Bee's beer, brewing and blarney

Beer as part of life. A real woman reviews real booze and includes the soundtrack of her life with occasional discussion of pub travel and events of interest. Beer reviews. Real ales on draught. Good pub guide. Home brewing. Country wines. Music and films to drink with. Click on highlighted links for music, as well as beer info and news. Propagate me with a Tweet or sign up to Twitter for news and random photo series "Odd things in pubs"

Wednesday 22 August 2012

What's the point of pubs?

With pubs closing at a rate of knots, do they still have a role to play in the modern age? Radio 4 debates. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01m16ph

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FILM LIST. Decent flicks I have watched with beer since blog start

Magnolia. 1999. Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson. Dark and moody. Life, love, loss, emotional trauma, guilt, stupidity, forgiveness, honesty, compassion, redemption. All this packed into tales of synchronicity, and the lives of intertwined characters during 24 hours in LA. And frogs.
From Dusk til Dawn. 1996. Robert Rodriguez. A movie of 2 halves. Bad ass B movie followed by rubbish. Entertaining kitch.
The private lives of Pippa Lee. 2009. Dir. Rebecca Miller. layers of life and love history can lead to quiet desperation ... then happy rebirth. This was a corny film, but I liked it.
Is anybody there? 2008. Dir. John Crowley. Learning to live with life, this is an excellent portrayal of understanding and acceptance of human frailty and regret.
The Last Station. 2009. Dir. Michael Hoffman. The pain of a long love derailed by celebrity and tension between pragmatism and idealism.
The Hurt Locker. 2008. Dir. Kathryn Bigelow. So I've watched it now. It was worth it. Interesting crack opens to some of the truths of war.
The Good Shepherd. 2006. Dir. Robert De Niro. Lies, lies and more damn lies. How the CIA grew and played international politics as if it were a college game.
Incendiary. 2009. Dir. Sharon Maguire. Terrorism affects real people. Depression is a terrible outcome of loss.
The Fisher King. 1991. Dir. Terry Gilliam. Retro, but aged well. The message being that redemption is available to us all? Hopefully true.
The Round Up. 2010. French language. Dir. Roselyne Bosch. paris, July 16th 1942, Paris winter velodrome and all that. Be thankful it wasn't you.
An American Werewolf in London. 1981. Dir. John Landis. This has aged well. Still made me jump. Still made me laugh. I love the decomposing Jack.
Please Give. 2010. Dir. Nicole Holofcener. Sorry tale of urban liberal angst and misplaced compassion.
The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec. 2010. French language. Luc Besson. Very very silly piece of froth. Never mind I enjoyed the escapist fantasy moment!
The Informant. 2009. Steven Soderbergh. Bad reviews although it kept me interested until the end. The little twists in the 'truth' built up a believable picture of individual and corporate greed and misconduct.
Snatch. 2000. Dir Guy Ritchie. Stupidly funny violent cautionary hyperbolic tale of London crime. "You should never underestimate the predictability of stupidity".
Jackie Brown. 1997. Dir Quentin Taratino. A well crafted film which is great to watch for the smooth pace and equally smooth 1970's sound track. I enjoyed it as the "will she or won't she" suspense was carried through to the very end.
The Pelican Brief. 1993. Dir. Alan Pakula. Law student uncovers reason for the murder of two judges - the lust for oil in an area designated for environmental protection and pelican conservation. Little guy wins out in the end. Sure this remains a true tale of today.
The Man Who Knew Too Much. 1953. Dir. Hitchcock. It's ages since I watched this film, but it never fades with age. Political murder and child kidnap overcome by loving parents who never give up on looking for each other.
Kolya. 1996. Dir Jan Sverak. Czech Language. Enforced parenthood teaches new values and the meaning of unconditional love.
Seabiscuit. 2003. Dir Gary Ross. Shouldn't really include this in the list of decent films, its a simple story, bad horse makes good and lifts the spirits of depression period Americans. Easy watching.
The Time that Remains. 2009. dir Elia Sulieman. The creation of the state of Israel and the fate of the Isreali Arabs from 1948 through to the present day told by documenting the every day lives of a family through the generations. Closely observed. Real and surreal scenes. Deeply human.
A Better Life. 2011. Dir. Chris Weitz. Tale of between-generations misunderstanding and teenage angst set against the struggle of life for an immigrant family. I recognised the pain.
The Quiet American. 2002. Dir. Phillip Noyce. Couldn't resist watching this tale again, its done well. Life as a journalist at the start of the Vietnam war. Loyalties and love.
The Station Agent. 2003. Dir. Thomas McCarthy. Well crafted and original story about the value of friendship and dealing with individual pain. I cried in empathy!
The Golden Door. 2006. Dir. Emanuele Crialese. The immigrants journey to America from poor Sicily. Boat ride and arrival. Creates a feeling of the time.
The Baader Meinhof Complex. 2008. German language. Dir. Uli Edel. Resistance born from concerned activism during a very complex period of political upheaval and unrest, turns to radical extremism that takes a different shape. Helped me understand social context.
Sophie Scholl. 2005. German language. Dir. Marc Rothemund. Story of one of the most famous members of the German World War II anti-Nazi resistance movement, The White Rose
Good Will Hunting. 1997. Dir Gus Van Sant. Genius and hurt. A lesson in how to sort out life and priorities. Has stood the test of time.
Prestige. 2006. Dir. Christopher Nolan. What happens when two magicians get into obsessive rivalry. It all ends in tears.
Baaria. 2009. Italian language. Dir. Giuseppe Tornatore. I thought this was great! Gently crazy .... Autobiographic epic of three generations in a Sicilian village. Nice triple peaked mountain top adds to scenic interest!
Coco. 2009. French language. Dir. Anne Fontaine. Frothy tale of Coco Channel. Good for a non-provocative easy watching hour.
Through a Glass darkly. 1961. Dir Ingmar Bergman. Recovery from mental illness, love and faith. One summer far away. A little close to the bone.
The Machinist. 2004. Dir. Brad Anderson. Having not slept for a year, lathe operator Trevor Reznick is dying of insomnia. The question is why.
Sarah's key. 2010. French language (mostly) Dir. Gilles Paquet-Brenner. Another sad tale of the holocaust after the notorious French state sponsored Vel' d'Hiv Roundup in 1942. Puts your own life into perspective.
Partir. 2009. French langauge. Dir. Catherine Corsini. Woman falls in love with disasterous consequences. Not sure about this one really although i watched it transfixed right to the end.
Balibo. 2009. Dir. Robert Connolly. Explosive political thriller, telling the true story of crimes which have been kept hidden for over 30 years. What happened in East Timor.
A Bout Portant. 2010. french language. Dir. Fred Cavayé. A nurse working at a hospital when his pregnant wife (Anaya) is kidnapped before his very eyes. Knocked unconscious, he comes to and discovers that a dangerous criminal named Sartet is responsible, and if he's ever to see his wife again, he must do Sartet's bidding.
Lawrence of Arabia. 1962. Dir. David Lean. Same old war, same old armies.
Mullholland Drive. 2001. Dir David Lynch. American neo-noir psychological thriller. Car crash, woman wakes up with no past. Aspiring starlet tries to help her piece together history. Very, very Lynch with echoes of Twin Peaks all through.
The Aviator. 2004. Dir. Martin Scorsese. Life of Howard Hughes from the late 1920s to the mid-1940s film director and aviator and plane designer.
Little Voice. 1998. Dir. Mark Herman. The pathetically shy LV lives the life of a recluse listening to her late fathers old records in her room, then she finds her voice.
The Cider House Rules. 1999. Dir. Lasse Halstrom, A compassionate young man, raised in an orphanage and trained to be a doctor there, decides to leave to see the world
Frida. 2002. Dir. Julie Taymor. The life story of Frida Kahlo who channeled the pain of a crippling injury and her tempestuous marriage into her work.
The Counterfeiters. 2007. German language. Dir. Stefan Ruzowitzky. The true story of the largest counterfeiting operation in history, set up by the Nazis in 1936.
The Black Book. 2006. Dutch language. Dir. Paul Verhoeven. A young Jewish woman in the Netherlands becomes a spy for the resistance during World War II
Water. 2005. Dir. Deepa Mehta. Writer Anurag Kashyap. Set in 1938 and explores the lives of widows at an ashram in Varanasi, India.
The Last Station. 2009. Dir. Michael Hoffman. The pain of a long love derailed by celebrity and tension between pragmatism and idealism.

Bee's beer, brewing and blarney

Wednesday 22 August 2012

What's the point of pubs?

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