Frizz

Just had a lovely day.

Saw Agnes Varda’s Plages d’Agnes - a very eccentric, poetic and funny documentary about her life (if a little too long).  The only film I’ve seen at the festival this year.

Then this evening went to hear Toni Morrison talk about her new book A Mercy and American politics - how could she not.  She was warm, generous and funny.

I’m feeling privileged to have access to the thoughts and views of two wonderful, inspiring women.

Just watched the Oscars.  Only a small glimpse of Jack in his seat.  Maybe two jokes from John Stewart.  No Best Foreign Film, Cinematography, Special Effects, Make-up, Short, Documentary…  Sky, please, please, if you can’t be bothered to show it, let another channel have the rights.  Please! For next year. It’s a small thing to ask.

S and I said goodbye to the car today. Clearing it out we found a bag of change that must have been there all this time, so we saw Charlie Wilson’s War on my Dad. And amazing how things work out… there was this car I thought I’d bought just after the holidays and then there was a big mix up and they, well a salesman, his manager, and the regional sales buyer, have been trying to sort it out, I think it became a principle thing for them and today the salesman called to say I can have the car… So fingers crossed I’ll have a car with heating next week.

A lovely party at C’s on Saturday evening, although if I’d have been in New York, I could have been watching a film on a rooftop - thanks to the other C, not that I was going to be in NY - she was just saying.

These flowers were lovely, but they were falling down and C went and sat on them - sort of - so J found a prop.

L and I discussed teeth and Ortho’s - she’s the only other person in London I know with braces and we are going to the same Ortho - completely by chance.

A website for Miranda July’s, forthcoming book of short stories No One Belongs Here More Than You - I like her sense of humour. July is an artist and filmmaker - she directed Me & You and Everyone We Know, which is a lovely indie film I’d recommend if you haven’t seen it yet. [via]

Quite fancy seeing The Namesake. It’s got mixed reviews, but just heard Mira Nair on the Radio and it sounds interesting.

Talking of films, I saw Amazing Grace - a bit disappointing. What I’d really like to watch again is Roots. I’ve realized hearing about it again this week, that I must have watched it when I was very young and that it had quite an impact. Just hearing the name Kunta Kinte takes me right back; I remember it as an event and it must still form the basis of my knowledge of the slave trade, I don’t remember covering it at school - A do you remember? I’m wondering as well how much it would have informed my sense of moral justice, I’m thinking it must have done.

At the last minute I got to a couple of films at the Jewish Film Festival, both really interesting; Another Road Home and Knowledge is the Beginning - I’d recommend both. The latter is about Daniel Barenboim’s and Edward Said’s [this only seems to be in Spanish?] wonderful Middle Eastern Youth Orchestra project , a really heartwarming endeavour. [This is the official site.]

One of those low-key, but really busy weekends. I saw dinosaur bones with John and Sarah and even The Niece came which was lovely. By the end of the day she had both the kids grabbing her hands to cross a road. John’s question this time was “how did it fight?” but it was good to have moved on from “is that one dead too?”

They fixed the bag, which was incredibly quick, although they didn’t do a particularly good job; it’s a bit crooked.

I had an urge to see The Devil Wears Prada; it felt like a Sunday evening thing to do. There were some superb performances from Meryl Streep (wonderful as the tyrant boss - so SRish), Anne Hathaway, Stanley Tucci and Emily Blunt, but something was a bit lacking, it seemed too afraid to let the characters be three dimensional and somewhere, with that cast, there is a much better film trying to get out. Oh and it didn’t do anything to suppress my desire for straightening irons, I’ll just add a new pair of heals to the list.

Just back from seeing Little Miss Sunshine and am still laughing. Lovely film, wonderful story, great script and little gems of performances. Alan Arkin was hysterical. Real life beauty pageants for six year olds are just scary, it says something sad when mums want their kids to look like that. If you haven’t seen it and need a laugh, I highly recommend it.

Maybe if we don’t tell lies about the past, we won’t tell lies about the present.

Ken Loach on his new film The Wind that Shakes the Barley, which won at Cannes and is released in the UK next week. Interesting interview on Newsnight - you can watch it here until tomorrow (the segment starts about 35 minutes in).