the departed

go see 'the departed' - it plays like a compendium of scorsese's greatest hits, which is not a bad thing when you think about it; apparently he finished it just a week before it was released - and it shows with some rough edges. but with jack nicholson accepting direction from someone other than himself; leo and matt growing up; alec baldwin and mark wahlberg having some salty laughs; and martin sheen playing his first character who feels real since 'the west wing'. typically cool use of music - especially van the man embodying pink floyd's 'comfortably numb'.

it's also scorsese's most political film - a post-9/11 cry against the havoc of politics being done out of 'pure' self-interest. it's maybe not as important or smart as is being claimed by some, but i've seen it twice and didn't feel like it was anything other than a rather splendid use of my time.

Hunter S Thompson & Ralph Steadman

When Hunter S Thompson shot himself early last year, the journalistic world mourned one of its great mavericks – known for observing the past four decades of American life in books such as ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’. Thompson’s words are, of course almost umbilically tied to the cartoons of Ralph Steadman, the soft-spoken Welshman who illustrated the madness of the journeys Thompson took. Ralph Steadman has written an account of their relationship called ‘The Joke’s Over'.

Steadman begins the book by quoting Thompson saying ‘don’t write, Ralph, you’ll bring shame on your family’ – so he approached this with some trepidation…The two of them have been described as butch and sundance on acid – but that seems a little tame when you read the adventurous tales of hard drinking and living and driving.

What Thompson said in the search for the artist for 'fear and loathing': ‘what we need is someone already suffering from severe brain damage with a paranoic fear of government officials, and takes risks without realising what’s happening to him’. A sentiment with which many of us may resonate.

But this book is not just the story of a man’s creative life, it’s that of a man who interpreted the last forty years of US history, and may actually have taken his own life because he couldn’t stand what had happened to America under Bush - Steadman says that 'his American was dead'.

Of course, Thompson's great achievement was to create a new style of journalism - which he called 'gonzo' - of which Steadman says:


'Nobody I have read knows what GONZO is, was, or ever could be, not even Hunter, and if he doesn't know what it is, I do. I am the only one who does. Gonzo makes
you feel GOod rather than BAd, which is BANZO. Pursue BANZO if you must but don't blame me or even credit me or you will make me sick. GOnzo is GOod. BAnzo is BAd. It is a simple equation.'

Having said this, apparently Thompson believed that he 'would feel real trapped in this life if I didn’t know I could commit suicide at any time’, and so this is what he finally did. There is surely a degree of serious irresponsibility here and lack of concern for others - though his loved ones seemed prepared. Maybe he felt so close to his America that he felt he had to die with it.

Toward the end of the book there’s a lovely vignette that suggests there was something of a spiritual community with HST at the centre, and those involved must miss it desperately.

i know this is a bit late, but...

hey friends

just watched 'gangs of new york' for the first time in nearly four years.

scorsese's film, at its best, is about how violence begets violence, those who live by the sword etc...

but i'm confused by the very last image of the movie. he ends with a montage of overlapping images of new york's development over the past hundred and fifty years. but he stops short of showing the skyline as it looks now - so the twin towers are right there, centre screen, intact...this strikes me as more than a little surprising, and incongruous given the film that had led up to this point - scorsese has said that he didn't show the empty skyline because 'i wanted to make a film about the people who built the city, not those who tried to destroy it'. this point has some logic, but it does seem to me that the film would have been far more powerful had it ended more truthfully - the danger with the ending as it stands is that it may be read as a triumphalist eradication of the violent past, rather than an indictment of the fact that we have not changed our values that much since gangs beat each other to death in the streets for control of a city.

any thoughts?

a new tragedy every day

According to reports today, "the Illinois church made famous in The Blues Brothers film has been badly damaged in a fire. Firefighters were forced to smash down the Pilgrim Baptist Church of South Chicago's stained glass windows to tackle the blaze last week. The place of worship gained fame after funk legend James Brown sang there during a scene in the hit 1980 movie".

That's rather an understatement, to any of us who remember our first appreciation of the concept of vocation - when the blue light shines through the now charred stained glass of Pilgrim Baptist, and the messed-up saint John of Belushi sees that he finally has a purpose in life - to put the band back together and save the nuns' orphanage, thousands of young, lonely men discovered their own vocation too: to watch a lot of movies.

For those of you who really love The Blues Brothers, donations can be made to the Pilgrim Baptist Church of South Chicago Fire Relief Fund, c/o Charter One Bank, 9200 S. Commercial, Chicago 60617.

children of men

if you want to see a magnificent film - though very depressing - but a tremendous story of being in favour of life above all else, go see 'children of men', just released in the uk (it's out in the states on christmas day)

this story of a dystopian future in which all women have become infertile, and humanity awaits its end stars the appropriately distant clive owen, along with julianne moore, michael caine in a superb and moving cameo that reminds us why he should be allowed to live forever, and peter mullan as a crazed scotsman who always refers to himself in the third person.

as is my wont i'll prefer not to say much about the plot, but this really a remarkable film. its key theme is doing everything to keep life alive, and the documentary-style fashion in which it is made grips your vision as if your own life depends on it. alfonso cuaron directs some of the most incredible one-take scenes i've ever seen, and the narrative throttles along to make it one of the smartest action films ever made.

let me reiterate - this is a very depressing film but its heart is set on one thing: the absolute need, in the face of what may seem like unremitting darkness, to honour human life.

along with 'little miss sunshine' and 'the new world' it's the best film i've seen this year.

maybe this is what he meant

there's a fascinating response to the pope's speech in the australian newspaper 'the age', written by a muslim leader from down under - though it doesn't cover all the bases i've been concerned about i think it's well worth reading.

Subtle scholar, but what an inept politician
Waleed Aly
September 18, 2006

The Pope should mind his words. So should some of his Muslim critics.

LET me get this straight. Pope Benedict XVI quotes the 14th century
Byzantine
Emperor Manuel II Paleologus asserting before a Persian Islamic scholar that
the prophet Muhammad brought nothing new to the world except things "evil
and
inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".
Some Muslims clearly interpret Benedict to be quoting Manuel with approval,
and take offence at the suggestion that Islam is inherently violent. The
response is to bomb five churches in the West Bank, and attack the door of
another in Basra. In India, angry mobs burn effigies of Pope Benedict. In
Somalia, Sheikh Abu Bakr Hassan Malin urges Muslims to "hunt down" the Pope
and kill him, while an armed Iraqi group threatens to carry out attacks
against Rome and the Vatican.

There. That'll show them for calling us violent.

Meanwhile, other commentators seem to be vying to be most hysterical.
Libya's
General Instance of Religious Affairs thinks Benedict's "insult . pushes us
back to the era of crusades against Muslims led by Western political and
religious leaders". And a member of the ruling party in Turkey has placed
Benedict "in the same category as leaders like Hitler and Mussolini", in
what
must surely be an insult to those who suffered under them.

Closer to home, Muslim Community Reference Group chairman Ameer Ali
cautioned
Benedict to "behave like (his predecessor) John Paul II, not Urban II (who
launched the Crusades)", while Taj al-Din al-Hilali declared startlingly
that
the Pope "doesn't have the qualities or good grasp of Christian character or
knowledge". It's fair to say perspective has deserted us.

Parallels with February's Danish cartoon saga are begging to be drawn. As
Saudi Arabia, Iran, Libya and Syria did with Denmark, Morocco has now
withdrawn its ambassador from the Vatican. Egypt and Turkey called for an
apology. Indeed, one expert has suggested Morocco's
decision may have been a tactic to prevent a wave of street protests similar
to those that stunned the world in February. There is an awful sense of
history repeating: a provocative gesture triggers an overblown response of
surreal imbecility.

But this is not the same as the Danish catastrophe. On that occasion, the
cartoons' publication was an act calculated specifically to offend Muslim
sensibilities. The reaction was irredeemably contemptible, but the sense of
offence was justified.

Pope Benedict's speech was an academic address at a German university on an
esoteric theological theme that had nothing to do with affronting Muslims.
The apparently offending remarks were almost a footnote to the discussion.
The contrast is manifestly stark.

But it seems some elements in the Muslim world are looking avidly for
something to offend them. Meanwhile, governments looking to boost their
Islamic credentials are only too happy to seize on this, or nurture it, for
their own political advantage. At some point, the Muslim world has to gain
control of itself. Presently, its most vocal elements are so disastrously
reactionary, and therefore so easily manipulable.

Here, the vociferous protests came from people who, quite clearly, have not
bothered to read Benedict's speech. Worse, some (like al-Hilali and Ameer
Ali) themselves regularly complain of being quoted incorrectly and out of
context.

Had such critics done their homework, they would have noted Benedict's
description of Manuel II's "startling brusqueness". Manuel's point was that
violent doctrine could not come from God because missionary violence is
contrary to rationality. Benedict's point was a subtle one: that Manuel
draws
a positive link between religious truth and reason. This was the central
theme of the Pope's address. He was silent on Manuel's attitude to Islam
because it was beside the point he was making. Clearly, Manuel II was not a
fan of the prophet Muhammad. But that does not mean Benedict isn't either.

The trouble with being the Pope is that you are simultaneously a theologian
and a politician. Theological discourse is regularly nuanced and esoteric.
Political discourse is not.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said "the Pope spoke like a politician
rather than as a man of religion", but the truth is the exact opposite. In
theological terms, Benedict chose an example well suited to his narrow
argument.

In political terms, his choice was poor. He was naive not to recognise how
offensively it would translate into the crudeness of the public
conversation,
and should at least have made clear that he was not endorsing Manuel II's
words.

I happen to think Manuel had a shoddy grasp of Islamic theology. Indeed, the
Islamic tradition would have much to contribute to the theme of Benedict's
lecture. While medieval Christendom fought science stridently, the
relationship between faith and reason in traditional Islam was highly
convivial.

That's why I would be interested to have heard how the Persian scholar
responded to Manuel's argument. I'm fairly certain, though, he wouldn't have
called on Muslim hordes to hunt down Manuel and kill him.

Waleed Aly is an Islamic Council of Victoria director.

http://tinyurl.com/hzxf5

what did the pope mean?

last week pope benedict quoted from a 14th century document which uses deeply intemperate, and in the pope's own words, 'shockingly brusque' language to condemn those who link religion and violence. he may or may not have intended to offend muslims. i suspect not - the comment was made in the context of an academic paper, and it is likely that it was assumed that the comments would not be heard by anyone not present at the gathering. while this may be evidence of naivety on the part of the former cardinal ratzinger, or perhaps arrogance, i frankly find it hard to believe that he expected never mind intended the reaction to the way his words have been construed in the press.

the fact that there have apparently been militant and even violent protests in response tends to prove the point that those who would use religion to endorse violence against the human person need to be engaged with, at least in terms of the kind of dialogue that academic popes may not yet be capable of, and better still in terms of religious leaders articulating a religious path that is both authentically spiritual and pro-actively non-violent, rather than the kind of practice that passes for mainstream religion in the west - which these days, in spite of some noble exceptions (e.g. yesterday's intervention by rowan williams regarding the crisis in childhood), tends toward either insipid and unengaging, or nationalistic and so blindly supportive of violence that it becomes about as far away from the teachings and way of jesus as it's possible to get without coming back in the opposite direction.

the queen and i

just saw stephen frears' film 'the queen' - a strange and rather splendid movie, with helen mirren in what is immediately out of the gate as the front runner for performance of the year.

we're used to seeing nothing of the 'real' royal family, and portrayals of them on-screen tend toward the satiric - but frears is too mature a director for that - while there is almost no way we could possibly judge the veracity of the story in this film - that of how the queen responded in the immediate aftermath of the tragic death of princess diana - this film manages to make convincing human beings out of - especially - elizabeth windsor and tony blair.

there was a sense of something like relief among the audience i saw it with - as if we have been bursting to see these public figures behave like real people. the communal feeling might best be summed up as socio-psychological dam bursting - as finally got to see humanity behind the usual steely public demeanour. blair comes out of the film as a calculating man, alistair campbell as a political machine, the queen as a woman of stature and dignity who represents something rare in contemporary society - someone who believes that their life exists for the sake of something bigger than themselves.

now i would not want to go much further than that - the monarchy is not an institution that i would invest a lot of time endorsing - but there is something about this film that made me feel that i understood more about the epochal cultural changes that have happpened to britain, ireland, and europe in the past ten years.

harvey keitel, osama bin laden, and the ministry of disney

so, abc television's drama 'the path to 9/11' aired last night - i only caught a few minutes of shaky hand-held camerawork so wasn't sure what to make of it. the film has been criticised for putting the blame on the clinton administration for not being wise to the threat. there's also an interesting christian missions connection to the film in the form of its director - check out david l cunningham and see what you find if you're interested.

would love to hear from any of you who have seen it - what's it like?

little miss sunshine: funny and smart, smart and funny

'little miss sunshine' is, i suppose, what they call 'this year's sleeper hit' - a beautifully observed comedy in the truest sense - something about what real life is really like. i won't say much about the plot, other than it's a very dysfunctional family (or maybe it just seems that way - i've only encountered a couple of families that seemed functional) on a road trip. as is usually the case in this kind of film, the journey is the destination, but the joys and sorrows of this journey manage to take in a critique of the american dream, father-son relationships, ambition, teenage angst, the sexualisation of almost everything in our society, and ultimately the truth that it is in broken moments when we are both most human, and possibly most lovable.

it's also profoundly funny.

but it's that last point that stays with me - when we are most broken, we are perhaps most able to be ourselves. at the same time, when we it seems like we have lost everything we held most dear, that's when we can make an exuberant gift of our usually hidden abilities to take risks. if this sounds ambiguous, it's because i'm trying not to give away too much of the film...so go see it and let me know what you think.

where has wim wenders' mojo gone?

saw 'don't come knocking' last night - new film by wim wenders and sam shepherd - great pedigree, great photography and music, great territory - lonely man wandering through the american west - that both wenders and shepherd have worn well before.

so it was sad to see that, as with many other older directors, the late vintage wenders only made me want to return to his earlier films - at least two of which - 'paris, texas', and 'wings of desire' - can be legitimately called masterpieces. both of them deal with the sense of being 'outside' the mainstream, of not being able to 'fit in', making serious mistakes, and trying to atone because of them.

'don't come knocking' just doesn't convince. wenders, like woody allen, and, i fear, martin scorsese, appears to have got caught in a rut of doing only things that he has done better before...by this token, you could make a case that steven spielberg is one of the riskiest directors working in the mainstream today - consistently challenging himself to do something new. if only someone could persuade woody allen to slow down and make fewer films, or wim wenders to make a non-narrative film in ireland, or scorsese to forget catholicism and gangsters for a while...

the wicker man: may god have mercy on our souls

the remake of the 1973 horror classic 'the wicker man' opened today without a press screening - never a good sign.

i went to see it in the vague hope that neil la bute would show some of the serious flair present in his earlier, heavier films such as 'in the company of men'.

sadly, this horror film is one of the funniest i've ever seen. so much effort and attention has been paid to the set design that they forgot the best parts of the script - the religious questions, the sinister way otherwise innocuous things appear, the sheer terror has been replaced by nicolas cage in a bear suit and ellen burstyn - my favourite actress - playing the role that underlines the theory that it's the exception that proves the rule.

the question i'm left with is to wonder if the religious aspects of the film were removed because it is assumed that today's audiences don't want to engage with them. and i don't think anyone who thinks seriously about these things would agree with that.

a scanner darkly

philip k dick was a tragic figure who made art out of his pain

richard linklater is a film maker who manages to straddle both the mainstream ('school of rock') and indie ('before sunrise') scenes

keanu reeves is an actor who rarely succeeds on his own, but when he's in the right context, he does things that no one else can

'a scanner darkly' is a superb film about the divided self, the fearsome power of drug misuse, the encroachments of the state, the uses and abuses of personal freedom, and the life of the mind

it's the first film i've seen this year that i immediately wanted to see again

dvd catastrophe

hey folks

my dvd player has stopped working - anyone know how to fix it?

it's a really cool sony player, and worked fine til i went to greenbelt - now every time i put a disc in it says 'cannot play this disc'...anyone know why?

first person to solve the problem gets a free dvd from my collection.

back from greenbelt

hey folks

sorry i've been off-line for a few days - decided for the first time not to take my computer to greenbelt - turned out just right as it was the busiest festival i've ever had.

so, highlights:

michael franti's near-spontaneous combustion as he enacted everything i could possibly wish for a euphoric last night on mainstage

dancing in the organic beer tent

re-connecting with beautiful friends - mr steve lawson & mr alastair mcintosh, mr kester brewin as three stand-outs

feeling at home again

great to see so many of you there

the spirit grows

greenbelt: films of the year

a heads up for anyone heading to greenbelt this weekend - i'm doing a film review of the year seminar. here's my brief thoughts on the themes that have surfaced in the films of past year, along with a draft list of the films that i've appreciated the most since last august bank holiday. love to hear your thoughts.

THEMES
angst-ridden artists as the keynote of our time
commitment in relationship matters
post-9/11 cinema
the rudest film ever made
god works for disney
peter jackson has too much power
50 cent's movies are worth the price of his name
make peace with your own death
the usual waste of time popcorn
smart popcorn
god is at the edges


FILMS
grizzly man
brokeback mountain
junebug
40 year old virgin
an inconvenient truth
the constant gardener
the three burials of melquiades estrada
a history of violence
good night, and good luck
syriana
munich
cache
the new world
paradise now
crash
superman returns
little miss sunshine
thumbsucker
walk the line
the beat that my heart skipped
pavee lackeen the traveller girl



for what it's worth, my three favourite films of the past year are
junebug
little miss sunshine
the new world

what is blogging for?

so, i've been at this blogging malarkey for a couple of weeks now and i'm enjoying it. it's kinda nice that some of you out there are happy to connect with this blog.

i am intrigued by one thing, though - last week i wrote a post about the president of iran and his veiled threats against the u.s. one of you good people has responded to this post. the next day, i wrote a short of review of the new will ferrell movie. TEN posts in response!

perhaps there is a lesson in the fact that the score is currently ferrell 10, ahmadenijad 1, but i just wanted to say that i'm eager to see traffic on the political stuff as well as the comedy!

easy rider at last

just saw 'easy rider' for the first time - yeah, i know that makes me look ridiculous, but there's a lot of films out there that i wanted to watch first. to be honest, i found it boring and pretentious, with a few nice landscape vistas thrown in to make it a not entirely unpleasant experience.

having said that, this isn't what some people called 'amerika' in 1969, and it's easy to see how 'rider's impact depended on it's cultural context...rebellion and freedom seen as two sides of a coin etc etc etc. though once you think about the fact that the legacy of the 'freedoms' of the 70s turned out to be ronald reagan's presidency, and the groundwork that it laid for today's administration, perhaps 'easy rider' represented both the beginning and the end of a movement.

world trade center: not an oliver stone film

just saw world trade center at the cinerama dome - amazing cinema in hollywood that i'd always wanted to visit. this movie is perhaps not the ideal film to be seeing in a place known for its cinematic spectacle, but i was glad to see it nonetheless. was particularly intrigued by the fact that it was made by oliver stone, and wondered what this most political of film-makers would do with it.

what he did: memorialise.

this film is a powerful tribute to the courage shown by many people on 9/11; but deeper than that, it seeks to represent the horror of what happened in the twin towers. for the most part, it is not a political film.

people like me found it difficult to truly engage with the tragedy for at least two reasons - the immediacy of the visuals on tv, and the lack of images of human beings suffering (as with hurricane or tsunami footage) made the event seem almost mechanical; but most damaging of all was the fact that the response of the bush administration forced us to devote our resources to the attempt at restraining further violence rather than lamenting what had happened.

so it is a good thing that a film has been made that seeks to do little more than respect the victims.

lament is important, but it is a lost art.

will ferrell is having a laugh. but i'm not.

when a movie's end credits are funnier than the film itself, and when the best scene was missed because you were asleep when it happened, then i guess the film must be 'talladega nights: the ballad of ricky bobby' - a very well shot comedy which forgets that script and plot are not incidental to humour. will ferrell's a smart guy - but not smart enough to realise when a joke has gone on too long: for frankly, this was one of the most boring films i've seen in a long time. to russty, michelle, jared and gina, all i can say is 'forgive me for asking you to see this with me'. hope we'll do better next time.

(and if you want to be reminded of ferrell's ability to really make you laugh, try and get hold of the comilation dvd of his saturday night live stuff. no one does lipton like ferrell)