Life Last night I attended/followed/nearly fell over during the Scyfi Love Liverpool pub crawl. Neil has the full story of the route. As usual I drank a single Corona (with lime) and contracted verbal diarrhoea. Luckily the accompanying video has a musical soundtrack ...
Flesh and Stone.
TV Unlike you might expect, as far as I remember, Doctor Who has never really scared me. I know this is a shocking admission to make in this august company, and especially considering the title of the blog, but never did I hide behind the sofa. I’ve been agitated certainly and not just by Graham Crowden’s performance in The Horns of Nimon. But generally I’m too busy enjoying the visual feast (depending on the era), my mind racing to take in all of the narrative twists and turns and in recent years trying to work out how I’m going to fill out six or so paragraphs afterwards to really jump with terror. I even blinked quite happily during Blink. Until Flesh and Stone which more than continued the quality of the first part if not surpassed it.
Amy During the scene in which the Doctor was staging the minimalist Knightmare homage with Amy in the Nightmare of Eden-like forest of the draft, so involved was I that as she tripped on the inevitable tree root I found myself clutching my chest. Staggeringly I did it again on second viewing even knowing that she’d soon be swept away by the teleporter; I giggled afterwards on both occasions, firstly because I couldn’t believe and secondly because I couldn’t believe I’d done it that second time. Five proper seasons in and nu-Who finally manages to create a physical reaction in me that wasn’t laughing (Partners in Crime), crying (Journey's End), swearing (Torchwood Season One) or puking (Huw Edwards).
Part of it must have been to do with my studded Amy Pond obsession; thanks to Karen's performance (a raw mix of the understated and unhinged) she’s firmly become the British ne plus ultra of the manic pixie dream girls (previous contenders include Diane from Trainspotting and Cassie from Skins), psychologically fractured in a way that entirely explains her episode closing nymphomania and also the Doctor’s, um, reticence but utterly adorable to the point that if you dress her like little red riding hood and put her in danger I’m at least going to jump. As Midnight demonstrated, Doctor Who worries best when it is about the simplest of gestures, when a main character is hemmed in, outside their comfort zone and terrified. Amy was rendered speechless here, her jibes lost and without the timelord to physically hold her hand only verbally offering some persuasion.
Another element has to be the first of Moffat’s proper (almost) on-screen deaths, in Father Octavian. Yes it is. Go and check. No one human has properly, hopelessly, bought it since everybody lived in The Empty Child. Moffat’s joked about it on commentaries. Typically it wasn’t as simple as a neck snap; instead Iain Glenn was called upon to offer both plot information and nobility and as with the rest of the story managed both with an understated dignity. As was rightly drawn out in Confidential, Matt’s performance was extraordinary here as his face suggested hope just as his eyes reflected despair. If Octavian could die, well, what could happen to Amy? All of these elements have to be what led up to me finally feeling Doctor Who in a way I haven’t before.
But it also probably helped that this new version of Doctor Who is so bloody unpredictable. That after a first episode which neatly set up an unusual base under siege type story, this second part, as is Moffat’s want, dumped the Aliens allusions and was suddenly invaded by the crack and an onslaught of continuity references stretching as far back as The Next Doctor. As some of us might have seen (or rather read) in Paul Magrs’s novel The Scarlett Empress with its Proppian references, the timelord is well aware that his adventures can have a certain pattern or structure to them but in Flesh and Stone even he seemed surprised and disorientated to find himself coping with parallel storytelling, on the one hand (with its forefinger swirling about) wrapping up the present adventure and on the other throwing forward to what we have to assume will be the series finale.
Where is this leading? We’re still no wiser about River Song; she’s apparently not who he thinks she is, but has killed someone who we’re to assume is the Doctor but like their proposed future marriage that may be misdirection. In trying to explain the apparent continuity error of the Doctor suddenly having his jacket back whilst questioning Amy about her memory, Wikia suggests this is some future version jumping back into his own time-stream on a detective hunt which sounds like a very Moffaty thing to do (with the possibility that some of the other inconsistencies groused about here there and everywhere aren’t errors but features). We know that Steven sent an episode of the series to Russell for a once over – is it because the timelord travels even further back?
Amid this random speculation, we do at least finally have some proper chronology for Amy thanks to date of her wedding -- 26/06/2010. Which means that The Eleventh Hour (two years earlier) happened in the roughly the same month as Last of the Timelords and assuming she’s twenty-one years old, little Amelia’s appearance in 1996 the year of The Chase’s gothic horror Festival of Ghana, the Eighth Doctor’s first comic strip adventure in Stockbridge, “End Game” and the contemporary scenes of Lawrence Miles’s megalithic novel Interference, The relevance of all this is probably non-existent in present context but with Moffat, at this point, anything is possible (especially with a copy of Miles's work sitting on his bookself). At this rate, I’m half expecting the Doctor to sit Amy down and say: “I had this friend once, Charley Pollard. She was a bit of an chronological anomaly too …”
Next week: Being Timelord
Amy During the scene in which the Doctor was staging the minimalist Knightmare homage with Amy in the Nightmare of Eden-like forest of the draft, so involved was I that as she tripped on the inevitable tree root I found myself clutching my chest. Staggeringly I did it again on second viewing even knowing that she’d soon be swept away by the teleporter; I giggled afterwards on both occasions, firstly because I couldn’t believe and secondly because I couldn’t believe I’d done it that second time. Five proper seasons in and nu-Who finally manages to create a physical reaction in me that wasn’t laughing (Partners in Crime), crying (Journey's End), swearing (Torchwood Season One) or puking (Huw Edwards).
Part of it must have been to do with my studded Amy Pond obsession; thanks to Karen's performance (a raw mix of the understated and unhinged) she’s firmly become the British ne plus ultra of the manic pixie dream girls (previous contenders include Diane from Trainspotting and Cassie from Skins), psychologically fractured in a way that entirely explains her episode closing nymphomania and also the Doctor’s, um, reticence but utterly adorable to the point that if you dress her like little red riding hood and put her in danger I’m at least going to jump. As Midnight demonstrated, Doctor Who worries best when it is about the simplest of gestures, when a main character is hemmed in, outside their comfort zone and terrified. Amy was rendered speechless here, her jibes lost and without the timelord to physically hold her hand only verbally offering some persuasion.
Another element has to be the first of Moffat’s proper (almost) on-screen deaths, in Father Octavian. Yes it is. Go and check. No one human has properly, hopelessly, bought it since everybody lived in The Empty Child. Moffat’s joked about it on commentaries. Typically it wasn’t as simple as a neck snap; instead Iain Glenn was called upon to offer both plot information and nobility and as with the rest of the story managed both with an understated dignity. As was rightly drawn out in Confidential, Matt’s performance was extraordinary here as his face suggested hope just as his eyes reflected despair. If Octavian could die, well, what could happen to Amy? All of these elements have to be what led up to me finally feeling Doctor Who in a way I haven’t before.
But it also probably helped that this new version of Doctor Who is so bloody unpredictable. That after a first episode which neatly set up an unusual base under siege type story, this second part, as is Moffat’s want, dumped the Aliens allusions and was suddenly invaded by the crack and an onslaught of continuity references stretching as far back as The Next Doctor. As some of us might have seen (or rather read) in Paul Magrs’s novel The Scarlett Empress with its Proppian references, the timelord is well aware that his adventures can have a certain pattern or structure to them but in Flesh and Stone even he seemed surprised and disorientated to find himself coping with parallel storytelling, on the one hand (with its forefinger swirling about) wrapping up the present adventure and on the other throwing forward to what we have to assume will be the series finale.
Where is this leading? We’re still no wiser about River Song; she’s apparently not who he thinks she is, but has killed someone who we’re to assume is the Doctor but like their proposed future marriage that may be misdirection. In trying to explain the apparent continuity error of the Doctor suddenly having his jacket back whilst questioning Amy about her memory, Wikia suggests this is some future version jumping back into his own time-stream on a detective hunt which sounds like a very Moffaty thing to do (with the possibility that some of the other inconsistencies groused about here there and everywhere aren’t errors but features). We know that Steven sent an episode of the series to Russell for a once over – is it because the timelord travels even further back?
Amid this random speculation, we do at least finally have some proper chronology for Amy thanks to date of her wedding -- 26/06/2010. Which means that The Eleventh Hour (two years earlier) happened in the roughly the same month as Last of the Timelords and assuming she’s twenty-one years old, little Amelia’s appearance in 1996 the year of The Chase’s gothic horror Festival of Ghana, the Eighth Doctor’s first comic strip adventure in Stockbridge, “End Game” and the contemporary scenes of Lawrence Miles’s megalithic novel Interference, The relevance of all this is probably non-existent in present context but with Moffat, at this point, anything is possible (especially with a copy of Miles's work sitting on his bookself). At this rate, I’m half expecting the Doctor to sit Amy down and say: “I had this friend once, Charley Pollard. She was a bit of an chronological anomaly too …”
Next week: Being Timelord
Watching all of Woody Allen's films in order: Melinda and Melinda (2004)
Then I first saw Melinda and Melinda at FACT Liverpool in May 2005. I’ve previously reviewed the film on this blog. Let’s read what I said: “I think what makes it a more watchable and probably accessible film is that it feels like a richer experience. The central conceit, of a story being told from a tragic or comic perspective from an initial stimulus is a discussion of the essence of drama. That discussion occurs throughout the film as the two stories echo each other, moments being mentioned or redescribed in differing configurations, with suicide played in the darkness and light in equal measure. It gives the piece a background bigger than the characters and their situations.”
Now When I was reviewing Hitchcock’s career, and reached his final film, Family Plot I registered disappointment that it wasn't a “summation” that it didn’t gather together his old motifs, underscore what he was trying to do with film. What I’d failed to notice was that he already had with North By Northwest with its wrong man plot, insignificant mcguffins and Cary Grant; everything after that was atypical. Rewatching Melinda and Melinda, his final New York film before visiting Europe, I have the same vibe; at the end of a five picture deal with Dreamworks, it’s almost as though he’d assumed he might not be making another film and so he’d decided to underline everything he’d done before, like a story arc reaching its emotional crescendo.
Which is why, as I noted in my contemporaneous review, everything seems so familiar – it’s deliberately so. I said I thought that tragic Melinda –- hereafter known as Melinda-T -- reminded me of Judy Davis (on reflection eerily so) – she’s being written that way. In that story, Chloe Sevigny is playing the Mia role with Johnny Lee Miller filling in for the likes of Gene Hackman or Sam Waterson. Comedy Melinda – hereafter known as Melinda-C -- is playing the Mia role in that story, with Will Ferrell as Woody, Amanda Peet as Diane Keaton and the role of the dentist would clearly have been picked up by Tony Roberts. Woody’s conjuring the ghosts of his past, but he’s a good enough scriptwriter to be able to evoke this without having to give too much direction.
But there are also structural and visual repetitions. As I noted the comedy/tragedy two-story aspect appears in countless of his films, some I realise now more subtly than others. It’s in both Hannah and Her Sisters and Husbands and Wives, though the levels are far closer and more subtle than in Crimes and Misdemeanours. Melinda and Melinda is the first to name and make them specific. Melinda-T even talks about the kind of premeditated murder perpetrated in Crimes. Melinda-C is lured out to the Hampton’s as happens in Annie Hall. I notice now that Woody has also had specific geographic locations in mind when doing comedy and drama as though it depends on which side of his little speck of New York you live on as to how you’re life is likely to unfold.
He also makes plain his tendency to use jazz for comedy, classical for drama even to the point up including the switcheroo over the opening and closing titles. And almost all of the music either on track or at least composer level has appeared in one of his previous films, with Duke Ellington as his signature composer. He even seems to homage When Harry Met Sally by employing Ellington’s version of Don’t Get Around Much Anymore which featured so prominently in Reiner’s film (with an added note that when that scene on the side walk happened I had a lump in my throat). Now it’s easy to suggest that this is simply Woody running out of ideas, going over old ground. But they’re too pronounced for them to be simple recycling or coincidence; even after the fumbling Hollywood Ending he’s clearly too engaged with the process for all of these decision not to be deliberate signs.
Though I’m following the US release dates (or wherever the film was first shown) in the title brackets for these posts, Melinda and Melinda was released in the UK in 2005. At the close of that year, Lovefilm had a poll of the worst films of the preceding twelve months. Viewers ranked it fifth. Here is the list:
1. Revolver
2. Alexander
3. Fantastic Four
4. Be Cool
5. Melinda and Melinda
6. Valiant
7. House of Wax
8. Bewitched
9. Herbie: Fully Loaded
10. The Dukes of Hazzard
Less rubbish than Fantastic Four, more rubbish than Paris Hilton in House of Wax? It recieved a few mixed reviews, certainly, but really? The advertising didn’t help, probably with Woody’s participation, the more austerely dramatic elements downplayed and Will Ferrell made prominent on the poster suggesting something akin to straight romantic comedy. Steve Carrell also appears in the film too as advice guy in the Melinda-C story which I seem to recall being highlighted a lot too. That’s why I never to pay too much attention to advertising – it manipulates your expectations and usually in the wrong way.
Music We'll talk some more about the new Spotify some other time, but for early adopters, my profile is at this link, and includes all the playlists which appeared on this blog last year (and are available from the tag below).
Politics The Guardian has backed the Liberal Democrats (finally - I predicted it weeks ago) and offer a beautifully even handed editorial explanation. Here is the penultimate paragraph, but if you have the time I urge you to ignore it and go and read the whole thing:
"The Liberal Democrats were green before the other parties and remain so. Their commitment to education is bred in the bone. So is their comfort with a European project which, for all its flaws, remains central to this country's destiny. They are willing to contemplate a British defence policy without Trident renewal. They were right about Iraq, the biggest foreign policy judgment call of the past half-century, when Labour and the Tories were both catastrophically and stupidly wrong. They have resisted the rush to the overmighty centralised state when others have not. At key moments, when tough issues of press freedom have been at stake, they have been the first to rally in support. Above all, they believe in and stand for full, not semi-skimmed, electoral reform. And they have had a revelatory campaign. Trapped in the arid, name-calling two-party politics of the House of Commons, Nick Clegg has seldom had the chance to shine. Released into the daylight of equal debate, he has given the other two parties the fright of their lives.
Watching all of Woody Allen's films in order: Anything Else (2003)
Then We’ve now reached the films which I’ve already reviewed on this blog. I visited Anything Else at screen 3 of Picturehouse at FACT on Wood Street on Wednesday August 18th 2004 and wrote about it here: “Yet again I find myself rush headlong against general critical opinion. Does it do anything absolutely new? No. Does it at times feel like Woody Allen by numbers? Yes. But it doesn't matter. I would much rather go to the cinema and see something with a script which is half literate with a good 10-15 belly laughs and god forbid actually makes me think than the usual crud which passes itself off as a smart twentysomething comedy. The magic this time is that despite what poster might being telling you, these aren't perfect characters. For once the director lets their mess of neurosis come into conflict and see what happens.”
Now My critical opinion of the film hasn’t changed since I first saw it an I’d urge you to look at my comments from way back when since it saves me regurgitating them here, with the added observation of how similar those four paragraphs are to these reaction pieces. Since then I’ve watched Neil Simon’s Barefoot In The Park and noticed the similarities, the manic pixie dream girl and the romantic straight arguing in a tiny New York apartment, the matriarchal visitation. Of course, that’s slightly less psychoanalytical (slightly?) and Jane Fonda easier to love and understand than Christina Ricci, but the comparison stands and underscores what I was suggesting, when I was writing about the eighties, that Allen and Simon are working in roughly the same genre.
Similarly since first viewing, my film school sensibilities mean that I pay closer attention to the details of production, most specifically the mis-en-scene; we’re in an interesting period were Woody is changing photographers for each film – after decades collaborating with a particular crew member. Darius Khondji’s an interesting choice. He originated in Paris eventually working with Jean-Pierre Jeunet on the likes of Delicatessen and City of Lost Children before moving to Hollywood and working with Fincher on Seven and Panic Room, and Bertolluci on Stealing Beauty one of my guilty pleasures. But all of these films have a different flavour and unlike Gordon Willis he becomes invisible with each director. I didn’t realise his range until I read his IMDb page.
Anything Else has a particularly theatrical look. Most of the scenes play out in just a few shots, but unlike some of the nineties films were the camera shifted about manically trying to take in all the action, the characters tend sit within shot or the camera pans with them slowly. Steady cam’s are generally from the front, car shots from the side. The general impression is of putting the cinema audience in the position of a theatre audience watching the actors play within the scenery in front of them. That’s especially underscored by the moments in which Biggs breaks out of the scenes (in much the same way as John Cusack in High Fidelity or Ian McShane in Lovejoy) blinks through the forth wall and addresses us. It’s another narrative device to fill in gaps in the time-frame, but also draws us in.
I think it’s these unusual touches which, and I can’t believe I’m typing this, made Anything Else one of Quentin Tarantino’s favourite films of the past roughly twenty years. Granted he’s also included Friday with Ice Cube but when you consider who he is and everything else he's selected, most of them fairly iconic, it's fairly incredible. Here is the list in video form as Quent auditions for the Film 2010 job:
He's right about Speed though I still think The Matrix holds up even with the bizarre mythology of the other two which improve immeasurably once you've heard the critics commentaries in the dvds. I’m digressing, but if any readers do happen to be interviewing Quentin at some point, I would be interested to know quite what it is that he loves about Anything Else ahead of the vast number of other films in the same genre which have been released in this time period.
I touched on the publicity in the first review, but looking again at the dvd box it is fairly disingenuous. Woody is listed in the cast and in the credits on the back and there is a photo of him on the inlay. But the main image of Ricci in a heart being carried by Biggs does suggest something rather more mainstream than what is there. As Roger Ebert says: “It's as if they have the treasure of a Woody Allen movie and they're trying to package it for the "American Pie" crowd.” It’s a much more complex than that. This playing down of the director’s participation would continue for the rest of the decade but it’s especially sad because in hindsight this is the last film (up until now) which would see Woody the actor philosophising on the streets of Manhattan and at his usual landmarks.
Familiarity
Politics Watching yesterday's events, one image struck me as being terribly familiar. Gordon Brown, head down, clutching his forehead:
Then I remembered ...
... a photograph of Nixon (source unknown) I employed as one of the title bars in the early days of the blog ...
Then I remembered ...
... a photograph of Nixon (source unknown) I employed as one of the title bars in the early days of the blog ...
Gaffs
Politics One of my favourite episodes of The West Wing is The US Poet Laureate. It's set during a presidential campaign and opens with President Bartlet giving short interviews to local tv stations. After one of the interviews, he's exchanging pleasantries with a newscaster and when we think he thinks the mike is off, he says of his opponent, the Bushalike Senator Ritchie, ". . . I think we might be talking about a .22 caliber mind in a .357 magnum world. . . ."
Cue scandal, recriminations, generally a bad week in the campaign with the administration's token Republican, Ainsley Hayes, appearing on as many talk shows as possible in order to try and spin the story back their direction, as Bartlet is confirmed as the elitist his opponents suggest he is. At the close of the episode, press secretary CJ, who's also spent her time cleaning up the mess, questions her President on what really happened:
Cue scandal, recriminations, generally a bad week in the campaign with the administration's token Republican, Ainsley Hayes, appearing on as many talk shows as possible in order to try and spin the story back their direction, as Bartlet is confirmed as the elitist his opponents suggest he is. At the close of the episode, press secretary CJ, who's also spent her time cleaning up the mess, questions her President on what really happened:
BARTLETIn other words, Bartlet made a deliberate gaff so that one of the subjects which wouldn't necessarily have entered the news cycle, entered the news cycle. If only politicians in the real world were this cunning.
C.J.?
She heads back towards him.
C.J.
Yes, sir?
BARTLET
I've been meaning to tell you, you've done really well this week with the open-mike thing.
C.J.
Thank you.
He slips on his glasses and looks up at her.
BARTLET
Didn't turn out too bad.
C.J.
No sir, it didn't turn out too bad at all. In fact, the whole country's talking about whether Ritchie's smart enough to be President. And you didn't take hit, 'cause it was an accident. You know, it occurs to me that even your choice of language was interesting. "A .22 caliber mind, in a .357 magnum world." That's unusual for you, a gun metaphor.
Bartlet doesn't look up, seeming to be engrossed in whatever he's reading.
C.J. [cont]
Toby mentioned to me that when each interview was over, all the interviewers wanted to talk to you about was Ritchie, and you took a pass each time. Until Philadelphia.
Now Bartlet slowly looks up at her.
C.J. [cont]
Mr. President, is it possible you saw that the green light was on?
He slips the glasses off and gives her an unreadable look.
ANNOUNCER [VO]
Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.
C.J. smiles.
C.J.
That was Old School.
He turns back to look at her.
C.J.
Go knock 'em dead.
Bartlet walks away from her towards the microphones as cameras flash. He reaches the bank of microphones, and nods to his audience.
Watching all of Woody Allen's films in order: Hollywood Ending (2002)
Then Hollywood Ending has notoriously gone unreleased in the UK even on dvd. I eventually found a region one copy at Vinyl Exchange in Manchester. It still has their sales sticker on it. £12. I’m guessing the first time I watched it was in 2003 since I’ve been annoyed about it on my blog a few times since.
Now After the revision of my appreciation of Curse of the Jade Scorpion, my hopes were high for Hollywood Ending – could it be that after the same number of years my appreciation of this film could have changed as well? Was this a hidden classic? Leonard Maltin seemed to think so according to the box were he’s quoted as saying “I laughed out loud … Woody Allen at his best.” The omission denoted by the ellipsis is important. Because as far as I can see all Maltin could possibly have said is “I laughed out loud at the ineptitude. This is not Woody Allen at his best.”
The problems are numerous. Many of them signalled by the trailer.
The self-refentialism, for example, is as horrifying as it is breathtaking. Woody plays a New York film director who apparently made a previous picture called Manhattan Magic who’s seen as being past his prime and trying to find his come back project. He likes to be left to his own devices and won’t let anyone see his work until it’s finished. Effectively, having built up the mystique of his films displaying a kind of mythic version of his biography, he’s trying to turn it to his advantage which somehow makes him look like a tired filmmaker running out of ideas.
The blindness. The idea of a director becoming blind on the edge of making a film isn’t horrible – it sounds like the stuff of a Bergman film in fact. Except that the audience has a suspension of disbelief disconnect because no one on the crew other than a few select people who are “in on the secret” seem to notice even though the man is looking in the wrong direction all of the time and is often confused. Anyone tuning into the film half way through would be asking themselves why the director is blind and no one is mentioning it.
But the nature of the blindness is incoherent also; Woody’s character also doesn’t appear to have any audio acuity, he can’t also seem to tell from which direction someone is talking often conducting conversations with blank air even if the someone is sitting right next to him. Early on, during a pitch meeting, he mentions that he’s going deaf in his left ear but to no degree does that explain why he would need someone to turn him in the right direction to face someone speaking to him in a clear voice.
Even though much of the film takes place on what purports to be a film set, none of it looks like a proper film set and even if Woody’s character wasn’t afflicted there’s not much chance that the final film wouldn’t come out looking cheap and incoherent. In other words, this doesn’t look like the $60 million project this film within a film purports to be. This isn’t often a problem – and indeed in Bullets Over Broadway, the play hardly looked realistic. But even if Woody is trying to make a Hollywood satire, the fakeness is distracting.
When characters watch the dailies, they all comment on the fact that none of them make any sense that there are weird angles as though this was caused by the director’s blindness. Except that a decent cinematographer, albeit a Chinese cinematographer working through a translator, would surely, at the very least, be able to point the camera in such a way as to make the shots match up and make sure that was the case. Again, admittedly, this is supposed to be a farce, but if the viewer is stressing about this kind of detail, something major has happened at large.
But perhaps most damning, Woody seems have lost the capacity to see what his film is about, what’s working. Because outside of the strange blindness scenes and weird film satire ("I want to congratulate Haley Joel Osment on his life achievement award") the relationship scenes, the moments between the director and his ex-wife and later his son are as beautifully played as anything in his previous work. Téa Leoni is just wonderful in those moments when she’s recalling her marriage and at best her interaction with Woody recalls Diane Keaton in Annie Hall. But none of that can hide the unfortunate fact that this is Woody's first self-directed stinker.
The film is way too long and I’m wondering what might have happened if in trimming the twenty minutes that should have gone (back to his usual 90 minute running time), he couldn’t have lost the bulk of the blindness scenes in order to drag the film back to what it really wants to be which is a relationship drama with moments of slapstick along the lines of Manhattan Murder Mystery. Then, when the film opened the 2002 Cannes Film Festival, he wouldn’t have necessarily been relying on the final joke about his films being better appreciated in Europe to get the audience on side.
Politics I've contributed to the second week of the MSN Voters Panel: "I'm under no illusions about this; and Clegg has to be careful not to build a sense of his own entitlement, that what the polls are saying is correct. Those polls are also saying that the electorate is in flux and it's not until people fill in their ballot papers that we'll find out if the country is on its way to real change, if only in terms of the electoral system."
miniblog archive
Watching all of Woody Allen's films in order: Sounds from a Town I Love (2001)
Then This short film was produced to be presented during The Concert for New York City, an event to benefit the victims of September 11th attacks. Predictably the wikipedia has a surprisingly detailed entry, including a set list though it fails to say where in the line-up the film appeared. At just three minutes long, it's well worth a look, especially since, even with this slender duration, it's still unmistakably a Woody Allen film:
Now Sounds from a Town I Love looks like the potential opening scenes of a feature, a way of introducing some of the characters. You could imagine that somewhere along the line we'd keep returning to the same actors until eventually we discover that Griffin Dunne, Michael Emerson and Tony Roberts are playing the ex-husbands of Bebe Neuwirth and that like Hal Salwen's prescient Denise Calls Up, the majority of the piece will be conducted on mobile phones to show how they have transformed relationships in the contemporary Big Apple.
Traversing what looks like most of Manhattan in just a couple of minutes, the look of the film flashes forward to Anything Else with its mix of steady tracking shots and steady-cam close-ups, though in a more guerilla style. This has to have been shot quickly. Woody has been lucky enough to enjoy fairly large budgets throughout his oscillating popularity, but perhaps what we see here is how he might approach film making if he was forced to do it much more cheaply, not that he'll be visiting Sundance any time soon.
Now Sounds from a Town I Love looks like the potential opening scenes of a feature, a way of introducing some of the characters. You could imagine that somewhere along the line we'd keep returning to the same actors until eventually we discover that Griffin Dunne, Michael Emerson and Tony Roberts are playing the ex-husbands of Bebe Neuwirth and that like Hal Salwen's prescient Denise Calls Up, the majority of the piece will be conducted on mobile phones to show how they have transformed relationships in the contemporary Big Apple.
Traversing what looks like most of Manhattan in just a couple of minutes, the look of the film flashes forward to Anything Else with its mix of steady tracking shots and steady-cam close-ups, though in a more guerilla style. This has to have been shot quickly. Woody has been lucky enough to enjoy fairly large budgets throughout his oscillating popularity, but perhaps what we see here is how he might approach film making if he was forced to do it much more cheaply, not that he'll be visiting Sundance any time soon.
Elsewhere I've posted a review of last night's Doctor Who. As I said there, I was watching the BBC One Wales version so thankfully didn't see the Norton invasion (this illustrative clip is also a spoiler if you haven't seen the episode obviously). Whoever runs the complaints department at the BBC is probably having a fairly busy weekend as a result.
The Time of Angels.
TV When the BBC often says “Viewers in Wales will get their own programme” I didn’t think it would ever apply to Doctor Who (with the exception of Torchwood). I gather that the English broadcast of The Time of Angels experienced its second ever Norton invasion with an animated version of the character (presumably the one from the tacky new ident) turning up to trail the series long advert for a musical during Matt’s final, amazing hero speech. Living in Liverpool where the Welsh Freeview signal has overwhelmed Winter Hill since the switch over for some reason I was able to enjoy the cliffhanger perfectly unfettered with the exception of the usual squeeze but Twitter is apoplectic as is Gallifrey Base as is anyone else who saw this common sense malfunction. As @charltonbrooker noted, “Why don't the BBC just wipe shit all over the screen during the final scene of Dr. Who next week?” Now back to my original opening paragraph, which is a bit of an abridgement, but has some useful circular logic and an only half decent joke at the end.
From the off The Time of Angels was something special, something cinematic, something you’d expect, to paraphrase, to be "too broad and deep for the small screen". From the misdirect of what looked like a man lost in time but it turned out in reverie through to the manic slipping between time zones leading to River and the Doctor meeting for the fnargth time we were presented with what might have been the most kinetic episode teaser in quite some time which challenged the viewer to keep up with the narrative in that way that only Moffat firing on all cylinders can. We’ve only just about grasped the idea of a museum hewn into an asteroid and the concept of the Doctor keeping score before we were whisked to that doomed ship, whatever Song’s story was, space and well we’re back were this synopsis began. This is confident, muscular storytelling, perfectly executed visually, of the kind that classics are built on whilst building on classics entirely justifying the return of Professor Bernice Summ… Doctor River Song.
The rest of this first parter was indeed, as Moffat suggests in Doctor Who Magazine, Aliens to Blink’s Alien following much the same quest discovery narrative with the Doctor in the Ripley role and are we to expect River as Carter Burke seeking to aid in weaponising the weeping angels? Of course, it’s retrofitted with Moffat’s fantasy features. The mission briefing is given by the dusty poetic rambling of an apparent madman printed in some old manuscript, the marines are clerics (perhaps a nod to the original concept for Alien 3 which was set in a monastery?), naturalistic catacombs instead of the decaying metal of LV-426’s harsh colony and Amy filling in for Bishop, I suppose, though like Kane in the first film, something is happening inside of her and with that amount of dust dropping from her lacrimal gland, some Optrex and an eye bath from Boots aren’t likely to save her. Like Aliens, it makes use of our familiarity with the monster, then adds a range of new terrors and abilities, to keep us guessing as to what else they might be capable of.
You could argue that it was the simplicity of the slow death which gave the angels their original menace and that piling on other random bedevilments lessens their impact (not least because as we watch Blink we'll be wondering why they weren't used then, why Sally Sparrow wasn't turned herself into a statue). But whilst this story too does have something to say about life and longevity, this time in the relationship between the Doctor and River, as a more straightforward thriller Moffat needed to make them a much more immediate and tangible threat. As well as (surprise!) varying their design, this reproductive method suggests something akin to the old Tenth Doctor novel The Stone Rose in which a mediocre Roman sculptor was gifted the abilities of Medusa through his hands; that Greek legend returns again here as a look in their eyes leads to much the same fate, albeit slower than in Clash of the Titans. Their new found ability to speak suggests the device employed by Moffat and Vashta Nerada though it's matter of fact appropriation of a squady/cleric is chilling.
Throughout the episode we’re reminded more than ever that it’s taking place in a much wider story, in a larger universe. Whereas in the previous few television series visits to other planets were rationed and always treated with some reverence, here we find a matter of fact approach to the ruins of Alfava Metraxis, archaeological aspects and the process of time travel and indeed, the Doctor and River. Perhaps surprising some, this is not their first meeting. Perhaps we’ll never be told that story. Perhaps Moffat’s ironic idea is that River’s first meeting with the Doctor is his last. Perhaps as is my suspicion there are far less meetings between the two of them and (sorry) that she’s some kind of confidence trickster and if the timelord had opened the diary after his first meeting with her he would have found hundreds of blank pages or a facsimile of the Journal of Impossible Things (“borrowed” from an archive) accounting for why she couldn’t tell that it was Tennant’s face that she gazed into during the picnic at Asgard given that she was supposed to have images of all their faces so that she could keep track.
I’ve already weirdly seen odd criticisms of Alex Kingston’s acting online and though it’s true she seemed to channelling Joan Collins in this opening few scenes but Kingston’s a good enough actress for me to think that it’s a feature rather than a malfunction. This is supposed to be a much younger woman than the version we’ve already met and she’s no doubt keen to delineate the two. There’s a casual ease with which she speaks to the Doctor and confidence trick or not this is the kind of larger than life character which lends itself a certain comic book portrayal. It’s a challenging role; we’re effectively watching a prequel wrapped in a sequel and though it’s not unknown for actors to be called upon to play younger versions of themselves (see the entire mad cast of Lost) it’s fairly unusual to do so in these circumstances with so much brain-jangling wibbly wobbly timey wimey...stuff.
The companion triangle was handled – well – though clearly Moffat had to steal himself from concentrating on the dialogue between the two Doctors and giving Karen something to do. Moffat being Moffat, he’s well aware of the how fans viewed the previous episodes, and in this celebratory death match between two of his previous best loved characters and monsters he effectively turns Pond into a sort of walking Gallifrey Base, voicing our ideas of who River Song is and how to beat a weeping angel. And so there she is pointing out the possible Audrey Niffenegger intertextuality (albeit without an on the nose namecheck) ribbing the Doctor about his future whoopee making and winking away at the onslaught from the simulated statuary. In an episode which relies so much on past glories, Amy fulfils the traditional companion role of being an exposition conduit for the casual viewer, but through the sparky dialogue and Karen’s perfectly pitched confident performance you simply don’t notice it until you have to sit down and put it into words and sentences like these.
Amazing considering that due to the vagaries of television production these were the first couple of episodes filmed; if the scenes on the beach are so familiar it’s because in still form, they were our first images of Matt and Amy and the new TARDIS and the spoiler of River’s return. How we commented on this Matt Smith bloke looked with his bow tie, his stance and hands evoking Troughton (a premonition born out by his love affair with Tomb of the Cybermen), the set-up screaming classic Who. If we didn’t know this, if every aspect of the production wasn’t under this scrutiny, we might imagine that over the past few weeks we’d been watching an actor developing into his role but in fact it was all here already fully formed, the humour, the petulance, the unpredictable line readings, the chemistry with Karen. When he re-greets River we see the implications in his eyes, it’s as though Tenth is still in there somewhere looking out and remembering her fate and knowing that for all the history of his future she has literally in her hand, he sees her final end each time he looks at her but mustn’t offer any spoilers.
The problem is, in the future, even when everyone has watched the blu-ray release a couple of dozen times, diddy Norton will be one of the reasons people remember this broadcast of the episode with is an utter tragedy because it was fairly bloody fantastic. I’ve tried to spend the past four hours and eight paragraphs not looking for some deeper meaning, because until the results of next week’s poll are in, sorry, we’ve seen next week’s episode (the election is getting to me) with all of its Moffatty twists and turns, as ever its impossible to really say what this story is about. Silence in the Library was good, but it was Forest in the Library which made it special and though it’s certainly true that across new aand classic Who if a story is rubbish to begin with its rare to see a massive increase in quality and vice versa, The Space Museum also starts well in a museum (obviously) and look what happened there. We fans don’t forget.
Just you remember that BBC presentation.
Next Week: Everybody must get stoned …
From the off The Time of Angels was something special, something cinematic, something you’d expect, to paraphrase, to be "too broad and deep for the small screen". From the misdirect of what looked like a man lost in time but it turned out in reverie through to the manic slipping between time zones leading to River and the Doctor meeting for the fnargth time we were presented with what might have been the most kinetic episode teaser in quite some time which challenged the viewer to keep up with the narrative in that way that only Moffat firing on all cylinders can. We’ve only just about grasped the idea of a museum hewn into an asteroid and the concept of the Doctor keeping score before we were whisked to that doomed ship, whatever Song’s story was, space and well we’re back were this synopsis began. This is confident, muscular storytelling, perfectly executed visually, of the kind that classics are built on whilst building on classics entirely justifying the return of Professor Bernice Summ… Doctor River Song.
The rest of this first parter was indeed, as Moffat suggests in Doctor Who Magazine, Aliens to Blink’s Alien following much the same quest discovery narrative with the Doctor in the Ripley role and are we to expect River as Carter Burke seeking to aid in weaponising the weeping angels? Of course, it’s retrofitted with Moffat’s fantasy features. The mission briefing is given by the dusty poetic rambling of an apparent madman printed in some old manuscript, the marines are clerics (perhaps a nod to the original concept for Alien 3 which was set in a monastery?), naturalistic catacombs instead of the decaying metal of LV-426’s harsh colony and Amy filling in for Bishop, I suppose, though like Kane in the first film, something is happening inside of her and with that amount of dust dropping from her lacrimal gland, some Optrex and an eye bath from Boots aren’t likely to save her. Like Aliens, it makes use of our familiarity with the monster, then adds a range of new terrors and abilities, to keep us guessing as to what else they might be capable of.
You could argue that it was the simplicity of the slow death which gave the angels their original menace and that piling on other random bedevilments lessens their impact (not least because as we watch Blink we'll be wondering why they weren't used then, why Sally Sparrow wasn't turned herself into a statue). But whilst this story too does have something to say about life and longevity, this time in the relationship between the Doctor and River, as a more straightforward thriller Moffat needed to make them a much more immediate and tangible threat. As well as (surprise!) varying their design, this reproductive method suggests something akin to the old Tenth Doctor novel The Stone Rose in which a mediocre Roman sculptor was gifted the abilities of Medusa through his hands; that Greek legend returns again here as a look in their eyes leads to much the same fate, albeit slower than in Clash of the Titans. Their new found ability to speak suggests the device employed by Moffat and Vashta Nerada though it's matter of fact appropriation of a squady/cleric is chilling.
Throughout the episode we’re reminded more than ever that it’s taking place in a much wider story, in a larger universe. Whereas in the previous few television series visits to other planets were rationed and always treated with some reverence, here we find a matter of fact approach to the ruins of Alfava Metraxis, archaeological aspects and the process of time travel and indeed, the Doctor and River. Perhaps surprising some, this is not their first meeting. Perhaps we’ll never be told that story. Perhaps Moffat’s ironic idea is that River’s first meeting with the Doctor is his last. Perhaps as is my suspicion there are far less meetings between the two of them and (sorry) that she’s some kind of confidence trickster and if the timelord had opened the diary after his first meeting with her he would have found hundreds of blank pages or a facsimile of the Journal of Impossible Things (“borrowed” from an archive) accounting for why she couldn’t tell that it was Tennant’s face that she gazed into during the picnic at Asgard given that she was supposed to have images of all their faces so that she could keep track.
I’ve already weirdly seen odd criticisms of Alex Kingston’s acting online and though it’s true she seemed to channelling Joan Collins in this opening few scenes but Kingston’s a good enough actress for me to think that it’s a feature rather than a malfunction. This is supposed to be a much younger woman than the version we’ve already met and she’s no doubt keen to delineate the two. There’s a casual ease with which she speaks to the Doctor and confidence trick or not this is the kind of larger than life character which lends itself a certain comic book portrayal. It’s a challenging role; we’re effectively watching a prequel wrapped in a sequel and though it’s not unknown for actors to be called upon to play younger versions of themselves (see the entire mad cast of Lost) it’s fairly unusual to do so in these circumstances with so much brain-jangling wibbly wobbly timey wimey...stuff.
The companion triangle was handled – well – though clearly Moffat had to steal himself from concentrating on the dialogue between the two Doctors and giving Karen something to do. Moffat being Moffat, he’s well aware of the how fans viewed the previous episodes, and in this celebratory death match between two of his previous best loved characters and monsters he effectively turns Pond into a sort of walking Gallifrey Base, voicing our ideas of who River Song is and how to beat a weeping angel. And so there she is pointing out the possible Audrey Niffenegger intertextuality (albeit without an on the nose namecheck) ribbing the Doctor about his future whoopee making and winking away at the onslaught from the simulated statuary. In an episode which relies so much on past glories, Amy fulfils the traditional companion role of being an exposition conduit for the casual viewer, but through the sparky dialogue and Karen’s perfectly pitched confident performance you simply don’t notice it until you have to sit down and put it into words and sentences like these.
Amazing considering that due to the vagaries of television production these were the first couple of episodes filmed; if the scenes on the beach are so familiar it’s because in still form, they were our first images of Matt and Amy and the new TARDIS and the spoiler of River’s return. How we commented on this Matt Smith bloke looked with his bow tie, his stance and hands evoking Troughton (a premonition born out by his love affair with Tomb of the Cybermen), the set-up screaming classic Who. If we didn’t know this, if every aspect of the production wasn’t under this scrutiny, we might imagine that over the past few weeks we’d been watching an actor developing into his role but in fact it was all here already fully formed, the humour, the petulance, the unpredictable line readings, the chemistry with Karen. When he re-greets River we see the implications in his eyes, it’s as though Tenth is still in there somewhere looking out and remembering her fate and knowing that for all the history of his future she has literally in her hand, he sees her final end each time he looks at her but mustn’t offer any spoilers.
The problem is, in the future, even when everyone has watched the blu-ray release a couple of dozen times, diddy Norton will be one of the reasons people remember this broadcast of the episode with is an utter tragedy because it was fairly bloody fantastic. I’ve tried to spend the past four hours and eight paragraphs not looking for some deeper meaning, because until the results of next week’s poll are in, sorry, we’ve seen next week’s episode (the election is getting to me) with all of its Moffatty twists and turns, as ever its impossible to really say what this story is about. Silence in the Library was good, but it was Forest in the Library which made it special and though it’s certainly true that across new aand classic Who if a story is rubbish to begin with its rare to see a massive increase in quality and vice versa, The Space Museum also starts well in a museum (obviously) and look what happened there. We fans don’t forget.
Just you remember that BBC presentation.
Next Week: Everybody must get stoned …
Politics The full transcript of Thursday's debate is online including Clegg's rousing closing speech which may have had more of an impact on the polls if Sky hadn't kept cutting away to the audience all of the way through (having given Cameron the luxury of a slow push-in) and the pollsters hadn't begun gathering their data in the middle:
What I have tried to do tonight is to show if we do things differently, we can be a force for good in the world. We can lead, we can shape the world around us, not complain about the world around us.Cue The West Wing music and CJ wiping back the tears.
We have talked about a number of things this evening. We've talked about Europe, Afghanistan, climate change, the Pope. We've talked about things closer to home as well, immigration, MPs' expenses, pensions.
I believe, on all those things, all those issues, we can act differently.
There's still some way to go before this election is decided, but I hope that whether you're going to vote in the next few days by post, or make up your mind in the ballot box on May 6th, you agree with me that something really exciting is beginning to happen.
People are beginning to believe, beginning to hope that we can do something different this time. Of course there are people who will try to block change, of course there are people who are spreading fear to stop the change you want.
I think they're wrong. I think if we do things differently, if we stand up for the values that have made our country great, then we can be proud again, proud of greater fairness here at home, and proud also, of standing up for the things we believe in, in the world.
We don't simply need to choose from the old choices of the past, we don't need to repeat the mistakes of the past. Don't let anyone tell you this time it
can't be different.
It can.
Watching all of Woody Allen's films in order: The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001)
Then Having missed it's tiny release at British cinemas, the first opportunity I had to buy a copy of the film was at the Virgin Megastore in Paris whilst I was visiting at 11pm at night for the novelty of shopping that late. But I’d vowed to pick something French so left with a copy of Gilles Mimouni’s brain twister L'Appartement instead (later remade/ruined in the US as Wicker Park). Then a UK dvd release wasn’t forthcoming, so the first time I saw the film was on a US edition ordered through Amazon I think, which was eventually replaced with an ex-rental from the ill-fated Choice Video shop on Smithdown Road next to Tesco.
Now Well, colour me surprised. On first viewing The Curse of the Jade Scorpion on the 22nd July 2004 (see here), I was bored and annoyed and that was the impression which stayed with me right through to writing my film review of the noughties, where I said, along with Hollywood Ending that I thought it looked “cheap and rushed” and that Woody’s “own on screen comic timing was very clearly faltering”. The director himself apparently thinks it's his worst film, that he let the rest of the cast down by playing the central figure himself and that he wanted to reshoot whole sections of it but couldn’t afford to because of the price of the sets.
This time about, and I don’t know if this is because I’m watching it in context, I’m in an unusually good mood because Doctor Who is back or if I’ve simply caught up with what it’s trying to achieve now that I’m in my mid-thirties, but I found it really very engaging indeed. It’s not a classic by any means and I do think there are problems with those sets which make the film more claustrophobic than it should, but it’s genuinely funny and charming in places and I gave out an audible giggle at the end. Film critic Mark Kermode has a six laugh test to see if comedies have succeeded and it certainly attracted that from me.
All of which is quite a surprise – I’d expected to go into this with the same tone as I did for Company Man – cruel and unusual and unusually cruel. The key to the film’s success is the central relationship between Woody, who is really starting to look his age but in fact hasn’t lost much of his timing, and Helen Hunt who I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for and has the capacity to make even a dud like What Women Want (shivers) half-watchable. Their dialogue crackles with the screwball comedies of the 1930s (rightly given the setting) and though not all the jokes stick ("A lot of women have passed through this apartment. I can't say they were all winners, but...") there are certainly more hits than most comedies.
The story is the stuff of old Hollywood noir thrillers, Allen works in an insurance assessors office which investigates stolen property and are called in to look at the work of a jewel thief. Hunt is an efficiency guru who’s been called in to see if his activities could be farmed out to alternative agencies. The twist and the element of comedy is introduced by the world of magic and hypnotism, a subject which recurs throughout Woody’s career from Radio Days through Oedipus Wrecks, Shadows and Fog and much later Scoop and which leads to Allen becoming the prime suspect of his own case.
There seemed to be three main criticisms of the film on release.
(1) That it’s not as original as some of Woody’s earlier works – and that’s true though to an extent he’s working within a particular genre and genre work by its nature is never original.
(b) That it’s not as thematically complex, though it’s clear that he’s making a featherweight comedy, and is perhaps conscious of not trying to ladle in the morality that ruined Small Time Crooks.
(iii) That he’s simply too old to be seen chasing after all of these young actresses particularly Charlize Theron, who’s young enough to be his grand daughter, that there’s something creepy about him writing a script in which she throws herself at him. Well, apart from the fact he comes across as complete jerk for much the time, he’s clearly playing below his age.
Having enjoyed Jade Scorpion, I now have higher hopes for Hollywood Ending. Perhaps it isn't the dud that I remember.
Plug!: Ben Lewis TV
Plug! You might remember the incisive and fun author-led documentaries from Ben Lewis which have appeared on BBC Four over the past few years and in particularly The Great Contemporary Art Bubble which carefully demonstrated how prices in the art market became inflated (with some emphasis on Damien Hirst) only to inevitably go in the opposite direction during the recession.
His publicist has been in touch to let me (and so us) know that Ben’s back catalogue is now available on dvd from his website benlewis.tv and that his concurrent series Art Safari will have a third series should funding be in place. Here is what the press release has to say:
His publicist has been in touch to let me (and so us) know that Ben’s back catalogue is now available on dvd from his website benlewis.tv and that his concurrent series Art Safari will have a third series should funding be in place. Here is what the press release has to say:
BLTV is a UK based production company, headed up by award-winning documentary film-maker, author and art critic Ben Lewis and producer Fiona O’Doherty. Our documentaries which include the Grierson Award winning “The King of Communism: the pomp and pageantry Nicolae Ceausescu”; “ Blowing Up Paradise” an environmental feature uncovering 40 years of French Nuclear Testing in the South Pacific, won audiences and Awards across 4 continents; “Hammer and Tickle: the Communist Joke Book” premiered at Tribeca and won Best Documentary at the Zurich Int Film Festival 2006. Bens’ latest film “ The Great Contemporary Art Bubble” is has been broadcast throughout Europe, having won Best International Documentary at the Foyle International Film Festival it continues to blaze a trail on the International festival circuit.
Ben is probably best known for the ground breaking contemporary arts series “Art Safari”. Art Safari broke the mould of Contemporary Arts Documentary when it was first launched in 2003. Co-Produced with BBC, ZDF, Arte, TV2, YLE and NPS, The original 4 x 28" Contemporary Art series presented by self confessed Art Geek Ben Lewis was an instant hit with viewers delivering quality profile documentary with a fresh, quirky and inquisitive approach.
Series 2 followed soon after, winning the prestigious Grimme Sonderpreis Kultur 2007 and the NY Festivals, World Bronze. Art Safari series has broadcast in over 24 countries worldwide and continues to sell in primary and secondary markets. The series DVD is stocked in Museums and Galleries including The Tate Modern, The Saatchi Gallery, The Serpentine Gallery (UK) The Pompidou, The Palais de Tokyo (France) , Palais des Beau Arts (Hungary) Stedelijk Museum, Museum Boijamans Van Beuningen (Netherlands), Noderna Museet, Stockholm (Sweden) The National Gallery, Hugh Lane Gallery (Ireland) Amos Anderson Art Museum (Finland) amongst others.
Art Safari is a quality brand. We are working to push the brand out with a new 8 x 30' series, which we hope to produce later this year. The new series will launch in conjunction with Artsafari.tv, a global Arts web portal.
Politics Having had a bit of a Sam Seaborn kind of a day in relation to smears and polls, I was pleased to have a West Wing moment in the back of the taxi home:
Me: Um, do mind if I ask you a question?
Driver: Yes?
Me: Who do you think you'll be voting for?
Driver: Well, I've always voted Labour before but I quite like the Liberal Democrats. That Nick Clegg talks a lot of sense.
Me: [grins]
And W. Snuffy Walden's music floats through the air as I look out of the window as the taxi dodges through the streets towards home.
It's all about tonight (ish).
Me: Um, do mind if I ask you a question?
Driver: Yes?
Me: Who do you think you'll be voting for?
Driver: Well, I've always voted Labour before but I quite like the Liberal Democrats. That Nick Clegg talks a lot of sense.
Me: [grins]
And W. Snuffy Walden's music floats through the air as I look out of the window as the taxi dodges through the streets towards home.
It's all about tonight (ish).
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