Alan Ayckbourn. Bedroom Farce (1977)

     Alan Ayckbourn. Bedroom Farce (1977) Two act comedy. Three couples prepare for their respective evenings: Delia and Earnest for an anniversary dinner, Malcolm and Kate for a party; while Nick stays home with a bad back, and Jan goes to the party. Delia’s son Trevor and his wife Susannah are having marital problems and interfere with all three couples. They spoil the party, interrupt people’s sleep, and finally reconcile.
     The set consists of the three bedrooms, and the action takes place over a few hours on a Saturday evening. The play is “good theatre”, that is, it affords the actors and director an opportunity to do a lot of fun stuff to make the play work. The story is simple enough, the dialogue is typically British middle class, which means very little difference between the characters’ styles of speech, and there’s also the typically British eye for the absurdity of everyday or ordinary life. The script is marked up by Doreen, she played Susannah. I’d like to have seen that. **½ (2002)

Russel Myers. Broomhilda: Sneaky Volcanoes (1982)

     Russel Myers. Broomhilda: Sneaky Volcanoes (1982) Compilation of strips. Broomhilda enjoyed a brief vogue in the 70s and 80s. In some ways she’s a female Hagar The Horrible. Her friends and companions are a less witty version of the Bloom County menagerie, with some influences from Walt Kelly’s Pogo. OK as a time waster. *1/2 (2002)

Gordon R. Dickson. Hour of the Horde (1970)

     Gordon R. Dickson. Hour of the Horde (1970) The Horde threatens the galaxy, and the Ancients from the centre of the Galaxy organise resistance. They recruit members of “barbarian” peoples, who have not shaken off the distracting effects of emotions. Miles Vander represents Earth. He fights his way to the top of the heap in the ship in which the barbarians are sequestered, and persuades them to train for battle. The Ancients flee when the Horde appears, as their computers tell them the odds are slightly against them. This infuriates the barbarians, who feel this as a betrayal of them and their own planets. Their rage-induced suicidal attack on the Horde tips the balance, and the Alliance wins, just barely. Vander and his barbarian friends receive technical help from the Ancients, and decide they will not eliminate emotion from their makeup, since it was emotion that drove them to attack against the odds, and win.
     An early effort by Dickson, and it shows. The copyright date is 1970, but the story is very 1950s. It is essentially a teenage geek fantasy. Miles is half paralysed from polio, but an obsessed painter. It’s his creativity that makes him a suitable candidate to represent Earth, and it’s his obsessiveness that makes him a leader among races who feel impotent and useless because of the Ancients’ decision not to use them as fighters, but only as psychic resonators. There’s also the psychic power motif, as if the mind had its own energies that affect other minds, a motif that is rarely used these days outside of fantasy fiction. And the initial setting is a college campus; sounds like Dickson wrote the book when he was in college. I suspect the book was published because Dickson had made his reputation by 1970, and so an old manuscript, perhaps edited a bit, became publishable. ** (2002)

Death of an Outsider (1988)

     M. C. Beaton Death of an Outsider (1988) Some years ago, we viewed a series of crime stories set in Lochdubh, a Highland village overseen by an amiable and somewhat lazy copper, Hamish MacBeth. The makers of the series exaggerated the eccentricity and cheerful paganism of the villagers, but not by much, and used Beaton’s hints of the darker nooks of the human psyche to remind us that evil is real, even in the most bucolically innocent places. This book is a nicely done addition to the series. I enjoyed reading it. Mainwaring, a deliberately annoying incomer to Cnothan (a  valley or two over from Lochdubh) is bashed over the head and falls into a lobster tank, where he is quickly reduced to a skeleton. The drunk set to guard the fish plant discovers the skeleton, and hauls it to a ring of standing stones. MacBeth is pushed aside from the main investigation by his enemy Chief Detective Supt. Blair, but of course manages to find all the clues that lead to the murderer. His love life is complicated (it always is), he misses his lovely Priscilla, assorted subplots confuse the cops if not the reader, and it all ends more or less happily, with justice of a sort being done. A good read, made better by having seen the videos: it helps to be able to imagine a face and a voice. **-½

The Quotable Dad (2003)

     Nick and Tony Lyons The Quotable Dad (2003) A gift. The title suggests that the quotations are by dads, but in fact they are about dads. As such they range from the sentimental to the mildly cynical. Lots of good stuff, opening at random I find:
     Never fret for an only son. The idea of failure will never occur to him. - George Bernard Shaw
     The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. - Theodore Hesburgh
     How children survive being brought up amazes me. -Malcolm S. Forbes.
And one that should remind us that nothing fundamental ever changes:
     Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers.
     That was said 2500 years ago by Socrates.
     A nice collection, good source of quotations. ***

Forgotten Genius: Percy Lavon Julian (2007)

     Forgotten Genius Percy Lavon Julian (1899-1975), grandson of a slave, became one of the most accomplished chemists in the USA at a time when black people were barred both legally and socially from career paths that whites took for granted. This NOVA film traces his life using dramatisation, the sadly small amount of archival material, and personal reminiscences of people who knew him. It’s depressing and inspiring, as well as educational (the film makers manage to teach a good deal of chemistry along the way). It’s one of those biographies that make you wish you had known the man himself.
     It’s easy to forget how many barriers to education black children faced, and how thoroughly their spirits were broken. Julian was an exception in part because of his father and mother, both of whom were teachers who pushed him to develop his talents; and partly because of his determination. He was a man who wouldn’t give up. It’s depressing to recall the history of racism. Canadian racism was rarely as overt and violent as in the USA, but it was (and is) bad enough. In many ways the polite racism of this country is worse: it hides the fact.
    Interesting trivia: Julian’s work at Glidden Paints  helped the company to expand into many other product lines, but for some reason Glidden decided to withdraw from them and focus on its “core business.” An opportunity missed from a stockholder’s POV, I think. Julian should be better known. Wikipedia here.  You can watch Forgotten Genius on YouTube.
     As good a biography as the available material allowed, I think. ***

About Schmidt (2002)

     About Schmidt (2002) [D:Alexander Payne. Jack Nicholson, Kathy Bates, Hope Davis] Schmidt (Nicholson) retires from a life of dutiful service to his family, earning a comfortable living as a minor insurance executive. His wife has persuaded him to buy a large RV so that they can go travelling. But the fact is that Schmidt hasn’t any interests outside of his work; he’s repressed everything he really cared about to give his family a good living. A commercial asking people to foster an orphan in Africa attracts his attention and he signs up. Returning from the post office to mail a letter to Ngudu, the African boy whom he’s adopted at the rate of $22 a month, he finds his wife dead of a stroke, the vacuum cleaner still whining away. After the funeral, and a couple of weeks or so of stunned grief, he finds love-letters to his wife from their best friend. This is the first of several unwelcome discoveries. He decides to drive the RV to Colorado to visit his daughter and persuade her to back out of marrying a gormless but friendly waterbed salesman.
     The trip takes a couple of weeks. He detours to visit his hometown and places he’s always wanted to see. He continues to write letters to Ngudu, in which he puts a brave face on his disappointments. His future in-laws are an odd collection of free spirits and failures. At the wedding, he delivers the kind of speech he’s expected to make. He returns home believing he’s a failure: he hasn’t made a difference in anyone’s life. But a letter from Ngudu’s caregiver at the orphanage lifts his spirits. Because of his $22 a month, Ngudu will have a better future.
     The road trip as voyage of discovery is a common trope, so is this one worth watching? Yes, if you don’t mind seeing a man who hasn’t done much with his life, and has developed a habit of repressing his true self and living the roles his family and society expect of him. I don’t know the book that inspired this movie, but I suspect it makes rather harsher judgments about the effects of American self-effacement than this movies does. The movie doesn’t really know how to deal with Schmidt. Should his predicament be played for laughs? Yes. Should it adopt a sentimental tone to soften Schmidt’s rage? Yes. Should it show a man developing wisdom late, but no too late, in life? Yes. Should it develop a critique of the affluent life? Yes. And so on.
     The result of this indecision about what to do with the script is a collection of vignettes of varying quality, intensity, and tone, each of which has its own charm and effect, but which don’t come together into a coherent whole. This is a movie that is less than the sum of its parts. Entertaining, but not involving. **