Tangled Mind

06FEB25: Elektra (Sophocles / Anne Carson) -- Duke of York's Theatre
Brie Larson was an awesome Elektra, reminiscent of Patti Smith at times. Her drawn-out 'noooo' . Great contrast in her Bikini Kill t-shirt and jeans to the chorus, in timeless pale drapery. Stockard Channing, in fur, was suitably scary as Clytemnestra. Orestes was a racing driver. Voice distortion, splendid harmonies from the chorus, and a really intense mother-daughter relationship.
07FEB25: Medieval Women (British Library)
Fascinating exhibition, but I am increasingly unwilling to shuffle round in a long crowd while people chat to one another about anything other than what they're looking at.
13FEB25: Pedro Paramo (Prieto, 2024) -- Netflix
Based on a novel by Juan Rulfo: magic realism, time slips and shifts in perspective, set in late 19th-century Mexico. To be honest, I (suffering a cold or similar) had no idea what was happening for much of this film, but it was very beautifully shot.
15FEB25: Captain America: Brave New World (Onah, 2025) -- Cineworld West India Quay
I liked this more than most recent (= post-Endgame) Marvel movies, but Sam Wilson's imposter syndrome is getting tired, and Harrison Ford looked exhausted. Still, an example to all: a US President stepping down.
I really liked the cameo by future Congressman J B Barnes. (And that whole operating-theatre shot was an echo of The Winter Soldier.)
20FEB25: The End We Start From (Belo, 2023) -- Netflix
Jodie Comer is a woman who's just given birth, in a flooded and anarchic London. She heads north, makes friends, loses her husband (Joel Fry) but finds him again. A film about female friendship, about ruthlessness, about apocalypse.
24FEB25: Martha Argerich -- Barbican
Long-awaited: I'd bought the tickets in 2023, but the concert was postponed from 2024 due to Argerich's health. She's 83 and still utterly awesome: tumultuous applause greeted her, but was nothing to the applause after she'd polished off Beethoven's Piano Concerto #4. The second half, sans Argerich (and much of her fanbase), was Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony, which I'd also heard in January. Oxford Philharmonic very good; our seats not great for actually seeing Argerich, but she entered and exited near us.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Symphony No 4
27FEB25: Marcel the Shell With Shoes On (Camp, 2021) -- Netflix
I did not expect to like this, and I was right. Marcel's voice gave me the creeps when I saw the trailer: the full film did not change my mind.