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I intend for this blog to be a continuation of my previous cinematic effort entitled “atavism ad infinitum” which is certainly a mores descriptive of the kind of work that you are likely to find here (or anywhere for that matter), but then that’s way it all works in the post-modern world.
I like film, but really believe that it’s an enterprise that is fraught with difficulty especially when it comes to imparting a coherent message to the audience. This is perhaps due to the fact that cinema simultaneously straddles a number of different art forms, which, in the mainstream at least, ensures that great compromise is required and it is harder for a filmmaker to assert their vision. So I may express a slightly negative view of the world of cinema from time to time (ok, most of the time) but I tells it like it is.
So, there you go, those are my initial thoughts I hope you enjoy.
For now.
English popular music hit a peak in the 1960s, with unprecedented and near unrepeated success in the lucrative and highly influential American market, a phenomenon that became known as the ‘English Invasion’. One of the most influential bands of this movement were The Kinks, who were led primarily by the brothers Ray and Dave Davies. The Kinks, as part of the ‘English Invasion’ became highly successful in America in the 60’s, touring almost continuously before being somewhat mysteriously banned from re-entering the U.S. for a period of four years from 1965. It must have been such a devastating blow for the band, being very much a part of the social upheaval of the time. America was the place where it was all happening and to be excluded from this has proved, with the benefit of hindsight, to be a particularly harsh punishment.
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Following their exclusion from America The Kinks’ music became increasingly insular and anglicised and actually as a result far more interesting. While all of their peers from the British R&B scene busy aping American music The Kinks went on to deliver a catalogue of well-observed, slightly eccentric invocations of British society in a time of great social change, their music acting as a documentary of a time and place that really wasn’t served as well as it should have been. That is not to say that Ray Davies’ writing would have not reached the same heights had The Kinks been allowed back into America, but their lone documentation of British life helps to mark them out that little bit more.
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Ok, instead of reading all of the above (too late now) just listen to ‘Waterloo Sunset’ and try and recall such a beautiful evocation of a British scene in the popular music of the 60s or any age for that matter.
Hancock, the latest number for Will Smith to shimmy his way down to the multiplex in, sees him take on the role of Hancock, an alcoholic, tactless super-hero with some serious PR problems. Problems that one Jason Bateman intends to solve after having been saved from certain death by our eponymous hero.
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For the first 45 minutes of the film I was tentatively enjoying the fare, that is before I realised the true intentions of the film maker and his desire to inject the film with some heavy metaphor and a sub-text that simply doesn’t ring true.
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American cinema is littered with comic-book adaptations films of the adventures of the ‘super-hero’. Figures, who are undoubtedly quintessentially American, submerged in pro-American symbolism and who represent true ‘American values’. With his great power he has the great responsibility of attempting to solve the worlds ills. Hancock is no exception to this, he is also drenched in symbolism, he wears a beanie with an eagle sewn in, and his first suit given in his PR sharpened role as the local super-hero has an eagle emblazoned on the back. As a result I think it’s fair to say where we read Hancock we can read America. Hancock is un-loved and he is heavily criticised for his sincere but rather clumsy efforts. This is where the filmmaker lost me, mainly due to his personal politics. He clearly recognises the demise of the American ideal in the eyes of the world. However, he seems to imply that U.S. foreign policy is well intended but clumsy and that an adjustment in leadership and some good PR could return it to the role of Hero in the world, coming to the aid of people who need it most. I would argue this point pretty fiercely, American foreign policy is not clumsy and well intended; it is criminal and determined by self-interest.
‘ello there,
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Last time I proclaimed a desire to try and describe to you with due diligence the most towering musical achievements heard through my ears in the mere 25 years of their existence. Looking (hearing?) back a little further I’d like to write some on the wonder that is The Velvet Underground and if we are talking about The Velvet Underground then we better bloody well be talking about ‘Venus in Furs’. A song that I can only describe as a gutter-dwelling squelch of sound and words ringing heavy with overtones of drugs and sexual oblivion. But then this song is based on the novel of the same by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, who’s writings coined the term ‘Masochism’ (what a legacy!) so what else can you expect. The song itself sounds like it’s from another world, dominated from the start by the scoring drones of John Cale’s viola and the blunt chopping of Lou Reed’s ‘Ostrich’ guitar, whose strings were all tuned to the same note (I think to H, they were that experimental, but then it was the 60’s
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Hklsjflk, , , , , jsalkdfjjj-kjkjkjkj- kkjkj... dig?
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Language degrades the truth of the world; to try and describe anything with a finite vocabulary (and mine is very finite believe me) can do nothing but dilute its true meaning; yet we keep trying. Is this one of the things that makes us human? We will always attempt to create language in order to explain the world. As a result of this, I too feel compelled to add a few of my own words, and in particular to talk about what I feel is the most affecting and prominent art from of all, music. It’s said Hendrix liked to talk about music in colours, I’m predicting that this blog will mostly be a lovely shade of brown (especially this opening gambit) but we shall see
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Well… it’s been quite some time since the last time, but as to what amount of time that is, only time will tell. In fact I don’t know and shan’t know, but this is immaterial. I’ve been on the road for a few weeks, it scooping me up in to its talons and away from a cinema screen, dropping me into the nest of an airplane seat in front of a tiny 3-inch screen on which to feed. (Road = bird? airplane seat = nest? 3-inch screen = a worm?).
Apart from sitting frozen in a variety of sharp angles I did in fact watch some films, most of which have fallen by the wayside (jetlag). One that stuck was ‘The Savages’ starring Philip Seymour Hoffman (Camilla Parker Bowles) and a woman whose name is… Laura Linney. I enjoyed the film quite a bit and I suppose it dealt with the difficult subject of Alzheimer’s and the responsibility of ailing parents etc. in a gentle and funny way. However, as with all ‘plane movies’ it feels almost like I never watched it all, maybe it’s a side effect of the food or perhaps it's a deep vein thrombosis in my head but usually I remember very little of any film I happen to see on the plane. One notable exception from this trip was waking from a nightmare to be confronted by an even worse ill, as my eyes slowly focused on the image of Tom Hanks AND Julia Roberts… in the same film! What compounded matters was my proximity to the screen which only served to distort Julia Robert’s already disfigured features, it didn’t do anything for Tom Hanks’ acting either. A short time later, the cold sweat having dried I discovered that the name of the film was ‘Charlie Wilson’s War’, ‘ The horror
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Well, once the ubiquitous enthusiasm that surrounds any of my new projects had died down, I took some time out to have a think about what I would like to say here and how I would like to start. With the ensuing torrent of fresh and vital ideas threatening to swamp me, I found myself limping back over to the computer to continue my introductory words: -
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My opening gambit closed with some rather threatening overtones, which seemed to stem from a rather unfortunate experience with the film “Vantage Point”. It seems churlish to single out Oscar winning actor Forest Whittaker for his performance in what was an exceedingly average(?) film. However I was particularly bowled over by his range of emotion (which was chiefly focused on confusion), his protruding ears and his chase scene, where only the adjective “lumbering” seems appropriate. However, all of this got me to thinking, how can such a seemingly able actor be capable of delivering such pap. Another such example of woeful underachievement is Sean Penn’s role in The Interpreter, which also acts as a vehicle for the “actress” Nicole Kidman. My favourite line of the movie comes during an intimate phone call between the increasingly close lead characters, when played out on screen the effect is devastating
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Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth the wonderful medium of film, films of the non-silent variety that is. It was soon after this that the internet was created and new a land was born, a digital and metaphorical land, yes, but "land" it is, and god-damned it if I ain’t gon’ get my share to raise up some crops and maybe talk about some of those motion pictures that they are playing down there at the movie house.
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Film, perhaps more than most artistic enterprises seems prone to atavistic tendencies with a near constant recycling of old ideas that should have been tossed out long ago. Remakes, for example, such a strange concept in so many ways and yet we are treated to such events on an increasingly regular basis and invited to share our money with those “in the know” (the fact that they didn’t know that most people could have done without a remake of “Get Carter” starring Sylvester Stallone seemed of little significance). There you go though, our opinion doesn’t really count for much but we can still give voice to it, can’t we? Can’t we? For the little it is worth, I intend to give anyone who can sit through it, mine
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