Film musings: Feel-good edition

Potiche
French-Belgian comedy (2010)

Catherine Deneuve plays a trophy wife who steps in to manage her tyrannical husband’s umbrella factory (a nod to Les Parapluies de Cherbourg) when he is taken hostage by his striking employees. She proves to be very competent indeed but her ex-lover and local politician played by Gérard Depardieu causes a bit of trouble. It’s set in 1977 and the art direction has been done beautifully. A witty comedy about a dysfunctional family, business, politics and gender.

Associés contre le crime (Partners in Crime)
French crime comedy (2012)

Prudence and Bélisaire Beresford have decided to retire from crime solving. Bélisaire writes an autobiography but Prudence gets bored and sets up her own detective agency. They take on the case of a missing Russian heiress who was last seen at a Swiss spa. This is Pascal Thomas’ latest adaption of Agatha Christie’s short story collection. I’m yet to see the other ones. A very funny film that occasionally reminds me of Inspector Clouseau. Catherine Frot is an absolute joy to watch.

What a Way to Go!
American black comedy (1964)

Widow Louisa, played by Shirley McLaine, ends up on a psychiatrist’s sofa after trying to donate a multi million check to the IRS. She believes that her fortune is cursed and she tells us about her four marriages that all ended in her husbands dying in bizarre ways. The amazing Edith Head designed seventy-two costumes for Shirley. This film is a feast for the eye. And watching Gene Kelly sing, dance and smile never fails to cheer me up.

Good Vibrations
Irish music biopic (2012)

This is the true story of Terri Hooley, the record shop and music label owner who turned into Belfast’s godfather of punk. Richard Dormer is very likeable as Terri and you easily get carried away by his enthusiasm. I saw this at the pictures about a month ago with a dear friend and I left with a huge smile on my face. The gig scenes and the music took me back to attending punk gigs as a teenager. I haven’t enjoyed a music biopic this much since 24 Hour Party People. The 1970s colour scheme is perfect! Oh, and my favourite living person is in it, Dylan Moran.

Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (The Young Girls of Rochefort)
French musical (1967)

Catherine Deneuve and her real life sister Françoise Dorléac play twin sisters Delphine and Solange who long to find love and move away from Rochefort. They teach ballet and music for a living. The film is set during a weekend when a fair comes to the small seaside town. There’s singing and dancing, and most importantly there’s Gene Kelly. The pastel colour scheme is marvellous. This is a film you feel and the feeling is pure joie de vivre.

The Trouble with Harry
American black comedy (1955)

The trouble with Harry is that he’s dead. His corpse is found on a hill in a small town in New England. The residents can’t decide how or why he was killed, or what to do with the corpse. They have different reasons to believe that they’re responsible for Harry’s death. Shirley McLaine is fun to watch in her first film role. This is Alfred Hitchcock’s most experimental film and it’s a strange one. No one reacts like you would expect and there isn’t really any suspense. It’s brilliant. I love his dark, twisted sense of humour.

Chiaki Creates elsewhere

Hello lovelies! I’m on Instagram at last. My username is chiakicreates if you fancy following along.You can now also ‘like’ my blog on Facebook. I put a little page together this evening. I’m thinking of it as a place where we can have a relaxed chat and a nice cup of tea.

Book Q&A

When I stumbled across this lovely Q&A on Hannah Ackroyd’s blog I instantly knew that I had to fill it out myself. I read a massive amount of non-fiction but I decided to focus almost entirely on fiction. It took me ages to choose favourites, apparently I have quite a few.

What are you reading right now?
I’m reading I Am a Cat by Natsume Sōseki and Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk. I’m also currently reading several creative business books.

Do you have any idea what you’ll read after you’ve finished these books?
I have a never-ending reading list. Next up are The Liar by Stephen Fry and An Anthropologist on Mars by Oliver Sacks.

Five books you’ve always wanted to read but have never got round to?
Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne.
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner.
Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf.
Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut.
The Sundial by Shirley Jackson.

What magazines do you have in your lounge right now?
I love art and design magazines but lately I’ve been sticking to crafty ones like Mollie Makes, Simply Crochet and Homemade with Love.

What’s the worst book you ever read?
It’s not the worst book I’ve ever read but The Death of Bunny Munro by Nick Cave really annoyed me, although retrospectively I can’t remember exactly why. I do remember that I desperately wanted to change the title to Bunny Munro is Going to Die.

What book is really popular but you really hated?
Brightness Falls by Jay McInerney. I couldn’t even finish it and that is very rare for me. I loved his Bright Lights, Big City but this one, not so much. I also found Fanny Hill by John Cleland quite overrated.

What’s the one book you recommend to everybody?
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. Every now and then I buy a copy of it and give it to someone. I also tell people to read Franz Kafka.

What are your three favourite poems?
It’s so difficult to only choose three. I’ve always been a dedicated lover of poetry and I wrote quite a lot of it when I was younger. I’d have to go with The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe, Antigonish by Hughes Mearns and Le Chats by Charles Baudelaire.

Where do you usually get your books?
Second-hand bookshops, charity shops and eBay. Sometimes a dear friend or my man’s mum lends me a book as well. I need to start using the library again really.

Where do you usually read your books?
Everywhere. In bed, on the sofa, on public transport, in tea rooms, in the park, while walking some place or waiting or queuing or cooking. Every chance I get.

When you were little, did you have any reading habits?
It was the same when I was a child. I read as much as I could. I would be sitting reading when my mum went to her evening shift and 6 hours later when she got back, I’d still be sitting there reading. There are holiday photos of me completely engrossed in a book, having my very own change of scenery within the book.

What’s the last book you stayed up half the night to read?
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. It is spellbinding.

Have you ever ‘faked’ reading a book?
I don’t believe I ever have. What a silly thing to do.

Have you ever bought a book just because you liked the cover?
Definitely, I do it all the time. I like pretty things. I did this with Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach and it became one of my all-time favourite books.

What was your favourite book as a child?
Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin without any doubt. I also loved Taste And Other Tales by Roald Dahl and anything by H.P. Lovecraft.

Which book changed your life?
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. Or even more so The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath.

What is your favourite passage from a book?
“…there is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory, and though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable: I simply am not there. It is hard for me to make sense on any given level. Myself is fabricated, an aberration. I am a noncontingent human being. My personality is sketchy and unformed, my heartlessness goes deep and is persistent. My conscience, my pity, my hopes disappeared a long time ago (probably at Harvard) if they ever did exist. There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it, I have now surpassed. I still, though, hold on to one single bleak truth: no one is safe, nothing is redeemed. Yet I am blameless. Each model of human behavior must be assumed to have some validity. Is evil something you are? Or is it something you do? My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. In fact, I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape. But even after admitting this—and I have countless times, in just about every act I’ve committed—and coming face-to-face with these truths, there is no catharsis. I gain no deeper knowledge about myself, no new understanding can be extracted from my telling. There has been no reason for me to tell you any of this. This confession has meant nothing…” – American Psycho

Who are your top five favourite authors?
Today it’s Bret Easton Ellis, Agatha Christie, Haruki Murakami, Oscar Wilde and Daphne du Maurier.

What is your favourite classic book?
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov or Psycho by Robert Bloch or A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess.

Five notable mentions?
Now You’re One of Us by Asa Nonami.
The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie.
The Strangers by Taichi Yamada.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson.
The Rotters’ Club by Jonathan Coe.

Dyed 60s style citrus floral flats

A while back, I ordered these jasmine peep toe ballet flats in white from Asos. Oh yes, the budget version of the Moschino Cheap and Chic ninfea cut-out flats. I knew instantly that I wanted to dye them orange and lemon with Tarrago shoe dye. Since I’ve never dyed shoes before I have no idea how they will hold up but they will definitely be put to the test this summer.

May goals

○ Make a floral crown.

○ Get a new smartphone.

○ Sew scalloped vintage floral fabric bunting.

○ Join Instagram.

○ Get a couple of pom-pom makers.

○ Sign up to MUBI.

○ Visit the exhibition David Bowie is at the V&A with my mum and my best friend.

○ Spend a day in Brighton with my mum and my best friend.

○ Make a felt garland.

○ Plant more herbs in our window boxes.

Currently creating (still): Crochet vintage fan ripple blanket

I’m slowly making progress on my crochet vintage fan ripple blanket. It just about fits on top of my sewing table when folded in half. I have no idea how to take photos of it when it gets even bigger though. I’m still enjoying making it but I keep getting sidetracked by other creative projects at the moment.

Confession: I cut my own hair

After months of itching to chop some of my hair off, I finally grabbed a pair of scissors and just went with it. I blame it on the sun. And here it is, my new 60s bob spring ‘do.I’ve been cutting my own hair for 16 years. Mainly because I have trust issues when it comes to my hair. I’ve had one too many bad experiences with hair dressers not listening to instructions. Also, I’ve always been a ‘do it yourself’ type of girl. If I can do something myself, I will. How about you? Would you put the scissors to your own hair?

Before and after.