The 15th annual Rendez-vous with French Cinema, presented by The Film Society of Lincoln Center and UniFrance, was announced recently, though the line-up isn't much to get excited over. Rendez-vous with French Cinema usually highlights the previous year's Gallic offerings that hadn't already premiered at the New York Film Festival. Last year's series screened the new films from Claire Denis, Agnès Godard, Claude Chabrol, Costa-Gavras, André Téchiné and Benoît Jacquot. While there are some big(-ish) names represented this year like François Ozon, Michel Gondry, Christophe Honoré and Claude Miller, the line-up as a whole doesn't read as "thrilling" by any stretch (keep in mind I haven't actually seen any of the films yet). On the bright side, Alain Guiraudie's Le roi de l'évasion [The King of Escape] will make its US premiere at the festival (and, really, I am quite anxious to see the new Ozon and a couple of the others).
Jules Dassin's The Law [La loi], a French/Italian co-production from 1959 with Gina Lollobrigida, Marcello Mastroianni, Melina Mercouri and Yves Montand, is the only feature more than a year old that screens this year. Recently remastered in a new 35mm print, The Law will make the rounds theatrically and on DVD later this year from Oscilloscope Pictures. Thierry Frémaux, artistic director of the Cannes Film Festival, will also bring a collection of newly restored shorts from the Lumière brothers. The selection of short films will include a film called The Girls, the directorial debut of actress Anna Mouglalis. Of the 2009 features, four currently have US distribution (with Lorber Films announcing their acquisition of L'armée du crime earlier today). The complete line-up is below, but click here for short synopses, screening dates and online ticketing.
- À l'origine [In the Beginning], d. Xavier Giannoli, w. François Cluzet, Emmanuelle Devos, Gérard Depardieu - L'affaire Farewell [Farewell], d. Christian Carion, w. Emir Kusturica, Guillaume Canet, Alexandra Maria Lara, Fred Ward, Willem Dafoe, Diane Kruger, Benno Fürmann - L'armée du crime [The Army of Crime], d. Robert Guédiguian, Lorber Films, w. Simon Abkarian, Virginie Ledoyen, Robinson Stévenin, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet, Yann Trégouët, Adrien Jolivet - Les beaux gosses [The French Kissers], d. Riad Sattouf, w. Noémie Lvovsky, Valeria Golino, Irène Jacob, Emmanuelle Devos, Marjane Satrapi, Christophe Vandevelde - Le bel âge [Restless / L'insurgée], d. Laurent Perreau, w. Michel Piccoli, Pauline Etienne, Eric Caravaca - L'épine dans le cœur [The Thorn in the Heart], d. Michel Gondry, Oscilloscope Pictures - La famille Wolberg [The Wolberg Family], d. Axelle Ropert, w. Serge Bozon - Le hérisson [The Hedgehog], d. Mona Achache, w. Josiane Balasko - Huit fois debout [8 Times Up], d. Xabi Molia, w. Julie Gayet, Denis Podalydès, Frédéric Bocquet - Je suis heureux que ma mère soit vivante [I'm Glad That My Mother Is Alive], d. Claude Miller, Nathan Miller - La loi [The Law], d. Jules Dassin, Oscilloscope Pictures, w. Gina Lollobrigida, Yves Montand, Marcello Mastroianni, Melina Mercouri, Pierre Brasseur - Mademoiselle Chambon, d. Stéphane Brizé, w. Vincent Lindon, Sandrine Kiberlain - Non ma fille, tu n'iras pas danser [Making Plans for Lena], d. Christophe Honoré, w. Chiarra Mastroianni, Marina Foïs, Jean-Marc Barr, Louis Garrel, Julien Honoré - OSS 117: Rio de répond plus [OSS 117: Lost in Rio], d. Michel Hazanavicius, w. Jean Dujardin, Louise Monot, Rüdiger Vogler - Rapt, d. Lucas Belvaux, w. Yvan Attal, Anne Consigny, Alex Descas - Le refuge [The Refuge], d. François Ozon, Strand Releasing, w. Isabelle Carré, Melvil Poupaud - Les regrets, d. Cédric Kahn, w. Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Yvan Attal - Le roi de l'évasion [The King of Escape], d. Alain Guiraudie, w. Ludovic Berthillot, Hafsia Herzi - Welcome, d. Philippe Lioret, Film Movement, w. Vincent Lindon
Damion and I met when he was hosting a Queer Film Blog-a-thon two years ago at his old blog Queerying the Apparatus. While I miss visiting his blog, we kept in touch, and he helped me with some source material for my undergraduate thesis last year. He's working on his Ph.D. in English Language and Literature at the University of Maryland. If you're wondering, a mutual love for Bruce LaBruce and PJ Harvey is always a great starting point for a friendship. Thanks, Damion!
Films
01. There Will Be Blood, 2007, d. Paul Thomas Anderson, USA 02. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 2004, d. Michel Gondry, USA 03. Mulholland Drive, 2001, d. David Lynch, France/USA 04. Bad Education [La mala educación], 2004, d. Pedro Almodóvar, Spain 05. Far from Heaven, 2002, d. Todd Haynes, USA/France 06. No Country for Old Men, 2007, d. Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, USA 07. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days [4 luni, 3 săptămâni şi 2 zile], 2007, d. Cristian Mungiu, Romania 08. Requiem for a Dream, 2000, d. Darren Aronofsky, USA 09. Hedwig and the Angry Inch, 2001, d. John Cameron Mitchell, USA 10. The Royal Tenenbaums, 2001, d. Wes Anderson, USA 11. Dancer in the Dark, 2000, d. Lars von Trier, Denmark/Netherlands/Germany/France/USA/UK/Sweden/Finland/Iceland/Norway 12. Kill Bill, Vol. 1, 2003, d. Quentin Tarantino, USA 13. The Departed, 2006, d. Martin Scorsese, USA/Hong Kong 14. Children of Men, 2006, d. Alfonso Cuarón, UK/USA/Japan 15. United 93, 2006, d. Paul Greengrass, UK/USA/France 16. Mysterious Skin, 2004, d. Gregg Araki, USA/Netherlands 17. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly [Le scaphandre et le papillon], 2007, d. Julian Schnabel, France/USA 18. The Squid and the Whale, 2005, d. Noah Baumbach, USA 19. Let the Right One In [Låt den rätte komma in], 2008, d. Tomas Alfredson, Sweden 20. Good Night, and Good Luck., 2005, d. George Clooney, USA/UK/France/Japan 21. Volver, d. Pedro Almodóvar, 2006, Spain 22. Shortbus, 2006, d. John Cameron Mitchell, USA 23. Where the Wild Things Are, 2009, d. Spike Jonze, USA 24. The Raspberry Reich, 2004, d. Bruce LaBruce, Germany/Canada 25. Secretary, 2002, d. Steven Shainberg, USA
Albums
01. PJ Harvey - Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea (2000) 02. Amy Winehouse - Back to Black (2006) 03. Morrissey - You Are the Quarry (2004) 04. Gossip - Music for Men (2009) 05. OutKast - Stankonia (2000) 06. Antony and the Johnsons - Antony and the Johnsons (2000) 07. Coldplay - Parachutes (2000) 08. Radiohead - Kid A (2000) 09. New Order - Get Ready (2001) 10. Johnny Cash - American IV: The Man Comes Around (2002) 11. Jay-Z - The Black Album (2003) 12. Depeche Mode - Playing the Angel (2005) 13. The Killers - Hot Fuss (2004) 14. M.I.A. - Arular (2005) 15. The Bravery - The Bravery (2005) 16. Kylie Minogue - X (2007) 17. Keane - Hopes and Fears (2004) 18. Madonna - Confessions on a Dance Floor (2005) 19. Christina Aguilera - Stripped (2002) 20. Muse - Black Holes and Revelations (2006)
Through Vivendi Visual, Palisades Tartan will release their first two DVDs in the US in September. Carlos Reygadas' Silent Light [Stellet licht] will finally be out on 9 Sept, along with Anders Morgenthaler's animated actioner Princess on 29 Sept. Vivendi also announced Aaron Woodley's Tennessee, starring none other than Mariah Carey, on 1 September. Additionally, Kino will be releasing Emily Hubley's The Toe Tactic and Sean Baker and Tsou Shih-Ching's Take Out on 1 September. Magnet will have Ringo Lam, Johnny To and Tsui Hark's Triangle on 15 September. And, my pick for best title of the year so far goes to Life Is Hot in Cracktown, which Anchor Bay will release on 25 August. It also is ranking on the list of strangest casts of the year (Lara Flynn Boyle, Illeana Douglas, RZA, Brandon Routh, Kerry Washington, Mark Webber and Vondie Curtis-Hall); let me know if the film is as good as it sounds.
Surprisingly, I haven't heard of really any post-Cannes acquisitions, aside from Oscilloscope's pick-up of Michel Gondry's The Thorn in the Heart [L'épine dans le coeur]. However, it looks as if Roy Andersson's You, the Living [Du levande] and György Pálfi's Taxidermia, both previously stuck in release limbo after Tartan USA died, will finally see a theatrical release this year from Palisades Tartan, who picked up most of their library, and Regent Releasing, respectively.
Music Box Films have two German films lined up for later this year, the old-people-fucking flick Cloud 9 [Wolke 9] from director Andreas Dresdon (Summer in Berlin) and music video director Philipp Stölzl's North Face [Nordwand] with Benno Fürmann and Johanna Wokalek.
In addition to Lucrecia Martel's The Headless Woman [La mujer sin cabeza], Strand also has a number of films lined up for later this year: Pascal-Alex Vincent's Give Me Your Hand [Donne-moi la main]; Pablo Trapero's Lion's Den [Leonera]; Noah Buschel's The Missing Person, with Michael Shannon and Amy Ryan; Jay DiPietro's Peter and Vandy, with Jess Weixler, Jason Ritter and Tracie Thoms; and Karin Albou's The Wedding Song [Le chant des mariées].
Regent Releasing picked up Lucía Puenzo's follow-up to her wonderful XXY, The Fish Child [El niño pez], which also stars Inés Efron, a few months ago. Regent will also release Eran Merav's Zion & His Brother, with Ronit Elkabetz, in the near future. That's all for now.
Via Variety, the full jury, headed by Isabelle Huppert, has also been announced: Asia Argento, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Lee Chang-dong, James Gray, Hanif Kureishi, Shu Qi and Robin Wright Penn. In addition to that, a number of other screenings have been announced out of the festival's main competition. Marina de Van's Ne te retourne pas, her second feature after Dans ma peau [In My Skin], will screen along with Sam Raimi's Drag Me to Hell in the Midnight Program. The film stars Sophie Marceau, Monica Bellucci and Andrea Di Stefano. Michel Gondry's L'épine dans le coeur, Souleymane Cissé's (Yeelen) Min ye and Keren Yedaya's (Or My Treasure) Jaffa will receive special screenings. In the Un Certain Regard category: Denis Dercourt's (The Page Turner) Demain des l'aube; Alain Cavalier's (La chamade) Irène; Bahman Ghobadi's (A Time for Drunken Horses) Nobody Knows About the Persian Cats; Bong Joon-ho's (The Host) Mother; João Pedro Rodrigues' (O Fantasma) To Die Like a Man; Tales from the Golden Age from Romanian directors Hanno Hofer, Razvan Marculescu, Cristian Mungiu, Constantin Popescu and Ioana Uricaru; Pavel Lounguine's (Taxi Blues) Tzar; Pen-ek Ratanaruang's (Last Life in the Universe) Nymph; and Lee Daniels' (Shadowboxer) Precious, formerly known as Push. Check the Variety link above for more information.
For many moons now I've been planning to write about Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind, a film that seemed to have difficulty finding an audience upon release. It sounded a gong in my head when I saw it, but I never got around to blogging about it. So why now? Partially because I recently watched a documentary about the great man on Sky Arts. I had hoped it would be as illuminating as I've Been 12 Forever, the superb documentary on the Michel Gondry music video collection DVD, which had been as playful as his music videos. Sadly, as directed by a former colleague of his, it was a charmless and incoherent mess, with Gondry seemingly annoyed by the process. Except for some fun B-roll footage from the Science of Sleep shoot, and some rough and ready early animations, it was not very interesting.
Mostly I feel compelled to talk about Be Kind Rewind because it's been playing on my worry-addled mind. Compared to the poor saps who have been sold a lie about The Market being a Perpetual Motion Machine, and who are now staring terrible defeat in the face, my woes are pretty much inconsequential, but of course, from where I'm standing, they're pretty bloody awful. Job insecurity has been plaguing me for a long time now, and has become worse in recent months. With the rest of the world in a bad place, a steady job is a necessity.
Unfortunately uncreative jobs make me feel dead in the soul (I'm certainly not the only one, and would never presume to be unique in this respect), and this state of affairs has been getting me down for as long as I can remember. As with most people who have their own blog as a repository for their amateur writings, the possibility of a life as a writer is the dream that excites me (and Canyon). Of course, with nothing published already and inspiration hiding behind a cloud, it's almost as frustrating as it is heartening, which tends to retard the growth of any ideas. Why else would I try to manhandle a dream into some kind of movie featuring persecution of atheists and elderly pervert Allan Quatermain?
Even so, Be Kind Rewind remains important to me. The DVD of Michel Gondry's video work has long been one of my very favourite things, not just for the staggering imagination on display within those videos, but because Gondry's imagination and urge to create is so irrepressible. While I vacillate and complain, Gondry just does his thing. During the I've Been 12 Forever documentary, while being interviewed Gondry is constantly drawing, and the film is punctuated with little videos made by him and his family, often featuring some corny humour but all with endearing lo-fi visuals. That Gondry is able to have an idea and commit it to film and paper almost instantly, without doubt or excuse or fear, lifts my spirit more than almost anything.
Which is why I enjoyed Be Kind Rewind so much. Though I appreciated that The Science of Sleep was probably equally as personal a movie, it was also a pretty bleak critique of his own impulsive psyche and the gap between his childish worldview and the unforgiving reality. Rather selfishly, as I usually take a great deal of pleasure from Gondry's work, I reacted badly to Science of Sleep, as it attributed the ill fortune of Stephane to an overindulgence of that wonderful imagination. That's not a message I'm willing to absorb.
Be Kind Rewind, on the other hand, shows two characters forced by circumstance to rely upon their ingenuity to survive, though at first only to replicate the work of others, a plan that is wrecked by the intervention of a team of outlandishly rapacious and evil lawyers headed up by Sigourney Weaver in one of the funniest cameos of the year. The movie ends with a lovely sequence, as the town comes together to make and appreciate their own art, their stories told by themselves with no corporate interference, and featuring some astonishing ideas. It's the most uplifting expression of Gondry's personal philosophy yet made, and it made me came out of the cinema with a spring in my step, just as I had hoped. If I want to have a creative life, there is no impediment except my own bullshit. Say what you like about his movies, and you might hate them, but it cannot be denied that Gondry is the perfect example of someone who is living an artistic life. Though I can't animate or draw or build anything, I still envy him. He's doing what I wish I could be doing. So why am I not doing it?
It's fear, obviously. Fear is the mindkiller, as all Dune/Kyle MacLachlan fans will know. Pitiful though it might seem to the readers of this blog, but while I'm fine blapping away on here about how much I hated Happy-Go-Lucky or how much I want everyone to listen to the new album by Bound Stems (it's a corker!), I'm not really doing anything new. Though the urge to dissect the latest episodes of various shows is strong, the urge to make something new is even stronger, and yet I don't. It's apt that I write this long-pondered post this week, as my first real attempt at a book, a long time back, was scuppered by David Foster Wallace, who tragically committed suicide last weekend. A promising crack at writing a novel was scuppered when I read Infinite Jest, after which I gave up on any writing plans for ages.
My modest ambitions were shown up completely by this vast, terrifyingly complex work of baffling brilliance, something so bold and uncompromising and utterly breathtaking, that I ran from my word processor in terror and hid for a few years, waiting to be hit by an idea so good that it could tempt me back. Of course, as time has passed I realise now just how wondrous Infinite Jest is, how its scope and fearlessness shows just what can be done with fiction in the right hands. I'll never be able to write anything even as good as the better footnotes in that book, but I should at least give it a try.
So I did, once more, return to the keyboard, but the slow pace of my creative process ruined my plans again. Another attempt at finishing a book hit a brick wall after I stumbled across a newly published book with a plot so similar to the one I was working on that I would be hit with a fat lawsuit the moment I tried to get it published. The mortification, frustration, and brainfreeze I suffered after that was enough to stop me trying to write anything longer than a blog post ever since.
The urge doesn't disappear, though. The thrill I get from watching Gondry at work is enough to get me dreaming of creating, and by doing it in such a lo-fi way makes me think that it might be possible to do something even more ambitious than writing a few pages of turgid prose before giving up. It gets me out of this mindset that you can only live the creative life once you have been granted access by some panel of impassive, heartless fraternity presidents who give precedence to friends and family members while turning away strangers. The internet has made it easier to just throw this stuff out there, and video cameras are easy to come by. I mean, we have one sitting around the house, and all it needs is a power adapter that I can buy from eBay for about $20. I know because I've searched for it. And yet, I never bought it. Fear again? Laziness? The thought that $20 would buy me a copy of Speed Racer? (Available now, kids!)
Hell, who needs a camera? I could just go video sniffing and create something with that. Or construct something using found footage, just grab some free archived footage and figure out a way to tell a story with them. The software to do that is easily available. Or, if I'm unwilling to do things the easy way, I could take out a huge loan and buy a proper digital camera from Red, who make cameras so amazing apparently they "render obsolescence obsolete", which is pretty impressive, and surely worthy of my custom (note to Canyon: I'm just spitballing!). The question then is what would I make with it, but with the right connections, anything is possible. Just this week I saw the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society production of The Call of Cthulhu, which was, again, an inspirational experience. The movie itself featured some shaky writing; I don't think it's possible to get away with a flashback within a flashback within a flashback even when pretending to be making a film in the 1920s, though it might be following the narrative line of the original story. It's been a while since I read it so I can't be 100% sure of that. Here it is if you want to check it out. Nevertheless, in terms of the quality of the production, the imagination on display, and the scale of the thing (especially considering the miniscule budget), it's a huge success. Here's the trailer if you don't believe me.
The production feature on the DVD shows some amazing moments. The utterly convincing swamp miniature (I do not exaggerate when I say I was sure it was the real thing), the beautiful props, the slick use of digital compositing, and my favourite of all, the city of R'lyeh, constructed in a backyard from scaffolding, hardboard, canvas and a sheet covered with glitter to serve as the sea. It might not be a huge, complex set, but it's impossible not to be impressed by the ingenuity and devotion shown by all involved. (Note to Canyon: I have no plans to erect an enormous model of the resting place of Great Cthulhu in our backyard!)
Even if the thought of making something visual does not appeal, there is a market for creating trinkets and doodads and other assorted gubbins. Until last week I had never heard of Etsy, but it has become Canyon's new obsession. It's embarrassing to admit that I have become so used to the concept of product created by the monolith that is the corporate-owned and run manufacturing industry that the thought of these individualised, hand-made objects is startling, just as the thought of just saying, "I want to create something that other people might like, and I'm going to do that right now, without agonising over it first and without seekign the permission of anyone else," thrills me and terrifies me at the same time. Of course, considering how bad I am at making things with my hands, I doubt I'll be adding things to Etsy any time soon, and yes, this admission makes a joke out of my claim to be inspired by the handiest of handy-men Gondry, who could probably make every prop and set in his films, given the chance, while I would end up a miserable paralysed blob of glue and cardboard. So perhaps it will all boil down to writing, and me getting over my fear of coincidental similarities or the wonder of the literary world that is Infinite Jest.
It's going to happen one day. I'm sure of it. I'll just snap and bang out a shitload of words one day (it's happened before). Maybe I'll follow Warren Ellis' advice and start small. His exhortation to "Be Short, Be Bold, and Get It Done" is a pithy clarion call, echoed by Russell T. Davies on BBC Breakfast yesterday, yelling, "If you want to be a writer, write, now, do it today!" Or I could take it as a sign that this week The Guardian is including a series of booklets on writing, featuring advice from many knowledgable writers. RL and online friends have always been nice enough to suggest I should go for it (and many thanks to all of them for saying so; you all know who you are), and Canyon has been unbelievably, wonderfully supportive and insistent that I should, even though the doubt remains, and the one idea I have is way too similar to M. John Harrison's Viriconium series for my comfort, and my brain is addled with worry and excuses excuses excuses excuses!!!
Fuck it. Consider this a public shaming that will hopefully get me off my arse. My first project will be a fourteen part science fiction tale set in our house starring our cats, of such complexity that it will make The Amory Wars look like a traditionally underachieving episode of Torchwood. Or a screenplay about Nathan Fillion saving atheism from murder by ninja-biker. It's now or never, I guess, otherwise I might end up like a character from a Charlie Kaufman movie that has yet to secure a release date in the UK and therefore will only be reliably shown twice during the London Film Festival and might not end up seeing at all which is a fact that brings out the cold chills across my back.
I'm so desperate to see that film I'll write, finish, and try to sell a book or screenplay despite my fears and doubts if it means I might someone finagle a ticket!!!
...But Activision just announced that they're taking the fight to MTV and Harmonix with Guitar Hero World Tour.
Activision Inc (ATVI.O) is adding drums, bass guitar, and microphone to its popular "Guitar Hero" video game, a move aimed at winning away fans of MTV's rival musical title "Rock Band."
"Guitar Hero World Tour" will include the ability for two groups of four people each to compete online, as well as let players compose and play their own music.
That's just super-duper, and I love that they've done that. Okay, so it's derivative, and they remain in the shadow of Harmonix and their incredible innovations, but it's the only logical move they could make. Of course, this means nothing unless the music choices are incredible.
The game will feature songs from bands such as Van Halen, The Eagles, Linkin Park and Sublime...
Bollocks.
Actually, that is something that can change over time, though I really do hope the song packs come down in price. I resented having to spend literally billions of Microsoft Points (this is a lie) to buy three songs in the fourth Guitar Hero II pack when all I wanted was I Wanna Be Sedated by The Ramones (and OMG, I got 100% on it third time I played it on Medium setting, which makes it the first song I've got 100% on! Bless you, you three-chord-playing heroes). Still, there could well be some great finds on there. I've been enjoying playing the bonus tracks Mr. Fix-It by The Amazing Crowns, Soy Bomb by Honest Bob and the Factory-to-Dealer Incentives, and Thunderhorse by Dethklok, though worryingly they were all on Guitar Hero II (i.e. the Harmonix game). Guitar Hero III's bonus tracks are nowhere near as interesting, but then I was less impressed with the track listing on that game already.
What I really want from Activision is to make robust peripherals that don't cost the earth, thus crushing MTV Games and forcing them to bring the price of the game down so I can get that too. This is the dream, anyway. I have more faith in Harmonix and their skills, and suspect I would prefer Rock Band (especially as you can buy single songs instead of packs full of boring songs you don't want), but what do I know? I can't afford Rock Band. Because it is horribly overpriced. And I'm still pissed about it.
Even if Santa ignores my pleas and the price war doesn't materialise, Guitar Hero World Tour does a bunch of stuff I really like the sound of. Not only does the drum kit look awesome, it does cool things too.
In addition to a newly designed more responsive guitar controller and microphone, Guitar Hero World Tour will deliver the most realistic drum experience ever in a video game with an authentic electronic drum kit. Featuring three drum pads, two raised cymbals and a bass kick pedal, the drum controller combines larger and quieter, velocity-sensitive drum heads with soft rubber construction to deliver authentic bounce back and is easy to set up, move, break down and store.
Even better than that, Activision have responded to one of the pissiest complaints about Guitar Hero and Rock Band; that playing the game is a pale imitation of genuine creation, that mimicking the playing of music is no substitute for making something yourself. I don't think Guitar Hero and Rock Band stop people from branching out and doing that on their own, and in fact think it would inspire people to try playing instruments themselves (I've said this before; please forgive me). Anyway, it's slightly more moot now.
The game's innovative new Music Studio lets players express their musical creativity by giving them access to a full compliment [sic] of tools to create digital music from scratch, utilizing all of the instruments, and then play their compositions in the game. Music creators will also be able to share their recordings with their friends online through GHTunes where other gamers can download their unique compositions and play them.
I'm outrageously excited about that, even though I expect any compositions would be pretty unadventurous just because of the limitations of the soft/hardware, but it still appeals to me.
It links in to something I've been planning on blogging about for a while now, which touches on Be Kind Rewind, Video Sniffing, Rocky III, and Lewis Hyde's The Gift (a frustrating book that killed my enthusiasm 20 pages in, but still applies). In time I will, I'm sure. Before that, we hope to have a look at the various season finales that have been piling up over the last couple of weeks, if we can ever get this goddamn laptop to work long enough to write anything substantial. Apologies for any future Blog Slowdowns.
Guess how mad I am, and whether or not I'm going to take it anymore. Go on, guess.
I've had an annoying week. Let me caveat that immediately by saying it wasn't totally horrible. Season five of 24 continues to delight, Canyon and I ate lots and lots of Chicken Francese (the recipe she found is like the Food of the Gods, and not the kind that makes rats go nuts), I bought a bunch of great comics, and I broke world land speed records criss-crossing the cold and forbidding wastelands of central London to finally get to see Michel Gondry's misunderstood inspirational fable Be Kind Rewind (more on that, and the allure of swedeing, in future posts, hopefully, though I often say these things and never get around to them).
So why the Howard-Beale-esque rage? Because I get very annoyed, in a futile stylee, over things that mean nothing. Seriously, I do not think these moans can be considered worthy of any attention or pity. You can randomly pick any other person on the planet and they will be having a worse time than me. I'm about 99% certain that statement is correct. However, these things are on my mind, and some of these statements might count as advice for living. Firstly, and leastly, I'm annoyed that ITV are still run by a collection of inept dicks.
"Episode two was the only show we could drop without spoiling the storyline," an ITV spokesman said.
Sky and More4 and E4 and C4 have been doing their best to make sure that US shows are being aired on UK TV very close to the US air date to try to stop illegal downloading from happening, and that's great and commendable. Thumbs up to them all for doing it. Sadly, with the major terrestrial broadcaster treating its viewers as if they're just gawping advert absorption units and its product like nothing more than a wooden block to slot into a random schedule hole, there has been no better argument for downloading as the future of TV than this insulting decision.
I railed against The Market the other day, but soon we're going to be able to watch what we want when we want and not have to listen to whiny ass ISP jerkoffs bitching at the BBC for coming up with something that people want because it's making life difficult for them ("Customers who are paying for unlimited downloads actually want unlimited downloads?!?! We never saw that coming!"). This is The Consumer talking, The Market. We want something. Provide it. Prove your worth. Or fuck off. Next annoyance!!!
Remember when I got all excited about buying a TyTn II phone? The one with a lovely keypad? Forget I ever said anything. It won't switch on. Until I want it to switch off, at which point it will switch on. Then I will try to access messages, and it will ignore me. And freeze. So I will try to switch it off again. And it will, after three minutes. Of course, messages will appear one femtosecond before it closes down. Then Windows will crash. When it's not inoperable due to bugs. And the power button is unresponsive. And it overheats. And I have to keep opening the back and yanking the battery out to deal with the multiple crashes. And typing anything takes forever as there is a 40 second lag between me inputting things and it appearing on the screen. When it goes wrong I feel like Quicksilver the grumpy speedster mutant.
What's worse is I got it via Orange, and I can't get a signal at home. And what's even worse than that is that my £35 a month tariff with unlimited thingies is costing me £55 a month for no apparent reason (I wanted itemised billing but am not getting it), and when I handed in my old phone to get £100 back, it was five months before I found out I'm getting that money back £4.72 a month for 18 months. It's turned out to be one of the worst purchasing decisions I've made. Compare that to Canyon's iPhone, which she is using right now. It is a sheer marvel, totally indispensible, and gorgeous to boot. Even better, it's dropping in price because that high price appears to be the thing that stops people from accepting its brilliance. Embrace the brilliance! You won't regret it. Next grievance!!!
Dell computers do not like when you trip on the power cable. They really don't. Take it from me. The wonderful McC (not the yet-to-prove-his-worth film director McG) recently exhorted us to buy an iMac, and I'm still wary (even though the iPhone is making me love Apple despite the evil that is iTunes blighting our lives), but when our Dell laptop broke down again this morning, I really pined for the magnetic power cable connection on the iMac, and would happily buy one just for that feature. We kicked the cable on this laptop (which was a lovely gift from some lovely people and we both appreciate it more than you can ever know) about a year ago, and since then we have to wrestle with a loose connection for about an hour a day, just to charge the battery. This morning it looked like I'd wiped the hard drive for the second time this year, but thankfully I haven't. Nevertheless, we're not impressed with Dell. (This whine is not directed at the lovely lovely people who bought the laptop for us. It has been incredibly useful. To be honest it's me I'm mad at, not the computer. Please ignore this rant.)
New rant! I bought The Mist from Play USA for many more pounds than I would have paid via Amazon.com, and thought I might have made a mistake, but it turned up in four days. Four days from America! And I didn't have to pay postage! At the same time I did that, I bought I Am Legend, Zodiac (Director's Cut), and DC's The New Frontier, all from Amazon.com, all very cheap. They showed up a fortnight after The Mist, and postage cost a bit, but my beef isn't with Amazon. It's with customs, and Royal Mail. £15 customs fees, with £8 of that paid to Royal Mail for handling the package while they wait for me to pay the fee. I'm pissed that we still have to pay for things like that, though I will confess to not understanding the system and perhaps there is a reason for us consumers to have to pay charges (will The Market cry if we don't feed it some pounds?), but £8 to Royal Mail?
For what? Storing the damn thing on a shelf at the sorting office for a couple of days? Is it to pay for the electricity that powers the barcode reader that scanned it a couple of days ago? Is it because the grey card telling me of the charge is more expensive than the red cards we get posted through the door when the postman can't deliver an item? Or is it, as I suspect, an enormous money making con job by a bunch of crooked money-hungry assholes who are shutting down our local post office, inconveniencing hundreds of people just to increase profits? You decide. I'm busy sitting in a studio in a wet raincoat shouting at the camera while my best friend William Holden gets drunk and shags Fay Dunaway.
That said, Royal Mail are the Justice League of America compared to Transport for London, who provide a shitty, expensive service for Londoners that increases the stress levels and unhappiness quotient of an entire city, and just to pick on me, have coerced millions of people to take on Oyster cards which can horribly fail for no real reason. This week I bought a £41 week season ticket, and the ticket machine I used to charge up my card took the money from my debit card, and then told me the transfer of ticket had failed prior to suddenly shutting down, leaving me with nothing on my Oyster card but £41 taken from my bank account. The ticket office guy (who was very helpful and apologetic, in direct contrast with the jerkstain executives running the company) had no proof I'd tried to buy the ticket, and had to charge me again. £82 for a week's travel! I have been advised to reclaim it, but I'm concerned that even with a bank statement showing both purchases they might not believe me.
I might have to glue my card and phone to this laptop and throw them all out of a window at this rate. Of course, anyone reading this will be able to point out that there are many worse things in the world, and they are right. It's just silly stuff that means nothing in the scheme of things, and I'm blessed compared to the vast majority of the world. However, all of these irritations and annoyances pale into insignificance when we come to the thing that has caused me the most psychic pain this week.
Two days ago my brain radio was invaded by repeated playings of Matthew and Son by my least favourite recording artist ever, Cat Stevens. It was like the world handed the pain-baton over to an imp in my head, and he went nuts punishing the shit out of me. Does Cthulhu hate me? Did I irk Zeus?
ETA: I'm now pissed at customs as well. My DVDs arrived and the crumpled box had been pulled open, inspected, and then haphazardly resealed with a bit of sellotape with hardly any glue left on it. And Paramount skimped on the box for Zodiac, meaning the disc got loose and rattled around inside, scratching it up. What's the betting if it's unplayable and I send it back to Amazon.com the replacement will get hit with more customs charges? Everything everywhere sucks. ::sulks pathetically just because he hasn't had his coffee yet::
Last one for today, and look, only three more to go! Then we can talk about something different. And less AWESOME, probably.
The quirky nature of the mystery itself:
Sci-fi TV and movies of recent years have tended to follow certain formats, with rare moments of invention that give fans of the genre hope that new possibilities are available. Yes, yes, I know, I've gone on about it before. It's one of the main reasons I started my occasional feature Sci-Fi Through Space/Time, in an attempt to find something fresh happening within the genre and then document it.
If it's on film, chances are you're more likely to find something more odd, be it Shane Carruth's Primer, or Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. On TV, sci-fi suffers by comparison. It's almost always spaceship/portal-based exploration adventure, and even though some of that can transcend the limitations of the format (BSG's ambition and topicality mark it out as one of the best, and DoctorWho's quirkiness hides the format to such an extent that it's easy to forget about it), much of the time it been done before.
Instead of sticking characters on a ship and making them meet rubber people, or badly translating modern scientific theories into layman-friendly action plots or allegories, Lost goes back twenty years into territory covered well by The X-Files, and then improves on it by avoiding that show's episodic nature. Whether it manages to create a series-long mythology that works better than that of X-Files remains to be seen, but I'm hopeful.
When I was much younger, around the end of the 70s, my grandparents bought me a weekly magazine (sorry, partwork) called The Unexplained, which ran for about 167 issues and covered the arena of the paranormal. Week after week there would be in-depth accounts of UFO and ghost sightings, poltergeist hauntings, psychic phenomena and characters like Uri Gellar and Sai Baba: stuff that was very much in the popular sphere at that time.
Even better, it would investigate things that were not as commonly discussed as UFO abductions, such as the supernatural town of Rennes-le-Chateau, or Ted Serios and his ability to put his thoughts on photographic film (see the photo above, where he is going BZZZZT at some film with much mental strain), or HollowEarth theory. There was stuff on the weird effect of certain types of electromagnetism on humans, areas of the planet that have peculiar properties, the strange theories of Nikola Tesla, Kirlian auras, timeslips, coincidence, the Cosmic Joker... To a kid, this stuff was scary and fascinating. I couldn't get enough of it.
Cuse, Lindelof, Abrams and the writing staff of Lost remember these kooky theories, and have created a fiction set in a world where highly funded individuals of great influence have found that this fringe science actually pays dividends, and have tried to harness this power to save the world. This is sci-fi borne of the forgotten kookery of the 70s and presented in a modern form with a huge budget and even bigger ambition. I also like that whereas most episodic sci-fi has to be set on a ship or near a portal to be able to go places, this show avoids that dreary fate with flashbacks that allows the protagonists to travel within their own lives. With that internal exploration taking the place of the played out external voyage format, the show has room to look to the past (to the time when psychology and paranormal studies were most popular) for its inspiration instead of the near or far future. Retro sci-fi without the rocket packs and laser guns.
So closely does it follow the 70s template that the show is beginning to introduce more themes from that era. It was a period where people began to distrust the power and ambition of big business. Whoever is coming to the island, be they emissaries of Widmore Industries or some other group, are bound to be businessmen trying to take advantage of the island's properties. The Hanso Foundation, though more willing to experiment with odd science, seems similar to the eerie Rand Corporation, which had been busy trying to map the human mind using game theory for a decade, as seen in Adam Curtis' astonishing documentary series The Trap, in which he shows the adverse controlling effects upon the modern psyche by people like John Nash and R.D. Laing. That this show has already dabbled with experiments similar to those created by B.F. Skinner, and has featured a brainwashing device straight out of The Parallax View style (see the clip below), is apt. Lost has plundered the recent past and come back with tons of quirky, long-ignored material and a unique tone for the show. It truly is like nothing else on TV.
Of course, the future direction of the show might take it away from that 70s-era sci-fi paranoia, and perhaps towards a scenario involving either more modern scientific theories (parallel universes seem to be a possibility at the moment, or perhaps time travel), or something even more ancient (the possibility that the island is connected to Atlantis is a popular theory), only time will tell.
1. Michel Gondry has a brother almost as talented as him.
If I were to name the artist I derive the most inspiration from, it would have to be Michel Gondry, director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Human Nature, and some of the greatest music videos ever created. The DVD, The Work of Michel Gondry is the one I would save from a burning building, as it features so many little works and touches and thoughts and clever little moments that I'm inspired to just devote my life to creating art every time I watch it (and then I forget to, but that's my fault, not Gondry's). I love that his philosophy of lo-fi DIY filmmaking not only informs how he makes his movies (The Science of Sleep's on-set physical effects), but also the projects he chooses (the wondrous Dave Chappelle's Block Party, in which Chappelle throws a huge party seemingly on the spur of the moment and basically wings it), and the plots of new projects. Case in point; his next movie Be Kind Rewind, which looks to be about taking art back from the corporations and making stories for yourself and your friends and relatives. It's a charming idea, and even better it stars Jack Black and Mos Def, two actor/musicians who seem to annoy a lot of people but fill me with joy.
Anyway, it turns out his brother, Oliver "Twist" Gondry, is also a filmmaker/animator, and has worked on many ads, some of which are quite beautiful. This is my favourite; a Hewlett Packard ad that features Michel talking about his philosophy, as well as his family.
On the Works DVD, he idolises his son and has an endearing rapport with him. Hearing him talk about him here in the advert made me realise how unpretentious he is, how happy he is to mesh his life and his art, and how his need to keep creating things keeps him so centred. He truly is an inspiration.
2. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band are playing another stadium gig in London next May.
I am, of course, thrilled to hear this, but of course if I can't get a ticket, I will be very very sad and might have a horrible strop not unlike earlier tonight when I spilled a carton of double cream on the floor.
3. Do not spray Mr. Muscle Multi-Cleaner on spilled double cream.
They say don't cry over spilled milk, but having a screaming fit over spilled cream is just fine. It's hard enough to get off the floor as it is, but upon trying to wash up the last bits, I applied a Mr. Muscle variant which instantly curdled the cream, turning it into a viscous substance not unlike the glue we used to use in primary school. It had to be almost pulled off the floor, it was so tenacious. Without my wake-up coffee, and in desperate need of a shower, the last thing I needed was to wrestle with some dairy-based epoxy. That the kitchen didn't get demolished by my subsequent Hulk-like tantrum is a testament to some vestige of restraint within myself.
4. Cutthroat Bitch Amber might make a return to House.
This was posted on Michael Ausiello's blog last week, but I only just noticed it tonight. Seems Anne Dudek made a big impression on the House showrunners, as producer Katie Jacobs explains.
Michael Ausiello: Why'd you cut the Cutthroat Bitch! I loved her! Katie Jacobs: I can tell you that it was a phenomenally difficult decision. When we decided to go in this [Survivor-like] direction this season, [fellow exec producer] David Shore and I never anticipated that we'd fall in love with as many of the characters as we did — and [Cutthroat Bitch] was certainly one of those. But I would say that, if you want to see more of her, so do we. And I think that that might happen. She's terrific, and she adds a really great color to the group. I'm looking forward to finding a way that she could come back into the fold.
While I maintain she would not be a good fit as a member of the Cottages, Dudek was enormous fun this season, and it would be great to get her back in some capacity.
5. Many years ago, it was illegal to smile in Russia, except for propaganda purposes.
While searching for information on Ayn Rand (I'm currently reading The Fountainhead in order to back up or dispel certain comments I made in a Ratatouille post some weeks ago), I found a transcript of her perfectly charming testimony in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee, during the McCarthy period. She talks of a movie made during WWII called Song of Russia, made to bolster the relationship between American and Russian troops united against the Nazis, in much the same way that Poweel and Pressburger made A Matter of Life and Death to engender fond feelings between Yanks and Limeys. With the war over, Rand explained why she thought the film showed a false image of Russia, based on her time there.
Also realize that when all this sweetness and light was going on in the first part of the picture, with all these happy, free people, there was not a GPU agent among them, with no food lines, no persecution -- complete freedom and happiness, with everybody smiling. Incidentally, I have never seen so much smiling in my life, except on the murals of the world's fair pavilion of the Soviets. If any one of you have seen it, you can appreciate it. It is one of the stock propaganda tricks of the Communists, to show these people smiling. That is all they can show.
Mr. [John] McDowell: You paint a very dismal picture of Russia. You made a great point about the number of children who were unhappy. Doesn't anybody smile in Russia any more? Miss Rand: Well, if you ask me literally, pretty much no. Mr. McDowell: They don't smile? Miss Rand: Not quite that way; no. If they do, it is privately and accidentally. Certainly, it is not social. They don't smile in approval of their system. Mr. McDowell: Well, all they do is talk about food. Miss Rand: That is right.
Also no one could look at each other, and if you had food, watch out because everyone will rip you to shreds to get at it, even though it was probably horrible beetroot soup!
In my time we were a bunch of ragged, starved, dirty, miserable people who had only two thoughts in our mind. That was our complete terror -- afraid to look at one another, afraid to say anything for fear of who is listening and would report us -- and where to get the next meal. You have no idea what it means to live in a country where nobody has any concern except food, where all the conversation is about food because everybody is so hungry that that is all they can think about and that is all they can afford to do. They have no idea of politics. They have no idea of any pleasant romances or love -- nothing but food and fear...
Now, here is the life in the Soviet village as presented in Song Of Russia. You see the happy peasants. You see they are meeting the hero at the station with bands, with beautiful blouses and shoes, such as they never wore anywhere. You see children with operetta costumes on them and with a brass band which they could never afford. You see the manicured starlets driving tractors and the happy women who come from work singing. You see a peasant at home with a close-up of food for which anyone there would have been murdered. If anybody had such food in Russia in that time he couldn't remain alive, because he would have been torn apart by neighbors trying to get food.
::sigh:: Oh Ayn, you kooky old bird! You need to buy yourself a rootbeer float to cheer yourself up. Have a dollar on me. Or should I say, as my copy of The Fountainhead tells me, have a colophon of the philosophy of Objectivism on me, whatever the hell that means.
As for Brad Bird, I also found out he denies being an Objectivist in a NY Post interview with Lou Lumenick.
Bird: The idea that "The Incredibles," a mainstream animated feature, was thought of as provocative was wonderful to me. I was very gratified, though I thought some of the analysis was really kind of goofy. Lumenick: Such as? Bird: Some pieces compared the viewpoint to the objectivist philosopher Ayn Rand. I thought that was silly and the writers were humorless. I was into Rand for about six months when I was 20, but you outgrow that narrow point of view. Some compromise is necessary in life.
Knowing that, I might just give up on this damn book now, except that it's so overwrought and funny. Hell, even though I find her philosophy unpleasant, and her alliance with HUAC detestable, I owe it to her and myself to at least give it a try. I guess. [Thanks to decca for inspiring me to find that crazy transcript.]
6. I'm so envious of Americans because John C. Reilly is touring as Dewey Cox.
Canyon has already written a post about Walk The Line and how excited we are at the imminent release of the spoof Walk Hard, but now I see John C. Reilly is touring the US. He'll be in character as Dewey Cox, and will be backed by his band the Hard Walkers. It's sold out already, which bodes well for the movie box office (unless the gigs suck and annoy the audience, of course). There's no plan to tour the UK, obviously, as we're just Airstrip One, after all. The movie isn't coming out on time here either, thus increasing my ire. Still, at least this perfect poster eases the pain somewhat.
Plus, we're getting Springsteen in London! Beat that, America! ::pokes out tongue:: ETA: 7: It seems my Ticketmaster account was out of date:
While buying Springsteen tickets, I found, to my great amusement, that I haven't used my Ticketmaster account since living elsewhere. As a result, my bank card was out of date and my old address was listed. I'm not good in stressful situations, and the purchasing of popular tickets within a very small window is one of the most pulse-stretching things I can do, so it was not much fun to have to change everything while a little message tells me I only have one minute to confirm the purchase. But I did it! And I have tickets! Directly opposite the stage, and therefore several miles away from Bruce, Clarence, Little Steven, Max Weinberg and the rest, but it's better than nothing. Much better. Because it is a Bruce Springsteen gig, and as Jon Stewart said recently, they are pure joy.
The 15th annual Rendez-vous with French Cinema, presented by The Film Society of Lincoln Center and UniFrance, was announced recently, though the line-up isn't much to get excited over. Rendez-vous with French Cinema usually highlights the previous year's Gallic offerings that hadn't already premiered at the New York Film Festival. Last year's series screened the new films from Claire Denis, Agnès Godard, Claude Chabrol, Costa-Gavras, André Téchiné and Benoît Jacquot. While there are some big(-ish) names represented this year like François Ozon, Michel Gondry, Christophe Honoré and Claude Miller, the line-up as a whole doesn't read as "thrilling" by any stretch (keep in mind I haven't actually seen any of the films yet). On the bright side, Alain Guiraudie's Le roi de l'évasion [The King of Escape] will make its US premiere at the festival (and, really, I am quite anxious to see the new Ozon and a couple of the others).
Jules Dassin's The Law [La loi], a French/Italian co-production from 1959 with Gina Lollobrigida, Marcello Mastroianni, Melina Mercouri and Yves Montand, is the only feature more than a year old that screens this year. Recently remastered in a new 35mm print, The Law will make the rounds theatrically and on DVD later this year from Oscilloscope Pictures. Thierry Frémaux, artistic director of the Cannes Film Festival, will also bring a collection of newly restored shorts from the Lumière brothers. The selection of short films will include a film called The Girls, the directorial debut of actress Anna Mouglalis. Of the 2009 features, four currently have US distribution (with Lorber Films announcing their acquisition of L'armée du crime earlier today). The complete line-up is below, but click here for short synopses, screening dates and online ticketing.
- À l'origine [In the Beginning], d. Xavier Giannoli, w. François Cluzet, Emmanuelle Devos, Gérard Depardieu
