And then he went to hospital., Apparently, it's neither life-threatening nor covid-related, but it's enough for him to have to postpone the show. Well, it could be worse. Meantime, that gave me time to join Up in the Cheap Seats today - they were watching The White Crow, on Amazon. It's the story of Nureyev's defection to the West, directed by and starring Ralph Fiennes, who plays his mentor. And with buffering issues, I decided to start watching a bit earlier, to be able to join the Zoom call afterwards..
So I did - and naturally, then had fewer buffering issues! Anyway, as people remarked afterwards, it's a subdued offering.. we don't get a rosy picture of Cold War Russia. And, BTW, I didn't realise that Ralph Fiennes spoke Russian.. he certainly does in this film, which is mostly in that language. Anyway, a very charismatic young Russian man plays Nureyev, who - as is explained to us - was born on a train, and seems to have developed the travel bug from there. Punctuated with flashbacks to his childhood and early experiences as a dance student, for context, the main story gives the story of his trip with the dance company to Paris - his first time abroad. And boy, did he enjoy himself - so much that his minders got worried, and when the company was due to fly on to London, he was told he'd be heading back home. Which was when things got interesting..
The film is excellent! Again, one for ballet lovers.. I'm sensing a theme in the films picked by this member of the group. ;-) Not that we really get full ballet sequences - just snippets, rehearsals and such. But it still makes for an interesting watch. And as for the defection sequence, in the airport - crikey, it's a while since I saw any Cold War stuff, and I'd forgotten how, well, compelling it is! (as one member said afterwards). The tension of that scene is played brilliantly, as they make a desperate last-ditch attempt to stop him being bundled onto a plane. All in all, definitely worth a watch.
The chat afterwards was very welcome - as I mentioned, my first Meetup chat in seven weeks. And funnily enough, much of the conversation, inspired by the film, centred on travel. But at any rate, it was just great to chat to people outside the house.. rare for me, these days. Roll on the next..
On telly, later, the best choice for an hour or so, unfortunately, was The Boy Next Door. So I watched an hour or so of it. This has Jennifer Lopez as a recently separated woman who falls for a new friend of her son's, who's just moved in next door. They spend a night together - which she immediately regrets. Too bad that he turns out to be an obsessive, violent sociopath, reluctant to let her go.. I guess it's ok, except that I cannot stand JLo. So, as soon as something better came on another channel, I switched over. (Turned out to be yet another repeat, but hey.)
Tomorrow, back to finding my own film, I guess. I've now finished both Fleabag and The Fall - Fleabag was excellent, The Fall equally - but very, very dark. The very last episode, in fact, was shocking enough that it could be the subject of a horror story. And so, the highest rated on my film list now is one called Until When.. This is a documentary about four Palestinian families living in a refugee camp, and again, is available on Reel Palestine.
And next Saturday, I have that rescheduled showing of Three Kings..
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