Et In Arcadia Ego

If you've known me for a while, you'll have heard the Pretentious Film Studies Class anecdote in which a lecturer asks:

"In this film, do you locate the 'fuck' as a phenomenon or an act?"

This morning it occurs to me that, with the passage of time, I've started taking the notion quite seriously.

We were studying experimental cinema - short movies made as Art. It's the greatest class I attended at Kings, and the only film class that got me trying to make movies. We saw *everything* in that class. Week 2, the lecturer noted that not many people had shown up, perhaps because they'd already read the essays. I hadn't read the essays. She also noted that people tended to vomit or walk out, but we weren't allowed to do either. Well now I'm terrified. So we watched an 8-minute silent video of real world autopsies. Followed by an amazingly tender video of a childbirth-in-close-up. If ever I tell you I don't want kids, you can hold Stan Brakhage to blame. Another notably wanky week was spent debating whether Sadie Benning - a young white dyke who didn't leave her bedroom for four years and made movies on this horribly cheap camera which couldn't be edited - was oppressing black people by recording music by black artists off the radio. My hunch is, she was a teenager just mucking around with music she liked...

We also had the Is It Art Or Is It Porn week, which was less awkward-boner-ific than you might expect, though I still kept a lot of my thoughts to myself. One of the films we watched was strange, made of disconnected body parts - though in a cuddly, not objectifying way. Which is when the famous comment was made. I guess because you didn't really get characters doing things, sex just kinda occurred between the frames.


Two months later, tuition fees were raised despite protests and violence, and our very depressed class tramped to the pub together. This afternoon was what uni was meant to be like. And they were talking about the violence, and though the same phrase wasn't used, the concept was the same.

They noted that in the papers, violence was a "phenomenon" - something that just spontaneously occured - instead of an "act", which implies an "actor" with motivation. No one was asking why people were doing violence, but violence "happened". A phenomenon, not an act.

The distinction is really powerful, and I now see it all the time. Been thinking about my brain recently, and what things in there are phenomena which are meaningless and random, and what things have motives, and reasons, and causes to blame.

Dear all. Today I saw a real child birth. And an autopsy. A whole bunch of autopsy.

They call that "in media res". The Greeks invented it. I do Classics.

The Avant Garde cinema course is proving to be terribly, terribly pretentious, but unlike Noir, it's supposed to be. I had to fight with claws to get onto it, and even though I feel a little worried about my essays - what am I to write? - every time a film starts, I'm overwhelmed by the sheer rightness of the experience. I am meant to be here, because I love the experience of watching those films. Which is quite the opposite to the palpable sense of "what am I doing here?" caused by noir.

The makeup of the class is also interesting. Over my three years at uni, I've felt a bit isolated in both my courses by other people. I suppose that's no one's fault, as I'm a ghost in both my departments. I feel a sense of hostility off them, and I in turn feel hostile, normally directed towards specific people who just piss me off merely by existing. Friend 2 is right: I have rage issues. In any case, there is a noticeable subset of the film department who are proto-academics. They always engage with the most roundabout and bonkers parts of the texts. They evidently adore Ginsburg, Niezche and Kerouac. hey have moleskines, or recycled notepads with a checker pattern instead of lines. Many have leather satchels. Several are Marxists. They wear unflattering huge glasses, and grandad-sweaters - and that's just the guys.

Something else links them - they're all in this class, and I suppose it's because if you are a pretentious hipster, the course with the highest dropoff rate in the university which requires you to watch frequently offensive/dull/inconsequential/guano shorts is the place you gotta be. To prove your hardcoreness if nothing else. The type of people who, when your lecturer offers a one-off screening of a 7-hour long avant garde movie, actually take the offer up. I know I did, and all this is making me worry that I fit their company too well. I mean, who am I to criticise the way anybody dresses at all? This morning, I was inspired by William Holden in The Wild Bunch, which isn't even a film I liked: quite cowboyish, but very red.

They call that context.

Anyway, I started getting worried today when the lecturer suggested the high number of absences were caused by those who had read the articles about the movies in advance. I had not done the reading. I'd like to nobly say it was because I hated to spoil the surprise, and this is indeed true. I'm also lazy. We were informed that the first time she showed it, half her class walked out and one hurled, and that we were not allowed to leave. Although I'm sure we could have, if necessary. Not that it was necesssary: we're the American Underground class! The Hardcore Pretentious Hipster club! Why would we?

Of course, they'd all done the reading, so I missed out on what everyone was talking around until just before the DVD began. It came with a handy warning that the following movie contained "actual autopsy footage" - which in itself was interesting. As if the fact it was real changed something. I mean, it obviously does - but if you're going to be chilly about it, it's all just image, and you could have replicated that all with effects. Would it have been as uncomfortable to watch had it been identical, but with the comfort it wasn't "actual"? At the end of the day, all we saw in the cinema was a mechanical reproduction - only the word "actual" made the difference to us. You could have convinced us it was fake.

Not that I thought that at the time - that occured to me some four minutes through. And it wasn't even "Jesu, pass me a bucket", because there are some contexts where I know I have nerves of steel, and this was one of them. It was something like this:

I have some very strong, very ancient views about art, and I've never had a chance to properly test them. Let me explain:

Oscar Wilde fried my brain very early, with the concept that "art is useless". From that, and associated ideas of the aesthetic movement, I formed my own opinions which I today discovered are actually a form of modernist thought. Art is something not put to use (hence my hatred of realism/"message" movies), so anything can be art when divorced from its context. Everyone complains about the screaming groans on the Bakerloo line. It sounds like music to me, because I decide "this is music", and then suddenly there are cadences and rhythm. And it's here that I find my love of terrible, atonal music. And in my mind, this is associated with children. You know, how a three year old will get hold of a fork, and it's suddenly the best thing ever. I suppose if you've never seen a fork before (or a hat, or a ball...), it must be pretty damn exciting, and that's the joy kids find in life: they can see this beauty everywhere. And so can we all, if you start appreciating a fork as art divorced from context - it's lines, shapes, colours, forms, light bouncing off metal and shining. There's nothing intrinsically separating the sparkle of a fork from the sparkle of a diamond. To get back to the Bakerloo line, the adult commuter hears the noise and itches for the WD-40, dismissing it as painful and annoying. That's only because they haven't abstracted it out of it's context.

That's my position on art, in a nutshell, and I hope you followed it near enough. When I go around spouting things like "everything is beautiful", or "everyone is beautiful", it's not because I'm a big damn hippy. It's because 9 times out of 10, every time I see something my mind asks "is it art?", and then rearranges my thought until it is so.

I'd take this position to a pretty extreme extent. For my Sixth Form art project, I argued something similar and wanted to use images of 9/11 to prove my point. Not the black and white arty photos, just any photos. Clouds and fire are beautiful - its just the idea of what those photos are which is horrific. Understandibly, teacher didn't think that was such a good idea, and in the end, I did the same concept but on decaying buildings. A noncontrovertial version.

But you can't take an idea like that without pushing it far. And that brings me to the dog story, in which an artist chains up a dog in an art gallery and leaves it to starve to death "as art", the internet protests, and invites Unmutual to join a group expressing how much she protests. When viewing the inbox request, my gut reaction, my microresponse before anything logical kicked in, was "but...wow!" And then a sense of total horror, aimed mostly at myself and not the original artist. Felt dirty for days after that, but still did not join the Facebook group. This isn't a story I'm particularly proud of - it shows me in a very ugly light indeed. I only mention it to point out these beliefs are apparently innate. Or in any case, more innate than my hatred of animal cruelty.

So the question was: I'm about to watch some autopsies. How extreme can this position go? And if you're at all sensitive about hearing about said film, or me using my typical blase exaggerated cynical tone to discuss it, now is the time to click the little X in the top right and come back next time I write about kittens.

Answer: I need to watch some mondo. Because it turns out that yes, in the hands of a fantastic director, you can abstract the human body just like you can anything else. I feel strongly that, in his use of colour and close ups, he was trying to express just my position. So many of the shots you could not tell what they were at first - they were indeed just colour and shape. You couldn't even necessarily distinguish the live flesh of surgeon from the dead flesh. Turns out that yes, even here there is beauty. There was absolutely no context - no names, virtually no faces, certainly no politics or underlying ideas.

I also thought a lot about how else you could have shot the film - in order, from further away, with sound (what music could you possibly use?) or in detail like Channel Five's Celebrity Hysterectomy: Our Hands In Your Guts. I feel it was very carefully constructed so as not to be gross. As far as that's possible when you're watching a head reduced to a Gallifreyan skullcap made of actual skull. I noted that the first fewindividuals were old men. I would probably have naturally gone man, woman - the fact he didn't stood out. I think I would have felt differently about a woman - whether because I is one, or because female nudity is a bigger taboo (I've a feeling it would have suggested sexual violence automatically), or a white knight streak. And children go without saying. It also started with a body examination, which took me by surprise - I figured autopsies were gross-out scalpel affairs.

Turns out this was an act of genius, which eased you into the movie. Ultimately, there was all of the above, but I feel it got successively worse (according to my notes, men -> knives - > a child, but shot tastefully, from quite a distance - > women - > really unpleasant stuff you do not want to see, combined with faster editing). But even as it got worse, I felt you were better prepared to handle it - not desensitised, just calm about the process. I mean, is it really any worse to cut up a woman than a man, or a child? Not really. Does it really matter what it is they do? Again - not really.

Although there were some shots at the end which I do feel were too much - but was that the cumulation? And indeed, I felt the whole film was too long - it bothered me a bit to begin with, then not at all, but towards the end bothered me rather more. I felt more viscerally grossed out by the serial killer lecture - which I almost had to walk out of - even though there wasn't any remotely objectionable content. Perhaps because that asked you to consider death from an intellectual standpoint, and I feel here it was an impersonal artistic exercise. Interestingly, I'm having more of a reaction to it now as I write as I did while watching - my throat dries out, and then feels like it's coated with babybel - which suggests this is true.

I also felt vegitarianism changed things. Several people mentioned the aspect of meat during the seminar, which I had also considered while watching. Part of becoming a veggie is breaking down that wall between "animal meat" and "living animal". Once you break that wall, it's hard to replace, and it's not much further to connect "animal meat" to "living human" - I'd say it was impossible to turn your back on that. Very much in my mind as I viewed, and I was in part amused by everyone else's responses. Yes. Yes, exactly. Chew on that.

Was I affected? Was I not affected? I think my emotions tend come out in strange ways, not always attached to their causes (Is this repression, psychopathy, depression, or passive aggression? Or overanalysis?) I think a bit of both - I feel the film was too long, because there was a level at which I could watch it as dispassionate art but not for very long, certainly not the whole running time. And I did need fresh air and a chocolate milk afterwards. I'm feeling less well now, than I did a few hours previous. And I'm interested to see how it affects me in the next few days - whether the imagery fades, whether it matters more or less.

In any case, he's an inspiration - or rather, he does things I've already thought of doing, but proves they can be done. I'd rather beat rush hour than write about Window Water Baby Moving - the childbirth one - right now, but it achieves something I've dreamed of doing. Catching the emotions of an event on screen, without narrative or anything else. And I feel I've absorbed aspects of his style - i.e, lots of close ups force colour harmony.

Because I'm not a pretentious hipster at all.

Also. I just saw a brain scooped out of a skull.

So here I am, back from my first film noir seminar, and my tutors have just explained that they are "introducing the topic, but also framing it".

I am, in all honesty, a little upset. I appreciate that film can be studied on many, many levels. And the arto-philosophico -totally divorced from any sort of reality approach is an important one. If only in a purely academic context. But if you want to analyse real-world factors, it's important not to move too far away from a populist reading of cinema i.e. it's a product, designed to appeal to consumers. Perhaps noir is "about" class structure, and remapping race, but it's also one of cinema's most self indulgent genres. It's popular because it offers a heady dose of everyone's favourite things, including:

• sex - marvellous femme fatales, rugged grizzled wise guys
• violence - the above, shooting one another in a variety of inventive ways. And film noir offers a particularly brutal, nihilistic form of violence, frequently perpetrated by the heros.
• A combination of the above.
• wish fufilment - men are quick-talking and smooth, women are always terribly glamorous and a little in love with them
• morbid curiosity - anything crime or murder related fufils a desire for "true crime" stories, but they also tend to up the salacious women's mag interest by adding evil cripples, maniac mad women, nymphomaniacs, "bisexuals who kill!" (a genuine essay we get to read later in the term), psychopaths, drug addicts e.t.c.

Obviously, class and race play a part in this. Obviously, as a serious film academic we can't rely on how normal people react to mainstream movies - they're only the intended, paying audience. And then, at the same time, you've got the subtitle to this course -"Geographies of Desire" - which we've had described to us in the following way:

"geography, as a discourse or field is very wide and quite discursive"

Well, I'm glad we've cleared that up. The idea of teaching is, not unsurprisingly, to convey ideas from a wiser individual to a less learned one. This course is being taken jointly by two younger members of the department, and I feel as if they've been chomped up and regurgitated, using lots of long words in place of content. That, or I'm just too stupid to understand - which isn't impossible, but also doesn't seem likely. Noir, we are told, represents the "failure of a capital society" but we need to "constitute other noirs", and discover "how place comes to engender domestic dialogues in film". He capped off this five minute barrage of nonsensical proto-Marxism by apologising: "it sounds a bit reductive and totalising". I'm a Latin student, and I understand "reductive" has something to do with "reduced" which also implies "cut down, simple, shortened. I'd hate to hear the full rendition. We also discussed a bit about what noir is as a genre. I quote:

A first inclusion then would be to contend that...[stopped paying attention,
distracted by the fact that none of those words mean anything]...its most stable
characteristic is its absent centeredness, it's over determiness whose ghostly
discources, instead of cancelling out...[put my pen down in disgust]

Dear Christ, is it too much to ask for a good gunfight?

The most frustrating thing about all this is I disagree with the tutors entirely, in what I think they're trying to say. And I'd love to get to grips with why one of us is wrong, if only they would speak plainly. Last year, I figured I had noir sussed: it's Anti Classical Hollywood Cinema:

• Hollywood heroes are good guys, whose core beliefs are reinforced by the movie.
• Noir heroes are flawed, and if they have core beliefs, they are inevitably destroyed
• Hollywood heroes overcome the odds
• Noir heroes are overcome by the odds
• Hollywood heroes are buoyed by optimism
• Noir heroes are resigned to their inevitable failure
• Hollywood heroes go on a journey and learn
• Noir heroes are doomed to repeat old bad habits and patterns
• Hollywood heroes never give up
• Noir heroes don't know what's good for them, and are habitually stupid
• Hollywood heroes get the girl
• ...do I even need to answer this?

But then, as Pluto pointed out, this also adequately describes South Park, so perhaps it is inaccurate. Perhaps there has to be a sort of "detection narrative" to make it truly noir. I'll never know if they don't start putting context in their lectures, instead of speaking around the topic in a never ending thesaurathon. And there have been some interesting ideas in the reading, particularly comparing noirs and westerns - during the McCarthey era, the downbeat conscience of noir moved away from contemporary movies to ones safely set in the past. I'm also endlessly reminded of Blake's 7, but I suppose anything would. Can we technically count it as noir? It certainly fufills most of my categories.

Film noir is my very favourite genre - I enjoy the pessimism, and how smashed up it leaves people; and I also enjoy the beatings up, and the fantastic hair, and it's bleak outlook on human nature.

And it's multifaceted modalities of heuristic discourse.

This issue: apologies; film studies starts; Imperial London; Jack the Ripper; the Kray twins; OK, nice Mr doctor, I'll get back in the van with the men in white suits now...

Firstly, I'm sorry for the continued mess this blog is in. Mending it is going to take some time, time I don't have until at least next week. It's horrible, but you'll have to live with it.

This blog is a long one, so I have split it into six parts. Parts I-III are film related, going from the anecdotal to the academic. Part IV details the arrival of my serial killer swap, Part V is a review of a movie, and Part VI goes back to the anecdotal again.

PART I - film studies!
Film started this morning, and its already a lot of fun. Our lecturer is the KCL Terry Jones - delightfully camp, infectiously enthusiastic and with one of those faces that would have better graced a chainmail and tabard. Do you know the type? Sometimes I see men (women too occasionally) whose faces seem to suggest another era. There's one in my class with a ruddy red beard, who looks strangely lost in indie-kid apparel: he deserves a hauberk and horn of mead.

This term I'm doing British National cinema - focusing in particular on London as a space, which sounds pretentious until you realise it's EXACTLY what I've been doing for the last year. Monthly visits to Butlers Wharf (because of Doctor Who). Plans to watch the sun come up from Tower Bridge (to confirm which direction). Taking off my hat as I pass the Marquis of Granby, taking five minute detours to walk via Henrietta Street instead of cutting straight across Covent Garden, grinning like an idiot on book-paradise-lane or Temple Bar. Not because Dirk Bogarde was there, but because Melvin Farr the character was. I've a fictional map laid over the actual city. If it ever gets sufficiently detailed, I may draw it.

I'm trying to wrestle it into a mythology - five or six primal forces which have shaped the city. I've got a handle on one or two, others I am aware of but don't "know" well enough to define. This course: all about that, and has already helped me with characterising Empress London (who is possibly the mother of the Prince of Dark London, the illegitimate child she won't admit to in public but one who is willing to blackmail her with the fact at any point. She pays him off to keep out of the way...). And it ends with a free-choice essay on any aspect of British cinema. Folks, I think my rant about Jack the Ripper as London is gonna see the light of day and get me some marks!

Today we played "getting to know you" - talking time, then you have to introduce your partner. Very funny, as we all droned "hi Mike..." in the conscious manner of a self-help group after introduction. Favourite British film? I pitched for Guns of Navarone, but hastily added Matter of Life and Death, Brief Encounter and The Third Man when I sensed I was being sneered at. And indeed, when my partner introduced me, he qualified "her favourite film is..." by adding I was a David Niven fan and suggesting some other more respectible entries. In a nice manner, I hasten to add, as if to save my pride in public - but it was still noteworthy. He liked Matter of Life and Death, so is obviously a sane individual. Why are you doing this module? We both agreed: mutual London obsessions. Preconceptions about British cinema? None for him - I, however, expressed my adoration for the stiff upper lip. And my gripping worry ever since the course had started that we'd end up doing dour kitchen sink dramas (no fear there: "they're awful!" pronounced our lecturer.) We also agreed that film was ideally escapism.

The highlight was Lecturer doing the register for the first time: Sarah Lea? It's Lee, not Leah. Mary Kate? I just go by Kate. So far, so normal. Tyler? "Present," the man himself replied, "I go by Jack."

Part of me really hopes this is part of an elaborate Fight Club devotion.

PART II - lecture one, cinematic London
Much of the first lecture was about "Empress London" and "Dark London" - those are my terms, he called them "Imperial London" and "London as Labyrinth", but it's clearly the same ideas. We talked about "cultural coordinates" - the East End was where the docks were, because London was built on a river, so that where the dock workers lived, so that's also where the poverty is. And Eastenders still evokes that working class mileu in a way Notting Hill, say, in West London doesn't. The city was revamped precicely because it was the heart of an Empire - in the 1870s, the Embankment was built to get rid of the smell, with the circle line built into it. It never occured to me that before, the Thames was a far wider river, starting from mudflats and shallows. That's why so many of the Kings waterfront buildings are a jumble of basements. Apparently, in the Savoy Guardens near Charing Cross there is an ancient river gate: I'm so going to find it.

The city's rebuilding was an act of imperial development, to represent the Empire and create literal public spaces remodelled specifically to be appropriate for ceremony. It's no surprise that this was the NeoClassical era - it reminds me of how the Romans laid out their cities. The Mall, Regents Street, Admiralty Arch were all built ahead of Edward VII's coronation precicely to create the backdrop of regality - it was also in this era that the English and the monarchy were thought of as closely interlinked. We talked about the symbolism of roads - Fleet Street and the Strand, for example, linking the economic "city" with Westminster and the political; or Nelson's column lining up with Big Ben down Whitehall. It all screams empire. Kingsway, my route to uni, is a huge avenue of trees and Georgian buildings with the gloriously regal Bush House, pictured. As if to confirm how Empress London attempts to brush the Dark Prince under the carpet, Bush House and Kingsway (oh, clue's in the name there...) stand on the site of Holywell Street - a poky , slummy alleyway famous for selling porn. It's very much what is being done to poor Soho as we speak - being redeveloped so London can show off during the Olympics.

PART III - Brit cinema academia
I've been enjoying the academia too. The first piece we read begins by trashing British Cinema with pithy quotes from everyone throughout time:

"I do not think the British are temperamentally equipped to make the best use of the movie camera" ~ great Indian director Satyajit Ray

"a certain incompatability between the terms "cinema" and Britain"" ~great French director Truffaut

"the English can write and they can act (or at least speak beautifully, which is enough to cripple us with admiration), but they can't direct movies...English films have always been a sad joke" ~ critic Pauline Kael

"The British douse their movies with close-ups the way people defective taste-buds use ketchup - they're not a very visual race" ~ Dwight Macdonald, American critic

"It is one of the curiosities of film history that American films, when they seem to change with the passing of years, become either better or worse; while on re-examination British films, if they change at all, only become worse" ~ David Shipman, academic

"its achievement is so limited and so much less interesting than that of other countries" ~ Wood, academic

"The British cinema is as dead as it was before. Perhaps it was never alive." ~ Perkins, critic

Oh. Bastards. The essay doesn't seek to refute the position, but instead explore why these ideas are around. One thing it picks up on is fascinating.

"the camera forces one to face facts, to probe, to reveal, to get close to people and things; while the British nature inclines to the opposite; to stay aloof, to cloak harsh truths with innuendoes. You cannot make great films if you suffer from constricting inhibitions of this sort."

That's Satyajit Ray again, and he is right, dammit, so g'darn right. I'm not sure I should be supporting ideas like "national temperament", but suddenly a lot of things have fallen into place. I assumed this stoicism wasn't general - just the ones I hunted down because fictional repression floats my boat. But it explains lots of other things: like sarcasm, the British humour, which consists of an absence. When Avon drawls:

"Law breakers, law makers - let's fight them all. Why not."

What he's actually saying is "oh God, I want to go home". In other words, sarcasm is an act of drawing attention to something not said. And maybe this also explains the British attraction to social realism. I studied it last year, and one of its tropes (both narrative and stylistic) is "proximity, not sympathy". Most films give you a hero - This is Bob. Bob is your hero, and a Good Guy. Sympathise with Bob. Hope he wins - while social realism presents characters instead: Bob is a plumber on the dole. Watch Bob as he goes around his daily life. What do you think about him? And this is backed by the style: Classical Hollywood cinema uses a lot of close ups, while social realism prefers handheld tracking shots that follow the characters but don't focus on them. In other words, natural for a repressed cinema which avoids sympathy. Later in the essay, the author suggests the British turned to documentary as "part of a legitimate process of dehumanisation", and that wartime cinema did so well precicely because it "validated...those qualities of restraint and stoicism which might previously have appeared insipied". Another critic mentions that "while British films avoid erotic themes, many of them deal very movingly wiht its frustration, or tepidity or absence".

Ray continues:

"What is more, the placidity and monotony of habit patterns that mark the British way of life are the exact opposite of what consitutes real meat for the cinema. The cinema revels in contrasts and clashes - however small and subtle. The calm has to be ruffled, the patterns disturbed and tensions created - and these have to be revealed in audible speech and visible action, to provide the basic raw material for the director to work upon. They were lacking in the British scene."

I agree with this less; rather, while I agree with it, I don't apply it to British cinema. The contrasts and clashes are there, and more powerful for being imperceptable. All drama consists of breaking predictable patterns, and with the exception of kitchen sink's soggy flannel meandering, British cinema does this very well. For example, the essay lists five classic war movies in which "choking back or snapping out of grief for the dath of a loved one becomes a central and very moving motif". The fact these characters don't react when we know they should draws attention to depth of emotion. It does not tally with our own understainding of grief, and the unexpectedness of the reaction draws more attention to it. Like what they always say about Ozu.

And anyway, "the moment when the mask cracks" perhaps defines what I love in cinema more than anything else. That only works if the character has been unimpeachably stoic beforehand (i.e. Victim <3). style="font-style: italic;">A Matter of Life and Death as opposites with Brief Encounter - one as realism, one as magical. Which I suppose is true, but I've always carried them in the same box, watching them in turns as so not to watch either to death. And the essay actually discusses Carrington VC, a forgettable film I'm now glad I've seen. After all, it's OK really: it had David Niven in it...

PART IV - serial killer swap

While talking about "Saucy Jack", I got my cards for the Serial Killer swap. The letter sent with them is a swap-bot classic. It's decorated with birds and flowers, and written with a loopy girly handwriting, with circles over the "i"s instead of dots.

Hi! I hope you enjoy these cards for the ATC SERIAL KILLER SWAP.
Jack the Ripper! [double underlined - exclamation mark - then a cute smiley face]
I had so much fun making them!
Thanks
[big happy heart] [name of sender]

Inside were some craft papers in pretty colours, and a sticker sheet with cuddly monsters on it. I'm not sure whether to be disappointed or relieved. I'm definitely amused, which was perhaps the aim of the game - and the cards are nice, though I feel a little dirty for having them about.

PART V - "The Krays"(1990) - review

Mind you, while we're talking bad taste, lets talk about the Kray brothers. Spirita has friends with fantastic stories all over the place, including a guard who used to know the Krays. I get third hand anecdotes every now and then, which supplements the wealth of Kray knowledge I've gained, um, purely from the Monty Python parody (Dinsdale!)

I pointed out that I had a copy of The Krays on video, which I'd bought in a flurry at the end of last term - along with An Affair to Remember, Yellow Submarine and From Hell. They covered all my potential bases - something classic, something daft, something Victorian and something with elegantly suited chaps getting covered in gore. We watched it with some enthusiasm, and it frankly wasn't very good.

What was with the pseudomysticism? The film begins and ends with a "mysterious dream" from the protagonists' mom. Another moment sees them chorus "last night we had the same dream" in creepy kid-twin voices, before revealing something cod-significant. Crocodiles are used as a metaphor for something - when Lovestruck!Kray gives a crocodile brooch to the future Mrs Kray, the dialogue runs as follows:

"I don't like it! What if it hurts me?"
"It'll never hurt you."

Um. OK. Get that juicy metaphor! Mum spends the first half saying things like "oh, my little monsters!" in a supposed-to-be-ironic way. I know they liked their ole' mum, but she was an irritating stock character: the hardworn battleaxe, who does all the work while all the men are layabouts, dishing out wisdom and "I raised them I did! I've always tried to my best for them!" home-manufactured lines." When they grow up, the plot remains interrupted by kitchen sink digressions focusing on the world of women. Here is one character's misty-eyed eulogy, just before she dies out of the blue for no discernable reason:

"I was on the bus the other day. And some old toerag was boasting about all he'd suffered during the war. Stupid old... I tell you, they don't know. It was the women who had the war - the real war. The women were left at home in the shit, not sitting in some sparkling plane or gleaming tank. There's no glamour for us...Men! Mum's right. They stay kids all their f-g lives. And they end up heroes - or monsters. Either way they win. Women have to grow up. If they stay children, they become victims. "

*dies*

There's nothing wrong with putting the Krays in a social context - in fact, it lifts the film out of being a cheap gangster romp - but only if it actually contributed to psychological depth. As it stands, it's as if the dull bits of Eastenders were intercut with amateur theatre's Reservoir Dogs. It is honestly not because social realism bores me and I wanted to get back to the killing. It felt very disjointed, a little like when Homer stops talking about a battle to go on a one-page simile about how a hero hits someone ("like a boar who...") which is a set piece in its own right. It was rather like interrupting Hamlet so that Falstaff could speak. Modern cinema does not do soliloquies, and when it does, please make it relevant..?

And that's just one instance of disjointed-ness. Characters drift in and out on the assumption we know who they are (what did Jack the Hat do again...?); the scene in which the brothers ultimately kill a named character on screen is presented as a watershed moment (as if Chelsea smiles and multiple mutilations are "OK"...); the psychological depth is more like a puddle. In the army they meet someone who says "did you know some people threaten other people for cash?", and then bam when they come out, they're criminal.

In fact it's appalling, but that's fine - I didn't buy it for art. I have different needs, and one of them is occasionally cold bloody brutality. Most of the time I genuinely enjoy films, which just happen to have violent themes as a byproduct, but sometimes I do just need a fix. The Krays was at times unwatcheably vicious, which I suppose is appropriate, so I was pretty satisfied.

And there were some good bits. It was cute when Mum!Kray interrupted one of their business meetings to bring up tea, and ask who'd trod mud into the house, and all their gangster mates suddenly fawned and checked their shoes. I also liked the moment the brothers got threatened by a bunch of unsuspecting heavies in a club, and whipped out swords. Now that's style...

And trivia: the leads were played by the Kemp brothers from Spandau Ballet.

PART VI - Gangflat terror

Both Spirita and I have come to worry about the fact we're not very threatening, so we've decided to take some management tips from the Krays. She's going to be Reggie, and I'm going to be Robbie, and we're going to try it out this evening when we meet our prospective new housemate.

We've decided that when Calypso opens the door and welcomes him in, we are goung to saunter threateningly down the stairs and intimidate him over the bannisters. I'm going to be chewing gum, and she's going to tread on a cigarette Clint-style. We've been practicing our cold, dead gangster eyes, twinchronicity, and how to shake someone's hand in a gangster-ly manner; also, we had a go at a "hit" - which was marvellous fun. That's the last time any of the kitchenware dares disrespect us like that loaf of bread did...it's sleeping with the recyclable egg cartons. Spirita's new nickname is "Eve the Hat", because she doesn't wear hats. We don't dress quite dapper enough, however we are going to try for Kray-hair.

When my sister was here for interviews, she flew into a panic one morning about having the wrong hair gel, phoned me up then woke Spirita to let her out of the house so she could go buy something better. Net result: an unwanted tub of man's hair gel in my cupboard (apparently, man gel is just "different"; I'm a little dubious about this). This actually makes me ludicrously happy - a surprising number of my style icons/lust objects have slicked back hair:

(or is it just suits? Also, I sort of want to see this show now. Cooper and Newandyke Investigate? Makes most logical sense, but it's not so much fun if Michael's the bad guy. Dale is the uptight one, Freddie's the bad boy and ladies' man, and maybe Michael is the uncompromising boss. Hey, I've got it! Maybe they're working for him, but increasingly start investigating him too as his true agenda comes clear...? Also, I am really overthinking this. I'll just crawl back to Livejournal now...)

In fact, perhaps we should get Calypso to pay us "protection" in case, y'know, her bedroom should be "accidentally" destroyed? Though maybe she should bring us tea and biscuits instead.

Why no, this is not tasteless in the least...

It's not like I've had a bad day, but I am ready and waiting to go medieval on the ass of anything that gets in my way. Unfortunately, due to a lack of human candidates, I've been systematically taking fiction to pieces instead a la Samuel L. Jackson. Anyone want to see The End of Time part I cremated? Toodle over to Malcassairo for a veritable barbacue. With that execution complete, I've turnd my attention to my Film Studies coursework: the public crucifiction of City of God, a film that gave me an instinctive squicky reaction first time I saw it. My work has been hampered by not having a copy of the movie - I[ve ordered it off Amazon instead of buying it local, cus our HMV only had it for £18, and I wouldnt pay that much for a film I loved, let alone merely to write an essay about how much I hated it.

I'm also sick at having the Film Department piss angry red ink all over my beautiful essays. And I'm sure my housemates are sick of dealing with my rants every time they return them to me with low marks and pedantic comments. The problem is, the're such a "young" discipline that they're extra stingy as if they've something to prove. Damn sticklers for detail, so no one can accuse them of not being a "real" subject. It's not something wrong with my essay style, either, which has always done OK in other subjects, including uni-level Classics. Classics has matured for a millenia, it's laid back and doesn't expect you to know it all at once. It knows that not doing footnotes exactly by the book isn't the end of the world. Film is quicker in a lot of ways - it has set itself in rigid forms and doctrines so fast, and expects us to be up to speed as well.

This particularly goes for my previous essay, about Women as metaphors for Countries. A topic I was passionate about, which stung, because it felt like they were treading on my passions and opinions. And an essay on which I tried very, very hard on, because I was sick of inexplicably picky marks. I did everything - I spent two hours working on the endnotes, and that's a fraction of the time I spent on the essay itself. I had a virtual breakdown twice over the period I worked on the damn thing. Lower second (brackets low), and seven pages of very petty comments. If the criticism was of my argument, I would be angry - but not offended. As it stands, I don't think it's fair to set an unshakeable 2,000 word limit, then criticise for being "vague". I could qualify statements like "women have been given minority status throughout time", or explore the exact historical meaning of "minority status", or why I believe one of the allegories to be simple, and cite the full name of the academic in the body of the text instead of just in a footnote IF I were given more words. "Isn't all film disengaged from reality?" one irritating nitpick asks. Boy, I could give you pages on that single topic, but that's a tangent and not really the point of my essay - just take me at my word, OK? As it stands, with an inflexible wordcount, I have to be vague - otherwise, I'd have to start chopping out content. And I am still not prepared to hand in what I percieve as a "worse" essay merely to improve the window dressing, even if it means getting a higher mark. I simply refuse to do it - it's a pointless exercise for everyone involved.

Now, maybe it wasn't a great essay. I don't know - I also, on some level, don't care, because I enjoyed writing it and came to a deeper understanding of the films involved. But would it be too much trouble to give me a mark based on what you thought I was trying to say?

Having tried to write an essay "for them", and have it spectacularly backfire, I am trying a different approach. I'm going in the other direction and not trying at all. That's not as bad as it sounds. Instead of systematically collecting sources and constructing an argument, I am doing a run and jump just as I do for my blog. A bit like winding up the world's angriest clockwork mouse then letting it loose. The finished product - and I'm already a page in - will be very chatty in style, and require hardcore refining, but at least it'll get the point across. Hopefully this will cut down how long it takes to write too, and result in something more passionate (if less polished). I'm listening to Amanda Palmer, partly to get into the swing of the songs I know less well, but mostly because it's good music to get angry to.

In other news, the epically lame present of the year award goes to ma, who now owns a CD featuring 13 covers of Sarnia Cherie, the Guernsey "national" anthem thingy. The name means "Guernsey dear", and it's a right dirge, made to be wailed by querelulous old women accompanied on plonky school piano. This CD encompasses Guernsey "artistes" from all walks of life: an eleven year old, seemingly recorded in a bathroom, a harmonica player who grew tomatos during the Occupation, a brass band interpretation and, hilariously, a techno remix. Possibly the most interesting is a version recorded on Liberation Day itself, spontaneously sung by the crowd to the Allied forces - appropriately, this is easily the best and most moving. It's brilliant, bonkers and so very parochial. I've taken a copy of it, though - I feel that, above all, the crapness of it all will make me feel homesick.

Today was my essay consultation meeting with my film studies professor. We get to choose our own esssay title, which is what I've always wanted - yet after a decade of footnote snobbery I find myself terrified. The whole academic machine is designed to discourage originality. How can I possibly add something original? Most proper academics stay "in their place" by merely quoting Fanon, Freud, Malvey and the rest - but they only created something groundbreaking by ignoring everyone else and stating their own opinions.

Ugh. Nasty. Academia regularly comes along with an "abstract", a summary of the essay to come. But I thought I'd introduce my topic with a slightly more entertaining literary convention from the Renaissance: "the argument".

I wish I was less timid. I'm fascinated in an area of cinema which I can never possibly explore to the full. You know - the violence, the censorship. Unfortunately, sometimes those images are censored for a reason, and it's then that I wish I had a bit more guts.

I've recently reviewed, or in any case talked around, Victim on Cinecism. It's the type of ground breaking movie I can watch (first English film to use the word "homosexual"; banned on that ground in America). But then there's a whole cabal that I would dearly love to watch, so I can think about their representations of violence, but can't face.

Irreversable is the notable one. If I were given courage for 97 minutes, I would watch this legendary exercise in "cinema vomitif". Infamously presented in reverse order, it begins with the most realistic murder ever commited to screen, and if you sit through that, serves up a nine-minute, single-take rape scene as a main course. You might well ask, "why on earth would you want to watch this?". It's a reasonable question, and probably the reason I've yet to put myself through it. Perhaps because disgust should be the reaction of a human viewing violence, and because (in cinema) it so very rarely is. I am interested in a film which does it "properly", as it were. The director's intent was artistic (representing one unfortunate evening in the life of a happy couple), and is notorious for causing walk outs - 200 of the 2,400 viewers at Cannes to begin with. One possible reason is the use of sound - the first 30 minutes uses almost inaudible background noise, fluttering at a nausea-inducing frequency of 28Hz, just like an earthquake. It's just one of the ways this film seeks to make the audience feel extremely uncomfortable.

You can see why this might give me the jitters, a film designed to be unwatchable. I hope you also understand why the temptation is so very strong.

Another one which keeps twitching at the corners of my conscience is Funny Games. Equally irresistable as Irreversable comes this film, made as a comment on the way we enjoy violent cinema. A happy family are visited by two young men from next door, who make themselves at home. Bloody hilarity ensues. It deliberately breaks the fourth wall throughout, with one of the tormenters winking, addressing or otherwise making the audience complicit in the violence - at one point, he lets off killing because he realises the film is not yet feature length and he has to draw it out a bit longer. Michael Haneke (remember Cache, family?) by all this intended us to question violence in the media, and indeed accompanies the film with an essay entitled "Violence + Media".

So far, so fascinating. But Haneke didn't feel the arthouse film reached its intended audience. So he remade it three years back in America, shot-for-shot, using a translation of the script and the result was also named Funny Games. Equally fascinating, and a film I also intend to watch...but not quite yet...

In the same line is Man Bites Dog, about a documentary crew trailing a serial killer. Obviously also commenting on participating in violence you view. And finally, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, also treading this water, but also because most cine-violence studies reference it. Unlike classic groundbreakers (Clockwork Orange and the like), these films have all been made in the last two decades, making them potentially quite nasty.

What a curse! Accidental research means I know exactly what is contained in each of these films, but I feel unable to sit through them - even in the name of academia. Crying shame, though, because the temptation will keep tickling till I do.

In other news: why have I only just heard about "The Sea Wolves"? Another men on a mission flick from the team that created The Wild Geese - a good if obvious film. It's nicely constructed, exciting and pleasantly dark, but signposts far far too early on which of our heroes is going to get it. And the political soapboxing stuck in my throat too ("I bleed red like you, white man" e.t.c. Someone get Ed Zwick on the line, we've found his stolen stilton).

So far, so average - but this new zoological outing stars Gregory Peck and David Niven. Gregory Peck and David Niven. You mean there has been what what is basically a Guns of Navarone sequel floating around for decades, and I only just heard about it? Surely, if someone was filming Guns of Navarone/Wild Geese crossover flicks, I should have been informed? Plus, both films are set in 1943, making it vaguely plausible that The Sea Wolves features Miller and Mallory under cover names.

Sorry I haven't blogged for a while - I've been doing interesting stuff, but no time and less inclination. Here's a few updates:

I finally have a film season! I tried setting up a film club in the other place, and it didn't really work. When Calypso was brainstorming alternate ideas for LGBT events, I suggested queer cinema evenings. We found some helpful people in the Film Department who have given us huge rooms with huge screens, and at least 30 attendees and hundreds of recommendations for films. Woo hoo! The screenings will be on Wednesday afternoons, will be a mix between the more populist "camp classics" and serious/landmark movies. We've even had offers from lecturers to come and give talks. On my agenda? Definitely Madchen in Uniform, Victim, Beautiful Laundrette, Priscilla Queen of the Desert and (though I've already seen this one) Paris is Burning. I think Calypso is keen to show Boys Don't Cry, and the first screening - Transamerica - is set for next week. Very, very excited.


Greek is killing me. Our teacher is really nice and all, but she insists on going through the homework in lessons sentence by sentence. This is intensely frustrating: if I've done the homework, then it's really a wasted hour. I've been entertaining myself by doing Greek composition in the back to brush up my vocab. I was going to do some summaries, but I don't have enough words: I know Doctor and Master, but the closest word I have for Dalek (aside from ο Δαλεκ) would be η υδρια - water jar. Luckily, I do have enough generic words to do Blake's 7 -or ο του πολιτου χορος as it is best rendered in Greek. It's keeping me immensely entertained every time we get a new word list, working out what I can now write. This week we finally learnt "ship", "sail" and "kill" enabling me to much expand my mini-masterpiece. It certainly saved my neck in the Greek test we had this week. So far, I've summarised the first two episodes and introduced a few characters - Blake is ο πολιτες (the citizen), while Travis is obviously ο στρατεγως (the soldier). The best I could do for Avon and Jenna is ο φιλος (the friend) and η γυνη (the woman) - both of which are hilariously inappropriate. Still, it allows me to do a lot of "he frees the slaves" and it is coming in handy, albeit in a crazy way.

One of my favourite free-London-mags is Shortlist and Stylist. They come out one day after the other, courtesy of the gender binary. Shortlist is blue, and typically has a tough actor on the cover, and it has stories about cars, TV and technology. Stylist is a day later, is very pink - or has a very full-lipped and feminine close up of a lady icon on it, and naturally has sections on make up, travel and fashion. It's not quite as bad as it sounds: Stylist is actually pretty progressive, once you get over the hilarious covers. But that's not why I mention it. Stylist has just mentioned a documentary featuring five actresses, all who will be playing the Queen but in different decades. Barbara Flynn, for example, "depicts HRH during her "anus horribilis", 1992"

Oh, how I love geeky giggles. Spot the mistake! What Stylist was attempting to say is "annus horribilis", miserable year. Not "anus horribilis", which means miserable old woman. What a Freudian slip!

Did I update you all about Swapbot? I've now got about 20 art cards in my collection on topics as various as Alice in Wonderland, Imaginary Friends and the Disney Haunted Mansion. Half made by me, half made by partners all over the globe. The fun of it is really the scope - everyone has a different style, so while they are all individually a tad shoddy they look marvellous next to one another. One thing I've noted is how unsurprisingly female based it is: they're either teenage girls, or hockey moms from Idaho, with a penchant for scrapbooking. This has been a source of amusement, but also guilt - as I prepare to send off cards inspired by Watchmen to a woman who loves rabbits and whose favourite film is The Notebook, and one based on Reservoir Dogs to "Rainbow Colour ! Theme: Orange". So I was quite taken aback to find this swap in the listings. O-kay then. Not all scrapbookers and ribbon-obsessives then. I am really confused. I know there are people into True Crime and the like - I think it's a bit sick and strange, but each to their own. But WTF?! And who in their right mind has a favourite serial killer?

Oh yes. Right. Moving on.

So I had to sign up for it. My motivation is this: as a collector, I want a diverse and interesting collection, and I'm sure this bizzare oppertunity will never come back. You have to design two cards, one with the serial killer of your choice - and the other your partner chooses. I still haven't found a way of requesting Jack the Ripper that doesn't make me feel like a horrific individual. Even though I designed a card partly inspired by him a whole two months back (but it was also about London, Dark London, smog, gothic horror, Victoriana, the Valeyard, Doctor Who and all sorts of other things). And I don't know what I'm going to do when I get a serial killer prompt from my partner. At least Jack is dead, and shrouded in fiction: part of the point of the card I made was exploring the ways he has been appropriated by the gothic horror genre and made "acceptable" by it. He's cameoed in Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, Batman and Doctor Who in a way I can't see Charles Manson doing any time soon. Take a look at the two images on this page and see if you can spot the difference. I've found the pictures from the previous Serial Killer swap (there have been two. Why on earth has there been not one, but two?!) and they are quite beautiful as art.

But Jesu. Maybe I'll do my first kooky-collage, with all the art-bits I've been sent by the hockey soroity, and create something deeply ironic and brightly coloured.

I've updated my birthday list a bit. Expect stuff to keep crawling on there as I remember them

As a result of working hard on my film coursework, I am getting increasingly sickened with academia.

It's been exacerbated by a volume in the Maughan library with which I am feeding my obsession, while picking through on spoilerific eggeshells. An academic volume dedicated to that great and ground breaking author of challenging post-numismatic discourse of the neo-Prydonian School: Terry Nation. He created the Daleks, invented Blake's 7 and wrote a lot of ace stuff for both series. What fun! Paragraph two, for example, begins a discussion on how far you can identify a single author in a television series. A very valid point - but it scuppers it by starting in this manner:

"authorship has been associated wiht power since the beginning of history in the Judeo-crhistian worldview, since God was seen as the author of the world and of humankind"

We now have academic substantiation to deify both him and Holmes. The second section of the introduction is even funnier - entitled "popular television and 'quality' :

"We believe that the work credited to Nation as creator and/or writer fails to fit some of the traditional criteria of 'quality'. It is largely in familiar generic forms, was made on a comparativelyt low budgets, and is addressed to a mass audience. As Bernadette Casey et al (2002:209)"

Oh, do you think? I can't believe they need to footnote statements like "Doctor Who often had crappy special effects".

I'm still waiting for them to do a serious discussion of his characters and themes. Normally, I bow to the Obviously Superior Wisdom of academics. After all, they might just know more than me underneath the scrambled prose. Doctor Who is something I do know the odd thing about, and so the illusion is broken - especially, while analysing form, they insist on referring to "cliffhangers" as "suspended enigmas". It's a childish and simplistic exercise in stating the obvious - inferences anyone could make from watching a single half hour of Genesis of the Daleks. Identifying things like "the Doctor and the companion separate and get into trouble", or "Doctor Who has a mystery which is solved at the end", and then crossreferencing it via Surviors and Blake's 7 which - amazingly! - does the same things. Damn you, that's what drama does!

So I have lashed out with violence, and this is the unpleasant result.

It's become an Accepted Film Studies Fact, much like the oedipal reading of Hamlet, that Alien is
"about" the male fear of pregnancy. Personally, I always thought it was a monster movie with a killer xenomorph first, and Freudian discourse second. Caylpso argued that it is a strong underlying theme - after all, what I choose to see as "people's innate phobia of having something growing inside them" is effecively pregancy. But I still think the focus on it is ludicrous.

To counter this, Calypso and I have decided to make our own unique contribution to the wonderful world of Film Studies wank.

Because Reservoir Dogs is undeniably all about the male fear of menstruation. Spoilers in the next paragraph.

Think about it: when Mr Orange is shot by a woman, it is a form of symbolic castration as she transfers "the female problem" straight at his poor, male abdomen. It is signified by the extreme fetishation of blood, and represents the terror Man has for the bleeding Female. The introduction of a feminised element into the hypermasculine atmosphere is the pivot around which the plot turns. As the blood seeps out, so does the femininity - through which Mr White is transformed into protective mother figure, creating the mother/daughter dynamic: helping a child through a first period. While the characters are confident to anatomise women at a distance - Madonna's big dick, the story of the super-glued-prick e.t.c. - they are unable to cope with a female influence brought into their all-masculine sphere. It provokes violence, suspicion and disgust, and causes the men to become even more masculine archetypes. Particularly in the patriarchal figure of Mr Blonde (straight razor = masculine attribute = Great White Phallus*), who lashes out with penetrating stabs to protest against reproductive expression. Ultimately, the menstruating feminine must be neutralised for the safety of the group.

I hope we call all agree that was the largest pile of bollocks this blog will ever produce.

But what is literary theory but a method to read film through? A Marxist will see every novel as about revolutionary politics - a revisionist will say anything as long as it hasn't been said before. If you've just been dumped, then everything you read is about your ex. Opinions represent your pre-occupations more than anything true and immutable about the text.

And you can't deny that most of what I said in the analysis above was correct. Mr Orange's injury does raise the tension, his presence drives the plot and he is mostly responsible for the eventual outcome. Mr White does behave in a motherly manner, that razor is long and straight. Men are unnaturally skeeved by periods. And Reservoir Dogs is the man's movie which women seem to love - perhaps because they see their own biological dilemma reflected in it. Subconsciously, obviously.

The facts are all correct - it's just been peverted through the prism of a crazy point of view. And yet the more we argue it, the more genuine it seems - which to me exposes the big lie at the heart of academia. You can convince yourself of anything.

And this is why I hate the footnoting obsession. Surely the first priority should be the film, the second one's own opinions - and third, third should be the weight of academic deforestation? Unless you are writing a response, the film is your primary evidence and your reaction the only prism through which you can appreciate it. "Who's Afraid of Literary Theory?" claims that Literary Theory exists so you can understand books. If you didn't know what a hero or a three act structure was, you wouldn't understand the significance, much like the way Indian music sounds awful to people not used to rasas and such. In other words, you cannot judge a work except in the context of your own opinions. The film is the primary source; all opinions are secondary, but yours takes priority because it is only from your opinions that you can interpret and then form any stance on a work.

It's not that other people's opinions aren't interesting. But they are not important compared to the film itself, and equally irrelevant to your own opinions, and the opinion of Bob the bus driver. A applied to B creates theory C - then C applied to D creates theory E and so on, further and further away from the topic under discussion. The ultimate aim of any writing on a book or film should, surely, be to enhance the enjoyment of that book or film by looking at it through different perspectives, on different levels and through different themes. If an essay doesn't make me rethink the film on a second watch, then it has failed. The film-snobs equivalent of pointing out movie trivia.

In a way, I'm reminded of my views on the Doctor and Master. I've never pinned down the exact nature of their relationship and wouldn't want to. Instead, I toy with different theories. Are they just friends? Lovers? Brothers? Father/son, both ways around? Is the Master the Doctor's dark side? Each of those perspectives gives you a slighly different reading, different things to notice or interpret or to think about. Much like sifting through various essays. But I would never pick just one, because at the end of the day, I come back to the text - the text which is totally ambiguous. An academic would pick one, argue it, argue how that related with Cuban Nationalism, argue how Cuban Nationalism could be explained by the Time War, and would be discussing the Marxist dialetic inherent in the nominisation of "Doctor" by tea-time.

This afternoon I found the Maughan's violence-in-cinema section, and because I've an urge to rewatch Reservoir Dogs, hunted down some academia. It genuinely distressed me. I was upset me to read how Holdaway has the ability to distinguish between the reality and artifice of postmodernity; and how the naming scene ("Mr Pink is too close to Mr Pussy") exemplifies the notion of catachresis and mimics the naming of Adam by God - but the idea that the name Mr Black causes quarrels signifies that blackness = violence and signposts the crisis in white cultural identity.

"The characterisation of Joe Cabot as "The Thing" from the 1950s D.C. comic The Silver Surfer foregrounds Joe as a fantastical genre character - also bringing to mind the Lacanian "Thing of the Real", the material embodiment of the chaotic and lethal violence of the Real - which is what Joe fails to control through the imposition of the conventional codes of reality of the gangster."

See, the difference between that and the menstruation theory is that I know I'm being ridiculous. And I hate it, I hate it, I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.

Let's talk Tarantino's representations of "blackness". QT is an offensive individual who likes shocking people, writing about offensive individuals. He scatters his works with the "n-word" because he can get away with it and he thinks it's streetwise, cool and also funny. But many of his characters behave in a way which that author identifies as codified "black bodies". That's because Tarantino is interested in, and has pilfered from, what white academics call "black culture". END OF DEBATE. I don't see anyone proposing to write a paper about the high levels of violence in my writings - and I think that's because it is perfectly obvious that it is only there because I enjoy violent literature and films. It's not a protest against the patriarchal system, or a representation of buried race anxieties - it's because I like shooting people up.

Applying that sort of deep-level analysis is especially upsetting to me when referred via Reservoir Dogs - a film which is deliberately surface deep, deliberately nihilistic. It means nothing: life is cheap and mundane. All we know of their world is given to us in 90 minutes of real time - the message, such as there is one, is quick and meaningless. By the end of the movies, nothing has changed and it's not meant to. That's what the final juxtaposition of horrible tragedy and comedy music signifies - it's reminding the audience not to worry, because it signifies nothing.

There is interesting academia to be written on the film, but on the story and characters. The way they are set up, and placed in opposition, the information we are given. The intensely clever way Tarantino uses and witholds information from the viewer: that's what academia should be studying.

So, any comments to make on my Reservoir Dogs theory? I'm horribly tempted to write and footnote it properly, and try and get it accepted.

*Yes, this is a real academic term.

Ah, autumn! It’s like good movies go into hibernation over summer - but as the night curls back in, the warmth of those sitting in dark rooms lets them know it is time to return. Here's the cream of the coming crop, so take it as a warning: expect to be invited to any or all of these in a month near you.

Sherlock Holmes

You already know how excited I am about this. I adore my Victoriana, and this could only be more so if Dracula, Jack the Ripper and Alan Quartermain fought with sword-canes in corsets on the set of Ghost Light while each smoking a pipe. I'll pause to let you digest that mental image. Lovely, lovely Victoriana. A buddy movie set in sepia is always going to float my boat - add in cravats, London and the promise of violence, and it really has to be very shoddy for me not to have fun:



I am less hopeful since seeing the trailer. It looks more blockbustery and less classy than I had hoped. It's honestly not just distaste at them getting a woman involved, and fogging up my invisible slash goggles. Honestly. It's the black magic and world ending which makes me rather more sceptical. To my mind, this can go two ways. It could be awesome, and if it isn’t, it’s bound to be awesome in that other way. I like the Sherlock Holmes books a lot, but am not a fangirl. Therefore, while I’ll have sympathy if cinema shits all over it, it won’t touch me personally (but see below…). One thing to be sure: it is not going to be dull.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Terry Gilliam makes films by turns. For every Tideland, there is a Brother's Grimm (or if you are a fan of mainstream movies, or my mum, for every Brother's Grimm there is a Tideland) - in other words, he alternates between good ones and bad ones. He is due a bad one. Despite that, he is still my favourite director, and I can't help but be excited about anything he produces. Particularly when it features the word "doctor" in the title:




Disreputable fact of the day. Mr Gilliam also has a reputation for films going belly up on him. His Watchmen went nowhere, and illness and flooding conspired to kill The Man Who Killed Don Quxiote. I am ashamed to confess that my first reaction to hearing about Heath Ledger's death was "Oh no! What about The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus!", not something more humane, like "what about his family and his daughter?". Obviously I did think that next, but I hope as a professional, he would understand my priorities. As you doubtless know, his character has been recast with Johnny Depp, Colin Farrel and Jude Law, and it can't help but give one a shiver up the spine to hear Depp say "nothing is permenant, not even death".

As I've already commented, it's time for Terry Gilliam to make another bad movie. My feelings on it are much like that of Sherlock Holmes. It might not be good, indeed probably won't be, but it will be very entertaining. All the visual flair, the cartwheeling imagination, the scenes of inappropriate violence towards cats will be there - even if it doesn't hang together into a satisfying whole.

Alice in Wonderland

One of the most hotly anticipated upcoming films, and I couldn't be less excited if I tried. Watch the trailer here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeWsZ2b_pK4&feature=fvw

I have seen Tim Burton movies, I've seen Alice in Wonderland, and I already feel like I've seen this. Yes, it will be beautiful and creative - I like the design of the White Queen in particular - but I am having difficulty caring.

The Last Airbender

M. Night Shyamalan is my other favourite director, and I am excited for this like you wouldn't believe. Not in a good way either. I have come to understand that a great director must work across genres, not just remake the same movie for his entire career. Stanley Kubrick, Ridley Scott - yes, I confess Steven Spielburg too. The same level of quality and style, but telling different stories. To an extent, you do want to see what you saw in the film that made you love them repeated - one of my frustrations with Tarantino is that he never made anything else with the rawness, the tension or emotion that I appreciated in Reservoir Dogs. So I have been lucky with Shyamalan - but even I must draw the line at having seen the one about the unhappy man living in Pennsylvania who rediscovers his faith through the supernatural four times. I enjoyed Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Lady in the Water and Signs, but I didn't bother seeing The Happening because I knew exactly what it'd be like. Even if he set it somewhere else, it'd seem different.

So I have high hopes for The Last Airbender, because it is so drastically different to what came before. If he cinches this, he'll be freed up to work on anything, and back on the road to acclaim as a great director. And even if it isn't good, James Newton Howard is doing the music. In terms of plotting, characters, all I' ve heard about this film is casting controversy. In brief: the actors are too white. In theory I have no problem with this. In theory. I passionately believe in colourblind casting (and, incidentally, genderblind casting...), and I believe in having the best actor for a role even if the look isn't right. But that's for the future, when true equality has been achieved - and it's clear this isn't about integrity but paranoid companies dabbling in a bit of casual racism on the assumption no one will notice. It's a shame to have that overhanging the movie, and it's a shame that Hollywood is insistant on casting causican actors even when doing so is really stupid. It's not excusable, but perhaps understandable, that they want a white-straight-American man to head up their movies and TV shows. After all, most of the world is white, straight, American and male, right? I don't like it, but for now that is just how the world works. It's sad that, given an easy chance to make things better, they still aren't brave enough to do so.

If you're interested in all that, a nice easy primer is here:
http://www.racebending.com/v2/about/
http://www.racebending.com/v2/why-does-racebending-com-exist/

If you don't care two hoots and just want to watch the moive (and believe me, I would be happier if I didn't care...), here is the trailer. It sent a shiver up my spine.


The Vampire's Assistant

I have blogged at length about the Cirque du Freak series of books: their sensitive treatment of adult concepts, their suprisingly mature attitude towards character, their engagement with darkness and refusal to patronise their young audience. And also about the way I would do it. I don't want this to be a normal kids movie, because these weren't normal kids books, and I cared about them so very much. Of course, as a fan of cinema I do understand that changes must be made, and I am open to the idea so long as the tone remains the same.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPC-5VoCkNE

Possibly the most positive reaction to a trailer I've seen all afternoon. The look is perfect, perfect, perfect. Not exactly as I imagined, but close enough. You can't really judge a film by it's trailer but this looks good. A tad concerned by the implication Darren is enthusiastic to become a vampire. Boy that's going to screw things up when they get to movie number 4. I'm actually...looking forward to it?

Dorian Gray

I have left this one till last.

I am fairly sure you know why.



In case you had any false impressions, I am not unbiased on this film and I am not trying to be. Au contraire, I fully intend to nitpick. Little things like the fact Ben Barnes' voice is all wrong and, while his face is good, still fundamentally wrong. I have faith he can act the role, but he looks too evil. The whole point is that he's angelic. Like the design, with all those cold blues, is just strange, or the choral trailer music. Like the fact I've always been concerned about Colin Firth's casting, and always will be unless they go 100% for the homosexual undertones and feature a big shagging scene. (Digression: Although Henry is clearly interested in Dorian, to my reading it's a mutually obsessive relationship, but never a sexual one. Partly because of Henry's ultimate belief in Dorian's innocence and good behavior, and partly because Dorian is a cruel fiend and denying him would be such deliberately tormenting thing to do. Still, I need a reason to dislike this film, and that trailer (with its bevys of hot young women, and absence of hot young men)
makes it look uncomfortably mainstream...in other words, if the two tumble into bed, to my mind it'll be more out of character than in. But it'll demonstrate that the film has a committment to being properly dark and is engaging with the source material.)

Like the fact that at moments in that trailer, it looked like a good film - every now and then, I started getting excited, and then remembered it couldn't possibly live up to my understandably ludicrous expectations. Even the fact that Basil wasn't featured in the trailer. What's that about?
Some of what I said about Sherlock Holmes stands: Victorian London + cravats + debauched gentlemen = a certain amount of enjoyment. But I am resigned to the fact there is no sane way I will enjoy this film.

I don't even know if I will watch it. I'll enjoy complaining about it more than seeing it, and yet my complaints will be basically meaningless. Because I am sure it will be acceptable and enjoyable to 98% of the population, and I won't be arguing for the majority - merely myself. I've never seen an adaptation before because I've never wanted to risk my imaginings of the book. It'd be too high a price. My main quandry is this: do I buy a copy of the tie in novel for my collection of 43+ Dorians?





And that ends the anticipointment. Anticipointment is when something turns out to be exactly as bad as you expect it to be. I am looking forward to these films, but it doesn't necessarily mean I have high hopes for them. The most any of these films can hope for is a good soundtrack. At the point a film becomes beautiful, both visually and aurally, I forgive just about anything. Peversely, post-trailer, it is Vampire's Assistant which I think will be the best, which is odd considering I'd basically written it off. What do I do about Dorian Gray? Anyone feel like going to see it first, to see whether it's safe? I worry if I go to the cinema I might walk out.

Two film reviews, and a plea for sanity. Lets call it one film review, and one public execution.

Fight Club is jam-packed full of pithy epithets, but one in particular came to mind about half an hour into Domino: this is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time. I like to think I'm a hard girl to offend. I like most movies, virtually every episode of Doctor Who, virtually any Genesis track - when friends recommend me music, I always get to like them. Because of its subjectivity, I try to be open to art in all its forms, and I genuienly can't think of the last time I gave a film a proper lashing.

Well Domino bloody offended me, to the very core of my being. My parents read this blog, so I must kennel the expletives - but to get the full brunt of my anger, imagine this post peppered with cuss words. What WAS that? I mean, apart from godawful cinema. The experience was akin to having my eyes slowly peeled out of my head with a rusty spoon. At several points, I had to clutch my belly in pain - I once considered vomiting, at the gratuitously nasty camerawork. At least it was 15-rated, so the grot won't corrupt young, innocent audiences.

For those of us unfortunate enough to be over that benighted age - for those of us unfortunate enough to be huge fans of Tony Scott and his sweaty pop-vid cinematography - I urge you not to make the same mistake as I. The critics were not lying. Except Ebert and Roeper, who gave it two thumbs up. They were lying. Or watching a different flick. Wikipedia lists it as Domino (film), which is a designation I contest. I've seen episodes of Midsummer Murders more involving.

The - I don't want to dignify it with the word "plot", or "story". The situation is simple - Domino Harvey Dent (oops, sorry - wrong "heads you live, tails you die" flick) is a socialite who becomes a bounty hunter because her goldfish dies. That's all the character development we get, before the pouting, explosions, guns, boobies and slo-mo starts. The Coens could have made it surreal (they did, in Fargo or Raising Arizona) - Tarantino could have made it clever (he did, in True Romance) - frankly, even Pixar would have done a better job, with an anthromorphised rat taking the central role. At least the film doesn't try to apologise for this, with a cunning title which reads: THIS FILM IS BASED ON A TRUE STORY. SORT OF.

In fact, the saddest thing is, I get the impression the Domino we have is exactly the film they set out to make. It's just too much. I get it - it's visceral, it's frenetic, its the feeling of being young, reckless and coked up with nihilism. In principle, that's fine, but the relentless pace quickly tired me, and I felt over-saturated with experience. A rollercoaster is fun for two minutes, and no longer.

That's not the only thing that didn't work; but why reject a dog because you hate the colour of its fur, when the creature is dying of rabies anyway? I like hot girls hefting firearms and shooting the hell out of stuff as much as anyone, but this failed on every level it was possible to fail on. I usually get a fantastic kick out of big-screen gunfights, but these were badly shot, confusing and lacked any sense of immediacy. I like over-directed films, where you can really feel the director showing off - I'd pick them over subtle realism any day of the week. It's just a personal preference. But here, it went way too far, and I was busy being distracted by the directoral pyrotechnics when I should have been getting a handle on plot, characters, anything really. The worst thing is, after sitting through this mess, I fear I may love Man on Fire less - a favourite Tony Scott film which exhibits many of the same stylistic traits, but on a budget. A student budget.

These scenes were twinned with a sountrack which was damned awful, from my sometime favourite composer Harry Gregson-Williams. In the film's defence, my time for hip hop has always been limited - but using an artform so dependant on lyrics necessarily draws you out of the film to concentrate on the music. And even the big-orchestra hits, the sub-Hans Zimmer zingy-generic-foreignness, the steel guitars seemed so awfully wrong, too loud or too discordant. As if the visuals alone weren't confusing enough.

I'm a closet Keira Knightly fan, and she was good - but still woefully miscast. Maybe the extras could act, I don't know - any subtleties were just lost in the mess. All failed at creating characters you cared about, believed in, having an emotional investment in in any way. I felt left out in this world of pumped up manly men and implausibly sassy supervixens. A film doesn't necessarily need to give the audience an easy reference point - the vicarious experience of a life nothing like your own is one of its charms - but it does need to translate some empathy.

Incidentally, script writer Kelly claims "...Domino might be one of the most subversive films released by a major studio since Fight Club" - which can only be true if the definition of "subversive" has been interchanged with "shit" without my notice. Sometimes, when people shun your movie and "don't get it", it could just mean there is everything about it to shun - and nothing there to get.

My father, who braved this endurance test with me, suggested that directors should have a points system, like drivers. They get points every time they commit cinematic crimes, and these add up to an enforced period where they are taken out of the director's chair. So, Mr Scott ("You broke my heart, Fredo. You broke my heart."), ex-respected and -beloved director of mine, I hereby charge you on 208 counts of pointless and distracting flashy camerawork, 48 instances of concentrating on Ms Knightly's scantily clad appendages, 1 huge weird divine metaphor, straight out of the Galactica finale, 19 counts of inappropriate noise when there should be silence, for potentially taking the "worst sex scene of the year" trophy off Watchmen and killing off not one but two goldfish, then expecting to believe both were metaphors for something-or-other.

Punishment is eternity spent at the Mallard cinema, watching only Meet the Spartans on loop. I'll have him beg for mercy, before I even consider giving him a camera again. I let Harry Gregson-Williams off for good behavior.

In a single word? Unecessary. Unecessary noise. You know that feeling when it's seven in the morning, when you've just started having interesting dreams, and then the twit next door starts mowing his lawn? That, in microcosm, is the Domino experience. Come back, Batman Forever! All is forgiven!


In a bizzare reversal of fortune, I did watch one good film today, and that was Behind the Waterfall, the film I bought for 30p at a Church fete. I intended either to enjoy it, or mock it merciless - and it turned out to be really quite marvellous, in a soft-focus, "but mom...!" sort of kiddie movie way. And I cried at the end. Shhhhh, don't tell any one.

The plot is simple: Tommy and Becky go to stay with their country cousins to heal from the death of their father. Tommy becomes convinced oddball shoemaker Mr Connors is a leprichaun. Hilarity ensues as the entire town learns to believe in things they cannot see or touch.

While the white-and-middle-American-ness of the cast assured me "Feature Films for Families" was effectively a Christian organisation, the messages are generic ones of hope and belief - ones parents of any faith would appreciate. Or hippie suckers like me. If anything, it would best suit Pagan parents - hence some rather awkward Christian trappings cemented on here or there, as if someone gave the script a once-over and got alarmed by the talk of tree spirits, animal-visions, and little people. Particularly the scene where the children basically do a shapeshifting visualisation meditation, which could only be more Shamanistic if they'd ingested mushrooms beforehand. So when Mr Connors advocates talking to the wind, he's not referring to Boreus, Aeolus, or the primal element of Air - it's heavily hinted what they really mean is angel-messengers. Our hero Leprichaun is actually working on behalf of St Patrick, who (we are told in a clumsy title screen) was told by his own guardian angel that listening to the pagan Irish stories was OK. So we're safe then.

If I'd wanted to rip it to shreds, I'm sure there was plenty material there, but I let myself be enchanted and have an urge to go on an adventure in the natural world and sit under a tree somewhere. There was only a single moment of serious guffawing - the moment at which Alex works out the true meaning of all the little stories: "Fairies and leprichauns and stuff aren't real - Mr Connors was trying to teach us to believe in something bigger! Our Maker!"

Oh, right. Real stuff like that. Glad you've got that sorted out...I am awfully tempted to order the tie-in book from their website.


Finally, please for the love of humanity, vote in this poll:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/poll/2009/jul/28/best-tv-show-noughties

You're not seriously telling me Top Gear is the greatest televsion achievement of this decade? I admit I have an unnatural dislike of it, based on the number of pianos it has destroyed in recent weeks. I advocate voting Band of Brothers whether you have seen it or not - it's the TV show so good it makes Oscar-winning Saving Private Ryan look like a bad film. It's even better than Doctor Who. Anyway, vote for what you like, then tell me what you voted for.