Liverpool Bus Hack.

Liverpool Life Lately for various reasons this past couple of years I've been getting the bus home from the Liverpool One bus station, the 80, the 80s, the 75,the 75a, the 76 and during rush hour such services, despite me only living at Sefton Park, because of rush hour and the process of getting through the traffic in the city, and collecting passengers at the various stops can take up to fifty minutes if I get on at 4pm.

Except this month and next, from the beginning of March to the end of April, due to gas maintenance work on Hanover Street, these buses are not at Liverpool One. They're picking up and dropping off at Great Charlotte Street. Coming into town this means I've been getting off at the old Lewis's building and walking down Raneleigh Street into Hanover Street and onwards to my destination, which I've quite enjoyed, especially being able to pass through WH Smiths at Central (underground) Station on the way.

Coming home, being an entirely lazy human and wanting to avoid the crush of Great Charlotte Street in rush hour and all the "hey, there's a queue here" moans which come with that bus stop, I decided to throw out convention and catch a 27 bus, the Sheil Road circular to close to home and walk from there instead. I assumed this would cock up the whole routine, making the process of coming home even more taxing.

Um, no. It's not worked out that way. In fact, I can't imagine why I didn't think of this before.

Catching the 27 cuts out the whole of the city centre. Travelling towards Parliament Street thence to Park Road to Princes Avenue takes about ten minutes, twenty minutes shorter than it takes to get through the city street on the edge of being engulfed by rush hour traffic. Then, being as I said inherently lazy and with a Day Rider or Saveway-type ticket, I've jumped off the 27 and onto a 75 which has taken me to my usual bus stop near home.

A home I've now getting to a full half hour less than I have for the past two years on those days. Like I said, I can't imagine getting a different bus from there now.

Some notes:

-- This can only work with these buses. Even when they return, this will not save you from the murder of the 86 or 86a. Unless you get the 27 to Princes Avenue swap to a 80 or 75 then swap again on Smithdown Road at the stop near the post office. This seems like it could be unnecessarily complicated, but I guess there are probably enough 86s on the roads that the wait times will still be shorter than the mess of getting out of the city centre on a busy day.

-- This happened on Monday:

I would have any clue who amongst the multitude I supposed to stand behind and who'd got there and when. Just him presumably. (2)
— Stuart Ian Burns (@feelinglistless) March 9, 2015

On Tuesday I missed the 27 (though they run about every five minutes) and this queue, which looks like a daily occurrence seems actually to have been for the X1, the Runcorn express bus which goes up the Dock Road to Aigburth Road and seems to be the way that people who'd usually get the 82 skip the city centre themselves. Quite how the gentleman expected me to know this, I'm not sure.

My Favourite Film of 2005.

Film The other key film during my film studies days was Don Roos's Happy Endings which was the reason I ended up writing a dissertation about hyperlink cinema. The original subject was metafiction in Woody Allen's films, notably Annie Hall, Deconstructing Harry and one other which I could never quite decide on, but after reading around on the topic I realised that very little had been written about the topic in film terms at that time which meant I'd spend most of my time reading literary criticism and I didn't want to do that. Luckily I happened to be reading Jason Kottke's blog one afternoon and noticed him writing about hyperlink cinema and the article's he linked to became the backbone of what I'd spend the rest of that summer writing and led to the ability to say that I actually wrote about Richard Curtis's Love Actually for my dissertation.  Actually.  The guts of what I wrote about that film is here and I had planned to write something just as long about why Happy Endings isn't rubbish, but having reviewed the chapter it turns out I wrote a lot more about what Curtis did than either Altman (in Short Cuts) or Roos presumably because there was a lot more to say about it but also because I sensed, I think, that Happy Endings isn't really a hyperlink film, but an ensemble piece more akin to Hannah and her Sisters or Parenthood with its familial connections and the like. Expect spoilers.

Narrative.

The narrative in Happy Endings is closer to the more straightforward structure presented in most ensemble films with just three stories running in parallel. Don Roos identifies his work as a comedy ‘but obviously gets deeper’ (Johnson, 2005) and is not tied to a familiar generic story pattern. Quart confers hyperlink cinema status on the film because of the complexity with which those stories are told: ‘Roos takes the baggy plotting of the Altman picaresque into web territory: in Happy Endings playing games with time and personal history are a given’ (Quart, 2005: 48). Roos’s motivation for using the form was similar to both Altman and Curtis: ‘There’s not one story line that has to deliver everything […] because you have several stories, the audience can be freshened up. They can feel different things as they go from story to story’ (Johnson, 2005). The film opens with Mamie running into the path of a car, flashing back to the moment when she and Charley conceived their son and the aftermath, then forwards again to the scene when Mamie meets Javier for what appears to be a regular meeting. From here the film unfolds fairly conventionally, with three forms of disruption occurring in the set-up – Nicky blackmails Mamie into helping him make a film so that he can get the information about her son, Charley begins to suspect that Max might be his partner Gil’s son and Otis introduced Jude to his life, his house and his father. The connections between the characters are obvious from then on because Roos was wary of trying the force the connections: ‘I don’t like it when they all kind of connect co-incidentally at the end. Like Crash (2005) they all connect to something and I prefer it when its casual’ (Roos el al., 2005).

Narrative density is increased however because of the employment of non-diegetic captions that interrupt the mise-en-scène, presenting information regarding the characters and story outside of exposition within dialogue. The first instance is after the Mamie’s shocking motor accident to explain to the audience that ‘She’s not dead. No one dies in this movie, not on-screen. It’s a comedy, sort of.’ These effectively introduce an extra level of subtext into each scene, with details that the spectator would not otherwise have been aware of, impacting upon their relationship to the action, potentially increasing their level of suture because the concentration of information being presented is greater than the standard shot/reverse shot. In his opening scene Nicky is introduced to the audience before Mamie enters the café, and the caption explains that ‘Nicky is 25, oldest of three kids. He has a gun which he is realizing he left in the car. He has to pee’, de-threatening the character and changing the tone of the ensuing scene outside of the diegetic space (one wonders for his example if some of Nicky’s desperation is as a result of body functional needs). The implications and meaning of these captions change on subsequent viewings – it is later revealed that Nicky is the adopted older brother of the boy that Mamie could not abort. Note that these captions only ever complement the action and never intrude on scenes presenting important verbal or visual narration – usually action will pause (as occurs with Nicky’s introduction) or be of a humdrum nature (Mamie’s arrival at the salon) – so that the attention of the audience is still directed in a linear fashion.

The captions eventually restructure the climax, because once the narrative reaches its apparent conclusion, Roos explains the fates of the characters, sometimes years or decades after the timeframe of the film. Unlike the ‘where are now section’ of National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978) or Friday Night Lights (2004), as Victor Morton identifies there are ‘enough changes in fortune (i.e. drama) to make a whole new movie. Compressed into three minutes. And then with a coda of its own’ (Morton, 2005). It could be inferred that this is partially the result of the editing process, since as with Love Actually the first assembly was three hours long and so the director needed to ‘cut a lot of scenes when it was done’ (Lee, 2005). Like Curtis but unlike Altman, Roos appears locked into a need to complete the narrative structure identified by Todorov, even if it means increasing the plot duration exponentially. The closing montage sequence includes a flash forwards ten years to show Mamie and Charlie meeting their son possibly completing both of their story arcs but in other cases the captions present exposition that reaches even further than that - it is explained that Otis ‘watches Ted and Charley’s dogs sometimes and never plays the drums again. But in 20 years he’s happier than anyone else here. But that’s another story.’ Indeed, this whole section also allows new key character relationships to be created and their ‘happy endings’ sometimes occur because of these chance or synchronous meetings, running counter to the normal expectations of hyperlink cinema that such incidents will motivate the central action.

Protagonists.

By producing Happy Endings as an ‘independent’ film, Roos is able to make two of these characters gay without their stories being about their sexuality: ‘It’s a rare studio movie that you can talk about the things I want to talk about. You can have gay characters in a studio movie, but it has to be about them being gay, or else they’re the sidekick. […] You can’t really talk about the love life of a gay man, like I did in The Opposite of Sex (1998)’ (Cavagna, 2005). Despite Alyssa Quart’s insistence that the characters exist without hierarchy (Quart, 2005: 51) each of the three stories has a main protagonist. These are clearly Mamie and Charley; and although Roos thinks of the third as being Jude’s tale -- ‘The girl meets the boy, she changes her mind, she attaches herself to the father, she blackmails the boy to keep silent, she finds out in the meantime she’s fallen in love with the father, she’s exposed, she has to give him up’ (Cavagna, 2005) – the narrative and mise-en-scene suggest this is Otis. Jude’s appearance creates the disruption in his life and it is only when he has left that the equilibrium returns; in the scene after the band rehearsal Otis’s nervy reactions appear in relative close-up as he leans against the counter and the reverse shot is over his shoulder and the spectator enjoys his long shot point of view as Jude riffles through the kitchen looking for food, with the camera in a later seduction scene angled in such a way that Otis’s reactions are prioritised over hers. In the main, Jude appears antagonist to Otis’s protagonist.

Conclusion.

See what I mean? Apart from odd lines noting how the architecture in the houses between the characters reflects their class and how Roos has a better idea of representing diversity in his film, although it's still with a secondary character.  The key element which gave Quart and others the impression that they were watching something akin to Short Cuts must be the on-screen captions but the rest of it simply isn't akin to Crash or indeed Love Actually in how the stories are told.  But it is still a remarkable film, because of those captions, because of the performances notably from Maggie Gyllenhaal whose character, a singer, contributes to one of my favourite film soundtracks.  It's on this blog's old Forgotten Films list and although I haven't seen it recently images are stuck in my head.  Images like:



Bibliography.

Cavagna, Carlo. 2005. Interview: Don Roos. In. AboutFilm. Available at: http://www.aboutfilm.com/features/happyendings/roos.htm. Accessed: 17th July 2006.

Johnson, Tonisha. 2005. Happy Endings: An Interview with Director Don Roos, Jesse Bradford and Jason Ritter. In. Black Film. Available at: http://www.blackfilm.com/20050715/features/happyendint2.shtml. Accessed: 17th July 2006.

Lee, Michael J. 2005. Don Roos. In. Radio Free Entertainment. Available at: http://movies.radiofree.com/interviews/happyend_don_roos.shtml. Accessed: 17th July 2006.

Morton, Victor. 2005. Tone Deaf: 'Happy Endings' Can't Get It Right. In. TheFactIs.org. Available at: http://www.thefactis.org/default.aspx?control=ArticleMaster&aid=1048. Accessed: 17th July 2006.

Quart, Alyssa. 2005. Networked. In. Film Comment. 41:4.

The Origins of Auteur Theory.

Film A short introduction from Filmmaker IQ. Worth looking at this piece on Bayhem and The Wes Anderson Collection for a discussion of this within a contemporary context.

"CSN without the Y"

Music On the occasion of the loss of filmmaker Albert Maysles, Diffuser looks at his work on concert films and more widely how there's a huge difference between a standard recording of a set and what's achieved when someone with a sense of narrative and wider context is involved. There are some interesting nuggets throughout, like this on Woodstock:

"Michael Wadleigh’s Woodstock documentary makes similar historical omissions for various reasons. Turning three days of peace, love and music into three hours of cinema mandates that some artists simply aren’t going to make the final cut. Additionally, technical issues seriously affected footage of some bands, and in a couple of cases artists didn’t want anything to do with the film.

"Neil Young stands as the most famous of the latter group. Crosby, Stills and Nash’s acoustic set remains a highlight of the movie, but their electric set with their fourth member is lost to the ages because Young refused to play with Wadleigh’s camera crew on stage, feeling that they were too invasive. As a result, the Woodstock mythology remains cemented as a wonderful night for CSN without the Y."

The BBC's Glasto coverage ever expands but even then some bands find themselves omitted because the BBC doesn't happen to be covering a given stage. Or as with Young, the band decides they don't want to available on iPlayer for the following month.

The Doors in New York City.

Photography From npr, the kind of story which doesn't work on the radio:

"Between November 1975 and September 1976, a man named Roy Colmer decided to photograph New York City's doors. Not all of New York City's doors. No doors in particular. And in no real particular order. But his aptly named Doors, NYC project amounted to more than 3,000 photos, which now live with the New York Public Library.

"If you're like me and want to obsessively look at every single one, the best way to do that is here. But then, I did that so you don't have to. Firstly, note the door on the bottom left. For every dozen-ish nondescript doors, you'll find a little treat — like a poster of a cat ..."

My favourite? The one which says boldly, "CLOGS OF COURSE" because of course, clogs.

What made me a feminist?

Life Why do I think the way I do?

This isn't the first time I've wondered this and since it's International Women's Day, I thought I'd attempt to trace through my memory to try and work out why I think the way I do about, well everything.

Have I always thought this way?

Quite honestly I don't know.

The only reason I'm asking is because there seem to be so many people who for some reason don't and I feel sorry for them and don't unlike them think they're entitled to have that opinion, not in 2015.

I do have some memories.

My first two best friends were girls, I think because their Mums were my Mum's best friends. I have photos of a birthday party at about the age of five, the three of us sitting around the birthday cake.

At primary school, I remember the story books and later on text books featuring the usual gender roles. Men went out to work. Mothers were housewives.

All my real friends were girls. I have vivid memories of sunny break times sitting in grass and making daisy chains when all the rest of the boys played football. I had friends who were boys but it wasn't same. I didn't like football.

That hasn't really changed. I find women much easier to talk to than men.  I still don't like football.

Except when I began secondary school, it was an all boys school and just as puberty hit, I lost the ability to talk to girls. I'd get nervous. Odd. All my friends were male for years.

Then girls arrived in the sixth form and they were utterly brilliant and thought so even though I couldn't speak to most of them.

There was also the moment at university at a hall formal, which was at a hotel, stuck on a toilet overhearing two blokes at the urinals outside referring to potential conquests as "the blonde one" and "the ginger" and wincing and wishing to god I'd never be anything like them.

I was also bullied a lot at school which has led to a dim view of any kind of oppression.  Gender, race, anything.

Is any of this really relevant? I don't know. Probably not.

But what I'm trying to say is that I can't remember the moment when I became a feminist or at least thought women should have the same rights as men. There's no one thing which made me "get it".

I've just always thought so and can't understand why anyone wouldn't.

Is this unusual? I don't know that either.

People just have the experiences they have I suppose. I was reading Woman Woman comics at an early age. Watched a lot of Star Trek: The Next Generation as a teenager and I expect a lot of my liberalism can be traced back to that. Reading Shakespeare's Measure for Measure and Chaucer and being shocked at the treatment of women in those by societies of the past. Listening to a lot of female singer songwriters dealing with their experiences through lyrics. Tending to identify with female protagonists in films more than men.  Reading The Guardian's Woman pages.

See what I mean?  It's all a bit woolly.

If anything it's become even more focused this past few years, thanks to social media, reading feminist writing, watching my way through this and the general sense of injustice but knowing full well I'm not the right gender to really understand what it's like to live within a patriarchal society, or as I've taken to calling it "the fucking patriarchy".

I have no answer.  So I'll just be pleased that I can see it and hope that someday everyone will.

So, well, Eurovision UK 2015. Yeah.

Music Tonight while I was watching a double bill of Ozon's Jeune & Jolie and the Melanie Lynsky starring divorcee indie Hello I Must Be Going both of which were telling similar stories in different ways, the BBC announced this year's UK entry for the Eurovision. Having tried viewers votes for the actual songs and artists, and then just the songs having chosen the artists, and then neither, we're now at point where they have some kind of open cattle call and some lyrics are given to some singers at the end. In other words, here you, cheer this on then. Here it is above. Some notes:

(1) It's really weak. I'm quite the fan of 20s & 30s revivalism especially when The Puppini Sisters and Christina Aguilera have tried it, but this doesn't take us much further than The Doop and Doop and that was 1994. Plus it's for the Eurovision in an anniversary year and we're witnessing a total loss of confidence. After fielding a half decent record last year which came 17th they've clearly decided to on the "fuck it let's just do novelty" strategy on the assumption we'll probably come mid-table again anyway but at least there'll be a solid reason for it other than Europe hates us.

(2)  The bullshit gender politics in the lyrics.  Especially from the second verse onwards.  See below.  It's all about the man telling the woman how to deport herself while he's not in her company and her submissively agreeing.  Which might have been acceptable writing a hundred years ago, but not now.  Not now at all.

Him:
"Some younger guys, with roving eyes, may tantalise you with their lies, you must be wise and realise, leave well alone 'til you get home, dear."
Her:
"Won't see other fellas, won't make you jealous, no need to fear when you're not here, I'm still in love with you."

Him:
"Don't walk on the red light, don't stay out at midnight, don't get in a fist fight, that pretty face can't be replaced."
Her:
"Won't be out at night hon, it wouldn't be right hon, no need to fear when you're not here, I'm still in love with you."

Her:
"Don't make a fuss you have to trust, this is how it always must be, when I stop to think of us, I can assure you, I adore you."
Him:
"God you're so gorgeous, no need to be cautious, take good care when I'm not there, I'm still in love with you."

Him:
"You have a fun time, soak up that sunshine, but don't drink too much wine, just one or two will have to do."
Her:
"I know what you're thinking, so won't be drinking, no need to fear, when I'm not here, I'm still in love with you."

I'm willing to admit the odd word may have been poorly transcribed - I'm not sure in particular about that final line - but on the whole I don't understand any of this anyway.  Unless she's simply telling him that and just doing what she sweet wants anyway?  I hope so.  Not that you can tell from the performance.  If I'm off base on this do tell me.  It's not Doctor Who's The Caretaker, but it feels pretty close.  Minus points to for the official BBC press release not including the lyrics which are supposed to be half the point.

(3)  The music is a confused mish-mash.  Perhaps having sensed that previous performers from other countries have run aground when actually just keeping within genre they've decided to lather this thing in ill fitting electronica and country riffs which simply confuse the whole business.

(4)  Here are the biographies of the writers:

David Mindel has had a successful career in song-writing, working with the likes of Olivia-Newton John, Barry Manilow, The Shadows, John Travolta, Mud and Musical Youth to name but a few.

Following a successful song writing career, David embarked on a new chapter - writing and recording some four thousand TV and radio commercials, including penning the themes for BBC One’s National Lottery and Euromillions TV shows.

Adrian Bax White is a classically trained multi-instrumentalist whose eclectic music career has spanned pop to fusion jazz with everything in between. Adrian has worked with a multitude of singers from multi Grammy award-winners such as John McLaughlin and Narada Michael Walden to underground indies such as Blue Orchids and acid jazz godfather Lonnie Liston Smith.

Mindel's IMDb expands on some of the other tracks he's worked on:  Bob's Weekend, Coogan's Run, Challenge Anneka, The District Nurse, Real Life, The Hot Shoe Show, I Get Your Act Together, Rory Bremner, Who Else?, Harty, Food and Drink and Jim'll Fix It.  Some of which I used to love.

(5)  In a world where Taylor Swift's 1989 exists, where even I'll admit, glancing at the UK top 40 demonstrates there's some really interesting, ballsy pop music in production, the BBC and whoever have seen fit to choose this which says nothing about the British music industry or the state of the art.  Once again we're treating Eurovision and a "fun party" and "nothing to serious" and "a joke" when it could be a celebration of who we are and what our music industry is.  Which I know we already do across the world with the "real" music, but wouldn't it have been amazing if Scott Mills had introduced something tonight and our reaction would have been the collective awe of hearing "Shake It Off" or "Let It Go" or "Happy" or "Fireworks" or whatever Beyonce's doing this week, something with a push and a donk on it instead of hearing this and trying to rationalise which judging by the social media even people who're generally supportive are doing?

(6)  I just don't like it, ok?  Sigh.

Shakespeare at the BBC: As You Like It on Radio 3

Radio In case you hadn't noticed due to the lack of posts, I've been a bit ill this week with the cold/manflu thing which has been going around. After not knowing what do to do with myself it's actually left me with cold sores, or as is the case now scabs, around the mouth and lips which makes it incredibly difficult to talk, or smile, or eat or do anything which a mouth and lips are meant to without some pain. Though it is getting easier and I have some antibiotics from The Doctor. Sorry, a Doctor.

All of which explains why I entirely failed to notice that the Drama on Radio 3 last week was a new production of As You Like It:

"A new production of Shakespeare's most joyous comedy with an all star cast and music composed by actor and singer Johnny Flynn of acclaimed folk rock band Johnny Flynn and The Sussex Wit.

Lust, love, cross dressing and mistaken identity are the order of the day as Rosalind flees her uncle's court and finds refuge in the Forest of Arden. There she finds poems pinned to trees proclaiming the young Orlando's love for her. Mayhem and merriment ensue as Rosalind wittily embarks upon educating Orlando in the ways of women.

With an introduction by Pippa Nixon who played Rosalind to great acclaim at the RSC and now reprises her role as Shakespeare's greatest heroine."

It's available to listen to here for the next few weeks.

You can also download it here.

[Not the streaming page says its only an hour and a half, but it is actually 2h 15m or so the cuts will presumably be pretty standard. I won't know until I can listen and I won't be doing that until I can smile properly.]

Tumblr.

About During the week, Tumblr emailed to remind me that I set up one of those eight years when it was still in beta testing.

Across time it's generally been a place to collect together content from various places and I've decided (now that If This Then That is intermingling the APIs) to try something similar again.

Here it is.

At present it's posts from this blog, links from Twitter and flickr images. This will hopefully be the first post if everything is working properly.  I know some of you prefer it over there (or here if you're reading this on Tumblr) so here we are.  Hope you like the choice of title bar.

Not that I actually understand Tumblr in the same way that I didn't understand LiveJournal back in the day.  Did you know LiveJournal's still going?

My Favourite Film of 2006.

Film For much of 2006, I was at Manchester University enjoying my MA in Screen Studies. The extent to which this was a useful thing in career terms, I'm still trying to decide for reasons which I won't write about here but since it was the moment when I was knee deep in celluloid (or dvds and VHS tape for "viewing lists" as was the mode before Netflix though to be fair probably still is since much of the film canon isn't on Netflix) (unless you agree that Netflix is the canon) it feels like I should be choosing a film for this year which somehow captures the experience of being at university doing that course.

Russian Dolls is the second film in Cedric Klapisch's Xavier series, sequel to L'Auberge Espagnole, sequeled itself with last year's Chinese Puzzle, with its globe trotting protagonist played by Romain Durais becoming romantically involved with his former flatmate Wendy (Kelly Reilly) and investigates Europe's relationship with Russia via the relationship between Wendy's brother played by that Kevin Bishop and a ballerina (played by actual ballerina Evgenia Obraztsova).  As I said in my original review, the title is a metaphor for how Xavier must experience a number of relationships before he reaches the one which will be most important, a process which arguably continued into the third film.

The film is emblematic as the kind of film which I might not have watched before my noughties film education.  While its true that I discovered international cinema as an undergraduate, it's not until the mid-noughties that I really began to discover continental film history with L'Auberge Espagnole  and Bertolucci's The Dreamers as the spark and it's only through film studies that I could really understand what Klapisch's film was trying to do beyond the sex comedy it could too easily be interpreted as being.  One of the most important things my French cinema teacher said was that we should often look at the elements of film as total constructs and representations rather simple entertainment.

When I sat with a college friend in the tiny screen three at the Cornerhouse in Manchester to see Russian Dolls, all of liberal arts learning, so much forgotten now, was buzzing around my mind, but despite that I still sobbed unashamedly for Wendy on the platform and yet because if it, I think, I forgave Xavier for some of his choices because I could see they were representative of a kind of attitude, part of the director's approach to creating a flawed protagonist (who again arguably doesn't redeem himself until Chinese Puzzle).  That's the dual mindspace the best films can conjure, when the heart and head are both nourished.

I always wonder what happened to my companion for that screening.  We'd met during those French cinema seminars, about gender and sexuality (she was on a different course which shared that module) and we'd chatted afterwards in the cafe afterwards each week over lunch.  We were never really friends, friends, just acquaintances and I don't even remember how it was we came to go to see Russian Dolls together.  But it was also towards the end of the teaching year and I think it was also the last time we saw each other.  If by some remote chance she's reading this it would be nice to get back in touch to update each other.  Though the chances are remote, I'd like to know what she thought of Chinese Puzzle.

Would You Like To Play A Game?

Games Find above Nature journal's own mini-documentary about DeepMind's proficiency in playing computer games (here a link to the paper). The story has been all over the intelligent media this past couple of days. Here's a version from The New Yorker:

"Deep neural networks rely on layers of connections, known as nodes, to filter raw sensory data into meaningful patterns, just as neurons do in the brain. Apple’s Siri uses such a network to decipher speech, sorting sounds into recognizable chunks before drawing on contextual clues and past experiences to guess at how best to group them into words. Siri’s deductive powers improve (or ought to) every time you speak to her or correct her mistakes. The same technique can be applied to decoding images. To a computer with no preëxisting knowledge of brick walls or kung fu, the pixel data that it receives from an Atari game is meaningless. Rather than staring uncomprehendingly at the noise, however, a program like DeepMind’s will start analyzing those pixels—sorting them by color, finding edges and patterns, and gradually developing an ability to recognize complex shapes and the ways in which they fit together."

The best news is that the programme's not very good at Pac-Man because it's rubbish at forward planning. So far.

Guardians of the IMAX.

Film Back in the olden days, one of my monthly treats was the dvd release of classic Doctor Who, that one thing I'd have to look forward to. These ended at about this time last year and until whatever in the hell's going on with the #omnirumour is resolved, assuming dvds are still a thing, they're not likely to begin again. The one remaining story with extant episodes, The Underwater Menace has also apparently been pulled from release this year. Click here for the inevitable campaign.

Looking for something to replace this lack, I've begun buying MARVEL films on blu-ray on a monthly basis.  Iron Man 3 in January.  Thor: The Dark World in February and for March, although I jumped the gun because I saw a cheap copy in CEX this morning, Guardians of the Galaxy.  Since the Who releases were never in broadcast order, I decided this homage to that schedule was allowed.  Captain America: The Winter Soldier can wait until April.

Either way, I watched Guardians again this evening and despite the lack of the shock of the new, as expected it's still brilliant and all those people who say it isn't are entirely incorrect.  New readers can look here for a long rambly post describing my appreciation for the thing and its implications for the film industry.  I still think it's game changing.  I still think it was the most important film of last year in industry terms.

All of which is preamble to introducing one of the oddities about the blu-ray release in its 3D edition.  In the 3D edition there are two discs, which is surprisingly rare, one for 3D and one for 2D.  Most of the other 3D films I have include both versions on the same disc, so it's curious that this doesn't.  But owning a 3D set-up I ventured forth.  Began watching and beyond the opening sequences, there's a ratio change from 2.40 to filling the screen.

But the 3D is horrible.  Smushy and difficult to watch, which is sometimes the case with my room set-up and eyesight.  I assume it must look better for others, but not for me, so I decided to try the 2D version instead.  So I swap discs, FF through to the point I was at and there is no ratio change.  The 2D edition of this film is a different version of the film to the 3D version, my guess is because the 3D disc contains the IMAX version.

Quandary.  I'd quite like to watch this IMAX version with its extra screen information in 2D please.  It's not supplied.  What to do?  What to do?  

Turns out I can turn the 3D off on the television.  The television will let me watch 3D films in 2D.  How curious, how strange, but in this instance how useful.  So I did.

Two things:

(1)  Why would MARVEL not supply the IMAX version of Guardians as per the Nolan Batman films, Tron Legacy and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire in 2D anyway, perhaps by offering the choice on the 3D disc without having to mess about with the television?

(2)  Are all the MARVEL films like this?  Have I missed out on IMAX versions of Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World by only buy the 2D versions of those?  Do you own these?  Can you say?

Either way, the sci-fi vistas of James Gunn's film look utterly gorgeous across my giant flatscreen and if you've not seen this IMAX version yet it's well worth the hokus-pokery.

Here's James Gunn and the cast talking about this IMAX version in promos from YouTube that contains precisely no footage from the IMAX version:

With Charley Pollard: Series One.

Audio  Here we are then, after all the preamble, with the real opening chapter of the Eighth Doctor audios, albeit with some new retrospective additions.  Half way through the first I realised I first heard these when I was in my twenties.  I'm forty years old.  In chronological terms, there's now a longer period between the original publication of Storm Warning and now than between the TV movie and Rose.  Actually thinking on, the revival has now been on-air longer than that gap too, which is irrelevant to this cause but jiggers, makes me feel old.  But I was only twelve when the classic series finished which makes me younger than some.  Sorry.  Up until this point, my purchasing of the Big Finish audios had been pretty sporadic and remained so.  The Eighth Doctor audios are the only complete run I stuck with which meant that these initial series had the genuine feeling of being in seasons with a long gap in between, and even longer beyond Neverland.  If they seem so familiar listening to them again now, it's because I had them on repeat in the months between seasons.

Storm Warning

At the risk of pitching over old ground, but what I failed to notice while writing my tribute to Alan Barnes's story back in 2013, in the opening ten minutes or so the Doctor isn't talking to himself, he's talking to us, which of course he is, but its in such a way that we effectively become his companions, we become the viewpoint characters. In reintroducing this incarnation to the audience, Barnes makes our process of switching on a cd player (as it was back then) a real world equivalent of Ian and Barbara blundering into a junkyard, Rose into a department store basement or Christmas Clara up a spiral staircase, of entering his world. But what's really interesting is when Charley's introduced later, that doesn't change. He has someone to talk to, but towards the end, when he realises how he's potentially affected time, we're listening to him soliloquise, regarding is new companion from afar, confiding in us as to what he may have done. Sound familiar?

The Sword of Orion

Cybermen! Primarily of interest here is how little it resembles the new Who approach to second stories for companions in that Charley's pretty much TARDISed in already. The visit to the market at the start of the play could be seen as a forerunner to The Rings of Arkanoid, perhaps, but Pollard's already pretty much accepted the concept of time travel and the blue box and all of that business. The closest parallel is Peri in The Caves of Androzani who in the opening scenes already seemed like she'd been travelling with the Doctor for months (and as Big Finish later revealed ...) Also contains one of the scariest moments in Who history as three of the main characters enter a conversion chamber and nothing good comes from it. I've always been intrigued as to how much of the script and story changed from the AudioVisuals version to accommodate McGann. Incidentally, some soul has animated the first few scenes and uploaded the results to YouTube.

The Light at the End

Dropped into this slot by a number of online continuities, thanks to Charley's repeated mention of the R101, apart from the lack of reference for poor Ramsey the Vortisaur, it fits perfectly especially since Eighth is treated as the "present" incarnation and the lead in figure in much the same way as Third, Fifth and Eleventh do elsewhere.  Though it's worth noting that the story generally foregrounds Fifth, Sixth and Seventh, perhaps in order to create some balance due to their lack of major televisual participation during the Fiftieth.  Of the Eighth material, I'm not entirely sure about him sodding off when Charley's in distress but it's not entirely out of character based on what we've heard up until now.  If you haven't it's also probably worth listening to for the world's best Russell Tovey impression by John Dorney as Bob Dovie.  I must confess, having entirely attempted to stay spoiler free on first time of listening, I actually thought it was Russell Tovey.

The Stones of Venice

Which is about as conventional as Paul Magrs gets, which is saying something given that it's about Venice falling to the sea, coaxed along by fish people, so a homage to The Underwater Menace I suppose.  If this first series is about box ticking and the Eighth Doctor, then this is the one with Michael Sheard.  To this day, I'm not sure what I make of it.  On the one hand it's hilariously theatrical in language and performance and you can see its original origins as a Fourth Doctor tale bubbling across the surface but the four episode structure does it no favours in terms of drawing out the action and as with all of these original stories the Doctor's rather dragged along by events rather than motivating them.  But McGann and Fisher are clearly having a ball, their chemistry crystallizing with each word.

Minuet in Hell

Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart! Fly meet ointment. As his Datacore entry shows the post-classic series timeline for the Brig is all over the place, having him either live until at least 2050 thanks to his own regeneration in the New Adventures or dying in time for Kate Stewart to talk about him the past tense.  The audios have never quite managed to work out how they work in relation to the books.  On the one hand, at time of production, the Sam mentioned here was supposed to be Sam Jones (later retconned to be Samson) but makes a nonsense of The Dying Days which was also the Brig's first encounter with Eighth.  Either way, I always find Minuet in Hell desperately difficult to get through, overlong and unfunny as it is in places, only really snapping into place when the Doctor's memory returns (and how often is that the case with this incarnation?).  His and the Brig's final conversation is incredibly poignant.

Destiny of the Doctor: Enemy Aliens

Bloomin' marvellous.  The Eighth Doctor entry in AudioGo's contribution to the 50th anniversary this was the unexpected pleasure which brought Charley as close to canonicity as we thought she could ever be until McGann said her name on actual television (albeit on the red button).  A Buchan pastiche of all things, as I said at the time, you can hear India remembering how to play the character after a few years out as it goes along, slipping from simply reading the text to acting it about ten minutes in, with her scenes with Michael Maloney's mysterious helper Hilary offering some brand new audio drama.  Writer Alan Barnes is in his element, inventing a missing adventure which occurs just before this in the same time period which sounds like the kind of messy, overfl but thrilling story which might have turned up in the novels.  One of the highlights of these stories was hearing the given reader offer us their Matt Smith impression and this doesn't disappoint on that score either.

My Favourite Film of 2007

Film Watching Danny Boyle's Sunshine was an odd experience because unlike my latter spoilerphobic ways, I'd been following the production of the film through the blog on the official website written by Gia Milinovich. Here she is sneaking onto the airlock set early in filming.  Produced at a time when blogs were still in their imperious stage, just before more Facebook, Twitter and other social media came along and burnt it all down (where this is posted surely but smouldering embers), it struck a balance between teasing story elements, investigating the science (including videoed talks with her husband Dr Brian Cox who was the science advisor on the film) and glimpses of the production.  It's all here and here.  Gia offers some general memories about the experience here.

What was odd was that even after all of that reading, sitting in front of the giant screen at, I think, Picturehouse at FACT Screen Two, everything fell away.  Much like Soderbergh's remake of Solaris a few years before and Gravity a few years later, once the luminous, awe inspiring mass of the celestial body filled the screen, I entirely forgot that I was watching a fictional construct (almost), my suspension of disbelief fully engaged.  That's usually how I know I'm enjoying a film.  My liberal arts knowledge about genre and editing and narrative and stars and all of that, my critical stance, disappear (usually - sometimes I'll grow to love film because of those things, that it knows that I know and so does something amazing because of that).

None of which stopped me from writing a review of this film for this blog in which I singled out Chris Evans as a "mega star in waiting" but as I noticed there hadn't been many films in that period about "giant ships flying through deep space on the big screen without a Jedi or Vulcan piloting them" (last year MARVEL produced huge blockbusters so I was already predicting the success of the MCU a year before the release of Iron Man).  It is a film which has grown in stature across time and along with Moon and the afformened Solaris and Gravity demonstrate that intelligent, or at the very least meditative science fiction is still being made (I'd also add The Last Days on Mars but no one saw that).  Certainly there aren't many films of this ilk which could provide enough material for an hour long discussion like this:



My dvd copy of Sunshine was bought at the old Zavvi shop at Liverpool One just before it transmuted into Head then closed anyway.  Watching it again that evening on a smaller screen (well small than cinema) did little to diminish its power and indeed increased it as often happens when you know the fate of characters, the mundane moments before disaster strikes given extra poignancy because you now have knowledge about their lives that isn't available to you with your unpredictable future.  Ignoring the disaster element of that sentence, that's also why production blogs like Gia's are still compelling.  After having seen the film, it's a way of looking back to a time when outcomes were uncertain, when we didn't know what the results would be.  I wonder what Gia thinks about her blog now.

#potterwatch

Idea stolen from @feelinglistless pic.twitter.com/1NxfxhoEaL
— Simon C (@CastleQuirm) February 23, 2015

Film The people who follow me on the social media that wasn't hip in the early noughties will have noticed that for the best part of a week I've been watching my way through the Harry Potter films for the first time since they were released. Potter's been a fair weather friend to this blog, me never having been that much of a fan. Should you care to glance through this search you'll find the odd review, links to some news items, awards predictions and the odd bit of commentary, notably from back in 2010 when regular reader Annette asked for my opinion of it during the end of year Review in 2010.  She'll be displeased to know (judging by the comment) that I still haven't read the books.  I don't read much fiction especially if I know it's going to be turned into a film.  But that's a discussion for another time.

Emma Watson's the best of the young actors too. Just look at this withered stare. Shivers. #potterwatch pic.twitter.com/NzpNFfSIEh

— Stuart Ian Burns (@feelinglistless) February 12, 2015

There's isn't anything in this piece I don't still agree with and having forgotten most of what I'd written there, because I forget most of anything I write here, there's some analysis in there which I thought again this time around as though it was all new, especially about the screenplays and narrative and how unlike typical Hollywood screenplays but like art house films, they're not especially goal orientated in the traditional sense, the screenplays (mainly by Steve Kloves) favouring cumulative, episodic incident that beneficially ignore three or four act structures in favour of the broadest of linking tissue between scenes that eventually leads to a climactic struggle about something connected to the title.  As a series it resembles levels of a video game generally with each film's Professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts as the end of level boss and he who shall not be named as the main boss at the end.

Hermiones reaction to discovering all exams have been cancelled. Amazing. #potterwatch pic.twitter.com/Wm8SftVlyh

— Stuart Ian Burns (@feelinglistless) February 16, 2015

Having watched it in tandem with the fourth season of Game of Thrones, it's also possible to see that now that the Potter film cycle is completed, it most resembles is an eight episode television mini-series of single episodes ending in a two-parter (the recap at the start of The Deathly Hallows Part Two is nothing so much as what's always happened in Doctor Who).  Perhaps if modes of production had been different back then, if Warners hadn't been desperate to have its Lord of the Rings follow-up, the best place for these stories would have been television, where JK's texts would have had room to breath, with incidents and characters so obviously abbreviated in the films given room to develop.  Though there's obviously little chance you would have gotten this cast and this quality of production design on the small screen even with a network like HBO taking a chance, and it's impossible to think of these characters being played by anyone else now.

I'm as unimpressed as Hermione and Ginny with this amazingly sexist new girls school. #fuckingpatriachy #potterwatch pic.twitter.com/DgFBu2icvB

— Stuart Ian Burns (@feelinglistless) February 19, 2015

Perhaps this is just me, having spent that past week with those actors and characters and this story somewhat desperate to see more of it, because, well, I confess, I've become something of a fan.  Not necessarily of the story.  However enjoyable the meander, there is a lot of waiting for something to happen via delayed exposition (see below) but the atmosphere, the incidents, the humour, the, well everything which exists during those waits.  There are moments, such as when Luna (one of the best characters to appear on film) simply turns up to dinner in fancy dress as a lion for no particular reason and no one comments on it which are just awesome.  To watch the #potterwatch hashtag on my Twitter account over the past week, is to watch someone falling in love with a series of films in a way which has surprised even me.  Why should this be the case?  Since I've written myself into a corner, here are at least three potential reasons.

I bloody love these #harrypotter films. I really do.

— Stuart Ian Burns (@feelinglistless) February 19, 2015

(1)  Hermione Granger.  Yes, yes, Emma Watson is amazing, but under the pen of JK, Cloves, this actress and the production team, unlike similar figures so many similar clones, as is acknowledged throughout the films, of the three central characters, Hermione's the most powerful and more importantly the cleverest.  Even when she's catatonic during The Chamber of Secrets, she's the one who ultimately points Ron and Harry towards said receptacle.  Hers is a story of empowerment, fighting against the patriarchy at every turn and as Buzzfeed video it would be wrong not to link to right now says giving "zero fucks".  This against a background of extra prejudice within the wizard world thanks to her "muggle" origin.  Plus despite all that, despite theoretically being capable of getting any man, she falls for Ron Weasley, which feels really normal and human and with due deference to JK, having her turn into Harry's arms would have been just wrong.

How did I not notice just how good the Potter films were first time around? Order of the Phoenix is astonishing. #potterwatch

— Stuart Ian Burns (@feelinglistless) February 20, 2015

(2)  Storytelling.  I've already touched on this but there's some very clever adaptation which seems to have gone on here.  Book readers will be able to correct me, but the approach to adaptation seems to be to have essentially hacked out anything which isn't in Harry's POV then gone in and concreted the cracks where necessary.  There are only a handful of scenes which don't have him somewhere in them, which means that there are also few occasions when the audience is privy to information he isn't.  In terms of audience identification, it's brilliant even if it goes against the natural tendency of drama (see Hitchcock and the bomb under the table) and leads to plenty of scenes which feature Harry sitting around being told stuff by individuals and groups.  Bless Daniel Radcliffe for being able to do this convincingly.  If you want to see how young actors incrementally develop their craft, watch these films back to back.

Luna's tear after the unfortunate incident. Sob. #potterwatch

— Stuart Ian Burns (@feelinglistless) February 21, 2015

Some examples of where this works well: When Ron disappears in The Deathly Hallows, a more conventional film would have crosscut the two Hs in the tent with lonely Weasley but instead it stays with Harry and we're left to wonder, like Harry, where his friend is and what he's doing.  When he returns, Ron tells us his story giving Rupert Grint one of the best speeches in the trilogy by forcing our imaginations to create some magic which could have been entirely conventional if it had simply been put on screen.  Plus I can't think of a flashback which isn't seen or experienced through Harry receiving some potion and we're left, like him, to knit the actuality together across the years with Snape's motivations only properly revealed in the final film (see this montage which edits them all together in chronological order and sob).

Basically this narrative is structured around how quickly Hermione can read the Dumbledore biography. #potterwatch

— Stuart Ian Burns (@feelinglistless) February 22, 2015

Sometimes it can be frustrating but there's an in-story reason for Harry not being told about things and so the information being withheld from us too.  His connection with Voldemort.  Though its not ensuated clearly at the beginning, there's a constant fear throughout that this dark lord could easily break into Harry's mind and steal this information which is why its on a need to know.  Realising this during the Philosopher's Stone puts an extra complexion on the films as we're essentially we're sharing the frustration with Harry.  It would have been very easy to have simply shown us the conversation between the Order of the Phoenix during that film before Harry arrives, but the tension's far more palpable in making us and him wait for it.  That's storytelling which has been thought about, that is.

I sort of feel sorry for the Slitherin kids. Stuck in a dungeon because a hat said so. #potterwatch

— Stuart Ian Burns (@feelinglistless) February 22, 2015

(3)  Imagery.  These are simply gorgeous looking films filled with spectacle.  Although granted some of the creature designs don't quite work in places, notably Hagrid's brother Grawp, the production design is spectacular.  The Department of Mysteries, a totally digital environment, has all the qualities of an art piece, especially as it implodes, the blue light of the crystal balls and shelves shattering into one another.   The middle hour of The Deathly Hallows Part One is one of the best pieces of fantasy cinema ever, both because in the midst of this massive expensive blockbuster and it's about three people losing their sanity in a tent and they're doing it against an ominous wilderness away from all their civilisations, portrait like close-ups against wide-angle landscapes.

Luna's facial bruise is utterly terrifying. #potterwatch

— Stuart Ian Burns (@feelinglistless) February 22, 2015

None of which really does it justice.  Even the flaws, like Tom Felton's one-note performance until the very late stages (not helped by only really having a surname as his single line of dialogue) and Quiddich making little to no sense as a sport (is there ever a match when a seeker doesn't catch a snitch thereby disavowing the need for the rest of the team) are part of the joy of the thing.  Even I was saying "Potter!" along with Draco Malfoy by the end.  Will I read the books now?  Not sure.  I can't quite decide if the thing I like about Harry Potter now is what's in the films only or the underlying mythology and if, as I suspect, the things I do love about the films would be spoilt by seeing what's been left out or changed.  We'll see.  Either way, I was sorry to get to the end and if JK and the rest decide to revisit the characters at some late stage, I'll be right there.  Now.

"I hear there's another Chamber of Secrets in Cleveland." #potterwatch pic.twitter.com/18HOBZOV2c

— Stuart Ian Burns (@feelinglistless) February 22, 2015

Oscars 2015. Reaction.

Film The short version:

I'm sure Birdman is very good, I'm looking forward to see it, but that's just fucking bollocks. Never change Academy, never change. #oscars
— Stuart Ian Burns (@feelinglistless) February 23, 2015

Here's the long version.

As has been the case since Sky co-opted the legal UK rights, I didn't stay up for the Oscars this year (also because I wanted to sleep what with being in the middle of a working week) (it's complicated).  Having seen the results, I'm not entirely unhappy.  As I've said above, having not seen Birdman I can't make the comparison but just like Gravity and Inception and There Will Be Blood and countless others in the past this feels like the Academy choosing the safe option and not rewarding the film that it really should.

Last year I ended up making a similarly cautious statement about Gravity and then when I saw 12 Years a Slave found a relatively conventional film not necessarily doing anything I hadn't seen before and certainly not potentially changing the way films are made.  Perhaps when I've watched Birdman with its "single take", timed explosions, cast full of people I like and a director I've admired in the past, I will say fair enough.  But Boyhood, is, well Boyhood, over a decade in the making with all kinds of potential artistic jeopardy.

Anyway, here's how I did. Probably easier to list what I got right.

Patricia Arquette for best actress.
Ida for best film not in the English language
Big Hero 6 for best animated film
Grand Budapest Hotel for score, costume, production design, makeup and hairstyling

Wanted Boyhood to sweep. Didn't. But I did predict The GBH to do well in the craft categories, which is something.  Perhaps once I've seen everything, I'll be able to judge better...

The Unexamined Life.

TV Here's a short Q&A which took place in 2012 at the BFI after a screen on The Hollow Crown (series one!) in which Richard Eyre talks to Sam Mendes about the difficulties in writing the script and Simon Russell Beale on the process of acting.  Much of it is as you might expect until the closing moments.  Well, just watch.

Serial and the Podcast Explosion.

Journalism The New Yorker points me towards this event in which ...

"a week before he died, the Times media columnist David Carr moderated a panel at the New School called “Serial and the Podcast Explosion,” the first event in a series presented by the university’s newest major, Journalism + Design. Carr, bundled up in a fleece jacket, leaned back in his chair and held a mic to his face at an angle that suggested he was about to do some freestyling. “I’m here as your potted plant for the evening,” he said. The panelists beside him were the stars of the podcasting world: Sarah Koenig (“Serial”), Alex Blumberg (“StartUp”), Alix Spiegel (“Invisibilia”), and Benjamen Walker (“The Theory of Everything”).

Can't wait to watch it. Mainly posting it here as a nudge. Though mainly transcript highlights, the New Yorker piece also offers useful links to the work of the participants.

Twi-mail.

About Every now and then, close as I am to my ratio limit, I use the really excellent ManageFlitter to have a clear out of my Twitter follows, to shed people who clearly don't use the service, never really did or tweet that often.

One of the problem is that that there's always the odd organisational feed which offers one tweet every couple of days but which still is always something pretty interesting.

The BBC Archive feed is good example, pointing followers to often otherwise underpublicised new clips on the BBC website or noting when an archive repeat will be on television. But sometimes whole days will pass between tweets.

I'd naturally unfollow a feed like that but I don't want to lose sight of them.

Here's what I've done. I've set up an If This Then That recipe.

IFTTT is a useful way of triggering a thing to do a thing when it's done a thing. Reader's Digest offers a useful explanation.

So, whenever @bbcarchive tweets, I get an email  with the content of the tweet therein and I've set up a filter at Gmail so that all of those twi-mails go into one place.  Which is really useful.

Unlike twi-mail which barely works as a word.  Sorry.

“Why don’t you…?” #bbcgetcreative: http://t.co/Wx4Azy41lb pic.twitter.com/CgTfgtV4mv
— BBC Archive (@BBCArchive) February 19, 2015

Birth Chart.

Music The Official Chart Company has unveiled a new website format which includes the ability to quickly find a particular chart from the archive. Here then, is the top ten from when I was born:



Which isn't awful and has a few tracks I've even heard of even if only in cover versions.  But it's also notably all blokes.  The first female singer is down at number 22, Olivia Newton-John.  I wonder to what we can attribute this.  You can also search for an artist's chart history.