Category: Film & TV

In looking at some of my recent music and DVD acquisitions, I find that I’ve inadvertantly assembled an interesting picture of English popular culture, circa 2006 CE. For example:

• “Vertically Challenged” by Lady Sovereign.
• “Stars of CCTV” by Hard-Fi.
• “Who The F*** Are Arctic Monkeys” and “Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not” by the Arctic Monkeys.
• “Tales From Turnpike House” by Saint Etienne.
• “The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living” by the Streets.
• “Finisterre”, a video documentary about London by Saint Etienne.

I don’t have any profound observations or comments to offer; it just struck me as interesting. (However I will note that I’m extremely impressed by Hard-Fi. The track “Cash Machine” is brilliant, and “Hard To Beat” sounds like an updated number by Prefab Sprout – which is high praise indeed.)

Remember Mr. Plod gets in a snit? The US authorities are just as clueless: they’ve banned an actor from the new movie United 93 from travelling to the US for the opening in New York. As before, if you can’t catch terrorists, you can always go after the actors who play terrorists. Good grief.

Via Chris, a 3:27 video of Thierry Henry. Chris and I may disagree on religion, but we share a sense of the divine….!

Film: Mrs. Henderson Presents. Great story, beautifully acted, wonderful songs. (I’m going to pick up the soundtrack CD tomorrow. I was going to download it, but for some reason iTMS only has a few of the songs available.)
Music: Absent Friends by The Divine Comedy (i.e. Neil Hannon). I have no idea how I managed to overlook this guy’s work for so many years. I finally heard an earlier song, “Lost Property”, on Orbital’s Back To Mine compilation, and promptly downloaded this, the latest album. Big gorgeous songs, a stunning voice…. A copy of the Secret History compilation is heading this way from Amazon.co.uk.

The actor Dennis Weaver died last Friday. I’ll always remember him for one performance: his wonderful depiction of the confused and terrified driver in Spielberg’s 1971 masterpiece Duel. It’s quite brilliant – one of my personal top ten films, I think.
PS Interesting… I just looked up Duel in the IMDB, and I see that it was made for television: it was nominated for a Golden Globe for best TV movie. I’d always assumed that it had a theatrical release. I think I first saw it on TV in about 1982, soon after we’d moved to the USA. For some reason I’ve always associated it with another film that I encountered at about the same time: Douglas Trumbull’s Silent Running. (I tried to think of a possible connection, but the results were depressingly pretentious!)

Check out my colleague Jeff Kesselman’s thoughts on watching the film “Good Night and Good Luck”.

Take the survey. Spread the signal.

I’ve been getting a little behind in my reading recently… and staying up too late some nights. The reason: I picked up the quad DVD of the complete Firefly series, and I’ve been working my way through it as fast as I could. I’d never seen it on TV; the first I saw of Joss Wheldon’s western/sci-fi ‘verse was when I saw the film Serenity.
I finished it this evening (including the various extras). Man, what a great trip!

Went to see Syriana today, with the fellowship. Brilliant. Simply brilliant. Yes of course it’s complicated and confusing, but that’s its great strength. The politics of oil is complicated. If you prefer simple narratives, unambiguous cause-and-effect, and clear heroes and villains, then stay away. You’ll just be frustrated.
George Clooney is wonderful. His eyes are the only part of him that reveal his reaction to the way his world is crumbling around him. Matt Damon’s portrayal of naivete is superb: his character convinces himself that he’s important, a real player, while all along he doesn’t have a clue about the nature of the forces at work. Both performances are Oscar-worthy.
I have to mention the photography. It’s breathtaking, especially the scenes in Beirut, Tehran, and the Gulf. There were moments when I just wanted to hit PAUSE in order to take in the view.
Above all, this is a film about betrayal – of colleagues, family, friends, country, ideals and oneself. It’s frightening how compelling it is.
(If you’re still confused, even after seeing the film, the entire script is available on the movie website.)

On a previous visit to Colorado, I mentioned that one way I spent my evenings was to watch anime on DVD. One of the first series that I collected, serial experiments: Lain, is regarded by many as one of the finest works of its kind: exquisitely animated, with a compelling (and deeply disturbing) story. Some of the same team then produced Haibane Renmei, which situated the same kind of transcendent visuals and intense narrative in a magical world reminiscent of Miyazaki’s work.

On this trip, I’m finally venturing into the world of Texhnolyze. I actually bought the first two DVDs of this series more than a month ago, but I hesitated. Unlike the earlier works by this group, Texhnolyze is billed as being explicitly violent: set in “an experimental metropolis buried deep inside the Earth, ruled by gangs, where mayhem and retribution are a normal part of life.” Whew! And those that know me will confirm that I don’t tolerate violence. Indeed, I’ve walked out of films because the gratuitous violence made me feel sick.

This evening I watched the first 25 minute episode of Texhnolyze. Yes, there were three violent incidents, but the impression that I’m left with is of a chaotic kind of peace, not mayhem. It’s very reminiscent of Lain: you’re absolutely on your own, given no help in making sense of the world that you’re presented with, as lost and confused as the characters that emerge from the shadows. I’ve tried to ignore the back-story that was hinted at on the DVD case, and to simply let the film-makers tell their story. I think I’m hooked: theirs is a world worth exploring. More anon.