FILMS, Contd
WHERE TO INVADE NEXT (Docu) D- Michael Moore. (2014) In which noted rare avis American leftie Michael Moore suggests a couple of other countries the U.S might invade and carry off some of their ideas to adopt as their own. Finland, for example, where the pupils do no, that's right, no homework but still manage to achieve higher educational standards than the U.S., or France, where no convenience food at all is served in their schools, but rather a varied and delicious menu where several types of fine cheese are on offer (the pupil's favourite is Camembert, apparently) and many other dishes that would do justice to your average Michelin starred restaurant, or Italy, which has more public holidays than any other European country, and far more than the U.S., as well as a far more generous maternity leave provision, yet still manages to provide a high standard of living for its citizens.
Then there's Tunisia, where women hold more positions of authority than in most European countries, and far more than America, despite it being an Islamic country. And that shows that it isn't Islam that's to blame for the gross abuses against women found in KSA and other Gulf states, but the way its precepts are applied by its imams. Meanwhile, the most advanced country in the world, allegedly, falls far behind so many other countries in many of the markers for civilisation. Any comment Mr Trump?
JACKPOT (2011) D- Magnus Martens. A pool of Norwegians wins the lottery jackpot but that's only the start of their problems. They claim the money, then fall out over how the money should be carved up, so proceed to carving each other up instead. The body count gradually rises in this hilarious but blood soaked black comedy. Highly entertaining, though not for their faint hearted.
THE SEA INSIDE (2004) D- Alejandro Amenabar. A highly intelligent man does a very stupid thing: dives into a rock pool just as a wave causes the water level to drop. He breaks his neck and becomes a tetra-plegic. He copes for a while; he is still able to communicate normally, though all his basic needs must be provided by helpers. Slowly he forms the idea that death would be preferable to the life he is forced to live, and goes through the court system to fight for the right to end his life. But this is Spain, a catholic country, and no way are the courts going to allow him to do away with himself. It's not your life to take, the church says, it's God's, and only he can take it back. But our hero (very well played by Javier Bardem) is not the kind to give up easily...
A really excellent film, beautifully put together and strong acting all round. Not easy to watch, but tremendously rewarding.
MIDNIGHT SPECIAL (2016) D- Geoff Nicholls. A young lad has extraordinary powers which have been noticed by a religious cult who have abducted him. His parents would have him home again, and mount a mission to get him out of their clutches. But there is an agenda here's far higher than all this. Our boy can see into another dimension, where aliens live. And he wants to explore that world...
A strange and fascinating movie, with elements of The Sixth Sense, as well as a bit of Firestarter, this I thought was one of the more thoughtful sci-fi movies I've seen this year. Recommended
Saturday, 31 December 2016
December 2016 book and film review part 2
FILMS, Contd
THE EAGLE HUNTRESS (2016) D- Otto Bell. (Docu) In Kazakhstan, a thirteen-year-old girl wants to hunt eagles like her father. Trouble is, this is usually men's work, and she faces problems from the outset in establishing herself in her chosen field of expertise. Fortunately for her, and surprisingly on the face of it, Kazakhstan has actually encouraged the equality of women since antiquity, and she is eventually allowed to, first, find her fledgling eagle (which requires something of an epic trek into to the snow giants of the Altai mountains) and then to train it to hunt.
This documentary is a little deceptive in that it depicts her struggle for equality with men as more of a struggle than it really is, but its strength lies in its stunning depiction of the journey of its youthful hero "Aisholpan". Several moments are so powerful they had me in tears. There is nothing new in documentaries bending the truth to tell a good story: from Nanook of the North in 1922, right through to Saint David Attenborough today, documentary film makers have fucked about with the truth, and to my mind, if the story is good enough it doesn't matter that much. Or does it? Discuss.
THE JUNGLE BOOK (2016) D- John Favreau. Mancub Mowgli is living an idyllic life as the adopted child of a pack of wolves, but a local tiger doesn't like human beings and would have him for supper if he could. Time for Mowgli to re-integrate with human society? You'd think so, but it isn't as easy as that, obviously. Kipling' famous tale is remade nearly fifty years after Disney scored a big hit with it in 1967, and this new version owes a lot to the original animation. But here Mowgli is played by a real boy (a very good Neel Sethi) working around some of the best CGI animals I've ever seen. I said in an earlier blog that The Revenant marked a breakthrough in computer graphics, and here we see how the art has truly come of age. Great fun.
LIKE FATHER LIKE SON (2013) D- Hirokazu Koreeda. In Tokyo, a family with a six-year-old son learns to its horror that their baby was switched at birth with another boy-child, and that another family is bringing up their son, while they are bringing up theirs. The families get together and agree to a swap. But is really the right thing to do?
Director Koreeda pulls this agonising story together with marvellous skill, depicting the pain of the protagonists in his own, unique, understated way, perhaps characteristic of typical Japanese families. The story really circulates about one of the fathers (splendidly played by Masaharu Fukuyama) and his heart-rending struggle with himself.
Every so often, a truly great film emerges from Japan which helps us Occidentals gain a fresh insight into the workings of that usually impenetrable culture. This is one. Truly, this is a film of the stature of Tokyo Story or Tampopo. Wonderful.
JEW SUSS (1940) D- Veit Harlan. In 17th century Wurtemburg, a new Duke takes his coronet, but he is a vain, greedy and lecherous beast. He wants to set up a ballet company in Stuttgart, mainly so he can lust over the ballerinas, but the mingy town council, who hold the purse-strings of the city, won't grant him the funds. Enter Jew Suss, an evil moneylender, who offers to finance the Duke's schemes, on the promise the Duke will allow the Jews to re-enter the city of Stuttgart. And we know where that will lead...
Soon the evil Jews are all over the city, levying taxes (with the Duke's blessing) and lusting after the gorgeous, innocent blond aryan women. Mein Gott! Where will it all end? Badly, thank goodness, for the Jews, who, at the last, are thrown out of Stuttgart, which can once again re-establish its racial purity.
This film was commissioned by Josef Goebbels as a propaganda tool to spread the nazi's message and with its skilful direction, fine acting and lavish production values, it influenced a whole generation of Germans, over 20 million of them seeing the film in a two year period. Himmler decreed that every soldier in the Wehrmacht should see it, and his orders were always obeyed without question. Jew Suss is a very good film, and all the more terrifying for that fact. Like Birth of a Nation 25 years earlier, its highly dubious message (in the latter' state case, it was that the emancipation of the slaves had been a very bad idea) was swallowed by an audience anxious to justify their persecution of a minority group.
After the war, all the main players were prosecuted at the Nuremberg war-crimes tribunals, though all were acquitted on the basis that they were working under duress. But their careers were destroyed. Perhaps the saddest case was Kristina Soderbaum, a highly talented stage and screen actress who really didn't want to be involved, but Goebbels insisted. She tried to work on the stage after the war, but was booed off the stage and had rotten vegetables thrown at her every time she appeared...
THE EAGLE HUNTRESS (2016) D- Otto Bell. (Docu) In Kazakhstan, a thirteen-year-old girl wants to hunt eagles like her father. Trouble is, this is usually men's work, and she faces problems from the outset in establishing herself in her chosen field of expertise. Fortunately for her, and surprisingly on the face of it, Kazakhstan has actually encouraged the equality of women since antiquity, and she is eventually allowed to, first, find her fledgling eagle (which requires something of an epic trek into to the snow giants of the Altai mountains) and then to train it to hunt.
This documentary is a little deceptive in that it depicts her struggle for equality with men as more of a struggle than it really is, but its strength lies in its stunning depiction of the journey of its youthful hero "Aisholpan". Several moments are so powerful they had me in tears. There is nothing new in documentaries bending the truth to tell a good story: from Nanook of the North in 1922, right through to Saint David Attenborough today, documentary film makers have fucked about with the truth, and to my mind, if the story is good enough it doesn't matter that much. Or does it? Discuss.
THE JUNGLE BOOK (2016) D- John Favreau. Mancub Mowgli is living an idyllic life as the adopted child of a pack of wolves, but a local tiger doesn't like human beings and would have him for supper if he could. Time for Mowgli to re-integrate with human society? You'd think so, but it isn't as easy as that, obviously. Kipling' famous tale is remade nearly fifty years after Disney scored a big hit with it in 1967, and this new version owes a lot to the original animation. But here Mowgli is played by a real boy (a very good Neel Sethi) working around some of the best CGI animals I've ever seen. I said in an earlier blog that The Revenant marked a breakthrough in computer graphics, and here we see how the art has truly come of age. Great fun.
LIKE FATHER LIKE SON (2013) D- Hirokazu Koreeda. In Tokyo, a family with a six-year-old son learns to its horror that their baby was switched at birth with another boy-child, and that another family is bringing up their son, while they are bringing up theirs. The families get together and agree to a swap. But is really the right thing to do?
Director Koreeda pulls this agonising story together with marvellous skill, depicting the pain of the protagonists in his own, unique, understated way, perhaps characteristic of typical Japanese families. The story really circulates about one of the fathers (splendidly played by Masaharu Fukuyama) and his heart-rending struggle with himself.
Every so often, a truly great film emerges from Japan which helps us Occidentals gain a fresh insight into the workings of that usually impenetrable culture. This is one. Truly, this is a film of the stature of Tokyo Story or Tampopo. Wonderful.
JEW SUSS (1940) D- Veit Harlan. In 17th century Wurtemburg, a new Duke takes his coronet, but he is a vain, greedy and lecherous beast. He wants to set up a ballet company in Stuttgart, mainly so he can lust over the ballerinas, but the mingy town council, who hold the purse-strings of the city, won't grant him the funds. Enter Jew Suss, an evil moneylender, who offers to finance the Duke's schemes, on the promise the Duke will allow the Jews to re-enter the city of Stuttgart. And we know where that will lead...
Soon the evil Jews are all over the city, levying taxes (with the Duke's blessing) and lusting after the gorgeous, innocent blond aryan women. Mein Gott! Where will it all end? Badly, thank goodness, for the Jews, who, at the last, are thrown out of Stuttgart, which can once again re-establish its racial purity.
This film was commissioned by Josef Goebbels as a propaganda tool to spread the nazi's message and with its skilful direction, fine acting and lavish production values, it influenced a whole generation of Germans, over 20 million of them seeing the film in a two year period. Himmler decreed that every soldier in the Wehrmacht should see it, and his orders were always obeyed without question. Jew Suss is a very good film, and all the more terrifying for that fact. Like Birth of a Nation 25 years earlier, its highly dubious message (in the latter' state case, it was that the emancipation of the slaves had been a very bad idea) was swallowed by an audience anxious to justify their persecution of a minority group.
After the war, all the main players were prosecuted at the Nuremberg war-crimes tribunals, though all were acquitted on the basis that they were working under duress. But their careers were destroyed. Perhaps the saddest case was Kristina Soderbaum, a highly talented stage and screen actress who really didn't want to be involved, but Goebbels insisted. She tried to work on the stage after the war, but was booed off the stage and had rotten vegetables thrown at her every time she appeared...
December 2016 book and film review part 1
BOOKS
AN ATTEMPT AT EXHAUSTING A PLACE IN PARIS, by Georges Perec.
Over a three day period in October 1974, French writer Georges Perec sat in the window of 3 different cafes around the Place Saint-Sulpice and recorded everything of any interest that passed through his field of ken. In just 47 pages he gives us an absorbing, and ultimately almost hypnotic list of things and people he sees. I offer a brief extract:
"A baby in a baby carriage lets out a brief squawking. It looks like a bird: blue eyes, fixed, profoundly interested in what they take in.
A meter man with a bad cough puts a parking ticket on a green Morris.
A man wearing a Russian astrakhan fur hat. Then another."
This is the forerunner of his magnum opus: Life A Users manual, which he went on to write four years later. I'm reading that right now. Watch this space. But if you want a highly diverting hour or so, you could do a lot worse than be immersed in the fascinating mental world of Monsieur Perec.
99 WAYS TO TELL A STORY: EXERCISES IN STYLE, by Matt Madden.
A guy is working late one night when he goes downstairs to fetch something from the fridge. On the way down his girlfriend asks what the time is. "1.15" he replies, but then when he reaches the fridge he's forgotten why he came downstairs. "What the hell was I looking for, anyway?"
End of story. But then, taking his cue from the French writer Raymond Queneau (a close friend of Georges Perec, as it happens, and co-member of the famous "Oumalou" school of surrealist writers) he then finds 99 different ways of telling this little vignette, in graphic form, each in 8 boxes.
Past tense, present tense, passive form, active form, like a Superman comic, like a Garfield strip, in anagram form, in the style of a noir detective story, the list goes on. And what emerges is a deeply fascinating book, full of laughs and puzzles, and illustrating vividly the same thing Qeuneau did back in 1937, namely the fact that there indeed many ways to tell a story.
ALL FOR NOTHING, by Walter Kempowski.
It is January 1945 in east Prussia. A wealthy family lives in a large country house lying directly in the path of the invading Russian army, which as the book opens is less than a hundred miles from their little village. The patriarch is away in northern Italy, he has a cushy administrative job in the Wehrmacht. The lady of the house, beautiful, fey, seemingly uncaring of what lies ahead, prefers to smoke foreign cigarettes, sip sherry and cut silhouettes from coloured paper. The housekeeper, "Auntie", really runs the house with a team of servants under her. The son, twelve-year-ole Peter, has been given a small microscope for Christmas and spends most of his time staring down it. Luckily for him he is just to be young to be pressed into service with the Volksturm, the local home guard.
The family are dimly aware that something bad may be going to happen soon, and tentative plans are laid for an escape to the West, especially when the front line draws near enough for them to hear the heavy guns in the far distance. So why don't they do anything?
Walter Kempowski wrote an eight volume non-fiction account of the end of WW2 in Germany which he called "Swansong", and this is his fictional account in one quite short book, a book which brings home the horror of war as it affects one tiny community and one family in particular. With consummate skill and infinite compassion, Kempowski has created one of the finest books about war I have ever read. A work of genius.
FILMS
ETHEL AND ERNEST (2016) D- Roger Mainwood. Growing up in Edwardian Britain, Ernest Briggs meets Ethel, they fall in love, get married and buy a small home to live in. In 1936 they have a son, who they name Raymond. They live through the Blitz (narrowly avoiding being blown to Kingdom Come) but then have to come to terms with the fact that their only child doesn't want to work in an office, but wants to go to art college of all things!
Brilliantly voiced by Brenda Blethyn and Jim Broadbent, andsuperbly animated (by hand, apparently) here is another sublime offering from one of our most talented writers. And I say writer, because although Raymond Brigs is best known for his delightful graphic books (The Snowman, Father Christmas etc) it is his story telling that always shines through. Many people voted this the best thing on television over the holiday period, which with the possible exception of Carry on Up the Jungle it was most definitely was.
AN ATTEMPT AT EXHAUSTING A PLACE IN PARIS, by Georges Perec.
Over a three day period in October 1974, French writer Georges Perec sat in the window of 3 different cafes around the Place Saint-Sulpice and recorded everything of any interest that passed through his field of ken. In just 47 pages he gives us an absorbing, and ultimately almost hypnotic list of things and people he sees. I offer a brief extract:
"A baby in a baby carriage lets out a brief squawking. It looks like a bird: blue eyes, fixed, profoundly interested in what they take in.
A meter man with a bad cough puts a parking ticket on a green Morris.
A man wearing a Russian astrakhan fur hat. Then another."
This is the forerunner of his magnum opus: Life A Users manual, which he went on to write four years later. I'm reading that right now. Watch this space. But if you want a highly diverting hour or so, you could do a lot worse than be immersed in the fascinating mental world of Monsieur Perec.
99 WAYS TO TELL A STORY: EXERCISES IN STYLE, by Matt Madden.
A guy is working late one night when he goes downstairs to fetch something from the fridge. On the way down his girlfriend asks what the time is. "1.15" he replies, but then when he reaches the fridge he's forgotten why he came downstairs. "What the hell was I looking for, anyway?"
End of story. But then, taking his cue from the French writer Raymond Queneau (a close friend of Georges Perec, as it happens, and co-member of the famous "Oumalou" school of surrealist writers) he then finds 99 different ways of telling this little vignette, in graphic form, each in 8 boxes.
Past tense, present tense, passive form, active form, like a Superman comic, like a Garfield strip, in anagram form, in the style of a noir detective story, the list goes on. And what emerges is a deeply fascinating book, full of laughs and puzzles, and illustrating vividly the same thing Qeuneau did back in 1937, namely the fact that there indeed many ways to tell a story.
ALL FOR NOTHING, by Walter Kempowski.
It is January 1945 in east Prussia. A wealthy family lives in a large country house lying directly in the path of the invading Russian army, which as the book opens is less than a hundred miles from their little village. The patriarch is away in northern Italy, he has a cushy administrative job in the Wehrmacht. The lady of the house, beautiful, fey, seemingly uncaring of what lies ahead, prefers to smoke foreign cigarettes, sip sherry and cut silhouettes from coloured paper. The housekeeper, "Auntie", really runs the house with a team of servants under her. The son, twelve-year-ole Peter, has been given a small microscope for Christmas and spends most of his time staring down it. Luckily for him he is just to be young to be pressed into service with the Volksturm, the local home guard.
The family are dimly aware that something bad may be going to happen soon, and tentative plans are laid for an escape to the West, especially when the front line draws near enough for them to hear the heavy guns in the far distance. So why don't they do anything?
Walter Kempowski wrote an eight volume non-fiction account of the end of WW2 in Germany which he called "Swansong", and this is his fictional account in one quite short book, a book which brings home the horror of war as it affects one tiny community and one family in particular. With consummate skill and infinite compassion, Kempowski has created one of the finest books about war I have ever read. A work of genius.
FILMS
ETHEL AND ERNEST (2016) D- Roger Mainwood. Growing up in Edwardian Britain, Ernest Briggs meets Ethel, they fall in love, get married and buy a small home to live in. In 1936 they have a son, who they name Raymond. They live through the Blitz (narrowly avoiding being blown to Kingdom Come) but then have to come to terms with the fact that their only child doesn't want to work in an office, but wants to go to art college of all things!
Brilliantly voiced by Brenda Blethyn and Jim Broadbent, andsuperbly animated (by hand, apparently) here is another sublime offering from one of our most talented writers. And I say writer, because although Raymond Brigs is best known for his delightful graphic books (The Snowman, Father Christmas etc) it is his story telling that always shines through. Many people voted this the best thing on television over the holiday period, which with the possible exception of Carry on Up the Jungle it was most definitely was.
Tuesday, 27 December 2016
Christmas decorations: bad for dementia
Trust you had a nice Xmas. We did, surprisingly, considering the problem hanging over our heads, and the fact that my Mum has drifted further into dementia over the past year, though continues to live at home alone, albeit supported by a team of carers and my brother and me.
He was down at Christmas, and like me found it difficult to understand my Mum's objections to the fairly modest decorations hung in her front room by her principle carer. One piece of tinsel was hung over one of her pictures, in her eye line from where she customarily sits, and repeatedly told us she didn't like it. "What's wrong with it?" I asked, only to be told that it was "silver" and that it was "depressing".
Yesterday we googled the issue and found that people with dementia are often unsettled by Christmas decorations, because they are unfamiliar sights and therefore fall outside their comfort zone. "Of course!" I said as I realised the simple truth of this. The poor dabs can't really retain the fact that it even is Christmas, much less understand the significance and meaning of unfamiliar decorations. We won't make the same mistake again, should she live long enough to see the next ones.
For years now I have been predicting she will either be dead by next Christmas or at least in an old people's home, and for years she has been proving me wrong. She is 92 and a half , and I am making no such prediction for next year. Physically she seems in good shape; can walk a mile, even when it includes a modest ascent. Her short term memory has reduced to barely a minute in length, and reduces to almost nothing when under stress of any kind (such as when something happens which is out of her normal routine, like a visit to the doctor or the dentist). Two years ago she would ask me, during the course of a twenty minute drive to say, her doctor's surgery, about six times where we were going and why. The last time I took her, two weeks ago she asked me almost continuously, amounting to nearly forty requests for the reasons for her outing.
What I will say is that my tolerance of this, at first glance maddening behaviour, has improved tremendously. She puts her cracked record on: I put on my own. Normally someone with strictly limited patience, I have really quite impressed myself.
Have a great New Year folks, and please wish me one. I need it, like I've never needed it before.
He was down at Christmas, and like me found it difficult to understand my Mum's objections to the fairly modest decorations hung in her front room by her principle carer. One piece of tinsel was hung over one of her pictures, in her eye line from where she customarily sits, and repeatedly told us she didn't like it. "What's wrong with it?" I asked, only to be told that it was "silver" and that it was "depressing".
Yesterday we googled the issue and found that people with dementia are often unsettled by Christmas decorations, because they are unfamiliar sights and therefore fall outside their comfort zone. "Of course!" I said as I realised the simple truth of this. The poor dabs can't really retain the fact that it even is Christmas, much less understand the significance and meaning of unfamiliar decorations. We won't make the same mistake again, should she live long enough to see the next ones.
For years now I have been predicting she will either be dead by next Christmas or at least in an old people's home, and for years she has been proving me wrong. She is 92 and a half , and I am making no such prediction for next year. Physically she seems in good shape; can walk a mile, even when it includes a modest ascent. Her short term memory has reduced to barely a minute in length, and reduces to almost nothing when under stress of any kind (such as when something happens which is out of her normal routine, like a visit to the doctor or the dentist). Two years ago she would ask me, during the course of a twenty minute drive to say, her doctor's surgery, about six times where we were going and why. The last time I took her, two weeks ago she asked me almost continuously, amounting to nearly forty requests for the reasons for her outing.
What I will say is that my tolerance of this, at first glance maddening behaviour, has improved tremendously. She puts her cracked record on: I put on my own. Normally someone with strictly limited patience, I have really quite impressed myself.
Have a great New Year folks, and please wish me one. I need it, like I've never needed it before.
Friday, 23 December 2016
I'm an anti-Semite, me.
So is the U.N. It has just had the outright temerity to brand the Israeli settlements on the West Bank illegal. This despite the fact that Donald Trump yesterday had a quiet word with the Egyptian ambassador to the U.N and suggested they withdraw their motion, promising he would have a look at the situation once he was installed. Fat chance. Donnie is a big pal of Israel and thinks the Palestinians are a bunch of Terrorists just waiting to push all the Jews into the sea first chance they get. But such is his clout even before his installation, the Egyptians did indeed decide to withdraw their motion. Fortunately, other countries, including Malaysia, New Zealand and Venezuela had the guts to see it through.
You see, as soon as you criticise the Israeli state you're an anti-Semite, like Ken Livingstone and various other people on the left who would like the world to remember the forgotten people of Palestine. Israel is doing everything it can short of genocide to squeeze them into smaller and smaller enclaves, because it wants the whole place to itself. Hey, it's the promised land, right? Just like it says in the Bible. Judea and Samaria is what they call it. And King David called it for the Jews back in 1000 BC.
But don't say anything against that view out loud if you want to avoid the ire of the Zionists and their cadre of very powerful supporters. They'll say you're against the Jews. Probably deny the holocaust. Or even think it was a good idea. You liked Hitler, didn't you? Don't try to deny it. You want the Arabs to win, don't you. Those terrible terrorists.
Thing is, they're not terrorists. I've been there, I've stayed in their houses and you know what? They're ordinary folks like you and me; they just want to make a living and raise their families without the Israelis breathing down their necks the whole time. They want to enjoy the same human rights as their Israeli neighbours: to travel freely, go abroad when they want to, build factories, work their land. At the moment all these things are consistently denied them because of their race, and that, in case you hadn't noticed, is called Apartheid.
Well done U.N. Keep it up. The world needs reminding of the injustices done to the Palestinian people, even if the Zionists and Donnie would prefer you forget.
You see, as soon as you criticise the Israeli state you're an anti-Semite, like Ken Livingstone and various other people on the left who would like the world to remember the forgotten people of Palestine. Israel is doing everything it can short of genocide to squeeze them into smaller and smaller enclaves, because it wants the whole place to itself. Hey, it's the promised land, right? Just like it says in the Bible. Judea and Samaria is what they call it. And King David called it for the Jews back in 1000 BC.
But don't say anything against that view out loud if you want to avoid the ire of the Zionists and their cadre of very powerful supporters. They'll say you're against the Jews. Probably deny the holocaust. Or even think it was a good idea. You liked Hitler, didn't you? Don't try to deny it. You want the Arabs to win, don't you. Those terrible terrorists.
Thing is, they're not terrorists. I've been there, I've stayed in their houses and you know what? They're ordinary folks like you and me; they just want to make a living and raise their families without the Israelis breathing down their necks the whole time. They want to enjoy the same human rights as their Israeli neighbours: to travel freely, go abroad when they want to, build factories, work their land. At the moment all these things are consistently denied them because of their race, and that, in case you hadn't noticed, is called Apartheid.
Well done U.N. Keep it up. The world needs reminding of the injustices done to the Palestinian people, even if the Zionists and Donnie would prefer you forget.
Monday, 19 December 2016
Make striking illegal!
Screams The Daily Mail and other organs of the ultra right. We conned the public into voting for brexit, they say, what's next on our laissez faire agenda? Oh, I know: outlaw strikes. Kick those lefties where it really hurts, right in their most fundamental workers rights. They say: the right to withdraw his or her labour is the most basic right any worker should have: we say: fuck that!
Ah, the good old days, when workers did what they were told or they'd be out of a job. If they tried picketing, beat 'em to a bloody pulp or even kill them. Why not? It was our capital that created their jobs in the first place, without us they'd be grubbing around for sea coal and eating maggots. So out of the kindness of our hearts we build factories to keep them off the streets, pay them just enough to keep starvation at bay, 'cause a dead worker isn't much use to anyone. Why can't they just be grateful they've got a job at all and shut the hell up? Hey! We've got our shareholders to keep happy, not the ones who create those profits.
Did you see Channel 4's report on JD Sport last week? Now that's the way to run a factory. Treat them like the Apartheid bosses did with their black workers in the diamond mines: minimum, or sub-mimimum wage, work 'em to the edge of exhaustion, then X ray them to make sure they haven't swallowed any gems- the little bastards! You wouldn't believe what they'd get up to if we gave 'em even half a chance.
While we're about it, let's do away with foreign aid. I mean 0.7% of our GDP to a load of loser countries- and for what? Look after number one The Daily Mail says. Who cares that these countries are the ones we ripped off for all they were worth for nearly 200 years, the ones who contributed thousands of soldiers to come and fight and die in our wars, the ones where we still like to holiday in at bargain basement prices because despite the apparent wealth of their big cities, most of their citizens still live in the direst poverty. The Daily Mail says: screw 'em!
Ah, the good old days, when workers did what they were told or they'd be out of a job. If they tried picketing, beat 'em to a bloody pulp or even kill them. Why not? It was our capital that created their jobs in the first place, without us they'd be grubbing around for sea coal and eating maggots. So out of the kindness of our hearts we build factories to keep them off the streets, pay them just enough to keep starvation at bay, 'cause a dead worker isn't much use to anyone. Why can't they just be grateful they've got a job at all and shut the hell up? Hey! We've got our shareholders to keep happy, not the ones who create those profits.
Did you see Channel 4's report on JD Sport last week? Now that's the way to run a factory. Treat them like the Apartheid bosses did with their black workers in the diamond mines: minimum, or sub-mimimum wage, work 'em to the edge of exhaustion, then X ray them to make sure they haven't swallowed any gems- the little bastards! You wouldn't believe what they'd get up to if we gave 'em even half a chance.
While we're about it, let's do away with foreign aid. I mean 0.7% of our GDP to a load of loser countries- and for what? Look after number one The Daily Mail says. Who cares that these countries are the ones we ripped off for all they were worth for nearly 200 years, the ones who contributed thousands of soldiers to come and fight and die in our wars, the ones where we still like to holiday in at bargain basement prices because despite the apparent wealth of their big cities, most of their citizens still live in the direst poverty. The Daily Mail says: screw 'em!
Thursday, 8 December 2016
The trouble with truth
Is we don't like it very much. These days we prefer lies, half truths, opinions and crackpot ideas. Trump won in America because people didn't want to hear truths, they wanted to buy into his very well crafted distortions of reality that suited their own prejudices. I think you'll find that a very good way of winning elections or referenda. Like when they said if we left the EU there'd be 350 million quid a week left over to re-boot an ailing NHS. Sounded great, problem was it wasn't true. Who cares? The public bought it and look what happened.
Last weekend I spent a very pleasant weekend at an old country house in north Wales which is said to be haunted. At breakfast one of my fellow students announced she was witness to a haunting event: at 3 AM she watched while her door handle was turned. I was probably a bit rude. An American, I first pointed out to her that her country folk have not been the most rigid adherents of truth lately. Then I followed that up with reminding her that deploying Occam's razor, a principle which states that the simplest explanation for any given phenomenon is probably the correct one, it was rather more likely that a drunk student tried her door handle, mistaking it for his or her own. Did she like that? No she did not.
The haunting idea is much more romantic, more interesting and better material for a short story (we were creative writing students after all).
Poor old Boris Johnson. He tried a little truth, and he got slapped down by TM for his trouble. How dare he upset a corrupt bunch of cowards who live in fear of the Wahabi Imans who really hold the power in KSA and enact laws that make women second class citizens and fight proxy wars because that's what the Imans want? Next reshuffle and he's out of here, I promise you. In a post Brexit world we can't afford to upset one of our best weapons customers, now can we?
The truth is, we don't like truth. We'd rather believe in ET (though we're probably alone in the Universe), ghosts (they don't exist, or at least there is no real evidence for their existence), believe in God (see ghosts), that the world is going to be a better place once we get all these ultra right wingers in power and get rid of those soppy liberals and global warming due to human activity is a cruel hoax disseminated by the loonie left (look out, Armageddon is just around the corner).
Truth. That's so last year, man.
Last weekend I spent a very pleasant weekend at an old country house in north Wales which is said to be haunted. At breakfast one of my fellow students announced she was witness to a haunting event: at 3 AM she watched while her door handle was turned. I was probably a bit rude. An American, I first pointed out to her that her country folk have not been the most rigid adherents of truth lately. Then I followed that up with reminding her that deploying Occam's razor, a principle which states that the simplest explanation for any given phenomenon is probably the correct one, it was rather more likely that a drunk student tried her door handle, mistaking it for his or her own. Did she like that? No she did not.
The haunting idea is much more romantic, more interesting and better material for a short story (we were creative writing students after all).
Poor old Boris Johnson. He tried a little truth, and he got slapped down by TM for his trouble. How dare he upset a corrupt bunch of cowards who live in fear of the Wahabi Imans who really hold the power in KSA and enact laws that make women second class citizens and fight proxy wars because that's what the Imans want? Next reshuffle and he's out of here, I promise you. In a post Brexit world we can't afford to upset one of our best weapons customers, now can we?
The truth is, we don't like truth. We'd rather believe in ET (though we're probably alone in the Universe), ghosts (they don't exist, or at least there is no real evidence for their existence), believe in God (see ghosts), that the world is going to be a better place once we get all these ultra right wingers in power and get rid of those soppy liberals and global warming due to human activity is a cruel hoax disseminated by the loonie left (look out, Armageddon is just around the corner).
Truth. That's so last year, man.
Thursday, 1 December 2016
November 2016 book and film review, continued
FILMS, continued.
GLENGARRY, GLEN ROSS (1992) D- James Foley. A group of realtors in New York are struggling to make ends meet in the recession, and things aren't improved when they're told if they don't start delivering soon, they'll be fired. One of them (played brilliantly by Jack Lemmon) can't even pay his Mum's medical bills, so his whole family is depending on him coming up with something. Then he has an audacious idea...
Scripted by David Mamet from his award winning stage play, this is a brilliant little piece, with strong performances from all the major players, from Jack Lemmon through Al Pacino, to Alec Baldwin, whose part didn't exist in the stage play but was created by Mamet especially for the film version. He is only on screen for eight minutes, but his impact is electrifying. Intelligent American movie making at its best.
DAD'S ARMY (2016) D- Oliver Parker. In wartime Britain, a hapless group of Home Guard try to outwit the feminine wiles of a glamorous German spy.
I'm old enough to remember the original and genuine version of Dad's Army, with Arthur Lowe, Ian LeMeasurier et al, all of whom are now dead, with the exception of Ian Lavender who played Private Pike ("stupid boy!") and who in tribute to the original cast has in this version been given a cameo role, promoted this time to a general.
It has proved impossible to update the wonderful flavour of the original, especially with a script not penned by Croft and Perry, but the film is saved by Toby Jones as captain Mainwearing, who makes the role his own. But other players, such as Bill Nighy, prove disappointing. Others have slated catherine Zeta Jones as the Mata Hari, though I won't hear a word said against Wales's most celebrated and glamorous export...
THE REVENANT (2015) D- Alejandro G. Inarritu. A group of fir-trappers in the vast, empty wastes of the American north-west are attacked by Indians and then Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) is attacked by a bear and very nearly killed. But this guy ain't ready to die yet... Left to die by a fellow trapper, he musters resources deep within himself to get back to civilisation and report the crimes of the man who abandoned him to his fate...
This film is astonishing. Director Innaritu and star DiCaprio work together to create an utterly compelling and completely authentic-looking product which plunges the viewer into the cold, forbidding world of a North Dakota winter, with all the dangers that implies. The fight with the bear is one of the most life-like CGI creations I have yet seen, and I still don't quite understand how it was done. But what really captures the attention is the Revenant himself, a man who like Matt Damon in The Martian, simply refuses to lie down and die in the face of the most extreme adversity.
DiCaprio rightly won his first Oscar for his role after no less than five nominations, with Innaritu picking up Best Director, and Emanuel Lubezki winning the award for cinematography.
Tremendous.
PRISONERS (2013) D- Denis Villeneuve. In small-town, USA, two young girls go missing. The sheriff (Jake Gylenhaal) is a good man, but has nothing to go on. One minute they were playing in the street outside their homes, next minute they are gone. The father of one of the girls (Hugh Jackman) is convinced a learning-disabled man living nearby is responsible, partly because he hears him saying "they only started crying when I left", though no one else hears him saying it. The sheriff arrests him but releases him after questioning, so Jackman decides to take the law into his own hands. He abducts the young man and tortures him until he confesses. Only problem: whatever terrible things he does to the poor chap, he doesn't confess. Despite the mitigating factors, he realises he has now committed a serious crime himself, and one the authorities cannot ignore. But first they have to uncover it...
These days I have two special criteria to determine how good a movie is: 1) whether it is capable of taking my mind off my writing, and 2) if it makes me forget, just for a few minutes, the other massive problem I face in my personal life. To do that it has to be excellent, which this was. Top marks.
GLENGARRY, GLEN ROSS (1992) D- James Foley. A group of realtors in New York are struggling to make ends meet in the recession, and things aren't improved when they're told if they don't start delivering soon, they'll be fired. One of them (played brilliantly by Jack Lemmon) can't even pay his Mum's medical bills, so his whole family is depending on him coming up with something. Then he has an audacious idea...
Scripted by David Mamet from his award winning stage play, this is a brilliant little piece, with strong performances from all the major players, from Jack Lemmon through Al Pacino, to Alec Baldwin, whose part didn't exist in the stage play but was created by Mamet especially for the film version. He is only on screen for eight minutes, but his impact is electrifying. Intelligent American movie making at its best.
DAD'S ARMY (2016) D- Oliver Parker. In wartime Britain, a hapless group of Home Guard try to outwit the feminine wiles of a glamorous German spy.
I'm old enough to remember the original and genuine version of Dad's Army, with Arthur Lowe, Ian LeMeasurier et al, all of whom are now dead, with the exception of Ian Lavender who played Private Pike ("stupid boy!") and who in tribute to the original cast has in this version been given a cameo role, promoted this time to a general.
It has proved impossible to update the wonderful flavour of the original, especially with a script not penned by Croft and Perry, but the film is saved by Toby Jones as captain Mainwearing, who makes the role his own. But other players, such as Bill Nighy, prove disappointing. Others have slated catherine Zeta Jones as the Mata Hari, though I won't hear a word said against Wales's most celebrated and glamorous export...
THE REVENANT (2015) D- Alejandro G. Inarritu. A group of fir-trappers in the vast, empty wastes of the American north-west are attacked by Indians and then Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) is attacked by a bear and very nearly killed. But this guy ain't ready to die yet... Left to die by a fellow trapper, he musters resources deep within himself to get back to civilisation and report the crimes of the man who abandoned him to his fate...
This film is astonishing. Director Innaritu and star DiCaprio work together to create an utterly compelling and completely authentic-looking product which plunges the viewer into the cold, forbidding world of a North Dakota winter, with all the dangers that implies. The fight with the bear is one of the most life-like CGI creations I have yet seen, and I still don't quite understand how it was done. But what really captures the attention is the Revenant himself, a man who like Matt Damon in The Martian, simply refuses to lie down and die in the face of the most extreme adversity.
DiCaprio rightly won his first Oscar for his role after no less than five nominations, with Innaritu picking up Best Director, and Emanuel Lubezki winning the award for cinematography.
Tremendous.
PRISONERS (2013) D- Denis Villeneuve. In small-town, USA, two young girls go missing. The sheriff (Jake Gylenhaal) is a good man, but has nothing to go on. One minute they were playing in the street outside their homes, next minute they are gone. The father of one of the girls (Hugh Jackman) is convinced a learning-disabled man living nearby is responsible, partly because he hears him saying "they only started crying when I left", though no one else hears him saying it. The sheriff arrests him but releases him after questioning, so Jackman decides to take the law into his own hands. He abducts the young man and tortures him until he confesses. Only problem: whatever terrible things he does to the poor chap, he doesn't confess. Despite the mitigating factors, he realises he has now committed a serious crime himself, and one the authorities cannot ignore. But first they have to uncover it...
These days I have two special criteria to determine how good a movie is: 1) whether it is capable of taking my mind off my writing, and 2) if it makes me forget, just for a few minutes, the other massive problem I face in my personal life. To do that it has to be excellent, which this was. Top marks.
November 2016 book and film review
BOOKS
SPEAK, MEMORY, by Vladimir Nabokov
A Russian emigre mines his memory once he has set up home in the USA. Born into great wealth and privilege as part of a noble family, he has to flee with his family after the Bolshevik revolution. They troll around Europe for a while before settling in the States. We learn of his synaethesia (a cross-over of the senses, where numbers or words have a distinct "colour") and how he became a writer in the first place.
Nabokov is one of my favourite writers. His sublime, limpid prose seduces the brain in a unique way, and this book is a delight from first page to last.
THE BUTCHER BOY, by Patrick McCabe.
A young lad in rural Ireland gets in a few scrapes with the authorities, which gradually escalate into dreadful crimes. It is perhaps hard to blame him: his Mum is mentally unstable, perhaps in turn affected by his father's alcoholism, but then she commits suicide and a terrible downward spiral begins.
The Butcher Boy was hailed as revolution in literature when it appeared in 1992, and won a slew of awards. And it's true: McCabe establishes a new way of writing: there are few commas, no quotation-marks and paragraph breaks are a rarity. Yet he conjures a completely authentic inner world for his "hero" Francie Brady, to inhabit. We can follow his fall from playful innocent to hardened criminal in a way that makes it seem inevitable, perhaps because stories like his are not uncommon in real life. Extraordinary.
EYE LAKE, by Tristan Hughes.
In the wastes of the Canadian outback, a young man with learning difficulties attempts to unravel the disappearances of, first his grandfather, then a close friend, and then another. But in the small town where he grew up and still lives, mysteries are the order of the day...
Tristan Hughes is a lecturer on my Master's course in creative writing, and his credentials are excellent. He won the Rhys Davies short story prize in 2002, and his four novels have received high critical acclaim. It's easy to see why. Eye Lake is a beautifully written book, with its slow, languorous style, not unlike the river that meanders through the township where the novel is set. And the characters are drawn with great skill. Highly recommended.
FILMS
EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT (2015) D- Ciro Guerra. In 1909, in the deepest parts of the Colombian rainforest, a German explorer seeks a magical healing herb. He enlists the help of a reluctant local guide, who worries the simplicity and perfection of their life in the jungle will be lost once the plant is discovered. He's not wrong...
The explorer never returns to his native Germany, and thirty years on another explorer goes in search of him. But he has a hidden agenda: while there he hopes to find a new source of rubber for the Reich. Incredibly, he finds the very guide who Assisted the first one. Once again he suspects the white man's intentions are not totally honourable, and once agin he is correct.
A really amazing film, this creates a wonderful atmosphere of the corruption of Eden and the locals' desperate response to it. Unforgettable.
I, DANIEL BLAKE (2016) D- Ken Loach. A 60-something bloke loses his job after a heart attack, but struggles to persuade the benefits people he is entitled to sick pay. Meanwhile he takes pity on a single mum and her little boy who are having at least as much trouble as he is. But at least he's had some practice...
I have only ever drawn unemployment benefit once, back in 1978, and as a doctor I was treated with respect and courtesy. I was even given "earnings related benefit", meaning I got more than my working-class cohort. I only needed to claim it for a month before finding a job. This experience, I fancy, will seem a little alien to most people today. When I worked as a GP I used to tell people you needed to be half dead to get DLA (Disability Living Allowance), then I changed it to "three quarters dead". If I was still working today I'd have to say "99% dead". A friend of mine with cerebral palsy was recently asked at her assessment when she was going to "get better". Seriously. That's like asking someone with an amputated leg when it's going to grow back. But it's what people these days are being subjected to by the benefits system. Thanks IDS. Thanks a whole fucking lot.
In brief, this is brilliant, despite IDS condemning while admitting he hadn't actually seen it. Don't make his mistake: see it. It's brilliant.
SPEAK, MEMORY, by Vladimir Nabokov
A Russian emigre mines his memory once he has set up home in the USA. Born into great wealth and privilege as part of a noble family, he has to flee with his family after the Bolshevik revolution. They troll around Europe for a while before settling in the States. We learn of his synaethesia (a cross-over of the senses, where numbers or words have a distinct "colour") and how he became a writer in the first place.
Nabokov is one of my favourite writers. His sublime, limpid prose seduces the brain in a unique way, and this book is a delight from first page to last.
THE BUTCHER BOY, by Patrick McCabe.
A young lad in rural Ireland gets in a few scrapes with the authorities, which gradually escalate into dreadful crimes. It is perhaps hard to blame him: his Mum is mentally unstable, perhaps in turn affected by his father's alcoholism, but then she commits suicide and a terrible downward spiral begins.
The Butcher Boy was hailed as revolution in literature when it appeared in 1992, and won a slew of awards. And it's true: McCabe establishes a new way of writing: there are few commas, no quotation-marks and paragraph breaks are a rarity. Yet he conjures a completely authentic inner world for his "hero" Francie Brady, to inhabit. We can follow his fall from playful innocent to hardened criminal in a way that makes it seem inevitable, perhaps because stories like his are not uncommon in real life. Extraordinary.
EYE LAKE, by Tristan Hughes.
In the wastes of the Canadian outback, a young man with learning difficulties attempts to unravel the disappearances of, first his grandfather, then a close friend, and then another. But in the small town where he grew up and still lives, mysteries are the order of the day...
Tristan Hughes is a lecturer on my Master's course in creative writing, and his credentials are excellent. He won the Rhys Davies short story prize in 2002, and his four novels have received high critical acclaim. It's easy to see why. Eye Lake is a beautifully written book, with its slow, languorous style, not unlike the river that meanders through the township where the novel is set. And the characters are drawn with great skill. Highly recommended.
FILMS
EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT (2015) D- Ciro Guerra. In 1909, in the deepest parts of the Colombian rainforest, a German explorer seeks a magical healing herb. He enlists the help of a reluctant local guide, who worries the simplicity and perfection of their life in the jungle will be lost once the plant is discovered. He's not wrong...
The explorer never returns to his native Germany, and thirty years on another explorer goes in search of him. But he has a hidden agenda: while there he hopes to find a new source of rubber for the Reich. Incredibly, he finds the very guide who Assisted the first one. Once again he suspects the white man's intentions are not totally honourable, and once agin he is correct.
A really amazing film, this creates a wonderful atmosphere of the corruption of Eden and the locals' desperate response to it. Unforgettable.
I, DANIEL BLAKE (2016) D- Ken Loach. A 60-something bloke loses his job after a heart attack, but struggles to persuade the benefits people he is entitled to sick pay. Meanwhile he takes pity on a single mum and her little boy who are having at least as much trouble as he is. But at least he's had some practice...
I have only ever drawn unemployment benefit once, back in 1978, and as a doctor I was treated with respect and courtesy. I was even given "earnings related benefit", meaning I got more than my working-class cohort. I only needed to claim it for a month before finding a job. This experience, I fancy, will seem a little alien to most people today. When I worked as a GP I used to tell people you needed to be half dead to get DLA (Disability Living Allowance), then I changed it to "three quarters dead". If I was still working today I'd have to say "99% dead". A friend of mine with cerebral palsy was recently asked at her assessment when she was going to "get better". Seriously. That's like asking someone with an amputated leg when it's going to grow back. But it's what people these days are being subjected to by the benefits system. Thanks IDS. Thanks a whole fucking lot.
In brief, this is brilliant, despite IDS condemning while admitting he hadn't actually seen it. Don't make his mistake: see it. It's brilliant.
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