BRIGSBY BEAR (2018) D- Dave McCary
A young man (Kyle Mooney, who devised the film as well as starring in it) is abducted in childhood and kept isolated from society. His ‘father’ (an excellent Mark Hamill) entertains him by creating a TV show starring a fluffy-toy superhero called ‘Brigsby Bear’. Our abductee is entranced by these amateur offerings, which carry lots of moral messages like being honest, always doing the right thing and good ultimately triumphing over evil. Then he is finally released from his cozy prison and encounters the real world for the first time. But, perhaps understandably, the young man remains obsessed by the Brigsby character to the point where the authorities are seriously worried he has been permanently warped by his incarceration.
Eventually he decides he can only fulfill himself by making a movie of Brigsby Bear himself, by using the props seized from his abductors, and reluctantly, the authorities let him have his way...
This movie is terrific. Beautifully realised on screen, this is a deeply moving and beautiful tale which is in my experience unique - and that isn’t easy today. Highest recommendation.
NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD ((1968) D- George A. Romero
A young woman is visiting a cemetery with her brother when they are attacked by a strange, flesh-eating ghoul. The boy is killed, and she flees, finding an abandoned farmhouse nearby in which to hide. There she finds another man also escaping from the zombies outside who would kill and eat them. In one terrible night they, and a few other ‘norms’, attempt to fight off the attack from a growing band of flesh-eating monsters.
Romero’s famous cult schlock-horror is now seen as a classic of the cinema, and if we rate it by the number of spin-offs and copycat films that followed, it certainly qualifies. Shot in grainy black and white, it captures the menace and horror of a zombie attack perfectly, using a number of devices that are guaranteed to keep us riveted: the dead that won’t die, the hands coming through the walls, the danger that lurks within, it’s all there. The ultimate horror film.
Thursday, 30 August 2018
August 2018 film review part 1
THE DUELLISTS (1977) D- Ridley Scott
A soldier in the Napoleonic Wars decides he has been dissed by a fellow officer and challenges him to a duel. They fight. Neither dies, and they go their separate ways. Until chance brings them together again and the issue of ‘face’ forces them to fight again. And again...
Based on a short story by Joseph Conrad, this was Ridley Scott’s first full length feature film, and it boded well for the future. Soon the film acquired cult status, despite its unremarkable script. With too small a budget to build sets, the whole film is shot in a series of real locations, which only adds to its authentic feel. Harvey Keitel and Keith Carradine perform well, as we might expect, but it is the film’s overall atmosphere which lingers in the mind.
EQUALIZER 2 (2018) D- Antoine Fuqua
A retired black-ops specialist (Denzel Washington) finds a bunch of former colleagues have gone rogue and would do him in. Big mistake. They soon find themselves wishing they’d chosen an easier target...
The tag line for this film could be “If you liked the first Equalizer film you’re going to like this one, ‘coz it’s more of the same”, because all the elements of the original are in this film too: a quiet, unassuming man whose skill set makes him into a kind of one-man army, righting wrongs in a way we all fantasize we’d like to do ourselves. It isn’t quite as good as the original, which I found totally engaging, but it’s still pretty exciting. My favourite trope was the prospect of a hurricane on its way, while the atmosphere on the ground was ramping up in a way that reflected the maelstrom to come. Superior summer movie fodder...
STUDIO GHIBLI SEASON ON FILM FOUR
My goodness, what a treat Film4 have been giving us in August! They’ve taken it on themselves to show the entire cannon of that revered anime production company, from the 80s to the present day.
Take time to enjoy the unique animation style which seems to place us in the midst of Japanese culture, and let the plots, whether they be of young love (Whisper of the Heart), survival at the end of WW2 as the Americans rain down fire bombs on Japan (Grave of the Fireflies) or enter a magical world (Castle in the Sky) simply wash over you and enter into your subconscious. Even when they decide to use a European story, such as Diana Wyn Jones’s Howl’s Moving Castle, you’re still in a world that is the Japanese psyche through and through. Just pick any at random and enjoy...
See next post for more films
A soldier in the Napoleonic Wars decides he has been dissed by a fellow officer and challenges him to a duel. They fight. Neither dies, and they go their separate ways. Until chance brings them together again and the issue of ‘face’ forces them to fight again. And again...
Based on a short story by Joseph Conrad, this was Ridley Scott’s first full length feature film, and it boded well for the future. Soon the film acquired cult status, despite its unremarkable script. With too small a budget to build sets, the whole film is shot in a series of real locations, which only adds to its authentic feel. Harvey Keitel and Keith Carradine perform well, as we might expect, but it is the film’s overall atmosphere which lingers in the mind.
EQUALIZER 2 (2018) D- Antoine Fuqua
A retired black-ops specialist (Denzel Washington) finds a bunch of former colleagues have gone rogue and would do him in. Big mistake. They soon find themselves wishing they’d chosen an easier target...
The tag line for this film could be “If you liked the first Equalizer film you’re going to like this one, ‘coz it’s more of the same”, because all the elements of the original are in this film too: a quiet, unassuming man whose skill set makes him into a kind of one-man army, righting wrongs in a way we all fantasize we’d like to do ourselves. It isn’t quite as good as the original, which I found totally engaging, but it’s still pretty exciting. My favourite trope was the prospect of a hurricane on its way, while the atmosphere on the ground was ramping up in a way that reflected the maelstrom to come. Superior summer movie fodder...
STUDIO GHIBLI SEASON ON FILM FOUR
My goodness, what a treat Film4 have been giving us in August! They’ve taken it on themselves to show the entire cannon of that revered anime production company, from the 80s to the present day.
Take time to enjoy the unique animation style which seems to place us in the midst of Japanese culture, and let the plots, whether they be of young love (Whisper of the Heart), survival at the end of WW2 as the Americans rain down fire bombs on Japan (Grave of the Fireflies) or enter a magical world (Castle in the Sky) simply wash over you and enter into your subconscious. Even when they decide to use a European story, such as Diana Wyn Jones’s Howl’s Moving Castle, you’re still in a world that is the Japanese psyche through and through. Just pick any at random and enjoy...
See next post for more films
August 2018 book review
THE CAPTIVE and THE FUGITIVE, by Marcel Proust
“...At daybreak, my face still turned to the wall, and before I could see what shade of colour the first streaks of light assumed, I could already tell what the weather was like. The first sounds from the street had told me, according to whether they came to my ears deadened and distorted by the moisture of the atmosphere or quivering like arrows in the resonant, empty expanses of a spacious, frosty, pure morning; as soon as I heard the rumble of the first tramcar, I could tell whether it was sodden with rain or setting forth into the blue...”
This is how volume V of Proust’s magnum Opus begins, and I offer this brief extract to illustrate the crystalline beauty of what lies ahead.
This book, or books, because they were originally published separately, has been alternatively known as ‘Albertine’s book’, because Albertine, Marcel’s inamorata, is both the captive, kept virtual prisoner by his terror that the moment she is out of his sight she will seek a lesbian encounter, and fugitive, because she eventually wrests herself from his tyranny. Now read on...
THE SECRET BARRISTER, by the Secret Barrister
Being a rundown of our venerable legal system, the worst in the world except for all the others, by a working criminal barrister. From the ‘Mag’s courts’, run by a bunch of amateurs with no right of appeal against their arbitrary decisions, all the way to the Court of Appeal, where appellants find it next door to impossible to reverse lower court’s decisions, this is a devastating takedown of a broken system.
Having got far closer than I would ever want to the workings of the criminal justIce system /recently, I kept finding myself saying, “Oh my God! So that’s how I nearly went to prison for a crime I didn’t commit!”, but also reading tales of injustice even worse than my own. But the book’s overall thrust is that our justice system is seriously underfunded, but because most of us never actually get face to face with it, we don’t complain as we might about, say, underfunding in the NHS. We all get ill, we all see our doctor from time to time so we can see how that might affect us directly. Underfunding of the legal system just isn’t sexy enough to make it big in the news, especially with what he (or is it she?) calls the ‘inherent anti-defendant bias’ in the media. Shocking reading...
HIROSHIMA, by John Hersey
A year on from the world’s first live experiment in nuclear fission, in the summer of 1946 the New Yorker magazine sent correspondent John Hersey to find out from people on the ground what happened. He concentrated on 6 people who had by some miracle survived the inferno, and got them to tell their stories. What emerged was a 30,000 word essay, and it so impressed his editor that the New Yorker made the unprecedented decision to run the piece in its entirety in a single issue devoted solely to the story.
Almost immediately the piece was hailed as a masterpiece of creative nonfiction, with its cool, almost dispassionate accounts of suffering brought about by the Great Flash. There is no moral judgement at all, Hersey preferring to leave that for the reader.
Footnote: you can read the full text yourself by typing the words “Hiroshima John Hersey full text” into google, and I promise you will be forever changed by the experience.
“...At daybreak, my face still turned to the wall, and before I could see what shade of colour the first streaks of light assumed, I could already tell what the weather was like. The first sounds from the street had told me, according to whether they came to my ears deadened and distorted by the moisture of the atmosphere or quivering like arrows in the resonant, empty expanses of a spacious, frosty, pure morning; as soon as I heard the rumble of the first tramcar, I could tell whether it was sodden with rain or setting forth into the blue...”
This is how volume V of Proust’s magnum Opus begins, and I offer this brief extract to illustrate the crystalline beauty of what lies ahead.
This book, or books, because they were originally published separately, has been alternatively known as ‘Albertine’s book’, because Albertine, Marcel’s inamorata, is both the captive, kept virtual prisoner by his terror that the moment she is out of his sight she will seek a lesbian encounter, and fugitive, because she eventually wrests herself from his tyranny. Now read on...
THE SECRET BARRISTER, by the Secret Barrister
Being a rundown of our venerable legal system, the worst in the world except for all the others, by a working criminal barrister. From the ‘Mag’s courts’, run by a bunch of amateurs with no right of appeal against their arbitrary decisions, all the way to the Court of Appeal, where appellants find it next door to impossible to reverse lower court’s decisions, this is a devastating takedown of a broken system.
Having got far closer than I would ever want to the workings of the criminal justIce system /recently, I kept finding myself saying, “Oh my God! So that’s how I nearly went to prison for a crime I didn’t commit!”, but also reading tales of injustice even worse than my own. But the book’s overall thrust is that our justice system is seriously underfunded, but because most of us never actually get face to face with it, we don’t complain as we might about, say, underfunding in the NHS. We all get ill, we all see our doctor from time to time so we can see how that might affect us directly. Underfunding of the legal system just isn’t sexy enough to make it big in the news, especially with what he (or is it she?) calls the ‘inherent anti-defendant bias’ in the media. Shocking reading...
HIROSHIMA, by John Hersey
A year on from the world’s first live experiment in nuclear fission, in the summer of 1946 the New Yorker magazine sent correspondent John Hersey to find out from people on the ground what happened. He concentrated on 6 people who had by some miracle survived the inferno, and got them to tell their stories. What emerged was a 30,000 word essay, and it so impressed his editor that the New Yorker made the unprecedented decision to run the piece in its entirety in a single issue devoted solely to the story.
Almost immediately the piece was hailed as a masterpiece of creative nonfiction, with its cool, almost dispassionate accounts of suffering brought about by the Great Flash. There is no moral judgement at all, Hersey preferring to leave that for the reader.
Footnote: you can read the full text yourself by typing the words “Hiroshima John Hersey full text” into google, and I promise you will be forever changed by the experience.
Tuesday, 28 August 2018
Long distance trade good, short distance bad
Or so it would seem. Today Theresa May is in Cape Town, announcing her intention to be G7’s biggest investor in Africa by 2022. All well and good one might say. Small point. When she says Africa, she means South Africa mainly, which is why she chose to make the announcement there. South Africa is the most prosperous country in Africa. It makes sense. But remember, our current trade with the whole of Africa is only 17.5 billion pounds pa, while our trade with the EU is more like 250 billion. So it’s going to have to undergo something of a transformation before it even comes close to what we will have lost to the EU when we leave it behind. And let’s not forget other players, just as keen as us and with even more clout; I speak of course of the USA and China, who want a large wedge of the African pie for themselves.
I’m probably going to be accused of naivety at any moment, but something else occurs to me: Cape Town is 8000 miles from Britain. France and the rest of the EU only a few hundred miles. Does no one other than me see how crazy it is to abandon nearby markets while seeking others on the other side of the world? We know air travel is contributing significantly to the CO2 emission/global warming thing. Imagine how much worse that’s going to get when we start trading with all these far-flung nations? And all this to wrest back our ‘sovereignty’, whatever that is? OK, I’ll tell you what that is: a con.
I spent a few days in Richmond, Surrey last week, and of the several places we visited, Ham House, Syon House and Kew Gardens, it was hard to avoid noticing that they all lie directly under the main flight path to Heathrow airport. Every 45 seconds a jet plane passes overhead, 18 hours a day, 7 days a week. Are all these journeys necessary?
Look, I know I’m part of the problem too. I’ve travelled by jet 3 times this year, albeit all within Europe, so I am not setting myself as some sort of ecological saint. But I do worry that many, many plane journeys aren’t really necessary. Business people going to meetings - how about Skype? Holiday makers - how about a destination closer to home?
Mine is a voice in the wilderness on this subject, as that never ending queue of planes overflying West London testifies. But at some stage this issue is going to have to be addressed. Anyone noticed the world’s weather recently?
I’m probably going to be accused of naivety at any moment, but something else occurs to me: Cape Town is 8000 miles from Britain. France and the rest of the EU only a few hundred miles. Does no one other than me see how crazy it is to abandon nearby markets while seeking others on the other side of the world? We know air travel is contributing significantly to the CO2 emission/global warming thing. Imagine how much worse that’s going to get when we start trading with all these far-flung nations? And all this to wrest back our ‘sovereignty’, whatever that is? OK, I’ll tell you what that is: a con.
I spent a few days in Richmond, Surrey last week, and of the several places we visited, Ham House, Syon House and Kew Gardens, it was hard to avoid noticing that they all lie directly under the main flight path to Heathrow airport. Every 45 seconds a jet plane passes overhead, 18 hours a day, 7 days a week. Are all these journeys necessary?
Look, I know I’m part of the problem too. I’ve travelled by jet 3 times this year, albeit all within Europe, so I am not setting myself as some sort of ecological saint. But I do worry that many, many plane journeys aren’t really necessary. Business people going to meetings - how about Skype? Holiday makers - how about a destination closer to home?
Mine is a voice in the wilderness on this subject, as that never ending queue of planes overflying West London testifies. But at some stage this issue is going to have to be addressed. Anyone noticed the world’s weather recently?
Thursday, 23 August 2018
The biggest cult in history
It seems it doesn’t matter what Trump does, or says, he can do, or say, no wrong in the eyes of millions of Americans. Even today, when he shrugs off his complicity in paying hush money to women so they wouldn’t embarrass him during the 2016 election campaign by saying “I did nothing wrong”.
I saw someone on CNN the other day willingly supporting him in everything, and I mean everything, which might not be that surprising, except she was a black, female, doctor for Chrissakes. If he’s even got people like her on his side, things look very good for him winning the election in 2020.
A commentator pointed out yesterday that in effect Trump is the leader of a cult, and hence the biggest cult there has ever been, as it comprises about 1 in 3 of the American population, that is over 100 million people. People who slavishly support his xenophobic foreign and immigration policy, his destruction of the environment in favour of big business, and his trashing of anyone who has the temerity to disagree with him. This is how people behave towards the leaders of their cults, Bhagwan Sree Rajneesh, Jim Jones, Adolph Hitler to name a few.
There’s a lot of talk about his ‘base’, the core of supporters from ‘the Rust belt’ who want to see him drain the swamp (funny that, he’s deeper in that swamp than most, it turns out), and in a wider context, from the “Bible Belt”. People think this term applies to a strip of America going down the middle, but in fact the Bible Belt is actually all of America with the exception of the west and east coasts and a few liberal states. I sometimes wonder how the Democrats ever win anything...
Speaking of that, apparently it won’t do them any good to try to impeach Trump. First, it wouldn’t work, and second, it would so anger the base they would galvanize support and guarantee his re-election. So, Pelagius says, don’t go down that road. Provide an alternative, spend a lot of money to publicize it and hope he fucks up even worse than he has already. I wouldn’t rule it out. OK, he’s got a hundred million die-hard supporters. But that still leaves 200 million who might not vote for him. Please God...
I saw someone on CNN the other day willingly supporting him in everything, and I mean everything, which might not be that surprising, except she was a black, female, doctor for Chrissakes. If he’s even got people like her on his side, things look very good for him winning the election in 2020.
A commentator pointed out yesterday that in effect Trump is the leader of a cult, and hence the biggest cult there has ever been, as it comprises about 1 in 3 of the American population, that is over 100 million people. People who slavishly support his xenophobic foreign and immigration policy, his destruction of the environment in favour of big business, and his trashing of anyone who has the temerity to disagree with him. This is how people behave towards the leaders of their cults, Bhagwan Sree Rajneesh, Jim Jones, Adolph Hitler to name a few.
There’s a lot of talk about his ‘base’, the core of supporters from ‘the Rust belt’ who want to see him drain the swamp (funny that, he’s deeper in that swamp than most, it turns out), and in a wider context, from the “Bible Belt”. People think this term applies to a strip of America going down the middle, but in fact the Bible Belt is actually all of America with the exception of the west and east coasts and a few liberal states. I sometimes wonder how the Democrats ever win anything...
Speaking of that, apparently it won’t do them any good to try to impeach Trump. First, it wouldn’t work, and second, it would so anger the base they would galvanize support and guarantee his re-election. So, Pelagius says, don’t go down that road. Provide an alternative, spend a lot of money to publicize it and hope he fucks up even worse than he has already. I wouldn’t rule it out. OK, he’s got a hundred million die-hard supporters. But that still leaves 200 million who might not vote for him. Please God...
Tuesday, 21 August 2018
Just count to 90
It being a slow news day in the heart of the silly season, both Sky and the BBC have run virtually identical items this morning on anger and how to defeat it.
Turns out research has shown that the hormones that surge through our bodies when we get angry dissipate in just 90 seconds, so all we have to do is wait for that long and everything will be fine. And of course, it being the deeply skilled people at Sky and the ubiquitous and terminally lightweight Victoria Derbyshire, there was no further discussion.
But we all know it ain’t that simple. When I was kid my Mum used to tell me to “count to 10”. Now it seems we just have to count to 90. I don’t know about you, but there are some issues that, after 90 seconds, I am even more angry about than I was before. Like Trump’s arrant lying. Like the wreckers who actively seek a no-deal Brexit. God knows, there are things Maggie Thatcher did more than 30 years ago I am still furious about.
The fact is anger can be a good thing. Anger is a powerful and empowering emotion. It helps get things done, it can protect us in some circumstances. Anger is a complex emotion, and one evolution has preserved because it has a survival value. Think before you act, or post, is always a good idea, and one Trump should have taken up a long time ago. But don’t take my anger away. I need it.
Turns out research has shown that the hormones that surge through our bodies when we get angry dissipate in just 90 seconds, so all we have to do is wait for that long and everything will be fine. And of course, it being the deeply skilled people at Sky and the ubiquitous and terminally lightweight Victoria Derbyshire, there was no further discussion.
But we all know it ain’t that simple. When I was kid my Mum used to tell me to “count to 10”. Now it seems we just have to count to 90. I don’t know about you, but there are some issues that, after 90 seconds, I am even more angry about than I was before. Like Trump’s arrant lying. Like the wreckers who actively seek a no-deal Brexit. God knows, there are things Maggie Thatcher did more than 30 years ago I am still furious about.
The fact is anger can be a good thing. Anger is a powerful and empowering emotion. It helps get things done, it can protect us in some circumstances. Anger is a complex emotion, and one evolution has preserved because it has a survival value. Think before you act, or post, is always a good idea, and one Trump should have taken up a long time ago. But don’t take my anger away. I need it.
Friday, 10 August 2018
Burqa Wars
Just as Corbyn’s Opponents have lighted on the spurious issue of antisemitism within the Labour Party as a way of ousting him, Boris’s detractors are now using the veil as a way of getting rid of him.
As you know, he took a leaf out of Donald Trump’s playbook and appealed to his ‘base’, of whom there are many. Vox pops around the country suggest he has touched a chord with racist elements that lurk in Little Britain, and as we have seen with Brexit, there are millions of them.
Careful to hold on to his libertarian roots, Boris said he didn’t want to ban the burka, as they have in Denmark and elsewhere. But he has ridiculed them, and thereby deeply insulted Muslims everywhere.
I don’t like the Burqa either. I can understand the point of view of certain Muslim women, who insist they like it; that it actually enhances their freedom. But for me, every time I see it, I think: exploitation and male patriarchy. The Burka is just an extension of man’s power over women, women who in certain factions of Islam, have no right to education, to go out by themselves or indeed to have any voice at all. That’s why it’s wrong.
I have heard articulate and intelligent Muslim women speak of the liberating effects of the veil, and how their decision to wear it is theirs alone, and not as the result of a domineering male presence. But to me that doesn’t change anything. As a symbol of male power it remains odious to me, as it should to anyone who truly believes in self determination.
As you know, he took a leaf out of Donald Trump’s playbook and appealed to his ‘base’, of whom there are many. Vox pops around the country suggest he has touched a chord with racist elements that lurk in Little Britain, and as we have seen with Brexit, there are millions of them.
Careful to hold on to his libertarian roots, Boris said he didn’t want to ban the burka, as they have in Denmark and elsewhere. But he has ridiculed them, and thereby deeply insulted Muslims everywhere.
I don’t like the Burqa either. I can understand the point of view of certain Muslim women, who insist they like it; that it actually enhances their freedom. But for me, every time I see it, I think: exploitation and male patriarchy. The Burka is just an extension of man’s power over women, women who in certain factions of Islam, have no right to education, to go out by themselves or indeed to have any voice at all. That’s why it’s wrong.
I have heard articulate and intelligent Muslim women speak of the liberating effects of the veil, and how their decision to wear it is theirs alone, and not as the result of a domineering male presence. But to me that doesn’t change anything. As a symbol of male power it remains odious to me, as it should to anyone who truly believes in self determination.
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