Our Orange Wednesday With Marilyn

We're back into Orange Wednesday. We've been using the Orange phone more since we've had the caravan (it's all about signals - they aren't very strong in St Andrews on any networks) so, once again, Orange are texting us our free ticket every week. This afternoon it was the excellent My Week With Marilyn. It's a gentle story about a young cinema runner's week long association with mega star Marilyn Monroe when she visits England to film at Pinewood with Sir Larry Olivier. Kenneth Branagh steals the show as the actorly actorrr Olivier with his wonderfully theatrical enunciation feebly attempting to win over the young, talented and extremely vulnerable Munroe (another fine performance from Michelle Williams, so impressive in Blue Valentine and a safe bet for another Academy Award Nomination in this role). Olivier's attempt at movie success depends upon Monroe but her erratic and unmanageable behaviour threatens to wreck the production. Bullying Sir Laurence can't handle her and she is frightened of him. Step in twenty three year old Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne) the 3rd assistant director or "gopher" as he calls himself . Marilyn seems to like him and the film chronicles his increasingly love struck efforts to keep Olivier's movie afloat. It's a very enjoyable film based on a real life story. Now we will have to see The Prince And The Showgirl - the real 1957 film in the story.

I'm not going to get political again and go on about today's strike but the local Vue must have been over the moon as the place was packed with families with kids and teenagers going to see Arthur Christmas, Tin Tin, Immortals and that Twilight film. It was as busy as a typical weekend. The local shops were pretty busy too. Maybe Vue and the retailers will be asking for another strike next week.

A few weeks ago I mentioned on the blog that I'd downloaded a selection of books for the Kindle in an attempt to find a good comic novel. To date the covers misled as neither The Rotters' Club nor Skippy Dies were exactly a barrel of laughs and I don't know where on earth I got the impression that Rabbit Run was humorous. However, unlike the other books I mentioned which, though entertaining enough, were not particularly thought provoking, Rabbit Run really is a classic deserving of its place in the stratosphere of American fiction. It's hard going. Not an easy read and, I worry, somewhat misogonist but what a piece of writing! Updike's prose is both lyrical and poetical and gives this aspiring writer one hell of an inferiority complex. There are another three Rabbit books written at around ten year intervals. I won't be waiting ten years to read the next.

  
We've got friends coming on Saturday to celebrate Josephine's success in developing Sorority Girls and Holding Out For A Hero. We've got an episode of each to watch as well as fitting in drinks and a three course meal. So our guests are arriving at 5.30. It promises to be a good night.