miniblog archive
Don't Drink The Water has finally arrived, so expect review soon, or in other words when I've had a chance to watch it. In the meantime ...
UK cinema chains may boycott Burton's Alice in Wonderland. The operative word being "may". The cinemas will back down. They'll have to. The artificial four month gap is only really tenable for films which have a decent distribution and aren't yanked off the screen within a couple of weeks. http://ff.im/-fOcS2
Confused Facebook users think ReadWriteWeb is the new Facebook login page, and what's positively worry is the illiteracy with which they signal their dismay... http://ff.im/-fOcS0
Immigration whistleblowers: spot the difference. Tabloid newspapers have an agenda. http://ff.im/-fOcS1
Avatar, the French New Wave and the morality of deep-focus (in 3-D), in which Jim Emmerson notices how James Cameron hobbles the film visually by pointlessly recreating the limitations of celluloid even in the digital sequences. http://ff.im/-fOcRZ
Hello Kitty's Star Wars Is a Nightmarish Orgy of Horror and Insanity http://bit.ly/dzpSlu
a Concept for Reinventing MySpace http://ff.im/-fLm7h
Did karaoke versions of Sinatra's My Way provoke killings in the Philippines? http://ff.im/-fLhRr
If you have a spare £2.99 I can highly recommend 20/30/40, a beautiful generational hyperlink comedy drama from Taiwan. http://bit.ly/9lUSbP
Videogame Soundtracks on Spotify http://ff.im/-fJI1R
Interview: Peter Brook, in Paris and London http://ff.im/-fJAyu
The Doctor and Douglas, a new Radio 4 documentary coming soon. http://ff.im/-fJv7D
Didn't Love Actually show that you can't mix the classic genres with hyperlink narratives? Short Cuts isn't about that. http://bit.ly/9hJoOQ
David Dimbleby’s Seven Ages of Britain http://ff.im/-fHPqC
There's no place like Dome -- visiting the undeveloped parts of the site. http://ff.im/-fHM3Z
Want to own your very own Dr Who Cyberman? http://ff.im/-fHLje
Henry And The Giant Harp http://ff.im/-fHJFC
Henry & The Giant Harp, part two http://ff.im/-fHJFD
Wild Horses: We'll Ride Them Someday http://ff.im/-fHIML
Tribute to Ianto Jones. Memorial shrine at the real entrance to Torchwood: http://bit.ly/ibYyh
Publicy http://ff.im/-fHAnU
Not watching The Wire can cause trouble http://ff.im/-fHyCX
10 Companions Younger Than Karen Gillan (not to mention John and Gillian): http://bit.ly/9YS75B
This Guardian front page piece about BBC expenses reads like a deliberate parody of an anti-BBC Daily Mail article. At no point does it notice that the reason they're hiring the limousine is to make a good impression in front of people for whom such things are standard. Like buying a good suit for an interview. http://bit.ly/bF7aky
Eve Myles Interview Exclusive! http://ff.im/-fFPAE
#spotify Sade's new album's about what you'd expect, but track 2 conjures up images of Will Smith & a big robot spider: http://bit.ly/99v1IT
The V&A is Wrong about closing its instruments section http://ff.im/-fDO1b
Innuendo [and out the other] http://ff.im/-fDLH0 Pink Floyd and Carly Firorina Because Yes Please! http://ff.im/-fDFol
How the Letterman-Oprah-Leno Super Bowl Ad Came Together: http://nyti.ms/9VWsZX
Republicans Sure Do Have Opinions http://ff.im/-fCif9
The challenges of filming the Virtual Revolution http://ff.im/-fBy5x
More from the TV Cream Songbook http://ff.im/-fBu8N
Daily Star watch the Kick-Ass trailer, pretend it’s newsworthy http://ff.im/-fB88R
They're playing our show http://ff.im/-fyX0c
B7 Media's Blakes 7 audio dramas are now available on Spotify: http://bit.ly/cPsV6V (via @afront)
Bulk http://ff.im/-fyMSh
Sarah Palin Logic: Teleprompters Are Bad, But Writing Notes On Your Hand Is A-OK [Notable/quotable] http://ff.im/-fyivr
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus dvd details. Commentary! http://bit.ly/bRs8jg
Alastair Campbell – signs of (di)stress? http://ff.im/-fy7cW
Life is but a holographic projection http://ff.im/-fxYQ7
10 Unbelievable Inheritance Stories http://ff.im/-fxTYh
Is it too late to save the Cultural Olympiad? http://ff.im/-fxJP8
Editorial: President Proposes Bold New Approach to Exploring the Final Frontier http://ff.im/-fxICu
Giraffe Needed http://ff.im/-fxG6h
White Outs and Brown Outs http://ff.im/-fxDpx
Emily Mortimer: "Sometimes I think this is so undignified" http://ff.im/-fxA03
Sight and Sound Magazine's flickr stream has new and classic covers: http://bit.ly/acfDvN Ian Carmichael obituary http://ff.im/-fxjZv
DVD Goes To The Theatre. Useful experiment in which a theatre company produces their own live dvd production for release after the live show has ended http://ff.im/-fxiqB
Is Supernatural really this good? Better than Dr Who & T-wood.? I think I may have miscalculated in not watching it ... (of course it's just that the Who fan vote was split between two different series which wasn't a problem with the first two series of Touchwoudn't) http://bit.ly/cxaNbg
Learn Japanese From A to Zen. Naoko Mori on her written language legacy http://ff.im/-fvaL8
Julia Somerville, Fiona Armstrong at BBC http://ff.im/-fuZB8
Playing the 'I Don't Deserve This' Card. The Wrap on how actors try and deflect the attention from themselves at award ceremonies http://ff.im/-fuS3h
Groundhog Day. Punxsutawney on Google Street Map http://ff.im/-fuPZU
Jon Stewart out thinking Bill O'Reilly on The O'Reilly Factor. http://bit.ly/aIRQo2
Torchwood Range Rover up for auction along with what looks like the contents of the various exhibitions from across the country http://ff.im/-fsZRu
Lovefilm obsession.
Film I'm well aware by now that I have something of an obsessive personality and if you've been reading this blog any length of time, you will have noticed it too. There are small issues I've spent weeks, months, even years thinking about but nothing which could be considered useful to anyone else and mostly to do with streamlining something in my own life. I am, I suppose, inspirationally selfish.
Here is an example.
Between Bronowski and Allen my Lovefilm subscription meanders onwards reminding me what I’ve missed at the cinema, especially in the noughties. I’ve finally seen American Psycho (which it turns out is the film Christian Bale is still trying to live up to). I’ve always been slightly exercised by the amount of choice dvd by post offers. So many great and average films, so little time to watch them or waste my time watching them.
And before my anonymous commenter once again suggests that I go out for a walk instead -- it's February and cold.
When I began subscribing with ScreenSelect in February 2004 (which was folded into Lovefilm along with all of the other small firms later), my methodology was to simply watch the hundred films considered to be the best of all time. Then plenty of French New Wave. Then all the films that featured in the sublime cinematography documentary Visions of Light. All of which stood me in good stead when I went back to university, having prewatched some of the texts on our viewing lists.
Up until recently I’ve not really had much focus, in other words, there have been over a thousand films on the list, which is where I've become unstuck. When I've said in the past that I’m wracked by indecision, I meant it, to the point of even losing track of the films which were on that list. I knew that there was no way I’d be able to watch all of it. Ever. The list would just keep growing. And it did, with each new film release missed or dvd re-issue.
Although there was something quite entertaining about having what seemed like whole of film history being sent to me at random, all too often a film would flop through the letterbox which I really wasn’t in the mood to watch or more specifically which I felt it a duty to watch because it was an “important work” from an “important director” which had won “many awards” but did not feature a helicopter exploding on an evening when I all I really wanted to see was a helicopter exploding.
DVD-by-post it seems does not work when there’s too much choice. Though you can’t specify exactly which film you would like to see next, it’s best to limit the choices so that you at least have some idea what to expect. But Lovefilm recommend that you have lots of choice so that the next disc will be send out quickly. Like I said, I’ve become quite obsessed with this, far more than I really should, which probably demonstrates that I’m something of a film obsessive and in completely the wrong job. I digress. Sorry.
Problem: I like to keep my viewing eclectic. Like George Clooney and his project choices, I like to oscillate between schlock and something more worthy. Sometimes helicopters, sometimes rain splattering against a window expressing the inner turmoil of a man lost in the theatre of cruelty that is real life. I need a guiding hand. I need Lovefilm to pretend to be a repertory cinema.
Solution: I was flicking through the new issue of Sight and Sound magazine the other evening and thinking wistfully of the BFI on the Southbank, both the cinema with its comfy seats and zero tolerance for talkers (though not the prices) and their programme and how it offers a useful alternative to the multiplexes presenting mini festivals of a particular director or actor’s work or a general theme and how I wished there was a repertory cinema like that in Liverpool. Then I realised there could be. In my own flat.
And so from now onwards, because I’ve grown so tired of worrying about this, having deleted the thousand films, I’m just going to let the BFI programme my choices. As well as a list of contemporary films or more clearly multiplex fare, I now have “repertory” and each month I’m going to add whatever films the BFI have programmed (assuming they’re available on dvd) which will then be refreshed when the next calender begins.
February is Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn, Johnny Depp and Yasujirō Ozu and tonight I began with Late Autumn, one of the Japanese director’s final films about a misunderstanding related to marriage (aren’t they all?). Next month it’s Russian director Sergei Paradjanov, films about blonde women and Alice in Wonderland. I can’t wait.
Thank goodness that’s settled. Now, what next?
Here is an example.
Between Bronowski and Allen my Lovefilm subscription meanders onwards reminding me what I’ve missed at the cinema, especially in the noughties. I’ve finally seen American Psycho (which it turns out is the film Christian Bale is still trying to live up to). I’ve always been slightly exercised by the amount of choice dvd by post offers. So many great and average films, so little time to watch them or waste my time watching them.
And before my anonymous commenter once again suggests that I go out for a walk instead -- it's February and cold.
When I began subscribing with ScreenSelect in February 2004 (which was folded into Lovefilm along with all of the other small firms later), my methodology was to simply watch the hundred films considered to be the best of all time. Then plenty of French New Wave. Then all the films that featured in the sublime cinematography documentary Visions of Light. All of which stood me in good stead when I went back to university, having prewatched some of the texts on our viewing lists.
Up until recently I’ve not really had much focus, in other words, there have been over a thousand films on the list, which is where I've become unstuck. When I've said in the past that I’m wracked by indecision, I meant it, to the point of even losing track of the films which were on that list. I knew that there was no way I’d be able to watch all of it. Ever. The list would just keep growing. And it did, with each new film release missed or dvd re-issue.
Although there was something quite entertaining about having what seemed like whole of film history being sent to me at random, all too often a film would flop through the letterbox which I really wasn’t in the mood to watch or more specifically which I felt it a duty to watch because it was an “important work” from an “important director” which had won “many awards” but did not feature a helicopter exploding on an evening when I all I really wanted to see was a helicopter exploding.
DVD-by-post it seems does not work when there’s too much choice. Though you can’t specify exactly which film you would like to see next, it’s best to limit the choices so that you at least have some idea what to expect. But Lovefilm recommend that you have lots of choice so that the next disc will be send out quickly. Like I said, I’ve become quite obsessed with this, far more than I really should, which probably demonstrates that I’m something of a film obsessive and in completely the wrong job. I digress. Sorry.
Problem: I like to keep my viewing eclectic. Like George Clooney and his project choices, I like to oscillate between schlock and something more worthy. Sometimes helicopters, sometimes rain splattering against a window expressing the inner turmoil of a man lost in the theatre of cruelty that is real life. I need a guiding hand. I need Lovefilm to pretend to be a repertory cinema.
Solution: I was flicking through the new issue of Sight and Sound magazine the other evening and thinking wistfully of the BFI on the Southbank, both the cinema with its comfy seats and zero tolerance for talkers (though not the prices) and their programme and how it offers a useful alternative to the multiplexes presenting mini festivals of a particular director or actor’s work or a general theme and how I wished there was a repertory cinema like that in Liverpool. Then I realised there could be. In my own flat.
And so from now onwards, because I’ve grown so tired of worrying about this, having deleted the thousand films, I’m just going to let the BFI programme my choices. As well as a list of contemporary films or more clearly multiplex fare, I now have “repertory” and each month I’m going to add whatever films the BFI have programmed (assuming they’re available on dvd) which will then be refreshed when the next calender begins.
February is Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn, Johnny Depp and Yasujirō Ozu and tonight I began with Late Autumn, one of the Japanese director’s final films about a misunderstanding related to marriage (aren’t they all?). Next month it’s Russian director Sergei Paradjanov, films about blonde women and Alice in Wonderland. I can’t wait.
Thank goodness that’s settled. Now, what next?
The Ascent of Man.
TV Over the past few weeks, first thing in the morning, after I’ve woken up, listened to the news headlines from the Today programme on Radio 4, been to the toilet and made a cup of tea, I’ve been settling down to watch an episode of Jacob Bronowski’s landmark 1973 series The Ascent of Man. It’s been a revelation and a perfectly profound way to begin each day (see this earlier post for one of my braingasms).
Although I know that some of the facts and discussion in the series have become out of date in the forty-odd years since it was first broadcast (and according to the booklet that accompanies the dvd during the making of the series leading to some rushed reshoots) having been streamed through the arts since school I’ve been desperate for a primer on the history of science and why not take advantage of what some consider to be the televisual primary source?
Proposed by then BBC Two director David Attenborough as the scientific follow up the earlier, highly successful art series, Kenneth Clarke’s Civilisation, the series at a basic level does indeed provide a history of science covering all of the big topics in a slow sweep across the development of civilisation in the past ten thousand years: archaeology, anthropology, biology, chemistry, mathematics, astronomy, physics, engineering, evolution, particle physics, more physics, genetics and psychology.
These stories are played out across thirteen fifty-minute films shot in twenty-seven countries with Bronowski constantly on screen, animated expressing each subject through densely packed lectures which were apparently improvised on the spot. The Dr. knew roughly what he was going to say and would impart it to the production team and they would then film him, either from the front of shifting about the location. The impression is of a Royal Society Christmas lecture in which the expert steps and sits about a constantly shifting landscape.
Bronowski is positively hypnotic, often grinning in the middle of sentences as the shear joy of being given the opportunity to impart this knowledge overwhelms him and we hang on ever word. As Attenborough notes in the interview that accompanies the episodes on dvd, "Bruno" was the master of the dramatic pause and he does often stop in the middle of a sentence as though he's trying to find exactly the right word to express his ideas.
Unafraid to jump off into the detailed abyss of a subject and expecting the viewer to join him, there were occasions, especially during the episode on particle physics when I couldn't quite follow the narrative but that’s more likely to be a failure of my understanding than his clarity and that’s as it should be. Television is always slightly disappointing when it simplifies a subject to make it intelligible to everyone. It should challenge us. And at least on dvd, I could rewind and try again.
Each film is beautifully rendered and often spectacular but often it’s the simplest imagery which has the most impact. The destruction of Hiroshima is minimised to a large bang, a melting clock, and shots of Japanese people in streets who because of this juxtaposition seem entirely bewildered by the oncoming fate. Contrast that with the modern recourse to offer a giant computer generate mushroom cloud and we see the dignity with which Bronowski is desperate to present his story.
Time and again Bronowski surprises us by not taking the obvious route to explaining a topic. His story of evolution is though the diaries of Alfred Russel Wallace the other scientist who discovered natural selection in parallel with Darwin. The trial of Gallileo proceeds through a transcript read in voiceover by Joss Ackland against empty chairs in a room similar to the location for the original meeting leaving the audience to imagine the white heat of injustice within the room.
But the series is subtitled “A Personal View” and rather than presenting a dispassionate history, Bronowski is keen to explain how scientific thought and development are constantly under threat from the kind of dogma and cynicism, usually religious, that is unable to assimilate new discoveries and theories when a different set of absolute truths has already been established. Time and again we see work, from Gallileo through Darwin to Mendel, either deliberate suppressed or put in a drawer for fear of insulting the establishment.
In the final programme he predicts that scientists will increasingly be unable to do their best work, their life’s work, because political and business interests will take up so much of their time, presumably because theoretical science will not pay the wages. When the Large Hadron Collider was turned on the first time, questions were asked about why some would spend all of that money without there being some kind of practical use.
Well, because science isn’t always and shouldn't always be about that. As someone comments on this exchange from Newsnight between the LHC's Dr Brian Cox and Sir David King (the president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science), "personally, i think any amount of money is worth paying if it gives us even the slightest chance of finding out the most fundamental unanswered questions of our existence." Quite, right, and I'm sure Bruno would approve.
I wonder how he’d feel about this slightly older version of the world were science is rarely undertaken unless there will be some kind of monetary outcome even within universities whose researchers and often departments are being funded by big business. He's adamant that The Ascent of Man stagnates when children aren’t taught the history of science isn't taught properly in school and society doesn’t take a keen interest as a whole of the subject. A pessimist like myself wonders if is prediction has come true with me as the prime example. Sorry Bruno.
Watching all of Woody Allen's films in order: Men of Crisis: The Harvey Wallinger Story (1971)
Then See below (again!).
Now Truth be told I've already slipped slightly out of order. The next film to feature a Woody Allen credit was Don't Drink The Water (1969) an adaptation of the stage play he wrote whilst twiddling his thumbs between takes on the set of Casino Royale. But I'm still waiting for a copy to be sent by Amazon (dispatched ages ago, due to be delivered between the 4th and 17th February).
In the meantime. Men of Crisis: The Harvey Wallinger Story (1971) is a mockumentary satire of the Nixon administration produced for PBS television which features Woody playing Wallinger, a thinly disguised parody of Henry Kissinger. It was his first film with Diane Keaton and also has Louise Lasser and the then current Richard Nixon-lookalike Richard M. Dixon. Like Zelig, these fictional figures were mixed in with actual newsreel footage of Hubert Humphrey, Spiro Agnew, and Nixon in embarrassing public moments.
Sadly, the film is unavailable. It wasn't even broadcast. PBS pulled it from the schedule at a very late stage concerned that their funding might by pulled by the Nixon administration if they were to present such a critical film so close to the election [source of course]. This old New York Times article speculates about a possible broadcast in 1997 but nothing seems to have happened. There are a couple of reviews on-line but these must be from the original broadcast, unless they know something different.
Which is great shame because it sounds like an important milestone in Allen's development as a filmmaker, gathering elements of Take The Money and Run and prefiguring Bananas. One known copy resides at The Paley Centre for Media's film library and their online record includes a detailed synopsis. It doesn't sound any more controversial than an old episode of Spitting Image or a modern political satire.
I emailed the Paley to ask them to ask about distribution and was told: "We do indeed have a copy but per Woody Allen's instructions we are not allowed to screen/stream it. Please let me know if you will ever be in NY though." Which I will of course. Perhaps Woody will reverse his decision at some point in the future if only so that people can study the piece more widely within the context of his career.
So no illustrative trailer this time either. Instead, here's a not unconnected film by Adam Curtis from last night's Newswipe about how all of us have become Richard Nixon now.
Now Truth be told I've already slipped slightly out of order. The next film to feature a Woody Allen credit was Don't Drink The Water (1969) an adaptation of the stage play he wrote whilst twiddling his thumbs between takes on the set of Casino Royale. But I'm still waiting for a copy to be sent by Amazon (dispatched ages ago, due to be delivered between the 4th and 17th February).
In the meantime. Men of Crisis: The Harvey Wallinger Story (1971) is a mockumentary satire of the Nixon administration produced for PBS television which features Woody playing Wallinger, a thinly disguised parody of Henry Kissinger. It was his first film with Diane Keaton and also has Louise Lasser and the then current Richard Nixon-lookalike Richard M. Dixon. Like Zelig, these fictional figures were mixed in with actual newsreel footage of Hubert Humphrey, Spiro Agnew, and Nixon in embarrassing public moments.
Sadly, the film is unavailable. It wasn't even broadcast. PBS pulled it from the schedule at a very late stage concerned that their funding might by pulled by the Nixon administration if they were to present such a critical film so close to the election [source of course]. This old New York Times article speculates about a possible broadcast in 1997 but nothing seems to have happened. There are a couple of reviews on-line but these must be from the original broadcast, unless they know something different.
Which is great shame because it sounds like an important milestone in Allen's development as a filmmaker, gathering elements of Take The Money and Run and prefiguring Bananas. One known copy resides at The Paley Centre for Media's film library and their online record includes a detailed synopsis. It doesn't sound any more controversial than an old episode of Spitting Image or a modern political satire.
I emailed the Paley to ask them to ask about distribution and was told: "We do indeed have a copy but per Woody Allen's instructions we are not allowed to screen/stream it. Please let me know if you will ever be in NY though." Which I will of course. Perhaps Woody will reverse his decision at some point in the future if only so that people can study the piece more widely within the context of his career.
So no illustrative trailer this time either. Instead, here's a not unconnected film by Adam Curtis from last night's Newswipe about how all of us have become Richard Nixon now.
Leddra Chapman.
Music Leddra Chapman's album Telling Tales may sound like a retro reconstruction of the Dawson's Creek soundtrack via a thirtysomething W. Snuffy Walden, but sometimes that's just what you need. The piano section in Picking Oranges was like being bashed around the head by my teenage years. Available on Spotify. Here's the single, Story. It's untypical of the rest of the album:
vogue.com
Fashion I was watching The September Edition yesterday, the documentary about the titanic struggle to run the fashion industry between two huge personalities, Anna Wintour and Grace Coddington, and decided to have a look at Vogue Magazine's US website to see if I can tell who's won this month's battle. I duly typed vogue.com into Firefox and was offered this page. There's Vogue.com at the top and the new issue with Alexa Chung on the cover.
Except that's British Vogue which is a different publication to its US parent. The url had resolved to vogue.co.uk. I tried typing vogue.com once more, and again I was presented with the British version. Vogue are geotarding (a word I hate because of its connotations but tolerating for the purposes of this post) the US equivalent of their website from the rest of the world (or the UK at the very least) and are sending us to our local equivalent. Interestingly they aren't redirecting traffic to other local sites; I can happily look at VOGUE.fr If you're in those countries and you look for vogue.com do you receive your own version too?
On one level this makes some sense. In the UK the main news stand edition of Vogue is the British version, the one available to the vast majority of people, the US edition will only be available in some select stores with a giant locality identifying label plastered across it (I'm guessing -- it's not something I've checked though that seems to be the arrangement with Wired Magazine).
Fashion trends tend to be localised (I think) and so they may feel it's important that someone looking for vogue.com should be presented with content that's relevant to their geographic area and more closely associated with the UK version of the magazine; the less net savvy might not realise that vogue.co.uk is their local site and they're trying to minimise the confusion. Even the link on Vogue's wikipedia page that says US site sends me to the UK version.
If this is policy rather than an error, flies in the face of what the internet is about, global communication and a levelling of this kind of geographical difference. There's something quite liberating about sitting in a flat in Liverpool and being able to reading The Washington Post, Pravda or The New Zealand Herald and receive a local perspective on a story without the ex-positional hand-holding. Similarly there must be some fashionistas who are keen to see what's being worn at New York parties this season, perhaps be ahead of the curve. Surely it's outside Vogue's business interests to send them towards rival websites that may be open.
Additionally, although there is a pull down box at the tail of the page labelled "Vogue International" it's a mess of broken and poorly updated links. I've checked. Selecting "US" takes you back to .co.uk (comma) "France" resolves to this old domain with DNS made easy ironically plastered across it. "Italy" sends us to style.it, publisher Conde Naste's main portal for the region and not Vogue's own section. Most of them call themselves VOGUE.com when the inclusion of the international sub-domains would help underscore their localised origins.
There is a work around. Google "Vogue" and under the curiously high link for British Vogue, which is also presumably the result of my location, there is the link the US vogue.com. Click that and you're back at the UK version. But click this Google cache version and low and behold we can finally see the glorious majesty of Vogue USA with Jessica Biel on the cover. Click on one of the menu options and you're sent to that page at vogue.com and you can continue to read the site's content to your heart's content.
And in case you're wondering, I'm still none the wiser about this season's trends, though I suspect it's probably related to textures and a simpler more classical look in whatever colour is the new grey. I have no fashion sense, spending most of my days in t-shirt and jeans. But I do think that the fashion industry is more important than it's given credit for since on a design level at least along with architecture and advertising it's one of the visual art forms that exists in our general environment and the only one that (nearly) everyone has to buy into and be knowledgeable about.
Except that's British Vogue which is a different publication to its US parent. The url had resolved to vogue.co.uk. I tried typing vogue.com once more, and again I was presented with the British version. Vogue are geotarding (a word I hate because of its connotations but tolerating for the purposes of this post) the US equivalent of their website from the rest of the world (or the UK at the very least) and are sending us to our local equivalent. Interestingly they aren't redirecting traffic to other local sites; I can happily look at VOGUE.fr If you're in those countries and you look for vogue.com do you receive your own version too?
On one level this makes some sense. In the UK the main news stand edition of Vogue is the British version, the one available to the vast majority of people, the US edition will only be available in some select stores with a giant locality identifying label plastered across it (I'm guessing -- it's not something I've checked though that seems to be the arrangement with Wired Magazine).
Fashion trends tend to be localised (I think) and so they may feel it's important that someone looking for vogue.com should be presented with content that's relevant to their geographic area and more closely associated with the UK version of the magazine; the less net savvy might not realise that vogue.co.uk is their local site and they're trying to minimise the confusion. Even the link on Vogue's wikipedia page that says US site sends me to the UK version.
If this is policy rather than an error, flies in the face of what the internet is about, global communication and a levelling of this kind of geographical difference. There's something quite liberating about sitting in a flat in Liverpool and being able to reading The Washington Post, Pravda or The New Zealand Herald and receive a local perspective on a story without the ex-positional hand-holding. Similarly there must be some fashionistas who are keen to see what's being worn at New York parties this season, perhaps be ahead of the curve. Surely it's outside Vogue's business interests to send them towards rival websites that may be open.
Additionally, although there is a pull down box at the tail of the page labelled "Vogue International" it's a mess of broken and poorly updated links. I've checked. Selecting "US" takes you back to .co.uk (comma) "France" resolves to this old domain with DNS made easy ironically plastered across it. "Italy" sends us to style.it, publisher Conde Naste's main portal for the region and not Vogue's own section. Most of them call themselves VOGUE.com when the inclusion of the international sub-domains would help underscore their localised origins.
There is a work around. Google "Vogue" and under the curiously high link for British Vogue, which is also presumably the result of my location, there is the link the US vogue.com. Click that and you're back at the UK version. But click this Google cache version and low and behold we can finally see the glorious majesty of Vogue USA with Jessica Biel on the cover. Click on one of the menu options and you're sent to that page at vogue.com and you can continue to read the site's content to your heart's content.
And in case you're wondering, I'm still none the wiser about this season's trends, though I suspect it's probably related to textures and a simpler more classical look in whatever colour is the new grey. I have no fashion sense, spending most of my days in t-shirt and jeans. But I do think that the fashion industry is more important than it's given credit for since on a design level at least along with architecture and advertising it's one of the visual art forms that exists in our general environment and the only one that (nearly) everyone has to buy into and be knowledgeable about.
Watching all of Woody Allen's films in order: Pussycat, Pussycat, I Love You (1970)
Then See below.
Now The next film in production featuring a Woody Allen credit was Pussycat, Pussycat, I Love You (though it wasn't released until the following year). He's given a screenplay link by the imdb but the Stig Bjorkman book ignores its existence as does my other main source, Stephen J Spignesi's The Woody Allen Companion.
My impression is that it's partly a courtesy because he originated the ideas in What's New Pussycat? of which this is part sequel, part remake in a tradition that carries on to this day with horror films in the straight to dvd market (see Carrie 2, S Darko etc). It certainly wasn't for publicity purposes. His name doesn't appear on the poster.
This detailed glowing review of Lalo Schifrin's soundtrack includes a plot synopsis and it sounds like a cheaper rerun of the first film with Ian McShane in for Peter O'Toole and a Hollywood setting to keep costs down.
I can't tell you what it's really like because it hasn't been released on vhs or dvd. I had considered beginning an international search to track down a copy for completion sake, but then I read this review at the imdb ...
Fuck, no.
Now The next film in production featuring a Woody Allen credit was Pussycat, Pussycat, I Love You (though it wasn't released until the following year). He's given a screenplay link by the imdb but the Stig Bjorkman book ignores its existence as does my other main source, Stephen J Spignesi's The Woody Allen Companion.
My impression is that it's partly a courtesy because he originated the ideas in What's New Pussycat? of which this is part sequel, part remake in a tradition that carries on to this day with horror films in the straight to dvd market (see Carrie 2, S Darko etc). It certainly wasn't for publicity purposes. His name doesn't appear on the poster.
This detailed glowing review of Lalo Schifrin's soundtrack includes a plot synopsis and it sounds like a cheaper rerun of the first film with Ian McShane in for Peter O'Toole and a Hollywood setting to keep costs down.
I can't tell you what it's really like because it hasn't been released on vhs or dvd. I had considered beginning an international search to track down a copy for completion sake, but then I read this review at the imdb ...
"I sat there with my jaw practically hanging open as I watched this awful movie. [...] It is sleazy, creepy and pointless. Worst of all, just not funny. A true ripoff. For a much better movie with Ian McShane as a hairy-chested Lothario, see "If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium". It's also very silly and sexist and dated, but at least you won't feel like you have to take a shower after you see it."... and watched the trailer ...
Fuck, no.
Video: The Ascent of Man - Knowledge or Certainty
TV I'm currently watching The Ascent of Man, Jacob Bronowski's essay on the history of science and civilisation. The themes of dogma verses reason are just as relevant now.
Another Spotify tip.
Music Incidentally, just as an aside, if you have a limited monthly data allowance (eg, mobile broadband) and want to stop Spotify's peer-to-peer upload in its tracks, or at the very least limit it to an irrelevance, after you've opened the applications, delete it from the list of exceptions on your Firewall software. To wit in Windows XP (I'm old(ish) school):
(1) Click Start > Control Panel
(2) Open Windows Firewall
(3) Click the exceptions tab
(4) Highlight Spotify on the list
(5) Click the delete button
(6) When the options window pops up, click yes.
And there we have it, or at least I do. The mechanics of this might be different for each set-up and it may not work for you. Curiously this does only effect uploads. Usefully for a streaming service, downloads are unaffected. This also neatly means that if you're a premium customer using playlist music already downloaded it's almost like listening off-line mode.
Note: You do have to remember to do this each time you start Spotify - it perniciously re-engages itself on every occasion. If you want to save yourself the rigmarole of following the above steps each time you can drag the Firewall icon from Control Panel to the quick launch bar or start menu and it'll create a short cut.
In case you're concerned that knocking out some of the peer-to-peer functionality against Spotify's terms of use, perhaps hidden deep within the small print in that box we all click through and don't read, this was suggest to me by Spotify itself via twitter after I registered by frustration at watching my allowance quickly disappearing whenever I used the service.
That was just before Christmas. Sorry I've not reported back sooner but like chilli chocolate and the narrative structure of the film Adaptation, it required much study before I was convinced that it worked even because I wasn't quite sure why. I still can't get my cranium around probiotic yoghurt.
I should probably add that if you've got an unlimited account it would be pointless and wrong to do all of this since the network would probably keel over and then none of us would be able to listen to thePolyphonic Spree Babies Where The Wild Things Are soundtrack again. Insert emoticon for sadness here.
(1) Click Start > Control Panel
(2) Open Windows Firewall
(3) Click the exceptions tab
(4) Highlight Spotify on the list
(5) Click the delete button
(6) When the options window pops up, click yes.
And there we have it, or at least I do. The mechanics of this might be different for each set-up and it may not work for you. Curiously this does only effect uploads. Usefully for a streaming service, downloads are unaffected. This also neatly means that if you're a premium customer using playlist music already downloaded it's almost like listening off-line mode.
Note: You do have to remember to do this each time you start Spotify - it perniciously re-engages itself on every occasion. If you want to save yourself the rigmarole of following the above steps each time you can drag the Firewall icon from Control Panel to the quick launch bar or start menu and it'll create a short cut.
In case you're concerned that knocking out some of the peer-to-peer functionality against Spotify's terms of use, perhaps hidden deep within the small print in that box we all click through and don't read, this was suggest to me by Spotify itself via twitter after I registered by frustration at watching my allowance quickly disappearing whenever I used the service.
That was just before Christmas. Sorry I've not reported back sooner but like chilli chocolate and the narrative structure of the film Adaptation, it required much study before I was convinced that it worked even because I wasn't quite sure why. I still can't get my cranium around probiotic yoghurt.
I should probably add that if you've got an unlimited account it would be pointless and wrong to do all of this since the network would probably keel over and then none of us would be able to listen to the
Sarah Palin at the Tea Party Convention.
Politics While we were sleeping the United States held its breath in case Sarah Palin said something useful or interesting during her keynote speech to the National Tea Party convention. Of the live blogs I've seen Jezebel seems to capture the emotional measure of it:
As though such things haven't happened already she speaks of building coalitions when that's exactly what Obama's being trying to do only to be rebuffed and stonewalled. She says he needs to cut spending, when he's done just that to the cost of a new Moon mission -- initiated by Bush. She's contradictory, anti-context and it would be interesting to see her invited to speak before a gathering of Democrats and answer questions. But she wouldn't. Obama did. Funny that.
""What's the Palin plan?" A: "The Palin Plan? It's quite simple." She "gets a kick out of it" when "the elitists" say that she's simple minded. She says her plan is to reward those who understand the principles of our country, which is hilarious, because she doesn't seem to understand the principles of our country (see: divine intervention, about 4 minutes ago.) She is bullshitting. She has no plan. She just said "We win, they lose." Her plan is the equivalent of the plan of the Hawks coach from The Mighty Ducks, apparently."C-SPAN have uploaded the speech to YouTube. From what I've seen, it's generally content free; she says everything you'd expect her to say and entirely contradicts in places the reality of what's happening in Washington.
As though such things haven't happened already she speaks of building coalitions when that's exactly what Obama's being trying to do only to be rebuffed and stonewalled. She says he needs to cut spending, when he's done just that to the cost of a new Moon mission -- initiated by Bush. She's contradictory, anti-context and it would be interesting to see her invited to speak before a gathering of Democrats and answer questions. But she wouldn't. Obama did. Funny that.
Watching all of Woody Allen's films in order: Take The Money And Run (1969)
Then Throughout the 1990s I was an addicted carbooter, waking up at stupid hours on a Sunday morning to travel out to the massive sale at the multi-story car park in St Helens. This was pre-dvd and the perfect way to build up a film collection, which I did, slowly but surely, little knowing that within a couple of years the whole lot would be essentially worthless. But I was happy and my room looked, if not like Blockbuster video, RST video from Kevin Smith’s Clerks. It’s during one of these visits I bought my first copy of Take The Money And Run (1969), the first copy I watched, as released in the ugly red box design of Video Gems. It will have cost a couple of pounds and looked for all the world like they’d transferred the image by training a video camera on cinema screen.
Now A mockumentary about a failed and yet somehow successful bank robber features many of my favourite Woody Allen scenes, especially this exchange from half way through the film. Woody’s character, Virgil, is on the run and is trying to trick his way into an office job. We greet him and his potential employer in a crusty wooden-panelled office:
Interviewer: Name please.
Virgil: John Q. Public. P-U-B-L-I-C.
Interviewer: Mr. Public, have you any experience working in an office before?
Virgil: Yes, I have.
Interviewer: What kind of office was it?
Virgil: Rectangular.
Interviewer: Have you any experience in running a high-speed digital electronic computer?
Virgil: Yes, I have.
Interviewer: Where?
Virgil: My aunt has one.
Interviewer: And what does your aunt do?
Virgil: I can't recall.
Interviewer: You said before you worked in an office. Did you deal in products or services?
Virgil: Products.
Interviewer: Is this something found in the home?
Virgil: No, it's not. One down and nine to go.
Interviewer: Is this product edible?
Virgil: No, it wasn't. I think our time is running out and I'm sorry you haven't guessed my occupation. So I'm going to flip all the cards and tell you what I have used to do. I used to manufacture escalator shoes, for people who were nauseous. I'm sorry, you didn't actually get my occupation, but you did win $10 and I want to thank you very much. Better luck next time. You are good sport.
What I love about this scene is that it’s managed to date quite successfully but the essential idea is still sound. These days, if someone says that an aunt has a high-speed digital electronic computer it doesn't sound too incongruous (other than to wonder why they’re using such arcane language). She probably has three. Then you remember that computers those days were the size of a small car ... I love it for those retro details but also because it’s still sound, it still works, it’s still funny. Change the details and it would work just as well on The Mitchell and Webb Look.
But plenty of comedy series and films which followed in Take's wake owe it a debt of some description, most specifically The Simpsons and Family Guy. The rabbi gag is exactly the kind of cutaway perpetrated by Matt Groening, Seth McFarlane and their writers. Monty Python began in the year of this film’s release and again there are absurdist elements that reach forward to the prime of their work, especially the chain gang. You’ll have to watch to see what I mean.
The nebbish figure that Woody would go on to play for much of the rest of his career strolls in largely fully formed here (only to have his glasses broken). Allen has said, that all of his characters are pretty much the same because he lacks the range to do better, the comedian’s crutch, citing Chaplin and WC Fields. That might be true, but there are few actors which have managed to play that figure quite so consistently across forty years. Once Chaplin lost the moustache and cane, his comic timing left him too. His 50s comeback films are torturous.
And Woody as ever is hyper critical of his abilities. It would have been very easy to play Take The Money And Run at a singular level (especially considering the tiny shooting schedule) but amid the slapstick there are some surprisingly effective elements of melancholy which reach back to the pre-Code 1930s crime/drama social awareness films, especially I Was a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, that are generally down to Allen’s ability to convincingly portray a man who is pathologically incapable of not stealing.
Despite being filmed in San Francisco some of Woody’s auteur details are already being employed, most prominently the moments when his voiceover poetically muses over shots of Virgil’s tender romance with Louise, sweetly played by Janet Margolin (who reminds me of Ali McGraw in the same way that Monica Potter should have had Sandra Bullock’s career). Substitute Margolin for Mariel Hemmingway, Diane Keaton or Mia Farrow and these sequences could appear in any number of his other films, albeit in a more professional style.
miniblog archive
Not even Boston Legal reached this level of metafiction:
Rise again indeed. Hopefully on dvd.
"Music"
Music Or more specifically "Sugababes". It's been a while, but two things. Well ok, one thing. Firstly here's another new track from Sweet 7. It's rubbish:
Yes indeed. Autotune. A band using the name "Sugababes" which used to be known at the very least for its supreme vocal quality is employing Autotune. It is going well, isn't it?
Yes indeed. Autotune. A band using the name "Sugababes" which used to be known at the very least for its supreme vocal quality is employing Autotune. It is going well, isn't it?
Watching all of Woody Allen's films in order: Casino Royale (1967)
Then One of the more surreal memories I have of primary school are the times when the class or school would be gathered in a classroom or the hall in front of television set and shown a film. On reflection it must have happened during strikes or teacher’s meetings or absences but it demonstrates how times have changed that ninety children could be kept entertained by a twenty-six inch screen in the corner of a comparatively large room. Star Wars was certainly shown to us in a version recorded from television as well as Disney films, but I have a feeling that some of the filmic choices were rather more inappropriate with items like Jaws and this version of Casino Royale. Lord knows what my immature brain thought; it perhaps explains my fragmentary approach to culture and my inability to focus on one thing.
Now A mess, but gloriously so. Originally conceived by the producers as a straight adaptation of the book (having previously licensed Fleming’s work separately to the rest) terms couldn’t be agreed with the Broccoli’s and so a spoof was conceived featuring Peter Sellars. Sellars was unhappy – he’d hoped to the play the part straight and this unhappiness increased as production continued until he eventually walked.
Left with half a film, the producers engaged David Niven and created all of the bridging footage with Ursula Andress’s Vesper as the narrative binding tissue. Which rather explains why the film has five directors, why only the Sellars’s footage seems to have any relevance to the book and is being played deadly straight in comparison to the rest of it and the work overall looks like someone’s editing together parts of much better films with a story so fragmentary its (almost) impossible to write a synopsis.
Woody, meanwhile, took on Casino Royale as a pure acting job and what sounded at first like a fun six weeks in London would drag on for six whole months. According to his career long interview with Stig Bjorkman (published in Faber) Allen busied himself with card playing and writing some plays, including Don’t Drink The Water (coming soon). He’s reputed to have also contributed to the screenplay which on the basis of the hilarious shooting gallery scene (most of which is in the above trailer) is entirely possible so close is Jimmy Bond to the hapless figure that would emerge in Bananas and Sleeper.
But the patchwork nature of this admittedly beautifully designed production (by Michael Stinger who worked on some of The Pink Panther films) doesn’t give him much room to “shop window” his skills. For my money the best sequence is one of the ones he's absent from, the Mata Bond adventure in Germany, where the décor of a “finishing school” is revealed to be influenced by German Expressionist cinema and Bernard Cribbins and Ronnie Corbett feature in tiny roles. This was also Angelica Houston’s first film. She played Agent Mimi's Hands. I wonder if Woody remembered that when he later cast her in Crimes and Misdemeanours.
Watching all of Woody Allen's films in order: What's Up Tiger Lily? (1962)
Then From the time it began broadcasting twenty-four hours a day, ITV has had a habit of hiding in the middle of the night the more interesting cinema that is packaged with the blockbusters they acquire for Christmas. The Deerhunter is receiving this treatment on Saturday – though that’s so long with adverts it’s beginning before midnight. But can there be many people who’ll stay up for the duration, drifting to bed at 3 am? It’s under these circumstances I first watched What’s Up Tiger Lily? in the late 80s, just before we bought our first video recorder. Needless to say I don’t remember too much about it. In fact I think I might have slept for an hour in the middle.
Now What these days would be uploaded to YouTube ready to be embedded virally on a thousand blogs was in 1962 a major studio release heralded with an article in Playboy. Allen and friends edit together sections of two Japanese films and overdub them with their own voices (see also On The Waterfront’s The Flashing Blade).
To an extent it's a project of it's time. You couldn't imagine Jack Black trying something similar with a Takeshi Kitano film without some implication of racism or cultural tourism. But aren't those many thousands of Downfall videos doing much the same thing albeit replacing the subtitles rather than the words? Has anyone asked the original producers of the film what they thought of Woody's version?
Retrospective history has it that The Lovin’ Spoonful’s contribution (filmed some time later) was hacked into the film by the producers without Woody’s permission – he would go to court to try and stop the film's release but eventually dropped the action when he realised it was pointless and simply spent the rest of his career saying nasty things about it instead.
The inclusion of the songs makes about as much sense as the soft porn gratuitously chopped into Tinto Brass’s Caligula (Brass disowned his film too). I wonder if fans of the band might consider this their equivalent of A Hard Days Night or Help! It's mentioned in the biography on their official website. The Spoonful were a great band. I'm just not sure this was the best venue for their talents, pitching up as though they're in a surf film.
The film drags terribly in places, particularly when the plot is needlessly asserting itself. I didn't laugh often. When I did laugh it was usually when the director was either on screen ("Death is my - death and danger are my various breads and various butters") or making direct interventions and playing up the incongruities of the venture, the dialogue directly commenting on the naffness of the on-screen action ("Don't tell me what I can do, or I'll have my mustache eat your beard.").
The funniest moment, at least for me, especially considering this project and the one that came before it, happens in an observation tower in Yokohama Harbour Phil (as the dubbed Japanese protagonist is, well, dubbed) says “This is the obligatory scene. The director always has to walk through with his wife”, just as a Hitchcock lookalike shuffles past.
Ludicrously the film was dubbed over again for the international market. Here's the trailer in German. Have they translated Woody's jokes or made up some of their own? Answers welcome.
My picture in the paper.
Photography
One of my photos of the Big Wheel at Liverpool One has been short-listed for a competition in the Liverpool Daily Post and was printed in today's paper. The rest of the shortlist is here. This is the winner.
One of my photos of the Big Wheel at Liverpool One has been short-listed for a competition in the Liverpool Daily Post and was printed in today's paper. The rest of the shortlist is here. This is the winner.
Oscars 2010.
Film And here we are again. After my meander through the Bafta nominations I couldn't ignore the Oscars, even if every year they elate and infuriate me in equal measure with Best Picture nominations that clearly aren't and a single minded approach to the world of cinema. At least there's the Caesars for the rest of us. Remember, this isn't what I'd like to win, this is what I think will win. As I've discovered in previous years, this can be and usually is two very different things.
Best picture
Avatar (James Cameron and Jon Landau, producers)
District 9 (Peter Jackson and Carolynne Cunningham, producers)
An Education (Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey, producers)
The Hurt Locker (nominees to be determined)
Inglourious Basterds (Lawrence Bender, producer)
Precious (Lee Daniels, Sarah Siegel-Magness and Gary Magness, producers)
A Serious Man (Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, producers)
Up in the Air (Daniel Dubiecki, Ivan Reitman and Jason Reitman, producers)
The Blind Side (nominees to be determined)
Up (Jonas Rivera, producer)
I agree with Mark Kermode (who returned to BBC News this afternoon to give his verdict) Avatar will win this because the industry has a lot riding on 3D. It's a film I'm now almost seen twice, either because it had sold out while I was in the queue or because it's three hours long and I wasn't in the mood. At this rate I'll be able to test if it still works on dvd first time around. Just in case you haven't seen it, the 70-minute Phantom Menace review guy has recently tackled Avatar -- it's only spoilery if you haven't seen the trailer.
Actress in a supporting role
Mo'Nique in Precious
Vera Farmiga in Up in the Air
Penélope Cruz in Nine
Anna Kendrick in Up in the Air
Maggie Gyllenhaal in Crazy Heart
The first category in which I've seen none of the films. At all. I'll offer it to Maggie Gyllenhaal because I re-watched Adaptation the other day and manage to bring great depth to the tiniest of roles.
Actor in a supporting role
Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds
Christopher Plummer in The Last Station
Matt Damon in Invictus
Stanley Tucci in The Lovely Bones
Woody Harrelson in The Messenger
The second category in which I've seen none of the films. It's got to be Stanley Tucci's year hasn't it? Though it'd be fun to give Matt Damon the award simply so that he can be Oscar Winning Matt Damon and it be for the thing he's known for.
Actress in a leading role
Meryl Streep in Julie & Julia
Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side
Helen Mirren in The Last Station
Gabourey Sidibe in Precious
Carey Mulligan in An Education
I cheered. I cheered again. Carey! Carey! During the BBC coverage, Jane Hill dropped the clanger that Mulligan hasn't been in films before, which will be a surprise to the directors of Pride & Prejudice, And When Did You Last See Your Father? and The Greatest.
Actor in a leading role
Morgan Freeman in Invictus
Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart
George Clooney in Up in the Air
Colin Firth in A Single Man
Jeremy Renner in The Hurt Locker
This year's Fight Club, that is the extraordinary film roundly ignored by the academy is Moon, the most specific example being Sam Rockwell in this category. The reason would be a spoiler, but what does a man have to do? Morgan Freeman because he's playing Mandella. The academy likes to give awards to people they've heard of playing people they've heard of.
Animated feature film
Up (Pete Docter and Bob Peterson)
The Princess and the Frog (Ron Clements and John Musker)
Coraline (Henry Selick)
Fantastic Mr Fox (Wes Anderson)
The Secret of Kells (Tomm Moore)
Disney vs Disney really, though The Princess and the Frog will probably sneak it because it's the first 2D animation to appear from the mouse house in quite some time and the older members of the Academy nostalgically may tick its box.
Foreign language film
Ajami (Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani, Israel)
A Prophet (Jacques Audiard, France)
The Secret of Her Eyes (Juan Jose Campanella, Argentina)
The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke, Germany)
The Milk of Sorrow (Claudia Llosa, Peru)
The usual strange and distorted selection. It'll probably go to The Milk of Sorrow because the Academy are a bunch of contrarians.
Directing
Avatar (James Cameron)
The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow)
Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)
Up in the Air (Jason Reitman)
Precious, Lee Daniels
Again, I think Duncan Jones is very overlooked here. James Cameron will probably win because this looks doesn't look like a year where that decision is going to be split. But it would be sweet if Bigelow were to win it.
Writing (adapted screenplay)
District 9 (Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell)
An Education (Nick Hornby)
Precious (Geoffrey Fletcher)
Up in the Air (Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner)
In the Loop (Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci and Tony Roche)
Some might say this is what the best picture nomination list should have looked like. In the Loop or An Education would be fabulous choices, though I suspect this will be the Precious recognition award because it won't win in any of the mains.
Writing (original screenplay)
The Hurt Locker (Mark Boal)
Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)
A Serious Man (Joel and Ethan Coen)
Up (Pete Docter and Bob Petersen)
The Messenger (Alessandro Camon and Oren Moverman)
Tarantino because he's Tarantino.
Art direction
Avatar (art direction: Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg; set decoration: Kim Sinclair)
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (art direction: Dave Warren and Anastasia Masaro; set decoration: Caroline Smith)
Nine (art direction: John Myhre; set decoration: Gordon Sim)
Sherlock Holmes (art direction: Sarah Greenwood; set decoration: Katie Spencer)
The Young Victoria (art direction: Patrice Vermette; set decoration: Maggie Gray)
Avatar.
Cinematography
Avatar (Mauro Fiore)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Bruno Delbonnel)
The Hurt Locker (Barry Ackroyd)
Inglourious Basterds (Robert Richardson)
The White Ribbon (Christian Berger)
Avatar. It's the 3D is great and will rule the world award. Yawn.
Costume design
Bright Star (Janet Patterson)
Coco Before Chanel (Catherine Leterrier)
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (Monique Prudhomme)
Nine (Colleen Atwood)
The Young Victoria (Sandy Powell)
Bafta nominated A Single Man and An Education instead of Parnassus and Nine and I'm repeating my selection here.
Documentary (feature)
Burma VJ (Anders Østergaard and Lise Lense-Møller)
The Cove (nominees to be determined)
Food, Inc (Robert Kenner and Elise Pearlstein)
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers (Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith)
Which Way Home (Rebecca Cammisa)
It's the political award. No Michael Moore again this year, except ...
Documentary (short subject)
China's Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province (Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill)
The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner (Daniel Junge and Henry Ansbacher)
The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant (Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert)
Music by Prudence (Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett)
Rabbit à la Berlin (Bartek Konopka and Anna Wydra)
... that would be ironic.
Film editing
Avatar (Stephen Rivkin, John Refoua and James Cameron)
District 9 (Julian Clarke)
The Hurt Locker (Bob Murawski and Chris Innis)
Inglourious Basterds (Sally Menke)
Precious (Joe Klotz)
Avatar. See above.
Makeup
Il Divo (Aldo Signoretti and Vittorio Sodano)
The Young Victoria (Jon Henry Gordon and Jenny Shircore)
Star Trek (Barney Burman, Mindy Hall and Joel Harlow)
Star Trek! Ha! Though it's nice to see Il Divo nominated for something even if it's in the catagory least likely. Again I had Moon pegged for something here.
Music (original score)
Avatar (James Horner)
Fantastic Mr Fox (Alexandre Desplat)
Up (Michael Giacchino)
The Hurt Locker (Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders)
Sherlock Holmes (Hans Zimmer)
Avatar. I'm saying all of this but The Hurt Locker could sneak some. It just feels like an epic sweep kind of year.
Music (original song)
Almost There, from The Princess and the Frog by Randy Newman
Down in New Orleans, from The Princess and the Frog by Randy Newman
Loin de Paname, from Paris 36
Take it All, from Nine by Maury Yeston
The Weary Kind, from Crazy Heart by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett
Simon CowellLeona Lewis will be gutted. But Randy Newman's clearly ahead here - but this could be one of those split decision situations so Maury Yeston might sneak in.
Short film (animated)
French Roast
Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty
Logoramam
The Lady and the Reaper
A Matter of Loaf and Death
Because it would be perverse not to. 16 million watched this on television the other year. 16 million!
Short film (live action)
The Door
Instead of Abracadabra
Kavi
Miracle Fish
The New Tenants
I like the title.
Sound editing
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek
Up
Avatar.
Sound mixing
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Avatar. Please god not Transformers. Nice to see Star Trek at least doing well in the technical categories.
Visual effects
Avatar
District 9
Star Trek
Star Trek. No I'm kidding. Again, Moon is robbed here and I think it's about time the academy saw fit to split this category in two and recognise CG and physical effects as two separate entities.
Best picture
Avatar (James Cameron and Jon Landau, producers)
District 9 (Peter Jackson and Carolynne Cunningham, producers)
An Education (Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey, producers)
The Hurt Locker (nominees to be determined)
Inglourious Basterds (Lawrence Bender, producer)
Precious (Lee Daniels, Sarah Siegel-Magness and Gary Magness, producers)
A Serious Man (Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, producers)
Up in the Air (Daniel Dubiecki, Ivan Reitman and Jason Reitman, producers)
The Blind Side (nominees to be determined)
Up (Jonas Rivera, producer)
I agree with Mark Kermode (who returned to BBC News this afternoon to give his verdict) Avatar will win this because the industry has a lot riding on 3D. It's a film I'm now almost seen twice, either because it had sold out while I was in the queue or because it's three hours long and I wasn't in the mood. At this rate I'll be able to test if it still works on dvd first time around. Just in case you haven't seen it, the 70-minute Phantom Menace review guy has recently tackled Avatar -- it's only spoilery if you haven't seen the trailer.
Actress in a supporting role
Mo'Nique in Precious
Vera Farmiga in Up in the Air
Penélope Cruz in Nine
Anna Kendrick in Up in the Air
Maggie Gyllenhaal in Crazy Heart
The first category in which I've seen none of the films. At all. I'll offer it to Maggie Gyllenhaal because I re-watched Adaptation the other day and manage to bring great depth to the tiniest of roles.
Actor in a supporting role
Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds
Christopher Plummer in The Last Station
Matt Damon in Invictus
Stanley Tucci in The Lovely Bones
Woody Harrelson in The Messenger
The second category in which I've seen none of the films. It's got to be Stanley Tucci's year hasn't it? Though it'd be fun to give Matt Damon the award simply so that he can be Oscar Winning Matt Damon and it be for the thing he's known for.
Actress in a leading role
Meryl Streep in Julie & Julia
Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side
Helen Mirren in The Last Station
Gabourey Sidibe in Precious
Carey Mulligan in An Education
I cheered. I cheered again. Carey! Carey! During the BBC coverage, Jane Hill dropped the clanger that Mulligan hasn't been in films before, which will be a surprise to the directors of Pride & Prejudice, And When Did You Last See Your Father? and The Greatest.
Actor in a leading role
Morgan Freeman in Invictus
Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart
George Clooney in Up in the Air
Colin Firth in A Single Man
Jeremy Renner in The Hurt Locker
This year's Fight Club, that is the extraordinary film roundly ignored by the academy is Moon, the most specific example being Sam Rockwell in this category. The reason would be a spoiler, but what does a man have to do? Morgan Freeman because he's playing Mandella. The academy likes to give awards to people they've heard of playing people they've heard of.
Animated feature film
Up (Pete Docter and Bob Peterson)
The Princess and the Frog (Ron Clements and John Musker)
Coraline (Henry Selick)
Fantastic Mr Fox (Wes Anderson)
The Secret of Kells (Tomm Moore)
Disney vs Disney really, though The Princess and the Frog will probably sneak it because it's the first 2D animation to appear from the mouse house in quite some time and the older members of the Academy nostalgically may tick its box.
Foreign language film
Ajami (Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani, Israel)
A Prophet (Jacques Audiard, France)
The Secret of Her Eyes (Juan Jose Campanella, Argentina)
The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke, Germany)
The Milk of Sorrow (Claudia Llosa, Peru)
The usual strange and distorted selection. It'll probably go to The Milk of Sorrow because the Academy are a bunch of contrarians.
Directing
Avatar (James Cameron)
The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow)
Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)
Up in the Air (Jason Reitman)
Precious, Lee Daniels
Again, I think Duncan Jones is very overlooked here. James Cameron will probably win because this looks doesn't look like a year where that decision is going to be split. But it would be sweet if Bigelow were to win it.
Writing (adapted screenplay)
District 9 (Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell)
An Education (Nick Hornby)
Precious (Geoffrey Fletcher)
Up in the Air (Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner)
In the Loop (Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci and Tony Roche)
Some might say this is what the best picture nomination list should have looked like. In the Loop or An Education would be fabulous choices, though I suspect this will be the Precious recognition award because it won't win in any of the mains.
Writing (original screenplay)
The Hurt Locker (Mark Boal)
Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)
A Serious Man (Joel and Ethan Coen)
Up (Pete Docter and Bob Petersen)
The Messenger (Alessandro Camon and Oren Moverman)
Tarantino because he's Tarantino.
Art direction
Avatar (art direction: Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg; set decoration: Kim Sinclair)
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (art direction: Dave Warren and Anastasia Masaro; set decoration: Caroline Smith)
Nine (art direction: John Myhre; set decoration: Gordon Sim)
Sherlock Holmes (art direction: Sarah Greenwood; set decoration: Katie Spencer)
The Young Victoria (art direction: Patrice Vermette; set decoration: Maggie Gray)
Avatar.
Cinematography
Avatar (Mauro Fiore)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Bruno Delbonnel)
The Hurt Locker (Barry Ackroyd)
Inglourious Basterds (Robert Richardson)
The White Ribbon (Christian Berger)
Avatar. It's the 3D is great and will rule the world award. Yawn.
Costume design
Bright Star (Janet Patterson)
Coco Before Chanel (Catherine Leterrier)
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (Monique Prudhomme)
Nine (Colleen Atwood)
The Young Victoria (Sandy Powell)
Bafta nominated A Single Man and An Education instead of Parnassus and Nine and I'm repeating my selection here.
Documentary (feature)
Burma VJ (Anders Østergaard and Lise Lense-Møller)
The Cove (nominees to be determined)
Food, Inc (Robert Kenner and Elise Pearlstein)
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers (Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith)
Which Way Home (Rebecca Cammisa)
It's the political award. No Michael Moore again this year, except ...
Documentary (short subject)
China's Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province (Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill)
The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner (Daniel Junge and Henry Ansbacher)
The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant (Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert)
Music by Prudence (Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett)
Rabbit à la Berlin (Bartek Konopka and Anna Wydra)
... that would be ironic.
Film editing
Avatar (Stephen Rivkin, John Refoua and James Cameron)
District 9 (Julian Clarke)
The Hurt Locker (Bob Murawski and Chris Innis)
Inglourious Basterds (Sally Menke)
Precious (Joe Klotz)
Avatar. See above.
Makeup
Il Divo (Aldo Signoretti and Vittorio Sodano)
The Young Victoria (Jon Henry Gordon and Jenny Shircore)
Star Trek (Barney Burman, Mindy Hall and Joel Harlow)
Star Trek! Ha! Though it's nice to see Il Divo nominated for something even if it's in the catagory least likely. Again I had Moon pegged for something here.
Music (original score)
Avatar (James Horner)
Fantastic Mr Fox (Alexandre Desplat)
Up (Michael Giacchino)
The Hurt Locker (Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders)
Sherlock Holmes (Hans Zimmer)
Avatar. I'm saying all of this but The Hurt Locker could sneak some. It just feels like an epic sweep kind of year.
Music (original song)
Almost There, from The Princess and the Frog by Randy Newman
Down in New Orleans, from The Princess and the Frog by Randy Newman
Loin de Paname, from Paris 36
Take it All, from Nine by Maury Yeston
The Weary Kind, from Crazy Heart by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett
Short film (animated)
French Roast
Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty
Logoramam
The Lady and the Reaper
A Matter of Loaf and Death
Because it would be perverse not to. 16 million watched this on television the other year. 16 million!
Short film (live action)
The Door
Instead of Abracadabra
Kavi
Miracle Fish
The New Tenants
I like the title.
Sound editing
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek
Up
Avatar.
Sound mixing
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Avatar. Please god not Transformers. Nice to see Star Trek at least doing well in the technical categories.
Visual effects
Avatar
District 9
Star Trek
Star Trek. No I'm kidding. Again, Moon is robbed here and I think it's about time the academy saw fit to split this category in two and recognise CG and physical effects as two separate entities.
Watching all of Woody Allen's films in order: What's New Pussycat? (1965)
Then I watched What’s New Pussycat for the first time this afternoon (at home, on dvd) which will be an almost unique occurrence as I gaze at all of Woody Allen’s films (so far) in order. After the Hitchcock project, I was keen to tackle a director whose work I’m already very familiar with but have largely not seen in its correct release schedule. The general perception is that Woody has lost his touch or at the very least the quality has oscillated and I’m keen to see to what extent that’s a new phenomena or whether every film is a classic up until the late 90s when its commonly suggested that his best work was done. Because I have seen most these films before, the format for this content will be a section like this one describing when I first had occasion then a short analysis. Usually that will be more anecdotal than this.
Now A noble failure, What’s New Pussycat is of most interest for the glimpses it offers of what’s to come. Woody would later use this as the reason he refused to be a writer for hire and for only directing his own material (something he kept to with the exception of the theatre adaptations) and you can see why. In places, the script crackles, and some of the bedroom farce between O’Toole and his various paramours throws forward to similar moments in Allen’s films with Diane Keaton. But there’s an ever present impression that the material is supposed to be lending itself to the zany directing style of Bananas, but Richard Donner is trying to wedge it into an upmarket British sex comedy format.
An explanation is offered up by the wikipedia:
"The film was planned to star Warren Beatty – the title was Beatty's way of answering the telephone. However Woody Allen, who had been hired by producer Charles K. Feldman to write the script, began relegating Beatty's character to a secondary role, increasing his own character at Beatty's expense. This led to tension between Beatty and the studio, especially as the screenplay Allen was delivering was considered funnier than the original idea. Eventually, Beatty was forced off his own project by the little-known Allen. Because of their feud, Allen and Beatty never worked together again. Coincidentally, both had long and significant relationships with the same woman, Diane Keaton, at different times."The best moments are those in which Woody himself is on-screen working the material; there’s a subtlety to his slapstick – he’s splendid during a tussle with a goliath over a volume of Shelley's poetry in a bookshop – in contrast to Peter Sellars’s mugging (his heart just doesn’t seem in it). Though Peter O’Toole brings an element of the broken leading man to his role, it’s the actresses who come out best, ironic considering the thinness of their roles. Apart from the strippers we have little or no idea how they contribute to society – with Paula Prentiss particularly perky as the suicidal Liz. But mostly this is a curio; at least it ends well with a go-cart chase which would have been the ideal choice if the film had ever been licensed as an 8-bit computer game.
But let's be honest, the best thing to come out of the film was Burt Bacharach's theme song:
miniblog archive
The Virtual Revolution.
TV The Virtual Revolution, the BBC’s new landmark series about the internet began tonight, introduced and authored by the newly Doctored and fabulously engaging Aleks Krotoski. The first film, The Great Levelling, offered an invigorating primer on the origins of the web and investigated its philosophical origins within the counter-cultural revolutions of the 60s and 70s and its initial attempts to democratise people giving them an equal voice across the network, before demonstrating how that has been eroded over time, by governments and more specifically big business. As a co-production with the Open University it treated the subject with a refreshing seriousness and balance. Often a contributor like Ariana Huffington or Bill Gates would be called upon to offer their experience before being demolished moments later by a naysayer.
Over the past few years I have become increasingly disappointed with the web. The reasons are too numerous and varied to list here, but it boils down to commercialisation and how the blogosphere has drifted into becoming little more than an echo chamber in which individual thought and a weblog as expression of the individual have been swept away to the point that most sites, amateur and professional, have become simple aggregators of links to other people’s content or in some cases the reproduction of that content. Spend much time on the web, and you find yourself reading the same story, even the same words, over and over and over again. Hundreds of clone sites parroting what if you were to trace back far enough could turn out to be a press release which at some point has taken flight and become “news”.
It’s something I’ve continuously fought against here; the new(ish) miniblog and its archive are as close as I will hopefully step towards that and the excessive sourcing of The Guardian. But I try to keep things within my “narrow” focus of interests and talk about life as much as anything else, even if sometimes that’s simply the devouring of content in the real world. To an extent, though I know the quality of this blog has wavered backwards and forwards, it’s sheer bloody mindedness that keeps me going, that and the statistic offered in The Virtual Revolution, that of all of the amateur blogs that were in play in 2002, 90% are no longer active.
The beauty of The Virtual Revolution was that as well as covering the more obvious elements of internet history, it left room for the forgotten subjects, it strove to do something different. Despite having studied the web at university between 1993 and 1996, not too long after Sir Tim flicked his switch, and when Lycos and Alta Vista were still the major players in web search, I was pleased to see there was something I hadn’t previously been aware of, The Well, an early prototype for the social networking sites which would come later. The Well users featured in ropey VHS footage describing their experiences within that system could eerily be applicable to users of Facebook and Twitter.*
It was comforting to know that even social networking is cyclical. Perhaps if I carry on with this for long enough far from being an old fuddy-duddy clinging to some old form of expression, I'll be at the vanguard of a second wave and that at some point in the future, another Dr. will show how people used to write "weblogs" which were the older equivalent of the new thing they're doing then. So though I’ve embraced twitter as a different form of expression (see the miniblog etc), I expect I’ll still be writing this blog for years to come. Or until Blogger, Wordpress and the rest are shut down and become a memory.
* Aleks didn’t make the direct connection, but the description of how The Grateful Dead’s John Perry Barlow made his presence in The Well known to the general populace and caused an influx of new users reminded me of the way Twitter entered the mainstream when the likes of Stephen Fry and Jonathan Ross spoke evangelically about it on (near) prime time television last year. There must be plenty of people who've joined because of the possibility they might be able to talk to one of their idols.
Over the past few years I have become increasingly disappointed with the web. The reasons are too numerous and varied to list here, but it boils down to commercialisation and how the blogosphere has drifted into becoming little more than an echo chamber in which individual thought and a weblog as expression of the individual have been swept away to the point that most sites, amateur and professional, have become simple aggregators of links to other people’s content or in some cases the reproduction of that content. Spend much time on the web, and you find yourself reading the same story, even the same words, over and over and over again. Hundreds of clone sites parroting what if you were to trace back far enough could turn out to be a press release which at some point has taken flight and become “news”.
It’s something I’ve continuously fought against here; the new(ish) miniblog and its archive are as close as I will hopefully step towards that and the excessive sourcing of The Guardian. But I try to keep things within my “narrow” focus of interests and talk about life as much as anything else, even if sometimes that’s simply the devouring of content in the real world. To an extent, though I know the quality of this blog has wavered backwards and forwards, it’s sheer bloody mindedness that keeps me going, that and the statistic offered in The Virtual Revolution, that of all of the amateur blogs that were in play in 2002, 90% are no longer active.
The beauty of The Virtual Revolution was that as well as covering the more obvious elements of internet history, it left room for the forgotten subjects, it strove to do something different. Despite having studied the web at university between 1993 and 1996, not too long after Sir Tim flicked his switch, and when Lycos and Alta Vista were still the major players in web search, I was pleased to see there was something I hadn’t previously been aware of, The Well, an early prototype for the social networking sites which would come later. The Well users featured in ropey VHS footage describing their experiences within that system could eerily be applicable to users of Facebook and Twitter.*
It was comforting to know that even social networking is cyclical. Perhaps if I carry on with this for long enough far from being an old fuddy-duddy clinging to some old form of expression, I'll be at the vanguard of a second wave and that at some point in the future, another Dr. will show how people used to write "weblogs" which were the older equivalent of the new thing they're doing then. So though I’ve embraced twitter as a different form of expression (see the miniblog etc), I expect I’ll still be writing this blog for years to come. Or until Blogger, Wordpress and the rest are shut down and become a memory.
* Aleks didn’t make the direct connection, but the description of how The Grateful Dead’s John Perry Barlow made his presence in The Well known to the general populace and caused an influx of new users reminded me of the way Twitter entered the mainstream when the likes of Stephen Fry and Jonathan Ross spoke evangelically about it on (near) prime time television last year. There must be plenty of people who've joined because of the possibility they might be able to talk to one of their idols.
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