Flotsam & Jetsam XVI

Well, its been an eventful couple of weeks. Finished my assignment at Tower Hamlets, had my birthday and fitted in an exhibition, some cinema visits and a gig – entries are being prepared for the last two. I’m looking forward to relaxing for a couple of weeks now before actively seeking anything new, I’ll enjoy exploring my new part of the world and there are some other exhibitions and places I’d like to check out. 

A week on Saturday I celebrated my triple celebration – my new place, my birthday and being unemployed!! After a exploration around Limehouse and Canary Wharf we hit some pubs and had what I think was a pretty good curry – things were getting sketchy at that point so I can’t testify to the food’s quality. In any case, many thanks to all my mates who visited and here are some amusing film clips which (Spoliers beware, more on this film below and thank you Neil for my present, it rocks) should stir some dormant memories….

I paid a visit to Tate Modern and had a look at the ‘Street & Studio‘ exhibition that has been praised in the press. It was very good, I gravitated to the Weegee and Diane Arbus photos but my favourite was this which looks like its escaped from a fashion shoot from ID magazine in 1994 – quite remarkably it was actually shot in 1949. 

BBC4 are continuing a fine mini season of films from some mainstream and neglected genres – the Western, the British B Movie (which showcased this masterpiece) and this week Courtroom Films. The 90 minute documentaries to accompany the seasons have been pretty good, and I strongly urge you to catch ‘The Verdict‘ which is on this week as it is something of an overlooked treasure with probably Paul Newmans finest performance. 

 

We will also be treated to a documentary on the great Werner Herzog this week as part of the Imagine strand, maybe he can explain his recent exodus to Hollywood and shed some light on the disappointing ‘Rescue Dawn‘ which I reviewed here.  More distressing is the mooted remake of ‘Bad Lieutenant‘ which is a great and very challenging film in its own right, of all the projects he could secure why on earth has he opted for this with Nicholas ‘Possibly the worst actor in Hollywood’ Cage in the title role? Anyway, no I’m not going to link to that scene in the movie (if you’ve seen it then you’ll know what I mean), so here are some clips which may give you a feel for the film.

Staying with the film theme for a change, I am excited to see that the Barbican is hosting a film season on Alex Cox which gives me the opportunity to see one of my favourite ever films on the big screen – ‘Repo Man‘. It’s a shame that Cox has never matched the achievement of his cult debut and some of his recent efforts have been mediocre to say the least. Still, I still haven’t got round to catching up with this which is supposed to be good and discussions of this event on some of my favoured film sites have led me to some terrific free downloads of the Moviedrome programme notes which is cool. On the bad news fromt, it appears that Tartan films has finally folded which is a real shame as they are responsible for bringing many superb films to the UK and arguably are most responsible for bringing the phenomenon of Asian J Horror movies to our shores. RIP.

 

Finally, just to disprove my cold cynical image here is a link that bought a mist to my eyes and rendered my bottom lip all a quiver. All you cool kids who know your way round the Interwebs may have seen this before but it’s new to me. If it doesn’t activate a tiny spark of shared optimism in our future in an era of sabre rattling in the middle east, global financial holocaust, energy and foot riots coupled with climate catastrophe then nothing will. Even if he is a smug lucky git who has travelled the world. Bastard. 

The Happening & In Search Of The Midnight Kiss

 

It was my birthday last Tuesday and for some reason I really was not interested in the traditional celebratory drink, I must be getting old plus I knew that friends were descending en-masse at the weekend so I’d save my liver until then. I did however want to do something to celebrate so naturally I gravitated to the cinema and the only release that held the slightest interest was M Night Shyamalan’s ‘The Happening‘. I’m not really a fan of his work, especially since sitting through the terrible ‘Lady In The Water’ a couple of weeks ago but what he can occasionally pull off are very effective, tension building sequences which display a certain mastery of cinematic rhythm, editing and sound to construct some nail-biting sequences. For what it’s worth the plot involves husband and wife Mark Whalberg and the cute Zooey Dechanel as teachers caught up in a unspecified terrible event that has struck America. Terrorist attack? Bio-weapon plague? Credit Crunch? Well, not quite…

 

Well, the best I can say about it is that it’s only 90 minutes long. It is utterly preposterous when the cause of the ‘happening’ is revealed and there is some truly terrible, terrible dialogue and absurd plot developments. A couple of spooky moments aside you have a $57 million B movie and hey, I like B movies but not when they think they’re like, really significant and important. The film is obsessed with showing the viewer just how contemporary it is whilst jamming an absurd environmental message down your throat which has probably set back the whole movement a couple of decades. Major spoilers but an amusing dissection of the film here, suffice to say do not bother.

  

I followed this up with another cinema visit yesterday as last years record number of visits isn’t going to break itself now is it? I had some time to kill before an NFT event so I opted for Philip French’s film of the week, ‘In Search Of A Midnight Kiss‘. The film can be summarised as a monochrome LA set version of Before Sunset where struggling writer Wilson posts a lonely heart column on Craiglist in search of a date for New Years Eve. He gets his wish in the form of the abrasive Vivian and they spend an eventful evening together – but what will the New Year bring? This was quite entertaining, in that usual independent, low budget American sort of way. Some taut dialogue papers over some unnecessary scenes and plot faults, overall if like me you find hilarious the prospect of someone being caught jerking off over photo-shopped pictures of his flatmates girlfriend like Wilson does in the films opening scene, then this is worth a watch.

   

The highlight of the week however was hosted over at the NFT - a premiere of the first episode of Season 5 of ‘The Wire’ with an interview with the series creative mastermind, David Simon. The episode itself was of the usual fantastic quality and it was an absolute joy, with spoilers in mind, to see a certain character back where he belongs – fans will know what I mean. ‘Wire’ acolyte Charlie Brooker hosted and Simon gave eloquent and detailed answers to the questions, revealing how the seasons were put together with specific areas to examine (the media in Season 5) whilst providing realistic story arcs and never, never cheating the integrity of the varied roster of characters. Here is the opening scene (again, no spoilers but it will give you a flavour of the show), I cannot wait until this is out and I can devote a weekend to the final ten hours of quite simply one of the top five TV shows of all time. Simon revealed that Obama had recently been quoted as saying ‘The Wire’ is his favourite TV show and quite hysterically that Omar is his favourite character – for you non Wire fans Omar is a homicidal bi-sexual career criminal who almost suicidally preys on drug dealers. A perfect role model for the next president I think <oh, the satire…>

 

Just to round things off let me give you some recommendations of films old and new I’ve caught recently. I watched the magnificent ‘Mulholland Drive‘ with a film theorist commentary that has been posted on the web. This managed to clear up some of the questions and mysteries that orbit the film and it is on reflection a much more straightforward tale than I suspected. It’s certainly up there as amongst Lynch’s best along with ‘Eraserhead‘, ‘The Elephant Man‘ and of course ‘Blue Velvet‘ and remains a thoroughly mesmerising film. Plus I really, really like Naomi Watts which helps….

 

Park Chan-Wook’s follow up to the acclaimed ‘Oldboy‘ was the amusingly titled ‘I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK‘ which sees him dropping the fascination with revenge films for a charming romantic comedy. Yeah, right. Interesting to see he’s making a full on horror film, that should be pretty intense. I can also recommend this and this for some classical, traditional Hollywood entertainment.

 

Stan Winston RIP

Oh dear, some more bad news. At the risk of sounding selfish, I’m particularly sad about this as he actually came and did a NFT event a couple of years ago and I didn’t go figuring he’d come back at some point – just shows you eh? Carpe Diem and all that, it’s my birthday today so I’m feeling a bit maudlin, OK?. Still, 62 seems very young for a film creative who has given us some of the most memorable creature designs of the past thirty or so years. I was fortunate enough to see a print of ‘Aliens‘ at Abbey Road studios a couple of years ago as part of season of films that had been scored there and the film stands up very well against todays CGI saturated blockbusters.

  

Some bloggers have quite rightly pointed out that his job was especially difficult and his achievements all the more spectacular given his work in the SF, horror and fantasy film genres. Production designers working in other genres will have a whole host of reference and support materials to aid them in their vision when you think about it.  If you have to construct a believable 1950’s Manhattan apartment for example then you have a number of architectural journals, fashion, design and periodical magazines, photographs, films and TV  of the era for reference, inspiration and to assist with accuaracy. In Winston’s case you have to envisage, develop and build something that has never been, never existed (OK, apart from Dinosaurs but still) and make them convincing and breathe life into them on screen – no small task given the ratio of successful versus laughable designs that have littered the movies since ‘King Kong‘.

  

So finally here is a celebration of the great mans work which like many others have helped inform my cinematic childhood. Winston always was more of straight-forward fantasist rather than the splatter masters Rob Bottin and Tom Savini who are his foremost peers in my humble opinion. It’s also interesting to speculate on what his passing will have on one of the most eagerly anticipated projects of the last ten years which should hopefully, finally be with us next year.

Flotsam & Jetsam XVI

David Lean would be 100 this month if he were still alive and naturally the BFI are staging a major retrospective of his work and releasing new prints of some of the classics. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a huge Lean fan, I like his early Dickens adaptations and this much more than the later overblown epics but I did take the time to pop over to the NFT for this event which was good fun.

Here is a collection of tales from Rhodes Island’s most chilling author after which you may need cheering up.  I linked to an amusing ’Downfall‘ mash-up on the Bu Ray/HD-DVD war a few months ago, some other funny examples have emerged although I guess you need to be a MMORGer to get much out of this one.

 

Shame to see that Sydney Pollack has gone. He will no doubt be remembered for ‘Tootsie’ but I think he was a great actor in ‘Michael Clayton’ and of course ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ and he did make some memorable, mainstream films – Here is a collection of links from his work that I’ve enjoyed, his recent documentary on Frank Gehry is also recomended.

  

Swings and roundabouts my friends as yours truly will find himself amongst the land of job seekers come late June as the funding for me at Tower Hamlets has expired. It’s time for a change, I’ve been thinking of myself as something like Superman’s little known adversary ‘ Mr. Mxyzptlk’ recently. Wait, what’s that? What do you mean you’ve never heard of him? Well, suffice to say he’s a para-dimensional being who after spending 2,000 years doing only good deeds got bored and decided to spend the next 2,000 causing evil and chaos. Not quite the same level granted but I spent the first five years of my career working for American multinationals & investment banks and then have spent the last five toiling away in the public sector, in my own minute way making contributions to the community and environment of our fair capital. I feel like being evil again, maybe going to work for Raytheon or Monsanto, BAE or Haliburton. In any case, I’m taking a few weeks off to enjoy the summer (plus this will be out) and then we’ll see….