So. George Osborne has decided not to institute those changes in tax credits after all. But while this news will come to many as an enormous relief, I wonder if those millions are not also entitled to some sort of apology. For months now, they have been going through spasms of anxiety as they asked themselves the question:
If they push these cuts through, how I am I going to cope?
Now it seems the Tories can balance the books without recourse to hammering the poorest in our society, or at least when they do it will be by smaller increments, so hopefully no one will notice. But what astonishes me is the political ineptitude of a group of men who seemed happy to launch the whole dumb, vindictive little idea in the first place, and then were apparently astonished that many people, including members of their own party, thought the plan was unduly cruel, even by Conservative standards.
You can just picture them, after the election in May, going:
This is great! Now we don't have to worry what those damned libdems think any more we can do what we like! So lets get out there and screw the poor and look after our own, just like we always do- more champagne anyone?
Back to those people who believed their tax credits were going to be cut. Never mind an apology, shouldn't they now be entitled to compensation? Damages for unnecessary emotional pain and suffering, post traumatic stress if you will, should be paid out. In a kinder Universe.
Wednesday, 25 November 2015
Saturday, 21 November 2015
The times they are a changing
For as long as I've been alive Russia has been the "fuck you" state. From despots like Stalin and Krushchev, through to 1991, when Russia made the transition from a communist state to a criminal state in less than a year, they've gone their own way, ignoring the protests of the rest of the world.
Just this year, when a world consensus formed that the rule of Assad in Syria was a bad thing, Russia chose the opposite course and went to war to keep him in power. But it seems one bomb on a plane has changed all that. Sure, they're still saying they support Assad, but from ignoring the threat of IS they have suddenly become its biggest opponent, curiously bringing them into line with the west in a way that hasn't occurred since the end of World War II. Who saw that coming?
To me it demonstrates yet again what a complicated and unpredictable world we live in today.
The Paris bombings have united the world against IS, if the unanimous vote in the UN is anything to go by. But what happens next? The fight against IS is going to be at least as hard as the fight against the Nazis or the Japanese militarists. The world has changed out of all recognition since the 1940s, and we now face a foe like some many-headed hydra: cut one off and another grows, even more terrifying than the last. There are so many "soft targets" out there, places where people gather in large numbers and are virtually impossible to protect- shopping malls, sporting events, hotels, airports, the list is endless. We can't protect them all, and the more we try the more our freedoms are restricted.
The vote last night at the UN was unprecedented, and may mark a new phase in the fight against those men who would impose their medieval world view on us. But it's going to be a long, bloody road.
Just this year, when a world consensus formed that the rule of Assad in Syria was a bad thing, Russia chose the opposite course and went to war to keep him in power. But it seems one bomb on a plane has changed all that. Sure, they're still saying they support Assad, but from ignoring the threat of IS they have suddenly become its biggest opponent, curiously bringing them into line with the west in a way that hasn't occurred since the end of World War II. Who saw that coming?
To me it demonstrates yet again what a complicated and unpredictable world we live in today.
The Paris bombings have united the world against IS, if the unanimous vote in the UN is anything to go by. But what happens next? The fight against IS is going to be at least as hard as the fight against the Nazis or the Japanese militarists. The world has changed out of all recognition since the 1940s, and we now face a foe like some many-headed hydra: cut one off and another grows, even more terrifying than the last. There are so many "soft targets" out there, places where people gather in large numbers and are virtually impossible to protect- shopping malls, sporting events, hotels, airports, the list is endless. We can't protect them all, and the more we try the more our freedoms are restricted.
The vote last night at the UN was unprecedented, and may mark a new phase in the fight against those men who would impose their medieval world view on us. But it's going to be a long, bloody road.
Sunday, 15 November 2015
French tragedy: it may not be the greatest, but it is the latest
All across the world people have been changing their facebook profile picture to include the French tricolor. From notables like Mark Zuckerberg to ordinary folk like many of my friends people have wanted to "show a gesture of solidarity" with the French people in this, their darkest hour since World War II.
I'm not on facebook, but if I were this is one bandwagon I wouldn't be joining. Not that what happened in Paris on Friday night wasn't enormous: the deliberate targeting of young people celebrating their freedom by enjoying a night on the town. This wasn't just a reprisal, or a "price ticket" as the Jewish terrorists call it when they attack the Palestinians, it was a deliberate attack on people who don't share their perverted brand of Islam.
But where was all this solidarity when Kenya was bombed, or Nigeria, or Lebanon, or Pakistan? The list is endless. What about, for instance, those 224 Russians blown out of the sky only last month? The truth is that France is our nearest neighbour, and love them or loathe them, they are culturally speaking closer to us than any other race of people. Hence to single them out for our "gesture of solidarity" is to recognise how parochial we have become.
We should be educating ourselves to be world citizens, capable of feeling the pain of other oppressed peoples wherever they are, not just north-western Europe. We're not Americans, most of whom care very little about what happens beyond their borders unless it directly impinges on them. We're better than that, aren't we?
I'm not on facebook, but if I were this is one bandwagon I wouldn't be joining. Not that what happened in Paris on Friday night wasn't enormous: the deliberate targeting of young people celebrating their freedom by enjoying a night on the town. This wasn't just a reprisal, or a "price ticket" as the Jewish terrorists call it when they attack the Palestinians, it was a deliberate attack on people who don't share their perverted brand of Islam.
But where was all this solidarity when Kenya was bombed, or Nigeria, or Lebanon, or Pakistan? The list is endless. What about, for instance, those 224 Russians blown out of the sky only last month? The truth is that France is our nearest neighbour, and love them or loathe them, they are culturally speaking closer to us than any other race of people. Hence to single them out for our "gesture of solidarity" is to recognise how parochial we have become.
We should be educating ourselves to be world citizens, capable of feeling the pain of other oppressed peoples wherever they are, not just north-western Europe. We're not Americans, most of whom care very little about what happens beyond their borders unless it directly impinges on them. We're better than that, aren't we?
Thursday, 12 November 2015
Give 'em some shtick
1.
David Cameron: These council cuts are ridiculous! They're closing libraries, after school services, even basic infrastructure. These cuts are beginning to affect me! I'm writing to the council leader right now.
Adviser: Er, you instigated them yourself, sir.
DC: What?
2.
Boris Johnson: I don't get it. These Palestinians actually don't seem to like me!
Adviser: Could it have something to do with the fact that you showed no interest whatever in their problems, whereas you bigged up the Israelis like they're the greatest race since the ancient Romans?
BoJo: What's wrong with that? The Romans were the greatest civilising influence in history. They told me that at Eton.
Adviser: Yes sir, but they were also a society based on oppression and rule by violence and murder.
BoJo; Like I said, what's wrong with that? Oh bugger them, I'm going back to Israel.At least they know how to put on a proper banquet. Here you just get mashed potato and olives. Mind you, at that last meal in Tel Aviv, that roast bastard-
Adviser: That's bustard, sir-
BoJo: What's the difference? All I'm saying is, they didn't give us any pigs in blankets with it, and to me that's wrong.
David Cameron: These council cuts are ridiculous! They're closing libraries, after school services, even basic infrastructure. These cuts are beginning to affect me! I'm writing to the council leader right now.
Adviser: Er, you instigated them yourself, sir.
DC: What?
2.
Boris Johnson: I don't get it. These Palestinians actually don't seem to like me!
Adviser: Could it have something to do with the fact that you showed no interest whatever in their problems, whereas you bigged up the Israelis like they're the greatest race since the ancient Romans?
BoJo: What's wrong with that? The Romans were the greatest civilising influence in history. They told me that at Eton.
Adviser: Yes sir, but they were also a society based on oppression and rule by violence and murder.
BoJo; Like I said, what's wrong with that? Oh bugger them, I'm going back to Israel.At least they know how to put on a proper banquet. Here you just get mashed potato and olives. Mind you, at that last meal in Tel Aviv, that roast bastard-
Adviser: That's bustard, sir-
BoJo: What's the difference? All I'm saying is, they didn't give us any pigs in blankets with it, and to me that's wrong.
Monday, 9 November 2015
What I'm hoping to get out of Chilcott (but won't)
It appears we will finally get to read the two million words the Chilcott Enquiry is likely to contain some time next summer. But will any of those words really get to the nitty-gritty of the problem?
The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was based on false information- lies in fact. Tony Blair has apologised, sort of, for basing Britain's actions on those lies, But he thought they were true at the time, so what can you do? To that I'd say, OK, but how hard did you try to verify those "facts"? As I understand it, much of the "dodgy dossier" was based on a PhD thesis by Ibrahim al-Marashi, who was known to have rabidly anti-Saddam views. And his totally spurious assertions were swallowed wholemeal by both the British and the Americans, because it suited their purposes.
When weapons expert David Kelly suggested the dossier had been "sexed up" he was found dead in a field, apparently by his own hand, using a tiny blunt penknife. Odd. Then in 2011 the Observer obtained under freedom of information legislation a memo from John Scarlett, head of the ISC at the time, to Blair's foreign affairs spokesman Sir David Manning. Written in March 2002 it said that "it would be beneficial if the dossier obscured the fact that in terms of WMDs Iraq is not that exceptional".
If that isn't sexing up, I don't know what is. We all know that George Bush II wanted a war in Iraq for all sorts of domestic and economic reasons, and dragged Blair along with him, how reluctantly we're not sure, to add credibility to his plan. We do know they also wanted the French to get on board and had a mother of a hissy fit when they didn't. France does not seem to have collapsed as a result. We wouldn't have either. But Blair was so keen to stay "in" with Dubya he almost fell over himself adopting the poodle position. That's the crime he's guilty of: literally deceiving us into a totally unnecessary war, a war that saw half a million Arabs murdered, destroyed Iraqi infrastructure for years to come, enabled the looting of museums and ancient sites and encouraging the blossoming of Al Qaida and the birth of IS. None of this, none, would have happened if we'd held off and insisted on getting the claims of the dossier verified, but it never happened. You could say people believe what they want to believe, but I say it's worse than that: they didn't believe it in the first place. I'd like to think Chilcott will at least hint at this truth, but I'm not an idiot. I know damn well it won't.
The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was based on false information- lies in fact. Tony Blair has apologised, sort of, for basing Britain's actions on those lies, But he thought they were true at the time, so what can you do? To that I'd say, OK, but how hard did you try to verify those "facts"? As I understand it, much of the "dodgy dossier" was based on a PhD thesis by Ibrahim al-Marashi, who was known to have rabidly anti-Saddam views. And his totally spurious assertions were swallowed wholemeal by both the British and the Americans, because it suited their purposes.
When weapons expert David Kelly suggested the dossier had been "sexed up" he was found dead in a field, apparently by his own hand, using a tiny blunt penknife. Odd. Then in 2011 the Observer obtained under freedom of information legislation a memo from John Scarlett, head of the ISC at the time, to Blair's foreign affairs spokesman Sir David Manning. Written in March 2002 it said that "it would be beneficial if the dossier obscured the fact that in terms of WMDs Iraq is not that exceptional".
If that isn't sexing up, I don't know what is. We all know that George Bush II wanted a war in Iraq for all sorts of domestic and economic reasons, and dragged Blair along with him, how reluctantly we're not sure, to add credibility to his plan. We do know they also wanted the French to get on board and had a mother of a hissy fit when they didn't. France does not seem to have collapsed as a result. We wouldn't have either. But Blair was so keen to stay "in" with Dubya he almost fell over himself adopting the poodle position. That's the crime he's guilty of: literally deceiving us into a totally unnecessary war, a war that saw half a million Arabs murdered, destroyed Iraqi infrastructure for years to come, enabled the looting of museums and ancient sites and encouraging the blossoming of Al Qaida and the birth of IS. None of this, none, would have happened if we'd held off and insisted on getting the claims of the dossier verified, but it never happened. You could say people believe what they want to believe, but I say it's worse than that: they didn't believe it in the first place. I'd like to think Chilcott will at least hint at this truth, but I'm not an idiot. I know damn well it won't.
Thursday, 5 November 2015
Media review supplement
MARLBOROUGH: HIS LIFE AND TIMES (BOOK TWO), by Winston Spencer Churchill
In my review last month I wrote of Book One of this vast biography of one of Britain's greatest soldiers, and wondered whether I would go on to read Book Two. How could I not?
Book One ended with arguably Marlborough's greatest military triumph at the Battle of Blenheim, where, technically outnumbered by the French enemy, used his classical trick of imagining what his enemies believed would be his most likely course of action, and then doing the exact opposite. Time and again this gloriously simple tactic worked for him, as he moved his troops, first in the expected direction but then, almost as an afterthought, moved them another way. Here and at so many other battles he was ably assisted by his great friend and ally Prince Eugene of Savoy, a magnificent general in his own right but who nonetheless invariably co-operated with Marlborough in his famous deceiving feints.
In Book Two, we find Marlborough still at the top of his game, forcing the evil French out of Flanders and threatening, especially after the brilliant, but bloody battle of Oudenarde, to pursue them all the way to the gates of Paris itself. But at home, enemies jealous of his status and power as the first citizen of England, sought to bring him down. Among his detractors were the political commentators Swift, Defoe and Thackeray, who in a tradition that has come down to us today, were anxious to prick the pomposity of the great and good, Marlborough being as great and good as they have ever come. And in their efforts they were supported, strangely, by Marlborough's own wife Sarah.
Sarah enjoyed the greatest confidence of Queen Anne in the early years of her rule, appointed to the prestigious role of Mistress of the Queen's wardrobe and relishing her role as one of her closest advisors. But over the years the Queen gradually tired of Sarah's incessant carping about her pet theories of government, eventually alienating her to such an extent that she was dismissed from the Court and the return of the Gold Key to the wardrobe demanded. At the time Marlborough was still commanding the Allied armies in Flanders and naturally the knowledge of his wife's disgrace spread around Europe and diminished his own status. At this point his other enemies plotted the downfall of the man who had done so much to enhance Britain's prestige throughout the world. Finally he is dismissed from his command and forced into exile.
Perhaps fortunately for Marlborough, the death of the Queen shortly thereafter restored him to the nation's affections (it had never been lost among the ordinary people, who treated him almost as a god) and he returned in splendour. He spent his remaining years living quietly, building his great legacy, the palace at Woodstock, still the largest non-royal palace in Britain.
All in all, I pronounce this book as one of the great biographies, beautifully written and packed with the most fascinating and sometimes horrific detail. Like the day of the Battle of Malpaquet, where hundreds of French troops were forced into a narrow, but deep stream, where, desperate troops jumping into the water on top of each other, led to 800 of them drowning within feet of the banks. Churchill's description of these terrible events bring the atmosphere of battle to life so vividly we can almost smell the cordite and blood.
Magificent.
In my review last month I wrote of Book One of this vast biography of one of Britain's greatest soldiers, and wondered whether I would go on to read Book Two. How could I not?
Book One ended with arguably Marlborough's greatest military triumph at the Battle of Blenheim, where, technically outnumbered by the French enemy, used his classical trick of imagining what his enemies believed would be his most likely course of action, and then doing the exact opposite. Time and again this gloriously simple tactic worked for him, as he moved his troops, first in the expected direction but then, almost as an afterthought, moved them another way. Here and at so many other battles he was ably assisted by his great friend and ally Prince Eugene of Savoy, a magnificent general in his own right but who nonetheless invariably co-operated with Marlborough in his famous deceiving feints.
In Book Two, we find Marlborough still at the top of his game, forcing the evil French out of Flanders and threatening, especially after the brilliant, but bloody battle of Oudenarde, to pursue them all the way to the gates of Paris itself. But at home, enemies jealous of his status and power as the first citizen of England, sought to bring him down. Among his detractors were the political commentators Swift, Defoe and Thackeray, who in a tradition that has come down to us today, were anxious to prick the pomposity of the great and good, Marlborough being as great and good as they have ever come. And in their efforts they were supported, strangely, by Marlborough's own wife Sarah.
Sarah enjoyed the greatest confidence of Queen Anne in the early years of her rule, appointed to the prestigious role of Mistress of the Queen's wardrobe and relishing her role as one of her closest advisors. But over the years the Queen gradually tired of Sarah's incessant carping about her pet theories of government, eventually alienating her to such an extent that she was dismissed from the Court and the return of the Gold Key to the wardrobe demanded. At the time Marlborough was still commanding the Allied armies in Flanders and naturally the knowledge of his wife's disgrace spread around Europe and diminished his own status. At this point his other enemies plotted the downfall of the man who had done so much to enhance Britain's prestige throughout the world. Finally he is dismissed from his command and forced into exile.
Perhaps fortunately for Marlborough, the death of the Queen shortly thereafter restored him to the nation's affections (it had never been lost among the ordinary people, who treated him almost as a god) and he returned in splendour. He spent his remaining years living quietly, building his great legacy, the palace at Woodstock, still the largest non-royal palace in Britain.
All in all, I pronounce this book as one of the great biographies, beautifully written and packed with the most fascinating and sometimes horrific detail. Like the day of the Battle of Malpaquet, where hundreds of French troops were forced into a narrow, but deep stream, where, desperate troops jumping into the water on top of each other, led to 800 of them drowning within feet of the banks. Churchill's description of these terrible events bring the atmosphere of battle to life so vividly we can almost smell the cordite and blood.
Magificent.
Tuesday, 3 November 2015
October 2015 book and film review
BOOKS
THE BOOK OF IMAGINARY BEINGS, by Jorge Luis Borges. Being exactly what it says in the title, this remarkable little volume is indeed a comprehensive guide to the human imagination by way of the fabulous creatures it has dreamed up over the centuries. From famous monsters, like the Basilisk, whose mere glance was fatal, through the unicorn, dragon (there are several varieties) and minotaur, to less well known horrors like the Shaggy Beast of La Ferte-Bernard, a creature that survived the Great Flood and came to dwell in the area of the river Huisne in northern France, where it lived quietly unless roused, when it breathed fire upon cattle and men alike.
Reading these pages is a bit like staring at the panels of some painting by Heironymous Bosch and produces a similarly disturbing sensation, and of course Jung would would have much to say about the collective unconscious and the theory of archetype. Or we could consider how the people of the past sought explanations for the unexplainable in their world. Whatever, we find an utterly intriguing discourse on monster myths gathered from cultures around the world, and compiled by one of the acknowledged masters of 20th century writing. Highly recommended.
MARLBOROUGH: HIS LIFE AND TIMES, by Winston Spencer Churchill (Book Two). Please forgive the wind-up, but as I still have 100 pages to go before finishing this 2000 page behemoth (check the book above for a detailed description of what that is) I shall not post my review until I have. If you are interested, I shall post my review by Friday of this week. Sorry about this.
FILMS
ALEKSANDRA (2007) D- Alexander Sokurov. Amidst the chaos of the Chechen war, a young officer's mum arrives at the front to visit him and generally experience the war zone first hand. After wandering around the army camp she visits the town where the army is encamped. The locals are suspicious of her at first, because she is a hated Russian, but slowly she gains their trust and a touch of humanity and compassion is added to the horrible mix of death and destruction that is a civil war.
Built around the indomitable character of its protagonist (played by Galina Vishnevskaya) this is a powerful, moving piece of movie making from one of Russia's best cinematographers
BIG EYES (2014) D- Tim Burton. In the late 1950s, aspiring artist Margaret (Amy Adams, and is she hot right now or what?) finds the courage to leave a loveless marriage and relocate to San Francisco with her daughter. There she develops a style of portraiture, especially of children, which emphasises their eyes (geddit?) to a massive and rather hypnotic degree. She meets Walter Keane (a pretty good Christopher Waltz) and they marry. Soon, with her reluctant compliance, he is passing her work off as his own and has the connections in the art world to take that world by storm. Not that the cognoscenti think much of the work, but the public lap it up to the point where Keane is one of the world's most bankable artists. But cracks form in their marriage, and as it falls apart she finally comes out and announces the work is not his at all, but hers. A thrilling legal battle ensues...
Normally I have a lot of time for Tim Burton's films. Beginning with Edward Scissorhands, through Beetlejuice and on to the especially fine Ed Wood, I have admired his skill and general attention to the smallest detail of the film making process. But here I had problems with the character development of the film's main protagonist. We see how Margaret Keane can find the courage to leave her husband in 1958, at a time when that was anything but common, yet there is little explanation for why she allowed her husband to appropriate her work for so many years. I know people are befuddlingly complicated sometimes, but I'm just saying it kind of jarred with me. But as always, Tim's film looks great on screen.
UNBROKEN (2014) D- Angelina Jolie. Louie Zemperini grows up in rural California where he shows great prowess in running, to the point where he is selected for the Olympic team to compete at the Berlin Olympics. But war soon overtakes his life in athletics, and he joins up as a pilot. Then his plane is shot down over the Pacific and the crew drifts for no less than 47 days before being rescued... by the Japanese. Once ensconced in a prison camp, the commandant discovers the backstory to his latest charge, and determines to cut him down to size. What follows is an horrific account of Louie's life behind the bamboo bars, where a brutal contest of wills develops between the two men. One does everything he can to break him, the other is equally determined to remain unbroken. See?
Angelina had to do something to take her mind off having a double mastectomy, and turned to directing in this very creditable attempt which has attracted a lot of praise. It is certainly very well made and contains some memorable and harrowing scenes, perhaps cathartic in nature for La Jolie herself. Gripping stuff.
THE TIME THAT REMAINS (2009) D- Elia Suleiman. Being the life and times of a Palestinian film maker born and raised in a Nazareth that was forcibly occupied by Israeli troops in 1948 and which has struggled to assert its Arab identity ever since. Whereas to some extent the film looks to Fellini's famous Amarcord, where an ageing director looks back over his long, illustrious life and wonders whether it was all worth it, this film has a unique, comic aspect which owes something to Jacques Tati. Like his previous minor masterpiece, Divine Intervention, a number of bizarre vignettes are presented which may or may not reflect real life, and which find themselves reprized throughout the movie in a disturbing, but also hilarious procession.
We would need to be made of stone not to appreciate his main point, which is that the Arabs who happen to live under Israeli control would prefer to be left to their own devices to lead their lives free of oppression, but Suleiman achieves this with the skill of one of the world's most accomplished directors. Brilliant.
THE DRESSER (2015) D- Richard Eyre. At the height of the Blitz, a famous actor (Anthony Hopkins) is about to go on stage to reprise one of his most celebrated roles, King Lear, but there's something wrong. Is he drunk, is he depressed or has he just reached the end of his rope? It falls to his dresser (Ian McKellen) to pull him together and get him on stage for his first cue. At times this seems an impossible task, and management are all for cancelling the performance, especially as the bombs are falling even as the curtain is rising. But after 226 performances, our dresser isn't about to let his boss fail on this, the 227th.
Ronald Harwood's play was originally filmed in 1983, with Albert Finney and Tom Courtney in the main roles. I haven't seen that, but I must say it will have to have been pretty amazing to live with BBC 2's latest adaptation. Hopkins is superb as the ageing thespian on his last legs, while McKellen is if anything even better as his fiercely loyal servant. Emily Watson also excels as Hopkins's long suffering wife. All in all, mark this one down if they choose to repeat it, maybe around Christmas.
MAN OF MARBLE (1977) D- Andrzej Wajda. In post-war Soviet Poland, a young man is hailed a hero of the people for his sterling efforts in the subtle art of bricklaying. He even has several statues built in his image- in marble. Twenty years on, a film maker decides to make a film of his life, but finds he has sunk into obscurity, and few people are even prepared to talk about him. Odd. But our director is a determined, feisty creature who won't leave her project alone, even if it ruffles the feathers of the communist establishment. Eventually, she tracks him down, and the whole, seedy story emerges...
Wajda has been at the forefront of Polish cinema since the early 1950s (Polanski began his career sitting at his feet) and has received wide acclaim, even in America, where they awarded him the Oscar for best foreign film for his The Promised Land in 1975. His portrayal of communist society as an animal that might live and thrive if not for he malign influence of the Soviet iron fist has struck a chord with critics and public around the world, and his skill in constructing a movie is perhaps unrivaled in central Europe, except by Polanski himself, who of course turned his back on Poland and settled in America (which as we know he had to leave in unseemly haste) If you're not familiar with his work, redress that oversight immediately...
THE BIG RED ONE (the reconstruction) (1980) D- Samuel Fuller. A crew of American grunts, all wearing a red "One" on their shoulders indicating they are part of the US Army's First Infantry Division, are led by captain Lee Marvin in the struggle against the Hun in various theatres: North Africa, D Day, Bastogne, the liberation of the concentration camps. Slowly their numbers are whittled away under the toll of battle, but they retain their cohesion, and, even less likely, their humanity amidst the inhumanity of war.
This sort of warts-and-all naturalistic portrayal of war was pretty unusual for its day, and hence carried a terrific impact at the time. This has been somewhat dimmed with the passage of time and the arrival of many ultra-realistic war films like Platoon, Full Metal Jacket and Saving Private Ryan. Even so this film retains the power to move as well as shock. Indeed, the recent television series Band of Brothers covered almost the exact same ground as this film, showing if you can't generate a good idea of your own, it doesn't hurt to borrow someone else's...
EXTINCTION: JURASSIC PREDATORS (2014) D- Adam Spinks. A motley collection of young folk journey deep into the Amazon jungle (funny, most of it looks more like the Forest of Dean, but what do I know?) to find and catalogue new species, but, as we might infer from the title, find rather more than they bargained for. You've got it. Before they know it they're being confronted by T Rex, allosaurs and velociraptors (oh yes, I know my dinos, almost as well as your average six-year-old, though I don't recommend any of them watch this). No longer at the top of the food chain, our crew quickly finds itself being viewed as excellent pre-dinner snacks.
Using lots of shaky hand-held camera work and creating a "what the hell's going on?" atmosphere, this film owes a big debt to The Blair Witch Project, which remains in the record books as the film to make the most money in relation to the cost of making it (it cost a couple of million, and to date has made nearly a billion). I guess the producers were hoping something similar might happen with this relatively low budget offering. Thing is, whereas Blair Witch was innovative, exciting and pretty scary, this is anything but. Most of the acting is execrable, the camera work annoying more than ground-breaking, and I have already indicated how the locations do not in any way suggest it was set in the Amazon rainforest.
Dismal.
THE BOOK OF IMAGINARY BEINGS, by Jorge Luis Borges. Being exactly what it says in the title, this remarkable little volume is indeed a comprehensive guide to the human imagination by way of the fabulous creatures it has dreamed up over the centuries. From famous monsters, like the Basilisk, whose mere glance was fatal, through the unicorn, dragon (there are several varieties) and minotaur, to less well known horrors like the Shaggy Beast of La Ferte-Bernard, a creature that survived the Great Flood and came to dwell in the area of the river Huisne in northern France, where it lived quietly unless roused, when it breathed fire upon cattle and men alike.
Reading these pages is a bit like staring at the panels of some painting by Heironymous Bosch and produces a similarly disturbing sensation, and of course Jung would would have much to say about the collective unconscious and the theory of archetype. Or we could consider how the people of the past sought explanations for the unexplainable in their world. Whatever, we find an utterly intriguing discourse on monster myths gathered from cultures around the world, and compiled by one of the acknowledged masters of 20th century writing. Highly recommended.
MARLBOROUGH: HIS LIFE AND TIMES, by Winston Spencer Churchill (Book Two). Please forgive the wind-up, but as I still have 100 pages to go before finishing this 2000 page behemoth (check the book above for a detailed description of what that is) I shall not post my review until I have. If you are interested, I shall post my review by Friday of this week. Sorry about this.
FILMS
ALEKSANDRA (2007) D- Alexander Sokurov. Amidst the chaos of the Chechen war, a young officer's mum arrives at the front to visit him and generally experience the war zone first hand. After wandering around the army camp she visits the town where the army is encamped. The locals are suspicious of her at first, because she is a hated Russian, but slowly she gains their trust and a touch of humanity and compassion is added to the horrible mix of death and destruction that is a civil war.
Built around the indomitable character of its protagonist (played by Galina Vishnevskaya) this is a powerful, moving piece of movie making from one of Russia's best cinematographers
BIG EYES (2014) D- Tim Burton. In the late 1950s, aspiring artist Margaret (Amy Adams, and is she hot right now or what?) finds the courage to leave a loveless marriage and relocate to San Francisco with her daughter. There she develops a style of portraiture, especially of children, which emphasises their eyes (geddit?) to a massive and rather hypnotic degree. She meets Walter Keane (a pretty good Christopher Waltz) and they marry. Soon, with her reluctant compliance, he is passing her work off as his own and has the connections in the art world to take that world by storm. Not that the cognoscenti think much of the work, but the public lap it up to the point where Keane is one of the world's most bankable artists. But cracks form in their marriage, and as it falls apart she finally comes out and announces the work is not his at all, but hers. A thrilling legal battle ensues...
Normally I have a lot of time for Tim Burton's films. Beginning with Edward Scissorhands, through Beetlejuice and on to the especially fine Ed Wood, I have admired his skill and general attention to the smallest detail of the film making process. But here I had problems with the character development of the film's main protagonist. We see how Margaret Keane can find the courage to leave her husband in 1958, at a time when that was anything but common, yet there is little explanation for why she allowed her husband to appropriate her work for so many years. I know people are befuddlingly complicated sometimes, but I'm just saying it kind of jarred with me. But as always, Tim's film looks great on screen.
UNBROKEN (2014) D- Angelina Jolie. Louie Zemperini grows up in rural California where he shows great prowess in running, to the point where he is selected for the Olympic team to compete at the Berlin Olympics. But war soon overtakes his life in athletics, and he joins up as a pilot. Then his plane is shot down over the Pacific and the crew drifts for no less than 47 days before being rescued... by the Japanese. Once ensconced in a prison camp, the commandant discovers the backstory to his latest charge, and determines to cut him down to size. What follows is an horrific account of Louie's life behind the bamboo bars, where a brutal contest of wills develops between the two men. One does everything he can to break him, the other is equally determined to remain unbroken. See?
Angelina had to do something to take her mind off having a double mastectomy, and turned to directing in this very creditable attempt which has attracted a lot of praise. It is certainly very well made and contains some memorable and harrowing scenes, perhaps cathartic in nature for La Jolie herself. Gripping stuff.
THE TIME THAT REMAINS (2009) D- Elia Suleiman. Being the life and times of a Palestinian film maker born and raised in a Nazareth that was forcibly occupied by Israeli troops in 1948 and which has struggled to assert its Arab identity ever since. Whereas to some extent the film looks to Fellini's famous Amarcord, where an ageing director looks back over his long, illustrious life and wonders whether it was all worth it, this film has a unique, comic aspect which owes something to Jacques Tati. Like his previous minor masterpiece, Divine Intervention, a number of bizarre vignettes are presented which may or may not reflect real life, and which find themselves reprized throughout the movie in a disturbing, but also hilarious procession.
We would need to be made of stone not to appreciate his main point, which is that the Arabs who happen to live under Israeli control would prefer to be left to their own devices to lead their lives free of oppression, but Suleiman achieves this with the skill of one of the world's most accomplished directors. Brilliant.
THE DRESSER (2015) D- Richard Eyre. At the height of the Blitz, a famous actor (Anthony Hopkins) is about to go on stage to reprise one of his most celebrated roles, King Lear, but there's something wrong. Is he drunk, is he depressed or has he just reached the end of his rope? It falls to his dresser (Ian McKellen) to pull him together and get him on stage for his first cue. At times this seems an impossible task, and management are all for cancelling the performance, especially as the bombs are falling even as the curtain is rising. But after 226 performances, our dresser isn't about to let his boss fail on this, the 227th.
Ronald Harwood's play was originally filmed in 1983, with Albert Finney and Tom Courtney in the main roles. I haven't seen that, but I must say it will have to have been pretty amazing to live with BBC 2's latest adaptation. Hopkins is superb as the ageing thespian on his last legs, while McKellen is if anything even better as his fiercely loyal servant. Emily Watson also excels as Hopkins's long suffering wife. All in all, mark this one down if they choose to repeat it, maybe around Christmas.
MAN OF MARBLE (1977) D- Andrzej Wajda. In post-war Soviet Poland, a young man is hailed a hero of the people for his sterling efforts in the subtle art of bricklaying. He even has several statues built in his image- in marble. Twenty years on, a film maker decides to make a film of his life, but finds he has sunk into obscurity, and few people are even prepared to talk about him. Odd. But our director is a determined, feisty creature who won't leave her project alone, even if it ruffles the feathers of the communist establishment. Eventually, she tracks him down, and the whole, seedy story emerges...
Wajda has been at the forefront of Polish cinema since the early 1950s (Polanski began his career sitting at his feet) and has received wide acclaim, even in America, where they awarded him the Oscar for best foreign film for his The Promised Land in 1975. His portrayal of communist society as an animal that might live and thrive if not for he malign influence of the Soviet iron fist has struck a chord with critics and public around the world, and his skill in constructing a movie is perhaps unrivaled in central Europe, except by Polanski himself, who of course turned his back on Poland and settled in America (which as we know he had to leave in unseemly haste) If you're not familiar with his work, redress that oversight immediately...
THE BIG RED ONE (the reconstruction) (1980) D- Samuel Fuller. A crew of American grunts, all wearing a red "One" on their shoulders indicating they are part of the US Army's First Infantry Division, are led by captain Lee Marvin in the struggle against the Hun in various theatres: North Africa, D Day, Bastogne, the liberation of the concentration camps. Slowly their numbers are whittled away under the toll of battle, but they retain their cohesion, and, even less likely, their humanity amidst the inhumanity of war.
This sort of warts-and-all naturalistic portrayal of war was pretty unusual for its day, and hence carried a terrific impact at the time. This has been somewhat dimmed with the passage of time and the arrival of many ultra-realistic war films like Platoon, Full Metal Jacket and Saving Private Ryan. Even so this film retains the power to move as well as shock. Indeed, the recent television series Band of Brothers covered almost the exact same ground as this film, showing if you can't generate a good idea of your own, it doesn't hurt to borrow someone else's...
EXTINCTION: JURASSIC PREDATORS (2014) D- Adam Spinks. A motley collection of young folk journey deep into the Amazon jungle (funny, most of it looks more like the Forest of Dean, but what do I know?) to find and catalogue new species, but, as we might infer from the title, find rather more than they bargained for. You've got it. Before they know it they're being confronted by T Rex, allosaurs and velociraptors (oh yes, I know my dinos, almost as well as your average six-year-old, though I don't recommend any of them watch this). No longer at the top of the food chain, our crew quickly finds itself being viewed as excellent pre-dinner snacks.
Using lots of shaky hand-held camera work and creating a "what the hell's going on?" atmosphere, this film owes a big debt to The Blair Witch Project, which remains in the record books as the film to make the most money in relation to the cost of making it (it cost a couple of million, and to date has made nearly a billion). I guess the producers were hoping something similar might happen with this relatively low budget offering. Thing is, whereas Blair Witch was innovative, exciting and pretty scary, this is anything but. Most of the acting is execrable, the camera work annoying more than ground-breaking, and I have already indicated how the locations do not in any way suggest it was set in the Amazon rainforest.
Dismal.
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