Flotsam & Jetsum IXX
Firstly, some general nonsense I’ve collated over the past couple of weeks or so. Slavoj Žižek has to be one of the most entertaining cultural theorists of the moment, to get a feel of his world view and opinions it’s best to start with his recent Weekend Guardian Q&A responses that should give you some insight into his idiosyncratic style and discourse. He first came to my attention of course with his treatises on cinema (Text heavy) and film, mostly due to a fantastic feature length examination of psychoanalysis in cinema during ‘The Perverts Guide To Cinema‘. Make of that what you will, I find it fascinating even if much of his theories are nothing new (particularly in regard to Hitchcock) but his riffs on more recent movies such as ‘ Children Of Men‘ are superb. His almost comical accent and presentation is ripe for parody of course, look beyond that facade and you can see an extraordinary mind in operation. So no, I haven’t spent my two months off work sitting in my pants watching Jeremy Kyle. Pretentious? Maybe. Absurd? Perhaps. Entertaining? Utterly, thus it merits some attention. Zizek is pretty absurd as well…..
I’ve ploughed through ‘The Corner‘ in the past two days in order to maintain my fix of the mean streets of West Baltimore given that ‘The Wire’ has finally finished. It’s an adaption of David Simon’s reportage of the same name, a six part series that concerns a year in the life of a family torn apart by the drug and gang culture crippling the city. Simon followed a real family (who make an appearance in the final scenes in a genuinely moving moment) so it’s much more of a intimate portrait than the macrocosm of ‘The Wire’ and you can see much of the same ground being covered, the same issues and problems raised, the same overwhelming portrait of living, breathing characters unfolding before your eyes. I don’t quite know how they do it but even when characters are doing stupid, terrible things you understand why and even feel some pangs of sympathy. It was a pleasure to see TK Carter who of course you’ll recognise as Nauls from ‘The Thing‘ in a central role whilst also spotting many of ‘The Wire’ crowd, namely Freamon, Chief Daniels, Wilson, heck even Prop Joe and Landsman get a look in. Bleak, uncompromising and utterly essential viewing.
I’ve had some time on my hands so have decided to launch something of a new side project on the blog, namely collating links in these random posts to the finest moments (that I can find on-line) of films by directors who I hugely admire that are still working today. No specific reason for Jim Jarmusch kicking off this idea, if I’m honest I just felt a compulsion for taking another look at ‘Dead Man‘ which is without doubt one of the greatest Westerns ever made. Perhaps this is in response to my viewing ‘McCabe & Mrs Miller’ which has served as my penultimate review of of my upcoming Minty commentary on four Altman films. Regardless, Jarmusch is one of the great alternative American film makers of recent years and should be celebrated. Can’t wait for his new film.
I’m not sure how long this ‘project’ will last as it seems that I have finally landed a new assignment, subject to a brief meeting with the authorities service director in a couple of weeks. The bad news is that’s it’s in Folkestone of all places which means a bastard commute, the good news is that it will be all expenses paid (train, cabs, phone and infrequent overnight stays) and should enable me to accrue enough of a warchest to take the first quarter of 2009 off should I manage to string it out until Christmas. I won’t bore you with the details except to say that ‘The Wire‘ (audio, massive spoilers) has offered a instructive insight into what I shall be doing on this one (I’m joking, well at least partially – Folkestone ain’t Baltimore), appreciating the inter-relationships between different authorities, groups and stakeholders and their specific political (yes that’s small a small P for political) agendas whilst managing what needs to get done – I’ll take the McNulty approach. Apologies for the in-joke. Amyway, given that I’m planning to revisit Season 1 shortly that’s exactly the excuse I’ll use if anyone queries those 13 hours of weekend overtime on my first invoice….I’m joking of course you fucks, here’s some more parochial web nonsense, now stay out of trouble…..
Minty's Menagerie 
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