Please be upstanding
They're all saying it, and it's true: The Queen is great. Went to see it at Reigate Screen this evening with what can only be described as Queen fans. These were elderly ladies who, after the film, were excitedly discussing the pearls worn by Helen Mirren's monarch and the veracity thereof. I am not a Queen fan, but you don't need to be to enjoy Stephen Frears' film, which, if it wasn't made for TV, still kind of is. It was odd seeing it at the cinema, but worthwhile. It's not especially cinematic, but it's quite impressive seeing news archive clips blown up on a big screen. Written by Peter Morgan, who wrote The Deal (about the Blair-Brown pact at Granita), and again starring the uncommonly talented Michael Sheen as the pixie-like PM, this took place over the week after Diana's death. It's been pointed out elsewhere that Diana dominates the film like a ghost, and as much as a dramatised study of the relationship between the Queen and the Prime Minister, it's also a snapshot of the nation going mad in September 1997 - a collective madness from which I don't believe we've ever recovered.

This is a film about people watching telly, whether it's the Royals in Buckingham Palace or Balmoral, or the staff of Number 10, they're all fixated on the telly - just as we all were that week. It's the government living through the media, another telling point. If anyone thought the 90s weren't worth dramatising, they reckoned without the death of Diana. It's a serious piece, ultimately, but Morgan and Frears manage the comedy with aplomb. The cast are uniformly terrific - Mirren is so convincing you will forget it's her, James Cromwell is a great Prince Phillip (again, never resorting to Spitting Image buffoonery, but he does get this great line about the guest list at Diana's funeral: "It's all soap stars and homosexuals!"), Roger Allam is all deference and wisdom as Sir Robin Janvrin, Alex Jennings has perfect poise as Prince Charles, and Sylvia Sims is the Queen Mum.

It's strange that we will sit for 97 minutes and watch a drama about a queen having a PR disaster, because that's all it is, but then this is England, and it's as English as Volver is Spanish. It's not a republican film, but even though it takes us back to Blair's honeymoon period (how long ago it seems), Morgan saves up a warning for him at the end.

Oh, and because it's a 12A, Alistair Campbell says "Flippin' heck", which is the only wrong note in the film.

Glad Tidings
Had to push on to the end. Last two episodes of The Sopranos (I feel like I did after reviewing every match of the World Cup, except there's been more bloodshed): Episode 12, Long Term Parking, written by Terence Winter, and directed by Tim Van Patten; and Episode 13, All Due Respect, written by David Chase, Robin Green and Mitchell Burgess, and directed by John Patterson. In the first, Carmela and Tony get back together, on the proviso that Tony ceases all dalliances and Carmela gets $600,000 as a downpayment on a piece of land upon which she can build "a spec house" (Kevin McCloud would be intrigued). At the same time, Johnny Sack (crowned King of New York after Little Carmine retreats back to Florida) gets nasty and demands Tony Blundetto (who's hiding in the farm) "on a spit", making a threat about "raining a shitstorm down on your family like you have never fucking seen." Tony Soprano is once again caught in the cleft stick of familial duty and work commitments. It all goes off between Christpher and Adriana, after the Feds make an ultimatum: bring us the head of Tony Soprano or go to jail. (They've discovered that a vicious stabbing took place at her bar and that she removed evidence - own goal for the colitis-knotted stool pigeon.) Christopher reacts well to her revelation - he only almost kills her. An emotional moment for the couple, Chris disappears ("for a smoke") and the next thing you know, Adriana is being picked up by Sylvio and it's Carlo Rizzi and the canoli all over again. Bang bang. These are the last days.

In the final episode, something has to be done about Tony Blundetto, and Tony Soprano is the man to do it. With a shotgun. To the head. It offers a grim but satisfying end to this particular cycle. The Fredo moment, except rather more hands-on. This clears the air for Tony's family, who are all dark mutterings about their boss's favouritism towards his cousin. There's a terrific scene around a table (the occasion is the birthday of Ray, an old-timer who's also giving information to the FBI, which gives the set-up further crackle): Tony asserts his authority but you can sense the unease even from his most loyal captains. Where will this end, you wonder? "I'm willing to die for a good cause," says Vito. "But this is bullshit." It's been a difficult season for Tony. But hope springs eternal in the final act: after making peace with Johnny Sack, the Feds turn up. Sack is taken in (and, one presumes, his associates, including the dangerous Phil Leotardo, who we saw earlier attacking one of Tony's drivers, Benny, in the parking lot). Tony escapes, despite his bulk, and ends up humorously emerging into his own back garden via the bushes. Home is where the heart is. Even AJ is showing an interest in "event planning" which is right up there with "waste management" if you ask me. A chip off the old block, as it were. The season ends with a reprise of Glad Tidings by Van Morrison. "Be of good cheer," are the last words, from Tony's lawyer.

It's been a fabulous series. Now all we have to do it wait for Season Six to come out. Next stop: The Wire.

Oh no, not another dream sequence!
Don't stop me now! Two episodes of The Sopranos back to back (which means only two to go - a parlous situation salved only by the arrival of The Wire on DVD, following mass recommendation on this blog): Episode 10, Cold Cuts, written by Robin Green and Mitchell Burgess, directed by none other than Mike Figgis, and Episode 11, The Test Dream, written by Matthew Weiner and David Chase (the guv'nor!) , directed by Allen Coulter. In the first of the two, things get prickly between Tony and Johnny Sack over the non-delivery of some Vespas at the Newark waterfront. It's "fuckin' payback" for Tony B whacking Joe Peeps. Janice beats up a rival "soccer mom" and attends anger management classes, for fear of Bobby leaving her (I like it when he admitted preferring the "spitfire type" - such a gentle soul, he is). But Tony, a man with issues of his own who's just beaten Bada Bing barman Georgie to within an inch of his hearing for a benign comment about living for the moment, acts like a total prick and winds Janice up until her new-found state of grace shatters. Bad man. A big contrast to the bucolic scenes at Uncle Pat's farm, where Tony B and Christopher bond over the exhumation of some previously-whacked skellingtons. Uncle Tony turns up, and Captain Rehab Christopher's the butt once again. Adriana urges him to think about the pair of them running away, but he has to stay. He's a soldier.

Tony gets his comeuppance, of sorts, in the next episode, as he is caught up for most of the running time in a dream sequence. These must be fun to write and direct, but they're tiresome to watch, I think. Funny to see Annette Bening turn up, as herself, and to see Tony shagging Artie's wife, while Artie watches, but beyond the psychological insight into Tony's childhood and his guilt, it's a major indulgence. Also, and I may be dim, but I couldn't work out why Tony was spending the night alone in the New York Plaza in the first place. Anybody help me out here? Worst episode of the series, at any rate.

It is September 11 by the way
I managed to avoid the TV and radio news all day, as I know it will have been filled with mawkish overstatement, lead item, even though the attacks happened in a different city in a different country half a decade ago. Anyway, I dislike "news" when it is emotive (talk of "evil" does not belong in news, and yet it crops up again and again in this case). Call me an old stick-in-the-mud, but emotion is not the job of the news. News is. I noticed that the Evening Standard had the headline, THE WORLD REMEMBERS. It would be hard for THE WORLD to forget. I respect the right of those who lost people in any tragedy to memorialise, whether in private or, if needs be, in public, but we seem to have mistaken these memorials as events of international import. And the one-minute silences have become two minutes. That's just oneupmanship (my tragedy's more tragic than yours - listen!). I don't know why people constantly replenish roadside memorials to victims of car accidents year after year either. It's a similar need to exhibit grief rather than just experience it and be cleansed by it.

Anyway, I remember September 11, 2001 very well. I am hardly trying to forget it. I watched all five hours of The Path To 9/11 today, the first half on tape , the second half on TV this evening, and the first segement of C4's latest, The Man Who Predicted 9/11, which was, even for me, one September 11, 2001 too many. I really admired the five-hour epic though, dramatised, but based on the 9/11 Commission and other transcripts, except where it wasn't. Harvey Keitel starred as John O'Neill, the FBI counter-terrorist officer who was ultimately thwarted in his efforts to nail Bin Laden, but beyond him and Donnie Wahlberg (very good as a Fed called Alex), it was a no-star cast, which added to the documentary feel - not disimilar to United 93, although director David Cunningham was a lot artier than Greengrass, with his out-of-focus shots, and inistence on cutting back to exotic foreigners playing drums at moments of high drama. It gave context, beginning with the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center and joining the dots through Nairobi, Lewinsky, Sudan, the USS Cole and the big day itself. To its credit, it criticised a lot of Americans, not least the squabbling CIA and FBI, who deserve each other, but it singled out Clinton, or at least his administration's Sandy Berger, for a big can of blame. (I liked the line attributed to the security chief who, when first told of the plot to fly planes into buildings, accused the potential terrorists of having read "too many Frederick Forsyth novels.")

I've seen criticism of the film for being right wing, but it seemed pretty delighted to show Bush read My Little Goat, or whatever it was called, and anyway, it put Al-Qaeda's case across loud and clear, and the suggestion was always that US foreign policy inflamed Islamist extremism, which doesn't exactly strike me as right wing. Surely a right wing film would have demonised the Arabs? It makes a good companion to World Trade Center, which offers no political context whatsoever and in that sense, cops out. Instead, Stone went for a film about heroes (and I don't question the heroism of the emergency services), very much a sidestep of broader issues thrown up by that day.

By the way, the man who predicted 9/11, Rick Rescorla, worked at Morgan Stanley and was born in Cornwall, although according to the first part of the documentary, it was actually his mate who predicted 9/11.

I think I might have seen enough now. It's almost September 12.

Put me in, coach
It's like an addiction now. I was tired anyway. We'd just watched the last, variety-themed episode of The Story Of Light Entertainment (which has been exceptionally good), it was 10.45, but something inside of my sleepy bones said, "Yes! You can manage one more episode! Do it! Do it!" So I did it. The Sopranos, Episode 9, Unidentified Black Males, written by Terence Winter and Matthew Weiner, directed by Tim Van Patten, its title firstly referring to a comment made by one of Vito's wiseguys on lawnchairs at the construction sight after one of them glasses another after a "breaking balls" comment. It seems that these unidentified black males are the default explanation for any violence, an allusion explained in Tony's "giving birth" session with Melfi after a golf course panic attack, which all goes back to the night of the heist that put cousin Tony Blundetto in the can, effectively in Tony Soprano's place. The myth was, he was attacked by two black males and couldn't make the heist. In fact, he'd had a panic attack and hit his head. Getting this out to Dr Melfi was another milestone. This is why he feels so guility protective towards his cousin, and why he gave him extra responsibility despite finding out about his freelance hit on Joe Peeps. ("Peeps", his nickname, is disrespectfully carved into his headstone at the funeral, a fuck-up by Tony's crew which looks very bad at this most sensitive time between the families.) Meanwhile, Meadow's boyfriend Finn is given a job at the construction site, where he witnesses the aforementioned violence, and, early one morning, Vito blowing a security guard in the front seat of a car. This, you understand, is bad knowledge. It puts Uncle Junior's oral sex into the shade. You don't want to know. Carmela has served Tony with divorce papers. It's going to get ugly.