Inflight Magazine of Brussels Airlines

In session

A round-up of the top films, music releases and books heading your way this month

Quiet Chaos

Director Antonio Luigi Grimaldi
Starring Nanni Moretti, Valeria Golino, Alessandro Gassman

Nanni Moretti is revered in Italy as one of his country’s most intelligent actors and filmmakers. As his latest film, Quiet Chaos, is released, he talks to b.there!

Q+A NANNI MORETTI

In the past, your films have criticised Silvio Berlusconi and the Catholic Church has complained about Quiet Chaos. Are you a trouble maker?
I don’t think film directors should be obliged to work on films that are deemed to be ‘important’. The important thing in these films is to go about making them with a personal touch.

But do you think your films have made a difference?
I don’t know to what degree a film, even a good film, can change people or shake their consciousness. The things that are most serious in Italy have already been eaten, digested and metabolised by the Italian people, so they no longer find them offensive.

What attracted you to Quiet Chaos?
There were many elements that drew me to a feeling that I would like to play that role – to have the possibility of stopping, of sitting on a bench and just pondering those things which, before, I had not really considered significant.

Australia

Director Baz Luhrmann
Starring Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman

Gone With The Wind meets… um… Crocodile Dundee in Baz Luhrmann’s sprawling epic Australia. Set (you guessed it) Down Under, at the outbreak of the Second World War, the film follows the taboo-busting relationship between an English heiress (Nicole Kidman) and a rough ’n’ tumble Aussie cowboy (Hugh Jackman) as they battle the currents of history, society and the country itself.

Filmed over a gruelling nine months, and with a run-time that feels almost as long, Australia is a truly mammoth achievement for Luhrmann, previously known for visionary but small-scale projects such as Moulin Rouge! and Strictly Ballroom.

Here he’s operating way out of his comfort zone, shooting the heck out of several massive set pieces (the Japanese bombing of Darwin is both a highlight and an historical curiosity) without sacrificing the human drama that we know he can do so well. Kidman and Jackman rise to the challenge (although Kidman’s posh accent grates), but the real star is the country itself, shot in magnificent, panoramic vistas. It’s no surprise that the Australian government is planning to use the film to promote tourism.

Take That

The Circus

Not to be confused with Britney Spears (see below), Take That are also gearing up for the New Year with an album called The Circus. While for Spears the title is a sly nod to the media madness that surrounds her every move, for Take That the name has a more innocent connotation. After an amazingly successful comeback in 2007, this is an album that invites fans to join the band beneath the big top, where there’s plenty of room for everyone to (Take That and…) party.

It’s really a precursor to the tour that the band have committed to in 2009, so you get the feeling that a lot of the songs on The Circus are designed to play best to 30,000 screaming women dressed up in pink fairy costumes. But then again, this is pop music we’re talking about and, frankly, that’s no bad thing.

The song Greatest Day overcomes the sickeningly self- satisfied imagery of its title by playing to writer Gary

Barlow’s strengths – an unfailing ear for a tune and lyrics that walk the line between rubbish and inspired. Elsewhere, How Did It Come To This is a ballad that sees the band in Million Love Songs mode again.

Britney Spears

Circus

While the world gawped in amazement at Britney Spears’s meltdown, one tiny fact escaped most people’s attention – she released an album, Blackout, and it was totally brilliant.

It was back-to-basics Britney: hugely danceable, slickly produced and packed with hits. The only problem was, no one was really listening. Now that the hysteria has died down, the stage is set for a come-back proper, and so there’s a lot riding on the release of Circus, Britney’s sixth studio album.

But rather than continue in the pure pop vein of Blackout, Circus is a throwback to the urban grooves that announced her original growth from pop princess to fully fledged woman. That theme pervades the album, not least in lead single Womanizer, which boasts a throaty, funky and confident kick.

The rest of the album has been whittled down from over 30 potential tracks, so there’s very little filler. It may not quite be up there with her early work, but it does suggest an artist – and a person – back in control.

Book club

The Tales of Beedle the Bard
by JK Rowling

The timing of this book release seems carefully planned to see parents part with as much Christmas cash as possible, but you have to admit it’s an ingenious idea.

For those who don’t know (Hi, this is Planet Earth, make yourself at home.), The Tales of Beedle The Bard is the book that Albus Dumbledore bequeathed to Hermione in the final book of Rowling’s Harry Potter series. There it was a plot device, but now Rowling has taken the inspired decision to release the book as a stand-alone novel.

Featuring five Aesop-style fables designed not just to delight, but to teach readers important lessons, the book is presented as though it’s the same copy given to Hermione, complete with notes from Dumbledore.

It’s all very cleverly put together and you can even get a limited edition version with a posh cover. Either way, it really is the perfect thing for Potter- starved kids (and their parents).

Scarpetta
by Patricia Cornwell

Some crime series have gone on so long, they’re more like a TV soap opera than a literary phenomenon. Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta books fall into that category, and yet they keep coming. Scarpetta is the 16th novel in 18 years.

Kay is the forensic examiner who, at various points in her career, has been chief medical examiner for the state of Virginia, a private consultant in Florida, head of the National Forensic Academy and a freelance expert in South Carolina. Now she’s off to New York City, where the police have asked her to check out an unusual patient in a psychiatric ward. He claims to be connected to a violent serial killer, but shows increasingly homicidal tendencies towards Kay herself. Somehow, and sooner rather than later, she must solve the mystery.

Cornwell is an old hand at this stuff, but rather than rest on her laurels, she continues to set the standard for forensic detective fiction, even as the likes of CSI make it harder to seem original. This isn’t her very best, but by now, most of us are already hooked.

Leave a Reply

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

CAPTCHA Code (required)