"The baby's name was Born Dancin'...The baby and I sit happily on the floor, side by side, tearing pages out of books, and sometimes, just for fun, we go out on the street and smash a windshield together." Donald Barthelme.
So I woke up this morning to find my house without water. No hot, no cold, no nothing except a little in the kettle from last night which at least allowed me to brew up a cup of joe and settle down to nut this one out. I'd paid the bills, there were no leaks to be found, and after I heard a neighbour blast my cat with a hose I knew it wasn't something to do with the local mains.
I took up a position at my desk with a pen and notepad and began jotting down the facts I knew, calling out to my imaginary friend to make up another batch of coffee because we weren't going anywhere until we cracked this case. After writing: "WATER - NONE" I quickly realised that I didn't know any more facts, and did what anyone in my position would do which was to lean back and throw my pen across the desk in disgust.
Shortly after, I squatted in front of the water meter out front, trying to determine whether there was any flow. This took a good five minutes since it was a gas meter, but once that little detail was cleared up I fast discovered that someone had turned off the nearby water meter at the tap. Who could have done such a thing, I wondered as I restored water and order to my home. What kind of person would commit such an act, I asked myself as I enjoyed a warm shower. Are there really such reckless but relatively petty criminals walking our streets at night, I pondered as the room began to shiver and echoey harp music filled my mind.
And suddenly I was in the midst of a flashback to my teen years. I must be 15 or 16, I guess, judging by the hypercolour tees and slapbands people are sporting. I'm outside the Russell St Greater Union cinema, where Kurt Russell is stinking up the screen in Escape from LA and the Disney version of the Hunchback of Notre Dame is not doing great business. And I'm being interrogated by a pair of policemen on suspicion of carrying drugs. I'm shocked and amazed, but they tell me I "fit the profile". How a floppy-haired pimply nerd in a tee-shirt and old man pants fits any kind of profile besides "unlikely to find a girlfriend before university", I'll never know. But then I'm just a kid, not a cop, and I don't know police procedure. All I know is that my friend and I had, not two hours ago, left a screening of Escape from LA and walked straight across the cinema foyer into the Hunchback of Notre Dame without buying a ticket. You're looking in the wrong places, constable.
I indulge myself in this lengthy stumble down memory lane in order to demonstrate that I've walked a mile or two in the shoes of a hardened con, and if I hadn't seen the error of my ways I'd probably be Chopper by now (but hopefully still with my ears, of which I'm reasonably proud). And I say all this to warn the water-depriving punk who turned off my taps last night - there's still hope, dude. You can always turn your life around. Last night I also witnessed some police procedure when I went along to Haneef - the Interrogation at the Carlton Courthouse. It's a two-man play based around the 6000-question interrogation of the first guy charged under Australia's new anti-terrorism laws, and it's pretty interesting. It's kind of ham-strung by the fact that a real interrogation isn't that action-packed or full of sudden twists, being more inclined towards infuriating bureaucratic circling and repetition and wearing down the suspect over 12 hours of numbing boredom. Not great theatre, then. But the writer and cast do a great job of hurdling that little obstacle by a) cutting it back to a lean 90 minutes or so, and b) adding an extra meta-theatrical level by which the two actors themselves have an antagonistic relationship with each other.
The guy playing the interrogator (Simon King) is sympathetic to his character, believing that he was just doing his job and playing it by the book. Haneef's performer (Adam McConvell) can't understand this, since it's obvious that Haneef was treated unjustly. Moreover, he suggests that King's character is only downplaying the unfairness of it all because he thinks this could never happen to (white, middle-class) him.
You get a good sense of the inherent flaws in the new terrorism act, but the play does an even better job at simply showing how the System simply isn't geared towards individual realities, putting abstract concepts of truth and process ahead of everything else. Haneef fits the profile, so he's already guilty, and all that remains is to find the evidence.
Luckily there are some hilarious bits along the way, and the $8 million gasp near the end is fantastic. It's not "political theatre" and the based-on-a-true-story angle prevents it from really launching into something amazing, but it's worth a look if you're interested in the contemporary Australian social landscape and the changes which have occurred in the past decade.
Well, that's that then and thank god. The last week of the fest was a killer what with comedy fatigue and a head cold which is only now subsiding. It's all done with, however, so if you missed some good shows, sucks to be you. If you missed some bad ones, well done. Here are a few notables worth a look in the future for those of you still reading with nothing better to do (how about Yahtzee?)
KRISTEN SCHAAL - As You Have Probably Never Seen Her Before
I really enjoyed Schaaly but she came in second for me (after Nina Conti), given that I thought she was doing really well something that isn't quite as hard. SNL-style New York quasi-absurdism isn't really as tough to pull off as ventriloquism, and more people are doing it. That said, her Kristen Schaal is a Horse routine will probably be the thing that lasts longest in folks' memories of the 2008 MICF.
REGINALD D HUNTER
Hunter does straight-ish standup but does it super-well. He's one of the rare standups heading into button-pushing offensive territory in a way that I appreciate, mainly because his terribly perilous quips about paedophilia, anal exploration and rape aren't coming from a bad place, but from a decent-seeming guy who doesn't mean what he says any more than you would. He's talking about stuff knowing that it skirts the very edges of acceptability, but never quite tips over that edge. Very funny, very likeable chap.
FEAR OF A BROWN PLANET
Winners of the Best Newcomer Award - and worth it. These two guys aren't quite at the top of their game, but watching this year's show suggests that they'll likely one day be a force to be reckoned with in local comedy. They're a pair of Muslim Aussie comics who take on racism and xenophobia in an utterly hilarious way that uses anger to fuel some brilliant humour.
PAPPY'S FUN CLUB
Totally stupid British private schoolboy sketch comedy. Loathed it, then loved it, then ended up onstage miming to a Bob Dylan track.
SAMMY J IN THE FOREST OF DREAMS
Winner of the Age Critics Award. Sammy J's star keeps on rising, but the star of this puppets-go-wrong show (think Meet the Feebles, Avenue Q etc) is Heath McIvor, the puppeteer behind the dozen or so weirdo critters who share the stage with Sammy. Highlight for me was the sudden appearance of an 11-foot tall fightin' fox called Mega Squire.
KENT VALENTINE - A Fistful of Rainbows
Valentine hasn't been around that long but you wouldn't tell given the sweet little piece of storytelling he provided for this year's fest. It's two tales - the first pretty inconsequential but the second an absolutely charming recounting of his time spent in Denmark on student exchange, where he befriends a trio of unlikely men in their 90s who are obsessed with reliving the Viking adventures of their ancestors.
DAVE CALLAN - Daylight Savings for the Doomsday Clock
I've liked Callan for years, but haven't seen him for a few. His show this year was a winner, even if it was a bit Powerpoint-heavy. It's a lecture on what's wrong with the world and what to do about it, but it manages to be both insistently funny and not-too-preachy. It also manages to be over now, so there you go (went).
Sometimes you need a break from comedy, and thankfully there are comedy shows that give you that. Not bad comedy, but kind of anti-comedy. Puts things in relief, the way a punch in the genitals will. Here are two comics who fit the mould:
NICK SUN - Fisting the Soul
DAVID QUIRK - Kathleen Grace
I don't know what to say about either. Here's a quick impression. Play together. It's probably how you'll feel halfway through each show. Take it however you want (I enjoyed both, is all I can say).
UK expat Butler is on the borderline of funny. Unfortunately he was stopped at that border and must have had visa issues because instead of crossing into big LOL territory he stayed on the other side of the border, which is a place of casual racism, homophobia, misogyny and paedophilia jokes that - had they made it across the border - would have been jokes but since they also didn't make it through customs instead felt like paedophilia comments. The usual lazy dissing of bogans: I think he targeted Broadmeadows and Dandenong in particular but it could have been other places he's probably never been and has heard arrogant stereotypes regarding. Hard to agree with his superiority to said bogans when much of his act involves trying to pick up women in the front row with "c'mon, you want it" asides and instructions for spotting gay men through their mincing walking styles. Subject matter involves the subtleties of body language and what it really reveals about us, but I left feeling like the whole notion of body language is rubbish. I would have crossed my arms during the show if he hadn't made it clear he'd pick up on it as a defensive response.
AL PITCHER - Idiot Wind
Like comedy, but not.
This festival has taught me that seriousness is not the opposite of humour. The two are pretty close, really. The really funny stuff is the most serious, or the stuff that a comic finds serious but is sorting through using comedy, or is inherently funny but is given a totally serious treatment and is thus more funny. I guess that's why I've been least impressed by comedians trying to make light of utterly banal things. Traffic lights - what's with those moody jokers?! Nobody has actually gone that far, but it's been close.
Al Pitcher isn't a bad comedian but he did an ok impression of one the other night. The topics he got into included our wacky tram system, those crazy emo kids, footy! and that perennial laff-fest, IKEA (how hard to put together, chortle, *cry*). It wasn't that he wasn't trying, but did he really care about this stuff? Did it keep him awake at night? I hope not. Some things you laugh at as a way of handling their unpleasantness, their overwhelming complexity, or your own inability to make sense of the world. Some things you laugh at because they offer you a way to negotiate this dastardly life. I didn't laugh at Al Pitcher, because all he was negotiating were the things that might vaguely annoy or mildly interest me, and it felt like these measly engagements were being served up because the real stuff of comedy was too hard to face. I didn't laugh, and eventually I left.
Here are some comedians who are very nice. Some people don't like "nice" and so they should perhaps avoid these people. I like them though yes mostly.
JOSIE LONG - Trying is Good
I do like Josie Long. She seems to see the bigger picture of comedy and develops her material as a response. The bigger picture is that most comedians are angry/bitter/dejected men-children spreading poisonous bile one put-down at a time. I'm not dismissing this style of comedy. Maybe the world can be split into categories of:
a) crazy people not like us b) stupid people not like us c) other people not like us
But people like us run the world and sometimes the world is pretty bunko, so maybe the people not like us are worth a look-see and when a comic like Long gives them a go, you hopefully realise that most of us are not like us.
Whimsical optimistic comedy has surprisingly become prevalent at this year's festival, but Long doesn't make it feel too twee or forced.
MAEVE HIGGINS - Ha Ha Yum
Like hanging out at your best friend's house for an hour while she makes cakes. She's also your "funny" friend, but you don't know if its because she's your friend or because she's actually funny. Is she actually funny? Or is it because she's your friend? Hang on, she's not your friend. You don't even know her. But you forget that a bit. Does actually make cakes on stage (well, her friend Claudia does) while telling nice jokes that don't really stick with you.
THE BOY WITH TAPE ON HIS FACE
I found this boy a bit twee - then again, my favourite comedy is the twee-est of the twee, the whimsiest of whimsy, the nicest if it wasn't an ugly anagram. TBWTOHF is great stuff, physical humour that blends mime and stand-up and puppetry and a helluva lot of audience interaction with only a few words supplied by voiceovers and the occasional audience comment. That he makes laughs nonetheless should be recommendation enuff. INSERT MIMED GAG OH WAIT ITS THE INTERNET
Will have to wait. I have about 800 comedy reviews to spew out here but have been too busy seeing said comedy to write 'em up. Gimme a day or two and I'll cough up the goods, I swear. For now, though, I just have to mention the squalid orgy of hatred and misanthropic degeneration I witnessed last night before I lose the angry fire it has stirred in my belly.
THE EMOTIONS RAGE STRONG WITHIN YOU, CHILD
Too true. I'm speaking (typing) of GUYS AND DOLLS which is a musical (musical theatre) that has me wanting to barf (blog).
Just when I was beginning to rethink my stance on musicals.
So here's the deal: we have a Guy and a Doll who have been engaged for 13 years because he refuses to set a date. Good comic set-up with plenty of potential. Which after about five seconds made me wonder: who would endure such a thing for 13 years? Clearly a guy of Olympic patheticism and a doll so self-loathing that she'll put up with the dude. Or maybe she's that in love with him? 13 YEARS, people.
And we have another Guy who bets that he can make any woman come with him for what can euphemistically be called a "party flight to Cuba" (actually that's literal, not euphemistic) and the Doll he's matched with, an uptight Salvation Army worker whose main talent is disapproving of anything that actually exists and who has a chorus line who don't even get to dance once. That's how uptight she is. Until she meets her Guy, goes to Cuba - there might have been some light-hearted wooing in there but that's probably wishful-thinking/REM activity on my behalf - and gets duped by her Guy into downing a few litres of Bacardi, getting into a scragfight with a Havana local and "losing her inhibitions" with the "man of her dreams". The idea that a positive sexual awakening is the result of drink-spiking, girl-on-girl violence and waking up to find some seedy gambler licking your tonsils - well, I fear for the previous generation, I really do. In my day that would (does) result in moral panic and the demonisation of youth. I guess date rape was different back in the day.
Once we've left our Girl Gone Wild in Cuba and returned to New York, the Guys are back to their no good ways with constant gambling and fiancee-neglecting and fear of commitment expressed through dance. The Guys in question seem to have a near-pathological obsession with playing the game of "craps" which forces them to huddle in sewers where they can play with their craps and wave guns at one another. The Dolls up above try to get the Guys to resurface and give up the whole crap thing, but they just can't help themselves. The show itself doesn't condemn them either, suggesting that it's only natural - a Guy's gotta do what a Guy's gotta do. Or, given the crap metaphor, when a man's gotta go, a man's gotta go.
All of our Guys end up with their respective Dolls - and let's face it, the terms are suggestive - but how do these independent women reconcile themselves to the fact that their fellas are way more interested in anything that doesn't actually involve them than with anything that does? I'm omitting, of course, the intermittent scenes at the strip club in which the Guys and the audience whoop up the disrobing of females in ways that involve none of the plot whatsoever. Well, the eventual merging of sexes is allowable after a poignant song in which our two lead heroines realise that the best thing to do is to marry whatever beau will take you, failings and all, and then attempt to change his disgusting ways once the merger has been made legally binding. There's an empowering message: snare any shitty guy who'll have you and then hope you can plead him into submission.
Guys and Dolls makes a certain amount of sense in an historical context. As a postwar Broadway musical, I can see it as an attempt to appropriate the sexual liberalism of an earlier exotic Weimar cabaret style and introduce it as a commercially acceptable expression of American freedom in the 1950s. But beneath its apparent sauciness is a rigid, almost hysterical conservatism which suggests that Guys are inherently monstrous and Dolls oughta learn to put up with that and let's just shut up and dance because the alternatives are too horrific to consider. I'd like to see a version of this show that brings to the surface its subliminated nastiness. That shows the characters in all their self-hatred and misery and failure and doesn't dress it up as nostalgic rom-com nonsense
Maybe the unanimous standing ovation at opening night was a crowd saying damn you, Born Dancin', for expecting of a musical something resembling a social statement. Damn you for considering our response as a possible expression of our own submerged frustrations with the concessions we made decades ago when we married our wealthy opening-night-worthy spouses in the hopes that we could change them, one day, just like in the show. Because come on - the songs were pretty sweet.
After suffering through my fair share of bad comics over the years, I guess I've developed some kind of internal standby setting that flicks on after about ten minutes of unfunny antics on stage. The brain shuts down to conserve energy and only the vital processes keep running. I'm just like most domestic appliances that way.
This year's been pretty good, though, so I'll try to ladle out some hot steaming reviews onto your waiting plates while I still can.
THE SMARTYPANTS SHOWS
A few comedians this year have been really clever and astute-like so I'll start with them.
NINA CONTI - Complete and Utter Conti
I'm not a fan of ventriloquists (who is?) but sassy UK comic Conti has used the form to craft a complex narrative which does very strange and sometimes sad things. It seems very loose and unstructured and old-fashioned for quite a while, but you gradually become aware that everything happening is very precisely measured to accomplish a particular effect which is, eventually, one of deconstruction. Barry contender. Very highly recommended. I'd go see this show again (HIGH PRAISE INDEED).
JUSTIN HAMILTON - The Killing Joke
Hammo won Director's Choice last year. I missed his trilogy then. Caught his new one. It's a bit like:
PLUS
Hamilton plays Jason Harrington and Justin Hamilton in a dialogue between two comedians - one of whom is urging the other to kill himself for some reason. It's a series of musings by a comedian asking himself what he's all about - smart meta-comedy that isn't really laugh-out-loud but raises lots of interesting questions. Hamilton is clearly influenced by the self-referential comics of Alan Moore and Grant Morrison (he namechecks them in the program) as well as some nice cinema of the past couple of decades. Like I say, it's not a gutbuster but it's worth the Barry he's been nominated for.
SAM SIMMONS - Where Can I Win a Bear Around Here?
I have not a lot of ideas why I enjoy Sam Simmons' comedy but I rather do and hope you do too. WHOEVER "YOU" ARE? You shitheads.
If I was to name a song I’ve heard more times than any other, I’d probably nominate a little B-side from a band I loved when I was young. The song’s called 'Golden Hair' and it’s by a bunch of kids who were a big thing in the British shoegazer scene for about five seconds of the minute that shoegazer bands were anything resembling a big thing anywhere. The band was called Slowdive and you can hear a Peel session version of the song
Anyway, because I loved the original version of this song so much, I also knew it was a cover of a song by Syd Barrett, ex-Pink Floyd member and typically 70s genius-turned-broken-recluse. I also knew that Barrett himself had taken the lyrics from a section of a much longer poem by James Joyce entitled “Chamber Music”.
When Golden Hair (Barrett’s version) kicked off the MTC’s production of Rock ‘n’ Roll, I was obviously tickled pink because of the song’s personal connection. Then some people with accents started blabbing all this stuff about class consciousness and the failure of the British left and the unpalatable nature of communist biscuits (too dry, from the expressions I was watching, though that might just be my interpellated capitalist upbringing). Class? Communism? Biscuits? I was watching a play called Rock ‘n’ Roll, not Baking for Traitors Who Are Willing to Even Contemplate Alternatives to Western Liberalism! Then I remembered that this play was written by Tom Stoppard (by remembered, I mean that I saw his name on the programme) and that he’s British (although the biscuit reference should have clued you in on that – our American readers should substitute the word ‘cookie’ for any future biscuit reference). I also knew that Stoppard had done James Joyce before (though JJ doesn’t get any mention in this show) and that this was apparently the most personal of his own plays. You can tell this is the most personal of my reviews by the frequent parentheses I am employing. These are unnecessary asides that don’t add a lot to the content of the overall piece, and could frankly be done away with. There’s a fair bit of that in the play, too. (US readers: the word ‘programme’ above means ‘program’).
When I say that Stoppard is British, I should offer a caveat. The chap (US: dude) was born in what’s now the Czech Republic before being shipped off overseas as a bub, so some have seen this play as a way of exploring what his life could have been had he not been (as he puts it) a “bounced Czech”. I like a man whose self-assessment involves a pun, but then I also think breakdancing performed by zombies and/or Frankenstein’s monster-types is pretty much the kitten’s mittens so I may not be the yardstick by which we measure the common man’s taste.
So here’s the deal: Czech student Jan is wrapping up his studies in Oxford by actually attending his politics lectures and hanging around with his hardcore old Marxist professor friend Max. In my experience most exchange students spend this valuable time either a) drunk with their newfound exotic overseas friends or b) sobbing in their rooms because they never met such friends but this was the 60s so a certain degree of fantasy is allowed and write-off-able due to drugs or a nostalgic view that suggests people in the 60s were all pretty free-of-mind. Jan is quite impressively long of hair, though, which immediately alerts us to the fact that he’s one of those sorts we used to call a “longhair” during my military days, and he’s clearly the kind of blind idealist who doesn’t realise that freedom isn’t free! You need to oppress someone to ensure your rights won’t be challenged, right?
More connections: in my late teens I wandered over to England and spent a pleasant summer hanging out with that band Slowdive along with lots of other musical nobodies who turned out to be perfectly welcoming to young Australians posing as music journalists. While I was there, I stopped in for a late performance of the premiere season of Stoppard’s Arcadia, and while I kind of enjoyed it, I wasn’t bedazzled by it. I felt a bit like the performers didn’t quite understand what the play was about, and I only barely got it myself. Or rather, it seemed as if Stoppard had done excellent research but not necessarily crafted it into a truly intricate and complete work. I read the play a few years later, I think, but I really should go back to it and see if that initial response still stands up.
During Rock ‘n’ Roll’s interval, I asked a woman standing outside the Arts Centre whether she was enjoying it. She gave me a look like someone staring up hopelessly from the bottom of a well and after about five seconds blurted “I have no idea what’s going on.” Another departing patron asked why he should even be expected to care about the history of Czechoslovakia.
Thing is – I did care about that history. And I really did try to care about this play. I did everything I could think of, including sighing to myself and drumming my fingers on the armrest. I care about the relationship of 60s and 70s rock to the idealism and the failures of various countercultures and the collapse of the grand narrative of Marxism and the possibility of indifference as a form of social revolution. But I felt – again – that nobody involved in Rock ‘n’ Roll (cast, crew, audience) really knew what it was about. What I don’t know is whether this includes Stoppard himself.
I really dislike being unable to distinguish a production’s shortcomings from its script. This I can say: the show I saw felt like a first-year uni classroom debate between someone who’d read Marxism For Dummies and someone who was, basically, really into 70s prog-rock. The kind where you want to interrupt at some point and say “okay folks, we’re going in circles a bit here and need to move on. Let’s do a bit more reading and take it up next week.”
The philosophical questions at stake in Rock ‘n’ Roll are fascinating academic stuff, but I don’t know if they make a good play. Plenty of audience members didn’t think so the other night. And despite the best efforts of a great cast, it was hard to connect much with the endless back-and-forth arguments that only rarely appeared to be coming from characters, rather than spokespeople.
That said, it does feature a strong cast of cats wearing very good wigs (I mean that not in a facetious way – the wigs are very splendid and I thought the cast were very commendable).
Coincidentally, these cats are wearing wigs.
CHEKHOV RE-CUT: PLATONOV
Comparing Rock ‘n’ Roll to Platonov is a study in opposites – it’s a play I have no particular interest in (hell, Chekhov bores me to tears) produced on a shoestring, which somehow manages to be hugely compelling at all times. It’s the second production by the Hayloft Project whose Spring Awakening was one of last year’s highlights, and thankfully it confirms that that show wasn’t a one-off success.
Director Simon Stone has taken Chekhov’s chubby and undisciplined early play about a bunch of self-destructive Russian aristos and reinterpreted it as a contemporary study of a young generation’s postmodern malaise. The characters are bored twenty-somethings seeking an escape from the ennui of their lives through decadence, affairs, meaningless betrayals and mindgames. Platonov himself is immediately presented as a complete dick, to use the technical terminology – he’s introduced as the kind of person whose chief goal in life is to prove that women are stupid. His friends aren’t that much better, indulging in drunken frolics to avoid life’s seriousness or concealing their desires and fears behind a mask of callousness and indifference. Those of you not predisposed to watching complex drama unfold will also be thrown a bone through the liberal use of inflatable lilos and Melbourne Bitter.
The first half of the play is set in a ruined countryhouse where an all-night party unveils the corrosive relationships between everyone involved. The second half follows the aftermath of this eve of destruction, high on gun-waving and low on discussions of the deleterious effects of logging cherry orchards and the like (there is, I have to admit, a little talk about cutting down trees, but it doesn’t get in the way too much). The result is an all-business show that knows your modern audience hasn’t got time to ruminate on the challenges faced by Russian landed gentry in times gone past, and would prefer to ponder the perennial problems that getting drunk and hitting on your best friend’s spouse ineluctably lead to.
The set is truly stunning, to the point where I don’t really want to reveal much about it here. It’s not too water-restriction friendly, but even if you’re not enjoying the show there’ll be enough visual interest to keep you from checking your watch or wondering if your car is being broken into.
Stone himself stepped in to play Platonov at the last minute, and the play suffers a little because of the reduced directorial role this must have necessitated. I don’t know that Stone makes for a perfect Platonov, but then he’s probably directing himself which rarely bodes well. It’s a pretty minor quibble amongst a uniformly impressive cast, though, and the very fact that I was so involved in the situation when, as I said, Chekhov’s apparent “universal themes” seldom resonate with me enough to, you know, keep me awake or anything – well, get along and see this one if you’ve got any interest in Melbourne theatre.
"I know I do. (Have)"
Nice new (remixed) track by Goldfrapp here, if ya want it.
Hey blog, long time. Where you been? Me? Well, for me everything has been PRETTY BOM DIGGETY.
I say that phrase like I know what it means, but I really don’t. Let me explain.
Today I went to see a show at lunchtime because, you know, I could. It was Kit Lazaroo’s Asylum at La Mama and I really enjoyed it. I won’t review it here, and it wasn’t without some flaws, but it had some touches that were nice and inspired and new to me and also PRETTY BOM DIGGETY (it must be said).
The play is on the VCE drama syllabus this year, which meant that I was the only audience member who was not a teenager or a teacher (though coincidentally I have been both in my time). I was a bit wary when I turned up to find myself surrounded by high school kids in their strange young people’s fashion and spouting odd neologisms. Even more puzzling was the fact that half of them seemed to be sporting wristbands – the fuzzy tennis-player sort – emblazoned with the logo for a particular energy drink. I then noticed that some had rub-on tattoos for the same energy drink. On their faces. And many were knocking back cans of the stuff. Their talk was excited and super-charged with adolescent glee and I soon realised that they had just had the fortune to be targeted by a roving van handing out the stuff. As one put it: “I take anything that’s free!”
This is a really sobering moment for any playgoer: the discovery that you’re about to head into one of Melbourne’s smallest theatres with several dozen teens jacked up to the gills on sugary, caffeine-loaded and guarana-laced soft drink.
Then again, teens are also the most performative of playgoers – their responses are often social ones, giggling or scoffing or murmuring “huh?” to each other. They haven’t necessarily learnt to shut up and stop fidgeting, or they refuse to do so. Not all, of course, but the bunch at Asylum were pretty interactive. They were there with their friends, after all, and that was an essential part of their experience.
Then again, I sat through Juno a while back in a cinema almost full of teenagers, and these kids were texting, calling to each other, going off for a wander throughout. It was – well, I’m not sure what it was. Maybe it was PRETTY BOM DIGGETY.
Which is of course the phrase I happened upon today. Leaving La Mama, it was the first comment I heard from one of the kids upon exit. “That was pretty bom diggety, hey?”
And there’s your review right there. Like I said, though, I don’t really get what it means.
Also: does anyone know why text on this page shrinks to the oft-reported unreadable size sometimes? I think it only happens on Macs (or maybe Firefox or something).
Every fool and their woe begotten dog* knows that I was recently away for the better part of a week (better because it included a weekend) north of the border in Sydney. I’m contractually obligated not to reveal the motivations behind this uncharacteristic exit of the dank, aluminium clad subterranean bunker I dub home, surrounded by long-life tubs of protein powder and UHT milk, a short-wave radio, books by esteemed conspiracy theorists cruelly labelled “crackpots” and my one true friend on this scorched earth, the reinforced baseball bat I affectionately call “Blind Justice”.
I can, however, tell you that my exploits will feature in my government-commissioned memoirs (forthcoming). Look for them in the chapters entitled:
I am Alan, Your Busdriver Pesto Egg Event Opera House The Unbearable Whiteness of Being (in Manly) Australia Day of the Dead Icy Goats Cheese Event Opera House 2: The Pointing
In short, my time in Sydney is best expressed through dance, but since the internet cannot dance like a carefree child in the moonlight I am forced to turn to other ways of expressing myself. Basically, here’s how the shit went down:
I cannot write much more now under publishers orders but whilst “up north” I did catch a few shows in and around and not really of the local festival, and have been granted permission to mention them here (under the ancient law of “lex talionis” which roughly translates as “grody waltz funk”).
BLACK WATCH
It takes a special kind of talent to make a show as dumb as Black Watch. To take such a rich subject and leech it of any dramatic interest, urgency or sophistication – you’d have to say it’s a gift. I think you could make a better show just by accident.
But Black Watch was the talk of the Sydney Festival, and almost everyone I met raved about it. I have to ascribe a lot of that buzz to the subject – it looks at the 300 year history of the famous Scottish Regiment which gives the play its title and which has fought in countless wars the world over. Most of it tracks a bunch of Black Watch soldiers in Iraq, with the occasional flashback to earlier times and a hideously clunky framing device involving a journalist interviewing the same soldiers in a pub in the present day.
To be honest, until I saw Black Watch I never realised how much fun war could be. As someone who loves a good song and dance, I’d long written off military conflict as a terrifying ordeal of organised chaos, never knowing when the bullet with your name on it would hit, seeing your mates cut down around you and trying not to go crazy questioning the point of it all. As it turns out, war is closer to a high school musical, and Black Watch’s many badly choreographed numbers and lilting ballads sung by men in uniform finally made that clear to me.
Richard Cooke put it best in a review in Sydney’s Time Out – he points out that the show’s basic premise of “support the troops, not the invasion” is a cop-out. It’s also the entire premise of Black Watch, which attempts to show soldiers as innocent victims while the high-ups and the whole process of modern warfare is the culprit.
“It’s…a view that can only function without perspective,” writes Cooke, “namely, the perspective created by Iraqi suffering. So it’s simply excluded: the Black Watch don’t fire a shot (that’s left for the Americans) and the one Iraqi ‘character’ has no name… and no actor to portray him. Blasted alongside Black Watch soldiers, whose shredded bodies descend ethereally from wires, this lone civilian is nowhere to be seen.”
Don’t get me started on that climactic scene in which the soldiers killed by a car-bomb fall from the sky – it turns horror into a lush spectacle accompanied by some Enya-type music, and so completely distances itself from any sense of such an event’s reality that it may as well have been performed by giant animal-costumed characters on ice-skates.
And there’s a whole list of other things I could complain about: the non-existent characterisation (I only remember one character and that was because he was bald), the lame acting (any scene’s dominant character could be better described as “the one standing up”), the patronising infantilisation of its subjects (showing soldiers as boy-men not responsible for their actions) and the script which substitutes swearing for actual content – realistic, sure, but if you pulled out all of the potty mouth the script would probably only be a few pages long.
So why all the acclaim? National Theatre of Scotland is a new company, and good on it for doing so well internationally with this and a dozen other shows. But I couldn’t help feeling that the applause (and the standing ovations) were pre-ordained. You did a show about the Iraq war which weakly suggests that it might not be super-ace, and performed it to people who mostly thought the same thing. You didn’t scare them too much, and you had some toe-tapping numbers and some stirring bagpipes marches.
I saw an equally stirring bagpipe tattoo down on Manly beach a few days later, as a kilted bunch accompanied a few squads of lifesavers doing a performance for the assembled crowd. Felt about as stirred then, too.
THE LAST HIGHWAY
Since returning from the beastly northern climes I have spent eight consecutive hours standing in front of a convenience store. The reasons for this will become clear in time, I hope, or else all is lost and I fear for our children’s future. I can say this, however: there are many undiscovered artists in our midst whose sole creative outlet comes in Slurpee form. I say this not lightly.
I worked in a convenience store for several years, on and off, a long time ago. It was a deeply edifying experience and ranks as one of the most educational things I believe a person can do. This time, too, will feature in my memoirs in the chapters:
Umbilical Cord Wrapped in Blue Tissue A Fireman’s Axe to my Neck Old Man Ruffles Stinky Five Dollar Note Slurpee Machine Event
Which brings me (you) to Urban Theatre Project’s The Last Highway. This show was my highlight of the Sydney Festival. Set in a quiet petrol station deep in Sydney’s West, it saw audiences travelling out to Bankstown where buses took them further into suburbia, passing the petrol stop which inspired the piece before finally disembarking in a massive warehouse space with a stage set up to resemble the same lonely highway-side location. Bowsers, a late-night kebab stand, parked cars and the neon-drenched shop itself.
“Boring as batshit,” as I heard one punter describe it afterwards. True. He’d probably never worked at a place like that. I found it profoundly honest and perfect in its stillness, its unhurried quality. The characters are clerks, taxi drivers, a trio of sex workers and the kebab man. They’re all painted in exquisite, minute detail, often wordless but never less than riveting. Their dramas are too real, all the moreso for our lack of access to their interior lives and backstories. There’s no explication here: the prostitute maintaining a vigil for someone dead sets up fairy-lights and plays a CD in rememberance, but we never know the object of her mourning. The attendant who begins taunting another sex worker in a lurid dance later becomes the closest the work has to a hero, though he’s anything but. And the villain of the piece, a rapist, is drawn in such a contradictory way that he can’t simply be written off.
I’m no fan of realism. It’s a stifling convention of genre that rarely impresses me, but the hyper-realism of The Last Highway had me remembering why this is so. Realism is usually about highly constrained theatrical formalism, prosaic dialogue and simplified performance concealing rigorously non-naturalistic dramatic structures. Realism isn’t really real, mostly. Reality is simply too odd, and too boring. Go figure.
Then again, boredom is the response we have when we can’t connect to the reality of something. If the real is boring, it’s because we’d prefer something with a little more fizz, a heightened version of our own experiences dressed up as something we can call our lives.
I’m a bit bored with this review, really. It’s nowhere near The Last Highway.
AU REVOIR PARAPLUIE
There is a certain school of thought which suggests that circus is not cool, but I was too cool for that school, my school was not cool, my cool in largely unschooled and all of this is a nicely obtuse way of saying that I did not go to circus school (NICA).
I did go to a circus once, though, and saw an elephant crap and some pretty ladies who were proudly bendable and some little dogs on equally little platforms: all of this taught me that animals should not be in circuses (and the bending).
There’s some kind of story to Au Revoir… but I was a bit baffled. I’m pleading innocent since one of the castmembers was injured before my viewing and they had to quickly rewrite the thing without her character, but it seemed to involve some dude trying and his daughter making their way through a strange land of giant fish and moving treetrunks and mechanical seesaws and raining shuttlecocks and of course, all I could think was “woah, I shouldn’t have eaten that cheese before bed.” Maybe if the absent castmember had been there, it would have been a little more coherent.
I'm off to Sydney tomorrow so I won't get around to reviewing the shows I've been to in the last few weeks, including several children's shows which had me scowling angrily at six year olds at 10.30am in the morning.
I will leave you with some reading and viewing material while I'm gone, though. You will not be tested on these.
The first of the undecoded messages read: "Popeye sits in thunder, Unthought of. From that shoebox of an apartment, From livid curtain's hue, a tangram emerges: a country." Meanwhile the Sea Hag was relaxing on a green couch: "How pleasant To spend one's vacation en la casa de Popeye," she scratched Her cleft chin's solitary hair. She remembered spinach And was going to ask Wimpy if he had bought any spinach. "M'love," he intercepted, "the plains are decked out in thunder Today, and it shall be as you wish." He scratched The part of his head under his hat. The apartment Seemed to grow smaller. "But what if no pleasant Inspiration plunge us now to the stars? For this is my country." Suddenly they remembered how it was cheaper in the country. Wimpy was thoughtfully cutting open a number 2 can of spinach When the door opened and Swee'pea crept in. "How pleasant!" But Swee'pea looked morose. A note was pinned to his bib. "Thunder And tears are unavailing," it read. "Henceforth shall Popeye's apartment Be but remembered space, toxic or salubrious, whole or scratched." Olive came hurtling through the window; its geraniums scratched Her long thigh. "I have news!" she gasped. "Popeye, forced as you know to flee the country One musty gusty evening, by the schemes of his wizened, duplicate father, jealous of the apartment And all that it contains, myself and spinach In particular, heaves bolts of loving thunder At his own astonished becoming, rupturing the pleasant Arpeggio of our years. No more shall pleasant Rays of the sun refresh your sense of growing old, nor the scratched Tree-trunks and mossy foliage, only immaculate darkness and thunder." She grabbed Swee'pea. "I'm taking the brat to the country." "But you can't do that--he hasn't even finished his spinach," Urged the Sea Hag, looking fearfully around at the apartment. But Olive was already out of earshot. Now the apartment Succumbed to a strange new hush. "Actually it's quite pleasant Here," thought the Sea Hag. "If this is all we need fear from spinach Then I don't mind so much. Perhaps we could invite Alice the Goon over"--she scratched One dug pensively--"but Wimpy is such a country Bumpkin, always burping like that." Minute at first, the thunder Soon filled the apartment. It was domestic thunder, The color of spinach. Popeye chuckled and scratched His balls: it sure was pleasant to spend a day in the country.
TWO years ago our good-ish friends Pat and Joel disappeared after a krump battle was interupted by an ominous plastic Santa.
ONE year ago their erstwhile colleague Peekaboo similarly vanished (along with Jesus, who may or may not have been involved in the initial disappearance).
TODAY the freakish child-mannequin duo is back to review some Boxing Day cinematic fare.
You have your questions:
Where has this plucky plastic pair been for the past two years?
Is Peekaboo ok? (Probably not a question at the top of anyone's list).
Where is Born Dancin'?
To these questions we must resign ourselves to an uneasy ignorance for, as the wise man once said:
"Allez-oop! One morning a darling came to my home, a cellophane puppet with Chinese hair, a plaster, a hangover, drank my beer in a large rubber glass. Oooo-ooo-ooo-ooo! like an Indian in his igloo."
The wise man in question was the enigmatic - if clean-shaven - Plastic Bertrand, the 80s synth-punk one-hit wonder who would later go on to become a high-profile champion of the rights of many underacknowledged and oppressed victims of late industrial Western society - victims such as cellophane puppets, non-hermaphroditic cats, and corners.
Were he alive today, he would surely answer your various questions with an obtuse tip of his head and some gallic-accented non sequiters:
"Your Pat and Joel are not real, vous comprenez? And neither is your Peekaboo. Mssr Dancin', he is real in some ways, bien sur, but holiday fare, an epileptic chat and too leetle time render him unavailable."
All of this is true, except for the championing of corners, which tells us one thing: Plastic Bertrand is still not to be trusted, these many decades later.
The Missing Years of Pat and Joel will be revealed in good time. For now, we must content ourselves with their holiday film reviews.
Pat and Joel Save Christmas (by Reviewing Movies)
THE GOLDEN COMPASS
Pat.
Joel.
Comfy?
Settled.
Is your phone off?
If you ask me that again I'll put your head through the mincer.
This film has been the subject of much controversy. Apparently the novel it’s sourced from is pretty heavy in its condemnation of Christianity and, specifically, Catholicism. Kind of like the anti-Narnia.
Then again, riling up Christians is a piece of piss. I’m often doing that without even trying. Simply because I’m a sentient vocal child mannequin who doesn’t play by anybody’s rules, I guess.
Shoosh, here we go.
So we’ve got some blunt exposition giving us the setting – some kind of alternate universe where everyone’s soul is separate from their body, existing in the form of an animal called a daemon. I guess that’s a bit wack if you’re a god-botherer.
And you’ve got a bunch of no-good kids tearing up hell in the cloisters of Cambridge, by the looks of it. All pretty Enid Blyton so far.
And here’s James Bond with some big cat as his daemon buddy.
And our little leading lady Lyra, some brat destined to save the world (not our world, the other godless alternate universe one).
I like that this film cast the new James Bond alongside his co-star in the last James Bond film. That’s nice, efficient casting.
And now Nicole Kidman is turning up as Lyra’s evil aunt or something. As a plastic-faced figure with no discernible expression, I can relate to her in this role. Even if I am slightly less evil.
Lyra has to get to the North Pole or some rubbish to save the kids who’ve been kidnapped by Nicole, right? And there are witches and extras from Pirates of the Caribbean giving her a hand. And some dudes trying to capture her?
I think that’s what we’ve got so far.
So where does this polar bear come in?
It’s an ice bear, you dolt. Polar bears are protected by copyright. Ice bears have no relation.
Ok. So this ice bear is Lyra’s friend now and he’ll probably chew someone’s face off soon, but since he’s voiced by Ian McKellen I’m frankly cool with that. He has a nice voice. Worldly and rich, but with the gentle undertones of a kind uncle. The kind of uncle who’d chew your face off, admittedly.
Great airship action here. And Nicole’s daemon is a pretty natty monkey, which is sweet.
Some good creepy bug action, some ice bear rampaging and a kid with no soul. This is keeping me interested.
And now – woah. That’s a bit much. I thought this was a family movie. I wouldn’t want my kids watching that ice bear smackdown. That’s some serious gore. I hope the rest of our viewing program isn’t so nasty. And a nice neat wrap-up that seems a bit hasty and meaningless.
Like my continued existence. And yet, here I am.
Save it.
This was a pretty pleasant experience overall. Not the best family film out there, given my expectations, but worth a look-see.
So what would you say the best family flick would be?
Let me think.
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
This is the shooting movie.
Oh right, I remember. From the trailers at least.
Yes, from the trailers it seems as though a lot of people get shot in this movie.
An awful lot.
Yes.
I do hope there are some good wound-cleaning scenes though. People bemoan the amount of shooting in movies these days, but I think you can justify excessive gunplay if you include a hearty bullet extraction/wound cleaning scene, because that is educational if you do ever happen to get shot.
This is true.
Shut your trap, it’s starting.
Well, we’re right down to business aren’t we? That’s quite an impressive body count and I haven’t even unwrapped my choc top. I’m trying to do it silently so as to not bother other patrons with unnecessary rustling.
That Javier Bardem is pretty bad-ass. He’s a shoe-in for some awards here, apparently. Shoo-in? Shoe-in?
I don’t know. I figure his performance comes down to two things: his haircut and his weapon of choice. I spent my formative years with a floppy hairdo that screamed “I’ll never be taken seriously in anything I do” and I don’t seem the Academy gagging to toss gold statues at me.
This is a pretty decent setup now. Some hunter or tracker type fellow has happened upon a bunch of dead bodies and some drugs and also a few million dollars out on the prairies and has nicked off with the booty.
I don’t know if that’s technically a prairie.
But of course people are going to miss the money, so now he’s on the run. That would suck. He’s sending wifey to stay with her mother as is standard in these situations but how hard is it going to be to track her down? And even if he didn’t send her off to momma’s, the bad guys could pretty easily find mum and use her as bait. He has two million dollars. I’d like it if this guy worked out the math, and determined that two million would be enough to uproot all of his loved ones and move to some quiet island in the Carib or something. I reckon I could Fedex most of my friends and family to some sweet villa where we’d never be found for that kind of moulah.
It was more of a mesa than a prairie, isn’t it? Or maybe a gentle canyon.
I don’t think the topography matters. It’s the desert-like landscape of the human soul we’re surveying here.
Hang on, it’s a pass. Definitely a pass.
It doesn’t matter. Oh wait up, it does! We’re back in the landscape.
With a dog! Wow, this dog bit is really tense.
It sure is.
Really really tense.
A great performance from the dog here.
One of the best chases ever.
The Coens do good dog chases.
Some good buttes abutting a nice meander in a lowland river, that’s what I’m seeing and enjoying.
And the dog. Good dog.
Moving on, I’m hoping hunter/tracker man will get his shit together and take a quiet convoy to Rio with all of his nearest and dearest.
No, floppy hair Bardem is in on the game now. Looks like everyone wants that money back. Hunter/Tracker dude is really getting to know the hotel and motel scene around the Texas-Mexico area.
True. I’m not sure I can remember ever seeing so many hotels and motels in one film.
Another first for the Coens.
More shooty bits. The tracking device is nice.
Lots more shooty bits really. OK, this is a pretty violent movie. It’s pretty much like my Christmas lunch. But without Woody Harrelson. Oh wait, there he is.
Hey this whole sequence about the tracking device and a sort-of showdown is probably the tensest thing I’ve seen in years. It’s like this movie was calculated to bring on migraines and insomnia. It’s more like my Christmas lunch that way.
My dentist would be rubbing his hands in glee (if I had one).
How did you just bracket that oral comment?
I don’t know, I just did. Huh. Whaddya know?
Gee, I’m glad we managed to avoid discussing that very tense scene through a sweet bit of metanarrative.
Bardem is pretty memorable in all this, floppy hair and weapon of choice aside. Beside? Aside.
There are a few plot holes I think. This whole Woody area doesn’t really make a lot of sense, when you think about it.
I’m trying not to.
Ok, let’s move on.
YES! There’s our wound-cleaning and shrapnel-removing scene. Why is everyone in the cinema wincing more at this than at the various shelling out of said shrapnel via bullet-spitting devices of sundry sorts? This is surely the community-service part of the film. That’s some very informative and hygienic cleaning of bloody holes, there.
We’re coming towards the end, I can feel it in my plastic.
Tommy Lee Jones is really good here, did I mention that?
I don’t think we’ve even mentioned that he’s in the house. I do concur though, good work Tommy. I’m also impressed by the guy who plays “Man Who Hires Wells” and the guy in the minor but well-played part of “Strangled Deputy”.
So, in summing up, this is a damn fine piece of thriller that has your teeth curled back in a rictus for the most part and might cause a few sleepless nights. It’s pretty dang violent but, interestingly, if you’ve seen the trailer you’ve probably seen almost all of the blood-letting you need fear.
What an odd bit of phrasing.
ENCHANTED
Ah, I’ve heard about this one. This is the movie that honestly addresses that old doozy: “what if you were an animated fairytale princess transported to a contemporary fleshy New York featuring Patrick Dempsey?”
Goes right back to Aeschylus, doesn’t that?
Hush my sweet, it begins.
Hey this is just great. They’ve really recreated the Golden Age of Disney with the beautiful animation and the extreme baroque setting and the whole sly reworking of the classic Disney-adapted fairytales (with a heavy slant on Disney’s Snow White/Sleeping Beauty conflation).
Not to mention the presence of a chorus of woodland critters helping out our heroine in her quest for true love.
I’ve often thought that my own romantic escapades would have been immeasurably more successful if I’d had bunch of forest creatures playing wingmen. This would-be princess has all her bases covered.
And there’s her Prince Charming – appropriately chisel-jawed and sword-waving, good, good.
He’s doing a bit of a number on that menacing giant troll there. Is he vanquishing it?
I’m not sure. I don’t think so.
Princes Charming are pretty good at vanquishing.
I don’t think he’s vanquishing, he’s just tying it up and tripping it over and stuff. I think vanquishing requires more valiance and probably speechifying.
I see. So is anyone doing any vanquishing in Iraq?
Heavens no, vanquishing suggests a permanence and finality to one’s actions, surely. When you vanquish a foe, there’s no nasty loose ends to deal with.
I guess the whole vanquishing idea is pretty much restricted to fairy tales then.
I believe so. Wernher von Braun said that “nature does not know extinction; all it knows is transformation.”
This was the guy who developed the V-2 rocket for the SS then defected to the US and eventually became the godfather of NASA’s space program, right?
I did not mean to make any connections between this film and Walt’s own legacy of timeless and fantastical family movies. Of the sort frequently featuring Julie Andrews. Whose narratorial voice bookends Enchanted.
Just like von Braun’s voice whispered in the ear of Walt Disney throughout the 1950s, when the animator called on the engineer to provide technical know-how for three space-related television movies. Von Braun even appeared on camera-
Woooo! An evil stepmother just sent our would-be Princess flying down a bottomless well! That’s what I paid to see!
You paid?
And now we’re in modern day New York! I can’t wait to see what hijinx ensue.
This Amy Adams is doing a great job as the real, fleshy princess. She’s barreling around NY in a fairytale dress knocking people over and acting like a Disney heroine given corporeal form.
She’s also pushing a pretty scary ideological agenda, though. She’s essentially saying that a long-term relationship built on mutual trust and understanding can’t really hold up to a baseless infatuation with the first good-looking stranger willing to give you the time of day. She also seems to be promoting the idea that beautiful would-be princesses are all about making dresses out of curtains and cleaning up Mr Princess’ house while he’s asleep.
The conservative romance angle isn’t really what’s getting me here. What’s more worrying is the way this film seems to be seriously pushing the myth of the artificially animated person attaining a “real” life. This is clearly close to my heart, since I’ve tried many times to become a “real” person and have been burnt time and time again.
I know someone who became a real person, actually.
No?
Well, friend of a friend.
This musical number is an unqualified success. It should be called Central Park: The Musical! It’s great. I’m going to copyright that title and concept, by the way.
Hey, chipmunk crucifixion!
Holy Moses, that’s a bit much. Is this for real?
And now Princess is fondling the chest-hair of Patrick Dempsey.
Prompting an “ewwwww” from a young child somewhere in the theatre. I hear your pain, little one.
I’m feeling a bit woozy. I may swoon.
Totally uncalled-for consumerist shopping spree!
I’m defribulating.
Hang in there. We’re getting to the climax.
Dancing, dragon, King Kong nod, chipmunk resurrection, voluntarily passive heroine rising to save the day and throwing swords in a very reckless manner. This is all ridiculously redeeming itself, I think.
Yes, it might be deeply suspect on an ideological level but I’m having tremendous fun here.
True. And maybe that’s all Walt really wants.
ATONEMENT
That was quite good.
Yes, very good.
Would it have been improved by the inclusion of aliens and/or Predator? Probably not.
Keira Knightley does an hilarious Predator impression. True fact.
Well, I’ll be darned.
Mind your language.
THE DARJEELING LTD
You know what was a rad film? I’ve worked it out - The Goonies. That number had it all.
This isn’t The Goonies, this is The Darajeeling Limited.
That doesn’t change the fact that The Goonies was great. Remember Chunk? Whatever happened to Chunk?
This is the new film from Wes Anderson. He’s carved a name for himself as a purveyor of stylistically distinctive, overly mannered “indie” films featuring a regular stable of quirky performers.
I heard Chunk became an entertainment lawyer. I don’t know how I feel about that.
Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic. He’s a “love him or hate him” kind of director.
Apparently director Hal Hartley told Born Dancin’ that old chestnut – that he started making films because nobody else was making the films he wanted to see. Watching Anderson’s films, I get the feeling that he started making the Hartley films that people actually did want to see. Same acting style, but with some kind of flair. And more Bill Murray.
Can’t fault him there.
So what’s going on? We’ve totally missed the opening short film featuring Natalie Portman and Jason Schwartzman in a prologue to the main attraction.
It was in fact one of the best bits of the thing. You should learn to moderate your prattle.
I think someone should make a film starring only similarly named actors. Portman, Schwartzman, Mortensen, Gary Oldman as the Old Man, Ernest Borgnine, filmed in Portland, Oregon. Set in Dortmund.
We’re following three brothers as they travel across India in the eponymous train, the Darjeeling Limited. They’re mixed nuts, on a quest for some kind of access to a world beyond their own limited experience, but it’s clear from the outset that what they really need to find is some connection with each other. This first half is full of quirky fun based around their own idiosyncracies.
Much like The Goonies, I have to confess.
Now there’s death and it’s not so funny.
And not so much like – hey, I’m starting to really get this, to be honest.
It’s a lot like The Life Aquatic – if you felt the central drama of that film, you’ll get the point of this one. Anderson’s flicks are all about family and the problems of familial ties, really. Underneath all the trappings.
But if you can’t really feel for the characters due to the excessively zany set and costume design of the dude’s films, you might be a bit pissed off here, too.
He’s not so much of a plotter as a setter. But I think his heart is in the right place. And there’s some great comic stuff. Also: I feel like some Indian food.
That wasn’t my feeling after seeing The Goonies, admittedly. Man, I hope they play that at the Rooftop Cinema next year. As they will.
ALIENS VS PREDATOR: REQUIEM
I can’t believe I’m watching this film. I have to start rethinking the choices I’ve made in my life which have led me to this.
I can’t believe someone thought the whole concept of Aliens fighting Predators warranted not one but two movies.
Doesn’t look like they’ve gone beyond that basic concept here, either. I never saw the first one but I’m guessing it concerned Aliens fighting Predators on earth. The tagline was “whoever wins, we lose.” That’s not a bad tagline.
This one should have the tagline “We made another one!” Because that’s all I’m getting here. It’s like they just found some random jottings on a napkin and used it as the basis for this movie.
Yeah. Ok, we have some Aliens coming to earth and crashing in some woods near a small hick town in the mountains called Crested Butte. Now the Aliens are doing their thing, just sticking to people’s faces and bursting out of their chests.
Hey, I am impressed that they do it to a cute little boy so early on in the film.
Yes, that is a surprisingly vicious touch.
And we seem to have some kind of alien who burst out of a Predator and is now like an Alien/Predator cocktail. I think. I can’t really get a good view of him.
And there’s a Predator getting a phone call or something on his home planet and revving up the ol’ Dodge to come clean up the aliens on earth. I don’t know why. But then, asking such questions is probably pretty fruitless when you’re watching a movie called Aliens vs Predator.
I still can’t get a good view of the Predatalien thing. It’s prowling around the sewers eating homeless people and seriously, there really does seem to be an inordinate number of homeless people living in this sewer, given that the town looks like it has about 500 people in it. It’s like they’re holding some kind of bum convention down there.
You know, you’re very right about the lack of visibility in this film. I have no idea what I’m looking at half the time. If your film focuses on the age-old conflict between Aliens and Predator, I want to be able to tell which one I’m looking at. It’s just a blur of darkness punctuated with other similar, but slightly different blurs of darkness. I get enough of that in my real life.
I reckon whoever directed this was drunk when they did it. That or it’s one of those movies created purely as a tax dodge by some shady sorts.
Notice how all of the Aliens and Predator scenes are punctuated with the introduction of about 40 main characters. We know that they’re main characters because they’re each given about two lines of dialogue which they manage to completely non-impress us with. It’s not that I don’t care about these people, it’s that I’m not even sure who they are, what they do, why they’re here or whether they just wandered into shot after Boozy McDirector accidentally hit the “record” button on the camera.
They’re actually spending valuable screen time showing the hot chick getting something from her car, just as a pretext to have some footage of her bending over in a tight skirt.
I think that counts as character development in this movie.
And her local pizza delivery boy has a thing for her, and he also has a brother just out of jail, which easily makes him this film’s complex emotional core. And hot chick’s boyfriend just wiped pizza boy’s ass all over the floor and threw his keys down into the sewer. Which was pretty mean.
But pizza boy did make a pretty funny crack about the boyfriend being the guy who ordered the “sausage lover’s pizza”. That’s straight out of Dorothy Parker’s big book of homophobic wit.
There’s pizza boy and his brother going down into the sewer to find the keys. I like that the ex-con is complaining that he’ll get shit all over him if he goes down there. Since when was the Big House conducive to excessive attention to cleanliness?
The keys are proving rather hard to locate. They’re likely mystified as to where Hobotown’s subterranean thousands have scampered off to, as well.
Pizza boy just spotted one of the little alien goobers that pop out of your chest! Pretty sure he just added to the amount of shit down in the sewer. OCD bro doesn’t believe him, of course.
Have we taken a wrong turn in assuming these are our main characters? We seem to be spending an inordinate amount of time checking in on other people. There’s the army woman and her husband and daughter (she even gives the little one some night-vision goggles as a loving gift). And there’s the Spanish-American cop. Here’s a diner waitress who seems important. Oh no, she just spilled hamburger meat all over herself, except it was the hamburger meat from inside of her body and it was an alien who spilled it.
And now there are heaps of aliens popping up all over town killing people randomly. And Predator is still wandering around doing window shopping and checking his messages and killing aliens and sometimes people. I’m still not sure of his motivations in this whole caper.
As you’d expect, everyone we’ve met so far – and this film is a veritable Magna Carta – are running around getting killed in blurry, darkened environments. I feel pretty bad when these folks are getting torn apart and I can’t actually work out who they were in the movie so far. I guess that’s a statement about modern warfare and the desensitising effect of on-screen violence. That or the director just had another round.
Great, the town’s electricity supply just got blown up and now we’re in even more darkness.
There go those crazy aliens taking over the hospital and making more of their evil breed.
And some government types are going to nuke the whole town, which is par for the course in these films.
All of our survivors are heading off to the hospital to fly away in a helicopter. Well, all of the ones who aren’t going to the town centre to get themselves killed.
Which they do in due course.
Which they do, yes.
And our last remaining non-characters are ambling through the hospital and getting killed themselves along the way. I’ll admit, this film has no problem dispensing with its leads despite their importance to the story. As we’re in the home stretch here, I’m excited that many of those still alive have thus far been peripheral characters. I’m pretty sure some still count as non-speaking parts.
And there we go, it’s all wrapping up, and we’re given a dramatic final shot of one of our survivors, a tough type who made it through the living hell that was Aliens vs Predator and somehow made it out alive. I don’t know if we ever knew her name or anything about her whatsoever, but I’m really too stunned to care.
And roll credits, thank the lord. Hey, whaddya know, it was directed by brothers.
It took two people to make this thing?
I can just imagine each day on set. Brother one turns up and says “hey bro, I’m gonna need you to do the directing today! I’ve just been on a bender and I’m still drunk!” And brother two laughs “You too?”
Either way, whoever directs: we lose.
NATIONAL TREASURE: BOOK OF SECRETS
I hope this is as good as National Treasure’s European Vacation.
Nic Cage isn’t a patch on Chevy Chase, though.
This is confusing: why is this zany comedy prefacing itself with some scene about the assassination of Abe Lincoln and a centuries old conspiracy?
Go with it, we’ll be rolling in the aisles soon enough. I bet an older person will fall over.
And now we’re in the present day and some academics are arguing over a scrap from some dude’s notebook from hundreds of years ago.
This is a wonderfully unexciting film. It’s like porn for historians and prozac for everyone else. Cage and his dad Jon Voigt are trying to clear the name of an ancestor who was implicated in the Lincoln assassination. They’re going to do this by deciphering some codes, looking through some desks and hanging out in a library.
Wait up! This isn’t the Chevy Chase franchise, it’s the sequel to the first National Treasure!
Oh right!
If I remember correctly, that film was characterised by a wonderful lack of action scenes or violence. We seem to be treading similar ground here.
(transcription unintelligible for some time)
Now that was a fun flick.
Fans of scenes involving people pushing stone blocks will be well rewarded here.
Also people who like rickety wooden platforms, rope ladders and dark rocky crevices you have to put your hand into in order to pull some kind of hidden lever.
It’s like The Goonies for grown-ups. Underground caverns, absurd conspiracies and a few bugs. If this got more than a G-rating I’ll be surprised. But I really enjoyed it, which is more startling.
Me too. Especially all those bits where people push stone blocks.
Mohamed Haneef
