revenge plan that the other reluctantly agrees to. Chaos ensues.