Ireland
Sums up a whole country in just four photographs.
The Top Ten Things I Learnt From Going To Sci-Fi Conventions
From Bob Fisher author of Wiffle Lever to Full. One of these days...
Swine flu turns my son into Woody Allen
"When I was in school, I cheated on my metaphysics exam: I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me."
New Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian Movie Trailer
I hate myself for wanting to see this just because of the cast. And Darth. I know it's going to be rubbish.
Adding revolving headlines to the BBC Red Button homepage
I only understand about a quarter of this, but I love that the BBC allows its public face to be so expressively geeky.
Ward & White's Karaoke Circus
Because even those of us who can't sing deserve a decent band too.
Inflatable Enclosures
I always wanted one of these for the garden.
TV Review: News Wipe with Charlie Brooker, *BBC Four*
Mof says everything I would want to about the programme. It has been a revelation and made it near impossible to look at news media now without some kind of cynicism about how much of the truth has been obscured or misreported because of some hidden agenda.
Manchester's Peregrine Falcons are back!
It's Naturewatch without Bill Oddie's sinister innuendo.
BBC2 to position original drama as ‘major event of the week’
After my rant last time we did this, it's great to see the channel's new controller taking the bull by the horns and trying to do something with it. Which she would given that she's the last person who made BBC Four great. Is she the reason they've scheduled a bunch of interesting documentaries in the 7 o'clock slot every night next week?
Famous fans are excited by Angels' comeback
Mark Kermode fulfils his dream of introducing the Comsat Angels.
Faber’s Beckett covers
Wonderful, minimalist designs that attempt to capture what the play write originally wanted.
Blog it!
Flog It! visits Liverpool.
* Take cover: you're about to have a new favourite girlband
Girls Can't Catch -- what !?! Still, Shazney Lewis is writing for them so...
95 Old School Games You Can Still Play Online
Hours of fun for everyone.
Jewel Announces West Coast Tour Supporting Her New Album "Lullaby"
Not for kids actually. "It's all mellow mood music so if you want to come home at night and relax its all really lyric driven," I'm still there.
Geocities: Lessons So Far
Jason Scott's archive team are download and backing up Geocities. Wow. That is a lot of reading.
Possibly the Most Difficult Post I Have Ever Written
As good a piece of writing about dealing with a religion and the sexuality it abhors that I've seen.
The fall and rise and fall and rise and fall
I don't have a problem with remakes. I do have a problem with remakes that aren't clever enough (like BSG) to do something completely different.
Packing Hell
"I don't know when or why, but somewhere in my upbringing it was instilled in me that the highest of all human virtues is traveling light."
5 Things About “Love Actually”
The end of the film is a mess. Jamie (Colin Firth) apparently enters his family’s home after the chart show ends (usually at seven o’clock on a Sunday), and the audience is expected to believe that on Christmas Eve he is able to flag a taxi to the airport, fly to Marseilles, take a taxi to Aurelia’s village, find her house then the restaurant at which she is employed so that he can proposing to her. The Earth being dragged back into orbit in Doctor Who I can accept. But that's just pure fantasy.
Real life Twitter..!
Expect this to be ripped off by a UK sketch show very soon.
10 Worst Countries to be a *Blogger*
More outrages from the unreported world.
And now on BBC1, it’s time to pour another glass of…
I read somewhere else that the BBC have been trying to cancel this for years but are scared of the outrage.
Filling Young Minds
Spot the moment which made me feel like I was about a hundred years old.
What’s the Matter With Margaret?
I'd wondered what happened to the writer-director of You Can Count on Me. Now I know. Post-production hell. Make sure you read the comments too, because they fill in some of the gaps in the story.
Do beautiful 404 error pages still help users?
Not always, but I'd rather that than simply 'page cannot be displayed'. It's instructive to know that the website you're looking at still exists a bit.
Hollywood feels the pinch: Film production at standstill
"In the last few months there have been precisely two big-budget movies shot in Los Angeles - Iron Man II and Tim Burton's new version of Alice in Wonderland - with just six more in the pipeline for the rest of 2009. That compares with 21 major film shoots last year, and 71 in 1996."
A new format war?
It's still hard to believe that in a couple of years my 500gb hard disk is going to look antiquated.
Victoria Raimes: Twitter craze is going down a tweet
For the headline.
I'm a terrible human being. I have punched my mum in the face - metaphorically, that is. I have left home
For the comments. Congratulations to The Guardian for nurturing new talent, even if putting Tom in Charlie Brooker's slot is akin to throwing him to the lions.
geocities rescue
On-digital
We recently got on-digital.
Yes - we're the one.
We almost didn't. When I went into the local Dixons to hire, the sale person was all too quick to tell us to get Sky 'Because its better". But we didn't want Sky, and not just because of the whole Rupert Murdock ownership conscience. You see we live atop a high rise and in strong winds, saucer sightings are sure to increase. So is Sky better, or is on-digital, though not necessarily cheaper, simply better for your health? Let's look at the evidence, channel-by-channel.
NB: Even though our set is an 'ordinary' shape we've set the thing to 'widescreen' ratio - out of curiosity. So now you know.
BBC One / BBC Two/ ITV / Channel 4 There is something initially quite disconcerting about watching regular television in widescreen. For a start, there is all the extra space for everyone to move. But more than that it's impossible not to mentally work out how the full screen picture would look. Is it actually better - well yes - to a point. Study based dramas and soaps don't actually look any more like film, and sitcom especially tends to look plain wrong. News programming becomes necessarily more cinematic and so more dramatic, although the weather maps are even smaller.
ITV2 is something of a televisual ghetto for US programming. Letterman is shown here a night after the states, and there are stripped re-runs of 'Northern Exposure'. 'Townies' an ensemble sitcom set in the big city - a sort of blue collar 'Friends' featuring Molly Ringwald and a pre-Dhama Jenna Elfman - pretty funny, even if some characters don't have much to do; 'Sheena' - Gena Lee Nolan trades in her bathing suit for a leopard skin bikini - not exactly Buffy; 'Felicity', basically 'Dawson's Creek' in college, if grungier and with more of a 'My So-Called Life' view on life - one the Channel 4 imports that got away. As a channel, lack cohesion. We like that they show youth shows and the like, but seems like an excuse to have an extra digital channel just in case. SKY viewers not missing too much.
Channel 5 is missing from our programme list. Not in the right area. A good thing? Discuss.
BBC Choice is an excuse to re-run BBC programming and like ITV2 seems to be an excuse to have an extra digital channel just in case. Runs the same CBBC programming all day - so back-to-back episiodes of The Tweenies, Teletubbies, Chucklevision and Pigeon Street of all things ('One looks up, one looks down').
BBC News 24 could do with letting its hair down a bit - the only newsreaders who seem to have a personality are on in the middle of the night, perhaps because no one is watching, so who cares. Good for spotting Radio Five presenters getting in some TV experience (cat in headlights doesn't even begin to describe Five Live lynchpin Ian Paine's appearance the other day) and washed-up BBC One newscasters (Andrew Harvey, Philip Hayton).
BBC Parliament offers a blank screen, some text and politicians direct from the commons. Who other than politicians and broadcasters would watch?
E4 currently showing near 24 hour coverage of Big Brother. Much has already been written about this, but it really has to be seen to be believed. Probably the most banal programme ever created (even more so than the 'Open Door' tree incident - ask your Dad), wrings excitement from whether someone will have tea or coffee. Trouble is, its so damn compelling. Sat today watching the housemates piling up sugar cubes into towers and trying to work out the best technique. Perhaps of most interest to fans if only to see how biased the highlights show on Channel 4 actually is. What of the rest? Good to see 'The West Wing' early - and 'The Priory Clinic' has the distinction of being funnier than the main show.
Sky One is a good place to go if you like 'The Simpsons' and 'Star Trek'. For the rest of us we have early showings of Buffy, Angel and Roswell. Like ITV2, difficult to pin down as a channel, attempts at homegrown programming just seeming inferior to everyone else.
Granada Plus seems to think that we want to watch re-runs of Miami Vice and Kojak every night. They'd be wrong. Odd seeing Taggart from when the title actually meant something.
MTV seems a poor relation to its US cousin. Surely Mike Nesmith never wanted us to sit through 'Lady Marmalade' on such heavy rotation? And although we like some R&B, there is other music around.
British Eurosport like things that move fast. Cars. Motorbikes. Superbikes. Slow down.
Carlton Cinema feels like the old BBC2 strand, Moviedrome, a veritable Scorsese wetdream. Pity the Nine O'clock 'recent' films aren't up to much. Does anyone really want to see tonight's offering 'Men at Work' - the Emilio Estevez / Charlie Sheen 'comedy'? Currently running a Russell Crowe season - seemingly his entire back catalogue from before LA Confidential.
Discovery Kids - science shows for American kids. Johnny Ball not in sight.
Discovery Wings. Someone at on digital must be an aviation fan, because rather than offering THE Discovery channel, we have this. Some good space documentaries however.
Granada Breeze for all your daytime TV needs. 'This Morning' for hours on end.
Granada Men & Motors or rather Discovery Cars and free porn.
PLAY uk is what I was expecting from MTV. Pop videos for hours on end. Inconsistent re-runs of BBC shows (how?). Home grown comedy includes Pop Profiles in which Jamie Theakston (the busiest presenter on TV) interviews George Doors in a variety of guises (ABBA, Bucks Fizz, Steps).
Taste CFN or what the chefs off-of Ready Steady Cook do instead. Wall to wall food programmes. And they aren't kidding. Even more fun for spotting old BBC kids presenters (Mark Curry, Debbie Greenwood, Paul Coya). Features one of the dullest game shows in existence, a 'general knowledge' quiz about food with the scouser from the Holiday programmes who thinks he's Craig Charles. Features contestants 'Wipeout' would reject. Also has panel game with Paul 'I'll do anything' Ross. Typical guests - Floella Benjamin, Geoff Capes, Jim Bowen.
UK Gold was my actual reason for getting this whole thing. Doctor Who, you see. Pity about all that comedy. Do we really need to see that same episode of 'My Hero' the Ardal O'Hanlan sitcom so many times?
Cartoon Network. Johnny Bravo, we salute you.
UK Style / UK Horizons - three days of one, four days the other. For fans of make-over shows and docusoaps. Strangely compelling.
Nickelodeon, Goody. Rugrats. We like Alex Mac though.
Paramount Comedy Channel reruns of Frasier, Taxi and Cheers. Ten year old episodes of Drop The Dead Donkey. Whose Line is it Anyway with John Sessions pretending to be Dylan Thomas all the time. Timeless.
well being, at the end of the dial and watching it you feels like the end of your life. The production values of a shopping channel, despite the face they aren't actually selling you anything. Call in if you have an ailment and want advice on treatment. I thought that was what the NHS hotline was for . . .
So is on digital worth it? For me certainly (weekly Who) and it is nice to see imports months ahead of schedule. And if you are at all interested in food, there is always something on. But on-digital's lack of success is easily attributable. Inconsistencies, such as channels with a very narrow focus (airplanes, health) coupled with odd scheduling (UK Style / UK Horizon) can make for some confusion. And the price. The various film channels (unreviewed) are available, but cost an extra £21 - not terribly competitive in comparison with those men with dishes. Close call, then. ****
geocities rescue: introduction
TV As you might have heard, Geocities was put on life support recently and you'll remember, the ur-version of this blog was at said free web hosting company, as a series of static pages. The full story was revealed at the fifth anniversary.
Over the years, I've reposted some of the content on here in various guises, but I'd like to make sure everything has been replicated so in the coming months, in the midst of everything else, I'm going to post whatever hasn't been yet, warts, typos and all. It's not great literature. Some of it's appalling. But I'm a bit of a hoarder, and it would a shame to lose this bit of the site's history.
Over the years, I've reposted some of the content on here in various guises, but I'd like to make sure everything has been replicated so in the coming months, in the midst of everything else, I'm going to post whatever hasn't been yet, warts, typos and all. It's not great literature. Some of it's appalling. But I'm a bit of a hoarder, and it would a shame to lose this bit of the site's history.
The story has been repeated many times
Film Like Waltzes from Vienna, Hitchcock's Young and Innocent is something of a surprise considering its reputation. Perhaps the reason it’s rarely talked of glowingly is because of the politically incorrect final sequence which features a jazz band in black face and though that’s a distraction it doesn’t take away from a chaser that is just as impressive as The 39 Steps. Imagine The Bourne Identity premade as an Ealing Comedy with some Capraesque screwball comedy and you’re only half describing how entertaining this story of a man falsely accused of murder chasing across country with the daughter of the chief of police.
Reference is most often made to a climactic crane shot, the nature of which would give away the ending but I can say that Nova Pilbeam is adorable as the daughter (and you don’t get names like that any more unless they’re the daughter of a rockstar), her wide-eyes drawing the viewer towards the most important elements of each scene as much as the camera and Gerald Savory’s dialogue is structurally very similar to Robert Riskin’s in It Happened One Night, the slow development of a dysfunctional bond between her and the accused similar to the trust that develops between Gable and Colbert’s characters in that early screwball.
Next to The 39 Steps, Hitch’s most famous work of the period is The Lady Vanishes which someone I know ranks as her favourite film and it’s easy to see why with its vivid characterisation, tense plotting and wacked out unexpected climax. Hitch could have simply made all of the inhabitants of the hotel faintly suspicious as they deny having seen the old dear that Margaret Lockwood claims has gone missing, but instead he reveals their reasons, unfolding the rather British view of the world that Douglas Adams describes in one of his books as the Someone Else’s Problem Effect, then showing the results of their selfishness.
The story has been repeated many times, both in direct remakes and the likes of Flightplan or Changling, the element of a woman trying to convince people that she’s not going insane. In The Lady Vanishes, you're always pointing at the screen when a clue or something that proves that Lockwood’s character wasn’t seeing things hoves into view only to be snatched away before it can make a difference. But once those surprises have drifted away on repeat viewings it’s the other furniture that make it worth a repeat viewing, such as the loveable interplay between the cricket loving Caldicott and Charters who would later be resurrected in a series by the writers and actors like some 1940s Jay and Silent Bob, inserted to reflect on events, ultimately turning up as retirees for a television series in the mid-1980s (played by someone else).
Jamaica Inn is a bit of a retrograde step, recalling the murky direction of his British International Pictures and it’s clear that he’s wasn’t sure how to handle the material and so took his cues from Charles Laughton who doesn’t have much of an idea either. There’s nothing especially wrong with the performances, but the screenplay lacks any of the charm of his preceding six thrillers, and Hitch would later reflect that if he was making this adaptation again he’d keep the reveal of Laughton’s dual nature as lawman and pirate until way into the picture. He’s attempting his usual trick of creating tension by offering the audience more information about the situation than the main character is aware of, but it unbalances the story to have Laughton overpowering presence in almost every scene when it’s Maureen O'Hara’s tragic figure who requires our sympathy.
during the off season
TV Saturday night's have lately been shot through with a mix of dislocation and aimlessness, and general feeling of something gone astray. For the past few weeks, I've reached the end of the working day and wondered what I'd be doing with the evening, nothing planned and not much to get me motivated. It wasn't until last Saturday at about four o'clock I realised what was missing.
Doctor Who isn't on this year. Just as you'll often wake up at the right time even though you forgot to set your alarm clock and especially when you'd promised yourself a good lie in, I've become so accustomed to the show being on each Saturday in this portion of the year that I can feel its absence emotionally. It wasn't just the programme you see, there was the making of, the commentary, and the writing of the review.
This is madness and a bit sad (a bit?), though when I explained as much to a suitably disturbed looking co-worker, she pointed out that the symptoms weren't unlike a football supporter during the off season, which I like. Having gotten used to a particular leisure routine everything's been blown asunder. Which makes Torchwood the equivalent of a mid-week game, I suppose, and the upcoming five parter, the World Cup.
Which means you have to get your fix where you can. Football fans have the Italian League and we have the audios, Doctor Who Magazine and as it turns out Dickenson's Real Deal which this afternoon featured as a contestant Scotland's Anne-Marie, who's a dead ringer for Billie Piper. Let's give her some of Rose's dialogue and see what happens:
"You're all the same. Give a man a plastic hand... "
"Blimey, you can smell the testosterone."
"You told me nothing could get through those doors."
It's uncanny.
Does anyone know what this tune is?
Music A tune has been rattling around my brain for hours but I can't put my finger on what it is. Here's my attempt at singing it. Does anyone have any ideas?
Press play now ...
UPDATE:
It's from Ennio Morricone's soundtrack to Terrance Malick's film Days of Heaven:
Not bad. I worked it out on my way to work today. I remembered this shot of Richard Gear attop a train:
And though they don't appear together in the actual film, I think, they do during the documentary about cinematogaphy Visions of Light, which draws much of its music from Morricone's themes for Terrance Malick's film.
The melody for this is very much like opening few bars Medieval composer Jacque Arcadelt's Ave Maria [spotify] [youtube] which is what I was listening to last night and set me off.
The stuff I have rattling about in my head...
Press play now ...
UPDATE:
It's from Ennio Morricone's soundtrack to Terrance Malick's film Days of Heaven:
Not bad. I worked it out on my way to work today. I remembered this shot of Richard Gear attop a train:
And though they don't appear together in the actual film, I think, they do during the documentary about cinematogaphy Visions of Light, which draws much of its music from Morricone's themes for Terrance Malick's film.
The melody for this is very much like opening few bars Medieval composer Jacque Arcadelt's Ave Maria [spotify] [youtube] which is what I was listening to last night and set me off.
The stuff I have rattling about in my head...
Heroes is taking a break
TV Just noticed via my PVR's EPG -- Heroes is taking a break next week due to the Snooker World Championship. The knock on effect of which being that those of us who've been watching a week ahead on BBC Three might have to wait three weeks for the finale (assuming they follow the usual pattern of only showing it on BBC Two). I know that we've been spoilt so far in receiving the series only a week behind its US premiere, but this does remind me of the old days when you had to keep an eye on the schedule during the summer months in case you missed the random transmissions of Star Trek between football, rugby and oh yes, snooker.
It's a particular shame because the upturn in quality since Bryan Fuller returned as been marked and very pleasing and one of those rare occasion when a series can be seen to appreciably and positively change when a different mind is working behind the scenes.* There are the same characters, same settings, similar storyline, but the quality of the writing has improved, with a marked increase in philosophical depth to the text, more character dimension, more interesting shooting and editing and a return to the extraordinary images of the first series (though admittedly on what's obviously a smaller budget). I can't wait to see what he does when faced with plotting a whole new chapter instead of simply finishing off someone else's misfire.
* Previous examples include Michael Pillar taking over at Star Trek: The Next Generation in Season Three and the 'I can't believe it's not Sorkin' episodes of The West Wing by Deborah Cahn, Eli Attie and Peter Noah (from seasons six and seven). Though I still haven't forgiven any of them for what they did to Toby.
It's a particular shame because the upturn in quality since Bryan Fuller returned as been marked and very pleasing and one of those rare occasion when a series can be seen to appreciably and positively change when a different mind is working behind the scenes.* There are the same characters, same settings, similar storyline, but the quality of the writing has improved, with a marked increase in philosophical depth to the text, more character dimension, more interesting shooting and editing and a return to the extraordinary images of the first series (though admittedly on what's obviously a smaller budget). I can't wait to see what he does when faced with plotting a whole new chapter instead of simply finishing off someone else's misfire.
* Previous examples include Michael Pillar taking over at Star Trek: The Next Generation in Season Three and the 'I can't believe it's not Sorkin' episodes of The West Wing by Deborah Cahn, Eli Attie and Peter Noah (from seasons six and seven). Though I still haven't forgiven any of them for what they did to Toby.
the alternative ending for Life On Mars UK
TV Wow, I can't believe this has leaked. It's the alternative ending for Life On Mars UK.
You can see why it was changed ...
You can see why it was changed ...
symptoms
Medicine Given that people that many more people than usual seem to be suffering from hay-fever this year (including me) and the pandemic alert level has been raised as swine flu hits Britain I really wouldn't want to be a GP today. Or work at a chemist. Or at NHS Direct.
Hay fever symptoms:
# Repeated sneezing attacks
# Runny or itchy nose
# Itchy or watery eyes
# Itchy throat, palate and ears
# Loss of concentration
# General feeling of being unwell (hence 'fever')
Swine flu symptoms:
# fever
# cough
# sore throat
# body aches
# headache
# chills
# fatigue
This can't go well.
Hay fever symptoms:
# Repeated sneezing attacks
# Runny or itchy nose
# Itchy or watery eyes
# Itchy throat, palate and ears
# Loss of concentration
# General feeling of being unwell (hence 'fever')
Swine flu symptoms:
# fever
# cough
# sore throat
# body aches
# headache
# chills
# fatigue
This can't go well.
this week's popular music
crossover potential
The Spotify Playlist
Video Is Still Killing The Radio Star
Trevor Horn's song commemorated a milestone in popular music, so it seems right that there should be many different versions of it available on another. I wrote about Video Killed The Radio Star last year, so there's not much point in another analysis, except to underscore that it's one of those songs that brings back memories of more innocent times when music all seemed to be coming from one source and we in general all liked the same thing.
In the first series of British Big Brother when contestant Anna Nolan, the lesbian ex-nun (as she was described) was given a choice of song to listen to, the first music she would have heard in eight weeks (conditions were much harsher in those days) she chose this. She said it reminded her of a club she used to go to with friends. She cried too. Just a pity that year's winner Craig talked all the way through it.
This playlist constitutes all of the cover versions available bar karaoke soundalikes and one track which sounds like it has been knocked out from a midi-file. The preponderance of guitar bands of a certain age means that many of them sound quite similar, but the best covers are those which strip the elements of the song away and create something else.
The Presidents of the United States recording from the Wedding Singer soundtrack isn't available (you tube replacement) or the automated Tom Baker. I've topped and tailed the list with my favourites, Viva Voce's stunning live acapella and Mataha who along with Beverley Jo Scott transform the song into a folk standard, the sound entirely opposite to the partly electronic original, more Bob Dylan than Bob Moog.
Cool t-shirt available from Zazzle. I hope they don't mind me using the picture.
"Is that a helicopter?"
TV I've just been flicking through the channels and happened upon that Peter Andre and Katie Price reality tv thing on ITV2. The existence of them and this programme annoys me at the best of times and at the worst of times I just simply think that since they've moved to America, they're (you're) welcome to them.
Pete is sitting on the lawn of their massive house in Malibu playing with his kids as a helicopter drifts into view overhead.
"Is that a helicopter?" He asks. "Are they taking photographs?"
The camera makes an illustrative pan upwards to the 'copter.
"I don't understand," he continues, "What could they find so interesting?"
Exactly.
Pete is sitting on the lawn of their massive house in Malibu playing with his kids as a helicopter drifts into view overhead.
"Is that a helicopter?" He asks. "Are they taking photographs?"
The camera makes an illustrative pan upwards to the 'copter.
"I don't understand," he continues, "What could they find so interesting?"
Exactly.
memory surfaced momentarily
Film In the mid-90s during my second year at university I didn’t really get on with my housemates. We parted company on a great many things, primarily the proper way to treat people and attitudes to cleanliness and by the middle of the year relations had deteriorated to the point that I tried to spend as little time as possible in their company. On a rare occasion that I passed all four of them in the kitchen and only communal room in the house, I overheard them talking about a friend who’d used the “c-word” and how it was totally unacceptable and unnecessary. At no point during the couple of minutes it took for me to scrape together some lunch did they spell out the word or even say it under their breath which is a shame because I might have though better of them if they had at least tried.
This memory surfaced momentarily while I was watching Armando Iannucci’s In The Loop (the film version of BBC Four's The Thick of It) during one of spin doctor Malcolm Tucker’s artistically filthy tirades and I thought about what the girls’ reaction might have been. Presumably they’ve mellowed by now, so hopefully it would have been much the same as mine, their head aching and throat stinging from laughing so much, not just in that nervous schoolperson way from hearing so many naughty words in close proximity, but also wishing that we could get away with this level of profanity and insults in the real world, able to tell colleagues and friends what we really think of them without any apparent consequences other than some mild irritation (with an option for savage cumulative revenge somewhere down the line).
What’s clever about the director's approach that he doesn’t use the language just for shock value or simply to punctuate speech, but also as part of the wider political satire, as dividing line between the interested parties. I’d have to look at the film again, but I’ve a feeling that the cuss count amongst the American characters was far lower in comparison with the British, which ironically, at least in relation to the real world events Iannucci is referencing makes us Europeans look far more bloodthirsty than the US regime. It would be interesting to see how this plays in The States, but from a UK perspective this dividing line also could have the effect for some of making Tucker become a somewhat heroic figure even when he’s doing some very bad things indeed and worringly at the conclusion, our reaction could be one of satisfaction even though the fictional result will be much the same as what's happened in Iraq.
In The Loop has one of those stories in which these smaller, localised decisions have much larger, unforeseeable consequences. I’m trying not to spoil anything for people who’re waiting for the wider UK release in mid-May, but throughout there are instants in which an offhand comment or document passed between friends leads to chaos and mayhem seeping into these people’s lives and the other rich seam of humour is watching the reaction of the source as the world collapses about their feet. On some occasions even, because the writing is so dense and layered, I suspect you’d need Tony Robinson and the whole of the Time Team to dig in far enough to see the epicentre of the disaster as the consequences spiral out of control. Chris Addison (who’s older than he looks) and Anna Chlumsky (who’s older than you remember) are particularly good at desperation and the realisation that events have spun way out of their control.
Iannucci has predictably been very humble about his achievement here, and even though the release has fallen outside the normal awards nomination season, I’ll be very surprised if In The Loop doesn’t at least become listed as one of the classics, the kind that people bond over at the pub quoting lines at each other or discussed in university seminars (though I know in some places that can be much the same thing). This is a work that bridges the gap between complex political commentary and candid pugnacious comedy, which gives all of its performers memorable moments and offers the kind of thrilling but increasingly rare cinematic experience that doesn’t rely on explosions other than the popping veins on verbal force of nature Peter Capaldi’s forehead when he’s in full flow.
"Seeking the bubble reputation"
I'm always just slightly behind in reading weekend newspapers -- there's always many more words than can possibly be covered in those forty-eight hours even after skipping through articles about relationships, travel and property and everything else which is currently irrelevant. Now that I'm actually working at the weekend, that's going to become even more accute. I won't know what's happened in the world until at least Monday afternoon.
Today, I was actually reading Saturday's Guardian from the 14th April (Grand National Day) and fittingly that meant this rather wonderful piece by Jonathan Bate which illuminates William Shakespeare's passage over the years into become a legend and being tagged with the description 'genius' taking in his veneration by actors and academics alike.
If asked I will say that I'm a Shakespeare fan, in much the same way as I might describe myself as a Doctor Who fan or that I like films. A bit. I've as many different Shakespeare productions as anything else and like those other 'interests'. And like those other loves, I can't always quite put my finger on why I'm addicted. I do agree with the reasons usually trotted out by talking heads in television documentaries -- 'They're such great stories', 'The language is amazing' and 'He's a genius'.
But along with those forty odd works, there's also four hundred years of history to enjoy. As Bate somewhat describes, you can understand British history through the changes in attitudes to the plays, how they've been performed and the audiences that saw them. Charles I's decree that women should be allowed to take up the acting profession demonstrates a change in society and frankly its amazing that it took so long for you to get the vote after that. As Shakespeare is oft to demonstrate, nearly all men are pigs, especially the ones who make laws about things.
I think though that it's more to do with the fact that even though the words and the plot are the same, every production is different and more than any other writer its possible for a director and his actors to put their own personal stamp on them. I've seen dozens of Hamlets and each and every time, although the text is the same they're all different, they all resonate in different ways. It's simply fascinating intellectually to compare and contrast the interpretations to see who thought what was important.
Plus, in the media age, as this blog demonstrates, it attracts the collector in me. Even though I've eight complete works already, some bought, some presents, I'm gathering the Arden editions of the plays because of the notes and appendixes which often include the original texts such as the Ur-Hamlet that Shakespeare used as his sources. Then there are the collections of criticism, the biographies. On top of that there are the many hundred audio and visual recordings of the plays from the BBC Shakespeare (radio and television) through Argo to ArkAngel. Some people collect vinyl or music boxes or badges. I collect Shakespeare productions.
You would expect on hearing all of this, that I'd seen or at least read all of the plays in the canon. Not a bit of it. I'm working my way through my BBC Shakespeare boxset (in production order minus the histories -- oh yes) and greeting many of them for the first time. Just as I've not seen or heard all of the television Doctor Who (let alone the spin-offs), I think I've only actually come in contacted with about half of the bard's work.
Some of this is simply because the same twenty-odd plays tend to be in production at the expense of others. But also its through avoidance, because I can't imagine that the likes of As You Like It can be as good as the version I have in my head through years of reading about them. Of course they can -- they're by Shakespeare, but there's also the matter of seeing them for the first time in a decent production. Thankfully my first As You Like It, from the BBC, featured the sexy Helen Mirren in a silly hat and David Prowse whose performance was strangely moving for all the wrong reasons.
There's a lovely moment at the end when Mirren delivers to camera the closing speech which features the line 'If I were, that is, a woman' and she pauses slightly highlighting the irony of a line that Shakespeare wrote that would originally have been played by a boy, being read now by, well, Helen Mirren. The viewer is sharing a joke with Mirren at text's expense. That's another reason I love Shakespeare, watching actors and directors cope with moments when attitudes have raced ahead of what's been written.
So Happy Birthday Mr Shakespeare, whether it was yesterday or today or whenever you were actually born. Thank you for over a decade of entertainment and intellectual stimulation and for inspiring one of the biggest laughs I had in an English class when the teacher decided to show us Roman Polanski's mad as cheese film version of Macbeth. For the amazingly intimate Measure for Measure I saw at the Edinburgh Festival in 1998 when I once again inapropriately fell in love with the actress playing Isabella for the umpteenth time (see also Kate Nelligan in the BBC Shakespeare). And for Hamlet. All four hours of it.
Today, I was actually reading Saturday's Guardian from the 14th April (Grand National Day) and fittingly that meant this rather wonderful piece by Jonathan Bate which illuminates William Shakespeare's passage over the years into become a legend and being tagged with the description 'genius' taking in his veneration by actors and academics alike.
If asked I will say that I'm a Shakespeare fan, in much the same way as I might describe myself as a Doctor Who fan or that I like films. A bit. I've as many different Shakespeare productions as anything else and like those other 'interests'. And like those other loves, I can't always quite put my finger on why I'm addicted. I do agree with the reasons usually trotted out by talking heads in television documentaries -- 'They're such great stories', 'The language is amazing' and 'He's a genius'.
But along with those forty odd works, there's also four hundred years of history to enjoy. As Bate somewhat describes, you can understand British history through the changes in attitudes to the plays, how they've been performed and the audiences that saw them. Charles I's decree that women should be allowed to take up the acting profession demonstrates a change in society and frankly its amazing that it took so long for you to get the vote after that. As Shakespeare is oft to demonstrate, nearly all men are pigs, especially the ones who make laws about things.
I think though that it's more to do with the fact that even though the words and the plot are the same, every production is different and more than any other writer its possible for a director and his actors to put their own personal stamp on them. I've seen dozens of Hamlets and each and every time, although the text is the same they're all different, they all resonate in different ways. It's simply fascinating intellectually to compare and contrast the interpretations to see who thought what was important.
Plus, in the media age, as this blog demonstrates, it attracts the collector in me. Even though I've eight complete works already, some bought, some presents, I'm gathering the Arden editions of the plays because of the notes and appendixes which often include the original texts such as the Ur-Hamlet that Shakespeare used as his sources. Then there are the collections of criticism, the biographies. On top of that there are the many hundred audio and visual recordings of the plays from the BBC Shakespeare (radio and television) through Argo to ArkAngel. Some people collect vinyl or music boxes or badges. I collect Shakespeare productions.
You would expect on hearing all of this, that I'd seen or at least read all of the plays in the canon. Not a bit of it. I'm working my way through my BBC Shakespeare boxset (in production order minus the histories -- oh yes) and greeting many of them for the first time. Just as I've not seen or heard all of the television Doctor Who (let alone the spin-offs), I think I've only actually come in contacted with about half of the bard's work.
Some of this is simply because the same twenty-odd plays tend to be in production at the expense of others. But also its through avoidance, because I can't imagine that the likes of As You Like It can be as good as the version I have in my head through years of reading about them. Of course they can -- they're by Shakespeare, but there's also the matter of seeing them for the first time in a decent production. Thankfully my first As You Like It, from the BBC, featured the sexy Helen Mirren in a silly hat and David Prowse whose performance was strangely moving for all the wrong reasons.
There's a lovely moment at the end when Mirren delivers to camera the closing speech which features the line 'If I were, that is, a woman' and she pauses slightly highlighting the irony of a line that Shakespeare wrote that would originally have been played by a boy, being read now by, well, Helen Mirren. The viewer is sharing a joke with Mirren at text's expense. That's another reason I love Shakespeare, watching actors and directors cope with moments when attitudes have raced ahead of what's been written.
So Happy Birthday Mr Shakespeare, whether it was yesterday or today or whenever you were actually born. Thank you for over a decade of entertainment and intellectual stimulation and for inspiring one of the biggest laughs I had in an English class when the teacher decided to show us Roman Polanski's mad as cheese film version of Macbeth. For the amazingly intimate Measure for Measure I saw at the Edinburgh Festival in 1998 when I once again inapropriately fell in love with the actress playing Isabella for the umpteenth time (see also Kate Nelligan in the BBC Shakespeare). And for Hamlet. All four hours of it.
the final set of British films Hitchcock made before going to the US
Film Onward through the final set of British films Hitchcock made before going to the US. He’s described them as his audition for Hollywood and certainly many of them were hits in the states which is why David O. Selznick gave him the offer to direct Titanic (more on which next time). These works show an increasing level of sophistication, both in their shooting style, his ability to deal with actors and primarily storytelling, knowing where to rest the audience’s focus and how much information should be revealed to them.
When Hitch later remade The Man Who Knew Too Much, he anonymised the villain and focused the story more on the parent’s search for the young girl. The original is a bit more even handed, with Peter Laurie stealing most of his scenes, his curious face both charming and sadistic, seemingly able to control the situation with a look. It was a privilege to see what the interior of the Royal Albert Hall looked like in the 1930s and was unsurprised that at ground level it hasn’t changed that much, though I wonder if there's still the apparent demonstration of the class system between the balcony and the cheap seats. The finale’s a blast too – literally – and entirely unlike some contemporary flicks in that the protagonist, the father, largely sits on his hands whilst the men of the British Constabulary save him!
So successful is Hitchcock’s adaptation of The 39 Steps, later films that are closer to Buchan’s novel have been criticised for not including elements that that the director invented – the recent BBC version was effectively a remake of this, re-lensing some some of its iconic images, such as the chase across the moor for HD television. Much as I enjoyed that, none of it was as effective as, for example, Hannay’s encounter with the woman who aspires to the metropolitan lifestyle trapped in a remote farmhouse, and her heartbreaking look as the potentially most exciting episode in her life ends as the London man on the run walks out into the morning light and you know that she’s going to be remembering and mythologizing that night for the rest of her existence.
There’s a genial matter of factness to the escapade as Hannay finds himself trapped by the police and his enemies, situation somehow becoming more sinister when everyone is being so terribly civilised because barbarism still constantly bubbles under the surface. There's also another example of one of Hitch’s abrupt endings which on reflection is nothing of the sort. Once the story has been tied up, the only impression we get that Hannay and Annabella have a life together is the clasping of hands. We’ve seen that they’re perfectly made for each other in the preceding half hour so what more needs to be said?
Secret Agent is the proper misfire of the period and Hitch himself knew it. The problem is that there’s no urgency to the mission of Gielgud’s reluctant spy and because this is such a small cast you can deduce what the twist will be very early on. Still, the dialogue mostly crackles as does his chemistry with the returning Medeleine Carroll and it’s quite a surprise to see an actor so often associated with aged establishment roles and that quiveringly recognisable voice of authority as such a young, vital figure. No denying too that the central moment were the plot turns on its head is very well edited, Hitch marshalling a tonal shift that just about works.
Hitch wasn’t pleased with Sabotage either. He didn’t think that Desmond Lester was up to the role of the undercover police office keeping tabs on the secret agent and broke his own rules about dissipating audience tension at the close of a suspenseful sequence. To explain why would spoil the thing and I’m not going to do that for once because I actually disagree with him – it’s a very brave experiment though you could see why the audience might turn against him the way they did. Watch out for the hilarious, totally irrelevant sequence in the middle in a pet shop about a woman complaining that her canary isn’t singing (which must have influenced the Pythons during the writing of the parrot sketch) and also the deployment of a Disney cartoon as a catalyst for the film's tragic conclusion.
More next week...
Useful bluffer's guide.
currently appearing in
Life Watched In The Loop at the Cornerhouse (review soon) with Roger Lloyd Pack who played Trigger in the popular comedy series Only Fools and Horses and is currently appearing in Widowers' Houses at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester. I think I heard him laughing.
it’s often so passionless
Museums LS Lowry is an acquired taste, and it’s a taste I’ve never acquired. Living in the general area, Lowry’s name and work crops up over and over both in local galleries and particularly on the local news whenever an anniversary is reached, an exhibition is opening, one of his 'lost' paintings is found or Oasis have put out a new video and there’s the usual clip of Brian & Michael (or rather Kevin & Michael) on Top of the Pops, shots of the real place the artist was trying to capture and then the work itself with its muted colour and naïve figures; social history through the prism of splodges and lines and dirt. The worst indictment possible is to say that it’s pleasant – it’s not art which stirs my emotions positively or negatively (which is the best kind of art surely?) but simply exists waiting for me to stand before it and shrug my shoulders and sigh.
The shapeless forms of the people doesn’t help; he’s said: "I wanted to paint myself into what absorbed me [...] Natural figures would have broken the spell of it, so I made my figures half unreal.” There are other artists that have followed the same pattern, but you’re desperate for Lowry create an emotional connection, one which is apparent to everyone and not just those who lived through those hardships and those places and their descendants. But he continues: “To say the truth, I was not thinking very much about the people. I did not care for them in the way a social reformer does. They are part of a private beauty that haunted me. I loved them and the houses in the same way: as part of a vision.” Which is probably why, considering his subject matter often included extreme poverty, the blitz and proper human emotion, it’s often so passionless.
Yet he has a huge following, huge enough that after decades of acquiring his work, Salford City Council opened The Lowry centre as part of the Salford Quays project in 2000 as a way of celebrating his contribution to the local area (and you thought this was just a random rant about an artist!). It’s an exhilarating design by James Stirling and Michael Wilford with a giant glass atrium for an entrance, sweeping curves that give the impression of a ship and waves influenced by the surrounding waterways and as Edward Morris notes in his Public Art Collections in North-West England, “in the tradition of the Barbican Arts Centre in London” has, as well as a theatre, shops and a very nice (if a bit expensive) café and restaurant. It’s the kind of place that used to only happen in the south which would be looked at with envy from the north and shows that high end arts venues can literally be built anywhere these days.
The Lowry, then, is an exciting yet comfortable building -- and a complete failure as an art gallery commemorating the work of a famous local son. Given that his name is stamped on the front, just four or five small white box rooms are dedicated to displaying the artist’s work, less floor space than the café or perhaps the toilets and the adjoining waiting area for the theatre. Given my opinion of the man’s work, I shouldn’t be too annoyed about this – the idea of room upon room of the work to stroll through would fill me with dread – but in these circumstances, after the amazing architecture leading up this meagre haul, it’s still an anti-climax, especially having specially travelled in from Liverpool. I thought all of this when I first visited in 2002 and nothing has changed.
Exhibitions should be stories or in the best cases arguments explaining why the work on offer is noteworthy and notable and I was genuinely hoping that this time I might stand before some of these works and finally understand what they were trying to say, why they touch people. What counts against this happening here isn’t just the fact that so few works are on display but also that they’re displayed at what looks like random; some of the finest shows place the work into a chronological order so that you can see the artist’s ideas and technique develop reaching their zenith and then in some cases decline. At The Lowry the work doesn’t even seem to have been collected thematically. Instead, decades are mashed together and sometimes has the effect of actively arguing against his brilliance as works from the 20s are shown next to works from the 50s and nothing has apparently changed at all.
I say sometimes, because one of the gallery's few successes is to demonstrate that Brian and Michael did the artist some disservice; he didn’t simply paint the matchstick men and the rest, the stereotypical images of factory workers and dark Salford concrete, his range was much great taking in the rural landscape, maritime and portraiture. There’s a portrait of Ann, a fictional character around whom he’d weave stories for his friends, and for all its art deco stylings jet black hair and off-red top she has more humanity than anyone else Lowry painted. There’s an early image of Wigan’s industrial landscape that’s musty and impressionistic and show signs of the artist still getting his ideas straight.
The biggest surprise are his natural landscapes, which reduce what might be the lake district to a simple arrangement of shapes, olive greens, blacks and off whites so abstract that if they were hung on their side or upside down, without a label, they’d pass easily as something far more muscular. All of these were created concurrently with his more familiar work, and give impression that he was a man who wanted to try other things, develop his art, but was forever locked into a cycle of fulfilling popular expectation, presumably because it’s this that paid the rent. When he says he himself didn't want to give to layer some deeper meaning into this work, was it because he didn’t care much for it?
Perhaps I’m reading too much into this, unable to bypass my own deep seated prejudices. Throughout the gallery there are labels with quotes from previous visitors offering their opinions of the work, why they like them. There are celebrities (Les Dennis likes one of the houses because it reminds him of the place he lived growing up in Liverpool), but the more insightful comments are from younlings, the best from a child who finally understood the horror of the blitz from seeing Lowry’s depiction.
Maybe that’s the best time to view these works, when you haven’t already absorbed some of the other things art and culture have in general, the darkness, desperation and structure that can make you irritable, cynical and sad, so that you can look back on them with a certain nostalgia. But then, I’m not sure at that age I’d be able to view the major stand out piece in this exhibition, and still be able to sleep at night, Tollhouse on the Moor (1959), which, with its simplistic, symmetrical background and forbidding central building, which has all of the welcoming qualities of the Bates Motel.
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