Monday, April 16, 2007
Busy?
It turns into a catalogue - I can't write about it all. Thursday night went to see Kicking a deaad horse in the Peacock with Stephen Rea. I liked the horse. I bought the play to read it afterwards - I kind of missed what he was saying towards the end. I think he was knackered. Whenever I break my rule about seeing plays in the first two weeks I'm disappointed. Most people found his performance compelling but the play shit. In the pub on Saturday they were saying it was written in the 80s and sat in his drawer - he knew it wasn't good. So I didn't pop over to Sam Shepard in the pub and say hi, I mean if I'd loved the thing I would have.
Friday went to see Indigenes at the IFI, about Algerian soldiers fighting for France in WWII. Afterwards had tagines and Alsation riesling in respect (the film ends up in Alsace, they are fighting alone for a French village where the inn is called Sonntag and the snow is coming down). Fine film, very emotional.
Saturday evening went to see Joanna Newsom live in the Olympia and she was absolutely phenomenal, I think it's the first night of her current tour with a small scale band. All of whom were annoyingly young and gifted. Everything she does from playing the harp, to singing in an 'ickle gurl voice (she talks like that too) to using words like 'spelunking', 'dirigibles' and 'ledger' (though in fairness it does rhyme in the song...) should annoy me but I think she's a genius. Actually, I love the word dirigible. It's a privilege to be in the same room as someone when they turn it on like that. A real fucking privilege. She totally blew me away. Did a good long show too. After went to the pub and everyone had seen the play... that's when we saw Sam in the pub by the way.
Sunday went to seen Nanni Moretti's new film The Caiman about which nothing should be said and in the evening on to Sunshine Danny Boyle's pastiche of 2001, Solaris, and Event Horizon. Did I mention Silent Running? That too. I loved it. Particularly the bits where not much happened, but then I think that if Solaris was twice as long, and half as much happened, it would be four times as good. Which is kind of the opposite of most people's opionions. But it was kind of ruined at the end when Sam Neill's character from Event Horizon turns up all burnt skin and the movie briefly follows slasher conventions. I find them tedious in the extreme. There is not a film that I have seen where the baddie defies logic, physics, and good writing to repeatedly return from the dead to terrorise the people in the movie that I haven't despised as I was watching. Think of something like Cape Fear where that gurning oaf masquerading as an actor won't just fuck off and die... Anyway, I liked the film's abstract noise, liminal images, and grand gothic doom laden aura. I found it gripping and frightening. I found the acceptance and even craving for death believable and refreshing for a film such as this. The people I was with were less enthused.
Caught the Georgia O'Keeffe exhibition in there sometime too. It was alright.
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3 comments:
So defying the laws of physics in a slasher film is bad, but defying teh laws of physics in a science fiction film is good?
http://space.newscientist.com/article/mg19425981.700-review-isunshinei-directed-by-danny-boyle.html
I don't know if I can overcome my aversion to Newsomes voice ,no matter how rewarding it may be.
We had cellist Bela Emerson play at SoG a couple fo weeks ago, and that had a similar effect on me as newsome seems to have done on you, I've seen Bela a number of times but this was breathtaking, see the excerpt (or hear it rather) on http://spiritofgravity-brighton.blogspot.com/ - its right at the bottom and i sfar and away te hbest thing in there. Hopefully the tragic bitrate won't have mucke dit up too much.
Did I give you a copy of super 7's with her single on?
To be fair, it's not really what I meant. Defying any laws of plausibility or reality is absolutely fine if the film is gripping: on the contrary in a shit film like say Traffic, while I'm squirming on my seat in boredom and they go into a Spanish class and they're introducing the difference between ser and estar on the board - in their fifth year of learning Spanish I can't help but sneer. I won't notice or care if I like it. The film isn't about science (it's about liminality :) and it carefully eschews any scientific discussion or exposition at all. That's fine once it's gripping. When Sam Neil's character fom event horizon shows up that stops. It isn't really a slasher movie I'm talking about either - it's what Hitchcock called a 'surprise film'. No horror, just surprise. It's lazy and boring. Once you know that the "shock" film has arrived you kick back and get bored and frustrated. Then you start noticing the little flaws that otherwise wouldn't concern you.
>So defying the laws of physics in a slasher film is bad, but defying teh >laws of physics in a science fiction film is good?
>http://space.newscientist.com/article/mg19425981.700-review-isunshinei-directed-by-danny-boyle.html
Well he didn't like the film did he? I'm not sure he got it though. It wasn't a disaster movie about possible ends of humanity - that was there but it only had one, very brief, scene on earth. It wasn't the focus. He seems to think that Close Encounters was a great movie. Which it wasn't for me.
Solaris has absolutely no connection with real science either. And I'll fight that reviewer if he prefers Close encounters or contact to Solaris.
Oh, he completely missed the point of Blade Runner too. "Harrison Ford's character and an android". Hmmm....
So he's not a reliable reviewer.
>I don't know if I can overcome my aversion to Newsomes voice ,no matter >how rewarding it may be.
Most people I know have exactly that reaction to her. She's indefensible. So it goes.
>We had cellist Bela Emerson play at SoG a couple fo weeks ago, and that had a similar effect on me as newsome seems to have done on you, I've seen Bela a number of times but this was breathtaking, see the excerpt (or hear it rather) on http://spiritofgravity-brighton.blogspot.com/ - its right at the bottom and i sfar and away te hbest thing in there. Hopefully the tragic bitrate won't have mucke dit up too much.
Did I give you a copy of super 7's with her single on?
I'll have a listen later on. I think so, yes. I don't remember it though I'll look tonight.
super log, commander (you should promote yourself in ligt of this effort). makes for marvellous contrast with last weekend of mine, during which i attended a McWedding saturday, failed to recover sunday and only began to recover late on monday evening. the eventual recovery was prceipitated by a nice gentle ride on my new....bicycle. with enormous (120mm) travel suspension forks - like those belonging to a whole-housing-estate-jumping motorbike i did sally forth along the clontarf promenade, not even a mole hill in sight
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