Friday 29 August 2008
Tuesday 26 August 2008
The Dark Knight.
Is a bad movie. I got so bored I wanted to sleep. I was gonna write a foot stomp to the throat review of it, but I'm not sure the damage to the ends of my fingers from aggressive typing would be worth the effort. I didn't hate it as much as Titanic, but I still lost a little faith in humanity over the fact everybody seems to love it so much. Maybe I am missing something. I think the movie just should have been Heath Ledger sitting a room doing his bit for the 25-30mins total he was in it. I didn't even think he was that great though.
I nearly left the cinema and I never do that.
My girlfriend got angry at me because of my grunts of despair.
I've written off a little check list that Christopher Nolan must have adhered to strictly when making this movie.
Character development: Nil
Bad/Lazy editing: 100 percent
Stupid plot that tries to be all realistic crime thriller sometimes, but when it suits it, comic book silly: Oh you better believe it
Too many plot threads causing you to not really get anyones motivation for anything, except for the most minimal idea of what they could possibly be thinking: Sure
Too many plot threads causing the film to be far too long and boring: Oh yeah
Completely wooden and really boring acting from Christian Bale and Maggie Gyllenhaal: Yep
Michael Cane and Morgan Freeman acting exactly the same way they act in every single movie they have ever been in: uh huh, uh huh.
Character who gets disfigured and becomes evil with little explanation as to why considering he was a pretty rational guy beforehand: Yes oh yes.
I thought Aaron Eckhart and Gary Oldman were pretty good, but Oldman didn't have enough screen time and Eckhart sucked after his turn into two face which was more of a problem with the terrible script than his acting. Funnily enough I think I liked Eckhart because he is a slightly over the top looking comic book character-esque guy and his part as the morally in-corruptible white knight of Gotham was really over the top............well morally in-corruptible until he gets very easily corrupted later on. This is among some of the ridiculous contradictions in the script.
For instance why does the joker, who in the middle of the film is shown burning his half of a large amount of money because he in no way is motivated by money, go to such lengths to get more of his share of the money in the opening scene? Why kill off all those henchmen who would be much more useful to him alive to help pull off his (frankly) impossible to pull off plans for their money?
Then there is the jokers stupidly easy escape from jail when the police forget to put the most dangerous criminal in Gothams handcuffs back on and leave him with the door unlocked and one unarmed guard.
Now I can hear people saying 'Suspension of disbelief', and usually I would agree with that. Except. Nolan and everybody who has seen this and loved it goes to great lengths to tell you how realistic it is, and that Nolan wanted to make a serious crime thriller like Heat. Well its not realistic. It doesn't even tread a fine line between being serious and silly. Its just an overlong and pretenious comic book film, which takes all the fun out of comic book films.
My advice, hire Heat and Tim Burtons original Batman and watch them at home. They are both much better movies and probably collectively shorter too.
I guess I ended up writing a foot stomp to the throat review then.
I nearly left the cinema and I never do that.
My girlfriend got angry at me because of my grunts of despair.
I've written off a little check list that Christopher Nolan must have adhered to strictly when making this movie.
Character development: Nil
Bad/Lazy editing: 100 percent
Stupid plot that tries to be all realistic crime thriller sometimes, but when it suits it, comic book silly: Oh you better believe it
Too many plot threads causing you to not really get anyones motivation for anything, except for the most minimal idea of what they could possibly be thinking: Sure
Too many plot threads causing the film to be far too long and boring: Oh yeah
Completely wooden and really boring acting from Christian Bale and Maggie Gyllenhaal: Yep
Michael Cane and Morgan Freeman acting exactly the same way they act in every single movie they have ever been in: uh huh, uh huh.
Character who gets disfigured and becomes evil with little explanation as to why considering he was a pretty rational guy beforehand: Yes oh yes.
I thought Aaron Eckhart and Gary Oldman were pretty good, but Oldman didn't have enough screen time and Eckhart sucked after his turn into two face which was more of a problem with the terrible script than his acting. Funnily enough I think I liked Eckhart because he is a slightly over the top looking comic book character-esque guy and his part as the morally in-corruptible white knight of Gotham was really over the top............well morally in-corruptible until he gets very easily corrupted later on. This is among some of the ridiculous contradictions in the script.
For instance why does the joker, who in the middle of the film is shown burning his half of a large amount of money because he in no way is motivated by money, go to such lengths to get more of his share of the money in the opening scene? Why kill off all those henchmen who would be much more useful to him alive to help pull off his (frankly) impossible to pull off plans for their money?
Then there is the jokers stupidly easy escape from jail when the police forget to put the most dangerous criminal in Gothams handcuffs back on and leave him with the door unlocked and one unarmed guard.
Now I can hear people saying 'Suspension of disbelief', and usually I would agree with that. Except. Nolan and everybody who has seen this and loved it goes to great lengths to tell you how realistic it is, and that Nolan wanted to make a serious crime thriller like Heat. Well its not realistic. It doesn't even tread a fine line between being serious and silly. Its just an overlong and pretenious comic book film, which takes all the fun out of comic book films.
My advice, hire Heat and Tim Burtons original Batman and watch them at home. They are both much better movies and probably collectively shorter too.
I guess I ended up writing a foot stomp to the throat review then.
Tuesday 19 August 2008
C/O Pop
So myself and my good friend Mark did a bit of a trip over to Cologne in Germany for the Cologne on Pop festival. (or ze Germans idea of pop which in a Uk/Nz sense doesn't really translate to Kylie or Brittney)
I'm sort of wanting to call it the Confused on Pop festival, not because the festival did anything to confuse me, but because I got internally confused by the festival. I think I may get to that later.
We decided to take the train to Cologne from London because it seemed more adventurous, and having watched 'The Darjeeling Ltd' five times now and loving it to bits the idea really tickled me.
So we got on the super fast train, and on the five hours down (with a stop in the middle in Brussels, which incidently in our hour there seemed quite boring) and went and stood at the the bar a pretty much drunk continually the whole way. It was quite fun propping yourself up at the bar and watching Europe go by whilst drinking overpriced beer, but it certainly wasn't like the romantic ideal I had in my head. Why oh why do they have to make modern trains so stark and hospital like on the inside. I want 1930s plush plushness with a stale smell of books and a slightly moldy feel. Maybe a few special made mini chandeliers that look like a rich Smurfs extravagance.
We arrived in Cologne, had a quick meal of what tasted like reheated lasanga and then headed out to the Kompakt Total 9 party, figuring what better place to go to a Kompakt party than in its home. Speaking of which I never realised the Kompakt logo is in fact the logo of Cologne. It was funny walking around and seeing it on Ambulances and man hole covers everywhere.
The party itself was in a large hall with arches running the whole length and immense ceiling height. Impressive but the sound left a little bit to be desired. There was also an upstairs which was smaller and had much better sound. The party itself was only ok. No one really took off though. Supermayer did most of the songs of their album live, which was interesting to see, and I am quite happy to report that Superpitchers voice translates quite well live.
Aril Brihka was boring as buggery. I hate that new trance bollocks he makes and plays. It never really went anywhere and just seemed stale. I suppose some people could get into it, and there is no doubt his stuff sounds really good so he is obviously a talented producer, its just not my cuppa.
Tobias Thomas was good, but not as good as I have seen him. It was still a fun place to be and not a total right off, I guess I was expecting more of a Kompakt wind up as the night rolled on and not just to be belted in the face with quite hard music right from the outset. Maybe this is a problem of having all headliners on a line up. Either way, the musical flow felt somehow off. In fact I think I only had a decent bop round to DJ Koze. I did end up speaking to Sasha Funke in an rather embarrassing mix up of identity, but thats another story.
We decided to head off to the after party. So after a lovely stroll around Cologne in the wee hours and an annoying conversation with some rich English university students who were trying to reason out and use their philosophy 101 majors on our obviously tongue in cheek conversation about the possibility of farming dumb humans for meat, we arrived at Odonien which as you can see by the photo is a cool junkyard space equipped with fire breathing junk dinosaurs and all.
The actual mixer and turntables are hanging from the ceiling in a small room at the back of the junkyard and although at first this looks like it surely must be a dodgy as place to put turntables, despite the gentle rocking back and forth they never seemed to skip.......until knocked mid mix by one of the above annoying students.
This was much more like it. Michael Mayer and Superpitcher playing back to back, an absolutely fantastic sound system and a sunny day in an open venue. We sat here for quite a while soaking up the sun, talking rubbish (this farming humans conversation just wouldn't die) and listening to the music. Which was really good by the way. A lot more of that music they are known for that makes even the straightest of white men swing their hips from side to side like they are a funky fresh jive talking black man from the 70s. Although I note with much horror that now I am 30 I seem to have replaced any type of dancing with a casual thigh slap which would look more at home in a hoedown. Needless to say at this party my jeans were getting a worn patch on my right thigh.
After this we went for a quick sight see around Cologne (Cologne Cathedral is one of the most impressive buildings ever) Then we went home to bed.
We awoke at about 10.30 on sat night, faffed around for ages then got going to see Larry Heard at the Subway club. This was a strange choice for us, but with the hang over still grasping at my head like the pincers of a giant crab the idea of the Triebstoff party or the Traum party seemed too heavy and too far away. Subway was right around the corner from our hotel as well.
Subway is really cool. When I first walked in I thought that perhaps it was a little cramped, but the bar staff were really quick at serving so it was never a problem getting a drink and I ended up really liking the place. It has a lovely tight sound system, and they let just the right amount of people in. We basically just sat and had a good listen to the music and chatted whilst sinking copious amounts of beer to fight off the dehydration of the night before thus becoming fully entrenched in the circle of alcoholism this weekend was creating. Larry Heard was pretty good. I'm not a massive fan of house with vocals telling you its house music. We were never quite sure why we needed constant reminding. I'm also not sure about the lyrics which state things like 'Music is love and love will solve problems' and how soulful and how much love house creates. I always just want the music to speak for itself. Luckily the tracks underneath this carry on were really good, and he had a pattern which we deciphered that went a little something like this: Vocal house, vocal house, acid house, acid house, techno/tech house, techno/tech house then round again.
I was surprised to hear a Johannes Heil track and he certainly pulled out AME -Rej at a funny time. His mixing was tight, but sometimes the tracks he put together didn't work so well and it sounded quite messy. I enjoyed the musical variation though and it was a lot of fun. Kraftwerk- numbers sounded amazing over that system as well. Superpitcher showed up with a bunch of flossies in tow and had a bit of a groove next to us as well. He looked like he hadn't slept since the party from the night before. We left this party at about 4.30 in the morning to go and get some more sleep. I really enjoyed this night. It was nice and relaxing and the music proved to be again, thigh slappingly good. The worn patch continued to grow.
We woke at about 11.30 am the next day and sat round and read books for a bit. I read Ballards 'Empire of the Sun' and am writing a bit about that at the moment as well. Theres nothing like reading a war book to make you feel alive and happy after you have removed your brain from the grimness and repositioned it in a sunny Cologne where your about to go and see Ricardo Villalobos and Sven Vath.
We had a big long walk down to the venue which was pretty good, but as it turns out a mistake. You see this open air party started at midday and finished at ten pm. We assumed Villalobos would be playing last, but as it turned out we assumed wrong. Sometimes those assumption things really bite you in the ass. I really should have payed more attention to that stupid saying about it.
Anywho, we arrived at this little grassy area covered in a circle tent with speakers and about 1000 german wasters of vary sizes and description. There really were some funny looking people there. Being an overweight guy with large biceps and no top on seemed to be one of the orders of the day. Old Villalobos was doing his thing when we arrived, and I have to say, no matter how many times I see him I just don't get bored. This is because every time I have seen him, he has played completely differently to the last time. He had his whole tribal minimal Latin click thing going on so we did some more thigh slapping. I really enjoyed it when he played the B side of what I believe was Lucianos 'Amelie on ice' and he finished of his set with an ever lasting mix into a beatless orchestral, rolling thunderish sounding track. It was a shame we only saw him for an hour, but it was a very good hour. Sven Vath came wandering up and wouldn't start mixing until they found a mic, plugged it into the mixer and had someone announce his arrival. Which was twatsville USA if you ask me. I really don't rate him as a dj anymore. I think he has just become a crazed, over drugged, silly man. He did his usual act up to the crowd, which was not cute or funny anymore and played really obvious tracks right till the very end when he would do a one or two bar mix even though he had been standing there queing the track up for the full 6-8 mins of the previous track. See this as an example of what I mean. The extended cueing drives me insane!!!!!!! Just mix the tracks together already. After watching Ricky V Sven Vath looked like Amateur hour. So we left.
After this we went out for dinner, and then went of for a drink with Emma Jean, who is a NZ'r who lives in Cologne and I have had an internet friendship with, but only ever really met twice in noisy clubs beforehand and for a total time of about 5 mins and about 5 years ago on top of that. Its always amusing meeting someone you only know from over the internet, and me being me suffered a case of verbal diarrhoea. I have found in the past from meeting people like this that they often speak how they write, and somehow, and I'm not sure how, it seems that their mannerisms imitate their words in some way too.
So that was my C/o Pop experience. Its a festival I will attend again. Is really enjoyable and seems to have a nice laid back vibe about it.
Now the confusion part. I'm beginning to wonder if I am seeing just as good a dj sets as I used to, but not enjoying it as much because I'm getting bored of the music. I'm sure I would have liked the Kompakt party more a year ago. Or am I?
I guess I'll throw all my balls on the table and see if they bounce by going next year and seeing the lay of the land.
I'm sort of wanting to call it the Confused on Pop festival, not because the festival did anything to confuse me, but because I got internally confused by the festival. I think I may get to that later.
We decided to take the train to Cologne from London because it seemed more adventurous, and having watched 'The Darjeeling Ltd' five times now and loving it to bits the idea really tickled me.
So we got on the super fast train, and on the five hours down (with a stop in the middle in Brussels, which incidently in our hour there seemed quite boring) and went and stood at the the bar a pretty much drunk continually the whole way. It was quite fun propping yourself up at the bar and watching Europe go by whilst drinking overpriced beer, but it certainly wasn't like the romantic ideal I had in my head. Why oh why do they have to make modern trains so stark and hospital like on the inside. I want 1930s plush plushness with a stale smell of books and a slightly moldy feel. Maybe a few special made mini chandeliers that look like a rich Smurfs extravagance.
We arrived in Cologne, had a quick meal of what tasted like reheated lasanga and then headed out to the Kompakt Total 9 party, figuring what better place to go to a Kompakt party than in its home. Speaking of which I never realised the Kompakt logo is in fact the logo of Cologne. It was funny walking around and seeing it on Ambulances and man hole covers everywhere.
The party itself was in a large hall with arches running the whole length and immense ceiling height. Impressive but the sound left a little bit to be desired. There was also an upstairs which was smaller and had much better sound. The party itself was only ok. No one really took off though. Supermayer did most of the songs of their album live, which was interesting to see, and I am quite happy to report that Superpitchers voice translates quite well live.
Aril Brihka was boring as buggery. I hate that new trance bollocks he makes and plays. It never really went anywhere and just seemed stale. I suppose some people could get into it, and there is no doubt his stuff sounds really good so he is obviously a talented producer, its just not my cuppa.
Tobias Thomas was good, but not as good as I have seen him. It was still a fun place to be and not a total right off, I guess I was expecting more of a Kompakt wind up as the night rolled on and not just to be belted in the face with quite hard music right from the outset. Maybe this is a problem of having all headliners on a line up. Either way, the musical flow felt somehow off. In fact I think I only had a decent bop round to DJ Koze. I did end up speaking to Sasha Funke in an rather embarrassing mix up of identity, but thats another story.
We decided to head off to the after party. So after a lovely stroll around Cologne in the wee hours and an annoying conversation with some rich English university students who were trying to reason out and use their philosophy 101 majors on our obviously tongue in cheek conversation about the possibility of farming dumb humans for meat, we arrived at Odonien which as you can see by the photo is a cool junkyard space equipped with fire breathing junk dinosaurs and all.
The actual mixer and turntables are hanging from the ceiling in a small room at the back of the junkyard and although at first this looks like it surely must be a dodgy as place to put turntables, despite the gentle rocking back and forth they never seemed to skip.......until knocked mid mix by one of the above annoying students.
This was much more like it. Michael Mayer and Superpitcher playing back to back, an absolutely fantastic sound system and a sunny day in an open venue. We sat here for quite a while soaking up the sun, talking rubbish (this farming humans conversation just wouldn't die) and listening to the music. Which was really good by the way. A lot more of that music they are known for that makes even the straightest of white men swing their hips from side to side like they are a funky fresh jive talking black man from the 70s. Although I note with much horror that now I am 30 I seem to have replaced any type of dancing with a casual thigh slap which would look more at home in a hoedown. Needless to say at this party my jeans were getting a worn patch on my right thigh.
After this we went for a quick sight see around Cologne (Cologne Cathedral is one of the most impressive buildings ever) Then we went home to bed.
We awoke at about 10.30 on sat night, faffed around for ages then got going to see Larry Heard at the Subway club. This was a strange choice for us, but with the hang over still grasping at my head like the pincers of a giant crab the idea of the Triebstoff party or the Traum party seemed too heavy and too far away. Subway was right around the corner from our hotel as well.
Subway is really cool. When I first walked in I thought that perhaps it was a little cramped, but the bar staff were really quick at serving so it was never a problem getting a drink and I ended up really liking the place. It has a lovely tight sound system, and they let just the right amount of people in. We basically just sat and had a good listen to the music and chatted whilst sinking copious amounts of beer to fight off the dehydration of the night before thus becoming fully entrenched in the circle of alcoholism this weekend was creating. Larry Heard was pretty good. I'm not a massive fan of house with vocals telling you its house music. We were never quite sure why we needed constant reminding. I'm also not sure about the lyrics which state things like 'Music is love and love will solve problems' and how soulful and how much love house creates. I always just want the music to speak for itself. Luckily the tracks underneath this carry on were really good, and he had a pattern which we deciphered that went a little something like this: Vocal house, vocal house, acid house, acid house, techno/tech house, techno/tech house then round again.
I was surprised to hear a Johannes Heil track and he certainly pulled out AME -Rej at a funny time. His mixing was tight, but sometimes the tracks he put together didn't work so well and it sounded quite messy. I enjoyed the musical variation though and it was a lot of fun. Kraftwerk- numbers sounded amazing over that system as well. Superpitcher showed up with a bunch of flossies in tow and had a bit of a groove next to us as well. He looked like he hadn't slept since the party from the night before. We left this party at about 4.30 in the morning to go and get some more sleep. I really enjoyed this night. It was nice and relaxing and the music proved to be again, thigh slappingly good. The worn patch continued to grow.
We woke at about 11.30 am the next day and sat round and read books for a bit. I read Ballards 'Empire of the Sun' and am writing a bit about that at the moment as well. Theres nothing like reading a war book to make you feel alive and happy after you have removed your brain from the grimness and repositioned it in a sunny Cologne where your about to go and see Ricardo Villalobos and Sven Vath.
We had a big long walk down to the venue which was pretty good, but as it turns out a mistake. You see this open air party started at midday and finished at ten pm. We assumed Villalobos would be playing last, but as it turned out we assumed wrong. Sometimes those assumption things really bite you in the ass. I really should have payed more attention to that stupid saying about it.
Anywho, we arrived at this little grassy area covered in a circle tent with speakers and about 1000 german wasters of vary sizes and description. There really were some funny looking people there. Being an overweight guy with large biceps and no top on seemed to be one of the orders of the day. Old Villalobos was doing his thing when we arrived, and I have to say, no matter how many times I see him I just don't get bored. This is because every time I have seen him, he has played completely differently to the last time. He had his whole tribal minimal Latin click thing going on so we did some more thigh slapping. I really enjoyed it when he played the B side of what I believe was Lucianos 'Amelie on ice' and he finished of his set with an ever lasting mix into a beatless orchestral, rolling thunderish sounding track. It was a shame we only saw him for an hour, but it was a very good hour. Sven Vath came wandering up and wouldn't start mixing until they found a mic, plugged it into the mixer and had someone announce his arrival. Which was twatsville USA if you ask me. I really don't rate him as a dj anymore. I think he has just become a crazed, over drugged, silly man. He did his usual act up to the crowd, which was not cute or funny anymore and played really obvious tracks right till the very end when he would do a one or two bar mix even though he had been standing there queing the track up for the full 6-8 mins of the previous track. See this as an example of what I mean. The extended cueing drives me insane!!!!!!! Just mix the tracks together already. After watching Ricky V Sven Vath looked like Amateur hour. So we left.
After this we went out for dinner, and then went of for a drink with Emma Jean, who is a NZ'r who lives in Cologne and I have had an internet friendship with, but only ever really met twice in noisy clubs beforehand and for a total time of about 5 mins and about 5 years ago on top of that. Its always amusing meeting someone you only know from over the internet, and me being me suffered a case of verbal diarrhoea. I have found in the past from meeting people like this that they often speak how they write, and somehow, and I'm not sure how, it seems that their mannerisms imitate their words in some way too.
So that was my C/o Pop experience. Its a festival I will attend again. Is really enjoyable and seems to have a nice laid back vibe about it.
Now the confusion part. I'm beginning to wonder if I am seeing just as good a dj sets as I used to, but not enjoying it as much because I'm getting bored of the music. I'm sure I would have liked the Kompakt party more a year ago. Or am I?
I guess I'll throw all my balls on the table and see if they bounce by going next year and seeing the lay of the land.
I'd just like to say.....
That I think Christian Bale is the new Sean Penn. I don't think thats a good thing.
Wednesday 13 August 2008
Poo covered in a visual rhapsody.
I like Michel Gondry. Or I used to. Maybe I still do. I dunno. Anyway, I have two reasons for which my estimation of him has gone down somewhat. One I can't talk about, but involves work, and a relation of his, so take my word for it. The other is because of 'Be Kind Rewind'.
I don't know what happened here. I'll sum up the plot for you, and probably take a few pot shots on the way.
Theres these two guys, one a black guy played by Mos Def, and a white guy, played by Jack Black.
The black guy listens to jazz. Stereotype. Racial. The white guy acts a lot like Jack Black.....but a not funny Jack Black. Maybe more like an impersonator of Jack Black doing a very bad Jack Black. Seriously. Its like Gondry pointed the camera at him and said 'Act funny'.
I felt uncomfortable for him.
Anyway, these guys live in this kinda slummy part of some American city which could be New York but I can't remember, and work in a video store owned by this other old guy who is black and played by Danny Glover, who is also black. The Video store boss also listens to Jazz and makes up lies about it.
Jack Black for some unknown reason....I think probably cause he is wacky and Jack Black like, and you know him, he is CRAZY, decides to attack some power station with a grappling hook. Anyway he ends up being eletrocuted and becomes magnetized in a wacky Gondry way.........because I don't know if you realise this........but in real life.....you'd die. Fuck I love Gondrys little wacky flights of fancy. He's so wacky and cute. Anyway he goes back to the video store and wipes all the tapes.
The boss guy who listens to Jazz and is a liar, has gone away to look at other video stores to find out what makes them money, because guess what? His business is failing. It needs saving.
(Funnily enough when looking around one of the mega stores, he says, 'More copies of the same film, less selection' in a hysterical satirical social attack on Dvd shops and those films that they make so many copies of that you can by them in supermarkets. Which is double funny cause I bought 'Be Kind Rewind' in a supermarket.)
Not wanting to damage the Boss guys store Jack Black and Mos Def decide to remake all the films in the store on the cheap with a video camera.
Now, Although what I have written so far sounds pretty scathing, I actually really like the idea of guys remaking films on the cheap and coming up with awesome ways to recreate scenes which everybody already loves and knows in an inventive and cheap way. The problem is that, this only seems to make up about 1/5th of the movie. About 1/5th of that 1/5th is inventive and interesting. The rest of it is just crap. 1/5th of 1/5th of this movie equals about 2 mins and in each of those minutes I laughed once. This is exactly how much I laughed during the whole film.
Anyway, the guys end up making enough money to save the store, but then get sued by the corporations for pirating their movies. (Those guys again. To get out of that one they should have made some logo art out of the DVD logo where instead of standing for Digital Versitile Disc, it stood for Defining Vacuous Dicks. Then they could have plastered pictures of George Bush all over it sucking Tony Scotts cock.....political, with a cool and popular opinion about movies and the types of people that watch them and a little nonsensical as well so you can say 'Don't you get it?' That would have shown them.)
The guys come up with an idea of making a movie that is an original idea so they gather the community together to help them make a movie about a Jazz singer who used to live in the video store building. Only it turns out he never did. The Boss made up a whole lot of stories about the guy that never really happened, but as it turns out none of them give a fuck, so they also decide that they should all make up stories about this jazz singer and put them in the film. So its a town of liars.
Anyway the corporations see the film the lying fuckwads of a community made whilst standing outside with their bulldozers waiting to smash the store to shit and find it as heartwarming as the putrid music playing on the soundtrack. The credits roll.
I really like Gondrys other films and music videos. I like all the cool, clever little tricks he does. I like the design and art direction of his stuff. I like how you can tell stuff is a Gondry film. None of that shit matters. You can have all the cool ideas you want to add salt and pepper to a story, but if its a bad story its not gonna make one turd of a difference. For me, this turned Gondry completely into the 'arthouse' version of Michael Bay. All style and no substance. The fact that he even had a cool idea like that and ruined it makes it even worse. Again a Michal Bay comparison: Gondry had two guys remaking films we know and love in a downright funny and interesting way as his idea, Michal Bay had giant Transforming robots. Both great ideas for a movie and both these cunts managed to fuck them up.
I went and did a search for Gondry on Youtube and found all these wacky ideas that he has been making into little films. I particularly didn't like ones where he sprouts hands out of the ends of his fingers/nostrals/feet to do multiple rubix cubes all at once. I can see how maybe you'd make it once (I think the feet one was first), but to be honest why keep making it? Its not hard to do, its not really all that clever and its not really funny.
I think he has some brilliant ideas and I loved 'Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind'(which he didn't write)
I just hope 'Be Kind Rewind' isn't a sign of things to come.
I don't know what happened here. I'll sum up the plot for you, and probably take a few pot shots on the way.
Theres these two guys, one a black guy played by Mos Def, and a white guy, played by Jack Black.
The black guy listens to jazz. Stereotype. Racial. The white guy acts a lot like Jack Black.....but a not funny Jack Black. Maybe more like an impersonator of Jack Black doing a very bad Jack Black. Seriously. Its like Gondry pointed the camera at him and said 'Act funny'.
I felt uncomfortable for him.
Anyway, these guys live in this kinda slummy part of some American city which could be New York but I can't remember, and work in a video store owned by this other old guy who is black and played by Danny Glover, who is also black. The Video store boss also listens to Jazz and makes up lies about it.
Jack Black for some unknown reason....I think probably cause he is wacky and Jack Black like, and you know him, he is CRAZY, decides to attack some power station with a grappling hook. Anyway he ends up being eletrocuted and becomes magnetized in a wacky Gondry way.........because I don't know if you realise this........but in real life.....you'd die. Fuck I love Gondrys little wacky flights of fancy. He's so wacky and cute. Anyway he goes back to the video store and wipes all the tapes.
The boss guy who listens to Jazz and is a liar, has gone away to look at other video stores to find out what makes them money, because guess what? His business is failing. It needs saving.
(Funnily enough when looking around one of the mega stores, he says, 'More copies of the same film, less selection' in a hysterical satirical social attack on Dvd shops and those films that they make so many copies of that you can by them in supermarkets. Which is double funny cause I bought 'Be Kind Rewind' in a supermarket.)
Not wanting to damage the Boss guys store Jack Black and Mos Def decide to remake all the films in the store on the cheap with a video camera.
Now, Although what I have written so far sounds pretty scathing, I actually really like the idea of guys remaking films on the cheap and coming up with awesome ways to recreate scenes which everybody already loves and knows in an inventive and cheap way. The problem is that, this only seems to make up about 1/5th of the movie. About 1/5th of that 1/5th is inventive and interesting. The rest of it is just crap. 1/5th of 1/5th of this movie equals about 2 mins and in each of those minutes I laughed once. This is exactly how much I laughed during the whole film.
Anyway, the guys end up making enough money to save the store, but then get sued by the corporations for pirating their movies. (Those guys again. To get out of that one they should have made some logo art out of the DVD logo where instead of standing for Digital Versitile Disc, it stood for Defining Vacuous Dicks. Then they could have plastered pictures of George Bush all over it sucking Tony Scotts cock.....political, with a cool and popular opinion about movies and the types of people that watch them and a little nonsensical as well so you can say 'Don't you get it?' That would have shown them.)
The guys come up with an idea of making a movie that is an original idea so they gather the community together to help them make a movie about a Jazz singer who used to live in the video store building. Only it turns out he never did. The Boss made up a whole lot of stories about the guy that never really happened, but as it turns out none of them give a fuck, so they also decide that they should all make up stories about this jazz singer and put them in the film. So its a town of liars.
Anyway the corporations see the film the lying fuckwads of a community made whilst standing outside with their bulldozers waiting to smash the store to shit and find it as heartwarming as the putrid music playing on the soundtrack. The credits roll.
I really like Gondrys other films and music videos. I like all the cool, clever little tricks he does. I like the design and art direction of his stuff. I like how you can tell stuff is a Gondry film. None of that shit matters. You can have all the cool ideas you want to add salt and pepper to a story, but if its a bad story its not gonna make one turd of a difference. For me, this turned Gondry completely into the 'arthouse' version of Michael Bay. All style and no substance. The fact that he even had a cool idea like that and ruined it makes it even worse. Again a Michal Bay comparison: Gondry had two guys remaking films we know and love in a downright funny and interesting way as his idea, Michal Bay had giant Transforming robots. Both great ideas for a movie and both these cunts managed to fuck them up.
I went and did a search for Gondry on Youtube and found all these wacky ideas that he has been making into little films. I particularly didn't like ones where he sprouts hands out of the ends of his fingers/nostrals/feet to do multiple rubix cubes all at once. I can see how maybe you'd make it once (I think the feet one was first), but to be honest why keep making it? Its not hard to do, its not really all that clever and its not really funny.
I think he has some brilliant ideas and I loved 'Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind'(which he didn't write)
I just hope 'Be Kind Rewind' isn't a sign of things to come.
Tuesday 12 August 2008
Fake Fist Dinosaur Punch
Is a movie I saw the other day that was made in the 70s. Its about a hired gun who can time travel. (I dunno who this guy was but he looked like a skinnier Steven Seagal without the ponytail and was obviously an American putting on an English accent really badly) He is originally from England and is a soldier in WW1. He was fighting in the trenches when a freak lightning bolt caused by scientific experiments the Germans were doing with a weather weapon, hit him in the Lee Enfield (thats the standard bolt action rifle of an infantryman during the war) and not only caused him to zap into the future, but also gave him the ability to control where he is in space and time. As a weird side effect it made him the best lover in the universe and he scores heaps of futuristic poontang. (I kid you not, its weirdly 70s softcore!) When he arrives in the future(1996) he realises that the world has been overrun by genetically and robotically enhanced super dinosaurs. In the future he also meets a wise old futuristic kung fu cowboy played by David Carradine. He finds out from him that there was a 'World war 2' after he left. In this second world war, Adolf Hitler did experiments with robotic dinosaurs and used them to win the war. He soon lost control of them though and the robotic dinosaurs began mating with crocodiles and other forms of reptiles, forming a race of super robot dinosaurs which now inhabit the earth. The Cowboy kung fu master teaches our hero how to kill these monsters (and he also modifies his lee enfield into a bolt action super rifle) and in an effort to save the world from its roboty dinosaury fate, sends him back in time to this alternative WW2 to stop the dinosaurs before they can be created. He makes several failed attempts at this as the Germans base is so solidly guarded it is impossible to get to the creators of the robot dinosaurs. He nearly dies in the process several times. In one of the attempts he gets very close and sees someone he recognises amongst the German scientists, but cannot place the face.
As he makes more and more attempts on the German base, and flits around in time scoring chicks he is plagued with nightmares containing the German scientists face.
In a scene of eplosive emotional hard hitting explosiveness he realises that the German scientist is the very young soldier he was about to kill as he got hit by lightning. He realises that he can't affect anything from the point before he got hit by lightning and can't even travel back before said event and after testing out all his time traveling options soon finds out the young German is seemingly protected from him as well in anytime and anyplace. It is apparent that he has been given god like powers, but only his normal self, before the strike, has the ability to kill the young German at that exact point in time. So he has a choice. Travel back in time and move himself out of the way of the lightning, thus erasing his own time traveling future pimp-ness self but saving the future from a world plagued with dinosaurs, or fuck the rest of the world and go score chicks and time travel and shit. He chooses the later.
....
....
....
I didn't actually see this, I just made it up. I wish I could travel in time so I could make this in the 70s.
As he makes more and more attempts on the German base, and flits around in time scoring chicks he is plagued with nightmares containing the German scientists face.
In a scene of eplosive emotional hard hitting explosiveness he realises that the German scientist is the very young soldier he was about to kill as he got hit by lightning. He realises that he can't affect anything from the point before he got hit by lightning and can't even travel back before said event and after testing out all his time traveling options soon finds out the young German is seemingly protected from him as well in anytime and anyplace. It is apparent that he has been given god like powers, but only his normal self, before the strike, has the ability to kill the young German at that exact point in time. So he has a choice. Travel back in time and move himself out of the way of the lightning, thus erasing his own time traveling future pimp-ness self but saving the future from a world plagued with dinosaurs, or fuck the rest of the world and go score chicks and time travel and shit. He chooses the later.
....
....
....
I didn't actually see this, I just made it up. I wish I could travel in time so I could make this in the 70s.
Monday 11 August 2008
The twitches on my face.
I find my face contorting in all sorts of weird ways lately. I didn't actually notice this myself, but now that it has been pointed out to me I can't help feeling the furrowing of my brow and the strange scowl that covers my face as the top of my lip pulls back over my teeth. I know this from feeling as the scowl I have seen what seems like one or two million times on the face of Nick. (My father)
Nick scowls a whole lot. I have never known anyone to scowl as much or look as pissed off at the world as him. I'm pretty sure (not 100 percent) that Nick is the toughest son-of-a-bitch in the world.
I have some pretty good stories about growing up with a father like that, but thats for another time.
The thing with Nicks scowl though is that it seems to be generally at everything in the world, and because of this it kind of feels like its more meaningful than me scowling at bad television commercials and movies and music I don't like and fuckheads.
So I was watching tv and being gazed at in the face in a super close inspection and noticing that everytime I was getting told that my face moved in an amusing manor was in correspondence to the amount of shit I was watching on tv. So choosing to watch the commercials was a bad idea. I have been noticing that advertising is shit a lot more lately. I mean I always knew it, but as I used to work in commercials, and I'm the spawn of advertising as well (yep Nick works at Saatchis) I was covered in the rancid diarrhea of some complete fuckwit who thinks he has the right to call himself a 'creative' nearly 24 hours a day. Sometimes when you are doggy paddling round in a swimming pool of poo your nose becomes used to the smell and you just think its slightly dirty water.
Anyway, as I sit under intense facial scrutiny, I am told what my face is doing. It seems that I must get so worked up on the inside about these shitty bits of filler between the programs that I actually react with a series of facial ticks and look somewhat like a person who should be committed.
This annoys me. Because if there is one thing that I hate its those people that feel like they have to fight the power of the corporation by always saying that advertising is shit and making art out of logos but altering it slightly to tell us some ridiculously shit message which everybody with half a fucking brain already knows.
Speaking of which I went to a gallery and saw a picture painted of the word love, but the word love was made out of guns. Really? Whoever did that is a complete and utter waste of my oxygen. I'm gonna become an artist and paint a much bigger picture of a gun made up completely out of pictures of cocks and vaginas screwing each other and hang it up next to his picture. I'm not even really sure what I mean by it, but I'm sure some fucking cunty arty farty cuntface will make up some deep meaning for it, when I'll just find it funny.
I'm gonna call the painting 'Fuckgun' or maybe 'Penis Cunt Gun Riot'
Nick scowls a whole lot. I have never known anyone to scowl as much or look as pissed off at the world as him. I'm pretty sure (not 100 percent) that Nick is the toughest son-of-a-bitch in the world.
I have some pretty good stories about growing up with a father like that, but thats for another time.
The thing with Nicks scowl though is that it seems to be generally at everything in the world, and because of this it kind of feels like its more meaningful than me scowling at bad television commercials and movies and music I don't like and fuckheads.
So I was watching tv and being gazed at in the face in a super close inspection and noticing that everytime I was getting told that my face moved in an amusing manor was in correspondence to the amount of shit I was watching on tv. So choosing to watch the commercials was a bad idea. I have been noticing that advertising is shit a lot more lately. I mean I always knew it, but as I used to work in commercials, and I'm the spawn of advertising as well (yep Nick works at Saatchis) I was covered in the rancid diarrhea of some complete fuckwit who thinks he has the right to call himself a 'creative' nearly 24 hours a day. Sometimes when you are doggy paddling round in a swimming pool of poo your nose becomes used to the smell and you just think its slightly dirty water.
Anyway, as I sit under intense facial scrutiny, I am told what my face is doing. It seems that I must get so worked up on the inside about these shitty bits of filler between the programs that I actually react with a series of facial ticks and look somewhat like a person who should be committed.
This annoys me. Because if there is one thing that I hate its those people that feel like they have to fight the power of the corporation by always saying that advertising is shit and making art out of logos but altering it slightly to tell us some ridiculously shit message which everybody with half a fucking brain already knows.
Speaking of which I went to a gallery and saw a picture painted of the word love, but the word love was made out of guns. Really? Whoever did that is a complete and utter waste of my oxygen. I'm gonna become an artist and paint a much bigger picture of a gun made up completely out of pictures of cocks and vaginas screwing each other and hang it up next to his picture. I'm not even really sure what I mean by it, but I'm sure some fucking cunty arty farty cuntface will make up some deep meaning for it, when I'll just find it funny.
I'm gonna call the painting 'Fuckgun' or maybe 'Penis Cunt Gun Riot'
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