The transitions are a bit ropey - naff, even, but it was about time I knocked up a video for Paddy 'Prefab Sprout' McAloon's 'Meet the New Mozart':
Monday, March 22, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
The 10 Best Films About Mental Illness
1: Spider
2: Family Life
3: Clean, Shaven
4: An Angel at My Table
5: Van Gogh
6: The Madness of King George
7: Keane
8: Shine
9: Repulsion
10:Images
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Fifty Sprouts and a Desert Island
All The World Loves Lovers
Andromeda Heights
Angel Of Love
Appetite
Bonny
Cars And Girls
Cornfield Ablaze
Couldn’t Bear To Be Special
Cowboy Dreams
Cruel
Dandy of The Danube
Desire As (Acoustic)
Donna Summer
Don’t Sing
Doo Wop In Harlem
Dragons
Dublin
Earth: The Story So Far
Electric Guitars
Goodbye Lucille #1
Faron Young
Girl, I’m Here
Green Isaac
Here On The Eerie
If You Don’t Love Me (String Driven Thing)
I’m 49
I Never Play Basketball Now
I Remember That
I Trawl The Megahertz
Jesse James Bolero
Jordan: The Comeback
Last Of The Great Romantics
Life Of Surprises
Lions In My Own Garden
Meet The New Mozart
Moondog
Moving The River
Music Is A Princess
Nightingales
Pearly Gates
Rebel Land
Sleeping Rough
Sweet Gospel Music
Technique
The Ice Maiden
The Venus of The Soup Kitchen
‘Til The Cows Come Home
We Let The Stars Go
When Love Breaks Down
Wild Horses
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
New Waits DVD
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tom-Waits-Under-Influence-DVD/dp/B00376AWE8/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1268218039&sr=1-5
Documentary examines Waits' legendary genius through exclusive interviews, rare and often previously unseen footage and contributions from many of his fellow musicians, historians and critics.
This documentary film examines, dissects and all but lobotomises the wealth of music, literature, theatre and film that have assisted in creating Waits' legendary genius and, results in hand, reviews the life and career of Tom Waits from this fascinating and rarely identified viewpoint. With exclusive interviews, rare and often previously unseen footage and contributions from; Tom's legendary producer Bones Howe; Moris Tepper and John French from Captain Beefheart's Magic Band; and occasional TW collaborator, Ken Nordine; Harry Partch associates David Dunn and Dean Drummond; BBC's head of music Chris Ingham; Beat-era scholar John Tytell plus Tom Waits historians, music academics, and respected writers. Also features numerous seldom seen photographs, much archive film and a host of other features which all at once make for an educational, inspiring and joyous celebration of Tom Waits and those he holds close to his heart.
Bonus Materials
- Illustrated contributor biographies
- 'John French spills the beans'; 'The World of Ken Nordine'; 'The Other Lord Buckley Live In Paris'
- Beyond DVD gallery and more
Friday, March 05, 2010
'Los Bastardos': Andrew Cox's brilliant response to my "Reflections on Beckettian 'Buddy Narratives'"
Amat Escalante's 'Los Bastardos' (2008), which I had the pleasure of seeing at the Tate Modern in December 2009, also fits into the existential ‘buddy narrative’ of films/plays like ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead’ and Samuel Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’. The long opening shot is of a desolate urban landscape on the outskirts of Los Angeles, and shows two wandering figures in the far background. Escalante sets the scene for the film and introduces us to the broader social predicaments of the characters, who are illegal Mexican labourers in the United States.
'Los Bastardos' opens slowly and the two main protagonists, Jesus and Fausto, don't come to the fore till at least halfway into the film. They have been contracted to kill an American woman. The woman's life is portrayed as rather drab. She lives with an uncommunicative and awkward adolescent son, with whom she can barely hold a conversation, and she seeks solace in drugs.
When Jesus and Fausto break into the woman’s home is where the narrative begins to unfold. ‘Los Bastardos’ is very similar, stylistically, to the German director, Michael Haneke’s ‘Funny Games’ (1989) - Jesus demands food from the woman and she is constantly watched over with a shotgun. Whilst Haneke’s film is very much a modern, dystopian fairy tale, with a nice family being tortured and imprisoned by two sadistic sociopaths from no particular place, Escalante portrays believable characters in Jesus and Fausto.
Jesus and Fausto are not ‘natural’ friends – Jesus is in his 30s, while Fausto is an awkward and reticent teenager. They are two people thrown together by their own social and economic deracination – neither of them can speak English; they are illegal aliens; and the very thing that has driven them to cross the US border – namely, money – is something they can only acquire in any substantial amount through killing another human being, whom they know nothing about.
The incarceration of the woman is gruesome and harrowing to follow. Though the two Mexicans are not brutal to the woman, she is still their prisoner and when she is told to strip down to her underwear to go swimming with the two Mexicans, she takes on a clown-like character and adds an ‘absurdist’ element to the drama. The woman cannot speak enough Spanish to plead or bargain with her kidnappers, and they take advantage of the woman’s home comforts such as food, swimming pool and TV while they are holding her. Escalante could be mocking passivity and consumerism when showing the kidnappers aimlessly lounging around in their victim’s home indifferent to her basic humanity, but on the other hand they could be seen as taking advantage of what little comfort is available to them both in America and their home country.
The narrative of ‘Los Bastardos’ in many ways becomes larger than the sum of its parts. Whilst a writer like Samuel Beckett was seen as hinting at the existential, philosophical alienation and deracination of post-war Europe in ‘Waiting for Godot’, Escalante’s film opens up channels of discussion about the very real human and existential void created by irrational preoccupations in the Western world with issues such as illegal immigration and the notion of the ‘economic migrant’. The United States is so determined to keep Latinos out that it is prepared to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on border security and perimeter walls. The inhuman consequences of these policies result in Latin Americans seeking even more dangerous routes, such as through desert, to get across the border leading to tragic consequences for those who perish at the cruel hands of nature.
There is no proper debate about immigration in America or Europe. The real human issues are ignored and immigration is reduced to a merely economic and technical problem – albeit, a very expensive one in terms of the social and financial expenditure required to contain it. The ingenuity of Escalante’s film is that makes us think about what is happening in front of us. He avoids endowing the film with an explicit social message, but you can’t watch and fully appreciate a film like ‘Los Bastardos’ if it doesn’t make you question why these things happen to people, and why it is wrong.
'Los Bastardos' opens slowly and the two main protagonists, Jesus and Fausto, don't come to the fore till at least halfway into the film. They have been contracted to kill an American woman. The woman's life is portrayed as rather drab. She lives with an uncommunicative and awkward adolescent son, with whom she can barely hold a conversation, and she seeks solace in drugs.
When Jesus and Fausto break into the woman’s home is where the narrative begins to unfold. ‘Los Bastardos’ is very similar, stylistically, to the German director, Michael Haneke’s ‘Funny Games’ (1989) - Jesus demands food from the woman and she is constantly watched over with a shotgun. Whilst Haneke’s film is very much a modern, dystopian fairy tale, with a nice family being tortured and imprisoned by two sadistic sociopaths from no particular place, Escalante portrays believable characters in Jesus and Fausto.
Jesus and Fausto are not ‘natural’ friends – Jesus is in his 30s, while Fausto is an awkward and reticent teenager. They are two people thrown together by their own social and economic deracination – neither of them can speak English; they are illegal aliens; and the very thing that has driven them to cross the US border – namely, money – is something they can only acquire in any substantial amount through killing another human being, whom they know nothing about.
The incarceration of the woman is gruesome and harrowing to follow. Though the two Mexicans are not brutal to the woman, she is still their prisoner and when she is told to strip down to her underwear to go swimming with the two Mexicans, she takes on a clown-like character and adds an ‘absurdist’ element to the drama. The woman cannot speak enough Spanish to plead or bargain with her kidnappers, and they take advantage of the woman’s home comforts such as food, swimming pool and TV while they are holding her. Escalante could be mocking passivity and consumerism when showing the kidnappers aimlessly lounging around in their victim’s home indifferent to her basic humanity, but on the other hand they could be seen as taking advantage of what little comfort is available to them both in America and their home country.
The narrative of ‘Los Bastardos’ in many ways becomes larger than the sum of its parts. Whilst a writer like Samuel Beckett was seen as hinting at the existential, philosophical alienation and deracination of post-war Europe in ‘Waiting for Godot’, Escalante’s film opens up channels of discussion about the very real human and existential void created by irrational preoccupations in the Western world with issues such as illegal immigration and the notion of the ‘economic migrant’. The United States is so determined to keep Latinos out that it is prepared to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on border security and perimeter walls. The inhuman consequences of these policies result in Latin Americans seeking even more dangerous routes, such as through desert, to get across the border leading to tragic consequences for those who perish at the cruel hands of nature.
There is no proper debate about immigration in America or Europe. The real human issues are ignored and immigration is reduced to a merely economic and technical problem – albeit, a very expensive one in terms of the social and financial expenditure required to contain it. The ingenuity of Escalante’s film is that makes us think about what is happening in front of us. He avoids endowing the film with an explicit social message, but you can’t watch and fully appreciate a film like ‘Los Bastardos’ if it doesn’t make you question why these things happen to people, and why it is wrong.
Quote of the Day
Anvil drummer Rob Reiner's response to a British lawyer who asks why heavy metal stalwarts Anvil aren't playing in front of at least 1000 punters each night: "I could answer that in one word.. two words.. three words: we haven't got good management." Priceless.
'Withnail and I' et al.: Reflections on Beckettian 'Buddy Narratives'
Two peripheral characters ponder and wander aimlessly, for want of a purposeful existence. This would be my one-line synopsis for Stoppard's wonderful Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, but it seems to me that it might just as well describe some other cast-iron favourites of mine, whether it's Withnail and I (Withnail and Marwood), Sideways (Miles and Jack), or (with rather less wandering about), Waiting for Godot (Vladimir and Estragon).
I could wax lyrical about the sublime Sideways, and, among friends, strangers and 'friends-to-be', casual references to W & I are a kind of communicative currency, a reminder that we're all comedy fans 'in the know'. But it's the pathos and poignancy of these stories that resonates most of all. The 'not-quite-friendships' of many of my favourite narratives seem to reproduce the unresolved struggles of the world in the fraught realm between the love and resentment we feel towards the people we find ourselves drawn to, inexorably, and wherein, at the same time, the reality of our frustrated ambitions seems to be amplified.
And, for me, the comic catharthis and emotional punch of Withnail and I and Sideways act as a kind of imaginative bridge to and from Beckett's and Stoppard's plays and the weightier philosophical questions they embody.
Finally, not least because Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson co-starred in the 1991 West End production of Waiting for Godot, surely Bottom's Richard Richard and Eddie Hitler deserve a mention too? Then again, perhaps not.
I could wax lyrical about the sublime Sideways, and, among friends, strangers and 'friends-to-be', casual references to W & I are a kind of communicative currency, a reminder that we're all comedy fans 'in the know'. But it's the pathos and poignancy of these stories that resonates most of all. The 'not-quite-friendships' of many of my favourite narratives seem to reproduce the unresolved struggles of the world in the fraught realm between the love and resentment we feel towards the people we find ourselves drawn to, inexorably, and wherein, at the same time, the reality of our frustrated ambitions seems to be amplified.
And, for me, the comic catharthis and emotional punch of Withnail and I and Sideways act as a kind of imaginative bridge to and from Beckett's and Stoppard's plays and the weightier philosophical questions they embody.
Finally, not least because Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson co-starred in the 1991 West End production of Waiting for Godot, surely Bottom's Richard Richard and Eddie Hitler deserve a mention too? Then again, perhaps not.
Thursday, March 04, 2010
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
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