AVENGERS DAY
2: Catwoman Poster
It is a sure guarantee that an overdesigned poster often leads to a lousy film. Why I remember the poster for The Avengers with Uma Thurman poured into a nice sturdy catsuit with the tagline “Saving the world in style”. They missed out the world rubbish int here somewhere. Still at least Thurman was in a catsuit, an item of clothing named after the character who would wear it. Catwoman. Which makes the current Catwoman design of ripped pants and a few belts even more nonsensical.
Is it any wonder that people think the Catwoman movie is crap? I?ve not seen it but judging by the adverts there is a good reason people might associate the Halle Berry starrer with fecal matter. Have you seen the pose she?s in on the posters? Spider-Man is aloft in the canyons of New York swinging through the air unbound. In comparison Catwoman looks more egg-bound. I would suggest she take her leather kecks down before she has that crap, but judging the state of her trousers (and the reviews) its quite possible someone has ripped her a new arsehole already.
Pete Baran in Do You See • No Comments
ESCAPE FROM RUBBISH ISLAND!!!
People often ask me what the most frustrating thing about my tireless campaign against music is. My answer, as I stick my boot in another jukebox, is comebacks. There is nothing more annoying than seeing a band that you have effectively destroyed due to subtle chart and career sabotage deciding to get back together again. The people in charge of the Here & Now tours are sworn enemies of mine, but now look. Even The Wonder Stuff have reformed.
I do not mind so much nostalgia/nausea tours. After all the bands in this case are not making anything new, and may be actively retarding peoples tastes so they never develop. Anything that stems the tide of new music is good. But when the reformed band start making new albums, it irritates me massively. The last thing I want to see is Miles “rhyming slang” Hunt in his tartan suit back on Top Of The Pops. I know it is highly unlikely, especially when you see what they have called their new album.
ESCAPE FROM RUBBISH ISLAND
Trust me boys, Rubbish Island is not a place you can escape from. You carry it around wherever you go.
Tanya Headon in I Hate Music • No Comments
AVENGERS DAY: All my DYS comments today will in some way refer to the shoddy Avengers film starring Uma Thurman and Ralph Fiennes.
1: The Stepford Wives
I have not seen a film so butchered in editing as The Stepford Wives since probably The Avengers. These two films equally have plenty of other things in common. Good source material, a strong idea of visual design, and a sexual politics which is now out of time. There is nothing wrong with playing The Stepford Wives for laughs, but as a black comedic satire there is absolutely nothing to get your teeth into. The film is not even sure whether its titular wives are robots (as they act) or their wives with brain implants, and some very fast growing blonde hair.
The original book is a nice consumer horror piece, one part invasion of the body snatchers, one part Frankenstein and a rather stupid cautionary tale about feminism. Frankly times have moved on since Levin?s books, and Bryan Forbes perhaps more striking film (which was a well judged exploitation film). Frank Oz has taken the basic premise, updated its politics to make its plot meaningless and stapled a few hyper-active histrionics masquerading as gags. Oh, he also changes the criminal mastermind, both complicates matters and goes on to making even the motivation behind the film make no sense. Basically when the characters go on Larry King Live to explain exactly what has happened, you know you are watching a legendary dud. Even David Arnold, charged with writing a Danny Elfman score one assumes, seems to give up the ghost and gives us an ?isn?t this quirky and funny? strings which irritate before the exceedingly ugly credit sequence is over.
Kidman is the only actress whose character has been written beyond a back of the beermat sketch, one assumes she got two beer mats. One of the beermats said ?you know that weather girl she played in To Die For – well her twenty years on?. And the first five minutes of admittedly broad satire on reality TV at least promises more. When we get to Stepford, we get decidedly less. The apparently bold development is in having a gay couple in Stepford – and it takes us about five seconds to work out the reductionism solution to that problem. It is nice to know that our stick in the fifties criminal mastermind is at least not homophobic (though surely by definition they should be). The entire problem with the film can be summed up in one sequence:
The first time Kidman?s husband (played by Matthew Broderick) is apprised of the Wives, he is at the Men?s Club, where someone owes him $20. The geeky husband summons his wife, places his ATM card in her mouth, and then she dispenses $20 in singles – out of her mouth. Broderick is taken back, astounded – and then remarks that she even dispenses singles.
This scene is poorly staged, unpleasant and not really funny. It is certainly gratuitous, but it also makes absolutely no sense. Where does the money come from (is she stocked up with cash inside her body -who put it there). She needs his PIN number, despite other much more complex recognition devices. Why would it dispense out of her mouth – the same hole that was the card reader. What possible use is this facility. (It also makes it quite clear she must be a robot which makes a nonsense of the fuzzy happy ending).
Bryan Forbes made a horror movie out of Ira Levin?s book. Frank Oz has just made a horror of a movie. Its your new, worst film.
Pete Baran in Do You See • No Comments
“Fancy popping round for a quick parsnip?” For some reason, these ads have sprung up on the side of buses. An ad for coffee. Not an ad, you will notice, for any particular coffee. Nescafe is no long attacking us with Trinny and Susannah thrusting instant in our faces. But this is not a fair trade promo or corporate gig from Costa or Starbucks. Nope, it appears to be from the coffee marketing board.
What? Are we not drinking enough coffee or something? It strikes me that when every other business unit on the high street is a coffee shop and I know several people who physically cannot operate without the stuff, that coffee is doing fine. I could see Camp Chicory Essence making this kind of push. But coffee?
Still, the whole thing has been rather counter productive as I asked a young lady around for a parsnip just the other night. After the interlude I was told it looked more like an aubergine, but job done.
Pete Baran in Pumpkin Publog • No Comments
Extended online letters pages rool OK
The Observer featured my letter on penalties in their sports letters pages this weekend. Not in the print version, but it’s a start.
Dave Boyle in TMFD • No Comments
What A Palaver!
I’m going to stay out of debates about pop for a while, I think, because
- I don’t feel intellectually sharp enough at the moment
- (more importantly) I end up unintentionally upsetting or offending people I respect or admire.
- (more selfishly) They don’t do me any good. They don’t introduce me to new music, they don’t make me think about the music I do listen to in different ways (OK sometimes more defensively but that’s really negative), and they don’t change my listening habits and pleasures at all. So the only joy in them is mental jousting and currently (Freudians look away) my lance is a toothpick. This is zero reflection on the other very intelligent people who’ve been talking about pop(tim)(ism) on NYLPM and elsewhere, whose role in life is after all hardly to please me.
Like most pledges this is one I will surely end up breaking but for the moment it’s away with the tetchy a href tag and back to descriptive froth.
Lucky, then, that all this week I will be guest-writing at Fluxblog on the (rough) theme of ‘The 90s Revival’, one post a day with an exciting POLL involved too.
Tom in FT /New York London Paris Munich • No Comments