I make no apology for contradicting myself. If you are a newish reader you won’t even know but the fact of the matter is that I wouldn’t see Sully (about the ‘plane ditching in the Hudson River), although now I wish I had. I wouldn’t see it because I knew the story. I did see Jackie and now I have seen All the Money in the World and I’m pretty much au fait with both plot lines.
Let’s call it ATM, seems appropriate. I saw ATM at a Curzon cinema, running time 133 minutes. Had I seen it at the Vue in Shepherds Bush it would have been over in 113 minutes. This is one of life’s unsolved mysteries. It has not been a huge success but may yet recover its $50 million production budget. Now here is another of life’s unsolved mysteries. It takes authors years, nay decades, to write a book. If I had to make a film like ATM it would take me years, yet filming started on 31st May 2017 and the movie opened in the US on Christmas Day 2017. It could have been sooner if parts of it hadn’t been re-shot replacing Kevin Spacey with Christopher Plummer. Why do films open on Christmas Day in the US? Another mystery for someone living in the UK.
There’s a lot to listen to and look at. The music, the clothes, the cars for starters. Then there is Sutton Place (actually Hatfield) and the pictures. I hope it’s not a spoiler but at one point JPG climbs out of bed during the night and goes down to his gallery where he takes a Madonna and Child off the wall. Didn’t Henry Frick do this too? May I digress, I heard a bird warbling in the back garden at 4.00 am and went downstairs to see if it was using the feeders – it wasn’t. There’s plenty of plot to justify the film being categorised as a thriller. It thrilled me.
Are the Gettys really as stingy as the film portrays? Well, some twenty years ago Mrs Mark Getty, as she then was, started a fashion label. She needed to check that her choice of name was available. Most people hire a lawyer to do this. Domitilla went to the Patent Office herself to do the necessary searches. Furthermore, reckoning it would take some time, she brought sandwiches. Strictly speaking food is not allowed in the Patent Office but – possibly uniquely – permission was granted.
I reckon Ridley will get a handsome dividend on ATM. In a few years when the fuss has died down, ATM will be re-released in the original version with Kevin Spacey playing JPG and I will go and see it again. As they say, The Director’s Cut and the cameraman’s a bit plastered to
I think that the Christmas Day openings in the USA is all to do with the fact that it is not a Public Holiday there. For instance the shows on Broadway all play on the 25th December as normal. This is apparently a lot to do with the enormous Jewish population in New York and countrywide I imagine. My annual Christmas card for my business is not always welcomed in the States as I’m ‘old fashioned ‘ enough to wish everyone a Happy Christmas..,and refuse to use the Happy Holidays tag!!
Once a year JPG used to have a selection of jockeys and trainers to stay at Sutton Place for some local meeting. In the days before mobiles the jockeys needed to phone in to see what rides they had the next day. They were guided to a pay phone in the corridor. Perhaps that is why he was the richest man in the world. It is very reassuring that there is almost no correlation between wealth and happiness.