FILMS, CONTINUED.
SECOND CHANCE (1953) D- Rudolph Mate. Robert Mitchum kills a guy in the ring and travels to deepest Mexico to reboot his life. He comes across gorgeous Linda Darnell, on the run from her gangland boss who will do anything to avoid her testifying at his upcoming trial, up to and including sending evil Jack Palance to find her and silence her for good.
What follows is nicely made noir, even though it's made in glowing technicolor. Unusual in its time for being shot almost entirely on location south of the border, it features an unforgettable climax on a cable car, precariously suspended over a yawning chasm. All the players are excellent, especially Mitchum as the tough guy made all gooey by love, and Jack Palance demonstrating some of the most brooding menace ever seen on film.
BRIDGE OF SPIES (2015) D- Steven Spielberg. In 1957, at the height of the Cold War, pilot Gary Powers is shot down in his spy plane while overflying the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, in the U.S., a Rusky spy is caught passing notes to his handler. Both sides are embarrassed by the revelations, and would seek out a way of exchanging the two with a minimum of fuss. Enter civil lawyer Tom Hanks, brought in because is independent of government, and therefore maybe capable of brokering some sort of deal.
The Spielberg/Hanks machine has been rolling for quite some time now, and seem to be able to put together a highly professional product with seemingly little effort. Especially when they've got a script by John Le Carre to work with. The result here is highly watchable, human and, with the added skills of Mark Rylance to call upon, a sure-fire hit.
THE SALT OF THE EARTH (2014) D- Wim Wenders.
Being the life and times of Sebastiao Salgado, possibly the greatest photographer alive today. For decade after decade, Salgado has been travelling to the world's trouble spots, wars, famines, sweat shops, open-cast mines, and come back with images of stunning clarity and vision. Even the pictures which depict horror are somehow beautiful, like the scenes from the first Gulf War when Saddam set the oil wells on fire, while some are so powerful they will etch themselves into your memory for ever. There's one he took in Rwanda, after the men with the machetes had visited a school. We see a classroom, the floor literally covered in the corpses of children to the point where not a single inch of floor can be seen. Wenders's presence is scarcely noticed (which illustrates just what a great pro he is) as he lets Salgado and his photos tell the story.
Sometimes Salgado, perhaps sickened by what he has seen and recorded, turns his camera on nature, photographing landscapes and wildlife, and again capturing images of breath-taking beauty. There is one I remember, of the fore-claw of a marine iguana in the Galapagos, covered in scales and bearing an uncanny resemblance to the the hand of a medieval knight encased in chain-mail.
And Salvado doesn't confine his activities to photography. He has bought 5000 acres of land in Brazil which was cleared of its rainforest to grow trees to extract palm-oil. He has removed those trees and is in the process of planting indigenous tress and other plants which will one day see the rainforest return. What a guy!
Monday, 31 October 2016
October 2016 book and film review
BOOKS
FIRST WE READ, THEN WE WRITE, by Robert Patterson
Being a brief biography of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 19th century American writer and philosopher. They don't have many, so they're particularly proud of him. Most famous for his sayings "HItch your wagon to a star" and "Make a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door", Emerson wrote a number of highly influential essays which are full of useful advice to aspiring writers. Take your inspiration form nature, he urged, and put pen to paper. If you want to be a writer, then write, Goddamit. If not get out into nature and observe, take notes then go home and allow your pen to move across the page. I shall use extracts from this book in my essay on the creative processs which we must complete by next January. But first I have to learn how to write an academic essay...
WHY I WRITE, by George Orwell.
I've admired Orwell since I read Animal Farm in the 60s, and his essays are every bit as good as his fiction. Indeed, he is one of those people whose style I would most like to emulate. This book of essays includes the brilliant A Hanging, an account of an execution Orwell witnessed during his colonial days in Burma in the 1930s. But I read this because of the title essay, which addresses the issue which comes before the issue of how to write.
Orwell admits that he wants to inject some politics, some socio-political insight, into everything he writes, because, essentially, he wants to change the world. But he reminds us that all writing, including political pamphleting, must be clear, concise and easy to read. His message is, never use a long word when a short one will do, and never use complex sentence design just to show how erudite you are. Put another way, he's saying: cut the bullshit.
FILMS
THE YELLOW SEA (2010) (S. Korea) W/D- Na Hong-jin.
About 800,000 Koreans live in China. Technically they are illegal immigrants, though the Chinese authorities tolerate them because they are good for the economy. They can, however, deport them any time they like. A man has run up gambling debts and his bookie tells him he'll get him deported unless he travels back into South Korea and murders a rival. Sounds like a plan, but our man soon runs into difficulties. What follows is a skillfully made blood-fest which demonstrates that the "hero" of the tale is resourceful, determined, and so tough he makes the Bruce Willis of the Diehard movies look like a bit of a cissy.
If you like your movies rugged and uncompromising in their portrayal of violence, you'll love this. Also, in Korea there aren't that many guns, but plenty of knives. Big, sharp, terrible knives...
LO AND BEHOLD (2016) D- Werner Herzog.
In California in 1971 the internet was born. The first message was supposed to read: LOG ON NOW, but the network (which at the time comprised only 500 people, most of whom knew each other) crashed after the first two letters were tapped in. Therefore, the first message ever sent on the internet read: "LO".
Rather appropriate, concludes our Werner, perhaps the world's most interesting film maker. What has happened since, he believes, is the biggest revolution in human culture since we changed from being hunter- gatherers to settling down in towns and villages and started growing crops. A third of the world is online, three million emails are sent every second, and society has reached the point where, if it ever broke down for any reason, it would fall apart. We'd have no food, no water, no safety, none of the essentials we take for granted in the modern world. Then there are the casualties, the twitter hate campaigns, revenge porn and so on. Herzog interviewed one family, where a daughter was decapitated in a car crash and was photographed by an attending paramedic who I then posted the pictures online. Their agony was so acute it was almost impossible to bear.
I love Werner Herzog. He can't stop making films that make you think, make you wonder and make you shiver. You go, mein Herr.
FIRST WE READ, THEN WE WRITE, by Robert Patterson
Being a brief biography of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 19th century American writer and philosopher. They don't have many, so they're particularly proud of him. Most famous for his sayings "HItch your wagon to a star" and "Make a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door", Emerson wrote a number of highly influential essays which are full of useful advice to aspiring writers. Take your inspiration form nature, he urged, and put pen to paper. If you want to be a writer, then write, Goddamit. If not get out into nature and observe, take notes then go home and allow your pen to move across the page. I shall use extracts from this book in my essay on the creative processs which we must complete by next January. But first I have to learn how to write an academic essay...
WHY I WRITE, by George Orwell.
I've admired Orwell since I read Animal Farm in the 60s, and his essays are every bit as good as his fiction. Indeed, he is one of those people whose style I would most like to emulate. This book of essays includes the brilliant A Hanging, an account of an execution Orwell witnessed during his colonial days in Burma in the 1930s. But I read this because of the title essay, which addresses the issue which comes before the issue of how to write.
Orwell admits that he wants to inject some politics, some socio-political insight, into everything he writes, because, essentially, he wants to change the world. But he reminds us that all writing, including political pamphleting, must be clear, concise and easy to read. His message is, never use a long word when a short one will do, and never use complex sentence design just to show how erudite you are. Put another way, he's saying: cut the bullshit.
FILMS
THE YELLOW SEA (2010) (S. Korea) W/D- Na Hong-jin.
About 800,000 Koreans live in China. Technically they are illegal immigrants, though the Chinese authorities tolerate them because they are good for the economy. They can, however, deport them any time they like. A man has run up gambling debts and his bookie tells him he'll get him deported unless he travels back into South Korea and murders a rival. Sounds like a plan, but our man soon runs into difficulties. What follows is a skillfully made blood-fest which demonstrates that the "hero" of the tale is resourceful, determined, and so tough he makes the Bruce Willis of the Diehard movies look like a bit of a cissy.
If you like your movies rugged and uncompromising in their portrayal of violence, you'll love this. Also, in Korea there aren't that many guns, but plenty of knives. Big, sharp, terrible knives...
LO AND BEHOLD (2016) D- Werner Herzog.
In California in 1971 the internet was born. The first message was supposed to read: LOG ON NOW, but the network (which at the time comprised only 500 people, most of whom knew each other) crashed after the first two letters were tapped in. Therefore, the first message ever sent on the internet read: "LO".
Rather appropriate, concludes our Werner, perhaps the world's most interesting film maker. What has happened since, he believes, is the biggest revolution in human culture since we changed from being hunter- gatherers to settling down in towns and villages and started growing crops. A third of the world is online, three million emails are sent every second, and society has reached the point where, if it ever broke down for any reason, it would fall apart. We'd have no food, no water, no safety, none of the essentials we take for granted in the modern world. Then there are the casualties, the twitter hate campaigns, revenge porn and so on. Herzog interviewed one family, where a daughter was decapitated in a car crash and was photographed by an attending paramedic who I then posted the pictures online. Their agony was so acute it was almost impossible to bear.
I love Werner Herzog. He can't stop making films that make you think, make you wonder and make you shiver. You go, mein Herr.
Friday, 28 October 2016
I'm an insurgent, me
You too, maybe, if you voted remain. That's what Tony Blair, peace be upon him, has said. We should be allowed a second vote if we don't like the look of the negotiated deal they come up with, and I couldn't agree more. Naturally Downing Street has poured scorn on his comments, "The British Public has had its say" type of thing. So, are we never allowed to repeal a law that in retrospect doesn't suit our purposes in the cold light of day? Looks like a pretty big change in the British constitution from where I'm standing.
For once I agree with the Wealthy One, and that has happened only marginally more often than it did with Margaret Thatcher. We shouldn't forget, of course, that he was actually responsible for part of the mess we're in right now. In the economic booms of the mid noughties he was falling over backwards to invite over every foreign worker he could lay his hands on. The embassy in Bucharest was told to accept every application for a work visa to Britain, that's right, every application (I'm referring to the time before Romania joined the EU of course). Which opened the door to hundreds if not thousands of ATM fraudsters and various other crims to get over here and do their thing, because the embassy staff were told not to vet anyone at all. We're reaping that little whirlwind right now.
Little by little I'm beginning to realise why the far right was so keen on Brexit. They wanted all the constraints on capitalism lifted, every environmental check, every piece of human rights legislation, every brake on surging, laissez faire capitalism. That's what they always wanted, and pretty soon they're going to get it. They want to smash any vestige of union power Thatch didn't get rid of, so we can get back to the 1880s, when the workers did what they were told or they'd be out of a job. No wonder they don't want a second vote...
For once I agree with the Wealthy One, and that has happened only marginally more often than it did with Margaret Thatcher. We shouldn't forget, of course, that he was actually responsible for part of the mess we're in right now. In the economic booms of the mid noughties he was falling over backwards to invite over every foreign worker he could lay his hands on. The embassy in Bucharest was told to accept every application for a work visa to Britain, that's right, every application (I'm referring to the time before Romania joined the EU of course). Which opened the door to hundreds if not thousands of ATM fraudsters and various other crims to get over here and do their thing, because the embassy staff were told not to vet anyone at all. We're reaping that little whirlwind right now.
Little by little I'm beginning to realise why the far right was so keen on Brexit. They wanted all the constraints on capitalism lifted, every environmental check, every piece of human rights legislation, every brake on surging, laissez faire capitalism. That's what they always wanted, and pretty soon they're going to get it. They want to smash any vestige of union power Thatch didn't get rid of, so we can get back to the 1880s, when the workers did what they were told or they'd be out of a job. No wonder they don't want a second vote...
Friday, 14 October 2016
Why isn't Palegius blogging so much?
Cause he's busy, is why. I'm in week four of my masters in creative writing course, and they keep you well occupied. You have to produce 1500 words of (preferably) new writing every week, which is then copied so that all twelve participants can look at your work and comment on it, praising or criticising it as they see fit. I've had some pretty good feedback so far, though it has also been a little humbling when people notice blatant boo-boos (I have already acknowledged I am the world's worst proof reader).
But the act of reviewing eleven other people's work is time consuming: it takes me nearly five hours. Then there are the essays and short stories we are given to read each week to discuss the following one. Then there's the reading list, comprising of no less than 69 titles. I don't think we are expected to read them all (I bloody hope not), but we need to read quite a few, so we can quote them in our 3000 word essays (one this term, one next) on "the creative writing process".
I can report it's enormous fun, however. I am getting to know eleven other aspiring writers, some with a lot to learn, but several already accomplished performers. I am learning as much from them as from the highly talented lecturing team. Thing is, I'm the oldest person there (lecturers included) by a fair number of years. I'm five years older than the professor, even, and 25 years older than the next oldest student. But that's a good thing.
As you can see, I'm still posting the odd blog, but it's hard to keep up my old frequency. Please be patient. I shall continue to post my media review at around the end, or at the beginning, of each month, so don't abandon me. I need yous!
Thursday, 13 October 2016
Aleppo: Apocalypse Now
Bashar Al Assad and Vladimir Putin are currently destroying any resistance to them house by house, brick by brick and child by child. Meanwhile, as the mayor of Aleppo has said, the world simply watches. But what can we do?
The fact is that America and we too are terrified of what might happen if we shot a Russian plane out of the skies in the act of dropping bombs. The consequences are too terrible to contemplate. Or are they?
In the Cuba missiles crisis of 1962 President Kennedy warned of dire consequences if they didn't remove those Russian ICBMs pronto. Kruschev blinked first, and the missiles were removed. Would Putin blink first? I don't know. The USA isn't as powerful as it was then, but neither is Russia come to that.
The stakes are as high as they've been since the Cuba crisis. Maybe it's time to see who blinks first, before a new holocaust is perpetrated on the embattled people of Aleppo.
The fact is that America and we too are terrified of what might happen if we shot a Russian plane out of the skies in the act of dropping bombs. The consequences are too terrible to contemplate. Or are they?
In the Cuba missiles crisis of 1962 President Kennedy warned of dire consequences if they didn't remove those Russian ICBMs pronto. Kruschev blinked first, and the missiles were removed. Would Putin blink first? I don't know. The USA isn't as powerful as it was then, but neither is Russia come to that.
The stakes are as high as they've been since the Cuba crisis. Maybe it's time to see who blinks first, before a new holocaust is perpetrated on the embattled people of Aleppo.
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