31 January 2005
Even more on Team America: World Police…
Leaving aside the slightly absurd suggestion that Michael Moore poses as much of a threat to the world as suicide bombers and terrorists, does anyone else find something a little distasteful about Parker and Stone’s depiction of everyone’s favourite lefty documentary-maker? Not so much out of any great respect for the man, but more to do with how it seemingly sweeps under the carpet Parker and Stone’s own (fairly pivotal) contribution to Moore’s Bowling For Columbine?
Matt in Do You See • No Comments
The all new Assault On Precinct 13 is good value for money. A Frankenstein film of epic proportions, it gobbles up the original (an odd word given this plot) Die Hard 2, The Matrix and any film in which Gabriel Byrne has been rubbish in (all of them) to its own entertaining effect. It could be said that Carpenter’s version was a stripped down purring engine of plot, soundtrack and not much else. The new one is pretty much the opposite. The plot is thoroughly implausible, the soundtrack rubbish. But in the way it efficiently hits its genre buttons are a joy.
Oh – but as for that soundtrack, wait until the very end. KRS-One turns in a track which not only recounts the entire plot of the film you have just seen, but also does the job of the credits in telling you who played who. Not since MC Hammer chatted over the end of the Adams Family film have we had such a good reason to stay for the credits and watch with amazement as KRS-One does even more to end his career than working with R.E.M.
Pete Baran in Do You See /FT • No Comments
oliphaunts vs mumins: WHO WILL DIE?
in the interests of havin a social life clearly mumin wins, in the sense that to watch 10 hours-worth* of DVD-mumins IN GERMAN at starry’s house w.various pals = bettah than stayin in and watchin ep3 of the new series of time commanders by myself (haha tho everyone i know who = not at starry’s txted me to say OLIPHAUNTS AHOY!!)
anyway as others will perhaps discuss, we got to compare the eng-lang vs germ-lang broadcast versions (communal conclusions: germ-lang = much longer eps w.langorous dwellin on scenery detail, less quirky/annoying voiceover, fiddlier loungejazz S/T; eng-lang = more evocative music maybe, voiceoever-fella richard murdoch clearly wanted to be the new eric thompson (of eng-lang magic roundabout fame) and as a result provided snufkin w.a maddening cali-beatnik drawl a la dylan the rabbit and little my with the voice of a crazed little old posh lady)
i wz challenged to declare – aide from mere contrarian perversity hem hem – why i approved of the fact that the moominvalley party was stretched out over THREE NEARLY EVENTLESS (german) EPISODES despite the fact that the puppetshow moomintroll omits key characters (= the snork and the muskrat): the answer = this
i. this wz my favourite scene in ANY book as a child (though i never till now told anyone this), and
ii. when i stayed at dr vick’s mum’s house in saltash two years ago, dr vick’s brother’s kids threw a surprise moominvalley party for me, complete w.pancakes, paper lanterns and clifftop view of the sea – AND WHEN THE SUN WENT DOWN IT TURNED RUBY RED!! i don’t know how they did this last bit (the oldest = seven!) —- anyway this depiction of the party did not betray EITHER of these very excellent memories
*we did not complete this task
pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør in Do You See • No Comments
29 January 2005
Monty Python’s Fliegender Zirkus — after some delay I’ve finally gotten around to seeing the first of two of the strangest comedy ventures ever, namely the nearly hour-long German-only episodes (nearly all of which, a couple of moments aside, consisted of material written only for them rather than carried over from elsewhere) that them Monty Python fellers did in the early seventies at the invitation of a German producer who felt that they’d go over well. Bits and pieces had surfaced in other contexts, notably as interstitial parts of their Hollywood Bowl performances and film, but the episodes themselves only finally got a formal release in the late nineties and now, in America at least, are split between two collections, Monty Python Live and The Life of Python, which gather up all kinds of random bits and pieces and reunion specials and the like.
Over twenty years after Python first hit me over the head thanks to repeats on late night TV, it’s nice to see that for all the changes and refinements and differing approaches that have surfaced in its wake (The Day Today and South Park being two of my favorites) that the original model of open-ended sketches without punchlines and self-referentiality to a fault still has a certain punch, and the first of these German episodes has it in spades. Seeing the six wandering around the Alps as Little Red Riding Hood and flocks of doctors and Albrecht Durer, sheriff of the Old West and more — well, like with the original show sometimes the concept works better than the execution but the execution is more inspired than not. But perhaps my favorite is “The Bavarian Restaurant Sketch,” introduced as such and featuring an American couple looking for the ‘authentic’ Bavarian food experience. Serendipitously, the most humorous things about it are the authentic Bavarians in the background of every shot elsewhere in what appears to be an actual eatery, wondering why in the world a bunch of Englishmen are dancing around in waiter costumes to accordion music, insisting in phonetically learned German that theirs is the best restaurant in Bavaria, “where the mountains rise out of the ground.” But of course.
I definitely am more looking forward to getting The Office box set at some point here, but knowing that Python can still remind me why I loved them so much to begin with — it’s like getting an unexpected dessert at the end of a well-enjoyed meal. As opposed to one where prawns are stuffed down your shirt.
Ned Raggett in Do You See • No Comments
28 January 2005
secret pash residue it’s actually kinda NICE to rediscover
(potential quickly-abandoned series alert):
i guess all of us (except maybe those who occasionally throw stuff away above and beyond eg crisp packets) have things like these – cultural items bought or gather to be more at one with someone at some past point seriously (and unrequitedly*) crushed on: they said they loved [x], and you made a special secret effort to pore over [x], for clues how to get them to adore you, and they’re no longer part of yr life lo these 394857 years, yet here in a hidden pile, uncovered by Resolution-driven Spring Cleanin and uncharacteristic no-computer-at-home-driven spare time, its primary purpose gone to the dust it gathers. Except hurrah! It’s actually maybe worth more in its own right than it wz in yr (er = my) original cunning (=silly) plan.
In this case, the object in question wz Ingmar Bergman’s super-gloomy “lost of faith” trilogy – or actually just the first one, “Through a Glass Darkly” (1961, starring Harriet Andersson, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Max von Sydow…), which i had been told wz “My favourite film ever!” (so yaroo! subtle route to deeps of heart ahoy!)
And C4, in an earlier artier time (c.1996-ish), had broadcast all three in successive weeks, and I’d set my video accordingly. But “TaGD” is tuff goin stuff (also i have now to say GIANT 500-FOOT-HIGH WARNING SIGN stuff, re objects of inadvisable romantic interest), and its successor “Winter Light” (1962, starring Bjornstrand, and Ingrid Thulin) is tuffer yet. eg TaGD = in a moomin-esque island-bound house, a young woman is succumbing inexorably to madness; WL = a Lutheran pastor and widower, losing his faith, is growing to despise the woman he lives with since his beloved wife died, the feeling somewhat mutual: the bitter film-long mutual recriminations are interrupted when a neighbour shoots himself in a nearby car-park
which is probbly why i had never even embarked on the third, “the silence” (1963) (and had in fact convinced myself it had not recorded). well, first, here is the ever-estimable LESLIE HALLIWELL (an un-tidied-up halliwell original review, this, mind, givin you a fine insight into the Grebt Capsule Reviewer’s mind and attitudes):
the silence (tystnaden): ingmar bergman 1963, cameraman sven nykvist
ingrid thulin; gunnel lindblom
Plot: “Of two women in a large hotel in a foreign city where the military are dominant; one masturbates while the other sleeps with a barman”
Review: “Bergman may have known what this was all about, but it’s a certainty that no one else did: so everyone thought it must be very clever and went to see it. Superficially, as usual, it is careful and fascinating’ (= this from the man whose review of Taxi Driver said – from memory sadly, as THIS review has been tidied into unhistory since LH’s death – “Its later scenes make no sense”)
OK, well, i did record it (all but the end credits) and my ph34rZ were groundless: “The Silence” is way more watchable and lyrical than its two predecessors, bcz it features something he wd later make the centre of his great late semi-autobiographical “Fanny and Alexander”, which is to say a small boy – the son of one of the two women (who may be sisters or may be lovers, or even both i spose) – wandering around the hotel, bored and unsupervised, and totally not told what’s going on and not really understanding it, even as he takes it all in (inc.the sex, the arguments, the war, a troupe of performing dwarves in a neighboring hotel room ,who adopt him for the afternoon then spurn him, and so on and so forth). The sense of the weird incomprehensiblity of adult behaviour is exactly (and I’d have said really OBVIOUSLY) the thing the entire film is “about”, and it’s moving and seductive and dream-like, even as the adult world is turning very horrible (actually what it most immediately reminds me of is the early section of kidlit classic The Secret Garden, when newly-orphaned Mary has arrived in the big empty house in Yorkshire and is wandering alone through its many empty rooms, trying to invent ways to pass the time: it’s obvious something awful or sinister or strange is going on, but – brought up in India not Yorkshire – she is an outsider and thus the last to realise this). The odd thing is that the boy (played by Jorgen Lindstrom) is often not even mentioned in summaries of the film, Halliwell more symptomatic here than anomalous.
bergman has become a bit of an easy target, for the pitiless bleakness of his portrayal of adult failings and weakness, for making movies you “feel you ought to admire” rather than actually like, but the payoff – as in fanny and alexander, as here – is his gift for re-visioning the world from a child’s perspective… today this seems almost an obvious dimension to access (maybe even over-explored), but i really don’t think it was yet at the start of the 60s
*this is u&k btw i suspect: memorabilia tied up to those who loved you back is a lot harder to see clear or new (and why wd you want to?)
pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør in Do You See • No Comments
My soundtrack hell:
Problem 1 with Closer
It opens with a really dull Damien Rice song.
Problem 2 with Closer
It closes with the same really dull Damien Rice song.
The bits in between are okay, but hearing the same rubbish song twice is more than a man should have to endure. Oh and it does seem to think that ll strip clubs have Smack My Bitch Up on a constant loop, which may be true but seems awfully provocative to the clientele.
Pete Baran in Do You See • No Comments
Yes please.
1. This is 2 weeks before my birthday.
2. WarioWare Touched, that will do nicely.
3. One of the other launch titles is called PROJECT RUB!
Tom in Do You See • No Comments
26 January 2005
Well done Stan Lee on getting your due from Marvel’s movie successes! Just be sure not to blow the money on any totally shit vanity projects for your star mates, eh?
Tom in Do You See • No Comments
25 January 2005
Not being terribly well yesterday I wanted to curl up and watch some cinematic comfort food. I picked Raiders Of The Lost Ark, which I’d not seen since I was 13. It was interesting how different the film is from the version of the film I’d carried in my head, particularly in terms of pacing.
My imagined Raiders is much more of a convoluted race for the Ark, and when the goodies find the Ark and the baddies subsequently get it, they open it immediately and the film ends. The long – and very exciting – truck chase scene I had completely forgotten about. The aeroplane fight I had moved much earlier in the movie. The pirate ship / U-boat stuff near the end – vanished. So the version of Raiders I watched last night was in one sense oddly disappointing.
‘My’ version conforms a lot more to the action film genre conventions Raiders did its bit to forge. But in 1981 they were unrefined, and so now it seems to me that Raiders misses tricks or even gets things ‘wrong’. The sadistic giggling Nazi is introduced and used very much as Marian’s adversary and the genre-schooled viewer expects him to meet a separate end at her hands. There are also pains taken to individualise the villains – Belloc is bad, Nazi chief is worse, Nazi giggler is worst – but for the last third of the film they all act together and all die together too. Indy and Belloc don’t get a final confrontation – or at least not one that Indy wins. And after the truck chase there’s a final 20-30 minutes with hardly any action at all – no wonder I’d mentally truncated it.
So Raiders now feels full of set-ups that don’t always pay off. But on the other hand this made it a more interesting film than I was expecting – OK, I knew the soul-sucking end, but how it got there surprised me (and I’d completely forgotten that lovely final payoff shot). It also reminded me that most of the genre conventions that make blockbusters predictable become so because they’re dramatic best practise, too.
Tom in Do You See • No Comments
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